by Tara Tyler
“Can I hep you?”
“Yes, sir. Is Rage here?”
“He went to make a pickup. Whatch’y’all lovely ladies need?” His coarse Southern twang was hard to understand.
Aimee waved. “Hi. My grandma wants her car upgraded.”
Geri lifted an eyebrow at Aimee. She didn’t appreciate how the girl implied Geri was the grandma, but kept up the ruse of their story. Though she thought she looked too young to be the girl’s mother, never mind grandmother. And she was too young. To ease her mind, Geri reminded herself of her private, made-up backstory, that she had remarried the girl’s father for his money and was ten years younger than him.
“Yes. My mother-in-law doesn’t get out much and wants to pass this car down to Angie here. This old car needs some work. My hairdresser said I should come here and see Rage.”
The grimy man touched a finger to a comlink in his ear, probably listening to instructions, and nodded.
“Aight. Park straight ta head. Rage be back right quick.”
The image faded and the gate opened. As Geri drove ahead, the tires bumped over one-way spikes. So they wouldn’t be leaving that way in a hurry. They’d have to scope the place for an alternate exit route, just in case.
As gravel crunched under the tires, Geri looked around the dusty lot. Flattened old vehicles lined the fence, stacked up on top of each other like bricks of a mighty car castle wall, the second line of defense if invaders made it past the outer electric fence deterrent. Geri expected to see vats of boiling oil on the roof ready to pour if someone gave the signal.
Lining the right side of the long, two-story building, high towers of tires stood, protecting it further. As Geri parked in front of the building, she noticed the gutters were barely hanging on and the outer spotlight above them was broken. It felt more like a scrapyard than a garage, similar in run-downness to Rage’s old digs, but much larger, and she could hear clanking activity inside.
Matching the fence, the beat-up building wore peeling paint, foggy windows, and rust stains, but Geri glimpsed two satellite dishes peeking over the edge of the roof. The display shouted at undesirable, legitimate customers to scare them away. Rage’s real customers knew better, like she did.
Next to the two closed vehicle entryways, Greasy Coveralls Guy met them at the man door and made no attempt to hide his leering. At least he didn’t show favoritism to young, sweet Aimee. He smelled of sweat and grease piled on top of a lingering unhealthy body odor, as Geri expected. Holding the door open, he pointed for them to have a seat.
The reception area was another pit of despair. Geri decided the safest place to sit would be on the worn-out couch. The metal folding chairs were so rusty, they didn’t look like they could support a note tablet, never mind a person.
Aimee wiped off one of the cracked vinyl cushions and sat down gently, not wanting to get her flowered yellow mini-dress and matching canary leggings dirty. She was doing a great job acting like a naïve customer, or maybe she really was worried about it. The girl wasn’t very sensible, unlike Geri, who wore old jeans and a torn t-shirt over her shockproof tank top. She might have to go through Aimee’s closet and give her some fashion advice for appropriate work attire.
The disgusting man followed them in and gave them a creepy smile, showing his blackened teeth again.
“Rage be wit’ you inamin,” he said and sat at the wobbly receptionist desk. This troll was the best customer prevention incentive Geri had seen so far. The women were conspicuous just for entering the building with him, and he was now their guard.
In the faint light shining through the cloudy windows, Geri noticed one of the grease smudges on the guy’s neck was really the head of a snake peeking out of his collar. It gave her the shivers, as it meant he was a member of one of the warring street gangs. On the wall behind him was an obvious two-way mirror and next to that, a door with the BOSS carved into it. She assumed the door next to them on the other side of the couch led to the garage.
As Aimee leaned over to her, most likely to whisper her assessment of the situation, Geri shook her head and smiled at her. Lifting her eyebrows, Geri directed Aimee to look at the camera in the corner of the ceiling above the vulgar, grinning gearhead.
Aimee gave a half smile back and sighed.
