“While you’re waiting on them, I want reports. On that rape thing, and on just what you did see yesterday.”
Later that morning, after the overcast had burned off and the heat had returned, Bernie’s phone rang, echoing around the carrel that served him as an office. He grinned as he lifted his hands from the keyboard of his official municipal antique, an electronic typewriter with a mere half page of memory. Now, maybe, he could escape. Maybe he could get out of the building. Maybe he could even fly a…
It was the Count, and his message was simple: “They’ve found something out at the airport, and they want someone to come see. So go. And take a camera.”
“Yes, sir!”
Delightedly, he launched the Hawk from the Aerie’s uppermost platform, the jets thrusting the bird into the air, the wings snapping into place, the ground dropping abruptly away beneath him. He burned fuel with a prodigal hand, setting a direct course for the airport, wasting no time in soaring to gain altitude, certainly not to mesmerize himself with whirling landscapes as he had the day before.
Mere minutes later, he was descending on the hangar apron. Dust flew as he parked the Hawk, this time without the dormancy switch, for here there was nothing to make the bird misbehave. He dismounted, stroked his vehicle’s neck feathers with one hand, and strode toward the small door set like a sally port in the hangar’s gate. The electronic camera he had brought bumped against his chest, swinging on the strap around his neck. It would record anything, in any light, that he could see with his eyes.
A balding man in a gray suit stood beside the door. Bernie introduced himself and held out a hand. The other took it, said, “Alan Praeger, Air Board,” and opened the door. As it closed behind him, Bernie stopped, frozen in place by the scene before him.
The hangar was, of course, large enough for an airliner. A distant air-compressor labored inadequately to fight off the sun that beat down on the metal roof; the cavernous room stank of sweat and dust and spoiling meat. The Sparrow sprawled across the concrete floor and was dwarfed by the walls around it, and by the human mind’s insistence on interpreting walls on a more human scale. Yet it was recognizably a sparrow, a small—a tiny—bird, and it paradoxically shrank the hangar to the point that the white-coated technicians laboring over the spotlit chest, neck, and head seemed to have escaped from some tale of munchkins or brownies.
The Sparrow’s abdomen was open, the exposed flesh already dark and dry; that was, Bernie thought, where the rescue crews had cut to retrieve the bird’s victims. Great gashes, still shining wet, had clearly only recently been opened by the technicians’ laser scalpels. “We’ve been dissecting the thing,” said Praeger with a gesture.
“I hear you found something?”
“Over there.” Praeger pointed to the other side of the hangar’s cavernous space, where more spotlights illuminated the Sparrow’s passenger pod. More technicians labored there, their efforts concentrated on the cockpit area. Praeger started walking, and Bernie followed.
A bench had been set up to one side of the work area. Most of it was covered with the workers’ tools and test instruments. One end was clear, except for a padded case that stood open like a casket awaiting a shipment of crown jewels. Their course, Bernie realized, would end at that casket, and he wondered what they had found.
Praeger pointed at the casket. The padding was creased in the center, like that in a jeweler’s ring box. In the crease rested a black plastic oblong with numerous metallic legs. “A chip,” said Bernie.
Praeger nodded. “It had been added to the controller’s motherboard. We have no idea what it does yet.” He drew a pen from his shirt pocket and pointed at a line of identifying numbers on the chip’s casing. “We do know it’s a PROM—programmable read-only memory—chip. With the right equipment, someone could have stored a program in this thing.”
And if that program could have taken over the Sparrow…“The perfect sabotage,” said Bernie. “Like a virus program.” The police had been dealing with those for decades. Invented for laughs when computers were new, soon adopted by saboteurs and vandals, now they were a favorite weapon in battles for corporate control. They were also used by political terrorists.
Praeger nodded again. “Long-distance. Remote control. And untraceable.”
Bernie could already visualize other possibilities. A crook could make an armored car deliver its cargo wherever he wished. Or send a murder victim’s vehicle over a cliff. Or separate a kidnap target from its guards. Or…He reached for the casket.
