Low Port Part 8

That was sharp. I didn't think I'd have thought of the pellets. They were hardly standard issue on Loophole. "So where are they?" I asked.

He shook his head. "I don't know. But they keep accessing the station board and bidding. I've got a program running, trying to track them to whatever public terminal they're using, but they keep switching. Near as I can tell, they're all over the station, at least three of them, maybe more. But boss, that's not the problem."

Tommy's weird. I'm used to that, but it croggled my mind to think that a bunch of alien homunculi robots scrambling around the station acting like me wasn't a problem, and that something else loomed larger.

"Okay, Tommy, what is the problem?"

"I've gone over some of the bids they put in, boss. They're good bids, vacuum tight. You couldn't do better yourself. And they're compet.i.tive too, we'll probably score thirty to forty percent of them."

I laughed at that. "How is that a problem, Tommy? Most weeks we're hungry for business; we're lucky to win one in ten. We can use the work."

"Yeah, boss, but most weeks you only put in five or ten bids. They've logged over a thousand."

"A thousand? How can three bots have already put in a thousand bids?"

"They're quick," said Tommy, and offered nothing more.

"I'm ruined. There's no way we can handle winning that many jobs. My G.o.d, if I tried to withdraw that many bids the penalties alone would bankrupt me!"

I whirled into the front room and slammed into the nearest terminal, relying on long habit to guide my fingers through the sequence of logons and protocols that eventually connected me to my account on Loophole's bidboard. According to station records I had one thousand eighty-five outstanding bids. I skimmed the first few and came to the same conclusion Tommy had. The bids were good, too good. In five days' time when the pool closed, contracts would be issued to the winners, and Gideon Cybernetics would be inundated with several hundred times the business it could handle. As the horror of it sank in the data display refreshed. One thousand eighty-six.

"I've been munged by a Clarkeson," I swore. I called up my preference file for the station's board and began the sequence of code phrases that would allow me to alter my pa.s.sword and cut the homunculi's access. They could still follow the action on the bid board, but they wouldn't be able to place any new bids. Then I slumped back and tried to figure what to do next. The control ring still glittered on my finger. I tore it off, wrenching a knuckle in the process, and strode back into the middle room.

"Tommy, what can you tell me about this?" I said, tossing the ring onto his bench. "What kind of a control ring doesn't give the wearer control? I'm not getting anything from this thing, not the tiniest bit of feedback."

Tommy caught the ring on the second bounce, tearing his eyes from it with obvious effort. "I think you're outside of their range, boss." He gestured to the gutted puppet on the bench. "It's not very much. The receiver I found in this one probably couldn't recognize a signal beyond half a dozen meters."

"Then why didn't they shut down when they ran out onto the concourse? The Clarkeson said the homunculus wasn't an autonomous A.I."

"Well, technically it isn't. It's an autonomous A.Y."

"A.Y.?" I said.

"Artificial You. Each of them is operating with a reduced version of your personality, knowledge set, and skills. That's what the ring does. It lays down the initial template and index."

I took the ring from him and slid it onto my finger. "They have to be stopped, before they do any more damage. How can we get them back here?"

Tommy shrugged. "I don't know, boss, what would bring you back to the office?"

That stopped me. One of the perks of Tommy's hyper-attention is the way it cuts through to the heart of things. What would bring me back to the office? There wasn't a good answer. We had no other contracts to work on. The Clarkeson's had been the first job GC had seen all month. I didn't have a lot on my calendar.

The breed-bots had been inspected three days ago. I'd finished all pending off-station correspondence two clays earlier, and spent yesterday making the rounds of my creditors. Other than the thousand and some new entries from the Clarkeson puppets, I had only a single outstanding bid that could come through today, a multimedia chip design for a hybrid cryogenic organ delivery vendor. I was fairly certain Scully Pica.s.so over at Cubist Cyberdreams had underbid me by at least five percent, which was two percent below what I saw as my cost. Not surprising; Scully had done the last upgrade for the cryonics firm and could do the job in half the time it would have taken GC, in much the same way I'd been able to grab the Clarkeson contract. I actually had nothing pressing today, prior to the homunculi. Unless...

