TekWar

by William Shatner

  “I have no data whatsoever,” said Winger. “As soon as you finish, Cardigan, we can go see about checking out.”

  “Checking out?” Jake laughed. It was the first time he’d done that in a while—well, in four years apparently—and the laugh sounded rusty to him. But it was laughter and basically he felt good about being up and around and able to do it. “Checking out has a pleasant civilized sound. Makes me feel like I’ve been staying in a hotel and not a prison.”

  The computer terminal sounded very sympathetic. “On behalf of Warden Niewenhaus,” it was saying to Jake, “we wish you well in your imminent return to society. The warden regrets not being here in person, Former Prisoner #19,587, to send you personally back into the world of 2120. Unfortunately some unexpected quake damage to one of his aboveground condos in the Bel Air Sector of Greater Los Angeles requires him to be elsewhere. He has, however, authorized me to pass along his good wishes. Even though you haven’t served your full sentence, Warden Niewenhaus is confident you’ve learned your lesson and will never return here to the Southern California Cryobiotic Penal Institute. Or, for that matter, to any of the fifty-three other prisons and correctional facilities in the State of Southern California ...

  The chrome Winger leaned in his chair, which was flush next to the one Jake was occupying. “You’re not paying close attention to this farewell address,” he admonished in a tinny whisper. “This is meant to be uplifting.”

  Jake had been concentrating on trying to fill out the assorted release forms he’d been handed on entering this gray oval room. He had them all on a metal clipboard that rested on his lap, but the pen kept shaking in his hand. “Having a slight problem writing,” he admitted to the robot.

  “ ... you once were a law-abiding, nay, a law-enforcing citizen of GLA. Therefore, it seems that you ought to be able to return to ...

  Winger said, “The shakes is a common aftereffect of the reanimation process.”

  “How long do they last?”

  “Not more than an hour usually.”

  “Usually?”

  “Relax, Cardigan. There’s nothing at all wrong with you, nothing serious,” Winger assured him. “The medics have already determined that.”

  “I don’t recall consulting with any medics recently.”

  “It was all done when you were being hooked up in the reanimation room. The whole exam was carried out while you still slumbered.”

  “Very efficient.” Jake gave writing another try. This time he could control his hand well enough to scribble a fuzzy approximation of his signature on the various forms where it was required.

  “ ... any questions that I may answer for you on the brink of your departure, Former Prisoner #19,587?”

  Jake looked up at the voxbox of the terminal that sat on a plastand a few feet in front of him. “Yeah, as a matter of fact,” he said. “I’d like to know exactly why I’m being turned loose eleven years early?”

  There was a silent wait of thirty-one seconds. “We have no information on that,” replied the voice of the computer. “The warden suggests that you simply enjoy your newfound freedom and not worry about—”

  “Has it got something to do with a review of my case?”

  “No.”

  “Who interceded to get me—”

  “We have three more departing prisoners to process,” said the terminal, allowing a shade of impatience to sound in its voice. “Permit me to return your belongings to you.”

  A two-foot-square slot whirred open in the floor near Jake’s booted feet and a plasbox popped up into the room.

  The box contained Jake’s ID packet, his Banx card—a long time expired—a wad of plazpaper money and his lazgun. Jake distributed the stuff in the pockets of his new, and not exactly well-fitting, suit. He saved the weapon for last, holding it up toward Winger. “How come the gun?” he inquired as he tucked it in his waistband.

  “Your particular parole allows you to carry weapons.”

  “That’s unusual. It means somebody has had to—”

  “Have you finished scrawling your name on all those papers?” Jake nodded.

  “Each and every one.”

  Winger stood, took the forms from Jake’s hand. Stooping, he tossed them into the slot that had produced Jake’s belongings. “We can take our leave now, unless you have some reason for lingering.”

  “Nope,” Jake assured him, “none at all.”

  4

  WHEN THE SHUTTLE WAS five minutes out of the departure area, Jake took one quick look back at the Freezer. “Sky Academy,” he murmured. He stopped looking at the great dark prison colony and looked instead toward Earth.

