Gun Runner

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  GUN RUNNER

  by

  B. V. Larson

  Illustration © Tom Edwards TomEdwardsDesign.com

  Copyright © 2020 by Iron Tower Press, Inc.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the author.

  Chapter One

  I was thawed out at last at about 4 pm on a Thursday afternoon. The only reason I knew the time was because it was printed in red digits on my eyelids—a cybernetic “improvement” that had seemed like a good idea at the time it had been installed.

  As consciousness fully asserted itself, my first emotion was that of abject terror. After long years in cryo-stasis, my master had finally put in the call. Uncontrollably, I grit my teeth, bracing for the sting of the syringe—or maybe the scalpel itself, if the payment had been thin.

  Androids worked silently around me. None of them bothered to brief me on the details of my situation, but that didn’t surprise me. I wasn’t technically a citizen, and the androids weren’t the bright kind.

  Naturally, I wanted to fight my captors, but I was helpless. My wrists were clamped to a T-shaped plank of fiber. My ankles were similarly secured. Nude, dripping and shivering a little, I could only wonder what my fate might be.

  I was, of course, a clone. A living repository of replacement parts without legal rights. My master, the original Captain William Gorman, must have had a mishap. It was for this very reason he’d grown me, stamped his engrams into my brain and had me placed in cold storage.

  After a few minutes of tinkering and rattling, the androids working on me retreated. I dared to open an eye.

  The chamber was wreathed in icy mist. The floor was choked with frost. Only the warming field the androids had encircled me with kept me from freezing up again.

  Craning my neck, I took a look around. I’d already survived longer than I’d expected to without pain or injury—could they have amputated a leg or something before I even woke up? Looking down to take stock of things, I found myself almost hoping this was the case. A surgery that was in the past was infinitely better than one to dread in near the future.

  But I couldn’t see any damage. No scars on my belly, indicating organ removal. Nothing else was missing, either, not even a finger or a toe.

  “Huh…” I said aloud.

  An android clopped by then, but it didn’t even look at me. I didn’t bother to address it, either. These were model-D beings—robots, essentially. They looked semi-human, like all androids, but they lacked interactivity software. They did what their central computers told them to do, and they did it remorselessly. Pestering a model-D would only get me sedated at best.

  Once the model-D had thumped away into the white mists of the freeze-chamber, I widened my interests. There were other frozen clones down here—a lot of them. I counted at least a dozen to my right, and perhaps a hundred more standing on racks to my left. They were various men and women, plus a few aliens. All were enclosed in blocks of ice with meters and probes monitoring their status.

  Why the hell had they awakened me?

  There were no answers, so I tried to relax, pumping my fists and feet to improve circulation. Now and then, this activity caused a toe-tip or a fingernail to escape the bubble of warmth the androids had encircled me with, and I received a painful reminder of the extreme cold that filled the chamber. It had to be one hundred below in here, and the air felt like fire when it touched your skin.

  At last, after what seemed like an interminable wait, two more model-D dummies walked up and lifted my plank off the rack and carried me away. I squeezed my eyes shut as they did this.

  They forgot or possibly didn’t care about the heat bubble that had kept me comfortable. Instantly, the burning sensation of extreme cold swept over me.

  I almost sucked in a breath. I almost roared in pain—but managed to quell the instinct. I was a spacer, and such men have been trained for years to deal with vacuum and other extremes. Engaging my training, I held my breath and squinched my eyes tighter still.

  Pain. A sweeping coat of frost ran over me that was beyond the range of my nerves to properly communicate to my brain. The model-D bots marched, and I rode on my plank between them for perhaps fifteen agonizing seconds.

  Then, suddenly, I heard the swish of an airlock. Shivering from exposure, I felt a gush of warmer air—it was still cold, mind you. Artic cold. But it was survivable.

  I dared to open one eye. The moisture on my cornea didn’t freeze immediately, so I opened the other.

  “Where the hell are you bots taking me?” I finally rasped out.

  Neither responded, and I didn’t dare speak again.

  Carried like a hunter’s trophy-kill between them, I was taken down a corridor which turned, then went down another, longer corridor.

  At last, we passed through an air-lock into a blissfully warm chamber. A bored looking clerk named Vera sat behind a desk. Her name was emblazoned on her forehead in green—a nice “improvement” for any worker.

  Vera was human, or near-human. I deduced this from the fact she was middle-aged in appearance, a rare thing among androids and clones.

  “Name?” she asked me.

  “Captain Bill Gorman,” I said automatically, even though it wasn’t true. I wasn’t the real Bill Gorman. I was his insurance policy.

  “Stand him up,” Vera said, and the model-D machines obeyed.

  They released my manacles, and I staggered, almost unable to stand. My feet were tender, and the floor was burning hot to me.

  “Clone resident 102-E…” she read aloud in the same bored tone. “Your benefactor has not paid your storage fee for three months. You have therefore been repossessed.”

