Life is a Beautiful Thing (4-Book Box Set)

by Harmon Cooper

  Before he could turn to face her, Rinchi jammed the muzzle of her PHASR in the back of his neck and fired. His armored skull blew open when the Lightsaber beam flash-boiled his brain, spraying Keva with brain matter.

  THIRTY-SIX∞

  Takashi Ogawa speaks in Japanese, laughing as each sentence rolls out of his mouth.

  “What’s he saying?” I ask Yeshi. I’m captivated by the man’s warm smile and his handsome features. Data-switching with him may be the best move I’ll ever make.

  “He’s complimenting your mustache and belly size.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes!” Ogawa-san says in fluent English. “I am so happy to see you! Viva la Mexico!”

  I quickly send Yeshi a message over iNet.

  Me: You’ve got to be joking.

  Yeshi: Why?

  Me: This guy is awesome!

  Real life hits and I began speaking with my head slightly bowed. “Thank you, Ogawa-san, for asking me to… um… data-switch with you.”

  “Da-ta-su-wee-che!” He screams in Japanese-accented English. He then changes to idiomatic American English. “The pleasure is all mine, Meme and Humandroid associates. Please, step into my humble abode.”

  He graciously bows and I bow as well, trying my best to match him.

  Me: Am I doing this right?

  Yeshi: Right enough.

  Hajime, Yeshi and I step past Ogawa-san. His house is a complete wreck, like a tornado had sex with an earthquake during the sacking of Rome. Japanese toys, bento boxes, ramen containers, shoes, cords, mangled lingerie, crumbled art prints, VE rig accessories, manga comics and sake bottles are strewn about the place.

  “I apologize for the mess.” He suddenly becomes very Japanese and bows in apology. “My wife did this.” He laughs. “And I helped her!”

  Ogawa-san swings his leg back and kicks one of the boxes in what I’m guessing is his living room. Scooping both hands to the ground, he begins clearing a spot for us to sit in.

  “That will do. Meme-san can sit here, next to me. Basket-head and sexy mama can sit across from us.”

  Yeshi: Sexy mama.

  Me: I was once a sexy mama.

  Ogawa-san cries, “Why are you standing around? Sit! Sit! Sit! Let’s get this party started. Da-ta-su-wee-che fo-ru-so-me des!”

  _∞_

  “Great, now I am covered in brains.” Keva looked down at the fallen man-machine; disgust evident on her face. She examined him with her ocular implant. “This one is even more bionic than me, close to eighty percent. It’s not often that I meet people like that … if you could call them people.”

  Rinchi found this comment strange, especially coming from someone who was routinely ostracized due to her level of bionic integration.

  Rinchi: How far will you go?

  “In terms of robotic enhancements? I’m good where I’m at right now, I suppose. I’m sure a droid whore like you has heard the debates as to what constitutes a human. I consider myself in the gray zone.” They both heard something behind them. “Oh! We almost forgot our little armless cholo. Manuel, are you ready to go, papi?”

  Keva walked over to him and stood him up against the wall. She slapped his face repeatedly, each slap growing in sound and power. “It will be another minute until he’s able to walk again.”

  Rinchi pressed the end of her boot into the fallen machine-man. The only e-skin on his body was the portion from his elbows down. His brain was still human, evident in the hunks of tissue everywhere, as was his heart. He actually had two hearts – his original bio-heart pumped blood to his brain while his mechanical heart, a pear-shaped device on the right side of his chest, was responsible for his mechanical portions.

  It was strange: humans were so obsessed with the layout of their bodies that they designed Humandroids in their image, not unlike the way God purportedly designed humans. Truth be told, the ‘heart’ (eternally rechargeable battery or ERB) could have been anywhere in a Humandroid’s body. Of course, it could be argued that it was better protected inside an endoskeletal chest cavity, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t exist in other locations. Dr. Hewman was to blame – he really wanted Homo machina to be indistinguishable from Homo sapiens.

  “Welcome back, Manuel,” Keva said as the man’s angry gaze locked on her angular face. “Are you ready to tell us where those other turrets are now?”

  “They’re inside the elevator,” he moaned.

  “And how do we disable them from outside the elevator.”

