Pal snapped his fingers and said with obvious sarcasm, “Darn it.”
Susan liked his answer. She was going to need assistance keeping Nate safe and clearing Lawrence, particularly with the Society for Humanity still gunning for her. Jake had seemed less than eager for the job, and now had become more adversary than friend. She needed someone like Pal in her corner. “You haven’t found a civilian job yet, correct?”
“Correct.”
“Is it possible I could hire you?”
Pal glanced around the tiny apartment.
Susan tried to guess his concern. “I couldn’t pay you much,” she admitted, “but I just got on USR’s payroll. I don’t know how much they’re going to give me, but I’m willing to split what I get with you.”
Pal sat up straighter. “And my job would be?”
“Bodyguard,” Susan responded quickly, then added, “And tactical adviser.” She found herself studying Nate, as if afraid to place her gaze on Pal, afraid he might refuse, afraid he might accept. Whatever he had claimed about his indebtedness to her outweighing hers to him, he had saved her life. And Nate’s as well. Susan did feel grateful to Pal Buffoni. Strangely, however, she realized she had never put that gratitude into words. “I apologize for not saying it sooner, but thank you for rescuing me.” She owed him more, and she knew it. “Thank you for disguising Nate. For that matter, thank you for your service to America.”
“Whoa,” Pal said. “You had me at ‘bodyguard.’ I’ll take the job.”
“Thank you,” Susan could not help saying again, gaze still fixed on Nate. “By the way, how did you disguise Nate so well so quickly?”
Pal waved off the compliment. “That was easy. I just reminded him he was supposed to be your cousin from Iowa, and he did the rest. He’s got, like, half a foot of height on me, so I knew he needed something bigger than my regular clothes. The jogging suit was a gift. My mom bought it extra large, she said to fit over my clothes. I’ve always had to roll up the sleeves and cuffs. Hats are simple accessories to hide hair. Those are my sunglasses; they’re clear inside but darken in sunlight. I wanted him sitting, to obfuscate height, so I put him on the stool. It was simple enough to put half-eaten food in his hands, allowing Jake to catch him doing something casually human.” He shook his head. “The hardest part was finding food. No wonder you’re so thin.”
Susan made a wordless, meaningless gesture. Her father had not needed to eat and had had a lax relationship with food. He had thrown together the most eclectic meals, more focused on nutrition than taste. “We’re going to need to leave pretty soon. We can get our stories straight on the way. Why don’t you jump in the shower? I’m going to get changed and spend some time with Nate. I took him for a reason, and the sooner I know what he knows, the better.”
Pal made no move to obey. “I’d only just started jogging when I ran into you. That’s why I wasn’t too far from my bike. If I’m going to protect you, I need to know what’s going on. I want to hear what Nate has to say.”
Susan bit her lip in consideration. Pal had actively rescued her twice. He knew how to think quickly in difficult situations; but, denied significant information, he would surely make a dangerous error. “You’re right,” she finally said before turning to Nate. “Tell us what happened yesterday in Hassenfeld Research Tower, room 713.”
Nate lowered his head until it nearly touched the floor. He started to rock in place rhythmically, like a mother soothing a sobbing infant.
Susan knew she needed to stop him, worried he would slip away to the same quiet place he had found in the Nineteenth Precinct holding cell. “Nate, think back to the first moment you entered that room yesterday. Before anything bad happened. What were you doing there?”
Nate did not look up, but he did stop rocking. “Dr. Goldman put in an application the night before for me to come to the lab at one forty-five p.m. I arrived at the requested time.”
Susan would have liked Nate to just tell the entire story, but she needed to keep him directed and focused. “Who was there when you arrived?”
“Dr. Goldman had just returned from lunch. I met him at the door.”
“What did he say and do?”
“He was grumbling something about Dr. Peters not joining us. I couldn’t catch every word, but it had something to do with a family emergency. He opened the door and let us both in. He had me sit in my usual place, on the stool beside his at the laboratory tables, and we started right in on their current project.”
