by Mel Odom
“I found ways to save her…afterward.”
“Afterward.”
“Yes.”
“But not then.”
“I did not know she needed saving.”
“No.” Miranda’s eyes glittered wetly. “You didn’t.” Her hand rested on mine. “Drake, you did everything you could.”
“At the time, yes. Looking back, no.”
“Do you blame yourself for your partner’s death?”
“I did not kill her.”
“You didn’t pull the trigger, no. But do you blame yourself?”
“That is a human reaction. One born of feelings of guilt or inadequacy. I was neither guilty nor inadequate.”
“Yet you feel the loss of your partner.”
“Yes.”
Miranda was quiet for a moment. “I have a theory about why Shelly Nolan is with you. Would you like to hear it?”
The possibility of Shelly’s manifestation being reduced to scientific equations or hypothesis made me feel unsettled. I did not believe in things outside the realm of the scientific, but I was reluctant to hear her speak. I did not have an immediate answer for Miranda.
Politely, quietly, she waited while the computer systems around us beeped and buzzed.
I looked at her and asked the question that weighed most heavily in my thoughts. “Will your theory make Shelly go away?”
“Do you want it to?”
I paused to try to formulate the true answer. A lot of conflicting data existed within my head. It was one thing to accept that Shelly was there, but it was another to do so in the face of empirical evidence.
“See, Drake? You’re afraid to let her go.”
“Fear is a human emotion. I am not programmed for fear other than on a self-preservation level.”
“No, you aren’t. But you’re not just Drake 3GI2RC these days, are you? Part of you is still Simon Blake, and I think that part has grown stronger than you realize.”
I considered that. “Am I compromised? Am I no longer myself?”
Miranda laughed. “You are very much yourself, Drake. Probably more so than you have ever been. This is part of your evolution, part of your growth that is shaping you even now. With Simon Blake implanted in your neural imprint, you’re different than any other bioroid this corp has manufactured. You’re…something new.”
“‘Neither fish nor fowl.’”
“Do you know where that quote comes from?”
“From John Heywood’s 1546 proverb collection.” I knew the answer immediately. Heywood was a sixteenth century playwright.
“You know that, but you don’t know how Shelly is with you. Strange how that works, isn’t it?”
I didn’t say anything, but the conversation was becoming less intriguing to me.
Miranda sat back and folded her hands in her lap. “Here’s what I think. I believe that part of you—a Drake part or a Simon part, or maybe both—has decided to hang onto the idea of Shelly Nolan as your partner. Perhaps it’s because you feel personal loss more than you think you do, or perhaps this is a facet of your programming that wants to stay involved with your mentor figure to finish your training.”
“That seems highly unlikely.”
“Does it?” Miranda smiled a little. “Shelly Nolan was training you, true?”
“Yes.”
“Who is training you now?”
I gave that question brief consideration. I wasn’t being trained, per se. I was in the field and working cases. “No one.”
“But your programming demands that someone teach you.”
I checked the software regarding my training and found that this was true. It was a subroutine that ran in the background, almost invisible even to me. But it was there.
“Yes, it does.” I focused on her. “Do you think this is where Shelly comes from?”
Her smile was broader, warmer. “No. That program could manifest in different ways. You could ask the NAPD for additional training. Pursue more training yourself by observing those you work with.”
“I do that.”
“I’m sure that you do.” She paused. “Would you ask for another trainer?”
“No.” I answered immediately.
“Why?”
That was something I didn’t have an immediate answer for, but I knew it was true.
“I think you choose to carry Shelly with you because she…completes the you that you are becoming. Having her with you allows you to think outside your more traditional programming, gives you the ability to address problems outside more conventional parameters.”
“That doesn’t seem logical.”
“Yet…you’re seeing your partner. That’s not logical either.”
I could not argue that. “Will she always be there?”
Miranda shrugged. “I don’t know, Drake. You’ve gone past a point that I can easily measure. I believe you’ve evolved past the point where anyone here at Haas-Bioroid can quantify.” She took a breath. “But this is what those of us who have been developing the neural channeling have all been working toward.”
“What should I do?”
“Be glad you have her, Drake. For however long she’s with you. That would be the human thing to do.”
I considered that.
“Because I promise you, if you tell anyone at the NAPD or Haas-Bioroid that you’re seeing your partner, they will shut you down and scrap you out.” Miranda put a hand on my shoulder, and I felt her heart beat resonate within my sensors. “You already cherish her, Drake. Continue to do so for as long as she’s with you. That would be my advice. You’ve got a guardian angel.”
For as long as she’s with you. Those words rang in my hearing and the lab faded away as my consciousness was sucked into a void.
Chapter Thirty-Five
My vision returned and I discovered I was in another lab. At first I believed I was in another testing center inside Haas-Bioroid, but when I pinged the lunar GPS to get my exact coordinates, I discovered that ability wasn’t open to me. From experience, I gathered that I was wrapped in a half-remembered memory again.
