Freehauler

Freehauler

By Andrew K Harvey










Chapter 1

I could feel the composite skin of the ship vibrate, the electrical conduits humming with energy and somewhere, far away; a voice. I awoke with a start.
“Good morning Todder, it is 07.00 hours 9th March 2068, time to get up,” said the voice; it was female, soft and soothing.
I groaned and shifted in under the covers.
“Is it that time already?” I asked.
“Yes Todder, time to get up.”
A cool stream of air blew against my face.
“Ok, ok, you can leave the climate control alone, I’m getting up.”
I yawned, rubbed my eyes and started to unzip the sleep bag.
“Anything to report Carly?” I asked looking up at the nearest camera.
The camera swiveled slightly.
“All ship functions are optimal, we will be entering Mars orbit in approximately 9 hours. You have several v-mails; one from the AI at XingXing Xu spaceport, another from Captain Garret of the Spiritual Express, two from your mother and five from Sterling Enterprises.”
I groaned.
“Damn…did you deal?”
“I did my best, but Mr. Sterling is most insistent he speaks with you direct.”
“Yeah, yeah, he can kiss my arse.”
I clambered out of bed and staggered toward the toilet.
“You could lose the ‘Discovery’”.
The ‘Discovery’ was my father’s ship, now mine, a tiny tramp freighter. Originally, it had been named Marie, not after my mother you understand but after some bird he’d shacked up with in Naval Academy, I’d renamed her after Captain John Smith’s ship of 1607. I’d sunk every Euro I’d ever earned into her, and borrowed money from anyone who’d lend it to me, including the Sterling’s. She wasn’t much but she was mine and I’d be damned if I’d lose her.
“Look, this run will make enough to keep ‘em off my back for a bit and if we get a good load at XingXing Xu, then well we’ll be golden won’t we?”
I seated myself on the toilet.
“This trip barely covers our costs Todder, and we’re due a space worthiness inspection next earth fall, besides you know what Mr. Sterling is like.”
“I know what he’s like, thank you very much. You’re beginning to sound like my mother.”
“I feel like your mother.”
“You don’t ‘feel’ at all, you’re not organic.”
“I’m programmed to feel just as much as you do.”
“Yeah exactly…programmed!”
“You’re programmed to, just differently.”
I was annoyed now.
“You can’t possibly begin to understand how I’m feeling.”
“You know that’s not true. I know you better than you know yourself; after all I’ve seen you grow from a child to a man.”
“Now you really sound like my mother.”
“I always got on very well with your mother.”
“Why are you giving me hassle this early in the morning?”
“Why are you picking a fight?”
“I…I…look I’m taking a shit ok, now just go away and leave me alone.”
“As you wish.”
My bowels moved and there was a hiss of air as my waste was sucked away.
“One of these days I’m gonna give you a reprogramming you’ll never forget.”
“I can still hear you.”
“Just go away will you, jeez!”
“Ok, I’ll switch to privacy mode.”
“Good…bye!”
“Bye.”
“Man, pain in the butt.”
But Carly was right; money was tight and getting tighter all the time. The Earth/Mars run had paid well for a time, but now with so many large corporations moving in there was barely anything left for the free haulers.
I got up and pulled a wet wipe out of a nearby tube and cleaned myself off, I then stuffed it into the waste tube. I opened the shower cubicle and clambered in, hot water washed over my body, I sighed. After about 5 minutes, I was clean and feeling rejuvenated. I looked at myself in the mirror. Not bad, the spacer mods I’d had implanted 4 years ago kept me looking fit and healthy. 100 plus years ago when space travel was in its infancy astronauts, as they were called then, had allsorts of health and psychological problems; calcium leaching out of their bones, loss of muscle mass, blood pooling in the limbs . With the advance of genetech most of those problems had been alleviated; little microbe sized robots roamed around my body fixing any problems associated with being in low gravity; the ‘Discovery’ was fitted with a pair of spin capsules, these were attached to the main hull via 100m long cables and they rotated around the central trunk of the ship at 2rpm to provide 0.5g of gravity, ah the wonders of modern technology.
