by Rob J. Hayes
“Darts?”
“Single person transport pods. They use a combination of electromagnetic propulsion and good old fashion rocket fuel. Fastest way to travel between Earth and the Moon. Takes about a day. It’s not a comfortable way to travel, but it is effective.”
Lane stands and pours himself a glass of water from a nearby jug. He doesn’t offer any to myself or the Colonel. “We can’t charge you without exposing Arkotech to damaging publicity.” The executive sounds very serious all of a sudden. “I’m sure you can appreciate the timing of the situation. We are, however, in the process of securing non-disclosure agreements from everyone in the building. Everyone who survived it anyway. No word of the actual events will be breathed and the media will be fed whatever truth we decide to come up with.”
“What about the security footage?” I ask. I remember the woman sitting at the monitors. She took something from the computer, a data-stick maybe, and the screens went to static.
“There is no security footage,” the Colonel says. “It appears the Sanctitists wiped it. Probably they wanted to protect their identities.”
Lane starts typing at his PD. The Colonel stands and pulls a little knife from his belt, moves around behind me and cuts the zip ties. I roll my shoulders. Relief. It’s a pleasurable feeling, but still masked by the exhaustion.
My PD beeps and I turn my arm over to look at it. I have a message waiting from Jackson Lane. It’s a contract.
“Sign it, Mr Garrick,” the Colonel says from behind me. “Go back to your old life and forget any of this ever happened.”
I would love to forget it, or at least I would love to forget the guilt. Only I can’t. My old life no longer has access to a harvester.
I look over the contract quickly. It seems quite standard. If I ever talk about the events here today, Arkotech is within their rights to take everything I’ll ever earn and send me to jail along with it. I press my thumb to the screen, signing the contract. Lane grins.
“I think we’re done here,” Lane states. “Smile, Mr Garrick. You’ve just avoided life in prison for murder.”
Chapter 17
Empathy: Inclusive. Compassionate. Empathy doesn’t sell, not anymore. It doesn’t do anything for the buyer. A while back there were trials to attempt to create an empath. The trials failed and sales of empathy dwindled to nothing.
A loud thumping noise, resonating throughout my apartment, wakes me up. It’s not unwelcome. My dreams are conflicted, confusing. The memory of them fades quickly, leaving only the emotion behind. I wish that would fade as well.
The thumping continues. It’s someone at the door, not the intercom, but at my door. I roll out of my bed, wincing at the pain from the bullet wound and groaning at the aching of my limbs. It’s only been a day since the Ark and I didn’t sleep on the transport home. I can never sleep on transports. I know they’re safe, but being so high up still scares me.
I stumble through the bedroom and out in to the hall, rubbing away the sleep from my eyes. The monitor next to the door flicks on and I see Sam standing there, hammering at the door. I don’t know how she got past the security downstairs without me buzzing her through, but she did. She’s always been a resourceful one.
I check my schedule quickly, ignoring the knocking for a few more seconds. We don’t have any meeting planned and I have no way to sell the benefits even if we did. It occurs to me that Sam might. She has a wider circle than just Pascal and Allen.
I unlock the door and pull it open. Sam looks up at me for a moment, her eyes wide and wild, and then pushes past me. She heads straight for my kitchen, for my coffee machine.
“Morning, Sam.”
She pauses and points towards the city outside of my window. “It’s the evening, James. Keep up.”
I can see she’s sweating, shaking a little. I can see the exhaustion in the bags around her eyes. She’s covering it all with make-up, but I know the signs of withdrawal. I’ve been through them myself all too recently.
Sam presses the button on the coffee maker and sighs out a deep breath before turning to me. “You hurt?” She points at my chest.
“Bullet wound,” I say with a smile. “I was wearing a vest.”
“What?” She moves quickly, crossing the distance between us, then hesitates and grimaces as if in pain. “Damnit. I care. I don’t want to care.”