  “That’s not my problem.”

  “It is your problem because you’re coming in the elevator with us.”

  Manuel looked from Keva to Rinchi. “Send the droid in,” he said.

  Rinchi knew that if it came down to it, the fact that she was a Humandroid always made her the most expendable member of any group.

  Keva shook her head. “Lo siento, dickbag. We’re not using her as bait for a pair of turrets.”

  It took Rinchi a moment to realize that Keva had just defended her. She glanced quickly from Keva to Manuel, who was equally shocked that the mercenary was protecting a Humandroid.

  Rinchi: Why don’t we just blow the elevator cab out of the way and climb up the elevator shaft? It’s only one floor.

  “I have a better idea.” Keva dragged Manuel over to elevator. “How about we use you as the bait? Maybe that will help you remember how to disable the turrets.”

  THIRTY-SEVEN∞

  “Don’t!” Manuel shouted.

  Keva pressed his face against the wall next to the elevator. “I’m just going to keep you here until you think of another way to get to the top.”

  He grunted. “I have security access.”

  “Why didn’t you say so?” Keva placed the bottom of her boot against the small of his back. “You really are starting to piss me off, Manuel. Anything else you aren’t telling us? Remember what happened last time you kept something from us – or should the droid remind you?”

  Rinchi: We need to keep him alive.

  Keva: Don’t remind me. I already have Lorem at MercSecure telling me not to do anything to his spine. I swear the company’s gone soft. Bunch of pussies if you ask me.

  “There’s nothing else,” Manuel said through clenched teeth. “I just need to run my hand over the security pad. The turrets will go into stand-by mode; you’ll get your access to the top floor.”

  “And what then? Anything else we should expect.”

  He shook his head. “Nothing, I swear. Carloza is alone up there – Arturo was his last line of defense.”

  Seconds later, Manuel stood in front of the security pad, registering his fingerprints. The system beeped and a low battery sign appeared. “Low batteries?” he asked, pressing his finger against the sensor. “I thought this thing was wall-powered.”

  Rinchi: Someone’s already disabled the turrets; probably Nelly or Noah.

  Keva nodded and pressed the elevator call button.

  “What are you doing?” Manuel backed away from the opening door.

  Keva stepped inside and looked up at the turrets. “Looks like we’re good to go. Rinchi, grab him.”

  _∞_

  “She’s so cute,” Nelly said, kissing her daughter’s soft cheek. “Hi, Rebel, you are adorable … yes you are … ”

  Rebel had green eyes and small tufts of curly brown hair, just like Nelly. She was in a girly-girl set of princess PJs, pink with lace trim. This was a side of Carloza she hadn’t expected.

  “She’s been quiet so far,” Noah said. “What a beautiful child!”

  Nelly’s faithful Humandroid assistant was wearing a white doctor’s lab coat and a pair of foam hospital scuffs. Apparently it was all the clothing he could find. His new body was more muscular than his old one had been; e-skin had yet to be applied. Like Popeye (as he’d said early), his forearms were enlarged due to his new PHASRs.

  “Well, we can catch up later,” Nelly said to her daughter as she handed the baby back to Noah. “We need to get out of her
e.”

  “Rooftop?”

  “Let’s move. There must be an aeros up there.”

  She took one last look at the fallen Carloza, who was now in Tyro’s body. Tyro would never know how far his body had gone, from a therapist’s office to some location in Oakland – Nelly still needed to figure out who had saved her life – to a drug lord’s penthouse in Tijuana. A journey indeed! Still, it was unsettling seeing a dead body.

  “You took the elevator, right?” she asked.

  “It’s the only way to get to this floor. Oh Nelly! I had to disable the whole system to turn the turrets off.”

  “How did you know it was rigged?”

  “One of the doctors said something about it during my enhancement operation.”

  Nelly nodded. Seeing Noah holding Rebel filled her heart with joy, a strange motherly joy she’d never experienced before. She suppressed the feeling – they needed to act quickly. “Does the elevator go any higher? Did you check?”

  “It does, one more floor.”

  Nelly returned to Carloza’s desk and took his Humgun. “Let’s go.”

