Luck and Death at the Edge of the World, the Official Pirate Edition (10 page)

In the Forces our shells were perfused with nanobots on a permanent basis. If you were injured in the field you didn’t have to call for a medic—there were already medics inside you by the billions. Pain was suppressed and virtually any wound would be healed given a little time, whether it was a lost limb or a huge bleed-out. That’s a perc of being in the military, though. When you’re decommissioned they purge you and the bots self-destruct, dissolving harmlessly to be excreted like any waste. You get to keep the high-grade shell, with all its wiring and the training that’s been drilled into your nerves, but not the bots. It’s one of the things that gives the Forces an edge over civilian rebels.

A shower takes care of the cosmetic side of things and by the time I dress again no one would guess what I’ve just been through. Looking in the mirror stalls me for a moment, though. Every once in a while this happens—I look up, expecting to see myself, and see a stranger instead. The sandy hair, hazel eyes, and pale skin are gone, as is the slim body. Instead I see a face and body I’ve become used to using, but only partially adjusted to looking at. The hair is dark brown and the face is wide. The skin is a medium brown with a slight coppery sheen, a blend of pigments drawn from African and Asian wells. The body is dense and cut. It isn’t me, but it’s me for now. I shake off the disorientation. After all, if my plan for immortality works I’ll have to get used to a lot of different shells, and a lot of different looks, over the centuries.

And a Forces-grade shell is no small matter.  Unlike a commercial model, it’s in peak physical condition and hard-wired not only for strength but for lightning-fast reflexes and optimal mental performance.  The combination of a nearly perfect sensorium with superior mental capabilities gives you something approaching intuition: when the body is hyper-aware of its surroundings down to the smallest details, and when the brain can process those details more quickly and effectively than a normal human brain, the result is something like a sixth sense, setting off alarm bells when danger threatens.  It’s not magic, and it doesn’t inoculate you against danger, but it can come in very handy.  And after being decanted there was training, training, and more training.  We became the most powerful, agile, intelligent, and well-informed soldiers on Earth, and unlike the nanobots, those qualities can’t just be extracted when you’re demobbed.

It was that sixth sense that had warned me, just in time, of danger earlier today, and it was those reflexes and that physical strength that had allowed me to survive.  I look at the face in the mirror again and say a silent prayer of thanks for the body I live in, if not for the price I paid to get it.

Downstairs I retrieve my bike, which is parked illegally out back so I can leave through the alley instead of appearing at the front of the building again. I scan the street carefully before emerging, but no alarms go off in my head. When I merge with traffic, no one stands up with a gun. I aim the bike east, taking a circuitous route around the Monkeypox C quarantine, and make it to Max’s without incident. Carmen is in the security office, as I knew she would be.

“Hi Gat.”

“Sorry I’m late.”

“No sweat. What happened?”

“Pursuit and attempted termination.”

She looks cross with me. That’s how Carmen is. She’s the best tech I’ve ever found, but her emotional reactions are indecipherable, sometimes perverse.

“Did I say something wrong?”

She loses the angry expression and shrugs.

“Whatever. Who tried to terminate you?”

“Three guys dressed like homeless, only they were armed and had motorcycles. It got messy.”

“Anyone killed?

I look over her shoulder at her holo, trying to see the display. I’m anxious to know what progress she’s made.

“P.D. took out one guy,” I say. They’re trying to ID him now. The other two got away.”

“Doesn’t sound like you.”

Now she looks amused. I reach around her and amp the size on the display, but she reaches behind her and turns it back down. I look at her.

“There were three of them, unknowns. They could have been ex-Forces for all I knew. Plus there were a lot of civilians around. I’m not in the business of getting civilians killed.”

“Some died anyway.”

It’s a statement, not a question.

“Yes, Carmen, some died. I can’t save the whole world at once.”

“One fat rich man at a time.”

“Damn right. Now what have you got.”

“Zip.”

“
Zip
?  Are you shitting me?”

It’s unheard of for Carmen to come up entirely empty-handed, but as usual she is calm, unfazed by it.

