The Administration Series (13 page)

Fucking departmental politics everywhere. Toreth always enjoyed hearing that other people suffered too. "So where did SimTech come in?" he asked.

"Although the INR was a failure, the technology wasn't. The brain is resistant to rapid, permanent change via peripheral nerve stimulation, but it's very interested in interpreting incoming signals. Warrick and I thought it had potential, far beyond the original project proposals. Or, to be honest, Warrick did. I was offered a reassignment, but he talked me out of taking it — he needed my expertise. We bought the intellectual property from the Administration and founded the corporation."

"Any trouble since? Corporate trouble?"

"Some. You'd be better off talking to the others for that."

The suggestion seemed honest, rather than an attempt at evasion, so Toreth dropped it.

After taking Marcus on a second run though the events of the morning, Toreth moved on to the last of the SimTech directors.

This time the door was welcomingly open. When he knocked on the frame and entered, the woman behind the desk stood up to greet him. Around Toreth's own age, with short, neatly waved mid-brown hair, she had a pleasant, if not especially attractive, face. There was, however, a confidence in her movements and a sharp intelligence in her eyes which belied the softness of her smile.

"You're the investigator in charge," she said.

"Senior Para-investigator Toreth." He offered his hand, watching her reaction to the title.

She seemed neither surprised nor disturbed. "My name is Asher Linton — as I'm sure you know."

"I understand that you're the director most concerned with the financial aspects of SimTech?" When she nodded, he said, "This will be a short initial interview; a full set of financial disclosure warrants will be processed by tomorrow."

"Keir asked me to cooperate fully, in any case, without waiting for the warrants."

He must have looked surprised at her use of the familiar name, because she offered him a seat and said, "I've been a friend of Keir Warrick's for a long time — since we were children. I met his sister Dillian at school; that's how I know him. Coffee?"

"Please."

He watched as she made the coffee. Now that she was out from behind the desk, he had a chance to get a better look at her clothes: a smart jacket and trousers in lightweight beige wool, the flattering cut and natural fabric as unobtrusively expensive as any high-level corporate he'd ever visited. SimTech euros or independent wealth?

News of the death had obviously reached Linton already, and she'd clearly spoken to Warrick since his interview with Toreth. "Do you have any idea what happened to poor Kelly?" she said as she handed him his cup.

"We're investigating a number of possibilities." He took a sip of the coffee — decent coffee being a perk of corporate investigations — and said, "Do you have any comments you'd like to make about the circumstances under which she was found?"

She stared at him blankly, so Warrick had kept his word about not mentioning the details of the death scene. "She was found in the sim," he explained. "In the sim couch, rather."

Linton's reaction mirrored Warrick's. A pause, while the significance registered, then quick calculation, ending up with dismay.

"Like Teffera," she said, making it a statement, not a question.

"What's the financial significance?" Toreth asked immediately.

"We're in the process of gathering a new round of funding. Jon Teffera's death made many of the sponsors nervous. Not quite nervous enough to pull out, because Jon wasn't a well man and there isn't a shred of evidence to connect his death to the sim, but . . ."

"What happens if the funding fails?"

"SimTech dies," she said simply.

If the sim hadn't killed Teffera and Jarvis, then here was as clear an impetus for corporate sabotage as he could wish for. "What happens to the rights to the sim technology?"

She frowned. "I'd have to check terms, but as far as I remember, they would revert to Administration ownership."

"Not to one of the sponsors?"

"No." Slight smile. "I'd hope we have better contract writers in the legal team than to do something like that."

That was a disappointment. Far better that the rights would go to a sponsor, giving him a solid primary corporate suspect. However, once they were back in Administration hands, a corporation with the right friends would have no trouble retrieving them. Justice might have been on the right track after all.

"If corporate sabotage was involved, who would you suspect?"

"Me?" She frowned, and he waited for the usual hypocritical protests that she couldn't imagine
any
corporate she knew stooping to such appalling things. In the end, she surprised him.

"There are various corporations. The first funding for SimTech was difficult to find, but when we released news of our initial successes with the technology, it became a quite different story. Competition to fund us was fierce, to put it mildly. There were a large number of disappointed corporations, any one of which could benefit from this. I'll arrange to have a list supplied to you. Do you want me to mark the most likely ones for you?"

He found the honesty pleasantly refreshing. "Please. And should you receive an approach from anyone offering to help solve your funding problems, especially if it's in return for concessions and decreased control . . ."

She smiled wryly. "I should shop our potential saviour to I&I?"

He set his cup down. "I would consider it to be withholding evidence if you didn't," he said, letting just a touch of coolness into his voice.

"I see." When pressed, her mask was almost as good as Warrick's. "Of course, I'll notify you of any such approach."

"Or any approach at all." He held her gaze until she nodded. "While we're on the subject, can you give me any reason why Kelly Jarvis would be chosen as a corporate target?"

Either she'd been thinking about it already, or the slight confrontation had disconcerted her, because she replied immediately, "None at all."

"Did you have any personal relationship with her?"

Linton shook her head. "I hardly knew her. To tell you the truth, I'm afraid that I had to look her up on the system before I could recall her face or project. I don't have much contact with the students."

"What's the difference between employees and students?"

Linton looked a little surprised. "All that information will be in the company files."

"Tell me anyway, if it's not too much trouble." Toreth kept his tone even and polite, because it wasn't necessary to put an edge on the question. His uniform did that for him.

She shrugged. "Of course. Employees are exactly that — direct employees of SimTech. Some university research groups occupy part of the AERC building. SimTech sponsors students — postgraduates — who work on the sim technology. Most of them subsequently join the company, but until they obtain their degrees they are registered as students at the university."

"Are there any practical differences?"

