A Quantum Murder

by Peter F. Hamilton

"Shall we go in?" Morgan said. "In light of what we learned from Maurice Knebel, I believe we have quite a bit to discuss."

  "And no messing," Greg said gloomily.

  * * * *

  Julia led them into the big executive conference room, her pumps treading soundlessly on the pile carpet. Biolums came on ahead of her, banishing shadows. Grey tongues of fog licked at the windows. Westwood could be in a different universe by now for all she could tell.

  The conference room was empty with just the seven of them, no secretaries, no aides. She shrugged out of her wind-cheater and hung it on the back of her chair before she sat down. Freshets of cool air trickled across her bare arms, carrying away the perspiration.

  Grandpa, bring Royan in on this. I imagine we'll need him.

  Besides, she wanted all her true friends together.

  Plugging him in now, Juliet.

  Teddy lowered himself gingerly into one of the padded chairs around the table, nodding approvingly. His combat leathers squeaked softly as he put his hands behind his head and sat back. "Man, now this is the life."

  "Do you want anything to drink?" Julia asked.

  "Hey, my kinda gal, you gotta beer?"

  "I'll look," Rachel said. "Anybody else?" She sauntered over to the mirrored nineteen-twenties drinks cabinet.

  Julia opaqued all the windows, cutting off the sight of that austere fog.

  ON LINE. her recessed flatscreen printed. HI SNOWY

  "Hi."

  Morgan raised an eyebrow.

  "I'm here as well," Philip's voice announced.

  Julia enjoyed the startled look on Teddy's face, the way his eyes darted round. Greg had told her Teddy took his religion very seriously indeed. Grandpa was a little bit too much like reincarnation.

  "Everybody's up to date?" Greg asked. "Julia? Royan?"

  "Yah."

  YES YES YES.

  "OK," Greg said. "We have a new player on the field, James MacLennan."

  "I'm assembling a profile," Philip said. "Every byte I can find, public and private files; plus a financial run down. Should be ready in quarter of an hour."

  "So what happened?" Julia asked. "Did MacLennan let Bursken out for the night?"

  "I was thinking about that," Greg said. "We're faced with the same problem for Bursken as we were with a tekmerc penetration mission. How did he get in and out of Launde Abbey without leaving any trace?"

  "Oh, yes," she felt silly for asking.

  "And in any case, Eleanor and I saw Nicholas do it."

  "It could have been an alternative past," Eleanor said; she sounded doubtful.

  "No. If you ask me," Greg said slowly. "I think it was Nicholas Beswick who actually physically murdered Kitchener."

  "Oh, Jesus," Eleanor murmured.

  He patted her hand, receiving an exasperated glance.

  "Physically, he did it. And that was what threw me the first time. Nicholas Beswick isn't the type. We all know that. He couldn't harm a fly, not ordinarily."

  "Ah!" Gabriel slapped a hand against the table. "Now I get it, the laser paradigms."

  "Right!" Greg said. "At some time during that Thursday, Nicholas Beswick was targeted by a laser which loaded a paradigm into his brain. One which ordered him to kill Kitchener. And I think I know what the paradigm was: Liam Bursken's memories, his personality."

  "You told me the Stocken Hall team were constructing artificial memories from scratch," Julia said. "Like a perfect virtual reality recording. How could they know what Bursken's memories consist of?"

  Greg grinned. "Philip, you listening?"

  "I'm still here, m'boy."

  "Care to tell your granddaughter exactly what you are?"

  "Oh," Julia groaned. "Of course."

  "I'm not saying MacLennan copied every last thought from Bursken's brain," Greg said. "Just the basics would do. That unique psychotic behavioural trait. That's what he was after."

  "If paradigms are that sophisticated, why didn't MacLennan simply load a straightforward kill order into Beswick?" Morgan asked.

  "Because they're not that sophisticated, not yet," Greg said. "All the Stocken team have so far is a few ersatz sensorium experiences, nothing more. That's why MacLennan needed Bursken, as raw material. I told you Nicholas wasn't the type. If MacLennan had just given him something like an advanced version of a hypnotic order to kill Kitchener he might have refused to do it when the moment actually arrived. Not everybody can kill; we can, you, me, and Teddy, because we've been trained to. In battlefield combat situations it's pure reflex, we don't even think. In counterinsurgency or ambush situations it becomes harder, you have time to think, to moralize; but if you hate your enemy enough it's not much of a problem. That's why company commanders always had such trouble finding genuinely good snipers, it's not just marksmanship, it's a question of temperament. It's a rare person who can kill without any qualms.

