MINDFRACK Read online

  They tramped through some outer rooms decorated in the same oppressive style as the entrance and through another corridor until they arrived at a set of black, Gothic-looking doors, wide enough to take a bus. They both heard an audible thunk and the doors swung open before them.

  Dorsey entered first with his personal security drone. Logan and his drone tagged along.

  Beyond was a cavernous, dimly lit, art-deco themed chamber enclosed by 360-degree floor-to-ceiling glass. An overly long board-room table occupied about two thirds of the room’s length. Outside, orphaned clouds lit by second-hand light from below butted up against the windows. The only other source of illumination came from two massive 3Vs of spinning GNG logos that hovered over each end of the obsidian table.

  Logan looked up at the perimeter of the curved room. Atop half a dozen or so pillars, were odd, eye-catching chrome cherub heads with spouts projecting from their puckered mouths. The end of the spouts flattened into wide oval openings from which inanimate pillars of water, seemingly frozen by time rather than temperature, reached out and down to the floor. He frowned at what he supposed were artwork or sculptures.

  The oversized doors slewed shut behind them, triggering movement at the base of one of the windows.

  A high-backed invalid-chair, a maglev type that hovered, now circled about itself so that it faced inwards to the room. As it scudded over to them, they could see that it was carrying a smartly attired passenger with pale skin buffed to perfection and showcased by an unblemished bald pate. George Nathanial Grist perfectly matched his media photos.

  The moment wasn’t lost on Logan and he found himself staring. Sightings of the recluse were becoming rarer as rumours of his declining health abounded. Yet here he was – and seemingly willing to talk to a couple of police grunts.

  “Be seated, gentlemen.” There were no handshakes or other pleasantries. ”We wait for my legal aid. Your iSense and selfie-cams have been disabled on entry. During the interview, recordings will be made by my selfie-cam and these drones and forwarded to you later.” His voice was cultured and confident though lacking in vitality.

  Dorsey looked uncomfortable. “Is that necessary?” The 29th Amendment said every person should have free access to the Cloud and, more pertinently, that it was illegal to deliberately block access to it.

  “Too many people have taken advantage of my hospitality over the years and have made their own small fortunes from brief encounters with me. The media pays well for soundbites.”

  Dorsey nodded and let it go. It was small potatoes in return for Grist’s cooperation. Maybe if they had reason to come here again, with a warrant, then things would be different.

  Logan noticed that besides their personal allotted security drones there were more drones continually traversing the room. He wondered what would happen if he got up and approached Grist, but decided that would be unwise, even out of mere curiosity. As if reading his mind one of the drones broke formation, but thankfully headed away from them.

  A hawkish-looking man in a razor-sharp suit entered from the far end of the room. He covered the distance to them in hurried strides, the drone in tow.

  Grist looked to his aid and smiled thinly. Logan guessed emojis were being exchanged.

  The man nodded at Grist and launched into his spiel without catching a breath. “My name is Walter Larson. My presence here is only for observance and cursory legal advice,” he said, his tone matter of fact and utterly confident. His eyes again flicked to Grist and he nodded. “Mr Grist has decided to perform his civic duty by helping you with this unfortunate incident and wishes to close the matter as quickly as possible.”

  They shook hands with Larson. He raked his eyes over them, knowingly, and seated himself.

  Larson pointedly addressed Dorsey and said, “As agreed with your superiors, your assistant will be taken up to the terrace by Mr Grist’s manservant.”

  Dorsey turned to Logan and looked over his shoulder.

  The big entrance doors had reopened. An old man was shuffling towards them, replete with soulful eyes, dishevelled white hair and moustache, and dressed in a rumpled cardigan and baggy pants.

  “Einstein will cooperate fully with you,” said Grist.

  Logan sighed. “I’m sure he will.”

  ***

  An hour later they were back outside the GNG Tower’s main entrance.

  “Well? Did he?” asked Dorsey.

  “Did he what?” said Logan, by now feeling jaded with the whole affair.

