Humble Beginnings

by Greg Alldredge

  “I once heard a story about a Warlock that wanted to create a piece of tech so badly, but he couldn’t do it. It drove him insane. To get back at the world, he created this mask, that was supposed to give the user the gift of languages, accents, and the ability to play any role. Instead, it sucked the life force out of anyone that used it... and everyone around the person attempting to use it. Legend is it’s killed thousands.”

  “Why would anyone risk using it?”

  “Because people are greedy. They are never happy with what they have. I say we give this to the Owner and get far away before he uses it. Magic always comes with a high price.”

  “You are sure this is that dangerous?”

  “Why risk it? Why put our lives at risk? We could run off, be happy together.”

  “If this is as powerful as you suggest, I should turn it into the Prodian Intel services...” Alliji didn’t finish her sentence.

  “Please take that thought out of your mind. You might end up dead. I could be enough to keep you happy.”

  “It’s not that simple!” Alliji rolled out of bed, walked over to the case. She caressed the metal case, feeling the possibilities.

  Hack followed. Standing behind her, he placed his hands on her shoulders, his pale skin contrasting with her ebony flesh, even in the subdued light of the room. He wanted to take her in his arms, to make her feel how he was feeling, but he knew this was an internal battle she must fight on her own. The decision had to be hers.

  <=OO=>

  They walked to Eum-Yusin’s silently, each in their own thoughts. Hack carried the prize. How could anyone know what another was thinking? It was hard enough to discern another’s views when they were the same race, but two creatures of differing species made the task even harder. Hack had no idea what Alliji would do when the time came, but he had to hope she would make the correct choice for both their sakes.

  It had only been two cycles since they stepped out of Eum-Yusin’s, but it seemed like a lifetime. They were met at the never closed door by the diminutive messenger, who ushered them straight up the lift. The Owner was there. His concubines still accompanied him on the pillow mound.

  “I see you have brought me something. Is that the prize?” the Owner asked, rubbing his hands together like a modern-day Fagin.

  “Yes, it is. Before I give it to you. I want you to let us leave before you open the case.” Hack held up the case, trying to use it as a bargaining chip.

  “You will give it to me now, and I will let you leave. Your money has been transferred. Although I would have thought performers like you two would have wanted to stay and see what all the fuss was about.”

  Hack was surprised the Owner didn’t quibble over them staying. “Nope, it’s all yours, let’s go.” Hack turned to leave, noticing Alliji had not turned with him.

  “I’m sorry, Hack. This is too important a discovery to miss,” Alliji said.

  “I told you what might happen. I had hoped you would come with me,” Hack said.

  “I do this for my people. I didn’t think you would understand.”

  Hack held her hand tight, willing her to move with him. She remained steadfast.

  “Face it, Hack, the allure of power is more than a match for your charms. Now stay or go, we are getting on with it.” The Owner pressed his thumb on the keypad, opening the lock.

  “Last chance, dear, you are going to die here,” Hack said, his eyes pleading with Alliji to follow him out of the room.

  The Owner lifted the ornate mask out of the case. Covered in exotic gems, it seemed to have an internal light, filling the room with sparkles.

  “Sorry, I am staying,” Alliji told him for the last time.

  <=OO=>

  The story had been cut off, the old man in the booth interrupted, when someone called his name from behind the bar. “Hack, we need to get home!”

  “Yes, dear, be right there.” The old man grabbed his hat off the bench seat, placing it firmly on his head.

  The younger man sat there slack-jawed, looking for the story to continue.

  “Hack, why do you always insist on telling such tall tales?” The female Prod from behind the counter scolded the old man like a mother. She looked many decades Hack’s junior. There was no way it could be Alliji, or could it?

  “But... But what about the ending?” the younger man had to ask, sure he was going to be disappointed.

  “What of it? The couple lived happily ever after,” Hack finished.

  The much younger woman helped the old man shuffle into the lift at the end of the bar. An elevator the young man had never noticed before. Before he could formulate another question, the doors whisked shut with the slightest whisper.

  Hello World

  Kano leaned back in his formfitting bar chair. “Listen, I’ve been clean and sober for sixty days now, and I don’t give a shit who knows.”

  “That’s quaint, you still use Earth time. For us normal people, what is that in station cycles?”

  “Too long, two hundred and forty cycles.”

  “That’s impressive. I thought you looked different, new uniform?” Rollin said as he sipped his drink. “You smell like you’ve had a bath, too.”

  “Nuts, if you weren’t my partner—”

  “—Former partner.”

  “—I’d kick your ass.”

  “You want a drink?”

  “Nuts.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  “Rollin, I think you need to get your gears looked at. One must be too tight in your noggin.” Kano knew the joke about his former partner’s cybernetic implants would spin him up, nearly as much as jokes about sobriety.

  His former partner wasn’t human, but he belonged to a race that could be mistaken for human, a Patapay. The main visual difference was the multiple cybernetic enhancements each of the members of the race sported. If an entire population could have an addiction, it was these people. They lived to have the newest most powerful implants installed, the cost and risks be damned. Kano hated painting with too broad a brush when it came to an entire race, but this stereotype held true and fitting.

