Vengeance on Venus: Fallen Masquerade
This instalment contains graphic violence and a brief scene of attempted sexual assault.
It was him, alright.
He had done his best to hide his identity behind layers of makeup, hair implants and treatments, behind cosmetic surgery, even going so far as to change his eye colour from its natural blue to amber, and to bleach his tan skin pale white.
He had taught himself upper-class Terran speech patterns, so that he might fit in with the upper-crust of society, and dressed himself in the finest clothing, but there were certain things he couldn’t hide.
It was him. Perhaps that was why he went to such great and rigorous lengths to conceal his appearance from the press. Because despite all attempts to conceal who he really was through changing his physical appearance, he couldn’t hide the small tells, the way he carried himself, the way he smiled, certain turns of phrase. Not least from her.
His name was Michael Mikhailovich Morkov, and a long time ago, he had been her lover.
He stumbled backwards for a moment, nearly falling into his koi pond, regaining his balance by gripping the brass rail tightly.
“How did you work it out?” he gasped, after a few moments. He spoke the sibilant, Slavic-accented Spranto of the Russian enclaves.
“The surgeons did a good job,” Evan replied, in her own, musical, French-accented Spranto. She reached out to touch one of the unnaturally sharp cheekbones. “But those surgeons only got to know your face under a scalpel. Not the way I got to know it.”
The man that had once been Cerpin straightened his jacket and tie sullenly. “Too smart for your own good, Evan, that’s you,” he said.
Evan looked at him angrily.
“I thought you died,” she said, bitterly. “I heard your ship got destroyed out by the Trojans.”
“It did,” Michael said. “But I didn’t die.”
“Evidently not.” She straightened up. “So, what? You defected?”
“We were always going to lose the war, Evan,” Michael said.
“Where did all this come from?” Evan snarled, gesturing towards the garden, towards the rest of Big Time. In her anger, her hair looked like flames.
Michael sighed, looking out at the cloud-layer in the dim forever-twilight, then turned back to her.
“I became a mercenary,” he said. “And an arms trader. Told the Federal Republic that I had insider knowledge that could be of use to them. I made a lot of money that way. Probably killed a few good people, or got a few good people killed. But I had to survive, Evan. No point dying for a pointless cause, you must understand.”
She laughed unpleasantly. “Nobody gets this rich by accident, Michael. You sold out your people and your culture to make a quick quid.”
“Would you have done any different?” Michael retorted. “Martians got so swept up in all the propaganda of the thing that we missed the opportunity to cut our losses. When I went into battle in the Trojans, I figured there was no use waiting for the provisional government to surrender. When the opportunity to die presented itself, I took a leap of faith. I survived. I became the Martian that is worth more than a thousand Terrans.”
“By lying,” Evan said. “Look at you. A parvenu playing Arlequin. Just a little boy in his palace of magic toys.”
“Don’t be angry at me,” Michael said. “Was I wrong to do what I did? To escape a hopeless cause and find myself happiness?”
“You’re a traitor to the Insurrection. A coward. A ghoul.”
“But you still love me, don’t you?”
Evan’s face grew hot at that remark, and she swatted at him like an angered cat. He dodged out of the way.
“Is that why you brought me up here?” Evan growled. “You wanted me to figure it out so I’d confess my undying love for you?”
“Not at all,” Michael said. “I genuinely was surprised that you managed to figure it out. Even I don’t remember my old face.”
Evan did: Blue eyes, tan face, wavy chestnut-brown hair and a strong jaw. Back then he wore round spectacles at the end of his nose. Perhaps he had had his eyesight corrected.
“I loved you,” Evan said. “But not any more. Not like this. And besides, you know that things ended between us well before you died.”
“I’m aware,” he said, dryly. “Perhaps…part of me…did all this in the hope that one day you’d notice. That you’d take me back.”
Evan frowned. “Then that is your folly,” she said. She looked down into the koi pond.
“I never did see the end of the war,” she said, watching the fish swim beneath the clear water, nipping at each other and at invisible creatures floating on the surface. “My dropship got shot down and crashed out by Tycho on Luna. Spent the rest of the war in a hospital, half-dead. When they put me back together again, the war was over and we’d lost.”
She looked out towards Skadi Mons again. It looked peaceful out there, but below the cloud layer was a tumultuous landscape, where lightning crackled and rocks melted. Like this garden, so quiet and tranquil, and at its centre: Acrimony.
“Maxwell Montes,” she said, turning to him. She laughed, humourlessly. “You know, there’s rumours on the AnsiNet. Rumours that the man who destroyed Olympus City and built the Killing Moon, the man who ended the war, is called Maxwell. But there’s no pictures of him anywhere. He’s a ghost. Just like you, Cerpin le Fou. In more ways than one. Both killers. Destroyers. And all for nothing. But at least he had the good sense to be a Terran.”
