TekWar

by William Shatner

  Jake said, “Does Bascom do favors like that for all his employees—or just for the ones with Latino charm?”

  Gomez consulted his feet again. “Actually, Jake, I had to promise the detective agency a favor in return.”

  “A favor that you do—or one that we both have to work on?”

  “Both of us, as a team. And—trust me, amigo—it’s damn lucky for us that this particular case came up just when it did. Otherwise you might still be languishing in the Freezer.”

  Jake leaned forward, resting his palms on his knees. “Okay, give me the details on this favor, Gomez.”

  “First off—you don’t, do you, have any major or massive objections to working for Cosmos as an operative yourself?”

  Jake shook his head. “Nope.”

  “Even if you had to, say, travel across the border—into the Borderland and Mexico itself?”

  “Nope.”

  “Even if you might have to enter a war zone that is at present controlled by hot-blooded and wild-eyed rebels?”

  “That wouldn’t bother me, no.”

  Gomez nodded, his hair swaying some. “Bueno. That’s gratifying,” he said. “Oh, and one other item. I assume you’d have no serious objection to dealing directly with a former ladyfriend of yours? She is, according to all reports, still muy bonita and—”

  “Whoa, now.” Jake got to his feet. “You’re talking about Warbride, aren’t you?”

  “Well, yes,” admitted his friend. “That quaintly nicknamed lady revolutionary is who I am alluding to.”

  “Why’s the Cosmos Detective Agency interested in a small-time guerrilla leader who does a little smuggling on the side?”

  “Things have changed considerably down there whilst you’ve been away. Warbride has upped her status a good deal,” Gomez told him. “She now heads a substantial rebel army, and only last month they took over control of the whole blooming state of Chihuahua.”

  “And this case—it involves Chihuahua?”

  “Yep, it does.”

  “C’mon, Gomez, Cosmos must have ops on staff who know their way around that part of Mexico.”

  “We had several who thought they did.” Gomez shook his head and his hair seemed to bounce. “Three of our operatives thus far have ventured south of the border. None has gotten around to reporting back or even to leaving a clue as to present whereabouts. Bascom now believes, thanks in good measure to my powers of persuasion, that since you and Warbride were once close buddies, you are the man who can get safely into—”

  “We weren’t friends. We just slept together,” Jake said. “That woman is mean-minded, foul-tempered—”

  “Let me, Jake, hasten to explain to you that my boss is not exactly as enthusiastic about you as I am. Were you to turn this little chore down, he might well regret he used his considerable influence to get you out of the icebox.”

  Jake pointed a thumb at the ceiling. “Meaning I might end up back at the Freezer if I don’t take this job?”

  “It’s, amigo, a possibility worth mentioning.”

  Sitting, Jake said, “I tell you, Gomez, the way I’m feeling just now—maybe I wouldn’t mind going back up there.”

  “You’re merely suffering from post-Tek depression. That’ll pass.”

  “I’d like to think about it.” Jake leaned back. “About whether I want to work for Cosmos or not. But you might as well give me the rest of the details on this case.”

  Brightening, Gomez extracted three triop photos from an inner pocket of his orange sport jacket. “Here are some visuals for you to contemplate, the two central figures in this business.” He handed the pictures across. “Two shots of Dr. Leon Kittridge, age fifty-six. One of his daughter Beth Kittridge, age twenty-six. She’s somewhat pretty, huh? Too slim for my taste and I favor blondes, since they’re usually more capable of inflicting the sort of nastiness I require seemingly in my dealings with members of the ... Jake, what’s wrong?”

  Jake was studying one of the photos, a disturbed expression on his face. The young woman in the three-dimensional photo was dark-haired, slim and pretty. She wore a simple suit-dress and was standing on a sunbright stretch of afternoon beach, smiling in a quiet way. “Nothing really, I guess,” he said slowly. “Beth Kittridge looks familiar and—I had the impression I’d seen her recently.” He turned his attention again to the two pictures of Dr. Kittridge, a lean, tanned man with short-cropped graying hair. “Obviously I couldn’t have seen Beth Kittridge lately, her or anyone else.”

