Mostly Human: A 4Pollack Series, #1

By Lon E. Varnadore

Mars.  The small red rock that started with the dreams of astronomers and sci-fi writers.  It became a place for broken dreams, the desire peddlers, criminals and those who were labeled as criminals.
4Pollack, Four to his friends, is a cloned detective on Mars who just lost his partner when an old flame shows up.  This femme fatale drags Four into a dangerous game of deceit, mayhem, and murder.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dragolite Press
• Release date: Apr 4, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393945017

Lon E. Varnadore

is a writer of many facets of the science fiction and fantasy genres. Sci-fi noir like Mostly Human, raypunk stories of the Known World Series, to space operas like Junker Blues and Starlight Saga.

Book preview

1

Mars. The small red rock that birthed the dreams of astronomers and sci-fi writers for a generation. It became a place for broken dreams, desire peddlers, criminals, and those labeled as criminals.

I call it home.

My name's 4Pollack. I'm the fourth clone of the original Pollack. In my prime life, I was a detective, and was good at it too. It was the reason I was cloned in the first place. Most call me 4Pollack, but a few call me Four. Not many in the last category. Another reason for my cloning was that I fit a certain profile that the Terrans needed for their wars. Hence, I also served in the Eugenic War, though that was too long ago to remember without a 'Catch.

Working a side case, I found myself in the slums of Old Tharsis. All because one of those damned Terrans had disappeared. A girl, Kali Cognolotti, had come to Mars for something, drugs or possibly a chimera procedure. I'd sought her name out and come up with the Hobo Ritz, a grimy little sector in Old Tharsis that most avoided. Above me glinted the bloated city of New Tharsis, closer to the top of the dome and far away from the rabble of Old Tharsis.

Once the Hobo Ritz was a hotel in Old Tharsis, built of copper and bronze-colored plating, like most of Old Tharsis. The owner had had a run of bad luck, and it was condemned. Then, because it was a place that was overlooked by revitalization pet projects for slush money like other places in Tharsis, the homeless swarmed, setting up their own kingdom. A few businesses tried their best to push back against it, but eventually, the Hobo Ritz became a place for the destitute and the criminal.

And Kali had come here, to find a blackjack.

My contact Tamlin, a dirty little information broker and scumbag, whispered one name, Greene. After leaving Tamlin's little den of iniquity, I found myself at the door of a blackjack doctor named Greene, who operated out of the Ritz. A blackjack doctor was someone who didn't have a real medical license, or in the case of Greene, had one and lost it to patient death and malpractice on Luna. He'd come to Mars to set up a semi-legal practice that was driven to into illegal procedures of all kinds for more money. Kali had then come to him for some reason.

Stepping out of the free-car, I checked myself in the bubble window. Green shirt that was the least wrinkled one I possessed. Check. A pair of black slacks that had a small spot on the knee from wear, hard to see unless in direct light. Check. One dark tan trench coat, hiding the shoulder rig of my burner. Check. I rolled my shoulders to assure myself of the weight, a habit that I'd developed. Kept me alive more than once when I stopped to go back for my piece. Usually found I needed it. Even if my partner Drake says that kind of thinking ends with something about …all problems looking like a nail.

Stepping into the storefront that looked to once be a candy store, I spotted a red head not looking at me. Steady old man, steady. I was disarmed when I looked into the bright emerald green eyes of the blackjack's secretary, I noticed the bright smile and curvy form. What is she doing here? Probably to put people at ease? And she was easy on the eye. Hey gorgeous, can I speak to the Doc?

He's in a meeting, bluebird, she shot back, not even looking up form her flexi that was playing some telenovela.

Not a cop, I said, flashing a smile. Only want a moment of the Doc's time for—

You think I'm sexy? She asked out of the nowhere, standing up a little. She looked a little more animated. Gave me a big grin and a wink like I was part of some big secret.

