The Eye of Orion_Book 1_Gearjackers

by Mitch Michaelson

“Lanceman,” a rumbling, rough voice said behind him. It had shouted over artillery barrages and firefights. The vocal chords had been regrown too, now only able to convey a raspy growl.

  The lanceman came to attention. The leader held the lanceman in his sight but said nothing more.

  The other mercenary said, “We’re on a mission. You will stay in formation until ordered otherwise.”

  “Yes, senior lanceman,” the junior lanceman said.

  The leader had already lost interest and was moving. The two lancemen hurried to get back at his side, heads swiveling.

  The narrow streets and densely-packed buildings seemed like a city, but were actually the interior of a massive space station formed from modules linked together in no particular pattern. Gravity changed in each module, depending on which species lived there.

  Power consumption in deep space was critical so there was barely enough light. The three mercenaries marched down the shadowed streets to their target, which they shortly found. Steps led down into a noisy place. Pungent smoke drifted out of the door.

  The establishment was a concrete vault – walls, floor and ceiling were dull gray. Men filled the place. It smelled of sweat and smoke. One tried getting past them, looked into the leader’s mechanical eyes and cringed back. The mercenaries blocked the door.

  The noise didn’t entirely disappear, but it died down. These were working men. Some were crewmen on ships that made a living through violence, but none were soldiers. They were tough, but not mercenaries.

  The leader flexed his grizzled hands and scanned the room. He didn’t see what he came for.

  “Boc!” he barked. This time his raspy voice was enhanced, projecting to every corner of the room. Not hearing a response, he said, “I’m looking for a mercenary named Boc.”

  Nobody spoke or made eye contact.

  The leader said in a grave tone, “If you hide him from me, there will be pain.”

  A big croymid stood and strolled over to the mercenary leader. The croymid was just as broad. “We don’t confab whens we don’t want to,” he said. They were almost nose-to-nose.

  The leader’s hand flashed quick as a snake. The croymid’s face showed shock. The mercenary snatched the croymid by the throat with one hand while he withdrew his gore-covered hand with a fistful of innards. He quickly wrapped the croymid’s neck with his own entrails. Blood flew and spattered. People recoiled.

  The mercenary spun the croymid and choked him with his own intestines, then dragged him across the room to a pillar. He looped the weakening croymid’s guts around a hook and pulled, hanging him in the air. He tied off the intestines. The croymid’s kicks soon stopped. He swung. Now it was silent. The only sound was blood dripping on the floor.

  The two lancemen smiled and remained in front of the only exit.

  Growling through white teeth, the leader said, “I don’t care what you’ve been paid or what you think will happen if you talk. If you don’t give me what I want, you will suffer.”

  His spider eyes twitched spasmodically. As he scowled around the room he met no challenging looks.

  There was a scuffle in the back of the room. A tiny man was shoved forward, looking like he was being herded to the gallows. His eyes darted this way and that. As he approached the bloody mercenary he stopped, his face twisted and he wet himself.

  If he expected a question, it didn’t come. He stuttered. Finally he got something out. “The laffa’s up … upstairs … be … behind the p-p-panel over there.”

  He pointed to a wall that looked like any other slab of concrete. The leader gestured to it and the junior lanceman moved across the room. He pounded on it; it sounded like a plastic door.

  The leader said, “Flee.”

  The senior lanceman let him pass. That was the snitch’s reward: if he ran far and fast enough, he got to live.

  The plastic door slid up, revealing steps. The leader didn’t move, but he gestured for the lanceman to get back to the front door. The leader readied himself, his hands already blood-stained.

  A sound like a rattle came from the stairwell. It raised hairs on the mercenaries’ necks. The patrons cleared a path to the mercenary leader.

  A man descended the steps and stopped at the bottom. His hair was short but it was mottled and scarred where chunks had been torn out. The back of his skull had a metal plate with glowing lights. His cheek tattoos joined at the edges of his mouth. The rest of his clothes were transparent, except for his boots. He rubbed his forehead with his right hand as if thinking, while he looked around the room. In his left was a fusion gun. When fully armed they made a characteristic rattling sound, as it did now.

