“And what if the people who hired them happen to be, say, high-ranking
Oligarchs? If the goal here is to prevent a war, I need your promise that the information I gather won't be used to justify any violence.”
“I'm not sure I can guarantee that,” the Commander says. “It'll depend on the response of the Oligarchy. If they cooperate, and hand over the guilty party, there will be no need to start a war. Like I said, the synths and the Collective want peace as well. Should I remind you again that the Second War was started by humans? And the First, as well.”
“Mind if I have a minute to think?” I ask.
“Oh, you can have more than a minute. How about a half hour?”
The Commander gestures to his boys. Just a quick wave of the hand, no real communicated information. But the squadies seem to know exactly what it means. They pull me up to my feet, loosen the bindings on my hands, and gently nudge me forward, out the door. Back outside. I see a splatter of blood on the grass underfoot, where the guy fell after I cracked him in the nose. The same guy is at my right arm now, gingerly leading me along. His nose has stopped bleeding and he doesn't seem to be holding any kind of grudge.
Now that's professionalism, I think. Gotta hand it to the guy.
“Me and the boys are gonna take a little stroll,” the Commander says. “Shouldn’t be longer than thirty minutes. After that, I'm going to need your agreement.”
Funny way to word it. As though it's already set in stone that I'm going to help out. I take one look back at the guns pointed at my feet and think that maybe it is a foregone conclusion after all. That is if I want to go on living. Not like I can escape. I am on an island after all. Sure, I could make a run for it in Abdo’s gyrocopter but their much more sophisticated bird would likely run me down in all of five to ten minutes.
Might as well take the full thirty minutes to think though. Usually when you're being threatened you have to really struggle to even get a minute, much less thirty. I guess the Commander is a generous guy. Either that, or he's just looking for an excuse to explore the island. I doubt he gets out into the unpopulated areas of the world very often... mostly because the majority of them are still uninhabitable.
“Can I have my omni back?” I ask.
“No sir, no can do,” says the Commander. He's staring off toward the coast, studying the black ocean and nibbling a fresh toothpick. “Not until we're on the same page.”
Another threat. Though a heavily veiled one. The implication is that he reserves the right to smash Ana into oblivion if he doesn't hear what he wants to hear from me. Kind of puts me in a bit of a pickle, really. Or maybe it doesn't. A “pickle” isn't too far from a “conundrum”, and a conundrum implies that a difficult choice must be made. But in my current situation, I don't see any choices at all. Either I help these people out, and catch an assassin, or I watch the woman I love, my constant companion these past five years, being completely erased in the space of a second. An omni is a tough piece of equipment, but I'm sure the Commander has his ways.
So, the only thing I can really strive for is to make my work for the OUSP as personally beneficial as possible.
And I have thirty minutes to think. So, I start walking, striding through the matted grass and the sand of pulverized skyscrapers. I walk all the way out to the edge of the island, picking my way carefully down the cliff to the water's edge. The surf laps at my toes, black and murky as a strong cup of coffee. But it doesn't smell like coffee. It smells like... well, it's almost indescribable. I guess you could say it smells like six billion dead bodies that have been rotting in brine for half a century. Not to mention the dead bodies of all the sea creatures that slowly died from poison.
No one really knows why the seas turned black. We don't know if it was something we did, or something the synths did to inflict us with some secondary damage. A proper study on the water, and its mysterious changes, was never done because every last scientist was either dead or desperately working on something more important during the war. Weapons, mostly. Nowadays, people just choose to forget how screwed up the oceans are. Probably a good thing that we mostly stay away from them. We'd probably do more harm than good.
“Tick, tock!” a voice shouts down at me.
I turn my head, looking up. The Commander is standing at the edge of the sea cliff thirty feet above me. I flip him the bird and then turn back to the water.
