The Unsung Frame, page 13
part #2 of The Synth Crisis Series
Natalya fanned the air as if he were a gnat, then reached up and took her wine from Jesse.
“Are you a live-in concubine, or playing at nanny?” Dhata said. “Do you join the Underwoods in their bed at night?”
“Does Fabiana know that you are down here in Ybor talking up synthetic girls?” she said. “I heard about you … you like to play in the rust. I bet if I let you, you’d crawl under this table and lick me.”
“You’re really going to make this hard, aren’t you?” Dhata whispered, looking around to make sure that no one was paying attention. “Not worried about your ride leaving? That agent is a human. I’d put money on it that he won’t come in here to get you. What will you do then, Natalya, find a ride?” He laughed. “The stims haven’t hit you yet, sweetheart, so you can stall the act. Tell me, did you ever love Jordan, or are you a government spy, made to marry a member of The Unsung?”
Natalya froze and her smile went away. It was as if he had used a secret code to shut down all of her motor functions. She had never seemed as robotic as she did now across from him, as she sat up in her seat, straightened her shirt, and then threw her wine in his face. “I’m not saying another word,” she said. “Sam is on his way, and you will let me leave with him, or your lovely Fabiana will go up in flames along with your zeppelin.”
She knows about the zeppelin? he thought as he wiped his face. That wouldn’t make any sense unless—”So that hunter seeker drone, that was the government?” he said, already knowing the answer. “Why me, Natalya? Why did you have me follow Jordan? Tell me that bit, and I’ll leave you alone. I’ll leave this whole damn thing alone,” he said.
The stims were on her, and he could tell, since her legs parted slightly, and she relaxed her shoulders. “Whew, it’s hot in here. Do you feel hot?” she said, before breaking out into a fit of giggling. “Hmm, why Dhata? Why would we choose you? Coincidence, maybe? We needed a skip, and you were the one that the police recommended.”
“You went to a John for a skiptracer reference? That seems unlikely, but whatever. So, you needed a skiptracer, but for what? Your husband wasn’t cheating, he was building a bomb.”
“Jordan wasn’t supposed to die. Nobody in that shuttle port was supposed to get hurt. What happened to your instincts, Dhata? What happened to the detective who shot and wounded a man inside of a mall? The detective who saved so many people from a suicide bomber?”
“Wait a minute, how do you know about that?” said Dhata. “That was a million years ago—” He stopped to think. “It’s not you, is it? It’s them, the FBI. They used you to hire me for regular skiptracer work, hoping that I would put Jordan down before he had a chance open his coat.” He thought about those seconds before the explosion when Jordan turned to face him as he reached for the detonator. Old Dhata would have dropped him on instinct alone, he thought, and then he suddenly felt guilty.
“All of those lives gone, just because I hesitated,” he whispered.
“Time’s up, Dhata, and I’ve said too much,” Natalya said. “Your little camera will be disabled and you won’t be seeing me again. As to your question about Jordan, yes, we were very much in love, but he had a duty, and like a good soldier, he carried it through. I told Fabiana that this would only end in tragedy, but she didn’t take me seriously. I’m hoping that you will, now that you know what’s at stake. What we did, it never happened, do you hear me, skiptracer? Forget Jordan, forget me, and go live your life with that beautiful girlfriend of yours.”
With that said, she was on her feet and walking out the door, and Dhata sat frozen, at war with his inner demons. Why didn’t I shoot him, he thought, why didn’t I go with my gut?
“Hey, Jesse,” he said, and when the bartender looked over, he continued. “Let me get a shot of Crown, neat.”
‡Chapter 15‡
Watered Down Whiskey
It was late and Dhata hadn’t checked in, but Lur Diaz was not nervously waiting by the phone. She was on her rack, swimming through data, looking for something, anything, that would explain the synths from Akiyama Koch Robotics becoming violent.
