Getting out, he ran across the roof toward the access door. He went down a set of stairs, then pushed through a second door. Now he was standing on the marble-floored hallway of the top floor, and he could see the brightly lit office up ahead.
He peeked through a window and saw Carver at his desk, scrolling through files on his computer. He seemed to be zoning out, not paying complete attention. It was as good a time as any to bust in.
Oscar opened the door quickly, decisively, quietly. He stepped through and shut it behind him. He moved with such confidence that Carver didn't immediately realize anything was wrong. His head swiveled slowly as he looked around with tired eyes, perhaps expecting to see a janitor or a handyman.
All he saw was a masked figure dressed in black, lunging toward him.
Carver managed to get out a single note of a scream before Oscar clamped a hand over his mouth. Hooking his other hand behind the guy's neck, he yanked him up and out of his seat then delivered a powerful punch to the solar plexus, making Carver double over and wheeze breathlessly.
Grabbing the back of his suit jacket, Oscar went back into the hall and dragged the executive toward a door at the end labeled ROOF ACCESS.
Carver regained his ability to speak, but his voice was now breathless and weak, his words nothing but utter gibberish.
"What...? Who...? Why are you...?"
Oscar went through the roof door and pulled Carver up the stairs. Opening the second door he stepped through into the cool night air. Up here, at the top of the Greyson building, the wind was strong. Oscar dragged Carver toward the edge of the roof, where a four-foot-high wall protected anyone from falling over. He shoved the executive to the ground near the wall, then gave him a kick in the ribs.
"When they scrape your sorry ass off the sidewalk," Oscar growled, "there'll be no sign that it was anything other than suicide. That’s all you have to look forward too now, Carver. Unless you tell me what I need to know."
"What the hell do you want?" Carver asked. "Money?"
"I want to know why Catalea was involved. The synth woman. You gave Hoffman a robot boy. Told him to give it to her. What’s it all about. Why was she targeted?"
Carver stared up at him. "Who? Catalea? I have no idea who that is! You've got the wrong guy!"
Oscar turned away, then slammed the heel of his boot against Carver's shin. The guy screamed in pain, tears streaming out of his eyes.
"I can do a lot worse than that," Oscar warned.
"Listen, guy," Carver groaned, rubbing his leg. "I don't know who the fuck you're talking about!"
Oscar squatted down, pulling a four-inch razor sharp blade from his belt. "You lie to me again and I’m gonna take this knife and rip your goddamn kidneys out,” Oscar threatened, in an eerily hushed tone. “Right before I make your sorry ass kiss the pavement down there.”
Carver stared at the knife in fear.
"Okay," he said. "Okay, just don't hurt me!"
"Start talking."
"The order... it came from the top. I couldn't really say no, could I? Not to the guy who pays my bills."
"You're talking about DeAndre Greyson."
"Yeah. The top, like I said."
“Why would he want to harm Catalea? What was she to him?”
“I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t know. He only came to me because I run Pro Star. That’s where we make the infiltrators.”
"Where is Greyson now?" Oscar demanded. “Is he in the city?"
Carver shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. "I... I dunno. I don't know where he is. Not like he checks in with me anytime he goes someplace, you know?"
"You want to try that again, dumbass! Didn’t I warn you about lying to me!" Oscar said as he strong armed Carver to the edge of the roof and threatened to hurl him over the safety wall.
Carver went gray in the face. "Hey, wait. Wait! I- I just remembered something!"
"As if by magic,” Oscar said coldly.
"He's..." Carver groaned, a pained look on his face as he accepted the fact that he had no choice but to rat out his boss. The idiot was probably thinking about what it might do to his performance review. "He's in LA. Not sure what else he's doing while he's there, but I do know that he's going to be on that talk-show. The political one. Late night."
"Material Matters?" Oscar asked.
"Yeah, that one. It's taping tomorrow. Unless something last minute changes with his schedule Greyson will be there."
