Tek Secret

by William Shatner

  Tugging his lone suitcase from under his seat, Gomez made his way along the aisle. Five other passengers were getting off at this stop.

  The eternal midday was pleasantly warm. Gomez whistled as he crossed the pictorial paving and entered the lobby.

  It was cool and shadowy and appeared to have an intricately patterned mosaic tile floor, a splashing marble fountain and ceiling beams of sturdy redwood.

  “Gomez,” he informed the polished silvery robot desk clerk. “I have a reservation.”

  The clerkbot was wearing a shirt decorated with animated jungle landscapes. “I noticed you admiring our lobby, sir,” he said as he consulted his computer terminal. “You’ll be interested to know that it’s all an illusion, created by the clever use of holograms and special effects. It’s just about nearly one hundred percent fake.”

  “Bueno,” said the detective, smiling, “this sounds like my sort of place.”

  Wolfe Bosco gestured expansively, waving a hand at the immense swimming pool. “My star has risen, Gomez. I am no longer the pathetic schlep that you encountered a few weeks ago down in the other Hollywood.”

  “Why, gee, you even have new hair.”

  The small talent scout stroked the hair at his temple. “I look terrific as a blond,” he explained. “When you lunch at an exclusive place like the Poolside Lounge, you’re obliged to appear at your best.”

  Gomez observed, “You also have far fewer wrinkles than when last we met.”

  “Exactly. The larger the salary, the fewer the wrinkles.” He rested an elbow on the small white tabletop. “So, Gomez, how can I be of service to you?”

  Gomez was scanning the forty-some tables that circled the sunlit outdoor pool. Every one was occupied, and behind the rows of tables were a dozen small wooden cabanas for those who favored some privacy for their dining. “I hear, from the first chap I contacted after arriving at this sundrenched paradise, that you’re still not above peddling information, Wolfe.”

  The diminutive agent rested his other elbow on the table. “Since I landed my top client, Jacko Fuller, a fat picture deal, I’ve cut back on some of my other activities,” he confided. “Still, for old time’s sake and a nice big fee, I’ll be happy to lend a hand.” He paused to wave at a passing blonde. “Hiya, Linda. That’s Linda Turner, Jacko’s costar in Love Me Forever. It’s lensing right now over at Galactic Studios.”

  “I’m truly impressed, Wolfe, at the way you’ve been able to sell that rundown android replica of a washed-up second-rate singer to these—”

  “Shush! Ixnay, Gomez.” He slapped his palm over Gomez’s hand, shook his blond head warningly and then took a very careful look around at the adjoining tables. “Don’t go spreading nasty rumors like that about my number-one client.” His voice had dropped to a near whisper.

  Gomez laughed. “Ah,” he said, “you haven’t informed any of these moguls that your Jacko isn’t actually a human being.”

  “Everybody who runs the movie business is young, extremely youthful, Gomez,” Wolfe quietly informed him. “They, not a one of them, don’t remember the original Jacko Fuller. They think my boy’s the real thing. Hell, I could never get the kind of money they’re paying for him if they were wise he’s an andy sim. So let them, callow schmucks that they are, go on thinking he’s the genuine article.”

  “Serves ’em right,” agreed Gomez. “Now about our negotiations?”

  “I was a schmuck to admit my little con,” sighed the agent ruefully. “You’re probably going to hold that over me as we talk fees.”

  “Nope, Wolfe, I’m going to be extremely generous—in spite of the fact that I can screw up your present and future career. $200.”

  “$200? Am I hearing correctly? No, I can’t be.” He patted his wrinkle-free cheeks with his palms. “That’s an insulting sort of ... And yet, it’s not all that bad. I’ll take it, especially, Gomez, since you happen to have me by the goonies.”

  “You know Sheldon Gates, don’t you?”

  “A goniff, but, yeah, I do, alas,” said the agent. “Ran into him a few times down on Earth.”

  “Is he here?”

  “You mean at the Poolside Lounge? Naw, this is too high class a hangout for the—”

  “Here on New Hollywood.”

