Ramses Meets His Maker

by Charles Smith

Ramses was a clone. Not a genetically engineered masterpiece of humanity like those grown in the gleaming Huxley genetics labs, Ramses was a literal copy of another human created as part of an illegal immortality experiment. Ramses wasn't sure if he believed in the transhumanist rhetoric of the Huxley Foundation, but he knew it was the only place where a clone could get a fair shot at life.

Ramses was returning to the planet of his "birth" for the first time since he began working for the Foundation. He did not anticipate a warm reception. Worse even than being the illegal clone of a hated warlord he was an agent of the Foundation. This animosity was not unearned; the Huxley Foundation had recently opened the starports of Nibiru by threatening the planet with orbital bombardment. The Nine Kingdoms were forced to capitulate and allow the Foundation to establish a research station in the Nibiru green zone.

This contemptuous show of force meant any number of individuals or organizations might have a reason to kill the missing Foundation scientists for simple petty revenge. Ramses doubted it, though. Someone out for vengeance wouldn't hide the body. They'd put it on display and make sure the Foundation knew in no uncertain terms why they did it. Ramses' detective's instinct told him something deeper was at work here.

The starport was virtually deserted when Ramses arrived on his transport, which stuck around just long enough to refuel. The Foundation could force Nibiru to let in the rest of the universe, but they couldn't force the rest of the universe to care. Use of the starport was the almost exclusive purview of the Huxley Foundation and Ramses was the only new agent they had sent in a standard month.

Ramses' contact met him a few blocks from the starport; he didn't want to be seen going inside what was considered a Foundation building. Samwell was an engineering peasant from the terraformation column. Even the brief meeting with Ramses he had agreed to was a significant risk to the man's safety and he was understandably nervous. He hunched down in his long coat like it was a turtle shell.

Samwell only spoke Nibiru, a nearly unrecognizable dialect of Martian. The fact that Ramses was fluent in the language was a major reason why he had been assigned to this case.

"I have reason to believe the men you're looking for are still alive," said Samwell, in a low whisper, "People are speaking of it openly. They're not worried about being caught by your Foundation."

"Are you saying a group has taken responsibility for the attack?" asked Ramses.

"Not by name, no. People are referring to them as 'patriots'."

That word stood out to Ramses immediately. Nibiru had a number of words synonymous with 'patriot' but Samwell was using the older Martian term. Ramses smelled extraplanetary influence.

"Why do you think they're alive?" asked Ramses "What are people saying?"

"They're saying their deaths will be public. That they will be made an example of."

'Made an example of', another Martian term that a native Nibiru speaker would never use. This man had the accent down pat but he didn't have the vocabulary to fool a native speaker. 'Samwell' wasn't who he claimed to be.

Ramses reached for his weapon. It was a Huxley Survival Pistol, a compact self-charging particle pistol with several non-combat settings that he never used. The particulate matter collected from the atmosphere had less punch than a military-grade particle weapon but Ramses felt that not needing to reload more than made up for this disadvantage.

Ramses was a fast draw but Samwell had been aiming the stun gun hidden under his coat since they began the conversation. The weapon ripped through his coat with a loud pop and the electric discharge overloaded Ramses' nervous system. He collapsed, unconscious.

* * *

Ramses slowly came to in a daze. He could hear people talking but they sounded remote and dreamy.

"...required for the engram imprinting process. We need to map the brain in real time in a way that's just not possible with an unconscious subject."

"That suits me. The little bastard deserves it. I'm disgusted by the idea that any incarnation of my DNA would join the Huxley Foundation under any circumstances."

The second voice was Ramses' own. Or, rather, Ramses' voice was that of the man who was speaking. It was the warlord Mohammad Kahn, Ramses genetic ancestor. They were speaking Martian but their heavy accents betrayed the fact that they were just using it as a lingua franca.

“He should be coming around,” said the first voice “If you’ll get into position we’re almost ready to begin.”

Ramses opened his eyes slowly. His vision was blurry. He could tell he was restrained on some kind of gurney or bed.

Straining, Ramses could barely see movement in front of him. Suddenly it felt like his entire brain was on fire.

