The Ghost in the Doll (Fox Meridian Book 6) (12 page)

Helen nodded. ‘So Aphrodite are directly supplying Ghost Dolls to the yakuza.’

‘It would appear so. I also observed Doctor Hummel leaving and entering the building. Only once, and he had bodyguards. It would appear that he lives in the building.’

‘Might explain why we haven’t been able to find him. Okay, I’ll report this to the board and we’ll work from there. From the reports I’ve been getting today, I think we’ll have Fox back pretty soon.’

‘That is wonderful news. She has indicated her return to you?’

‘No… Not yet anyway. But she’s taken an organlegging ring apart, while on medical leave. I think her excuses might be a bit thin after that.’

‘That does sound like Fox-san. Even dying cannot stop her from investigating a crime.’

Topeka, Kansas Belt.

‘You were supposed to be resting,’ Garth Eaves said, pointing a finger down the virtual table at Fox who had, rather pointedly, not sat in her usual place.

‘I was,’ Fox protested. ‘I did. I rested, sort of anyway. I did some chores with Dad, went shopping, attended a party, and competed in a sexy dress competition with my mother. Uh, don’t ask. Then something came up. I helped some friends.’

‘And brought in a ring of organ thieves, closed down a medical conspiracy… All restful stuff.’

‘It was, actually. I’m an active person, Garth. Sitting still doesn’t suit me, even if I needed to remind myself of that. I’m ready to get back to work.’

‘Why were they doing it anyway?’ Helen asked.

‘Money, why else. They were getting organs of various sorts cheap, but charging the full rate to the recipients and then siphoning off the difference. To be honest, splitting it between the gang, the surgeon, and the technician who made sure the paperwork looked legitimate, they weren’t making a whole lot each out of it, but Napier was desperate. His wife was bleeding him dry and doing an amazing job of keeping him hooked on her. NAPA in New York have reopened the case on Christina Napier’s husband to see if they can find a link. They think Harlan Napier killed him, or arranged it at Christina’s prompting. They might get somewhere.’

‘Huh,’ Eaves grunted, though exactly what that meant was anyone’s guess. ‘Helen, why don’t you bring us up to speed on Japan.’

‘Okay,’ Helen said, nodding. ‘Yuriko has been watching the Aphrodite Cybernetics facility and she’s seen Arvid Hummel going in and out. She thinks he’s living there. She’s also confirmed the yakuza connection. Seems pretty likely that the Fukui-kai positioned Hummel in Aphrodite to give him a suitable cover for whatever he’s doing, which seems to be selling BioTek corporate secrets.’

‘You think he’s giving them bioroid technology?’ Fox asked.

‘Well… He definitely gave them that nanodrug. There are several companies working on bioroids, but it was pretty widely thought that BioTek would be first with production of a working model. Somehow, Aphrodite got ahead very suddenly.’

Fox nodded. ‘You want my help on this one?’

‘I’m just not sure where to take it from here. It’s industrial espionage, sort of, but I’m not sure we can do anything about it. Hummel was kicked out and moved to Japan. He’s working for another company… Unless we can prove he took information with him that he had no right to, we’re stuck. And no one’s publicly marketing that nanodrug.’

‘Okay, we’ll get together and–’

‘Actually, Fox,’ Eaves broke in, ‘we have something else for you to do first. There is actually a link, but… Jackson wants you with him when he visits BioTek. That was assuming you were up to it, and it seems you are.’

‘Wait… Jackson’s taking on another spaceflight to go see the people at BioTek?’

‘That’s right and he wants–’

‘Jackson Martins
really
hates space. This has to be something
huge
.’

‘I’m told it’s… controversial. Going up there will give you a chance to talk to Hummel’s old colleagues.’

Fox sighed. ‘Fair enough. When?’

‘Jackson’s leaving tomorrow.’

‘Okay. Helen, I’ll meet you at the spaceport with Jackson and we’ll decide on how we’re going to handle Japan. Let Yuriko know we’re working on it and… I guess you have to keep coming to board meetings for a while longer.’

Helen sagged. ‘Oh thanks. Throw me a rope and then yank it away just when I’m reaching for it. Did I do something mean to you in a past life?’

‘Well, you have a habit of hogging the doughnuts with sprinkles, and in my previous life I actually cared about that, so…’

‘Oh,’ Alice Vaughn said, ‘that definitely sounds like cause for retribution. That’s a hanging offence in my office.’

