The Dragon Commander (SkyLine 1)

Chapter One: Colliding Worlds

The first time Finch’s shimmering station pass beeped in rejection, he attributed it to the Precinct he’d been assigned. Everyone in Shanghai and the surrounding metroscape knew what kind of shape Precinct 117 was in. The recent influx of those crazy nanotech sentries from the WCC helped, and there weren’t many fringe extremists against them this side of China, but Finch was getting ahead of himself. He needed to get inside first. He swiped the card three more times before he thought it might be another test. Between his new partner and his rumpled old supervisor, the tests had hardly ended with his graduation from the academy. The door beeped back the red shut-out light every time.

“Just my luck…” Finch muttered, seemingly to himself. The wall-mounted speaker crackled alive.

“If you’re going to fall back on luck, you might as well leave your badge on the step, rookie,” grumbled the doorman. So he was listening.

“Door lock still busted? Or is it my card?” said Finch.

“Probably both,” laughed the doorman. The door swung out with a push from another rookie from his office. It was the young man only a few years Finch’s senior, who held the desk directly across from his. Of all the people Finch had met in his three weeks on the force, Greg was the only one he could form a remote connection to.

“We’ve got bots that can be a table or a gun, but no functioning door,” Greg shook his head while he let Finch in. He sucked down a deep breath of cool, pure air. Finch was still adjusting to the transition from the overcrowded, humid haze of Shanghai’s regular atmosphere to the filtered inside of a WCC-supported Precinct.

“So why didn’t you send your Squire to let me in?” Finch raised a sandy blonde eyebrow.

“New ordinance. Costs the Precinct millions more to pay for the Squires than it does for us. They don’t lift a shapeshifting finger unless it’s something we can’t do ourselves,” said Greg.

They headed through the glum halls to their office. The shimmering teal track of tube lights overhead made everything visible, but in such a drab light it made the Precinct even more depressing than it was by default. Sure, some Precincts in India and Afghanistan saw action, but 117 was a relic of times before the WCC, before the SkyLine changed everything. A time when law needed enforcing, when the life of the planet wasn’t at stake.

“While we’re on Squires… how are things with your new partner?” asked Greg, while they paced. Finch took a glance down every crossing hallway before he started.

“Strange. Really strange. I mean - I knew it’d be weird, with his… what’s-it-called, a personality matrix?” fumbled Finch.

“Yeah. I could hardly believe it when I heard. A drone with a heart of gold,” said Greg.

“Don’t know about gold… but he does apologize for everything. And he’s a little… clingy? Always asking me if I’m alright, or if I need anything. Wouldn’t be surprised if it was him driving the Precinct bills through the roof,” Finch marveled. That was around the time Finch and Greg made it to their office. A grid of cubicles adorned with glowing instant-coffee canisters and splayed manila files made it more their homes than their tiny, stacked one-room apartments.

“Well, the software is in beta. Poor guy is just a kink to be worked out,” said Greg. He sunk into his worn, swivel office chair. “Didn’t they give him a human-sounding model number too? No wonder the thing’s confused.” Greg spun in his chair to face his desk just before a digitized voice piped up behind Finch’s head.

“Mr. Finch!”

“Ah! DA-Vos, too loud!” Finch gasped. He wheeled to face a black onyx oval, the faceless face of his partner. Finch could see the whites of his own eyes in the reflective surface inches away. “And too close.”

“Sorry, Mr. Finch! I am still adjusting my proximity settings for appropriate socialization,” said DA-Vos. The jet-black, seamless, man-shaped machine took one small step back.

“How about one more step? Let’s say… two feet between us, at all times?” said Finch.

“Yes, very good, Mr. Finch,” said DA-Vos, the glossy black of his face lighting lavender when he spoke. Purely for human convenience, the chief had explained, Squires with a personality matrix were assigned a gender. According to this odd rule, DA-Vos was officially a “he”. First it made Finch laugh, when it was so common for people to change genders as they grew into themselves. Then the less humorous idea of rights for thinking machines poked into his mind.

“And drop the Mr. too. Just Finch is fine,” he forced himself not to mumble for the fifth time.

“Yes, of course, Mr. Finch,” said DA-Vos. Finch groaned. Greg’s chuckles, while his own Squire sat silently beside him, didn’t help. Finch almost jumped back when DA-Vos jerked up his arm. His shapeless, metallic tentacle reformed itself before Finch’s eyes into a perfect imitation of a human hand. He sighed, and took DA-Vos’ glossy new fingers for a firm shake.

