The Dragons of Andromeda Page 6

  Lars propped his foot against the coffee table and opened a beer that a robot at the convenience store had recommended. It had the word fungus on the label but also said genuine draft, so Lars felt it would probably be alright. Taking a sip, he judged it acceptable and turned his attention to the video screen. At more than fifty inches, the screen was at a definition that appeared three-dimensional, perhaps more.

  Lars began forming an opinion of what Imperials considered appropriate to broadcast. Ultra-violent and nearly pornographic programming was common, along with commercials that featured only text. Lars had no idea why but conjectured, as he opened another bottle of fungus beer, that it was somehow akin to plain labeling on cigarette packaging.

  While he stared at the screen, an advertisement appeared:

  BIGBOTS! DISCOUNT ROBOTS!

  OUR PRICES ARE AS LOW

  AS YOUR EXPECTATIONS!

  Lars wasn’t sure what a BigBot! was, but it sounded like a good bargain.

  A woman’s face appeared. She was attractive with blue hair and a nice smile. Lars recognized her from previous reports on VOX News, but couldn’t remember her name. She was doing an interview, but when her guests’ faces came on screen, Lars knew exactly who they were. One was Captain Andre Santos of the Merope and the other, Captain Sheba Nasri of the Sterope.

  From what Lars had heard, they had both become very, very rich.

  The robot read the report aloud while Oscar Skarlander, still dressed in a medical gown, lay motionless on a reclined chair in his darkened office to protect his newly opened eyes. A recent model from dy cybernetics, the robot was humanoid from the waist up, with arms and a head, but instead of legs, it floated on a pair of anti-grav repulsors.

  “According to media outlets,” the robot went on, “an unidentified individual used a heated garrote to separate your head from your body, killing you.”

  Skarlander raised an eyebrow. “He remains unknown?”

  “Correct.”

  “Hmmm, I’d like to meet him someday and return the favor.”

  “The metamind who accompanied you,” the robot continued, “was also killed.”

  “I’ll need another one then,” Skarlander replied.

  “The process is currently underway.”

  “What about the captain I woke, Sheba Nasri?”

  “She was taken to Regalis along with the other captain,” the robot said.

  “Showered with gifts, I’m sure.”

  “The Imperial government has transferred several billion credits into accounts in their name. Some members of the Five Families have also begun advising them on proper etiquette and their expected responsibilities.”

  Skarlander sighed.

  “Well, that’s an opportunity missed,” he said, “but perhaps we can still exert influence. Even the super-rich have a price...”

  “Warlock analysts have concluded that the other captain, Andre Santos, is vulnerable to persuasion based on his socio-economical background.”

  “Really?”

  “He is considered an idealist.”

  “Ah,” he said. “Idealists may be stubborn but given the right cause, they can be quite useful...” After a pause, “What about that idiot, Lord Maycare?”

  The robot hesitated, its eyes flickering as it accessed information from the nodesphere.

  “Lord Devlin Maycare received the prestigious Emperor’s Medal of Achievement for discovering the lost ark ships,” the robot said. “He remains firmly in the public eye due to his sporting endeavors and work locating xeno technology.”

  “Jackass,” Skarlander remarked.

  “Be advised,” the robot said, “the Warlock board has expressly forbidden you from having contact with Lord Maycare or his associates.”

  “What?”

  “Due to the violent nature of your last meeting with Lord Maycare, the board considers additional conflict with him politically risky.”

  “Well, well...” Skarlander said. “I suppose I could focus on other things for a while.”

  “To that end, our intelligence division has intercepted communications concerning an artifact of interest.”

  “One Maycare doesn’t know about?”

  “To our knowledge, he is unaware of it.”

  “Tell me more...”

  Lars Hatcher rolled out of bed after ten, took a shower and got dressed. In no particular hurry, he ate breakfast over the sink and watered his plants, noticing they were turning brown. That was the closest he’d gotten to farming since they roused him from cold sleep. The routine of daily life, devoid of prospects, was getting him down. He wondered if meeting someone would cheer him up.

