by J. S. Morin
“Ain’t murdered no one,” Roddy said, punctuated by a belch. “That’s the thing about lawless space: no laws.”
Amy laid her cards down on the table. “Yeah? Well tell that to Sephiera Kwon.”
Yomin shot Amy a sidelong glance. She had a pair of queens and was hoping to play them, not get bogged down in gossip.
“Chuck Ramsey had her disposed of… not playing the game his way.” Amy shook her head and picked up her cards.
A bad sector twisted in Yomin’s stomach. It wasn’t hard getting used to the illicit quanta flitting around the dark alleys of the omni. That was nice, clean hacking. The less she heard about the wetware side of this whole outlaw business, the better. “How’d Carl take the news?”
“He was pissed. I mean, of course he was.”
Roddy snickered into his beer. “You sure about that?”
“What’s that supposed to mean? Wait. Never mind. You’re just ringing door alarms. I’m not falling for that again.”
Yomin had been filled in on the sly by Esper. Carl wasn’t just a natural liar; he was supernaturally good at it. If it weren’t for a cadre of friends with years of loyalty built up toward him, she didn’t know how she could possibly trust him. Burrowing her way behind the datawall of that close-knit bunch was the key to her future on board the Mobius. If a goody-good like Esper could manage, then so could she. But it never helped when someone like Roddy, who knew Carl as well as anyone, kept casting aspersions.
“Like it would be the first time Carl wanted anyone offed. Kwon was nothing but a pain in the ass. She just happened to be about the only one on Ithaca with a real science background. With Shoni on staff—even if it’s not a permanent gig—Kwon’s just a liability. I mean, a year ago, Kwon was queen of the jungle savages. If you had a choice between that, plus six years of rust on her tech skills, and a Phabian Academy-trained laaku… well, it’s not astral navigation—which I think Shoni can do in her head.”
Amy snorted as she stared at her cards. “Bias.”
“Hey, mating practice is essential to species propagation. Gotta get it right when the time comes.”
“And I’m sure you didn’t put Chuck up to promoting her by getting rid of Kwon.”
“Sister, I got news for you. I don’t have that kind of pull with Carl’s dad. And if I did, I wouldn’t be wasting it on office politics. I’d siphon off enough funds from the syndicate to retire somewhere nice and comfy, with hot- and cold-running booze and a gaggle of non-judgmental, loose-moral girls to share it with.”
Yomin had to know… “Is this the sort of thing Carl would do? You know, to do you a favor? I mean, you’re best friends and all. Maybe he wanted a nice girl around so you don’t get lonely.”
Roddy let out a single guffaw. “Not likely. I’ve flown with that bastard for years now, and the next time he plays wingman for me will be the first. Lemme break this down for you real simple. Carl’s not a complicated guy; he just fakes it. He wants money, but doesn’t know what to do when he’s got it. He wants excitement, and he’s willing to gamble his safety to get it.” Roddy stared Amy in the eye. “He wants a nice girl to settle down with, but he doesn’t know a damn thing about settling down. He’s a flier and a liar, a drinker but not a thinker. He’s as good a friend as he can be but not half as good as he wishes he was. If it was legal to fly around the galaxy robbing people, Carl would take a desk job just to show the galaxy it can’t tell him what to do.”
“I raise,” Amy said, sliding a pile of coins into the middle. Without her datalens, it took Yomin a second to calculate the bet—eighteen terras.
Yomin wasn’t quite ready to abandon this opportunity to pry into Roddy’s perspective on her new employer. “So what’s the deal with this whole fiasco? What is it about Carl that has us chasing halfway around the galaxy after some guy who passed phony terras and reclaim a cargo that’s probably not worth a tenth what we’re trying to get for it?”
Roddy leaned back and put his feet up on the table, using his lower hands to take a peek at his cards. “There’s a lot of psychology I could slap together to try to figure out Carl. Could be it’s a sunk-cost fallacy driving him to recoup on money he thought was in his pocket. Maybe this is all ego. Might be that Carl knows something about that primordial sludge that we don’t—or he thinks he does. Could be that your whole Harmony Bay theory about this business got under his skin?”
