House of the Galactic Elevator

by Gerhard Gehrke

  “That’s not me,” Oliop said.

  “Sergeant Ceph,” Captain Flemming said. “Zoom in.”

  The tentacle-faced cop obliged. The screen zoomed in. Either the customer in the shop was an identical twin of Oliop’s with the same nervous ears and twitchy tail, or that was Oliop. Ceph zoomed back out.

  “Now watch,” either Uttu’a or Uttu’beh said with a hiss. “This is when he starts to ask me about what we have in stock. He asked for a discount. He asked if we wanted to donate to the Commons Rebuilding Fund.”

  Oliop in real life started to twiddle his thumbs and his other eight digits.

  Onscreen, Oliop’s tail began to sway. The centaur behind the counter was speaking with expansive gestures but the voice was muted. Oliop nodded, shrank, shrugged. But his tail snaked out behind him and grabbed four small boxes, all out of sight of the centaur. Oliop discreetly tucked these things away into a null-space pouch in his pants, the merchant not noticing.

  “Did you see that?” the Jinong said, his voice rising. “Theft! Outright theft!”

  The other centaur only nodded, patting his partner on the shoulder.

  “We demand justice.”

  Flemming walked to the dismantled elevator. He beckoned for Oliop to come down. Oliop set the caddy down and descended. Flemming surveyed the accused and sighed.

  “I didn’t really take those things,” Oliop said. “I was only looking. I wanted to see if the boxes fit in my pouch. I needed to get those programs before anyone else bought them.”

  Flemming just shook his head sadly. “Oliop, Oliop,” he said.

  “Jeff, help,” Oliop said in a small voice.

  “Captain,” Jeff said, “what can we do to make restitution?” He went to his coat and produced his tablet. This would access any credits he had. “Let me clear this up so we can get back to work.”

  “I’m afraid it’s not that easy.”

  “We are past restitution,” the Jinong said. “We demand justice for this outrageous act.”

  His partner nodded and flicked his tongue in agreement.

  “Look, I get it,” Jeff said. “He swiped some stuff. But we can take care of this right now, and Oliop here won’t ever bother you guys again.”

  “I won’t!” Oliop said. “I’m sorry.”

  “We do not accept an apology as appropriate redress,” the Jinong said. His tongue protruded from his mouth as if he were thinking too hard. The gesture translated as resolute determination. His beaded eyes shined like black pearls. “Captain Flemming, this creature needs to feel the full weight of Galactic Commons law.”

  “Which in this case is what?” Jeff asked.

  Flemming sighed. “If you had your app in, you’d know.”

  “Suspension of citizenship,” Ceph said. “Take-backsies.”

  Flemming said, “The law as written would remand Oliop to his sovereign representative. He would be returned home. Since he doesn’t have a sovereign house here in the Commons, that would be handled by an administrative counselor.”

  Jeff shook his head. “This is nuts. Have you all forgotten that we’re in the middle of a crisis here? The city is trying to get back on its feet after an invasion. We need every willing pair of hands to do that. And Oliop is the only one working on getting the transportation system up and running again. Captain, you have to tell these people that they need to accept the apology and move on. Oliop won’t ever go to their store again. I’ll pay whatever the cost was of whatever Oliop took. He’ll promise to behave himself. And we all get back to work. How much was it, anyway?”

  Ceph tapped at his tablet, gave the face of the device a swipe with a finger. A number appeared on Jeff’s device. Jeff’s eyes went wide.

  “That’s a lot of zeroes,” he said.

  “Even if you could afford what was stolen, we would not accept,” the Jinong said. “Our honor demands that the law be followed.”

  “But that’s not even possible right now.”

  “It is possible.” The Jinong shifted its basilisk gaze to Flemming.

  Flemming actually looked uncomfortable, as if he were sweating. Since he was a sentient mold colony that couldn’t sweat, stress caused him to get hot. Heat caused the colony to die off if not dispersed. He tugged at his collar. He said, “The provision for an inability to send an offender home is to detain him.”

