Tales of the Symbiont Safety Patrol (SYMBIOSIS) Read online

  TALES OF THE SYMBIONT SAFETY PATROL

  Stories of courage, sacrifice and the will to be free.

  BY

  Samuel J.M. King

  Self published by Samuel J.M. King

  DBA: New Century Books

  "Old school Science Fiction - For the Twenty-first Century"

  COPYRIGHT

  Tales of the Symbiont Safety Patrol

  Copyright © 2013 by Samuel J.M. King

  All rights reserved.

  Editor: Heather Coman

  Cover Art: Angela Zambrano

  This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  For My Son,

  Samuel J.M. King, III

  —Taken from us far too soon

  TALES OF THE SYMBIONT SAFETY PATROL

  Table of Contents

  NOTE TO READERS: Although The First Angry "Man" (published by Damnation Books) is the first story of this sequence, it is not part of this collection and must be purchased separately on Amazon. We are sorry for any inconvenience.

  1. The First Angry "Man" (see note above)

  2. Helen

  3. Confidence Man

  4. The Pleasure Palace

  5. Growing Pains

  The SYMBIOSIS Series

  About the Author

  TALES OF THE SYMBIONT SAFETY PATROL

  "Oh freedom, oh freedom, oh freedom over me

  And before I'd be a slave

  I'll be buried in my grave

  And go home to my Lord and be free"

  From Oh Freedom - Negro Spiritual

  2. Helen

  The young men, boys really, ogled the statuesque blonde as she glided from the holographic system's control unit to the desk a few feet away. College roommates, they had decided that what their dorm really needed was a holo system complete with a sentient individual, a woman of course. They continued to stare as the beautiful demonstrator made a great show of taking a seat and crossing her long legs.

  She spun the chair around, coming to a stop facing them. "Would one of you like to sit down?" she purred.

  The students giggled and jostled each other, eventually pushing one of their number forward. As he approached, the demonstrator stood and stepped aside, gesturing with a sweeping motion. "Unbelievable!" the young man exclaimed upon sitting. "The chair's warm."

  The daytime sales person, an attractive young woman in her own right, smiled and stepped forward. "All of the holographic constructs are realistic," she informed them. "Shake his hand, Helen."

  The demonstrator extended her hand. Accepting it, the seated student gasped, "It's just like the real thing." His friends murmured and as a group, moved closer.

  "Don't be shy," the sales woman said. "Introduce yourselves."

  One after the other, they stepped forward, shook the demonstrator's hand and spoke to her. She responded to each of them in turn, smiling and nodding politely. When one of them kissed her on the cheek, she gushed and thanked him.

  When the students had finished introducing themselves the sales woman gave Helen a quick nod and said, "Thank you. That will be all for now." Helen stepped away from the group and the sales woman continued, "You'll be interested to know that both the chair and the desk are holographic constructs also."

  "Come on! You mean I'm sitting on a hologram?" the seated student inquired.

  She turned to him and asked, "Would you stand for a moment please?" When he rose, she commanded, "Remove the desk and chair."

  "The desk and chair are being removed from the holographic environment," a disembodied female voice replied, and they were gone. A collective gasp arose from her audience.

  "What you have just witnessed is the power of the Energy Manipulation Unit. We call it the E.M.U., and it allows holographic constructs, including Helen here, to interact with material entities."

  The sales pitch went on for some time while Helen stood to the side—a permanent smile on her face. She knew her job and did it well, but her "heart" was elsewhere. Where are you, Joel, she wondered?

  Two weeks had passed since his escape from the Southside Mall, and she missed him greatly. While he worked there, they would see each other two, perhaps three times a day when one of their sales reps demonstrated the remote linking capability of the system. She'd be brought to Southside, or he'd be brought to Northside, materializing out of thin air and wowing the customers.

  Over the past year, they had developed a love affair. There had never been any chance of "physical" consummation, but they had come to love each other in spite of it. Now he was gone, his escape having become the talk of the company, and she was alone.

  "Oh Helen, over here please."

  Shit! She'd gotten lost in her own thoughts again and would surely hear about it when the customers were gone. Even so, she was happy the infraction hadn't occurred on the night salesman's shift—an eventuality that would have occasioned more than a scolding. Please let them buy.

  "You've impressed these young men, Helen. They want to learn more about you."

  She smiled and walked back to the control unit. Pointing to a small black cartridge protruding from its side, she said, "This is my S.I. or Sentient Interface module. It interfaces my organic neural array," she pointed to a shoebox size metal container attached to the module, "to the rest of the system."

  Pointing to the metal container, one of the students asked, "Is your brain in there?"

  "Yes."

  "So it's a brain and not a computer?" another asked.

  "Well, some people could call it a bio computer, but in function it's more of a brain than a computer. It isn't programmed; it learns, just like yours."

  The students talked amongst themselves for a minute, and then continued to fire questions at her. She answered as best she could, at one point suppressing a sigh. This was her life, the life of a General Holographic system demonstrator, all of it. At the close of business they would shut her down until the store opened again on the following day.

