Kiln People

by David Brin

  I nodded. Images erupted from the viewer, showing a series of clandestine meetings in limousines, between Irene and her confederates. I told the others about my close-in analysis of the plaid dye patterns worn by “Vic Collins.”

  Beta grinned at the compliment when I said, “That was a neat trick, using tiny pixel emitters to change your skin motifs in a flash. It explains how you slipped my grasp a number of times. Apparently, your enemy didn’t know about the technique. Or else he didn’t care. Because when he took over, he just copied your latest dye job and moved right in. Irene never noticed.

  “It was a simple matter, then, for this enemy to alter your plan. Replace the espionage gear that you three intended to plant in Albert’s gray, inserting a bomb instead, changing the goal from industrial espionage to sabotage. Is that right?”

  Beta’s golem shrugged. “My memories are two weeks old, so I can’t testify about recent events … except to say that’s consistent with what I feared. My nemesis must have completed his takeover of my entire operation.” He smacked his palm angrily. “If only I had a clue who it was!”

  Would it be wrong to confess feeling gratification at seeing Beta suffer, in the same way Albert had, for years — wondering and worrying about the identity of his arch foe?

  “Well, I can’t claim that I’m competent, Beta. But if it’s a clue you want …”

  At my nod, Palloid switched to the very last slide, showing a later “Vic Collins” with its stolid, unchanging tartan-styled skin. Only when the view zoomed closer … much closer … we could all see micro-peeling where the surface disguise gave away, revealing a different coloration underneath. A shimmering glint, like metal, only much brighter than steel. Lum’s green golem walked closer, rubbing his chin as if he had a beard to scratch. “Why, that looks …”

  His ideological opposite, Gadarene, finished for him. “It looks like white gold or platinum. Hey, you aren’t trying to tell us Aeneas Kaolin—” The man gaped. “But why would a tycoon get his hands dirty, messing with scum like this?”

  Gadarene gestured dismissively at Beta, who sat up, offended.

  “More to the point,” Pal added, scratching his own very real two-day beard. “What would he gain by sabotaging his own factory?”

  “An insurance scam?” Lum guessed. “A way to write off obsolete stock?”

  “No,” Gadarene said, his teeth clenching. “It was a plot to eliminate all of his enemies, at once.”

  I nodded. “Consider the multiple layers of blame we have here. First, by completing your foolish tunnels into the UK complex, both of your groups” — I gestured at Lum and Gadarene — “dug yourselves a trap. The perfect scapegoats. Especially after someone sent those dittos, made up to resemble the apparent bomber, to meet with you the night before. Even if you manage to avoid jail or fines, you’ve suffered a major humiliation. Discredited, you look like fools.”

  “Huh, thanks,” Lum grunted. Gadarene glowered silently.

  “Then Kaolin had to get rid Albert, too,” Pal said. “Is that why you got blown up, old friend? To keep you from denying involvement? Rather harsh! For one thing, the police take murder a lot more seriously than slaughtering a bunch of dittos.”

  I agreed.

  “That part still doesn’t make much sense. Anyway, what did poor Albert ever do to him?

  “But the next layer fits everything we’ve heard this afternoon. Queen Irene realized, just as soon as she heard about the sabotage attack, that everything had gone horribly wrong. She arranged an exit under her own terms, leaving her partners, Vic Collins and Gineen Wammaker, to serve as the ultimate fall guys.”

  “And Irene left evidence indicating that Collins was Beta,” Palloid added.

  “Yeah. And that’s where the trail would have ended. With an infamous ditnapper and a renowned ‘pervert’ implicated at the bottom layer, caught in a fiendish alliance that went horribly wrong. A neat package, implicating or embarrassing a whole swathe of folks Kaolin hated — or merely found irritating.”

  Beta’s spiral golem nodded.

  “And the scheme might have worked, if not for these pictures Irene took, and some clever ditective work on your part. Surprisingly clever, Morris.”

  I could only shake my head. “Charming, to the last.”

  Pal rolled forward, inspecting the holo image. “This ain’t a whole lot of evidence to go on. Especially when you’re throwing accusations at a trillionaire.”

