by Hugo Huesca
“Another one of your hunches?” Charleton asked.
Delagarza blushed like a schoolgirl. But what else could he call them?
Sometimes, when he was stuck working on a project that lasted too many days, on a piece of ‘ware that refused to cave to his attentions, he’d get these nonsensical urges. He’d bring the computer to a shitty, third-rate pawn shop and show it to the owner who would just so happen to have the right tools to crack it, or would know someone who did.
Other times, it wasn’t about work at all. Nonsensical things, like leaving a notch on a bench somewhere, or letting an old lady pass him in the line for the bus.
He hated his hunches. He was a simple man, with a simple life that made sense, and he liked it very much that way, thank you. Charleton, though, took them seriously. He was sure she was part of one of those neo-voodoo social tribes that populated their own small corner of the Net. She believed he was inhabited by the spirits of his ancestors, or some similar fantastical bullshit.
“I guess,” he said.
“Give me a second,” Charleton said. After three minutes, she told him, “The meeting is scheduled for tomorrow. You’ll go up to the Station. Don’t be late.”
She hung up, leaving Delagarza alone with the buzz of his air machines, wondering just what the hell his nightmare had been about.
“The nanobots are harmless unless triggered by a particular hormonal presence and certain electrical reactions in your brain,” Doctor Angelique Kircher explained to Delagarza while the mercury-like liquid left her automatic injector and entered his bloodstream.
“This mix,” she went on, “is only active while the subject is lying. The bots will die on their own when their batteries run out. This batch lasts eleven minutes after I activate it. Just answer the questions truthfully during that time, and you’ll be good to go.”
“And if I don’t?” Delagarza asked, mouth dry. He hated last-night-Delagarza with all his might. That guy was an asshole, leading present him to this mess.
“In that case, you’ll save yourself the medical bills of the lung cancer treatment you’ll need if you keep smoking. That shit will kill you, you know.”
“Thanks, doc. I hear that a lot.”
The auto-injector emptied its vial, and the tiny pneumatic hiss stopped.
“How are you feeling?” asked Doctor Kircher.
Delagarza was feeling like pushing away the good doctor, tearing off his disposable medical robe, and running into Outlander’s public section.
“Just regular,” he told her.
“Beg your pardon?” the doctor said. Her accent wasn’t from here. A foreigner, then, who had never left the starport since arriving in-system. Blond hair, almost white, pale face of Franco-German descent. About forty, at least five years older than him. She probably came from one of those rich colony ships, far from any Backwater World.
Her hands were cold.
“Great, doc, I’m doing great. Can’t wait to start work.”
“Save work for the grunts, this is pleasure,” she flashed him a flirtatious wink. A less experienced man would’ve been fooled, but Delagarza knew she was only being polite—her smile didn’t reach her eyes. Probably to help him relax.
Truth was, relaxing would be a good idea.
Wouldn’t want to have the bots blow their load because I got jumpy.
Doctor Kircher waved a plaque over Delagarza’s body. Two cables connected the plaque to her work computer, a tiny Masamune embedded on her desk. Powerful as a motherfucker, the Masamune was the living proof that technology marched on, since it had a kick like a dozen Shota-M or five Motoko.
“Got your signal,” said the doctor. “Ready for the test, Sam?”
“Anytime,” said Delagarza, who didn’t subscribe to the gangers’ school of thought about overcompensation. He’d be damned the day he didn’t pretend to be brave in front of a pretty woman, even Ice Queen Kircher.
“Understood,” she said. Her wands waved at the desk, and she connected her wristband to her computer. A few fast as lightning keystrokes on a holographic keyboard later, and it was showtime.
“Remember, don’t lie,” Doctor Kircher said. “If there’s a question you don’t want to answer, just keep quiet. It may void you from working for us though.”
Delagarza nodded at her. Inside, he could feel his blood warming.
Nanobots worked on electricity, and like everything else in the universe, subjected themselves to the laws of thermodynamics. Nanobots emitted heat, albeit in very small quantities.
