Free Finn's Golem by Gregg Taylor Page B

unarmed people to death for fun, artificial or otherwise.” I got up out of my chair. The walking dump truck behind Vince stiffened, but didn’t move. “You don’t want to help me, don’t help me.”
    Vince held up his hand . “I didn’t say that. Regardless of your intent you did a good turn for one of my boys and I am grateful. But my business is dependent on a certain mutual respect for fellow travelers.”
    “All I need is a little information on an out-of-town operator. A human operator. Somebody that might not normally work out of Bountiful, but could have a team here now. I need to know.”
    Vince seemed amused . “What makes you think that I would have such information?”
    “I don’t , ” I said . “But I know that I don’t have it, and I know that I need it.”
    Vince looked at me a long time. At last he spoke. “Is the water over your head, Mister Finn?”
    I had nothing to say to that, so I didn’t. I didn’t need philosophy from a Synth.
    He looked at me for a moment longer then spoke over his shoulder. I couldn’t follow any of it. It was that God-awful gibberish they spoke between each other. It sounded almost like real words, but garbled. Sometimes it seemed to be in code, and then a word you almost recognized would pop in. I’d never been sure that they didn’t do it just to annoy us.
    The giant nodded mutely and turned to go. Vince gave me a chuck on the shoulder. “Follow Carl , ” h e said . “He’ll take you to a junior associate of mine who will take you to see someone.”
    “And that someone will have the information I need?”
    He shrugged . “Or she will know who will. And she will know it is a favor to me. Do you have any further questions?” he asked .
    “Yeah , ” I said . “Did you say that monster’s name is Carl ?”

ELEVEN
    At first glance, I thought she was human.
    The light in the bar wasn’t very good, but it was one of those lounges on the borders of Synthtown where the crowd was pretty mixed. The brunette behind the bar wasn’t tall, but she sure was well put together. The rest of the staff deferred to her like she owned the place and as I approached her I looked back to make sure I hadn’t been pointed the wrong way. The Synth at the door gave me a nod and slipped out. There was nothing for it now.
    I sat down on a stool at the end of the bar, away from the rest of the crowd. She called off a unit with green skin and tentacles that tried to serve me and a moment later wandered over herself.
    She was only maybe five-four, but it wasn’t what you noticed about her first. She wore a kind of bar-chic elegance that hung low enough to distract but not look trashy. The kind of view of more exciting locales that was impossible to resist because it seemed like it wasn’t intentionally on display. My guess was that it was perfectly calculated.
    She approached and leaned in towards her side of the bar, setting her elbows down in such a way that her arms pushed her breasts in together softly. Just enough to give the trained eye a perfect sense of their texture. She leaned in a little further, as if to speak over the music, which wasn’t really loud enough to merit it. It was at that moment that I realized that her skin was just a little bit too pink.
    Even when they were building new Synths, it was illegal to make them look exactly human. Didn’t matter for the most part, they were designed to work, not to look pretty. Except for those for whom looking pretty had been their work. Units built for sex had been created with as subtle a deviation from human standards as possible under the law, which satisfied everybody but a few perverts, and they could always find a way. But this one was something else again. Like I say, the light wasn’t good, but she could almost pass.
    There must have been something like surprise on my face, because she looked up and smiled wide. I could see then how her designers had got away with the skin tone; her eyes were almost shocking