by John Zakour
The applause stopped. I was beginning to see where HARV was going with this. I was almost proud of him.
“And as a special treat for you all, the WTC will be giving free tax audits to those of you still in attendance after the show. Your own personal auditors will be arriving at your tables in just a few nanos …”
Awkward pause.
“… with free bottles of New and Improved Zima!”
That did it. The room erupted in shouts of “Check please,” “Oh, look at the time,” and “What are we, animals?” and the crowd headed for the exits faster than fat farm escapees to the buffet line. When the line at the hoverport got too long HARV holographically disguised himself as a tax auditor and sent the majority of them sprinting toward the emergency exit ramp.
“Nice work, HARV,” I said, slamming a droid’s head into a tray of tajiki.
“I thought it was rather inspired,” he said, reappearing beside me.
Another droid came at me with a loud yell, his flaming sword arcing high overhead.
“Any idea who sent these droids after me?”
I spun away from the attacker’s swing and let his sword slice into the prostrate droid on the table beside me. The laser blade sliced through the downed droid’s head and deep into the tajiki beneath, flash frying the swordfish bellies.
“Clearly someone who doesn’t like you, although that hardly narrows down the list of suspects.”
“Thanks.”
I heard a soft rumble, like a hover truck flying by outside.
“Someone brilliantly fiendish, that’s for certain,” HARV said. “Someone with a flare for the dramatic yet with no regard whatsoever for human life.”
“Anarchistic terrorist?”
“I was thinking of a Broadway producer in need of a hit. But your guess is possible too.”
I popped my gun back into hand and blew the droid’s Kabuki e-brains across the buffet table. The rumble seemed to be growing louder
“How many of these droids are there?” I asked.
“Well, this evening’s presentation was to be of the drama Chushingura,” HARV replied.
The rumble grew louder.
“Meaning what?” I asked.
“Nothing in and of itself, but I think you’ll be interested in the play’s subtitle.”
The rumble grew louder. It definitely wasn’t a truck.
“Subtitle?”
“Revenge of the Forty-Seven Samurai.”
The doors at the end of the catwalk exploded outward and a horde of droids charged through in a veritable kimono-clad cavalcade of Kabuki choreographed death.
“Forty-seven, huh?”
“They seem to be doing a very faithful adaptation,” HARV nodded.
“Lucky us. I think it’s time to leave.”
“Actually, the optimal time to leave would have been about ten minutes ago.”
The flow of the fight had brought us to the center of the room with the Kabuki horde charging us from the western end of the catwalk. Some of the droids leaped off the catwalk and were now scrambling toward us on the floor as well. Even so, escape would be easy, a simple matter of running to the hoverport at the north end or to the emergency ‘porter at the east end. There was nothing but open space between us and freedom.
“Help! Someone help me!”
Yeah, as if my life would ever be that easy.
The woman’s scream came from the southwestern end of the room and it wasn’t hard to spot her when I turned (by not wearing Kabuki makeup, she sort of stood out from everything else in the room). She was a trim woman in a red faux-leather top and short skirt that showed a lot of cream-colored skin, none of it unwelcome to the eye. She was the kind of woman that you’d notice in any situation. No stranger to trouble, but unaccustomed to being on the receiving end. And her thick, long hair was a luscious shade of red. Easy to spot. Impossible to ignore.
She was on the ground, her leg pinned by a large banquet table that had been overturned in the melee. Her eyes were wide with fear and she reached her finely boned hand toward me in a sensuous come-hither gesture that seemed to say “Save me—I’m about to be trampled by droids.”
“And you were so close to getting out of here intact,” HARV sighed.
“She’s trapped.”
“By a table that can easily be removed by the policemen or EMTs that I have already summoned.”
“But the droids …”
“Have shown no interest in harming anyone in the building other than you.”
“But when I leave …”
“They’ll probably follow, en masse, in their continued efforts to kill you. You have that effect on machines and people and animals and mutants and….”
I turned away from the exit and started running toward the woman.
“Then we have nothing to lose,” I said.