The endless stream of data quantized to a living ocean of sparkling, emerald bits whose waves ebbed and flowed violently. It reminded her of champagne freshly poured, as bubbles of zeroes and ones flew off of the waves only to dissipate in the night sky. This strange phenomenon made it seem real to her, and was so disconcerting that she had to stop.
She wished that she had a high-tech Mitsubishi rack like Hiroshi. His showed the data as corridors, with doorways leading to any opening or flaw. Using his advanced system she had once been able to see through the eyes of a synth Mary. It was an exhilarating experience, but she had lost her lunch afterwards.
With her system, what she got was ocean, and making sense of it was a challenge, though she was quickly learning how to adapt. There was a program that Hiroshi told her to buy, which translated the human-made data into words and images. Using it, she could hack into a terminal within the Virtual Village, and scroll through the information as if it was a document.
She dug through all of the news articles, but that told her nothing, so she began to look at the more mundane facts about the company. It was not one of the original synth manufacturers, but had grown into the most successful one due to gaining possession of a link to the Arch Brain nexus. Only a handful of manufacturers had this link, and it was unknown as to who gave it to them, and how.
Having a link to Arch Brain would turn the intelligent, human-mimicking androids into living, learning, empathetic synths. In other words, it gave them life, and this led to AKR being what they were now. Lur looked for the names of the developers and architects, primarily those who worked on the military branch. Everything was classified, but she kept on digging, even though she wasn’t sure where it was going to take her.
She had been under for hours, but she didn’t realize it, her brain consumed with the quest, though her body ached for nutrition. If anyone were to walk into her room, they would see a half-naked woman, gripping the side handles of a shiny black box and staring at the wall.
There was an old news article from a university in Indiana where one of AKR’s top developers had studied robotics. Lur found this discovery odd, since it was an opinion piece. A young journalist by the name of Tanya Jacobs interviewed the developer about his alma mater. Her point in the article was that great men came from Indiana, since apparently the vice president of the United States, Conrad Hurt, had also gone there too.
She saved the article on her virtual account within the Virtual Village, and logged out of the rack. She found herself seated in the dark, and she cracked her back and fumbled for the lights. “What time is it?” she asked out loud, as if some entity would answer. “Shit, Dhata, you better be okay,” she said and checked her phone for missed calls.
There was a new message in her inbox, and she wondered if it was him. Opening it up without scanning the sender, her heart skipped when she saw who it was from. Don Jose Diaz had written her back.
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By the time Dhata made it home it was 4:00 a.m. and he was still tipsy from the bar. Natalya’s departure had left him with plenty to think about and his drinking had gotten out of hand. He fumbled with the entry panel for what felt like an hour, but finally he got it open. He was about to call out to Lur when he realized the time, and tried his best to remain quiet.
Upon entering the living area, he tripped over some clothes, fell face first into the couch, and rolled onto the ground. He cursed, annoyed, but the world was spinning, so he decided that it may just be better to sleep right where he lay.
In the morning he woke up to the smell of food and the sight of smooth, caramel-colored legs. His throat was dry, and his head was a balloon, but the sight of Lurita made him smile. “Well hello,” he said, and she rolled her eyes, then walked over and sat on his thighs to pin him down.
“Listen,” she said, “I let you be yourself, Dhata, but this has been going on for too long.”
Dhata was confused. What was going on? Did she suspect that he was seeing someone else? Did she assume his late arrival was due to infidelity? No, he thought, but she looks like she’s been crying. What in the hell did I do now? “I-I don’t understand,” he said.
“Your drinking,” she said. “It’s getting a little out of control, don’t you think? You stumble home, drunk, when we are not safe. You could have been followed or worse. Somebody could have been here waiting for you. Can you shoot straight when you’re drunk? Can you even fight when you’re falling all over? Why are you drinking so much, Dhata?”
He opened his mouth but nothing came out, and he thought about what he had done last night. “Goddamn ciders,” he grumbled. “I drank a couple ciders before my typical thing. Look, this don’t happen, I just lost my mind talking to that damn Natalya. You know I don’t do this often, Lurita, come on. When was the last time you seen me drunk?”
