Silhouette

by Dave Swavely

  * * *

  Years ago, Harris had been an agent of BASS before he quit or was fired—I’ve never been quite sure of the story—and now he was part media icon, part counterrevolutionary, part crime boss, and, as far as I was concerned, 100 percent freak (despite his considerable talents). He and two other disgruntled ex-peacers had led an invasion and occupation of our Red Tunnel a little over two years ago, blockading themselves inside the delta at its end and rewiring the local generators so that we couldn’t turn them off. Within an hour—I am still amazed at that feat—the squatters, as we call them, were broadcasting anti-BASS propaganda in an entertaining format to every medium and market in the Bay Area and beyond.

  Because of the immediate mass attention to and interest in Harris’s sideshow, we hesitated in implementing our original plan to wipe him off the face of the earth, out of fear that it would make him a martyr. And because the popularity of his shtick has remained and grown, we have been hesitating ever since, leaving him and his band to themselves.

  This was Darien’s call, but we all agreed that so far the tattooed cyber punk had been more media curiosity than political danger, as evidenced by his bizarre dialect. The repeated references from the history of the popular arts—especially from the twentieth century, which to him and his ilk was the “sacred dawn of modern media”—were partly a result of his total immersion in the old video and audio he interspersed with his “social commentary.” But he also received royalties, credited automatically over the Net, whenever he mentioned a company’s product on the air. We speculated that this, along with criminal activities during their forays into the city, was the primary source of income for the squatters.

  Knowing that the Harris problem was an assumable project that would fall to me, now that Darien was gone, I put the glasses back on and made a note to reevaluate our current policy, after D and my daughter had been avenged.

  * * *

  As my aero approached the castle, I studied it and the buildings around it more than usual, the message from Harris reminding me of their uniqueness. This was another of the elder Rabin’s most significant accomplishments, because of its enduring symbolic value—the transformation of Nob Hill, high atop the city, into an imposing base of operations. The remains of the Fairmont Hotel and the Pacific Men’s Club building, both ruined by the earthquake, had been leveled to make room for the big building, which consumed that real estate and the land next to it, which was formerly Huntington Park.

  The Mayor didn’t raze the damaged landmark Grace Cathedral, however, but merely removed its guts and replaced them with the most technologically impressive jail ever built. He repaired the dark Gothic exterior of the cathedral and basically kept it looking the same, to serve as an omen of warning for those contemplating criminal activity. He kept part of the name, too, calling it Grace Confinement Center. In one of his few statements to the media, he had defended this perverse transmogrification of the church by calling it “a needed symbol—this is a time for action rather than meditation.” And he even defended the seemingly oxymoronic name of the jail by saying, with his trademark smirk, “It is grace, because they could be dead, but they’re only locked up!”

  Finally, the handsome Masonic Lodge on the southwest corner of the summit had been repaired and modified to house offices for all the nonpeacer support staff.

  Since the world-class construction team was in full stride at the completion of these projects, the city’s new Caesar commissioned them to extend the reach of his palace by burrowing a system of tunnels that provided access to various parts of the city from the underground sections of the hilltop base. By the time they had finished, there were three large tunnels and many more smaller ones snaking out into the city, enabling the peacers and their conveyances to avoid traffic and other hindrances on the surface.

  While the Firehawk fleet owned the sky, the tunnel system made BASS forces seem ubiquitous on the ground for the first decade, until the more versatile fleet of aerocars was perfected, and then they really could be anywhere at any time. In recent years the Red Tunnel had been lost to the squatters, of course, but the Green and Blue and some of the small ones were still providing strategic help in various crises.

  * * *

  Paul met me in the side bay where I parked the aero, and we rode the elevator to the lab together.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked. “We can put another peacer on it—you pick him—and you can go home and be with Lynn.”

  “Every time I close my eyes I see my little girl,” I answered. “I only know one way to deal with that. Besides, I don’t think Lynn wants me around right now.”

  “I’m sorry, buddy,” Paul said, seeming surprised that my great marriage wasn’t so great after all. “We’ll get the bastard.” I noted the mild profanity because the fact that he had used it showed how deeply he felt for me and my loss. He rarely used even the most innocuous epithets in public, because his father wouldn’t tolerate it around BASS. The old man was known to explain this idiosyncrasy with a standard spiel about professionalism, intelligence, and distinctiveness, but the word was that his late wife simply didn’t like swear words. She had apparently cured him after years of crude cop talk, and now he was inflicting this censure upon the rest of us.

  The elevator opened to the massive, bustling floor of the crime lab, and we were soon greeted by Garland, who led us to a holo room and fired up the crime sim.

  Soon we were standing in D’s driveway, at the same place we had stood the night before, but the car was now intact, and empty. I knew this magic was conjured digitally, by state-of-the-art equipment that had recorded every inch of the wreckage and statistically selected the most viable re-creation path from millions of possible origins and trajectories.

