Finally, Mac said, very gently, “Is that your husband, Mrs. Wilkins?”
She nodded slowly. Her voice was soft. “Yes. Oh, my poor, poor Joshua …”
Mac stepped over to talk to the two uniforms, and I joined them.
“What do you do with a dead transfer?” I asked. “Seems pointless to call in the medical examiner.”
By way of answer, Mac motioned to the burly man. The man touched his own chest and raised his eyebrows in the classic “Who, me?” expression. Mac nodded again. The man looked left and right, like he was crossing some imaginary road, and then came over. “Yeah?”
“You seem to be the senior employee here,” said Mac. “Am I right?”
The man nodded. “Horatio Fernandez. Joshua was the boss, but, yeah, I guess I’m in charge until head office sends somebody new out from Earth.”
“Well,” said Mac, “you’re probably better equipped than we are to figure out the exact cause of death.”
Fernandez gestured theatrically at the synthetic corpse, as if it were— well, not bleedingly obvious, but certainly apparent.
Mac nodded. “It’s just a bit too pat,” he said, his voice lowered conspiratorially. “Implement at hand, suicide note.” He lifted his shaggy orange eyebrows. “I just want to be sure.”
Cassandra had drifted over without Mac noticing, although of course I had. She was listening in.
“Yeah,” said Fernandez. “Sure. We can disassemble him, check for anything else that might be amiss.”
“No,” said Cassandra. “You can’t.”
“I’m afraid it’s necessary,” said Mac, looking at her. His Scottish brogue always put an edge on his words, but I knew he was trying to sound gentle.
“No,” said Cassandra, her voice quavering. “I forbid it.”
Mac’s voice got a little firmer. “You can’t. I’m legally required to order an autopsy in every suspicious case.”
Cassandra wheeled on Fernandez. “Horatio, I order you not to do this.”
Fernandez blinked a few times. “Order?”
Cassandra opened her mouth to say something more, then apparently thought better of it. Horatio moved closer to her, and put a hulking arm around her small shoulders. “Don’t worry,” he said. “We’ll be gentle.” And then his face brightened a bit. “In fact, we’ll see what parts we can salvage— give them to somebody else; somebody who couldn’t afford such good stuff if it was new.” He smiled beatifically. “It’s what Joshua would have wanted.”
The next day, I was siting in my office, looking out the small window. The dust storm had ended. Out on the surface, rocks were strewn everywhere, like toys on a kid’s bedroom floor. My wrist commlink buzzed, and I looked at it in anticipation, hoping for a new case; I could use the solars. But the ID line said NKPD. I told the device to accept the call, and a little picture of Mac’s red-headed face appeared on my wrist. “Hey, Lomax,” he said. “Come on by the station, would you?”
“What’s up?”
The micro-Mac frowned. “Nothing I want to say over open airwaves.”
I nodded. Now that the Wilkins case was over, I didn’t have anything better to do anyway. I’d only managed about seven billable hours, damnitall, and even that had taken some padding.
I walked into the center along Ninth Avenue, entered the lobby of the police station, traded quips with the ineluctable Huxley, and was admitted to the back.
“Hey, Mac,” I said. “What’s up?”
“’Morning, Alex,” Mac said, rolling the R in “Morning.” “Come in; sit down.” He spoke to his desk terminal, and turned its monitor around so I could see it. “Have a look at this.”
I glanced at the screen. “The report on Joshua Wilkins?” I said.
Mac nodded. “Look at the section on the artificial brain.”
I skimmed the text, until I found that part. “Yeah?” I said, still not getting it.
“Do you know what ‘baseline synaptic web’ means?” Mac asked.
“No, I don’t. And you didn’t either, smart-ass, until someone told you.”
Mac smiled a bit, conceding that. “Well, there were lots of bits of the artificial brain left behind. And that big guy at NewYou—Fernandez, remember?—he really got into this forensic stuff, and decided to run it through some kind of instrument they’ve got there. And you know what he found?”
“What?”
“The brain stuff—the raw material inside the artificial skull—was pristine. It had never been imprinted.”
“You mean no scanned mind had ever been transferred into that brain?”
Mac folded his arms across his chest and leaned back in his chair. “Bingo.”
I frowned. “But that’s not possible. I mean, if there was no mind in that head, who wrote the suicide note?”
Mac lifted those shaggy eyebrows of his. “Who indeed?” he said. “And what happened to Joshua Wilkins’s scanned consciousness?”
“Does anyone at NewYou but Fernandez know about this?” I asked.
Mac shook his head. “No, and he’s agreed to keep his mouth shut while we continue to investigate. But I thought I’d clue you in, since apparently the case you were on isn’t really closed—and, after all, if you don’t make money now and again, you can’t afford to bribe me for favors.”
I nodded. “That’s what I like about you, Mac. Always looking out for my best interests.”
Perhaps I should have gone straight to see Cassandra Wilkins, and made sure that we both agreed that I was back on the clock, but I had some questions I wanted answered first. And I knew just who to turn to. Raoul Santos was the city’s top computer expert. I’d met him during a previous case, and we’d recently struck up a small-f friendship—we both shared the same taste in bootleg Earth booze, and he wasn’t above joining me at some of New Klondike’s sleazier saloons to get it. I used my commlink to call him, and we arranged to meet at the Bent Chisel.
The Bent Chisel was a little hellhole off of Fourth Avenue, in the sixth concentric ring of buildings. I made sure I had my revolver, and that it was loaded, before I entered. The bartender was a surly man named Buttrick, a biological who had more than his fair share of flesh, and blood as cold as ice. He wore a sleeveless black shirt, and had a three-day growth of salt-and-pepper beard. “Lomax,” he said, acknowledging my entrance. “No broken furniture this time, right?”
I held up three fingers. “Scouts honor.”
Buttrick held up one finger.
“Hey,” I said. “Is that any way to treat one of your best customers?”
“My best customers,” said Buttrick, polishing a glass with a ratty towel, “pay their tabs.”
“Yeah,” I said, stealing a page from Sgt. Huxleys Guide to Witty Repartee. “Well.” I headed on in, making my way to the back of the bar, where my favorite booth was located. The waitresses here were topless, and soon enough one came over to see me. I couldn’t remember her name offhand, although we’d slept together a couple of times. I ordered a scotch on the rocks; they normally did that with carbon-dioxide ice here, which was much cheaper than water ice on Mars. A few minutes later, Raoul Santos arrived. “Hey,” he said, taking a seat opposite me. “How’s tricks?”
“Fine,” I said. “She sends her love.”
Raoul made a puzzled face, then smiled. “Ah, right. Cute. Listen, don’t quit your day job.”
“Hey,” I said, placing a hand over my heart, “you wound me. Down deep, I’m a stand-up comic.”
“Well,” said Raoul, “I always say people should be true to their innermost selves, but …”
“Yeah?” I said. “What’s your innermost self?”
“Me?” Raoul raised his eyebrows. “I’m pure genius, right to the very core.”