There was something different about the rejuv process. Something drastically different. After about a hundred and twenty Standard years of being brought back as a clone you kinda get a feeling for how these things should go. Oh, there was nothing wrong with the process itself. It went smooth as a T’rilian’s bottom (in my opinion there was nothing smoother).
What was different was a huge jump forward in technology. The techs were all the same, they always were (being clones themselves). But I recognized none of the equipment. And everybody was shifty-eyed. No one would make eye contact with me, as though I had done something more wrong than usual.
I was pretty sure that I had done lots of things wrong, mind you, but couldn’t imagine that it could make these guys loathe me. Turns out I was wrong. I had killed every Jack and Jill of them—apparently multiple times. Slowly. With a dental laser.
I found out all of the gory details in my Mission Briefing. I had a new controller, a woman with big … hands, and small, beady eyes. Turns out I (and I do mean “I” in the loosest sense of the word) had gone rogue.
I was now the biggest threat to the Confed Republic.
Apparently, I wanted to take it over, rebuild it in my own image. I had already conquered thirty worlds and was steam-rolling my way to number thirty-one. All the operatives they had sent to terminate me had come back in small pieces with their memory chips burned. Everyone was in a panic.
I must say that I was secretly proud of myself. Ofhimself.
Whatever.
Everybody had apparently given up until this chick with cold eyes like blue glass had had the bright idea to rejuv me. I guess they figured that no one could beat “me” but me. So they brought me back, uploaded my memory chip. Pretty standard. Then they wiped about sixty years of memory. They brought me back, younger, meaner, full of piss and vinegar, to go against myself. A “myself” that had sixty years of hard-bitten combat experience on me. A “myself” that was familiar with the new hardware that the Confed scientists had thunk up. A “myself” that was, admittedly, a hell of a lot crazier than I am. Was.
Whatever.
They wanted to load me up with the new hardware. I even considered it for a moment. I mean, after all, who doesn’t like playing with new toys? But then I came to my senses. There was no way that I was going to go against myself with anything but equipment that I had one hundred and ten percent mastery of.
When I asked my controller why I had rebelled, there was a moment of embarrassed silence. Then she told me that there had been a pay dispute.
My pay, or rather his pay, had temporarily been garnished. I could tell that she didn’t want to go into the seamy details of why and who had made such a lame-brained decision. She assured me that the matter of my pay had been straightened out, with interest. Then she paused and licked her dry lips. Would I accept the mission? I could name my own terms; they would pay me anything I asked for.
Anything? Even a hundred million credits? She didn’t even bat an eye. She just pressed a button on her data pad and transferred the funds. No negotiation. Payment of an absurd sum of money. I must really have had them by the short hairs.
Then I started with my list of demands.
I would need Szorilium armor. I would need two eight-barreled Branson miniguns with two thousand rounds of ammunition for each. I would need grenades: three shrapnel, three gas, and two incendiary. I would need my old comrades in arms: Brutus, Hawk, and Flint. I would need a Stetson hat and a pack of Hoyu cigars. They had six hours to get everything together.
They told me that the Branson Corporation was now defunct and that their miniguns could only be found in museums.
I advised them that they had better send someone over to the get me two, plus four thousand rounds of ammunition and enough clips to hold them. My reunion with Brutus, Hawk and Flint was bittersweet. Turns out I had killed them, too. They no longer trusted me.
Even though they knew that I was not the “me” that had killed them, their faces still clenched up when they looked at me.
It made me wonder whether or not I would have to worry about being shot in the back. Well, it wouldn’t be the first time, and I was sure that it wouldn’t be the last.
When I offered to split my fee with them though, their attitude changed in a jiffy. A hundred million credits can be a powerful incentive to an attitude adjustment.
But enough reminiscing, all of that head thinking will get a man killed in a hot zone awful quick. I needed to focus on the present. On the now. On the feel of the armor. The smell of my sweat. The weight of the twin Branson miniguns (Cindy and Mindy).
I checked my ammo clips to make sure that I could get them when I needed them. I checked my grenade bandoleer. Everything was good to go for the showdown of the century: Tex versus Tex.
“Tex, you snake,” I growled, “I’m coming to get you.” Then I chuckled. No matter how this turned out, I would win.
