Deep Space Dragnet (Rich Weed Book 2)

by Berg,Alex P.

  DEEP SPACE DRAGNET

  ALEX P. BERG

  Copyright © 2016 by Alex P. Berg

  All rights reserved. Published by Batdog Press.

  ISBN 978-1-942274-20-9

  No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, except by an authorized retailer or with written permission from the author. For permission requests, please visit: www.alexpberg.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents portrayed in this novel are a product of the author’s imagination.

  Cover Art by: Damon Za (www.damonza.com)

  Book Layout: www.bookdesigntemplates.com

  If you’d like to be notified when the next Rich Weed novel is released, please sign up for the author’s mailing list at: www.alexpberg.com/mailing-list/.

  Table Of Contents:

  Chapters:

  1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32

  About the Author

  1

  “A little more to the left,” I said. “Just a hair. That’s it. Perfect.”

  The mover bots’ hydraulics hissed as they settled my clear plastic-wrapped couch into place. As the oversized sofa’s legs met the floor, the mover bot closest to me retracted its forks and folded them into its body. It spun on heavy duty tires until it faced me. Gears whirred as it pulled its wheels up to mid-calf, simultaneously settling its feet onto the floorboards.

  “Jay’s Relocations is our name, but satisfaction is our game,” it said in a tinny voice. “Is there anything else I can do for you today, Mr. Weed?”

  The bot stood in front of me, roughly the same height as my own meter seventy-five and with a candy-apple red Jay’s Relocations decal splashed across its torso. Between its retracted forklift tines, high load index tires, and solid frame, the machine better resembled a dune buggy than a droid. Nonetheless, it possessed the same minimal capacity for humanoid interaction any other dumbbot on the face of Cetie had, and, being a bot, it would do whatever I demanded of it—assuming I asked it to move furniture and paid the eponymous Jay in advance.

  “Actually, now that you mention it,” I said, “I think I’d rather have the desk ten to fifteen centimeters closer to the windows. I sat while you brought the couches up, and I found I wasn’t getting as much natural light as I’d hoped.”

  “At your service, Mr. Weed,” said the bot. “But could you provide a more precise measurement?”

  Dumbbot, indeed. “Let’s try twelve centimeters.”

  The mover bot sunk back down onto its wheels and drove toward my desk with its partner in tow. As they readied their forks, I heard Carl’s familiar, measured voice behind me.

  “You know, Rich, I have to admit—I had my doubts about this location, but upon further review, I concur with your choice.”

  I found him at the windows, which stretched from floor to ceiling across the entire southern face of my office in a single, unbroken sheet. His perfectly coifed short blond hair sparkled under Tau Ceti’s bright mid-afternoon light. An aquamarine blazer gave shape to his shoulders, one that would have him soaked with sweat after a couple minutes in the Cetie heat—assuming he had sweat glands. To my knowledge, he’d never gotten the upgrade due to its expense and questionable functionality.

  I joined him at his side. “It’s the view, isn’t it?”

  “Well, that is part of it,” he said, his gaze trained on the skyscrapers and space elevator of Pylon Alpha, the latter clearly visible in the distance from the forty-fourth floor of our new office. “But beyond that, I accessed some of the city’s publically available seismology reports. As it turns out, this building is slightly farther from a fault line than our last office, and given its height, it’s subject to stricter construction codes. In the unlikely event of an earthquake, my calculations show we’d have a two-point-six percent better chance of survival here than we previously would’ve. In addition, I scanned the flight patterns of incoming and outbound aircraft from the Cozy Harbor regional airport, and—”

  “Carl…just go with it.”

  He turned to face me and smiled. His sharp blue eyes, optically superior to mine in every way, twinkled. “Sorry, Rich. It’s the view.”

  He’s almost as dense as you sometimes, said Paige in the back of my mind. I’m not sure I’ll ever understand his unique brand of synthetic consciousness.

  Because you’re not truly conscious, I replied. You’re a few billion lines of code in a servenet buried deep beneath the bowels of Pylon Alpha.

  Paige delivered a mental sniff into my subconscious. Wow, you sure know how to talk to a girl.

  I snorted, causing Carl to glance at me out of the corner of his eyes.

  “What are you and Paige saying about me this time?”

  Dang, he was good. I was sure Paige had kept him out of her most recent Brain communication based on his lack of response—she tended to only insult me to my face—but he’d figured it out anyway. I guess when you’ve known a guy for eighty-five years you tend to have a pretty good idea of what’s going through his mind.

  “What?” I said. “Nothing. Paige was telling me about how her own calculations give us only a two-point-five percent improved chance of survival in the event of a cataclysmic earthquake.”

  He’s lying, said Paige.

  “I can tell,” said Carl.

  As much as I loved my Brain—the cybernetic implant which let me take part in lifelike supersensory virtual experiences, connected me to the near-infinite collected knowledge of the known sentient races, and allowed me to play repetitive tile matching games when I got bored—I did sometimes tire of Paige’s presence. She came as a sort of package deal with the Brain. After all, I couldn’t run search queries or make Brain calls or operate the coffee machine all by myself. I needed Paige’s digital consciousness imprint for those things. If only she weren’t so sassy all the time…

  Need I remind you, said Paige, you brought this on yourself.

