The Speculist

The Council, Installment #2

Read Installment #1

The minutes dragged on while Patricia waited for Jim to bring back her digipass. She declined the second sandwich and nibbled her fruit salad instead as Randall continued his description of the Council’s interrogation process.

“They think as one,” Randall said. “Don’t let that spook you.”

“Think as one? I thought you said that they speak as one.” Irritation at Randall’s vagueness pricked at her barely contained composure. “You’ve seen my files, Randall. What work do you think is questionable?”

A small brown bird landed on the window ledge and cocked its head expectantly, drawing Randall Drayton’s attention. Instead of answering Patricia’s question, he swept some crumbs from the tablecloth into his hand and stepped to the window, unlatching the bottom half of the screen and dropping the crumbs on the sill. The bird hopped in and began to peck daintily.

“Randall?” Patricia’s foot began to tap impatiently under the table. “What do you mean, they think as one?” she pressed.

Randall turned and stared, his brow furrowed. “You look as if you’ve never seen a common house sparrow, Patricia,” he said. “You really should get out more.” He shuffled to the table and stared into space as he took another sip of tea.

“Dr. Drayton? Are you all right?”

Randall regarded her with a slack, unfocussed expression.

Jim returned. Without taking his eyes off Randall, he handed Patricia her digipass. “It is undamaged,” he said. He slipped a pouch from his utility belt and turned his back to Patricia, blocking her view of Randall. A second later, she heard the faint hiss of a medijector.

“I should be going,” she whispered, wondering if she was safe here and beginning to doubt the credibility of anything Randall had said so far.

“But we haven’t even scratched the surface of what you need to know when you face the Council,” Randall protested, his eyes once again clear and focused.

Patricia pushed back her chair and stood up. Jim turned slowly in her direction. His eyes remained fixed in their sockets as his head moved, as if he were a camera panning the view. His mouth formed a bland robot smile that failed to reassure Patricia. Jim cocked his head like the bird that was still on the windowsill. “You should not go home, Dr. Bedford.”

“Why shouldn’t Dr. Bedford go home, Jim?” Randall asked in an unnaturally calm tone.

“Your orders, Sir, were to monitor newscasts today and alert you only if something unusual warrants your attention,” Jim said.

“Yes, Jim, those were my orders.”

“Something has happened that warrants your attention.” Jim still hadn’t taken his eyes off Patricia.

“What has happened, Jim?”

“There’s been an explosion in the vicinity of Dr. Bedford’s residence.”

“What do you mean, ‘in the vicinity’? Randall asked.

And a word exploded in Patricia’s brain. “Colter!”

* * *

After the explosion, alarms and loud human voices jarred Colter’s sensors, though muffled by the walls of the utility closet where he waited. He calibrated the sensory input with the new options he’d programmed in advance.

Mixed synthetic and organic compounds in the air. Smoke. Ash.

Avoid detection.

Damage confined to firewalls of Patricia’s apartment.

Avoid detection.

No humans harmed.

They will come. Avoid detection.

Remote laboratory camera and cable intact.

Avoid detection.

He switched on the tiny camera he’d planted inside Patricia’s apartment, set himself for timed deactivation so no one could trace his bioelectronic signal, and fell into oblivion.

* * *

Shakti Nmumbu slipped her six-foot-eight frame through a vertical slit in the molecular teleport membrane as casually as parting a curtain, and entered Patricia’s apartment.

Oblivious to the chaos of panicking humans running out of the complex, Shakti searched methodically through the burning rubble. Perspiration shimmered on her blue-black skin briefly, but sensors in her hair follicles reacted to the heat in the apartment and began to cool her before she noticed the discomfort. As she worked, touching, sniffing and tasting the charred objects, she sent a constant stream of data to the others on the Council.

Shakti examined a melted patch of synthetic hair and a scrap of bioneural insulation, allowing herself a momentary pang of disappointment. This evidence suggested that Dr. Bedford’s house robot had been a casualty of the explosion. But to be sure, she’d have to send a team to sift through every molecule in the place.

“I can’t decide if I admire you or feel sorry for you, Dr. Bedford,” Shakti said aloud, placing samples of debris in her pouch. This explosion was baffling. It bore none of the marks of The Council or its contract terrorists. “It’s just too damned convenient that this incident happened while you were visiting Dr. Drayton.”

Shakti hadn’t yet determined the explosive agent, though it seemed to have been perfectly measured and set to confine the damage to Patricia’s apartment. “It’s tragic that you lost your house robot and your work files,” she added, hoping the Council would appreciate her sarcasm.

She picked up a metal fragment, slicing her finger on a sharp edge. Her hand flew to her mouth, and she was tempted to lick the blood off her finger, but she resisted. It was better to let the nanobots in her bloodstream mend the wound. “If you were hoping to get sympathy from the Council, however,” she said, taking another look around before she summoned the teleporter, “you miscalculated.

"And," she sighed, "I’ve got to start bringing someone along with me on these cases. If not a human, then at least a robot. I’m starting to talk to myself.”

