Message-ID: <17516eli$9811240427@qz.little-neck.ny.us>
X-Archived-At: <URL:http://www.qz.to/erotica/assm/Year98/17516.txt>
From: voyer@notme.com (voyer)
Subject: (Voyer) The Orion Legacy (Part 2) mc md mf scifi
Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories
Followup-To: alt.sex.stories.d
Reply-To: voyer@notme.com
Path: qz!not-for-mail
Organization: The Committee To Thwart Spam
Approved: <usenet-approval@qz.little-neck.ny.us>
X-Moderator-Contact: Eli the Bearded <story-admin@qz.little-neck.ny.us>
X-Story-Submission: <story-submit@qz.little-neck.ny.us>
X-Original-Message-ID: <36598f2b.812670@sos.sos.net>

The Orion Legacy, Part 2
MF MC NC SCIFI
voyer@notme.com

  Note #1: This story is a fantasy, contains examples of bad
science, adult language and situations, and fictional
characters doing illegal, immoral and/or impossible things to
other fictional characters. If you are under the age of
consent in your community, or find such concepts
distasteful, or try to do these things in real life, please stop
reading now.
  Permission granted to re-post this story to any on-line
medium, provided no fee is charged to view the story, and
this disclaimer and the above e-mail address are not
removed.
  Copyright me, 1998.

Note #2: As someone pointed out to me after I posted part 1, this
story is only borderline pornography. If you came here looking for
lots of explicit sex scenes, I suggest you move on before you are
disappointed.

***************

  Captain Phelps stepped out of the innocuous-looking
UEDF bunker and onto the narrow street, her eyes as
always alert for danger, watching the sticky shadows. Under
a rising forest of corptowers, and the blaze of a swollen
orange sun, the city's crowds milled around her. Mostly
deeply browned humans wearing hats and clothes like hers,
with a few Githriks and Rigellians sprinkled in for variety.
She started up the street, effortlessly weaving her way
through the crowd of idlers and gawkers, sellers and
pushers. It had always seemed to Angelica as if the thin,
towering, Rigellians were in danger of being beheaded by
the blocky aircars that zipped back and forth above them all,
banking in and out of the sharp angles of the city. The
thought only flickered through her mind, the rest of her
focused on the flow of urban jungle that surrounded her.
   Her razor-sharp alertness didn't help. The stunbomb was
detonated in the back of a passing ground-level pedicab, and
everyone on the street, except for the Githriks, went down
like Zapped steers. The drivers of nearby aircars were
caught in the blast as well, and their vehicles veered off, one
smashing into and through the thin psuedostone wall of a
nearby building, another spinning out of control. (On a still-
ragged frontier world like this one, the colonial governance
corp couldn't or wouldn't vomit up the needed dollarbytes
for the large-scale traffic-flow buffers now common back on
Earth...) The second vehicle-owner's thoughts, along with
his emergency auto-pilot's biochips, were scrambled by the
blast, sending the 'car twirling up and out into the oncoming
cross-traffic stream. Other 'cars swerved to avoid it, and
there were more high-speed collisions. The resulting
explosions were not as spectacular as the Smithdroid's, but
still impressive. 
   Ignoring the flames and falling rubble bouncing off of its
jagged stone carapace, one of the hulking, crab-like Githriks
lumbered across the street, neatly scooped Captain Phelps
off of the cracked pavement and disappeared up an alley. A
short time later, another appeared out of the same alley, and
carefully lowered a blonde-haired woman to the ground,
putting a wide-brimmed cap on her head in an almost gentle
manner.
   Mr Smith was not the only person who used vatdroids.

