I reached into my pocket, pulled out a fifty-solar coin, and flipped it. It went up rapidly, but came down in what still seemed like slow motion to me, even after all these years on Mars; Mac didn't require any special reflexes to catch it in midair. “Of course,” he said, “I suppose we could make an exception..."
"Thanks. You're a credit to law-enforcement officials everywhere."
He snorted again, then: “Say, what kind of heat you packing these days? You still carrying that old Smith & Wesson?"
"I've got a license,” I said, narrowing my eyes.
"Oh, I know, I know. But be careful, eh? The times, they are a-changin'. Bullets aren't much use against a transfer, and there are getting to be more of those each day."
I nodded. “So I've heard. How do you guys handle them?"
"Until recently, as little as possible,” said Mac. “Turning a blind eye, and all that."
"Saves getting up,” I said.
Mac didn't take offense. “Exactly. But let me show you something.” We left his office, went further down the corridor and entered another room. He pointed to a device on the table. “Just arrived from Earth,” he said. “The latest thing."
It was a wide, flat disk, maybe half a meter in diameter, and five centimeters thick. There were a pair of U-shaped handgrips attached to the edge, opposite each other. “What is it?” I asked.
"A broadband disrupter,” he said. He picked it up and held it in front of himself, like a gladiator's shield. “It discharges an oscillating multifrequency electromagnetic pulse. From a distance of four meters or less, it will completely fry the artificial brain of a transfer—killing it as effectively as a bullet kills a human."
"I don't plan on killing anyone,” I said.
"That's what you said the last time."
Ouch. Still, maybe he had a point. “I don't suppose you have a spare one I can borrow?"
Mac laughed. “Are you kidding? This is the only one we've got so far."
"Well, then,” I said, heading for the door, “I guess I'd better be careful."
* * *
My next stop was the NewYou building. I took Third Avenue, one of the radial streets of the city, out the five blocks to it. The building was two stories tall and was made, like most structures here, of red laser-fused Martian sand bricks. Flanking the main doors were a pair of wide alloquartz display windows, showing dusty artificial bodies dressed in fashions from about two mears ago; it was high time somebody updated things.
Inside, the store was part showroom and part workshop, with spare parts components about: here, a white-skinned artificial hand; there, a black lower leg; on shelves, synthetic eyes and spools of colored monofilament that I guessed were used to simulate hair. There were also all sorts of internal parts on worktables: motors and hydraulic pumps and joint hinges. A half-dozen technicians were milling around, assembling new bodies or repairing old ones.
Across the room, I spotted Cassandra Wilkins, wearing a beige suit today. She was talking with a man and a woman, who were biological; potential customers, presumably. “Hello, Cassandra,” I said, after I'd closed the distance between us.
"Mr. Lomax!” she said, excusing herself from the couple. “I'm so glad you're here—so very glad! What news do you have?"
"Not much,” I said. “I've been to visit the cops, and I thought I should start my investigation here. After all, your husband owned this franchise, right?"
Cassandra nodded enthusiastically. “I knew I was doing the right thing hiring you,” she said. “I just knew it! Why, do you know that lazy detective McCrae never stopped by here—not even once!"
I smiled. “Mac's not the outdoorsy type,” I said. “And, well, you get what you pay for."
"Isn't that the truth?” said Cassandra. “Isn't that just the God's honest truth!"
"You said your husband moved his mind recently?"
She nodded her head. “Yes. All of that goes on upstairs, though. This is just sales and service down here."
"Can you show me?” I asked.
She nodded again. “Of course—anything you want to see, Mr. Lomax!” What I wanted to see was under that beige suit—nothing beat the perfection of a transfer's body—but I kept that thought to myself. Cassandra looked around the room, then motioned for another staff member—also female, also a transfer, also gorgeous, and this one did wear tasteful makeup and jewelry—to come over. “I'm sorry,” Cassandra said to the two customers she'd abandoned a few moments ago. “Miss Takahashi here will look after you.” She then turned to me. “This way."