The doctor had insisted Delagarza couldn’t feel the difference in temperature, so his fever-like symptoms must be the nocebo effect.
Or maybe something went wrong. Perhaps this batch of bots is defective.
Kircher left him and went to sit by her desk. Without prompt, a man walked into the infirmary.
“Samuel Delagarza?” the giant asked. Without waiting for an answer, the man went on. “Major Nicholas Strauze, of the Systems Alliance Peace Enforcers. A pleasure to meet you.”
Major Strauze passed six foot eleven inches easyly. Probably passed two hundred pounds too, most of that weight being muscle. He extended Delagarza a hand that could snap a man’s neck by brushing against it.
Like Doctor Kircher, Nicholas Strauze’s smile didn’t reach his eyes.
“Likewise, Major,” Delagarza said.
“It seems we’ll work together. If you pass the test, that is.”
“Can’t wait,” said Delagarza. It was either the fever or Outlander’s spin, but dizziness itched inside his skull.
Major Strauze nodded. He sat in front of Delagarza, who hadn’t left the examination bed he was sitting on. The chair was lower than the bed, but due to the height difference, the two men faced each other equally.
The result made Delagarza think of an adult lowering himself to a child’s level.
He decided he didn’t like this Strauze fellow. A ganger would’ve called him a “prim and proper gentleman.” Cooke would’ve called him Major Douchebag, which amounted to the same thing, really.
“Remember, don’t lie,” Doctor Kircher said. “I’ll be monitoring your biometrics from here, but there’s nothing I can do if you speak without thinking.”
“Believe me, doc, it’s crystal clear that lying is a bad idea.”
Strauze chuckled and said, “If I had a nickel for every time a decent-looking citizen said so, and then got his brain cooked because he swore he wasn’t cheating on his wife…well, I’d have a couple nickels.”
It was a joke told by someone who didn’t understand the concept of humor. Or perhaps Strauze enjoyed seeing the fear in the eyes of his underlings.
Delagarza didn’t laugh. Instead, he waited for the loyalty test.
“Remember, you have nothing to fear if you’ve nothing to hide, citizen,” Strauze said. It was an old earther proverb.
“Are you cheating on your wife, Delagarza?” Strauze asked.
Delagarza blinked. Maybe the Major did understand humor. “I don’t have a wife.”
“Good answer. This is merely a warm-up,” he explained, “so you relax a bit. Have you cheated on anyone?”
“Romantically, or in general?”
“Yes,” said Strauze.
“Yes,” said Delagarza, not one second later.
Both men straightened their backs, like two bulls circling each other, horns raised, as they both realized neither was willing to play nice.
Strauze’s next questions came like spewed from a machine gun, one after the other.
“Any vices? You’ a whoring man?”
“Smoking. Tried a couple lollipops a while back. Not my thing.”
“You love your momma?”
“To be honest, I don’t think about my mother a lot.”
“Why?”
Delagarza shrugged. “Dunno,” he said. He wondered what Strauze was playing at. The loyalty test was supposed to weed out terrorists and the EIF, not talk about the subject’s personal life.
“You know what Newgen is?” asked Strauze.
“A corp?” asked Delagarza, shrugging again.
“Anything else?”
“Don’t think so. They sound like a bank.”
“They’re not a bank.”
Delagarza shrugged.
“What’s the last time you got laid?”
“How’s that relevant to the loyalty test?”
“Your heart rate spiked a bit,” Doctor Kircher warned Delagarza.
Strauze raked his fingers on his knee, the vivid image of a bartender making chitchat during slow hour. “Just curious. Indulge me,” he said.
Delagarza passed a hand over his recently shaved chin. “A month and a half.”
“With whom?”
“Sailor on leave. It was a one night deal.”
“What’s their gender?”
“None of your business.”
That remark made Kircher look away from her screen. “Relax, Sam. You’re on edge.”
Strauze smirked, like she had said a pun.
“Done anything you regret, lately?” he asked.
“Yes,” Delagarza said.
“What?”
“This conversation.”
“Why; anything to hide?”
