Free The Life of the World to Come by Kage Baker

would we keep them all?” Chatterji looked intrigued.
    “Underground bunkers.” Rutherford’s eyes shone. “In keeping with the legends. Carefully monitored, on life support—nothing inhumane, you know. Until the Judgment Day!”
    An uncomfortable silence fell then, because nobody ever liked to mention that Judgment Day was thought to be going to arrive in the year 2355. Having breached the unmentionable, however, Rutherford blundered on in a lower voice:
    “And—who knows? If something terrible’s going to happen in the future, perhaps it’s just as well we’ll have a secret army hidden away, that we can revive if we need to.”
    “Shrack,” said Ellsworth-Howard solemnly. “Think you’ve got the right idea, Rutherford. It’ll take some planning, though. Have to be gradual and crafty, so the poor buggers don’t know what’s going on. Let’s see how much it’ll cost, eh?” His fist worked on the buttonball.
    “I’m glad you’re taking this well,” said Chatterji, watching him. “The committee didn’t want you to think the Enforcers were a failure. It is felt, though, that the next project should be more thoroughly tested before it’s put into action.”
    “And how do we do that?” grunted Ellsworth-Howard absently. He was absorbed in his calculations. Rutherford looked inquiringly at Chatterji.
    “Well, now that historical time is being entered, the Company would like an improved model Enforcer,” Chatterji explained.
“Someone more modern-looking. More suited to a life of service in a civilized world. So, obviously, we’d want somebody who was superbly strong but maybe less violent, more obedient, perhaps a bit more intelligent than the old Enforcers? Someone with the ability to adapt to peacetime life, yet with the same sense of, er, moral commitment.”
    “Not so much a warrior as a knight,” said Rutherford. “A hero! I say, Chatty, this sounds interesting.”
    “But not a charismatic leader who can make thousands hang on his every word,” Chatterji added. “That’s been tried, and we all know what happened.”
    “Well, that wasn’t our project,” Rutherford reminded him smugly.
    “Thank heaven. We want somebody with the intelligence to judge men and administer laws, but not out of a sense of his own importance. All zeal, no ego.”
    “Okay.” Ellsworth-Howard printed out a sheet of figures and handed them to Chatterji. “There’s Operation Pension Plan for the old Enforcers. I feel crappy about it, but I don’t see what else we can do with ’em. Now, what’s this about a knight?”
    “We need a New Man, Foxy, an enlightened warrior,” Rutherford cried.
    “You mean no more big ugly buggers we can’t control?” Ellsworth-Howard grinned mirthlessly.
    “Exactly,” Chatterji said. “And to make certain there are no further problems, the committee wants a completely original prototype. No breeding programs. They don’t want you picking through human children until you find one that fits the optimum morphology and then performing the immortality process on it, either. The results are too unpredictable.”
    “It works fine on my shracking Preservers,” growled Ellsworth-Howard.
    “Yes, of course, but they’re only Preservers,” Chatterji said hastily. “How much trouble can drones cause? But nothing is to be left to chance on this new design.” He lowered his voice. “The committee wants to see something engineered. Do you understand?”
    What he was proposing Ellsworth-Howard do was horribly,
flagrantly illegal and had been for two centuries. As long as nobody actually said in so many words We want you to make a recombinant , however, it could be glossed over as something else, should anyone ever call Dr. Zeus or its employees to account, which of course would never happen.
    “A tailored gene job?” Ellsworth-Howard asked uneasily, pulling at his lower lip. “Take a lot of work.”
    “Absolutely. Field testing, too. And for that reason, the first prototypes