The Administration Series (35 page)

"There you are!"

Startled, he looked up to find Warrick in the doorway, carrying a tray with two mugs and a large insulated flask.

"Coffee," he said. "My machine in here's empty, but I dredged this up in the cafeteria. I thought you might need some, and I sure as hell do."

Warrick did look as if caffeine might help. The dark hollows under his eyes made Toreth feel a little better about his own haggard appearance. However, Warrick's eyes shone with what Toreth recognised as sim-related excitement and he was practically bouncing on the spot. How, Toreth wondered, could he get so excited about his job at this time in the morning?

Warrick set the tray down and poured the coffee. Tepid, and with the consistency of gritty soup, it tasted wonderful.

"So, what is it?" Toreth swept a pile of papers away and dropped into the chair, slopping coffee onto the floor and not caring. "And why the fuck couldn't it wait until tomorrow?"

"Because I didn't want to risk waiting 'til the morning and talking myself out of it." Warrick sat down at the screen. "And also because I thought you might like to know that I found out how they did it."

"What?" Toreth blinked. "But we know —" He bit the sentence off, but Warrick didn't seem to have noticed.

Warrick started bringing up new screens of code. Toreth pulled his chair up beside him and tried to ready his brain to keep up.

The first words surprised him. "Yang sent me a file," Warrick said.

"Sent? When?"

Warrick glanced at him. "This afternoon — Monday, rather. Time coded. I think it was something along the lines of health insurance."

"Not very healthy."

"No. But he's — he wasn't a corporate, just a programmer. All I was once, but I've learned. Blackmail-style insurance only works if the right people know about it. Clearly, they didn't."

"So what was in the file? And why didn't you send it to me straight away?"

"Well, for one reason, because you already have it — it's a log of the session where Kelly died."

"All that was supposed to be with the division investigators downstairs," Toreth felt obliged to point out. "And the files have been sealed."

Warrick waved a dismissive hand, and Toreth snatched his coffee out of danger just in time. "Yes, well, pretend he found a copy on a machine they overlooked. It hardly matters now, does it? He thought —" Warrick hesitated, then ploughed on. "He thought it was evidence that the sim was responsible for Kelly's death."

Toreth blinked. "And was it?"

"No. Quite the opposite. But first, look what he sent me — it's a comparison of the homeostatic control module activation log from the fatal session here with some approximately equivalent data."

One of the expansive monitors on the desk displayed a section of code. Another showed line after line of numbers and letters, each with a time attached, accurate to microseconds. Occasional lines were highlighted in red, and that was all Toreth could see.

"Yang misinterpreted it," Warrick continued. "And your systems experts probably haven't even found it. Not their fault — I&I didn't write this stuff, and it is complex. I didn't write most of it either, but I created the system architecture and I
did
write the homeostatic monitoring and the associated feedback code."

Now a caffeine buzz overlaid the fatigue, concentrating it into the beginnings of a splitting headache. "Could you run that past me again, only a lot more slowly and in English?"

Warrick frowned. "Did you even read the summary material I sent you?"

"Let's say that I did, and that I've somehow forgotten it over the past three days during which I've had about five hours' sleep a night. "Three hours short of what he needed to stay civilised.

"Sorry." Warrick endeavoured to look contrite. "All right. Slowly and in small words. Broadly defined, homeostasis is the body's ability to regulate itself — it's very complicated and the biochemistry behind it isn't really my field. It covers blood chemistry, breathing, temperature, that sort of thing. It's relevant because if, to pick an example, you get into a hot bath in the sim, your body
feels
hot but the heat isn't real. In that case, the sim has the potential to interfere with the mechanisms that maintain body temperature."

"And kill you?"

"Very unlikely. Detailed modelling suggests not. However, there is a miniscule outside chance, theoretically, that it could cause some minor, non-fatal damage. The sponsors didn't want to take the risk and neither did I. Even if it did no harm, it could be unpleasant for the user. Actually, it's one of the potential causes of sim-sickness, so we were very interested in eliminating the smallest effect."