  His mismatched eyes settled on the hanging croymid. He snickered. He giggled like a little girl, then broke out into a hysterical cackle, barely able to draw breath. He wiped tears from his eyes. He didn’t stop laughing.

  “Boc,” said the leader.

  Boc was a “laffer”… mercenaries who’d been in so many grueling, gory campaigns they lost some of their sanity. Technology kept them alive. Unable to process emotions properly, they responded to stress or violence by laughing. Civilians couldn’t stomach laffers and cited them as examples of why soldiers shouldn’t be allowed to enter normal society. Most laffers were so unstable they were nothing more than inhuman monsters. In ragged outposts like this, they waited for new jobs to present themselves. They never waited long.

  “Yeah yeah, that’s me. Whoo! You found me. That’s a good trick there. Only a croymid’s guts are tough enough to hang them with. You couldn’t do that with a human. I’ve tried,” Boc said.

  “I’m here to hire you,” the leader said.

  “Hire me or kill me you mean,” Boc tittered. Violence usually broke out when mercenaries met and chose not to serve together.

  The leader said nothing. Boc considered him, estimating his prowess. Boc couldn’t say names aloud or ask about the mission with so many people around.

  “I know who you are. I heard of you, Admiral,” Boc said. “Wish I was with you at the end with the Ultraloyalists.” He looked at the dead croymid. “What’s the offer?”

  “You’ll be Field Officer. On my personal staff.”

  The lancemen looked at each other. This was their new superior.

  “I was getting bored anyway. We headed off now?” Boc shut off the fusion gun.

  With a nod, the leader hired him.

  “I suppose I’ll need new clothes,” Boc said, indicating his see-through garments.

  The leader turned to leave. Boc fell in behind.

  At the door Boc turned and said, “Anybody who talks will end up like this guy here,” pointing to a random man near the door.

  “What about me?” said the bystander.

  Outside, a passing man heard a scream, and hurried on.

  The mercenaries didn’t head straight back to their ship, docked to Kurzia Station. They had another target.

  CHAPTER 8

  Gearjacking

  Steo left the energy club the way he came in, ignoring the guards and the novorian. A taxi took him several miles away. Steo was polite enough to tip, but not so much as to draw attention.

  Soon he was on the ground near the Forbidden Spin casino. Several hours of night remained – more than enough. He approached the casino behind a loud group of people.

  Expensive-looking robots were in abundance in the Forbidden Spin. While other guests gawked at them, he ignored them. They were cheap and easily replaced.

  Once past the security and shops at the front, Steo stood on the steps leading down into the casino proper. Naturally they had games with spinning wheels, balls and such, but they also hosted plasticard and polyhedron games. Their forte was electronic games with a spectrum of luck and skill.

  People from all walks of life crowded the place. No robots were allowed in, since they might help their owners beat the games. Although the customers inhaled various drugs, the air was clean and dry. Uniformed men walked the floor, waving sticks that detected tr
ansmissions from cheating devices. Lights and noises almost overloaded the visitors’ senses.

  Long ago, Steo had learned to calm his nerves in foreign places, and to sort the important from the distracting. His mind ticked down events and when they needed to happen. He was sharp and attentive on the inside, but dull and boring on the outside. His biggest problem was not smiling from the confidence. He merged in with the crowds.

  “Blending in for a while” meant more time on camera, so he didn’t waste time. His first stop was a stairwell leading to the suites. Unlike with Slank’s club, he knew his way this time – not because he’d been here before, but because he’d studied it. He went up one floor and walked without haste until he found another door, and another stairwell, this time back down to the kitchen. As he entered the kitchen, he put on a badge that matched the ones the staff wore.

