We drove all night long under the gaze of Jupiter, because Io didn’t have its own revolution. In the morning, our guide pointed at us Mount Gichi-Gami which overhung the eponymous lake. In the wooded foothills, stood the terra-cotta houses of the cyber-Bee Gees’s cult.

The community’s pueblo appeared to be a strange place. A Garden of Eden, where naked nymphs and their bearded concubines frolicked in the high yellow grass. Old women with diode crowns emerged from the woolen tepees to bring us beverages and fruits. This unexpected lesson in human anatomy and cybernetics welcomed us as if we were the new Space Messiah.

After the ephemeral jubilation, our road trip companions without deodorant undressed themselves before placing their city clothes in small wicker racks. Joining the custom, Ali and Nora imitated them.

“Need help?” Nora asked, seeing her sister struggling to remove her top.

“I’m not impotent!” the concerned party grumbled.

As my sapiens ripped her t-shirt, I saw a large injury reopening on her back. “Are you sure?” I asked. “Mute needs to check that.”

Ali became genuinely angry. Both Nora and I quickly conceded.

Shortly after, Jesus, always very pedagogical, explained in more detail the organization of the community: “We have all fled the madness of the megacorporations to come here. We are no longer tax credits consultants or engineers, but e-children of flesh and plastic. Gone are the days of quarterly balance sheets and cubicle life: mornings are reserved for working in the cyber-fields, orchards and bio-farms.” With a vague and slow movement of his artificial arm, he pointed to the plantations and fruit trees watered with a mechanism far too complex for its purpose.

There was no nutrigel in the pueblo. Even the soup was organic. Moreover, this last one had a curious and very strong smell. Like carrion. I turned to Ali, sitting cross-legged next to Jesus and a group of young men: “You shouldn’t drink from that bowl.”

“What?”

Too late. She had greedily rehydrated herself with a cocktail made of ayahuasca, an age-old hallucinogenic drug that isn’t recommended for keeping breath fresh.

I allowed myself a few drops because thanks to my wired brain, natural narcotics had no influence on me; and tended towards washing away my chronic migraines.

“Don’t worry,” Jesus grinned. “Well diluted in fresh water, the effect isn’t overwhelming. We’d rather save that for the afternoon.”

“Why?” Nora asked, disgusted by the green volutes coming from her dish. “What do you do in the afternoon?”

“You’ll see after the zenith,” Jesus intoned. “But this morning, no work for you! Come on, I’ll show you the rest of the community.”

Staggering a bit, Jesus walked us through the various paths that crisscrossed the camp until lunchtime approached. There, he welcomed us in his collective tent facing the mountain, at the foot of an olive tree.

Besides the buildings necessary for food and pseudo-hygiene, a strange mirror dome occupied a buttress of the massif. Its windows were covered with brown stained glass and photovoltaic cells. A path of silt lined with holographic e-idols led to it. This one snaked among the immense needles of shale which half-camouflaged the place.

“What is this Thunderdome?”

“You watched too much New-Hollywoodian propaganda, brother!” replied Jesus, who remained delighted by the joke. “This is the fifth e-Son of Turing’s temple. He was once a great webrunner!”

“Interesting. Is he home?” asked Ali, fighting to keep her eyes open.

“Can we say hello?” Nora added.

Jesus refused. “Maybe after his midday e-meditation. The e-son of Turing is distant these days.”

The drug was starting to take effect. Imitating our host, Ali lost herself in the contemplation of the mountain, her mouth wide open.

Sapiens were so weak. A few drops of alkaloids and they were teleported on another cosmic plane. I laughed lengthily at her stupidity.

As there was nothing extraordinary about this mountain. It was just a red marble that blew up like a balloon along the moon’s heartbeat. Speaking of balloons, Ali’s head had just collided with the head of the young hippie with long black hair. They both floated past the opening of the tent where their bodies stayed cross-legged. When they fell to dust with the sound of a chime, I realized that, finally, ayahuasca might have some effect on me.

“Oh dear...”

“You okay, Lee?” a distorted but calm voice asked.

Behind me, a being of light blinded me. “Who’s this?”

“Nora…” the strange beaming floating egg suavely responded. “I’m going to take a walk. My support system has already purged the active ingredients.”

“I’m coming with you, neurotic giant nymph!”

“Don’t.”

“Aiight!”

On a cotton cloud, I managed to sneak out of the tent behind the goddess who swapped her appearance for a glimmering snake. I flew through the orange trees and bee-farming blossoms. Way ahead, the deity was entering the strange temple. When I finally got there, the door was ajar and the place silent. In the half-light, only the AC was humming, trying to filter the air made muggy by hundreds of potted flowers that kept singing heady melodies.

“Will you be quiet!”

My pleas were covered by insults coming from a rhododendron, which I promptly chopped. Once I had settled the score, the pastoral choir preferred remaining silent.

But this wasn’t the time to fight with plants. There were more important things to do. Dipping my snout into one of the watering cans, I tried to regain my composure before beginning climbing the metal stairs leading to the second floor. “Scooby Dooby Doo, where are you? We got some work to do now—wait! Who’s singing?”

Apart from the cushions and bunks on the floor, the first story was empty. If the e-son of Turing—or rather Chow—lived in the pueblo, he must have been under the frames of this curious dome as the second story’s strange decoration confirmed Mancéphalius’ intel. The dozens cathodic monitors sizzling in the darkness left no doubt as to the activities of the so-called guru. Most of the computer’s files were left open. Not even protected by a password. Peculiar.

