Dangerously Placed

by Nansi Kunze

  All around the room, people were leaving their cubicles to gather round him, chuckling at his remark about his mother. Someone must have messaged the rest of the division, because the golden door swung open and more staff came crowding in. Even Elena looked up briefly, as if the CEO were a ray of hope to her. There was no doubt about it, the man had charm. I heard people whispering about him all around me.

  ‘It’s really him!’ said one.

  ‘Do you think it’s true that he lives in virtual space nearly all the time?’ asked another.

  ‘It wouldn’t surprise me!’

  ‘When I heard of Pierce’s death,’ said the CEO, bowing his head for a moment, ‘I realised I had to return to Virk right away, not only to express to you all my deep sorrow at what has taken place, but also to assist in putting right some things that have gone very wrong. I believe I am addressing Detective Sergeants Montague –’ he nodded at the female officer – ‘and Hargreaves?’

  ‘That’s correct, sir,’ said Detective Sergeant Montague. The CEO held out his hand for the two officers to shake. They both looked faintly embarrassed to be standing in front of a man in a beautifully cut cream linen suit, when their own virtual outfits made them look like a pair of streakers in team colours.

  ‘I’m so sorry I wasn’t able to be here earlier,’ Mr Chander told them. ‘I could have saved you a good deal of trouble. I understand you have been questioning Elena for some time with regard to her whereabouts in realspace at the time of Pierce’s murder.’

  ‘We have, sir,’ said Montague. ‘Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to establish where Ms Mariposa was at that time, since none of her answers have been verifiable.’

  ‘That’s understandable,’ said the CEO.

  Elena lifted her face to him, the plea in her eyes unmistakeable.

  ‘The answers Elena gave you were fictitious, but she did not mean them to be so. You see, she has no home, no Virk Room, no presence in realspace at all.’ The CEO looked straight at her. ‘Elena is a bot.’

  My hand flew up to cover my mouth. I heard Dale’s sharp intake of breath beside me, and felt his arm slide around my shoulder. I was too shocked to shrug him away. Elena looked as if someone had struck her.

  ‘An automated character?’ asked Detective Sergeant Hargreaves. ‘That would certainly explain a few things.’

  ‘Yes,’ said the CEO, watching Elena curiously, ‘but at the same time, it raises many questions. I gather from the looks on everyone’s faces that no one knew this?’ He scanned the crowd, frowning at the shaken heads. ‘Not even Elena herself?’

  Elena’s lip trembled.

  ‘No,’ she whispered.

  ‘I am … sorry, my dear,’ said Mr Chander, and for a moment his face was full of pity. Then, as if he’d surprised even himself, he blinked and went on. ‘“Elena” is a corruption of LNA – Learning eNabled Assistant. She was created as a prototype office manager bot shortly after the first Simulcorp Virk offices were activated. I assisted in her creation, as did a number of other technical specialists, including Pierce Grody. But the character didn’t work out well in test runs, so we shelved it, intending to revisit the programming at a later date. Pierce asked permission to run the LNA character in this division when the previous office manager went on maternity leave, and I granted it. But the bot we created was nothing like as sophisticated as Elena here obviously is. Someone – perhaps Pierce, perhaps another person – has clearly put in an enormous effort to give her a superior level of interactive capability. Not only that, but she’s been given a fictitious realspace background based on another Simulcorp employee, detailed emotive responses and even a sense of self. Extraordinary work – but who did it? And why?’ Again he looked around, but no one seemed to have any answers.

  ‘Well, we can try to look into it, sir, but I’m afraid we will have to concentrate our efforts on the main lines of investigation we’ve already established,’ said Detective Sergeant Montague.

  ‘I would be happy to examine Pierce’s records myself, Mr Chander,’ put in Inge eagerly.

  ‘Thank you, but I’m sure you have plenty of your own work to do, Ms Wellenschnitter,’ replied the CEO. ‘I’ll investigate this myself. And now, unless the good officers have any other questions, I believe I’ve delayed you all long enough.’ He shook hands with the police detectives again, murmured a few words to the employees closest to him and left. The rest of the staff began to disperse.

