Sol Arbiter Box Set: Books 1-5

by Chaney, J. N.

  I almost shuddered. A little girl, wandering around in total darkness on the streets of a Martian city just as the Blackout started. It was hard to imagine anything more terrifying. Now that I thought of it, how had Andrea managed to keep her head together during the blackout on Venus? Based on everything I’d ever learned about traumatic stress she should have been curled up in a ball on the floor somewhere.

  “The nanny couldn’t find her, and of course she couldn’t find her mom. When the lights went out, she panicked and started screaming. People helped her, of course. This was before all the worst things happened. Someone came and got her and dragged her into a building for shelter. She was in that building when the fire started, and she couldn’t get out of it before the building fell.”

  Andrea went on talking about it in the same cool voice. It was like it had all happened to someone else.

  “Her legs were crushed. Pinned down under all that rubble. Everyone else was already dead, all the people who’d taken shelter there. The nanny found her like that, with her legs pinned under tons of plasticrete and her arms burnt from shielding her face when trying to run out just before it fell.”

  “I didn’t know—”

  “Quiet now. It’s just a story to pass the time while I get this done.”

  I shut my mouth again, and Andrea nodded in satisfaction. “So, there was the nanny, only she couldn’t dig the little girl out and she didn’t want to leave her. She stayed there with her, even when the gangs came through the neighborhood. She lay right on top of her, making sure they didn’t see that the girl was there. It worked for a while, but someone shot her in the back as he walked by. The nanny was dead, and the little girl was still trapped with her bleeding body on top of her. The girl was there for days, waiting for someone to kill her too. When the rescue teams finally found her, there was no way to save her arms or legs. And only one person who could save the rest of her.”

  Her own mother, the prosthetic surgeon. I was wrong, Andrea’s prosthetics weren’t legal—at least not originally. Her limbs came from a black-market surgery just like the kind that made those Augmen, although less extensive. I suddenly felt guilty for the prejudiced thoughts I’d had about augmented humans.

  Andrea finished up, looked at her handiwork with a satisfied eye, then switched the canisters in her hypospray. “The mom wanted her daughter to follow in her footsteps, to make a living the same way she had. So, she taught her some of what she knew. The daughter refused and went on to kill quite a few of the kinds of people her mother used to work for. Maybe even some of the exact same. They don’t really speak anymore, but she did pick up certain skills that come in handy now and then.”

  She injected the hypo-spray in my neck once more and switched back to first-person as if she’d been talking that way all along. “I’ve had prosthetics for most of my life now. I’m used to the weight distribution, the response time, the simulation of touch. They've been a part of my body for almost as long as I can remember. That’s why I can do things most people can’t, like jumping out of a four-story window without breaking any bones. I’m not superhuman—a full-body cyborg could do much more than I can. My prosthetics are still just attached to flesh and bone. But I can kill those Augmen. If they try to come after you again, I’ll put all of them in the morgue.”

  “That’s… sweet of you?” I ventured.

  She laughed. “There’s nothing sweet about me, Tycho. This was a lot of work, and I don’t want those bastards messing it up.”

  11

  I stood up from the couch, gingerly flexing my arm so I could see how well it worked. There was a stab of pain, but it was already less than what I had experienced before. I could feel my strength coming back a little. “You did a good job, Andrea.”

  She walked to an adjacent room and opened a drawer, then tossed me a sweatshirt.

  “I know I did. It won’t be quite as strong, but it will do whatever you need it to do over the next few days. And that’s the point. I can’t have you going around in a splint for six weeks.”

  “Your concern is touching. Truly.”

  She laughed. “Come on.”

  She went down the hallway, and I glanced at the art on the walls as I followed her. None of it was interesting to me. It seemed generic, like the kind of stuff you could order from a special catalog to decorate your giant new rich-person house. Abstract shapes and planetary landscapes, well executed but nothing special. I wondered who had originally owned the place, and what had happened to him. After all, he hadn’t brought the generic art with him when he moved out.

