Avalon Red

by Mark New

  ‘I’m not going to...oh!’ Ambrosia discovered that Avalon Red had prepared for the moment. I hadn’t totally understood King Arthur’s explanation as to how he could forcibly remove Ambrosia from the mainframe and take her to a secure facility elsewhere but nobody else on the planet came close to being able to control her so Sir Edward and I had made the decision to leave it to him. It wasn’t like there was any precedent for putting a non-human entity on trial and Sir Edward had the clout to persuade the Sec-Gen to go along with our decision.

  There was a flash message of gratitude from Guinevere and then Avalon Red and The Ambrosia Promise were gone from the mainframe. I made no attempt to trace them. What did I care? I was retired.

  I surveyed the scene. Jason was face down on the table, unmoving. There was no way he could have survived. Catz was still bleeding out in the corner though he was many minutes dead. George was shaking off the shards of slimglass. Becky and Peter just looked stunned and Taylor was keeping a wary but unnecessary eye on Jason.

  I turned around in the twilight of emergency lighting and pulled on the door handle. It opened immediately. In front of me was a horde of law officers, most with guns drawn, representing all kinds of agencies from local PD and FBI to military and UN and standing there right at the front was ‘Sir Edward’ himself. I threw him a sloppy salute.

  ‘Have fun.’ I walked right past him and through the assembled throng towards the water-cooler. I heard a crisp ‘Sir!’ from Peter as he saw him in the doorway. Their first meeting: I vaguely wondered how Peter would enjoy being up close and personal with a legend.

  By the time I was in the elevator my implants were working overtime on booking a commercial flight to paradise.

  Epilogue

  The wallscreens in Joe’s Other Place were all showing some sort of rain forest, even the one that habitually showed the obscure sports. Apart from a little lighting by the door they were the only source of illumination. That wasn’t surprising as it was just after three in the morning. I’d entirely lost track of the days and my body clock was shot. I’d returned to the Cooks and fallen asleep in my hut on arrival and, when I finally emerged, it was one day and half-a-night later. I was sitting at a table in the closed café with Joe and Frisque and nursing a nice cup of tea. Frisque had a cup as well. Joe was on the beer, perhaps his fifth or sixth since he’d closed up and welcomed Frisque and I to his humble establishment.

  ‘So Jason Latimer is really dead?’ He was looking at his slimpad. Even Sir Edward couldn’t stop the intense media attention since the news broke. Joe knew that I had been involved in the investigation because I’d told him so. Frisque had seemed to know before I mentioned it. Not for the first time I considered the possibility that she really was psychic.

  ‘As a dodo.’

  ‘You found out that he had killed some key people, including the Joshua Martin, and was trying to extort a huge amount from the UN and he was killed by a UN agent who was working with you?’ That was the story that Peter and Sir Edward had come up with and everyone else had gone along with it. Probably the world wasn’t ready to deal with the idea of a genocidal sentient Online entity. I didn’t really care. I liked retirement.

  ‘Yep.’ We had been over this a few times in the last few hours. I was something of a minor local celebrity, apparently, but as is the custom in the Cooks nobody was getting over-excited about it and they had all closed ranks so that visiting media types looking for a story were getting nowhere with it. On the other hand, all journalist visitors were having a good time on expenses in paradise and the local businesses were making the most of it. In a day or two the media would drift away and I’d be a bartender again. Frisque had already given me my rota of shifts for the next week. I was feeling good about it. I even had hopes of getting through them without threatening any customers.

  ‘And his brother still let you use the company trans-orbital to get home?’ This was the bit with which Joe was having difficulty. George had actually been very good about it. I had a sneaking suspicion that he harboured a secret hope that the jet’s air system was still dodgy and that I’d crash in mid-Pacific. It was probably the last flight the jet would take in Argonaut colours prior to being sold. Argonaut Industries, the mighty global company, was being broken up to pay its debts. The true picture of its finances would in all likelihood take months if not years to work out. You couldn’t say that the authorities were slow to act, though. It had barely been thirty-six hours since I was in the dark room and already two senior accountants had been arrested and more arrests were going to follow according to my reliable sources. Those who colluded in covering up the massive debts didn’t seem to know exactly what Jason was up to nor was there any current indication as to what Jason spent all the money on. No doubt it would be uncovered in due course. Economists were more worried about world economic stability with one of the giants crashing out.

