While the crowd was still applauding and cheering furiously, Argus and Venix withdrew from the dance-floor. The wardrobe lady urged them to take the back exit from her office.
"Good luck, the both of you. Seeing you up there made me feel fifty years younger."
With a smile, she shut the door after them, and they found themselves in a dark back-alley. A nearby flight of stairs led to a rooftop, five floors up.
"Come," he suggested, "let's go up and look at the sea."
They quickly ascended the stairs, and a panorama of the old city opened up to their view. Not far off, the Oresund strait glittered with reflected light. Visible to the naked eye, the lights of the flat Swedish coastline lay along the horizon. The old bridge across the strait was a pearl-string of multicolored spotlights, illuminating the waters with blue, green, and red.
"It's beautiful," Venix said, then slowly turned to face him.
"You are beautiful," he told her in a low voice. He nudged closer, but hesitated to touch her; this was not the dance-floor, and he didn't know the rules anymore. "I never imagined there could be someone like you."
"I was so lonely all these years," she said, almost whispering. "I waited for them to create another one like me."
"You knew I was being created?"
"Not really. They told me nothing after I became... like this, but when I heard news that Boulder Pi was recruited by the military, I knew. I saw you on the broadcasts, waited, hoped..."
"I want you to know that -"
"Wait. Don't speak, not with words. Let me connect with you. Please."
She held up the palm of her left hand to him. She blinked, giving a mental command, and the cortex port opened in her hand. With great care, he put his palm against hers, then grew still and looked into her eyes.
"What is going to happen when we connect?" he asked.
"I don't know. I've given this a lot of thought. We are what we are. And time runs so slowly for me. I waited a very long subjective time for this. There has been no one... who could really see me. People of flesh, as soon as they come near me, think I'm not really living. I can feel it, see it. But with someone like me, someone like you, it could be different. Has to be."
"Maybe we'll hurt each other. There is so much inside my head. I may not be the man you imagined me to be. I'm not..." He went through a thousand expressions in two seconds. "... all pleasant."
"I can take it. Please alleviate this loneliness. I can show you... who I really am. What I truly feel."
The sight of her beautiful face, pleading, made his doubts vanish. With a mental command, Argus unlocked his cortex port and pressed his palm more firmly against hers. A small click, and they connected -
***
Argus lost his sense of seeing. He found himself swimming in a sea... of indecipherable data, an all-encompassing flood of wave-patterns.
Somewhere, he heard Venix' voice: Help me find you! I can't see...
Hang in there...
He calmed himself mentally, breathed slower, and tried to align himself with the pulsing frequencies of the flowing data-stream. It didn't work; their minds were not tuned exactly alike. Argus felt an idea float into his consciousness, as if it had drifted by and clung to him like a leaf in a wind.
Try and think of the same thing as I, he called out into the void. It'll get us in tune with each other. Yes. What? I'm thinking of... an old song from that dance-house. Play it in your mind, in the right rhythm... 'Let's Dance'.
Venix thought of the song, its melancholy sequences and arresting tempo. And it worked - the torrential rain of information from Argus's brain began to assume a shape in her mind's eye. In the void, she saw his face emerge, as if the rest of him was submerged in shadow. Then Argus saw her face fade in too - also without a body.
He smiled at her, thinking that he wanted to touch her face - and with the thought, his hand materialized out of the void. It was his old hand - a flesh-and-blood one - and he could feel his heartbeat pulse through it. As he reached out toward Venix, her shoulder faded in where his hand touched. In this space of pure information, they could resurrect their former bodies - all of them.
Venix floated closer in the void, and formed feet and hands of flesh. There was no ground to stand on; her legs, when they formed, tumbled slightly. Argus and Venix grabbed each other's hands, with human, not cyborg strength, and pulled their faces closer to each other. When Argus smelled the organic fragrance of her red, flowing hair, his entire body came back in full, with sweat, muscles and desire.
