Upgrade

by Richard Parry

  “Oh, don’t be like that,” she said. “I’ve taken off my wedding ring and everything.” Her tone was playful, but the lab was professional, clean — pristine. That’s the word, thought Mason. Not a tool out of place. He didn’t expect anything else — it’s why he always went to Sasha first.

  Carter’s voice came through the room’s sound system. “If you guys have finished..?”

  Sasha looked up at the wall. “Why don’t you come down, Carter? This will be fun.”

  “I don’t do field work.”

  “This isn’t field work,” said Sasha. “This is my lab.”

  “It’s your lab,” said Carter, “which is out in the field for me. You’re about to cut open a dead guy. Me? Computers. I do computers.”

  Sasha winked at Mason. “She’s going to miss out on the orgy later.”

  Mason threw her a smile. “I’m not sure if ‘miss’ is the right word. She’s been cranky since she lost a fight with a hacker earlier today.”

  “What?” said Carter. “I didn’t lose a fight. The guy died.”

  Mason nodded. “Sure. He died. I also went blind. Way to have my back.”

  “You’ve got no sense of the dramatic,” said Carter. “Coburn?”

  “Yes, Carter?” Sasha was putting on a medical visor, the clear perspex covering her face. “Changed your mind?”

  “No, I just want you to cut Mason first.”

  Sasha grinned, picking up a small rotary saw. She clicked the saw’s switch a couple of times, the machine whining. “So. Anything you want to tell me about this guy before I do the autopsy?”

  Mason walked around the medical slab, pushing a monitor out of the way. He looked down at the Reed body, looking at the expensive suit. “He… He was wearing these.” He pulled a pair of sunglasses out of his jacket.

  “I’m not sure if that’s quite… Hm.” Sasha held the saw out to one side, cocking her hip. She tapped her jaw with a finger. “Wearing them inside?”

  “Sure. Inside.” Mason tossed the glasses into one of the trays beside the slab. “Seemed otherwise fine.”

  Sasha leaned over the body. “Well, we’ll have to take the suit off first. Fibers will clog the saw, you know how it is.” She looked up at Mason, and winked. “We can see if he’s in as good condition as you.”

  “Oh, please,” said Carter. “I’m going to be sick.”

  “He’s a dead guy,” said Mason. “I—”

  “Stop being so squeamish,” said Sasha. “I get so lonely in here.”

  Carter was making gagging sounds over the sound system. Mason laughed, then started helping Sasha take off the Reed body’s clothes.

  “Here,” said Sasha. “Help me roll him over. He’s heavy.”

  “Yeah,” said Mason. “I had to carry him down some stairs. I know he’s heavy. It’s why it’s called dead weight.”

  She frowned at him, then tapped a display set into the slab. “Says he’s 137. He doesn’t look fat.”

  “No,” said Mason. “He works for a syndicate. He can afford not to be.”

  “I don’t think you’re telling me everything I need to know,” said Sasha.

  “Maybe not,” said Mason, “but there’s not much more to tell. Had a beer. Got in a fight. Turned out he was a robot that bleeds.” He started to go through the jacket the Reed man had been wearing. Spare weapon. Energy packs for it. A packet of cigarettes.

  “You were going to let me take a saw. To a robot. With a probably-still-live power core.” Sasha reached over for them. “You mind?”

  “You always tell me there’s no smoking in here.”

  “I’m not going to smoke,” she said, tapping a cigarette out of the packet. “They look normal.”

  “They’re cigarettes,” said Mason, taking one out. He put it to his mouth.

  “There’s no smoking in here,” said Sasha.

  Mason looked over the top of his lighter at her, then lit the cigarette. He took a deep pull. “Well, that’s a piece of shit,” he said.

  “Why? Is it a cigarette?”

  Mason took another pull. “Oh, sure. It’s a cigarette. The man has no taste though. Seriously? They’re Camels.” He stubbed it out on one of the trays next to the bed, pulling a pack of Treasurers from his pocket.

  “There’s no—” said Sasha, then stopped at the click and snap of Mason’s lighter. “I don’t know why I bother.”

