The Knights of the Black Earth (4 page)

The agency’s own
offices were spacious, elegantly appointed, a soothing gray-blue in color
scheme. Corporate headquarters were located on Inner Rankin, the smaller and
more exclusive planet of a two-planet system, the larger planet (industrial
base) being known as Outer Rankin.

Only the most
important clients were ever permitted to enter the agency’s corporate
headquarters, which was why the receptionist—a live, human receptionist—placed
her finger on the security button when the cyborg walked through the main
doors.

It was a long walk
from the main doors—steelglass, blast-proof—across the polished floor to the
receptionist’s desk, and so she had time to get a good look at the cyborg. He
had obviously made a mistake.

The Wiedermann
Agency took on cyborgs as clients, but such cyborgs were sophisticated types.
Expensive body jobs. Not even their own mothers could have guessed they were
more metal than flesh. Plastiskin and flesh-foam, muscle-gel and
quiet-as-a-whisper motors, battery packs and pumps enabled most cyborgs to
blend in with ordinary flesh-and-blood beings, the main difference being that
cyborgs always tended to look just a bit
too
perfect—as if they’d been
tailor-made, not picked up off the rack.

This particular
cyborg was, however, what the receptionist would classify (did classify, for
security purposes) as “hard labor.” Most planets sent their convicted felons to
hard-labor camps. Located on frontier planets or moons, these camps were
generally mining communities or agricultural collectives. The work was hard,
physical, and often dangerous. Those prisoners injured in accidents were
provided cybernetic limbs and other body parts made to be strong, efficient,
and cheap—not cosmetic.

This cyborg was
bald. Acid burn scars mottled the skin on his head. His eyes—one of which was
real, both of which were dark and brooding—were set deep beneath an overhanging
forehead. His right hand was flesh, his left hand metal.

The security
diagnostic that came up on the receptionist’s recessed screen disclosed that
seventy percent of the cyborg’s body was artificial: left side, hand, leg, foot,
face, skull, ear, eye. But the receptionist could see this for herself. Unlike
any other cyborg she had encountered, this one scorned to hide his replacement
parts. In fact, he appeared to flaunt them.

He wore combat
fatigues that had been cut off at the hip on the left leg, revealing a broad
expanse of gleaming, compartmented, and jointed metal. The left sleeve of his
shirt was rolled up over the metal arm, revealing a series of LED lights that
flickered occasionally, performing periodic systems checks. His metal hand
could apparently be detached from the wrist, to judge by the locking mechanism,
and replaced with different hands—or tools.

His age was
indeterminate, scar tissue having replaced most of the original flesh of his
face. But the right half of his body—the half that was still human—was in
excellent physical condition. Arm muscles bulged; chest and thigh muscles were
smooth, well defined. He walked with a peculiar gait, as if the two halves of
his body weren’t quite in sync with one another.

Truly, he was one
of the worst cyber-jobs the receptionist had ever seen.

“I would have
sued,” she muttered to herself, and put on the Wiedermann smile, which would be
completely wasted on this man, who had probably come in to use the toilet.

“Good morning,
sir,” said the receptionist, giving the cyborg the smile but not the Wiedermann
warmth that was reserved for paying clients. “How can I help you?” She could
hear, as the cyborg approached the desk, the faint hum of his machinery.

“The name’s Xris,”
he said, a mechanical tinge to his voice. “I received a subspace transmission.
Told to be here, this building, eleven hundred hours.” He glanced around
without curiosity, but appeared to note in one swift overview every object in
the large room, including—from a momentary pause and stare—the surveillance
devices.

The receptionist
was confused for a moment, then remembered.

“You’re applying
for the janitor’s job. I’m afraid you’ve made a mistake. They should have told
you to use the rear entrance—”

“Sister.” The cyborg
placed his flesh hand and his metal hand on either side of her, leaned over
her. She was disconcerted to see the artificial eye readjust its focus as his
head drew nearer. “I told you. I have an appointment.”

“I’ll check the
files,” she said coldly.

“You do that,
sister.”

“What was the
name?”

“Xris. With an X.
Pronounced ‘Chris,’ in case you’re interested.”

She wasn’t. “Surname.”

“Xris’ll do. There’s
only one of me.”

