Rebuilt: A Jake Dani/Mike Shapeck Novel (Jake Dani / Mike Shapeck)

by Victory Crayne

  His face gave away his origin. Too perfect. Symmetrical, average nose, average lips, average eyebrows, average facial bone structure. From this distance, I could not tell his eye color but I guessed they were blue or brown. His skin tone was halfway between Caucasian and African. Average also. But his posture was too perfect. Stiff even.

  I watched several minutes of this newscast before becoming bored so I changed channels. On Channel Seven, a different view of the same court room appeared.

  “In this class action lawsuit, the first to reach the courts, the plaintiff’s attorney has just started presenting evidence.”

  The other channels showed the same courtroom scene from different angles. One channel used Spanish words and another was in an Asian language, maybe Mandarin or Vietnamese. I couldn’t tell.

  Outside the courtroom, human demonstrators shouted and waved banners. I could not see any robot demonstrators.

  The next report on the telly was the growing tendency of the rich to change the DNA of their babies. They wanted them to have beauty, intelligence, and strength.

  Just like Bingers.

  The rich didn’t discriminate against us nearly as much as the less educated and lower classes. The problem was there were few wealthy or educated people.

  The last news report I watched was on the growing rift between humans and robots.

  A female reporter said, “Each does what he does best. Robots process and store data and serve humans. Humans are more emotional and creative. But sometimes their emotions hurt other humans. We’ve all seen examples of that.

  “The robot population is split. Some believe humanity is weak because they have emotions. Other robots believe humanity is special just because they have emotions. These robots have emotional circuits and have said humanity is more creative because of their emotions. The human brain does not think like a robot’s.”

  Next came a robot, which said, “The emotional bots point out that the intellectual bots are acting exactly like emotional humans who want to preserve their past values and opinions.”

  The same female reporter came back on with a view of a factory making parts for robots. The workers were, of course, more robots.

  “Humans design the newer models of robots to have emotional circuits. On the other hand…”

  The view shifted to a different assembly line.

  “…other rational robots are building bots of their own. It’s a race to see who can make the most robots that look like humans. And the cheapest.”

  The view showed the reporter.

  “But the real question is, who will buy those bots?”

  The view changed once more to show a man and woman in a showcase full of both emotional robots, wearing red clothing, and the more intellectual robots, wearing blue clothing. The humans asked a humanoid face of a robot in red, “How are you with children?”

  The reporter spoke next, “That question presumes the bot will understand its meaning.”

  When that program ended, I said, “Telly off.”

  I went back to reading reports that my boss had left. In one, Sheila Fish of Channel One News on Rossa spoke on the vid, “Jake Dani was a personal friend of mine. You may know him as Albert Poors. Jake chose that identity to protect himself from public attention.”

  Oh well. There goes one alias. Too bad too. That was a good one.

  An item in Sheila’s report caught my attention.

  “Jake Dani was the father of Alena Dani, the well-known xenoanthropologist who wrote the articles in the Journal of Rossan Biology on the relationship between humans and the alien species─the mercons, and the napes─here on Rossa. And how the Bingers fit into all this.”

  Oh yeah.

  There was a photo of my daughter, Alena, as she attended my funeral services in a black tight dress.

  Sheila continued, “Alena will take Jake’s ashes back to Earth for burial. She lost both her parents on our planet.”

  It took five minutes of research before I found the report of Jake’s on his attendance at the political meeting of conservatives. I read the part about Getner looking up and staring into my face.

  Was that part of the reason I had been killed?

  Chapter 7

  Next, I reread the police report on the killing of Jake and Ron. Both men were gunned down while eating at a bopum-burger place in the south end of Zor, on Ambassador Boulevard just south of Fourth Avenue. Not far from where I used to live.

  There was no recording so the assassination of Jake and Ron was done via animation supplied by the police department. No one expected gunfire and it was over in a few seconds.

