Night Sessions, The (16 page)

Shonagh took the floor.

“I've had some fast catching-up to do on the subject of humanoid robots. There aren't many of them around. Now, you'd think that would be a point in our favour—the damn things all have Sony serial numbers, after all! But it's not so easy. The company found them a bit embarrassing, after the whole public-acceptance problem, and more or less washed its hands of them. It certainly doesn't keep track of them. It has a complete database of them, with their appearance and characteristics, and you'd be surprised how little arm-twisting it took along product-liability lines to get them to give us access
to it last night. Turns out there isn't a robot in the database with a face that matches Orr-stroke-Hardcastle. That doesn't mean it isn't one of those robots: their facial features aren't easily modified, but it's by no means impossible. Nor, for that matter, is it impossible to reverse-engineer a new humanoid robot, assuming anyone with enough resources wanted to. The tech's all public domain now.

“Anyway, the key points as far as our investigation is concerned are, first, that a humanoid robot doesn't need the kind of living space that humans do, even to remain clean and wear a suit. All they need is shelter from the elements and an electricity supply. So a humanoid robot could quite happily dwell in a lock-up or a shed. Now, given that one of the areas with the most recorded sightings is around Leith Water, that means we have a lot of searching and door-to-door to do in the container blocks.

“The second point is that like lekis—and most nonconscious robots, for that matter—they are in the habit of taking regular back-ups. Hardcastle's back-ups were on a secure server managed by Hired Muscle. First thing we checked—after all, it would be very convenient to have the suspect's mind available to download, run and interrogate, right? No such luck. The back-up records exist, right up to one about five p.m. yesterday, but there's nothing in the file location. Hired Muscle's IT team swear blind that there was a complete memory back-up there when they checked, just after it was made, as is routine. Now it's gone—deleted or moved somewhere else. There are ways to track whether and where it was moved, but that takes time. Lothian and Borders AI and KI Crime Unit is working on it as we speak.”

A hand went up. “Yes, Sergeant Carr?”

“Why not get Paranoia to do that?”

“Good point, Dennis. It's policy, basically. The only way the force ever got the PNAI past the regulatory committees at Westminster and Holyrood was to give a cast-iron guarantee that there'd be hard-wired firewalls against its ever poking around in other computer systems.”

“One other thing,” said Carr. “Suppose this guy really is a
mutilado
. What's to stop him having had—Christ, I don't know, a chip in his head or something—that could have given back-up memories, maybe just terabytes of random data, to complete the impression that he was a robot?”

Shonagh shook her head. “Wouldn't work. There's an automatic check that it's an AI software suite that's been uploaded. Could be he actually has an AI chip, of course, in his possession—in his head, for all we know! Either way, we're dealing with a very dangerous entity: a man who has, no doubt, serious
psychological issues, possible long-term depression, plus religious fanaticism, and/or a robot whose mind is now safely stashed somewhere and has nothing but recent memories and a rather expensive chassis to lose. And, let's not forget, a knowledge of explosives.”

“Thanks, Shonagh,” said Ferguson. “Now—DC Patel, can you bring us up to date on the Graham Orr side of the search?”

Patel stood up. “It's all on the board, sir. As of this minute, no further progress to report. It's not an uncommon name, but there aren't many of the right age and none of them matches the face, or anything else. And, speaking of face, we've checked with all the military hospitals, Erskine and the rest, the Haig Fund, Oil for Blood…they all have detailed records of injuries and rehab, and the number of veterans who lost at minimum forearms and face and didn't opt for regen is a couple of hundred in the country as a whole, less than a dozen in Edinburgh. There's no case of anyone who survived the kind of massive injuries the actual Graham Orr is recorded as having died of choosing prostheses over regen. Not that they'd have any choice about it, anyway—they'd have been stabilised on medevac and then stuck in the regen tanks long before they recovered consciousness. If they'd registered prior conscientious objection to regen they were given the last rites and died. So—no cyborg veterans stalking around. The Face Forward charity is, as Connor Thomas told us in the interview, very cagey about releasing or even retaining names but they assure us they know of no cases of anything so radical. That's it, for now.”

“Thanks, Saresh,” said Ferguson. “And for what we have to do about all this, I'm pleased to yield the floor to DCI McAuley, who is taking charge of the city-wide operational plan.”

McAuley took Ferguson's place and swept the room with his best Human Relations grin.

