Less Than Human (9 page)

“The manager?” Kusatsu looked at Beppu.

Beppu shook his head. “Don’t think so, although we’ll have to do a proper background check.”

“We’ll have to do that with all of them,” said Ishihara.

“I’ve got a constable going through the camera logs,” said Beppu.

“Good.” Ishihara looked at Kusatsu. “What’s in those computers?”

Kusatsu shook his head. “We’re waiting for the doc to finish. My boys don’t want to turn anything on until they’ve got the
whole lot back to our labs. Don’t want to risk wiping anything by mistake.”

“I can guess what’s in the computers,” said a female voice behind Beppu.

Beppu stepped hurriedly into the kitchen, and a youngish woman wearing a trouser suit entered from the hall. She held up an
ID that flashed more gold than a gangster’s watch. Her heart-shaped face was youthful, but her eyes were hard and calculating.
She looked surprisingly like that stock character of police manga, the young and attractive female officer who shows up the
older male characters.

“Inspector Funo, Prefectural Office Religious Affairs.”

Ishihara knew most of the prefecturals in his area, and female inspectors were too rare to forget. She must be a recent arrival
from the National Police Authority in Tokyo.

“We’ve been watching some of these young people,” said Funo. She shifted her handbag on her shoulder.

“Not close enough,” muttered Beppu.

Funo ignored him. “They may have been involved with a particularly difficult group called the Silver Angels.”

Ishihara thought of the paint can.

“Which of the kids did you follow, and how did you know they were involved with the group?” said Ishihara.

“Let’s say one of the boys was indiscreet with his e-mail,” said Funo. “I can’t say more.”

The kitchen felt uncomfortably warm and crowded. His imagination suggested that the smell from the bodies was getting stronger,
and he was conscious of Dr. Matobe shifting from one foot to the other beside him.

“Let’s go outside,” he said. “The morgue boys are waiting. We’ve all seen enough here, I think.” He’d have liked to look around
a bit more, but he could check the videos later.

The career detective opened her mouth, shut it again, and filed out with the others. Ishihara had no illusions as to who was
now in charge of the investigation—any “interest” shown by Prefectural Office meant they took over—but at least he’d kept
control of the scene.

“The Silver Angels,” began Inspector Funo, as they all finished shuffling into their shoes and flattened themselves against
the wall to let the morgue stretcher-bearers past, “are a group of well-off, mostly talented young people. The oldest we know
is twenty-five, although we think the leader is older.”

“Who’s the leader?” said Beppu. “And why haven’t we heard of them?”

Inspector Funo raised a neatly plucked eyebrow at the rudeness. She looked like someone had puked on her shiny black shoes.

“The leader,” she said slowly and precisely, “calls himself Adam.”

Oh great, thought Ishihara. The Christian groups are the most confusing. “I never heard of him,” he said. “What does he preach?”

Funo tightened her lips, then relented. “We don’t have a lot of information. The group’s very close-knit. What we do have
is inferred, mainly from Net chat rooms. Our experts sift through material, and they’ve found postings that fit the group’s
profile. But we can’t be sure the people who post messages are group members.”

“And?” prompted Ishihara.

“It’s a typical New Millennium group—predict the end of the world through cataclysmic event, personal cleansing through meditation,
value of natural healing, rejection of consumerism …” She made them all sound like exotic diseases. “They want to use technology
to achieve some posthuman state. The group is atypical because they don’t have a legal existence and they don’t solicit funds.
We don’t know where they get their money.”

“So they haven’t made any actual threats,” said Ishihara, “But you’re worried because if they do, they may have some capability
of carrying them out?”

Funo hesitated. “That’s right. And today’s deaths indicate that whatever they’re doing isn’t safe. Our priority at the moment
is to find Adam’s real identity. You have not yet been informed of the group’s details because we haven’t decided whether
they are to be treated as a cult and therefore fall within the jurisdiction of Religious Affairs, or whether they are a terrorist
group and, therefore, will be handled by Home Defense.”

“Terrorist?” said Ishihara. He knew he looked as dumbfounded as Beppu and Kusatsu. How could those flimsy, gaudy bodies be
terrorists?

Inspector Funo paused as the stretcher-bearers maneuvered out the door and past them. Two bodies to a stretcher.

“Unfortunately the details may only be released on a need-to-know basis.” She sounded cheerful for the first time. “Therefore,
Prefectural Office will be taking over this investigation. We will, as usual, require liaison officers to be appointed from
the local station and will require an incident room to be set aside there. My men will arrive shortly.”

She bobbed her head. “I’m sure we’ll work well together.”

Ishihara wasn’t sure at all. He consoled himself with the thought that in police manga, the young female detective is almost
always rescued at the end by her more experienced male colleague.

E
leanor left her apartment on Monday morning puffy-eyed and irritable. In the old days she’d have blamed her disturbed night
on the heat, but the Betta nights were cool and comfortable. Must be the unfinished business with that welder and the prospect
of a long day’s work ahead, getting Sam ready for the budget committee display.

There weren’t many people in the corridors at six-thirty. Masao hadn’t even grunted in his sleep when she said she was leaving
early. Simulated morning light streamed through the corridors, and cheerful music played just at the level of hearing. The
ubiquitous cleanbots were still gathered in herds about their recharge stations, out of the way of passersby in small bays
at certain intersections.