  “The guest bedroom’s down here.” Andrea pointed toward the end of the hallway, and at first I thought she was showing me to my room. When she opened the door, I was surprised to see one of the three men I had arrested just a few short days ago. The last one still living, as it happened.

  It was Lucien Klein, Generative A.I. Division Chair for Huxley Industries, until recently. “You,” he said. “The bigshot cop.”

  Klein’s wrists were handcuffed together, and he was raising both hands to smoke a cigarette, obviously not too happy about it. His face was red, and his expression somewhere between irritation and murderous rage.

  “I’m not a cop.”

  “No need to explain yourself to the prisoner,” said Vincenzo Veraldi, as stylish as ever with his dark blue suit jacket and hint of stubble. He was playing with a knife, making it twirl around his fingers so fast it looked like a spinning propeller.

  “It’s the prisoner’s job to explain himself to us.” This was Jonathan Bray, a specialist in the use of extremely heavy weapons. On Tower 7, I had personally seen this man create a mountain of corpses. I would have said that Bray lacked the subtlety for interrogations, but his massive frame definitely added an intimidation factor. With Veraldi spinning his knife like that and Bray being Bray, I could tell they weren’t playing “good cop, bad cop.”

  “I fixed up Tycho’s shoulder.” Andrea was obviously proud of her handiwork, because that had nothing to do with the topic at hand and was not really something to talk about in front of Klein. She gestured at my shoulder, but since I was now wearing the sweatshirt she had given me there was nothing to see.

  Veraldi raised an eyebrow. “Playing doctor?”

  She threw him a look that made him step back and put his hands up. “No offense. Just a little innocent work humor. Are you ready for the briefing?”

  She glanced at Klein, as if she was having second thoughts about the whole conversation. In the Arbiter Force, we would have made a point about not discussing any of these things in front of a handcuffed prisoner. But Section 9 wasn’t law enforcement, and I couldn’t be sure they had any intention of handing Klein over to anyone when they were done with him. It doesn’t really matter what you say in front of a dead man.

  I had the feeling that this had already occurred to him, because he was looking at Andrea with something that wasn’t quite fear but was definitely no longer bluster. “Don’t mind me. I’m just over here smoking.”

  She turned back to Veraldi. “Go ahead.”

  “Okay. So, we extracted Klein, but three full-body cyborgs attacked the convoy as we were leaving. Two of the cyborgs were KIA. We have the bodies down there in the basement. They’re both in Faraday bags. Can’t be too careful. Young is down there now; he’s trying to see if he can recover any useful information from them. We had to do two vehicle changes after the attack to be on the safe side, so we’re down to three cars, including yours.”

  “Huh. I could have parked in the garage. Alright, Klein. It’s time to start saying something useful. We saved your life, and you are definitely going to repay the favor.”

  “Saved my life? How does breaking me out of a secure Federation facility so I can get attacked by cyborgs count as saving my life?”

  “I guess my associates here didn’t tell you about Slotin and Graves.”

  He shook his head.

  “We didn’t tell him anything,” said Bray. “We’ve j
ust been softening him up for you.”

  Klein was staring at Andrea. “What about Slotin and Graves?”

  Andrea pulled up a nearby chair, flipped it around, then sat down facing him. “They’re dead. Someone is killing everyone who knows.”

  “Everyone who knows what?”

  “Whatever you know.”

  His eyes darted from her to Veraldi, looking for a hint of sympathy and not finding one anywhere. “And you’re saying you’re going to protect me? If I tell you what you want to know?”

  “No.”

  “What do you mean no? Isn’t that the deal?”

  “The deal is that you owe us. You’d be dead already if my people hadn’t gone in and pulled you out of there. Every minute you’re still alive, every hour, you owe us. You’re going to tell us what we want to know to pay us back. If you want a better deal than that, you’ll have to sweeten the pot.”

  Klein laughed nervously and looked around the room. “Can you believe this bitch?”