I cocked an eyebrow. Yeah, I said while running my eyes over her curvy form again. I do, I said, nodding. You are very sexy, Ms…

Grace. And the doctor helped, she said, giving her hands a flourish and showcasing her modified assets. I'm what you call a ‘floor model.’ She leaned closer, And his girl, of course, she said, giving me another conspiratorial wink. He'll be free very soon, bluebird.

I nodded, but something felt wrong. She was entirely too friendly. Still, not a cop, Grace. It wasn't until I heard the whine of a stunner behind me that I realized it was a trap. Damn it, always believing a red head. I turned as Grace dropped from view seeing Doc Greene already within striking distance with a stunner, the sparking incandescent blue light of electricity. He struck out and caught me on the shoulder.

I needed a moment to recover, as I’d been completely blindsided. I shook my head, which was still pounding from Greene’s surprise attack. Greene had run the fuck off, and the secretary had bolted as well. I stumbled through the dilapidated corridors of the blackjack doctor's office, eyes unable to focus on much beyond the point of my Smith & Wesson Durger plasma burner. The smell of antiseptic and bile invaded my nostrils as I staggered farther into the facility.

I tried to follow the sounds of his retreating steps as I rushed after him down the abandoned hallway of his clinic. Checking down each half formed passages and corridors of steel, brass, and copper. The drip-drip-drip of the water collected in the various places from condensation and other foul fluids that created a reeking miasma as I passed. The place looked smashed up and tossed, as if Greene himself had ransacked the place and was running. Keeping my eyes constantly scanning the area, every possible shadow or doorway a possible target. Not exactly showing that you are innocent, Doc, I called out.

Catching a flicker of movement in a doorway I passed made me twist towards the movement, rising my burner. The damned bastard had used a holo-projector and was actually three feet to my right instead of in front of me. When I went shoot him, he slipped out a side door and got away. Ducked into a back alley after him, I found myself behind an Old Tharsis market collection of stalls, all empty and broken. I lost him. Needle in a fucking haystack. Pretty much my life.

The image of the girl, Kali Cognolotti came to mind; dark skinned, slim, a bright smile and a Terran style hair of a sweeping bob pulled up on one side by a silver mesh net. A Terran who had come to Tharsis for the thrill of it, the want and desire to revel in the jazz clubs, the liberal sex, and drugs that Tharsis was known for. And, she was thinking of dipping her toe into blending her DNA, starting down the path of being a chimera.

At least that was according to her parents, that is. Fucking tourists. Come for the jazz, sex and drugs, stay for the chimerism. Not like the Martian Bureau would put that in their promotional packets, but who knows. Everyone wanted to escape Earth since the Inward Turn bloomed.

Her parents had had given me a thousand-credit retainer to find their daughter. She had broken off contact three days ago. It had been a tough few days to track down the leads, but I still had contacts to shake from my skip-trace days. And Tamlin. It didn't make sense why she would want to track down Dr. Greene, unless it was to start the process of becoming a chimera.

I wasn't sure if her parents would have wanted their daughter back after that particular procedure. The Inward Turn fucked with the minds of many Terrans. And Kali's parents were Terrans to the core, and I'd seen the look on their faces in the vid call where they knew knowing I was a clone. It really rankled them. It made me smile when I told them, Call me Four, when they asked for Mr. 4Pollack, with their arrogant Terran inflection to their N, full of false superiority.

Yeah, I'm a clone. The numeral before my name indicates what incarnation I am. I'm kinda different from the other incarnations of Pollack. I was a detective from Terra about a hundred years ago. There was no room for me on Terra once I was cloned. The Inward Turn saw to that.

Seventy years, and three bodies, later, I'm here on Mars, trying to pay off the debts racked up by my other incarnations: Pollack was seventy years older and wiser, while still looking thirty. Inheritance fees, memory transfer and taxes, not to mention the cost of jumpstarting a cloned body, aren't cheap. Even with a steady paying job, I couldn't stay more than a half step away from bankruptcy. Terra and Luna are too expensive. My kind wasn't welcome on those pieces of rock anyway. Rather than being shunned by the morally upright citizens of Terra or Luna, I live on Mars in Old Tharsis. It's filled with spiders, chimeras, and clones. Here, clones are still looked at with suspicion. Better than the alternative.

