Bodyguard

6

“Why pay for frills when FENA flies for less?”

The tag line from FENA Air’s Urban Graffiti c paign

We were on Level 45 when Maureen handed us over to a runaway android named Rita and waved good-bye. I hated to part company with her, but understood why she couldn’t accompany us. There was a rather large bounty on her head and plenty of poppers looking to collect it.

Rita, for reasons known only to her manufacturer, had been equipped with four arms. She used them to good effect, pulling herself up the access ladder with monkeylike agility and babbling all the way. “…And that’s why they built the siphon, to provide the spaceport with water, which it needs for a multiplicity of purposes…”

I tuned her out, stopped for a moment, and looked down. I’ve never had trouble with heights, which is a good thing, because it was quite a drop to Level 50. Yeah, there were platforms at each level, but you could see through the steel mesh all the way to the bottom.

Sasha was fifteen or twenty rungs below me, moving with the quick, easy confidence of someone raised with the void all around, our knapsack bouncing on her back. I had offered to carry it, but she had refused.

“Hey!” Rita called. “I haven’t got all day…let’s get a move on down there.”

I forced myself up again. We had managed a three-hour nap, but my body ached for a full night’s sleep. The siphon consisted of a vertical pipe that was five or six feet across and painted the lime-green color that bureaucrats always choose. The structure vibrated next to my shoulder as vast quantities of sea water were pumped to the surface, desalinized, and purified. Or so they claimed, but, as anyone whoever drank the stuff can attest, it tastes like shit.

Beads of water condensed on the pipe’s surface, coalesced into puddles, and streaked down towards the sea. I wondered if they had individual identities, and if so, whether I had swallowed them years before.

The climb went on and on, until my legs ached, and my back was sticky with sweat. I wanted to stop, wanted to rest, but Rita was tireless. Having explained the siphon, and the desalinization plant up above, she had transitioned into the story of her life.

“…exactly why, but it might have been a faulty component, or some sort of power surge. But whatever the reason, I went bonkers, left the job, and never returned. Sure, the android hunters came looking for me, but I made my way to Floater Town and went to work for Murphy Enterprises…”

A low-grade utility bot was doing some routine maintenance work on Level 2, but we crowded past and continued the journey upwards. The top landing was more spacious than all the rest. I heaved myself onto it, gave a sigh of relief, and looked around. I saw a hoist, some over-sized valves, and a maze of pipes. Sasha appeared over the edge, pulled herself inwards, and stood panting on the platform. It did my heart good to see she was tired as well.

Rita gestured us into motion and led us towards a steel fire door.

She hadn’t stopped talking. “…which is why I can’t go with you. But there’s no need…since you’ll be inside Surface Port 12 and quite close to your gate. Well, here we are.”

She turned. Unlike robots designed for frequent interaction with human beings, Rita had been given a frozen manikin-type face. It was locked in a perpetual smile. Her voice came from a speaker located on the front surface of her plastic throat. “It’s been nice to spend some time with you. Some people say that I talk too much. I hope it didn’t bother you.”

I suppose it’s stupid to worry about a machine’s feelings, especially when everyone agrees that they don’t have any, but I wanted Rita to know that we appreciated her help. I held out my hand. She took it. “No, Rita. It didn’t bother us at all. Thanks for getting us here safely. Take care of yourself.”

“I will, Mr. Maxon. Good-bye, Ms. Casad. Have a safe journey.”

Sasha sent one of her “you are a hopeless idiot” looks in my direction and said, “Thanks.”

Rita, her face wooden as always, nodded.

We opened the door and stepped outside. There was a loud click as it closed behind us. So much for that line of retreat.

A moon flight had landed, and passengers were streaming towards the baggage area. They were contract workers for the most part, miners with dilated eyes, technicians who ate too much, and pilots who had pushed one load too many. They walked like ancient helmet divers, forcing themselves forward under the weight of Earth-normal gravity, sweat beading their foreheads.

I nodded to Sasha and we stepped out into the flow. We, like the other passengers headed for Gate 426, struggled against the current like fish swimming upstream. Assuming there was a river in which fish still swam, that is. I stopped below a bank of monitors. “We’re looking for FENA Air Flight 124.”

“There it is,” Sasha replied, pointing upwards. “Flight 124, Gate 426.”

“Good.”

