The expected phone call from Rennick never came. An hour passed and she never called. The display on my smartwatch never lit up with her name and number. And Pam never patched her through on the office line. The tracking device took her all the way to the IM and stopped.
Something didn’t feel right. I cross-referenced the location of the dot with a city directory to a factory long since abandoned.
What the hell could she possibly be doing there?
I jotted the address down, grabbed my hat and gave my assistant a heads-up as to what was going on.
I drove like an asshole from the CD to the IM. The simulated exhaust of my Nash Griffon rumbled as I negotiated the car through the very precise matrix of streets and cross-streets. Occasionally I checked my location against the address I had copied down.
As I cruised past an endless collection of abandoned buildings, the scene reminded me of photos I’d seen as a kid of Detroit in a coffee-table book my parents always had out on a side table next to the sofa. Once a pinnacle of human achievement, New London’s Industrial and Manufacturing dome was a reminder that our galaxy had become very small, and that there was a virtually unlimited choice of cheap places to set up a business.
The faded sign for 1643 Edison clung to a perimeter fence by a screw too stubborn to let go.
‘This must be the place,’ I said aloud for the sole purpose of breaking the eerie silence.
The front gate was open – ‘missing’ would be a more precise term. I guided the Griffon through and cut the engine about 30 metres from the main building. After coasting to a gentle stop, I hopped out and had a better look at the remains of the now-defunct Verne Bottling Company.
High above, a bright flash streaked across the periphery of my vision. I stared up at a perfectly clear afternoon Martian sky. It must have been a malfunction in the biosphere dome. Atmospheric lightning is reserved for places with an actual atmosphere, not here. It didn’t rain on Mars and fluffy clouds did not drift idly by inside, or outside, our domed existence. The best we got was violent storms at ground level that spit dust and static electricity as they roamed the countryside like whirling demons.
However, we did have neglect and I suspected they serviced this district only as much as needed in order to prevent a catastrophe. You would never see anything like electrical shorts (or surges) in the domes of the RD1 or Res 1. But then money has the ability to create those types of grand illusions we associate with perfection.
A noise in the factory brought me back to the matter at hand. This didn’t look like the kind of joint you’d come to for a meeting. It looked more like a place to dispose of a body, or create a body, or both. I knew Rennick was inside somewhere, but charging in unprepared would make every other mistake I’d made in my life seem like a blessing from God above.
I walked to the back of the car and popped the trunk. With the push of a button, the same secret compartment I’d used to hide my super-suit opened and I surveyed its additional contents – another pair of bracelets, concussion rifle and a second NEEDLE.
The concussion rifle, I tried to hide as best I could behind my leg. I tucked the handcuffs into my belt. I chambered a neurological round in the pistol and slid it into a shoulder holster. For good measure, I stuffed an EMP round in my pocket. I approached the corner of the building and crept along the exterior wall to a rusty old door about 20 metres away.
The sound of glass breaking into hundreds of shards shattered the quiet. The blur of a figure soared out of the window like a stuntman in a summer blockbuster. He hit the ground running. Out of sheer panic, I brought the rifle around and fired from the hip. The gun kicked in my hands but a blast of pure concussive force hit the guy in the right shoulder.
The blast sent him tumbling into a heap of old metal, industrial cable and broken crates. He stood up and took stock of his situation. By the blood running down his arm, I knew he must have nicked an artery. He shouldn’t have been able to get back up like that. But he did, and he didn’t seem too bothered about his injury. It could mean only one thing: a synth. He struggled to dislodge his right foot from a tangled mass of steel and wires.
In one deft motion, I dropped the rifle, pulled the pistol, ejected the inhibitor cartridge, loaded the EMP and took aim at his chest. It wasn’t until I racked the chamber that he looked up and acknowledged my existence.
The android stood slightly shorter than me with close-cropped brown hair, and blue eyes. A perfect physique peeked out from the torn places in his shirt and chinos.
Why do they always make these robots look like marathon runners or supermodels? You never see one that looks like a tired, fat, old bus driver or one of Wagner’s rotund Valkyries.
‘Who are you and what the hell are you doing here?!’ I barked at my quarry.
‘My name is James,’ the android said with a misplaced grin, ‘and I could ask you the very same question. Do you make a habit of shooting random strangers?’
‘Only those that jump out of the windows of abandoned buildings I happen to be standing next to,’ I replied with a quick glance over my shoulder. ‘Now, I’ll give you one last chance to answer my question before I juice you hard enough to fry every goddamn circuit in your smug face.’
‘My guess is that we are both here for the same reason.’ His voice took on a slight maniacal edge. ‘And that place you’re thinking about shooting; you might want to hold off on that.’
He moved out of the rubble and I released the safety. That froze him in his tracks.
‘There are a lot of things that I want to do, pal. And not shooting you is pretty far down on the list.’
‘I assume you are here for a certain storage device with very sensitive information on it,’ he replied with a shrug. ‘I just thought you should know that I cached its info on my core processor. Then I smashed the original to teeny tiny bits! A jolt from your little toy might cause irreparable damage to my hardware, software or firmware. Awfully risky if you ask me!’ He punctuated that last sentence with a truly insane laugh that stretched longer than one might consider appropriate. A psychotic robot. This was news, and new, to me.
Our conversation confused, and creeped, the hell out of me. I expected to find my client here waiting for me, or hiding out. Instead, this joker came flying out of the window like a deranged Peter Pan. Now he confessed that not only did he know about the datapad but he also had the information tucked inside his little computer heart.
Rennick had been right all along.
This shit was starting to give me another headache. I flexed my index finger against the NEEDLE’s trigger and considered shooting him anyway. Better judgement won out and I tossed the cuffs to him. The android caught them with ease.
‘Put them on!’
But he didn’t listen to me. They never do. With a quick flick of his wrist, they came right back at me with the speed of a well-hit line drive. I dodged left, but the cuffs clipped me on the right upper arm. The hit stung but I’d been hit harder. The blow did cause me to drop my gun, though. He made a break for it to my right. I scooped up the concussion rifle and came up on one knee ready to shoot. James bolted for the gate.
I squeezed off a shot and hit him square in the ass region. It sent him airborne in a graceful arc and he crash-landed on the cracked pavement. To his credit, the robot popped right back up and kept running. I gave chase. My knee begged me not to but I ignored its protests. As fortune would have it, the handcuffs had skidded to a halt in the dirt not too far from my position. I fired again. James was at the edge of my range.
The blast knocked him down but with very little force. Still, it gave me enough time to grab the cuffs and close in. I let off another round before he could right himself and it sent him head first back onto the pockmarked concrete. I fired again and he sort of bounced on the ground but at least he stayed down. As I continued to close, I let off one more to the head for good measure.
With all the skill of a rodeo clown, I had him bound in the cuffs in no time and the low electrical pulse emitted by them kept his motor functions to a minimum. He could walk, but with the benefit of me not having to listen to his cutting wit. I pulled him to his feet and guided him to the Griffon. I opened the rear door and shoved him in the back seat.
‘You sit tight, pal, and don’t touch anything.’
Now to go find Charlotte Rennick.