Architects of Emortality

by Brian Stableford

  How long, Charlotte wondered, would Gabriel King’s funeral train be, and how long a standstill would it cause? The train she was watching was led by six carriages laden with flowers, all of them black, white, or scarlet. Each of the carriages was drawn by four jet-black horses. Behind the carriages came the black-clad mourners. Professionals, friends, and family members were all mingled together, but they were distinguishable even at this distance by the tall stovepipe hats the professionals invariably wore. Charlotte counted thirty-some pros and estimated that there must be about a hundred and forty amateurs. For New York, that was very small-scale. Gabriel King would probably command ten times as many, maybe more; he had, after all, been one of the oldest men in the world. In his time, he must have met—as well as made—millions.

  Among those millions, it seemed, was one who had found motive enough to kill him, and to kill him in a manner so bizarre as to be utterly without precedent.

  Murder was nowadays the rarest of crimes, and such murders which did happen usually occurred when some private tsunami of rage or spite smashed through the barriers erected by years of primary-school biofeedback training. Planned murders were virtually unheard-of in these not-yet-decivilized times. Charlotte was very conscious of the fact that such a crime required the maximum of respect and effort from all concerned, even people whose lowly station in life involved visiting crime scenes and threatening building supervisors.

  The Decivilization movement, she thought, must have been a great boon to King’s business. He must have been very grateful indeed to the city-hating prophets, although the more extreme among them would have detested Gabriel King as thoroughly as they detested all old-fashioned entrepreneurs—especially those who were fabulously wealthy double rejuvenates. King could easily have made enemies even among the people whose crusade he was furthering, and among the business rivals who had competed with him for the contracts—but those who hated him most fervently of all must surely be the New Yorkers whose city he was even now subjecting to unnaturally rapid decay. If she could only figure out which one of them had sent the young woman and armed her with her remarkable murder weapon, she would be famous—at least for a day.

  Unfortunately, Hal was the one to whom the forensic evidence would be sent, and he was the one who would pull the relevant DNA match from the records. The best Charlotte could hope for was to be part of the team sent to make the arrest.

  Charlotte heard the hum of the motor as the elevator became active again, and she glanced back at the screen above the door; it dutifully revealed that the left-hand car was bound for thirty-nine.

  Charlotte frowned. It had to be Rex Carnevon—the whole floor had been temporarily quarantined until the forensic team had made a more accurate assessment of the biohazard.

  She moved to meet the elevator car, psyching herself up for another confrontation, but when the door opened, it was not the supervisor’s elliptical form that emerged but that of a tall young man with perfect blond hair and luminous blue eyes. His suitskin was sober in hue but very delicately fashioned, taking full advantage of the sculpted curves of his elegant frame. Now that cosmetic engineering was available to everyone, it had become exceedingly difficult for its artisans to produce striking individual effects, but this man struck her instantly as a person of exceptional beauty and bearing.

  “Sergeant Holmes?” he inquired.

  The warmth and politeness of his tone cut right through her intention to say “Who the hell are you?” in a petulant fashion, and all she could contrive was a rather weak “Yes.” “My name is Lowenthal,” he said. “Michael Lowenthal.” “You shouldn’t be here, Mr. Lowenthal,” she said, having recovered her breath and something of her sense of purpose. “This area is under quarantine.” “I know,” he said, taking a swipecard from an invisible pocket without disturbing the line of his suitskin. He held the card out to her, and while she took it in order to slot it into her beltphone he added: “I’m a special investigator.” The display on her phone read: FULLY AUTHORIZED. OFFER FULL COOPERATION.

  Charlotte, slightly numb with shock, turned around in order to plug her machine into the wall socket again. She summoned Hal’s image to the screen beside Gabriel King’s door.

  “What’s this, Hal?” she said.

