The Virtual Man [The Virtual Reality 1] (Siren Publishing Classic) (15 page)

“What nobody knew at the time, however, was that the native Terrilians’ DNA, at conception, magnified the non-Terrilian DNA rather than impose its own. In other words, if a very strong human mated with a native Terrilian, their children would possess roughly four times the strength of a normal human. The resulting product of such human/Terrilian marriages was children with genetic capabilities far advanced from those of either race. This new breed of humanoid had superior strength, superior intellect and an amazing resistance to disease, which allows them to live for hundreds of years and age very slowly. In essence, a race of super humans was created.”

“Along with superior genes typically come a superior ego and a superior arrogance,” the Captain interjected. “This new race was no exception. After a while, those of the new race lorded their superiority over both the original native Terrilians and those who were still purely human and began a genocide program to ‘purify the planet.’ As its citizens were being targeted, Earth came to their rescue. The rest you know, the war lasted for three years and was fought in the very space through which we are now traveling.”

Tiana was stunned.

“Why would the Alliance keep the Terrilians’ origin and superior abilities from the general public?” she asked, completely aghast at the depth of deception of her government.

The Captain looked at Tiana, allowing his paternal instincts to surface. He addressed her with a patient and steady tone that he had long ago hoped to some day be able to use with his own daughter. A daughter he would never have.

“To avoid a panic. People don’t like the idea of an alien race being out to exterminate them. Terrilians look and act just like humans. They could be your next-door neighbor, your child’s teacher, perhaps even your spouse, yet they are a race that is set on exterminating the original race that created them, the human race. If they exterminate the human race, they could easily seize control of the Alliance and rule the galaxy. It’s all about ego, arrogance and power.”

“So what does this Terrilian assassin look like?”

“She is a brunette, five feet ten inches in height, looks young, perhaps in her early twenties …”

“Wait a minute,” Tiana interrupted the Captain, “the war was fifteen years ago. She’s got to be at least in her forties now.”

Tiana’s naiveté drew a chuckle from the Captain.

“According to our records, Colonel Reginald is much older than that. She is seventy-eight. You forget, Terrilians don’t age at the same rate we do. She will still look much the same today as she did fifteen years ago.”

The familiar ring of her phone sounded inside Tiana’s head. It was Darius.

“Excuse me for a minute, gentlemen, I have a phone call that I have to take.”

Stepping away from the bar and moving to a quiet corner, Tiana answered the call.

“Darius, how good to hear from you!” Strangely enough, she actually meant it this time.

“Hello, Ms. Weiss. I trust my call finds you well.”

“Much better now that I’m talking to my legal eagle.”

“I have researched the facts in the case, the backgrounds of the judge, jury members, Legal-Bots, etcetera, basically anything that would provide Mr. Hart grounds for an appeal, and I am afraid that while I have found various technicalities that would provide such grounds, none of them are significant enough to provide us even a miniscule chance of reversing the conviction.”

“Darius, I’m crushed. I was convinced that if anyone could, you would find a legal solution to Mr. Hart’s highly unfair situation.”

“Well, I researched the problem from the angle that you asked me to, and there is very little there to provide any hope. Mr. Hart could pursue an appeal, but all it would do is draw out the process and, after his attempt to escape, he’ll wind up incarcerated while he awaits resolution, so there is not much to be gained from pursuing this option.

“However, since I am one of the galaxy’s finest legal minds, I pursued other more, shall we say, creative alternatives for handling Mr. Hart’s situation. I can share these with you if you would like.”

Okay, make me suck up some more and beg you, tin-head
.

“Oh, Darius, I knew I could count on you. Please tell me what you found.”

“Well, it may not exactly be what you were looking for, but I did find one provision in the newly adopted intergalactic law that might accomplish the desired result, which, as I understand it, is to keep Mr. Hart from going to prison.”

“As always, you are correct.”
All this sweetness is going to make me vomit
.

