by Jaxon Reed
“You heard Jamie. He said Bainer mentioned all of us.”
Jamieson said, “Well, uh . . . that’s how I took it . . . the collective ‘you.’ He didn’t actually say . . .”
“You are not supposed to be moving much,” Boggs said. “If we can’t go without you, then we’ll wait a few days. It’s time travel, right? It doesn’t matter when we go.”
“This speech is still in the future, Mortie, in two days. You can’t change the past, but you can affect the future. We need to go before then, while it’s still in our future.”
“How do we even know this is what he wanted to tell somebody? ‘Hey, Cole and Severs are making a speech on this date. Kill them while you can!’ Heck, it could be any number of future events that Bainer knew about.”
“That’s why we have to go back! We have to find out.”
Boggs frowned.
He turned to Jamieson and said, “You’re being quiet. What do you think?”
“I can’t argue with her logic. Besides, I bet there’s some kind of records kept about clones that thing made in the past. We can ask Dr. Hsu if there’s a note or something about three more popping out right after Bainer’s did.”
Boggs frowned at him.
Jamieson said, “I vote we go. And we do need to go as soon as possible.”
Boggs held up his hands and said, “Fine, we’ll do it.”
He turned to Collier and said, “At least it’ll be your clone moving around in the past and not you. But let’s wait until morning. I don’t think they’re going to dismiss you from the hospital tonight anyway.”
20
One good thing about killing Spargle, Dirk thought, was he now had unfettered access to the man’s place.
The butler droid followed him with its “spooky” eyes as he came back into the kitchen, sorting through the cabinets and taking inventory of the food stock.
Spargle had enough on hand to feed a small army, he decided.
Next, Dirk rifled through the dead man’s bedroom. He found the safe behind a painting, a classic hiding place. It had a simple touch pad.
Dirk grunted and hauled Spargle’s body upstairs in a fireman’s carry. He placed the corpse’s palm on the pad. It turned green and opened.
Inside he found what remained of Spargle’s depleted credits, about 20,000 in tokens.
He also found two handguns and a stiletto.
“Hmph. Old school. How many people did you take out with this thing?”
He flicked the stiletto open and shut and few times, the blade popping out then back into its handle.
Spargle’s corpse did not answer.
He pocketed the weapons and headed for the closet, intent on adding to his depleted wardrobe. Then he went into the bathroom, searching through the medicine cabinet.
He found a pneumatic syringe with nanobots and injected himself.
“That’ll take care of the gunshot wound,” he muttered.
Finally, Dirk felt he had collected everything he needed.
He went back to the bedroom and Spargle’s body.
“The standard procedure after one of these things is to erase fingerprints, DNA and everything else. You understand, old friend. It’s just business, as you would say.”
He pulled out an incendiary grenade, the same kind Stormy had purchased from him, and tossed it on the corpse. He walked out before it blew up.
Downstairs, he lobbed one in his room where the guard bot still lay disabled, and another in the kitchen where the butler droid stared at him with those unnerving artificial eyes.
The house droid had a preservation subroutine programmed in, and tried to save itself by running away.
Dirk shot it a few times before it could reach the front door. He did not want the police to be able and retrieve anything. He did not want to take the chance the butler had recorded interactions with him.
It was an older model droid, so maybe not.
Out loud he said, “Better safe than sorry, I always say.”
He dropped a final incendiary grenade on the butler bot, then walked out of the house as flames engulfed the interior.
Out on the street smoke appeared, streaming from the windows.
Satisfied all traces of his presence would be burned away even if the fire department arrived soon, Dirk walked off, leaving Spargle and his home behind.
In his backpack, Dirk carried fresh clothes and the 20,000 in credit tokens from Spargle’s safe.
He moved with an even gait, heading out of Eastside and into a more prosperous neighborhood. Overhead a fire truck flew by, red lights flashing.
At last he came to a gaming center, this one catering to young people in the area. It was similar to the one Stormy used earlier in a different part of town.
He walked in and asked for a private booth, paying via credit token. Minutes later, his avatar appeared in Honor Guard.
He strode out of the arrivals zone as a miner, which was an unusual class in the game. Miners were short and uglier than typical avatars. His squat figure featured a stringy black beard flowing down to his chest.
Miners served as resource gatherers in the game, their powerful smaller bodies more suited to hard underground labor.
Most players preferred to adopt a swashbuckling hero persona, gaining credits via escort quests and other lucrative activities. But miners, if they were fortunate, could uncover valuable veins of metal deep underground and enrich their coffers by diligently grinding away at pulling it out.
Dirk had discovered he could level up his avatar by assassinating other miners, thus claiming their stakes and obtaining their gold.
He played the game for fun, but his character had grown quite wealthy, and powerful, through backstabbing other players. He used his in-game money on weapons and obtaining advanced assassination skills.
He stared at the brothels and bars around the square, ignoring other players walking around him and gathering at the quest board.
Dirk knew about Tarleton and how to find him in the game, or at least he knew of that character’s general location. He had never had a reason to visit the Order of Aristarchus’s online representative before.
