by R S Penney
Mr. Tarso smiled politely. “Yes, well, it is quite a bit of work,” he replied. “I'm overseeing the installation of new upgrades to the automated drones, upgrades that should improve efficiency.”
“Really? That must be challenging.”
“More time consuming than anything else.”
“Still, I imagine there would be some stress.”
The other man nodded slowly. “A bit.” His voice was gruffer now, as if the question brought to mind things he would rather not think about. “The City Planning Commission is always looking over my shoulder.”
“Yes, I thought I heard you say as much.” This would require some delicacy, but if Brinton managed his performance, he would look like yet another devoted follower of the faith trying to console a wayward member of his flock. “The church is planning a retreat next month to the Adalean Mountains. An opportunity for reflection and meditation and restoration of the soul.”
“Ha ha,” Tarso said. “I'm afraid I'm much too busy.”
“Yes, I imagined as much,” Brinton said, casually offering the tablet despite the other man's objections. “However, Reverend Vanorel would be most distressed if I didn't at least persuade you to look over the details.”
Miles Tarso accepted the tablet with a soft sigh of frustration and began swiping his finger across the screen, scrolling through photos of the church's mountain retreat. Little did he know that as he shuffled through those old pictures, the tablet's biometric scanner was recording his fingerprints thanks to the app Brinton had coded.
Hacking was not about writing a piece of code that would unravel encryption so dense it would require more time than the heat death of the universe to crack; no, hacking was about exploiting the weak point in every security system. The human factor.
Mr. Tarso grimaced, then shook his head. “No, I'm sorry,” he said, thrusting the tablet at Brinton. “I'm not interested.”
Grinning with a quiet chuckle, Brinton bowed his head to the other man. “Much as I expected,” he said, taking the tablet. “But I appreciate your indulgence nonetheless. The reverend does care for his flock.”
“Thank you, Acolyte,” Tarso said, turning away.
When he was gone, Brinton brought up the app he had programmed, a dark purple background where bright orange fingerprints appeared on the screen. Excellent. Now, he would have access to the vertical farm's security systems.
Chapter 1
Sunlight through an open window illuminated a bedroom with light blue walls and a dome-like ceiling. Her furniture was made of a white synthetic polymer that she could not pronounce, as was the frame around her mirror. You couldn't exactly bring an entire bedroom set across the galaxy.
Melissa was curled up on her side with her back to the window, the covers clutched to her chest. “Mmmph…” she groaned, blinking sleep out of her eyes. “Already? I was so sure morning was still a few hours away.”
She sat up.
Pressing the heels of her hands to her eyes, she smoothed long dark hair away from her face. Normally, she was quite happy to go to bed early and wake up feeling chipper, but the paper she had been writing had kept her up all damn night.
Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, Melissa stood up and stretched her arms over her head. “Lovely,” she mumbled, making her way over to the mirror. “Now I get to feel like I'm half asleep all day.”
Her reflection was haggard, with dark circles under her eyes and black hair that was now tangled and messy. They had told her that Keeper training would be difficult, but she had never imagined that she would feel tired all the time.
Well…Maybe not all the time. Carrying a Nassai did have its advantages, and her symbiont was slowly but surely coming to grips with the passing of its former host. She hissed as memories of Jena flooded into her mind.
Melissa closed her eyes, tears leaking from them to run over her cheeks. “We are going to be just fine,” she whispered, leaning over the dresser. “Day by day, it gets a little easier, doesn't it, Nala?”
The symbiont reacted with disgust to a name it really didn't want. During the few conversations they had shared, Melissa had learned that her Nassai was open to the idea of having a name, but she seemed to reject everything Melissa came up with. It was hard not to think of the symbiont as female despite the fact that Nassai had no gender.
Outside her bedroom door, she found a small hallway bordered by a white railing that overlooked the first floor; she could already hear her father down in the kitchen. He had taken to making breakfast every morning.
Claire's bedroom door swung open and the girl stepped out in pajama bottoms and a pink t-shirt. Before anyone could say a word, she charged through the narrow corridor for the bathroom and crashed into Melissa's stomach.
Melissa winced, grunting from the impact. “Really?” she asked, shaking her head. “You can't wait ten minutes for me to shower and get out the door? God help me, Claire! You're gonna drive me nuts.”
Her younger sister stood in the narrow hallway with her arms folded, craning her neck to stare into Melissa's eyes. “I have school,” she said in a flat voice. “Some of us do have to follow a schedule.”
As if Melissa didn't! For some reason, Claire didn't seem to understand that having classes at different times each day of the week did not mean that Melissa's schedule just magically adapted to suit her needs. Or maybe it was because her sister was ten now and nearing that age when kids became whiny.
Claire pushed past her, into the bathroom.
“What's going on up there?” Harry shouted.
Gripping the railing with both hands, Melissa leaned over to answer her father. “Oh, nothing!” she called out. “Your youngest daughter just insists on having the manners of a drunken sailor on shore leave!”
The stairs led down to an open area where a white couch sat in the light that came in through the living room window. Blue walls were decorated with pictures of gorgeous landscapes, and the glass coffee table supported a vase of yellow tulips.
