Me Am Robot

My day after Nathaniel Redding V left my office was pretty standard: I paid my rent, lost more money than I earned playing poker on my data tablet, and even managed to pick up another client with a short job—locate a long-lost great-great-granddaughter. That particular request surprised me, as the woman asking looked to be roughly the age of Mr. Redding. Closer inspection, however, revealed to my discerning eye that her skin was actually synthetic, and I could hear a slight tinny undertone to her voice.

Where her age showed was in her inability—or flat-out refusal—to learn to operate something as simple as data tablet. All of the information she was looking for could have easily been looked up in the comfort of her own home, but she insisted on transferring three-hundred-and-fifty credits to my account so that I would do all the grunt work. I tried to show her what to do, but she simply gave me a blank look when I’d finished my demonstration. This indicated to me that her gray-matter may have been fully intact, which in turn would have suggested that she was one of those elderly types that believed the brain was too sacred to modify or augment for any reason. After she’d left with the address she was looking for, I transferred the money back into her account; I’m by no means a saint, but I’m no thief, either.

By the time the next morning rolled around, I was itching to get out and do something constructive with my time, even if that meant chasing down a possibly unfaithful fiancée; as you may recall, I loathe tailing a client’s significant other. So, at seven o’ clock the next morning, bright and early, I was sitting in Jupiter’s Café, more commonly known as Jupiter’s, with a newspaper in my hands and a hat on my head to reduce the glare for whoever happened to be sitting at precisely the wrong angle. The serving staff had given me strange looks until I ordered a cup of black coffee, mostly to see what they would bring. What was brought to my table was not a mug, but a small chip that I was supposed to slide into the reader on my forearm.

This seems like the perfect time to explain to those who aren’t familiar with our current technology how sad it really is the majority of the time. You see, the more ‘extreme’ cyborgs—like me—occasionally miss being human. Big shocker, I know. Because of this longing to return to what we once were, some companies have made a killing with chips like the coffee chip I paid an outrageous seven credits for. It’s not limited to food and drink, either. On occasion, I’ll get bored and browse the internet for other kinds of chips, and I won’t lie to you: some of them are downright disturbing. So far, ‘Ultra-Real Asphyxiation’ is at the top of the list.

But, as you may expect, nothing beats the real thing, as far as food and drink are concerned. I’m not sure how they work, but something is definitely lost in the translation, so to speak. My coffee chip, for example, managed to produce the taste of coffee, but there was something metallic to it, almost like I was licking it out of an aluminum saucer. I didn’t even get a simulated caffeine kick out of the deal; according to the menu, that would have cost another credit-and-a-half. Subpar as it was, it was something to keep me occupied while I waited for Ms. Schindler to make an appearance.

I didn’t have to wait very long; a short hour after I had sat down, I saw a familiar face stroll in the door with the kind of grace cybernetics couldn’t replicate. As per typical Private Investigator protocol, I had chosen a booth in the corner with a view of the entire café, so I was able to watch as she casually sauntered up to the counter and order a cup of coffee. She was a little taller than I expected, and very shapely; the picture Redding had handed me was only a headshot, making the rest of her appearance hard to gauge, so I was pleasantly surprised. Where I’d been expecting someone as modified as her fiancée, Greta seemed to me to be completely organic, a rarity in this day and age. She was making no attempt to hide her skin with a bright, tight tank top and shorts, and I couldn’t see any of the tell-tale creases or folds of synthetic skin anywhere on her. Trust me, I triple-checked.

Dressed as she was, like any other college girl on a summer weekend, it was hard to imagine her with the richly-dressed Modder, Nathaniel Redding V. Perhaps he was marrying below his station, which was why he was coming to a lesser-known investigator like myself. Maybe he meant to elope? Or, worst-case scenario, she wasn’t actually his fiancée, just another pretty girl he bumped into that he decided to stalk through my eyes. I might end up passing notes and serenading her for him. If that were the case, I’d have to download a better voice module.

