Asimov's SF, June 2011

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Amado stared at him for a moment. “Are you asking me to answer as a witness or a suspect?”

  “I don't know. I want to find her. Do you?”

  Amado pulled back as if Huang had slapped him. “What do you think?”

  “Depends. Did you play hide and seek with her?”

  Amado looked away from Huang. Metta watched them with her lips parted. The breath escaped from Amado. “Yeah. I've been worried about it.”

  “Why?”

  Amado squirmed in his seat. “You'll have to tell the chief.”

  “Tell him what?”

  “I have a webcam in my office. And I keep a blog.” He slid a hand into his hair, twisting the tendrils into gravity-defying forms. “I've got Metta's interface placed so she can't see either the camera or my PC. I'm careful about keeping identifying details off the blog, but I can't help wondering if someone used it to time the break-in.”

  Blood pounded in Huang's ears. “And you haven't gone to the chief about this?”

  “I know, I know.” Amado leaned forward in his seat and put his face in his hands. “It's against so many rules, I've been afraid of being fired.”

  “Why are you telling me now?”

  “I wanted to the other night, but you had her with you and . . . I didn't. I was scared, but I'm not stupid enough to lie. Besides . . . you care about her, too. To a lot of the guys, she's a tool, or at best, a pet.”

  “Had you discussed rebooting her from a backup with anyone?”

  “Huh?” Amado looked up. “I mean, yeah, everyone in the industry talks about it.”

  “Anyone specific?”

  Amado's shoulders sagged. “There was a thread of comments on my tagboard about her. I can get you a list of the handles, but it won't do much good. I don't require registration, so their profiles will mostly be anonymous.”

  “I'd like to read the tagboard anyway. Anyone else?”

  “What? Do you want a list of all of my computer friends? For crying out loud, I went to MIT. Everyone I know talks about this.” His jaw dropped as Huang stared at him. “You've got to be kidding me.”

  “I'm not.”

  Wrapping his hands in his hair, Amado pulled it straight up and groaned. “Fine.”

  “Thanks.” Was there any way to tell if Amado was lying, or if he had made up the blog as a bizarre sort of alibi? The blog made a case for “it could be anybody,” but Huang had trouble buying it. The coincidence seemed too great.

  On the other hand, Amado and Metta had been playing hide and seek for ages; someone could have seen the chance and planned for it. His thoughts backed up. How long had they been playing hide and seek? He tried to remember the first time he had seen Amado ducking under surveillance cameras and sneaking into Metta's blind spots. Was it a standard AI game, or had Amado suggested it?

  He made a mental note to do a search to see if other AIs played it. “I'd like to get that list now.”

  Amado hesitated. “My office is sort of a mess.”

  Huang raised his eyebrows at the same time as Metta cleared her throat. Amado turned red. “Sorry. Yeah. Don't know what I was thinking. Come on.”

  His office hid under piles of cables and random computer parts. The funk of old soy sauce hung in the air. Amado sat down at his desk and shoved a memory stick into his computer. As Huang came around the desk to watch him copy the files, Metta shook her head in dismay. “That little sneak. Look at that.”

  “What?” Huang took a step closer, ready to stop Amado from erasing the files.

  “The camera. I can't believe he was doing that.”

  The desktop computer chirruped and Amado pulled the stick free. “Here you go.” His arm brushed a can on his desk and it tipped off. The lid came free as it hit the carpet, filling the room with the scent of lemons.

  “Bother.” Amado fumbled for the can, hands slipping in the reddish gel.

  “What is that?” Huang barely kept the tension out of his voice.

  “My degreaser.” He shook his head. “At least things will be oil-free.”

  Metta whispered, “What is it, Scott? Your heart rate spiked.”

  “The lemon scent. His degreaser smells like that lemon scent.”

  Her eyes shifted up and to the left. “It's a citrus-based degreaser that's used in the high-tech industry because of its anti-conductivity properties . . . I'm comparing the spectrograph Griggs took in the elevator at the Yates site against the one on the company website to look for similarities.” She frowned. “The chemical signatures of the lemon scent in the elevator at the Yates site and of the citrus degreaser are identical.”

