Chapter 12

Back at my pad I have a Mexican standoff between Zeno and V. V has told Zeno to beat it as we have business to discuss. Zeno is having non of it. She is stubbornly refusing to move.  I have paid my fee up front for Zeno, and as a true professional she feels obliged to fulfil her contract. Not the mention the loss of a client if V steps in.

V decides to pull rank. From somewhere on her person she produces a wallet with a shield in it, an IGBI identi.

‘When I say go Honey, I mean go, or I will have you forcibly removed. You will be amnaesised for a week.’

Zeno looks at me and I shrug. What can I do? I am just a pawn in this game.

Zeno picks up her things, plugs in her comms set. And leaves. Now it’s just me and V. She kick off her pumps and settles on to the sofa.

‘Man you’d think after all these millennia they would have invented a way to wear high pumps without pain’

There is a tension in the place. And it’s not V. Brian the house computer is confused. He knows that I am his boss, but he hasn’t come across a higher rank before in the gaff. The IGBI give out all the licenses for all robotics, humanoids artificial brains, etc. and he has a feeling that V is gunning for him. What he has been up to in the past is obviously worrying him. I didn’t buy him from new. He came from a dealer on wireless world over in the gas nebula. He could have been anything.

I go into the John and no sooner have I shut the door than he speaks.

‘She is from the IGBI, all my stamps are out of date. I’ll be dismantled. Thrown on the scrap heap’

‘Brian don’t be so melodramatic, she is not after you. She wants to recruit me.’

There is a stunned silence.

‘You in the IGBI’

‘Yep’

‘I think I’ve got a headache’

‘Look just act normal, do your duties. Be on the ball, make a good impression. And Brian if you let me down I’ll dismantle you.’Just for good luck I pop a zoomer and rejoin my guest.

‘Fix me a drink Hon. I’m ready for some R&R, something hot and bloody.’

‘Brian do as she asks and make it the best.

‘Have you an allergy’s to anything Maam?’

‘Just sunlight’

Two drinks pop out of the transopser. One red one white. I hand V. the red one. She takes a sip, then downs it in one. Brian on cue, and on the ball, dispenses another.

‘Keep ‘em coming Honey’

I don’t know what Brian has mixed but as lethal as they look they seem to have no effect on V. After a handful or so, she turns her attention to me. In trying to keep up with her, my senses are lowered and my eyesight off focus. By now sex is out of the question, if it was ever on the table. To distract myself and to gain some initiative, I go over to the piano and run through a few arpeggios. I put on my Art Tatum style  and try to relay his genius to my audience of one. I run through, “Some Other Spring”, “Liac Time”, “Autumn in New York” Then a few of my own compositions in his style. Veronca sits as still as a statue with her eyes shut. Her legs are curled under her and her elbow resting lightly on the arm of the sofa. She may be asleep completely zonked or even dead. I finish with a soft flurry of notes and go over to the sofa and sit silently next to her. She reaches out her free hand and looks for my mine.

The touch is electric. Literally. A spark of static leaps from her forefinger to mine. She opens her eyes half lidded, and gives me a smile.

‘That was beautiful, just my era.’

‘Mine too, maybe we are made for each other’

‘Don’t get ahead of yourself Joe, we have business to talk over’

Did I hear Brian Gulp.