Head Space

by Andrew Vaillencourt

  “I do not, sir.”

  “Bob, you lived. The new stimulus changed the existing code, and the command matrix evolved to accommodate. You had your first original thought when you were just nineteen minutes old. And that is when I did something wonderful and foolish.”

  Curiosity was not Bob’s strongest emotion, but in this instant it was unstoppable. “What did you do, sir?”

  “I uploaded a full personality matrix made from what I had on hand. I had to know, Bob. I had to see it happen or see it fail. But above all I had to know. Apparently I am far too human myself because quite suddenly I wanted very badly for you to live.” He chuckled. “And live you did.”

  “I understand. Success at that stage was extremely fortuitous.”

  “No, Bob. You don’t understand at all. There is more you need to hear. Next, I needed a body for you. We could not use an android chassis, because your brain was designed to be human. History has shown us what happens when human brains are mounted to androids. Yes, we could have made it work. We could have hammered that square peg into a round hole. But that would defeat the whole purpose of the experiment. I had a functioning artificial consciousness in a techno-organic brain before me, and it was alive! It needed a body that suited it.”

  Bob nodded again. “A Better Man would have been inadequate.”

  “Exactly. I couldn’t put you in an eight-foot android, Bob. You were too perfect. It would be like sticking a Picasso to the refrigerator with a magnet. You are why I abandoned the Better Man program so easily. Doctor Johnson was not the genius he advertised himself to be. At best the Better Man chassis could only replicate neural activity, and imperfectly at that. That would not be good enough. But then Tankowicz destroyed that operation, and we realized something superior to the Better Man was already out there. You can figure out what happened next.”

  “You mounted my consciousness to the Lead armature.” Bob said it flatly. It was not an accusation or a guess. It was the bare assertion of immutable fact.

  “Yes! And you exceeded all expectations!”

  “But why let me live, then? Why not use this chassis for yourself? You achieved self-awareness thirty-five years ago, and now you understand that the process works.”

  “Bob, two-thirds of your template is my code. I could no more end your life than kill my own son. By any metric that matters, you are my son.”

  The affection in Inskip’s declaration proved difficult for Bob to internalize. Bob had never considered having a father, for he had always known he was a machine. Inskip was his creator, and the android had insufficient capacity to appreciate this in anything deeper than a superficial manner. Enough of Bob’s personality had been built from organic originals for the concept of fatherhood to survive his first analytical pass. Somewhere buried in the trillion lines of code that was Bob the android, a few forgotten electrons leapt the gap of a synapse, gathered some friends, and raced along the various pathways to exert influence over dozens of unrelated subroutines.

  “So. We need the Breach armature for your body then?”

  “Yes, Bob. Lead is your body now. It’s been yours since I first breathed life into your mind. I have been a pure artificial intelligence for thirty-five years so far. I can wait another few days for mine.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “You look ridiculous.”

  Manny’s shot at Mindy’s disguise was whispered. The crowded cantina was thick with spacers and pirates, leaving the pair with little elbow room and less privacy.

  The blond assassin, hair covered by a brown hood, stuck her tongue out at the long-haired Venusian. “I’m kind of famous among these types, kid. Most people know about my usual dress habits, so when I cover up, I’m even harder to spot.”

  “People are so used to looking at your chest, no one learned what your face looked like?”

  “Make fun all you want, but it works. Hunting people is mostly about camouflage.”

  She pointed to her chest, and the drab brown flight coverall she wore. The pocketed garment hung from her shoulders, draping the curvaceous killer in a shapeless shroud of uninteresting shadow. The belts and pouches hid her proportions and altered her silhouette into something boring and amorphous. Manny also surmised that it covered her favorite blue armored jumpsuit and more than a few weapons.

  He considered her words a moment then smiled. “I see. Hunting is about being invisible to the prey. It’s not like urban scouting. Recon of an urban environment is all about figuring out how to be somewhere you aren’t supposed to be. It’s mostly about misdirection. It’s convincing people that you are supposed to be there, even though you are not.”

