Transilience

by Kevin Bragg

  ‘How very generous of you.’

  I stood and grabbed my coat and hat. ‘Think of it this way: it’s a bargain compared to twenty mil.’

  4

  Outside HTS, I hailed the first free cab to come my way and hopped in.

  ‘Where to, mister?’ asked a red-headed baritone who looked too young, and too skinny, to be wearing a voice that deep.

  ‘5021 Tireman, Commercial District.’

  He punched the address into his navigation system. Even without getting a good look at him, I knew right away he was human. Android cabbies had a built-in navigation unit and, consequently, were liberated from the need to go through the same rituals as this guy. An android never struggled with getting lost.

  We drove in silence, and I used the time to reflect on my meeting with Porter. The window for this case was pretty tight, and a successful outcome rested largely on the assumption that the blackmailers lived on Mars. This aspect of the case never came up in the meeting, and I didn’t want to press it because I needed the credits. If they did live somewhere else in the galaxy, all I could do was pass along the info to Porter and hope he got to them before they went public – and that he’d still pay me when the dust settled.

  ‘Any reason someone would be following us?’

  ‘Following us? What?’

  ‘A metallic blue Electroglide has been tailing us since I picked you up.’

  I shifted in my seat to get a better look out the back window. ‘That’s not an Electroglide!’ I shouted out like some halfwit.

  ‘Nah, two cars behind us,’ he replied, graciously overlooking my statement of the obvious.

  I caught a glimpse of the car, driven by a guy in a flat cap and a pair of aviators, at the exact moment it made a left at the first intersection inside the Commercial District.

  Immediately, I had my earpiece in and dialled my office.

  ‘Pam!’ I barked as soon as I heard ‘hello’.

  ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘I need you to access the street cameras in Commercial in the vicinity of Brush and Harper. Look for a metallic blue Electroglide, single driver, male, and wearing a cap and sunglasses. I’m only a few blocks away. You can fill me in when I get there.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ she replied automatically.

  ‘Would you like me to try to catch the ’glide?’ my driver asked after I rang off the line. ‘It shouldn’t be too difficult.’

  ‘Tempting, but I am pressed for time.’ However, in the excitement of the moment, I leaned closer to the partition separating the front and back of the cabin. ‘How did you know we had someone following us? The Electroglide must be one of the most popular models on this rock.’

  ‘I spend all day driving these roads. Most of the time seeing it through my rearview and side cameras.’ He paused for a moment, trying to find the words. ‘I guess it’s just something I’ve picked up. The same make and colour car with the same plate number, always two to three cars back. It sticks out. You know?’

  I didn’t know; however, I did know my esteem for the ginger chauffeur trebled. This was the kinda guy I could work with and I regarded him with newfound interest.

  He turned down Tireman, my office visible at the end of the block.

  The car came to a gentle stop in front. ‘That’ll be twenty-five credits.’

  I put my right thumb on a reader mounted to the back of the driver’s seat. It read the microchip embedded under my skin. A screen popped up on the partition glass that showed the amount of the fare and an option to include a tip. I added 10 credits and confirmed the total on a touch screen next to the thumb pad.

  ‘Listen,’ I said as I prepared to get out. ‘I might need a wheelman in the coming days. You wouldn’t want to earn a little on the side, would you?’

  ‘I dunno. It depends on the type of work, I guess.’

  ‘Pretty straightforward. I call you and ask for a lift to some place. If you’re free and you want the dough, you say, “be right there”. Here.’ I passed one of my business cards through a small slot in the partition.

  ‘A private eye,’ he said as he looked at it. ‘You workin’ on something big, Mr’ – he glanced back down at the card – ‘Helmqvist?’

  ‘You can call me Dan. I can’t really discuss it at the moment. But what do you think? Up for a late-night prowl if I call you?’

  He slid my card into his shirt pocket. ‘Sure, I could use the extra credits.’

  He produced one of his own cards.