  “For how long?” Jeff asked.

  “Until he can be sent home.”

  Jeff slammed his tablet down on the workbench. The loud whack startled everyone. Oliop hopped back a step. “This is absolutely crazy! He’s the only one who’s capable of fixing the elevators. If he’s locked up, it stays broken. And the only way to get him out of jail is to send him home, which isn’t possible since he’s not able to do his job!”

  “It’s a pickle,” Ceph said. “Rock and a hard place.”

  “Jeff, we need to follow the law even when we don’t agree with it,” Flemming said.

  “This isn’t just a matter of not agreeing with it. It has to make some kind of sense, and under the circumstances it’s just stupid.”

  Flemming gestured towards Oliop, and Detective Ceph grabbed him by an elbow. Jeff started towards them.

  “Jeff Abel,” Flemming said. “Why don’t you take the rest of the day off?”

  Jeff stopped and took a deep breath. He didn’t doubt his long odds at getting Oliop away before getting stunned by his fellow officers. But even if he could get Oliop out of here, where would they go?

  “Oliop, it’s going to be okay,” Jeff said without believing himself. Oliop didn’t make eye contact. His ears flopped at the sides of his head.

  The two Jinong nodded as Ceph perp-walked Oliop past them and out of the workshop.

  “That’s enough excitement for one day,” Flemming said. “You citizens can go.”

  The Jinong left, their tongues dangling with joy, their faces split into grins that showed off their many tiny teeth. The workshop fell silent.

  Jeff picked up one of the pliers and pitched it across the room, where it clanged against something in the dark. Captain Flemming took off his trench coat and folded it on one arm.

  “You have the authority to be flexible,” Jeff said, his voice shaking with anger. “You demonstrated that during and right after the invasion on a number of occasions.”

  “Flexible when possible,” Flemming said. “But the longer the citizens of the Commons are here and unable to go back home, they need to believe that we can protect them and that the body of the law works. We can only fudge so much. Especially since we’re stretched as thin as we are with the volunteers we have.”

  Flemming went to the workbench and looked at Jeff’s tablet. Jeff snatched it up and saw the screen was blank. He tried to turn it on, but it didn’t respond. He turned it over. No help there, just the label that read “Property of Galactic Commons Security.”

  “I’m sorry I broke the tablet,” Jeff said with a huff. “I know, I should get the app.”

  “I’m sure it’s not permanently broken. Things are built to last here.”

  Jeff could only smirk. “Not everything. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m not good company right now.”

  ***

  Jeff stormed out of the workshop and began to walk through the passageways underneath the city. He didn’t think about where he was headed, just wanted to be away from Captain Flemming or anyone else for that matter, and the underground labyrinth obliged. Soon he found himself in a corridor where he would have to duck under a large cluster of pipes to continue. A slight hiss and gurgle passed through the walls here, and some metallic clinking sounds echoed down the dark corridor from something unseen.

  He looked at the tablet still gripped in his hand. A smear of black soot obscured part of the screen. He cleaned it off with his sleeve. A small crack ran diagonally across the face of the tablet.

  “I guess you’re not indestructible.”

  Jeff touched the tablet’s sides. He was surprised when the device blinked on, dis
playing the last page shown, the estimate from the Jinong merchants on the items stolen. The stipend from Jeff’s security gig could never cover the price of the stolen goods, not in a month or a year or a decade. This was industrial-level pricing, something a sovereign house with a planet-level economy might buy. So why would those items be displayed in a store in such a careless manner? And what had Oliop stolen, exactly?

  Jeff tapped at the item description.

  Amazing Live Artificial Intelligence! Grow Your Own! Wow!

  The Galaxy’s Favorite AI Engine in Four Easy Steps! Mysterious! Alluring! Experience the Wonder!