“Good morning, everyone,” he said. “I need hardly emphasise the seriousness of the situation. All leave is cancelled—which doesn't mean, I hasten to add, that those of you who've been up most of the night can't take a shift off. Even with all leave cancelled, of course, we simply don't have the resources to put static security in place at all the potential targets. We have to rely on the general public to stay alert, and on the existing private security at various establishments to be a lot more vigilant than they've recently allowed themselves to become. A lot of the elementary security habits that became second nature for most people during the Faith Wars—screening, baggage checks, not letting an unattended item go unchallenged—have been allowed to lapse. I don't say that's a bad thing, by the way, it's been one of the gains of
the victory. These procedures must be revived, as of now. The Chief Constable will be making a media statement to this effect within the hour.

“What we can do, and what static security can't, is patrol, search, keep linked, keep Paranoia whispering in our ears, and follow up every lead. There's a list in your headspaces—use it. Shonagh mentioned the container blocks. We have to visit all of them. Yes, it's a long job. Yes, we're not popular down there. Tough. And by the way, if anyone's counting on getting our man—or machine—through camera surveillance, let me remind you that disguises as simple as a false beard, dark glasses, and a hooded top can throw face-recognition off—not for ever, but for more time than we may have.

“Finally, tomorrow's Sunday. We'll have at least one uniformed officer and one leki at each worship service at every place of public worship of the main denominations: Church of Scotland, Free Church, Catholic, Episcopalian. These are the big ones, and the obvious targets. That covers about twenty-odd buildings in Edinburgh, forty to sixty services, depending. It doesn't stretch or waste our resources. As for the sects, house churches, private meetings and so forth—there's no way we can cover them, no way we are wanted, and I leave any surveillance to the discretion of DCI Mukhtar.”

McAuley's gaze swept the room again, this time with a practised expression of resolve.

“Let's go to it.”

They went.

Ferguson walked down a street four metres wide between buildings thirty metres high, each consisting of nine or ten storeys of adapted shipping containers. Above him, across this canyon, were strung electricity cables, rope-and-plank walkways, fat fibre-optic high-bandwidth pipes, and washing lines. Canopies flapped above the ground-floor shop windows and entrances, sheltering even smaller commerce in their shadows. Around him the pedestrians and shoppers surged in slow motion. Ostensible idlers in doorways chewed stimulant-sticks or took slow, watchful drags on cigarettes, while their eyes tracked him like surveillance cameras. Bicycles and mopeds snaked amid stalls, avoiding the grooves of the railway line. From the gleam of its rails Ferguson suspected it still functioned. At the end of the street was the canal and the Old Coal Wharf, and beyond it the cranes of the busy dock and the ruins of the abandoned dockside developments of Leith.

The Edinburgh City Council had solved the problems of its own displaced citizens with the new-tech housing schemes of Turnhouse and Tranent. The new population that had grown up around the revitalised docks had solved the problem of cheap, fast modular housing for themselves. The prevalent accumulation regime in the Leith docks being capitalism with Russian characteristics, the container blocks’ inhabitants paid over the odds for their living space and often found their security providers were people they needed security
from
, but aside from that the place worked.

Ferguson moved through the crowd as if he knew exactly where he was going. He did, not from any familiarity with this particular street but from the constant input to his contacts and phone clip from Ogle Earth, Paranoia, his colleagues and the lekis in and out of sight and earshot, and the flotilla of midge-sized surveillance microdrones stotting about in the downdraughts between the container stacks and in the thermals above. Ogle Earth let him see the most recent record of what any building or module he glanced at was like inside, and the identities of its current owners and renters (there were often wide disparities between this information and what he could see with
his own eyes); Paranoia warned him of any associated illegal activities and told him which watchers to watch; he had split-screen views available at a blink from the cops up and down the street and on the walkways and balconies, and from the lekis likewise, deployed to sniff for danger and to watch the humans’ backs; the midge-sized drones gave an overview and sniffed for suspect molecules. This was a mental zone that was rare and satisfying to get into: everyone sharing the same headspace, eyes and hands and boots on the street working together like the senses and effectors of some super-organism, a hive mind on the march. It wasn't sustainable for long—it ate human energy and machine processing-power like this year's software on last year's hardware—but while it lasted it made you feel invincible and as often as not it did the job.

If beards, dark glasses and hooded tops were the disguise to watch out for, the invincible police super-organism would have to stop and question one in ten men on the street. And that, Ferguson knew, was not going to fly. So he just flicked to infrared whenever he saw any of these features, let Skulk process the image and report back if it spotted any telltale temperature anomalies. All the other coppers on this sweep were doing the same. No luck so far.

“Just spotted Anatoli Ilyanov,” Shonagh murmured. She was walking the balcony strip of a parallel, wider and more salubrious street. Ilyanov was a Gazprom pointman on the container blocks, a man Ferguson had wanted to question last week and for several weeks before.

“Give him the nod if he clocks you,” said Ferguson. “Otherwise, note and ignore for now.”