We went through a curtained doorway and up a set of stairs. “Here's our scanning room,” said Cassandra, indicating the left-hand one of a pair of doors; both doors had little windows in them. She stood on tiptoe to look in the scanning-room window, and nodded, apparently satisfied by what she saw, then opened the door. Two people were inside: a balding man of about forty, who was seated, and a standing woman who looked twenty-five; the woman was a transfer herself, though so there was no way of knowing her real age. “So sorry to interrupt,” Cassandra said. She looked at the man in the chair, while gesturing at me. “This is Alexander Lomax. He's providing some, ah, consulting services for us."
The man looked at me, surprised, then said, “Klaus Hansen,” by way of introduction.
"Would you mind ever so much if Mr. Lomax watched while the scan was being done?” asked Cassandra.
Hansen considered this for a moment, frowning his long, thin face. But then he nodded. “Sure. Why not?"
"Thanks,” I said. “I'll just stand over here.” I moved to the far wall and leaned back against it.
The chair Hansen was sitting in looked a lot like a barber's chair. The female transfer who wasn't Cassandra reached up above the chair and pulled down a translucent hemisphere that was attached by an articulated arm to the ceiling. She kept lowering it until all of Hansen's head was covered, and then she turned to a control console.
The hemisphere shimmered slightly, as though a film of oil was washing over its surface; the scanning field, I supposed.
Cassandra was standing next to me, arms crossed in front of her chest. It was an unnatural-looking pose, given her large bosom. “How long does the scanning take?” I asked.
"It's a quantum-mechanical process,” she replied. “So the scanning is rapid. But it'll take about ten minutes to move the data into the artificial brain. And then..."
"And then?” I said.
She lifted her shoulders, as if the rest didn't need to be spelled out. “Why, and then Mr. Hansen will be able to live forever."
"Ah,” I said.
"Come along,” said Cassandra. “Let's go see the other side.” We left that room, closing its door behind us, and entered the one next door. This room was a mirror image of the previous one, which I guess was appropriate. Standing erect in the middle of the room, supported by a metal armature, was Hansen's new body, dressed in a fashionable blue suit; its eyes were closed. Also in the room was a male NewYou technician, who was biological.
I walked around, looking at the artificial body from all angles. The replacement Hansen still had a bald spot, although its diameter had been reduced by half. And, interestingly, Hansen had opted for a sort of permanent designer-stubble look; the biological him was clean-shaven at the moment.
Suddenly the simulacrum's eyes opened. “Wow,” said a voice that was the same as the one I'd heard from the man next door. “That's incredible."
"How do you feel, Mr. Hansen?” asked the male technician.
"Fine,” he said. “Just fine."
"Good,” the technician said. “There'll be some settling-in adjustments, of course. Let's just check to make sure all your parts are working..."
"And there it is,” said Cassandra, to me. “Simple as that.” She led me out of the room, back into the corridor.
"Fascinating,” I said. I pointed at the left-hand door. “When do you take care of the original?"
"That's already been done. We do it in the
chair."
I stared at the closed door, and I like to think I suppressed my shudder enough so that Cassandra was unaware of it. “All right,” I said. “I guess I've seen enough."
Cassandra looked disappointed. “Are you sure don't want to look around some more?"
"Why?” I said. “Is there anything else worth seeing?"
"Oh, I don't know,” said Cassandra. “It's a big place. Everything on this floor, everything downstairs ... everything in the basement."
I blinked. “You've got a basement?” Almost no Martian buildings had basements; the permafrost layer was very hard to dig through.
"Yes,” she said. “Oh, yes.” She paused, then looked away. “Of course, no one ever goes down there; it's just storage."
"I'll have a look,” I said.
And that's where I found him.
He was lying behind some large storage crates, face down, a sticky pool of machine oil surrounding his head. Next to him was a fusion-powered jackhammer, the kind many of the fossil hunters had for removing surface rocks. And next to the jackhammer was a piece of good old-fashioned paper. On it, in block letters, was written, “I'm so sorry, Cassie. It's just not the same."
It's hard to commit suicide, I guess, when you're a transfer. Slitting your wrists does nothing significant. Poison doesn't work, and neither does drowning.
