The Tau Ceti Transmutation (Amazon) (11 page)

“And, other than telling me she’s available, this is interesting how?” I asked.

Because Mr. Stein only shows up in a few standard public government records. Other than that, he’s a virtual ghost. The only mentions of him are through Miss Meeks’ feeds, though I did manage to scrape a photo of him from Valerie’s PhotoHog app. Here.

Paige flashed me the image via Brain—that of a suntanned, bearded guy with a hook nose and long, black unwashed dreads.

“Oh, dear lord,” I said. “He’s one of those anti-establishment types. Who wants to bet he grows his own food in a hydroponic vat powered off the fumes from his hookah and his own idealism?”

Your guess is closer than you think,
said Paige.
His public record lists an address way outside the city smack dab in the middle of an agricultural field, as far I can tell from satellite imagery. Nighttime images of the same area don’t show any light pollution, and…yup, Pylon Power and Main doesn’t even service that area. This guy’s totally off grid.

Something clicked for me upstairs. “What kind of odds do you want to offer me this guy’s Brainless?”

Extremely poor ones,
said Paige.
Mostly because I already looked him up in the personal listings and found nothing.

“And if he’s Brainless,” I said, “that would mean there’d be a number of things he could and couldn’t do. He couldn’t, for example, play interactive Brain games. He might, instead, be forced to play ancient, token-powered arcade cabinets if he needed a fix. On the other hand, he
could
break into someone’s apartment without there being any police Brain record of his presence.”

Carl nodded, having followed Paige’s half of the conversation through his own feed. “I suppose that’s plausible, though I’m struggling to see why an unBrained, anti-technology type would suffer through, in all likelihood, multiple cab rides, a tube ride, and a climber ride all so he could get to a spaceport to play a vintage video game.”

“Admittedly, it seems like a stretch,” I said. “But someone went to that trouble, Brain or no. And this Stein fellow’s breakup with Valerie might be the motive that spurred the break-in. Paige, how long ago did these two lovebirds call it quits?”

About three months ago, if you can believe Valerie’s profiles,
Paige said.

“Hmm. That’s more than I would’ve expected for a passion-driven retaliatory action,” I said. “But who knows. Maybe it took that long for Stein to walk to Val’s place from his dirt farm.”

“You do realize this is all blatant speculation,” said Carl, “and none of this explains why Mr. Stein would plant evidence in Valerie’s apartment. Or why someone would later turn her place inside out in an attempt to find said evidence. Or even what said evidence is supposed to point to—which, despite our sojourn to downtown Pylon Alpha and the thermosphere, we still don’t have any idea about.”

“You’re right,” I said. “It doesn’t. But seeing as my lady-crush Valerie expressed interest in rearranging the position of my testicles if I talked to her again, I figure asking somebody
else
some questions might be a worthwhile avenue to pursue. This Gerrold guy seems like as good a choice as any. So what do you say? You up for a trip to the country?”

12

Our car rumbled over the dirt road, transforming every pebble and divot into a jerk that sent me bouncing to and fro over my bench seat.

“This is ridiculous,” I said to Carl, as we hit a bump that sent me a good two centimeters into the air. “I knew these unBrained hippies were anti-technology, but pavement? Really? I thought they drew the line at electronics.”

The jostling didn’t bother Carl, but he didn’t have various fluid-filled organs inside of him. “I doubt they get around much, to be honest. And it’s not merely the unBrained who travel these paths. They’re meant for agrarian transport. Tractors and plows tear up roads.”

After leaving the tube station, we’d hopped into a cab and directed the car to take us to the spot Paige had found in her surveys—the purported home of Gerrold Stein. We’d found smooth sailing for the first half hour, travelling along blissful traffic-free stretches of elevated roadway, but eventually we’d exited and turned into a maze of corn and wheat fields stretching as far as the eyes could see—which amounted to about the length of my arm. The stalks of grain were nearly three meters tall.

“Still, it seems terribly inconvenient,” I said. “You’d think the urban planners would’ve taken the occasional city slicker corn field expedition into consideration when they planned their agrarian supply chains.”

