Part VIII – What Would Murphy Do?

This is Part VIII of the serial space western The Ghosts of Blackmoon Rift. It is also available for download in RTF format here. Or click here for a complete listing of episodes.

There were a lot of furious exclamations and terse demands for clarification on one side and a lot of hand-wringing and sputtering on the other. Murphy blinked back-and-forth from one side of the room to the other soaking it all in. Eventually, however, the story that became clear was that Wallace himself had appeared at the Ranch House three days ago. He had blown in like a thunderstorm, carrying several military-issue rail-guns. He didn’t explain where he had gotten them. Instead he’d loaded his sister onto a hoversled, told the aging caretakers not to look for him for a few orbits, and driven off.

Wallace wasn’t smiling now.

Part VIII – What Would Murphy Do?

Previously: Returning home from several days in the wilderness, Blackmoon rancher Wallace is confronted by a posse lead by his sister’s fiance, a man called Flanagan. When Flanagan demands that Wallace turn her over, he refuses and dispatches Flanagan and his men, in the process discovering that one of them is a hologram named Murphy. Murphy and Wallace then learn that Wallace’s sick sister has been kidnapped – and that Wallace was the one who took her!

He wore a brooding frown and nearly paced a groove in the real wood floorboards. If Murphy had expected him to pounce on the old man for his stumbling explanation, he was disappointed. Wallace treated the elderly couple respectfully, if not patiently.

“I have no memory of any of these events,” he said when the old man had finished recounting his story.

“Mr. Wallace, you must be completely exhausted. Why don’t you set a spell and I’ll tend to that bump on your head,” said the old lady.

“Thank you, Miss Alice,” Wallace replied. “But I’ve dragged my sister off somewhere and I don’t remember where. I’ve got to get back out and scour this rock for her.”

“Pardon me,” Murphy piped up. “I was wondering if someone could fill in the blanks for me here. I was under the impression that Mr. Tall, Dark and Scary’s sister was sicker than a dog, as they used to say back when we had dogs instead of databanks of encoded dog DNA, a reality which I have to admit is kind of sucking the life out of that aphorism. How is she suddenly well enough to go traipsing off with – what do you call your schizoid alter ego there, Wallace? You know, the one who goes all Fight Club whenever you’re asleep?”

“I don’t have an alter ego,” snapped Wallace.

“C’mon. What do you think is going on here? You wake up with a bump on your head to discover someone who looks just like you kidnapped your own sister. An open-and-shut case of split personalities if I ever heard one. I’m sorry, am I ruining a plot twist for anyone?”

“Schizophrenics,” growled Wallace, “do not have split personalities.”

“Whatever,” said Murphy, “Do I look like a psychiatrist?”

“You’re a doctor.”

“Oh, yeah. The doctorate is in history, actually. We try not to bring it up when we’re pitching our program. Anyway, what’s the story on the kid sister?”

“Casey was attending the Sphere Institute of Technology,” the little old lady piped up. “The poor dear had come for Christmas. One evening, she snuck out of the house to go up to the mesa. We think she was going to meet her boyfriend.”

“The mighty Flanagan!” said Murphy. Alice nodded.

“Well, she never did come back. So Mr. Wallace, he took every drone we have and went out looking for her. Found her in the morning, down in a crevice. There was not a mark on her. It was as if she had just… fallen asleep! Mr. Wallace couldn’t wake her for love or money.”

“Coma,” said Wallace tersely. The old woman nodded sagely.

“So he brought her back. Lord knows I did everything I could for her, but she kept slipping further and further away from us. Mr. Wallace was so scared for her, he got the family cryo-chamber out of storage and put her in it. And she’s been sleeping there ever since. Waiting for her prince to wake her with a kiss.” She sighed.

“She doesn’t need a prince,” snapped Wallace. “Just a doctor who knows which end is supposed to point up. All the ones I’ve had in here were fools. Always want to take her back to the Sphere for ‘more tests’.”

“I’m sure they’d take care of her there,” said Murphy. “You know, technology -”

“- is worthless,” finished Wallace. “Until someone has a glimmer of an idea what’s actually wrong with her, all the scans in the world won’t help. So she stays here where I can keep an eye on her.”

“Which you’re doing a fabulous job of,” quipped Murphy. Wallace fixed Murphy with his most frightening smile. “It’s just possible that that was inappropriate,” Murphy added quickly.

. . .