She went to the back of the house where her father was cooking breakfast.
The white-tiled kitchen was much larger than the one they'd had in their old house. White cupboards made a ring around a room with an oven and a fridge that looked both different from what she would have expected and also similar enough that she had been able to identify them at first glance.
Melissa sat down at the table and watched her father at the stove. Harry stood with his back turned, fussing with something that was probably a pot of oat meal. “So, did you finish that paper?”
Melissa yawned so hard her face hurt, then covered her gaping mouth with her fist. “Yeah,” she mumbled. “A couple hours passed midnight. Who would have thought that the philosophy of law would be so complex?”
Her father chuckled.
Aside from a few cosmetic differences, it looked like just another ordinary kitchen in an ordinary home. Not the set of a science fiction movie. Melissa hadn't known exactly what to picture on the long flight to Leyria, but she had imagined something a lot like the Jetsons. Of course, there was one thing that stood out.
A six-foot tall robot made of a flexible gray plastic stood silently next to the pantry. Its face had human features with a small bump for a nose and a speaker for a mouth. And two long eyes.
Those eyes began to glow with deep blue light as soon as it recognized the sound of her voice. “Good morning, Melissa,” the robot said in cheerful tones. “Would you like me to prepare you a light breakfast?”
She looked to her father at the stove.
Harry stiffened at the sound of the robot's voice but carried on with what he was doing, refusing to so much as glance in her direction. “No, thank you, Michael,” Melissa said. “I think Dad has that covered.”
“Michael…” The robot seemed to be pondering its new name. “Shall I respond to that from now on?”
“Yes,” Melissa said.
“No!” Harry insisted.
Setting her elbow on the table'
s surface, Melissa rested her chin in the palm of her hand. “It's just a robot,” she said, her eyebrows rising. “It's not going to mean the end of life as we know it.”
Her father stood with hands braced on the counter, head hanging as he let out a soft sigh. “I know that,” he muttered. “But there's already so little for me to do that…At what point does technology make a man obsolete?”
Closing her eyes, Melissa tilted her head back. She took a deep breath of her own and let it out slowly. “It doesn't make you obsolete, Dad,” she began. “You could just as easily say the same thing about a washing machine.”
Grabbing a pot in one hand and stirring his concoction with a wooden spoon, Harry whirled around and shuffled over to her. “So I'm told.” He emptied half the oatmeal into a bowl he had left in front of her.
“Are you sure this is about Michael?”
“Stop calling it that.”
“This unit will now answer to 'Michael.' ” the robot said, stepping proudly forward as if it expected someone to pin a medal on its chest. Hell, the damn thing was practically smiling; she had never noticed the slight curve of its mouth speaker.
Michael wasn't sapient, of course – not a true AI like Ven. It was merely one of the many appliances controlled by the house's main computer. A convenience to make life a little easier, to cook meals and perform light cleaning duties. Why her father despised it so much was beyond her.
There was a slight whirring noise as the robot stepped forward and turned its head to fix those glowing blue eyes on Harry. “Mr. Carlson,” it began. “I have been informed that this week's grocery delivery will take place at the standard time. You have made no special orders this week.”
With an open mouth, Harry tossed his head back to blink at the ceiling. “Grocery deliveries,” he muttered under his breath. “Do the people of this planet do anything for themselves anymore?”
“ 'Damn that new-fangled SnapChat!' ” Melissa barked, quoting one of her earliest memories. “ 'These kids today use technology for the stupidest things!' ”
“Shouldn't you be on your way to class?”
“I will be,” Melissa said. “Once Claire lets me take a shower.”
One wall of the classroom was actually a large window that looked out on a round garden in the middle of a green field. Six curved desk – shaped like horseshoes – were scattered throughout the room, all positioned to face a wide, open area in the middle of the gray tiled floor.
Dressed in gray pants and a black t-shirt with a silver pattern on the cuff of each sleeve, Melissa strode through the door. Her dark hair was pulled back in a bun with two sticks forming an x through it.
Instantly, her eyes found a gorgeous young man who sat turned so that she saw him in profile. Tall and slim with bronze skin and thick dark hair, Aiden Tenalo seemed to be focused on something on the wall.
Melissa closed her eyes, breathing deeply to calm herself. “Don't make an idiot of yourself,” she whispered, shaking her head. “He's just an ordinary guy. Like every other guy you've ever met.”
Aiden smiled up at her, his dark eyes glittering in the warm light. “Hey!” he exclaimed. “I was hoping I'd get a chance to talk to you before class got going. Did you finish the assignment?”
Crossing her arms with a heavy sigh, Melissa shook her head. “I did,” she said with a shrug. “But analyzing the theories of Toralus Bendai kept me awake well past my usual bed time.”
“It was that hard?”
She tilted one of the horseshoe-shaped slabs of plastic up so she could drop into the cushy chair, then pulled it back down over herself to form a desk. “I was trying to find a fresh take,” she said, swiveling to face Aiden.
He sat with his elbows on the desk, his chin resting on laced fingers. “I'm sure you came up with something,” he said, his eyebrows climbing. “After all that effort, you must have rewritten the book on law.”