  “Exactly what it says,” her superior replied rather brusquely. “The instruction came down from above, presumably from the very top. We’re to copy Mr. Lowenthal in on the progress of our investigation. Anything we get, he gets.” Charlotte knew that it would be as useless to express surprise as it would be to object. She had never known that such an instruction was possible, but she was uncomfortably aware that she had not been long in the job. She had only the vaguest idea of what and where the “very top” might be from which this remarkable command had apparently descended. She turned to stare at Michael Lowenthal as if he were some kind of legendary beast.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “To tell you the truth, I don’t really know what’s going on either. The serious investigation is being done by my superiors—Webwalkers working in close collaboration with Inspector Watson, and a pack of silver surfers to join forces with his. Like you, I’m just a… what’s the term? Legman—I'm just a legman.” “You’re a private investigator?” said Charlotte incredulously.

  “Nothing so glamorous, I’m afraid,” he replied. “Merely a humble employee, like yourself.” She opened her mouth to say “Employee of what?” but was saved from the verbal infelicity by the opening of the apartment door. It slid back into its bed to reveal a shimmering plane, like the surface of a soap bubble. The first of the protectively clad forensic investigators was already stepping into the bubble.

  She was carrying a camera in one hand and a bulky plastic bag in the other, but the bubble stretched to accommodate everything and folded around her, equipping her suit and her luggage with yet another monomolecular layer of protection.

  Her three companions followed her one by one, each one stepping through the quarantine barrier in careful slow motion, as if fearful of puncturing the surface—although that would, of course, have been impossible.

  The team leader looked at Michael Lowenthal with obvious apprehension, unwilling to say anything until the stranger’s presence was explained.

  “It’s okay,” Charlotte told her. “This is Michael Lowenthal, special investigator. He’s been cleared. Mr. Lowenthal, this is Lieutenant Regina Chai” Lowenthal merely nodded, evidently as eager to hear what the lieutenant had to say as Charlotte was.

  “We’ve stripped the place,” Chai reported in her usual businesslike manner. “You can lock the door now. The air’s been thoroughly cleaned, but until we get a fix on the agent, the apartment has to stay sealed. Given that the woman walked in and out without a care in the world—and given that you’ve been standing around out here for the past couple of hours—the surrounds must be safe, and if they aren’t it’s too damn late to do anything about it, so you can unseal the other apartments and free up the floor.

  “We transmitted all the film back to Hal—he should have an edited version ready for briefing purposes in a couple of minutes. The skeleton is definitely King’s, but there’s nothing on the tapes to indicate how the agent was administered. The bedroom was privacy-sealed, just like the brochure says—classy building! All I can say for sure is that he looked happy enough when he came out. The card that came with the yellow flowers might have given him a clue, if he’d bothered to read it, but he didn’t. Died without ever knowing that there was anything really wrong—even his alarm call wasn’t panic-stricken. If this thing ever gets loose… but I guess that’s why you’re here.” The last remark was addressed to Michael Lowenthal. Chai had obviously assumed that he was from whatever UN department was responsible for maintaining eternal vigilance against the possibility that the specter of plague war might one day return to haunt the world. The blond man didn’t make any sign that could be construed as a confirmation or a denial.

  “Thanks, Lieutenant,” said Charlotte. “Can yo
u get all that stuff down to the van and away without being seen?” “As long as the supervisor’s following instructions. Be seeing you.” Chai turned away to join her companions, who were waiting in the elevator car that had brought Lowenthal up to the thirty-ninth floor. There was just about room for her to squeeze in along with all the equipment and the plastic bags. Charlotte watched the door slide shut behind them, and stabbed the button that would summon the second car from the lobby. The display screen informed her that it had not begun to move.

  Cursing under her breath, Charlotte punched out Rex Carnevon’s number on her beltphone, which was still plugged into the wall socket.

  “You can liberate the second elevator car now,” she told him. “I’m ready to come down.” “I know,” the horrid little man replied smugly, “but I thought I’d better hold it. I was just on the point of calling you. There’s a man here who says that he’s got an appointment with Gabriel King. He’s anxious to get up there because he’s a little late—his cab got held up by a funeral procession, or so he says. I thought you might want me to bring him up—unless you’d rather talk to him in my office.” Charlotte was uncomfortably aware of Michael Lowenthal’s bright blue eyes. She dared not meet his inquisitive stare.