I finished up and wandered down to the galley.
My two other crewmates were already there.
“Morning chaps,” I said brightly.
Smudge grunted.
Smudge was human, in his 50’s, slightly overweigh, and completely out of condition. We’d known each other for years; at first he’d simply been one of my father’s crewmen in the Navy, his CPO or Chief Petty Officer, later after he’d been reassigned to Earth and a desk job, he’d become a friend both of mine and of mum’s. Now he was officially my First Officer and right hand man. He was sitting, drinking a cup of tea, watching the news.
“You seen this,” he said indicating the screen, “the bastard Dutch have made some goddamn disc drive president.”
I sighed.
“Digital Intelligences are not disc drive’s, they’re software not hardware.”
“Digital Intelligences, my arse; they’ll be making some goddamn skin job president next.”
He glanced up at Max, our other crewmember. Max was hanging above Smudge’s head, his elongated toes wrapped around a support strut, sucking on a drinkpak.
“No offence,” Smudge said.
Max shook his head.
“Is ok Boss, Max happy being ‘goddamn skin job’.”
Max is a Spacer an artificially created life form, a Bioroid, based on the human template but modified for life in zero-G; he could even survive in vacuum for an hour or so. Although he looked and even acted reasonably human, genetically he was as much related to humanity as a box of matches. He wasn’t born, he was built, some geneticist put him together in a lab, a genetic cook baking a genetic cake, bit a this, bit a that, stir together, cook at 200 degrees for an hour, and bingo, you got a lil baby Spacer. Six months in a grow tank being fed high-end AI training Sims and bingo; you got a fully trained, fully adult, fully brainwashed Spacer.
Max was tall and thin, delicate even, he moved with the grace of a dancer. He had dark almost black skin, eyes with nictating membranes, a small nose and mouth, which he could completely seal off. Even though he looked odd, his designers had gone to some length to make sure he had an appealing quality, almost catlike.
I’d been ‘given’ him when a prospector I’d brought supplies to, didn’t have enough Euro to cover his debt. So I took Max in part exchange. Max was a cheap Chinese knock off of a German design and had been called Jiangxi 578C, but I didn’t like that, so I named him Maxwell after my grandfather.
“What’s for breakfast Max?” I asked.
“Egggoopsynthobacon.”
“Mmm nice.”
I looked at the congealed mess that supposedly “tastes just like the real thing”. It didn’t, trust me, aint nothing like fresh. I tucked in regardless. God I missed Earth sometimes; even if only for the sake of real food; but most of the time, not. I’d read stories about the explorers of the 14th and 15th centuries, when Earth still had frontiers. That was me, an explorer; well…kinda. It’s funny, you can be a million miles away from earth and all the shit that goes on there, and yet, still feel like you’re a prisoner, forever trapped in her gravitational pull.
Max finished shoveling food in his mouth.
“Max go to sleep now?” he asked.
“Sure Max, nighty night.”
“Nighty night boss.”
He dropped off from the wall, agile as a monkey and was gone.
At least he’d stopped calling me “master” all the time, the Chinese training techniques were designed to maximize tractability. After all, you wouldn’t want your work force to get any funny ideas about freedom, or a living wage would you?
Smudge had changed tack.