“Not drunk, but you drink, and drink, and drink. You have things in the Buick, unhealthy things, and when you are out, you are always at a bar—”
“Okay, I got it, I hear you, you’re right,” he said. “I’m glad you’re here to check me, but I got it, Lurita, I do. Now, since you have me pinned…” he said, smiling, and let his hands travel slowly up her thighs. Lur caught them quickly before they got to her waist, then leaned forward, pinning him further as her dark curls consumed his face.
“Papa is in trouble,” she said quietly, and he understood why she was crying. “He’s been missing for a few days, and they think that he’s dead. Marisol saw my letter on his rack and replied. Papa was always so bad about technology, so of course he’d have no security on that machine. I know what you are going to say, but I cannot lose Papa, Dhata. I need to go see—”
“That’s suicide, Lurita. You are Fabiana Lopez now, remember? Not Lur Diaz. You are able to stay out of the mess that is going on in your father’s world because you took out your implant and exchanged it for Fabiana’s. Enemies of your father assume that you’re dead. If you show up now, what do you think they will do?”
Dhata lay back against the carpet and closed his eyes to think. It was September now, a new month, and now a new crisis had found its way into their lives. “I’m trying to think, how I can help your father,” he said.
“You can’t,” Lur said as she sat back up. “You don’t know the politics and the people in his world. I can go back and reclaim the Diaz name, but if he’s at war, they’ll try to kill me.”
“If he’s at war and they simply kidnapped him, you will also be a liability to your father’s position. We’ll figure things out, together, babe. If you end up going to Cuba I want to be there. Any hool comes for you has me to deal with, and I wouldn’t want you flying out to where Carlos Ruiz has power. Have you considered that Marisol could have been compromised? Your dad’s rack isn’t secured, so anyone could have sent you that message.”
Lur looked annoyed; it was obviously a position that she hadn’t considered. “So Papa could be alright, but the people in his house could be manipulating me under the threat of Don Ruiz?” she said.
“If I wanted to bring Lurita Diaz home, I know that the quickest way would be to tell her that her father is in danger,” Dhata said. “Talk to Hiro, see what he can do with the surveillance in that house and the older androids your father owns. What I can do is visit myself, look into what’s happening with the Cuban mafia.”
“Okay,” she whispered, and he pulled her down slowly, hugging her close and holding her for a time.
“We’re almost at the end, Lurita, but I need to tell you a few things. The threat to us is not coming from the Akiyama Koch organization. Monday I am heading to Atlanta to look in on the soldier who attacked you, but this weekend is for you, okay? I need you to be good for what’s coming up.”
“What do you mean, Dhata?” she said, and slipped from his arms to sit up.
“Natalya is most likely a cyborg fully developed by the government for infiltrating synthetic groups. The Unsung have become the synth's go-to for justice. They are an organization of trained ex-military, but to the police they are vigilante thugs. The main reason why the synth haven’t been wiped out in Tampa is largely due to them. They arm the resistance, place strategic attacks on the human militia groups; I wouldn’t be surprised if they have cyphers manipulating our news sources as well.”
“And Jordan was a part of this organization?” Lur said.
“He was, yes, and Natalya was supposed to spy on him. If it were that simple, though, it wouldn’t explain the bombing. The Unsung aren’t into terrorist threats. They operate in silence, aiding synths. The only thing they do to hurt humans is to go directly at our extremist groups. Organizations like Flesh and Bone know The Unsung well. They’ve been fighting them for years, even when everything seemed peaceful and good. They know them well because they target synths, but the rest of us would have no clue as to who The Unsung really are.”
Lur got up and reached down a slender hand, and he took it in his and struggled to get up. The room was still spinning, but not to the point where he couldn’t stand. So he got up, dusted off his clothes, and followed her into the kitchen.
“Why did she hire us if she’s already a government spy?” Lur said. “It makes no sense, and the bitch is buying stims. What kind of cyborg spy is this, Dhata?”