“It’s Okay,” I say. Part of me wants to comfort her, but I don’t think that’s what she wants. She wants to feel numb, detached. “I was at… It doesn’t matter. I’m Okay.”
“I don’t care if you’re Okay.” The coffee machine beeps and Sam picks up the cup, sipping at it and gasping at the pain. “I don’t want to care.” She puts the cup back down and leans against the counter, her eyes closed.
I stand there, still and unsure of what to do. I’m in my own apartment and I feel awkward. Worry. I feel the emotion fluttering up from my stomach. We’re two Drones experiencing emotions for the first time again. Neither of us want to be in this situation.
“Was it at Pascal’s?” Sam asks. She seems to have slightly better control of herself now, but only slightly.
I shake my head. “I saw it though. Just after it happened.”
Sam lets out a bitter laugh. “I was wondering why he wasn’t answering my calls. Then I saw it on the news last night. Overshadowed by that shit in France, but there it was, a slaughter over at Pascal’s building.” She starts tapping her finger against the kitchen counter, slowly at first but picking up speed. “They’re saying he was a criminal…”
“He was.”
“Not when it happened. Laws had already been passed.” Sam shakes her head. “They’re saying he was involved in memory blocking and other shit. Sorry about that.”
“What?”
She points at my PD. I look to find seventeen missed calls all from Sam and fifteen messages. She gives me a sorry smile and then stares into the coffee mug. “I’d just delete those messages if I were you. You don’t want to hear them. I don’t want you to hear them.”
I do as she suggests. “How are you doing, Sam?”
She shakes her head. “Awful. It’s been… nine damned days since I was last harvested. I’ve got all these feelings floating around and I don’t know what to do with them. I’m frustrated and scared and…
“My mum rang the other day, James. I started feeling… I don’t know. Like I missed her. Answered the call and the next thing I know, I’m crying at her over my PD. She said she’s gonna come visit and I was too damned busy sobbing to tell her no. Now I’ve got a fifty-two-year-old woman living in my apartment who I have no idea how to relate to because all those connections we used to have just aren’t there anymore.”
I don’t know what to do. Sam is unloading. I know how she feels. Can relate. Just don’t know how to help.
“And she thinks I’m pregnant,” Sam says with a bitter laugh.
I feel a twinge of something. Panic. Fear. It’s stupid. Even if Sam is pregnant, she probably has more partners than just me. Ours is a relationship of convenience. There’s no real feeling there. At least I don’t think there is. It’s hard to tell. We’ve been detached for so long.
“I’m not,” Sam says, giving me a strange look. “It’s just… I keep bursting into tears around the woman and she’s convinced I am.”
Relief. It’s selfish, but I can’t help it. I was a bad father the first time around. I don’t need a second run at it.
Sam sips at her coffee again. I walk into the kitchen and turn the machine back on then stand opposite her. She looks tired and nervous. Her hair looks a little less shiny than normal and her skin a bit more waxen. She’s wearing a long sleeved t-shirt and the cuffs are ragged and a little damp, almost as though she’s been chewing on them.
“You look good,” Sam says. She chews on her lip as she stares at me. “Too good. Other than the gunshot, I mean.”
I glance down at my chest. The bruise is an ugly purple colour spreading out around the bandage. It
hurts, but it’s not too serious.
“You have another source, James?” Sam asks.
I shake my head. I wish I still had another source. “I found one. He’s dead now.”
“Shit!” Sam finishes her cup of coffee just as the machine beeps. She picks up the new one and heads towards the window, staring out at the city below. I turn the machine on again and watch her. She’s pacing back and forth, her breathing rushed and ragged and her pale skin showing a sheen of sweat.
“There’s something going on, James,” she says. “Something… big. They keep saying it’s gang warfare or deals gone bad or something. But it’s… It’s bullshit.
“You know I use other harvesters, right? I know you’ve always been loyal to Pascal, but… We can’t all do the things you do, James. And others, they’ve always paid better for some things. Things Pascal wouldn’t trade in.”
