The Mocking Program Read online

  Except for the chatter of officers and attendant civilian personnel moving from department to department, the spacious room was as quiet as Saguaro Park on a Tuesday morning. Each open office had its own husher. During working hours, every one of them was turned on. Within different cubicles, there might resound the chaos of a confrontation between quarreling police, the shouted curses of a suspect being interviewed, or the rants and ravings of barely manageable drunks and deviants. None of it escaped through the invisible walls of canceling sound that were far more effective than the thin plastiboard dividers that physically divided the duty room floor like so many cookie cut-outs.

  Cardenas wound his way through the maze, past busy techs and beat officers and bureaucrats, dodging self-propelled messenger carts and food trays, until he found himself outside the office he sought. Hyaki was visible within, conversing animatedly with Drosi Semagarya. Though their mouths moved, and Cardenas was not more than a couple of meters from them, he could hear nothing. Nevertheless, he was able to follow the gist of the conversation effortlessly. Almost as a by-product of their primary training, good intuits invariably made spectacularly adept lip-readers.

  Glancing past Hyaki, Semagarya saw the Inspector waiting patiently outside. Reaching for his desk, he stroked a blue contact strip to mute the husher. When next he opened his mouth, Cardenas was able to hear his words.

  "Come in, Inspector. We were just discussing the case."

  Actually, Cardenas knew from reading their lip movements, they had been debating what team to bet on in the office pool for this week's big game between Chihuahua and St. Louis—but it would be undiplomatic of him to point it out. Instead, he replied casually, "Learn anything?"

  "Uh, no sir," Semagarya murmured after a hesitant glance at Hyaki. "There's been no news."

  The sergeant chipped in quickly. "How did the bereaved widow, or whatever the hell she is, hold up on viewing the body?"

  "I wouldn't know." Cardenas folded himself into a sterile but comfortable Lantille chair. The pressurized cushions immediately molded themselves to his back and buttocks. "She never showed." Hyaki's eyebrows rose as the Inspector turned to the stat cruncher. "The ident she gave us is uncompromised. She's just not answering."

  Relieved to have something to do that let him avoid the Inspector's gaze, Semagarya let his trained fingers dance over the inputs on his desk. A privacy shield promptly enveloped the cubicle in semidarkness, much as the husher insulated the sound within from the walkway beyond. Although they could still see staff striding past outside, none of the passersby could see in. The wall on the other side of the desk darkened, became a tunnel that filled with data.

  "Sequence is valid." When he was working, Semagarya's tone was as flat as that of any artificial membrane. "Dialing." Spark borders framed the dark tunnel, indicating that operation was continuing, but otherwise the screen void stayed blank. "No answer. Line-in is operational."

  "Do a penetrate," Cardenas instructed him. At the spec's look of surprise, the Inspector reacted sharply. "No, I haven't got a warrant."

  Semagarya nodded unenthusiastically. Whirligigging the query, he dumped it on Procedures. A pause of several minutes ensued, during which time no one said anything of significance while Bolivian Azul played Inca background over the wall speakers. Five minutes subsequent to initiation the warrant arrived, duly approved, witnessed, and recorded. As soon as it joined the Anderson-Brummel file, a small glowing sphere appeared near the bottom of the tunnel.

  Semagarya could have operated his console verbally, but that could be disconcerting if anyone else tried to talk over him. Better to separate commands from conversation. Images danced within the energized, agitated tunnel that stretched out before the three men. After another ten minutes or so of hard crunching, the spec sat back and locked his fingers behind his head.

  "Damn impressive security for a private residence. It is a private residence?"

  "As far as we know." Cardenas was studying the screen. "Cogit a patch with Search and Rescue."

  Semagarya sat up pronto. "I can't do that, Inspector! Those ports are reserved exclusively for emergency access."

  "This is an emergency," Cardenas informed him dryly. "We're dealing with the dead here."

  "That's verdad," Hyaki added. "A dead end."

  "Go on." Cardenas exhorted the clerk gently. "I'll take full responsibility if a monitor snaks the patch."

