by Chris Turner
“Who the fuck are you?” came Regers’ derisive croak.
“Language, please. I’m Desmond Yadley, Mathias’s senior science officer. I’m subbing in for him.” His lips parted in a prim half sickle. “Regers, I remember you. One of those seedy mercs we hired, who supposedly died out there in The Dim Zone. I see I was wrong. Last we heard, you were stuffed in a Mentera tank, effectively dead.”
“For all intents and purposes, that was true, and yet here I am.”
Yadley shook his head. “I don’t get—”
“Where the fuck is Mathias?”
“Sorry, not here. Been gone for weeks now. I’ve been designated acting CEO. Don’t like the job much, but I don’t mind the pay. I’d rather be researching the samples Yul brought back for us.”
“I’m sure you would.”
Yadley stirred. “So Yul was lying to us. He had some distorted story about you choking to death on a crash-landed Zikri Orb on a dead moon. Said he tried to save you, smashed the glass and all, but there weren’t enough suits to go around. I see he was wrong.”
“Did he now? My old friend Yul. See, Dezzy, that’s the problem with the world as it is, too many lying, cheating, backbiting fucks who abandon ship mates to die.” He clenched his white-knuckled fist and rapped it hard on the water dispenser. “I’m here to get my money owed for services rendered. Also 10 times more for damages, like my mekkie arm and a dozen years of stress from being dumped in a Mentera tank. Speaking of which, where is my old pal, Yul? He and I have some words to share.”
“Even if I knew that information, it’s classified,” said the acting CEO with cool hauteur.
Regers sighed. He put an arm around Dez as if consoling an old beer buddy at the karaoke bar. His clown-like grimace did nothing to reassure Desmond. “Nothing’s impossible, Dez. This is the 26th century, ain’t it? I mean look around you. We have robots, radio fried pizza, air bots, remote control, dial a date, robocops, robomaids to clean floors, shake your hand, massage your dick if you want, wipe your smelly, brown-stained ass, console you when you’re down, like a true Mother Milly.”
Dez licked his lips with a scowl. “No need to get vulgar, Regers. I didn’t let you in here just to get browbeaten by a pack of dirty—”
Regers snarled and lifted a menacing fist, “I’ll ask you again, where’s Mathias?”
“Don’t know. Please, leave now. I’m calling security! He reached for an intercom on his desk.
Regers swept eyes about the room looking for cameras. One little spyhole to left north, possibly another to west. He grabbed tape from his pocket and pasted it over the sweephole. Then ran to the other. There could be more. A risk, but he’d have to take it. On a quick nod to Deakes, he and Vincent turned on Dez.
Dez paled, clutching the com but Deakes got hold of his wrist and twisted hard.
“Ow! Okay, okay, Jesus, that hurts.” He loosed a painful bray. “Last we heard was a transmission come in from Mathias on the trail of Sigmund Hresh’s secret lab on Remus in The Dim Zone.”
“That’s more like it, Dez. Well, guess we’d better set a course for this secret lab and get a head start.”
The CEO gaped. “What do you mean, we? Are you crazy?”
“I’ve been to hell and back, Dez. Crazy has no meaning for me.” He reached in his spacer’s jacket and lifted a device, a small, glinting pellet, the size of a prune pit. A maniacal grin spread over his features. “Now before you get any idea of summoning your pretty synthetic secretary or security people, let’s get a few facts in order. This here’s a flash flare. Make mincemeat of your face. And this here’s a spinner.” He held up his other hand, showing something similar, but smaller and silver. “We’ll get to that one in a second.” He moved toward the desk while the sweating Dez made fish gulping sounds and Ramra, the horn-headed Jakru, stared bug-eyed. “We’re going to need to go over the details of Mathias nice and slow. A few questions, that’s all.” His eyes gleamed. “I remember you now. A puffier face, longer hair to the shoulder in a white lab coat, running around that mechno lab, spewing numbers and chemical formulae like a high school geek. Who are you to take over Mathias’s job anyway? Thought you were just a lab rat.”
“There was nobody else, what with Hresh, our senior scientist and geneticist, gone. I was next in line.”
Regers blinked, thought for some time. “Hresh, that other brainiac who set us on that voyage to The Dim Zone to collect samples? This poses an inconvenience to us, Dez. Provided you’re not lying to me.”
