We Are Legion (We Are Bob)

Book 4: Chapter 22: Living in Interesting Times

Book 4: Chapter 22: Living in Interesting Times

Bob

July 2334

Galen Town

Garfield glanced down at his chest, then snarled and grabbed the gun from his attacker. I didn’t have time to be surprised—my passengers might have knives. I did an explosive push-up, and two Quinlans went flying. I heard noises that indicated Bridget might be doing the same, so I concentrated on my own problems.

One of Bridget’s attackers landed sort of on me as I was getting to my feet. I grabbed him by a handful of fur and applied a head slap. It seemed to be effective as a combat technique, overall. I just hoped I wasn’t giving them concussions or something.

Bridget and Garfield had taken care of the other Quinlans, Garfield having used the gun as a club. That seemed overly dangerous, but I had enough sense to realize that lecturing him on it at this point probably wouldn’t go over well.

We turned as one to check on Skeve, to find him nowhere in sight. Some blood drops indicated which way he’d gone, and some of them had been stepped on, so he had company. But were they rescuing him or kidnapping him?

Garfield peered back up the alley to the location of our first battle. “The first group is still there,” he said. “Looking kind of out of it. So this was a different group, and only interested in Skeve. This feels like a rescue.”

Bridget and I checked ourselves for stab wounds, then Bridget examined Garfield’s chest closely. “No bullet wound. Was he shooting blanks?”

“No, there was definitely an impact,” Garfield replied. “But nothing like a bullet. Uh, at least not like I’d imagine a bullet to feel like. I’ve got internal nanites checking it out right now.”

“What the hell are you people up to?” Bill asked over comms.

“Lots and lots of shenanigans,” Bridget replied. “Not all of our own making.” She motioned to the blood drops on the ground. “Let’s follow them. Maybe we’ll learn something.”

“I’ll follow,” I said. “You guys go around to the street. I think they’ll try to get out of the alley as quickly as possible. They need to get Skeve to a doctor, assuming they’re rescuers and not kidnappers.”

Skeve was still bleeding, as the occasional blood splatter plainly showed. It made tracking easier, at least until the blood trail ended at a closed door.

“What the hell?” I frowned at the door. There was nothing special about it, and the pattern of blood drops didn’t seem to indicate any kind of struggle. I tried the door. It was locked, and felt solid.

“Guys, see if you can find the front of the building to the west of my current location,” I said. “Skeve and his companions went in there. I think voluntarily, since the blood trail is clean.”

“Got it,” Garfield replied.

It took about two minutes, with me standing in the alley looking suspicious as hell. I tried leaning casually against the far wall, but that just made me think of West Side Story. And probably looked even more suspicious, if anyone was watching. At this point, if the Administrator had eyes on this whole fiasco, we were definitely blown. I wondered if some version of drones would come swooping in to grab us.

“We’re here,” Bridget said. “It’s a hotel. No way to pin anyone down. They could have just gone straight through and out the front door.”

“Shit.” This outcome deserved an expletive. We’d lost our first legitimate lead, and attracted attention to ourselves at the same time. No question the second group of thugs would remember SuperGar when they recovered their wits. Probably the third group as well. Taking a bullet and just getting angry would look very Terminator-like. Time to bug out?

“Let’s meet at the third pub,” I said. “The Olde Gaiter. Bill, you good?”

“Yeah, no prob. I’ll be there before you guys. Go the long way around. This snarl-up is still a mess.”

Garfield took a long pull on his beer. I leaned forward and watched for any streams of liquid pouring out of his chest. He caught the direction of my gaze and snorted, almost losing a mouthful. ???????

We’d brought Bill up to date on our adventures. Now I hoisted my own glass as Bill described the traffic jam. It really did sound like someone had just started a fight and it had gotten out of control, exactly like what had happened to me. Definitely anger-management issues. It would make for an interesting civilization.

The beer was kind of growing on me, unlike the fish soup. I wondered if I should record a batch for Howard. Maybe he could adapt it for humans. Or worst case, we’d just keep it in the Bobiverse.

Garfield put his stein down and held out his hand to show a small item. “Fléchette. It seems to have the consistency of dried gummy-bear. I dipped it in some water and it dissolved a bit. I bet it’s some kind of drug.”

“Hmmph. Unfortunately, our nanites can’t do chem analysis.” Bridget poked the item with a finger. “But I imagine you’re right. Probably a tranquilizer. If they wanted to kill someone, a bullet would be easier. Or a knife.”

“Where’s the gun?” Bill asked.

Gar made a small head motion. “In my pack. I took a quick look at it. It has a magazine in the handle that feeds fléchettes—this one was mostly empty—and an air cylinder for propulsion. It even looks like it could be pumped up to recharge. It’s good tech.”