He hit a key and the code scrolled smoothly past. "This is the homeostatic control module — HCM. It takes real physiological and biochemical readings from the sensors and feeds them into the homeostatic control centres, bypassing all the other parts of the sim. A direct link to the real world. And the HCM can modulate autonomic nervous functions to smooth out confusions caused by the sim environment."

Warrick frowned, obviously looking back over the speech. "The autonomic nerves regulate involuntary body functions," he added. "That's the important feature in this case."

Toreth knew exactly what autonomic nerves were, but that didn't make him feel any less stupid. "So you could kill someone by fucking with this HCM?"

"No, of
course
not," Warrick said witheringly. "There are so many failsafes in this system that the moment the body chemistry started drifting beyond acceptable limits, the sim would disconnect. It's impossible to turn those failsafes off and have the sim operate at all. There is no way on earth the HCM could kill someone."

He smiled triumphantly. "But it could keep someone
alive
. If a user had a defect in his homeostatic control, even a serious one, the sim could compensate for it and he wouldn't die straight away. Think of it as a very expensive life support system. Actually, it's similar to standard nerve induction systems in a hospital intensive care unit; like those systems, the sim would make him breathe, bypassing the damaged portion of the brain."

Surprise temporarily banished sleepiness. "Make him breathe?"

"Yes." Warrick scrolled up to the point where the red highlights began. "If you look at the log, the respiratory control module was called repeatedly after a certain point. That alone should have tripped an alarm, but it's a secondary level one and it can be disabled — remotely, if necessary, like everything else. And the only plausible explanation is a drug, a poison."

Toreth stared at the screen, not really seeing it. One line of characters looked very much like another to him, but if Warrick said that it was possible, then he was willing to believe him. The real question was why Warrick was showing this to him now.

"What do you think?" Warrick asked impatiently.

"I thought the pharmaceutical side wasn't your field?"

"It isn't, but the exact biochemical mechanism doesn't matter." Impatience sharpened his voice again. "Gross damage, even a localized stroke, would've shown up in the autopsy, so it requires something capable of destroying the body's ability to breathe in a highly targeted way. You're the damn investigator. There must be
some
evidence to find, some trace in the bodies."

It was too much of a coincidence. "Warrick, how the fuck did you know?"

"It's all in the files — your systems people will be able to confirm it." Warrick frowned at the screen with disapproval. "It's almost disappointing, really. It requires no technical skill at all; it's simply a question of spotting the potential loophole in the system. My code does all the work."

"No, I mean how did you know about the toxin?"

"About —" His head snapped round. "You mean you've already found something?" Anger flared up. "Why the hell didn't you tell me before?"

That was a step too far over the line. "I file my IIPs with Tillotson, not with you."

Warrick's expression closed down. "I apologise. If you could share some details, I'd be grateful."

"I don't know anything for certain yet. We found an injector with a toxin engineered to target breathing — we're checking the bodies for traces of it now. You did know, didn't you? That's why you called me now."

"I had no idea. None at all." Warrick sat back, then laughed — a single, short sound before he shook his head. "I was expecting to have to convince you this was evidence of sabotage rather than the sim. That's why I spent so long checking it out before I called you."

"Actually, I thought all along it was probably corporate. Not that you ever bothered to ask me. "Toreth considered the new information. "Wouldn't the person in the sim feel an injection and come out?"

"No. That's the whole point of the sim, to block out perceptions of the real world and replace them with the virtual. If the program stops early for any reason then the person dies sooner, but that's all. It would even be possible to fix the time of death with a preprogrammed or remote shutdown, if you had the authority to do it."

Another consequence of the revelation occurred to him, and Toreth groaned. "Fuck. Alibis. All the bloody alibis are worthless."

Warrick nodded. "The victims could have been injected with the toxin at any time between starting the sim — or even just before — and the time of death. Or earlier, with a slow-release system."

Toreth looked at him curiously. "And you knew I'd think of that?"

