Part 4 (1/2)
A green line overlaid a debarking lane, leading her straight ahead. Aldriena ignored it and moved off to the far right lane. Inside the mask, she gave herself a small smile. One of life's little pleasures.
She came to a station and threw her cases down on the countertop. It looked like wood but took a good hit. The wall robot didn't move. It had to start up since she'd picked another lane than the one the station had booted for her.
”I'm heeeeeeere,” she said. The wall checker bot came to life. It had two long, thin arms with spherical joints and delicate three-fingered hands. A fist-sized sensor suite mounted on a tentacle slid out to get a look at the luggage.
She paced the room as the machine pored over her personal case, keeping everything aside in the large box. Then the screener opened the cargo case and viewed the s.h.i.+ny bars.
”These items. Identify,” it said.
”That's the loot,” she said.
”Is this synonymous with the entry 'platinum bars,' which is on the cargo manifest of the vessel Silvado?”
”Yes.”
”The s.h.i.+pment has been logged. Your blue status is confirmed despite a long absence.”
”Thanks so much, I'd hate to have to fall all the way back to indigo,” she said sarcastically. Despite a deep compet.i.tive streak, she'd only managed to work her way up to blue so far, since she spent most of her time away from the deep s.p.a.ce stations. She ground her teeth.
Aldriena waited until the robot started to point out her sidearm.
”There appears to be-”
Aldriena slapped the weapon onto the counter. She'd scratch the d.a.m.n faux wood yet. The gun looked like a retro-styled stunner trying to imitate an old auto pistol. The robot's voice skipped, abandoning its request.
”This item. Identify,” it said.
”One-shot stunner,” Aldriena lied. She didn't mention its function as a Circle Four blinder. She had given it the uninspired name C4B. Circle Fours were overbuilt and tough from top to bottom, but where there was money, there was a way. Her sonic weapon would break the audio pickups of security robots, and she knew it could shatter the camera lenses of a Circle Four right through their protective plastic bubbles. She believed it capable of doing the same to most other security models.
The gun was expensive, but Black Core had enough money to give its operatives good weapons. Especially ones a.s.signed to Project Insidious.
The slender-armed robot dropped the weapon into her small box as it always did.
”You are cleared. Welcome to Thermopylae.”
Welcome to wacko world, Aldriena echoed to herself.
She s.n.a.t.c.hed up C4B and holstered it in her gear by dropping it into a webbed holder affixed to the inside of the armor. Her own curves left plenty of a gap for it to fit comfortably behind the flat torso plate.
She examined the countertop for signs of her abuse but found none.
”This counter is all scratched up,” she said anyway.
”I'll schedule a repair,” replied the machine.
”Good. Because I expected better.”
”Your complaint has been logged.”
She walked into an atrium beyond the checking lanes. The floor looked like marble, but she thought it must be a plastic several times lighter than real marble. At least the plants nestled in every corner were real. Each giant pot held a large exotic plant growing from a dense knot of airscrub gra.s.s at its base. Every station had the oxygen-producing gra.s.s, although they all chose to place it in their own way.
She saw two other people moving through corridors exiting the atrium but ignored them. She found a comfortable sling chair placed between two stubby palm trees and she threw herself down. She closed her eyes, sighed, and linked up to the common environ.
She opened her eyes and found herself in her virtual Thermopylae home chamber. She checked the chronometer and made a few vain changes to her avatar until she caught herself.
You're wasting your time.
Thermopylae's infuriating shared environ included a layer that obfuscated everyone's real ident.i.ty by showing a different avatar to other observers. Any changes she made would be for her benefit alone. Aldriena stopped preening.
Technically, inhabitants weren't supposed to be able to tell anyone's s.e.x whether they were incarnate or in the virtual setting, but Aldriena had learned where the limits were. She knew how to drop the right hints so that most people would identify her s.e.x. She noticed a definite s.h.i.+ft in the kind of attention she received once a male had recognized her as female in her gear. They liked to push the crazy rules almost as much as she did, and it made it easier for her to collect her data if they were observing her in the enhanced light of idle s.e.xual interest.
She checked the environ people finder and found the majority of station inhabitants a.s.sembled for a public challenge. She sent a command and instantly transferred her avatar into the arena.
The other avatars were milling around the arena talking about an upcoming event. She knew there were more than five hundred souls on the station at any given time. That wasn't many for a station this size, but it was expensive to support life this far from Earth. Expensive even for a huge corporation that commanded immense wealth.
Her finder said that two thirds of the station inhabitants were a.s.sembled here in this node of the virtual environ.
”What's the attraction?” Aldriena asked the nearest idle citizen.
The masked face turned toward her and answered.
”Johnson is taking on Red.”
”Why the big turnout?”
This time the mask didn't turn away from the field below. ”Why? Johnson's the highest ranked ... y'know. Our best one. Maybe he can beat Red. If we could beat it just once ...”
Fat chance, thought Aldriena. They're amazingly smart.
”So Red always wins? Isn't it dangerous if the robots are too smart? You have heard of the Ma.r.s.eilles Purge?” It was a rhetorical question. Everyone had heard of the incident when an AI core had attempted to take over Europe, forcing the humans to use a limited nuclear strike to keep from losing their planet. The same thing had happened in controlled conditions in off-planet research centers, each time resulting in destruction.
The person shrugged. ”They know what they're doing. Look, I'm not allowed to talk about that.” The avatar faded into thin air. Whoever it was probably blocked Aldriena out to avoid further conversation.
Down below, she saw the avatars starting to quiet down. Messages started coming through the whole channel on broadcast.
Johnson challenges Shakolfar.
Aldriena had learned no one called him Shakolfar in conversation. To the inhabitants of Thermopylae, his name was Red. One of the citizens stepped forward toward the center of the environ. Orange highlights on the clothing of the man's avatar showed his ranking-fairly high.
The stake is five percent increase in bandwidth rights to Xanadu.
Seemed reasonable enough. Xanadu was the flags.h.i.+p deep s.p.a.ce station of Bentra's European ally, Gauss Systems.
Aldriena spotted Red. The mechanoid spun forward. Its avatar looked identical to its incarnate form. The body was a sphere emblazoned with a large red spot, its eight legs so thin as to look vestigial. As the machine moved, it didn't bob. It floated. It tilted so the legs spun as it progressed. One leg always remained directly below it for an instant before replaced by the next. Aldriena smiled. The way Red held a leg beneath it reminded her of a flamingo. Albeit a spinning, featherless, eight-legged flamingo.
Shakolfar accepts the challenge.
Red and Johnson flew out into the clear blue s.p.a.ce of the arena. Dozens of spectators switched their avatars transparent and floated out to watch from the field. Aldriena left herself visible, but she pushed off and flew high into the air, preferring to watch from above.
Down below, Red and Johnson stood on the green expanse of gra.s.s facing each other about two hundred meters distant. Two huge collections of oblong objects appeared between them, hundreds of white objects on one side and black objects on the other. The things were each the size of a small dog. They s.h.i.+fted rapidly, changing orientations, and interacting with each other in confusing patterns.