CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Now, hold on a second!” Kohlberg blurted, standing up. “You can’t possibly believe I had anything to do with this!”
“What I believe doesn’t really matter.” Isaac rose from his own seat and looked Kohlberg in the eyes. “It’s possible you’re involved, and it’s our job to either show the scenario to be true or false. If you’re innocent, then you have nothing to fear.”
“But my involvement makes no sense! ActionStream is profiting from the tournament! There’s a whole new market on the other side of the transverse just waiting to be tapped, and we’re in position to capitalize on it! I’m all set to rake in some serious bonuses if Weltall hits it big over there. Never mind that’s it’s my fucking job to make sure this event goes smoothly! Why would I shoot my own foot off like this?”
“As I said,” Isaac stressed patiently, “if you’re innocent, then you have nothing to worry about.”
“But you don’t even have a warrant!” He paused and creased his brow. “Do you have a warrant?”
“Not at present, though I’ll have no difficulty obtaining one. As you said, the program was in your possession prior to the tournament, and you loaded it yourself. That makes you a clear suspect.”
“But—”
“Mister Kohlberg, we can do this one of two ways,” Isaac continued matter-of-factly. “Either you grant us the access to your office we need, or I can return with a search warrant. It’s your call, but I recommend the first option.”
“But I can’t give you access to it now!” He spread his hands over the desk. “There’s confidential material in here! Not to mention…” He trailed off.
“Not to mention…what exactly?” Isaac asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Look, can you at least give me a few minutes to clean up?”
“Absolutely not!” Isaac snapped. “If you so much as delete a single file, I’ll charge you with obstruction of justice and arrest you on the spot. You’ll grant us access to this office, either now or when I return with a warrant, and it will be in an unaltered state from this point forward. Am I making myself perfectly clear?”
“I…” Kohlberg’s mouth twisted, and his head drooped. “Yeah, you’ve made your point.” He palmed an abstract interface over his desk, and the infostructure unlocked. “Happy now?”
“Where’s the secure wearable you stored the UAM on?”
“Here.” He unfastened his collar, reached in, and pulled out a trio of meteor-shaped pendants on a chain. He looked at virtual labels on their backs, unclipped one from the chain, and placed it on the desktop. “Anything else?”
“Does this represent the complete path?” Isaac pointed to the pendant. “From your desk, to the wearable, to the pods?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Then I believe we have everything we need for now.”
“Okay. I’ll wait outside, if it’s all the same to you.”
“That would be preferrable.”
“Just don’t judge.” He gave Isaac a nervous grin. “Okay?”
“As long as no crimes have been committed, I really don’t care what else we find.”
“All right. I’ll hold you to that.” Kohlberg let out a calming breath and nodded, appearing somewhat more comfortable with the situation after Isaac’s reassurance. “I’ll leave you to it, then.”
He stepped out into the hall, and the glass wall sealed shut again.
“That was more contentious than I thought it’d be,” Susan observed, switching to security chat.
“Same here, but he didn’t force us to obtain a warrant. That’s a good sign. Cephalie, you back yet?”
“Here.” She appeared back on the desk.
“How’d it go with the Flower’s management?”
“Friendly and helpful, which is a nice change of pace sometimes. We should have the surveillance files and understage records later today.”
“Nice. Good work.”
Cephalie tapped the black desktop with her cane. “Want me to grab copies of everything?”
“If you don’t mind. Copy everything off the desk, then forward it to Nina. We’ll take the pendant with us.”
“Processing. There’s a lot here, so I’ll need to send it in chunks. Lots of fat UAM files. Also, I think I found what made Kohlberg uncomfortable.”
“Is there any chance it’s related to this case?”
“Can’t see how.”
“Even a remote chance?”
“Nope. Zero percent, if you ask me.”
“Then it’s none of our business.”
“File transfer underway.” Cephalie paced across the desk and twirled her cane as the LENS scooped up the pendant with a pseudopod. “You realize Nina’s going to forward all this to Panoptes, right? You know, since she’s still busy with Lacan’s wearable.”
“That’s her call to make.” Isaac sat down in Kohlberg’s recliner and activated the desk’s main interface. Multiple windows materialized around him. “Event Schedule, My Mail, Project Status, Opportunities, Trash, Personal, Miscellaneous.”
Isaac expanded the My Mail tab and searched for “Weltall.” Over two thousand hits came back, so he added “Ergon” to the filter. That dropped the count down to three hundred. He skimmed over the most recent entries and found the version update for the tournament.