My train of thought came crashing back to reality as I saw her pass by the window by my table. I had absent-mindedly watched as she paid for her coffee-to-go and walked right out the door. Cursing, I tossed the coffee chip on top of the table and left, pulling the brim of my hat down over my eyes to cover as much of my face as I could. I’d opted for a relatively plain-looking, obviously robotic face model when it came time for that particular upgrade, but a good deal of the general population found a fully-clothed robotic form like my own disconcerting; too close to the Uncanny Valley, I suspected, so I made a point of covering my face as much as I could when I was out and about.

It occurs to me that I haven’t told you a whole lot about where I’m located in the world. Not much on the North American Empire’s map has changed since the late 22nd Century; Florida is still the ruined little stub Superstorm Hans left behind, California is still a burned-out wasteland, and New York City is still expanding past the former borders of the state it was named after. My usual stomping grounds are the Sky District of Chicago; you know, the big platform that’s been floating over the city since about 2102. The last major gravity scare was half a century ago, so no one’s too worried about it falling anytime soon.

One thing everyone should know about the Sky District is that it’s as crowded—if not more so—than the city below. As a result, you’d think tracking one person on a street full of people might be difficult. Augmented vision helps, but only so much. If I’d shelled out the credits for the facial recognition patch that came out a few months back, I’m pretty sure the task would be a cake walk, but I was conveniently broke at that time, and the price has only been rising. After I had my full payment, I could download the upgrade if I really felt like it. Until then, however, I convinced myself that I was honing my sense of perception the old-fashioned way.

Spotting her just as she rounded the corner up ahead I hurried along, gently pushing people out of my way. My favorite thing about being almost fully robotic? People make an effort to give you room. My guess is that they expect all sorts of weird weapons to come flying out of you when you’re pissed off, which isn’t far off most of the time. In my case, however, my only weapon is a slightly loose left arm socket. I could beat you to death with my own arm, and let me assure you that’s exactly as cool in reality as it sounds on paper. Reattaching the arm is a total bitch, though, so I consider it a last resort.

Catching up to her was easy. It was maintaining a safe distance while keeping her in my sights that was usually the difficult part. With hundreds of people sharing the same sidewalk, running into obstacles was inevitable. Whether it was tripping on a homeless person, being tackled to the ground by a thief making a hasty getaway with some poor old woman’s purse, or a charity worker seeking a healthy donation or two, you could always count on something slowing you down along the way. Thankfully, it seemed to be working in my favor today: a few yards away from the corner where I might have lost her, a truck pulled out of an alleyway mere inches in front of her. Another second and it might have been a disaster, both for Greta and my bank account.

My thankful attitude soured when she waved to the driver, opened the door, and was driven out of sight in a matter of moments. It wasn’t going to halt my search for the day, but it would delay me for a little while. I managed to catch the identification number on the truck, so all I needed to do was hack into the street cameras all over the Sky District to watch for the vehicle in question. Good thing one of the district’s coordination AIs was sweet on me.

A short jog down the sidewalk put me in front of one of the public access terminals that would allow me to speak to a coordinating AI. Pulling my tablet and the proper cord out of the bag that hung at my side, I plugged it in and punched in the last access code I’d received. A small ring appeared in the center of the tablet, composed of the words “Connecting to Administration Office Channel 63”. I will never understand the apparent obsession software designers have with wheels and rings when it comes to showing a connection being made, or a download in progress.

After a few moments, the screen went from black to a muted blue, and a face materialized where the wheel had been. She was pretty, for a purely digital avatar. Like a real woman, she seemed to change her hairstyle frequently; last time we’d spoken she had straight black hair, but now it was curly and almost white. She smiled and winked at me.

“I was wondering when you’d call me back,” she said demurely. “You sure know how to leave a girl hanging.”

I shrugged. “What can I say, Dora? I’ve had work to do.”

Dora wasn’t her real name, of course; her official designation was a long string of numbers that I really couldn’t bother to commit to my memory banks. Besides, I wasn’t going to refer to her as ‘three-two-forty-six-niner’, or whatever the number was. She was as good as human, as far as I was concerned, and that warranted a name. I’d just taken to calling her the first name that came to mind whenever I spoke to her. Dora was about the seventh attempt at finding a name she liked. To my dismay, she grimaced.