Praeger stopped him. “No, Officer. This is a federal case.” Bernie agreed reluctantly. The man was right on two counts: Anything to do with terrorism was inevitably and promptly yanked out of local hands, as was anything that interfered with interstate commerce. But the feds did know that the local yokels could help. That was why they had summoned him, and…“It stays with us. We’ll let you know when we’ve analyzed the program.”
Bernie had to settle for what his camera could record.
Aloft once more, Bernie set his Hawk to soaring in circles, but this time he paid little attention to the whirling landscape. He was thinking: It would be weeks before the feds had any results to share, and there was no reason to expect that the chip would reveal a thing about who had set it to subvert the Sparrow. He needed a different approach, an alternative way to seek the villain responsible.
Could he dismiss the idea that terrorists had done the deed? Too many groups had tried to claim the credit, but he could not rule out the possibility. He preferred it, in fact, to the thought that the villain was some nut bent on random destruction. Either might be the case, though he would rather hunt a rational foe—if rational was a word that could possibly fit with such a crime—one with a reason for his act, for through that reason, he might be able to track the man.
Bernie reflected on what any detective had to look for when he sought to solve a mystery. Modus operandi? That was unique, and therefore no help. There would be no clues in the department’s records of the past. Did anyone gain from the Sparrow’s attack? There must be dozens of insurance beneficiaries, heirs, disgruntled spouses. The sort of pedestrian grunt-work checking all of them out would need could safely be called a last resort. Who had had the opportunity to install the chip? Just every maintenance worker and pilot who had ever been in the Sparrow’s cockpit, in every airport it had ever landed in. Even, for that matter, in the factory that had built and installed the control unit.
What was left? Nothing. It was indeed the perfect crime, untrackable until the villain—terrorist or whatever—said or did something to arouse suspicion. Perhaps, however, he could study that modus operandi. He could find out, even before the feds reported, just how a non-spec chip like the one they had found would have to work. How could a tiny thing like that possibly take over something as huge as an airliner? How could it possibly make the airliner do things so far outside its normal range of behaviors?
He needed a gengineer. Fortunately, he remembered, he knew one. He had met her just the day before. She had even been on the expressway, in the midst of the disaster, and she should therefore have some interest in the case. Now all he had to do was remember her name, and where she worked. Unfortunately, all the papers he had filled out, with all the information he needed, were back in the office.
But…Neoform was the company. That much he recalled. And he knew where that was located. He tipped the Hawk’s soaring from its endless circles into a straight-line course. As he flew, he struggled to recall the name. The kid, the kid with the feather, his name had been Andy. Hers…? The Neoform complex grew visible in the distance, and it came to him: Emily.
When he reached the Neoform headquarters, he was surprised to find another departmental Hawk in the parking lot. It had been toggled into dormancy, presumably because of the Buggies that surrounded it. If it had not been shut down, it might not have been able to resist temptation.
He took an empty space across the aisle, positioning his Hawk so that it faced t
he other, and put it as well to sleep. Who else was here? Was their business related at all to his own? He supposed he would find out soon enough.
As he walked toward the building entrance, he noticed a Tortoise drinking from the trough before it. Its shell bore splatters of something that had once been liquid. He supposed that most who noticed would have no idea of what the liquid might have been. To him, the splatters said that this was indeed the right place, and Emily—Emily Gilman, that was it—was here.
As he approached the glass doorway, he thought he recognized the figure standing before the receptionist’s barrier. Connie, here? She had said she would be interviewing witnesses, and the computer would have parceled out the lists. Had it been alphabetic? Or random? His hand hovered over the door handle, and he decided it didn’t matter. It was just coincidence that their paths had crossed here and now.
When he entered, the receptionist’s eyebrows rose dramatically, as if to say that one cop on the premises was unusual enough, but two? He ignored her. “Hi, Connie. Mrs. Gilman?”
“She was in a meeting. She’s on the way down now.”
