Vacation on Union Station (EarthCent Ambassador Book 7)

by E. M. Foner

  Woojin, who was bent over the stack with his arms spread wide, straightened up slowly, keeping a wary eye on the pile. The potential energy of the tight-pack had been spent in the initial decompression, and the pile remained loosely quiescent. He selected a T-shirt and stretched it flat over the top of one of the Drazen transport cases, and then pulled a black marker from his pocket. Finally, he wrote in three lines of crude block letters, “EARTHCENT INTELLIGENCE RECRUITER.”

  “I’m not wearing that,” Lynx objected. “You print worse than Beowulf.”

  Woojin sighed, pulled the T-shirt over his own head, and then passed the marker to Lynx. Bant handed her back the T-shirt they’d used to train the bird, and she bent over it and printed, “NOW HIRING SPIES.”

  Bant captured the text through his implant and ran a translation. “Direct and to the point,” he said approvingly. “And going by the baseball cap, I’d say that the artificial person approaching now could be your first customer. I look forward to hearing your pitch.”

  “Hi there,” Lynx called to the passing AI, who showed no disposition to stop at the booth. “Can I interest you in a new job?”

  The artificial person changed directions effortlessly, and three balletic steps took him right up to the humans. He eyed the hand-printed T-shirts scornfully.

  “I can see you’re in serious need of a graphic designer,” the artificial person said. “I can do one-offs for twenty creds right here, or I’ll take the whole stack back to my shop and print them for two creds each.”

  “What?” Lynx asked, not following his reasoning. “We’re looking to hire human AI’s to work for EarthCent Intelligence.”

  “Not with those T-shirts you aren’t.” He hesitated, shaking his head as if reproaching himself in advance for what he was about to do. “I’m Frank, and I can see you don’t know much about the culture here, so as a fellow human sentient, I’ll clue you in. Artificials who come to a place like Chintoo aren’t the slapdash, carefree types you might have encountered elsewhere. To put it bluntly, we judge things by appearances, and we pride ourselves on the accuracy we bring to even the most menial tasks.”

  Woojin pulled off his T-shirt and examined the lettering. He had to admit it was pretty bad, though at least the words were spelled correctly.

  “Twenty creds?” he asked Frank.

  “I’ll tell you what,” the artificial person said. He paused to watch the Grolt’s mechanical bird bring another T-shirt back to the pile. “You planned on giving T-shirts away to get attention, right?”

  “Pretty much,” Lynx admitted.

  “And if I’m not mistaken, that’s about as far as your plan extended.

  “Something like that,” Woojin confirmed.

  “Thirty creds for two hand-printed T-shirts, a free T-shirt for me, and if you put me in charge of recruiting for you, I guarantee you’ll be the hit of the show with the human AI.

  “We don’t really have anything to lose,” Lynx said, turning to her husband. “Unless you had another plan?”

  “Only recruiting I’ve done before was for mercenaries, and all that took was showing up somewhere with too many people and not enough food,” Woojin said. “Alright, Frank. If you’re anything like our friends back on Union Station, it’s a good gamble.”

  “You have artificial people as friends?” Frank asked.

  “My first partner in EarthCent Intelligence was an artificial person,” Lynx said. “He performed our marriage ceremony.”

  “Then give me the markers and let’s get to work.”

  The artificial person reproduced the slogans that Woojin and Lynx had chosen, this time with the accuracy of machine. Then he went on to print a large word on seven different T-shirts. He used all of the colors the humans had confiscated from their prisoner, working from the longest word to the shortest, and twice, he grouped two short words together on a single shirt. Neither of the humans could figure out the message until he arranged the T-shirts on a light framework of copper wire that he borrowed from another booth.

  “PRINTED T-SHIRT CONTEST. WIN A JOB WITH EARTHCENT INTELLIGENCE.”

  “Will they go for it?” Woojin asked. “They’ll print their own T-shirts?”

  “Artificial people love showing off,” Frank said. “I better go back to my shop and get more markers. I’ve got better ones for drawing on cloth in any case.”

