"The Transgenic Falcon"

I arrived at Gen-Tech in a taxi at a few minutes before eight. I’d been woken a little after dawn, by; you guessed it, the light. Here’s a Tip from The Pro’s; if you’re going to drink yourself into a stupor, don’t, repeat, don’t, do it sitting in front of a bank of windows that face east.

Being woken by searing bright light in your face, a taste like a couple of rats had opened an air-B-n-B joint on your tongue and a seriously stiff neck and back are not conducive to returning to sleep. I really wanted to but no freaking joy. After dragging my self into the shower and standing under the hot water for some unknown time, I bit the bullet and turned off the hot water. I hipped and hopped in the chill for a few seconds then let some of the warm back in before shrinkage became a permanent condition.

It helped my hangover for about ten minutes. The big guns were clearly called for; so off I went to Luna Azul.

I live in what’s called the East End in Houston. It’s the part of town between the port and downtown. For a long, long time it was a mainly Hispanic area, a place where Spanish speaking Texans could make a decent life, have a house, a business, raise some kids. Then, as usually happens to minority areas of big cities, it got the short end of the stick in terms of redevelopment and infrastructure, with predictable results.

The thriving community decayed, with all the other problems that come from urban blight. Then, like day follows night, a bunch of upper middle class Houstonites saw they could move across the tracks and snap up quaint fixer-upper homes and started gentrifying like busy little Yuppie Prairie Dogs.

Of course nothing lasts forever and after a couple of decades the gentrifyers had found somewhere else to make over priced and the kids and grandkids of the former residents reclaimed the Hispanic enclave.

Through it all Luna Azul had been there, on the corner of Dallas street and 75th, serving traditional Mexican and Tex-Mex food to whoever dropped by.

One of the truly underrated contributions to the world by Mexicans is the perfect hangover cure. You’d think they’d get more credit for something this important, but that’s racism for you.

I have no idea how long Jesus “Chewy” Ramos’ and his family have been fixing up patrons who over-indulged in what my Irish granddad called the creature. It could have been as far back as when Don Diego Vega was wearing a mask and carving letters into walls in California. What I do know is they have it down to a science. Bless Chewy down to the soles of his feet; he took one look at me and called for the cure from the kitchen.

Okay, I’ve teased you enough. I’ll let you know what this wondrous cure is; a small bowl of Menudo followed by a plate of Huevos con Chile Verde, served with refried beans and flour, not corn, tortillas.

Menudo is a red chili based soup with the meat being tripe; you know cow stomachs? Yeah, I get that for the uninitiated the cure might sound worse than the disease, but trust me it’s not at all what you are thinking. It’s a thick soup, with long simmered pieces of tripe, potatoes and since we’re so close to Northern Mexico, hominy.

I have no clue why this soup and then the eggs and green chili will knock a hangover on its ass, but it does. By the time I was chasing the last of the egg yolks and chili around the plate with a last fold of tortilla, my headache was gone, my stomach felt fine, and I was ready to face the day.

I asked Chewy once why he thought this worked, and he told me that it was bad luck to tell a gringo such things. Gringo my ass. Chewy was born in Texas and hasn’t left the state more than twice in his life, neither time was to Mexico, I am quite sure.

I was thinking all this over, in a pretty successful attempt to keep from thinking about what I’d saw last night, when the cab arrived at the entrance of Gen-Tech. I got out and paid the cabby, then took a moment to look around. It was early enough in the day that the temperature was not brutal, but it was still damned hot. The idiot protesters were out in force, and like yesterday, they seemed more interested in scoring points off each other than trying to get Gen-Tech to change its evil ways.

When I walked in yesterday I’d been pretty confident we’d find that someone from the Warriors of Christ had done in poor old Dr. Cho. Twenty hours or so later, that had fallen to a distant possibility. Whatever killed Cho had to be very specific and high-tech, and while there might be WoC members who were of a scientific mind set, they were probably few and far between. No, at this point I was convinced it was someone inside Gen-Tech who’d killed Cho. I needed to narrow that field a lot today if I was going to have a chance of fingering the actual killer before Round hung a frame on Mick Taylor.

It might have been before the start of normal business hours, but the Gen-Tech lobby/showroom was already humming. There were the same groups of business types from yesterday, but they had been augmented by a troop of kids, ranging in age from eight to ten, if my sense of North American Yard-Apes age is any good.

They were all frightfully well dressed and scrubbed, it was all the tip-off I needed to know they were part of the second generation at Gen-Tech, busy Hoovering up lots of corporate propaganda as part of their education. There were the usual greasy grinds sucking up to the teachers, a couple of older boys who had class clown written all over them, a tight knot of young girls orbited by the few boys who already had a clue about what makes being part of a species with two sexes such a great thing. They all looked very Stepford-ish in their tan pants, white shirts and blue vests with, of course, the Gen-Tech logo stitched on the left breast.

