Chapter Four
Our friends will all make fun of us but then again, we’re here and they are not.
Such was the message engraved on the plaque above the main entry to the Ishikawa Hotel on Balga. Always popular, the tourists and staff teemed around in waves and surges. Specializing in ‘theme holidays’ there were all sorts of people dressed in all manner of styles, ranging from the quaint to the old through to the just plain bizarre. People laughed and people screamed and security had a hell of a time telling the difference between genuine problems and some of the games.
On the 53rd floor, one of the private suites played host to a gathering, but not the regular kind.
“So,” asked Georgi, “what news do you have?”
“Well, it’s like this,” explained Bamey. “What you are looking for has not been seen in some time. The people who last saw it have not been seen in some time. In fact, it’s been so long since the people were around, that the station that they originally left from is no longer around either.”
“What happened to the station?” asked Selinin.
“I should explain this to you, because?”
“Please,” said Georgi. “Mr Zhuravlev has as much of an interest in our deal as I do.”
“Fine, then. Mr Zhurcha … Churav … Zerola …”
“Call me Sel,” said Selinin.
“Okay then Sel, here’s what I managed to dig up. Some time ago, a certain Miss Asoye Terakado, thief extraordinaire, happened upon the find of a lifetime. In her eagerness to get rich, she managed to take the Narjus as well as the trade certificates she was stealing. Whether she knew what she had or not is not known. She fled aboard the tramp ship ‘Takas Kitchen’ and went from Moret where the Narjus was kept to Belousov. IowComm Security made an appeal for assistance and the planetary governing body dispatched Judge Jordi Leshem after her. On Belousov she led him a merry chase but through tenacity or dumb luck, he managed to find and arrest her. The final report from Judge Lesham indicated that he was intending to take Miss Asoye back to Moret but there are no records that he actually left.”
“So the Narjus is still on Belousov?” asked Georgi.
“It would appear so.”
“Very well then. Here is your payment.” Selenin handed Bamey a small silvery disc. Bamey took it, briefly examined it and handed it to Albano, his bodyguard. “One last thing Georgi. There was one little detail that all my snooping failed to turn up. Just what is the Narjus?”
“Simple,” explained Georgi. “The Narjus, is what we are seeking.”
Bamey waited to see if there was any more information forthcoming, and when it became apparent that there wasn’t, he scowled, stood and left the suite with Albano.
“Tell me again why we need to deal with him?” asked Selinin.
“He may seem like a whelpy little nerd, but he is a very smart whelpy little nerd. There isn’t a database available that he can’t get into. What pleases me is that we finally have confirmation that the Narjus actually left Moret. And even better, we know where it is: Belousov.”
“You mean we know where it was. Judge Lesham probably took it back to their evidence vaults.”
“No, he didn’t. If he had, the Judge’s database would have shown it as logged in.”
“How do you know what the Judge’s database says?” asked Selenin in surprise.
“Where do you think dear Mr Bamey got the information from?”
Meanwhile, down in the lobby, Mr Bamey and Albano exited the elevator.
“Was it worth it?” asked Albano.
“Oh yeah!” exclaimed Bamey. “This little data chip has just the right information for me to get my dirty little fingers very dirty indeed!”
“How do you know what’s on it?”
“My dear Albano Vega, cast your mind back to three weeks ago when I hired you. Do you recall the long clause in your contract that stipulated all the comm systems that you needed to have expertise with?”
“I didn’t read the contract.”
“And why not?”
“Because I can’t read. You know that.”
“That’s right. But can you lift heavy things?”
“Oh yes, very heavy,” said Albano with pride.
“Can you beat people up?”
“Oh yes, very beaten,” said Albano with a glint in his eye.
“Then obviously I hired you for your muscles, not your brains.”
“I do what I can,” replied Albano with an edge in his voice. “Life is rough for some people.”
“Oh, I do apologize if I have offended you,” gushed Bamey. “Allow me to lead you further down the path of knowledge. You see that sign over the door?” Bamey pointed at a sign marked ‘Exit’ in three different languages above them as they walked out of the lobby. “Well, that sign is not just a sign. It has inside it little cameras and computers that look at everyone as they walk in and out of the hotel. It compares them to what the other signs have seen and keeps tabs on people who are in the hotel. And more importantly, on who should not be there. With me so far?”
“Yes, I’m with you,” said Albano as they got into their vehicle.
“Okay. Now, as we are carried along by this lovely conveyance, how many little machines do you think are in this big machine to guide it along so efficiently?”
“Um … one?”
“Close. There are over two hundred. Okay, so I added a whole mess of them for additional features that aren’t standard, but it came with forty-seven from the factory. There are some in the lights out the front to think about what is ahead. There are some at the back to make sure there’s nothing too close behind us. There are more on the roof and underneath to talk to the other little thinking machines in the corridor and in the signs on the roof so that it knows where its going and what is coming up ahead of us. There are even itty bitty little ones in the seats to adjust the weight distribution and make the passengers comfy. Still with me?”
“Yes…”
“Okay then,” continued Bamey as the vehicle swiftly moved through the station. “Some of these thinking machines are tiny, Really, really tiny. So small that you can’t even see them, at least not with your eyes. Now, if we put all these tiny little thinking machines into a simple metal box to carry people, where else do you think we can put them?”
“Ur … somewhere really small?”
“Yes! See, you aren’t as dumb as people might say you are.”