She was about to answer when a man in black pants and a matching shirt cut in the Leyrian style came striding through the door. Wil Asten, their teacher, was a shorter but well-muscled man with Asian features. From what Melissa had heard, he had grown up on Salus Prime and then moved to Leyria to become a Keeper.
Wil shut his eyes, grunting in displeasure. “Let's get started,” he said, stepping into the empty space in the middle of the room. “In our last session, we reviewed the work of Toralus Bendai; I trust your papers have been submitted.”
Melissa raised her hand.
The teacher froze in place when he caught sight of it, turning his head to glare at her. “Ms. Carlson,” he said, arching a thick dark eyebrow. “I thought that we were going to curb your tendency to interrupt the lecture.”
Those words sent a wave of heat burning through her face. If there was one thing Wil despised, it was interruptions. The man would sigh with frustration every time she raised her hand and then provide the most sparse of answers. From what she had heard, he was an amazing Keeper, but he wasn't much of a teacher. “I wanted to ask about the undercurrent of Legal positivism in Bendai's work.”
“Something I'm more than happy to discuss with you after class,” Wil snapped. “For the moment, let's resume.”
A hologram appeared before him, depicting a man in a gray suit that might have come out of the 1800s. Except it didn't. The cut of his beige shirt was different, with a high collar that almost touched his chin.
Toralus Bendai was one of those stately men with dark bronze skin and a fringe of white hair around the back of his head. His face seemed to be fixed in an eternal frown. “Bendai believed that the law is an extension of 'natural morals' that evolved to allow us to function as a social unit,” Wil began. “As such, he saw adherence to the law as one of the principle virtues of any decent human being.”
Unclipping the metal disk from her gauntlet, Melissa set it down on the surface of her desk. Tiny nanobots emerged from it, linking together to form a small keyboard right in front of her.
The holographic projector displayed a blank white screen with a blinking cursor, and she began to type, filling out notes. This, she realized, is going to be a very long day.
Daisies sprouted from a bed of soil, white petals fanning out around a yellow disk that seemed to drink up the sun. He dug in the dirt with his trowel, making a small trench into which he poured water.
Harry was on his knees in the grass, next to the flowerbed, muttering softly as he inspected his work. “Not bad,” he muttered, wiping sweat off his brow with the back of his hand. “At least they're growing.”
The damnable robots that “kept this house in order” would maintain his yard if he allowed it, but he wanted to do a few things himself. That, he realized, was a big part of his problem. Since coming to this world, he'd had so little to do and so much free time that he wasn't entirely sure what to do with himself.
The small house was off to his left with its domed roof collecting sunlight that it fed into the city's power grid. Behind it, a green lawn stretched across the length of his backyard to the very edge of a small patch of woodland.
Baring his teeth, Harry squeezed his eyes shut. He rubbed his forehead again. “ 'A man's worth is in his work,' ” he mumbled, quoting his father. “So what exactly are you worth now, Detective Carlson?”
“Talking to yourself?”
He looked up to see a young woman in blue jeans and a white t-shirt with thin laces over its V-neck coming around the side of the house. Anna wore a pair of sunglasses with large dark lenses that glinted in the sunlight. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail, but she had dyed it to a pale blue.
“Trying to do something productive.”
Anna paused ten feet away from him, planting fists on her hips and standing over him like a disapproving drill sergeant. “Have you never learned how to relax, Harry?” she asked in disapproving tones.
He felt his mouth tighten, then shook his head in dismay. “I've had just about all the relaxation I can handle,” he said, getting to his feet. “Three months
of reading and going to shows and taking care of the girls.”
“And you're looking for something to do?”
“I don't know what to do.”
“What do you want to do?”
Harry slipped his hands into his back pockets, then spun around to face the house. He marched over to the wall and let out a breath. “That's just it!” he said. “I don't know! Back home, there was always something that needed doing.”
Cocking her head to one side, Anna watched him through those dark lenses. “Well, there is the task force,” she offered. “I know things have been quiet lately, but you could always focus on that.”
“I attend the weekly meetings.” After three months, the hunt for Grecken Slade's lackeys had pretty much come to a standstill. There was no sign of the woman that Anna had fought in Tennessee, or of the one Jena had encountered in New York. Arin was safely tucked away in a holding cell.
It seemed Jena had dealt their little cabal a crippling blow when she killed Slade. On top of that, patrol ships had seen no evidence of an incursion from the Ragnosians. More and more, it was starting to seem as if this task force had no purpose. Not that he minded; if the horror of Grecken Slade's treachery was truly over, then he would gladly put up with a little boredom.
His heart sank.
Thinking of Jena always had that effect.
Harry turned around to lean against the wall with his arms folded, looking down at himself. “So, what about you?” he asked in a gruff voice. “How is that leave of absence going for you?”
She turned her face away from him, staring intently at the fence. “Don't ask,” she muttered under her breath. Something had happened between her and Jack, and neither one would discuss it.
Harry had used a little careful prodding with each of them – a good Detective had many ways to get information out of a suspect – but neither one was forthcoming, and it was the sort of thing that a friend just left alone. Sometimes people just had to figure out their issues on their own.