by J Battle
Using the same ‘against’ free logic as the other AI’s, it allows my cute little search programme to gather un-harmful data without hindrance, as long as the required nominal charge is met.
So, Masters had squirted to the Manchester Interplanetary Squirtport from a squirtbooth on the corner of Stockport road and Albert road, in the Levenshulme district of Manchester. In the past thirty years or so, this ward has developed in to a ‘Silo’; the vernacular for areas where non-workers (and consequently non-contributors) are ‘stored’. At some stage they will be encouraged to leave their birth planet and join the exodus to a frontier planet where their skills can be put to better use.
Although there are few vehicles on the roads these days, the local pavements are often crowded with people from all races as they attempt to parley their Real Value Vouchers, presented to them by their caring government, into something they can actually spend.
The large white cube-shaped building had only been there, on the corner, for a few years. It had replaced an old pub and a row of shops, and no-one was really clear what purpose it had. The assumption was, as usual, that the government was somehow involved.
Surveillance cameras showed that Masters left this building immediately before he squirted to the Squirtport. He is pulling a suitcase and has a bag slung over his shoulder. His clothes are casual and he looks just like a man about to take a trip. There’s a skinny man in what looks like a white tracksuit sitting to one side of the booth. He holds out one hand without looking up. Without slowing, Masters hands something to him and moves on. Squirtbooths are designed for single use, though there is usually plenty of room. He seems to be having a little difficulty fitting himself inside. Then he’s gone.
With my curiosity satisfied, it was time to close the case and bill the client. Not a big pay-day, and it wouldn’t solve my money problems, but maybe I could pay Julie this month. As if on cue, she walked into my office; loud and busy, and not at all embarrassed about turning up four hours late.
‘Where have you been?’ I asked in my most officious voice.
She merely smiled and held up her shopping bags; pointing out the obvious.
‘Coffee?’ she asked; all sweetness and light.
As I nodded my answer, my eyes were caught by the scene on my computer screen. It was still showing the CCTV from the morning Masters left, but, for some reason, it was re-running his exit from the building and departure via the squirtbooth.
'Don't go in the bathroom,' I called; my attention still in the screen.
'Why not?' She'd popped her head back through the doorway.
'Sam's in there.'
'Hiding?'
'Yes. From the AI's.'
‘'Last week, I had to get him a roll of tin foil and some face paint. He made a pointed hat to protect his brain from microwaves and painted his face green so they wouldn't recognise him.’
‘That sounds just like him. I don’t know where he got the idea that AI’s are the baddies.’
'You know what he told me yesterday? He said the AI's killed Kennedy, and Marilyn Munroe, and Melin and Knerr.'
'But the AI's weren't around in the nineteen-sixties.' I knew it was a futile point I was making.
'That's what I told him. You know what he said?'
'Go on, tell me.'
'That's what they want us to believe.'
'Who are the other guys?'
'Who?'
'Melin and…'
'They invented the Hoola Hoop. Murdered in the nineties and buried on the moon, so that they wouldn't divulge their secrets.'
'What secrets?'
'I can hear you, you know.' Sam was hiding behind the half-opened bathroom door.
'Sorry,' I replied; not really sure why I was apologising.
'Can I get a coffee?' he asked, hopefully.
'Sure,' said Julie as she left the room.
When she strolled back in with a big cup of coffee, I barely noticed. The image on my computer wasn’t a replay of Masters leaving at all. I'd checked the time sequence and this latest scene was twenty-three minutes later. Also, although the second guy was of a similar size, the hair was different, and the clothes were less casual. When he entered the booth, there was no struggle. He was either a little slimmer than Masters, or maybe he just possessed better spatial awareness.
In any case, it had nothing to do with me, or my case.
I glanced across at Julie. She was sitting on my couch, drinking coffee and scanning a magazine.
‘Where’s my coffee?’ I thought it was a reasonable question to ask.
‘In the machine,’ was the hardly surprising reply.
'And mine?' asked Sam, from the safety of the bathroom.
She lifted one eyebrow in response; not wanting to waste any words. I can't do that myself; if I try, both eyebrows go up and I just look surprised.
‘Haven’t you got work to do?’ I asked hopefully.
She shrugged without looking up, and slurped her coffee; she’s always done that.
‘You pay me to work, don’t you? Like, we have an actual contract?’ she asked, her artfully plucked eyebrows raised; both together this time.
I could see where this was going.
‘Yes.’
‘Then, when I get paid, I’ll work.’ There was surely some way to refute her logic, but my position was weak in this respect, as I hadn’t paid her for two months.
‘Don’t you have a chair in your own office?’
‘Yes, but your couch is comfier; and I can keep you company.’
I was looking at my screen again; at the empty booth, at the guy in the white tracksuit. When the second figure had passed him, he hadn’t lifted his hand; he hadn’t begged.
Now, why was that?
‘Julie, have a look at this, will you?’
She made a show of putting down her magazine and groaned at the effort of leaving her seat. People never guess that she is my sister; I’m tall and skinny; she’s short and not so skinny, which is all I’m going to say about her appearance, in case she reads this book.
