by M. D. Cooper
Jason leveled him a look.
“You’re really going to try that line on me, after what happened out there tonight?” He shook his head in disgust as he walked over and grabbed the aircraft’s tow bar. “Hell, Ben. If you’d had anyone capable of field work, they would have been out there tonight.” He pointed the metal bar at his brother-in-law. “You and I both know it, so don’t pull that ‘I have a team’ shit on me.”
Ben raised his hands. “Okay, true, I have no field operatives. But I do have plenty of analysts. And tracking that shuttle is analyst work.”
Jason lowered the bar and massaged the back of his neck tiredly as he thought for a moment.
“Okay, I'll give you that, but—”
“Then give me your drone’s ident and tracking frequency.” Ben spread his hands and added, “Please?”
Jason sent it to him, and the man nodded.
“Thanks for your help tonight, Jason...” his brother-in-law's voice trailed off.
“ ‘But we’ll take it from here’?” Jason supplied.
Ben sent a half-apologetic shrug his way. “Something like that, yes.”
* * * * *
Jason glanced up from the Yak as the doors began to close on their own, and the hangar’s holoemitters flickered to life.
“Hey there, handsome,” Rosie’s sultry voice greeted him as he unhooked the tow bar from the aircraft’s nosewheel.
“Hey, yourself, Rosie,” he greeted, as the AI’s avatar coalesced inside the hangar, once again dressed as an aviation mechanic.
Jason sighed and gave himself a mental shake, smiling over at the AI. He’d better start acting as if nothing was wrong, if he planned to keep tonight’s events under wraps.
He pointed at the grease smeared across Rosie’s left pant leg and slipped into an aw-shucks drawl as he delivered his habitual greeting. “So, when are you going to give up the avatar, and embed yourself into one of these fine flying machines?”
He grinned as Rosie returned her habitual reply. “You know I’m not monogamous, sweet cakes.” She batted her eyes slowly as she crossed over to sweep one long, red-painted nail along the Yak’s leading edge. “I’d never be happy with just one.”
Jason barked a laugh, shaking his head as he pushed off from the wall. “I still say you’re missing something, staying planetbound. Maybe you should consider a humanoid frame for a bit. At least that way,” he gestured to her coveralls, “you’d be able to experience the reality of grease under your nails.”
Rosie wrinkled her nose at him and pretended to examine her manicure.
“Seriously, Jason, and risk breaking a nail?”
He just smiled and shook his head as he turned toward the table where he’d dumped their gear. Mechanically, he began repacking the glider. A few moments of companionable silence passed as he completed the task, setting the pack to one side.
Next, he reached for the ghillie netting that lay in a heap, and startled as Rosie’s voice came from behind.
“Penny for them.”
He quirked an eyebrow over at her. ”An Old Earth currency? And for what? Is that another one of those obscure Terran phrases you like to hunt up?”
The AI huffed a little sigh. “It’s ‘a penny for your thoughts’, and it means you’ve been awfully quiet, flyboy. It’s obvious you have something on your mind. But if you don’t want to talk—”
“No, no, it’s fine,” Jason assured her as he rummaged through the storage locker for a duffel to pack the netting in. “Just been a long day is all.”
“Uhm-hmmm. Pull the other one, it has bells on.”
Jason rolled his eyes. “Translation, please?”
“It means I’m not buying it.”
He just shrugged, snagging the duffel, and returned to the table. After a brief moment, Rosie realized she wasn’t going to get a response.
“Have it your way, then,” she sighed. “Besides, I didn’t look you up just because it’s quiet and lonely out here this time of night.” She waited a beat, and when Jason didn't respond, continued. “Although it totally is, by the way. In case you were wondering.”
Finished with the ghillie, Jason tossed the duffel back into the storage locker and returned to the table. He leaned a hip against it and shot her a look. “Two words,” he reminded the AI. “ ‘Humanoid frame’.”
“Maaaaybe. Someday.” She cocked her head at him. “Lysander called about an hour ago. You know, it was a bit of a thrill to talk to an honest-to-stars senator. Little ol’ me, I only get to meet pilots and engineers and,” she wrinkled her nose, “that stuffy, officious AI over at the spaceport who’s too stuck up to bother with a girl he thinks doesn’t know anything other than small-time, planetbound traffic.” She sniffed. “Prick.”