  All it takes is our patented starter code (package #1). Combine premeasured growth formula with improved control flow (package #2) and then add to the electron neural network (package #3). Sprinkle in Intellispark Go! (™)(package #4) and you’re done!

  A graphic displayed a happy abstraction of electrons dancing about inside a terminal with a mixed group of aliens watching, all with ridiculous grins. The bottom of the screen showed four red envelopes emerging from small boxes sequentially labeled one through four. All brought to you by Jinong Industries.

  Jeff brought up the footage from the shop. He watched again as Oliop swiped the packages with his tail and put them into his pocket. There was no doubt that he was guilty. But why this product? The most obvious reason would be for resale and profit. Jeff hovered a finger, about to close the device down, when he activated the communications app. He pulled up Jordan from his all-too-short contact list.

  Four messages left by him in the past week. None had received replies.

  They had both been busy since the invasion. Jeff worked with security during the day and assisted Oliop at night, to the extent Jeff’s limited mechanical and programming skills allowed. Oliop liked the company, he reasoned, and didn’t get on well with others assigned to the project. Meanwhile, Jordan became a tourist, visiting first the fashionable and then the less fashionable parts of the city, and even seeing some of the “sights beyond,” according to her last text.

  He clicked on that message. Date sent: Eight days ago. Location sent from: Spice Valley. He clicked the location, wondering if that was a district of the city, a restaurant, or some alien hot sauce factory with a chintzy gift shop.

  A map appeared, which directed him outside the city. An attached article explained that Spice Valley was a deep canyon of large mineral formations and iron oxides, mostly magnetite. The upper trails boasted fantastic views of high cliffs and spires and a lake with crystal formations grown by bio-magnetic bacteria. Tours available daily.

  Before he could switch the tablet off, the screen went blank. It flashed its reboot cycle, and a second later resumed its previous display as if nothing had happened. Jeff gave the tablet a shake.

  “Great,” Jeff said.

  CHAPTER 3

  Jordan walked the length of the empty parking lot and, not for the first time that day, marveled at the silver sky. Somewhere above and beyond the perpetual overcast was a bright white sun whose light shined through and cast a pleasing array of colors down onto the park. The park shined back.

  “Welcome to Spice Valley,” a sign read.

  Tall clusters of orange and red crystals rose up along the sides of the lot. Beyond these was a forest of skyscraper-high monoliths that glowed and pulsed unlike anything Jordan had ever seen while on Earth. And here she was, the only person in the park to take in the scenery.

  She was the park’s new caretaker, a volunteer posting that would pay her a stipend for making daily rounds through a park that might have been the most beautiful place in the galaxy as far as she was concerned. She had settled on the job after spending the better part of three months in a whirl of meeting every alien that would give her the time of day. Most proved quite agreeable in chatting up the Galactic Commons’ newest member race. Jordan had made a number of friends. Some though, were less enthusiastic. Humans, after all, were part of the reason why no one could leave the Galactic Commons, or at least the planet the city was founded on.

  One day Jordan had decided to see what lay beyond the city limits and she wasn’t disappointed. Even visiting some of the automated farms had been an adventure, as the crops grown by a few of the thousands of member races interested in farming proved as varied as the citizenry. She toured factories made of living trees, saw zero-G hydroponics, and wondered at an iceberg lake where hand-raised plankton were harvested for some kind of popular dessert product. Beyond the agriculture belt lay numerous preserves and zones that highlighted the flora, fauna, and geology imported from other worlds.

  Here is where she discovered Spice Valley. When she pulled up her app to learn more, she discovered it needed a caretaker. It was a turnkey position requiring little but a willing spirit, physical fitness, and the ability to use a suite of apps that informed Jordan of everything she needed to know about the park.