  "Easy for you to abla, homber. I'm the one sticking his pend into the grinder." But he leaned forward and danced the inputs.

  The tunnel appeared reluctant to condone the break-in. Frowning, Semagarya threw a second police gram at the target, and then a rarely used third.

  "Creepy—I've got a triple hammer pounding on the portal, and it's still resisting. Last gram is straight out of Vlad Targa Inc. and should be sharp enough to cut through a keiretsu's firewall." Curiosity won out over his initial trepidation as he looked up at Cardenas. "You bump up against this level of security at, say, city hall. You don't find it guarding some commonplace cleanie's codo."

  "It's a house," the Inspector corrected him, "but I take your point. Keep trying."

  "Oh, we'll get in. It's only a private box." Semagarya was quietly confident. "It'll just take a little time for the hooks to find the right corner. I just want you to know that somebody's spent some real money defending their privacy."

  "What for?" Hyaki's gaze was fixed on the depths of the flickering tunnel. "Your average citizen doesn't need that kind of box wrapping." He glanced over at his partner. "What would a straight cleanie like George Anderson have to hide?"

  Cardenas's attention was likewise focused on the tunnel. While box-probing in the background, it played back three-dimensional scenes of Semagarya's family on vacation. "Quien sabe? Maybe Wayne Brummel." Unlike his companion, the intuit did not fidget in his chair. He was used to leaving machines alone to let them do their work.

  It took twenty minutes for the screen to resolve. That was nineteen and a half minutes longer than a standard electronic penetration warrant should have taken to respond, Cardenas knew. With the domicile's communications system now under direct control of a police proxy, he found himself gazing intently at the interior of the residence at 482236 West Minero Place, Olmec.

  The view was touching in its banality. The phone's pickup showed a comfortable, deserted living room area. Visible furniture was of unexpectedly fine quality. There were framed art works discernible that, if originals, hinted at a higher income for the absent Andersons than the surrounding neighborhood would suggest. That was cause for interest but not necessarily suspicion, Cardenas believed. Citizens who could have afforded to live in larger houses in more exclusive surroundings often chose instead to apportion their income internally.

  A Leeteg portrait glowed on the far wall, its accompanying audio muted. A bonded Swarovski crystal sculpture capered from one end of a free-form itapua-wood coffee table to the other, and then back again. There was no one present to admire them.

  "Try the other rooms," the Inspector instructed the spec. Semagarya worked his control strips. A view of the backyard included a modest swimming pool, characteristic desert landscaping, and a rather more impressive glitter fountain, its kaleidoscopic particulates held in splendid colloidal suspension. Semagarya shifted back inside, first to a bathroom, then several comfortable if undistinguished bedrooms, and finally to a below-ground workshop or storeroom. Within the house at 482236 West Minero, nothing moved but the art.

  "That's todos." The monitor looked expectantly at Cardenas. "There are two more fixed terminals in the house, but they're not vited. Aural only. I can trace but not access the three mobiles."

  Cardenas nodded accordingly. "Fine. Then just roto the audio."

  Flashing a look that said he was convinced they were wasting their time, the spec complied with the order. The tunnel blanked. Nothing issued from the speakers. "Casa nasa," he declared with finality. "Nobody's home."

  "Maybe she's finally on her way over
here," Hyaki suggested. "Might even be waiting for you down in the morgue."

  Cardenas was doubtful. "Merriam would have flashed me if that was the case." He stared at the tunnel as if he could take a shovel to it and physically dig out some answers. "You're sure there's nothing moving?"

  Semagarya rechecked his readouts. "Everything registered to that number and that name is in the house. If they're traveling, it's without personal communications or under a different ident." He waved at his board. "I show six registered terminals. Three fixed, three motile. Five static, one wiped."

  Nodding, the Inspector rose. "Verdad. Anderson probably had number six on him when he was vaped. First thing the scummers would have done is wipe the registration on any personal electronics so they could be resold without being traced." Arching his back and stretching, he looked at the sergeant. "Warrant's open. Let's pay the house a visit. Merriam will let me know if the un-Ms. Anderson puts in an appearance at the morgue."

