Jaguar

by C. A. Gray

  “My daughter is missing,” M snarled, “and you were with her in your little secret meetings all day yesterday. I now hear that on the hovercraft ride over here, you and she said you intended to go and rescue Liam. Now. I will give you one chance. Where is the boat, and where is Rebecca?”

  I ran possibilities in my head. If I told her, and she tried to go after them in the hovercraft, would it matter?

  …It wouldn’t be great, since the hovercraft might be spotted and recognized. And Rebecca and Val weren’t in any danger, anyway: they were well disguised—or at least I assumed so, since Rebecca seemed to think she knew what to do with prosthetic clay. Their instructions were to tell Cathy what they needed to say and come straight back, so it would be best if M just left well enough alone and waited for them to return. Perhaps if I just stalled for time, but still told M something, it might be enough.

  What I said was, “She has a netscreen with her. The LP address is 452.500.4—”

  She grasped my shirt by the throat. “Where is she?”

  “London!” I blurted. She let go of me and took a step back, stricken. I straightened my already rumpled t-shirt, irritated with myself for giving in.

  “She went to General Specs,” M breathed.

  “No, she did not,” I snapped. “She and Val went to tell Liam’s mother what Liam had intended to tell his father, in an attempt to get her to relay the message so that Liam won’t have to. They’re perfectly safe.”

  She blinked, her face scanning the floor as her brain assimilated this information. “Liam’s mother?”

  “Yes, apparently Val knew her well.”

  “Then why did Rebecca have to go?”

  I leveled her with my best are-you-stupid gaze. “You mean why couldn’t Val just go alone?”

  “If you’d told me, we would have sent Val with help!”

  “No one else could have been spared,” I pointed out. “Ana, Giovanni, Larissa and I still have to finish the virus. You’re central command, and Mack goes where you go—”

  “Mack would have been perfect!” M railed. “Also, Nilesh and Rick are expected to arrive today. I could have sent Rick with her!”

  “It would have been too late to wait until today. It might have been too late as it was.”

  “You should have told me! This decision, and every other, was mine to make!”

  “And if you’d been objective, you would have seen that Rebecca was the logical choice of companion for Val—first, because she’s done stage makeup and could render their disguises without calling too much attention to them, and second, because after her analysis of Alex’s brain, which she finished yesterday, we had no further use for her here.”

  “No further—!” M took a step back, clutching her short auburn hair as if tempted to rip it out.

  “I understand that you are unhappy and I apologize for going over your head on this matter,” I said formally. I expected her anger to melt away at this, but her glare still sliced me to ribbons. This confused me. What was the point of apologizing if the other person stayed mad? Besides, anger served no purpose; what was done was done. People can be so irrational sometimes. Having said all there was to say, I simply changed the subject. "So. Would you like the LP address of the netscreen she took?”

  Rather than answer, M held out one hand. I wasn’t quite sure what she wanted, so I crossed to the table in the living room of our cabin where my netscreen sat, and handed it to her. M opened it, sat down, and began typing furiously. I saw Larissa peek out of her door once more, eyes wide. I shooed her again with a heavy sigh, pointing at M and shaking my head. When M had finished, she scrounged around the living room until she found a scrap of paper and a pen, scribbled down Rebecca’s LP address, and left the cabin without a word.

  “You can come out now,” I called to Larissa.

  Her door opened again, and she crept out tentatively, wearing an oversized night shirt. It was shapeless, but she was backlit by the window in the living room, and I could see her silhouette through it quite clearly. She has a surprisingly nice shape, I mused. But just then, she crossed her arms over herself and stepped away from the window, as if she knew what I was thinking.

  “I heard shouting,” she said. Having nothing better to look at now, I glanced at her face, and saw that it was bright red. She cleared her throat and went on, “Everything okay?”

  “It will be,” I shrugged.

  “But no word from Liam?” she asked, and I shook my head.

  “Not since Rebecca sent the message to tell him the new plan last night.”

