Oona glowered at her.
Vance’s eyes drifted to Tex.
“I’ve had enough of this horseshit.” The cowboy clomped off the stage in his metal leg supports.
“Mr. Baylor, you were quite a challenge for this group. Surely you have something to add,” said Vance.
“Not really. I played my part. Now excuse us, we have celebrating to do.”
Alvin grabbed Katy by the hand and pulled her away. The players stared after him with looks of jealousy and shock. Zuck was pallid. Oona’s face was almost red with anger. Vance scribbled notes in the air.
“Enjoy your celebration, Mr. Baylor,” said Xi-Michaels. He was jubilant.
Alvin and Katy walked away.
“Not interested in fame?” she whispered.
“Fortune will do,” he said.
“I’m with you. So we’re going to that rock show, right?” she asked.
“Yep. The Twentieth-Century Rock Review. You’re gonna dig it,” said Alvin.
“Dig it?”
“Twentieth-century word. You’re gonna love it.”
“Oh, don’t worry, Al, I can dig it.”
Nineteen
Alvin and Katy ate dinner in a high-backed red booth at the Twentieth-Century Rock Review and Supper Club. The ads promised holo-legends would reignite the spirit of rock-and-roll. The club was half empty.
“These booths are nice and private,” said Alvin.
“Is that why we’re here? For the private booths?” said Katy.
“I like the classics,” he said. “I can’t help it if holo-rock is out of favor.”
He looked around the theater while they waited for the show to begin. His eyes moved over the stage, the proscenium, and the lights.
“I don’t see any projectors. I wonder if this is just an AR show? I thought it was holographic.”
“Does it matter?” she said.
“I like old tech. I think it’s cooler when it’s real.”
“A hologram is realer than augmented reality, Al?”
“You know what I mean. When it’s out there, not just an image floating in my Opti-Comp.”
“I’m sure we’ll dig it either way.” Katy winked.
He laughed. “I’m sure we will.”
An ad touting the gamers tournament flashed across the stage. “Watch the legend, Alvin ‘Zeus’ Baylor, return to action,” it said. “Replays are now half off!” Alvin’s face was thirty feet across, staring back at him.
He sighed.
“Get used to it,” said Katy.
“I can get used to the money,” he said. “And to you. You look beautiful.”
She blushed.
Things were changing. He was as happy as he’d ever been.
“How’s your steak?” she asked.
“Real,” said Alvin. “How’s yours?”
“Real good.”
They giggled.
He studied her as she worked at her plate. The two hundred million in winnings could buy them a lifetime if they stayed to the unincorporated areas of Earth.
Is that all she’s after?
She was beautiful and fun and she understood him.
Does it matter?
“When my job is done, we can quit together and head back,” he said.
“I found my champion.” She smiled sweetly at him. “That’s still a little ways away. Besides, what if you meet another gal out there?”
Her reticence confused him. “I don’t think the miners are gonna have legs like yours. Maybe some of the attitude, though.”
He cut off another piece of steak.
“Miners, huh?” she said. “That’s where you’re going. An asteroid?”
“Some rock called 243 Ida. It’s a delivery job. I’ll be there a week and then I turn around on The Hope.”
She looked at him silently. He couldn’t read her.
“I meant what I said. When I’m done with this job, I’d like to see you.”
“I’d like that,” she said gently.
“I can pay for us, but it won’t be luxury. Can you give this up?”
“This? Of course, but I need a job. I’ve always taken care of myself.”
“If you wanna work, that’s cool, but I’m just gonna enjoy life.”
“You should. You need it. What do you think you’ll do?”
“I always wanted to learn to tap dance.”
“Shut the fuck up,” said Katy.
The server returned to the table and waited for their laughter to stop. “Another round?” she asked.
Katy nodded.
“I’ll just have a soda,” said Alvin.
Katy arched her eyebrow.
“One’s enough,” said Alvin.
She laughed. “Are you for real? You’re set for life. Live it up.”
Alvin nodded to the server. “Okay, one more.”
“Yes, Mr. Baylor.”
She nodded and walked away, revealing a young boy standing behind her.
“Zeus?” said the boy.
“Yes?” said Alvin.
“Can I get a pic with you?”
“Sure, kid.”
Alvin placed his arm around the boy’s shoulder while he snapped a pic with his band.
“Thanks, Zeus!”
He ran off.
“How sweet. You’re a role model,” said Katy.
“Then that kid’s gonna have a rough life.”
“Don’t we all,” she said.
“Katy! Where you been?” a female voice called out.
A young blond woman ran up to the table. She was casually dressed with a server’s uniform under her arm. She squinted as she looked at Katy.
“I’m sorry. I thought you were someone else,” she said slowly.
She walked away, but glanced back. Katy’s eyes followed the woman then turned back to Alvin.
“That was weird,” she said.
“Least she didn’t recognize me,” he said.
“Al, I’m so proud of you, but I’m getting drunk tonight.” She swigged the last of her drink. “I’m gonna run to the ladies’ room. Don’t want to miss the beginning.”
He nodded and watched her lithe figure strut away. He wondered if they were falling in love. He’d had a few relationships in person before, but this felt different. There was no denying it.
