The Fifth Correction

by Robert Wingfield

“As good as any,” said the man. “I think that will conclude our interview. I’ll undo your restraints.”

  “No need,” said Kara. She snapped the leather bindings as if they were goat-flavoured window-putty and stood up, stretching. She handed back the blindfold.

  The man reddened. “You could have escaped any time,” he said. “Why didn’t you?”

  “I thought we were in for a bit of squelchy fun,” she said. “Can I keep the electrodes?”

  “Er, yeah, health and safety requirement. We can’t reuse them.”

  “And about that drink…”

  * * *

  “I’ll dial a coffee,” said Tanda, as she and Kara relaxed in the recreation lounge. “Sorry we haven’t any real stuff; Mrs Tuesday doesn’t know about this place.”

  “Why would she?” commented Kara. “Milk and 12 sugars please, but leave the stirring; I don’t like it sweet.”

  “That won’t leave any room for the liquid.”

  “Exactly... it’s disgusting.”

  “Biscuit?” She handed a plate over.

  “Yes, it may well be,” said Kara taking one and sniffing at it suspiciously. “Is this real?”

  “I ran it up on the 3D printer,” said Tanda. “I hope they put the right resin in to the hopper.”

  “Possibly not,” said Kara spinning it across the room. It took the top out of a guard geranium before plunging into the wall and stuck, quivering. “I think I’ll forego the refreshments.”

  “Good idea. I would like to say sorry for the formalities,” said Tanda. “You see, we have to follow due process according to the manual, otherwise all order breaks down and the universe stops vibrating.”

  “I understand,” said Kara. “These things are made up for a reason, I expect. It’s simply that everyone seems to have forgotten the original reason and they follow the rules blindly without question. When things go wrong, they make up more rules to tack on, rather than going back to first principles and asking why the process is there in the first place, and is it really necessary.”

  “You’re not a consultant are you?” asked Tanda.

  “A cynic,” said Kara.

  “I know that planet, but do you really think that everyone has forgotten why the processes are there in the first place?”

  “Can’t you remember?”

  “Somebody must,” said Tanda thoughtfully.

  “And is that somebody still employed here?”

  “Possibly not,” admitted the Skagan woman. “When Mr $mith (sic) gave us the job of security, we might have accidentally murdered all the original staff.”

  “You kept the processes though?”

  “You have to have processes…”

  “See what I mean; blind obedience, even to something that may no longer exist.”

  “Oh dear,” said Tanda. “What can we do?”

  “You could start asking questions. Maybe someone will listen and have a look at the processes?”

  “Ground-breaking idea,” said Tanda, brightening up. “I’ll raise a request for an enquiry docket.”

  “Yes, you do that. Now the real reason I’m here is to find out what happened to a couple of the TCA agents who visited to kill the CEO.”

  “Oh, you mean Bott and Scaly, the bionic monster and the insect.”

  “I don’t think he’s an insect,” said Kara. “He would get quite annoyed if you called him that. I believe he is actually an arthropod belonging to the class ‘Chilopoda’ of the subphylum ‘Myriapoda’.”

  “As if I cared,” said Tanda. “Did you want to see him? He’s with the other insurgents in the day room, awaiting his next beating.”

  “Yes please. Lead on.”

  * * *

  Kara let a whistle escape between her teeth. She gazed at the milling crowds in the exercise area. “Are these all ‘insurgents’?”

  “Most definitely,” said Tanda. “And would you pick that whistle up please. Don’t blow it again, the inmates thought it was lunchtime.”

  “Including that man dressed as a postie, and these two making love on the table?”

  “I say,” said the man on the table. The girl giggled.

  Tanda nodded. “Of course, what else would they be?”

  “That one over there looks like a fireman, and this one with the white coat, a dentist, and these over here…” her mouth dropped open.

  “What?”

  “I recognise them; they’re TCA agents.” She stopped to count. “They all look familiar. How many have you got?”