  Dial-A-Taxi

  Steve Davies

  Tel: 1605 21872874

  ‘Superb. I’ll contact you if something comes up.’

  *

  Before I went up to my office, I had one more phone call to make.

  ‘Hello, Danny.’

  ‘Hey Erica. I hope I didn’t call at a bad time.’

  ‘Actually, your timing is perfect, I just finished my shift.’

  ‘I know we have a date tomorrow…’ I paused for a breath, which gave Erica enough time to interject an oh. Disappointment hung heavy on the line. I regrouped and ploughed on.

  ‘But I just landed a big case. I doubt I’ll be finished with it in time. Could we rebook for the day after?’

  Another oh, but this time it conveyed a definite sense of relief. ‘That works for me, Danny. In fact, it’s probably better because I have Sunday off. I’ll be able to stay out as long as I want and not have to suffer at work the next day.’

  That last comment seemed innocent enough but certainly left the door open for possibilities.

  ‘Great! I’ll call DKY and reschedule for reservations at eight on Saturday. That sound alright?’

  ‘Sounds perfect. Do you still have my address?’

  ‘Ingrained in my memory.’ That earned me a laugh. ‘I’ll pick you up around seven thirty. Cool?’

  ‘Very much so. Bye Danny.’

  Erica Green worked the day shift at the nearby 24-hour automated diner I frequented most days on my way to the office. She had long, black hair, high cheekbones and almond-coloured eyes a shade darker than her skin tone. Probably in her late twenties or early thirties at a stretch. I never asked out of politeness. We had been flirting with each other for months before I finally grew a pair and asked her out. Figures it’d fall in the middle of this new case. Saturday might have been a gamble. I’d have either nailed the blackmailers, and had a reason to celebrate. Or, I’d have failed to find them, and had a cause for commiseration.

  *

  Polished metal framed a frosted glass door stencilled with my name, vocation and telephone number in thick, black copperplate. The dreary eggshell white walls surrounding the door radiated uninspired monotony. Amber Martian ceramic tiles covered the hallway floor and spilled into my office. The combination of walls and tiles gave the place a clinical feel.

  The opaque door softened the light coming into the hallway from the reception area. I watched the blurred figure of Pam, my office assistant, working at her desk. She glanced up as I entered before resuming her typing. I sat down on the edge of her desk and dropped my trilby on my right knee.

  ‘Hi Pam. Any luck on the Electroglide?’

  ‘Between his speed and erratic behaviour, the driver violated approximately twelve different traffic laws. I managed to grab his plate number, though.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘According to the Transportation Authority’s database, it belongs to a Libra scheduled to be demolished, and the plate’s number recycled back into the system.’

  She pulled up a screen grab from one of the city’s street cameras on her computer screen. Even with all of the clean-up Pam had done on the picture, the guy hid behind the bill of his flat cap and his shades. An ID would be impossible.

  Stolen plates on what was most likely a stolen car driven by a stranger in a tweed hat. I had a couple of very good notions as to why he’d been tailing me, but nothing solid to go on. And I had a blackmail case to solve.

  ‘Nice work, Pam. A few things don’t add up but we�
��ll have to let this one go.’

  ‘Add up? I fail to see how this conversation involves maths.’ She didn’t mean to make a joke, but I laughed all the same. From time to time, I forgot she’s an android. And despite the fact that she seemed to be acting more and more human, she didn’t deal too well with some abstractions or colloquialisms. I found it an endless source of mirth but I may be the only one in the office who did.

  ‘Figure of speech, Pam. Anyway, thanks to your meddling into my perfectly serene afternoon, I now have two cases.’ I then proceeded to fill in my assistant on both meetings.

  ‘Since you can work quicker than I can, you start digging into HTS Intergalactic’s board members, R&D guys, and head of security to see if you can connect any of them to the blackmail. I’ll refresh my memory on the UN bombing for the Rennick case, and we’ll discuss our findings in a few hours.’

