Night of the Obamanation

This is my entry for Bruce Bethke's Bane-Hated-Halloween-Friday-Challenge.

Since I had some time on my hands this weekend, I recorded the story as an audio book which is the recommended way to enjoy it in the spirit of Halloween. But if you're scared, the text is below.

"Night of the Obamanation"
by snowdog

Whenever you find a nice neighborhood right on the edge of some crime-riddled ghetto, one thing you may or may not notice is that the people who live there don’t venture outside much, at least not after six o’clock or so. The residential street the taxi dropped me on was that way. The yards were neatly kept. The closely spaced houses were in good repair and painted with bright, cheerful colors as if to ward off the blight that they knew was creeping toward them, closer every single day. In the failing light of early evening, streetlights began to hum and flicker to life, revealing only empty sidewalks and tightly parked cars.

Against the canvas of dead silence, my boots made too much noise on the concrete. I could see blinds and curtains moving as folks peered suspiciously from the safety of their living rooms.

“Yeah, lady,” I mumbled under my breath, “I don’t want to be here any more than you want me here.”

God, that was the truth. Fortunately, it isn’t too often I’m called upon to stalk and kill the best friend I have this side of paradise. If you want to know how I’d ended up having to do such a heinous thing, I’ll tell you. It’ll make the story a little longer, but that’s okay.

You see, I met Paul Kurtz in the Marine Corps. We were both going through the special form of hell called “boot camp” at Parris Island. I was from the swamps of northern Florida, he hailed from Fayetteville, North Carolina. It wasn’t long before we realized that we had a lot in common. So, in between all the running and standing in line, we’d chat about rebuilding classic trucks—I forgave him the flaw in his personality that made him a Chevy man—and football.

After the Taliban kindly decided to rearrange the Manhattan skyline for us, we were able to get stationed together in Afghanistan.

One night, when I was headed for the shower to reconfigure the dust on my sweat ripened body, I noticed him sneaking behind the chow hall with the laptop his folks had sent him from Carolina. I was the worst kept secret in camp that you could borrow the CO’s wireless internet connection from certain places. I crept up behind him.

“What you lookin’ at, Kurtz?” I asked loudly, “Porn? You’d better share!”

Paul nearly jumped out of his skin, I swear.

“Son of a-!” he shouted, then glanced around and lowered his tone. “No, I’m not looking at porn. Well, not anymore.”

He turned back to the laptop, which he had balanced on top of a cooler. “I’ve been reading this blog called Vox Popoli. Man, you won’t believe what this guy gets away with saying.”

I read over his shoulder. “The Pel-- Peloponnesian War? What’s that?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. I skipped that one. Look at what he calls Michelle Malkin!”

We both burst out laughing then looked around cautiously for anyone who might outrank us.

It took us a several weeks, but we read through the entire archive of the blog. The man sure liked to write. He made a lot of sense for a Yankee, we decided. More often than not, we agreed with what he had to say.

You may be wondering why I bothered to tell you about this particular incident. It’s to help highlight some peculiarities I noticed later on. Be patient.

We saw a lot of action during our stay in Afghanistan, but we were always lucky; coming back with both life and limb intact. Many of our buddies didn’t.

One day, I received a letter from home. My mother had taken ill and she wasn’t expected to live more than a few days. The CO arranged a hardship discharge for me and I boarded a plane and headed (eventually) for Jacksonville.

It was about a year after we had buried Mama, that I received a letter from Paul. Turns out, he had taken some shrapnel to the spine and was holed up in Walter Reed. The hospital was about twelve hours north of where I had grown up, so I loaded up the pickup and headed there at an ill-advised rate of speed.

When I walked into the room, I saw Paul all trussed up in this crazy looking contraption. I don’t think he could move an inch in any direction. He had a kind of glazed look in his eyes, probably the medication, I decided.

“Walt!” he said, “Walt, I knew you’d come.”

“Well, hell, Paul, I told you take care of yourself when I left. What happened?”

He tried to laugh, then winced.

I was startled to notice a young woman sitting next to him with a book open in her lap. She was a strange one. On one hand, she was quite pretty, long red hair, real fair skinned. But she had several dark, strange looking tattoos on her arms, shoulders, even extending around to the back of her neck. She also had a piercing through her nose. And she was glaring at me like I had just pissed in her coffee.

Now, I’m used to being hated by the girlfriends and wives of my friends. Often, they blame me for the alcoholic tendencies of their boy toys. And, I guess, often, they’re right. But this young woman didn’t even know me.

