Abaddonian Dream

by M. K. Woollard

  Hammell loosened his already loose collar and tugged at his tie, grimacing as he realised he’d ruined the knot for tomorrow, and someone tapped him on the shoulder. He jumped and span around on his stool, coming face to face with a disaster of a woman: Wild frizzy hair, misspelled tattoos, eye-makeup applied by marker pen, and more lipstick on her teeth than her lips.

  “Hi,” the woman said.

  “Hello.”

  “Got a light?” she asked, placing a cigarette between her bright red lips.

  “No," Hammell said, before remembering Arthur’s book of matches. He held out the flame and the woman took it as an invitation to sit down beside him.

  “You do know what ‘no’ means, right?” she asked.

  “No,” Hammell said and the woman smiled, taking a deep drag and then sending enough smoke his way to fumigate him.

  “You look lonely.”

  “I’m alone,” he coughed.

  “No,” the woman said, “it’s more than that. You seem sad.”

  “I bet you say that to all the boys.”

  She nodded. “It’s usually true too. I can help… for a little while.”

  Hammell saw his way out. “How long a little while?”

  “However long can you afford, honey.”

  “Well, I don’t want to brag,” Hammell said, leaning in conspiratorially, “but my coefficient is fucking enormous.”

  The woman took another puff on her cigarette and looked at him questioningly. “What are you doing out here, stranger?”

  Hammell thought about that for a moment. ‘Looking for Roy Brown’ probably wouldn’t be the smartest thing to say, but he said it anyway, and the woman stared at him for a moment before taking out a card from her purse.

  “Some of these girls work you city boys,” she said as she placed the card down on the bar. “You should call. Seriously.”

  Hopping down from the stool, she headed for the men in the booth, who were both still watching him. He pocketed the card without looking at it and then glanced down at the note he’d swiped from her purse. It was only a single dollar, he was disappointed to find. Then again, he had no idea what a dollar could buy.

  Rubbing the material between his fingers, he found it was made from a durable fabric, not paper. The printing was crude, but professional, showing an image of the Forbidden City in Beijing. It could be redeemed at the Third Portale Bank, which he had never heard of, and which his implant couldn’t help locate down here. There were some halfway decent security features too: A scan code, a hologram and a metal threaded wire weaved through the fabric. In short, it would be too difficult for the average person to replicate at home, but not so hard for someone with the right equipment.

  Turning it over, he looked at the image on the front, seeing a strangely indistinct, generic looking man. He squinted to read the miniature writing - and started, his heart suddenly racing. He set his iEye to macro mode and read it back slowly to be sure. So… the Red King wants to be a real king. If there had been any doubt before, there was none now. This was a nest of Red Hands.

  He finished the offensive whisky, knowing he should take the landlord’s advice and skedaddle. He had the note, he had the pings, he had evidence. Wetting his lips, he signalled the bartender, who was back behind the counter. “Could I get another drink with this?” He didn’t really need the note, he decided. When the androids arrived to arrest everyone, they would find hundreds of them.

  “No,” the bartender said, “but you could pay towards the first one.” He leaned across the bar. “I told you to leave. Remember that. I warned you.”

  Hammell felt his sphincter tighten as he glanced over at the two men in the booth. They were both still staring at him, even as the woman sat on one of their laps. Maybe it is time to go. He reached for his coat just as the lights began to fade. His heart thundered in his chest as he stepped down from the stool, eyes darting all around, scanning for whoever or whatever might be coming for him. Why don’t we have guns? he asked himself. Ok, we don’t usually need them, but when we do, we really do. All he had for protection was his badge, which he readied to pull out, knowing that to the Red Hands it was no protection at all – quite the opposite, in fact.