  ‘How would you like me to proceed with my task?’

  ‘Sneak through the back door and dig into email records, employee history, anything you can think of. Check into their personal lives, as well. When a company has a secret this dirty, a mountain of debt is usually a pretty good motive for blackmail. My guess is that someone employed there is trying to make some quick credits.’

  She acknowledged by way of turning back to her computer and banging on the keys with purpose. A function completely unnecessary for an android, but one that has become accepted practice. Most businesses, or organisations that use robots for administrative purposes, have found an android sitting at a desk, staring blankly off into space, a tad unnerving. The solution was to make them appear as human as possible, and therefore most of them have been programmed to use a keyboard. Pam, however, has turned keyboard use into a new art form.

  I settled into my office chair, fixed myself a gin and tonic from the right hand desk drawer that served as my mini bar, and began sifting through archived media reports of the UN bombing.

  *

  Five years ago, a radical group called the Galton Society claimed responsibility for setting off a small nuclear bomb at the UN’s Millennial Park. The blast wiped out the entire UN complex and a sizeable chunk of Manhattan’s Lower East Side. In the 24 hours between the explosion and the time it took for the previously unheard of Galton Society to take credit, Earth descended into pandemonium. Were it not for the manifesto sent out by the Society and the subsequent arrest of Paul Fischer, a high-powered DC lobbyist with a beef against immigrants in the US, I had no doubt that humanity would have destroyed itself.

  However, the feds caught a couple of lucky breaks. First, they managed to pull UN surveillance video from a cloud server that showed Fischer entering the UN about 30 minutes before the explosion. Using facial recognition software, the feds also found images of him at various locations in Manhattan leading up to the blast. And the icing on the cake: they found him in his room at the Four Seasons, which happened to be outside the destruction zone. They booked him as suspect numero uno.

  The second break came when FBI techs cracked the encryption on his laptop and found a copy of the Galton Society’s manifesto on his hard drive. The manifesto called for the expulsion of all ‘lesser races’ from the great centres of civilisation.

  Once law enforcement had a name and face to go with it, information about Fischer came in thick and fast. At trial, eyewitness testimony corroborated the video footage and a series of digital trails all pointed to Fischer being in Manhattan without a clear objective. His defence argued he was there to meet a potential donor but could not supply supporting evidence. Purported phone conversations, a plane ticket, and the hotel room being paid for by this mystery person all led right back to Fischer, himself.

  The case against Paul Fischer may have not been a slam-dunk, but it didn’t really matter in the end. He looked like a guilty man, the AG had enough to pin him to the scene of the crime and a jury agreed.

  Fortunately, I was saved from any more reading by Pam’s voice over the intercom.

  ‘Sir, I believe I’ve found something.’

  ‘Great, come into my office and we’ll discuss it.’

  In she came and sat in a tired, old armchair facing my desk.

  ‘Okay, Pam, tell me what you’ve got.’

  ‘I found a virus attached to a copy of Samuel Porter’s updated schedule that his office assistant sent to him at the start of the work day.’

  ‘His office assistant? Seems a tad clichéd doesn’t it?’

  ‘I am not certain how to answer that, sir. However, the virus itself was an effective means to her ends. When Mr Porter dumped the schedule into his calendar, the virus propagated to all of his other devices once he synchronised them, making it difficult to track back to the original source.’

  ‘Clever girl. What’s her name?’

  ‘Lyric Voss.’

  5

  Because of Pam’s success at finding the culprit behind the blackmail video, and my failure to unearth anything interesting with the UN bombing, I was immediately struck with an urge to take over Pam’s share of the workload.

  ‘Find anything new in your search?’ she asked, as if reading my mind.

  ‘Nothing. I have no reason to believe anyone other than Fischer blew up the UN five years ago. I have messages left at the AG’s office in New York and with a reporter who covered the attack and subsequent trial, but that’s all I’ve got. Unreturned messages and nothing anyone couldn’t find with a quick internet search.’