“Walt,” Paul continued when he had regained his composure. “This is Beth Ann. She’s a volunteer here in the hospital.”

“A volunteer? What does she do here?” I started to answer my own question, but no good could have come of it. Most hospitals don’t supply those kinds of volunteers, and not even wounded marines rate that highly at Walter Reed.

“I read to the men,” she answered sharply. Her eyes never left mine. There was something about her. Something—

“It helps take my mind off of the pain,” Paul smiled weakly, barely able to look at me from his position. “She’s telling me all about Barrack Obama and what he’s planning to do for the country as president.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Beg pardon?”

“Barrack is exactly what this country needs after eight years of Bush,” Beth Ann interrupted. “The US wants to heal itself after two unjust wars and the worst economy in over seventy years.” It felt like she was staring at the inside of my skull.

It wasn’t what she said that bothered me. I’d met silly well-meaning liberals before. But there was something a little too… zealous about her tone. Something that suggested her opinion should be declared the law of the land.

“Beth Ann, honey, could you let us chat for a while?” asked Paul. “ I haven’t seen old Walt in a year.”

Her stare broke contact only after she passed behind me.

“I’ll be back in thirty minutes,” she said. “We still have a lot to go over.”

After she was gone, Paul and I caught up on things and we relived good times and bad. I didn’t bother to ask any more about Beth Ann. And that, my friends, was a mistake.

It was about three weeks after I visited the hospital room. My house was located next to a fairly busy highway, but in woodsy, rural area. There were no other houses for at least half a mile in any direction. So, I was surprised and a little annoyed when, late one night, my doorbell rang.

I opened the door and standing on my front porch, under the yellow light that does nothing to repel bugs, stood a thin, extremely pale young man. I guess he was about twenty-three or so, but the dark rings under his black eyes made him appear almost elderly.

“Hello sir,” he smiled, but never made eye contact. “I’ve been sent to tell you about the next President of the United States, Barrack Obama.”

I stood there a moment, a little stunned.

“Who sent you?” I asked, knowing full well whom it was.

“It doesn’t matter, sir. Vote Barrack.”

He leaned toward me, into the doorway as if he wanted to whisper something. That’s when I saw the teeth, dark yellow stained fangs, dripping with thick saliva. I shoved him back and slammed the door hard.

“Shotgun.” I said aloud to myself and ran to the gun cabinet in the den. As I shoved four 12-gauge shells into the Remington and filled my pockets with more, I heard him start thumping on the front door. Harder. Harder still. I couldn’t imagine that that pale boy would be able to break down a sturdy wooden door, but it was starting to sound that way.

I rushed back and looked through the peephole. There were two of them now. An equally pale dark-haired woman had joined the man.

“Sir, come out!” she shouted. “We’d like to share Barrack’s economic policies. He wants to redistribute the wealth!”

The man backed up and made a run at door. I backed away from the peephole as he crashed against it hard enough to crack the wood around the bolt. One or two more of those, and they’d be inside, converting me over to their messiah.

SLAM! The wood shredded and the door budged slightly. I raised my shotgun.

SLAM! The door flung open wide and four emaciated looking youngish people tried to come in at once.

“Vote Barrack!” the Obombies chanted in unison. “Vote Barrack!”

BOOM! The buckshot slammed into the chest of the first man who had appeared on my doorstep. He flew back, momentarily blocking the other three.

BOOM! Another man fell on top of his friend. I wiped some blood off of my cheek with the back of my hand.

It was then that I heard slow pounding on the back door. My God, it was unlocked! The two surviving Obombies were still having some trouble getting around their fallen comrades, so I rushed through the dining room and kitchen and made it to back door in time to push the latch in place. I flicked on rear floodlights.

Through the windows, I could see one pale man pounding his fist on the door. Thankfully, the back steps were too narrow and treacherous to allow him to slam his shoulder into it as the other man had done.

“McCain is JUST LIKE BUSH!”

I spun around to see the female standing in the middle of the kitchen. She started toward me, teeth bared and hissing.

“Vote Barrack!”

BOOM! Blood splattered everywhere. The woman was blown back into the sink, smashing all my finest WalMart china.

My heart was racing now and I was finding it hard to catch my breath, but that didn’t matter. There were at least two more of them. I flung open the back door and fired.

BOOM!

He was gone! Shit! I would have to reload!