“Except your life,” HARV yelled. “Why in Gates’ name are you doing this?”
The answer came from me without a thought. And in retrospect, if I’d known how much trouble the next four words would eventually bring me, I would have cut out my tongue before uttering them.
“Because she’s a woman!”
The droid stampede turned toward me as I ran to the redhead. The droids were gaining much faster now. This was going to be uncomfortably close.
“Bring the hover up to the kitchen delivery door,” I said, raising my gun at the onrushing horde. “There is a delivery door in the kitchen, isn’t there?”
“You’re asking that now?”
“HARV!”
“Yes, there is. I’ll bring the hover and guide you through the kitchen.”
I fired a couple of big-bang blasts at the droid horde as they approached, obliterating a handful of the front-runners. But the ones behind them filled the space and continued the charge as we all neared the damsel in distress. I pulled my gun forward and aimed it at her. She saw the gun and a look of horror crossed her pretty face. She put her red head to the floor and covered herself with her arms.
“Mini-boom,” I said.
Again, the gun’s OLED flashed and I pulled the trigger, letting loose a small blast that sailed over her head and hit the table that had pinned her to the floor, splitting it neatly down the middle. She looked up, saw that she was free, and breathed a sigh of relief just as I arrived.
“Oh, thank Gates.”
“Hold on to me.”
“Gladly,” she whispered, and the sultriness of her voice sent a warm rush through my frame (not something I needed at the nano).
I could see right away that she was unable to walk so I helped her up then threw her over my shoulder, my hand riding uncomfortably high on her shapely thigh, and continued running toward the kitchen door, the pursuing horde just a few meters behind us now.
“HARV?”
“I’m on my way, Zach. Use your left eye to guide you through the kitchen.”
I blasted open the door to the kitchen (it was unlocked of course, but why take chances?) and stumbled through the doorway. As soon as my feet hit the kitchen tiles, I closed my right eye and let the left take over. My view of the kitchen turned to black and white and a bright red arrow appeared on the floor leading past a row of sushi stations. HARV had flipped a switch inside my head and was using the lens of my eye as a GPS screen to guide me through the kitchen to the delivery entrance.
I heard the Kabuki horde crash through the doorway behind us. The size of the entrance was upsetting their rush. They could only squeeze through in sets of two or three. It was slowing them down but not as much as the weight of the redhead on my shoulder was slowing me.
“They’re gaining!” she yelled.
“Keep your head down, we’re almost there.”
“They didn’t mention any of this in the menu.”
“They never do,” I said.
I followed the red arrow around a corner and saw the delivery entrance doorway less than ten meters straight ahead. HARV had taken the liberty of outlining it in red with a flas
hing arrow icon saying “this way to the egress.” (I get the feeling sometimes that HARV has little confidence in my ability to follow directions.)
“HARV, where are you?”
“Not near enough,” HARV yelled inside my head.
I blasted open the delivery door (again, it was unlocked but the knob looked a little tricky) and kept running.
“Do you by chance drive an invisible hovercraft?” the woman asked.
“Nope.”
“Because I don’t see anything waiting for us at the hoverport.”
“My friend is bringing it up.”
We were close to the door now, but the oncoming Kabuki horde was closer and neither of us showed any signs of slowing. The floor shook from the force of their rush and I could feel the heat of their laser blades on the back of my neck.
“Will he get here in time?” she asked, a little panicked now.
“No,” I said, “we’re meeting him halfway.”
“You gotta be kidding …”
I spun her off my shoulder and into my arms as I ran. The swipe of a sword caught the back of her skirt as she moved, slitting it up the middle. She slid her body across my chest and her arms and legs around me as smoothly as if we’d been dirty-dancing partners for years.
Then I ran through the doorway and leaped off the edge of the hoverport into the dank night air of Oakland a thousand feet above the ground.
