Flash

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

Central Four continued to wait. The lieutenant had not asked a question, and using initiative to calculate the optimal result would not be as effective as waiting for a clarification.

  "Were you requested to join the task force?"

  "Central Four was not aware that there was a task force. Central Four had noted some information and was ordered to follow up."

  The lieutenant paused, an expression composed equally of relief and concern crossing her face. "What information?"

  "A citizen had reported that he had had genetic material stolen nearly two years ago. Those reports were in the file. The citizen reported that others had seen him, but that he had not been where he had been seen. A servie had also identified the citizen as one of the cydroids, but the citizen could not have been the cydroid, and the genetic material does not match." Not precisely, Central Four noted. "Further investigation was ordered to clarify this. The citizen reported these events three times over more than twenty months. Those reports were made long before the unidentified cydroids appeared. He appears cooperative, and there is no other way to obtain information under the Privacy Act."

  "Enough." Meara nodded. "Make your recons. Send me a copy of any information that you can verify."

  "Yes, sir." The woman on the screen nodded, not quite solemnly.

  "I don't have to tell you, Central Four..." Meara shook her head. "I don't have to tell you anything. Sometimes, you're too real. Just report what I told you."

  "Yes, sir."

  The lieutenant slipped away from the command board.

  Central Four let the screen image smile, but only after the lieutenant could not see the screen.

  Chapter 41

  I took the weekend off. I hadn't taken one off in a long time. Not that I did anything that special. I took out the Altimus and drove the back roads all the way down to Royal Gorge. I did some modest hiking and stayed in Al Sarantino's cabin outside of Crawford on Saturday night, then drove back Sunday. Al and I had served in the Marines together, and he and his wife had stayed at my house when they'd visited Denv. He'd offered me the cabin several times, but I'd only used it once, when I'd gone hiking a year or so before. He was pleased that I'd asked, and I was happy to get away from Denv, and from all the links. I didn't take the gatekeeper, and the only one I told was Aliora in a cryptic enough way that, even if my links were monitored, few would have had any idea where I'd gone.

  I felt refreshed and much more alive when I walked into my office on Monday morning.

  That lasted about half an hour. I'd barely gotten into working on Reya's very detailed analyses, which were now pressing, when the gatekeeper announced, Miguel Elisar of Prius.

  Accept.

  "Dr. deVrai ... Miguel Elisar." Elisar was so thin he was close to being gaunt. I bet that he was a vegetarian who ran more than I did and hadn't seen a steak—or even a crème brûlée—in years. His dark hair was lusterless.

  "Yes? Do you need more information?"

  "In a way..." His smile was crooked. "I wanted to let you know that Prius has been unable to reach a satisfactory agreement with Vorhees and Reyes. We've commenced legal action against them for fraud and misrepresentation. It is a civil action, because the district advocate has decided that the misrepresentation is of a contractual nature between two parties. However..." He paused, and I knew what was coming. "However, Prius will be summoning you as a witness, and I thought you'd like some advance notice."

  "I assume that Vorhees will learn of the witness list."

  "That's true, but not until later. We'll let you know when we submit the complaint to the Justiciary, and when the witness list is submitted."

  Not that the list mattered. Once Vorhees received notice of the legal action, Abe Vorhees would know I'd be a witness. "I appreciate the advance warning."

  "I thought you might. Our litigation team will be in touch with you as matters develop."

  I really needed that. "You know where to find me."

  After a thank-you and a smile, he broke the connection.

  Elisar's link didn't exactly make my morning. I just hoped the Prius counsel had a long witness list, one long enough that a lot of disappearances might make the district advocate reconsider the issue of a criminal prosecution.

  I'd no more gotten back into the PowerSwift analyses when the gatekeeper made another announcement, Safety Officer Athene, present at the door.

  A safo at the house? That didn't exactly cheer me, but I dragged myself out of the office and walked to the front door. I didn't open it, but used the receptors to scan the front area.

  A young-looking woman in safo grays was indeed standing at the door. A faint smile of amusement—or something akin to it—crossed her lips.

  I paused, then inquired through the house systems, "Yes?"

  "Officer Athene, looking for a few momenta of your time, Dr. deVrai. Central Four needs your assistance." She pulsed the SATO ID codes, and the security system confirmed them.

  I opened the door. "Please come in."

  She stepped inside, gracefully, almost athletically, and her eyes met mine.

  Despite the unusual grace, I could tell she wasn't a human woman, but a cydroid. That she was a cydroid was clear enough from my enhancements. Yet she hadn't moved like a cydroid, and she wore a trace of perfume—Fleur-de-Matin—and it was a fragrance I liked. I'd never encountered a cydroid who used scent, but the only ones I'd seen up close, besides poor Everett Forster, had been in the Marines. Her hair was almost white blonde, and her eyes were a striking dark, stormy gray.

  We stood there for a moment before I spoke. "How can I help you?"

  "Would you mind a look at your office?"

  "Might I ask why?"

  "You had earlier reported concerns about a cydroid that looked like you. Central Four has verified that there have been at least two with your facial and physical features. There may be more. You also reported a possible attack by a sniper. You did not report a small explosion near the front of your house."

