Android: Rebel (The Identity Trilogy) Page 13

  “You’re welcome.” Blaine looked at Shelly. “You were a good detective, Nolan. This thing with Salter means that we haven’t found the end of the string that got you killed. I’m going to help with that. You deserved better.”

  I didn’t know why Blaine spoke to her when he knew she wasn’t really there. Maybe it was out of respect for me. Or maybe he thought I might be discomfited if he didn’t acknowledge my aberration.

  “Blaine and I will stay on this part of the investigation,” Floyd said. “We’ve been reviewing video files of the tube the day Salter was killed, trying to find him in the crowds. Maybe it will help if we start searching for two people together instead of one.”

  “Or it could be whoever did this erased the footage of Salter getting on the tube,” Blaine said. “Whoever set this up was really connected.”

  I nodded. “Thank you. Please keep me apprised. In the meantime, Floyd, if you could start searching for those links to John Rath so that I could find out what happened to him, I would appreciate it.”

  “Of course.”

  I broke the connection to the meetbox and—

  * * *

  —opened my eyes once more in the drawer at the Elysian Fields Motel. The local time was 2119, late enough for me to start my search for the chimera mercenaries. That was the only lead I had left on Mars. Mara Blake was out there somewhere waiting.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I cycled through the airlock and stepped into the hazy environs of the Iron Pyrite Saloon. The neon pirate motif I’d seen on the digital board outside, obviously a play on the word pyrite, was repeated throughout the bar. Robot pirates battled on a mural behind the bar and a robot pirate lamp sat on every table. The airlock let out onto a raised area that overlooked the main floor of the bar and was intended to give the impression of a ship’s captain standing on the stern.

  Male and female servers dressed in pirate costumes—running the gamut from Caribbean pirates to the more recent asteroid space jumpers—plied a crowd of miners, transit employees, dock workers, and local laborers.

  There were even a few people here slumming from Bradbury colony or other locations. I knew them because they kept to themselves and surveyed their surroundings with a mixture of fear and anticipation. Pleasure bioroids of both genders circulated the crowd as well, and occasionally someone would accompany one or two of them upstairs to privacy rooms.

  I drew casual attention, but not too much. Everyone in a place like this noticed newcomers, but there was enough traffic from the train station that a new face was nothing immediately threatening. Merely a curiosity at the outset.

  A young man dressed as a Spanish pirate with a cutlass in hand approached me with a smile from under the large, feathered hat he wore. He pointed his weapon—a pressed foam replica in neon green so there would be no mistakes about whether it was truly a danger—at me. “Avast there, lubber. Will ye be needin’ a table for one, or a table for a group? Arrrr!”

  “One. Something back in the VR section.” I didn’t drink or eat, so a bioroid sitting at a table by himself was either someone waiting on someone else or spying on someone else. Virtual reality offered new experiences to bioroids, and though the business was small, the market was dedicated and growing as newer, high-functioning bioroids came out of Haas-Bioroid and other manufacturers.

  “Arrrr. Then follow me, matey.” With a flourish, the server shoved his cutlass through his waist sash and headed back for a corner away from the bar.

  I followed him and ignored the stares that trailed in my wake. Most of the men and women watching me didn’t realize I had 360-degree vision. Most of them dismissed me at once and went back to their drinks and conversation.

  The server pointed to a small table against the back wall. “Will this be suitin’ yer pleasure then?”

  A VR connection gleamed atop the table. It was a small, round touchpad that gleamed dark purple.

  “This is fine.” From the table, I could see most of the main bar. I sat.

  The server dropped the accent. “If you ask me, the VR here is kind of pricey, but the range of environments is pretty good.” He smiled. “I envy you guys being able to access VR with just a touch. I have to have a full skinsuit at home, and that thing gets itchy if you try to spend too much time in it. Also, with all the health regs, I don’t get unlimited access. Couldn’t afford it either.”

  I nodded.

  “Let me know if you need anything further.”

  I told him that I would and he went away. I put my left palm over the touchpad and booted the link, but I also partitioned my mind, letting the VR program run on a subroutine that I monitored but didn’t let distract me from watching the bar.

  After briefly considering the menu, which was fairly impressive for a bar this far outside of a megapolis or colony, I selected a history VR about Vikings that seemed to be a favorite. Maybe it was because the bioroids that frequented the Iron Pyrite stuck with a seafaring interest or because after spending so much time in the midst of a desert planet the idea of being out on an ocean was an attractive one.

  When I logged in after slotting my credstick, I was suddenly seated on a hard wooden bench and was pulling an oar as a storm-tossed sea surged around me. The other warriors I sat with cursed their luck and prayed to their gods as the ship’s captain called out the strokes. The cold, brine-flavored mist fell over me and I discovered my clothes were already soaked.

  The sensations, smells, and sights—especially the violet lightning searing the sky—jarred me. I muted the experience, shoving it further down into my mind, then thought perhaps I’d chosen the Viking VR because I was there looking for warriors.

  “Why didn’t you ever get a VR rig for your home?” Shelly sat beside me and watched the bar as well. “A lot of bioroids that can afford them have them. You can certainly afford it.”