“So was that group, uh, Administration, do you think?”

Bill shook his head. “My money’s on the Resistance. The tranquilizer gun strikes me as something the Administration would be more likely to have.”

“Well, they did have one.”

“I mean they’d all have them. And the guns would be full. This feels more like one stolen gun.” He paused and frowned. “Bob, Skeve asked you if you were from the Resistance. Did he sound scared?”

“About us being Resistance? Not really, no.”

Bill nodded. “So he was probably with the Resistance in the first place, and had been trying to get back in touch with them after his scattering. I think the third group was Resistance and was there to rescue Skeve—and we got in the way. Whether they thought we were with the locals who were trying to kill him or maybe that we were Administration, they stepped in, jumped us, and rescued him.”

“But if we were Administration, wouldn’t we have guns?”

“Hmm. True. So I’m going with ‘thought we were locals.’”

“I still think that hotel wasn’t random,” Garfield said. “They aren’t going to leave a back door open. I bet they had a knock or something.”

“Do you want to stake it out?” I asked. “We could keep an eye on the place for a while. Maybe Skeve will show up again.”

“Then we go in and trash the place?” Bill asked with a grin.

Bridget rolled her eyes. “Okay, I know you’re not being serious, but it’s still worth a reminder that we can’t do anything superhuman.” She glared at Garfield. “Or at least nothing else superhuman. We want to find out about them, not the other way around.”

“Yeah,” I added. “The locals might not be able to take us on, but if the Administrator gets wind of us, well, they certainly have better tech and probably can throw superior numbers at us. One thing I do not want to do is get captured and disassembled.”

Garfield nodded. “So we can’t go in like a SWAT team. That also means we’ll have to avoid direct confrontations. Hmmph. You’d think being a bunch of spacefaring computers would have more of an upside.” He grinned at us and got some chuckles in reply.

“We don’t have any choice, though, do we?” Bridget said. “This is the first real lead we’ve gotten. Even if we’re still thrashing around, at least our area of focus is better defined. A lot.”

Garfield sighed. “Also a good point. Okay, I will try to figure out a way to keep an eye on the hotel—”

“Barney’s Place,” Bridget said.

“Seriously? Barney?”

She smiled. “Almost. The native name sounds very similar. I knew it would be the first thing that came to mind, especially considering the infantile Bob sense of humor.”

“And yet you went straight there,” I replied. “I think perhaps it’s catching.”

Bridget looked alarmed, and Garfield and Bill started chanting, “One of us. One of us.”

“Oh shut up.” Bridget was silent for a moment, thinking. “Anyway, if Gar is taking care of the hotel, I guess the rest of us should just go back to looking around. Can we get some kind of search pattern or something?”

“Excellent idea. I’ll see if I can get a close scan of the town and ask Hugh to grid it out for us.” Bill groomed his fur in thought. “Hmm, also, if Skeve was injured, he’d have to go to a doctor or hospital or something. Maybe we can figure out something along those lines.”

“I’ll look into that,” Bridget said. She gazed at me. “Which leaves you, oh fearless leader.”

“I’m going to sit here and drink,” I replied, raising my tankard.

“In your dreams, beaver-boy. Find us a new place to stay, a little closer to Barney’s, how about that? And tomorrow, maybe we can finally locate that library I keep talking about.”

I grinned back at her. Fearless leader, my furry ass.

There were several hotels in the area, this block being hotel row. I picked one at random, paid in advance for a week, and collected the key. I didn’t like the way the proprietor leered at my money pocket as I meted out the proper coinage. We’d have to make a point of leaving nothing of value in our room.

“Got us a room,” I messaged to the others, and attached directions and an image.

“Great,” Bill replied. “I’ve made arrangements with Hugh to get the town scanned. Unfortunately, moving the drone and doing a detailed scan will use up its remaining heat sink capacity, so he’ll have to fly it out and bring in a replacement. He’s grumbling about setting the project behind schedule. Like there’s an actual schedule. I think the Skippies are just OCD.”

“As opposed to the rest of you,” Bridget observed. No one chose to reply.

The others would be a half-hour or so getting “home,” so I took the time to look around our new digs. This room was somewhat bigger than our previous residences, having just about enough room to swing an actual cat with everyone present. Palatial. The ceiling, as with most buildings, was just open rafters. Of course, the climate was mild and Quinlans came with fur, so insulation was not a major consideration.

I eyed the rafters until I spotted a good location—not big enough to hide something valuable, therefore unlikely to be of interest to a burglar. I placed my hand in front of my face, palm down, and opened my mouth. A one-inch roamer marched out onto the back of my hand. If anyone was watching, that would probably give them nightmares for life.