“Just like Kohlberg said. He received the file yesterday from Unreality Disconnect.”
“Did you expect anything else?” Susan asked.
“Not after he unlocked the desk without a warrant.” Isaac switched off the interface and stood up. “Though we’ll need Nina or help from Themis data forensics to tell us more. Still, we’ve—”
An incoming call blinked in his virtual vision. It was from Nina.
“That was fast,” Isaac remarked, eyeing the incoming call with a confused expression.
“Maybe it’s good news?” Susan suggested.
“One can hope.” Isaac answered the call. “Hello, Nina.”
“Isaac,” she replied, sounding mischievous for some reason.
“Good timing. I was just about to call you and—”
“Isaac, what are you and Cephalie doing?”
“I’m sorry?”
“My inbox obscenity filters tripped a few moments ago. Mind explaining why you’re mailing me exabytes of porn?”
“We didn’t…” He frowned, his eyes tracing back to Kohlberg’s folders, especially the one marked Personal. “Oh.”
“Care to explain yourself?”
“Okay, first, I didn’t know they were porn, and second, those files should be tagged as evidence.”
“Well, they’re not. So, as far as Themis is concerned, you just sent me a mountain of porn across our work mail.”
Susan put a hand over her mouth and started shaking in silent laughter.
“One of them’s titled Wild Vixens of the Oort Cloud, Part Eighteen. You branching out from baseline human, Isaac?”
Susan’s face pinched up and she squinted her eyes shut.
“Umm, Cephalie?” Isaac asked. “Didn’t you tag those files?”
The small woman snapped her fingers. “Knew I’d forgotten something.”
Isaac glowered at her.
“I hope Raviv doesn’t find out about this,” Nina chortled.
“Raviv’s not going to care. Look, just tag them yourself, okay? This is all work related.”
“Could have fooled me.”
“Well, it should have been marked as evidence.” He gave Cephalie a fierce eye. “Anyway, while you’re on, do you have an update on Lacan’s wearable?”
“Not yet. Still working on it. Why?”
“I’ve got another wearable for you to look at, plus the image from Kohlberg’s office infosystem. The, ah, segmented save-state with all the porn. The Weltall UAM passed through both.”
“Great.” She blew out a tired breath. “I’ll keep the two wearables and forward the save-state to Panoptes. That should help keep the turnaround time down for all this work you keep piling on me.”
“Sounds like a plan. There’s another location we need to check before we meet up with you, but let me know if you can break free and start on the second wearable early.”
“Sure, but don’t get your hopes up.”
“All right. Talk to you later.”
“Later. Oh, and Isaac?”
“Yes?”
“There’s an advertisement here for Part Nineteen. Want me to order you a copy?”
He closed the call with an indistinct grunt, then turned to Susan.
“You okay?” he asked.
She straightened up, a bemused grin on her face, and gave him a thumbs-up.
“Then let’s go.” He palmed the wall open and stepped out to find Kohlberg waiting along the opposite wall with a worried expression.
“I get lonely, okay!” he blurted out. “It’s not easy, what with all the travel this job demands, and all the—”
“Mister Kohlberg,” Isaac cut in, “frankly, I don’t care.”
“Did you at least see what you needed?”
“For now, yes.”
“Then, are we done here?”
“Not quite, I’m afraid.”
“What else do you want to see?” Kohlberg sighed in a resigned manner.
“The other location the file passed through, of course.”
“But I’ve shown you that. From my desk to the wearable to the pods, just like I said.”
“Yes, but you also said you took the wearable home with you last night.”
“Well, yeah, but…” Kohlberg’s lips twitched in horror and his shoulders slumped. “Oh no.”
“Oh, yes.” Isaac cracked a thin smile. “Tell me, how close is your residence?”
* * *
Kohlberg’s apartment was located in Petal Six near the bottom of a downward-hanging castle turret overlooking the crater slopes. The grav tube dropped them off in a circular lobby with four doors leading to four quarter-circle apartments.
Kohlberg reached for the door interface, but then paused and turned back to Isaac.
“Is this really necessary?” he pleaded once more.
“It is,” Isaac insisted.
“But there’s…you know, private stuff in my home.”
“And it will stay private. I assure you that whatever it is, I’ve seen worse. I’m only interested in material relevant to the case. You have my word nothing else will appear in my final report.”
“Yes, but can I at least change the abstract décor to something more…suitable for guests?”
“No,” Isaac replied bluntly. “Now, if you don’t mind? The sooner we get this over with, the better.”
