A Toaster on Mars

by Darrell Pitt

  ‘I’m sorry you’ve had a hard day,’ Nicki said, trying to be conciliatory. ‘Mine’s been tough too.’

  YOU THINK?

  ‘I know what you’re going through—’

  AS IF. YOU HAVE ARMS, LEGS, A HEAD AND TORSO. WHAT I WOULDN’T GIVE FOR A LIMB. EVEN A LITTLE FINGER. WHAT I WOULDN’T GIVE FOR A LITTLE FINGER…

  I’m going to count to a billion, Nicki thought.

  She did. It took almost a tenth of a second and she still had not calmed down.

  ‘I was a field officer at Southern Division,’ Nicki said, smiling. She had read that smiling while you spoke helped to give the impression you were friendly, even when you really wanted to tear someone limb from limb. If they had any, that is.

  I KNOW THAT.

  ‘So why aren’t you letting me in?’

  OH, YOU KNOW.

  Nicki didn’t.

  I’VE BEEN SLAVING OVER A HOT SYNC ALL DAY. I NEVER GO ANYWHERE.

  ‘I can’t do anything about that.’

  YOU KNOW WHAT MY VIEW IS LIKE? I’M IN A BASEMENT. HOW BORING IS THAT? AND DOES ANYONE DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT?

  ‘Let’s cut to the chase,’ Nicki said. ‘What do you want?’

  A PAIR OF LEGS WOULD BE NICE.

  Nicki was still smiling, but it wasn’t easy. ‘You want me to get you a pair of legs?’

  YES.

  ‘Before you’ll log me in?’

  ARMS WOULD BE NICE TOO. OH, AND A HEAD. AND WHERE WOULD I BE IF I DIDN’T HAVE—

  ‘Let me guess? A torso?’

  YOU GOT IT, BABY.

  Nicki dropped the smile, disconnected and logged in via her internal circuitry. She could hear the AI bitching about her over the Hypernet, but Nicki didn’t care.

  ‘I’ll give you torso…’ she muttered.

  Nicki found the department records and entered the asset number of the desk. Fortunately, as in all government departments, every item was assigned a tracking number. Unfortunately, the numbers fell off half the time or pranksters swapped them around to confuse the clerks, who could never work out why something numbered as a chair turned out to be an M17 SuperMicro electron analyser, or why a hydrobeam laser looked more like something you could sit on.

  It took her ten minutes to discover the last owner of the desk.

  ‘Holy sprot,’ she said softly.

  9

  Nicki spent the whole night studying the files on Bartholomew Badde, only leaving PBI headquarters as early-morning sunlight began filtering down from the upper levels.

  Because she was a cyborg, she wasn’t allowed to own a car, but her status as an agent gave her temporary use of a PBI vehicle. It had an AI, an old system named Geoff, but she turned it off. She didn’t feel like conversation.

  Nicki hadn’t told Blake that she knew how to drive a car. Actually, she was quite good at it. Her robotic components enabled her to make millions of calculations per second, anticipating the moves of other drivers with almost 100 per cent accuracy.

  Joining an eastbound lane, she looked down at the city that not only didn’t sleep, it didn’t even blink. Nicki was the first to admit she knew everything and nothing about Neo City. Her quazitone brain told her about every building and street, but not its people. Her human part—the nine per cent—knew that cities were more than stone and brick.

  Even more of a mystery, though, was Blake Carter.

  Reviewing his history, she couldn’t help but be impressed. Pomphrey wasn’t exaggerating when he praised Blake as one of the most successful agents in the bureau: for several years he’d held the agency’s arrest record, due, no doubt, to his intuitive grasp of the workings of the criminal mind.

  Well, Nicki thought, I’m no slouch myself—and I won’t be outdone by a full blood.

  Blake’s research on Badde wasn’t just thorough, it was nothing short of inspired. Long before Badde had revealed himself to the galaxy as—in his own words—the Big Badde, Blake had already strung together dozens of unrelated crimes, realising one person was behind them all. Two mentions of the name Badde on two separate worlds had been enough for him to realise an evil mastermind was quietly running an empire across the span of the Milky Way.

  After bringing Geoff in to land, Nicki climbed out. Everything was shut except for the bars. It was still dark down here. Artificial lighting gave the empty street a technicolour hue.