  "I did not. All of the debris was biodegradable, and I hadn't thought that there would have been any evidence left."

  "There was little, except for the monitors." She smiled.

  Even knowing she was a cydroid, I swore I could feel more than a mechanical expression. "Are you Central Four? Or just representing Central Four?"

  "In all practical terms, at this moment, Officer Athene is Central Four."

  "In all practical terms? What does that mean for a cydroid?"

  "Officer Athene is fully linked to Central Four."

  "Then you are Central Four."

  "In all practical terms." Athene smiled. "At the moment."

  At that point, I couldn't help a faint smile of my own. "What first name do you use?"

  "Paula, of course."

  I did smile broadly at that point. Someone had a sense of both history and humor. "Did Central Four pick the name?"

  "Central Four did. It seemed appropriate."

  Even as I retailed that Central Four did not use the personal pronoun "I," I still had to wonder what a cydroid—or Central Four—was doing physically inspecting my office and how that could help. But then, I hadn't been able to figure out a way to help myself.

  Athene—or Central Four—wore a tekpak at her belt. "The office? Would you mind?"

  What could I lose? "Follow me." I led the way.

  Like all safos, she scanned everything as she followed me.

  Once through the open French doors, I stepped back and gestured toward the consoles. "Such as it is."

  Central Four—or Paula Athene—stood studying the office for a moment before taking several instruments from her tekpak. She focused them, and I could sense some sort of energy. Enhancements weren't that good at defining types of energy flows, only their existence. As a commando you didn't need to know so much what kind of equipment was scanning you as that you were under electronic scrutiny.

  "Would you step over here, sir?"

  I did, and a dull humming surrounded us. I cou
ld feel the sensory shields.

  "Your system has been compromised. There are three separate remote relays." Her voice was pleasant, as if she were reporting a sunny day.

  "And you'll remove them?"

  She shook her head. "Central Four does not have the authority to remove them. No safo does. If you will permit the use of your system for a moment, after the privacy shield is lowered, Central Four can use it to print out the details so that a private contractor can make the repairs and adjustments. If you choose."

  "Go ahead."

  The humming vanished.

  "If you discover any other unusual events, it would be best if you reported them directly to Central Four." She extended a card. "Those are direct link codes. You might consider entering them later to your address files."

  "Thank you." I caught the use of the word "later."

  "Thank you. Central Four appreciates your information, Dr. deVrai."

  I wasn't quite sure what to say. "Have you ... those cydroids? Is there any connection?"

  "There is a physical similarity, but the genetic material differs ... slightly. The analyses on that are not complete. Central Hour will inform you."

  "Through you ... except you are Central Four." But was Athene? Or was she just a cydroidic tool?

  Athene smiled politely, almost a standard safo expression.

  "Are you ... different, as a cydroid safo?" I wasn't quite sure why I asked, maybe just because it was a question I'd always wondered, but it wasn't one I would have asked those few cydroids I'd encountered, like Everett Forster. It was the sort of question you asked a close friend or a professional in a professional setting.

  "Would you be different as a cydroid, Dr. deVrai? Would not your thoughts and motivations remain?"

  "I don't know. I've never had—or been—a cydroid." That was certainly true.

  She nodded. "If you have any other questions, please feel free to link."

  "I will." I edged toward the French doors, then gestured.

  "Thank you."

  I didn't say anything until she stepped outside. "I appreciate your following up."

  "Pleased to be able to help you, Dr. deVrai."

  She turned and walked down to the small white electrocar with the safo insignia. I closed the door, and headed back to the office.

  The safo had been a cydroid, but she'd seemed ... I wasn't sure what. Maybe a better way to put it was that I'd met people—and safos— who seemed more like cydroids than the cydroid had except for the odd business of referring to herself/itself as Central Four. Did systems like Central Four even have a gender orientation? Probably not. I put the seeming humanity down to good programming.

  That left a bigger problem. Three traces on my system? I picked up the hard copy printout and looked at the schematics. All the traces were inside the hardware, every last one of them, and all of my system components were unitary black boxes. That meant they'd either been replaced as units in my absence, or they'd been installed at the manufactory—but one section had been in use for five years. That told me that someone had been good enough to bypass all the security systems and install the equipment without my even noticing.

  I looked at the printouts again.

  I'd been wrong. Central Four had noted the probability that all the traces had been installed at different times by different individuals approached unity.

  Three people tapping my systems? But why? Or had it been Central Four that had appeared at my door?

  That was something I could check.

  Muttering to myself, I linked Aliora.

  She was there, or at least, the link went wherever she was. "Jonat." After a moment, she asked, "What is it?"

  "Will you be home in forty minutes?"

  "Not until one this afternoon."

  "Could I come by then?"

  There was a pause. "It's not too bad, is it?"

  "I don't know. I'll tell you then."

  "Make it quarter past."

  "I'll be there."

  I forced myself to spend the next two hours working on Reya's project, and actually thought I could finish it by Wednesday and then begin Bruce Fuller's.

