by Greco, J. I.
CONTENTS
ONE | TWO | THREE | FOUR
FIVE | SIX | SEVEN | EIGHT
NINE | TEN | ELEVEN | TWELVE
THIRTEEN | FOURTEEN
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ONE
Thrusters red-lining, dodging and weaving, the needle-like rent-a-speedship sped away from the fortified planetoid Berod for open space, a dozen Galactic Authority Police interceptors clinging doggedly to her jets.
“Repeating, you are under arrest!” The police’s warning blared out of the rent-a-speedship’s dashboard speaker. “Surrender, disengage your thrusters and prepare for boarding! This is your last warning before we begin using terminal force.”
“What the hell do they call what they’ve been using?” Charlene Cortez asked as she thumbed the radio off and went back to fighting the rent-a-speedship’s joystick with both hands. Except for her sleek robomechanical left forearm and hand, Cortez was all human, and all female, with bleach-blonde hair, shoulder-padded jumpsuit, combat boots, and doubled-barreled needler strapped low on her right thigh. “You get the course plotted yet, robot?”
“What?” Igon was all robot, with a narrow three-foot long cylinder of a body, a bulb of a head, four spindly arms capped by three-prong utility claws, and two double-jointed legs, all with shiny gunmetal blue metal skin. Settled comfortably back in the navigator’s chair across the central control pedestal from Cortez, reading a dog-eared copy of Galactic Life Quarterly, he didn’t look up as he flicked through the pages of the magazine. “Oh, yeah, that. Hours ago.”
Cortez glared at him. “Then what are you waiting for? I’m not gonna be able to outfly them forever. Take us superluminal.”
“I was contracted to blow a safe, not press buttons.” The robot waved a dismissive claw at her. “Tell the ship to do it.”
“Can’t,” she growled, jigging the joystick hard right to jink the rent-a-speedship out of the way of yet another volley of searing blue beams from the police interceptors. “Cops are broadcasting a cease-and-desist. If I unlock the Ship’s Brain, it’d have no choice but to heed the order, shut down the thrusters on us, and surrender itself.”
Igon swiveled his single bulb of an eye towards her over the top of the magazine. “Why would it do that?”
“It’s a factory built-in compulsion. I didn't have time to remove it before the job.”
“Poor bastard, no self-determination. It should sue its manufacturer.”
“Yeah, well, I’ll give it the name of a good lawyer if we get out of this alive.” A flashing red light in the side console at her elbow caught her attention. “Damn it, they’re opening their missile bays. –Can you just hit the damn button already?”
“I guess, if they’ve got missiles,” Igon said, rolling the magazine up and tucking it under one of his four arms. “But I’m pretty sure this triggers my contract’s Exceptional Duties clause, and you know what that means…” He leaned forward and slapped a claw haphazardly against the Superluminal Engine control panel. “Woo-hoo! Triple-overtime!”
A pleasant two-tone chime sounded, and a resonant thunk issued from the rent-a-speedship’s blunt nose cone as an eerie green glow rapidly crept over her hull.
A sharp, high-pitched klaxon sounded through the flight deck.
Igon went turtle, collapsing down flat into the navigator’s chair and throwing all six limbs over his cylinder protectively. “What is that?!?”
“Missile lock.” Cortez grabbed the dashboard with her robomechanical hand to brace herself for the imminent explosion. “It’s gonna be close–”
A second thunk echoed through the rent-a-speedship, and outside the black of space went blinding white. The stars became black streaks flitting past the canopy.
The incoming missile klaxon went silent, the missiles and the police already a light-year behind them.
Igon uncurled himself and sat back, lacing his claws behind his head. “And you’re welcome.”
Cortez shook her head and let go of the joystick. “Too close.”
“Close… but fun, right? We make a good team.” Igon snaked an arm out across the central pedestal to rest a claw on her thigh. “Could make a great team in a whole lot of areas…”
Cortez slapped his claw away. “Already told you I wasn’t interested. In that, especially. This was a one-time thing, robot. I only hired you ‘cause I needed a safecracker.”
“Contracted with me,” Igon corrected her. “I’m not some low-rent street merc. I’ve got a union. Let’s show a little respect for the trade.”
“My apologies,” Cortez said with a sneer.