I held the shotgun in the crook of my right arm and started fishing shells out of my pocket with the left. Fortunately, I had had a lot of practice with this. Soon I was ready with four more rounds, which was good, because at that moment, the dining room window was smashed in.

“Barrack! Vote BARRACK!”

By the time I got to the dining room, the Obombie had half his body inside the window. I brought the Remington up at point blank range.

BOOM! A face full of buckshot solves a lot of problems.

“One more. One more. One more. Where is he? Where are you? “

I went back out to the front porch. No one there. Then I caught movement in the corner of my eye. He had just ducked behind my truck out in the driveway. I leaped off the porch and ran after him, barely able to breathe at all now. For a moment, I couldn’t find him again. Then I spotted him in the back yard making his way toward the open back door!

BOOM!


Over the next few weeks, Obombie visits became a common occurrence and eventually, they began to show up nightly. After a while, their numbers began to increase. As much as I was enjoying my real-life game of Doom, something had to be done. While there was plenty of swampland behind my house, hauling their rotting liberal asses out there was turning into work. And don’t even get me started on the smell.

And that, my friends, brings us back to where we started.

I stood still on the sidewalk for a full minute, staring at Paul’s place, two houses down on the left. He was home; I could see that damned Chevrolet pickup in the driveway. A gust of wind came through and for a moment, I was afraid it would reveal the sawed-off shotgun beneath my long rider coat. It didn’t matter now. Soon everyone would be well aware of it.

I walked the last few steps, up onto the porch and pressed my finger to the bell.

“Coming, dammit! Hold on!” Paul’s voice came from deep inside the house.

I took a moment to glance around. It was almost dark now. No one seemed to be watching. The porch light came on. The door opened. And there was my old friend. He was sitting in a wheelchair.

“Walt!” he shouted in surprise. “Son of a bitch, it’s you!”

I hesitated. “Hey Paul.”

“What are you doing in my neck of the woods, man? Come on in!”

He wheeled himself backward, away from the door so I could get inside. Then I followed him into a surprisingly bare living room. There were only a couple of chairs and a TV.

“Beth Ann!” he shouted up the stairs. “You’ll never guess who’s here!”

“Who?” she asked. My fingers touched the concealed shotgun.

The stairs creaked and I swear the air temperature dropped ten degrees as she came down into the room. She stood for a moment and glared at me, like in the hospital room a couple of months previous.

“Honey,” I said. “Don’t you have any other expressions?”

“What are you doing in my house?” she asked pointedly.

“Just came to thank you for sending some of your friends out to see me.”

“What’s he talking about, Beth Ann?” Paul asked.

I risked a glance over at him. He seemed normal enough, but in the light of the living room, I could see numerous scars on his neck where she had been feeding. And infecting.

“Paul,” I said. “I can’t believe I’m having to tell you this, what with those marks on your neck. But your Beth Ann here, is a vampire. And a feminist. She’s a fempire.

“What? Are you insane?” he unconsciously brought his hand up to feel the side of his neck. He knew where the marks were.

“And she’s been sending her hordes of Obombies to try to, I dunno, kill me or convert me. I’m not sure.” I pulled the sawed-off shotgun out of my coat and aimed it right at her.

Paul rushed over and slammed his wheelchair into my leg. I pushed him sideways and tipped his chair, spilling him helpless onto the floor.

I turned back to her, but she had already moved. I caught motion to my left, and turned.

BOOM! She moved to the right. My ears rang.

BOOM! She jumped onto the wall and back down.

BOOM!

I missed. My god, but she was fast. She leaped in a high arc, close to the ceiling, and then she was on me. I could feel the sharp, wet fangs on my neck. I shoved her off and brought the gun around, but she was too close. She grabbed the barrel and pointed it upward, away from her. And then she smiled.

“You know,” she said. “I could kill you where you stand. But you know what turns me on? Forcing two men fight to the death over me, especially two friends. Paul?”

I risked another glance over in time to see Paul’s face harden into a cold blue stare. Then he did something he wasn’t supposed to do. He stood.

Folks, I neglected to mention it earlier, but Paul Kurtz was a huge man. He stood at least six-four, a good six inches on me.

I tried hard to wrench the shotgun away from Beth Ann, but she had both hands on it now. Then what felt like a giant frozen ham slammed into the side of my head. I had to let go of the shotgun in order to, well, fall down.