*       *        *

   "Boss?"
   M spun slowly away from the screen, which displayed a
human and a Rigellian playing 3-Dimensional Go. Around
the edges of the scene, along with the ubiquitous advertising
overlays, amounts of various currencies rose and fell as
enormous bets flowed back and forth via T-Beam.
   "Yeah?"
   "Two things." Jerves spoke from his screen on M's wall.
   "Yeah?"
   "We just lost contact with Esherick." His voice dipped
into a growl.
   "I see. And?"
   "Message just came in for you."    
   "Oh? What does it say?"
   "Dunno, Boss. It's got your personal encryption code on
it. You wanna see it?" 
   M raised an eyebrow, or what was left of one. 
   "Yeah."
   Jerves vanished, replaced by a tangled block of glowing
orange gibberish. M drifted closer, and stuck his metal
claws into a pattern of five small holes beneath the screen.
After a moment, the garbage resolved into a burst of text,
still glowing orange. M extracted his hand.
   He read in silence, his mouth twitching upwards once or
twice. Finally he spoke:
  "Computer."
  "Yeah?" The voice was his own, flavored not with syrup
but a sharp edge of metal.
  "Send a message to... this datapoint." A new spasm of
fingers. "Message reads: Understood. I agree it is a
problem, and must be dealt with. Contact me at once, and
we will come to an arrangement. Message end."
  "Done."
   Finally, he flicked at the screen, erasing the message and
bringing Jerves back into view.
   "Yeah, Boss?"
   Jerves smiled in an unpleasant, expectant, way, his silver-
eyed expression oddly similar to Miss Thrunton's had been,
light-years away. Or perhaps not so oddly.
   M rolled his eyes.
   "Put the usual people on it. Get him."
   "Right, Boss." Jerves' silver-laced grin grew wider.
   Again the underling faded from view, and M turned his
attention back to the match, dismissing for the moment both
matters from his conscious mind. It was sometime best to
let things simmer down below for a while...
   -Still too early to say who's going to win. It'll be
interesting to see which side finally paid the biggest bribe to
the human player: the Gamblers' Consortium, or the 3Go
officials. I hope it was the Gamblers; it's been a long farking
time since I've seen a *clean* 3Go match.-

*         *           *

   Angelica was stretched out in some wondrous dream. She
rose out of the absolute blackness and pain of the stunbomb
detonation, into a weightless world of bliss. Hands caressed
and stroked her, thousands of  tiny, gentle, hands, long,
slender, fingers, reaching up from below, sliding slowly and
wondrously across her reclined body, effortlessly massaging
away the splitting headache that was the inevitable side-
effect of such a bomb's use. She gave a happy little sigh, and
someone spoke.
   "It feels good, doesn't it, my child."
   Angelica snapped to instant attention, pushing the
sensations of the hands away from her mind. That voice...
where had she just heard it? The answer came to her.
   "O!" She struggled, her arms automatically tried to shift
into striking mode. Something had slithered around them,
holding them in place. Waves of shimmering lavender
danced before her eyes.
   "Yes, Captain Phelps. A good a name as any, I suppose. I
strongly suggest you just relax, and accept what is
happening to you."
   "The... things in that scene... You're... you're *using*
them! You farking bastard!" Again she struggled, trying to
bring all of her strength to bear on ripping free. The strands
held her easily, and the pleasure started creeping back,
stronger and stronger, the probing fingers carefully
exploring every inch of her body, mapping her responses
with relentless, clinical, efficiency.
   And with the pleasure, that voice. That awful, wonderful,
voice...
   "Relax, Angelica. Just relax. I'll be back to check on your
progress later."
   -Focus. Remember your training. Resist. Make... ohhh..
make your mind.. a.. a..-
   The pleasure blasted through her mind, through her
defenses, ripping her thoughts to shreds.
   Angelica screamed.
   O smiled, and left the room, the hatch spiralling shut
behind him with ominous finality. His recorded voice
continued to speak into Angelica's mind, intertwined with
the fingers that slid deeper and deeper into her interior...

*        *        *
   
   "So...  we're agreed, then?"
   "Oh, yes. For a man to engage in this sort of behavior is
absolutely unforgivable. If you transfer the needed d-bytes
to this end, I'll get right on it."
   "Very good. I'll do what I have to here. And I'll be
watching what happens with interest."
   "I'm sure you will be."
   The holoconnection dissolved into static.

