by Corey Ostman
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he said.
Four shots, she thought. One for the old man and three for—yes, all the loafers are visible. Down and out.
But there was something in his voice. It wasn’t spoken with any kind of judgment. It broached a softer question, one that compelled.
“Tell you what, sir?”
He sighed. “Very well. When I first heard of the Hopper initiative, I went straight down to the Research Department to congratulate them. The analysis was brilliant.”
Maud took a clumsy slurp of tea.
“Research was impressed, too,” he said. “But told me they didn’t initiate the codephrase, nor fill its contents.” He stopped and looked at her.
“Why didn’t you take credit, Maud?”
Maud looked down, playing coy. Humble. She seethed. Because it wasn’t my plan, she wanted to say. Donner trampled my files, invaded my privacy. She twisted my world but got herself caught in the coils. She’s mine now, and before you figure anything out, I’ll have the liquid computer and be gone.
She was saved from responding when Varghese’s ptenda beeped. He looked down at his wrist.
“Agent Wilmer is attempting to reach you,” Varghese said, “but your ptenda is isolated.”
She noted irritation in Varghese’s voice. Not good.
“I’d isolated it for the meeting,” she said.
“You have other duties, Maud. We will continue our conversation later.”
He turned. The interview was over. Maud rose and headed toward the gazebo concealing the lift. She was angry Wilmer had tried to contact her again. The young protector couldn’t dress himself without calling for mommy.
She fingered her ptenda and saw seventeen connection attempts from Wilmer.
Maud inhaled sharply, counted to ten, and then spoke into her ptenda. “Wilmer? Van Decker here. What do you need?”
Silence for several seconds.
“Holist Group has a problem,” was the curt reply.
No. She diverted the lift for the lobby.
When the doors opened, Maud sprinted to the street. The sidewalk thronged, noisy and crowded, but she paid no heed. Wilmer sent coded blurps as she ran. Point by point to the story of Donner’s apparent rescue. A perimeter alarm triggered. Internal motion in an empty building. An abort sequence for the medical pod. Maud’s fists clenched.
Wilmer had arrived at the building quickly and intersected the intruders as they left. That’s where his report stopped making sense. He had the group cornered in a lift. There was a dog, a man, and Donner. A dog? And none of them were armed. All he had to do was use his weapon. Yet somehow, Donner had disarmed him and knocked him out. A walking corpse disarmed and immobilized a protector?
Maud entered the building. Wilmer stood ready by the door. They headed to Surveillance, where Maud input her code. She wanted to see the video herself.
There had been three people in the lift. Grace Donner, dropping her tarp wrap, had disarmed Wilmer naked. I’ll remember that in Wilmer’s next review, she thought viciously. Donner was connected by a cord to a black labrador: a leash? Maud thought not. She checked the dog’s identification, but it was unregistered with animal control.
She turned to the man who’d conversed with Wilmer. Dark-skinned and haired, with nondescript clothes. Did she hear a slight accent? She contacted the Compstate Records Service.
Match: Raj Chanho.
He was on her inventor list. She grinned.
“He’s the one we want,” Maud said. “Retrieve his address.”
Chapter 30
Grace floated in darkness. Phantasms of wispy blues and greens moved beyond her reach. If she concentrated hard enough, she saw shapes. She watched a green frog, but it rippled and she realized she was looking at a clam through green water.
A horse splashed in the water and she couldn’t delve beneath the surface. She’d have to tie that horse up. It shouldn’t be running around.
She was in a lift with a man in a lab coat like Raj. They stood for a moment, like strangers in a lift will do. She asked him, “Which floor?” and the man, vaguely familiar, began barking like a dog. Grace heard the barking, but there was no doubt, he was meant to be a man.
The floor disappeared and they fell into blackness. She held the man to her and he held her back, calling her Simone.
“I’m Grace,” she kept saying.
Every so often, Grace regained reality. Reality was dark: she saw nothing. Reality was pain in her torso and limbs. Constricted in a medical pod.
