by Corey Ostman
Tentatively, she worked her fingers into a groove above her head and pulled up, moving her feet from one course to the next. She made her way up the wall. In the lower gravity, it wasn’t as difficult as she’d expected.
Grace’s head rose to the level of the noisy panel. She felt warm, dry air coming out. Four rusty bolts held the panel in place, but the two on the left side had completely oxidized and no longer constrained the panel—that’s where the sound had come from. The bottom right fastener looked weak, so Grace held tight with her left hand and scraped her right fingers against the bolt. It popped free and dropped to the ground.
Grace reached up and rotated the panel away. On the other side was a dead fan, hinged away from the opening. She gripped the interior duct, pulled up, and scrambled into the building.
Grace crawled a few meters before she saw a grate leading into a room. She peered inside. The room was dark but apparently large, with a high ceiling. An elevated walkway stretched along the perimeter, a meter below the panel. She popped the hatch, pulled herself in, and crept along the walkway until she found a service ladder.
Reaching the ground, she switched on her ptenda’s light and surveyed the room. It was some kind of sales room. In the center was a large square counter covered in dust. Cushioned stools sat along the counter a couple of meters apart. There was a display panel in front of one of the stools. Grace dusted off one of the stools and sat down. The faux leather squeaked.
“Who are you?”
Grace startled, then realized the sound was coming from the display, which had begun to glow pale yellow.
“I’m Grace,” she said. “Who are you?”
“Francis.” The voice was childlike and genderless.
“Hello, Francis.” She looked from the blank display around the room. “Where are you? On a different floor?”
“Here.”
Grace blinked. “But I’m the only one here.”
“No.”
Grace heard a sigh through the display.
“It’s been a long time since anybody visited my shop.”
The display was talking. Francis is the voice of the computer. Grace shook her head ruefully, berating her cloister naiveté. She’d talk with the display, then. Surely it would be as easy as inputting a manual search. She surveyed the room, looking for keywords. There were advertisements hanging on the wall. They showed robots, crudely constructed like Mazz, in humanoid shapes. One model was called ‘Brother’ and another proclaimed a newer model, known as ‘Sister.’
“You sell robots here?”
“Yes.”
Grace focused on a tattered advertisement. Only the upper half was visible. It showed a man’s face with ‘Essex’ written above it.
“Who’s Essex?” Grace said, turning back to the display.
Another sigh. A sniffle.
“Essex isn’t a who. Essex is a what.”
“What is an Essex?”
“I’m waiting for it to return.” The sniffling had turned to sobs. The Francis display was crying.
“I’m…sorry?” Grace shifted uncomfortably on the stool. “Please don’t cry. Maybe I can help you. Is it the cruiser called Essex that you’re talking about?”
“Yes. Yes,” Francis whispered, voice trembling. “I’m waiting for it to return. Then I can start selling robots again.”
Grace traced s-curves in the dust on the counter, brushing aside an old brochure about microscopic robots called pawns. “So the shop’s been abandoned since the Essex left?” Grace brushed away her doodles. “But why didn’t somebody else move in? Nobody keeps a building empty for that long.”
“I have an assistant,” Francis said. “He takes care of me.”
He doesn’t dust, does he?
“Did you create the Essex robots, Francis?”
“Oh, dear no. I’m the template.”
An advanced template then, Grace thought. Nothing of the mechanical cadence of Mazz.
“If you’re a robot, Francis, why haven’t you left Gusev, like all the others?”
“I cannot!” Francis wailed. “Oh, I cannot. I’m stuck here.”
Suddenly there was a dim, blue glow along the walls of the room. Finely interwoven lines glimmered, then brighter tones warmed as they illuminated pathways upon pathways.
Grace stood, her stool falling backward. Her heart raced. She understood now. She was standing inside a computer. And that computer was an AI.
“You are the room,” Grace breathed.
“You see? You see? I can’t go!” Francis wailed.
“Maybe…maybe I can help you find the Essex,” Grace said, though she wasn’t sure it was a good idea. In the light, she could see the door leading outside. She began to back up.