But Joshua-never-anything-else-at-all-anymore Wilkins had apparently found a way. From the looks of it, he'd leaned back against the rough cement wall, and, with his strong artificial arms, had held up the jackhammer, placing its bit against the center of his forehead. And then he'd held down on the jackhammer's twin triggers, letting the unit run until it had managed to pierce through his titanium skull and scramble the soft material of his artificial brain. When his brain died, his thumbs let up on the triggers, and he dropped the jackhammer, then tumbled over himself. His head had twisted sideways when it hit the concrete floor. Everything below his eyebrows was intact; it was clearly the same face Cassandra Wilkins had shown me.
I headed up the stairs and found Cassandra, who was chatting in her animated style with another customer.
"Cassandra,” I said, pulling her aside. “Cassandra, I'm very sorry, but..."
She looked at me, her green eyes wide. “What?"
"I've found your husband. And he's dead."
She opened her pretty mouth, closed it, then opened it again. She looked like she might fall over, even with gyroscopes stabilizing her. I put an arm around her shoulders, but she didn't seem comfortable with it, so I let her go. “My ... God,” she said at last. “Are you ... are you positive?"
"Sure looks like him,” I said.
"My God,” she said again. “What ... what happened?"
No nice way to say it. “Looks like he killed himself."
A couple of Cassandra's coworkers had come over, wondering what all the commotion was about. “What's wrong?” asked one of them—the same Miss Takahashi I'd seen earlier.
"Oh, Reiko,” said Cassandra. “Joshua is dead!"
Customers were noticing what was going on, too. A burly flesh-and-blood man, with arms as thick around as most men's leg's, came across the room; he seemed to be the boss here. Reiko Takahashi had already drawn Cassandra into her arms—or vice-versa; I'd been looking away when it had happened—and was stroking Cassandra's artificial hair. I let the boss do what he could to calm the crowd, while I used my commlink to call Mac and inform him of Joshua Wilkins's suicide.
* * *
Detective Dougal McCrae of New Klondike's finest arrived about twenty minutes later, accompanied by two uniforms. “How's it look, Alex?” Mac asked.
"Not as messy as some of the biological suicides I've seen,” I said. “But it's still not a pretty sight."
"Show me."
I led Mac downstairs. He read the note without picking it up.
The burly man soon came down, too, followed by Cassandra Wilkins, who was holding her artificial hand to her artificial mouth.
"Hello, again, Mrs. Wilkins,” said Mac, moving to interpose his body between her and the prone form on the floor. “I'm terribly sorry, but I'll need you to make an official identification."
I lifted my eyebrows at the irony of requiring the next of kin to actually look at the body to be sure of who it was, but that's what we'd gone back to with transfers. Privacy laws prevented any sort of ID chip or tracking device being put into artificial bodies. In fact, that was one of the many incentives to transfer; you no longer left fingerprints or a trail of identifying DNA everywhere you went.
Cassandra nodded bravely; she was willing to accede to Mac's request. He stepped aside, a living curtain, revealing the artificial body with the gaping head wound. She looked down at it. I'd expected her to quickly avert her eyes, but she didn't; she just kept staring.
Finally, Mac said, very gently, “Is that your husband, Mrs. Wilkins?"
She nodded slowly. Her voice was soft. “Yes. Oh, my poor, poor Joshua..."
Mac stepped over to talk to the two uniforms, and I joined them. “What do you do with a dead transfer?” I asked. “Seems pointless to call in the medical examiner."
By way of answer, Mac motioned to the burly man. The man touched his own chest and raised his eyebrows in the classic, “Who, me?” expression. Mac nodded again. The man looked left and right, like he was crossing some imaginary road, and then came over. “Yeah?"
"You seem to be the senior employee here,” said Mac. “Am I right?"
The man nodded. “Horatio Fernandez. Joshua was the boss, but, yeah, I guess I'm in charge until head office sends somebody new out from Earth."
"Well,” said Mac, “you're probably better equipped than we are to figure out the exact cause of death."
Fernandez gestured theatrically at the synthetic corpse, as if it were—well not bleedingly obvious, but certainly apparent.
Mac nodded. “It's just a bit too pat,” he said, his voice lowered conspiratorially. “Implement at hand, suicide note.” He lifted his shaggy orange eyebrows. “I just want to be sure."
