by HD Smith
Susan9 was a prototype, which meant I was required to report my findings about any glitches or flaws. But if I remembered House Cortez policy correctly, I had thirty days to submit the report. There was no rush, and Susan9’s information might be useful. She could have the kind of details a person who stepped into a job she wasn’t qualified for might need. Reporting her now might not be in my best interest. I’d get settled in with the job first.
“Interface. It is nice to meet you, Susan9.”
“It is nice to meet you, Genevieve.”
Artificial Intelligence was illegal, but advanced chat bot technology like Susan9, a holographic prototype that could walk around and pretend to be real, was creepy as fuck.
This wasn’t the first time I’d talked to a life-sized holo-vid. Once or twice I’d talked to my old supervisor via a real-time holographic at the K12 lab, which used similar technology to place a version of the caller in the same room as the person they were talking to. The holo-tech used scanned images of the person to create a three dimensional photo-realistic version of their body, but input into the projection mainly came from vid-feeds of their face in real-time. The holographic’s body wasn’t real-time, which meant it was derived from the situation and room layout, regardless of the real person’s physical position. That was why Susan9’s head had been the only thing to change for the vid-recording, which would have been a neck up headshot only.
As we continued down the hallway, it curved to the left. I switched my directions to a map view. The floor plan displayed, showing me as a red dot moving along the corridor toward the center of the connected buildings. We were transferring from one of the three intertwined buildings to another. The 73rd floor was one of the levels inside the three buildings where you could transfer between the individual structures.
We approached an exit from building A. The door led to a large room that spanned six floors linking all three buildings. This was the place where the exterior structures merged. Each individual floor connected via a series of suspension bridges, which linked to a hub platform in the middle of the merged buildings. We crossed to the hub, then continued via a separate spoke toward Building C.
“Interface,” I said, “where is the lab where I’ll be working?”
“Your work area is on Floor 13 in Building C. You are assigned to M13 Lab A, working for Dr. Robert Monroe.”
“Interface. What product will I be overwatching?” I asked.
“You are assigned to overwatch the X86 Live Ink R&D study. The study is in its final weeks of allotted research time before the patent application expires. When the patent expires, you will be reassigned to another House Cortez R&D effort.”
“Interface. How long has the X86 study been happening?”
“I do not understand your question. Please restate,” Susan9 said.
“Interface. When did the X86 Live Ink study start?”
“The X86 Live Ink study was started by Conor Cortez on 04.87.068. The product description states: Live Ink is a stable, myst-infused injectable serum which allows a user to generate temporary tattoos on demand. Its patent number is R7.02.44.19.21. Assets were transferred from Harko Royale to House Cortez on 04.87.147, twenty-seven hours before Conor Cortez expired.”
Wait. What? If the patent had been started by Conor Cortez, why would it have been registered first by an entity other than his own House? What was Harko Royale? “Interface. Why was Live Ink part of Harko Royale?”
“I do not understand your question. Please restate,” Susan9 said.
“Interface. What is Harko Royale?”
“Harko Royale is a legal entity owned by Conor Cortez, Ezra Zar, Dalton Vance, and Byron Storm. It is designated as a Fiducia guild, registered twenty-five years ago today on 04.87.047. According to the documentation, a Fiducia guild means it is a commerce and manufacturing guild with no House affiliation. It is worth ten billion credits.”
Wow, that seemed like a lot of credits for a guild with two dead members. Was it still active? If so, did that mean that House Storm and House Vance were connected?
No, the Fiducia aspect meant the guild wasn’t affiliated with any House. So how did Susan9 have that information? House Cortez had no link to it now that Conor Cortez was dead, right?
And why would Conor Cortez have been building a product for Harko Royale instead of House Cortez? And he then transferred it … and died a day later? This wasn’t adding up.
“Interface. Send me the dates you just mentioned. Include the date Conor Cortez died and the Great Cataclysm.” I wanted to check something.