“Why should I lie?”
“Why indeed?”
“Ask around,” Dez protested. “There’s the door.”
Deakes swore. “Wasted trip here, Regers. This is bad.”
Regers whipped back his unruly mop of black hair. “Maybe not. Think about it, Deakes. Why not just beetle out of here? We can take Dez along as collateral, in case we have more questions for him, or he’s lying to save his neck.”
“Wha—what do you mean?” Dez laughed. “You’re joking, right?”
“Do I look like it?”
Dez squirmed out of Deakes’s grip. Fast as a rabbit, he made a break for the door but Vincent hammer-locked him and twisted the executive’s arm behind his back. Dez howled as Deakes grinned and Regers exhaled an explosive breath. “Control this fool!”
He scanned the room, looking for more cameras. None that he could see. “Hold him, Vincent. Me and the Jakru have to get this spinner down his gullet.”
“No, wait!”
Deakes and Vincent forced the struggling executive to the rug while Regers and the Jakru got the spinner into his mouth.
“W-what the hell are you doing—?” His bewildered cry was cut short. Regers chopped him on the back of the head.
“What you can’t know, Dez, can’t hurt you.”
Regers worked Dez’s larynx in a jigsaw pattern then plugged his nose. “Swallow your medicine. Attaboy.”
Dez gulped with horror. Regers fingered the remote. “Let’s give it a little test. Oops.” Dez nearly keeled over as something smote him from inside.
“So, reckon the stun is working. We got a day before our boy shits it out,” he murmured to Deakes. “Should he try anything funny, we blast him. That said, I have a whole bag of these spinner devices to keep feeding him. Consider it an incentive to answer when I tell you, Dez, or we shove more down your throat. For example, when we pass through these cameras at checkpoints out of here, you better make it real casual, or your liver’s rat fodder. One touch of this button and it goes into kill mode.”
Dez nodded, a strangled noise issuing from his nose. He licked his pink lips and scowled.
They walked out of the office, Deakes to one side, Vincent and Ramra to the other. Regers brought up the rear.
The secretary lifted her coiffured head and frowned, removed her headset. “Sir? Going out so soon? There’s a file on Veramax that needs a signature.”
Dez waved it off, his face a pale shade of wax. “I’ll be away on business, Clara, for a few hours—” Regers gave him a painful nudge in the ribs “—I mean for some time with Mr. Regers and his colleagues. Keep me apprised about the files and the upcoming roster on the universal holo. We’re expecting new shipments of robot parts from Rangenkro any day soon.”
“As you wish, sir.” Clara flashed Regers and his grimy ruffians a dubious glance, but she donned her head gear and went back to her work, furrowing her brow, scanning the intra-holo roster.
The unlikely group walked down the hall, an opulent spread of chrome, modern art, aquaria filled with tropical fish, flanked by holovision corporate ads and slogans. Dez’s knees were shaking.
“Slow down, Dez, you’re getting ahead of us. Keep smiling and don’t look back like a frightened mouse. Tends to alarm the security people. Uncle Regers and his boys’ll take care of you. My itchy finger might swipe this here activator by accident if you try something cute. I’m fidgety, nerves not as steady after being dunked in a bug tank. Oops, sorry, slipped again.”
Dez doubled over in pain.
A security guard approached from down the hall. Regers didn’t fail to notice the compact black E2 hanging at his belt and the stilted stride and nodded at Dez. Dez made an odd motion and grimacing face which aroused the guard’s suspicion. The guard halted in midstride.
“Afternoon, sir. Anything wrong here?”
“I—” Dez hunched again in pain upon Regers’ finger movement.
“You okay? You don’t look well.”
Deakes shouldered his way in. “No worries, chief. Mr. Yadley here just got some bad news—a death in the family. We’re in from out of town, trying to comfort him.”
The security man frowned and flashed Dez a quizzical glance, as if demanding corroboration of such a claim.
Regers scowled. Another bot? Not too bright. Wooden grip to the hands. Slight stiff movements to the legs. Probably another of Mathias’s fucking mechnos. Or maybe a defective prototype.
Dez held up a shaky hand. “Nothing, Balsen. Just a little under the weather.”
“We’re taking CEO Yadley to the cafeteria to get a little hot soup,” Regers explained. “It works wonders, just as Granny always said.”