  “One more chance to step out of this,” Paul whispered in my ear, but I shook my head. He nodded to Garland, who touched a remote she was holding and started the holo. D, his son, and Lynette came out of the house and got into the car, in slow motion. The gate opened slowly behind us, and as it did, a dark figure stepped through it from the street. It was in the shape of a man, but entirely black, like a shadow. The tech explained that this was because they had not been able to discern any characteristics of the killer with any degree of accuracy.

  I was beginning to feel sick, but I tried to focus on the woman’s voice.

  “Notice how Mr. Anthony turns on the belts for himself and his son, but not for Ms. Ares. Or perhaps he turned her restraint off, but either way, she ended up on her knees looking out the window, as you can see.” The whole scene froze, and after a moment I stepped cautiously to the left and forward until I could see Lynette’s face at the window, looking in my direction. There was a moment of silence, then the tech continued.

  “I’m sure I don’t even need to say this.” She hesitated, looking at me. “But if the re-creation is accurate, then your daughter may have known the perpetrator.” I looked at Paul, who raised his eyebrows. I was surprised by this because I had been preoccupied with the simulation of Lynette. “And Mr. Anthony apparently did, too, because watch what happens when the killer approaches.” The scene came alive again, and the wraith stepped slowly through me and toward the passenger side of the car.

  “Do you see it?” Garland said, as she froze the scene again.

  “What?” I snapped at her. She was enjoying her job too much, and not concealing it well enough.

  “The window on the front passenger side,” she said, walking closer to it and pointing. “It’s open a little.” She looked at me, still too triumphant for the occasion. “Mr. Anthony was lowering the window when the assailant approached the car.”

  My mind racing, I said, “Play the rest,” and she did. As the window continued slowly down, the simulated Darien leaned over slightly, I suppose to say hello, and the black figure slid something small under the car and leaped away from it.

  “Stop!” I barked, and she did. “I get the picture.” And it was the picture of my little one in
the backseat, too real, that stayed in my mind even after the holo became a room again.

  I told them I needed a seat, and took one just outside the room, where techs were hurrying about their business, trying not to look at me.

  The sim wasn’t infallible, I knew, and Lynette could have assumed that position out of curiosity toward a stranger rather than excitement at seeing someone she knew. But why would D put the window down if a stranger, much less an enemy, was entering his property? That made it likely that it was at least a trusted acquaintance, if not a friend. Who else would they recognize, and yet not fear? We had plenty of enemies who could be suspects, of course, and I had expected the investigation to be complicated by the sheer number of possibilities. But this was the opposite problem. Remembering Paul’s words the night before about “no suspects yet,” I couldn’t think of one at this time.

  “How sure are you about the window?” I called back into the room, and Paul and the woman soon appeared out of it.

  “Ninety-five percent,” she answered.

  “Tell me about the ordnance,” I said.

  “Well, the bad news is, it was a very clever piece, designed to be untraceable. But the good news is, that narrows the list of potential sources and those who could use them.”

  “Which are?”

  “American or foreign intelligence,” she said. “Or us.”

  “Us? You mean BASS?”

  “Mm-hm.” She nodded. “It could have been purchased by anyone who knows our connections well enough. Heck, it could have been made here.” I looked at Paul again, who knitted his eyebrows this time.

  “So it could be a peacer or an ex-peacer,” he said, stating the obvious, and she nodded and shrugged at the same time.

  “But utterly untraceable?” I asked.

  “Yes, sorry.”

  “Thank you, Garland.” I said. “Is there a Net room on this floor? I forget.”

  “Yes, I’ll take you to Kim. He’ll help you out.”

  As we started through the floor to the other side, Paul asked me what I had in mind.

  “I know or have trained most of the agents D knew,” I explained. “So I don’t even want to go there except as a last resort. To pursue outside intelligence, I’ll need to talk to your father about discussing this with his powerful friends. But right now, I want to start with the ex-employee angle.”

  “If you don’t need me, then,” Paul said, “I’ll go and talk to the old man, to speed up the process.” I said thanks, and he added, “I need to tell him about the possible BASS connection anyway. What are you going to do?”

  “Run an inquiry to see who D might have known or talked to lately, and then I might try Harris.”

  “Harris?” Paul said. “Are you sure it’s wise to begin a dialogue with that mooncalf? It could turn out to be a black hole for our comm people.”

  “I don’t care at this point, Paul,” I snapped, reprimanding him with a look not usually designed for friends.

  “I understand. Sorry,” he said softly, and turned to go.

  “Besides,” I added after him, “who else would know more than Harris about disgruntled former employees, working for themselves or others?”

  He said, “Right,” as he walked away, looking relieved that I wasn’t angry with him.

  As I watched him go, I thought of the many times as a soldier and as a peacer that I had been in the shoes he was now wearing, trying simultaneously to console and to manage a grieving family member who could come unhinged at any time. Now that I found myself on the other end, I was grateful to have someone who cared about me, and hoped that if and when I lost it, the innocent would not have to suffer along with the guilty.