As she waited for the elevator she noticed one cleanbot marooned by itself near the wall, like a discarded ball with wheels.
Perhaps it was the same one that had malfunctioned the other night. She crouched down to check its charge light. Green, which
meant fully charged. Strange. She nudged it with her foot, but it didn’t move, nor did any of its flaps open so it could raise
arms or sensors. Definitely malfunctioning. She rummaged in the bottom of her handbag and found a sweet wrapper, which she
dropped right in front of the bat’s base sensors. After a ten-second delay, it sucked up the wrapper belatedly, then kept
going, following the line of the wall until the corridor curved out of sight.

The elevator pinged at her.
Do you wish to descend?
it inquired in a polite female voice. Eleanor got in hurriedly. As the doors closed she thought she saw the cleanbot reappear.
I must remember to tell management about it tonight.

In the lower, main commuting corridor the music was louder, and advertising jingles dopplered in and out of hearing as she
passed.

Buy your new Generation S phone implant today and receive a free tattoo!

Where will
your
next holiday be? Make it the blue waves of Tottori.

Be the first girl in your office with the Miss Elegance look.

Two girls in blue high school sailor suits stood in front of this last wall advertisement, giggling and ordering with their
phones at the interface. Eleanor wondered whether the makeup would be delivered to their school or to their homes, and what
their parents thought about it. She couldn’t see Yoshiko letting Mari order goods from a public ad.

The corridor bots here were busy, zooming neatly in and out of people’s way if they needed to cross from one side of the corridor
to the other. She found herself checking their herd behavior, then stopped, shaking her head at the idiocy. As if a cleaning
robot would follow her. You have other things to worry about, she told herself.

In the train a man in a pink short-sleeved shirt and green string tie was sitting in her favorite seat, and all the other
seats were occupied. She leaned against the doors and watched the roofs and crossings rattle past. Everything outside baked
in the heat, while the fan blew a draft of icy cold air down her neck.

Many of the faces in the carriage were familiar, all residents of her Betta who took the same train every day. Sleepy faces,
faces with a sheen of sweat, a keen face bent over a textbook. One or two people were completely asleep, hunched over bags
on their laps or drooping to one side.

What would it be like to work in your own business next to home, like Grandpa and Kazu? She knew it wasn’t a matter of pleasing
oneself—more like being a Ping-Pong ball bounced continuously between contractors, customers, and suppliers. But at least
they didn’t have piles of senseless administrative work. Like the report she had to write on the Kawanishi Metalworks incident.
She swore she’d finish that business with the welder by nine; otherwise, she’d be unable to concentrate on Sam.

The train doors swooshed open, and she retreated farther into the carriage to avoid being squashed by people entering at Amagasaki.
In summer everyone left home early to avoid the heat.

A schoolgirl dodged through the crowd as she walked up the carriage, her bare legs in white socks and loafers balancing effortlessly
against the train’s motion. She didn’t even stop reading her comic.

How do we do it so easily? Eleanor would have traded five years of her life to be able to make a robot that walked like that.

It’s not done easily, she conceded. It takes years of continual practice for a child to learn to walk. Yet they want us to
produce a robot that can walk in six months, a year. As well as integrate all the other systems. We don’t give it enough time
to practice. After my accident … she fingered the scar hidden under her long hair … I practiced like hell.

Practice had been the only thing that got her through. She’d done nothing for months but practice simple tasks. In retrospect,
it seemed ridiculous, but at the time it was exhausting, and the victories were so very small. Nobody understood how long
it took. People tried to conceal expressions of pity, frustration, or disgust as she spent minutes passing change to a shop
assistant or stammering her destination to a bus driver.

Caged in the slowness of her own tongue and reflexes, she watched her peers get offered the interesting jobs and knew that
by the time she recovered it would be too late; more brilliant young minds would roll along. Maybe that was when it started,
the desire to build a robot body that wouldn’t break down. She didn’t want to return to those dreary days of pulling speech,
limbs, thought together, but if it would help her coordinate Sam …

There was another message from Akita waiting for her. Tempted simply to delete, she ran her eyes over it, then stopped and
read it from the beginning.

Sender: A


Subject: A query


Eleanor-san


I am still awaiting your reply to my previous message, subject ‘catching up.’ I would very much like to see you, as I have
some more information about my new synaptic converter, which you will find fascinating.


Until we meet, I have a question for you to consider about your research. I am interested in how you have pursued the idea
of a humanoid robot, and a little disappointed also. There are many avenues more worth pursuit. What is the final goal of
your research? What will your humanoid robots be used for—slaves to human beings? Companions?


I look forward to discussing the matter with you in person.


Eleanor deleted the message with a savage jab at the keyboard. Far more satisfying than voice command.

How dare Akita question her research goals, sitting in his country university where they probably didn’t even know the meaning
of R&D …

“Recall deleted e-mail.”

She typed her reply, not wanting to be overheard.

Akita-san


Before you question other people’s research goals, you should declare your own. What are you working on now? You sent me some
interesting snippets of information, but as far as I know, they could be years old. Where do you stand that you question my
goals?


McGuire


That should make him think. If he wanted to insult her, why didn’t he call? Vanity, perhaps. He’d always worried how he looked.
He probably didn’t want her to see his middle-aged paunch or balding head.

She sent the message and tried to put him out of her head. She had enough to do already.

“Industrial Lab Four? This is McGuire, of Systems Two.”

The screen activated. “Nishino here. You’re early.” Her colleague in charge of large industrial robots was as stolid and inflexible
as his machines.

Eleanor nodded acknowledgment of the pleasantry. “I’ve got a T56 welder here …”