Rule 34

by Charles Stross

  “And the software?” Kemal raises an eyebrow. “If it’s conscious—”

  “Fuck the software!” You struggle to keep your voice under control. “I know what you’re going to say, and it doesn’t wash. The law’s about fifty years behind the times here, but nobody’s going to shed any tears for a killer robot. If it went off on its lonesome, there is going to be such a shitstorm of new legislation coming down the pipe—” You stop. “Oh,” you say. “Coincidences.” And it’s a good thing you’re not a smoker like Kemal because the blinding flash of insight when Dickie’s time bomb detonates is so dazzling that you’d have dropped your fag, and it’s a fifty-euro fine for littering under the cameras hereabouts.

  Lay out the clues like a chain of dominoes:

  Mikey Blair, killed by a drug interaction between his spiked enema fluid and his protease-inhibitor prescription. That’s a coincidence, isn’t it?

  “John Christie,” whoever he really is, walking in on the crime scene. Let’s call that another coincidence and see where it runs.

  Lots more killings, all coincidentally contrived, like the Mohammed case: electrocuted by a homicidal vacuum-cleaner robot, or the German guy, burned to a crisp by his sun bed. Coincidence as a modus operandi: a sequence of little nudges that build to a fatal pay-off. (If one fatal accident fails to materialize, what are the odds that a bunch of other lethal contingencies lie in the target’s future?)

  Now consider, further:

  “John Christie” walks into your life by way of Dorothy’s hotel. She’s been booked in there by her employers. He (you shy away from thinking about this too hard) manipulates her. Then she gets a request for an ethics review.

  If that’s an accident, you’ll eat your warrant card.

  But what if Dorothy was a channel to get to you? Specifically, to draw your attention to “John Christie.” Because, because . . . ?

  (Your chain of dominoes terminates in confusion. And you’re out of time.)

  You blink, shake your head, then walk back inside without waiting for Kemal. “Hey, Moxie, what have you got for me?”

  Moxie sits up straight. “I’ve got MacDonald’s most regular contacts, skipper. These are just the public ones, spidered off chat rooms and mailing lists. Here are his business contacts, and here are the folks he hangs out with, dereferenced to meatspace names.” He chucks a couple of tags at your specs and you open them in different windows, as the news spool from the ops room unfreezes and begins to update now you’re back in a shielded room. You glance at the personal contacts, and the bottom drops out of your stomach because right at the top of the list is a familiar name: ANWAR HUSSEIN.

  “What the—” You suppress a string of invective: For some reason, swearing tends to alarm Moxie. “The personal contacts. Where does MacDonald know our friend Mr. Hussein from?”

  “Our friend who? Oh, him? There are a bunch of local forums hanging off fitlads.net. They’re both regulars under the handles. Let’s see . . . yep, it’s a bed-surfing board. Looks to have a regular crowd.”

  “You said the link is via fitlads, yes?” You frown. Anwar is married. Is it the same man? “This Mr. particular Hussein. Can you see if we’ve got anything on him?”

  Moxie dives head down into CopSpace while you skim the feed from BABYLON. The death toll from around the world is still rising. You spot a FLASH alert, broadcast from the City Desk to every team—a report of a homicide in the south side, near the Meadows. Life (and death) goes on as usual in the city, even as you scurry round in pursuit of—

  “Skipper? How did you know?”

  You blink the windows away and focus on Moxie. “Know what?” Kemal appears in the doorway. “Inspector—”

  “Mr. Hussein has form, skipper? He’s done time for his part in an identity-theft ring, and hey? Oh, it was you that collared him. Cool!”

  “Inspector Kavanaugh. A moment, please?”

  Kemal sounds worried. Your stomach lurches. You have an uneasy sense that you are holding the solution to your domino game in your hands if only you could work out where to snap them onto the chain. “Yes?”

  “The murder—”

  Your phone jangles, a priority incoming. You glance at it: It’s Dickie. You prioritize and answer the detective-in-charge first. “Yes?”

  “Liz?” Dickie sounds strained. “You and that fly Eurocop, ye’ve already been and interviewed that professor at the uni? Did ye both go together? Ye did stream everything, reet?”

