Bodyguard

by William C. Dietz

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

  The voice came from the man who sat with his back to the single solid wall, separated from me by a semicircular desk, which, judging by the cables that squirmed out the back of it, housed some rather sophisticated electronics. He had thinning hair, a high forehead, and bright blue eyes. They seemed lit from within and capable of seeing straight through whatever they looked at. He stood and held out his hand. He wore khakis and was very fit.

  “Mr. Maxon…Ms. Casad…welcome to my home.”

  “Thank you,” I replied. “We appreciate your help.”

  I heard a thumping sound and turned to see what had caused it. Two rubber-suited children hung outside the window waving and making faces through their masks.

  “It’s the twins,” Mr. Murphy said apologetically. “They love to show off.”

  Sasha said, “You have a wonderful family,” and seemed to mean it.

  “Thank you. We have six boys and five girls, which is ten more than the corpies would allow us to have topside, and about eight more than we planned. But the Murphys are a passionate lot and not always given to practicality. Please, be seated. Would you like something to eat? To drink?”

  My stomach rumbled, and I realized that it had been a long time since the pizza. Sasha looked interested as well. “Something to eat would be nice, if it isn’t too much trouble.”

  Mr. Murphy settled back in his chair. “No trouble at all. Maureen? Would you be so kind?”

  The woman who had introduced herself as “Murphy” nodded and headed upstairs.

  “So,” Mr. Murphy said comfortably. “Maureen tells me that you have a boat for sale.”

  I nodded, but Sasha answered. “Yes, we do. And a rather nice one at that.”

  Mr. Murphy grinned and countered with a position of his own. “Boats are supposed to float. Yours would sink if the pumps failed.”

  Sasha shrugged. “Holes can be plugged, and besides, it’s the engine you’re after anyway.”

  Now this was a revelation to me, but it made a weird sort of sense, since hulls are a lot easier to fabricate than high-tech engines. Sasha had known that from the start, while I had taken the situation at face value.

  Negotiations went on for some time, with points being scored on both sides, as the dollar spread gradually narrowed. I ignored the conversation for the most part, content to devote most of my attention to the soy-steak sandwiches Maureen had delivered, and the pot of scalding hot coffee. I knew a deal had been struck when both parties stood and shook hands. Mr. Murphy spoke first. “You’re a tough negotiator, Ms. Casad. Who taught you to slice a deal that thin?”

  Sasha grinned. “Dear old Mom. I had to write a business case in order to get seconds at dinner.”

  Mr. Murphy nodded approvingly. “Start ’em early, that’s what I say. How do you want your money?”

  The words seemed to pop out of my mouth. I was as surprised as they were. “Cash mostly, but we could use some clothes, and a pair of space-certified weapons.”

  If Mr. Murphy thought my request unusual, he gave no sign of it. He nodded understandingly. “You’d never make it past security with regular firearms, and you’d be crazy to use them even if you could. Some of those habitats are surprisingly thin-skinned. Maureen…take a look in the armory. A pair of Browning .9mm flechette guns might meet their needs.”

  We made small talk until Maureen returned with two plastic cases. She handed one to each of us. I thumbed mine open, pried the weapon from its nest, and looked it over. It had all the latest enhancements, including some carefully placed weights to add heft in normal gravity situations, an over-sized safety to accommodate gloved hands, a thirty-round magazine, a ninety-round gas reservoir, and a flat black nonreflective finish. The box included thirty rounds of ammo, fifteen standard or “killer” rounds, and fifteen injector or “drug” rounds. I tried to remember when and where I’d learned those names, but couldn’t.

  “So what do you think?”

  I looked Mr. Murphy in the eye. “We’ll take ’em. We’ll need shoulder holsters, four spare magazines, and a thousand rounds of ammo. Half killer and half drug. And some clothes. Two outfits apiece and a bag to tote them in.”

  Yeah, I had some clothes stashed in the sleeping compartment on Level 37 of the Sea-Tac Urboplex, but I wasn’t likely to see them again.

