Alvin Baylor Lives! Read online

  “Confirmed. Heart stopped. Also, his implant says his name is Mohammed,” she said.

  Cheng spoke up, “You want us to take this black ball?”

  “No,” Padre replied. “I want you to fucking resuscitate him!”

  “I’ll try,” said Watkins.

  She reached out to pull the sphere from his grasp and it rippled red at her touch.

  “Don’t touch that thing! The client said there’s a self-destruct mechanism if it leaves him,” said Padre.

  “I can’t shock him without shocking it, too,” said Watkins.

  Jesus, what have I gotten myself into?

  Mohammed Rinsler, the most brilliant mind of the last century, was still alive . . . and they had just killed him again. Padre knew two things now. The device was no simple mining tool, and his handler was lying to him. The stakes had just changed.

  “Fine, leave him be. I have to make contact. Watkins, bridge me through the Zzyzx’s antenna,” said Padre.

  “Affirmative. Stand by.”

  Padre saw the link connection status come through on his display. He navigated to a historical automobile auction site and logged in as deadguy3337 to bid up an auction for an old Chevy big-block engine. Had the job gone well, he would have bid as twointhehand13, but Rinsler was dead and so he was deadguy3337. He’d have to wait for his bid to relay down to Earth and then back. It would take about thirty minutes.

  “I’m going to look around,” said Watkins. “Maybe there’s some other valuables.”

  “What’s your little ball do?” said Cheng as he stared into the dead man’s eyes.

  After thirty minutes of fruitless pondering, Padre’s inbox received a message. An ad directed him to download a bit-currency gambling game. After another wait, the install completed and he found it was actually an encrypted chat app. A call came through immediately. He had received only text communications until now. He pinched his earlobe.

  “Hello,” he answered.

  A silhouette appeared on screen. “Status,” said the specter in a digitally modulated voice.

  Where is this guy? There are no ships or bases in range.

  “We have the prototype, but your guy had a heart attack,” he said.

  There was a moment of silence. Padre began to feel a strange buzzing in his head.

  “And the rest of the crew?” asked the silhouette.

  “Retired,” said Padre.

  “This is a serious situation. Success was of the utmost importance.”

  “What could I have done? The man had a heart attack. There was no way to do this without giving him a scare. It’s not like we went in there guns blazing.”

  The silhouette went silent again for a moment. The buzzing in Padre’s head became a subtle headache.

  What kind of connection is this?

  “You’ll be required to clean up this mess, Mr. Padre.”

  “That’s not a problem. I can bring you the sphere. Just tell me how to unlock it.”

  “No,” came the stern reply. “I’ll send someone else for that.”

  “Listen—” began Padre.

  The silhouette interrupted, “Disable the ship’s communication systems and do not touch the prototype. You are to guard the wreckage until I say further. Manage that and there’s still a paycheck in it for you.”

  “How long are we talkin’ about?” said Padre.

  “Six months, maybe more. I have to send someone with another bio-key. I will contact you as necessary.”

  Padre rubbed his kneecaps. “Are you shitting me? I should sit here and guard this wreck for another six months?”

  “If you want to stay in my good graces,” said the silhouette.

  And who the fuck are you?

  Padre suppressed the urge to scowl. It was rumored that Rinsler’s QI had cracked faster-than-light communication for Washington. If the dead man really was Rinsler, then—

  This chat is coming from Earth and this spook is a G-man.

  The silhouette continued, “I have no religion as to how many operatives it takes to retrieve the prototype, but I will eliminate outstanding risks.”

  Motherfucker. Do you expect me to share my payday with another merc?

  Padre snarled his lip. He couldn’t help it anymore. “I can watch the ship. Who are you sending?”

  “Someone expendable,” said the silhouette.

  The call ended. Padre felt the throbbing in his head cease.

  “Uncle Sam ain’t screwing me over a second time,” he grumbled.

  He flipped on the comm and radioed his team. “Watkins, hack that prototype.”