  They exited his office, spiraling down the staircase that led to the foyer, past the mammoth head and the Rivera mural, stopping just in front of the shiny elevator. As if by magic, the elevator door opened and Nelly was greeted by someone who looked suspiciously like Yeshi, the Mexican man who’d picked her up earlier, and a woman with long white hair and modded silver eyes.

  “Surprise, surprise,” the woman with white hair said.

  THIRTY-EIGHT∞

  “Before we do this, Ogawa-san, may I ask you a question?”

  I’m practically on top of the strange Japanese man. Yeshi’s across from me and Hajime’s next to her. We’re in the spot he cleared on his floor of his living room, amidst boxes, clothing and ancient food containers.

  “A question? There is always time for a question!” He laughs, encouraging us to laugh along. “Come on, basket-head, it was funny!”

  Hajime nods. There is no way to decipher the expression on his face.

  “Why are you data-switching with me?” I ask.

  Ogawa-san grew very serious. His cheeks drooped and he appeared to age twenty years in half a second. “My life … ” he began.

  I’m reminded for some reason of Tyro, and the reason he wanted to switch bodies with me back in LA. The way Ogawa-san’s demeanor changed revealed the masks we all wear, masks which are heavy and filled with burden. Happy-go-lucky as a defense mechanism, forced smiling as a weapons system – how many people live this way?

  “It’s not easy being me,” he finally said. “I’ve made some bad financial decisions for my company, decisions which will bring me great shame. Ha! As worldly as I am, I’m still afraid of shame. Sad, huh?”

  None of us said anything.

  “The investments I’ve made on behalf of my clients are all going to have negative returns by the end of the year. Suicides will be had. I don’t want to get into it.”

  “You are aware … ” I look to Yeshi to make sure I’m supposed to tell him that I’m being hunted. She nods. “You are aware that the FCG is after me, aren’t you?”

  Ogawa-san nods. “Of course I am; basket-head told me everything. With the data-switch, they’ll kill me and that will be that. Remember, the only thing we are really switching is our chip’s identifying markers. If a Humandroid does a scan on you, it will register as me – easy enough. Also my holdings … ”

  “I’ve already gone over your personal finances,” Hajime says.

  “They’re yours.”

  “And your wife?”

  “She received the divorce papers yesterday.” He laughs long and hard at this. “Ogawa still has a trick up his sleeve!”

  “But that still doesn’t answer the question as to why are you helping me,” I say. “Or why you are essentially committing suicide.”

  A brittle grin cracks across the man’s face. “Because fuck it! That’s why! Fuck it! Fuck all the things that hold us back, the people that say we can do this or that we can’t do that. I can die when I want, however I want! If you remember anything about me, remember this – my number one prerogative was to live life to its fullest even while I was cuffed to the company. You don’t have to ask my fourth ex-wife to confirm this. Meme!” He reached forward and pinched my cheeks. “Meme! I don’t know you personally, but from the info I’ve gathered from Hajime and your FCG file – yes, publicly available now – I know that we’re brothers from a different mother. A fat whore of a mother with large nipples filled with inspirational nectar-slash-intoxicants that we must constantly sip to maintain homeostasis! Hear ye, hear ye! Drink up cruel world! This is my seppuku! This is the way I go, with the name of a man I hardly know!”

  I stare deeply into his face. There is something warm about the crazed look in his eyes, the way his left eyebrow is slightly longer than his right, the paleness of his skin as if he has never seen the sun, the hollowness of his cheeks like an anorexic, his fine black hair nearly shoulder length and full, oh so full and rich and thick! You are a gorgeous man, Ogawa-san! A model citizen in a world of obedient sourpusses!

  “Yes!” I latch onto his cheeks. “Let’s switch.”

  “Dammit Meme, will you data-switch with me!?” he asks in the way that one would propose to their sigother.

  “I will! I will! I will!”

  He flips his hand over and shows me his ring. It’s a silver ring with a single stone on it. “Touch it and agree to transfer.”

  He moves his other hand to my ear, pressing the sensor under his finger against the spot where my life chip is installed. This isn’t exactly necessary (the sensors in a person’s pointer finger works too), but it will do the trick. I close my eyes and a screen appears on the backs of my eyelids, written in Korean. It’s translated within a second and I accept the transfer.

