Galaxy's Edge Magazine: Issue 7: March 2014 (24 page)

That’s when the lights blazed to life and the clowns rushed in.

They poured through the doors and surrounded me, cutting off all escape routes. Laughing, howling, giggling, they closed in around me, jagged teeth glistening.

Then, one at a time, they charged toward me and exploded. I dodged once, then twice, barely avoiding being blown to bits along with the clowns.

The next time, three come at me at once.

***

The three clowns charge toward me from three different directions, shrieking like berserk Vikings. As beat as I am, I can’t imagine that one of them won’t get me. Maybe I’ll be better off that way, going out with
a bang instead of fading painfully as the cancer takes me.

But something deep inside clicks into place, and I refuse to give up. Maybe it’s just that I’d rather go down fighting, or maybe it’s plain stubbornness. Maybe it’s sheer anger after what I’ve been through. Does it even matter?

Sucking in a deep breath between shattered teeth, I gather what strength I’ve got left—which isn’t much—and leap into action.

Just as the clowns are nearly upon me, I dart out of the way. They collide and explode with shuddering force, spraying clown bits in all directions … but no Cage Grice bits. Though the blast knocks me down hard, I’m still alive.

But for how long?
Even as I hurry to get back on my feet, I hear more floppy shoes smacking toward me. Looking around, I see three clowns … four …
five
this time, shrieking and charging in my direction all at once.

Looking around frantically, I wonder what my next move should be. Running and dodging seems to be the only choice. If I try to fight the clowns hand-to-hand, I’m guessing they’ll blow up on contact.

Wait! Maybe that’s the key.

On the floor a few feet away, I see the blown-off arm of one of the dead clowns. I bolt toward it, grab it up, and keep running, heading straight for the nearest of the five attackers.

I haul the severed arm back like a baseball bat, gripping the wrist and hand, and swing it hard at the clown’s chest. As soon as the arm makes contact, the shrieking clown explodes.

The blast knocks me off my feet, and I roll twice with the impact. When I come to a stop, I see another clown almost upon me with arms outstretched.

Kicking off the shoes, I scoop one up and whip it at the clown with all my might. He explodes in mid-shriek, sending chunks in all directions; some are big enough that they set off other clowns, which in turn trigger others and so on.

I keep my head down until the blasts subside. When I look up again, the ranks of the explosive clowns have thinned out noticeably. Maybe now, I have a fighting chance.

Grabbing the other shoe, I scramble to my feet and take a quick look around. From what I can see, a dozen clowns remain. The odds are much improved.

Picking the spot where the fewest clowns remain, I get ready to make a run for it. Adrenaline burns through my bloodstream, setting my heart spinning like a dervish. The pain in my gut peaks and refuses to subside, but I’ll push past it.

Every muscle in my body tenses as I prepare to sprint. If I die trying to escape this surreal trap, so be it; at least I’ll have given it everything I’ve got left.

Brandishing the shoe, I start running. I expected the clowns to close ranks in my path, and they do … but they also take me by surprise. Wheels sprout from their floppy shoes, enabling them to move much faster than before.

The clowns swoop toward me like angry bees, and I keep running. As I go, I realize this is likely the end for me, but it doesn’t freak me out at all. I feel like I’m watching it from a distance, from outside my body, and all I can think is how this isn’t the way I’d ever thought I’d die. If someone had told me even a year ago that this would be my death scene, I would’ve laughed in his face.

Yet here I am.
Running in a green dress, wielding a high-heeled shoe against a pack of clowns in roller
shoes.

Then, suddenly, the doors slam wide open all around the gym. Men dressed in loincloths and bunny slippers barge in, armed with blowguns—hollow tubes held up to their mouths, jungle weapons loaded and ready.

They all fire the blowguns at once, sending a barrage of darts into the cavernous gym. But none of the darts comes anywhere near me.

It quickly becomes clear that the blowgunners are shooting at the clowns. Again and again, as the darts hit their floppy-shoed targets, the gym booms with thunderous explosions.

All the clowns go up in short order, surrounding me with fiery blasts that make my ears ring. Clown bits rain down everywhere, splattering the floor and covering me with shards of bone and tissue.

Somehow, I stay on my feet through the series of blasts. I’m shaking my head hard, trying to clear the ringing in my ears, when something zips toward me—not a dart, thankfully.

It’s a Crowdlife screen, as tall as I am and twice as wide. It zooms up from a pinpoint to full size in a heartbeat, displaying a message in big, bold letters.

All current fatevotes impacting Agent Cage Grice are hereby nullified in accordance with the Mercy Provision of the Crowdlife Terms of Service.

“What the hell?” It’s too good to be true; the start of another twisted torture, perhaps?

Or maybe it’s just as advertised. As I read the message, the blowgunners turn and leave the doorways … and the doors don’t close behind them. All the ways out are wide open and apparently unguarded.

Just then, Liz’s image appears alongside the screen, grinning. “All better now,” she says. “Sorry I’m late, but you wouldn’t believe how long it takes to round up a tribe of blowgunners at this hour.”

Seeing her puts me instantly at ease.
“So it’s over?” My body untenses, and the spiked-heeled shoe falls from my grip. “It’s really over?”

Liz nods. “I didn’t think I could pull it off at first. The defensive bots and A.I. countermeasures were useless against the lifehackers. Everything we sent after them ended up compromised and turned back against us.”

“But you still did it.” I
smile,
broken teeth and all. “You still saved me. I owe you big time.”

“Actually,” says Liz, “you owe your cancer.”

I scowl at her, wondering what the hell she’s talking about.

