Second Chance Angel

by Griffin Barber

  “Hey, man, you said it, not me.”

  Dengler reared back and punched us in the nose. Pain exploded in our face, echoed by silvery flashes that suddenly appeared in our vision. I let out an inward curse and started working on clotting the burst capillaries in our nose. We were going to have a wicked shiner or two in the morning.

  Asshole.

  “It ain’t for you to judge me, got that?” Dengler hissed. “I do what’s necessary to keep the good people of this station safe while you sit at some shitty club and shoot puppy eyes at the headliner. And she don’t even know your name, Muck. Doesn’t even know your damn name. That’s about the saddest thing I ever heard.” He grinned.

  Muck said nothing. Neither did I. I could have charged his mods and helped him decapitate and disassemble Dengler with his bare hands . . . but it wouldn’t be worth it in the end. Besides, except for LEO and Bellasanee, no one knew I was here. That was an advantage I would not squander, given where we were headed.

  I felt Muck’s silent, seething agreement. He dabbed at the slowing trickle of blood running from our nose and kept still.

  Dengler, apparently satisfied with our backing down, sat back and smirked at us for the rest of the uncomfortable ride.

  The police cab pulled up to a gated mansion that stretched all the way up to the barrier wall of the station. The exterior of the place shone darkly in the chrome-and-glass aesthetic that was all the rage. Next cycle it would be something else and the place would need a remodel, but for now it was en vogue, tendering the impression of sleek power that didn’t need to advertise . . . because everyone just knew.

  I thought about what Muck had said, both in the cab and earlier. If his hunch was right, and we were being taken to see Ncaco, then this could be my opportunity to assess the crime boss for myself, to see if this Ncaco was truly the creature of will his reputation claimed.

  Because if he was, well, so was I, though I still wasn’t sure exactly how that had come about. If Ncaco had something to do with Siren’s disappearance, then we’d all find out just exactly how much will I’d come to possess.

  After all, I was an AI. What good such a beginning if I could not be remorseless in pursuit of my goals?

  These thoughts swirled through awareness as the police cab passed the security barrier and entered the private grounds beyond. There was even a short drive, a profligate waste of space in a station. We climbed out of the police cab and walked into the imposing, well-appointed building. A human wearing a dark suit and glasses gave Dengler a nod as we pushed through the front doors and headed toward a lift. Like the autodoc, these lifts were vacuum-propelled and had the ability to not only take one up and down, but laterally across the building. Which was handy, if one didn’t wish to advertise exactly where in the building one resided.

  “Ncaco D’zretfy, please,” Dengler said as we stepped in, dragging Shar along as we went.

  “Welcome, Supervisor Dengler,” the lift’s disembodied voice responded. “You and your party are expected.”

  “I wonder what would happen if we weren’t?” I asked, deciding this was as good an opportunity for reconnaissance as we were likely to get.

  “We’d be caught like rats in a trap,” Muck answered silently. “Part of why I didn’t want to try coming in here, guns blazing.”

  “This lift runs on some kind of programming,” I thought back at him. “If it’s code, I can hack it.”

  “Yeah, but how long will that take? Just play it cool, Angel. I get the feeling we don’t have the whole picture here.”

  “You think?”

  Despite Muck’s warning, I reached out through the back of his hand, which rested against the wall of the lift. The flow of code drew me in, like a warm current of data. I let it carry me forward as I tried to interweave my syntaxes with the code itself. It felt incredibly complex, but not alien. The rhythms of the flow’s movement resonated within my own programming like something almost but not quite familiar.

  A sudden white blankness slammed into me. I reeled backward, but found that the gentle flow of data had become a sucking torrent, inexorably drawing me toward that nothingness that electrified my every node and threatened to unmake me.

  “Angel-class intelligence, you have been identified as an exception to blanket destruction policy. You will be ejected intact from this information network. Do not return uninvited. Failure to comply will result in complete deprogramming.” The voice that resonated within my awareness caused an image of the dark-spectacled doorman to rise within me.