Between the realm of darkness and the sphere of pain, she knew that Tim talked to her. Sometimes she understood him. He told her that Maud had tried to cripple her. Reassured her that this medical pod would heal her.
But she still felt pain. If they were healing her, why wasn’t she getting a painkiller? She needed a doctor, not a dog.
But Raj was not there. Only the voice of the man who controlled the dog.
“There is no pain,” Tim said. “What you feel is the memory of pain.”
The memory? It was very real. She felt the spasms in her hands as they curled in on themselves.
“The pod reports one last procedure, Grace.” Tim’s voice flooded her mind. “I’ll see you after you wake.”
Maybe she fell asleep. The pain shrank upon itself. Her senses contracted.
She hoped the damn horse had left the puddle alone this time.
• • •
Raj sat in his kitchen, mindlessly consuming a week-old stew while he scanned fact agents for Port Casper. It had become his breakfast routine. He was surprised that Gobi’s death still went unreported. The footage he and Tim had seen earlier was no longer available. Even the conspiracy theories that had clued Raj in on the vid delay were gone.
Stew gone, he went back to his workstation and reviewed the information streaming from Donner’s remote medical pod. The skeletal metarm grafts had been removed from deep within both forearms. The excised dermal grafty port had healed nicely. But there were still many microsurgeries left in the pod’s queue, including fifteen sites on her face to repair nerve damage. Grace’s injuries were supposed to have been permanent. Raj still shuddered when he thought about how close they had come to losing her.
“Tim,” he said into his ptenda, “the medical pod shows Grace is entering the final stage of repair. Had any luck contacting her?”
“Her mind is lucid for brief moments,” Tim replied. “She’s experiencing painful memories. I think she understands the ordeal will be over soon.”
“Good,” Raj said. “Once she’s fully awake, disconnect her from the pod and get her fed. The cabinet next to the door has plenty. Start with broth. If she keeps that down, move to protein.”
“Got it, Raj. The display says she’ll be up in eight or nine hours. Are you coming?”
Chapter 31
Tim Trouncer waited on the open circuit for Raj’s reply. Nothing. He shifted impatiently. Grace would need help getting out of the pod, and his dog form—which he initially thought the perfect hiding place—was now a nuisance. He wondered if he could at least get some altered digits.
“Hey! Are you coming over or what?” he said.
Still no answer. The pause was longer than Raj’s usual mental distractions, but Tim wasn’t concerned. None of the alarm systems had tripped. Most likely, it was Raj’s normal caution with public carrier channels. If he saw too much signal change, he would cease and re-encrypt. Raj was probably on his way.
The PodPooch jumped from the stool and padded over to the medical pod. The floor was cold. He complained, but Raj had never installed carpeting in the loft. Raj just didn’t understand the experience of resting four feet and your butt on a cold floor for an extended period.
Eight hours later, the medical pod beeped and clicked open with a rush of air. Tim sniffed at the ever-widening pressure seal circling the pod. It reeked of humid air and human habitation, but no sickness. Inside, Grace’s body twitched as the tubes retracted.
Cursing Raj for his lateness, Tim grabbed a pod handle in his mouth and pulled. Grace’s head wobbled up, her hands clamped on the pod edges. She feebly kicked at the hatch, and it fell to the floor with a loud thud. Her legs dangled over the side. She looked disoriented, and she was shivering.
“Raj left clothes for you on the table,” he said.
Tim pressed up against Grace, steadying her as she tried to stand. Though he could not take her weight, he provided the illusion of balance. She rested her hand on his back.
They reached the table and Grace pulled on a red shirt. She considered the pants and sat down rather than trust her balance. The pants were orange. Red and orange. Tim snorted. Raj had no sense of style.
“Am I better?” Grace asked, shuffling on her pants.
“Better,” Tim offered. He hoped she didn’t mean the clothes.
“Got any food?”
The food wasn’t as hard for Tim to retrieve. Soon Grace was eating ravenously. She had shrugged off his suggestion of broth, and was devouring full beef rations, unheated. As she ate, Tim tried to reach Raj, but to no avail. Tim worried. Raj had known when Grace would be exiting the pod. He should have been here by now.