  “We don’t need convincing evidence,” Palloid snapped at his original. “Just enough probable cause to open a full investigation. With this, we can subpoena UK’s inner camera network. Offer a Henchman Prize. Get the police in on it. Demand to see Kaolin himself, in the flesh—”

  That’s when it happened.

  Something passed through me — it felt like a warm sigh of wind — urging me to turn around and listen.

  I did, and immediately picked up a strange sound … a soft scraping at the door.

  Then the door exploded.

  Because I saw it coming, I barely dodged a huge splinter of wood, hurtling through the space where my head had been. Then the first armed invader charged through whirling smoke, guns ablaze.

  Shifting to emergency speed, I threw myself at the wide-eyed James Gadarene, who yelped as I covered him with my body, bearing him to the ground. Accidents can happen during a melee, and whoever was barging in might not expect to find any real people here in dittotown, where the rule is often “shoot whatever moves.” Gadarene kicked back with panicky strength, as if I were an attacker! So it took at least four seconds to bury the fool under a couch. By then, a red-hot battle raged.

  The invaders wore crisscross stripes — gang colors. Wax Warriors, if I recalled right. And it could have just been a few lads, dropping by to have some fun — except for the coincidence of timing. Rising up, I saw that several assailants had already fallen at the door, cut down by Pal’s uncannily swift reflexes — and the viciously effective scattergun he now held, pumping wide sprays of high-velocity pellets at the ruined entryway.

  He wasn’t alone. Pal’s little ferret-duplicate stood on his right shoulder, firing a mini-pistol, their intrapersonal differences apparently forgotten. And Beta was busy, too. The spiral-patterned ditto had whipped out a slender blowgun with a forty-round magazine. With each puff of breath, he dispatched a self-targeting smart-dart toward a foe’s ceramic eyes, bearing small payloads of trenchant enzymes.

  Bodies piled near the shattered door, but more assailants kept spilling though, clambering or leaping over fallen comrades, firing as they came. Lamps and fixtures shattered all around.

  “Gumby, catch!”

  Pal tossed me the scattergun, grabbing another that popped from some recess in the mobile chair as I joined the fight. We fired together, just in time to thwart another rush.

  A new clamor made me turn, catching movement outside the apartment window. More invaders teetered on the rickety fire escape, preparing to smash in.

  “Lum!” I cried at the cheap green, sent to our meeting by the emancipation fetishist. “Guard the window!”

  Lum spread his hands. “I’m unarmed!”

  “Go!” I yelled, diving toward the front door and firing another blast as I rolled up by several steaming bodies. Grabbing a weapon from one still-twitching hand, I tossed it in a high arc toward the green mancie, hoping Lum would catch it and know what to do. “Beta, help Lum!” I shouted, dashing forward again.

  Pressed against the wall, right next to the shattered door frame, I was suddenly in position to blast down the hallway in one direction, taking out a whole row of nasties who were waiting to charge in. The scattergun mowed them down like clay dolls slumping before a hose. Of course, that let the other half of the attacking force know exactly where I was.

  A thump told me when someone slapped an object on the other side of the wall that I leaned against. I hurriedly backed away, two secs before an explosion showered the interior with debris, smashing a new opening four meters wide.
/>
  The window blew at the same moment. Glass sprayed everywhere. I heard gunfire from that quarter and hoped Lum would give a good account of himself.

  My new position let me ambush about half of the new wave pouring in from the hall. A good ratio, if they cared about losses. Which they didn’t, continuing their charge heedless of casualties. Palloid’s mini-gun emptied and with no time to get another, the miniature golem leaped, flinging himself at the throat of a foe who reacted with reflexive surprise, stumbling backward into several fellows. The kamikaze attack kept that bunch busy for precious seconds while I blasted those behind. But the gesture ended predictably, with poor little Palloid smashed to bits.

  That pissed me off, but not as much as Pal.

  “Dammit, I wanted those memories!” he screamed, flinging his scattergun and grabbing another weapon from some recess of his chair. One glimpse made me quail. It was an evaporator.