“Lots. No one warned me we’d talk about my personal life.”
Delagarza didn’t know what about Strauze made him so jumpy. Was it the major’s overwhelming size difference? Maybe it was a macho thing, like Charleton had said last night.
Whatever it was, Strauze’s shark-like smirk gave Delagarza the urge to resist the interrogation as hard as he could. He wanted to give the Enforcer nothing because it felt like the Enforcer enjoyed taking from him.
You’re playing with your life because you don’t like the cut of his jib, a sensible part of him warned.
“A private man,” said Strauze, “very well. Have you done anything illegal? Ever committed a crime?”
Doctor Kircher butted in. “Careful, Sam, the memory of shoplifting at three years old may trigger the bots.”
“If I ever committed a crime, it was so minor I don’t remember it,” said Delagarza.
Strauze paused for breath. Delagarza realized Doctor Kircher had been following the exchange between them like it was a sport match. Perhaps betting when he’d slip up and get his brain fried.
“What do you think of me?” asked Strauze, casual-like, just a man talking about the weather.
“You seem like a prim and proper gentleman,” said Delagarza.
Kircher and Strauze seemed confused, but the major didn’t prod any further.
“You’re quite good at this,” said Strauze. “Have you practiced beforehand?”
“No, not really.”
“Are you an agent, Delagarza?”
“Beg your pardon?”
“Are you an agent?” repeated Strauze, shoving his face a centimeter into Delagarza’s personal space. There was no change in the man’s face, but Delagarza’s instincts screamed at him that there was danger in the question.
“As in, a travel agent? No, I’m not. Are you sure you’re interviewing the right guy?”
Strauze’s eyelids narrowed. “Don’t play smart with me. I’m talking agents. Monk-like gland control, to the point idiots think its magic. Expert killers trained in most combat scenarios. Spies, assassins, infiltrators. Enemies of the Systems Alliance and its citizens, used and trained by rogue corporations when they want to break the law, but don’t want anyone to know. Agents, Delagarza, agents.”
“Are you making fun of me?” asked Delagarza. Irritation rose in his veins, followed by the impulse to just get up and walk out. Instead, he recalled he was supposed to remain calm (despite Strauze’s best efforts), so he took a deep breath, and said, “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a ‘ware cracker, not a space ninja, or whatever.”
The major relaxed his shoulders and reclined away from Delagarza, who took a deep breath of clean recycled air, not marred by the enforcer’s exhalations.
“Good to know. What do you think of the Edge Independence Front, Delagarza?”
Here we go. The wrong answer would get Delagarza jailed or executed. He followed Kircher advice and took a second to compose himself.
At least the real loyalty test had begun. It made him relax, too, because he could guess what to expect. He was at risk, but it beat talking about his sex life.
“Misguided idealists,” he said, “some of them well-meaning. The others, the ones who go around raiding convoys and cycling contractors out of airlocks…those are pirates, clean and simple.”
“One could say the idealists are just as guilty as the pirates,” Strauze pointed out, “because they allow the raiding to continue.”
Delagarza shrugged, “Maybe. Whatever. As long as they stay in their lane and don’t spill over into mine.”
The Backwater Worlds had a massive loyalist population, true, but Outlander and Dione weren’t technically in the Backwater Worlds. They were a hub of unsanctioned trade, surviving on private trade for their sustenance. Most people were too busy here trying not to freeze to death to care about who got to rule over the Edge.
Jagal, Earth, a Backwater corporation. It all amounted to the same if you lived far enough from all of them.
“What about the Alliance?” Strauze went on.
“Not much to say,” said Delagarza, “I don’t think about the SA a lot. The Edge doesn’t seem to be burning, so I guess they’re doing something right.”
“I see. What about Tal-Kader Conglomerate? There’s this conspiracy theory that they murdered Isaac Reiner and his family. You buy into it?”
Delagarza laughed, then coughed. Doctor Kircher reminded him to stop smoking in a whisper, but he ignored her. Strauze waited for his answer.