“You’re not a stinking used car dealer. You’re a stinking undercover cop. I know a dick when I smell one.” Rage sniffed the air in Cooper’s direction.
“Smelled a lot of dicks, Rage?” Cooper grinned at his own wit, but it probably wasn’t the best choice of words, since Rage was flanked by two overgrown grease monkeys. Being on Rage’s turf, Cooper decided he should try to hold back on the insults.
The back of the garage had just as much junk as the front, making it hard to tell which cars belonged to the mechanics and which ones needed work. And the building was large enough to hide more muscled morons and dangerous, weapon-like machinery. Rage could have traps hidden anywhere inside the building or outside among the wreckage.
Rage sneered like a Chihuahua, and was about the size of one compared to his Rottweiler buddies. “What do you want, dick?”
Cooper went to Rage’s garage after talking to one of his previous clients, whom Cooper helped clear from being framed for a robbery. When he mentioned clone androids, the guy immediately brought up Rage. He said he was always bragging about his realistic droids, even claimed he sold a couple of hot android chicks to a pimp and no one could tell the difference. A simulation would be right in Rage’s wheelhouse. Cooper put the new information together with the story of the strange guy Stu told him about, claiming a body and being excited about it. Maybe it had been one of his creations. Though Cooper was assuming a lot, he had to start somewhere, and Rage seemed like a good bet.
He intended to just ask Rage a few questions. But the short, young Indian had his hair up on the back of his neck as soon as Cooper pulled in. The dynamic duo who greeted him inside the gate made him drive around to the rear of the lot and wait outside. Every inch of the place was fortified with crushed, flattened, cubed, or chopped-in-half beaters. When he parked, he noticed the back gate was blocked off by—what else—another heap of wrecked cars.
Never one to go in with a plan, Cooper always hoped for the best and prepared for the worst, assessing situations as they presented themselves. And he always assumed he was smarter than any criminal who was stupid enough to break the law in the first place.
Cooper stuck out his chin and looked down at the little guy. “I need a spare part.”
Rage crossed his arms over his chest, thinking he would call Cooper’s bluff. “What’s the make and model?”
Might as well get to the point. The fake story wasn’t going to cut it with the paranoid little man’s defenses up. Cooper gave Rage the bald truth of who he was looking for and stood ready for whatever the little guy dished back out to him.
“A McFarland Wells.”
Rage gasped and his eyes bugged. “A what?”
That struck a nerve. “You can’t fool me, Rage. I heard you’re making simulations.”
Though Cooper had already shocked the truth out of him, Rage went deeper on the defensive and tried to play dumb, which wasn’t much of a stretch for him.
“What the hell is a simulation? Look, dick, if you don’t need a car part, you need to rough it.” Rage touched his QV.
“What?” That made no sense. Something about his failed attempt at old American slang reminded him of someone.
Rage waved him away. “Find it someplace else. Get to hoofin’!”
Cooper smirked at him.
Before Rage had a chance to butcher any more slang, three more burly mechanics jogged out from the back of the garage.
The slimy pig-man touched his ear, listening again. “I gotta go. Doan leave now, hear?”
Geri crossed her heart for him.
He smiled, creeping her out again, and left through the door next to the couch, locking it behind him. The loud whirring and clanking of machinery
echoing in from the door confirmed it as the garage.
As soon as the door shut, Aimee opened her QV and pulled up a game. Geri held back from reprimanding her to see what she was up to. Her protégé opened a subframe and typed in some codes while the sounds of the game played on. After a few seconds, a video appeared on another subframe displaying Geri and Aimee sitting on the couch in the repulsive reception area. Aimee had juiced Rage’s surveillance cam. Good girl!
Geri watched Aimee work and pretended to be enthralled with Aimee’s game. She touched record, performing the basic procedure of recording a still of their positions on the couch to replay the scene over and over for anyone watching. Then they could go to work.
“Okay, we can move now. But I still need to do Rage’s office.”
