by Todd McAulty
“A robot core? For that thing? Good luck.”
“Help me pick him up,” I said.
“What for?”
“Because we’re not going to let him die on this goddamn floor. Grab his legs.”
The kid complained, but did as he was told. Black Winter was heavy, but not as heavy as I expected. We lifted him onto one of the dollies they’d used to rush the equipment in here, and then got him into the elevator. We rode down to the basement, and wheeled him over to the Venezuelan motor pool.
We were stopped by a mechanic in a grease-stained uniform. He asked me something in Spanish. The kid answered, and the mechanic waved us over to the machine depot. There were five AGRT soldiers and mechanics there, and they watched us wheel up Black Winter with frank curiosity.
“Where you goin’ with that thing?” the nearest one asked.
“This is Nineteen Black Winter,” I said. “He’s with the Manhattan Consulate. He was injured in the attack this morning.”
Two more mechanics wandered over. One squatted down next to Black Winter and looked him over.
“What you got there, Barajas?” asked a tall corporal leaning against a rack of tools.
“Pile of shit,” said Barajas. “He’s gone.”
“He’s got a cracked housing,” I said. “He’s been leaking fluid since this morning.”
Barajas reached out hesitantly, touching Black Winter’s torso. “Core temp is way up,” he said. “He’s fried.”
“That thing alive?” asked one of the soldiers.
“I doubt it,” said Barajas.
“Yes,” I said firmly. “He was conscious and speaking a few minutes ago. He just lost consciousness.”
The kid gave me a look. Yeah, that was stretching the truth a little. But not much, for all we knew.
The corporal came over to check out the robot for himself. Then he looked me up and down. He wore an AGRT uniform with Panamanian insignia, but he spoke English just fine. “What do you expect us to do with this thing?”
“He needs a new core,” I said. “Immediately.”
The corporal laughed. “I don’t have a mobile robot core.”
Barajas spoke up. “You need to take this thing to Machine Operations at ComSec. Maybe they can help it.”
“That’s three miles away. He’ll never make it.” More importantly, I’d never get into Machine Operations. The best I could do there was drop Black Winter off and hope someone took pity on him. No, our chances of success were better here.
The corporal shrugged. “Can’t help you.”
“I need to speak to the duty officer,” I said. “I need someone to make a call on this thing, or certify it as nonoperational.”
The corporal shrugged again. “Can’t help you.”
“You willing to certify it as nonoperational?” I asked, looking him in the eye. I turned slowly, looking at everyone in turn. “Tomorrow, someone is going to come from the Manhattan Consulate. High-ranking machines. They’re going to ask questions about who certified the death of their robot. Is anyone here willing to do that?”
I circled back to the corporal. “You? Can you certify this thing is dead for me?”
He grimaced. Then he backed up, looking deeper into the parking garage. He whistled loudly. A moment later he waved someone over. We waited for whomever he’d signaled to arrive.
“What the hell do you want, Sosa?” she called as she approached.
“Shit,” I whispered.
She stepped into the loose circle of men around Black Winter less than twenty seconds later. Sergeant Van de Velde.
The moment she saw me, she stopped. Her face twisted in disgust, and she shot a question in Spanish at Sosa. Without waiting for an answer, she turned to me.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“I’m trying to prevent the death of a Manhattan Consulate officer,” I said. “This machine—Nineteen Black Winter.”
Sosa was talking over me. Van de Velde listened to us both, then pointed to the robot at my feet. “You’re here because of this piece of shit?”
“Yes. He’s dying.”
Sosa was still talking. Van de Velde shut him up with a wave of her hand. “It’s dead already,” she said to me.
“You don’t know that.”
“I don’t know, and I don’t care. This thing is not my problem.”
“He needs a mobile robot core. In the next half hour. He’s already started to overheat.”
“Then take him to ComSec.”
“He’ll die before he gets there.”
The sergeant bit back her first response. She took two steps closer, and gave me a cold smile.
“You know, I really don’t know who you are. Or why Colonel Perez seems to like you. I don’t know what your relationship is to this foreign pile of shit, and I don’t care about that either. If I could help this thing, I would be happy to extend it every courtesy. But we service the big machines here.”
“Like that field unit that got popped this morning? The one that took on the mech?”
“Like that one, yeah. We don’t have the expertise to service mobile machines here.”
“I understand,” I said. “I’m not looking for emergency repairs. I was just hoping that someone here might have a line on a mobile robot core.”
“We don’t carry those.”
“I know. But they’re standard units for rational devices of his scale.”
“So what?”
“So . . .” I spoke up, making sure that everyone in the depot could hear me. “So maybe someone here knows where we could acquire the parts. Salvaged from another machine, perhaps.”
Van de Velde’s mouth was open. She stared at me in amazement.
“I’m asking if—”
“We heard you,” she said. “We know what you’re asking. And the answer is no. Nobody here can get a goddamn black market core for you.”
As casually as I could, I glanced at the others as she said those words. Three of the soldiers and mechanics watching returned my gaze, their faces unreadable. But when Van de Velde mentioned the market, two looked away quickly, dropping their gaze to the floor or feigning sudden disinterest. One of them was Sosa.
