Upgrade

by Richard Parry

  “Floyd wasn’t there. The whole thing was a setup.” Gairovald wasn’t asking. Yep, he’s pissed.

  “There’s another theory,” said Lace. “Don’t they read my memos?”

  “Sir? There’s another theory,” said Harry. His optics tracked Gairovald’s bodyguards, and he flicked over to thermal for a quick scan. Mostly cold and dark, a bright spark of fusion power in the core. They’re more machine than I am.

  Gairovald turned from his pacing. “I’m listening.”

  “Our comms are compromised,” said Harry. “There were three thousand people at that park. They dropped in on us. Attacked us. There’s no way that…” He caught himself before he used Mason’s first name. Don’t be too familiar, Harry. Gairovald’s possibly the smartest person you’ve ever met. Maybe smartest guy on the planet. “Sir? It’s just that there’s no way Floyd has the resources to do that. It’s a syndicate-level play.”

  “That’s my theory,” said Lace. “Did you just steal my theory?”

  “You think our links are being monitored?” Gairovald turned to one of his bodyguards. “Is it possible?”

  “It’s as likely as rain on the moon, I guess,” said the man. He looked at Harry, dead eyes cold and blue. Harry’s overlay tried to map a name to the man, came up blank. “Whatever. It’s possible.”

  “You think this is a serious possibility?” said Gairovald, looking back at Harry.

  “I don’t have another working theory,” said Harry. “Sir? We got schooled, and we got schooled hard. Someone set us up. Whether Floyd is in on it isn’t the issue. Our bigger problem is which other player wants into the party.”

  “I told you,” said Lace. “It’s Reed. It’s their tech. Hypno robot mind control bullshit? That’s Reed.”

  “If it’s true, it’s likely to be a Reed play,” said Gairovald. “This smells like their brand of product.”

  “I was just going to say that, sir,” said Harry.

  “Like hell you were,” said Lace. “My damn theory.”

  Gairovald tilted his head to the ceiling. “Carter? You there?”

  Her voice came out, loud and flat in the room. “Always, sir.”

  A small smile tugged at Gairovald’s mouth. “You’ve been listening.”

  “It was that or surf the net for porn.” She cleared her throat. “I don’t get many personal emails. That’s how Lace spends her time.”

  “That bitch,” said Lace.

  “Shush,” said Carter, the link quiet between the three of them. “The grown-ups are talking.”

  Gairovald laughed. “Carter? Has our communications network been compromised?”

  “Doesn’t look like it,” said Carter. “Pretty sure that’s not what happened.”

  “What do you think happened?”

  “Social hacks,” said Carter. “They got to someone.”

  “Makes sense,” said the nameless bodyguard, looking at Harry. “More probable than rain on the moon, or our comms being compromised, which are both about as likely.”

  “Hey—” said Harry.

  “You have fun down the club last weekend, Zane?” Carter sounded bored. “You enjoy your entertainment?”

  The dead eyes looked around the room. “Well enough,” said Zane. “You think I don’t know that you watch? I think you like it.”

  “No,” said Carter. “That’s your problem. You don’t think, Zane. There’s only so much of your shit I can shovel. This one was expensive. Her face? It’s more than a weekend in the chair to fix that. You see—”

  “That’s enough, Carter,” said Gairovald.

  “Sir,” said Carter.

  “You wouldn’t lie to me, would you Carter?” Gairovald’s smile was small but playful.

  “I don’t know the meaning of the word, sir.”

  Gairovald laughed. “Oh, you are good, aren’t you?”

  “I try,” said Carter.

  “Yes, I think you do,” said Gairovald. “Carter?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  Gairovald tugged at one of his shirt cuffs, the motion small. “I find the idea of our communications network being compromised sublime in the extreme.”

  “What the actual fuck,” said Lace, a fraction of a second before her link dropped.

  Gairovald was still talking to Carter. “It’d be a real clusterfuck if it was true.”

  “What is it?” said Harry down the link. “Lace?” He tried to connect again, but she was gone, her side of the link flat and empty.