She had hardly finished speaking when a slim, dark-haired woman rounded the corner. Her dress was tailored both for an appearance of professional competence and for utility—one breast pocket, loaded with pens, had obviously been stiffened to resist sagging; two side pockets, just forward of her hips, supported folded papers.
As Emily approached, her gaze swung back and forth between them. “Yes?”
Connie spoke first: “Dr. Gilman? We’re interviewing as many witnesses to yesterday’s incident as we can.”
“An incident, is it now?” She looked at Bernie, and her eyes widened with recognition.
He couldn’t help but blush. “I’m investigating the Sparrow from another angle,” he said. “I need some background on how genimals are controlled, and I thought of you.”
She smiled at him. “I’ll be delighted to help. But I’m afraid I can only oblige one of you today. I’ve been out of town…”
“You were here first, Connie.” He turned back to Emily. “Tomorrow?”
They made the appointment. When they had shaken hands, he gave Connie a mock salute and left.
Bernie’s quarters were stark and bare, less from some austerity of design than simply because he had never felt the need for pretty tables, pictures for the walls, or draperies. A bed, a bureau, an easy chair, a worn dinette set, one small bookcase, and a sagging couch had all come with the apartment. His own possessions consisted of the clothes in the closet, the dishes in the kitchen cupboard, a few books, some photos of his favorite genimals, all of them raptors, scattered on a bookcase shelf. And, of course, his bicycle.
Connie had an apartment in the same near-work neighborhood as Bernie, and she too was a single police officer, but that was where the resemblance ended. The furniture was her own, all of it, polished wood, fabrics whose roughness was meant to suggest hand-weaving, soft cushions. The floors wore braided rugs. The walls bore art photos printed in metallic inks on glass.
Now he lay supine on her bed. She sat erect beside him. One of his hands lay on her thigh. One of hers was flat on his bare chest. He circled his index finger in the sweat on her skin. She pretended to coil the same finger in the scant hair between his nipples. He let his eyes wander over her: so slender that she might have seemed anorexic if her muscles weren’t so clearly, cleanly drawn beneath the skin, small breasts like plums, hard and sweet, corded neck, fine-drawn features. She surveyed him as well: as strong as she in the male way that needs less work to maintain the muscles, the early signs of later paunch—she pinched his belly flesh—square hands, blocky features, rugged.
If he had gone home when he got off work, he would have fried a couple of hot dogs, or a pork chop, and opened a beer. Connie had stuck lasagna from the freezer in her microwave and opened a bottle of wine. Then she had actually made a salad, and he got a dose of the greens his mother had always told him never to forget to eat.
He closed his eyes while Connie fingered his chest hair. He squeezed her thigh, and he thought that she was good for him. Just what he needed. Maybe…
“Hey, Bernie.” She tweaked a hair. “Think you’ll ever get close to her?” She reached downward with her other hand. “Close like this?”
“Huh? Who you talkin’ about?” He opened his eyes. She was smiling.
“Mrs. Gilman. That good-lookin’ Emily. She was lookin’ at you, Bernie.”
“Aaahh, you’re full of it, Skoglund.” She had looked at him, there in the Neoform entrance lobby, just as she had looked at Connie, just as she would look at any vaguely familiar stranger. There had been no sign of any deeper interest, and he thought that surely he could have told.
“No, I mean it. I think you turned her on when you threw up all over her running board. Showed her how sensitive you are, you know?”
He fell himself turning red. Connie had pumped her for everything, hadn’t she?
“Oh, my,” she said. “I never knew a man could blush like that!” She laughed. Her hand left his chest and touched the side of his face. “From here…” It slid down his neck, over his shoulder, and back to his chest. “To here.”
“Come on, Connie!” His voice plaintive, he tried to sit up.
She pushed him back. “Uh-uh. Don’t run away. I’ve always known you were sensitive, Bernie. It’s why I like you. Why you’re here now.”
He glared up at her. “So why push my buttons?”
She giggled. “There’s only one button I want to push. The same one she does, I bet. Think it’ll work again?”
