John Scalzi - The Android's Dream

Archie involuntarily touched the side of his face, where an ugly purple welt had formed, a souvenir from getting whacked in the face by the second group of invaders who had snuck into Fixer's shop the night before. Archie knew who gave it to him: Sam. He knew it was Sam because once he had fallen to the ground, stunned by the hit, Sam had come in close, whipped out an electric prod and whispered "sorry, love," in his ear before jabbing the prod into his abdomen and shocking him into unconsciousness. He'd only come to because Acuna kicked him the ribs to get him awake and Takk had hauled his body up the stairs.

Takk now lay on the floor of the apartment's bedroom, suffering from the digestive trauma of thowing up Fixer. The less Archie thought about that episode the better. Acuna had very nearly thrown Archie and Takk out of the van and sped off to get his wounds tended; his body had been severely abused over the last couple of days. Archie didn't know where Acuna went to get fixed up but he doubted it was a regular hospital; he imagined it was some underworld freelancer, like that Fixer character, but with a medical degree. Archie let his mind wander to speculate about an entire economy of underworld specialists and reflected that somehow, through no real fault of his own, he could probably be defined as one of them now.

"The pisser about QuickHeal sessions is they make you itch like a son of a bitch," Acuna said. "I'm gonna go get some aspirin. Come with me, geek. I want to talk to you about something." Acuna wheeled around and went out of the door of the apartment; Archie wearily got up and followed.

He caught up to Acuna at the vending machine in the hall. "don't take this the wrong way," Acuna said, as he fed his card into the machine, "but you really look like hell. I mean, whoever these bastards were did a number on me and even scored a few points off of Takk, which takes some doing. But you really got cracked one." He pressed the button to get his aspirin.

"Thanks," Archie said, glumly.

"You want some aspirin of your own?" Acuna asked. "I'll even get them for you. My treat."

"I'm fine," Archie said.

"Hey, look," Acuna said. "They've restocked your favorite: the white chocolate M&Ms. I'm going to get you some." He jabbed his finger at the "B4" button.

Archie meant to say really, thanks, but no. He got as far as the first phoneme before the pain scraped across his optic nerve, sending Archie to the ground, writhing. Acuna watched him fall.

"Well, isn't that interesting," Acuna said. "Maybe I should get two packages, what do you say?" He jabbed the "B4" button a second time. Archie gasped, lifted his head up, and dropped it back down spasmodically to the concrete, sending a second, lesser and almost comforting flash of pain across his brain pan.

"Who do you work for, Archie?" Acuna said, and dimly Archie realized it was only the second time Acuna had used his proper name.

"I work for the Defense Department," Archie gasped.

"Wrong answer," Acuna said, and jabbed "B4" again. Archie twitched in agony. "I know all of Defense's little spy tricks. This isn't one of them. This is a new one on me. That impresses me, incidentally. I thought I knew all the ways to get a bug into a room and get information out of it. But this really takes the cake. Very nice. Well, except for this part." Acuna hit the button again. Archie vomited and curled up into a fetal position.

"Let me make this real simple for you, geek," Acuna said. "I don't like it when people spy on me. I especially don't like it when people spy on me and as a result one of my missions gets fucked up beyond all recognition. It makes me look bad. I don't like looking bad." He jabbed at the vending machine button. This time Archie, marinating in his puke, merely convulsed. "So you're going to tell me who you work for, now, or I'm going to take this fucking credit card right up to its limit getting it out of you."

Archie whimpered something.

"Excuse me?" Acuna said.

"I said, 'fuck you,'" Archie said, voice trembling.

Acuna smiled and looked toward the vending machine. "You know, each of these M&M bags costs eighty-five cents," he said. "And my credit limit on this card is five thousand dollars. Let's see how many bags that gets us."

Acuna spent $45.05 before Archie talked.

Brian snuck into Archie's computer by doing what Archie had wanted him to do: Letting his system get drilled. It was an inside job: Brian created the driller and had it drill into the system by way of a backdoor Brian opened up, into which he'd deposited the data inside a century's worth of Washington DC yellow pages—encrypted, of course, for extra fun, and formatted to look like personal information files. Archie's driller went in, scooped up the data, and hailed Archie's computer to begin transmitting. As it did so, Brian jammed in instructions that left the port wide open but gave Archie's computer the impression it was closed and secure. Brian was having fun being the smartest computer ever.

Brian had been riffling through Archie's files when Archie's onboard computer cam caught Archie coming through the door, followed by a huge-ass alien that Brian recognized (some part of him did, anyway) as a Nagch. Both them looked like they had just had the shit kicked out of them. If Brian had to guess, he would have supposed Archie and the alien had just gotten back from trying to collect Harry and Robin; it didn't appear as if they had been particularly successful. Archie parked himself in front of his computer and picked along desultorily for a few minutes before putting his head on the desk and falling asleep. Brian went back to his file riffling. When Archie woke up the next morning he seemed to suspect someone had been peeking through his files; he ran a diagnostic and started cruising through his files. Brian played cat-and-mouse with Archie for a few hours, partly to gauge Archie's skills and partly for the amusement factor.

Rod Acuna showed up in the afternoon, full of good cheer, and demanded Archie come with him to get something from the vending machines. Some 20 minutes later the apartment door burst open and Acuna dragged Archie through it, tossed him roughly onto the carpet, and yelled a name that sounded like "Tack." The Nagch suddenly filled the bedroom doorway.

"What, boss?" it asked.

"We're on the move," Acuna said, and pointed at Archie, splayed, semi-conscious, on the floor. "You get the geek watch. If this shitball so much as breathes funny, you eat him."

"Why? What did he do?" the Nagch asked.

"He's been feeding information about what we've been doing to his fucking pals," Acuna said.

"The Defense Department?" The Nagch asked.

"No, you mountainous dipshit," Acuna said. "Some wackjob cult he belongs to. The Church of the Evolved Lamb. They're the assholes that hit us last night."

"I could eat him now," the Nagch offered.

"No," Acuna said, and looked down at Archie. "I need to talk to Schroeder first. He might have questions he wants to ask this fucker. But in the meantime, you do not let him out of your sight Do you understand me? If he takes a dump, he does it with you in the bathroom. Do you understand me?"

"Yes," the Nagch said. "What do I do if he tries to run?"

"Good question," Acuna said. He pulled a folding knife from his pocket, flicked it open, bent down to grab Archie's right leg, and severed his Achilles tendon. Archie let out a whimpering scream and lapsed out of consciousness. "That takes care of that. And especially don't let him near that computer of his. In fact—" Acuna began to stride over to Archie's computer.

Uh-oh, Brian thought. Acuna reached out to the computer. The view from the onboard camera wheeled wildly and then went black.

Jean Schroeder had told Dave Phipps to let himself in when he came by, and Phipps did, coming in through the garage door and walking up the spiral staircase that led into what used to be Anton Schroeder's study and was now the study of his son. Phipps, who had been in the study numerous times, had always found the place creepy, probably because Anton had decorated its walls with ancient spears and swords of Nidu design, and Jean had seen fit to keep them up, and indeed to add to the collection. Both of them apparently derived amusement from being surrounded by the weapons of the enemy.