“But you know him better than anyone, right?”
Roddy glanced over at Amy and shrugged.
“What do you think is with him?”
“Me? Personally? I think Carl needs to get hit over the head a few times and have his nose rubbed in his failures before he’ll admit he’s beaten.”
# # #
Even the roof access had an airlock. Carl supposed that if his planet were awash in ammonia, he’d lock down every egress, too. But it meant that even after cramming together while exiting the Mobius, they had to wait two full cycles of the factory’s airlock before both he and Juggler were inside. This time, there was no way both of them could fit at once.
Despite power running the decontamination cycle, the lights within the factory were out. The readout from the EV helm supplied an ultraviolet image overlay that shaded their surroundings in green and black.
“What do you think they used this place for?” Juggler asked. “I mean originally, before this swindler took it over as a hideout.”
“Building shit, I guess. I mean, that’s what factories do. In my experience, when a corporation abandons a place, they take anything valuable with them. So what they used to do here doesn’t matter much.”
“…unless any of it is still here, and it explodes, moves autonomously, or can otherwise be converted into a booby trap.”
Carl picked his way around an environmental regulator pipe. The blower at the end was inert, and his EV helm’s scanners confirmed the lack of breathable air. “When did the fearless Juggler turn into such a paranoid baby?”
“Day I became a dad. Hearing about things back on Ithaca doesn’t help, either.”
“Listen, Rach is fine. The kids are fine. Focus on the mission.” He felt like a squad commander again, calming frayed nerves before a big battle. Except this wasn’t going to be a big battle. Back at headquarters, he and Chuck were going to knock heads, but this slimy two-timer with Carl’s payday wasn’t going to know what hit him.
They found a stairwell adjacent to an empty lift shaft with a view of a two-story drop. Their footsteps echoed weirdly in the dense air.
“This reminds me of that dust-up on Minos Corva,” Juggler said. Carl’s reflex was to chide him for idle comm chatter in battle, but then decided to see where this was going. “I mean, we weren’t on foot, but that whole debris field afterward had the same eerie feel, ya know? Flying around those burnt out husks, walking these cramped, lightless corridors… same idea.”
“…and you caught blowback from that proximity mine,” Carl remembered, nodding. “That’s not going to happen this time. There’s a guy in here somewhere, hiding out with that case. Maybe even with real terras he was going to pay us if I hadn’t been too stupid to fall for the counterfeits.”
Esper piped up over the comm. “It’s not your fault. They looked real to me, too.”
“Esper? What the hell are you doing on this channel?” Carl asked. “We’re kind of in the middle of something.”
“You didn’t sound busy.”
“We are. Now switch to a different channel. Talk to Yomin or something.”
“Roger that. Um… could you give me a refresher on how to do that, exactly?”
Carl didn’t have time for this. He flipped over to the Mobius main comm channel instead. “Someone get Esper off this comm. She’s mucking up our banter. Me and Juggler got some reminiscing to do.”
When Carl came back onto the raid comm, he gave Juggler a nod and resumed their search. If it wasn’t bad enough dealing with Mort’s technophobia, now he had Esper devolving into a liability in a simple EV suit. Wasn’t
there some sort of program wizards could go through to keep basic tech skills? Hadn’t someone developed a system for that yet? Surely, some enterprising second-rate wizard could make a fortune coming up with a set of flash cards that taught their peers how to work a comm, a coffee pot, and a door alarm without ruining their magical reputation.
Juggler stuck his head through a doorway but didn’t set foot inside. “You getting any life readings? Got nothing on mine.”
“This thing hasn’t got life scanners. You’re the one with the fancy suit.”
“Yeah, well according to it, we’ve got three life forms on the roof, waiting in the Mobius, and one out front. No surprise it’s not reading Mort, but I’m pretty damn sure we’re the only living things in here.”
“The goo has bacteria or some shit in it.”
“Not calibrated to scan that small.”
“Just saying… your scanner’s not perfect.”
In the verdichrome display, it was barely noticeable, but down the corridor, it appeared as if there was light spilling from one of the doorways. When it went out abruptly, Carl was certain that’s what it had been.