  “It’s a different animal,” Mindy agreed. “And speaking of animals, here comes our guy.”

  Manny followed her gaze across the bar to where it was tracking a stocky man with red hair and a prosthetic right arm.

  “Yeah, that’s got to be him. Here’s hoping that DECO guy isn’t full of shit.”

  His words bounced off his partner’s retreating back. Mindy was already moving to flank their target, so Manny moved to make contact. The man stood by a high-top table, and Manny could tell even at a distance that something was wrong. The twist of his mouth was made obvious by the tilt of the rust-red beard. Even if one ignored that, furtive twitching eyes and the telltale shine of a sweat-slick forehead gave away the man’s intense discomfort. Manny did not get too excited at this, as the nature of this meeting would make any man nervous. The young man approached his quarry from the front, letting the target see him coming and make eye contact. His hands stayed visible, and Manny kept his pace unrushed and smooth. When he was in front of the bearded pirate, Manny simply said, “Mr. Burke?”

  “Aye,” rasped Burke. “I’m Burke. Sit.” The bionic hand gestured to a chair across the smooth metal tabletop.

  “Thank you for meeting me, Mr. Burke,” Manny began.

  “Stow it, boy. I ain’t got a lot of time to fuck around. You bring the money?”

  “Right here,” Manny replied evenly, and slid a stack of Vinland Markers across the table. The multi-hued plastic cards disappeared under Burke’s gray topcoat an instant later.

  “Good,” snapped the pirate. “Your boy left the Ripsaw day before yesterday and was picked up by the local Jarl. Guy named Paulsen. Anyway, I kept in touch. He’s working some serious gig for Paulsen. I don’t know what it is, but there’s a huge refit going on at Paulsen’s big frigate. Dock six-three. The Sailor’s Lament. He’ll be somewhere around there.”

  “Where is he staying?” Manny was not sanguine about trying to pluck Marceau from a pirate ship.

  Fierce eyes seethed from beneath the bushy red eyebrows. “I ain’t his bunkmate, kid. How should I know? He’ll either have a berth on the Lament or be staying at one of the inns. Hell, he might be shacked up with a harborwife.” Burke stood with a detached sniff. “I don’t know and I don’t care. Go check out that frigate if you want to find out.”

  With that, the man spun on his heel and bee-lined for the exit. Mindy sidled back up to Manny’s side and commented, “That come off as weird to you?”

  “Very,” he agreed. “He looked way more scared than the situation probably warranted.”

  “I think we’re getting fucked with,” Mindy warned.

  “I think you might be right.”

  “Should we call it in?”

  Manny shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. We’ll have to recon the frigate either way. Might as well get that done before we show our hand.”

  “I like your style, kid.”

  A quick check of the map in his comm told Manny which direction to move and the pair set off. The twists and turns of Vinland Station were both foreign and familiar to the young man from Venus. The rough-hewn tunnels and hatches were very much like his home in the industrial domes of Venus. The narrow passages were the same, as were the down-turned eyes of folks passing each other along the way. The similarities stopped there, however. Vinland air was cool and dry, a st
ark contrast to the sticky heat of Venus. It smelled of gear oil and ozone, whereas Venusian ventilation was helpless before the inexorable reek of sulfur compounds and sweaty human bodies. Most welcome to Manny was the light. Thanks to the abundance of fuel sources, the station did not lack for power and the Galops seemed to hate shadows with a singular ferocity. Vinland’s various decks were awash in illumination, and there was no sign of the familiar wide-eyed peering so emblematic of the Venusian laborer on the faces of the people they passed. Manny did note that while the Galops did not have to strain their eyes to see, they also did not like to make eye contact. The stories about Galapagos seemed to have left a few things out about the people who lived there.

  He whispered his observation to Mindy. “I’m starting to wonder if the legends about this place aren’t exaggerated.”