  “What about in the Salvation Army building?”

  Metta looked up and to the left. “The same.”

  Huang forced himself to walk away from Amado. He had to talk to the chief and could only hope that the man waiting in interrogation would have something to say that would tie everything together.

  * * * *

  As Scott headed up the stairs to HQ, Metta cleared her throat. “I didn't want to distract you while you were talking to Amado, but I had a match on Joe Yates's prints.”

  “Oh?” Huang turned down the hall toward interrogation. “Your tone indicates that I'm going to like this.”

  “He's using a fake ID and is actually Josef Ybarra. . . .”

  Huang paused at the door. “Why is that name familiar?”

  “He was Patterson's foreman during the scandal about their sub-code work.”

  “But his current boss had nothing but good things to say about him.” Huang rubbed his chin, thinking. “If he took the rap for Patterson, that would give him motive.”

  “There's more to it than that. Ybarra was here on a work visa. He lost that when Patterson fired him so he's in the country illegally now.”

  “And we know he was at the scene.”

  “So let's see what he has to say.”

  Huang pushed the door to the room open. The overhead lights flattened the interrogation room, washing out all the shadows. The concrete walls had a mirror along one side and cameras in all the corners, giving Metta a clear view of everything in the room.

  Ybarra, aka Yates, looked up as Huang entered the room. His hand had been rebandaged with clean gauze and he held it cradled in his lap. Huang subvocalized to Metta, “Any chance that's a powder burn?”

  “Alas, no. It's a long cut. Fairly ragged. EMT says it looks like he caught it on something and tore the flesh.”

  Huang sat on the table, trying to project a casual atmosphere to the cinderblock room. “Mr. Ybarra, do you understand why you are here?”

  The man frowned. “That's not my name.”

  “Your fingerprints match those of Josef Ybarra. I don't think there's any point in denying who you are.”

  He shook his head. “It's not right. Ask my boss. Look at my ID. I'm Joe Yates.”

  “Which is a false identity. I can call you Mr. Yates if you prefer, but you are in our files as Ybarra.”

  “It's not the right name.”

  Ignoring the protest, Huang moved on to the next question. “Can you tell me what happened Tuesday? You called 911.”

  Ybarra shook himself and straightened up a little. “Makes no sense to pretend. Tuesday, I was up on the scaffolding ‘cross the street from the Daily Grind. In the window, I sees this reflection of these guys on the roof. They're having breakfast and I'm thinking, that seems like an awful lot of trouble to go all the way up on the roof. So I'm watching, then the one guy pulls out a gun. So I jump down off the scaffolding and run over, all the way up to help out.”

  “You ran toward a man with a gun. Why didn't you call emergency right away?”

  Ybarra hesitated and shrugged. “Didn't have my phone. Seemed faster to just go there. By the time I got upstairs, the one guy was on the ground and the other guy was gone.”

  “Can you describe the other man at all?”

  Ybarra shook his head. “It was far away.”

  “Anything you noticed would be helpful
”

  Ybarra closed his eyes; furrows appeared in his forehead. “Short, skinny. Maybe a white man? Wore a black coat and a hat so I didn't see much. Moved funny.”

  “Funny how?”

  Shrugging, Ybarra opened his eyes. “I got a cousin with the palsy. Sort of like that.”

  “All right. What happened after you got to the roof?”

  “I realized he wasn't breathing So I called 911.”

  “And when you realized it was Patterson? How did that make you feel?”

  Ybarra shook his head. “I don't know what you mean.”

  Metta whispered, “Electrodermal just shifted dramatically. He's lying or terrified.

  “You were his foreman before he fired you. That must have made you angry.”

  “I don't know the man. He was shot. I tried to help and now you are asking me these questions. Why?”

  Huang nodded to his hand. “That's a pretty nasty cut you've got there. How'd that happen?

  Ybarra stared at his hand and picked at the gauze. He shrugged. “I cut it on something. Didn't notice when it happened.”