“Fine.” Kohlberg palmed the door, sidestepped, and gestured for them to enter. “Go on in, then.”
“Please wait outside.” Isaac led the way in, and Susan palmed the door shut once she and the LENS were inside.
“Wow.” She looked around. “I’m not sure what I expected, but…wow.”
“Quite.”
The walls were coated in animated artwork exhibiting life-size female subjects in various states of dress…or undress, as it were, and posed in an even wider variety of suggestive positions. But not just any women. Fantasy women.
There were ladies with cat ears and fluffy tails, ladies with blue skin and glowing eyes, ladies with serpentine tails, black leathery wings, and horns, mermaids, translucent water nymphs, a pair of the more buxom Solar Descent characters, and on and on it went across every square meter of wall, plus a few spots on the ceiling. They came in all shapes and colors, with sizes ranging from the petite to the voluptuous, while their expressions took advantage of the entire spectrum between shy and sultry.
“I can see why he wanted to change the décor,” Susan remarked.
“Let’s get this over with,” Isaac grumped, marching deeper into Kohlberg’s den. “Cephalie?”
“I’ve already started.” She shook her head from atop the LENS. “See? This is why I do my best to avoid meat-sack drama.”
“Actually, some of this artwork isn’t half bad.” Susan pointed to a wall where a lustful demon-woman held a reserved angelic woman in her arms. The angel-woman closed her eyes and sighed as the demon-woman nibbled down her neck. “Do you see how these two are—”
“I’m really trying not to, Susan,” Isaac stressed.
“Right. Sorry!”
They passed through a rounded lounge with soft lighting and curved sofas encircling a dynamic prog-steel sculpture of a nude woman pole dancing. More 2D fantasy women writhed along the walls. Isaac turned down a short hallway beyond the sculpture room, followed it to a T-junction, and then gazed down at the forested slopes through the arched windows.
“Does he have a home office in here?” Isaac asked.
“To the left,” Cephalie said. “At least, if the infostructure’s any indication.”
Isaac took a left and came face-to-face with a very solid-looking door that appeared to have been added to the apartment’s original floorplan. He palmed the interface, but the door bleeped at him and refused to open.
“Cephalie, the door?”
“Give me a second. There’s some security software here, but it’s nothing I can’t handle.”
The interface blinked green, and the door split open to reveal a large but dimly lit room. Isaac took one step inside—
—and then froze as the lights switched.
“Yay! Master’s home!” said the naked catgirl sprawled luxuriously across the expansive bed next to half a dozen otherworldly women with more strewn across the floor. All of them together probably possessed enough clothing to cover one person, and even then, not cover her very well.
“Oh dear,” Isaac breathed.
“Is something wrong? What’s going on in there?” Susan peeked her head in. “Oh, wow.”
“Whoops, sorry!” The catgirl’s pink, fluffy tail twitched happily, and her pale ears perked up. “You’re not Master! Did Master send you here? Would you like to be entertained?” She rose onto all fours and wiggled her well-rounded buttocks.
“No,” Isaac replied bluntly.
“Aww,” she cooed. “You sound angry. Haven’t I been naughty enough? Would you like me to try harder?”
“Are you sentient?” Isaac asked.
The catgirl juddered to a halt mid-wiggle. The expression on her face melted away, and she sat back atop her feet.
“Slutty Servant Roleplay Mode suspended,” the catgirl said in a dull monotone. “Entering Standby Mode. Please make your selection from the available options.” An abstract menu appeared next to her.
“Guess not,” Susan said. “Kohlberg should really get out more.”
“Not our problem.” Isaac walked over to the desk set up next to the bed. He kept his eyes down because the tangle of bare limbs and tails spread across the floor created a formidable pedestrian hazard.
He dropped into the recliner and summoned the interface—
—which autoplayed a fully immersive abstraction through all his virtual senses. He almost fell out of the recliner and aborted out of the abstraction immediately.
“What’s wrong?” Susan asked from the other side of the bed. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” Isaac said weakly. He swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. “I don’t think Kohlberg works at this desk.”
“Why do you say that?” she asked, surveying the tangled mass of inert bodies.
“Just a wild guess.” He rose from the recliner, steadying his hand on the desk because his legs had transformed into noodles. “Cephalie, would you mind checking all these synthoids?”
“You want me to go inside these things?”
“If it’s not too much trouble.”
“Fine.” She pushed her glasses up and vanished from the LENS.
