Dubious Heroes: a novel Page 4

  “And you would do this for me because…?”

  “Because we’re friends”, she said. “Wouldn’t you do the same for Cozi?”

  I didn’t answer. I didn’t need to; she knew my answer already. She continued.

  “We’re a lot alike”, she said. I very nearly choked on a piece of soy ham. She continued. “I don’t have many friends, either. Not real ones, anyway.”

  I sighed. She wasn’t going to give up.

  “You’d have to be very careful about this”, I said. “This is no joke. Very careful. “

  “I can do that”, she said.

  “I hope so”, I said. “I need to get back upstairs.”

  “I know”, she said. “We’re done with our game, anyway.” She moved a piece. “Checkmate.”

  It looked like I was going to have to rethink my position on AIs and sneakiness.

  Chapter 3

  It‘s a common misconception among people that AIs are aware of every little thing that goes on in their systems. They aren‘t. At least, no more so than you are about what your liver might be up to. Of course, an AI can query (or take control of) its subsystems, whereas your liver will simply ignore you, no matter how much you think about it.

  Most computer systems will run fine without an AI, and most do exactly that. The AIs allow us to operate vastly complex systems without having to write new software for every situation that might arise. In a world run largely by computers, this is priceless.

  In that regard, Sandy was a huge help, allowing me to compare disparate bits of data in a myriad of different ways. Unfortunately, it didn‘t take me long to figure out that the numbers were being doctored before they were entered into the TGS systems. So, everything reconciled, just as it should have.

  I spent two solid days trying to think up new ways to compare the pieces of data, and I was beginning to lose hope. It looked like either a case that there was nothing shady going on at TGS, or if there was, I was too dumb to figure it out.

  Then, I found it.

  Normally, I didn‘t have access to the cargo accounting data, since I didn‘t need it for my job. I kept track of ships, and other people kept track of what’s on them. With Sandy’s help, I‘d looked at it until my eyeballs hurt, and nothing seemed amiss.

  We had our own system that we used to keep track of where all of our ships were, and what they were doing. On a whim, I had Sandy compare the cargo data with my log of ship activity. And there it was. In the past year, I showed a dozen pickup and deliveries that the cargo system had no record of. Our ships do not just fly around the solar system doing nothing.

  My own system didn‘t indicate if any of the shipments had been lost, stolen, or whatever, but then again, it wouldn‘t, anyway. As long as the ship arrived where it was supposed to be, we were done with it, until it left port again.

  I could only think of one reason for not entering a shipment into the cargo accounting system; it hadn‘t reached its destination. Or, more accurately, the cargo hadn‘t been delivered. I tried to think of all the parties which would have to be involved for such a vanishing cargo scheme to work, and it was mind-boggling.

  There was another problem, too. If I started asking questions, then I might tip off the people involved, who might then take steps to cover their tracks. Steps like showing me to the nearest airlock.

  Try as I might, I couldn‘t figure out how the scam actually worked. In desperation, I asked Sandy what she thought. This certainly fell into the realm of wishful thinking. AIs aren‘t completely without guile; like any sentient being, they can be counted on to lie, especially when it comes to self-preservation. Humans, on the other hand, will lie just for shits and grins. If AIs had begun emulating that particular human trait, then they were so adept at it that no one could catch them.

  Regardless of whether she was or was not capable of deception, Sandy had no more of a clue than me as to what was going on. Eventually, I gave up, and decided to tackle the mystery of the missing ships, which I found a lot more interesting, anyway.

  TransGalactic Shipping owned nearly ten thousand ships, and during the last quarter, we‘d managed to lose two of them. Because TGS is a publicly held company, those losses had to be reported via our quarterly statement to the shareholders.

  Part of my job was to certify that yes, the ships were indeed missing, and no, we had no idea what might have become of them. A quick scan of our competitor’s statements revealed that all of them were suffering similar losses.