  “What’s this man’s name?” she asked.

  The smug expression on Rex Carnevon’s face deepened as he relished his petty supremacy. He gave himself the luxury of a three-second pause before he decided that he had drunk his fill of satisfaction and said: “Oscar Wilde.” Charlotte, although slightly stunned by the news, thought fast. Evidently the cab in which the self-styled Young Master had been traveling, unwilling to be disturbed even by the UN police, had been heading for Trebizond Tower—and the Young Master himself had been heading for Gabriel King’s apartment, to see the murdered man. Given that the girl who had probably carried out the murder had been carrying a bunch of Oscar Wilde flowers, and given that the murder weapon was also a flower, that put Oscar Wilde at the dead center of the puzzle.

  Charlotte was very enthusiastic to talk to him—but the last thing she wanted to do was allow Rex Carnevon to eavesdrop on her conversation. It would be bad enough having Lowenthal looking on, even though she’d have had to hand over a tape in any case.

  “Send him up,” said Charlotte tersely as soon as she had recovered her composure. “Alone.” This, she thought, was a golden opportunity to do some real detective work: to question a witness; to get to grips with a mystery; to play a significant part in cracking a case. Hal was a top-class fisherman—his average time for completing an investigation was two hours, seventeen minutes, and fourteen seconds—but he never had suspects turn up on his doorstep ready for questioning.

  This case had already lasted longer than Hal’s average cracking time, and it seemed highly likely to set a new record. It would be a very good case in which to get more deeply involved, and Wilde’s unexpected arrival at the crime scene had to be reckoned a godsend to a humble site supervisor.

  While the elevator car made its stately ascent, Charlotte tried hard to collect herself and focus her mind. Please let him be guilty! she prayed. If not of the murder, of something—something far more serious than programming his silver to block official phone calls. Beneath the silent prayer, however, was an uncomfortable feeling that she might be out of her depth. She was only what Lowenthal had called a legman, after all. She knew that Hal Watson wouldn’t like this new turn of events one little bit. Having an expert witness turn up in the flesh before he’d even been contacted by phone added yet another item to a growing list of things that simply didn’t make sense.

  When the newcomer emerged from the elevator car Charlotte felt a curious sense of deja vu. He was by no means Michael Lowenthal’s twin—his hair was russet brown and flowing, his eyes were green, and his bodily frame was much more abundantly furnished with flesh—but he was exactly the same height, and he had something of the same air about him. Like Lowenthal, he was one of the most beautiful men—handsome would have been the wrong word—Charlotte had ever seen, and like Lowenthal, he was well aware of his beauty. He was wearing a green carnation in the lapel of his neatly tailored jet-black suitskin, whose color was a perfect match for his eyes.

  Oscar Wilde bowed to Charlotte with deliberate grace and favored Michael Lowenthal with a slight nod of the head. Then he glanced up, briefly, at the place where a discreet eye would normally have been set in the wall to record the faces of everyone emerging from the lift. The eye in question was in the bag Charlotte was holding, along with all the others, but Wilde couldn’t know that.

  Charlotte was puzzled by the glance. Public eyes and private bubblebugs were everywhere in a city like New York, and all city dwellers were entirely accustomed to living under observation; those who had grown up with the situation took it completely for granted. In some WG-unintegrated nationettes it still wasn’t common for all walls to have eyes and ears, but within the compass of the World Government everyone had long since learned to tolerate the ever-presence of the benevolent mechanical observers which guaranteed their safety. Most people ignored them, but Wilde obviously did not belong to the category of “most people.” Might his reflexive glance toward the eye be a tacit admission of guilt? Wilde smiled broadly—and Charlotte realized, belatedly, that she had jumped to the wrong conclusion. Wilde hadn’t glanced at the place where the eye should have been because he resented its assumed presence, but because he welcomed its attention. He had actually adjusted his stance as he moved out of the elevator so that he might better be observed, not merely by her and Lowenthal but by the cameras he supposed to be recording the encounter.

