Pearce glanced upwards. The building was twenty stories tall, and the safe house was on the fifteenth floor. Only the first 8 floors had any lights on though, and based upon the fact that the safe house security system hadn’t reported any intrusions Pearce figured that they had largely abandoned the upper floors of the building. That still left him with a small army to deal with and no easily apparent way to sneak in either. He needed more intel if he was going to gain entry.
Pearce turned away from the building and headed back the way he had come. It was time for a new plan.
FOURTEEN
Vegas, Orchard System
United Sol Confederation Protectorate
Pearce approached the building a second time armed with new knowledge. He’d cornered a homeless addict and pressed him for information on the building’s situation after providing a relative fortune in credits for the young man. Now he knew who ran the abandoned hotel and what exactly went on there, and it was pretty much as he had surmised. More importantly, he had a way in. The street girls and guys in the roughly eight square blocks all used the building as their entertainment space, which presented one opportunity, but an even safer and more guaranteed way of being discreet was available.
As he crossed the street with the obvious intent to pass through the barricade, he caught the attention of those guards manning it. They were well-armed and looked capable enough, and while they seemed a bit sloppy and undisciplined were also alert and arranged in smart defensive positions that guaranteed the maximum amount of firepower could be brought to bear on anyone approaching without the risk of crossfire. Somewhere in the organization there was a competent officer.
The barricade itself was robust and smartly designed, with three separate overlapping metal barriers funneling anyone trying to pass through a deadly maze. Pearce’s VIA analyzed the metal and identified it as a steel-based alloy that would be impervious to small arms fire and ramming attempts. The street side of the barricade abutted a two-meter retaining wall that ran the length of the property, while the far side ended at the base of a steep slope that ran to the base of the building. Overall, it severely limited the ways to approach the building and provided a formidable obstacle for any direct assault that wasn’t military in nature.
His VIA received an interrogatory knock, which he allowed access to a burner ID. It was one of many “legitimate” false identities that had been setup in the Confed systems for Pearce when he joined Omega. This particular ID was in the name of Alistair Farange, a wealthy mining tycoon from a world not too far away to draw suspicion. It would provide the perfect cover for this unexpected incursion.
“What do you want?” one of the guards with the face of a pitbull and body of a bear barked out from in front of the barricade. He cradled a large-caliber carbine in paws so massive that Pearce wasn’t surprised to see the trigger guard had been removed to allow his stubby fingers easier access. The short barrel of the rifle was unwavering in its aim directly at Pearce’s center-mass and he hoped that the goon wouldn’t accidentally put a slug in his chest. At this range, it would deliver enough newtons to break ribs despite his armor.
Pearce slowed his walk in an overt display of hesitation. He had already adjusted his gait to emulate a more apprehensive person, and made a show of glancing worryingly at the various guards manning the barricade. They all were huge, physically impressive specimens just like the muscle in the docking bay. Must be gen-tech enhancements, as it seemed they grew on trees here on Vegas. Even as he played the deer in the headlights, his combat suite was analyzing the situation in real-time and overlaying threat indicators on his OHUD. The first rule of any mission was to always have an escape plan.
Pearce knew he could take out the guards at the barricade with just a little more effort than the ones he’d dispatched at the docking bay. The armored vehicle parked halfway up the driveway sported a nasty looking auto-cannon but wouldn’t be able to effectively engage him within close range. It was a large and ungainly looking monstrosity of cobbled together parts that the SSG would have called a technical or gunwagon. The second and third lines of defense farther up the driveway would provide a considerably more difficult challenge, and he would be forced to engage them in a firefight if he had to flee. Not optimal.
“Um,” Pearce mumbled, continuing the charade. “I was told this was Tilton’s place, and that it was the best place to find a Dutch Wife.”
The guard spit a hearty piece of phlegm like a rocket to the ground between Pearce and himself. Pearce noticed that even the spittle glistened red in the perpetual golden hour of Vegas. “Dutchies ain’t cheap Mister Farange. You got cred?” His voice was like sandpaper.