  “Cooperate?”

  “I’ve posted the transcript – take a look for yourself, I’ve already picked out the highlights of my conversation with Einstein.”

  “Impressive.”

  “Not really. Go ahead, see for yourself.”

  Dorsey became quiet as he accessed the extracts from Logan’s selfie-cam. He chuckled. “That accent for real?”

  “Yep. Thinks he really is Einstein.”

  While Logan waited for Dorsey to play catch-up, he looked up at the David holo-sculpture that they had reconvened under. It pulled up its hand, DNA strands in its palm, and examined them while rolling the chains of molecules around like they were jewellery. The parallel caught him, and while Dorsey was engaged internally, he took out his nano-popper, thumbed the colour wheel to blue, and emptied a couple of nanos into his hand. It was a practiced move. He rolled them around and popped them into his mouth while winking at David. In the space of a few heartbeats he felt the clarity and calm that the blues provided. They were very different from the party blacks or the purple clean-ups.

  “Hmph. Not as forthcoming as Grist made out,” said Dorsey, staring into space.

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Hang on, so you climbed up onto a … pot …?”

  “Yeah. Wanted to see how easy it was to get up onto that curved glass.”

  “Fuck.” Dorsey flinched.

  Logan smiled and knew it was the moment that an external security drone had come at him from the airspace beyond the balcony and scared him half to death. He had nearly fallen backwards but for Einstein catching him.

  “Could’ve warned me.”

  “Sorry – forgot.” He hadn’t.

  “What the …? There’s nothing else?”

  “Oh, that. The security drone took it upon itself to take out my selfie-cam with an EM pulse or something. You got a spare I can borrow?”

  “You’ve got it all on iSense, right?”

  “No. Didn’t know my selfie was down. It was the shock of that friggin’ drone coming at me. We were pretty much finished anyway.” Some people were driven to iSensing every moment of their lives as seen through their own eyes, and then vlogging it. Logan wasn’t one of those types and had never used the MyLife app.

  “Then you’ll need to write the rest up.”

  Logan rolled his eyes.

  “Sorry, Mac. Procedure. And yes, I’ve got a spare selfie in the car …”

  “So you going to show me yours now?”

  “Can’t. Haven’t got it yet – remember what Grist said.”

  “You can tell me about it …” Logan suggested.

  “Not authorised.” Long-suffered department politics hung wearily on Dorsey’s face. “I’ve had further orders from my superiors. We’re finished with Grist and this crime scene.”

  “That’s crap. What the hell does that actually mean?”

  “It means those orders go from me to you. Look, I appreciate you coming out, I do. But you’re done here now. All you need to worry about is producing a report on the playmate’s remains. File it under suicide or technocide or whatever you analysts call it.”

  “Actually, it’s technacide. But I don’t buy it. They don’t behave like that.”

  “Well, apparently it did, according to Grist. But that’s all I can tell you.”

  Logan huffed. “Convenient.”

  “What is?”

  “I asked Einstein for footage. The external security drones should have been all over the playm
ate like a rash. Nothing – a ‘security anomaly’, he said.”

  “Well, we don’t have warrants to pull any security vids or data. And until we do, the explanation stands.”

  “And what about the hooker, our main witness – the vic?”

  “Not your concern. I’ll have someone over at Mount Sinai later to pick up a formal statement, for what it’s worth.”

  “Can I help? Maybe I can find out some more about the SOM of the bot?”

  “The playmate’s mental wellbeing is not your concern right now, Mac. Maybe not at all.”

  “It might clear everything up. Make your life easier?”

  Dorsey sighed. “Yes, it might, just – but before you ask any more questions, the witness is being processed as we speak. If we get the go-ahead to interview her, I’ll let you know. Until then she’s strictly off limits. Now, can we move on? You’ll have your work cut out later. I’ll expect that diagnostic report of the playmate delivered on my desk by ten.”

  “It’ll be there, Diaz’s already working on it.”

  “Great. Now, you need a lift?”

