The Process Server

  ***

  The meet with Cardale was at NTC West headquarters, in the Bush-Simpson Megaplex. The NTC was a terraformed planet, and vast imagination had given way to function. Each of the NTC’s four continents were technically islands, with land forms taking up just one-ninth of the planet’s surface and the rest covered in water. Scientists had surmised it would produce the best climate not only for surviving and thriving, but for the development of indigenous species.

  The West Form was almost a perfect circle, but for a small spit of land that stuck out into the aquamarine sea of its tropical zone, the Millennium Man’s private retreat. The temperatures were similar to Harrison Peel’s community on South Form, but instead of lush jungle, Cardale’s retreat was all palm trees and white sand – a perfect recreation of the environment so vividly imagined in Evgeny’s office on Earth.

  Except here, the sunshine was real.

  Cardale had a private pad about three kilometers from his house, and we settled in amidst a cloudy of steam and dust. When we disembarked, Granger was waiting for us at the edge of the pad. “I’ve got a cruiser waiting in the parking lot to take us the rest of the way,” he said.

  It was an open top, hovering all of six inches above the ground. We climbed in the back seat while Granger took the passenger seat next to the pilot – a dubious title, since no one really piloted their own land cruiser anymore, and hadn’t in years. As such “cruiser pilot” had become a euphemism for “security pesonnel.”

  The road to the house cut through lush wetlands, with willow and palm trees competing for the sunlight and casting the odd shadow as far as the road. There was very little other traffic.

  After a few minutes, Granger explained, “Mr. Cardale has the only home on the peninsula. The traffic here is very light. It’s very private – a real retreat.”

  As we approached the house, it got larger. And larger. And larger, until it was apparent the monstrosity was at least five stories tall, and the length of three office blocks put together. “Sweet sunlight! That’s not the house is it?” I said.

  Granger laughed. “People always have that reaction the first time they see it. Like everything Mr. Cardale does, he wants it to be the biggest and best.”

  Well he had biggest locked down by a country mile. In fact, a country mile or two.

  But best? “How does he possibly make use of all of that space?” I said.

  Jayde shot me a look that suggested it was too early in our visit to be sounding critical, given how much swampland there was around.

  Granger caught her look but settled her down. “Please, neither of you should be nervous. Mr. Cardale is ... well, he’s just not like that. He would have no interest in taking offence. I realize that sounds hard to understand, but it’s true.”

  It’s funny how someone can be ever present in our lives but also irrelevant to the point of fading into the background, and somehow, Robert Cardale was that to most people.

  We all knew he was the richest, most powerful guy in our universe. And his few public appearances in recent years cut a menacing figure, thanks to his bionic limbs and rebuilt skin tissue.

  In a way, to many kids, Cardale was more a boogie man than a businessman. So hearing Granger talk about him in reverent terms was strange.

  I said, “How long have you worked for him?” as the cruiser waited for two enormous gates into the parking lot to open.

  Granger thought for a moment or two. “Oh, going on 35 years, I’d say. He was the only man I wanted to work for out of college, and I’m lucky enough to still be doing so three decades later, still learning from his considerable wisdom and amazing experiences.”

  I said, “You’re aware he has a formidable reputation?”

  Granger smiled again. “Oh I try not to listen to the sensationalist stuff. There are always people down below trying to tear down a guy who’s on his way up. And Mr. Cardale is at the top run of the ladder.”

  He led us from the lot to a set of double doors that were already propped open. As we were walking in, a youngish professional woman was leaving. Granger asked, “How is he today?”

  “Thoughtful,” she said.

  Granger looked troubled. “Well, that can go either way. Fingers crossed.”

  We followed him into the house. Directly inside the door was a gigantic foyer, set off by a massive staircase to the second floor.

  There were floor-to-ceiling bifold doors on either side, so that adjacent rooms could open directly into the entry space.

  Granger led us past the stairs into a small corridor. “He’ll be in his office,” he said. But instead of opening one of the many side doors in the corridor to announce us, he took us another 90 meters, until we were standing before an elevator bank.

  Granger pushed the button and, once it had arrived, motioned for us to enter. “Please ...” he said, without further explanation.

  The elevator shot downwards for a few moments but stopped after about five seconds. Then it felt as if it were moving sideways. After a few moments more moments, it rose to the surface again.

  But now, when the doors slid open, we faced a gigantic, circular marble room. In the center, a globe of Earth towered 10 meters high. And on the other side, a balcony led out of the building and overhung the sea, waves crashing into the cliffs far below.

  Cardale’s “office” – if it could be called that – was totally isolated from the main building, which was some 300 meters behind us, the elevator apparently the only way to traverse a small gap between the main cliffs and the gigantic, towering spire upon which his smaller building sat, the waves crashing and frothing hundreds of meters below, the sea rolling angrily between the two land masses.

  As we walked out onto the balcony, the sun streamed down onto its terracotta tiles. At the far end, a small writing desk next to the ornate white rail looked out over the water and Cardale sat there reading a newspaper, like any other mortal.

  “Sir? Process Server Smith and Jayde Chen.”

  He turned and put the paper down. The small servos that drove his limbs whirred gently in the background, his synthetic skin folding and creasing stiffly around his artificial parts.

  “Ah yes, good work Dawson. That’s all we’ll need for now. But have cook send out some beverages and breakfast for our guests.”

  Granger exited silently, and Cardale eyed us.

  He was wearing casual clothing, and I wondered if he was trying to judge how we viewed his mechanical body, whether we were jumping to premature conclusions.