I caught a flash of green from the corner of my eye, turned, and saw a man back into the crowd: the same man who had followed me to the checkpoint and tried to speak with me through the mesh. Who the hell was he, anyway? What did he want? And how had he found us with such ease? I took Sasha’s elbow. “Come on. We’ve got company.”

“Who? Where?”

“Over towards the right. The little guy. In the green sports coat.”

“What about him?”

“He’s a greenie, or I think he is. He was part of the crowd that chased pretty boy into the Trans-Solar checkpoint.”

“A greenie in a green sports coat?”

The connection had escaped me. I pretended it hadn’t.

“Yeah. Weird, huh?”

“It sure is. Let’s shoot him and stash the body.”

I frowned. “Getting a little bloodthirsty, aren’t we?”

She shook her head impatiently. “I didn’t say kill him, I said shoot him, as in trank him.”

“Oh,” I said stupidly. “That’s different. Let’s do it.”

We looked, but the man was gone. Sasha frowned. “Assuming it was the same man, and assuming he’s interested, how did he know when and where to look?”

I shrugged. “Beats me. I made the reservations under phony names.”

Her eyes locked with mine. “I had the expense money. Until the corpies took it, that is. How did you pay?”

“I transferred some funds from my bank account.”

“Smart,” she said sarcastically. “Real god-damned smart. Phony names don’t mean shit when you give them an account number. The greenies have sympathizers everywhere. One of them pulled a record of your transactions, gave the information to the guy in the green sports coat, and bingo, he was waiting for us to show.”

Sasha didn’t point out that Trans-Solar could have done the same thing and probably had. She didn’t need to. Even I could figure that out. The shame was familiar by now. Like a relative you don’t like but can’t get rid of because they’re part of you. But something good came of it as well, a rare moment of blue sky when my brain actually functioned.

“This is more than a standard snatch, isn’t it? Why are the greenies after you, anyway? And what’s the deal with Trans-Solar?”

Sasha’s eyes clouded over and her head turned away. Her voice was flat and unconvincing. “You know as much about it as I do. My mother might be able to tell us, but we’ll have to reach her first.”

I tried to see through the words to the truth beyond, but the patch of blue sky had disappeared. My hands made fists at my sides. “Have it your way, Sasha, but remember, you’re the one they’re after. 0011100100111.”

Her eyes came back to mine. They were softer now, like those of a mother with her child. “You did the best you could. What’s done is done. We’ll lose them on the habitat. Come on.”

We made our way down the corridor. The line in front of Gate 426 was relatively short and consisted of down-and-outers like ourselves. There were some spacers, a tech type or two, and a couple of beat-up androids. One had a faulty servo and whined as it moved.

We shuffled forward and stopped in front of the counter. I identified myself as Roger Doud and proved it by providing the account number I never should have given them in the first place.

The ticket agent was an android whose torso ended at the countertop. He had the solemn manner of an undertaker and an electronic speech impediment. “Your ffflight is on time. Please ssstep through the detector and wait to be called. Thanks fffor flying FENA Air.”

The detector looked like an over-sized free-standing door frame. Sasha stepped through and I followed. Buzzers buzzed, lights flashed, and a pair of lunchy-looking rent-a-cops lurched to attention. Neither was exactly athletic, but the woman was the more obese of the two. She used her nightstick as a pointer. “Stand over there. Spread your legs. Put your hands behind your head.”

I didn’t like her tone, but there was no point in making a scene. I obeyed. The man stepped up, blew garlic in my face, and passed a wand over my body. My first thought was the.38. But it was stashed in Floater Town, where Maureen had promised to clean it occasionally. And the Browning.9mm was not only legal, but made entirely of plastic, and therefore undetectable. No, the problem was my skull plate. The man stood on tiptoes to pass the wand over my head and grunted when it made a whining sound. “Take the hat off.”

I did as I was told.

The man looked at my head and nodded. “Put it back on.” He turned toward his partner. “No problem, Gert. This guy’s got enough metal in his head to build a Class A shuttle. Let him pass.”

The woman nodded, stared at my head as if it was the first one she’d ever seen, and allowed us to join the passengers in the holding area. It had been furnished with the same low, crouching furniture that graced the rest of the spaceport. The androids huddled together as if for mutual protection, and everyone else spread out. Sasha sighed. “So much for the disguise.”

I said, “Sorry about that,” but didn’t really mean it. That’s the great thing about being stupid. You worry less.