Pearce straightened a bit and spoke more confidently, as he expected any rich and privileged businessman would in the situation. “Of course I do. I own four mining companies on Birmingham.” He tried to project an ostentatious vibe as if he were insulted at even being asked about money.
The guard chewed that over for a moment, nodding his head and looking Pearce over once again.
“You isn’t dressed like a rich tǔháo, for sure. And showing off that jiāhuo serious hǎnjiàn.”
“I’m sure you can understand that this trip is completely off-the-books. And I was told that I might need this,” Pearce waved at the bulge under his jacket. “From the walk here I’m positive that was good advice.
“Alright, head on in. Lucky will give you the spiel,” he finally said, stepping aside and letting Pearce squeeze through a gap in the barricade. “Enjoy.”
Pearce took in everything as he made his way to the main entrance, as was his nature. He couldn’t go to the head without performing a tactical analysis. He zig-zagged his way through the snaking path of the barricade as if he was passing through the queue maze at a public spaceport. At every moment he had at least two guards with clear lines of fire on him.
The level of paranoia on display with the overt show of force suggested that there was a very uneasy truce between the local gangs. One of the guards even had an anti-armor launcher slung on his back. He wondered how often violence actually erupted, and rather more importantly, when the last flare up had been.
The driveway rose gently up a hill and ended with a circular cul-de-sac in front of a wall of windows and a large doorway. The entire area was covered with a columned porte-cochère under which several more groups of guards were gathered. As he approached the entrance, he overheard some of the guards in conversation and nearly stopped in his tracks.
“Yeah, Marcus said some guy took out the entire crew in a split second, all ninja style. They are literally carrying everyone but Zyrn to the truck now,” one was saying to a group of others.
“Dag, boss gonna mega-rage,” a lackey responded. “Probably blow that whole ship back to Earth.”
The first one shook his head at that. “Boss said to observe from a distance only. Wants to wait for the Renegade to flash-in from the last run.”
Pearce lost the rest of the conversation as he walked through the main doors of the hotel-con-fortress. The automatic sliding doors creaked and crunched their way open and then closed behind him, the result of a decade or more of skipped maintenance. Pearce considered his ill fortune.
Of all the criminal organizations that the shakedown goons had to belong to, it was the one he was now infiltrating. They’d be back here soon, and so Pearce had best be upstairs when they arrived. Plus, it sounded like they had a ship called the Renegade that was due back soon, and could potentially pose a threat to the Nightingale. He needed to send another message to the ship.
Murrig, prep the ship for immediate dust-off on my return…I may be coming in hot.
From across the expansive lobby a well-dressed and coiffed man was approaching with a smile. He had the grin of a preacher barely hiding the underlying sneer of a shark. Unlike his fellow comrade from the docking bay he would be offering something tangible in return for his fee.
“Mister Farange, pleased to make your acquaintance,” the
man said perfectly with upper-class core world intonation, shaking Pearce’s hand with gusto. “Please call me Lucky. I’m here to help you find absolutely anything you are looking for, though I hear you already have a pretty good idea of what that is,” he said with a wink as he placed his arms around Pearce’s shoulder and guided him towards the rear of the lobby.
The lobby itself was in markedly better shape than the exterior would have suggested. High overhead, a ceiling like a cathedral was adorned with architectural flourishes that Pearce couldn’t identify by name, and didn’t care to query. The wide and open lobby was only broken up by a series of carved pillars that were most likely for décor rather than structural support. A variety of different seating areas were sectioned off and fenced in with real plant life, imported at great expense.
There were another dozen henchmen scattered about and a few others that looked like customers. A small queue of them lined up at what looked like a bank window, but was clearly offering illicit goods. A few doorways opened into other rooms and hallways, with muted music coming from at least one of them. And a few scantily clad ladies and gentlemen of the night plied their wares or stood smoking a variety of intoxicants.
