‘What’s that?’ I asked, just for conversation.
She ignored me and continued flipping through images. Without raising her head, she said, ‘I want to find a good sweater.’
‘OK,’ I replied, and sat opposite her. Looking for clothes was about planning for the future, and it was positive.
For a moment, we just sat there in silence. She browsed through pictures of mannequins, then tried something on her avatar, but shook her head.
I hesitated over whether I should say something about Nestor. She would find out anyway, and I could control the message. I whispered, ‘Nestor died last night.’
She gasped and lifted her gaze to me, her mouth open. ‘Nestor is dead?’
I clenched my jaws and nodded.
She pursed her lips. ‘What happened?’
‘They found him dead in his home.’
‘How?’
‘They say he had a heart attack,’ I said, trying to keep it positive and natural.
‘Is this about the revenge proving its own executioner?’ she said, paraphrasing the message the cyborg had given her.
I scratched my neck. She had seen through me.
She pushed the terminal aside and turned to me. ‘You’re hiding something from me.’
‘I am,’ I said, ‘and it’s been killing me. I think I know what the message means.’
She said nothing, but her expression demanded me to continue.
‘It’s a long story,’ I said, and sighed. ‘Something that had already started when I left you over ten years ago…’
I started from the beginning. I told her about my motives for going with Sander, how I wanted to avenge my father, how the Sweeps had taught me, and how I found out about the man behind my father’s death. I told her how a ‘business trip’ I had taken was a kidnapping run on Runcor, where we got the president, and—I spared the details—killed him for revenge.
After I finished, she took the last sip of her coffee (which must have been cold by now). Her face remained solemn as she looked at me.
‘It feels so good to get it out finally,’ I said, meaning it. Not being able to tell her about my double life for over ten years had been a pain. I felt relieved that it was out in the open, but also slightly worried, as her face gave no expression of relief.
‘I’m not sure I wanted to hear that,’ she said, and turned away.
‘Tiana…’ I placed my hand over hers.
She pulled her hand away and stood up. For a moment, she hesitated, but then grabbed her terminal and hurried out of the kitchen without a word.
For a moment, I sat stunned, trying to understand her, and then darted after her.
I found her in the bedroom. She lay in the bed, her face against the pillow. She sobbed.
I sat down on the bedside and laid my hand on her shoulder, which was covered only by a thin strap of her beige nightgown.
She turned her back towards me and pulled the blanket up.
‘You know why I did it. I did it all for us.’
‘I knew it,’ she said. ‘You’re a crook, just like your brothers.’
I touched her shoulder again. ‘Baby—’
She pushed my hand aside. ‘All this time, you’ve lied to me!’
I figured she needed time to process what she had just heard. She would be all right. She’d taken it better than I’d expected.
The time on the bedside alarm clock made me realise the day had begun. ‘I have to go to work—run the mining business—talk more in the evening.’
She said nothing.
My workday was unlike anything I had let her believe. Instead of the office tower, I took my craft straight to the bunkers below the ground in the desert.
Leaving the city behind, flying above the sand, I had a sudden flashback to the time I almost killed myself. I flew the same course, across the plains of Fearanor towards the Wellanor mountain range. I maxed out the power of my craft, just like when my father had died, but this one was faster. I had no intention of killing myself, but the memory made me think of those times. Before my father’s death, life in Runcor was even better than it was now. Sometimes I wondered about my choices, but regret was always the bigger enemy, and I never let it win.
Now I had the cyborg in my sights, the intergalactic bounty hunters waiting, and regret was the last thing on my mind. I steered my ship to the opening in the ground.
Soon I stood with Usher, Sander and Pereen on the stage behind the closed curtain of the underground auditorium. Behind the curtain, I heard the noises of the bounty hunters who had picked up our assignment on the Ghostnet. There were dozens of them, from all across Dawn Alliance controlled space, all races, and all backgrounds from ex-military commanders to self-employed guns for hire, from rotten police officers to hard-boiled criminals, and from regular bounty hunters to cybernetic beings, with less than ten percent of the original species left.
‘All good, bro?’ Sander said, and put his hand on my shoulder. ‘You look a little pale.’
‘I haven’t felt Reuna’s light on my face for ages. But I will. Let’s do this now.’ I walked to the curtain, pushed it aside and stepped through.
There were more people than I had envisioned. The auditorium was almost full, and loud chatter greeted us as we entered. A Dresnean man with four robot arms pointed at us, and the chatter subsided.
As Mr Pereen introduced us, there was no reaction from the crowd, except for some whispers.
Then Usher spoke, ‘Thank you for coming down here. I know some of you have come a long way, pinched multiple times, and I want to emphasise how much we all respect the effort you have made.’
The audience responded with grunts and nods.
‘Before we get down to business,’ Usher said, ‘we must confirm everyone here is Ghostnet-certified. Show your cookies.’
Usher raised his cookie in the air. Pereen, Sander and I did the same.
I had learned the cookie-system during my time on the asteroid. In the presence of other Ghostnet users and held by the biologically-certified owner, the cookie emitted a blue light.
