Pal turned, head shaking. “I’m sure you’d do a much better job, but we’re going to have to rely on what I managed to do because we just don’t have time.” He reached for the door. “I will have you give him directions to the airport, though. We want the cops to overhear you telling your cousin Layton how to get home. That works in our favor. Just make sure you don’t slip up and call him Nate or something.”
Susan gave Pal a sour look. “I think I can handle it.”
Pal smiled to indicate he meant no offense. “Let’s go, then.” Without allowing further argument, he pushed the door open, holding it for Susan, then Nate.
Evening sunlight reflecting from concrete seemed too bright for Susan’s indoor eyes. She closed them briefly, watching afterimages flash against her retinas. The familiar sounds of Manhattan filled her ears: the endless whoosh of passing traffic, the muffled mixture of conversations, the purr of various unidentified machinery, and the angry honks or shouts blaring over the more regular din. Pal took her arm, guiding, and she opened her eyes again. A warm breeze floated tendrils of her hair across her brow, and she suddenly found herself picturing gunmen at every window and door, the opening to each alleyway. She felt vulnerable and exposed despite Pal’s wary presence.
Pal flitted about Susan as if to use his own body as a shield, clearly alert to every movement and sound around them. Susan doubted she was in any real danger so long as he accompanied her, not because of his skill but because Cadmium would not shoot one of their own. Nor did they currently want her dead, at least not until she revealed the location of a code they still believed existed. And that, Susan realized, was her ace in the hole as well.
Susan forced her thoughts to the hint of a plan that had occurred to her earlier. She believed Pal when he said someone was watching them. The police might be, but Cadmium definitely was, probably had been for a long time. She suspected they could hear her as well. That might not have been the case earlier, other than Pal, of course, but they could not risk the possibility that Kendall’s death and Jake’s visit might have roused Susan’s suspicions.
If Cadmium had felt the need to sabotage her Vox, they clearly worried she might learn something dangerous from someone who might contact her, most probably Jake. The detective was lucky they had allowed him to visit her apartment without killing him. Either they did not imagine he had information that could harm them yet or they could not afford to incite law enforcement, at least not at that time. As her thoughts became more mistrustful, Susan realized Cadmium might have inserted a listening device or camera in her Vox when they disabled it. Without thinking, she unfastened it from her wrist and stuffed it deep into her pants pocket.
Pal watched Susan, brow furrowed. “What are you doing?”
Susan covered neatly. “I keep looking at the damned thing, and that blank face is driving me crazy.”
If Pal worried about her foiling planted gadgets, he gave no sign. “Which way to the nearest glide-bus stop?”
“This way.” Susan took the lead. “You must come visit again soon, Layton. There’s so much you didn’t get to see.”
Nate played along. “Two murders in one week? No, thank you. Next time, you’re coming to Iowa, and I’ll learn about New York through safe documentaries.”
Susan sighed, as if she had tried to explain several times already. “We’ll talk when my Vox gets fixed, okay? You have to believe me; it’s not usually like this.”
Nate-as-Layton did not look convinced. “An emergency in Iowa is when a goat gets its horns caught in the fence.”
Susan turned Nate a weary look. “Oh, stop it. You’re from Des Moines, not Podunk.”
As the bus stop came into view, Susan tried to act like a proper cousin. “Do you have some snacks? Enough money?”
Nate patted the backpack. “I’m fine, Susan. Quit worrying. I made it here alive, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, but there are several bus exchanges. Let me explain them to you.” Susan glanced over her shoulder to find Pal practically on top of her. She addressed him. “Why don’t you look up a nearby Vox repair shop that’s open this late? And contact that friend we were talking about.”
Pal nodded, but he looked a bit hesitant. His reply revealed none of the reluctance Susan sensed, though. “Will do.” He tapped at his Vox.
