Tek Money

by William Shatner

The desk vidphone buzzed.

  The Chief of the Cosmos Detective Agency set the sax aside. “What?” he asked, turning toward the phonescreen.

  The image of the metal head of the switchboard bot was wiped off, replaced by Rex/GK-30. “Excuse my barging in on you, Bascom,” the robot said. “But these two tykes are getting anxious for news.”

  Behind the large bot Bascom saw Dan and Molly standing. “Nothing new since last time we talked, kids,” he said, shaking his head sadly.

  “Are they alive?” asked Dan.

  “There’s no report of a crash, Dan,” replied Bascom. “I’ve been urging a few of my contacts back in DC to find out what the OCO knows about this.”

  “You’re sure it is the OCO?”

  “At least a contingent of that esteemed organization, yes.”

  “Aren’t you doing anything else?”

  “Dan, I’ve got five of my best operatives on this. And I’ve put out the word to our informant network. Sooner or—”

  “But right now, you aren’t even sure if my dad and Sid are still alive?”

  “I’m betting that—”

  “The Teklords are also involved in this frumus, kiddo,” cut in Rex. “Here, take a gander at this gink.”

  A vidclip of a dark, thickset man filled the screen. The man was walking, head down, across the lobby of a hotel.

  “This is Roberto Martinez,” explained the robot. “I glommed this from a secsyst cam in the lobby of Hotel Borderland.”

  “And?”

  “Martinez is the bozo who came in, interrupted Molly’s ne’er-do-well uncle while he was chinning with her and waltzed the guy out and possibly into oblivion.”

  “He’s connected with one of the Mexican Tek cartels?”

  “Yep, the Navarro Cartel, biggest one in Borderland.”

  Frowning, Bascom tapped the bell of his saxophone. “Usually they hire outside help for these simple chores,” he said thoughtfully. “They must’ve been in a rush to stop—”

  “Important holocall coming in,” blurted out one of the holograph stages.

  “I’ll get back to you, Dan. Don’t worry.”

  Bascom crossed to the platform and activated it.

  The life-size projection of a man in a yellow suit materialized. He was pudgy and he had no head. There was just a blurred ball of pale blue light resting on his shoulders. “I understand you’re interested in the present whereabouts of Jake Cardigan and Sid Gomez, Bascom. True?”

  Making a slow half circuit of the stage, Bascom said, “You don’t usually deal in this sort of information, Wordsworth.”

  “I came across this gem of intelligence by chance,” said the headless informant. “Being dedicated to the cause of justice, I decided to risk my anonymity by contacting you in person in this manner.”

  “How much?”

  “Naturally my first concern is the safety of your operatives and—”

  “Your price?”

  A coughing noise came out of the blur. “Five thousand dollars.”

  “Three thousand tops.”

  “I know where your ops are languishing, Bascom. “Forty-five hundred.”

  “Thirty-five hundred.”

  “Four thousand dollars or I depart.”

  “Deal. Now tell me where—”

  “Jesus! Got to go. Stand by until later, Bascom.” There was a faint popping sound and Wordsworth was gone.

  “Shit,” observed Bascom.

  Agent Helton’s office was small, crowded with too many metal chairs, databoxes, neowood packing crates and bundles of old faxmemos. His desk was wedged in a corner and there were two dozen small vidscreens in the walls to the left and right of it. “You’re not paying attention, Cardigan,” he complained from the metal chair that was jammed behind the narrow gunmetal desk.

  “I’m still admiring the decor.” Jake was straddling a chair, facing the OCO man.

  “This is a temp setup, purely functional.” He gestured at a bank of viewscreens to his left. “What do you see there?”

  “Assorted views of what I assume is the jungle outside, shot with nitecams.”

  Nodding slowly, Helton said, “What you don’t see, however, is as much as a trace of your damned missing partner.”

  “True,” agreed Jake.

  “Notice Screen Seventeen.”

  This showed a white metal lab table, brightlit from overhead, upon which sprawled a large robot dog.

  “Defunct dog,” said Jake.

  “That’s one of the two highly efficient robot tracking dogs that were sent to locate Gomez, incapacitate him and then signal our people,” continued Helton. “They never fail.”