The security guard’s frown deepened. “Yeah, well the cafeteria’s back the other way.”
“We know, just giving Mr. Yadley a bit of leg exercise. He seems to have stiffened up all of a sudden. Wanted to work out the kinks.” Regers smiled. He hustled Dez along like an errant calf. “No fast ones, you dipshit fucking toad,” he hissed. “It’s you who’ll get clipped, not us. Me and my men can blast our way out of here, if we have to.”
“You don’t even have rifles,” Dez gasped.
“Your men do. And easier than apples to get one of those pistols off them. Think I can’t do it? Watch. Been in this business long enough.”
Dez sagged. He nodded his head in despair, a defeated man. “Brutes.” He mumbled under his breath.
“You got that right.” Regers tipped his head in salute. “Pipe down. We’re going on a little walk out of here.” He cast Dez a menacing look.
They exited the glass foyer without mishap. Across the busy street they shepherded Dez down another side street away from the hubbub. They merged into the crowd and for a brief moment, Regers gusted a relieved breath. Despite his bravado, even his nerves had a limit. Now that the worst was over, the rest would be easy. Provided his accomplices on Xaromar didn’t do something stupid and fuck up what was essentially a simple operation from here on in.
Even as he pondered this, Regers wondered how many of these munchkins running about the streets like headless chickens, were bots. Wouldn’t surprise him if Cyber Corp had unleashed an army of them—testing them out on the streets, ready to take over the planet.
The magno tram, Blue Line C1, approached, hovering a foot off the ground. Its blue, aerodynamic housing, capable of high speeds through the city, was low noise, economical. Regers marveled at the efficiency. The reinforced fiberglass doors slid back, admitting new citizens, disgorging others. Regers and crew piled in, taking seats at the back of the car, two on either side of Dez. He tried to mouth some words but Deakes silenced him with fingers digging into his side.
No words were spoken. A couple of route changes got them out of the city and on to some abandoned lots on the east end of town where Regers had told Creib and Jennings to meet them with Xaromar. Regers had deliberately picked an out-of-the-way spot, far from their dropoff. Helped throw off snoopers.
The tram door opened at a penultimate station. Dez tried to make a run for it but Deakes flung himself forth and kidney-punched him good, dragging him back to the seat. “There, there, little birdie has frisky wings.” Two middle-aged female passengers in nearby seats blinked in owlish astonishment and Deakes graced them with an open-faced grin. While Dez doubled over, groaning, Deakes patted Dez on the back, shaking his head and clucking like a bird. “Escaped mental patient from the institute,” Deakes explained. He flashed the old ID from his transpo job out of the grey coveralls he still wore. “We have our orders to use excessive force.” He growled between his teeth.
“Yes, seems our patient’s learning though.” Regers leaned back in his seat, exhaling a confident breath. Not long now. He nodded in approval as Deakes and Vincent kept a close eye on Dez.
Last stop was Portmouth on the Red C Line. The train slowed up with a metallic hum. They exited the tram, cleared the station and headed toward a row of stark, cinder block warehouses. Regers radioed ahead to Creib. Within minutes Xaromar arched out of the sky, a dull grey-black blob with curved prow and blue glow flaring from its lateral impulse jets.
“You know this scheme of yours is never going to work,” Dez rasped.
Regers shrugged. “Looks as if it is, Dez. What I want to know is why didn’t Mathias fill you in on his plans, you being his senior scientist and all?”
Dez snarled, wiping his puffed, sweating face. “Even to his senior staff, Mathias is protective of his secrets. He tells me only what he wants me to know.”
“Is that right?”
“So many schemes in the man’s mind. Makes one’s head spin. The man’s ruthless. Twice I’ve thought of turning tail like Hresh did, getting out while I could, but I’m scared to death of what he’d do. Now I’m in charge of the company in his absence. A strange irony.”
The ship landed on an open space upon the tarmac amidst bins and crates of metal tubing. Regers’ and the others’ hair tousled in the wind kicked up by the ship’s thrusters. They approached the opening cargo door.
Dez’s jaw dropped as he saw his fate, then looked at the crazy gleam in Regers’ eyes. “What happened to you out there in The Dim Zone? You’re not the same person I remember some weeks ago in our offices.”