Twenty
Rouja left Alvin at the table and strode down the aisle catching attention from fat old men and rich old dykes, lascivious at the thought of renting her for a night. Normally she fed off the attention. It was flattering for a woman of her age, but she was on a damage-control mission and didn’t need the extra attention. Whoever the little blond busybody had been, she had obviously tracked Katy Macintyre’s smart-band. And now the busybody knew, albeit with much confusion, that someone else was in possession of Katy’s smart-band. She had to be stopped before she could squeal to anyone.
Rouja wasn’t surprised that someone had finally questioned her; she was just pissed that it happened in front of Alvin.
So sloppy.
She could have blown the job. Padre’s urgent call had forced her to rush her planning. After failing to entice Alvin with the prostitute routine in The Hope’s bar, she’d found the perfect cover to seduce the disgraced gamer in Katy Macintyre, Game Host. Unfortunately, facial bone structure was not a match and a nanite-filled plastic-surgery collar could do only so much. Rouja had chosen instead to wear her own face, albeit the way it had looked nearly twenty years previous. It complicated the job for her.
She caught her reflection in a mirror. A woman who had abandoned her own daughter stared back at her.
I’m off my game.
She saw the blonde enter a narrow hallway near the restrooms and followed, slowing her walk to peer around the corner. The woman was stopped at the end of the hall, near a backstage entrance talking to a hulking security guard with a tribal tattoo on his neck.
Shit.
Rouja turned back into the restroom and surveyed the stalls to make sur
e no one was inside. Then she tapped the side of her choker and her face twitched and stretched as nanites re-formed the soft tissue. She held the edge of the sink and coughed. When she looked up into the mirror, she had black hair, brown eyes, and the face of the Chinese hooker she’d killed on her way to track down Leung, the pimp who sold her daughter into slavery.
A borrowed avatar. Just like Alvin.
She was afraid to admit it, but Alvin was growing on her. Fake a relationship long enough and it became real. Add in similar values and it became dangerous. She was glad she hadn’t gotten all the details out of him yet. That kept the tension away.
She removed the red shawl she had been wearing and tossed it over a stall door, then walked out.
Rouja went around the corner where the little blond busybody was still conversing with the guard. She moved closer, lingering in the hallway while playing with the settings on her smart-band.
“Can you please check her location logs? I think she might’ve had her ID swiped,” said the blonde.
“I’m not authorized to do that,” said the guard sternly.
“But you can, can’t you? You can look up any Hope employee.”
“I can for the boss, not for you. Go report this at the main security desk.”
“But this imposter is here now! Don’t you understand I haven’t seen my ex in months?” The woman looked pained. She tucked a folded uniform under her arm then pulled a pill bottle from her purse. She began fighting with the lid. The guard eyeballed her until she got one of the pills into her mouth.
“Maybe there’s a reason for that,” he said.
The exasperated woman dropped her pill bottle to the ground in a clatter. She knelt and began collecting the little capsules as the guard stared down at her in disdain.
Lucky break.
Rouja rushed over to help collect the capsules from the floor. “You poor thing, let me help.”
The woman was sobbing. The guard stayed out of the conversation, but Rouja could feel his eyes on her.
“Come with me and we’ll get you cleaned up,” she said.
She gently grasped the woman’s wrist, then led her down the hall like a lost child. She glared at the leering guard. He pressed the side of his temple and went back to staring into space.
“In here,” said Rouja.
She pointed to the restroom.
“I’ve got to get to work,” mumbled the blonde. She looked dazed.
“Let’s clean you up, first.” Rouja pulled her into the room and let the door close. Then she locked it.
The woman stopped sniveling and stared with wide eyes. “What are you doing?”
Rouja pressed her wrist against the woman’s. Their bands vibrated on contact. Confusion rolled over the little woman’s face. Her blue eyes bulged as she shrieked and pulled away. Her band had gone off because she had touched Katy’s, but this woman was not her Katy.
“Who are you? Where did you get that?” the woman asked.
“I took it from her,” said Rouja.
The blonde opened her mouth to scream and Rouja grabbed her hard by the throat, squelching her voice. She shoved her head back against the wall, turning on the blaring noise of embedded hand driers.
“Let’s not make this messy. What’s your biometric override password?”
Twenty-One
“Yes, I think she’s done,” said Alvin. The busboy nodded and added Katy’s plate to his tray. Alvin watched him speed away down the aisle, past Katy on her way back. She looked stunning.
I can’t believe that’s my girl.
She took her seat next to him, leaned in, and gave him a peck on the cheek.
“They came by for the plates. You weren’t still eating?” he asked.
“No, it’s okay, I’m finished.”
“You look amazing. Back in the twentieth century, they would have said you ought to be in pictures.”
“Pictures?” she asked.
“You know, movies. Vid streams.”
“Ah, I get it. ‘Pictures,’ because they were 2-D, like paintings and photos. Where’d you get this fixation with the past?”
“When I was kid, my dad used to show me the old ‘this day in history’ news streams. I really enjoyed them. Just little square videos with only one thing playing! That was how they got information. I got hooked from there and started watching more about the period. I’ve even read a real newspaper or two.” Alvin was proud of that, so he smiled. “You know it makes your fingertips dirty?”
