Most of this request was nothing special. The information about Fowler and Rivera’s status could be taken directly from the database housed in Kiah’s own desk. But to find the reason why Fowler tried to classify Rivera as she did, that would take something close to human inference. The program behind Marian would have to extract separate facts from disparate sources and reassemble them to make something new. The computer would, in essence, make a deduction. For all that he had an irrational attachment to the simulation of Marian, she was also the reason he no longer believed the motto hanging on his wall.
Marian reappeared carrying a sheaf of papers. “Here you are, Mr. Burns.” She deposited them on the check out desk. “It seems Mr. Rivera does not actually live with Ms. Fowler, but she is supporting him completely.”
Kiah scanned the pages in front of him. The gloves on his hands allowed him to act as if he were picking up old-fashioned, handwritten pages. He savored the illusory touch of the paper against his finger tips.
Louisa Jane Fowler, information retrieval consultant. She owned both the rooms she lived in and the ground they stood on. Kiah turned a page to display her average annual income. She could certainly afford it. She’d managed her one-woman business well. Her income had tripled in just the last year. She’d had a marriage, a divorce and two different POSSLQs. The second had been Dale Rivera. He’d moved out fourteen months previously. All changes in status had been promptly reported.
Kiah turned another page. Rivera’s records were also in good order. The private investigator had made good, if sporadic, money. He’d been a husband three times and a POSSLQ twice before his luck had run out. An elevated train had derailed last February with Rivera inside. He had become one of the eighty-four victims the news networks described as “severely injured.”
Kiah shuffled through the police reports, hospital records, the initial doctor’s prognosis, and the second and third opinions. The extra work had been solicited and financed by Louisa Fowler, but nothing had helped. Rivera’s spinal cord had been severed. By the time they’d gotten him out of the wreckage and to the hospital, there hadn’t been enough left of his nerves to re-stimu-late. Grafts had failed. He was completely paralyzed and bedridden for the rest of his life and his insurance had been canceled a month before the accident for non-payment of premiums.
Louisa Fowler had taken pity on him. She’d had him moved to a specialty-care clinic. The bills for round-the-clock medical support and supervision were astronomical. Marian had tallied up some of what Fowler purchased to keep Rivera alive and comfortable: physical therapists, virtual reality programs, delicate hardware that could respond to the flicker of an eye, which was all Rivera could manage on his own.
“Please put all this on my desk, Miss Marian.” Kiah lifted off the goggles. His office surrounded him again. He pulled the gloves off and rubbed his temples. The files he had leafed through in the library now glowed on his screen. All in order, waiting for his authority to begin proceedings to declare the forty-six-year-old man a dependent.
I’d be creating a whole new class of dependent, Kiah thought, trying to work up some enthusiasm. With my name on it. It’d be a chance to earn my pay, for a change.
It was irregular, because Rivera did not live with Fowler, which was why the system hadn’t been able to handle it, but if the payments she was making on Rivera’s behalf did not qualify him as a dependent, Kiah couldn’t have said what would. Without even insurance, Rivera could not be said to be generating any income. The thing to do was pass the whole situation to Greg at the Washington office. The three-person legal department would give it a good going over and Greg would pronounce a judgment. Probably not favorable. Greg did not like people. Fowler would probably have to be declared Rivera’s legal guardian before she could try again.
Something old kept Kiah’s hands from moving; a vague unease left over from the days he spent poring over paperwork and his old VDT, back when everybody who deliberately left something off their forms had themselves convinced they were Robin Hood. He’d caught a few of those paper outlaws then. More than a few.
But that was before the networks, knowbots, and the credit system—when the system depended on people for information and they could still lie. Now the computers report them every time they make a move and there’s not a damn thing they can do about it.
Kiah leaned forward and accessed the index listing of all the files Marian had put on his terminal. Yes, Louisa Fowler’s tax history from before the Change Over had been included. With two keystrokes, Kiah brought it up for display.
A single line explained his discomfort. Fifteen years ago, Louisa Fowler had been investigated by the IRS under suspicion of tax fraud. Nothing had been found. The investigation had been conducted by Zedekiah Burns the Fifth.
An information retrieval consultant and a private investigator. If anybody could cheat an automated system… He shook his head. You’re daydreaming, Kiah Five. Transmit the files to D.C. Go back to the living room. Rent “The Untouchables” and forget it. He looked up at his sign again. And quit being stupid. Of course Rivera’s really in that clinic. Kiah scanned his empty desktop. There was nothing on his IN screen. The message light on his phone system was dead. The room offered no options to another day of putting in his time and waiting for something to happen.
Impulsively, Kiah brought up his post-Change Over contract on the desk screen.
“Authority to investigate any changes in status that the automated systems are unable to reconcile,” he read to the empty room. He thought about Louisa Fowler’s eyes and about the good old days when there’d still been paper on his desk. Kiah got to his feet.
It’s something to do.
The Oliver Sacks Clinic for Neurological Traumas was a white and glass building nestled in the middle of the most carefully groomed lawns Kiah had ever seen. He had to explain himself to a receptionist, a duty nurse, and a long-nosed doctor before he finally got to speak to Dr. Kiawis Marshall, the floor supervisor.
“Anything I can do to help,” Marshall announced after he had checked the credentials on Kiah’s pocket computer. “I understand these things have to be done by the numbers. Actually, I’m impressed.” He dug his hands into his lab coat pockets. “We’ve gotten so used to computers and virtual reality, almost nobody thinks to go check the physical facts anymore. Mr. Rivera’s been with us for a year. Ms. Fowler keeps him in fine style, may I say. If anybody deserves a break, she does.”
The “physical facts” turned out to be a private room with a picture window that let unfiltered sunlight flood the room. Dale Rivera, a pale, gaunt man despite the supervisor’s glowing description of the care Louisa Fowler bought him, lay in a bed that looked more comfortable than the one Kiah slept in at home. A brace held his head straight for the virtual reality mask covering his eyes and ears. Threads of optical fiber ran from his arm to the plastic box of the bedside computer. An IV dripped down a tube into his other arm. His chest rose and fell rhythmically under the sheets, but other than that, he was as still as a corpse.
“Mr. Rivera can hear and understand voices, of course, but he can’t talk without help.” Dr. Marshall beamed at the mask. “Virtual reality has done a lot more than make pretty computer games.”
Kiah tried to keep his eyes on Marshall. If he stared too long at Rivera, he knew he was going to be sick or start shaking. “I imagine Ms. Fowler’s a regular visitor.”