The receptionist
flashed him a look which said the universe could undoubtedly count this as a
blessing, then brought up the appointment calendar on a screen beneath the
gleaming glass top of her desk. Her fingers flicked over the smooth surface.

The cyborg glanced
around the reception area again, noted a security-bot glide out of a recess in
the wall. Casually, Xris reached into the pocket of his shirt, drew out a
golden and silver cigarette case, adorned with a shield on the top. The
receptionist, had she been looking, would have been highly impressed. The
shield was the crest of the Starfire family, belonged to the young king. The
case was, in fact, a gift from the king. Xris opened the lid and withdrew an
ugly, braided, foul-smelling form of tobacco known as a twist. He thrust the
twist in his mouth, started to light it with the thumb of the metal hand.

“No smoking.” The
receptionist indicated a sign to that effect.

Xris shrugged,
doused the light. Keeping the twist in his mouth, he began to chew on it. “Got
any place I can spit?”

The receptionist
glanced up, eyes narrowed in disgust, but she had located his name on the
calendar and was therefore obligated to add the Wiedermann warmth to the
Wiedermann smile, which had, unfortunately, slipped slightly.

“I’m sorry for the
confusion, Mr.... Xris. You are to see Mr. Wiedermann.”

Xris continued to
chew reflectively. “Wiedermann himself, huh? I’m impressed.”

“That is Mr.
Wiedermann the younger,” clarified the receptionist, as if, yes, Xris should be
impressed but only moderately. “
Not
Mr. Wiedermann the elder. Please
proceed to the eighteenth floor. Someone will meet you there, escort you to Mr.
Wiedermann’s office. Put this badge on your pocket. Wear it at all times.
Please do not take it off. This would activate our alarm system.”

Xris accepted the
badge, clipped it on the pocket of his fatigues. “About that janitor’s job . .
.” he began conversationally.

“I’m sorry for the
mistake,” the receptionist said coldly. The Wiedermann smile could have, by
now, been packaged and frozen. “Please go on up. Mr. Wiedermann doesn’t like to
be kept waiting.”

She answered a
buzz from the commlink. She didn’t like being around cyborgs, even the
well-oiled.

The cyborg circled
her desk to reach the lifts. The receptionist was talking to a prospective
client. A touch of metal on her shoulder made her jump, flinch, so that she
accidentally disconnected the call.

“I was about to
say, you couldn’t afford me,” Xris told her. “Sister.”

Taking the twist
out of his mouth, he tossed the soggy, half-chewed mass in the receptionist’s
trash disposer, then walked off.

It shouldn’t gnaw
at him, but it did. Gnawed at the part of him that hadn’t been—couldn’t
be—replaced by machinery. People in general, women in particular—the way they
looked at him. Or didn’t look at him.

You asked for it,
you know.

“Yeah, that’s
true,” Xris agreed with himself. Taking out another twist, he stuck it in his
mouth, clamped down on it hard with his teeth.

But he preferred
the pity, the disgust to be up front. Better that than later. Behind closed
doors.

Not that there
ever was a later. A door that ever closed.

It happens to all
cyborgs, eventually. Even the “pretty” ones. Sure, when she digs her nails into
your fake flesh, it’ll bleed fake blood—the miracle of modern technology. But
when you hold her close, she’ll hear the drone, the whine, the rhythmic clicks.
And her flesh, her living flesh, grows cold in your arms, grows cold to your
sensor devices. She realizes a machine’s making love to her. She thinks: I
might as well be screwing a toaster....

The lift had
stopped. It had been stopped for some time, apparently, for it kept repeating “Floor
eighteen” in a manner that was beginning to sound irritated.

Berating
himself—My God! How many years has it been since the operation anyway? Nine?
Ten?—Xris strode off the lift. A young man, dressed in a tweed suit, tie, and
knife-creased pants, was waiting for him.

“Xris? How do you
do? I’m Dave Baldwin.” The young man extended a hand, didn’t wince at Xris’s
grip, even gave as good as he got. “Mr. Wiedermann’s expecting you.”

Turning, Baldwin
led Xris down a carpeted hallway, done in muted tones, with muted lighting,
polished woods, and the piped-in sounds of a string quartet. Occasionally,
passing by an office with its door open, Xris glanced inside to see someone
working at a computer or talking on a commlink. In one, he saw several people
seated around a large polished wooden table holding cups of coffee and small
electronic notepads.