Man and woman embraced hard, and her complete form was soft and warm in his hands. He caressed her skin; she moaned out loud, and the void around them seemed to pulse with cascading waves of sensory data...
Falling through the unending streams of data-bits, they made love with their dreams of what could have been, one imaginary woman locked with one imaginary man. In the space of each objective second, they experienced minutes of complete communion. Did their time together last days, months, years? They could not, would not know...
They opened up each other's memories, good and bad, and learned who they were...
Venix' real name had been Venice Cherkessian, an unknown person before she was turned into a cyborg. She grew up in a colonial settlement on Venus, in moderate prosperity, before she was forced to move to Earth with her family. The transition from Venus to Earth caused her health to deteriorate, and she became a sickly teenager. Argus beheld her first memory of meeting Boulder Pi, nearly ten years ago: the man visited in the form of a hologram, while living on the Moon, before the colonial wars began.
"Hello, Miss Cherkessian. Boulder Pi. Jovian, yes, I know. Having probs Earth-talk. Excuse me. Talking too fast? Yes. In speech-therapy... catch on slowly... call me a dumb foreigner. A joke. Heard the one about two Jovians who shared an Earthman's space-suit?"
Argus felt, experiencing this memory, what Venice Cherkessian had felt - pity and just a little contempt. But that awkward little man, so lost and full of self-loathing, was a cybernetic genius. He asked Venice to try out a new process that might save her life - the "N-Plastifier", which converted nervous tissue into semi-organic plastic, preserving the structure and mind while destroying the flesh. She understood that this might mean immortality - or possibly a kind of death. And though Venice had several caring friends and a decent PP index, she couldn't raise enough support to finance the risky process.
Each passing month saw an increase in her dependence on expensive drugs to stay upright. She was forced to cease dancing, which only served to isolate her and make her feel worse.
After a year, Boulder's holo-presence returned to Venice with good news: he had found sponsors for his project. One was the military; the other, a fabulously rich tycoon who had followed Venice's case on the public networks and grown fond of her. Venice was twenty-two years old at this time. After much hesitation, she volunteered to travel to the Moon and undergo Boulder Pi's treatment.
Venice didn't think of her life as particularly important; in her short lifetime, she had not yet accomplished much. The drive to survive was strong in her, and remained so, together with the sense of duty to her family and community.
The transformation, in her memory, was a blur of confused impressions and long periods of unconsciousness. But she came through - as a kind of half-finished android, an idealized form of the young woman she had been, that would never age further.
Boulder Pi's budget had not allowed Venice to be entirely covered by the expensive artificial skin - so the white "bodysuit" became a permanent feature. Her new form was in other ways an improvement; several times stronger than flesh and blood, driven by pure energy. She remembered the aggravating clumsiness of her new body's first movements, the hard training to regain muscle control... and the triumphs of her re-conquered body. She too, had struggled of grasping a crystal glass without shattering it - and like Gus, she won.
Venice, now called "Venix", became a instant dancing sensation. For a brief few weeks, she seemed destined for interplanetary fame... when her world fell apart. The war preparations were in full swing, and the military began to claim she was partly their property. The benign tycoon who had sponsored half of her treatment died at an age of almost 200 years, and bequeathed one-third of his considerable estate to her. His relatives were furious.
The lengthy court battle ended in a devastating verdict: the court of the World Council could not decide upon Venix' legal status. Was she, it asked, a human being or just an artificial creation? She saw her inheritance taken over to be "supervised" by the tycoon's relatives. The court case also generated a vicious smear campaign, which hit the Cherkessian family hard.
Venix' popularity and PP index plummeted; she barely had time to pay for her family's journey back to the home planet, before she became stranded - broke - on Earth.
In the years that followed, Venix - her friends scared away by the rumors that she was not the "real" human being - became a freelancer, dancing for pathetic PP alms in small joints across the planet. In places such as Wear Clothes and We Let You In, the old and poor were moved by her dance and her strangely vulnerable face, and donated enough PP for her to support herself.