Sam glances at me quickly, and then away. She almost looks embarrassed. Or ashamed. I wonder what sort of emotions she’s been selling and to whom.
“Thing is, they’re all gone. First Allen, then Pascal. I tried getting in touch with the others. No answer from any of them. Did a bit of looking on the net and I found articles about them. Obituaries. All of them dead. Not just here in New York, but everywhere. This guy you know too?”
“All of them?” I ask. It’s a stupid question, a pointless question. But if Sam is right, then it does seem like there might be more going on.
Sam nods. “I know people in Boston, Washington, all over. I even know a few back home in Germany. They’re all dead, James.”
“Pascal wasn’t a random hit,” I say. “I got there just after it happened. The people who did it were professionals. And that comes from a professional assassin.”
“What? Assassin?” Sam’s voice rises and she turns scared eyes my way. I forgot for a moment that she wasn’t a part of the same world I was. Whatever her reasons for becoming a Drone, she wasn’t ex-military.
“It… That doesn’t matter, Sam.”
I can see tears in her eyes now and they start rolling down her cheeks. “Damnit. I don’t want to care.”
I put down my coffee cup and cross the distance to her. She collapses into my arms and for a while sobs into my chest. She smells of strawberries and coffee and sweat. I wince as she pokes at my bullet wound.
“Assassins and gun shots,” Sam says quietly. “I don’t know you at all, do I, James.”
I laugh. “You never wanted to. That was the arrangement.”
Sam turns her head up to look at me. There’s still tears in her eyes. There’s something else too. Affection. She goes up onto her tiptoes and kisses me, just for a moment, then I see the look in her eyes change and she pushes away from me.
“I don’t want to care.” Sam turns away and all but runs towards the door.
“Sam.” I don’t start after her. I’m not sure why. I don’t know if I want her to stay or go.
“I don’t want this, James.”
“I know. Look, stop looking for a harvester.”
“What?” She turns to look at me, tears streaming down her face. “I have to…. I… I can’t…”
“It’s not safe,” I say, taking a couple of steps forward and no more. “I don’t know what’s going on. Not yet. But it’s not safe. They’re killing people.”
Sam stares at me for a few more seconds, then opens the door and disappears into the hallway. The door swings slowly shut behind her.
Chapter 18
Frustration: Gnawing. Grinding. Nerve-fraying. Frustration leads to rash actions and poor decisions. It can turn even the smartest of us into a fool. Frustration doesn’t sell, but most people would pay to be rid of it.
After Sam leaves, I drift around my apartment. Wash the coffee mugs, then set the machine going again. Make the bed. I open up my computer and check the news, something I’ve not done in years.
There’s plenty of articles floating around the net about the attack on Arkotech. I even find a declaration that the Sanctitists circulated. They claim responsibility for the attack and then shove their manifesto in everyone’s faces. Lots of garbage about the mind being the last true frontier, one that should never be crossed. They make some compelling points about freedom of thought, freedom to feel. But they allow no middle ground. Those of us who choose to be Drones would be thought of as criminals in their world. Freedom of choice as long as it’s within their options.
I scour the articles on the net until the sun comes up, the light shining in through my penthouse window. I find no mention of me at all. It appears the Colonel and Lane have done their job well. They’ve hidden the truth to secure Arkotech’s reputation. The media machine makes the company out to deserve our sympathy. The loss of many valued employees.
I leave my computer open and cross to the window, staring down at the city below as it wake. There’s a billboard down there showing an advert by Me.com for Epicurus. As I watch, the advert flicks over to another, this one for a new action film. The advert is ninety seconds of explosions and twenty seconds of a pretty man and woman standing back to back and looking smug. I remember going to see films like that when I was a child. I remember enjoying them. Now I scoff at the very idea.
I feel listless, adrift. It’s not a feeling I like. For the past four years I’ve filled my days with the life of a Drone. I threw myself into it completely. It was why Pascal considered me his best. Every waking hour was dedicated to experiences that produced emotions that could be sold. Every waking hour was a distraction. It kept my mind off Summer.