  Even battle-hardened gang members reacted with dismay, diving for cover. One was too late as a lump of unstable crystal collapsed in the firing chamber, sending a coherent blast of tuned microwaves boring right through him — and the wall behind.

  Another pair arrived as reinforcements, stared at Pal, turned to flee … only to join a second wall section evaporating into oblivion.

  “Behind you!” I screamed, standing to shoot my comparative popgun toward the window as Lum’s hapless greenie was trampled by fresh invaders. No sign of Beta. No surprise there.

  Swiveling his chair, Pal reloaded, then blasted another bolt of disintegrating microwaves at the newcomers, vaporizing one of them plus half of another — along with the window frame and part of the fire escape beyond.

  To my relief, nobody fired back at him, even though he was in the open.

  They can tell he’s real and they don’t want cops involved. The most they’ll do to Pal is grab his gun and throw a tarp over him. Maybe try to force a forget-sniff up his nose, to erase the last hour or so.

  Of course, that meant all the gunners turned on me. Bullets struck all around, edging closer, till Pal finished levering another crystal into place and waved the ray tube, preparing another blast. The Waxers scattered, dropping for cover, briefly giving me a respite.

  Pal’s eyes met mine, releasing me from my golem duty to defend any realfolks. These gangers were playing by the rules. “I’m safe,” he growled, snatching my roll of film from the nearby holo reader and tossing it to me. “Go!”

  With a quick nod to my friend, I rolled to one side, scrambled up, then dashed across the room, taking a shallow dive behind the kitchen counter just in time as sprays of pellets tore the faux-wood panels, ricocheting amid pots and pans. Thank heavens the place came furnished.

  “Come on, bastards!” Pal screamed while charging his semi-illegal weapon one more time. “Pathetic, punks. Shoot me!”

  There was a sob in his voice — a pain that even his best friend rarely heard. And yes, part of me sympathized, hoping Pal would finally get the kind of death he wanted. With a bang, no whimper.

  They were closing in. Surely his Big Gun must be running out of fist-size charges. My own weapon had just a few rounds. I heard skirmishers approaching from three sides. It looked bad.

  Then the wall behind me evaporated in a sudden cloud of hot, expanding gases.

  “Gumby, run!” Pal cried.

  I was already through, pounding past surprised tenants of the apartment next door — a simulacrum family who stared at me goggle-eyed, cowering behind their sofa while a cheap TV in the corner blared theme music for the Cassius and Henry Show.

  Fortunately, they were all dittos, play-acting life in a more adventurous age. So I charged past them guilt-free. Any fines resulting from this interruption will be simple. Damages only. No punitives.

  Anyway, who are they gonna bill?

  40

  Friends in Knead

  … as realAlbert finds a connection …

  There is something quaintly sweet and old-timey about the electronic world of “artificial intelligence” and computer-generated images.

  All right, my generation tends to look down on antique hackers and cybergeezers, many of them still clinging to their vain faith in digital transcendence — a miscarried dream of super-smart machines, downloaded personalities, and virtual worlds more real than reality. It’s become a joke.

  Worse, it’s turned into another hobby.

  Yet, I confess that I do love this stuff. Cruising the Old Web in search of hidden info-troves. Skating from one camera view to the next. Setting up little micro-avatars to go plunging into databases that are so thick and sedimentary with more than a century’s layered gigabytes that your software emissaries come equipped with pickaxes and headlamps. You nearly always have to specify exactly what you’re looking for in order for them to draw anything useful at all.

  Still, pluck and persistence can bring up gems. Like the fact that Yosil Maharal served as a highly paid consultant for the Dodecahedron.

  It fits — he was a world-renowned expert in soulistics, known for original thinking. Naturally, the Dodecs — and perhaps even the President’s team in the Glasshouse — would’ve consulted Maharal, in order to plumb the next stage. Get a handle on what’s coming. Scope out what new technologies may already be in the hands of potential enemies. He was also a chief adviser and designer when they planted this giant reserve army of battle-golems deep under the Jesse Helms Range.