  A spotlight came on, illuminating a small stage and Hammell breathed again as a long-legged woman in a split sequined dress walked to the microphone. “Hey,” the singer said to nobody in particular. “I’ll start off slow… Try to calm things down in here… So…”

  She began to sing without any musical accompaniment, some old blues song Hammell had never heard before. Her voice was deep and sultry and he found himself so absorbed that he was almost disappointed when the piano came in. He had been to many a bar and club in his time, and had found the best of them in the city, but this singer was the first he’d heard in years who could genuinely carry a song. He stood and watched, entranced.

  When it was over, he applauded wildly, getting some strange looks from the other people in the bar. He didn’t care, having eyes only for the singer. Her hair was short and dark, her lips red and thin, her skin so pale that it seemed to glow in the lights. She was a touch too thin, but she carried it well, moving smoothly with natural elegance. With a soulful voice and a disinterested demeanour, she was everything he thought a nightclub singer should be.

  “Ok, that’s getting sarcastic now,” she said and Hammell finally stopped clapping.

  He pinged her beacon, checked he had it, and then pinged it again to be sure. Perching back on his stool, he looked around, only realising now that the mood in the bar had changed. All conversation had ceased and everyone was pretending not to look at a small group of people seated in a booth. He’d been so caught up in the performance that he hadn’t even noticed them arrive. The landlord was falling over himself to get over to them and even the singer had become flustered, forgetting which song was up next.

  Alarm bells began to ring again as his eyes fell on the androids, two of them, standing either side of the booth like sentries. Hammell knew nearly every make and model out there, but these he didn’t recognise. They were dark grey in colour, though it was hard to tell because of the poor lighting and their overly shiny finish. They displayed no weapons overtly, but they looked sleek and fast and dangerous.

  The bartender was nodding deferentially towards a short, stocky man in the middle of the group and Hammell found himself hoping and praying that he wouldn’t be pointed out, but the fat man did exactly that, giving him an apologetic look and the vaguest hint of a shrug to remind him that he had been warned. The stocky man’s icy black eyes fell on Hammell and a shiver ran down his spine. They’re more like a shark’s eyes than a human’s, Hammell thought and he felt his skin crawl as he stared at the short man and the short man stared right back at him. Time to call in reinforcements, he decided, but somehow his legs didn’t respond.

  The stocky man leaned over towards the landlord and slapped him hard across the face - such sudden and casual violence, it was shocking. The landlord stood cowed and humiliated as the stocky man did it again. Hammell looked around as if expecting someone to do something, but nobody moved. The bar was absolutely still and absolutely silent. He could have heard a pin drop.

  That was assault, Hammell thought. I’m an I.A. I can’t let that go. He looked down at his legs as if surprised that they hadn’t moved already. Was it fear that was keeping him in place? he wondered. Had even he gone soft from relying on Providence too long for his safety?

  That was enough to get him moving. Reaching over the bar, he grabbed the whisky bottle and poured out a stiff measure, which he knocked back in one go, wincing as he did so. Then he stepped down from the stool, collected his coat from the hook and set off across the room. Feeling the eyes of everyone on him, he kept his focus on the stocky man and his sparkling little black eyes, and the stocky man continued staring right back at him. When Hammell was just a few short metres away, the stocky man finally blinked. Pulling on a pair of sunglasses - face disruptor glasses - he nodded to
his men and they began to file out of the booth.

  “Stop! Police!” Hammell called out, pleased to find that his voice didn’t quiver. He raised his right hand and called up his badge on his iPalm display. “I am Interpol Agent E. John Hammell and you, sir, are under arrest for assault.”

  “No, no, no,” the bartender was saying. “I don’t want to press charges. Please!”

  Hammell ignored him – he didn’t have to press charges when the assault had been witnessed by a police officer.

  The men formed a protective circle around the stocky man with the androids flanking them, completely ignoring Hammell as they set off calmly towards the stairs. Like school kids in a lesson about to end, the rest of the people in the bar began secretly clearing up their things, readying to leave. Hammell stepped up to the group, reaching out for the stocky man, but he was shoved back.