  I’d woken up to a number of messages and had sent some myself in response. I’d confirmed to Sir Edward that I was resigning the commission he’d given me. He wanted to see me Online and I hadn’t decided whether or not to go. I expected him to try to convince me to stay on but I liked the idea of being retired rather better. John the Bartender, Brigadier (Ret’d) had a ring to it. Taylor and Peter between them had updated me on the investigation. Though I was pleased to hear from Taylor, I had doubts about someone who would have two rejuv treatments and sleep with her boss all for the sake of her career. I said if she was in the Cooks to look me up and no more than that. Peter was in his element: he was now the point man for UN Intelligence on the case.

  Becky was the only one to whom I had actually spoken in person. She’d left a message saying I should call and so I did. She congratulated me for solving the case and told me she forgave me for acting like a jackass a lot. I thought that was fair enough in the circumstances. She said that Peter had asked her to marry him and she’d said yes. I was suitably congratulatory and noted to myself that I really didn’t mind. Presumably the proximity to the end of the world had concentrated their minds on the future when it became clear that they had one after all. From Avalon Red I’d heard nothing but I’d had a clue from Doc, of all people. He’d messaged me to say that he had been asked to treat someone of my acquaintance and it was the strangest case he’d ever encountered. I’d wished him well and said I’d see him soon. I hoped talking to The Ambrosia Promise didn’t cause him to miss too many sea battles in the age of sail. I was fine with not keeping in touch with Red. Arthur had been right about the broken trust between us.

  I looked at Frisque as the thought came to me: ‘Is the air-conditioning fixed?’

  ‘Yes,’ she laughed. ‘Your pal De Marjenas was most annoyed that he missed you. He said he’d try to drop by later in the week to see the great investigator.’

  ‘Bloody hell - is there anyone who doesn’t know?’

  ‘Small island,’ Joe grinned.

  ‘I missed it,’ I said sincerely.

  ◆◆◆

  Three months later Frisque came over to me as I was dispensing a round of drinks to some of the workers from the financial hub in Avarua. She waited while I poured soda water into the last empty glass on the tray. The customer proffered a twenty.

  ‘Keep the change.’

  ‘Thank you sir, very kind,’ I said politely. That was a tip of at least seven. It was nice even though I didn’t need it. I turned to ring it up and put the change in the tips jar for the other staff. I never took my share. Making money was never the point of the job. I turned to Frisque and raised my eyebrows in enquiry. Clearly, she wanted something.

  ‘Do you know how to make a real martini?’ she asked.

  ‘You’re funny,’ I said with a straight face.

  ‘There’s a parcel for you out the back. Postie Martin knew you were here instead of at your place and there was nowhere to leave it there.’

  ‘Oh, OK, thanks.’

  ‘I’ll take over for a minute if you want to open it.’

  ‘Y
ou just want to know what’s in it,’ I accused. She smiled enigmatically.

  I went out the back to the office expecting to find something on the table. It was quite a surprise to find a large wrapped parcel propped up against the back wall. I inspected it carefully. It was a rectangular shape done up with string and plain paper about four feet long and three feet high and no more than an inch or two thick. Martin had left the delivery note on top. It was addressed to me at my hut and had no return address. It didn’t even list the contents. Out of habit I scrutinised the object with the optical enhancement in my implants but it didn’t reveal any explosive or corrosive device within. I mentally shrugged and took the sharp letter-opener from the table and set to work on the string and paper.

