“I suppose we'll answer 'Who's Buried in Grand's Tomb' soon,” I joked, taking a step into the room while drawing my gun.
“Querying,” Sasha whispered back to me. “A reference to the ‘Who's Buried in Grant's Tomb’ antiquated pun. My quality algorithm is rating this joke as...lacking.”
“You should delete that algorithm,” I mocked.
“Deleting, sir,” Sasha complied.
“No, no, don't, I was being playfully capricious. Please, keep me honest.”
“Yes, sir. This room is cut off from the network, I will need more time...”
“Not a lot of time before the foreman figures out the chameleon ruse. We’ll have to explore the old-fashioned way.”
As my eyes adjusted to the room's ambient light, I saw that I was not alone. More than a dozen human-sized blurry shapes came into focus through the shadows. They stood still in three rows, interspersed from each other by five feet. My first thought was that these shapes were statues, and my mind recalled an old history lesson. To serve them in the afterlife, ancient Chinese emperors had buried themselves with an army of terra cotta warriors.
One step closer into the crypt and I noticed the eyes of the statues emanated a very faint yellow glow. These figures were not statues.
“Shades,” I muttered. Fifteen of them stood before me, in three rows of five, all standing still as stone, except for the occasional blink of their yellow eyes.
Holding my breath, I tiptoed forward between the shades, and they remained in their stoic poses. Twenty feet of stone floor and this small army of shades separated me from my target. An imaginary coin flipped in my mind. Heads indicated a sprint to the coffin, and tails called for a stealthier approach. The coin landed, and my mind picked tails.
Slinking forward, I chose a path on the left side between two shades dressed in blue utility uniforms. My right hand drew my stun-rod and adjusted it with a few flicks of my finger, restoring its wider disrupting field. That setting enabled it to knock out a charging bull with a strike. The left hand gripped the gun tight while I stepped past the first row of shades. Blue light cast from my glowing baton revealed a small puddle of water only after my foot stepped in it. Then I saw it: a sensor on the left wall emitting an orange light, likely a sensitive audio sensor. The sensor made a clicking sound, and then a part of the wall near it slid open to reveal a hidden speaker.
“We have an intruder, protect me!” said a male voice from the speaker, which I assumed was a pre-recorded voice of Mr. Grand. The guardians gave a collective groan as they awakened and shambled forward. A tall gray-bearded shade dressed in white utility suspenders threw a wild haymaker at me. Ducking the clumsy attack, I jabbed my stun-rod into his stomach, knocking him back four feet into two other approaching sentinels.
A piercing pain shot through my shoulder as one of the shades grabbed me with a pair of thick hands and clenched hard. I dropped down and twisted my body to escape its grasp. The maneuver worked, but a throbbing pain still wracked my shoulder.
With surprising quickness, six more shadowy figures rushed over to surround me. Sensing impending danger, I channeled the pulsing pain into an angry determination to survive. Though my injured shoulder weakened my grip on the stun-rod, my good arm still wielded the grav-gun. Two shots, encapsulated by the gun’s micro-gravity guidance fields, tore an unerring path through the air and penetrated the skull of the nearest attacker.
The others made no notice of their fallen comrade and lurched toward me. Two of the closest guards reached for me with pale hands. Another pair of bullets exploded from my gun. One bullet tore straight through a female shade's outstretched hand. The shot ripped through the palm and struck her forehead. While she fell back into another attacker, her glowing yellow eyes extinguished. The second bullet punctured the leg of a short-statured guard, causing him to fall to the ground and thrash violently.
With three of the shades eliminated, I stood up and assessed my situation. With fewer bullets in my gun than guardians in the crypt, the situation appeared grim. They formed a semi-circle around me, blocking the exit and the way to the coffin, forcing me to move back against the wall. With three bullets remaining against twelve angry shades, I needed a new plan.
“Kill the intruder!” commanded Mr. Grand’s speaker, causing his sentinels to draw even closer. The disembodied voice controlled their actions, and this sparked an idea that was the theoretical equivalent of a 'Hail Mary’.
“Sasha, I'm going to need you very soon, dear,” I said between panting breaths.
“Of course, sir,” Sasha responded. “I see you have made some friends?”
“Not quite,” I replied, feeling an appreciation for her wit in the face of dire circumstances. “I have a plan that will require some fast hacking on your part. Get ready to attempt a fast manual hack when I reach that speaker.”
“Standing by,” Sasha said.
I slid my back against the wall, edging closer toward the speaker, holding the gun up with my good arm and keeping a loose grip on my stun-rod with my injured arm.
A towering male shade, the thick veins in his neck glowing bright yellow, rushed at me. A rapid squeeze of my trigger finger released the fourth bullet, ending the guard’s service to his former master. His body crumpled, tripping a second attacker that tried to reach me. Jumping over the bodies, a female shade barreled toward me. A momentary fear gripped me at the sight of her gruesome face, twisted by rage and glowing yellow from the serum coursing in her body. With cruel swiftness, her spindly arms with long filthy nails swiped for my throat. As I aimed for a shot, an obese shade to her left made a horrible screeching sound that distracted me, sending my fifth bullet off target. The woman's long nails slashed my coat and scratched my torso. The searing pain focused me, and I sent my final bullet into her head to end her tortured existence.