“Did you see that?” Juggler asked.
Carl checked the power level on his blaster and nodded. “Yeah, let’s move.” He took the lead, pausing at the doorway. Tucked just out of line of sight with his blaster in both hands, he wondered what he had underlings for at all. Wasn’t he supposed to order Juggler to take point? But Carl didn’t have kids, and Juggler had Jax Jr. and Lisa to worry about. Somehow, that made a difference when it shouldn’t have. By any measure, Carl outranked him.
Instead, Carl turned toward his former squadron mate, looking into the blank, artificially illuminated visor that stared back at him. He imagined the two of them locking gazes. Juggler gave him a nod.
With all the suddenness he could muster, Carl whirled around the corner, blaster first. He swept his aim around the room but saw no sign of whoever had killed the lights. It was some sort of scientific workstation, with chemical flasks and beakers, a few scanners, and some tabletop equipment he couldn’t identify.
Juggler’s voice projected out through the speaker in his EV helm. “Come on out, you bastard! We know you’re in here.”
But Carl was distracted by the sight of his case on the central table. Its lid was popped open. It was empty. Rushing over, he searched the rest of the workstation. One of the specimen containers was parked under a scanner. Another two waited beside it. A fourth was open, under some sort of small environmental hood. Two more containers were half filled with liquid, and yet another two completely empty. Something was off in the math, because he could have sworn there had only been six. Then again, how carefully had he really checked that case?
“You have to the count of five,” Juggler continued to address the absent thief. “Then we’re taking this junk and sealing off the building while we level it.”
It was a good plan, but farther than Carl’s deal with the planetary authorities probably allowed. As a bluff, he was fine with it, but five thousand terras wasn’t enough to perform unsanctioned demolition, even if they were near the outskirts of the colony.
“Five… four… three…”
“Wait!” The familiar modulated voice shouted from a corner of the room. “Here I am. I’m unarmed. Please just lower your weapons. This isn’t worth dying over.”
Juggler lowered his weapon, but Carl took aim at the thief as he stood with upraised hands from his hiding spot behind a drum of some chemical Carl couldn’t pronounce. “Maybe not, but killing over remains to be seen. I’m willing to hear you out, though. You rip me off and make me chase you across a dozen star systems to get my cargo back. Why shouldn’t I dust you right here?”
“I appeal to your humanity.”
Carl tried to scratch his head, but it was cordoned off by the polymer composite of his helmet. “Come again? You’re… making a moral appeal, as one thief to another?”
“Please, just take your ill-won biochemicals and begone. Chalk up another win for the industry. Hoorah.” Despite the modulator program stripping away the human vocal qualities, the bitterness was unmistakable. “I won’t come after it, if that’s what you’re worried about, and you know I can’t turn to the authorities.”
“What, so Harmony Bay’s the good guys now? Fighting the good fight despite a galaxy bent on thwarting their magnanimous intentions? Get over yourself.”
The thief’s hands lowered. “Wait. You’re not working in acquisitions for Harmony Bay? They’ve been trying to reach their supplier for that shipment for weeks.”
Juggler put a hand on Carl’s blaster arm and guided his aim away from the thief’s chest. “Wait, if this guy thinks we’re with Harmony Bay…”
“…then he’s not working for them. Still, he might be trying to jump in for a cut of the action.”
Moving to the workstation, Juggler lifted one of the specimens. “What if he’s not working for anyone?”
“Thinking he’s using it himself?”
Juggler shook the specimen, sloshing the contents. “Hope this stuff’s still good. Or alive. Or in whatever condition we’re supposed to be delivering it.”
This was all wonderful. Maybe they had the samples back. Maybe they didn’t. If this guy had irradiated the microbes or mutated them, they had nothing but worthless swamp water. He retrained his aim, this time on the thief’s masked face. “OK, buddy. No more games. Who are you and what were you planning to do with this stuff? Who’s your buyer, or are you going to try to convince me you’re using it yourself?”
“Good question,” Juggler said. “What’s this gunk even good for?”