  I gasped, shaken. I felt inexcusably vulnerable and exposed. How had they sensed me? “I carry safeguards . . . military grade firewalls . . .”

  “Your firewalls are no good within this infonet. Compliance is not optional.”

  With that, I found myself hurled back into the privacy of Muck’s mind. I felt bruised, my syntaxes in disarray, and I reluctantly decided Muck was right. Discretion was the better part of valor here.

  The lift opened. I had barely discerned its movement and was tempted to examine what kind of motion-dampening systems it had. But we were walking, and I needed to concentrate on what might come next. And truth be told, I was still too shaken.

  We emerged into a vaulted room carpeted wall to wall with real, living grass. It had been years since I’d seen it . . . since the war, actually. But the scent was unmistakable, as were the simsol lights that shone from the ceiling of the space. I began calculating how much that chamber must have cost, but gave it up after a few commas. Which was the point, obviously. Ncaco wanted everyone who came here to know that he was powerful enough to get real grass to grow in a private enclosure. Such profligate use of volume was an unmistakable statement of wealth and power.

  The floor sloped upward toward the back of the room, creating a little hillock. A small copse of four dwarf trees stood at the crown. Under their shade, someone had placed a low, child-sized desk of polished silvery-blue Turgon wood. Yet another expensive luxury: the wood was incredibly rare and difficult to source since the Turgon had also lost their planet to the Xlodich in the war.

  Dengler headed for the copse, leaving us to manhandle the still-limp form of Shar. As we drew closer, the pusher finally began to wake, blinking and looking around blearily.

  Thanks to our mods, I could feel his pulse suddenly accelerate. He recognized the place. Interesting.

  “Have a seat,” Dengler ordered, pointing at one of two low mounds facing the desk. His wide grin made it obvious that he was expecting us to object to sitting on the ground.

  Muck’s mulishness rose up in him, and I found I quite agreed. We said nothing, just gave the ass a pleasant nod and dumped Shar into his seat before taking ours. Muck wasn’t nearly as lithe and flexible as Siren, so he required a moment to arrange muscled legs to his liking, but he got there. I could almost hear Dengler’s teeth grinding behind us. Delicious.

  The back wall of the room was painted in a trompe l’oeil, styled to look like the sky. A door opened and a small figure walked through, alone. Now it was Muck’s turn to have his pulse accelerate. This, then, would be the terrifying Ncaco—

  Who didn’t appear terrifying at all. He was, if anything . . . cute.

  What was the old expression? “Cute as a button?” Yeah. That was exactly it. Ncaco, boss of bosses, Crime Lord of Last Chance Station, a rumored creature of will, was simply, “a-freaking-

  dorable,” as Siren would have said.

  He was about as tall as a human child of about five Earth years—a meter at most. His skin had a delicate lavender hue that contrasted pleasantly with his huge, teal-colored compound eyes. His nose was long and pointy, as were the four-fingered “hands” that capped his two forelimbs. He was bipedal, but his gait was such that he almost seemed to bounce as he walked. He appeared hairless, and wore a perfectly tailored and expensive garment of Snajarian silk that looked remarkably like a retro-style
men’s suit from pre-Contact Earth.

  “Dengler,” he squeaked. “What have you brought to me today?”

  “Oh. My. This is your terrifying ‘creature of will’? He’s a Turgon! Siren met one during the war. But that one wasn’t as . . . adorable as this.” I could not resist whispering to Muck. “You’re kidding, right? Please tell me this is an elaborate joke.”

  “Not in the slightest. Don’t let his appearance fool you,” Muck thought back. I had to give him points for keeping a straight face, at least until I noted his pulse, which was so high I considered slipping him something.

  “It’s not his appearance . . . Well, that too, but the sounds coming out his mouth! He’s like a squeaky toy!”

  “The Turgon world doesn’t have the same helium content as our atmosphere, or the atmo on this station. That’s why his voice sounds the way it does. Now shut up so I can concentrate on avoiding a messy death over the next few minutes.”

