by Mel Odom
“I’ve got more for you. Aerial recon has spotted most of your mortar teams. Have your people stand down for a moment while we sweep the area.”
“Affirmative.” I gave the order to my team, then checked for casualties. I had three. Two people KIA and a wounded man that was being attended by a corpsman.
An instant later, a swarm of drones flashed through the air and hit the mortar teams, giving them no chance to retreat or surrender, taking them out in bursts that threw earth high into the air and left craters behind. The op hadn’t intended to be merciful. John Rath was taking his kilo of flesh in his employer’s name.
After that, we just had to close in and put down the remaining opposition. The work was harsh and unforgiving, but we got it done because we knew Rath would expect us to be thorough.
* * *
Rath stood on a hillside in full attack gear over his slimline envirosuit. He was tall and muscular, with black hair and grey eyes behind his goggles, his age indeterminate. I couldn’t see his face due to the breather mask, and Simon couldn’t seem to remember what he looked like now. The files I’d found on John Rath tended to be incomplete and didn’t have any good images. Most of them were blurred and out of focus. All I knew for certain was that he’d had facial reconstruction done several times, so the face the man wore at this point in time might have been any one of the faces he’d worn in the past.
Scuff marks and red Martian dust showed on his combat gear. Blood coated his left glove and I knew he’d been involved in the final hand-to-hand action that had routed our opponents. He stared down at the valley where sand stirred restlessly under the breeze.
I walked up the hillside, feeling uncomfortably fatigued and sore. It took me a moment to log those feelings and recognize them. As a bioroid, I’d never experienced them before. Only my past memories with Simon allowed me to identify those things.
“We’ll earn a bonus from Whampoa Reclamation.” The breather mask changed his voice, deepened it and roughened it. “Their intel didn’t say anything about the opposition having tanks out here.”
I nodded and gazed down at the crawlers scooting across the sand. Part of our team remained posted as lookout, but the rest of them were gathering the dead Whampoa employees, stacking them like cordwood on the crawlers.
Rath glanced at me. “You did good out here today, Simon.”
“We did good, Colonel. It was a team effort.”
“That it was.” He shifted his laser rifle, keeping it canted across his chest. “I’m going to miss you when you’re gone.”
Simon turned his head inside his helmet and took a sip of water through the drinking tube that ran to his rucksack. “Are you sure that’s what you want me to do? I don’t feel right about leaving the team.”
“This is the right thing to do. You’re not going to go away forever. Just for a while. Till your lady friend completes her neural channeling project. Then you can come back to Chimera.”
“She’s years away from finishing it. I’d rather stay out here with the team.”
“This is a business deal.” Rath lowered his rifle and turned to face me. “You do this, Chimera gets fifteen percent of MirrorMorph, Inc. If this thing goes as big as Mara Parker believes it will—and I believe it will too—that’s going to be a solid payday for the team.” He pointed his chin out at the valley. “This is what I’ve been hoping for, Simon. A payday with a long tail. We get paid in one, the cred gets spent and these guys have nothing. We’ve died and bled over battlegrounds like this Earthside, on the Moon, and now here.”
“I know, John. I was there.”
“Not through all of it, Simon. You weren’t there for all of it.” For just a moment, Rath’s smooth composure slipped and I heard the anger and pain that resided within him. “I’ve left dead soldiers behind me. Good people. Friends.” Fire flashed in his grey eyes. “Somebody needs to pay for that.”
Simon didn’t know what to say. I could tell then that this was an old conversation, one that he and Rath had shared on several occasions.
“Getting you in with Mara Parker and her people is a step in the right direction,” Rath continued. “We won’t be just a mercenary group hanging on by our fingernails out here. We won’t be cashing blood in for cred anymore. We’ll have a chance to become part of the franchised. This is an opportunity that I’m counting on, so don’t screw it up.”
“I won’t.”
Rath dropped a hand onto my shoulder. I felt his strength, solid, sure, and dependable. “I’m relying on you, soldier. You’re the start of my investment in the future.” He took his hand back and nodded downhill. “Let’s go down there and help earn our keep.” Without another word, he strode toward the nearest Whampoa corpse, lifted the man to his shoulder, and carried him toward the crawler.
I grabbed another corpse and followed.
Chapter Twelve
I didn’t remember coming back out of the memory. I just opened my eyes, or maybe they were already open in the darkness, and I was once more in the vault drawer.
Rath had assigned Simon Blake to protect Mara Parker. That was interesting.
Then what had put Simon Blake at odds with the chimera mercenaries that had tried to kill him? What had happened to John Rath? The questions chased themselves around in my thoughts as I waited for evening to arrive.
I checked the time and found out I was two minutes away from when I was supposed to join Floyd 2X3A7C in the meetbox as we had arranged. At the prescribed time, I accessed the Net and went, knowing that the minutes-long drag would affect the conversation I had with Floyd.
I closed my eyes—
* * *
—and opened them to discover I was inside the NAPD on Earth, in the homicide bullpen at the desk I had assigned to me when I was working with Shelly. The buzz of conversations filled the space. Holos from PADs gleamed at every desk as the detective teams sorted through crime scenes and data dumps.