  Searching the nodesphere, he found a dating app called the Meet Market. He registered and began swiping through the photos of available women. Eventually, he connected with a few and one, a user name SxyPnts, started messaging him:

  [SxyPnts]: I like your profile pic.

  [LarsHat]: Thanks.

  [SxyPnts]: Are you really from an ark ship?

  [LarsHat]: I sure am.

  [SxyPnts]: How exciting! I’ve never met one of those before.

  [LarsHat]: It’s been hard getting adjusted. Everything’s pretty overwhelming.

  [SxyPnts]: Sry to hear that. I heard they gave you a bunch of money. :-)

  [LarsHat]: Well, not really that much.

  [SxyPnts]: Srsly? I heard they gave the crew millions of credits!

  [LarsHat]: Yes, the crew, but I’m not one of them. I’m a colonist.

  [SxyPnts]: WTF???

  [LarsHat]: I’m sorry. I don’t know what that means.

  [SxyPnts]: You shithead. It means you’ve been wasting my time!! Screw you!!!

  [[You have been blocked by SXYPNTS.]]

  His other attempts were equally unsuccessful, so he gave up.

  As the days wore on and failures mounted, watching TV was the only thing Lars felt reasonably confident in accomplishing. Another ad came across the screen:

  HAVE YOU BEEN INJURED BY A ROBOT

  PURCHASED FROM BIGBOTS! DISCOUNT ROBOTS?

  THEN CALL THE LAW OFFICES OF SCHMECKLE & SCHMECKLE;

  WE’LL GET YOU THE SETTLEMENT YOU DESERVE!

  That reminded Lars that he had wanted to buy a robot. Nothing too fancy. Just something to keep him company.

  He shaved and showered for the first time in days. He even put on real pants and shoes instead of loungewear and slippers. This was the motivation he needed to get out of the apartment and get some fresh air for a change.

  Lars stepped out of his building and walked down a pedestrian boulevard crowded with people. Lars felt self-conscious, unsure if the others around him knew how awkward he felt on the inside. However, no one seemed particularly interested in him at all. He found this strangely comforting.

  Lars came to a building along the boulevard that looked like a tram station except for the word Transmat along the side. At this point, he realized he had no idea how to use the city’s transmat system. Also, he didn’t know where BigBots! was located.

  A little girl wearing a pink dress and holding hands with a much taller nannybot took notice of him and pointed.

  “Don’t you know how to use a transmat?” the girl said overly loud.

  Lars felt his face reddening. “No.”

  The little girl laughed.

  “I thought all grown-ups knew that!” she said, looking up at her robot. “Nanny, can you help him?”

  Covered in shiny chrome, the nannybot nodded. Within a few minutes, Lars thought he had the gist and thanked the robot and the little girl. The girl took the robot’s hand again, waving goodbye with the other.

  “Bye!” she shouted.

  Inside the transmat station, Lars stepped into a booth and keyed in his destination. After swiping his credit stick, he touched a large red button and felt his insides turn instantaneously into fireflies.

  Fully rematerialized, Lars was dizzy in the head and sick to the stomach. He rushed out of the station and threw up behind
a row of bushes, though the branches were mostly bare and provided little in the way of cover.

  When he looked up, Lars saw a large cat-like person on the sidewalk, holding the paw of a cub, a pink bow between her ears. From his training, he recognized them as Tikarin. The small female cub pointed a claw at him and seemed to laugh before saying something in a language Lars didn’t understand. The adult pulled the youngster away and continued down the sidewalk while Lars wiped his mouth clean with a shirt sleeve.

  Steadying himself, Lars took a look around. Unlike the Middleton district, the trees in this area were mostly dead or dying, the leaves collecting in disorganized piles in the gutter. It slowly dawned on Lars that this wasn’t the way to BigBots! at all. This was somewhere in Ashetown, the poorest district of Regalis.

  He turned back toward the transmat station, but his stomach heaved.

  Hell’s bells, he thought. Maybe I can find a taxi somewhere.