Oscar nodded. "How do I know you’re telling the truth.”
“They’re already advertising about the episode. You can check it out for yourself! Hell, I can even give you a printout of his schedule if that helps!”
“Is Catalea alive?” Oscar pressed.
“Maybe… Probably,” Carver said. “He likes to experiment on them. Figure out how their minds work. But if she is still alive… I doubt you’ll even recognize what’s left of her.”
Oscar clenched his jaw in frustration as his mind became overwhelmed with images of Catalea suffering at the hands of DeAndre Greyson.
"Will you let me go now?" Carver nervously asked.
“Yeah… I’ll let you go. But I need something from you first.”
“What do you need?”
“Sign this,” Oscar commanded as he withdrew a data slate and projected a virtual sheet of paper in front of the executive.
With trepidation, and a profusely sweating brow, Carver used his index finger to scrawl his signature across a line at the bottom of the mostly blank virtual document. As an executive at a dirty company, he was probably well versed in how much a single signed document could fuck up his whole life. But Oscar was sure that he'd never suffered it from this side.
"What’s this? What’s the document for?"
"It’s a suicide note," Oscar said. "Or to be more precise,” he continued as he firmly gripped his hands around Carver’s neck and used his leverage to hoist him into the air. “It’s your suicide note.”
“You— you said you’d let me go,” Carver pitifully choked out.
“Should have read the fine print, jack ass,” Oscar growled as he let Carver go, by hurling him over the edge of the roof’s safety wall.
Carver screamed the whole way down off the building. Luckily there was no one around to hear him. No one but the security guard, who was probably fast asleep or using the toilet.
A program on Oscar’s data slate analyzed Carver’s handwriting and filled in the rest of the suicide note, sending it out to a pre-planned contact list once the forged letter was complete. There was no blood around to cast suspicion on the idea that Carver had simply jumped over. If anyone dug deeper, they would find evidence of Carver's affairs, his rocky marriage, his drinking; reason enough to make the whole thing an open and shut case.
Oscar looked down at his smart watch. By now, the background decryption program had had plenty of time to work its magic. He was now connected to the building's security and surveillance systems. With a bit of deft finger-work, he was able to cut out the footage of him dragging Carver from his office and replace it with a pre-made loop. A geek friend of his had put it together in a jiffy, and it showed a guy who resembled Carver in dress and size moping down the hall to the roof door with his head hanging low so the camera couldn't see his face.
Oscar didn't care whether the cops eventually caught up to him. He just didn't want DeAndre Greyson to have any reason to believe that someone might be coming for him.
Navigating back through screens on his watch, he triggered the drone and watched as it rose beyond the wall of HVAC units and came to a soft landing beside him.
CHAPTER 10
◆◆◆
Oscar found his seat in the late-night talk show audience early and was thus forced to sit through twenty minutes of nothing. Meanwhile, his heart was almost exploding through his chest. He was about to be in the same room as DeAndre Greyson. Within striking distance. Before his little dinner with Brooks, Oscar probably would have just taken the kamikaze rou
te; stand from his seat, rush the stage with guns blazing, turn Greyson into Swiss cheese before the cops rushed in and did the same to him.
But now there was a sliver of hope that Catalea was alive. It was enough to make Oscar cautious. If he wanted to see her again, he would need to keep himself alive.
Finally, the host came out and did his self-righteous Californian diatribe. Oscar agreed with all his opinions, but not with the sniveling way in which he expressed them. Then, after some introductions, the guests filtered out. There were a half dozen of them, moving to their seats at the round table, but it was obvious that there were two heavy hitters who would be getting most of the air time. The first was a former senator named Marie Ellison. The second was DeAndre Greyson. He came out in a charcoal-black suit. He was a handsome thirty-two-year-old, tall and broad-shouldered. His head was shiny and hairless. He wore a full beard, dense as the bristles on a brush, and very neat.