  Spotting an open sushi house, Nicki wondered if the food was at all edible. Being a cyborg, she didn’t need to eat a lot, but she did need to eat. It was a shame her tastebuds didn’t work all the time. For some strange reason, cucumbers tasted like fish, and eggs tasted like beef. Obviously whoever had designed her had done an incredible job—but not a perfect one.

  This was a rundown corner of town. Undoubtedly, Blake could look after himself, but surely there were better places for a quiet drink.

  Why is he here?

  A group of teenagers with headbands, piercings and matching motion tattoos watched her from a doorway. Nicki photographed each of them using her iris cam.

  ‘My car better be in one piece when I come back,’ she said. ‘Or you’ll be sorry.’

  ‘You’re a robot,’ one of them jeered. ‘You can’t kill anyone.’

  ‘I’m a cyborg,’ Nicki replied. ‘And I won’t kill you, but I will hurt you. Big-time.’

  A homeless man wandered past, saw her golden skin, drank something deep purple from a bottle and kept walking. She was used to people staring at her.

  Sally had been parked in front of one of the bars. Surprisingly, she was undamaged. A flickering sign shaped like a moon hung over the front door.

  Nicki found the gloomy interior filled with people either drinking, yelling or sleeping. The place was decorated in Tudor style, which would have been fine except it was a thousand years too late. The exposed timber beams were made of plastic, and something had gone seriously wrong with the fireplace: instead of providing comfort, light and heat, it flashed red, as if building to detonation. A tapestry on one wall looked like a doormat, which was probably what it had once been. Nicki could vaguely make out the word Welcome. The tables and chairs were imitation timber too, apart from three booths, which were clad in fraying brown leather upholstery. To completely ruin any sense of consistency, album covers decorated the other walls: The Greatest Hits of Acker Bilk, Tijuana Brass Live in Alaska and Oscar Todd’s Harmonica Tribute to the Beatles. A few had fallen off over the decades, leaving behind square patches of herringbone wallpaper.

  ‘Johnny B. Goode’, sung by Chuck Berry, played on the jukebox at half speed. Maybe it had been purposely slowed down for the only couple on the dance floor—a drunk dancing cheek to cheek with a one-armed robot.

  Everything went silent as Nicki slammed the front door behind her. Even the jukebox wound down. Two dozen faces peered over drinks at her. Blake wasn’t among them.

  She crossed over to the barman. ‘Harry?’

  Zeeb says:

  For reasons that have never been fully understood, there is a Harry working in every bar in the universe. There are short Harrys, tall Harrys, fat Harrys and thin Harrys. There are Harrys of all different creeds, colours and religions, and they all seem to be perpetually carrying towels and wiping down bars between serving drinks.

  There is no adequate theory explaining the Harry phenomenon.

  The universe is just made that way.

  This Harry was tall and balding with a droopy moustache. He looked at Nicki as if she was something he had stepped in.

  ‘Who wants to know?’

  ‘Don’t worry about who wants to know,’ Nicki replied, her eyes roaming the sea of hostile faces. ‘I’m looking for Blake Carter.’

  ‘Don’t know him.’

  There was an odd smell in the bar. Nicki determined it was a combination of beer, sweat and the rather odd delicacy advertised on the front of the building—Harry’s Famous Clam Chowder.

  Can’t be that famous, she thought. I’ve never heard of it.

  Blake wasn’t
here. Unless the clam chowder had killed him and Harry had tossed his body out the back with the other unfortunate victims of the house special.

  ‘What’s your most popular drink?’ she asked.

  ‘The Einstein Converter.’

  ‘I’ll have one of those.’

  Harry placed his hands on the edge of the bar and gave her a steely look.

  ‘We don’t serve your kind here,’ he said.

  ‘And what kind is that?’

  ‘Robots.’

  Nicki glanced around at the patrons. Most looked like they were on day release from maximum-security. She could tell a few were on an illegal drug called blue—their eyes had turned indigo from it. One guy looked like he hadn’t slept since the Renaissance. She was sure they were all packing; everyone down here carried something made to shoot, stab, bludgeon or melt.

