by Robin Craig
Chapter 14 – Tagarin
Miriam walked up to the gate. It now recognized her and said, “Good afternoon, Officer Hunter. What is the nature of your business this time?”
“I have some follow-up questions for Dr Tagarin.”
“Dr Tagarin believes he made it clear that he isn’t interested in further questions.”
“Please tell him that I have now met the woman in the video.”
Miriam could practically feel the camera scanning her face. No doubt it made the nature of her “meeting” clear.
The gate opened and James appeared at the door and beckoned her up the path. This time he brought her immediately to Tagarin’s public office. Tagarin gestured to a chair and she sat. He examined her face, but said nothing.
“Thank you for seeing me.”
“May I presume from your appearance combined with your presence that your suspect did not come quietly, but you have her safely in custody and can report on her true nature?” he asked harshly. “I imagine your missing colleague is even now giving her the third degree.”
“I am afraid that my partner is recovering from the interview. And while I am less damaged than him I am lucky to be alive. But I can tell you a lot more about her.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Please proceed,” he said, summoning up his display.
Miriam told him the story. He listened intently, occasionally annotating the report transcribed by his desk or calling in other data. When she finished, he regarded her intensely for a few minutes.
“Well, that is certainly an intriguing story. I might start enjoying your company if you keep this up.”
“So... what do you think?”
“I can see why you would believe she is a geneh, though if so she is a poor ambassador for the cause of geneh rights. But at least she didn’t kill you – which raises its own questions. I am still not convinced, by the way: for all the suggestive facts of the case, the mathematical reasoning I told you last time is hard to evade. But for argument’s sake, let’s think about what it would tell us if she was. That is, after all, what you are not paying me for.”
He sat for a few minutes looking into space, occasionally focusing on his display to look up more information or do some calculations.
“So, let me summarize. She is definitely a modified human female. Overall, her modifications make her somewhat catlike: her eyes, her tail, her flexibility and reflexes. Individually, though, it is not so simple. Her tail, while enhancing her catlike appearance, is more like a monkey’s. Clearly it is prehensile, as your throat can testify. That is not surprising. Our ancestors were monkeys, and it may be less difficult than you realize to reactivate those genes and add prehensile capability from a New World monkey. It would be interesting to learn how strong that tail is: whether, for example, it would support her weight, but she has rudely not made herself available for study. Then there are her eyes. Large, almost luminous, and in your photo from before there was a distinct gleam. Yet her pupils are round, not slitted like a cat’s are in daylight. Well, you did not mention them, whereas you’d certainly have found slits worth remarking on?”
Miriam nodded. “Yes. It didn’t occur to me at the time, but they were round like ours.”
“Taken together, I would say a relatively small modification to the size and color of the eyes, almost certainly including something like the tapetum at the back of a cat’s eyes, which reflects light back through the retina to improve night vision. The tapetum would be the biggest change, I’d say, but even twenty years ago we had enough knowledge of genetics to make it a feasible aim. The overall effect, I think, would be vision better than ours at night but without the cat’s weakness in daytime vision.”
As he talked, Miriam listened and watched. A strange man, she thought. When they first met he had gone out of his way to be rude and insulting, and even now in casual conversation an air of bitter cynicism and contempt shrouded his words and expressions like a chilly fog. But thinking about this problem and discoursing on his conclusions, all that vanished. He was precise, detached and open, and she felt more like a colleague in arms than a despised intruder.
“She also seems to have a remarkable sense of smell. Of course she might just have been taunting you – what she told you were pretty obvious guesses. But we have quite a poor sense of smell compared to most mammals, so no great difficulty there. Did she give any signs of unusually acute hearing?”
“No, not that I noticed. But she often gave the impression of trying to sense danger – maybe she was listening. Her ears were the same shape as ours too, by the way.”
“On that topic we should clarify a few other things. Ignoring the tail her hair was the same as a person’s? She had nails not claws? Did you notice anything else different, say in her bodily proportions?”
“No... I can’t be completely sure, partly because the obvious differences were distracting, partly because I was terrified. But no... I didn’t notice any difference in her hair or nails. Her nails were sharp, maybe a bit stronger than mine, but human as far as I could tell. She had this skintight outfit on and I didn’t notice anything out of place or missing.”
“But she was stronger than you expected, very fast in both movements and reflexes, yet lithe and flexible?” Miriam nodded. “OK. I’d say some muscle enhancement, not too difficult given the normal range of human not to mention animal capabilities. But a pretty significant enhancement to her nervous system. And she said her body was unusually sensitive? Again, she might have been lying. But if we take it at face value she has a denser and faster nervous system than ours. That is probably the most significant enhancement, but given the variation between people and our knowledge of neurogenetics, it could be something someone would try – and maybe succeed at.”
He paused. “Except for one thing. More peripheral nerves require more central nervous system to process them. Let me do some calculations.”
She waited while he worked with some programs on his display. He looked at them.
