CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“So, what do you think is going on here?” Isaac asked. He and Susan sat at a corner table in the Fertile Ground restaurant while they nursed their drinks. They’d changed back into their uniforms—again—and had stopped at the restaurant for a quick lunch break. His LENS floated nearby, and Cephalie’s avatar sat on his shoulder.
“My guess is a simple one,” Susan began. “We have two death threats against two Admin players. Seems to me the obvious explanation is the most likely one. Someone in SysGov doesn’t want the Admin around, and they’re using this tournament to make their point.”
“What do you make of Lacan?”
“Framed. We’ll know more once Nina gets back to us, but I’m guessing she’ll find some well-hidden holes in the evidence.”
“Which she should have spotted at the outset,” Isaac grumped. “Assuming Lacan was framed.”
“You upset with her?”
“Maybe a little. Either way, we know someone other than Lacan is causing trouble, whether he’s involved or not.”
“The question is who.”
“Right,” Isaac sighed. He took a sip of his coffee. “That’s the question.”
“Do you think LAST might be involved?”
“I suppose it’s a possibility. Cephalie?”
“Hmm?” She glanced up from his shoulder.
“What’s going on with the protests outside? Have they calmed down at all?”
“The exact opposite.” She shook her head like a disapproving parent. “The crowd has doubled in size while the rate of incidents has tripled.”
“That’s what I was afraid of,” Isaac said. “If anything, the protest shows not everyone is happy with the Million Handshake Initiative. We know a vocal minority wants all this burgeoning goodwill to go away and for both sides to stay clear of each other. As for whether they’re involved in any of this”—he shrugged his shoulders—“who can say?”
“LAST’s involvement,” Susan said, “or the involvement of someone sympathetic to their cause, could explain why Lacan was framed. If someone wants the Admin out, why not create an Admin scapegoat while you’re at it?”
“Sorry, but I have to disagree with you there,” Isaac said.
“Why’s that?”
“Recall our reactions when we pinned the crime on Lacan. All our tension melted away because we thought he was nothing more than a lovesick fool causing trouble. If the criminal’s goal is to make the players leave, like the messages say, then framing Lacan hurt that goal instead of helping it.”
“Perhaps there’s another motive for framing him?”
“Maybe. But then why make it so obviously not him for the second threat?” Isaac asked. “That’s the part I can’t figure out, no matter how hard I try. On the surface, the two incidents bear plenty in common. But look a little deeper, and it’s like they conflict with one another. It doesn’t make sense to me. Why go through the trouble of framing someone if you don’t plan to follow through with that fiction?”
“Yeah, I see your point.” Susan stirred her barange soda with the straw. “Where do we take this from here?”
“ActionStream. Kohlberg headed back to the office after we brought a halt to the tournament, and Cephalie’s already set up a meeting there. The UAM’s theirs, so we look at who had access to it and when. We’ll head up Pistil Tower after we finish lunch.” He looked over to see their waitress returning. “Speaking of which.”
“Here you go, sir.” The waitress’s beetle drone set a plate down with his “kroppkakor torpedo.” The long roll was stuffed with round dumplings, each filled with minced bacon, onions, and potatoes, and all of it drizzled in a thick yama sauce that oozed out the sides.
“Thanks.” Isaac licked his lips and sent her a generous tip, which she acknowledged with a polite nod.
“Is there anything else you need, sir?”
Isaac shook his head and tried to find a good way to pick up the huge sandwich. He slipped his fingers underneath the bottom.
“How about you, ma’am? Anything for you? Perhaps I can top off your drink?”
“Oh, no. I’m fine.” Susan raised her soda. “Still plenty left.”
“Just let me know if you need anything, then.” The waitress left with the beetle drone buzzing in the air behind her.
“You sure that thing’ll hold together?” Susan asked as Isaac struggled with his sandwich.
“What makes you say that?” he asked moments before half the sandwich slipped out the back and plopped onto his plate. “Aww.” He set the deflated sandwich down and used a fork to shovel the innards back between the slices.
“Might want to cut that monster in half first.”
“I think you’re right.” He finished reassembling his sandwich and was about to cut it down the middle when an alert blinked in his abstract vision. He checked the sender and toggled the alert with his elbow. “Go ahead, Nina.”
The comm window expanded. “Hey, Isaac. Did I catch you at a bad time?”