  Finally, he addressed me squarely.

  “Process Server Smith, I believe you may have something I’m looking for,” he said. “You met with the Archivist of G’Farg before his ... untimely demise, I take it?”

  Richest man in the world, but his sources of information obviously weren’t perfect. That seemed strangely encouraging.

  “You understand incorrectly, sir,” I said. “In fact, someone got to him before we did. About five minutes before, unfortunately.”

  He looked thoughtful for a moment, but not particularly upset, like he was weighing his next move.

  “Yes, well, that was the version I’d been given. But I wanted to ensure you hadn’t had a chance to recover something from the Archivist’s body.”

  This was getting confusing as hell and I might have shown it a little.

  “Look, Mr. Cardale, I don’t know what was going on, but I was given a contract to deliver a summons in a copyright case. I needed that 10,000 creds, so now I have a client willing to honor the deal. But he’s also looking for something else, an object of some kind. Now, maybe Jayde and I can find it, maybe we can’t. But it would be a hell of a lot easier if someone would tell me what “it” is.”

  Cardale was about to answer when his chef arrived, pushing a cart laden with what appeared to be ... was it all real food?

  It smelled and looked like it. Real eggs. Real bacon. Real bread.

  “Please,” he said, “Dig in.”

&nb
sp; And so we did. Because for 20 minutes, neither of us could have given a damn if the world were ending.

  I’d never had an entire meal of real produce, real coffee, real milk. And Jayde hadn’t had one in more than a century.

  Before either of us could ask, Cardale said, “A minor extravagance of mine, but when you reach my age, you have to worry about what synth is doing to you. It is just a protein extract, after all ...” he smiled devilishly, “... and that can’t be good for the soul.”

  Neither of us said anything, but Jayde was staring at him as she finished her last bite.

  After a moment, Cardale affixed his gaze on her. “Ms. Chen, it has been an awfully long time since we last saw one another. More than two centuries, I believe.”

  She didn’t say anything, but just nodded gently as he continued.

  “I do hope you don’t hold the length of time we spent investigating your condition against us,” he said coolly. “There was an issue of the greater good, of course, in your seeming immortality.”

  I’d seen the look in her eyes before, and for just a few moments, I was afraid she’d go across the table, throttle what little real life was left in him out before anyone could react.

  Instead, she stayed cool. “It was a long time ago,” she said. “But I’m glad you know I remember.”

  It had probably been many years – decades, even – since someone had the temerity to threaten Robert Cardale, but that didn’t seem to faze Jayde for a second ... and Cardale knew it, a brief look of anxiety crossing his face.

  “Yes, well ... as I said, we do apologize.”

  We’d gone off-topic, I said. “Mr. Cardale, we need to know: What are you all looking for?”

  Cardale took a deep breath and looked out over the water. “I’m not entirely sure, to be honest. We know it’s an engine design of some sort, perhaps something revolutionary.”

  I studied him for a minute, saying nothing. Guys like this? Guys like this never played all their cards upfront.

  Finally, I said. “But that’s not all there is to it, is it, Mr. Cardale? If it was, you could’ve had anyone help you. Why us?”

  Cardale smiled, displaying rows of perfect and doubtless-artificial white teeth. “You have a ... peculiar moral bent, Smith. You refuse to use a Jofari Psychic Core in your ship, quite famously. In fact, it’s been nothing but trouble for you, and yet as far as we can tell, you’re the only Process Server who follows such a moral code with respect to the Jofari.”

  He wasn’t helping clarify things. “And?”

  “And...” motors whirred as he leaned forward towards me slightly, “... the new engine design in question may eliminate the need to use the Jofari entirely.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I’m sorry process server, it seemed clear …”

  “Yes, sir. That’s not what I mean. It’s just…”

  “Huge. Yes.”

  The implications were staggering. After more than a century of being practically enslaved by Earthers, generations of Jofari had been taken.

  “But there’s a problem,” Cardale said. “While we see the massive economic and social implications, our competitors at Hui-Matsumori, at VirtuTech, those within K’Laar system …? Well their latest engine developments are all predicated on the Jofari core design. If this hit the market it could do them serious, serious economic damage.”

  Of course, it went without saying that Cardale would do anything to gain an advantage in power and size over Hui-Matsumori. I wasn’t foolish enough to think he was just being a humanitarian.

  Still, his option of a dominant market that didn’t require slave labor was attractive.

  I said, “I assume you want us to recover the plans to this engine?”

  He nodded. “The archivist carried the only copy in a small holo drive he’d hung around his neck, according to our intel.”

  “One problem,” I said. “We’re working for the Prognosticator to recover it already.”

  That didn’t seem to faze him at all, and Cardale poured himself another coffee, with the two of us gratefully accepting another cup, before he continued.

  “Well,” he said. “That’s a matter then of buying out your contract. How much is the Prognosticator paying you?”

  I paused and thought about it. “20,000 credits,” I lied. “That’s a lot of money.”

  He smiled. “Smith, just one of the many subsidiaries of my company, one that manufactures ... what is it, pet food? Yes, pet food, for a particularly beloved form of family lizard in the Deneleth System? It makes 20,000 creds a minute. And until this morning, I didn’t even know that I owned it. So I’ll tell you what...” Cardale said, leaning forward, “...if you instead bring the drive to me, you’ll not only have the satisfaction of doing the right thing, I’ll pay you ... oh, let’s say 100,000 credits.”

  We clinked coffee mugs. I didn’t say yes, and I didn’t say no.