There was a very long silence. Both of them gazed out over the cloud layer, not sure of what to say next. Then, finally, Michael spoke.
“Will you stay?” he asked.
She looked down, her hands clasped over the rail, then back up at him.
“Of course, I’ve come this far,” she said. “But don’t worry. Your secret’s safe with me.”
“Thank you,” Michael said, and, in returning to speaking English in his affected Terran accent, became Cerpin again. “Come. Let’s go back.”
Together, they walked back to the elevator, and rode it down into the vast internal landscape of the bismuth house.
*
Back inside, the party was in full swing. While the ballroom was the central area, there were many leisure areas and corridors of the house that were not off-limits to the guests. Most of these corridors and hallways were lined with various trinkets and curiosities; paintings, antiques, diagrams, photographs. One wall was entirely occupied by ancient maps of pre-terraformed Luna, a grey rock covered in pits and channels. There was a cabinet filled with little models of spaceships of various kinds; APHLEVs and freighters and Big Blacks. There was little feng shui to the arrangement of the various curios. Cerpin simply had too many possessions and no idea what to do with them.
Evan returned to the ballroom and saw Vin Dolby, being entertained by one of Cerpin’s bioandroids as he sat on a couch, talking. She had blonde hair and bright green eyes. She was sat, legs up on the seat, her right leg tucked under her arched left, her left arm rested on her left knee, holding her head. She appeared to be enraptured by Vin’s ramblings. Evan knew, of course, that this was programming – perhaps she was designed this way, consciously or unconsciously, to be the so-called “ideal woman”, according to the men who built her: Possessing no internal world of her own, no interests but that of her companion, over whom she was built to fawn and worship. She curled her lip in disgust.
“Ah, Evan,” Vin said, seeing her. “How was the house tour?”
“Just fine,” Evan replied, shortly. “I see you’ve made a new friend.”
“Yes,” Vin said. “Evan, this is Caitlin, one of Cerpin’s androids.”
The bioandroid looked at her and smiled pleasantly. It was a smile all too perfect, one that had probably been assembled by algorithm out of a data-bank of laser-scanned smiles, with the loveliest, kindest ones fed repeatedly into a black box until it had generated the most ingratiating and sweet smile possible with current hardware, and that was then fed as code into the android’s head.
“Pleased to meet you,” Caitlin said, softly. It was always jarring how human they sounded. It wasn’t at all like the old movies of the pre-space era, where androids spoke in strange electronic monotones, and sputtered such clichés as “Aff-ir-ma-tive!” and “Does not com-pute!”
As a matter of fact, if you didn’t know better, you’d be certain that Caitlin was human.
“Pleased to meet you, too, Caitlin,” Evan said. As she spoke, something almost imperceptible flickered across the android’s face. Muscles tightened somewhere in the corner of her eyes, and it seemed just for a fraction of a second that her smile faltered, then returned, and she looked once again at Vin. Not once did she blink.
Evan chose to dismiss it. “Boring her with stories about paintings, are you, Vin?” she teased.
“Actually, I think you’ll find that Caitlin finds art quite intriguing,” he said. “She even paints.”
“She’s programmed to.”
“Can you paint, Lieutenant? Or are you just a woman of war?”
Evan looked from Vin to the android, and back to Vin.
“It figures that the only girl you could find that wants to listen to your prattling is a robot,” Evan said, bitterly.
“Evan!” Vin exclaimed. “Please don’t be rude to the young woman. Just because she was manufactured doesn’t mean she’s not capable of thought and insight. Isn’t that right, Caitlin?”
Caitlin looked at Evan, continuing to smile sweetly.
“That’s right,” she said. “I know thousands of paintings and songs and books and films. I can tell you about some of my favourites, if you like.”
She stood, and Evan reflexively winced at her nakedness, or rather, her strange unawareness that there was anything odd about her unclothed state. That instinct had not been built into her. Though she may well have an Uncanniness Rating within acceptable limits, it was still disconcerting that she did not even unconsciously try to cover herself. They had manufactured Eve before the first sin.
“What you have is a catalogue of artworks in your head,” Evan snapped. “A list to choose from. You’ve never seen most of the works you know of, you know only the memories they implanted in your head on biochips when they made you. A song has never made you cry. A painting has never made you pause and contemplate. A film has never terrified you or made you laugh. You’re nothing but zeroes and ones.” She turned to Vin. “And you’re a damn fool for being taken in by it.”
Caitlin did not waver.
“I’m sorry that you feel that way,” she said, pleasantly.
Evan scowled at her.
“What does it matter to you anyway?” she said. “You only live for ten years.”
“That’s quite enough!” Vin shouted. “Evan, why don’t you get a drink? I think you could do with something to calm you down.”
She conceded that perhaps he was right.
