by Mel Odom
Throwing a leg over the minihopper, I revved the engine and rose into the air. I drove it to the airlock, got through the lax security easily, and opened it up once all of Mars lay before me. I held onto the controls and focused on the GPS transponder. I wasn’t hopeful. Bioroids don’t experience that. But I thought a lot of Mara Blake and felt the pressure inside me pushing me to find her.
I realized that Mara might not be there, that I was following a false trail, but there was nowhere else for me to go.
If she wasn’t with John Rath as I suspected, then I would begin again searching out her trail. It was all I could do.
* * *
Nine days later, still 342.8 kilometers behind the GPS transponder, I drove toward Bradbury colony. I knew that had to be Leigh’s final destination. That was the gathering place for the colonial government committee that had formed to deal with collapsing relations between pro-Earth and pro-Mars. The two sides were still talking only because the rebel forces were flexing their muscles, causing chaos among Earth corps.
According to the vidcasts, access to Bradbury colony was limited. I waited for dusk and rode out to the mag-lev track. The train schedule showed that an inbound train was due at 2341. When it roared by, I chased it on the minihopper and closed on it despite the rough terrain. After I was close enough, I caught the rear railing of the caboose and stepped from the minihopper.
I pulled myself onto the caboose’s rear deck as the minihopper sped out of control and slammed into a stand of rocks. Flipping, the minihopper smashed against the ground, coming undone with only a few glimmering parts that reflected Deimos’s light.
I waited, but no one came to check on me. I thought the weight tolerance for shifting cargo was enough to cover my added mass. When we were only five minutes out from Bradbury colony’s sec gates, I opened the caboose door with a lock subroutine and stepped inside.
Most of the bioroids riding there were Franks. A couple of Brads and a few Davids were thrown into the mix. I found one of the older Franks and mirrored his e-ID. By the time the train stopped a few minutes later, for all intents and purposes I was Frank B07I43, a cargo handler for the train.
I walked to the baggage compartment, picked up a load of cargo on a skiff, and approached the sec gate, following other Franks and cargo bots. I was not nervous as a human might have been, but I knew the likelihood of my ruse depended on a number of things that were out of my control. If the sec guards were overly attentive to bioroids, my duplication of e-ID would be discovered. I also knew they were more concerned with human rebels. Bradbury colony was under martial law and tension was spilling over into the streets.
I moved through the line, awaiting my turn, and focused on the GPS signal I followed. For the last twenty-seven hours, the transponder had been relatively stationary. I knew it was possible that Tallin had been taken to a medical facility under another name, but I also knew he was a wanted man. I’d found a warrant for his arrest on the Colonial Corps site. The highest percentage was that Tallin would be somewhere with the Chimeras.
I hoped that Mara Blake was there as well.
The sec guards barely looked at my e-ID before they waved me through. I placed the cargo I carried at the kiosk where it was to be delivered, shifted my e-ID back to McDreamy, and entered Bradbury colony, still following the transponder signal.
* * *
Three hours and fourteen minutes later, I stood in front of a tall building Simon Blake recognized. I felt his memories shift within me and tried to pin one down and couldn’t.
Hoppers serviced the rooftop where the penthouse quarters were, but I knew that the Chimeras wouldn’t be there. They would be underground, and that was where the transponder signal came from.
Across the street from the Mahendra Building, the Khondi Tower stood tall and elegant. It was the tallest building in Bradbury. From street level, the spire at the top seemed on the verge of piercing the protective bubble that enclosed the colony. The building was also located in the geographic center of the colony, anchoring the municipal and business centers in concentric streets for twenty blocks.
A security cordon circled the tower, holding back groups that protested against the colonial government committee housed there in the top five stories. The nosies had broadcast their location, and the protestors had wasted no time setting up there.
Angry voices filled the street. Ground vehicles mired between the protestors and the sec forces honked, giving voice to protests of their own. Traffic continued, but it was choked down on all sides, moving by centimeters now.
A woman stepped forward toward the sec line, shouting invective at the guards at their posts. Perhaps she was simply too close, or perhaps she struck at the man, even the vidcast image scrawling across the third and fourth floors of the Khondi Tower in real-time couldn’t reveal that. Either way, the sec guard nearest her spun, put his armored hand over her face, and shoved her back using the artificial musculature of his encounter suit.
The woman flew backward into her compatriots. Blood leaked from her split lips. Some of her fellows managed to catch her before she hit the ground. Even as those people returned her to her feet, at least two dozen protestors surged forward across the sec line, most of them pushed by the people behind them.
The sec guards pulled out stunsticks and beat the aggressors back. I took a step toward them.
Shelly’s arm dropped onto my shoulder and I felt her holding me back. “No.”
“Someone is going to get hurt.” I started to shrug her off but she held onto me tightly.
“Let this go, Drake. Those people aren’t going to get killed. Mara Blake is in more danger than they are.”
I prioritized and realized that though I did not know that for certain, everything indicated that was true. I turned from the battle spreading across the street and entered the Mahendra Building. The transponder signal was 82.6 ahead of me and 64.8 meters down.