  “Really? You really didn't notice tearing a gash that big in your hand?” Huang leaned forward on the table, putting one hand down close to Ybarra. “A clean cut I could believe, but that's a tear. How'd it happen?”

  “I told you I don't remember.”

  “But you noticed it on the roof. That was a napkin from the scene that you tied around your hand.”

  He shrugged. “I know it happened there. I just didn't see what cut me.”

  Huang chewed the inside of his lip and switched the line of questioning. “What were you doing in the elevator shaft?”

  “I had blood all over my clothes and I was afraid someone would ask questions, so I tossed them into the elevator shaft.”

  Metta whispered, “Which is possibly what caused the elevator to stop working.”

  “But you came back. Why?”

  “Didn't come back.” He worried the tape on his bandage. “Been hiding there. Looks bad, huh?”

  “It doesn't look good. Why did you leave after calling 911?”

  “I didn't think there was anything else I could do.” He huddled in his chair. “I didn't know I was supposed to wait.”

  “Let me suggest something else, Mr. Ybarra.” Huang leaned forward. “Let me suggest that you knew you were here illegally with a fake ID and left so you wouldn't be caught.”

  “It's not right. I am a legal citizen. My name is Yates.”

  Huang studied him and subvocalized to Metta. “What do you think?”

  Metta whispered back, “His vitals are showing that he's distressed.”

  Huang subvocalized, “Let's see if some time in holding sharpens his memory.” He stood up and asked Metta to have a uniform walk Ybarra to a holding cell.

  * * * *

  Once Ybarra was out of his hands, Metta cleared her throat. “Well, his motive is clear, he was present, but the means to commit the crime are muddy.”

  Huang shook his head. “I know. But why did he set up the tea on the roof? How did he even get Patterson to meet with him? And why would he call 911?”

  “Guilty conscience? Maybe he just wanted to talk to him and things got out of hand.” She sighed. “It's all very tenuous without the murder weapon. I'll check his banking records to see if there's a note of him purchasing a gun, ammo, or, heck, even Symphony Rose.”

  “Symphony Rose? What's that?”

  “The china pattern of the teacups at the scene.”

  “I thought you said it was something different. Something with Mont.”

  “That's Chase's china. Mont Clair, by Lennox. The china on the roof looks similar by was made but a different manufacturer. It's Symphony Rose.”

  “That's not what you said before. You said we should see if any pieces were missing.”

  “Scott.” She flashed a report on his glasses. “Look. Mont Clair, by Lennox.”

  “I know. And you said the crime scene had the same thing. I'm not imagining this. If they were different, you wouldn't have suggested that we check for missing pieces.”

  Metta sighed. “Listen.” In his earbud, he heard the sound of street traffic, and Metta projected the view out his VR glasses from earlier in the day. It was grainier than an eSpy, but a sense of déja vu gripped Huang nonetheless.

  Metta's recorded voice said, “All right. Let's keep talking about this."

  "Right.” Huang heard his own voice. He sounded nasally and a little flat.

  Metta's recording continued. “Oh. The china on the roof was Symphony Rose, and Chase has Mont Clair, by Lennox, so I'm afraid that's a dead end."

  Huang's mouth dropped. “I swear, Metta, that's not what I remember you saying.”

  “I've got the recording, Scott.”

  He took a breath to respond and bit it off, feeling sick. She couldn't tell that she'd been compromised, which meant he needed to figure out what other things were false. “Okay. Yeah. I guess so.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “So, if he bought the china, then that's a pretty good line against Ybarra. How do you think it's connected to the break-in?”

  “I'm not sure. I'll print the interview out for Delarosa and see if he has any insights.”

  Huang hunched his shoulders, thankful that she couldn't see his body language. If the record of the china had been changed, what else had? And why that? He ran scales in his head, trying to keep his breathing calm and his heartbeat steady. She couldn't see his posture, but she could tell how he was reacting.

