A Toaster on Mars (6 page)

‘I do. I'm sorry.'

‘I'm sure it's nothing to worry about,' Blake said. Then an unsettling thought occurred to him. ‘Does she have a boyfriend?'

‘Are you kidding? She's not even a teenager!'

‘They start early these days.'

‘Well…there
is
a boy she's very friendly with, a boy from her scarmish team.'

‘You're letting her play scarmish?' Blake asked. ‘Are you insane?'

‘No, I'm not insane,' Astrid said. ‘She wears full body gear, the same as her friends. She's never been hurt.'

Of course she lets Lisa play scarmish
, Blake reflected. Astrid had played it for eight years, representing Earth in the Galactic finals. But that was twenty years ago. These days she lived a more peaceful life teaching literature at university.

‘Scarmish is too dangerous,' he now muttered.

‘Don't act like you're her father!'

‘I
am
her father—'

‘Fathers turn up for their daughter's birthday parties.'

Not the party
, Blake thought.
Not again.

‘Yes, the birthday party,' Astrid said, as if she could read his mind. ‘It's a little hard to forget the day you broke her heart.'

‘I was catching the Toe Killer!'

‘There was always some interstellar criminal who needed catching,' Astrid said. ‘You put them before Lisa. No wonder she doesn't speak to you.'

This conversation was going nowhere. ‘Check the scarmish fields,' he advised her. ‘Ring her friends. Then the hospitals. Let me know how you go.'

‘I will.'

His wristcomm went dead.

In the early days of their divorce, Blake had held hope that he and Astrid would get back together. As time had passed, however, his hopes had all but died. The only time he truly considered it a possibility was when he thought about Astrid's surname. Carter. She had not changed it.

Maybe there was still a chance.

Blake brought Sally in to land outside a line of bars on the east side 494th level. Natural light didn't filter down this far, and it was late in the day anyway, so most of the illumination came from fluorescents hanging from cornices.

Bars, cubicle hotels and burnt-out shops lined both sides of the lane. A plastic cat rooted through a garbage bin, while a two-headed seagull flew off with half a cooked chicken in its beaks.

Between two garbage bins lay a drunk who was arguing with a mechanical head that looked like Julia Roberts. But something must have been broken because she winked continuously while one of her ears spun.

‘You never loved me,' the drunk said.

‘I would have stayed for two thousand,' the head said. ‘Two thousand…two thousand…two thousand…'

‘You know how much I hate this part of town,' Sally said. ‘Do we have to come here?'

‘We do.'

‘You won't stay out late, will you?' Sally pleaded. ‘A girl like me could end up without an engine, no wheels and—'

Blake ignored her. His mind was on Lisa, and he kept having to remind himself she wasn't a small child anymore. Twelve years old. She would be fine. Neo City was a big place with lots of distractions. It was easy for kids to lose track of time.

He pushed through the doors of the Pink Hyperdrive.

Time for some distractions of my own
, he thought.

8

Nicki sighed.

The grime was so intense in Blake's office that even the grime had grime. A microscopic examination showed some interesting results: as expected, it was mostly dust, which, like all dust, was skin. The next largest element was pizza—and not just any kind of pizza. Nicki's nose twitched in recognition as she searched her database. Blake liked the Super Meat and Chilli Lovers pizza from Al's Pizza Joint on 99A Street.

Yep
, she thought.
No mistaking that sauce.

Only the unused desk was in pristine condition. Why?

Nicki started typing.

‘I know you said no to Friday night,' Reggie said, ‘but maybe—'

‘No offence,' she said, ‘but get lost.'

Nicki disconnected Reggie and put a call through to the server. She could have logged on via her internal connections, but she preferred to behave as much like a human as possible. It made full bloods feel more comfortable.

Full bloods.
She didn't like thinking of people that way, but her nine per cent was jealous of those who were one hundred per cent human. They grew hair, shed skin, sweated moisture, bled blood and cried tears.

Logging in via the mainframe, Nicki was surprised when an error message came up on the screen.

USER UNKNOWN.

‘This is Nicki Steel,' she said. ‘Agent number MPFC1969.'

UNKNOWN.

‘Huh?'

UNKNOWN.

‘What are you? Broken?'

I DON'T APPRECIATE BEING SPOKEN TO LIKE THAT.

‘I'm sorry you've had a hard day,' Nicki said, trying to be conciliatory. ‘Mine's been tough too.'

YOU THINK?

‘I know what you're going through—'

AS IF. YOU HAVE ARMS, LEGS, A HEAD AND TORSO. WHAT I WOULDN'T GIVE FOR A LIMB.
EVEN A LITTLE FINGER. WHAT I WOULDN'T GIVE FOR A LITTLE FINGER…

I'm going to count to a billion
, Nicki thought.

She did. It took almost a tenth of a second and she still had not calmed down.

‘I was a field officer at Southern Division,' Nicki said, smiling. She had read that smiling while you spoke helped to give the impression you were friendly, even when you really wanted to tear someone limb from limb. If they had any, that is.

I KNOW THAT.

‘So why aren't you letting me in?'

OH, YOU KNOW.

Nicki didn't.

I'VE BEEN SLAVING OVER A HOT SYNC ALL DAY. I NEVER GO ANYWHERE.

‘I can't do anything about that.'

YOU KNOW WHAT MY VIEW IS LIKE? I'M IN A BASEMENT. HOW BORING IS THAT? AND DOES ANYONE DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT?

‘Let's cut to the chase,' Nicki said. ‘What do you want?'

A PAIR OF LEGS WOULD BE NICE.

