DeathWeb (Fox Meridian Book 3) Page 5

  ‘They’ve determined most of the genetic factors involved and they’re routinely screened now. They’ll soon be able to eliminate any predisposition in older people. By the end of the century, I doubt there’ll be a person alive without electronics in their brain, but I prefer to stick with the old-fashioned methods.’

  ‘Nothing wrong with that,’ Fox replied, turning for the door. ‘I’m kind of old-fashioned myself, about some things.’

  ~~~

  Old-fashioned did not describe Fox’s sex life, she had to admit. Casual bisexuality had become more commonplace since the late twenties, according to Kit who had engaged in a fairly thorough study of human sexuality and presented many of her findings to Fox. There was still something of an imbalance: men were slightly more likely to be either heterosexual or homosexual, and women were more likely to experiment either way. Kit had said that men still had more of a hang-up about being men, unless they had already decided that they could be a man who liked other men. All that, of course, applied to America, Europe, and the other more liberal states. In other places, things were significantly stricter. There was the Caliphate, of course, and Russia still had quite draconian anti-homosexual laws.

  And none of that was going through Fox’s head as she lay on her bed with Marie’s head between her thighs. Though Marie was a case in point, she was experimenting. Fox was the first woman Marie had been to bed with, a fact Fox found a little surprising, but then the Kansas Belt was hardly a hotbed of lesbian liaisons and Marie was fairly young. Still, Fox was Marie’s first and there was more enthusiasm than skill in her sexual technique, but she had learned Fox’s body really well…

  Fox’s back arched as the tension began to build in her abdomen. She bit her lip and her fists clenched in the sheets, and she fought to stop her thighs from clamping so hard onto Marie’s head that that nimble tongue would stop. ‘Oh… Shit… Going…’ There was the sudden release, the explosion, the roaring of blood in her ears and the bright, white darkness of her eyelids clamped so tightly shut that sight seemed to just implode on her.

  And then there was Marie crawling up to lie at Fox’s side, holding on until the aftershocks decayed into tremors and then died away entirely. Fox lay in the silence and contemplated her current situation. Since Pieter Vos had died in a bunker in the region of Dallas, there had been no one in her bed for more than a night. She had once told Terri that she did not prefer men, that there was simply a statistical imbalance in the partners she had had, but here she was, maybe falling in love with a girl. And Marie was a girl, almost a decade younger than Fox was. Would she tire of the experiment?

  ‘Dollar for your thoughts,’ Marie said.

  ‘Oh… I was thinking about… huh, sex and old-fashioned things, and that you’ve really got the hang of that, considering you’ve not been eating pussy for very long.’

  Marie giggled. ‘Thank you. I’m a quick study.’

  ‘You are, and this is a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon, but we should eat. And not each other. Food.’

  ‘Yeah. Good point. I think I’m getting hungry.’

  ‘Javen sent an enquiry concerning your plans for an evening meal about six minutes ago,’ Kit put in, appearing beside the bed. ‘I could contact him if you wish Sam to join you.’

  Fox looked down at Marie. ‘Up to you.’

  Marie gave a shrug. ‘Why not? Guess I’ll have to put clothes on.’

  ‘Something anyway. Kit, let Sam know we’re going to sort some food out now.’

  There was a short pause, Fox crossing to the shower during it, and then Kit said, ‘Sam is bringing a bottle of white wine.’

  ‘We’ll do pasta then. Let him in when he gets to the door and tell him we’ll be out in a minute.’

  ‘He’s going to know exactly what we were doing,’ Marie commented, her cheeks colouring.

  ‘You really think he cares?’

  Stepping into the shower behind Fox, Marie’s brow furrowed a little. ‘No, I guess not. I still find it odd that you two have never…’

  ‘Banged like a barn door in a hurricane?’

  ‘That.’

  ‘We value the friendship. He spends his working life entertaining all sorts of people. Sometimes he even enjoys it. I’m the girl he doesn’t need to worry about impressing, the one he can be himself with.’ She gave a little shrug and began running soapy hands over Marie’s back. ‘Of course, even when he’s not trying, he’s damn sexy.’

  ‘No argument here. But so are you.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘It’s different though. Different sexy.’

  ‘Thanks, I think.’