  Back on Earth, she had always been an enthusiastic consumer of information, addicted to reading on the internet what was going on worldwide in real time. The Galactic Commons apps made the old internet feel quaint once they were installed. The knowledge was inside of her, made part of her as if she had studied and memorized myriad facts over many years. Earth learning was sipping from a teacup where now the information available was like drinking from a fire hose. It proved overwhelming. Where were these apps when she was struggling through her MBA program at Sacramento State?

  She also tried some of the game programs available. Big mistake. She used to play computer games compulsively back home, both MMOs and Counter-strike. The games available in the Galactic Commons made her realize she had a problem that she had no interest in solving. At least she had found an alarm app that would compel her to log out after a predesignated time and go do her job. Besides, the best games cost money and her volunteer position paid her something.

  Her feet were sore. She had hiked close to fifteen miles, doing a loop of the park’s main attractions, even though she could have ventured even further, as the park stretched far enough to where she could have hiked for a week in one direction. But there was no one else here, no lost children, no litter, no tourist in need of a well-rehearsed docent.

  A two-story chalet stood at the end of the lot, with a spacious ramp leading to closed double doors. At first, the structure looked like it was made of wood and painted the dark brown of every single visitor center in the known universe. The center was actually built of some kind of stone. The surface had a rough-hewn look as if it were imitating cut sections of redwood logs. She touched the rock guide rails of the ramp, and it felt smooth and strangely warm, as did so many of the crystals. The center’s dark windows looked down at the lot. When the Commons had visitors before the invasion this place would have its lights on and be full of guests. Now it was locked up and powered down.

  She walked up the ramp to the front doors. Gave them a tug. Locked tight as always. She went around the building. Every side door was locked too, and every window was shut. This was the final check on her mental list for the day.

  In the back stood a row of three vending machines. Jordan froze. One of the machines was badly smashed, its front peeled open like a paper wrapper and its contents gone. The two machines that were unmolested advertised desiccated meat-flavored snacks and briny electrolyte-rich beverages. The ruined machine used to have fruit in it. It had been intact just that morning.

  She quickly consulted her app, looked through the list of animals that lived in the park. Besides some slugs (there were over three hundred varieties) and something suspiciously similar to a red chipmunk there was nothing that could do this amount of damage to a vending machine. Jordan checked the plant listings in case she had missed something in her study of the park.

  No sasquatch carrots here. Those ran a brewery on the south side of the city.

  She heard the echo of a warble behind her. She spun. Didn’t see anything. Maybe she hadn’t heard anything. Some of the crystals hummed when the wind blew.

  Jordan he
aded down towards the only other building in sight. This was a smaller structure of similar design to the visitor center. It stood near a junction of trails and information signs. A large placard identified the building as a restroom. It had five partitioned entrances and a poster with a multiple choice test of self-identity for patrons that needed to go but had questions about which room to enter. Jordan had her caretaker cottage with a comprehensive adaptive plumbing system, and she was glad.

  A grey, squat bot lay on its back near a ring of benches. Jordan got closer, froze.

  Something had knocked the head of the visitor center’s cleaning bot almost clean off. Wires and bent metal still held the thing’s noggin on its torso. The machine had two clamping hands, one with a nozzle attached above its wrist for pressure washing. A collection of brushes and a mop were connected to a rack on the bot’s back. She tapped the bot with a toe.

  “Who broke you?” she asked, but the bot was silent.

  She looked at the park around her. Walls of brownish yellow crystals towered high on every side. The silvery sky played off the mineral formations brilliantly. The air was still and quiet. From one of the bathrooms she heard a clink. Jordan waited for the sound to repeat, but it didn’t. She hadn’t felt fear like this since encountering the sixteen-legged giant spider alien invaders called Bunnie. Those creepy buggers had managed to fold themselves up into human disguises and had accosted her back on Earth. They also had been denied entry into the Galactic Commons and they tried to destroy the city. Jordan hadn’t blanched back then in the face of those monsters. But now she didn’t have a weapon of any kind against something that had murdered a robot.

  “Got a job to do,” she said with a sigh.