by Rhett Bruno
I pulled out my stool and sat beside my nine-year-old daughter. Aria glanced up at me with her big, beautiful green eyes, freckled cheeks stuffed with ground insect and fake bread.
“Sorry I took so long, Aria.” I patted my stomach. “I must’ve eaten something rotten last night.”
Her mouth was too full to say anything, which made her giggle. I joined her.
“Want me to heat that up?” the bartender asked. He leveled a scowl my way. The kind of look that said, ‘you really left a ten-year-old alone in this place?’ I wanted to wipe it right off his face, but he was probably right. The skinny offworlder seated next to her had tattoos emblazoned over his bald head, and eyes as red as the planet we were on. He leaned in too close to her. My glare sent him and his buddies over to a far table. They knew what I was.
“I’m fine,” I grumbled to the bartender. “Just a whiskey. Neat.”
“Coming right up.” He turned to Aria. “Anything for you, sweetheart?”
She shook her head so fast bits of fried carapace spewed onto the counter.
“Yeah,” I said for her. “She’ll have one too.” He looked appalled. “I’m kidding.”
He grumbled under his breath and I shot my daughter an impish grin. She stuck her tongue out. If I had a credit every time she asked for a sip of what I was drinking I could retire, but I wasn’t that bad of a father.
Captain Harris’s hand-terminal suddenly vibrated in my pocket. I pulled it out just enough to see the screen. WE WILL MEET WITH YOUR PERVENIO COLLECTOR. SEND HIM ALONE, AND IF HE AGREES TO WORK WITH US WE WILL CONSIDER RAISING YOUR FEE. COORDINATES INCOMING.
Trap or not, Jimmy Fring wouldn’t stay missing for long.
Chapter Two
My sleep pod cracked open. Needles popped out of my veins, and the thick, gelatinous goop I was submerged in receded from my body. I hated being put under. No dreaming, no mental activity; like a jump through time—only with all the effects of aging.
Eye’s still heavy, I drew myself out of the pod and drifted across the hold. At least the zero-G made it tolerable for my atrophied muscles. It was the only way to travel between planets without going mad from boredom. There was nothing to do on the small, personal transport rented to me from Pervenio Corp but watch the stars drift slowly by. And they did move slowly. Even darting through space at thousands of kilometers-per-hour, we were a speck in the vastness of the universe.
I pulled myself into the cockpit. Auto-navigation showed we were on course, approaching a ring-shaped station that rotated around a small asteroid. I was glad to see something. When I’d contacted my Director about needing a ship, he searched the coordinates provided to me through Captain Harris’s hand-terminal. Nothing. No record of a station or anything other than a main-belt asteroid so insignificant it didn’t even have a name.
These people really weren’t kidding about their privacy. Building a station without anybody noticing took stealth tech I wasn’t sure even existed, or a fat check handed out to the right people.
I used ceiling bars to pull my weightless body back to the hold and signaled Aria’s sleep pod to open. Then I rummaged through storage for a few ration bars to help us refuel. During the time spent in the pods, we’d had tubes attached to our bodies nourishing us only enough to stay alive, so my stomach now had a hole in it the size of the crater on Earth. I decided to take two.
“Are we there yet?” Aria’s small voice croaked behind me. She flipped her way out of the pod, red hair flooding her face.
“Close,” I replied. I tossed her one of the bars and she pushed off the wall to snatch it out of the air. I don’t know where she got her love of space from. Give me gravity and a hard surface any day, but the moment she got up to the stars she spent every second twirling about like she was a wire dancer.
“I still don’t get why we had to leave,” she said. “I like New Beijing.”
“New Beijing, really? There’s plenty of better places out there.”
“Yeah, but…at least you let me come out of the ship with you there.” Her lower lip began to tremble. For a moment, my heart felt heavy, and then the glimmer of a smile touched her eyes. She just couldn’t help herself.
