Roboteer

by Alex Lamb

  Rachel ripped open the packages. Inside were dark-coloured Earther clothes. Rachel started helping Will out of his ship-suit. He reached up to stop her with a trembling hand.

  ‘I can do it,’ he said. He was feeling a great deal stronger now than when he’d woken up.

  Nevertheless, it was awkward getting dressed in the back of the transport. Thankfully, the one John had borrowed for them was significantly bigger than the public taxi-bugs on Galatea.

  There were high-waisted trousers with flared legs and dark shirts for Hugo and Will. The shirts had brightly coloured highlights and symbols on the front, arrayed like medals. Rachel’s outfit had voluminous skirts, a zip-up corset and a long black tube that covered her shoulders and head, leaving only her face exposed. She scowled as she pulled the clothing on.

  ‘Will, you’ll have to help me with this stupid thing.’ She turned sideways so that Will could yank up the corset zip at the back. It took all of his strength.

  ‘Breathe in,’ John advised, with some evident amusement. ‘It’ll help.’

  ‘Fuck you,’ she snarled at him. ‘You did this on purpose.’

  ‘’Fraid not,’ he replied. ‘This is all the rage on the crusader catwalk this year.’

  Rachel didn’t look convinced. ‘Couldn’t you have found something a little more appropriate? How am I supposed to fight in this if the nan hits the fan?’

  ‘You don’t,’ John said coolly. ‘If it gets bad enough that we need to fight, we’re already dead. While you’re here, you play at being a good little Truist woman. Keep your eyes down and don’t open your mouth.’

  She glared at him. ‘Fuck you, John. You could have dressed us as natives.’

  John had a good laugh at that. ‘Forgetting for a moment that we don’t look anything like the natives,’ he said, ‘you really do not want to be one.’ He glanced at her. ‘You think I’m joking. I’m not. You’d better start playing meek if you want to live. You’ll see.’

  Will watched the city as they drove through it. It took him a while to get over the novelty of a city built on flat ground, and the strange sight of the lightly streaked plastic sky overhead.

  The industrial district gave way slowly to residential areas and there were other sights to claim Will’s attention. He saw hordes of soldiers and buildings that were garish to the point of disbelief. Almost every one of them featured baroque turrets or crystal facades or some other kind of adornment that drowned out the shapes of the structures themselves.

  But the most striking decorations had been added recently. There were bullet-holes and scorch-marks on the mirror-bright plastic walls. Many of the turrets were punched in, as if struck by gigantic fists. Some of the houses had been burned to the ground so that only twisted remnants of their ornamentation remained. Will had the impression of a children’s fantasy in which devils had been let loose.

  John took a left turn up a boulevard. Will inhaled sharply as the view of the street ahead swung into view. It was crawling with Earther troops dressed in every imaginable combination of colours. They appeared to be having some kind of party. Most were clearly drunk, though it was the middle of the day.

  Rachel gripped her seat. ‘John, are you sure this is a good idea?’

  John chuckled to himself. ‘Do you want to drive?’

  Through the crowds, Will saw a soldier dragging a woman around on a leash. He looked away and caught sight of another woman being bent over a café table while a soldier unfastened his trousers. His friends cheered him on. A little further down, a smiling man knelt on the pavement while soldiers took turns to kick him in the face.

  Will felt sick. He was reminded of the propaganda broadcasts he’d watched. Was this what the Earthers referred to as enjoying a free expression of faith?

  ‘I thought you should see this place,’ said John breezily. ‘Take in a little of the local colour and all that.’

  ‘You asshole,’ said Rachel, shaking her head at him.

  John continued as if he hadn’t heard her. ‘They call this place Party Town. It’s where the off-duty soldiers come.’

  ‘I thought we weren’t supposed to be taking risks with the fucking mission,’ Rachel snapped.

  ‘There’s no risk,’ John replied lightly. ‘These guys are far too busy having fun to pay any attention to us. Look, we’re through the thick of it.’

