Another vine wrapped around my other leg. That reminded me that while I was without my gun I had supplemented my weapons with a handy, good old-fashioned knife I kept in a right ankle holster. (I find I’m much happier if I don’t ponder very long over the fact that I always need to have an extra weapon on me. I won’t even start to touch on the fact that my underwear is reinforced with buckyball-enhanced carbon steel.)
HARV looked at me. ‘‘You’re thinking about your love for weapons again, aren’t you?’’
‘‘It’s more a
need,
not a love,’’ I said.
HARV pointed to my right leg. ‘‘You probably should go for your knife before the vine goes for your arms. You’re just fortunate that vines haven’t been designed to deal with such well-armed opponents yet.’’
That didn’t make a lot of sense to me, but then again neither did the entire concept of attack plants. I stretched my left arm down toward my right ankle while trying to pull my leg up away from the vine. I had to give Randy props; he had engineered these plants to be quite strong. I was glad my girlfriend Electra had been making me practice yoga with her lately. It may not be the most manly way for a tough guy to pass the time, but the added flexibility was coming in handy. (Plus Electra, being a champion kickboxer, could beat the stuffing out of me. So if she says something is good for me, I don’t question her.)
Despite my added flexibility, my knife still remained a couple of centimeters from my extended grasp. I took a deep breath and stretched my arm out as far as I could. I extended my fingers. I felt the tendons in my hands tightening. I was less than half a centimeter away, but that half centimeter might as well have been half a kilometer. Out of reach was out of reach. As the plant tightened its grip on my throat, I was starting to think I was out of luck.
Offed by a plant . . . never thought that was how I was going to go. On the bright side, all the hit men, assassins, killer bots, and mutant thugs who tried to do me in in the past were going to be
really
embarrassed when they heard a grapevine sent me to my maker. At least I could take a little consolation in that.
Just as I thought all was lost, something unexpected happened. My knife popped up from my ankle holster into my outstretched hand.
‘‘That was me,’’ HARV said. ‘‘I magnetized the left wrist portion of your underarm.’’
‘‘What do you know, you are a useful supercomputer after all,’’ I kidded HARV.
My first move was to grab the part of the vine nearest my neck with my right hand, pulling it to make it nice and rigid. I slit it. I slipped the dead vine off my throat and threw it to the ground. It felt good to breathe freely again. It felt even better to be wielding the knife. I’m not thrilled with what that says about me.
‘‘I thought Randy’s new computer system was limiting you?’’ I said, bending over to slit the vine from around my right leg.
‘‘It was,’’ HARV said. ‘‘But I found a work-around.’’
With my right leg now free, I turned toward my left. The vine swung at me with a free tendril. I caught the swinging tendril with my right hand before it could do any damage. Pulling the vine toward me, I cut it when it became taut. The plant may have caught me off guard the first time. That wasn’t going to happen again. I haven’t lived this long, doing what I do, by falling for the same trick twice.
Like my old mentor would always say,
‘‘Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice and I’ll be dead.’’
Okay, she wasn’t a good poet, but that lady could handle her whiskey.
I bent down and sliced the vine off my left leg. I was free to spring into action. I noticed that the vines were in motorized pots. I hit the top of the pot with a sidekick, knocking it over. I wanted to make sure this plant wasn’t going to be coming after me.
Brandishing my knife, I raced toward my trapped friend and his shapely cohort. I made a snap decision to free Randy first. I know they usually say ladies first, but Randy was not only closer, he was struggling much harder. Besides, Randy may be overly eccentric, but he’s one of the greatest minds on Earth. The world needed him. It eased my psyche that for her part, the woman didn’t seem worried at all. I would bet my 1986 Mets poster that the woman was more able to take care of herself in this situation than Randy was.
Moving to free Randy, I noticed out of the corner of my right eye that the potted grapevines in the back of the room that had been acting like grapevines should act were now heading toward me. When I woke up this morning, if someone had bet me ten credits that I was going to be chased by grapes today, I probably would have taken them up on it. When you’re a P.I., there are times you need to gamble. I like to think that when the computer chips are down I know exactly when to hold ’em, when to fold ’em, and when to go for my gun.