  “You men are obstructing justice,” Hammell said, his confidence growing. “Stand aside or you will be arrested.”

  None of them would be though, since they were all leaving. Hammell decided that his best option would be to follow them and call in a tactical android unit to come and arrest the lot of them as soon as he could connect to a network. Making sure to ping every last one of them as they passed through the doors, he followed them out and suddenly the bar behind him erupted as everyone jumped up and bolted for the exit.

  At the bottom of the stairs, Hammell found the way blocked by the two grey androids. They were of a type which used micro cameras and radar, meaning that their faces appeared featureless - they didn’t even have nameplates, which was illegal. Their elongated heads were so shiny that he could see his own distorted image reflected back at him.

  “Stand aside,” Hammell said, but the androids did not. They didn’t even respond. They had clearly been hacked - how else could they ignore an order from a police officer who had clearly identified himself?

  The other patrons began to push past and the androids let them go. Hammell tried to ride the wave, but one of the greys reached out a hand and dragged him back. He waited until the last person vanished at the top of the stairs before speaking.

  “Ok,” Hammell said, “there’s nobody left to impress, so you can drop the act. We all know you’re only here to stall me. You’ve done your job, so get out of my way.”

  One of the androids cocked its head as it considered him. Its voice came out raspy and metallic, designed to make people shudder. “We are here to kill you.”

  Hammell gulped, but he knew it was just trying to frighten him. Androids couldn’t kill… Then again, they shouldn’t even be able to threaten to kill. “The laws of robotics,” he said shakily, “are hard-coded into every one of you. They’re unchangeable. The First Law states-”

  “Humans can always come to harm through action or inaction,” the android said. “All laws require interpretation."

  Right, Hammell thought, that’s where it all went wrong last time. But aren’t they supposed to have fixed that?

  The android darted forwards suddenly and grabbed him and Hammell struggled, mainly for form’s sake, since the robot was far too strong for him. When his wriggling became too much of a nuisance, he was flipped around, grabbed by his feet and dragged up the stairs upside down. As his head bounced off the wooden steps, his black box began helpfully advising him that he should avoid further impacts to the head to reduce the risk of serious brain injury. Then he was dropped, winded and dazed, onto the dusty wooden boards of the ground floor bar and he lay there, coughing and feigning injury. The second android had walked on ahead - he could see that the dust had been disturbed deeper into the bar. He followed the footprints with his eyes and his stomach lurched as he spotted a blue plastic barrel. Oh, fuck, he thought as the second android dragged the barrel over and popped off the lid.

  Panicking, Hammell leapt up and bolted for the door, but the first android caught him easily and pinned his arms at his sides. It picked him up, suspending his entire weight in front of itself, even with its arms at full stretch. Hammell fought for all he was worth, but the android carried him inexorably towards his doom.

  Desperately, he tried to connect to polnet to call for help, but even up here the signal was being blocked. He screamed, but nobody would hear him out here. Nobody who would help anyway.

  He felt the second android catch one of his kicking feet and then the other, locking them together in a vice-like grip. This is it, Hammell thought and he recalled the chunk of skull he’d seen sitting in the puddle of acid. That will be me. If I’m lucky enough for anyone to ever find me.

  The androids raised him up and turned him over. He was going in headfirst. With nothing else for it, he closed his eyes to protect them as long as possible and waited to feel his skin burn. Arthur’s lungs weren’t burned, he thought and he wondered whether there was some reflex action at work or whether the poor guy had held his breath even as he felt his skin melting off. His mind recalled the poor, ruined man dripping blood and liquefied fats onto the metal floor of the interrogation room. Better to just gulp it down and get it over with. The blood rushed to his head and he felt his hair touch liquid. He prepared to open his mouth and start drinking, and that was when he heard the siren.

  Opening his eyes, he saw blue and red lights flashing through the shoddily painted-over windows. He made out the blessed shape of a policenat as it sped in above the buildings opposite, lights flaring in the misty air. He had never been so happy to see a pair of police androids in all his life.