  There were only two other passengers on the flight down to the Greater Los Angeles Spaceport, a large blonde woman of forty and a thin boy of seventeen. They were sitting five rows behind Jake and the robot.

  “He’s dying,” the woman said, starting to cry quietly.

  “Cork it, Maw.”

  “You can tell by looking at him in that pathetic plastiglass box. He’s dying, wasting away.”

  “Jeez, Maw, he looks exactly the fucking same as he did when we visited him at Xmas.”

  “No, he’s getting a lot thinner, Ogden.”

  “He was always thin, Maw. I ought to know, since the kids at school were always razzing me on account of I had such a skinny fucking father.”

  “Do you think he knows we visit him?”

  “Oh, sure, yeah. Didn’t you notice his little skinny mouth breaking out into a big grin when those robot bastards wheeled in his coffin?”

  “I’m being serious, Ogden. Fifteen years is such an awful long time to be asleep.”

  “Maw, sometimes you act like you been asleep your whole entire life yourself.”

  Winger nudged Jake in the side. “The tragedy of a fifteen-year sentence,” he commented quietly.

  Jake said, “Now that we’re clear of the Freezer—why don’t you tell me what’s really going on?”

  The robot shrugged. “You’ve been granted a Special Parole. There are no further details.”

  “But somebody has to have changed his mind. They must realize I wasn’t involved in any Tek dealing.”

  Shaking his gleaming head, Winger replied, “This much I can tell you. There is no one, not a single soul, in the SoCal legal system—that includes judges, cops, attorneys—who still doesn’t firmly believe that you are guilty as charged four years ago.”

  He tapped the gun at his waist. “But someone with influence had to arrange this parole,” persisted Jake. “Did my wife have anything to do with it?”

  “She’s not an especially influential person, is she?”

  “She knows some influential people.”

  “Yes, so my files show. Her one-time employer was Bennett Sands, for example, and he’s a very important man in worldwide business circles.” The robot steepled his chrome fingers against his chrome nose. “Neither your wife nor Sands had anything to do with your resurrection, Cardigan. In fact, I doubt if Sands would be especially anxious to have you—Ah, but that’s none of my business.”

  Jake eyed him. “What are you hinting at?”

  “Nothing,” answered the robot. “I must say, by the way, that it’s somewhat strange to see you turning to a robot for help. According to your records—and I’ve studied the lot—you always preferred to work, back in the days when you were allegedly an honest cop, with human officers rather than androids and robots.”

  “I’ve worked with plenty of mechs, too. But, sure, I prefer—”

  “We consider the term mech an insult.”

  “So do I,” said Jake evenly. “It’s always seemed to me that since mechanisms have no real feelings, they can’t have hunches. That’s why they don’t make the best cops—or the best companions.”

  “Hunches and emotions don’t have anything to do with police work,” said Winger. “And it seems to me that all your troubles, culminating in your stay up in the Freezer”—he pointed ceilingward with one gleamin
g thumb—“all those troubles grew out of your emotional problems. First you became dependent on electronic brain stimulation by way of Tek and the Brainbox. Next you got yourself mixed up in the activities of the big-money Tek runners. You sold out your colleagues for dough in order to—”

  “No, I didn’t,” broke in Jake. “I was a tekkie, yeah. I used the stuff and I don’t deny that. But I never worked for any of those bastards and I never sabotaged a single police investigation that I was involved with.”

  “Sounds very convincing,” observed the robot. “And it sounded pretty good at your trial, too, when your lawyer put you on the stand. But, alas, the judge, the jury and even the Judicial Review Computer never believed you. Their mutual conclusion was, to put it in layman’s terms—horseshit.”

  Jake laughed, shaking his head. “I guess I’ve been on ice too long,” he said, leaning back in his seat. “Sitting here arguing with a robot.”