  As the paper folded down over the front I could see that it was a painting. It looked like an original work in oils. The diagnosis was confirmed as I took the last of the paper off. It was upside down so I turned it over with difficulty. It wasn’t framed but it was done on canvas. As I was turning it I saw that there was a small brass plaque at the bottom. I set it down against the wall, unwrapped and the right way up.

  It was a painting depicting It’s Legal’s last concert. It was simply terrific. The viewpoint was the front row of the arena with the band shown in mid-song and the artist had caught the moment exactly. The lighting was right, the backdrop was right and so were the band’s costumes. It was so evocative that I could almost hear the music. I bent down and looked at the plaque. ‘Happiness & Regret’ was the title, and in smaller typeface, ‘Painted on Commission.’ It seemed Avalon Red had taken me up on the challenge to depict an emotion. I thought Guinevere had judged the title just right.

  ◆◆◆

  ‘It seems to me,’ said Sir Edward, as I again inspected the truly ugly bird on the wall tapestry behind him, ‘that you are the only person to have had any significant contact with them.’ He was talking about the Online entities which a number of tech experts, operating under extreme secrecy at the UN, had now determined may well be sentient. ‘So it would be useful if you were to be available, at the very least, for consultation now and again.’

  ‘I haven’t heard from either of them,’ I pointed out, almost truthfully.

  ‘Apart from the painting.’ He’d seen it the day of Peter and Becky’s wedding on Rarotonga.

  ‘Apart from the painting,’ I agreed. That and Doc’s updates on his progress with The Ambrosia Promise. One of her conditions for speaking to him was that he would tell me all about their sessions. They involved some discussions about her core program and she seemed to be trying to remind me, through Doc, that there was an outstanding case here.

  ‘Still, that’s not to say that there aren’t others we don’t know about,’ Sir Edward mused.

  ‘Not a greatly comforting thought,’ I conceded.

  ‘At the moment we know of two. One is genocidal and the other is a manipulative bastard.’

  ‘Anyone would think they were global corp directors,’ I mused. The number of arrests in the Argonaut case had reached thirty. When it came to shifty characters, tech didn’t have the monopoly. The worldwide distaste for corporations was fuelled by the now high-profile death of Joshua Martin. The repercussions of Argonaut’s actions would be felt for many years.

  ‘You know Congressman Bennett faces several charges relating to Argonaut as well as the original embezzlement cases?’

  ‘I’d heard.’

  ‘Word in the darkest recesses of Online suggests that the revelations in those previous embezzlement cases came from a retired military source.’

  ‘Really?’ I wasn’t going to revisit that one. Let Sir Edward think what he liked.

  ‘The point is, it’s just your nature to get involved. Why not do it with a little official backing now and then?’

  ‘I don’t need the money, I don’t need the stress and I’m happily retired and living on the most beautiful island in the world.’

  ‘As you wish.’ He’d given up again but only for now. Partly it was my fault as I did drop in here now and again.

  ‘When are you going to change that thing?’ I nodded at the birdie.

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve almost grown attached to it. I might keep it till I move from Knights of Camelot.’

  ‘Oh? Going somewhere?’

  ‘It’s not the most clandestine organisation in the world if every retired bartender knows where to find me, is it?’

  ‘No, I suppose not. Do me a favour and don’t go to bloody MetroSim Challenge.’

  ‘No chance of that. Since Becky left Argonaut she’s been cleaning up in vir-estate there. I doubt I could afford the rent.’

  ‘Go somewhere with dinosaurs, see if you feel at home,’ I suggested.

  ‘Are you calling me old?’ he patted his cheek.

  ‘That avatar isn’t the oldest bit of you. It certainly hasn’t had as many rejuvs as you have.’

  ‘How rude. In real life I look good for my age.’

  ‘One man’s opinion, not necessarily shared by the world at large.’ I stood to leave. ‘Must go - my shift starts shortly.’

  ‘Remember, the secret door is always open,’ he said cheerfully.

  ‘I know,’ I sighed, ‘see you, Dad.’