‘Getting resurrected has turned you into a meany,’ Helen suggested to Fox.

‘Nah. I was always like this. Now I just have the chance to show it.’

~~~

‘I’ll be flying back to New York first thing tomorrow,’ Fox told her parents. ‘Then it’s straight on a flight up to L-four.’

‘The BioTek facility?’ Andrea asked.

‘Yeah… I can’t discuss it. Then again, I don’t know anything about it so discussing it is kind of pointless. Jackson’s going up too.’

‘It must be important then.’

‘Oh, yeah, important. Jackson gets sick if he even looks at a rocket so you can bet it’s important. Terri usually handles off-world stuff for him, but she’s going to be up in Jenner for a while…’ Fox frowned. The cost of getting Terri off the Moon for a day trip to L4, which was all that was planned, was a lot less than an Earth launch. Whatever was up there, it had to be really serious. ‘Anyway, I’ll probably be going back to Japan after that.’

‘You okay with that?’ Jonathan asked. ‘Japan’s where… things happened.’

Fox shrugged. ‘The country isn’t to blame. It was an American who tortured me.’

‘Still…’

‘Guess I won’t know until I get there, but I don’t think it’s going to be a problem. Still, I guess the proof of the pudding is in the freaking out when I see it.’

New York Metro, 9
^th
April.

‘It seems highly likely that Doctor Hummel is involved with the Ghost Doll project,’ Jackson said, ‘but my understanding is that he was never involved with bioroid research for BioTek.’

‘So industrial espionage seems likely?’ Fox asked.

‘With the information available, it would seem that he obtained unauthorised access to confidential company information.’

Fox turned to Helen. ‘I think that was a yes.’

‘It sounded like a yes,’ Helen agreed. ‘Can’t help but think we need more data though.’

‘Agreed,’ Jackson said, nodding.

‘Okay,’ Fox said, ‘so we task Yuriko with gathering as much information as she can about the Ghost Dolls and Aphrodite Cybernetics. You and I, Jackson, are going to go at it from the more general side of things, bioroids and such, and get information on Hummel.’

Jackson nodded again. ‘I believe that should be quite possible to achieve. And then you’ll join Miss Fukui in Japan.’

‘Yeah. Uh… I know it’s a little bit of an imposition, but would you mind if I detoured to L-one on the way? I think… Well, it’s about time…’

‘Of course it’s all right to go to Mister Deveraux. I was a little surprised that you didn’t do so on the way back from Jenner.’

‘I… wasn’t ready then.’ Fox heard a small sigh from Helen, and that prompted a memory of a thought she had had to surface. ‘Oh, and while we’re on the subject, I was thinking that my SiC should visit Jenner in the near future. She can get caught up on the latest developments, get the layout in her head, that kind of thing. Especially since she’s been handling the top job for a couple of weeks now.’

‘Your SiC?’ Jackson asked, and then twigged. ‘Ah! Yes, your second in command, of course. Military jargon was never my strong suit. I believe we can arrange a tour. I’m sure Terri would be pleased to handle it.’

‘I’m sure she would, yes. I’d imagine she would be pretty enthusiastic about it, actually.’

‘I can hear you, you know?’ Helen said.

‘You saying you don’t want to go?’

‘Of course I want to go! I’m missing my girlfriend, not stupid.’

‘Good. Now, we should just have time for Sonya to give me a check-up before we leave.’

‘You had one quite recently, didn’t you?’ Jackson asked.

‘Yes, but then I spent several days in the dustbowl, and when I get back I’ll be going straight to Japan, at which point I’m not sure of my schedule. Just being practical.’

‘Very well. I’ll collect you from her lab in thirty minutes. And then we can begin the process of turning me into a quivering mass of disoriented flesh.’

‘Yeah. Don’t forget the vomiting. I know I won’t.’

BioTek Microtechnologies Station, L4, 10
^th
April.

Jackson was still looking a little green when the meeting with Rainer Gottschalk of BioTek started, but half of Earth gravity was a lot better than none, even if it came with a weird feeling that you were being pushed sideways whenever you moved. Standing still or sitting, and nausea medication, helped.

Gottschalk looked like he had been born in space and never left. Over two metres in height and thin with it, he seemed quite comfortable in the environment of the station. His physique was about the only thing remarkable about him at first glance. He had mouse-brown hair and hazel eyes, and a face which failed to draw the eye almost as though it had been designed to go unnoticed. When he opened his mouth, however, you almost immediately got an impression that he had a quite remarkable brain.

