"Did you run the discs, Feeney?" Eve asked him.
"Started on them. You're on there, Dallas. We don't have Roarke's on file. Civilian, you know. But I found yours and Peabody's."
Peabody blinked. "Mine?"
"I'm running comparison checks on the names you requested, Dallas." He smiled broadly at Jess again. "You've been busy, collecting specimens. That's a fine storage option you designed, terrific data compression capabilities. It's going to break my heart to destroy that equipment."
"You can't!" It was sincere pain and distress now. His eyes swam with it. "I've put everything I've got into that. Not just money, but time and thought and energy. Three years of my life, almost straight through without a break. I stepped back from my career to design it. Do you have any idea what I can accomplish with it?"
Eve picked up the ball. "Why don't you tell us, Jess? In your own words. We'd love to hear it."
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Jess Barrow started slowly, in fits and starts, speaking of his experiments and research, his fascination with the influence of outside stimuli on the human brain; the senses, and the enhancement of the senses through technology.
"What we can do for pleasure, for punishment – we haven't even tapped the surface. That's what I wanted to do," he explained. "Tap the surface and go under it. Dreams, Dallas. Needs, fears, fantasies. All my life, music's been what's moved me to… everything: hunger, passion, misery, joy. How much more intense would all that be if you could just get inside, really use the mind to exploit and explore?"
"So you worked on it," she prompted. "Devoted yourself to it."
"Three years. More really, but three solid on the design, experimentation, perfecting. Every penny I had went into it. I've got next to nothing left now. That's why I needed backing. Why I needed you."
"And Mavis was your link to me, and from me to Roarke."
"Look." He lifted his hands, rubbed them over his face, dropped them onto the table. "I like Mavis, and she's got a real spark. Yeah, I'd have used her if she was bland as a droid, but she's not. I didn't do her any harm. If anything, I gave her a boost up. Her ego level was ditch low when we hooked up. Oh, she was masking it pretty good, but she'd lost confidence in herself from what happened before. I gave her confidence a jolt."
"How?"
He hesitated, decided he'd take a bigger fall by evading. "Okay, I gave her some subliminal nudges in the right direction. She should be grateful," he insisted. "And I worked with her, straight stuff, getting her shined up without taking away her natural edge. You heard her yourself. She's better than she ever was."
"You experimented on her," Eve said, and wanted to hang him for that alone, "without her knowledge or consent."
"It wasn't like she was some droid rat. Christ, I'd perfected the system." He jabbed a finger at Feeney. "You know it's prime."
"It's beautiful," Feeney agreed. "Doesn't make it legal."
"Shit, genetic engineering was illegal, in vitro work, prostitution. What did that get us? We've come a long way, but we're still in the dark ages, man. This is a benefit, this is a way to push the mind forward into dreams and make what we dream real."
"Not all of us want our dreams to be reality. What gives you the right to make that choice for someone else?"
"Okay." He held up a hand. "Maybe I got over-enthusiastic a few times. You get caught up. But all I did with you was expand on what was there. So I enhanced the lust bars that night in the studio. What did it hurt? Another time I gave your memory a little push, jiggled a few locks. I wanted to be able to prove what could be done, so when the time was right, I could approach you and Roarke with a business proposition. And last night…"
He trailed off, knowing he'd miscalculated badly there. "Okay, last night I went too far, the tone was too dark. I got carried away with it. Performing before a real audience again, it's like a drug. It hypes you. Maybe I punched the power a little hard on him. An honest mistake." He tried that smile again. "Look, I've used it on myself, dozens of times. There's no harm, nothing permanent. Just temporary mood enhancement."
"And you pick the mood?"
"That's part of it. With standard equipment, you don't have as much control, not nearly the depth of field. With what I've developed, you can turn it on and off like a light. Sexual need or satisfaction, euphoria, melancholy, energy, relaxation. Name it, you got it."
"A death wish?"
"No." He shook his head quickly. "I don't play those games."
"But it's all a game to you, isn't it? You push the buttons, and the people dance. You're the electronic god."
"You're missing the big picture," he insisted. "Do you know what people would pay for this kind of capability? You can feel anything you want."
Eve opened the file Feeney had brought in. She tossed photos out, faceup. "What did they feel, Jess?" She pushed the morgue shots of four deaths at him. "What was the last thing you made them feel so that they killed themselves with smiles on their faces?"
He went white as death itself, eyes glazing before he managed to shut them. "No. No way. No." Doubling over, he retched out his health center breakfast.
"Let the record show the suspect is momentarily indisposed," Peabody said dryly. "Should I call for maintenance and a health aide, Lieutenant?"
"Christ, yes," Eve muttered as Jess continued to heave. "We'll break this interview at oh ten fifteen. Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, record off."
"Great brain, weak stomach." Feeney went to the dispenser in the corner and poured a cup of water. "Here, boy, see if you can choke some of this down."
Jess's eyes watered. His stomach muscles were raw. Water sloshed in the cup so that Feeney had to guide it to his mouth. "You can't hang that on me," he managed. "You can't."
"We'll see about that." Eve stepped aside so that the incoming aide could cart him off to the infirmary. "I need some air," she muttered and walked out.
"Hold on, Dallas." Feeney hurried after her, leaving Peabody to direct maintenance and gather up the file. "We need to talk."
"My office is closer." She swore lightly as her knee throbbed. The ice bandage was wearing off and needed to be replaced. Her hip was murderous.
"Took a beating with that CEC hit yesterday, didn't you?" Feeney clucked sympathetically as she hobbled. "Been looked over yet?"
"Later. I've been pressed for time. Let's give the creep an hour to get his stomach back in place, then hit him again. He hasn't cried lawyer yet, but it's coming. Won't matter a damn once we match those brain patterns to the victims."
"That's the problem. Sit down," he advised when they stepped into her office. "Take a load off that leg."
"It's the knee, and sitting's making it stiffen up. What's the problem?" she asked and headed for the coffee.
"Nothing matches." He studied her mournfully when she turned. "Not one match in the whole lot. Plenty as yet unidentified, but I've got the prints on all victims, no autopsy scan on Devane, but I got the one from her last physical. There's no match, Dallas."
So she did sit, heavily. There was no need to ask if he was sure. Feeney was as thorough as a domestic droid searching for dust in corners. "Okay, he's got them someplace else. Did we get the warrant for his studio and quarters?"
"A team's going through it right now. I haven't gotten a report."
"He could have a lock box, some safe hole." She shut her eyes. "Shit, Feeney, why would he keep them when he was done with them? He's probably destroyed them. He's arrogant, but he's not stupid. They'd hang him and he'd know it."
"The possibility's high there. Then again, he could have kept them as souvenirs. It never fails to surprise me what people keep. That guy last year that cut up his wife? Kept her eyes, remember. In a damn music box."
"Yeah, I remember." Where had this headache come from? she wondered and rubbed uselessly at her temples to erase it. "So, maybe we'll get lucky. If we don't, we've got plenty now. And a good shot of breaking him."