  “Me neither,” said Mason, blowing smoke into an air vent in the ceiling. “It’s like you’ve just met me or something.”

  “My lab is going to smell like a bar for a week.”

  “You’ll still need someone to throw up in here for that,” said Mason.

  Sasha looked down at the Reed body, now naked on the slab.

  “Looks… complete,” said Carter.

  “My,” said Sasha. She started to lift the arms up, then moved the legs. “Can you flip him for me?”

  “Sure,” said Mason. He turned the body.

  “What’s that?” said Carter. She highlighted something stitched vertically up the base of the body’s spine, the red boxing flicking in on Mason’s overlay.

  Mason leaned forward, tapping the skin there. “Good eyes, Carter. Looks like—”

  “It’s a serial number,” said Sasha. “He is a robot.”

  Mason pointed at the hole on the back of the body. “A lot of blood came out of there. If he’s a robot, he’s not the usual kind.”

  “Yes,” said Sasha, her voice dropping all hint of play. “He’s surprisingly detailed. If we didn’t have the evidence, I don’t think you’d be able to tell.” She walked around the slab. “Where did you say you found him?”

  “Bar,” said Mason. “We had a beer.”

  “He drank beer?”

  “Yeah,” said Mason.

  “Robots don’t drink,” she said.

  “Might not be a robot,” said Mason. “That’s why he’s here. If it was an easy problem, Carter could have—”

  “Fuck off,” said Carter.

  “I only meant—”

  “Sometimes you should just stop talking,” said Sasha. “You don’t understand women at all.”

  “He rents women,” said Carter. “So he doesn’t have to understand them.”

  “Did it just get colder in here?” said Mason. “It feels colder.” He stubbed out the Treasurer against the slab, flakes of silver and ash falling to the ground. “So. Doc. You going to work out how it works?”

  Sasha leaned back, looking at the body, then nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I really think we need to. Carter?”

  “Yes, Sasha?”

  “Can you,” said Sasha, wiggling her fingers in the air, “do you your thing?”

  “Hack the robot?”

  “Sure. Hack the robot.”

  “If you turn it on, I can hack it,” said Carter.

  “It’s not on?”

  “Does it look on?”

  “I’ll leave you to it,” said Mason. “I need to speak to Harry.” He pulled another Treasurer from the pack, flicking the lighter on as he left the lab.

  ⚔ ⚛ ⚔

  “No,” said Harry, swiveling in place. Cables stretched from the back of his chassis into a panel set in the wall. The hangar was noisy, the thick smell of oil and metal in the air. Something burst into flames a few bays down, sparks and fluid spraying into the air.

  “It’ll be fun,” said Mason, turning away from the dying machine and back to Harry.

  “That doesn’t sound likely, does it,” said Harry. “The last time—”

  Mason held up a hand. When he spoke, his voice was softer, almost lost against the noise of the service bay around them. “I remember, Harry.”

  Harry leaned forward, servos whining. A metal hand, bigger than Mason’s chest, pressed against the workbench between them. “Do you?”

  “Yeah,” said Mason. He flexed his hand, the motion only barely conscious. He looked at it, then back up at Harry. “I’d really rather it was you out there.”

  “Why do yo
u think you need me there?” Harry straightened, the cables coming from his back slapping and clacking together. “You Specialist Services guys—”

  “You used to be Specialist Services.”

  “Yeah,” said Harry. “Before this.” The huge hand gestured down at his metal chassis.

  “It’s a good look,” said Mason. “Black goes with anything. Tactical.”

  There was a pause, then Harry laughed. “All right, Floyd. Tell me what you think is going down. Why you need me.”

  “Sure,” said Mason, leaning against a bench. A harried tech walked between them, head down, muttering to himself. Mason looked after him. “Problem?”

  “No problem,” said Harry. “That guy always talks to himself.”

  “Psych?”

  “Psych doesn’t come down here much. We need these guys too much.”

  Mason pulled out a cigarette, looking at the silver filter before lighting it. “The problem, see,” he said, blowing smoke up at the ceiling high above them, “is that I’m going to be grossly outnumbered.”

  “I kinda figured,” said Harry.

