She stared at the holoed info. “What now?”
“We find out who’s been losing crunch—if we can.”
They could. Word of what had happened at GenDyne and Parabas had made the corporate rounds. As soon as Cardenas identified himself and the case he was working on, they had plenty of cooperation.
It was Fordmatsu. Their own security was unaware of the theft, much less its extent, so cleverly had it been carried out. Cardenas sourced it, though. He didn’t bother to inform them. He was no accountant, and he didn’t want anybody sponging around until he’d finished what he’d come to Agua Pri for. Though no expert, he knew enough to admire the skill that had been at work in Fordmatsu’s Box. Everything had been done during off-hours and painstakingly compensated for throughout the crunchlines. Neat.
“How much?” Hypatia asked him.
“Can’t tell for sure. Hard to total, the way its tucked in here and there. Weeks’ worth. Maybe months’.”
She stared at him. “A Cribm can crunch trillions of bytes a second. I can’t think of a problem it couldn’t solve inside an hour. There isn’t anything that needs days of that kind of crunch, let alone months.”
“Somebody needed it.” He rose from behind the desk. “Come on.”
“Where are we going?”
“Back to GenDyne. There are some sequences I ran here I want to rerun on Crescent’s wall.”
“What about the psychomorph?”
He put an arm around her shoulders. She didn’t shrug it off. “I’m going to endrun that sucker so slick it won’t have time to squeal.”
It was all there in Crescent’s Mermaid. If he hadn’t tripped the psychomorph in Noschek’s storage, they never would have found it. He leaned back in the dead man’s chair and rubbed his eyes.
“Fordmatsu is out millions, and they don’t even know it. Somebody was running one gigabox of a sequence.”
“Noschek?”
“Not just Noschek. Maybe he designed the sponge schematic, but they were both into it.”
“Damn,” she muttered. “What for?”
“Aye, there’s the rub. That we don’t know yet.”
“But it doesn’t make any sense. Why would a GenDyne designer co-opt with somebody out of Parabas? You think maybe they were going to fracture and set up their own firm?”
“I don’t think so. If that was their intent, they could have done it by intrapreneuring. Easier and cheaper.” He leaned back in the chair and ran a hand down Charliebo’s neck. “Besides, it doesn’t fit their profiles. Crescent was pure company man, GenDyne do or die. Noschek was too unstable to survive outside the corporate womb.”
“Then why?”
“I thought they might’ve been doing some work for somebody else, but there’s no indication of that anywhere. They did a hell of a job of hiding what they were up to, but no way could they hide all that crunch. You know what I think?” He gave Charliebo a pat and swiveled around to face her. “I think there’s a Box in here that doesn’t belong to GenDyne.”
“And Noschek?”
“Maybe there’s one in Parabas, too. Or maybe the same Box floating between both locations. With that much crunch you could do just about anything. Quién sabe what they were in to?”
“So you’re thinking maybe whoever they were working for vacuumed them for the crunch?”
“Not the crunch, no. Whatever our boys were using it for. Haven’t got a clue to that yet.” He found himself rubbing his eyes again.
She rose and walked over to stand behind his chair. Her hands dug into his shoulders, kneading, releasing the accumulated tension. “Let’s get out of here for a while. You’re spending too much time sponging. You try doing that and playing the analytical cop simultaneously, you’re going to turn your brain to mush.”
He hardly heard her. “I’ve got to figure the why before we can figure the how.”
“Later. No more figuring for today.” She leaned forward. He was enveloped by the folds of her jumpsuit and the heavy, warm curves it enclosed. “Even a sponge needs to rest.”
* * *
It came to him when he wasn’t thinking about it, which is often the path taken by revelation. He was lying prone on the oversized hybred, feeling the preprogrammed wave motion stroking his back like extruded lanolin. Hypatia lay nearby, her body pale arcs and valleys like sand dunes lit by moonlight. The ceaseless murmur of the Strip seeped through the downpolarized windows, a susurration speaking of people and electronics, industry and brief flaring sparks of pleasure.