“Nope. There’s nothing. A great big nothing. A void.”

“I want details.”

“There are no details, that’s the point.”  She takes on a lecturing tone. “Look, at every point from the time this guy—or woman, or alien, or whatever—came over the wall, the sensors failed 
systematically
, one by one, along his exact route. It’s like his presence bored a tunnel in the security. Everything switched off ahead of him, allowed him to pass through undetected, and then switched on and operated normally once he’d gone by.”

“Well shit Carmen, what about safeties?”

Every decent security system has monitors that check continuously to make sure that the sensors are operational. If they stop working, even for a fraction of a second, the monitors—known as safeties—should notice and set off an internal systems check. If the results aren’t within permissible limits, an alarm should go off. It’s supposed to make the system tamperproof because the moment a criminal disables it, he’s set off the very alarms he was trying to avoid in the first place.

“Oh, the safeties,” Carmen says sedately. “Same thing.”

“They shut off too?”

“One by one in perfect sequence.”

“That’s impossible.”

“It’s supposed to be. Interesting, isn’t it?”

“To hell with interesting. It’s so interesting I almost got my brains ventilated this morning. Having someone after Max is one thing, having someone after Max and 
me
 is something different. I want answers.”

She smiles again, her eyes distant, like she’s discovered something beautiful and is charmed by the thought of it.

“That’s just it. There are no answers. The data trail is burned, but good. Whoever did this is the best. I mean better than the best. Got to be military.”

“Why would the military give a shit about Max?”

“Or ex-military. Hackers for hire.”

“Or the luckiest son of a bitch alive?”

“What?”

I don’t realize until she speaks that I’ve said it out loud.

“Nothing. Keep working it.”

“You know I will.”

“Yeah. If this is as perfect as you say you’ll work it ‘til you melt away to nothing.”

“It’s an elegant problem.”

I don’t really know what to say to that because even though I understand the words I know that I don’t really 
get
 them, don’t understand the depth of what they mean to Carmen. She admires whoever did this. She will still track and hunt them until she drops, maybe even moreso now that she has a worthy adversary, but she’s off in her own world.

“Why’s Alan in sim?”

The AI is sitting in one of the reclining chairs, oblivious to our presence. The mundane question seems to bring Carmen out of dreamland a little and back to something resembling her usual, businesslike self.

“He’s running some checks I asked him for.”

“I’d better talk to Jerome about this morning.”

“Okay Gat. I’ll be here if you need me.”

“I’m going to get TJ in here with you.”

“TJ’s surveilling Pileggi.”

“I’ll put someone else on Pileggi. TJ’s the best protection there is and I want him here.”

“I don’t need a babysitter, Gat. No one’s getting in here.”

“They did before.”

She screws up her face in an expression I can’t read. It seems like the grimace of an unhappy child. Then she lets it go.

“Fine,” she says “just don’t let him get in my way.”

“Carmen, I don’t want anything in your way. Look, you know I believe you’re the best. If anyone can crack this hack it’s you.”

“I am the best,” she says without any particular tone, her eyes already drifting back to the holo display “but eventually someone better always comes along no matter how good you are. I’ll keep trying, Gat. I’d like to believe that no one can out-think me quite yet. Maybe when I’m older, but not just now.”

“Thanks. Stay in touch if you find anything.”

She doesn’t even nod—her elegant problem has its grip on her again. I call Jerome and explain that I want to talk to him. He says he’s at his office and I head out to find him.

I leave through the kitchen, waving hello to Saul, who’s back on the job today. Behind the house I take one of the carts that are parked there and head along a paved lane that leads to Jerome’s Victorian home. On the way I call TJ and assign him to his new detail. I also instruct him to set up a redundant camera system of our own at Cloud City.