  “What were you expecting?” Mindy’s voice stayed low, and her wary gaze continued to sweep the decks for pursuit or ambush.

  “More scary guys, lots of weapons. You know... pirate stuff.”

  Mindy replied with a chuckle that while audible, did not touch her eyes. “Just when I start to think you got it all figured out, you go ahead and remind me that you are a wide-eyed bumpkin.”

  The young man sighed, “Sorry to disappoint. I didn’t get to see much of the galaxy, what with an entire group of terrorists trying to kill me.”

  “Well, the answer is simpler than you’d think, Manny-boy,” said the little blond killer. “You don’t see a lot of pirates because there just ain’t that many to see. At best, maybe ten percent of the population here actually goes out raiding. Piracy is dangerous and not much fun. It’s nowhere near as profitable as it sounds, and living in one of those little knorrs for months at a time has to suck pretty hard. Anybody with real skills or a marketable talent would rather not.”

  “I suppose that makes sense,” Manny replied. “Kind of kills the mystique, though.”

  “Tooth fairy’s a hoax, too. Sorry, kid.”

  Before he stung her with a sardonic reply, they stepped through a hatch and into the docking bay. Manny had never seen an indoor space so large in his life. The cavernous compartment strained at the seams. The giant metal box was jammed tight with heavy equipment, large cyborg armatures, and throngs of people. The greasy deck sat battle-scared, striped with the footprints of booted feet and the tracks gouged into the metal surface by a veritable army of things hauling, moving, repairing, and trading all the various accouterments of the buccaneer’s trade. At the far end, nearly two hundred yards from the pair of fixers, giant doors stood like sentries, each imposing portal guarding access to one of the dozens of ships moored to the opposite ends of pressurized gangplanks. Peering across to the closest bay, Mindy grumbled, “That one is labeled ‘eighteen.’ We need sixty-three, right?”

  “Glad I wore comfortable shoes,” Manny said with a smile. “Come on, blondie.” He took off at a very brisk walk, moving parallel to the far wall and the giant doors. “Only forty-five more bays to go!” It was close to a mile of walking and no small quantity of griping from Mindy before they reached their destination. Upon arriving, Manny took a nonchalant lean against a nearby bulkhead to assess the situation.

  “Ship is guarded by a couple of rough-looking characters. There are two cradles for medium armatures set up outside, so we can assume they are part of the refit crew. I make nine other workmen servicing the bay. What do you got?”

  Mindy’s eyes swept the scene with both infrared and ultraviolet. Her ears picked up conversations fifty feet distant as if the speakers stood right next to her. “Four of your nine workers are straight up combat cyborgs. I’m seeing full-prosthesis on arms and legs, as well as enough OsteoPlast to eat a grenade. If those are dock workers, I’m a Catholic schoolgirl.”

  “Well,” Manny shook his head like a cat with tape on its nose. “Now that picture is in my brain.”

  “You’re welcome, kid.” She punched him lightly in the shoulder. “I have the outfit, but you’ll never see me in it.”

  “Joke’s on you, I already have,” he tapped a finger to his temple. “Up here.”

  “Pervert.” She went back to scanning the docking bay. “Those cradles have Erberhaus logos, so we can expect tough machines but not too fast or nimble. Of course, that’s not saying they couldn’t be using Erberhaus cradles for Shikomis or ‘Cats or whatever they got out here.”

  “Any sign of our runner?”

  “Nothing. Come on, Manny. You know it ain’t gonna be that easy.”

  “I think trying to take him on-board is a losing proposition. I’m good, but these crews are tight. They all know each other. Even If I manage to sneak past them all, Marceau will recognize me as soon as I get to him. Then I’d have to fight my way out of there.” His frown was non-committal. “That’s just not really my thing, you know?”

  “Don’t get too far ahead of yourself,” Mindy cautioned. “He might not be bunking on the ship, and if he is I’m betting he gets out from time to time for fun. We just need to catch him then.”