The crowd raised their cookies, and blue spots of light emerged amidst them. There was one red one in the centre of it all, in the hands of an Andron female with a face-covering helmet. As the bounty hunters beside her noticed the colour, immediately and without question, they started pushing her aside towards the aisle where our BTL guards took her up for questioning.
Also, there was someone, a plain unmodified human male, whose cookie had ignited no colour. ‘Busted old thing lost its charge…’ he muttered to himself and banged the cookie against his palm.
Everyone turned to look at him with suspicion in their eyes. He shrugged at the attention, and said, ‘Anyone got charge?’
An Andron bounty hunter with a full skeletal upgrade sprang up and pointed at him. ‘I know this man! He’s a captain in the Dawn Alliance Navy.’
‘Not anymore, haven’t been for years,’ the man said.
A Dresnean woman with long zebra locks stood up. ‘He’s Captain Boxley. The one responsible for the imprisonment of Kalinda Kenda!’
I shook my head. Kalinda Kenda had been one of our key BTL suppliers—I recalled the news when it had happened. ‘Get him out; he’s got no business here.’
The crowd went wild, and with loud booing and defamatory shouts, they pushed and hit the man to shove him to the aisle. The BTL folks grabbed him tight and pulled him away from the auditorium. It should have been elementary, but still, every time someone failed the cookie test.
‘Let’s begin,’ Usher said, and the lights dimmed.
People turned their gazes above us where a presentation summarised the cyborg’s hits. Sander explained what had happened in Zalda, and I recounted the events in the Roona Intergalactic Venue, as the screen showed the security footage from both events.
The audience listened in silence like monks. Someone muttered about the Dawn Alliance Navy suit the cyborg had worn, but none seemed to come up with any recog
nition. It made sense; at that point, I wouldn’t have recognised him either.
‘The cyborg threatened us with death,’ Usher said, as the screen showed the profile of Nestor. ‘Just yesterday, we found one of our key experts dead in his home without a proper explanation for the cause of death. We have a reason to believe the two incidents are related.’
The crowd watched and listened.
‘For information leading to the cyborg’s capture, we will pay one million teradollars, and for a confirmed kill, three million teradollars. As you can see, we don’t want to have him. We just want him gone.’
Many smiled as they saw the price we’d offered. It was at the upper end of what we had stated in the invite. Ours was maybe the best deal available at that moment.
After the plenary session finished, we held individual meetings to provide more detail to a small group of highest-rated bounty hunters. The rest got to download the essential information packet.
Some bounty hunters were keen on joining our BTL operations, and Pereen suggested the best ones apply, thinking that if they were to apply, they wouldn’t be the best bounty hunters. But that wasn’t a problem, because when Usher, Sander and I sat down afterwards, we all agreed the session was a success. We had improved our image within the Ghostnet, we got a few fit candidates to the BTL side, and we got the best intergalactic bounty hunters after the cyborg.
Reuna settled down for the evening—the days in Runcor were about twenty standard hours, just a tad shorter than standard days. Homebound, I watched the fading horizon as my craft rose from the underground port.
My terminal beeped with an urgent sound. I pulled it out and tapped the screen. A message told me that Tiana had been seriously injured and taken to hospital.
My breathing became difficult, as if someone were squeezing my throat.
The picture of the cyborg flashed in my eyes, and instead of going home, I rushed to Luzasand Kaloss Hospital emergency ward as fast as I could.
Entering the hospital, I dropped my craft in the valet and ran in. I wanted to get to her as soon as possible. I rushed through, explaining my business to a robot that indicated where they had taken her. Racing up, I feared the worst.
At the ward, I was unable to pass a locked doorway. I pinged the robot for a doctor, and a moment later, a tall Baar woman in a white coat entered.
‘Mr. Tait,’ she addressed me, ‘your wife has been in a serious accident.’
‘I want to see her.’
The doctor wore an empathetic expression on her calm blue face, held her arms open, and said, ‘Unfortunately, that is impossible.’
‘What happened?’ I demanded.
The doctor escorted me back to a lobby. Her tallness and blue skin made her seem calm, even if my pulse was racing. We sat down.
‘Will she be all right?’
‘Mr Tait, your wife fell from your terrace.’
A chill ran down my spine. Falling from more than a hundred metres would kill a person instantly.
‘She was lucky; the foliage of the Fermi trees slowed her fall. She is alive, but her body has suffered severe injuries, including a thoroughly shattered spine. With your approval, we would like to connect her to an artificial body.’
Words failed me. I wondered if the cyborg had come and thrown her down. She should have stayed inside where it was safe; she should’ve had no reason to go out.
‘How bad is it?’
‘Her body is broken, but fortunately, her brain is intact. You can either have her immobile or select one of the artificial bodies.’
‘How did it happen?’
‘Sir, I only know she fell.’
‘When can I see her?’
‘She will be ready for revival tomorrow. With your permission, we will deploy a new body for her, you can choose to…’
She explained to me all the options, each with their benefits and downsides. I decided—subject to Tiana’s approval—to connect her to an expensive artificial body model that mimicked a woman’s body, and asked to size it to her, no modifications required. We completed the legal agreements in a few hours, after which I went home to rest.