*       *         *

   O returned to the chamber, studied the reading on the
controls for a few moments, and then looked down at the
woman floating in the antigrav couch, his gray eyes filled
with somber compassion. The lights on the control panel
glowed dimly.
   "Why do you continue to resist, my child?" With long thin
fingers he gently touched one of the many controls ranged
before him, and she twitched and shuddered in the field, the
sweat sticking her long golden hair to her naked, sweat-
oiled, body.
   "You can see now, can't you, Angelica? It hurts so much
to resist. It's so painful. So futile. So utterly pointless."
Another touch, another spasm from the chair's occupant.
"And it's so easy to obey. So pleasant. It feels so *good* to
just let your mind go totally blank. And listen to my voice. 
And obey."
   Angelica's deep blue eyes were totally glazed now, as her
shapely body humped endlessly against the air, against the
raping tentacle that had entered her sex. Entered her in
exactly the way she liked, in exactly the way she had most
fantasized about her entire life. Her sex was so wet dribbles
floated out into the gravity-nullified space surrounding her
body, filling the darkened circular chamber with her musky
scent. Staring up at nothing, she swallowed against the
tendril wrapped around her neck, and somehow managed
for a moment to insert her thoughts, her words, through the
torrents of sensation into which she was sinking:
  "I am Phelps, Angelica, Captain, United Earth Defense
Force... Sh... Sharehold Number.... gaa... aaahh..." Her
ever-weakening words trailed off in a sound that was half
moan of despair, half gasp of ecstasy. For the thousandth
time, she pulled futilely at the mist-like cuffs that gently but
firmly restrained her, wrapping damp, warm, tendrils of iron
around not only her neck, but her wrists, ankles, narrow
waist... Other strands of lavender, some thin, some thick,
teased and slithered gently across her body, sliding
effortlessly in and out of her most secret places,
rhythmically stroking her temples and trickling down to the
base of her spine... out across her small, firm breasts..
twirling up onto the nipples... keeping them sharply erect...
   "Once you were that person, my dear. No longer. Your
will is most impressive, but the Orions designed their beast-
taming machine well, and I... well... individuals in my
employ...  have only improved upon it. Not only made it
somewhat more humane, but even more effective. Soon,
very soon, you will be my programmable slave, and obey my
every command. It is utterly inevitable. Even now, my
message of total surrender, total obedience, total peace and
contentment is penetrating to the very core of your brain.
Can't you feel it, hear it? Soon, very soon, you will obey,
exactly as you have been trained to obey. Happily. Eagerly.
Because it is your function to obey. As it is the function of
all women. You will know these facts with blinding, perfect,
clarity." Another brush against a contact, and another
scream of horrordelight from her delicate throat.
   "And then I will have you, if sadly only for a short time
for now. And being granted the rare privilege of wrapping
yourself around your Master's cock will be the most erotic
experience of your entire life. I'm so looking forward to
seeing you experience your first slave orgasm. Are you
looking forward to that moment, as well?"
   She jerked her head like the tentacle around her neck had
instead wrapped itself directly around her vocal chords.
Finally...
   "N...noooo! I... am... Captain..."
   He shook his narrow head sadly, gave the control another
feather-light stroke. 
   This time, the scream cracked her voice.
   "You're looking forward to that moment, aren't you, my
lovely, obedient, slave?"
   "nnn..." The strands stroked and teased her body and her
brain, and for the first time, a hopeless, involuntary, smile
crept across her face.
   "You're looking forward to that moment, aren't you?"
   "...yyyyesss..."
   O smiled, and pushed down on a final pad. Yet another
scream from his prisoner, but this time, there was no note of
pain. Only joy. Her spine arched in the field, her fingers and
toes clenching involuntarily.
   "Oh... and of course, after that exquisite moment of
ecstasy, you will return to your work for ISD's Central
Command, as my spy and agent, for the relatively short time
your services will be needed." He sighed, still sounding
vaguely sad. "Men like M and the resourceful Mister
Smith... and the Orions themselves, it would seem... were
and are so... limited... in their world-view. Selling and
buying and stealing Miss.. Lieutenant... Senator... St. Clair.
When the key to real power... ultimate power.. was in front
of them all along. Waiting for those with the wit, and of
course, the years of expertise, to seize it. Sadly perhaps, my
scientists have not been able to make the device work on
human males, which is rather odd; you would think those
things could perform wonders with a penis... but no. I can
only control half of humanity with the Orions' technology.
But it will be enough. And now that the portable version of
the Beast-Tamer is nearly ready, I won't even have set up a
processing system. Just set it loose, like a virus, passing
from woman to woman. Within a few months, I will have an
fanatically loyal army on every civilized world, an army that
can destroy from within, or without. Perhaps I will even
give you the honor of starting the cycle. You'd like that,
wouldn't you, my slave?"
   "...yess..." it was a soft, helpless sound.
   Another tap. Another orgasm.