Mumbling apologies, she left for the bar.
Crossing the ballroom floor, she watched as two of the androids danced a mambo to the tune of the robotic band, their movements careful, precise, and yet loose enough to seem spontaneous, even improvised. She ordered a glass of scotch on the rocks from the bar just as they finished their dance, to cheers and applause. They did not sweat, nor pant, despite the vigour with which they had danced, and as always, they never blinked, simply smiled, before returning to their usual duties entertaining the guests.
They were a parody of humanity, she thought. Genetically engineered soft-pornography given flesh.
Before she realised it, she had knocked back the spirits.
Her previous observation about the guests was still bothering her. She elected to leave the ballroom and explore Big Time on her own. There was some pattern here she wasn’t seeing, she was sure of it.
As she walked away, another near-naked bioandroid approached her, tray in hand, to offer her a small canapé. This one did not look like Caitlin, but she shared the blonde hair and green eyes. They had probably been grown from the same batch of DNA, recombined in various ways. Evan looked at her and firmly grasped her arm.
“No thank you,” she said. “But perhaps you can help me.”
*
Evan was walking hastily down a corridor with the bioandroid in tow.
“Excuse me, madam,” the bioandroid said. Evan had not bothered to learn her name. “You can’t go this way, it’s a restricted area.”
“I’m a close friend of Cerpin’s,” Evan said. “I’m willing to bet my face is somewhere in your memory banks.” She stopped, turned to the android girl. “Off you go, then. Check.”
The android paused for a few seconds.
“Yes,” she said, uncertainly. “I recognise you, but it’s all fuzzy and walled-off.”
“Figures,” Evan said. “Cerpin’s probably given you a vague imprint of his memories, third-class clearance to some of the more well-lit areas of his mind. Enough to feel like you know him quite well, not enough to feel that you are him.”
She continued walking.
“You cannot go this way, madam,” the android insisted. “Mister Cerpin is very clear about this. No guests to be allowed into personal areas.”
“Myself and Mister Cerpin have a history,” Evan said. “I’ve seen…things of his that I doubt even you are privy to.”
“I doubt that,” the android said. “Mister Cerpin keeps us regularly updated.”
“I’m sure he does. But you’ve never seen the real him.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand, madam.”
“You wouldn’t,” Evan said, smiling devilishly.
Bioandroids were not hard to fool.
Though they were intelligent enough to recognise a simple logical paradox (“Does the set of all sets that do not contain themselves contain itself?” or “Is the answer to this question ‘No’?”) and rebuff it with a polite “Hmm, that’s interesting, I’ll have to think about it”, they were also cursed with a strange naïveté. It was quite easy to convince them of your position if it seemed reasonable.
“Let’s review the facts,” Evan continued. “You know who I am, in some capacity. You know that I knew Mister Cerpin before you came to exist, and that it is true that he and I share a past. We have established ipso facto that I know more about Mister Cerpin than you do, and so that makes me privy to more information about him than you. Since, I’m sure you’ll agree, the only people not allowed to pass down this corridor are people that are complete strangers to Mister Cerpin, it therefore follows that I, being no stranger, should be allowed to pass down this corridor.” She paused for a moment, before adding: “Q.E.D.”
There were a few moments while the android thought the argument over.
“Well…” the android said, looking down at her feet. “When you put it like that…”
“There’s a good girl,” Evan said. “Now, please give me access to a keycard, if you don’t mind.”
The bioandroid straightened up, and bowed slightly. “Yes, madam. At once, madam.”
She disappeared into a nearby room for a few minutes, and returned with a keycard. “I trust that you will leave the rooms as you find them, madam?”
“You have my word,” Evan said, taking the keycard from her. She paused for a moment. “What’s your name, sweetheart?”
“Cilla,” the bioandroid replied. “Will that be all, madam?”
“Yes, I think so, Cilla,” Evan replied. “Run along, now. I’m sure you have guests to pester.”
“Thank you, madam. Enjoy the rest of your evening.”
Cilla turned and walked back down the corridor. Evan looked at her naked back, and wondered if she ever felt cold.
Evan continued down the forbidden corridor, which was largely unlit, turning over the keycard in her hands. It was small, white and about five millimetres thick. There was something strange about this party, but what was it?
She came to a door and inserted the keycard. The door bleeped twice, and a small green light by the door flashed. She pushed on the handle and entered the room, feeling for and pressing a switch on the wall to light the way. The room appeared to be a storage cupboard, filled with boxes of cleaning supplies. She rummaged around for a time, checking occasionally to see if anyone was coming. She was sure there was a hidden camera somewhere, spying on her, but nobody had been sent to check on her. Surely, she thought, his security can’t be this lax? What was he hiding up his sleeve?