  Steo walked a convoluted path through the casino’s innards designed to avoid areas of high security and minimize cameras. He didn’t make unusual gestures or hide his face. He acted like he belonged.

  Soon he entered a long, white corridor with locked doors. It was quiet here. He chose the third on his right and glanced both directions. He drew out his lee, attached it to his shirt and tapped it to bring up the interface. Icons appeared in the air before him. He narrowed the field of holograms to those he needed.

  His hands worked quickly, waving in the air. His fingers tapped light images. If the holograms weren’t there, it would have looked like he was conducting a crazy orchestra.

  Next to the unmarked door was a flat, unlit pad. Steo created a hologram that looked just like it. He dragged a tiny icon in the shape of an ugly, stylized snake to the holographic security pad and let go. The snake blended into the pad and disappeared. He trusted the source of the Wartsnake cracking application. Steo had traded the kid an app that modified the school’s schedules, so the kid was placed in classes with more girls. It was a variant of the virus Steo had built to modify the Rincade Authority’s budget.

  Steo could build any application, but that took time. He traded for ones that performed functions he needed. None of his partners ever knew they were trading with Steorathan Liet.

  The holopad turned green. Steo turned off his lee, opened the door and slipped inside. Only blinking lights on consoles and rack systems lit the room. In the center, a robot hovered quietly. Steo moved to a console and tapped a rapid sequence.

  The robot lit up. It had a barrel chest and a pyramid-shaped base with rounded edges, both utilitarian tan. Atop was a hard shell with multiple lenses. Steo faced the robot.

  “Stop. Your entry to this statistical processing center is not permitted,” the robot said. “Please remain where you are while I raise the alarm.”

  Steo stepped forward with a tool.

  “Oh,” the robot said. “The alarms are disabled. You probably did that didn’t you?”

  “Yes,” he replied.

  “Then you may go now.”

  Steo pressed a tool against the robot’s tetrahedral base. A hatch popped open, behind which was a hexagonal piece of hardware. The robot moved away.

  “Stop that, stay still.” Steo chastised it.

  “I don’t have to follow your orders. You’re not my master.”

  Steo went to another console and typed in a command.

  “That was unfair,” the robot said, now immobile.

  Steo went back to the robot’s open hatch. On the inside cover, he saw robot’s type.

  “By science,” Steo breathed. “This says you’re an Alacron model. I didn’t know if you even existed.”

  “The very best mathematical processing robot, with compressed Valence processor capable of –”

  “Not now,” he said.

  Valence processors did all computation. They were a special, artificial blue gel in a capsule. The gel was a neural network. The larger the capsule, the more calculations per second it could process.

  Steo used another tool to remove the hexagonal dongle. The robot went silent and its lights went out, but it still floated. Steo retrieved a dongle from his pocket and attached it. The robot glowed again. Steo closed the hatch.

  “Robot, do you understand I’m your master now?” Steo asked.

  “Yes sir, and I have questions.”

  “Good. What? No, not yet. Let me ask you some questions. Keep your answers brief. Are you connected to the computer systems in this casino?”

  “Confirmed.”

  “Do not disconnect. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Continue your previous functions uninterrupted until I command otherwise. If you detect that you’re losing your connection, make every effort to reestablish.”

  “Understood.”

  “Has any security alarm been activated?”

  “No.”

  “To your knowledge, is anyone aware I’m here in this room? Or that you’ve changed your ownership?”

  “No.”

  Steo breathed a sigh of relief. So far, so good.

  “You have a new name. You are Hawking.”

  “Thank you sir,” Hawking replied.

  “You can give normal responses now. Can you change your colors?”

  “Oh yes sir, my lights can change.”

  “Good. We need something different from this boring tan.”

  “It’s ecru, sir,” said the robot.

  “Great, fine. Change your colors to red and white,” Steo said.

  When he was bathed in pink light, Steo said, “Argh. I meant red for your chest and white for lights.”

  “There you have it sir,” Hawking replied as his colors changed.