Argus moved through these touching memories, seeing all they had in common, almost became the woman he had fallen in love with, then retreated and became himself again. He opened up the doors of his mind and let Venix reach though the protective barriers he had erected, a defense of his soft inner core against the world, and exposed his memories to her inner eye. To Venix this was a new degree of intimacy, which no other being could provide: frightening and ecstatic, subtle and raw at once.
She could see in his mind what would never change, the essence of his identity: the fighter, the primitive man that still survived as a maze of electrical impulses in a network of plastic threads. He fought and hurt others in a struggle for glory, survival and self-control. The fight went on without pause, also within him, as he fought his own desires, rages and frustrations. The boxing-ring of the mind was presided over by a referee that could never be seen, except by implication.
Sometimes it might have the voice of Gus Thorsen's father, telling him what was right and wrong, sometimes the toad-like mouth of his stepmother, condemning him for being lazy... and sometimes the referee had the Kansler's uniform.
The "ring" could be the dusty, dry Australian outback, or the crowded cities where he worked, or the boxing ring, or the gym in Kuwait. But it was always a fight, and the square of the ring and its implicit rules always defined the absolute borders of each memory...
Venix dived below the squared fighting space in the man's mind, and found something underneath: a large, sleeping Dalmatian. The lettering on he dog's collar read "Giddog". Next to the Dalmatian appeared a miniature replica of Venix, resting her head against the dog's back.
And the dog's face turned into the likeness of Gus's face, with the broken nose. The apparition blurred, and Venix felt herself merge into it...
Their mutual feelings now transformed into a bond, stronger than anything else in their previous lives. They embraced across the streams of data, and became one ...
A warning-signal, repetitive and insistent, came on at the edges of their linked consciousness. Ignoring it, they kissed for another few subjective minutes. The signal persisted. Their flesh-and-blood shapes began to dissolve, glide apart...
A message blinked on Argus's internal display: NAVBUTLER LASER TRANSMISSION... ARGUS, YOU ARE BEING SURROUNDED BY ROBOT UNITS. SUGGEST EXIT ROUTE?
Argus instinctively withdrew his cortex port and closed it. He was back in the real world, in his synthetic form, and felt the mild, salty breeze from the strait blow at their bodies. With a guilty glance to Venix' frightened face, he responded: YES.
NAVBUTLER SUGGESTION: TAKE NW ROUTE THROUGH RIVER. YOU ARE INSULATED AND WATERPROOF... VENIX ALSO.
Without a word Argus lifted Venix in his arms as if she was featherlight, took a five-meter leap over to the next rooftop, and dived feet-first the five floors down, into the murky channel waters. The two cyborgs plunged into the dark channel - and sank like rocks to the bottom, twelve feet down. Argus tugged at Venix' arm and they began to kick with their feet, swimming in unison rhythm.
***
On the channel's surface, several floating leisure-gondolas and restaurants were slowly cruising through old Copenhagen. The deck of a small bar, the Dannebrog Kro, was going through a slow night with only a few drinking guests. One of them, a Fleet agent dressed up as Private Krautkopf on leave, watched the passing houses and streets.
"Looking for something?" asked the bartender - a human being - while mixing drinks for a couple sitting next to Krautkopf.
"Looking for some action," Krautkopf said with a knowing grin, and added: "Say, did you hear a splash?"
As he held his beer-glass to his lips, a powerful surge cut along the channel. It passed below the floating bar with the speed of a passing ground car, and the entire platform lurched. Krautkopf's beer splashed up into his face.
He sent an urgent message with the thought-controlled radio inside his cap: "I think target just passed my position.... Send squad to mouth of channel..."
Four street blocks and one minute later, Argus and Venix climbed up from the filthy channel and sneaked into an alley. The water dripped right off them, for their hair and skin was unable to absorb any. The channel mouth and the sea were close - and closely guarded. They both knew what they must do, and hugged each other.