Regardless, she found nothing in the storage cupboard. She left the room and continued down the corridor, trying room after room, finding nothing but ostentation: not one but two libraries, a bathroom made entirely of polished mirrors, toilet included (how in hell did that work?), a large home entertainment centre with expensive-looking audiovisual equipment, including what looked to be a prototype next-generation hologram projector. The corridor ended abruptly with a white wall, and a final door, so hidden by dark as to be almost invisible.
All Evan had been able to establish about Cerpin, that was to say Michael, so far was that he truly was as wealthy as he appeared, but that he was surprisingly restrained. While, undoubtedly, the public areas of the house had their fair share of whimsical entertainments and curiosity, this was a man who valued his privacy. But for what reason? What makes a man become, and stay, rich, if not for glory and recognition?
There was one room left to check. She inserted the keycard into the door. For a few moments, it was as though the door hesitated, unsure of whether to let her in, and then it bleeped and clicked. She pushed on the handle.
At first, Evan felt disappointed, for the door opened on to a study, wood-furnished and panelled, and relatively boring-seeming. Yet instinct drove her in there. The desk was almost bare, but for a small binder placed neatly in the middle, and the shelves were lined with books on various topics in both English and Spranto. Most people read electronic books these days, but paper books remained something of a luxury.
Several of the books were philosophy books by writers with names like Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Sartre, Camus. There were books of poetry, too, Blake and Milton and Whitman and Wordsworth. There were books by Carroll and Shakespeare and Dickens. She did not dare disturb them, lest someone return to this room later and discover she had been in here uninvited. But the binder – the binder, she had to investigate.
She was careful opening it, trying not to move it too far from its last position. She wondered if Michael had done that classic trick with the hair laid over the opening, but found no evidence of this.
The binder was filled with images, largely unlabelled and unexplained, and lists written hastily on lined paper.
Some of the images were maps of Venus that had been marked with Xs, with particular attention paid to Fortuna Tessera. There had been careful geometric consideration and thought put in, but no labels to suggest what the Xs designated. Other images were photographs of people, each labelled with a name.
Evan turned over a laminated sheet and saw her own face staring back at her, a small photograph of her looking younger, different somehow. It was labelled “E. FLEURI” in letters that looked to have been written almost violently.
The list was what perhaps interested her the most. She studied it carefully. It had been typed and printed out: An alphabetical list of the names of every single person attending the party commencing on a date that had passed just a few days ago. She ran her finger down the list, but found nothing really to connect the guests, other than that she recognised some of the names as people of great wealth and status, household names. She found hers and Vin Dolby’s names on the list. There was nothing else to report. Just some maps, photographs and names.
She looked up from the binder to see a bioandroid standing in the doorway. She was not Cilla or Caitlin.
“Oh,” Evan said. “Hello. Don’t mind me, I’m just…”
“You are not permitted in these quarters,” the bioandroid said. “Please leave at once.”
“Of course,” Evan said, hurriedly closing the binder. The bioandroid looked at it, then at her.
“Were you reading through Mister Cerpin’s personal files?”
“No,” Evan lied. “I was just curious, that was all. I thought it was a photo album.”
“I recognise you,” the bioandroid said. “I don’t know why. I’ll be speaking to Mister Cerpin.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Evan said. “Come on, I didn’t find out anything secret, I swear.”
“I shall let Mister Cerpin be the judge of that,” the bioandroid said, and took off at speed down the corridor.
Damn, she’s quick!
Evan ran after her, nearly matching her speed, but the bioandroid knew these corridors far better than her, and before long, she had disappeared from sight.
Shit, Evan thought. Shit, shit, shit.
*
Evan found her way to a dancefloor area on the other side of the house, where loud music was playing. It reminded her of Rapture, that equatorial hell that had made Solomon Ntumba and his family so terribly rich. The room was designed to have seamless round walls with no edges, and any of the walls and ceiling could be walked on. Much like the staircase, gravitons were vented into the area along all axes, creating gravity no matter where the guests stood.
She climbed up a wall, noticing a slightly queasy shift in gravity as she did, and went to another bar, and ordered a glass of hard liquor, neat. She wasn’t even sure what she’d found out, but if Cerpin was up to something, and he knew that she knew, he’d be coming after her.
She covered her eyes with her hands.
“Had a bit too much to drink?” asked the bartender, over the general cacophony. He was wearing a velvet vest-jacket with a white shirt and bow-tie, same as the man in the ballroom.
Evan looked up at him.
“No,” she said. “I’m just not having a great night.”
“Sorry to hear it,” the bartender said. “There’s a lounge a short walk from here, soundproofed. You can get some shut-eye in there. I think we’ve got euph on hand as well, or maybe some mez.”
“I’ll be alright,” Evan said, knocking back the hard liquor. The amount of alcohol she’d had this evening was starting to catch up with her, and she was swaying slightly.
The door came open then, and in walked Cerpin, joined by two androids.
Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.
She tried her best to cover herself as Cerpin entered the room, and a spotlight fell on him as if from nowhere. Cerpin was dressed in a simple button-up linen shirt and chino trousers. It seemed that he enjoyed changing his costume frequently. Evan wondered if he ever slept.
Evan ducked down, crawling between legs and feet, looking for an out. She wasn’t even sure what he’d do to her if he knew that she knew something, but this was a man who’d sold out his whole planet to get rich; his code of ethics wasn’t likely to be high on his list of priorities.
She managed to get to the other side of the room before realising that Cerpin wasn’t actually looking for anyone, he was simply mingling with the other guests. She breathed a sigh of relief, but then realised that the android was probably still looking for Cerpin. She had to get out, and fast.
She bumped into a woman’s legs, and the woman yelped. Instinctively, Evan stood to her full height, towering over the small woman. In the dim light it was hard to see, but she knew she had seen that face before.
“Scusati,” the woman said. “I’m terribly afraid of furry animals and I thought Cerpin had set dogs loose in here.”
Evan couldn’t remember who she was, but thankfully, the woman introduced herself without being asked.
“Portia Fumagalli,” she said.
“Of Fumagalli Construction?” Evan asked.
“Got it in one. Say, you’re that pretty Martian girl, aren’t you?”
“Well, I don’t know about pretty,” Evan replied. “But Martian, sure.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, sweetheart.” She had an Old American-influenced inflection in her accent that made her pronounce it as “sweethawt”. Portia noticed that Evan was swaying a bit. “Had a bit much to drink, have you?”
Evan’s eyes darted across the dancefloor to Cerpin, engaging in his usual act of jumping from group to group, eavesdropping on conversations.
“Something like that,” Evan said. “Say, why don’t we get out of here? I hear there’s a quiet lounge close by, we could sit and chat.”
“Oh, I’m not a big talker.”
“I’m afraid I must insist,” Evan said, grabbing Portia by the hand and dragging her, quite unwillingly, out of the room unnoticed.
*
Portia Fumagalli was short, plump and platinum blonde. She was dressed in a red dress that had a semi-sheer sleeved lace bodice, and a satin skirt with a high-low hem, revealing her closed-toe high heels, which were red with white polka-dots. She had a small lizard clinging to her shoulder, who she named Giovanni.
They were sitting on a plush, cream leather sofa in the lounge area, which was painted white and filled with soft light. Soothing ambient music played through a subtle speaker system in the floors and walls. Evan could see why the bartender had recommended she get some sleep in here.
“How are you enjoying the party so far?” Portia asked.
“It’s a little overwhelming,” Evan said, constantly checking the door in case Cerpin entered the room.
“Oh, it’s like that for the first day or two,” Portia said. “I’ve been here for four days now. You get used to it.”
“Are people allowed to leave?” Evan asked.
“Oh, sure,” Portia said. “But why would anyone wanna leave Cerpin’s place?”
“I can think of a few reasons,” Evan said.
“Oh yeah? Like what?”
“There’s only so much partying a person can take.”
“Well, the parties usually wind down after a week or so,” Portia said. “Then Cerpin takes a long rest.”
Evan looked up at the ceiling. She was sure she had heard someone mention Portia Fumagalli earlier that evening, but she had seen and done so much that she couldn’t remember exactly who had mentioned her name.
“So,” Portia said. “You’re a Martian lieutenant, huh?”
Evan looked at her. “Yeah,” she said. “I fought. In the Insurrection.”
She was hesitant. Terrans had a wide variety of views on the Insurrection. A lot of Terrans resented the Martians for beginning that catastrophic conflict, but others were more sympathetic, and some were simply neutral on the matter.
Portia patted her on the knee.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I don’t hold nothin’ against you. Awful about the war and all, but my Nonno was a union man hisself, before he started his construction business. So I got my sympathies.”
Evan took Portia’s slipping into colloquial speech patterns as a sign of mutual trust, and allowed herself to let her guard down.
“I didn’t see the end of the war,” she said. “My ship got shot down over Tycho. When I woke up a year later, they told me the war was over.”
Portia frowned. “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” she said. “But you look great. Not a scratch on you.”
Evan laughed. “Nanocea,” she said. “Works wonders.”
“I’ll say,” Portia said. “But it wasn’t Nanocea gave you that bone structure. Ya gotta thank the big man upstairs for that.”
“That’s very kind,” Evan said.
Portia smiled coquettishly. “So,” she said. “You, ah, got anyone?”
Evan looked at her. “No,” she said. “No, my…there was someone, but…he died.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Portia said.
There was an uncomfortable silence. Evan decided not to reveal what she knew about Cerpin, even to Portia, a woman she implicitly trusted.
“I dated a Martian once,” Portia said.
“Really?”
