Guardian Angels and Other Monsters

by Daniel H. Wilson

  Arkady’s promise destroyed my family.

  “Lot of greenbacks,” I muse. “And nobody to enjoy them.”

  “I certainly don’t. I require no wages, Mr. Drake. No air and no light, either, for that matter. As stated in the original will and testament, ab initio, the profit from Dr. Arkady’s investments—amassed over the last two centuries—shall be held in trust in perpetuity for the descendant who is able to claim it. So far, none has.”

  “A couple might have tried,” I quip.

  “Hundreds have tried, Mr. Drake. All have failed. Are you here to stake your claim?”

  I adjust Abigail in her carrier. “For the kid,” I say. “She needs a doctor. The kind that a guy like me can’t even pay to consult.”

  “Drop her off at any state-run orphanage and they will provide for her.”

  “Kid’s got meta-Parkinson’s, like me. The state will throw her into a wheelchair and forget about her. But the disease is degenerative. It’ll kill her sooner or later, unless she gets a fledgling exo-rig to build up her strength. If she can learn to walk, she could use a hybrid stepper until she’s grown. Then a full-blown joint-stabilization field, just like her old man. It’s real simple, Executor: I don’t have enough money to save my daughter’s life. You do.”

  The Executor looks at me, expressionless. It’s tough to tell how smart it is. Those muddy eyes. The light sort of disappears into them.

  “So what next?” I ask.

  “The details of the review process are confidential. Touch the speaking stone to initiate.”

  I notice a flattish block of red sandstone on the ground.

  “What else?” I ask.

  “Nothing. The process begins when a legal descendant touches the stone. Once activated, the review process cannot be repeated. My decision will be final.”

  I cradle my daughter to my chest. She breathes in soft gasps, warm against me. My joint stabilizers whine as I kneel to touch the rock; they’re army-issued and falling apart.

  “Review process initiated,” says the machine. “Answer the following question: What is inside you and all around you; created you and is created by you; and is you but not you?”

  “It’s a riddle?”

  “You have five seconds to respond.”

  Five. Four. Three. Two. One.

  As the seconds burn like match heads, my baby daughter squirms and coos. She rubs her balled up fists over her cheeks and flashes those baby blues. I focus on her and try not to think about her future. A frown flickers across the Executor’s face.

  Zero.

  “Review process complete,” says the machine. “Your claim is denied, Mr. Drake.”

  * * *

  —

  I take four numb steps toward the curb when I feel the nose of a gun jabbing into my ribs. There’s nobody around, just a busy avenue buzzing with trolling auto-cars. These days, the city moves too fast for human reflexes. The streets have a numb life of their own. In turn, the citizens have become hard and precise and cold—a functioning part of the city-machine.

  No drivers. No witnesses. And I’ve got the kid strapped to my chest.

  I show my palms to the street. A slender hand clamps down on my right forearm and spins me around. A woman stares me in the face. She has a cheap-looking black polymer Beretta clutched in one gloved hand. She pauses, registers the kid sleeping against me. While her eyes are on vacation I shove the lady off balance and slap the peashooter out of her hand with a stabilizer-enhanced swipe. The lump of plastic hits the elasticrete sidewalk and I make sure it tumbles a safe distance away.

  When I look up the lady has a retractable knife in her fist, coming off a tight swing. My right arm is grazed, jacket torn at the shoulder. The blade is too close to my daughter for comfort. I slow the situation down, relax my body, put my hands by my sides.

  The woman’s eyes shine with malice.

  “Think I won’t?” she asks.

  “What do you need?” I ask.

  “Just to give you some friendly advice, Drake,” she says, motioning toward the Executor’s ornate front door with the knife. “There’s nothing in there for you. So don’t worry about going back.”

  “No problem. I didn’t make it through the review process anyway.”

  “You tried?”

  “Sure I did. I’m an heir to the Arkady Ransom, aren’t I?”

  “Sure you did.”