  “You could have seen both of them before you went away,” suggested Gomez. “Kittridge is a well-known electronics expert, worked in industry and taught at universities around here. What you call a prominent member of the scientific community. His daughter is something of an electronics wizard, too, and she’s been helping the old boy in his researches of late.”

  Jake said, “Hey, fifty-six isn’t that old. I’m little more than a half dozen years from there myself, Gomez.”

  “And when you arrive there, I’ll call you ‘old boy,’ too,” he said. “Speaking the truth is one of my specialties.”

  Jake looked again at Beth. “How do the Kittridges tie in with this assignment?”

  “They are the assignment, amigo,” he replied. “Don’t, by the way, get too interested in the young lady. It may well turn out that both she and her pop are dead and gone.”

  Jake dropped all three photos to the table. “Were they killed down in Mexico?”

  “That’s one of the questions we’re going to have to answer,” said Gomez. “It seems Dr. Kittridge and his daughter were traveling in Mexico last week in their skycruiser. While they were flying over a Great Forest area the ship maybe crashed: This particular Selva Grande now happens to be deep in the territory your pal Warbride and her troops control. All that’s come out thus far is a highly suspect report made by some louts who claim to be the local law. They say the ship was apparently wrecked and that both the doctor and Beth are probably dead.”

  “That’s all pretty damn vague.”

  “Yeah, exactly. One of the big insurance outfits—Moonbase-Hartford actually—that retains Cosmos issued a large life-policy on both the doctor and his daughter. So they want definite proof as to whether either or both of them is dead—or should that be ‘are’ dead? Either way, that’s basically what the job is. We’ve got to get down there, find out the fate of the Kittridges and live to file a report. Be nice if along the way we also found out what happened to our own ops whom we’ve lost touch with.”

  “That forest is part of the worldwide project to control the greenhouse effect,” said Jake. “Don’t the United Nations forces have ranger stations in the—”

  “Nobody can get any word out of that particular selva. There are supposed to be two ranger stations devoted to the policing of that million acres of giant trees. But they’re simply not reporting in any longer and can’t be reached by any traditional means of communication.”

  Picking up the photos, Jake shuffled them and then brought Beth’s to the top. “Be a shame if she’s dead,” he said.

  “Both of them could be dead, both could be alive. Cosmos has to find out which it is.” He sat quietly for a few seconds. “Bascom wants to see you mañana, by early afternoon at the latest. We’re obliged to move fast on this—and the Moonbase-Hartford folks are growing, with some justification, a bit impatient.”

  “You and I will be working together?”

  “If you don’t mind. We weren’t a bad team.”

  “No, we weren’t,” agreed Jake. “Okay, I’ll think about it and let you know tomorrow.”

  “Early.”

  “Early,” promised Jake. “Do you have any information on Kate?”

  Gomez eased up out of the chair. “I know she divorced you a couple years back. Once you were gone, Jake, she and I didn’t see much of each other. I did get an Xmasfax from her last year.”

  “Any idea where Dan’s going to school down there?”

  “None, but we can fin
d out easy enough.”

  “I’ve already got somebody working on that.”

  Gomez moved in the direction of the door. “You might be better off not trying to see her,” he suggested. “Of course, coming from a man who’s had three wives thus far, this advice may not strike you as that of an expert on how to get along with the ladies.”

  “Three?”

  “Amy and I parted while you were away. I have a new one now. Another blonde—most of my relatives claim they can’t tell her from the last one,” he said. “Jake, I really hope you’ll take this Cosmos thing.”

  “Early tomorrow—I’ll phone you.”

  Gomez pulled the door open, took a step into the corridor. “About the stuff—go easy, amigo.”

  “I will. And thanks for getting me out,” They shook hands.

  “Keep in mind that you’ve still got a way to go.” Giving him a grin and a lazy salute, he took his leave.

  Jake returned to the bedroom. He gathered up his Tek gear and stood looking at it. Finally he pushed the bed aside and stashed it all away.