I reached up and the roamer climbed from my hand onto the nearest beam, then made its way to the hiding place. The one-incher was about the smallest model that would have optics suitable for surveillance, otherwise I’d have gone with nanites.

If someone cased the joint while we were gone, I just wanted to know; I didn’t want to scare them half to death. Well, okay, maybe a little bit. Bad Bob.

I was considering popping back into virt while I waited for the others when I received a comm from Bridget.

“Bad news, guys. I tracked down Skeve.”

“This is bad?”

“Sorry, Bill. He left. Got to a doc and got patched up. He was gone by the time I got there.”

“Aw, for …” I sighed, but only in person, not over the intercom. “Okay, let’s meet at our favorite pub.”

I locked the door to our apartment after leaving instructions with the roamer. The Growling Guppy was less than five minutes away.

I got there first and grabbed a table. The barkeep glared at me as I parked my butt, probably remembering our parsimonious spending habits. I couldn’t afford to stand out like that, so I signaled him for four brewskies and four meals du jour. His demeanor changed significantly, and he gave me a thumb’s up. Which, strangely, meant exactly the same to Quinlans as it did to me. Some mannerisms, just by chance, correlated.

Within a couple of minutes, the others arrived. Garfield made a concerted effort to catch up with me on the beer, and Bridget got way ahead on the meal, which was a sort of pasta stuffed with fish. Because why not? I visualized myself being thoroughly sick of fish long before this was over.

I pushed mine toward her as she finished hers off. “Ya know,” she said between mouthfuls, “one of the big advantages of being a replicant or running a manny is never worrying about overeating.” She paused to savor a mouthful. “Although I used to love hot fudge sundaes. Then I ate a hundred in a row in virt, because I could. I think I’m over them.”

“I’d do the same with these fish recipes,” I replied, “except I think I’m already there.”

Eventually, we finished our meals and I signaled for another round of drinks.

“Careful, Bob, we don’t want to run out of money.” Bill gave me a glare. “We can’t just import more at will.”

“We’re good for a while. I’d like to avoid the short-term problem. Over the longer term, I hope we’ll have some kind of contact before we run out of cash. Failing that, we will have to fly some more in. Or get jobs.”

Bill grunted but didn’t reply. I turned to Bridget. “So, Skeve?”

“Multiple stab wounds, according to the doc. He wanted to know if we were related. I said yes, but not close. He didn’t appear that concerned.”

“Skeve probably didn’t have any relatives here. He was scattered twice, remember?” Garfield made a sort of exploding motion with his hands. “Based on context, it looks like some kind of involuntary relocation. Skeve may be nowhere near where he was born.”

“Huh.” I stared into space for a moment, thinking about that. “So if someone does something to attract the Administrator’s attention, they get scattered—relocated. Or even a whole town? But why?”

“I guess it depends on the motivations.”

“As in, what defines uppity?”

“Like that, yes.”

“Seems like an odd sort of punishment,” Bill said.

“If that’s what it is,” Bridget replied. “Maybe the point is just to isolate troublemakers.”

An uneasy silence settled over the table as we wrestled with the idea. A billion miles of river over which to randomly relocate someone. It made banishment to Australia look like a walk around the block.

I looked up as I received a ping from my roamer. “Uh, guys? Someone’s broken into our apartment.”

“What? How do you know this?”

I explained to Bill about the roamer and he made a gesture of helplessness. “Was that necessary? If we have to leave in a hurry, you won’t be able to get your roamer back.”

“Yeah, I know, I just—” I stopped as I acquired the roamer’s video stream. “Hmm, I expected the proprietor or maybe one of his children or something. Not four rather ugly-looking individuals with weapons. And they aren’t being subtle.”

“That doesn’t sound like a B&E,” Bridget said.

“No, it looks more like a home invasion,” I replied. “Except no one was home.”

Garfield swept an eye quickly around the pub. “Interestingly, there are at least two individuals paying more attention to us than seems reasonable. I think we’ve been made. My guess would be whatever group messed up Skeve.”

“And who we then messed up,” I replied. “And who maybe want to return the favor. I don’t see any other reason for them to care one way or another about us.”

“Unless it’s the second group. They are probably not fans either.”

“Hmm.” I nodded at Bridget’s comment and carefully didn’t look around the pub. “Shall we go? See what happens?”

“Remember, no superhuman shenanigans,” Bridget said.

We rose casually and headed for the door. I noticed out of the corner of my eye that several Quinlans picked that moment to leave also. Maybe coincidence, probably not. “Hey, Gar, are any of those people you noticed now suddenly leaving as well?”

“Yep. I predict interesting times ahead.”

“Do we recognize any of them from yesterday?”

Garfield was silent for a moment, then said, “Yes. I see one individual who was with the third group. Resistance?”