  “Do you think you could, I don’t know, get someone at Reed on the horn? Start a parlay. Find out what they know.” Gairovald paused. “Carter?”

  “No problem,” said Carter, her voice loud in the room.

  “Oh, and Carter?” Gairovald looked up at the roof.

  “Sir?”

  “Has our communications network been compromised?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know where Mason Floyd is? Jenni Haraway?”

  “Right now? No. They dropped out of link contact a couple of days ago,” said Carter.

  “Fine,” said Gairovald. “When you’re next in contact, I want you to report it to me straight away.”

  “No problem,” said Carter. “You’re the boss.”

  Gairovald nodded, then walked towards one of the hangar doors. A black car sat in the quiet of the night, waiting for him.

  “Carter?” said Harry, hoping she was still on the link.

  “Yeah.”

  “What was all that about?” Harry watched Gairovald get into the car, Zane in the back with him, and the other bodyguard in the front.

  “Can’t say,” she said.

  “Can’t say?”

  “Literally. Can’t say,” she said.

  “What did you do with Lace’s link connection?”

  There was quiet for a moment, then Carter sighed. “I’m trying to save her life, Harry. Can you trust me?”

  “I’m not sure,” said Harry. “How does cutting her off save her life? How does cutting her off from me help her?”

  “Can’t say.”

  “Can’t? Or won’t?”

  “Harry?”

  “Yes, Carter.” Harry’s chassis fired into life and he walked it towards the hanger exit, feet clanking loud in the empty room.

  “You shouldn’t trust me. I need you to, but you shouldn’t. You’re going to have to make a call. I can’t help with this one.”

  “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I wasn’t cutting her off from you.” Then Carter dropped the link as well, leaving Harry alone in the hangar.

  He stopped moving, and started thinking.

  ⚔ ⚛ ⚔

  Harry hadn’t moved. His chassis stood, caught mid-stride on the way to the exit, exactly where Carter had left him. Workers had started back in the hanger after Gairovald had left, creeping back in around the edges of the space, ignoring Harry.

  All but one. It was the mechanic he’d talked to the other day. The man came up to him, cigarette in hand. “Hey. Guy.”

  Harry jerked himself away from his thoughts, swiveling the chassis towards the man. “Yeah.”

  “Help you?” The mechanic looked up at Harry. Harry’s optics zoomed on the man’s face, as accidental as a thought.

  “I don’t know,” said Harry. “Can you?”

  “Maybe,” said the man. “Oil change? Reactor running off-wave?”

  “No,” said Harry. “Nothing like that.”

  “It’s just that you’re standing in the middle of our workspace.” The man shrugged. “You’re big. You’re in the way.”

  “Oh,” said Harry. “Sorry.” He didn’t move.

  “Right,” said the man, after the pause stretched out long enough to be uncomfortable. “Hard meeting with the boss?”

  “I’m not sure,” said Harry.

  “Sounds like it was,” said the man. He pulled a cleaning rag out from his back pocket, working it over his hands, smearing oil and grease around. “I find the problem wi
th this kind of work is that you never really feel clean ever again. You feel me?”

  “Yeah. I really do.”

  “You got somewhere you need to be?” The man pushed the rag back into his pocket. “You on the clock?”

  “I’m always on the clock,” said Harry. “I can’t switch off.”

  “I heard that,” said the man. “Leastwise, you were in here with the boss, we got to grab a cup of bad coffee and a stale donut.”

  Bad coffee. Stale donut. I haven’t had anything like that in years. Stood around friends, walked on carpet inside a building with too-cold air conditioning. “Sounds like paradise.”

  “It is what it is,” said the man. “Look. I tell you what. Let’s move you over there to a harness, get you wired in for a diagnostic.”

  “I don’t need a diagnostic,” said Harry.

  “Right,” said the man. “The thing is, diagnostics take a long time. We can run full systems. Top to bottom, work out what’s going on in the creases, you know?”