  That was true. Downtime was the worst thing for a bioroid. Having a job meant having a purpose, and it meant the hours in the day would be filled. Sitting idle for even the eight hours of downtime required every day by federal law, more to make certain more employees had a chance to work, seemed interminable. High-end bioroids had been designed to perform, to remain engaged.

  Many of the bioroids were too simple, too unimaginative, to need stimulus throughout the day. They simply returned to where they were billeted, shut down, and went into upgrade mode, which was seldom necessary because Haas-Bioroid handled the upgrades and most bioroids didn’t change jobs. They had nothing new to learn, and they never noticed. New things upset their routines and they resisted implementation and integration of them.

  Higher-functioning bioroids were another matter. They learned every day from stimulus they received on the job. Models like the Brad that I had met on the train to Bradbury colony would require stimulus other than the job routine. They were constantly learning, and even during shut down mode, their minds remained active. They trolled the Net during those times.

  However, most of them chose social interaction. They clubbed, they had sex—those that were equipped for it—they talked with anyone that would give them the time of day, and they got into trouble. Crime often wasn’t a necessity for a bioroid, although many of them didn’t mind getting their hands on the extra cred. Many times, criminal activity was simply a byproduct of restlessness and a need to learn, or to be part of a group. All of that experience was channeled into the performance of their jobs, allowing them to learn more about working with humans.

  “I never felt the need for a VR rig,” I replied. “I had our casework. That kept me occupied.” And it had. Throughout the day when I was with Shelly, and during the time we were apart, I continually combed through the files and investigations we were working.

  “That’s why we had such a high closed case percentage.”

  I knew that was true. Shelly had often formed our investigative plans, setting up interviews, making intuitive leaps of logic that I’d been challenged to follow, but I had been the one that had spotted trends and
patterns in the criminals we pursued.

  “We were a good team,” she said.

  I nodded. We had been. To some degree, we still were. Momentary discomfort passed through me when I considered that I was somehow holding Shelly to the here and now instead of letting her go as her family had been forced to do. I made myself dismiss that thought, telling myself that I wasn’t holding onto Shelly, that the “person” beside me was a simulacrum my mind had created out of necessity to keep me functioning as a detective. This Shelly was stimulus and a direct connection to experience and training, a needed second opinion and devil’s advocate as I progressed.

  The Viking VR continued to run, and the experiences there moved at 4.6 times the speed of real life. That was where the VR industry cheated its bioroid customers. A human had the capacity to act faster than life went on around it. Most humans could speak and understand 125 words a minute, but the brain moved at 400 words a minute or faster, allowing them to think about what was being said and what they were saying. High-functioning bioroid brains processed information even faster.

  A VR sim charged for “real” time experiences that were compressed into bursts four and five times faster. Therefore, a VR that lasted four hours could be accessed in sixty minutes. The unit cost was still based on the delivered hour of entertainment, not the time connected. Some bioroids had become dependent on VR experiences, lusting after something other than their daily drudgery.

  I sat there for an hour, watching people come and go. The bar patron that stood out the most was an older man with bionic legs. He’d had them for a while because they were older prosthetics, and not as fluid as the models on the market now.

  I estimated that the man was in his sixties. His face was craggy, showing blemishes from scar tissue that hadn’t quite been banished by a surgeon’s laser, and seamed from a hard life. His full beard was the same salt and pepper as his long hair. The tattoos visible on his meaty forearms tracked back to both Earth infantry and Martian mercenary corps.

  The two other men around him were not military colleagues, but worked with him at a machine shop. They referred to him as Hayim, but I didn’t know if that was truly his name. If I’d still had NAPD access, I believed I could have found him in the Earth infantry databases.

  “You’ll have to be careful how you approach him,” Shelly said.

  I silently agreed. When we’d been partners she would usually interface with civilians, or I would flash my NAPD credentials and get them to talk to me. I had no authority on Mars.

  After a few more moments spent watching a soccer game sent from Earth, Hayim excused himself from his friends, paid his tab, and headed for the door. His bionic legs worked jerkily, unable to quite be adapted to the lower Martian gravity. They might have performed just as awkwardly on Earth or the Moon. Or maybe he’d drunk more than he’d intended. After losing his legs, the circulation and the body mass, a drink would affect him more strongly than a whole person.

  I gave him a lead, enough time to reach the airlock and don his envirosuit, then followed. No one took notice of my departure. I went up the steps and trailed after Hayim, rejecting scenario after scenario of how best to announce myself and declare my intentions.

  Once I cycled through the airlock, I fell into step with Hayim. He walked along the boardwalk to the west, glancing into shops and store windows as he passed. I thought he was more alert. I thought I was watching him without losing sight of everything around me.

  The four men that rushed Hayim from a darkened alley surprised me. One of them grabbed Hayim from behind and affixed a small box to the back of the man’s suit. Electricity surged through the suit, popping along the metal, and Hayim dropped bonelessly to the ground only to be caught by another of the men.

  By that time I was in motion, pistoning my arms and legs to remove the distance between us. Since there was not enough atmosphere to carry the noise of my approach, and the men were bundled into envirosuits, I knew they could not hear me.

