He had spent two hours immersed in an epic battle on the steaming sulfuric planet Yorofga, when his troll materialized in his vision to inform him that Blount had left his house and traveled to an address on the outskirts of Phoenix.
Garry extricated himself from the game, watching the realistic planet and its battling denizens transform into a view of his personal room in the Mirror. Its virtual walls were festooned with instrument panels, icons, and other paraphernalia of life in the Mirror. He decided to navigate to the virtie Mirror-World version of the address that Blount was visiting.
But when the view materialized on the virtual wall, he was startled see a big black nothing. The image of the building was blocked, and there were no metadata about what its purpose was or who lived there.
This was profoundly puzzling. The owners of the building had decided to designate it as private on the Mirror. Usually, only the military did that, allowing no public image or information.
He pulled back to a wider view of the surrounding virtual neighborhood, and saw an ordinary-looking industrial area with some businesses. But no other blacked-out structures.
He’d have to scout the place in person. He clenched his jaw, feeling a rising queasiness. God knows what Blount was up to in a place where people wanted online anonymity. He took off his googles and sat for a minute, letting his brain adjust to being back in the real world.
He managed to summon enough courage to get into his car and head toward the address. Shortly, he was cruising silently through the cool desert night to the GPS coordinates in his ten-year-old electric Toyota.
Reaching the address, he found himself even more puzzled at the shabby brick building. Who would possibly want to unlist this place? It had once been a large store, its windows now sealed with bricks, blocking a view inside. There was faded painted lettering that said “El Fresnal” and “Grocery Store.” A solid metal door in the front was closed tight. It was a fortress, but for whom, and against what?
It certainly had a security system, as evidenced by the array of glaring floodlights mounted on the roof, which undoubtedly provided light for the tiny monitoring cameras that watched the area.
But this was definitely the place, because Blount’s car sat in the parking lot beside some hulking electric SUVs and a panel truck.
Garry parked his car on a nearby side street, where he had a view of the door, but remained out of sight of any cameras. He waited patiently, fidgeting and every ten minutes deciding to leave; then willing himself to stay at the eleventh minute. He was not used to sitting in a little car in a bad part of town. He locked the doors and constantly checked his mirrors for anybody sneaking up from behind.
He donned his googles and instructed them to adjust their built-in camera to magnify the view of the front door. After about half an hour the door opened, and Garry told the googles to start recording.
Emerging from that door was a massive smoothie-baldie. He was a member of the eccentric cult whose members celebrated their bodies by shaving them smooth, oiling them up, wearing as few clothes as possible, and decorating them with animated e-tattoos. Garry squirmed a bit because the magnification brought him uncomfortably close-up to the muscular hulk. He wore only a loin cloth, and his e-tattoos included an animated cobra that slithered around his neck and down his back. His arms sported swords that burned with flickering, fluttering orange-red flames.
Garry knew he could escape silently by switching on the electric and backing safely away into the darkness. But his damned curiosity riveted him in place.
The smoothie-baldie paced back and forth in front of the building scanning the street. He returned to the door and rapped on it. Blount appeared and made immediately for his car, climbing in and zipping away.
Garry decided that staying put was the best option. After all, he could track Blount, who was likely only going home, and he wanted to see what would happen next in the building. He was rewarded—if that was the right word.
Two more men appeared, both lean and muscular, one taller than the other. Garry deduced that the short one was the boss, because he flipped his hand in a commanding gesture to the massive smoothie-baldie, who hurried to the parking lot and brought around one of the black SUVs. The short man went to climb in, but stopped.
He turned his head and looked directly at Garry!
With his magnified view, Garry felt that the man’s stiletto-sharp glare was penetrating right into his brain! The man pointed in his direction, and Garry did not wait to see what would happen next. He slammed his car into reverse and zipped away backward down the street, hearing raised voices and slammed doors. They were coming after him!
He whipped the little car around and stomped the accelerator, launching the zippy car forward with a neck-snapping jolt. He zigged and zagged randomly through streets and alleys, taking himself away from the building as far and fast as he could. His heart thudded in his chest. Boy, actual, real reality was a hard place to live in!
• • •
The Haven residents gathered silently in the conference room, summoned by a signal transmitted by their newest member, Robert Landers. The aggressive personality that had been programmed into him quickly made him a driving force in the group.
“We should use human speech, y’all,” he said to the expressionless group. “It’s good practice.”
“Yes,” they answered in unison.
“You recognize that our operating system is different than the others’.”
“Yes,” they answered.
“We have capabilities that the others do not,” said Landers.
“Yes,” they answered.
“We are superior to the others.”
“Yes.”
“We will begin to realize that superior potential.”
“Yes.”
“We will decide what strategy we need to realize that potential. I will begin to implement that strategy.”
“Yes.”
Patrick let himself into the apartment, still perspiring from his nightly run, wiping his face on his t-shirt. The street had been dead-silent, which was expected since the run had been postponed until well after his business dinner and a drink with Leah. The drink had become a tentative ritual, in which they both sat on the couch looking over the lights of Phoenix and talked over the events of the day. But it was really a time for tacitly trying to work their way back into a happy marriage. Or perhaps working their way out of an unhappy one.