I entered the noodle shop on the first floor and pulled down the Mahendra Building’s schematics from the fire department.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Most of the noodle shop’s clientele were pressed against the windows overlooking the growing riot out on the street. The others watched the vidcast on the shop’s holos.
I walked through them unnoticed and stepped through the interior doors into the main hallway that allowed access to the rest of the Mahendra Building.
The hallway was nearly empty. I made my way to the maintenance room, spoofed the sec locks, and entered. I knelt and rearranged my weapons. I holstered the Synap to my right hip and snugged the Gortaub 15mm slug-thrower at my back so I could easily draw it with my left hand. I was completely ambidextrous. I slid the rifle stock and barrel extension into the long pockets of my trouser legs. I had bought dark clothing to replace that which I had worn into Bradbury.
“You seem very familiar with what you’re doing,” Shelly said as she stood across the room.
“It’s not me,” I replied. “I’m following Simon Blake’s instincts.” He was there with me, hovering just out of reach now.
“Be careful, Drake.” Shelly’s lips compressed into a hard line for a moment. “Don’t get so lost in his memories that you forget who you are.”
“I won’t.”
“Even if you come out of this okay, you’re not going to be the same again.”
I didn’t have anything to say to that. I nodded and focused on the GPS transponder signal. I ignored the access to the elevator to the lower floors and instead opened the air duct and went down.
The space was a tight fit and a human would have been hard-pressed to navigate the duct down for sixty-four meters. I experienced no problems using my hands and knees to lock my body into position as I journeyed down.
I thought I could hear Simon Blake whispering in the back of my mind as I continued down. “Be careful, buddy. John Rath is no fool. Every time you think you have him cornered, he’s got nine escape plans just waiting in reserve.”
“Do yo
u know what this is about?”
Memory of the conversation with Rath on the Beanstalk’s observation deck flitted through my mind.
“You betrayed me, buddy. I didn’t expect that from you. Out of every man in my unit, I knew you were the one most like me. I made you. Shaped you. Taught you how to think. Everything you are, you owe to me.”
I wondered at his words, poked at them for hidden meanings and depth. He’d meant more than he had revealed and I knew it. A deeper truth had been spoken.
“I made you.”
I continued down and I remembered the man with ice-blue eyes who had talked with Mara while I’d lain in my cubicle awaiting final activation. Mara had only referred to him as “John,” and I had assumed he was Rath at the time. I recognized him in the memory now. It had been the first time I had seen John Rath as Drake.
Their conversation trickled through my thoughts.
“Where were you when Simon was killed, John?” Mara asked.
Rath took in a breath and let it out. “Away. You know that.”
“Simon was murdered.”
“I know.”
“The thing that bothers me most is that I don’t know if his murderer knew that he was killing Simon, or if he thought he was killing you.”
Rath shook his head. “I don’t know. Simon and I were…close. We worked together for years. We made a lot of enemies. A lot of people wanted us dead.” He showed her a twisted smile. “Many of those same people still want me dead.”
“That’s what you’ve said. That’s what he said. But neither of you ever said how long you worked together or what it was you did.”
Rath’s jaw knotted up for just a moment, then smoothed out again. “We fought and bled for whoever would pay us in whatever dirty war happened to be going on at the time. That’s what we did.” He paused. “And unless you’ve been in situations like that, you don’t really want to talk to an outsider about it.” His voice softened a little then. “Not even someone you love.”
Unshed tears glistened in Mara’s eyes. “I’ve got a party I’ve got to get back to.” Without another word, she walked past him and out of my field of vision.
Rath stood there for a moment after her ringing footsteps vanished. Then he turned to me and studied me some more. “You’re not as special as she thinks, golem. You’re a copy of a copy. Nothing remarkable.” He walked away, his footsteps silent as a shadow on the hard floor.
I thought about his words for a moment. I paused nine meters up from the ductwork that allowed me onto the bottom underground floor. Enough of Simon’s memories were in my head to let me know John Rath had a safehouse there.
The GPS transponder pinged inside my head. If I was right, Mara was nearby.
* * *
I checked into the meetbox and pinged Floyd while I continued to monitor the transponder. Four minutes passed before he stepped into the meetbox with me. He gazed around at the NAPD bullpen where detectives continued to work cases and paid no attention to us.
“Interesting choice of location,” he told me.
I hadn’t made a conscious decision regarding the surroundings. “I have a task I would like you to do.”
“Of course. Are you safe? The colonies are rife with violence.”
“I am safe at the moment, and I might have found Mara Blake.”
“That’s good. Do you have any assistance?”
“No.”
“That is regrettable.”
I didn’t bother agreeing with him. “I need you to quietly look into the murder of Simon Blake.”
“What am I looking for?”
I told him.
Floyd considered the request for a moment. “That is an interesting supposition. What led you to that conclusion?”
“It was something John Rath told me.”
“I was not aware that you had met Rath as Drake.”
“Once. For only a moment.”
“I will get back to you on this as soon as I am able.”
“Thank you.”
“Stay safe, Drake. My interest in you deepens.”
I left the meetbox and returned to Mars.
