“As you wish,” said Cornell.
Poly stared at Cornell as if he’d sprouted a second head. I didn’t think she liked seeing the man’s geek side.
I shrugged. If Cornell was a Princess Bride fan, perhaps he wasn’t all bad.
My partner and Cornell stood up and headed out the door. Poly blew me a kiss just before she turned out of sight. My cheeks turned a bit red as I realized Rosalind was looking at me with ironic amusement.
“What’s so funny?”
“You are,” she said. “You’re still a puppy.”
“And you’re still a b—” Chit began. She stopped when she saw the storm clouds cross my face and spun in a slow spiral down to my shoulder.
“Where are we going?” asked Rosalind.
“Not far,” I said. “We’re headed for a data center just south of here. I just need to make a call to confirm it’s okay.”
Rosalind leaned back in her chair and stared at me, like I was a chromosome she wanted to modify by inserting a new gene sequence.
“Hello, Ram,” I said.
Ram Patel was the president of the North American-Caribbean Cricket League. The league played its games in North American cities in the summer and in the Caribbean in the winter, but made most of its money selling stylish cricket-related clothing to preppies and their alien equivalents on more than fifty planets.
“What can I do for you, Jack?” asked Ram. His voice had an odd amalgam of Brooklyn and New Delhi accents.
“I need to talk to Droopy.”
“No problem,” said Ram. “Things have calmed down after the graduation-season rush. He should have plenty of cycles available to talk. Just give him a call.”
“I’d like to see him in person, if you don’t mind. We’re not far from your data center.”
“We?” asked Ram. “Are you bringing your new girlfriend along? I’d like to meet her.”
Did everybody know about me dating Poly?
“No,” I said. “This is someone else. A business associate.”
Rosalind made a face at me. I made a mostly mock grumpy-frown face back.
“Whatever,” said Ram. “I’m sure it will be fine if you vouch for your guest. I’ll be here for another hour and will alert building security—just text me when you get here. Droopy will be glad to see you.”
“Thanks,” I said. “See you in a few.”
My phone ended the call.
“Droopy?” asked Rosalind.
“A friend of mine,” I said, “and a specialist in artificial intelligence, because a large part of him is artificial.”
“Tell me more,” said Rosalind as we stood up to go.
She positioned herself close to me as we walked to the exit. Too close, really. It felt like she was playing with my head.
“I will if you give me more personal space.”
“Do I make you uncomfortable, Jack?”
“Yes,” I said, faster than I’d intended. “It’s like you’re pushing buttons in my brain I didn’t even know I had.”
“That’s your libido talking,” she said. “You ought to listen to it from time to time. I’ll back off, for now.”
“You’d better,” said Chit in her low, gruff voice. “Don’t think you can mess with my head, babe. Give Jack some space or you’ll answer to me.”
“I will take your objections into account when planning my future actions, bug,” said Rosalind. She theatrically batted her eyes at me just to antagonize Chit, then got back to business.
“Who’s Droopy?” she asked.
I found myself relaxing slightly when she increased the distance between us from a few inches to a few feet.
“Droopy is my nickname for Hadramordarupé, a Khaloenian cyber-organic server. He links to all the other remaining Khaloenians and helps provide secure digital commerce services for my friend Ram’s mail order clothing business.”
“I’ve read about the Khaloenians, of course,” said Rosalind. “Most of them sealed themselves up in a planetoid, right?”
“Correct,” I said. “They transferred their thought processes to digital form and are living fully virtual lives inside an artificial planetoid circling a stable brown dwarf star—except for the ones who stuck around, like Droopy.”
My phone disguised its identity to Galnet and summoned an autocab. When it arrived, Rosalind got in first and sat on the far left. I put my mini-sweetener in my pocket and sat on the far right. Our separation still didn’t feel like enough.
“I thought Khaloenians were only partially artificial,” said Rosalind. “If Droopy is still largely organic, how would he know about fully digital artificial intelligences?”
“Khaloenians have built-in congruencies,” I said.