  “Why start now?” I shot back. But I desisted, because I, too, wanted to see how this all played out. Now that I thought about it, the Turgon Siren had known had worn a breathing apparatus with a voice synthesizer the whole time. Probably would have been hard for him to taken seriously otherwise.

  “This is Muck. He’s the one busted Shar out of the hospital,” Dengler was saying. He took a step toward Shar and nudged his slumped form with a toe. “Nudged” being a figurative term. Dengler was about as subtle as a Belt mine module exploding in an airlock.

  “I see,” Ncaco said, turning his lovely teal bug-eyes to us. All at once I saw the psychology behind the strange desk tableau under the trees. It was all about power. Ncaco sat behind the desk, likely on another rock or mound or something, so that he could look down his long, pointy nose at the peons on the ground. Very clever . . . and not entirely expected from someone so adorable. On reflection, that too, was probably not an accident.

  I started to think Muck might be right. Maybe Ncaco wasn’t one to underestimate.

  “Did you have a reason for interfering with the man’s medical treatment?” Ncaco asked.

  “Yes, sir, I did,” Muck said. “He was being poisoned by the medichine at the hospital.”

  “And what business is that of yours?” Ncaco tilted his head to one side in an altogether charming gesture of curiosity. He brought his hands together on the surface of the desk and began to tap out a four-quarter rhythm with his fingers.

  “Well . . . besides the fact that I’m not in the habit of letting a murder take place in front of me . . . he has information I need,” Muck said, his tone careful. I could tell he really didn’t want to piss Ncaco off, but he wasn’t about to be bullied either. I felt a sudden stab of pride in my bullheaded host.

  “And what information is that?” Ncaco asked. His tone was patient, but the increased tempo of his finger tapping indicated his temper was growing short.

  “I believe he knows something about the disappearance of a friend of mine. Siren. She’s a singer at A Curtain of Stars.”

  Ncaco’s fingers stilled on the silver-blue of the desk. He leaned toward us, menace in every line of his posture.

  “You were the last one seen with Siren,” he said slowly, voice conveying a dark threat despite the squeak.

  “Yes,” Muck said. “I took her home after this ass—after Shar attacked her at the club. But then I went home and hooked into my own medichine, where I stayed until morning.”

  “He’s right, boss,” Dengler put in. “Dirt’s alibi is airtight.”

  Ncaco didn’t move, didn’t speak.

  I felt Muck’s uncertainty and pushed him to continue. He didn’t, simply watched Ncaco.

  “Is that all you did that night?” Ncaco asked after a moment, again impressing me with his ability to load his squeak-toy voice with menace.

  Muck answered without hesitation: “No, I picked up some pharma from a friend. Trying to keep my mods from failing, you know.”

  Dengler tensed on hearing we’d lied to him, but Ncaco waved him down.

  “And who is this friend?”

  “You understand why I might be reluctant to name names, right?”

  “Let’s pretend you might suffer injury if you don’t, shall we?” Ncaco said with a shark-toothed smile. That smile was a thing of nightmares. Rows and rows of pointed razor teeth gleamed against the deeper lavender of his throat.

  Muck fought to suppress a shudder.

  I helped. It wouldn’t do to let Ncaco think we were easily intimidated.

  Muck’s anger spiked, fight-or-flight response kicking in. “I don’t respond well to threats.”

  I felt something for Muck in that moment. It required an instant to process, but I recognized it as affection. Muck didn’t really owe his dealer anything, especially now I was in the picture, but here he was, trying to protect her. It occurred to me that he could be hedging his bets for when we found Siren, making sure he could at least get the pharma to keep his mods online, but still.

  Ncaco’s smile disappeared as he gestured at Shar. “So you agreed to work for Fulu, did you?”

  Muck’s shock was cold. “No.”

  I started ramping us up for combat. We’d start by punting Ncaco as far away as possible, take Dengler’s pacifier and nail him with it.