  A moment after Frank departed, a woman wearing a veil approached the booth. The black mesh covered her from head to toe, and it was fastened around the bottoms of her feet by elastic bands, forcing her to take small steps.

  “Am I too late?” she asked.

  “For what?” Lynx inquired. She strained to make out the features that were partially visible under the improvised black mesh.

  “For the contest. I need a job,” the artificial person stated urgently.

  Woojin handed her a T-shirt and the black marker, figuring it was in keeping with her general sense of decoration. She smoothed the T-shirt on top of one of the cases and printed, “DOWN WITH HEEL.”

  “Is that supposed to be an instruction for wearing magnetic cleats?” Lynx asked.

  “HEEL. The Human Expatriates Election League,” the artificial person hissed. “I needed a job badly and I saw an ad for somebody to organize artificial people of human origin for self-government. They sent me here before I got the training materials, and it turned out they wanted me to bad-mouth the Stryx. There’s not a human-derived artificial person on this orbital that didn’t get their first decent body through the program for newly recognized AI that the Stryx run on the stations. I quit as soon as I saw what the job entailed, but somebody saw the materials I threw away, so I’m in hiding.”

  “You don’t think that the full body veil thing makes you stand out a bit?” Woojin asked.

  “It’s a shade suit. Lots of the artificial people wear them,” she explained. “I paid extra for skin that reacts to the light, you know, like humans? But most of the artificial people from the other species don’t have that, and they run the lights in this place way too bright.”

  “You really quit HEEL of your own accord? They didn’t fire you?” Lynx asked.

  “Scout’s honor,” the artificial person replied, holding up two fingers together. The arm-length black gloves she wore reminded Lynx of a Vergallian duchess who had visited Union Station. “I really want to get off of this orbital before my own people take me apart for, well, parts. If you’ll just give me a lift to wherever you’re going, I’ll even sign a contract to work free for a year. The Stryx won’t kill me if I get behind on my mortgage.”

  When the Prudence departed Chintoo seven hours later, they were lighter by one groggy human HEEL organizer and three bundles of T-shirts. The impromptu recruiting drive had enriched EarthCent Intelligence by two artificial people. The woman with the expensive skin was overjoyed by a spot in the hold, and the graphic artist had promised to follow after he cleaned up his affairs on the station. Another dozen or so of the artificial people who visited the booth promised to think it over, but they would wait to hear back from Frank about the pay and working conditions.

  Seventeen

  “I’m hungry,” Samuel complained. His mother had told him they were on the way home when they entered the lift tube, but the doors hadn’t opened on the corridor outside of Mac’s Bones.

  “After a month of healthy take-out, I was looking forward to a home-cooked burger myself,” Joe concurred. “Any idea what’s going on, Banger?”

  “Just this last stop and I’ll have you home in an hour,” Libby promised.

  “Libby! You’re talking to us again,” Kelly exclaimed. “I was beginning to think that it was you who was on vacation from me!”

  “I think going silent was a great idea, Libby,” Joe said. “I haven’t seen Kelly looking so relaxed since the time she drank two bottles of cabernet at the Frunge ambassador’s surprise birthday party and I had to carry her home.”

  Kelly glared at her husband, but decided not to say anyth
ing lest the kids think it was an open topic for discussion.

  “I can’t make out anything in here other than that glowing pink aquarium with no fish,” Dorothy said. “What’s on all the counters and shelves? Can you turn the lights up?”

  “First, what do you all think the pink glow is?” Libby asked in response.

  “Fairies,” Mist declared.

  “An empty aquarium,” Ailia said.

  “Some sort of plasma,” Joe guessed.

  “Peppermint ice cream?” Samuel suggested, rubbing his belly in anticipation.

  “A pink Harrian,” Kelly hazarded, hearkening back to her disastrous date at the People Bowl.

  “Fairy dust,” Dorothy decided, since Mist’s answer sounded the most logical to her, but she didn’t want to repeat it exactly.