“No!” Francis sobbed. “I can’t stand to think of it.” The cries seemed to be coming from all around Grace.
“Were there robots like you on Essex?”
“Go! GO, or I will put you out myself!”
Grace spun toward the doors. They slid open on their own and she jumped outside, down the steps. The doors shut behind her, silencing the sobs from within.
Still shaking, Grace walked back to J23 and leaned against the cool wall of the tunnel, bringing her breathing under control.
She fingered her ptenda, sending a message to Richard and Wragg.
• • •
Grace got to Rojo first, securing a table near the back of the restaurant. Despite its Russian trappings, most of Gusev’s original population was from Spain. Rojo was apparently a tapas bar. The waiter, a young man in his mid-twenties, told Grace the daily specials. No food shortage for Rojo’s clientele, Grace surmised.
Richard and Wragg entered moments later. Grace waved them over to the table.
“How’d you know about Rojo?” Richard asked, taking a seat.
Grace smiled. “Mazz clued me in. At the same time he told me that he’d registered my eating habits. Mentioned that I ate nearly fourteen percent more often than any crew member on the Scout.” She mocked a frown. “Also said my caloric intake per meal was twenty-one percent higher than average for my build.”
“Mazz can be insensitive,” Richard said, laughing.
“So why did Mazz suggest this place, if I may ask?” she said.
“Archie Archdale liked Rojo. Liked Gusev, actually,” Richard said, looking around. “Good memories of my grandfather, here.”
They looked through the menus on their ptendas. Grace typed in an order of medjool dates, manchego, and olives. Then she drank some of her water. It tasted like minerals.
Grace was about to order hummus as an afterthought when she heard Wragg clear his throat. She looked up to find him watching her. He looked uncomfortable.
“What I said in the mover…” Wragg began, then paused, as if he had expected her to interrupt.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Grace nodded, accepting the apology. “I’m sorry, too. I wasn’t angry at you.”
“What were you angry at, then?” he asked.
“Memories.”
Wragg raised both brows, but Richard nodded knowingly.
“Memories,” Richard said. “I have most of my arguments with memories. This trip, for instance. An argument with my grandfather.”
“Should I have brought you to Rojo, then?” Grace asked.
Richard smiled. “Absolutely.”
“So where’d you go?” Wragg asked Grace.
“You guys first,” she said.
“Not much to tell,” said the captain. “At first they didn’t want to hear about our problems, but I finally managed to convince them to take Brown.”
“Better news than mine,” said Richard. “I spoke to several agencies, but nobody was willing to hire onto the Scout.” Richard looked around the half-empty restaurant. “Most of Gusev’s pool is hired out already. Replacing twofers.”
“What’ll we do about the tech?” Wragg asked.
“I had a thought about that,” said Richard.
&nbs
p; “Tech work’s fairly simple, you know. I figured if we could convince Anna to stay—”
“Anna needs to testify against Quint,” Grace said.
“And we need to get to the pole.”
“It wouldn’t hurt to ask,” Wragg noted. “Anna can make her own decision.” He turned to Grace. “I don’t suppose you saw any able-bodied workers in your tour of Gusev?”
“I barely saw anyone,” said Grace. “Outside of the Essex Symbiotic Company.”
“Essex what—?” Richard looked surprised.
Grace fingered her ptenda, swiveling the display for Richard and Wragg to view. The logo of the company headed a short infodoc on robotic sales.
“Why didn’t you tell me about it?” Grace asked.
“I never heard of it,” Richard said, his face mangled into a conglomerate of uneasy emotions. “Have you, Wragg?”
The captain shook his head. “Where’d you get that info, Donner?”
Grace looked at her ptenda. She had figured it was just a standard public access record. She tapped the listing again and noticed an orange halo near the bottom. Martian security coding?
“Oh,” she said, finally understanding. “This is from Quint’s ptenda. From when I pair-bonded.”
“Quint had something about the Essex?” Wragg asked, alarmed.