  The other man raised an eyebrow. He looked at Sasha. “That’ll drop your cash down to $4,000.00.”

  Four thousand dollars? The girl was amazing!

  Sasha looked at me and nodded. “If Max says we need that stuff, then we need it.”

  I felt warm all over, like a puppy that had been patted on its head, and grinned like an idiot.

  The rest went quickly. We changed into one set of new clothes, stowed our weapons in their holsters, loaded the spare magazines, and stashed them in the pouches provided for that purpose. My shirt, jacket, and pants were black, as were my shoes. We were just about to leave when Sasha pointed at my head. “That skull plate is visible from miles away. You should cover it with something.”

  She had a point. The Murphys had agreed to escort us as far as the surface, but that was the extent of their protection. We’d be on our own after that, with who knows how many poppers and rent-a-cops hot on our trail. So a ball cap, with the word “Captain” spelled out in gold letters, and scrambled eggs across the bill, served to complete my outfit. I didn’t see the money, but Sasha assured me that it was secured around her waist in a money belt.

  And so it was that we took leave of Floater Town, headed up towards the stars, and a future that neither one of us could be sure of.

  6

  “Why pay for frills when FENA flies for less?”

  The tag line from FENA Air’s Urban Graffiti cpaign

  We were on Level 45 when Maureen handed us over to a runaway android named Rita and waved good-bye. I hated to part company with her, but understood why she couldn’t accompany us. There was a rather large bounty on her head and plenty of poppers looking to collect it.

  Rita, for reasons known only to her manufacturer, had been equipped with four arms. She used them to good effect, pulling herself up the access ladder with monkeylike agility and babbling all the way. “…And that’s why they built the siphon, to provide the spaceport with water, which it needs for a multiplicity of purposes…”

  I tuned her out, stopped for a moment, and looked down. I’ve never had trouble with heights, which is a good thing, because it was quite a drop to Level 50. Yeah, there were platforms at each level, but you could see through the steel mesh all the way to the bottom.

  Sasha was fifteen or twenty rungs below me, moving with the quick, easy confidence of someone raised with the void all around, our knapsack bouncing on her back. I had offered to carry it, but she had refused.

  “Hey!” Rita called. “I haven’t got all day…let’s get a move on down there.”

  I forced myself up again. We had managed a three-hour nap, but my body ached for a full night’s sleep. The siphon consisted of a vertical pipe that was five or six feet across and painted the lime-green color that bureaucrats always choose. The structure vibrated next to my shoulder as vast quantities of sea water were pumped to the surface, desalinized, and purified. Or so they claimed, but, as anyone whoever drank the stuff can attest, it tastes like shit.

  Beads of water condensed on the pipe’s surface, coalesced into puddles, and streaked down towards the sea. I wondered if they had individual identities, and if so, whether I had swallowed them years before.

  The climb went on and on, until my legs ached, and my back was sticky with sweat. I wanted to stop, wanted to rest, but Rita was tireless. Having explained the siphon, and the desalinization plant up above, she had transitioned into the story of her life.

  “…exactly why, but it might have been a faulty component, or some sort of power surge. But whatever the reason, I went bonkers, left the job, and never returned. Sure, the android hunters came looking for me, but I made my wa
y to Floater Town and went to work for Murphy Enterprises…”

  A low-grade utility bot was doing some routine maintenance work on Level 2, but we crowded past and continued the journey upwards. The top landing was more spacious than all the rest. I heaved myself onto it, gave a sigh of relief, and looked around. I saw a hoist, some over-sized valves, and a maze of pipes. Sasha appeared over the edge, pulled herself inwards, and stood panting on the platform. It did my heart good to see she was tired as well.

  Rita gestured us into motion and led us towards a steel fire door.

  She hadn’t stopped talking. “…which is why I can’t go with you. But there’s no need…since you’ll be inside Surface Port 12 and quite close to your gate. Well, here we are.”