“The news is depressing,” she said.
“I know, ignorance is bliss. But I like to understand how events progress.”
A loud guitar chord rang out then pulsed rhythmically.
They looked to the stage as fireworks exploded. The dining table lowered into the floor and they got to their feet.
The hologram of a long-faced man wearing a Union Jack suit rose from the stage. He swung his arm in a wide arc and the guitar sound became a rhythm. He was joined by three other holo-performers and the music grew in loudness and complexity.
Alvin could feel the bass in his teeth. He’d heard this group before—a rock band from the 1960s.
“Who is that?” asked Katy.
The music was so loud Alvin couldn’t even hear her voice, but he got the question.
“Yeah, it is. I think,” he yelled.
She wrinkled her brow. “Who?”
“Yes!” he yelled.
She shook her head and he turned back to the stage. He went to peep Record in his Opti-Comp and saw that it was disabled.
“Can’t record,” he said.
Alvin pantomimed that she should watch. He tapped out the override gesture on his smart-band and rebooted into his custom code, then gave her a thumbs-up.
She nodded.
He peeped Record and gave her another thumbs-up.
They bopped to the music for several loud songs before the next act came out. A holo-man walked from the back of the stage as the band disappeared. He wore a red bandana and a white fringed jacket. He strummed the guitar with his left hand and it became clear who it was.
“I know that one,” said Katy.
Alvin started bouncing up and down. “This is fucking great!”
The whine of electric guitar continued for several songs before the man performed a riff on the old United States national anthem. When he finished, he sat down on his knees and lit his guitar on fire.
Alvin spun Katy around and held his wrist out for a pic with the Jimi Hendrix hologram in the background.
The show continued for almost an hour. At the close, Alvin and Katy applauded for the holo-performers.
“Yell ‘encore!’” he said.
She looked at him, puzzled, then joined in as he shouted, “Encore! Encore!”
The hologram of a pale-skinned man with a painted face and a red mullet floated from the floor in the fetal position. He somersaulted slowly upward and uncurled as a slow ballad began.
The floating holo-man sang of the prettiest star in a lilting English accent.
Alvin had never heard the song.
How beautiful.
He pulled Katy into an embrace and looked into her blue eyes lovingly while the pulsing lights cast shadows across her face.
Twenty-Two
The next morning, Rouja sat in her room, or, rather, Katy’s room. It was a four-foot-by-eight-foot box with vid-screen-paneled surfaces and a loft bed that hung overhead. She sat at a tiny desk brushing her hair using a video mirror. The other surfaces blazed with advertisements.
John Padre would be contacting her soon for an update. Her wrist buzzed and she slumped before reaching up to pinch her earlobe. The connection caused a buzzing in her head before he even spoke.
Goddamn it. He’s calling with that government link again.
“Rouja, baby. How goes it?” said Padre’s gravelly voice.
I can’t believe I ever found that voice sexy.
“Can’t see ya, babe,” he said.
S
he really didn’t want to look at him, but she came out of her slouch and tapped her band to the vanity mirror. His face appeared in the lower corner of the frame.
“Getting comfortable, I see,” said Padre with a smirk.
He had not laid eyes on her since she left Earth.
“Yeah, I’m into the classics now,” she said.
“Almost as young as when I met you,” he said.
“Not quite,” she said with irritation.
“So? Tell Daddy what he needs to know.”
Creep.
She picked up the brush again and returned to her hair.
“He’s not a professional. He doesn’t even know what he’s been sent to deliver,” she said.
“Did he say where he’s taking it?”
“An asteroid—243 Ida. I tagged the stream where he said it.”
“So he doesn’t know what it does, either?” asked Padre.
“If he does, he’s not letting on. I tapped his band last night. He finally showed me his override. There’s some maps and training manuals, but nothing about that device.”
“Nothing?”
“Nothing. He’s just an Alteris employee being kept in the dark.”
“Are you sure? It took you longer than usual. You slacking or being played?”
She rolled her eyes. “Please . . . he’s exactly where I want him. Besides, you’re not the one stuck on this ship for six months.”
“Eh, from what I hear, it’s a pretty good place to get stuck,” said Padre.
“Yes, well, it is if you’re with a nice guy who can pay the exorbitant prices for you.”
“Exorbi . . . what? He’s nice, huh?”
She smiled.
“I hope you aren’t enjoying yourself too much,” said Padre.
“Business, baby, you know that.”
“Good, I don’t want you pouting when I tell you to whack him.” His face was stern.
“I can’t risk any more trouble on this trip. Some dyke tracked my band with a social app, ex-girlfriend of my cover. I took care of her, but I’m two bodies deep now.”
“Baby, you gotta finesse ’em.”
She stopped brushing her hair and arched an eyebrow. “The game host was last minute. He didn’t go for the usual routine. I was lucky. Katy Macintyre had the perfect job for a psych-op on Baylor and my measurements. I got her right before she started work.”
Alvin Baylor Lives!_A 21st Century Pulp Page 13