  “Let’s ask,” said Tanda. She rapped on the table with the butt of her ‘Brendan Fittipaldi Special Forces’ machine-gun. “Silence.”

  The hubbub receded and people turned expectantly towards her.

  “Right, who here belongs to the TCA?”

  The room was a sea of hands as everyone but the toffs on the table and a milkman vied for attention.

  “There you go then,” said Tanda. “They’re all from the TCA; rebels the lot of them it seems. Odd that we never noticed.”

  “Presumably each group was sent out to retrieve the team captured before,” said Kara.

  “Right you are,” said a man near them. “Not many of us left at base now I guess, even with the tricks we can do with Time to call up reserves.”

  “You really should let them go,” said Kara to Tanda. “The TCA will be livid.”

  “I like that colour,” said Tanda. “I’ll ask. Hey, do any of you guys want to leave?”

  There was a general shaking of heads and unhappy muttering. “No, we’re all content here,” said a man; “free love, free food, the best attention and a gorgeous beach. Don’t send us back; it’s awful actually working for a living.”

  “But you’re all stuck in this room,” said Kara. “Don’t you want to get away? I can sort out your immediate release, you know.”

  “Nah, don’t worry about us, Agent Tay. This is only the gathering room; we come here to pick up our food, drink, condoms and benefits, before going back out into the beach resort.”

  “Resort?”

  “I suppose I should show you round,” said Tanda.

  * * *

  “Happy now?” Tanda had called a car to take Kara back to SCT headquarters.

  “I’ve found the missing agents. I must say they seem very comfortable. None of them wanted to be released.”

  “That’s the problem,” said Tanda. “Since the ‘Fukedds Union of Commerce and Trade’ brought in special human rights rules, we’re not allowed to have ammunition in the guns in case they go off and hurt someone. The chance of slaying anyone has dropped drastically, so we have to retain them as prisoners. Trouble is, our facilities by law are so good the inmates never want to escape; why would they?”

  “And of course, if details of the conditions over here ever got out there would be a deluge of ‘insurgents’ queuing up to live the good life.”

  “You see our dilemma,” said Tanda. “This is why we have to keep it secret. Once they’re here, we have to treat them like honoured guests; not great really, because our own tribe is still living in mud huts.”

  “Sounds like the rules need to be changed,” said Kara. “I’ll have a word with the boss.”

  “I wish you would. You can do it while I’m away.”

  “Away, where?”

  “Vac and I have to fill in some tax returners.”

  “Good luck with that. I’ll get back to base and see how the old man is getting on, now his totty has deserted him.”

  “About time too. I was always uncomfortable when they were mucking about in board meetings. That’s no way to run a war.”

  “War?”

  “Sorry, I meant ‘business’. Got to be hard in business. Can’t show favouritism.”

  “What, you think our leader is a bit soft?”

  “He is a bit easy on the staff, especially that weasel, Errorcode. I’d have pulled his head off long before now.”


  “What, Tom’s?” Kara’s eyes lit up. The light showed an excess of dust motes and small flies drifting around.

  “No, Errorcode,” said Tanda. “We are sworn to support and protect Mr $mith (sic).”

  “Is that in the Process Manual?”

  “I expect so.”

  “You should check it,” said Kara. “You wouldn’t want to risk contravening the rules.”

  “Yes, I should,” said Tanda. “One thing though. While we are away, I’m worried about the boss being at risk from insurgents.”

  “I could take him somewhere else. Perhaps I can interest him in dealing with my old chief, the Cyclic Imperator.”

  “I could arrange for a squad to go and ‘deal’ with him for you.”

  “Trouble is, nobody knows who the Imperator is. I could take Tom out of the way to help with the investigations.”

  “I thought he was busy running the company. Will he come?”

  Kara smiled. “It depends what I wear.”