  “I know, I know,” I said. “I chose your personality parameters once in the bygone days of yore. If I didn’t want to be constantly razzed, I shouldn’t have picked bubbly and cynical as your two primaries.”

  A tinny voice sounded behind me. “Mr. Weed? Does the placement of the desk meet your wishes?”

  I glanced at it, now positioned so the afternoon Tau Ceti sun cut across it at a rakish angle. “Looks great. Thanks.”

  “Excellent,” droned the mover bot. “Is there anything else I can do for you today, Mr. Weed?”

  I looked around at the rest of my new office, which was about twice the size of my old one and an order of magnitude more expensive given the location. After my previous digs had been blown up at the hands of crazed Diraxi zealots, the multistellar corporations who’d been simultaneously investigating the incident insisted I take a sizeable payment to ensure my silence on the matter. I’d told them I wasn’t interested in their money, but they hadn’t listened. Of course, there were worse ways to spend a bonanza of SEUs than upgrading my professional storefront.

  My splurge hadn’t stopped at the signing of the lease. My new desk measured two and a half meters long and half again as wide. Its cherry wood construction meant it weighed a metric ton, and the fact that cherries didn’t grow well in the Cetie heat meant the thing cost a fortune. I’d paired it with floor-to-ceiling cherry shelves that covered my entire east wall, and on the opposite side, I’d had the movers install a new item: an all purpose espresso and beverage bar, replete with an assortment of exotic liqueurs. A four piece couch and club chair set, which rested on
a massive rug of lab-grown fox fur, completed the ostentatious look. Now all I needed was for the engravers to drop by and carve the words ‘RICH WEED, PREMIUM INVESTIGATIVE SERVICES’ into the door.

  I gave the mover bots a nod. “Just unwrap the cellophane from the sofas and you can be on your way.”

  The bot droned on about how satisfaction was his game as he and his pal got to work.

  I turned back to Carl. “You know, I think this calls for a toast.”

  He shot me a raised eyebrow. As much as I imagined myself the master of those, his were far better. “Moving into a new office calls for a celebration?”

  “Of course it does. Besides, I want to break in the espresso bar.” I crossed over to the machine and stared at my reflection in the polished copper. “Alright, Paige. Let’s fire this thing up.”

  No can do, Captain, she said. You forked over top of the line dough for this thing, which means it’s vintage. You’re on your own.

  “What?” I said. “You’ve got to be kidding me! You can’t work this hunk of junk?”

  Relax, she said. I can walk you through it. It’s not hard. See that pile of white ceramic vessels on the side? Those are called cups.

  “Very funny.”

  Grab one and place it under one of the four nozzles in front.

  I did as Paige instructed. The mover bots rolled out, a bundle of cellophane in hand. The door winked shut behind them.

  “Ok,” I said. “Now what?”

  See that big red button on the side?

  I nodded.

  Push it.

  “You realize this goes against every established color-based button pushing trope, right?”

  Don’t blame me, said Paige. This thing’s imported.

  Again, I did as she told me. The gleaming contraption started to gurgle.

  I noticed Carl smirking. “You find this funny?”

  “Sometimes I wonder how the human race ever survived,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you did, otherwise I wouldn’t be here. But still…”

  “Thankfully brewing coffee isn’t a crucial survival skill,” I said. “Unless it’s really early, in which case all bets are off. Either way, I’m sure I’d be capable of sticking a mammoth with a spear if push came to shove.”

  You just wouldn’t be able to light a fire to cook the beast, said Paige with a snicker.

  The front door chimes sounded before I could come up with a snappy retort. The mover bots must’ve forgotten a chassis or something. I’d told them they could come in and out as necessary, but the blasted things insisted on asking for permission every time. “Come in.”

  The door slid open and in walked a man, tall and broad-shouldered but slim—definitely a non-Cetiean, otherwise his musculature would’ve been much greater. A crop of short shorn black hair roosted atop his head. Thick eyebrows crowded his brow, contrasting against his carefully manicured designer stubble, all laid over pristine caramel-colored skin. A lightweight ivory jacket draped his shoulders, and he wore a pair of pressed ivory slacks to match. He held a black and white peaked cap under his left arm.

  He surveyed me in a single glance. “Richard Weed?”

  “I go by Rich.” My brows furrowed. “Are you with Jay’s? If you want me to fill out a satisfaction survey, you could’ve sent it via Brain.”

  That’s not a Jay’s Relocation uniform… said Paige.

  The man stuck out his hand. “Vijay Chatterjee. InterSTELLA police. I understand you’re a private investigator?”

  I shook it, detecting a hint of cumin and cloves. As I did so, I glanced at my door, which had closed shut behind him. As I suspected, nobody had engraved my name and occupation into it during the last few minutes. “Uh…yes, that’s right. How did you find us? To my knowledge our new address isn’t in the biz listings yet.”

  He held his hand toward the plush chairs at the base of my desk. “We have matters to discuss. May we…?”

  The espresso machine sputtered and gurgled as it deposited the fruits of its labors to just under the cup’s brim. “Right. Yes. Coffee?”