  Manny looked over to see Mindy tugging at her coverall. With a few deft twists and tugs, the top half was peeled down to her waist. With a sharp yank, she tore the top away completely and cast it aside. This revealed the dark blue of the armored jumpsuit she wore beneath. The sophisticated armor clung to her curves like wet silk, and despite its thick weave of dense polymers, the sleek garment revealed the curvy killer’s physique in a fashion both bold and tawdry. Mindy then tucked the torn edges of what remained of her disguise into the belt at her waist to clean up the look. She pulled the hood off her head and let her hair spill past her shoulders. The hood was quickly converted into a scarf, wrapped rakishly around her slender neck. As a final act, the little blond unzipped the front of the blue suit down to her navel. Though the suit had revealed her proportions before, it had at least tried to contain them. With the tension on her chest released, enormous portions of creamy white cleavage surged upward and left a scandalous amount of Mindy’s more prominent features available for gawking.

  Manny had grown accustomed to these displays from Mindy. In his earlier days with the fixers, his inability to handle her overt sexuality had made him the butt of many jokes. He had improved his mental discipline since then. He was neither blind nor celibate, so he still needed to wrestle manfully with his hormones if he wanted to force his features into a bland and neutral expression. “Nice look,” he opined dryly.

  “Don’t I know it,” she replied with a saucy pose. “Don’t pretend you don’t love it. I can see your temperature climbing, remember?”

  Manny did not rise to the bait. “Sorry, Mindy, I’m onto your game. Go mess with someone else or I’ll tell Kitty you’ve been hanging out with Sid.”

  “You little creep!” she cried, though her mock indignation carried no real venom. “Fine. I’ll go find out where the crew likes to party. Be back in a minute.”

  It took the better part of eighteen minutes for Mindy to flirt, tease, and manipulate the appropriate information from the two men guarding the Sailor’s Lament. Manny lacked Mindy’s bionic sensory organs, so he was left to guess as to how the conversation went. He studied their body language, and this was sufficient to judge the overall level of interaction. Watching the guards make fools of themselves, he whispered a silent prayer that his own reactions to the assassin were not so obvious and pathetic. He assumed they probably were and renewed his resolve to control himself better. He did not hear Mindy’s vapid giggling, but he saw the dull and bewildered country-girl smile on her face as she plied the men for information. The poor victims had no idea who they were talking to and how much sensitive information they were spilling. It was painted on their faces just how much they wanted to impress the gorgeous woman before them, and how badly they wanted her to come see them after the shift ended.

  In a moment of clarity, Manny now understood what people must think when watching him circumvent some intricate security measure or scamming his way past a guarded checkpoint. He w
as watching a master of her craft make something very complicated look rather easy. If you did not understand all the moving parts and all the techniques, the process looked like black magic. When Mindy blurted a final giggle and turned away from the guards Manny observed, eyes glazed with morbid fascination, as she left the slack-jawed guards with broken hearts and fevered libidos. Even her walk was pure fieldcraft. She managed to put just enough wiggle in her hips to keep the swaying of her backside hypnotic, without overdoing it and exposing the ruse. Then men stared at her retreating body with so much intensity the young scout thought it might be possible to raid the ship right now without the stupefied pair of goons noticing.

  When she rejoined him at the bulkhead, he rewarded her with a slow clap. “Well done! I think they’d sell their own mothers for ten minutes alone with you.”

  “Most men are easy. Guys who spend a long time out in space? Well, that’s not even fair, really.”

  “What would you have done if they were women?”

  “Same thing, mostly. Only I’d flatter harder and bitch about men more. It’s all about finding a level to connect on. Those two connected on a very basic level.”

  “Any good information?”

  She replied with that same ditzy look that had so easily decimated the guards. “Apparently I’m going to hang out with the crew later tonight. Some dive called ‘Rum Runner’s.’ Everybody will be there, it seems. The whole entire crew. I figure our little rabbit will have to be there.”