My car was a good example. Our Zebra was a woman, pretty once, but gone to fat. Lard rolled back and forth as she moved, and her hips were so big that the regulation sidearm stuck straight out from her waist.
Still, some presence is better than none, and we arrived in one whole piece. Not counting the messenger droid who was ambushed, slammed, and scrapped, all during the sixty seconds or so that the Zeeb spent picking her nose.
A recording announced the airport, the doors whooshed open, and most of the people aboard headed outside. Stepping onto the platform was like stepping onto a whale’s tongue. Steel ribs curved up to a high, vaulted ceiling and a PA system gabbled words I couldn’t understand.
I followed the crowd onto one of a dozen gleaming escalators, moved to one side as a droid pushed his way past, and listened while a somewhat patronizing voice told me all the things I wasn’t supposed to do inside the terminal area.
The faint odor of brine drifted up from the heavily polluted waters below. Not even multiple layers of concrete and steel could keep it out. By the time space travel had become so routine that every city needed its own spaceport, there was very little land available to put them on. That’s when the corpies looked around, noticed that Puget Sound took up a lot of space, and decided to pave it over. And why not? It had been a long time since anyone had caught an unmutated fish from Elliott Bay or gone swimming without a dry suit.
Still, it was weird to think there was water under the spaceport, not to mention old shipwrecks, and the ruins of low-lying communities overcome by the constantly rising sea level. The Board was working on global warming, or so they claimed, but the oceans got deeper every year.
The escalators dumped us on the main level. It was huge. The furniture crouched low as if defying people to move it. Each spaceline had its own kiosk, and they dotted the open floor like islands in a nylon ocean. The building shuddered and engines rumbled as a shuttle lifted off somewhere outside. I knew where I was headed, but had every intention of getting there slowly. There would be security, lots of security, and I would have to find a way around or through it.
Now, someone else might have come up with a plan, a clever stratagem to get them where they wanted to go, but not me. Being, as they say, “mentally challenged,” I tend to head in the obvious direction and hope for the best. You’d be surprised how often it works.
I drifted towards an expresso stand and bought an Americano. The waitress was fascinated by my chromed dome, knew she shouldn’t look, but couldn’t help herself. I smiled reassuringly, accepted the coffee, and ambled in the direction of a huge column. It was black with gold bands at the top and bottom.
I used the drink to warm my hands and to justify my lack of movement. People swarmed around me. Judging from the luggage, or the lack of it, the crowd was about evenly split between actual travelers and those who had come to meet someone, wave good-bye, or pick pockets.
I can’t remember if I liked to travel, but I think I did. Why else would I join the Mishimuto Marines? Or head out into what spacers call the “Big Black”?
And second only to travel itself I like the feeling of travel, the hustle and bustle of spaceports, and the people that ebb and flow like a fleshy tide. Some running, some walking, some trudging heads down, eyes on the floor. Who are they? Where are they headed? And what are they thinking? There are times when I go to the spaceport to commune with them, to share the energy created by their movement, and wonder what they’re all about. Strange? Maybe. But it’s better than being alone.
But watching is a one-way game, or it’s supposed to be anyway. So why was the little guy looking at me? Sure, the head attracts some attention, but the way this character stared at me suggested something else. Trans-Solar security? Possibly, but it seemed unlikely. They had no reason to expect me at the spaceport, or so I assumed. A scammer, then, or an undercover Zeeb, looking for who knows what. My heart jumped. The deader. Had they issued a warrant? Nah, if the Zebras wanted me they’d walk up and take me. I made a note to keep an eye on the man. It wouldn’t be hard. He was the only guy around dressed in a bright green sports coat.
A zombie walked between us, eyes blank, a tiny bit of drool dribbling from the corner of his mouth. He wore immaculate gray livery, high-gloss boots, and a matching dog collar. It was set with diamonds and connected to a six-foot leash. The woman who held the other end was a sight for sore eyes. She was black, about six-six, and dressed in a gray tunic, black miniskirt, and skin-tight leggings. She wore high heels, and they clicked as she walked. A cloud of perfume drifted behind her. It marked the air she breathed as hers and caused every heterosexual male within a hundred yards to salivate. I was no exception.
I felt sorry for the zombie, and slightly superior at the same time, because even I can find my way around without a leash. Zombies came into being as the result of some well-intended medical research by a company called E-Mem. Scientists there were searching for ways to enhance human memory when they accidentally came up with a way to replace it. And not just memory, but the thing that makes us get up in the morning, and drink that first cup of coffee.
And, as is so often the case with pure research, the real-world applications were an afterthought. As the corpies had grown more and more reliant on computers, and the data stored within them had become increasingly valuable, hackers, and the data pirates they gave birth to, profited accordingly. So when it became possible to electronically record information onto human brain tissue, and to psychologically encrypt it so that not even the most sophisticated data pirate could touch it, the market for zombies was created. Some were brain-damaged from birth, but many weren’t.
Why this particular man had been willing to sacrifice most of his identity for a large up-front payment was known only to him. Assuming that he had the ability to remember, that is.
The crowd surged like fish fleeing a shark. I looked and was immediately interested. The bullet-catchers came first, easily identified by the pullover ponchos they wore, each embossed with the Trans-Solar logo. Their function was to literally “catch bullets” should a team of poppers attack their client. It was a high-risk way to make lots of money in a short period of time: a fact well understood by the catchers themselves and the reason behind their frightened eyes and strained expressions.
Four tough-looking bodyguards backed the bullet-catchers and stood ready to respond should someone attack. They looked quite competent. A fact that brought me little comfort and made my mission seem silly.
The lifer they protected was as handsome as the biosculptors could make him and walked with the heads-up confidence of someone who has all the answers. The lifer and his entourage left a vacuum, and I helped fill it. I checked on the guy in the green jacket and found he was following behind me. It was quite a procession.
A comparison of our route to the one that I had so painfully memorized produced a perfect match. I decided to continue. We made good time thanks to the fact that the bullet-catchers forced everyone out of the way. So good that I was worried that we’d hit a corporate checkpoint where the lifer would be allowed to pass and I wouldn’t. But the world is a complicated place, and nobody rides for free, not even corpies.
The supposedly “spontaneous” demonstration came out of nowhere along with robo-cams to tape it. People who had seemed like raggedy-assed freelancers moments before rose from their seats, deployed hand-lettered signs and blocked the corridor.
They yelled slogans like “Down with Trans-Solar!” “People before profits!” and “Earth first!”