Stop your grousing,
said Paige.
We’re almost there.

With all the subtlety of a kick to the face, the stalks outside my window ended, and my fore field of view was restored—at least partially. In the place of the tall, maize-laden stalks, a grove of mangos—a short and squat breed considering the genus—stretched into the seemingly never-ending fields. After passing a few rows of the trees, their boughs heavy and low to the ground with fruit, our car skidded to a halt.

“This is it?” I asked.

This is it,
said Paige.
Or at least as close as we can get in a moving vehicle. You’ll have to cross the rest of this harsh terrain using those paddle-like implements attached to your ankles.

“I don’t see anything but mango trees,” I said.

“No, there’s definitely something out there,” said Carl. “Hard to see with all the trees in the way, though. Paige, let’s move the car forward a bit.”

Paige rerouted the request to the car, and it inched forward. The scene outside the window moved at a crawl, the lines of trees shifting like shadows in the late day sun.

“There. Stop.” The car did as Carl requested. The droid leaned forward and positioned his head down and to his right. Something flickered in his pupils as his eyes zoomed and focused. “Yes, I see someone. Multiple people, actually. Off in the distance.”

“Really? More than one?” I asked.

Well, it makes sense,
said Paige.
There’s a number of people besides Mr. Stein who all list this patch of land as their address.

“Great. A whole clan of Brainless hippies. You could’ve mentioned this earlier. Carl, move. Let me see.” I brushed my pal to the side while I shifted to his side of the cab.

“Despite your regular checkups with GenBorn, I doubt your eyes are
that
good,” he said.

“Oh, ye of little faith. Despite your constant mockery, I did, in fact, anticipate a scenario such as this before we left.”

I reached into the front shirt pocket of my guayabera and produced a slim black case with a microfiber coating. I cracked it open and produced a pair of connected lenses which I settled over my nose.

“Spy glasses,” I said. “They’ll help me see whatever it is you were peering at. Now move aside and let a master work.”

“The term is spyglass,” said Carl. “And those are binoculars.”

“Whatever.” I tapped at the side of my glasses, trying to figure out how to work the suckers. So far, all I’d succeeded in was blurring my vision.

“It would probably help if you put them on properly,” said Carl.

“Huh?”

They’re backwards,
said Paige.

“Dagnabbit,” I said, ripping the glasses off and turning them around. “There should be a sign on these things or something.”

“Well, one side is convex and the other concave,” said Carl.

“Not good enough,” I said. “They should be idiot proof.”

Implying what exactly?
said Paige with a snicker.

I removed the foot from my mouth and held my tongue. Leaning into the spot where Carl had made his discovery, I scrunched my nose and scanned the horizon.

“Yes. There they are,” I said. “I think I see them. A group of portly ladies, wearing yellow and orange sarongs, all clustered together.”

“Those are the mangos,” said Carl.

I gritted my teeth. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Paige, help me figure this dang contraption out.”

I thought you’d never ask.

The glasses finally focused, and a blinking spot appeared in the corner of my eyes. I turned to look at it, and the glasses automatically zoomed. In the distance, I spotted a modest one story log home with a roof fashioned out of dried grass. Outside the structure, a string looped between two poles bore the weight of several soggy articles of clothing, and a pit with charred embers smoldered nearby. There appeared to be several more homes clustered behind the first, but the intruding boughs of the mango trees made it hard to tell.

As I watched, people flitted in and out of my field of view, men and women both. Most wore simple cotton shifts paired with shorts or skirts, and their bodies were muscled and tan, most likely from laboring in the fields. That they did their own labor instead of relegating the tasks to droids was difficult enough to comprehend, but another aspect of them jumped at me with even graver implications.

Some of them were tied together at the wrists—with colorful sashes, oddly enough, but still. And not one, but many. Always a man to a women.

I lifted the glasses off my nose. “Carl, did you see that? The people? Some of them…they’re bound together.”

“What? I didn’t notice that.”

“Yes,” I said. “At the wrist. Male to female. Why, it’s almost as if…” I gasped. “That’s what this is all about. Oh my god! They’re human traffickers!”

