AZU-1: Lifehack Read online

  “Harold Grier’s apartment is five doors to your-“

  “Shut up.” Regan guessed to her left, as going right would have involved a wall. 4705, there it was. She pressed the intercom button.

  A moment later, Harold’s voice came. “Regan?”

  Regan replied. “Little pig little pig, let me in!” There was a slight delay, during which time she could almost hear Harold roll his eyes. Then the door clicked to unlock, and Harold’s voice came though again. “Come on in.”

  Entering Harold’s apartment, she found it to be exactly what she expected. Clean, organized, dull as heck. Harold came around the corner, and they had a hug. “Hey dork!” Regan said. She noticed that he still wore the cheap silver ring that she had given him years ago.

  “Hey dorkette. The spare room has a small bed set up in it already. It’s cluttered though. Come check it out.” Harold was Regan’s only living relative worth mentioning, and by far the more responsible and successful of the two, the ant to Regan’s grasshopper. Among the populace of Autar, Harold was among the nerds. Generally quiet and professional, Regan is one of the people who enable his sense of humor to emerge. He has always been unquestioningly supportive of his little sister.

  “I didn’t know you had an apartment in one of these huge towers, Harold. You’re moving up in the world, huh?”

  “Hah. The cornerstones are Autar’s slums. These things are more than half vacant. Money lives out where you can be visible and stand out.”

  The spare room was cluttered only by Harold’s definition of the word. Yes, there were a lot of things in the room, but they were all neatly stacked, mostly in boxes, all against one wall. Regan wagered with herself that she could point to any box, and Harold would be able to list its contents from memory… but something else caught her eye first. She dropped her luggage to the floor, and floated over to her electric guitar. She picked it up and strummed a bit. It wasn’t plugged in or anything, and all one heard was the tinny plucks, but it felt reassuring in her hands again.

  “Help yourself to my guitar, Regan!” Harold teased.

  “OH, pff. I’m gonna buy it back as soon as I have the cash, don’t you worry! I’m gonna pay rent here too!”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Besides, I bet you haven’t played it more than once since you bought it off me.” Regan said.

  “Well, if I had an amp to go with it, I may have. You may as well stick to acoustic if you’re going to keep selling your amp anyway.”

  Regan’s only reply was to make a rock star sneer at him, while playing more tinny plucks. Harold raised an eyebrow. “I’ll leave you two alone for a bit. Dinner’s in an hour and a half.” As he left, Regan was still playing a song in her head, performing for an imaginary audience, singing under her breath.

  No sooner had she put the guitar down, than her little terminal beeped for an incoming call. The display read “Kris Taylor”. Bleh. She was just beginning to enjoy herself. She ignored it for a bit, but it kept ringing. She stared at it for a second, and she could feel Kris staring dispassionately at her. She grabbed it up with aggravation, and answered.

  Kris’s face popped up, with just the expression Regan had expected. “Yeah,” she said flatly, “I figured you were gonna take off with my jacket..”

  Regan rolled her eyes. “For the last time, it’s mine.”

  “Mm. Whatever. It suits your whole ‘street urchin’ look better than anything I go out in anyway.” Kris’ comments often mixed insult with compliment. She was good at that.

  “Look, you didn’t call about the jacket. What the fuck do you want?”

  Kris huffed a little. “Well. It doesn’t look like you’re on the road, or some cheap motel… I suppose you went to your brother’s?”

  Regan snapped. “What the hell did you expect?”

  “Please. The theatrics aren’t necessary.”

  “Did you think I was just gonna hang out around town waiting for you to call so I could come crawling back?! God, your ego must blot out the sun. You’re a fucking chronic slut, Kris, I woke up to it, and I’m sick of it. If I had half a brain when I met you, I would have seen how-“

  “Oh, calm down, I heard this rant when you left. Really. Don’t-“

  Regan hung up on her, and threw the terminal at the wall. It made a loud bonk, and bounced to the floor. She sat on the bed, staring at the terminal through closed eyes.

  “Ah.” Harold’s voice came. “And I thought you were just here because you missed me.”

