The Automatic Detective (30 page)

"You don't laugh."

"Not on the outside."

We started toward the street.

"So you're a detective now?" he asked.

"I guess. Beats driving a cab."

"After we save the city," asked Jung, "do you think you could use a partner?"

"Dangerous job," I said.

"Beats driving a cab."

"So let me get this straight," said Jung. "Your plan basically boils down to you smashing your way into the Dissenters' laboratory while Humbolt and I take advantage of the confusion you'll be creating to sneak in, grab Julie and April, and walk out."

"That's the plan," I said.

Jung and Humbolt exchanged skeptical glances.

"I don't know, Mack," said Jung. "Seems a trifle optimistic."

"Yeah," said Humbolt. "I gotta say it does seem to fly in the face of statistical viability. No offense or nuthin'."

"None taken," I replied.

Jung leaned back in the couch. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't you nearly get scrapped the last time you entered that lab?"

"That's right," I said.

"And that was with the element of surprise on your side," said Jung. "If you go busting through the front doors, they'll probably see you coming."

"That's what I'm counting on."

"You're counting on getting scrapped?" asked Jung.

"I'm counting on drawing their fire."

"And meanwhile Humbolt and I just waltz in and liberate two prisoners?"

"It has to work that way. They're keeping Julie and April in a separate location from Holt. Two objectives means we'll have to split up." I pointed to the map displayed on the reader screen. "I'm giving you the easy job. The Dissenters don't care about Julie and April. They're only holding them prisoner because they don't see the point in killing them. According to this information, they've got them stashed in a minimum security holding cell on the sixtieth floor. Most personnel will be drawn away by my assault. The rest won't give you any problems."

"So you called ahead and asked them politely not to shoot us?" said Jung.

"You'll be disguised. I'll download some maintenance uniform designs and security badges from my memory matrix, give them to Humbolt, and he'll whip up some illusion suit facsimiles."

"The boss lady has a machine that does all the work," said Humbolt. "All I gotta do is feed in our measurements and it'll do the rest. Shouldn't take more than an hour."

"And with the suits, you should be able to pass casual inspection. At least long enough to reach Julie and April's cell on the sixtieth floor."

"Should?"

"Nothing's guaranteed."

"And what if the inspections aren't casual?" Jung asked.

"They should be too distracted to be paying much attention to a couple of janitors."

"Are you sure about that?"

"Trust me. When I prioritize my directives, I can be very distracting."

"Well, I said I was in on this. So I guess I'm in. Assuming your plan works, you draw their fire, how the hell do you expect to get the boy out of there?"

"Don't worry about that," I said. "That's my objective."

Jung leaned forward. "If push comes to shove, the Dissenters will want Holt dead rather than in the hands of their enemies to keep anyone from making a counteragent."

"Yeah."

He leaned forward more and braced his knuckles on the coffee table to keep from falling off the couch. "You might be protected by an indestructible alloy, but he isn't."

"I know."

"So how do you plan on getting him out?"

I turned off the reader display. "If I reach him, then it won't be a problem."

Extracting Holt was tactically unsound. Not impossible, but highly improbable. This wasn't a rescue mission. It was seek and destroy, remove Holt from the equation by any means necessary.

Jung was a smart ape. He'd figured it out, and he didn't like it. His nostrils flared, and he bared his teeth in a snarl.

"Do you think you can do it, Mack?"

"Getting in isn't the hard part," I said.

"Not that. I know you can do that. I'm talking about . . ."

"If I have to."

His beady eyes bored into my opticals, and he waited for me to justify myself. This wasn't a moral decision. This was just a simple ratio: one versus thousands. Nothing complicated about it. Just a reliable equation.

"If you've got a problem with this, Jung," I said. "Tell me now."

"Oh, I got a problem with it," he said, "and there has to be another way."

"Maybe there will be. Maybe I'll find it. But it's not something I'd bet on. In three hours, it'll be too late. If we don't do something now, then there'll be a lot of dead people and a lot more who will probably wish they were dead. And it's not just the biologicals. If Empire crumbles, there aren't a lot of options left for guys like you and me, Jung. Anywhere else, I'm just a weapon and you're just a monkey. This isn't about the norms, the mutants, aliens, or bots. It's about everyone who calls this city home who doesn't have a future anywhere else. And in three hours, that future is gone."

Jung snorted, but he saw my point. It was just a numbers game. Like Doctor Zarg, I had a choice to make. One life balanced against millions. It was a simple calculation.

"Just remember, whatever happens, whatever you end up doing in there . . ." Jung snorted. ". . . you'll have to function with it."

I waited across the street while Jung and Humbolt, disguised as a couple of janitors, walked into Carter Centre. They went in first as a test. The lobby was loaded with security scanners, technology the Pilgrims had not yet seen fit to share with us. The only way to find out if Lucia's illusion suit cloaking tech was its equal was to walk in and see if alarms went off. I stood outside, ready to charge in and pull Jung and Humbolt out if I needed to.

If it didn't work, then this would be the end of it. An hour and six minutes remained in the countdown, and if this plan didn't work, then there was no time for anything else.

The front of the building was glass, allowing me to scan all the details from across the street. They went in. A security guard checked their badges and waved them on. My partners
entered the elevator, pushed a button, and the doors closed. Not a bell or whistle or security drone in sight.

Perhaps it was my paranoia index, but I wondered if they'd passed undetected. Security might've been smart enough to wait until they got deeper inside, where it'd be easier to make them disappear. Even if that were true, in fifteen seconds security would have more to worry about than two wayward janitors.

I dropped a nickel in a phone booth and asked for Detective Sanchez. They told me to wait a minute. I told them who I was, and the minute ended at six seconds.