I took a look around and wondered how I felt the first time I headed into the Big Black. I’d been a good deal younger back then, nineteen according to the records, so it stood to reason that I’d been scared. Scared of zero-G boot camp, scared of the unknown, scared of dying. And I was still scared of dying, though I wasn’t sure why, since living was a major pain in the ass. Sasha’s voice brought me back. “Max?”

“Yeah?”

“They called our names.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

We followed the others through a door, down some stairs, and onto a loading dock. A man looked up from his portacomp as we approached. He was dressed in a dark blue jumpsuit with “FENA” stitched over the left breast pocket, a pair of ear protectors worn around the neck, a pair of black combat boots with pink laces. He gestured towards a cargo module and the autoloader that supported it. Both were snuggled up to the edge of the dock. “Your carriage awaits. I will call your names. Please enter your assigned tubes. Aarons, tube one. Axel, tube two. Benning, tube three. Cooper, tube four…”

Sasha shook her head in amazement. “I’ve spent a lot of time in space but never seen anything like this.”

I felt defensive. “Sorry, but you had the expense money, and this is what $800.00 will buy.”

Sasha smiled apologetically, stood on tiptoes, and kissed my cheek. “Don’t worry, Max. Tube four is fine.”

I touched the place where she had kissed me. Was it my imagination, or was that particular spot warmer than the surrounding skin? I wanted to say something, wanted to thank her, but she had lowered herself into a tube by the time I was ready. My alias was called shortly thereafter. I looked, but the man in the green sports coat was nowhere to be seen.

I trudged over to the cargo module, peered down into tube twenty-four, and inhaled the powerful odor of disinfectants. I kneeled, placed a hand on the cold concrete, and jumped. There was padding in the bottom and all around the sides. I bounced slightly and looked around. There was nothing much to see except for a tiny, almost miniscule vid screen, a headset with mic, and some waist-high tubing. I was still trying to understand what the tubing was for when a voice said, “Have a nice trip,” and a lid slammed closed over my head. There was a moment of complete darkness followed by a yellow glow as the light came on over my head.

The vid screen came on about the same time that the cargo module jerked, swayed, and went horizontal. The screen swirled and coalesced into a picture of a pleasant-looking, middle-aged freelancer. I fumbled the headset onto my head in time to hear most of her spiel. “…join us aboard FENA Air. Now, settle back in padded comfort while your high-tech passenger module is loaded aboard one of our first-class ships, and lifted into orbit.

“The trip to Staros-3 will take approximately two hours. If you wish to catheterize yourself, please do so now, as the safety restraint system will make movement difficult during the journey itself.”

Now that I knew what the tube was for, I was determined not to use it. The woman continued to talk. “…medical emergency, then please notify the ship’s crew via your headset, and they will make sure that medical personnel are waiting when we dock with Staros-3.

“So, settle back into the padded privacy of your personal transportation enclosure, and enjoy the trip.”

Personal transportation enclosure? Who the hell did they think they were kidding? My enclosure was little more than a padded mailing tube, completely inaccessible during flight, and vulnerable to all sorts of potential dangers. Not to mention the fact that my accommodations would push the average claustrophobe over the edge in a matter of minutes.

The universe jerked as the autoloader came to a halt, then started into motion again as the cargo module was pushed up and into the shuttle’s belly, where it was hooked to the ship’s life support systems. Oxygen hissed in through a nozzle located next to my head, caressed my cheek with an ice-cold hand, and slid down my neck.

Maybe the oxygen stirred it up, or maybe it would have made itself known anyway, but the thick odor of sweat, vomit, and god knows what else oozed out of the tube’s nooks and crannies, overwhelmed the disinfectants, and filled my nostrils with a sort of funky perfume. It made me gag.

The restraint system was activated without warning. The first thing I noticed was a snug feeling as the padding pushed in around me. Then it had me in a soft but insistent embrace that allowed for almost no movement at all. But the laws of physics prevailed, and I felt the additional half-gee as the shuttle accelerated down the runway and blasted off. Though unable to see outside, I had seen countless takeoffs on television, and knew how it was supposed to work. Or thought I did, anyway.

Unlike the space shuttles used back in the 1990’s, the current equivalents used standard runways for takeoff. Once airborne they used air-turbo-ram-jets to reach Mach 25, or more than 17,000 mph. The trick was to compress the air through the use of turbines at lower speeds and use the force of the incoming supersonic air stream to compress the air at higher speeds. Or was it the other way around? In any case, rockets kicked in at Mach 16 or so, boosted the shuttle to Mach 25, and thus into orbit.

