The Origami Dragon And Other Tales (6 page)

I didn’t know
how my computer was being hacked, but it was clear that my mystery
patient had an extremely rich guardian angel.

When my
daughter came home, I explained the situation to her without
holding anything back. My daughter is a sensible but ambitious
young lady, so she was easy to convince. We took turns looking
after our patient, who slept through the night and late into the
next day. His recovery was truly remarkable, but he was still very
weak. It wasn’t until two days later that we were able to finally
have our first conversation. As you might expect, this was a
somewhat difficult situation. As was my normal practice, I had my
small digital recorder on hand to ensure that I was able review the
interview later. I hesitated before entering the room, slipping the
recorder into my pocket. This act made me feel deeply
uncomfortable, but the voice of my intuition insisted on this
precaution.

I entered the
room and sat next to my patient.

“My computer
has been threatening me,” I said, surprising myself a little by my
choice of opener.

I had intended
to start our conversation off more gently, but the weirdness of my
computer had worried me more than I had realised. My patient
laughed to himself, and I rather rudely asked him if he didn’t
believe me.

“Your computer
is threatening you? Of course I believe you, Doctor, of course I
do. I’m no computer expert, but I have a theory if you would like
to hear it. I’ll talk as you clean out my cuts, I’m sure we will
both appreciate the distraction.”

I remember
doing as he suggested, knowing that it was a necessary chore that
neither of us would enjoy.

“My name is
Rob, Doctor, and I appreciate your help. You will be repaid, I
promise. But first, my story. It was about ten years ago now, but I
still remember it well. I was shining my favourite silver knife
with a yeti-hair cloth at the time. The very same knife your
daughter stole from me when she was watching over me this morning.
Don’t give me that look; I know she did. A talented youngster, I
thought. Tell her to keep it sharp.”

He ignored my
half-hearted protests with a gentle wave. I knew the knife he was
speaking of, it was one of the few possessions I had found on him.
I let the mention of a yeti go unchallenged, thinking instead that
I would need to talk to my daughter.

“I put the
knife down when I heard my laptop beep as a message arrived. It had
been a while since I had been called to action, so I was keen to be
moving again. I don’t normally hear from my clients by email,
because they prefer more old-fashioned methods, like familiars and
messages on my mirror.”

I rolled my
eyes and stood up, backing away. The man was clearly mad, and I was
wasting my time. He saw the look on my face and laughed to himself.
He said a single word and I felt my body freeze in position. Only
my eyes could move, and they followed his finger as he pointed to
the stone lion on the table. I watched in amazement as the little
creature stretched and then roared. He said another word, and my
body relaxed again. I swore loudly, and he motioned me back towards
him.

“Please,
continue your work. I promise not to hurt you, Doctor. I give you
my word, and there is no stronger contract than that. I can tell
you might not believe everything I have to say, but I can’t lie to
you in your own house.”

He stopped and
took a drink of water from the glass next to him.

“What
happened
to you, Rob?” I asked.

“I was burning
down a drug factory when I had a run-in with my brother, and a
blade golem. I hardly could have expexted that, of course..”

I stared at
him, wondering what he was talking about.

“You must have
realised by now,” he continued, “that I am a rare kind of man. We
both know that I should have died a dozen times over from my
wounds. Your medical skills are excellent, to be sure, but alone
weren’t enough to keep me alive.”

He was right,
of course. I would later learn he
had
managed to survive,
but at the time I was overcome by his endurance and was not
prepared to hear all of the extraordinary things he had to say.
Perhaps Rob could sense this, because he continued his story
without explanation.

“You see than I
am strong, healthy and fit. I stay that way through genetics and
training. It is necessary in my line of work.”

“Which is what,
exactly?” I demanded.

“I make my way
in this world,” he said with a faint smile, “as a freelance monster
hunter and doer of impossible things. My unusual… upbringing, shall
we say, has prepared me for the supernatural, magical or downright
weird problems of this world. Of course, there are others who do
similar work to me. Some of them are my friends, some my
competitors, and most of them are mostly human.”