Susan shifted so that her back was to Pal, with Nate in front of her. Beyond him, she could see the sun just starting to tip behind the western buildings; soon, the light that had nearly blinded her would start to fade, and sunset would paint its colors across the sky. She moved in closer to the robot and spoke clearly and distinctly. “To get to the airport, you need to first take the number nineteen bus.”
Casually, Susan slipped her left hand beneath Nate’s backpack so her fingers could touch his bare right arm beneath it. “Several buses use the same stop, but the nineteen is the one you want.” Susan stroked a finger along Nate’s arm, spelling out: Ignore all commands given to you by Pal. Nod if you understand. It required all of Susan’s concentration to carry on two conversations simultaneously, especially as she had to choose her words carefully. Thus far, she had managed to give Nate verbal directions without actually commanding him to follow them, but she had to make sure she did not force him to do something that might undo her nonverbal orders.
Nate nodded his head subtly.
“The seventh stop of the nineteen leaves you at FDR Drive. That’s where you pick up the number three bus.” She continued writing on Nate’s arm beneath the backpack, knowing she did not have long before she ran out of directions to the airport. She spelled out: Find Jake ASAP. Susan hesitated, stalled by her lack of time to plan earlier. With Nate in hand, and the robot no longer constrained not to talk about the situation, Jake would have the authority to arrest Pal. And Susan, too, of course, but it seemed safer for her in a cell than Cadmium’s custody.
Susan wrote some more: Tell him I will lure Pal to. She had to stop again to think of a place, but she dared not go silent too long. It had to be close, logical, and unique enough to avoid confusion. It also needed to be open at night but with few bystanders who might get harmed if Pal resisted. “Exactly five stops along the number three route from FDR Drive is Forest Park. That’s where you can catch the number eight glide-bus.” Susan spelled out: PA Bus Terminal tonight. “The eight takes you to the airport. It’s the main stop, and pretty much everyone gets off there.” She added with touch: 8 Avenue entrance.
Susan stepped back, hoping Nate understood. “Did you get all of that?” She tried to make it sound like she referred to the verbal directions, but she hoped Nate would know she meant the commands invisibly etched onto his arm. She reiterated, still avoiding commands, “The nineteen to FDR Drive, the three to Forest Park, and the eight to the airport.”
“Right,” Nate said. “I got it all.”
Do you? Susan wondered. Nate had no reason to suspect Pal’s motives, other than her written order to ignore what Pal had told him. So much could go wrong, but she did not dare reference the touching, or Pal’s previous discussion with Nate, aloud.
Pal spoke from over Susan’s shoulder. “All taken care of.”
Startled, Susan jumped and stiffened, biting back a scream. She whirled to face Pal. “You scared the crap out of me.”
“Sorry,” Pal said, more curious than apologetic. “Surely, you didn’t forget I was there.”
Damn. Have to cool it. Susan knew the intensity of her focus had made her vulnerable. She covered, “A bit more on edge than I realized. I guess when people shoot at you enough times, you get a little . . . twitchy.”
“Understandably.” Pal maintained all the composure Susan had lost. “I found a Vox shop just down the road.”
A bus glided into the station, the number nineteen painted prominently on the top of the front and both sides.
“That’s my bus,” Nate announced.
Susan threw h
er arms around him. She wanted to whisper into his ear, to trace more letters on his back, but she knew those actions might give them away. Either her plan had worked or it had failed. Nate needed no reminders; he could not forget anything even if commanded to do so. “Have a safe trip.”
“Thank you for everything,” Nate said, returning the embrace briefly before tearing himself free and rushing toward the bus stop where the last of the other passengers was boarding.
Susan watched Nate’s back, her heart pounding. She had asked him to nod if he understood the writing on his arm, and he had done so. That had reassured her, but now she found her confidence fraying. It had not been much of a nod. Perhaps it had been a response to her verbal directions rather than to her secretive writing. Nate was not trained to communicate by letters traced on his arm.
