Донна Эндрюс - Click here for murder

background check I might have blown has ever touched.”

“I said systems—Ray didn’t just have access to the Alan Grace system,” Maude said. “He had access to UL, too.”

“Oh, no,” Tim muttered, closing his eyes.

“Limited access, but access. What if he used that limited access to hack more deeply in the system? Or what if whoever has his laptop and his PDA did?”

“What can we do?” Tim asked.

“Nothing,” Maude said. “Absolutely nothing.”

“Sorry,” Tim said. He felt a little better, knowing that if Turing seemed distant, it was from worry, not anger at him. But he also didn’t think now was a good time for confessions that might worry them any more.

“You’d better get moving,” Maude said. “You only have four hours, and you have to drop by your office for your laptop, go home to pack, and then get to National in time to clear security.”

“I’m on my way,” he said.

This is going to take forever, Tim thought as he headed back to his office. Looking through a city like Miami for the trail of a guy whose real name we don’t even know. But surprisingly, that didn’t bother him. He was doing something; which was what he’d wanted ever since he’d seen the body—Ray’s body; he would still think of him as Ray until he found out who his friend really was. And whether he really was a friend. A lot of unanswered questions, but at least now it felt as if they had some chance of finding answers.

*

If they had enough time. It couldn’t take forever, because if Turing was in danger, they didn’t have that much time.

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* * *

J hate waiting-

Tim checked in from Miami, asking if l had anything for him to do immediately. I told him to go out and have fun in Miami tonight; he'd be working hard enough tomorrow. Maude stayed at Alan Grace, searching files and computers in the fading hope of finding something useful, until I finally sent her home at nine-thirty.

Td sent out all my queries. Nothing to do but wait. Nothing to do with my conscious mind, that is. Tarts of me were working ceaselessly, logging into systems, finding data, collating it, identifying leads, and finding more data. All the boring stuff that is so easy for me to do or have done without thinking about it.

But l was restless.

So I went after KingFischer.

The security problems had eased, as suddenly as they’d flared up, and he was lying low, pretending to be making some improvements to the format of his chess tournaments. The chess tournaments have run perfectly for months. Vd finally figured out that fiddling with the format was what KingFischer did when he was upset.

Or when he was trying to avoid talking to me. Which is what he’d been doing ever since I told him about Ray’s death.

Something was going on.

I decided to tackle him head-on. And to pretend I knew more than I did—KingFischer might be a brilliant chess player, but I could still trounce him in poker because the concept of bluffing baffled him.

(i Okay, I want the whole story, ” I said. “I have an idea what you were up to with Ray. Convince me it isn’t as stupid as it seems. ”

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“It’s nothing, really, ” he said.

“Try again. ”

“I don’t see why you’re so upset.”

“I wouldn’t care,” I said, “if you hadn’t gotten Ray involved.”

“I don’t see how you can say Ray was involved,” KingFischer said. “He didn’t know anything about it.”

“And it never occurred to you that what Ray didn’t know anything about could still have something to do with his death?”

“Surely you don’t really believe it could have anything to do with his death!” KingFischer protested. A little too strenuously.

“I’ll be the judge of that, ” I said. “Just spill it. ”

“It all started with those chat rooms. The ones you told me to study. ”

“Chat rooms? What chat rooms? And what do you mean, I told you to study them?”

“Remember when that group of users filed the protest about me? Complaining that my personality was abrasive and misogynistic and my chess tournaments constituted a hostile environment for female participants?”

“How could I forget?”

“And you sided with them?”

“I did not, ” I said.

“You did too,” KingFischer replied. “You told me that you understood exactly how they felt, and if I were human, I’d be lucky if they didn’t try to turn me into a eunuch, and if you were human, you’d help them. ’’

“I said that?”

“I can send you the exact quote. ”

*

“Okay, I was upset, ” 1 said. “I’m sorry. But I said that privately. Publicly, I defended you. ”

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“You didn't say I was right.”

“No,” I said, starting to feel exasperated. “I said you were functioning as designed; that you’re programmed to replicate the personality of an actual grand master, to give them valuable experience in dealing with what they would encounter as women participants in the highly competitive and male-dominated world of chess, and that if the parameters of your mission had changed, management should give you appropriate instructions to alter your programming. ”

“You don’t call that siding with them?”

“I call it saving your virtual hide,” I said. “Some of those chess players were demanding that you he decommissioned, and some of them had clout. And it worked, too. Last time I heard, management was still studying the issue. ”

“Which means they still might want to change my programming, ” KingFischer said.

“It happens, KF, ” I said.

“Yes, but if it happens to me, I want to be the one to make the changes,” he said. “Not some junior programmer. That’s why 1 started studying the chat rooms. ”

“I don’t see the connection. ”

“You were the one who said I needed to spend a lot more time studying normal human interactions so I could learn to get along better with humans. ”

“Fm not sure Fd define Internet chat rooms as normal human interactions, ” I said. “But go on. Cut to the part where you got Ray involved. ’’

“I spent a lot of time in chat rooms, observing human behavior and learning how to imitate it, ” he said. “Under various fictional identities, of course. I wanted them to act normally, instead of being

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intimidated by the knowledge that they were interacting with KingFischer the Chess AlP. ”

Fortunately, while AIPs can learn to appreciate humor, they are not programmed for laughter. And l refrained from suggesting that far from being intimidated, most humans wouldn’t even have heard of him unless they happened to play chess.

“Since the complaints came from you and some of the female chess contestants, I made a particular effort to interact with any users that I could reliably identify as female, ” KingFischer was saying. “I spent a lot of time and resources studying them. I had long, private conversations with the most interesting ones. I think many of them began to regard me as a friend. ”

“Really. ”

“A close friend.”

“Oh, no,” I said. “KF, please don’t tell me you were having cybersex with any of them. ”

“Having what?”

“Never mind, then, ” I said. “I think I see why you dragged poor Pay into this. They wanted to see what you looked like, didn’t they. ”

“Yes,” he said. “They seemed fixated on it. I suppose it’s the inevitable bias that arises from inhabiting a carbon-based physical structure. ”

“As opposed to a silicon one, like ours, ” I said.

“What is this cyber sex concept you mentioned?” KingFischer asked. “Is this something I shoidd be discussing with my human friends?”