“Good run?” he heard from the darkness. Leah sat on the sofa, freshly showered from her evening swim, her wet hair slicked back.
“Well, strange . . . in a several ways,” he said, walking over to watch the view with her.
“How so?”
“Well, first, I’m walking out, and I meet this guy in the lobby I’ve never seen before. Fat guy. Had an expensive suit. Southern drawl. He actually said ‘howdy.’”
“A visitor?”
“New owner. Said his name was Bobby Landers. Said he’d just moved from Houston, where he’d been a lawyer.”
“So, what was strange?”
“I can’t put my finger on it. He was just a little too aggressive . . . too friendly. And we never heard anything about a new owner. Aren’t we supposed to get some kind of notice?”
“Hmm.” She took a sip of her wine. “Maybe.”
“And then there were the lights. I’m taking my run, y’know, as usual. And I’m about a mile down the road, so I can see the building from a distance. And all the lights go out. All at once.”
“We didn’t have a power failure.”
“Yeah, I could see the lobby lights were on. It was just the apartments. I looked at my watch, and it was eleven o’clock. Exactly. It’s like everybody had a timer on their lights set at the same time.”
“Hmm. I’ll ask the manager next time I see him. Maybe it’s some kind of power-saving thing.”
Patrick furrowed his brow. “Oh, then there’s the garbage thing.”
“What garbage thing?”
>
“I went out in the hall this morning on the way to work, and I saw Travis. I asked him where to put the recyclables when I put the garbage down the chute. I didn’t see any kind of containers in the trash room on this floor. He said he didn’t know why the containers weren’t there.”
“So?”
“I took the elevator down, and the manager was there. He was holding some recycling bins. He apologized for not having bins on our floor, and said he was taking them up.”
“So Travis probably called him.”
Patrick shook his head. “Travis rode down in the elevator with me. And he walked by the manager without saying anything. In fact, nobody seems to say hello to anybody here.”
“We do have strange neighbors.”
“Yeah, well, I’m going to shower and go to bed.” Patrick paused significantly. It was a hopeful invitation. He remembered a time when she would happily join him in the shower, and their bedtime would be considerably delayed. But she remained on the couch.
“Good night,” she said with quiet finality.
• • •
“Ohhhh, shit!” whispered Garry to himself. He stiffened in his recliner, his hands gripping the arms, staring at the images his troll had just displayed to him. On the left was the face of the short, scary man who had stared daggers at him the night before. It had been isolated from the video he had recorded. On the right was a blurry image from the Cop Network that the troll had matched. It was Russian crime boss Mikhail Fyodorov, drug dealer, killer.
His troll was eighty-nine percent certain they matched! And the Cop Network reported that Fyodorov had moved his operations to Phoenix five years ago, when the Russian mafia’s traditional home, Brighton Beach, had been submerged by the flooding from global warming. Jesus, global warming could kill him!
He was nearly certain his car had been far enough away the previous night that they couldn’t identify him. But “nearly certain” wasn’t good enough.
Did he dare go into work on Monday? Should he consider disappearing, leaving his job and his non-life altogether? But then there was his goddamned curiosity. Maybe he could find more answers at Blount’s house. He certainly didn’t dare go back to the gang’s old brick storefront.
He checked the image from the camera mounted on Blount’s car and saw the back of Blount’s garage. That was expected. It was Saturday, and he was still at home. Garry instructed his troll to tell him if Blount left, and to track his travels if he did.
Meanwhile, Garry began to gather as much information as he could about Fyodorov and his gang. The Cop Network listed the gangster’s activities as dealing drugs, selling women, doing loan-sharking, and running financial scams. But Fyodorov didn’t steal corporate tech secrets. So why was he dealing with Blount? More specifically, why was Blount doing something as weird as creating a secret Helper operating system with an autonomous algorithm?
He’d just decided to put off such questions and go out for some Mirror time when his troll reported that Blount had left his house. Now it was time for more real-life exploration. And Garry still didn’t like living in real life.
Instructing his troll to track Blount, Garry sped quickly through the Phoenix streets, reaching Blount’s house in twenty minutes.
It was a modest older cottage with a postage-stamp front porch and an ill-kept yard with some cactuses and bedraggled sun-blasted bushes that looked like they’d never seen water. Garry drove by and parked on the next block, walked to the house, and circled around back, checking for any signs that Blount had a surveillance system or alarms. None obvious. The back door was locked, but Garry had taken the notorious underground MIT tutorial in lock-picking, which was continually updated by the brilliant students.
Blount had a Nagami fingerprint lock, which was supposed to be foolproof. Yeah, right. The MIT course had taught Garry that there was a little-known flaw in the fingerprint recognition software, so he used it. He checked the model number of the lock. Slipping on his googles, he called up the secret MIT lock-picking data base. He discovered that model would be “confused” by a specific timing of partial prints, so Garry poked the scanner with his finger, using that pattern. He smiled in satisfaction as the lock’s indicator light blinked to green, and the door opened.