  “You’re a lot likelier to get a straight story from me than you are from any of your human friends,” the robot told him. He unzipped his jacket and his shirt. “Here now is something I’m required to pass out to all returnees.”

  The robot’s chest whirred and hummed for nearly a half minute. Then a small booklet emerged from the slot in his chrome chest.

  Jake asked, “Do you ever run out of paper?”

  “This is a brief review of the major changes that have taken place in the world since you left it,” Winger said, handing the yellow booklet to him. “We cover politics, entertainment, sports and several other topics.”

  Accepting it, Jake thrust the booklet in a jacket pocket. “I guess I do have some catching up to do.”

  “You’ll discover that all the important changes aren’t in there, for reasons of space,” said the robot. “So for some things, Cardigan, you’ll simply have to live and learn.”

  Twilight was spilling rapidly across Greater Los Angeles. Beyond the domes of the spaceport the oncoming darkness was filling in the spaces between the buildings, towers and spires of the various sectors. Windows of a hundred hues were blossoming with light. The flitting skycraft glowed and glittered and the floating billboards started flashing on with multicolored intensity.

  Jake came down the disembark ramp from the shuttle slowly. He found he could walk pretty well now, but he didn’t want to push his luck.

  “This is as far as I’m obliged to escort you.” The white-suited robot was walking two paces to the rear of Jake. “You’ll hear from me once a month—for the time being at any rate. And, of course, should you have any problems, feel free to contact me by vidphone at any hour.”

  “I’m not anticipating any problems that you’d be good for.” Jake spoke without turning. They’d entered the reception area and he was scanning it.

  There were no people around at all. The dozen pale green plaschairs were empty, and in a shadowy corner a dented servobot was mopping the floor very slowly. On the far wall a cluster of adscreens were playing to nobody. Naked girls vacationed at a Brazilian spa on one picscreen, on another a skyball star was extolling a popular brand of marihuana cigarettes, on another a beautiful red-haired woman was holding up a model of a Moon condo.

  “I thought,” said Jake, stopping in front of a row of empty chairs, “that relatives had to be notified about a release from the Freezer. It used to be the law.”

  “It still is.”

  “What about my wife and son? Weren’t they—”

  “My duties don’t include the handling of such details as that.”

  Jake started walking again. “Do we still live in the same place?”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “There’s nothing wrong—with Kate or Dan?”

  “Not a thing, far as my records show.”

  “I was expecting they’d be ... He let the sentence die. There was no need to share what he felt with the robot.

  Winger made his laughing sound. “Well, welcome home, Cardigan.” He patted him on the back with his metal hand, then turned and started walking away. “Try not to do anything that’ll get you back in the Freezer.”

  Jake hesitated, then crossed the threshold and stepped out into the night street. The spaceport door whispered shut behind him and he started walking toward an aircab stand up the block.

  He coughed once, twice again. The air felt even fouler than it had four years ago.

  “Maybe that’s because I’ve been away,” he reminded himself, “and out of the habit of breathing this stuff.”

  Coughing once more, he increased his pace. He’d decided to head for home without vidphoning his wife. Better just to walk in on her—and Kate probably had a good reason for not meeting him.

  Jake stopped next to the aircab at the front of the line of three, a battered orange one. “Can you take me to the Pasadena Sector?”

  A roundheaded robot was slouched in the pilot seat. “Huh?” he asked, sitting up, rattling a bit internally and then gazing out at Jake.

  Jake leaned closer to the open window. “Pasadena Sector?”

  “Sure, sure. Hop in, buddy.” The rear door hissed, then came flapping open. “Is there any blood still back there?”

  Jake had one foot into the cabin. “Don’t see any.”

  “Sometimes the servos do a lousy job of cleaning up messes like that. I guess it’s okay now, so climb aboard.”

  Sitting on the backseat, Jake asked, “Why was there blood back here?”

  “Huh?” The robot cabbie whacked himself on the side of the head with the heel of a coppery fist. “All that shooting this A.M. must’ve futzed up my hearing. That happens sometimes.”