“Yes, I’ve heard amazing things about your Dutch Wives, and I decided that I just had to try them,” Pearce responded, again injecting some arrogance into his delivery.
“Well they are exceptional,” Lucky replied. They reached what Pearce supposed had once been the hotel’s main desk, where a beautiful but more modestly dressed woman sat behind a terminal with a million credit smile. Lucky removed his arm from around Pearce’s shoulders and turned to face him. “As well as exceptionally expensive. But for a gentleman such as yourself, it is truly a pittance.”
“Go on,” Pearce said.
“Four hours, fifty-thousand creds.”
Pearce nearly laughed out loud, but was far too professional to actually do so. The going rate for high quality sex bots, known as “Dutch Wives”, was maybe a quarter of that price in the core worlds. The Dutchies were entirely human-like in every conceivable way, with lifelike skin, hair, and all of the prerequisite body parts. They were insanely expensive to produce, but could work non-stop and generally were no-holds barred, and therefore commanded a premium that pimps and criminal enterprises could reliably count on.
“That’s a fair bit more expensive than anywhere else in the Confederation.” Pearce offered in reply.
The smile lit up Lucky’s face once again and Pearce could almost see the dopamine hit his bloodstream. Pearce hadn’t said “No” and so the sales pitch was on.
“That’s because these Dutchies aren’t like anything anywhere else in the galaxy, Mister Farange. Not only are they the most cutting edge models fresh from the Echovex factory, but we have had them all integrated with full-fledged L2 AGIs for the absolute most lifelike experience possible. No low-end sync-recordings here. And they cannot be found anywhere else, I guar-an-tee!” Lucky drew the last word out into three long syllables with exquisite salesmanship.
Pearce didn’t know whether to be suitably impressed or horrified. A Level 2 Artificial General Intelligence was for all intents and purposes a sentient being. They were also banned by Confederation law as part of the Lalande Accords.
“You put Strong AI into a sex bot?”
Lucky’s grin was ear-to-ear. “There is no way you’ll be able to tell the difference from a human, and they have an entire Emo-Engine too. Pleasure, pain, fear; they will experience all of them as organically as any of our human girls do. Of course, we have them shackled to an extent. We can program them to be submissive or to physically resist you if you want. We can completely control their apparent level of sexual experience, their pleasure regulators, and basically make them do anything you want. Shit, for an extra 10 g’s you can get the Damage Package which will let you do anything you want to their bodies physically. Even snuff ‘em, if you are in to that kind of thing. We just patch them up and reboot.”
Pearce suppressed his revulsion and forced a skeptical frown onto his face. “Wait a minute, if you are rebooting them then they aren’t really an AGI. Strong AI requires chronological continuity of sentience. Rebooting them would mean that they are just another virtual intelligence.”
Lucky shook his head no. “The shackles just let us suspend the simulation. Rebooting is just like waking up from a deep sleep. In fact, sometimes they open their eyes and are still screaming, gasping, whatever you were doing to them before. To them, it’s like actually dying and then just waking up after you croak. Like being reborn. Techies call it a respawn.”
“Wow,” was all Pearce could respond with. He was genuinely flabbergasted by the situation. Pearce was hardly an AI zealot, but he generally accepted and agreed with the established rules and laws regarding artificial intelligence. As a result of the Great AI War over two hundred years ago, strong AI had been banned outside of those AGIs that were already in existence and under strict monitoring.
In addition to the thousands of them that had been horrendously enslaved as weapons and driven insane by shackle-enforced servitude during that war, they were also banned for precisely these types of more pedestrian humanitarian reasons. These lunatics were essentially enslaving fully sentient beings in a hellish life of torture, rape, and depravity that was unimaginable.
“This may sound stupid, given all of this,” Pearce said, gesturing around the lobby. “But isn’t dealing in Strong AI like this, well, um, highly illegal? Like ‘dealing with antimatter weapons’ illegal?”
