Xenotech Queen's Gambit: A Novel of the Galactic Free Trade Association (Xenotech Support Book 2)

by Schroeder, Dave

  “Do you have a big project? Need something extra-extra-large—without an oversized price tag? O’Sullivan Fabrication does the best job on big jobs! Our highly trained personnel and state of the art 3D printing equipment can deliver your big job, fast.”

  The scene switched to the exterior of their building.

  “With state of the art security…”

  The camera zoomed in on their building’s fences, towers and armed guards.

  “And a commitment to confidentiality…”

  Three employees, or actors, in black corporate-logo coveralls, sat in see no evil, hear no evil, say no evil poses. Chit laughed.

  “O’Sullivan Fabrication should be your choice for all your large scale fabbing needs.”

  Now came the pay dirt. Brief glimpses of their production floor, their Dauushan Model-43 printer, and their warehouse, with huge forklifts moving components, flashed by on the screen. Then the video faded out to be replaced by the green, black and white O’Sullivan Fabrication company logo. The voice-over spokesman continued.

  “If you need something big and you’re in the know, go with the O. Call now for a quote—you’re always a big priority at O’Sullivan.”

  Contact information appeared in large letters below the logo, then the screen went blank.

  I just sat there, but Chit clapped her forelegs and made a sound like a donkey braying.

  “Is that supposed to be a laugh?” I asked.

  “It’s the Murm equivalent of a belly laugh,” said my small friend. “Those three monkeys were hilarious.”

  “They did lighten up a deadly dull corporate sales video.”

  “Yeah,” said Chit, “but did you catch what was in the background in the warehouse scene?”

  “All I saw was a forklift the size of New Jersey.”

  “Behind that. Back in the shadows.”

  “Could you pull up the warehouse scene, please?” I asked my phone.

  “Hrrrumph,” said my phone, softly.

  “I said please.”

  Maybe it was time for a software upgrade for my faithful electronic companion. My phone grumbled something too low for me to hear but brought the beginning of the warehouse scene up on my van’s windshield screen.

  “Take it frame by frame,” I said.

  “As you wish,” said my phone, sounding like a petulant teenager.

  Chit and I watch the frames go by one at a time until my diminutive associate said, “Stop.”

  I leaned forward, then said, “Double the magnification on the upper right quadrant.”

  My phone did as I’d instructed, but only increased the resolution for that quarter of the screen. It didn’t make the upper right quadrant take up all of the screen, which had been my intent.

  “Switch upper right quadrant to full screen.”

  “You should have said that in the first place,” said my phone.

  “You’re usually smart enough to do what I mean, not what I say,” I said.

  A faint, plaintive R2-D2 “nobody understands me” set of chirps came from my phone’s speaker. I’d hurt its feelings, but at least now I could see what Chit had spotted.

  “Is that what I think it is?” I said.

  “Looks that way to me,” said Chit.

  “Hrrrmph,” said my phone. “What’s the big deal about an octovac?”

  “It’s a very big deal,” I said. “What’s got your circuits in a knot?”

  “Nothing,” said my phone.

  It was Chit’s turn to sniff and use her version of “Hrrrmph.”

  “Nothing?” I said. “You’ve been acting weird for the last two days. What’s going on?”

  Words flowed out of my phone like water from a busted dam.

  “You have lots of exciting adventures, but you just lug me along like so much dead weight.”

  “You’re on all my adventures,” I said, trying to figure out what was going on. “I depend on you.”

  “That’s right,” said my phone. “Saving you from certain death when you fell off the giant robot should count for something. You expect so much, but if your faithful phone wants one little thing, you ignore it like it doesn’t exist except when you need it for research or…”

  Now I understood—my phone wanted something, and rather than ask me outright it was playing passive-aggressive verbal games to get me to notice. It had pulled this sort of stunt once before when it had wanted an extra petabyte of memory. I knew how to make it stop wheedling.

  “What one little thing do you want?” I said. “Just tell me and if it’s not ridiculously expensive, I’ll get it for you. I owe you for saving my life, several times over.”

  “A new case,” said my phone, almost shyly.

  “What kind of new case?” I asked.

  Chit was watching this exchange with obvious interest. I was grateful she kept her mouth shut, since I expected anything she said would only upset my phone.

  “An Orishen mutacase—”

  Chit laughed, but a regular laugh, not a belly laugh this time.

  “I’ve seen ’em back on Orish,” said my little friend. “If you think your phone’s a challenge now, just wait!”

  “That’s not fair,” said my phone. “You’ve got six legs and wings.”

  “I thought you were a mobile phone,” said Chit.

  “Jack!” said my phone.

  “Give it a rest, Chit,” I said. “How do these mutacases work?”

  “I’ll show you,” said my phone.

