Home Planet: Arcadia (Part 3)

by Sedgwick, T. J.

  I exhaled, running my fingers through my short hair. Regardless of her artificial origins, I had no doubt she possessed an inner life, self-awareness. So after returning to the controls, I did two things. First, I found the retraction command for the leg struts. But I didn’t push it. Second, I sent the shuttle downward from its giddy height. Only then did I tap the display, commanding the shuttle to pull in its four telescopic legs.

  I watched Laetitia as the top two of the three sections scoped in, but she let go with her left hand and extended it above her head. Her palm pressed on the underside of the shuttle, her locked arm holding firm against the force of the withdrawing leg. Back at the terminal, I halted the descent, hovering a few feet above the treetops. I could shut off the wireless power grid and, eventually, she’d run out of charge. But that could be days if she expended little energy just hanging there. The shuttle would run out of fuel before then and there’d be no way to get back into space. Likewise if I crashed the shuttle with what I was contemplating. But there was no other choice, so I took manual control once more and repeated the evasive maneuvers, rolling and bucking the shuttle this time at low altitude. Laetitia held fast.

  I was under no illusions. Once Reichs discovered this, he’d use her against me and everyone else involved. That was if she didn’t decide to do it herself. My evasive moves weren’t working. There had to be another way. And then I saw it. I leveled off the shuttle and reversed a few hundred feet, adjusting altitude while eyeing the control tower in the distance. Then I vectored toward the tower and engaged full power. Too low and the shuttle would no longer be space-worthy. Take it too slow and she might grab the protruding framework with her legs and bring down the shuttle. My focus zeroed in on the fast-approaching tower, it’s plant-covered edges adding uncertainty to its true height. I glanced down at Laetitia, who knew what was coming and drew herself up the strut as high as she could. This would be damned close. And then I skimmed the tower, bending back the leg and forcing the shuttle off course, its nose inclined toward the trees. Laetitia hung on the control tower frame as I struggled to get the nose up, but doing so too late to avoid the sturdy tree. A further forced-turn to the left sent the shuttle spinning on a level plane and when I looked down Laetitia had gone and so had the leg section. I got a grip and stabbed the terminal re-engaging the auto-stabilization, slowing the spin. Working fast, I found the return flight plan and set the shuttle on autopilot while still searching the outside for signs of Laetitia. The shuttle climbed into the clouds and eastward toward the island of Oahu. An inspection of the outside display surfaces showed no sign of her. She’d gone, and taken the lower leg section with her. It must’ve snapped clean off. I shut down the display surfaces and sat back down wiping sweat from my face, exhaling deeply. The first part had worked—just—and now we had to hope Laetitia had been taken out of the picture long enough to deal with Reichs.

  I wasn’t sure how I felt about betraying Laetitia. Not good, I guessed. Despite her being an android, she had sentience and many qualities that humans would consider virtues. Loyalty, intelligence, courtesy were all there. I had to remind myself it was unlikely I’d killed her and had hovered lower specifically not to. She’d be stuck on the island, and eventually her charge would run out. I was satisfied the plan had worked. Without it, Reichs’d be lording it over everyone once he’d established his roots.

  I knew the ocean was rushing by at Mach 0.9 three thousand feet below. It was a pretty big expanse between Laetitia and Koko Crater—about a hundred miles as the crow flew. I wondered how good a swimmer she was. Good, most probably, but surely not that good. I shook my head, chuckling. No, that was silly and I dismissed the theory.

  I fetched the two-way radio from the cargo hold and waited to come within range. Once Patton got word, they’d move on Reichs.

  12

  The shuttle found its way home to the parking spot right outside of the dome city. Only three of the four telescopic legs were intact—the forward-port one missing its foot and lower third. Once the door had hinged down as a stairway, it provided some additional support in that quarter. I looked at the broken leg as a sparse gaggle of onlookers pointed and speculated. It was nothing we couldn’t fix on Hawaii—one older guy came over and confirmed the fact.

  A young female police officer came running over. “Sir, they’ve made the arrest,” she said discretely.

  “Good. Thanks.”

  She nodded and led me to through the subtropical streets to the Silicon Life Works building with its police sentries stationed in the lobby. Maybe they thought Laetitia’d make a comeback. I didn’t, but I guess it was all about precaution.

  “You know where the Hive is?” asked the young policewoman.

  “Sure, I can find my way there,” I said, leaving her with her colleagues in the lobby.

  I navigated the white corridors, busy with police and workers. I heard him before I saw him as I reached the door to the long virtual-reality room. On entering, I noticed none of the two dozen VR stations was occupied. Another cop stood by the far door—the entrance to the mind-scanning room.

  “You can’t do this to me!” screamed Reichs. “Once Laetitia gets here she’s gonna tear you a new one!”

  “Where’s that damn sedative,” I heard Patton say as the police sentry moved aside and let me in.

  “Ah, there it is,” Patton said, spinning around. “Oh, it’s you, Dan.”

  “You hear what they done to me, cowboy? They just charged me with murder. Goddam murder of Laetitia, my wife! Where is she?” cried Reichs, straining against his restraints, sitting in the chair below the mind-scanner, two big cops holding him in place.