  “That Executor is no softie. He failed me quick and didn’t budge an inch. The machine’s got no heartstrings to play.”

  She eyeballs the kid again. “Either way, it’d be a real bad idea to make a return visit. Honest, it’d be a crying shame if you got hurt. Or if somebody in your family got hurt—”

  That’s enough.

  I’ve got her by the wrist before she can finish the sentence. I dig in with my thumb, stabilizers engaging, crushing the median nerve. Her knife drops into my other hand real neat. It’s an expensive pig-sticker. High-grade nano-carbon. A steep buy, out of place on her hip.

  “Say what you want to me, I got thick skin, and besides, it’s probably true. But don’t threaten the kid,” I say.

  “Bastard.”

  “Give me the sheath and we’ll forget about it.”

  “You don’t know who I work for,” she says through gritted teeth. My thumb digs in harder. The stabilizer is rock hard and I can hear her wrist bones grinding together. She reaches back with her other hand and takes the sheath off her hip. Hands it over.

  What an excellent actress. Whoever put her up to this wanted that knife to draw my attention. Well, they got what they wanted. I let go of her, sheathe the knife and slide it into my coat pocket. Abigail lets out a little mewling whine; she’s starting to wake up.

  The thug glares at me, rubbing her wrist. “Think you’re real smart, don’t you? Well I’ve seen smarter guys than you get dead. And then what use will you be to her?”

  “Sounds like a threat. I’ll bet the cops would be interested in that kind of behavior from one of their fine citizens.”

  The woman steps back, puffs her chest out, and laughs once. Hard.

  “You don’t have a clue, do you? Listen, take my advice and stay far away from here,” she says, glancing at the kid. “For everybody’s sake.”

  * * *

  —

  I head home and cram some food in the kid and change her and put her down for a nap. I make myself some lunch, eat it, clean up the sink, and then sit down at the kitchen table. I stare at the wall and listen to the auto-cars headed down to forever up on the expressway. The carbon knife sits on the table in its sheath. I pull it out and look at it: light as a feather and sharper than sunlight in space. It’s got an interesting insignia pressed into it. A coat of arms.

  Why’d the thug laugh when I mentioned the cops?

  I sit for a while with the wooden slats of the chair pressing dents into my back, feeling the heat of the afternoon close in around me like carbon monoxide. I rub my aching right forearm stabilizer while it charges and wish I was just a little bit smarter so I could give this kid a life.

  A warning. I got a warning. The lady was probably a low-level gun for hire without any solid affiliations. Could be working for anybody. Probably not the law.

  I snap a pic of the coat of arms with my phone. Call it in for an image diagnostic. The ID comes back—the coat of arms reps an obscure Arkady splinter dynasty. It belongs to somebody in my family.

  The Internecines have been raging since before I was born. Most people have distant cousins they run into every now and then. I have quasimilitary factions of my family that routinely wipe each other out. And all the carnage is funded by speculative investing syndicates hoping to cash in on the goldenest goose of all: the Arkady Ransom.

  It makes sense that the dynasties don’t want me staking a claim. The day the A
rkady Ransom goes tits up will be the day the syndicates put out their hands, palms up and hungry for four generations’ worth of dough. But the obvious answer doesn’t feel right. That dull silver knife with its gaudy coat of arms: it screams for attention. Could be that the dynasty wants to make sure I know who I’m talking to. Or the knife’s a plant and this is a frame-up job.

  One thing is clear: somebody doesn’t want me to figure out the Executor’s riddle. But there’s a soft warm lump asleep in her crib next to the kitchen window. Every troubled breath she takes is the world’s best argument for figuring out the riddle. It is what it is. There’s no bravery in my decision to go back. No determination or noble auspice. I’ve got to save my daughter for the same reason a gun has to spit bullets.

  I’m a citizen of the human machine.