*          *          *

   "Ah... Mr. Yullins, isn't it?"
   The short, vaguely grubby, man looked up from his tube
of whisky at the speaker. This particular bar was mostly
empty at this time of day, and conversations were never
encouraged even at the best of times.
   "Who wants to know?" The voice matched the cold
narrow gaze.
   "I do. I have a little business proposition for you. If you
have a moment." There was a flip, and something clattered
on the bar in a suggestive manner. Yullins glanced down at
the object, and then back at the man who had tossed it. He
made a movement of his own, and the object disappeared
into a new place of concealment.
   "I'm listening."

*          *          *

  More hours passed in a flashing haze of pleasure. Endless,
wonderful hours as the Voice explained fundamental truths,
drowned her objections and her morals, her pain and her
fear, her duty and her identity, drowned them in a
bottomless sea of lavender ecstasy. A sea of growing,
overlapping, orgasms.
  Drowned them deep.
  Drowned them forever.
  Finally, the new property realized that the patient, gentle,
instructive, strands had mostly gone, melted away, and that
she was standing somewhere, somewhere still soft and safe
and warm. 
   The Voice spoke to her, and she replied, replied with the
words that came bubbling joyfully up from the very depths
of her soul..
  "Who are you, my child?"
  "I have no name, until I am assigned one by my Master."
  "What are you?"
  "My body is the property of my Master. My mind exists
only as an extension of the will of my Master. My sole
purpose is to please the Master, and to expand the power
and the glory of the Master to the farthest stars. Hail the
Master." Her eyes burned with absolute fanaticism. 
   And absolute love.
  "And enemies of your master?"
  "All enemies of my Master must be converted. Or
*destroyed*." She hissed the last word.
  "Very good, slave. I will give you a name now. Your name
is Angelica Phelps."
  "My name is Angelica Phelps. Thank you for blessing your
property with a name, Master."
   "Of course. And now, Angelica, it is time to preform your
primary function."
   She turned to face the Voice. Her Master stood there,
waiting for her.
   She ran to him, the last of the tentacles reluctantly
releasing their grip.
   She wrapped herself around him, and he carried her to the
waiting bed.

   "There's just one thing.. your slave doesn't.. ahh..
unnnderstannd... Master!"
   "What's that, Angelica?" He smiled down at her, his voice
still calm and collected, even as he thrust into her eager,
accepting, body with methodical strokes. He had merely
spread apart his plain brown robe as he had entered her.
   "Why... oooohhhh... why did my Master attend the
meeting with Mr. Smith, when he... ooohhh... already had
the wonderful Orion technology...?"
   "Ah, yes. The meeting. The main reason, of course, was
you."
   "Meee? Oh God oh god... ohhhh... don't understtaaand..."
   "Yes. Like the Orions... before me, I need a spy within
UEDF. Not just a spy, but a recruiter. Someone to quickly
spread my word among the people who would try hardest
to stop me. When I recently, finally, learned who 'Mr. N'
actually was... you immediately became the obvious
candidate. Thus... I had to confirm where you were
broadcasting from. I had narrowed it down to somewhere
here in the city, but not the exact location. So, while we
were all watching Mr. Smith's fascinating little presentation,
I was tracking down that location by tapping into your
tachyon channel. That completed, I set the Sirius Station 3
security after Mr. Smith... so as to terminate the meeting.
Acquiring in advance a sample of your DNA for force-
growing your replacement vatdroid was the only truly
difficult portion of the affair. I had to deal with some
*most* unsavory characters..."
   "Ahhhh... uuuunnnn...."
   "...Actually, it's all rather ironic. As you... know from
your time spent as N,  Mr. Smith never tells us exactly what
he will be offering before contacting us. Quite... prudent of
him, actually. So, to be honest, I didn't know what... aahh...
he would be offering us this time. Although... I suspected."
   "M... master?"
   "After all, who do you think sent out that team... which
acquired the Orion datacore in the first place?" Their
rhythms were becoming more urgent.
   Even in her current condition, Angelica still managed to
giggle, between the endless waves of thought-erasing bliss
breaking over her mind and body.
   "Y... you did, Mmmaster?"
   "Yesss... Mr. Smith obviously didn't know that when he
interfered... with their mission.  And since, unknown to the
recovery team, the information on the datacore had already
been forwarded to me when he struck, I hold him no
particular ill will. Saved me... the trouble..." He smiled, and
ran his hands slowly across her breasts, which were still
lightly smeared with residue from the tentacles. "As you
must have already guessed... Mr. Smith was unaware of one
other thing. The team was dispatched to the crash site not
just to learn, but to prevent... anyone else... from learning
what... ahhh... I had known about Orions... for quite some
time... Although, finding out that I can control Ms. St.
Clair... came as a...  very nice bonus..."
   Then even he had to break off the conversation.

