“But I’ll call that contact. See what I can do about getting her a message. Okay?”
It would have to do.
Thirteen years ago:
in the Heavy Iron
University of Guelph
Tuesday 7 June, 2049
1:00 P.M.
“I am not,” he said at last, “Richard Feynman.”
If the coffee Elspeth was sipping had been real, it would have come out of her nose. “Excuse me?”
The physicist smiled and ran a hand through tousled gray hair. “Because Richard Feynman died fifty-three years ago.”
Her cup rattled on the table when she set it aside. “All right, Dick,” she told him. “You got me. You’re not Feynman. So tell me what the hell you are.”
“I don’t know,” he said carefully.
Elspeth Dunsany grinned hard. “Postulate, Dick.”
His hands tapped his knee, restless, seeking. “I have always held reliance on paranormal explanations to indicate a lazy mind. But I sure as hell feel like Dick Feynman.” He shrugged. “Even though Richard Feynman is dead. So I’m left with interesting gaps in my logic.”
Elspeth raised an eyebrow inside her VR suit. Her image mimicked the motion. “How did you find out that you were dead?” she asked him.
He held out a portfolio. “I found the library. These clippings were in there. Along with more information about my compatriots — and myself — than I ever imagined existed.” He sighed. “It’s a shame that I never got to Tanna-Tuva.”
Allen-Shipman Research Facility
St. George Street
Toronto, Canada
Late morning, Monday 11 September, 2062
Gabe Castaign moved his long-fingered right hand through the three-dimensional interface, directing data streams with thoughtless dexterity. With the left one, not looking, he flipped open a box of mints and picked one out, sucking it off of his fingertips. Elspeth, leaning over his shoulder, caught a sharp scent of wintergreen. “May I have one of those?”
“Sure.” He slid the tin into reach. “My kids made a big deal about how much I smelled like garlic when I got home last night. I figured I’d take pity on you.”
“Kids?” They’d had dinner again the night before — Sunday dinner. Thinking of garlic and indulging, Elspeth took two of the hard little candies, wincing at their strength.
“Girls,” he said with a grin. Still without glancing away from his monitor plate, he touched another icon. The interface plate shimmered, and a hologram of two golden-haired adolescents materialized over the far left corner of the desk. One was perhaps thirteen, the other ten or eleven. The taller girl leaned smiling into her sister, an arm around her shoulders; the younger one seemed taut and focused, leaning toward the camera. The younger had eyes as blue as her father’s. Those of the older were gray-green.
“That’s Leah, after my mom. The younger one’s Genie. She’s named after my wife.”
“How long have you been married?” Elspeth almost laughed out loud at herself, pleased she managed not to let disappointment show in her voice. He did mention that before, but I assumed…
He leaned back. Elspeth smelled warmly spicy aftershave. “We were married four years,” he said. “Leukemia. I raised the girls on my own, more or less.” He glanced away, frowning, and tapped the image down. “Do you have any kids?”
“Married to my work,” she said. “And then I went to jail. Not much conducive.”
A rough-edged silence stretched between them, punctuated by the crunch of Gabe chewing on his breath mint. He broke first. “So how do you get your artificial personalities to be more than really complicated chatter-bots?”
“Turing test stuff?” She shrugged and stepped around the desk, so she could speak to him from the front. And, incidentally, control her urge to lean against his shoulder. “Well, you don’t, really. No, that’s wrong.” Her hands tumbled over one another in midair. “They’re exactly like really complicated chatter-bots. You just keep adding layers and layers of complexity and information and reactions and algorithms until you get to these very complex multifaceted variables.”
“Tolbert equations.”
“Yes. And you give it all the memory you have, and put it into a series of increasingly complex situations.”
“And then?” Gabe’s hands slowly stopped moving, hanging amid the jeweled lights of his interface. His brow furrowed and he looked up at Elspeth, meeting her gaze directly.
“And then one day it either wakes up or it doesn’t.”