"Tommy! What's the status of that cryo chip bid? Has the deadline pa.s.sed?"

"No, boss. Bidding ends at thirteen hundred, but the Cubists probably snagged that one. Why?"

I glanced at the wall clock, rushed back to the front room and sat down at a terminal. It was still a quarter hour before thirteen hundred. I signed back onto the bidboard via my new pa.s.sword, calling back over my shoulder to Tommy.

"Write up a mailer to Scully," I said. "Standard sub-contract. Offer him another five percent on top of what he bid on the cryo job. I'm about to underbid him by a wide margin."

"Boss, you're going to underbid him and pay him more to do the work? You'll lose a ton. Why win the bid at all then?"

"Because," I said as I finished entering an updated bid on the board, undercutting my best estimate of Scully's bid by a margin of ten percent. "What happens whenever we win a job?"

Tommy laughed. "You come back to the office and start work on it."

"Exactly." I called up the station time on my screen. Bidding for the cryo job would close in about ten minutes, and my station account would be notified of the win. The homunculi, miniature versions of me, would be monitoring my account and get the news. And they'd come home.

We spent those ten minutes getting ready. I locked Tommy in the middle room after instructing him to stay focused on the door. We'd a.s.sembled several pop guns and loaded them with fresh clips of EMP pellets one of the breed-bots had churned out. Tommy's focus made him a natural marksman. He'd only need a single shot per puppet. Next, I recoded the door to the middle room, giving it a one way setting. It would let you in but not out. The last thing I wanted was for any of those puppets to leave again. Both Tommy and I could easily access the system and send an override, and presumably the homunculi could too, but that would take a while. If one of them had enough time to sit at Tommy's terminal and hack an override then we'd already have failed.

I hid behind my desk, just beneath the wall safe. In the past, if a winning bid came through while I was out of the office I might head straight for the middle room, to spin the project with Tommy. Or I could just as easily pull up and work at my own desk. And on at least one occasion I'd gone to the safe to see how much hard currency was on hand for paying off an emergency subcontract. I cradled a pair of pop guns, one in each hand. Unlike Tommy, I'm a lousy shot and expected to need every pellet in both clips The first homunculus strode into the office at thirteen-twenty, looking like it owned the place. It had reconfigured its appearance somehow, its chrome physique had transformed to the proportions of a portly human, and a prominent silvery mustache occupied a full fifth of its face. It swaggered despite its small size, radiating confidence with every step as it went straight to the inner door, triggered the optic, and pa.s.sed inside. I heard the frazzling sound of static followed by a thump. Tommy had scored.

Two more came in a few minutes later, arguing the pros and cons of licensing another breed-bot in a pair of voices identical to my own. Neither seemed the least bit put off to be accompanied by proof that it wasn't the one true Walrus. Some day I wanted to talk to the Arconi designer who had found a way to create a limited A.I. that could believe it was someone else but also knew it wasn't. My doppelgangers headed straight for the inner room, but the door wouldn't budge. With a curse I realized that the EMP had fried not only the first homunculus but the door's controls as well.

I rolled to my feet at about the same time that the two puppets turned around. I fired with both guns and managed to miss them entirely. They sprang to either side, two tiny s.h.i.+ny versions of me. I kept shooting. EMP pellets exploded against the walls, scattering my office with bursts of electro-magnetism. And then the puppets started fighting back.

It made sense; I'd have done the same thing. A stapler barely missed my head, followed by a box of invoices and several optical mice. A paperweight clipped my left arm and a pop gun fell from my hand, skittering toward the front door. The homunculi scrambled and leapt like lemurs, zigzagging across the office. I gripped my remaining gun with both hands and fired again and again.

Behind me I heard someone else enter the office but I couldn't spare the time to turn and see who it was. Something hit me behind my right knee and I fell forward Just as two shots whooshed over my head. EMP pellets struck the two homunculi, catching each dead center. They keeled over in a wash of electro-magnetic energies. I rolled over and gasped when I saw the face of my rescuer. Another hornunculus stared back, cobalt lenses glowing haughtily above a thick mustache of bristling chrome. It aimed my missing pop gun straight for my solar plexus.

