"Something fishy is going on."
Toutbon gaped. “Something fishy?"
"A man was killed in a Virtual Tour under very strange circumstances. He was literally screwed to death. He died with a smile on his face from unrequited sexual release. The main cause of death was a massive heart attack, but we're most interested in the sexual part. As you know, the potential for sexual stimulation is strictly repressed. Someone has found a way to break through barriers we thought were invincible."
Repressed—that was a word that made Professor Toutbon very nervous. He darted a glance at the Net Rep sitting unmoving upon the chair. Strange. He had no nervous ticks at all. No fidget, no shuffle, no glancing at a watch or even blinking an eyelid. Toutbon amused himself for the next five minutes trying to out-still him. It didn't work. He searched for something to say; he was obviously supposed to respond to that last cryptic statement. “I don't know what we have to do with this, um, story."
"We are very interested in Virtual Tours. We have great plans for them. However, if there is the slightest chance that a virus has been introduced, one making death through sexual nirvana possible, we must act immediately to snuff it out."
Sexual nirvana? Snuff it out? Toutbon peered closely at the man to see if he were joking in the slightest. He wasn't. “What can I do to help you?” The second the words left his mouth, he regretted them. Nothing but trouble ever came from those words. He was right.
"I need all the records of the last thirty hours of all the programs your mutants have infiltrated in triplicate, in hardcopy, before five pm."
Toutbon clenched his teeth together so hard he heard a distinct crack. “No problem,” he heard himself saying. “Let me contact Laurel, my assistant, and we'll get right to work. Would you care to wait here? There is a bathroom around the corner, a water fountain over there, and if you're hungry, our cafeteria is on the third floor."
"Do you mean the minus third floor? You're underground here."
"Oh yes, quite.” Toutbon stood and nearly shook hands with the Net Rep, but Net Reps don't shake hands. Toutbon's hand hovered in the air a moment before finding a handy pocket to hide in. Then, with a curt nod, he left.
He waited until he was in the elevator before giving vent to his temper; he kicked the stainless steel wall so hard the fire alarm went off, deafening him. By the time he reached the twelfth floor beneath the ground his head felt as if it were about to explode.
"Will someone fix the damn alarm in the fucking elevator!” he screamed.
Laurel raised her head. On her face was polite interest. The alarm was deafening, but Professor Toutbon knew it was useless to berate her. She was already deaf and couldn't hear the shrieking siren. Taking a rather shaky breath, he mouthed, “Shut the fire alarm off, please."
His assistant raised her eyebrows, a spark of amusement dancing in her brown eyes. She pushed a button on the console in front of her. Instantly the noise ceased.
"Thank you.” Toutbon tried desperately to recover some semblance of calm. “I need your help.” He looked straight at Laurel as he spoke. After five years of working together, it had developed into a reflex. He was also proud of the fact that his sign language was almost as competent as Laurel's was. However, most of the time he spoke looking straight at her, and she answered with her small, deft hands.
Laurel nodded and signed, “I was watching on the monitor. How strange they need everything in triplicate. Isn't that a paradox that the Net needs hardcopy? I'd have thought I could just e-mail everything."
Toutbon made a face. “Just do as he says. Get Carlos; he'll help you out. Don't take too long. I'm going to see the mutants. I can't believe he thinks the problem is coming from here. And who the hell told him about us, anyway?"
Laurel rolled her eyes. “You think the Net doesn't know everything that happens in the world?” she signed, her expressive face showing amazement. “You've got to be kidding. No one had to tell them anything. They have spies in all the programs. It wouldn't surprise me if they had their own mutant program.” Her hands flew as she signed this, and she gave a curt nod. “You'll see. They'll try to blame this on us so their own program will become exclusive. Be careful, Professor, the Net is watching you!” She jabbed her finger at him and laughed silently at his horrified expression.
"Laurel, stop joking around and call Carlos. This is not a laughing matter. Lord, listen to me! I'm starting to sound like that ape-man upstairs.” He shuddered, straightened his rumpled coat and found a sheaf of paper for the copy machine. Paper! The stack was way up on the top shelf, and if it hadn't been a clean environment, it would have been a foot thick in dust. They rarely used paper anymore.