Jerome is, as always, a portrait of lawyerly competence. Busy but calm, he’s on a call on his kaikki when I enter and he waves me in and keeps on talking. This time he’s dressed in an antique banker’s suit. They’re all the rage these days with corporate lawyers and I don’t doubt that his is an original rather than a copy. It looks like early twentieth century to me, with a vest beneath the jacket and a subtle pin-stripe design. I hate to think that on this idiot’s whim a museum-quality piece of history has been tailored to fit his frame, but for obvious reasons I don’t say anything. The other fashion craze amongst lawyers nowadays is carefully-honed slovenliness—perfectly messed hair, fake tattoos, torn ex-Forces pants, running shoes—but that’s something more often found in entertainment law than in corporate circles. Given that Max stopped entertaining anything other than fantasies long ago, and exists primarily as a font of investment, Jerome’s choice is appropriate.

While Jerome talks I content myself with standing by one of the windows, gazing out at the trees, which are swaying slightly in the breeze. The ground beneath them is dappled with sun and shadow. Just beyond them, through the foliage, I can see one of the lakes. I’m a long way from the real Los Angeles. Eventually Jerome finishes his conversation, puts down his kaikki, and comes to stand beside me.

“Beautiful view,” I say.

“I’ve earned it. Don’t get to look at it as often as I should any more.”

Those few words tell me plenty about Jerome. In his world everything has a price and beauty is reserved for those who can afford it. He also lives for his reputation as a hard worker. No matter how much he may complain that he doesn’t have time to enjoy the view, it’s far preferable to him—far more 
meaningful
—to have a workload worth boasting about than to look at the trees. He wears that deprivation on his sleeve, like a badge of honor.

“Maybe you should retire,” I suggest. He makes a face as though I’ve suggested suicide, then retreats to the security of his desk, putting it between him and me.

“What can I do for you?”

I turn from the window and give him my full attention.

“Well, today I left my building and there were three guys waiting outside to kill me.”

He makes the same sour face.

“You’ve seen combat. Surely your retainer is enough to cover…”

“I’m not complaining, I’m just telling you. I thought it was important that you know. It seems clear that it’s linked to the attack on Max. I’ve been added to the list of targets.”

“What do you make of it?”

“Well, first of all whoever tried to kill Max hasn’t given up. Second, it means they’ve decided that killing me would be helpful in their attempt to kill Max. That’s the good news.”

“
That’s
 good news?”

I shrug.

“Sure. Every time you try to kill someone you expose yourself. You take the risk of leaving clues, of getting caught. They wouldn’t be taking that chance unless I was a threat to them.”

“So if you had no chance of finding out who they were, or of catching them, they wouldn’t bother.”

“Right.”

He absorbs this thought for a moment. He’s no trial lawyer, but he thinks strategically nonetheless, so I’m sure he sees the logic in it.

“Do we know anything about them?”

“We know one of them’s dead. P.D. arrived and blew his head off and took out half his chest with a charged round. They’ll have an I.D. on him soon, I’m sure, and I’ve got a friend inside the investigation who’ll let me know who he is once they figure it out.”

“Good, good.”

He nods, happy, I think, that he made the right decision hiring me, that I have the influence to get the job done. My competence validates his decision-making. I wonder: 
Does this guy think of anyone besides himself and his pet celebrity?
  But I know the answer to that. It’s his job not to think of anyone else.

“The P.D. are tracking down the dead guy’s friends, of course. My contact will keep me posted on that too.”

“Excellent. Who’s your contact?”

“How does Alan scoop military comm?” I say, pointedly answering his question with a question.

He takes my point. We each have our ways of doing things—sometimes coloring outside the lines—and just as he isn’t going to share his, I’m not going to share mine.

“Nobody scoops military comm,” he lies, “it’s illegal.”

“My mistake,” I say, faking sincerity but not putting a lot of effort into it. “Anyway, I thought you should know about the incident.”

“You’d better inform Alan as well.”

“I just did, didn’t I?”

“Excuse me?”

“Alan is the living embodiment of Cloud City’s security system and right now he’s in sim, which means he’s back where he usually is, running security from every vantage point at once, seeing everything and hearing it too. Are you really trying to tell me that he didn’t hear what we just said?”

“Privacy…”

“Ends at the door of any residence, legally speaking. It’s perfectly legal to bug your own home and listen to anything you want, even record it. I should know, I’ve installed enough of the little gnats.”