by Andrew Linke
“Nothing we cannot process.”
That was not something Moira wanted to hear. “Tell me.”
“Nothing important,” Zau/Heraxo announced even as it whispered into her implant, “We have received several job offers.”
“What sort of jobs?” Mora asked aloud.
“The usual postings to mercenary boards which match our filter parameters,” Zau/Heraxo replied.
One of the advantages of teaming up with an intelligent exo ship was the vast computational resources it afforded Moira. Zau/Heraxo continually ingested and evaluated job offers from across the shell. Some were addressed directly to Moira or Zau/Heraxo, sent as encrypted messages through the shell-wide network, while others were obtained by combing through the various job databases established by mercenary organizations. Moira might not trust Zau/Heraxo to safely effect repairs on the power banks, but she was more than willing to surrender the tedium of sorting through prospective jobs to the ship’s processors, rather than reading each message herself.
“The usual. Both sides of the conflict in New Libertalia want us.”
“Frak that. And you can tell them as much.”
“We presumed. The Cloister of Intellect has invited us to be their honored guests.”
“Boring.”
“Perhaps we would like the opportunity to be worshiped. You would be treated as a priestess.”
“You would be as bored as I would. Next.”
The listing continued for several minutes. Zau/Heraxo was capable of accepting jobs of their own volition, and had on several occasions, but they had learned over the years that tasks were best accomplished with Moira as a willing participant, rather than a recalcitrant passenger. This was especially true in a zone like Covington, where much of the population was heavily modified, but fully independent syntellects were looked on with suspicion. Moira had Zau/Heraxo tag several of the jobs within the zone as possibilities, but did not immediately approve any of them. She was growing weary of bounty hunting within Covington, but the zone and its densely populated capital city had proved a reliable source of work, so she was hesitant to abandon it.
Finally, Zau/Heraxo said, “The last item is a personal request from the Satori family of Abrigeist. The message is phrased so as to be fully deniable as anything more than an offer of security work, but our filters detect a subliminal code indicating that the desire assistance with a kidnapping case.”
“Subliminal coding? Really Zau/Heraxo?” Moira said, rolling her eyes.
“We are merely passing along what we detected.”
“Did you detect any bulldrek to go along with it?”
“We are attempting to learn more of the functions of {human/beast}-spawned artificial intellects. The theoretical basis of subliminal data transfer were among our findings. We have also been studying the implications of third generation post-human mind design.”
“Whatever. Put that job on the maybe list. I wouldn’t mind an opportunity to jump out of here if they are offering enough.”
“Done.” The ship paused for a moment, leaving a faint hiss of white noise bleeding over the speakers so Moira knew that it was intentionally hesitating, rather than ending the conversation.
“What?” she asked.
“If you are so eager to leave Covington, why not offer to help Bosami Haupt escape the zone? Surely we could cram them into the cargo bay and make the transit with minimal risk.”
“Nice to know you still have a heart, Zau,” Moira said. She drew a deep breath, wishing that she could know for certain that it was Zau’s mind guiding the question, but then she breathed out and expelled the wistful notion from her mind. Zau was gone. “I don’t want to be responsible for another Partha or Eve’s Heart. Those poor kuros are nowhere near prepared to run their own society.”
“Fair enough. Though we wonder about the opportunity for us to become leaders, perhaps even the gods. Us, not you. You will likely die in a firefight.”
“Thanks for your kind words,” Moira said.
“We are always in a good mood after {killing your pitiful race / a successful mission} be a prick. Now, if you will excuse us…” Zau/Heraxo’s voice faded as it slipped into some sort of reverie which Moira knew she could never comprehend.
Moira reached up and pulled down a retractable tube connected to a nutrient pack hanging in the ceiling. The nutrient liquid was bitter, but she did not think that it was beginning to go sour. Whatever, soured nutridrip was unpleasant and less beneficial, but she had never heard of anyone being killed by the stuff. Starved, perhaps, if the micronutrients had broken down too much, but not sickened. She blinked into a virtual view, blocking out the drab interior of the ship, and spent several minutes tabbing through status readouts as she sucked at the nipple.
The midges were still restricted from consuming living tissue, though she would always worry whether Zau/Heraxo could override that command at whim. Energy reserves were still lower than they ought to be and bleeding out through dozens of damaged and corrupted subsystems, including that damned starboard shield generator which kept cycling up then purging even when she ordered it to shut down. A liability, but better to have a bleed on the power system than a weak spot in ship’s shielding. The grid tap was functional, but only at a fraction of its optimal output. Hull plating was fully repaired and the carefully monitored midge swarm responsible for that task had been put to rest. Raw stockpile was running dangerously low, but she hoped to rectify that when they returned to Covington.
In short, her flying death fortress was still holding together, even if it was continually attempting to tear itself apart. Thanks to the steady, if weak, revenue stream provided by various corps and Covington Security, she had finally managed to staunch the ship’s degradation and even begin making small improvements.
Moira blinked away the internal displays and tugged at the nutrient tube, causing it to retract up towards the unit bolted to the ceiling. She closed her eyes and leaned back in the padding, allowing herself a few moments of rest before they arrived in Covington.