There was a pause, another giggle, a rustling of sheets as they changed their positions. Then, “Go for it, fella.”
* * *
Chapter Five
RALPH CHOWDHURY’S LAB might have seemed strange to another scientist, even to another gengineer. The computer workstations, screens aglow with graphic simulations and columns of figures, were normal enough. So were the scattered aquaria, shelves of reagents, enameled freezers, stainless steel incubators, and LED-illuminated DNA splicers. But Chowdhury’s desk, carefully centered before the green-board at the head of the room, looked much more like a schoolmaster’s podium than like a researcher’s work space. The desk was a high, slant-topped affair at which he sat on a high stool, his feet wrapped around the rungs. The other desks and workbenches in his lab were less extreme in their idiosyncrasy, but they too were higher than normal, and Chowdhury expected his aides to use the stools he had provided for them.
It might have seemed even stranger to visitors from Neoform’s financial or marketing departments. They too favored more conventional furniture, but they would have found most alarming precisely what no gengineer would blink at: the strange things floating in the aquaria, the particular subjects of the graphic simulations, the dried puffer hanging above Adam Chand’s workstation. They promised new products for the company, but they also gave Chowdhury’s lab something of the air of an alchemist’s workshop. It was only missing a suitable array of alembics and a grimoire or two, though that absence had never struck Chowdhury. His lab was as it was because, quite simply, he had once seen an old photo of a Bombay accounting shop, with rows of bookkeepers perched on stools and leaning over heavy ledgers set on slant-topped lecterns. He knew perfectly well that modern Indians, like accountants and bookkeepers throughout the world, now used desktop computers, but he had inescapably identified that photo with his ethnic heritage. And as soon as he had earned the right to dictate the design of his own lab, he had exercised that right.
Adam Chand was one of Chowdhury’s three technicians. He had found the puffer in an antique shop the summer before, its bleached and empty body inflated like a balloon, but stiff, all spines and prickles. The storekeeper had told him that they were also called blowfish, that they inflated themselves with air to foil predators, that they had been at times used as lanterns, housing candles, and that in Japan, as fugu, they were considered delicacies, if the chefs w
ere successful in removing the toxic inner organs.
Now, beneath the puffer’s dry benison, Chand labored, exploring the puffer’s genome. He had long since, in his spare moments, confirmed the dealer’s tales through the data bases. Then he had wondered if the fish could be enlarged and its air cavity turned into a compartment for passengers, cargo, and engines. Gengineers had tried, he knew, to turn porpoises and whales into bioform submarines, but so far they had failed. If he could be the first to succeed…Once, he had admitted to his boss that at night he dreamed of promotion to a lab of his own. Chowdhury presumed he still did, though he no longer dared to speak of it.
Chowdhury’s other two technicians were busy too. Micaela Potonegra, at another terminal, was working on production schedules for the Armadons. Zhang Dong—everyone but Chowdhury called him Sam—was using the DNA splicer to make certain changes Chowdhury had ordered in several genes taken from a coral snake. Chowdhury, not having told him what genes he was working on, had watched expressionlessly as Dong consulted the genebanks and learned that they controlled venom production. He had not tried to learn what effects his changes would have.
The door to the lab slammed. Chowdhury had returned from the meeting at which Emily Gilman had presented the results of her Washington trip and then had ridiculed his Armadons. His technicians stared at him. He stared back. His mouth was a line, his eyes hidden behind his spectacles, his arms stiff at his sides. Chand was the only one who dared to speak: “Dr. Chowdhury? There’s an interesting gene complex in these puffers…”
He turned toward Chand. He spoke quietly: “Those verdammt puffers are none of our business, Dr. Chand. Work on them on your own time. And now…” Suddenly he screamed, “Out!”
The three were used to being banished. Without a word, Chand and Potonegra closed down their terminals. Dong touched a button, and the splicer spat out a cassette containing the material he had been working on and the reagents he had been using. He would take it to the alternate lab they had set up in the prototype barn. There they could continue their work.
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