  Elena was still standing, motionless, where the police had left her. Budi walked up to her, his face at odds with the cheerful monkey pattern on his sarong.

  ‘Elena?’ he said, tentatively reaching out to her.

  ‘No,’ she whispered again, and a single tear ran down her golden cheek.

  I was staring out my bedroom window at the sunset, trying to get the awful image of Elena’s face out of my mind, when my phone rang.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hey, it’s me.’

  ‘Hi, Sky.’ I sat up properly, rubbing my face with my free hand. ‘How’d your day go?’

  ‘Not too bad.’ Sky sounded cheerful. ‘You remember the delivery guy I told you about – Robbie?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Well, he really stepped up his efforts today. I got two dozen yellow roses, a cut-glass vase and a card telling me he “likes my style”.’

  ‘He likes your style? You weren’t wearing that crochet dress, were you?’

  ‘After you said it was indecent? Of course not!’

  ‘Well, then, I guess he really does like you,’ I said.

  ‘You sound a bit down,’ said Sky. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to come over? Ki’s here, and Nix said he was going to drop by and watch Outright Felony with us.’

  I sighed.

  ‘I can’t, Sky. I’ve got a ton of stuff I’m supposed to know about for work tomorrow, and I’ve hardly read any of it.’ I glanced at my monitor, which was showing a tutorial for Imagenie, the graphics program we were supposed to use to create storyboard images for our proposal.

  ‘You’re not even caving for Outright Felony? Need I remind you that we’re talking about the film in which Theo Galanis takes his shirt off seven times?’

  I tried to think of a cheery reply, but the words just wouldn’t come.

  ‘Alex? Did you have another bad day?’

  ‘Uh …’ I wiped a tear off my cheek. ‘Yeah, you could say that. I finally got up close and personal with Dale, only to find out that he lied about being in his own Virk Room the day Grody died, knows something about the murder and refuses to confess any of this to the police. And then,’ I added unsteadily, ‘Elena – the office manager, the one who was so nice to me – got arrested, and the police questioned me about her and I told them all this incriminating stuff about her. Oh, and after that the CEO turned up and told everyone she was actually a bot, which she hadn’t known herself. So that was pretty horrible to watch.’

  ‘Wow.’ Sky gave a low whistle. ‘Okay, I think we can officially call that a fairly heinous day. But there’s got to be a positive side to it, Alex … let me think.’

  I sniffed, feeling the corners of my mouth twitch into a smile for a moment. Sky believed in the ‘think positive’ philosophy almost as much as her mum – which was saying a lot, since her mum had even managed to think positively about having her husband cheat on her with her best friend.

  ‘Okay,’ said Sky, ‘so obviously the situation with Dale isn’t ideal, but it does at least give us a lead, right? And the whole thing with your office manager’s kind of sad, but if she’s only a bot, it’s not as though she could really feel bad about, like, not being real.’

  ‘Maybe. But it didn’t exactly look fun for her, Sky.’ I picked up a chewing gum paper, folding it over and over. ‘I feel like such a moron for thinking Dale was a good guy. I’m not saying I think he’s the murderer – I checked his alibi myself. But he’s clearly hiding something, and I was all ready to trust him.’ I snorted. ‘Hell, I was all ready to make out with him.
Some judge of character I am.’

  ‘Okay, that’s it. Alex, you’re coming over here tomorrow after work and you, me and Ki are having a girls’ night in. No, don’t even tell me what it is you’re supposed to read up on,’ she said, before I could butt in. ‘You’ve got the entire weekend to do the model student thing, but when you start bringing out the whole “I’m such a moron” bit, it’s time for some serious kicking back.’ I heard muttering at the other end of the phone. ‘Ki says she’ll even let you pick the movies – and I quote, “despite your unfortunate weakness for college mayhem flicks”. So you’ll be here, right?’

  ‘Okay, okay, I’ll be there. You want me to bring pizzas?’

  ‘No, I’ll cook. See you then, and in the meantime, try to think positive, okay?’

  ‘I will. Thanks, Sky.’