“I don’t only let you out there.” I took a bite out of my grainy ration bar. Awful texture, great taste. Macaroni and cheese flavored, for us regular folk who couldn’t afford a delicacy like real cheese. “Remember M-day?” I asked with my mouth full. “Ceres? How many other fathers show their daughter the solar system before they’re ten?”
“Dad,” she scolded. “I am ten.”
Shit, when did that happen? I thought. Pervenio’s rapid expansion from their headquarters outside Saturn left me so busy it was hard to keep track of my own birthdays, let alone her’s too.
“I know that,” I boasted. “And how much did you see before then? Pretty much every moon or planet that doesn’t orbit Saturn.” Pervenio’s main headquarters was nestled into a small moon there, so any time work took me to the Ringed Planet Aria had to stay behind on the ship so nobody important would spot her. Sometimes for days.
“But I get sooo bored.”
I wagged my finger. “Don’t try to guilt me again, Aria.”
She put on a pouty face. “Please?”
“It isn’t going to work this time.”
“It does sometimes.” A giggle snuck through her lips.
“Not this time. I’ve got business, and I’m not sure if it’s the kind I want you around for.”
“But I can help,” she said, still spinning.
I smiled and grabbed her by the arms to stop her in midair. “I’m sure you could. And if we keep practicing your shooting, Pervenio will want you on my jobs with me. But for now, what do you have to do?”
“Stay hidden,” she moaned.
“Good girl.” I leaned over toward the cargo bay and poked a floor plate in the right spot. A hidden switch popped open, revealing a smuggling compartment. It wasn’t large, but for a girl Aria’s size it was fairly comfortable, with some track lighting so she wouldn’t be in total darkness. Even Pervenio had to move some things below the table. The USF Assembly back on Earth got preachy when it came to some offworld supplements and other less savory goods.
I’d never rent a ship without a hidden cargo hold, because, while I was merely trying to keep Aria safe, Pervenio Corp also had no idea she existed. They couldn’t find out. Not until she was old enough to handle herself. My Director wouldn’t take too kindly to one of his top Collectors siring illegitimate offspring outside of a registered clan-family and hauling her around on classified assignments.
“I shouldn’t be long,” I said, “but make sure you take some ration bars.”
She crossed her arms, then stuffed as many as she could into the loop of her jumpsuit, more as an act of rebellion than necessity.
“And remember, what do you do if someone finds you here?” I asked.
“Say I’m a stowaway.”
“Right. Then I’ll come get you wherever they take you. Here.” I rummaged through a storage cabinet and removed her hand-terminal to give to her. It wasn’t actively connected to Solnet or anything, but there were some shows and books uploaded to keep her mind active. You had to be registered to connect, and she wasn’t. Giving her a black-market, backdoor connection was too risky until she was old enough to program them herself.
“All right, I’ve got to pilot us in,” I said. “There’s water down there. Do you need anything else?”
“No…” Aria shook her head somberly and pulled her tiny body until it was horizontal over the opening. I never enjoyed putting her in the hold. Felt like I was caging an animal—but it was for her own good. There was nowhere else for her to go. Her streetwalking mother from a Martian sewer passed away before she could walk—overdose—and I wasn’t about to submit her into some random clan-family. It might’ve wound up being up like the one I grew up in and was happy to run away from. A bunch of no-name factory-workers going nowhere fast.
T
hat wasn’t going to happen to her. Not my daughter.
“I’ll be back before you know it,” I said as she climbed in.
“You always say that,” she replied.
“And I always come back, don’t I.”
She hesitated, then nodded.
I patted her hair. “Good girl,” I said instantly feeling more like a terrible father treating his daughter like a common dog. I opened my eyes ridiculously wide and held a finger over my mouth. She released a chuckle, probably just for my sake, and then the hatch closed her in.
“Unidentified vessel, you are entering private solar-space,” a voice announced through the ship’s coms on my way back to the cockpit. “Please state your clearance code or we will be forced to deny access.”
I raced to the command station, strapped myself in and flipped on my end of the coms. “Puppeteer,” I said hesitantly. That was the code provide to Captain Harris’s hand-terminal for me. It seemed ridiculous, but the moment the last syllable escaped my mouth, the ring-station’s main hangar opened wide.