I remember
opening my mouth to ask him what he meant by that comment, and then
decided I didn’t want to know. I let him continue without
interruption.

“The people who
hire people like me prize discretion and I rarely meet a client in
person. This arrangement suits me well, as I have my enemies, some
even in the same line of work. Unfortunately for my clandestine
career choice, my face is far from unique, although there have been
fewer of me around than there used to be. Let’s just say that I’m
my own worst enemy, if you know what I mean. But that’s a story for
another time.”

I didn’t know
what he meant, then. Although my ignorance was annoying at the
time, I look back on it wistfully now, because knowing was no
easier than not knowing.

“I can tell a
lot about my clients by how they choose to contact me,” Rob
continued, “My older clients have no time for computers, preferring
the tried and tested methods of snail mail or winged delivery. My
ancient clients couldn’t even be bothered with those, and generally
contact me via my bathroom mirror. I hate it when they do
that.”

He took a break
again, drinking more water and coughing a little.

“I am generally
only contacted by serious players, as I am considered among the
best of my profession and my time is expensive. I’m no Mr Sunshine
or Feather, of course, but I’m good at what I do.”

“Mr Sunshine?
Feather? Are these people?” I asked.

“I can’t answer
for Mr Sunshine, but Feather is a person. He and I have worked
together in the past, and I count him as a friend. He is the best
of the freelancers, but I’m not one to begrudge a friend his good
fortune. Especially as Feather isn’t around enough to threaten my
livelihood.”

“Where is
Feather now? Perhaps you should call him, ask for help?” I asked,
jumping at the chance to pass my patient onwards.

He gave me a
long, deep look as if trying to decide if I was fishing for
information.

“
I
don’t
know where Feather is. How could I? He just turns up. We call him
Feather, because he is terrified of birds. Even finches,” he said,
watching me carefully.

I said nothing,
but my recording felt impossibly heavy in my pocket as I worked. It
was lucky for me that I didn’t recognise Feather’s name.

“Don’t ask me
about Feather, it’s best if you don’t know. Let’s get back to the
story. The email meant that I was working for someone relatively
new on the scene, but resourceful enough to find me. This was
unusual, but not unprecedented. I read the email with mixed
expectations. Some of my dealings with new blood have caused me
problems when clients ignored the genteel set of rules that the
older players rigidly adhere to. Some try to escape paying me, or
threaten me with violence or the law. Such a lapse in a contract is
the only reason I ever meet my clients face-to-face, and even then
only one meeting is necessary. I have a reputation to uphold, after
all.”

“Is that what
happened to that Middle-Eastern Sheikh who just vanished into thin
air a month ago?” I asked, curious despite myself. The mystery of
the disappearing Sheikh had made worldwide news.

He gave me an
odd look and shook his head.

“No, I never
worked for him. Bet you ten dollars it was an Ifrit, though, it
always is with those Arabian magi. Dealing with the desert spirits
can be lucrative, but the unwary are likely to be burnt on those
deals.”

I apologised
for my interruption and asked him to continue.

“Don’t worry
about it. Ifrits are old, but the clients I was telling you about
were new money. Despite the problems they can cause, new money
tends to have some refreshing ideas about the world. I enjoy being
the occasional instigator of change, a thing that all too often I
was hired to prevent. New money also tends to be impatient, which
could be either a good or bad thing depending on the circumstances.
They would be waiting for my answer. I printed the email out and
lay on the table as I sat down to a breakfast of three protein
drinks, a litre of mango juice and a coffee.”

I had examined
his body at great length during his treatment, and so I knew why
his meals were mostly liquid.

“The email
could have easily been dismissed as spam by those not expecting it,
but I could pick the relevant words out of the lines of nonsense.
Amongst the chaos of words scattered across the email was the
sentence ‘Echosoul, A.I., three golden eggs’. The short message was
followed by two strings of numbers that I took to be a location and
a contact number.

