by Toby Frost
‘Captain Smith?’ she said.
‘Yes, indeed,’ he replied.
‘It’s probably time you ought to set off.’
He glanced at his watch. ‘Ah, yes. Best get going.’
‘And Isambard?’
‘Yes?’
‘Don’t mess up.’
‘I won’t,’ he said proudly.
‘I just want to be away from here. This is a bad place. It’s . . . soulless. Fascist oppressors have turned it into a patch of acne on the soul of Gaia. So don’t screw up. I really mean it.’
‘It’s very sweet of you to say that, Rhianna.’
‘I mean it: don’t. I may be a pacifist, but I’ll be so angry if you mess this up. You don’t want me getting non-violent on your ass.’
‘Thanks,’ said Smith.
‘For all that’s wrong with you, you’re brave,’ Rhianna said, and she stood on tiptoe and quickly kissed him on the cheek. She stood there looking at him, blinking back a tear caused by getting the end of his moustache in her eye.
‘Cheers, girlie,’ he replied. Feeling very tall and broad suddenly, he stepped past her to the door. At the door he turned and gave her a perky salute. ‘See you later,’ he said.
‘Don’t wait up.’
Dreckitt scraped a match against the wall, did it again and realised on the third try that these were safety matches and the wall was chrome-plated. ‘Two bit joint,’ he said. He was tired, and full of no dinner and less whisky. Then she came into view, and the strip-light-lit night changed.
She had a small round face with a nose, mouth, some eyes and trouble written all over it. She wore a dark blue dress with a white part down the front that Dreckitt was too masculine to know the word for.
He tossed his cigarette into a bin. She was a blonde. He’d always known she’d be a blonde.
He waved, and she grinned and waved back.
‘Hello,’ she said.
‘Hey, Daisy,’ he replied. ‘Glad to see you again. Nice dress.’
‘Really? Thanks. I got it free from a woman on a planet full of rednecks,’ she added, immediately regretting that she had.
‘It’s interesting,’ Dreckitt managed. ‘You want to get a drink?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘From what I know, this is the liberal area of the city. We don’t have to be married to go into a bar.’
‘Wow. It should be a pretty fun night.’
‘I hope so,’ Dreckitt said, and he managed not to sigh, as he tended to do when he said those words. An automated buggy-train rolled up beside them and they stepped inside. ‘So,’ said Dreckitt, ‘Chainsaw. That’s an unusual surname.’
‘Actually, it’s heraldic,’ Carveth replied, and the cart whisked them away.
Smith pulled the facemask on again and prodded the doorbell, humming to himself. Above him, the video camera swung around, then down, then up a bit, as if surprised that he was so tall.
‘Hello,’ he said. ‘It’s me.’
The deep, sonorous voice came crackling from the speaker like an announcer on an old record. ‘So it is.’
‘Can I come in?’
‘Yes.’
The doors slid apart and Smith walked into the chaos of the connecting passage. ‘One moment,’ the speaker said. ‘I’ll just suck your filthy human germs out of the air. Thank you for waiting.’
Smith stood in the corridor, listening to the front doors close behind him, wondering if Doctor Apocalypse might actually have been a safer bet. Idly, he picked up a device lying on the floor and turned it about in his hands, wondering what it did. Judging from the pipework, it seemed to be a fuel injector for a hovering vehicle, but judging from Smith’s knowledge of technology, it might also have been a Pez dispenser.
‘Get your dirty microbes off my stuff!’ Ordo barked. Smith set the machine down. He had not realised that he was being watched. ‘Sorry.’ Good thing I didn’t check my gun, he thought. Might have put a damper on the atmosphere.
The doors slid apart. He looked into the main chamber, with its screens, machinery and exposed wire, and Ordo lurched into view. He was still a shock to see, like a trifle in a plastic bag balanced on an expensive lemon squeezer. As he hooted softly into the microphone he held in front of his beak, the machine translated.
‘So, the engineer returns. I trust you have enjoyed your time on Callistan – or under it, more appropriately?’
Smith said, ‘It’s bearable. Although I find it a little, um, oppressive at times.’
