Port Casper (Cladespace Book 1)

by Corey Ostman

  “Wrap your arms around this Maud. You need to limit the damage.”

  • • •

  Maud walked out onto the ITB sky bridge. It was a cool, calm Wyoming night. She reached into her safecase and activated a loafer. It had no mission, so its navigation and propulsion kept it stationary in mid-air. Maud checked its systems, then downloaded an assignment from her ptenda into the L-4R661. A moment later, the loafer sailed off into the haze of city lights.

  It would be seven loafers tonight. She regretted the ones visiting new recruits, as it always offended some of them, but it was standard procedure, especially with the level of surveillance Varghese demanded. They needed to be vigilant for moles.

  She estimated ten minutes for L-4R661 to reach its destination. Maud lingered outside, enjoying the air and stillness high above ground. She looked at the sky and saw the dull red point of Mars staring back.

  Maud walked back to her office and sat. She glanced at the displays. The loafer reached a building and ascended. She brewed a pot of tea as the climb continued. When L-4R661 paused to scan the exterior privacy wall, Maud casually entered the compstate security codes allowing unfettered access to a private apartment.

  A few minutes passed, and the loafer reported an empty apartment. It would lie in stasis until activity prompted a return to surveillance mode.

  A perimeter alarm in her antechamber noted and identified the visitor. She sighed and opened a link.

  “Good evening, Wilmer,” she said.

  “Protector Van Decker, may I please have a word with you?”

  She closed her eyes and shook her head. Tactical error. She shouldn’t have mentioned to him that nightly reconnaissance might yield his next mission.

  “Not now, Wilmer. Go home. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  She could tell that Wilmer wanted to say something further, but didn’t have the courage to force a meeting. He turned and left.

  She looked again at the loafers’ telemetries, and belatedly activated their backup systems. The backups made the loafers more expensive, but, as she put it to Varghese, it also meant they lost less. Maud disliked failed missions.

  Five of the loafers had found their target regions, no issues flagged. They began their surveillance.

  “Tell me something,” she said to the screens.

  Chapter 17

  The crowded mover deposited Grace in the basement of the Frawley and sped on. She relaxed in the silence of the deserted parking garage. Grace enjoyed the cool air and rhythmic echo of a dripping sound nearby as she walked toward the lift bank. On the way home, the transport had bulged with a loud group of five friends on their way back from a party. They’d moaned as the mover veered off-course to let her out.

  The lift went up. Grace avoided thinking of Raj. Instead, she thought of her interview with Van Decker. Her dismissal of Gobi as a gene addict bothered Grace, partly because Grace had dismissed him, herself. What if his life really was in danger? Corporations were ruthless about patents, right? She had the lingering feeling that his fear was warranted.

  Grace arrived at her door and slid her hand into the slot. She muttered “openup” and waited for the muffled sounds of the door safeguards to complete their retraction. A door shut somewhere down the hallway. She looked up, then back. Her door was open.

  Something felt wrong. Adrenaline tingled her fingertips. She slipped her hand into her jacket for Ronnie and waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness before stepping into the common room. Was she the paranoid one now? Surely the moment to attack her had passed: the bright hallway no longer blinded her.

  Her shoes made no sound on the soft carpet. Up ahead, the privacy wall was open, letting in the night noise. Ambient light gleamed on the furniture.

  Grace had never opened the privacy wall.

  She clicked through the most likely scenarios. Number one, a problem with the apartment programming caused the privacy wall to open. Number two, somebody had entered her apartment. Number two alpha, somebody was still here. It didn’t matter what number three might be. She decided number two alpha deserved her full attention.

  Grace unholstered Ronnie and released the safety. Then she took off her jacket and dropped it soundlessly to the floor. She slowed her breathing and opened herself to the sounds in the apartment. From her position in the common room, she had a view of the kitchen, the entry hall, and the balcony. A few movements assured her of their emptiness. She moved into the hallway, toward her bedroom.

  No hint of light or sound came from the bedroom, and Grace realized that the door was shut. Her heartbeat rushed in her ears. She’d left it open this morning.