“Yeah, she’s all over the place, but I think the addiction is on purpose … so that she seems normal. Lur, I don’t believe that she was there to spy on Jordan. I think she was there to program him to hurt people. The question I have now, if what I think is true, is why would the FBI want a synth to blow up a shuttle port?”
“To blame The Unsung,” Lur said, and handed him a glass of water. “You’re not thinking clearly, mi vida. Drink this, you’ll feel better.”
He sipped at the water, but couldn’t stand the taste; his taste buds were craving something sweet. Lur put her hand on the glass and held it in place, shaking her head in refusal of him stopping. Dhata forced the drink down and placed it in the sink, then was quite surprised when she handed him another.
“You trying to drown me?” he said.
“Drink the water, skiptracer. We have a lot to do, including the search for Papa, and I need my man thinking like the Dhata I love.”
Love. There it was again, and it wasn’t the first time she’d said it. He drank the water, and then a third, though the urge to vomit was at a critical point. She handed him a protein supplement and bit into one herself, then took his hand and led him to the dining area where the massive war table was.
On top of the table was the disabled drone, and it jogged his memory of what he intended to tell her. “Shit, Lurita, I forgot, but this drone, it’s FBI … they know where we live. All this time we thought that it was AKR. This is why I need to go talk with the man who was following you around. If it turns out that he’s a government tool as well, I am going to feel like so much crap. I wounded that company thinking that they were coming for you …”
“Mi vida,” Lur said, smiling, and kissed him lightly on his forehead. “Why would they be separate, eh? I found out something about them too. One of the men who built the soldiers, he went to school with Conrad Hurt. I don’t know if that is coincidence but that links the government to AKR. Maybe you don’t need to feel bad if they are in this together. We messed up their plans and now they want to see what we will do?”
“No, they want to take us out, but there are too many moving pieces for us to just end up missing. I know they know about you, since you did business with Natalya, and they know about our home because of this drone. What they know about us and Ybor, though, I have no clue, and…” He sighed audibly. “I have a lot to do that’s not connected, but to repay Aaron and Ariana. Damn it.”
Lur was leaning over the table looking at old photos of Gemini, but at the mention of Ariana, she shot him a curious look. “Ariana? Who is that?”
“Oh, the new synth Mary I’ve been with. You’ve been in hiding and I haven’t seen you, so I had to get someone to satisfy my urges,” he said. Lur grabbed the drone and was about to hurl it when Dhata stood up and held out his hands. “No, wait, don’t throw that, it’s important … bad joke, she’s the one who told me about Underwood, and now I owe her a favor.”
“What sort of favor?” Lur said, and Dhata’s head pulsed. A wave of pain forced him to flinch, and he reached up to massage his temple.
“For Aaron it’s power, just like most bosses you’ll deal with. They will give you the world if you can expand their reach. Aaron wants to move his business into human territory. Detective Garcia—”
“Is that the one you call Ariana?”
“Yes, her,” Dhata said. “The young woman who my lovely Lurita has no business being jealous of. She wants to arrest a corrupt John named Jackson Cole. So for her it’s me doing what I do best: collecting evidence, recording a corrupt John acting like the king of hools, then bringing it back to a client who will use it to put him away, forever. The challenge is the fact that Cole is connected. It won’t be enough to collect evidence since he could have jurors and judges killed.”
“What will you do?” Lur said.
“Well, the two are connected, so it won’t be difficult. I get Cole busted and all of his assets can be taken over by Aaron. What I’m trying to figure out is how to make the charges stick. I need him to go down for something like murder; that way I won’t have to deal with him anytime soon.”
Lur was uncharacteristically stoic, her mood obviously affected by the news of her father. Dhata wanted to make it better, to have her happy the way she normally was, but there was too much going on and he felt himself slipping.
Time was a factor and the FBI surveillance was disturbing. How deep did that go, and how badly were they compromised? Then there was Jackson Cole and getting him put away. Aaron had gone above and beyond to help him and Lur, and Ariana was the reason why he knew now that the FBI was an enemy.