Pal could not help leaping in, “Which is?”
Nate shifted his attention to Pal. “They’ve isolated small amounts of two previously unknown proteins from the cerebrospinal fluid of certain psychiatric patients. They’re comparing what they’ve found with fluid from normal volunteers, people with different forms of meningitis and certain cancer patients. They’re trying to find the origins of the proteins, their effects, and in what disease states they’re found to see if they can be used as markers or if treatments directed at them might prove useful in certain disease states.”
Pal’s crinkled brow suggested he might be sorry he asked.
Susan took over again. The details of the experiment probably did not matter, and they had a limited amount of time. “What happened next?”
Nate cleared his throat, though he probably never had to actually do so. It was an affectation learned from humans and probably served the same delaying purpose. “About twenty minutes into the project, Dr. Goldman started yelling and swearing. He commanded me to fetch more Schmidt capillary tubes. I went to the storage room to get him a box.”
“And?” Susan pressed.
“And,” Nate repeated dreamily. “And.” He started to shake.
Susan leaned forward, caught Nate’s cheeks, and forced him to look at her. It surprised her how fully human his face felt, clamped between her hands. “Nate, tell me what happened next.”
Though forced to face her, his eyes dodged hers. “I remember finding a partial box of Schmidt capillary tubes right in front. I grabbed it. Then, suddenly, I was back in the laboratory. Instead of the box, I held a Stanley 55-099 FatMax Xtreme FuBar Utility Bar covered with blood. Dr. Goldman sprawled across the table, his head . . . his head . . .”
Susan did not make him say it. “Yes, Nate. I saw his head. Did you . . . hit him?”
“I must have,” Nate fairly moaned. He made no attempt to escape Susan’s grip, but his eyes had rolled almost sideways. “There was no one else in the room. No one else.”
Susan waited for him to meet her gaze, which he finally did. His voice sounded small, pinched. “But I couldn’t have done it, could I? I can’t harm any human being. I know I can’t.” Tears spilled from his eyes.
Pal stepped in again, “Nate, where did you get the utility bar? Was it in the lab? In the storage area?”
Nate shook his head, slowly at first, then gradually with more speed and emphasis. “I don’t know. I’d never seen it before. I have no memory of finding it, of picking it up. It was just there. There in my hand.”
Susan believed they had found the most important clue, and it had come precisely from the source she had expected. If I hadn’t stolen him, we wouldn’t know any of this. “Do you remember walking from the storage area to the lab?”
Nate shook his head. “I don’t. But I had to, didn’t I?”
Pal tapped his Vox, a silent reminder that they needed to meet with Jake and had promised not to be late.
Susan held up one finger to forestall him for just a moment longer. She could not leave Nate until she put his mind at ease. “We’ll talk about this some more when we get back, but I want you to understand one thing. You did not kill Ari Goldman. It’s not possible for you to do such a thing. Someone else killed him, someone human, and made it appear as if you did it.”
Nate gave Susan a hopeful look. “You’re sure?”
“Not
a doubt in my mind,” Susan said with stalwart assurance. “You’re innocent, Nate. And we’re going to do whatever it takes to free Lawrence and find the real killer or killers.”
Pal nodded in firm agreement. “While we’re gone, remain quiet. Stay away from any windows, and don’t answer the door. We’ll be back soon.”
Susan could have kissed him.
Chapter 7
Susan and Pal rode a glide-bus to the Chief of Detectives Field Internal Affairs Unit. Had Pal offered the use of his Harley, Susan would have refused him. “Donorcycles” doctors called them euphemistically, and it was one thing to hop onto one while escaping gunfire, quite another to choose it over safe and reliable transportation in a nonemergent situation. However, Pal did not ask, though whether because he still worried the SFH might recognize it, knew Susan was not comfortable with it, or because he wanted to talk to her on the trip, she did not know.