  “Fairies and plasma aren’t too far off,” Libby replied “Do you want to tell them, Banger?”

  “It’s part of Libby’s physical instance in this universe,” Banger said. “The n-space amplifier.”

  “Are you serious?” Kelly asked, walking forward towards the light. “You’re in here? I mean, part of you?”

  “You know that the Makers created us in their own image. Being shape shifters, they came up with a rather amorphous structure for the first generation Stryx, basically just something that could hold consciousness and interact sufficiently with the physical world to allow us to grow and evolve. The first generation Stryx eventually developed superior strategies to maintain individual existence, but they produced offspring the same way that the Makers created them.”

  “So it’s an example of recapitulation theory,” Dorothy said confidently. “Like the way the backbone appears before the brain in human embryos, except it’s doesn’t hold true in general. We did human biology months ago,” she added for the benefit of her stunned parents. Dorothy’s tone implied that the course of study was thoroughly exhausted.

  “Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny,” Libby corrected her student. “You know I don’t approve of using slang names for theories, even disproven ones. In our case, repetition of our original development stages happens by choice.”

  “The nostalgia theory,” Joe suggested.

  “That’s very good,” Libby said, sounding exactly like a school teacher. “There are also some other bits of my physical instance spread about Union Station for interfacing purposes, but the pink aquarium is the most tangible.”

  “Does Banger have one?” Samuel asked.

  “A small one, it’s still inside this robot body,” the little Stryx told him. “It takes a lot of practice to use n-space amplification without turning stuff into dark matter by mistake.”

  “Thank you for sharing, Libby,” Kelly said. “I thought that Gryph and the other first generation Stryx discouraged their offspring from discussing your physical beings.”

  “I just wanted to soften you up for what follows,” Libby said mysteriously. Then she slowly brought up a small section of the overhead deck lighting, and the humans discovered that they were standing in the center of an immense mosaic. It was divided into concentric circles, and in some cases, the circular sections were further subdivided. Within the boundaries were depicted lifelike scenes from numerous alien civilizations.

  “It’s a map of Union Station,” Dorothy declared, and she and Mist immediately began competing at spotting species they knew, calling out the names to each another.

  “Is she right, Libby?” Kelly asked.

  “It’s a representation, I’ve taken certain liberties,” the Stryx librarian replied. “I wanted to know what you thought about my using it for the main entrance.”

  “It’s wonderful, but I don’t understand which entrance you’re talking about,” Kelly replied. “It’s not like the station has a single arrivals hall or something.”

  “The entrance to my theme park,” Libby said. “I admit it’s still in the planning stages, but you needed the time off and I wanted to get some early reactions. You’re my first customers.”

  “You mean you’re going to open up those decks we went through to other humans?” Joe asked.

  “Other sentients, though I do hope to attract a lot of humans,” Libby said. “I’d like to take all of the credit, but the original idea came from Jeeves. You remember the disembodied spirits? Marvin’s people?”

  “How could I forget,” Kelly replied. “Marvin seemed very eager to please.”

  “Before they left their bodies behind, they accumulated sufficient assets to pay the deck rent and maintenance in perpetuity. But many years ago, they got caught up in a galactic speculation craze on neutron stars and lost their shirts. I suspect they were just bored and wanted to affect something in real space, but they’ve been living on Gryph’s charity ever since. Jeeves suggested that with proper training, they might turn the deck into a haunted house attraction.”

  “So you’re going to charge for admission or camping fees and make some money off of all those abandoned decks?” Kelly asked.

  “Ta-dah!” Libby sang, bringing up more of the deck lighting to illuminate the area in front of the lift tube that had been shrouded in darkness when they arrived. The girls left off deconstructing the mosaic and raced to look at the counters full of vacation-themed merchandise.

  “We entered through the gift shop?” Kelly said. “Don’t you have that backwards?”

  “We’re over here and the lift tube is over there,” Joe pointed out.

  “Look, Mommy,” Dorothy called out. “It’s you on the roller coaster.”