  "Maybe she's out shopping for groceries." Hyaki had to turn sideways to fit through the entrance to the stat cruncher's cubicle.

  "The morning after her husband gets extirpated?" Cardenas led the way down the hall. "Most people wouldn't have much of an appetite."

  "She's got a kid." Hyaki sounded mildly defensive. "Besides, she said he wasn't her husband, and people do all kinds of weirds when pushed into crisis."

  The Inspector turned thoughtful. "She didn't sound weirded. Wary, but not weirded. And we had an appointment. She picked the time."

  "Like I said." The sergeant's conviction returned. "One woman is thrown into turmoil. She has a child to deal with. Crisis always lubricates logic."

  "No police haiku." Cardenas turned down a corridor. "Not before lunch."

  While the cruiser found its own way to Olmec, the two federales discussed possible scenarios. Though none were particularly plausible, neither was either officer more than usually concerned. They had a confused, possibly panicoed woman on their hands, and a demised citizen whose identity was curiously conflicted. The combination fell well short of a national emergency.

  Their destination did not stand out among the neat, sun-baked homes that fronted a neighborhood green belt running along a dry wash—although in the Sonoran Desert, "green belt" meant something less than in other parts of the country. Nonetheless, the winding procession of landscaped nature, with its defiant cactus and struggling paloverde, was far more pleasant to look out upon than yet another row of tract homes, however appealing developers might try to make them. The front yard of the Anderson residence boasted mature, genetically engineered saguaro and ocotillo. A pair of topiaried pyracanthas posed invitingly. The outer wall's electronic security yielded uncomplainingly to Hyaki's police sesame, and the two men approached the house.

  A residence of this class would be protected by two or three individual security sensors, Cardenas knew. Generale Electric or Thompson, maybe a Dynamo if they had the money. The units would be concealed among the decorative stone facing. He was not surprised when no one hailed them from within. Semagarya had said that the place was empty. So far the two officers had seen nothing to contradict that assessment. The door, and the garage, were locked. The Inspector stepped back to give his partner room.

  "Open it."

  There was, of course, no visible lock or door plate. Hyaki ran a tracer over the wood-grained composite until he located the upper and lower bolt. It took his tracer less than a minute to unravel the electronic combination, and only seconds to undo the first. As he was sliding the unit down the front of the door preparatory to snapping the second, the inner lock slid back. A voice greeted them from an artfully concealed speaker.

  "Please excuse the delay. I was in the tub. Won't you come in?" Emitting a soft, disengaging click, the door popped inward a couple of centimeters. Hyaki pushed it aside.

  Air-conditioning enveloped them in its comforting, artificial embrace as Cardenas shut the door behind them. "I'm in back," exclaimed the voice of Surtsey Anderson. "Getting dressed. Make yourselves at home. I'll be out in just a few minutes."

  The two officers wandered out of the entryway and into an open, circular den. Polarized light filtered down through the translucent material of the domed ceiling. Cardenas recognized their surroundings immediately: it was the first room Semagarya had remotely viewed. The Madrasink vit phone the spec had accessed was still in its charger.

  Hyaki settled down on a curving couch that had been designed to resemble a pile of red sandstone. It was soft as silk. He patted the faux rock. "Designer furniture." Absently, he hunted for a label. "Whatever this poor dead homber promoted brought in some real green."

  Cardenas was admiring the art on the walls and in the display cases. It was far more impressive in person than it had been when viewed via the phone's pickup. "Anyone can have money. Our friends the Andersons also have good taste." Raising his voice, he addressed himself to the rest of the house. "Take your time, Ms. Anderson. Did you forget about our appointment this morning?"

  "Just another couple of minutes," came the response.

  Cardenas paused before a pedestal on which a Seri mobile signed "Francisco" revolved in stately polished procession. At the same time, something he'd heard in Anderson's voice nagged at him. On the couch, Hyaki had spread out a hardzine and was manipulating the core projection with his fingertips, adjusting it so it could be viewed from different angles. Nothing in the woman's straightforward reply or tone had unsettled him. But then, he was not trained to detect, or suspect, miniscule variations in human voice patterns that were discernible only to perhaps one hundred-millionth of the population.