  The phone rings and I grab it fast before it can wake up Abigail. I say hello before I realize it’s a machine talking. “Attention. This is an auto-summons issued to Philip Drake.” I’m to report to the police captain of the local precinct at my earliest convenience. As long as the next hour or two is convenient. Final notice.

  I pick up the knife and the kid and I strap them both on.

  Outside, it’s one of those searing bright afternoons where the sunlight pounds into your shoulders and then comes boiling back up off the elasticrete to catch you under the chin. I hail the first auto that cruises past my house and tell it to head downtown. The air isn’t working right in the vehicle so I figure out the voice command to roll down the window. I hang my arm out and curse as the red-hot door scalds me raw.

  There’s a bad feeling in my stomach and it’s growing there like a tumor. As we pull up to the curb across from the police headquarters I see a sleek black auto switchblade into traffic.

  Something doesn’t feel right.

  I tap a new address into my ride’s keypad because I don’t want to be overheard saying it out loud. Ten minutes later, we stop at a drive-thru everything store. I buy some diapers and a one-size-fits-all clip of baby food and an expensive Guardian plasma padlock.

  During the drive, I play with Abigail a little. Give her my half grin and let her paw at the dimple in my cheek. It only comes out for her, now that her mother is gone.

  When we reach the capsule daycare, I pick the cleanest coffin they’ve got and poke my head inside to make sure the lights and electrical are in order. It’s a good one—most of the padding is still left on the baby-handling arm. I load the food and diaper applicators and set the entertainment to Abigail’s favorite show. I give her a kiss on the face and push her inside the coffin and say good-bye. After I pay and press the door closed, it locks and seals.

  Then I put the Guardian padlock on the outside, just to be sure. I kiss my fingers and press them against the glass before it goes dark for privacy.

  * * *

  —

  A fist catches me in the stomach two steps into the captain’s office. I get the feeling that the fist has been waiting here for me—maybe for hours, maybe for days. The knuckles are smooth and round and made of metal, attached to the assistive gripper arm of a walk-chair.

  The greeting isn’t entirely unexpected, but it still knocks the breath out.

  Captain Bales, a gruff, bald bullet of a man, gives me a sharp nod and a nasty grin. He’s a lump of muscle confined to a beat-up walk-chair that crouches on four stubby legs just inside the office door. The legged chair is gleaming and black and stripped of all branding—squat and powerful as a linebacker.

  “Got your attention?” Bales asks.

  He turns his back on me. The chair carries him behind a sweeping steel-top desk docked in the middle of the room like an ocean liner. Bales’s broad meaty shoulders sway and tremble with each scratching step of the walk-chair.

  I’m glad it was the chair that hit me and not the man.

  “Pleasure to meet you, too,” I wheeze, holding my stomach.

  “Take a seat,” he says, and I collapse into a metal slug of chair. Bales drops those meat hooks on his desk and leans forward, shoulders rising like mountains. Behind him, a wall of books looms to the ceiling, up to where only a guy with a telescoping walk-chair arm could reach.

  “You got a problem, son,” he says. “You made somebody very mad.”

  “Been known to happen,” I say.

  “Are you aware that the place you visited this morning is owned by a dynasty family? You were trespassing and they’re not happy about it.”

  “Pushing it a little, aren’t you?”

  Bales gets very still. His brow drops and the next words come out slow and precise. “What are you talking about, Drake?”

  “The dynasties don’t own the Executor’s office. Sure, they bought up the whole block and everything around it. But the Executor owns its own corridor and the speaking room. It’s history. First time an AI ever bought property. Maybe you ought to dust off a book or two.”

  “Listen, you puke, it doesn’t matter who owns the corridor. You walked into the building and that whole block’s owned. We got you on video breaking the law.”

  “This isn’t about the dynasties. Who’s behind it?”

  “You don’t ask the questions, bub. That friendly pat got you all confused.”

  “Fine. I’ll paste in my own answers. I think it’s somebody rich. Powerful. Got to be if you’re here wasting your batteries bullying me. An influential somebody is worried that I’m going to hit the big score. Figure out the Ransom. Why would that be?”