“Why Simone?” Grace asked.
Tim startled, taken off-guard.
“What?”
Grace shrugged. “I dreamed, and in my dream you kept calling me Simone.”
“I didn’t call you Simone.” Tim was sure of that. “I probably thought of her, though,” he amended. “Since I linked with you—and I am sorry for that—”
She waved off his apology.
Tim jumped up on the other chair, nosing over a fresh ration.
“You remind me of her.”
“How?”
“Tough cookie.”
Grace laughed, her mouth full of beef.
“How’d you know her?”
“She was a friend.”
Grace stopped eating and stared at him, probing. “Just a friend? Not the way you were in my dream.”
“You’re right. More than a friend.”
Tim jumped off the chair, avoiding her gaze.
“Tim.” Grace put down her fork with a clink.
“Yes?”
“You’re not in a remote location, are you? You’re inside this chassis,” she said.
“Human consciousness inside an artificial matrix. Yes.”
“So you’re an AI.”
“Of a kind.”
Grace looked thoughtful.
“Martin told me about Bransen Junior and Simone.”
“Ah.” It felt strange, realizing that someone remembered him, aside from Raj.
“Why did you call yourself Tim?”
“It’s not simple, Grace. Raj constructed an AI to hold my memories. He made a mimic of me, the way mimic fabric pretends it is burlap or cotton or silk. Yes, one of my quadrillion permutations was exactly Junior. But which one? Raj did his best to choose.”
“But you’re still Junior.”
“No, I’m Tim,” he said firmly. “When I have to incorporate the past, I think of myself as Junior Two.”
Grace digested this.
“Why didn’t you and Raj tell me?” she asked. “And where is he, anyway?”
“We’ve told nobody, Grace,” Tim answered quietly. He hoped she could simply accept that. He wasn’t going to apologize.
“As for Raj, I’ve been trying to contact him. I think he was planning on coming here.”
“Did he look tired? You know how he goes zombie after a long haul.”
“We only spoke over encrypted voice. Raj cautioned me not to generate too much traffic while you were in the pod.”
Tim read the worry on Grace’s face. He sat and opened a purposefully byzantine route into their apartment, fragmenting the data paths and delivery time.
“Apartment is secure. No alarms,” he began. “Wait. No alarms?”
“What’s going on?”
“Somebody has tampered with the apartment. None of the alarms are active. Going live.” Tim accessed the video feed, sniffers be damned.
He wondered what he would have felt if he had been human. The door to the apartment had been smashed, Raj’s workbench overturned. No infrared activity.
“Grace, the apartment was forcibly entered. Raj isn’t there.”
“What?” Grace’s hand shot to where her holster usually hung.
“Stop, Grace. You’re out of commission.”
“Doesn’t matter.” Her body tensed.
Tough cookie, he reminded himself. He needed to coax her away from doing and back to thinking. If it wasn’t for Raj, he would rather Grace stay confined for a week. Or a month.
“We’ll need more than one Grace to get this done,” he said.
Grace smiled. A devious smile, Tim thought. He liked that about Grace. If the straight path wouldn’t work, she went around it.
“I know another Grace. I think he would enjoy the work. Hopefully he’s still alive.”
“Who?”
“Have a ptenda?”
Tim motioned his snout to the nearby workstation. “Raj always keeps a backup. It’s how the two of you were able to maintain contact after you paired with ITB’s network.”
Grace began to stand, frowned, then sat back down. She looked at Tim.
“Yeah, I know. Go fetch.” Tim snorted good-naturedly and retrieved the ptenda.
“Randgarten-8989-Gamma,” Grace said as she fingered the new ptenda. Tim noticed that her fingers shook.
“Will this person be crazy enough—?” he started to say before the ptenda cut him off.
“Grace! Where are you? What happened?” Martin’s voice boomed over the ptenda. Grace smiled at Tim.
“Maud got me during the blind bang.”
