Perennial 23/A Futuristic Crime Novel

By Sandy Raschke

Linsee Kang, a part-time researcher for Perennial 23, a start-up in South San Francisco, discovers that the company is hiding the true nature of its work. She contacts the media but is ridiculed. Shortly after, she is fired, shoved into a limo in front of the building by several advanced male humanoids, and awakens in the hold of a cargo jet.

She is transported to a remote facility in the Chihuahuan Desert in Northern Mexico, where the Superintendent has been bribed to keep her under wraps. But a new employee, is alarmed when he sees the guards mistreating her. As Linsee lies dying in an isolation cell, he rescues her. With help from a cargo loader and a security guard, they flee Temporan and arrive in Las Cruces, NM, taking refuge with the security guard's aunt.

Logan Quevant, Temporan's Superintendent goes after them. In El Paso, he hires a well-respected but unconventional private investigator, Elvyra Prezly and asks her to find his "relatives." Prezly quickly learns he is lying and returns his retainer. Quevant then hires PI Charles "Chuck" Paladino, a retired Marine Corps intelligence officer, and Elvyra's friend. Paladino doesn't believe Quevant either and returns the money. Elvyra senses Arroyo and Kang are in danger; a tip from her father leads them to the two, and Elvyra and Chuck work together to protect them.

While Perennial 23's top officers, both advanced AI humanoids, are sent to neutralize Linsee and retrieve the bribe they gave to Quevant, Chuck and Elvyra uncover a conspiracy that threatens almost every male on the planet. With time running out, they try to shield Linsee from harm, save Quevant, and prevent a catastrophe that could rip the fabric of society to shreds.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sandy Raschke
• Release date: Feb 24, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393789536

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

In the most remote part of the Chihuahuan Desert in Northern Mexico, a secret facility existed, three stories built under the sandy soil. From the air, no one could see anything but cactus, creosote bushes, acacia, tar bush and mesquite, along with the occasional antelope, and what was presumed to be an abandoned airstrip less than a quarter mile away.  

On March 25, 2075, a remarkable error occurred. The freight loader aboard the small cargo jet that stopped every two weeks at the Temporan research facility to drop off supplies, had mistakenly included twenty loaves of bread among the usual provisions required to keep the institution functioning.

Logan Quevant, Temporan’s Superintendent, was not amused. One of his duties was to keep the food stores severely restricted in order to limit the possibility of corruption. Only those items required to sustain basic nutritional needs were allowed, no more, no less. The presence of bread on Temporan was a luxury not within those guidelines. Worse, it could lead to the employees’ extraneous thoughts and needless expectations. 

Someone was in a heap of trouble.

What idiot ordered this? he bellowed, wafting a baguette at his executive assistant, Beta-lin Jute. Get that new Stores’ Clerk in here at once. Beta-lin, her intestines doing flip-flops, smiled meekly and scurried back to her outer office to summon the clerk.

THREE LEVELS BELOW, in what had once been an attitude adjustment section, Garland Arroyo, the newly-assigned Stores’ Clerk, was struggling with screens filled with regulations, and a ledger system that seemed more like bird tracks than financial accounting. From what he had gleaned thus far, the prior holder of the position had been summarily fired three weeks ago for trading in contraband; well, contraband to some, perhaps, although Garland knew deep in his soul that to call a piece of hard candy contraband seemed awfully petty.

On the other hand, he was also aware that Temporan was considered to be a very tough place to work, not only for the detainees but for the personnel too. One had to have a hardy constitution to be able to complete a six-month rotation without sunlight or seeing the sky, or the benefits of running water, chewable food, personal electronic tablets, or close physical contact with a significant—or insignificant—other, or others, as the case might be.

Of course, being only three days into his one-year contract, he was making a lot of assumptions, mainly because he hadn’t the foggiest notion about what the hell was going on in this place, especially the incredible secrecy as to who were the detainees and why they were here and not in a regular prison. Still, what he had seen so far hadn’t impressed him much.

HE WAS TWENTY-THREE years old. This was his first real job and he couldn’t afford to argue with the management about anything. Non-professional work was hard to come by if you were human, especially accounting/supply clerk positions. He had found the advertisement on an online employment site and applied. A few days later, the Human Resources Manager of Perennial 23 linked and said the company wanted to interview him, in person. He found that odd, especially when there were plenty of other options, such as a live link interview. But he was desperate and flew to El Paso, Texas, and used most of his savings to get there from Dayton,

Nevada. He was hired on the spot and given a bonus, equal to his air fare and one month in wages.

That in itself was weird, considering it was such a lowly job, but he wasn’t about to give the money back. He was flown from El Paso to Temporan in the company’s private jet, with one duffel bag containing his entire existence. Now he was committed to a one-year contract, stuck in the desert in the middle of nowhere, El Paso being over 255 miles away by air.