  “But—”

  “The best part about the diagnostic is how quiet it is,” said the man. “You’ll be in the harness, and it’d be against protocol to interrupt that. You see what I’m saying?”

  “I see what you’re saying,” said Harry. “I think I could use a diagnostic.”

  “Thought so,” said the man. “Over here.” He pointed to one of the conversion harnesses racked against the hanger wall.

  Harry turned the chassis around, walking towards the harness. He swiveled the top half of the torso to look at the man. “Name’s Harry,” he said.

  “Travis,” said the man — Travis. “I figured you knew that. You know, with the—” he gestured in the air. “The overlay.”

  “The overlay,” said Harry. He’d arrived at the harness, and turned around to back in. “You know what, Travis?”

  “What?”

  “I think I prefer the old fashioned way of meeting people.”

  Travis nodded, rubbing his hands against his overalls. “Right. Well, I’ll be back in a couple hours, see how the diagnostic’s running.” He walked away.

  Harry sat with the hum of the chassis around him. It was only a few minutes later that he realized Travis hadn’t connected the harness up for a diagnostic at all.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  “We’re about to break our contract,” said Mason. “There is no mission.”

  “You gave me your word.” She looked at him, eyes hard. “There’s always a mission, Floyd. It doesn’t stop.”

  “We need trust here.” Mason flexed his neck, feeling the tension there. “Between us. Between all of us. All those people out there? Metatech. Mike. The kids? Laia, and Zacharies. Sadie—”

  “Oh,” said Haraway. “Of course. You’re going to bring her up.”

  “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I’ve seen the way you look at her. You lecture me about right and wrong? You’re letting your feelings cloud our mission.”

  Mason opened and closed his mouth a few times before anything came out. “My feelings?”

  “You’re smitten with a guitarist without a link or a past. I don’t know if it’s admirable or just plain stupid, but you’re going to compromise this whole thing.”

  “There are mutants crawling out of the walls that want to eat our flesh. Of course I’ve got feelings for her. I trust her. She saved my life.”

  “No,” said Haraway. “Laia saved your life.”

  Mason pulled out the Tenko-Senshin, the weapon whining as it fired up. He felt the direct link, cool and hard as his palm held the weapon. He looked at it, then spun it around the trigger guard, offering it it Haraway. “Take it.”

  “What?”

  “I said, take it. Hold it.” He hefted it again. “It’s not a heavy burden to carry. It weighs almost nothing at all.”

  She eyed the little weapon like Mason held a snake. “You know I can’t.”

  “Why not?” said Mason. He took a step forward. “Why can’t you take it, Haraway?”

  “It’s a Tenko smart weapon, Floyd. It’s keyed to you. It’ll destroy me.”

  Mason nodded, looking down at the gun in his hand. “You think that stopped her when the shit hit the fan? You think Sadie didn’t know that? She saw it blow something into ash in the middle of a rain storm. She picked this thing up anyway, ready to die.” For me.

  “It didn’t kill her,” said Haraway.

  “That’s right,” said Mason. He spun the weapon back around, then held it up. “We’ve been together a long time.”

  “What—”

  “It wasn’t made for me, you know,” said Mason.

  “I know,” said Haraway. “Tenko’s been dead for a long time.”

  “It makes you wonder,” said Mason. “There’s an AI inside it.”

  Haraway took a step forward. “How did you get it?”

  Mason’s face twisted. “Trust, Haraway. Same way Sadie was able to pick it up.”

  “It knows who you trust?”

  “No,” said Mason. “It decides who it thinks I should trust. That’s how it works.”

  “Tenko was crazy,” said Haraway.

  “Sure.” Mason hefted the weapon, then offered it to Haraway one more time. “You think I should trust you? Take it.”

  “I’m not taking a weapon made by a madman to prove myself,” said Haraway. “I don’t have anything to show to a man who’s been dead since before I was born.”

  “No,” said Mason. “You have to prove yourself to me.”

  Haraway crossed her arms again, stepping back. “Not today,” she said.

  ⚔ ⚛ ⚔

  “We’re going to be here a long time,” said Haraway.