Paul was on top of me, slamming fist after fist into my face. Finally, some of my old military training started to kick in and I managed to get my hands out from under him and deflect some of the shots. After a little more squirming, I was able to plant a knee or three into his ribs. That was when he snaked one his huge hands past mine and clamped it on my throat.

“That’s it!” Beth Ann laughed gleefully. “Crush his windpipe for me, pumpkin.”

Paul clamped down harder and began to press his weight down on me. I clawed helplessly at his hands. The prospect of dying was scary. But the look in his eyes was nothing short of terrifying. He didn’t know who I was. He didn’t know who he was. He was simply going to kill or die trying.

I noticed a change. By shifting all his weight onto my throat, he had brought his knees off the floor just a bit. I was able to lift him slightly and scramble out sideways. This ruined his leverage, so he let go to establish a better grip. I didn’t let him.

I managed to get to my feet before he could right his own hulking frame. So, I executed a nice roundhouse kick to his head. He stumbled backward, but didn’t fall. I rushed in, grabbed his legs, lifted, and took him to the floor again, this time with me on top.

WHAM! He hit hard, and I drove my forearm across his neck, going for the carotid artery. He struggled for a minute. I didn’t have the blood flow to his head cutoff completely, but I had his attention.

“Listen to me.” I grunted between gasps for air. “Remember something. Afghanistan. We were on the web. What was the name? Vox Popoli!”

He said nothing. Instead, he started pushing his hand up under my chin to try to force me to let up pressure. I held on.

“Think dammit!” I shouted through gritted teeth, “He made sense! Vox Day would never vote for Obama!”

For a moment, the pushing continued. Then his struggles became less enthusiastic. His hand fell away and the murderous expression faded. It was replaced by confusion.

“What the-? Walt, get the hell off me,” he said. “I promise not to vote for Obama.”

It was obvious from the way he had slumped onto his side that the paralysis had returned. I stood and looked around the room for Beth Ann. She hadn’t moved through the whole ordeal except to pick up my shotgun and point it at me.

I only remember firing three rounds. There was one more in the tube.

“Oh, come on, Beth Ann.” I said. “You may be a fempire, but you’re still a liberal. You don’t know how to use that thing and you know it. Give it here.” I could hear sirens in the distance.

“Hell no!” she shouted. “You have ruined everything! I’m going to kill you both now.”

“You can’t,” Paul said, playing up the exasperation. “He didn’t pump it after he fired that last round. And look,” he pointed. “The safety is on! See that little switch?”

“I know what a safety is!” she shouted angrily. She fumbled down and flipped the catch, unwittingly turning the safety on.

That was my chance. I rushed her. She tried to fire, but couldn’t. I grabbed the barrel, placed a foot on her stomach and twisted the shotgun away from her as hard as I could. She let go.

Beth Ann leaped to the ceiling and somehow clung there like a spider.

I flipped the safety off and aimed.

She jumped again and tried to get behind Paul, but--

BOOM!

Her near-headless body fell on top of him. He lay there completely helpless in a pool of her blood.

The sirens were getting loud, right outside. I pushed the body off of Paul and helped him back into his wheelchair. This was going to get ugly.

I was ready to walk outside with my hands over my head, when I heard more gunshots. It started with a few rounds of 9mm standard issue, then some shouting. Finally, a shotgun blast rattled the walls. I risked a peek through the blinds, into the blue-red-blue glow of the night.

People were pouring out of the houses into streets from all directions. They seemed to be trying to get to the police.

“Vote BARRACK!” they shouted.

Armstrong

This is my entry for Bruce Bethke's Whenever-He-Finds-The-Time-But-It-Usually-Lands-On-A-Friday Challenge.

Armstrong hadn't seen much of the world, but he knew instinctively that there could be nothing like resting on the banks of the Congo on a warm evening. He leaned back in the lush glass and watched the wide trail of water snake its way westward before merging into the swirling oranges and reds of the African sunset. It was good to be a chimp.

His reverie was broken by a noise in the brush behind him. Before he knew what was happening, nature had put him on his feet, alert for predators that seemed to lurk in every corner of the jungle. But it was only his mate, Tina. She made her way to his side and watched the water curiously for a moment before turning toward him. She made a subtle motion for him to follow, no doubt wanting him to do something more constructive with his time. With a sigh he took one last glance at the sunset, then turned and trailed behind slightly as she disappeared into thick vegetation.