“Got it.”

Ferguson felt a slight pang. He knew he'd regret passing up this opportunity, but for now the search for Hardcastle's lair had priority. Damn, damn, damn. Ilyanov was a third-generation Leith Russki and knew every—

“Wait a minute,” Ferguson said. “Still got him in sight?”

“Five metres,” said Hutchins, confirming with a pov tab to Ferguson's split-screen vision. A man in a leather jacket walking briskly and giving Hutchins the evil eye, or maybe eyeing her up on Ogle Face.

“Great,” said Ferguson. “Smile and approach, flash him your card and show him the ‘wanted’ pic.”

Ferguson dawdled at a Kyrgyzstani hash-pipe stall while Hutchins did as he'd said.

Ilyanov didn't look fazed at all. Even before Shonagh had the card open he was smiling and sticking his hand out.

“Good afternoon, Detective Sergeant Hutchins! What can I do for you?”

“Good afternoon, Mr. Ilyanov,” said Hutchins, straight back. “I'm sure you've seen our latest media release.”

“Sorry to say I haven't,” said Ilyanov. He shook his head. “I'm a busy man, and I work within the law, so police matters seldom concern me.”

“Ah well,” said Hutchins, ignoring this blatant lie. “Could you spare a moment to look at these pictures of a man we'd like to talk to?”

“Aye, sure.” Ilyanov peered, then his head jerked back. “Hardcastle? Aye, I know the cunt. To see, like. Never knew he might be a robot, mind. Thought he was just another one of they Hired Muscle goons. Seen him around, like.”

“Has he been involved in any of the recent scuffles with Gazprom security?”

Ilyanov considered this for a moment. “Not to my knowledge, no.”

“Any idea where he lives?”

“Wish I could tell you,” said Ilyanov.

“You wish you knew where he lives? And what might you mean by that, Mr. Ilyanov?”

“Oh, not to intimidate him or anything.” He flashed his teeth. “I'm very keen to keep these unfortunate misunderstandings from getting out of hand. But I have to say, my employer's security detail is convinced that Hired Muscle is covering for a racket, and they have stolen Gazprom property stashed somewhere around here.”

“I would strongly recommend that you take such suspicions to the police,” said Hutchins.

“With respect, DS Hutchins, don't talk like you just came off a container ship. I'm not that daft.”

Hutchins ignored the bait. “What's the connection with knowing where Hardcastle lives?”

“Well now,” said Ilyanov, “if he's a robot, it's not like he needs running water or that. Doesn't even need to sleep. All he needs is some kind of parking garage. Storage space.” He waved a hand. “You see the problem? If I wanted to stash something dodgy around here, not saying I would, mind, I wouldn't use a lock-up. I'd use an empty flat, keep the window box watered, know what I mean? Maybe have someone coming and going. And if they could actually stay there, and not need any facilities, it's your icing on the cake, man!” His brain caught up with his mouth. “Ma’am.”

“That's a very interesting idea,” said Hutchins. “But unless you have anything specific, all it means is that we have even more places to search.”

“I'm afraid it does,” said Ilyanov, shaking his head sadly. “Sorry I can't help you there.”

“That's OK,” said Hutchins. “But if you do come across anything, you'll get in touch?”

“Of course,” said Ilyanov, making to go.

“I'll tab you my phone number,” said Hutchins.

“No need for—”

“Oh, there is, Mr. Ilyanov—you know what the Greensides phone queue can be like. This way you can reach me any time.”

“Aye, well, I suppose.”

He took the ping sullenly, well aware that it exchanged his number for hers, nodded, and walked on.

“It'll be interesting to see how long before he ditches his phone,” Hutchins remarked, as soon as Ilyanov was out of earshot.

“And where,” said Ferguson. “Nice one.”

The sweep continued.

About an hour later, following a faint trail picked up by the PNAI—integrated from a two-day-past glimpse of a hooded man on some snogging local kid's eyewear upload, and a twenty-per-cent-probability trace of the origin of a stray molecule from an RDX precursor compound, most likely innocuous, picked up by a midge—Ferguson, Skulk and Patel turned sharp left into a long alley cluttered with recycling bins, pocked with puddles, tangled with pallid weeds. Still on the upper levels, Hutchins made her way along a swaying walkway to the same corner, with a view down the alley and along the street, and kept watch.

Ferguson looked up. The alley was dim in the late afternoon. Overhead, a midge swarm thickened. The PNAI told him that an RDX molecule had been detected. As he picked his way along he scanned each doorway that he passed. Ogle Earth might be out of date for some of the uses, but the physical layout of the room or passage behind the doors was probably correct. Most of them led off to the backs of confirmed shops or flats. He let these go by for the moment, looking out for one that was self-contained.