  Wolfe twisted in his seat to watch a slim, tanned blonde young woman make a perfect dive into the pool off the high board. “Too bad her tits are too small for longterm stardom,” he commented. “Yeah, Gomez, I seem to have heard that Sheldon made a rather hurried departure from Greater LA and is currently holed up on this satellite.”

  “Is he residing with his dear old mom?”

  “I believe he is indeed in residence with that old yenta.”

  “Would that be at her place of business—Madame Sonja’s Longevity Lodge?”

  “That’s the place, sure. A very successful scam, so I hear,” answered the agent. “It’s over on Rodeo Drive in a building that’s shaped pretty much like my Aunt Dorothy’s backside.”

  Gomez told him, “What I need, Wolfe, is a safe and successful means of getting in and out of there. Further, I want to know exactly where Shel is located within the establishment.”

  “That’ll cost you $400 extra.”

  “$200.”

  “$350.”

  “$300.”

  “Okay. It’s robbery, but what can I do?” He raised his eyes to the clear sunlit midday sky above. “I’ll get you everything you need to know by not later than supper time.”

  In order to take his leave from the Poolside Lounge, Gomez had to walk by a row of the private dining cabañas.

  He was wending his way over the mosaic tiles, circling squat potted palms, when he became aware of some kind of fracas taking place in one of the small wooden buildings. Crockery smashed within, then something hard slammed against one of the opaque windows.

  Slowing, Gomez eyed the cabaña as he passed it.

  Another piece of dishware smashed within. Then a young woman cried out, “This, and I’m really very ashamed of you, isn’t what I came here for!”

  A man chuckled in a nasty way. A table fell over with a rattling thunk.

  Gomez stopped, looking at the red door.

  None of the diners at the nearby tables were paying a bit of attention to the noisy conflict.

  Inside the cabaña the woman screamed.

  Sighing, Gomez sprinted to the door and caught the handle. He turned it, yanked the door open and went diving inside.

  19

  THE DAY HAD BARELY begun, the morning light was thin and tinged with grey. Roger Zangerly yawned twice as he hurried along the plastiglass connecting tube that linked the Mechanix International storehouses in the Oxnard Sector of Greater LA.

  Outside, across a stretch of fenced beach, the dawn Pacific was choppy and topped with grey froth. A few gulls were skimming low over the water, the sound of their cries was kept out by the tube walls.

  Roger yawned again, saying to himself, “I’m a damn idiot to risk nosing around here.”

  At the entry portal to Storehouse 3, a gunmetal robot in a khaki suit stood, arms folded across his chest. When Roger was still ten feet from him, the guardbot made a loud clicking sound. His ball-head swiveled, he gazed directly at the approaching man. His eyes glowed, momentarily, green. “Good morning, Mr. Zangerly,” the robot said. “Up early, I note. What brings you to our sector of Greater LA?”

  “Just routine.” Roger handed the robot a blue plasticard. “I need to check on some mothballed andies in Compartment 22. Here’s my authorization.”

  The robot accepted the card, inserting it into the slot in his forehead. After nine seconds, he said, “Okay, you can go in, sir. By the way, the canteen will commence serving breakfast at 6:30 A.M., in case you find yourself feeling hungry after your chores are completed.”

  “Thanks, that’s a good idea.” He smiled at the guardbot as he walked by him and into the vast, multiroomed Storehouse 3.

  Roger had, very slyly, gone rummagin
g through the Mechanix files after his brother had phoned him yesterday. He had a fairly high security clearance and, over the years, he’d learned several ways to outfox the company computers. As a consequence, he’d managed to access some information that he wasn’t actually supposed to access. He found out that Mechanix had put something called Project Doppelgänger in motion nearly two years ago. There weren’t too many details in what he’d dug up thus far, yet sufficient to convince Roger that some android dupes had been built and kept secret.

  Some of them, and this involved guesswork as well as facts unearthed, were quite probably being kept here in Storehouse 3 in Compartment 26. Roger decided he wanted a firsthand look.

  The air in the metal corridors was chill and didn’t feel like real air when you breathed it. Roger coughed into his hand as he turned a corner.

  He ignored Compartment 22 and kept on to 26. The electrokey he’d borrowed last night should open all the doors in this section of the storehouse.