“Interesting. Twice, she said? Let’s take that as at least approximately true. If it means twice the linear resolution, then that would imply four times the number of resolvable nerve endings. I think it more likely to be twice the number per unit area, which equates to about 1.4 times the linear resolution, still significantly greater sensitivity. If you look at the power laws of scaling in mammals, a crude calculation gives somewhat more than twice the brain weight to handle it. However most of a human brain is the thinking part not the sensory processing part. Making some rough approximations, she would need a thicker spinal cord than us – not much of a problem – and only about a 20% larger brain. That equates to an increase in linear dimensions of her head of less than 7%, perhaps noticeable but not a big problem.”
He thought a while longer and did some more arcane manipulations on screen.
“There are other relevant factors. A large fraction of nerves in a newborn’s brain are pruned during development, meaning we start with a lot more than we need for what we’ve got. In adults, there is a significant variation in brain volume unrelated to body size or intelligence: indeed, many highly intelligent people have relatively small brains for their body size. At the other end of the spectrum, some people with much reduced brain tissue due to hydrocephaly still function relatively normally. If we factor all that in, our geneh’s neural enhancements might well all fit into a package within the normal range of human variation.”
He thought some more.
“One other thing. In humans a faster nervous system is correlated with greater intelligence: so if we’re right about that aspect, your mystery woman might be very bright indeed. But there is one thing that disturbs me...”
She waited.
“Thank you, by the way, for the completeness of your report. I know some of it would have been embarrassing to repeat to a hostile stranger like me. But from the way she behaved: threatening you, hurting you, caressing you... I wonder how mentally stable she is? She also implied she crave
d excitement? Maybe those enhancements to her nervous system had unfortunate side effects and she’s a bit mad. Or even completely mad.”
“I had the same thought,” Miriam commented. “I didn’t know what to do, what to say, and I still don’t know why she let me live. Maybe she was just toying with me, but if she was she was very cruel about it.” She shuddered.
“Yes. A great pity though. If it wasn’t for her personality she would be a magnificent creature.” He sighed. “Not that I expect you to agree with me.”
“Anyway,” he said, his air of contempt returning, “that’s all interesting as speculation, but we still have the mathematical problem. Your story confirms that this woman is in her twenties and in my professional opinion it was impossible to produce her more than 15 years ago even if anyone had the capability to do so. She is not a geneh.”
“Then how do you account for her appearance? You originally suggested those eyes could be a disguise or a mask, but they aren’t. They were as real as mine.”
“Oh, I’m not sure they are as advanced as I’ve been speculating. That was all assuming things are what they seem. But in science things have a way of being other than they seem. You have come here for my opinion, and I suppose I owe it to you since you have given me an hour or so of reliving what the past could have been. Mind you,” he added harshly, “I might hate you for that tomorrow.”
“So. In my professional opinion, for what that’s worth these days, she is what I said at our first meeting; though I can now flesh it out more. What you have is a highly trained athlete in her twenties. I suspect an organized crime connection – or even a government agency connection, if there’s a difference these days – because she has some sophisticated and therefore expensive enhancements. Her eyes are bioengineered but she isn’t a geneh: that solves our timing issue. She didn’t have to grow up with them: she’s been operated on later in life. She has a prosthetic tail made to look like a real one – mainly, I suspect, as a distraction, a smokescreen, though obviously she can use it to good effect. But note what she did with it: almost emphasizing her use of it. As I said, it’s a distraction. And she’s on some kind of drug, probably a designer drug based on cocaine. That’s what gives her such speed and reflexes and is also, I suspect, what is sending her mad.”
“Do you really think she could be a government agent? Why would she be doing what she’s doing?”
“Oh, if she is I’d say she’s gone rogue. Possibly another side effect of the drugs. And you know what government agencies are like if they are doing something secret of dubious legality. Complete deniability. If she is and has, someone will be trying to kill her but they’ll never tell you. And if they succeed her body will simply disappear.”
“Still... your theory sounds plausible, but you haven’t met her. It just doesn’t feel... right. In person, she comes across as what she herself says she is.”
“Didn’t they teach you in policeman’s school how unreliable witness impressions are? Or how easily conmen fool their marks with smoke and mirrors?” he snapped. After a pause he added, his voice and gaze hardening, “And since you are so enamored of speculation, let us see where else it leads us. Let us assume you are right. I can guess from watching and talking to you that you had a reasonably happy childhood, would that be so?”
Miriam nodded, unsure where he was leading and why his gaze bored into hers, no longer with bitter contempt but now with naked hostility.
“Then I do not think you understand hate, Ms Hunter. I do. I have had cause to hate, whether you think me justified or not. Well let me try to make you understand hate. If this woman is a geneh, imagine her life. While you were growing up in the sunshine and running in parks, where if you fell over almost any stranger would help you up with a smile: what was she doing?”
Miriam watched him, eyes still.
“She was living in the shadows, afraid to show herself, never to play in the sunshine or laugh with her friends, never to even have friends. Were she to fall, the random stranger who lifted you up was more likely to kick her to death than stretch out his hand in good will. And there is more. You take pride in being an officer of the law. To you the law is a good thing, the protector of the innocent. But what was the law to her? A monster lurking in her nightmares and the shadows of her days, waiting to rend her at any moment, at any mistake. Just for being.”
Miriam’s eyes grew larger.