  The tech walked back between them, then looked at Mason. “There’s no smoking in here.”

  Mason nodded at him, pulling the packet from his pocket and offering them to the man. The tech looked around, nervous as a bird, before his hand stabbed out to grab one. He took the offered light, walking away and drawing on the cigarette.

  “I don’t know how you get away with shit like that,” said Harry.

  “Don’t listen to what he said. Listen to what he wants,” said Mason.

  “Did you… Did you read a book on Zen?”

  “I sometimes watch cartoons when I can’t sleep,” said Mason. “So, here’s the thing. Carter’s tracked down a set of coincidences.”

  “Like?”

  “We found some evidence, with the name Eckers written in it. Didn’t know it was a name at the time, though,” said Mason.

  “You know now?”

  “More like an educated guess,” said Mason. “She… Well, our suspect was having a meeting with someone. Her calendar was wiped.”

  “How do you know she was having a meeting?”

  “Carter’s very clever,” said Mason. “She tells me so all the time.”

  Harry barked a laugh. “Yeah, my handler’s the same.”

  “I’m right here,” said Carter.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be helping Doc Coburn?” Mason said to her over the uplink.

  “I can do two things at once,” said Carter.

  “You too?” said Harry.

  “Yeah,” said Mason. “She’s right here.”

  “Same, same,” said Harry. He cocked his head as if listening to something, then he sighed. “I don’t know why they hire the angry ones. This meeting. When is it?”

  “Was,” said Mason. “It’s already happened. Her calendar said she was meeting with, ah, Bernard Eckers.”

  “Fixer?”

  “Amongst other things.”

  “Why is he still breathing?”

  “I said I wanted you on the team, didn’t I?” said Mason. He leaned forward. “I don’t want this to come out the wrong way, but it’s not because of your good looks.”

  “We’re going to meet Eckers?”

  “Already tried that,” said Mason. “He wasn’t home. Then old man Gairovald changed the mission.”

  “You spoke to Nancy?”

  “I spoke to Gairovald,” said Mason. He waited for that to sink in.

  Harry’s feet flexed against the concrete floor, then he started to clank around. “Look — shit. Can you uncable me?”

  Mason walked around behind him. “Wait a sec— shit. Is there supposed to be crap leaking out of here?” He yanked on one of the pipes connected to Harry’s chassis.

  “No,” said Harry.

  “Good,” said Mason. “It’s not.”

  “You’re an asshole, Floyd.”

  Mason grinned up at the back of the enforcer, then pulled the rest of the cables free. Lights flicked in the dark of the cavity he’d pulled them from, then the casing whirred and clicked into place.

  “Better,” said Harry. “I hate that thing.”

  “You hate eating?”

  “It’s not really eating,” said Harry. “I mean, hell. There’s a simulation. It feels like I’m having a royal feast. Just before you came down? Truffled eggs.”

  “Truffled eggs?”

  “Pretty good, too.” Harry’s big arms waved in the air, hydraulics hissing. “But it’s not the same.”

  “Maybe you should go work for Reed Interactive. Their eggs are probably better.”

  “That’s not funny,” said Harry. “Anyway, it’s not the taste that’s the problem. It’s because I know there ain’t no eggs.”

  Mason lifted himself up to sit on the bench. “Maybe it’s you that’s been reading Zen.”

  Harry swung back around to face Mason, torso moving independently from his legs. “So. Eckers.”

  “And Gairovald,” said Mason. “We’re going to go plug a leak.”

  “Figures,” said Harry, head nodding. “Why today?”

  “Carter,” said Mason. “She’s been sniffing the net. There’s been an increase in syndicate activity around the bar that Eckers owns.”

  “Syndicates? Which ones?”

  “As near as she can tell, all of them. Now, anyway. But initially?” Mason shrugged. “Metatech. Reed.”

  “You’re thinking you’re going to get shot again.”

  Harry Fuentes pointed a gun at Mason, the dark closer than the rain around them. Mason shuffled a bit closer, pushing the barrel of Harry’s weapon into his shoulder. “Here. Take the shot.”

  “Ok, Floyd. You know what your problem is?”