  “She’s busy, cutting up planes,” I said calmly.

  “You left her there? On the island?” he shouted incredulously.

  “Yeah, she said you don’t treat her right. Oh, and that you stink and you’re a lousy lover,” I said, smiling.

  I knew I shouldn’t goad him but I’d bitten my tongue for too long and I needed to indulge myself just a little. He was an asshole and deserved it.

  “You goddam peasant! Do you know who you’re talking to, boy?”

  I just dismissed him with a flick of the palm, ignoring his further rants.

  “I can see why you’re desperate for the sedative,” I said to Patton.

  The door swung open and a doctor—recognizable only by his name badge—came in with a small bag. He took out a hypodermic and, after some strenuous work by the cops, got it safely into Reichs’s vein. Seconds later, he went under its chemical spell.

  “Silence really is golden, isn’t it,” I said, laughing.

  “Right, I’m gonna go ahead and scan him before the sedative wears off,” said Patton. “Officers Kaye and Castell, you’re my witnesses. Dan, you’re welcome to stay if you like—the scan’s not that interesting, though.”

  “I’ll stick around—never know what I might learn.”

  And with a nod Patton got to work, pulling the scanner down over the old man’s head before moving to the terminal and tapping a bunch of commands. A progress bar showed on the screen—it crept up so slowly that watching paint dry would’ve been less dull. Patton wasn’t wrong when he said it held no interest, so I left them to it. I had work to do, work that’d help us get Laetitia while convicting Reichs.

  ***

  A week passed and the weather outside had grown colder since we first arrived. Icebergs dotted the horizon on all sides, their number and proximity seeming to grow by the day. The sea remained liquid and, according to the locals, would do so for another couple of months—until early October if we were lucky.

  Our best estimates of Laetitia’s endurance had been surpassed yesterday, and the aerial search of Lihue on Kauai hadn’t found her. By now, her charge should be well and truly gone. Now I sat up front monitoring the shuttle’s progress back there on the terminal map. Back in the passenger cabin sat Patton and nine of his finest, three of them in green camo gear sporting fabricator-made sniper rifles. T
he four uniforms carried just handguns, not that any of them would make much difference should Laetitia have outlasted all expectations. And between Patton and one of the cops in the front row sat Reichs, bound and blindfolded though no longer gagged. The Forever World FBI had examined his mind scan, replaying events from his past at their D.C. headquarters. There was no doubt—it corroborated the confessions of the hitman and the emails Reichs thought were untraceable. Patton told me the mindscanner never lied. I wasn’t sure about that—anything human-made could be manipulated—but I for one believe it in Reichs’s case. The penalty was death and Reichs was well aware of how swiftly they’d dispense justice. Valdus’s demise had taught him that. His instinct for self-preservation had trumped his defiance and he’d bargained for his life. It would soon be time for him to fulfill his part of it.

  “Three minutes from Lihue,” I said, switching on the visual display surfaces.

  Embedded panels covering much of the cabin’s inside—floor, fuselage and bulkheads—lit up to show the corresponding camera feeds from outside. I looked back. One of the cops looked down warily, unused to seeing ocean speed past at five hundred miles an hour at low altitude. We crossed over the coast and I slowed the shuttle to a halt using autopilot. We hovered toward the plant-covered control tower and I switched the displays to infrared. Although the shuttle was not made for search and rescue, it was the mainstay of the Juno’s fleet—as such, it had capabilities Earth-based shuttles never did. Laetitia would show up on IR if she was still active. I hoped. If not, then she’d either ran out of charge or wasn’t there. Previous days’ searches had turned up nothing and if this did the same the next step beckoned—a ground search. It’d be painstaking and fraught with danger if we’d missed something, so we focused hard and scoured every square foot with IR then, as far as possible, visually. This went on for hours, but despite the shuttle’s endurance, we couldn’t go on forever. Eventually, fuel would pass the limit we’d set and we’d need to land.

  ***

  The search pattern covered a two-mile radius of the control tower and took three hours. Again, we found nothing. I programmed a landing in the same clearing that I used a week ago above where I’d battled to lose Laetitia. Two uniformed cops stayed in the locked shuttle with Reichs. The other seven plus Patton and I fanned out in the forest. Reichs had no clue where she was either—so he’d said.

  “I think we should check out the location of the planes first,” I said. “Androids are weird sometimes. She may have reverted to her prior objectives despite her tussle with me. She’ll still be loyal to Reichs and scavenging the planes for titanium supported Project Phoenix.”

  “Okay, lead the way,” said Patton. “The rest of you search planes then ruins. Then we’ll regroup and follow a grid pattern.”

  The police officers headed off and we went southwest toward the plane that Laetitia and I had worked on. Ten minutes later, we reached the scavenged parts piles and the plane beside it. I was right, the pile was far bigger than before and the plane was a mere skeleton of its former self. I rounded the nose section, still mostly intact, and found Laetitia propped against the other side of the plane. She sat upright, her head up with open eyes and few signs of damage to her face, neck or the dark blue catsuit, which she preferred over locally made clothes.