  “I hope they’re in time,” Larissa fretted. “Too bad Val didn’t say anything about knowing Liam’s mom before he left in the first place. But I guess Liam himself could have thought of that, if anybody had been thinking straight.”

  “I was thinking just fine, but I lacked the information,” I pointed out. She watched me, and the corners of her lips curled upward. I didn’t think I’d said anything funny. “What?”

  Her smile grew broader, which I found irritating. “Nothing,” she said.

  Larissa and I spent most of the rest of the day working with Giovanni and Ana on the virus. Mack poked his head in late that afternoon and sat down beside me.

  “How’s it going?”

  “Well, according to Giovanni, since the Silver Six and humanoid bots of their generation are both biochemical and run on software programs, it’s quite possible to write a program that disrupts synthetic mitochondria, which of course will initially result in severe fatigue and eventually in complete malfunction or ‘death,’ if you will… and, you don’t care at all.”

  Mack’s expression had glazed over, and he glanced up at me with a guilty smile. “Have you heard from Rebecca? Or Liam, for that matter?”

  “M has their LP addresses as well as I do,” I huffed.

  “I know, but she thought maybe Rebecca wasn’t writing her back on purpose, because her message was a bit… on the prickly side. I was hoping you might have heard something we hadn’t.”

  Before I could reply to this, there was a commotion outside the window: it sounded like shouting. I peered outside, but saw nothing in particular. Everyone else heard it too, and Larissa hurried out to see what the fuss was all about. Mack and I followed.

  Mack broke into a run when he realized that the voices were coming from the docks. We saw M standing there at a distance also—and there, tying up a large yacht, was Rick. Nilesh popped up behind him.

  Larissa let out a squee, running forward. “You guys made it!”

  Nilesh glanced over at her and gave a tired smile, stumbling backwards a bit with the force of her embrace. He seemed a bit too pleased at her reception. I frowned. But then Larissa let go of Nilesh and threw herself into Rick’s arms with just as much gusto. I relaxed.

  “The cabin on the far end over there is yours,” M was explaining to them, as Mack and Giovanni helped unload their cargo, motioning for me to help too. I followed them back into the main cabin of the yacht, lifting two stacked crates of dried and canned goods to take back to the kitchen.

  When I returned to the yacht for another load, Ana and M spoke together in hushed tones. I assumed Ana was telling M that we needed a virologist to verify that our virus would have no effect on human mitochondria, since it was to be a synthetic-biological hybrid.

  “I… know someone who can help,” Ana was saying as I approached. “A colleague, from Dublin University.”

  M narrowed her eyes at me, but said to Ana, “Who?”

  “His name is Dr. David St. Peters,” she said. “He was a candidate for the Nobel Prize a few years ago.”

  “Is he on our side?” M asked, skeptical.

  “Not yet, not that I know of,” Ana admitted, “but he and I are… very close.” She cleared her throat and tucked a lock of short dark hair behind her ear.

  “You mean you’re involved sexually,” I clarified as I joined them.

  Both women shot me a
horrified look. I shrugged. “If everyone knows what you mean, why not just say it outright?”

  “That is none of your business,” Ana said sharply, “but I do think I can persuade him to come with us. I’d need at least Rick’s help though.”

  M frowned. “If you try to persuade him and fail, though, then we have a potential enemy who knows who we are, what we are, and what we’re trying to accomplish.”

  “He won’t be an enemy!” Ana declared hotly.

  “But it sounds like we do need a virologist, and he sounds like as good an option as any,” M went on as if she hadn’t protested. “Fine. Rick?” she turned around, and Rick, who had been unloading cargo to the docks for the others to carry inside, straightened and wiped his brow before approaching. “After you and Nilesh have a rest, do you think you’ll be up for another mission?”

  Rick nodded, stoic as ever. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “We’ll need you to take the hovercraft to Dublin, and kidnap a virologist by the name of Dr. David St. Peters.”

  “What?” Ana gasped, horrified. “Kidnap him?”

