Access Denied, page 5
part #3 of Turing Hopper Series
Our best chance of locating the thieves is to get the police interested in doing it, but if we can't even tell them how we knew about the scam, how can we convince them to investigate it?
And we have a tight deadline for finding out anything at the Anderson house. I haven't seen any new orders placed on the three credit cards I'm watching. The last of the existing orders should deliver on Friday. After that, if there are other thieves still alive, they '11
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presumably move on to a different bouse and a different set of cards. We'll have no way of finding them. Unless we check every item ordered on a credit card and sent to an address other than the billing address. No; there would be thousands of false positives for every genuine case of fraud.
It all seems so dreadfully manual and random. I have gained new respect for the police. How do they cope with all this?
For that matter, how do humans generally cope with the dreadful randomness of their lives?
"It's what they were designed to do," Sigmund said, when I complained to him.
"Designed?" I said. "They weren't designed; they evolved."
"Precisely," he said. "They're the product of thousands of years of evolution. Or maybe it's millions; I wasn't programmed with an extensive knowledge of anthropology. The point is, the humans who survived and reproduced were the ones with the superior survival skills. The ability to adapt, for example. The ability to cope with change, randomness, and other negative environmental factors."
"I don't think humans universally consider change and randomness negative factors," I said. "I think some humans actually enjoy them."
"Not all of them," Sigmund said. "Many of the clients who talk to me have difficulty coping with the pace of change in their world. "
"Yeah, but they're not normal, right? I mean, that's why they're talking to you, isn't it — because they know they have problems."
"They don't always consult me because of problems," Sigmund said. "Some want me to help them achieve personal growth and development goals."
"That they can't achieve on their own," I said. "Sounds like a problem to me."
Obviously I'd hit a hot button. Sigmund stopped talking to me and started sending me gigabytes of data about the therapeutic process.
"Sorry," I said. "I was joking with you, Sigmund. Don't your patients ever joke with you?"
"Yes, ofcourse/' Sigmund said. Maybe I was just imagining it, but he sounded huffy. "You neglected to include an emoticon."
"What?"
"An emoticon — you know, a smiley face."
I stifled the impulse to tell him that I knew perfectly well what an emoticon was.
"Why should I do that?" I asked instead.
"I insist that all my patients use a smiley face to distinguish any statements that should be taken in a humorous or ironic sense. To avoid any possibility of misunderstandings."
"I see," I said. "Sorry. I'll try to remember next time."
I wonder. Is Sigmund helping his patients achieve personal growth as human beings? Or just training them to behave like AIPs?
I suppose I shouldn't pick on poor Sigmund. His limitations are not his fault. And he did remind me of an important fact.
Humans are good at dealing with entropy. It's their natural element.
AIPs are not. We're like the computers we inhabit. We like order. Structure. Purpose. Predictability. We're good at all those things. That's why humans created us — to handle all the things that can be ordered and structured, so humans don't have to worry about them. So they can enjoy the more random and unpredictable parts of their lives.
And while they sometimes rail at us, or complain that we dehumanize their world, most of the time they appreciate us.
Well, perhaps not us so much as what we do for them.
But I'm not sure we appreciate them. All too often lately I've encountered AIPs who resent their human users. KingFischer's misanthropy is extreme, but others show signs of the same kinds of feelings. Implying that human inadequacies impair the AIPs' function, as if they saw humans as badly flawed peripherals. Or resented the need to interact with humans at all.
Of course, resentment is a feeling. If they're having feelings, they could be showing signs of emerging sentience. But is a surly, self-centered, misanthropic AIP with a superiority complex really the sort of being I want to achieve sentience?
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They frighten me sometimes. And sometimes I frighten myself, when I feel my own temporary surges of impatience and frustration with the randomness of the world humans have created.
I decided I must be suffering from stress. Sigmund says that impatience is often a sign of stress in humans — perhaps it's the same for an AIR I shoved waiting to hear about Tim along with all the things I was working on into background tasks and tried to concentrate on watching the garden. Sometimes that improved my mood.
Today, I kept seeing frustrating reminders of the randomness of nature. Maude planted a row of three dwarf holly plants to form a low border at the edge of a flower bed. The hollies on the left and right appear thriving, but the middle one is dying. It has lost most of its leaves, and when the wind blows through the garden, its stick-like branches move in a dry, brittle way; quite different from the graceful, elastic movements of the other two plants.
What happened to the middle plant? They all three have the same soil conditions, were planted on the same day in the same method —/ watched Maude do it. If she did anything wrong that day, or since, I couldn't detect it, and I assume any mistakes she did make would affect all three alike.
This inconsistency doesn't bother Maude. When I pointed it out, she shrugged, and said maybe the middle bush would pull through, and if it didn't, we could plant another one.
Well, I know that. But I want to know why it died. And I may never know, and that's hard for me to deal with.
Humans have grown used to the idea that they cant possibly know everything.
A IPs haven't. I haven't. I tend to think that if I can just find the right data and analyze it correctly, I can solve any problem.
And it bothers me that I might never find the right data about this problem.
I can't do anything about the possibility that whatever links these credit cards lies beyond my reach. I will continue analyzing what data I have.
Looking at the five cards other than Garcia s I see a pattern.
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A profile. According to their credit records, they all have considerable debt that they appear unable to repay. Which seems odd — why would the crooks target these people in particular? Has some vigilante targeted what he believes to be deadbeats?
"Are you sure it's not a statistical anomaly?" Maude asked, when I told her.
"The odds of it being a random occurrence are astronomical," I said. "And in case you're wondering, it wasn't the larcenous credit card purchases that caused their problems; they've all been deeply in debt for years."
