Kiln People

by David Brin

  “Me,” Pal said. “I’m not bothered by cranks. I like ’em!”

  “Likes attract,” I muttered, winning brief but angry eye contact from Gadarene.

  “Yeah, well, my cup ranneth over when I got two queries, from groups that normally despise each other. Smelling a rat, I tried calling Al, but he brushed me off. Too busy for an old Pal, today. So I went snooping for someone else who might shed light on the matter … and found you.”

  “Me? I already said, these stories don’t fit anything I remember.”

  “And I believe you. But do you have any ideas? What comes to mind?”

  “Why ask me? I’m just a green, not exactly equipped for analytical thought.”

  “Oh, but you won’t let that stop you!” Pallie laughed.

  I frowned at him, knowing he was right. I couldn’t refuse to poke away at this, even if I’m made of the cheap stuff.

  I turned to Gadarene and Lum.

  “Looking at it from your point of view, several possibilities arise.”

  I held up one finger. “First, I might be standing here lying. Al could have some valid reason for wanting to poke two irate public advocacy groups in the eye, stir them up, then claim it wasn’t him that done it.”

  “Please,” Pallie shook his head. “It’s the sort of thing I might try. But Albert’s about as much fun as a judge.”

  For some reason, the insult made me smile. Yeah, poor Sober Albert.

  “Well, then, maybe someone’s trying to set him up.”

  Once upon a time, crime and prosecution revolved around establishing or demolishing alibis. If you could prove that you were somewhere else at the time of a crime, it meant you didn’t do it. Simple as that.

  The alibi excuse started vanishing back in the cyber age, a time when countless big and little heists redistributed cash by the billions while perpetrators hunched over remote computer screens slurping caffeine, dispatching electronic minions to rob in supposed anonymity. For a while, it looked as if society would bleed a death of a myriad cuts … till accountability was restored and most of the surviving cyberfarts either went to jail or grew up.

  Today, the whereabouts of your protoplasmic self hardly matters. Culpability is a matter of opportunity and will. Effective alibis are hard to come by.

  “Interesting you should come up with that idea,” Pallie commented. “The same thing occurred to me as I watched this morning’s raid on Beta’s hideout — that was good work, by the way. I saw Albert meet Ritu Maharal … and later heard about her father’s death. But what really got me going is the maestra.”

  “Gineen Wammaker? What about her?”

  “Well, for one thing, I know that Al’s second gray dropped out to do a closed-cognito job for her.”

  I hesitated. It wouldn’t be kosher for me to confirm that such a contract existed. I owed Albert some loyalty, since he hadn’t made me an outlaw. The sap.

  “All right, both women asked Al to send a gray over. And both grays vanished. So? It’s probably a coincidence. Anyway, those grays were baked and imprinted hours after mystery dittos barged in to bother you two gentlemen. What’s the connection?”

  “That puzzled me, too. So I called Wammaker.”

  “How I envy you. And what did the Ice Princess say?”

  “That she never asked for a Morris-ditto! At least, not since the Beta job was finished. In fact, she told me that Detective Morris is far too rude to be a suitable retainer in future, and furthermore that—”

  “Can we get on with this?”

  James Gadarene evidently didn’t like discussing the maestra of Studio Neo, whose perverse specialties went out of their way to tweak oldtime morality. The blond shifted his bulk irritably, and a bit ominously. He struck me as the sort who sometimes dismembers dittos — willingly paying fines — for the sheer pleasure of punishing evil with his bare hands.

  “All right,” Pal continued cheerfully. “So I figured I’d find out what I could about your second gray. See if Wammaker’s lying. It meant accessing the camera-web and doing some path tracing.”

  “You?” I chuckled at the idea of Pallie carefully assigning search-avatars and sifting a gazillion intermeshed images. “You never had the patience.”

  He shook his head ruefully.

  “Naw, I’m just an old-fashioned action figure. Still, I know a few graying digital mavens who owe me favors. All they had to do was track a series of sub-myob traffic infractions when the gray drove from your house to the mall. Once inside, the ditto was in view by publicams, much of the time. It parked its scooter and took the escalator … but never actually reached Wammaker’s.”

