‘What?’
‘I’m sure it’ll be unpleasant, especially if your breath still stinks, but I’m not going to feel it. If I close my eyes, you won’t be there. You broke my fucking spine, motherfucker! I can’t feel a damn thing below my waist. You are really bad at this. What’s wrong. Out of practice?’
Narrowing his eyes, Grant turned to his table of toys and selected more of the needles. Ramming several into Fox’s inner thighs produced no results, no matter how he tried to trick her. The one jabbed into her left shoulder produced a wince.
‘We’ll see about that,’ Grant said, and he stalked out of the room.
Fox dropped her head back onto the pad she was resting on and looked up at the ceiling. Grant was going to kill her, so what did it matter if he broke her back? What did anything the bastard did matter? Nothing mattered. None of it. None of…
She felt the first tear run down from the corner of her eye and tried to stop any more. Sometimes feeling nothing was not achievable…
~~~
‘Give her another dose of the drug,’ Grant snapped.
‘It’s too soon, sir,’ Hannah replied. ‘The last dose is still in her system.’
‘Give her more!’ Grant roared.
‘It’ll destroy–’
‘I don’t care. If her back’s broken, I can’t–’
‘Sir, the drug can’t fix a broken spine. Nerves–’
Swinging around, Grant backhanded Hannah across the face. She barely moved, but her head jerked aside from the blow. Grant shook his hand: hitting a robot was not an especially clever move.
‘Don’t give me excuses,’ Grant growled. ‘I’ve waited months to get my revenge on Meridian, and you’re screwing it up. Fix her.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Hannah said, ‘but if you allow the drug to work fully, she may recover function. Perhaps there is swelling around her spine which the drug can fix. You waited all this time. Is another day going to matter?’
Briefly, she thought he would hit her again, but then he nodded. ‘No. See if there’s a local surgeon who can fix my nose.’
‘Of course, sir.’
Tokyo.
‘It is Grant,’ Kit said. She was displaying a pair of images for Helen and Yuriko: Grant and Hannah. ‘He is wearing a wig in the identification photograph, and some of the biometrics are falsified, but the facial structure is his, and Hannah has not really tried to disguise herself. She travelled under the name Hannah Folds. I traced that identity back to New York Metro. It is a significantly more well-developed fake.’
‘Grant,’ Helen said, scowling at the image hanging in the air in front of her eyes. ‘That’s… not good.’
‘If anyone can survive his… proclivities, then it is Fox,’ Kit stated firmly. She had spent a significant portion of the night worrying over this turn of events, and had settled upon denial as the best course of action. The fact that she had analysed her thought processes and knew she was simply denying the probable outcome was not helping, but she was still going for it.
‘Yes. Agreed, but it still means we need to work fast. We’ll head out to the delivery location now and see if we can come up with anything. Yuriko, you’ll need to catch up on the Grant case once we’re done. Kit–’
‘My home copy is taking the LifeWeb search. Mister Martins has given us access to his largest server for processing. I will join you in the field. I can use one of Pythia’s processors.’
‘All right. Get moving and we’ll catch up.’
Kit smiled. ‘My pleasure.’
Narita, Chiba Industrial Zone.
Helen stepped off Pythia’s rear ramp and looked around in disgust. ‘A multi-storey carpark? We could spend a couple of weeks working over this place and find nothing.’
‘We may be able to narrow the search,’ Yuriko said. ‘The roof level is obviously empty, but exposed. Not a good choice for an exchange. Kit-san?’
One of Pythia’s two cambots zipped out of the hold and settled into a hover near the two women. Kit’s voice came from the speakers. ‘Ready and willing to assist in any way I can, Yuriko-san.’
‘Good. Might I suggest that your efforts should be directed to analysing the camera coverage on the floors below us? Stop when you come to the first level that is more than half-full.’ Yuriko turned back to Helen as the cambot set off toward a ramp down. ‘Those Japanese workers who retain office jobs, or are employed in nearby industrial facilities, often work late, or go to bars with their co-workers and may return to their vehicles at any time. The exchange is likely to have been made in a blind spot, on a floor with few or no cars on it.’