“Try again, slugger. I will not go by the name ‘Dora’.”

Women. “I’m sorry babe, but this is a business call; I’ve got a truck that needs tracking and you’re the best girl for the job.”

She sighed. “You’re lucky I like you, Alex. What’s the ID on the truck?”

“Six-nine-Bravo-Juliett-four-Alpha-nine-nine.”

The AI rolled her eyes at me. “You could try saying it like any other normal person might.”

“You love it and you know it.”

“Yeah, yeah. Just give me a second.”

One point I’d meant to bring up to her many a time was her lack of a ‘searching’ screen, or graphic, or expression. When she went digging through old records or camera feeds, the graphic displayed on my screen was simply her giving me an unnerving stare. I knew she couldn’t actually see me through those eyes—she was probably watching me through the camera on my tablet, or one of the surrounding streetlight cameras, but it was creepy nonetheless. Especially when she suddenly came back to life without warning.

“I’ve got a location on your truck: it’s currently parked in front of a warehouse on Highcloud Avenue.”

“Thanks, Kat; you’re a lifesaver.”

She thought for a moment, then shook her head. “Not Kat, either. I’m strictly a dog person. Is there anything else I can help you with?”

“That’s all I needed,” I answered apologetically.

“Alright, then; happy hunting. And Alex?”

“Yes dear?”

“Call me for fun sometime. All these business calls can really wreck a girl’s mood.”

With that, she disappeared from the screen of my tablet. I left it plugged into the terminal long enough to hail a cab to my location, then stuffed it back in my bag. The taxi was chartered to drop me off a few blocks away from the warehouse my AI friend had pointed me towards; pulling right up to the front door was bad form. I wanted to check out the place from a distance, get a lay of the land. The garish yellow-and-green vehicle that scraped to a halt in front of me inspired little confidence that I would get much farther than a few blocks from my current position, but I knew I could count on it. City administration poured enough money into public transit to ensure it could get passengers to their destinations in one piece, but not enough to get the cabs and buses to look nice.

One short, hectic ride later I was approaching the warehouse, my account about fifty credits poorer and an unidentifiable stain on the leg of pants that I hoped was dried ice cream. I tried not to think about it. Instead I focused on the building my client’s missing bride-to-be had been seen entering. It was short—probably only three floors—but spread wide enough that it probably covered roughly the same area as a small skyscraper, provided it had a large basement. The sole reason the Sky District had warehouses was to handle the overflow from down below, which was rare indeed. As a result, many had been abandoned, or bought by private citizens and turned into condos, nightclubs, or other facilities. The prominent example that came to mind was a BDSM club, the name of which I couldn’t remember.

At a block away, I could see the truck Greta had jumped into parked in front of the main gate. Two tall, burly men were standing guard at the front doors, a short distance away from the gates. I couldn’t hear any music coming from within, even when I strained my audio sensors, so I decided she hadn’t gone into a nightclub. Granted, it could be in the basement to muffle the majority of the noise, but why bother? Loud music, strobe lights, and dancing hadn’t been outlawed. Crossing to the other side of the street, I worked my way around the warehouse, keeping at least a block away and stealing what glances at the property I could through the spaces between houses and across playgrounds. Guards had been posted at every door, even those that were obviously locked and chained shut. What’s more, all the guards were identical, so they were probably drones purchased from some private security company.

This was vastly outside my area of expertise. Maybe if the two guards at the front had been the only two on the property I would have been fine, but a whole damn platoon was way too many. I would either need backup or a different approach. As I continued to circle the building, making note of possible entrances and other weak points, a plan started to form in my head. It wasn’t a good plan—in fact, I was pretty sure the cybernetic parts of my brain had become self-aware and were trying to get what little organic matter I had left killed—but it was better than nothing.

With no idea how long Greta would be occupied inside the warehouse, I set to work.