“Like Murms,” said Chit, “but ours are innate.”
“So far as you know,” said Rosalind.
“Waddya mean, toots?” asked Chit. “I was hatched this way.”
“I think Murms’ internal congruencies could have been genetically engineered in place, just like the Khaloenians,” asserted Rosalind. “Your whole species could have been designed for espionage.”
“Watch your mouth parts, lady,” said Chit. “You’re gettin’ too personal.”
“Sorry, bug,” said Rosalind.
I stepped in before things got even more out of hand.
“We know that internal congruencies can occur naturally,” I said. “Gus has three.”
“Come on, Jack, don’t be a fool,” said Rosalind. “If bugs can be genetically engineered as spies, size-changing saurians can be, too. They’d make great warriors.”
“Or in the case of Gus,” I said, “whole armies.”
“One way or another, Khaloenians have congruencies in their heads,” said Rosalind. “I get it. Why do you think that means Droopy can help us locate The General’s artificial intelligence?”
“The million-or-so remaining Khaloenians are all linked together through their congruencies,” I said. “Almost every commercial transaction in the galaxy goes through at least one of them. I don’t expect Manny to have any need for cricket whites, but one of Droopy’s friends might know something about an A.I that goes by that name. They could also search for patterns in transactions made by EUA Corporation.”
“Accessing those transactions is an e-commerce security violation,” said Rosalind. “It’s against the law.”
“Look who’s talkin’,” said Chit.
That shut Rosalind down for a few minutes and caused her to look at me with more respect. Her puppy was now a big dog, if not yet a wolf.
“I’m gonna lay low an’ be your ace in the hole if anything goes wrong,” said Chit, hiding on the back of my neck.
“Nothing will,” I said.
“Don’t snore, bug,” said Rosalind.
Those two were going to be a challenge—not like I didn’t have enough problems already.
In the quiet before the autocab got to our destination I thought about the Nicósn bio-engineers who’d created the Compliant Plague during the Pâkk-Tigrammath War. Could they have created Murms and Gojons, or were those two species the result of even more ancient genetic tampering?
I didn’t have much time to ponder. It was seven-thirty and we’d arrived at our destination.
Chapter 12
“If I only had a brain.”
— Edgar Yipsel Harburg
Ram Patel met us at the entrance to his combined warehouse, office and data center. It was a long, narrow, converted nineteenth-century, red-brick cotton mill with thick walls and high ceilings. My client was very proud of the place. He’d restored it inside and out—I’d seen the architectural awards it had won on the walls of Ram’s office. A giant, two-story banner hung from the roof above the front doors announcing that this was the galaxy-wide headquarters of the North American-Caribbean Cricket League. The colorful banner also included logos for the league’s sixteen teams. Selling trendy team-logo clothing and merchandise made Ram more money than operating the league, though off-plan
et revenues for broadcasts were growing rapidly.
Thanks to televised NACCL matches, cricket had become quite popular on Orish, especially for nymphs. White silhouettes of tall, praying mantis-shaped Orishen nymphs holding cricket bats at the ready were affixed to plate-glass windows flanking the entrance—part of a new marketing campaign that had already boosted Ram’s sales by fifty-five percent. I wondered if that was why Ram was smiling?
“Jack!” said Ram. “It’s great to see you.”
He was not quite a foot shorter than my six foot one, but his personality made him seem taller. Ram shook my hand, then looked at Rosalind and waited for me to introduce her.
“Great to see you, too,” I said. “This is my associate, Rosalind. She’s working with me on a confidential project.”
I put my finger to my lips and he mirrored my actions, then took Rosalind’s hand and gave her a polite bow.
“Any associate of Jack’s is welcome here,” he said. “Without him, I would have been out of business.”
“That’s not true,” I protested. “You would have found a way to keep going. Your other e-commerce servers could have picked up the slack.”