A thud sounded in the adjacent room. As quiet as a cheetah in the Amazon jungle, I slipped between the web cables and ventilation boxes of the various central units. My nose deep in the dust, I quickly crept to the entrance of the room where I swore I heard someone snooping around.

Bingo! I spotted Chow. Or at least the back of his body. Because his head was floating a few inches from his shoulders and staring at me! The spiritual leader was holding his own limb between his fingers and started to screw it on his neck.

“By the 79 moons of Jupiter!” I blurted out before slamming my paws onto my snout.

Chow heard me. Panicked, he staggered, letting his head fall and roll in my direction. “Intruder!” a mechanical voice emerged from a metal grid, visible on the runner’s bare chest.

“A robot!” I shouted, leaping out of my hiding place, glad the outcome had a technological explanation that ignored my recent intoxication.

“Intruder!” the droid barked again in a stronger Soviet accent.

I didn’t have time to converse further, however, because the android had rushed towards me. Still under the effect of the ayahuasca, I stumbled between the cables and power units.

I ran. But halfway to the exit, I got caught.

“Can we chat, comrade?” I coughed as the communist robot squeezed my throat. Talking my way out of this seemed nonetheless unthinkable. I would soon meet my annoying ancestors thanks to a soulless commie. “Tovarich?” I insisted with my last breath. Its steel fingers were going to break my vertebrae one by one.

It was the end. And I didn’t have a post-credits scene to spare.

The next moment, Chow’s iron frame collapsed before releasing me. Struggling to catch my breath, I rolled across the floor, getting lost in the wires and dust bunnies, before finally ending up inches from the silicon face.

“Still alive? Impressive.”

“Ali?” I coughed.

That wasn’t my partner but Nora, wearing a sun robe. She had just appeared in the door frame, massaging her lethal knuckles. “You had to wake up the YU/RI unit, didn’t you?” she sighed, readjusting her sleeve.

“Wow, guys!” someone shouted from behind her. “Didn’t that dude walk headless, or my nuggets turn out to be much stronger than expected?” This time Ali appeared, still completely naked, a joint at the corner of her lips.

“It was an old Soviet robot,” I clarified. “I have no idea why he’s leading a hippie commune while running shady operations for the Awen.”

“I think the robot replaced Chow. Somebody didn’t want to alert the Techno-Police by busting its witness protection program,” Nora explained. “After all, YU/RIs were designed as sleeper agents to supplant critical Free World personnel.”

“That’s way too sophisticated to be just a mob’s retaliation…” Ali went on, picking up the metal head covered with a mask that perfectly mimics the features of the real Chow. Pouting, she quickly dropped it next to a coffee mug filled with nothing but dust. “What does the computer say? With a rig like this, the e-Dork of Turing was most definitely prepping for Doom.”

“You should get dressed first,” Nora intoned.

My partner mocked her fussy sister before crushing her joint on Cho’s hanging tongue. She left towards a closet in search of a shirt and pants. But inside, another macabre surprise awaited: the real Chow, almost mummified, was folded in four between a pair of jeans and wool coats. Three chess pawns—one white and two blacks—have been stuck in his eyes and nostrils.

“What’s that?” I asked. “A message? Like the Janeiros and their eyes trick on Titan?”

My sapiens shrugged, indifferent to the criminal’s fate. A linen blanket over her shoulders, she was back at the terminal and faced the files I witnessed on my arrival. “What’s the dillio?” She started typing before flinching.

“Ali?” I asked, noticing her shaky hand.

“I just feel dizzy—don’t worry, probably the drug soup. What should I look at?”

“This section’s talking about Down Terminal,” I resumed, pointing at a report on the death of Doc. “And a whole file seems about our adventure over the cloud-cities.”

“We—we should make a copy of them. And leave immediately!” Nora proposed.

“Relax, sis’…” my sapiens coughed. “The hippies are high as fuck… We have all the time—Shit! Look at that! It’s like a conspirator’s shopping list!”

Ali couldn’t be truer. Most of the jobs we executed for the DIA were indeed listed here. And judging by the mails exchanged between Chow and Lunapolis, they have been ordered by the Awen… for the Awen.

“We worked for the Moon all this time?” Ali fumed, slamming the keyboard.

“The DIA was utterly compromised,” I sighed. “I guess this whole inquiry’s purpose was to root out rebellious elements from within the ranks of the only agency brave enough to attempt something. The Techno-Marine wants obedient soldiers. Not patriotic avengers like Braun and Gaylord Graves…”

“They butchered their fixer and placed the YU/RI to welcome inquisitive tourists,” Nora grunted, picking up a pawn in Chow’s mouth. “It was a trap. The Metacaste is trying to purge everything. Everyone.”

“Yes. Now, there’s nothing else to do but to join Rasputin and hurry to Kuiper. Whoever kicked Chow to the curb could be on our tracks any time soon.”

“Are you okay Nora?” Ali went on.

I too, noticed the grim face of her sister.

The cyborg gulped, her golden iris fixed on the screens. “I don’t know…” she quavered. “I don’t understand.”

“Politics mixed with money equals bull crap. There’s nothing to understand or to do about it!” Ali went on. “Lee and I have been bounty hunters and ‘data-thieves-interns’… we can become rebels or Kuiper pirates until the chaos settled. It’s not the end of the fucking world!”

“My partner isn’t often so eloquent but she’s right,” I added. “With time, I’m sure we can make things back the way they should always have been!”

Nora smiled, and brushed my cheek. “I really hope so…”

 

Back to business!