Binary Storm

by Christopher Hinz

  Bel should be used to being shocked by Nick’s revelations. Yet each time she thought she was getting a handle on him, he spouted a fresh surprise.

  “And you’ve managed to keep this fortune hidden?”

  “A challenge, but not impossible.”

  “OK, but with all this wealth, why a low-level job as a programmer? Why not seek a more influential position?”

  “I told you, I like to fly under the radar. Being in the spotlight puts a person under more scrutiny, limits their freedom of movement. Besides, I enjoy being a programmer. And as long as I accomplish my quota of tasks, the hours are somewhat flexible.”

  “Which gives you time to train elite soldiers.”

  “Among other things.”

  Something he’d said earlier finally penetrated. “You’re training three soldiers. But you mentioned that a four-person team would go up against the assassins. Are you that fourth person?”

  Nick erupted into hearty laughter. “Seriously?”

  “Why not? You seem to have an endless range of impressive capabilities.”

  And why on earth am I complimenting him? I should be nailing him to the wall for the illicit bribe.

  “Bel, trust me, I do know my limitations. I definitely wasn’t built for combat. Besides, I consider myself more of a lover than a fighter.”

  If that last sentence was meant to arouse her, it succeeded. Fantasies she’d been trying to repress for weeks slipped into consciousness.

  Concentrate, Bel. Concentrate.

  “So who is this fourth team member?”

  “I haven’t found the person yet.”

  Her wrist fob pulsed. Nick’s ten minute session was up. As fascinating and disturbing as a meeting with him was, she needed time to process what he’d said. Besides, she had five more people to attend to before the liner lifted off.

  She stood up. He did the same.

  “I’m really hoping we can talk again soon,” he said.

  “Count on it.” She tried to make the words sound vaguely threatening but wasn’t sure if she’d succeeded.

  He again extended his arm to shake hands. This time when she grasped his palm, his grip was tight, unyielding. Slowly, inexorably, he pulled her toward him.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded.

  “I want to kiss you.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  Her own voice lacked conviction. She put more effort into it.

  “Nick, you need to go. This is improper.”

  Her second objection proved even less effective, the words emerging as barely a murmur. She felt her chest heaving and her skin becoming flushed.

  “What are you doing to me?” she whispered. Paranoid thoughts again ramped into consciousness, that he was pitstopping her or employing some equally nefarious means to instill an attraction.

  “You’re a beautiful woman, Annabel Bakana. I want to kiss you. It’s really as simple as that.”

  “Nothing is ever simple,” she said, leaning down and planting her lips on his.

  They kissed. He wrapped his arms around her and she did the same. Their embrace was strong, vibrant, freeing in a way that Bel hadn’t felt in a very long time. She didn’t want the kiss to end.

  They pulled apart, both sensing that this was as far as things could go at the moment. Nick backed toward the door, beaming with pleasure.

  “There’s more we need to discuss,” he said. “A lot more.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why don’t you call me as soon as you’re back from Australia. We can get together. Maybe in a more private location where we can discuss certain important matters without any interruptions.”

  “Yes.”

  He left the cabin. Bel called her assistant to send in the next appointment. She tried to compose herself but it was a futile effort. She could steer neither her mind nor her body away from the intense pleasure of kissing Nicholas Guerra.

  Sixteen

  “I’ve come to a decision,” Nick announced to Sosoome. “I’m going to do it.”

  When Bel arrived at his apartment, he would tell her about the momentous “buried lead” from Ektor Fang’s revelations as well as the fact that his source for the information was a Paratwa assassin.

  “I’m going to come clean to her. I’m going to tell her everything.”

  “Horse crap,” Sosoome said. The mech was lying on the sofa, belly up with legs spread, exposing an undercarriage bristling with probes and receptors. Even for a machine it was an unflattering pose. “You enjoy your little emotionally manipulative games too much to go all ‘I cannot tell a lie’ on her.”

  He wanted to argue but Sosoome knew him too well. “OK, so maybe I’ll keep a few secrets.”

  “Like the fact that you have an equally important source among the regents.”

  “Yeah, that.”

  “And the fact that you were married once, and that you opted for stasis, leaving your wife and–”

  “Why don’t you vacuum the rug and refilter the air?”

  “I vacuumed yesterday,” Sosoome replied smoothly. “And the air is max oxygenated and ninety-nine point eight percent free of inhalable contaminants.”

  “Shoot for ninety-nine point nine percent.”

  Nick turned to the wide oak bookcase, ostensibly to make sure his twentieth century paperback collection was aligned in neat rows but more to hide the fact that the mech had touched a sore spot.

  He replaced a couple of stray paperbacks in their slots and scanned the other titles, paying particular attention to the ones that might prove as offensive today as they had when he’d trotted them out in various PC enclaves more than a century ago. His youthful intention back then had been to shock. But that was the last reaction he wanted from Bel.

