The Automatic Detective (27 page)

Greenman opened the glovebox and pushed a secret button. The Hornet's propellers retracted as a rocket booster extended
from the rear. An illegal skyracing mod, but I wasn't complaining at the moment.

"Punch it, Megaton."

I stabbed the accelerator. Blue fire exploded from the Hornet's booster, and the speedometer readout jumped to four hundred miles per hour and kept spinning. My reflex model kept us from crashing into anything. I zipped through a sea of skyscrapers, under an overpass, and over a skyway jam.

Radar told me the missiles were still gaining. I didn't risk taking my opticals off the sky to see how close, but the warning beep kept getting louder and faster.

"Talk to me, Abner," I said. "I need parameters. What are we up against?"

He glanced behind us. "High impact torpedo drones."

"Torpedoes? I thought you were colonists."

"We brought them for defense," he snapped. "Just in case. The galaxy can be a dangerous place."

"Can we lose them?"

"Doubtful. Their tracking systems are practically infallible, and their tachyon drives make them twice as maneuverable."

I made a sharp right to avoid a transport convoy.

The radar squealed.

"Activating countermeasures." A secret panel slid down in front of Greenman's seat, and he threw a switch. The Hornet launched a decoy drone. The torpedo veered off at the last seven-tenths of a second, close enough for me to detect its angry buzz, and chased after the decoy. It exploded, and the shock wave nearly threw the Hornet out of my control.

"Pays to be prepared," said Greenman.

My assessor measured the concussive force unleashed and warned that a direct hit would pose a significant risk to my internals.

"How many more decoys do we have?" I asked.

"Three."

The radar did that squeal again as two more torpedoes closed in. Greenman threw them off with another decoy. They veered away after it, but these two were smarter than the last and quickly calculated it wasn't their target. They zipped back in pursuit.

"Damn it, Mack," he said. "We're not going to last long if you keep letting them get a lock on us."

"You want to drive?" I asked.

"I don't know how."

I pushed the Hornet into a hard dive. It was a dumb, reckless move, since the lower you went, the more crowded the skies became. I was hoping it would flummox the torpedoes' tracking systems, but they didn't even slow down. The Pilgrims hadn't seen fit to share tachyon drive technology with the earthlings. The torpedoes could turn at any angle without loss of speed or maneuverability.

"You don't know how to drive?" I asked.

"I'm a very important man," said Greenman. "I don't have to drive myself anywhere. Stick closer to the buildings or they'll get another lock."

I was learning as I went, and doing a pretty good job of it. But I wasn't designed with piloting in mind, and whoever had made the steering wheel hadn't considered an operator with an eight-inch palm span. The radar was making an unhappy presqueal again.

I banked sharply into a skyscraper, waiting a full three-fifths of a second longer than my difference engine advised before averting to a parallel course. The radar made a happy ping.

"Better, Mack."

"I learn fast," I said.

By devoting a hefty portion of my attention to navigation, I was able to zig and zag through the skies with precision. There
were seventeen near misses with fellow commuters, and I traded paint with a transport. But I managed not to crash and burn. The drones on my tail weren't easily discouraged though, and they were drawing steadily closer. Twice more, they nearly scored, but Greenman's final two decoys threw them off. One torpedo fell for the drone and exploded. The other didn't. We had no more decoys and five torpedoes left.

"Give me options, Abner," I said.

"Options? We die now. That's our option."

Greenman might've given up, but I wasn't programmed that way. I'd analyzed the variables, and come up with a plan. I retracted the Hornet's roof, but it was taking too long so I reached up and tore it off with one servo jerk.

"What the hell are you doing?" asked Greenman.

"Finding a new option."

A hard upward bank caught him by surprise, and he nearly fell out of the Hornet. I grabbed him by his leg and pulled him from the brink.

"Thanks, Mack."

"Can't you float yourself safely down to the ground?" I asked.

"Sure. Just as long as those torpedoes don't notice me." He glanced to the radar screen. "Damn it. We've lost contact with two of them."