‘What am I looking at?’ She leant over my shoulder.
I replayed both guys leaving the building and entering the squirtbooth.
‘I still don’t know what I’m looking for,’ she said.
‘Is it the same person?’ I don’t really know why I asked that particular question; it just fell out of my mouth.
‘So, what are you saying? The guy squirted back to a nearby booth, went into the building, changed his clothes and left again? How much coffee have you had?’
Put like that, what was bothering me? Two large men left the building separately and used the squirtbooth; it probably happens all the time. I decided to check where the second man had gone; it wouldn’t cost much and, if it put my mind at rest, it would be worth it.
A few seconds later, I had the answer. He had squirted to the Manchester Interplanetary Squirtport.
Then I started wondering where they went, and what was this building, and why was I bothered anyway?
As I was setting up the search protocols, the phone rang. I looked at Julie, and she looked right back at me. I wasn’t going to answer it; I had a secretary for that. She wasn’t going to answer it; not without a promise of money.
‘I’ll pay you tomorrow.’ I was fairly certain I could honour that promise.
She raised one eyebrow and grunted. Then she reached over to the phone on my desk.
‘Don’t forget to check caller ID before…’ She never checks caller ID before.
‘Hello, Mr. Devon,’ she said; her voice almost a trill. ‘Nice to hear from you. What can we do for you on this lovely afternoon?’
There was some squawking; then she handed the receiver to me. ‘He wants you.’
I know for a fact that Julie is a very intelligent woman; she has the degrees to prove it. Sometimes I think she hangs those brains up with her coat when she enters my office. She knows who Devon is, and how much I owe him, and what he’s likely to do if the
re are any delays in me fulfilling my part of the bargain. Yet she still doesn’t have the wit to tell him that I’m not here.
‘Hello, Jim. Sorry, Mr. Devon. Yes. Yes. Yes. Sorry. Yes.’ That was my part of the conversation. His part was much more extensive, and quite colourful. That is how conversations always go with Devon. There’s going to be some apologies, and lots of agreement. By the time he’d hung up, I’d apologised for calling him Jim, apologised for being late, and agreed that I was a sorry excuse for a man, a disappointment to my mother, a terrible loser, and that I would pay my next instalment in full in forty-eight hours.
To be honest, he was mostly correct. My mother never failed to exhibit the scale of her disappointment whenever our paths crossed and, with the practice I get, I really should be a better loser.
‘What are you going to do?’ Julie had heard every word, and didn’t bother to hide her own disappointment at my failings as a brother and a boss.
‘Can you book a slot in my schedule at 3:30pm for a half-hour of panic?’
Chapter 7 - Then...BANG!
Masters sat at the far end of the table, with Dart to his left and Deed to his right. The rest of the table was taken up by the remaining members of what he liked to call his gang.
‘We should say something about Rees before we start,’ said Dart; resting both hands on the table, with his eyes focused on his fingernails.
‘He’s dead,’ replied Deed. ’Nothing more to be said.’
‘He worked for us for nearly ten years. That’s got to count for something. And he took a bullet for Ben.’
‘How about that, Ben?’ Deed turned to look at his boss.
‘What d’you mean?’ Masters wriggled a little on his narrow chair.
‘How did he end up taking a bullet for you? Who’s trying to kill you?’
‘Who knows? Who cares? He missed, so let’s move on.’
Deed glanced over at Dart; for a second he held his eye. Dart looked away, then down at his wrist-top.
‘It’s been a quiet month,' he began slowly. 'Revenues are down on last year, despite there being an extra working day this year. Relocation is looking more and more like the only viable option we have left. The AI’s are ruining our business, and that’s the end of it.’ Dart held up his scrupulously clean hands, then rubbed them together.
‘Any good news?’ asked Masters.
There was some muttering and shaking of heads, but no-one had the good news or the courage to speak up.
That was when the bomb went off.
It took out three junior members of the gang; leaving the rest shaken, but unharmed.
To give him his due, it would have been very hard for Evans to guess correctly where Masters would choose to sit. It was perfectly reasonable to think that he would sit in the rather grand carver at the end of the oval mahogany table that was furthest from the door, and not one of the simpler, armless chairs set around the rest of the table. Putting his small bomb under the carver was the obvious choice.
He wasn’t to know that Masters couldn’t get his backside in the carver, and so chose the armless seat at the opposite end of the table.
**********
So they both squirted to the Squirtport; did that mean anything? Probably not, as Masters went on to OK and Johnson (that was the second guy’s name) squirted to JD. I didn’t know anything about either planet, and I had no intention of learning more. I wasn’t at all interested in the panoply of new planets being opened up on what seemed like a monthly basis. I had no intention of visiting them, so I was happy for them to keep their air of mystery.
The building turned out to be a private hospital, though why anyone would build it in such a deprived area is anyone’s guess; probably cost.
That was the end of it; the questions wouldn’t be answered and I decided that I could live with that. After all, it had nothing to do with me, and I had my own problems to sort out.
Devon was my bookmaker, and I had a small gambling problem, which he was happy to help me make bigger, as long as I kept up my regular payments. That was the issue; I didn’t have a regular income. The real issue of course, is that I couldn’t pick a winner if my life depended on it. If I backed the hare, the tortoise would be sure to win.