The plants were rolling toward me and gaining ground. I didn’t turn around. I didn’t have to. I heard them progressing toward me, their vines snapping on the ground as they closed in. This called for a little strategy on my part. I was going to have to outsmart the plants. Quite frankly, if I couldn’t outthink a plant, I didn’t deserve my next birthday.
I stopped cold in my tracks. Not because I was scared—I wanted to throw the plants off. Sure enough, they rolled right on by me, one on each side. I could have sworn one of them flipped me the bird as it rolled past then skidded to a stop. Not giving the plants time to react, I dove between them with my arms outstretched like I was an old-fashioned plane. I hit them each high on the bases, clotheslining them and knocking them to the ground.
‘‘You shouldn’t dive like that with a knife in your hand,’’ HARV lectured inside my head.
‘‘Yes, Mother,’’ I said.
I sprung up to my feet and ran toward Randy. Reaching him, I grabbed the vine that had a pythonlike grip on his throat and slit it. Randy pulled the excess grape parts away from his throat.
‘‘Are you DOSing crazy!’’ Randy screamed at me, his pale skin now as red as his hair.
Not exactly the thanks I was expecting. I realized he had been struggling to free himself so he could stop me from slicing up his plants, not because he was worried about his own health.
‘‘Uh, maybe,’’ I said.
‘‘Plants stand down,’’ Randy said in a firm, yet still geeky (and angry) voice.
The plant released its grip on Randy. I looked over at Randy’s companion; she was also now free.
Randy dusted himself off, glaring at me all the while. ‘‘Don’t you read the e-mails I send?’’
I shook my head. ‘‘I skim them.’’
Randy stomped a foot on the ground and threw his arms up in the air. ‘‘You
skim
them . . .’’ he mocked.
‘‘You do send me a lot of e-mail,’’ I said.
Randy rolled his eyes. ‘‘I’ve only sent you twenty-three messages this week.’’
‘‘Yeah, but Randy, it’s only Tuesday.’’
‘‘Every message I send you is of the utmost importance.’’
‘‘I agree,’’ HARV said, appearing from the room’s holographic projector. HARV was always one to bend over backward to take Randy’s side. I was surprised he wasn’t attached to Randy’s butt right now.
‘‘Randy, you send me more e-mail than my mother and people trying to sell me natural male enhancement combined . . .’’
Randy put his hands on his hips. ‘‘Well, your mother hasn’t inserted a multimillion-credit, super-highly-advanced cognitive computer into your brain, has she?’’
‘‘No, of course not,’’ I said.
Randy continued his rant. ‘‘As for those other people, I won’t even justify that with a comment. Though you probably could use some help in that area.’’
I pointed to the tall Asian woman as I told Randy, ‘‘Remember I like to keep HARV being attached to my brain as a
secret
.’’
Randy rolled his eyes. ‘‘Please, Zach,’’ he spat. ‘‘Melda here knows all about all my greatest inventions. I trust her completely. She’s working with me on guard plants for the Moon,’’ Randy said, staring at Melda the entire time. With his head turned away from me, I noticed for the first time that in middle of Randy’s gangly red hair there was a barren patch. If Randy didn’t take measures to stop it, in a few years his head would look like HARV’s. I shook my head, trying not to think about that any longer.
‘‘Guard plants for the Moon . . .’’ I said.
‘‘I combined the simple grape plant with some nanotech. And voilà! The plants can sense an intruder’s intentions and then subdue them until further security personnel arrive. Melda thinks they make a great low-cost alternative to bots. They are functional and ornamental. Melda says they are some of my best work.’’ Randy took a deep breath, a shallow breath and then sighed, spitting a bit. ‘‘We were in the final stages of testing how long they can hold an intruder when you so rudely interrupted.’’
Melda walked over to me and extended her hand. ‘‘You must be Zachary Nixon Johnson,’’ she said.
I took her hand, gladly ignoring Randy. ‘‘If I’m not then the wrong person is wearing my trench coat and fedora.’’
‘‘Gross.’’
HARV said in my head.
Melda smiled. ‘‘Ah, Randy says you have quite the wit.’’ She was a tall, striking woman. I would have thought her blue hair would have looked awkward on her dark Asian skin, but the combination somehow worked. I knew this woman could probably twist Randy around her little finger without even trying. Who knows what she could do to him if she put some effort into it?
