Was this coincidence?
Then there was his avatar being sent into the Tank. Tara had said such a mistake was impossible. If so, somebody had done it deliberately: It would have to be somebody very highly placed, somebody with world-class access. Me, for example. Or a grunt who’d somehow hacked the system.
His gaze fixed on Tara, who had returned to the table and was sorting papers.
Think of opening doors…
And, suddenly, the door opened.
Lash gasped, almost as if he’d been dealt a blow. He covered the sound with a yawn.
It seemed impossible. But there was no other answer.
There were two things he still needed to know before he was sure. Tara could answer one of them. But he had to appear calm — at least, until he had proof.
“Tara,” he said with exaggerated weariness. “Could you do something else for me?”
She nodded.
“Could you bring up a list of all the avatars in the Tank when the Thorpes were matched?”
“Why?”
“Just humor me.”
She walked once again toward the computer. Lash followed.
“Show me how it’s done,” he said.
“First, you have to access the avatar database.” She entered a transaction code at the menu screen and an explosion of nine-digit numbers appeared. “These are all the avatars.”
“All?”
“All clients to date. Almost two million.” She typed some additional commands. “Okay. I’ve created an SQL query you can run against this dataset. Type in the avatar’s identity code, and it will bring up all the others that were in the tank at the time of its match.”
“Show me, please.”
She lifted the piece of paper. “Here’s that sheet we printed out Friday, showing the dates the Thorpes and Wilners first submitted their applications.”
“Lewis Thorpe’s identity code is 000451823. You enter that into the query field.”
She typed it in and the screen refreshed again.
“Here are all the avatars in the Tank when Lewis was matched to Lindsay, indexed by their identity codes.” She scrolled quickly down to the bottom of the list:
000481032
000481883
000481907
000482035
000482110
000482722
000483814
000483992
000484398
000485006
QUERY COMPLETED AT 11:05:42:82 10/04/04
DISCRETE UNIT COUNT: 52,812
>?
Tara pointed at the bottom line. “In that time-slice, there were almost twenty-three thousand Avatars in the tank.”
“But it’s just a bunch of numbers.”
“This function key lets you toggle between names and identity codes.” Tara pressed a key and the numbers were replaced by names:
Fallon, Eugene
White, Jerome
Wanderely, Helen
Garcia, Constanze
Lu, Wen
Gelbman, Mark
Yoshida, Aiko
Horst, Marcus
Green-Carson, Margo
Banieri, Antonio
Shit, Lash thought. It’s still sorted by identity code, not last name. He considered asking Tara for an alphabetical sort, but decided against it: he wasn’t ready to explain. He began paging back through the names, one screen after another.
“What are you looking for?” Tara asked, gazing curiously over his shoulder.
“Just looking. Listen, would you do one more thing?”
“Just one more thing. Just one more thing. I wish I got paid by the errand.”
“I think we made a mistake, looking just at the records of supercouples.”
“Why?”
“Look at what we found out about Lindsay Thorpe and her surprise medical exam. Who knows what else we might find if we cross-check against a random sample of regular couples?”
“Makes sense.” Tara hesitated. “I’ll go requisition the records.”
“Hurry back.”
He watched her go. Although he was genuinely curious about the comparison he’d suggested, right now he was most interested in examining the screen without another pair of eyes beside him. He began once again scrolling up the names.
It took longer than he thought to go through them all, and it was almost eleven-thirty by the time he reached the top of the list. He slumped back, disappointed. But then again it would have been too easy: finding the name he was hoping for, just like that. Maybe it was a crazy idea. He cringed at the idea of plodding through another huge set of names. Still, he’d come this far: he might as well try the Wilners. Just in case.
He hit the function key Tara had pointed out. Instantly, the screen refreshed, showing the avatars in numerical order.
START OF QUERY
==========
000000000
000448401
000448916
000448954
000449010
000449029
000449174
000449204
000449248
000449286
He straightened. What was that first code, 000000000, doing there?
He toggled the function key, but there was no corresponding name for the identity code: the field was blank.
He shrugged, reached for the paper Tara had left on the desk, and typed John Wilner’s code—000491003—in the query field.
When the screen refreshed, 000000000 was again at the top of the list. And once again, there was no name associated with the number.
Lash scratched his head. What was it? A start-of-array marker?
One more test. Rising from the chair and coming quickly around the desk, he rooted through the paper strewn across the table until he found a sheet with Kevin Connelly’s identity code. He returned to the computer, typed it in, stared at the fresh list of numbers.
“Jesus Christ,” he breathed.
The door opened and Tara stepped in, carrying a stack of reports. “I plucked out a dozen names at random,” she said. “I thought the evaluations would be enough to—”
Lash cut her off. “Come over here. Please.”
She dropped the folders on the table and approached the monitor.
Lash looked at her, no longer trying to conceal his rising excitement. “I want you to pull up one more list. Show me who’s in the Tank, now.”
She frowned. “What’s going on? What are you doing?”
“Tara, please. Just do this.”
She stared at him, hard, another moment. Then she bent over the keyboard and typed in a new query.
The screen cleared, and Lash looked at it eagerly. He nodded to himself, as if confirming some private suspicion.
Then, suddenly, he snapped off the power. The screen went dark.
“What the hell?” Tara said.
Without answering, Lash grabbed the phone, snugged it beneath his chin, dialed a long-distance number.
“Captain Tsosie’s desk, please,” he said. There was a brief wait. “Joe? It’s Chris Lash. Joe, is the Thorpe house still technically under police investigation? Thank God. Listen, I want you to send a field agent over there right away. You still have my cell number? Give it to the agent, have them call me the moment they’re on the premises. Yes, it’s that important. Thanks.”
He replaced the phone, looked at Tara. “There’s something I have to do. I can’t explain right now. I’ll be back soon.”
He grabbed his coat, made for the door. Then he turned back. Tara remained at the desk, staring after him, a strange expression on her face.
“Follow up with that doctor,” he said. “Dr. Moffett. Understand?”
Tara nodded. And Lash turned, tugged open the door, and was gone.