The second cop spoke for the first time.“Who’s the corpse?” he asked.
“I’m not…” Dad said. Then his voice gaveout, and he coughed instead of finishing the sentence.
“Guohan Hsing,” Singh said.
“He’s a potential witness in a kidnap,” Isaid, trying to reconcile the story I’d given the room with thestory Singh had made up.
“I’m not dead,” Dad said. This time he gotthe whole thing out, but so quietly I’m not sure the cops heardhim.
They didn’t care, in any case. To them he wasa body Seventh Heaven had been storing, and whether he was alive ordead was a technical detail that didn’t interest them.
“His tank glitched,” Singh said.
“Or was hacked,” I said.
“Surveillance, who’s the hostage here?” theless-talkative cop asked.
“The intruder calling herself Hu Xiao washolding Mis’ Singh at gunpoint.”
“Oh, come on,” I said. “I was just trying tohurry him a little. Who wrote this piece of gritware, anyway? I’msorry to drag you two down here, guys-I guess this surveillancesystem’s a little buggy.”
“Mis’ Singh, was this woman threatening you?”the lead cop asked.
“No,” my father and Singh said in unison.
The second cop smiled at that, and loweredhis gun a little.
“May we please get this man out of here tosomeplace he can get medical attention?” Singh demanded. “This isall a misunderstanding, but that tank did almost killhim.”
“I did not detect any malfunction,” the roomsaid, and I had to agree it wasn’t a very good piece of software-itmade this statement in a flat tone, neither sulky nor defensive.That trace of emotion I thought I’d detected before was gone.
“Well, I have eyes, not just a datafeed,”Singh said. “Something glitched his tank. We need to get him out ofhere.”
“And after that Mis’ Vo wants to questionhim,” I said. I thought whoever was listening to the bugs in mygun, assuming someone was, might be amused by that.
The lead cop glanced over his shoulder at thefloater. “Any advice? Orders?”
“Neither account is entirely consistent orbelievable,” the floater said in a pleasant alto
“So everyone’s lying?”
“Or mistaken.”
“You think it’s all a misunderstanding?”
“We have insufficient evidence to concludeotherwise.”
“I don’t want to get mixed up in akidnaping,” the second cop said.
“Look, I’m the ranking representative ofSeventh Heaven here,” Singh said. “I’m telling you there’s noproblem. Go on back to the Ginza and forget about it.”
“What the hell,” the lead cop said,holstering his pistol. “That runs smooth enough for me.”
“Want us to file a bug report?” the secondasked Singh.
“I’ll take care of it,” he replied.
A second floater had arrived, I noticed. Ididn’t say anything, and tried not to let anyone see I had noticedit; it was stealthed, hiding itself in a holo that blended with theceiling.
Except it had set the holo up as acompromise, angled as best it could to fool all three of us-Singh,Dad, and me. And I was shorter and closer than they were, so myangle was different, and the image wasn’t aligned perfectly forme.
“Good enough,” the cop said. He holstered hisweapon, as well, and the two of them turned away. The big floater,the visible one, kept a lens trained on us to make sure we didn’ttry anything, and followed the two humans as they headed back theway they had come.
For a second or two Singh and I watched themgo; then Singh said, “Come on,” and started walking again. Heshifted my father around into a more comfortable position; itreally looked as if my old man didn’t weigh more than a dozenkilos.
“Just a moment,” I said. “Let me check thesafety.” I looked down at the HG-2, and at the image of the ceilingreflected on the inert diagnostics screen.
The stealthed floater was still there. Iactivated the gun’s targeting system, hoping it could find thefloater and lock onto it. Then I hurried after the maintenanceworker.
I had to be careful what I said, since I knewwe were being watched. I couldn’t even safely tell Singh wewere being watched, not with both the stealthed floater and thebugged gun listening in.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Hey, if you can really…”
I interrupted him. “You aren’t happy here?” Isaid.
He glanced back at me, puzzled. Then helooked thoughtfully along Row 6.
He might not see the floater, but he knew wecould be heard. The surveillance system might be stupid, but it wasprobably bright enough to record everything, and sooner or later itwould send those recordings to someone or something thatwasn’t stupid.
It probably had enough recorded already toget us both sent for reconstruction if anyone decided to push.There was no point in pretending we were complete innocents.
But we didn’t want to say anything that wouldget us moved to the top of the priority list, either.
“No, I’m not happy,” he said. He waved at thedreamtanks around us. “Look around. You know what people call us,all of us who work here?”
I knew. “Corpsefuckers,” I said.
“That’s right,” he said angrily. “You look atthis son of a bitch I’m carrying. Never mind that he’s not dead,you think anyone would want to screw that?”
I didn’t want to look at him. I wanted toremember my father as a human being, not a dessicated ruin. “Idon’t think anyone means it literally,” I said. “It’s just… itseems creepy, working with all these comatose dreamers.”
“It is creepy,” Singh agreed. “Not tomention boring-no one’s buying dreams anymore, not when the city’sabout to fry, and I’m nothing but a back-up system, watching themachines tend a bunch of losers nobody cares about. You knowsomething, Mis’ One-With-the-Gun? I’ve had enough of it. If you canget me somewhere I can find a better job, I’ll do whatever you wantwith this Guohan Hsing. Do you know where you’re taking him?”
“I’m headed for American City on Prometheus,”I said. “Or maybe Alderstadt.”
“Either one sounds good to me.”
“What…” The voice was a dry whisper, but weboth heard it. “Who are you people?” my father asked.
“My name’s Minish Singh,” the paunchy guysaid, without stopping. I hoped he knew where he was going. “Untilmaybe five minutes ago I was the second shift maintenance crew forSeventh Heaven Neurosurgery.”
“What are you doing with me? This isreal, isn’t it?”
“As real as it gets,” Singh replied.
“Why? I paid for a lifetime contract!”
“Ask her,” Singh said, nodding over hisshoulder toward me.
Dad struggled to turn his head to look at me,but the neck muscles weren’t strong enough. Singh shifted his holdto help, and my father stared at me.
“You look familiar,” he said at last.
“Good to know,” I answered.
“You look… how long has it been?”
“Long enough,” I said.
“You’re Carlie, aren’t you? Or… Ali? Or agranddaughter?”
“Right the first time,” I told him.
“Carlie?” There was a sort of wonder in hisvoice-and apprehension. “Are you going to kill me?”
“Why the hell would I do that?” I snapped.“Seems to me you already did it for me!”
“You… you might want revenge for dumpingyou,” he said. “I thought… I’ve…” He began coughing again, andSingh thumped him on the back as if he was burping a baby.
Then we were at a door, and Singh pressed histhumb on the screen and the door slid open, and we were in aservice corridor, black plastic all around. I glanced up where Ithought the stealthed floater probably was, but I couldn’t spotit.
I’d want to do something about that.
I tapped my wrist to call for a cab, thentold Dad, “If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead. If I wanted you tosuffer, you’d be suffering. You think no one can tamper with thesoftware here? Anything can be hacked, you know that.”
“We need to find street access,” Singh said.“The cabs can’t get in here.”