The Resurrected Man

by Sean Williams

  “So every little piece helps, Jason. Just help me do this by not giving in before we start.”

  They watched the first minute through twice, until she conceded that she really hadn't learned anything definitive. Some of it was associated with memory, but it was mixed with other data she couldn't interpret at all. InSight had clearly damaged his brain more subtly than she had imagined—not causing lesions or anything so dramatic, but rewiring the usual pathways to follow more exotic routes. How the effects of that rewiring would emerge she had no way yet of telling; from the outside, he seemed reasonably normal.

  “Regardless whether that's true or not, we have no way to prove GLITCH is involved, so we have to keep looking for material evidence of some other method.”

  “That's eminently sensible, even though it's not what I'd do.”

  “I know, Jonah. And that's why I don't work for you any more, remember?”

  A strong emotional response there, she noted with a twinge of satisfaction.

  “We're coming up on the first deep-memory spike.” Fassini indicated the point on a graph. “Here.”

  “…is there another explanation I haven't thought of?”

  “Only that the transmission is coming from within KTI itself.”

  “Is that possible? And if not, why not?”

  “For the technical side of it, you'd have to ask QUALIA, but I'm told it's not an option.”

  “QUALIA?”

  “I monitor every transaction that passes through the KTI network. I would know if someone was transmitting data illegally from within.”

  She pondered the content of the conversation at that point. Nothing referring to events in his past—events she knew of, anyway. Another explanation lay in the possibility that he did indeed know something about the Twinmaker's MO that he was keeping carefully buried, subconsciously, but that could not be confirmed without more data.

  “Keep it rolling,” she said.

  “Aye, suczka.”

  The second memory spike occurred approximately ten minutes after the first.

  “But not impossible.”

  “No. Just more unlikely than the alternative.”

  “Which is impossible.”

  “So you say.”

  “I am not mistaken—and, before you ask, I would never lie.”

  Again, no reference to the past that she could discern, but the spike did occur immediately after further discussion of the possibility that the Twinmaker was operating from within KTI itself. That might have been significant. More disturbingly, though, it also came just before his wild implication of Fabian Schumacher.

  “Do you think he's onto something here?” Fassini asked.

  “Highly unlikely.”

  “Hard to investigate, either way. Horrible Herry would be breathing down our neck before we even started asking questions.”

  Marylin nodded absently. Herold Verstegen didn't have much to do with the lower ranks of the MIU—or of KTI itself, for that matter—but his reputation preceded him. He took his role as Director of Information Security for the world's only d-mat network very seriously indeed. She had met him several times during the course of the investigation, but had never managed to penetrate his facade. He reminded her of an efficient but slightly crotchety robot.

  “Here it comes,” said Fassini. The recording was still proceeding. “Watch this. McEwen barely opens his mouth—”

  “You think I should be overjoyed?”

  “—and you jump down it like a facehugger from one of those old films.”

  “I'm not asking for the Hallelujah Chorus—”

  “Well, lighten up, then. This isn't as easy as it used to be.”

  “No one said it would be.”

  “For either of us.”

  “What's that supposed to mean?”

  “You know damn well. If you'd only—”

  Whatever Jonah had been about to say went unsaid. Marylin remembered it vividly. He had just stopped in mid-sentence as though all his words had dried up.

  Fassini froze the recording on Jonah's wincing face. “You've got to admit, you were a little harsh.”

  She turned to him. “Look, Jason, whatever you're driving at, get it out of your system now. I'm sick of all these hints and sly digs.”

  “Okay. Were you in love with him?”

  The bluntness of the question took her by surprise; it was her turn to be lost for words. This she hadn't expected.

  “Are you serious?” she managed.

  “Why not? Come on, Marylin. There's no one listening. You can tell me.”

  She was unable to meet his stare, so looked at his mouth instead. His smile taunted her. “What makes you think it was like that? Because he annoys me so much?”

  “That might be it.”

  “That might be because he's a patronising, paranoid, manipulating—”

  “He can't be all that bad, really. You had an affair with him for over a year.”

  “He's also persistent.” She shook her head. “I'd barely finished my postdoc, was easily impressed. He took me in, used me—”

  “Willingly.”

  “Yes, but I was still just a means to an end. The firm went uphill after I joined, and his sex life certainly improved. The fact that I benefited from the arrangement as well doesn't change the fact that he exploited me.” She grimaced. “But you know all this. It's in the file.”

  “And I'm not denying it,” he said, “just questioning the psychology behind the report itself. Everything is so clinical, so sterile.” He imitated her: “‘Our affair began on so-and-so a date; we had sexual contact on an irregular basis over this long a period; I brought the affair to an end for the following reasons, in descending order of importance.’”

  “I don't see the problem.”

  His smile vanished. “It's bull-schyss, Marylin! No one thinks like that.”

  “I'm not saying I do. That's just how reports should be written. No bias, no judgments, no prejudice. It was bad enough that my privacy was being violated—”

  “You volunteered the information freely enough when the murders started.”

  “Information, yes. Not gossip.”

  “But you didn't mention your feelings at all. To me that smacks of denial.”