  It was not that Anderson had failed to apologize for missing their rendezvous at the morgue, or even that she had declined to acknowledge it. No, it was something in the tone, in the timbre, of her response. Every person was different, of course. Everyone reacted differently to moments of personal crisis. The eccentric might respond with unaccountable cheerfulness, to the point where most folk would be repelled. Surtsey Anderson's response had been neither awash in sorrow, nor tinged with remorse, nor flickering with false jollity. What Cardenas had detected instead implied an entirely unnatural ordinariness.

  Turning away from the gleaming, dark brown wooden carvings, ignoring their whispered plea for him to linger and admire, he headed for a back hallway that opened onto the den. Hyaki's brows rose, but the sergeant kept his scat and said nothing. No hallway sensors or interior security attempted to bar the Inspector's way.

  He passed an open door that revealed a bedroom beyond. It was neat and tidy. There was no indication that it had been abandoned in haste, no sign that its occupant had fled in confusion. From the holos of metazon stars that blinkered on the walls to the clothing projector to the silent audibub generator that ejected floating sound bubbles, the room reeked visually of contented preadolescent female. One audibub drifted close. He burst it with a fingertip, releasing a five-second yowl of what passed these days for popular music.

  As he approached a second bedroom, the voice they had heard earlier made him halt. "I'm just putting on some clothes. Please wait in the den." Surtsey Anderson again. Reassuring, polite, friendly— inviting, even. Cardenas's eyes widened ever so slightly. There was one important overtone missing from that voice.

  Concern.

  For all anyone could tell, today was a day like any other. A day for shopping, for work, for visiting her daughter at soche, for making a date at the beauty parlor, for having lunch with friends. Anything but a day for identifying a murdered maybe-husband. And still no apology for missing her meeting at the morgue. For that matter, she had not even asked her visitors to identify themselves. He and his partner might as well be two spizzers out for an afternoon's larking slice-and-dice.

  "Ms. Anderson, it's me, Rocko Sanchez from the Nobodega Brothel. You're late for work."

  "Just one more minute—I'm still putting on my face," replied the voice.

  Whirling, the Inspector broke into a desperate sprint.
r />   He shouted at the startled Hyaki as he burst out of the hallway, racing for the front door, his lungs pounding. Observing the expression on his partner's face, the sergeant erupted from the couch where he had been relaxing, scattering hardzine and peanuts in several directions. Cardenas's hand reached for the door handle.

  There was no door handle.

  He had not looked to see if one was present when they had entered the house. It was, after all, a not unnatural assumption that there would be a handle on the inside of the door. But there was nothing: only smooth, wood-grained composite. Nor did the barrier before him respond to verbal command, or the anxious press of hands. From behind them, from somewhere within the distant bedroom, a feminine voice chillingly declared, "Almost ready. I hope you're not getting too bored waiting for me."

  Waiting for what? an increasingly frantic Cardenas wondered apprehensively as he scanned the sides of the doorway. Of one thing he was now confident: it would not be an appearance by Surtsey Anderson.

  Stepping back, he pulled his gun and flipped up the projectile barrel. Hyaki turned his head away and closed his eyes as the Inspector fired. In the narrow enclosed space of the entrance hallway, the sound of the shell striking the door was ear-rattlingly loud. When the minced composite cleared, it revealed a hole in the material the size of a man's head. Unfortunately, behind the hole flashed the hard gleam of solid metal.

  "Interesting door for a mid-income cleanie to have installed," he rumbled as he stepped aside to make room for Hyaki. Throwing himself against the barrier, the sergeant hit the obstruction with every kilo of his considerable mass. It shook but failed to give. With a second charge, he bent one hinge.

  "Maybe together," he rasped tersely, his broad chest heaving.

  On the third try, the two men succeeded in snapping the middle hinge and bending the door halfway outward, though Cardenas gave himself no credit for the accomplishment. Scrambling through the opening, he stumbled out onto the sun-drenched glassite walkway. A look back showed Hyaki struggling to fit through the gap they had made.