“Just refueling,” he said, cutting the sandwich in half. “What do you have for us?”
“The forensics report on the Weltall program came back.”
“That was fast.”
“Hey, I’m not complaining. I sent you the full version, but figured you’d like me to walk you through the summary.” She tilted her head. “Should I wait until you finish?”
“Now’s fine.” Isaac raised the sandwich to his lips, only to accidentally squeeze the dumplings out the back again. They splorshed onto his plate and splattered his uniform with yama sauce. He grunted something incoherent under his breath, then picked up his napkin and unfurled it with a snap of the wrist. His uniform’s smart fabric became waterproof, and he sopped up the sauce with his napkin.
“You having trouble over there?” Nina tittered.
“No more than usual.” He picked up his knife and fork with a sigh and cut off a bite-sized chunk of the sandwich. “What’s the brief from Panoptes?”
“First, they compared the save-state from Masuda’s pod to an unaltered copy of the UAM ActionStream provided. From there, they identified the changes and reverse engineered them. The changes were simple and easy to spot, residing in a task running parallel to the main UAM runtime. Even someone with a basic understanding of UAM architecture could pull this off. Hell, I could probably have whipped this together, and UAMs aren’t really my thing.”
“Assuming you had access to the original file,” Isaac said, “which could be the tricky part.”
“Everyone on the guest list has an advanced copy,” Susan noted.
“Hmm. Good point. Never mind.”
“Anyway,” Nina continued. “That parallel task targeted Masuda specifically, keying in on his PIN’s connection string. Again, not difficult to get ahold of for people involved in the tournament.”
“Then he wasn’t targeted at random.” Isaac nodded. “Good to know. Anything else?”
“Just the audio and visual abstraction itself. Letters in blood and all that.”
“Did the report find anything that shrinks the list of suspects?” Isaac asked.
“Sorry, nope.”
“I suppose it was too much to hope for,” he complained. “How about you and Lacan’s wearable?”
“I’m at CFPD, and my drones are tearing it apart, layer by layer, both from a physical and a data perspective. If there’s anything fishy inside, I’ll find it, but it won’t be fast. I’m being extra, extra thorough this time, given what we expect to find.”
“Understood. Keep at it.”
“Will do.”
“Would someone on Pérez’s team be able to help?” Susan suggested. “Especially since it’s Admin hardware instead of what you’re most familiar with? That might even be why you missed something the first time.”
“Maybe. It’s worth a shot. I’ll give him a call.”
“Let us know as soon as you have something,” Isaac said.
“Of course.”
Nina closed out of the call.
Isaac began to cut off another bite from his sandwich, but the innards slipped out before he finished and landed in a puddle of yama sauce.
Susan drained her barange soda and set it down. “To ActionStream?”
“In a minute,” Isaac said, grimacing at the culinary warzone on his plate.
* * *
The grav tube dropped them off in a stylish foyer with couches to either side of translucent red doors. Vines climbed up the walls, and the meteor logo of ActionStream glowed overhead, its long tail burning a diagonal path.
The doors split open, and Isaac led the way over to the receptionist’s half-moon desk, which hardly seemed necessary, since the receptionist was an AC. The avatar floated up as they approached, manifesting as a burning meteor with a broad, friendly face composed of craters and a flaming top.
“May I assist you?” the receptionist asked in a deep, masculine voice.
“Yes,” Isaac said. “I’m Detective Cho. This is my deputy, Agent Cantrell, and my IC, Encephalon. We have an appointment with Sven Kohlberg.”
“Of course, Detective. I see you on the schedule right here.” The receptionist detached a portion of the meteor’s burning exterior and tapped through one of his virtual screens, prompting a comm window to open.
“Yeah?” Kohlberg asked in audio only.
“Detective Cho and company here to see you, sir.”
“Oh, good! I’ll be right out.”
The meteor-receptionist closed the comm window.
“He should be with you shortly. Is there anything else I can do for you, Detective? Refreshments perhaps?” Fragments of the meteor formed a hand-shape, and he gestured toward an expensive-looking food printer built into the wall near a quartet of abstraction recliners.
“No, thank you.”
“Perhaps I can entice you with you a sampling of our company’s abstractions, then? Those recliners have access to our entire software library, as well as a few upcoming releases, such as Weltall. All available for you to sample free of charge.”
“That’s quite all right,” Isaac declined. “We’ll wait here, if it’s all the same.”