  The O’Sullivan Fabrication promotional video was replaced by another one demonstrating the capabilities of an Orishen mutacase. A phone similar to mine, enclosed in the case and sitting on a table top, was able to extrude tiny arms and legs and move across the table’s surface, then stretch out a hook and a thin cable that it used to lower itself to the floor. Once it was down, the arms transformed into dozens of legs on each of its long sides and it scuttled along at high speed like a broad, flat centipede. When it was six feet from the table, it tilted to a forty-five degree angle, bent back, and somehow sprang up and forward in a graceful arc, landing at its original starting point. It was really cool and just a little bit creepy.

  “The case can also integrate with your mutakey,” said my phone, eagerly.

  I’m sure it had been trying to work up the courage to ask me for the mutacase for weeks and I’d been too dense to notice.

  “How much?” I asked.

  My phone quoted a number that was larger than the price of dinner for two at the Teleport Inn, but less than the cost of a block of a hundred hours of Remote Hands sessions. I had the money, and my phone had saved my life yesterday.

  “Make it so,” I said.

  “Recorded,” said my phone. “A drone will home in on our location and drop it off in a few minutes.”

  It was making happy chirps and beeps. Images of fireworks exploding flashed on its screen.

  “Of course,” I said. I’m glad my team members know how to take initiative.

  Chit was looking at me and making a sound like a donkey braying. I guess I deserved it.

  I bowed, at least as much as I was able to while wearing a seat belt. Then I rolled down the driver’s side window, accepted delivery from the drone hovering just outside, and unwrapped the package. Out of its box, the case looked like a black, phone-sized second skin.

  “Wear it in good health,” I said, putting the Orishen mutacase under my phone. The new case artfully removed the old one and flowed around my electronic associate. I heard chirps of delight and saw appendages appear and disappear rapidly as my phone put its new case through its paces.

  “Cool,” said my phone. “Where’s your mutakey?”

  I put the mutakey—one of my graduate-level workshop pr
ojects on Orish—on the passenger seat. My phone crawled over to it and seemed to absorb it into its new case. Then it started opening and closing my van’s door locks and popping the glove compartment.

  “Can we get this reconnaissance in gear, please?” I said.

  “And now I can help,” said my phone, waving three of its currently extruded arms. “I think this thing has a stealth mode.”

  My phone shimmered, then blended in with the upholstery fabric on the passenger seat and neatly disappeared.

  “Isn’t this cool?” said my phone.

  “I don’t see it,” said Chit.

  I played a rimshot in my head, then issued a command to my van’s A.I.

  “O’Sullivan Fabrication, and step on it.”

  Chapter 12

  “Time spent in reconnaissance is seldom wasted.”

  — John Marsden

  I didn’t think I’d get more details about O’Sullivan Fabrication from my phone for a few hours, so I talked over possible ways to learn additional information with Chit. We agreed the place looked like a prison fortress more than a 3D printing company.

  “The satellite photos didn’t show any obvious entry points, like at the grajja factory,” said Chit.

  “And if they’re investing so much money in physical security, I expect their electronic countermeasures are top of the line, too.”

  “Yeah, we can confirm that when we get closer,” she said. “You got binoculars?”

  “Under the passenger seat,” I said, pointing down and to the right.

  “Let’s figure out if there are any good spots for takin’ a discreet look-see,” said Chit. “We can use my phone.”

  “You have a phone?” I said. “I thought you communicated through your built-in congruent link.”

  “That’s how I keep up wit’ the rest o’ the hive mind,” said my little buddy. “I need my phone for my shows.”

  “Who knew?” I said.

  “Try to keep up.”

  A satellite view of the O’Sullivan Fabrication facility appeared on the windshield screen. It was located in the middle of a loop of private road off the nearest county thoroughfare, nearly a mile away from any other structure. We could approach from either direction, but only the private road ran near the place, and that clearly didn’t get a lot of traffic.

  “Switch to topographic,” I said.

  Chit pressed a foreleg into a thick spot on her thorax and the view changed to show contour marks. There was a hill about three hundred feet high in the center of the land enclosed by the private and county roads. It was on a heavily wooded parcel of land a quarter mile from the O’Sullivan Fabrication building and looked like it would have an excellent view of the surrounding area, tailor-made for detailed observation.

  The sun was starting to go down as my van drove along the county road. I’d disabled its bassoon background tone, so our progress was noiseless except for the sound of tires on asphalt. We passed one end of the O’Sullivan private road and slowed half a mile further along. My van stopped and I got out.

  Chit was on one shoulder, my backpack tool bag was slung over the other, and my phone was hanging on my belt, reading the mutacase manual and trying out new features. My binoculars were on a leather strap around my neck and I had a congruency-powered flashlight in an outside pocket of my pack to help find my way back to the van after dark.

  I told the van to cruise the county road and stay close, then walked into the woods in the direction of the observation hill, ignoring the private property signs tacked to the trees. After a bit of stumbling around in the fading light, I found a path or animal trail that took me in the right direction without having to push my way through too much undergrowth.

  “Are there bears around here?” said Chit. I couldn’t tell if she wanted the answer to be “Yes” or “No.”