A clang of a pipe echoing from further in the alley drew my attention. I shifted to the side of the wall, burner down. Could be nothing, but no need to take chances. Clones didn't have unlimited lives. Due to something called the Accords from the outcome of the Eugenics War, clones were limited to nine lives. I was the fourth and didn’t want to take unnecessary chances. I edged around the corner and whipped the plasma burner up into the face of a homeless man. He let out a shout, lashed out with a hand, and hit my gun hand, which knocked my sidearm away from him. He then turned and ran a short distance to dive behind some crates.

Hey, old man, I—

A bolt of plasma shot past me. I ducked behind the corner as two more plasma bolts struck the steel wall I used as a shield. The burner he used had to have a low charge. Otherwise the little bolts of plasma wouldn't splattered on the steel wall. They'd punch through it. And me.

What the hell?

"Get outta my tunnels!" The old man shouted back.

Listen, I'm just trying to get by, I said.

Yeah, you're trying to get my tunnel. It is mine! I claimed it.

Great. Crazy old man…Listen you old fool, I'm after someone, I said. Let me go, I'm trying to find a girl.

You'd say anything to get my tunnels. I know you know your mind melter don't work on me. My helm protects me. I could see the traces of crinkled silver on his head with bits of grey hair sticking out from under it right on the cusp at the top of the crates.

I didn't have time for this guy. There were times I wanted a stun setting on this thing. There was another splat splat splat of plasma hitting the steel wall. Even though it was two inches thick and the plasma was weak, it was starting to heat up. The acrid smell of heated metal assaulted my nose. Wonderful.

Hey, let me rent your tunnel for a second, I said, hoping that would work.

Nothing doing. My tunnel. Only the doc can use it.

Oh? So the doc has a deal with him. Probably money… or something else. How about twenty creds, and I just walk through?

Hmmm, no. There was a pause before he continued. Nope, no deal.

So he wanted more. I thought back to how much money I still had on my cred stick. It wasn't much, about three hundred credits. Three hundred, and I walk past.

There was a much longer pause this time around. Alright, show me the money.

I pulled out the small cred stick that had the money on it and tossed it to him.

I don't use them things. Red bills, now, he shouted. I heard him shift against the crates.

I took a chance, slipping around the corner I'd been using for cover to see the homeless man on his hands and knees, hunting for the cred stick in the refuse of the alley. I held the burner out, stepped out and cleared my throat as the burner powered up with a slight whine. He looked up, eyes going wide and mouth gaping open.

Thought you don't use those things? I asked.

He held up his arms in a shrug. Worth a shot, he said with a weak laugh.

I looked at the old man, amazed by his brazen talk. I smirked. I then dug out three tenners and handed them to the guy. There's thirty. I scooped up the stick, which he'd missed, and kicked the battered burner rifle from his grasp. I heard it hit something with a sharp crack and the sparking of electricity marked it had given up the ghost. You see the doc go down this way? I asked pointing down the way I had been traveling.

Yeah, no more than five minutes ago, he said, counting and recounting the money I'd given him.

Thanks. I watched the old crazy guy head towards the tunnel I had come from. At least I wouldn't have to worry about. For the moment, at least.

I kept moving down the corridor towards a large open space with plastic sheeting in place of walls of some half-constructed building, long since abandoned. From where I was, the stink of Old Tharsis hung heavy in the air, along with mildew, corrupted water, and trash. It reminded me of my place in Tartarus a lifetime ago. There was supposed to be work being done here, but this complex had been halted years ago— it happened in Old Tharsis for various reasons. No one wanted to move into the area where the homeless had made a camp and took a stand to hold off anyone who tried to enter their place. The Hobo Ritz was theirs and no one would take it without blood.

I started to look around for the doc, not being quiet at all. Come on doc, you know I'll find you. I want info on Kali. Tell me, and I can make things easy on you. It was a lie, but it might provoke him. Or it could make him say something and start to plead.