  "I kept asking myself all through this case, who could do such a thing? Cold-blooded butchery on a sixty-seven year-old. The only person I knew was Bursken. Out of all Stocken's inmates he is the one who can kill without hesitation or remorse every time; he actually enjoyed it, he believed what he was doing was right.

  "I'd say MacLennan recorded Liam Bursken's thoughts from a neuro coupling, and then combined them with an order to kill Kitchener. Then after Nicholas Beswick committed the murder the paradigm wiped itself from his mind, presumably along with his recollection of everything he did under its influence. The Stocken Hall research team has already developed a treatment they call magic photons, which can erase a memory, providing they know exactly what it is. And MacLennan certainly did, he made it."

  "If MacLennan wanted a copy of Liam Bursken's memories, the only way he could obtain them would be through a cortical interface," Morgan said. "That means Bursken would have to undergo surgery."

  "Good point," Greg said. "It's something we can look for, some solid physical proof. Although if he underwent the surgery at Stocken you can bet your life there will turn out to be a legitimate reason for it. But there's no doubt in my mind." He turned to Eleanor. "Remember what Nicholas did right after he smothered Kitchener?"

  She drew a breath, thinking back. "He crossed himself."

  "Right. But Nicholas is virtually an atheist. Bursken, on the other hand, is a religious fruitcake; he believes he kills his victims because God tells him they're sinners. I'm telling you, it was Bursken's mentality in Nicholas's brain. A real live cyborg. I knew Nicholas was innocent." He looked pleased. More like relieved, Julia thought, studying him out of the corner of her eye.

  "I know he's innocent, Greg," she said, hating herself for being such a pragmatist, for puncturing his mood. "We all do. But you have still got the problem of proving it in a court of law."

  "The prosecution still has the knife," Gabriel said. "Pretty strong evidence, especially when you'll be dealing with a jury that's going to be lost after the first ten minutes of specialist technical testimonies."

  "Then we shall have to produce some counter-evidence," Eleanor said smartly. "Something that Inspector Langley can't ignore, something that'll mean Nicholas never gets into court. The paradigm itself." She looked at Julia. They both smiled. "Royan," they chorused.

  * * * *

  Julia followed the burn's progress through her nodes. The others used the time to relax; Teddy trying to chat up Rachel over by the drinks cabinet; Greg, Eleanor, Morgan, and Gabriel all with their heads together, talking in low tones.

  Eleanor still hadn't let go of Greg, her hand gripping his, fingers entwined.

  Royan in hotrod mode was awesome to watch. She had learned a lot about hacking techniques from him; modesty aside, she was good, she knew that. Good enough to crack Jakki Coleman's bank account—and Lloyds-Tashoko's guardian programs were the best corporate money could buy. But she watched Royan's infiltration of Stocken Hall's 'ware with something approaching envy; the speed of the penetration was incredible, and he didn't have lightware crunchers to back him up.

  He
didn't even bother trying to crack the authorized user entry codes, he went straight for the management routines. A melt virus got him past the first-level guardian programs, opening up the prison's datanet. The structure unfolded in her mind, an origami molecule, individual terminals and 'ware cores linked together by a spiderweb of databuses. She had access to menus of low-grade security files stored in the terminals, along with the Hall's day to day administration details, and financial datawork. But the cell security and surveillance circuits were blocked, along with a vast series of memories in the cores.

  Royan squirted a more complex virus at the second-level guardian programs, the ones governing access to restricted core memories.

  Let's see what the medical department has on Bursken, Julia said, studying the menu. At the least his file should tell us whether or not he's got a cortical interface.

  Nice one, Snowy. It isn't on the restricted list. Here we go.

  He pulled a Home Office identification code from the administration officer's terminal, and used it to request a squirt from the records terminal in the medical division.

  "This is Bursken's medical file," she said as the datasheets swarmed down the conference room's flatscreens. "Grandpa, review it for implants, please."

  The datasheets flashed past, too fast to read. "Here we go, Juliet." The deluge of bytes halted. She was looking at some kind of official Home Office package. "Hell, girl, they really were wetting themselves over Bursken. This confinement order gives the director, that is MacLennan, permission to employ any method he sees fit to restrain Liam Bursken, including chemical suppression, or even remedial surgery such as a lobotomy."

