“How much more do you think we can dial down the baseline template?” she asked the team inside the room. “If he keeps trying to walk on his old legs, we will never get him synchronized above ninety percent. It’s probably affecting other systems, as well.” She swiped to his arm diagnostics and ran the weapons telemetry to make sure. “Yup, he’s still shooting like a cowboy, too. This is just not good enough, Wally.”
“Turn it down more? You want a zombie, Lania? Because that’s how you get a zombie.” Wally was not a man long on social niceties. “We run this thing much lower and he’ll start to lose cognition and command priority over the other templates. Then we’re eroding all the skills that made him a good candidate in the first place. Be realistic, Lania. He’s got the original template and three other supplementals rattling around upstairs. Eighty-nine is fantastic under the circumstances. You know damn well that the more we let the main template run the chassis, the better he is at doing what he’s good at.”
“But his combat skills are well ahead of spec. I wonder what percentage of those we can lose before field metrics start to suffer. I’d really like to see him get the most out of those arms and legs, Wally. We designed this thing to run hot, and right now I’m not feeling a whole lot of that heat.”
This was her Galatea. The unit had started as a human male and still resembled one for the most part. His arms and legs had been replaced with the latest military prosthetics and his bones laced with reinforcing polymers not even available on the military markets yet. His spine was currently encased in an armored sheath and his skull wore armored plates beneath the skin. His mirrored black eye lenses were more sophisticated than a spy drone scanner.
He was strong yet light, fast and agile, modular and specialized, all in one convenient package. Every part of this thing she had made was tomorrow’s technology, state-of-the-art and bleeding-edge. In a marketplace awash with cyborgs, this was the absolute pinnacle of the craft. Falling short of perfection felt like failure when viewed in this light. Lania made a conscious effort to not grit her teeth. They were just so close.
“You’re the design lead, Lania. You make the call.”
“I’m looking for an opinion Wally. The legs and arms are your babies. Tell me what you think.”
Wallace Sinclair was the best prosthetics tech Corpus Mundi had on their bench, and Lania was not above using that to push him. The meat and potatoes of the unit were his design and she was wise enough to let him be the expert on the hardware.
“My opinion? If I had financed an illegal biotech project with the purpose of producing the next generation of super killer, I’d be more worried about how good he was at killing than anything else. These guys want the baddest badass ever, Lania. I’m not sure we should be dialing down his decision-making and tactical instincts just to fix a wonky walk.”
She frowned and swiped over to his internals to look for similar issues. “I just wonder if this might be a sign of other problems. What else might be hurting synchronization that we haven’t noticed yet?” Personal comfort notwithstanding, she could not afford to pretend there was not a human brain buried under that skull. Most of the organs inside the thoracic cavity were human as well. All of these had been regrown and augmented through extensive gene therapy, naturally. Yet they were human, and for the most part, so was he.
“You are right of course,” she said absently. “The prosthetics are fine. That eighty-nine percent number is killing me though. We should be able to get to ninety-five easily, we have more than enough bandwidth. It’s just not happening!”
Wally walked over to the window to look at his design lead. “You know damn well it’s that shitty baseline template. It had the right skill set, sure.” He twirled a finger around his temple in the universal sign for a crazy person. “But everything else about this one is way out of spec. Sure, compositing the baseline with other templates helps, but let’s be honest, Lania. No amount of rewiring was ever going to pull all the crazy out of that guy. Hell, there’s half a chance we added a bit more crazy into him.”
“You make a point,” she conceded. The team had borrowed helpful pieces of other templates to smooth out the gaps in his skillset and psychological deficiencies with some success. The unit had proven more stable with these supplemental templates installed at the very least. Yet despite the brain being refitted with an extensive set of additional electrical connections and biofeedback sensors, the baseline remained resistant to certain aspects of the prosthesis. “But we have eighty-nine percent of the crazy pulled out already, Wally. We can get the rest.”
Perhaps there was a man’s brain inside her creation, but it was her brain now. With the flick of a finger she could make the thing on that slab happy, sad, scared, hungry, or horny. She could make time pass like the plodding of a snail or race by like a streaking comet. “We are so damn close!”
“Sure, but now is not the time to get reckless,” Wally admonished. “This is where things are the most fragile, too.”
“Goddamn I’d kill for another Tankowicz or Wellington.” It was a rare show of petulance from the woman, and she regretted it instantly.
Wally did not seem to notice. “Yeah well, Fox and Johnson ruined that for everyone. No more soldiers in the talent pool. Thanks to their spectacular screw-ups, we lose out on access to a large group of hardened special operators.”
The incredible psychological strain the prosthetics and programming put on a human brain meant that neuropathy, psychopathy, and sociopathy were very real risks. These had been the bane of every similar project previously attempted. A successful organic template would need to come from an individual of remarkable self-discipline, intelligence, and emotional stability. Preferably a volunteer.
Lania shared his disappointment. “Combat really has a way of self-selecting the right kind of people doesn’t it? Dr. Ribiero’s notes referred to it as ‘survivorship bias.’ The old bastard probably thought the pun was clever.”
