by Ron Bender
Robotic arms are slowly reinstalling Baylen’s body plates. His skin underneath his armor is twisted, cross-crossed with old scars. Puckered flesh bunches around rows of actuators, couplers, and ports. Fresh bruising stands out starkly against flesh that hasn’t seen sunlight in decades.
Baylen turns his head. I see his optics slide and dial in to focus.
“Vanessa,” he croaks. His arm comes up. His metallic hand extends with a muffled hiss. The sensor riddled palm and fingers open slowly.
It’s because of his past that Maggie was taken. It’s because he was ineffective, as a warrior, and as a father, that she died. He isn’t a hero. He’s an outdated deficient robot.
“How could you let her die?” It’s all I can say. Tears roll off my cheeks.
His arm drops. His brow wrinkles above the pits of his optic rails.
“No—”
“I counted on you to keep her safe.” My voice climbs in volume as I cut him off. “You’re supposed to be some super warrior. Because of you … because of you she’s gone. You let her be taken and she died. She’s dead.”
“No,” he says again. “Nessa, she isn’t.”
“Shut up.” I can’t hear him over my angry scream. “Liar.”
The room is instantly silenced as he yells back, “Maggie is alive.”
I shrink in the face of his amplified voice. I stare at the face of half-machine that I loved once.
The movement of the technician pulls my eyes away from Baylen.
“I’ll come back,” the tech says into our silence. He taps the screen a few more times and leaves.
Baylen nods his thanks.
The robots continue to seal the armor I’ve always known as Baylen’s skin back into place. The idea that there’s more to him under the powered carapace had faded until this visceral reminder….
“Maggie’s still alive.” He turns his head away. When he looks back, his expression is fixed. “I can get her back.”
“You couldn’t keep her safe, Baylen. It was the one promise I counted on you to keep.”
“I never broke my promises, Nessa.” His voice is a soft whisper that turns hard. “You left me, remember? Because being with me held back your career….”
A sound catches. I feel it in my throat. I look down. I did leave him. He was a good man and I left him. His being a good man was the only reason I agreed to let Maggie see him at all.
I left him for my career, for Maggie’s future. A CitZero husband was an impenetrable ceiling. I learned that from running into it over and over again. Leaving him had been the only way….
Baylen’s voice is tight. “I tried, Nessa. We all tried. All of my men. All of them who were left came to help me, to help us…. They either died trying or they’re captured.”
“Your men?” I have no words. I can see that if he still had human eyes he’d be crying. The men he thought were dead. To find them and then to fail so completely.
I can’t separate myself from my feelings, from any of it. I can’t slow myself down and be a Doctor, be in control … my control has failed me.
I do the only thing that feels right. I go to him and lift his head to my chest. And then I cry. My tears hang from the soft spikes of his short dark hair.
His arm comes around my waist with the same gentleness that I remember from the first time he held Maggie. He strokes my hair with his other hand, the synthetic muscles rustling under the articulated metal, micro-pumps hissing and purring.
I hear hurried footsteps behind me. I stay in Baylen’s embrace, hoping to drive off any medical personnel with our intimacy. My eyes go to the glass wall and see David standing in the door way. His reaction to what he’s seeing has him backing up.
“Nessa, I need you to believe in me,” Baylen whispers. “Please.”
I can feel what’s left of his flesh body shudder under his armor. “I can do this for Maggie, but I need you too. I need a tether to someplace safe or I’ll just spin off into the black.”
My eyes are on David in the darkened glass.
I nod. Something in me has shifted. I squeeze my eyes closed.
What Baylen needed was exactly what every soldier I treated ultimately needed. This is what I’d been trying to treat without any understanding. A tether to someplace safe…. I couldn’t fail again.
“I’m sorry, Baylen. I’m so, so, sorry.”
When I look at the glass reflection again, David is gone. I didn’t hear him leave.
I cling to Baylen and cry like I’ve never cried before.
3.13
New Priority
“Should we have Greysen’s team working on this?” Alex asks as we walk through the ruins of the breaker yard building. Smoke rises in thick columns, black against the rising sun.
“Already is.” I gesture to the short gray-haired forensic technician barely visible through the bustle and smoke.
Out of habit, I step over a bulging fire hose. I know it’s not there.
Alex ignores the two firemen who run though him as they lug another run of hose to a hotspot.
Lexi and her team of technologists and programmers put this VR simulation together. This is where our tech is headed. We would be able to put Control right next to an operative in a virtual space on any drop whenever we needed. Part of the accuracy of this scene is because we’re skimming visual feeds from the firefighter’s chest cams.
“As soon as the local government runs DNA, get us a copy to run our own analysis.” I watch as firefighters uncover a body, rebar shorn and twisted through its chest. “Do we have anyone able to infiltrate the morgue? Maybe the Texans will hook up some of the dead for a post mortem memory scan.”
Alex shakes his head. “The heat of fire, delay in recovery, and high ambient temperature will make memory recovery unlikely.”
“Try it anyway.”
We can’t risk losing anything on this. I fume. The mission was only a partial success, one objective out of three and at huge risk of exposure….