  She turned. Unlike robots designed for frequent interaction with human beings, Rita had been given a frozen manikin-type face. It was locked in a perpetual smile. Her voice came from a speaker located on the front surface of her plastic throat. “It’s been nice to spend some time with you. Some people say that I talk too much. I hope it didn’t bother you.”

  I suppose it’s stupid to worry about a machine’s feelings, especially when everyone agrees that they don’t have any, but I wanted Rita to know that we appreciated her help. I held out my hand. She took it. “No, Rita. It didn’t bother us at all. Thanks for getting us here safely. Take care of yourself.”

  “I will, Mr. Maxon. Good-bye, Ms. Casad. Have a safe journey.”

  Sasha sent one of her “you are a hopeless idiot” looks in my direction and said, “Thanks.”

  Rita, her face wooden as always, nodded.

  We opened the door and stepped outside. There was a loud click as it closed behind us. So much for that line of retreat.

  A moon flight had landed, and passengers were streaming towards the baggage area. They were contract workers for the most part, miners with dilated eyes, technicians who ate too much, and pilots who had pushed one load too many. They walked like ancient helmet divers, forcing themselves forward under the weight of Earth-normal gravity, sweat beading their foreheads.

  I nodded to Sasha and we stepped out into the flow. We, like the other passengers headed for Gate 426, struggled against the current like fish swimming upstream. Assuming there was a river in which fish still swam, that is. I stopped below a bank of monitors. “We’re looking for FENA Air Flight 124.”

  “There it is,” Sasha replied, pointing upwards. “Flight 124, Gate 426.”

  “Good.”

  I caught a flash of green from the corner of my eye, turned, and saw a man back into the crowd: the same man who had followed me to the checkpoint and tried to speak with me through the mesh. Who the hell was he, anyway? What did he want? And how had he found us with such ease? I took Sasha’s elbow. “Come on. We’ve got company.”

  “Who? Where?”

  “Over towards the right. The little guy. In the green sports coat.”

  “What about him?”

  “He’s a greenie, or I think he is. He was part of the crowd that chased pretty boy into the Trans-Solar checkpoint.”

  “A greenie in a green sports coat?”

  The connection had escaped me. I pretended it hadn’t.

  “Yeah. Weird, huh?”

  “It sure is. Let’s shoot him and stash the body.”

  I frowned. “Getting a little bloodthirsty, aren’t we?”

  She shook her head impatiently. “I didn’t say kill him, I said shoot him, as in trank him.”

  “Oh,” I said stupidly. “That’s different. Let’s do it.”

  We looked, but the man was gone. Sasha frowned. “Assuming it was the same man, and assuming he’s interested, how did he know when and where to look?”

  I shrugged. “Beats me. I made the reservations under phony names.”

  Her eyes locked with mine. “I had the expense money. Until the corpies took it, that is. How did you pay?”

  “I transferred some funds from my bank account.”

  “Smart,” she said sarcastically. “Real god-damned smart. Phony names don’t mean shit when you give them an account number. The greenies have sympathizers everywhere. One of them pulled a record of your transactions, gave the information to the guy in the green sports coat, and bingo, he was waiting for us to show.”

  Sasha didn’t point out that Trans-Solar could have done the same thing and probably had. She didn’t need to. Even I could figure that out. The shame was familiar by now. Like a relative you don’t like but can’t get rid of because they’re part of you. But something good came of it as well, a rare moment of blue sky when my brain actually functioned.

  “This is more than a standard snatch, isn’t it? Why are the greenies after you, anyway? And what’s the deal with Trans-Solar?”

  Sasha’s eyes clouded over and her head turned away. Her voice was flat and unconvincing. “You know as much about it as I do. My mother might be able to tell us, but we’ll have to reach her first.”

  I tried to see through the words to the truth beyond, but the patch of blue sky had disappeared. My hands made fists at my sides. “Have it your way, Sasha, but remember, you’re the one they’re after. 0011100100111.”

  Her eyes came back to mine. They were softer now, like those of a mother with her child. “You did the best you could. What’s done is done. We’ll lose them on the habitat. Come on.”