"Not a lot. Students have low clearance, and no access to sensitive areas outside their own research, but the same's true of many employees."

Toreth finished his coffee, and shook his head when Linton offered a refill.

"I'd like you to tell me a little about SimTech," Toreth said. "An introduction to the company."

"Of course. We founded SimTech just over seven years ago, and we bought the rights to the technology from the Administration at the same time. I have a corporate background, and Warrick asked me to join to deal with the financial side of the business."

"Because you were a friend?"

"I should hope not." A touch of indignation, but at the same time she smiled — obviously confident in her abilities. "Warrick issued the invitation on merit, I assure you, Para-investigator. SimTech is always his highest priority."

A paragon of corporate virtue, in fact — something that Toreth was beginning to find annoying.

"Why was SimTech established here?" he asked.

"We considered other sites across the Administration, but the university offered us a good deal — the building, and plenty of research money which came without conditions attached. That nursed us through the first lean years, so that when we sought our initial round of corporate sponsorship, we had a solid foundation of work to show them. Ultimately, the production facilities will be located elsewhere."

"How long before the sim units are commercially available?"

"Provided that we secure funding, and assuming all the tests and safety trials run to schedule, the first production run is due in three years. The cost will limit it to the rich and to commercial owners, but we expect a very healthy demand."

She clearly shared Marcus's confidence in the commercial prospects. From his own experience of the sim yesterday, he was willing to put more faith in that than most corporate pronouncements of future success.

"Who owns SimTech?" he asked.

"The directors. Warrick, Marcus and I own around twenty-five percent each — eighty percent of the corporation between us. The university owns a further five percent, and the rest is split between various others. Mostly they're individuals who gave us money at critical early stages. Keir's sister Dillian, his mother, my parents, my husband Greg, a few other of the directors' friends. Jon Teffera was one — a personal investment, separate to his corporate interests."

"LiveCorp own shares?"

"No. We have an investment arrangement with one of their subsidiaries, P-Leisure. In return for development capital, they have exclusive options on certain aspects of sim technology, at preferential licensing rates."

"And are they happy with the deal?" Before the sim killed Jon Teffera, at least.

She shrugged, her expression neutral. "As far as they have ever told us."

They discussed a few more points and, as he'd expected, Linton confirmed Warrick's story of a directors' dinner until twelve on the evening of Teffera's death. Finally, he asked, "Do you think it's possible that the sim killed the girl or Jon Teffera?"

After a moment's consideration, she said, "What does Warrick think?"

Warrick, not Marcus. "I asked for your opinion."

"I don't have one. The technology isn't my speciality. But I'd happily stake my reputation on whatever Warrick says. I have before, many times."

A ringing endorsement of her fellow director, and a lot more positive than most corporate opinions Toreth had heard over his career.

Outside Linton's office, he found Jasleen Mistry, one of the junior investigators, sitting at Linton's admin's desk. She was reading a screen and replaiting her long, black hair. When she heard Toreth close the office door behind him, she stood up at once.

Mistry wouldn't be wasting time — if she were hanging around, it was because she had something important to tell him. "What is it?"

"We've found someone who saw Jarvis alive late last night, Para," she said, her fingers flicking through the last twists of the plait and snapping the band round the end. "Jin Li Yang."

At his nod, she set off along the corridor.

"What is he?" Toreth asked as they walked.

"A software engineer. SimTech, not university."

"When did he see her?"

"Just after ten o'clock. He was in the sim with her, running some kind of trial, and when he left the sim room she was alive and well."

"Or so he says."

"Of course, Para." She skipped to keep up with him and he slowed his pace a little.

"What's he like?"

"Frightened, but genuinely upset about the victim. The dead woman," she corrected herself immediately, and Toreth smiled.

"Up to talking to me?" he asked.

It was a serious question, and she took her time answering. "I think so, Para."

"Sit in, then."

Mistry took him down a level, and into a small conference room where Yang was waiting for them. In here the decor was more grey than blue, reminding Toreth of I&I.

Toreth introduced himself and sat down, deliberately relaxed and friendly. As they went through the introductions, he saw Mistry had, as usual, been dead on about the witness's state of mind. He was extremely nervous, which combined with his thin face to make him look even younger than he was — thirty-three, according to his security file. He had short, spiked hair and casual clothes, although he described his position as a senior level programmer, in charge of a team of ten.

"Did you know Kelly well?" Toreth asked as an icebreaker.

The man shook his head. "Not very. Only from trials. I've seen her in the cafeteria. We didn't work together." The phrases had a random, disconnected air.

"You were with her last night?"

"She was fine when I left her. She was absolutely fine." The statement wasn't an overt protestation of innocence — more an expression of disbelief that someone he'd seen alive only yesterday could suddenly be gone.

"Why were you there?" Toreth asked.

"For a trial. For her work, not mine. I'm on the volunteer list — the full list."

"Meaning?"

Yang stared at him, blinking rapidly.

"What's the full list?" Toreth asked patiently.

"
Oh
. There are —" He stopped. "I'm sorry. I'm not usually — it's shaken me up, that's all. It's — poor Kelly. She was
fine
when I left. Absolutely fine. I can't believe — "

"Take your time. Tell me about the lists. "With any luck, talking about work would calm the man down a little.

"Didn't you speak to Doctor Warrick?"

"Yes. He didn't mention lists, but he said he wanted everyone to cooperate with the investigation."

That produced a slight relaxation. "Oh, right. Okay — full list. It means I'll do any kind of trial. There are different lists, depending on what kinds of trials people want to take part in. Whether you're prepared to participate in the sex-based research, basically. And what kinds of activities are acceptable, if you are."

A glance down showed a gold band on his wedding finger. Thinking of Marcus, Toreth asked, "Doesn't your wife mind?"