CANDY. After two days of swallowing a pyramid of essential nutri-caps, the thought of chewing on something hard, or chewing on anything at all, had definite appeal. Garland Arroyo rustled through the dismissed clerk’s drawer, thinking, hoping, the old miscreant had left something more interesting behind than the RFID tags to track the facility’s inventory of supplies.

Mr. Arroyo. The grating voice of the Superintendent’s assistant reined him back to reality.  Mr. Arroyo, come with me please.

CHAPTER 2

Number 46 XX squinted under the bright white light, listening for more than the sound of her beating heart. She had arrived at Temporan in a small private jet, after being transported from the San Francisco Bay area in a cargo jet that had stopped several times, although where was a mystery to her. The only clue was that the last time they landed, the people she heard spoke Spanish.  

It was dark inside the cargo hold and cramped in the covered wire cage they kept her in, but there were others with her—from their grunts and lowing, she presumed they were cattle and pigs. At least it smelled like livestock. Just knowing she wasn’t alone kept her sane in the darkness, along with a brief streak of light from the loading and unloading of other cargo. She knew she had been kidnapped, but had no idea at the time where they were taking her.

The close atmosphere of the hold had taken on an almost bucolic resonance which reminded Linsee Kang of the sweetness of childhood and her early life on the family farm in Salinas, California, where she had tended the chickens her mother raised for meat and eggs. The odiferous deposits of the livestock seemed almost nostalgic to her. They were alive and noisy and she welcomed that.

Then someone came for her, put a hood over her head and she stumbled down a ramp, her legs cramped and painful. She was given a short respite inside a hangar, where she was able to wash up, change clothes and eat; then back across the tarmac and into another, smaller plane. The jet taxied down the runway and she was in flight again. A short time later, the plane landed, bouncing a few times as it hit the bumpy, rough runway, and almost threw her out of her seat.

Now, in what she thought was a prison, in a windowless, seamless gray room, with one bright light always on, she remembered how callous the humanoid guards were as they dragged her off the jet and shoved her into a van. She sucked in her tears. How long could they keep her confined like this?

CHAPTER 3

Garland Arroyo stood , head bowed, in front of the Superintendent. Under Logan Quevant’s withering glare, he admitted he wasn’t quite up to speed on all of Temporan’s rules and regulations. After all, he had just arrived. Quevant puffed out his chest before thrusting the bag of loaves into Garland’s hands. "These are to be destroyed , he said, vaporized —as soon as you leave this room." He waved his hand dismissively, and Garland slunk out of the office to confer with Beta-Lin Jute as to the location of the waste disposer, but not before tearing off a large chunk off one of the loaves and stuffing it in his pocket.

CHAPTER 4

Linsee Kang had graduated from John Hopkins University in 2072 with an MS in Genetic Bio-pharmacology. She was studying for her Ph.D. at Stanford University, when she was suddenly waylaid while walking out of a start-up facility in South San Francisco; she had been hired part-time as a junior researcher in the company’s Genetics Department five months before. She needed the money as the fellowship and grant she had received from Stanford and the government, respectively, had covered only tuition and not living expenses. She estimated it would take her an extra two years to finish the doctoral program because she didn’t want to graduate with a massive debt to pay off. The Department of Education often forgave debt if the graduate volunteered to perform public service for five years; but Linsee was involved in private research, not public service and was told her debt would not be forgiven.

The start-up was losing money and couldn’t help with her debt either, but the project they hired her for was fascinating and would greatly advance science and her reputation as a researcher if it worked out. The company claimed they had found the crime gene, and were working on a treatment to remove it after it was detected in a DNA sample, either through pharmaceutical or bio-chemical methods.

Experiments had already been conducted in gene-altering but were unsuccessful; several studies proved that even when the alleged gene was removed prior to in vitro fertilization, or from each prospective parent before pregnancy, the propensity to commit crime remained the same. The start-up, Perennial 23, thought they could do better, and had turned its attention to bio-chemistry and pharmaceuticals rather than the altering of DNA.

Unfortunately, Linsee discovered through her analysis of the current research that the chemical brew cooked up by the senior researchers had nothing to do with defeating the crime gene, but instead rendered male humans infertile, with or without the gene.

Why would they want to do that? she wondered. Weren’t there already enough AIs to do almost every conceivable job imaginable? What the company seemed to be doing would destroy what was left of humanity.

CHAPTER 5

Linsee contacted various media outlets, anonymously. They rebuffed the notion there was a conspiracy to eliminate men and told her she needed therapy. Not one reporter or news manager was willing to investigate her claims. 

But there were rumblings among some of the newer human researchers and laboratory technicians at Perennial 23, and several had quit their jobs. No one was willing to risk being ostracized or face the possibility of never finding work in their field ever again.

Linsee went on, gathering data and encrypting it to keep herself safe, sending a micro drive home to her mother. She was unaware that the media groups which had disputed her claims had quietly approached Boyle de Clerque, the CEO of Perennial 23, and asked him if the anonymous claims were true. A week later, as she was going over a new analysis of the latest iteration of the compound in her office, she was confronted by management, summarily fired and hustled out of the building.

