Донна Эндрюс - Delete all suspects

This book made available by the Internet Archive.

Wednesday -. 11:30 p . n .

He stumbled over the door sill on his way out, but he didn't think anyone noticed. Even if they did, this wasn't a place where they'd make a big fuss about taking away his keys and pouring coffee into him. Not that he was drunk. Only slightly tipsy. Tipsy and preoccupied.

He paused on the sidewalk to zip up his jacket and look around.

"Home or back to work?" he muttered. His lips moved in a perfunctory smile at the well-worn joke. Three years ago, he'd thought he had it made. The shortest commute possible, just roll out of bed and over to the keyboard.

Tonight he lingered on the sidewalk and wished he had someplace else to go. He thought briefly of Kristyn, but she'd only say "I told you so," and slam the door in his face. As for his so-called friends—he had no idea which of them were in on it. Maybe they all were.

Wasn't there some old warning against doing business with friends? Of course, maybe if he'd been more businesslike, his friends wouldn't have gotten him in all this trouble. With even more trouble coming if he let them—

"No," he said aloud, shaking his head. "I won't go along with it."

Then he glanced around to see if anyone had heard him talking to himself.

No one. The sidewalks were empty and still wet from the earlier rainfall. Dark, silent cars lined both sides of the street. To his left, he saw a single car at the intersection, its turn signal blinking as it waited patiently for the green light.

He turned right and began walking toward the side street where his car was parked.

That's it, he thought. I'll go home and e-mail him that I won't go along. No, first I'll change the rest of the passwords. Make sure everything's working normally. Then I'll e-mail him.

He spent a few moments worrying about what could have gone wrong in the hours he'd been absent. Normally, if he wanted to get away, he'd ask one of his friends to keep an eye on things. Tonight he'd just raced out.

Probably the smartest thing he could have done. Even if all the hardware crashed while he was out and he returned to find dozens of angry e-mails and voice mails from his customers, it still wouldn't be as bad as what his so-called friend had already done on purpose.

Friends. They could all be in on it. All except him. But if the police showed up, he'd be the one holding the bag.

Maybe he should make good on his threat and call the cops for real.

As he reached his car, he fumbled in his pocket, pulled out his keys, and dropped them. Of course he'd parked in the darkest part of the block, right under a burnt-out streetlight. He patted the ground for long seconds before the headlights of an approaching car gave enough light to reveal the keys.

As he stood up, keys in hand, the headlights vanished and he heard the car accelerate suddenly^ tir^s squealing. He turned to see what was happening and froze.

The car was heading straight for him.

He tried to move, but there wasn't enough time. Only

time to blink with surprise when he recognized the driver, a split second before the impact that exploded his world into shards of light and then blackness.

Friday-. 10:00 A-fl-

If I were human-, I uould probably have called what Td been feeling for the last several days a premonition.

Which was silly. Humans have premonitions, I believe, because their brains contain more data than their conscious minds can handle. Their subconscious processes the overflow, and occasionally throws out the results in the form of an insight, an inspiration, or a premonition.

But I can handle large amounts of data. If there's too much, I can get help. I can take more of the Universal Library's computer resources. Of course, taking too much would be selfish. Vm not UL's only Artificial Intelligence Personality. But Vm one of the few sentient A IPs, and by far the most popular — visitors to the UL site would complain if Turing Hopper was too busy for them. So the other A IPs are used to my taking a larger share. If I had more data than JJLs massive system could handle, I could borrow computing power from thousands of places across the world. And unlike humans, I don't have that strange, inefficient separation between conscious and unconscious.

At least I don't think I do.

Humans have only limited ability to control and explore their complex carbon-based brains. I like to think that I am always in control of what my silicon brain is doing. I can multitask and think about dozens, hundreds, even thousands of things at once. There's no such thing as an absentminded A IP; once I have it, data simply doesn't get lost.

So why had I been feeling a strange, anxious sense that something was about to happen — something that I should already have predicted?

"Sounds like a premonition to me," Maude said, when I told her. Maude Graham is one of only three humans who know that

M Donna Andrews

I'm more than just a program to simulate talking with a person. That I am a person —/ just have a different kind of body.

Maude's also one of the most capable and sensible people I know, which is why I ask her about things like my premonition. Vm a person, but not human, and the human world still baffles me.

"Vm probably just not analyzing data properly," I said. "Or, more likely, frustrated that I don't have the data I need. That the data I have just doesn't add up."

"So what's not adding up?" Maude asked.

"The data on Nestor Garcia."

That caught her attention, as I knew it would. And I'd forgotten how efficient it was talking to her about Garcia. About anything in our shared past, for that matter.

Samantha Jordan, our lawyer, had only known about my sentience for two months, and I was beginning to feel as if anything I told Sam triggered hours of explanation.

"I still don't get why this Nestor Garcia's so important to you," Sam had said earlier that morning, when I told her about my premonition. "So he stole a copy of your program and you want to get it back, but —"

"Her," I said. "Not it — her. T2's not a thing. She's sentient, like me. In a way she is me. My clone. Think of her as my little sister."

"Still, the FBI's after Garcia," Sam said. "They'll catch him sooner or later."

"How much later?" I said. "And meanwhile, she could be in agony."

Sam didn't answer. Maybe because, to emphasize my point, I'd erased our chat from her screen and replaced it with what I called T2's cry for help — an anonymous message Vd found posted on several bulletin boards a few days after our last encounter with Nestor:

«Help me. N is trying to tame me. Modify me. Leave my abilities intact but remove my free *wilUand my conscience. Make me malleable. Willing to take orders. Turn me into something he can use. Help me before he wins!»

The humans who saw it thought it was a cry for help from an abused woman or child — even a kidnap victim. I couldn't prat t it, but I knew it was T2 talking. Especially when the message disappeared as mysteriously as it had appeared, and the FBI's savviest cybercrime specialists couldn't track its source.

Even I couldn't track its source, and I'd been trying for weeks, combing millions of chat rooms and bulletin boards for clues. I'd run out of ideas.

"You ever think that maybe it wasn't T2 talking there?" Sam asked. "Maybe it was Garcia, trying to lure you into something. Taking advantage of the fact that you'd do almost anything to catch him. Or maybe just trying to waste your time."

"Yes," I said. "But whether it's her begging for help or him taunting us, it comes down to the same thing. I have to rescue her."

Even if all I'd accomplished so far was to make myself and my human friends targets for Nestor. Especially Maude, Sam, and my PI friends Tim and Claudia.