  Lars passed a few stores and two tattoo parlors before he got to the first intersection. Beside the curb, a gravcar lay abandoned. Lars peered through the broken window. The interior was stripped of electronics and anything of value and Lars was pretty sure he saw something furry rolled up into a ball. He stepped back, nearly colliding with a man.

  “Hello there!” the man said. “You look lost, friend!”

  In his forties, the man was bald except for a long mustache and eyes the color of dried motor oil. Most surprisingly, he wore a two-toned blue and green shirt and pants covered in a garish diamond pattern like a harlequin.

  “I was trying to find BigBots! Discount Robots,” Lars said clumsily.

  “Those hacks?” the man replied. “It’s a good thing I ran into you then.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Zarro Boogs!” he said, thrusting his hand into Lars’ and giving it a firm shake. “Who might you be?”

  “Lars Hatcher...”

  “Well, Mr. Hatcher — can I call you Lars? — I’m a business man in these parts and I can get a deal on any kind of robot you’re looking for. By the way, what kind are you looking for?”

  “Well—”

  “A sweeperbot to tidy up the place? A killbot maybe, no questions asked? How about a sexbot? I’m not going to judge...”

  “Actually, I needed something to keep me company,” Lars said.

  “A sexbot it is!”

  “No,” Lars stammered. “I don’t want that...”

  At the sound of a loud shout, Boogs jerked his head around. From down the street, a man in a leather jacket and jeans with orange flames painted down the legs motioned angrily in their direction. Lars noted the man’s abundant hair was nearly the same color as the flames on his pants.

  Boogs smiled even as sweat beaded around his forehead.

  “I just remembered some business uptown,” he said and took off in a mad sprint in the opposite direction of the other man who was now, along with a few other men, running towards them. They raced past Lars who pressed against a wall and watched them disappear around the corner.

  Stepping forward, Lars glimpsed something on the wall behind him. Scrawled in green spray paint were the words Free Marakata. Lars scratched his head, not sure who Marakata was or why he needed to be freed. From the abandoned gravcar, something hissed at him.

  Lars went looking for a cab and a way back home.

  Hours later, Lars stumbled through his apartment door, his clothes dirty and wrinkled. The lights came on automatically, sensing Lars’ presence, as he nearly tumbled onto the couch and turned on the TV. Face-down, he lay on the cushions while the sounds from the vidscreen filled his ears like a hive of bees. Poorly formed ideas cluttered his mind. Thoughts, only partially gestated, mutated from one to another, finding no real substance.

  Since waking up from his cryo-cocoon, Lars felt like he was always a step behind everyone else, like they knew something he didn’t. Lars smacked his forehead with the palm of his hand.

  Idiot, he thought.

  On the TV, an ad appeared:

  WARLOCK INDUSTRIES IS LOOKING FOR A

  SINGLE MALE HUMAN (WITH NO NEXT OF KIN)

  FOR AN INTELLIGENCE STUDY.

  WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR, DUMMY?

  APPLY AT WARLOCK IND. TODAY!

  Lars stared at the screen, the letters displayed in simple type across a white background. He shook his head.

  It’s fine, he thought. No need for extremes. I just need a little more time to fit in. I’m sure something will come up.

  Lars roused himself from the couch, pulling down his shirt to smooth out the wrinkles. He crossed the room to the kitchen and poured himself a glass of water. In the adjacent breakfast nook, the plants were looking worse, the leaves brown and drooping. From the glass, he poured water into each pot, puzzled why the plants wouldn’t perk up.

  A sticker was poking out from under one of the pots. Careful not to spill, Lars set his glass aside and lifted the pot over his head so he could see the bottom. On the underside, he could just make out a label:

  SELF-WATERING PLANTS.

  DO NOT WATER!!

  (YOU MORON)

  Lars was pretty sure he imagined that last part, but it could have been true. In the back of his head, he saw the little girl by the transmat station.

  Pointing her finger, she laughed.