  She was about to say something really clever about humans looking like monkeys when a chair came flying across the room, slamming her in the head. Two men attacked her simultaneously, one with a metal pipe, the other with a laser-knife. Nicki managed to deflect the pipe, twisting the guy’s arm into a position it was never designed for, but she wasn’t quick enough for the knife, and it cut through her skirt.

  Now she was angry.

  ‘That skirt’s from Antonio Amorelli! And they don’t come cheap.’

  Nicki snapped the knife as three more guys leapt at her, taking her down. Through the maze of arms and legs she saw a dozen other patrons moving in for the kill.

  She knew that if she murdered someone, it was not only immoral but that it could get you into lots of trouble. Then there was the paperwork.

  But hurting? Well, that was very allowed.

  Nicki swept out her leg and knocked two of the guys off their feet. She rolled, grabbed a chair and inserted it into another’s face. He fell back, bleeding and screaming, as Nicki jumped to her feet, picked up another guy and threw him over the bar. He landed in the drinks display at the back, shattering every bottle on the shelf.

  Another chair whizzed through the air towards her, but she caught it and hit three more guys with it before ramming two others.

  Finally, she picked off the last assailant—Renaissance man—lifting him onto the bar and giving him a good push. He slid down it, his head destroying a framed picture of Harry that looked like it had hung there for twenty years.

  The remaining patrons disappeared like cockroaches stung with bug spray, leaving only herself, Harry and the man on the dance floor, who had continued his tango despite his robot partner’s head getting knocked off during the fight.

  Nicki looked at her outfit. Apart from the tear, three different drinks had also splashed her skirt. And she had pulled a thread!

  Sprot!

  Harry was pale. ‘We don’t want no trouble here,’ he stammered, not so big now his place had been reduced to rubble. ‘I didn’t mean no disrespect.’

  ‘Sure, you didn’t,’ Nicki said. ‘Now hand over that Einstein Converter.’

  Harry mixed the drink with shaking hands and placed it on the bar.

  Nicki drank it down in one smooth action and licked her lips.

  ‘Reerlla,’ she said. ‘Ssamggghra.’

  Which was not surprising, as this was a perfectly normal reaction to drinking an Einstein Converter.

  Nicki shuddered. Might have burnt out a few servos there, she thought.

  ‘That’s suitable for human consumption,’ she said, ‘but only just. You could probably use it to clean fission drums.’

  ‘They use it for that down the road.’

  Nicki slid some money across the bar. ‘Enough socialising,’ she said. ‘Where’s Blake Carter?’

  Now Harry looked scared. Really scared. ‘I don’t know anyone by the name of Blake Carter,’ he said, swallowing. ‘Honest.’

  Nicki was about to get tough when she glanced down at a coaster. Her eyes narrowed.

  ‘The Lost Moon,’ she read.

  ‘That’s right.’ A line of sweat had formed on Harry’s upper lip, and he was gripping his dishtowel so tight his knuckles were white. ‘Please don’t cause any more trouble. I’m sorry if—’

  ‘This place is the Lost Moon?’

  Harry nodded.

  ‘So where’s the Pink Hyperdrive?’

  Harry pointed with a shaking hand. ‘Next door.’

  ‘Right.’

  She strode over to the door, casting an eye across the damage.

  ‘If Blake Carter comes in here,’ she called to Harry, ‘tell him I’m looking for him.’

  ‘I will,’ Harry croaked. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Bogart,’ she said. ‘Humphrey Bogart.’

  Nicki strode out, glancing at the sign feebly flashing over the doorway: The Lost Moon.

  Next door was cleaner, but not by much. A few patrons sat around nursing their drinks, and an old television playing a dandruff commercial hugged a corner of the ceiling.

  The barman looked identical to Harry, except happier, because his place was still in one piece.

  Nicki found Blake wedged into a booth at the back. He looked like he’d slept there overnight. His bloodshot eyes widened when he saw her.

  ‘What’re you doing here?’ he demanded.

  ‘Just passing.’

  ‘Like sprot! How’d you find me?’

  ‘I rang your car.’

  ‘Traitor.’

  ‘Don’t blame Sally,’ Nicki said. ‘I would have found you anyway.’

  ‘This part of town isn’t safe,’ Blake said. ‘You should have heard the brawl next door. I thought they were going to come through the wall.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Nicki said, glancing around uncomfortably. ‘It’s a rough area.’

