ALAN FOSTER - the mocking program

"You really don't know, do you? My mother didn't tell you?"

"I really don't know," he confessed as he pulled up the hem of his shirt, exposing his slightly hirsute belly, and used the cloth to try and wring out his facial hair.

"I'm not just a tecant. I'm also a mnemonic. My father, The Mock, he doesn't trust anybody else. Never lets anybody get close to him. Not even my mother. But me…" Her voice threatened to trail away, broken by reminiscences of a submissive, unhappy childhood.

Speaking in little more than a calming whisper, Cardenas gently urged her to continue. "It doesn't matter what it is, Katla. I'll understand." Reaching out, he used a forefinger to tenderly elevate her chin. "Look at me." Once more her dark, grown-up-too-soon eyes met his. "You know that I'll understand, don't you?" There was no nod of acquiescence, but she did find her voice again.

"Daddy-The Mock wants me back because…" She stared off in one direction after another. "He calls me his 'little curly-haired mollysphere.' "

Cardenas blinked. "I'm not sure I understand. You memorized some things for him?"

Now she did nod, her black hair bobbing with the vigorous up-and-down motion of her head. "Not just some things. Everything."

The Inspector was taken aback. "By 'everything,' you mean…?"

Solemn-faced, the girl touched her forehead with a finger. "His whole business is right here. I don't know that I understand it all. Maybe it's better that I don't. But everything I was told, or shown, I retain. Names, places, people, transactions, times, dates-numbers. Lots and lots of numbers. Mostly about money, but also about- other things."

"Transactions," Cardenas murmured. "What kind of transactions?"

She shook her head. "I can't tell you. Daddy said that if I tell anybody, it makes me an accomplice to whatever I talk about."

In as earnest a voice as he could muster, Cardenas murmured intently to her. "You're a twelve-year-old girl, Katla. Your mother has just been killed. You haven't done anything bad, and you're not guilty of anything except having the wrong man for a father. I swear to you, nothing you tell me will make you an accomplice to anything. All you've done is memorize things. Facts and figures. Like from a book, or a molly. Can a book be an accomplice?"

She hesitated. "I guess not. I suppose not." Her face took on a slightly dreamy, distant expression as she proceeded to relate, at random, a handful of the kind of "transactions" she had been compelled to commit to memory.

The small hairs on the back of the Inspector's neck stiffened as he heard her recollections. Keeping his expression carefully neutral, he listened to a sampling of horrors and transgressions that would have left the typical twelve-year-old trembling with fear. Katla did not appear fazed in the slightest, leaving him to wonder, in spite of what she had said, how much of what she was reciting she really did understand.

Eventually, she returned from wherever it was she had gone, apparently none the worse for the self-induced trance. "Was that enough? Should I tell you more?" For all that it had affected her, she might as well have been describing the contents of last week's favorite vit shows.

"No, Katla. That's fine. Tell me: do you know what 'meroin' is?" She shook her head. "How about 'seventy caliberon'?"

She wrinkled her nose. "I think the first one is some kind of medicine. Isn't the other some kind of machine?"

"It has to do with a certain type of gun," he told her, holding nothing back. "The first one is- It doesn't matter." Since she did not question him as to the meaning of evisceration, he chose not to return to it for discussion.

No wonder The Mock was so desperate to recover custody of his daughter. Better than any spinner, or vorec controller, or para, she was a walking, talking, breathing gram. One he could call upon at any time to confirm the details of a business deal, or recite statistics relating to a previous transaction, or itemize the history and personal characteristics of a friend, an enemy, or a casual commercial contact. Within her innocent, preadolescent self she bore the details of his entire illicit business. What a boon that memorized information would be to a competitor! the Inspector realized. He now had an explanation for the sudden, avid interest shown in the girl by others, such as the Inzini and the Ooze.

Unlike a box or a molly, there was no way she could be hacked, no means of electronically or remotely accessing the information she retained. The Mock's twelve-year-old "curly-haired mollysphere" could not be corrupted by a virus or copied by a scanner. She could not, as a member of immediate family, even be compelled to testify against him in court.

That did not mean she wouldn't, he realized. Any lingering friendly feelings she might have held regarding her father had probably perished with her mother's violent death.

"I didn't want to do it," she was saying. "At first it was kind of fun. Like showing off, just to prove that I could. Then I got tired of it. But Daddy kept insisting. So I kept doing it. It was easy for me. When I got older and started to understand some of the things he was telling me to remember-not like the words you just asked me, but other things-I realized that they involved bad stuff, muy malo. But Daddy, he…" She paused, gathering herself. "Never mind that. I don't like thinking about that.

"He made me keep on doing it. He made me! I didn't tell Mom. I thought if she didn't know about it, Daddy wouldn't do anything to her. When she asked me what I was doing all that time with him and his friends, I lied and told her it had to do with the quantum theft project. Then she came to me one night, real late, when I was asleep, and told me to wake up and get dressed. I didn't understand what was happening until we got in the car and I saw Mr. Brummel. We drove away. We ran." She looked down at her clenched hands.

"But you can't run away from The Mock. That's what Daddy always told me. 'Nobody runs away from The Mock.' And he was right, he was right, and now Mom's gone, and I'm alone, and what am I gonna do?" As she buried her face in her hands, the tears began anew. "Where am I going to go? I don't have anybody."

"No aunts or uncles, no cousins?"

"If I do," she told him between sobs, "I don't know their names, or where they are. Mom never mentioned any to me. Maybe she didn't want me to talk to them because it might get them in trouble. With The Mock."

Rising from his couch, Cardenas moved to sit down next to her. When one strong arm went around her shoulders, she let herself lean over against him. She did not look like someone who carried within her mind the entire history and records of a worldwide criminal syndicate.

He waited until she was finished, letting her weep into his side. Then he sat back, gripped both her shoulders firmly, and looked into her eyes. "You'll be safe, Katla. Safe and well taken care of. I'll see to that myself. You'll be able to start a new life, with new friends, in a different place. And eventually you'll grow up, have a normal life, and be able to forget much of this."

Chest heaving, she shrugged indifferently. "Maybe what you say is true. Maybe it will happen like that. I don't know. It doesn't matter. Mom's gone, so it doesn't matter. I-I'd like to believe you, Mr. Cardenas."

He grinned and sat back a little farther. "I told you: call me Angel. Use the English pronunciation if it makes you feel better."

She had to smile at that. "No matter what happens, I won't be able to forget. See, I can't forget anything. I've never been able to. I don't know how."

A voice came from behind them. "Hey, you two. How's everything going in there?"

Cardenas glanced back at the concerned sergeant. "We're managing, Fredoso. Be done here soon, I think." The big man nodded and closed the door.