“Sorry, but if you’re going to arrest me for answering that, good luck with finding a replacement to crack your ‘ware. Everyone in the Edge knows Tal-Kader killed the Reiners. There’s not a pirate corporation with the firepower to assault the SA flagship in deep space and actually win. There isn’t one today, and there wasn’t one fifty years ago. Only Tal-Kader and its cronies can bring down a battleship, because they have battleships of their own.”
No going back after that. Was that what Strauze had wanted? Seemed like a waste of time, to go to all this effort just to nail a planet-side ‘ware cracker. The enforcer could’ve gone to any contractor in Outlander and gotten the same answer.
Instead of pulling out the handcuffs right then and there, Strauze said:
“Believing old-wives tales about Tal-Kader isn’t a crime, contrary to what most people think. Tal-Kader isn’t the Systems Alliance, after all. They only hold the contract for its administration. There’s still an elected government, and an elected president. Isaac Reiner’s accidental death hasn’t stopped that.”
It took an active effort of will for Delagarza to not roll his eyes at the enforcer. Sure, technically Tal-Kader wasn’t in full control of the SA and its policies. They just sponsored (another word for “owned”) half the Defense Fleet, trained and indoctrinated the Enforcers in their deep space facilities, dictated the oryza trade, owned the propaganda arm of the SA, and personally oversaw the negotiations with Earth for the Edge’s reincorporation into its domain.
Oh, and ruled Asherah System, the Edge’s capital, with an iron fist. What was the official party line? There’s no secret police in Jagal. Metro City’s Internal Affairs is just dangerous propaganda fostered by terrorist cells.
Instead of voicing his opinion, Delagarza kept quiet, so he wouldn’t be forced to lie during the test. It probably didn’t matter since Major Strauze wouldn’t hire anyone who didn’t approve of Tal-Kader and said so in the open.
Strauze and Kircher exchanged one look filled with meaning. Kircher shrugged. Strauze nodded, like accepting the doctor’s argument, and turned his gaze to Delagarza. The enforcer’s expression lacked any hint of animosity. Same old emptiness behind his eyes.
“Just on
e last question. Did you plan for us to hire you beforehand?” asked Strauze.
“What kind of question is that?” asked Delagarza, “I didn’t know you existed until you offered me a job.”
Which I’m kinda wondering if I should accept, even if the offer was still on by some miracle. These people are dangerous. Worse than dangerous…irrational.
But his answer seemed to satisfy both Strauze and Kircher. Strauze stood up. “That will be all,” he said.
Delagarza raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. It was clear his position against Tal-Kader disqualified him for working for the Conglomerate (which was an implied extension of working for the SA enforcers), but he hadn’t expected the loyalty test to be so short. Hell, Strauze’s gossip-like questions outnumbered the only two or three actual loyalty-related ones at the end.
Had he missed something?
His clothes waited for him on a hanger at a corner of the infirmary. Delagarza reached for them, dreading already the time it would take to get inside the reg-suit again. He extended the foldable privacy curtain embedded to the wall and slipped into his undergarments after tearing away the disposable robe. While he did so, Strauze left the infirmary without looking back at Kircher or Delagarza.
The doctor keyed a couple quick commands on her holographic keyboard, closed it, and told Delagarza:
“The bots are deactivated, Sam. You’re free to go. Your kidneys will filter them out of your body next time you take a piss.”
“Thanks, doc,” Delagarza said. His body felt the exact same way as before, the slight fever pulsating behind his eyes. The nocebo effect screwing him over, no doubt.
After he finished with the reg-suit and its systems reported to his wristbands that body-reg worked nominal, Delagarza stepped out of the privacy curtain and walked to the door.
“Well, see you around,” he told Kircher, as he headed for the exit. In another life, he may have tried to ask the woman out, but after the interrogation, Delagarza would’ve been happy if he never saw her, or Strauze, again.
It’s for the better, he told himself. Nothing good comes from meddling with the enforcers.
“Don’t go too far,” Kircher said. “You’ve seen how Strauze can get. Better wait for him to come back, so he doesn’t have to commission Outlander’s security to find you.”