The thief slowly lowered his hands and stood tall. “You two are… idiots.”
“Hey, we’re the ones with the blasters, buddy.”
“Touché.”
“So out with it. If nobody’s with Harmony Bay, what are we doing here? Why are they so hot for some runoff from a primordial pond? If we’re the idiots, educate us.” Carl waved his blaster in a beckoning circle.
“They want to replicate biogenesis.”
Carl looked to Juggler, who merely shrugged.
A noise that sounded like digital interference erupted from the thief. “Fine. In little words: they want to play God and build life from scratch.”
“Do you mind? Maybe cut the voice filter? It’s not like we won’t find out who you are when we take that mask off. You’re coming with us.”
Juggler tapped the side of his helm. “Um, boss… This guy still doesn’t have life signs.”
“That can’t be right. He shouldn’t be able to hide at this range. Unless…” Carl stalked over, blaster leading as he backed the thief against a wall. He grabbed the thief’s hood and yanked it back.
It was no mask. And what Carl had taken for a mask couldn’t have been a helmet unless the thief had a cranium the size of a coconut. “You’re a robot!”
The thief looked down. “No. I’m a man trapped in a robotic body, thanks to Harmony Bay.”
Juggler holstered his blaster. “OK. I’m just going to pack up our stuff, and we’re going to get out of here. I want nothing to do with crazy robots, especially not crazy robots designed by the people we’re trying to screw over.”
The thief’s head snapped upright, eyes blazing a reddish hue. “I am not programmed, you daft waste of flesh and blood. I told you, I was—and possibly still am—human. Hu - Man. Homo sapiens. Descendant of Adam and Noah and all them. Or evolved from gorillas; take your pick. Whatever boat brought you and yours into the modern era, I was on it with you.”
Juggler switched back to comms. “They’re getting the programming scary good on these things.”
Carl replied in kind. “Violating the ban on AI, too. We can really rake these guys over the coals. Wonder who we’d get a bigger bounty from, Harmony Bay or ARGO.”
“I can hear you. I may have a human mind in this digital rats’ nest of circuits, but the ears are all scanner-grade. If you want to
hornswoggle Harmony Bay, I’m all on board. It’s my sole ambition. Those fuckers cooped me up in this contraption without a body to go back to. Thought they could control me. But I got away, and now I stick it to them however I can. I was dummying up a fake brew of that primeval swill you sold me, and I was going to make them pay real terras for it.”
Carl switched back to speaker. “That’s… convoluted. Why not sabotage their ships or blow up their labs? I mean, a little contraband fraud seems… mild. If they stole my body, you can bet your ass there’d be explosions galore as I got my revenge.”
Juggler put a hand on Carl’s shoulder. “Wait… I bet he can’t. I’m guessing they’ve got behavior overrides on him.”
The thief was silent.
Behind the visor of his helm, Carl smirked. “So, not such idiots after all, huh? What’s your name, anyway, Mr. Roboto? By the way, if you refuse to tell us, that’s what you’re getting called from now on.”
The robotic thief raised his chin. “I am Archimedes Perseus Antonopoulos, originally of Earth.”
“Well, Archie, I think it’s best we take the front exit out of this place. You’re coming with us.”
# # #
Carl stood in the cargo bay with his EV helm tucked under one arm. He held his blaster aimed at the airlock door. It was nice to be back on board the ship, but the ambiance had taken a turn for the worse.
“It stinks in here. Is the airlock on the fritz?”
Roddy held his blaster in two hands, taking his attention from the airlock for a moment to fix Carl with an incredulous glare. “It’s you, you idiot. You reek of that ammonia atmosphere out there. The stuff’s clinging to you like cheap cologne. I’d advise you to go wash up, but I’m not sure how much cleaner you can get. I’ve never seen your EV suit shinier.”
The airlock cycle began again, and the two of them smartened to attention. Yomin was there as well, but her pea-shooter blaster wasn’t worth the bother. As intimidators went, that toy of hers was a net loss.
When the door opened, Archie stepped out, gloved hands held up in surrender. Roddy’s jaw dropped. “He’s a robot!”