Time seemed to slow down as my senses heightened, my heart pounded, and adrenaline pumped through my body. I dropped my empty grav-gun and gathered the strength to switch my stun-rod to the other arm, twirling to the side to avoid a ramming attack. As the shade passed me, I slammed the weapon into its head and used the recoil momentum to bounce me back to the wall. I made a run for the speaker a few feet ahead of me, jumping over a fallen shade’s outstretched and grasping hand. Reaching the speaker, I raised my wrist-com and touched it against a small console just below it.
“Now!” I urged.
“I'm in,” I heard Sasha's voice say through the speaker. Immediately after Sasha transferred to the room’s security system, I spun around to deflect a punch from another guard. Despite my blocking the blow, the impact pushed me back several feet, sending me sprawling against the coffin’s dais. Desperate to give Sasha time, I jumped up onto the raised platform to gain the advantage from higher ground. My stun-rod hewed a wide arc to deter a pair of shades reaching for me.
“Access the recording of Mr. Grand's voice!” I ordered. All of the surviving sentinels gathered around my location.
It came down to this one remote hope. The timing needed to be perfect. I swung my weapon down to knock a shade off the dais. Reaching into my other pocket, I pulled out the syringe with the serum intended for my target and flung open the coffin. Inside, Mr. Grand’s body awaited. He was shorter than I expected, and dressed in a fine Italian suit matching the color of his trimmed gray beard. Across his folded hands rested a jeweled cane.
I raised the syringe in the air and plunged it straight into the chest of Mr. Grand, pushing ten thousand milliliters of yellow serum into his corpse.
One of the shades delivered a vicious right-hook across my face, bruising my jaw and sending me sprawling to the floor. The largest of all, the shade of a massive construction worker in dingy overalls, raised a foot to stomp my head. I gathered up the strength to swing my stun-rod at his legs, knocking him down to one knee.
“The speaker system is reprogrammed now,” announced Sasha. “We can make it say whatever you want.”
An
other shade towered over me and kicked at me with its booted foot with such a powerful force that my ribs compressed and air escaped my lungs. The same shade grabbed me by my shirt and lifted me up into the air. I looked down and saw its impassive face, brown teeth, and yellow eyes staring back at me. Its left arm moved to snap my neck and end my life.
The remaining shades stared to climb up the dais, and I knew I only had a few more seconds. Then a flash of movement from the coffin caught my eye. Mr. Grand sat up from his coffin and turned to face me, his eyes glowing yellow. The serum had worked, and I held out a razor-thin hope that I might survive.
“PROTECT ME!” I shouted, and coughed up blood from the effort. My voice imprinted into Mr. Grand's serum programming, forcing his body to comply. Mr. Grand jumped out of his coffin and ran toward me, slamming into the shade that held me in the air. Then he pushed another of his former guards away while I slumped to the ground.
“Sasha -- the speaker!” I yelled, again with the consequence of me suffering another bloody coughing fit. “Change the recording and tell them to stop!”
“Stop!” spoke Sasha through the speaker, in the voice of Mr. Grand. “Leave the intruder!”
Recognizing the voice of their former employer, the guardians stopped in their tracks. I had gambled that Sasha would be able to change the words of the recording using the same voice modulation.
“Oh, the cleverness of you!” Sasha cheered.
My head, shoulder, and chest all throbbed with pain. Sitting on the floor, I stroked my chin trying to recall Sasha’s reference, rummaging through childhood memories of reading many great books like Harry Potter, Tom Sawyer, Oliver Twist, and others that had kept me grounded during some difficult years in my youth.
“Peter Pan?” I asked, timidly unsure of my guess.
“Correct sir, well done,” Sasha responded.
I beamed, feeling so proud of my Sasha. She cited a relevant and funny literary reference in the appropriate context, increasing her reference knowledge and humor engrams. Sitting there and bleeding on the floor, surrounded by silent shades, my mind drifted to consider alternate employment. With my programming talents, I could apply to a big company like Titan Tech, or Polaris Inc. Sasha would be an excellent resume for me to get a new job, a fresh start away from the collection business. But responsibilities required me to continue for at least one more job before retirement. With a moan, I pushed off the dais to stand up, and started to limp out of the bloody tomb. Behind me, Mr. Grand followed a few steps back and six of his remaining obedient guards trailed him.
“You are hurt,” observed Sasha. “I will query Dr. Yune and request that he see you.”
“If there’s time,” I replied. “We still need to collect Arnold.”
I climbed the stairs back to the construction compound where a team of security officers, led by the foreman, waited for me.
“Halt!” a security officer demanded.
“Just what in the hell do you think you're doing?” yelled the foreman. “You can't take him!”
“On the contrary,” I snapped back, pulling a smooth sphere from my pocket, activating with a touch, and tossing it in the air. The holo-lien floated and flared with blue life, projecting the face of the Honorable Judge Prescott.
“Judge Prescott, Mr. Grand is ready for sentencing,” I said. With all the commotion and fighting down below, I had forgotten to read the rights. I figured this would kill two birds with one stone.
