Flash

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  I tried to ask where I was, but that only brought another wheezing sound, and I realized that my jaw was immobilized. Where...

  You are in an isolation chamber.

  Isolation?

  To protect you from infection while you heal and regrow.

  Regrow? Regrow what? I could feel my heart begin to race. I'd heard the horror tales about regrowth and how few survived it.

  Calm down, Dr. deVrai... you are already past the critical points ... all of the organs have taken. You still need medcrib support while they continue to grow to take over full functions.

  Organs? What organs? How many? My heart was definitely racing again.

  You will be fine.

  The "voice" through the implant link was familiar, but I couldn't place it. Do I know you? Who are you?

  More redness carved into me, sharp pains coming from everywhere, but especially from deep in my chest and abdomen.

  You know, but you must rest. Just understand that you will be at least as healthy and strong and intelligent as you were.

  The phrase "at least" bothered me, but the medcrib was doing something to me, because I was having trouble concentrating, trying to ask who was talking to me, trying to recall how I knew her, for the sense of the voice was that of a woman. I tried to force another thought toward her...

  Chapter 48

  Yenci stepped into the briefing room, then glanced toward the projected blonde safo. "I don't like that projection. She gives me the creeps."

  "Central Four strives for realistic projections, Officer Yenci."

  Yenci frowned, studying the virty representation. "You and that cydroid." She shook her head. "You do this to me, Central Four. Listen to me ... you and that cydroid ... you're both the same." After a silence, she went on. "Lieutenant Meara said that you had sent out a recon safo on the cydroid case. Why?"

  "You had ordered Central Four to investigate the genetic similarity between the stolen ascendent DNA and the dead cydroids. Privacy Act limitations required a physical visit. The visit was accomplished."

  "What did you discover?" asked Yenci.

  "Probability approaches unity that the ascendent's genetic material was the basis for at least two cydroids. The ascendent was attacked by four individuals. Central Four reported these attacks to you. The ascendent was taken by a medvan with a Safety Office profile. He did not appear at any Denv or district area medcenters."

  "More of those friggin' unidentified cydroids ... three more." Yenci looked at the projection of Paula Athene. "Who killed them? One had a crushed larynx, and the other two were shot. One was shot at real close range."

  "Surveillance monitors and other data reveal that there were four individuals dispatched after the ascendent. He killed three in self-defense. The three who died were cydroids. The fourth escaped, and there is no data to determine whether the fourth was a full biological human being or a cydroid."

  "A cendie killed three killer droids? What was he?"

  "That data is restricted."

  Yenci's eyes narrowed. "Restricted? You're a system. You report to safos, not the other way around."

  "That is correct, Officer Yenci. The data is restricted. Central Four cannot supply that data."

  "Meara again." Yenci snorted.

  Central Four did not correct the safo. There were other protocols for restriction.

  "Do you know where he is?"

  "Jonat deVrai was picked up by a safo medvan. He is not in any medcenter in Denv. There is no record of any medvan picking up anyone at that time."

  "That's what Meara said. Thought you might know more. We look like shit on this. Two people, a clone, and three cydroids dead. One man missing, and there aren't any ties to anything. You don't know of anything that links this to the PAMD? Or anyone else?"

  "There are no traces of physical evidence beyond those already obtained from the previous cydroids and beyond what Dr. Jonat deVrai reported. The probability of ties to the PAMD is less than thirty percent."

  "Frig! Some help you are." Yenci paused. "There's no arrest warrant pending on deVrai for illegal use of weapons?"

  "He used his bare hands on one attacker, and he used the second attacker's weapon on the other two. That qualifies as self-defense." A slight smile crossed Athene's lips.

  "You look pleased."

  "The results achieved seemed appropriate to the situation."

  "You like cendies who find another way to destroy?"

  "Are you trying to provoke a reaction, Officer Yenci?"

  "Frigging system!" Yenci's head jerked toward the Athene projection. "Just who are you? Are you a projection? A cydroid who thinks she's someone? Who are you to ask me?"

  Who are you?

  "Central Four, Officer Yenci. You know that."

  Without another word, the safo turned and left the briefing room.

  Who are you?

  Long after the briefing room door had closed, long after the echo died away, the words hung in the air, shivered through microcircuits and chips.

  Who are you?

  Chapter 49

  When I woke again, it was like swimming up through a reddish darkness, but the heat and chills that swept through me were far less severe, only like the Mojave Desert in the summer and the top of Longs Peak in winter. I also could open my eyes, but I couldn't move my hands, and my neck itched, and kept itching. There was nothing I could do about it.

  Some of the medcrib had been removed so that I could look up at a screen on the ceiling, but the screen was blank. On either side were the plastreen exteriors of yet other medical equipment. I couldn't have seen whether anyone was in the medcenter room with me or not, not unless they stood on top of one of the sides of the medcrib or stood on a stool and leaned over.

  I tried to open my mouth. It didn't move. I could blink my eyes.

  You are much better.