“Not the cruiser Essex. A company named Essex.” Grace told them of the abandoned building and its emotional AI. Richard listened silently. When his food arrived, he didn’t touch it.
“Francis said it was a template. For robots who looked like Mazz, but were clearly more advanced. Its personality was…humanlike, for lack of any other comparison,” said Grace.
“It was waiting for the ship to return,” said Richard. “What did it say about my grandfather?”
“Sorry, Richard. I didn’t ask about your grandfather.”
“Donner,” Wragg seemed to have something on his mind. He leaned in for privacy from the other customers. “I’m no scientist. You’re no scientist. But where do you think this all might be heading? Twofers just don’t up and leave, and they certainly don’t cry or go insane. They just don’t.”
“Captain, trust me when I tell you I have seen some bizarre things in my short time away from cloister. I don’t mean to sound glib, but this is just bizarre thing number twelve.”
“Wragg’s right, though,” said Richard. “When the twofer exodus happened, I thought it coincidence that they went south, where the Essex was lost. I’m more and more convinced it’s beyond coincidence.”
“With the information he had, Quint on the Scout may not be a coincidence, either,” said Grace.
Wragg nodded. “Let’s get back to the ship.”
Chapter 17
Raj removed his jacket and placed it under Hobbs’s lower legs. The knees were swollen badly. He flicked a small scalpel out of his left index finger, then decided keeping the pants intact would help his patient stay warm.
Raj checked Hobbs’s pulse again. Good. Not as thready. He gently rotated the engineer’s head and looked at the nasty contusion near the right temple. Two blows in as many days could be problematic. Raj waved his mechflesh arm over Hobbs, scanning for signs of a clot.
Hobbs let out a long sigh, modulated by a painful moan.
“Can you hear me?” Raj asked.
“Wha…”
“Mister Hobbs, can you hear me?”
The engineer lifted a hand, cupping it to shield his eyes. He squinted.
“Doctor Chanho?”
“You’ve been injured again.”
“You’re damn right I’ve been injured,” Hobbs snarled.
“What happened?”
“I was coming below,” Hobbs said, “Nutter called. Wait—where’s Nutter?” The engineer started to rise, looking around the storage locker.
“Stay still. I think Nutter is with Quint.”
“Hell,” Hobbs said. “Nutter called me down. I saw him standing there, then Brown pulled my feet out and I crashed to the floor, knees first.”
Raj winced.
Hobbs raised himself up on his elbow. “And now we’re in the forward storage locker, aren’t we? Locked in.”
“Don’t try to move, Mister Hobbs. You need rest.” Raj glanced to his ptenda.
“I need a painkiller,” Hobbs said, easing back onto the floor. “Got any handy?”
“Which is worse, your head or your knees?”
Hobbs offered a feeble grin. “I have to choose?” He shrugged. “I guess my head. My knees hurt before this mess.”
Raj moved his mechflesh lefty and pressed his thumb down where the root and the dorsum met, right between the eyes. He slowly rubbed.
“Not bad, Doc. What’s in your left hand that cures headaches? Infrared?”
Raj laughed. “No. It’s called massage.”
Hobbs closed his eyes and let out a long, slow breath.
“Hobbs, what do you know about gene addicts?” Raj asked.
“I’ve heard of ‘em,” Hobbs said. “People messing with their basic plumbing to change things. Makes you live a long time. Expensive. Not something a self-respecting Martian would bother with, no offense.”
“Quint is a gene addict,” Raj said.
Hobbs’s eyes opened.
“That kid? But gene addicts aren’t teenagers. They’re older, and rich.”
“I know. It doesn’t make sense. A guy with enough pull to afford gene therapy wouldn’t spend his time working for a living. Even a good thief couldn’t steal enough for a treatment, let alone the stabilizing agents. You could buy your own cruiser and then buy a spare.
“But I know it. He’s had textbook gene paranoia since we met him. At first I thought it was fear of conscription. Then I heard how he felt about Mazz. It’s more than psychological. He’s had severe muscle spasms, even in his face. Under a doctor’s care, a gene addict would never be allowed to experience severe spasms. Somebody’s changing him, but from a distance. Or his treatment was interrupted.”