  Regan lifted her head a bit, face hidden by her hair. “Why didn’t you warn me she was an evil slut when I moved in with her?” she said sulkily.

  “Because I never met her..?”

  “Bleh. You have an excuse for everything.” Her voice was weak, and on the verge of crying. Harold sat beside her, and put an arm around her. “I guess you’re all I’ve got now, dork.” she whimpered.

  “Ah, don’t fret,” he said, running a finger along a fret of the guitar, “Before you know it, you’ll find some pretty thing that catches your attention, and you’ll forget all about Kris, the evil slut.”

  “Yeah?” she sniffed.

  “Yeah.”

  “Not a blonde this time.” Regan’s expression softened a bit. “Maybe with less ego? And HUGE... eyes?”

  Harold smiled warmly. “Yeah.”

  “Okay.”

  They sat quietly for a bit before Regan spoke up again. “Got anyone like that at your work?”

  “Yes, but they’re straight and I’m sleeping with all of them.”

  Regan laughed and pushed her brother off the bed. “DORK!”

  ~~~~~

  Chapter 3: AutarLabs

  ~~~~~

  Regan awoke and gazed up at the ceiling while her mind caught up with itself. She was on the bed sideways and her feet touched the floor. She considered that to be a head start on the day and blissfully ignored the time.

  She found she was hungry, and mysteriously just as unemployed as when she passed out. The first problem was solved easily enough, rummaging through Harold’s kitchen. Harold had already left for work long ago.

  The second problem seemed to have an obvious solution. She picked up her guitar and headed downtown to find clubs that might need a player. She was soon to find that live music wasn’t as desirable here as it was in a couple of the smaller towns she’d lived in and so far, those that did have people play didn’t seem to have an opening. It was discouraging but maybe it was for the best. She was probably rusty as heck anyway... she decided to get a little amp and practice before she went looking for much else in terms of gigs.

  But an amp takes money too. Ick. She didn’t feel like a service industry job and the guitar thing was really the only thing that went with her wardrobe. What good is having Kris’s cool jacket if she can’t work in it? Damned Kris. Okay, enough for today’s two minutes of hate.

  She looked at her terminal’s city map. Harold’s work wasn’t that far away. She thought about going over, and casually mooching some money for an amp, but decided against it. She’d go visit though. That can’t hurt. And if conversation happened to lead to her lack of an amp, she couldn’t be blamed for that, could she?

  There was the building. As close to the center of the city as the company could afford, it loomed with great self-importance. The peak of the building sported a slant that wanted to be stylish and original, just like all the other buildings with a slant on the top. The company logo stood out with a similar degree of flair in red light. “AutarLabs”. Wow, what a creative name. Regan chose to blame that one on the suits. Nerds would have found a way to make a reference to some nerdy mythological thing like maybe Prometheus, or Icarus, but without the downer ending. As she got closer she called her brother on the terminal.

  “Hey Harold! Mind some company?”

  “Hm? Sure, I guess I can take a break. Where are you?”

  “Out front, headed for the front doors.”

  A moment of silence. “Hey Regan, look up, can
you see me?”

  Regan looked at the building’s windows. After a bit of scanning from window to window, she could barely make out a person in a lab coat waving, from the fifteenth floor. “Naw, I don’t see ya, just some dork flailing his limbs.”

  “Yeah yeah. Hey, I’m just gonna finish something up here. I’ll meet up with ya inside.”

  The lobby was oversized, and the dozen or so people hurrying across from one doorway to the next still left it feeling desolate and cold. There was that unsettling quiet that always seemed out of place but was always present in places such as this. Straight ahead at the far end was the reception desk. It was a large, authoritative command centre, staffed by a lone girl who looked abandoned there in her oasis of furniture, in a desert of an otherwise stark room.