  I put down my phone. Outside, the sky had turned from pink to midnight blue. I looked out at the lights glittering far off in the hillside suburbs, wondering what Dale was doing now. Think positive, I told myself. Maybe he’s deciding to do the right thing and tell the police whatever it is he knows. I sighed, looking down at the street below.

  Where someone was looking back up at me.

  My blood froze. I reached out for my phone, but the tall figure under the streetlight melted back into the shadows and was gone.

  With shaking hands, I flung the curtain across the window, jumped onto my bed and pulled the quilt over my head. Sometimes, positive thinking just isn’t an option.

  Friday sucked from the start.

  ‘I’m sorry, Peaches, but I won’t be able to keep much of an eye on you this morning,’ Budi said as soon as I walked into the office. He looked like he’d hardly slept. Even his sarong was a subdued shade of green. ‘The CEO has decided I should stand in for Pierce at a meeting with Avatar Robotics this afternoon, and I’m about as close to understanding the deal with them as Inge is to joining the Sisters of Chastity. You’ll be okay to work on your proposal by yourself, won’t you? Dale’s called in sick.’ He bent his head close to my ear. ‘And one word of advice, Alex – tread lightly around Inge, all right? She asked to be the one replacing Pierce at this meeting, but Mr Chander told her she was needed here to make sure the office was running smoothly.’ He grimaced. ‘I thought she was going to impale me on one of her hideous stilettos for a moment there.’

  In a way it was a relief not to have to face Dale after what had happened the day before, but with Budi gone too I felt kind of lost and alone. I was also pretty certain that Dale was just avoiding me, and however uncomfortable it would have been to confront him, I was still supposed to be investigating Grody’s death, and he was my only lead.

  He might have had more of a clue about this damned program, too, I thought as I tried to stop Imagenie deleting the Impression logo from my storyboard every time I put something else in the picture.

  ‘Fine, I’ll put you in last,’ I muttered at the logo, opening the People tab instead. The storyboard Dale and I had been working on was for ads aimed at men. The first image was meant to show a young guy wearing nothing but Impression jeans being thrown out of a nightclub, while a bouncer behind him pointed to a sign that read No ‘Perfect Fit’. It would go on to show the same guy using the JeanScan system, while a voiceover briefly explained all its benefits. Now the only problem you’ll have is making everyone else look bad, the voiceover would conclude, and then our slogan would flash up: JeanScan. Want to see the Impression you’ll make?

  It had all looked like being pretty easy to design, but now that I was doing it alone, I was starting to encounter all kinds of unexpected problems. For one thing, since I’d never been to a nightclub, I had only the vaguest idea of what the outside of one might look like. Of course, since Dale was my age, technically he shouldn’t have been to a club before either, but I was beginning to realise how little I knew about him. Perhaps he wasn’t really a year eleven student – for all I knew he owned a nightclub. I chose some options for the model: male, late teens, blond, 180 centimetres, medium build … It was like describing Dale to the police. Could it have been him watching me from the street last night? I didn’t think so – the figure I’d seen had seemed taller, with a reddish tinge to their hair. My finger hovered over the Clothing tab. Who else had any reason to spy on me?

  ‘Alex, dear, how are you going?’

  Elena was standing by the cubicle, smiling down at me.

  ‘I’m … I’m fine.’ Her face was a picture of kindness, just as it had been every time she’d checked in on me and Dale. Could she have forgotten what happened yesterday? Had the CEO made her forget? ‘So, um … are you okay?’

  The big, dark eyes flinched, and I knew she hadn’t forgotten at all.

  ‘Yes. Well, I suppose I’m …’ Elena’s voice shook. ‘Oh dear, this is awkward, isn’t it? I’m so sorry, Alex. If I’d known I was only a … a bot, I would never have deceived you.’ Her lower lip trembled. ‘As if you haven’t had enough to deal with!’

  ‘Oh, no, no! It’s not like that at all! I only wanted to see if you felt okay after, you know,’ I hesitated, mentally wading through all the ways I could phrase it that would only make Elena feel worse, ‘… the shock you got. I’m fine – you don’t have to worry about me!’

