"Okay."
Michaels went on to ask Raymond questions about Janet's unusual behavior, the security breach announcement, what steps were taken to lock down the network, and how Raymond went about reviewing the logs for information. Raymond answered the questions as coolly and thoroughly as he could, careful to keep his story consistent with what he had told Bob earlier that night. Part way through, Ms. Brody received a page on her wrist relay and left the room. She returned a few minutes later, resuming her position next to Raymond.
When Michaels had finished, he asked whether Raymond would mind proceeding with a standard FBI interrogation. "To get it out of the way," said Michaels. Raymond agreed to undergo further questioning, and Michaels went on to ask some routine personal questions, regarding his school and work history, his address history, travel abroad, and criminal record. Raymond answered the questions as accurately as he could, except where his current address was concerned: he gave the address of his apartment, even though it was hardly home for him.
"Now," continued Michaels, "I'm going to ask you a few more probing questions. You have the right to refrain from answering these questions, as you did all previous questions. But I should warn you, Raymond, that if you choose not to answer these questions, you may be subject to more rigorous personal investigation."
"Okay," said Raymond.
The questions covered illegal drug use, affiliation with political organizations, affiliation with terrorist groups, contact with foreign governments, espionage activities, and affiliation with cult religions. Raymond answered all of these questions truthfully. He was starting to feel like a pretty clean-living young man. Then came the questions about organized crime.
"Have you ever come in contact with an individual or individuals whom you knew to be participating in some form of organized crime, such as gambling, drug trafficking, money laundering, or the unlicensed sale of firearms?"
"No," replied Raymond.
A lie—I just lied to an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
"Have you ever participated in some form of organized crime, such as those I just listed?"
"No."
Lie.
"Were you ever to knowingly come in contact with an individual or individuals whom you knew to be participating in some form of organized crime, such as those I listed, would you report this activity to the authorities, as previously defined?"
"Yes," replied Raymond. "Absolutely."
"Thank you, Raymond. As a member of the lab's staff, you are automatically a suspect in a federal criminal case. Within 48 hours, you will be asked to come back, and you will be given an FBI monitoring device. This device will allow us to track your movements, freeing you to travel anywhere within the United States. Until you have been given this device, you are required to notify the FBI of any plans to travel more than twenty miles from the city of Ann Arbor. You understand?"
"Yes."
"Okay then, you're free to go. Thank you for your time and your assistance in this case. We will contact you when you need to come in."
The screen blanked out. Raymond took a deep breath, then started to stand up.
"Wait," said Detective Brody. "I'd like to ask you a few of my own questions. I know you must be tired, but would you mind, Raymond?"
"Well, sure. I guess."
"Thank you so much."
Raymond sat back down. He wore an exaggerated look of exhaustion, trying to make it clear that he wanted this to be done as soon as possible.
"I find your work fascinating. What's it like to work with uploaded minds?"
Raymond's wrist relay vibrated twice in quick succession, indication that the robot butler at his bunker had taken delivery of the NBC. The stolen goods had arrived at their destinations without a hitch, even sooner than he had expected. He had attained his goal, but now he was face-to-face with a police detective, about to undergo another interview, and the other NBC was sitting in his motor home, red-hot evidence of his guilt.
"Well," responded Raymond, "I'm really more of a tools guy. The scientists do a lot more with the mind, directly."
His own mind was still on the NBC in his motor home. He wished he had sent both NBCs to the bunker. He had chosen to keep one local—the one that he planned to upload into—because he didn't want to risk sending his own scanned mental data over the Net, as he had Molly's. He was afraid it might be traced, or even lost. But, with the FBI and the State Police on the case, the risk of their finding the NBC in his motor home seemed far higher.
Raymond suddenly realized he wasn't paying attention to Brody.
"But isn't it just amazing," she was saying, "to think of transferring the mind of a living animal into a computer?"
"Oh, yeah, definitely," he responded automatically. Then, in his mind, he replayed what she had just said, and realized that he actually had something intelligent to say. "Although, it's, um, it's not exactly a transference. It's more of a copy."
"Yes," said Brody. She drew the word out, nodding sagely as she said it. The curl of a smile turned the ends of her thin lips. "Yes, I suppose it is more of a copy. I understand you've uploaded a chimp?"
"Yes, we have."
"Amazing." Her eyes were locked on Raymond's in a way that he found very engaging. He felt like she was studying him, like she was immensely interested in everything he had to say. "When a creature's mind is uploaded, a chimp's for example, does the chimp then live in a virtual world?"
"Yeah. I actually do a lot of the v-world design."
"Really? Wow. Have you spent time with animals that have been uploaded, then?"
"Sure, of course." Raymond felt himself getting excited. He wanted to tell this woman he had just met all about what it was like. But he held back, wary of her motive for questioning.
"The body of the creature is destroyed, right?"
Raymond nodded.
"And when you're with the creature after it's been uploaded, do you feel like you're with the original creature?"
Raymond deliberated, thinking first of the animals that had not seemed at all themselves after upload. "Usually," he responded. "The process has gotten better."
