Unstable Prototypes (22 page)

"Fine, yes. That is a wretched name."

"- Mildred. You have recently made it to a
supervisory role after a seventeen year career as a real estate
developer. I apologize, but due to the nature of my current means
of communication, I am unable to interrupt a statement once it has
started."

"Right, let's get on with this, then," he
grumbled.

"Our current location is a town known as New
Caldwell. New Caldwell has a leash law. Also, please affix the
lanyard of the slidepad to my harness, taking care to make it
accessible to me without the requirement of its removal."

"What? Oh, bloody hell," he growled, bending
down to apply the leash and slidepad, "There, you've got your damn
lead and your damn pad. May we go?"

After experimentally lowering and raising the
slidepad, Ma found she was able to interact with it reasonably
well. "That is sufficient. Your coarse language is not called-"

"Fine!"

"-for, Mr. Garotte. I apologize, but due to
the nature of my current means of communication, I am unable to
interrupt a statement once it has started."

Halfway through the unnecessary apology,
Garotte felt compelled to inform his associate that he was well
aware of that particular speech impediment, but he had a feeling
the precise wording he had in mind would have resulted in another
linguistic reprimand, and he was in no mood for the resulting loop
of frustration. Instead he patiently waited for her to finish, then
stormed out of the alley. With a flick of her head, Ma swung the
slidepad around the back of her neck like a scarf and trotted along
behind him at the limit of the leash.

Garotte walked down the street, slowly
shaking off the angry tension he'd developed during his spat with
Ma. It dropped away steadily, and as it did, he began to subtly
change. His precise, efficient gait mutated into a somewhat more
easygoing swagger. He slouched a bit, less trying to hide his
height and more appearing to have lackluster posture. The anger on
his face was replaced not with the bright, intellectual expression
he usually bore, but a look of vague disinterest. His non-leash
hand found its way into his pocket, and those people who made eye
contact with him as they passed received a short nod of
acknowledgment. It was a gradual shift, but over the course of a
block, he seemed to have walked out of one identity and into
another.

He stopped in front of a menswear shop,
squinted toward the sun, sucked his teeth for a moment, then
nodded. After tying Ma's leash to a light pole, and earning himself
a smoldering look from her in the process, he stepped inside.

"Hello, sir. How may I help you today?" asked
the salesman, a portly gentleman in a polo shirt.

"Sun's a bit bright. I was thinking I could
do with a pair of sunglasses. Perhaps a decent hat as well."
Garotte replied. His accent was still distinctly British, but a few
notches more working class.

A few minutes of polite conversation earned
"Gerry" a pair of mirrored shades and a straw fedora. He also
picked up a few more shirts, a second pair of slacks, and a more
fashionable piece of luggage. Swaggering out into the sun, the
addition of the accessories completed his transformation. It might
not be enough to fool digital surveillance systems, but just about
any casual observer would never suspect that this man and the
recently escaped convict were even related, much less the same
person. After untying Ma, who was panting even more heavily now, he
made his way down the street until he reached a city directory
kiosk and began to tap through local business listings on the
screen.

"Bit of a problem, if you hadn't noticed," he
muttered, still in character, seemingly to no one at all.

Ma looked up at him, licking her lips.

"Me? I'm just another bloke. Could be anyone.
People will forget me pretty quick. You? You they'll remember. One
good reason not to bring you along."

Ma glanced aside, watched someone pass, and
then shuffled into the shade of the kiosk. She didn't say a word,
nor did she attempt to. Garotte stared at her for a moment, then
flipped through a few more listings.

"Knows when to keep her mouth shut. That's
something, at least," he muttered to himself.