  9

  JAKE WOKE UP.

  It was an interesting, and basically pleasant, experience. And something Jake hadn’t done recently.

  Yawning, he sat up in bed and stretched.

  “It’s exactly 9:14 A.M.,” announced the voxbox implanted in the side of the bed.

  “Thanks for the information.”

  “Since you didn’t leave a wake-up call, the apartment decided to let you sleep until—”

  “A wise decision.” Jake swung free of the big bed. “Now hush.”

  “As you wish.”

  Grinning, Jake barefooted across the room and touched the door of the shower stall. Recognizing his palm print, it slid aside.

  “Good morning, Mr. Cardigan. It’s April 4, 2120, 9:16 A.M. The outside temperature in the Pasadena Sector of Greater Los Angeles is 67 degrees and—”

  “Do something for me,” he requested of the stall’s voxbox.

  “Anything you wish, sir.”

  “Don’t talk to me.”

  “We’re simply doing our best to get you ready in a cheerful way for another stressful day in—”

  “Even so.” Shedding the pajama top he’d slept in, Jake entered the stall and shut the door.

  He scanned the choices on the control panel, decided on a sixty-second warm-water shower and pushed the correct button.

  After leaving the alcove, he crossed to his closet. “Most of this stuff is probably out of style by now,” he said to himself as the door opened to display his four-year-old-and-more wardrobe. “I should’ve asked Gomez what’s fashionable nowadays—no, forget that. His notions tend to include materials that glow in the dark or cause severe headaches to look at for more than a few seconds.”

  The bed voxbox said, “Uh ... hum.”

  “What?” Jake picked a quiet blue suit.

  “We were thinking about preparing your breakfast, sir, but if you’re going to continue in this grouchy mood, perhaps you’d rather skip the whole—”

  “Tell you what,” Jake said. “Put the kitchen on manual.”

  “Beg pardon?”

  “I’ll fix my own breakfast. We do have groceries?”

  “Of course, sir. They were supplied to the pantry from the condo complex’s food warehouse within minutes of your return home.”

  “Good.”

  “Uh ... hum.”

  “What?”

  “Do you mean you want to do everything?”

  “Sure.”

  “Including cleaning up afterwards?”

  Jake laughed. “I guess you guys can take care of that.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Dressed, he went down the hall to the small yellow and white kitchen. He was enjoying all the simple rituals of getting up in the morning, he found. Although Jake’s life wasn’t at one of its high points right now, he basically liked it.

  “And it’s several notches above the Freezer.”

  He opened the yellow pantry door, grabbed two of the square green oranges that they produced up at the Fresno Sector biotech farms.

  “I’m going to take the Cosmos job,” he said, crouching and looking on the lower kitchen shelves for a plasglass. “First place, I owe it to Gomez for helping to get me out. And it’ll be good to work with him again. Until he showed up last night, I wasn’t even certain he hadn’t decided I was as crooked as everyone else thinks I am.”

  “Phone, phone,” called the voice of the computer terminal in the living room.

  Setting the glass and the cubic oranges on the table, he hurried in to the phone alcove. “Yes?”

  “Buenos días,” said Gomez, whose curly hair was looking especially lively this morning.

  “I’ve made up my mind,” said Jake, sitting and nodding at the phonescreen. “I’m going to take the—”

  “I figured you would, amigo,” cut in his partner. “Which is why I’m calling you. There’s a new development in the Kittridge business and you may as well tag along with me when—”

  “Gomez, what is that you’re decked out in?”

  He glanced down at himself. “A nightshirt.”

  “Black’s a strange color for—”

  “Black with orange spots. The spots keep it from being morbid. Now if you’re all finished heckling my sartorial state—listen to what I have to impart.”

  “Go ahead, I’m sorry. It’s just that I’m not used to seeing things like this so early in the—”

  “Late last night,” resumed Gomez in a very serious tone, “the Cosmos Agency was contacted by someone who claims to have information about Dr. Kittridge.” He glanced to his right, pushed something that was offscreen. “You should now be seeing a still pic of this very person.”