“Mr. Hart was convicted of grand theft. Intergalactic law considers grand theft a non-violent crime and is not viewed as harshly in other worlds as it is on Earth. To simplify the issue for you, my dear, in most other worlds if your neighbor catches you stealing from him, he would simply kill you, within his rights under the law, or code, as they refer to it, and it would never go to court, whereas on Earth things are viewed a little differently. There are more pressing legal needs in lesser developed frontier planets such as cannibalism, slavery, etcetera, which make better use of their legal systems.”

“But Darius, how does this help Mr. Hart? He was found guilty and sentenced on Earth.”

“Well, there is a little-known provision in intergalactic law that allows a convict of a lesser, non-violent crime to be redeemed.”

“Redeemed? How is that to be done?”

“You have to find a woman on a planet classified by the Galactic Alliance as a frontier planet and have her agree to wed Mr. Hart.”

“I can hear you, Ms. Weiss, there is no need for yelling, and you heard me correctly. Life on frontier planets is very tough, so for decades, Class 1 and 2 frontier planets have held to a law that provides for a person to ‘redeem’ a member of the opposite sex who has been convicted of a non-violent crime by marrying them. In the case of Mr. Hart, you would need to have a woman claim that she requires his help in order to survive the grueling rigors of colonizing a frontier planet. She would also need to vouch for him that he would not repeat his crimes. The specific code that I’m referring to is found on Title 251, Part 10, Chapter 43, Section 2 of the Intergalactic Code.”

“Does this woman have to live on a frontier planet before the marriage?”

“That is the beauty of it. No, she would not. She would simply have to live within the jurisdiction of one of these planets with her new helpmate, in this case Mr. Hart, after the marriage takes place. If I understand your itinerary correctly, the closest government-classified frontier planets to your current position are Arcadia 10 and Tarsus, where the Magellan Outpost is located.” Darius sounded quite pleased with itself. “Eventually the Alliance will figure out this loophole in the law and remove it, but as of right now, it is an integral part of galactic law. I must say, this is merely one of the many kinks and wrinkles I have discovered in the Intergalactic Code.”

“What’s to keep Mr. Hart from marrying and then divorcing?”

“The law does require that the marriage stay in force for a minimum period of two years, after which point it may be terminated.”

“Darius, you’re a genius. I’m in your debt.”

“Well, I will debit my fees from your account and we will consider the debt paid in full. Goodbye, Ms. Weiss.”

Tiana’s head was spinning. She had found a way for Derek to retain his freedom. He just needed someone to marry him and redeem him. He was financially well off, so he could certainly hire a woman to marry him if he chose to.

What if he hired a prostitute for the job? What if they wound up actually consummating the marriage?
Why did these thoughts bother her so?

For some reason she wasn’t able to think of an acceptable way for Derek to secure a wife. Any way she looked at it, there were dangers involved for him.
The wrong kind of woman could blackmail him, threatening not to fulfill the two-year waiting period. He could wind up with another conniving, slime-sucking, belly-crawling, maggot-eating snake in the grass bitch like the one he had been dating prior to being incarcerated. Such an unscrupulous female would likely abuse her position and seduce him. He could wind up having sex with his wife! What’s worse, what if Derek fell for this ‘wife’!

He had been very kind to her. He was innocent. She owed him her life. It was her moral duty to help him. She knew she would never resort to blackmail, the sex would be great, and besides, it would not be much of an inconvenience. Darius had just said Tarsus, the planet that the Magellan Outpost was on, was a government-classified frontier planet. She was going to be working there for the next two years anyway, so it wasn’t like she would need to change her plans. In addition, her work day would consist of very long hours seven days a week, so they would probably rarely see each other.

Her mind was made up. She had come up with a reasonable solution to Derek’s dilemma. She would just have to marry him.

* * * *

“Woman, are you nuts?” Rita asked Tiana as they shopped their way down the Promenade Deck.

“Do you love him?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, of course not.”

“You are nuts, aren’t you? You’ve known him for less than two weeks and you’re prepared to marry him so he won’t have to go to jail for crimes that as far as you know he might have committed.”