“Yes, I think you are beginning to see. Now imagine you are this woman. Imagine that your enemies bring themselves into your domain, looking for you, knowing that finding you means your death. Imagine that you now hold one of those servants of the law in your power. Your enemy, the creature from your nightmares, the monster who would destroy you without trial, without recourse, without mercy. What would you do, Detective? You dare to speak of cruelty and madness? What is left to this child? You should not ask why she was cruel. You should only ask why you are alive to complain about it!”
Miriam stared at him, appalled at the enormity of what he described. “Oh my God,” she breathed.
“For all her cruelty she let you live. Had you arrested her, she would now be dead. Ask yourself some time: which of you is the more moral?”
He glared at her for a few more moments; then he shook his head and the hostility was gone, evaporating again down to its usual residue of contempt.
“But you came here for my opinion. I have given it. I don’t care whether you accept it or spend the rest of your life haring off after chimeras. Now get out. And next time don’t come back without a warrant.”
*
The watcher hidden on the hill among the trees observed Miriam’s departure with as much interest as her arrival, and transmitted to the supervisor’s office the encrypted time-stamped telephoto images of this her second visit here. Moments like this were rare but brought a deep satisfaction that made the job worthwhile; gave meaning to the hours of emptiness. But the watcher was patient. It never got bored, it never slept: it just watched and waited.
Chapter 15 – Amaro
The nightclub was loud, noisy and smoky. Smoking was coming back into style now that most diseases of the lung including cancer had been banished to the dark corners of societal memory. Miriam didn’t smoke herself but didn’t mind the smell of these mild modern brands. They didn’t choke you like she remembered as a child from some of her more chimney-like relatives; it was more a gentle haze of fragrances with these smoke-reduced brands. More like sitting in a refined club redolent of old cigars than choking over a grassfire.
She was out with her two best friends from work, both single like her. They thought it would be fun to unwind a bit, dance a bit crazy, who knows, maybe meet some fun guys. The other girls were still up dancing but Miriam was taking a rest from it, sipping a cocktail, when a strange man slipped smoothly into the seat beside her.
“Hello young lady. It looks like you’ve nearly finished your drink. I saw you dancing earlier: you need to keep your fluids up. May I buy you a top-up?”
“What, are you a doctor? And what fluids, precisely, are you really aiming to top me up with?”
The man laughed. “No, not a doctor. Just a humanitarian concerned with the health and happiness of humanity. Especially beautiful femality.” He grinned. “I meant, quite innocently, to top up that deadly looking cocktail you are drinking. In fact I am so innocent that I can’t imagine what else you could be referring to.”
She couldn’t help but grin back. “I see. Forgive me sir. A gallant knight is so rare these days that one hardly recognizes one when he appears. Speaking of which, I’m not letting you off the hook yet. I believe knights were renowned for admiring from afar – at least that’s what they told their ladies. And you have confessed to watching me from afar. In our less innocent age we call that stalking.”
The man looked wounded. “By my honor, lady, you grieve me. It is not my fault that your beauty ensnared me. You were there, before my eyes: how could I not place myself in your service? But if it is you
r wish, I shall go. I seek nothing but your happiness.” Upon which he rose, and bowed.
Miriam laughed. “Oh, sit down you great lunk.” She looked at him with frank curiosity. Curly dark hair, but with features and a shade to his skin suggesting some Spanish in his ancestry; lively dark eyes and a large mobile mouth. He laughed easily and lightly, showing fine white teeth. Well muscled but not overdone like a weightlifter. She felt a liquid stirring in her belly. Whew, she thought; has it been that long? I’d better not drink too much more.
“So, handsome knight, what do you do when you aren’t tilting at windmills?”
“I should like to say that I am independently wealthy, able to whisk fair maidens to far exotic places at their whim. But I cannot. I am a humble scientist at the EPA. You see? I am a knight, of sorts. And you? Let me guess.” He looked at her speculatively. “No... I cannot. Your beauty distracts me too much. I must ask.”
She laughed again. “I think you are a rogue, no knight. So perhaps this will make you flee: I am a trainee detective with the City Police.”
He looked shocked. “Oh no! I fear entrapment. Confess it now: you have ensnared me because of those unpaid parking tickets. Honestly, I mean to pay them!”
“Oh you!” she said, punching him on the shoulder. “You’re impossible!”
Just then her friends returned, slightly tipsy. “Oooh, Miriam, who’s your friend?”
“Just some lunk I met. Girls, this is... oh hell. We’ve been talking for five minutes and I don’t even know your name!”
The lunk stood and bowed graciously. “Amaranto Leandro Moreno at your service, beautiful ladies! You may call me Amaro.”
“Your name seems far more Spanish than your face,” observed Miriam skeptically.
“Your friend here has already taught me the dangers of her tongue,” Amaro said to the girls (was anything this man said not a double-entendre? thought Miriam), “but let me assure you all that I am no knave spinning fine tales to bewitch your fair hearts. The male line of my family traces its history all the way back to noble Spain. But my family has never put race before beauty, so most wives grafted to that line were of other lands. Mix with that my father’s poetic soul, and my name is explained.”
