First
Quarter Moon
“The
essential part of this and all other projects currently being explored is one
Benjamin Wya Grey. Mr. Grey is sixteen, white non-Caucasian being of -” The
cultured face twisted in what might have been distaste - “Being of mixed-blood
American Indian, and Caucasian of some obscure Eastern European background.
Possibly Moldavia or the Ukraine. In the years we have studied him he has shown
much promise. He is five foot, six inches tall, of a gentle demeanor.
“No
matter how he might wish otherwise, the subject is no fighter. He’s too
backward and unable to put himself in danger.” Or is he? One elegant eyebrow
arched. Someone had put an end to that odious man, Bellisario. “With our
training and his own natural shyness, the subject is able to put any female
subject at perfect ease. At this he was highly successful.”
Too
dammed successful. Cindy shifted in her seat and blushed half in anger, half in
warm, languid pleasure.
“In
our training program he was, well, not what one would wish in a subject, but was
coming along quite nicely, before the raid.”
In
dull amusement Cindy VanTur drooped boneless in her chair, watching the pictures
roll by on the screen of her monitor. It showed the subject from the time he was
yet in swaddling clothes to the drama now taking place in the Wilkes-Barre
courthouse. Her people were good at what they did. Very good. A gift from a
prominent and highly successful politician, an electric pen moved in slender,
nervous hands.
The
tape appeared to be just the thing for the next board meeting. Voice a low
mutter, she said, “It had dammed well better be. I’m sick to death of
wasting my time with those old fossils.”
Eyes
flashed cold fire at the thought of men and women who worried more about
re-election and the common herd that put them in office than what was good for
the all. Outwardly serene, she settled into the butter soft leather of the
chair. The pen cracked in half and she tossed it away.
Out
of the black metallic powder crept a tiny, diamond ‘cockroach.’ It fumbled
through an avalanche of discarded paper and candy wrappers, emerging near the
top. Facetted skin darkened to a matte-black. Six legs moved with lightning
speed up the inside of the waste can, over it, and down. The first pair of legs
slid up to become antennae.
At
the base of Cindy’s chair it sliced through the leather and pushed in, moving
up through an almost dustless interior. Coming to a stop only at wooden parts,
it cut through them until it was in the arm.
Waiting
for directions, it paused. Too small for human eyes to detect, a single red
light flashed in its head. Leather melted.
The
‘cockroach’ thinned to a ‘worm,’ slid out, and attached itself to
Cindy’s dress. Cindy’s words were transmitted to a co-worker, then on to
Washington, DC, and a small office in the Chinese embassy
A few
yards away, an elderly woman paused in her listless devotion to cleaning an
office cubical, reached up to poke at a cheap hearing aide in her right ear, and
began again and endless motion with a dust rag.
The
bug flashed a return signal. Powered off the same source as the collar used on
Benny, human-produced electricity, it had the ability to transmit for only a few
hundred feet, but in the quality of its make-up, a lifetime.
“Thus
far, only Grey has shown the potential needed to make the Project viable. If the
Project is to be the success as calculated, then Grey must be returned to us. America, and the world, will become a safer,
cleaner place.”
Project
Janissary, directed by the Central Intelligence Agency since about 1968, funded
by idiots such as Auntie Harriet, grew too large, too fast. All hell broke loose
one morning, beginning with a revolt among the host-slaves, culminating in a
raid by local police.
What
started as a way to spy on foreign nations was destined to become the basis of
Earth Peace Association. Project Janissary slave-soldiers, directing the minds
of humanity to an era of unprecedented peace and prosperity. All hail.
“Grey’s
abilities are not yet measurable. The sky is the limit.”
Cindy’s
eyes drifted shut on a frown. Growing hesitant, she said, “It is quite
unfortunate, yet possible, that once we have acquired sufficient contributions
it will be necessary to . . . terminate the subject.”
She
lolled back in the chair.
Terminate.
Her word, yes. Cindy’s eyes misted. Benny would have to go, but not just yet.
They needed him back, were running out of ‘donations’ to the breeding
program. His offspring would take the Party to unheard of pinnacles. She glanced
at a floating holograph of the world and the pinpoints that represented stars.
Soon the Project would continue to explore and to conquer beyond this earth.
Yet, no Benny, no Project. In anticipation, cyborg-computers were being
constructed. What would it take? With his body out of the way, would Benny
finally become tractable?
Cindy’s
eyes narrowed. The idea of Benny reduced to only a brain encased in a machine
brought a delicate shudder to Cindy’s fair body. One slender slapped a hand
down on the intercom.
“Terry?
Cindy here. Get me . . . oh, what was that fool’s name?” She punched up the
Rolodex on her computer. Ah, yes, here it is. Benny was as good as in her hands.
From those hands he would never again escape. The boy would simply have to come
to realize that their need of him, the needs of the world, was of far more
importance than some archaic emotion he considered to be freedom.
He
was of a servant class. Yet her Benny was far from subservient, the little rat.
In
his office the Chinese embassy complex, the man’s eyes widened. He bared small
white teeth and began issuing orders.
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