  He stuck the key in the slot of the door and it slid silently aside. As Roger crossed the threshold, harsh, yellow light filled the big, metal-walled room.

  “Damn,” he exclaimed.

  Sitting in an armchair on his left was Alicia Bower.

  Although Gomez had recognized the young woman’s voice, he went shoving on into the dining cabaña anyway. If you were dedicated to practicing chivalry, he figured, you couldn’t be selective about it.

  The slim, redheaded young woman was standing, widelegged, next to the toppled lunch table. She held a wine flask by its neck and was glowering at the handsome, tanned man, who was sitting cautiously on the floor and rubbing at a fresh bruise on his handsome forehead.

  She said, “I assumed, Mr. Meech, that I’d made it perfectly clear that despite the unfortunate fact that I have been temporarily forced to work in, as it were, the salt mines of broadcast journalism, I’m not at all interested in any sort of cheap romantic—Oh, hello there, Gomez.”

  He gave her a lazy salute. “Greetings, Natalie.”

  Natalie Dent looked down at the flask in her hand, then let it drop to the dish-strewn floor. “I don’t imagine I’ll have to bop Mr. Meech again to calm him down, Gomez, but it’s nice to have you standing by, even though you’re looking a lot older and flabbier than when I saw you last, since you are very good at knocking bullies and lechers on their respective keesters.”

  “I am good at that, si.”

  From the floor Desmond Meech asked him, “Do you know this helląat?”

  “I must admit that I do,” answered the detective. “We’re long-time chums.”

  “She’s verbose,” remarked the actor.

  “That doesn’t justify your attacking her.”

  “This feisty young lady simply doesn’t understand the basic ground rules of the show business interview, Mr.... Gomez, was it?”

  “This is Sid Gomez.” Natalie brushed at the skirt of her suitdress. “He happens to be, unless they’ve finally come to their senses and bounced him, an operative with the prestigious Cosmos Detective Agency.”

  “Wait now, we don’t need any detectives on the scene,” said Meech. “I was merely, as I’ve been attempting to explain since you overturned the damn table on me, being friendly in the venerable show business interview tradition. I assure you, Gomez, that putting my hand on Miss Dent’s knee was purely a gesture of avuncular friendship.”

  “For an actor who’s portrayed a doctor on a vidwall show for the past three seasons,” remarked Natalie disdainfully, “you certainly have a lousy knowledge of anatomy. That most certainly wasn’t my knee that you were attempting to fondle.”

  Gomez inquired, “Is that your vidcam lying on the floor yonder, Nat?”

  “Yes, I dropped it when Meech made his second lunge.”

  “Interviews are supposed to be like that,” persisted the fallen actor. “Some questions, some lunging.”

  “Gather up your effects, querida,” suggested Gomez, “and I’ll escort you to safety.”

  “Any lady is perfectly safe with me,” assured Meech. “Have you ever watched my ‘Surgeon Stone’ show, Gomez?”

  “Once.”

  Natalie retrieved the camera. “I appreciate your barging in, Gomez,” she said. “It’s nice to have some backup in situations such as this, even though I feel perfectly capable of defending myself against this aging philanderer. Afterall, a man who’s pushing fifty isn’t that—”

  “I’m forty three,” corrected Meech, who was remaining on the floor. “Didn’t you read the bio the studio sent you?”

  “You couldn’t possibly, if you’ll pardon my pointing it out, have done that much damage to yourself in a mere forty three years, Meech.” She stepped out into the perennial sunlight.

  “By the way,” called the actor, “when’s the interview going to air?”

  “Adiόs.” Gomez followed the redhaired reporter outside.

  She was walking slowly, camera pressed to her chest, toward an exit from the Poolside Lounge. “This is very disheartening.”

  “You have to accept the fact that some hombres, especially those with low standards, are going to find you attractive,” he consoled her. “In your line of work that means that—”

  “Oh, quit acting like a bigger dimwit than you are,” she said, sniffling. “I’m not at all upset over that oafish vidactor. I’m chagrined at your having come across me in this sorry, shabby state.”

  “You don’t look any sorrier or shabbier than usual, Nat.”