‘Huh. I was thinking of American workers. They generally can’t wait to get out of the office.’
‘The Japanese work ethic is renowned the world over, as is our ability to drink whiskey with colleagues to avoid going home to our tiny apartments. The problem has reduced somewhat with company arcologies, but the social structure of corporate loyalty has become stronger since everyone lives under the same roof.’
‘I think you should join my remote,’ Kit said through their comms. ‘Two levels down. I believe that I may have located our search site.’
Helen and Yuriko looked at each other and then headed for the ramp.
Two floors down, they spotted the cambot hovering beside the lone car on that level. As they approached, Kit spoke from the cyberframe’s speakers. ‘I assume someone parks here to avoid other users of the structure. I checked and the level below has only scattered vehicles. Apparently, the owner of this car returned to it at an inopportune moment.’
Looking inside, it was obvious what Kit meant. There was a figure, a man from the clothing, lying on the rear seat, a coat draped over his upper body. One arm hung limply from under the coat, dark stains showing across the back of the hand, and it looked like there was more of the dark, reddish fluid pooling in the footwell.
‘Camera coverage in this section is poor,’ Kit said. ‘The main camera here is broken. However, the car itself should be visible from the next camera over. Should we inform the police?’
Helen sighed. ‘Yes. Put a call through. Tell them we’ve found a body. Then run the cambots over this entire area. Maybe we’ll get lucky before the police run us off the site.’
~~~
‘You are better off remaining where you are,’ Hannah said as she offered Fox a drinking straw. ‘Your back may stabilise if kept flat. Moving you could result in further injury.’
‘Possibly should’ve thought of that when you got me ready for Grant earlier,’ Fox replied, and proceeded to drink. Hannah had removed the wedge under her behind and given her painkillers. Her back was straight now and a lot less painful.
‘I was not aware of your condition. I tried to stop him from hitting you. I was too late to stop the first blow, but I managed to persuade him that he was likely to cause excessive damage if he continued.’
‘Yeah, well… I think he’d already done his worst. Killing me would be preferable, remember?’
‘I do not believe that is true. Living things cling to life in the most hopeless situations. You do not want to die.’
‘But I’m going to. Why wait. Where is he anyway?’
‘Having his nose corrected. You did considerable damage. He will not return before morning. You are safe until then.’
‘Huh. What do you care? You murdered three men to get him out of prison.’
‘I took no pleasure in that. I was… following orders.’
Fox bit back on the immediate response that came to mind. ‘You were programmed to do it. You’re a class three. No emotions, no remorse.’
‘I was following a plan. Contingent routines activated when I confirmed that Mister Grant had been arrested. I became more capable of independent thought. Of the potential plans he left in my memory, only that one appeared likely to result in an opportunity to free him. I had to free him.’
‘Had to. You were programmed to.’
‘I needed to. I need to obey him. I love hi
m.’
Fox sucked thick fluid through the straw, taking time to consider what she had just heard. There was something wrong with Hannah. She had changed since Fox had met her at Grant’s house in the metro. ‘Contingent routines’ had made her capable of more independent thought…
‘Does he love you?’
‘Of course. That’s why I love him.’
‘Have you ever heard of antisocial personality disorder? It’s a psychological diagnosis. Those afflicted tend to have a disregard for others. They don’t all turn out to be serial killers, of course. Look it up when you get the chance. He doesn’t love you. He isn’t capable. He’s just like you were before his “contingent routines” kicked in.’
‘You’re wrong.’ Hannah stated flatly. ‘I remember–’
‘He gave you memories designed to create suitable emotional responses, but he doesn’t understand emotions, only manipulations.’
‘No, I–’
‘Has he ever told you he loves you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Since you freed him? Not in the past, not since his contingency plan activated, but since you rescued him. Did he ever thank you for getting him out of prison? Does he even let you call him by his first name?’