He was unused to carrying the slithery sheets, and he left a fluttery trail of paper behind him as he walked.
* * * *
Laurel picked up the telephone and poked at a number. When Carlos answered, her hands flew over the keyboard, tapping a message that arrived verbally in Carlos's headset. He answered and his words trotted across Laurel's screen. “Be right there, Bright-eyes."
Laurel blinked, then shook her head. Carlos was always teasing about something. Usually it was about her hair. Because she worked in a sterile atmosphere, she shaved her head. Nearly everyone who worked below the tenth floor had shaved heads. It made life so much easier. No paper hats to wear and no worry about a stray hair or dandruff clogging precious circuits. It also made the ‘denizens of the deep,’ as Carlos called them, look like a tribe of mushroom people. Carlos chose not to shave his head. He wore his long, black hair in two tight braids and sometimes poked eagle feathers in them. He loved to tease Laurel about her baldness, the shiny heads of her fellow workers, the white lab coats and the silence that reigned in the perpetual dimness. Well, silent until Professor Toutbon kicked something and set off the alarms.
There were few lights, and the ones that shone were tiny, halogen pinpricks, spotlighting certain computer screens. Lights made heat, attracted dust, and showed the horrible color the walls were painted. Who had chosen that particular puce? Had he or she been color-blind or just a sadist, gleefully picking out a yellow-brownish-green so horrible it brought to mind no natural phenomenon except maybe vomiting? Whatever reason, it made the darkness a blessing, hiding the walls and making it very easy to take a nap whenever the need arose.
Laurel put on some lipstick and checked her make-up. If her hair grew in, it would be golden-brown, sleek, and very straight. She would look like a normal person and could go on dates in a nearby town. However, she was bald, her skin was as white as perpetual darkness could make it, and she had no social life beyond going to minus three and hanging out in the cafeteria. The nearest large city was a three-hour drive away through a burning desert, and her bedroom was a cubbyhole on minus nine. People worked odd hours, were discouraged from going to the ‘surface,’ and were paid a fortune to keep their mouths closed. Laurel put her money in bonds, played the stock market religiously and waited for the day she could retire at thirty-five.
She would buy herself a homey, beachfront house and spend the rest of her days sitting on a dune surrounded by miles of waving saw grass. She would watch seagulls float stiff-winged in the sky and dolphins rise rhythmically out of the waves. In her mind, she imagined the whole scene. The house would be built of wood gone silvery gray with age, and a rickety dock would spike its way straight out into the water from the smooth, sandy beach. Perhaps she would have a small sailboat, but as she'd never sailed she would have to go slowly at first, staying well within sight of land. Her house would be isolated, with a marsh behind it. At night while fireflies blinked in the whispering grass, moths would flutter around candles outside the filmy netting surrounding her king-sized bed. Beside her, stretched out on white linen sheets, would be the smooth, brown body of Carlos, with his black hair and his harsh, Indian face. Laurel closed her eyes, a faint blush rising out of her lab coat to infuse her pale cheeks.
* * * *
Carlos stepped out of the elevator. I
n the single beam of light over her desk, Laurel sat with her head tipped back, an expression of soft delight on her face. Usually, a million expressions chased themselves across her small features. Her eyes were generally crinkled in concentration while her mouth worked silently, mouthing the words that her hands danced in the air. He'd never seen her face in repose, its features as pure as if she were sleeping. He was used to her monkey mimics, her wide mouth stretching, her eyes fierce as she worked overtime making herself understood in an effort to breach the wall of silence that surrounded her.
It was a revelation seeing her like this. His heart lurched, and he frowned. His first instinct was to step back into the elevator and come back in ten minutes, but the door slid shut behind him. He was alone in the darkness watching a slender young woman dreaming in a pool of light. At that moment, Carlos Blue Jay Lakota fell deeply and instantly in love with the slim, mute girl. He ran a nervous hand through his long, black hair. He was going to have a hard time explaining this to his tribal elders.