  A jolt ripples down my spine and my body sags forward. I open my eyes – it feels as if nothing has happened at all.

  “Wow,” I say, running my hands over my body. “Scan me, Yeshi.”

  Her eyes dilate. “Your name is Takashi Ogawa,” she says, “at least that’s what your life chip says.”

  “And him?”

  She glances at Ogawa-san. “His chip registers as Meme Lamar, a wanted fugitive.”

  “We did it!” Ogawa-san pumps his fists in the air.

  Before anyone can say anything else, Hajime pushes his basket off his head and turns to the Japanese man, aiming a weapon at him.

  “I have the suspect now. Will engage.” A bolt of electricity sears through Ogawa-san’s head, sending his body crashing to the floor.

  THIRTY-NINE∞

  Lorem Ipsum smiled. “Confirm chip,” he said to Hajime, who was standing over a body of a Japanese man. The man had long black hair and bushy eyebrows. Hajime performed a vitals scan and Meme Lamar’s picture appeared on the screen.

  “Confirmed kill!” Sauria said with a wide grin.

  Antimeria rubbed his forehead with his long fingers. There was a lot happening on the holoscreen right now. In the smaller feed, Rinchi and Yeshi were about to take the elevator up to Carloza’s office. On the bigger screen, a known terrorist had just been executed. His baby would be rescued soon; his estranged wife (soon to be ex) would also be apprehended. Everything was falling into place.

  “We did it, Anti,” Sauria said, “Meme is dead.”

  “Great work, Hajime,” Lorem said. “Your reward will be transferred shortly.”

  Hajime didn’t say anything. His feed was disconnected and his ocular display dimmed as if something was placed over his head.

  “The night just keeps getting better and better,” Antimeria said. “So what happens to Hajime now?”

  “As I said, he’ll be getting his reward shortly.” Lorem turned to the screen with his hands clasped behind his back. “Representative Natasha are you en route?”

  An image coming from the inside an aeros appeared on the screen.

  “Is she a Hu
mandroid?” Antimeria asked.

  “No,” Sauria said, “Representatives eight, twenty and twenty-two are fully human.”

  “Mr. Ispum, we’re outside now.” Natasha turned her head towards representative twenty, a stocky man of Hawaiian decent. She said, “We’ve been following Hajime since earlier this morning.” Her ocular feed moved to the passenger seat of the aeros. Antimeria could make out the shoulder of a thin man with closely cropped hair. “We’re ready to engage.”

  Lorem said, “Engage. Remember, do not destroy Yeshi. Use the data bug instead.”

  “Got it.”

  “I repeat. Also, keep your feed on.”

  “Got it,” Natasha said.

  “Data bug?” Antimeria shook his head in bewilderment. “Is it like the DL agent that Keva installed in Manuel?”

  “Not exactly,” Sauria said. “The Direct Link Agent is more or less a bomb inside someone’s body that can be triggered remotely. A data bug allows for a subject to be controlled remotely, but it only works on Humandroids, at the moment at least.”

  “I see, so we’ll be able to control Yeshi then?”

  “Exactly.”

  There was a quiet knock on the door.

  “Oh yes,” Lorem said, “our entertainment has arrived. Open door.”

  Air hissed as the pressurized door slipped open. Standing in the hallway were two Humandroid escorts in lacy black outfits. They were tall, their bodies perfectly formed and their breasts perfectly large, perfectly pert and gravity-defying. On their faces were smiles and in their arms were pollution masks.

  _∞_

  Noah held the baby close to his chest with his right arm as he fired his left arm PHASR.

  Well, sort of.

  What he actually did was point his left arm in the general direction of the elevator, screw his eyes shut, hunch his shoulders and turtle up, and with the baby clutched to his chest, half-turn away and lean the rest of his body as far away from his left arm as he could so that he was essentially shooting blind over his left shoulder. He activated the firing circuit with the same cringing reluctance an elderly spinster would feel as she approached a zipper spider in the sink. The weapon discharged and he whimpered and did the owie-owie dance in anticipation of the non-existent recoil.