  “Shooting?”

  “Where to, by the way?”

  Jake gave him the address to their underground condo, realizing this was the first time he’d said that in four years. “Did you get involved with the police?”

  “No, just minor Tek wars.” The robot muttered some instructions to the dash controls. The cab shook, rattled, went rising straight up into the night. “See, there’s this guy who turns out to be a Tek-chip pusher riding back there—that was this morning around five A.M. All at once we get forced down. These bastards used a disabler beam on us and there’s a big Futt! and we drop about five hundred feet and smack the sand. It was, see, over the Malibu Sector. Futt! and we drop. Then, I swear, six Japs pile out of an airvan, come charging across the beach with lazguns waving. One of them, a big hefty guy, he’s using one of those new needle guns. You know, it shoots Bap! BAP! BAP! and fifty or sixty little steel needles dipped in nerve poison come shooting out. Almost all of them hit this rival pusher who’s riding in my crate. They just about stitch the poor guy to the seat. Blood starts splashing all over and the poor gink starts going into spasms and then convulsions. Made one hell of a mess. You ever see anything like that?”

  “Few times.” Jake looked down through the seethru floor of the aircab at the Greater Los Angeles they were flying over.

  He noticed that there were the usual fires burning out in the canyons. Passing over the sprawling city where he used to work, Jake became increasingly unsettled by the view. Hundreds of changes had taken place since he’d been put to sleep, some of them major. Another tower had been added to the Southern California State Police complex in the LA Heart Sector and the Military Veterans Hospice in the Old Hollywood Sector, where his father had spent his last months, wasn’t down there at all anymore. Another string of bright-lit floating restaurants had been added at the 1500-foot level of pedramps out at the edge of the New Hollywood Sector. There’d apparently been a serious monorail accident within the past hour and two burn-gutted passenger cars were still dangling high in the air near the Beverly Glen transfer. A crew of workmen in hover-packs were working on the tangle with laztorches while a copter-crane came rising up to go to work.

  A lot more aboveground housing had been built out over the Pacific shoreline, too. Jake found the whole experience was like looking at a picture you thought you were familiar with, but that now seemed subtly alte
red.

  Jake shut his eyes, trying to relax. “Kate is sure to know what’s going on,” he told himself. “About why I was let out early. Sure, more than likely she’s had something to do with this.”

  Jake had married fairly late, when he was getting damn close to thirty-five. He’d come near marrying a couple of times before, but hadn’t. With Kate, though, he’d been absolutely sure. And she had told him she was equally certain she loved and wanted him.

  “That was true, wasn’t it?” Jake asked himself as they flew home across the deepening night. “Sure, Kate always loved me—and she was faithful. Any of my doubts must just be because—”

  “I didn’t catch what you just said, buddy,” apologized the robot cabbie. “Because of my hearing problem, you know.”

  “Nothing; sorry. Thinking out loud.”

  “It’s one of those days. That’s how I been feeling ever since those damn Japs started swarming all over us.”

  Toward the last few months there, just before Jake was arrested, he’d started wondering about Kate. Sometimes it was tough to turn off being a cop. You tend to see clues and evidence everywhere.

  They had one child, a son named Dan. Jake of course had intended to bring up Dan a good deal differently from the way he’d been raised. With more closeness and a lot more affection shown. But that hadn’t exactly worked out. The police life has a way of taking your time and—well, it just never worked out as well as he’d hoped. He and Dan were close, though, Jake had made sure of that. He’d seen to it they spent time together. Not as much as he wished, but some. Dan grew into a good kid, bright and honest.

  “ ...place, isn’t it, buddy?”

  Straightening up, Jake looked around him.

  The aircab was settling down to a landing in the small illuminated sylvan park area that masked the entrance to the underground building where he lived with his wife and eleven-year-old—No, wait—Dan would be fifteen now.

  “Yes, this is it. Thanks.” He paid the fare from the cash they’d returned to him up in the Freezer. “Hope you don’t have any further trouble.”