"Put it down," I said, wondering how much damage an EMP pellet could do to my nervous system.

The puppet stared at me, unblinking. It didn't lower the gun. "I don't think so," it said. "You put yours down." The voice was unmistakable. Did I really sound that smug?

I lowered my pop gun. The puppets had already demonstrated better reflexes. There was no way I could win a shootout with this tiny version of myself. There had to be another way. I glanced at the useless control ring on my finger. just last night I'd imagined the success it could bring, and in less than a day I was on the brink of financial ruin. And then I had an idea.

Walrus," I said to the homunculus, "you got here just in time."

"Yeah?" it said. "How's that? C'mon, don't waste my time; I've got work to do."

"Yeah," I said, nodding. "The cryogenic contract. I, uh, I came back to work on that myself. And when I got here those two were, uh, trying to open the wallsafe. I think they were planning to steal all the solars from the Clarkeson contract."

"My solars!" it said, and scuttled over to the office safe, and climbed onto my desk to reach it. It kept the gun trained on me and pressed its tiny hand against the safe's key plate. I think it really expected the safe to open.

"Maybe they jammed it," I said, "Here, let me give it a try." I stepped closer, and pressed my own hand to the plate. The security system recognized my palm and the locks disengaged.

The puppet sighed in obvious relief and reached inside with both hands. I brought up my own pop gun and shot it in the back.

Scully Pica.s.so was only too happy to take on the subcontract at a better return than he'd bid for. Tommy and I spent the next four days preparing for the onslaught from hundreds of new jobs when the bidboard's five day period cycled to a close. He repaired all the homunculi we'd zapped and then set both our breed-bots to manufacturing several dozen more. I spent most of the solars we'd earned from the Clarkeson job renting larger office s.p.a.ce and more equipment for GC, six rooms this time, and paying off-duty dock workers to move us and get everything set up.

When the contracts started pouring in on the fifth day I sat in the front room of the old office taking vouchers and rea.s.suring skeptical clients that Gideon Cybernetics would have no problem completing the work on time. I flashed each job to Weird Tommy at the new office by station mail I and at the end of the day joined him there.

Tommy sat alone in the new front office at a refurbished workbench. He worked with that furious concentration of his, pounding out code for one of the jobs we'd won earlier in the day. I set a bowl of turkey synth-soy to one side of his keyboard and went past him to check on the next room.

Inside sat thirty homunculi, three to a workbench, row upon row. None of them looked up or gave the slightest indication of noticing me. They were all busy with projects of their own. The drone of humming was like the buzz of a hive bees. I knew I'd find the same thing in the next two rooms and didn't bother to look. Instead I went back to the front area to check on Tommy again. He still didn't acknowledge my presence, still didn't break his frenetic pace, but his right hand had strayed to the soy and he was absently licking bits of the stuff from his fingertips. On his index finger the control ring burned blindingly bright.

A week later, when the chaos finally ended, we had completed all three-hundred and eighteen contracts from the homunculi's winning bids, more than half of them ahead of schedule and earning bonuses. GC made more money in that week than I expected to see in my entire life. I put it all in the office safe, and then Weird Tommy and I dismantled every one of the homunculi before the station inspectors came by to recertify our pair of breed-bots and asked any embarra.s.sing questions. Sure, the Arconi puppets weren't real A.I.s, but I still didn't want to have explain to any station officials. Besides, we still had the specs and could manufacture them again if we ever had the need. I didn't think we would though. One of me is plenty, and the galaxy just isn't ready for dozens of Weird Tommys.

THE GIFT.

Laura J. Underwood

Caer Elenthorn has too many scars, Rhys thought as he walked the back streets of the area known as Broken Wall. Here and there, rubble of stone and timbers still littered the narrow streets, forcing one to step cautiously, stark evidence of how the Hound and his Haxon horde had once swept out of the mountains of Carn Dubh and torn apart this great northern city. Folk came back once the Hound was defeated and tried to restore their lives, but it was not easy when homes were little more than ruins.