How would you make things easy on me? His voice echoed off the walls of the building's shell.

Could talk to the DA, tell him you helped find her. It was bullshit. One, the DA hated me. Two, I wasn’t going to bring this guy in alive. More and more of my instincts screaming Kali was dead. But, I had to be sure. I kept moving, my eyes on a swivel for movement.

What type of guarantee do I have? The voice was scared. And he'd screwed up, talking, revealing where he was hiding.

Bingo. I heard his voice from the center, where the sheeting was thicker. I stalked towards that area, burner at the ready. This time, I was ready for any holo trickery. Well, I could put in a word with Rawlings. Make sure he knows your side of the story. Rawlings would bite my head off if he heard me say that, but I was ready to tell this guy anything to help find Kali.

What is my side? he asked suddenly materialized on my right, the holo-projector frizzed out as he appeared. He swung hard with a pipe at my head missing by an inch.

I grabbed the pipe with my free hand, letting the momentum bring my burner muzzle around, pistol-whipping him hard in the jaw. It already had a small crack in it, but the burner was old and tough, like its own.

The handsome doc’s painted-on smile, gone. The fake tan and slicked-back hair still had a perfect part to it, though the sweat-soaked hair flopped more to one side. It made him look lopsided and deflated as he dropped to the ground with a whimpering and blubbering. I gave him a once-over before asking, Where's Kali? The burner never wavered from his face. I crouched lower, pressing the muzzle into his face. "Where is—"

He looked up at me with fear in his eyes. She's not here anymore. She... She...

I kept the burner on his cheek while I groped around for the pipe. Grabbing the metal cylinder, I holstered my burner and brought the pipe down on Doc Greene's right shin. Hard. There was a crunch, and he squealed.

Where's Kali! I drew back with the pipe, Don't make me ask again.

Through sobs of pain, he pointed towards a large block of plastic sheeting that he had materialized in front of. I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and dragged him to the area before dropping him and ripping at the sheeting with the pipe. Once torn open, an antiseptic smell hit me. I gagged. It took me a few moments to realize what I was looking at. There were large white crates and several jars filled with a yellowish bubbling liquid. Jars filled with body parts. Assorted internal organs, a heart that still beat, lungs that looked like they were moving on their own, and a brain with two eyes floated before the brain, connected by thin and fibrous optic nerves. All of them had labels reading KC BLOOD O+ 76492610.

Something snapped in my head. I turned to grab the doc, as he was trying to scramble away. She didn't have any money, Greene wailed. She said she would donate to get the change done.

And you took that to mean her whole body? I grabbed his right foot.

He yelped. I have customers who needed blood, kidneys, lungs, a liver. She will be useful. You said—

I didn't listen as I took a firmer hold of his right foot, bracing him so he could twist or move, and twisted until it pointed the opposite direction. By the time I had readjusted his foot, he was unconscious from the pain and shock. I wanted to go for the burner, to execute this piece of scum for what he had done to the girl…to Kali. With him unconscious, I stepped back. I kicked him in the side. He let out a grunt of pain but didn't move beyond that. It would be so easy to kill him and leave him to rot. More than the filth deserved. I felt my hand rise to the shoulder rig. To kill him would make me feel better, but he wouldn't suffer. Taking a long shaking breath, a thought bringing a sudden smile to my lips. The way his foot was, he'd always remember me in whatever jail cell in the Rift they tossed him. Kali's family would get closure, and this scumbag blackjack doctor would either be on the streets again within a few months, or go to serve in The Rift forever. Wherever he ended up, when it was cold, he'd remember me. That made me smile even more.

I dropped the leg and pulled out the commlink. Popped the catch of the thick, bulky thing. I hit my contact list for Rawlings’s private line. There was static for a moment, then an empty screen with the Bureau in the background. Rawlings, you around?