  Vijay shook his head. “No, thank you.”

  He headed toward the chairs, forcing me to follow. I took a seat in my new throne, while Vijay helped himself to the armchair at my left. Carl seated himself beside him.

  “Well, you’ve already figured out who I am,” I said as I settled my cup onto the hardwood. I should’ve grabbed a saucer, too. “This is my partner Carl.”

  They shook hands.

  “A pleasure.” Vijay set his cap down on the desk. “Now let’s get to business. I have work to do and little time to spare. I assume, of course, you’re familiar with my employer?”

  “InterSTELLA?” I said. “You mean the gigantic, multistellar corporation that provides eighty percent of the faster-than-light travel between star systems and keeps the gears of dozens of planetary economies running with its shipbuilding, cargo, and immigration services? I may have heard of it.”

  “We’re down to about seventy-eight percent,” said Vijay. “Increased competition, you understand.”

  “Of course,” I said. “So what brings you to Cetie? Correct me if I’m wrong, but if you’re with InterSTELLA police, you don’t have jurisdiction planetside.”

  Vijay tapped his nose. “Exactly. Which is why I’m here. I’m looking to engage your services in the capture of an interstellar brigand.”

  “You want me to help you capture a space pirate?”

  “Yes,” said Vijay.

  I didn’t consider myself an expert on body language—limited human contact thanks to droid prevalence and a lack of any need to work were to blame—but as far as I knew, a straight face generally meant someone wasn’t joking.

  I cleared my throat as I sipped my coffee. “Well, Mr. Chatterjee, I’m flattered. Really. But tracking down space pirates isn’t what I do.”

  He leaned in a hair. The man was devilishly handsome, but thanks to extensive prenatal genetic manipulation, who wasn’t? “And what exactly is it you do, Mr. Weed?”

  The faint whine of the air conditioning system tickled my ears as I tried to come up with a fitting yet flattering response.

  Vijay settled back into his chair. “That’s what I thought. Look, Mr. Weed—”

  “Please,” I said. “Rich.”

  He nodded in acknowledgement. “I’m more familiar with your tale than you think, Rich. Your business has dealt largely with trivialities, missing cats and stolen jewelry and the like. Until your last case, that is…”

  The massive pile of SEUs I’d received, as well as the contract I’d signed, mandated I keep my silence on the matter. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Vijay didn’t look convinced. “I have a GenBorn contact. The Meeks case? He told me everything.”

  I lifted a brow. Carl gave me a look.

  Yes, he knows he can do that better than you can, Paige told me.

  Wonderful. “GenBorn told you about Valerie Meeks? They made it very clear they wanted to keep the lid on that.”

  “It’s a good contact,” said Vijay. “Besides, this piracy problem is an internal matter for the time being, too. The point is, GenBorn recommended you. Said you waded your way through a difficult investigation with tenacity and poise.”

  I wasn’t sure I believed that. Certainly, I recalled things differently. I thought I’d bumbled my way through the entire encounter and gotten lucky not to die in a fiery explosion.

  “I appreciate the praise,” I said, “but that doesn’t change the fact that I’ve never tracked down a—what did you call this person? An interstellar brigand? I wouldn’t know where to start.”

  Vijay leaned forward again. “Rich, let me be frank. This…situation, should we say, is a big deal, and you won’t be the only one on the case. We’ve dedicated a large portion of our internal resources to investigate it, and we’re in the process of recruiting several external teams to assist as
well. Your success on the GenBorn case isn’t the only reason we’ve come to you. It’s a matter of speed and availability. According to our records, you’re the only private investigation service on Cetie, and as you already astutely pointed out, InterSTELLA doesn’t have jurisdiction planetside. The opposite is also true. If we want help in space, we have to hire it.”

  The truth came out. Vijay had come to me because I was available. I felt like the prettiest girl at the dance.

  As referrals go, there are worse, said Paige.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know, Mr. Chatterjee. As I said, I appreciate your interest, but I’m not sure how much help I could be. Deep space isn’t my stomping grounds.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short,” said Vijay. “Private investigation is about following leads to conclusion, something you’ve proven yourself capable of. I won’t ask you to do anything outside your comfort zone, and you won’t be working alone. We’ll pair you with a team that compliments your expertise.”

  A team? I narrowed my eyes.

  Carl either mistook my expression, or he knew exactly what was on my mind and cut me off before I had a chance to object. “Rich, if I may…”

  “You’re always free to speak, Carl.”

  He intertwined his hands over his lap. “If you’ll recall, you’ve suffered crises of confidence before—”

  “Carl!” I said. “Ixnay on the onfidencecay talk-lay, or whatever.”

  “I don’t bring it up to undermine your abilities,” said Carl. “I’m merely stating doubt is a common mental state for you. You suffered it on occasion during the Meeks case, and yet you did, contrary to your own self-deprecating thoughts on the matter—”

  Thanks for sharing that with him, Paige…

  She gave me a loving virtual nudge.

  “—come through victorious, so to speak,” said Carl. “In that case, like this one, you wondered if you were up to the task. But have you forgotten why you took up this profession in the first place?”