A pause. “I… thought so. I had been searching—”
“Tell me later,” Grace interrupted. “This is important. Raj Chanho of Bod Town got me out, and I think they just grabbed him. He’s important, Martin. An inventor. Can you search? We can scramble Maud from here, but her interrogation left me…”
Tim watched as the quake in Grace’s fingers travelled up her arm.
“Shit.”
She clenched her fist. “Can you do it?”
“Do it? I’ve already got the number of his holding cell. I’d been looking for you, remember?”
“Thanks, Martin.”
Grace disconnected.
“Yeah, Tim, he’s crazy enough.” Grace leaned back and grinned.
“Did you mean what you said? About scrambling Maud from here?”
“No, not really.” She avoided his eyes. “Not unless you can still get into ITB.”
“I’ve kept my distance from ITB since you were grabbed, but I’m still connected,” Tim said, wondering what else she was planning. “I don’t want to exploit it, though. They know there was a breach, and might be waiting at the other end.”
“Well, then, it’s up to me and Ronnie and—oh. Right.” Grace looked stricken, then angry. She considered her hands. “I could just strangle her, you know.”
“Maybe in top condition.” Tim pointed his snout toward a tall cabinet near the door, knowing he probably shouldn’t. “Raj mentioned an old firearm in there.”
Grace walked toward the cabinet. Her gait was already better, admitted Tim. He was hopeful. He couldn’t rescue Raj by himself.
After rummaging through the muddle of mechflesh on the shelves, Grace removed a brown wooden box. “This it?” she asked, but she was already opening the case.
Tim padded over. He wondered what her reaction would be.
“I didn’t think Raj would have a gun like this. I mean, I know he’s sentimental, but to keep an antique clean when his apartment is such a hovel—”
Grace hoisted an ancient roider pulse gun, shining with care.
“Raj has a fondness for technology,” Tim said. “It, um, used to be implan
ted on his left arm.”
Grace froze. “Oh, no.”
Her look. It brought back the memory of waking as a PodPooch. Everything he had ever touched, seen, heard, and smelled was different. It was invasive. With Grace’s cloister upbringing, even an arm graft probably felt that way.
“We can make it temporary, Grace. You can have it removed.”
“How will I attach it in the first place?”
Tim motioned to the pod with his nose. “Program fifty-seven.”
Grace looked at the pod.
“Be a nice pooch and fetch me some shoes,” she said.
Chapter 32
Maud Van Decker appeared on the display. The orchid vase behind her told Martin what he wanted to know: she was home. Maud never broadcasted her coordinates, unlike most protectors, and this was Martin’s only way of determining her location.
Martin cleared his throat.
“Protector Van Decker, I have been cleared by medical to commence duties again tomorrow.” He watched as Maud cocked her head to one side and stared back. Did she look surprised? Was she shocked to find him looking unscathed? Yes, I have received a lot of punishment, Maud. But you’re not getting rid of me as easily as Gobi.
“I’m glad you recovered so quickly, Randgarten,” Maud said. She was dressed casually in an oversized blue shirt. It looked strange to Martin, who had never seen her in anything but variations of a protector’s uniform.
“Have we found out what happened?” Martin asked.
“You shouldn’t have followed Donner on the blind bang. You weren’t called up.” She leaned closer to her display. Maud’s face looked wan and suspicious.
Martin pressed further. “What about Donner and Wilmer?”
Maud shook her head. “We don’t know what happened to Protector Donner. Your report of her abduction was thin on detail. Protector Wilmer, luckily, is unharmed and on duty.”
“Good,” said Martin, offering his warmest building manager smile. “I’m sorry to have disturbed you at home, Protector Van Decker.”
Maud smiled briefly and terminated the call.
Martin fingered his ptenda, sending a message to Grace. He leaned back in his chair. Good, he thought. With Maud at home, I have a better chance of extracting Chanho. He made a quick call to Protector Wilmer, noting the coordinates. Wilmer would be doing Maud’s dirty work, wherever he was. He made up in butt-kissing what he lacked in ability.