The Sons of Heaven by Kage Baker

himself had never lost his baby teeth. He blinked now, trying to comprehend what he was being told.
    “You’re lying to me,” he said. “You’re some kind of monster.”
    “Not I,” snapped the creature. “I’m a man! I’m the disinherited right human heir to all their grand places, the original white man, and so are you. Have they bred the Memory out of you, stupid? You don’t know the story we all know, how we were smarter than the big tribe from the get-go of time, flying in our ships when
they
was still smacking chips off flint to make themselves tools for their clumsy hands? But they chased us, stole our inventions from us, so we had to hide ourselves. How could you not remember? We’ve
all
got the Memory.”
    “I don’t know what you mean,” said Bugleg. The horrible little man glared at him a long moment, and then looked around the inside of the car. On the seat between them was a small box of disposable chlorilar gloves, kept there by Mr. Bugleg in case he had to touch anything dirty. His visitor pulled on one of the gloves and, before Mr. Bugleg had time to protest, thrust his hand into Mr. Bugleg’s open mouth.
    “Wowf—aughf—ack! You scratched me!” cried Mr. Bugleg, when the hand had been withdrawn. The creature ignored him, neatly pulling the glove inside out as he removed it from his hand. He tied the wrist shut and tucked it away inside his coat.
    “I’ll do a bloody DNA test, then, and prove it to you. They’ve been enjoying themselves in the sun whilst we’ve hid under rocks in the damp, all thesecenturies of the world. They stole our children to breed, so we stole theirs. You and me both came from that game! But they cheated, see. They made themselves slaves who could go back through time, and do their thievery for them. They created the
cyborgs.”
    “No,” said Bugleg. “I did that. I mean, I was on the design team.”
    “They was using you to do it,” the creature jeered. “Think they’d ever have come up with Pineal Tribrantine Three by themselves? Not likely! And you did your kin proud anyhow, because their clever weapon’s turned in their hands now, hasn’t it? Fine Dr. Zeus is scared to death of his cyborgs. Wishes he’d never made them.”
    “Yes!” cried Bugleg, suddenly comprehending. “They’re mean, and now they’re mad at us, and we can’t make them go away. They’ll take over!”
    “That’s right. So Dr. Zeus came crawling to us of all people, sent his big men in their gray coats to ask ever so nicely whether we couldn’t help them.
Oh, please, nothing will make our cyborgs die, would you ever give it a try?”
whined the creature mockingly.
    “What?” said Bugleg. “Dr. Zeus is just a logo. Nobody came crawling to you.”
    “That’s what you think, ducky,” the creature replied. “It was before you were born, but it was your Company, don’t think it wasn’t. Old Uncle Zingo was there and he told me the whole of it, how it was sweet to see them go down on their big knees, pretty please! Well, he graciously said yes, and they made sure we got what we needed to experiment. And what I’m here to tell you, my big stupid hybrid cousin, is: we’ve kept our part of the deal. We’ve done it at last. Come up with a way to solve your problems.”
    Bugleg’s pulse raced. “You can make the cyborgs—be not immortal?”
    “Can and have, I say!” the creature assured him. “I’ve come up with a stuff that’ll kill them dead as doorknobs.”
    But Bugleg had turned his face away, was cringing again. “Not
kill
them,” he said. “Killing is wrong. We just want—”
    “Say no more,” purred the creature, holding up a hand. “You want a nicer word? Say my stuff will terminate them. Better still, say it’ll switch them off. Because they’re not really people, are they, now? Just things you made.”
    “Yes,” said Bugleg, brightening. “Yes! Just things. And they’re mean.”
    “And you need to switch them off.”
    “Yes. Because they do