by Robin Craig
He looked at them, and the scientist was gone again. “But as for why I did not mention the possibility of accelerated development earlier, why would I? It isn’t very likely and all it could do is allow you to suspect your thief is a geneh and therefore that I am involved. As your presence here attests. But that’s all I can give you. If it’s not enough to keep the execrable bastards of GenInt off my back then I’ll just have to take my chances. With any luck I can make them a laughing stock and embarrass the politicians enough to cut their funding. If a few of the scum lose their jobs it will have been worth the annoyance.”
He added drily, “I suppose there is no point my telling you not to come back without a warrant, given this is the third time you’ve managed to get in here without one. But don’t expect me to be so hospitable next time. James, throw these two out. But gently. We don’t want to be accused of police brutality.”
Miriam hesitated briefly, considering whether this was the time to raise the issue of their common phrase. No, she thought; he has far too tough a mind to be scared into a confession by something so insubstantial. Whether he was innocent or guilty, all it would do would be to engender another of his bitingly sarcastic rejoinders; it would make it less likely to get further information out of him now or in the future, not more.
So she stood and said, “Well, thank you for your time, Dr Tagarin. I sincerely apologize for the annoyance we have caused you. Good bye.” Stone stood too and they moved to the door, James closely shadowing them as if he expected one of them to leap at Tagarin’s throat at any instant.
“Wait,” Tagarin said.
They turned and looked inquiringly at him.
“Since you treat me like a suspect when I fail to do your job for you, there is one question you haven’t asked. So in an attempt to forestall yet another visit when your slow wits finally work their way around to asking it, I shall ask it for you: are there more of them?”
Miriam and Jack gave each other slightly alarmed looks. Jack replied, “I thought you said she wasn’t a geneh anyway?”
“Yes, but you don’t really believe me, do you? So do you want to know my thoughts on it, or will you come back later at a less convenient time?” he replied sourly.
“Please.”
“Well, consider this. If we allow that our geneh makers somehow acquired the necessary machinery and were able to operate it for several years after GenInt goons started strutting around like the goose-brains they are, do you really think there’d be just one of them? Even if our hypothetical geniuses waited to be sure of the quality of their work, your cat woman is an adult. Producing just one would be a very poor return on a very expensive investment – expensive in dollars, time and personal risk.”
Miriam and Jack looked more alarmed.
“On the other hand.” He paused. “One thing you said struck me as odd at the time: another thing I neglected to comment on, if you want more things to complain about. She said she’d had an ‘eclectic’ education. Were those her actual words?”
Miriam thought, and nodded. “Yes. I remember because it’s not a word I usually hear. The average criminal certainly doesn’t talk about their eclectic tastes in plunder.”
“My point exactly. It’s an odd choice of word. Why not ‘comprehensive’, or ‘thorough’? Again, we’re talking about an expensive investment: if it was me I’d have given her the best education my money could buy. ‘Eclectic’ sounds more like a random selection of topics without particular rhyme or reason – the kind of thing you find with intelligent people who are self taught.
“Then consider her choice of career, her cynical bitterness, her violence and mental instability. If we take all these things together there is one obvious conclusion. When she was quite young, old enough to fend for herself but still a fairly young child, she was abandoned. Whether something happened to her creators, or they were about to be caught and had to get rid of her fast, we may never know: she might not know herself. But imagine your life if you were a young, intelligent, frightened creature, knowing that the law called you vermin to be killed on sight, having to live off your wits and off the land. How do you think you’d have turned out?” He glared at them as if it was their fault. “I wonder how many laws exist just to keep lawmen in a job, chasing criminals they themselves have created?
“Now get out.”
Tagarin watched them go, considering. The older cop was perceptive and suspicious enough, but that young one was positively dangerous. He didn’t think he’d seen the end of her.
Chapter 21 – Delaney
“Hunter.”
“Detective Miriam Hunter?”
“Yes, speaking.”
“Ah, good morning detective. My name is Charles Delaney. While I was travelling overseas you attempted to contact me about a theft I reported a few months ago. I am now back. Do you still wish to speak to me?”
Miriam quickly consulted her files. Yes, one of the double victims of a minor burglary followed by a mysterious and much more substantial electronic loss of funds; however he had not been present at any recent events starring the President. Given her lack of luck with the others she was surprised he had chosen to call her back.
“Oh, good afternoon Mr Delaney. Yes, I would very much like to talk to you. Can we arrange a time? I’m happy to come and visit you at your home or office.”
“Anything to assist the law. Especially if it might help the law retrieve my property. I think my apartment would be best: there are some things you might like to see. But I am a busy man. I shall now leave you to arrange the details with my AI. I shall see you in due course. Goodbye for now.”
Miriam exposed the public face of her and Stone’s calendars to Delaney’s AI, checked the suggested times and confirmed one. Then she sat back and thought. She called Stone. “Jack, did you notice I just made us an appointment? Good. Yes, this one actually seems to want to talk to us. Maybe we’ll learn something!”