Geri patted the girl’s shoulder. “Great work, Aimee.”
She grinned back at her. The girl was definitely bright, and a techie whiz.
While Aimee found Rage’s office cam feed, Geri got up and tried the door to it. Locked, of course. She opened her QV devices and when she found the one she wanted, aimed it at the door. The unlock program told her it was an old-fashioned bolt lock with an electric seal and required a remote to open it. If picked manually, it shocked the perpetrator.
Then the program prompted, Would you like to proceed?
“Yes, thank you, I would,” Geri said to her QV and touched Accept.
“Geri, Rage’s office is good to go.”
“Great. I’ve almost got it open.”
The door clicked. Geri, wary of the shock possibility, grabbed the bottom of her shockproof tank top and put it over the knob to turn it. No sign of a jolt. Once she opened the door, she paused and peeked in, bracing for the ceiling to crash down on her or a bucket of bolts to fall on her head.. The office inside was cleaner and more updated than the raggedy reception area. After a moment of nothing, she shrugged and risked sitting at Rage’s sleek desk, ready to go to work on his compucenter files. Pulling a stick drive transmitter out of her pocket, she plugged the one-inch long metal rod into a port in the desk CC imager, making it come to life.
The stick transmitter called Nate, the juicing genius back at FBI headquarters.
“Hey, Nate.”
“Hey, Geri,” he said into her earpiece. “Give me a second to get you set up.”
Geri watched Nate dance around the security measures on the 3D imager hovering over the desk. In no time he infiltrated all of Rage’s firewalls, leaving her free to rummage through the files.
“You’re all set. Make sure you erase the history and shut everything before removing the stick drive so it will be harder for him to suspect he was juiced.”
“Great. Thanks.” Geri disconnected and went to work looking for files on DNA mutation.
Aimee came in and watched Geri from the doorway, keeping an eye on the door to the garage.
A commotion of angry voices reached through Rage’s office window. Geri and Aimee eyed each other.
Geri went back to her search. “See if you can check that out.”
On her tiptoes, Aimee tried to peer through the dirty glass. “I can’t see anything, it’s too smudged. It sounds like someone is fighting. I think we should go back and wait on the couch.”
This is where you find out what you’re made of, rookie. Geri thrived on the adrenaline. The threat of someone walking in on them pumped her up, and she grinned as she kept searching. There!
“I found something. I just need to copy this file. I’ll be done in a sec. Get back into position and be ready to cut off the replays.”
Aimee scooted back to the couch. She whispered urgently to Geri, still in the office, “Hurry! I think someone’s coming!”
When Geri finished the download, she shut down the CC and grabbed the stick drive. No time to erase the history. As soon as she closed the office door, the gross mechanic barged into the reception area. Geri pretended to be impatiently waiting with her arms crossed, and tapped her foot.
“It’s about time. What’s going on out there?”
“Sorry, girls. You best come back ‘nother day. Sumfin come up.” He reached for the girls to get them to move.
Avoiding his grasp, Geri and Aimee squirmed away from him and out the door they came in.
They heard more raised voices and banging as they got in the car.
The guy pointed to the front gate for them to leave.
Geri hesitated to go that way, remembering the one-way spikes, until she saw the mechanic reach into the garage. He pushed something to retract the blades at the gate.
Speeding away, Geri was glad she didn’t have to get her hands dirty. Even though she didn’t get to speak to Rage, at least they got some information.
“I think you know exactly what a simulation is.” Cooper took a step backward as Rage’s goons moved in. The new ones had long, sharp, heavy-looking tools, and they slapped them in their palms, trying to intimidate Cooper. It was working.
“Well, I think you need to go and mind your own monkey business.”
This guy’s mixed up slang sounds a lot like Hasan.
“Look, Rage. I don’t want any trouble.” Cooper raised his hands and pushed a button on his QV. A shimmer spread from it to cover his whole body.