*        *       *

   The three figures stood in a dark alley, conversing in
whispers. A small phalanx of security minidrones hovered
around them, shielding their words and watching the
shadows with lidless inorganic eyes.
   "You understand what you're to do?"
   "Yeah, yeah. We got it." A pause, and then one of the
other figures nudged the second speaker in an encouraging
manner. The man glared at the nudger, and growled. "I was
gonna ask him."
   "Ask me what?" The first speaker raised his eyebrows.
   "You're absolutely sure this won't... hurt... him."
   "Of course. If anything, you're merely being...
overzealous... in carrying out your orders? Yes?"
   "Yeah. Yeah, I guess."
   "And with what you're being paid, you can, if needed, run
a long ways, no? And run in comfort."
   The second speaker said nothing.
   A sigh.
   "Very well. An additional 10%? Would that... soothe any
lingering doubts?"
   For the first time, the third figure spoke:
   "I think that would do quite nicely."

*      *      *

   O sat with Angelica curled up beside him, her head resting
on his robed lap. Her eyes were closed, her face serene. He
ran a weathered hand through her hair, twirling the strands
appraisingly between his fingertips. He sighed, and slid the
appendage through his own grey follicles, briefly rippling
the bright yellow streaks.
   "Like our long-dead Orion friend, I suppose I now face a
test. I would love to keep you here with me, my darling
slave. And I have clients that would pay for you... you have
no idea how much they would pay... but no. I must send
you back to the UEDF now, for your psiscans and your
anti-cloning tests and such, which you'll pass with flying
colors. I've managed to keep the city's communication grid
scrambled, so your former employers still don't know that
'you' are in the hospital, and haven't swooped down to spirit
'you' away to safety." He sighed. "Sleep now, Angelica.
Sleep, and obey your programming."
   Angelica gave a little blurred sigh.
   O looked up, and said, quietly:
   "Activate."
   "AWAITING ORDERS." The slightly-feminine voice
spoke from one the featureless walls. Like N, like Angelica,
O lacked a biocircuitry implant.
   "Miss Thurnton." 
    There was a momentary pause, then:
    "Yes, sir?" Her voice emerged from the same place in the
wall.
    "Miss Thurnton, please send up the clean-up team. It's
time for Miss Phelps to be prepared for departure."
    "Yes, sir."
    "Oh.. before I forget. This is a day to celebrate, so you
have my permission to experience pleasure."
    There was another tiny pause before Miss Thurnton
spoke, as emotionless as always:
    "Thank you, sir."
    "Not at all." He broke the connection, and resumed
stroking the sleeping woman's hair.
  
    Miss Thurnton tapped out the directives, as ordered by
her Master, her face impassive. Inside her skull, however,
her brain now matched her glasses, filled to the brim with
inky, swirling, blackness, lovely bottomless blackness that
sparkled oh so brightly...  She loved her Master, and the
*pleasure* he could give her at a word... a single word...
    She lived only to obey her Master.
    She existed merely as an extension of the will of her
Master.