  One of them saw me coming, though, and he alerted his companions. The one carrying Hayim hurried away, managing him easily in the lower gravity, dragging the limp man almost effortlessly. The attacker’s three companions drew sidearms and leveled them at me.

  Five meters from them, I threw myself into a slide, going at them feet first. Bullets sped over my head, unseen to the human eye but visible in my thermographic vision as heated red and yellow streamers missing me by centimeters.

  I hit two of the men squarely enough to knock them from their feet, trying not to permanently harm them, but evidence pointed to the fact that Hayim’s life was in danger. That hazard freed me up some in my response, but I still felt uncomfortable about the way the leg of one man bent backwards in a manner no human joint was meant to do.

  I ignored that for the moment, though my programming prompted me to relieve the injured man’s pain as soon as possible. Since I massed greater than they did, the brief obstruction the two men provided didn’t stop my slide. I continued on for another six meters, farther than I’d anticipated because the loose sand over the hard rock provided no real traction against my clothing.

  The third man spun around, his pistol blazing, tracking small craters just behind me. In the thin atmosphere, he didn’t have to worry about his shots being overheard. I rolled to my left hip and managed to draw the Synap pistol before I came to a stop. The man’s last few rounds chewed into the ground and threw dirt and puffs of dust into my face. I leveled the Synap and took aim, then fired.

  The blue bolt streaked across the distance between us and sent the man flying backward, not from the impact, because that was minimal, but because of his nervous response as his muscle control seized up for a moment then relaxed. By the time he landed a few meters away, I had my legs under me and was advancing toward the two men I’d scattered when I smashed into them.

  The man whose leg I’d broken rolled in agony, unable to do more than scream in pain. His partner tried to push himself to his feet and aim his pistol. I shot him with the Synap, then shot the man with the broken leg as well to render him unconscious and put him out of his pain. I checked his suit to make sure the fracture he’d suffered hadn’t ruptured his envirosuit. Finding everything secure with the man’s suit, I sprinted after the man who had taken off with Hayim. They had already disappeared down the alley, which looked to be a warren of trails between various smaller shops and businesses that had been jammed in wherever space had been available or later carved out of the canyon side.

  I took advantage of the lighter gravity and leaped to the top of the nearest single-story building, managing the feat easily. I landed and ran, pulling down a map overlay of the area from the Net. I saw instantly that the map hadn’t been updated. The row of buildings behind the initial row wasn’t even on the map.

  I dropped the map overlay just before I reached the building’s edge and looked down. Ten meters to the left, the attacker had just finished throwing Hayim over the rear of a minihopper and was climbing aboard, grabbing the handlebars and starting the motor.

  I didn’t hear the motor start, but the minihopper rose in the air and accelerated. I ran along the building, gaining swiftly on the machine and threw myself at him when I’d matched speeds.

  I hit the man a glancing blow with my shoulder because I didn’t think he could survive a direct impact, then pulled him from the minihopper. We crashed into a nearby diner that had closed for the night and rebounded onto the street.

  With no rider in control of the minihopper, the vehicle’s safeguards took over and set it gently on the ground before shutting down. Hayim lay undisturbed across the rear deck.

  The man tried to get to his feet, but the fall had knocked the wind from him and left him nearly senseless. I pushed him over into oblivion with the Synap, checked his vitals to make sure he was in no distress, then went to ensure Hayim was all right.

  I squatted down beside the old man and looked through his helmet faceplate. He was conscious, yelling invective. I accessed his h
elmet frequency so we could converse.

  “Do you know who these men are?”

  “Riffraff,” Hayim snarled. “Tech vultures. I’d seen one of them before. He got busted on a warehouse job a few months back. Stealing seed stock and fertilizer.”

  “What did they want with you?”

  “My legs. Had to be after my legs. They can part them out for a little cred to other people who don’t care where they get spare parts.” Hayim cursed. “I should have seen them coming. Probably would have, too, if I hadn’t been watching you.”

  “Watching me?”

  “You were following me. I was so concerned over you that I didn’t see them till it was too late.” His eyes narrowed. “What do you want with me?”

  “Just to talk. I had some questions about mercenaries. I know you’ve spent time working as a soldier.”

  A red light strobed through the alleys, whipping across the sand-covered ground.

  “That light means sec people are going to be along,” Hayim said nervously. “I don’t want to get involved with this.”

  “The sec officers won’t give you any trouble. They’ll help you, probably take you to a hospital if you need it.”

  “I don’t need a hospital. What I need is to get out of here.” Hayim struggled to get to his feet.

  “You should stay and make a report.”

  “Not me.” Hayim tried again to get to his feet and failed. “I don’t have papers for the colonies. Secmen find me here, they’ll put me on the first freighter headed back to Earth.”

  “You’re here illegally?” That was interesting. I knew a small contingent of Mars’s colonial population were ex-patriates from Earth. Many of them were like Hayim, military men and mercs who’d chosen to stay.

  Hayim scowled at me. “Yes. I thought you were one of the watchdogs the Martian Colonial Authority has looking for people like me.”

  “No.”