“Oh.” He didn’t say anything for a moment, looking back down at his carefully trimmed fingernails. “That’s not mighty scientific, Doc. How do we know that it works?”
“Because it works.” She shrugged. “Sometimes. And why it works sometimes and not others… hell, your guess is as good as mine.”
“What if I pointed a gun at you and told you, ‘I need an answer’? Hypothetically speaking, of course.”
Her hands spread wide. “Dammit, Gabe. I’d say it comes down to will to live.”
“You sound like you have something specific in mind.”
She nodded. “Let’s go for a walk, shall we?”
He grabbed his jacket and followed her out the door.
The lab and offices sat on a little green oblong not far from the University of Toronto, where Elspeth had taught in the days before she found herself in jail. There was a coffee shop on every third corner, and the familiar street names were like a homecoming. She breathed in the late summer air, slinging a sweater retrieved from her office over one shoulder. It had rained overnight, but the humidity was rising with the sun, and the day promised heat.
Gabe was taking his jacket off again. “You know, September, I keep thinking it ought to be cooler.”
She shrugged. “It’s not even really autumn yet.”
“True.” His voice dropped. “Okay, so what was so important you didn’t want to tell me about it indoors?”
“Ah. Well.” She scuffed concrete with the sole of a loafer. “Richard Feynman, frankly.”
“The physicist? One of your original five artificial personalities.”
“Yes.” She reached up to swat at a dangling leaf. He grinned, and she blushed. “More than that.”
“Oh?”
The conversation was interrupted as they arrived at the coffee shop, and Gabe ordered just plain coffee. Elspeth got a cappuccino with extra whipped cream. They took the drinks outside and sat at a blackened aluminum table meant to look like cast iron. Elspeth took a long sip of her drink and watched Gabe fuss with cream and sugar. Is this someone you can trust? Well, you’re not telling him anything Valens doesn’t already suspect. “He’s the one that worked. Developed awareness. Became… a person.”
“Ah hah.” His voice was neutral, interested. “That’s quite a judgment call, Elspeth. What do you base it on?”
She felt gratitude. “Once we were engaging in ontological discussion on the nature of consciousness, it was hard to deny his point. I remember once, I told him that he was nothing but electrical impulses in crystal, and he came back that I was the same thing in meat. It was a hard point to argue.”
“What happened to him?” Gabe leaned forward. “Why aren’t we using those records?”
Elspeth laughed. “That’s why I went to jail, more or less. I wouldn’t give him up.”
“Give him up? To whom?”
She nodded and played with her paper cup. “Valens wanted my work for the army. For the war effort. I deleted my most recent backups. Was going to erase Richard, too.”
“And did you?”
“I…” her voice trailed off. “I gave him an Internet connection and bought him some time. I hope he made it. I don’t know.”
“Ah.”
“The colonel was not amused. Especially after my research partner broke a soldier’s nose with a printer stand.” She grinned at Gabe’s startled laughter. “That was Jack Taylor. I made him turn state’s evidence against me. He had a wi
fe.”
His laughter trailed off. “And then you went to jail for over a decade.”
“Indeed. I never did tell them that I didn’t delete all those records. The ones we’ve been working from are earlier backups.” She pushed her chair back and stood up, picking up her nearly full cup before he could ask the question forming in his eyes.
After so many years, what made you change your mind?
He came around the table to her, leaving his coffee cup behind, and touched hers to the side with two fingers on her wrist. She looked up, startled, into those earnest, cheerful eyes. How does anybody who has been through so much — wars, left widowed with children — smile like that? I wish I had his spirit.
“I admire your guts, Elspeth,” he said. “What do you think about making one of these working dates into a real date, sometime?”
Elspeth turned aside and set her coffee down on the table. Just like Momma, running around with the white boys, she thought, and the thought came very close to making her laugh out loud. Which he would have misunderstood entirely. “Actually, Gabe, I’m not looking for a… dating relationship right now.”
“Ah.” He stepped back and turned away to retrieve his coffee. “Mad at me for asking?”
