Mark Tiedemann - Mirage

Eliton's drawer was in the next aisle. Derec pressed the contact, his heart racing as it emerged. Upon seeing Eliton, he felt oddly relieved.

The features matched, but lacked the vitality Derec recalled. The shell gave no hint of the energy Eliton possessed and displayed, nothing of his passions. Three puckered mounds traced a line from his left shoulder to his sternum.

"He looks…"

"Yes," Ariel said. "Death takes everything." She frowned and did a slow examination down the corpse's entire length.

"What?" Derec asked.

"I… nothing." She closed the drawer.

"Humadros?"

Ariel drew a deep breath, then shook her head.

"We should verify them all," Derec said. He raised his eyes upward slightly.

She caught his meaning and nodded. "All right. Let's finish." Derec experienced a profound sense of relief when the limo pulled away from the morgue. He shrugged out of the too-tight jacket and pulled his own back on. Ariel gazed out her window, a frown pulling a crease into the space above her nose.

"Something's bothering you," Derec said.

"Brilliant. How long did it take you to deduce that?"

"Sarcasm. I didn't think you cared anymore."

Instead of the sharp comeback he expected, she said, "None of this is making sense. The problem is, I can't see how it's not."

"Such as?''

"If Tro is dead in the morgue, then who took his seat on the shuttle?"

"Clones?"

Ariel made a face. "Except for some very limited organ regrowth, cloning is completely illegal on Earth. They're more frightened of that than robots."

"But we're not talking legal here, are we?"

Ariel shrugged but did not reply.

"Unless it's just a glitch," Derec said. "The ticket was bought, the name was never deleted, the seat stayed reserved. This has all happened fast."

"We can check that. Car, take us to Union Station."

"Yes, Ambassador," the car replied flatly.

"Then," Ariel continued, "the burned corpse under Mia's name."

"Yes… that wouldn't have been possible even if she had died. I saw the room. Everything in it was vaporized."

"How come the whole facility didn't go up?"

"Contained explosion, what they call a 'bubble nuke. ' Stasis fields and so forth. Very sophisticated, very expensive."

"Parapoyos?"

Derec shrugged. "The trouble with Kynig Parapoyos, as I understand it, is that he's everywhere. Might as well blame a devil or some other supernatural force. But, yes, something like that would be in his line. Very thorough, too. Agent Sathen told me that nothing was recoverable."

"Sathen?"

"Do you know him?"

"I spoke to him yesterday. He was very uncooperative. But not willingly. It seemed to me like he'd been given orders not to talk about the situation."

"Hmm. He seemed open to me, but I spoke to him just after it happened. Anyway, there would be no corpse, even if Mia hadn't got out."

"So that body-" Ariel began.

"-whoever it might be-"

"-wasn't just placed there so that there could be a body-"

"-it was placed to contradict the intensity of the blast-"

"-and keep anyone from wondering about the source."

"Exactly."

Ariel looked at him. "And Sathen?"

"Who could silence him?"

"His own people."

"Which is just what your friend Mia suspects."

"I talked to the nurse who was on duty that night. She told me two other agents came in and Sathen got into an argument with them."

"Did she remember their names?"

"One of them. Cupra."

Derec laughed sharply. "The other one is Agent Gambel. "

"You know them?"

"They're the pair who threw me out of Union Station. They had all the right documents. When I checked, their authority was verified. I couldn't argue."

"But you kept the copy of the RI. "

"What copy?"

Ariel chuckled, shaking her head. "Derec, Derec, Derec… you are a naughty boy."

Derec smiled. "I knew you would appreciate my finer qualities."

"The question is, why would the same two agents show up at the medical facility Mia was in?"

"They've taken charge of the entire investigation. My guess would be that they needed to debrief her."

"And instead they try to kill her."

"That's something of a leap, don't you think?"

"Is it?" Ariel asked.

"Well, it could have been Bok Golner."

"Someone would have had to set it up for him."

They rode in silence for a time. Derec watched the urbanscape pass, mulling over the conclusions hovering just out of reach. He agreed with Ariel's guess about Cupra and Gambel, but there was no more than coincidence on which to base it. Even with Mia's assertion that there had to be a Special Service component to the entire affair, Derec wanted something concrete before he embraced the belief that Earth's own security people were responsible for what amounted to the worst diplomatic catastrophe of the decade, perhaps the century.

"Ambassador," the limo suddenly said, "this unit is being followed."

Ariel leaned forward. "Show me."

The screen mounted between the seats facing them winked on, displaying the rear view. The limo made a right turn and a few moments after, another transport made the same turn.

"Identify," Ariel said.

"No registration available," the limo said.

"This car isn't positronic, is it?" Derec asked.

"I wish. Car, how far to Union Station?"

"Ten minutes at current course and speed."

"Proceed as normal. Let me know if that vehicle begins to gain on us."

"Yes, Ambassador."

"When did you get a promotion?" Derec asked.

Ariel waved dismissively. "It's programmed to respond to the primary passenger that way unless specifically told otherwise. Sometimes I really hate it here."

"You miss your robots."

"Damn right I do! At least you get to play with some, when you're not building killers."

Derec's face warmed. "Excuse me?"

Ariel scowled but would not look at him. "I beg your pardon. I didn't mean that."

"Yes, you did. Do you want to explain it?"

"Why should I? You know perfectly well what I mean."

"Bogard."

Ariel extended her hand, palm up, in a gesture that said, There, see? You knew what I meant.

"Bogard's purpose is to protect humans," Derec said.

"By being willing to harm other humans."

"It's not that simple."

"Evidently not. It failed."

"Not with Agent Daventri."

"Oh, it messed up the first time and now it's doing better to compensate? Why did it let Senator Eliton die? There are three holes in that man that shouldn't have been there!"

"I don't know why Bogard failed! I can't find out till she releases it to me and I can run a proper diagnostic on it!" Derec's anger filled him suddenly. "You never have accepted the idea that robots needn't be straitjacketed by the Three Laws, that the nature of positronics can be applied to allow wider discretion-"

He stopped, realizing that she was no longer listening. Ariel stared into the middle distance, her face expressionless but her eyes bright.

"What?" he demanded.

"Hmm? I-" She shook her head. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bring this up now."

And she looked away from him, pointedly ending the conversation. Derec knew better than to try to force her to continue. He sat and seethed until the limo arrived at Union Station.

"So when did you get a promotion?" he asked again.

"Two of those bodies were Ambassador Setaris's top aides. I ended up next in line."

"No, you don't. They could draft some junior legate."

Ariel shrugged. "Since the situation involves a positronic unit, it made sense to have me step in as Setaris's chief aide. For the time being."

"You're being set up to take the blame if anything goes wrong."

"Are you surprised? Typical Auroran politics."

She still sounded distracted. Derec was surprised to find himself worried for her, but right now it did not seem to matter to her.