2
I’ll go on record here that I hate heights. Unfortunately and through no fault of my own, my job has put me in many circumstances over the last few years in which I have found myself falling from high places. I don’t mind it so much in the grand scheme of things because it allows me to recount those exploits by saying things like:
The sultry night air of Oakland stung my face like the wet morning breath of a lover from a seedy bar the night before: rank and unwelcome with a heavy undertone of shame. The downtown neighborhood was no doubt nearly silent at the late hour but I couldn’t be certain because my ears were overwhelmed by the terrified scream of the redhead as she clung to me. She held nothing back as we fell, letting loose with a top-of-the-lungs wail of anguish borne from the sheer terror of free fall. Oddly enough, the sound of her scream made her even more familiar to me. I knew this woman from somewhere. I was sure of it. But at the nano, my memory wasn’t working at full capacity.
Her arms were wrapped tightly around my neck and her bare thighs squeezed my waist so firmly that my body armor kicked in to ease the constriction (and part of me cursed the armor for being so responsive).
I twisted as we fell, spinning us so that she was on top. The move frightened her more since she could now clearly see the fast approaching ground and she increased the power of her scream appropriately. But the twist was necessary because, despite the free fall, I knew that we were still in more danger from above.
A glance up at the restaurant hoverport confirmed my fear. The Kabuki droids leaped off the edge in pursuit of us, their falls accelerated by thrusters in their boots. I held tight to my gun and let loose a barrage of blasts as I fell, blowing the lead droids to bits and lighting up the Oakland sky with an impromptu display of badass fireworks.
And just when the speed of our fall neared terminal velocity, I heard the familiar purr of hover thrusters and felt the smoothness of Corinthian faux-leather slide across my backside as our descent slowed substantially.
“Need a ride?” HARV asked.
You know those group exercises that they do in summer camps or those touchy-feely corporate retreats where you stand with your hands at your sides and fall backward into the arms of a compatriot? They’re designed to foster trust among the participants. Inevitably it leads to higher insurance premiums but that’s beside the point.
HARV and I have taken that trust thing to the ripping edge. Falling face up from three hundred meters, there was no doubt in my mind that HARV would be there in time for me. He brought the hover to me, top down and seats in full flat recline, matched the velocity of my fall and then expertly cushioned it by slowing the descent with the hover’s vertical thrusters.
Don’t get me wrong, it hurt like hell. You don’t go from a near-terminal velocity free fall to a full stop in twenty-five meters without a hefty dose of agony. But after all these years, I’m not choosy about how my life gets saved.
The point is that after three years of being connected at the brain, HARV and I have become a team. He has my back and I have … well, he has my back.
“Cut it a little close there, didn’t you?” I said with a smile.
“Your internal organs are still safely inside your body,” HARV replied. “You have no reason whatsoever to complain.”
“Better hightail it out of here. The droids are still pursuing.”
“You needn’t worry,” HARV said. “I’m quite sure that the danger has passed.” His hologram appeared at the hover control and he made a big deal of steering the craft with his holographic hands even though he was guiding it remotely.
I gently put my hand on the back of the redhead’s neck as she lay on top of me (her hair felt like thick silk). She was stunned and confused from the landing. Thankfully, my being on the bottom allowed me and my armor to take the brunt of the impact, but it still had knocked her for a loop. And she was only now starting to ease up on the scream.
“It’s all right,” I said, gently rolling her off me. “We’re safe now. It’s over.”
She opened her eyes and looked around, still shaking from the fear and the rush of adrenaline. She gazed at me, then at HARV piloting the hover, then back up at the restaurant hoverport above us.
Her face turned a pale shade of green and she vomited on the hover’s floor.
“Ugh, sushi” HARV said, making a face. “That’s going to stain.”
Oddly enough the sound of her retching jogged my memory in just the right way.
“Hey,” I said, bending closer to her as she threw up on the floor, “aren’t you Sexy Sprockets?”
Sexy Sprockets is s@k-c. That’s slang by the way. Sometimes it’s pronounced sek-see. Sexy. Get it? But in the current lexicon of slang, sexy doesn’t mean sexually attractive. It means successful, hence the abysmal spelling, I think. And sometimes the word is pronounced suk-see, which is short for successful, which, ironically, in the current vernacular means sexually attractive. It’s confusing, I admit, but if you really expected there to be any rhyme or reason to California slang in the year 2060 then you’re as stoopid as you are uglee.