"Sure," she said, seeming to understand. "It's experimental. There are bound to be problems. But when it works, they seem like themselves? I mean, there are a lot of nuances to an animal's personality. They're all still there?"
"They seem to be."
"And yet, it's a machine, simulating an animal. The line between life and machine must be a complete blur for you."
"Oh, there is no line," he blurted.
Her expression didn't change, but she was silent. Raymond could tell she was digesting his response. Part of him wished he could take it back.
"I suppose you would have to feel that way, wouldn't you, in order to be a participant in this sort of research."
Raymond didn't respond.
"Animal rights groups that are against destructive uploading must really frustrate you," sympathized Brody.
Suddenly Raymond saw where she was going. Intuition told him to hide as little as possible.
"They do, but... only a little, really," he said reflectively. "It's more that I don't understand where they're coming from. I mean, why can't they see that uploading makes life better for these animals, not worse. Of course, there have been accidents, but this is a pioneering research group, and the animals that died are like, little pioneering heroes."
Raymond winced at this phrase, "little pioneering heroes". He was clearly too tired, and shouldn't be talking, especially to a police detective.
"I see," said Brody. "So, you see uploaded life as being better?"
"Well, yeah. Your mind is freed from your body, which is what breaks down. It's just like anything else digital. It doesn't break down." She sat listening to him, still looking at him with those studying, fascinated eyes. "And the world is better. You can make a v-world anything you want. Exactly the way you want."
"That seems like a lot of work."
"Sure
, I guess. But when you're done, you get to live in the world of your dreams. And if your dreams change, you just change your world. If you want to be a space explorer, you can. Or a pirate, or an artist, or—whatever you want."
"But you're still a part of this world."
"Not really. Not if you don't want to be."
She slowly shook her head. "Oh, but you are. Do you really not see that? You're in a computer, and the computer is in the real world."
"Obviously, but—"
"It's like living on a boat in bottle," she continued, interrupting him. "You can pretend the boat's on the ocean, but what if someone knocks the bottle off the shelf?"
Raymond wanted to explain about his bunker, and all the precautions he had taken, but he needed to keep his guard up. "We take good care of our servers. Nobody's going to knock the bottle off the shelf."
She looked at him with penetrating scrutiny. "Are you forgetting what happened tonight?"
"Well okay, there are risks, but most of the animals we've uploaded have been sick and likely to die in a matter of months."
"I see." She started to pack up the few materials she had with her. Raymond was unsure whether this meant that he could leave. Just as he started to stand, she spoke.
"Oh," she said, in an off-hand manner. "There's a man outside who's waiting for you. Said he was a private investigator."
"Really?"
"Yes, I thought that was interesting. I told him he could wait for you, if he wanted. Said his name was Murray, I think. Do you know him?"
"No. I mean, I don't know him, but I know who he is, I think."
"Well, I'll walk out with you, to be safe."
"Oh, no, don't worry about it."
"It's on my way. Really." She stood up. "If you're not sure who he is..."
"No, I think I know. This private investigator guy from Chicago has been trying to get in touch with me." Raymond stood up and walked to his bike.
"Wow. A private investigator. Do you know what it's about?"
Raymond stalled for a moment while unlocking his bike. What could he say? If he withheld information, there was the risk that Murray would reveal the deceit in the course of conversation. He had to stick to the half-truths.
"It's about this guy I worked for, years ago." Raymond walked his bike out of the conference room, Brody just behind him.
"A private investigator from Chicago," she asked, "following up on a connection that is years old? At..." She looked at her wrist relay. "5:30 AM?"
Raymond shrugged, as if this were as bizarre to him as it was to her.
As they walked back toward the lobby, Raymond glanced longingly down a taped-off side hall that led to his office, wishing he could whisk the contents of his office away before they made it into the hands of FBI data analysts.
The unadorned walls and bright lights of the laboratory hallway felt foreign and threatening as Raymond approached the lobby, Brody beside him. A spasm shook him abruptly, leaving him hollow, a haze of disorientation dominating his consciousness. He dropped some of his weight onto his bike.
Then he saw Murray, standing next to the police woman who had been standing in the entryway when Raymond arrived. He was a mostly-bald man, a bit shorter than Raymond, hands thrust into the pockets of a floor-length silver raincoat, wearing heavy-framed industrial-orange glasses long out of fashion. Raymond's mind clicked back in place.
Murray did not step forward to meet Raymond. He just stared at Raymond, dramatically expressionless.
"Trouble from every direction, eh?" said Murray, hands still in pockets. Raymond detected a stronger south-side Chicago accent than he'd noticed in Murray's voice message. It seemed exaggerated, as if it were a deliberate reference to Raymond's childhood.
"What do you want, Mr. Murray?" asked Raymond.
Raymond noticed a sniffer bot hovering high in a far corner of the lobby. His conversation with Murray was being recorded.
"I thought I might find you here. You're not very obliging where interviews are concerned, Mr. Quan."
"I'm sorry. I'm very busy, and frankly I don't see the point. I long ago told everything I know about Mr. Tate. It was all recorded by the police. If you need my consent to access the recordings, I'll happily give it to you."