Regers, a man beyond caring, conscience or principle, gave a bare-toothed grin. “Let’s just say I’ve gone far beyond fear, Dez. Beyond what you might call ‘sane’ in this so-called real world you think you live in.”
The cargo door closed and they marched Dez to the bridge as the ship lifted off for orbit around Phallanor.
Regers spoke in a cheery voice, “Everybody, meet Dez, acting CEO of Cyber Corp.” He swept an arm toward the wide-eyed scientist. “Dez, meet Jennings—aka Jiminy, engineer and navigator, and that there’s Creib in charge of piloting. Deakes, Ramra and Vincent you already know.”
Dez pursed his lips. He wheezed out a raspy breath.
Jennings snorted. “So this is the CEO? How’d you manage to get him here?”
“Dez’s a reliable fellow,” said Regers. “Commiserated with my loss and decided to accompany us on our little expedition out to The Dim Zone, out of the goodness of his heart. To see that compensations are personally attended to. Didn’t you, Dez?”
Dez scowled. “The moment we rendezvous with Mathias on Remus, this is all over. I go back to Phallanor.”
“Sure, anything you say, Dez.” Regers made a thumbs-up sign. “Seems you’ve got everything figured out.”
“People are going to be wondering where I got to,” Dez huffed. “Asking a lot of questions when I don’t return. I am acting director of the firm in Mathias’s absence. How far do you think you’ll get before they come hunting you down?”
“Well, from where I stand, the universe’s a big place.”
Dez paled.
“You’re insurance, Dezzie, that’s all. We get the goods, you go home. We don’t—well, it’s not looking good for you.”
Jennings interrupted with a scowl, “How’s badgering this guy going to help out our cause?”
Regers squeezed his eyes shut. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Jiminy, when the fuck are you going to learn to zip it? Deakes—teach him a lesson.”
“My pleasure.” An evil grin swept across the bald man’s face. He rapped Jennings hard in the kidney, causing Jennings to double over, gasping.
Regers smiled with satisfaction. “Now, you’re here as science and engineering counsel, that’s all. Not to play security monitor
or question my plans. Get it?”
Another sharp rap to the kidneys had Jennings giving a cat-like yowl. The man managed a terse nod, his face burning, as fury rose.
Regers shook his head. When were these fucks going to learn? Should’ve left Jiminy down on the Orb with the other glassy-eyed floaters.
Chapter 5
Creib turned a wary glance over his shoulder from the nav. “Set course for Remus?”
Regers shook his head impatiently. “No, a little recreation time out first. Take us to Mekeroid in Cepheus.”
“Mekeroid? Why the hell Mekeroid?”
“This calls for a celebration, Creib. Dez, I reckon you’ll come with us.”
Dez croaked out a protest. “Why? You’ve got what you came for—a fix on Mathias.”
“Got my reasons. Glut our pleasures. Plus it’ll put off any snoopers and sleuthers. What kidnapper would ever think of taking his charge and holing up on that scum world?”
Vincent drawled, “I’ve heard they’ve got the best pieces of bronze tail this side of Arcturus.”
Deakes grinned. “You know how to win over your crew, boss.”
“You betcha. But first, I want 10k yols in damages up front. Dez, you’re going to pay out and withdraw it on Mekeroid.”
Dez let out a plangent wail.
“No squawking. You can use your fancy ID card. Throws off any busybodies on the trail. They track your transactions, see you’ve been paying for pussy at Mekeroid on company funds, they’ll know you’ve gone rogue and are skylarking. We kill two birds with one stone. We get Ramra some Mekeroid ass, you get us some money to help finance our expedition.” Regers chuckled and rubbed his wrists.
Vincent burst out in a boisterous laugh.
Ramra nodded with the green glint of enthusiasm that only a Jakru could have.
* * *
Mekeroid city was a world on the frontier breeding debauchery. Full of black market rings, neon lights, strip joints, every intoxicant and cheap pleasure a man or woman could ask for. Most of the action was down on Asteroid Boulevard, with smoky dives, three storied black-shadowed toke-up joints, needle shops, blades, wires, whatever was one’s fancy. Some of these came with inviting entrances formed of barely a row of stringed beads. Half-men and offworld hybrids wearing masks and goggles, painted ladies with cat-whiskers and rabbit ears walked the street, cruising for something that couldn’t be found, except maybe danger and trouble. Nothing but masquerade night in full parade.