I sidestep a fireman. His mouth is silently barking commands. I walk farther into the collapse. Alex trails along, studying the clean shear lines cut through the laminated concrete fiber beams and supports.
“Bransen’s demolitions men are commendable,” he comments to me dryly.
I look around at the destruction. “He left many of these men to die. Why would he do that?”
Alex frowns. “He wanted Lee to be engrossed enough that he would stay and fight.”
“Right, but why? To what end? Lexi, roll back the time to before the explosion.”
“That will restrict the environment to preliminary images from our covert scout team and drone scans.”
“I understand. Do it.”
The visuals shimmer. Blank-looking walls glow a hazy pale blue around us. “Find Baylen Lee and put us in the same room.”
The walls shimmer again. I haven’t gone to medical yet to see Lee in person, and I’m surprised when I end up standing beside a metal giant. His face is blurry but his posture speaks volumes. He’s focused, a killer with intent.
Alex sighs softly and walks part way around Baylen. “He is big, even for Hercules.”
“Yeah, bigger than I thought.”
Alex grimaces. “These men. I faced some of them in the orbital wars. They are hard fighters. Even larger in combat suits.”
I look at Alex. He takes a moment to settle himself with his memory. I ask, “Lexi, I need context. Where are we inside the building?”
“Third floor outside of the chief administrator’s office for this section of the breaker yard.” Her voice is smooth and she’s chosen to stick with a younger sounding professional tone. “The office Baylen Lee was heading toward is the doorway immediately to the right.”
“If possible, move us inside and roll back the time stamp to when Bransen was in the room.”
The silvery occlusion of the space forms into a hazy-looking office. A rough outline of Bransen is standing at the desk. Maggie is on the floor, hands bound
in front of her.
I walk around the desk, trying to see detail that just doesn’t exist. “Can we improve the resolution?”
“No. This is a representation of the space and activities based on speculation and multiple inputs from various scans. No audio is available and further visuals have even less clarity or focus. In the future, if you like, I can work with programmers to enhance images like these. However, they will still be based on speculation until we develop better scanning technology.”
“What’s the time stamp on this?” I stare at Bransen’s figure.
“Twenty-three thirteen fourteen point—”
I cut her off. “Approximately twenty-three hundred hours, yesterday evening. Did anyone else come in here?”
“Yes,” she says and we watch a demolitions team member enter and conceal several explosive devices.
I turn slowly. “Move the time stamp. Put Lee in here.”
The Hercules materializes midway between the desk and the door. His posture is so different. He knows. This is the exact moment he knew the building was rigged. He’s already backing up … getting ready to run.
“Alex,” I say. “If Bransen has access to Living Memory tech…”
The Russian nods, his lips tugging downward. “Then using it on Hercules who know where government resources are hidden would be very bad for us.”
“This wasn’t a trap from Lee. It was a trap for his unit.”
“If that is the case, then we are already a step behind.”
“I want Bransen. I want his resources cut off and wiped out. I want his com channels found, traced and both ends eliminated. I want the Hercules either rescued, or failing that, destroyed before they’re defenses are breeched.”
“That is a very long and difficult list,” Alex replies, but he doesn’t say it can’t be done.
“Pull resources from every project below level two. Push them onto this as our new priority.”
˜˜˜
“Jen.” I lean heavily against the rail inside the maglift cabin. I can’t afford to feel this tired. Not now. I trigger my medical monitor to inject a stim.
“Yes?”
“Send someone to find Jimmy the Slip and bring him here to the plaza.” I know he’s in class at the university. I can’t wait anymore to see if the memory’s Vlasta implanted in him are clean. I need him here. “Better yet, assign a couple of people to bring him in just in case he gets stubborn about it. If he really decides to argue try to use minimal force. Keep it discrete if possible.”
“Yes, sir.” Jen replies.
“Is Mr. Hall awake?” The doors glide open. I feel the stim kicking in. The sensation of movement lingers in my inner ear. I feel my lack of balance and wait it out before stepping into the hallway.
“Yes.” Jen continues, “However, after a brief moment in medical he collected his things and left the building.”
“Show me.”
Jen knows what I’m asking for. One eye blanks and becomes a static cam view of the medical hallway I’m walking in. I see David dash to the nurse’ desk. He asks where Vanessa is and runs to her room. He spins and crosses the hall to linger in a doorway. I can see the tension in him double. Something in him breaks and he steps slowly away and then leaves. His face is a mix of anger and sorrow.
“Jen, do we have an angle into that room?”
I see Doctor Hildebrandt embracing Lee, both of them wrapped up in each other. David appears in the doorway. I can see the moment Vanessa sees him and choses. David leaves.
“End playback.”
I stop at a screen and thumb for a view screen of Picasso’s current med-tech file. I barely have a display up when my dv chimes.
Jen comes on over my internal com-link. “James Takashi. Verified caller ID.”
I lift my dv out of my jacket. “James.”
“I hear you have a bunch of people coming to pick me up.”
I don’t ask him how he knows. In fact, I find I’m not even that surprised. I know Jen is monitoring the call and will be looking for the leak. “Yeah. I have a job for you. I think you’re uniquely qualified to do it.”