‘Well said. Not only is this world ruled by a vicious junta, but it is nearly impossible to get a good takeaway after ten p.m. Still, a being with the right connections can acquire anything – am I not right?’
‘You’re right.’
‘Music to my tympanic membrane. Now then: it was a plotting computer you required, yes?’
‘That’s right.’ Too many questions, Smith thought. Too much beating about the bush.
The alien turned and pulled something out of one of the heaps of machinery. It looked like a child’s toy, Smith thought, the sort of thing you could buy in Brampton’s Colonial Emporium for £19.99 Adjusted Sterling. Only when Ordo held it up did he see that the back had been torn off and handfuls of extra wiring thrust, seemingly at random, into the hole. He did not feel entirely convinced.
‘This is suitable. You should be able to install it as easily as playing a game. I trust you use an ion driver in the engine room?’
‘Don’t think so. I’m not really much of a man for golf.’
‘It will be fine. Now, pass me the money and we shall part.’
Smith took out a wad of notes and placed it on a patch of spare desk. Ordo produced a pair of tongs, picked up the notes and dropped them in a plastic bag. ‘I shall have to launder the cash,’ he explained. ‘To wash out the bacteria.’
Lazily, with an odd grace, Ordo reached out a tentacle towards the plotting computer. ‘Take it. It’s yours.’
‘Cheers. Thanks for your help.’
The tripod took a step away from him. ‘A pleasure.’
Smith turned and reached for the door. Behind him, something moved, and Ordo said, ‘ Ulla tulla, Smith?’
Smith turned. Ordo’s tentacles were wrapped around a device somewhere between a rifle and a box kite. The pyramid-shaped tip of the weapon, the part pointed straight at Smith, glowed red.
‘A heat ray,’ the Aresian explained. ‘Although I should imagine you are aware of that.’
‘Would you like the plotting computer back, then?’ said Smith.
‘Alas, no. Much as I hate to betray the confidence of my customers, rumours of a considerable reward have been circulating in the underworld. Which I intend to claim. The authorities have been notified.’
‘You rotten little traitor!’ Smith exclaimed. ‘You’d trade me in to those zealots after I did good business with you?’
‘Indeed I would.’
‘You bastard! I’ll pull off your beak and use you as a space hopper!’
‘You shall not.’ Ordo made an expansive gesture with his tentacles and the glowing barrel pointed upwards.
‘You see, my mind is immeasurably greater than your own. I have studied humans as a scientist studies bacteria under a microscope. You have been outwitted, human, and – ullooo! ’
Smith leaped on him. It was a brief, vicious struggle. Ordo snapped at his throat with his beak, struggling to haul Smith closer to deliver a death-bite – but in one sudden move Smith whipped the pistol from his pocket and shoved it where the alien’s chin would have been had it not out-evolved the need for one.
Smith stood up and kicked the heat-ray aside. ‘You were saying, Marty?’
The wrong way up, Ordo’s walking machine jutted into the air like a small, crashed satellite. He hooted with fury.
‘Curse you and your big legs!’ the translator said. ‘I shall drink your blood!’
‘Got my doubts about that.’ He stepped back to the door, plotting computer in hand. ‘I’ve only got o
ne thing to say to you, Martian. A—’
‘What?’ Ordo demanded, rising.
‘A—’
‘No!’
‘Choo!’ Smith pulled down his facemask and sneezed loudly.
‘Not the microbes!’ the alien cried, and Smith closed the door behind him.
That taught you, you double-crossing alien foreigner, Smith thought as he marched away. You were lucky I didn’t beat you to death with your own third leg. He smiled grimly. Then he remembered that he had left his money in there. And that Ordo had notified the authorities. And that Carveth was somewhere in the city, with some man.
This looked bad.
‘This looks good,’ Dreckitt said, pointing into a bar. Carveth squinted into the dark. ‘Mmn,’ she said, mustering enthusiasm like a sergeant shoving recruits into line. ‘Smoky!’