  * * *

  A few days later, Tom and Kara meandered through the Whitewaterboard Shopping Centre, the main Retail and Jet-Rafting complex in the city of ‘Hyperbole’ on the planet ‘Out’. Over the vaulted glass ceiling, the rain cascaded endlessly. Tom was deep in thought, fingering the pistol concealed in his jacket pocket. He glanced at his companion. Kara was dressed, unusually for her in a tidy arrangement of pleated (but short) skirt and jacket. She had suggested that skirt and jacket was all she required, but Tom insisted on her wearing a shirt and sensible shoes. “You might get cold,” he had suggested.

  “I don’t get cold,” she replied, eyeing up a display of very expensive footwear, “since I added that anti-freeze at my 1000 case service with the TCA.”

  “Yes, I was forgetting you were with them for quite a while.” He regarded her suspiciously. “You’re not still working are you?”

  She laughed. “It took ages to get to 1000 cases, and they wouldn’t let me have any time off to recuperate before then.”

  “I suppose being immortal has its drawbacks. You don’t feel the need to return to active duty then?”

  “No, they were mucking about with the pension arrangements.”

  “How so?”

  “Increasing the retirement age, reducing the benefits, giving me more money, but pretending it was outside of my core compensation.”

  “What?” Tom’s mind was starting to switch off, but his leggy companion seemed to be warming to the subject.

  “Yes, they give you pay rises to compensate for the cost of ale, but don’t include them when they calculate final salary for pension allocation. They had put the retirement age up to 1500.”

  “Does that matter for one such as you? What would you do if you retired?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps find a quiet corner somewhere and do something like making broomsticks or growing aromatic plants. There are always openings for that sort of job.”

  “Which is?”

  “Witches precisely; they are the new specialists, since it was discovered that keeping the house swept of dust and eating the right condiments improves the quality of life. It’s an expanding market.”

  “I expect so. Look, have you finished ogling that gear; we have a job to do.” Tom took her hand and eased her away from the shop window. “I’m sure the company can afford a new pair of shoes if we manage to pull this off.”

  The gynoid stared at him. “My hand won’t come off. At least not without the correct Allen Wrench.”

  “I didn’t mean that. I was thinking I can pay you prettily32 if we can find out who the Imperator is and stop him trying to kill me.”

  Kara shook her head. “I’m not in this for the money you know. Duck!” She dragged him to the ground as a crossbow bolt thudded into one of the animated33 tailors’ dummies arranged outside the next shop. It gave a sigh and froze, its motor driven hips thrusting at passers-by and its hands framing an obscene gesture.

  “Another attempt on my life; this far out?” Tom snarled.

  “The TCA again,” said Kara, bringing out her weapon.

  “How do the TCA even know we are here?” He raised his head to scan the area.

  Kara held his arm. “Keep down until I’ve used my sensors to confirm they’ve gone.”

  “How do you know it’s the TCA?”

  “Our agents all have a recognition system implanted, so we don’t shoot each other by accident. There was one of them out there.”

  “I see, so until we’ve tracked down the Imperator and stopped him from sending anyone else, my life is going to be in continual danger?”

  “They’re probably not after you.”

  “What do you mean ‘not’? What do you mean ‘probably’? Who the Phoist are ‘they’?”

  “Let’s have a coffee and I’ll explain.”

  “You don’t drink, and come to think of it, when have you ever ‘explained’?”

  “Now,” she said, “it’s clear.” She steered him past the lynch-mob from the shop, in hot pursuit of the dummy-murderer. “We can leave it to them; these animated display models are highly prized.”

  “Why?”

  “They are very realistic. I believe they are taken home at nights by some of the more lonely shop assistants.”

  “Ah.”

  “Yes, they are almost family.”

  “They would be. Didn’t you start your career in a similar fashion?”

  Kara scowled. “That was a long time ago. Anyway, do you want that coffee or not?”

  “No thanks, we have a job to do. Keep walking. You can tell me about it as we go along. Are you saying that these attempts on my life are nothing to do with me?”

  “Didn’t you notice the latest ones only happened when I was around?”

  “I thought it was because most of my security team had gone off on that sally after the tax people.”

