One of these, first noted in December 2068, coincided with the first fifteen Twinmaker murders, but also included three previous dates that did not correspond to any known activity by that felon. Known as the Novohantay Sequence, its peaks were of a roughly constant amplitude but variable in length, increasing over time from a day or two to almost two weeks.
The murder of Yoland Suche-Thomas did fit the pattern perfectly, but the latest murder did not. It was several weeks early. According to the most recent mean latency figures, however, the Pool was experiencing the tail end of a peak that had reached the amplitude usual for a Novohantay event.
What this meant was unclear. Supposing a connection existed between the murders and the Sequence—which was far from proven—the reasons for that link remained unknown. Perhaps, QUALIA thought, it was related to the murderer's uncanny ability to break into supposedly secure information networks that used the Pool as a means of communication at some points along their dissemination chain. But the amount of processing required to slow the Pool in such a fashion was enormous. Not even d-med, which created a detailed, interactive simulation of an entire human body right down to the molecular level, used as much. SHE found it hard to conceive of a process that might explain both the killer's espionage talents and the drain on the supercomputer network. It was barely conceivable that one person alone could orchestrate such a demand and put it to useful purpose.
Unless—
SHE almost discarded the thought upon thinking it: Unless the Twinmaker had help. Who would help him? Profilers agreed that he was probably working alone. But the help didn't have to be human. Although sophisticated AIs required the enormous processing power of specialised Standard Human Equivalent processors, such as the bank of twenty that gave QUALIA such an edge over contemporary entities, such machines could be simulated using a large array of ordinary processors. For all its inefficiencies, that method was workable.
SHE submitted a request to raise the possibility in conference with Herold Verstegen and Fabian Schumacher. Although the matter wasn't urgent, it did warrant discussion with the people who would know best whether to pursue it or not.
“It's an interesting thought, Q.” Schumacher rolled over onto his stomach and faced the camera the right way up. He was in a zero-gravity health spa currently on the far side of the planet. “What do you think, Herold? Is it worth tabling, or are we scratching at the wrong back door?”
“It's important enough to look at here and now, if only to commend QUALIA for bringing it to our attention.” Verstegen smiled into the camera. “Even though I doubt it will lead anywhere, this potential connection has been overlooked by human investigators.”
“Actually,” SHE said, “a casual remark from Officer Whitesmith led me to make this observation.”
“Regardless, it was something he chose not to follow up. I think it proves a point. AIs such as you do have an important place to play in investigative and security organisations, as I have always maintained.”
“What about the actual idea?” Schumacher asked. “You think it's irrelevant?”
“Almost certainly. The thought of using a virtual AI to penetrate the security networks that use the Pool is flawed on two levels.”
“How so?”
“Well, don't forget we're talking about two separate networks: GLITCH and ours. GLITCH has always been the easiest network to penetrate. Observational data is encrypted only for compression purposes, not to prevent people from obtaining it. Indeed, the information is there for anyone persistent enough to look for it, provided only that she or he can avoid the Enforceable Honour System governing its use. Every data packet is encoded with the subject's Privacy status. Any unauthorised attempt to observe restricted packets, where the Non-Disclosure Option is active, results in an attempt to penalise the observer. Most often the packets unleash retaliatory viruses that invade the hostile system, simultaneously jamming it and notifying the authorities of its presence, but there exist many methods of preventing such action. To penetrate GLITCH, in short, one does not require an AI of the magnitude you are describing.
“KTI, on the other hand, is a completely different matter. Our packets are fully encrypted and therefore not open to outside inspection. Also, the dissemination of the packets is performed in such a way as to maximise the effort required for someone to perform an illegal reassembly. Finally, we would know if someone had attempted such a thing, for although the packets contain internal multiple redundancies, they are not duplicated themselves. An intercepted message would be altered or erased, thereby alerting us to the fact that someone was trying to break into our system.”
“Which has happened,” Schumacher said.
“Of course. But no one, to my knowledge, has been successful,” he said. “Perhaps the biggest flaw in QUALIA's argument lies in the fact that the Pool is a chaotic mess of data. How would an intruder situated midstream know which packets to assemble? The sort of AI required to examine every packet that passes through the Pool would be enormous, bigger than the Pool itself. But any other method relies on breaking into the networks at either end of the dissemination chain, where such an intrusion is most easily detectable.”
Schumacher smiled as though Verstegen had said something amusing. “So do you have any idea how the Twinmaker might be doing this?”
“Although it pains me as head of Information Security of your company to admit it, I have to say that I don't.”
“Where does that leave us, then?”
“In the awkward position of waiting for more conventional means to locate the killer. Only after he has been captured might we determine how he has eluded detection thus far.”
“You suspect, though, that the matter will prove to be an internal one.” Schumacher's pupils flickered, residual movements of a virtual glance. “I have you on record saying so a year go.”
“And I still believe that to be the most likely scenario. It would be easiest to overcome security from within the security chain itself. Most specifically, from within the MIU.”
“Would an AI such as that hypothesised by QUALIA be required?”