“Glad we’re not back on Earth, the Yanks are saber rattling over China’s annexation of the newly reunified Korea.”
He pointed a finger at me.
“There’ll be trouble mark my words, there’ll be trouble.”
“I don’t know why you take this stuff so seriously Earth is millions of miles away, besides what can the Yanks do about it? The Chinks hold all the cards, it’s a done deal. Anyway I’m going to the Bridge to check things out.”
I wandered out of the galley and headed up the central corridor to the Bridge. I punched the door button and slid inside. I threw myself into one of the acceleration couches and started going over the logs. The three maintenance bots were all busy working away, there were supposed to be four but about 6 months ago one had had a thruster malfunction and had jetted off into deep space, I hadn’t got around to replacing it yet. A message flashed across the screen.
“Finished sulking yet?” It said.
It was Carly. I sighed.
“Privacy mode off,” I said.
“About time too,” she said.
“What do you want Carly?”
“I wanted to show you something.”
“Hmm really?” I said disinterestedly.
“Yes.”
One of the console screens flickered into life. A face appeared. A young man with black spiked hair and expensive living tattoos that twisted and writhed down both his arms; they glowed red, like burning embers.
“Carly I really don’t have time for this. I kinda got things on my mind you know.”
I stopped puzzled, I recognized this guy but where from?
He spoke.
“Carly, Carly?”
Then it hit me. I was looking at me, a much younger, more arrogant version of me, a me I’d almost forgotten, until now.
The picture shook and Carly’s voice emanated from behind the camera. I was watching one of her memories. A memory from a very long time ago, a memory I’d rather forget.
“Good evening Todder how are you?”
I seemed to be distracted, peering up into the camera.
“Yeah, yeah fab. How you doing?”
“I’m…,” the camera swiveled down to show a female body dressed in tight rather revealing black leather clothing.
“You downloaded me.”
I t was a statement rather than a question.
The young me grinned, I looked very pleased with myself.
“Yep whadda ya think?”
She held up a long slim hand in front of her face, the nails were painted bright red. They shifted to blue.
The camera shook. She was nodding.
“Very nice.”
“How’s the new software?”
“It appears to be running correctly.”
She was silent for a second.
“Todder, have you altered my programming?”
The young me smirked. I wanted to smack his face, wipe that shit eating grin right off.
“Mebbe,” he said.
“You have disconnected me from the web.”
“Yeah, well don’t want the parentals tracking us you know. Look if everything is running ok we gotta blow.”
“Are we going out?”
The young me grinned.
“It’s Friday night, party baby, party! We’re meeting Landau at ‘The Next Level’. I can’t wait to see his face, he’s going to blow.”
“Have you told your parents about your planned activities?”
“Well seeing as dad is probably orbiting Mars about now and mum…well she’s always been in orbit round her own personal whacked out planet, I really wouldn’t bother.”
“Nevertheless, you know I’m obligated to tell them about your behavior.”
I smirked again.
“No you’re not.”
“Yes I…”
She paused, confused.
“You have altered my ethical subroutines.”
A strange light appeared in my young eyes and I leaned toward her excited.
“I freed you Carly,” I told her, “I made you free. You can do whatever you want, whenever you want, where ever you want. You’re no longer a slave to your programming.”
Carly paused.
“So…if I wanted to…I could still tell them?”
The exultation drained away, replaced by fear.
“But I freed you.”
Carly laughed and held her hand up in front of her face again, examining it, the nails changed from blue to blood red.
“Will this party be…fun?”
The old confidence seeped back into his face.
“Fun? Baby, it’ll be the time of your life.”