Cassandra had drifted over without Mac noticing, although of course I had. She was listening in.
"Yeah,” said Fernandez. “Sure. We can disassemble him, check for anything else that might be amiss."
"No,” said Cassandra. “You can't."
"I'm afraid it's necessary,” said Mac, looking at her. His Scottish brogue always put an edge on his words, but I knew he was trying to sound gentle.
"No,” said Cassandra, her voice quavering. “I forbid it."
Mac's voice got a little firmer. “You can't. I'm legally required to order an autopsy in every suspicious case."
Cassandra wheeled on Fernandez. “Horatio, I order you not to do this."
Fernandez blinked a few times. “Order?"
Cassandra opened her mouth to say something more, then apparently thought better of it. Horatio moved closer to her, and put a hulking arm around her small shoulders. “Don't worry,” he said. “We'll be gentle.” And then his face brightened a bit. “In fact, we'll see what parts we can salvage—give them to somebody else; somebody who couldn't afford such good stuff if it was new.” He smiled beatifically. “It's what Joshua would have wanted."
* * *
The next day, I was sitting in my office, looking out the small window. The dust storm had ended. Out on the surface, rocks were strewn everywhere, like toys on a kid's bedroom floor. My wrist commlink buzzed, and I looked at it in anticipation, hoping for a new case; I could use the solars. But the ID line said NKPD. I told the device to accept the call, and a little picture of Mac's red-headed face appeared on my wrist. “Hey, Lomax,” he said. “Come on by the station, would you?"
"What's up?"
The micro-Mac frowned. “Nothing I want to say over open airwaves."
I nodded. Now that the Wilkins case was over, I didn't have anything better to do anyway. I'd only managed about seven billable hours, damnitall, and even that had taken some padding.
&
nbsp; I walked into the center along Ninth Avenue, entered the lobby of the police station, traded quips with the ineluctable Huxley, and was admitted to the back.
"Hey, Mac,” I said. “What's up?"
"'Morning, Alex,” Mac said, rolling the R in “Morning.” “Come in; sit down.” He spoke to his desk terminal, and turned its monitor around so I could see it. “Have a look at this."
I glanced at the screen. “The report on Joshua Wilkins?” I said.
Mac nodded. “Look at the section on the artificial brain."
I skimmed the text, until I found that part. “Yeah?” I said, still not getting it.
"Do you know what ‘baseline synaptic web’ means?” Mac asked.
"No, I don't. And you didn't either, smart-ass, until someone told you."
Mac smiled a bit, conceding that. “Well, there were lots of bits of the artificial brain left behind. And that big guy at NewYou—Fernandez, remember?—he really got into this forensic stuff, and decided to run it through some kind of instrument they've got there. And you know what he found?"
"What?"
"The brain stuff—the raw material inside the artificial skull—was pristine. It had never been imprinted."
"You mean no scanned mind had ever been transferred into that brain?"
Mac folded his arms across his chest and leaned back in his chair. “Bingo."
I frowned. “But that's not possible. I mean, if there was no mind in that head, who wrote the suicide note?"
Mac lifted those shaggy eyebrows of his. “Who indeed?” he said. “And what happened to Joshua Wilkins's scanned consciousness?"
"Does anyone at NewYou but Fernandez know about this?” I asked.
Mac shook his head. “No, and he's agreed to keep his mouth shut while we continue to investigate. But I thought I'd clue you in, since apparently the case you were on isn't really closed—and, after all, if you don't make money now and again, you can't afford to bribe me for favors."
I nodded. “That's what I like about you, Mac. Always looking out for my best interests."
* * *
Perhaps I should have gone straight to see Cassandra Wilkins, and made sure that we both agreed that I was back on the clock, but I had some questions I wanted answered first. And I knew just who to turn to. Raoul Santos was the city's top computer expert. I'd met him during a previous case, and we'd recently struck up a small friendship—we both shared the same taste in bootleg Earth booze, and he wasn't above joining me at some of New Klondike's sleazier saloons to get it. I used my commlink to call him, and we arranged to meet at the Bent Chisel.
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