  Cartoon characters of Jake and Ron were eating at an outdoor table at Mr. Dee’s when five men, wearing all black, came around the corner of the restaurant building and fired automatic weapons at the duo. Six other customers were wounded. All survived and all but one reported this animation was accurate. The lone holdout said there were “at least six men, maybe eight.”

  I knew from my police work that eyewitnesses often exaggerated the number of assailants. Maybe it was because of their fear or they wanted to impress their listeners with how helpless they were. That’s why most police investigators took the earlier, usually smaller, versions of the number of assailants.

  The police report showed photographs of the dead and wounded, but I focused on the images of Jake and Ron. From the scattered chairs and tables, it looked as if they had fired back.

  From the shell casings found nearby, the cops concluded that the assailants used AZ-50s. Jake and Ron didn’t stand a chance at the close range.

  The police had no suspects.

  I set the report on the table top.

  Why the killing? Was it connected to what Jake saw at the political meeting?

  If so, Getner was my chief suspect.

  Then I thought of my daughter, Alena. The last I knew she was staying at the mercon embassy. Had she moved? I reached my right hand to the comm on my left wrist to tag her and remembered I was on Earth. Besides even when I got to Rossa, she would not know me as Mike Shapeck. Nor would the mercon ambassador Gliituk.

  How did Alena take the news that her dad was dead?

  She was alone now on Rossa. That brought up the idea of what I should say to her when I arrived on the planet. My first impulse was to reveal my new identity. But something nagged me about that. She was only twenty-three years old. If she blurted out that she had met her dad in a new body, my new identity─and my life─could be in danger.

  Over the next two minutes I debated what to tell her before I decided it might be better to postpone that. I could avoid contacting her until later. I’d know when the time was right.

  I recalled how my ex Leanna had died. The stiffness of her corpse as Ron and I put her in a body bag and took it to a mass grave for those who had died of virus botulism. It was the worst disaster to ever strike Zor. Almost half of the population had contracted the disease and close to twelve percent had perished.

  I had survived that only to be gunned down in a café.

  Life can be unfair and a bit rough at times.

  Damn! This being someone else has its downside.

  Was it any wonder I had difficulty getting to sleep that night? I thought over what all this meant. So I got up and looked in the bathroom. Fortunately, someone had stocked it with sleeping pills. Not having any idea how strong it was, I took one with water.

  Since the pill might take an hour to take effect, I lay back in my new bed. I thought about my parents, and the folks I knew on Rossa. My daughter Alena and my girlfriend Gancha. And my BIS team of Ron, Vincent, Zetto, and Andy. Oops. Ron was no more. Acorn had said he would inform Vincent of my arrival on Rossa.

  I thought of the mercon ambassador, Gliituk. And my old landlady Sing Sing Cullen. And the gorgeous reporter at Channel One, Sheila Fish.

  Frustration rose in me. Anger too. I had not expected to have to deal with so damned many problems. Then a quotation came to me out of the blue. “Deal with reality
.” The best way out of a problem is always through it. Robert Frost said that. He was usually right.

  That was a bitch. But the best way to solve a problem is to face it head on.

  So I could not blame Acorn. He had handled this as best he could and he was right in sending me back to Rossa as soon as I woke so I wouldn’t have much time to worry.

  On the other hand, I was glad to be alive. How often do you get a second chance at life?

  I read many of the news reports on nano-rejuvenation. Apparently it was a hot issue.

  Some folks used rejuvenation to live longer lives. Like to two hundred or more.

  Atheists claim there is no heaven so living a longer life is natural. “Do you want to die of old age? Or would you rather have a younger and more active body to live a longer time? Most people lived their lives as if they’ll live forever. ‘Taint so. When the time comes, you’re dead. And it’s a forever thing.”

  Most religious leaders disagreed. They thought postponing death was postponing your Day of Judgment.

  There are some who claimed long-lived humans would offset the effect of long-lived robots. With parts replaced when they wore out, robots appeared to live forever. I tried to remember the names of any bots I knew. Most had become obsolete and had walked into the recycling center.

