Unstable Prototypes (45 page)

"Not that I know of. I can have it looked
into."

"Do it. Our benefactor seems to think his
presence is a major complication, and much as I am loath to admit
it, he has yet to give us bad information. If this man is about to
become a problem for us. I want to be prepared. Where is he right
now?"

"I don't know, Commander. Presumably still on
Tessera."

"You say the gunship is still near the
planet. Do we have any operatives still on the surface?"

"Not for long. We're pulling them out
now."

"Keep them nearby, and try to keep an eye on
this Alexander fellow. Follow him. Lay the groundwork to track him,
and be ready to neutralize him if he even begins to look
suspicious. Two of Karter's collaborators are already in action and
unaccounted for. If this is another of them, I don't want to take
any more chances. We are too close."

#

In a luxurious hotel suite in the Pavilion on
Tessera, the level of frenzied activity was nearly as high as it
had been in Karter's fab-lab. Rather than a mad scientist making
unilateral adjustments and being trailed by a swarm of engineering
worker bees trying to keep up, this particular swirl of activity
was orbiting a pretty young reporter barking orders at her harried
assistant. Lex had briefly been recruited to help, but it quickly
became clear that he lacked the necessary clerical or communication
skills to be particularly useful. Thus, he found himself on the
couch wearing an almost-clean shirt from his bag and watching as
his girlfriend attempted to do the work of an entire newsroom with
only the help of a single, barely recovered intern.

"Have you gotten to anyone on Virga? I want
to see if that facility he named actually had a break-in, like he
said," Michella barked.

"Not yet. It is the middle of the night
there. I don't think we'll get anyone by morning," Jon explained, a
slidepad in each hand and three more laid out on the table in front
of him.

"And what about Manticore?"

"Still having communications trouble, and
besides, they are a maximum security prison. I don't think they
will be forthcoming."

"You leave that to me. Just get them on the
line. And--"

"Mitch," Lex said.

"-- don't forget that other place. I'll get
the name in a second. He said--"

"Mitch," Lex attempted, a little louder.

"-- they might have
six
people working
there as maintenance--"

"MITCH!"

"What is it, Trevor!" she replied in
exasperation.

"I was just wondering if you were planning on
breaking for dinner at some point?"

"We'll get room service to bring something up
later."

"It wasn't so much the eating as the going
somewhere besides here and eating," Lex said.

"You and I both know that if we leave the
hotel, we're going to be helplessly buried in crowds of people
split between reporters trying to get interviews and our adoring
public."

"I can think of worse things."

"I don't have time for it right now. I've got
to get as much info together and verified as possible. Now that
these Neo-Luddites are big news, I don't have a monopoly on the
research, and there are people out there with more resources than
one intern.
And
I've got that stupid keynote to worry
about."

"The keynote? But... Terrorists bombed the
city! They didn't cancel it?!"

"The Rackton city council begged them to
finish. They don't want it to seem like Rackton isn't a safe place
anymore."

"It
isn't
a safe place anymore."

"They got what they want, they won't
be--"

"I've got Manticore on line... On..." Jon
interrupted, trying to indicate the correct device with hands and
arms completely immobilized by other devices. "On the one next to
the wadded up napkin!"

"Trevor, I'm sorry. I don't have time right
now. I've got to get this done. Later, after the keynote, we'll sit
down and--"

"Virga on the slidepad next to the
coffee."

"Later, Trev. I promise."

He nodded, standing up and heading for the
door. "No problem, babe. I'll be downstairs. Maybe I can get a few
people to buy me drinks."

"Just don't accept any drinks from someone
prettier than me."

"Shouldn't be a problem," he said, turning to
her and flashing a smile, "There's no such thing."

She returned his smile with one that could
outshine the sun, then smoothly put on her game face and picked up
a slidepad. "Warden Menlo? Yes, this is Michella Modane. I'd like
to thank you so much for taking this moment to speak with
me..."

