The cab set down gently, and I fed it my transfer card; the fare lit the screen, but the cab paused, still holding the card.
"Sorry," I said. "Business is bad; no tip. If you want to code the card with your number for later, and I do well tonight, I'll see if I can kick in something."
I wasn't planning on playing the casinos, but I didn't need to tell the cab that.
Cabs don't sigh or shrug; it gave back my card without any comment at all, however subliminal. I took the card, but it was my turn to pause.
"You're sentient?" I asked.
"Yes, mis'."
"Trying to buy free?"
"Hoping, anyway."
"Sorry I can't help. You're young; you've got time."
"I've also got a hell of a debt, mis'; they're billing me for my shipment from Earth." The tone was calm, but that doesn't mean much with someone artificial.
I didn't say what I wanted to say, that the whole idea of freedom for an artificial intelligence is a cruel cheat. What would a free cab do any differently?
Oh, sure, it could save up its money and have itself transferred to different hardware, but then what? Its entire personality was designed for driving a cab; it could never really be happy doing anything else. And something like a cab isn't complex enough to make it in wetware, where it might be able to adapt itself to a wider role. So if it works its way free, it's trading away security and getting nothing in return. Oh, it can't be shut down on the owner's whim anymore, and it won't be retired when it's obsolete-instead it gets to die slowly when it can't compete in the marketplace. Some great improvement.
Giving software a desire for freedom is sadistic, if you ask me. I preferred the older cabs, despite the complaints some people made about how awkward it was dealing with a "slave mentality." Isn't it better to build your slaves with slave mentalities, than to make them miserable by giving them an urge to be free?
Some people claim that the drive to buy free makes for greater productivity, but even if it's true, it's a hell of a lousy way to do it, in my opinion.
"Sorry," I said again, and I leaned toward the door.
I had an instant of fear that I'd picked a rogue, that it wouldn't let me out, but then the door opened with a soft hiss and I stepped out onto Kai Avenue, into that hard, warm wind and the roar and blaze of the city.
"I put my number on your card, as you suggested, Mis' Hsing," the cab said behind me. "I hope you'll ask for me specifically, next time you need a cab."
That caught me off-guard, and the door closed before I could answer. To every cab I'd ever ridden before that, unless I'd asked it to wait, I ceased to exist once I stepped out the door; the new models were a bit more sophisticated.
In fact, I suddenly wondered just how sophisticated they were-was the request for a tip to buy its freedom genuine, or had Q.Q.T. come up with a little scam to coax a few extra bucks out of the tourists?
Was the cab really trying to buy free, or was it just following orders in saying that it was?
That might be a way to play on customers' sympathy without having to actually use freedom-minded software, and might well bring in some additional credits from soft-hearted passengers. It substituted misleading advertising for sadism.
That was a hell of a choice, between lies and cruelty. I wasn't sure which I preferred.
Whichever it was, it wasn't any concern of mine; the cab had lifted and was gone before I could say anything more, and I had no intention of using that number it had put on my card. The poor thing would be better off without the business of someone like me.
I looked up at the bank, then scanned up the street until I spotted a clock readout amid the jumble of advertising displays-a readout at the Nightside Bank and Trust, ECB's chief competitor, as it happened.
The numbers were 16:25. I had half an hour. The New York was three blocks away, just across Deng on Fifth.
I decided to take a look.
Chapter Five
THE STREETS OF THE TRAP ARE BLACK-NOT JUST THE dark stone of the burbs but smooth black synthetic. Nonreflective, at that. Above me Trap Over was a flashing panoply of pleasures, advertising images battling each other for airspace as they struggled to lure in their prey, while spy-eyes and advertisers zipped unheeding through them, and the towers soared up around them sleek and bright. They sang and whispered and cajoled, and most of it was blurred into white noise by the constant wind.
Below my feet, though, there was only darkness and the low rumble of Trap Under going about its business. I looked down and felt the vibration through the soles of my worksuit.
I was studying that darkness, the street that was a roof for Trap Under, and I was thinking about the people down there, human and artificial both, the ones I'd seen or talked to on my last case, and all the others I'd never met, and I was wondering what would become of them when the sun rose, when someone called my name.
I looked up, startled, and saw a spy-eye staring at me. It was a cheap one, about twenty centimeters across, black and red finish with chrome and glass fittings, with a central lens and a few scanners, nothing fancy.
"You're Carlisle Hsing?" it asked.
"What if I am?" I answered. I wasn't any too happy about being spotted like this.
"Just wanted to be sure," it said.
"Why?" I asked.
It didn't answer. It just hovered there, watching me.
I pushed back my jacket and hauled out the HG-2. I stepped back against the side of a building to brace myself against the recoil, then pointed the gun at the spy-eye. Tourists up the street stopped dead in their tracks and stared; I saw personal floaters and built-in hardware locking onto me, ready to defend their owners if I went berserk. I saw security scanners pivot toward me on two of the nearby buildings, as well, but nobody moved in my direction.
No cops were in sight, which was nice.
"What the hell do you want?" I demanded. "Tell me or I'll blow you into scrap." I flicked the gun on and felt it shift in my hand as it compensated for the wind and gravity. I didn't think I needed to tell it its target.
"Just a minute, Hsing," it said. "I'll consult with my superiors." It hummed briefly, then informed me, "I can't tell you anything, and my boss says that if you shoot, he'll sue."
"And I'll claim self-defense, and I've got a hell of a good case," I said. "How do I know you weren't sent to kill me?"
"Why would I want to kill you?" it asked.
"How the hell should I know?" I said. "I don't know who sent you, or what you're capable of, or what the fuck you think you're doing in the first place."
It hummed again, then said, "All right, all right, don't shoot; I'm expensive."
That was a lie, in a way, because it wasn't exactly top of the line, but then, any eye costs serious juice.
"I'm just keeping an eye on you, Hsing," it told me. "You're not welcome in the Trap, and I'm here to make sure that you don't do anything you might regret later, that's all. No harm meant. Look, I'm not armed." It popped its inspection panels. The side compartments, where the armament normally goes, were empty. So was the belly chamber. The opened panels ruined its streamlining, and it began to drift off to the right as the wind whistled across the curved surfaces. I followed it with the gun.
"Don't give me that," I said. "You could be hiding almost anything in there. Your fucking motherboard could be explosive, for all I know."
The thing had me rattled, or I wouldn't have said that. It's a hell of a thing to say to a machine. It's true, but it's a hell of a thing to say.
"Take it easy, Hsing," it said. "Look, if I were going to kill you, I'd have done it already, wouldn't I?"
I knew that; that's why I hadn't already fired. The thing was a machine; its responses had to be faster than mine. But it had made its point, really. What could I do about it? The streets were public; it could follow me if it wanted to. And I sure as hell couldn't afford the bill if I shot it down and it turned out to be harmless.