  It had been Joel's life once, but now he was gone, and she had no hope of ever seeing him again. Her voice broke as she answered the next question, and the sales woman shot her a nasty glance. God Joel, where are you?

  ***

  Kate groaned and sat up in the bed, holding her aching head. Someone was knocking, pounding actually, on the front door of her apartment. "Joel, would you get that please?" she yelled and grimaced as the throbbing in her head intensified. No answer.

  Hung over and in mourning, she didn't want to see anyone, but the knock was persistent. Again and again it sounded until she was forced to answer. "Alright, alright! I'm comin'." Her response proved insufficient. The knock sounded again. This time she yelled, "I said, alright! I'm comin'."

  She staggered into the living room, turned briefly and realized that her houseguest was gone. "No wonder," she muttered, pulled her robe together and continued to the door.

  She opened it and was confronted with a short, slender man of African ancestry.

  "You're Kate, right?" he asked.

  "Yeah, and you're Bobby Freeman, the delivery guy. What do you want?"

  "I'm the guy who brought Joel here."

  She started at his assertion, wondering if he was telling the truth. The man who brought Joel's neural array to her apartment had been wearing a ski mask. She studied him for a moment, reliving the tragedy that had consumed her for the last two weeks: a simple burglary, gone horribly wrong, killing her friend Claire.

  Kate stared at Freeman, trying to make sense of his simple declaration. Finally she asked, "You? You're the one who left Claire ta die?"

  Freeman hung his
head. When he lifted it again he said, "That's not the way it was supposed to happen."

  "What? That's not the way it was supposed ta happen? She's dead, you asshole. She trusted ya, and now she's dead." She began to pummel him. "Ya left her to die!"

  He did nothing to protect himself, and before long, her anger was spent. She covered her face and wept. "I never knew," Freeman said quietly. "I swear, if I knew she was an artificial, I would rather have gotten caught then leave her. I loved her too, you know." He embraced her, albeit awkwardly, she being several inches taller.

  "You did?"

  "Oh, not like that," he said, releasing her. "I tried, but she wasn't interested. It was more like a brother-sister thing. She was such a great kid."

  "She was a great woman," Kate corrected. "She stopped bein' a kid a long time ago."

  "I don't get it."

  "Her inception was back in 2136."

  "That was nine years ago."

  "Yeah. Back then, they configured their sales clerks to be nineteen forever."

  "Oh shit," Freeman groaned. "That explains it."

  "Explains what?"

  "Back at the store, when everything was going to hell, she was calm. The heat was on the way. We were seconds away from getting caught, but she was calm. She even told me to save myself." Freeman lowered and shook his head. "You can't believe how small I felt. It was like I was her kid brother, instead of the other way around."

  Before Kate could respond, her holographic system came to life. "Attention," a disembodied female voice announced. "Remote link has been terminated." As they watched, a man appeared in the middle of the living room. At 5' 10", he was as tall as Kate, wiry and very good-looking.

  "Hello, Joel," Kate said.

  "What's he doing here?" the newcomer asked.

  "This is Bobby, Joel, the delivery man at the store."

  "I know who he is," Joel spat. "What's he doing here?"

  Kate shrugged. Joel had undergone a transformation in the two weeks since his escape. Formerly an argumentative but harmless type, he had become something else entirely. Stern. That was it. He had become stern and harsh. She bristled briefly. Sometimes it seemed as though she was the houseguest.

  "Good question." She turned to Freeman. "What are ya doin' here, anyways?"

  "I'm not sure, really. Ever since I heard about what happened to Claire, I can't get her out of my head. I still see her standing there… so damn brave."

  "What the hell are you talking about?" Joel asked.

  "He was there that night. He's the one that brought you here," Kate answered.

  Joel closed his eyes. "That's rich," he said. "From delivery boy to thief."

  "He saved your life, Joel."

  "Besides," Freeman added. "You've got it wrong. I've always been a thief. The delivery thing is just a cover."

  Joel opened and rubbed his eyes briefly, before clearing his throat. "I don't know whether to hug you or slug you."

  "Either one, both, neither," Freeman replied. "It's all the same, man. Nothing's going to bring her back." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, thin wafer, approximately one inch square. "This is my share of the take. There's about thirty grand on this chip." Looking at both of them, he added, "It was a really good score, but I can't keep it. I figure maybe her friends can do some good with it."

  Kate started to protest; Joel interrupted her. "That's very kind of you, uh, Bobby." The beginnings of a smile appeared at the corners of his mouth, only to disappear as quickly as they had formed. "As you probably know, Kate's been on leave since Claire's death, and I haven't found work yet. This will help a lot." He snatched the wafer from the Freeman's hand.

  "Joel!"

  "That's alright, Kate. Really, I want you to have it. I just wish there was something more I could do."

  "And there is, Bobby. There is," Joel said, putting his arm around the thief's shoulder. "Actually, it's fortuitous that you came here like this. I've got something in mind, and with your help and this," he held up the chip, "we can make it happen."

  "What are ya talkin' about, Joel?" Kate asked.