“Rita, I want to help him like he helped me. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was a basket case when I came on board. He took care of me, gave me strength and self-assurance and even though he knew I was willing to sleep with him, he respected me knowing that the timing wasn’t right. He’s a good man. He is not a criminal, I am totally convinced of it. Besides, being married, even if it is a marriage of convenience, will hopefully provide me with an additional barrier from potential suitors, not that I expect there to be many at the outpost. After two years we can then go our separate ways. Oh, look at that cute top …”

“Don’t change the subject, girlfriend. How many liters of Jack Daniels is it going to take me to get you over him after you go your separate ways?”

“It’s under control. We are just friends who help each other out.”

“Are you nuts?”

“Asked and answered, girlfriend! All I can do at this— Rita? Where are you going?”

Tiana watched as Rita, without another word, rapidly walked away from her. She seemed totally focused on something or someone at a shoe store across the Promenade.

“Rita, hey, Rita! What’s going on? See a good pair of shoes or are you just trying to end our discussion?”

* * * *

Rita walked into the small shoe store and looked around the sales floor for the face she had seen out of the corner of her eye.
What is that bitch doing here? I thought she was dead.
Turning to one of the Sale-Bots she asked, “There was a woman in here just now, she looked to be in her early twenties. She was a brunette, tall, wearing a black T-shirt. Where did she go?”

“I am sorry, madam, but I did not see anyone fitting that—excuse me, you cannot go in there, that area is off-limits to passengers. Madam?”

Ignoring the robot, Rita headed for the back room where the merchandise was stored and began searching through it, ripping boxes open, looking in supply cabinets, emptying out closets, and frantically searching any place where a person could possibly hide.

“Madam, if you do not leave this minute I will be forced to call security,” the Sale-Bot warned from outside, apparently too afraid to follow her into the back room.
Guess that along with artificial intelligence comes artificial chickenhood
, Rita reasoned.

Feeling little guilt over what others would perceive as strange behavior on her part, Rita turned to answer the cowardly robot. As she did, she felt a sharp pain in the back of her head. Her legs gave out and she felt herself falling, falling into a deep, dark void of unconsciousness.

* * * *

Rita saw what appeared to be a bright light coming at her. She must be dead. A Southern Baptist all her life, she knew that eventually she would meet her maker, and while she had no doubt that the good Lord would let her into Heaven, she also knew he’d be confronting her on some rather questionable behavior.

I sure hope God is not pissed at me
.

Little by little she opened her eyes. A handsome and distinguished face was staring at her; a familiar handsome and quite distinguished face. A face that sent shivers up and down her spine, set her heart to racing and made her stomach weak. As a matter of fact, her stomach was so weak that she threw up on him.

Oh, no, I must have gone out drinking and went and got myself dead. To make matters worse, I think I just hurled on God. Oooh, this is not a good start to eternity.

As she kept trying to open and focus her eyes, Rita recognized the face. It wasn’t God after all.

“Jonathan, what the hell are you doing in heaven?”

“You’re not in heaven, Rita.”

“Oh, shit! You mean I got demoted? I thought me and Jesus had an understandin’?”

She tried to get up and, as pain shot through her head, she quickly changed her mind and lay back down. Captain Maverick carefully put his arms around Rita to help her gain her balance.

“Relax. You’re not dead, sweetheart. At least, not yet, anyway. To my everlasting delight, apparently you’re too mean and ornery to die before a ripe old age.”

“Well, if I’m not dead, what the hell happened to me? Where am I?”

Rita’s eyes continued trying to focus as she scanned the room and noticed she wasn’t alone with the handsome man who was now busy trying to get himself cleaned up after her little ‘accident.’ Sitting on a couch across from her was Tiana with a very puzzled look written all over her face.

“Captain, you two know each other?”

“In the Biblical sense,” Rita answered for him.

Crap, Tiana is staring at me with a stupid Cheshire cat grin on her face
.

“What are you looking at? Haven’t you ever seen a dying woman before?”

Tiana just kept smiling and staring.