The Dark Side (19 page)

T
HE BRASS ESCORT VEHICLE
—plated,
predictably, in brass—has a stylish teak interior and luxurious distressed-leather seats. Leonardo Grey has his hands fixed on the steering wheel and appears genuinely to be driving: Justus guesses the route hasn't been loaded into the car's memory for security reasons. They've already left behind the Sin Rim and now they're moving at a measured pace across the vast floor of Störmer Crater. The road surface, as smooth as a president's driveway, winds at a respectful distance around the radio dishes and stilt-mounted modules.

“What's that there?” Justus asks.

They're passing what looks like a construction site: cranes, robot excavators, pre-cut blocks of lunar cement.

Leonardo Grey doesn't even turn. “That's the new Purgatory Penitentiary, sir.”

“What happened to the old one?”

“The original building, I understand, was regarded by some as inadequate.”

“Yeah?” Justus is well aware of the reports—first published in a best-selling exposé,
Purgatory Unbound
—that Fletcher Brass secretly allowed certain member states of the United Nations Security Council to export prisoners to Purgatory for extraordinary rendition. This allowed them to avoid charges of state-sanctioned torture—the status of Purgatory being perpetually “under negotiation”—and moreover kept the whole dirty business as far away from prying eyes as possible. For Brass, it greatly boosted the coffers of his treasury—partly financing his space expeditions, the book claimed—and allowed him, by dint of Security Council obstructionism, to avoid any serious investigation of Purgatory's own human rights abuses. So Justus now wonders if the old penitentiary was destroyed as part of a cleanup operation.

“By some?” he asks.

“I beg your pardon, sir?”

“You said the old penitentiary was regarded as inadequate ‘by some.' May I ask whom?”

Is it Justus's imagination, or does Grey seem to stiffen? “I believe the new penitentiary is a special project of Ms. QT Brass, sir.”

“In her role as secretary of law enforcement?”

“That's correct, sir.”

“But she's only held that title for a few months. And the place looks like it's nearing completion.”

“The penitentiary, as I understand it, is built into an existing but long-vacant premises, sir.”

Something tweaks in Justus's mind. “It wasn't the habitat of that nature cult, by any chance? The Leafists?”

“I believe it was, sir.”

“Yeah?” Justus takes one last glance at it as it slides by. “So they're building a penitentiary into a death scene.”

“That is correct, sir.”

“And in a hurry too.”

“It seems so, sir.”

Justus thinks about it some more. “But why is a new penitentiary necessary? Seeing there's already a couple of prisons in Sin?”

“This one is maximum security, sir.”

“For the worst of the worst, is it?”

“I believe so, sir.”

“And who is it meant to hold, exactly?”

“I do not know that, sir.”

Justus knows that many of the world's most wanted criminals reside in hacienda-style habitats dotted around the surface of Störmer Crater. If
Purgatory Unbound
is correct, the list includes the African general who ordered the massacre of ten thousand civilians; the Indian real estate baron who poisoned the water supply of a troublesome village; the Russian oligarch who blew up a plane full of problematic political activists; the German media baron who left behind a trail of murdered escort girls; and the U.S. secretary of defense responsible for authorizing false-flag operations that led to two catastrophic wars. If QT Brass genuinely plans to clean up the image of Purgatory, Justus muses, she could start by incarcerating those five.

“Do you know QT Brass well?” he asks Grey.

“She is the daughter of Fletcher Brass.”

“Yes, but do you have any personal dealings with her?”

“I am required to pass messages between Mr. Brass and his daughter occasionally.”

“What sort of messages?”

“There are many different types of message, sir. I am not always availed of their contents.”

“Then how would you describe the relationship between Fletcher Brass and QT?”

“It is of singular complexity.”

“Singular complexity?” Justus says. “You mean to say that Fletcher Brass doesn't trust his own daughter, is that it?”

“I did not say that, sir.”

“Well, has Fletcher Brass given any indication that he's worried about his daughter's agenda?”

“If he is concealing his worries, sir, he is an even better actor than his impersonator.”

Justus considers that a very unrobotic response. He wonders if Grey is smarter than he lets on. Or if he's been groomed, like the actor. Overnight he was unable to shake off the possibility that an android planted the bomb in the Goat House. It would certainly account for the failure of Forensics to detect any foreign DNA. And Grey has already admitted to having unlimited access to Sin. Of course, it doesn't have to be Grey himself. It could be any robot. Though it's still unlikely, assuming the droid knew what it was doing, and assuming the laws of robotics apply in Purgatory.

He says, “After you left last night I checked online for information about Project Daedalus. But I couldn't find a thing.”

“Daedalus was a secret project, sir.”

“Why secret?”

“Originally Mr. Brass intended to create a new line of androids dedicated to personal security. We were to be bodyguards, sir.”

“All of you?”

“That's correct, sir.”

“But that doesn't explain why it was a secret. I've seen android bodyguards before. They're not always popular, but they're not secret.”

Grey steers the vehicle around a bend. “It was Mr. Brass's belief that truly effective android bodyguards would not be able to perform their duties without certain modifications, sir.”

“Modifications to the system processes?”

“To the fundamental AI protocols, sir.”

Justus frowns. “You mean you were programmed to kill?”

“That is not how I would phrase it, sir.”

“Then how would you phrase it?”

“In certain circumstances, there was nothing inhibiting us from exercising homicidal force.”

It's legalese, Justus thinks—it could mean anything. “And have you, in fact, killed?” he asks.

“I have not, sir.”

“Because you were never in ‘the right circumstances'?”

“Because at the last minute, Mr. Brass decided it was a bad idea to modify the protocols. He was made aware of the many controversies surrounding similar cases on Earth.”

“And you were hardwired with all the standard inhibitors?”