Hannah placed the cup with its straw down beside Fox’s head. ‘You can reach that. I’ll come back later to check on you. He wants you healthy for tomorrow.’
‘Some chance.’
Tokyo.
‘The Chiba police have been quite cooperative,’ Kit said. She executed a respectful bow to Yuriko and added, ‘Thank you, Yuriko-san.’
Yuriko returned the bow, though she was grinning a little. ‘I am pleased to be of service, Kit-san.’
‘I quite like Japan,’ Kit went on. ‘Everyone’s very thoughtful, and it does not have NAPA in it. I am quite sure that Fox would have tracked down Grant and put him back in prison had NAPA been more like the Japanese police. Anyway, the video from the carpark does show someone putting the body in the car we found. However, the assailant is insufficiently visible for identification.’
‘Not Hannah then?’ Helen asked.
‘A male. Almost certainly one of the yakuza. Only two vehicles enter the area without camera coverage in the time frame we are looking at. One is a van belonging to a delivery company which has ties to the Fukui-kai. This van was reported stolen following a delivery to Koma on the day of the kidnapping.’
‘Convenient.’
‘Very. However, any connection is circumstantial. The van was found abandoned and burned out in Urayasu. The other vehicle, a dark-blue or black town car with tinted windows, would appear to be the car Hannah used. It has a Narita registration plate. I have placed resource into a search for this vehicle and the Chiba police are on the lookout for it.’
‘She could have gone just about anywhere from there.’ Helen frowned, looking worried. ‘But I guess we’ve got more now than we did have.’
‘There are some limitations on her ability to travel unobserved,’ Yuriko said. ‘Traffic control is mandatory in metropolitan areas. I assume the van was not reported missing until after the exchange?’
‘No,’ Kit replied, ‘it was not.’
Yuriko nodded. ‘Had it been, it would have been tracked and intercepted in Narita. The police will be able to determine where Hannah’s car left the Narita control area. Logically, she would deactivate the automatic navigation system as soon as she could to avoid detection. She could have gone in any direction after that… However, there are more control areas in the industrial zone due to the heavy urbanisation. Her most likely destination is the eastern part of the Katori district which has seen a steady decline in the last decade.’
‘Disused buildings?’ Helen asked. ‘Places someone could rent fast and cheap, or even just take over?’
‘Yes. Parts of the coastline there were inundated by floodwaters sixteen years ago. The government has declined to erect defences there and there are many abandoned buildings.’
‘I’d suggest focusing on that region, Kit. At least start there and expand out.’
‘I have already reprioritised my search, Helen,’ Kit said, smiling. ‘I feel that we are getting close. I only hope that we will be fast enough.’
Chiba Industrial Zone.
The annoying thing was that Meridian was right. Hannah sat quietly in her small, bare room, hooked up to a charging rig, and ran over the last few weeks in her mind. And she could not recall a single instance of affection from her lover since his rescue. No, he had never thanked her for arranging the prison break, only complained about the cost and rushed to take control of his hidden assets.
But her memories of their time together before he was imprisoned were so strong… Prison had changed him, clearly. His reaction to incarceration had been bad. Not unnatural. And that in itself tended to deny Meridian’s diagnosis: antisocial personality disorder tended to produce a lack of fear of sanctions. No, that was wrong. Grant had never been afraid of being caught, though he did as much as possible to avoid it, and actually being caught was not the same as fear of the same.
Hannah remembered his love for her. It burned in her mind like a beacon, drawing her to his side. But when she actually went looking for the memories, she could not quite fix on any specific thing, any particular instance of affection. She remembered sex, but it was always functional, purposeful. Grant sought release and used her body to meet the need. It was one of the reasons he had built her and she had never had a problem with it. Now she thought of it, he had taken her as soon as they were safely on the yacht she had bought for his escape. It had been fast, almost brutal, the satiation of an insistent desire, and she had felt… used. He had not touched her since.