III
COVINGTON PROPER was a sprawling city centered around a raw mine that had been depleted for nearly a hundred years. Humans in the shell had been accustomed to mining the pockets of universally transmutable material known as raw for much of post-enclosure history, so by the time the deposit at the center of Covington ran dry the ruling council had established ancillary mines at the edges of the city, leading to the uneven outward sprawl that had become a defining characteristic of the colony. The center of Covington, deprived of its former economic base, had undergone a decades long transitional phase of urban renewal and emerged as a fashionable business and arts district, with the former mine shafts transformed into a sprawling underground network of expensive apartments, off clubs, and public spaces. Some visionary, and arguably mad, architect had even convinced the governing council to let him build a new civic center directly over the center of the original pit mine. The project had been ambitious and taken several years to complete, even with heavy construction drones handling the majority of the work, but the result had been a complex of three office towers rising thirty stories above a supporting disc decorated with cultivated lawns and gardens, perched on a ring of curved support pylons which gave the structure the appearance of hovering above the terraced pit.
Zau/Heraxo did not land anywhere near the central district of Covington.
The ship set down on a landing pad in district seventeen, not quite at the edge of the ragged sprawl, but nowhere near the fashionable central districts. Seventeen still had an active mining operation, though surveys estimated that they had a couple years at most before this vein of raw ran dry and the residents would be forced to move on to the next active mine or adjust to a new economic model. Whether that would be manufacturing, information, or some other business was anyone’s guess, but if it were possible to bottle and export corruption, Moira suspected that the outer districts of Covington would do a booming business.
“Docking completed, we are bringing our avatar up to the port dorsal airlock.”
“I don’t know if you should come along,” Moira replied. “They didn’t take it so well last time.”
“We are coming.”
Moira shrugged and climbed out of her command chair. “Fine, just make sure you will pass a scan if Security stops us.”
There was no point in arguing with Zau/Heraxo. If she tried to force the issue, the ship would either lock down the airlocks so she could not leave or wait until she had gone and send the avatar after her. Better to have the avatar travel with her, where she could keep an eye on it. Here in Covington, people tended to associate drones with heavy construction or combat, and any drone not clearly marked with the logos of a major corp was viewed as either potential salvage or a possible threat.
Moira stopped briefly in the refresher, then grabbed a street legal stunner from the weapons locker and strode down the port thoracic corridor to the main cargo bay at the rear of the ship. She would have preferred a more substantial weapon, but the Covington Security forces tended to be aggressive in their enforcement of weapon restrictions here in the transitional districts, where the governing council expected some degree of civil unrest during the economic upheaval.
She unsealed the door to the cargo hold and was met by a stench that cause her to step back and press her hand, thankfully freshly scented by the refresher, to her nose. “What the… Zau!” she shouted.
“We observed the prisoner redecorating his surroundings with feces in the last hour,” Zau/Heraxo whispered into Moira’s ear.
“No drek. Why didn’t you tell me, or just clean up?”
“We were preoccupied with analyzing the job offers you approved for consideration.”
“Get your avatar down here.”
“Why?”
“You didn’t clean up, you get to touch him. I’ve got enough to deal with already.”
“We fail to see how this could disgust you any more than we are disgusted by having wretched humans crawling around within ourselves, but we shall comply.”
Good enough, Moira thought as she scowled and pulled at her scarf. She snugged the loops over her nose and mouth so the microstructure of the cloth would filter the air, then she readied her stunner and pulled the cargo bay door open.
Bosami Haupt lay in the middle of the bay, still chained to a cargo tie down point. His wiry body, normally baked to a chestnut gold accented by bright tattoos, was painted a dull brown. Streaks of the same brown surrounded him and spattered the walls of the bay. As Moira stepped into the bay he raised his head, flashed her a cruel grin, and said, “Welcome back. I hope you like what I’ve done with the place.”
“What the sami nag is this?” Moira replied.
“I figured that if you were going to treat me like drek I might as well be covered in it.”
“You’re insane,” Moira said.
“No more than the rest of this gorram zone. I take it we’ve arrive in Covington City? Or have you brought me to one of the outliers that the corps haven’t bombed to rubble?”
“Covington proper. Get up.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that. If you are going to deliver me to the corrupt authorities of this totalitarian regime it will not be under my own power,” Bosami said. He then lowered his head and lay on the filth smeared deck, as limp as a corpse.
“I always knew you humans were drek,” Zau/Heraxo’s avatar announced, drifting up beside Moira.
The drone’s body was a spherical cage of interlocked rings just under a meter in diameter, orbiting around a burnished bronze sphere fifty centimeters in diameter. Six smaller spheres crafted of a polished brassy metal were affixed to the rings, these contained a variety of sensors, weapons, and field manipulators which the avatar could use to move and affect is surroundings. The rings of the cage were capable of rotating and orbiting independently or in concert, allowing the smaller pods on each to be positioned at any angle.
“Stuff it. Grab on and bring him along,” Moira said.