“Maybe,” said Ram, “but I’m glad I didn’t have to. Khaloenians expect triple-time for working more than twelve hours a day. They say they need time for contemplating philosophy and quantum physics and…”
“…debating the merits of Rogers and Hammerstein versus Lerner and Lowe?” finished Rosalind.
Wait! How did Rosalind know what I’d done to cure Droopy’s depression?
“Exactly,” said Ram, still holding Rosalind’s hand. “Jack is a genius with cyber-organic server psychology. No one can keep them up and running like he can. Hadramordarupé’s productivity has tripled since Jack introduced him to Broadway musicals at the end of March. Droopy hasn’t mentioned Kierkegaard, Sartre or Nietzsche in weeks.”
“Thanks for the kind words,” I said, “but we’re on a tight deadline and I need to talk to Hadramordarupé as soon as possible. Is he off-shift?”
“He is,” said Ram, “but I’d pay the overtime to get another Khaloenian to cover for him if he wasn’t. Follow me and I’ll walk you through security.”
“Thanks.”
“You are most gracious, Mr. Patel,” said Rosalind.
“Call me Ram.”
Rosalind was working her magic on my client, but I hoped they wouldn’t be in contact long enough for it to matter.
Security was first rate at the end of the NACCL headquarters that had been repurposed as a data center. It had better be—I’d designed it. Guests had to sign in, show identification, and be vouched for by a senior-level I.T. or management employee before they could enter. Their bodies and bags, purses and packages were scanned. Rosalind and I both had to leave our mini-sweeteners at the guards’ station. Ram’s eyes got big when he saw them, but I put my finger to my lips again and he didn’t comment.
Visitors and employees had to wear ID badges with embedded tracking chips at all times. Taking off a badge would set off alarm bells and flashing lights throughout the complex. Access to the raised floor area of the data center was through a “man trap” two-stage revolving door that would capture any humanoid trying to enter or leave without authorization. Ram got us through it with a minimum of hassle and led us down the long corridor between racks of conventional servers that led to the Khaloenian’s “office.”
It was cold in the data center. It was always cold in data centers, but the quality of the cold had changed a lot over the past fifteen years as they’d switched from conventional refrigeration to congruency-based chillers using Pluto’s atmosphere. I wished I’d remembered to bring a sweater. Rosalind was still wearing the same sneakers, jeans and t-shirt she’d been wearing when I’d knocked on her door in Las Vegas this morning. It was obvious she was feeling the cold more than I was. Ram offered to get her a sweatshirt. He said they kept a few around for times when I.T. employees forgot their jackets, but she demurred.
“Thanks so much for all your help, Ram,” I said. “I really appreciate it. If my badge will open Hadramordarupé’s office door, I can take it from here.”
“It’s no trouble,” said Ram. “I’ll be glad to keep you company and walk you out when you’re done.”
“You’ve done so much already,” said Rosalind in a husky, sensual voice. “We don’t want to take up more of your time. You’re a very important CEO, after all.”
She leaned down and kissed Ram on the cheek.
“We really appreciate it, but we’ll be fine,” she said. “Please give our best to your wife and family.”
I hadn’t told Rosalind about Ram’s wife and three boys, though he did wear a wedding ring and she was probably just playing the odds. Ram brightened up from the peck on his cheek, but saw my resolute expression—I didn’t want him with me when I talked to Droopy—and made his goodbyes.
“I hope you find out what you need,” said Ram, just before he turned to leave. “When you can, let me know how it turns out.”
“I will,” I said. “I promise.”
Ram walked down the corridor between the server cages humming something that sounded like a Bollywood variation on Singing in the Rain. Droopy’s new passion for musicals must have rubbed off on him. I waved my badge in front of the door’s sensor and it slid open with a whoosh like doors on Star Trek.
“After you,” I said.
Rosalind entered and I followed.
Droopy’s office was a dimly lit twelve-foot cube of fabric-padded metal. A large flat-screen hung on the left-hand wall. In the center of the room floated Droopy’s disembodied brain and associated hardware. Both gently bobbed in a clear nutrient bath inside a glowing glass cylinder that ran from raised floor to dropped ceiling. Tubes and cables entered the cylinder through gasketed access ports connecting Droopy’s hardware to the outside world. Small lights flickered inside and outside the tube.