There were other factors too, such as the high-strength, temperature-tolerant materials that went into the hull, and the complicated technologies that cooled the aircraft’s skin. Taken together, they made the trip into orbit as routine as a flight from Los Angeles to New York had been a hundred years before. Unless you were making the trip in a glorified mailing tube, that is…which I don’t recommend to anyone. How do I remember this stuff? And forget less complicated junk? It’s like I said before…Beats the heck out of me.

Unable to move, and with nothing to do but watch the unending commercials that FENA Air pumped onto the vid screen, it was easy to fall asleep-something I did rather quickly. When I awoke, it was to mild nausea induced by zero gravity and a gentle bump as the shuttle docked with Staros-3. The inevitable announcement followed. Video swirled and the woman reappeared. She seemed happy with the way things were going.

“Welcome to Staros-3. There will be a short wait while your module is unloaded and steered into one of the habitat’s locks. Once the lock has been pressurized, and it’s safe to leave your enclosure, the door will open and you may exit. On behalf of FENA Air, and your flight crew, it has been a pleasure having you aboard.”

The woman disappeared and was replaced by live pictures of the docking process. It felt good to see what was actually going on. My stomach lurched as the module was freed from the shuttle’s cargo bay and pushed towards the habitat’s lock. The push was supplied by a one-person tug, no more than a sled with steering rockets, but sufficient for the job. The task was trickier than it looked, since the habitat had some spin on it, and the operator had to take that into account.

Once we were inside the lock, automatic cargo-grappling equipment grabbed hold of our module and clamped it in place. That’s when the process came apart. There was a forty-minute delay while modules filled with more important materials-like food, water, and toilet paper-were nudged into the lock, followed by a thirty-minute pause as the technicians made repairs to a faulty hatch mechanism, and a fifteen-minute wait as the doors closed and the bay was pressurized.

So, by the time the restraint system had released us from its mushy grasp, and we were allowed to climb out of the tubes, everyone had to pee in the worst possible way. Everyone except for the androids, that is, and a woman who had either catheterized herself prior to takeoff, or discovered a way to pee while standing up without wetting her pants in the process.

Gravity was about half Earth-normal, which caused most of us to move with extreme care, the exceptions being the androids, who had been programed for this sort of thing, and experienced spacers like Sasha, who made it look easy.

And so it was that a small group of grim-faced passengers shuffled, pranced, and groped their way towards the habitat’s center, encountered more gravity the further they went, and barged into a unisex rest room. There were a sufficient number of booths, but the fixtures were strange, and it took me five minutes to decipher the pictograph-style instructions and make mine do what it was supposed to. Sasha was waiting when I emerged. She seemed amused. “It’s nice to have you back. I wondered if I’d see you again.”

“Funny. Very funny. It’s not my fault that you need an engineering degree to operate the toilet.”

She looked quizzical. “What about all those years in space?”

I tapped the skull plate. The hat got in the way, but she understood. “Brain damage, remember? I can’t recall anything prior to my discharge from the Mishimuto Marines. Well, most of the time, anyway, although I have flashes once in a while, and dreams that seem real.”

Sasha shrugged. “Yeah, it seems funny, that’s all. Well, let’s get busy and find our cabins.”

I felt my face go blank. “Cabins?”

Her expression said it all. But there was no comment this time, and no recriminations, as she’d had time to think the matter through and made a conscious decision to tolerate my lapses. I didn’t know which was worse, being yelled at for being stupid, or escaping criticism for the same reason.

We headed for the habitat’s Administrative Control Section, waited through a line, and asked a graffiti-covered android for separate cabins. None were available, so we agreed to share a double, dropped one thousand four hundred and fifty dollars of the money Sasha had collected from Murphy Enterprises, and retreated to the cafeteria. It boasted a 360-degree view, and, thanks to the fact that we were a full hour ahead of the next shift change, there were plenty of tables. They had padded edges, were welded to the floor, and came with four stools apiece.

So there we were, sitting at our table and gazing at what was left of Mother Earth, when the man in the green sports coat appeared. I should have been surprised, but wasn’t somehow. He had carefully combed hair, narrow-set eyes, and heavily creased frown lines. A sack dangled from his right hand. The contents were round and about the size of a bowling ball. He gestured towards the table. “Mr. Doud…Ms. Cooper…may I join you?”

I looked at Sasha and she shrugged. “Sure, why not?”