  As a personified contrast to the entire building, Regan strolled across the floor, casually taking in the room. This place was almost certainly staffed by 100% uptight, busy, fidgety sorts. The girl at the desk was cute. Blonde, big glasses with thin frames. She reminded Regan of Kris, except without the evil. The girl watched Regan walk towards the desk, patiently waiting for Regan to come within ‘greeting distance’. Regan smirked as they looked at each other. Was the receptionist flirting or did Regan just stick out that much here? Regan chose to think flirting. Her gaydar skewed considerably to her whims, and often gave false positives.

  “Hello, may I help you?” The receptionist said, perhaps seeming a little intimidated in the shadow of Regan’s swell in confidence.

  Regan slowly and casually leaned down on the desk, sharing a bit of a view down her top should the receptionist choose to look. Regan spoke just soft and slow enough so that the receptionist could choose to notice it or not. “Mmm. Yeah, I’m here to see my brother. He works here somewhere. Harold Grier...?”

  “Alright, if you’ll wait a moment...” the receptionist tapped a few buttons as she put on an earpiece with a microphone. Regan smiled softly in acknowledgment and tried to read her eyes. Pure professionalism. Bah. She was probably straight. Or just plain boring. Or both.

  “Doctor Grier?” the receptionist said, staring blankly into her desk, “Yes, there’s a young lady here, your sister, here to see you? Yes. Alright, I’ll send her up.” She took off the earpiece and turned her attention back to Regan. “Alright then, take this visitor’s pass and head up to fifty-three. Doctor Grier will meet you at the middle cafeteria there. It’s a non-restricted area.”

  Regan took the plastic card being handed to her, thanked the pretty but dull girl, and headed for the elevator. As she passed the desk Regan looked back and saw that the receptionist did not have a body below the desk, but instead a base labeled “RECEPTIONIST”. Great. She’d been flirting with a machine. Oh well, it’s not like it was the first time.

  The pass card beeped happily as she walked into the elevator, again when she pressed ‘53’ and once more when she exited the elevator. She was tempted to see what would happen if she dropped the card and went wandering, but she didn’t want to get Harold in trouble. Much. If this was what it took to get to a “non-restricted” area, she wondered what sort of measures Harold had to go through on a regular basis. No doubt some sort of very polite automated fingerprint, retina, DNA, and prostate scan.

  “Regan!” Harold called out, waving her over to the cafeteria.

  “Hey bro!” She caught up to him and they got into line.

  “I guess an early lunch won’t kill me for one day.” Harold said.

  “It’s almost two.”

  “Oh.”

  They made their selections as they went along, and were soon next at the cash register. The young man ahead of them was having some kind of trouble. He turned around to the mass of tables and meekly called across, “Doctor Coll? You didn’t give me enough!”

  The wiry Jonathan Coll leaned back in a chair with his feet on the table and yelled back. “Pay for the difference yourself, Scott! I’ll get you reimbursed, don’t worry!”

  Scott turned back to the cashier, rummaging though this pockets. “Sure he will.” he mumbled.

  When Regan and Harold got to the cashier she found that Harold was paying for her as well, so she thanked him sheepishly. As they headed for a seat, Regan noticed that the wiry man and the man getting him lunch did not sit together. In fact, no one was sitting with the wiry man, and he seemed quite happy that way, pecking away at a mini terminal while absent mindedly picking at his lunch as if it were an inconvenience to have to eat. He stopped and looked at his assistant. “Hey! Get me some ketchup for this slop!”

  Regan glanced at her brother. “Wow. HE’S a real charmer.”

  Harold rolled his eyes. “Yup. Jonathan-something. He treats the interns like his personal slaves. He’s new. Supposedly a hotshot. Demanded some big salary and got it. He works in my division but luckily not my lab. I haven’t had much exposure to him.”

  Regan shrugged it off, and gobbled a bit more of her passable casserole lunch. “So what is it you do here, anyway?”

  Harold got a little excited smile and reached into his shirt pocket for a little flashlight, about four centimeters long. ‘Mana’ was written on the side. “Look..!” he pressed the button, and it turned on.

  Regan stared at it intently for a few moments. “Oh. My. God! You invented the lightbulb!”

  Harold laughed. “No, no. This is a souvenir from the project I was on a few months ago, fine tuning the mana drive.”