Dirk found Tarleton in the fifth saloon he entered. His giveaway was a far older face than the much more typical youthful studs with glamorous photogenic bodies most players chose for their characters.
He walked through the swinging saloon doors and headed to the stool next to Tarleton.
Only one group played cards in the tavern at this hour, four men at a table out front.
As he approached, Tarleton said, “Well, how about that? A man with a contract on his head walks into my bar. Hello, Dirk.”
Dirk grunted, waving off the bartender. Eating and drinking in-game wasted resources, as far as he was concerned. Unless your avatar needed to consume something, it was better to save your money.
Briefly, he wondered how Tarleton knew his real name. Maybe the Order had hacked the game? Probably they had somebody working inside the company that owned the system, he decided. He put aside that disturbing thought and refocused on the matter at hand.
Dirk said, “I’ll double the amount to rescind the contract. I have a hundred thousand that I’ll happily donate to the Order.”
“Dirk, Dirk, Dirk,” Tarleton said, the old man’s face smiling at him. “You know we don’t rescind contracts. Or take payoffs. The Order has a code of ethics that we have always honored. Once a contract has been established, it cannot be pulled except by the person who made it. If we broke the contract for you, it would establish a terrible precedent.”
Dirk’s eyes narrowed, his miner’s face expressing deep resentment.
He knew about their code of ethics. He knew the Order did not rescind contracts. But it still irritated him to hear it from the source.
“I’ll take out a contract on her, then. The same hundred thousand.”
Tarleton shook his head.
“Under the circumstances, we decline. You recently lost your home, along with most if not all
of your merchandise. You’re damaged goods, Dirk, to use the term lightly. We decline the offer.”
Tarleton turned back to the bartender and accepted a fresh glass of beer with a nod and a smile. He pointedly ignored the miner avatar staring daggers at him.
Dirk said, “Well . . . if that’s the way it’s going to be . . .”
He pulled out his gun from the long holster running down his thigh. Like Stormy, he carried a Werlton Whizbang Weapon. The difference between his character and hers was that he saw no reason to carry two versions of the same gun.
He held it up to Tarleton’s face, charging it.
Weeeeee!
Tarleton looked down the muzzle then glanced up at Dirk.
He said, “You wouldn’t dare.”
PHLABAM!
A wide blast of energy, reminiscent of old shotguns, obliterated Tarleton’s head, sending his body flying off the barstool.
The bartender reacted immediately, pulling out a long gun from behind the counter and opening fire on Dirk.
Thoop! Thoop! Thoop!
Dirk ducked below the bar and recharged his gun.
Weeeeeee!
He aimed at the wooden counter where he knew the bartender stood, and pulled the trigger.
PHLABAM!
The blast obliterated the bar and slammed into the NPC, knocking him back against a rack of bottles. They crashed to the floor, raining liquor.
The men playing cards at the table in front dove to the floor.
One of them said, “The miner’s got a 3W! Let’s get him, boys!”
Everyone in the bar pulled out pistols and fired on Dirk.
Thoop! Thoop! Thoopah! Thoop! Thoop!
He dove behind a table and recharged the gun.
Weeeeeee!
He stood and aimed in the general direction of the card players.
PHLABAM!
Energy spread out the farther it traveled from the muzzle. Three card players died instantly in the blast, with the fourth left seriously wounded.
The survivor tried to aim his pistol at Dirk as the miner avatar headed for the door.
Dirk ignored him, and shot him with the 3W on the way out without even looking.
Weeeeeee!
PHLABAM!
21
Mitch Poole woke up suddenly, a common occurrence when forcibly ejected from an online game.
Unlike his aged avatar in Honor Guard, Poole was in his early 30s. He sported dark brown hair with light brown skin and stood five foot ten or 178 centimeters.
Poole was in charge of the Order of Aristarchus’s electronic communications. He spent a lot of time online, mostly in the game Honor Guard. He also tracked contracts going out, making sure those fulfilling them were properly paid.
His head ached slightly, although he knew that was psychosomatic from the perceived gunshot blast to the head he had just virtually experienced.
Poole muttered a few quiet curses, then turned to a holo showing a coded list of the Order’s members and their recent activities.
Each member was assigned a number. For years, that had been a three digit numeral, a tradition based on ancient fiction and popular lore. However, recently they had found it prudent to expand to a four digit system.
For one thing, they had more assassins than ever associated with the Order. For another, they had lost several members either during the course of assignments or, at least in some rare cases, old age and natural death.
Nobody wanted to use a previously assigned number. Everyone wanted a new, unique designation. When they changed to four digits, all the old three digit killers were simply given a zero prefix.
A quick glance at the holo showed a recent death. Somebody evidently passed away while Poole was online. An older somebody, he decided, based on their number: 0489.
He touched the number floating in the chart, and their name showed up to the right, along with a picture: Carl Spargle.
Spargle was something of a legend, Poole thought. Old school, and set in his ways. But, he was well known for successfully completed the contracts he took back in the day. Some of them had been quite lucrative. In recent years he had declined many opportunities, an indication age was catching up with him.
