Stephen Baxter - Phase Space

But there was, he noticed, a clutch of teenagers, leaning against the rail, peering out at what was left of the river – oddly hard to make out, just skinny outlines around blurred patches, coated by softscreen tattoos.

‘Play.’

The images came to life, and a bustle of voices washed over Morhaim.

The kids came out a little clearer; the softscreen tattoos that coated their flesh, turning them all but transparent, had some trouble processing their images when the kids moved, and every so often a softscreen would turn black, an ugly patch against young skin, an arm or leg or shoulder.

These were the Homeless.

The kids, without speaking, left the rail and walked away from the pov. They moved like ghosts, Morhaim thought.

‘Damnedest thing.’

Yes.

‘There but for the grace of God –’

– goes Bobby in a couple of years, the Angel completed for him. I understand.

Morhaim’s pov moved forward, through dissolving crowds. And there, in the middle of the tableau, was Cecilia Desargues herself: a compact, stocky Frenchwoman, her face broad, cheerful and competent, her hair uncompromisingly grey. On the breast of her jumpsuit she wore a Day-Glo flashing 1/24 symbol, the logo of her company, Glass Earth, Inc. One twenty-fourth of a second: the maximum signal time lag between any two points on the globe in the future, beating the pants off the satellite operators. So promised Glass Earth, Inc., anyhow.

Desargues was standing in the middle of the pavement, looking at the crowds. Evidently waiting.

‘She has an appointment.’

Yes.

‘With her killer?’

Not as it turned out. Do you want me to freezeframe ?

‘Not this first time. Let’s just watch …’

Rob Morhaim thinks about children a lot.

His own child, Bobby, is very precious to him. Much more precious than his failed marriage, in fact.

He has that in common with most people of his generation. Adult relationships can involve pairings of any of the eight main sexes, are only rarely formalized by marriage, and come and go like the seasons. But child-bearing – in an age where male fertility is only a few per cent of what it was a century ago – is the emotional cornerstone of many lives.

Perhaps of your own.

Even so, population numbers are collapsing, all over the planet … Your children are the last protected species.

End of the world, say your doom-mongers. But they have been wrong before.

You perceive threats which don’t exist. Perhaps you don’t perceive the threats that do exist.

A man emerged from the crowd. He was maybe thirty, medium height. His head was hidden by his sun-hat, of course, but his high forehead indicated he might be balding. He wore a standard-issue business suit that wouldn’t have looked out of place, Morhaim thought, a century ago. But his sunhat was a little less sombre: something like a beanie cap, with six or seven little satellites orbiting his Earth-coloured cranium.

Morhaim recognized the logo. ‘He’s from Holmium,’ he said.

Yes. He’s called Asaph Seebeck. He’s more senior than he looks in the corporation, for his age. Smart cookie. Details are –

‘Later.’

The young man started moving towards Desargues, across Morhaim’s field of view.

Holmium was a comsat operator, Swiss-based, worth billions of Euros. It was named after the element, holmium, which had an atomic number of sixty-seven, the same as the number of microsatellites the corporation operated in geosynchronous orbit.

If Desargues’ extravagant claims about her company’s revolutionary technology were true, Holmium was among those most likely to lose out. In a big way.

Morhaim tried to take in the scene as a gestalt. The two principles were coming together across a stage crowded with extras playing tourist. Among the extras, over there walked a pretty girl of the kind Morhaim liked – slim, dark, pert breasts, long legs free of tattoos, walking away from his pov, looking up at one of the Bridge towers – and now, when Morhaim looked away from the girl, he saw that Seebeck and Desargues had made eye contact.

They moved together more purposefully. Morhaim could see Desargues’ face; it was assembling into a smile.

They’re going to speak. Enhancement is available to –

‘Not yet. Just run it.’

They met face to face, smiled, exchanged three lines of dialogue. Morhaim strained to hear, through the background noise wash.

‘ … Machine Stops …’ said Seebeck.

‘Pardon? Well. I’m … see me, Mr Seebeck.’

‘ … sorry?’

And then the shot came.

Crime among you is, frankly, uncommon in this year 2045. The ubiquity of cameras, callosum dumps and other monitors has seen to that. And the rules of evidence have gradually evolved to admit more and more data gathered by non-human means. The court system – even police work – has been reduced almost to a rubber-stamping of the deductions of faceless expert systems.

Rob Morhaim knows that his precious CID is a fraction of the manpower it was a few decades before. Most coppers now serve as muscle to implement the decisions of the courts, or the social services, or – most commonly – the recommendations of the smart systems. Yes: even now, on the brink of the Digital Millennium, there is still need for a poor bloody infantry to ‘meet the meat’, as the plods call it.

In the meantime, we do the real work.

Thus, you let us guard you, and watch you.

You even trust us to judge you.

Desargues stumbled forward, as if she had been punched in the back.

She actually fell into Seebeck’s arms, Morhaim saw; but before she got there the Virtual imagery turned her into a stick figure, with a neat hole drilled in her torso.

The Angel knew Morhaim didn’t need to be shown the details of Desargues’ injury. And so it filtered, replacing Desargues with a bloodless Pinocchio. He was silently grateful.

Seebeck clumsily tried to catch her, but she slid down his body and landed at his feet with a wooden clatter. People started to react, turning to the noise of the shot – it came from the Bridge’s nearest tower – or to the fallen woman.

‘Freeze.’

The Virtual turned into a tableau, the sound ceasing, devoid of human emotion – blessedly, thought Morhaim. He studied faces: bewilderment, curiosity, shock, distorted faces orbiting the dead woman like Seebeck’s circling satellites.

The ballistic analysis was clear. There was a single shot. There is no doubt it killed her, and no doubt where it came from.

‘The Bridge tower.’

From a disused winch room. The bullet was soft-nosed. It passed through her body and took out the front of her chest cavity before –

‘Enough. Leave it to the coroner.’

He was studying Seebeck. He saw shock and fear written on the Holmium man’s face. And his suit was – marred somehow, the image blurred.

Covered with pieces of Cecilia Desargues.

In the winch room was found a high-velocity rifle, which had fired a single shot –

‘Which matched the bullet that killed Desargues.’

Yes. And a card, bearing the phrase –

An image, hovering in the Virtual, a grubby card:

THE MACHINE STOPS

‘What was it Seebeck said at the start? Something about a Machine?’

Yes. The winch room also contained a directional mike. The phrase was evidently a verbal trigger, a recognition signal …

And so, Morhaim thought, it comes together. Nestling like the cogs of a machine.

The Homeless are a new cult group among your young, a strange mixture of scientific and Zen influences. Popular, despite the protestations of the Reunified Christian Church.