  “Uh…” I said, stunned. “Where does that leave me? I haven’t got any money.”

  “It leaves you with nowhere to stay. You can’t stay here—it takes power and space to keep a man frozen. You don’t expect us to do it for free, do you?”

  I shook my head. “No ma’am,” I said.

  She looked me up and down, then shook her head. “We’ll never get our money back out of this case. I’ve seen this sort of thing before. Poor quality goods… abandonment...”

  “Poor quality?” I asked, feeling insulted. I was fit and around thirty years old. I quickly changed my tone, however. I was naked, dripping, and my feet were on fire—getting angry wasn’t going to get me out of this. “Look, Vera… I’m very sorry, but I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “But you have the same mind as the man who did. Any clues as to where he might be found? To where we might forward your long-overdue bill?”

  “Hmm…” I said, thinking of a dozen spots. I shook my head. “It’s been years… He has a ship, and he was working the frontier, that much I’m sure of. Out past the rim of the cluster in deep space.”

  “Useless…” Vera muttered, making a note. Her face was full o
f disgust. “We already tried to sell you on the open market, but no one would pay our basic fee.”

  “Sell me cheap, then,” I suggested. “A random sex-house or—”

  She shook her head determinedly. “Our policy is to avoid lowering our prices. It only encourages deadbeat buy-backs and low-ball offers in the future.”

  “So… what now?”

  Vera sighed. “There’s nothing else for it.” She looked at the two model-D bots. “Disposal protocol. Load script—engage.”

  The two androids grabbed me, and there was nothing gentle about their artificial hands. One hand grabbed each of my arms at the elbow, and the other two reached for my throat.

  Chapter Two

  As one of the model-Ds pushed a mindless plastic finger into my carotid, a wave of fatigue came over me. I fought back the urge to black out or vomit. I couldn’t pass out now. I had to stay alive. I had to get out of here and find out what had happened to me—the other me.

  My original self, the non-clone guy, he might be alive or he might be dead. Either way, I wanted to know the truth. I only knew what he had known when he’d first made me—hopefully it would be enough.

  “Wait!” I called out, struggling and straining to speak. There were plastic fingers in my mouth now, trying to rip my left cheek off. “I can get your money back for you!”

  Vera looked away, shaking her head. She didn’t believe me, I could tell. I fired out a foot, kicking her desk. A lamp went over, crashing.

  “That was an antique, you deadbeat bastard!” she said, standing and reaching for the broken pieces.

  I slid my face away from one of the grippers. Despite my struggles, one of the androids caught my earlobe and tore it—making a bloody mess. The rubbery hand was full of ripped out hair and wet with gore. I’m a fairly strong man however, and I’ve had plenty of experience with being abused.

  “Seriously lady, I can get your money back today—triple!”

  Sighing as if she knew she would regret it later, the desk-monkey clerk spoke again in bored tones. “Pause program.”

  The two mechanical monsters that held me froze. It was like they’d been coated in ice themselves. They didn’t release me, however, or give me any other kind of break. They just stopped their clumsy attempts to end my life.

  Controlling my breathing, I managed to make eye-contact with Vera. “Thank you.”

  “It’s way too early for any thanks. Explain your offer, Gorman.”

  “It’s like this, ma’am: I happen to know where the real Captain Gorman might be—the original, I mean. I’ll go find him and get the money—”

  Snorting and rolling her eyes, she made a flippant gesture. “Engage program.”

  “Wait, wait!” I shouted, dodging the groping robots. “I can do better. I used to captain a ship. I used to have access to all kinds of funds. I know where Gorman keeps his emergency stash.”

  Vera narrowed her eyes and let the robots grope me for a few seconds longer. “Halt program,” she said at last. “What stash?”

  My tongue snaked out to taste blood. “Do you know anything about Bill Gorman?”

  She shrugged. “He’s trash from the frontier. A loser who flies one of those smuggling boats around on the fringe.”

  “Yeah, yeah, that’s right. He’s made some big scores out there. Smuggling, gun-running.”

  “So what?”

  “Well ma’am, I happen to know where he keeps the cash from his best missions.”

  She snorted. “Your knowledge is years old. How do I know you can get anything out of some cubby that was probably plundered long ago?”

  “It’s better than nothing. Right now, that’s all you’ve got.”

  We locked eyes for a few moments. At last, she sighed. “I know I’m going to regret this, but I’ll bite. Where is this stash?”

  “We’re in the main city on Prospero, right? The best city on the best planet in the middle of the Conclave zone?”

  “Of course.”

  “It’s not far from here. I can lead you right to it on foot.”

  Vera narrowed her eyes and considered. While she dithered, I slowly talked up the stash until it was a dragon’s horde and then some. I knew she wasn’t thinking about giving the money to the storage company. She was thinking of skimming it for herself. Greed can unlock even the coldest of hearts.

  “All right,” she said at last, “all right. Let’s take a little walk.”