  She glared at him. “If I'd wanted a psych evaluation, I would've gone to a professional.”

  “See? You won't even talk about it properly now.”

  “And why should I? Anything I thought was relevant went into the report. That should be enough.”

  “Still, it'd be hard to admit, even to yourself, that you might have loved the man who later became the Twinmaker.”

  “Very hard, yes, when it isn't true.” Through clenched teeth, she added: “He annoys me because he knows how to.”

  “Still? After three years in hibernation?”

  “Jesus, Jason, just let it go!” She turned on him, fists balled. “What difference could it possibly make?”

  “Because the less you think about it the more vulnerable to him you'll become.”

  She glared at him. Yes, that point certainly was valid. It would be so easy to slip into old modes of behaviour which, in this case, could result in disaster

  Had she loved him? She hadn't asked herself that question for so long she'd forgotten the answer. For sixteen months she had believed that Jonah had been nursing a grudge because she had left him. It was hard to remember that she had left him in part because she had thought she was being used and hadn't liked it. By the time she had suspected she might have been wrong, it had been too late. And now that he was back, the question remained unanswered: how had he felt about her? She didn't know, and that uncertainty plagued her.

  Whether she had been in love with him or not was irrelevant. Either way, she was tired of thinking about it.

  “Its old news, dead as DTP,” she said. “I've moved a long way since then.”

  “He hasn't. For him it's only been a week since you broke it off.”

  “Enough, Ja
son, or I'll be the one obsessing!”

  He shrugged and turned back to the consensual screen. “I'm sure you know what you're doing, pizda.”

  Yeah, she thought, and fuck you too.

  The recording unspooled before her, reminding her of how bitter the brief argument had been. The emotions it had raised had startled her, disturbed her. It wasn't pleasant to relive them, even secondhand.

  “Better now than never.”

  “No. It's not relevant.”

  “Crap. It's as relevant as it ever was.”

  “You're only trying to intimidate me.”

  “So what's new?”

  Nothing, it seemed. But she was determined not to live with it, this time.

  When it was over, she replayed the scene to examine Jonah's brain scans more thoroughly. They were, as Graaff had suggested, highly ambiguous, but lacked the startling energy of the memory spikes. She couldn't even begin to guess what had gone through his head during those minutes. He had said nothing in response to her final comment—indeed had not spoken at all until Whitesmith had prompted the conversation immediately following the collapse of the VTC. And even then he had said little, seemingly preoccupied or, as QUALIA had suggested, utterly exhausted.

  “Anything?” Fassini asked.

  “Nothing conclusive. I'd like to run through it again. You?”

  “Go ahead. I've said my piece.”

  Marylin shuttled at random through the recording for several minutes, then started at the beginning and ran through it at double speed. No obvious patterns emerged, except for a nagging suspicion that the two memory spikes were significant—that they were linked by something more than the conversation at the time. There were no obvious visual triggers, foreground or background. If the cause wasn't the conversation itself or the view through the VTC, that left very little that could have had such an obvious effect on him. Unless it was just a coincidence—

  “QUALIA?”

  “Yes, Marylin.”

  “What is Jonah McEwen's present condition?”

  “He is unconscious and will remain so for approximately six hours.”

  Thereby ruling out the possibility of asking him directly. “Long-term?”

  “He will require at least two days to attain partial mobility, and even with prosthetic assistance will be unable to move naturally in full gravity for a further three days.”

  She leaned back into the seat with a sigh. “He's not much use to us like this.”

  “Better than nothing,” Fassini said.

  “Barely. We didn't learn anything new today, did we? All we got was a bunch of half-baked ideas—which is maybe what the Twinmaker wants us to get from him.” She fought a growing sense of impatience. “I'm starting to think that Odi had the right idea.”

  “How's that?”

  “Wake him up now, throw him straight into VTC, force the issue.”

  “Revenge?” Fassini smiled. “That's all you're really after.”

  “Not at all.” But so what if it is? “I just want to make some progress.”

  “You and me both.”

  Marylin jumped as a hand came down on her shoulder and squeezed tightly.

  “Jeez—!”

  “Easy, Marylin.” It was Whitesmith. He removed his hand and squatted next to her. “Hi, Jason.”

  “Glad you could make it.” She half-turned to face him. His expression was serious, lines etched deeply by fatigue and prolonged stress; the face she saw via the workspace had obviously been a fake. “What kept you?”

  “Trevaskis,” he said. “We've been, ah, reviewing the situation.”

  “He found out?”

  “I told him, actually. He needed to know when we started getting hits on McEwen's UGI. So I brought him up to date—”

  “Wait,” she interrupted. “You're talking past hits, not current?”

  “Right. We have no locations more recent than a month ago.”

  “That's odd.”

  “Yes.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose and she heard the rasp of skin against stubble clearly. “He couldn't have gone to ground because Suche-Thomas was kidnapped not even three weeks ago. But he can't be in the open or else GLITCH would have noticed him.”

  “Unless he has been using teleoperation in that time.”