"No, we haven't," I said.

The two missing drones rounded the skyscraper ahead of us. Three on our tail, and two coming right at us. I set the Hornet on automatic and stood up. I grabbed Greenman as I estimated the moment of impact and calculated the trajectory of my bail out maneuver. There was no time to triple-check the computations.

These torpedoes were smart little bastards. I wouldn't get a second chance. I waited until the buzzing in my audios said it was too late. Then I gave it another two-tenths of a second and
boosted for an automated transport thirty feet away and fifteen feet down.

The Hornet exploded, and I was hurled forward. I'd factored in the force of the explosion, counted on it, but I hadn't gotten a chance to get to know the booster. I'd misplaced the decimal point in my calculations.

A decimal point could make all the difference in the world.

I sailed through the air with Greenman clutched tight to my chest. It was supposed to be a smooth flight, but I ended up off balance. When I hit the transport roof, my metal feet skidded out from under me. I landed on my back and kept sliding. At the last second, I managed to dig the fingers of my free hand into the transport's side. I dangled from the edge. Once I determined that my shoulder connectors hadn't been damaged, I pulled myself up. I kept my hold on Greenman, but he wasn't a significant impairment. I rechecked the explosion log file. It should've been bigger.

One of the torpedoes hadn't gone off. Either it was a dud, or it'd held back as a fail-safe.

The last drone hovered beside the billowing black clouds that marked the Hornet's last functional position. It obviously hadn't scanned us yet, but it wasn't about to give up. Greenman ducked down, and I pressed flat against the transport. I stayed immobile as we slowly drifted farther and farther from the torpedo.

"Just how practically infallible are the tracking systems on those things?" I asked.

"They've got a 3 percent failure ratio."

It wasn't much reassurance, but we were two bogeys in a sky full of possible targets.

The drone suddenly zoomed in our direction. It stopped and scanned for three seconds. Then zoomed closer, scanned for two second. Then zoomed closer, scanned for one second.

Too damn smart.

I made a dash toward the far side of the automated transport. Those metal feet of mine proved a hindrance once again and I nearly fell off the side. I'd have to ask Lucia to install some rubber soles in the future. Providing I wasn't scrap six seconds from now.

The drone shot forward and impacted with the transport. I boosted. I didn't have time to scan for a place to land. I just launched myself and hoped for the best. It was three hundred feet to the streets below, and something was bound to pop up along the way. I hugged Greenman close to me, trying to keep his fragile body as protected as possible

I careened downward with no way of directing my fall. Fifty feet down, I bounced off a rotorcar hood. Seventy more feet, and I hit something else. Didn't scan what it was, but it didn't stop me. The city was a blur in my opticals.

I slowed.

Either gravity was cutting me a break or something else was going my way.

I'd had a good reason for holding onto Greenman, and it wasn't solely for the spiteful pleasure of watching him hit the ground with me. I didn't stop falling, but my rate of descent slowed to a leisurely pace. Greenman's eyes glowed, and I could tell by the veins throbbing on his head that he was having a hell of a time holding me up.

We were smack dab in the middle of the skyway, and several rotorcars nearly ran into us before we passed through to the underside.

He growled through clenched teeth. "You're too heavy. Let me go, or we'll both drop."

"That's the idea, Abner. I suggest you find a place to put us down fast."

Grunting and groaning, he floated us inch-by-painstaking-inch toward a rooftop. I wasn't sure if he'd make it. Once the
strain proved too much, and we ended up plummeting another sixteen feet before he could telekinetically latch onto me again. But in the end, self-preservation was a great motivator, and we reached our goal. Exhausted, he still managed to set us down as light as a feather.

I scanned the area. Not a torpedo in sight.

I ran a quick diagnostic on my internals. Everything was in tip-top shape. I'd have to remember to give Lucia that tip next time I saw her. I checked the data tube in my pocket. Whether it remained readable or not was impossible to tell, but it was still in one piece.