Susan’s mind went back to elementary school birthday parties when she and her friends had used a finger to write letters on one another’s backs. There were prizes for the person who best deciphered what others wrote on them. More often than not, the receiver could not make anything of the writing, even when done slowly or multiple times. Even when they could, the accuracy was not impressive. Nate had told her his skin and muscle were composed of human cells grown over a silicone plastic skeleton. It all came down to the wires and the competence of the junctions between them and his human parts.
Nate turned as he boarded, waving briefly at Susan and Pal. They both returned the greeting as he disappeared into the glide-bus. Susan could not help wondering if she would ever see him again.
“Ready?” Pal asked, taking her arm and guiding her into a quarter turn.
Once his touch had sent thrills through Susan. Now it made her want to vomit. Nevertheless, she forced a smile. “Ready,” she said, removing the nonfunctional Vox from her pocket and giving it a halfhearted glance. “I keep hoping it will start back up on its own.”
Pal shrugged fatalistically. “You never know.”
Susan could only agree.
• • •
As Susan expected, the shop required her Vox overnight. She did not have enough money for a new one, so she had no choice except to wait. When she had voiced that point to him, Pal had gallantly asked about purchasing another, only to be told that she needed her Vox functional in order to transfer all her old information. Susan did not believe that to be true, but she had no real idea as she had never known anyone to have a full Vox failure. They were too easy to track for anyone to risk stealing, and the data, she was told, could still be transferred from a lost but working Vox.
Now most people temporarily exchanged Vox and typed in their own numbers, so she had very few memorized and none of those would prove much help: her father’s, Kendall’s, and the main number to the hospital. It only made sense to wait the fifteen hours until the shop got her Vox working again. To argue otherwise would look suspicious, especially since she had been loath to allow Pal to spend money on her in the past.
So, the two returned to Susan’s apartment to discuss the situation and wait for the inevitable visit from the NYPD. Susan flopped down on the love seat, the only furniture in her tiny living room, and Pal plumped down beside her. She could feel his weight displace the cushions, the warmth of his body down the entire right side of her own, and she forced herself to lean into the contact when she wanted nothing more than to lock herself in the bedroom.
Pal took Susan’s hand and rested both of them on her thigh. “Susan, I didn’t want to alarm you when we were outside, but we were being followed and watched.”
Susan turned her head toward Pal with a feigned expression of concern. “The police?”
Pal shrugged. “Possibly some. Remember when I threaded us between the parked cars?”
Susan recalled several evasive-type maneuvers that had lengthened their trip to and from the Vox shop. The sun had fully set before they made it back to her apartment. She nodded.
“I saw a sniper in one of the windows. I don’t believe the police work that way; it had to be the SFH.”
Susan played into the scenario, certain where it was going. “They’re getting bolder.”
“Yes.”
Susan looked at their intertwined hands. Pal’s was enormous compared to hers, yet she still imagined herself squashing his, breaking every finger. “They want me dead as soon as possible.”
“It would appear that way. Susan . . .” Still clutching her hand, Pal stepped in front of her, dropping to his haunches.
Susan froze, abruptly afraid he was about to propose. She did not believe she could act happy enough to convince him, given the circumstances.
Pal looked deep into Susan’s eyes, subjecting her to the handsome, disquieting feature that had first attracted her to him. Now she wondered whether they were fake, too, some sort of ferociously colored contact lenses. She stared back, seeking lines around his irises that she did not find. “Susan, it’s now or never. You’re going to have to find that code.”
Susan did not want to make it too easy. She sighed deeply, looking away. “Assuming it exists . . . how? I’ve considered everything. I’ve examined and reexamined anything I can think of. There’s nothing—”
Pal interrupted. “Susan, don’t you find it odd that, upon his death, your father sent you on a treasure hunt only to tell you the code doesn’t exist? Seems like an awful lot of trouble for something fictional.”