  He debated removing and hiding Boys Are Mucho More Smarter Than Girls written by the pseudonymous “Fearless Juan,” as well as several other tomes, including The Big Book of Dwarf Juggling and Rectal Probing for Dummies. But he figured that if Bel did notice those books or others of their ilk, she was sophisticated enough to realize they were satires, even if in some cases that might not have been the author’s intent. And if she did take offense, he could treat it as a teachable moment, ideally leading them to mutual laughter and perhaps the opportunity to slip under the covers for a deeper education.

  The eclectic book assortment, a mix of the offbeat, genre novels and serious nonfiction, had been in one of the few storage modules that had survived his long stasis nap. Even in Nick’s first life in the early twenty-first century, there’d been growing digital access to books, making these paper editions silly mementos. He wasn’t sure why he’d gone to such great lengths to save them, even having them treated with deacidification sprays and arranging for temperature and humidity-controlled storage.

  “I don’t think ninety-nine point nine percent is achievable,” Sosoome said.

  “Why are you still arguing with me?”

  The mech emitted an annoyed sigh, rolled onto his feet and extended his air-filter array. He raced back and forth across the rug in silent vacuum mode.

  Sosoome knew pretty much everything about Nick’s past. He wouldn’t have been very useful as a challenging foil if he wasn’t privy to Nick’s deepest personal secrets. Still, sometimes Nick regretted having told the pseudo-feline about his wife, Marta. She remained an open wound, one unlikely ever to fully heal.

  Since yesterday’s impromptu decision to reveal his feelings to Bel aboard the spaceliner, he’d been mentally previewing how this evening might unfold. Their kiss had proved the attraction was mutual. He’d been pretty confident of her reaction, would have been surprised if she’d outright rejected him. Still, now that she was coming here, and knowing that events potentially could spill into the bedroom, he found himself nearly as apprehensive as the first time he’d made love to his long-departed wife.

  He needed to keep busy. He rearranged the paperbacks into alphabetical order by author, then decided it made more sense to separate fict
ion and nonfiction as well.

  Sosoome took notice. “Being a bit anal, are we?”

  “I want things to be perfect.”

  “Too late, dude. Your girlfriend’s on the stoop.” Sosoome finished cleaning and leaped onto the kitchen counter. “Let her in?”

  “No, make her stand outside.”

  “I hope she appreciates your sarcasm as much as I do.”

  Sosoome remote-triggered the entryway door. Nick positioned himself at the apartment door and swung it open when he heard her footsteps reach the third floor landing.

  “Welcome to my crib,” he said with a smile.

  A hooded scarf cloaked her head, hiding most of her face. It made sense for an E-Tech director to disguise herself before an evening rendezvous at the apartment of an employee.

  She wore loose gray pants and a plain jacket. He’d been hoping for sexier attire, something that made it clear upfront where the evening might be headed.

  “You look great,” he said.

  “Thank you.”

  He peered down the stairs. “Bodyguards?”

  “They’re close if I need them.” She pointed to her wrist fob, which no doubt contained a panic button.

  Bel removed the scarf, handed it to him as she entered. He hung it in the closet and gestured for her to have a seat on either chairs or sofa. Instead, she ambled around the room’s perimeter, pausing to examine the framed prints in his small collection. Most were by Frederic Remington and depicted scenes of the nineteenth century American West.

  “I like this one,” she said.

  A man with a pipe in his mouth on horseback was positioned at the edge of a cliff, gazing into the distance. Nick was pleased. It was his favorite too.

  “It’s called ‘The Lookout,’” he said. “I checked a couple years ago to see if I could buy the original.”

  “Too much money?”

  “It went missing from a museum in the American Southwest some thirty years ago during one of those urban water riots.”

  She ended her wandering in front of the bookcase. A smile crept onto her face as she scanned the paperbacks. He wished he could tell which title or titles had conjured the expression.

  “You kids want me to fix you a snack?” Sosoome asked, his tone all bright and cheery. He’d configured his head sensors into a mocking imitation of a human smile.

  “I’m fine,” Bel said. “Maybe later.”

  “How about a drink? Got some forty-proof, fresh from Master Nick’s backyard still.”

  He glared at the mech. “Sosoome, why don’t you head out for a while, get some air?”

  “But the air is spick-and-span in here, Master Nick. Ninety-nine point nine percent.”

  Bel looked surprised by the robot’s challenging tone. Nick felt obligated to make introductions.

  “Bel, meet Sosoome. He’s one of a kind.”

  “He says that to all the women he brings up here.”

  “Be cool.”

  “Just kidding, Bel. Cross my heart, you’re the first female to make the grade. I’m really impressed, although kind of curious about what you see in him.”

  Nick grimaced. “You really need to go.”

  Sosoome hopped off the counter, squeezed into a narrow aisle beside the fridge. At the far end of it was a cat door. Modified to be airtight and unbreachable, it accessed a ledge to the rear fire escape. Just before they heard the door snap shut, Sosoome yelled back a final retort. “You kids behave. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

  “He’s different,” Bel offered. “But somehow he fits you.”

  Nick hopped onto a pair of waiting cushions on the sofa, left ample room for her to sit beside him. Bel chose to resume her wandering.

  “I’m really glad you came,” he offered.

  “You did say you wanted to discuss important matters without any interruptions.”

  “Yeah, I said that, didn’t I? Why don’t you sit down, relax a bit?”