Tina moved quickly up the invisible trail they had mapped out long ago and Armstrong became aware that she was agitated. Once, he stopped and let out a screech when some briars twisted into his dark fur and dug into the delicate skin underneath. She kept going without even a backward glance, so he was forced to catch up after he had freed himself. He felt a slight twinge of fear well up inside as they left the familiar path and plunged into the denser wilderness.

Finally, they came to a clearing punctured in the center by a small crater. He could smell the turmoil in her as she motioned into the pit. Whatever waited in there had upset her greatly. Armstrong stepped cautiously forward and peered past her.

Something large and shiny lay in the crater. Armstrong had seen similarly colored shapes move up and down the Congo, carrying men and cargo to unknown destinations. But this was different. The water craft were smaller and had open tops. What lay in the crater was round and had a sizable hole in the side revealing only a glimpse of its dark interior--

Beep!

Armstrong screeched and jumped reflexively back into the brush at the strange sound. His heart raced as he peered back toward the clearing. Tina motioned for him to return to her side, obviously having heard the sound before. When he regained his frangible wits and joined her at the edge of the crater, she touched his arm and led him down, closer to the strange shape.

For some reason, as they approached the--craft, he had decided to call it--Tina moved away and gestured for him to look inside. He shook his head. There was no way he was going to stick his head into that dark space. She touched his arm again gently and looked at him in reassurance. From her eyes, he could tell that it was both safe and unsettling.

Beep!

Armstrong took a deep breath and began the short walk into the crater toward the object. The dark opening seemed to grow, ready to swallow him as soon as he drew near. He gulped and took the last steps. The black maw was within reach. He took one last glance back at Tina who waited patiently at the edge of the crater. Then he turned and leaned his body inside.

At first, he could see nothing in the black interior. Then the smell hit him. Decay. Something had died in the craft. He fought down the urge to run, although it sprang up inside like an artesian well. Slowly, his eyes adjusted to the dimness and he could make out a shape at the far side. A red light came on--

Beep!

The interior of the craft was briefly bathed in a crimson glow and he saw the rotting skeleton strapped into a chair. There was no stopping the geiser of fear this time. In a flash, he found himself next to Tina, hand around her arm, dragging her back into the safety of the thick brush. This time, she didn't resist. And he didn't stop until he had found his way back to the Community.

Once there among the rest of their extended family, Armstrong began to feel better and the pouding of his heart subsided slightly. The Alpha looked him over and sniffed suspiciously at them both, no doubt sensing the fear. After a moment, though, he chose to leave them alone and Armstrong led his mate up into their favorite tree.

They moved easily from branch to branch, working their way high into the giant canopy. There was one spot, high up, where it was possible to see for miles, with a great view of the river. The sun was disappearing below the horizon, and he could hear some of the others working their way up into the tree.

Armstrong wedged himself between two branches and caressed Tina's face. For a long moment, nothing else existed, not the darkening sky, nor the tree, nor the river, just those eyes.

Then, somewhere off in the distance, he heard the sound again.

Beep.

The monotonous tone filled him with dread. Tina reach out and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder which made eased his agitation a bit.

A few minutes later, another chimp climbed into the small clearing of the canopy. Armstrong hissed a warning for him to leave and the other chimp cringed slightly, but reached out to give him something. Tina cautiously backed away a few steps.

Armstrong took the piece of cloth in his hand. There was something familiar about it. He unfolded it and saw that something had been painted there. A terrible realization struck him like a fist! He screeched in pain and shuffled down toward the ground, upsetting the others as he swung past them, branch to branch.

A moment later, he was on the ground, leaning against the trunk and blind with grief. He glanced up. Tina had been right behind, he had heard her call to him. She wasn't there. A warm wind blew through the tree. There was no other sound. Armstrong was alone. Alone.

Bit by bit, fragmented memories came flooding back to him. As they did, everything began to change. Patches of bright pinkish red appeared in the sky. Many of the trees appeared to melt into the river as if they had decided to migrate downstream.

Beep.

He wasn't so sure that he had heard the sound this time, or if his mind was playing tricks. It didn't matter.

All but a few sparse fruit trees had vanished now, and the river itself began to dry up like a mirage on a hot day, revealing only arid, red soil at the bottom of a deep caldera. Armstrong let out one more grief-stricken scream and then collapsed into a heap. Alone.



"I've got the beacon," said Navigator Jeffrey Lawson. He squinted at the glowing readout, then cursed and put on his thick glasses. They gave him a sort of wise, owlish look. "Feeding you the 'tudes now."