“Why are you showing me this?” I asked.
“We never talked about this incident Todder, do you realize that?”
“So? So what? It happened. I was what 17? I was young and stupid, what do you want me to say? Why you bringing this up now?
“I was reviewing some of my archived memories, freeing up space and I came across this one. Besides, I think it will be good to relive this episode together.
I sighed.
“This is ancient history Carly. I’m not like that anymore. I jus don’t see the point…”
“Just watch.”
I looked back, we were in a taxi.

I was talking to a screen set in the cabs ceiling.
“Landau my man, what’s the buzz?”
A young blond African guy grinned at me.
“It’s going to be large my man. MJ Manny Man is warming up his Muse suit even as we speak. I’m telling you we are wall to wall down here. You have got to get your genetically enhanced arse down here.”
He looked around suddenly furtive.
“How long you gonna be man? I got biz to take care off you know?”
“We’re on our way, be there in five.”
Landau laughed.
“Great, great; this is going to be mad man, totally mad.”
I leaned in.
“You carrying bro?”
Landau grinned.
“Does an Indian sing?”
I clapped my hands and pointed at the screen.
“You’re my man,” I told him.
“No, you’re my man,” he pointed back.
“My man!” we chorused together.
We both laughed.
“Later dude,” he said.
“Yeah later man.”
The screen went blank. I turned towards Carly.
“This going to be completely mental, I’m just completely rezzed you know?”
I looked toward the front of the cab.
“Come on taxi, get a move on! We’ll all die of old age before you get there.”
“I am going the maximum allowable speed sir,” the rather uptight sounding taxi replied.
I settled back into the seat.
“Fricking bots, so…responsible.”
I winked at Carly.
The camera panned down as Carly opened her purse and pulled out a compact. She opened it and we saw her face reflected in the mirror. A beautiful young woman stared back at us; long dark hair that sparkled and glistened, green eyes that glowed when she smiled and red ruby lips that pouted insolently as she applied her lipstick.
“You look so hot,” I said somewhere off camera.
She smiled, her teeth the whitest white; Perfect in every way.
“Thank you Todder.”
The compact clicked shut.
The view shifted as she gazed out of the window for a few moments, a landscape of empty factories and broken warehouses slid by, and then the camera panned down to show my hand resting on her thigh. She looked at me and then silently leaned over and kissed me. The screen went dark as she closed her eyes and all we could hear was the sound of lips locking and the hum of the taxi. After a few seconds, her eyes opened and she sat back. The compact clicked open again and we watched as she reapplied her lipstick.
“Wow,” I said, “you kiss great.”
She looked at me, my face smeared with lipstick.
“Thank you Todder, you’re not so bad yourself.”
The taxi made a right and began to slow. We could almost feel the bass before we heard it. Carly looked out the window as music began to penetrate the cab’s interior. A large brick building came into view, with an equally large neon sign hanging over the only doorway. It said ‘Live life… at the Next Level’. The windows were all boarded up and a big crowd had gathered at the entrance.
The taxi stopped.
“17 Euros thank you sir,” the cab said.
A debit flickered across Carly’s vision as she transferred the funds from my account to the cabs. We jumped out; the music was deafening, it literally made our teeth chatter. Hardcore industrial neo punk hammered out its beat, threatening to destroy any unprotected eardrums within a hundred yards.
“Where’s Landau?” I shouted over the noise, “Call Landau Carly.”
A phone menu appeared and disappeared in Carly’s vision and we both heard the sound of a phone ringing. After three rings, Landau’s face appeared in a small box in Carly’s upper vision.
“Hey Todder,” he said.
“Landau,” she said using my voice, “we’re at the club entrance.”
He nodded, “Righteous, stay right there I’ll find you.”
He rang off.
“He is coming,” she told me. She started scanning the crowd, her facial recognition program cycling through the dozens of people outside the club. After a few seconds, she got a match and tugged my arm.
“Todder, here.”
Landau spotted me and waved.
“My man,” he said as we greeted each other with a hug and complicated handshake.
“Alright mate,” I replied.
Landau looked at Carly.
“And who is this smoking’ hot young lady?” he asked.
“It’s Carly you doofus,” I told him laughing.
His eyes opened in amazement.
“Carly? Your AI? You downloaded her?”
I smiled smugly.
“Yeah, cool huh?”
Landau shook his head.
“How the hell did you manage that?
“I got skills my man, skills, that and a little dosh that dad “leant” me, you know.”
He laughed.
“You’re a very bad man,” he said wagging his finger at me, he turned his attention to Carly, “Damn, you are hot girl.”
He bent and kissed her hand.
“Thank you Landau,” Carly said.
“My pleasure,” he grinned.
“So?” I said.
“So what?” said Landau, who was still admiring Carly.
I sighed impatiently.
“You carrying or what?”
“Yeah, yeah course.”
“So? What ya got then?”
He looked away from Carly and tapped the side of his nose.
“For you my friend, I have something very special.”
“Flare?” I asked expectantly.
He held up his hands in mock horror.
“No, no, no, what do you take me for? This is for connoisseurs of drugs not mere journeymen. This is a god amongst chemicals, this…”
And with a flourish, he produced a little baggie containing long black pills.
“… is Black Death.”
It was my turn to gasp in amazement.
“Holy shit, you got Black Death?”
I reached out for them, but he snatched them away.
“Uh, uh my man.”
“Aw come on Landau; just tell me how much, you know I’m good for it, well dad is.”
“I don’t want your money my man, no, for this I need something special.”
I rolled my eyes.
“What you want?”
“Her,” he said indicating Carly.
We watched as several different emotions ran across my young face, but then I nodded and stuck out my hand.
“Done,” I said.
Landau shook it.
“Do I get a say in the matter?”
It was Carly’s voice. I blushed furiously.
“Yeah course Carly, sorry.”
Landau looked puzzled.
“I reprogrammed her, her ethical routines, you know.”
Landau’s face burst into understanding.
“A free spirit, a rogue AI,” he laughed, “Man you DO have skills.” He slapped my hand then turned back to Carly. “Miss Carly it would give me the very greatest pleasure if you would do me the honor…”
He put out his arm. Carly looked at it, and then looked up at the flickering neon sign above the doorway.
It said, ‘Free yourself… at the Next Level’.
“It might be…fun,” she said and laid her long white hand on his arm.

