Jimi flushed. “So how come you let him back you down from four days? An Xuyen is already backed up with the Ferrogers search.”
“We won’t need Xuyen.” Aman nodded at the icons. “Our Runner is organic. Vegan. Artisan craft only, in clothes and personal items. You could find him all by yourself in about four hours.”
“But if he’s buying farm-raised and handmade?” Jimi frowned. “No Universal tags on those.”
Aman promised himself a talk with Raul, but it probably wouldn’t change anything. Not until he got tired of this one, anyway. “Get real.” He got up and crossed to the small nondescript desktop at the back of the office, camouflaged by an expensive Japanese shoji screen. This was the real workspace. Everything else was stage-prop, meant to impress clients. “You sell stuff without a U-tag and you suddenly find you can’t get a license, or your E coli count is too high for an organic permit, or your handspinning operation might possibly be a front for drug smugglers.” He laughed. “Everything has a U-tag in it.” Which wasn’t quite true, but knowledge was power. Jimi didn’t have any claim on power yet. Not for free.
“Okay.” Jimi shrugged. “I’ll see if I can beat your four hours. Start with sex?”
“He’s not a buyer. I’ll do it.”
“How come?” Jimi bristled. “Isn’t it too easy for you? If even I can do it?”
Aman hesitated, because he wasn’t really sure himself. “I just am.” He sat down at his workdesk as Jimi stomped out. Brought up his secure field and transferred the files to it. The Runner got his sex for free or not at all, so no point in searching that. Food was next on the immediacy list. Aman opened his personal searchware and fed the Runner’s ID chipprint into it. He wasn’t wearing his ID chip anymore, or the suit wouldn’t have showed up here. Nobody had figured out yet now to make a birth-implanted ID chip really permanent. Although they kept trying. Aman’s AI stretched its thousand thousand fingers into the datasphere and started hitting all the retail data pools. Illegal, of course, and retail purchase data was money in the bank so it was well protected, but if you were willing to pay, you could buy from the people who were better than the people who created the protection. Search Engine, Inc. was willing to pay.
Sure enough, forsale.data had the kid’s profile. They were the biggest. Most of the retailers fed directly to them. Aman pulled the Runner’s raw consumables data. Forsale profiled, but his AI synthesized a profile to fit the specific operation. Aman waited the thirty seconds while his AI digested the raw dates, amounts, prices of every consumable item the Runner had purchased from the first credit he spent at a store to the day he paid to have a back-alley cutter remove his ID chip. Every orange, every stick of gum, every bottle of beer carried an RNA signature and every purchase went into the file that had opened the day the Runner was born and the personal ID chip implanted.
The AI finished. The Runner was his son’s age. Mid-twenties. He looked younger. Testament to the powers of his vegetarian and organic diet? Aman smiled sourly. Avi would appreciate that. That had been an early fight and a continuing excuse when his son needed one. Aman scanned the grocery profile. It had amazed him, when he first got into this field, how much food reflected each person’s life and philosophy. As a child, the Runner had eaten a “typical” North American diet with a short list of personal specifics that Aman skipped. He had become a Gaiist at nineteen. The break was clear in the profile, with the sudden and dramatic shift of purchases from animal proteins to fish and then vegetable proteins only. Alcohol purchases flatlined, although marijuana products tripled as did wild-harvest hallucinogenic mushrooms. As he expected, the illegal drug purchase history revealed little. The random nature of his purchases suggested that he bought the drugs for someone else or a party event rather than for regular personal consumption. No long-term addictive pattern.
A brief, steady purchase rate of an illegal psychotropic, coupled with an increase in food purchase volume suggested a lover or live-in friend with an addiction problem, however. The sudden drop-off suggested a break up. Or a death. The food purchases declined in parallel. On a whim, because he had time to spare, Aman had his AI correlate the drop off of the drug purchases to the newsmedia database for Northwestern North America, the region where the drug purchases were made. Bingo. A twenty-year-old woman had died within eighteen hours of the last drug purchase. His lover? Dead from an overdose? Aman’s eyes narrowed. The cause of death was listed as heart failure, but his AI had flagged it.
“Continue.” He waited out the seconds of his AI’S contemplation.
Insufficient data, it murmured in its androgynous voice. Continue? Aman hesitated because searches like this cost money, and the connection was weak, if there at all. “Continue.” No real reason, but he had learned long ago to follow his hunches.
He was the last one out of the office, as usual. The receptionist said good night to him as he crossed the plush reception area, her smile as fresh as it had been just after dawn this morning. As the door locked behind him, she turned off. Real furniture and rugs meant money and position. Real people meant security risks. The night watchman — another holographic metaphor — wished him good night as he crossed the small lobby. Koi swam in the holographic pond surrounded by blooming orchids. Huge vases of flowers — lilies today — graced small tables against the wall. The display company had even included scent with the holos. The fragrance of lilies followed Aman out onto the street. He took a pedal taxi home, grateful that for once, the small wiry woman on the seat wasn’t interested in conversation as she leaned on the handlebars and pumped them through the evening crush in the streets.
He couldn’t get the suit out of his head tonight. Jimi was right. The Gaiists were harmless, back-to-the-land types. The feds wanted this kid for something other than his politics, although that might be the media reason. Absently, Aman watched the woman’s muscular back as she pumped them past street vendors hawking food, toys, and legal drugs, awash in a river of strolling, eating, buying people. He didn’t ask “why” much anymore. Sweat slicked the driver’s tawny skin like oil. Maybe it was because the Runner was the same age as Avi and a Gaiist as well. Aman reached over to tap the bell and before the silvery chime had died, the driver had swerved to the curb. She flashed him a grin at the tip as he thumbprinted her reader, then she sped off into the flow of taxis and scooters that clogged the street.
Aman ducked into the little grocery on his block, enjoying the relief of its nearly empty aisles this time of night. He grabbed a plastic basket from the stack by the door and started down the aisles. You opened the last orange juice today. The store’s major-domo spoke to him in a soft, maternal voice as he strode past the freezer cases. True. The store’s major-domo had scanned his ID chip as he entered, then uplinked to smartshopper.net, the inventory control company he subscribed to. It has searched his personal inventory file to see if he needed orange juice and the major-domo had reminded him. He tossed a pouch of frozen juice into his basket. The price displayed on the basket handle, a running total that grew slowly as he added a couple of frozen dinners and a packaged salad. The Willamette Vineyard’s Pinot Gris is on sale this week. The major-domo here at the wine aisle used a rich, male voice. Three dollars off. That was his favorite white. He bought a bottle, and made his way to the checkout gate to thumbprint the total waiting for him on the screen.
“Don’t we make it easy?”
Aman looked to up find Jimi lounging at the end of the checkout kiosks.