Rich, come on…
said Paige.

“That must be the connection with Valerie,” I continued. “They tried to take her, but she got away, and now they’re after her. The whole relationship angle was a front to keep things quiet when she went missing.”

“That’s ridiculous,” said Carl. “If she was a human trafficking escapee, she would’ve gone to the police and stayed there. And she would’ve been truthful about her situation if she’d somehow come to us. Not to mention human traffickers are in the business of kidnapping, not rifling through sock drawers.”

I couldn’t deny my partner’s statements, but my intuition had been piqued and couldn’t easily be rerouted. “Good points, all of them. But I know what I saw, and my gut tells me something very,
very
wrong is going on over there. Now, come on. You have a responsibility to serve and protect. Come help me scout this place out so we know what we’re up against.”

I opened the doors and stepped into the Cetie heat before Carl could dissuade me. I snuck across the grassy expanse between the trees, sliding from trunk to trunk to keep myself from being seen. It proved easy behind the big, leafy mangos, but after a few dozen trees, the orchard switched over to apples, which didn’t provide as much trunk cover.

I paused behind a particularly fat specimen, waving Carl over to me.

“See? There they are,” I hissed, pointing toward the compound. A couple bound at the wrist in neon green fabric passed through our view.

“The woman doesn’t appear to be in any sort of distress,” said Carl. “In fact, I’d dare say she looks happy.”

“Mind tricks,” I said. “Perhaps the victims are suffering from capture-bonding with their jailers. Or they’re hopped up on shrooms and goofy pills.”

I tiptoed across another grassy expanse and angled my body to the side, reducing my profile as I slipped behind another tree.

Carl followed me without any pretense of stealth. “This is ludicrous. And your attempts at subtlety are unnecessary. If they haven’t spotted us, it’s entirely due to their own incompetence.”

“What are you talking about?” I said. “I’m like a whisper on the wind. Now get behind this trunk before they see us.”

Carl sighed and moved behind me while I stuck my head out to get a better look. We’d closed within about a hundred meters of the camp. The captives and their kidnappers had assembled into a large circle, surrounding a young pair in the middle. I wasn’t sure what was going on, but I was becoming more and more certain drugs were involved. Many of the participants seemed oddly cheerful.

As I tried to understand the ritual unfolding before me, I heard a buzzing and felt a prick at my neck. I shooed whatever insect was in pursuit of my delectable blood, but the buzzing persisted. Then the blighter had the nerve to bite me. I yelped and slapped my exposed skin.

“Son of a…these damn mosquitoes are going to give us away,” I said, wiping my now sticky hand on my slacks. “This is why I rarely leave the city.”

“Um…Rich? We may have a problem,” said Carl.

“What? Don’t tell me the cultists heard me?” I glanced back around the tree toward the camp.

“No,” said Carl. “That wasn’t a mosquito. That was a bee.”

“So? I’m not allergic.”

“It appears you’re not particularly well-versed in apiculture either.”

Another couple of bees buzzed around in the leaves above my head. “Say what?”

“Beekeeping,” said Carl. “Are you aware of the genetic modifications between Africanized bees and regular honey bees that occurred in the late twenty-fifth century to help combat dwindling populations?”

“Get to the point, Professor,” I said.

“Agricultural pollinization bees are highly territorial, intelligent, and emit potent alarm pheromones. They also don’t lose their stingers or venom sacks upon attack.”

The pair of bees in the tree above had morphed into an angry swarm. A number buzzed and flew around my face.

“So, what you’re saying is—” Another bee stung me in the cheek. “Yah!”

“Run!” said Carl.

A quick succession of stings to my head and neck overcame any qualms I might’ve had about revealing myself to the unBrained hippies. I tore out of the boughs of the apple tree like a bat out of hell. My first instinct sent me racing toward the car, but a wave of bees materialized out of thin air and met me before I could reach the mangos. Panicking, I spun and run back the way I’d come, slapping and waving my arms as more bees surged at me from all directions.

Quick, to your left,
said Paige, her voice barely audible over the swarming anger of the bees.
There’s an irrigation ditch. Dive into it.