“DA-Vos, I… appreciate the gesture, but handshakes are typically at the beginning or end of a conversation. And maybe a little less abrupt? You’re going to scare someone if you do that outside the Precinct,” Finch told him. A long breath escaped him when he remembered he hadn’t even clocked in yet. Finch’s brother was off in a lab somewhere developing faster Fusion jets for magnetrains, and here he was parenting a gigantic, robotic man-baby in the slums. Just my luck, he thought, and this time he meant it.

“Understood, Mr. Finch… apologies, but my analytics show that after three weeks as partners, we should be more closely bonded. I was only extending a friendly gesture,” said DA-Vos. Then the light on his face glowed blue. Sure there was an AI in there, running the whole nanotech show. Sure, Finch knew some immeasurably complex code was calculating the closest thing a computer could simulate to “emotion”. Still, he couldn’t have been prepared for the words that came through that blue glow. “Why do you not like me, Mr. Finch?” Finch could only stare into the radiating metal, in search of the mind inside.

“DA-Vos… it’s not that I don’t like you,” said Finch. How best to say this, to so new a psyche, natural, or artificial? “Humans don’t run on analytics. And… you can’t force a bond. It just has to happen. It’s part of being partners.”

“I see…” DA-Vos’ face glow returned to its neutral lavender. Then the door from the main entrance slammed shut, marking the Chief’s entrance. Every officer, human and Squire, straightened up before his procession.

“At ease, you beanbags,” the Chief grumbled. “Office meeting in five. Time for your new route assignments.” On his way, he took a deep glowing pull from his cigarano. The health benefits of vaporized sage and chamomile filled the Chi

ef’s chest with each deep breath. He disappeared behind the door to his office with no further word. The office resumed its previous casual shuffle.

“Think his blood vessels would burst if we hid that thing from him?” whispered Greg, about the cigarano. Finch turned to answer, but stopped when he noticed a color he’d never seen before, on DA-Vos’ face. His light smoldered yellow.

“DA-Vos?”

“Do… do you not hear that?” murmured DA-Vos.

“Hear what?” said Finch. Greg turned full around to face both man and Squire.

“Do… do robots understand humor? Is that a joke?” said Greg.

“No… no joke… it’s…” DA-Vos’s yellow tint deepened, brightened, to show his concentration on something unheard to the others. “Do what? You want me to… no. I said no!”

Greg’s hand flew for his pistol too late. The sharpened spearhead arm of his own partner pierced him through. The Squire pinned his gushing back to his desk. When Greg slumped away, it turned its light, now crimson metal face on Finch, too shaken to move. It’s arm reconfigured into an open-ended barrel, swimming with prismatic light. DA-Vos’ body opened as a black steel blanket around his partner just in time. The Squire fired three shining lasers before it moved on to another officer, at another desk.

“Remain quiet, and still, Mr. Finch,” said DA-Vos’ voice, inside the black dome of his reformed mass. His purple face-light glowed in the dark.

“A-alright…” Finch whimpered. His partner’s body kept him safe from the Fusion rays, but only muffled the screams. He could still hear every last one of his fellow officers blown away, skewered, and incinerated by their Squire partners.

In the lavender dark, Finch felt every word about the bond between partners like a knot in his stomach. He felt rather differently about his luck, too.

Major General Christopher Droan. It sounded so impressive. It sounded so profound. Just what his dad would have wanted for him. What it didn’t sound like was just what it was: a magnetrain ride from the literal and figurative forest of high-rise towers in Beijing to a pointlessly huge office. It wasn’t always this way. There were times, before man-machine partnerships had become standard, before the WCC supplied their Precincts with Fusion equipment, when Major General meant what it sounded like. Missions. Firefights. Eradication of the last few fringe groups still that opposed the World Crisis Council. Still, Chris left his desk full of cases to manage, with a certain skip in his step. He hung by a muscular arm from the overhead rail of the speeding magnetrain with a grin on his face. He would trade it all again, for what he had now. The Precincts and their Squires could have the sprawling cityscapes of layered apartments, offices, and vertical garden terraces. He had his apartment on the sixteenth floor, where he raced to now, and his apartment had the only thing he really needed.

“Sheba!” Chris popped the lock on their apartment door with his key card. “Did you get my message? I’m so sorry I’m late!”

“Late?” Sheba cut him short. He followed her voice with a chuckle, to their kitchen. “This show doesn’t play without the both of us. You’re never late.”

“I’d consider myself lucky to be your stagehand,” Chris laughed. Then he turned the corner, saw her, and the words ran right out of his head. Her dark, smooth skin shone a mixture of silver from the Fusion tube lighting overhead and orange from the candle on the table. When she stood, dark curls spun around the, rich golden-brown rings in her eyes. She gave Chris a spin of her fierce ruby dress. The fabric swept up to flash her full thighs. She opened her arms to the chair pulled out for him.