  “Until tonight.”

  “Both of these dogs were rendered inoperative by a highly sophisticated sonic weapon.” He put both elbows on the desk, leaning forward, eyeing Jake. “Where’d Gomez get such a weapon?”

  “The gift shop at the skyport?”

  Helton’s frown deepened. “Do you bastards have allies on this island?”

  “Sure. We sent a whole troop of them here on the off chance we’d someday be hijacked.” He grinned. “C’mon, Helton, be rational. I have no idea what Gomez used on your mechanized mutts.”

  “I want him here.” He tapped the desktop with a blunt forefinger. “He has to be brought in—now.”

  “So keep looking for him.”

  The agent said, “No, you’re going to help me round him up, Cardigan.”

  “No, I’m not, nope.”

  “My instructions are not to harm you, not seriously,” he told Jake. “Still, we have some gadgets here that—”

  “How about a Devlin Gun?” asked Jake. “That might scare me into cooperating.”

  After exhaling slowly, then inhaling, Helton advised him, “You don’t want to know anything about the Devlin Guns.”

  Jake said, “Almita’s working for Carlos Zabicas. He’s got the guns and—”

  “Zabicas hasn’t got them.”

  “Oh, so? Then who did you guys arrange to—”

  “Right now all you have to worry about is helping me get Gomez herded in here.” Helton stood. “We’re going out into the jungle, you and I, Cardigan, and—”

  “And I’m what—bait?”

  “Yeah, exactly.”

  Jake shook his head. “I decline.”

  “Then I’ll have to persuade you.”

  Jake asked, “How high up in the OCO does this go? Who told you to waylay us but not knock us off?”

  Smiling, Helton answered, “Maybe nobody ordered me to spare your lives,” he suggested. “Perhaps I’m simply conning you, Cardigan. It might be that your only real chance of surviving depends on your helping me locate Gomez. Otherwise—”

  “No need to come hunting for me, cabrón.” Gomez came striding into the office, stungun in hand. “You okay, Jake?”

  “Fit as a fiddle.”

  “Then we’ll—No, hombre.” Gomez had noticed Helton reaching toward a shoulder holster. He fired the stungun.

  Helton took a jerking step back, bumped into the wall. Both his elbows went snapping back, one nudging into a viewscreen and shattering it. He gave a brief gargling cry, then pitched over onto his desk, scattering faxmemos and datadiscs.

  “This would be a dandy time to depart, amigo.” Gomez headed for the door. “If you’ve no objections.”

  “None.” Jake followed his partner.

  29

  SlLVEIRA POINTED UP the dark hillside. “There’s a little town called Castel’ Branco about another three miles from here,” he told them. “If we can get there, I’ll be able to set you up with a skyvan.”

  “If?” inquired Gomez as they started double-timing up a twisting roadway that was cut through rocky ground. “Can’t you be a bit more optimistic, amigo?”

  “Well, they must know by now that Jake’s gone. They’ll be sending out as many people as they can spare to track us.”

  Jake said, “This isn’t going to help your standing on the island much.”
/>
  “Nobody spotted me while Gomez got you out of there. It’ll be safe for me to stay around awhile longer.”

  They climbed in silence for several minutes.

  Then from the darkness far below near the plantation came a faint chuffing sound.

  “Skycars,” said Jake.

  “At least two of them,” added Gomez.

  Silveira halted. From a trouser pocket he took three small black squares of plaz. “Fix one of these to your clothes,” he told them, passing a square to each and slapping one to his jacket. “It’ll block your aura and fool their sensors.”

  “If they use litebeams, they may spot us anyhow,” said Jake.

  “We’ll have to make sure they don’t.” Silveira sprinted across the roadway and into the tangle of jungle that stretched away beside it.

  When they were in among the trees and flowering brush, Gomez said, “Maybe we should’ve tried to take back the skyliner.”

  “Too many guards.” Silveira led them up through the night woodlands.