  “No?”

  “Instead, it got waylaid by the maestra’s assistant — at least that’s who it looked like, barely visible under a skulkhood. Together they went two floors down to a rented storefront … and disappeared.”

  “So? Maybe Gineen wanted to meet some distance from her regular clients. Especially if the matter’s sensitive.”

  “Could be. Or … what if someone else wants to use Albert’s gray, while making everyone think Gineen hired it?”

  I tried to wrap my head around the idea.

  “You mean someone faked Gineen’s initial call to Albert this morning, then arranged it so lots of cams would see the gray approach Wammaker’s … But then” — I shook my head — “it’d take lots of skilled fakery. A false Gineen to make the call. Then a fake assistant.”

  “And fake Alberts, sent earlier to bother these good citizens.” Pallie nodded toward both Gadarene and Lum.

  The bigger man groaned. “None of this made any sense when you explained it to me an hour ago, and it sure hasn’t gotten any better. Some of us have just one life, you know. You’d better put all this together soon.”

  “I’ve been trying,” Pal answered, a bit miffed. “Actually, this kind of deductive stuff is more Albert’s kind of thing. What d’you think, Greenie?”

  I scratched my head. Purely out of habit, since there are no follicles or parasites on my porcelain pate.

  “All right. Let’s say all these charades were meant for different audiences. Take those dittos who invaded your premises last night … they didn’t talk about anything significant, you say?”

  “Just blather, as far as I could tell.”

  “But they took pains to keep the blather from being recorded. So you can’t prove it was nonsense, can you?”

  “What d’you mean? What else could it have been?”

  “It might look as if you were conspiring together.”

  “Con … conspiring?”

  “Look at it from an outsider’s point of view, Mr. Gadarene. They see a gray enter your establishment, then leave — hastily and furtively — an hour or so later. One might conclude that you discussed matters of substance. This could all have been arranged in order to establish a plausible link between your group and Albert Morris.”

  “Then the same thing happens at my place,” said Lum.

  “And at Studio Neo. Only this time the gray is real but the visit is faked,” Pal prompted. “Was that also for public consumption?”

  “Partly,” I nodded. “But I’ll bet chief audience for that bit of theater was the gray itself. Recall that it went on detached mode right after the meeting, yes? It must be convinced, even now, that it’s working for the real maestra. She’s not the most likable person—”

  Gadarene snorted loudly.

  “—but she’s a businesswoman of substance, with high credibility at fulfilling contracts and staying in the letter of the law. The gray might despise and distrust her. But he’d take an interesting case for a good fee.”

  “Let me get this straight,” offered Farshid Lum. “You think someone pretended to be Wammaker in order to sign your gray up for a task—”

  “A task that might be a cover for something Al would never agree to,” Pal suggested.

  “—and that bit of theater earlier, at Tolerance Unlimited—”

  “—and the Defenders,” Gadaren
e cut in, “was designed to make it seem we are involved in whatever diabolical …” He groaned. “I’m still confused. We’re not getting any closer!”

  “Oh yes we are.” Pal looked at me. “You have an idea, don’t you, my green friend?”

  Unfortunately, I did.

  “Look, I’m not designed for this. I’m not a brainy ebony or a high-class gray. Anything I offer will just be conjecture.”

  Lum waved away my demurral. “I’ve looked up your profile, Mr. Morris. Your reputation for creating fine analytic selves can’t be matched. Please, continue.”

  I might have complained right then that I’m not one of Albert’s “selves.” But it would be moot.

  “Look, we still don’t have much data,” I began. “But if this chain of wild deductions can stand, I’ll guess a few things.

  “One: the person or group behind it all has sophisticated dittoing abilities, especially the art of giving a golem a face it’s not supposed to have. Since that’s illegal, we’re already in dangerous territory.