‘I am given to understand, Miss Meridian, that you have not been informed of the specifics of our most recent developments in synthetic genomics.’ He had a fairly strong accent, but he did tend to avoid the stereotypical w/v confusion, which helped.

‘We’re keeping the entire thing under wraps until we’re quite ready for the media to know about it,’ Jackson said. ‘There
will
be strong reactions.’

Gottschalk gave a small shrug. ‘Our estimations of public response have been revised, given recent developments in Japan. However, yes, we do expect some negative responses.’

Fox put the comments together fairly rapidly. ‘You built a bioroid.’

‘Our first fully successful synthetic humanoid was completed and released from the fabricator tank three days ago. We are referring to her as Eve.’

‘Huh. That’s a PR disaster waiting to happen right there. However, if Aphrodite Cybernetics have beaten you to it, I don’t see too much of a problem. The Ghost Dolls don’t seem to have raised alarm bells with the media in Japan.’

Gottschalk turned and tossed a few virtual screens up in the meeting room’s viron. ‘Eve is significantly different from the Yurei no Ningyo models Aphrodite are producing.’ One of the displays showed a couple of images of a Ghost Doll. It was the first time Fox had seen them properly and it was fairly obvious that they were not human: they seemed to have pale, rubbery skin and unnaturally wide eyes. The other displays showed a couple of still images and a video feed of a moderately pretty woman with a mop of purple hair. ‘We gave her hair and eye colouration not normally found in humans, but she is a general-purpose product, optimised for human interaction.’

Fox watched the video for a second. Eve was sitting in a fairly bare room, dressed in a plastic tube of a dress which was flesh-toned aside from some pale-blue trim. She was reading from a tablet and looked vaguely bored.

‘You used the sleep-training system on her?’ Jackson asked.

‘Initial socialisation was carried out through VR,’ Gottschalk said. ‘We are currently assessing its effectiveness. Our initial evaluation suggests that it has functioned within parameters, perhaps rather better than expected. Given her current environment and the probability that she will act as an ambassador for future synthetic humanoids, we also gave her fluency in English and German, and training focused on communication skills.’

‘She’s three days old and understands two languages,’ Fox said. ‘That’s impressive.’

‘There is a three-month production cycle. Initial construction in the biofabricator is followed by a period of stabilisation. Producing a tabula rasa product would be… less than useful.’

‘And this is where I point out
precisely
what the problem
should
be with Eve and those like her.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘She’s a product. You’ve fabricated a living, breathing, human-looking woman who, I assume, has an independent, sapient mind, and you’re calling her a product. You’re going to have some fairly major legal issues with that description on the Moon, just for starters.’

Gottschalk nodded. ‘An ill-advised choice of words. However, this is why the term “bioroid” has been the preferred one for synthetic humanoids for some years. It aligns them with androids and gynoids, focusing the public perception of them on the concept that they are “biological robots” rather than people, slaves.’

Fox peered at him, her eyes narrowing. ‘The accent doesn’t help. I can’t tell whether you’re naturally sociopathic or you’re just too nerdy to see how bad that sounds.’

‘Fox…’ Jackson began.

‘Nuh-huh, Jackson. No. I may be a little oversensitive about this, seeing as I’m a MarTech Technologies
product
, but Herr Gottschalk is going to have to learn to present his facts better than this. Eve isn’t the only one who’s going to end up talking to the media.’

There was a second of silence and then Jackson said, ‘You’re not a product.’

‘Everything down to the software running my mind was created by MarTech. The only bit I could be said to hold the copyright on is the contents of my ba database.’

‘You are, of course, correct, Miss Meridian,’ Gottschalk said, and then he quickly held up a hand, ‘and I say that only because you brought up the subject. It would be quite wrong to consider you in that manner and I
do
know that. In my defence, if we
did
manufacture another Eve without the training, “product” would be a far more suitable term.’

Fox sniffed. ‘Maybe I
am
a little oversensitive about this… And you’re right about the memetic quality of “bioroid.” But you really should pick your words more carefully and there are going to be people yelling “slavery” from the tallest soapbox they can find. What’s the legal position on bioroids?’