*            *              *

    It was a sunny day, the sky bright and blue and cloudless
over the city. Gigantic holospheres floated slowly across
that sky on fusion-powered engines, some glowing like the
ornaments on an invisible Solstice Tree. (They were, in fact,
arranged in just such a manner at the appropriate time of the
year...) Others flashed gaudy messages against the blue
infinity, the technological great-great-grandchildren of the
skywriters of a previous era. Most, but not all, were
commercials or slogan for one thing or another. TRY
COKASTIMS!! MEET VIA MOONBEAM. 40/40 OR
FLING IT. THINK SMART; THINK MORAN. HIGH
ANGELES WELCOMES MARLA ST. CLAIR. Beyond
the messages, off to the east of the city, a steady stream of
massive orbital shuttles hauled their gigantic cargoes to and
from the stars, the thunder of fusion engines muted by
distance. And beyond the shuttles and further south in the
Texicala wastelands, at the edge of even the most enhanced
of human sight, the descending thread of the orbital elevator
that would would finally render the screaming vessels
obsolete.
   The man stood high up a tower at the city's edge, amidst
the gigantic self-molding crysteel girders that were slowly
and methodically forming around him. The tower, like the
elevator, like the city, was growing. Behind his back, the
center of the metropolis rose tall and proud, graceful white
corpspires poking up like the petals of a vibrant new
blossom that drew its life from the swampy, blackened,
compost beneath. 
   The man held a piece of hempaper in one hand, and
looked down into that morass, six or seven dozen floors
below the toes of his brick-red squared-off shoes. Ancient-
looking, sheared-off, buildings made of greenish steel and
crumbling mortar poked out of the wavering streets of
stagnant water. He could see small figures moving around in
the buildings, slightly larger ones puttering up and down the
waterways where once, decades and decades ago, foul little
groundcars had trundled along and belched their noxious
fumes. His mouth twitched. Then he sensed the presence,
felt the air move behind him, even before...
  "Sir?" The voice was tentative. He glanced over his broad
shoulder at a new arrival, who stood nervously near the
door to the construction gravlift that had carried them both
to this point.
  "Ah. Harris. I see you ran me to ground. If such a thing is
possible in this city."
  "They said... you were up here."
  "They were right." The man at the edge waved expansively
with his empty hand. "Come. Join me."
  Harris eyed the older man for a moment, then moved to
stand beside him.
  "Don't worry, son. I'm not planning to jump. Or push you
off."
  "Of course not, sir." Harris stared off into the middle
distance.
  The man smiled again, or at least moved his lips in same
fashion as before. He pointed down to the ruins below.
   "Tell me, Harris, what do you see down there?"
   Harris looked down, then over at the other.
   "Low Angeles." He said the words cautiously, almost a
question.
   "Yes. Although I've always felt it should have been 'Baja
Angeles'."
   "Sir?"
   "Yes. You're right. Now is not the time to be discussing
archaic dialects. Low Angeles it is. Or at least that is its
name."
   Again Harris glanced at him. Seemed to screw up his
nerve, and speak.
   "Sir?"
   "Yes, Harris?"
   "What do *you* see? Sir?"
   The older man nodded gravely, his dark skin, hair, hair
streaks and clothes standing out sharply against the towers,
girders and sky. Against the colors flashing overhead.
   "I see an object lesson."
   "Sir?"
   "You'd say that Low Angeles down there is ugly, wouldn't
you?"
   "Uh... yes?"
   "Of course you would. Because it is. An ugly reminder of
an ugly time." -Oh so ugly, and yet, people still insisted on
*living* down there, slowly pushed away as HA grows
bigger and bigger...- "But in the end, it produced *that*."
He jerked a massive thumb back over his shoulder. "Isn't
that beautiful?"
   Another careful glance. "Yes, sir."
   "Was it worth it?"
   "Sir?"
   "The Oligarchy's V-Bombs destroyed... *Los* Angeles.
San Francisco. Seacover. Every city on the western coast of
North America. Do you know how many people died that
on the final day of that war?"
   "Approximately ei.."
   "Son, learn when you've just been asked a rhetorical
question."
   "Yes, Sir."
   "A lot of people. And of course the then-UCNA finally
unleashed the ultimate retaliation. Activated the nanobomb
seeds in Singapore, and Shanghai and Hong Kong, and
Jakarta, and all of the rest. The cities over here are still
being rebuilt, and it's been over one hundred years. The
ones on the other side of the Pacific are still... what they are.
Always will be, probably. If anyone had still possessed
nuclear weapons..."  He shook his head and continued.
"Was it worth it?"
   "The Pacific War led to the collapse of the Eastern
Oligarchy and its corporate backers, and the merger of the
UCNA with the Europa Consortium to create the UCWH,
which was the eventual foundation for United Earth, Sir."
The younger man spoke as if quoting directly from a
textchart.
   "Was it worth it?"
   "Yes, Sir. It... it had to be. What's the point of anything, if
it wasn't?"
   "Do you consider the UE to be beautiful?"
   "Yes, Sir." No hesitation this time.
   "Hmm. In some ways, many ways, I suppose it is.
Although if I happen to still be around when you reach my
position..."
   "Sir!"
   "...and I ask you that question again, you may change
your opinion, at least a little. Maybe not much. But a little."
   They both fell silent for a spell, Harris fidgeting almost
subliminally. Finally the dark man continued:
   "So, beauty out of horrific ugliness is a worthwhile goal?"
   "I... yes, Sir."
   "Ugliness..."
   "Sir?" Harris flicked his eyes, looking at his retinal watch.
"I... They sent me up here. Because you didn't answer the
calls... and the Senator is about to give her speech. You said
that you wanted..."
   The dark man sighed. It was the sound of an old,
enfeebled, man, completely inappropriate coming from such
a solid frame.
   "Yes. Yes, of course. Go on. I will be there shortly."
   "Yes, Sir." Harris escaped back to the gravlift, clearly glad
for the release.