“Of course, sir.” The meteor-receptionist tipped his fiery top hat. “Please let me know if there’s anything you need.”
“Is your avatar always a talking logo?” Susan asked.
“Only during business hours,” the receptionist said with a craggy smile. The meteor-face flashed into a hulking barbarian in a loin cloth with a pair of sword handles sticking up over his shoulder. He shrugged then flashed back to the meteor-face. “It’s part of my dress code.”
“Ah.”
Kohlberg walked into the reception area a few minutes later.
“Detective Cho! Agent Cantrell!” He beamed at the two of them before the avatar on the LENS caught his eye. “And…”
“Call me Cephalie,” his IC added from atop the LENS.
“Cephalie, nice to meet you.” He rubbed his hands together. “Any news on the case, Detective? Can we start the tournament back up?”
“Is there somewhere we can talk in private?” Isaac asked.
“Certainly. We can use my office. Right this way.”
He led the way down a long hallway. Office spaces sprawled out to either side, separated from the corridor by tall glass walls. Men and women in business suits mingled with AC avatars of space pirates, dragons, wizards, witches, cyber-knights, amazons in bikini chainmail, soldiers from both World Wars, war-synthoids from the Colonial Wars, a variety of real and fantastical spaceships, and a cute, tiny pig in striped pajamas.
“Our abstract employees can use models from our products,” Kohlberg explained without being prompted. “Makes a meat bag like me a little jealous sometimes.”
“Which one would you pick?” Susan asked.
“Pardon?” Kohlberg turned halfway around as they continued down the hall.
“Which model? If you were an AC, I mean.”
“You know, no one’s ever asked me that.” He rubbed his chin in thought. “I suppose I’d have to go with Jack Danger.”
“Who’s that?”
“A swashbuckling vagabond with a heart of gold.”
“He’s a character from Sky Pirates of Venus,” Isaac said as they moved beyond the larger work areas and entered an area of smaller, more private offices.
“Which is still our most lucrative property, even after all these years,” Kohlberg added. “Not as big as the Solar Descent juggernaut, but then again, what is? Back then, I was still a programming grunt. Are you a fan of the property, Detective?”
“I…may have played it once or twice.”
“Well, just say the word. I’d be happy to give you an advanced copy of the next expansion once this business with the tournament settles down.”
“Thank you for the offer, but no.”
“Fair enough. Here we are.” Kohlberg palmed an abstract interface, and the glass wall split open. He stepped into the spacious office, rounded the black glass desk with the ActionStream meteor logo, and sank into the recliner behind it. The desktop looked unusually thick, leading Isaac to assume it contained a powerful infosystem.
A pair of chairs formed out of the floor, and Isaac and Susan sat down. The glass office wall closed and frosted over for privacy.
“Now.” Kohlberg knitted his fingers on the desk. “When can we restart the tournament?”
“I’m afraid that won’t be anytime soon.”
“Why not?” Kohlberg asked pointedly. “You have the save-state from their pods, correct? What more do you need?”
“Mister Kohlberg, I understand your interest in getting the tournament back on schedule, but my interest is identifying who’s sending these messages and bringing them to justice. For now, the stage is a crime scene, and until I have a better understanding of how that program was altered, it will remain off-limits.”
“But—”
“Mister Kohlberg,” Isaac interrupted, “I’d appreciate it if you let me ask the questions here.”
“Yes, of course. Sorry. It’s just I’ve been tense around here. The CEO is riled up over this fiasco. If you ask me, he’s gearing up our legal team to contest the order.”
“He’s certainly welcome to try.”
“Either way, that one’s not my fight.” Kohlberg sat up. “Go ahead and ask your questions, Detective. What do you want to know?”
“First, who loaded the UAM into the pods?”
“Easy. I took care of that. Loaded the latest version myself.”
“Did anyone else have access to the pods?”
“No. They were sealed and submerged just below the stage. We had to make way for Flavor-Sparkle’s crew and his opening act.”
“What about from the understage?”
“No, the pods weren’t low enough. They were still in the stage, not stored in an understage container. You’d have to either raise the pod to the stage or place it in storage in order to access it.”
“Then do you believe anyone could have accessed the pods between the time you loaded the program and the players began their match?”
“No, I don’t see how. And even if someone did, they would have been in plain view of the concert crew.”