  They already knew that whoever had Metta Prime was using Metta's blackouts to hack into her. So the facts that they chose to change should point to them. Obviously, they thought the china was important, which made Huang bet that Chase was involved. All he had to do was get the china from evidence, prove that Metta was wrong, and that might be enough to get a warrant to search Chase's.

  What else had been changed? He straightened. Maybe Yates hadn't been lying about his name. If the fingerprints had been assigned to the wrong man that would explain why he was so insistent about his name and that he wasn't an illegal. If he was telling the truth and Metta was wrong, was there a way to expose that?

  Huang turned on his heel and headed for the evidence room. “We know Ybarra has a connection to the Salvation Army building. Could he be one of the men who broke in here? Or could the skinny man he described be one?”

  “It's hard to say. I'm not saying it isn't him, only that I can't tell from the testimony available.”

  “So . . . what about this lemon smell?”

  Metta rolled her eyes. “I can't smell it, and I don't have an analysis of the first odor. Are you certain it's the same as the degreaser?”

  Huang hesitated. “The second one had a metallic overlay, and the last one, the one upstairs was so faint I mostly got a whiff of citrus. Coincidence?”

  “Well, the two in the Daily Grind building were both related to the Patterson murder. I don't know how to tie in the one at the Salvation Army building.” Metta frowned. “Where are you going?”

  He pushed open the door to the evidence lab and shrugged. “I wanted to see if Ybarra's prints were on the china from the Patterson murder site. You don't have that on record, do you?”

  Metta grimaced. “I don't know for certain. I can't imagine Griggs skipping that, but they came in during my dark period so my records are spotty.”

  “Should I pull them, just in case?”

  “You want to see what type of china it is, don't you?”

  “Maybe.” Another chilling possibility occurred to Huang. If they knew what to change that meant they had access to Metta's new memories. He was as good as telling them that he was onto their tricks.

  “Fine. Don't believe me. They'll bring the bin up to you in a second.”

  “You're wonderful.”

  “Flattery will get you everywhere.”

  Griggs pushed open the door to the evidence room. She had a spectrometer in her hand, and several small plas
tic bags, which appeared to be empty. “I hear you nearly found her.”

  “Nearly doesn't count.”

  “It does if they were in a hurry when they left.” She lifted the plastic bags.

  Huang raised his brows. “Did you find hair samples?”

  “Yes. Long blonde and short black. But I don't know who shed them. They might be from previous tenants.” Her eyes flashed as she looked up. “I'll let you know.”

  Metta cleared her throat and transferred to the evidence room's desktop interface so she could talk to them both. “There were several prints, too, but I don't have a match yet on any of them.”

  Griggs leaned on the counter and looked down the aisles for the technician. “What's taking Kyle so long?”

  “My fault,” Huang said, “I asked to see the china from the Patterson crime scene.”

  Metta shook her head. “Kyle says the bin it should be in is empty.”

  Huang's heart gave a staccato thump that Metta had to hear. He swallowed. “Has someone else checked the evidence out?”

  “He says it should be here, but the reference number points to the wrong bin.”

  Griggs rolled her eyes. “I hate it when that happens.”

  “Has it happened to you before?” Huang turned to her.

  “Twice. Both times, the tech scanned the wrong bar code by accident. It's probably in an adjoining bin and he'll find it in a couple of minutes.”

  Metta said, “Well, maybe you can answer a question while we wait. Did you send the teacups in for DNA analysis?”

  “Yes. It came back with Neil Patterson on one cup, but the other looks like it was wiped down.”

  “Thanks.” Huang drummed his fingers on the counter. So, it was either a coincidence, which seemed damn unlikely, or yet another piece of Metta's memory had been altered. Or there was someone on the inside, and given the ease with which the suspects had entered the building in the first place, that seemed as likely as the alteration. Or . . . maybe Metta's Prime had sent another clue. A thread he'd been trying to snag came into his grasp. Huang pulled his VR glasses off and stuck them in his pocket. “Hey, can I see the bin?”

  On the desktop interface, Metta looked up and to the left. “On its way. Why do you want to see it?”