  “Mana drive, huh? Biblical. A city with four towers of Babel, a halo of bridges, and a mana drive. Who says scientists like playing god? Okay, fine. This thing has a mana drive. Whoopie. What’s so great about that over a battery?”

  “No, no. You see the power is actually being transmitted from a facility like ten blocks away from here. The flashlight just has a little receiver inside!”

  “Okay fine. What’s so great about that over a battery?”

  “You non-nerd types, sheesh.” Harold rolled his eyes. “The applications are enormous. Have you seen a single power line since you came to Autar? No! There are none! Darn near the whole city infrastructure runs off the mana drive; free energy flowing through the air!”

  “Sounds hazardous to your health. This is better than a battery or power cords- why?”

  “Sheesh, Regan, you just don’t get it.”

  “Guess not!”

  “Well, anyway, I’m on another project now. Researching using nanites for medical purposes.”

  “Nanites. Is that like a robot nanny, like your receptionist?”

  Harold stared blankly. “I can’t believe we’re related. Nanites. Microscopic robots. We’re trying to get them to do things like assisting nerve functions and repairing or even replacing damaged tissue. One of the labs apparently made a remote controlled rat!”

  “Thrilling!”

  ~~~

  Jonathan headed back to his lab, leaving his less-dedicated intern to waste the rest of his break on having a break. Scott often wasted a lot of his break time socializing. It was things like that which left Scott out of the loop.

  ‘When did series sixteen happen?’ Scott had asked. Hah. Series sixteen happened while Scott was dashing home as soon as he was allowed, no doubt to get drunk and stare at the wall, or whatever it was that lazy interns did. He could be such a waste of flesh sometimes.

  Inky and Pinky were healing nicely. Mind you, they still looked like hell, but the nanites were set to prioritize structural repairs. First bone, then muscle. That was all the nanites really needed since series twelve, really.

  Jonathan’s personal terminal beeped to life on a nearby counter. He picked it up and read the display. “Incoming call: L” As in Lancer. No doubt it was Mr. Book. What did that bloated troll want now?

  Jonathan tapped the answer icon on the screen and as expected, the grey, tired visage of Mr. Book popped up in a window. Truly if there was ever a joyless face in all creation, this was it. “Hello, Book.” Jonathan greeted him flatly. It was hard to fake enthusiasm while looking at B
ook’s face.

  “Coll. Any progress?”

  “Inky won a fight while-“

  Mr. Book cut Jonathan off “I’m not really interested in your rats, you know. We placed you there to get us a base-level fabricator.”

  Jonathan huffed. “What the heck for? The stuff I’ve already sent you can self-replicate if told to.”

  Mr. Book’s face became even wearier, if it was possible. “Coll, your toys are useless for practical medial application at this stage. We need to get our hands on a base-level fabber if we’re going to make anything we can use. Everyday practical applications. Your little projects might eventually be useful for wartime emergency medicine, but we need to see some results we can use now. There’s only so much funding Lancer can keep off the books without something to feed our business sponsors.”

  Jesus, did he even take a breath in between all that? Jonathan had heard it all before and it was getting less interesting every time. He just felt lucky to have been spared the speech about the ways an organization like Lancer was vital to the nation. Hypocritical windbags. Jonathan wondered how big of a swimming pool Mr. Book had, paid for by his Lancer salary. “If you’re feeling desperate,” Jonathan said, “I might be able to pull a rabbit out of my hat.”

  “Then get on it, Coll.” Mr. Book hung up without another word. Self important whale. Screw him. Screw Lancer. They want to see what his toys are good for? Maybe they want a taste of that hypothetical wartime Mr. Book alluded to. This could be fun.

  ~~~~~

  Chapter 4: There was an Incident

  ~~~~~

  Regan had resisted hinting to Harold about money for an amp for three days now and she was proud of herself. An amp might be a moot point anyway. Positions for guitar players seemed sparse at best whether she had her own amp or not. Maybe today she’d look for some lame waitress job or something. That’s assuming that all of those choice positions weren’t already nabbed up by flirtatious vending machines.