by Linda Nagata
“Of course. I didn’t mean to distress you. I am a stupid woman.”
“Stop it, please.”
“Yes, of course, tuan. But tell me something first, if you can. After you’ve tortured me, and persuaded me to exorcise the sorcerer’s evil spirit— Oh, oh, pardon me for my clumsy tongue. After you’ve rid me of the Maker— (How foolish of me to think of it as your spirit!) What will you do? Will you remain in this empty world, and not-live in your nonlife and not love and not be horrified at death? Tuan, who are you to command the world?”
At first he offered no answer. He stood before her, eyes downcast, his toe tracing circles upon the ground. Then a parrot squawked in the tree overhead. He looked up at it and waved his hand. It fell silent as he met her gaze. “I made this thing, Phousita. It’s my responsibility, my fault. I should have destroyed it long ago, but I couldn’t get to it. So I thought it was safe. Then that damned Nikko Jiang-Tibayan turned it loose.”
Her heart seemed to stop cold in her chest. She didn’t want to ask him, she didn’t want to be beholden to him, but she had to know. “Nikko? Do you know of him?”
He looked at her in surprise and sudden suspicion. “Do you?”
“He’s dead,” she said.
“Yes.”
From his face, she knew it didn’t matter to him. She stomped her foot in anger. What acquaintance did this man have with death that he could think it led to anything better than despair?
He seemed to hear her thoughts. He stepped closer to her, though he had enough respect not to touch her. “I’m not evil, Phousita. I’m not cruel and I am not heartless. I’ve been hungry too. I had three sisters. Plague took them all within a month of birth. My mother abandoned me when a trick offered her a ride over the border. I lived with my best friend until his mother discovered I had a little talent with molecular design and then she sold me to a clan of criminals. I know how horrible the world can be.”
“Then why won’t you change it?” she pleaded.
“The world is changing itself. I know the agony. I feel it every day. But every parent knows a child must be allowed to suffer.”
“So much that the child never grows up?”
“The world will go on, one way or another.”
Her head jerked up. “Oh yes! The Commonwealth will see to that! We still have things they want.”
“So long as they leave your natural cities alone.”
“You are heartless.”
He nodded reluctant agreement. “I suppose you’re right. You put an honest name on everything. That’s refreshing, and I won’t insult you by pretending to less. I must torture you now.”
Her heart thundered, but she didn’t let it show. She wondered if he knew anyway. Did he spy on her mind? “What will you do?” she asked.
“I will rewrite your ghost and infect you with part of myself. My beliefs and my convictions will become yours. It’s the same result I’ve tried to achieve today through persuasion, though obviously I’ve failed miserably at that. You will carry these convictions home to your original and you’ll act on them in the best manner you can.”
“You will possess me.”
“Yes.”
“You are evil.”
“I never thought so before, but now, well . . . you may be right.”
Chapter
20
Kirstin started her investigation anew after the news of the Bohr Maker’s escape became public. There had been some calls for her resignation after the Congressional hearing, but the complainants were quickly hushed. Her reputation for ruthless persistence still made her the favorite candidate to find the Maker.
Allende knew that, and kept his distance. But he still dogged the investigation. As Director of Internal Security, it was his job to investigate cops. His role in the case had begun with the defection of Jensen Van Ness and should have ended there. But he’d hung on, investigating the cops who investigated the case, developing a report that would ostensibly explain why the Maker was still missing. He watched Kirstin. He reported to Congress that the Chief of Police had mishandled the case. He sought to wound her. But she had the agility to turn his assaults to her own advantage.
Allende had engineered her appearance in Congress. But Kirstin had benefited from the publicity. No longer did she need to conduct a subtle investigation. After the hearings, she commenced a series of massive data searches, inspecting every form of surveillance recorded since the original theft.
So much information was transcribed in the Commonwealth that a known fact could disappear as easily into the sea of data as an unrecorded fact could vanish into the past. Nevertheless, Kirstin commenced her investigation. Never before had such a thorough survey of records been contemplated. As the weeks passed and the monumental procedure ground on, the news feeds began to mock it as the slow eye of God.
Kirstin continued to pursue her quarry.
AI’s were instructed to review all visual records collected at the Gates, searching for:
(1) an optical identification of Phousita and Arif
(2) an optical identification of all individuals approximating the body sizes of Phousita and Arif.
The first target achieved zero results. The second achieved three hundred thousand in the first week, each requiring a secondary evaluation.
A human investigator was assigned the task of developing a projection of what Arif would look like if his face were healed. Another human investigator was given the objective of developing a psychological profile of Phousita that would predict how she might change her physical appearance. Kirstin regarded this assignment as the ultimate soft science. Little more than witchcraft, really. She had no faith in it. It produced no usable results.
Another AI checked scents recorded at the Gates and on the Highway. Another investigator developed a projection of the possible evolutionary scenarios of Phousita’s and Arif’s changing scent profiles. The AI was instructed to search for those, as well. Again, no results.
