Analog SFF, May 2011

by Dell Magazine Authors

  I turned to see a young woman standing in the door to the master bedroom. She was dressed in a white silk robe like Michael's, her feet also bare. She had long blond hair and scarlet lipstick that matched the polish on her fingernails and toes.

  As Michael looked at the woman, a bemused smile slid across his face. “Actually, you'd be amazed what we can do with people's minds,” he said. He gave me a quick glance, then turned back to the woman. “Margaret, I think Mr. Carver has come here to kill me."

  She sucked in a breath, lifting a clenched fist to her mouth.

  "But you can save me. If you jump from the balcony, you'll draw people's attention. He'll have to run before he can kill me."

  "Should I do that now, Michael?"

  "I know it's a lot to ask, darling. But, yes, I need you to do that now."

  She turned, walked directly to the sliding glass doors that looked out onto the balcony, and slid them open.

  "Margaret,” Michael said.

  She turned back toward him.

  "It was only a test, darling. I don't really want you to jump. I was just proving a point to Mr. Carver here."

  She smiled. “Did I pass?"

  "Yes, darling, you passed with flying colors. Now run off to the bedroom. I'll be in, in a few minutes."

  The young woman turned and walked back into the bedroom.

  "What did you do to her?” I said.

  "Think of it as ruffies 2.0,” he said. “She doesn't simply lose her inhibitions and forget what happened; she's addicted to me. What you might call the poor man's substitute for love. Though in this case, I think it will be the rich man's substitute. The very rich man's. It probably won't get much play in this country—what with the unfortunate attitude our legislators have about drugs—but there are certain markets . . .” He sighed. “Well, you're a man of the world, Mr. Carver. You know how these things work."

  "You just slipped something into her drink?"

  He nodded. “All it takes is a capsule with the appropriately programmed nano-transporters. The transporters watch which synapses light up in her facial recognition area and link them to the dopamine neurons in her nucleus accumbens. That's all it takes—connect the image of my face in her fusiform gyrus to her pleasure centers, and you've got the next best thing to true love. In fact, maybe that's what I'll call it—True Love. Has a nice ring to it, don't you think?"

  "Would she really have killed herself?"

  He laughed, shaking his head. “Even I'm not that big an egotist. When she looked down and realized what she was about to do, her survival instincts would have kicked in. An addict will do a lot for a drink or a snort or a hit, but most of them won't jump off the roof. Our identities are like the layers of an onion. Loyalty, love, all of what we call feelings—they're just a matter of delivering the right neurotransmitters to the right synapses. In fact, most of what you think and do is really just a product of your neurotransmitters and the hormones they dump into your bloodstream. The idea that you're in control is an illusion created by the executive functions in your prefrontal lobes. The truth is, you're like a monkey riding on the shoulders of an elephant. You rationalize everything that happens and convince yourself that the elephant's actions are what you wanted all along. But by and large, those rationalizations come after the fact. The truth is, it's only a matter of time until we can control everything you think and feel. The irony is that your conscious mind will convince you that it was all your idea in the first place."

  "So, what happens when you get tired of her?” I asked, looking toward the bedroom.

  He flipped his hand dismissively. “A quick hit of Oblivion, and it's like it never happened. She won't even know who I am."

  When he saw my expression, he laughed. “We're all of us hostages to our chemistry, Carver. Get used to it."

  Before I could respond, we were interrupted by a knock at the door. “Police!” a voice called from outside. “Open the door now!"

  "Hmm . . .” Michael said. He frowned thoughtfully, massaging his chin. “I wonder who that could be."

  When he opened the door, a uniformed police officer stepped inside with his stun gun at the ready. A second officer stood just behind him. And just behind the second officer, I saw the face of the doorman smiling at me from beneath his peaked cap. Apparently, he'd finished powdering his nose and was now covering his ass.

