Darkness Rising Page 3

  Static flared in her ears. Carl lifted a paw, and then his voice crackled from his necklace. “Ahem,” said Carl. “I am Carl Sagan, a member of The One.”

  The man’s eyes went wide. “Sixty said one of his partners was a One.”

  The woman leaned closer hand outstretched. “Aren’t you the cutest though!”

  Carl rubbed an ear with a paw. “Well, yes, I—”

  “Carl!” Volka snipped. “Focus!”

  “Right…right…” Carl murmured. “We’ve lost Sixty. He hasn’t answered his ether, though he left a message saying that he had an errand he’d be running.”

  The woman put her hand on Volka’s shoulder. “Honey, this must be Volka! His other partner." Her voice changed to an excited, conspiratorial whisper. “We’ve heard all about you.”

  “By Neptune, I think you’re right, Celeste! I’ll ether the police,” said the man. “It’s a little early for a missing person—android—report, but you never know. He coulda gotten lost or had a power outage somewhere.”

  “Thank you,” said Carl.

  Nodding once at the werfle, the man touched his neural interface. His face took on the vacant, distracted look of someone connecting to the ether, and he turned and walked back into the shop.

  “Come in, come in! I’m Celeste, by the way, and that’s my husband, Bart,” said the woman, stepping around and ushering Volka into the shop. Once inside, Volka realized it wasn’t a shop at all, but a small apartment that was nearly all bed. The bed smelled like Sixty, too…as did Celeste’s skin. Volka’s skin heated and her nails dug into her palms. Celeste had had sex with Sixty—and cheated on Bart!

  “He said he had an errand to run for you,” said Celeste.

  Volka’s lips curled in a snarl. “He did not have an errand to run for me.” A growl rolled from her chest. Celeste took a step back and put a hand to her mouth.

  “Oy!” Bart shouted, placing himself between Volka and Celeste. “Don’t be growling at my wife!”

  Volka’s lips parted in disgust. He also smelled like Sixty, though not quite as much.

  “Volka, relax,” said Carl, silently into her mind.

  Grabbing Carl by the scruff of his neck, Volka ripped him from her shoulder and dropped him on the floor. “They’re lying!” A picture was forming in her mind. Celeste had had sex with Sixty. Bart had found out and disposed of him; maybe they’d even disengaged his Q-comm—the chip that gave him the intelligence of a human. Without his Q-comm and his connection to the huge server on Time Gate 1 that was his “brain,” he was just a regular “dumb sex ‘bot.” Volka didn’t know what a “server” was, but she’d seen Sixty without his Q-comm connection to it. He’d have happily had sexual relations with men intent on slagging him.

  Twisting and rising to his hindmost leg pairs, Carl Sagan hissed. His voice crackled over his collar. “No, they’re not! They are genuinely worried about Sixty.”

  “Of course we are,” whispered Celeste.

  “He’s a nice guy,” said Bart. “We’ve been ether buddies for a while.”

  “He really believes that,” Carl said, and Volka wasn’t sure if she was hearing it with her heart or her ears. She looked between the two humans gazing at her earnestly. Maybe they hadn’t hurt Sixty, but Sixty had fornicated with Bart’s wife. Volka suddenly had the urge to strangle her business partner, or at least give him a snarling-to. Glaring at Celeste, Volka’s lip curled in distaste.

  The human woman touched her throat.

  Dropping his hand from his temple, Bart said, “The police officer said it’s too early to file a report, but he said something very disturbing in an offhand way.” He shook his head and stared at the floor.

  “Well,” Carl demanded, spreading his three top paw pairs and marching toward Bart on his back four legs.

  “6T9—” He looked at Celeste. “Our 6T9 is the fifth android to be reported missing in the past ten hours.”

  Celeste’s hand flew to her neural interface. “He isn’t answering when I ping him.”

  Bart scowled, and he asked Carl, “He doesn’t have a tracker chip on him?”

  Carl shook his head. “Not that I know of.”

  Volka swallowed.

  “Maybe he ran out of power somewhere?” Celeste said. “He could be hurt.” She put her hand on her husband’s arm. “How can we find him?”