*           *            *

     The young Doctor sagged against the wall, and scanned
through the patient database attached to his mind, arriving
after a subjective eternity at the proper 'page'.  The corridor
was full; harried humans pushing back and forth, medibots
humming by overhead, an occasional Rigellian clittering
past, looking as always like a gigantic praying mantis that
had taken vows in a monastery. It had been a very bad day.
The terrorists, or whoever the vomiters were who had set
off the bomb, had done their farking work well; fifty people
had died, and many more were in critical condition, the
victims packed into the city's two hospitals, (three if you
counted that thing the NeoNaderites and their *doctors*
ran...) If it had been a real bomb, the death toll would have
been much worse, but that was small comfort. The fact that
the accident had somehow knocked the city communication
grid and central database off-line certainly didn't help
matter; he was reduced to using just the hospital's small-
scale emergency backups, and it left him feeling vaguely
naked, not being able to call upon his biocircuitry implant to
give him whatever data he needed from the rest of
humanity's combined knowledge... He forced his mind to
focus on the info for the next patient, outside of whose
small cubicle he currently stood, or rather leaned... Human
female, currently unidentified, minor cuts and lacerations,
still out from the effects of the bomb. He ran a distracted
hand through his tangled black hair, further disturbing the
blue Doctor streaks that looped over each ear. Best to just
put the bednurse on standby and let her sleep it off; she'd
wake up with a headache, and could count herself luck...
   "Excuse me, Doctor?"
   He turned irritably, and saw two human orderlies pushing
an antigrav stretcher, with a body on it, completely covered.
Another one. His stomach gave a fresh twist. He sighed.
   "Yes?"
   "Are you in charge of that patient?" A nod towards the
blonde woman's cubicle.
   "Yesss?"
   "Could you just look here?"
   "What?"
    There was a flash of l-
 
    The Doctor blinked and looked around. Rubbed his eyes.
He must have voided out there for a minute. He needed to
get some sleep, but there was no time for that now. Get
another medistim, if that thick-skulled roboclerk down at
the dispensary could be sweet-talked out of it. He sighed,
and looked inward at the info on the next patient. Human
female, currently unidentified. Had come through the whole
mess remarkably intact: just knocked out by the stunbomb.
She could just sleep it off, wake up with a headache, and
count herself fortunate. He looked into the cubicle, through
the antisepts that framed the doorway and ran around the
edge of her bed. A very beautiful blonde woman, her long
hair spread out on the gellpak futon in gentle waves, the
two bright green hairstreaks looking like old-fashion
electrodes plugged into her brain. He was almost able to
feel a surge of arousal, but then his penis decided it was just
too farking tired. He shuffled off down the hall to the next
cubicle.