  Grace backed against the wall and kept Ronnie pointed at the door. As long as she waited, she’d have the advantage. The closed door would have kept the intruder from noticing her entrance. She aimed a meter above the ground. There was no way out of her bedroom, except through that door.

  She waited for a minute. Still no sound. No light.

  Grace fingered her ptenda. She accessed her apartment controls, and set the privacy wall to closed. The sound of the wall snapping shut might alert the intruder. If it didn’t, the newfound quiet would help her hearing.

  There was a mechanical whoosh and the apartment fell silent. Three seconds passed. She heard a click. She didn’t recognize the sound. A few more seconds passed. Click. Again. Her prey was a cool customer. No panic. No sudden movements. A professional.

  Well, professional, how do you like this? Fingering her ptenda again, Grace turned on the lights in her bedroom.

  She was gratified when she heard a hiss, followed by a thud, and then a few scratching sounds.

  Silence.

  Grace sprang from the hallway and hit her bedroom door with full force. It buckled easily. Grace had both weapons up and aiming by the time she hit the ground.

  But nobody stood in Grace’s bedroom. Instead, a small pile of metal and smoldering electronics rested on the floor. A mangled armature twitched.

  “A loafer?” she murmured.

  She hadn’t seen a loafer since the academy. They were ancient surveillance drones that patrolled the perimeter. Grace recognized the design and construction. But this was a newer, more advanced model. She tentatively probed it with her right foot. It seemed to be completely inert. She bent over and lifted it up using Ronnie’s barrel. The acrid smell of burnt electronics. It was fried.

  “Who the hell sent you!” Grace bellowed.

  She marched through the rooms, but she was alone. She dashed into the common room with the loafer and slammed the wreckage onto her table. She initiated an audio link with Raj.

  “You okay, Grace? You left in a hurry.”

  “I had a visitor when I got home, Raj. A loafer.”

  She listened as Raj sucked in a lungful of air. Did she overhear Tim in the background? The link dropped.

  Was it Raj? Had he sent it? He had been stupidly protective since she got to the city. But then why would he fry it?

  Grace was attempting to reconnect when she read a message on her ptenda: STEP OUT. WILL CONDUCT SWEEP.

  So it wasn’t Raj, then. Maybe. She grabbed her jacket and stepped into the hallway, closing the apartment door.

  Raj called again.

  “Grace, what did the main body look like?”

  “Oblong. Two long appendages at the bottom. Some little pointy wires sticking out of the top.”

  “What color was the egg?”

  “Egg? What do you mean?”

  “You should see it right there in the middle. You know, shaped like an egg.”

  “Raj, I’m in the hall.”

  “Oh, right. You can go in, now. It’s clean.”

  “Gee, thanks.” She walked back in.

  “Sorry,” Raj said. “Can you see the egg now?”

  “Yeah. But it’s hard to tell the color. Scorched. Looks green, though.”

  There was a moment of silence as Raj digested the description. “Not to be paranoid—”

  “Like
everyone else today?”

  “It sounds like the one loitering around my place last week.”

  “You get those often?”

  A sigh. “Grace. ITB sent it.”

  “ITB? What are you talking about, Raj?”

  “It just makes sense. Last time I checked, UU didn’t have a fleet of loafers like ITB. There’s a joke going around saying ITB has more loafers than the compstate.” Raj giggled on the other end of the link. A nervous giggle.

  Grace glared at the wreckage. “Can we know for sure, Raj?”

  “No way to know for sure, Ms. Donner.” Tim’s voice. “They fry and their link circuits go first. But from what you described, that’s an expensive model. Not many can afford an expendable of such quality.”

  “What the hell, Raj!” Grace felt her temples throb. “My own company is spying on me?”

  “Happens all the time.”

  “Not to me,” she snapped.

  “Yes, to you. To everyone who matters in this business.”

  “I understand now why you need my help, Raj. You’re way in over your head. Typical.”

  “True, but—”

  “This is dangerous, Raj. You let me walk into ITB. They knew I was mixed up with Flora’s dot and Cloister Eleven.”