A moment later, the dates I requested displayed on my Link.
[- Harko Royale guild registered on 04.87.047 (25 years ago)
- X86 Live Ink registered by Conor Cortez on 04.87.068 (24 years, 344 days ago)
- Great Cataclysm happened on 04.87.118 (24 years, 294 days ago)
- Patent transferred to House Cortez on 04.87.147 (24 years, 265 days ago)
- Conor Cortez died on 04.87.148 (24 years, 264 days ago)]
Ezra Zar and all other citizens of House Zar had died during the Great Cataclysm. Twenty-nine days later, Conor transferred his patent to House Cortez; then one day after that, thirty days after the Great Cataclysm, he died. Had Dalton Vance or Byron Storm been consulted about the transfer? They’d lost the patent when Connor pulled it from Harko Royale. How had Conor died?
I searched the stream for Conor Cortez’s death, and several articles came up. One was clearly a fantasy from the Dark Stream, with the sensational headline to go with it.
[Believe Nothing They Tell You. Conor Cortez was Murdered by His Own Sister.]
Another article was from Worlds Press. I clicked that one. It included a picture of four young men tagged as the Dangerous Twos. It was a post from four years ago, on the twenty-year anniversary of Conor’s death.
[Conor Cortez, second son of former Head of House Thomas Cortez, committed suicide twenty years ago, thirty days after the Great Cataclysm. Conor and his friends were once the Known Worlds elite bad boys. The four, known as the Dangerous Twos, were all second-born sons of powerful Houses. Twenty years later, two of the four are dead and the other two have attained their own Head of House designation* when their older brothers died, moving them to next in line.
House Cortez honors their son each year with a lavish gala to raise money for mental health awareness.
*Head of House Byron Storm holds the title as regent.]
Wait—the giant mega gala House Cortez hosted every year was tied to a mental health charity because their son had committed suicide? Everyone in House Cortez knew of the gala, but I’d never heard anyone reference it to Conor. I hadn’t even known he’d committed suicide.
Had the Great Cataclysm been a factor in his suicide or a coincidence? Thirty days after the planet Aratus went dark, everyone in the Known Worlds had started to talk of the worst-case scenario—that everyone on the planet was dead. No one had made it off Aratus before the spacebridge shut down. His friend and business partner Ezra Zar was gone; could that have been the reason Conor took his own life?
It has been almost twenty-five years, but to this day, no one knew what really happened to Aratus.
“Interface. Why was Conor building products for Harko Royale?” I asked.
“I do not understand your question. Please restate,” Susan9 said.
“Why—Interface. Why wasn’t Conor Cortez building products for House Cortez?”
“Conor Cortez filed a 29.E98.1442.F petition with the Worlds Legal Authority to dissolve his relationship with House Cortez.”
That was a petition to leave his House. Conor Cortez had been planning to leave House Cortez.
Lucy-damn-hell, this was like a daytime vid-drama. The question was, were the two remaining members of Harko Royale also planning to leave their Houses? This would have been before either had reached Head status. Houses didn’t like to lose. Was Conor’s death meant to send a message?
“Interface. When was the pet
ition filed?”
“The petition was filed forty-eight hours before he expired. It became void after his death.”
What the hell was up with X86 Live Ink and a guild of elite men from powerful Houses who possibly had plans to leave their Houses?
“Genevieve,” Susan9 said.
I stopped and looked up from my Link. Susan9 was no longer in front of me. I turned toward her voice. She was standing at an intersection with her hand held toward the hallway.
“This way, please. We must take the elevator down to your lab.”
“Right, of course, sorry,” I said. “I got distracted.”
“Do you need medical attention?” Susan9 asked.
“Um… no, why?” I asked.
“Your face is displaying a pink hue, which indicates you are flushed. Do you need assistance?”
“No. I’m fine. Let’s get to the lab.”
