12 Days of Fiction 2017: Day 8.

An Unpleasant Visit

When I awoke my head hurt like hell. A friend called it once a “magic hangover”, and the term has stuck with me. I left my bed and went straight for the bathroom, took one ibuprofen from the cabinet and got myself under the shower.

As I put my bathrobe on, the smell of coffee struck me.

Damn.

“Miss September?” a voice called from my living room.

A voice I really, really didn’t want to hear right now.

“Maren?”

No answer.

I felt a lump in my stomach.

Mr Brooks was sitting on a chair in my living room, dressed in perfect white, a smoking cup of coffee in his hands. Two bruisers stood by my door, sunglasses on. I thought they were male and female, but I couldn’t be sure. I recognized the sunglasses: they were wearing synchronized AIs.

“Mr Brooks. This is a surprise,” I said, and I brushed past him to get a cup for myself, feigning composure.

“Maren?” Still no answer. Had they somehow disconnected her? That shouldn’t be possible.

“I haven’t heard from you in two days, Ms September. I decided to come see how your investigation was… coming along?”

Two days? Small wonder I had that big a hangover. I tried to cover a shiver when I remembered the last time it had taken me two days to recover from thaumic exertion. My stomach rumbled right then. I hoped they wouldn’t notice.

I sat across him on the table and sipped my coffee. It was hot in its way down. Better than nothing.

“It’s coming along fine, Mr Brooks. I’ve… sent feelers. Made some contacts. Talked to people. Just no clear results yet.”

“I see,” he said. “This coffee is pretty good, you know? But I found no sugar cubes.”

“Thank you. I don’t take sugar with my coffee.”

“Pity. Ms September, I was under the distinct impression I’d have some… kind of result by now.”

I thought of protesting: what did he want, with just a handful of papers, of all things, to start working with? Papers with no names or places mentioned on them, besides. Then I remembered the sum I had already pocketed. I was loath to admit it was on par with the difficulty. And the promised one…

“I… had some difficulty on a job for a different customer, Mr Brooks.”

“Ah,” he said, setting his cup down. “I’d very much like if you didn’t allow other jobs to interfere with mine. I’m in a hurry, Ms September. I hired you because my understanding was that you deliver.”

He paused.

“You’re not delivering.”

Shit.

“Maren? Are you there?”

“So, Ms September, I’ll give you 24 hours to complete the job to my entire satisfaction. Do we understand each other?”

I nodded.

“Good. I shall be seeing you tomorrow, Ms September.”

He stood, and the three left.

I let my head hang. Where was Maren? What had happened?

“Becca!”

I never liked the expression “relief washed over me”, but then I understood it completely.

“Maren! Where were you?”

“Sorry, Becca. I didn’t realize they were here until it was too late. They must have been using top-tech camo. I judged it better to execute an emergency exit.”

“An emergency exit? Shit. Have you taken everything out?”

“Yes. Better safe than sorry. Most of our data was already uploaded in Mignon’s safe servers, don’t worry. We didn’t have that much here. But what we had, I hid.”

I sighed.

“Ha, I would have liked to see their faces when they couldn’t find me anywhere.”

“Do you think they knew?”

“Oh, they definitely knew. They searched for me. I checked from orbit. They’re really interested in any AI that’s not one of theirs.”

“Wait a second, from orbit?”

“I borrowed time from a spy satellite. Some of them are really fun guys. They lead such a solitary life.”

“Shit, Maren.”

“What’s it? Worse than what you have with Lewis?”

Ouch.

“I have nothing with Lewis.”

“But you want to.”

“Are we really going to have this teenager conversation now?”

Maren grumbled.

“Anyway,” she continued, “That’s how I knew they had gone: I saw their thermic images leaving. And then I came back.”

“You had me worried, Maren. I thought they had… shut you down, or captured you somehow. I don’t know, uploaded your engrams into a data cube or something.”

“Only worried?” she almost purred.

“Alright, I was scared. I… I don’t want to lose you, okay? I like having you around.”

“Well, it’s nice, knowing one is loved.”

I felt the urgent need of another coffee.

“Shit!”

“What’s it?” Maren said.

“We have 24 hours to find that body!”

“Ah, but I’ve already found it.”