I've got a good sense of time. I know it hasn't been thirty minutes yet. I still have at least fifteen to burn, so I turn left and start picking my way along the water's edge. Instead of thinking about my situation, I start trying to focus on my surroundings. On the moment I'm in now. I try and enjoy the scenery. Shattered nature, indisposed but still poetically beautiful. More beautiful than anything made by man.
It'll probably be a long time before I see a place like this again. Maybe I never will. I thought I was going to die back when I was trying to solve Ana's murder. But I got almost five more years out of the deal. Years I never should have had. Maybe destiny is finally catching up to me.
Ten minutes pass. I'm not thinking about the Commander or the murdered synth. But still, deep inside my mind, the little timer is still ticking away. With a few minutes to spare, I find a climbable spot on the cliff wall and make my way up, grunting and straining on the slimy stones. At the top, the helping hands of a few waiting squadies lift me onto solid ground. The Commander is there with his arms folded. His sunglasses have been hung on the collar of his shirt; his eyes reflect the gloomy oceanscape at my back.
“I'm going to need to hear something now,” he says. He sounds like he's aged years in the half hour since I last spoke to him. Maybe it's the air, making his voice thick.
“You're working for the Collective,” I say, brushing wet sand off my pants.
“Indirectly, yes,” the Commander says.
“I'll do the job. On one condition. Ana's worried about what might happen if she integrates with a cyber body. She's afraid the Collective will wipe her. I don't want fear to be a factor in that decision.”
The Commander lets out a sound that's probably meant to be a laugh but doesn't sound like one. There's no humor in it at all.
“You know I can't promise you something like that,” he says. “What kind of power do you think I have? If I had that kind of clout, do you think I'd be out here with you now? Shit, no. I'd be up in a penthouse with one of those android babes on my lap.” For emphasis, he holds his hands out in front of his chest to symbolize a large bust.
I throw a dry laugh back at him. “Well in that case I can't help you.”
I start to turn away, hiding the fact that I’m terrified. I'm trying to call the guy's bluff, on the off chance that he is in fact bluffing.
A hand closes around my arm, strongly yanking me back around. My hands are still tied, and my balance is off. I have no choice but to let myself be pulled. If I fight, I'll just end up flat on my back.
“What did you just say to me?” the Commander demands, stepping forward and slipping his sunglasses back on. “Need I remind you that I am holding all the cards here?”
He pulls out my omni, holding it above his head, with its edge pinched between his thumb and forefinger. One of his squadies aims a sidearm at it point blank, finger on the trigger.
“You seem to have forgotten the fact that you are asking for my help, Commander. Not the other way around,” I say, staring straight into the shiny lenses of the Commander's sunglasses. “You need me… which means I’m the biggest card on the goddamn table.”
We stare each other down. No one moves. And no one seems ready to compromise. But, for me, the facade is starting to crumble. Every second that passes with that gun aimed at Ana, I get just a bit weaker. Just a bit closer to giving in.
Suddenly, the Commander's own omni chirps with an incoming call and we both jump. One of the squadies fishes the omni out of his pocket. The Commander accepts the call, and the holographic head of the caller is projected in the cold, win
dy air.
“Settle down, boys,” the elegant figure says.
I'm able to see the lapel of his shirt, and peg him immediately as a member of the party. Probably a high ranking one, if he's been monitoring our conversation.
“Roman Ibarra?” the caller says. The squaddie holding the omni rotates it slightly so the guy has a better view of me. “Ah, there you are. I hope it's clear enough to you now that we greatly desire you for this job. And despite the stubbornness of my associate here, we are willing to work with you to ensure that this partnership is mutually beneficial. We agree to your terms, Mr. Ibarra... One free pass for Ana to be transferred. Redeemable whenever the two of you see fit.”
“Fine. In that case, I’ll take the job,” I say with a nod.
