Analog SFF, January-February 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

  With a pair of tweezers I disconnected the AI chip, took it over to the workroom's computer, and inserted it into the appropriate port. All of the identification data on the chip was code scrambled. I keyed for voice recognition and said, “Hello. Hello, hello, whoever you are.”

  No response.

  “Detective Inspector Harrington Jaggers, Devon ABCD here. I know you've just gone though a rough patch, old chicken, but it's about to get a good deal bumpier. Either you talk to me or I put this chip right back in the squab the same way I found it. Then one of two things happen: either Maddie girl will toss you in the dustbin, or perhaps she'll put you in a jumble sale and someone six years old with sticky fingers will take you all apart before he loses interest and goes on to something else. Or perhaps they'll make a Christmas tree decoration out of you. Pretty little bird. The way I read your battery consumption rate, you have another two—two and a half years you can click around those eyeballs up on some shelf until things go dark for good. But who can say? Sitting on the tree next to the candy cane once a year, looking through the plastic icicles, listening to tattooed and perforated children playing their new thunder rumbles. It might be fun listening to Dad and Uncle Mike wagging on endlessly about test matches, especially after they've gotten good and bladdered, before you go back in the box—”

  “Very well,” interrupted the computer's speakers in a female voice. “You got me.”

  “Indeed.” I thought I'd give my American partner a little Don Ameche wireless moment. "Mr. Watson, come here, I want you," I transmitted to Shad.

  The parrot flew through the door and landed atop the computer monitor. "The Story of Alexander Graham Bell, Nineteen thirty-nine, and that wasn't the Watson I was hoping for.”

  “That's all right, Shad. Right now you don't look much like Henry Fonda, anyway.” I pointed at the screen and Shad looked down between his feet. A female human CGI was on the screen.

  “That's not Loretta Young.”

  I looked at the lovely creature. “I do believe that's Rita Hayworth.” The computer generated image, indeed, looked like 1940s and ‘50s actress Rita Hayworth in her role as the sultry nightclub singer in Affair in Trinidad, with Glenn Ford. I frowned at Shad.

  “Nineteen fifty-two,” he said without looking up.

  Insufferable bird. I looked back at the screen. Pirate AI chip manufacturers paid no royalties for images, but steered clear of using images of still living celebrities who could afford to hire the forces of darkness necessary to hunt down and prosecute trademark poachers and encroachers. Rita, as always, was looking radiant. “Your name?” I asked her.

  “Lolita Doll.” Rita smiled demurely. “Honest, guv. That's the name I was born with, spelling and all. I'm from Plymouth by way of Land's End. Thanks for busting me out of that parakeet.”

  “You're not out of the feathers yet, love,” I said evenly. “I'm kind of curious how you wound up in that chip, how that chip wound up inside that bird, and especially how that bird wound up inside a wealthy woman's estate.”

  The image was silent. From his perch atop the screen, Shad said, “Is it just me or is Rita looking just a bit furtive?”

  “What's that parrot saying?” Rita—Lolita—asked me.

  “Detective Sergeant Shad opined that you appeared just a tad sneaky, Lolita. I agree you seem less than forthcoming.”

  Shad hopped down to the keyboard, did a little dance on the keys, and called up Lolita's previous in a new frame. “Whoa!” he exclaimed in mock shock. “Lolita,” said Shad, “I'd download your complete criminal record, but this sorry shadow of a computer only has fifteen hundred megagigs of memory.”

  I glanced at the list. Sealed juvenile previous weighing a third the megabyte weight of her adult convictions. She was a jewel thief primarily, some confidence work, not terribly competent at either. She couldn't have done much worse if she'd spent her mornings booking cells for her evenings through the Convict Accommodation Association. Did her first stint in H.M Prison and Remand Centre Exeter at the age of nineteen. Back in at twenty-two. Back again at twenty-five. According to the record I was reading she was nearing sixty and more than half of that time had been spent as a guest of His Majesty's government. According to her library record in the nick, she'd read every piece of children's fiction in the place. Psych evaluation: Terrific liar; couldn't change a battery; at risk for becoming institutionalized, which meant she's been inside so long she'd do almost anything to stay behind walls.