“There’s a Mercy Provision in the Crowdlife Terms of Service.” Liz gestures at the Crowdlife screen beside her. “
A fatevote necessitated by terminal illness supersedes and nullifies all others.
” She points a finger at me. “And it so happens there’s just such a vote in progress for you, my friend.”

I have to think for a moment before it comes to me. “Oh, right.” In all the madness, I forgot. The Crowd was voting on whether I should undergo nanotherapy for my cancer. The treatment could buy me 1-2 months of life, accompanied by undesirable side effects. But the vote started hours ago; why is it still in progress? “There’s a Crowdlife provision for this?”

Liz nods.
“Typical Crowdlifer.
Sign your fate away without reading the T.O.S.” She sighs loudly. “The provision’s meant to restore a person’s dignity if they’re dying. It gives them one last bit of control over their lives at the end.”

I frown.
“How?
If the person’s still subject to the will of the Crowd on that fatevote ‘necessitated by terminal illness,’ how do they have any control?”

“Because the one who’s dying always gets the last vote.
The
deciding
vote, that
overrules all others.” Liz walks up to me and places her phantom hand upon my shoulder. “
You
get to cast the deciding vote.”

So that’s why the vote is still in progress after all this time. “They’re waiting for me to vote.”

“Good thing you put it off when you did.” Liz’s voice softens as she stares into my eyes. “Good thing it happened in the first place.”

“Yeah.”
I smirk. “Thank God for cancer.”

We laugh, and then we stand there for a moment in silence. The mob hasn’t come back, and Yapstream remains offline; I haven’t removed the imminent danger block since entering Dada Wyrm’s apartment.

The only intrusion is the Crowdlife screen, with the all-important fatevote announcement emblazoned across the top:
Should Agent Cage Grice
undergo
nanotherapy to treat his cancer?

Pain shoots through my belly, and I wince. I haven’t had much time to think about this, what with the lifehackers and exploding clowns and all.

“So?” Liz looks at the screen, then back at me. “What’ll it be?
Nanotherapy or no nanotherapy?”

I gaze at the results as they now stand: 93% of the vote in favor of nanotherapy, 17% against. It’s a landslide.

Should I take those results as a sign? Would a slightly longer, less pleasant life be preferable to a shorter one without so many side effects?

It’s all up to me. After a lifetime of putting my destiny in the hands of other people, I finally have the power to set my own course. The cancer gave me that much, at least. The one thing that could not be co
n
trolled by social networks has liberated me from them in the end.

Maybe it’s time to take that liberation to the limit.

“What’s it going to be, Cage?” Liz’s brown eyes lock expectantly with mine. “How are you going to vote on Crowdlife?”

I look once more at the screen with its question and results … the fulcrum upon which the rest of my life will turn. And then I grin.

“None of their business.”
I pop the A.R. contact lenses out of my eyes, and the Crowdlife screen di
s
appears. So does Liz. “Every vote’s a secret ballot from here on out.”

Then, I flick the contacts over my shoulder and wander off through the gym, the remains of exploded clowns squishing between my bare toes.

Original (First) Publication

Copyright © 2014 by Robert T. Jeschonek

*************************

Alexei Panshin is
both a
Hugo winner and a Nebula winner, equally at home writing sc
i
ence fiction or writing about science fiction. He is the author of five novels, two collections, and three books of criticism.

.

.

Ben Wiseman and I were the first people to land on Neptune, but he doesn’t talk to me anymore. He thinks I betrayed him.

The assignment to Triton Base, an opportunity for me, was for him simply one final deadend. I couldn’t yet see the limits of my life, but he could see the limits of his. His life was thin, and he had a hunger for recognition.

He was a man of sudden enthusiasms, haphazardly produced. He knew next to nothing about biology, but having a great deal of time to stare at the green bulk of Neptune in our sky, he had conceived the idea that there was life on the planet, and he had become convinced that if he proved it, he would have the automatic security of a place in the reference library. His theory was lent a certain force by the fact that we had found life already on our own Moon, on Venus and Mars, on Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus, and even on Ganymede. Not on Mercury—too small, too close, too hot. Not on Pluto—too small, too far, too cold. But the odds seemed good to him, and the list of names he would join short enough to give him the feeling of being distinguished.

“Life is insistent,” Ben said. “Life is persistent.”

He approached me because he had no one else. He was an extremely difficult man. At the age of thi
r
ty-five, he still hadn’t discovered the basic principles of social dealing. On first acquaintance he was too close too quickly. Then he took anything less than total reciprocation as betrayal. The more favorable your initial response to him, the greater wound he felt when he was inevitably betrayed. He had no friends, of course.

I betrayed him early in our acquaintance, something I was unaware of until he told me. After that he was always stiff and generally guarded, but since he found me no worse than the general run of humanity, and since the company on Triton numbered only twenty, he used me to talk to. I was willing to talk to him, and in this case I was willing to listen.

Triton, Neptune’s major satellite, is a good substantial base. It comes close to being the largest moon in the Solar System, and it is two fingers larger than Mercury. It’s the last comfortable footing for men in the Solar System, and the obvious site for a major base.

With Operation Springboard complete and our first starship on its way to a new green and pleasant land, major activity had ceased at Triton Base. We twenty were there to maintain and monitor. Some of us, like
me, were there because we were bright young men with futures. Some, like Ben Wiseman, were there because no one else would have them.

But in general life was a bore. Maintenance is a bore. Monitoring is a bore. Even the skies are dull. Neptune is there, big and green. Uranus can be found if you look for it. But the Sun is only a distant ca
n
dleflame flickering palely in the night and the inner planets are impossible to see. You feel very alone out there.