  She closed up shop, threw a paper-thin coverall at me and ordered her bots to march me outside. I led the group to one of the best districts in town.

  Overall, Prospero was a pretty nice planet. All the Conclave worlds were as dull as concrete and overrun with bossy androids, but they were comfortable places to live.

  Before we’d walked a block, holograms appeared and danced with us all over the sidewalk. They were selling something or other. We ignored them like everyone else did.

  After walking the streets for a bit, I got my bearings. I took the trio up to the seventh floor of an apartment building and tested the third door on the right. The door was locked, and the apartment didn’t know me. All it did was beep and click every time I tried to open it.

  “Damn, it’s stuck.”

  The woman sighed. “You’re an idiot. You don’t live here anymore. The only person on this planet who’s dumber than you is me for believing you.”

  “I used to keep an override down here,” I said, grunting and lifting the doormat. Sure enough, the hidden cubby I’d put down there under a fiber plank was still in place. An illusionary field had kept it hidden for years.

  After fishing in a shallow groove, I straightened and turned away from the door. I had a pistol in my hand.

  Vera sucked in a breath. She was surprised—privately-owned weapons were almost unknown on Conclave worlds. Still, she was a tough old bat. She bared her teeth and no doubt planned on ordering her androids to tear me apart.

  I shook my head. “Stay quiet—or you die first.”

  Her snarl froze. Maybe she didn’t have a clone stashed for herself. Or maybe she didn’t relish the prospects of dying on the floor in this glitzy corridor.

  “You’re not getting away with this, Gorman,” she told me quietly. “This is Prospero. You don’t pull a gun on people here.”

  “No, you just tear out their throats for being late on the rent.”

  “You’re not a person. You’re property.”

  I waved the pistol at her, and she quieted. “Listen, I don’t have time to argue. I’m leaving, and you’re not following me. For what it’s worth, I do plan on repaying you when I can. After all, I’d be dead if you hadn’t agreed to cut me a break.”

  Considering my words, she allowed me to walk away. I could tell she wasn’t happy about the situation, but she wasn’t enraged to the point of irrationality, either.

  Riding the elevator downward, I reached the main floor just as the first patrol unit arrived. Apparently, Vera hadn’t been completely satisfied with my reassurances.

  The robot guardian was a big model-K type. Ks were smarter than the model-D workers, but still dumb and unimaginative. They could talk and reason—after a fashion.

  “Halt, human! You’re under arrest.”

  That was as far as the guardian got before I shot him in the chest. He staggered back, but he didn’t go down. He had a rugged chassis.

  “A violation has been recorded. Stage Two status reached. Defensive protocols engaged.”

  The robot reached for its pistol. I shot his arm off—it was a good bit of marksmanship, if I had to say so myself.

  The guardian was undeterred. He approached, reaching out with one gripper and one ruined, smoking stump of plastic.

  Glancing upward, I shot the chandelier on the ceiling. It took three charges to melt the chain enough to drop it.

  The guardian never saw it coming—like I said, they weren’t imaginative. He seemed comically surprised when the metal and glass mess smashed him down onto the carpet.

&nbs
p; His one good hand came out of the pile, and it pointed a plastic finger at me. “Two more violations have been recorded: Property damage. Injuring an officer in pursuit of legitimate duties. This last charge is a felony.”

  “Thanks for the update,” I told him, and I walked quickly to the elevator lobby where a door was opening.

  The elevator disgorged a few residents. They screamed and ran when they saw my gun and the smoking, complaining wreck of the guardian on the floor. I trotted after the slowest of them and grabbed a young woman as she tried to escape.

  Big eyes studied me. The girl was twenty-something and cute. Her hair was long, straight and reddish-brown. Her face registered shock. On Conclave worlds, crime was very rare. It was probably the first time she’d seen someone shoot an android down—just witnessing such things was illegal, even on the entertainment networks.

  “You’re touching me,” she said. “You can’t do that.”

  “The rules are different today.”

  “This is a crime.”

  I nodded patiently. I could tell she was as innocent as Vera had been crusty. The youth of the upper class tended to be clueless on the safest worlds. “Yes. I’m a criminal, and this is a gun. I’m going to use it to make you follow my instructions.”

  She licked her lips and panted slightly. A tremor of fear ran through her. She didn’t know what to do or say.

  “Listen,” I told her, “what’s your name?”

  “Rose… but my friends call me Rosy.”

  “Right, okay Rose. Listen, all I want you to do is touch the elevator panel. I need you to have it send me to the roof.”

  Rose blinked, but she did as I asked. I let her go when I stepped into the elevator. Oddly, she didn’t run. She just stood there, staring at me with a stunned expression as the doors slid shut. Damn, some people were really sheltered here on Prospero.

  The elevator shot upward. I knew more guardians would be swarming the place soon. They weren’t going to give up now after I’d smashed one of them. In fact, the more damage you did on a Conclave world, the more excited the local authorities became. They were like a beehive that way.