The midge swarm reached it before he did. A few metres ahead of him, about halfway down the alley, the swarm swirled down like a miniature tornado and buzzed in a black column in front of a grey wooden door. The padlocked door had been opened recently enough to have flattened the weeds and swept the litter in a quarter-circle in front of it: within the last day or two, Ferguson guessed. He turned to Skulk.

“How does it smell?”

Skulk swung a stiff tentacle back and forth in front of the door.

“Confusing,” it reported. “Can't pick up any RDX myself, but the midges have a better chance of that anyway. A lot of other traces—machine oil, iron particles, carbon nanoparticles, various reagents and surfactants, probably from Swarfega or the like. Could be a machine shop.”

“Let's send some midges in,” said Ferguson.

A score or so of the microdrones detached themselves from the swarm and flew or crawled between the door and the jamb. Ferguson, patching their pov to his eyes, found almost total darkness within. The midges spread out in a loose mid-air cloud. Gradually, over a minute of integrating stray light almost photon by photon, a greytone picture built up. Ferguson swivelled the pov, looking around. The place was a rectangular box, about two metres by three by five. A sagging sofa along one wall. A sink at the far end, with two taps. Three light bulbs, one of them portable and hanging from the wall, its power lead trailing. Big drums and small tins. Cardboard and buckysheet boxes. Bottles and jars and tubes. A piece of heavy machinery with levers at the side and a hefty two-handed screw at the top; Ferguson identified it after a moment as a basic printing press. Power tools, hung on hooks or racked. Small complex mechanisms laid out along shelves. A toolcase, closed. A lathe; a workbench, with a rugged desk-slate propped against a thick reel of sticky-backed buckytape.

So far, so innocuous. It was the chemical analysis, trickling in even more slowly than the visual image formed, that clinched the matter: RDX in the air, and traces of every stage of RDX manufacture among the scents of oil and hand-cleaner.

“It's Hardcastle's place,” Ferguson announced. “His workshop and bomb factory.” He was confident enough to broadcast it, causing a city-wide flurry and a ripple in the PNAI.

“How can you be sure?” Skulk asked. “It's criminal, yes, but—”

Ferguson had to think about it. How
did
he know that it wasn't some other criminal's workshop?

“No coffee mugs,” he said. “Not even a kettle.”

“Ah,” said Skulk. It paused for a moment, tentacle tip hovering at the lock. “Shall I go in?”

“Not on your life,” said Ferguson. He looked up and down the alleyway. “Clear the building. Then clear the area.”

The door had a simple hasp and padlock, but getting in was going to take hours. Before sending in even a fully backed-up leki, they were going to have to have midges, glow bugs, and larger but still tiny robotic creepy-crawlies
checking every crevice for booby traps. Even at that, Ferguson wasn't sanguine, which was why he'd had the building evacuated the moment he'd got a warrant and announced an unofficial blind-eye amnesty for any unrelated minor illegalities that the evacuation and investigation might expose. (Tax and rating evasion, OK; slave trading, not so much.)

After that it was over to the Bomb Squad. The alert for Hardcastle remained in force, but the sweeps were, for the moment, off. Ferguson let everyone who was due an off shift take one, including himself. He returned to Greensides, wrote up the day's developments, talked to McAuley, called for the latest Bomb Squad updates, and by 20:30 was sitting with his back to the wall behind a table in the Abbotsford, contemplating the top of his one pint before taking the tram home.

The Abbotsford was an old pub with a long U-shaped bar and no music, just the hiss of the carbon-fibre smoke extractors and the low voices and loud laughs of the few people in it at this time, in the lull between the afterhours crush and the pre-club rush. Ferguson took a slow sip and settled back to gather his thoughts. Something was taking shape in his own brain's pattern-recognition system, which he trusted rather more than Paranoia's. That business with Skulk and his feral lieutenant, now: it had jolted him into a renewed appreciation of the strength of the bond between a fighting man and a fighting machine, and it chimed in some way with the peculiarity of a humanoid robot whose face wasn't on the manufacturer's database but was modelled on that of Graham Orr, the dead man whose name—whose forename, at least, for certain—it had also taken. That man had been a robotics specialist—Ferguson found himself wondering what had happened to the robot he'd worked with. Whether it had ever attained self-awareness and had its mind transferred to a less dangerous chassis…and had then transferred itself, or been transferred, to a humanoid one in the shape of its dead comrade, adapted or built from scratch…Ferguson found himself with a mental picture of a leki building a humanoid robot, like a miniature Martian-fighting-machine Frankenstein bent over a man on a slab, awaiting the electric surge that would bring it animation.