Tek Net

Tek Net

Book Nine of the TekWar Series

William Shatner

This seems to be the last of the Tek books. It's been a long run and a good run. I've dedicated the many previous books to various people who had a lot or at least something to do with the success of the series. I'd like to dedicate this last book to people who had nothing whatsoever to do with this endeavor.

My sisters, Joy and Farla, have had absolutely nothing to do with this book. My wonderful assistant, Stephanie Riggs, who is both cool and beautiful, has had nothing to do with this book. And my ex-wife has had nothing to do with this book except to get half the proceeds. But most of all, I'd like to dedicate this book to Martika and Stirling, who, as dogs, could not have written a word, but their bark is worse than their bite. I can't say the same for Ron Goulart; my agent, Carmen LaVia; and my editor, Susan Allison, all of whom absolutely had a great deal to do with this book.

1

Just before they caught up with her on the grounds of the Hollywood Starwalk Park that night—less than five minutes before, actually—she made the call.

Not to her current husband, or her current lover.

On that chill, foggy evening in the late spring of the year 2122, Jill Bernardino vidphoned Sid Gomez. She hadn't seen him or even talked to him in over three years, but she felt he was one of the few people in all of Greater Los Angeles who could help her.

A dark-haired woman in her late thirties, Jill wasn't quite ready to turn to the SoCal Police. She had a couple of good reasons.

“But maybe I'll have to anyway,” she told herself as she made her way, cautiously and uneasily, along the quirky, seemingly tree-lined passways of the mist-shrouded and nearly deserted park.

She'd initially expected to meet someone here tonight. An informant, a man who could supply her with information for the vidwall movie she was working on.

“Not so,” she'd realized a few moments ago.

This was a setup, just something to lure her here.

“So, obviously, somebody knows about what I know.”

Suddenly off to her right a row of holographic palm trees began sputtering. The noise made Jill flinch and dodge to her left, shivering.

The tall trees, over a dozen of them, crackled and vanished. The fog took their place.

Up ahead, beneath a large floating litesign that urged
Walk Thru Movieland's Past
, stood three rusty androids. They represented famed Hollywood movie stars from an earlier century. The only one Jill recognized was, she was nearly certain, Clark Gable.

The andy was in need of repairs and the lazy salute he gave her as she approached was jerky. His grin was more a grimace and it locked into place and wouldn't fade. “Welcome to bygone Hollywood, sweetheart,” he told her in a rattling, raspy voice.

When the blonde actress on Gable's left winked at Jill, her plastiglass eyeball fell out. It hit the simulated white gravel of the path and bounced once. “Hiya, kiddo.”

The third mechanical actor, a lanky cowboy, lifted his pearl-white Stetson, bowing to the unknown blonde. He bent to retrieve the eyeball. “Allow me, ma'am.”

Losing his balance in the process, the long, lean cowboy fell flat out on the ground. His long legs twitched a few times and then he was still and the night fog came rolling in over him.

Jill hurried on, glancing back.

She was certain she was being followed. Back there in the thickening fog, there were at least two people on her trail. She'd caught glimpses of them in the swirling mist. A small, bald man and a larger, broader figure.

“Might be an andy, that second one.”

Jill increased her pace, then went running up the steps of what looked to be an old Southern mansion from several centuries ago. Another Clark Gable was there on the wide verandah, dressed as some kind of Southern gentleman this time. This android wasn't quite as weather-worn and his grin was warmer.

“Good evening, my dear,” he greeted, tipping his Mississippi gambler's hat.

She pushed through the door, shut it behind her and found herself in an immense drawing room. Some of the simulated furniture was flickering and more than one of the hidden holoprojectors was making odd humming sounds.

Crouching behind an ornate love seat, Jill yanked her palmphone out of her jacket pocket and, hurriedly, punched out Gomez' number.

The curly-haired detective's smiling face popped up on the tiny screen after the third buzz. “
Buenas noches
,” he said.

“Sid, listen—I'm in danger.”

He recognized her now, frowning. “You've got the wrong
hombre
, Jill. I'm your
erstwhile
husband,” he told her. “Erstwhile, a word often misused, means former. I no longer—”

“For Christ sake, knock off the whimsy and listen to me,” his ex-wife pleaded. “I'm in the old run-down Hollywood Starwalk Park—you know, near where the Hollywood Bowl used to be. You've got to—”

“If one of your multitude of beaus has abandoned you,
chiquita
, I advise you to phone a skycab and—”

“Let's save time,” she cut in. “During the two and a half some years we were married, I was a Tekhead and I did fool around. Right now though, Sid, I swear, I think I'm in serious trouble.”

His frown deepened. “Okay, what sort of trouble?”

“I'm not completely sure,” she told him, glancing toward the door. “I'm back writing again, Sid, working on a vidwall movie. It's a thriller called
Hokori
, and—”

“An entire movie about the late and sleazy Teklord?”

“Yes, but the point is—well, while researching the damn thing I came across something. Some information and—Sid, get here quickly. I'm sure I was lured to this dump. A couple of goons are trailing me.”

“Got any kind of gun?”

“No, I hate weapons and—”

“I'll be over there in ten minutes. Meantime, call the cops.”