“Then what about Flavor-Sparkle’s roadies?”
“Same answer. Anyone trying to access the pods from up top would have to raise them first.”
“Cephalie?” Isaac said.
“Yes?” Her avatar appeared on the desktop.
“Check in with the Crimson Flower’s management. See if we can get access to the stadium’s surveillance records and the understage logistical records.”
“You thinking we might get lucky and spot someone messing with Masuda’s pod?” she asked. “Maybe while Flavor-Sparkle’s crew was setting up? Or perhaps down in the understage?”
“It’s worth a shot.”
“I’ll get the ball rolling, then.” She vanished.
“Moving on, Mister Kohlberg,” Isaac continued, “did you make any changes to the UAM after you received the latest version?”
“No, of course not.” He chuckled. “Why would I?”
“How did you receive the file?”
“Right here.” He tapped his desk. “It was sent to my office infosystem.”
“Did you forward the file to the pods from here?”
“No, I took it down in person. Had to because the pods won’t accept remote updates. Used a secure wearable, too. The company discourages us from transmitting full versions of the game before publication. An infraction like that comes out of my yearly bonus, which means I walked the file over.”
“Did you go straight to the stage from here?”
“No, I received the file yesterday, so I took it home with me—again, on a wearable—then loaded it early this morning. Why do you ask?”
“Who sent it to you?”
“An AC named Ergon.”
“And who’s that?”
“He’s the owner of Unreality Disconnect, one of our software development subsidiaries. UD is the team who coded Weltall, with Ergon developing the initial concept. It’s a small team. Maybe five or six ACs, last I checked. ActionStream is acting as the publisher in this arrangement.”
“Do you know if Ergon was involved in coding the program?”
“Oh, most definitely! He’s very hands-on with the products he and his team deliver. I’d venture to say he coded thirty or forty percent of Weltall all on his own, and his team worked through the rest under his direction. Very talented AC, that one, though a bit odd. He used to work for us directly. Even coded part of Sky Pirates before branching out to found his own company. That’s one of the reasons we do business with him so often.”
“Then is it likely Ergon made coding changes prior to sending you the latest version?”
“Likely? I’d stay it’s almost a certainty! He’s always adjusting features and making balance changes up to the last minute. You know what they say, right?”
“What do they say?”
“First rule to finishing a project is to shoot all the programmers!” Kohlberg laughed as if he’d told a fabulously funny joke, but when neither Isaac nor Susan joined him, he cleared his throat awkwardly. “Umm, because they’ll, you know, keep tweaking the code until the end of time? Sorry, it’s just a joke. Probably funnier if you work in the industry.”
“I would assume so,” Isaac agreed dryly. “Mister Kohlberg, do you have an IC?”
“How is that relevant?”
“Please answer the question.”
“Well, no,” Kohlberg frowned. “Not presently. I’m between companions at the moment. Been separated from my last IC for a couple years. Still searching for a new special someone. Besides, it’s better that way. At least in the short term.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because of my travel to and from the Admin, obviously. It’s easier not having one right now.”
“Who was your last IC?”
“That would be Claudia Siebert. Originally organic, but she abstracted about…oh, fifteen years ago, I think? Nice enough person, but we weren’t a good enough fit.”
“What was the deepest level of integration you tried?”
“Low. Surface thoughts only. Didn’t go deeper than that.” Kohlberg shrugged. “We gave it an honest try, but it didn’t work out. I don’t blame her for the breakup, and as far as I know she doesn’t blame me.”
“Do you have her connection string?”
“Of course. Why?”
“Can you provide it?”
“Sure.” Kohlberg opened a comm window, searched through his contacts, and transmitted the string to Isaac. “There you go.”
“Thank you.” Isaac saved the string to his notes.
“Look, Detective, I’m okay with sharing, but mind telling me where the sudden interest in my background is coming from?”
“It’s quite simple, Mister Kohlberg,” Isaac said. “You were the last person in possession of the UAM before it was loaded into Shingo Masuda’s pod.”
Kohlberg’s brow furrowed and it stayed that way for long seconds, but then realization dawned on his face and his eyes widened.
“But that would mean— Are you suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?”
“The sequence of possession over the program passed through you, Mister Kohlberg.”
“But I wouldn’t change it!” he defended. “And besides, I received the program directly from Ergon!”
“Yes. Which makes both of you suspects.”