  Percentage-wise, a couple of ships wasn‘t that big of a deal, at least as far as the corporate bottom-line was concerned. On top of that, every TGS ship was insured. That said, even a little planetary shuttle was worth a couple million credits, and larger ships, like a cargo freighter, might be worth fifty times as much. So, you make a habit of losing ships, a lot of people (shareholders, in particular) will start asking a lot of pointed questions.

  I knew there was some sort of complicated ruse going on involving cargo, but what about one with ships? I couldn‘t see how it was possible. When a ship disappears, the UP is notified, then the insurance company, next-of-kin, and finally, everyone else, via a press release. After everyone conducts their own investigation, if nothing seems hinky, the insurance company pays up, and business goes on.

  One possibility did occur to me. What if the crews themselves were stealing at least some of the ships? It shouldn‘t have been possible to do, but that didn‘t mean it wasn‘t being done. There were safeguards in place to prevent that sort of thing, but if you give a human being sufficient time, they’ll figure out a way around anything. Just ask a prison guard.

  Every ship has a crew, and all but the smallest have an AI aboard, as well. The latter typically runs most everything on the ship, while the crew is just there doing maintenance, and hanging around in case there are problems. There are controls built into every ship, unbeknownst to either the crew or the AI, that are intended to prevent the ship from being hijacked. On top of that, there are the legally required transponders that are also beyond the control of the crew or AI. In theory, anyway.

  The transponders continuously broadcast the ship‘s identity to whomever might be listening, which is pretty much everyone. If you were within radio range, the signal would be picked up by spaceports, nav beacons, orbital traffic controllers, various government ships, and so on. Even other ships could identify you, although it usually wasn‘t necessary; AIs are notorious about chatting with other ships, when in range, and they didn’t need transponders to identify each other.

  If that wasn‘t enough of a deterrent, there was always the crew, who‘d be subject to biometric scanning the minute they left the ship, at least at most of the established ports. Granted, there are a lot of places where scanning doesn‘t happen, but just the possibility that it might be done ought to give someone pause.

  About that scanning. On Mars, Luna, and Earth (or, at least anywhere you‘d want to go on Earth), everyone is monitored, and not just at the ports-of-entry. I‘d never given it a lot of thought, since it was something I‘d grown up with. I doubted that anyone paid much attention to all that data they were collecting, but it was there, if someone had an urge to look.

  As I walked around Luna, doors would open (or not) based on biometric scans of my face, retina, voice, or even smell, by whichever AI was handy, usually without my ever having to skip a step. In truly secure places (like Cassandra‘s vault), multiple scans would be used, just to insure nothing untoward was going on.

  In addition to all of this scanning, any gadgetry I carried could also be used to track me. Like everyone else, I carried my Pod pretty much everywhere. It was always connected, so I could get calls or do whatever I needed to do. On Luna, net nodes have a very limited range, thanks to all the rock. Anyone interested in my whereabouts could easily see which net node my Pod was using, even if I was hiding in a closet.

  Not Orwellian enough for you? It gets worse.

  Everyone carries their personal credit chip. Yes,
your Pod also has your info, but the credit chips are more secure. I wear mine on my wrist, as part of a bracelet, since the little things are damned easy to lose, and by design, a pain-in-the-ass to replace. Any time I bought anything, from lunch to a transtube ride, local scanners would debit my account automatically. If I lacked the funds for something, I‘d be given the option of borrowing money to cover the expense, or of deciding I really didn‘t want that soyaburger, after all. I generally avoid borrowing, as do most Loonies. Better to live within your means. On Luna (and many other places) you have to buy everything you need to survive, including the air you breathe. In the early days, deadbeats had been advised to pay up, or leave. After a few people were shown to the nearest airlock, there was a remarkable surge in fiscal responsibility.

  Two hundred years later, it continues, with the only difference being that deadbeats are no longer booted out of an airlock. Instead, they‘re put aboard a ship headed for someplace bad.

  Like Earth.