Warrick waved the question away impatiently. "I should hope you would, Para-investigator. It's obvious."

Toreth found truthfulness somewhat difficult to handle at the best of times. It made him suspicious.

"Why did you tell me?"

Warrick looked at him with genuine surprise. "Apart from the intellectual dishonesty of not telling you, it's important. Those people were friends — I want you to find who killed them. And who's killing SimTech by extension." He shrugged. "Anyway, once I'd realised what it meant, hiding it
would
look highly suspicious. Yang may have sent copies to other people, and your division friends should have found it eventually."

He never got just one explanation with Warrick, although Toreth couldn't imagine anyone other than Warrick coming up with a dislike of intellectual dishonesty as a reason to make himself a murder suspect. Of course, the last one Warrick had given was the obvious reason he would've called Toreth, were Warrick really the murderer.

"
Did
you kill them? Any of them?"

Warrick looked at him narrowly. "What do you think?"

"I'm asking you."

"And if I don't answer, you'll take me down to the Interrogation Division? Strap me down and hurt me for real?"

"Warrick, I'm being serious here."

One side of Warrick's mouth lifted in a non-smile. "So am I. You would, wouldn't you?"

"Of course." Toreth shrugged. "Or, rather, I'd take you there. I'd have to hand you over to another interrogator because I'd have a personal involvement with the prisoner." The conversation, in fact the whole experience, had begun to feel unreal, far more unreal than the sim.

"Personal involvement. Mm. No, I didn't do it. I could have, but I didn't. You'll have to look elsewhere, I'm afraid."

Toreth stared into the sludgy remains of his coffee until he decided that, on balance, he believed him. He'd never really thought Warrick
had
done it. He had a very good instinct for lies, probably because he told so many himself. One instinct he did trust.

Confrontation over, Warrick's manic energy had drained away. When Toreth looked at him again, he was staring at the screen, watching the lines scroll past.

"It's ironic really — a system we put in place because of probably unfounded safety concerns is the one used to kill. I just wish Yang had come to me," Warrick added quietly. "I would've worked it out and brought it directly to you. He'd still be alive now."

Toreth yawned. "Probably thought you wouldn't listen."

Warrick looked round, his fatigue-ringed eyes seeming darker and larger than usual. "Why do you say that?"

"People tell their bosses what they want to hear. You do go on about how safe the sim is."

"I suppose I do. I have a responsibility to the corporation." He shook his head. "I seem to be doing better on that front than with responsibility to my employees."

Toreth downed the last bitter mouthful of cold coffee. "Don't worry about it — unless SimTech contracts don't limit corporate liability for sabotage damage, that is."

Warrick winced slightly. "Hardly the point."

"Bet they do though, don't they?" When Warrick nodded reluctantly, Toreth grinned. "And looking on the bright side, he trusted you enough to send you the file, so at least now we know."

Warrick stared at him, but tiredness took some of the edge off his usual icy glare. After a moment he nodded. "Indeed. Now we know. And, to be equally and grimly practical, once the sponsors hear — "

"No. I can't allow that yet. You'll have to keep it quiet for now." Warrick started to protest, but Toreth spoke over him. "Once the sab team discovers that we know about the toxin, they'll pull back and we'll never find them. News will get out soon, but the longer it takes the more chance we have of catching the bastards."

"Please, couldn't we at least —" Warrick took a deep breath, and Toreth couldn't help admiring the effect. Pleading must just about kill him. "Would it be possible to reassure a few of the major sponsors?"

"When any one of them could be responsible? No."

Warrick looked at him, dark eyes hooded, then nodded. "Of course, Para-investigator. I would appreciate it if you could let me know when the news can be released."

"Of course."

Warrick reached out for the screen and closed it down. "Now I think I'm going to rest on my laurels for a while. How did you get here?"

"Taxi."

"I'll give you a lift back." He raised an eyebrow, half-smile slipping into something more sardonic. "If you don't mind a murder suspect knowing where you live."

"Right now I'd give you the code for the door if it'd get me back to sleep any faster."