Another AI was given the task of performing background checks on all identity chips recorded at the Highway Gates, to ensure that each one led back to a real person with a verifiable history. No anomalous results.
Another AI was set the task of combing through all the surveillance data recorded on Castle: every bit of information pulled in by the filters, cameras, and microphones set to watch over the city at the end of the elevator. Every public area and many private ones were covered by the surveillance net and the quantity of data collected was immense. The time needed to sort through it was measured in days. But in the end the effort paid off, with the discovery of a single word uttered within range of a microphone at the Castle docks: “Phousita.”
Though Nikko had written Summer House as his destination when he fled Arif’s atrium, he had no expectation of actually arriving there. He knew the cops would pick him up in transit. In all likelihood, Kirstin would greet him herself.
So it came as no surprise when he found himself seated across a desk from a uniformed cop, in an environment so close to weightless that he had to be on Castle. He did feel a mild jolt when he realized the cop was not Kirstin.
The officer scrutinized him with small, dark eyes—a stout man with heavy hands that rested tensely against the desk. By his uniform, a high-ranking cop, a section commander. With a legal atrium.
For the first time in weeks, Nikko found himself physically manifest. The sheer joy of experiencing his own existence almost overwhelmed his rational mind. He hardly noticed the annoying twitch in his hands. Then his gaze met that of the hard-eyed cop and he knew he must seek a measure of the situation. “I know you,” he said bluntly.
It was half true. He’d seen this man before. He searched his memory for a name to match against the face.
“It’s Allende,” the cop said. “I’ve been waiting a long time for you to show.” He looked up and down Nikko’s long blue body with an expression that wavered between admiration and disgust.
“And Kirstin?” Nikko asked.
Allende smiled coldly. “You don’t want to see her, do you?”
“No.”
“She’s been hunting hard for you—but under a false pattern. You see, I revised your file. Now I’m the only one who has your true pattern.” He grinned. “We can deal with each other, I think. You have the Bohr Maker?”
Nikko studied him, feeling his way into the situation. Was Allende looking to cross the cops? “The Bohr Maker,” Nikko said. “You want to deal for it?”
“You have it, don’t you?”
Nikko leaned back in his chair and drew a careful breath. He took a second to explore the atrium that held him. He discovered the prisoner’s jacket Allende had written around his electronic pattern. He was trapped here—unless Allende freed him.
“What are you prepared to offer?” Nikko asked.
“I’ll open the Gates for you. You can go where you like.”
“Why?”
“Kirstin wants to destroy the Maker.”
Nikko nodded, understanding. “And you don’t.”
“Give up our finest weapon?” Allende asked. “It’s absurd.”
“I do have it,” Nikko said, cherishing his blank, blue, expressionless face—it could never betray him. “But not with me.”
“I traced your path,” Allende said. “I know you originated on a ship in the void.”
“The Maker is there,” Nikko agreed.
Allende’s lips pulled back in a hungry expression. “Then it got past two Gates and all the filters on Castle! Incredible!”
“It is the Bohr Maker,” Nikko reminded him. He leaned forward. “I can give you the ship’s command codes. But the rest will be up to you.”
“Then do it.”
Nikko shook his head. “I want to get through the Gates first. When I’m on Summer House, I’ll give you the codes.”
Allende’s eyes narrowed. “But Jiang-Tibayan, I don’t trust you either.”
Nikko nodded. He’d dealt with similar situations before. “Then I’ll leave the codes here,” he offered. “But electronically sealed. Jacket me with a rebound signal. When I reach the House, the signal will bounce back and release the codes.”
Allende nodded slowly. “That’ll do,” he said. “That’ll do.”
Kirstin had encountered hundreds of false leads during the weeks-long data search. She no longer had the capacity to get excited when an investigator brought her the latest, not even when it was the clearly recorded name of the primary suspect: Phousita.
But her interest grew as further inspection revealed that the name had been spoken in a concourse lobby serving (at the time) a ship belonging (through a complex trail of subsidiary corporations) to Summer House. After that it was a brief operation to call up the identities of the two passengers as recorded from their implanted chips. Not surprisingly, their documented names were meaningless; their life histories generic. But when their route was backtracked, it led to the Free Trade Zone.
A few minutes later it was discovered that Marevic Chun had issued the ship’s guidance program.
Kirstin decided to visit Marevic Chun in person. She assembled a cadre of uniformed officers to accompany her. At the last minute, Allende showed up and included himself in the party.
Marevic’s home territory was high up in the Castle tower that belonged to Summer House. She rarely emerged from her suite of offices there. Naturally, by the time Kirstin had led her officers past the maze of security devices and secretaries set up to impede the progress of any outsider through the corporate grounds, Marevic had ample warning of their impending arrival. She greeted Kirstin coldly, but without surprise, from her seat behind a large wooden desk. “Chief Adair. I’d thought your investigators were through examining our corporate records.”
Kirstin grinned. “No, Marevic. In fact, I’ve just obtained a warrant to open your personal files. You are under arrest.”
Marevic’s delicate face didn’t change expression. “On what charge?”
“Forging identity chips.”