* * * *
Professor Toutbon stood in the darkness in front of nineteen large, glass cases. Floating within them, nearly hidden from view by a thick cloud of opaque gas, were the mutants. Some were nearly humanoid. One or two could pass for human with no trouble at all. The others were bizarre, with deformed heads and bodies that had atrophied. It was inexplicable why some had developed normally and others had become freaks.
Fifty embryos had been taken from their mothers’ wombs after just three months’ gestation, and computer chips had been grafted into their brains. They had developed in liquid, a thick, viscous, amber juice that nourished them as they grew. Out of fifty, thirty-five embryos had made it through gestation to be ‘born.’ Five had died in the first year of life so that there were thirty of them left six years later. Six years of programming their brains while their bodies grew in gas-filled chambers that enabled them to float weightlessly. Electrical impulses flexed their muscles, keeping them fit. Lungs and hearts developed normally, but their consciousness was transmuted into human machines.
When they were seven years old, ten of the mutants were culled for testing.
The remaining mutants were part of an on-going experiment undertaken by the federal government. It was a CIA program, with the tacit participation of the FBI. They had been hoping for secret weapons or defense; what they'd gotten so far was money. The mutants proved themselves extremely lucrative when they started to develop virtual worlds. However, the government, paradoxically, had little control over the program. In making the program so secret, it had lessened any credible power they had over it. Now Professor Toutbon ran the program, and the government was content to stand back and watch closely. Another close watcher was the Net. It made Professor Toutbon very nervous to think of the Net Government having anything to do with the mutants.
A sound made him jump. The elevator doors slid open, and Dr. Djusky, the biologist in charge of the mutants’ physical welfare, stepped into the room. He blinked as his eyes adjusted to the light. He noticed Professor Toutbon, and a frown flitted across his face.
Professor Toutbon's hands twitched. He forced his mouth into what he hoped was a friendly smile. “Ah, Dr. Djusky. Do you have a moment? I have a couple questions for you, if you don't mind."
"What is it, Toutbon?"
Professor Toutbon scratched his chin. “I wanted to ask you some questions about the mutants."
"You came to the right person. But you know enough about them. What can you possibly want from me?"
"I'm not familiar with certain of their physical characteristics, and I'm not privy to the information the FBI and CIA have amassed over the years about them. I'm simply in charge of the game programs, in liaison with the owner of Virtual Tours."
"Get to the point.” Dr. Djusky peered into a glass case and tapped it with his finger. “Hello there, M-5."
The mutant didn't respond.
"I assisted the program founder, Dr. Tergiversate, you know."
Dr. Djusky straightened and looked at him from over the top of the mutant's case. “I know. But Dr. Tergiversate is dead."
"That's part of what I'd like to talk about. I've been going over those transcripts, and I wondered if you could help me. From what I pieced together, M-20, a female mutant, went insane. Neither Dr. Tergiversate nor I were informed of this when it first occurred. I would like to determine if there were any precursors to the incident, like failure to respond to stimuli, that sort of thing."
"You know there was no precedent or warning. Nobody noticed anything unusual. M-20 just started banging her head against the side of her cage one day."
"At the time, nobody but your team was allowed in the room, correct?"
Dr. Djusky narrowed his eyes. “If I had my way, you would still not be allowed here, nor anyone else, for that matter, except my own staff. What's bothering you, Toutbon? Can't sleep at night? Nightmares haunting you? See any flying men?"
Professor Toutbon winced. “When Dr. Tergiversate found out the mutant was apparently attempting to damage herself, he asked you to treat her, but nothing worked."
"I didn't have time to try everything before your precious doctor intervened. I was against his idea of taking her out of her case. Mutants are fragile, expensive pieces of biological machinery. They are not meant to be taken out and played with."
"He contacted the CIA. There were FBI agents. Everyone was there. It shouldn't have gone wrong."
"If I'd been allowed to continue my treatment, nothing would have happened. If Doctor Tergiversate had listened to me, he'd still be alive."