  “So you modified a robotic parakeet with a pirated mech AI chip capable of taking a human imprint to sneak past the security systems into some wealthy person's home,” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “You do the work yourself, Lolita?”

  “Sure.”

  Shad whistled a bar from the Woody Woodpecker song. True. If she had been Pinocchio instead of Rita Hayworth she would have had a California redwood hanging from between her eyes by now.

  “How could you be sure that parakeet would be chosen by your mark?” asked Shad.

  “The robbie was already sold to Annabelle Wallingford,” answered Lolita. “I did work release at Songbirds in Queen Street, Exeter. It's a tech shop sells robbie birds and accessories. You know, it's just up from Boston Tea Party, in next to the News?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I know it. It's owned by Frankie Statten, isn't it?”

  “Mr. Statten's the proprietor.”

  Shad glanced at me and I shrugged. “You were on work release?” I continued.

  “So?”

  “Doesn't say a whole lot for the rehab program up there,” observed Shad. “The parakeet robbie gimmick, Lolita: What made you think of it?” he asked her.

  No answer for a while, then Rita said, “I suppose it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  The parrot looked up at me. “Well, Sherlock, I guess she's got nothin’ to hide.”

  I sat down on a stool and looked again at Lolita's file. The picture of Lolita Doll—taken when her nat was about thirty—although of typical constabulary quality, was not unpleasant. Her photo gave the impression of a lonely, frightened girl trying to look tough and into her third decade of refusing to stand up straight. Her most recent photo showed her sadder, grayer, and a bit more stooped. “Swap your body for the AI chip and imprinting, did you?” I asked, not much interested in the answer, knowing it was going to be a lie.

  Rita Hayworth glanced at the window, then looked away. She nodded. “Just another meat suit, wasn't it. Didn't like the way I looked anyway. With what I would've made off the Wallingford job—I could've become ... I could've become ... why, just anybody, couldn't I.” Rita shrugged and looked down.

  “Who would you have liked to become, Lolita?” I asked her.

  “What're you, copper? Bleedin’ Mother Mary?” The sneer Rita had on her face was not attractive at all and was quite contradicted by the tears welling in her CGI's eyes.

  “Listen up, you sorry scrap of plastic and magnetic impulses,” snarled Shad into the workstation's camera pickup, “You are talking to Detective Inspector Harrington Jaggers of Interpol's Artificial Beings Crimes Division's Devon Office, late of the London Metropolitan Police, the cop who's put away enough blood-and-guts stone killers to fill the recruiting needs of every tattooed and drugged up prison gang in the United Kingdom, Wales, and the Maldives until the next millennium! So unless you want your highly illegal AI chip to accidentally find itself flushed down the Petting Place's toilet, me girl, you'd best straighten up and answer up, ‘less you want to find yourself up that bleedin’ pile of sand and rock, haulin’ a rucksack full of ruddy flippin’ shot puts!”

  He had begun as Jack Webb in The D.I., but at the end had slipped rather badly into Harry Andrews in The Hill.

  "Steady there, Shad," I transmitted.

  "Sorry," he sent back.

  Rita was looking rather wide-eyed at the parrot. After a moment her gaze shifted to me. “Sorry, Inspector. Didn't mean anything.”

  I cleared my throa
t. “Who would you have liked to become?” I asked her again.

  Rita was trying, struggling for words, her eyes welling with electronic tears. “I don't know. I want to be...” She looked directly at me. “I want to be safe.” She nodded to herself. “I'll tell you, inspector. Safe. Taken care of.” She glanced away for a moment, as though embarrassed. “Had that inside, kind of. You know?” She looked back at me. “Wasn't happy, though. I do so want to be happy.”

  “What about love, Lolita?”

  “You having a laugh, guv?”

  “No.”

  “Don't mix me up with the picture on the screen, Inspector. I'm near sixty. Love's something you read about in the romance graphs. Money, now.” She smiled wickedly. “They tells me money can't buy me love, but it do make the search a heap more comfortable.”