Waiting for her at curbside was a pair of security personnel, both AI humanoids; they grabbed then tossed her into the back of a limo. Where are you taking me? she yelled, as one of them stuck a needle in her arm.

CHAPTER 6

Garland Arroyo was checking off the manifest at the well-camouflaged loading dock in the rear of Temporan; the supplies had been brought in the day before on a cargo jet: containers of drinking water and cartons of nutri-tabs, blankets, cots and general medical supplies. As he was allocating the supplies to each department, a small jet flew low then landed on the old runway. More supplies?

A few minutes later, a white van showed up at the dock with Perennial 23 printed on the side door. He glanced away from the manifest and saw a small figure being pulled from the back seat, hands cuffed behind the back, with a partial hood obscuring the face. There were no detainees on his manifest. Temporan was where they took assassins and terrorists, or so the Superintendent had told him. What could this tiny person have done to be sent here?

He watched with dismay as one of the intake humanoid guards pushed the person toward the walkway that led to the Superintendent’s office. As the mystery prisoner turned to protest, the guard slapped him on the back, hard enough to make the prisoner trip. Garland was shocked—he had never seen a humanoid commit a violent act.

The hood slipped and he got a brief look—a woman!—she had Eurasian features, and an expression of sheer terror. She was small in stature, and shouldn’t have been treated as if she were a burly, hardened criminal. Then, as she slowly disappeared from view, he went back to the manifest, quietly checking off the rest of the cargo before summoning the AI humanoid maintenance team to take it to the proper departments.

He fondly remembered enjoying the hunk of bread he’d taken from one of the baguettes before committing them to the waste unit, and wished for more. But this time, there were no mistakes; probably the result of another one of Logan Quevant’s tirades.

CHAPTER 7

Linsee Kang’s introduction to captivity began with a one-sided interview and a gray one-piece uniform thrust into her arms by Logan Quevant. He told her when and how she would be fed, that her body would be automatically sprayed once a week to keep her free of germs and grime, and that she would have no contact with another human being as long as she remained at Temporan.  

Should she become sick, she would be remotely analyzed and treatment would be provided by one of the staffers. She would receive her nutrition through a slot in the cell—a handful of nutri-tabs containing essential vitamins, minerals, fats and oils, and protein, etc., along with several tubes of water daily. If she died while at Temporan, her body would be sent to the disposal unit and vaporized. Finally, he said, You are now detainee number 46 XX. Linsee Kang no longer exists.

When she asked why she’d been kidnapped off the street without a word of explanation, and transported to Temporan, Quevant merely smirked. Make the best of it, he said. You never know, someday you might leave here. Then, as she was taken to her cell, he went to the private quarters behind his office and opened his safe. He pulled out the box of precious stones given to him three days ago by a high-ranking officer—or so she said—of Perennial 23; smiling, he counted them again, one by one. He had checked their current value after the AI humanoid female departed: $250,000. He silently thanked Perennial 23 for adding to his retirement fund.

SO THERE SHE SAT, ON a hard metal bench that doubled as a bed. She looked around for security cameras—felt along the walls of the cell for pinholes, stood on the bench and looked up at the ceiling for any indication of a camera. There was a small toilet built into the wall, and she looked around it, too, and found nothing. The toilet didn’t need to be flushed—when she rose from the seat, the waste disappeared without any water involved.

Several times a day she exercised—stretching, yoga, squats, pacing back and forth in her cell. She knew the year was 2075 and the month, March—or now maybe early April, but she had no way to tell time, only how many days had passed, as each day the nutri-tabs and water were pushed through the slot then an hour later the water tubes were collected, so there would be nothing she could use to end her life, if it should come to that.

Or was there? What if she didn’t take the nutri-tabs? Or drink the water? She could empty the liquid into the toilet as if she were urinating and return the tubes as required. How long would it take for her to wither away to nothing? The big question was, if they found her dying, would they intervene to keep her alive? The Superintendent had said yes, but his eyes and demeanor had indicated otherwise. Still, she was determined to do something provocative, hoping that someone would eventually see her and realize she didn’t belong here.

FIVE DAYS PASSED, SEVEN, ten; she had etched the days with what was left of her fingernails on the thin blanket they had given her. She could hardly stand now; her lips were chapped, her throat dry. She was too weak to empty the water tubes in the toilet, but then she realized that no one had been coming lately to collect them or give her more. She had let them and the nutrients pile up on the floor. She was sure now—someone had told the food staff the cell was no longer occupied, and had left her to die. In a brief moment of clarity, she wondered how much the corporation had paid the superintendent to keep her here.

The next day her eyesight dimmed to the point where she couldn’t see the door. She lay on the hard metal surface and waited for someone to find her—or for death to take her.

CHAPTER 8

Garland Arroyo was swamped with numbers; this