For a long time, Oscar was so focused on Greyson, seething with such rage, that he failed to pay attention to the discussion. By the time he tuned back in, the pro-synth former senator Ellison and DeAndre Greyson were already in the middle of their highly anticipated sparring match.
"…and these trends that we are seeing are simply horrifying to me. These are people, not machines. And despite that, it seems that an alarmingly growing number of organic humans would rather focus on what separates us from them rather than all that we have in common," Ellison was saying, which brought cheers from the audience.
"How do you mean, senator?" the host asked.
"Former senator," Greyson corrected.
"That’s uncalled for, DeAndre,” a salt and pepper haired man sitting at the far edge of the set cut in. “And to be frank it’s disrespectful.”
“The truth is somehow disrespectful now? Is that how they do things on your side of the aisle these days?” DeAndre Greyson scoffed, still looking at Ellison instead of the man that had come to her defense.
“No, what’s disrespectful is you using your blood money to torpedo senator Ellison’s campaign to replace her with that anti-synth puppet Halford, and then having the nerve to brag about it to her face.”
“Look, I played my part,” Greyson started, his eyes now sternly focused on the salt and pepper haired man across the table. “but in the end, the people elected Senator Halford not me alone.”
"Because they understand what synths are," Greyson continued as he turned his attention back to Ellison. "They are not humans, Ms. Ellison. They’re machines."
Ellison sighed and shook her head as she disappointingly glared at Greyson. "You know, I find it sad that someone with your background would find himself on the wrong side of history with this issue.”
“Someone with my background… Just what is that supposed to mean,” DeAndre Greyson scoffed. “You know what… Don’t answer that. Because I think we all know what you’re referring to. But you want to know what I find sad, Ms. Ellison? I find it sad that you think it’s okay to try to white-splain civil rights to me on national TV,” Greyson shot back, much to the amusement of the studio audience. Overall, Greyson would still likely be regarded as the villain of this highly political debate, but those remarks scored him points with the audience in a big way.
“I’m simply pointing out the truth,” Ellison objected. “There is no difference between the plights of blacks in the—”
“Blacks?!” Greyson cut in. “What are we talking about here senator? Crayons… or people? And to think that your little cheerleader here had the nerve to blame me for your political downfall. You’re out of touch, Ms. Ellison, and that is the true reason you were voted out of office!”
The crowd went wild. As much as Oscar hated to see it, Greyson was crushing her. Even the overly liberal audience that filled the room couldn’t deny it.
“Please, DeAndre,” Ellison remarked as the crowd’s clamoring finally died down. “enlighten us all as to how synths are not human.”
"Consider this," Greyson said calmly. "If my dog suddenly gains the ability to speak, does that give you the right to step in and tell me what I can and can't do with my own animal? Does putting him in a kennel suddenly become immoral? Or leaving him at home alone while I go to work?"
"Well, DeAndre," Ellison said, "in a perfect world we wouldn't have to step in. In a perfect world you would understand that your talking dog has reached a level of awareness that makes it morally wrong to keep it boxed in that 'pet' category. You should want to liberate that animal yourself. And if you don't, that's when we step in."
There you go, Oscar thought, admiring the former senator’s verbal counterpunch as the audience broke into applause.
"You were voted out," Greyson responded after the applause died. "The people have spoken, and they seem to share my opinions."
Someone booed. A few others caught on and booed as well, but a condescending smirk from the host made them stop.
"And what about your opinion on FBC conversion, DeAndre? Do you think your followers also share those same views," Ellison asked, obviously setting another verbal trap for the outspoken billionaire.
Greyson cracked a nervous smile for a fraction of a second, but overall, he did well to hide the fact that the former senator had just caught him off guard.
The host sat forward. "For the viewers, senator... what is FBC?"
"Full body cyborg. The acronym usually refers to a service in which a human could theoretically convert their mind and memories to a digital form which could be transplanted into a cybernetic body.”
“You mean like Tucker Berg,” the host suggested.