“Codes accepted. Welcome to Mannekin-Tek.”
Mannekin-Tek. Now the mannequin image on Captain Harris’ holocard made sense. I was surprised the geniuses back on Pervenio Station couldn’t put two and two together but…I was used to having to handle everything on my own.
I took over the ship controls and piloted us into the ribbed hangar. The polished struts supporting the ceiling appeared to have been cleaned obsessively. There were no fuel stains on the floor; not even a piece of stray garbage. The ship landed gently and I cooled the engines. Then I checked my pulse-pistol to make sure she was fully loaded and ready to go. She always was.
A light sense of gravity instilled by the station’s constant spin drew my feet to the ground. I was thankful for it, though the accompanying soreness in my muscles from having spent weeks in stasis was a new and unwelcome guest. Age was finally starting to catch up to me; all the scrums and inter-solar trips. I stretched out my knees until they cracked, then stood.
On my way to the exit ramp, I tapped a quick little jingle on the roof of Aria’s secret compartment. She knocked back with the same tune. A grin remained plastered on my face all the way outside. A few engineers raced to secure the vessel and ensure the engine wasn’t leaking. They didn’t greet me. In fact, they didn’t look anything like the dockhands I was used to seeing. No leathered hands or thick beards, just young and good looking men and women.
Everything inside of the entry lobby was top-of-the-line. The air was fresh and smelled faintly of lilac. The metallic walls, ceilings, and floors shone with the luster of countless hours of scrubbing. There was even a wooden trim running along the walls. Not the faux shit you see on most of the colonies throughout Sol, either. The real thing. I had no idea how an unregistered company could afford any of it. But despite all that, there was something cold about the space. Static.
“Welcome to Mannekin-Tek,” a pretty, young receptionist said to me from behind a polished desk. It was always nice to see something beautiful following a long voyage across the solar system. After all, so much of it is cold and lifeless.
I leaned on her desk, mostly so she would notice the pulse-pistol under my faded, brown trench-coat, but also because the short walk had my aging legs feeling like jelly.
“Hello, beautiful,” I said.
“ID please,” she requested. She didn’t bother to look up from her computer.
There was a time when women would swoon when a Collector like me walked into the room. I was starting to realize that only worked before the stubble on my chin turned gray. I stifled a grimace as I reached into my pocket for my ID Card.
“Here you go.”
She yanked it out of my grasp before I was ready. Her grip was unexpectedly strong for her size. She ran it through a scanner and only then did she finally glance up at me. She didn’t seem impressed. Her gaze was aimed straight at my face, but it felt like she was looking right through me.
“Thank you, Mr. Graves,” she said. “You are early.” She slid my ID back to me.
“Didn’t want to waste…” My words trailed off when I realized she’d turned her attention back to her computer and was clearly not expecting a response. I picked up my ID card and shoved it back into my pocket. This mission was already starting out poorly.
“I see you’ve met Rebecca!” a confident, baritone voice said.
I turned to see a man in a white coat strolling into the lobby. A smug grin was plastered to his face, which had the soft features of a younger man even though his sideburns were as gray as mine. The benefits of being one of the richest men in Sol, I presumed. Sewn to his chest was the same, all-too-fitting mannequin logo from Captain Harris’s hand-terminal.
He stuck out his hand. “Doctor Lucas Mannekin, at your service.”
“Malcolm Graves,” I replied, shaking his hand. It was as soft as an infant’s.
“It’s a pleasure, Mr. Graves. Pervenio Collector for twenty some-odd years? Most don’t last nearly that long.”
“A Pervenio Collector who doesn’t get paid nearly as much as he should,” I corrected.
“Hopefully, we here at Mannekin-Tek can help with that.” His smile grew, teeth white as marble. His breath smelled like a dentist’s office following a thorough cleaning.
“So long as you lot can keep your mouth shut about me being here, I don’t see why not.”