Across from me in her customary spot, Shelly pored over files that flickered through her PAD. I recognized some of the information from some of the past investigations we’d conducted. Beside her, steam rose from a cup of coffee.
Slowly, I surveyed the bullpen, aware that at any moment one of the detectives would recognize me and my freedom would be in jeopardy. I focused on the thought that I could break the connection to the meetbox, but I was also aware that I could be traced back to my present location in Bradbury colony.
Shelly looked up at me and grinned. “Don’t be alarmed. No one at the NAPD knows you’re here. That steam rising from the coffee alone should be enough to tell you this isn’t real. I never had hot coffee.”
That was true. Shelly had always purchased it hot, but it invariably cooled before she got the chance to drink it.
I glanced around the bullpen. All around us, detectives I had worked with over the years continued with their assignments, talking and sorting through e-docs with practiced care. Three desks over, Schmeltzer interviewed an informant Shelly and I had worked with on occasion, till he had retired two years ago. I had always felt comfortable around him.
“What am I doing here?” I asked.
“This is the meetbox.” Shelly sipped her coffee, but the steam was gone from it now and I knew it was cold.
“Where’s Floyd 2X3A7C?” I asked.
“He’ll be along. He’s fighting lag.”
“Did Floyd set this up?”
Shelly shook her head. “This is your doing, Drake.”
“Why would I choose this place?”
“I don’t know. Why would you?”
I didn’t have an answer for that, but I knew that what she said was true. On some level, I had arranged this destination.
Shelly leaned back in her chair. “If you were human, I’d say that you chose the NAPD because that’s where you felt most at home. This is the place that defined you.”
“I’m not human.”
“Part of you was human. You were Simon Blake.”
“No. Some of
my memories came from Simon Blake.”
“This isn’t a place Simon Blake would have felt comfortable. This isn’t from his memories.”
I couldn’t argue that with her. Simon Blake had been a mercenary, used to calling his own shots. Even though the regimental structure of the NAPD wouldn’t have been far from what he’d known under Rath’s command, he wouldn’t have cared for the layers within layers of authority. He’d liked working for Rath, and he’d loved Mara Parker.
“Maybe you’re human enough to seek solace in something you know,” Shelly suggested. She gestured at the bullpen. “This was your home.”
“Yes. But I can’t come back here.”
“Not till you clear your name, no. But you didn’t kill Jonas Salter, Drake.”
Since Shelly was essentially part of me as much as Simon Blake was, I wondered why I felt the need to tell myself something I already knew.
“Once you find out who killed Jonas Salter, you’ll be able to come back here,” Shelly said.
I wanted to believe that because returning to my original purpose was something I’d been designed to do. However, I knew the chances of me getting back in with the NAPD were small. More than likely, once I was captured or finished with my investigation, I would be returned to Haas-Bioroid, wiped, and reprogrammed. I felt no fear at that possibility, but I wanted to preserve myself. That survival mechanism was programmed into my neural channeling.
If I was repurposed, all that was me, all that was Drake 3GI2RC, would be erased. My name and recorded testimonies would be all that remained. Thinking of that digital shadow of myself logged into court cases and investigation recorders seemed unsettling.
Would I somehow live on in those digital shadows? That was an interesting question that I had no answer for.
More than that, what was left of Simon Blake would vanish once more, as well. His resurrection would be over.
At that moment, Floyd entered the bullpen and looked around. He wasn’t surprised. Bioroids like us weren’t programmed for surprise, though some gynoids could be encoded to simulate such a response. Instead, he paused a moment to assess his surroundings. His right hand dropped to the rosary that hung around his neck and he fingered the beads with a rhythmic clicking.
As I watched him, I realized that neither of us had turned out the way Haas-Bioroid had designed us. Floyd searched for some proof of an afterlife for bioroids and I spoke to ghosts. In fact, I was, I supposed, something of a ghost myself.
Floyd focused on me. “Drake.”
Knowing that he could have turned against me and might even then be leading tracking software to my location, I felt a small sense of threat vibrate through me. I was programmed to feel that as part of my survival instinct. I felt certain that one of the other detectives would look up at the mention of my name.
None of them did.
“Floyd, join us.”
He crossed the bullpen and stood near my desk. “‘Us’?”
I realized my error then, and I tried to think of how best to explain. Before I could, Floyd’s attention riveted on Shelly. I had not known that he would be able to see her.
“I did not expect to see Detective Nolan here.”
Shelly looked at him and smiled. “Perhaps the world is smaller than you thought.”
Floyd’s fingers worked through his rosary beads like an abacus. “You are dead, are you not?”
“I am.”
“Interesting.” Floyd shifted his attention to me. “This is your doing?”
“It is, though not by choice.”
“We really have to work on your bluntness, Drake,” Shelly said, as she had so often informed me while we had worked together.
“I will.” I responded to her because it would have been rude not to, and I wasn’t sure how she would have handled that.
“How is it she is here and interacting with you?” Floyd asked.
“I have been told she is part of my persona at this point. Another layer of programming that I wrote myself, though I do not recall doing so.”