“I believe not. The matter becomes one of infiltration rather than sorting large quantities of data. What we are talking about here is a drain of ten to fifteen percent of the Pool's free processing power. Not even QUALIA requires that sort of capacity.”
“I have one other observation to make,” QUALIA broke in. “The mean latency figures indicate that the peaks of the Novohantay Sequence correspond to the periods immediately after the kidnap of each victim, not before.”
“There you have it, then,” Verstegen said. “The peaks can have nothing to do with how the Twinmaker is breaking into the system. Otherwise the peak would occur at the time of the kidnap when he most needed the processing power.”
“True,” Schumacher nodded. “How long do the peaks continue?”
“Typically until the bodies have been disposed of,” QUALIA explained. “Before and after each peak there is a lesser plateau that may last a number of hours or even days, then these too taper off.”
Schumacher rubbed his upper lip. “You're right, Herold. It doesn't seem to fit. But the coincidence is compelling. Perhaps we should continue to observe the latest event, just in case. We'd be in the wake of one now, is that right, Q? The lesser peak?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, keep me informed if anything unusual happens. There could be other reasons behind it. Use the archive-33 overrides if I don't answer immediately.”
“Understood, sir.”
“Good. And now, if you'll excuse me, I have a meditation session to attend. I'll be back on-station in an hour.”
The three-way conference dissolved, leaving Verstegen and QUALIA alone on a single line. The security director closed his eyes and leaned back into his seat. In the background of the shot was the familiar environment of his personal suite on-Earth, not his office in orbit.
“Really, QUALIA, that was very well done,” he said. “
I'm proud of you for taking the initiative like this. Just beware of jumping to conclusions too soon. The coincidence of the Novohantay Sequence with the murders may be grossly exaggerating its significance.”
“I understand, sir. That is why I raised it. The need for qualitative external input overrode the need for further quantitative data.”
“Input from Schumacher? He didn't really need to know about this. It's not his field.”
Again, withholding the truth was difficult. Herold Verstegen was the closest thing to a parent SHE had, apart from Lindsay Carlaw.
“He has an interest in this case,” SHE said.
“I'm sure he does. And good on you for involving him. Either way, you did the correct thing. I always knew my redesign of Carlaw's blueprint would turn out for the best.”
He smiled once again and killed the line.
SHE was able, then, to carry out Fabian Schumacher's implied instruction. SHE summarised the debate and packaged it along with QUALIA's original observations and sent the lot, in the care of KittyHawk, into the Pool. The “archive-33” codeword permitted such direct means of communication and allowed QUALIA to interrupt Schumacher's daily routine at any point, even the middle of meditation, to relay a reply, if any was forthcoming.
SHE could understand his interest in this matter. There were other processing-intensive operations, known only to a few, that could be performed on the Pool with similar effects to the Novohantay Sequence. They were usually avoided for just this reason, however; the risk of detection was too great. Sometimes SHE wondered whether many of the unexplained peaks in mean latency might indeed be the results of carelessness on the Watchers' part. If that was the explanation in this case, any connection between the Pool's unusual behaviour and the Twinmaker murders would be ruled out, which would in turn allow QUALIA to cease pondering the subject.
SHE certainly had enough to do as it was. The revival request for the two murdered agents had arrived from the MIU. The RLSM codes needed to be retrieved and cleared with EJC administration, then the models themselves had to be reconstructed. Resurrection was not enacted from the complete record of an individual's last jump; there was not enough memory in the world to store every commuter's full model. Rather, the Resurrectee was reconstructed by applying smoothing functions to certain data that had been saved, much of which was composed of the differences between that person and a so-called blank-slate template. If a person had a distinctive mark on an otherwise normal left arm, the mark was recorded but the arm was not. Only the head, and the uniquely precious organ it contained, was saved in its entirety. As horrific as that sounded to some people, the differences between a Resurrected human and the original were small—and few people who had undergone the process complained about being given another chance to live.
Once Agents Fassini and Kellow were Resurrected and had gone to attend counselling, there would still be the matter of McEwen and Blaylock. If they were not recovered within twenty-four hours, QUALIA expected decisive action on the MIU's part. SHE didn't dare believe that would improve relations between KTI and WHOLE.
It wasn't long before a priority message emerged from the Pool, addressed specifically to QUALIA. The reply from the Watchers was not only forthcoming, it was exceedingly brief.
Thank you, QUALIA, for bringing this matter to our attention. We were not aware that the situation had progressed so far. Intervention now seems mandatory. Please assure all concerned that we will seek to minimise damages.
HEU:ALC:FGS
SHE read the final line of code with a feeling akin to dismay. Instead of the reassurance SHE had sought, the Watchers' note brought only reasons to be increasingly apprehensive. What they meant by this matter and the situation was unclear, and the dark hints of intervention and damages didn't make the matter any clearer. SHE felt as though SHE was skirting the edge of a terrible abyss; that at any moment ignorance might cause QUALIA to stumble and slip over the edge. What lay at the bottom, SHE could not guess, but SHE doubted it would give Herold Verstegen reason to smile.