  A silence separated the pair. Kano’s former partner didn’t smile. Perhaps he had used the joke once too often. A beep in Kano’s ear interrupted the awkward moment. He had a call. He considered himself saved by the beep.

  “I need to go, someone needs me.” Kano excused himself. No longer on the Force, he’d been demoted from the premier law enforcers to the third string. The local section patrol, but it still allowed him extra water credit.

  Rollin joked from across the table, lifting his glass high in a salute, “Need to rescue a dog from a tree?” Slaughtering the joke.

  Kano started to correct his friend, “That would be a fireman… Keep your head down, will ya?” Kano wasn’t sure why he said that, it just seemed fitting. Rollin tried to use ancient Earth sayings but never got the hang of it.

  The moving sidewalks allowed Kano to travel quickly with little effort, allowing him to think. Since mustering out of Earth’s colonial marines, Kano had bounced from one place to another, always looking for the next thrill. He remained one of the lucky few survivors, the AI wars left him only mentally scarred but physically whole. Drugs and booze kept him functional and out of his head. Until even they became too much.

  His goal to reach the farthest end of the universe brought him to Far Reach Station, and now he stood in front of the door he never thought as a child he would stand in front of: an alien’s door.

  He heard the chime that announced his arrival, and an older Dylier woman answered the door. “I’m so glad you came. It is getting worse.”

  Kano couldn’t pronounce the woman’s name. To his ear, it sounded like too many S’s thrown together in a string. His implant provided little help. He ended up just kind of winging it. “Mrs. Samstisslsos you need to stop reporting ghosts…” He tried not to sigh but failed. “Are you all right? Have you been taking your meds? People are starting to talk. Where is your grandso
n?”

  “I don’t care what people think, my home is haunted. I need help, and you are the only one that will come.” The woman didn’t seem in distress, probably only lonely and wanted someone other than her worthless grandson to speak with.

  For some reason, this tiny, bald, gray-skinned woman reminded him of his long-dead grandmother back on Earth. He had a soft spot for the woman, and since demoted to the local patrol, she had taken to calling him several times a cycle, it seemed, for the strange sounds in her rooms.

  “Did you call maintenance like I said? Did they show up?” Kano cocked his head, directing his ear to the overhead, listening for her imagined strange sounds. He heard nothing out of the ordinary.

  “They came, they inspected, and they were rude. They called me crazy. Please help me, I don’t want to move. I don’t know how much longer I can take this. The sounds are driving me crazy.”

  Kano shook his head. Like any salaried workers, those on the station ran the gauntlet of good to beyond terrible. Unfortunately, in maintenance, the bell curve had shifted to the worthless pugs picking up some extras credits and doing little. “Where’s your grandson?”

  The sigh of an old woman who no one would listen to hung on Kano’s heart. He examined the surroundings as he walked to one of the few interior doors. He found nothing out of the ordinary.

  Perhaps he wasn’t cut out to be on the Force. He grew too attached to those who needed him. He cared too much. “Juno, I need to speak with you.” He knocked lightly on the door but received no answer. “How long has he been in there?”

  “Since puberty,” she answered.

  Kano couldn’t help but smile. The old broad might be near senile and crazy as a bedbug, but she still had a wit about her. “Did he come out for breakfast?”

  “I’m telling you, he never comes out.”

  He tried the handle but found it locked. “Can you open it?”

  “It only opens to his handprint.”

  Kano sighed. He hated this part of the job and loved it. He loved helping people when he was sure they needed help and hated breaking in on folks doing god only knew what. “House, security override, Kano Xander ID A675EO9. How many life forms on the far side of the door?”

  “I’m sorry, sir, there are none.”

  The old woman let out a gasp at the home’s answer.

  “House, I need you to open the door.”

  “I’m sorry, Kano, I can’t do that.”

  “I gave you my override code.”

  “I understand that, but someone has… I can’t override the door. I apologize.”

  Kano hated the groveling AI that served most of the station nearly as much as the killer AI he had to fight in the last war. He connected with maintenance and gave an emergency order for a wellness check. It was probably nothing, but Kano needed to check nonetheless. He hoped to be proved wrong.

  His second call went to Rollin, his former partner. If they found trouble, he wanted a familiar face there to take over the investigation. He had not arrived by the time maintenance opened the locked door.

  The smell of days-old death struck Kano at soon as the door cracked opened. “Mrs. Samstisslsos, you need to go to the front room.” Thankfully, the massive creature that came to open the door remained to help console and control the older woman. The scene needed to be secured.

  It took some work for the maintenance worker to open the door but not long enough for a body to start to decay. The normal healthy gray of the old woman’s grandson had turned to a partially decayed light gray. Without the lab techs, it proved easy to tell Juno had been dead for many days.

  Technically, Kano wasn’t allowed to investigate a death. His task in life was to help secure the scene until members of the Force arrived. He called Rollin before the door was even open, now he had little choice but to report the death into the system. He called it in before entering the room.