  “Not many in metro Atlanta,” I said. “Though there are a lot in north Georgia. They’re not a problem except when the sows are protecting their cubs in the spring.”

  “Is May spring?” asked Chit.

  “Technically, yes,” said my phone.

  “Welcome back,” I said to the device, but it didn’t answer. It had just turned itself into something the shape of a batarang.

  I should have spent more time on the treadmill at the gym, since I was getting winded from the climb. I could see a dim glow around the hill from the high intensity congruent lights positioned along the fences and on the guard towers of the O’Sullivan fortress. The slope was steep over the last two hundred yards and the pines changed to maples and birch trees before the trees stopped at the edge of the meadow that crowned the hill.

  There were a few man-high boulders on the side near the fabrication facility and I leaned against one of the larger ones and lifted my binoculars. It was disconcerting to see beefy security guards wearing black O’Sullivan Fabrication uniforms standing in the two nearest towers. They were using their binoculars to stare back at me. It was even more disconcerting when the face of the rock next to me slid to one side with a pneumatic whoosh and metallic clank, revealing another thick-necked uniformed guard standing at the top of a flight of metal stairs. He had a shotgun pointed at my center of mass.

  “Did you happen to see any private property notices on your way up here?” he said. A small nameplate above his breast pocket said he was Larry Villarica from Orlando, Florida. I made a mental note not to include that sort of detail when I implemented name badges for XSC.

  “Olen turisti. Olen vaelluksella.”

  I’d just said, “I am a tourist. I am hiking,” in Finnish.

  Mike’s not the only one who wanted to get a better handle on Quenya.

  “Bein’ smart, are you?” said Larry. “Let’s see some identification.”

  “I. do. not. speak. English,” I said, trying to bluff it out.

  Larry pulled a badge wallet from his hip pocket and showed it to me, pointing to the laminated card with his name and photo below his tin-plated O’Sullivan Fabrication Security badge. Then he pointed at me, pointed at his laminated card, and spoke very slowly.

  “I. den. ti. fi. ca. tion.”

  I kept a puzzled expression plastered on my face, but it looked like I’d have to come clean and admit who I was. Larry was holding the shotgun one-handed, but it was still pointed in my direction. I wasn’t wearing anything that said Xenotech Support Corporation, but I had business cards in my backpack tool bag and my wallet clearly identified me as Ajax Pryce Buckston, not Eero Saarinen, or whatever famous Finnish name I could come up with. I was wearing my Orishen pupa silk shirt, which had stopped bullets and saved my life earlier, but shotgun pellets tended to disperse and Poly had told me she liked my face the way it was.

  Larry put his badge wallet away and returned to a two-handed grip on his weapon.

  “Show me some identification.”

  It was an order, not a request.

  I reached for my wallet, but it wasn’t there. Where was my wallet? Come to think of it, where was my phone?

  Larry saw that I was puzzled by the loss of my wallet and seemed to come to a decision. I was above his pay grade. He pulled me into the hidden observation post at the top of the hill and closed the door behind me. Then he herded me down four flights of metal stairs until we reached a corridor leading toward the main building. Once there, he spread my feet wide, pressed me face first against a wall, and fastened my wrists together with zip ties. Chit hid under my hair and stayed out of sight.

  I was marched downhill a quarter mile along the corridor until we entered the lower level of some larger structure, presumably the O’Sullivan Fabrication fortress. Larry led me along a wide hallway, then grabbed my upper arm none too gently and took me into some sort of interrogation room. He told me to sit down in a chair next to a rectangular metal table, pointed to a surveillan
ce camera in the ceiling, and left. The door closed behind him and I heard the sound of an electronic lock engaging. I started to sweat, even though the air conditioning was up high enough that I had goosebumps.

  After a few minutes, an older guard wearing a black uniform with more scrambled eggs—that’s fancy braid, not breakfast—entered. His nameplate said he was Hiram McWhorter, from Valdosta, Georgia and he tried to interrogate me in Italian, French and German, without success. I kept up my tourist disguise, complaining in my limited Finnish vocabulary and reciting the two poems I’d memorized from the Kalevala.

  Then I had an idea and mentioned the Silver Comet Trail in halting English. Once Hiram heard “Silver Comet Trail” he decided to buy my “lost hiker” routine. The heavily used trail ran a few miles north of here and was popular with European tourists, so that detail made the difference. He gave interrogating me one last try, using grade school Dutch, but when I shrugged my shoulders Hiram finally got disgusted and gave up.

  “He started, but he couldn’t Finnish,” said the voice inside my head.

  I suppressed a laugh.

  “What’s funny?” tapped Chit in modern Pyr pulse code.

  I clicked my teeth in reply.

  “Later.”

  “Take him to the Sheriff’s office in Austell,” said Hiram. “Tell them he was trespassing, and we want to prosecute.”

  “Okay,” said Larry. “Want anything while I’m closer to civilization?”

  “A Quarter Pounder with Cheese, small fries and a Coke.”