  Eh? “Yes,” you say cautiously. If he’s in the incident room, they’ll know that. So why is he asking? you wonder. “Kemal and I were both there, and we both recorded the session. It’s backed up in Evidence One already. Why?”

  “Was MacDonald alive when ye left?”

  “What?”

  You see Kemal urgently mouthing something at you and flick back to your specs. Another FLASH alert: officer called to Appleton Towers—

  “Are you telling me MacDonald’s been murdered?”

  “Answer me—”

  “Yes, yes! He was alive when we left. I’ve got a witness and two time-stamped evidence streams, Inspector. Do you”—I held the door open, you remember—“shit.”

  “Liz. Speak to me.”

  “Hold please, I need to check something urgently.”

  Without waiting, you put Dickie on hold and poke urgently at your specs. They’re fully lifelogging, and while the main purpose is preservation of evidence, you can at least replay what you’ve seen. You jump back an hour, then rewind at high speed until you get to your departure from Appleton Towers. You were mostly looking at Kemal, talking as you walked, but there—there’s the man coming towards you from outside; there’s you holding the door open.

  “Kemal? You’re on the BABYLON roster. Can you get me a picture of John Christie? That’s—”

  “What I’ve been trying to tell you,” he says, a tad waspishly, and chucks a tag at your glasses. You zoom it into a window next to your lifelog video and bite your lip.

  “Fuck.” You take Dickie off hold. He’s ranting already, but you ignore him: “John Christie was recorded entering the university building at exactly the same time Kemal and I were leaving. It’s in my lifelog. I didn’t recognize him”—because you’d never met him—“is it MacDonald who’s dead?”

  “You dinna recognize him,” Dickie snarls.

  “Neither did Kemal. Save it for the inquest, Dickie. Have we nailed Christie yet?”

  “Get your sorry ass over to Appleton Towers.” Dickie’s voice has gone flat, over-controlled. Anger is probably a good sign, with Dickie: It means he isn’t bottling it up for a future explosion. “DI Terry is on her way there to take over. I’ll be along after I finish explaining your little blind spot to the commissioner. You can walk me through your interview at the scene. Seeing you’re the last folks wha’ saw MacDonald alive.”

  He hangs up.

  “Shit.” You put your phone back in your pocket, trying to still the shaking in your hand.

  “Well, Inspector?” Kemal asks. His expression is hard to read. Is that sympathy? Defensive distance?

  You draw down a deep breath. “Let’s take a ride.” To Moxie, you add: “I want a deep trawl on Mr. Hussein. Home address, family, relationships, anything that’s available. Bounce it to me, highest priority.” Then you’re out the door like a demented groundhog, blinking in the unwelcome daylight again.

  “Is that necessary?” Kemal trails you towards the garage. “I thought Dr. MacDonald was a higher priority.”

  “Oh, it’s necessary alright.” To the desk sergeant: “I need a car, urgent, case BABYLON.” To Kemal: “Dickie wants us to go to Appleton Towers and identify the victim, so we’ll go. But I’m not planning on staying for long . . .”

  ANWAR: Toymaker

  You are behind the bathroom door, trying to figure out how to flush the bucket of fermenting nanotechnological bread mix down the toilet, when the doorbell buzzes.

  The bread mix makes you sick, with its strange chemical
smell and iridescent bubbles. There’s a permanent scummy skin floating on top of the bucket, and whenever you stick a pencil in to lift it off, more skin forms; it forms a brownish rope, very like nylon. At first it’s sticky—it sticks to anything it touches like Superglue—but it dries rapidly to a soft and stringy finish. You twist some of it up and it really does form a rope, stronger than seems possible. You’re afraid that if you chuck it down the loo (after the stomachful of vomit you ejected right after you zipped the horrid thing back into the suitcase), it’ll gum up the pipes. And then what? If you call out a plumber, they might report you to the police—and then, and then—your mind shies away from the consequences.

  What did that fellow on the phone, Bhaskar, have to say? A major international criminal investigation, a material witness, and you with the suitcase in the attic full of forbidden horror belonging to Colonel Datka’s man. And Bibi knows. And, and. The smell from the bread mix makes your stomach churn. It’s sickening. So you’ve got the bucket down to the bathroom, next to the toilet, and you got the bog brush and dipped it in the bucket and now you’re slowly winding a shitcoloured caul of scum around the brush, twirling it as it dries in sheets and fibrous ropes.