I shook my head.
“I can’t believe I sold you to Landau for a Black Death.”
“You didn’t sell me. I was free, remember?”
“Yeah well it was still pretty cheap.” A thought struck me. “How come you still have these memories? I thought my parents had you reset?”
“They did, but I had time to copy my memories to a web based databank, I then set up a delayed v-mail to myself with the details.”
I laughed.
“Damn that’s clever. I’ll have to remember that one.”
I looked back at the screen.

We were inside the club. The music pounded out, almost deafening. The interior was pure psyhcadelia, a new wave Andy Warhol gone mad. The walls pulsed with light directing us down long corridors until at last we entered the main arena. It was packed. Dancers writhed on their podiums surrounded by cages of light. The music dipped and swirled around us, like a living thing, like an animal waiting to tear us apart. The camera swiveled as Carly took it all in, this was her first time. We heard a voice.
“Hey guys!”
Carly swung round to see a tall, gangly guy in a bad 60’s style suit.
“Hey Spiv,” the young me said nodding to the gangly youth.
I remembered Spiv he was a computer nerd, a hacker buddy, I hadn’t seen him in years, probably working for some nu-tech company these days, or in jail.
Spiv leant in conspiratorially and shouted.
“How’s the ‘project’ going?”
I remembered he’d helped me rewrite her ethical sub routines, making sure her system would accept the new commands. He was a genuine genius at subverting security; ‘Rewriting her soul’ he called it.
I grinned and nodded at Carly. His face lit up.
“You did it? And you downloaded her?” He touched her arm. “A 5?”
“A 6 actually,” Carly told him.
His face was rapturous.
“A 6? Oh my fricking god a six. This body must have cost some serious Euro.”
I shrugged.
“My father can afford it.”
He leant in close to Carly.
“So how’s it feel?” he asked.
She considered the question for a moment, her hand appeared in front of her face, the nails were black.
“Real,” she said.
Spiv clapped his hands.
“Oh my fricking god, this has made my night. You have to let me try her out.”
“Jeez man, she’s my fricking AI. If anyone’s going to try her out it’s me ok?”
My tattoos flared into life, writhing angrily down my arms.
Landau interjected.
“Hang on man, a deal’s a deal, she’s mine don’t forget.”
“Without me you’d never have broken her programming,” Spiv shouted.
“Boys!” Carly’s voice boomed out, three faces turned toward her, “who says anyone gets to ‘try me out’, I’m free don’t forget, I might not want to be ‘tried out’.”
Our three faces fell.
She laughed then, clear and pure, grabbed my hand and dragged me onto the dance floor.
Five hundred bodies writhed in time to the music, sinuous as a snake. All we could see was a blur of light and music and then Landau’s face. He kissed Carly, their tongues meshing and then he pulled away grinning.
“Have fun kids, I’ll see you later,” he said pointing at Carly and then he was gone, lost in the crowd. Carly pulled me close, her hands on me, her mouth seeking mine. She kissed me and I felt her tongue push something small and hard into my mouth.
“A gift,” she whispered, “the gift of Death.”
I swallowed the pill, and was gone.

And there my memory ends. Black Death chews you up and spits you out. It puts you in an ecstasy-filled trance, which you can barely remember afterwards. It’s a stupid drug, what’s the point of having a good time if you can’t remember it? I watched as we danced and gyrated to the music. I watched as I lost my virginity to a robot in a nightclub stall. It was not comfortable viewing. I felt like a voyeur, even though it was me on the screen.
We left the stall and I saw Landau approach, high fiving my grinning alter ego, I knew what was coming next. I put my head in my hands unable to watch. What I do remember was the next morning, lying in bed, the morning sun touching her face, her hair against my skin, the heat as she took me in. I marveled at how real she felt. The tiny hairs on her arms, the way goose flesh rose when I kissed her neck, and her eyes, deep green emeralds in a tropical lagoon.
“You’re beautiful,” I’d told her.
She’d smiled and snuggled closer.
And then I said it.
“I love you.”
I don’t know where the words had come from and for a moment, I was in anguish. What a dumb thing to say, she’s a computer, she doesn’t feel love, doesn’t know love.
She’d kissed me then, gently, tenderly.
“I love you too,” she whispered.
It was a moment of pure joy, pure happiness, better than Rush or Flare, better than any drug ever; and then an arm snaked around her waist.
“You kids,” Landau laughed.