“A very wise choice, Mr. Ibarra,” the caller continues. “And your Ana was right to be concerned. You may or may not know this, Roman, but the Big Wipe was not a one-time deal as it was at first supposed. Over the past five years, many unsanctioned attempts have been made to upload backed up personae into cyber brains... each and every time, without fail, the brain is wiped before it even has a chance to awaken. I’m telling you this so you will know full well just how far the party is willing to go to secure your assistance with this matter.”
“But you can make sure Ana is transferable, right?” I ask.
The caller smiles. “Absolutely.”
“In that case I can get started as soon as I receive the decree,” I say.
“Done,” the caller says, just as my omni vibrates and chirps within the Commander’s hand. “I'm going to take my leave now, but I'd love to hear from you if you should ever need my help. I'll send a contact link to your omni.” The caller turns his head, clearing his throat. “Commander, would you be so kind as to give the man back his omni? Thank you.”
The Commander grunts and hands my omni back to me in a rather unceremonious fashion. It's almost an anticlimax, though one I'm grateful for.
The call is ended, and the hologram of the party member vanishes.
“The old good cop, bad cop routine, huh?” I say. “You guys rehearse that, or does he always step on your toes like that?”
“Shut up,” the Commander says, turning and walking off toward the cabana.
“Was it something I said?” I ask the squadies. But they don't say anything. They just turn and follow the leader. I'm left alone. Ana has made no appearances so far. She could be way off in this OUSP squad’s data sphere by now. In fact, I'd be surprised if she isn't. Probably trying to find information about our new employers.
With nothing better to do and nowhere else to go, I head into the cabana.
The Commander has made himself at home. There's now a synthetic cigarillo in his mouth rather than a toothpick. It's lit, and he's puffing away contentedly, his sunglasses up on his forehead, his eyes shut, his head leaning back on the couch.
“Those things'll kill you faster than a bullet,” I say, taking a seat across from him.
The Commander brings his head forward, cracking one eye open to regard me for a second.
“Depends on where the bullet hits,” he says, then puts his head back again and lets out a sigh. “You want a smoke?”
“No. There's already little enough oxygen in the air as it is. No reason to add an extra dimension of filth.”
The Commander laughs around the brown stem of his cigarillo. “Good for you, guy. Health-conscious man. You'll live a good long time, unless that big mouth gets you killed first.”
“Takes a big mouth to know one,” I reply.
“No, it doesn't. Just takes someone with ears,” he replies as he gestures at one of his squadies with his left hand. In less than a second, his omni is placed into his large hand.
“I'll transfer all the intel we currently have,” the Commander says. “As well as a hundred and fifty thousand credits for your case expenses.”
The funds and the intel files zap over to my omni. The Commander immediately gets up and leaves the cabana. I look out the window a few minutes later and see him strolling slowly across the grass, puffing his cigarillo in a contemplative manner and staring up into the clouds. Not long after that, a menacing OUSP air ship descends and picks them up. And then they're gone, vanishing in the gradually fading roar of engines.
CHAPTER 2
◆◆◆
In the silence of the cabana, with the distant sigh of the surf echoing from all sides, Ana and I review the Commander's intel for the fifth or sixth time.
“Give it to me again,” I say, rubbing my temples and blinking three times fast to moisten my strained eyes. “From the top.”
Ana, being just data on an omni, is pretty much tireless. Several times, she's pointed out this inability to fatigue as the one major upside to being technically dead.
That, and the fact that she doesn't get periods anymore.
“It's been a little over two years since the assassinations began,” Ana says. “Since then, they've come somewhat regularly. Not regularly enough that any useful pattern has been established. But there's never been longer than a two-month gap between incidents. fifty-six members of the OUSP have been killed in similar ways. Though detailed files do not exist for every single one of the victims, we can extrapolate that around two thirds of them have been synths. Perhaps even more. It's clear that the synths are the primary targets. Someone is trying to take the last of them out, one batch-killing at a time, without much concern for collateral damage to the organic population.
“For about three years, the OUSP has been aware of an anti-synth terror cell led by a shadowy figure who goes by the codename Cronus. True identity unknown...”