“Yeah. He was handsome. This was a long time ago, mind you. We were kids. Things were more friendly between Terra and Mars back then, but my father didn’t approve. He thought Martians were dirty, troublemakers.”
“Who’s to say your father was wrong?” Evan said, smiling.
Portia sighed, running her finger around in a circle on the arm of the cream leather sofa.
“It’s a shame,” she said. “We broke up years and years ago, but I heard he died, just like your man, back during the war.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Evan said. “I suppose I wasn’t entirely honest with you: He wasn’t my man when he died. We’d broken up by then.”
“Looks like we’re both unlucky in love,” Portia said.
“I suppose so,” Evan said. She leaned back in her seat. “If you don’t mind me asking, what was his name?”
Portia looked at her, and her eyes seemed to flash with memories.
“Michael,” she said.
Evan about launched herself from the seat.
“You alright, hun?” Portia said.
Slowly, Evan turned to look at Portia, stepped over to her, and placed her hands on Portia’s shoulders.
“Michael who?” she asked.
Portia’s lip was trembling.
“…I don’t remember,” she said. “It was something Russian, something Russian!”
“Morkov?!” Evan hissed.
“Th-that was it…is…is there something wrong with that?”
Oh Jesus.
That’s the pattern.
“You’re not saying anything, hun – are you alright?”
Evan looked down at Portia again and realised she was white-knuckling Portia’s shoulders. She released her grip. Portia neatened up the lace around her arms.
Evan wanted desperately for her deduction to be incorrect. Cerpin was up to something, she knew it, but she still didn’t know what.
Just then, she had another realisation. She had heard the name “Portia Fumagalli” elsewhere tonight.
Evan finally spoke.
“Dolby,” she said. “You spoke to Vin Dolby earlier tonight.”
“Yeah, I did. But I don’t see what that has to do with—”
“I’ve got to go,” Evan said. “Just whatever you do, don’t talk to any bioandroids, and try to hide.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” Evan said. “But I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
*
She had sobered up now, and adrenaline was pumping through her veins. She had abandoned her heels in a corridor, and was running barefoot through the hallways and corridors, past rooms filled with oblivious guests, music thumping through every wall. Her throat felt dry and painful. She turned a corner and pushed open a large wooden door, crashing into the ballroom.
She looked over at the sofa where Vin had been sitting. He wasn’t there.
She gasped for air, propping herself against a wall to catch her breath. Her eyes moved over the crowd and it was only then that she noticed that Dolby may not be here, but someone else certainly was.
“Ah, Evandra,” Cerpin said, approaching her. He was dressed in the same linen shirt and chinos. “Goodness, what’s happened to you?”
Does he know? Should I tell him that I know? No, too dangerous. Play along.
“Nothing,” Evan lied.
Cerpin looked at her doubtfully, then stretched an arm out to the band.
“Care for a dance?”
If I say no, he’ll know something’s up. Play along.
“Sure,” Evan said.
Cerpin signalled to the robotic band to begin playing a tune.
“Follow my lead,” he whispered in her ear, and began to lead her in the dance.
His grip on her was firm, and the way his body moved seemed almost violent. Evan recalled a time as a child, when her mother had been angry at her for breaking her favourite vase. That night, her mother had been chopping carrots for dinner, and every chopping action was punctuated by an angry, staccato bang, like machine-gun fire. Her mother had slammed the cupboard doors. Every action she had taken was excessively forceful, but purposeful – it was designed to ensure that Evan knew how angry her mother was.
That same forcefulness seemed apparent in Cerpin’s stamping foot, which seemed almost determined to crush her toes, or in the way he jerked her arm around. Though he didn’t seem to openly say it, it was as though he knew that she knew something. Perhaps he didn’t know exactly what that was, but there was something in his actions that frightened her.
As the song ended, he jerked her arm into the air in a final pose. He leaned into her ear, then. What she had expected to hear him say was “I know,” but what he actually said was “Enjoy the rest of the party, Evandra.”
She quickly ran back into the crowd, and felt his eyes in her back, as though they were burning holes in her body.
She ran over to the couch on which Vin had been sitting, where two men were sitting with a small group of bioandroids, arms wrapped tight around their bare flesh.
She didn’t have time to worry about the bioandroids and what they knew or didn’t know about her.
“There was an old man here,” Evan said. “About so high.” She held her hand flat at around upper chest height. “Do you know where he went?”
One of the men smiled greasily, standing.
He pointed to a door adjacent to the bar. “He went that way,” he said.
Evan nodded to him.
“Thank you,” she said, and began to make her way out.
“Wait!” the man said. He grabbed her hand.
Evan turned to him, and he pulled on her arm. His breath reeked of alcohol.
“Can’t I at least get a little gratuity?”
Evan looked him up and down, her eyes narrowing.