“‘Why not,’ indeed,” the man said as he took his seat. “It’s so much more pleasant when people talk rather than fight. Although,” he said, placing the sack on the table, “violence does have its place. Isn’t that so, Mr. Doud? Or should I say Mr. Maxon?” His eyes were pale, pale blue, like denim that’s been washed too many times.

I shifted my weight from one side of the stool to the other. “I guess so.”

The man shook his head in mock wonderment. “Tsk, tsk. You’re far too modest.” He turned to Sasha. “You should have seen him, my dear, charging through the Trans-Solar checkpoint like an avenging angel, shooting anyone who got in the way. But I did my part, yes I did, and saved his life.”

I thought back to the fight and remembered the bodyguard with the bullet between her eyes. “You did that? You killed the bodyguard?”

The man nodded calmly. “Yes, I did, and you’re quite welcome.” He stuck a hand across the table, and I took it. “The name’s Nigel Trask. Glad to meet you.”

He shook hands with Sasha while I tried to figure things out. “But why? Why did you help me?”

Trask shrugged. “Anyone who attacks Trans-Solar is a friend till proven otherwise.”

“Why? Did Trans-Solar do something to make you angry with them?”

Trask looked surprised, as if the answer was so obvious that only an idiot would miss it, which was probably true. “Trans-Solar, along with the other spacelines, oppresses humanity through the drug called technology.”

Sasha entered the conversation sideways, sliding in between the two of us so smoothly that Trask didn’t notice, and I wasn’t offended. “So you’re a greenie?” It was more statement than question.

Trask stiffened. “Labels are somewhat tedious, but yes, I favor a return to the agrarian past.”

Sasha nodded. “So that explains your opposition to Trans-Solar. But where do we fit in?”

“An excellent question,” Trask replied solemnly. “And one I was sent to get an answer to. Where do you fit in?”

Sasha spread her hands over the table. “Nowhere. Mr. Maxon and I are neutrals in the war between the corporations and you.”

“There are no neutrals in our war. Trans-Solar snatched you for a reason. What was it?”

Sasha shrugged. “I have no idea why Trans-Solar had me snatched. Ransom, perhaps?”

“No,” Trask replied, “I don’t think so. Not the normal kind, anyway. Trans-Solar is too big, too important, to waste its resources on a two-bit snatch, so it’s safe to assume they didn’t. What about Murphy Enterprises? What’s your connection with them?”

Sasha looked puzzled. “Murphy who? Never heard of them.”

Trask allowed an eyebrow to drift towards his hairline. “Really? That’s not what Rita says.” He grabbed the top of the sack and gave a powerful jerk. The cloth came away and Rita’s head rocked from side to side. A power saw had been used to remove it from her body. An auxiliary power pack had been hard-wired into her circuitry and was taped to her plastiflesh neck. Her eyes popped open and looked around. “Hello, Mr. Maxon. Ms. Casad.”

A lump formed in the back of my throat. Poor Rita. She had fallen out of the frying pan and into the fire. “Hi, Rita.”

Her face was wooden as always. “I’m sorry, but they forced me to tell them everything I knew.”

Trask nodded agreeably. “The android is correct. She did tell us everything she knew. And a boring lot of garbage it was. Her kind are an abomination, an expression of The Board’s contempt for humanity, and must be destroyed.”

So saying, he produced a pair of insulated side cutters, selected one of the wires that ran from the power supply into Rita’s throat, and cut it in two. Sparks crackled, the smell of burnt insulation filled the air, and Rita’s eyes rolled back in her head. She was dead. I was angry, but Sasha seemed entirely unmoved. “That was unnecessary.”

Trask returned the side cutters to a pocket. “Perhaps, but enjoyable nonetheless, and it did get your attention. Now, tell me about your connection with Murphy Enterprises.”

Sasha shrugged. “We took one of Trans-Solar’s boats, used it to escape from their thugs, and sold it to Murphy Enterprises. End of story.”

Trask stared at her as if able to see through her skull and into her brain. “Alright, that compares favorably with what Rita told us, but there could be more. Things she didn’t know. Things she didn’t hear. So we’ll wait and see what happens. But mark my words, if your mother’s company is working to unleash some sort of new technological hell on the human race, then we’ll learn of it, and do everything in our power to stop you.”

Sasha looked him right in the eye. “I have no knowledge of what my mother’s company might or might not be working on.”

Trask nodded, but it was clear that he didn’t believe her, and you know what? Neither did I.