  Oscar Skarlander had grown about half an inch of new hair since his rebirth. Even his goatee had started coming in nicely. Now with hair, when he passed Warlock employees in the hallway, he saw recognition in their faces along with the accompanying expressions of terror. It was good to know his reputation had not diminished after his death.

  Skarlander’s robot, hovering on its anti-gravity repulsors, followed him through the corridors of Warlock headquarters, otherwise known as the Cauldron. Skarlander wore a simple brown suit with matching shoes. His dark eyes, landing on items in his line of vision, scrutinized each thing before moving on to the next, evaluating its usefulness or lack thereof. People were the same. He would size them up and move on, his eyes never resting too long on any single person.

  “The project concerning Lord Santos has commenced per your directive,” the robot said as they continued down the hall.

  “Good,” Skarlander replied coolly. “And the other thing?”

  “Another group of Null Cultists has gone missing.”

  “At least they’re getting their wish...”

  “Our analytics department,” the robot said, “suggests a connection with the increased K’thonian activity in the Talion Republic.”

  At the doors of an elevator, Skarlander pushed the call button.

  “That’ll be all,” he told the robot.

  “As you wish,” the robot replied, revolving in midair before heading back down the hallway.

  Skarlander took the lift down, deep below the basement levels where Warlock Industries maintained several genetics laboratories. This was where the megacorporation, not entirely in compliance with Imperial law, performed testing on human and non-human subjects. Pulling apart strands of DNA like a child plays with red licorice, the scientists rebuilt entire genomes, forming species not entirely human, or any other race that occurred naturally.

  At the entrance of Lab 22, Skarlander palmed the ID pad and went in. Besides the ubiquitous smells of a lab, the room contained long tables topped with trays of test tubes, hooded workstations, and machines that Skarlander could only guess at, if he had actually cared to. He passed them until reaching a single door at the back. Once on the other side, he found himself in a room with a woman dressed in a lab coat, and a man lying on a table. The woman was in her early thirties with red hair pulled tight against her head. She looked at the new arrival with a level of disdain that Skarlander would normally have punished. In her case, he always made an exception.

  “What do you have for me, Dr. Sprouse?” Skarlander asked.

  Without answering, she handed him a datapad. While reading, Skarlander eyed the man on the table, covered to the middle of his chest by
a white sheet. His skin, not much darker than the sheet, was sickly pale except for veins like gnarled branches. The blood vessels crept up his neck and spread across an oddly large, and completely hairless skull. The veins covered two lobes on either side of the head, both of which pulsed slightly with each heartbeat.

  “He’s quite a monster, isn’t he?” Skarlander remarked.

  “He has a name,” Dr. Sprouse said.

  Skarlander glanced at the datapad. “Lars Hatcher?”

  The eyes of the man, sunken and surrounded by dark circles, looked up.

  “What a treat,” Skarlander said. “A metamind with a name!”

  Abruptly, the datapad flew from Skarlander’s hands, smashing against the far wall. The lobes on Lars’ head throbbed rapidly.

  The broken pieces clattered to the floor as Skarlander watched. Turning back to the man on the table, he smiled.

  “He’s perfect,” Skarlander said.

  Chapter Six

  His Imperial Majesty’s Ship the HIMS Baron Lancaster was a heavy cruiser of the Imperial fleet. At over 900 yards long, the wedge-shaped Baron Lancaster had a soaring superstructure, like an armored citadel, rising above its surrounding hull. Inside the tower, Chief Operations Officer Lieutenant Kinnari transferred a message from her console to a datapad and walked down a short corridor from the bridge to the captain’s office. As the only Dahl on a human warship, Kinnari knew she had to maintain both her appearance and professionalism at all times. Her uniform was immaculately clean and starched to a crispness that would allow it to stand at attention even if Kinnari was unconscious. Sensing a hair out of place, she tucked it behind her pointed ear.

  Standing in front of the door, she tapped the buzzer while pressing the datapad tightly against her chest.

  “Come in!” a man’s voice shouted from the other side.

  The door slid away and Kinnari marched into the well-lit office where her commanding officer was sitting behind a desk of metal and glass.