  “If that’s what it takes,” said Mason. “I got nowhere else I need to be. My old life? It’s gone, Haraway. How about you?”

  She hugged herself. “Yes,” she said.

  “Yes, you got somewhere else to be?”

  “Yes, my old life is gone,” she said. “But it’s been gone longer than this mission.”

  Mason turned to look at her, mouth set in a line. “Tell me about the gate.”

  “You haven’t worked it out yet?” Haraway was looking out the window. “It doesn’t take long, does it?”

  “What?”

  “This town. It’s been dead for years. Fifty. A hundred. I don’t know. And just minutes in, we’ve brought our world here. Breathed new life into it.” She raised a hand to the bulb flickering in the ceiling. “The power’s back on.”

  “Yeah, great,” said Mason. “The power’s back on. There’s a fusion drive hooked up at an old reactor facility. It’s not hard to see how it happened.”

  She turned to look at him. “Yeah, yeah it is. Floyd. You got any idea how big a fusion reactor is?”

  “I don’t know,” said Mason. “Apsel makes them in all sizes.”

  “How big would you say?” she said. “How big would one have to be?”

  “I don’t know. The size of an orange?” Mason looked down at his chest. “There’s one in here somewhere.”

  “I know,” said Haraway. “For the lattice.”

  “Right,” said Mason. “For the lattice. And… other upgrades.”

  “How much metal you got, Floyd?”

  Mason looked down at his arm. The plastic had melted, cracking off in chunks, as he’d pulled Harry from the car. He’d seen the machinery showing through, metal glinting in amongst the charred carbon. “Not enough.”

  “Not enough?”

  “Not enough to… Look, where’s this going?”

  “A fission reactor facility is a full complex. There’s the reactor itself, then the turbines, that kind of thing. You follow?”

  Mason scratched his head. “We talking fission now?”

  Haraway ignored him. “So then Apsel comes along with a miraculous new fusion technology. Answer to the world’s prayers! No waste product. Self-contained reactors, built to any size or spec. All the energy you want. Forever
. You pay us by the month, your reactor keeps going, no questions.”

  “I’ve read the brochure,” said Mason. “I work there, remember?”

  “You worked there,” she said. “The next bit’s the kicker. It’s the bit Apsel doesn’t want you to know.”

  “Does Carter know?”

  “Pretty sure she does.”

  “That why she helped you?”

  Haraway paused for a moment. “No,” she said.

  “Then why?”

  “It’s… It’s complicated. You want to hear the next bit?”

  “Sure, bring it on.” Mason watched her carefully. His optics picked over her face, highlighting the subtle shift in expression. She’s not lying. Not about this, anyway.

  “Floyd, there’s no way you can make a fusion reactor the size of an orange. Can’t be done.”

  “But—”

  “All kinds of reasons why. It’s not about the fuel, I mean you only need a little bit of that. That’s where I started, actually. Trying to work out how these things kept working without more fuel.”

  “Can’t you add fuel?”

  Haraway walked closer to him, reaching out a finger and tapping the armor plate over his chest. “How they get the fuel in there, Floyd?”

  “I—” He thought about it. “Service. They top it up when I get a check up.”

  “Right,” she said. “You ever seen them do that?”

  “They sedate me. I’m out cold.”

  “Trust me,” she said. “They don’t top it up.”

  “Then how—”

  “When I started trying to work out how the reactor worked without more fuel, it hit me. They don’t.”

  “But you said—”

  “They don’t, because they’re not reactors.” Haraway tapped on his chest once more, then stepped away. “Apsel doesn’t make reactors, Floyd. They make gateways.”

  It was Mason’s turn to take a step back. He looked down at his chest again, then back at Haraway. “What?”

  “The box I found? It was an old prototype. Very old. There were only two.” She was looking out the window again, her eyes lost. “I wasn’t even looking for them. I was… It doesn’t matter. I was the head of an empty division, Floyd,” she said. She looked down. “The whole time I was there? We didn’t shift the needle at all. There was always something missing. Some piece of information. And I found it.”