I zipped my report and final bill to the ex-Mrs. Masters and went looking for a coffee. Julie was painting her nails a fetching shade of red so, yet again, I had to make my own.
The machine was gurgling and Julie was humming along, when there was a knock on the outer door of the office. Without waiting for a bye your leave, the ex-Mrs. M. walked in. Her hair was straight and jet black; neatly framing her pale face.
‘Hello, Mrs. Masters. Did you get my report?’
‘Yes.’ She walked right past me and into my inner sanctum.
I trotted after her like an overexcited puppy (that’s how Julie described me later).
‘If you had any questions, you could have called me. You didn’t have to come in person.’
‘It was no trouble. I squirted over; took me next to no time.’ She settled into the chair facing my desk.
I nodded my head and searched inside it for something to say; I probably frowned.
‘What’s wrong Mr. Chandler? Don’t you like to squirt?’ She arched her eyebrows and allowed the tip of her tongue to peep between her implausibly red lips.
I was still looking for those elusive words, so I gave a light, sophisticated chuckle.
‘Why would he go to OK?’ Suddenly all serious, her lips tightened and three vertical lines appeared between her eyebrows.
‘Why’s are outside my remit, Mrs. Masters. What, when, where? Those are the facts I deal with.’ I was quite impressed with my response.
‘What benefit would he achieve by travelling there? When is he coming back? Where can I find someone to drag his sorry butt back home? How’s that?’
I smiled as if to say well done; but had nothing further to say.
‘I want you to go to OK, find out what he’s up to and, when I’ve made the decision, bring him home.’
She spoke slowly and clearly; to be certain that every word was understood. I hate it when people do that to me.
‘I’m in the information business, Mrs. Masters. Not the abduction business. It is not part of my role to travel to distant planets on your behalf, or on behalf of anyone else. I can certainly locate him on OK for you, but you will have to find someone else to deal with anything else.’
I sounded firm and professional, and there was surely no room to misinterpret my words; that was how it seemed to me.
‘You’ll need some help in the extraction phase of the operation, so a colleague of mine will be calling on you a little later. His name is Strange and I would recommend that you be polite to him.’
I stood up, as if my words would have more impact when I was on my feet. I could see Sam's face as he studied Mrs. Masters (ex) through the narrow gap of the partly opened bathroom door; I think he may well have been drooling.
‘Mrs. Masters, you have my bill and my report. I am sure that there is little more I can do for you. I will zip the details of his exact location on OK to you when I can, and for that there will be no further charge. So, goodbye.’
I held out my hand. For a long moment it hung there between us; completely ignored. How long is it appropriate to linger like that? I thought about turning it into a wave; then I found that I lacked the courage. In the end, it just dropped and hid itself behind my thigh; to hide its embarrassment.
‘Oh, your bill,’ she said, after extending the awkward pause to heroic proportions. She flipped open her wrist-top and gave its small screen a disparaging look.
‘Are you sure it’s correct? It’s hard to think that a person could live on such a paltry amount.’
‘My expenses are few.’
‘Really? What about Mr. Devon? That looks like quite a substantial expense, to me.’
‘What..? What do you know about Devon?’ I could feel the heat rising.
‘He�
�s a colleague and dear friend of my husband; and he cooks a mean curry.’
I had a sudden image of Devon with a pinny and a tall white hat. It wasn’t pleasant.
‘Any business between Devon and myself is private, and hardly pertinent to our discussion.’
She smiled then; a full face job with teeth, eyes and dimples. I didn’t like it.
‘What if I were to take this tiny figure on your bill and add a zero to the end of it? How would that sound?’ She chewed her bottom lip and lifted her eyebrows.
I have to say that sounded pretty good to me. I’d be able to get ahead of the game with Devon, pay Julie everything I owed her, and maybe I could have a Sunday roast, with all the trimmings.
Despite that, I was still going to refuse. The idea of being squirted across the city was bad enough; I had no intention of allowing my poor body to be squirted across the cosmos.
‘Of course, that would be just the retainer. There would be a generous hourly rate, comprehensive expenses and, of course, a hefty bonus at the end.’
‘What figures are we talking here?’
She gave me the figures and, surprise, surprise, the total was strangely close to the amount I owed to Devon. I knew I was being played, but that knowledge was no help at all.
I held my hands up in admission of defeat.
‘What shots do I need?’ Was the best that I could do.
She chuckled. ‘Them all.’
Chapter 8 - Then the plan
The remaining members of the gang convened in their new HQ; a cramped office suite at the top of a private hospital in Levenshulme, Manchester.
Deed and Dart were there, along with Masters and a couple of guys who were so insignificant that they didn’t warrant names. If they do anything special, they'll get names; for now, think of them as Bob (1 & 2).
Masters was more animated than he was wont to be; excited even.
‘I have a solution to our financial problems,’ he announced, his big voice booming across the small office. He was even smiling; this made Bob nervous. He looked at Bob, who was always nervous; he wouldn't meet his eyes.
