A new and exciting short story by me Cecil Thax, this was an entry I wrote for a ‘A bad science fiction writing jam’, I’m breaking it down into several parts so your mind isn’t overwhelmed by words and Sci Fi cliches.
Previously on ‘Rage Slave’ Jack Steel had woken from Soma sleep and found himself on Mars, after taking refuge in a barn an old gnarled farmer had captured him, brought him into his house and shot Jack through the lung, hung him up to dry and was about to eat him!
Part three – Payback!
The old man stood over his counter top slicing and dicing root crops, he planned several meals to eat Jack with, he would roast him, braise him, fry him, grind him into burgers and stew the bones. The old man hadn’t caught an unlicensed human in over a decade; he was going to savour Jack’s meat! After 10 minutes of preparing, the old man went into his pantry to remove Jack’s head; he would start with the brain, his favourite part. The old man opened the pantry door and walked over to Jack, the robots had wrapped Jack’s corpse in a thin cotton sheet to stop his internal organs plopping out of the hole in his chest. The old man approached Jack, he fondled himself while grasping at various parts of Jack, his old filthy hands caressed Jack’s head, he put his wrinkled old face close to Jacks, sniffing him, pressing himself up against Jack, kissing his cheek and neck, he started licking Jack’s face all the while grasping at Jack’s man zone, the old man drove his tongue into Jack’s mouth, exploring his still warm tongue. The old man pushed his tongue as far into Jack’s mouth as he could, that’s when Jack bit down as hard as he could, shaking his head he tore the old man’s tongue out of his mouth, blood gushed from his twisted old face, the old man clutched his mouth, a look of horror and disbelief in his eyes as he saw Jack free himself from the meat hook. Jack towered over the old man, kicking him to the ground, he put his boot on the old man’s throat and pushed, the old man’s neck slowly gave way and broke with a dull pop.
Jack had long ago been fitted with nanobots which would repair almost any damage to his body, only if his brain was destroyed would he be killed, that’s how he’d planned to survive in the tournament on the moon! Jacks chest was now repaired, there was just a slight itch in his lung as it was still being rebuilt. Jack set to work hiding the body of the old man, luckily for Jack the droids had no loyalty to the old man and simply helped jack tidy up the mess.
Days passed while Jack stayed at the farm, the droids took care of most of the crops and house work, Jack just concentrated on acquiring a fake license to be on Mars. They were easy enough to come by if you knew how, the only problem was getting to one without being spotted, if you got within 20 feet of a drone they would scan you, without a license this would mean instant capture and shot to prison on Phobos. His only option was to send a droid in his place which he would control remotely. This could be done via a telepathic rift headset which would download your consciousness into the body of the droid, should the droid become damaged or destroyed you would just wake up back in your body.
Jack slept all day, the light was too bright for him, his tired eyes couldn’t open in the harsh mid-day sun, so he spent his days unconscious and his nights drinking the moonshine the old man had been brewing in his basement. After a few nights rest the time came and Jack got into the rift headset and uploaded himself into a droid. The droid was nothing special, a squat four legged, one eyed dog like machine, Jack had fitted it with audio capabilities so he could interact with the people he was meeting. The droid started running towards the city at high speed, for the first time in a long time Jack actually felt an emotion other than anger, the thought of being in a city again sparked the smallest seeds of excitement in him.
Mars didn’t have slums, or ghettos, the cities were pristine, immaculate buildings of glass and chrome soaring high into the sky. The electric cars moved silently in underground tunnels, the people were all tall, elegant figures. The suburbs were perfect community hubs, all maintained by an army of droids tirelessly taking care of every aspect of human living. Having long since eliminated the need to burn anything for fuel, now using clean efficient Smaptons the air on Mars was the cleanest air in the solar system. It was a utopia. The people, for the most part, lived a life of pure relaxation, the need for work was none existent as everything was provided, the only so called ‘work’ was the things people created, art, literature, entertainment, new scientific discoveries or philosophy, but most people simply lived lives of leisure.
There were no shady corners where anything could be bought and sold freely. Nobody broke the law because the punishment was banishment from this Eden. The only way Jack could acquire a licence to be on mars was to trick an artist to create him a ‘work of art’ that just happened to be an exact copy of a license, including the DNA profile and required microchips. Luckily for Jack, the level of laziness the population of this planet had achieved such a high level that very few of them questioned anything, so when a talking droid dog arrived on Hildred Prudence Chamberlain’s lawn, she never questioned its motives, she simply thought whoever was controlling it wanted a work of purest art!
Hildred went about preparing her tools for the commissioned art work, deciding to mix traditional art processes with technologies she set up a 3D transmission space which allowed anyone viewing to see through her eyes. She streamed this over the perceptive tubes into viewers’ brains. The work she created took 5 hours from start to finish, Hildred created a perfect replica of a license and working microchips, the DNA was the hardest part to replicate but she did using Advanced Smaptons creams.
Hildred placed the ‘art’ in the droid dogs back pouch and the droid ran off at top speed, just as the droid darted into a sewer, police drones surrounded Hildred’s house, within seconds she was in a prison pod and being blasted to Phobos, the police had been watching her broadcast and convicted her of counterfeiting a license, luckily for Jack the policeman watching the stream had gone to the toilet when Hildred had written on the name of who the license was made out to.
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