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Peter made an effort to calm himself. “That’s all right,” he said. “I hope you got what you were looking for.”

“Oh, yes,” said Sandra, closing her case. “Yes, indeed.”

It didn’t take long for Spirit’s artificial life-forms to develop multicellularism: chains of distinct units, attached together into simple rows. Eventually, the lifeforms stumbled onto the trick of doubling up into two rows: twice as many cells, but each one still exposed on at least one side to the nutrient soup of Spirit’s simulated sea. And then the long rows of cells began to double back on themselves, forming U shapes. And, eventually, the U shapes closed over on the bottom, forming bags. Then, at last, the great breakthrough: the bottom and top of the bag opened up, resulting in a cylinder made of a double layer of cells, open at both ends: the basic body plan of all animal life on Earth, with an eating orifice at the front and an excretory one at the rear.

Generations were born. Generations died.

And Spirit kept selecting.

CHAPTER 40

It had taken some work, but on December 4 Sandra Philo had gotten the monitoring warrant she’d requested, allowing her to place a transponder inside the rear bumper of Peter Hobson’s car. She’d been given a ten-day permit by the judge. The transponder had a timing chip in it: it had operated for precisely the period authorized, and not a second longer. The ten days were now up, and Sandra was analyzing the collected data.

Peter drove to his office a lot, and also went frequently to several restaurants, including Sonny Gotlieb’s, a place Sandra quite liked herself; to North York General Hospital (he was on their board of directors); and elsewhere. But there was one address that kept appearing over and over in the logs: 88 Connie Crescent in Concord. That was an industrial unit that housed four different businesses. She cross-referenced the address with Peter’s telephone records, obtained under the same warrant. He’d repeatedly called a number registered to Mirror Image, 88 Connie Crescent.

Sandra called up InfoGlobe and got screens full of data about that company: Mirror Image Ltd., founded in 2001 by wunderkind Sarkar Muhammed, a firm specializing in expert systems and artificial-intelligence applications. Big contracts with the Ontario government and several Financial Post 100 corporations.

Sandra thought back to the lie-detector test Peter Hobson had taken. “I don’t know any person who might have killed them,” he’d said — and his vital signs had been agitated when he said the word “person.”

And now he was spending time at an artificial-intelligence lab.

It was almost too wild, too crazy.

And yet Hobson himself hadn’t committed the murders. The lie detector had shown that.

It was the kind of thing the law-enforcement journals had been warning was coming down the pike.

Perhaps, now, at last, it was here.

Here.

Sandra leaned back in her chair, trying to absorb it all.

It certainly wasn’t enough to get an arrest warrant.

Not an arrest warrant, no. But maybe a search warrant…

She saved her research files, logged off, and headed out the door.

It took five vehicles to get them all there: two patrol cars with a pair of uniformed officers apiece; a York Region squad car with the liaison officer from that police force — the raid would be conducted on York’s turf; Sandra Philo’s unmarked car, carrying her and Jorgenson, head of the computer-crimes division; and the blue CCD van, carrying five analysts and their equipment.

The convoy pulled up outside 88 Connie Crescent at 10:17 a.m. Sandra and the four uniformed officers went directly inside; Jorgenson went over to the CCD van to confer with his team.

The receptionist at Mirror Image — an elderly Asian man — looked up in shock as Sandra and the uniforms entered. “Can I help you?” he said.

“Please move away from your computer terminal,” said Sandra. “We have a warrant to search these premises.” She held up the document.

“I think I better call Dr. Muhammed,” said the man.

“You do that,” said Sandra. She snapped her fingers, indicating that one of the uniforms should stay here, preventing the receptionist from using his terminal. Sandra and the other three headed inside.

A thin dark-skinned man appeared at the far end of the corridor.

“May I help you?” he said, his voice full of concern.

“Are you Sarkar Muhammed?” asked Sandra, closing the distance between them.

“Yes.”

“I’m Detective Inspector Philo, Metropolitan Toronto Police.” She handed him the warrant. “We have reason to believe that computer-related crimes have been committed from this establishment. This warrant gives us authority to search not just your offices, but your computer systems as well.”

At that moment, the door to the reception area burst open and Jorgenson and the five analysts came in. “Make sure none of the employees touch any computer equipment,” Jorgenson said to the senior uniformed officer. The cops started fanning out into the building. One of the corridor walls was largely glass, overlooking a big data-processing facility. Jorgenson pointed to two of the analysts. “Davis, Kato — you’re in there.” The two analysts went to the door, but it had a separate FILE lock.

“Dr. Muhammed,” said Sandra, “our warrant gives us the right to break any locks we deem necessary. If you prefer we not do that, please unlock that door.”

“Look,” said Sarkar, “we’ve done nothing wrong here.”

“Open the door, please,” Sandra said firmly.

“I want to review this warrant with my attorney.”

“Fine,” said Sandra. “Jones, kick it.”

“No!” said Sarkar. “All right, all right.” He moved to the side of the door and pressed his thumb against the blue scanner. The dead bolt popped aside and the door slid open. Davis and Kato went in, the former going straight for the master console, the latter starting an inventory of the DASD tape and optical-drive units.

Jorgenson turned to Sarkar. “You have an AI lab here. Where is it?”

“We’ve done nothing wrong,” said Sarkar again.

One of the uniforms reappeared at the far end of the corridor. “It’s down here, Karl!”

Jorgenson jogged down the hall, the three remaining members of his team following. Sandra walked in that direction, too, checking the signs on each door as she went.

The Asian receptionist had appeared at the other end of the corridor, looking worried. Sarkar shouted, “Call Kejavee, my attorney — tell him what’s happening. ” He then hurried off to follow Jorgenson.

Sarkar had been working in the AI lab when the receptionist had called him. He’d left the door open. By the time he got back there, Jorgenson was looming over the main console, unplugging the keyboard. He motioned to one of his associates who handed him another keyboard with a glossy black housing and silver keys. A diagnostic unit: every keystroke typed, every response from the computer, every disk-access delay would be recorded.

“Hey!” shouted Sarkar. “These are delicate systems. Be careful.”

Jorgenson ignored him. He sat on the barstool and pulled a vinyl folder out of his briefcase. It contained an assortment of diskettes, CDs, and PCMCIA cards. He selected a card that would fit the drive on the console, inserted it, then hit some keys on his keyboard.

The computer’s monitor cleared, then filled with diagnostic information about the system.

“Top of the line,” said Jorgenson, impressed. “Fully populated with 512 gigabytes of RAM, five parallel math coprocessors, self-referential bus architecture.” He tapped the space bar; another screen came up. “Latest firmware revision, too. Nice.”

He exited his program and began listing directories at the system prompt.