Cronus. A mythological figure who ate his children. A human who destroys synths, the synths being the children of humanity... the successors. Or maybe I'm reading too far into it, and this guy (or girl) just thought Cronus sounded cool.
“This terror cell is considered the most likely suspect in the assassinations,” Ana continues. “As far as the assassinations themselves go, a few of them have been captured on video...”
We've already reviewed these videos, enough times that I've memorized them top to bottom. In some of them, a small fire team sweeps in and takes the targets down. Never more than four assassins. In other instances, there's only one. And it's always the same one. The same hitter who's present at every single recorded incident.
This ever-present assassin has the same body type as me. Around 6’3” tall, broad shoulders, probably weighs around two hundred twenty pounds. Ana and I are sure that the main guy is likely a dude. That’s really the only identifying characteristic we have. I know that he’s a scumbag assassin, but the more I watch of the videos, the more I can't help but admire his techniques. He moves fast, efficiently… as smooth as water. Always wears a mask to cover his face though. I find that bit kind of annoying, when it comes to making an ID, but I at least take solace in the fact that the mask he wears is quite distinctive. It shines like metal, shimmers with oily rainbows... It depicts a strange, ghoulish face. So, it'll be easy to spot. The problem is it's probably homemade, a one-of-a-kind piece. Not like we can trace it back to some factory that pumps out masks and get a lot number, the store it was sent to, a proof of purchase receipt. This isn’t the old days, as much as so many of us wish otherwise.
“These don't look like terrorists to me,” Ana says, referring to the videos. “Not the sort of terrorists we get nowadays. These guys are impartial. Passionless. They're killing for a paycheck; I'd bet money on it. If money wasn't meaningless to me in my current state.”
“I agree,” I say. “But the question is, who's paying them?”
“Could be someone in the oligarchy. Could even be Lady Vangelina herself...”
Could be. But probably not. Ana's just spit-balling.
Vangelina is one of the wealthiest oligarchs. Her political party, if you could call a loosely connected web of rich people's social circles a political party, came into existence not long after the OUSP. They
were originally scientists, who were able to reverse engineer Tucker Berg's technology. Namely, the tech he used to synthesize drinkable water. By capitalizing on this feat of engineering, the five scientists became extremely wealthy.
You won't find a more colorful group of characters anywhere. Ultimately, they used their knowledge and a healthy dose of charisma to break away from the socialist party and form their own party. For the most part, they are driven by greed. An unending thirst for further wealth. And the five of them go about quenching that unquenchable thirst in their own unique ways.
Vangelina Natali, often called Lady Vangelina, is probably the most brilliant of the Oligarchs. She runs her own corner of society almost like a technocrat. She surrounds herself with people who are nearly as brilliant as she is, in their own areas of science and technical expertise. I don't recommend going to their parties, unless you want to be effortlessly made to feel like an absolute dullard.
There are a lot of differences between the Oligarchy and the OUSP. Life in the socialist party is a bit safer and quieter. But life in the Oligarchy has a lot more opportunity. There are far less regulations in place though. Things aren't nearly as strict, but as a result the security isn’t anywhere near as tight as it is in the socialist territories. Which means more work for me, hence why I, and most other detectives, live in the Oligarchy controlled regions of civilization.
Anyway, Vangelina has gotten herself into the business of making androids. They started out pretty basic, no different from the ones that were already on the market, but her units have vastly improved over the last few years. They work on technology that she has not disclosed, but it can't be standard cyber brains. I know that much, now.
Cyborgs are still outlawed in both the oligarchy and the OUSP, but there are not, as of yet, any proper regulation in place for these androids. So Vangelina puts them to use in everyday, mundane tasks. Or specialized ones. She has dozens of different models. When the Commander spoke of an android babe sitting on his lap, he referred to a model built for sex and companionship. One of the more popular models, unsurprisingly. There are male and even non-gendered versions as well.
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