“Precisely,” Ellison confirmed. “The reason I brought this up is because I think it’s important to point out the hypocrisy of DeAndre Greyson because I’ve heard that he too is considering an FBC conversion. Yet he wants synths to be labeled as tools, slaves to be used at our will. As a full body cyborg, with the mind of a human, Greyson would have all the benefits of being a synth. Functional immortality, superior strength, et cetera. But he would have none of the drawbacks. He would be considered human, and thus would have all the same rights that we enjoy."
The host and everyone else looked toward Greyson for a response. Annoyingly, the man still seemed perfectly composed. He almost looked relaxed, even.
"I’m not here to remark on unfounded speculation, but I will say this… My company is constantly seeking new ways to improve human life," Greyson replied. "Human life, Ms. Ellison."
CHAPTER 11
◆◆◆
It was ten o'clock. The show had finished taping, but most of the guests were sticking around to talk to the crowd, to sign autographs, to take photos and shake hands. But not Greyson. The last time he'd hung around the California crowd he had a bottle of water poured on his head. So he was ducking out early, making a quick getaway.
He had parked his entourage, quite purposely, at the far end of the vast parking area, out at the silent edge of night.
DeAndre strode across the asphalt in the middle of his security team. Four large and wary men. Organic. Two in back and two in front. They set their sights on a large black SUV and bee-lined toward it.
Soon, they made it past the sea of park cars and onto a wide, open expanse of empty spots. DeAndre was always thinking, always considering, always watching. This was the ideal place for an ambush, he thought. Obviously it wouldn't happen, but the remote possibility was there. He started looking around, checking angles, playing out scenarios in his head.
Suddenly, four soft pops sounded and his security guys hit the deck one after the other, like big, dumb dominoes.
DeAndre stopped, looking around. The SUV was only twelve feet away. He could run for it, but there seemed to be no reason. He hadn't been shot yet, so he didn't think there was much cause for concern.
Someone came striding out of the shadows beyond the parking lot, dressed in black, wearing a mask and goggles with the backwards ghost of a heads up display visible in the lenses. The figure aimed its gun at Greyson's
heart.
"Whoever you are," Greyson said, "you've just made a huge mistake."
"I don't see it that way," the figure grunted. He seemed like a surly sort of guy. He seemed like a guy whose anger was too strong for him to think clearly.
The doors on the SUV clicked and slid open. A female figure emerged, normal in all aspects other than her arms. They were slightly over-sized, and quite noticeably mechanical.
Right on her tail, four other bodyguards came flying out of the SUV.
Greyson smiled. "Like I said... huge mistake, buddy."
CHAPTER 12
◆◆◆
Oscar looked at the security guards briefly, but most of his attention was on the woman and her vacant, amoral face. He knew this had to be The Unit, the android bodyguard that Sergeant Brooks had warned him about. She stared toward him with cold eyes, seemingly waiting for something. None of the guards shot or made a move, other than to stand in formation behind the Unit.
This was a hairy situation to be sure, but Oscar knew he had the upper hand. He was still in control, for now, because he had Greyson at gunpoint. Moving fast, he stepped to the side so that the big boss was positioned between him and the others.
His smart goggles pinged, highlighting a source of motion off to his right. The infrared picked out the heat signature of another guard, sneaking through the shadows and bushes at the edge of the parking lot. In a moment, he suddenly stood and took aim.
Oscar looked left, bending his knees and launching himself with a grunt of effort. He hit the ground harder than he planned and rolled clumsily behind the concrete base of a lamp. The yellow glow surrounded him, making him feel vulnerable.
Bullets ricocheted off the asphalt where Oscar had been rolling, pinging off into the night. One of them chipped off an edge of the concrete pillar, throwing shards against Oscar's face.
As soon as the shooting stopped, Oscar poked out and returned fire. The guard was hiding again, but the goggles made him stand out. Oscar watched the heat signature flop back as three bullets tore through it.
Grave Makers (Darkside Dreams - Series 1 Book 2) Page 7