He ran a hand along her side, starting at her shoulder and accelerating down her ribs, slowing as it ascended the curve of her hip. Her skin was cool, unwrinkled. Her mind wasn’t the only thing that had been well taken care of. She rolled over to face him. Next to the bed Charliebo stirred in his sleep, chasing ghost rabbits which stayed always just ahead of his teeth.
“What is it?” She blinked sleepily at him, then made a face. “God, don’t you ever sleep? I thought I wore you out enough for that, anyway.”
He smiled absently. “You did. I just woke up. Funny. You spend all your waking hours working a problem, and all you get for your efforts is garbage. Then when you’re not concentrating on it—there it is. Set out like cake at a wedding. I just sorted it out.”
She sat up on the hybred. Not all the lingering motion was in the mattress. He luxuriated in the sight of her.
“Sorted what out?”
“What Crescent and Noschek were doing together. It wasn’t in the Boxes, and it wasn’t in their files. No wonder corporate security couldn’t find anything. They never would have. The answer wasn’t in their work. It was in them. In their voices, their attitudes, what they had in common and what they didn’t. In what they didn’t commit to storage. They shared their work, but they kept themselves to themselves.”
“A cop shouldn’t be full of riddles.”
“Have you got a terminal here?”
“Does a cow have udders?” She slid off the bed, jounced across the room, and touched a switch. A portion of the wall slid upward to reveal a small screen, while the vorec popped out of a slot nearby, an obedient metal eel. He walked over and plucked it from its holder, studied the screen. They were both naked, both comfortable with it and each other.
“Pretty fancy setup for a household.”
“Think. I have to work at home sometimes. I need more than a toy.” She leaned against him.
“Look, let me concentrate for a minute, will you?”
She straightened. He saw her teeth flash in the dim light. “Okay. But only for a minute.”
He activated the screen, filled the vorec with a steady stream of instructions. It was slower than the designer units he’d sponged at Parabas and GenDyne but far faster than any normal home unit. Soon he was running the files he needed from both companies. Then he surprised Hypatia by accessing Nogales. The problem he set up was for the Sociopsycultural Department at the U of A. It didn’t take the university Box long to render its determination.
“There it is.”
She stared at the screen, then back at him. “There what is?”
“Answers, maybe.” He slipped the vorec back into its slot. The screen went dark. “Let’s ambulate.”
“What, now?” She ran fingers through her unkempt hair. “Don’t you ever give a lady a chance to catch up?”
“You can catch up next week, next month.” He found his pants and was stepping into them. “I think I know what happened. Most of it, anyway. The data make sense. It’s what our two boys did that doesn’t make sense, but I think they went and did it, anyway.”
She thumbed a closet open and began rummaging through her clothes. “You mean you know who vacuumed them?”
He fastened the velcrite of his waistband. The blue Federales bracelet bounced on his wrist. “Nobody vacuumed them. They vacuumed themselves.”
She paused with the velcrite catch of her bra. “Another riddle? I’m getting tired of your riddles, Angel.”
�
�No riddle. They vacuumed themselves. Simultaneously, via program. I think it was a double suicide. And by the way, I’m no Angel. It’s ‘Ahn-hell,’ for crissakes.”
“That’s Tex-Mex. I only speak Anglo.”
“Screw you.”
She struck a pose. “I thought you were in a hurry to leave?”
* * *
Security let them back into GenDyne, but they weren’t happy about it. There was something wrong about cops going to work at three A.M. The guard in the hall took his time. His helmet flared as the scanner roved over both nocturnal visitors. Just doing his job. Eventually, he signed them through.
They went straight to Crescent’s office. It was the same as they’d left it, nothing moved, unexpectedly sterile-looking under the concealed incandescents. Cardenas found his gaze returning unwillingly to the bright family portraits that hovered above the desk.