Jason smiled. “Rosie, you know plenty of things, and you’re a quick study—always absorbing and learning new stuff every time I see you. Don’t you worry about him, it’s his loss.”
Rosie smiled. “You’re such a sweetie, Jason. But seriously, the senator said he couldn’t ping you, and got worried. So I told him I’d have you ping him back when you showed up.”
Jason walked over to the small cooling unit to snag a drink, then took a sip before answering. “Yeah, I could see where that might worry him.” He nodded. “Thanks, Rosie. I’ll reach out to him in a few.”
She abruptly stood up straight. “Ah—he’s calling back right now. Shall I put him through?”
“Yes, please.”
Lysander’s voice came across the Link Rosie established, and then her holo faded from view.
Jason heard a sound come over the Link that he’d always associated with Lysander laughing.
* * * * *
Tobias watched as Jason dropped his pack inside the apartment's entrance, then stumbled to the sofa. He dropped into it with a sigh, swung his feet up onto a nearby table, and let his head fall back against the cushion.
Every movement telegraphed exhaustion.
Jason shifted slightly to look at the Proxima cat as she approached, then reached over for the earpieces that rested on one corner of the table.
The man looked leaden from fatigue, his movements lacking their normal fluidity.
“Yeah,” Tobias heard him mutter. “I’ll just bet that rockfall was all over the nets.” Jason inserted the filaments into his ears, and their enhanced Link snapped into place, Jason’s mind flooding his own, the human’s unutterably weary.
Tobias knew Jason felt his shock through their Link.
As Jason began to describe the evening's events, his anger seemed to revive his flagging energy. As the tale unfolded, Tobias struggled to contain his own fury.
Being Weapon Born meant he had once suffered the cruelties of the same shackling program that now held these innocents captive. Those who would use such code against an AI sought to label them as nothing more than owned property.
This will not stand.
So did Jason.
Jason's head dropped back onto the sofa.
In the next moment, he was out, the animal’s deep rumbling purr the only noise that remained in the silence of the apartment.
EXPANSE
STELLAR DATE: 07.05.3189 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: Senator Lysander’s Offices, Parliament House
REGION: Sonali, El Dorado Ring, Alpha Centauri System
“ ‘What’s it like, working with an AI? Just like with any other living being. Some of them you get along with, some of them you don’t. Everyone’s talents and strengths are unique, and that crosses all races, genders and creeds.’
‘Instead, why don’t you ask me what it’s like, working for a senator who plans to be elected party leader, and hopefully appointed the next Prime Minister?’
‘That was Senator Lysander’s human aide, Gerald James, in an exclusive interview with us this afternoon. Stay tuned as we bring you more of the latest from Parliament House. Until next time, this is Travis Jamieson.’”
Ben raised his hand in a distracted wave, glancing briefly down the long hallway as he heard his name called. He didn’t stop to identify or otherwise acknowledge the person greeting him as he pushed his way through security into Parliament House’s senatorial wing.
As he approached Lysander’s offices, he nodded to a group of lobbyists exiting, then ducked inside as they cleared the entrance. He shoved his hands in his pockets, nodding to Thomas as the AI aide held up his hand in the universal “wait’ gesture.
Ben paced slowly in front of the aide’s desk as he waited for the AI to end his Link conversation. He paused, eyeing a chair, then decided he was too wound up to sit. Fortunately, Thomas’ call did not last long.
“The senator’s expecting you,” Thomas said.
“I’ll just bet he is,” the analyst said under his breath as he charged through the doors Thomas opened for him.
The AI tactfully ignored Ben’s rejoinder.
Ben stopped abruptly and looked around; Lysander’s avatar was nowhere in sight. Turning, he saw the AI’s image coalesce behind him, arms crossed, a frown settling on his face.
“I see you and Jason made it back in one piece,” the senator said by way of hello. “I also couldn’t help but notice the report of an earthquake in a newscast earlier this morning.” Lysander’s voice sounded severe. “Something about a tectonic plate shift, and the resulting crater in Muzhavi Bowl. And a rockslide along the cliffs of Scar Top Peak.”
Ben’s laugh was a bit wild, and when he spoke, his voice vibrated with anger as he pointed a finger at the senator. “That last? That was not my idea.”