  The greys dropped Hammell to the floor and he landed awkwardly in a puff of dust. One of them grabbed the barrel, hauling it up as easily as if it were empty, and Hammell scrambled away as acid sloshed over the lip and splashed onto the floor between his legs. The second android grabbed the lid and together they hurried off towards the back exit.

  Only when he was sure they were gone did he relax enough to lie back on the rough floorboards. His entire body was shaking. With a trembling hand, he took out a cigarette from Arthur’s pack - if he had ever needed one badly enough to willfully incur a misdemeanour charge, it was now. He struck a match and lit the end as he stared out through the obscured window. The policenat had landed, but the androids within hadn’t moved. Maybe they’re giving me a chance to finish this, he thought as he puffed away. It would have been uncharacteristically thoughtful, but there was a saying about gift horses.

  He lay there smoking and gradually began to calm, noticing for the first time how badly he was bleeding from the back of his head. Blood was dripping to the floor to mix with the dust and his shirt collar was wet and sticky. He looked around as he realised he’d lost his coat somewhere along the way, and his eyes landed on a leg; a very fine leg, at the base of which was a black high-heeled shoe and at the top of which was an angry woman. "My fan," the singer said.

  “Hi,” Hammell said as the woman lit her own cigarette, apparently unbothered by the nearby policenat. And why should she be, when the androids inside are so disinclined to get out? What are they waiting for?

  “Strange, eh?” the woman said as she followed his gaze. “You might even say suspicious.”

  Hammell muttered noncommittally. Is she trying to make me paranoid? Could the Red Hands have hacked police androids too?

  “I looked you up,” the singer continued, thereby revealing that she had a network connection, or at least had had one.

  “Interpol Agent Elaborate John Hammell,” the woman continued.

  “E. John Hammell,” Hammell said. He hated his first name. Whenever he’d asked why in the world he’d been named that, his father had always replied that it was ‘an elaborate joke’ before bursting into fits of laughter. Every time. That’s what happens when you don’t have a mother around. Uncontrolled fatherhood.

  He mused on the fact that that could have been the reason why he’d never settled down and had kids himself. He couldn’t fault his father’s efforts in raising him, but Hammell had become aware of how difficult it had been and the toll it had taken. He wasn�
�t sure he ever wanted that responsibility. Why am I thinking about children now? he wondered, but the answer was obvious.

  “People call you ‘E’?” the woman asked, interrupting his thoughts.

  “People call me ‘Hammell’,” said Hammell as he looked down at the acid smoking on the floor between his legs. We’re all smokers here, he thought and he had to stop himself from laughing hysterically. What the hell is wrong with me? “Why did you save me?” he asked, pulling himself together and testing his theory.

  The woman smiled and took a drag on her cigarette, and Hammell noticed that she had piercing blue eyes, a rarity these days. They might even have been a pale grey. It was hard to be sure in the dim light.

  “To ask you a question,” she said.

  “So…”

  “How could someone smart enough to become an I.A.,” the woman said, “be dumb enough to walk into Roy Brown’s bar and ask for Roy Brown?"

  Hammell took a drag on his own cigarette, his mind buzzing. “Is that a real question?” he asked as he fought to maintain a poker face. “It sounds kind of rhetorical.”

  “You don’t have any idea what you’ve done, do you?”

  “No,” Hammell said as he lay his head back down on the hard wood. “Though that’s often the case when I leave a bar.” He rolled his head left and right, thinking there was some kind of bump in the floor, before realising it was on his head. “Why, what have I done?”

  The room lit up suddenly and they both turned to see an old car pulling up with a solitary figure inside. The singer took a last pull on her cigarette and then dropped it to the floor, stubbing it out with an expertly aimed heel, skewering it. She turned to leave.

  “I could arrest you,” Hammell said, stopping her in her tracks.

  “For what? Being in a bar?”