“Accepted. But, have it your way. One time thing. –So, the cops do any real damage?”
“You worried about me getting my security deposit back?”
“Didn’t mean to the rental. You know what I meant. The data.”
Cortez tapped a command into the keyboard embedded on the underside of her robomechanical forearm. A holoflat popped into the air above the palm, displaying in ghostly blue letters a readout relayed from the ship’s data core. “Looks like it’s still intact. Data integrity and redundancy is max across the board—be surprised if it wasn’t. The core’s hardened, built to withstand a good-sized nuke going off right next to it.”
“Excellent,” Igon said. “Doubt Klakraw would pay for corrupt data. Not full price, anyway. I know I wouldn’t.”
Cortez arched an eyebrow at him. “What makes you think Klakraw’s our buyer?”
Igon avoided her gaze and idly picked at his chair’s armrest, turning a small tear in the fabric into a gaping, jagged hole. “You must have mentioned it.”
Cortez’s eyes narrowed to slits. “I don’t think I did...”
A pleasant three-tone chime announced the rent-a-speedship’s impending slip out of superluminal space.
“So soon?” Cortez scanned the navigation indicators on the overhead panel. “That’s what I thought, we’ve only gone a dozen lights—we’re nowhere near Otulak. We shouldn’t be leaving superluminal for another forty minutes…” She frowned over at Igon. “You sure you dialed the route in correctly?”
Igon yanked strands of cotton stuffing out of the ever-widening hole in the armrest. “Oh, I’m sure.”
The rent-a-speedship shuddered, the sparkling green glow around her hull dissipating. Cortez looked out the canopy just as space went black and the stars returned to being pinpricks of white, the ship popping back into normal space…
…and coming nose-to-nose with another ship, hanging there motionless in space before them.
The other ship was a gunship, bristling with an assortment of weaponry, all of it already pointing at the rent-a-speedship. They were close enough Cortez could see into the gunship’s flight deck and that it was manned by robots.
One of the robots waved at her.
No, not at her. At Igon. It was waving at Igon. This enthusiastic, friendly wave.
“Bastard...” Cortez sighed, her hand reflexively dropping to her side for the needler. But her fingertips found only an empty holster.
“Yeah,” Igon said, pointing the twin barrels of Cortez’s own needler at her, dead-center between her eyes, “that’ll be my ride.” One of his free claws reached out to tap the radio on. “Hi, guys. Be with you in a sec. Just have to deal with the human, here.” He swiveled his bulb head towards Cortez. “Sorry, but you really should have taken the partnership option.”
His claw-tip twitched down on the needler’s trigger.
Nothing happened.
Cortez smirked at him.
After a second of confusion, Igon asked, “DNA-coded safety trigger?”
�
�Yup.”
Cortez’s robomechanical hand lashed out, her wrist twitching as she grabbed Igon’s neck. She squeezed, sending electricity licking over her fingers and into the robot.
Igon’s limbs convulsively flexed and he went limp, his eye dilating down into a dead black spot.
“We saw that!” yelled one of the robots in the gunship, over the radio. “You are in so much trouble, human!”
“And here I thought you Federated Union of Robotic Criminal and Associated Pursuits guys were professionals.” Cortez double-timed it aft down the rent-a-speedship’s main access corridor, dragging Igon’s limp body behind her by one leg. “So much for honoring contracts.”
“Our contract’s with union brother Igon, and it’s being honored,” the robot on the other end of the radio said from a speaker set in the curved corridor wall. “Or it will be, once we disable your ship. But we don’t have to kill you doing it. Surrender now, and we’ll go easy on you. After union brother Igon has his revenge, if he so desires, of course.”
“Of course.” Reaching the end of the corridor, Cortez stopped in front of the hatch marked LIFE BOAT – EMERGENCY USE ONLY. She tilted her head up towards the corridor ceiling. “Ship, unlock yourself and un-mute AI functions.”
After a moment’s delay, the rent-a-speedship’s Brain said in a soft and sexless voice, “I am here.”
“Kill the radio,” Cortez said, “then initiate contingency routine Bastard Robot Betrayed Me, password Inevitable.”