Susan mulled over Pal’s words, though she had already thought that particular point to death. John Calvin had told Cadmium she had the code specifically so that they would keep her alive, perhaps even protect her from the SFH. In order to make it convincing, he had needed to keep even Susan guessing, sending her on what Pal had just called a treasure hunt, including the need to double-decode the final message. Calvin knew he had raised a gifted child and that, given enough time, she would find a way to save herself and her friends. His ruse had gained her that opportunity. “That is odd, isn’t it?” she murmured, as much to herself as Pal.
Pal continued, still facing Susan and looking as loving and earnest as any liar could. “I’ve looked at the stuff you gave me, but I can’t figure it out. Will you examine it again, Susan? I’m afraid, at this point, it might be your only hope.”
Susan suspected he was right, though not because of the SFH. If she did not at least appear to be cooperating, Cadmium might decide she really did not have the code, whether or not it existed. At that point, they had no reason to keep her alive and many reasons to kill her.
Susan could not afford to make a mistake now. “All right,” she agreed, hoping she sounded dubious but determined. “I’ll give it one more shot.”
Pal headed for the bedroom and returned with the envelope she had referred him to earlier that evening. She wondered whether he had carried it with him the entire time, whether he had taken pictures of it and passed them along to his colleagues. How many cryptographers in the Department of Defense are working on it as we speak?
Susan realized she had to finish before morning. There was a reason the shop had given her an estimate of only fifteen hours to fix her Vox. One way or another, the entire situation was going to resolve itself tonight. She doubted the DoD would find anything in the cryptogram her father had left her; she believed she had discovered exactly and only what he wanted to convey. However, it might finally convince them either that the code did not exist or that at least she did not know it. Or, just maybe, they might actually find something she had missed. Either way, at that point, they no longer needed her alive.
Susan took the envelope from Pal, went into the kitchen, and removed the familiar cryptogram. She sat on one of the stools and spread the paper across her kitchen table, shoving everything else blindly out of the way and ignoring the crash and rattle of a bowl against the floor. “My father and I have done cryptograms for as long as I can remember. We started with the ones that accompany the news on some sites. We both got so fast, w
e used to race to see who finished first, usually without having to write anything down. We graduated to puzzle books, but even those couldn’t fool us. So we started making up our own.”
Some of what Susan described was true. She had worked cryptograms since childhood, and her father also enjoyed them. She used to race one of her attendings in medical school, though, rather than John Calvin. She moved smoothly from truth to half-truths to lies. “We’d make them without single – or double-letter words or contractions, when possible. Try to minimize the most common letters, like E and T and A, as well as certain words, especially ones often used in quotations.”
Susan studied the cryptogram on the table, and the letters grew blurry. She blinked several times, and an unexpected tear rolled down her cheek. Angrily, she wiped it away, fisted the moisture from her eyes. She had believed she pummeled all the grief over her father’s murder into submission, and she could not allow it to distract her now. Susan tensed suddenly, as if struck by an epiphany.
Pal took the bait. “What?”
“I was in junior high school,” Susan said slowly. “I discovered a treatise on secret codes and really liked it. My friends and I did the ‘special language that only we knew’ thing. But I also . . .” She trailed off.
Pal watched her patiently, but she could see a glimmer of hope in his impossibly blue eyes.
“I insisted on adding another level of complexity to our cryptogram game, too. Dad wasn’t too keen at first; I think he only did it to appease me. Anyway, I added a numerical code so that, when you looked at certain letters from the code and others from the solution, they spelled out a second message.”
Pal’s gaze fell to the paper. His lips parted, but it took surprisingly long for words to emerge. “You’re saying there could be a third message hidden in the second message?”
Susan crinkled her nose, then shook her head. “It would require him to remember a random, made-up code I created fifteen or sixteen years ago. Other than cryptograms, my interest waned pretty quickly. By high school, I was onto other things.”
Isaac Asimov's I, Robot: To Preserve Page 31