A pair of urchins scuttled about the streets in pursuit of a small dog. Shadows were growing long. Some citizens of these grim dwellings had already closed their shops and barred their doors. No one in their right mind walked these streets after dark. Even thieves and murderers and drunks were less prevalent once the sun had set, for some of the leftover pestilences sp.a.w.ned by the Hound's dark power still roamed at night. Rhys was not afraid. He was mageborn, and these sometimes intangible remnants of the Hound's invasion tended to avoid his kind.

That didn't stop him from being a cautious man, for possessed of the power to use magic as he was, Rhys also knew that mageborn flesh was still mortal. He had been but a child of seven when the Hound turned his life upside down. A part of him was still that small boy hiding in the secret cupboard as Haxons butchered his parents. That was where the healers found him cowering, and it took more than one of their number to haul him out of his small sanctuary that day. They comforted him and took him to their Temple of Diancecht. There they trained him in their arts... at least until the magesign had manifested in him, forcing them to send him to Caer Keltora and the mage school at Dun Gealach to learn to manage his emerging power. How often had he lain in his narrow cot, praying to Diancecht to take the mage power from him and give him the touch of a True Healer instead?

Alas, for all his prayers, he was still mageborn. In spite of that, he called himself Brother Rhys, and went back to the healers to complete his training before returning to the lowly place of his birth... or what was left of it. Here, he had set up shop, and offered what knowledge of herbs and potions he had to the people who needed it most. The lower layers of humanity, as he heard one of the n.o.bles at Dun Gealach call them. Rhys set bones and st.i.tched wounds and even birthed children when no midwife could be found.

Which was where he was heading now. One of the wh.o.r.es at Tosher's Hole was about to drop another babe. Tosher had sent his potboy to ask Rhys to come and deliver the child. The wh.o.r.e in question was his wife Lena, or so Tosher claimed. Rhys didn't care. He was a healer.

But not a True Healer, he thought with a sigh of resignation.

His mage sight revealed the door of Tosher's Hole in the shadows of the dead end alley where it stood. Frankly, Rhys could have found it with his nose alone, for it stank of hops and sweaty men and overcooked meat and garbage. It was a wonder to Rhys that the King did not order such vermin infested quarters burned to the ground.

But then why would the King of Elenthorn bother to come here? Wasn't he safe in his brand new fortified palace on the other side of the river? Part of his "great restoration" plan had been to bring back his city. But rather than clean up and rebuild what was, the King chose to take over the good farmland and meadows and forests on the other side and start his great city anew with the help of mageborn, while leaving the old city to languish into ruins.

This meant that places like Broken Wall thrived as a haven for rats of all kinds. In fact, one of them stood at the door of Tosher's Hole even as Rhys approached. Only this one was the size of an ox and about as slow of wit. Liam was his name, and he was the bane of many locals. He took whatever he wanted, by whatever means necessary. Rhys had tended enough of Liam's victims to know this.

At the sight of Rhys, Liam's hooded brows drew together over his thick nose. He stood a good head taller than Rhys and was thrice as wide. Yet as Rhys approached the door of Tosher's Hole, Liam hesitated then stepped aside. Rhys managed not to laugh aloud. It seemed absurd to him that a monster of Liam's temper and proportions would be wary of a thin, brown haired man dressed in a simple tunic, s.h.i.+rt and trews who looked decades younger than his true age, thanks to the magic in his blood. But then Liam didn't like pain unless he was inflicting it, and while Rhys was not one to exploit his mage skills, for his own sake he had been forced to hit Liam with a mage bolt-a tiny one-just to make the behemoth think twice. Then again, Rhys mused; it would be amazing for Liam to think once.

Rhys put a hand to the door and pushed it open. Inside, Tosher's Hole was dark, and the air was heavy with the smoke of an ill attended fire and cheap oily candles. The tavern was thick with bodies too. Tosher served the cheapest ale and the cheapest wh.o.r.es, which made his place popular with many locals. A few heads rose suspiciously, but most of these people knew Rhys on sight and ignored him.

He wove his way across the room, and was almost to the bar when a commotion broke the usual chatter. Rhys turned, glancing towards the source.

"Ow! Let go of me!" Flesh smacked flesh. "Ow!"