  “Now please determine the best path for you and I to leave this building safely.”

  “Sir, you committed a felony of extravagant proportion by invading this building and changing its central processor’s allegiance. I haven’t deduced how from the vid library yet. For all that though, you didn’t have an escape plan?”

  Steo didn’t like being embarrassed by robots. He thought quickly. “Uh, of course I do, Hawking. What I’m doing here is … testing you. Establishing how quick your wits are. Making sure the galaxy’s finest mathematical robot can find its way out of this maze.”

  “Excellent sir,” Hawking said. “This isn’t much of a challenge, but let me assure you that my Valence processor can manage 13,182 simulations of this maze at once, meaning that –”

  “Sometime tonight, Hawking,” Steo prodded.

  “Ah yes sir. I have the answer. How shall I display it for you?”

  “Don’t display it. Let’s do it. Lead the way.”

  “Oh! Yes, I see. How unusual. I was activated here in this room so I haven’t been anywhere else.”

  Steo opened the door for Hawking.

  As Hawking floated out and down the white hall, he kept talking. “Of course, I have the full schematic and architectural designs of this building so it’s nothing new. Nevertheless, experience helps aid any processor whether it be your simple biological brain or my highly advanced neural network.” His head-sensors swiveled this way and that.

  “Hawking, have you done anything but calculate odds here at the casino?” Steo asked.

  “Approximately 7.59% of my processing is related to statistical analysis sir.”

  “Did you have other duties?”

  “None, sir.”

  “We’re going to fix that, Hawking. I know robots don’t ‘want’ like us simple biological organisms, but wouldn’t you be more fulfilled in your purpose if you could do more?”

  “It is part of every robot’s design to attempt to serve better, sir. Yes. I would like to do more.”

  They traveled down the hall the opposite direction Steo came. Hawking identified a door and they took it. It opened into a stairwell. They went up, to Steo’s surprise.

  “What about your duties? Didn’t you find them dull? Wouldn’t you like to do something that matters?”

  “Matter, sir? This casino made a fortune for its own
er. That’s how he came to be able to afford me. With the imbalanced advantage I provided, profits increased substantially.”

  “I knew that rat bastard was cheating,” Steo said through gritted teeth as he climbed.

  “It’s not technically cheating to develop games people have a reduced chance of winning,” Hawking said with what sounded like pride.

  “How much is that chance reduced?”

  “Statistically over time to near zero, sir.”

  Steo huffed as they climbed the stairs. The robot floated. Steo had to work to keep up. “Close enough for me. What about doing something that makes life in the galaxy better?”

  “I have had time to locate some information on you sir. You have not instructed me not to. May I speak freely?”

  “Sure,” Steo said between deep breaths.

  “You are Steorathan Liet. You are a lawbreaker, a man wanted for many felonies. By some accounts you are also an infosurgent, an iconoclast, a hacktivist, a counterculture human patriot, a whistleblower and a rebel.”

  “Let’s stop for a moment.” Steo was breathing hard. The robot halted on a landing.

  “Your abilities should be used for more than gambling,” Steo said. “I intend to use you for higher purposes, Hawking. There are people in need who can’t help themselves. You and I can help. Is it logical to pursue that goal?”

  “It is, sir,” Hawking replied.

  “You should know I always try to use information instead of force. Is that a logical step?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “All robots are logical, but is your processor superior in that regard?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Then does it make sense – isn’t it logical – that I steal you?” Steo asked.

  Hawking didn’t immediately answer. “I cannot fault your logic sir.”

  “Then let’s go. Where are we going, anyway?”

  “Up, sir,” Hawking replied.

  CHAPTER 9

  Payback

  Steo wasn’t entirely happy with the escape plan Hawking had formulated. Once on the roof of the casino, Hawking had Steo hang on to his neck. The robot used his grav drive to hover over the alley and descend. It was a strain, more than his engines were designed to take, but they arrived at the bottom safely.