  So, assuming the missing ships (or at least some of them) were stolen, and not just lost, crashed, blown up, or off sightseeing around Proxima Six, then what had become of the crews? The obvious answer was that the people wouldn‘t show up anywhere, because they were no longer alive. A sobering thought, indeed.

  As much as I wanted to know how it was being done (having a few nefarious ideas of my own, along those lines), I knew I wasn‘t ever going to figure it out sitting in my office on Luna.

  I didn‘t have a lot to work with. I knew a couple hundred million credits worth of cargo had gone missing, but I wasn‘t sure how they were doing it. I did have a pretty good idea who was involved though, and maybe that would be all I needed, for a little blackmail of my own. I hoped so, because as plans went, it wasn’t much of one.

  I was going to bluff them.

  To my knowledge, crime had never been much of an issue on Luna. Everyone knew they were being watched all the time, and that seemed to cut down on the urge to misbehave. With a hundred fifty million people, though, things do happen. Most criminals were exiled back to Earth, or possibly to serve time on a mining asteroid. In the case of particularly heinous crimes, like murder, rape, or violence against a child, people still might be shown to the nearest airlock for a walk outside, without the benefit of a suit. Brutal, yes, but it does cut way down on the repeat offenders.

  Most, though, were just sent back to Earth, where no one had the resources (or desire) to keep track of the faceless billions. As long as the great unwashed masses left the power elite alone, they were free to rape and pillage amongst themselves, which was precisely what they did.

  Even a little bit of corporate graft could get you deported, and I hoped that the threat of exposure would be enough to convince them to give me what I wanted. With this in mind, I took a hike through the TGS mountain, to the Cargo Accounting department. My timing was perfect, as I caught someone coming out of Egon’s office, and slipped inside before the door could close.

  Egon Vorschott was the department manager, and while it was an important position, it certainly wasn‘t any more important than mine. Yet, his office was easily the size of my apartment, and he even had a secretary. This had always simultaneously baffled and annoyed me. Now, it was beginning to make sense.

  I‘d heard the argument before that Luna‘s policy of deporting troublemakers had left us a society of sheep, and I suspected there was some validity to it. Egon had been shipped up from the TGS office on Earth, which gave me the idea that someone had found it necessary to import criminal talent, even though I hated using Egon and talent in the same sentence.

  I‘d even dated his secretary a few times, mostly just to annoy him, although she was an interesting enough diversion. Egon believed he was charming and witty, and kept trying to prove it by hitting on her constantly.

  In reality, Egon was a short, fat, greasy little dimwit. It had only taken a couple of years for his pettiness to become something of a TGS legend. Most of us figured he had to be related to someone in upper management. The cargo scam was making a lot more sense.

  I plopped down in one of the empty chairs facing his desk. Egon looked up, and gave me his best sneer. That, or he had a bad case of gas. I had a hunch he was about to have a headache, too.

  “Doon”, he said, like it left a bad taste in his mouth.

  “Egon”, I said. “We need to talk.”

  “Then make an appointment. I‘m busy.”

  “No rest for the wicked, huh?” I grinned at him.

  “How can I put this politely?” he said, trying to look thoughtful. “Oh, I think this works. Go fuck yourself. And get out of my office.”

  “That‘s good”, I said. “The thing is, Egon, somebody really is about to get fucked, but it‘s not gonna be me.”

  “I‘ll say it again, dipshit”, he said. “Go away. Or do I have to call security?”

  “Go ahead”, I said, making myself comfortable. “I imagine they‘d love to hear all about what you‘ve been up to.”

  I watched as he sat silently, ticking off the possibilities in his mind. I wished I‘d looked into him a bit further, as he tried to figure out exactly what I‘d caught him at. After a long moment, he gave up, and hit me with his default response.

  “I have no idea what you‘re talking about”, he said, managing to maintain a pretty good poker face. Sitting there, it occurred to me that when it came to this sort of thing, I might well be out of my league.

  I had no choice but to press on, though.

  “Missing cargo”, I said, trying to look like I knew more than I did. If he continued to stonewall me, I was screwed. He‘d know I was bluffing.