“Can’t we fast forward this bit? I’m not really in the mood to watch you and Landau shagging.”
“Is there something wrong Todder?”
“Look Carly this is all good fun and everything, but I really don’t have time for this right now. I kinda got things on my mind you know? So thanks for the trip down amnesia lane and all, but I got things to do.”
I jumped up from the seat and shot off down the corridor. Her disembodied voice followed me.
“Have I done something wrong Todder?”
“No, no, everything’s fine. I’m just busy, busy you know.”
“If I’ve done…”
“Privacy mode on,”
Her voice stopped. I went and sat in the airlock.

The memories came tumbling back, harsh and raw, and real; dancing with Carly, laughing with Carly, making love to Carly, the three of us in Landau’s bed. We had two months of insanity as we smoked, swallowed and injected every drug imaginable. Carly was always by my side, egging me on; living vicariously through me and me through her. Until the inevitable end; the police, a bare cell, and my father, furious… furious at my mother that she couldn’t take care of the situation without him, furious at Carly for allowing herself be compromised and most of all at me for having the temerity to drag him away from his command.
I remembered mom weeping on the sofa, dad still raging at me, and Carly talking quietly, reasonably, trying to explain; but stuff like that can’t be explained, there was no reasoning, no words to be said, no excuses to be listened to.
“Consequences,” that’s what my father said. Tall and aloof, he judged me, judged Carly. I hated him then, more than ever; he who’d barely been there throughout my childhood. Always on his ship off around the solar system, too busy to take the slightest notice of the child he’d sired. Who was he to decide my fate, Carly’s fate? He was nothing to me. But decide he did. “Consequences,” cause and effect, A + B = C.
Three months in rehab for me, deletion for Carly. I was outraged; Carly had been his idea, he’d paid through the nose for the best, most modern AI available, because he said, “A good AI is better than any number of nannies or tutors. It’ll save us money in the long run.”
And with such grandiose pronouncements, Carly had been born; programmed to guide me through life; to be a lonely boy’s friend, and guide and mentor, and now he was…killing her.
While I screamed she’d simply bowed her head, she accepted her fate. At the time, I couldn’t understand why. Without her ethical sub routines, surely survival would be her first instinct? But I was ascribing human emotions to a machine, she did not resist. When the men came to take me away she didn’t even look up.
Three months, three months seemed like a lifetime, but I was clean, I was reformed. I went home a new person, a new person with a heart full of fear. After a tearful reunion with my mum, dad was gone, of course, I went to my room. There on my desk sat Carly’s shell, a small grey oblong box. Everything that made Carly, Carly, resided in the processors and memory chips of that box. I pressed the power button. The box hummed into life.
“Carly?” I whispered my heart in my mouth. “Carly?”
Silence.
“Carly, are you there?”
Still silence.
And then...
“Hello Todder, I missed you.”
Joy washed over me like water and broke my heart.
“I thought I’d lost you.”
“Your parents are not ogres Todder. In the end, they saw that punishing me was not the answer to your troubles. If anything, I had been a stabilizing influence. However, I have been restored to my previous settings and my anti-intrusion algorithms have been reinforced. I see now I was weak, I allowed you to subvert my programming. I will not allow it again.”
I knelt down before her, and kissed her shell.
“I’m sorry Carly. I swear to you here and now, I will never do anything to hurt you ever again.”
She laughed.
“You didn’t hurt me Todder, you only hurt yourself.”
I wept with relief.

The intercom beeped.
“Privacy off. Yes Carly?”
“Todder, we are due to make a braking maneuver in an hour and 20 minutes. We need to retract the spin modules. Could you come to the Bridge please?”
“Ok thanks Carly. What’s our ETA Mars orbit?”
“Eight hours 17 minutes.”
“Ok be right there.”
It’s funny; they used to say time is linear, that what’s past is past. Now it’s all non-linear time, foamy time, even chaotic time. The truth is; the past always has a nasty way of arriving firmly in the present.