Ultimately, the ability to converse with Pal became the most important factor. Susan had intended to stick as closely as possible to the truth, leaving out only her trip to the Nineteenth Precinct parking lot and Nate’s presence in Central Park, but that proved more difficult than she had first imagined. Omissions had a way of exploding, requiring ever larger embellishments to cover small lapses. She could not afford to have Jake catch her in a lie.
Susan knew from prior experience that Jake and, later, the Central Park police, would question her and Pal separately. The two of them needed to collaborate believably, without appearing rehearsed. The police would have to account for differences in perception, but their stories could not significantly clash or diverge, which meant keeping them simple. They also had to appear compliant, which meant avoiding non-answers as much as possible. Jake was smart, Susan knew, and reasonably experienced. He would know what questions to ask and how to ask them to find a way to drive a wedge between Susan and Pal.
Luckily for Susan, she was also well trained in reading gestures, expressions, and even the tiniest changes in tone. She would not be easily fooled. Knowing nothing about special operations forces training, she could only guess what Pal might or might not know how to handle, but she felt confident he would not be easily cracked, either. He clearly knew how to think and act quickly. It only remained to make their story as cohesive as possible.
They arrived at their destination all too quickly, with many details still more equivocal than Susan liked. She supposed no amount of time would seem like enough to prepare under the circumstances. They could not anticipate every question and would have to rely on common sense and the responses they had managed to coordinate.
They were left only a few moments in a waiting area before Jake called them into his office. This one looked barer than the one at the Tenth Precinct, as if Jake wanted to remind himself that he was there only on a temporary basis. It had no windows; a fluorescent fixture on the ceiling bathed the room in light. The desk was metal, bulky, and old-fashioned, with only a palm-pross, two baskets of stick-e-files, and a stack of neatly piled papers on its surface. The wall had a single picture, a generic impressionistic piece that did not suit Jake’s usual taste. Only a triangular nameplate perched on the desk identified it as his: DETECTIVE JACOB CARSON.
Susan and Pal entered the room and sat in the two rickety chairs in front of the desk, so different from the lightly cushioned one behind it. Jake walked around the desk to take the third seat, and Susan examined him as he moved. Though still agile, he appeared a bit older than when she had last seen him, relaxed in his own home, as if he had gathered a few new lines on his face to accompany some great worry. His hair was still sandy, without a hint of gray. When he brushed a few strands from his forehead, Susan caught a glimpse of the scar where the Cadmium agent had shot him.
She could still hear the man’s cold voice in her mind as he instructed his colleague, “Pat them down. Start with the redhead. I’ll kill the cop.” An instant later, the roar of the gun, the hole in the middle of Jake’s forehead, his collapse. The referenced redhead, Kendall Stevens, had declared Jake dead, and no one in the room could have doubted it. He nearly died for me. More than once. And I’m about to lie to him. Susan shrugged off the thought, along with its accompanying guilt. To do otherwise meant sacrificing Nate.
Jake cleared his throat. “Thank you so much for coming, Susan.” He nodded toward her, then to Pal. “Pal.”
Both muttered platitudes.
Jake continued. “Would you mind if I spoke with Susan alone first?” He made it sound like a choice.
Susan wondered if that were so but also knew she would agree either way. “Not a problem, Jake. We’re old friends.”
Pal rose. “She’s the boss. Okay if I go back to the main waiting area?”
Jake smiled politely, “That would be fine.”
Susan waited until Pal departed, and the door clicked closed behind him. “Is this when the bare lightbulb comes out and the ‘bad cop’ portion of the team shows up?”
Jake stepped around the desk and took the chair Pal had vacated. “Of course not, Susan. You’re not a suspect.”
“I’m not?”
“Should you be?”
Susan realized she had already made her first mistake and tried to cover casually. “Not if you actually want to solve the crime. You sounded accusatory back at my apartment, and I didn’t think you’d bring me here unless . . .” It seemed best not to go there. “So why am I here?”
Jake leaned back, looking comfortable; yet, Susan suspected, he had done so more to remind Susan of their friendship, to put her at ease. “As I recall, that was your idea.”