  I learned about all this while using the secure dataport that Chen’s ditto had been leading us toward, before Ritu vanished and I had to make the little, apelike tax collector go away. Things felt bleak now, without company, though solitude allowed me to concentrate without interruption.

  It seems they pretty much gave Maharal carte blanche, I realized, waggling my fingers and hands beneath an ultra-secure, government-issue chador. Several viewglobes grew and shrank, responding to my flitting eyes. One conveyed a surface map of the region, portraying the army base with its training, relaxation, tanning, and imprinting facilities, along with nearby four-star hotels that cater to avid fight fans. Some distance southwest, beyond a sheer escarpment, lay the battleground itself, where national teams fight for glory and to settle disputes without bloodshed. In a region as cratered as the Moon, a patch of desert had been sacrificed for sport, and to spare the rest of the planet from war.

  That much the public knew.

  Only now I could also follow a maze of tunnels and caverns below the base, heading in the opposite direction. A secret fortress created for a vast army of ready-to-serve warriors. Some portions were openly labeled. Other areas were mere vague outlines on the map, shaded to indicate stronger layers of secrecy, requiring passwords and ID verifiers I lacked. Nor did I care about that. Matters of national security didn’t interest me. What riveted my attention was the fact that this network of man-made caves appeared to stretch quite some distance eastward, beyond the formal military zone, deep below state and private lands.

  Toward Urraca Mesa — I saw — the destination Ritu and I were aiming for when we first set out, Tuesday night.

  Coincidence? I had already begun to suspect that Yosil Maharal chose the site of his “vacation cabin” with great care, many years ago.

  Bodily pangs forced me to shrug off the chador and switch to old-fashioned viewscreens, in order to drink and eat while I worked. Fortunately, this part of the cavern was also a National Leadership Enclave — a habitat set aside for high government officials, in case of some dire emergency. Food and other provisions lay plentifully stacked on nearby shelves. At first sight, the cans and packages looked untouched, but quite a few were missing in back, as if someone had been raiding the larder, carefully rearranging intact goods up front to hide the pilferage. I availed myself of my first fully satisfying meal in two days — my tax dollars well spent, I figure — plus a double mug of fizzy Liquid Sleep. That helped a lot. Still, I found myself wishing I were black instead of organic brown. I concentrate much better when I’m ebony.

  “
Superimpose the location of the mountain cabin owned by Yosil Maharal,” I ordered.

  The spot instantly glimmered onscreen — a flashing amber speck at the end of a winding road. If I asked to zoom closer, the computer would retrieve recent skyviews showing the house and drive, or even catalogue nearby foliage by species and chlorophyll reflectivity profiles. The cabin lay a few kilometers beyond the easternmost extension of the underground golem base, separated from my present map locale by a single oblong plateau.

  I no longer believed in coincidence.

  “So, what d’you figure, Al?” I mumbled to myself. “Did Maharal commute all the way around that furshluginer mesa, in order to come down here through the front door? Naw, that wasn’t the Professor’s style. Come and go without a trace, that was Dr. Yosil! Even a back door would’ve left him open to detection and observation every time he came down here to raid the government’s larder, or to pick up nifty items for his cloak-and-dagger scheme … whatever it was. Hell, some war fan with a wandering voyeur drone might have spotted him, if he came across the surface.”

  No, I went on silently. If Professor Maharal had been sneaking into this base, he’d want to come all the way under concealment.

  Jabbing my finger repeatedly at the map-globe, I commanded, “Avatar, find microseismic data for the subregion indicated. Use a Schulman-Watanabe tomographic correlation to sift for unmapped subterranean passages, connecting this location and that one.”

  The military intelligence program I had hijacked was a pretty good one. Yet it balked, unable or unwilling to comply:

  “The area in question was last given a detailed seismic survey eight years ago. At that time, no subterranean passages existed in the area you indicated. Since then, systematic seismometry in the specified region has been limited to watching for attempted area penetration by unauthorized interlopers. No inward-directed tunneling has been detected.”

  So. There had been no hidden passageways through the mesa when the secret base was established, and no sign of outsiders trying to get in since then. Was I barking up the wrong tree?