In short order, the following things happened: Wallace had a shave, combed his hair back and exchanged his ragged coat for a fresh one. Drones were summoned and a hoversled was commandeered from a garage hidden in the hillside. Finally, Wallace stood out on the porch with What Would Murphy Do strapped to his belt and surveyed the craggy vista that spread out below them. It was surprisingly beautiful. Hillsides of jet-black were marbled with streaks of white. A long, graceful variety of blue-green grass clung tenuously to them. The sunlight was fading and the vast sweep of the Badlands Nebula was starting to fill in the gaps in the sky.

“I love what you Wallaces have done with the place,” said Murphy, hovering in the air beside him. “You’ve done sharp work terraforming this little moon.”

Wallace shrugged. “We didn’t have much to do with it,” he said. “Pretty much like this when old Jebediah Wallace found it. This world’s an artifact. That strange black rock goes all the way down. Engineer work.”

“Really? I had no idea. It looks so natural. Say Wallace,” he added, “that’s hard luck about your sister. Good luck finding her. I know that, um, Old Jebediah would want that.”

Wallace looked at him. “Same to you, holo-man. You’re coming.”

“What?” asked Murphy. “What can I possibly do to help? I don’t know if you noticed, but I’m completely incorporeal.” He winked out of sight and reappeared on the other side of Wallace to drive home this point.

Wallace was silent for a moment, looking out to the horizon. A drone came buzzing down from the sky and hovered expectantly in front of them. Somewhere, crickets were going. At last Wallace said in a low voice, “I want you to keep an eye on me.”

“What?” asked Murphy.

“You heard me,” growled Wallace. “I want you to keep an eye on me. If I start – behaving strangely – someone should be there to see it.”

“Um. You really think you’re going to go all Jekyll and Hyde again?” gulped Murphy.

“No,” snapped Wallace fiercely. Then he added, “Just in case though.”

“Fine,” said Murphy, “But I want something in return.”

“What’s that?” asked Wallace cautiously.

Murphy nodded at the waiting drone. “A body.”

. . .

“All drones, slave to my voiceprint,” barked Wallace. He and Murphy were astride a hoversled, surrounded by a cloud of buzzing drones. They were of virtually every shape and size and variety, so that the two bent old caretakers among them did not look at all out of place.

“Hurry back Mr. Wallace. Please be safe! Mr. Murphy, you keep an eye on – everything,” said the old woman a bit lamely.

“Don’t you worry none about the house,” coughed the old man.

“I’ll be back soon with Casey. See to the herds. Don’t let that boy Flanagan in.” With that, Wallace revved the engine and they were off.

They were speeding down a series of ridges that fell away into a valley. “So, what’s the plan?” Murphy shouted into the wind.

“The drones scan the area for anything unusual. They spot something, we go look,” said Wallace tersely. Murphy nodded, then settled his small holographic self on the back of the hoversled, his virtual hair quite unruffled by the wind. He sighed.

. . .

The daylight was completely gone and they were running with only the high-beams and the soft glow of the nebula to see by when a single drone swooped down, its red LED blinking in the dark. It burbled incomprehensibly, then projected a map at them with an X marked on it in red.

“What’s it saying?” asked Murphy.

“Some sort of anomalous reading,” said Wallace. “Let’s go check it out.” He gunned the hoversled forward.

. . .

They swept the little canyon three times before Wallace gave up. Even cast in deep shadow, they were sure they had explored every inch of it. They had found nothing.

It was too dark to go further, so Wallace unloaded a sleeping bag and a toothbrush, threw Murphy’s projector on the ground, and stepped away for a moment of privacy.

“Figures,” Murphy grumbled to himself, “No sleeping bag for me, no-sir. I’m just a virtual man. But I’m a man’s virtual man! I’ll earn their respect yet.” He went on for a while like this before he noticed that Wallace was taking his time returning. Suddenly, the canyon seemed very dark and forbidding.

“Wallace, my man, where you at?” shouted Murphy. His voice echoed off the canyon walls, then died away. There was no response. Murphy shivered, and being a hologram, it was not from the cold.

“What’s all the racket?” said a voice, and Murphy jumped. He spun around. A large figure with a fierce smile stepped out of the shadows.

“Ah, oh, nothing, just wondering where you’d got to,” said Murphy. “Not that I’m too concerned with your personal well-being, but I am stuck sitting here unless you’re carrying me. What about our prior conversation about hooking me up to one of your drones?”

“Well now, I don’t know if that’s such a good idea. See, I want to keep an eye on you.”

“Well, the feeling is mutual,” said Murphy. “But c’mon Wallace, you promised.”

Wallace smiled his fierce, terrible smile. “Yeah, but there’s just one problem,” he said. “I’m not Wallace.”

To Be Continued…

(Part IX is here.)