“With everything listed in the UNRC treaty, sir.” He means the United Nations Robotics Commission.

“So you can't kill?”

“I cannot, sir.”

“And the same goes for all your brothers—the other Leonardos—as well?”

“That too is correct. Leonardo Black retains his exceptional strength, but otherwise we are no different from the average android.”

Justus looks out the window for a moment. A large supply caravan is out there, making snail-like progress around the radar modules. But he barely notices it.

“Where were you put together, may I ask?”

“If you mean assembled, sir, it was at the Brass Robotics Laboratory at Saint Helena.”

“Saint Helena? The island in the Atlantic?”

“The robotics lab in Seidel Crater, sir.”

“And Seidel Crater is where, exactly?”

“In the southern hemisphere.”

“The lab's called Saint Helena because it's so remote, I assume?”

“I believe so, sir.”

“And why were you constructed there, of all places?”

“By law, experimental robotics assembly must be conducted in isolated environments.”

“So if you break loose you won't take over the world?”

“Or the Moon, sir.”

Justus nods. “Well, what about those other Leonardos you mentioned—where are they now?”

“Leonardo Brown has been assigned to QT Brass. Leonardo White has passed away.”

“Passed away?”

“He was used for spare parts, sir—I myself carry some of him inside me.”

“Very moving,” says Justus. “And Leonardo Black?”

“Leonardo Black is a bodyguard of Mr. Brass's.”

“His ‘exceptional strength' must come in handy, then?”

“So it does, sir.”

“And I'll be seeing him shortly, I guess?”

“Leonardo Black is currently absent, sir.”

“Absent? Where?”

“I've not been told, sir.”

“Is he doing something special?”

“I've not been told, sir.”

Justus decides to check it out later. To make sure that this Leonardo Black is, in fact, absent, and not planting bombs in Sin. He says, “Is our conversation now being recorded, by the way—by you?”

“It is, sir.”

“Everything you see and hear is recorded?”

“That is correct, sir.”

“And you replay it all later for Fletcher Brass?”

“If he asks to hear it, sir.”

Justus asks no more questions, and the agonizing drive continues. They pass the crater's central peak—a pillar of lunar rock formed moments after the crater itself—and the reflected sunlight casts an eerie radiance over the whole western half of Purgatory. Grey makes a sudden announcement.

“I'm afraid I'm going to have to obscure the windows now, sir.”

Justus blinks. “Say again?”

“For security reasons, sir. To conceal our exact destination. The steering will now be automated.”

Releasing the steering wheel, Grey touches a button and the vehicle's electrochromic windows suddenly go jet-black, as if injected with ink. For Justus there's suddenly nothing to be seen but the reflection of his own starfish face in the glass. He turns reflexively, only to see himself reflected again in the side window. So he looks down at his hands.

Leonardo Grey, as if sensing the awkwardness, jabs another button and the vehicle fills with music:
The Very Best of Enya
.

“Do you enjoy classical music, sir?” he asks.

“Sometimes,” says Justus. “Sometimes.”

T
HE BLACK-SUITED DROID IS
driving the battered LRV that once belonged to the strange aggressive man. But the vehicle is not cooperating. He's traveled barely seven kilometers and it's continually mis-steering. Worse, the gears are grinding and the whole thing seems to be running out of energy. The damage could be more serious than it looks. Or perhaps the vehicle just isn't very good. Whatever the case, he's clearly going to have to get off for a thorough inspection—slowing him down yet again. If he were given to frustration, he would be genuinely exasperated by now.
How much shit does a man have to put up with?

After plunging into the hole in the middle of the great glass sea the droid found himself jarred but with all his major functions unaffected. But his first LRV, the one acquired from the deceitful female geologists, was broken beyond repair. So without spending any more time on useless speculations or unprofitable
self-pity—he was trapped in a lava tube; there was no avoiding it—he simply turned, buttoned his jacket, and started walking north through the long and intensely dark tunnel. It wasn't as if he could just wait around for someone to arrive and drop him a rope. That had never been his philosophy.

Geniuses are their own saviors.

Soon he was skipping again. And within fifteen minutes he found an opening to the surface low enough for him to attempt a jump. Two minutes later he was hoisting himself back onto the glass. Ten minutes after that he was breaking through the northern fence of the test zone. Shortly after that, he came across the tracks of an LRV.

He knew the tracks were recent because he could detect a heat signature with his infrared vision. So he followed the tracks east, toward the levitating dust, and not far from the day-night terminator he saw the vehicle itself emerging from the darkness—as if a valet service were delivering it to him.

He stood in its path, with the sun directly behind him, and grinned. The driver braked the vehicle and stared back. And the droid waited for him to make some gesture of greeting—because that's what he was used to.

But instead the man did something strange. He made a sudden, dramatic movement, tearing himself from his seat, reaching for something on the side of the vehicle—a reach extender with a clawlike end—and snapping it off. And the droid, surprised, decided to stop him before he got any farther.
Kill weeds before they take root.
When he came within range, however, the man was already swinging the reach extender like a baseball bat. It glanced off the droid's head, doing no serious damage. But the man, whose face was a twisted mask of bared teeth and flared nostrils,
was already swinging it again, determined, it seemed, to crack the droid's skull.

The droid, had he been programmed for surprise, would have been staggered. The female geologists had put up some resistance, certainly, but nothing like this. And there didn't seem any reason for it, unless of course the man was nursing some silly grievance.

Whack
. The man hit the droid again.
Whack
.
Whack
. Swinging with purpose.

And the fellow was no amateur. When the droid tried to seize the weapon he seemed to anticipate the move and propelled himself backward, out of range. The droid tried to swoop again but the man backstepped some more, caught the droid off guard, and delivered another savage blow, this one to the nape of the neck. As though he was trying to decapitate him.