*                  *                 *

   The man on the corptower stood until Harris was gone,
then looked through filtered eyes at the report in his hand.
Anyone else would have seen a garble of useless blotches.
He saw a block of terse unmoving black text followed by a
stillpic of a figure suspended in a purple tube. Finished, he
held out the sheet, and then released it. It caught in the cool
steady breeze, rose for a moment, then began to tumble
slowly down towards High Angeles' ramparts, and the
broken city below. Even as it fell, no longer in contact with
the holder's body heat and DNA, the words and picture
faded away almost instantly, the paper beginning to
unravel...
  He watched it fall as long as he could, then turned and
used the lift himself, dropping back down towards the
lower, nearly-finished levels of the 'tower. As the lift silently
plunged down its shaft, he rummaged in a pocket, and
finally pulled out a small metal object, resembling a small
crumpled wad of tinfoil. (Not that anyone used tinfoil
anymore...) The black man rolled it absently between his
thick fingers, until, suddenly, it opened up, resolving into
something like a flat metallic spider-web, which neatly
wrapped itself around his index finger like a second layer of
fingerprint. He touched the control pad of the lift with that
finger, and almost immediately, the lift's tempo slowed, then
stopped. Rose upwards a ways, and stopped again. The
door opened, and he stepped out into a deserted hallway, 
looking very bare and dark without wall and floorstrips,
without the gently-shifting chromapaint. Construction had
been halted here, and the floor sealed while the rally was
underway. Sealed to most people, anyway. He walked down
the hall, arriving at an ordinary-looking door. Again he
touched the opening pad with the lockcracker, and it
activated, popping open the door in a slightly jerky fashion.
  The room beyond was also stark and unfinished. And
empty. The man closed the door behind him, and stumped
across the bare floor to stand before a large window which
looked out onto the city center. The window's Tintglass(tm)
had already been seeded, and grown into place.
  More immediately than the rest of the city, however, the
window looked down onto a wide advertplaza, on which
had been set up a equally wide stage, floating on the largest
available size of antigrav struts. Already a large,
enthusiastic, crowd had gathered, and was spilled out across
the plaza. Smaller holospheres hovered overhead, spewing
more color, an eye-watering display flecked with the
bobbing black dots that were the robocams from various
datanews networks and security agencies. The subdued
green and blue of the UE flag were in profusion
everywhere; rivers of color splashed against the sides of
nearby buildings, clothing, even old-fashioned physical
bunting, a stubborn hold-over from the distant days before
Shareholds and Senate voting blocs. 
  -But then, when you get right down to it, so is this whole
rally. Such things were already obsolete a hundred and fifty
years ago. But people still want, need, to see their would-be
leaders in the flesh. And in this age of holosims and near-
sentient biocomputers, perhaps it is understandable. I feel
the urge myself. In my own way.-
   He watched the scene from behind the Tintglass, standing
motionless as he thought these thoughts. The crowd grew in
size and level of Brownian motion, although the microthin
pane ruthlessly screened out any noise.
   Inside the watcher's ear, there was a soft beep, and he
tilted his head, looking slightly annoyed. A voice whispered
a short phrase. He mouthed a barely-audible a reply:
   "Understood."
   Whisper.
   "Yes, of course I'm watching in flesh. Mr. Harris told me.
Now, as I said, don't call me unless it's important."
   Silence.
   Down on the plaza, the transparent inertia shield was
slowly rising into place around the stage, the pieces locking
seamlessly together. The holospheres all gave a bright
synchronized flash. He knew that they had made a loud
trumpeting noise as well, but the window again blocked the
sound. The crowd burst into renewed frenzy, and a tall,
regal, figure appeared on the stage, waving at the silently
cheering throngs below. 
  From where the man stood, his hands clasped in front of
his waist, it seemed as if he could crush that figure between
thumb and forefinger. He glanced into the corner of the
room, near the window. 
  There was nothing there.
  But there could have been. He could have made three,
maybe four, 'phone calls, and there would be... something...
leaning there that could have easily punched though both
the 'glass and that field around the stage.
  He really could have crushed that figure, if he wanted to.
Point. Pull the trigger. He had done similar things in the
past, and worse, and calmly walked away. But this time, if
there *had* been something leaning there, after using it, it
would have back up the gravlift, and from there, probably,
despite what he had just told Harris, follow the unwound
remains of the paper down into LA. 
  -Beauty out of supreme ugliness? No, not beauty.
Merely... preservation. A holding action against encroaching
entropy...-
   And unless someone either ran "Smith" to ground, or
came up with some other solution, the next time he stood in
a room like this, there *would* be something leaning in the
corner.
   And when it came time for the billions of UE
Shareholders to hook themselves, one way or another, into
the central voting datacore, and decide which powerbloc to
put into power in the UE Senate, Reconstuctionist Justin
Ingersoll would be chosen as president of United Earth.
Compared to the men Smith dealt with, Senator Ingersoll's
grey, corporate, biocomputerized, masters were models of 
truth, light and purity.
   Nevertheless, the man at the window's lip curled into an
unconscious snarl at the thought.

(End Part 2)


Voyer
voyer@notme.com
http://members.xoom.com/voyer


-- 
+----------------' Story submission `-+-' Moderator contact `--------------+
| <story-submit@qz.little-neck.ny.us> | <story-admin@qz.little-neck.ny.us> |
| Archive site +----------------------+--------------------+ Newsgroup FAQ |
<http://www.qz.to/erotica/assm/>----<http://www.qz.to/erotica/assm/faq.html>