  “Why don’t you tell me.”

  “You’re too much of a damn arrogant son of a bitch,” said Harry. The shot rang loud, spinning him. The pain from his shoulder —

  “I get shot a lot,” said Mason, pushing the memory away. “That’s not the problem. The problem is not being able to shoot back hard enough.”

  Harry flexed big metal shoulders. “I’m your man.”

  “That didn’t take much convincing,” said Mason.

  “No,” said Harry. “I’m pretty much always up for a fight.”

  Mason smiled, getting down from the bench. “It’ll be tonight. I’ll swing by a bit later, we can work through a plan.”

  “Ok,” said Harry. “Why not now?”

  “Sasha’s working on something for me. I need to go check on it.”

  “Coburn? Say hi to her from me.”

  “No problem,” said Mason. “And Harry?”

  “Yeah, Mason?”

  “Thanks.” Mason turned to go.

  “Mason.”

  “Yeah, Harry?”

  “Why me?” Harry swiveled again, gesturing down the bay. “There’s a lot of enforcers at Apsel. Why this particular model?”

  The fire burned so hot, the lattice trying to pull his hand away. He could hear Harry screaming from inside the car, the flames blasting out the window. Fire so intense the air started to burn.

  Mason forced the lattice aside, grabbing the edge of the door. He yanked it open, reaching for what was left of the man inside. His overlay lit bright, warning icons flashing and alive against a haze of static. Mason felt his hand begin to spark and flare, the skin on his face starting to smear from the heat —

  Mason flexed his hand again, then looked back at Harry. “No reason, Harry,” he said. “No reason at all.”

  ⚔ ⚛ ⚔

  “The problem with you,” said Sasha, “is that you don’t listen.”

  “She’s right,” said Carter. “You don’t listen.”

  Mason considered the suits of armor in front of him, stretched out in lockers. The Federate’s falcon was in gold on the breast of each chest plate, the empty visors looking down into the room like ancient guardians. “I listen fine. It’s a robot.”

 
; “No,” said Carter. “It’s not a robot.”

  “You said it was a robot,” said Mason. He reached a hand towards a light armor model. No — that shit’d get torn in half tonight. “Looks like a duck, right?”

  “It’s not a robot. It’s not a duck either,” said Sasha. “It’s what we’re trying to tell you.”

  “Got it, not a duck,” said Mason. He took a pull from his cigarette, the silver filter bright from the ceiling lamps in the armory. “Which means it’s a robot.”

  “You try,” said Sasha. Her voice was hard on the link.

  “I… Ok,” said Carter. “Mason.”

  “Yes, Carter?” Mason walked down the line of armor suits, coming to stand in front of a heavy suit. The bulk of the plating stood out tall and flat in the shoulders. No — couldn’t even scratch myself in that. No mobility.

  “It’s a… I guess we don’t have a word for it. It’s like a robot—”

  “Right,” said Mason. “I got that part.”

  “—but it’s a remote.”

  “Like a drone?”

  “Sort of,” she said. “It’s probably better if I show you.”

  Mason paused, then looked down the line of armor racks. “Show me what?”

  “This,” said a voice behind him.

  Mason spun, the lattice dragging hard against him, the Tenko-Senshin already out and up. The Reed body was standing there, head tilted to one side, neck broken. The eyes looked past him, through him, dead and glassy. It’s shoulders were slumped.

  “Gotcha,” said the Reed body.

  “Gotcha,” said Carter’s voice at the same time. She laughed down the link at him.

  Mason struggled against the lattice for a second, the Tenko-Senshin shaking in his hand, whining soft and high against the quiet of the room.

  “Seriously,” said Carter. “Don’t shoot, all right? It’s me.”

  “It’s me. Really,” said the Reed body. There was something wrong with its mouth, the left side dragging like a stroke victim.

  “I’m never taking you out,” said Mason. “Not bowling, not dancing.”

  “It’s not a robot,” said Sasha.

  “It’s not—” said Mason. He lowered the Tenko-Senshin, slipping the little weapon back into its holster. He walked around the Reed body, then reached out a finger and poked its shoulder. It swayed gently, then righted.