I turned my attention to the live tree reception desk and the delectable Virginia, who had replaced Johnny Rounds goon now that the lobby was again open for business. She was wearing a cream colored suit that set the dusky tone of her skin off in such a way as to miss being an incitement to riot by only microns. She had her hair back in a looser braid than the day before, with enough left over to frame her face. I’m not usually a fan of metallic lipstick, but the copper color that she wore made her prefect white smile shine like a diamond under a high-intensity halogen lamp.

As amazing as she looked, Virginia was not the only noteworthy thing at reception. The metal crossbar that had been empty yesterday now had an avian occupant. He was, without doubt or reservation one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. And I’ve been to Amsterdam.

The form was the classic silhouette of a bird of prey, about ten inches tall, big chest, long wings folded back along his flanks. All quite normal if one ignored the colors of the bird. Where most falcons were brown or blue-gray or orange or some combination, this particular raptor was decked out in the glitter of gold and sapphire, ruby and platinum.

Of course you’ve seen the pictures, everyone in the world has. The bird was Hector, the Transgenic Falcon and one of Otho Johnson’s greatest PR moves. From the glittering blue wings, to the lustrous metallic gleam of Hector’s talons and beak the bird had been tweaked to show both the possibilities of genetic engineering and the skill of the Gen-Tech boffins.

I approached the desk from the side away from the living jewel of a bird, just for safety’s sake. It’s not that I am afraid of birds, not at all. But Hector was derived from the Merlin Falcon, and they are part of that group of birds of prey who kill with their beaks. Now, you can take your chances with your fingers around a strange animal if you like, more power to you if you do. I’ll just be a little cautious. I like all my fingers right where they are, thank you very much.

Leaning on the corner of the desk I gave Virginia a winning smile, and asked, “Who’s your show-off friend?”

Virginia turned her attention to me and it was like the sun coming out from behind a cloud. The overly analytical part of my mind wondered if it was a learned skill or natural talent. The rest of me just enjoyed the warmth.

“Welcome back to Gen-Tech, Mr. Hunt!” Virginia said, with either real or faux sincerity, I didn’t really care which, “I’d think that anyone who wears those kinds of shirts wouldn’t be insecure with others being flashy,” she finished with a sly look in those smoldering dark eyes.

I rolled my own eyes. Yes, I was wearing an aloha shirt. They are comfortable and I like them, but it wasn’t like this one was particularly obnoxious. It sported a black background mostly covered in big green leaves, with white flowers and the occasional Macaw to add some more color. “Aloha shirts are considered dress shirts in Hawaii, you know.”

“How nice for them; let me know when we get there,” Virginia replied.

I was about to assay another attempt to defend my wardrobe choices when Hector let out a chirping cry, spread his wings, and flew across the wide entrance hall. Light heliographed off him, spreading reflected red, blue and gold shimmers all around. He dodged out of sight around one of the trees.

“Was it something I said?” I asked after recovering my calm. Chewy’s food might have brought me out of the depths of a hangover, but it wasn’t magic. I was still muzzy-headed enough to be startled by a metal bird launching itself skyward a couple of feet away.

“Probably,” Virginia told me. It would have stung if she hadn’t had that glint in her eyes.

“I’d better watch my mouth then. I left my G-T handheld here last night with some gorilla, he was supposed to keep it locked up. Do you know where it is?” I asked her, fishing out the receipt.

“Of course, Mr. Hunt,” Virginia said and typed in some commands on her keyboard. A drawer clicked, and she quickly fished my handheld out. I handed her the receipt.

“Can I ask you a question, Virginia?” She graciously ignored the fact that I just had asked a question by asking, and nodded. “Does every man who comes through here try to chat you up?”

I won a bet with myself when she rolled her eyes and gave a little snort. You see, gorgeous women don’t usually snort. That Virginia did, proved that her bright, shiny, and slyly flirtatious act was no more than that, a shell she put on because living with the stream of unwanted attention was hard without some buffer.

“Yes, and a small but non-zero number of the women too,” she said, her smile loosing some of the brilliance in favor of becoming something more real.

“And here I though we were leaving those kinds of objectification behind here in the mid-Twenty-First century. Is that why you keep a bird of prey on your desk?”

Virginia glanced around to be sure no one witnessed her breaking character, “Well, its all part of the job, isn’t it?” she asked. “Hector and me, we’re out front to make a particular kind of impression. That impression is pretty regressive and tired, but it is what the Execs want, so that’s what they get.”

“I get the impression you’re well educated. Isn’t this gig a bit of a waste of that?”

She arched an eyebrow at me. What I wouldn’t give to be able to do that! Mine just go up or down together, like conjoined twins, no matter how much I practice.

“I’d say it would depend on what your degree is,” she said, a new, real and still sly smile crossing her face.

“And what degree or degrees prepare you for being a receptionist?”

“A Bachelors in criminology and Masters in the psychology of security systems deployment.”