Wonderful. Which meant they might have more of those guns. And very probably had more bodies to throw at us. We exited the pub and turned to head back to our hotel room. I could hear feet behind us as multiple patrons also abandoned the Growling Guppy.

“Sounds like four sets of footsteps,” Bill said.

“I like those odds,” Bridget replied.

We turned a corner, and my spidey-sense went into overdrive. The block was deserted. I mean really deserted. In the middle of the day. As we continued on our path, the footsteps behind us came around the corner. And at that moment, another four Quinlans stepped out of doorways ahead of us.

“Wonderful. Classic encircling maneuver,” Bill said.

“And masterfully executed,” Garfield replied. “My compliments to the Resistance.”

“And two to one odds are still accept—aw, shit.” I was swearing a lot lately, but it seemed appropriate. The group surrounding us had just pulled knives. Big knives. Real metal, from the look of them. “I think we’re probably going to have to push the limits of what’s possible for a Quinlan to get out of this one. Try not to cast fireballs, but almost anything else is fair game.”

The thugs took their time forming a circle. They grinned at us and waved their knives in a menacing manner. I wasn’t sure if they were just trying for psychological advantage, or wanted us to beg for our lives. Either way, they were going to be disappointed.

They attacked simultaneously, jumping toward us more or less as a unit. I was impressed despite myself. They either drilled together regularly, or they’d practiced this particular maneuver. Unfortunately, they weren’t dealing with real Quinlans.

I slid to the outside of the nearest knife thrust, grabbed the arm, and rotated my body. My target spun around me and smacked headlong into the Quinlan beside him—but without his knife, which I’d appropriated during the maneuver. As the second attacker staggered under the impact, I smacked him on the side of the head. Punching didn’t look like it would be a good idea with the Quinlans—more likely to break their haora without knocking them out. And I didn’t want to do that kind of possibly permanent damage.

Number two went down as number one caught his balance and turned to me. A second smack and he was down.

I spun around to see how my teammates were doing. Bill and Gar had used similar tactics, since we’d all taken the same self-defense courses. Bridget, however, didn’t have any particular martial arts training, at least based on her fighting style, which depended mostly on enthusiasm. She finished off her two attackers, then turned to glare at us.

“What was that?” Garfield said. “Cage-match-fu?”

“They’re down, aren’t they?” she replied, concentrating her glare on him.

Garfield reached down and gathered the last two knives. “I think we may have a solution to our money problem. Bet these are worth mucho bucks. But not here. Pretty sure our welcome has just worn out in Galen. They’re after us, they don’t appear to be interested in talking, and I bet they’ll just keep throwing more and more bodies at us.”

“Great,” I said. I sent a silent command to my roamer to zero in on me. “Time for a swim, I guess.”

I opened my mouth and the roamer crawled in. Garfield groaned and cringed, and I laughed. “Yep. Ate a bug.”

“I bet you had that in mind when you designed these things,” Bridget said with a head shake. “Children.”

“Still not mature, even after 300 years,” I said, grinning in reply.

“Okay, fun’s fun. Time to go.” Bill reinforced the statement by diving into the water without waiting. This was a little more work than normal because we weren’t leaving from the dock. It had occurred to us that it would be an easy location to establish surveillance, if there were more than the eight thugs. With that in mind, we’d circled around to the west side of town, and then simply walked away until we found an isolated beach.

We dove in after Bill, skillfully avoiding the shallow bottom, and torpedoed out to mid-river, where the current was swiftest. It took only a moment to link up into a Quinlan raft.

“Well, that was eventful,” Bridget said. “We do seem to make a splash in every town.”

“We’z rock stars, we is,” Garfield muttered.

“And we still haven’t hit that library,” Bridget reminded us.

“Okay, next town, we do that first thing. We should also think about trying to find the Resistance. Maybe not to talk, maybe to spy on. If Skeve was able to get in touch with them despite being in a new town, they must be either easy to locate or have lots of ears.”

“Yeah, talking isn’t proving to be a high-probability strategy, honestly,” Bill replied. “We’ll try spying first.”

“Sounds good,” Bridget said. “Funny, despite my initial skepticism about Hugh’s statistics, it looks like he was right. Two towns in, we’ve contacted a group that might either know something or can point us at someone.”

Garfield snickered. “Yeah, ‘contacted.’ Say, which one of us has a hole in his sternum?”

Bill grinned at him. “Way to take one for the team.”

We settled into a companionable silence as the sun warmed our top halves. Insects buzzed around us and Bridget swatted at one. “Must be a heat-seeker. Interesting. I’m impressed at how robust the artificial ecosystem is.”

I looked around. “The Arcadia River’s pretty wide here, and the current is slow. Let’s hand off to the AMIs. They can alert us if anything requires our attention.”

The others made agreeing sounds, and we popped back into virt.