  "And who would ever complain?" Greg mused, not looking up from his flatscreen. "Even the human rights lawyers wouldn't bother arguing in Bursken's favour. He's beyond the lowest of the low. You could do anything you wanted to him, and no one would give a shit."

  "I don't know about anything, boy," Philip said. "But a month ago he was wheeled into surgery and given a cortical interface." A new datasheet slid into place. "It was ordered by MacLennan, part of a new mental assessment project. According to this it was supposed to provide data on his psychotic state trigger stimulants. Follow up results are restricted."

  "I knew that ..." Greg looked puzzled for a moment, then clicked his fingers. "Of course, it was Stephanie Rowe who filled me in on Bursken, MacLennan just sat there and let her recite facts to me. How stupid of me."

  "You weren't interrogating them," Eleanor said.

  "Thanks," he said.

  Julia's nodes showed her the second-level guardian programs falling as the virus penetrated. Huge stacks of data materialized into the nodes' visualization, dense packages of colourless binary digits extending out to her mind's horizon.

  A batch of Royan's tracer programs slithered through them. Bursken's surgical records vanished from the flatscreen in front of her. PROBLEM, it printed.

  "What's the matter?" Greg asked.

  I THINK I'VE FOUND THE PARADIGM FILE IT'S LISTED AS BURSKEN'S CORTICAL INTERFACE FOLLOW-UP RESULTS, AND IT HAS A DIRECTOR-ONLY ACCESS CODE

  "So what's the problem?"

  THEY WILL KNOW IF I ACCESS IT. A NOTIFICATION PROCEDURE IS HARD WIRED IN TO THE CORES. ALL SQUIRTS ARE LOGGED AUTOMATICALLY

  "But the cores think we're the Home Office," Julia said. "Under that premise, we're entitled to access their data. Berkeley operates Stocken under government licence."

  IF WE ARE THE HOME OFFICE, HOW COME WE CAN ORDER A SQUIRT FOR A DIRECTOR-ONLY FILE???

  MACLENNAN WOULD HAVE TO BE AT THE HOME OFFICE TO AUTHORIZE THE SQUIRT

  "OK, let's look at what we want to achieve," Greg said. "What we need is for Inspector Langley to go into Stocken first thing tomorrow morning, armed with a data warrant, and find that paradigm. So we have to be sure it's there before we send him in. Is there any chance this file will crash wipe if you order a squirt?"

  NO.

  "Then I'd say do it. Morgan?"

  "I can't see any objection. Even if you were to interrogate MacLennan, a lawyer might conceivably neutralize your testimony; there are still some legal queries over evidence obtained psychically. As Eleanor said, we need tangible proof. The evidence is piling up against MacLennan, to my mind he's guilty as hell. It has to be the killer paradigm in that file."

  "OK, squirt it over, Royan."

  It came through the link, a large construct, taking half a second to transfer. In her terminal cube it was nothing, a moire patchwork of randomized data. In her mind—

  She opened a secure file in one of her memory nodes and let the construct fill it. Analysis programs sifted through the bytes, trying to identify coherent segments. The patterns they formed were like nothing she had ever seen before; there were analogue visual sequences, interlaced with data pulses that defied decryption. She accessed one at random.

  Chiaroscuro images, black and scarlet, bloomed silently around her. She was standing on a rainswept street at night, parallel rows of cheap terrace housing, their walls shimmering as sheets of water sluiced down over the bricks, it was almost as though they were melting. There were no stars above, only empty night. A solitary figure walked down the middle of the road, a man in a sodden greatcoat. Julia felt her heart ignite with exaltation.

  She was stalking through woodland, the smooth boles of dead beech trees sliding past, a deep claret in colour. Ribbons of black ivy were clawing their way up the crumbling bark, crisp dry leaves like heart-shaped flakes of ash crunched underfoot. She circled a glade, the procession of boles eclipsing the sight of the two young lovers in its centre. All she caught was fleeting glimpses, their bodies moved in a stop-motion sequence. And they were unmarried, profaning the gift of life with their casual coupling. Their skin was salmon pink, their scattered clothes burgundy and ebony. A knife was heavy in her hand, its blade a glowing coral.

  Her mind was alive with whispers, enticing dark promises.