He flicked the vorec and brought the wallscreen online. He warmed up with some simple mnemonics before getting serious with the tactical verbals he’d decided to use. Hypatia caught her breath as the wall flared, but no psychomorph coalesced to threaten them. Cardenas was being careful, additionally so with Hypatia in the room. Charliebo cocked his head sideways as he stared at the screen.
Five minutes later Cardenas had the answer to the first of his questions.
“It’s tactile. Same kind of concealed setup Noschek had in his place.”
“Jesus! You could warn a body.”
“There’s no danger. I’m not sponging deep yet. All surface. There are ways. I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to trigger anything.”
“Thanks,” she said dryly.
He dove in, the words flowing in a steady stream into the vorec as he keyed different levels within the main GenDyne Box. This time he went in fast and easy. He went wherever he wanted to without any problem—and that was the problem. After what seemed like fifteen minutes, he paused to check his bracelet. Two hours gone. Soon it would be light outside.
Hypatia had settled herself on the edge of the desk. She was watching him intently. “Anything?”
“Not what I came for. Plenty Parabas would pay to get their hands on. I’m sure the reverse would be true if I was sponging their Box like this.” He shook his head as he regarded the screen. “There’s got to be another Box in there, somewhere. Or a section that’s reading out dead.”
“Impossible. You need full cryo to keep the Box wet and accessible. You can’t just set something like that up in the middle of an outfit like GenDyne without tripping half a dozen alarms.”
“Alarms are usually set to warn of withdrawal, not entry.”
“Any kind of solid insertion like that would have people asking questions.”
“You can avoid questions if you can avoid notice. These guys were wizards at avoiding notice.”
She crossed her arms. “I still say its impossible.”
He turned back to the wall. “We’ll see.”
He found it only because he had some idea what he was looking for. No one else would have glanced at it. There was no separate Box. Hypatia was right about that. Instead, it was buried deep within the basic GenDyne Box itself, disguised as a dormant file for a biolight conveyor. When he sponged it, Hypatia caught her breath.
“My God. A subox tunnel.”
“I’ve heard about them,” Cardenas murmured tightly, “but I’ve never actually seen one before.”
“That’s as close to being invisible as you can get and still be inside a Box.” She was standing close to the wall now, examining the holo intensely. “Whoever made this was half-designer and half-magician.”
Cardenas found himself nodding. “That’s our boys.” He studied the slowly rotating cylindrical schematic. “The key question is, where does it go?” He was set to start in when Hypatia stopped him, walking over to put a hand on his arm and block his view of the screen.
“Maybe we better get some help. This is way over my head.”
“And therefore mine, too?” He smiled. “You don’t have to know how to build a plane to know how to fly one. I can handle it.”
“More psychomorphs? And who knows what else.”
“I’m ready for it this time. Hypatia, I can intuit fast. Anything starts coming out of that tube, I’ll just dry out.”
“Man, I hope you know what you’re doing.” She stepped aside. Together they stared as he spoke into the vorec and started down the tube.
They encountered no traps, no guards. Smart. Oh so smart, he thought to himself. Make it look like an ordinary part of the Box. Make it look like it belongs. Normalcy was the best disguise.
They wouldn’t put him off the track with that. Because even though he didn’t understand the how yet, he knew the why.
Hypatia asked him about it again. “I still don’t get this double-suicide business.”
“It’s what they were.” He spoke between commands to the vorec, waiting while the wall complied with each sequence of instructions. He was tense but in control. It was one lon-n-n-ng tube.
“Noschek particularly. He was the key. You see, part of the tragedy was that they could never meet in person. Security would have found out right away, and that would have finished both of them. It meant they could only communicate through the joint Fordmatsu link they established. Like in the old times when people sent information by personal messenger. It was too complex, too involved, too intense for it to just be business. There had to be more to it than that. And then when I couldn’t find any business at all, that clinched it.”
“Clinched what?”
“The fact that they had to be lovers. Via the Fordmatsu link. Crescent and Noschek were homosexual, Hypatia.”