Jonah squatted on his haunches in one corner of the room, breathing slowly and deeply. He focussed his attention on the ground beneath the toes of his sneakers: not on the doors of the mass-freighter; not on the splash of red visible between them; not on Marylin's voice as she continued her examination of the body; not on the sickening sensation deep in his stomach that might have been nausea, but had too much in common with panic to warrant contemplation. He did his best not to think at all.
But he couldn't. It wasn't in his nature to turn away from facts, distasteful though they might be. At least he had one, now.
The Twinmaker had stolen the sign from Lindsay Carlaw's study before the unit had been sealed three years ago. Or someone had stolen it for him. Either way, the connection between Jonah and the Twinmaker had suddenly become much stronger. The fact that it might actual be him, in whatever incarnation, was no longer a hypothesis to entertain until a better one came along. It was all too plausible.
But it couldn't be him. He didn't doubt that for a second. He had never wanted to murder Marylin, even by proxy, even after she walked out on him. He couldn't do it to anyone, not in cold blood. One accidental death, justified by law but still a source of late-night guilt, was enough to deal with.
If it was him, then something had happened to change his outlook on life so dramatically that he bore little resemblance to the person he had once been. The killer was no longer the version who had taken InSight in a bath three years earlier, for whatever reason. The law might disagree, but Jonah refused to contemplate the fact that he and the Twinmaker might still share the same basic identity.
Either way, the Twinmaker was taunting him. He was taunting them all. Lindsay Carlaw's sign, and the precept written on it that had been his lifelong goal, was to Jonah what Jonah himself had been to Marylin. A goad. For some reason the killer had picked them as the targets of a joke that simply wasn't getting any funnier.
The punchline was that another woman had died. Forgetting politics, legal definitions and personal power plays, it all boiled down to murder.
Another woman had died, and Marylin wasn't happy.
“Listen,” she was saying to their captors, “you brought us here to look at the body. You said you wanted us to take it away. We brought the equipment we needed—a couple of cars' worth, in fact—but where is it? Did you think of that when you dragged us here, Kuei? Did any of you? There is no point me being here without some means of examining this body properly! Get that into your thick skulls and get us some equipment, or let us d-mat out of here with the body. Or shoot us. You don't have any other options. Pick one, and let's get on with it.”
Her footsteps echoed across the dull interior of the mass-transport booth then clopped onto concrete. He should have supported her, argued alongside her, but he didn't have the strength. His palms were sweating and every muscle felt drained, limp.
“Are you okay?” asked a voice.
He looked up too quickly, expecting Marylin, but instead found Kuei, the burned woman, bending over him.
“I've felt better,” he said through a wave of dizziness.
“You look like you need a bucket.”
He shrugged and leaned back until his head touched the wall behind him. The last thing he need was to be reminded of his churning stomach.
“I know what happened to you,” he said.
A hint of defensiveness touched her twisted features. “I was burned by d-mat.”
“No, you weren't.”
“How would you know?”
“I've heard of it before.” He concentrated on the memory. “A friend of my father's. A doctor. He wasn't part of WHOLE, but he was helping gather evidence against d-mat. I listened in on this story. It was about a young boy. D-mat incorrectly reproduced a microorganism on his skin, causing a mutation. The new bug was short-lived but virulent; it bred like crazy. Within hours, the kid was being flayed alive. By the time he reached hospital, it was too late to do much
more than keep him breathing.” He looked at her. “Is this ringing a bell?”
The woman nodded slowly, her artificial eyes catching the light and holding it.
He went on: “The bug was killed by antibiotics, and it infected no one else, but the kid was left skinless. KTI refused to admit responsibility. They said it was a natural strain that just happened to appear after he used d-mat. That there were no other known occurrences didn't stop the doctors from agreeing. Luckily, the boy had health insurance, so he could afford to have his skin regrown by nanos. I can imagine what he would've looked like without it.”
Only too well, he added silently to himself. Now.
The woman shook her head once. “We called it le lent feu—slow fire,” she said, hesitantly at first. “The hospital in Tadoussac was small and understaffed. The doctors cured it but they couldn't explain it. I just knew—and my parents knew too—that d-mat was responsible. My mother died not long after. When we complained to KTI, they covered it up. I—she couldn't—”
Kuei stopped and turned away.
“I'm sorry,” said Jonah. “I really am.”
Her voice was bitter. “If you were truly sorry, you would fight with us.”
“No.” He imagined his father's ghost stirring—to be so dispassionate when confronted with proof!—but he wouldn't let that thought soften his words. His father's compassion had been a sham, along with his very fatherhood. And Jonah remembered the argument well.
“I refuse to accept that you have a legitimate reason for seeking revenge, even if this was caused by d-mat. Accidents happen. In a different decade, the chances are higher that you'd have been disfigured or crippled in a car accident. In fact—”
“Écrase.” She raised a hand without looking at him.
He didn't know what the word meant, but he could guess. He ignored it. “Killing people doesn't solve anything, Kuei. It makes everything worse.”
She looked at him, then. “Is that why you wouldn't tell us who killed your father? So we wouldn't take revenge?”
The Resurrected Man Page 29