  Bray sighed. “That’s one.”

  The smile faded from Klein’s face. “One?”

  “Of three,” said Bray, his face darkening.

  Klein swallowed. “What do you want to know?”

  “That’s better.” Andrea smiled. “For starters, I want to know if you have any theories of your own about who would want you dead.”

  “Who would want to kill the division chairman of a weapons manufacturer? That’s a long list.” He took a deep drag of his cigarette.

  “You know this isn’t anything political. The anti-war crowd don’t hire their own cyborg hit teams.”

  “Don’t they? I think everyone would hire their own cyborgs if they could. That’s why I’m in this business.”

  “Fair enough. But I’m talking about someone else involved in the weapons trafficking operation, someone who wasn’t taken into custody. This looks like someone trying to tie up loose ends.”

  I stepped in a little closer. “Nguyen, for instance?”

  Klein scoffed. “Nguyen? Are you really that simple? Nguyen couldn’t organize a bachelor party, never mind a thing like this. No. The only people involved in the operation were Anton Slotin, Stefan Graves, and me.”

  Andrea gave me a look. Be careful. In interrogations, too many cooks can spoil the broth. But she didn’t stop me.

  “There was no one else who knew about it?” I asked.

  “Oh, sure. There was one other person who knew about it. Julian Huxley.”

  So, Klein was playing games. Feeding us whatever garbage he thought we’d be dumb enough to gobble up. “That doesn’t make any sense, Lucien.”

  “We’re on a first-name basis now? Is that one of your little interrogation techniques?”

  The bluster was back. It probably came naturally. “Your story doesn’t work, Mr. Klein.”

  “Why not?” He asked. Of course, he had no way of knowing we’d raided Huxley’s residence.

  “Because Julian Huxley died three years ago.”

  The arrogant smile disappeared, but Klein didn’t offer to clarify.

  Bray stepped in. He probably thought I’d dropped the ball, and now he wanted to give Klein a chance to get back on our good side. “Are you saying those weapons were being sold, with Julian’s consent, for more than three years now?”

  “You people and the first names. To hear you talk, anyone would think you played badminton with the man. No, that’s not what I’m saying. The whole operation, the whole project, it only started a year ago.”

  Andrea leaned in. “The project? Let’s be clear here. We’re talking about a trafficking operation that resulted in the death of thousands of people.”

  “And I’ve lost a great deal of sleep over that, believe me. But it was business. You don’t turn down an opportunity like that.”

  When you’re talking to a sociopath, it’s easy to forget what they are until they remind you. I decided to push some more. “So, if it started a year ago, there’s no way Huxley was in on it. Huxley’s been dead for three years.”

  “If you say so, buddy. I’d use your name, but I don’t actually know it. We weren’t introduced.”

  The name thing again. This guy was obsessed with it, and it was nothing but a distraction. “What do you mean?”

  “You wouldn’t understand. None of you would. You are just a cop, and these guys are whatever the fuck they are. Ninjas, I guess. This is over your head, above your paygrade, whatever you want to call it.”

  “That doesn’t matter.” Andrea spoke again, her voice harsh. “You answer the questions, and we’ll figure it out later if we have to.”

  “Okay. So you have enough resources to hire your own geniuses?”

  “We have one in the basement.”

  She was talking about Thomas Young, a strange man in some ways but definitely a genius. On Tower 7, he had taken control of Marcenn’s android army with a hacking exploit, then led them into battle by remote control to retake the lower levels from the Nightwatch.

  “In the basement?” Klein looked horrified. “Don’t you know you’re supposed to treat them better than that?”

  Klein himself was certainly no genius, but it was his job to manage the geniuses. That sometimes meant catering to their eccentric whims.

  “He likes it down there. Now spit it out.”

  “Okay, okay. Look, I’m telling the truth. The trafficking, as you call it, began about a year ago. Whatever records you have from the Lua Campus, they should corroborate it.”