The noise came from Liam's general direction. Indeed, the big man reared back a hand and snarled, "You behave yourself or I'll take a tawse to ya!"

Before him cringed a la.s.s of no more than thirteen. Her figure was starting to show under the thin linen blouse that had seen better days and the long skirt that looked like a cast off. Her feet were bare and quite dirty. In fact, she looked as though she had not known the luxury of a bath in a number of months.

Bits of her long brown hair spilled out of an ill kept braid and fell in her dark eyes.

"Let go," she protested and slapped a hand at Liam's grasp, for all the good it would serve. He gave her a hard shake that spilled her into the corner by the door and reared over her as though about to strike again.

"Liam!" Rhys called.

Liam stopped and glanced over his shoulder and frowned at Rhys. "Stay out of this, Brother," he said. "She's mine to do as I please..."

"Yours?" Rhys said.

"Won her in a game of High Ladies," Liam said.

Rhys frowned. "Slavery is illegal, Liam," he said. "Were I to report you to the watch, you would go to the King's dungeons... He noticed a number of locals were now inching back and leaving Liam plenty of room. They had seen him trounce men for less.

"Ain't no business of yours or the King," Liam snarled. "I won her and she's mine and-"

Rhys saw the la.s.s move like quicksilver. She seized a jack of ale from the nearest table and earned a squawk of protest from the previous owner. With a shout, she turned and swung it in an underhand arc. The jack struck Liam squarely in the crotch and splattered ale up his breeches.

Either the blow did not hit as true as Rhys thought, or Liam was too thickheaded to notice. He bellowed like a maddened bull and swung at the la.s.s. She threw herself past him, only to trip because one of the locals stuck a foot in her path. The motion sprawled her at Rhys' feet. She looked up at Rhys, dark eyes full of fear. Liam turned with her and surged across the empty s.p.a.ce, still roaring his rage.

Think fast, Rhys told himself. Unless he wanted to be trampled. He threw up a hand, sifting bits of essence from the lives around him and hissed, "Adhar clach!"

Liam ran into a solidified wall of air with enough force to knock him out cold. The room went quiet for a brief moment as he hit the floor and shook the foundations of Tosher's Hole. Then as if they were actors responding to a cue, the locals began to guffaw. Whether they were laughing at Liam or the fate he would plot for Rhys was uncertain.

Rhys sighed. "Forgive me, Blessed Brother," he whispered under his breath, then leaned down to offer the la.s.s a hand. She took it hesitantly, glancing back at Liam with a genuine look of concern...

"Is he...

"Not dead," Rhys said, though he did flick out with mage senses to be certain.

Her dark eyes rose to Rhys. "I feel... ill," she said.

"I can imagine," Rhys said. "If I were you, I'd get home as fast as I could..."

Rhys was about to head for the bar, but she caught his arm. "Don't have a home," she said. "Guess I'm yours now..."

"Mine?" Rhys looked stunned at the declaration. "Oh, Blessed Brother no, child," he said and shook his head. "No one owns you..."

"You do now," she insisted. "He won me from Old Nance's brothel, and now you won me from him..."

"No," Rhys said and moved away. His mind was still trying to fathom how she could be so comfortable with the knowledge that she had come from a brothel. Then again, Old Nance's place was not much better than Tosher's Hole was, and the wh.o.r.es there kept their daughters around because they could help turn a profit. "Look. I don't own you. No one owns you, child..."

"But I got no one else," she said. "And if you don't let me come with you, Liam will just beat me when he wakes up..."

Rhys frowned and glanced over at the still prostrate form of Liam. True enough. Rhys sighed.

"All right, you can come with me until I find a place for you to stay," Rhys said. "But for now, I must tend to Tosher's wife."

"I can help," she said. "I seen little 'uns born at the brothel..."

Rhys took a look at her filthy hands and the sc.r.a.ps of her clothes.

"Only if you wash first," he said. "Come on."

She followed him like an eager pup. He continued towards the bar where Tosher stood shaking his head.

"If you're wise, Brother Rhys, you'll sell her to the first man you meet on the street and be done with the trouble. Liam might not be as forgiving about this..."

Rhys made a face. "Which room, Tosher?" he asked.