Ramses’ head was spinning with a million thoughts at once, only some of them his own. It was overwhelming. Ramses struggled to focus his mind on the present. He had a feeling if he let himself slip, for even a moment, his entire personality might become lost in this deluge of alien ideas. Without being conscious of it Ramses was letting out an animalistic moan.

The memories of Mohammad Kahn were pouring in as well. Like the sudden flash of recollection one gets from a familiar smell, Ramses was assaulted with a lifetime memories great and small. Ramses was beginning to have trouble separating the idea of himself from the idea of Mohammad Kahn. Still, he struggled to focus on the present. On the pain.

“We’re beginning to see a substantive change in the neural connections,” said the scientist, “Proceeding with phase two.”

The pain increased to a blinding level. Ramses was losing himself. He could feel himself slipping into unconsciousness, an oblivion he knew he would never wake from. Ramses kept focusing on the pain, in spite of his every instinct screaming at him to run from it. His mind was such a chaotic mess of contradictory thoughts and ideas that he couldn’t maintain a coherent train of thought any longer. The pain was absolute and unrelenting.

Ramses was seeing double. His vision was overlapping with another perspective of the same room. Ramses lacked the wherewithal to figure out that he was sharing the sight of Mohammad Kahn. His mind was consumed with the burning pain that permeated his every neuron.

The double vision faded but the foreign thoughts remained. Soon even the pain that was holding Ramses together began to recede. Still, the mind of Mohammad Kahn remained an invader inside Ramses’ own.

“The stress of the transfer process has killed the original body,” the scientist notes into his recording device “Life signs are present and the preliminary brain scans are looking promising,” he approaches the gurney, “Mr. Kahn, can you hear me?”

The scientist snapped his fingers several times in front of Ramses eyes, causing him to blink.

“Mr. Kahn, do you remember who you are?”

He did remember. He was Mohammad Kahn, the Beast of the North and future ruler of all Nibiru.

“I do indeed,” he said “Now unbind me.”

The scientist beamed and undid the restraints holding down the body of Ramses. Mohammad slowly sat up and swung his legs around. As he stood he tried to figure out why he was feeling such anger towards the scientist. Then Ramses remembered. Ramses was not a hand-to-hand fighter, but Mohammad was. He was able to disable the scientist with a single jab to the throat. The man made a dry gasping noise and went down hard.

The scientist looked to Ramses like he was from the Dianetic Theocracy, and Mohammad recalled that this was precisely the case. They had struck a deal with Mohammad to conquer Nibiru and rule it in as colony of the Theocracy. In return they promised to help him finish what he had started and transplant his consciousness into a younger version of himself. Neither Ramses nor Mohammad was quite sure just how successful they had been.

Ramses couldn’t remember much from his life anymore, but he knew just enough to differentiate his thoughts from those of Mohammad. He needed something to focus on like before, something to keep him in the present until he could get help. Ramses thought of finding the scientists, but Mohammad knew they were already dead. The case was well and thoroughly fucked. If he could just get back to the starport he might be able to get into contact with the Foundation. The starport: that worked for Ramses.

Ramses ran out the door. It was flanked on both sides by soldiers armed with swords, an all-too-common weapon on Nibiru.

“Knock me unconscious immediately,” ordered Mohammad as soon as he saw them.

The soldiers exchanged glances, confused. Ramses seized the opening and drew one of the soldier’s swords from its scabbard. Accessing Mohammad’s swordsmanship and even muscle memory he dismembered the armed soldier in a single fluid movement. The man picked up his own sword arm with his left hand, still clutching his half-drawn sword, before collapsing.

Ramses pointed the sword at the man he stole it from.

“You chose a poor time indeed for such insubordination,” Mohammad growled.

The soldier, who had not been made aware of the nature of the experiment he was guarding, looked at the man threatening him with a mixture of confusion and terror. He put his hands up.

Ramses had no interest in killing an unarmed man, but Mohammad was pissed. With a wide two-handed swing he tried to cut off the man’s head, along with no small portion of his shoulder for good measure. Ramses became aware of the impulse quickly enough to stop the blade just short of the soldier’s neck. Ramses gave the terrified man a big toothy grin.