She blinked at that. “Do you have evidence?”
“I have two individuals entirely unknown to anyone in their professed hometown.”
“And what connection do they have to me?”
“You wrote their travel orders.”
Nikko had half expected Allende to betray him to Kirstin. But apparently the Director of Internal Security really did have his own agenda, because when Nikko manifested again, he found himself in Fox’s apartment at Summer House.
A holographic simulation of a vertical cross section of Summer House filled the center of the room. Fox stood beside it, regarding Nikko with a comical expression of mingled suspicion and astonishment.
Nikko whooped in joy, slapping his projected blue palms against the ceiling. “I made it, Dad!” His amazement at his own good fortune bubbled over in a hearty laugh. “I actually made it home!”
The past weeks had not treated Fox well. He looked considerably older. Gray streaks ran through his thinning red hair, his shoulders were stooped, and deep lines of worry tracked across his face.
“Hey Dad,” Nikko said. “Things aren’t as bad as you think.”
Fox took one step forward. His hand came up. “Where did you come from?” he asked, in a hoarse voice that was barely more than a whisper. “When did you originate? How did you get through the Gates?”
Nikko glanced away, uneasy at the distress he saw in Fox, uncertain how to respond to it. His gaze fell on the holographic display, and lingered there, drawn in by the exquisite detail. He could make out birds flitting through the canopy of the forest, and people walking in the corridors. He glanced at Fox again. Fox wasn’t paying any attention to the simulation, yet the atrium followed the changing display with no loss of resolution. How many times had Fox watched this simulation run?
He shook off the thought. He had more pressing business. “I need your help, Dad.”
But his gaze was drawn back to the simulation. Something had gone wrong with it. He watched as the House deteriorated: its inner features dissolved; the forest rotted away; people disappeared. The scene unsettled Nikko. It was like looking at a time-compressed video of natural decay, except that the decaying body was that of Summer House.
Within seconds, a dark lattice appeared as corridors expanded vertically. A few seconds more, and the House had been divided into cells of varying sizes, from a few tens to hundreds of meters per side. The cells clustered into groups, separated by narrow, black-walled channels. There was a moment’s pause. Then the cells split apart and spun off into the void.
“Love and Nature!” Nikko exclaimed, shaken by the destruction. “Fox, what is that?”
Fox glanced over his shoulder. His eyes opened wide in a startled expression. “Display off!” he barked. He looked back at Nikko, his brow furrowed with anger. “It’s nothing,” he snapped. “Just a project one of my students submitted.”
Nikko didn’t believe him. “It’s more than that. Have you found something wrong with the House? Is it unstable?”
“No, no. The House is fine. What you saw was a survival strategy.” He chewed his lip nervously. “Look, Nikko. You’re a fugitive. The less you know, the better.”
But Nikko’s guesses were already leaping ahead. “A survival strategy? Does it have to do with the biogenesis function, then?”
Fox didn’t answer, but his expression gave him away.
“It does,” Nikko said. “But why destroy the House? A survival strategy?” His kisheer pulled in close around his neck. “Those were reproductive cells, weren’t they?” He shook his head, incredulous. “A survival strategy, in case of disaster. That’s what you’re working on.” He laughed in disbelief. “Do you really think the House can be seeded?”
Fox shrugged. He looked unhappy.
“Listen,” Nikko said. “I really do need your help. There’s a ship just a few days out of Summer House. Aboard, in the possession of one of the two passengers, is a physical and psychological record of Sandor. But t
he ship’s not going to stop here. It’ll pass the House and return to Castle. I have to get the passengers off before that happens. You’ll help me, Dad? Won’t you?”
Marevic’s defensive Makers were very, very good. Also unregistered and therefore illegal. It took the police research division several hours to define their structure and develop an assault Maker that could overcome them. But after that it was easy to introduce a psychoactive drug to her system. Minutes later, she reached a state in which she could not resist answering any question put to her. She sat on a couch in an isolation chamber at police headquarters, her lawyer at her side. Her tiny mouth was turned in a foreboding frown. She wasn’t at all tipsy. Merely irresistibly talkative.
Kirstin stood in the center of the room, studying her, weighing the possibility that research had missed something. Could Marevic be faking her cooperative state?
Research insisted they really had her. And they were Kirstin’s people. She had to trust them.
She glanced at Allende. He stood in one corner of the room, ostensibly observing. But his gaze was fixed on the floor, while a worried frown played across his face. Kirstin’s brows rose in sudden suspicion. Was he afraid Marevic might reveal something about him? She determined to study the record of this session and gauge his reactions. But for now, she sat down with her team on a couch across from Marevic.
The interrogator took that as a cue to begin. He leaned forward, his gaze fixed on Chun’s face. “Marevic Chun. You’re aware of the case against you. Tell us the real identities of the recipients of the false ID chips.”
Marevic shuddered, and shifted in her seat. “They’re nonentities within the Commonwealth,” she growled. “They have no identities.”
“Tell us the names of the recipients of the false ID chips,” the interrogator said in precise, measured words.