Even before I started working for Pascal, my days were filled with security work for Langdon’s firm, or looking after Summer. I think back, but I can’t remember the last time I had nothing to do.
I turn away from the window and go back to my computer. Need to occupy myself, occupy my mind. Sam said harvesters are being killed all over, not just Pascal and Allen. It’s a mystery. Something my curiosity can work on, something I can try to solve.
I don’t know many names, but I search for those I do. Obituaries is all I find. There’s no mention of emotion harvesting in any of the articles I find. Some of them are referred to as criminals. Pascal is linked to memory blocking. The article makes the evidence sound compelling, damning even. I know it’s a lie though. I knew Pascal. Emotion harvesting was his only gig.
It doesn’t make any sense. The police must have found the harvesters in his building. The technology is closely related to memory blocking and simulation, but not so much that it would be mistaken. Either the investigator didn’t do a good job, or there’s more going on. A cover-up maybe. Along with the deaths of a number of other harvesters, I’m leaning towards that conclusion.
Dr Brant mentioned the death of my harvester. It wasn’t just speculation, he said it as though he knew. Arkotech is a big company with deep pockets. It’s entirely possible that they are killing off underground harvesters who might provide competition to their more legitimate sources.
I start another search, this time for information regarding Arkotech’s new touch screen harvesting technology. There’s not much real information out there yet. It’s mostly the company’s press release articles and reports about the incident at the Ark. I see a few calling Dr Brant a pioneer, taken before his time. Already he’s being nominated for some prestigious prizes for his contributions to science. A Nobel prize for the way his emotion harvesting tech can be used to treat trauma and PTSD. I can’t argue there, it certainly helped me. Still, I wonder if he’d have received those nominations if I hadn’t killed him.
Something doesn’t add up. Arkotech aren’t selling their new tech as for recreational usage. They want it in professional circles, psychiatry and the like. There’s no reason they’d be targeting unlicensed harvesters. The idea of licences reminds me of Pascal again. He was sure that was where things were heading, sure people would need licences and he would never get one. They haven’t been introduced yet.
I lean back in my chair and let out a groan
. Staring at a screen filled with different articles about Arkotech. They’re at the centre of it all, no doubt about it. I just can’t figure out why. I can’t see a connection, one that would explain their murder of the entire underground harvesting community. But I can see how they’d do it.
All of Pascal’s harvesting machines were Arkotech. They were outdated, but they were maintained by Arkotech engineers. I doubted it was just his. All the harvesters would have a similar deal with Arkotech. Maybe it was the company cleaning house. Ridding themselves of anyone who may be able to tarnish their reputation just before a new, major, legitimate launch.
It fits. Arkotech has the motive and the means. But I have no way to prove it and without proof it may as well be one of Pascal’s conspiracy theories. Even if I did have proof, what could I do with it? Release it onto the net. It might go viral for a while, it might even harm Arkotech’s financials, but in the end it would be a flash in the pan. Most people wouldn’t care, it doesn’t involve them, and those of us it does involve would be dismissed as addicts looking to cause trouble. Barely more than criminals ourselves.
I close down my computer and head into the bedroom to get dressed. Distracted, barely paying attention anymore. I need to prove it was Arkotech. Prove they killed Pascal and the others. Even if it’s only to satisfy my own curiosity.
I collapse onto my bed, one leg half in a pair of jeans. I can make the connection because I have so many pieces and because I’m looking for it. Can’t rely on others making the same connection. The police and other law enforcement must be covering the murders up. No mention of harvesters in any of the officially released evidence. There’s no way to trust the mainstream media either, they only show us what the corporations want us to see.
If only I had made the connection earlier, I could have used Dr Brant’s network to access Arkotech’s database. I could have found the proof there. There’s no way that network access would still be up. It’s one of the first things Lane would order to be removed.