  The sound of the skycar engines was growing louder. Looking back, Jake saw three of them drifting up through the darkness. The headlights bobbing like lanterns in the wind. From the belly of each craft came a wide beam of intense bluish light. The skycars were moving slowly at a height of about 200 feet, sweeping the ground below them with light.

  The cars separated after a moment. Two of them headed inland and the third kept heading up toward Jake and his companions.

  “That one’ll be overhead in about a minute,” said the Pax agent. “We better flatten out under the brush.”

  Gomez stretched out in a tangle of spiky bushes. “Oops,” he muttered. “I think I’m reclining amidst the remains of some animal friend’s snack.”

  Jake was ducked down a few feet from his partner.

  In less than thirty seconds the skycar was directly above the three men.

  The beam of glaring light slowly and methodically probed at the jungle all around them. The car seemed to hover there for a long time.

  But then it moved on, flying uphill and away. Going very slowly, illuminating the jungle as it went.

  Five minutes after it had flown out of sight, Silveira said quietly, “Muito bem. We can try for Castel’ Branco now.” He rose up out of the tangle of brush he’d been hiding in.

  Gomez stood, brushing at the front of his jacket with a handful of leaves. “I wonder if we can find a haberdasher open at this hour,” he said.

  Showing no lights, Gomez guided the skyvan up into the darkness above the sleeping town.

  The black craft rose quietly up and away from the island.

  In the passenger seat Jake was hunched slightly and studying a scanner screen on the dash panel. “According to this, all three of those skycars are over on the other side of the island.”

  “Let us attempt to sneak away without their tumbling to our departure.”

  Gomez kept the skyvan at a low altitude until they were out over the dark Atlantic. Then he gradually climbed up to 10,000 feet.

  Jake said, “Looks like we’re away clear.”

  Gomez turned on the flying lights. “Remind me to send Jose a faxcard next Xmas,” he said. “He was very helpful to the cause of Gomez preservation.”

  “Find out anything new about the shipment of Devlin Guns?”

  “He’s of the opinion that several crates of them were routed through here.”

  “Bound for Spain?”

  “Far as he knows, which confirms what we’ve already been pretty sure of.”

  “During my chat with Helton I played dumb and—”

  “That must’ve required a heck of a lot of acting ability on your part, amigo.”

  Jake grinned. “Good thing I’m aware that these jabs at my character are due to the stress you’ve been through recently,” he said. “The point is, I suggested that Zabicas Cartel was the destination for the Devlin Guns.”

  “Did he confirm or deny?”

  “He let slip that the guns went to somebody other than Zabicas.”

  “Meaning that Natalie Dent’s tip is probably right,” said Gomez. “The weapons went to Janeiro Martinez and his rebel outfit.”

  “Probably, yeah. But since Almita works for Zabicas and has considerable interest in putting us out of business, we still have to figure that Zabicas is involved in whatever’s coming up in Madrid and environs.”

  “If our recent hosts weren’t spoofing us, these events are due any day now,” speculated Gomez. “They implied they only wanted us sidelined for a week at most.”

  Jake tapped the vidphone. “I’ll contact Bascom,” he said. “Tell him we’re back on the job and also where Quixote Airlines can pick up their missing skyliner.” He punched out the number of the Cosmos Detective Agency in Greater LA. “Then I’ll let Dan know we’re okay.”

  “Our esteemed jefe may also want to alert certain DC cronies about this little island paradise OCO outpost.”

  Jake shrugged. “Helton and his crew are probably packing already,” he said. “By the time those dimwits in Washington take action, there won’t be anything at the banana plantation but bananas.”

  Bascom’s face appeared on the phonescreen. “Jake,” he said, giving a pleased smile. “I’m glad to see you. You’ve saved me from having to pay an informant four thousand bucks.”

  30

  IT WAS RAINING in Madrid. A heavy slanting rain that was hitting hard at the blue skycar.

  “Considering all the expense Newz, Inc., went to in overhauling you, not that they aren’t wading in money, since they never pay their crackerjack reporters anything near what—”

  “Wallowing.”

  “Hum?”

  “Wallowing in money, not wading.”