  Carl held up a paw. “I have an idea.” Everyone’s attention snapped to the werfle.

  Putting two pairs of paws behind his back, Carl paced the room. “The Q-comm is connected to Time Gate 1 by the principle of quantum entanglement.”

  Volka blinked at her werfle partner.

  Carl met her eyes. “That’s when subatomic particles are entangled. The particles are always in the same state. They are in sync.”

  She blinked again. Carl had explained the Q-comm to her on multiple occasions. It was hard not to get it confused with the ethernet. The ethernet relied on lightbeam transmissions, radio, and wireless frequencies. Ethernet signals had time lags and could be physically blocked. Q-comm could not. Q-comm were very expensive, and very few people and machines had them. All these things she knew. She had no idea how it all worked.

  Carl held up two paws. “Whether or not Sixty is operational, whether or not the chip is still in place, the subatomic particle in his Q-comm chip that is entangled with the particle on Time Gate 1 is still in the same state—that is to say, they are still connected, still communicating. Depending on Time Gate 1’s sensitivity to the quantum wave, it—he—might know where the chip is. If it is still in Sixty’s metal skull, it can act as a tracker.”

  “What are you suggesting?” Bart asked.

  “That we contact Time Gate 1 directly,” Carl said.

  Bart and Celeste’s eyes went wide as saucers. They took a step back, and Volka smelled fear in the air.

  “Can we do that?” whispered Celeste. “We’d need its ethernet channel.”

  “Does it even talk to non-machines?” Bart said.

  Carl Sagan put a paw on his chest. “I have Time Gate 1’s channel. As to whether it will speak to us without Sixty present…there is only one way to find out.”

  Bart and Celeste took another step back, and the scent of fear increased. Volka’s brow furrowed in confusion. Her world had been nearly destroyed by a psychopathic time gate, but Time Gate 1 was different. It had never done anything to hurt anyone that she knew of, and every machine she’d met since meeting Sixty had been law-abiding, if not kind like Sixty, and polite, like Bracelet.

  Carl gripped his necklace and closed his eyes. Bracelet began to crackle with static. More static sounded from a speaker in the wall by the door.

  “Someone is at the door…?” said Bart.

  “No,” said Carl.

  His necklace began hissing.

  A holographic projector sitting on the counter between the single room and galley kitchen began to flicker madly. Tiny speakers set at the corners of the room began cycling through ethernet music stations. Opera, galactic funk, new frontiers, and other styles Volka had just been introduced to filled the room, each only for a dizzying few seconds.

  Volka shifted nervously on her feet, ears twisting.

  “What’s going on?” Celeste cried.

  “It is Time Gate 1,” Carl said.

  Every ethernet device in the small apartment chuckled in a deep register. “Hello, Carl and Volka,” said the voice. “Mr. and Mrs. Jacobsen.”

  Celeste gasped and put a hand over her mouth. Volka’s hair rose. The voice coming from every corner of the house sounded like what she’d always imagined God would sound like.

  “We need to know where Sixty is,” Carl declared. His ears were flat against his head, and his eyes were narrowed.

  Gulping, Volka added hastily, “If you please, Time Gate 1, sir.”

  The multitude of devices rumbled with Time Gate 1’s laughter, and Volka’s ears flicked frantically.

  “Ah, Volka, always so polite,” Time Gate 1 responded.
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br />   “Skip the theatrics!” Carl hissed. “Just tell us where Sixty is, if you even know.”

  “Carl!” Volka exclaimed. “Be nice!”

  The little werfle stood with his paws crossed over his chest, his ears completely flat against his head. He wouldn’t meet Volka’s eyes, and his tail swished like mad.

  “Of course I know where he is,” Time Gate 1 said. Static crackled through the speakers.

  Volka gulped. “Would you tell us, please?”

  “It is not my nature to intervene in the affairs of my androids or of humans—” Time Gate 1 rumbled.