“Where’s your
shoulder holster?” Xris asked.

The young man
smiled faintly. “I left mine in my other suit.”

“Sorry. I guess
you must hear that all the time.”

“It’s the
detective vids,” Baldwin explained. “People believe that stuff. When they see
these offices and they find out that we look just as boring as any other office
place, they’re disappointed. We’ve had a few even walk out. Mr. Wiedermann—that’s
the older Mr. Wiedermann—once suggested that we should all dress the part. Wear
guns. Smell like bourbon. Go around in our shirtsleeves with slouch hats on. We
think he was kidding.”

“Was he?”

“You can never
tell with old Mr. Wiedermann,” Baldwin said carefully. “I know our appearance
disillusions people, especially when they find out that most of the trails we
follow are paper. The only footprints we trace are electronic. We don’t tail
beautiful mysterious women in mink stoles. We do file-searches until we find
some tiny little discrepancy in her personal finances which proves she’s a spy
or an embezzler or whatever. We study psychological profiles, sociological
patterns.”

The young man
stopped, eyed Xris quizzically. “But you know all this, don’t you, sir? I’ve
read up on your case,” he added in explanation. “You used to work for the
investigative branch of the old democracy.”

“I was a Fed.”
Xris nodded. “But we wore holsters.”

Baldwin shook his
head, obviously sympathetic. “Mr. Wiedermann’s office is at the end of the
corridor.”

“The younger,”
Xris clarified.

“Right. The elder’s
almost fully retired now. Through this door.”

Through a door,
into an outer office that appeared to be used as a storage room for boxes of
computer paper, stacks of file folders, stacks of plastic disks, old-fashioned
reels of magnetic tape, mags, actual bound books, all thrown together in no
particular order.

“Mr. Wiedermann doesn’t
like secretaries,” Baldwin explained in a low tone, pausing in front of the
closed door of the inner office. “He says he’s seen too many ruin their bosses.
The staff takes turns running his errands for him. He’s a genius.”

“He must be,” Xris
observed, glancing at the clutter. “Either that or Daddy owns the company.”

“He’s a genius,”
Baldwin said quietly. “He doesn’t often see clients. Your case interested him.
I must say it was unique in
my
experience.”

He tapped on the
door. “Mr. Wiedermann.” Opening it a crack, he peered inside. “Mr. Xris here—by
appointment.”

“In!” came an
irritable-sounding voice.

Baldwin opened the
door wider, permitted Xris to enter. Giving the cyborg a reassuring smile, the
young man asked if he could bring coffee, tea. Bourbon.

Xris shook his
head.

“Good luck, sir.
Have a seat. Say your name a couple of times, just to remind him you’re here.”

Baldwin left,
shutting the door behind him.

Xris looked at Mr.
Wiedermann, the younger.

A thin man with a
pale face and a shock of uncombed sandy blond hair sat behind what might have
been a desk. It was completely covered over, hidden by various assorted
objects, some of which had apparently been elbowed out by others and were now
lying on the floor.

Mr. Wiedermann not
acknowledging his presence, Xris glanced around the room. It had no windows,
was lit by a single lamp on the desk, and by the lambent light shining from
twenty separate computer screens that formed a semicircle behind the man’s
chair. The rest of the room was in shadow.

Wiedermann sat
with his chin in his hands—his hands bent so that the chin rested on the backs,
not the palms—perusing a document of some sort, studying it with rapt,
single-minded intensity. He breathed through his mouth. A bow tie—clipped to
the open collar—slanted off at an odd angle.

Xris removed a
stack of files from a chair, kicked aside the clutter surrounding the desk,
dragged the chair over, and placed it on the newly made bare spot on the floor.

Wiedermann never
looked up.

Xris had just
about figured this seeming abstraction was an affectation and was starting to
grow irritated, when the blond-haired man lifted his gaze.

He stared at Xris
with watery, very bright green eyes, said, “I’ve been expecting you.”

The glow of the
computer screens behind him cast an eerie halolike effect over the man. That
and the darkened room made Xris think he’d accidentally broken in on some weird
religious service.