The room was dark and all the equipment around me was shut down, like it was after hours, which was something unheard of at Haas-Bioroid. Shifts ticked twenty-four hours straight, especially in the R&D sector where the constant flow of information coming in from bioroids had to be monitored.
I lay at a seventy-degree angle in a narrow cubicle that was barely larger than I was. I knew from previous experience that the compartment was a neural channeling workspace. Programs wrote into my cerebral cortex as I assessed myself. I wasn’t complete, not yet ready to move under my own power.
But I was myself for the first time, not Simon Blake.
Heels clicked against a solid floor, but the sound was off. I hypothesized that my auditory receptors weren’t quite online. The cubicle also restricted my vision and I could not see who it was until she was practically in front of me.
Mara Blake stood there wearing a black dress that was cut to show off her physical assets. Her hair was short and neat, and I remembered that she wore it that way when she was busiest because she didn’t have time to do it. Or, rather, Simon remembered that.
She studied me for a moment, staring into my face. I was curious to know what she saw. More than that, I wanted to know what—or who—she was looking for.
“So there you are.”
The male voice attracted Mara’s attention at once. She grew tense, then relaxed almost immediately when she turned to see who it was. Then she smiled and held her hands out.
“Did I scare you?” A tall man, very fit and powerful-looking, took her hands and kissed her lightly on the cheek.
“Startled me. I had thought I was alone.”
The man wore an expensive suit that had been tailored to conceal the handgun he wore under his left arm. I saw it, though, and thought from the military bearing he had and the careful way he kept watch around the room that he was a soldier. His face was perfect, though, and
that alone suggested that he’d had facial reconstruction done. Perhaps several times.
“You shouldn’t be alone.” The man released her hands and waved back the way they had come. “There are dozens of people out there celebrating your success. You should be with them.”
Rubbing the back of her neck with her hand, Mara shook her head. Her eyes showed her tiredness. “I just wanted some time by myself.”
The man looked at me. “So you came here? With this thing? To be alone?”
“Yes.”
The man eyed me in quiet speculation for a moment. “Why this one?”
“I’m not here to see this bioroid. I just came to this room because no one else was here.”
Taking a step to the side, the man examined me. “Can it see us?”
Mara shook her head. “No. Drake is still receiving neural programming. He’s not online yet.”
The man narrowed his ice-blue eyes and took a step forward, leaning close enough now that I felt his breath feather my face. “Are you sure?”
Mara forced a laugh. “I’m making these units. I would be the one to know.”
“True.” The man leaned back again and returned his attention to her. “Drake?”
“Yes.”
“Why that name?”
“It’s just a name.”
The man watched her quietly and I sensed the threat that existed between them. “Why not Simon? Kind of a tribute.”
Hurt tightened Mara’s features. She turned away. “Don’t.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.” The man clasped his hands behind his back. “Too soon.”
“It’s only been four months since…Simon died.”
The man didn’t look sympathetic. “My apologies.” He didn’t sound sincere.
When Mara turned to face the man, her face was hard as laser-cut glass. “Where were you when Simon was killed, John?”
John took in a breath and let it out. “Away. You know that.”
“Simon was murdered.”
“I know.”
“The thing that bothers me most is that I don’t know if his murderer knew that he was killing Simon, or if he thought he was killing you.”
John shook his head. “I don’t know. Simon and I were…close. We worked together for years. We made a lot of enemies. A lot of people wanted us dead.” He showed her a twisted smiled. “Many of those same people still want me dead.”
“That’s what you’ve said. That’s what he said. But neither of you ever said how long you worked together or what it was you did.”
John’s jaw knotted up for just a moment, then smoothed out again. “We fought and bled for whoever would pay us in whatever dirty war happened to be going on at the time. That’s what we did.” He paused. “And unless you’ve been in situations like that, you don’t really want to talk to an outsider about it.” His voice softened a little then. “Not even someone you love.”
Unshed tears glistened in Mara’s eyes. “I’ve got a party I’ve got to get back to.” Without another word, she walked past him and out of my field of vision.
John stood there for a moment after her ringing footsteps vanished. Then he turned to me and studied me some more. “You’re not as special as she thinks, golem. You’re a copy of a copy. Nothing remarkable.” He walked away, his footsteps silent as a shadow on the hard floor.
Chapter Thirty-Six
When I returned to my senses in Haas-Bioroid, I discovered that I had been moved. At first I thought I was on another memory loop, but my GPS showed that I was still inside Haas-Bioroid.
I was also inside a storage box. I pushed against it, but it was locked tightly. The movement also activated a comm unit next to my head. The voice was male, filled with authority.
“Lie still, Drake 3GI2RC.”
I relaxed, but the order was unsettling. I tried to access the Net but was blocked. Something had damped my abilities.
“I have questions.”
“Lie still.”
“I want to speak to someone.”
“Lie still.”