Lex shut the door and turned, suddenly coming
face to face with an elderly Asian woman dressed in a Pavilion
service staff uniform and carrying a bundle of folded laundry. She
looked ancient, frail, and extremely irritated.

"Did you leave these?" she demanded, dangling
the clothes in front of his nose.

"Uh... yeah. Were you the one who had to
clean them?"

"More like decontaminate. 'Complementary' has
limits, you know. Less than two types of body fluids."

"I must have missed that in the fine
print."

She squinted at him before adding, "You're
the one on the news."

She delivered the line sharply, like she was
accusing him of stealing a pie off of her window sill.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Well, here's your clothes, Mr. Hero. In
light of your heroic deeds, this will still be complementary. But
the recommended gratuity is two thousand credits, and if you want
someone on my staff to clean and fix that burnt up, bloody shirt
you were wearing on the news, same gratuity."

"Yeah, that's fair," he said, digging out a
few chips.

Once the extorted tip was delivered, she
handed him his clothes, gave a stiff nod, and marched off down the
hall.

"Service has gone a little down hill since
the last time I was here," he muttered, bleeping the door open to
stow them inside.

After pausing to listen to Michella wheel and
deal for a few seconds, he shut the door and made his way down the
hall and into the elevator. It didn't take very long for the crowds
of hero-hungry well-wishers to find him. It was astonishing how
tightly the people of Rackton were clinging to the act of 'heroism'
he and the others had committed. It was as though they believed
that if they gripped it tightly enough, this silver-lining would
somehow undo the dark cloud. Thus, Lex was dragged to one of the
Pavilion's many lounges, showered with drinks of steadily
increasing alcoholic content, and asked to share his tale again and
again. The sudden return to fame, now that he could afford to enjoy
it, was intoxicating. More intoxicating, though, was the nearly
unbroken string of progressively more elaborate beverages that were
sent his way. It had been longer than he'd cared to admit since
he'd been a part of a social gathering as lively as this, so he
indulged a little more than he should have. The night turned into a
pleasant haze of inebriation that allowed a few minor details to
slip by him. He failed to notice that his speaking volume had
drifted well out of the acceptable indoor range, for instance, and
he forgot that mixing beer and liquor tended to end poorly for
him.

He also failed to notice the man at the far
end of the bar who had been quietly observing him. It was subtle
enough that it likely would have slipped past Lex even if he had
been sober, but a particularly paranoid individual would have
quickly become aware of the way the quiet, plainly dressed man
followed, with a limp, every time Lex moved to a different part of
the hotel lounge. Over the course of a few hours the crowd began to
dwindle, the men and women looking for pictures and handshakes got
what they were after, and Lex settled into one of the softer chairs
in the lounge to nurse what was likely to be the last free drink of
the night. It was a ridiculous concoction, with paper umbrellas,
fruit wedges, and colors never intended to exist in nature. It was
like drinking a five-year-old's birthday party, and if it wasn't
the eighth or ninth drink of the night, he probably would have been
embarrassed to be seen with it. He was well beyond the point of
embarrassment now, though. His chief concern right now was drinking
the syrupy sweet beverage without poking his eye out on one of the
skewered cherries. He was only moderately successful.

"Honestly, whose idea was it to combine
alcohol and pointy things," he groaned, blinking away some
pineapple juice from a wedge that had found its way into his
eye.

"You are the hero," said a voice.

Lex turned to see the quiet gentleman from
the edge of the bar. "Yeah, one of 'em."

His latest admirer took a seat. "Did I hear
you say that you were a former racer?" he asked.

"I might have said that once or twice or
thirty times. Seems like people weren't too interested in that,"
Lex slurred.

"I'm sort of a ship fan. I figured a former
racer might have an interesting ship. You did come here on your own
ship, didn't you?"

"Oh yeah. A one of a kind one, too. Let me
tell you, if you are a ship buff, you'd get a kick out of old Son
of Betsy."

"What kind?"

"One of a."

"Yes, but... what make and model?"

