From The War Bug

My Baby, She Dumped Me

A crystal tube, tinted rose, stretched from the floor to the ceiling. Inside the tube, standing on an amethyst platform, stood a naked man, muscles still wet with lovemaking. His blue eyes emanated adoration as he watched Bella across the room. She leaned seductively in the quartz doorway, her nipples flaring hard pink against the smooth gold of her breasts. He smiled shyly, even though they’d been intimate for days. That was the way she liked them, muscular and shy, right to the end.

She smiled and pressed the button.

It happened instantly.

The amethyst platform disappeared and he fell.

***

It was suddenly breezy and hot. He was moving downward. The shadow over his head was moving away from him. No. No, he was moving away from it. He was falling, falling into an immense green and blue surface far below. His arms flew away from his body. He looked up. Acres of polished green crystal reflected the roiling mass of water into which he was descending. His hair fluttered crazily as his body accelerated toward the mass of water that stretched from one horizon to the other a thousand feet below.

Then he knew.

And a scream wrapped and wrapped around the small brown object plummeting from under the five acres of synthetic emerald that was Bella Bjork’s floating palace in the center of the Pacific Ocean.

***

A circular screen in the tourmaline wall flickered. “And none of them ever suspects?” said a dry voice. A mass of gray flesh and white robe appeared on the screen. Something like the end of a German sausage with a face etched into its center. Orange spikes protruded from the top of the mass. Microchips in the spikes caused them to curl and twist to reflect Jeemo’s excitement.

“You watched?” said Bella. Her voice was deep and disinterested.

“How could I not,” said the thick pink lips in the center of the sausage.

Bella stood straight and strolled slowly into the room as the amethyst platform reappeared. “They think it’s an ion bath, something to relax them and prepare them for more sex.”

Around the pink mouth, rolls of gray flesh curled upward into a strange smiling shape and Jeemo Roosenvelt laughed. “Your sexclone bill must be in the millions.”

Bella stared at the sausage face. Bio-chips transformed her hair into a dazzling waterfall of chestnut water splashing over the tops of her breasts. Jeemo’s narrow black eyes squinted as he stared directly at her engorged nipples. “Killing them turns you on, doesn’t it?”

Bella smiled coldly and then dropped the smile in an instant. “From now on you stay out of viewing mode until I say that you can watch me. What I do with my clones is my business. Now, have you finished working out your trail of smell, or whatever it is?”

“Digital scent trail.” His voice was flat and sluggish. “It’s called a digital scent trail, and, yes, it’s finished.”

“I still don’t see the need.” Bella sat down on a quartz pedestal. Her back and legs formed a perfect ninety-degree angle as she crossed one long golden leg over the other. Jeemo’s eyes followed the movement of her legs. He said: “With normal VPs, it’s not an issue. With sentient VPs, it’s different. Their programs interact with the programs and code around them, like a human brain emanates waves that interact with the surrounding air. That interaction lingers after the sentient VP leaves, like perfume, only longer. Our targets are cloaked to hide the interaction from the City Central detectors, but when I spring the capture program, the cloak will crash. That’s why it has to be done quickly … so that City Central won’t be able to track them. But there will still be some residual interactivity traces. To this end, I’ve…”

“But it’s all finished now?”

“It would take years for anyone to trace the paths I’ve programmed into the capture application. And even then, the physical location of the server would stop them cold.”

“And the server is ready as well?”

Jeemo sighed. “Yes, it’s ready. It’s been ready for weeks.”

Bella recrossed her legs, exposing a patch of firey pubic hair that sent a flush of pale red across Jeemo’s face. “And you’re sure that you’ll capture both of them? All the modules and links?”

“Yes. Yes, I’ve worked out every …”

“I’m sure you have, but I’ve heard this before from programmers: ‘We’ve worked it all out and everything’s going to be just fine’. But look around Atlantiscity. It’s crashing … just like the other city states. Everything is not just fine. Everything is falling apart and it’s the programmers who made it that way!”

“It wasn’t the programmers who went to war …”

“It was the programmers who designed the war tools and … oh damn it … let’s not get into this again. I want every line of programming from both of them to be captured. It has to be both of them. There may be code links between them and breaking those links would make the girl useless by herself.”

“I’ve set up the capture for both of them.” Sections of flesh drooped from the lower part of his face as though his chin were melting into the air around him. “We’ll have both of them within minutes of each other.”

Bella looked suspiciously at the massive figure on the screen. “I need them. I need both of them. This is important. Now … one last time … can you really pull this off?”

Jeemo’s small black eyes stared at Bella’s breasts. “Yes,” he said. “I can do it. You don’t need to worry.”

“I’m not the one who needs to worry about this not coming off right.” Bella glared into the folds around Jeemo’s eyes. Jeemo looked at something off screen and said: “Time to do it.”

Bella uncrossed her legs and stood up slowly, bringing Jeemo’s gaze back into the screen.

“And yes, Jeemo. It does. Very much.”

Jeemo spoke calmly, refusing to show his confusion. “I beg your …”

“It turns me on. Killing them. It’s the best part.”

Jeemo flushed deeply.

Bella narrowed her eyes on him: “And will it turn you on, Jeemo, darling, when I have you in the tube?”

A thin line of drool slid out of Jeemo’s fish-like mouth and was about to drip onto his pudgy chin when the screen flickered and his face disappeared.