“I advise you to ask yourself now if this is really what you want.”
The man’s smile did not waver. “I think it is,” he said. “These android things ain’t as good as the real thing.”
Evan looked at the bioandroids, who were watching with detached, cold indifference.
“I see,” she said. “In that case…”
She flexed her arm and used his own weight to send him crashing to the floor. The man made a kind of choked wheezing noise and other guests leapt out of the way. She’d winded him.
“Bi…bi…bi…” the man was stammering.
“Bitch?” Evan said. “Is that what you’re trying to call me, shithead?”
Drooling, he tried to right himself, tried to go for her, and she kicked him in the ribs. The man gasped.
“If you still want to be able to have children, don’t try getting up again,” Evan said.
“You can’t do that!” shouted the other man, shocked, going to rise from his seat.
“Cry me a fucking river,” Evan said.
The androids watched on, showing no reaction to what had just taken place.
Evan scanned the crowd for Cerpin. He had since vanished.
She turned back to the man laying winded on the ground.
“Thank you for your cooperation,” she said, and quickly ran for the exit, leaving a crowd of guests gathered around the red-faced man, gasping for air.
*
The bar door, she worked out, led to the topiary garden area where she had come in. It seemed that Vin Dolby had chosen to take Caitlin for a stroll. Perhaps he valued being able to talk at length about things to such a passive listener. Evan thought again that she was the perfect woman for him; no thoughts in her head, just pre-determined responses. She would never disagree with him.
The topiary was quite large. She hadn’t managed to get a good look at its scope when she had first arrived. None of the shrubs were cut into anything resembling human, animal or android – they were all triangles and spheres and cuboids captured at interesting angles. Barefoot, she stumbled through the garden, looking for Vin and Caitlin.
She could see the customs tunnel at the edge of the garden, the only part of Big Time to which Cerpin could not claim ownership, and suddenly it occurred to her that Cerpin was everywhere in this place.
She pressed on.
She was moving between a shrub of a cube resting on one of its vertices and an oblate spheroid when she lost her footing and tripped. She rolled over.
Though in the dim light of eternal evening, it was hard to see, there was a definite bump in the ground.
She felt against the grass and the soil. There was something large, hard and metal protruding from the earth between the two shrubs.
As she placed a hand against the buried object, it suddenly came open.
Inside were a set of hefty-looking and very modern handguns and holsters, the sort that sounded like a cannon in your hand when you fired them. Naturally, she grabbed one and tightened the holster around her waist.
As she held it and felt its weight in her hand, she remembered why they had made her a lieutenant.
She heard chatter, then, along one of the paths. Standing, she peered between the trees, and saw Vin, speaking at length to Caitlin.
She checked that the gun was loaded, and then, pointing it at the ground, stalked them, using careful footing to follow them as they walked.
As they began to reach a turning, Evan emerged from the shrubs.
Vin heard the noise and stopped speaking, turning to greet her.
“Ah, Lieutenant Fleuri,” he said. “What seems to be the…oh my…”
Evan trained the gun on Caitlin, who did not react as if her life were in mortal danger. She simply smiled stupidly at it, as if she didn’t know what a gun was.
“Earlier tonight,” Evan said, keeping her gaze fixed on Caitlin. “You spoke to Portia Fumagalli.”
“Yes,” Vin said. “Yes I did, listen, Evandra, would you just put the gun down—”
“I just spoke to her as well,” Evan said.
“Well, I don’t see why that warrants pointing a gun at Caitlin.”
“Shut up,” Evan said. “For once in your life, shut up and listen. Earlier, you were going to tell me about something you learned from her. I just learned something from her as well.”
There was a long pause.
“And what would that be?” Vin said, exasperated.
“We both know someone.”
“Oh,” Vin said. “Well, I had a strangely similar experience. I’d forgotten about it until you mentioned it. It turns out that myself and Portia both know—”
“Michael Morkov,” Evan said.
Vin’s mouth fell agape.
“Y-yes,” he said. “How peculiar…”
“Vin, there’s something you need to know,” Evan said.
“I wouldn’t worry about that,” said a voice from behind her.
In the dim light, his amber eyes flashing red, stood Cerpin le Fou, the man that had once been Michael Morkov.
Evan took her eyes off of Caitlin and turned her weapon on Cerpin. He grinned toothily and clapped sarcastically. He was dressed once again in the suit. How the hell had he changed so fast?
“Brava,” Cerpin said. “I always liked that about you, Evan. You’re such a smart girl.”
“What the hell is going on?” Vin exclaimed. Then he squinted at Cerpin, and his eyes filled with terror. “Oh my God…” he gasped. “It’s you…Michael…it’s you…”
Cerpin laughed. “I do find it quite amusing, you know. You people think that Cerpin is just a costume that Michael Mikhailovich Morkov wears. But no. It’s the other way around.”