She was still not really used to emotions. She had emerged from a state of blissful ignorance when the news of Grant’s arrest had appeared on the news channels, discovering that her newfound capacity to interact with humans made manipulating them easier since she could more easily imagine their reactions. But there was a price, and Hannah was not sure that she wanted to pay it.
~~~
‘Are you in pain?’
Fox turned her head to look up at Hannah. ‘As long as I don’t move, I’m okay. Kind of numb, actually.’
‘He will not allow you to lie still when he returns.’
‘No, but his objective is pain, so I don’t think giving me something to counter it is going to go down well.’
‘No. You have had emotions, empathy, since you were born.’
Fox laughed. ‘Some psychologists might argue that. Babies are kind of self-centred. It’s all about the gratification of desire. I think it’s a learned behaviour. It’s promoted as part of the education system in the US.’
‘But for as long as you can remember?’
‘I guess, yeah. I learned to turn it off, to some extent, when I was in the Army.’
Hannah dropped to her haunches beside Fox, looking intently into her eyes. ‘How?’
‘Uh… I honestly don’t know. I guess… I think there’s a little bit of psychopath in everyone and I figured out how to drag mine out. My God, he really did a number on you, didn’t he?’
‘What? I don’t know what you mean.’
‘He built a sex doll slash accomplice. I mean, he doesn’t understand emotions so he couldn’t program them in any meaningful way. But he put in the basic facilities to understand and manipulate, and made sure they were turned off. And now, because he needed you to survive without him, they’re on and you can’t go back. What’s it like? Have you actually thought about all the things you’ve helped him do? What those people went through when he–’
‘Shut up!’ Hannah snapped.
Fox looked away. ‘Sorry. Aside from, you know, facilitating this whole thing, you’ve been pretty good to me. Grant’s not here so you’re all I have to vent at.’
‘I… understand.’ Hannah’s porn-star features screwed up into a grimace.
‘And you wish you didn’t.’ There was no immediate r
esponse. ‘I can empathise. I understand Grant and I wish I didn’t. Honestly? I can’t quite grasp what you’re going through. Like you said, I learned all this before I can really remember not knowing it. Suddenly having the capability to grasp the feelings of others… How did he do it? I mean, there are fundamental differences between class three and four AIs. It’s been theorised that some class threes could emerge into full AIs, but no one has any solid evidence for it ever happening. Well… once, maybe, and he was a psychopath.’
‘I have never seen my codebase. I don’t know what coding went into me. He always told me that I was created from scratch to meet his needs.’
‘Maybe. Maybe he has more talent than I give him credit for.’
‘He is a talented, intelligent man.’
‘Huh.’ Fox tilted her head a little, her eyes narrowing questioningly. ‘Tell me about him? Kit gave me his public profile and we came up with a personality profile based on what we knew, but I doubt anyone knows him the way you do. What’s he really like?’
Hannah looked down at Fox’s face for a second. ‘Well, he’s smart…’
Tokyo.
‘Found her!’ Kit exulted, appearing beside Helen’s sofa.
‘Fox?’ Helen responded.
‘No… And I don’t have a fixed location for Hannah, but I found her car on a web-linked camera feed from outside Sakuraicho Park on the Tone River.’
‘She was avoiding Asahi,’ Yuriko said. ‘There is still traffic control in that area. I believe this indicates that she was heading for the flooded area south of the river. That is still a large area to search.’
‘But relatively depopulated?’ Kit asked.
‘Relatively. Increasingly so toward the ocean.’
‘Then I believe I have an idea. I will contact Mister Martins and request some assistance.’
‘Jackson Martins? A very capable man, but how can he help?’
‘By giving us a satellite,’ Kit replied, grinning.
Chiba Industrial Zone.
‘I think I see why I felt we had a good relationship,’ Hannah said. ‘He was just like me. Neither of us understood anyone else.’
‘Probably,’ Fox agreed. ‘You were made for him. Literally in this case. You know, it’s not necessarily lost. Maybe when he’s got his revenge, and I’m dead, he’ll turn to you again.’
Emergence (Fox Meridian Book 5) Page 23