Susan put her hands on her hips and stared intently at one of the pleasure synthoids.
“Find something?” Isaac asked.
“Maybe. Do any of these look familiar to you? The non-fantasy ones, I mean.”
“I haven’t been paying close attention, to be honest.”
“Take a look at this one.” Susan rolled the body over, so the woman’s face gazed vacantly up at the ceiling. “Remind you of anyone?”
“It does, actually,” Isaac said. “That’s Gomako Grim. Or at least a synthoid copy of her.” He frowned down at it. “A very detailed copy.”
“And this one here.” Susan turned over another one. “Don’t you think it looks like Sako?”
“Somewhat. I can see the resemblance in the face, but the skin tone is darker. The hair length and eye coloring are different, too. It’s not an exact match.”
“None of the synthoids have connectomes,” Cephalie announced, reappearing atop the LENS, “in case you were wondering. Just shells with some basic, nonsentient programming.”
“Is any of this illegal?” Susan asked. “Copying other people’s looks into synthoids and having sex with them?”
“Depends,” Isaac said.
“On what?”
“On whether Kohlberg has the correct permits for all of this. Some celebrities sell replication permits for their looks, with varying restrictions depending on the specific permit, and some do allow all this.” He gestured to the bodies on the bed. “Any applicable permits should be stored locally, so we shouldn’t have a problem checking them.”
“They’re local,” Cephalie said. “And I see one here purchased from Gomako Grim. An expensive one, too. The synthoid cosmetic pattern is part of her ‘Grim Intimacy VIP Bundle.’ It includes a UAM module for her body and allows for both physical and abstract replications.”
“Then he’s legally allowed to make a sex doll of her.”
“What about the Elly look-alike?” Susan asked.
“It’s not a match, so it would fall under a legal gray area,” Isaac explained. “If Sako was from SysGov, and she found out about this, then she could sue for illegal use of her likeness. After that, it would be up to a jury to say if Kohlberg had infringed upon her rights.”
“But since she’s from the Admin?”
“There’s nothing she can do,” Isaac said with a shrug. “There’s no legal framework between the two superpowers to sort out disputes like this.”
“It’s still creepy.”
“Agreed. But not illegal, which is our concern in the matter.” He put his hands on his hips and surveyed the room.
“Does he have permits for all of them?” Susan asked.
“He does,” Cephalie said. “Every synthoid here has a legit permit, though the Elly look-alike’s background is a bit different from the others.”
“How so?”
“Most of these were custom built, but he bought that one secondhand. From the receipts, looks like the seller was ditching an old security synthoid body. He bought it, then had it, ahh, modified to his specifications. There are receipts for that too.” She flashed a wry grin. “Want me to look into the changes he asked for?”
“I don’t think we need those kinds of details,” Isaac replied. “Anything else?”
“There’s no way I can tell if the UAM passed through the apartment’s infostructure.”
“Why not?”
“Because he installed a slew of automated programs to scrub his temporary files on a regular basis.”
“Were these programs added recently?” Susan asked.
“Not according to their activity logs,” Cephalie said. “As far as I can tell, they’ve been running in the background for years.”
“Hmm.” Isaac huffed out a breath. “Then we can’t tell if the Weltall program passed through here?”
“Nope, sorry. I doubt Nina would have much luck here either. Those scrubber programs look very thorough.”
“All the same, take images from everything and send them to her.”
“On it.”
“And make sure they’re properly tagged as evidence this time,” Isaac stressed.
“Of course, Master,” she quipped, then vanished.
“You see any point in staying here?” Isaac asked.
“Did you check out this menu? The catgirl has a mode called Blushing Virgin Roleplay.”
“Susan.”
“No, I don’t see the point in staying.”
“Me neither.” He took one last look around the room’s debauched spectacle. “All right. Let’s go.”
Isaac navigated through the walking hazards on the floor, almost tripped on a jutting thigh, sidestepped around what his mind chose to categorize as a two-person pretzel, then strode through the door and down the windowed hallway. They backtracked through the apartment and met Kohlberg by the floor’s grav tube.
“Well?” Kohlberg asked, barely daring to look up.
Isaac stepped over to him with a deep grimace. He opened his mouth and was sorely tempted to say something. But what the man did with his free time was his own business, so long as it held no relevance to the case. There was no “Nubile Catgirl” angle to the case, and Isaac considered the chances of one popping up to be close to zero.
He closed his jaw with a soft click, shook his head at Kohlberg, and walked into the grav chute without saying another word.