“Who says I’m dumb?”
“Stay with me, Albano. Now, if the greasy snot Sel gave me the disc and I held it in my hand for a moment and then I gave it to you, where would I need a teeny little thinking machine?”
“In … your hand?” asked Albano incredulously.
“Yes! And…”
“And? And, um … oh! And in your head! You would need to be able to talk to the machine in your hand!”
“Yes! See Albano, you bring pride and glory to the great Vega name! These things are obvious to the people who know, but not as obvious to the people who spend their lives so busy with their useless little jobs that they never stop to think. You, my dear Mr. Vega, stopped for a moment, thought about the evidence before you and realized something that you had never known you knew!”
Albano blushed with pride. It was rare for such praise to be said to him. His last several jobs (actually, all his jobs as far back as he could remember) could be boiled down to the simple description of “hurting people and breaking things”. It took a while for the vehicle to navigate its way through the busy traffic corridors through the station, but eventually they returned to Bamey’s office.
Located on the twenty-third floor of a semi-rundown ex-apartment structure converted to low-density office cubicles, it was the perfect place for running small or barely legitimate businesses. Bamey had been operating out of this office for just over three weeks. In his line of work, he constantly needed to move. His actual physical location wasn’t really that important, just as long as he had access to some high speed data lines.
Having parked and secured the vehicle, Bamey and Albano rode the elevator up to the twenty third floor. A quick wipe of his hand over the security plate and Bamey entered the small office. It was dim, with a few tables and couches in the main reception area. Not that many visitors came here. Truth be told, it was mainly being used as his bedroom when Albano went home for the night. Bamey activated the light and then a thunderous explosion knocked him to the floor.
Bamey thought he was dead, but then realized that he was still alive. His vision was blurry and there was a most annoying ringing in his ears. Rolling over, he looked over at Albano. Albano’s headless corpse lay on the ground, just a smoking stump where his neck should have been.
Something grabbed Bamey from behind and dragged him by the collar into the internal office. Lifting him up, he was unceremoniously dumped into one of the chairs by a huge man. No, not a man, a mechanoid or mechanical construct of some type built to look like a man. Another man, a vicious and evil-looking man stood in front of him. He seemed upset, and appeared to be insistently asking him something. But Bamey couldn’t hear a thing over the ringing in his ears.
The man knelt in front of Bamey and started mouthing something at him, slowly and insistently but Bamey couldn’t make out what he was being asked. He shook his head and pointed to his ears. The evil looking man slapped a small box onto the back of Bamey’s hand, waited a moment and then removed it and stepped back, nodding in satisfaction. The man machine thing swept everything off a nearby table then picked up Bamey and dumped him onto the table.
After a while, Bamey recovered enough that he could make out what the man was saying, and realized that there were other people in the room as well.
“Confirm. That’s the target.”
“And the mess?”
“Just a bodyguard. An expendable thug.”
“Noise?”
“Minimal attention attracted. Contained to this floor, two calls to IntPol and both intercepted. Locals are not a problem.”
“Good. Ah, looks like our guest is awake.”
Bamey was pulled up into a sitting position and handed a glass of some dark-looking fluid. Anxiously, he sipped a bit and found it both flavorsome and comforting. He drank more.
“Can you hear me?” asked someone.
“Yes, I hear you,” replied Bamey.
“Good. Don’t talk - just listen. You are Bamey Schultz, a petty criminal with few convictions. Most of your crimes involve data theft and identity fraud. You arrived in this building three weeks ago, hired Mr. Dead out in the other room and have been busy dumping data from various civic cores to your machines here.”
Bamey had been worried, but now he realized that it was a standard sweep. President Whatshisname was up against some stiff competition in the upcoming elections and was clamping down on the crimes that could make the population the most afraid but the easiest to police and prosecute. He’d been afraid that it was some rival taking him out, or worse, a Judge bringing him in for ‘questioning’. A simple sweep he could take care of by the end of the day.
“Right now, your facing five to ten for illegally obtaining restricted data. You applied for and obtained a license to operate a business here but used an alias. You hired staff without getting appropriate approval or submitting the proper forms for taxation of income. And then you made things worse by failing to lodge your Business Activity or Business Affairs forms.”
Pfft. This was all paltry stuff. Bamey’s strength and confidence were returning as he casually finished his drink. He looked at the tall, steely-haired man that was talking to him. Not much to look at, probably spent most of his time behind a desk or plugged into a console. Bamey would be able to squirm his way out of this one easily. Maybe even get some compensation for the loss of Albano.
“All of which pales in comparison with having arrived on the station without passing through customs or registering with the Bureau of Persons. That alone is going to get you a one-way trip to the nearest penal planet.”
Where was the guy going with this? It would take him barely an extra day to either bribe a clerk or ‘correct’ some data to show that he actually had gone through all the stupid paperwork and that it was all somehow their fault that he wasn’t on their records. This was going to be easier than he’d first thought.
“And then there’s this,” said the steely haired man, pulling something out of his pocket and showing it to Bamey. “You gained access to our data cores and extracted information.”
Bamey was looking at a Judges Seal.
“Information that we want back.”
Bamey thought the same thing that hundreds of guys had thought before him. Guys who had been on top of it all and then in a split second realized that it was all going to come crashing down on him, or that he was about to come crashing down on it. Either way, he was crashing, and the only thing he could think was the popular cry of the falling: I’m fucked.
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