  She sobbed once as they reached the street. “Where are we?”

  “Is this a geographical or a metaphysical query?”

  She pointed forlornly at the nearest palm tree. “New Hollywood! Good gravy, if you’ll excuse my slang, here I am, once one of the biggest and brightest investigative reporters that Newz ever had. My reports brought a new dimension to vidwall muckraking. I’ve been presented the Lemac Award twice thus far, which isn’t bad for a newswoman of twenty seven.”

  “Aren’t you with Newz anymore?”

  “Oh, yes, I’m still working for them,” she said, sniffling and sobbing. “But I’m on their black list just at the moment, I’m in the dog house, I’m pounding a beat in the sticks, relegated to sweeping out the stables. It’s really—”

  “I’m sure your fall from grace makes for a fascinating tale, Nat,” he cut in. “But I have a busy agenda ahead of me and—”

  “Then you didn’t know about my disgrace?”

  “Hadn’t heard, nope.”

  “I’m now the host, and it pains me to reveal this to you, Gomez, on ‘Show Biz Today.’” She paused, wiped tears from her eyes. “And do you know why this awful fate befell me? Well, I’ll tell you exactly how I came to—”

  “Better not if it’s going to cause you any further stress, cam. No, we’ll just end this sad conversation right here and now and I’ll get on about my business.”

  “Your business?” She sniffled once more, straightened up, looked him directly in the eye. “That’s it! Yes, you, Gomez, flawed vessel that you are, will be my salvation.”

  “Not if it’s going to take more than another five minutes.”

  “I got shipped up here, four and a half long, dreadful months ago, because one of my hardhitting reports stepped on the toes of a powerful crony of a big-shot Newz exec,” the reporter explained. “Ah, but if I could bring in a really terrific scoop, why then—”

  “Natalie, my pet, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I’m here on New Hollywood to look into a very ordinary, very routine matter. It involves just a minor actor whose wife wonders what he’s actually—”

  “Which actor?”

  “Elmo Hess.”

  “He’s not even here. He left for the Moon Colony two weeks ago to start shooting ‘Space Devils Fly High.’”

  “Oops, then I better rush off and book passage for the Moon. So long.”

  She caught his arm and held tight. “Please, Gomez, you know full well that I’m not the sort of person who enjoys
pleading for a favor, but, please, help me out,” she said. “If I can turn in a big story, then I can go over the head of that nitwit exec who exiled me to this limbo and insist that the other Newz bosses reinstate me if they want the rights to the scoop.”

  “I’m late for an appointment.” Smiling guilelessly, he pulled free of her clutch. “But, I swear on my honor, we’ll meet for dinner at my hotel tonight at eight. Then I’ll give you all the exciting details of the case I’m actually at work upon.”

  “What hotel are you staying at?”

  “The LaBrea Arms,” he lied and, turning on his heel, made his getaway.

  20

  WHEN JAKE AWAKENED TWO hours earlier, he’d found himself occupying a small rectangular room. Three of the walls were grey and blank, the fourth contained an animated mural depicting a vast field of rippling wheat. Every ten minutes a speaker imbedded in the wall announced: “This detention cell is made possible by a grant from Farmboy Industries—Feeding America from the heart of Farmland.”

  There was a cot, a chair and a toilet in the detention cell. Jake was pacing now, eyeing the wall where he suspected the door must be.

  Three crows, black spots in the sky, flew over the sea of ripe wheat.

  “This detention cell is made possible in part by a grant from Farmboy Industries—Feeding America from the heart of Farmland.”

  “So I’ve heard,” muttered Jake.

  The wall he’d been watching produced a sudden purring sound. A panel slid aside, admitting a tall, black-enameled robot and then closing again.

  The robot had Jail Staff stenciled in white across his polished ebony chest. “Good afternoon, Mr. Cardigan.”

  “It’s afternoon, huh? Same day?”

  “The gas used to calm rioters usually pacifies criminals for from five to six hours. It’s perfectly harmless, causing no serious side effects in most—”

  “Whoa,” suggested Jake. “I’m neither a rioter nor a criminal. If you’d allow me to fetch a lawyer, we can—”