Nicki was still smiling, but it wasn't easy. ‘You want me to get you a pair of legs?'

YES.

‘Before you'll log me in?'

ARMS WOULD BE NICE TOO. OH, AND A HEAD. AND WHERE WOULD I BE IF I DIDN'T HAVE—

‘Let me guess? A torso?'

YOU GOT IT, BABY.

Nicki dropped the smile, disconnected and logged in via her internal circuitry. She could hear the AI bitching about her over the Hypernet, but Nicki didn't care.

‘I'll give you torso…' she muttered.

Nicki found the department records and entered the asset number of the desk. Fortunately, as in all government departments, every item was assigned a tracking number. Unfortunately, the numbers fell off half the time or pranksters swapped them around to confuse the clerks, who could never work out why something numbered as a chair turned out to be an M17 SuperMicro electron analyser, or why a hydrobeam laser looked more like something you could sit on.

It took her ten minutes to discover the last owner of the desk.

‘Holy sprot,' she said softly.

9

Nicki spent the whole night studying the files on Bartholomew Badde, only leaving PBI headquarters as early-morning sunlight began filtering down from the upper levels.

Because she was a cyborg, she wasn't allowed to own a car, but her status as an agent gave her temporary use of a PBI vehicle. It had an AI, an old system named Geoff, but she turned it off. She didn't feel like conversation.

Nicki hadn't told Blake that she knew how to drive a car. Actually, she was quite good at it. Her robotic components enabled her to make millions of calculations per second, anticipating the moves of other drivers with almost 100 per cent accuracy.

Joining an eastbound lane, she looked down at the city that not only didn't sleep, it didn't even blink. Nicki was the first to admit she knew everything and nothing about Neo City. Her quazitone brain told her about every building and street, but not its people. Her human part—the nine per cent—knew that cities were more than stone and brick.

Even more of a mystery, though, was Blake Carter.

Reviewing his history, she couldn't help but be impressed. Pomphrey wasn't exaggerating when he praised Blake as one of the most successful agents in the bureau: for several years he'd held the agency's arrest record, due, no doubt, to his intuitive grasp of the workings of the criminal mind.

Well
, Nicki thought,
I'm no slouch myself—and I won't be outdone by a full blood.

Blake's research on Badde wasn't just thorough, it was nothing short of inspired. Long before Badde had revealed himself to the galaxy as—in his own words—the Big Badde, Blake had already strung together dozens of unrelated crimes, realising one person was behind them all. Two mentions of the name Badde on two separate worlds had been enough for him to realise an evil mastermind was quietly running an empire across the span of the Milky Way.

After bringing Geoff in to land, Nicki climbed out. Everything was shut except for the bars. It was still dark down here. Artificial lighting gave the empty street a technicolour hue.

Spotting an open sushi house, Nicki wondered if the food was at all edible. Being a cyborg, she didn't need to eat a lot, but she did need to eat. It was a shame her tastebuds didn't work all the time. For some strange reason, cucumbers tasted like fish, and eggs tasted like beef. Obviously whoever had designed her had done an incredible job—but not a perfect one.

This was a rundown corner of town. Undoubtedly, Blake could look after himself, but surely there were better places for a quiet drink.

Why is he here?

A group of teenagers with headbands, piercings and matching motion tattoos watched her from a doorway. Nicki photographed each of them using her iris cam.

‘My car better be in one piece when I come back,' she said. ‘Or you'll be sorry.'

‘You're a robot,' one of them jeered. ‘You can't kill anyone.'

‘I'm a cyborg,' Nicki replied. ‘And I won't kill you, but I will hurt you. Big-time.'

A homeless man wandered past, saw her golden skin, drank something deep purple from a bottle and kept walking. She was used to people staring at her.

Sally had been parked in front of one of the bars. Surprisingly, she was undamaged. A flickering sign shaped like a moon hung over the front door.

Nicki found the gloomy interior filled with people either drinking, yelling or sleeping. The place was decorated in Tudor style, which would have been fine
except it was a thousand years too late. The exposed timber beams were made of plastic, and something had gone seriously wrong with the fireplace: instead of providing comfort, light and heat, it flashed red, as if building to detonation. A tapestry on one wall looked like a doormat, which was probably what it had once been. Nicki could vaguely make out the word
Welcome
. The tables and chairs were imitation timber too, apart from three booths, which were clad in fraying brown leather upholstery. To completely ruin any sense of consistency, album covers decorated the other walls:
The Greatest Hits of Acker Bilk
,
Tijuana Brass Live in Alaska
and
Oscar Todd's Harmonica Tribute to the Beatles
. A few had fallen off over the decades, leaving behind square patches of herringbone wallpaper.

‘Johnny B. Goode', sung by Chuck Berry, played on the jukebox at half speed. Maybe it had been purposely slowed down for the only couple on the dance floor—a drunk dancing cheek to cheek with a one-armed robot.

Everything went silent as Nicki slammed the front door behind her. Even the jukebox wound down. Two dozen faces peered over drinks at her. Blake wasn't among them.

She crossed over to the barman. ‘Harry?'

This Harry was tall and balding with a droopy moustache. He looked at Nicki as if she was something he had stepped in.

‘Who wants to know?'

‘Don't worry about who wants to know,' Nicki replied, her eyes roaming the sea of hostile faces. ‘I'm looking for Blake Carter.'

‘Don't know him.'

There was an odd smell in the bar. Nicki determined it was a combination of beer, sweat and the rather odd delicacy advertised on the front of the building—
Harry's Famous Clam Chowder
.