‘‘Well, I’d probably be dead a thousand times over if it wasn’t for Randy’s inventions,’’ I said.
Melda’s smile widened. ‘‘Yes, he says that often, too. We are hoping that we can implement some of his genius on the Moon.’’
Randy gave Melda a toothy grin, then blushed. ‘‘Melda’s not only beautiful and a great judge of character, but she’s also a brilliant scientist.’’ Randy was crushing on her bad, and this couldn’t be good. He turned to me. ‘‘Melda really thinks that all the work I did for you is especially ingenious.’’
I sighed. Randy may have been one of the greatest minds on Earth but he was also a first-class, no-holds-barred geek. A pretty face on a great body could make him babble like a drunk actor accepting an award. Randy’s eyes filled with admiration as he looked at Melda. I could only hope she was as worthy of his respect as he believed. Randy forced himself to remove his gaze from Melda (who was doing a yoga stretch) and return his attention to me.
‘‘Why are you here, Zach?’’
‘‘One of your e-mails mentioned my gun was ready.’’
Randy stood there staring at me. His wide eyes became narrow in concentration.
‘‘My gun, the one I keep up my sleeve,’’ I coaxed. ‘‘I dropped it off last week.’’
Randy’s eyes shot back open again. ‘‘Ah, yes, that gun. It’s ready now.’’ Randy pointed down the path. ‘‘It’s in my main lab.’’
‘‘Funny thing is, last week all you
had
was the main lab.’’
Randy looked at me. ‘‘That’s not funny at all.’’
‘‘I agree,’’ HARV said, always the brownnoser. HARV looked at me. ‘‘Dr. Pool had the arboretum built five days ago.’’
‘‘It’s mostly a prefab,’’ Randy said. ‘‘It’s amazing what you can do if have some extra credits and lots of robo-builders.’’
‘‘I wouldn’t know,’’ I said.
‘‘Follow me and I’ll give you your new gun,’’ Randy said, motioning forward like an old stagecoach driver preparing to head West. Randy turned to Melda. ‘‘You’ll want to see this, too. It’s way groovy.’’
As we walked, I thought about how Randy had recently come into that wealth of extra credits. One his inventions, the PIHI-Pod, had hit it ultra-big. The PIHI-Pod, which is short (but not that short) for Portable Interactive Holographic Interface Personally Optimized Device, is basically a mass-market, less powerful version of HARV. It is a small device that users wear on their ears or the sides of their heads, wherever they prefer. A PIHI-Pod senses a person’s thoughts and transmits holographic information and entertainment to him, based on his current needs and likes. It comes in many styles and shapes, none of them being either too big or all that much to look at, but that doesn’t stop it from being today’s ‘‘in’’ thing.
The scary thing about PIHI-Pods (besides people trying to drive and watch them at the same time) is that I know for a fact that Randy’s research was funded by all the biggest conglomerates in the world: Entercorp, Htech, and ExShell. To make matters worse, they are sold exclusively by UltraMegaHyper-Mart. To bring matters to the point I don’t even want to think about thinking about, they are also fully endorsed by the World Council as a way to instantly deliver important information to everybody. . . . I’ve come to accept a world filled with constant DNA scans and full body light-X-rays as part of everyday modern life. DOS, I’ve even learned to take advantage of these when I needed an extra bit of data to crack a case. But there’s something about the government and big corps having direct access to people’s minds that scares me. . . . A lot.
Randy is constantly assuring me that only good can come from PIHI-Pods. The devices simply read people’s needs and transmit relevant information to them. The devices can’t be used to program people. They are also not recording people’s thoughts and sending them thought-appropriate advertisements. . . . At least not yet. I knew it would be just a matter of time before some greedy marketing exec started spamming people’s brains. HARV insists I’m just paranoid. In my game a little paranoia can go a long way toward keeping you alive.
Chapter 2
We entered Randy’s main facility. It was much cleaner and far less chaotic than normal. Yep, Randy was putting on his best face for Melda. No good could come of that. Randy worked best when he let chaos guide and inspire him. Necessity may be the mother of invention, but chaos is what drives the necessity.
One advantage of having HARV wired directly to my brain is that we can actually think back and forth to each other. That’s something PIHI-Pods can’t do. While Randy led us towards a lab bench, HARV and I conversed mentally.