The lean, angular face of Lieutenant Rawlings of the Tharsis Bureau appeared, wreathed in a haze of smoke from the stogie he had clenched in his jaws. Yeah, what do you want, Four?

Have a blackjack doc to report. Also found the missing girl, Kali.

How is she—

Parted out, I said.

Rawlings stopped, looked queasy before looking away. He knew what could happen in the streets of Old Tharsis more than most. Alright, I'll ping your comm and send some uniforms over.

It’s the Ritz, you might have an issue or two.

He gave me a hard look while blowing out more smoke from the side of his mouth. It’s never easy with you, is it? Rawlings had learned everything he knew about how detectives acted from the old 2Ds. Still, he was a good cop.

If it was easy, what fun would it be? I smirked at him.

He growled and cut the line.

---

When I came to a day later, a vibrating buzzing noise of metal on metal drilled into my skull. It forced me awake. Opening bleary, sleep crusted eyes I spied through the window in the apartment, the twin moons, Deimos and Phobos. It looked like they glared down at me. The sunscreen, dismissed with the night, let the dim light of the twin moons look down over Tharsis. The light of the moons fought with the omnipresent pseudo-light of Tharsis. The city was constantly alit with neon, headlights from free-cars, and skimmers, along with lights of the buildings around my apartment. Tharsis was a city of light, the harsh, nasty, eye-wrenching kind of light. The auto shade was old and faded, letting more of the light bleed in.

The dome over the city warped and refracted the light so the tiny moon of Phobos looked like its bigger brother Deimos. Most Martians liked to have them both looking the same.

Not me. Knowing that the two moons were named for Fear and Nightmare and having those two glaring down at me always caused a small itch between my shoulder blades. Also, seeing that the two moons were close caused something in my mind to dredge up a memory of my latest case. If I was right with the position of the two moons, I knew there had been another murder. Even before my commlink started to buzz again.

It wasn't unusual for a call at 3 a.m. Earth Standard. It was annoying. Earth Standard was used on Mars and Earth, since Mars has such a similar day. There was a Temporal Adjust at midnight; the clocks did it—no one cared. It was rare to catch the jump forward on a clock anymore.

Part of me knew only an hour had passed since I had closed my eyes. I wished it were a dream. The commlink continued to slide towards me. I knew this was real, and it wasn't going to be a good call.

The bulky commlink buzzed along the metal nightstand again. The noise drilled into my head. I looked at it with bleary eyes for a moment, willing it to stop. I felt sleep dragging at me. I wanted to close my eyes and sleep. A soft groan next to me reminded me of Tess. She had started to stir, and I didn't want her to wake up either. I chose the lesser evil. I grabbed the bulky commlink, squeezed the catch, and the screen popped up.

The angular, wolfish face of Rawlings, that is Lieutenant Paul Rawlings of the Tharsis Police Department, stared back at me in the small monitor. 4Pollack? He growled with a cigar clenched between his teeth, half gone. Rawlings only used my full name when shit went down.

Definitely not a good call.

Yeah, what? I croaked. My head was throbbing from using the Alpha Catch with a splitter. Rawlings started to speak, and I looked at Tess, distracted for a moment. Her stirring beside me caused me to suddenly lick my dry lips. Her green-scaled chimera body glinted in the wan light that crept in from the pseudo-daylight of Old Tharsis outside. Her smell was a dry cinnamon; that was a quirk of the snakeheads and their DNA manipulation. The frayed edges of the auto-shade let the light bleed in. She was a snakehead chimera like her husband Drake—my partner. I traced the contact wire from her temple with my eyes, spotting the splitter that tethered the two of us to the ovoid shape of my personal 'Catch. The Catch was originally created to relive memories for clones. Afterwards, it was used for diving into memories, your own or others that gave them up. On the way, my eyes slid over her slim, scaly belly and leg, a familiar heat stirred in me. I then heard Rawlings shouting at me on the comm.

…So get down here. Got it 4Pollack? Rawlings's lip was curled up in a snarl. The blue-tinged smoke of his cheap rope cigar surrounded him, adding to the hazy image for a moment.