  It was true. They had already driven through the worst of the melee and were cruising down a street that had practically been demolished. Broken glass and plastic littered the streets. What had once been windows and doors were now empty eye sockets in lifeless buildings. It looked as if the non-stop party had already visited and wrung all life from the neighbourhood as it passed through.

  John put the car on automatic and leaned over the seat to talk to them. ‘New Angeles used to be the self-styled Planet of Dreams,’ he said.

  Rachel sat back in her seat, folded her arms and stared out through the window. John didn’t appear to care. He addressed himself to Will and Hugo instead.

  ‘Back when Galatea was in the patent-farming business, New Angeles had a different way of paying for their colony runs. They specialised in entertainment – canned stories, interactives, that sort of thing. You know much about that bit of history, Hugo?’

  Hugo shook his head mutely.

  ‘It was fucked up,’ said John with a grin. ‘Colonies had to bend themselves out of shape just to make enough money to keep food coming in from the home system. That’s when we started giving our kids mods and taking risks with the atmosphere. Nobody guessed how high the cost of spaceflight was going to climb. The fucking trader companies had a nice little captive market going there. Mars got rich. Everyone else took it in the neck.’

  He laughed and shook his head. ‘Except of course, over here it wasn’t about mods and nanotech. Instead, their culture got kind of weird. Fantasy and reality blended together there for a while.’

  That accounted for the weird architecture, at least, Will thought.

  ‘The Angelenos messed with all kinds of stuff to find ways to pay the rent,’ John explained. ‘They had interactives, passives, robotic sex dolls, drugs, cosmetic surgery, pleasure implants, you name it.’ He gestured expansively as if to show the scope of the Angelenos’ enterprise. ‘Needless to say, after the Truists took Mars, they made a bee-line for this place. It was a perfect propaganda victory for them. Decadent colonists with twisted tastes and no defences to speak of. They turned it into an R&R planet for the crusader armies. And the soldiers love it. They brought some of their Earther entertainments here to add to the fun. Hope riots and blood-baptisms. That sort of thing.’

  John shrugged. ‘Of course, life hasn’t been so great for the Angelenos. Half their female population is involved in prostitution, and about a quarter of the males. That’s what happens to the local girls, Rachel. Take a good look.’ He fixed her with a particularly unpleasant smile. ‘Oh, and anyone with detectable mods ends up either castrated or burned, mostly at parties.’ He sounded almost amused.

  Will shivered. Was this the kind of fate Galatea could look forward to if the Earthers won? If it were, then maybe extinction at the hands of the Transcended would be a blessing.

  ‘It’s no great surprise this planet’s got such a rabid resistance movement,’ said John. ‘They hate the Earthers like no one else. And they have the added advantage that most of the soldiers they’re fighting are drunk or stoned or both. But the funny thing’ – John raised a conspiratorial finger – ‘is that the troops have got particularly out of hand recently. Despite the fact that they came here to save the locals from their depraved habits, they appear to have adopted a lot of them along the way. You’re deeply surprised at that, I’m sure. But anyway, the black market in twisted entertainment ends up supporting the resistance. The fucking Earthers are paying for it out of their own pockets. Isn’t that great?’

  ‘Terrific,’ Rachel snarled.

  John gave her a bitter look. ‘Not my fault if you can’t appreciate a n
ice bit of irony,’ he said, and turned back to watch the road.

  He drove them to an apartment building in nondescript magenta on a quiet street lined with ginkgo trees that had been left to die. He stopped the transport and turned around to face them again.

  ‘We know,’ snapped Rachel before he could open his mouth. ‘Wait here.’

  ‘You got it,’ said John with a wink. He exited the transport, walked up to the front door and disappeared inside.

  Will and the others sat and waited. Minutes blended together to make an hour. An armed patrol in red and yellow strolled past them. They stopped to interrogate a girl in a short skirt and impractical shoes hurrying from one building to another. Will watched as she broke down in tears in front of them. They let her go with no more than a squeeze of her ass. Still John did not emerge.

  ‘Do you suppose he’s dead?’ Hugo said at last.

  ‘Shut up, Hugo,’ muttered Rachel.

  Eventually, John appeared in the doorway and jogged back over to them. Rachel exhaled in relief at the sight of him.