  Marie giggled. ‘Sam’s smooth, strong, elegant, really attractive. You’re more like… You’re not as smooth. You’ve got sharp edges. You’re a dangerous kind of sexy.’

  ‘Right. I guess I can live with that. Rinse off and I’ll turn the dryers on.’ A ‘dangerous kind of sexy,’ huh? Well, Fox had to admit that she had a few edges that no one had ever managed to rub off. Not the Army, nor the UNTPP, and definitely not NAPA, which had possibly sharpened a couple. She was, she supposed, a dangerous woman: combat trained, physically enhanced, lethal with a gun. Then again, the same was true of Sam, but he just glossed it over better.

  Leaving Marie to figure out what to wear, Fox pulled on a bodysuit and walked through into the lounge where Sam was busy cracking the seal on a bottle of wine. He did gloss over that lethality well, but to Fox it seemed quite obvious. She could see the long, supple muscle shifting under his skin and recognised the training his body form represented even if Marie just saw a fit, attractive, oriental man. He was an attractive man, no doubt about it, and Fox pushed the usual physical reaction to him aside by pulling up her catalogue of recipes, filtering on pasta dishes and available ingredients.

  ‘Calabrese?’ Fox asked, heading for the cupboards under the kitchen counter. ‘It’s quick and easy, and I’ve got a good substitute for the cheese.’

  ‘Sounds good.’

  ‘Sam… Do you ever get any urge to drag me into bed and show me what I’m missing?’

  Sam paused having poured out two glasses of wine and looked at Fox, apparently deciding to give the question some serious thought. She was tall, in fact they were about even in height at five feet eleven, slim, firmly muscled with the same sort of long, athletic body as his, but softened a little by full, firm breasts. In the long-sleeved bodysuit with the high collar and hips and the thong back, her legs were shown off to glorious effect and she had great legs: long, lean, powerful. Her face was all angles from the pointed chin to the high cheekbones. Her mouth was wide, a little thin, with a pronounced bow. Her eyes were blue with a strong, dark ring around the irises and a hint of green in the colouring. And there was the somewhat unruly mop of orange hair that faded out to near-white at the tips which had given her her nickname.

  ‘Serious answer?’ Sam asked.

  ‘Uh-huh,’ Fox replied, but she was not looking at him.

  ‘Every time I see you wearing something like that. Not every time we drink a little too much and come home together, but quite often. Every time you’ve been here when I’ve come back from one of my less impressive assignations and I could desperately do with being reminded that sex can be good…’

  ‘I get the idea.’

  ‘But you’re a friend, not a client or a lover, and I don’t have many of those.’

  ‘Yeah…’ Fox trailed off as the bedroom door opened and Marie padded out in a nearly identical bodysuit, except that hers was iridescent green, like a beetle shell. ‘Nice outfit.’

  There was a thump from behind her and she looked around to see Sam’s head resting on the counter. ‘Are you two trying to make all the blood leave my brain,’ he whined.

  14th June.

  Fox stood at the back of the utility room in Sam’s house, watching Jackson and Terri Martins clucking over their latest creation like a pair of mother hens.

  ‘The tank’s full?’ Terri asked.

  ‘Ful
ly charged,’ Jackson replied. ‘Conditions reading optimal.’

  ‘Loading the basic AI… loaded and booting.’

  ‘What’s it going to do once it’s functional?’ Fox asked.

  ‘I’ve got a trial pattern loaded,’ Terri replied, ‘but we need to run basic diagnostics first.’

  ‘Not one of your smart fabrics or whatever?’

  ‘No, this is simple. If it can do this, it can handle your needs for the house and we can experiment with a few of the newer designs later.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Now,’ Jackson said, ‘Palladium will supply feedstock for the system, but the tanks and supply valves are all up there.’ He pointed at a bank of one-way valves mounted on a panel above the console they were working at. To Fox, the entire thing looked a little over-complicated, but it was a prototype of sorts. ‘The console,’ Jackson went on, ‘is more complex than the production system because we need more diagnostic data out of this one.’ Well, that figured. ‘However, the basic controls are the same as normal and can be accessed via the main computer.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘And the chemicals go round and round,’ Terri said, swirling a finger in the air in the general direction of the black tank which sat behind the console. She pointed down and left. ‘And it comes out there.’ There was something like a large locker which connected to the bottom of the tank via some sort of rectangular duct and a few pipes. ‘The thing’s pretty fast, but it needs a few seconds to clean up the product, dry it, and recycle the wash-off. Then the hatch will open and– Okay, diagnostics are all green, might as well show you. Yliaster, execute pattern “test one.”’ There was no voice, but a display lit up with a dial-like progress indicator, a segmented circle which began to fill in remarkably quickly.