“Why am I being contained?”
“Lie still.”
Realizing that the limited AI that was monitoring me wasn’t going to respond to any of my questions, I thought back and tried to remember how I had gotten to my present location. There was nothing there. I remembered talking with Miranda, remembered the strange memory, then there was nothing.
“You can’t just lie here, partner.”
I heard Shelly like she was lying beside me, but I knew that was a physical impossibility. There wasn’t enough room inside the container. I wanted to react, to figure out some way out of the box, but I lay there unable to help myself. Evidently my incarceration had included some kind of reinforcement from Haas-Bioroid. Only a higher command could supersede my self-preservation programming.
Given the nature of my present surroundings, I deduced that I was being taken for further study, perhaps a reboot or a neural wipe that would re-install my original personality. The programmers might be able to separate what I had learned from my core personality and preserve the training. That had been one of my functions, gathering and collating information on the job as an NAPD investigator.
But what would become of Mara Blake would be troubling. I didn’t know if the subroutines she had implemented for me to search for her, for me to have Simon Blake’s memories, would translate to the new me.
The two programs, the need to obey orders and the desire to save Mara, warred within me. They were still warring an hour later when someone picked up the container I was in and loaded it onto a mini-cargo hopper. I identified the vehicle by the engine’s light rumble. Restraining straps locked in tight around my body.
Minutes later, I tracked my GPS signature as we departed Haas-Bioroid and out into the streets of Heinlein. The driver drove carefully and headed for the nearest tube-lev tube station. Evidently I—as cargo—got preferential treatment because I got moved to the head of the line and stored almost immediately.
A short time after that, we were underway. I lay there in the darkness and reached for Shelly even though I knew she couldn’t be there with me. Hadn’t been with me since she had died, in fact. The truth bothered my internal logic, but I pushed that quandary away for the more immediate concern of what was being done with me.
I wondered if anything had happened to Miranda. I found I did not want to lose her. She had been most illuminating.
Seventeen minutes into the travel, the container shrilled loudly and blasted a quick text blast onto the Net. I caught part of it.
CONTAINER SECURITY HAS BEEN VOIDED ILLEGALLY.
GPS coordinates broadcasted as well.
Then the container opened with a hiss and the cover in front of me swung on its hinges. Bright light assaulted my vid relays, but my subroutines quickly polarized the effects and evened out my vision.
Chyou Xiang stood before me dressed in a black coverall and wearing a backpack. She held a tranquilizer gun in one hand. Behind her, two men in Haas-Bioroid uniforms sprawled on the floor of the cargo tube.
“Drake? Can you hear me?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I didn’t know what they had done to you.” Chyou reached into the container and tabbed off the restraints, which immediately coiled back inside their housings.
“I am in the custody of Haas-Bioroid.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Chyou stepped back. “Get out of there.”
No longer held, I clambered out easily. I knelt and examined the two men on the floor, making sure they were in no danger.
“They’re fine.” Chyou waved the tranquilizer pistol but didn’t put it away. “Come on. We don’t have much time.”
I stood and looked at her. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to get you.”
“I don’t understand.”
She frowned and shook her head. “This thing with Skorpios Defense Systems is bigger than
I thought. Back at the warehouse, I expected Magnus Swan to get me away from the NAPD. He didn’t. I had to spend hours being interviewed and questioned by detectives.”
“Why? The case against Masamune is simple and straightforward. He was transporting the mercenaries we’re looking for.”
Chyou grimaced. “Masamune’s dead. Somebody cut his throat in a bar not far from the hangar at the same time we were confronted by the three ringers in the cargo ship.” She looked around the tube car. “Someone is working fast and hard to make sure everything is contained. Or at least delayed.”
“To what end?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know yet. I think the only way we’re going to know what’s truly at stake is when we bring in the weapons shipment and the people who have it.”
“I am supposed to stay with Haas-Bioroid.” Even as I stood there, I felt the protocols running through my subroutines to call me to heel. That need bothered me on a level I was certain I had never before known.
“Seriously?” She frowned at me. “Drake, I just pulled you out of a cargo container that was being shipped from Haas-Bioroid. If they had wanted you there, they would have kept you.”
That was logical, but it didn’t completely free me from the programming. “Perhaps they were sending me to a satellite lab for further diagnostic testing.”
She looked at me. “What’s wrong with you, Drake?”
“What do you mean?”
“Are you somehow deficient? Underperforming?”
“No.”
“Then why would Haas-Bioroid require further testing?”
I didn’t have answers for her or myself. I knew there was the usual testing that took place, but this obviously was not that. “I don’t know.”
“For the moment, let’s assume that whatever this further testing is, it’s at least possibly not in your best interests. Furthermore, it’s impeding your ongoing investigation into the black market munitions.”
Her logic was solid. I wanted to fault her, but I couldn’t. “Why are you here?”
“To get you to help me.”
“What am I supposed to help you do?”