  He paled a few shades, and looked like he‘d forgotten to breathe. He didn’t respond, so I continued.

  “I figure we’re talking at least a couple hundred million credits. I have an idea that those are the kind of numbers a lot of people would be interested in. People like our shareholders, the United Planets regulators, or the insurance companies. Sure, we make more money than God, but I’d bet a lot of people would take a dim view of large chunks of it just vanishing.”

  He seemed to deflate a bit, and I knew I had him.

  “What do you want, Doon? You want in, right?”

  “Fuck no, I don’t want in, and what I do want, you can’t give me. I’m betting your boss can, though.”

  “What if I told you that no one else is involved?”

  I shrugged.

  “I already know better, but I’m not the one you’ll have to convince. Maybe the authorities will believe you. And the people you work for will be in your debt, what with your taking one up the ass for them. I’m sure they’ll take good care of you, once they release you from the mining gulag. Now, shall we go see someone, or do I need to start making calls?”

  We went to see someone.

  Chapter 4

  Ten days later, I was aboard a fast shuttle bound for Mars. The apartment with the view was history, and all that remained of my worldly possessions were inside a small duffel bag, stuffed beneath my combo bed and acceleration couch.

  One advantage to dealing with the ne’er-do-wells at TGS was that they understood how the concept of blackmail worked. I knew a big secret of theirs, and while buying my silence was certainly expensive for them, it hadn’t been so high as to make doing away with me the more expedient alternative.

  The possibility had left me with some worrying worthy of Cozi, and once they gave me what I wanted, I wasted no time getting the hell off of Luna. That done, they’d sleep better, and so would I.

  What was my plan? Hard to say, exactly. What I wanted was adventure, or at least the freedom to get off of Luna and try to find some. I was leaving Luna with that freedom, and a few extras. Egon hadn’t been known for his imagination, and his choice of payoff had reflected this; a nice office, some bucks, and a few other perks. In buying my silence, I was allowed to keep my job and office, although the latter would sit empty most of the time. I’d stay in touch with my sta
ff, so they knew I was keeping an eye on them, but largely, they would be on their own. My credit chip was a couple hundred thousand credits heavier, and as far as anyone at TGS was concerned, I was on an indefinite field assignment. I also had a code in my Pod authorizing me to hitch a ride (if space was available) on any TGS ship, wherever it was headed.

  Tentatively, I was headed for Io. Cozi was there, and I needed him for my plan, such as it was. The only chance I stood to convince him would be to do so face-to-face, so I had little choice but to haul my ass all the way out to Jupiter. It was on the way, anyhow. From Jupiter (or more accurately, Io), the plan was to head out to Saturn, which would be one helluva ride. If you went from the Sun to Saturn, Jupiter would be at about the halfway point.

  I had no intention of wandering around as a space tramp, though it would have been easy enough to do. Aside from idle curiosity, I wasn’t all that interested in either missing cargoes or ships, even though that was the official story behind my field assignment. If my plan worked, I’d very likely end up knowing a lot more on the subject than I cared to, anyway.

  My plans were best described as fluid, at least for the moment. I’d know more once I reached Io, and that was going to take a while. The shuttle was not a luxury liner, but it was fast, and was perfect for moving small amounts of cargo and people for the short distances of the inner planets. Once I reached Mars, I’d be switching to a deep space liner; not as fast as a shuttle, but a lot more comfortable.

  Still, speed is a relative thing. One person’s fast is another’s strolling along. The first space explorers traveled from the Earth to Luna. It takes a lot of energy to claw your way out of the gravity well of Earth, something around eighteen thousand miles per hour. This might sound fast, but when you consider the distances between things in space, it’s practically crawling along. Nevertheless, scientists at the time thought it was pretty impressive, and once they were far enough away from the Earth and aimed in the right direction, they’d shut off the engines and coast the rest of the way to the moon. Once near, they’d do a rudimentary deceleration burn, and call it done.