Taking a last look around, Shakti noticed a section of ceiling tiles undamaged by the blast. It was miniscule, only a few square centimeters. She could have reached up and extracted it, but she didn’t want to go to the trouble. That’s what the Sifters were designed to do. She sent a note tag for them.

The teleporter arrived, looking merely like a distortion in the space in front of her. Shakti parted the air and disappeared.

* * *

Patricia tore her eyes from the holospheric recording of the newscast. “Haz Mat teams are combing the area, even though there are no reports of human casualties. Officials will neither confirm nor deny whether the explosion dispersed radioactive or biological toxins,” the devastatingly beautiful female anchor said, “although they are evacuating a five mile radius.”

Patricia put her commpac to her ear one more time, but meeting silence, she flipped it shut.

“No response?” Randall asked gently.

She shook her head.

“That doesn’t mean he’s…”

“I know,” Patricia snapped before he could say the word.

“I never thought it would happen here,” Randall sighed. “Never thought anyone would consider the Midwest important enough to attack.”

“That’s why I settled here after I finished my tour in the Homeland Guard,” Patricia admitted. “I wanted to live someplace where I wouldn’t always be looking over my shoulder.”

“Maybe it wasn’t a terrorist. Just some kook.” Randall paced the kitchen.

“They’re all kooks, but if you mean it could have been a random kook and not an organized terror group… I guess that’s possible.”

Jim spoke. “Consider the odds, Patricia, of a random attack on your dwelling.”

Patricia began to tremble, almost imperceptibly. It began deep inside, as if her viscera were quaking. “I’ve tried to be compliant. I’ve never done anything to draw attention…” her voice rose and attenuated, a pathetic keening sound.

Jim took a step closer to her, cocking his head again, dilating his pupils, as if he’d never seen a human in such distress. “Dr. Drayton?” he began, and then his expression and posture froze.

Patricia looked imploringly from Jim to Randall, wishing she could trust at least one of them to remain functional.

“It’s all right, Patricia. He’s processing something.” Randall took Patricia’s hands in his and waited.

“Dr. Drayton?” Jim repeated, “It is no longer safe for you or Dr. Bedford to remain here.”

Randall steered Patricia to a chair and made her sit. “Your greatest and most threatening work may not have anything to do with DNA and homeland security, Patricia,” he said.

This time the thought breathed itself to life and she whispered, “Colter.”

* * *

Colter began to dream. He knew that it was only a function of his memory database resorting itself upon reactivation. The dream was vivid. He was standing over Patricia’s bed, watching her sleep. When she was awake, her face was never still, but now, it was relaxed, allowing him to measure her features. According to human standards, Patricia was considered attractive, but not beautiful. This could be explained by the measurements. Her right eyebrow, for example, was a centimeter higher than her left. The tiny flaws in the symmetry were barely noticeable, especially when her face was animated in conversation or intently set on work. But, according to his measurements, humans like Patricia were subtly defective.

Still in the dream state, Colter watched Patricia turn over in bed. He felt a surge in the program for protectiveness and loyalty. Statistically, she had many more perfect features than flawed ones. Perhaps that’s why she functioned so well.

Abruptly, a secondary program requested a rationale for measuring Patricia’s features. Colter analyzed. Before he could answer, Patricia faded and new images replaced her.

The woman he saw was perfect.

Colter came to full alertness, realizing that he was receiving the images from the camera he’d set in Patricia’s apartment; the recording of the woman collecting evidence.

Jim was correct about the Council humans, Colter reasoned as he measured the woman’s features. The Council humans were different. Not like Patricia. Better. But how?

It would take the Council humans an hour or two at most to conclude that Colter hadn’t been deactivated in the explosion. They would come looking for him, just like they would be looking for Patricia. And Drayton. And Jim.

Colter needed one thing from Patricia’s apartment. A sample of the enhanced human’s cellular material. A single hair, a skin cell, a piece of fingernail. For Jim. Jim would find a way to examine it.

Colter had to force the door; the heat had welded it shut. Patricia’s apartment was still smoldering. But there was nothing in it that couldn’t be replaced. Colter had made sure of that beforehand. He’d stowed Patricia’s work files in his own databanks. He would keep them safe for her.

A brownish red droplet, vivid in the black and gray ruin, caught his eye. He scooped it into a vial.

Avoid detection. The alarm clamored in his brain.

Colter tore his hair from his scalp. They would not be looking for a bald house robot model. He shuffled his programs, giving priority to the ones that would get him to safety, and then he turned off his high-order functions. This changed his bioelectronic signature, making him harder to identify. And if he were captured, he would not be able to give anyone data that would incriminate Patricia. His captors would have to extract it from him.

Pressing his body through the cracked-open door, Colter walked stiffly toward the stairway. Behind him, the air rippled and a throng of bald robots stepped into view in the middle of the hallway.

Colter shut the door behind him. He did not recognize them so he did not concern himself with them.

He didn’t have the vocabulary at the moment to call himself a fugitive. Colter simply obeyed the drive to keep moving.

Posted by Kathy at July 21, 2004 09:11 AM | TrackBack