  ‘You’re calling the AI Yliaster?’ Fox asked. A few seconds in and the dial was supplemented by a countdown timer flicking rapidly down in hundredths of a second.

  ‘Had to call it something,’ Jackson replied. ‘Asking “Yliaster” to process something in this house will direct the command straight here.’

  ‘We’ve put in a number of standard patterns converted over to the new format,’ Terri said as the counter ticked down through fifteen seconds. ‘And there’s a simple conversion program for most existing patterns if you buy in anything new.’

  ‘The patterns are different then?’ Fox asked.

  ‘This thing has different source stock, more basic. It needs to manufacture materials from a lower level so it needs instructions for that. Luckily, it’s generally a basic conversion job, pulling in material production instructions from a library.’

  With a click, the hatch on the locker levered open and Fox looked inside. She grinned. ‘Can I take it out?’

  ‘Of course,’ Terri replied, also grinning. ‘Should be dry.’

  Fox reached in and took out one of the bodysuits she liked to wear in a deep, iridescent purple. It was dry on the outside, but she checked the inside as well, and then the seams. Except that there were no seams: it looked like the entire garment had been formed in one piece, perfectly. ‘You want this to examine or something?’

  ‘No. Free gift for the first-time user.’ Terri glanced at her father. ‘Production rate seemed to be about right.’

  ‘It did. I’ll pull up one of the patterns I need for the detective assistance units and give it a more extensive test. This is looking good. Well done, Teresa.’

  ‘It wasn’t all me, you know? You created this thing, and Shell Marchant and her team did a lot of the work. I just ironed out–’

  ‘A problem no one else was able to.’

  ‘Huh.’ Terri did not look like she wanted the praise, but was more or less accepting it. ‘We’d better thank Kit then. We would have taken a Hell of a lot longer to figure it out without her.’

  Kit’s avatar appeared, smiling, beside Fox. ‘Thank you, Miss Martins. I was happy to be of assistance. Might I ask if there is sufficient space in the server room here for my machine?’

  ‘I assumed we’d install you upstairs,’ Fox said before anyone else could reply. ‘I made sure there was the right power and data feeds available in the lounge area. I’m not having you sharing space with all the other systems. You are my gorgeous assistant, remember?’

  ‘Oh.’ Kit preened a little and looked embarrassed, and Fox grinned at her.

  And Terri suddenly looked quite serious. ‘There is something I wanted to ask, Fox. Something I want to do. I’ve talked to Poppa about it and I thought… I’d like you to join us.’

  ‘Doing what?’ Fox asked. ‘Where?’

  ‘I want to go down to Dallas on Saturday. I want to see the place again, close it off, end it. It’s the anniversary…’

  Fox nodded. ‘I know. Okay. Okay, I’ll go. Who are we taking down?’

  ‘Now that you’ll be there,’ Jackson said, ‘I can arrange it that it’s just us. We’ll take a few security frames with us, one of my faster transports.’ He grinned. ‘We can take turns on the piloting.’

  ‘Leave the security to me then,’ Fox told him. ‘Otherwise Ryan is going to have a fit.’

  16th June.

  Marie was not as keen to move back into her newly refitted apartment as one might have expected, but move she did. She was there with Fox and Sam when the Palladium facilities people who had been holding her belongings in storage turned up to put them back.

  Technically, Sam was only there to make sure all the registrations had worked and the security system knew who he was, but he put his back into shifting things around for Marie before he had to get ready for an engagement in the late afternoon.

  It was when they were basically finished with Marie’s rooms and Fox was starting to consider checking her own rooms, after a break for some lunch, that Belle made her presence known.

  ‘I just got a request for telepresence from someone called Belle,’ Marie said, frowning in the middle of a slump onto her sofa.