Shelly flashed me a look. “I have always been my own person.”
“This is highly interesting,” Floyd said. “How long has this been going on?”
“Almost since the time of her death.”
“You haven’t thought to mention this?”
“Doing so seemed moot since I hadn’t believed you would have seen her.”
“Do you only see her in a meetbox? Or on the Net?”
“I see her all the time.”
Floyd considered that for a moment. “You may still be accessing her core personality from the Net. You and I are constantly logged on.”
I hadn’t realized that, and the possibility intrigued me. The Shelly seated at her desk could have been an assembly of digital impressions I streamed from the archived footage on the Net. That gave me pause, because if that was true I was leaving a digital footprint that might be tracked.
“Seriously, guys,” Shelly said with a note of exasperation, “you’re not here to discuss me. And quite frankly, I don’t much care for it.”
“Forgive me,” Floyd said. Then he looked at me. “This is most puzzling. I have never felt the need to respond to a hologram before.”
Shelly folded her arms. “I’m not a hologram.”
I reached back and pulled up a chair from the desk behind me, then presented it to Floyd.
He sat, dividing his attention between Shelly and me. “I would like to continue an inquiry regarding your relationship with this Detective Nolan at some point.”
“Not today,” Shelly said.
Floyd nodded in agreement. “Another time.”
Shelly didn’t say anything.
“Perhaps we should focus on our investigation,” I said. “The delay between Mars and Earth telescopes our time spent here, and the longer we talk, the more danger I have of being found out.”
“Of course. I have news of Jonas Salter’s murder.”
That caught my curiosity, but I needed more information as well. “We will get to that in a moment. I have something else I need you to look into.”
“What?”
“You’ve heard of John Rath?”
“Yes. His name has come up in the chimera investigations.”
“There are chimera investigations?” I had not known that. That must have happened since I’d taken passage on Khloe.
“Files have been reopened up regarding the murder investigation you were assigned to that resulted in the death of Detective Nolan.”
I looked at Shelly. Her countenance didn’t change, so I assumed she took no notice of the conversation.
She glanced at me as if reading my thoughts. “What? It’s not like I don’t know I’m dead.”
Floyd studied her, and I knew his investigator’s mind was filled with questions. Shelly was an anomaly, and her presence there struck a chord in his search for a life beyond the one he currently lived.
“What about the chimera investigations?” I asked.
“Homicide has become more interested in John Rath and the mercenary team.”
“Give me an account of the inquiries.”
“It appears that John Rath disappeared from public sight a few years ago while he was on Mars, though everyone is uncertain as to what happened to him. There are reports of his death during an operation, but they are unconfirmed.”
“What operation?”
“There is actually a selection of them. Apparently Rath did a lot of mercenary business in the Martian colonies. Some say that he died recovering a prototype of a new mining machine for NuStrata, Inc. that was allegedly stolen by a competitor. Others say he was killed by a nerve agent invented by GeneTwist Munitions while attempting to destroy the research that was being done to weaponize the bacterial strain. Still others say he was murdered by a rival mercenary group. Whatever the story, his body was never found. Though there are also rumors that his mercenary unit buried his body somewhere on Mars where it will never be found.”
“No. There are even rumors that Rath was grievously wounded and is recovering somewhere, and that only his brain survived and is lingering in a vat of Suspend in some unknown location.”
That image was so distinct that it remained in my mind for a moment.
“The main thing investigators are focused on is how the chimera unit came to be split,” Floyd went on. “From all accounts, the separation between John Rath and Simon Blake seems to be the eye of that particular storm.”
“They parted as friends. Blake was actually on assignment from Rath to protect Mara Parker.”
Floyd looked at me. “We have had no indication of that.”
“John Rath sent Blake to Mara Parker to act as security liaison in exchange for fifteen percent of MirrorMorph, Inc.”
“How did you come upon this information?”
“It is in Simon Blake’s memories. I only now gained access to them.”
“Interesting. We’ve found no mention of that.”
“Can you access MirrorMorph, Inc.’s financials?”
“Give me a moment.” Floyd’s gaze became fixed for just a moment, then he returned to himself and turned his palm up. A holo opened up over his palm and displayed a legal contract. “I do not find John Rath’s name anywhere in the MirrorMorph, Inc. financials or those of Mara Blake.”
I looked through the summation. A few years back, Haas-Bioroid had acted on a contracted option and bought out a controlling share of MirrorMorph, Inc., forever tying the continued development to Director Haas’s purview.
“As you can see, the major shareholder is now Haas-Bioroid.” Floyd dragged his forefinger over the document, highlighting Haas-Bioroid’s ownership.
“What about Mara Blake’s share of the corporation?”
“It’s been parceled out in several different pieces to various people who worked on the program. None of them are John Rath.” Floyd brought up another document.
I touched that portion of the document, highlighted it, and then expanded it with my two forefingers. The information box magnified easily, providing a list of names. I didn’t recognize most of them immediately, but a quick, subsequent search fleshed them out quite nicely. All of them were past employees, other developers Mara had worked with.