But Poole noticed Spargle had taken one recently. He must have decided he needed the money.
Poole made a motion in the air. Another window popped open showing the last contract Spargle accepted: “Dirk, the Projects, 50K.”
“That rotten . . .”
Poole began searching on his secure connection to the net, quickly finding news footage of a house fire in the Projects with a reported fatality. Police were investigating and the fire marshal was checking for signs of arson.
There are no coincidences in this line of work, he thought. People don’t just suddenly have accidents.
If Poole’s hunch was correct, Dirk was behind this. It also narrowed down the man’s location in real life.
Carl almost certainly did not have a gaming console in his place, he thought. And if he did, it got burned up in the fire. So, that meant . . .
Poole ran a search for gaming centers within easy walking distance of Spargle’s place. He found one a few blocks away.
He pulled up the Order’s private site, and the contract on Dirk.
“Let’s see . . . double the bounty, second half paid by the Order. A hundred ought to generate sufficient interest. Suspected location . . . Lost Dragon Gaming Center on Erstwhile Avenue.”
-+-
Dirk exited Honor Guard and his conscious self returned to the real world. He looked around the private booth in the gaming center and allowed himself a moment to readjust to reality.
So, he thought. There’s a bounty on my head.
Immediately he began planning his next steps.
He stood and exited the little room, heading for the street. He nodded at the clerk behind the counter and dodged the crowd of young people going in and out.
On the sidewalk, he glanced both ways before heading to the left. While he walked, he mulled over the problem of finding Stormy so he could kill her while staying alive with the Order’s assassins on his tail.
He reached into his backpack and pulled out a small container with old fashioned contact lenses. He stopped at a corner while waiting for the pedestrian light and carefully put them in place, ignoring the stares from others waiting with him.
These would help protect from iris scans, although facial recognition could still peg him, he thought.
The light changed and he followed the crowd, heading toward a retail center up ahead.
He turned into a convenience store and made his way to the beauty aisle. He chose a bottle of hair bleach and a makeup kit, hoping the store’s camera did not get a good look at him. He picked up a scarf and sunglasses, paid in credit tokens and quickly left.
He continued walking through the retail district until he found a public restroom. Inside, he applied the hair bleach and quickly lightened his complexion with the makeup kit. Then he wrapped the scarf around his head and donned sunglasses before heading out the door.
Security cameras would track him going in, but he hoped the scarf obscured his new look going out. Anyone watching would have trouble identifying him later.
He moved down the street and eventually walked out of the retail district, mulling over the problem of finding Stormy.
He decided she had to have a location to place money for the transfer of credits to his killers. The most common place with public lockers would be the bus station. Would she use one of the lockers there?
It was a good guess, he thought. But, she might not come back to it. She might have just placed the money in a locker, memorizing its number and the combination. Once the contract on him was fulfilled she could simply transmit that information to the Order.
But what if she came back? What if she hid some of the weapons she stole from his place in a locker?
“Probably a long shot,” he muttered to himself. “But it’s the only chanc
e I’ve got.”
He looked around for cameras. Seeing none, he removed the scarf and headed to the nearest bus stop.
I’ll either become a bum, or a tourist, he thought. But one way or another, I’ll keep an eye on those lockers.
22
Boggs, Jamieson and Collier walked into the giant Republican Shipworks lobby at eight in the morning.
Collier moved slowly and carefully, the two men hovering over her protectively.
She looked annoyed, but it was unclear if her irritation lay with injuries or the two men acting extra cautious around her. Perhaps it was a combination of both.
The same receptionist met them and smiled warmly.
“How may I assist you today? Would you like me to see if Mr. Kraft is available?”
“Actually, we’re here to see Dr. Hsu,” Boggs said.
He flashed his badge and added, “AOJ business.”
“Absolutely. Come with me and I will escort you to his office.”
Moments later they stepped out into the work area reserved for Hsu and his team. Someone from across the room noticed them and went to notify him.
Hsu stepped out of his office and approached. He looked like he was about to say something, then noticed Collier seemed to be in pain.
He said, “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine!” she snapped.
Boggs said, “We came to discuss the idea of using your machine again, to go back and try and find out what Mr. Bainer was up to. We found him last night, and there was a shootout. That’s why my partner is in a little pain this morning.”
Hsu looked shocked.
He said, “That’s terrible. Is Mr. Bainer . . .?”
“He’s dead, I’m sorry. We already informed his wife.”
Boggs gave Jamieson a look.
Jamieson’s ears grew red but he nodded.
“I see,” Hsu said. “So, you wish to use the machine?”
Jamieson, expecting resistance, said, “We were thinking maybe there’s a record of the clone bank being used from four years ago. If so, then we’ve already used it.”
Hsu said, “No, no we never bothered to set up a record system with the clone bank. I suppose we should have, but this device was only a prototype, not the final production model. That’s okay, though. I know for a fact that you three used it to go back before the war.”