  4

  When Garland and I reached the net room, she left me in the care of a little Asian with cyberware attached to his head and neck. He ushered me inside, seated me in the chair with the least paraphernalia growing from it, and said, “It’s good to see you again, sir.”

  “Likewise,” I said, though I didn’t remember seeing him before.

  “What can I do you for?” he said, adding a nervous laugh. People had the strangest ways of relating to a man undergoing tragedy. But I ignored it.

  “First, I want to generate a list of all former peacers, or upper-level support staff, who have had any personal contact with Darien Anthony since they left. Use my IDs and access his non-BASS accounts as well, but the results are my eyes only.” I dug the glasses out, and said he could send them there, as he situated himself in the chair with the most apparatus.

  Kim registered my retinal print, handprint, and external code identification, then linked himself to the BASS mainframe and dived into the Net. His body assumed the rigid stillness that was unique to pros like him who jacked in at a level far deeper than mere entertainment—he was working, not playing—but his mouth moved incessantly, softly but rapidly uttering codes and commands to find what he was looking for. I knew that navigation, download, and other functions could be manipulated by thoughts alone in the newest technology, with the controls taking the form of complicated patterns, such as long words spelled backward, so they wouldn’t be accidentally triggered or diverted by random brain activity. But that was cutting edge at this point, and the best techs still used voice recognition, which was faster and more trustworthy for them.

  As I watched Kim do his thing, it occurred to me how I might know him. So when he emerged from cyberspace and told me the data I requested would be on my glasses in a few minutes, I made some conversation with him to pass the time.

  “You weren’t at the Presidio, were you?” I asked.

  “Yes; I hoped you’d remember me from the reunion,” he said with an eager smile, some sweat from his dive still glistening above it. Following my eyes, he wiped it with his sleeve. “Your wife was there for a few years while I was … or I should say, I was there when she was.” He chuckled nervously again, equally excited and embarrassed to be talking to an “important person.”

  There were not too many BASS employees from Mrs. Rabin’s orphanage, especially at this level—someone had to be exceptionally gifted and skilled to succeed here, so favoritism was not very practical. But out of the thousands of children who had lived at the Presidio, some were bound to be prodigies, and the education they received made good use of their abilities. Also, I remembered Saul saying something about how the program produced the kind of ethical character he desired, so perhaps that had given someone like Kim a leg up on the competition.

  “I didn’t know her personally, just saw her around,” he added, then smiled again. “Very beautiful.” Now he was even more embarrassed, so I just nodded in agreement and smiled politely. For the next few moments he studied the hardware in front of him, and I studied the hardware attached to his head and neck. I found it somewhat odd that a well-educated man would have surrendered to such implants, or “imps” as they were commonly called, because “cyber virginity” was a mark of status and prestige among the upper crust. Foreign objects in the brain were thought to be a possible gateway to external control, and freedom from them spoke of individuality and personal power. And even though techs like Kim had to be augmented to do their jobs sufficiently, they were inevitably viewed and treated as second-class citizens, with no opportunity for advancement beyond the service professions.

  At this point the mainframe informed me politely that the data I asked for had been transferred to my “personal desk.” I put the glasses on and pressed the arm a few times until I found the file, then switched to all-video so I could read the fine print underneath the seven names listed there. Displayed within the lenses of the glasses, the script then filled my vision, but seemed to be to be about a foot away from my eyes, so I could read it normally.

  One entry was a former high-level tech, a woman, whom D had visited in June of last year. But the record (drawn from the use of security passes, no doubt) showed that he had visited her in a hospital in L.A., and she was dead now. So, although that might have been an interesting story t
o pursue, it wasn’t pertinent to my investigation. I began to feel a bit of voyeuristic guilt for peering into my friend’s life this way, but I pressed on anyway.

  The next three names on the list were ex-peacers, but none of the contacts was very recent, and D hadn’t talked with any of them more than twice. The descriptions of the nodal points surrounding the contacts yielded no clues, either, so after studying them to no avail, I again thought of asking Harris about the names. Even though it had probably just come from hearing his message earlier, I decided to follow the impulse. But I would have to make use of Kim’s expertise to prevent any sabotage by the freak. So I put the idea on hold for now and looked at the last three names on the list. They were Saul Rabin, Paul Rabin, and Michael Ares. I asked Kim why, because I had asked for former BASS employees.

  “Oh, when I was scanning the nodes,” he answered, “I saw that Mr. Anthony had twotted about you, and I thought you might want to see what he said … I mean, thought. That’s why those names are in light blue-green. Speaking of opening your mind up…” He gestured like he was taking a lid off his head.

  While investigating crimes, we often extracted and looked at Twotter files, but I was surprised that anything came up with D, because I had presumed he shared the revulsion that I and many others had to the idea of people broadcasting their thoughts on the net. In fact, I could only remember him agreeing with my negative references to this pastime, which had started years ago with people typing and speaking their thoughts on Twitter and then progressed to this ultimate form of narcissism with the advent of neural interface (pronounced “twoughter,” but spelled the easier way). Kim apparently sensed my bewilderment, and explained.