"Mack, where are you?" Sanchez asked.

"Carter Centre."

I hung up the phone, picked up a thick metal briefcase beside me, and crossed the street.

While I was wearing an illusion suit of my own, I calculated it unlikely that I could fool the scanners. I was still a distinctive unit. The suit couldn't mask my proportions or my weight or a dozen other cues that the Dissenters had doubtlessly taken the precaution of incorporating in their security net. There was no way around it. I stopped at the threshold and waited for the signal from Humbolt that they'd reached the floor where Julie and April were being held.

"Sixtieth floor," transmitted Humbolt into my radio. "No waiting."

I made it seven steps into the lobby before alarms started blaring, some heavy-duty impact cannons extended from the floor, and a ten-by-ten forcefield activated to contain me. Since most of the folks in the lobby were regular citizens, they were surprised, but security moved with tactical precision to herd all the uninitiated out the doors. Once cleared, shutters lowered over the windows, locking down the lobby. Everything Doctor Zarg's information had told me would happen.

I waited quietly, biding my time. Once cleared of terrestrial witnesses, a quartet of ravagers was released from secret alcoves in the walls. They surrounded me as an added precaution. A screen floated over their cranial units. It had an image of Warner's smirking face.

"Mack, our simulations based on previously recorded behavioral models suggested you'd try this," he said, "but I have to admit, I'm a little disappointed. I realize that you are only a machine with a rejected technomorph brain. You must've calculated that this effort was doomed to failure."

"Had to try," I said.

"Of course, you did. I assume you've notified the authorities, who are certainly rushing to this building in force this very instant."

"Yeah."

Warner sighed. "Oh, such an embarrassingly simple end to this defective operation of yours. When they get here, they'll find nothing but a faulty bot our security forces had to scrap. Regrettably, your memory matrix will be damaged beyond recovery, so we'll never know what malfunction seized you."

"These things happen," I said.

"What's in the case?"

"Oh, just a little surprise. Four of them, actually."

The forcefield began to contract. While my alloy was impenetrable, the shrinking energy barrier could crush me into a two-foot cube in an estimated 190 seconds. I didn't make a move to stop it yet. Jung and Humbolt had another forty seconds before they were supposed to be in position to take full advantage of the chaos that was coming.

"Tell me, Mack," asked Warner. "Does a bot feel fear? I know you've got that self-preservation directive. How does that compare to what we biologicals feel when we know the end is upon us?"

"I'm not going to the scrap heap quite yet."

I reached inside my coat and pulled a device from a pocket. I pressed the cube against the shrinking forcefield and pushed a button. It was a prototype, but I'd place my functionality in Lucia's untested genius any day.

Warner narrowed his eyes. "What is that?"

The cube made a crackling sound.

"That's a field scrambler," said Warner. "Where did you get that?"

"Just a little something a friend of mine whipped up in her spare time."

"But we specifically kept that technology from the earthlings," said Warner. "You can't have that!"

"Can't put the genie back in the bottle."

The eight miniature rocket pods on my belt flared to life.

The scrambler popped and smoked as it shorted out the forcefield. The ravagers moved to tackle me and the impact cannons unleashed their blast. But the booster fired, and I was already soaring upward and onward. I smashed through the lobby ceiling and kept on through the next two floors before losing momentum.

Unwitting earthling office workers were surprised by a bot smashing his way into their midst. It was forty-eight more floors before I reached the fifty-first floor used by the Dissenters, but this route beat the stairs because security was light on these civilian-controlled floors.

A secretary lay nearby at my feet, sprawled on the floor beside her overturned desk, broken typewriter, and scattered paperwork. The desk had been unfortunately positioned above my point of entry.

"Sorry about that, miss." I leaned down and helped her up. "You might want to stand back."

The booster roared to life again, and I punched through
another three floors. More offices were thrown into disarray, but I didn't smash into anything squishy and organic, so I couldn't complain. I gave the booster an extra second to cool down between leaps. Figured the prototype deserved the precaution, and I wanted security to have time to mobilize in anticipation of my arrival.

Two more jumps, and I was on the twelfth floor. I crashed into an office, and landed hard enough that the floor nearly gave way beneath me. The sole occupant of the room, a guy in a suit, was knocked over.

An authoritative voice made an announcement on the building's speaker system. "Your attention, please. A malfunctioning robot is roaming the building. Do not be alarmed. Security shall neutralize the threat soon, and the police have been called. Avoid all contact with the defective unit."

Heeding the advice, the guy scrambled backwards without getting to his feet, right into the hole I'd made in my entrance. I moved to grab him, and he screamed. He kept screaming as he started to fall through the hole. I nabbed him by the ankle and pulled him from the brink and set him safely on his feet. He jumped back and pressed against the corner farthest from me.

The wall exploded as a trio of ravagers burst into the office without bothering to knock. While not as thick-alloyed as me, they were nearly as strong and had me outnumbered. Last time I'd run across these evil twins, I'd beaten them only by damaging myself. But I was a learning machine, and I had their numbers.

The lead threw two punches. I batted them aside and jabbed him in the cranial unit. He tried to avoid the blow, exactly as my analyzer predicted. What would've been a glancing strike snapped his head back hard enough to tear his neck joint in half.

The two others came at me from both sides. I stepped back at the last nanosecond, and they wound up hitting each other. I struck at a vulnerable knee joint. One toppled over. The other threw a hook, and I had no choice but to take the hit. He connected with my shoulder with a hard clang. The ravager followed it with a flurry of swings, all aimed at susceptible joints. The execution was as flawless and predictable as a math equation. I dodged, parried, and took a few harmless dents until my opponent exposed himself to a double-fisted thrust that caved in his torso and rendered him inoperable.