He stepped towards them, running his gloved hand through his hair. Caitlin continued to smile stupidly.
He continued:
“The truth is, there never really was a Michael Morkov…that was the name I was given at birth, of course…but I’ve always been Cerpin. Always.”
“Cerpin…” Vin said. “Like Serpent, or Seraphin…”
“The serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made,” Caitlin recited.
“Very good, Caitlin,” Cerpin said. “And apt, I suppose.”
“Just what are you planning?” Evan hissed. “Tell me or I’ll kill you.”
“No you won’t,” Cerpin said.
“Try me.”
“Evandra, darling; do you really think I would have invited you to this party if I thought you had any chance of hurting my plans?”
“No,” Evan said. “But your arrogance is your downfall, Cerpin.”
“Can someone please explain to me what is going on?” Vin asked, desperately.
“Shut up, Vin,” Evan said.
“No, let him speak,” Cerpin said. “Doctor Dolby. How nice to see you again after all these years. Though I dare say you didn’t recognise me at first glance.”
“What are you doing, Michael?” Vin said. “The last time I saw you, you were making good progress.”
“I was,” Cerpin conceded. “I was getting very good at pretending to be Michael Morkov. You taught me to lock away and keep secret those parts of myself that might offend others, and I did so, quite dutifully. But that was before the Insurrection…Doctor Dolby, there is only so much blood and brain a man can see before the things he locks away deep at the centre of himself come bubbling back up to the surface…”
Cerpin tried to take a step forwards and Evan cocked the large gun.
“For God’s sake, Evandra, put the gun down,” Cerpin said. “I’m unarmed. You’re embarrassing yourself.”
“Whatever you’re planning, call it off,” Evan demanded.
Cerpin smiled and simply replied: “No.”
“I’ll kill you.”
“Then do it.”
There was a long silence.
“Is it true?” Evan asked. “Does everyone at the party know you?”
“Stalling for time?”
“Answer the fucking question.”
“Yes, it’s true,” Cerpin said. “Business associates, school-friends…” He looked amorously at Evan, then away. “…former flames. I should have known better than to invite Portia, had I known she would cause this much trouble…but I had to.”
“For what reason?” Evan asked.
“I wanted to be thorough.”
“This isn’t you,” Vin protested. “Michael, my boy, whatever it is you have planned…we talked about this years ago, you can’t let these violent tendencies get the better of you…you were a good boy, Michael, and to see you grow up to become this is…grotesque.”
“You’re wrong,” Cerpin replied, venomously. For the first time, genuine rage manifested on his face. “Your premise is based on the assumption that I care even an iota about such piffling things as those ideas you made me internalise, like forcing me to choke down a bitter pill. But I don’t. I never have.”
“Michael, please,” Vin insisted. “I’m begging you…whatever it is you’re doing, reconsider it.”
Cerpin’s smile faltered, and he thought for a few moments.
“Caitlin,” he said, suddenly. He made a few strange, halting gestures, and spoke five words: “I sing the body electric.”
Caitlin’s smile vanished. She nodded as if in understanding, and then seized Vin by the throat with her left hand.
“Let go of him!” Evan shouted, training the gun on Caitlin.
It took only a second for Caitlin to reach around Vin’s head with her other hand, gripping the left of his jaw in her right, and wrench.
There was the sound of tendon, muscle and nerve snapping, of bones popping out of place.
Vin Dolby’s head had been forcibly rotated one hundred and eighty degrees.
Blood gushed from his mouth and nose. His front teeth protruded from a dislocated skull. One of his eyes exorbited.
He died instantly.
Caitlin threw the corpse to the ground.
“You bastard!” Evan shouted. She wheeled on Cerpin and fired once.
The gun, as predicted, made a sound like a cannon being fired.
The bullet struck Cerpin’s head, knocking it clean from the shoulders. It shattered on the ground like porcelain. A set of white doves were released from the open neck, and into the topiary.
An android decoy.
Type-Three, mechanical.
The real Cerpin was still inside the house.
Evan tried to turn the gun on Caitlin, but she had run back to the house. Evan tried to start after her, but Caitlin was already ahead of her, and by the time she had made any headway, Caitlin had already locked her out.
Without breaking stride, she tried to make a run for the customs tunnel to try and summon the help of the federal government.
She watched with horror as the tunnel explosively disengaged from the boundary wall.
For a moment, just one terrible moment, she saw the look of terror in the eyes of the custom personnel as they fell to the killing ground below.
There was no sound after that, but the distant moan of crushed, burning metal.
She was alone but for corpses, one machine, one man. She looked up at Big Time. High above, she could see lights shimmer from a balcony.
There was nothing she could do to stop what was coming.
Cerpin had made prisoners of his guests, and their executioners walked among them.
To be concluded…
This work is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License