“Pursuant to IRS Code 158 (1) (a), the federal government has been given the mandate to collect debts from citizens who perish in a state of serious delinquency and insolvency...” the judge spoke in his flat monotone voice.
“You're not an inspector! You're a goddamned ghoul!” The foreman was angry at the collection, but there was also a tinge of humiliation on his face from being duped. The two guards reached for their tasers and stun-rods.
“I must ask all of you to stay back,” I warned, wary of another physical encounter. “Any interference with a deputized federal agent in the process of a lawful collection is punishable with ten years of afterdeath service for each person involved.” This threat was true. Anyone caught impeding lawful collections risked becoming a shade with their own debt. Penalties stiffened for those foolish enough to destroy a body. That was enough to spook the minimum wage security guards, who holstered their weapons and turned around to leave. The foreman tapped his arm, activating a communication console display that projected along his arm.
“The body of Mr. Grand,” the judge addressed the shade, “is hereby sentenced to three hundred and sixty-two years of afterdeath service.”
“I need to call the Grand family,” the foreman said with a look of sheer panic, his face ashen. “They're going to kill me for letting you take him!”
“Then maybe you shouldn't call them, and get out of town instead,” I countered. For emphasis, my hand moved to the handle of my stun-rod. A bluff in my weakened state, but the smaller foreman did not look like a man who was accustomed to combat. “Either way, I'm taking Mr. Grand to fulfill his debts.”
A moment of conflicting thought ended when the foreman fled the compound and probably the country. Although the Grand family lacked money, their connections to the underworld might seek retribution against anyone involved with this collection.
“Sasha, please keep an eye on transmissions and communications from the rest of the Grand family, in case they get any crazy ideas like vendetta,” I requested. “Warn me if you see any irregularities.”
“Already completed,” she chirped back. “I have the two brothers and the sister under electronic and financial surveillance. We will have at least an hour's notice if they decide to put an assassination bid on your head anywhere in the darknet.”
“An hour?” I asked. “That’s only slightly comforting.” Sasha's emerging progress and initiative continued to impress me, overshadowing the nagging worry that I may have just made an enemy of a mob family.
Turning back to survey my shambling entourage, I noticed that several of their bodies looked worn and decayed.
“Sasha?” I asked. “Can you scan any identity chips in these shades? I'm assuming these are still property of the construction company, but let's double check.”
“Accessing,” Sasha reported. “This data must be corrupted, Jonah. It's very odd.”
“What did you find?”
“According the company records, all of these shades were scheduled to expire,” she reported. “I presume someone modified their debt timers. That is a serious violation of IRS code 1782 (b).”
Reaching into my jacket, I pulled out the holo-lien and activated it, summoning the visage of the judge.
“What do I owe the pleasure of seeing you again today, Jonah?” he asked with an expression of curiosity crossed with mild irritation.
“Sorry to interrupt you again, sir, but in the process of collecting Mr. Grand, we've discovered a number of illegally modified shades. They are all years beyond their expiration.”
“Ghastly,” the judge whispered. “I will recommend a full audit of the company to ensure that their other workers have properly formulated serums.”
“What would you like me to do with these shades, Your Honor?”
“They have fulfilled their duties. Retire them immediately,” replied the judge. “The IRS will send agents to collect the evidence later. Thank you, Mr. Adams, for bringing this to our attention. I will recommend a bonus in my report.”
Nodding, I retrieved ammunition from my pockets, reloaded my gun, and retired the last of the illegal shades while Mr. Grand watched and awaited a command.
CHAPTER 7
O, Death
“It is better to risk saving a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one.”
- Voltaire, Zadig
My car weaved through uptown traffic toward the nearest dead depot while Mr. Grand waited in the backseat. With the air lanes snarled by an aerial accident, we tra
veled thirty minutes across the city to arrive at the tall federal building on Varick Street. A pair of agents with dark sunglasses greeted me at a roundabout, claimed Mr. Grand, and ushered me on my way. Seconds later, the pleasant dinging sound of money depositing into my account made all my pain a bit more bearable. With that, I turned my car around toward the other side of town.
“Dr. Yune responded. He will be able to see you now,” reported Sasha. “In the next empty alley, there is access to a public v-cast generator with sufficient fidelity.”
I thought about ignoring the call in favor of completing my second mission faster, but the ache in my shoulder convinced me to seek medical attention. With a nod, I veered the car off the road.
“I’ll let him know you’re available.”
The car rolled to a stop on the dead end street, and I stepped out of the car. Within the shadows behind a rusted dumpster, a faint green light shimmered. Emerging from a swirl of lime-colored proto-matter, Dr. Taejin Yune appeared with a virtual form matching his real body. Standing about five-foot-four, he wore white shorts and a matching polo shirt capped with a sailing hat. In his hand, he gripped an inflatable duck swim ring. Usually he wore a doctor’s gown during a virtual visit, but this time he maintained his true form. It was a reminder that I intruded on his vacation.
“Really, Jonah? A back alley?” He shook the rubber toy at me with a look of anger.
“Thank you for coming, Captain -- I mean, Dr. Yune,” I joked.
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