  “It’s a holo-frame,” Mist said. “That’s just an image grab. Try pressing on it.”

  Dorothy did so, and a life-size hologram of Kelly, eyes closed and mouth open in a silent scream, came zooming out of the ceiling at them. Everybody ducked as the holographic recording of the magnetically levitated car shot by.

  “Jeeves said people would pay fifty creds for something like that, but I don’t know,” Libby said.

  “I’ll pay fifty creds to erase it,” Kelly offered.

  “Not a chance, we’ll take it,” Joe declared.

  “Look, Mrs. McAllister,” Mist said. “Here’s one with Mr. Czeros yelling at the ghosts.”

  “We’ll take that one too,” Joe said. “I’ll play it whenever I see a spike in our liquor bill.”

  “It’s me in a robot suit,” Samuel shouted, ogling a large toy on the counter. “This is great. Does it move?”

  “The silver pad is the remote control,” Libby hinted.

  Samuel seized the pad and began tapping away at the screen controls, seemingly at random. The little robot staggered off the counter but landed on its feet. Soon it was running in circles and turning flips as Samuel figured out the intuitive controls.

  “Is that one me?” Ailia asked shyly, pointing at the similarly sized action figure with a beautiful little face visible just behind the grille.

  Joe placed it on the floor and handed her the other remote. She was still learning to walk when Samuel’s robot rushed over and pushed her robot to the floor.

  “You’re it!” he said, before his robot rushed away.

  “Uh, how much are the robots?” Kelly asked.

  “There’s really a lot to them,” Libby hedged. “Ignoring the labor and the controller, the materials alone add up to a substantial amount. Perhaps you’d like to discuss the payment plan?”

  “It’s an interactive catalog for our Princess Ball Gowns line,” Dorothy cried, looking up from an attractive display. “You get to accessorize the dresses and build a whole wardrobe!”

  “I did some research on gift shops in my library records,” Libby admitted. “The ones that do the best focus on personalized items. The Grenouthians are very good at it. One of their most famous studios has a gift shop that earns more than the immersives produced there.”

  “Hey, here are some pictures of Paul and Aisha,” Joe said. “We better get these. And is that a wire-mesh sculpture of Dring?”

  “Metoo made that from memory,” Libby tol
d them. “He’s going to give it to Dring as a gift, but I borrowed it to help fill out the displays so the shop doesn’t look half-empty. Once we’re really open for business, the trick will be not having so many memories on display that it just gets too cluttered. I wish I had more experience with retailing.”

  “How much for a set of Pilsner glasses?” Kelly asked cautiously. “We don’t have enough for the graduation picnics and I hate making everybody drink out of plastic cups.”

  “Those are just an example,” Libby said hastily. “I had them made as a placeholder for branded products.”

  Joe began picking up the glasses from different sets and reading the logos out loud.

  “Old Decks. The Multi-deck Tour. Thank You—Come Again. Sewer Souvenirs?”

  “Jeeves came up with the last one,” Libby said defensively. “I know they aren’t very good, marketing isn’t my strong suit. Which brings me to a little business proposition.”

  Beowulf’s ears perked up at this point. He had hung back from the n-space amplifier because he didn’t fancy the idea of being turned into dark matter, and the whole gift-shop concept meant nothing since he was broke. But he’d lived long enough on Union Station to learn that barter is better.

  “What kind of business proposition?” Kelly asked suspiciously.

  “It’s a marketing survey,” Libby replied. “I know how much some people hate being asked a bunch of multiple choice questions, especially when they’re on their way home, but I’ll give you fifty percent off the items you purchase for ten more minutes of your time.”

  “How about a hundred percent off for twenty minutes?” Joe counter-offered.

  “Very well,” Libby replied, though Kelly thought the Stryx librarian sounded a bit disappointed about giving everything away for free. It wasn’t the first time somebody had lost by underestimating Joe’s business acumen. He wasn’t on the same level as Lynx or the Hadad girls when it came to trading, but his years in the junkyard and small-craft repair business had taught him how to drive a bargain.