  “Two: there’s apparently some need to enlist willing participation by one of Albert’s grays. Appearances won’t do. The gray must be convinced to give genuine effort — providing some skill that Al’s known to be good at. The mission has to appear legal … or at least worthwhile and not too heinous … for the gray to cooperate.”

  “Yes, go on,” Pal prompted.

  “Three: there’s a multipronged effort to assign blame for whatever’s going to happen. Guilt-by-association. Fake calls from the maestra. An apparent meeting at Studio Neo …”

  “And us,” Lum commented, abruptly serious. “The charade of waking me at night was meant to look like a sneaky conference of conspirators. But why me? And why pull the same stunt on Mr. Gadarene’s group of misguided spirits?”

  Pal chuckled loud enough to drown out the blond’s growl. “But that’s the beauty of it! On the surface, it seems your two groups could never get together. You seem at opposite poles. Ironically, that makes a conspiracy seem almost workable.”

  When they stared at him, Pal spread his burly hands wide, making the wheelchair roll.

  “Think! Is there somebody you both hate? Some person, group, or organization that both groups despise. So deeply, you might plausibly join forces?”

  I watched both men struggle with the concept. Accustomed to demonizing each other, they clearly found it hard to conceive that they shared any common interest.

  I knew the answer already, and felt chilled down to my clay substrate. But I didn’t prompt them.

  They’d get it in a minute or two.

  16

  Send In the Clones

  … as Tuesday’s gray number two employs his art …

  Continuing realtime recitation. Time to enter the Funnel. It’s one of my favorite parts of this job. Getting a chance to prove that I can fool a world that’s filled with eyes.

  “We arranged for the items you requested.”

  The red-hued Irene-golem hands me a plain satchel. I inspect the contents. Everything’s there.

  “You sent a lens sniffer ahead, along the route I described?”

  “We did, per your instructions. The sniffer verified surveillance gaps in the places you predicted. Current details are noted.” She hands me a data-plaque.

  “Current? As of when?”

  “About an hour ago, while you were being repaired.”

  “Hm.”

  An hour can be eternity. But I’m optimistic while scanning the map with its glowing icons and overlapping cones of vision. Yes, the city swarms with eyes, the way a jungle fills with insects. Coverage gaps are precious in my line of work. Today’s most difficult hurdle will be to cover my tracks long before I reach Universal Kilns. I’ll need several changing sites along the way — shadow gaps that are just big enough to allow a quick shift in appearance without being noticed — preferably near locales with lots of dittos coming and going.

  Irene might have faith in her sniffers — programmed to spot the telltale reflective glint of a glass camera lens — but even the best military scanners can’t detect every pinhole spex that may lurk in some crevice or tree trunk. Any number of pin-spies might have been installed since I last used this Funnel route. Fortunately, most of those have low resolution. They’ll miss a truly artful transformation.

  I have mixed feelings about revealing this path — one of Albert’s recent favorites — to Gineen and her cohorts. True, nearly every Funnel has limited useful lifespan, as countless amateurs keep finding and rendering them useless. And my pay for this job makes the sacrifice worthwhile. Still, I’d be happier if I had days to prepare, with multiple dittos working in tandem. Everything would be more secure.

  Don’t sweat it. I offered no guarantees on such a rush job, and Albert gets fifty percent for just trying. Worst case, they are the ones risking exposure.

  And yet, my mind spins with potential failure modes. One is coming up ahead.

  We slow beneath a highway overpass, coming to rest behind an identical van that quickly accelerates away, resuming our former course and speed, leaving us parked in its place. The driver — briefly glimpsed — is another inherently loyal Irene-golem. The old car-switcheroo, first used more than a hundred years ago, but lately modified with reconfigurable chassis and chameleon stretchyskin so this van will look quite different when Gineen and her gang depart again.

  Scanning the concrete walls that support the overpass, I spy just one trafficam, its lens recently covered with bird droppings. The real stuff, in case there’s later analysis.

  So far, so good. Still, I’m unhappy, feeling slovenly and unprofessional. These measures may fool publicams and voyeurs — possibly even private snoops hired by Universal Kilns. But it takes more than a few tricks to dupe real cops. This will work only if our little adventure stays shy of outright illegality.