Van de Velde had had enough. “These men have work to do,” she said. She pointed at Nineteen Black Winter. “Take your boyfriend here back upstairs, and wait for one of Queen Sophia’s pretty-boy soldiers to show up and claim him.” Without another word, she turned her back on me and strode away.
“Ten thousand dollars,” I said.
Van de Velde stopped walking. She turned around. Her face displayed anger and disbelief. “What did you say?”
“Ten thousand dollars. For a universal core. Right now.”
“Are you kidding me?”
But I wasn’t talking to her. I turned around slowly, spreading my hands, making it clear that the offer was open to anyone interested.
And there were definitely interested parties. The mechanics were exchanging glances, standing a little straighter.
“Cash?” someone asked.
“Bank transfer,” I said. “American dollars.”
“In advance?” said Barajas.
“No. When my patient is up and walking.”
“Today? You pay today?”
“Today.”
Sosa waved two of his mechanics over. They conversed with him in whispers, and then left in a hurry. “Stay here,” Sosa told me.
I turned to have a word with the kid and found myself face-to-face with Sergeant Van de Velde.
She stood with her hands on her hips and a stern set to her jaw. “What the hell are you doing?”
I lowered my voice. I really didn’t want another confrontation with this woman. “I don’t want any trouble with you.”
“Then you damn well better explain yourself. Who the hell is this robot to you?”
That was a good question. I wasn’t sure I could answer it—not in a way that would satisfy her suspicions.
“No
body,” I admitted. “We just met today.”
“This is your kink, is it? You have a thing for robots?”
“No.”
“You rich, then? Ten thousand, that’s a cinch for you?”
“No.” No, it certainly was not. “This is going to cost me, believe me.”
“Then I need to know what’s going on. Before I let you commandeer my machine depot for your personal science project.”
I answered as honestly as I could. “I just . . . I don’t want anybody else to die today. That’s the truth. You can take Black Winter when I’m done. I make no claim on him. He helped me this morning, when I needed it. I want to help him, if I can.”
Van de Velde held my gaze. Her eyes searched mine for a long, long time. I found I didn’t mind. Under the anger and suspicion, I found honest curiosity in her eyes.
“Sosa,” she said at length.
“Sergeant?”
“This is your deal.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She was walking away. “Keep it off my books, Corporal,” she said as she stalked off.
“Ma’am.”
“I mean it. I don’t want to know about it.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Sosa said with satisfaction.
Sosa’s mechanics returned surprisingly quickly. “We may have something,” he said noncommittally.
I was next to Black Winter, checking his temperature. “You better make it fast.”
Sosa came closer and spoke the rest in a lower voice. “It’s a similar model. Similar, but not identical.”
“Manhattan make?”
“Argentinean, but parallel design. The mobile core is intact.”
“This Argentinean robot . . . what kind of damage are we talking about?”
Sosa nodded to the mechanic who had stepped up with him. The mechanic squatted down next to me. “Missile hit,” he said. “Took the head clean off.”
“Damn. But the core is intact?”
“Core, circulation system, and axial motivators. They all check out.”
“But we need to deal with a third party,” Sosa said smoothly. “And they need payment up front.”
I thought it over. “How soon can they have it here?”
“Ten minutes.”
“You can do the work?” I asked Sosa.
He nodded. “I make no guarantees,” he said with a shrug. “But I can get your friend here a new core, and hack the interface. Whether or not he wakes up, that’s up to him.”
“All right,” I said. “Let’s do it.”
Barajas and the mechanic stepped forward, nudging me gently out of the way. “We’ll give him a coolant flush, get his temperature down while we wait,” said Barajas. They lifted him off the dolly and manhandled him over to a clear workspace, where they smoothly plugged him in. I watched, appreciating their quick, professional work.
Sosa and I handled the business arrangements, using a little thumb-scan reader to transfer the funds to his account. Then he made a call on a little gray box. About ten minutes later two men drove up. I expected other mechanics, or maybe locals. Instead, they were two AGRT officers. They haggled briefly with Sosa, then lifted a tarp off something in the back to let him see it. They haggled a little more, then shook hands. Sosa and two men lifted the thing out of the jeep, tarp and all, and the men drove off.
Once they were gone, Sosa uncovered the tarp. Inside was the twisted form of a headless Argentinean robot. Unlike Black Winter, who was an almost featureless black, this one was silver and gold. The mechanic’s description of its condition had been fairly accurate, but he hadn’t mentioned the extensive scorching all down the right side. It looked like it had been in a fire.
“The core looks cooked,” I said, concerned.
Sosa shook his head. “It’s okay. The core can manage a thermal impact. The problem is the missile collision. If there was a voltage surge, the core interface . . . boom.” He threw up his hands to illustrate. “Fried.”
“Can you tell how bad the damage is?” I asked, pushing closer for a better look at just what my money had bought.
With an exasperated look, Sosa waved me out of his operating theater. For the next forty minutes, I paced around the parking lot like an expectant father.