“I like that; uniquely qualified….” He laughs. “For what? What’s the job because you know I don’t do field work.”
“It’s not field work. It’s uhh…office stuff, a desk job.” I match his laugh. “You aren’t the one who has network wide access you know. I know you developed a program that hunts down images whether or not you have legal access to the cams….”
His laughter stops. “How’d you know about that? Did Rico say something?”
I bite my tongue. It was strange to hear Rico’s name just get dropped like it was a normal thing. Jimmy’s awkward silence tells me he knows he screwed up. I opt not to rub his nose in it. I needed him here and working more than I cared about hurt feelings and grudges.
“Maybe if you help me I’ll tell you.” I play his game. “I have three people I need to find as fast as possible. The faster you do it the higher your pay.”
“What’s the start point for this pay?”
“I keep your mom off your back for twenty-six weeks. Every day, I knock eighteen days off the deal.”
I can feel the smoke coming through my device. He’s running odds to maximize his return based on what he thinks his software can do.
“If I do it in four days, is there a monetary incentive?”
“Why?” If he can find them in under four days, I’ll be very happy. I don’t expect it though, I know how hard we hunted to find anything about Raven’s brother after he killed Doctor Laris. I imagine I’m Jimmy…. “What do you need hardfold for Jimmy? You want to buy a car or something?”
“A car?” He fumbles. “Yeah, I got my eye on a car.”
“I’ll call you when my people get there. I’ll ring you on one of their lines.”
It’s been two months since Brios dragged Jimmy’s battered body and mind out of the Feral Lands.
“We can talk about what kind of wheels you’re looking for when you get here.”
I cut the line with him as Alex com-links in, “We had orbital run multiple traces on the VTOLs that left the breaker yard. The craft dispersed over a wide area and fanned out. At this time, we have seventy different contact points.”
“Keep tracking them. I just brought Jimmy the Slip into the fold. He’ll need starting points for his software.” I stare at Picasso’s med charts. He’ll be fine but I needed to talk to him anyways. His psych profile made it a strongly recommended action for management, i.e. me.
The stim is working full force now. My conversation with Jimmy has me wondering about possible leaks. AlphaTek survived because of its airtight data protocols.
“Alex, do you think the mission could have failed because we have a leak?” This part I subvocalize.
“You are thinking that they knew we were right behind them and so acted in a hurried manner?”
“Basically.”
He sighs. “I have thought about this. We can rule out Mr. Hall as a possible leak. He has no connection here.”
“The only other option is a communication from Vanessa.”
“Doctor Hildebrandt.” He stresses her formal title. It’s his way of reminding me to not think of her as anything but a variable. A variable that could be eliminated or spared without the extra burden of thinking she was anything but. “I do not know. I can ask that we use more caution and hope Karina will provide us an answer.”
˜˜˜
Karina Vlasta is at her diagnostic board as I knock and walk into her office. Her elegant fingers move with an uncanny speed and accuracy.
Raven may be a clone, and harboring her is an inter-corporate offense, but Vlasta is a complete gene mod and under a whole host of competition and monopoly laws that’s grounds for my entire corporation getting dismantled.
I think, as rough as our business relationship has sometimes been, she understands how far I’ll go to keep her safe. If only because her practical mind knows I have way too much
to lose.
It taints every aspect of our work.
“Basillio.” She turns her head slightly and indicates a chair with her eyes. “I have the report you wanted on Doctor Hildebrandt.”
I sit and look up at the display. “Is that her?”
“Da.” She doesn’t slow her work to talk to me. “She is dormant less volatile version of Raven. Her personality overlays are deep and very well executed…. She is an agent, one who perhaps became lost somehow who now is functioning with her initial core personality and memories added to only by time and personal experience.”
“A mentally stable Raven?” I stare at the traces of sheathed graphene going everywhere inside the body on screen. “The mind boggles.”
“Not stable.” Vlasta’s tone is chastising. She turns to stare at me as though I were defective. “Cloned, implanted, manipulated, and dormant. Meaning, she is physically capable of everything Raven does, if exposed to the appropriate triggers.”
“Can you find them, the triggers?”
“It will take time.” She turns back to the display. “But yes.”
“And the programming you used on Raven?” I watch her carefully. Vlasta has always been difficult to work with because she still sees individual patients instead of bigger picture items. “Can you modify it to work on Doctor Hildrebrandt?”
She returns a non-committal shrug. “Perhaps. We will need her to return to medical for many rounds of testing which may not be practical.”
“Work on it.” I stand. “Which room is Picasso in?”
Jen and Vlasta answer at the same moment. “Technical room two five.”
Vlasta frowns up at the ceiling and says, “He refuses to undergo routine programming security check. Second time in a month. Fix him.”
3.14
Broken
I stand outside of room two five watching a technician running a scan on Picassos new knees.
From here my friend doesn’t look any different than anyone else. I’ve known him for a very long time and I know only a few people understand what motivates him. I know he isn’t mentally wired like most other people and that makes him dangerous. It makes him useful. He’s the hate-born angry spawn of a sentient bullheaded chainsaw and an over analytical dancing scalpel.