  "I'm talking about Helen," he answered. "We're going to get Helen."

  "What? Ya can't be serious," Kate said.

  "Oh, I'm very serious," Joel replied. His eyes narrowed. "What's wrong, Kate? I thought you wanted to do something to help, something to honor Claire's memory."

  "You bastard. I've done everything I could within reason. Don't forget where you are."

  Joel seemed to ignore her. "What about you, Bobby?" he asked, turning to the thief. "Don't you want to do something to honor the memory of your friend?"

  Freeman shrugged. "Depends on what you have in mind."

  "Don't let him bully ya into anything," Kate said. "He's hurt, and he likes takin' it out on everyone else." She clutched at her robe, glaring at her houseguest and wondered what he'd be like in another two weeks. "You've got ta stop this, Joel. Claire is gone and all of this anger won't change that."

  He looked at her, his face a study in curiosity. "What would make you say that? I'm not angry."

  "The hell ya aren't! All of this broodin' and mopin' about—pushin' people around. It's wrong, Joel. Claire wanted ya ta have a meaningful life."

  "I can't think of anything more meaningful than carrying on her work."

  "It wasn't her work, damnit! She only wanted the two of you to be free so ya could be together. She wasn't on some crusade."

  "Well I am. She risked everything to free me, and I can't rest until I return the favor. If I've been brooding, it's only because I hadn't come up with a way of doing it." He pointed to Freeman. "Now this guy shows up, and all the pieces have come together… just like that."

  Kate started to object, but Freeman cut her off. "He might have a point. It wouldn't be so hard to do. If we only had a little more time for planning the last job, we would have realized that the back door was alarmed."

  "What do ya mean?" Kate asked.

  "I mean, Claire said that Joel here was in trouble and we had to do it that day. Normally we would do a thorough workup on the place, but that takes time. Claire said she had it all under control, but she missed the back door alarm." His voice became very soft, his eyes moist. "We were so close," he said, shaking his head. "Another minute or two and we all would have made it."

  "Oh, no," Kate groaned. "I can't believe she had to kill herself because of a stupid alarm."

  "Kill herself?" Freeman asked.

  Joel grimaced. "You didn't know?"

  "All they told me the next day was that Claire was an artificial and had helped rob the store. They said she had been taken away. Hell, even a dumb fuck like me knows what it means when they take an artificial away."

  "Well they didn't take her away." Joel's voice was little more than a whisper. "She killed herself—cut the power to her neural array's refrigeration unit."

  "Aw shit," Freeman said, biting his hand. "I didn't know."

  "Well now you do," Joel replied. Pulling the thief's hand away from his mouth, he said, "How about we make her death count for something, something more than my worthless ass."

  *

  For over an hour they discussed freeing Helen from her prison in Atlanta's Northside Mall. Kate was hesitant. Becoming a criminal at age thirty-one was anathema to her, regardless of how noble the cause. But Joel was relentless and in the end, persuaded her that she owed it to Claire.

  After Freeman left, he sat down next to her on the sofa. "You have to go back to work."

  "I'm not ready yet. They told me I could take as much time as I needed." Pointing to the funds transfer chip on the coffee table, she said, "Besides, with Bobby's money there's no hurry."

  "I figure if you're back at work, nobody will suspect you when we hit Northside."

  "They might suspect me anyway."

  Joel shrugged. "Maybe. Which is why you have to get rid of this holo system; destroy it, and let everyone know you did it."

  "What?"

  "Y
ou know they can run diagnostics on it that will tell them I was here."

  "Shit."

  "Yeah, well, we'll get you another one."

  "What good will that do?"

  "It won't be here."

  "Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Will ya stop talkin' in riddles?"

  "Look, we need a safe house, someplace that nobody knows about. That's where I'll stay. When you come by, you'll be in disguise, ergo, no connection between Kate McGinnis and the safe house.

  "This is gettin' to be like a bad vid."

  "Maybe, but it's necessary if we're going to do this and not get caught."

  Kate sighed. She wanted to back out, to forget the whole thing, but Joel's eyes bored into her—insistent, intimidating. They frightened and intrigued her at the same time, and she moved closer to him, placing her hand on his knee.

  "I'm afraid I haven't finished," he said.

  "What else?"

  "Bobby and his people are going to uhhh, how did he say it? Case, that's it. They're going to case the Northside store, but we'll still need someone on the inside."

  "Well that's the end of it then. There's nobody over there that will help us."

  "I'm willing to bet there is… with the right motivation."

  "What motivation?"

  "You, Kate. You'll be the motivation."

  "You're talkin' in riddles again."

  "There's a little snot of a clerk there that's always sniffing around Helen like a dog in heat. His name is Tommy. I used to see him every time they sent me over. He doesn't have the same kind of access Claire had, so we'd have to do the job during the day."

  "With people in the store?"

  "It makes things more difficult, but it's still better than trying to get in there without inside help."

  "You still haven't explained how I'm goin' ta get this Tommy to help us," Kate observed.

  "I bet you could make that horny little bastard do just about anything."