Mohammad was intimately familiar with the fort and so Ramses was able to find his way out easily. After dispatching the drawbridge guards and lowering it there was nothing left standing between Ramses and freedom.

It didn’t occur to either Ramses or Mohammad that the fort wasn’t located in any of the Nibiru green zones until that point. Part of Mohammad gloated as it dawned on Ramses that he was stranded in an alien ecosystem.

Ramses wandered out into the wilderness to try and find his way back to civilization by chance, or at least die as himself.

* * *

Ramses was tired, but he dared not sleep for fear of waking up as Mohammad. He was half-starved, but although he was surrounded by lush fruit-bearing plants all life outside the green zones was toxic to humans. He had already resigned himself to death and was becoming anxious for it.

Ramses trudged onward, half in a trance, through the dense forest of unfamiliar plant-like life. As the hours bled together and he lost track of time things began to make a sick sort of sense.

The plants were watching him, trying to trick him into eating the poison fruit. They knew exactly what they were doing. He wasn’t really hungry, it was the plant’s doing; this was all part of the trick. The plants were crafty and thought sideways, like crabs. Ramses would also need to think like a crab.

Ramses hadn’t had a thought he recognized as Mohammad’s for hours and he wondered where the man was, and if he might be in league with the plants. He had taken to cutting down the most delicious looking fruit with his sword. He couldn’t hope to kill all of the plants, they had him surrounded, but he could make sure they knew what he was capable of.

Surrounded on all sides by enemies, and having to watch his back lest Mohammad sneak up on him, Ramses was making slow progress through the wilderness. His displays of martial prowess had been keeping the plants at bay so far; the cowards didn’t have the balls to attack him openly. No. They had their agent Mohammad for that.

It was at that moment that Ramses saw him. He rose from the dense foliage, tearing free overgrowth and shedding earth and roots, like some ancient forest spirit. He was massive, a great apex predator, at least three men tall. He seemed to possess attributes of both plants and animals, an utterly alien creature unlike anything found on Earth. Clearly, this was the avatar of Mohammad.

All three of his heads bore the grinning face of Mohammad, Ramses’ own face, full of venom-drooling teeth. The avatar was monstrous; clearly Mohammad intended to destroy Ramses here and now and seal the victory of his fruit-bearing masters. Ramses realized his rival’s mistake. Mohammad had invested too much of his divine essence in this monster. Ramses would slay the demon and destroy Mohammad forever. That would show the plants.

Mohammad lashed out with a sinewy vine-like tentacle covered in barbs. It shot forward as though fired from a gun. This foul plant trickery caught Ramses off-guard and the vine plunged through his shoulder and out the other side. The barbs tore into his flesh and held while his bloodstream filled with alien toxins.

The pain had a focusing effect, and adrenalin began to surge within Ramses. The toxin also woke him with a shock. It was all so clear to him now: if the food here kills you, the poison must make you stronger.

Ramses grabbed the vine attached to him and pulled it hard. Mohammad reflexively pulled back, and Ramses managed to keep his grip as he was launched into the air. He half swung onto Mohammad’s back, still holding his sword in his other hand. When he was in position he cut the vine and landed hard, but he managed to scramble to his feet before Mohammad could buck him off. Ramses could feel the poison burning in his veins, making him stronger. Summoning all of this strength and more he plunged the sword into one of Mohammad’s three heads. Mohammad screamed an unearthly scream and tossed Ramses from his back. Ramses slammed into a tree and fell to the ground. Mohammad, sword still attached, sunk back into the forest.

* * *

Although technically dead, Ramses had not been dead in any really serious way. The Huxley Foundation was able to rebuild Ramses in about a week, using 75% original parts.

His mind was his own again, insofar as he was aware of it. Some of the foundation psychologists theorized that since the human mind is already a swirling cauldron of conflicting thoughts and emotions, Ramses mind simply integrated Mohammad’s engrams into his larger consciousness. Ramses would have none of this, of course. As far as he was concerned the transfer was a failure and Mohammad died in the lab on Nibiru. Ramses did, however, start carrying a blade with him from that day forward.