  My assistant stared at me.

  ‘What, Pam?’

  ‘Based on my calculations, there is an eighty-eight per cent chance that Paul Fischer was innocent.’

  ‘Eighty-eight per cent?’

  ‘I rounded to the nearest whole number, sir.’

  ‘Why don’t you think he did it?’

  ‘That is a complicated question.’

  ‘Enlighten me.’ I rocked back in my chair, highball glass in my hand, prepared to listen to the insights of an android.

  ‘Paul Fischer lacked the means and the motive to carry out an event such as the UN bombing.’

  ‘He hated immigrants,’ I reminded her. ‘He spent his entire professional career trying to kick them out of the US.’

  ‘He had no history of violence, sir. No arrest records. No known association with violent xenophobic organisations. Nothing to suggest he was capable of, or willing to use, violence. His modioperandi involved lobbying for legislative changes and supporting candidates who shared his ideology.’

  ‘First time for everything. Not to mention they had video evidence of him walking into the place with a backpack.’

  ‘And now we move to means. Based on everything I have read about the case and Mr Fischer, he did not possess the technical skills to build a small nuclear device capable of avoiding detection by UN security officials. Naturally, he could have hired someone to build it for him, but that does not change the fact that law enforcement officials did not find any evidence of contact with radioactive materials. He passed through a security check without issue.’

  ‘None of this exonerates him.’

  ‘Even if one concedes he took a bomb into the UN compound, how did he survive the blast? His movements prior to his entrance are well documented, and show too much indifference to surveillance cameras to be suspicious. However, not one camera caught him exiting. Did he sneak out and set it off remotely?’

  ‘Perhaps he used this to his advantage. You know, let everyone think you are there to throw off suspicion and then sneak out undetected,’ I interjected.

  ‘If that were the case, why did he stay in Manhattan and increase his chances of being caught? Why would he even place himself at the blast zone, clearly in harm’s way, only to appear somewhere else? As I said before, it’s sloppy on his part if he had designs on not being caught. Logic would dictate that he either disguised his appearance so that he could flee the scene undetected, or he died in the blast. I contend he did not know he was being implicated.’

  ‘And from this, you’ve arriv
ed at only a twelve per cent probability of his guilt?’

  ‘That is correct, sir.’

  ‘Who do you think did it? Mara Kitterman?’

  Pam furrowed her brow in thought. ‘Yes, and no. The responsible party was more likely Nolan Kitterman than Mara—’

  ‘Nolan… What?’ I cut her off. Pam hates to be cut off. Her expression gave clear indication of that. I continued. ‘He’d been dead for, like, five years when the attack happened. How could you even possibly think it was him?’

  ‘Because the attack bears a remarkable resemblance to a series of bombings on Earth, which happened twenty years ago, for which I have a theory Nolan Kitterman was responsible.’

  I nearly choked on my gin. ‘You have a theory?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘This should be good. Let’s hear it.’

  ‘With respect to these earlier attacks, unlike Mr Fischer, Nolan Kitterman possessed the technical knowledge, the financial means and the irrational hatred of immigrants required to accomplish the feat.’

  The ‘feat’ was a series of dirty bombings targeted at power plants and bridges in nine different countries about two decades ago. Another racist group, using similar language to the Galton Manifesto, claimed responsibility and vowed to strike again if the West did not revise their attitude towards allowing members of less prosperous countries inside their borders.

  ‘Explain, please.’

  ‘When Nolan Kitterman’s wife died, he demonstrated a notable change in his behaviour.’

  Albanian gangsters had gunned down Beatrice Kitterman in the middle of the street during a shoot-out with London Metro Police. In the aftermath, he went apeshit and started calling for the forcible removal of all non-British people from the island. When his ranting fell on deaf ears, he took four-year-old Mara and disappeared behind the thick walls of a Northern Ireland estate, never to be seen again until his funeral.