Brody stood at Raymond's side. Her presence made him anxious, but her clear-headed logical nature lent him a degree of confidence—as if it had spread to him by contagion.
"Face-to-face," said Murray. "I need to see you face-to-face. Do you have some time now?"
"Mr. Murray," interjected Officer Brody, "it's 5:30. You're on a case that's how many years old?"
"It's an unsolved missing person case, ma'am, and I've been hired to crack it. Mr. Tate was last seen by this young man five years ago. Until the case is closed, every moment counts."
"That sounds very noble. Could you beam me your investigator's license?"
The private investigator reached into his jacket, and Brody brought her wrist up to inspect his license. She tapped on the face of her wrist relay a couple of times, nodded, and lowered her wrist.
"So," she asked, "why the sudden interest in this case? This missing person, was he wealthy?"
"Quite," responded Murray, and Raymond nodded in confirmation.
"And somebody's after his money?" asked Brody.
"Family's looking for peace of mind," responded Murray.
"I see," said Brody. Raymond was pleased to see her gaze boring into someone else. "Five years... and his funds are still off limits? His money must be in off-shore banking. How did he go missing?"
"His family received a message from him saying he was running off with some girl, off to some remote corner of the world."
"And were his banks asked to contact him?"
"Yes ma'am, and that's where things get fishy. For a long time, the banks couldn't contact him. Then all of a sudden they report that he's been in touch."
Raymond was starting to get edgy. "Listen," he said. "This is all very interesting, but I'd like to get home and get some sleep."
"And where is home?" asked Murray.
"You can look it up."
"I did. Seems you're not home very much."
So, Murray had been doing his homework.
"Yeah, well, I have a girlfriend," said Raymond. It slipped out so easily. The last thing he wanted was to drag Anya into his criminal investigation, but she made for such a convenient excuse, and somehow he felt like his having a girlfriend meant he couldn't possibly be a criminal.
"How about if I give you a ride home," offered Murray. "We can talk on the way."
"I don't think you get it. I'm tired, and I don't want to talk to you. Unless you have a subpoena, you'll just have to wait."
"You don't have to worry about him running off," said Brody. "The FBI will be keeping tabs on him for this case. Let him get some sleep. I'd love to talk to you more about this case."
Raymond felt another wall drop in the elaborate trap that was closing him in. If Brody dug far enough, she might start to see connections between the Tate case and Raymond's current work with v-worlds and artificial life. He might soon become her lead suspect—if he wasn't already. But he decided to take his out and headed for the door.
"I'll be by later," called Murray. "Once you've had your beauty sleep."
Raymond didn't respond. He rolled his bike out the front door, eager to get away.
Chapter 10
As Raymond exited the lab, rolling his bike along beside him, he was affronted by the chill pre-dawn air. He paused, uncertain of exactly how to proceed. The fallout of his actions astounded him. The FBI had seized control of the lab, and now, no doubt, news of the break-in was being broadcast worldwide. His workplace would soon be a media focal point. So many alarms had gone off in his mind by this point that he looked around at the familiar campus scene and felt lost. His carefully fostered anonymity was in a shambles.
He saw only one option. He focused on the leading arc of his front tire as he rolled it forward, st
epped his left foot on the pedal, and swung his right leg over the seat, headed for the motor home.
His bike ride went a long way toward clearing his mind. Fear and self-doubt faded, replaced by a matter-of-fact acceptance of his situation. He made a point to take a circuitous path, in hopes of shaking any person or thing that might be tracking his movements. He turned left onto Nixon where he would normally have continued on Plymouth. He did not engage the bike's motors. The rhythm of physical exertion gave him welcome relief from his cluttered thoughts. He took back road after back road, regularly checking over his shoulder to make sure he was alone. The sky started to lighten, the stars overhead disappearing. He turned down a secluded, private dirt lane and rode the last quarter-mile to his home: the windowless pole barn that housed his motor home.
It was a simple metal structure, painted pine green, concealed in the middle of a ten-acre wooded lot northeast of Ann Arbor, in Superior Township. He had purchased the lot by way of Ivar Svensson soon after deciding to come to Michigan. There was an old home on the lot at the time he bought it. Raymond had it bulldozed, had the lot re-landscaped for privacy, and had the pole barn built. He also filed for a permit to build a little stone cottage, to satisfy the suspicions of anyone who might wonder at the disuse of such valuable property.
The supple, newly fallen red and yellow maple leaves softened the sound of his bike tires as he rolled down his gravel driveway. It was unseasonably warm for November, even in light of global climate change. He unlocked the side door by which he usually entered, rolled his bike in and leaned it against the wall, and locked the door behind him.
With the door closed, it was very dark. Fine lines of faint morning light came through a ventilation grate high at one end, and through the very narrow gap around the big garage-style door. The motor home, a shiny metallic self-driving vehicle about thirty feet long, occupied most of the interior space. There was one strip of concrete floor where Raymond had entered, on which he had an old weight bench, a space for his bike, and an assortment of tools. At the far end of the strip, just inside the little package delivery hatch, he could just make out the edge of a box.
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