He turned abruptly and walked over to the windows overlooking the Inner Loop and the city beyond. He stood silently, his jaw working back and forth, waiting for what Lysander would say next.
“I thought we had an understanding, Ben.” Lysander’s avatar had followed him to the window. He stood next to the analyst now, and his words were disapproving. “Gladys told you she needed to see the data on the warehouse before she would agree to help you.”
Ben glanced sideways at the senator. “And I told her I didn’t need her help with that part. I had it covered.”
“It would seem you didn’t think of everything,” the senator said with deceptive mildness, his gaze focused on the maglev loop in the distance. “Or else I wouldn’t have found myself reaching out last night to the man who is like a son to me, to ensure he was still alive.”
The analyst turned abruptly to face the AI.
“Well, since you brought it up, let’s talk about Jason, why don’t we?”
At Ben’s accusatory tone, Lysander’s expression took on a guarded look.
“What about Jason?”
“I don’t know who or what Jason is, but he sure as hell isn’t who he appears to be. I don’t know what he’s been playing at, acting as if he’s some kind of aimless, carefree, itinerant worker with no prospects.”
He pinned Lysander’s avatar with an accusing glare.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say the man I saw last night was one of our own operatives. And you didn’t think that might be something helpful for me to know before going out there?”
There was a pause, then Lysander sighed.
“He’s not, Ben. Yes, he’s modded—but not for the reasons you think. And it was done in Proxima, not here.”
“Well, it’s obvious the guy’s had some sort of military training,” Ben replied sharply. “I thought we had a friendly, reciprocal relationship with Proxima, and here I find out—”
“It’s not like that,” Lysander interrupted. “And no, I can’t tell you about it.”
“He threw us off a cliff, Lysander.” Ben snapped his fingers. “Just like that, the man goes into some sort of…extreme zone. He was tense, alert. His actions got kind of smooth and flowy. And then suddenly, he just moved.”
The AI shook his head and turned, meeting Ben’s eyes.
“I’m sorry, Ben. It’s his story to tell, not mine. You’ll have to ask him yourself. “
“Well, I can’t afford to have any unknown factors thrown into the mix at this stage in the game,” Ben began heatedly. “And if he’s a Proxima agent—”
“Settle down, Ben. He’s not, and never was. He’s just naturally very athletic. And…we’re going to need him.”
* * * * *
Jason smiled reluctantly as Tobi bounded up the broad staircase ahead of him. He had to take the stairs three at a time to keep her within the constraints of the e-harness that connected the cat to his immediate vicinity.
“Comin’ through!” he found himself calling out, as a warning to the people ahead of him.
He stifled a grin at the occasional muted shriek the twenty-kilo cat elicited as she wove her way through the well-dressed throng at Parliament House.
Jason knew from experience that Tobi had no compunctions, leveraging the startling sensation of a cold, wet nose against the back of a thigh or the palm of an unsuspecting hand.
Occasionally, Tobi would come across an opening in the crowd that allowed her to stretch to her full meter and a half length as she leapt up the stairs. At those times, Jason had to hustle to keep up with her.
Damn, this cat is fast.
The slight vibration of the controller around his wrist notified him that he’d been correct.
The cat’s love for open spaces had been too tempting, and she had begun to stretch out into a sprint, only to have the harness’ proximity sensor activate the magnetic field that opposed her collar when it sensed she had reached the end of her virtual tether. The field pushed her, gently at first and then more firmly, back toward the locus, centered in the control unit on Jason’s wrist.
Tobi sent him a reproving look and settled on her haunches as he approached. Jason sank his hand into the ruff at the base of one ear, giving her an apologetic scratch. “We’ll go for a run around Lake Sonali later today. I promise,” he told the cat, and heard Tobias give a mental murmur of agreement as they approached the security checkpoint.
One of the guards shook his head as Jason and Tobias passed their security tokens over for inspection. “She sure does cause a sensation when she comes to visit,” he told Jason.
The guard looked surprised. “I thought these were bred as shipboard cats,” he commented. “How do they handle being cooped up during flight?” He was addressing the AI, but assumed, as everyone did, that Tobias was embedded with the human present, and so turned to Jason as he delivered his response. That was fine with both human and AI. That kind of misdirection had come in handy more than once over the years.