And on top of being s@k-c, Sexy Sprockets is currently the most successful pop singer in the world and has been for the past five years, which on the pop music calendar is akin to a geologic era. She shimmied her way onto the scene when she was just fourteen, warbling her multinuanced ditties, rasping her wise-beyond-her-years riffs and babydoll whispering her statutory-rape sweet nothings to a music download market that was up to its bare midriffs with naughty-but-nice starlets (I believe that the descriptive term at the time was whorgins but that genre’s so old-school now they play it on VH-Done). So, needless to say, nobody paid any attention to Sexy at first. There was nothing original about her sound or her fury, her style or her presentation. What’s worse is that she didn’t have a corporate sponsor to prime the star-making pump with the necessary credits, which was the kiss of death in the music world at the time.
Then she changed management companies, leaving the mom-and-pop shop that had repped her until then (her parents) and signing with the mysterious SSquared, Inc., of which still not much is known (other than they represent Sexy Sprockets). Under the Svengali-like ministrations of SSquared, Sexy’s style was honed, her appeal was focused, and she found her voice. More importantly, SSquared introduced her to a little thing called analog bandwidth, specifically 500 to 1600 kilohertz.
Radio.
AM radio to be exact. And that made her career.
Keep in mind that in the middle of the twenty-first century, AM radio was about as prehistoric as you could get. You m
ight as well be sending smoke signals and drawing pictures of bison on cave walls. The music industry had been all about downloads for close to three generations and the music audience was made up entirely of imps and pods. But for years all music downloads had been controlled in toto by big business. The congloms owned all the download sites. They owned hyping venues and they owned the patents on the technology for receiving and playing music. They owned the award shows, the music critics, and even those annoying little music aficionados who used to hang around music stores making fun of the stuff you were buying (they’re computer geeks now, who hang around the download sites and make fun of you in a virtual manner). Before Sexy Sprockets came along, if you weren’t with the congloms, then you weren’t on the charts.
Sexy and her team somehow found a chink in the conglom armor and that chink turned out to be AM radio. Simply put, society’s use of wireless tech had been growing for sixty years like a fungus inside a broken refrigerator. There was RTF and satellite and a host of industrial uses. And on the consumer side there was HV and cellular and wi-fi, ware-fi, watt-fi, wen-fi, hoo-fi, and everyone’s favorite because-I-said-so-fi. The world’s growing use of wireless tech was using more and more of the available bandwidth, so inevitably the bandwidth used by the hi-tech started to bleed into the bandwidth of the outmoded tech, like AM radio, which had died a slow death and reincarnated years before with the advent of satellite radio. So most of the bandwidth that was once used by AM lay fallow and inevitably began being used by some of the wi-fi technologies. And one of those technologies was the download and playback pods of the music industry.
Sexy and her team bought up licenses for a chunk of the AM spectrum and began broadcasting her music onto the public airwaves. As planned, the broadcasts bled onto the frequencies of a lot of the consumer tech and Sexy became a gate crasher on millions of wireless consumer electronic gadgets. At first it was a nuisance. There were a lot of complaints to the FCC, which at the time was entirely owned and operated by the “crusade for family values” lobby group (thankfully the government stripped the FCC of all power years ago), and to the congloms. The congloms set up various protections to minimize the broadcasts’ bleed into their signals but by then it was too late, because a large chunk of the music audience (teenagers mostly) had listened to Sexy’s music and had liked it. Their interest led them to the download sites, which, of course, didn’t offer Sexy’s music, which of course led to greater demand for the music and by the time the congloms caught on and tried to negotiate a deal with Sexy’s people, she’d become a kind of cult icon for independent music and was now more popular than the congloms themselves. It’s widely believed that she saved the congloms from ruin when she finally struck a download deal with them and there are rumors in certain circles that Sexy’s company now owns a controlling share in the congloms, in effect running the entire music industry. It’s a known fact that her company owns the entire AM spectrum, upon which her music is still broadcast nonstop.