They entered. Inside, a number of people dressed like Neil and Trinny sat at tables, smoking and talking intently about art or computers. It seemed to be a serious faux pas among the cyberpunk underground to remove one’s sunglasses, and every so often the hum of conversation was broken by cursing as somebody walked into the furniture. The ceiling fan was low and the lighting dim, and it occurred to Carveth that a tall man in a hat could have a lot of problems here.
Looking slightly ill at ease, Dreckitt pulled a chair back and Carveth sat in it. As he leaned over for the wine list, she saw the bulge of something big under his shoulder, where a holster would be.
‘So, is that a gun under your arm, or just an unusual mutation that’s happy to see me?’
Dreckitt looked surprised. ‘Uh? Oh, this? Yeah, um, that’s a gun, actually.’
‘Can I have a go?’
‘I’d rather you didn’t, lady.’
‘Go on. Please, please?’
Well, thought Dreckitt, I’ll slip the safety catch on. I’ve always got the knife in my sock. It’ll help get her trust. She won’t know how to switch the safety off.
‘Sure,’ he said, and he passed it to her. Carveth turned the Assassinator over in her small hands and marvelled at it. It was not quite as big as a howitzer, she noticed. Lights blinked along its length, possibly to stop low-flying aircraft crashing into the barrel when it was drawn.
‘Quite a piece,’ Dreckitt said.
Carveth pointed it at him across the table and flicked the safety off. ‘So, matey, what’s the big idea?’
Dreckitt swallowed hard. The barrel of his own gun looked big enough to live in. ‘I’m an android bounty killer and I’ve come here on a mission to murder you,’ he said.
‘Just kidding!’ Carveth put the safety back on and placed the gun on the tabletop.
‘You know what?’ Dreckitt said sourly. ‘Me too.’
‘Hey,’ said Carveth, ‘both of us!’
‘So,’ said a voice at the side of them, ‘Ready to order?’
Dreckitt holstered the gun and turned to the waitress. Her grin remained, but the confidence was gone, as if behind it her face was planning a very different expression for later use. ‘Burger,’ he said. ‘And some whisky.’
‘That’s a two-pound burger with bacon and cheese. Fries come with a choice of our own special tomato sauce, French-style with mayonnaise or blessed by the Religious Police to reduce cholesterol in the life after this.’
‘Special sauce.’
‘And your wife?’
‘Same here,’ Carveth said. ‘Nothing on the chips, though. I’ll just borrow some of his. You don’t mind giving me a squirt of your special sauce, do you?’ she asked, immediately making a mental note never to say anything like that again.
The waitress moved away. Dreckitt looked across the table at his date and target. He wondered what had driven her to dress up like that. That didn’t seem like the sort of thing a simulant would do. But it was not enough. He recalled the last batch of assassinations, the lawyers and accountants who could almost have been cold, inhumane machines like him, and shuddered. This time round, he needed to be sure. He activated his detection software.
He leaned across the table and looked into her eyes.
‘Daisy, can I ask you something?’
She leaned closer and smiled. ‘’Course you can, Rick.’
‘You have a puppy – a cute puppy – but you flush him down the toilet. Why did you do that, Daisy?’
‘A puppy?’
Dreckitt’s eyes bored into her. His voice was quick and hard. ‘A cute fluffy puppy with floppy ears. He loved you but you flushed him down the toilet. He’s spinning round and round, his big eyes pleading with you as he sinks. He’s saying, “Mummy, why am I sinking?” Why did you flush him down the toilet?’
‘Guess he just pissed me off or something,’ Carveth said. ‘I dunno. Why’d you ask?’
‘Just wondered,’ Dreckitt said, and he leaned back. Carveth felt that the spark wasn’t quite there. Dreckitt’s mind raced, computating as he reached for his whisky. The emotional response to his crafty questioning suggested that she was an android. That wasn’t the kind of thing a meatbag would have said. Biological humans were unnecessarily sentimental about animals, family members and the like. Perhaps she was a synthetic after all – or just an unexpectedly rational human being. He needed to know more, to slip another test into the conversation.
Dreckitt elbowed his fork onto the floor. ‘Whoops,’ he said.