"How can you be so sure?"
"I was there, remember?” Dr. Djusky grinned at Professor Toutbon. “I saw him fly."
Professor Toutbon shuddered as he recalled the scene. Dr. Tergiversate had uncovered her case, letting clouds of gas float into the air, and reached in to touch her.
No one present at the time could say exactly what happened next. Billowing clouds obscured cameras on the walls, and the dim light made it hard for the assistants to view the scene.
Doctor Tergiversates had levitated into the air. Before anyone could react, he flew across the room and hit the wall with a horrible crunching sound. And then, M-20 stepped out of her glass case. She had been nearly seven feet tall. Her body was sculptural, perfect, with long, golden hair and high, round breasts. She had stood in front of everyone, staring at them with her strange eyes. They were gray and covered with a silver frost, making them gleam in the dim light. She'd stretched, raising her arms above her head, and laughed softly. Her red lips had twisted in a half smile, and she'd opened them to speak, to say something after fifteen years of silence. After fifteen years of floating in a glass case full of clouds.
At that moment, a machine gun volley had ripped through her rib cage, spraying blood, bone chips and lung tissue over those standing nearby. The glass case behind her had shattered in a sparkling fountain of glass splinters. Blood sprayed everywhere. A stray bullet struck one of the lab assistants, and he died, kicking his heels on the ground. Another technician vomited, staggering around, moaning and clutching his stomach. A woman crouched and screamed.
Professor Toutbon had been paralyzed, absolutely petrified, as soon as the mutant had stepped over the edge of her glass case, her long, perfect legs swinging almost insolently over the side. He hadn't been able to take his eyes from her even to look at Doctor Tergiversate's crumpled body. The Junoesque woman had mesmerized him. His breath caught in his throat, and he found himself waiting almost painfully for words she was never to speak. What had she wanted to say? He would never know. It was one of several mysteries surrounding that day.
"Toutbon! Either ask me what you want to know or let me get to work.” Dr. Djusky stood impatiently beside the terminal attached to one of the mutant's cases.
Toutbon blinked. “I was wondering if you knew who killed M-20."
"It's been seven years. Are you implying that I'm free to speak now?” Dr. Djusky gave a barking la
ugh. “Don't be stupid. I haven't the faintest clue who killed her. I was there, remember? I was right next to you. Anyway, if you used your brain, you'd be able to figure it out. The FBI or the CIA. They were the only ones who could destroy a million-dollar piece of machinery. They were hoping for a secret weapon, but what they got was a sex goddess.” He snickered.
Professor Toutbon took a deep breath. Dr. Djusky was often hard to take, but he kept the mutants healthy. “Well, actually, we have a problem with the Virtual Tour."
"That's not my department."
"I know, but you recall our reactions when M-20 stepped out of her case. Our physical reactions, I mean.” Professor Toutbon flushed. “The simple sight of a naked woman can't explain our instant, um, arousal. There was something overpowering about her that made us react on an instinctive level. None of us could have fired a single shot at her. At least not in the state we were in."
Dr. Djusky looked sharply at Toutbon. “Just what are you getting at?"
"I don't know. I was hoping you could tell me something about the mutants’ physical capabilities. Are they all like M-20? Can they all inspire uncontrollable sexual attraction?"
"No.” Dr. Djusky walked to another case and peered inside. “And I won't elaborate, if that's what you're waiting for."
"The Net Rep wants me to give him a hardcopy transcript of all the mutants’ movements in the last thirty hours."
"That's your domain. Imaginary worlds and make-believe games.” Dr. Djusky snorted.
"The Net Rep is a strange man,” Professor Toutbon ventured. “A certain Mr. Frank Dinde. He speaks in clichés."
At that, Dr. Djusky let out another harsh laugh. “Frank Dinde? Don't tell me the head of Net security frightens you?"
Professor Toutbon dug his nails into the palm of his hand. “I don't think it's a joking matter. A man died on a virtual tour, and the Net sends the head of security here to collect data. I don't like it."
Virtual Murder Page 4
