An Eighty Percent Solution - By Thomas Gondolfi Page 0,10
destroyed. The dead woman slumped forward, one of her augmented breasts spilling obscenely to one side, streaked in blood.
As he examined his handiwork, Marks tapped his right foot three times. Trillions of submicroscopic nanites swarmed out of his yellow shoes, programmed with the sole purpose to find and destroy his own DNA anywhere they might find it. Thirty minutes from now they’d quite obligatorily render themselves into inert components indistinguishable from the multitudes of other organic compounds that make up ordinary dust. The assassin faded out the front door, confident that he—or more importantly, his employer—couldn’t be implicated in the justice he’d just imposed.
* * *
Home, Tony thought, pouring himself a stiff drink of rye over ice. So many different emotions lashed at him, but one stepped up to dominate his thoughts. How could he be happy about the deaths of so many?
He sipped gently. Could it be that he just wanted anything different? Maybe he felt he witnessed a little piece of history. Maybe he despised the political games he played to get ahead and wanted someone to get rid of it all? Perhaps more specifically, he wanted to get out from under the attentions of his over-amorous mentor? No matter what caused it, he couldn’t deny he felt good.
His mind pondered for several more minutes before it just went blank. He downed the rest of his drink and put the glass down, catching sight of the half-cubic meter of gray plastic box sitting innocently in the center of the table.
“And what’s in that box?” he asked himself. “I probably shouldn’t, but what the heck. What’s a little more trouble?”
Carefully lifting the lid, he peered inside. What stared up at him wiped away any questions of sexual advances or terrorism.
A tiny calico kitten, barely bigger than a shot glass, sat patiently in one corner, looking up at him with head slightly cocked. The creature let out the tiniest of mews and stood on its hind legs, batting at the air as an obvious plea for playtime. Without thinking, Tony scooped up the tiny ball of white and brown fluff in his hands and rubbed it under the chin while it batted at the gold and silver star hanging from the necklace in amongst the ruffles of his dress shirt.
“How adorable you are, little miss,” said Tony idly, “but kittens and cats are against the law. Maybe I should turn you in.”
Despite his outward calm, he’d never been so terrified in his life. Before this little bundle of fur, the worst he could reasonably expect to suffer from his little life-saving adventure would be temporary indentured servitude. Possession of a live pet carried a capital sentence.
Despite the heart beating in his throat, Tony made purring noises and wiggled the necklace charm around for his houseguest. His grandfather had won the Silver Star in defense of a Chinese village in the Aussie Civil War. “You like your toy?” Watching the charm gave Tony courage.
After a predictably short time, the brown and white feline tired of her new plaything. Looking up into Tony’s eyes with uncompromising trust, the tiny kitten mewed. He brought the furry creature up for a closer look, and the kitten seized the opportunity to brush up against his face. Tony sputtered and tried to wipe the residual downy hairs from his mouth and nose with his free arm. Undisturbed, she buzzed with pleasure, jumped from his hand to the tabletop, the chair, and finally to the ground.
“What am I going to do with you? The law’s quite clear. All proteins must be collected for food distributions. You, my cinnamon-colored friend, are protein.”
With the vast majority of the Earth barely avoiding starvation, food often seemed sacred. The laws were selectively enforced, but the punishment for tampering with the Emergency Subsistence Act of ’26 was execution by starvation.
“I don’t want either of us to die,” he said, absently watching the kitten poke its head under one of his dirty shirts on the floor, “but if I get caught with you, there isn’t a thing in this world that’s going to save me.”
The object of Tony’s dilemma stalked an errant dust-bunny with a wiggle of its bottom and tail high in the air. “I just can’t imagine pushing you into the calorie reclamation bin. You’d be ground into paste and flushed into the city’s food return. It’d be the lawful thing, but not the right thing.
“With that said, I guess I better take the appropriate precautions.” Tony securely locked and bolted