I stood there, a little gob-smacked. Sure I’d been cagey enough to figure she showed a shell-face to the world, but I then tripped right over the pretty girl thing, and missed the obvious. She wasn’t just the pretty face you saw before you saw anyone else at Gen-Tech; she was a primary part of the defense of the building. After all, who’d think a smoking hot woman was running the front line? Whoever it was, it sure as hell wasn’t me.

I took a step back from the desk, (and no, it wasn’t to try to hide the blush that was creeping up my neck to my cheeks. Or at least not completely) and looked at her and her positioning again, with fresh eyes. Yep, there was no way to get past this desk without being seen, noticed, and stopped.

“I suppose you have a whole array of non-lethal options built into your fancy desk?”

Virginia’s smile changed to something more dangerous, though still amused. “That would be telling, Mr. Hunt!”

“So I guess you like working for Gen-Tech?” I asked, changing the subject since there was more of a chance of me starting for the Houston Wizards than there was of a security specialist casually trotting out the details of attack deflection and deterrence.

“Oh, hell no!” Virginia said vehemently, “I’ve have another two years here contractually, then I am out of this ant-farm.”

It was turning out that Virginia was my type of gal. I gave her a real grin. “What? You’re not a true believer in Otho Johnson’s vision of the future?”

“In a word, no. It’s all a little too Brave New World for me. I live in the cheapest apartment available, I don’t waste money on anything other than wardrobe, and the minute my contracts up, I’m off to a mid-level position designing security, instead of sitting in the front of it.”

“You might want to watch the Aldus Huxley references, there. Too much of that kind of thing and you’ll wreck you image as just a pretty face.”

“Oh, I’m not too worried. Most people make a decision about what they see right away, and are very reluctant to change it, even in the face of inconsistencies. But I don’t have to tell you that, you have your own cover going on, don’t you Mr. Hunt?”

“What do you mean?” I asked, trying to keep my smile light and gormless.

She was having none of it; her eyes let me know. “The Hawaiian shirts, of course. Ugly, garish, something that only a fool or someone completely clueless would wear, especially around here. People see the shirt and miss the man and the mind behind it.”

Hell and shit! She had me dead to rights! So I went to my Plan B and pulled the tattered copy of the Fifteen Steps out of my back pocket. “It’s from the book; Chapter 8, Misdirection and Interrogation. Anyone whose read it would know. But I do have to say I’m impressed that you spotted it on your own. Good observation skills. Um, you won’t spread that around, will you? I’ve got a job to do here and it’s a big enough bitch as it is.”

She nodded and was about to say something, when there was a whirr in the air and a flash of metallic wings. Hector had returned. The falcon landed on its perch. It flapped its wings twice then flicked its beak out, tossing what looked like a leather bean bag on the desk in front of me.

“He likes you!” Virginia said.

Hector looked at me, then the beanbag, then me again. I’d seen dogs do this, but a bird?

“What’s he want?” I asked, not believing what I though he wanted.

“To play fetch. He wants you to throw the toy. He doesn’t offer it to just anyone.”

A bird that wants to play fetch; why not? In a place where they can create new sapient species, nothing should really be out of bounds. I picked up the little ball, looked around to make sure I could throw it somewhere without clonking someone one in the head, and lofted it. Hector shot from his perch, made a swooping curve and snatched the ball from the air with his beak. He executed a two axis turn, dropped, then swooped low to the floor, pulling up in time to stop his forward motion and land on back on the perch. Then he flicked the beanbag back on the desk in front of me. Oh, this was so much better than throwing a stick for a dog!

I fished a card out of my cargo pants pocket and held it out to Virginia. “As a PI I find I need people of certain expertise from time to time. I don’t suppose you’d be willing to consult for me on the side, if something in your field comes up? Assuming that’s allowed in your contract?” I asked. It was no BS, there is no way to know what’s going to be useful in the future and when you run into someone with expert knowledge its worth cultivating them, just in case.

“I’d be delighted, Mr. Hunt, as long as this consultation is for a fee, of course,” she said taking the card.

“Of course, professionals should not work for free,” I agreed. She pulled a card out of her desk, scrawled a number across the back and handed it to me.

“That’s my private number on the back; use it if you need me.”

I was getting a lot of really good eye contact from this smart, hot, young woman. Five minutes earlier I’d have thought I was being hit on. But now that I had a line on Virginia’s standard game, I was pretty sure I’d go down in her estimation if I went with it. In any case, my pal Hector stepped in then letting out an ear piercing cry. We both looked at him, and he did his three part glancing bit with the ball again. Grinning in defeat, I picked it up and threw it as far away as I could.

While the bird was chasing it down I asked Virginia to page Belinda for me. I spent the next fifteen minutes playing with Hector. We managed to gather a small crowd, including the school kids to watch me and the wonder bird play fetch. I’d have stopped a couple of times, but that pesky raptor would let out a screech when I tried, so we kept it up until Belinda rescued me. I gave the ball one last heave and beat a hasty retreat to the elevators before my new avian overlord could figure out where I went. Even the birds in the Gen-Tech want to own you.