  ‘That’s the house AI,’ Fox said. ‘Terri mentioned it, but it wasn’t up and running when I was here last.’ Accepting the request which had appeared in her own visual field, Fox got her first look at what was, basically, the house’s avatar. ‘Terri designed you, didn’t she?’

  Belle was a little shorter than Fox, slim, very upright with a modest chest, slim waist, and wider hips. She had a narrow face framed by powder-blue hair which fell to her shoulders with a pronounced parting. Her lips were full and curved, her nose long and straight, and she had arched eyebrows over large, blue eyes. Blue was a theme: her nails were painted in blue, her eyelids shaded in blue, and she wore a dark blue skirt suit that dropped to mid-shin, with a white, collarless blouse and blue, kitten heels. She looked, Fox thought, like a rather prim, slightly sexy secretary, standing there with one leg slightly bent and her hands clasped in front of her.

  ‘Good afternoon. I am Belle, MarTech Technologies Lares dash five nine seven Series AI, prototype BL. Along with your MarTech Services GL Series building management AI, I will be taking care of you at whatever level of service you require.’ She had a soft but firm voice, a little throaty. ‘Miss Martins was the principal project engineer in charge of my production, yes.’

  ‘You’re a prototype?’ Sam asked, settling down beside the now seated Marie.

  ‘I am the twelfth beta series prototype of the Lares dash five nine seven AIs. Miss Martins said to assure you that I am the fourth bug-free version, the first with full functionality enabled.’

  ‘According to Terri,’ Fox said, ‘Belle is the public face for the house. Handles security, basic housekeeping functions, comms management, net searches, and she’ll act as your social secretary, if you want.’

  ‘I also have basic accounting skills, language packages for Mandarin, Spanish, and Japanese, and loadable skill packages for computer security, cooking, criminology, materials design, medical diagnosis, and a number of data gathering methods. My “Instanced Mind” system allows me to interact, individually, with up to one hundred individ
uals or carry out a similar number of mentally intensive tasks, though performance is reduced when handling more than ten.’ It was all delivered in such a matter-of-fact tone, like a sales presentation for a toaster.

  ‘Well,’ Marie said, ‘I pretty much use LifeWeb for my social stuff. I keep my calendar on there, contacts, the works.’

  ‘I am able to access LifeWeb data, Miss Shaftsbury, with your permission, of course, and I can assist in managing it. One function I can perform is to ensure that all members of the household know of scheduling conflicts.’

  ‘I’ll have Javen connect to you,’ Sam said. ‘Coordinate my calendars with him, business and personal. It would be useful to know when people are here or out, or just busy.’

  ‘Kit will connect up and handle that when we get her server over tomorrow,’ Fox said. ‘I hope you two are going to get on. I assume you’re a class four?’ Kit appeared, peering at the other avatar with a slightly wary look.

  ‘The Kitsune dash five nine two AI is a “sister” of my series,’ Belle stated, smiling. ‘Some of my code was created for the Kitsune. The generic failure of the Kitsune instancing mechanism led to its reengineering into my “Instanced Mind” technology. Miss Martins did mention that your AI, Miss Meridian, had resolved that problem.’

  ‘Kit is unique,’ Fox replied, smiling. ‘And you can cut that “Miss Meridian” thing. It’s Fox.’

  ‘As you prefer, Fox.’

  Kit wrinkled her nose a little and vanished. A second later, Fox heard, ‘I’m not sure I like her. She looks bossy,’ in her head.

  ‘Give her a chance,’ Fox replied silently. ‘Oh, and find out what “lares” means.’ Aloud she said, ‘I say we hit the kitchen and see what we can find to eat.’

  ‘I’m not sure what I’ve got in…’ Marie said, starting to her feet.

  ‘Both kitchens are fully stocked,’ Belle said, a smile touching her lips. ‘We made sure of that.’

  Fox gave a shrug. ‘Palladium is a full-service security provider.’

  ~~~

  There was only one access to Fox’s floor and that was via the back stairs which ran up from the basement to the roof. That led out onto a hallway which gave access to four rooms: lounge, bedroom, bathroom, and a large office. Fox had decided to recycle most of her apartment furniture and start from scratch, and she was checking on the results.