  God's voice. His strength flooding through her limbs.

  A face coalesced before her. An old man, with bright smiling eyes, and wispy hair. Mocking eyes. Black eyes, light wells. The man stared into hell and laughed in joy at what he saw.

  The whispers grew bolder, caressing her.

  Exit.

  The nodes shut off with an almost audible snap.

  She took a deep gulp of air, shuddering violently.

  "What is it?" Morgan asked sharply.

  "I'm all right." She held up her hands, surprised to find them trembling. "I was accessing some of the paradigm's visual routines, that's all. Greg's right, it is made up from Bursken's memories." She stopped, remembering the confused montage. A smell of the street's sweet fresh rain lingered in the executive conference room. And she detested the God-violator Edward Kitchener. Feeling a wild primitive joy that he was dead dead dead. "Dear Lord, he's not human." She stared at Greg. "And you looked into his mind all the time you interviewed him?"

  "Goes with the job."

  "Yech!"

  "So that settles it, then," Greg said. "Royan, do you understand the paradigm?"

  MOST SECTIONS ARE ANALOGUE BUT THERE IS ONE SEQUENCE WHICH IS A DIGITAL COMPOSITION.

  "Is it the instruction to kill Kitchener?"

  GREEDY GREEDY GREEDY IS WHAT YOU ARE! THE DIGITAL SEQUENCE IS STRANGE, I WILL HAVE TO WRITE A DECRYPTION PROGRAM. TELL YOU TOMORROW.

  "OK," Greg said casually, as though he didn't care.

  Liar! Julia thought.

  Teddy walked back from the drinks cabinet to stand next to Greg, a dumpy German beer bottle in his hand, condensation mottling its silver and ice-blue label. "Hell, man, all this shit about paradigms turning the Beswick kid into a cyborg, it's kinda screwy, but I'll buy it. But you still ain't told us the why of it. How come this MacLennan guy wants to snuff his old teacher? He did all right by Kitchener. Christ, made it to the top in his field. Head of a premier-grade research institution, respected man, big bucks backing him. What's he wanna go and risk all that for?"

  "Wrong que
stion," Gabriel said. She was smiling faintly, head tilted right back on her chair, stating at the ceiling.

  "What you ought to ask is why did MacLennan kill Clarissa Wynne? That's the real question. After he murdered her he had to get rid of Kitchener; it was inevitable. He was covering himself to protect that cushy number he's wound up with."

  "The neurohormone!" Julia exclaimed, quietly pleased she could keep up with Gabriel.

  WELL DONE, SNOWY

  Morgan flicked an ironic glance at the camera.

  Gabriel suddenly leant forward, resting her elbows on the table, fixing Teddy with an intent stare. "MacLennan must have been worried that once Kitchener perfected the retrospective neurohormone he would look into the past and see him murdering Clarissa. That's why poor old Nicholas Beswick was also ordered to destroy the bioware which produced the neurohormone, and wipe the Abbey's Bendix. To eliminate any possibility of anybody looking back. Lucky he missed those ampoules. I don't suppose MacLennan could think of every contingency."

  "I couldn't have seen that far back," Eleanor said. "A week was a hell of an effort. Eleven years would have been utterly impossible."

  "Yes," Gabriel said. "I never used to look more than a couple of days into the future when I had my gland. That was partly psychological, admittedly. But ... well, with Kitchener working on it, who knows what might have been accomplished in the end."

  "I think I've found the reason why she was murdered," Philip said.

  "Yeah?" Greg perked up. "Go on."

  "Ten years ago there was a paper published on the possibilities of laser paradigms applied to education. The first of its kind. It was co-authored by James MacLennan and Clarissa Wynne."

  "Ten years?" Morgan asked. "We confirmed that World Bank loan was eleven years ago."

  "Published posthumously," Greg said. "That's why MacLennan killed her. I'll give you good odds that Clarissa did the real breakthrough work on paradigms while she was at Launde. And MacLennan was sharp enough to realize the possibilities. He was very keen to stress that when I talked to him. Once they are perfected, paradigms will be worth a fortune. He reckoned the entire penal system would have be rebuilt from the ground up, and not just in this country. I suppose it would be the same for schools and universities as well, paradigms could replace lessons and lectures. And he's leading the project. He'll get all the fame and the glory, not to mention a share of the royalties. And it should have been her in charge of Berkeley's team."