  ‘Do we go in now?’ Hugo asked as John climbed in.

  ‘Of course not,’ John snapped. ‘That’s not how it works.’

  He drove off with a lurch. Evidently, whatever happened inside hadn’t put him in the best of moods.

  ‘You want to talk about it?’ said Rachel.

  ‘Not particularly.’

  They pulled into the parking lot of what looked to Will like some kind of office building clad in contoured gold panels. Some of the panels had been ripped off. Others were crazed with fracture patterns from bullet impacts.

  ‘All right, everybody out,’ said John. ‘Same rules apply – move quickly and don’t talk.’

  There was no door, only black scarring around the frame. John led them across the ruined, barren lobby and up three flights of utilitarian stairs to a room without furniture or decoration. There was a dented, plastic door at the far end and security cameras in the ceiling corners. Rachel and Hugo leaned Will up against the cream-coloured polycrete wall.

  ‘Now what?’ said Rachel.

  ‘Now we wait,’ replied John in a patronising voice.

  So they waited for another hour as the sun slid down the Angeleno sky and shone in through the thickest part of the tent. It filled the room with eerie rust-coloured light.

  At long last, the door opened. A man appeared on the other side dressed in a blousy shirt and trousers of matching cerise pink. He was unnaturally tall, with an absurdly handsome face, a shock of shoulder-length golden hair and eyes so blue they looked painted. He reminded Will of a character from a children’s interactive, except that his rugged features were distorted into a very real expression of disgust.

  In one hand, he held a small, equally real gun.

  ‘In,’ he ordered, gesturing with the weapon.

  Inside was another bare room, windowless this time, and lit from above by a single lamp. In the middle was a table with four chairs on one side and one on the other. Four large Angelenos stood in the corners with arms folded across their massive chests and guns in their belts. All were as good-looking as the first. They could have been brothers.

  John had been right, Will realised. There was no way they could have passed themselves off as Angelenos. These people made the crew of the Ariel look like ugly dwarves.

  Seated at the table facing them was the most striking occupant of all – a hard-eyed, middle-aged woman with short black hair. Her doll-like beauty was marred by a scar running from her temple to her jaw. Her face was set in a scowl of barely suppressed fury.

  ‘Sit down,’ she told them in a drawly Angeleno accent.

  ‘Metta, good to see you again,’ said John with an easy smile.

  ‘Shut the fuck up, Yoric.’

  Will glanced at John. Clearly this was some pseudonym he used. Metta probably wasn’t a real name, either.

  ‘Have you any conception of the trouble your people have caused us?’ Metta added.

  John raised an eyebrow. ‘Trouble?’

  ‘We’re facing the worst clamp-down we’ve seen in this place since the invasion and it’s all over one fucking ship. A Gallie ship. And I don’t doubt for a second that it’s yours. This trouble’s got your stink all over it.’

  John sat back and looked surprised. ‘We didn’t have any trouble getting in.’

  ‘Don’t give yourself any awards just yet, fly boy,’ said Metta. ‘We’ve been running interference with traffic control ever since the new orders came in. We’ve got half a dozen agents still trapped in the outer system and your being here isn’t making it any easier to bring them home.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said John.

  ‘Don’t be. It’s none of your damn business.’

  John leaned forwards again. ‘We can be out of your hair in a matter of days. All we need—’

  Metta’s eyes narrowed. ‘I know what you need and there’s not a chance.’

  ‘Metta—’

  She graced him with a sneer. ‘Do you really not know what’s going on? Every fuelling star between here and your front line is under watch. The Earthers have put triple guard around all our factories. Half my agents in juice-production are dead. The rest are scared shitless. There is no antimatter.’

  Will was surprised to discover that he felt relieved. Now they’d have to change their plans. Perhaps they’d hijack another starship instead and he’d get to keep his micromachines.

  ‘That’s not all we need,’ said John. He gestured at Will. ‘Our roboteer requires medical attention. He’s suffering implant rejection, and if he doesn’t get help soon, he’s going to die.’

  ‘John—’ Will started, but Rachel squeezed his arm hard.