Susan’s brow crinkled, her mind returning to the events of only an hour ago. She chuckled, trying to sound amused, not forced. “Well, yes. I suppose it was, but only because you had voiced your intention to question me. I was afraid our conversation might send my cousin fleeing in terror. What do you want to know?”
“Lawrence Robertson insists you’re the foremost authority on Nate.”
Susan laughed. “He should know. Though, I’d think him the foremost authority on a robot he designed.”
“Mechanically, certainly. But he’s convinced you know the robotic mind better than anyone, that you understand why they behave the way they do. Particularly when a robot does something out of the ordinary.”
Susan could not help reiterating, “Nate didn’t kill Ari Goldman.” Unable to divulge the information Nate had given them without revealing her recent contact with him, she turned to vagaries. “He couldn’t kill anyone. It’s simply not possible.”
Jake sighed, saying the last thing Susan expected. “I know that, Susan.”
“You do? Then why—?”
Jake stared at Susan as if she had gone insane. “I told you. I’m not investigating the homicide, remember? I’m investigating the theft of evidence from police custody.”
Susan did know that, but she had not realized just how compartmentalized police investigations were. When doctors brought in consultants, they worked together, overlapping and intertwining information in order to consider the patient as a whole entity. If a person needed more than one type of surgery, and they did not interfere, the doctors would schedule a single operating time and handle both. A cardiologist and nephrologist would coordinate medications to maximize effectiveness and minimize toxicity in an individual patient. “So when you say the robot did something out of the ordinary . . . ?”
Jake’s brows rose, but he said nothing, allowing Susan to figure out the rest herself.
“You’re referring to his . . . disappearance?”
“Yes.”
Susan frowned. “But as you pointed out, at the time Nate had no battery. Someone either had to replace it or take him in a dormant state, in which case he had no active part in the theft.”
“Nate’s battery was placed in the envelope with the rest of Lawrence’s personal possessions,” Jake pointed out. “And
the envelope was given to you.”
Was that an accusation? Susan studied Jake, and he met her gaze levelly. “We covered this at my apartment, Jake. First thing this morning, I took all of Lawrence’s belongings to USR. Apparently, Lawrence had specifically requested that Alfred Lanning study Nate’s battery. It was the first thing he asked me for and the one thing I placed directly into his hands.”
Jake clearly remembered what she had told him. “You mentioned he was going to study it for exposure to radiation or contaminants.”
“He’s trying to figure out exactly what happened in Goldman and Peters’ lab.” Susan added bitterly, “He’s looking for the types of clues the police aren’t bothering with because they’re already convinced Nate is the murderer.”
Jake rubbed his cheek thoughtfully. “You’re right, Susan. The battery should have remained as evidence.” That was not the point Susan was trying to make, but she let him continue. Jake’s hand went still. “But that’s the Nineteenth’s mistake. I’m just trying to figure out whether the thief or thieves stole a functioning robot or four hundred pounds of deadweight in human form.”
Susan capitalized on their previous discussion. “I still say it’s closer to two hundred pounds. A pair of small women could carry that much on a stretcher.”
Jake bobbed his head. “Except the four muscular men who transferred Nate to the ambulance swear he was south of four hundred. And whoever stole him didn’t take the stretcher.” His gaze flicked back to Susan. “What do you suppose that means?”
It means I was too anxious and in too much of a damned hurry to cover up what I did. Susan remained cool. “Well, Lawrence could tell you if there’s some sort of backup battery stored in Nate.” Susan hated to bring up the possibility, concerned for the secondary that kept the positronic brain functional. If Nate was taken back into custody and the police insisted on its removal, they would render him essentially brain-dead. If asked, she felt certain, Lawrence would have sense enough to simply deny the existence of a secondary battery without volunteering information about the positronic brain backup. “Perhaps it activated, and he left on his own. I was present when Lawrence powered him down, and there was no order given for Nate to remain in place should he become reactivated.”
Isaac Asimov's I, Robot: To Preserve Page 12