  Two

  Alvin Baylor hovered in front of the office coffeemaker. It was 7:00 a.m. and he was exhausted and itching for the vacation that awaited him at the end of his shift. He stared bleary-eyed at an animated hologram floating before him. A cartoon asteroid-man gave him a thumbs-up over the blare of trumpets. “Honesty! Integrity! Teamwork! Excellence! That’s the Alteris Way!” shouted the animated logo. It looped over and over, commingling with the sound of Alvin’s percolating coffee. He waited for the fluid to finish dripping into the cup, then turned away quickly so his Opti-Comp would break line of sight with the projection frame mounted above the coffeemaker. The asteroid-man and his trumpets ceased.

  Alvin’s stomach rumbled. He’d been drinking the night before. He’d been doing it a lot lately. He grabbed a doughnut from the counter and headed to the red vinyl booth in the corner of the kitchenette. He plopped down on the seat with a little bounce and felt his gut touch the table.

  I gotta cut back.

  A glass wall divided the kitchen from the test floor, and he could see Thompson giving a tour to a woman in a blue hat shaped like a giant flower bulb. They were holding up work. Work that needed to be completed before he could leave. They walked along the guardrail that overlooked the rock hopper staging area. The enormous industrial hangar was located in Old North Hollywood, an industrial district in the Southern Californian Corporate Collective. Synaptic controls for asteroid mining vehicles were installed here. That was Alvin’s job.

  Two of the egg-shaped crafts were suspended above the floor by a thick harness. Each rock hopper had eight tendrils and over seven thousand flexion points awaiting calibration. The complex business of aligning mental control with leg motors was waiting for the tour to finish. Following configuration, the vehicles would be sent to the stars while Alvin would go home to relax for the holidays. His first vacation in over two years.

  He sipped his coffee then blinked twice and a virtual newspaper appeared in his Opti-Comp on the table in front of him. He picked it up and flopped it open as though it were a real old-fashioned newspaper. His eyes zipped past holiday sales and examined the headlines.

  “Homeless Riot Over Sidewalk Taxes!”

  “Lawyers Strike to End Contract Automation!”

  “Alteris Asteroid to Ride with China!”

  The last one caught his attention.

  China?

  When he peeped it, an advertisement leaped out into the air.

  “Alvin Baylor, roll the years away with nano-rejuvenation!” a voice said.

  A hologram of his face appeared in front of him. He scowled, and the floating doppelgänger mimicked it. He ignored the voice as he studied the thinning hair and pudgy cheeks, the almond eyes that focused like lasers, and a chin that jutted out like a rock. As the sales pitch continued, he watched his face grow younger and younger until it reminded him of a time when the spotlight was still on him and his future was golden. Those dreams were dead.

  The doppelgänger popped out of existence and his mind snapped back to the present. The news article was revealed, and Alvin skimmed it.

  Alteris was sending payloads to Earth on Chinese ships. The atrophied U.S. Government had filed suit. Washington survived on defense contracts while North America fractured into Corporate Territories. It had been ten years since the secession, when a group of CEOs had joined forces and used fear of artificial intelligence
to split the nation. AI was outlawed to protect human employment, but little else remained that wasn’t governed by a balance sheet. Greedy bastards don’t care if we get nuked.

  Alvin picked up his doughnut and took a bite. He watched Thompson out on the test floor laughing with the woman in the stupid hat.

  “Hurry the fuck up so I can get to work,” he grumbled under his breath.

  He cocked his head as the duo stopped next to the synaptic control station. Thompson was enticing her to drive one of the unfinished hoppers. He reached out to pick up a rubbery skullcap as the woman removed her flower hat.

  “Hell no,” said Alvin.

  He dropped his doughnut on the table and blinked at a floating button labeled “PA” in his Opti-Comp.

  “Hold up,” he said. “Are you rated?” His voice echoed over the test floor.

  The woman looked at Thompson with surprise. Thompson pressed a button on the wall and glared at the kitchen. “It’s fine, Baylor.” His voice came from a speaker by the coffeemaker. He smiled at the woman then swatted in Alvin’s direction. She placed the synaptic cap on her head.