  Natalie Dent shifted slightly in the passenger seat, running her thumb knuckle along her freckled nose. “Now see? There you go again, Sidebar, exhibiting the caustic wit that I associate with a streetwise reprobate of the order of Sid Gomez and—”

  “A putz.”

  “I’d hoped, as I’ve been trying to convey, despite your constant snide interruptions, that being rebuilt and reconstructed would have modified your character some. It strikes me, and I am, afterall, perceptive enough to be considered one of the best, if not the best, investigative reporters in the vidnews business, that a robot such as yourself, Sidebar, ought to know his place and not be continually—”

  “My place is to be an ace cameraman.” Sidebar was piloting the Newz, Inc., skycar through the rainswept Madrid afternoon. “Not to chauffeur you around this rinkydink town.”

  “Madrid isn’t, by any stretch of the imagination, rinkydink.” Natalie shook her head, causing her long red hair to brush her shoulders. “We are, afterall, comrades in arms, as it were, and you ought to be glad to do me a good turn now and then, especially since our regular pilot is laid up with some sort of rare virus.”

  “Booze isn’t a rare virus.” The robot punched out a landing pattern. “We’re over the Calle Mayor. And there’s the side street where that abysmal monstrosity the Hotel Condor aspires above the—”

  “I think it’s rather cute.”

  “That it is.”

  The car glided down through the rain and landed on Parking Lot Quatro, which was next to the towering silver metal and black plastiglass Hotel Condor.

  “I trust, Sidebar, that you won’t simply sit here and sulk while I’m in the Cafe Picasso talking to Secretary of State Torres. Use the time to improve your mind or to meditate, which, I understand, is as valuable for mechanical brains as it is for—”

  “My calling in life is to take insightful pictures.” The robot tapped the vidcamera built into his chest. “Not sit on my toke and listen to the raindrops falling on—”

  “Secretary Torres wants to talk to me privately. That’s what he said when he called this morning.”

  “Privately in a hotel restaurant?”

  “We’re operating, as I shouldn’t have to point out, in the realm of the political intrigue
here,” said the redhaired reporter. “Señor Torres wants this to look like a perfectly routine interview, yet he doesn’t want any of it going on the record. I should think by now, having ably assisted me on a variety of highly complex and dangerous investigative reporting missions, Sidebar, you’d be in possession of a heck of a lot more political savvy.” Sighing, she unfastened the safety gear, tugged a small forcefield umbrella from her coat pocket and stepped out into the rainy afternoon.

  “I’m suffering from a bad case of granulated eyeballs,” mentioned Gomez as he headed the skyvan down toward Parking Lot Quatro.

  “Thought it was your ankle and your wrist that got bunged up on the island.”

  “I’m suffering from those battle scars, too, now that you mention it. But lack of rest and sleep is also taking its toll.”

  “I had the impression you were snoozing away while the van was on automatic en route here to Spain.”

  “I slept fitfully,” explained Gomez as their vehicle settled down onto a landing space. “I’ve never stayed at the Hotel Condor before, but Bascom assures me it’s a deluxe establishment.”

  “Have to be to get away with that façade.”

  Gomez asked, “You still going to concentrate on locating the multifaceted Janine?”

  “Initially, yeah. While you start tracing the Devlin Guns.”

  “First thing for me to do is make certain they ended up with Janeiro Martinez—and then find out where he’s got them stashed.” Unhooking his safety gear, Gomez nudged the door open. He was halfway out into the rain, when he sat back down again, sideways, legs hanging out in the downpour. “Do my bleary eyes deceive me, amigo, or is that indeed a Newz, Inc., crate over yonder?”

  Jake glanced in the direction his partner was pointing. “Looks to be.”

  Gomez nodded forlornly. “I didn’t think I’d be encountering my nemesis so soon,” he said. “But I recognize the smug camerabot sitting there in the car. It’s Sidebar, known accomplice of Natalie Dent. That means, alas, that the lady herself must be in the vicinity.”

  “You’ll get soggy perched there, Sid. Let’s get inside the damn hotel.”

  “Fate is a peculiar thing,” observed Gomez as he stepped completely out of the skyvan. “It never throws me into the path of sweet-tempered and highly intelligent young women, but rather strews my uphill path with—”