Hobbs sat up slowly, cracked the bones in his neck, and took another deep breath.
“What are we going to do, Doc?”
“We’ll get out of here.”
“How? You got a lock code?”
“I’ve got a friend on the outside.”
• • •
Quint and Nutter strode into the engine room. There was Mazz, tracking back and forth between readout panels and piping, checking the engine systems that it had undoubtedly checked a dozen times before. The robot, detecting the two men, turned toward them.
“I cannot leave engineering. All systems are optimal or exceeding standard levels,” Mazz stated. “Yvette Archdale wants me to prepare food for her. I cannot leave engineering.”
“That’s correct, you filthy twofer,” Quint spat. “Nutter, this is what I was talking to you about since we started on this bucket. You see how he keeps repeating I cannot leave engineering?” Quint mocked Mazz’s voice. “It has its own agenda and it’s making it our responsibility to release it. Reminding us that it has important business,” said Quint.
Nutter stepped forward. He harbored a deep well of hatred for the twofers. Quint had realized it soon after coming aboard, but it had taken some time to tap. Like most Martian-born, Nutter saw twofers as a part of life. It didn’t occur to him to think of a world without them. Once Quint had opened his eyes, Nutter was his man.
Seeing Mazz powerless evidently carried Nutter through his earlier distress. He walked up to the tin man and snarled, his words jagged, working into a shout.
“Its own agenda? What about their agenda? They breed. They make more of themselves when they need to. That’s right, ain’t it, twofer? Except when they’re born, or made, or whatever, they are already programmed to do what they want to get done.”
Nutter shoved Mazz in the shoulder. The robot absorbed the push and steadied its center of gravity.
“Have you made any more of yourself?” Nutter goaded. He gave Mazz another push, harder this time
. “No, you’re too stupid. Can’t even protect yourself.”
“You showed it, didn’t you, Nutter?” Quint stood behind Nutter like a dome sergeant. “You want to hit it again?”
“Later. Let’s get this cruiser moving,” Nutter said.
The two men headed to the empty bridge. A blinking light showed communications were still scrambled. Nutter fumbled at the controls, but managed to call up the nav display.
“Where to?” he asked, eyes glinting. Nutter was beginning to enjoy himself. Good.
Quint stepped over to the display. He pointed at the screen.
“Ma’adim Vallis. Take us south,” Quint said.
Nutter called up the perimeter displays, took the controls, and pivoted the ship from its berth at the airlock.
Quint leaned forward, willing the ship out and away. He’d done it. He’d stolen the cruiser of the only person to go after the malfunctioning twofers. By the time the domes thought of investigating for themselves, his aposti allies would have already spread their anti-tech ideas and necessary chaos amongst the people of Mars. Quint was surprised at how much he had accomplished in the last six months. Since the hooded aposti had shown up at the detention facility to free him. Quint’s body had been much older, broken by his hard life. Now he was younger and wiser. Powerful.
The ion drive continued to throb just above idle. He tapped Nutter on the shoulder, impatiently.
“Faster!” Quint said.
“Can’t,” said Nutter. “Gusev has us limited until we reach the crater’s rim. Probably another hour. Then full speed.”
“Law-abiding citizen, are you?” Quint grabbed the throttle and moved it forward.
Velocity stayed constant.
“What did you think—I was lying?” Nutter spat, taking the throttle back. “Like I said, at the rim in an hour. And then full speed.”
“Can you contact Gusev and ask them to break off?”
“Not likely. Gusev is crazy careful, even before the twofers malfunctioned,” Nutter said. “Besides, a special request might draw attention to us—as if stealing a cruiser wouldn’t.”
“Listen to me!” Quint yelled. He heard the shrill of his own voice and it scared him. Quint knew the tech was right, but he was more than annoyed at Nutter’s jab. Paranoia made it seem like Nutter was undermining him. Quint closed his eyes. He would handle this.