Chapter 11: The Traveler

It was early evening, as The Traveler pulled up to Alex Chatris' home and the outside lights came on. He pushed the bell and the intercom near the entryway said, "It's open. Please come in."

He opened the door to a dimly lit foyer, and Alex called to him, "I'm in here, off to your left."

He turned that way and from behind him, two large, young men came and walked him into the room.

"Please stand right there," she said. She was pointing a shotgun at him from about ten feet away. She was wearing a Kevlar vest beneath her jogging togs. "Nothing personal, I assure you. I just want to be assured of my safety."

The Traveler said, "I said you have nothing to fear from me, and I meant it."

One young man came up and gave him a gentle, but thorough, pat down. She watched as the young man emptied The Traveler's pockets of every single thing in them. One by one, he put The Traveler's laptop, a simple cell phone, tablet computer, another phone/mobile device, two pens, a money clip and a foldable pocket knife on the table nearby. No wallet, no identification at all.

The other young man looked like he was ready to pounce.

"Please leave your belt and shoes on the table," said Alex.

"I assure you, this isn't necessary," said The Traveler.

"Probably true," she said. "But I've been raped, and now I deal with all sorts of nasty people. So I'm cautious. I'm sure that your martial arts skills and self-modifications could take out one or both of my assistants. But a shotgun makes an awful big hole, even in a ninja."

He sighed, but complied with all of her instructions.

"Now, we'll just go into the library and have a chat." She addressed the young men. "Green, Gold ... Walk behind him, within arms length."

She backed through the hallway and into a room filled with floor to ceiling bookshelves, with a workstation/desk that had her desktop computer. She motioned him to a chair and the two men quickly strapped his arms to the arms of the padded, leather-armed chair.

"Green, Gold ... thank you. You may leave now. Return to your homes and remember nothing of this meeting, other than that you had a nice evening with your old Computer Science teacher. My regards to your wives."

After the men had left the room, The Traveler said, "You've always been very gentle and kind to your subjects."

"Well, yes. At least the ones I haven't had to put down," said Alex, taking a seat across the room, at the side of her desk. She intentionally used the veterinary term for when an animal had to be destroyed. None of the abUsers she'd killed over the years had reached the level of human being, she felt.

"I have no intention of hurting you, either," she continued. "But you must admit, this is a strange thing: to meet with someone who has so many subjects. A dangerous man. I will state that I know that you have probably altered yourself to make you nearly superhuman. I have as well, plus I won't hesitate to use this." The shotgun wiggled slightly in her hands. It was a blatant lie that she had altered herself, but he couldn't know that.

"I have said before that I mean you no harm. I wouldn't walk into the demesne of anyone who I didn't think was trustworthy," said The Traveler. "You have shown yourself, over a period of years, to be interested in using the Master PC program only for the good."

"As I define it," Alex said. "That is true."

"We both do," he said. "I have a slightly broader definition of 'good, ' but I think we are in general agreement."

"So," she countered. "What brings you here tonight?"

"I've come," he said, "to try and share information about the User – abUser -- you call Madam X. I've tracked her across several states in the Southeast U.S., and never gotten close. You, on the other hand, have gotten quite a bit of information, and she's just popped into your area."

Alex pondered a bit. "Why do you want to find her? What do you intend to do with her?"

"Well," he said crossing his legs, "I doubt that she could be convicted by the justice system. So I intend to kill her."

"Why?"

"You've discovered that she is a pedophile and a mass murderer, yes?" Alex nodded. "That's why."

"Hmm. Me, too," said Alex. "I think I can stop her, but only by revealing that another User is on her trail. That won't do."

"How can you stop her?"

"By taking away all her targets."

"Umm ... being bound like this is uncomfortable. Would you mind?"

"No. I won't release you. I won't come into close proximity."

"But you won't shoot if I free myself? I say again that I harbor no ill intent. All I will ask is for a glass of water when I'm done."

"There's a pitcher on the bar behind you. If you can free yourself, do so. Make no sudden moves though." The shotgun waggled again.

He nodded, and then went into a trance-like state. Soon the buttons of his shirt began to be un-buttoned by something unseen. A thin hand-like thing extended itself from his chest, it had a thumb on each end and three long fingers in between. The hand reached under the restraint on each arm of the chair in turn and released the catch there. Then the hand began to melt back into his chest. The entire process took about ten minutes.