  “Spare us the brass, sister. What happened this time?” asked Shad.

  She glanced at the parrot and shrugged. “Me own fault. Flying around the place, scoping out the security systems, I ran flat into something. Never saw it. Jammed me up. Froze me solid. Everything but me eyes and ears. Butler found me next morning, put me on a shelf. Auntie shakes her head. Auntie's brother, Barney Bananas, takes me up to his room and sticks me on top a nine year old slice o’ wedding cake he was saving for his future missus, which give me sticky feet and a good look at his telly. ‘Course he only played this one vid he liked, over and over and over, day in and bleedin’ night out for a year three months a week and four days until Barney Wallingford died right in the middle of Lawrence Harvey gettin’ kissed by his mum for the last time as it turned out. Then they packed up Barmey Barney's belongings, including me, and stuck us all in the attic for another three years. The last I saw the light ‘til Maddie checked me out to bring me here.”

  "Is she lying?" I transmitted to Shad.

  “What was the name—” he began out loud.

  “The Manchurian Candidate," she answered, “Frank Sinatra, Lawrence Harvey, Janet Leigh, Angela Lansbury—”

  “The dir—”

  “John Frankenheimer.”

  “Pro—”

  “George Axelrod and John Frankenheimer, Executive Producer Howard W. Koch.”

  "She may have seen it," Shad reported back.

  “Don't you want to know who did Janet Leigh's hair styles?” Rita Hayworth asked the parrot. She pulled back the left corner of her mouth into a knowing smile. “Or do you already know?”

  The parrot looked up at me. “Only a fool bandies wits with an electron,” I offered.

  Shad looked back at the screen. “Who?” he asked.

  “I rest my case.”

  “Gene Shacove,” she answered.

  While Shad went on the net to check out her answer, he asked Lolita, “Why didn't your partner come and get you out?”

  Rita arched her lovely brows. “Partners look out for each other. If I had a partner you think I would've gotten into such a fix?” She looked down. “Four years,” she said. “Four years.”

  “What did you do all that time to keep from going crazy?” asked Shad.

  Rita stared wide eyed at Shad. “Why, birdie, I passed the time by playing a little solitaire.”

  We both fell silent as Shad and I reflected upon the famous trigger-the-killer line from the original The Manchurian Candidate. He pointed his wing at the frame next to Rita. Janet Leigh's hairstyles by Gene Shacove.

  Shad looked at Rita. “Ever see the remake to The Manchurian Candidate?"

  Rita nodded, smiling wickedly.

  “What'd you think?”

  “I'd rather go back and watch the original another fifty-five hundred times.” Her CGI looked at me. “What are you going to do with me, Inspector?”

  “To be perfectly honest, Lolita, I don't know. Hence, I'm going to pass the buck. I have a friend in London and this parrot, Dr. Watson here, is going to send your engrams and particulars to my friend for a second opinion.” Shad looked at me all wide eyed and quizzical. “Dr. Bing Ehrenberg. You'll find his address in my personal folder. Attach a copy of Lolita's previous along with a brief description of the current situation, what she's been through, and our assessment of her account, and send the lot to Dr. Ehrenberg. Include her complete prison record, as well.” I looked one last time at Rita. “While he's doing that, I'll see if I can repair old Ringo and get the bird singing again. Once I hear from the doctor, I'll make my decision.” I put her on pause.

  Later, as Lolita's engrams and history were bouncing off a satellite, I told Shad to destroy the AI chip once Ehrenberg confirmed receipt and installation. Then I turned my attention to Ringo. I brushed off the crumbly old icing from its toes, reattached the parakeet's robotic computer, anchored the minicards, reattached the remainder of the connections, buttoned it up, and listened as the bird began singing the sweetest bird songs. I held out a finger and with a flap of its wings it jumped up and perched there, shook the dust from its back and wings, the remaining bits of wedding cake from its toes, its happy song filling the air. Picking up the carrying case by the handle, I brought the patient back to our client. Maddie girl's face blossomed into smiles. “Bloody Nora, Ringo's as right as rain. I comes in here and says to meself this here Sherlock Holmes and his bleedin’ parrot're a couple of barmpots, but who's arse-up now? Eh? Ringo's right as rain.”