As they progressed, working their way through
town to fill out a list of items that Garotte had decided that he
needed, Ma became acutely aware of some of the shortcomings of her
current anatomy. Thermoregulation, she noted, was inefficiently
handled in an environment with a high ambient temperature such as
this. Panting was minimally effective at moderating her core
temperature, and had a dehydrating effect, which Garotte had not
seen fit to address. A primarily black fur coat was only
compounding the difficulties. There was also the matter of waste
elimination, which until now had been handled in a reasonably
sanitary manner utilizing the same facilities humans used. Since
Garotte insisted upon tying her up outside when he conducted his
business, it was clear that the situation would need to be handled
in the method deemed appropriate for her perceived species. In
accordance with local laws, Garotte would be required to clean up
after her. Currently, he was sitting inside an air conditioned
diner, drinking a lemonade and chatting with the waitstaff. After
consulting the resentment level that he'd managed to engender, she
decided that this was a satisfactory outcome.

"I'll be sure to try a bit of the frozen
custard before I leave," he commented to the waitress as he walked
out the door.

"You won't regret it. I've heard of folks
coming all the way to New Caldwell from off planet just for a cone
from Carl's Creemees. Oh," she said, glancing at the sidewalk, then
ducking inside for a plastic baggie. "You'll need this."

"For what?"

She pointed at the edge of the sidewalk,
where Ma had left a present for him. The sight of his reaction
brought a brief smile to the AI's face. After reluctantly taking
the baggie, Garotte stooped down to gather the leavings.

"Don't look so proud of yourself," he
muttered before standing up and depositing the bag in the
trash.

#

In the fabrication lab of the Purcell's space
station, Karter was finishing a demonstration of the fabricator
controls to a handful of the commander's engineers.

"Parts inventory here, estimated build time
here. You're going to want to keep this database up to date, and
sort the input bin reasonably well, or there is going to be a hell
of a lot of slowdown when the arms have to disassemble and catalog
the crap coming out of the chute," he explained, pointing at
various parts of the screen. "Basically the output is entirely
dependent on the input. Once the system knows what it has to work
with, you can sort output by maximum number of producible units,
shortest production time, etc, etc. Easy as pie."

"And how does one enter in new designs?"
asked the head engineer. He was literally wearing a lab coat over a
space suit, making him appear to be the final evolution of
nerd.

"You ask me and I enter them in, for a price.
That's my profit model. Or, more accurately, that's my 'making sure
you can't kill me yet' model. The money is just a happy side effect
in this case," he said, glancing down at the sidearm of one of his
guards. "Hey, is that a Scorpion S-35?"

He reached for it, and instantly was backed
against the wall, weapons pointed at his face and arms twisted
behind his back. Seemingly unbothered by the manhandling, he
continued enthusiastically, like a kid catching sight of a rare
baseball card.

"I've never seen one in circulation! They
discontinued them almost immediately. One hell of an energy output
on those babies, but prone to overheating, right? Fire one too many
bursts in a row and it'll leave your hand looking... well, kind of
like that."

He gestured with his head to the soldier
equipped with the gun. He had a peculiar pattern of scars on his
hand that, upon closer inspection, perfectly matched the grip of
the pistol.

"You know," he continued, "I'm noticing a few
patterns around here. You guys love your experimental stuff.
There's the ship you came to Big Sigma on. There's your gun. You
want the CME Activator, which is pretty experimental by
itself."

"We believe that-" one of the engineers
began.

"I know, I know, I know! I got the whole
sermon from boss lady. Most of the crazy terrorist leaders/cult
leaders I've dealt with don't actually practice what they preach,
though. You guys put your money where your mouth is. Which explains
why most of you look like burn ward rejects. My god... What does
terrorism pay these days? Because I've had a hell of a time finding
people willing to test some of my more bleeding edge gadgets. You
guys get your jollies using untested technology, I get my jollies
making
untested technology. This could turn out to be a
fairly lucrative partnership for all of us."

"Just teach the engineers what they need to
do and get back to your cell," came a voice from the door.

"Boss lady! I was just talking about you.
Whoever told you to kidnap me must have hated you or hated me."