"It is an interceptor. Black. Looks stock. Is
extremely not stock. I think it is officially a Cantrell Aerospace
Intrasystem Interceptor, Type D. Heh. Type D."

"Why is that funny?"

"It isn't. It's funny that he thinks it's
funny."

"Who?"

"Doesn't matter," Lex said.

"When did you arrive, and where?"

"Uh... Man, was it really yesterday? I went
to one of those shipyards on the edge of town."

"Which one?"

"East Side... something or other. Why do you
care?"

"Just curious. Thanks for talking to me," he
said, standing and limping away.

"Uh, yeah, no problem," Lex said, adding
beneath his breath, "Weirdo."

The night crept on, and the lounge continued
to empty out. After a few hours, Jon showed up in the lounge. He
was looking thoroughly exhausted. When he spotted Lex, he made his
way over and plopped down beside him.

"That woman is inexhaustible!" Jon said.

"That's very true. It can be fun,
sometimes."

"Not when you work for her. She sent me for
food while she picks apart another one of those loose threads from
that guy you guys talked to. I think the kitchen is going to
mysteriously take about twenty minutes longer than we expected. I
think I'm also going to have a drink. That looks good. What is
it?"

"Cap'n McKenzie's Azure Mai Tai," he said.
"But it tastes more like liquid cotton candy."

"That's my kind of drink," Jon said, flagging
down the nearest waiter and placing an order. "So. What's next for
you?"

"Oh, I don't know. I've got to get back to
Golana before too much longer. In my businesses, if you aren't
around for long enough, clients start looking elsewhere. What about
you and Mitch?"

"Ugh. Don't get me started. She's booked at
least three face to face interviews. We are going be be
globetrotting for weeks."

"Great... You know something, Jon? It is
getting hard to tell the difference between Mitch and me as a
couple versus Mitch and me broken up."

"Sorry to hear that, Mr. Alexander. You'll
work it out, though. I mean, you're both insane danger addicts with
little regard for your own safety. You can't find compatibility
like that on a dating site."

"Yeah, maybe. Oh well. Women, am I
right?"

"You're asking the wrong guy," Jon said.

"Oh. Yeah, I guess so. Well, let me give you
the rundown. Women are like a drug. When you're first getting
started, it is all about feeling good. You convince yourself that
it is just something you're doing for fun, something to make
yourself feel good. Physical stuff, nothing serious. Before long,
though, she gets her claws into you. Works her way into your brain.
You realize you just don't feel right without her. You know it
isn't good for you, that it is driving you insane, but even the
insanity feels right. You just want more of it. Can't get
enough."

"Gonna have to face it, you're addicted to
love," Jon said, raising the glass.

"... Where is that from?"

"I don't know. Some folksong, I think."

"Well, whatever it's from, it's true.
Seriously. And it does permanent damage, too. Before long, all of
the stuff you complain about them doing, you're doing. Fixating on
the relationship. Getting clingy and needy. Honestly, love is like
contagious insanity."

"Beats the alternative."

Lex grunted in agreement. "Women. Can't live
with them, can't live without them."

"Once again, speak for yourself. But if it is
any consolation, men can be just as bad."

"Well that's good to know. I'd hate to think
you guys had somehow found a loophole out of the madness."

"Rest assured that such is not the case."

"... Well, this conversation has suddenly
made me feel incredibly uncomfortable, so I think I'm going to call
it a night." He looked out the lounge window to see that the sun
was still out. "I guess make that call it an afternoon. How long
are
the days on this planet."

"Too long. Lucky they've got the convention
running on GST, or the shuttle lag would have killed me by
now."

GST, or Galactic Standard Time, was the way
the various settlements tried to keep themselves lined up on the
same schedules and calendars. Since different planets had different
length days and years, there had to be some common ground. Much to
the chagrin of the Orionians and Teekers, that standard ended up
being Earth days and Earth years, all lined up with Earth's Prime
Meridian.

"What'd she send you to get, by the way?" Lex
asked, "No, let me guess. Mac and cheese, and a hot cocoa with a
double shot of espresso in it."