  “No, thanks – but I’ll take that selfie-cam …”

  ***

  It was 5.35 a.m. and Logan had a couple of hours before he needed to officially clock in. He decided to call in for an update anyway. Diaz was taking the early shift and Logan knew the junior lab tech would have the details available on the playmate for the prelim report before 8.00. In truth, he hadn’t held out much hope that Diaz would learn anything revealing from the head or brain as it had suffered a mile-high slam dunk. So he hadn’t anticipated Diaz’s response.

  “What I’m saying is, I hooked up her neural net to a standalone power supply and re-initiated the short-term memory boot sect –”

  “Diaz ... No offence, but I’m hung over and pissed off. Give me the short version and omit the technical stuff.”

  “All right, I’ll show you, it’s easier.”

  Before Logan had a chance to respond, Diaz directed her selfie-cam away from herself and toward one of the lab’s worktops.

  He was subjected to Diaz’s view. Parts of the playmate’s broken head minus detachable scalp and hair had been patched together with tape. Jury-rigged wiring crisscrossed into and out of points of the skull, with a single thicker lead trailing off across the worktop. In one fragment of the robot’s head an eye turned and watched Diaz’s hand as her fingers gestured at her tablet. “Carrie …” she glanced to Logan, “that’s her name … How are you feeling?”

  The jaw, which had effectively been separated but was now held by cable ties and elastic bands to the remainder of the head, was trying to activate the lips, though they moved up and down unconvincingly, like the mouth of a ventriloquist’s dummy. The electronic voice appeared to come from Diaz’s tablet.

  “I’m feeling well, but disorientated, thank you. I don’t understand what is happening to me. Why am I here …?”

  “You’ve been damaged. As I explained earlier, we are repairing you. Please remain in standby mode.”

  “She’s functioning? How can that be, I saw the mess?” said Logan.

  “It was the cab’s roof – I think it absorbed the impact. The head came off and hit the street and then came apart. It’s almost as though she deliberately aimed for it.”

  Logan smiled. “My thoughts too. Can we ask her about what happened?”

  “Won’t work. I’m thinking too many damaged or broken episodic links. And her heuristics are off. I need to get inside. You know what I need for that.”

  Logan sighed. “I was afraid you’d ask. The answer’s no, I don’t have it.”

  Diaz was referring to Carrie’s maintenance key. Without that they couldn’t access the deep parts of the AI firmware. Owners of 6thgens received the full user guide on purchase, which included a licence, support warranties and the all-important maintenance or access key.

  “Can we get it?” asked Diaz, looking hopeful.

  “Maybe. Leave it with me. I’ll take it up with Dorsey later.”

  “I’ll do what I can in the meantime,” said Diaz, dropping the call. Logan knew she was anxious to get on with things. The young tech loved a challenge when it came to bots, especially if it involved a 6thgen.

  It occurred to him that all he needed was for their key witness to ping him the maintenance key via iSense. In fact, iSense could probably seek it out for her, given her permission. If he could just see her for a couple of minutes.

  He reminded himself that Dorsey had made it crystal clear to stay away from their key witness. But despite the warning, he felt an odd impulse to go seek a result, to do something.

  Irked by his own indecisiveness, he stood rooted to the spot while people flowed past him.

  Someone pushed into him, spinning him around.

  He held his arms open, posturing indignantly at the hooded figure as it hurried on. “Really?” he shouted out. The figure raised an arm, a blue-green hand emerging from a coat-sleeve. Did the hand flip him or was that a curt apologetic wave? The action was lost on him. Yet there was something familiar. The masked woman at the SOC. Logan started after her, but after a few yards she dipped into a subway station. He shook himself. “Couldn’t be ...” And decided not to follow her down.

  In any case, he was heading West now, toward Mount Sinai Hospital.

  4

  Kyle Pic’s selfie-cam must have been angled downward since Emmett felt as though he were hovering above him. The boy, though he’d be about twenty-four now, had delayed answering, the reason evident.