Captain Shri Chandra walked up behind him and peered at the LCD display. "Can you make out the site yet?"

"No, we're still too far out. Give me another fifteen."

The captain nodded walked back to the wide, unshielded portal. What had started out as nothing but a reddish speck in the black sky a few months ago had slowly grown to encompass the entire view. Soon he would be able to set this crate down on the surface of Mars. Then the real work would begin.

The joint U.S./India venture to set up a Martian colony was well behind schedule and more over-budget than virtually any program NASA had ever undertaken, surpassing even the Space Shuttle. Worse, support for it back home had gone south as the citizens had begun to pressure the legislatures of both countries to call a halt. Fortunately, it was too late. The ark ship Sagacity was entering orbit around the red planet.

Captain Chandra breathed a sigh of relief at that thought--not that he had any intention of staying on this god-forsaken desert rock. First chance he got, he planned to pull up the gangplank and set sail for Terra. With any luck at all, he'd be home in time for Navaratri in Paush.

"Got it!" Lawson shouted. He pressed a few buttons and a set of green crosshairs appeared, super-imposed onto the plexiglass of the portal. "You can't quite see it yet, not without mags, but..."

"It's really there," Chandra finished the thought. Not that there was any reason to doubt that the mechs had done their job of terraforming a large tract of the Martian terrain, but no one had actually seen it. And one could only see so much at once through the eyes of robots.

The two chimps they had sent ahead (much to the annoyance of certain political groups) had confirmed through their vital stat detectors that the air was no longer poisonous and the temperature was, if a bit chilly for Chandra's taste, relatively stable between the day and night hours.

"Take us there, Mister Lawson"


A deep rumbling startled Armstrong out of his slumber, sending a pleasant dream fleeing into forgetfulness. He opened his eyes and rolled over to look at the dark sky. His simian brain struggled and failed to make sense of what he saw. Lights. Lights hovering over the mango grove. Sweeping beams of light reached out to feel the ground. Searching. The rumbling got louder, almost deafening as they approached.

A part of him wanted to scramble into the jungle to escape detection. But then he remembered that there was no jungle. Not anymore.

A moment later, the huge--craft, like the one Tina had shown him, but much larger--passed over him. He was struck in the face by one of the beams of light, bright as the sun, it seemed. It lingered there for a few seconds, then resumed its searching as the craft continued on past.



"He's coming to," Doctor Shandilya said, moving his hand slowly left and right in front the monkey's eyes.

"He's okay?" the captain asked incredulously. "Which one is it?"

"It's Armstrong," the doctor smiled and shrugged. "They found him holding a scrap of cloth with a NASA logo. Looks like it came from the seat of the pod. And to answer your first question, well, I'm no vet, but the computer says he's just a bit dehydrated. He's got a nice IV drip to counteract that, now."

The chimp lay awake on the padded examining room table, staring blankly into the light. He seemed neither curious nor scared of his new surroundings.

"I always thought that the orangutan was more suited for space travel," Shandilya thought out loud.

"Armstrong..." Chandra repeated, typing on his dataTap. "That's A...R...M... Here it is." He scanned the entry. "Trained by a woman named Tina Niles. And there was another chimp. Yeager."

The doctor nodded. "I read that already. NASA received a confirmation code from Yeager's euthanizer."

"Euthanizer?" Captain Chandra's expression said he didn't want to hear the answer to his question.

"It's a small pump implanted in the skin..." he pressed his thumb along the Chimp's upper right arm. "Right about... here." He picked up a portable scanner and soon the image of a small, square device appeared on the screen behind the bed.

"What does it do?"

"Well, at a set time, it was supposed to deliver a lethal dose of morphine into the system. Looks like this one didn't do it's job properly."

Chandra's memory had obviously been jogged by that. "Right. Euthanization was considered more humane than being stranded on Mars to fend for themselves. Or worse, being stuck here alone if one of them didn't make it. That's exactly what happened, isn't it?"

The doctor gave a spurious smile and looked back at the display. "From the looks of this, I'd say the morphine leaked out slowly over time. Nothing left in there now except maybe a little Yen-shee."

"Well, Armstrong," Chandra said, though the chimp had slipped back to sleep. "Guess you spent the last several months high as a satellite." He laughed and crossed his arms. "But with all the weird people we've brought to this place, you're gonna wish you were alone again."


Armstromg felt the blanket of sleep settle over him. He dreamed of his evenings along the Congo. And of Tina.