  “First off, I’d like us to be clear about yesterday, about that… moment. It wasn’t something I intended to happen.”

  “I didn’t plan for it either.”

  “This job, being director. It puts me under a lot of pressure to maintain a strict schedule and avoid spontaneity.”

  “No fun in that.”

  “I don’t do well with relationships, Nick. My last boyfriend…” She trailed off.

  “The SATSI quack?”

  “Upton DeJesus and I had our issues but he’s no quack. I believe that in due time, Synaptic Alteration Through Surgical Induction will be seen as a legitimate medical technique.”

  She ventured closer but instead of sitting went into a tight orbit around the sofa. Each time she passed in front of him she met his gaze for a moment, then swiftly looked away before strolling behind his back and reaching apogee.

  “Upton and I were together for nearly two years when out of the blue he tells me that he wants to go on a gender vacation, switch sexes. Last I heard he had the conversion done and planned on living as a biological female for a while. I guess I’m a bit of a traditionalist. I just never had any interest in transforming into a man, even for a holiday.”

  “Completely understandable.”

  “I realize that none of that is probably news to you. With your access and your sources, I’m guessing you already know plenty of details about my personal life. Besides, the thing with Upton has been plastered across the net since I became director, although it was a reasonably amicable parting and not the huge fight reported in the sleazier areas of the newsphere. I’m sure you know as well as anybody that half the stories you come across are outright lies. Tabloid journalism run amok.”

  She was talking fast, on the edge of babbling. He debated an intervention, concluded it was best to keep quiet and let her vent.

  She carried on for three more sofa orbits, telling him all sorts of things: that her parents never approved of the men she dated; that in the back of her mind she feared they were right since she always ended up having her heart broken; that her dedication to E-Tech was one of the few things that kept her on an even keel; that she’d once planned a medical career and had studied to be a doctor; and that she increasingly felt the urge to have a baby yet remained wary of bringing a child into such a crazy world.

  She stopped circling, stood in front of him with her arms crossed tightly across her chest. The posture struck him as somehow both vulnerable and defiant.

  “I don’t know what this is, Nick, what we’re doing here.”

  He patted the cushions beside him. “Why don’t you sit down?”

  “Whatever happens, I need it to be real. But I don’t know if it can be.”

  “Please, Bel. Just sit down.”

  She slipped in beside him, close but not too close. He reached over, took hold of her hand.

  “I want things to be real between us too. Will it turn out that way? Who the hell knows? Life is messy. Shit happens.”

  He realized he was coming across like one of those demented advice bots that recommended embracing chaos to deal with the world’s instability and craziness. He shifted gears.

  “I’ll do everything I can to make things work between us.”

  She gave a slow nod. “Before this goes any farther, I need to know something.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Have you been manipulating me subliminally? Pitstopping or something along those lines?”

  “Bel, absolutely not. I’d never do anything like that, trick a woman into an emotional relationship or into bed.”

  She sighed. “The thing is, I don’t even know who you are, Nick. Not really.”

  He suddenly found himself blurting out things he hadn’t revealed to a living soul since emerging from stasis.

  “I was married back in my first life. Her name was Marta. When I bottomed out in that Texas border town, when I was ready to put out the lights for good, my final thoughts were about her.”

  The pain and the guilt came flooding back. He forced himself to
push on.

  “Marta and I had divorced a couple months earlier. Irreconcilable differences. The truth is, looking back on it, I was pretty much the problem. I was a real asshole.”

  She was looking intently at him. He looked away, trying to avoid getting lost in that dreamy gaze. Now that he’d started down this path, and before anything else that might happen this evening, he needed to get these things off his chest.

  “Marta and I had married fairly young. We didn’t know what we were doing. We ended up arguing a lot. Somehow we managed to stay together for a decade. The truth was, not until after we split did I realize how much I needed her, that she was my stability.

  “I tried to reconcile but she was too angry and wanted to move on. She was already seeing someone else, a divinity professor of all things.” He gave a bitter laugh. “Hell of a change from a punk with attitude and a weird-ass skill set.”

  Bel took hold of his other hand, squeezed his palms. He gazed into her eyes, saw the willingness. It was time to stop talking. But he’d come this far with his story. There was one more part, the most difficult and guilt-inducing part, that he needed to reveal.

  Too late.

  Bel pulled him to her. Their lips met. The rest of his story and the pain that went with it were lost beneath a tidal wave of repressed need.

  Hands groped. Fingers explored. They pulled apart for a moment, looked at one another, saw no doubts, slammed back together, clawing at fabric, undoing snaps and zippers.

  Nick had prepped the bedroom, bought new autosheets, even fallen for the pitch by the sales bot that three hundred thread count, animatronic cotton resulted in a twenty-two percent increase in sexual pleasure as measured on the Diggins all-position, homohetero scale.

  They didn’t make it to the bedroom. He drove into her. She bucked with pleasure. The sofa was comfortable enough. It was all good.

  Seventeen

  Nick awoke naked in bed. Bel was cuddled beside him in a similar state of undress. He checked his attaboy. It was almost 5:30 am.