  “It’s the only way to be sure he won’t betray us,” M said, matter-of-fact. Then she walked back to the docks, as if the conversation was over.

  “He won’t betray us! But you can’t just kidnap him…!” Ana shouted after her, obliged to follow.

  Larissa sidled up next to me, watching the spectacle too.

  “And so their power struggle continues,” I observed to her, smirking.

  “Any word from Liam? Or Val and Becca?” she asked.

  “I haven’t checked in the last hour. It’s about time.” Glancing over to the docks to see that Nilesh, Rick, Giovanni, and Mack had finished unloading, I headed back to the cabin we’d occupied during the virus discussion that morning, where I’d left my netscreen. I opened it, logging in to the Commune again, as Larissa hovered over my shoulder. I had messages blinking from Kyle, Matt, and even Roy Benson, but bypassed those in favor of Liam’s LP address.

  Nothing. Liam still hadn’t logged in since the morning. The last message in the queue was the one Cordeaux had sent, and he still hadn’t read it.

  I grunted, annoyed. No activity on Cordeaux’s LP either. I went to open Kyle’s message. It was a link to a news holograph. I clicked it, and the improbable image of a Simvi Shah man in handcuffs being hauled into a police hovercar filled the screen. The man was too far away from the cameras at first to make out his features, but as he walked, his sneakers peaked out from beneath his robes. Then I saw the General Specs logo in the background. I inhaled sharply just as the reporter announced, “…Authorities have identified the intruder as Liam Kelly Junior, estranged son of CEO Liam Kelly Senior of General Specs.”

  Chapter 10: Liam

  “Liam Kelly Junior, you are trespassing. We will need to escort you from the property,” declared one of the bot guards, his weapon still trained on me as two more approached with handcuffs. I barely looked at them. Dad’s eyes never left my face, nor mine his.

  “Dad,” I heard myself whisper. It came out sounding like a plea.

  Dad cleared his throat. “Thank you for alerting us, Jaguar,” he told the pretty young girl, who had looked for all the world like a college intern. I spared her one more glance: this object of my obsession and hatred simultaneously managed to remind me of Madeline, and of Val. She watched Dad and me with interest, but when her eyes landed on me, her face sank into a scowl, and all resemblance disappeared.

  “Goodbye, Liam Kelly Junior,” she almost snarled, and added with a malicious gleam in her eye, “Enjoy prison and execution!”

  Dad happened to be in my line of sight just as the doors closed to Jaguar’s inner sanctum, and I saw the conflicted expression on his face.

  The trek back out of General Specs earned me open stares and whispers, though I still didn’t think most of them recognized me, even with my father trailing behind. The guards led me out to the grounds. Once we were beside a fountain surrounded by a copse of trees, Dad called out, “Fall back! I’d like to speak with my son alone.”

  The guards obeyed, and Dad stepped closer to me.

  “Keep your voice as low as you can, but don’t whisper,” Dad murmured, barely moving his lips. “The cameras can pick up a lot of audio, and whispers stand out. They can piece that back together. But if we just talk quietly, there’s enough ambient noise from the water that it should cover us.”

  I stared at him, searching his face. He sounded paranoid. He sounded like a Renegade.

  But then he demanded, “What the hell were you thinking, Liam? You’re smarter than this!”

  “I knew the risks, but I had to talk to you, and I couldn’t just send a comm. I had to tell you—”

  “About Brian?” I froze, and Dad sighed, running a hand through his hair. “I went to see your mother this morning.”

  I blinked at him, confused. “Mum? What does she—?”

  “She had a couple of visitors this morning. Your ex-girlfriend Val, and a young woman named Rebecca.”

  I felt all the color drain from my face as I let this sink in. “Oh no. No no no. Are they—?”

  “They’re safer than you are,” he snapped. “They warned me you’d try to come to General Specs today. I’ve been keeping a lookout for you, but it never even occurred to me that you’d show up looking like that!” He gestured at my garb with his eyes.