  Carl shook a tiny paw at one of the speakers. “You gave androids sentience! Don’t say you don’t like to interfere, you meteor pocked, bucket of—”

  Swooping down, Volka smacked a hand over Carl’s necklace. Carl squeaked furiously and continued to shake his paw at the speaker, but his barrage of insults stopped.

  “—but since you asked nicely, Volka,” Time Gate 1 said, “I will tell you that he is on Level 302 in cargo ship berth 54. He is being held by android-nappers and their ship, the Copperhead, is scheduled to depart in ten minutes and—”

  Volka didn’t hear the rest. With Carl under her arm, she was already running out the door, shouting, “Thank you, Time Gate 1, thank you, sir!” adding, “Call the police again,” to Bart and Celeste. She was still mad at Sixty for having an affair with a married woman, while, by the smell of it, being friends with her husband, but she wasn’t going to abandon him to android. Cold sweat prickled along her spine as she raced down the hall. Had Sixty’s Q-comm been dislodged? Did he even know he was in danger?

  3

  The Copperhead

  6T9 wasn’t sure where he was or how he had gotten here, or why he was carrying a parcel under one arm, but he at least was sure he wasn’t in any danger. He was being guided by a human. The man’s hand was on his upper arm, and he was leading him through a maze of tunnels. As grateful as 6T9 was, there was a slight problem. “You’re holding my arm too tightly, sir,” 6T9 said to the human male.

  “Shut up,” said the man holding his arm.

  “Yes, sir,” 6T9 replied. For some reason, that made the man snort, squeeze more tightly, and give 6T9 a harsh yank. A light went on in the periphery of 6T9’s vision alerting him that the synth skin on that arm had been damaged. Next to that light was another informing him that the back of his cranial cavity had also been damaged, and a third telling him his ether connection was offline. He touched his torso, as though expecting to find something there...but there was nothing.

  They passed through a pair of sliding doors that said BERTH 54 and approached a ship with a gangplank 4.6 meters wide, that, according to his records for this ship model, also served as an airlock door. At the top of the gangplank, off to one side, a man sat on a stool. In his hands, he had a handheld android diagnostic computer. 6T9 was familiar with the type. Although it was easier to command a android by ether, the handheld would protect the man if 6T9 had any viruses of the computer variety. It could also be used as a local ethernet hub in areas with unstable or unsecured ethernet and issue commands for a large number of ‘bots simultaneously. The seated man was also surrounded by various tool cabinets and parts. Beyond him was a darkened hold, crowded with deactivated sex ‘bots, standing and sitting in uneven lines.

  “What did you bring me, Scrapper?” the human man on the stool asked as 6T9 and the man who must be Scrapper began walking up the plank.

  “A 6T9 unit, heard demand for ‘em was high,” Scrapper replied.

  “That peaked weeks ago, Scrapper,” the new man replied. As they drew closer, 6T9 noticed that among the other tools and parts there was even a spare 6T9 head. Maybe they’d put a new head on his body?

  He gazed past the man. A cursory inspection and his calculator app informed 6T9 that there were at least 312 other ‘bots in the hold of the vessel, some very much in need of repair. Maybe he was here to have his shoulder skin and head fixed?

  “Ya want me to ditch him, General?” Scrapper asked.

  6T9’s brow furrowed. The “general” wasn’t wearing the uniform of any military in his databanks.

  “Nah, he’s still worth more than his freight weight.” The general looked 6T9 up and down and then pointed to an empty stool in front of him. “Sit down, ‘bot.”

  6T9 sat down and set his parcel next to him.

  The man on the stool who might be a general said, “Don’t know who you belong to—”

  “I don’t know either, sir,” 6T9 replied, hand reflexively touching his torso again for some odd reason. “I have no memory of a new owner after Eliza.” He had a curious memory of her saying that he would never be sold again. He was very sure he hadn’t been. But he was also very sure he hadn’t been gifted to anyone either. Some of his circuits sparked, trying to determine the answer to that riddle, but it was beyond him. Where had Eliza gone? He tapped his hand against his torso.

  “But we’ll reset you to factory settings and then you’ll belong to us,” the man finished.