I guessed that
Echosoul was code for something, but Rob explained to me that it
was his last name.

“But keep that
to yourself, if you please,” he said pointedly.

I tried to
forget about the recorder, but it was heavier and hotter than a bar
of red hot steel. I couldn’t believe that Rob hadn’t noticed it
burning through my pocket.

“The message
was concise,” Rob went on, “but telling. My identity isn’t a
secret, but I try to keep it from being widely known. So just by
naming me my clients had shown that they know something about me,
and that in itself is an achievement of sorts. My prospective
clients were obviously worried about an A.I., and so they had hired
me to sort it out. But hired me to do what, exactly? I don’t steal
A.I.s, because their hardware is far too large to move. Nor was it
to be an infection, because I hadn’t been sent a data file
containing a virus. All they had sent was an address, so the only
option left was destruction.

I hummed to
myself as I thought about my options. I could turn a contract down,
of course. That’s the beauty of being self-employed. I had walked
away from jobs in the past when the pay was too low or the mission
disagreeable. The death of an A.I. didn’t worry me, for most of
them are closer to clever algorithms than real intelligence. Even
on the rare occasion that they have transcended their code to
become something more, their lack of emotion generally makes them
dangerous to my fellow man, and I view their destruction as a
public service. I had played a part in the removal of two such
A.I.s in the past few years; perhaps that was the reason I had been
contacted.”

Rob’s talk of
A.I.s was strange to me, as I hadn’t heard much about these A.I.s
at the time due to the records being suppressed. Now such things
are a matter of public record, and I have confirmed the existence,
corruption and destruction of both A.I.s Rob mentioned. There is
absolutely no evidence that he was involved in any way, but that
just shows you how good he was.

“I sat for a
moment on my motel room’s bed,” he said, “considering my options.
Three golden eggs were rich payment indeed, and I had contacts
amongst the dwarves who would happily take them off my hands. I
reached over to my bag and pulled it up on to the bed, flicking it
open. The bag contained everything a man such as myself might need:
a collection of knives of various metals, a spare laptop, essence
of garlic, a wooden stake, rope, a few holy relics, a handgun,
chalk, rope, and an assortment of glass vials containing chemicals
and herbs. I pulled my spare laptop open- I have learnt to be
careful how I surf- and opened up the browser. The co-ordinates I
had been given were those of a computer laboratory on the grounds
of a small campus about an hour south of my motel.

I spent the
next three days surfing both water and web. I avoided the worst of
the sun, only venturing out of my room when the sun was low in the
sky. Even then I wore an inch of sun cream to avoid being burnt.
Again, don’t share my hatred of strong sun around. It was
Australia, too, so even normal people were being careful of the
rays. I spent a few hours researching my target, but there was
little enough information to find. I frittered away my time in this
manner because I didn’t want my client to know where I was. Three
days is long enough to travel between any two points in this world,
so I could have come from anywhere. They would be most impressed
when I arrived without passing through a single port, airport or
magical circle.”

“You thought
they were watching you?” I asked Rob.

“I
always
do. They had set the target, so they would be waiting
for me to make my move. Entry looked easy, but not suspiciously so.
My instincts told me that this was more a coincidence than a
set-up. I decided to take the job. I set out at once.

The university
was easy to get to, and it was in session. I wore a faded t-shirt,
jeans and old shoes; a disguise which I have found works almost
everywhere. People didn’t look at me twice as I passed through the
crowds and made my way to the computer science faculty building.
University security is notoriously bad, because the staff are
mostly kind and trusting people who are only too happy to show you
their latest work. A little flattery and a German accent were all I
needed to get to my target. The post-doc in charge of the A.I. was
extremely keen and sincere. I told him I was a researcher from a
German university that he had never heard of, on exchange for a
semester. I claimed that my professor had mentioned him, and I
begged him to show me his work, promising citations, papers and
funding.”