Sorry, Rawlings, I turned back to the screen, I wasn't paying—

Drake's dead! Get down to Twelfth and Kipling. He shouted the last few words. A few things caught my eye behind him. From the way he held his commlink, I caught sight of two things: one was the dark tarp on the ground, and the other was the flashing blue lights of the police.

There goes my hope of it being a dream. The cross streets that Rawlings rattled off gave me pause. Why was Drake in the slums of Tartarus? Why go to that pit? Yeah, I mumbled, dropping the bulky comm. The commlink snapped closed when it hit the nightstand with a bang. I looked over, afraid Tess had heard. Her chest rose and fell in a slow, steady rhythm. The vague scent of dry cinnamon wafted towards me. I didn't want to move. A momentary impulse to start licking her skin tempted me before I pushed it away. It was tempting. When I sat up, I regretted it. A massive headache hit me like a blast of a sandstorm. My pain localized behind my eyes, near the contact of my memory module, the implanted wetware that allowed my Alpha Catch to record and play back memories. The contact point throbbed in time to the pain that radiated from behind my eyes to bore into my skull. Fuck me, why did I split the Alpha Catch feed?

One look at Tess's sleeping form, and I knew why. Seeing the tethered wire that still connected her to the 'Catch. She somehow talked me into it.

I'd long ago stopped worrying about waking up in the morning and having no memory of the last two or three days. That was from back when I was still 2Pollack— the soldier days. If nothing was stored in my long-term memory, then I didn't think that anything needed to be held onto. But the crystal that was in the 'Catch held all those memories, in case I needed to find something in case of a drunk version or forgetful me did something stupid. It was automatic. Later on, I could review it and see if there was anything, and would be able to look at it after a second pass, or a twelfth pass. The last two days were static, nothing new had been added to my long-term memory.

At least nothing painful was there. That was something.

The smiling, giggling face of me, well, 3Pollack, appeared in my mind's eye. The micro-second of recognition, the taste of the gun in his/my mouth and the flash of intense pain as he/I ate the bullet. Genetic memory, on the other hand, is a slaggin' bitch. Some things were so embedded that they carried on and on, I was sure. By the time my last incarnation was around, I was sure that would still follow me until I died the real death.

Pushing the maudlin slag aside, the sight of Tess made Drake pop into my head. Have to find out what happened to the damn snakehead. I pushed myself to the edge of the bed and into a sitting position. I rubbed at my face and did the best I could to ignore the pain. Not hard with my line of work.

There was a hollow pit in my stomach from Rawlings's words. Drake's dead? Dammit, what did he do to deserve that? What would Drake be doing in Tartarus this time of night? Or there at all? There was only one reason I could think of, and that was to find the killer we'd been chasing.

I plucked at the silver contacts that rested on my temple. When I did, my fingertips felt the stippled scar from numerous connections between the Alpha Catch contact and the input sensor under the skin. Once disconnected, I pulled on some rumpled pants and shirt. They weren't pressed or cleaned, but it was enough to be presentable. I did the smell test—as in they didn't smell much. Then, I pulled on my trench coat. It was an out-of-fashion garment and that was reason enough for me to love and wear it, like the detectives from the old black-and-white 2Ds. I took up my rig and burner. The day was just getting started, and I felt the need for the weapon in the silence of the fading night. The plasma burner was more effective than a bullet—depending on the one wielding it, and had no danger of puncturing the dome. Even though the dome was thick enough to withstand the crashing sands of Mars on the outside, one didn't want to risk cracking it. It wasn't a very valid reason, but enough people thought it was a good idea to ban slug throwers. Few still had them. My eyes strayed to the bookshelf, where mine was stashed. An old .38 Smith & Wesson. It was a security blanket more than anything. The burner was a better weapon and had more shots than a six-shot revolver. Still, it was good to have something that couldn’t be shut down by a disabling field.

I slipped out of the Ambassador before Tess woke up. Tess would wonder where I was. I did leave a note saying I was