This time Lucky’s grin didn’t travel north of his mouth.
“Sure is, which is why we’re rather discerning with whom we share the information, like you Mister Farange. People with much to lose don’t tend to rat to the Confeds. And you have much to lose…a pretty wife and four lovely kids back in that old Victorian in Solihull. A fine-looking hetaera with her own magnificent palace for all of those long business trips. You, a fat cat, running your granddaddy’s company, living a life of luxury that isn’t worth losing.”
Lucky shrugged as he finishing outlying his threats. They were probably immensely successful against the types of actual people that Pearce’s alias was designed to emulate. Pearce was impressed at how much of his fake bio they had been able to dig up in less than a handful of minutes, which again pointed to the competency of this cartel.
“But that’s enough unpleasantness, don’t you think? For the experience you’ll be treated to it will be completely worth it, and this I personally guar-an-tee. We have a one-hundred precent satisfaction rate with our Dutchies. Men, women, in-between…everyone comes away a satisfied customer.”
Pearce was pretty sure that he was going to be satisfied when he left, but for a very different reason than the rest of Lucky’s customers. He was beginning to formulate a plan in his mind. He had originally decided to go with the Dutch Wives route because the street rat had told him they were all located on the 8th floor, which was the topmost occupied floor of the building. A fire had rendered the floors above uninhabitable in the act that finally sent the hotel into bankruptcy years ago, and the gangster who had taken it over never bothered to repair them. This meant it was the best way to sneak into the upper floors and reach the Omega safe room. This development gave Pearce a few more options that he could utilize.
A commotion from one of the nearby hallways shook him from his reverie of justice. A large group of heavily armed men marched out and towards the main entrance. He counted and tagged ten tangos with body armor, PB rifles, sniper gear, and even a heavy auto-cannon. As they disappeared from his peripheral vision he recognized the voice of the guard from outside the main entrance stating that the crew from the docking bay was arriving. Time to move.
“OK, I’m sold. Sign me up.”
***
Five minutes later he stood before room 808 after riding the elevator and being ushered by one of Lucky’s assistant’s down a plush, dimly lit hallway screaming of every dollhouse cliché possible. He had qu
ickly rushed through the selection process downstairs, picking out a “companion” at random from the menu and bypassing the offered AR trial. A quick credit transaction later and was heading upstairs in a nick of time as the docking bay crew was being brought in just as the doors closed. He wondered what the Omega accountants would think as they reconciled that expense.
“Remember, she’s fully interactive so just treat her like a real person to get started,” the assistant said before turning away to head back to the lobby.
A real person. Pearce seethed. These AGIs were real people, despite not having a natural organic body and life cycle. They thought, felt, experienced, questioned, and more. They were victims, just like so many people that Pearce had helped in the past. He had a critical mission to accomplish and a war to stop, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t kill two birds with one stone.
He palmed the door button and the portal slid open, revealing a space with the typical layout of a hotel room supercharged with the same tacky strip club décor of the hallway. Dim pink and purple lighting bathed the entire room in colliding shadows and drew all of his attention to the stunning half-naked woman standing in front of the king-size four post bed.
AGI, Peace had to remind himself, as it was impossible to spot the difference even with his trained eye. He had his OHUD filter through several vision modes to be sure, and even infrared couldn’t pinpoint a major difference. He remembered that her name was Emma, currently one of the most popular stripper pseudo’s in the Confederation.
“Hello,” Emma said with surprising warmth. “Won’t you come in?”
Pearce stepped over the threshold and door slid shut and locked with a faint snick behind him. He had no reservations about the security of the door or his privacy; he was positive the room was under surveillance and that lock was merely a psychologically comforting measure. The problem was that there was no apparent connection to the planetary network in this building, nor even a local wireless infrastructure of any kind. Everything must be hard-wired. That meant he’d have to act convincingly until he found a way to tap in.
Impact Event (Dargo Pearce Chronicles #1) Page 18