  ‘That’s so kind of you, my dear!’ She blinked back tears, and I thought of what Sky had said – that if Elena was a bot, she couldn’t really feel bad. Looking at her, I wondered how that could be true. It reminded me of something Ms Harmond had told us in Health Ed once: that if you had a mental illness, it could be very difficult to believe other people when they told you that you were ill. Reality is individual, she’d said. We all have different tools with which to perceive it.

  ‘I don’t know if this helps,’ I said, ‘but I still think Budi was right that time when he said you were the best office manager. I mean, I know I didn’t meet the ones before you or anything,’ I added, blushing as I realised my argument was coming unstuck, ‘but I think you do a great job. And you’re a kind person.’

  Elena was practically sobbing now. I was near tears myself – how horrible was this? Elena was treating me like I was a saint, when only yesterday I’d been telling the police things that, for all I knew, could have pointed to her being a murderer. I’d never been so pleased to see Inge as I was when she came bustling up at that moment.

  ‘Elena, the Conference Room is still not set up correctly for the meeting.’ She tapped one red-stilettoed foot. ‘I don’t think we have any time to waste right now, do we?’

  ‘Of course not! I’m so sorry, Ms Wellenschnitter – I’ll see to it straight away,’ gulped Elena and hurried away.

  ‘And Alex,’ added Inge, glancing at my monitor, ‘I don’t think this image will work at all. I see why this boy would be thrown out of the nightclub, of course, but you are supposed to be selling jeans, yes?’ And with a shake of her head, she strode off again.

  I looked at the screen and almost fell off my chair. When I’d failed to choose from the Clothing tab, the program had just inserted the male figure I’d selected all the options for … without clothing. Inge was right about one thing: it was, if anything, too easy to see why he was being thrown out of a club.

  ‘So the police hauled me in for questioning again today,’ I said, as I stood waving a piece of cardboard over the rice cooker in Sky’s kitchen that evening.

  Sky looked up from her pizza dough.

  ‘Oh, man! Are you okay?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Yeah. It was actually pretty good. I mean, I don’t think my dad was too thrilled to have to leave work early just so he could watch me get interviewed again, but he seemed pretty relieved when they said they now officially considered it “unlikely” that I killed Grody.’

  ‘You’re off the suspect list?’ Ki stopped in the middle of chopping seaweed. ‘Excellent news! I assume this means they’ve checked your alibi with your co-workers.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know about off the list, but I’m definitely very low o
n it now. Detective Sergeant Montague told me they never considered me a strong suspect, and now they’ve had time to examine the Virk programming as well as everyone’s statements, they’re even more convinced.’ I sighed. ‘I’d really like to be completely off the hook, though.’

  Just then we heard voices in the hallway.

  ‘So because they’re called Fiery Fries, I told Gazza we should blow a bucket of them up.’ Nix had never been into speaking quietly. ‘And he let me do it! He says when it comes to small-scale effects, real explosions can often be cheaper and more realistic than CGI.’

  ‘Awesome! How’d it look?’ Joel was obviously tagging along as usual.

  ‘Pretty spectacular. Gazza said I did a great job of it and he’s pretty sure the clients will go for it. I did have to clean all the chips off his car, though.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s the problem with the first few times you explode stuff, I reckon – you never realise how big the fallout area will be. Remember the time Ryan blew up our old cubby, and one of the pieces smashed Mrs Tyler’s –’

  Joel stopped as he entered the kitchen and encountered the force of our stares.

  ‘Ladies,’ he said, a little nervously. I guessed he was remembering how Sky had attacked them on Tuesday night.

  ‘Mum sent these over for you, Sky,’ said Nix, presenting a paper bag to her.

  ‘Oh, cool!’ Sky opened the bag. ‘She knew I was making pizza. Can’t have a good pizza without sunflower seeds.’

  ‘In what universe?’ snorted Joel, instantly regretting it as Sky flicked one of the seeds straight at him.

  I hastily changed the chuckle that had escaped me into a cough. Nix turned to look at me.

  ‘So Sky’s making pizza, and Ki looks like she’s making those rice-ball things …’

  ‘Onigiri,’ corrected Ki.