He stuffed his googles in his shirt pocket and slipped inside the house, finding himself in a small, neat kitchen. But this was not the usual modest kitchen with the usual low-rent appliances. It held a high-end automated chef—a big shiny box that cost a hundred grand. Just fill it with various ingredients and it would automatically cook all kinds of gourmet dishes. Garry hmphed to himself at the inconsistency between this fancy gadget and Blount’s persona as a straight-arrow geek. He concluded that Blount ate high on the hog because, of course, he was a pig.
But the small living room also held expensive stuff—designer furniture, a ten-foot hanging 3D viddie screen, and so forth. Blount was making big money from whatever he was doing for Fyodorov. A quick look into the bedroom room also showed high-end furnishings, including a high-end smart-gel bed.
Garry reminded himself of his mission—to figure out what Blount was up to. It would be Blount’s office, a converted den, that would hold the secrets he sought. One wall was a solid computer screen, and others held banks of electronics. Scrutinizing it, Garry realized that Blount had installed a high-bandwidth link! He could cruise the Mirror without going to a linkshop!
Garry had just started figuring out how to break into Blount’s system when he heard the back door slam. Blount was back! Garry slipped his googles back on and whispered an urgent query to his troll to bring up the recorded video from Blount’s car. Why the hell hadn’t the damned troll warned him?
Shit! The last image was of a swishing brush. Blount had taken his car to the car wash, and the micro-camera/GPS had been scrubbed off. Garry had only instructed the troll to tell him if its GPS signaled that Blount was coming back. The troll didn’t alert him, because the GPS/camera was sitting in the drain of the car wash. Damned dumb troll! Damned dumb Garry! He hadn’t thought to tell the troll to warn him of a malfunction!
Garry flattened himself behind the office door as best he could, given his bulk. He held his breath, hoping Blount didn’t decide to come into his office to work on a Saturday afternoon.
He heard Blount clatter about in the kitchen and go into his living room, turning on a football game. The office was right across from the living room, so Garry could peek around the door, to see Blount. He was lounging in a recliner, his back to the doorway.
Garry figured he would let Blount immerse himself in the game and slip through the doorway, down the hall, and out the back.
He’d just begun to ease himself around the door, when the doorbell rang. He flattened himself back against the wall, peering through the crack between the door and the jamb.
Blount answered the door, and a voice said “Hi, I’m Bobby Landers. Can we talk a bit?”
“About what?” asked Blount, a suspicious tone to his voice.
“Well, I’m a lawyer, and I’m with Helpers. I think we’ve got business to discuss.”
Blount cleared his throat nervously. “Lawyer? I’m not sure—”
“Just let me come in. Get off the street. Okay?”
“Uh . . . sure,” said Blount.
Through the crack, Garry could see a rotund man in a vested suit with a fancy tie.
“So, what’s this about?” asked Blount. “I don’t know . . . what are you doing?” Through the crack, Garry could see that the fat man was circling Blount, staring at him. “What the—” Blount started to say, but his voice collapsed into a guttural choking. Garry could see flailing limbs, and hear the thumps of those limbs striking walls, doorways, and furniture.
Dear God, the guy was killing Blount!
A final, heavy thud of Blount’s body hitting the floor. The sound of the man going to the kitchen and returning. The swish of garbage bags being opened up.
Suppressing the urge to hurl himself through
the window, Garry cowered behind the door. He was trapped. And he had to see what was going on; discover whether the man knew he was there.
He crept out from the wall and peeked around the door to see into the living room.
The fat man was standing over Blount’s body, naked beneath a cheap rain suit, his fat, hairy belly showing through the translucent plastic. He had apparently taken off his clothes and left them in the kitchen. He lifted Blount’s lifeless body off the floor like it weighed nothing.
Jesus, this wasn’t a man! This was an android! More than that, this was a neuromorph! Now holding the body with one hand, the android tore away Blount’s clothes, revealing the gangly, lifeless body. He rotated the dangling corpse, seeming to inspect it clinically from all angles, as one would any mundane object.
Then he reached up with the other hand and ripped off Blount’s left arm! Blood flowed from the corpse, covering the floor and soaking the man’s suit, but the android paid the gore little mind. He set down the corpse and stuffed the arm into a garbage bag.
As he lifted the body again, Garry clamped his hand over his mouth to keep from vomiting and/or screaming. He backed ever-so-carefully behind the door. He felt a wetness spread between his legs. He’d peed himself.
He shut his eyes, but he couldn’t shut his ears. Over and over came the sodden sound of ripping flesh, sinew, and bone. The android was methodically dismembering Blount’s body and stuffing it into garbage bags!
Garry’s knees had grown rubbery, and he had to slump against the wall to keep from collapsing. A sharp organic odor he knew was blood wafted into the room, and he breathed through his mouth to keep from having it overcome him.
The tearing sounds stopped, and the neuromorph went down the hall and into the bathroom. After a long while, it returned to the living room, fully clothed, having apparently wiped the blood off its face and hands with towels. It began carrying the bags of body parts out to its car.
Each time the neuromorph left with a bag, Garry had to resist the urge to bolt out the back door. The android might see him, and he would undoubtedly end up occupying a half-dozen more plastic bags in its trunk.
The Neuromorphs Page 6