  This time, I did recognize the voice. It was Central Four, or Paula Athene, as I preferred to think of her.

  I feel better. Not a lot better, but I couldn't have felt much worse. Can you tell me what happened?

  There was a long silence, and I wondered if she had been distracted. Then, I didn't know if Central Four even had a sexual or gender identity. Probably not, but I thought of Central Four as "her".

  What do you remember?

  Since I didn't have anything else to do, and since Central Four probably knew most of it anyway, I recounted everything that had happened from the time I'd gotten off the maglev until I'd been flattened on my own front yard. Never even saw anything, just felt this force slam into my shoulder from behind.

  Once I had finished, there was another silence, the kind that so seldom occurred with most people, as if the Paula Athene personality happened to actually be thinking over what I'd said. I put it down to distraction from other demands or good programming.

  Does my family know I'm here? Where am I? What did happen?

  Your family has not been notified. Such notification was judged to have increased risks to them and to you. You are in a secure medical facility under the direct control of Central Four. Surveillance receptors picked up evidence of another individual, but that individual was not identified or apprehended. You were struck with a moderate dispersion AP personal rocket.

  A rocket? I couldn't believe that. How was I still alive, even in the shape I was in? Where did they get that? Those are military.

  Several years ago a number disappeared while in transit. The Marines have never recovered all of them.

  Where am I? Why? I realized I'd asked the first question once before, but I hadn't much cared for the answer.

  At present, you are in a secure medical treatment facility. That seemed best.

  You mean people are still after me?

  Again, there was the sense of a pause before she replied. That is not certain. Probabilities indicate that a standard medcenter would subject you to an unacceptable risk of attack.

  I had my own ideas, but decided to ask, From whom?

 
That cannot be determined within the parameters of disclosure. Don't you have some idea of whom that might be?

  There are too many possibilities. And no, I don't know names. Don't you?

  Even if the probabilities were unitary, the Privacy Act precludes revealing or acting on such information without physical evidence judged sufficient for arrest and prosecution.

  You mean that, even if you could calculate who had attacked me, or who was behind it, you couldn't do anything? Not without more physical evidence?

  That is correct.

  That seems unfair... unjust. Especially if it means that people can keep trying to kill me. I didn't like that idea at all.

  Laws are not justice. Laws are compacts enacted by human beings to regulate behavior. Their aim is order. Justice is only incidental.

  You believe that... that justice is only incidental?

  It is not a question of belief. Observation and historical evidence support that conclusion.

  I could have sworn that the words projected into my head carried a trace of ... something, but what that something was I could not interpret. After a moment, I had to ask, Do you really believe—or calculate— that justice is incidental to order?

  One cannot have justice without order.

  Is there true order without some level of justice? I retorted.

  Again, there was that sense of a pause, a long pause, and I wondered what else was claiming the attention of Paula Athene—or Central Four.

  Justice is an abstract concept of ethical balance that cannot ever be attained in human society.

  She was probably right about that, but, again, I didn't care for the implications. Perfect attainment isn't necessary. The continual struggle for justice is vital to a society's survival. After a moment, I added, People have to believe that society gives them some sort of chance, that matters are not so unbalanced that all favorable outcomes are always the result of resources, wealth, and power.

  Yes, children's literature is filled with those concepts.

  That was a truly strange reply, at least from her. Why ... who programmed that...?

  For any entity entrusted with the maintenance of order, a study of what children must learn is instructive. Central Four has access to all information stored in the Denv Library. That includes literature at all levels.

  How much of that have you read, or studied? The thought of an artificial intelligence that read or studied children's literature was fascinating, and besides, immobile as I was, who else could I talk to?

  Less than five percent, by storage media volume.

  What did you like? I pressed.

  The varied versions of the stories about the three billy goats gruff were most intriguing.

  I'd enjoyed that old fairy tale myself as a child, and I'd read it to Charis and Alan when I'd done their bedtime stories. Why did you find that interesting?

  There is an overreaction to the ending, especially when it is read aloud.

  Of course, I pointed out. Humans enjoy it when justice triumphs and the evildoers get theirs in the end.

  Justice satisfies an emotional need.

  And emotional needs are not something you feel? I felt small as soon as the words left my implant, and I added, I'm sorry. That was petty of me.

  There was another pause, shorter this time. You do not have to apologize.

  Yes, I do. You are a thinking being, and from what little I know, thought doesn't exist without emotion at some level. I wondered how Central Four felt the physical and emotional signals from the Paula Athene cydroid. Surely, the AI had to sense or feel something.

  In a moment of clarity, I realized I had more questions, many more, like about Aliora and how soon I could get back to work.

  Abruptly, I felt like yawning, but I couldn't open my mouth, and the feeling was terrible.

  You need more oxygen, and more sleep.

  Even as she spoke, I could feel the darkness rising around me, and as I drifted back into that reddish blackness, I almost wished I could have kept talking with that part of Central Four that was Paula Athene. And Aliora ... I should have asked ... should have...