  We made our way down the corridor. The line in front of Gate 426 was relatively short and consisted of down-and-outers like ourselves. There were some spacers, a tech type or two, and a couple of beat-up androids. One had a faulty servo and whined as it moved.

  We shuffled forward and stopped in front of the counter. I identified myself as Roger Doud and proved it by providing the account number I never should have given them in the first place.

  The ticket agent was an android whose torso ended at the countertop. He had the solemn manner of an undertaker and an electronic speech impediment. “Your ffflight is on time. Please ssstep through the detector and wait to be called. Thanks fffor flying FENA Air.”

  The detector looked like an over-sized free-standing door frame. Sasha stepped through and I followed. Buzzers buzzed, lights flashed, and a pair of lunchy-looking rent-a-cops lurched to attention. Neither was exactly athletic, but the woman was the more obese of the two. She used her nightstick as a pointer. “Stand over there. Spread your legs. Put your hands behind your head.”

  I didn’t like her tone, but there was no point in making a scene. I obeyed. The man stepped up, blew garlic in my face, and passed a wand over my body. My first thought was the .38. But it was stashed in Floater Town, where Maureen had promised to clean it occasionally. And the Browning .9mm was not only legal, but made entirely of plastic, and therefore undetectable. No, the problem was my skull plate. The man stood on tiptoes to pass the wand over my head and grunted when it made a whining sound. “Take the hat off.”

  I did as I was told.

  The man looked at my head and nodded. “Put it back on.” He turned toward his partner. “No problem, Gert. This guy’s got enough metal in his head to build a Class A shuttle. Let him pass.”

  The woman nodded, stared at my head as if it was the first one she’d ever seen, and allowed us to join the passengers in the holding area. It had been furnished with the same low, crouching furniture that graced the rest of the spaceport. The androids huddled together as if for mutual protection, and everyone else spread out. Sasha sighed. “So much for the disguise.”

  I said, “Sorry about that,” but didn’t really mean it. That’s the great thing about being stupid. You worry less.

  I took a look around and wondered how I felt the first time I headed into the Big Black. I’d been a good deal younger back then, nineteen according to the records, so it stood to reason that I’d been scared. Scared of zero-G boot camp, scared of the unknown, scared of dying. And I was still scared of dying, though I wasn’t sure why, since living was a major pain in the ass. Sasha’s voice brought me back. “Max?”

>   “Yeah?”

  “They called our names.”

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  We followed the others through a door, down some stairs, and onto a loading dock. A man looked up from his portacomp as we approached. He was dressed in a dark blue jumpsuit with “FENA” stitched over the left breast pocket, a pair of ear protectors worn around the neck, a pair of black combat boots with pink laces. He gestured towards a cargo module and the autoloader that supported it. Both were snuggled up to the edge of the dock. “Your carriage awaits. I will call your names. Please enter your assigned tubes. Aarons, tube one. Axel, tube two. Benning, tube three. Cooper, tube four…”

  Sasha shook her head in amazement. “I’ve spent a lot of time in space but never seen anything like this.”

  I felt defensive. “Sorry, but you had the expense money, and this is what $800.00 will buy.”

  Sasha smiled apologetically, stood on tiptoes, and kissed my cheek. “Don’t worry, Max. Tube four is fine.”

  I touched the place where she had kissed me. Was it my imagination, or was that particular spot warmer than the surrounding skin? I wanted to say something, wanted to thank her, but she had lowered herself into a tube by the time I was ready. My alias was called shortly thereafter. I looked, but the man in the green sports coat was nowhere to be seen.

  I trudged over to the cargo module, peered down into tube twenty-four, and inhaled the powerful odor of disinfectants. I kneeled, placed a hand on the cold concrete, and jumped. There was padding in the bottom and all around the sides. I bounced slightly and looked around. There was nothing much to see except for a tiny, almost miniscule vid screen, a headset with mic, and some waist-high tubing. I was still trying to understand what the tubing was for when a voice said, “Have a nice trip,” and a lid slammed closed over my head. There was a moment of complete darkness followed by a yellow glow as the light came on over my head.