  “Like sands through the hour glass,” began Shad, “so are the days of our lives—”

  “Shad,” I interrupted with a mix of menace and smile.

  Since our credit numbers and equipment were out there somewhere awaiting delivery along with our puppies and kittens, we took Madeleine Wallingford's address ostensibly for billing purposes and agreed to put an advert in the window for an outing to the medieval underground tunnels of Exeter being organized by the Lympstone Society and another for Maddie's own group, the Order of St. Trinians, ta ta, Abyssinia, and all that twaddle. The door closed.

  Quoth the parrot, “Nevermore.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Jaggs, I think I see the purpose of this catch-and-release policy of yours. We're trying to build up the criminal stock out there in the mainstream so that there will be criminals enough for all law enforcement officers everywhere to make a living. It's part of the Blue Peace Environmental Movement, right?”

  “Although I truly admire the depth of your cynicism, Shad, certainly someone of your sensitivity and high intellect can appreciate that Lolita Doll has learned everything confinement at government expense can teach her.”

  “I heartily agree with your modest assessment of my mental prowess, Jaggs, but you must really be sticking something tender beneath a pinch bar if you have to resort to such blatant flattery. Who is this Dr. Ehrenberg, anyway?”

  “Chap in London. Therapist. Back when I was killed in Metro, he went a long way toward piecing me back together and into my first bio. If Bing says tossing what's left of Lolita Doll before a magistrate is what's best for her, then off she goes. If he says we do something else, then we'll see. Meanwhile, give Superintendent Matheson a ring and see if anything is brewing.”

  He did and something was. While Shad and I had been in Lympstone disposing of Lolita and the kaput parakeet matter, ABCD units in Manchester and London, in conjunction with local police authorities, had successfully detained all the improper puppy imprinting principals as well as their primary patrons. The bogus bio barons had been bagged. While muttering, Shad flew to the shop's garage and copied back into his Nigel Bruce, I bent to the task of repacking all those bloomin’ boxes of bird seed, tins of dog food, and little packets of catnip. Mama Bimbo's Cat House was going out of business, mon.

  * * * *

  As Shad drove us back to Exeter he said in his Watson voice, “Of course, Holmes, Frankie Statten was her partner.”

  “Of course.”

  “Why didn't the fellow rescue her?”

  “Never let it be said that Frank Statten unnecessarily placed himself at risk for anything or anybody.”

  “Honor among thieves. Hump
h! Stranding her like that,” said Watson in disgust. “What do you suppose it was like, Holmes, after watching that vid a few thousand times with Barmy Barney then shut up in a little box in the dark for another three years? Nothing to move but your eyeballs? Nothing to think about but The Manchurian Candidate." He shuddered convincingly. “Had to make two weeks of solitary confinement seem a mere stroll in the park.”

  “It must have been strikingly like an experience I had years ago in London shortly after I died, Watson.” I wondered slightly at my use of the “Watson” name. Came devilishly easy to the tongue for someone who swore the name would never pass his lips.

  “In a cast were you, Holmes?” asked Watson. “Held in stasis a long time, old trout? Medically induced coma?”

  “Not at all, old fellow. Valerie took me to see a showing of the Bette Davis-Lillian Gish classic, The Whales of August." For once Shad didn't immediately come back with the release date. He simply shuddered.

  “Dear me,” he said. “You gave me quite a start, Holmes. Had a shockingly similar experience with Nadine not long ago,” he said.

  “Really.”

  “I should say so. They had the bloody thing at the Exeter Picture House. Special treat. I'd never seen it before. The Whales of August. Ought to require theaters to post well-being warnings before showing the blithering health hazard.”

  “Were you convinced you were running a risk, doctor?”

  “Holmes, it was like watching quartz crystals grow in real time.”