NO MEMORY
#23
by Stanley Lieber
THE STATE
"And rookies ain’t the only ones that drop"
— Threat, Color Blind
DET-86, Mars. 1984.
"No, see, Gaff has to be human," Thomas was saying. "Some or most of them might already be gone, but I refuse to surrender this notion that a handful of especially clever humans have set the machines against themselves. Dekard can be a synthetic, fine, but surely you can agree that Gaff is, at the very least, his handler. And so here’s my pitch for the third movie: Deckard does indeed leave Earth for the Off-World Colonies, where he arrives, years or decades later, having been misrouted during transit. The recipient takes delivery and immediately switches him back on, then, surprise for Deckard, here’s another human being, his contact, apparently, telling him all about the Blackout Event (circa 2022) that wiped out all human life on Earth. Only problem is, half the machines left on the ground don’t realize they’re machines. Gaff’s controllers, whoever they might be, are folding their fingers into hand tents, grinning keenly, as one-half the replicant population hunts the other half to extinction. Neat as you like."
Piotr nodded.
"Anyway, fuck movies," Thomas said. "Let’s go outside and play."
Thomas popped the latch on his lookout and scanned the horizon. All clear. He made a foothold with his gloved hands, and boosted Piotr up, out of the hole, into the pink sand. The sand was coarse, and irritating. It got everywhere. There would be no shortage of irritations in this life, but of course Thomas had known that when he signed up.
Piotr double-checked with his binoculars, sliding his eyes across the sand formations that appeared like subliminal breasts airbrushed into the background of a rock album cover. The bitch in the dunes was laughing at his expense.
"She’s gone," Piotr said.
The ship.
"No surprise, after what we pulled. Let’s give her a few days to cool off, eh?"
"Why?" Piotr asked.
It was fine to sell coke to the government. The supply was provably infinite, and, anyway, it made the legislature happy. It helped them to forget about ever going home. Call it a perk of the office.
Strictly speaking, the government was meant to be kept squirreled away, sequestered levels below the so-called drug area, but it was still easy enough for him to make deliveries by hand. Thomas would be visiting in the course of his duties, either way. Call it an obligation of rank.
Not that Thomas bothered to justify himself, either out loud or in his head. Reader, it was not for him to think such thoughts. Suffice to say that he fulfilled the requirements of his lofty position within acceptable parameters. And he’d recently been promoted, so he must be doing something right. Call it a day.
Piotr continued to monitor for errors. They had to be coming from the customer side. Soon enough, he spotted them. The Little Green Men.
"There go those motherfuckers right there," he whispered into his collar mic.
Thomas couldn’t see them. Still fiddling with his visor.
"I can’t see them," he admitted. "But you go ahead. I’ll catch up with you as soon as this update completes."
"If it ever does," he added, under his breath. Signal here could be stronger.
Piotr adjusted the angle of his pistol slightly, aligning it more precisely with the throat of his quarry, the recently subdued point man of the Little Green Men. He was sitting on the man’s chest, and the pink dust was still settling around them. As ever, he held his smile in reserve.
"I—I didn’t think you’d recognize me," sputtered the Little Green Man, his accent fluctuating now, admittedly under duress, additionally muddled by his years spent abroad, toiling inexpertly behind a physical computer keyboard.
Piotr didn’t respond.
The silo reminded him of home. No, not the Chrysler Building, not even West Berlin, but the humble depths of the downtown missile silo in Manhattan where he’d grown up. Though he never remarked upon it out loud, Piotr often reminded him of his long lost childhood friend, Peter.
Also, there was that guy at summer camp. The combatives instructor.
Thomas couldn’t keep them straight in his head. He was bad with names, and also, faces. Presently, he became distracted by the next item on his agenda, and abruptly dropped the pleasant reminiscence, retaining no memory of its passing.
The Senate was moving to new chambers.