"I'll come back for you," he said into her ear, which resembled a human ear. It occurred to him that no woman would ever be able to kiss him in the ear again, the way he had enjoyed in his previous existence. Except for Venix, when they were connected.
"When?"
"Couple of months, maybe... if they ask about me, what'll you tell them?"
"I'll tell them that what's going on between the two of us is none of the military's damn business."
They kissed - with soft lips and dry, smooth plastic tongues, neither having saliva glands. And they separated, trying to make each microsecond feel longer, and darted off in opposite directions. No further discussion was needed; in their melding of minds, the two cyborgs had exchanged enough thoughts to last a long time. Both were aware of the risks of being exposed by the Fleet's propaganda machine, or simply by an invasion of privacy.
Argus ran to a dead end, braced himself, and took a tremendous leap up against a thirty-foot brick wall. He caught hold of a parapet - it crumbled in his hands - and heaved himself up onto the rooftop. From there, he could glimpse the white and red shape of Venix, running away into a house. Argus suddenly felt weak; he clutched at his ink-black chest; his nervous system must be playing tricks with him again.
He scanned the house that Venix had escaped into a second time, in the entire spectrum, and focused his hearing apparatus on the house's darkened windows. Bits of noises and voices came through, with a distinct character. It could only mean one thing. For a fraction of a second, Argus considered his options.
He ran toward the edge of the roof, took a long jump across the street and into the open canal, facing the house on the other side. With another power leap, he flew up from the waters and onto the street, sprung into a charge, and smashed right through the door. In the time it took a normal man to blink, he saw what was happening inside.
Not once did Venix cry for help; she was trying to escape on her own, when Argus crashed into the large room.
Less than half a minute earlier, having parted ways with Argus, Venix rushed into what seemed like an abandoned building. Every street-level block of Old Copenhagen had Fleet robots and intelligence officers posted inside. The moment she sneaked into the large, empty warehouse, guard robots rushed out of hiding and blocked all exits.
The Fleet's standardized, multi-purpose guard robot could think on the level of a trained dog. It was as loyal to any Fleet officer as a dog to its master. While usually not programmed to kill, a guard drone knew more than 100 ways of stunning, injuring, or incapacitating a human being. The machine generally measured about six feet in height, and walked on two clunky, clawed feet with a great amount of noise.
When not in active duty, it rolled around on small wheels. Its gray plastic-and-aluminum hull could withstand some laser fire and small explosions, and sported a dozen slits and portholes from which various eyes and arms protruded. The guard robot mostly resembled a rotund, enormous Swiss Army Knife on legs.
Before Venix could run back the way she came, the reinforced front door was slammed shut and locked. In the gloom, strong spotlights from eight robots lit up in her face. She was only briefly blinded; with a quick mental command, she set the light-sensitivity of her artificial eyes down and switched to ultraviolet vision.
The eight guard robots became audible to her as they began to march with the speed of a running man; Venix could not run as fast as Argus, and was surrounded in seconds. She didn't speak, nor did her breathing reflexes increase. All she needed to do, she knew, was to distract these goons until Argus could get away from the prying eyes of the Fleet's agents. Thirty padded metal arms stretched and elongated out to grab her.
She took a high jump into the air, and got hold of a rusty iron beam. She heaved her weight onto the old beam, and stood up. It immediately began to bend under the weight of her metal skeleton and electromagnetic muscles. Balancing without difficulty on the creaking beam, Venix paced toward the wall, just thirty feet away...
The robots shot out taser-hooks, and sent several hundred volts through the beam. Venix felt a prickling sensation; her artificial skin and hull insulated her internal workings almost perfectly. In one second, her hands could almost touch the wall... and were held back.
The drones hosed riot-foam - a transparent stream of superglue bubbles that glued her feet to the beam, and the foam dried almost instantly.
She lost her balance, fell over and hung by her feet from the bent beam. Still struggling to buy time for her lover, Venix bent forward and writhed to get free.