Wally nodded. “I’ve been putting limbs back on soldiers for a long time. The guys who get through a bunch of battles without going insane always made the best candidates. You can tell some of those freaks would march into hell just for a chance to spit in Satan’s eye.”
“Now we get criminals and psychopaths.” It was a perennial gripe with her, and a tired one. Johnson had been the one to suggest looking to the criminal class for replacement subjects. Research had shown that another way to prevent psychotic episodes in full-prosthesis cyborgs was to start with a template already predisposed toward antisocial behaviors. The more emotionally desensitized a template was, the less strain prosthesis put on the psyche.
Wally, as he always did, tried to find the silver lining in it all. “Yeah, but that gave us Dawkins, at least. And this template isn’t so bad, either.”
Lania shuddered. Dawkins had been an amazing candidate, but a terrifying man all the same. The academic in her was very tempted to try reworking the Dawkins template, but she had wanted to start with a clean slate for her version.
“I guess we need to make this one work, then.” Lania shrugged. “Let’s just try to squeeze everything out of it that we can.”
“He’s not so bad.” Wally scratched his forehead. “Not a heavy drug user, great reflexes already, right type of personality and all that.” He ticked more items off on his fingers. “Professional killer, highly regarded for his skills. He came with a solid reputation for thoroughness and zeal for the work itself, too. We are talking about a hardened bastard with preternatural focus to his objectives. It’s all good stuff.” Left unmentioned was the subject’s selfish nature and high degree of indifference toward suffering in general.
“So why can’t he walk right?”
“I’m telling you, it’s him.” Wally knocked on the side of his head. “He still thinks he’s human.”
“Let’s hope he gets over that stupid notion soon, then.” Lania killed the panel display with a swipe of her hand. “You’re right, by the way. The numbers from the last r
un were excellent, so I should probably not borrow trouble. Leave the template’s command priority where it is and let’s boot him up for the next run. Let’s see if he can do subtle as well as he can do messy.”
CHAPTER NINE
Billy McGinty looked terrible. His shaggy mop of red hair was even more askew than usual, and this was not a small thing to accomplish. His eyes were drooping and large blue bags sat puffy and swollen beneath them. Normally a conscientious dresser, his simple brown pants and white shirt looked as if he had been wearing them for two days. Roland learned his offhand observation was literal truth when he greeted the drug lord and community organizer at his Big Woo office.
Not being the sort to mince words, Roland went straight to the point. “Wow, Billy, you look like shit.”
Billy, on the other hand, belonged to that tiny portion of people in the galaxy who did not find Roland intimidating. His response was a perfect example of how little Roland’s brusque demeanor put him off. “I’ve been awake for forty hours, you big asshole. I’m supposed to look like shit. What’s your excuse?”
“Hard living?”
“That a joke?” Even Billy got confused when Roland tried his hand at humor.
“Was it funny?”
“Not really.”
Roland shrugged. “Not a joke, then.” With the pleasantries put of the way, Roland went right to the heart of the matter. “I assume you’ve heard about The Madame?”
“No, Roland. I’ve been awake for two days straight because of some other fucking catastrophe. Every working girl and boy out there is scrambling and panicked. Why? Because any second now a bunch of pimps are gonna pop out of manholes and start beating them with rubber hoses like the old days. Who do you think they run to when that happens?”
Roland understood perfectly. “The president of the Big Woo Trade Association, of course.”
“Damn right,” Billy groused. “Is Rodney having the same problem?”
“Yeah, he’s about as happy as you are about this.”
“Good. Serves him right. He paying you already?”
Roland nodded. “Cops have us on as consultants, too.”
Red eyebrows rose as Billy’s eyes widened. “Really? Dockside PD is trying to actually solve something for once?”
“They have a new detective on the Dockside beat. A good kid. Local boy who wants to make a change and all that. His LT is in hock to Rodney up past his balls, so he’s gotta play nice with us.”
“Will wonders never cease?” Billy sank back in his chair with a weary sigh. “Well I certainly ain’t gonna pay you, then.”
“Lucia will be heartbroken,” Roland deadpanned. “But I’m not here looking for a gig. I need leads, Billy.”
“Rodney didn’t have any leads for you?” Billy never missed a chance to point out how unreliable his Dockside counterpart could be. Roland did not begrudge him this. He agreed with Billy’s assessment. The Dwarf was unreliable. He was also unhelpful and unpleasant and several other adjectives that started with ‘un.’
“Hell, Billy. Rodney was one of my first suspects. He and Madeleine did not have a good relationship. I wouldn’t trust any lead he gave me. It would be just like him to use this to get me to lean on one of his competitors.”
“Hell of a community leader you Docksiders picked.” Billy seemed to compress even further, as if some magical property of his chair could protect him from the current debacle.
“It was your idea, McGinty, remember?”
Billy winced without lifting his head or opening his eyes. “Don’t remind me. Ugh.”
“Leads?” Roland nudged.
“Right. God. Everyone who ever bought a whore? Half the New Boston Legislative Authority? Every corporate big-wig with a thing for leather-clad rent boys and hard drugs?” Billy waved a dismissive hand in the air, eyes still closed. “Help me narrow it down, at least!”