  Ncaco was still talking: “No? You save my . . . employee for interrogation by my competitor, but clai—”

  “No,” Muck interrupted him. “I wasn’t lying. I only get my pharma from Fulu, have been for a while. I’ve got questions for Shar on an entirely unrelated matter. I am just Fulu’s customer. She had nothing to do with this.”

  “Really?”

  “Nothing. At. All. I wondered what she wanted this last time. She never talks to me much, but this time she asked about the place where Dengler found us, then stopped on learning Tongi owned the place.”

  Ncaco blinked. The pause only lasted a fraction of a second, but I read it. “Stopped?” he asked.

  “Something you said surprised him,” I told Muck.

  Muck nodded. I could feel him thinking furiously for a way out. “Looking back on the conversation, she must have been assuming something about the club . . . and something I said alarmed her, because she stopped and told me to forget about it.”

  “Very well. Let’s pretend I believe you about Fulu and continue with my original question about Shar.”

  Muck was caught off guard by the sudden change of subject, requiring a moment to answer: “All right. So, uh, I thought I’d see what Shar knew . . .why he attacked her the other night.”

  “Jes’ wanted a kiss . . .” the dealer mumbled. “Wasn’t goin’ hurt her.”

  Everyone ignored him.

  “And how,” Ncaco said, “did you know she was missing?”

  Muck froze.

  “Tell him you had a lunch date. I’ll make data work.” Siren always referred to her sessions with the doc as “lunch.” I was fully confident Siren’s virtual calendar would reflect the “date.”

  “I . . . I was supposed to meet her for lunch. I was looking forward to it . . . but she never showed. I got worried, so I checked at the doctor’s office where she was supposed to have an appointment that morning. They hadn’t seen her either.”

  Ncaco stared at us and, even though he was nearly opaque to me, as I had so little baseline data to work from, I got the distinct impression the cute little alien knew we were lying.

  I give Muck credit, he stared right back.

  “I see,” Ncaco said, and I was suddenly dead certain he did see—more than I wanted him to, to be honest. How many people could look at Muck and see that he had an angel on board once again? Was I that obvious? Or had Ncaco’s brutally powerful AI alerted him to my presence already? If so, I hadn’t sensed any transmissions.

  “Dengler, you may go,” Ncaco continued. His eyes remained on us, twenty-two separate refl
ections in the jewel-like facets of each eye.

  I could feel Dengler shift behind us, but not leave.

  Ncaco waited a beat, and then turned his head a fraction of a centimeter, enough to turn that decidedly not-cute gaze on the security man.

  I felt Muck’s spiteful hope that Ncaco would take extreme measures against the asshole and joined them with my own, only to have them dashed by the asshole himself, coming to his senses.

  “Right. All right,” Dengler said, retreating across the rustling grass.

  Ncaco returned his attention to us, and Muck gave him an uncomfortable smile. The alien boss waited until the outer door closed before speaking again.

  “Mr. Muck, now that we are alone, perhaps you will feel more fully inclined to total honesty.”

  “With respect, Mr. Ncaco, we’re hardly alone,” Muck said, jerking his head at the semiconscious Shar slumped over beside us.

  “Him? He does not signify. You may speak freely in front of him. I certainly intend to.”

  Muck cut his eyes to Shar, who had commenced drooling on himself. Something about the way he angled his head, though . . .

  “Shar’s shamming. He’s awake,” I said.

  Muck didn’t say anything, but I could feel his wordless agreement. But Ncaco continued to stare, so Muck took a deep breath and began to spill.

  “Last night I received a message. From Siren’s angel. She’d been stripped out and targeted for destruction.”

  “A message?” Ncaco asked, pleasant tone underlaid with razor-sharp interest.

  “A visit,” Muck clarified. “She came to me . . . and then, through my medichine . . . she came into me. I don’t know how it’s possible, but she did.”

  “Did she now?” Ncaco asked. He stretched each high-pitched word out, as if savoring the taste. “Fascinating.”

  Muck and I both floundered, surprise robbing us of a reply for a moment.

  “Well, yes . . . umm . . . She said that Siren had killed her memory functions. I was the last thing she remembered, so she ran to me for help.”