  Ah, crossover with the issue of humans versus robots.

  One article was titled, “Only the Rich Can Afford Rejuv.”

  Interesting. I read on.

  Nano-rejuvenation was expensive. At one and a half million sols a pop, you had to be wealthy to spring for it. Debates rose on the effect this would have on society. If the rich and powerful lived hundreds of years, they might try to get laws passed to keep their old opinions and values going. They could do that too. The Golden Rule seemed to apply. He who had the gold made the rules.

  Was it any wonder that rejuv clinics were surrounded by protestors carrying signs showing their emotions? “Level the playing field.” “Death is natural.” “Don’t let the rich get away with this.” “Down with rejuv!”

  And most revealing of all was a sign saying, “Don’t mess with God’s plan” and “You’re only postponing your Day of Judgment.” The major religions were all firmly opposed to life extension. If anybody could live forever, what influence would religious leaders have?

  Unspoken was the strong urge to stay alive. No one wanted to die. Well, some ended their lives early, but that was often because their lives were boring or of endless pain. Those folks saw no changes coming in their own lives.

  I sat back while I pondered my own existence. I had a second chance at this thing called life. And the only reason I had that was the way I had lived the first one.

  So I had to go back to Rossa to find out who killed me. And to find out the mysterious plot that Acorn alluded to.

  That’s all? Piece of cake, right?

  I blew out my breath between gritted teeth.

  Finally, I focused on getting some sleep. My mind wouldn’t let me rest though. I daydreamed of a damned screechie hunt I had attended years before.

  Chapter 8

  Years before, Andy, Ron, our guide Jeekan, and I had been traveling in an SUV for six hours. We were on the western plateau of Braco, an island continent south of York. Despite cushioned springs under the seats, my butt was sore from the constant bouncing we had experienced and I looked forward to the next stop. We towed a tank of fuel and had to stop about every four hours to reload the SUV. Everyone piled out to take a break and stretch their legs. Except Jeekan. He loaded the fuel.

  At one refueling break, I got out to stretch my legs and get blood circulating in my butt. I headed out onto the flat land.

  “Hey, Jake!” yelled our guide. “If you’re going for a walk, better take a rifle.”

  Right. I waved my left hand and kept going.

  I got about a hundred yards from our SUV when I spotted several four-wingers flying in a wide circle. Figuring they might be circling some fallen prey, my curiosity grew.

  I snuck another fifty yards closer and spotted four gofers munching on the carcass of a bopum.

  Bopums were the nearest that Rossa had to cattle, but had six legs and were built closer to the ground. They were huge beasts weighing as much as two tons. They were more muscular than cattle with meat that was tougher to chew. But it was packed with protein and was cheap, so it got fed to many immigrant workers. Bopum herds were native to Rossa and sometimes numbered in the thousands. Many movies showed bopum stampedes crushing everything in their path.

  Two of the gofers were adult size and four were smaller. Was momma teaching how to kill and eat?

  Gofers were the Rossan equivalent to mountain lions. They got their name because they’d “go for” almost any kind of animal as prey. They were the most frequent predators of humans, along with screechies.

  The fallen bopum had six-legs. Or at least did at one time.

  I must have gotten too close when a four-winger hovering over my head let out a scream and turned to rejoin his fellow avians.

  One gofer looked up and then in my direction. She had the shorter hair of the female of her species. She opened her mouth wide and let out a roar.

  Suddenly I felt alone and unprotected. All I had was my small Snap and that didn’t seem big enough. Even though my Snap used part of the recoil from the previous bullet to launch the new bullet at higher muzzle velocity, and therefore did more damage to the target, it didn’t seem like much protection. After all, it used only .22 caliber bullets.

  I stood and walked back toward the others.

  One glance over my shoulder revealed one adult gofer racing to catch up with me.

  Crap!

  I picked up my pace and ran.