  “I asked you a question. Are you rated for hardware control?” said Alvin.

  The woman walked to the public address at the wall, turned to face the kitchen, and answered, “I’m rated for VR Level 3 and Hardware Level 1.”

  Alvin ran a facial recognition scan on her and saw that she was Asha Lakshmi, the head of the dev team that wrote microcontroller code for the legs.

  Great… now I got two corpos holding up the line.

  Management rarely touched hardware. Like most of the big salaries, they were telepresence-commuters, using virtual reality or other technology to avoid the blight and overpopulation of the city centers. Most of their time was spent calling meetings so they could bitch at people about deadlines like the one they were holding up now.

  “It’s not calibrated,” he said. “At Level 1, the feedback would be too—”

  “She’s fine,” interrupted Thompson. “Her team writes code for these legs. Go ahead.” He motioned to Lakshmi, and she gave a thankful smile as she walked back and connected her cap to the console in front of her. She tapped the screen and began moving her index finger. The hopper hanging beyond the guardrail moved a single leg. Her eyes opened wide in excitement and she turned to smile at Thompson.

  Alvin shook his head and went back to the news.

  Dumb-asses.

  The next headline he saw was, “Zuck Dominates Final Match!”

  He read it immediately and learned that Rick Zuck, star cyber-athlete and heir to a data-mining empire, had led the Los Angeles Voidwalkers to a win in his final game. He was retiring with a half-billion payout and an all-expenses-paid trip on The Hope, a Chinese luxury starship.

  Lucky no-talent bastard. Like he needs another dime.

  Suddenly a scream blasted from the coffeemaker.

  Alvin looked through the glass wall to see Lakshmi’s arms flailing ahead of her Frankenstein’s monster. Her face contorted as she wailed.

  The hopper rocked from side to side as a tentacle swung through the air. The arm was dangerously close to hitting Lakshmi.

  He dashed out the door and felt his temples warm as the synaptic implants in his head activated. He overpowered her control and the hopper ceased its fight. The leg dropped back down to hang limply beneath the ship.

  Lakshmi passed out, hitting the ground with a thud.

  “Get it off her!” Thompson screamed as he backed away.

  Alvin ran up and pulled the connection. As he knelt to take the cap off the woman, she opened her eyes and gasped.

  “Thank god!” exclaimed Thompson. “That cap is defective!”

  Lakshmi brought her hand to her forehead. Thompson came forward to help her sit up. “She could have been killed,” he said.

  “Let me check it,” said Alvin.

  He placed the cap on his head and disabled his implants with a peep. He wiggled his fingers. Nothing happened.

  “Oh,” he said, remembering the cable.

  He plugged the cap in and looked at them calmly.

  From behind him, the hopper reached out with all six tentacles and grabbed on to the guardrail like an oversized squid. It pulled itself forward, stretching the suspension harness to its limit. Thompson screamed and ran to the far wall, abandoning Lakshmi while she backpedaled on her hands in terror.

  “Nope, cap’s fine,” Alvin said with a shrug.

  He released the hopper’s hold on the rail. The two-seater pod swung backward like a pendulum suspended from the ceiling.

  “I told you. It’s not calibrated yet. The feedback’s out of range for neurotypicals. I hope you feel better, Ms. Lakshmi, but I really do need to get to work. These ship out tonight.”

  Thompson composed himself and helped Lakshmi to her feet. They scuttled back along the guardrail toward the kitchen. She grimaced, holding her hand to her forehead while throwing fearful glances back at Alvin.

  “I don’t like him,” he heard her say.

  “Nobody does. He’s an idiot savant. Former cyber-athlete, we got him cheap after he cheated and lost his license,” said Thompson as they reached the kitchen door.

  The words stung Alvin.

  The woman stared at him through the glass wall as she scanned his face with her Opti-Comp. He read her lips saying, “Alvin Baylor . . .” and knew that soon his sordid history would float before her. He turned around and gritted his teeth. He would always be a pariah.

  “Vacation in ten hours,” he said to himself.

  He wanted a drink.

