(After what feels like too little thought, I am going to post up some chapters of a long, long story I wrapped up several years ago. These will be put up, here and there, just because. It is future science fiction, cyberpunk flavour)
Hannox could have sworn his morning alarm was louder than usual. He didn’t recall adjusting the volume, but the thing chirped at him with gusto.
“Alarm stop,” he said, being intentionally loud; there was no point in having the voice system miss his command. He lay there for a few moments, trying to shake his fatigue. The wall display showed the time at 0901. He didn’t have much to do, but he never let himself get up later than 0900. It was good to stay busy, if only to keep up the front.
“Home system, voice activate command,” he said, exaggerating his enunciation for the program. At least, he could stay in bed for long enough to check messages.
“Home system responding. Security code, please,” his ancient, home network responded through the wall speakers.
“Security code, alpha 4-6-7-2-9 epsilon hummingbird, end code.” He spoke back to the bedroom receiver, planted in the ceiling.
“Home system activated. Good morning, Gerald.”
“Good morning, program,” Hannox replied. The good morning bit was, in fact, the third layer of security for the program. Voice pattern recognition and the basic code could be worked around, but the specific reply to the program greeting would be far harder to figure out. The system was designed to be an all-purpose, home assistance aid. It was intended as your message taker, home security, network facilitator, file storage, door opener, etc, etc. The original launch for the product, Allhome, was nearly two hundred years ago, and product support ended twenty years later. Allhome was the flagship product of the Home Tech Corporation; they released a few upgrades and some parallel products, but the failure of Allhome was the end of them. Now, a full-blown Allhome installation was impossibly rare; as far as he knew, Hannox might have the only one in operation. The approach was security through obscurity.
“List new voice messages,” Hannox commanded. He was already sitting up, despite his early intent to keep resting.
“One new voice message. Today. 0734. Maxwell Henderson. Two seconds.”
Hannox knew what that was about. There was no need to actually check the message.
“Delete new voice messages,” Hannox said.
“New voice messages deleted.”
“Activate agenda,” he kept on.
“Agenda activated.”
“List entries, current day,” Hannox ordered. The agenda was more of a backup, really; it was rare that he forgot about anything.
“Entry one. General reminder to review account statement activity…” The program paused to allow him to modify or delete the entry. He let it keep going.
“Entry two. 1045. Follow up with price quotation at 6978 Filnom Street, Middle Rim…”
“Expand entry two,” Hannox commanded. It was an old quote, and he was sure it would amount to nothing, but keeping active with the business was important. After all, a front was a front. Hannox couldn’t remember the specifics of the quote; the agenda entry would have the basics he needed to remind him.
“Entry two expanded. Price quote for Tyton Star 905x. Full installation, with and without service. Two bedroom bungalow, city lot, no interest in package upgrades, no interest in alternate systems. Original quote of 23,000 credits, five percent discount not offered. Aldo and Melissa Whitman, retired corpers, middle sixties, sole occupants. End of entry two…”
The quote was over a month old, meaning it was practically dead in the water. Better for them, really; Tyton Star was a low-end brand of systems that made a business of renaming obsolete tech to make it sound impressive. The markup wasn’t ridiculous, but still on the high side. Aldo had been focussed on a low-cost option, even though he could probably have afforded much better. Guys like that were more interested in winning the price negotiation than getting value. Usually, they would bite when the price dropped enough to brag to their friends. Considering the sale was going cold, five percent was a last ditch offer to close the deal. The listed price was 23,500, but Hannox always knocked off five hundred for first time customers. The five percent figure was explained as a Tyton Star rebate that would only be available for a few days. Even with five percent off, the system still made reasonable money. Hannox was fairly certain the Whitmans would pass on the offer. They had either purchased a competing product or decided to stick with a non-automated security system.
“Entry three. 1400. Contact Winston. Discuss apartment maintenance…”
Which was Winston’s way of doing house calls without suspicion. His real business was arms and ammunition. Hannox had a Magnus 1400 rifle that used a rare type of ammo; Winston was the only reliable supplier that Hannox knew. His supply of ammunition for the Magnus was fine, but he planned on spending some range time with it in the coming weeks, so a top up was in order.
“End of entries.”
“De-activate agenda. Exit home system.”
“Home system exiting. Have a nice day.”
“You, too,” Hannox said. It was another security prompt for the system. The security portion of the program had a ton of features that were set to notify him automatically, so there was no point in looking into the security log. His apartment was in a decent area of the middle rim and there had never been a serious security problem.
The time was almost 1000 before Hannox finished washing up and eating. The joy of running a security sales and consulting business as a front was lots of easily-explained down time. The 1045 call to Whitman was flexible, so there was plenty of time for the real job. A trip to see his main contact was in order, even if it was a little early.
The apartment took up the entire second floor of a two story building; the downstairs occupant, a retired accounting executive, was quiet and inconspicuous. Hannox had thoroughly checked his background after he moved in. The building was owned by Hamitomi Corporation’s property holdings division. They owned a lot of buildings in the middle rim. The choice of a Hamitomi building was intentional; it meant he had no specific superintendent. His unit was just a number, in a large list of numbers. The yearly inspections were a farce, a double check that the building was still standing and in good order. Hannox had made a few interior modifications that weren’t on the books, and though they were technically allowed in his rental agreement, he preferred to keep them to himself. In six years, he made sure that any repairs and maintenance were done without the knowledge of Hamitomi; and he was sure they didn’t mind.
The building had an attached garage that was exclusive to him. The other tenant didn’t own a vehicle, which was perfect. The garage had also been slightly modified to improve security. Hannox entered a complex code into the security lock and confirmed with his voice signature. The lock requested confirmation of the code, and Hannox entered the same code with two characters transposed, opening the lock.
The car was an older model Honda-Tirudachi 1100 series. They were reliable, had great longevity, and remained common enough to blend in with traffic. Like so much else, Hannox had made changes to the car. The 1100 series came with a one hundred and eighty horsepower engine, which was more than peppy enough for civilian use. There was an 1100x package that upgraded a few things, but mainly bumped the engine to two hundred horses, and that was downright quick. Sure, there were bigger engines and faster cars, but very few that weren’t monitored with extra care. Hannox had made enhancements that would attract no immediate attention, and they were all legal enough that a fine would be his worst punishment, if he ever got caught. The motor had been adjusted to put out two hundred and fifteen horsepower. The 1100s also used an old-style power train and transmission, which had been enhanced to give the car maximum acceleration from slow speeds. Most situations where speed was needed in the city meant getting off the mark quickly; top end speed was rarely a worry because there were very few places it could be reached. The vehicle had a silicon-based coating that made it resistant to casual ballistic impact and other blunt damage. The tires had an interior coating to make them self-sealing and nearly wear proof. He had also installed his car’s transponder into a remote control toy car that he could deploy from the undercarriage. He had never used it but if he ever got in too deep with the authorities, it would make a great, short-term decoy. And, like his apartment, there were a couple of hidden compartments for stowing hardware.
John Settger 