Alex watched, stupefied. Of course, she reasoned. He had programmed himself to build an additional appendage at some predefined mental trigger. Very experienced with MPC, obviously. This was an extremely dangerous individual. I wonder what other body parts he has that he could manipulate or grow on command? But then she chased her mind out of the gutter.

She looked at him again, evaluating his physical appearance for the first time. He was mid-30s, she guessed, but outward appearance was meaningless with an MPC user. About her height (though doubtlessly he could change it). Slim, with green eyes and short-cropped red hair. She wondered what he really looked like. Then her mind snapped back to reality, and she chided herself for the lewd path her thoughts had taken.

He stood and moved his chair so it was close to the bar. Then he poured himself a glass of water with shaking hands.

"That is very tiring," he said. He poured himself another.

Alex had to rein herself back sharply; she was impressed. "Nice trick," she finally said. "You obviously wanted to show off your talents. Why?"

He blushed at having been caught out so quickly. "Because ... you ... you interest me in ways that no woman has in a long time."

I knew it, Alex thought, same old shit. All men are alike, even Users.

"And you don't," she said aloud. "You're all alike. Men are like metronomes. Always the same old tick ... tick ... tick. Trying to get in a girl's panties, just to feel like the caveman's done his duty and spread his seed ... Now you just sit down again, before I feel like using this shotgun."

"Okay, okay. Take it easy," he said quickly. "You are interesting to me. And not in just a sexual way, although I do think you're very attractive ... You said you expanded your search and found Madam X's most recent victim in Atlanta. That's more than the 250 km limit. How did you do that?"

"I modified the program. Just removed the limit."

"Hmmm ... I never discovered the way to do that. That's why I travel so much."

"You're not a programmer ... But you have discovered much about the program that is new to me."

He said: "Years of trial and error. The original author – the first MPC was Mikael Petrovich Chartov. He was a Russian genius who wrote the program at age 14. He worked for the Soviet Union as a nuclear scientist. Died unfortunately in the first explosion at Chernobyl. Maybe not so unfortunate – he'd have ruled the world.

"I was a field operative for the CIA. Found the program while I was going through some old floppies in the Chernobyl aftermath. Got radiation poisoning, but managed to find enough about the MPC program to rebuild my body ... You know that gun won't harm me, right – at least in the long term? I'm not bullet-proof, but I can recover from the wound ... but it would greatly improve my outlook on things if you weren't pointing it at me so nervously."

"Yeah, but I'll bet it would slow you down pretty good," I said, keeping the shotgun pointed at him just the same.

"I came here to try to work together to find Madam X – or at least to share ideas about how to take her down. How are we going to do that, sitting twenty feet apart with a shotgun between us?"

Alex thought about it. "Tell my why you have so many subjects around the country. That bothers me."

"They are all contacts – well most of them are. Some are – well sexual playthings. I'm not a saint and I'm not immune to the attraction of power – as you are. But all I've done with them is enhance some physical attributes. Hair color, body hair, bust size, and how their vagina fits with my equipment. Also I've made them a lot healthier.

"The contacts are newspaper and media people, police, FBI and so on. I need to keep track of the kinkier sorts of crime – and anybody who seems to have unusual abilities – like Mr. TenInches up in Boston. I don't mess with subjects' minds and don't abuse them at all – beyond getting them to talk to me, and forget I exist afterwards."

"Show me," Alex said. "Call up your subject list and I'll pick out some names. Then you can put in your passwords and I can see what modifications you've put on them."

The Traveler looked at the shotgun and considered just leaving. He doubted she'd shoot him in the back. Then he thought of what he could do with her ... what they could accomplish together. He really had little to hide. Well ... there was that girl – woman actually – in Memphis. He made her subservient to him for nearly a year and a half. Then he'd turned her loose with an improved attitude, and a pile of money. She was just so good with her mouth that he just couldn't pass her by. He was human after all.

"Okay," he said. "The worst case is Monique Washington. Black woman, probably about 35 by now. She'll be under the former subjects. I turned her loose seven and a half years ago, and don't know her status, now."

Alex went to her desk, keeping the shotgun pointed at him. She fired up her desktop and called up the MPC program, entering the instruction to increase the distance to 1500 km. "This will give you access to a large chunk of the U.S." Then she backed up to the far side of the room, to give him access to the computer.

He went over to the PC and entered the commands to bring Monique's record to the screen. She was married now, with two children. He was pleased to see she was pregnant again, but probably didn't know it yet. The last instruction he'd left was still there: 'You are completely free and completely in control of yourself in all ways. You will be immune to any further MPC commands by any other user. You will be disease free.'