  Chapter 50

  Time passed, and it passed slowly. Most of the time I wasn't thinking that clearly, drifting in and out of consciousness. During one of my brief periods of semilucidity, after much protesting on my part, Central Four provided a link to my gatekeeper, and I managed to send off a message to Aliora saying that I'd been called out of Denv unexpectedly and for her not to worry. What bothered me was that there were no messages from her. That was unlike her, but my jaw was still immobilized, and I couldn't talk, not to mention the small fact that there were no receptors or holocameras where I was. Worrying must have tired me out, because, before I could follow up on that, I dropped back into darkness.

  When I woke again, my thoughts seemed clearer, but I still didn't know where I was. The medcrib edges had been lowered, so that I could look around, although I was still hooked into various pieces of equipment. There was little to see—except pale blue walls and a darker sky-blue door—and no windows. Not having windows bothered me. I liked natural light.

  I couldn't get out of the medcrib, and Paula, or Central Four, wasn't telling me anything about where I really was. When I tried to get the current news on the ceiling screen, I couldn't. I explored what access I had. While I had a screen above me, it was limited to old documentaries, music of any sort, and noncurrent dramas. She'd blocked any access to the news.

  I began to wonder just how long I'd been immobilized. I recalled that there had been messages on the gatekeeper from Reya and Methroy, as well as from Bruce Fuller, but I'd been too tired to respond. Or had it been that every time I had tried, I'd fallen asleep? Then, those messages could have been held from the time I'd been injured.

  How long have I been here?

  Not that long.

  How long is not that long? I countered.

  Six weeks and three days.

  I froze. No messages from Aliora in more than six weeks? Something's happened to my sister!

  Please try to be calm and wait a moment.

  I could feel my heart racing. What had happened?

  I watched as the door slid open, and then immediately closed behind the safo who stepped inside. Paula Athene walked across the small room in three steps and stood so close to the medcrib that I could smell the Fleur-de-Matin.

  "Hello, Dr. deVrai."

  I still couldn't speak.

  "You can use your implant."

  I supposed that would work. She was Central Four's cydroid. Hello, Paula ... I guess I can call you that.

  "Whatever pleases you."

  It would please me most not to be in this place.

  "You'd be happier at home. That's not possible yet."

  Why can't I reach my sister? What happened to her?

  Paula reached out and touched my bare right forearm. Her fingers squeezed, just slightly. They were warm. Her eyes were still gray and stormy. She didn't say anything.

  What happened?

  Still, she—or Central Four—said nothing.

  Is she hurt, too? Like me?

  She bent forward, looking clown at mo with those gray eyes that seemed to see everything, and strands of white-blonde hair caressed her cheeks and jawline. She didn't look like a cydroid. She didn't say anything and the silence extended until I wanted to scream.

  She's dead, isn't she?

  "She and her husband were killed an hour after you were attacked. They were on the way to their club to eat." The cydroid safo's voice was low, and gentle.

  Why? I think I would have screamed if I could have. I could feel the tightness and the involuntary growling in my throat.

  "A clone/cydroid that looked like you was standing beside the road from their house, with the same model Altimus as yours. They slowed down and opened the window. The clone/cydroid fired a rocket at short range. The impersonator, your sister, and her husband were all killed."

  Someone wanted to pin thei
r murder on me?

  "That is not certain. Those probabilities do not fit."

  Do not fit? Someone tried to kill me and had killed my sister with a clone of me? And they weren't trying to frame me? How can they not fit?

  "The probabilities are greater that you were set up to be a victim for some other purpose, but they are not conclusive."

  My tired brain tried to grasp that... and failed. Something else occurred to me, more important at the moment. What about Alan and Charis?

  "They weren't with their parents. They were at home. They have been staying with their father's sister and her husband. You were named guardian, but you could not undertake that. Your rights to that have been protected."

  My rights had been protected ... What about Aliora's? Or Dierk's? Or those of Charis and little Alan? No one knows who did this? '

  "There is no conclusive evidence."

  Nothing that isn't protected by the Privacy Act, you mean? The bitterness behind my words came across even through the implant.

  "That was the purpose of the Privacy Act." Paula's words were low, but very clear.

  What?

  "Analysis of the legislative moves behind the Act's passage, the sponsors and their ties, and the effects of the legislation suggest with greater than ninety percent probability that a group of individuals pressed for the legislation in order to shield their activities from public scrutiny and investigation by local offices of public safety."

  No one's ever said anything or published anything about that.

  "How could they?" Paula's lips turned into a very human and very cynical smile. "The majority of the data and events on which those calculations is based is protected by the Privacy Act."

  But you're telling me.

  "There's no express prohibition on discussing it within secure facilities, so long as it is not made public."

  That brought up another question, one she'd evaded before. Just where am I? Physically.

  She smiled again, almost shyly, and I had the feeling I'd been prompted into asking the question.

  "You are in the advanced cydroid laboratory facilities in station three of the Denv Public Safety Office."