Rage and his men paused. “What the hell is that?”
“A personal force field. My friend made it for me.” Another of the gadgets Hasan had given Cooper to test. He hoped this one worked, but he wouldn’t bet his life on it.
“Then let’s try it out. Get him, boys!”
All five guys attacked Cooper at once.
Cooper kicked the first one in the gut and chopped at the second.
As soon as the guys made contact with Cooper’s force field, they bounced back several feet with the enhanced electric charge.
Before he could admire the effect, the next two grabbed his arms to hold him for the last guy, who was raring back to hit him in the head with one of the ominous-looking tools. The guys holding him quickly let go after receiving shocks, and Cooper swerved out of the way of the third thug’s swing.
The tool, which looked like some kind of giant wrench, glanced off Cooper’s shoulder and knocked him off-balance, sending him to the ground. Cooper felt the pressure of the reverse force of the blow, but no pain. That was a relief.
The wrench bounced off the force field and sprang back over the goon’s head, making the guy stagger. It also conducted an electric charge through the metal tool, shocking him. He dropped the live wrench on his own head and went down with a yelp.
With that last impact, Cooper noticed a slight ripple in the force field. As he hopped back up, he hoped it held.
Rage aimed his electrogun at Cooper’s chest. “Is it shock proof?”
“Of course.” Cooper didn’t know for sure and didn’t want to find out. As he ran for his car, he pushed another button on his QV, starting the vehicle and popping the door open.
Just before Cooper reached the car, Rage’s shot struck him in the back. Cooper felt a disturbance in the force field and it shuddered, but stayed intact.
Until the second blast hit. Then the force field shorted out, blinking on and off, but Cooper was already inside the car. After absorbing the blast, the force field went completely dead, dissipating as he slammed the door shut. He took off with a grin at Rage and sped out the front gate.
Atlanta, GA
Wednesday, June 17, 2082
“Rajul? What is it?” The Colonel stood by a topiary arrangement in the back of the restaurant to take the call. Perturbed he had to leave his table, he made sure he could still keep an eye on Wells, sitting with two fellow committee members.
Rajul frowned, clearly afraid to confess his sins. “I had a couple of, um, unscheduled visitors today.”
“And?” Get on with it, boy. I don’t have time for hemmin’ and hawin’. The Colonel could not be away from Wells for too long. He had to help his protégé voice the appropriate responses. Wells was still very green.
�
��One was a woman and her step-daughter and the other was a private dick, I mean, detective.”
Though Rajul tried to sound annoyed, forcing his frown into a nervous smile/sneer, the Colonel could see how ruffled the boy was. Regardless, he needed to spit out what he had to say so Crews could return to his luncheon.
“So? What about them?” Watching Wells stare blankly at the centerpiece on the table, the Colonel huffed and pushed a button on the fob in his hand.
The automaton Wells smiled at the ladies sitting with him at the table and they smiled back. Thankfully the waiter dropped off salads. The Colonel had Wells thank the server, make a comment on how appetizing the salads looked, and concentrate on eating. That should keep him busy for a few minutes.
When Crews looked back at Rajul on his QV, the incompetent electrician was wringing his hands.
“The woman went through my CC files. I think she copied my DNA mutation data.”
So not one, but two snoops were interested in Rajul’s experimenting. This boy was proving to be more trouble than he was worth. The Colonel faced the wall.
“That isn’t good, Rajul. Why would someone be searching for such things? And on your compucenter? Didn’t you follow through with the destruction of the evidence? There were to be no traces!”
His hushed scolding drew a few glances from nearby patrons, causing him to huddle closer to the potted tree next to him. Though the Colonel was severely annoyed at another display of Rajul’s incompetence, this was not the time to let it upset him. He breathed deeply and composed himself. Straightening his tie, he turned back around to keep an eye on Wells.
When the ladies glanced his way, the Colonel smiled and shrugged apologetically at them.