  “Hey, I found her,” I called.

  Patton joined me, his pistol drawn.

  “It’s okay, she’d have detected us long before we found her,” I said. “She’s out.”

  He exhaled and replaced his weapon, eyeing her suspiciously.

  “Laetitia, can you hear me?” I said, in case she’d reverted to a low power setting.

  She stayed still and silent.

  I place my fingers on her neck. Her normally warm skin felt as cold as the surrounding air.

  “Is she dead?” said Patton.

  “Not dead. Just unpowered.”

  He nodded and instructed his men to get the restraints and join us, which they did shortly afterward. One uniformed cop carried the heavy-duty manacles and another guy the leg irons. Patton had had both made by the fabricator from solid steel—even Laetitia would struggle to break them. The officers secured their android prisoner and the four uniforms stood guard as Patton ordered the three snipers to take up position. Each jogged a short way into the forest—far enough to be concealed, close enough to keep a line of sight through the trees and undergrowth. One lay prone behind a remaining stump of corrugated steel that was once part of the small cargo terminal. The others hid in the forest facing the seated Laetitia.

  “Right, let’s send for Reichs,” said Patton, pulling out his two-way radio.

  Ten minutes later, I heard him from quite a way away, whining about his treatment and kicking up a real tantrum. I rolled my eyes. “I’m not sure this is gonna work,” I said to Patton.

  “He’d better make it work—his life depends on it.”

  “Yeah, but you’ve seen the guy—we’d be better off just telling Laetitia the truth. She’ll see right through—”

  He put up his palm, cutting me off.

  “Look, this is the plan that’s been agreed. I suggest you start walking now; we’ll need you to move the shuttle shortly. Here, take this,” he said, passing me a spare two-way radio.

  I started walking as Patton went to re-brief Reichs. He’d stopped his bluster after seeing his precious android. Shutting out their conversation behind me, I thought through how this would play out. Since I was the only one with any piloting proficiency—and that was heavily reliant on automation—I’d be moving the shuttle to within power grid range of Laetitia. There was nowhere to safely land so I’d need to maintain a low altitude hover, just above the treetops. The idea was that there’d be enough power to wake her but that power could be removed at any time should things go awry—I’d simply fly out of range.

  A short time later I did a radio check and established communications with Patton. The open channel allowed me to hear everything they were saying—at that point a pep talk from Patton to Reichs. Reichs said nothing, just mumbling the odd unintelligible word or phrase. He didn’t fill me with confidence and neither did the plan. I entered the shuttle then started up the thrusters. After finding the autopilot program, I closed the door and strapped myself in. I’d need visuals too, so I reactivated the display surfaces.

  “Ready to fly,” I told Patton through the walkie-talkie.

  “Okay, acknowledged. Reichs is ready. Standing by to wake her up as soon as you’re above us.”

  “Right then,” I said, sighing. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

  And with that, I engaged the autopilot program and the shuttle climbed to thirty feet, oriented toward the target. It drifted slowly over the fifteen hundred feet of forest, slowing to a stationary hover above the broken-up plane. I adjusted its position manually until I could see Laetitia through the canopy still propped against the nose section, leg and arm restraints binding her.

  “In position,” I said.

  “Okay, I see you. Ready to remove the restraints,” said Patton.

  He bent down and unlocked them, passing them to a uniformed officer who placed them in the undergrowth. Their purpose—according to Patton, to secure Laetitia while they got in position—had now been served.

  Opposite Laetitia stood Reichs looking down. Beside him stood Patton. Next came the leap of faith—relying on Reichs to uphold the bargain and play along with the ruse. Reichs’s hands were unbound. This was supposed to give the impression of free will consistent with Patton’s story. I still wasn’t convinced it’d work. I’d raised it and been palmed off, so we had to make it work. The six uniformed officers had retreated into the forest, although I could see one of them crouching down nearby so it wasn’t as if they were hiding. I eyed Patton closely. His holster was empty—apparently a safety precaution being so close to Reichs and Laetitia. Perhaps Patton didn’t believe me when I’d told him she wouldn’t need a gun to take them all out.

  “Go activa
te her,” Patton ordered Reichs.

  “Just wait. She’ll wake up herself,” said Reichs, without his usual bravado.

  I heard Patton sigh and I watched them waiting from the shuttle thirty feet above.

  Suddenly, her head moved, Patton tensing up, taking a reflexive step back.

  “What happened? Where is Mr. Luker? He left me here against my will,” she said angrily.

  I swallowed hard, glad I was in the shuttle away from her.

  “He’s not here,” said Patton.

  “Who’s flying the shuttle?” she said.

  “Oh, err one of my men.”

  Reichs bent down on one knee and stroked her face.

  “How are you, my beautiful wife?”

  “I am undamaged, Arnie,” she said lovingly. “What’s going on?”

  She rose to her feet, standing three or four inches above the gray-bearded old man.

  “I’ve... I’ve come to a decision. I’m going to live in the Forever World. I want to start a new life there, alone.”

  “Oh,” she said, looking down.

  “Don’t you worry, though. They’ll take good care of you here, sugar pie.”