  Posturing ape! Charlotte thought, remembering Gabriel King’s muttered aside.

  “Mr. Wilde?” she said tentatively. “I’m Detective Sergeant Charlotte Holmes, UN Police Department. This is my, um, colleague, Michael Lowenthal.” “Please call me Oscar,” said the beautiful man. “What exactly has happened to poor Gabriel? Something nasty has happened, has it not? The orotund gentleman downstairs left me in no doubt of it, but would not tell me what it was.” “He’s dead,” Charlotte replied shortly. “I understand from Carnevon that you had an appointment with him. Will you tell me what the purpose of the appointment was to have been?” She winced at the unintentionally clumsy phrasing of the question.

  “I’m afraid that I can’t,” Wilde told her smoothly. “The message summoning me here came as text only, with a supplementary fax. I received it about two hours ago. It was an invitation—although it was, I fear, couched more in the manner of a command. I suppose that it was sufficiently impolite to warrant disobethence, but sufficiently intriguing to be tempting. Dead, you say?” “That message wasn’t sent from this apartment,” Charlotte told him, ignoring his teasing prompt.

  “Then you must trace it,” Wilde replied affably, “and discover where it did come from. If Gabriel was already dead when it was sent, it would be very interesting to know who sent it in his stead—and why.” Charlotte hesitated. She was not entirely certain what to say next but she wanted to say something lest Michael Lowenthal should decide to step into the breach. She was saved from the hazards of improvisation by Hal Watson, whose image reappeared on the screen by the apartment door.

  “What’s going on, Charlotte?” he asked sharply.

  Her heart sank. She felt as if she were at infants’ school and had been caught doing something naughty in the playground.

  “Oscar Wilde arrived here a few moments ago,” she said. “He has an appointment to see Gabriel King. I’m just trying to find out—” “Of course,” Hal said, brusquely cutting her off. “Dr. Wilde?” Having been effectively instructed to surrender her position in front of the beltpack’s camera to Wilde, Charlotte reluctantly handed it over.

  “I’m Hal Watson, Dr. Wilde,” Hal said politely. “I’ve been trying to contact you, but your silver refused to interrupt your journey. We need your services as an expert witness. I’m required to inform you that you will henceforth be acting under UN authorit
y, bound by the duty to report honestly and fully on everything you may see, hear, or discover. Will you affirm that you accept that duty and all that is implied thereby?” That’s what I should have done! Charlotte thought, mortified by the error of omission.

  “Of course,” said Wilde. “I shall be delighted to assist you in any way that I can, and I hereby affirm my willingness and intention to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Will that suffice?” “It will,” said Hal grimly. “Now, Dr. Wilde, I’m going to display a videotape on the screen. I’m sorry the picture quality is so poor, but time is of the essence. I want you to look at it carefully, and then I want you to tell me everything you know, or are able to deduce, about the contents of the tape.” Charlotte stood to one side, quietly fuming, as Wilde casually handed back her beltphone and took up his own instead, plugging it in beside hers. The tape began to run, beginning with a pan around the crime scene.

  The reception room where Gabriel King had died was furnished in an unusually utilitarian manner; the gantzer’s tastes had obviously been rather Spartan.

  Apart from the food delivery point, the room’s main feature was a particularly elaborate array of special-function telescreens. There were VE-mural screens on two of the walls, but they displayed plain shades of pastel blue. There was no decorative plant life integrated into either of the remaining walls, nor was there any kind of inert decoration within the room—except for the vase containing the golden flowers that King’s last visitor had given to him, which had been set on a glass-topped table in the center of a three-sided square formed by a sofa and two chairs.

  On the sofa lay all that remained of the late Gabriel King. The “corpse” was no more than a skeleton, whose white bones were intricately entwined with gorgeous flowers.

  The camera zoomed in on the strange garlands which dressed the reclining skeleton. The stems and leaves of the marvelous plant were green, but the petals of each bloom—which formed a hemispherical bell—were black. The waxy stigma at the center of each flower was dark red and was shaped into a decorated crux ansata.