  Three

  Rouja Natastae strode through the bustling Hong Kong dining hall past servers hunched over dim sum carts and patrons stuffing their faces. Her statuesque figure and beauty attracted attention as always, but few suitors had the confidence to do more than gawk. That was just as well—she had work to do. She ignored swooning looks from diners as she passed them by. She was tired of this city, and she would be leaving today.

  In the corner booth was the man she had spent a year tracking, a notorious pimp and illegal goods dealer named Jianju Leung. An overly made-up girl in trashy, schoolgirl attire blathered in his ear. Leung possessed accounting data for a ring of sex slavers, information that would help Rouja retrace her past and correct a mistake. His fat head looked down the aisle at her, lasciviously scanning her figure. He didn’t recognize her, not yet, anyway. She stopped in front of his table and his gaze rose to meet hers.

  “Hey Ju,” she said.

  He looked puzzled. Perhaps he recognized her voice or something about her demeanor, but not her face or blond locks. He’d never seen the green-eyed visage that smirked down at him now.

  Leung cocked his head and smiled back while the schoolgirl went wide-eyed at the sight of Rouja and began nagging at him in Cantonese. Rouja found the girl’s voice shrill and irritating but kept her gaze on Leung.

  “Time to pay up,” she said.

  Leung sat up straight with a concerned look. His mole-flecked upper lip twitched, but before he could speak, his temple was perforated by the metal stiletto of Rouja’s boot. His head bounced sideways and then he fell forward into his soup bowl, splashing sweet and sour liquid all over the girl beside him.

  Rouja leaned over the table and sliced his wrist with a blade. The smart-band fell off and his flesh parted. She dug inside and removed a bloody strip of holographic foil.

  The tablecloth took on a darker, richer hue as blood spurted from Leung’s wrist and spread across its surface. The girl froze, her caked-on makeup looking like a painting. She began panting hysterically.

  “You’re free,” said Rouja.

  She swirled her bloody fingertips in a glass of water, then turned and strutted away with the confidence of a model on the catwalk. She’d killed plenty of people in plain sight before. The trick was to be nonchalant.

  The clamoring of all-you-can-eat gluttony was soon overpowered by the girl’s screaming. People craned their necks for
a look at the commotion, but Rouja was already through the dining hall.

  She felt her smart-band buzz. The name “Daddy” in digital letters floated in her view. She hadn’t spoken with Padre since he’d left for his “big” job and she considered ignoring it, but the timing was too rich. She tapped the implant in her earlobe and answered. She felt an odd buzzing in her head.

  “I got it,” she said pocketing Leung’s data store.

  “Hey doll, wasn’t sure you’d answer,” said John Padre.

  “I found her without you,” she said.

  “You did?”

  “Leung had the sales manifest just like I told you. I need to buy a decrypt of his DNA hash.”

  “Still a little work to do, then,” Padre replied.

  His indifference irked her. “And your once-in-a-lifetime opportunity? How’s that working out?” she said.

  “It’s still that and I’d like to offer you a cut,” he said.

  “Oh, would you?” He must have fucked it up.

  “Check your inbox in a few, for travel arrangements. You’re going on a little recon tour.”

  “Shit,” she said as two of Leung’s men walked through the front door. She turned away from them and toward the kitchen. “John, I’m gonna have to call you back.”

  “Listen, I’m serious,” he said.

  “So am I,” said Rouja.

  “I’ll hold, doll.”

  “Of course you will.”

  “Can I watch?” he asked.

  She rolled her eyes.

  Rouja pressed at the outer edge of her eye socket, turning on the camera in her Opti-Comp lens. Padre would see what she saw now. She looked back over her shoulder as Leung’s hooker ran to the two heavies and pointed at her.

  Rouja stepped through the kitchen’s double doors and assessed her surroundings. The cooks immediately took notice of her. They moved to and fro across a walkway banked by stainless steel tables and appliances. She stepped to her left and backed up toward the wall while they watched.

  The doors swung inward and her pursuers entered. They stopped in place to scan the room. Each was the size of a refrigerator.