“Yeah, maybe,” answered Stone. “Stranger things have happened. Just not often.”
~~~
Miriam and Stone entered the lobby of a tall apartment block that pointed multiple steel needles at the sky, each clothed in a slightly different color of glass. Miriam had admired it from the street: it was even fancier than her uncle’s. It reminded her of illustrations of cities of the future in science fiction stories from her childhood. It appeared the future had arrived, for some at least.
The staff all wore the same uniform and the same expression, hovering between obsequious and haughty, ready to assume the correct form as soon as they were certain of the status of the enquirer. When his system informed him that he was dealing with the police the expression of the man they approached didn’t change. Apparently he believed the servants of the law deserved both.
“Hello. We’re here to see Mr Delaney,” advised Stone. To the unimpressed raised eyebrow he added, “We have an appointment.”
“Certainly sir. Let me check. Yes, I see Mr Delaney is expecting you.” He frowned slightly, as if hoping that Mr Delaney had not been expecting them so he could have had the pleasure of curling his lip at them. “Please go to the bank of elevators over to your right. Hold a moment. They are now keyed to your identification badges and will take you to the correct floor. Proceed to the entrance door and you will receive further directions from Mr Delaney.”
“Thanks pal,” said Stone. The man raised his well-practiced eyebrow. “It is my pleasure to serve, sir,” he replied as if he meant it.
Miriam and Stone walked briskly to the elevator, which opened at their approach and whisked them upward at an impressive velocity; the initial acceleration almost made them bend their knees. “Welcome to the human stratosphere, Hunter,” commented Stone. “Know your place and mind your manners. Mortals such as us dare not offend the sky gods.”
They got out and the door to Delaney’s apartment, the only entrance visible, opened at their approach. As they entered, the door informed them that Mr Delaney would greet them in the first roo
m to their right.
They went in and Delaney rose to greet them. “Good morning Detectives Hunter, Stone,” he said, putting out his hand. “I am pleased the police are still investigating this crime. May I take it that you have fresh leads?”
“I am afraid it is a bit more complicated than that, Mr Delaney,” replied Stone. “We don’t have fresh evidence in your case but we have found curious similarities with some other cases. But any clue might help us: anything you noticed later or seemed too minor for the attending officers to have put in their report. If we can get enough clues from enough cases we might be able to zero in on our criminals.”
Delaney looked a little disappointed. “I see. But no, no. It is a mystery. The accounts that were robbed should have been secure. But one day, the money was simply gone. Neither the bank nor the forensic investigators were able to trace how or where it went. The bank assures me that I withdrew it myself, but even amnesia can’t account for that: there is no trace of it happening at my end.”
“Were the accounts emptied?” enquired Stone.
“No, and that is the strange thing. One of many strange things, I suppose. Overall I lost about half of the money. But if the thieves could do that, why would they not take it all? It’s not as if it was so little I might not have noticed. It is a mystery. It is as if the motive wasn’t money, or not entirely money. But then what was it? There have been no further actions taken against me.”
They had nothing to say to that. It made no sense to them either.
“What about the earlier crime, Mr Delaney?” asked Miriam. “The physical burglary, where as I recall some jewelry was stolen.”
Delaney looked a bit surprised. “That? That is another intriguing mystery, but more an annoyance than anything else. In fact it was almost worth the cost of the jewels for the entertaining dinner conversations it has given birth to since. Are you implying the two are linked? The earlier investigators had some suspicions along those lines but couldn’t find any bugs or Trojans that might have given someone access to my accounts. I have a lot of money, Detective: I have high-class systems here. I even had the AI do a full diagnostic, including of itself. The whole system is clean. There is no evidence the crimes are linked except for the coincidence itself.”
He added, “There is something new I can tell you about that event, however. I was wondering whether it was worth reporting, given that the crime itself was minor and the new evidence almost certainly useless. But since you are here you might want to see it.”
“Certainly! What do you have?”
“Well, one mystery of the case is that the thief somehow interfered with my video surveillance system. Both the insurance company and I took the vendor to task over it, but they appear to have been telling the truth when they said it should have been impossible given the specifications of their system. They said there were theoretical ways it could be done – in their words, there are theoretical ways to do almost anything – but they were aware of no working technology that could do it. Let me show you.”
He called up a holographic display. “Here is a video surveillance of this room, right now.” Miriam and Stone saw a clear image of themselves and Delaney sitting in the room. “Now here is what the system recorded while the thief was gracing us with his presence.” The image became mainly white noise; all that could be discerned among the noise were some vague shapes and movements, nothing identifiable. “As you can see, quite useless.”