“You don’t have to stick around for this,” I told the kid.
He shrugged, peering over my shoulder at Sosa and his team as they worked. “I’m off duty now. And c’mon—I gotta see how this turns out.”
“Yeah.” Truth to tell, I was glad for the company.
“Where’d they get a mobile chassis?” the kid asked.
“Two AGRT officers who picked up a war souvenir, from the look of it.”
“Man, people will collect anything,” he marveled.
Less than ten minutes later, I saw Sosa step away from the metal counter where he was operating. He was scrubbing his hands with a rag. When he saw me approach, he grimaced.
“The interface was a bitch,” he said. “Still don’t know how much I got right.”
“Do you think it’ll work?” I asked.
“See for yourself.”
One of the mechanics was helping Black Winter sit up. He was conscious. His robot eyes fixed on me as I stepped closer.
“Black Winter,” I said.
“Hello,” said Black Winter. Sosa had torn off the front of his torso and replaced nearly a third of his internal components with silver and gold organs from the donor robot.
“Do you know who I am?” I said.
“No,” he said. There was a flutter in his voice that hadn’t been there before.
I tried not to be alarmed. Some cognitive impairment was to be expected, but short-term memory loss wasn’t a good sign. It might not be serious . . . but nonetheless, I selfishly mourned the loss of our friendship, however brief it had been.
“Do you remember anything from this morning?” I asked.
“Of course I do. But you never told me your name.”
“Barry,” I said. “I’m Barry Simcoe.”
“I see you didn’t get put in front of a firing squad.”
“No,” I said, feeling abruptly relieved. For both of us. “No, I didn’t. And I see you found a new mobile core.”
“That’s an oversimplification if I ever heard one. I didn’t find anything. I’ve got a new axial motivator and a completely overhauled circulatory pump, among other things, and none of my new organs are responding to system queries. Which tells me the work was . . . well, let’s call it off-spec.”
“You could probably call it that,” I agreed. Sosa’s men, who were listening around us, found this very funny. One of them punched Sosa good-naturedly in the arm.
“How are you feeling?” I asked.
“Like shit. My drive fluid pressure is critically low, and I’ve got only partial feeling in my right side. I’m probably going to need help walking, at least until I can get a spinal recalibration. And I’ve got some wicked feedback in my right ear.” He reached up hesitantly and tapped the right side of his flat metal head.
“These men did the work on you,” I said, introducing Black Winter to the mechanics clustered around him. “You’ll be the ultimate judge, but I’d say they did pretty good work, all things considered.”
Black Winter looked around. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, gentlemen. And believe me, I mean that most sincerely.”
“You’re not like most of the machines we see down here,” said Barajas.
“No sir,” said Black Winter. “I’m a man of the world.”
Sosa said something in Spanish, and the group began to break up. A few of them patted Black Winter warmly on the shoulder before striding away.
“You should go,” Barajas said to me. He signaled one of the soldiers, who wheeled over the cart. “You need to be gone before the sergeant gets back.”
“That’s not necessary,” Black Winter said, looking at the cart. He stood up, a little shaky. “I’m just a little unstable.”
“Lean on me,
” I suggested. I stepped to his left side, and without any prompting the kid moved to his right. Black Winter put his arms around us. His first few steps were a little unstable, but pretty soon we all got the rhythm of it.
Barajas caught up to me before we left the depot. He slipped a slender piece of metal in my pocket. “Use that to check his drive fluid for the next two days,” he said. “If there’s any trace of hydrocarbons, get him back here, pronto.”
“I will.”
“His new core will self-regulate to his metabolism over the next seventy-two hours. Until then, keep his body temperature below seventy-five degrees.”
“Understood,” I said.
“There goes my weekend at the beach,” muttered Black Winter.
“Good luck,” Barajas said to Black Winter. He gave the robot a crisp salute, and then he was gone.
“I like that guy,” said Black Winter.
“Yeah,” I said.
“But somehow, I doubt he just had a compatible robotic core in inventory. Care to explain how that miracle happened?”
“You’re right,” I said. “We had one delivered by a third party. It took a little . . . negotiating.”
“I figured. How much negotiating, exactly?”
“We can talk about that later.”
“If it’s okay with you, I’d like the bad news up front.”
“I understand. Well, I’ve got a ten-thousand-dollar hole in my expense account.”
“That’s even worse than I thought. I don’t have ten thousand dollars to pay you back.”
“That’s all right. I didn’t expect you would.”
“How can we sort this out?”
“I’ve been thinking about that. You’re not a soldier, so I assume your free time is your own. I could use a political consultant with your connections. Would you accept the ten thousand as a retainer?”
“A retainer? To do what?”
“To come work for me.”
Black Winter chewed on that for a minute. “Yes, I think I would.”
“Great,” I said as we stepped in unison toward the elevator. “Because I filed the paperwork with Ghost Impulse to hire you half an hour ago.”
III
Tuesday, March 9th, 2083
Posted 3:11 pm by Barry Simcoe