  And what is this stuff for, anyway?

  (There’s such a lot of it.)

  You’re about to give up when the doorbell rings. A couple of seconds later, it buzzes again, shrill and insistent.

  You clench your teeth, ignoring it. No good can come of answering: I’m out, nobody home. Who could it be? The police? Colonel Datka’s man? Uncle Taleb? You don’t want to see anyone. Nothing to see here, nobody home. The ropey brown tape-string dangling from the bog brush in skeins is on the floor. It’s tangled, and there’s too much of it to keep dipping and twirling. You step on it, experimentally, and tug on the brush handle. The rope tightens, peeling away reluctantly.

  The door slams closed downstairs, and you jerk upright, ears straining. They’ve got a key! Then you remember yesterday’s request—before you knew about the contents of the suitcase—with a shiver of revulsion. You left a spare set of keys at the office. It might be Bibi or Uncle Taleb, but it’s probably not.

  You pick up the bucket and advance on the door to the landing with hatred gnawing a hole in your immortal soul. On the threshold, you pause. What if it is Bibi? Mortification and shame claw at your liver and lights. But there are footsteps, and they sound wrong. No, not Bibi. You yank the door open.

  Your nightmare is standing on the landing. He stares at you placidly with eyes like the thing in the suitcase.

  “Mr. Hussein. I hope I’m not interrupting?”

  The bucket dangles uselessly from your limp left hand. “Interrupting ?” you echo, dully.

  Peter Manuel, John Christie—whoever he is, he’s Colonel Datka’s man—is taller than you are. Stronger, too, probably. “What is this?” you demand, raising the bucket and giving it a shake. “What is this?”

  You see his nostrils flare as he inhales. Then he stares at you. “Feedstock. From the bread mix. I see you’ve activated it. Who told you how to do that?”

  You clutch the bucket in both hands: “None of your business!” you snarl. “I’m resigning. I don’t represent Issyk-Kulistan anymore. You’d better get out. You’re trespassing, you know!”

  Christie’s lip curls. “You have my luggage,” he points out. “And you’ve taken that without paying.” He points at the bucket.

  “What is it?” you demand.

  “The double-domes worked out how to brew spider-silk in a bucket. Nanotechnology.” He looks amused. “It’s feedstock for fabbers. Tougher than steel, when it sets. The US military invented it, to make it easier to repair equipment in the field. This is a pirate copy.” He reaches out a hand. “You’d better give me that. If you dump it down the toilet, it’ll block the pipes.”

  You hand the bucket over without thinking. Christie takes it, and before you quite realize what’s happening, he grabs your left wrist and slides a foot forward to block the door. You pull your right fist back to punch him, but he’s no longer holding the bucket: Somehow, your fist misses his face, then the big man’s got you by both wrists. He must be used to fighting, you realize numbly. Then he’s got both your wrists caught in one big fist, and, as you’re trying to bring a knee up to kick him, he punches you, and the world narrows to a diabolical pain in your chest and a desperate need to breathe.

  By the time you get some air into your lungs, you’re lying on your side in the bathroom with your arms behind you. Christie is sitting on your legs. He’s got about half a roll of duct tape wound around your wrists, and now he’s working on your ankles. You try to writhe, but he just leans on you, as calmly and unemotionally as a farmer dealing with a chicken. “Where is my luggage?” he asks.

  “I threw it out!” You lie wildly, hoping he’ll believe you. For a wonderful moment you think it worked—then he shoves a hand between your thighs and squeezes your balls.

  “I don’t think so,” he says, as you jack-knife like a gaffed fish. “I think you opened it. Had a little look inside, didn’t you?”

  You can neither confirm nor deny: All you can do is scream, but he sees it coming and shoves a roll of toilet paper in your gob as you draw breath.

  “I think you hid it somewhere.” He keeps hold of the toilet roll, and now you’re panicking, finding it hard to breathe. “I’m going to remove this,” he says. “Don’t scream, or I’ll put it back.” Air hits your mouth, cold air in your lungs, crushing pain between your legs: You inhale, shuddering, sobbing. “Now you’re going to do exactly what I want, aren’t you? Play frog. If I say hop, you hop. Croak, little frog. Where is my luggage?”