“The local police still don't trust me because of all the trouble I used to get into when I was a Tekkie, Sid. I—”

“Call 'em nonetheless,
cara
,” he urged her.

“Sid, okay, I will,” she promised. “I'm in that imitation of the—I think it's the mansion from an ancient movie called
Gone With the Wind
. And listen, this has to do with a plan to …”

She stopped talking then.

The door of the colorful old Southern mansion had started to swing open.

2

Gomez' skycar came swooping down through the thick fog to make a bouncy landing in the empty parking lot next to the ramshackle Hollywood Starwalk Park.

“This isn't the first dump like this I've had to drag her out of,” he said as he stepped out into the chill, swirling mist.

He went running across the damp rutted surface of the landing area.

“Never thought I'd be doing it again. Jill was … Whoa,
bastante
, enough,” he told himself. “She's not your wife anymore so you can skip the self-pity,
amigo
.”

Sprawled flat on his back just outside the open, weather-worn plazmetal gate was the android Charlie Chaplin who'd long ago served as ticket taker.

Skirting the fallen comedian, Gomez eased out his stungun from its shoulder holster. He began to jog along a wide weedy passway.

Back in the days when he was a SoCal State cop, he'd visited this place a lot, unofficially. He still remembered where the old Southern mansion was located.

He halted, turning to stare into the swirling mist at his left.

Nodding, he moved on. The figure he'd spotted looming over there was only an android, a defunct replica of a dark-clad werewolf from some forgotten motion picture of another century.

A moment later Gomez became aware of arguing voices up ahead on his right.

“We only got one goddamn Tek chip, asshole,” a teenage girl was saying in a thin nasal voice. “And you dorfs promised me first turn.”

There were three of them, the skinny girl and two lean young men, huddled on the porch of a rickety log cabin. They were fighting for the possession of a battered Tek Brainbox.

Slumped in the doorway of the cabin was an android Abe Lincoln, stovepipe hat tilted far down over his craggy forehead. A plump grey rat was sitting placidly in the andy's narrow lap.

The girl gave the Brainbox a violent tug, but didn't manage to get it away from the others. She was red-haired and there were several green and crimson snakes tattooed on her pale bare arms.

The larger of the youths said, “Let go, Snooky.” His right hand flashed out, hit her, hard, across the face.

She let go of the box, stumbled and fell backwards. She landed directly in Gomez' path.

He crouched and, keeping his eye on the two youthful louts, aided the skinny girl to rise. “Usually,
pendejo
,” he said in the direction of the one who'd slapped the girl down, “I'm noted as a gentle and patient teacher of morals and manners. Tonight, unfortunately, I'm in a hurry and this will have to suffice as your lesson in deportment.”

Gomez aimed the stungun and fired.

The sizzling beam hit the young man in his narrow chest. He went rising up on his tiptoes. The Brainbox he was clutching dropped from his splayed fingers.

As the lout toppled over backwards to sit beside Lincoln and scare the rat into flight, Gomez continued on his way.

“Thanks, greaser,” called the redhead. “Now I'll get my turn ahead of this pissant.”

“
De nada
” he muttered, turning onto a side path that would lead him to the
Gone With the Wind
mansion where his former wife had been when she phoned him for help.

And she really was a former wife, he realized as he hurried along through the foggy night. Jill had been his second wife and he was now living with … either the fourth or fifth one. Sometimes, especially when he hadn't had enough sleep, he tended to lose track of how many there'd been.

“
Muy bonita
Jill was,” he recalled. “Also very bright and talented.
Ai
, if only I'd been able to do something about her fondness for Tek—and for other
hombres
.”

He slowed when he caught his first glimpse of the tumbledown mansion through the mist.

Leaving the path, he cut across a field that in better days had represented a trench-filled stretch of World War I battlefield.

Crouched low, Gomez moved closer to the looming house.

He approached the place from its left side. There was no light showing, no sound coming from within.

Up close to the white neowood wall, Gomez inched a handheld eavesdropper from his jacket pocket and, gently, touched it to the mansion's side.

The tiny dials indicated no human inhabitants.

Circling around to the front, he climbed the stairs openly.

The Clark Gable android nodded. “Welcome, sir,” he said. “You look like a true Southern gentleman.”

“
Sí
, but from a little further south than you mean,” replied the detective, crossing the threshold into a shadowy hallway.

In the large drawing room he found a palmphone lying on the threadbare carpet. “This has got to be hers,” he said, not touching it.

From another pocket he extracted a small gadget, this one called a sniffer.

Activating it, Gomez did a slow, careful sweep of the whole room.

After seven minutes the sniffer's tiny voxbox told him, “A female of about forty years was here within the past hour.”

“
Sí—
and?”

“One human and a robot entered approximately five minutes later,” continued the reedy metallic voice. “There was a struggle.”

“What sort of a struggle,
niño?
”

“A brief one. The woman was rendered unconscious—most probably by means of a stungun. Then she was taken from here.”

“
Gracias
.” Turning off the gadget, Gomez returned it to his pocket and glanced around the room. “
Bueno
—that means Jill was alive when she left this joint.”