  * * * *

  The guards at the East Side lockup are a lot like the cyber-servers at the Market Street train station—except for their bullet-shaped heads and gleaming ruby eye. And the fact that they'll deliver a shock that will stand your hair on end if you don't follow their orders. And then, of course, there's the problem with their breaking the bones of unruly prisoners—as a result of what their human handlers call minor sensor malfunctions. But other than these few anomalies, they're just a bunch of rambunctious rascals that tug at the heart strings of even the most hardened criminals.

  Unfortunately, by the time they delivered me to Interrogation Room Three the following afternoon, my heartstrings were all tugged out.

  Unlike the true-detective vids with their one-way mirrors and hidden electronics, Interrogation Room Three held a beat-up wooden table, two slat-backed chairs, and Lieutenant Anton Grimaldi. With his scarred brow and broken nose, the lieutenant looked like he might have gone a few rounds with one of my guards. The glare in his brown eyes suggested he might have enjoyed it.

  I had filled Grimaldi in on Van Buren and his painting the night before when the beat cops brought me in. I hadn't gone into a lot of detail about Oblivion—just that it was an experimental drug for the treatment of mental problems. And I'd described the Botticelli as nothing more than an expensive painting from Lucas Van Buren's private collection. But I'd given the lieutenant plenty to investigate, which he'd said he would do. Now, given the way he sat there, silently staring at me over his coffee, I knew something hadn't checked out.

  "You talk to the old man?” I asked.

  "I talked to him."

  "It was pretty much like I told you, right?"

  "Not exactly.” He took another sip from his cup.

  "Not exactly, how?"

  "Van Buren says you stole his painting."

  "What?"

  "He says he gave it to you. You put it in the suitcase. You took it to the train station. And that's the last he saw of it. The way he figures it, you were behind the whole extortion plot from the get-go."

  "You're not serious."

  "He says the only reason you brought his man Hempstead into the story was to confuse the issue. He says Hempstead runs his Information Systems Department. He says the man doesn't know anything about the drugs they're testing, much less Van Buren's private art collection."

  "I see.” I looked at the scarred green wall for a moment, trying to gather my thoughts. “So how is it exactly that I knew about his art collection?"

  "He says his son, Michael, must have told you."

  "You mean the same Michael who had me arrested."

  "That would be the one."

  "And the son corroborated the old man's story?"

  "Not exactly. But, then you wouldn't expect him to, would you? Not if he's involved like the old man says."

  "So what about Virginia Radcliff?” I asked. “What did she say?"

  Grimaldi grimaced, lowered his coffee to the table. “That's what I don't get, Carver—why you'd lie about something like that."

  "Like what?"

  "This Virginia Radcliff woman."

  "What are you talking about?"

  He pressed his lips into a frown. “There is no Virginia Radcliff, Carver.” He leaned across the table, fixing me with his hard brown eyes. “Van Buren, Hempstead, the son, Michael—none of them ever heard of her. So making her up like that—who did you think you were going to fool?"

  * * * *

  The lieutenant interrogated me for another hour—him trying to break my story, and me trying to figure out what had happened to Virginia Radcliff. Neither of us ha
d any success, which is why in the end, he had to let me go.

  "Turned out Van Buren didn't want to press charges, anyway,” I explained to Effie back in my office. “My guess is he didn't want the police looking into where he got his painting."

  "That would explain why Hempstead and Michael decided not to press charges, either,” she said. “If Van Buren told them he wanted the investigation dropped."

  I stared out through my dusty window at the sunlight glinting off the building across the alley. “You don't think somebody could have planted the memory of Virginia Radcliff in my mind, do you? You know, like one of Van Buren's overlays."

  Effie rotated the maintenance bot's head from side to side. “No, I saw her too. But there wasn't any record of her in Nano-Mnemonic's personnel files. I went through them backwards and forwards. If she was ever there, someone erased her completely."

  "That would explain Hempstead's involvement,” I said. “He ran their I.T. department. If she wanted her records wiped along with everyone's memories, he would have been the perfect candidate to do it for her. What gets me is that everyone's story is different. Hempstead thinks he bought the suitcase at the train station; the old man thinks he gave the painting to me; and the son—he apparently thinks one of his girlfriends got the best of him."