Roland shook his head. “Wrong angle, Billy. The hit was a massacre. It was loud and it was messy. Someone is sending a message. Who do you know who might have something to say to either the trade associations or to the prostitution rackets?”
The eyes finally opened, and McGinty at last sat up straight. “A message? That’s different. I figured this was going to be about all the dirt she had on everybody.”
Roland shifted, leaning in to make his point. “I doubt it. Her place wasn’t robbed. There was no attempt to break into her records either.”
“Well, that is interesting.” Billy was suddenly alert again. “That does narrow down the potential culprits a bit. I’d take a good hard look at The Widow, obviously. She’s been in hiding since The Combine got whacked, but she still has money and she still has hitters. This could be a turf thing. She might be making a statement about a big comeback. Definitely her style.”
“Damn,” Roland grumbled. “That would be bad timing for us.”
Billy had more ideas. “We got all The Madame’s lieutenants and managers who might be getting uppity.”
Roland dismissed this one. “Doubtful. She could always spot that sort of thing from miles away.”
“All right, it might not have anything to do with her at all. This could be a shot at anyone she associated with, or even an old vendetta. Lord, but she had a crap-ton of people who didn’t like her.” He looked up. “Come to think of it, I know a guy who had a lot to say about her and her operation. Took some old beef with her real personal.”
“You think it’s this guy?”
Billy shrugged. “Can’t say. He’s never shown the type of initiative that would lend itself to a big public hit, but he’s an asshole with a grudge and money to burn.”
“That’s exactly what we are looking for, Billy. Whoever did this was pissed.”
“Let’s go see the guy then,” said Billy, standing up.
“Right now?” Surprise colored Roland’s words. “He’s close?”
“I’ll ping for a car,” said Billy. “I assume you still fly as cargo?”
Roland paused before replying with a dejected frown. “Yeah. Better get something cargo rated. You’re paying the fuel surcharge, though.”
Billy laughed. “I forget how sensitive you are about your weight.” He fiddled with his comm to signal a car. “Let’s get to the roof. It’s a pretty quick ride.”
As they made their way to the rooftop landing pad, Roland inquired about their lead. “What’s the deal with this guy?”
Billy paused, a struggle for the right words twisting his face. “Weeeeeellll...” he began. “He’s a bit of a strange one. He made beaucoup money on patents that shall we say, came into conflict with Madeleine’s business model.”
Roland pondered what sort of patents might run one afoul of the infamous Madame. This had him a loss for a long moment, then a small idea as to what Billy might be referring to crept into his head. “Does this guy make sex ‘bots?”
“Bingo,” Billy sang out. “He had a whole bunch of crazy sex machines he had designed. Weird shit for folks with, shall we say, exotic tastes? He was a good engineer, but a lousy businessman. When money got bad for him, Madeleine ended up buying the lion’s share of his patents for a song. She may have allowed him to believe that he would be able to buy them back after his fortunes recovered, but ah...”
“Oh, the poor dumb bastard,” Roland said.
“Yeah. She totally re-branded them under her own umbrella. When she opened up her android-themed pleasure parlors and made a whole pile of creds?” Billy looked up as an aerocar approached. “Well, let’s just say he felt like he may have been taken advantage of. Here’s our ride, by the way.”
Roland stomped into the cargo section, and Billy followed him after telling the driver their destination. Once inside, Billy continued the briefing. “Yeah, so this guy has a few creds to rub together, and he’s been on a tear to get his patents back ever since. He’s tried suing but come on. Sue The Madame? Half the judges and lawyers in New Boston were on one of her client lists. I heard he tried hiring a corporate raider to stea
l the patents back, or erase them at least. That didn’t go well, either.”
“Sounds like a guy getting desperate,” Roland opined.
“Right?” Billy agreed, but he did not sound entirely convinced. “I wouldn’t normally peg him for murder, though.” Then he frowned, tired face warped by indecision. “But he’s positively batshit insane, so it’s hard to say, really.”
In a few moments, the aerocar set down at their destination and Roland lumbered out while Billy paid the fare.
“He lives here?” To call Roland’s tone ‘incredulous’ would do the word a disservice. They were at the very edge of Big Woo’s southern border. The buildings here were in marginally better condition than those further inside the zone, but this did not mean they were clean or even modern. Hundreds of wind turbines rose into the sky off to the south, and their atonal rhythmic humming was the only sound heard on the otherwise empty street.
“Here’s the spot,” Billy announced with a smile. He pointed to an oppressive gray slab of a building whose width ran nearly the length of the block. It rose more than ten stories high, with a facade both bland and featureless. Rows of windows, all dialed opaque, sat arrayed like soldiers in neat columns all the way to the top. “He owns the whole block, actually. But he works in this one.”
“Christ,” Roland grumbled. “Might as well go in.”
At the main door, Billy punched up the intercom. A voice, sounding both tired and bored simultaneously, answered the chime. “What?”
“Hey Schultz, it’s McGinty. Got someone here who wants to talk to you.”
Roland and Billy waited in tense silence for a response. It could be presumed the disembodied voice was using this time to run a scan of both of them.
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