“A careful man. I appreciate that.”
“Only with who I deal with. Captain Harris raved about you. Maybe too much.”
“Yes well, he is a concern for another time. We take discretion very seriously here.”
“I’ve realized. All my resources and I couldn’t find a single thing about your little operation.”
“While on the other hand, I could find plenty about you, Mr. Graves. For a Private Collector, you seem drawn to the spotlight.”
I scowled. “I don’t choose my jobs.”
“Please, don’t take that as an insult. We could use a man of your reputation working with us. I think you’ll find that my product is unlike any other. We’re at the cutting edge in human-simulation robotics. So, you understand why we have to keep our research under the table. Sol isn’t ready yet for synthetic beings that can walk amongst us, but, we aim to change that.”
“One step at a time, Doc,” I said.
“Yes, of course.” Lucas laughed. That kind of false cackle that only men of extraordinary means can expel without feeling ridiculous. Whoever he was in Sol before he started this clandestine operation, he was definitely not short on credits. “Sorry, I have a tendency to look to the future.”
“And I live in the present, so let’s see it. I’ve got a worker’s strike to put down on Pallus Minor. Pervenio will be on my ass if I take too long.”
“Well, I wouldn’t want that.” He started walking toward a sealed, metal door with a sign above that read, TRAINING AREA. EMPLOYEES ONLY. He stopped. “I respect your frankness, Mr. Graves. Now if I’m being so as well, we weren’t expecting you so soon. If you would allow me some time, I can have the facility cleaned up and set up a proper tour.” He gestured to another door further across the access hangar, this one warm and inviting and made of wood. “You must be exhausted from your journey. We have rooms available—”
“I’m not here to check off points for cleanliness. You want me to help you do whatever it is you do, impress me without trying to and you’ll be well on your way. Harris said you need subjects, I have clearance to get you them from all over Sol.”
“Mr. Graves, if you aren’t impressed I’ll shut down production tomorrow!” he exclaimed. “You have my word.”
“Not your smartest gamble,” I muttered. “Let’s see the product then.”
“You already have,” he said.
I turned to him. Lucas’s grin had returned, only now it oozed even more confidence—if that’s even possible. His gaze was fixed on Rebecca, the receptionist. With my information already processed, the stunning young w
oman now sat at her desk completely still, staring blankly at her computer screen. Even her pupils weren’t shifting, which meant she wasn’t reading anything.
“She’s a—”
“Yes,” Lucas finished for me. “Rebecca was the first to be assembled at this facility.”
The news simultaneously made me feel better and worse. It meant that I hadn’t lost my touch with women, she just wasn’t human. But it also meant that I was wildly attracted to an imitation of life. After the meteorite nearly destroyed Earth, the survivors focused on expansion more than anything. Robotics and other fields like it fell to the wayside. There wasn’t anything close to a humanoid robot on the market —especially not one that could walk and talk…at least, that’s what I thought.
Lucas placed his hand on my shoulder. I fought the urge to brush him off. I had to play my part until I found Jimmy. “Beautiful, isn’t she?” he asked.
“To look at maybe. Sorry doc, but I’m not buying this. Where’s the projector.”
“See for yourself. Rebecca, come here please.”
She sauntered over, her hips swaying the same as any real woman’s ever had. When Rebecca reached us, she stood with perfect posture and said: “Yes, Mr. Mannekin?”
“Rebecca, please smile at Mr. Graves here,” Lucas ordered.
She turned only her head toward me and the corner of her ruby-colored lips lifted. Her mouth, cheeks, and nose all creased so naturally and beautifully that I’d have easily been convinced she was real…but her eyes. They regarded me this time. There was something off. Like how someone looks when they purposefully allow their vision to unfocus. Like something was missing.
“There was trouble teaching the earlier models to smile of their own volition, but Rebecca holds a special place in my heart,” he said, voice buoyed by the familiar pride of a father boasting about his daughter. “We use human subjects like the ones Harris sent over for rigorous studying in order to try and mimic human behavior as closely as possible.”