  “You’re way off, pal.”

  “This isn’t the first day of school for either one of us, so let’s say we stop playing patty-cake like a couple of little girls?”

  Bales grunts at me, leans back, and crosses his arms.

  “The dynasties are a bunch of cutthroats,” I say. “Criminals. They’re locked in a fight that’s never made an inch of progress and never will. All they do is borrow money from the syndicates and stake their failed claims and run around in tight little circles with guns. This is bigger. No planted knife is going to fool me.”

  Bales’s face is blank. But the absence of information is plenty informational.

  “Let me fill in that dull expression on your face, Captain. The Arkady Ransom is the biggest fund on the planet. The most stable and profitable investment that’s ever existed. And for one reason: it’s not run by a man. It’s run by a machine. A dependable, immortal, predictably successful machine. Who cares if that machine was designed by a half-crazy scientist a couple centuries ahead of his time? Who cares if I happen to be related to that man? What matters is that I’ve got the potential to claim the money and ruin the best investment in history. Destabilize the world economy. That’s why I’ve got a feeling that the toes I’m stepping on belong to a government or a multinational or somebody with enough swagger to buy you a prototype McLaren walk-chair.”

  Bales readjusts his bulk in the legged chair.

  “Great,” he says. “So you’re getting your little brain wrapped around it. Don’t change a thing. Whoever you’re dealing with, a dynasty or just a somebody, is over your head, Drake. Backing off is your only option. I could threaten you. Rough you up. God knows you think you’re harder than you are. With this chair I could twist you into a goddamned pretzel and soak you in the cooler for a week. But I’m going to skip it. You’re just a man and we’ve all got the right to wad up our lives like tissue paper and throw ’em away. My job today is just to make sure you know exactly what will happen if you go near the Executor again. You’ll be throwing your life away, Drake. Walk down that road again, pal, you won’t be coming back.”

  * * *

  —

  The long black auto is waiting outside. A guy who looks carved out of a rock face opens the door and motions me inside. I go because, frankly, I’m getting exhausted. Inside, the limo is as sleek and plush as the inside of a violin case—the sort you’d
keep a Stradivarius in. It’s also empty.

  The rear wall of the limo is a curve of dark polished glass. It smells like ozone, purified air. I notice a few pinhead cameras and assume there are plenty more I can’t see. The bar is all glass and light—pirate treasure glimmering just under Caribbean waves. I grab a crystal tumbler, pour myself a drink of an amber-something that could pay my rent for a month, and salute the nearest camera with it.

  At that, the glass wall flickers to life and I’m looking into a three-dimensional drawing room. A man sits in a wingback chair, staring at me with expressionless gray eyes. He’s middle-aged and built slightly, but decked out in a flamboyant old-school tartan smoking jacket. No technology of any kind is visible in the room, not even a lighter. The more money a person has, the more stuff he owns that’s made of real wood. And I’m guessing this fella deals in the billions. The chair he sits in, the room around him, hell, even the jacket he wears are ribbed out in exquisite patterns. It’s the sort of luxurious detail that slaps you in the face with the fact that your own life is nasty, brutish, and oh so disposable. I scan the scene and sigh and then pour myself three months’ rent.

  Off my lack of reaction, the man finally decides to speak.

  “I’ll get straight to the point, Drake. You’re interfering. You wouldn’t listen to Bales, so I’m going to see to it that you cease. Personally.”

  I take a drink and savor it, feeling the buzz creeping in around the corners of my vision. The man in the glass launches two shotgun slugs of gray stare my way. My response is careful: “I’d love to take some credit for interfering, friend, but I don’t know who you are.”

  And I’m not sure I want to.

  “My name is Holland Masterson and I’ll tell you who I’m not. I am not your friend. I am not your family. I am Zeus on the mountaintop. You needn’t concern yourself about me except inasmuch as you should avoid incurring my wrath.”