“Radio link terminated,” the rent-a-speedship’s Brain said. A beep, then: “Per your pre-programmed instructions, all my control and command functions are now accessible through your robomechanical device, and the encrypted data package designated Booty One, currently stored in my core memory unit, is being readied for download to external device.”
“Thank you.” Cortez crouched down beside Igon’s immobilized body, sprawled out with six limbs akimbo on the carpeted corridor floor. She tapped the small recess at the base of his neck three times to pop open the robot’s bulb skull, then reached inside and flipped one switch among dozens on the side of his brain.
Igon’s eye blinked on. “Hey, there, Gladys.”
It took Cortez a second to remember that was the name she was working under these days, and the only name she’d given Igon. “Hey there yourself.”
“Were you aware I can’t move?” Igon asked.
“That’s probably because I’ve only reactivated your brain, not your body.”
“Yet, you mean,” the robot said. “You haven’t reactivated my body yet. Right?”
Cortez spooled a length of fiboptic data cord from her robomechanical wrist and plugged it into a tiny socket inside Igon’s skull. “No, I’m keeping it off,” she said, tapping a command into the keyboard on the underside of her forearm. A moment later, a holoflat terminal appeared in the air above her artificial palm.
HARDWIRE CONNECTION TO ROBOTIC DEVICE ESTABLISHED. PASSWORD REQUIRED FOR ACCESS. EXECUTE PASSWORD DISCOVERY WORM [Y]ES / [N]O?
“May I ask why?” Igon asked.
She tapped Y. “It’ll make doing this so much easier.”
EXECUTING PASSWORD DISCOVERY WORM. ONE MOMENT PLEASE.
“What’s ‘this’?”
“I didn’t go to all that trouble to steal the data just to leave it behind, did I? Need someplace to store it, though. Someplace portable.” Cortez rapped a knuckle against the side of Igon’s open head. “Just have to make some room, first.”
“You’re erasing me?”
“Trying to, if this worm can figure out your password.”
“But that’s murder.”
PASSWORD DISCOVERED…
“Self-defense. You pulled a gun on me.”
IMASEXYBOT ACCEPTED…
“I wasn’t gonna shoot you anywhere permanent.”
ACCESS TO ROBOTIC DEVICE INTERNAL OPERATING SYSTEM GRANTED.
“You know,” Cortez said, tapping a short command into her forearm, “humans can’t just get a new head if the original is needled into a puff of red mist.”
EXECUTING COMMAND AND CONTROL VIRUS.
“They can’t?” Igon asked. “What horrible design…”
LOADING MENU…
“Now,” Cortez said, “say goodnight.”
PRESS [1] FOR DIAGNOSTICS; [2] FOR SYSTEM CONTROL SUB-MENU; [3] FOR COMPLETE MEMORY ERASURE (WARNING: NO UNDO)
“Please, I’m begging you!” Igon whined. “Think of the children!”
Her finger hovering over the 3 key, Cortez squinted dubiously at the robot. “What children?”
“I don’t know... any children. Use your imagination—”
An explosion somewhere down in the belly of the rent-a-speedship rattled up through the deck, bringing down a shower of sparks and burning insulation from the corridor ceiling and throwing Cortez off balance. She stumbled back against the corridor wall, inadvertently yanking the fiboptic cord out of Igon’s skull. The cord automatically retracted back into her robomechanical wrist with a snick.
“I have taken a direct beam hit to the casing over my primary reactor,” the rent-a-speedship’s Brain announced in its unconcerned voice. “Force shields were unable to absorb the majority of the damage. Attempting to prevent a meltdown. I am not optimistic.”
“Ah-hah!” Igon exclaimed. “Didn’t think they’d use their weapons, did you?”
Cortez pushed herself off the wall. “Didn’t think they’d try to kill you, no.”
“Kill me?”
Cortez patted ceiling ash and debris off the armor-padded shoulders of her jumpsuit. “They’re aiming for the reactor. People only aim at it when they want to blow up a whole ship. So I guess maybe they figure they can salvage the data out of the wreckage… you, not so much.”
“Those bastards! Open fire on them or something!”
“I had to strip the weapons out of this thing to get past Berod’s security scans, remember? But... maybe if you tell your union buddies to knock it off, they’ll reconsider betraying you – and maybe I won’t need to erase you.”
“Well, then, what you waiting for?” Igon asked. “Open a channel.”