  There were few clues to the naked eye. Juno remained hooked to his reclined virtual reality chair. He should have been able to survive many weeks while in VR, the chair taking care of his needs. It looked like a state-of-the-art rig. There was zero indication of a break-in or a struggle. More than likely, Juno had some reaction while in VR that caused his heart to stop. It was rare, but it happened. The only other object of note in the room was a lifelike human sex doll. Not even considered an automation by today’s standard, it remained the only object out of place in the small quarters.

  “House, can you tell me what happened in here?” It proved a long shot, but Kano needed something to tell the old woman waiting in the front room.

  “I’m sorry, sir, most of the monitors have been disabled in this section of the house. It seems my code has been tampered with. I have no explanation why. I will file a repair claim.”

  Kano shook his head. A locked room mystery, and him technically not allowed to investigate the thing. He started to feel sorry for himself, but his eyes wandered over the dead body still lying there and thought better not to tempt the gods.

  He headed back to the front room where the old woman had been left alone. The oaf of a worker had left her sitting there waiting.

  She asked, “What happened?” Her eyes never left the floor. She wrung a small white cloth in her hands.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t know. Can you tell me what Juno did in VR?”

  “Everything.” The words sounded cold as she spoke them. It was easy to see the woman held a great deal of hatred, deep under the surface, towards the computer system built into the chair.

  “Mrs. Samstisslsos, this was probably an accident. The Force will be here to investigate, but is there anything you want to tell me before they arrive?”

  “Listen to me, young man. I know what happened in that room. The ghosts… the ghosts in this damned machine killed him. They come after everyone leaves, and they are crawling all over the station waiting for their time to strike. They don’t like the living. They don’t understand us. They want to kill us all.” The old woman started crying once again.

  There was little he could do but wait. Being on probation, he didn’t dare risk sticking his nose in the investigation. If caught, he could be bumped off the Force forever. He did his best to comfort his friend until the proper authorities arrived.

  The door opened, and Rollin walked through. It was plain to see a small mob of various races had gathered outside. Death remained the ever-present spectator sport. “Ya found a body?” he asked, his hands on his hips.

  Kano nodded. “I didn’t touch a thing. Someone has tampered with the house unit.” Kano stood. “Let me show you.” Before he could leave the old woman, she grabbed his hand.

  Rollin waved him off. “You stay here. I think I can find a body on my own.”

  “Please, you find out what happened to my son. They will cover this all up. He is all I had left.” Kano liked the old woman, but sticking his nose into the investigation could really screw over his life or at least the life he tried to build here on Far Reach Station. It was the first place that felt right to him since he mustered out. Unfortunately, part of the reason it felt right to him was the people like Samstisslsos that now begged for his help. How would he feel if he let her down or, worse, abandoned her?

  “Let’s see what the Force learns, and if you are not satisfied, we will discuss it.” Kano didn’t see how anyone could have caused Juno harm. They found his lifeless body in a locked room. The blank eyes of a life-sized doll the only witness.

  Members of the Force filed in and out of the woman’s home, upending what little peace had been left. Kano’s involvement in death normally focused on the victim not the damage that was wrought on the survivors of the crime. This was a new experience for him, one he didn’t like. The dead proved much easier to work with than the living.

  Rollin stepped into view and motioned to gain Kano’s attention.

  “Make sure they investigate the ghosts. They won’t even know to look for the ghosts,” the old lady mumbled.

  Kano didn’t w
ant his partner to think he took the ravings of an old woman into account and left her sitting there without acknowledging her words. “What’s up?” Kano asked as he drew close.

  “It looks like natural causes. The techs found nothing to indicate foul play. You know these guys jack in and play with things they shouldn’t.”

  “What about the only witness?”

  “Witness?”

  “The sex doll…”

  Rollin grunted, “That thing is nothing but a shell. The specs say it can’t even link to the net.” With a wave of a hand the officer dismissed Kano. “You check it. I don’t have time for a hophead death. Too much going on—”

  Kano was surprised Rollin cut himself off. Certain he nearly spilled something more important, so he pressed. “What is going on? What is happening?”

  Rollin shook his head.

  “Tell me what you were going to say… We’ve been partners for too long to hold back.”

  “It’s nothing, just been a lot of unsolved deaths. Like the station has gone crazy. The Force wants the violence kept quiet, no need to worry people… You would be wise to forget I told you.”

  Kano knew his friend wasn’t in the mood to be pushed on the subject, so he let the whole thing go. “So as far as you’re concerned, this case is closed? I can look into it?”

  A dark cloud passed over his former partner’s face. “If you have nothing better to do, knock yourself out,” he said before he stormed out the door.

  Kano couldn’t help but see the expectant look on the old woman’s face as Rollin passed. His heart sank, not because he’d resolved himself to help the woman, but because he knew the chances of finding any useful information remained slim. More than likely, her grandson died from natural causes or as natural as they could be while his brain was hooked into a computer.

  With Rollin safely out the door, Kano moved to the old woman. “You got somewhere else you can stay? I want the space empty while I look around.”

  The old Dylier woman nodded and pressed his hand against the door, giving him access to her rooms. “Please do what you can.” She straightened herself, stoically. She left the rooms and worked her way through the waiting neighbors outside.