On arrival, our home was dark and silent without her presence. The once luxurious apartment was nothing but cold and empty space.
There was no sign of a cyborg attack. The police had already visited and left the place in good order.
I dug up access to the surveillance videos, set the date and time, and streamed it onto the wall screen. On the video, Tiana got up from the bed and walked over to the living room, opened the blast barriers, the curtains and the window, and stepped outside on the terrace. I zoomed in on her face: she was crying. She leaned against the railing and peered down. The wind tousled her hair as the sky darkened behind her.
She raised one leg on the railing, and without warning, flipped her body over.
She jumped.
Chapter Nineteen
The next few days were dark and difficult. I couldn’t focus on anything at work, with my mind preoccupied with Tiana’s depression. I had failed to see that it had taken her over the edge. Now I suffered the guilt of causing her distress, first by putting her at risk and then revealing the genuine nature of our business.
I wrestled with whether I should have told her earlier, when I’d first come back. In that case, she might have never married me, but that might have been a better outcome for both of us. Then again, if I hadn’t told her at all, the secret would have grown harder to bear with each passing year, and when I finally had told her, the reaction would have been at least the same, or worse.
I had caused her pain. I had driven her to suicide. Now my lovely girl had become eighty percent artificial, her head the only thing remaining from her once beautiful natural body.
That head of hers recognised the source of its pain. After she got out from the hospital—where I couldn’t see her—instead of coming home, she went to rehabilitate in her parents’ home.
‘We’re done,’ she said. ‘You’re a crook like your brothers, and I never want to see you again.’
I spent my days waiting for news from the bounty hunters, but so far there was nothing. The nights, I spent alone in my home, which had become my fortress, the blast shields constantly active. I didn’t do much else than sit on the lounge seat and stare at the screen filled with stars. All the notifications were off, and the lights down low. My thoughts were low, too, running deep with Tiana.
The executioner was supposed to come, but I never saw him.
Then, almost a week after the briefing, a bounty hunter contacted me. She wanted to talk face-to-face, so I invited her to the bunker in the desert and took Sander with me.
The bounty hunter’s name was Reina Wolfe, and she had long black hair, shaved at the sides, one of which had a shiny metal plate. She didn’t hide it; instead, she hung her hair as if to emphasise her body-mod. She looked muscular in her black outfit, which had many utility slots and a tight gun-belt. In being cleared to enter, she had to remove every extra item she had on, taking over five minutes.
She said, ‘I followed a lead from the city of Hexxaron down in Targan, through the Pillars of Lumi, and down to planet Un in the Yedda system, where I met a man who seemed to know a lot about cyborgs. I learned that the cyborg is not one, but many. They are clones.’
‘Clones?’ I asked. The Dawn Alliance law prohibited the cloning of humans because of manifold ethical issues. The technology shouldn’t have been available anymore.
‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘They’re based on someone called Colonel Roner Powell, a rogue member of the Dawn Alliance Navy Ground Forces, but this doesn’t look like a navy operation.’
‘Who, then?’
She shook her head. ‘Whoever they are, they must have unlimited resources…’
‘What about the man you spoke with; how did he know all this?’
‘He said he worked with a materials supplier, and even though he had severe NDA’s, it seemed as if he wanted to tell someone. But
before I could ask any more questions, he disappeared.’
‘How does someone just disappear?’
‘There are plenty of ways, but my guess is that I was speaking with a hologram.’
‘Let’s get the data on the man,’ I said, and Pereen nodded. The BTL intelligence team would be all over it in no time.
‘You won’t find anything,’ she said, ‘But you could meet the cyborgs.’
She had my attention. ‘Tell me more.’
‘Before he disappeared, the man said that the cyborgs are on a single black spaceship, hovering within the Poorelline Nebula; I have the approximate coordinates.’
‘Poorelline Nebula, why?’
She held her hands up. ‘Who knows, though it’s not the cyborgs you’re looking for.’
‘It’s not?’ I asked.
‘I went to confirm the coordinates, and indeed I found a ship running dark without a network registration. They seem to be under the control of someone outside the dark ship.’
‘Did you hail the ship?’ Sander said.
‘From a Stinger?’ She shook her head. ‘No. I value my life.’
I thought about it. A group of cloned military cyborgs floated in space on a ship whose model was unknown to the network database of spaceships. Someone else controlled the group. Both Sander and Pereen seemed thoughtful. I said, ‘What do you think? If they’re under remote control, shouldn’t we be able to find the other end?’
Pereen nodded. ‘We would only have to go somewhere near the ship and scan them for waves in and out.’
‘I thought so, too,’ the bounty hunter said, grabbing everyone’s attention.
‘But?’ Sander said.
‘It doesn’t work like that. Think I didn’t try? Nothing was going in or out. As I said, they were running dark. Usually, there’s at least the network tracker signal, but this ship had none. I risked them detecting my scan, but they never acted. Or they never saw it. But I would not risk finding out; they would have blown my little Stinger.’
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