  Metta surveyed Will with cold, china-blue eyes. He had the uncomfortable sensation of being assessed like a robot about to be broken up for scrap.

  ‘Forget the fuel for a minute,’ said John. ‘Will needs help and you owe us. Or have you forgotten about the hackpacks I brought you?’

  Metta snorted at him. ‘Calling in favours, Yoric? You must be desperate.’

  ‘He’s not just crew, Metta,’ said John. ‘He’s important to the war effort. Really. You have no idea how much.’

  ‘No, I really don’t,’ Metta replied. ‘Can you tell me what the fucking point is in fixing up handler-boy here if you can’t get him home?’

  John smiled. ‘Plenty. We have new intelligence we can share with you like you wouldn’t believe. And most of it’s in his head. Plus I can help you with the fuel problem. Maybe get your people back, too.’

  ‘I doubt it.’

  ‘Just give us a chance, Metta,’ said John. ‘I swear in Carmen’s name you won’t regret it.’

  Metta stared at him oddly for several seconds. ‘All right. Someone will have a look at him,’ she said at last.

  Will’s heart sank.

  Metta turned to the man standing at the door. ‘Stone, get them a destination.’

  Stone nodded and left the room. He came back a moment later with a piece of paper in his hand, which he passed to John.

  Metta stood. ‘Don’t leave this place for another thirty minutes,’ she ordered, ‘then make your way to the destination. No funny stuff, Yoric. We’ll be watching you.’

  With that, she left, her musclemen in tow. The door clicked shut behind them.

  Will took his chance. ‘John, we don’t have to go through with this. Look.’ He grabbed the table and levered himself slowly upright. ‘I’m getting better fast.’

  John shook his head. ‘Sorry, Will. I don’t buy it.’

  ‘Maybe he’s right, John,’ said Rachel. ‘We came here to stop the effects of the virus. We didn’t even expect him to wake up. Now he’s walking around on his own.’

  John laughed at her. ‘Because the thing in his head knows what’s going to happen to it.’

  ‘The thing in my head, as you call it, is trying to help us,’ Will said impatiently.

  ‘Right,’ John retorted. ‘Despite the fact tha
t it started acting up the moment we stopped doing what it wanted.’

  Will shook his head. ‘It started acting up because I activated another puzzle.’

  John looked unimpressed. He planted an indolent finger in the middle of his own chest. ‘You want me to disobey orders? I’ll kill you before I do that.’ He walked away from the table to stand in the corner and tap on his keyboard.

  A long, uneasy silence followed. Hugo spoke up to fill it.

  ‘If the resistance won’t help us, maybe we should make some other arrangement.’

  ‘Like what?’ Rachel snapped.

  John only smirked at them.

  When their time limit was up, they left the way they’d come and drove through the city again. Night had fallen. Drunken soldiers staggered down the street in packs. Fragile-looking women with unlikely physiques lolled in doorways, beckoning to them.

  Their next destination was another anonymous apartment building much like the first. This one was built on a rise, near one of the great tent-masts. The mast made a long black stripe against the mauve glow of reflected city light on the polymer far overhead.

  John led them into the building and knocked twice on a door at the end of a corridor with stippled canary-yellow walls. They were let into a high-ceilinged space that was clearly someone’s living room. There was thick orange carpet on the floor and family holopanels on the walls. The room, however, had been filled with humming medical equipment.

  A thin Angeleno dressed in a white smock with an elegant patrician face stood waiting for them. He had an old-fashioned data visor over his eyes and a hypodermic gun in his hand. Behind him was something like the Angeleno equivalent of a muscle-tank.

  Will took in the scene with a sudden lurch of fear. He slipped into his home node one last time. ‘Help!’ he yelled.

  Still there was no answer, but Will recalled what the Transcended had said last time. They wanted to see how he reacted. How far he’d push his social instincts. Maybe that was the answer.

  He turned to John. ‘I won’t do this,’ he said firmly. ‘It’s a mistake.’

  ‘Fine,’ said John. He took a gun from his pocket and fired it at Will’s chest.