A hazy image appeared in the flat-screen. As it sharpened, I saw that it was a handsome face that seemed like a composite of half a dozen of Hollywood’s top leading men. It was also somewhat disquieting because the face had a slight blue tint. We didn’t know much about Khaloenians’ physical appearance before they’d put their bodies aside, but perhaps this image came close to their original form. Droopy had never used video when I’d visited his office in the past—just voice.
“It’s great to see you, Jack!” said the image on the flat-screen. “Who’s the doll?”
“This is Rosalind,” I said, “and she’s a woman, not a doll. It’s the twenty-first century, not Damon Runyon’s New York.”
“I get it,” said Droopy. “A secretary is not a toy.”
“Rosalind’s not my secretary, either, but that’s better,” I said. “Were you listening to Frank Loesser musicals? Guys & Dolls and How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying?”
“That is correct. How did you know?”
“Just a guess,” I said.
“Very pleased to make your acquaintance, I’m shu-ah,” said Rosalind, in an excellent imitation of Miss Adelaide’s Brooklyn accent from Guys & Dolls. “You seem like a poifect gentleman.”
Droopy’s simulated face beamed and turned a slightly darker blue.
I smiled. I didn’t think I’d have to worry about this particular server being down again, even if he did have the blues.
“We need your help,” I said.
“It’s important,” added Rosalind. “Someone is trying to kill us and we have to stop them.”
I wouldn’t have told Droopy that, but Rosalind usually had good instincts. This time, they proved on target.
“I don’t want you to die,” said Droopy. “Jack is my best friend. I would do anything to help him—and you seem nice, too, Miss Rosalind. How can I help?”
“You can start by telling us everything you and any of your fellow Khaloenian e-commerce servers know about an artificial intelligence system named Manny or Manuel,” I said.
“Or HOLME
S IV or Dinkum Thinkum, or anything that cross-references with computer names used in the works of Robert A. Heinlein,” added Rosalind.
I would have covered Rosalind’s mouth before she said the last half of her sentence if I’d been fast enough. Given how obsessed Droopy had become with Broadway musicals, exposing him to Heinlein’s stories about sentient computers like Dora, Minerva and Pallas Athene could cause problems. I held out hope that Droopy’s preference for philosophy and music would prevent him from being distracted by Heinlein’s creations.
“This is highly irregular and outside the bounds of Terran law, but I will consult with the other members of my species and initiate a search for the information you have requested,” said Droopy pleasantly. “If Jack’s life is threatened, violations of local cultural mores are no impediment. Is there anything else I can do?”
“Yes,” said Rosalind.
I stepped closer in case I needed to stop her from saying something else that might affect Droopy’s psyche.
“Please search for anomalous transactions initiated by EUA Corporation and its subsidiaries. Do the same for any companies associated with Alban White and Pablo Daniel Figueres, as well as for those persons individually.”
I stared at Rosalind and shook my head slowly from side to side. She didn’t do things by halves. Her request would produce a huge data set, with high criminal penalties associated with every gigabyte. Then again, my own request for information about an A.I. named Manny would likely land me in the next cell if our digging was discovered. I hoped it wouldn’t come to that. Orange wasn’t my color.
I couldn’t help but think Rosalind had an ulterior motive for asking for so much data. Did she hope to use it to take over EUA Corporation once we’d dealt with The General—then swallow up White and Figueres’ companies? I resolved to call Droopy for a private discussion later to warn him not to give a full data dump of his findings to Rosalind.
“What do you mean by anomalous?” asked Droopy.
I jumped in before Rosalind could.
“Focus on transactions that don’t fit with the normal course of legitimate business activities,” I said. “Unusually high payments to new suppliers, large transfers of funds to small subsidiaries, purchases with military uses, and so on.”
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