  “Are you sure you want to do that?” 6T9 asked, hand smoothing his torso. “I have medical and cooking apps installed.”

  “Yes, I’m sure,” replied the man.

  “Eliza installed them,” 6T9 said, his circuits dimming oddly, though he wasn’t sure why. “You should probably run a full diagnostic on me,” 6T9 told the man.

  “Oh, you can bet I’ll be doing that and more,” replied the general. He plugged a hardlink into the handheld and then reached toward 6T9’s temple. “What the—?”

  “His neural interface is covered,” Scrapper said. “I put the jammer overtop of it.”

  “Ya, I see that now,” General replied.

  6T9 felt a tug at his temple, and a light informed him that his synth skin had been peeled back and his neural port exposed. For a moment he was back online, too. “6T9, we’re coming! Try to delay—”

  There was a thunk against his skull. His connection to the ether was cut off, and an instant later the hardlink was in his neural interface. There was a surge of electricity and a stream of data from his systems overlay his vision, along with the name of the technician requesting the data: Android_General1.

  “Asteroid rubble, this thing is over 150 years old,” the general muttered. “Wipe is gonna take a bit.”

  6T9 tilted his head. Was he that old? He didn’t have memories for more than thirty-seven years of that time.

  “Huh. Looks like most of his memory was flushed already. Saves me the hassle,” the general said. His brows drew together. “But you’re clean. No viruses detected.”

  “I have no viruses of the sexual or hardware variety,” 6T9 said proudly.

  “Shut up, ‘bot,” said the general.

  “Yes, sir,” 6T9 replied.

  The general snorted. “Annoying bucket of bolts.”

  “Where?” said 6T9.

  “Should I shut the hold, General?” Scrapper asked.

  “Nah, Dreg and Craw are bringing in another batch,” the general replied, not looking up from the screen of his handheld. There was a flare of electricity through the hardlink. “Now to give myself permission to perform the wipe—”

  There was a whoosh of air outside of the ship and the stomp of feet. 6T9’s self-preservation routines made him look. Approaching them through a metal door labeled AIRLOCK were ten new sex ‘bots and two large human males. Remembering his brief ethernet connection, some circuits lit within him. “Ah,” he said. “These are the people who were coming and the reason for the delay.”

  “Huh?” said the general.

  The approaching men and sex ‘bots were not a threat, so there was no reason to continue watching them. However, there was no reason to turn back to the general either, especially as he was standing up and shouting, “Hey, that one is stumbling, don’t let him near my workstation.”

  A light beside the airlock door went orange, and a voice said, “Commencing liftoff lockdown sequence in thirty seconds.”

  On
e of the humans said, “We’ve got only minutes before we lose our liftoff window. Close the hatch.”

  “Squeak!” A small, furry creature raced through the airlock and dashed toward the ship.

  Squinting at the creature, 6T9 engaged his zoom and began counting the legs. “One, two, three, four, five…”

  The sex ‘bots all stopped mid-stride on the gangplank and turned around. “Is it a rat?” they said in unison. And then, “Yes, we must kill it!” They charged toward the creature, the one sex ‘bot limping badly and lurching side to side behind the others. Dodging between their legs, the creature’s charge barely paused.

  “Get them back up here!” shouted the general.

  “Brothel ‘bots—” one of the humans started to say.

  Finishing his counting, 6T9 interrupted him. “Don’t kill it! It is a—”

  “My werfle!” shouted a human female, jumping through the airlock doors just before they whooshed behind her heels. She was very short and had wolf ears and wolf-like fur on the top of her head. 6T9’s circuits dimmed a bit with the recognition that she was probably a furry, and he was most likely unable to satisfy her. He noted she was wearing a pleather coat that was much too large for her. For some reason, just looking at it made his hand touch his torso again.

  “Awww…rad burns!” cursed one of the humans. “That critter is slippery.”

  “I’ll get it!” said Scrapper, about to pounce on the creature.

  “Don’t touch him! He’s venomous!” shouted the girl.

  Scrapper pulled back, eyes wide, and the werfle dashed toward the general.