  "She created her own blind spot,” Effie said. “The only way we know she was there is because the stories don't fit together without her."

  "Actually, they do fit together,” I said.

  "Oh?” she said.

  I nodded grimly. “That's why she picked me. I'm the guy in the middle. The patsy everyone focuses on while she walks away free and clear."

  * * * *

  It took me six months to find Virginia. Ironically, it was the suitcase that put me on her trail. She hadn't bought it at the train station. She was too smart for that. But eventually I found the West Side boutique where she had bought it. Effie then identified the credit-card number, which led me to a cell phone, which, in turn, led me to a travel agency. Virginia hadn't actually used their services, but one of their agents had provided her with a stack of brochures, which led me to one of those exclusive South Pacific resorts you see in the celebrity-getaway vids.

  I almost didn't recognize her at the open-air cocktail lounge overlooking the beach. She was seated on a bamboo stool beneath the grass roof that shaded the teakwood bar and surrounding tables. Beyond her, a wide wooden stairway led down to the gleaming white sands. A light breeze rustled in through leaves of the potted palms that lined the stairway and separated the tables. Virginia was leaning back in her chair, one slender forearm resting casually on the bar as she talked to the bartender, who stood opposite her polishing a glass. She had exchanged her pinstriped suit for a string bikini and a short wraparound skirt. The blond hair I'd last seen pulled into a tight little bun behind her head was now auburn and cut in a short pixie with spiky ends that surrounded her face like the petals of a flower.

  "Scotch and water,” I said to the bartender as I sat down beside her. “And give the lady whatever she's having."

  Virginia watched the bartender pour our drinks, then she turned and looked at me. Her blue eyes were hidden behind her sunglasses, but I could see the smile that curled at the corners of her mouth.

  "You surprised me, Harry. I thought it would take you at least a year to find me."

  I took a sip from my drink, allowing the burn of the scotch to reach my stomach before I answered. I'd invested six months tracking her down. I intended to savor every moment of the experience. “All good things come to an end,” I said, toasting her with my glass.

  "Really, Harry? Can't we make it last a little longer?” She slipped off her glasses and leaned toward me, placing her hand on my arm. “Just you and me?"

  "Is this an attempt to seduce me with your feminine wiles?” I asked.

  Her sank back in her chair. “I'm afraid you're too hardboiled for that."

  "But Michael wasn't, was he?"

  "Actually, it was Michael who came after me. I think he saw it as a way to get even with Lucas—by seducing his father's executive assistant."

  "But you didn't try to stop him, did you?"

  She lifted an eyebrow. “You're not jealous, are you, Harry?"

  "Should I be?"

  She shrugged. “That was how I learned about the supply of Oblivion he kept in his apartment. I'm sure you know how he used it. He loved telling me how he was going to outdo his father, open new markets, as he called them. I gave him someone he could boast to—someone who could appreciate how smart he was, how much more capable he was than Lucas ever gave him credit for. He's the one who told me about Lucas's painting."

  I took another sip from my drink. Keeping my hand over the top of my glass, I gazed past her at the white-capped waves in the distance. The breeze felt cool coming in across my face.

  "What about Owen Hempstead? Was he just another womanizer you turned the tables on?"

  There was a hint of melancholy in her laugh. “Owen was one of those men who like to look from afar but are afraid to touch. I gave him his chance—the affair he'd always dreamed about."

  "You took the painting out of the suitcase before you even put it in the locker, didn't you?"

  She nodded. “Afterwards, I met Owen for a drink. I asked him to pick up my suitcase in the locker. I told him I'd arranged a special evening for us in a new hotel I'd found. Then I slipped the Oblivion into his drink. By the time he reached the train with the empty suitcase, he'd already forgotten all about me. I was truly sorry I had to take his memories away from him. He, at least, would have appreciated them."

  "And old Lucas? Did you seduce him, too?"