Having that biological weakness for fatigue, Greenman wheezed, barely able to stand. "Mack, you got some ball bearings on you, I'll give you that."

I brushed some dust off my lapel. The distant wail of sirens meant the Think Tank had finally gotten around to dispatching some units. Audio analysis put ETA at twenty-two seconds.

I allowed myself three seconds to consider how best to handle Abner Greenman. Easiest thing would've been to kill him. He was too tired, both physically and mentally, to raise a finger, telekinetically or otherwise, against me. Though Greenman had helped me avoid a nasty fall, I didn't need him around to cause me trouble. I had too many impediments in my current mission parameters already.

Maybe a few hours with the cops would keep him occupied. I had no doubt that he had the connections necessary to make any legal difficulties disappear, but even a guy like Greenman would need time to flip all the right switches at city hall.

I bent over and flicked him with two fingers. Not at full power, but enough to send him sprawling flat on his back. Then I picked him up and did it again for good measure. It was fairly probable I'd cracked a rib or two in his fragile body. If he even had ribs.

"See you around, Abner," I said.

"You're scrap!" he shouted. "You hear me? Scrap!"

He was still shouting as the rooftop access door slid shut behind me.

By the time the elevator hit the ground floor, the cops had gotten their act together enough to post a couple of officers on the door. Lucia's illusion suit worked like a charm. I switched on a projection of a heavy labor auto, grabbed an unoccupied couch in the lobby, and clomped my way out the front doors. I was just another faceless auto, and no one tried to stop me.

I waited until I rounded the corner to drop the couch at an omnibus stop, allowing some citizens to enjoy a nice sit while they waited. "Courtesy of the city, folks," I said. They all looked so delighted to have an alternative to the standard hard plastic benches.

I retuned the suit to gray and overlaid my green mutant image over my own distinctive bot features. As long as I didn't try to run, I was indistinguishable from the other seven-foot-tall, thick-necked, emerald mutants. A scan of the pedestrians didn't turn any others up, but at least it was better than walking around as myself. Wouldn't take the cops long to find me then. Now, I had some time before they figured out what was going on.

Though it was early in the morning, there were plenty of pedestrians, and the avenues were busy but not quite jammed up yet. Empire never shut down, and this was as quiet as things generally got. The sidewalk traffic was light enough to allow a big guy like myself some welcome elbow room.

A small crowd was gathered around the window of a television shop and all the TVs, big and small, played video of reporters gathered around a hole in the ground that had been a warehouse but was now nothing but slag and rubble. There were no clear images of the ship, cloaked by some kind of recording distortion device, but there were plenty of eyewitnesses. A mothership was bound to draw some attention, even in Empire. Firemen and drones sprayed the ruin down in foam, but it was only for the sake of damage control. Nothing could live through that.

I couldn't hear through the glass, but I didn't need to. What would the reports tell me that I didn't already know?

A pile of debris shook and a robot hand pushed its way to the surface. Two drones flew over and began clearing away the rubble. Knuckles rose out of the ashes, dented, blackened, leaking oil, but functional. Damn, those Mark Threes really could take a beating. Since Knuckles wouldn't be worth more than a few beeps in an interview, the reporters kept their distance. He was led away, heaving dangerously off balance with each step. They'd slap some duct tape on his damaged joints and patch up his leaking oil lines, and he'd be good as new.

Too bad Empire might never recover.

There was no reason to believe that now that the Dissenters had taken this conflict to the next inevitable level that the Pilgrims wouldn't respond in kind. Biologicals had a nasty habit of goading each other into frenzy. First one mothership. Then two. Then four. Soon the skies could be filled with alien war-craft raining deathrays upon the citizens of Empire and the
hidden aliens walking among them. It wouldn't be smart, but it seemed inevitable in every simulation I ran. The Pilgrims and Dissenters would fight to the death over the fate of Empire, and no matter who won, everyone would lose.