  “How much did they tell you?”

  “They said you found out Brian is alive.” He searched my face. “But that’s impossible, after all this time, and all our searching.”

  I didn’t break his gaze. “It’s true. But he’s been surgically altered and is on Lunar Station Goliath. And Dad, the Silver Six are all robots themselves!” I saw no surprise in Dad’s face at this, and narrowed my eyes. “You knew that too.”

  “Your girls told me this morning, but I’d already suspected,” he admitted. “I build robots for a living, remember? It’s hard not to notice that something is off about them.”

  “Then you already know that Jaguar is deadly,” I hissed. Dad winced, even though I hadn’t actually said ‘I told you so.’ This conversation echoed the last one we’d had together after Brian’s disappearance, five years ago—only then, talking to Dad had been like talking to a brick wall. Now, I could see the fear in his eyes. I added, “You have to shut her down, Dad!”

  “Don’t you think I know that?” Dad hissed back, and gave a tiny shake of his head. “But we’ve tried. Good men have died trying, Liam. It’s no use. She’s too far beyond us now!”

  “There’s a way!” I insisted, “if we work together, we might even be able to get to Goliath and rescue Brian—”

  “Liam.”

  “—And who knows how many of our engineers think exactly as you do!” I went on, gesturing with my head at General Specs, since my hands were still cuffed behind me. “We’d just have to figure out who else is on our side, and if we all work together—”

  “Liam.”

  We both glanced up as police hovercars swept down from the sky. I talked faster, knowing we were running out of time. “There are more Renegades than you think, Dad! And with you on our side, we’ve got a real chance! You’re probably the most powerful actual human being left on earth!”

  He smiled sadly. “Unfortunately, that’s not saying much.”

  The police bots emerged from their hovercars now. “Liam Kelly Junior, you are under arrest for trespassing, and for suspected treason.”

  “Treason?” I echoed, in a laugh that came out sounding more like a bark. “Is that what you’re calling free speech these days?”

  The bots shoved me into the car, and neither Dad nor I moved to stop them. There was no point. His tormented eyes held mine for the last few seconds before the car swept up into the sky.

  Chapter 11: Rebecca

  Val, Cathy, Madeline and I watched in horror as the footage of Liam’s arrest played on the netscreen embedded on Cathy’s w
all: Liam, dressed as a Simvi Shah, getting shoved into a police hovercar. There was just a glimpse of his father, but for the most part the cameras focused on him.

  It was all for nothing, I thought over and over.

  “That was a good disguise,” Madeline piped up at last, breaking the silence. I’d pulled her out to charge her before we made the journey home, just before the news feed.

  In a voice over, the reporter told the story of Liam’s former position within General Specs, and estrangement from his father years ago over the issue of Synthetic Reasoning. “Kelly Junior appears to have sought revenge from the inside on the company he was once slated to inherit. He now awaits trial for his criminal activities.”

  My knees buckled.

  In the stunned silence that followed, Cathy reached for the button on her holograph. A moment later, the grizzled image of a man in his late 50s appeared, wearing a very expensive looking blue tailored suit.

  “Cathy,” said her attorney, not sounding particularly surprised. “Did you make a decision?”

  “Yes, Giles,” she barked. “Start the proceedings!”

  He sniffed. “You do realize that we’ll have a very tough time convincing the judge that you deserve more alimony for a new creation of General Specs, ten years after the divorce was finalized?”

  “I’m paying you, aren’t I?”

  “Yes ma’am. It’s your money,” he added under his breath, and then pressed end.

  When the image of the attorney vanished, Cathy turned her haunted expression to us. “Giles will message Old Man Pinkerton, Senior’s attorney—and Pinkerton is one of the few people with direct access to Senior’s A.E. chip. He’ll get the message in minutes. It’s just my way of telling Senior to get his butt back over here.”

  I swallowed, nodded, and then got up and reached for my satchel, pulling out the netscreen.

  “What is it?” Val demanded, running around behind me to peer over my shoulder.