  “You’ll get out here, wait exactly eight minutes, then proceed to that grove,” Vic Collins explains, pointing one of his plaid-dyed fingers toward a copse of geniformed licorice-drop trees. “We control, or have taken out, all of the cameras between here and there.”

  “You sure about that?” Lack of preparation time requires a brute force approach that I’d rather have supervised myself.

  He nods.

  “Unless any sky-eyes are retargeted in the next few minutes. Within the grove, you’ll make your first change, ditch the bag, along with the clothes you’re wearing, and emerge as a utility orange-dit. We’ll send a dog in later, to pick up the satchel.”

  “Be sure that you do. If I’m traced back to the grove, a savvy examiner will guess this car-switching dodge.”

  “Then you mustn’t let anyone trace you back to the grove,” Vic Collins concludes. “We are counting on your skill.”

  Oh, brother.

  “The bus station is key. I’ll do a dodge and weave there, through the ditto crowds. Are more supplies waiting in the locker I specified?”

  “You’ll find another bag containing a change of clothes and skin dye.” Collins holds up a hand, guessing my next question. “And yes, the dye is a gray variant — perfectly legal. We can say myob to the cops.”

  “Myob is as myob does,” I retort. “If I so much as suspect I’m involved in anything higher than a Class Six misdemeanor, I’ll drop out. No matter how big a liability bond you posted.”

  “Relax, ditMorris,” Irene soothes. “We have no fear of the law. Our sole aim in this subterfuge is to keep UK from linking us—”

  “—or suspecting today’s little reconnaissance, yes. They could make things unpleasant, even if we’re legal.”

  “These precautions are for your rig’s protection as much as ours, ditMorris. With what you learn today, we can narrow down our suspicions and follow up by slapping specific datapoenas on Universal Kilns, under the tech-disclosure laws. The beauty of it is that they’ll never have a reason to ever link you to our lawsuit.”

  It makes sense. That is, assuming I don’t choose to tell Aeneas Kaolin all
about this, just as soon as I pass inside Universal Kilns!

  Sure, I’d forfeit my bond and lose most of Albert’s hard-won credibility points, but there’d be compensations. Maybe he would make me a subject of his ditto life-extension experiments. I could have more than another twelve hours, maybe lots more!

  Huh. Now where did that thought come from? It was almost … well, frankie … confusing the more important “I” with the trivial i that’s thinking these thoughts.

  How bizarre!

  Anyway, why daydream about doing things that I’ll never do. Or cheap posterities that I’ll never win?

  “And after the bus station?” Vic Collins prompts.

  “I’ll catch the 330 dino to Riverside Drive and UK headquarters. Head straight for the employee entrance, wave my ID, and hope their security AI is as lax as you expect. Again, if you’re wrong about that, if they ask any inconvenient questions, I’ll just turn around and leave.”

  “We understand,” the red ditto says with a nod. “But we’re confident they’ll let you in.”

  Irene and company somehow know that Ritu Maharal hired one of Albert’s grays. One that went missing a few hours ago. Still, the guards at UK may just wave me through, assuming I’m on business for a major stockholder. The trick may work at the outer portal, where hundreds of realfolks and dittos pass each hour. Hell, gaggles of tourists line up there for excursion passes, forming guided groups to view the factory where their disposable bodies are made.

  But Wammaker and her pals expect me to breeze through several more checkpoints, each more secure than the last, blithely peering about as I plunge deeper, on the lookout for tech-hints without ever once actually committing fraud or telling a clearcut lie!

  (Did Vic Collins also arrange for a security lapse in advance? Some inside bribery to lubricate things? He seems the kind who might know how, with his furtive-yet-superior manner. It’s a good thing I have all our conversations taped, on the recorder I’m subvocalizing into right now.)

  And they did pay in advance. Crypto-cash, encoded to one of Albert’s accounts. All I need do is try. Put in a modest effort. A seventy-five percent fee just for getting inside.