  “No, Grace, I—”

  “Yes, Raj, you did. What am I, your pawn?”

  She flung the loafer wreckage from the table.

  “And that was some idea, Raj. Having me spy on ITB. All I have to do is sit here and they’ll swarm all over me.”

  Her fury partly spent, Grace looked down at her ptenda. She could see the link was open, but Raj was silent.

  “We’ll talk later, Raj,” she said, and broke the connection.

  Chapter 18

  Grace woke to a blaring headache in a bright room. She squinted against the sunlight, her neck stiff and her tongue thick, and decided the morning would be better with her eyes pinched shut.

  Cursing synthetic alcohol, she turned away from the light and fell. Not my bed, her mind belatedly relayed as she lay on the floor.

  She groped her right hand and felt a hard surface. The table, she thought, keenly introduced to my elbow on the way down. Her left hand found something soft. My sofa. She pushed hard until she was on her knees, then eased herself back onto the sofa. Her head sat at an awkward angle from vertical. She tried to massage her neck, and head, and elbow. She didn’t have enough hands.

  “Dark,” she whimpered. The angry red beyond her eyelids faded. A cautious look confirmed that her windows were now walls. Beautiful technology.

  She willed herself to stand and carefully entered the kitchen. Painkillers. She groped for the bottle and quickly downed two pills. Quickly, she thought. Please.

  On her way back to the sofa, she stumbled over the loafer wreckage on the floor. Her forgotten anger began to pound in time with her head. Her company had spied on her. And Raj had known they would.

  Grace pulled her ptenda close to her mouth. “Raj.” The display flickered beneath her nose as it connected. She twisted her wrist, angling the bright away from her eyes. Stupid to drink engineered alcohol, she thought. I can’t afford to be compromised.

  “Ms. Donner, Raj is still asleep.”

  “Uggh.” She wanted to complain to a human, not a PodPooch.

  “Are you all right, Ms. Donner?”

  “Raj. Plans. Idiot.” She leaned back.

  “I can wake him.”

  “No. No. I’ll come over. But it’s gonna take a while.”

  • • •

  The transport raced toward Bod Town. Grace squirmed in her seat, unable to relax. The hard seat was tolerable when she felt fine, but was distinctly evil after a night on the couch. At least the mover was quiet and empty. Her headache had ebbed, but she didn’t have the energy for a social smile, let alone friendly chit-chat.

  The mover slid into a parking space at an intersection near Raj’s apartment. As she stepped out, her foot crunched onto twisted metarm. It was blackened like the loafer in her apartment. She kicked the wreckage, sending the scraps skittering down the gutter.

  The intersection was a nighttime hot spot in Bod. On the southeast corner sat Balaharas, an exclusive club where ambitious sheep rubbed shoulders with the wealthy and dangerous. Grace heard that protectors frequented the place, in pursuit of valuable and illicit knowledge. Raj liked it for its zucchini fries. Zucchini fries! He didn’t see things the way a protector would, and that was the problem.

  On the southwest corner stood the biggest and most luxurious dream castle in the city proper, where patrons rented virtual and mechflesh pleasures. Each matched expertly to the individual, no human trafficking involved. A few days ago, fact agents reported that a protector had broken the arm of a patron who wanted her on the menu. Grace thought of how much leeway protectors enjoyed under the law. Raj doesn’t have that freedom, and ITB wants him more than me, she considered.

  On the northwest corner sat a restaurant that lost money year after year. The owner, according to Raj, was a widow named Jupta Gudi. No one Raj knew could get a reservation at Delight, but it was packed every night. She heard on her first day that special clearance must be granted before a protector might approach within twenty meters of the property. Protectors could not harass those entering or leaving the building. It angered Grace how easily money could thwart justice. The corporations controlled the compstate. People like her, like Raj, were at their mercy.

  On the northeast corner stood a food mega market with indoor hydroponics, green at every window for fifty floors. The façade of the building looked like a market back in cloister. Perhaps she should pop in and buy Raj something to break the ice. A mango?

  “Ms. Donner?”