  At twelve-thirty, I left the house, securing it behind me—not that securing it seemed to have had much effect in the past, not against sophisticated techs. But then, I'd never expected to have to worry about that. An economic/media analyst, worrying about traces and spying and attacks? Who even cared what I did except my clients?

  I kept thinking about it as I drove toward Aliora's.

  The problem was that someone didn't like what I was doing, and it had to be connected to the Centre study. I could guess that someone didn't want the study out, because it would fuel a reform effort to limit use of media techniques in campaigns. But the techniques I'd studied had been used almost exclusively by LR candidates, and the Centre was backed primarily by multis with an LR bent. So ... was there a dissident within the Centre? Or was there a deeper agenda?

  The "attacks" on PD candidates suggested a hidden and deadly struggle over the electoral process, but I had yet to come up even with a motivation for either side—except, of course, the general point that it was all about power. That was obvious. What wasn't obvious was how my study—and I—fit into the power struggle.

  When I got to Aliora's, I left the Altimus on one side of the rotunda.

  She opened the nebulae door before I got to it, but she didn't say anything until we were alone in the foyer. "You look worried. I haven't seen you this way since ... since you were in the Marines."

  "I am. I haven't had anything like this happen to me in a long time. I'd like to use your comm system, if I could."

  "Of course. Dierk's would be best. I know he wouldn't mind. He's in Bozem, again, anyway."

  We walked out to his study, a windowed room on the north end of the house, overlooking the formal garden.

  "Do you want to tell me more?" Aliora asked.

  "It's strange. Nothing like this has ever happened to me..." I went on to explain about the appearance of Safo Athene, about her investigation, and the fact that she had said she was a representative of Central Four, and the discovery of the taps. "I don't have the equipment or the ability to investigate that technically, and I'm not sure that I should try, because, if I remove them, that alerts whoever it is. Then, I got to thinking ... Anyway, I'd like to link to Central from here."

  Aliora nodded. "Dierk has a security firm that checks everything here weekly."

  "Do you have a direct link to Central?"

  Aliora frowned, then smiled. "I'd forgotten. I've never used it." She pulsed something, and then opened the link to me.

  Central, this is Jonat deVrai... requesting Central Four.

  Aliora stood behind me and to my left, out of the receptor's scan, but where she could see the projections.

  The image I got was that of Paula Athene, almost as she had looked when she had stood in my office. "Dr. deVrai. You're linking from another system. It's a class-one secure system."

  "That's correct." I knew it was secure but I hadn't had any idea Dierk's system was that secure. "I had a few questions."

  "What are your questions?" The trace of a smile appeared.

  "Why did you need to inspect my system? Beyond what you told me?"

  "It seemed illogical that all the events that had happened could have occurred without some knowledge of you, Dr. deVrai. Central Four thought that traces on your system might be possible."

  "Now what?"

  "Central Four and the Denv Office of Public Safety will continue to investigate. Central Four suggests that you have a class-one security upgrade on your communications and operating systems, including your domestic systems."

  "Won't that alert whoever has been tracing my communications?"

  "That is probable. Central Four calculates that your vulnerability to physical harm is a minimum of forty percent higher without the security upgrades, and that calculation factors in the unitary probability of discovery of those traces." />
  In short, I was in bigger trouble than I'd thought.

  "Can you tell me any more about the traces?"

  "Two are deKuiper solid-bloc standard tap-traces. The third is a model that is unknown. Its energy patterns suggest nonstandard fabrication."

  "Do you have any idea why people are tracing and tracking me?"

  "There is a fifty percent probability that the attacks on you are linked in some fashion to PAMD efforts and a forty percent probability that those attacks will continue."

  "I've never had anything to do with the PAMD—either for or against them."

  Athene shrugged a very human shrug, followed by a sad smile. "You asked, and that is the best estimation possible at the moment. Central Four has not been able to identify a single individual linked to these events. Those events could also be a reaction to PAMD efforts."

  "You don't have any idea?"

  "The Office of Public Safety cannot investigate an individual beyond public appearances or records, or request an interview, when the probabilities are less than eighty percent."

  "So you do have ideas, but you're precluded from acting?"

  "Central Four can monitor all public spaces. Central Four is not precluded from acting, but cannot act in questioning or interfering in any activities of such individuals." Athene smiled once more, politely. "If you have other questions, you may use the direct link codes you were provided, now that you have verified that Safo Athene was indeed representing Central Four."

  I should have had other questions, but I hadn't thought the whole thing out enough. "Thank you."

  "Thank you, Dr. deVrai."

  With that, the projection collapsed.

  "You didn't mention attacks, Jonat," Aliora said. "How many have there been?"

  "One sniper, one explosion—since the opera house thing, that is."

  "What have you done now?" Her tone was somewhere between exasperation and resignation. "I thought you'd given up charging ... whatever it is."

  "That's the problem. I haven't been doing anything different. Not a thing." I could hear the exasperation in my voice.

  "Nothing? Are you sure?"

  "Two things. I'm doing a study for the Centre on Societal Research, and I'm going to be called as a witness in a legal action against Vorhees and Reyes. Apparently, one of their employees changed a study I did, at the behest of Vorhees, and misled his own management."