Gestapo Mars by Victor Gischler

Author:Victor Gischler
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Titan

TWENTY-TWO

I could smell the salt air and the vague odor of rotting fish. I was getting close.

Funny, but I didn’t really consider myself to be working for the Reich any longer, and yet there I was heading for the shore, thinking I might need a boat, the map folded neatly in the pocket of my striped jacket. It was the training. There was no turning it off.

But it was more than that. I had to find this woman—not to kill her, maybe not to save her, either. Simply because I had to know. What was it that made her the focus of the Reich’s attention? She was just a woman like any other, wasn’t she?

I had to know.

Also, I was starving.

I chased a rat down the sidewalk for five minutes before realizing it was an enormous dust bunny tumbling in the breeze.

I popped another pill. They kept me going, but I could feel my body buzzing with the narcotics, burning itself up. I couldn’t keep going this way forever. I needed real food. Real rest, too.

Don’t dwell on it, I told myself. Keep going. Find the sea. Find her. Don’t ask why. Just do it.

A dog barked.

I turned, blinked, not sure if I’d heard what I thought I heard. It came around the corner, tongue lolling and tail wagging. It was one of those little, yapping ankle-biters, some kind of terrier maybe. It looked a little thin and scruffy, but not especially malnourished. So far the dog was weathering the fall of civilization better than I was.

It sat in front of me, cocked its head to one side.

“Agent Sloan, I presume,” it said. I understood the words, but the voice had a low growling quality.

“Holy shit, a talking dog.” I pulled my pistol, pointed at its face. “Explain yourself, mutt.”

The drugs. It has to be the drugs.

“I’m a Reich A.I. infiltration parasite sent via fast drone from Mars,” the dog said.

“No,” I replied. “You’re a hallucination, and I’m going to shoot you.”

“Please refrain,” the dog said. “Here, take a look.”

The dog spun around, and I saw a little silver disk the size of a coin attached to the base of its skull. A little nub of an antenna.

“You’d indicated you might be out of radio contact,” the dog said. “Sending another agent would take too long. A fast drone through the nearest wormhole was the only way to send word in time.”

I shook the gun at him. “But why are you attached to a fucking dog?”

“I’ve been programmed with your smell signature,” the dog said. “I am hooked into the dog’s spinal column. Powerful microcomputers interpret the scent trail which led me to you. I’m also able to use adjusted voice signals to use the dog’s larynx for speech.”

“I’ll be damned.”

“I am not programmed to comment on that eventuality.”

“Okay, you found me. What now?”

“The kill order has been rescinded,” the dog said. “The daughter of the Brass Dragon must not be harmed.”

What the fuck?

“You Gestapo shitheads are driving me insane!” I screamed.

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