“However, just the other night we got to discussing this at one of those dinner parties I mentioned. One of my guests was a computer expert specializing in advanced image processing: the kind which astrophysicists and the military are interested in for extracting every last drop of information from their images. She said that a suitable image extraction program might be able to identify and average out any variations from random noise. As you can see from the vague shadows, such variations appear to exist in the recording. So with enough frames of the right kind, in theory even something this noisy might yield sufficient information for a composite image of who was there.”
He shrugged. “As I’ve said, it is an intriguing mystery. So I took her advice. Here is what the system came up with as an image of our thief.”
Miriam and Stone stared at the image on his display.
“You’re kidding me,” murmured Stone.
On the display was now a very grainy image of a person. The thief was wearing a greyish suit much like the one Katlyn had been seen in and a mask covering the face except for the eyes. The sex was uncertain; the person seemed somewhat slender and more likely female than male, but the outlines were too vague to be sure. But two things were sure. The eyes were dark and human, and there was no tail.
Miriam stared at it, confused. It just didn’t make any sense. Everything else pointed to the crimes being related and the perpetrator being Katlyn. But this was definitively not Katlyn. It looked more like a ninja.
“Mr Delaney,” said Miriam hoarsely. “This image. Do you know if any assumptions were made, such as height or sex, to make the image cleanup easier? Or is it a true unbiased extraction? What I mean is, say the thief had been wearing something odd, like a Viking helmet or something – would the system have shown it or simply not seen it because it wasn’t expecting it?”
Delaney looked at her curiously. “That question makes me wonder what you know that you aren’t telling me.” He paused, inviting an answer, but neither Miriam nor Stone replied. He sighed. “Ah, the police! How you like to have your secrets. But no matter, I want this criminal caught and if you think not revealing evidence will help you, then I suppose I will give you the benefit of the doubt. No, it is a true unbiased image. This is what the thief looked like, as far as you can tell anything. But it is of no use for identification even if we had the thief in our hands for a direct comparison. Certainly no use in court. I suppose it might exclude certain suspects if they are especially tall, short or fat, but that’s about it.”
“May we take a copy of the video and the composite image?” asked Miriam.
“Of course. If you can think you can do better with it, be my guests. Here.”
“Thank you. Oh. Do you mind if I ask you a more personal question? I assure you it is related to the case, though I am not in a position to tell you more.”
“More secrets? Well, you can ask.”
“Are you a supporter of President Felton? I don’t mean did you vote for her, I mean have you been involved more directly, say in her campaigns or fundraising?”
Delaney shot her a sharp glance. “I would say that is none of your business,” he said in a tone as sharp as his glance. He thought a moment then continued, “Hmmm. Though I suppose it is a matter of public record, even if you’d probably have to dig to find it. Yes, I was a young firebrand once, believe it or not. I was an admirer of hers in the early years, involved in her campaign against the genehs. And while I have done well in business myself I did come from a wealthy family. So not only did I work for her organization, I donated a substantial amount of money to her cause.”
Miriam stared at him. What was going on? As one coincidence crumbled another firmed up. Maybe the whole thing was a mirage after all and she had been fooled by phantoms. Except for the hard physical fact of Katlyn herself. She noticed Delaney looking at her curiously and realized she was staring. “Oh. I see. Thank you Mr Delaney, that is very interesting.”
Perhaps he misunderstood her stare, for he added, “Please understand, though. The genetic engineers went too far with their attempts to ‘improve’ our species: there is a limit to how much man should impose his ignorant power upon nature. If you read history, you will learn how rarely such power comes with the wisdom to wield it for good. But Ms Felton herself went too far in her zeal. A huge, almost unaccountable organization to police the world, with the power of life and death, the power to kill a geneh without having to first prove its danger? No. I could not support that. I do not entirely regret those early years, because something had to be done;
but I do regret how it turned out. So when I broke with her organization I retained a lot of information that would embarrass the President and GenInt if I published it. I have no intention of doing so, but I might if they decide to whitewash history or worse, increase their power above what they have already taken.”
Miriam caught herself staring at him again. “Where is that information now?” she asked, throat suddenly dry.
He gave her a perceptive glance. “Ah, I see where you are going. Interesting. Your questions lift one corner of the shroud over your secrets. But don’t worry. Yes, the information is stored in my computer system. But the files are well encrypted, and owing to their sensitivity that is one of the things I checked specifically after my money was stolen. They were not accessed let alone copied. Either our criminal gang is not as omnipotent as we fear, or they were not interested in such dirt. I suppose we can take comfort from either possibility.”
He looked at them to see if they had a response. After a few seconds of silence he asked, “Is there anything else?”
“No, not at the moment,” replied Stone, rising from his chair. “If we find anything else out, we’ll be sure to let you know. Thanks for seeing us, you have been most helpful.”
~~~
Miriam and Stone were silent in the lift going down, silent in the lobby, silent as Stone began to drive back to the station. Finally he said what was on both their minds.