She went dead quiet for several minutes before replying. “Oh come on, Angel! Crescent had a family. Two kids.”
“He was latent. Probably all his life. That’s why I had to run double profiles together with what I suspected through the Sociopsycultural Box up at U of A. It confirmed. I’m sure if we had time to go over their lives in more detail, we’d find plenty of other clues.
“You told me Crescent was a trueglue GenDyne man. I’m sure he was. GenDyne’s about as liberal as its multinat counterparts. Which is to say, not at all. Two Fundamentalists on its Board. Crescent knew if he strayed once, it would put an end to his career. So he stayed in the closet. Covered himself thoroughly for the sake of his future. I’ve no doubt he loved his wife. Meanwhile, everything proceeded the way he’d probably dreamed it might. Gradually, his tendencies faded as he buried himself in his family and work.
“Then Noschek came along, probably through a casual social hookup. A brilliant, wild young talent. Pretty to boot. And they got to know each other. Most relationships develop. This one exploded.”
“So they ‘related’ through Box links?”
He nodded. “Try to imagine what they must have gone through. It’s all there in their voices, in the stuff I was able to sponge from the months before they vacuumed. They knew they couldn’t meet. Crescent knew it would ruin him. I don’t know if that bothered Noschek—he didn’t seem to give a damn for social conventions. But he cared about Crescent. So they built this Fordmatsu link out of stolen crunch.”
“They wouldn’t need all that crunch just to maintain a private communication.”
“Exactly. So they started discussing their problem, fooling around with all that excess crunch they had access to. Meanwhile, their relationship just kept getting tighter and tighter at the same time as they were becoming increasingly frustrated with their situation.
“Eventually, they found something. Noschek was the innovator, Crescent the experienced constructor. They discovered a way to be together. Always.”
“Through mutual suicide?” She shook her head. “That doesn’t bring people together. It doesn’t profile either. Noschek sure, but Crescent was too stable to go for that.”
“How stable do you think he would have been if his wife had ever found out? Or his kids? The only way to spare them the disgrace w
as to make it look like a murder. That way our boys would be able to slip away untarnished and untroubled.”
“So they figured out a way to vacuum themselves? Papier-mâché wings and brass harps and the whole metaphysical ensemble?”
“No. They’re vacuumed all right, but they’re not gone. They’re together, like they wanted to be. Together in a sense no one else can understand. I wonder if they fully understood it themselves. But they were willing to take the risk.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
He took a deep breath. “Consider all the crunch they’d been siphoning from Fordmatsu. Then consider Noschek’s hobbies. One of them is real interesting. You ever hear of MR?”
“Like in ‘mister’?”
“No. Like in morphological resonance.”
She made another face. “Gimme a break, Angel. I’m just a lousy designer. What the hell is morphological resonance?”
“The concept’s been around for decades. Not many people take it seriously. The scientific establishment has too much invested in existing theories. That doesn’t put off those folks who are more interested in the truth than intellectual comfort. People like Noschek. When I found out he was into it, I did some reading.
“A long time ago somebody ran a bunch of rats through a series of mazes in Scotland. The same mazes, over and over, for much longer than anyone would think necessary to prove a point. Each time the rats ran a maze, they managed it a little faster.”
“That’s a revelation?”
“Consider this, then.” He leaned forward. “Some folks in Australia decided to run the same maze. Identical as to size, distance, configuration, reward at the end, everything. The first time they tried it, the rats ran the distance just a hair faster than the first time their Scottish cousins ran it. Then they repeated the experiment in India. Same thing. The Indian rats got off to a quicker start than did the Australians. What do you get from that?”
She looked bemused. “That Indian rats are smarter than Scottish or Australian rats?”
He shook his head impatiently. “It wasn’t just done with rats and mazes. Other similar experiments were run, with identical results. For the scientific establishment, that hasn’t been conclusive enough. But it hasn’t stopped theorists from making proposals.”
The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Sixth Annual Collection Page 60