  The image of a plump, blonde woman of about forty-five appeared on the screen. Her hair was pulled back and she wore a pale blue lab coat. “Who is she?” asked Jake.

  “Her name is Dr. Hilda Danenberg and she’s a colleague of Dr. Kittridge’s at SoCal Tech,” answered Gomez, replacing the woman on the screen. “The lady would like to meet at a quiet, out-of-the-way spot. Therefore I’ve set up a rendezvous for noon today at the Malibu Sector Boardwalk, which has fallen on hard times of late and doesn’t attract hordes of patrons. You remember that Brazilian café where we used to have lunch?”

  “Sure. Is that still there? Lots of the old places seem to be gone.”

  “It’s still there, except it’s a biotech sandwich shop now. The doctor’ll be meeting us there in a back booth at the stroke of twelve,” he said. “I shall pick you up at the stroke of eleven. Okay?”

  “I’ll be here and waiting.”

  “Muy bien,” said Gomez. “And I’m tickled beyond measure that you’ve decided to join up with Cosmos.” He paused, glancing offscreen. “Did you enjoy a good night’s sleep?”

  “I’m not going to use the stuff again. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Jake stayed sitting in the alcove for several minutes. “Going to take awhile before even Gomez trusts me completely,” he said finally.

  It was exactly 10:00 A.M. and Jake was in the Chicano Colony of GLA when the earthquake struck. The cobblestone street began quivering, the two-story imitation-adobe buildings started to shake. A low, angry rumbling went passing under the ground.

  Sprinting, Jake got himself positioned in the doorway of Cheena’s Mexican Automat. Two red tiles, made of tough plas, came falling down off the slanting roof of the restaurant to land near his feet with a clacking noise.

  Someone laughed.

  A dark-haired girl of about eleven was riding calmly by on a small electrocycle, grinning at him and shaking her head pityingly. “What an abuela,” she observed, laughing at him again and then whizzing off down the bright morning street.

  The quake was over and Jake realized that the birds who’d been singing in the decorative trees in the nearby courtyard hadn’t even stopped singing during the tremors.

  “Apparen
tly,” he said to himself as he went on into the restaurant, “I’m overreacting.”

  The scent of strong spices was thick in the air, mingled with the smells of coffee and chocolate. All along two walls were cubicles covered by plasglass panels, and behind each sat a dish of Mexican food.

  A blonde young woman was inserting her Banx card in the slot beneath a cubicle offering a pastry when Jake crossed the threshold.

  And a small, dark, chubby man of fifty-six was jumping out of his chair at one of the small round tables across the big room.

  Running a zigzag course between the mostly empty tables, Jake reached him before his departure had progressed very far. “Rio,” Jake said, disappointment showing in his voice, “I get the impression you want to avoid me.”

  Rio allowed Jake to urge him back into his chair. “I avoid all minions of the law, Jake.”

  “I’m not a cop anymore,” reminded Jake, sitting and smiling evenly at the plump man. “I’m a convicted felon, remember?”

  “Oh, sí, that’s right.” Rio picked up the mug of cocoa he’d been about to abandon and gazed briefly up at the low, stuccoed ceiling. “You’ve been dormido.”

  “Want to ask you a few questions,” said Jake. “First off, though—why the hell was I the only one who got upset by that earthquake just now? A kid called me a grandmother.”

  Chuckling, Rio said, “While you were away, Juanito, the government of Greater Los Angeles introduced something new—been going on for near to two years. It’s a controlled quake plan. Once a week, at ten A.M. in the morning, they let off some pressure and we get a mild quake.” He shrugged. “I don’t know exactly how they do it, but we haven’t had a big one since they started this.”

  “I better study that booklet Winger gave me.”

  “Well, it’s certainly been great seeing—”

  Jake caught Rio’s arm, guided him down into a sitting position again. “Only a few more questions.”

  “Very well. For old time’s sake I can—You got to whap it, señorita.” He’d noticed the pretty blonde wasn’t getting her pastry. “The quakes futz up the mechanism sometimes. Here, allow me to—”