  “Partly,” Kara said. “Since they went, there is more chance for assassins to get near you, but it is mainly because they want me.”

  Tom stopped walking and regarded his companion. She took his hand and towed him along again. “There may be more of them,” she whispered. “Keep moving.” She took a breath. Not because she needed to, but the habits of working with bio-organisms ran deep. “You know that I managed to retire from the TCA.”

  “That’s what you say. Did you really?”

  “I did, really. They were furious, but I’d done the 1500 years and they couldn’t put the retirement age up any higher because everyone who had set the rules was long since dead. The original contracts were on floppy disk and they didn’t have the machinery to read them. They had to accept my paper copy as law.”

  “You kept your contract of employment all that time?”

  “One has to be prepared. It was a bit tatty round the edges and had moved media a few times—well, you know how technology changes…”

  Tom yawned. “Please go on,” he said, “but do get to the point.”

  “So they had to accept what I had, and give me my final salary pension plus my years of service. It accounts for 70% of their entire budget.”

  “I’m beginning to see.”

  “Yes, if they knock me off, they will have the money to start doing what they think they are there for.”

  “Which is?”

  “We’ve done that one already,” said Kara tiredly. “As you know, they are supposed to be keeping tabs on people who are flaunting ‘their’ laws of time. They can’t do that if all resources are tied up trying to kill me so they have the finance to get back to their day jobs.”

  “So no cash payment to your dependents if you die?”

  “Where would I get dependents? You’re the nearest thing I have to family, and I hate you. I’d rather give my money to the Hexacats’ Home.”

  “At least you admit it,” said Tom. “About the hating I mean, not the Hexacats’ Home, which, of course, is a worthy cause. I always suspected you didn’t like me ver
y much.”

  “It’s all out in the open now,” said Kara.

  “So it is.” Tom regarded her clothing. “You’d better do up those buttons. We don’t want to attract attention. Are we safe?”

  “Once inside,” said Kara, pointing across the square. “That’s the TCA administration block.”

  “It looks exactly like every other building designed by a twelve-year-old on acid, like they all do these days.”

  “The architects really should have been smothered at birth,” Kara grumbled. “They’ve destroyed the looks of this city. I blame it on the Skagan Wars a hundred years back. They redeveloped many of the slums with high explosive, but that made way for these new architectural deserts.”

  “You really care, don’t you?”

  “I suppose I have an affinity for mechanical structures and art form.”

  “Yes, I suppose you would. That explains why you look like you do.”

  “And proud of it,” she said. “I could have chosen any shape or species you know, but I like this image.”

  “So do I,” said Tom. “Very easy on the eye.”

  “You’re spoken for,” she grinned. “Where is the Director of Intellectual Capital at the moment? Have you heard from her?”

  “Caryl is out and about,” said Tom sadly. “Chasing after her family. She’ll be back once she’s tracked them down.”

  “You hope,” said Kara. “So you’re a free man until then?”

  Tom ignored the question. “Are you ready to tackle the mission?”

  “It shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “I hope it’s not going to be dangerous.”

  “Is it ever,” grinned the gynoid.

  Tom took a deep breath and followed his companion across the square towards the glass frontage of the TCA building. It gave no indication of its purpose, simply sporting a sign: ‘The Oilflig Fortnight Adventists—We are here to waste your Sundays in Irrelevant Chatter’.

  “Are you sure this is the right building?”

  “A great cover isn’t it? Who would ever willingly visit a place like this?”

  Kara pushed in through the rotating glass door, leaving Tom to disentangle himself from its intricate maze. A normal door rotates; Kara had omitted to mention that this one was made up of a series of glass walls, all revolving in opposing directions and levels, to keep out the riff-raff. After a few minutes he gave up, and the structure threw him back on to the square. Kara shook her head, like a motorist who can’t be bothered to make a rude gesture at you, and opened the exit door at the side to let him in. They walked casually up to the reception desk.