* * *
Nine meters farther down, I stepped down onto the ground, and then hunkered down to remove the filter and peer through the slots. My field of view was narrow and heavily restricted.
I waited three seconds, the GPS responder holding steady. Unwilling to wait any longer, I snapped the screws and removed the duct cover. Moving slowly, I eased out into the hallway. Just as I started to put the cover back in place so no one would notice I had entered there, a massive electric shock slammed me back against the wall. My senses swirled, cutting offline then returning in flickers. I tried to move and couldn’t.
A section of the wall across from me winked out of existence and revealed John Rath standing there in a hardsuit with an electromagnetic pulse rifle canted over his shoulder in one hand. He didn’t look like he’d changed at all since the last time I’d seen him. His hair was still ink black and his eyes were ice-blue.
Leigh stood at his side and looked at me ruefully.
“You owe me twenty credits, Leigh.” Rath walked over to me.
“There are six ductworks he could have come down,” Leigh complained. “How did you know he would come down this one?”
“You want to answer her, golem?” Rath asked.
I tried to speak, not to answer her question, but to ask about Mara. I couldn’t. My systems were locked up in self-repair and running diagnostics.
“This hunk of tin can’t tell you, so I will.” Rath grinned. “This ductwork? It’s a straight shot to the GPS transponder he stuck inside Tallin. This thing isn’t that creative. It’s single-minded. It didn’t even think about subterfuge.” He paused and lifted an eyebrow. “Surprisingly dedicated, though. Or maybe it’s just stupid.”
I still couldn’t speak.
“The transponder inside Tallin, though?” Rath nodded. “That was nice. That’s something I would have done.” He lowered the rifle and shot me again, and this time I went away.
Chapter Thirty-Four
My consciousness came back online in a rush, blurring color and causing audio distortion of the voices and noise around me. I was lying on the floor with my wrists and ankles shackled together. I tried to access the Net and couldn’t because someone had attached a damper to the back of my head.
Across from me in the large empty room, four meters away, Mara Blake sat handcuffed to a chair. She looked haggard and worn, but she hadn’t lost that fierce independence that Simon Blake had loved. She wore a black one-piece that revealed she had lost weight.
John Rath, Leigh, Tallin, and a half-dozen chimera mercenaries sat at a table and stared at the vidcast of the riot that had swelled enough to fill the streets in front of the Khondi Tower. All of the mercenaries, including Rath, were heavily armed. The vidcast console was the only furniture in the room besides the long table and chairs.
“Mara,” I said before I knew it.
She looked at me, not comprehending.
“Are you back with us, golem?” Rath looked back over his shoulder. “I thought maybe I fried your circuits with that last blast.”
I knew I should have remained quiet, but I felt closer than ever to Simon Blake at that time. “Not quite,” I replied.
Rath grunted in amusement. “You’ll disappear soon enough. But only after you play out your swan song. Me and you have got some private time coming as soon as I can manage it.”
“What are you talking about?” I struggled to sit up. One of the mercs standing near me kicked me back down.
Unable to balance myself, knowing that the man would only kick me again if I tried once more to sit up, I remained there. The impact had shifted my shackles, though. I managed to seize one of the chain links between my thumb and forefinger. I pinched. Hard. At first I didn’t think anything was going to happen, then I felt the metal start to give.
Mara looked at me and I wondered if she could see Simon
’s features in my face.
“Don’t you recognize him, Mara?” Rath asked. He touched his own face. “Something about the eyes? I thought surely you would know him. After all, you created him, and then you programmed him to come after you.”
Mara understood then, and another layer of defeat dropped onto her. She had been in Rath’s custody—or at least had been held by the Chimeras—for almost a year now. “Drake?” she whispered in disbelief.
“Yes,” I replied.
“Where are the others?”
“There is no one else.” I pinched harder and felt the chain link part. I searched out another in another strand of chain.
“Your lab experiment didn’t quite work out the way you’d planned,” Rath said in a mocking tone. His blue eyes watched the riot on the street outside. “I knew about him at the time you made him. I could have ended it then, but I knew I had a use for him when the time came.” He looked at me. “You know me. I don’t let anything go to waste.”
Sec squads employed non-lethal measures to break up the riot on the vidcast. Despite the microwave fields, the tear gas, and the high-pressure water, the rioters remained engaged. In fact, their numbers swelled as their outrage grew, and the level of violence escalated as some of the anti-Earth rebels began firing on the guards. The sec teams tried to bring in more barricades to hold back the tide of outraged citizens.
“Drake 3GI2RC came looking for you,” Rath went on, “but he got his partner killed along the way, managed to get framed for the murder of Jonas Salter, and got involved with an illegal arms manufacturing operation.”
“Jonas is dead?” Mara’s eyes widened.
“Yes. Months ago.” Rath manipulated the vidcast feeds, pulling up aerial footage of the floor of the Khondi Tower where colonial government heads had gathered to discuss the outbreak of violence. “Not much of a rescuer, your Drake 3GI2RC, eh? That’s one experiment you didn’t quite have worked out, Doctor. You’ve done pretty good on your other neural channeling, though. See? I did find a use for your pet golem.”