He swung down under the table and picked up the fork. He glanced left, then right, then slipped a small magnet out of his coat and held it close to Carveth’s legs. She wasn’t made of metal. Some older androids had mechanical implants to make them more durable. Of course, that was no guarantee: the newer variants, like himself, were almost entirely biological. Either she was indeed a human, or an android sufficiently advanced to do a very good impersonation of a human who was not very advanced at all.
Uncertain, Dreckitt turned to sit up, and came face to face with Carveth.
When Dreckitt had disappeared under the table, she had assumed that their date was going rather well, so she looked down to check. She was less pleased to find him investigating her lower body with a magnet. She looked at the magnet. ‘I’m not wearing a chastity belt,’ she said.
‘Though it’s nice of you to try and pick it open.’
They sat back up and the waitress brought them drinks. On the radio, ‘The Safety Dance’ ended and another song began.
‘Ah, Men Without Hats,’ Dreckitt said, ‘where are you now? You know,’ he added, ‘that reminds me of something.’
‘Oh yes. What’s that then?’
‘Someone gives you a baby-skin handbag and pair of shoes. What do you do?’
‘Um,’ said Carveth.
‘Pure baby-skin. Are you repulsed by the gift? What’s your emotional response?’
‘Do the bag and shoes match?’
‘How should I know?’ Dreckitt said.
‘Well, you asked.’
‘It’s a hypothetical question.’
‘You mean you’re not really giving anything away free?’
‘No. The bag and shoes don’t match, by the way.’
‘Oh.’ Carveth went back to her drink. ‘That’s terrible!’
she exclaimed. ‘I reject the bag and I say how bad it is to make things out of babies!’
‘You’re an android,’ Dreckitt said.
‘No I’m not.’
‘Yes you are.’
‘Am not.’
‘All the evidence points to it,’ he said.
‘Am not. Not not not. If I was an android, I’d be making a much better job of arguing my way out of this. I’d use logic and stuff. Explain that.’
‘You’re a renegade android that’s violated its programming and is on the run from its designated duty,’ he replied. ‘Who knows what sort of systemic malfunctions the violation of your primary rationale has caused?’
‘That’s what you say,’ she said, and she stared huffily at the wall.
‘Polly?’ he said. ‘Miss Carveth?’
‘What now?
’
‘Got you!’
‘Oh, tits!’ she said, wishing she’d kept hold of the gun. This was just typical. The date had been going fine and now he’d turned out to be an android bounty killer. Bloody men!
‘I knew you weren’t a real human being,’ Dreckitt said, leaning back in his seat. ‘Several things gave it away. Firstly, you seem to be dressed as Alice in Wonderland. Secondly, using my special training, I seamlessly inserted questions into our conversation that would betray the kind of emotional response a biological human would give, thus revealing you to be synthetic. And thirdly, you’re obviously not the real Daisy Chainsaw because I own their first album.’
‘Good, isn’t it?’
‘Yeah, not bad. But let’s get back to the whole bountykilling thing.’
‘Oh, yes. Perhaps we can work something out. Do you accept sexual favours?’
‘I’m not going to kill you, Polly.’
She blinked. ‘Would you accept them anyway?’
Dreckitt gave a brief snort of amusement and said,
‘Polly, let me tell you something. I’m an android too. And not a good one. Truth is, I’m nothing but a two-bit grifter with a cheap suit and a big piece – that’s a gun. I’ve got nothing to offer the world except a hard-luck story and a hand-cannon – which is also a gun, so don’t get any ideas. I’ve not got much to thank my creators for – no friends, no family. But I am glad I’m not saddled with an overactive sex drive and a lemming’s instinct for danger. I’m through with killing my own kind. Finished.’
‘You didn’t answer my question.’
‘You can go, Polly. I can’t say you’ve got much of a chance, kid, and it cuts me up to tell you that.’
At the far end of the bar, some sort of commotion was going on. A group of police was attempting to enter, their armour catching the bad light of the bar. A waiter was remonstrating with them, waving his hands. The police looked at one another, their visors blank. They made Carveth think of androids more primitive than herself, automata.