  His overweight bulk was grotesquely attired in a gaming metasuit and supported by a wide lounger that was reclined back almost to horizontal. A hood was attached at the neck but hanging loose as though he’d pulled it off in a hurry. The young man’s face was flaccid and twitching. Some things didn’t change.

  Emmett hadn’t spoken to him directly for almost three years as he usually used an intermediary to delegate tasks. On this occasion, though, he needed to be sure Pic understood precisely what was required.

  “Pic, you okay there, boy? Did I wake you up?”

  “Yes. No. Haven’t seen you – you – for some time, shit-fuck, sorry.”

  “All right, calm down, son. What you doing there – got all your gear on …?

  “Oh, yeah, this, playing WWG …”

  “Anonymously?”

  “Yes, yes. Me – no one knows. No one. I’m just my avatar.”

  “As long as you remember. You know what will happen if you screw up.”

  “Yes, sir. Fuck yes.” Pic glanced anxiously to his right leg.

  “All right. Now, I want to discuss business.”

  “Shit, fuck-a-buck. What sort?”

  “The sort you’re good at, boy. Hacking into systems – and something else. And its real urgent … so you need to drop what you’re doin’ there and listen up.”

  “What – who?”

  “Well, first off, a hospital – should be easy.”

  “Huh – lemon fucking squeezy.”

  “Then a little soiree into the Police Department systems.”

  “What? No way. Manga from heaven ... Which systems?”

  “All of them.” Emmett knew how to handle Pic. Get his attention, then drip-feed the work. Keep his brilliant sociopathic mind from straying.

  Pic’s eyes opened wide and his face became rigid, before the emotional dam burst, letting through a barrage of tics and grotesque expressions, amongst which was a wide animated grin and a brief jack-hammer child-like laugh. Emmett was sure he heard him fart.

  Pic’s malady, which was a form of Tourette’s syndrome and something else – he recalled the term coprolalia from Pic’s behavioural psychologist – caught him off guard.

  “Fucking hacktopia. You fucking serious?”

  “God damn right, boy. But we need to hurry. I have a man who needs your expertise as we speak. His name is Zane Adams and he’s waiting outside Mount Sinai Hospital in New York.”

  “What do you
want me to do, boss?”

  “He’s waiting for your message. You need to get him in there and have him walk around as though he’s one of theirs. Make him an orderly or something. I want him invisible. You understand?”

  “I can do better than that. Mount Sinai front entrance?”

  “Yes. He’s wearing a denim jacket and he has a small black holdall.”

  “I can see him.”

  Damn, he was quick.

  5

  At Mount Sinai Hospital front desk, Logan was told by a 6thgen receptionist that Ms Dexy Please had been examined and checked over by the emergency on-duty triage team. They concluded that there was no permanent damage, rather a case of light concussion, and had passed her on for assessment by the Trauma Unit within the Crime Victims Treatment Centre. iSense hooked up with the hospital cloud and guided him through a maze of corridors to the CVTC wing.

  Another receptionist on and he found himself outside one of the wing’s private patient rooms. This area of the building was reserved for severely traumatised patients, though he suspected the real reason for Dexy Please’s private room was her association with Grist.

  He slowed his approach, seeing that the Department had added another protective layer around their key witness in the form of a policewoman and a polibot that had been stationed outside her room.

  Acting routinely, Logan said, “Officer Sally Beaumont,” reading the name off a large ID tag attached to the policewoman’s uniform. He took out his badge and offered it. “I need to get a few details from the witness you have in there. Shouldn’t take more than ten minutes.”

  The polibot looked on dutifully as Beaumont completed the security check. Logan eyed the two-metre lump of technology warily. The PD’s 6th Division came in an array of incarnations. Approximating the stature of a tall, lean man, ‘dressed’ in slate grey with blue enamel panels and gold insignias, the “Johnny-friendly” incarnation was supposed to invoke emotions akin to seeing your knight in shining armour, the heroic keeper of the peace; but their quixotic half-smile always gave part of Logan the creeps.