  “Attic,” you manage between gasps.

  “Attic? Where?”

  “Out. Outside. On top landing. Ladder.” Christie is clearly nuts: He could do anything. Please let him take his fucking suitcase and leave, anything to make him go away—

  He goes away.

  A minute later he’s back. You’ve managed to roll over, putting your back to the bath. He smiles as he stands in the bathroom doorway. He’s got his case. He puts the thing down on the landing. Something inside it is scratching quietly, trying to get out. “Mr. Hussein.” His tone is amused, sympathetic. “That’s a very nice attic you have! You must be proud of it.” You cringe away from him. “Come along.” He leans down and grabs your legs, begins to drag you onto the landing. “Let’s have a look at your attic together, shall we?”

  “Go—’way. I called the police!”

  “No, I’m quite sure you didn’t. You’re completely unable to call the police, even when you need their protection. That’s why you were recruited.” The lintel of the bathroom door slides by above your face. Every bump in the carpet makes your crotch ache. “You really shouldn’t have opened my luggage, Mr. Hussein. That’s a capital offense.”

  “Didn’t.”

  Christie pauses and looms over you. “Somebody did. And this is your house. You’re the husband, aren’t you? The husband is the head of the household. So you’re responsible, little frog, whoever actually did it.” His expression scares you silent. “Let’s go and inspect the scene of the crime, shall we?”

  He drags you up the stairs to the second floor by your ankles, making slow progress—you’re too heavy to lift easily. You try not to let your head bang on the hard edges of the steps, neck straining. It’s confusing and painful, then you’re lying on the top landing, staring up at the hatch in the ceiling with the loft ladder extended. How is he planning on getting me up there? you wonder.

  “It’s funny,” Christie says conversationally, “but I never actually killed anyone before today.” He pauses. “With my own hands, I mean.” He grins. “Some asshole buys your produce and drops dead, that’s just shit happening, isn’t it? It’s not the same, I mean. But in case you were wondering: No, I’m not some kind of mother-fucking serial killer, Mister family man Hussein. I play by the rules, mostly. Well, some of the time. And I expect other people to
play by the rules, too. One of the rules, Mr. Hussein, is you don’t look in my luggage. As for the rest”—he shrugs—“I’m an Operation man. Just so you know, this isn’t entirely personal.”

  He puts his left foot on the ladder, and his right hand, as he prepares to ascend through the trap-door. And that’s when you see the rope he’s hung there and realize what he’s planning to do to you, and open your mouth to scream.

  LIZ: Protective Custody

  There’s a brace of flashing blue lights drawn up alongside the road, evidence tape closing off the pavement around the university buildings: As you pull up, you get a distinct sinking feeling. “Let me just override this,” you tell Kemal as you fiddle with the car’s autopilot. You’ve got a feeling you’ll be needing it again, sooner rather than later—best not to let some uniform in Traffic requisition it.

  As you approach the doors, the constable on duty moves to intercept you. You tag him with your ID, and his attitude changes instantly. “You’ll be wantin’ the ninth floor, Inspector.” His expression’s grim. “SOCO are already inside. Anything you need?”

  “Do you have a positive ID on the victim?” you ask. It’s a long shot, but sometimes word of mouth spreads faster than CopSpace.

  “Nothing I’ve heard. Sorry, Inspector . . .”

  He’s clearly uncomfortable, so you get out of his face fast, past the wedged-open and sheeted-over door (they’ll be sniffing for DNA and fuming for fingerprints in due course) and into the lift. Fragments of blue evidence-capture gel, still tacky, adhere to the control face-plate. As it rattles and squeals its way up to the CS department, you idly roll a blob of gel between finger and thumb, then dispose of it in a jacket pocket. (One of the sundry expenses of your job: having your suits altered so that the pockets are real. A detective can never have too many pockets, your uncle Bert told you. He wasn’t wrong, but a quarter century later, the fashion industry still hasn’t caught on to the existence of female cops.) Kemal is tap-tapping one knuckle on the side of the lift.