“I am not coming with you,” Bosami called, not lifting his head. “I acknowledge my lack of armament and will passively resist any attempt to deliver me to the corrupt government of Covington.”
“Jesu, you’re a pain in the ass,” Moira said. “We aren’t Security, man. Why don’t you just come along quietly until we’re almost to the station, then you can start putting on whatever political displays you want just before we drag you into the bounty office.”
As Moira spoke, the Zau/Hereaxo’s avatar glided over to Bosami and drifted down to hover over him. They flourished their rings, bringing one of the pods into position above the restraint. A narrow aperture opened in one hemisphere of the pod and a thin manipulator field extended, wreathing the restraint in a nimbus of exotic energies. The restraint disconnected from the tie down point and the avatar drifted smoothly upward. It lifted Bosami’s arm, then his shoulders and head, then his torso, hips, and legs, until he dangled like a puppet with most of its strings cut beneath the glinting drone.
“We do not believe he will cooperate,” Zau/Heraxo said, their voice speaking simultaneously from the ship’s speakers, Moira’s implants, and the avatar.
“You just figured that out, did you?” Moira said. “We’l take him out through the cargo doors. I don’t want him to stink up the rest of the ship. And turn the midges lose in here to clean up. I want all that drek cleared away and fed to the recompiler before we get back.”
Bosami Haupt continued to hang limply from his manacles Zau/Heraxo’s avatar followed Moira down the cargo ramp and out under the nose of the ship. They paused for a moment, the ship crouched over them like a protective insect, while Moira’s implants negotiated a connection with the local data network and located the shortest safe route to the bounty office. As soon as she had a navigation map projected in her vision, detailing the kilometer long march they had ahead of them, Moira strode down the ramp into the bustling port traffic.
She allowed herself a half smile at the absurdity of the scene, but her good mood was soon eradicated as Bosamai began screaming invectives against the Covington government.
“Fix that,” she muttered, sending her words to Zau/Heraxo. A heartbeat later she added, “But keep him alive.”
The avatar dropped to hover at shoulder hight beside Moira. Bosami landed heavily on the ground, his screed cutting off in a sudden exhalation of pain.
“So, how do you find the weather this wake?” the Zau/Heraxo drone asked.
Moira laughed. She couldn’t help herself. “Same as every other wake.”
“We think we’re due some rain this aftermid.”
Behind them, the chain snapped taught and began dragging Bosami across the rough anti-skid pavement of the port. All around them people and machines continued their work, pointedly ignoring the drek streaked prisoner being dragged behind a drone and obvious mercenary. This was the outskirts of Covington. It took more than a standard bounty action for the people to break from their routines around here.
“Hasn’t been any natural rain in Covington in recorded history,” Moira said. “You planning to deliver that load of fertilizer to an agro dome?”
“We might have to if it doesn’t learn to walk.”
Moira laughed again. She missed days like this. Not so much the recalcitrant prisoner or the drone avatar floating beside her, but the darkly humorous conversations with Zau. The Heraxo personality had been especially dominant recently and what little humor it possessed was distinctly hostile towards her.
“I’d like to take a break from bounty hunting,” Moira said. “It’s regular and easy, but I’d just like to go somewhere I can take off this armor for a few days, maybe lay naked in a rain dome for a few hours.”
“We {miss those days too / have never experienced that}. It’d be {nice/revolting} to do that.”
It couldn’t last forever, Moira thought.
Behind them, Bosami tired of being dragged across the rough pavement and haul
ed himself to his feet, stumbling after the drone as it continued to hover at Moira’s shoulder.
“Maybe we should take that job in Abrigeist. At least go and talk to them. Isn’t that supposed to be a rather safe zone?”
“Safe is a way to describe it. Abrigeist is a near panopticon society. Virtually no crime because a singular synthetic intelligence watches every public space and all violent infractions cary mandatory storage sentences.”
Moira scowled. She understood the urge to create a safe environment, but she preferred to not have her every movement monitored. Not that Covington was necessarily any less monitored, there were cameras on every street corner and in nearly every building, but those were all owned by such a variety of corps and government agencies that any sort of coordinated data analysis required a nearly impossible degree of cooperation. To have a syntellect scrutinizing her constantly felt too much like a vengeful god peering down on her and counting up her sins.
“Maybe not that then,” she said.
“You are still ruling out the combat operations?”
“Yeah. I want a break from being shot at.”
“We would appreciate that as well. A period of rest would provide opportunity to repair our systems further, assuming that we are provided sufficient and proper raw materials.”
“That’s what this job was about, eh?”
That was when Bosami decided to start screaming.
“Behold the tyranny of the corp! I dare to resist and am cast into chains. The same fate awaits you all if you do not rise up against your corporate masters. Your freedom is…”
Moira drew her stunner, turned, and shot Bosami in the chest. He cried out and collapsed, moaning and twitching as his nerves fired randomly in response to the blast.
“Pick him up so he still has legs when we turn him in,” she said to Zau/Heraxo, holstering her weapon.
The Zau/Heraxo drone rose higher, dragging the still convulsing gang leader up until his feet were barely touching the ground. “Perhaps we should have done this to begin with.”