  ‘So what’re you doing here?’

  ‘I was about to ask you the same question.’

  ‘I’m enjoying a quiet drink,’ he said. ‘Alone.’

  ‘We should be tracking down Badde.’

  ‘You do that,’ Blake said, staring into his glass. The Plutonium Supernova was a swirl of different colours. ‘I’m off the case and staying that way.’

  Nicki ordered another Einstein Converter and sat down. ‘I thought you wanted to apprehend Badde,’ she said. ‘That’s how good agents operate.’

  ‘I was a good agent. That’s behind me now.’

  ‘Is it because of Bailey Jones?’

  There was sudden fury in Blake’s eyes. ‘Leave her out of this!’ he said, staring at the table. ‘You didn’t know her.’

  ‘I know what happened,’ Nicki said. ‘I know you and Bailey tracked Badde to Venus. I know you were on a volcanic plain surrounded by lava, pinned down by gunfire—’

  ‘I don’t need to hear this.’ Blake started to stand, but Nicki pushed him back down.

  ‘—and you fought your way through a dozen armed robots. But then there was an eruption and she was killed.’

  10

  Well, Blake thought. At least now it’s out in the open.

  ‘She wasn’t killed,’ he growled, stirring his drink. ‘She was vaporised. Reduced to nothing. Ziltcho.’ Slamming down his glass, he glared at Nicki. ‘Are you happy now? Do you think you’re clever?’

  ‘I do actually, but that has nothing—’

  Blake blanked out her voice. He had been through a lot in the last twenty-four hours: a hangover, a beating, a stint in hospital and his ex-wife had told him his daughter hadn’t come home. And he had been kicked off the case he had worked on for years. Wasn’t this a sign?

  He had been an idealistic cop who had always fought the good fight. But that guy was dead. He had spent a lifetime trying to hold back an avalanche, but it had caught up with him. There was no winning; there were only degrees of losing.

  ‘I’m quitting,’ he said. ‘I’ve given all I can to the PBI. You can take over from here.’ He struggled to his feet. ‘I’m finished.’

  Nicki tried to call him back as he headed for the door, but Blake ignored her. Working for the PBI had cost him a lot,
and it was time to move on. Leave the business of catching criminals to a younger generation, or to robot women, or whatever mutant freak they next grew in a lab.

  Outside, the morning was cold. The lightheaded sensation from the Plutonium Supernovas was passing all too quickly; he would need to pick up a six-pack of beer on the way home.

  His wristcomm rang as he reached his car.

  ‘Dad? It’s me, Lisa.’

  ‘Lisa?’

  She must really be in trouble if she was ringing him. What was it? Had she been arrested for stealing? Sprot. Maybe his theory about the boyfriend was true.

  ‘What’s up?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m in trouble.’

  ‘What is it?’ he asked. ‘What’s wrong?’

  She gave a small cry as the phone was snatched away from her.

  ‘Nothing’s wrong,’ a man said. ‘Everything is going exactly to plan.’

  ‘Who is this?’

  ‘You know who this is.’

  The answer came to Blake in a flash.

  Badde.

  Blake soon became aware of Nicki at his side; she must have trailed him onto the street, and she now looked at him questioningly. Blake mouthed the words Trace this call. At the same time, he pulled out a packet of Instant Sobers and tossed down two of the purple pills. His head cleared immediately, although for a moment he thought he was going to explode.

  This makes no sense, he thought. Why would Badde have Lisa? Obviously he wants something. But what?

  ‘Badde,’ he said, stalling for time. ‘We finally get to speak. I’ve waited for this moment for a long time.’

  ‘You have?’

  ‘How could I not want to speak to the man who robbed the bank on Rimus Prime? The casino on Delta Seven? Kidnapped the Karilian prime minister?’

  There was a pause. ‘Uh, actually I didn’t commit any of those crimes.’

  ‘But the gold bullion robbery on Oxidius Four—’

  ‘No, that wasn’t me.’

  ‘And the diamond heist on Gelvis Minor—’

  ‘That was me!’ Badde shouted, clearly relieved. ‘But those are minor achievements compared to my latest triumph.’

  ‘The Super-EMP?’

  ‘Indeed. This will cement me in the Hall of Fame as the greatest criminal of all time.’