  Up ahead I saw Jeekan running toward me with a rifle. At the rate the gofer was gaining on me, I wasn’t sure I could even get halfway to our guide.

  “Help!”

  Jeekan brushed to the left with his left hand that I was to go in that direction.

  Just two seconds after I changed my course, I heard the crack of his rifle. But I couldn’t afford to slow down.

  When I stopped and looked behind me, the gofer headed back to the others.

  Jeekan glared at me as he watched the retreating gofer. “I warned you. Those f**kers will eat anything.”

  I panted as we strolled back to our SUV and found Ron already in the driver’s seat.

  “Care to share what happened?” he asked.

  As he drove toward the setting Gordon, I took the passenger seat.

  I was glad the front windshield darkened in two spots where Gordon shone. The spot changed for every viewer. The damned sun was bright as I told Ron and Andy what had happened.

  We stopped once more to refuel and this time Jeekan drove. When Gordon set over the hills to the west, it got darker and he drove with headlights on the dirt path of two ruts.

  We came to a chain link fence around a pile of logs. Jeekan stopped, climbed out, and unlocked the fence. Ron and I got out to stretch our legs. I learned later the fence was to keep out the screechies, who often came to investigate camp fires. It wouldn't do to wake up in your sleeping bag and find a screechie taking a hunk out of your leg.

  Screechies were native two-legged animals, less than two feet tall and without wings. They roamed the plateaus in packs of twenty or more and emitted a blood-freezing screech when they attacked. Not afraid of people, they'd killed many children as well as adults. A pack could devour a lone thousand-pound adult bopum in thirty minutes and often did just that. The damned screechies reminded me of velociraptors from the dinosaur age on Earth.

  Their frequent prey, the bopums, were six-legged beasts with long tails. Bopums roamed in large herds. The high mountains kept the screechies and bopums from human settlements in the west. It was only because the bopums traveled in herds and were good at defense that any of them were still alive. If a pack of screechies spooked a herd, they could easily get trampled in the stampede. Only a few brave ranchers li
ved out here and those who did kept their herds of cattle or bopum inside electrified chain-link fences.

  Screechies were rightfully feared. A new sport had developed whereby a team of hunters would track down a pack and bring a few carcasses back. The threat of being eaten themselves made the sport quite popular among rich game hunters, mostly from Earth. Semi-automatic rifles were the preferred weapon, although anyone with common sense also packed a repeater shotgun for close-range defense.

  After we settled down around a fire and had dinner from our packs, Andy brought out a steel thermos and poured some scotch into our cups. The alcohol helped us get to sleep.

  Despite the fence around our campsite, Jeekan suggested we sleep on top of the SUV, for safety. By now I wondered how much he was putting us on.

  All part of the service, sir. Gotta get you scared or you won't think you're gettin' your money's worth.

  I was barely under when I heard a blood-curling scream, followed by horrible sounds of an animal being attacked and killed. I sat up and grabbed my shotgun, as did Ron. Andy turned on a flashlight and scanned the area around our vehicle. My heart pounded. The motion detectors we had set up were quiet so maybe we were not the intended targets.

  Jeekan was still in his bag. “Go back to sleep, fellas. As long as the screechies found something else to eat, we're safe.”

  The screeching continued for only another couple of minutes. Soon, quiet returned. I guessed the killing was over and dinner could start.

  I lay back down and looked over to Ron. His eyes were wide open, too. He winked and I smiled. We both crawled back into our sleeping bags.

  The next morning, we left camp on foot and Jeekan locked the gate to the fence. He showed us how to unlock it in case we came back without him. Which I hoped never happened.

  I tried to put on an air of confidence but the screams of the night before kept coming back to me.

  Jeekan warned us about talking. He said it was better if we discovered the screechies before they found us. We walked on in silence, single file, weapons ready. First Jeekan, then Andy, then me. Ron brought up the rear and every twenty seconds studied the bushes behind us.