  “Which is still Trevaskis' preferred theory. The Jonah we have in custody might still be the one we're after.”

  “Nice and tidy, except—”

  “Yeah, I know. All the reports indicate that he was in the gel for the time he said he was, not just the last month. And until we gain access to the AIs in the unit, we have no proof of anything else. Everywhere we look there's another dead-end. We're running in circles again.”

  Marylin did her best to suppress a vivid image of the faceless Twinmaker chuckling at their confusion.

  “So where does that leave us?” asked Fassini.

  “In limbo for the time being. I gather you haven't found anything here?”

  “Nothing concrete,” she said. “And I doubt we will, to be honest.”

  “Then it's probably best to leave it for now. Go home if you want to and write up a report. I'll call you later once we've worked out the next step.”

  “Any idea what that might be?”

  Whitesmith hesitated, and she could tell that there was something he didn't want to tell her. His dark, deep eyes were wandering.

  “Odi?”

  “Trevaskis wasn't happy, as you thought.” Whitesmith grimaced. “In fact, he threatened to veto the entire line of inquiry and hand McEwen over to the EJC.”

  “You're kidding,” Fassini said.

  “No. He thought we hadn't fully explored the sensible options before going off in search of wild theories.”

  “And he's right,” Marylin said.

  “Technically, yes.” Whitesmith placed both hands palm-down on his knees and pushed, turning his frustration back on himself. “But that's what makes him so wrong, this time. I mean, what can the EJC do, anyway? Technically no one's actually been killed. The victims are all still alive. In the absence of a crime, how can the EJC be involved?”

  She winced. “That's a cruel argument, and you know it.”

  “But it might hold up in court, and that's the important thing. As would the case that Jonah might not be a suspect, if it's his copy we're looking for.”

  “So why have we still got him?”

  “Because we have something he wants—”

  “No. I mean what made Trevaskis see reason?”

  “Herold Verstegen saved our collective arse. He talked Trevaskis out of it, not me.”

  “I don't understand,” Marylin said.

  “There's no way he'd let security be compromised at this point, when we've just got our hands on the best lead we've ever had. For the sake of some petty in-fighting—which is what Trevaskis' grandstanding is really about—the entire KTI network would have to come under review. That's the last thing Verstegen wants.”

  “But how did he even know about this?”

  “He's known from the start—was watching the VTC, in fact. It was the price we had to pay for having unlimited access to QUALIA.”

  “Some price,” Fassini muttered.

  “Not bad, seeing he ended up helping.” Whitesmith kept his voice carefully neutral. “But that doesn't mean I have to like him pulling the strings.”

  Marylin sagged back into her seat, feeling contradictory emotions. Although she could understand Odi's position, the thought that her unprofessional behaviour had been witnessed by “Horrible Herry” made her feel slightly ill. And then there was the fact that Jonah had almost been pulled out of the case. That would have meant no more VTCs, no more forced contact. Her feelings on that were a little more complex, but at least part of it had been relief. The rest she wasn't so keen to identify. She knew that the only way she'd be truly free of him was to find out for certain, one way or another, the truth about him.

  “So now what?” she asked, not letting Whitesmith chang
e the subject so easily. “We keep going as before?”

  “Maybe. Nothing's been decided yet. Trevaskis wants time to think things over, to work out the best strategy, while the rest of us go over the data. There's not much else we can do until McEwen is fit enough to help us properly. At the very least, we still need him to unlock the AIs in his apartment.”

  “He'll be wanting to look at the file on his father,” Marylin said. “If it's turned up by then.”

  “It's already here.” Whitesmith said. “Much faster than we expected. It arrived while I was talking to Trevaskis. He wasn't happy about that, either—making deals with McEwen. But it seemed expedient at the time, which he could see.”

  “Except now you have to honour your agreement and actually give Jonah time to go over the file.”

  “Trevaskis wants to hold onto it for a while, to ensure his willingness to cooperate.”

  “That's not a good idea.”

  “The decision's out of our hands.”

  She quelled a rising tide of frustration. “If you say so.”

  “I do. Believe me when I tell you it might not be as big a problem as you think. With Verstegen on-side, there are a number of new possibilities open to us.”

  “You're not about to suggest we give Jonah to him—”

  “No.” He leaned closer. “Later, when you have time, ask QUALIA about d-med.”

  Marylin was totally lost. “D-med?”

  “Schumacher's latest toy.” Whitesmith winked at her, but his expression was serious. He obviously wasn't going to tell her about it. “And brush up on the details of the unit. I'll call you as soon as I know what's going to happen.”

  He stood and looked around. “Do you know where Indira is?”

  “Wait. Odi—”

  “In her office, I think,” Fassini said.

  “Good. I need to talk to her. Speak to you later, Marylin.” With that, the head of the away team strode away.

  Marylin bit her lip on a curse.

  Noticing her expression, Fassini grinned. “You look like you're about to bust something.”

  “Only internally. I hate it when he does this to me.” She cleared the consensual screen and consigned the VTC recording to the MIU database.

  “Does that mean we're leaving?”

  “Yes. I am, anyway. You can do what you want.”