  "Not in the sense you mean. Like a lot of men who think they're tough-minded, it was inconceivable to him that a young woman could get the best of him. I put the Oblivion in his tea, just after you left to go to the station. It's amazing how easily you can focus a man's attention. Even an old man. By the time I left with the suitcase, he remembered you were supposed to follow the painting, but I was in the blind spot in the center of his memory."

  I took another sip of my drink. “You left each of them to put together his own version of what had happened from the memories he had left."

  "Blind spots, Harry—we all have them. They're so easy to take advantage of once you know they're there."

  I laughed. “And what about me? What's my blind spot?"

  "You, Harry? You're a fraud."

  "A fraud?"

  She smiled, her voice becoming almost wistful. “You like to tell yourself that you're a hardboiled P.I., but the truth is you're a romantic. One of a dying breed."

  "A romantic?"

  "You need to save people. Even now you're wondering if there isn't some way to save me."

  "Really?"

  "I saw it in your eyes the first time we met."

  I forced a laugh and looked away.

  "Just like I can see that you still haven't made up your mind about what you're going to do with me,” she said.

  "You sound pretty sure of yourself."

  "Do you really think so, Harry? Because I'm not sure of myself.” She again leaned toward me, her grip on my forearm tighter than before. “I've never been sure of myself. I suppose that's why I do things like this. Why I have to do them."

  "So now you think—what? That I'm going to let you just walk away?"

  "Why not, Harry? You've found me. You've solved the riddle. No one's really been hurt. Why wouldn't you let me walk away?"

  "I guess you'd say it's a matter of principle."

  "Principle?"

  I nodded. “That's your blind spot. There are some things you aren't allowed to do, regardless of whether anybody else is hurt. Otherwise the whole system breaks down. The world ceases to work."

  "That's your principle, Harry? Making things right for the Lucas Van Burens of the world? For the Michaels?"

  "Something like that."

  She laughed. “At least be honest with yourself
, Harry. This doesn't have anything to do with principles. It's all about you. About your ego. You can't let anyone get away with anything at your expense."

  I smiled."You're good. The best I've ever seen. But it isn't going to work."

  Her gaze tightened on my face. “Really, Harry? Are you sure? I want you to think back. Back to when we first met. Do you remember that afternoon, Harry? Where we met?"

  "It was in my . . .” I frowned, searching for the memory. It would have been in my office. That's where I usually met my clients. In fact, I distinctly remembered old Lucas Van Buren coming in. I remembered him wheezing as he stomped across my carpet with that pretentious cane of his. There had been something about a missing painting . . .

  "Wait a minute . . .” I said. “You’ didn't . . . You couldn't . . ."

  I looked down at my hand over the top of my drink. She couldn't possibly have slipped anything into it.

  I turned my eyes toward the bartender who stood a short distance away, polishing a glass. He was the youngish sort of man you'd expect to see behind the bar at a South Pacific resort—a loose-fitting flowered shirt, lots of sun-bleached hair, a deep tan. But it was the expression on his face that caught my attention—the adoration in his eyes as he looked at the woman beside me. It was the same adoration I'd seen in the eyes of the woman in Michael Van Buren's apartment.

  I looked back at the woman beside me. I had to admit she was attractive—auburn hair, blue eyes, perfectly formed features. For a moment I thought I knew her, that I remembered her from somewhere, but before I could gather my thoughts, she rose from her chair and walked toward the wooden stairs that led down to the beach. Even with the flowered wrapper around her hips, I could see that she had a beautiful figure—the kind of long slender legs you expect to see at a South Pacific resort. Which, I suppose, was the reason I'd come here in the first place—to enjoy the sun, the sea, and the view. Though in truth, I couldn't quite remember making that decision, or even why I'd picked this particular resort. When I got back, I'd have to ask Effie. I can always depend on Effie. She never forgets anything.

  I turned back to the bartender. “You have a beautiful place here,” I said. “The sun, the sea . . . it's like something out of a dream . . . ."