“Not at all. I’ve got a counterproposal. I’d hate to ruin this friendship with expectations and the dating game foolishness. I’m not in the market for a husband; that’s never been my goal in life.”
He nodded to show that he was listening, and she was kind enough to wait until he swallowed the coffee.
“So how would you feel about a little friendly sex once in a while?”
1200 hours, Monday 11 September, 2062
Allen-Shipman Research Facility
St. George Street
Toronto, Canada Adrenaline hits. The bottom drops out of my world.
Gabe Castaign barrels down the corporate-blah hallway, arms spread wide, yelling a welcome like he hasn’t seen me since Christmas. He’s as big as Razorface, maybe bigger, but Gabe is all teddy-bear these days, while Face is a gleaming, well-oiled hunk of muscle. Ignoring Valens and Barb, prisoner’s escorts on either side of me, he’s ready to sweep me into an embrace.
Come to think of it, he hasn’t seen me since Christmas, and he seems not to notice the steaming coffee slopping over his hand. There’s a little dark-haired woman about my age four steps behind him. She balances a paper cup in her hand as well, and I see her startlement in the long moment that stretches while that rivulet of coffee trickles over Gabe’s wrist, slow as honey on an October morning.
This shouldn’t be enough to trigger me.
But my heart
hits the bottom of my chest cavity,
each beat long and slow and painful
as my hands come up and
I sidestep,
pain falling away,
left hand reaching…
Valens’s voice, then, slow as a creaking door: “Castaign, STOP!” and Gabe halts at the snap of the command. I struggle for control, take a step back, between my sister and the doctor, away from Gabe. I gag on bile and go down on one knee in the steep sick aftershock of the adrenaline and the thing I almost did.
Again.
Valens puts a hand on my shoulder, holds the other one out to take the coffee cup away from Castaign. Blond, blue-eyed Gabe Castaign, a man who’ll crawl through a fire for a girl he’s never met, lets hands that could half-encircle a cantaloupe hang limply by his side, looking from me to Valens and back again with an expression like a befuddled bear: intelligent, thoughtful, determined to understand what it is that’s so suddenly changed. I see him taking in the way I’m dressed — plum-colored slacks, sweater without a pill on it, wine-red turtleneck I bought yesterday, downtown. Same old scarred boots, though. I wonder what he thinks of that.
Fury sparks slowly in his eyes, then, and they focus hard on Valens.
“What the hell did you do to her, fils de pute?”
I hold up my hand to stem the flow of that anger, trying to hide how gratified I am by it. Before I can say anything, Valens interposes himself smoothly. “She’s sick, Castaign. That’s why she’s here.”
An unfamiliar voice cuts in. It must be the woman, Gabe’s coworker. “And we talk about her like she’s not here because?…” And I can’t decide if what I feel is gratitude or irritation, but whatever it is, it’s enough to get me hauling myself up straight and not leaning on Valens’s goddamned arm any longer.
“Because I’m the patient,” I answer, and take a step forward to extend my hand to her, not letting any of them see how badly I want to sway on my feet. From the look Gabe gives me, he guesses. My face must be livid and shining with cold sweat between the scars. “Jen Casey.” I can’t remember the last time I introduced myself to somebody by my right name.
“Elspeth Dunsany,” she answers, switching the coffee to her left hand. Her right is warm and dry as her smile. Golden hazel eyes crinkle at the corners, eerily pale in a face darker than my own. She’s compact, vigorous, a little chunky. “Are you a programmer?”
“I’m a pilot,” I answer. “Or at least I was.” Valens clears his throat behind me—shut up, Casey—which makes me curious.
I’ve always been smarter than I look. And Valens wouldn’t have sent Barb half a thousand miles to collect me if he could get the results he wants from whatever teenage soldiers might volunteer for the project just to get the — wetware, Valens called it.
Charming.
So there’s got to be something about me that’s special. Enhanced reflexes? Just bloody not being dead? I know Valens isn’t telling me a third of the truth, but I can deduce that he needs me at least as much as I need him. What’s he going to do if I piss him off? Send me home to die?