  “Then what did you mean when you said that Julian Huxley knew what you were up to?”

  “He isn’t dead. It’s as simple as that, on one level. He just isn’t dead.”

  I wasn’t going to let him just blatantly lie to us. “That’s bullshit, Lucien. I found the body myself, surrounded by all his little robots. His corpse was mummified. It was definitely his face, and the autopsy came back with a positive ID. It was Julian Huxley, and the man had been dead for three years.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “You managed to get up there? Past all his androids? That’s kind of impressive.”

  “We killed all the androids.”

  “Huh. Guess we need better androids. Oh well, the geniuses will handle it. Anyway, he isn’t dead. What you found in that bed up there wasn’t really him.”

  “You’ll have to clarify.” Andrea’s voice sounded testy. “And no more sparring around. What’s this big complicated thing we supposedly wouldn’t be able to understand?”

  He sighed the sigh of the long suffering. “I’ll make a stab at it. You know what my position is, right?”

  I answered him. “You’re the Generative A.I. Division Chair.”

  “Excellent file-reading skills. You’ll do well when you move up to a desk job. So what does that mean?” He looked around the room, his face intentionally incredulous. “Does anyone know? Can anyone here tell me what Generative A.I. is?”

  “I’m pretty sure I blew some of it up once,” said Bray.

  Veraldi half-grinned, although I thought Bray was just playing into Klein’s hands. But then he surprised me.

  “No, seriously Klein. It means you make a type of A.I. that can take a good guess about something based on what it sees or hears, the kind that lets cars understand spaces they’ve never been before.”

  I thought that was a pretty good explanation, especially for a guy whose primary professional skill was the strength to operate a ridiculously large gun single-handedly. But Klein didn’t seem quite as impressed.

  “Any of you read Samuel Johnson? No? I didn’t think so. You might want to look up what he says about a dog walking on its hind legs.”

  Bray held up two fingers. “That’s two.”

  “Come on, you don’t even know what I meant by that!”

  “I can take a guess. Just like that A.I. of yours.”

  “Okay,” said Klein, trying to hold up both hands in a placating. “Okay, okay. Let’s step back from the brink here. I’m sorry I’m being a prick, alright? It�
��s not you, it’s the situation. In the past few days I’ve been arrested on trumped-up charges, thrown in jail with a bunch of random scumballs, kidnapped from a perfectly safe cell, attacked by cyborgs, and now forced to smoke with my hands cuffed together by a bunch of slack-jawed ignorants.”

  Andrea shook her head slowly in amazement. “Your de-escalation skills are terrible.”

  For whatever reason, Bray didn’t declare this latest tirade to be strike number three. He just stood there looking at Klein.

  Klein suddenly started talking very quickly. “It’s not that you’re wrong, okay? You’re not actually wrong. It’s a good layman’s explanation. You are obviously the least ignorant person here, and I’d be happy to offer you a job when I beat these charges. As, uh, security or something. But that’s only the most obtuse application for Generative A.I. There’s a lot more you can do with it, as I will now be happy to explain to you.”

  Klein was a man who could manage to be insulting even while babbling in pure fear. It was perversely impressive. Now that he was talking, there was no reason to stop him no matter how he chose to express himself. As the whole room stared at him, he continued.

  “Generative A.I. uses pre-existing data—previously created interpretations—to generate the interpretation of new data. The stuff my team was working on can filter new experiences through what are essentially memories. The same way a human does.”

  “He’s right,” said Bray. “I don’t understand a word of this shit.”

  “That’s because he’s still trying to be evasive.” Andrea stood up and started pacing back and forth. “He’s using as much jargon as he can so we won’t be able to follow him, because there are things he still doesn’t want us to know.”

  Klein looked incredulous. “I’m using as little jargon as I possibly can!”

  “Let’s set that aside for a moment.” Andrea paused in mid stride and looked up at the ceiling like she was trying to pick her words. “You don’t know who we are, but you must have a guess or two. Right?”