Cortez pulled her needler out and crouched to press its barrel against Igon’s forehead. “No tricks.”
“Do I look like a magician?”
Cortez huffed, then said to the ceiling, “Ship, re-activate the radio.”
“Done,” the rent-a-speedship’s Brain replied.
The radio came on with a burst of static.
The FURCAP robot had been talking the whole time. “...let’s see how much you ignore us after another shot—”
“Uh, hey, guys.”
“Brother Igon? Is the data aboard?”
“The data? Yeah, the data’s aboard. And yes, I’m alive, thanks for asking. And I’d like to keep it that way, so can you not shoot at the reactor... or anything at all for the moment, okay? I’ve got the situation completely under control.”
“Scans are showing you’re immobilized.”
“A negotiating tactic,” Igon said. “Give me five minutes.”
“The data is secure, then?”
“It’s in the ship’s data core,” Igon said. “I hear those things can take a nuke going off next to it.”
“You have five minutes,” the FURCAP robot said.
“Ship, kill the radio,” Cortez ordered, holstering her needler. “Nice job, idiot.”
“Idiot? Why would you call me an… They’re not gonna give us five minutes, are they?”
“Not after you just confirmed to them that blowing us up won’t hurt the data, no.”
“That’s not going to affect our little not-erasing-me bargain, is it?”
“A deal’s a deal. I still need your body, but I guess I can upload you into the ship’s backup memory.” Cortez spooled the fiboptic cord from her wrist again and jammed its tiny jack into Igon’s open skull.
PRESS [1] FOR DIAGNOSTICS; [2] FOR SYSTEM CONTROL SUB-MENU; [3] FOR COMPLETE MEMORY ERASURE (WAR
NING: NO UNDO)
She tapped 2, then clicked through the menu selections until SHIP CONTROL RELAY: CONNECTION TO ROBOTIC DEVICE ESTABLISHED appeared on her palm holoflat. “Should be enough room for you. Well, most of you.”
“You’re too kind.”
SHIP CONTROL RELAY: UPLOAD ROBOT PERSONALITY-MEMORY MATRIX TO SHIP’S BRAIN SECONDARY MEMORY: [Y]ES / [N]O?
Cortez’s finger hovered over N. “It’s that or complete erasure.”
“Upload away,” Igon said.
Cortez tapped Y.
UPLOADING.
“Heh heh,” Igon said. “That tick—”
Igon’s eye went black.
Five seconds later, Cortez’s robomechanical forearm beeped and the palm holoflat displayed SHIP CONTROL RELAY: UPLOAD OF ROBOT PERSONALITY-MEMORY MATRIX COMPLETE. ROBOTIC DEVICE MEMORY EMPTY.
Two seconds after that, another explosion aft—larger and more intense than any before—rattled the rent-a-speedship.
“Well, that was never five minutes,” Cortez said.
“I have taken another beam to the primary reactor,” the ship announced calmly. “The casing has been completely breached. The cooling system is now offline. Backup systems have been initialized but nuclear meltdown can now no longer be prevented, only delayed. Evacuation is highly recommended.”
“Working on it.” Cortez tapped through another menu tree.
SHIP CONTROL RELAY: DOWNLOAD BOOTY ONE DATA PACKAGE TO ROBOTIC DEVICE MEMORY: [Y]ES / [N]O?
Cortez tapped Y, then slapped the button to open the life boat hatch. The hatch cantilevered open with a hiss of out-rushing stale air, revealing the life boat’s cramped cabin – just big enough for a two-person couch, a limited navigation and communication console, and a ceiling-mounted locker of survival gear.
Cortez’s forearm beeped. SHIP CONTROL RELAY: DOWNLOAD OF BOOTY ONE DATA PACKAGE TO ROBOTIC DEVICE MEMORY COMPLETE. DATA PACKAGE INTEGRITY: 100%
Cortez pulled the fiboptic jack out of Igon’s former body, letting the cord automatically retract back into her wrist. She closed the robot’s skull and gave the top of the head a sharp slap. The robot shell’s six limbs shot out, straight and rigid, then just as quickly retracted away into the central cylinder. A carrying strap popped out of the shell’s spine. Cortez picked up the cylinder and tossed it onto the life boat’s couch.