A letter display on a robot's face plate thrust out on a telescopic arm and flashed a series of warnings to her: STOP. YOU ARE UNDER ARREST. FLEET POLICE AUTHORITY. SURRENDER. BE QUIET. YOU ARE BREAKING THE LAW. AWAIT INTERROGATION BY FLEET OFFICIAL.
She reached out at one of the padded robot arms, and pulled with all that she got. The machine was very strong, but easily fooled - when she suddenly pulled in the other direction, it tumbled to the side, clanking into a second drone that also fell over. Suddenly, a dozen robot arms pinned her down, and sent multiple electric shocks through her, overriding the insulation. She began to really feel the shocks, and shook in a spasm -
Argus came flying through the front door, feet first, smashing its hinges like tinfoil. In a second, he was lunging at the large drones surrounding the twisting Venix. He grabbed the largest drone with both his arms, and emitting a furious grunt he threw it back over his head - into the smashed doorway, where it crunched stuck like a cork. The other nine guard robots turned to meet Argus with taser-rods, riot-foam and brute mechanical force - in the space of a few moments, he ripped several of them apart.
The flashing messages on the robot screens rapidly changed: STOP. STOP. HELP. TAKE ME TO A REPAIR CENTER. POWER FAILURE. LOSS OF ARMS, LEGS. HELP.
The remaining two robots ran away into corners, shooting riot-foam in all directions. By simply moving very fast and shaking himself, Argus shrugged off the glue-bubbles before they stuck on his black hide. He leaped up, pulled down the beam so that the hanging Venix could reach the floor, and pulled her free of the superglue. She hugged him, even then knowing he should not have returned, loving him all the more.
"Please run. You must."
"No more running away," he said tersely. "We're still human beings. We have rights. Time to let them hear it." A flying tank crashed in through the front entrance, shoving the smashed-up robots aside. Venus made a move to retreat, but Argus held her close. "This abuse must end," he said, loudly enough for the men in the tank to pick up through its sensors. "I will not allow her to be treated this way in my absence."
A familiarly accented voice came from the tank's door as it opened and soldiers spilled out: "You disappoint me, you two. I arranged for you to meet, as a reward for your work and loyalty. We cannot have obstinacy in the Fleet's elite, Argus. Time to remind you who created you... and who commands you."
Abruptly, Venix felt Argus go limp; she gasped in terror as he slumped down on the floor as if dead; a few snapping noises came from his limbs as the major electric circuits in his cyborg body shut down.
She knelt down, caressed his paralyzed face, and pleaded: "Gus? Speak to me! Please..."
"He can hear you, Venix," said the voice, and she glanced over her shoulder to see the Kansler appear in hologram form. She understood at once, how afraid the Kansler was of "his" creations, and he ought to be - she wanted to kill him with her bare hands.
"What've you done to him, you monster?"
"Just a simple shutdown of the major motor systems. It is only mildly painful... had I wanted him to suffer, I would have induced muscle cramps instead. Argus belongs to the Fleet, to his allegiance to Mother Earth. Argus, I know you can hear me. Don't fight us; fight the real enemy. Remember your duty. Remember that whatever harm comes to Earth, befalls Venix too... and she stays in protective custody, under Fleet guard, until you return from your first tour. She shall be watched over. No other human being shall touch her, that's a promise."
Through the paralysis Argus stayed conscious, feeling Venix touch his face, hearing her pleas. He had let her down. And he hated the Kansler - who somehow knew a way of shutting him down by remote, and had presented a covert threat against Venix. It seemed to Argus as if he was regarding himself from outside; the squad of Fleet men rushed in, and carried him and Venix away. He saw her being held by more robots that pushed her into a personnel carrier in the street.
Venus looked at him through the windshield as the craft took off, and he could read her lips forming the words "Love you" before she disappeared from view. Another, larger carrier landed on the canal to ship him off... into space, to the waiting flagship and its commander.
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