My head was swirling with hundreds of possibilities. I wanted to go back and read the DS article now. At the time of Conor’s death, his father, Thomas Cortez, was the Head of House. Marissa Cortez was Conor’s older sister and the heir to their father. She took the Head position when Thomas died several years ago.
Could Marissa have killed Conor?
But why would she? Marissa was eventually going to be Head of her House. Conor’s death had had little impact in the grand scheme of things. It was a minor inconvenience to the legal entity that was House Cortez. He also wouldn’t have been the first elite to ever leave a House, so that was no motive for murder. He might have been the first to try taking a viable product with him, but Susan9 had said the patent was about to expire. That meant no products had yet been created from the patent. Did that mean it was worthless?
Something didn’t feel right. I had to be missing something.
“Genevieve.” Susan9’s voice broke my trance. Again.
She was standing in front of the elevator’s open doors, waiting for me to go inside.
“Sorry,” I said, hurrying to enter the elevator.
Within seconds we were on our way to the 13th floor. I considered asking Susan9 where Marissa had been the day her brother took his own life, but I needed to ignore this nonsense. I had to start psyching myself up to run an entire lab, and well enough that they wouldn’t figure out I had no credentials that qualified me for the position. Of course, at some point, someone was going to notice that I had a silver allergy and demote me to a test subject. Until that happened, I’d do as my favorite 22nd century private investigator, Mason Murdoch, would do—keep my friends close, and my enemies closer.
5
Sun Blossom Tower, Old Earth, Monday, 18:00 LTZ
Liam
American Gothic and Girl with a Pearl Earring were packed up tight in the back of the non-AutoDrive SUV, along with a few other items I thought were interesting. I was on my way now to the second address Dexter had programed into the smartphone. I would be looking for the Kohinoor Diamond—an item Dexter already had a buyer for. That wasn’t my normal strategy, but natural gems and precious metals were always easy to sell. Without doing any research, I knew I’d not get stuck with it, but items like this also had the potential to create a bidding war during an auction. No matter the outcome, it was a safe bet.
Checking the map, I could see that the location was on the opposite side of the city. It was another residence in another skyscraper and would hopefully be just as easy as the last location; easy in the sense that I wouldn’t get ambushed and breaking into the high rise wouldn’t take more than an hour. Another hour to document the location for later analysis, and then I’d be back to the Sun Blossom in time to grab the data drive and head home to the Known Worlds.
I parked the non-AutoDrive on the street, making sure to leave enough room for a quick escape. It blended in with all the other abandoned vehicles, but I was counting on the built-in security measures to keep it protected. The smartphone chirped. It was Dexter. I clicked the answer button on my ear-clip.
“Did you get the vid-capture?” I asked.
“Yeah, you need to go back.” Dexter said.
“Why?”
“Two words. Mona Lisa.”
“Three words. Jennifer Simone Abigail.”
There was a pause. Dexter was probably rolling his eyes. “Cute,” he said. “The Mona Lisa, a famous painting, is the holy grail of all things Old Earth. Jennifer Simone Abigail is probably just some girl you banged in high school.”
“First, your OE slang is hitting nerd level today. Second, how did you find the painting on the vid so fast? It just finished uploading.”
“While I waited for your slow-ass tech to sync, I checked the other items listed at the penthouse address. I found a listing for M. Lisa, painting by L. da Vinci. As soon as the vid synced, I scanned it, and I saw the masterpiece in the corner of the display room. You have to go back and get it.”
“Oh, the woman with no eyebrows?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said, with so much exasperation I chuckled.
“I grabbed it already. There was something weird about it that I liked, and it was behind projectile-resistant glass.”
Dexter laughed. “So in other words, you assessed someone else’s security protocol and determined it was sufficient to warrant your effort in retrieving it?”
“Yep.”
“Okay, you’re at the second location—why aren’t you already breaking down the door?” Dexter asked.