What the hell. I have nothing to lose but my life.
I keep talking. “Are you working on the flight simulations for the VR program?”
“Some work in VR, but…” her voice trails off, and I can tell from the direction of her gaze that she’s looking at Valens. Score. “… nothing like that,” she finishes lamely.
Interesting. He has some kind of hold over her, too. Her, me, Gabe. Same old Valens.
Pity for him I ain’t the same old Jenny. The last time we tangled, he used Gabe to control me. I’m willing to bet that’s the whole reason he’s offered Gabe this much-needed job. Which no doubt comes with health insurance that will cover what the government won’t do for Genie. Enzyme therapy is fucking expensive.
I’m not twenty-five anymore, Frederick Valens. And you’d be wise not to forget it.
“Gabe,” I say, breaking the uncomfortable silence. “Dinner tonight? Bring the girls, my treat.”
“Sure,” he says, but then he glances over at Elspeth Dunsany almost as if checking to see if she minds. Not quite asking permission — Gabe would never do that. But seeing if maybe he needs to make it up to her later.
Elspeth’s emotion is unreadable behind the grin she gives me. “I hope once you two old friends have caught up, I’ll be invited to the next one.”
And I like her even more for that, dammit, in spite of myself. It’s gracious, and she’s not making a fuss about being gracious. A grown-up woman.
A woman who looks more familiar the more I look at her. “Elspeth Dunsany,” I say, thoughtfully. “Doctor Dunsany?”
She nods. “Yes. That Doctor Dunsany.” Her face falls, as she wouldn’t let it before.
I understand. Oh, Nellie, do I understand. “It’s okay,” I say, and clap her lightly on the shoulder. “I’m that Master Corporal Casey. Nothing like an uncomfortable fifteen minutes of fame, is there? We’ll get along just fine.”
Valens clears his throat again, and as I turn to look at him I’m left with the unmistakable impression that he engineered this little meeting.
Of course he did. He’s Fred Valens, after all.
And as long as he thinks he’s got control of me, I’ve got half a chance of finding out what the hell is going on here, and why my sister pu
t a bullet in the back of Mitch’s girlfriend’s head.
6:45 P.M., Monday 11 September, 2062
Albany Avenue
Hartford, Connecticut
Abandoned North End
Razorface leaned against creaking, smoke-scented black leather and kicked his feet up on the chrome-edged coffee table. He liked his living room. He’d picked out the furniture himself, over Leesie’s protests. As if a woman knew anything about what looked good.
He still didn’t like the dingy unwashed cop perched on the loveseat across from him, but what the hell. You took what you could get.
“So this doc of Maker’s said he get in touch with her? She been calling me, like I asked, but you know she don’t listen to nothing.”
“Yeah. I know. He said he’d try. The prints came back. Hers, and the ones I lifted off the door of that Honda I told you about. Maker — or Casey—”
“Maker.” Irritation filled his mouth like the constant subliminal taste of steel. “What she want to be called.”
“Right. The other woman is her sister, this Barbara Anne Casey the car is registered to. Who works for — are you ready for this?”
“The drug company?” Razorface rolled his massive shoulders back against the sofa, settling in. He could hear Leesie in the kitchen, banging cabinets. She wasn’t pleased about having a cop in the house.
“Close. Unitek corporate headquarters. Hired recently, too.” The cop punctured the air with jabs of his open hand. He leaned forward, picking up a glass of cola he’d been ignoring while the ice melted, and then fiddled with the tubular steel art object on the coffee table for a moment until it lined up neatly with the glass and chrome edge. “I’ve got a theory, Razorface, and I need you to do some checking for me.”
“What sort of checking?”
“Your dealers.”
Razorface leaned forward and rapped on the coffee table. At the sound, Emery peered around the corner from the next room, eyebrows raised questioningly, hand on his lapel. On the job. Razorface waved him down. “I ain’t got no dealers, man. I got boys, but they don’t sell.”
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