  The voice came from her dermal dot. Ahead, she saw Tim Trouncer sitting on the dirty sidewalk near the curb.

  “Timmy? What are you doing here?” she cooed, stepping closer to the golden retriever. “Raj will be worried about his little puppy.”

  “Don’t spread it too thickly,” the voice said.

  Tim cocked his head and let his blue tongue flop out in a pant. He got up and trotted toward Raj’s apartment. Strange that Tim would come out for me, Grace thought. Considering how valuable that chassis is.

  Raj met them at the door. He looked well rested. Grace was momentarily jealous.

  “Hi,” he said, his voice tentative. “Tim said you sounded, umm, questionable.”

  “I just need something to eat,” she said, rubbing her head and hoping the headache was gone for good. “Only had some water while I put myself together.”

  “C’mon,” Raj motioned her inward, “I’ve got some eggs. We can share.”

  Their forks clinked on plates as eight scrambled eggs vanished, three for Raj, five for Grace. Her headache also disappeared, leaving her mind raw but her body content. Breakfast done, Grace stretched, deliberately popping her neck, shoulders, and back.

  “Here’s the thing,” she said. “The loafer got me thinking, Raj. I’m going to need perks to go up against ITB. Not to mention a plan.”

  She’d used academy slang, but Raj seemed to follow. More to the point, he followed her lead in ignoring her anger last night, and she could tell by the angle of his shoulders that he was relieved. Good enough.

  “What did you have in mind?” he asked.

  “How about our own loafer?”

  Raj shook his head. “We couldn’t afford it. But if we could find who controls the loafers, we might be able to stick a foot in the door. We could tap in.”

  “Tap in? Don’t you mean tap out? All we’ll learn about is the people they’re spying on. Which, according to you, is everybody.”

  “No—don’t you see? We can look for patterns in ITB surveillance.”

  “I could get as many patterns watching the lobby cam.”

  “Lobby cam’s not a bad idea.”

  “Raj! Are you joking? We don’t have the computing power to sift that much data.”

  “There’s always m
e,” said Tim, hopping on an empty chair.

  “Hold on, Tim,” Raj said.

  She looked at the PodPooch. “But even if we have Tim perform analysis, it would still be too much data.”

  Tim wriggled and his image map flashed. “Sifting for patterns is easy. And I can do better than that. I can—”

  “Not so fast, guys,” Raj said. “ITB has dozens of buildings with thousands of employees. For a pattern, we need a starting point, and that means pinpointing the chief surveillance operative.”

  “It’d be a protector,” Grace said. “Somebody with credentials bypassing citizen security.”

  “You can’t interrogate fellow protectors, Grace,” Raj said. “You haven’t been there long enough to do it casually.”

  “Maybe Martin?” she said. “As the Frawley manager, he probably comes into contact with a lot of other ITB tenants. If he knows someone, I’m sure I can get him to tell me.”

  “I’d tell you anything,” Raj said, grinning.

  Yes, Grace thought, you would, except when it comes to spelling out your goals. She frowned. Step back from her angry spurt of vengeance, and what did she have? Raj’s ambition. Whatever it was. And his friendship. If that meant more than his ambition.

  “Raj, we’re about to go past the point of no return. What do you want out of this?”

  She watched as his grin evaporated.

  “As long as you stay safe, Grace…”

  She shook her head. “Raj! I’m not Flora. Forget about protecting me. Trying to help me at the academy, wrapping my apartment in a security blanket, keeping me in the dark until now. Treat me like a protector! I’m asking you: what do you really need?” She stared at him.

  “Well,” Raj reached to touch her hand, but stopped short. He looked down at the table. “I need to get out from under this ITB cloud. If I don’t, they’ll steal everything I’ve built.” His eyes darted to Tim. “We’ve built.”

  “That much I know. Keep going.”

  He sighed. “Oh, I don’t know. If Tim is safe and we can license the liquid computer, I’d be happy.”

  She considered Raj. Happy? Safe? He used kind words, but his ambition would always put him and his friends in jeopardy. He was damned lucky he had a protector behind him. Crazy, she thought. And here Raj was trying to protect me.