“I just got here, and I don’t break down doors. I hack security systems. Also, you called me to chat, remember, so chill.”
I took a look around and activated the security protocols. Immediately a yellow light on the radio sniffer started blinking.
“We’ve got company,” I said.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know. The radio sniffer is flashing. Activating speaker now.”
A staticky connection crackled to life. I listened to the feed.
[“Team two, what is your status?” male voice one asked.
“We’re at the location. Mineral stores depleted. No tantalum,” male voice two said.
“Proceed to location seven.”
“Affirmative, Team One.”
“Scribe,” voice one said. “Relay to Chairman Vance that location six has no tantalum.”
“Affirmative,” male voice three said. “Shall I request an extension for Operation Royale?”
“Negative. We have three more locations to check before we declare defeat,” voice one said.
“Affirmative,” voice three said.]
The chatter went quiet, but I couldn’t believe what I’d heard. Dalton Vance had a team of renegades on Old Earth searching for tantalum. What the hell was tantalum?
“What the Lucy-hell?” Dexter asked. “Liam, are you listening to me?”
“Yeah, sorry. What is tantalum?” I asked.
“Searching,” Dexter said. “I’ve got it. It’s a chemical element. It’s a rare, hard, blue-gray, lustrous transition metal that is highly corrosion-resistant. I’m searching it with House Vance.”
“Also search Royale, because that’s a weird operation name.”
“Maybe—I’m not all that familiar with House Vance naming protocols,” he said.
Crap. I really should be careful what I said. I was extremely familiar with House Vance naming protocols because I had been House Vance. That was, until my uncle, Dalton Vance, almost succeeded in killing me so he could take over the House.
Royale was weird. Usually they were things like ‘Operation Tango’ or the ill-fated Foxtrot 14 fiasco. But there was no way a normal person would know House Vance names, unless that name had become infamous, and so far only Foxtrot 14 had that honor.
“Okay, after several iterations and permutations, I’ve got an odd hit, but it’s deep Dark Stream stuff.”
This should be good. “Continue.”
“Nothing came up for Vance and tantalum, but when I search Vance and Royale, I got a hit on the guild registry for an entity named H
arko Royale. I put that into a search and got a half dozen DS headlines for things like Is Storm Inc. building AI super soldiers?, House Cortez’s hidden legacy—is Conor Cortez really dead or living his life as a scholar on Hera?, and my personal favorite, House Zar failed experiment exposed. Lizard people released on Canis before the Great Cataclysm. Weirdly, nothing with House Vance.”
I didn’t think it was weird that House Vance wasn’t mentioned, but the other Houses having a tie to Harko Royale was strange. A House Vance story might have existed at one time, but House Vance spent a lot of time and money killing anything with their name on it, even ridiculous DS nonsense. There were hundreds of DS mentions every day, but they were never the same hundred.
“I agree, the DS stuff is most likely bullshit. Interesting that the other Houses are mentioned. What’s in the guild registry?”
“You mean you want the full record from the guild registry that I shouldn’t have access to? That I believe you actually told me to forget about?”
“Just give me the damn data,” I said.
Dexter chuckled. “Harko Royale was set up exactly twenty-five years ago. It had four members: Dalton Vance, Conor Cortez, Ezra Zar, and Byron Storm. It’s classified as a Fiducia guild, which is an OE Latin word for trust. Nothing like the Zar Trusts, of course, but up until about fifteen years ago, that type of guild was common. It’s a guild with no House affiliation, that produces goods.”
What the hell had Dalton being planning?
“Interesting fact,” Dexter continued. “Those four guys were known at the time as the Dangerous Twos. They were all second-born sons, and now the two still alive are Heads of House.”
I’d had to give up a lot when I walked away from my House. But Dalton taking my place as Head of House Vance pissed me off the most. It wasn’t that I wanted the job, but Dalton didn’t deserve it.
“You’re quiet, Liam. What are you thinking?” Dexter asked.