"Why would you think that we were
told
to kidnap you?"

"Because if you'd gone through the proper
channels, you'd know that I pay top dollar for people willing to
risk getting maimed in the pursuit of scientific progress. You
would be drowning in bleeding edge technology right now. And
potentially other things, depending on what it was you were
testing. And I'd be drowning in feedback."

"You don't expect me to believe that, do
you?"

"Remember that VectorCorp break-in last year?
Who do you think gave that idiot his equipment?"

"You have no way of proving that."

Karter continued, ignoring her, "I gave him a
tricked-out ship, programmable fingerprints, kinetic capacitor
gloves, and a mental cloak. They all worked. And that's nothing
compared to the crazy crap I used to give my last beta testing crew
before they got locked up for... well, using the crazy crap I gave
them."

"These would be the war criminals?"

"Jeez, you commit
one
war crime and
everyone starts calling you a war criminal. It isn't like they made
a career out of breaking interplanetary treaties. Except for the
British guy. That was sort of his job. But that doesn't matter. The
important part is that I am ready, willing, and able to deck you
out with all sorts of untested concept equipment."

"This is just a trick."

"What part of this could possibly be a trick?
I am flat out
telling
you that I want to give you things
that may or may not kill you. My god, you have got to be the
worst
negotiator I've ever met. What, do you think I'm going
to use this as an opportunity to slaughter all of you and make my
escape? Because if I wanted to do that I'd say something like
'Execute sub-task thirty-one three thirteen.'"

Instantly some of the more vicious tools
attached to the mechanical arms in the fabricator flared to life
and the positioning motors began to groan, shoving them into
motion.

"CUT POWER NOW!" Purcell barked.

A half-second later, the lights cut out and
the sounds of machinery died away. The assembled guard staff
fumbled for flashlights. As they flicked on one by one, they found
that the mechanical arms had come to a halt in the act of reaching
for those members of the staff nearest to the fabrication area. One
arm, tipped with a still faintly glowing torch, was inches from the
commander's throat. One of the flashlights turned to Karter,
revealing a devilish grin.

"See?" he said, "Perfectly trustworthy. I
don't stab people in the back. I stab them in the face. And don't
fool yourself. You may think that you're in control here, but I'm
the one in control. You put me within ten meters of something with
circuits, motors, or gears and I will always be the one in control.
I've done things to this station you'd never even consider checking
for. And you'll never find all of my tricks, because you can't
check for something you don't know is possible."

Commander Purcell slipped her combat knife
from its sheath and held it a whisper away from Karter's neck.

"You can kill me. There's never been any
doubt of that. You can cut off my head, one of these men can pull a
trigger, and I'm out of your hair forever. But you aren't going to,
because you are following orders right now. I know you are, because
no one who is smart enough to have avoided getting killed by some
of the things I've tried on you would be dumb enough to make some
of the choices you've been making. And even if you didn't have
orders to keep me alive, you wouldn't kill me because you actually
believe that nonsense you were saying about forcing society to
adapt. So it is decision time. I don't give a damn about your
agenda. Never did. But if
you
do, I think we both know what
you should do. Make a wish list. Pick my brain. See what I can
offer you. Consider the antimatter warheads we've already finished
a demo. Watch one of those babies go off, then tell me you aren't
hungry for anything and everything else I'm capable of. We were
made for each other. If you're building a religion around unstable
prototypes, then I am the goddamn messiah."

Purcell gritted her teeth, weighing the
words.

"Take him back to his cell, take his arm
away, and sedate him. Evacuate the fabrication lab, power it back
up, reboot the system, and give it a complete security sweep,
hardware AND software."

The guards hauled Karter out of the room.

"I'm confident you'll make the right
decision," he said as he was dragged out the door.

"How many of those warheads are finished?"
Purcell asked her engineer.

"We have finished two that are troop
portable. And we have the parts for one missile. The rest are
awaiting raw materials."