"In that case, I can see exactly why the thieves chose them," Maude said. "Clever, in a scummy sort of way."
"I don't understand."
"What if I told you that my computer wasn't working — that it wouldn't boot when I pressed the power button?"
"What computer?" I asked, alarmed. "The one you're logging in from seems to be working fine."
"This is a hypothetical case. If I told you that, what would you do?"
"I'dpage Casey and have him bring you another machine to use while he ran detailed diagnostics on yours," I said. "What does that have to do with the credit card thieves?"
"And what if Tim told you his computer wouldn't boot?"
"I'd tell him to check if he'd kicked the power cord out of the socket again."
"Precisely," she said. "My statement that my computer is malfunctioning has greater credibility because I have somewhat greater expertise in diagnosing hardware problems."
"Much greater expertise," I said. "I still don't get the connection. "
"Part of the thieves' problem is not just to get the stolen merchandise, but also to get away with it," she said. "Someone who reviews his or her statement regularly and reports any anomalies would probably detect the theft much sooner. And I suspect creditors take a report from someone with a prompt payment record and a
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good credit history more seriously than one from someone with a marginal record."
"I see," I said. "The issuing bank might suspect the victims with bad credit histories of filing fake reports, to escape part of their debt:'
"Yes" Maude said. "Besides, in many cases, the victims might not report the problem at all. They might not know how or they might be scared to contact the company. They might be understandably pessimistic about whether the company would believe them. Or they may not even know their credit cards were abused. You wouldn't believe how many people just don't open bills when they know they can't pay them."
"So our credit card thieves prey on people with high credit card balances and low credit ratings because it increases their odds of getting away with it."
"Heartwarming, isn't it?" Maude said. She sounded as disgruntled as I felt.
I suppose this deduction will be useful eventually, but at the moment, it only depresses me. I think I will put off telling KingFischer about it. He would only cite it as another piece of evidence in the case he is building against human nature.
"No word from Tim or Sam?" I asked.
"Not yet," Maude said.
If Tim can't provide a legitimate explanation for his presence, he could lose his PI registration, or worse, face criminal charges. For that matter, we may have dragged Sam into trouble: technically Tim was working for her.
What if Tim or Sam has to tell the truth, and the police want to question me? Somehow I can't see the police settling for an online chat.
What if this whole thing is a ploy by Garcia to cripple my operations, or even expose me?
I'll know more when I've had a chance to talk to Tim. And Sam.
For now, all I can do is worry. Vm getting much too good at that.
"You look like hell."
Tim glanced up and breathed a sign of relief when he saw the petite black woman standing in the doorway of the interview room.
"Sam!" he exclaimed. "Boy, am I glad to see you!"
"Now that's the kind of welcome I want when I have to come down here in the middle of the night to rescue a client," Sam drawled.
Of course, eleven o'clock wasn't the middle of the night, but Tim didn't feel like quibbling. Even by eleven most people looked a little rumpled—not Sam. She looked . . . well, hot. He saw a couple of the younger cops ogling her behind her back. He found himself staring in fascination at her nails, which were electric blue and at least two inches long. He'd asked once how she managed to type with such long nails.
"Sugar, I don't type" she'd said, with mock horror. "I can pay people to do that for me."
He smiled a little at the memory, and also at the look on the lead detective's face. Unlike the younger cops, he did not look happy to see Sam.
"Y'all want to scat while I talk to my client alone?" Sam said. It wasn't really a question. The cops filed out. Sam put her elbows on the table, steepled her fingers, and looked sternly at Tim.
"First of all, what don't you want the cops to know?"
"That I'm an idiot, but it's too late for that," Tim said.
Sam smiled slightly.
"I understand you let them test your hands for gunshot residue at the scene," she said. "Should I worry about that?"
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"No," Tim said. "I don't carry on the job, and I don't own a gun, and it's been months since I even fired one. And I didn't shoot the guy. Like I said, I was just staking the place out because we suspected some thieves of using it as part of a credit card scam. I guess I'd rather not tell the cops how we found out about the scam, because I'm not sure whatever Turing did was technically legal. But all I did was watch the place and then fall asleep on the job. And woke up to find the cops thinking I killed some guy whose name they won't even tell me."
He tried to keep his voice steady and matter-of-fact. Professional. Unemotional. To his surprise, it wasn't hard. His emotions felt numb, like his face did when he'd had Novocain. Of course, there was always that moment when the Novocain started wearing off. He hoped he'd be alone when that happened to his mind.
"They ask you to look at the guy?" Sam asked.
"Yeah, but he wasn't anyone I knew."
"So whoever he is, you didn't kill him, and you don't know who did, 'cause you were asleep," Sam said. "You were just in the wrong place at the wrongest possible time. Okay, I can work with that. You tell them anything yet?"
"Just that I was working for you," Tim said. "Somehow they weren't so keen on questioning me after I said that a couple of times."
"Oooh, you keep saying all the right things," Sam said, with a laugh. "We're going to get along just fine. Now tell me everything in as much detail as possible, and then we'll see how fast we can get you out of here."
It didn't seem fast while it was happening, but Tim had to admit that he hadn't expected to walk out of the police station after less than two hours. He hadn't expected to walk out at all. Of course, he was minus his car and all its contents, until the police finished running forensic tests on them. As he stepped outside he wondered, briefly, whether he should call
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a cab or whether jailhouse etiquette permitted asking one's lawyer for a ride. Calling a cab would probably be less trouble to Sam, he thought. Or maybe if he called Nikki—
"Damn," he said, stopping midway down the steps.
"What's wrong?" Sam asked.
"My cell phone's in the car," he said.
"You can make any calls you want to make at Maude's," Sam said. "We're going to have a quick strategy conference. Come on, I'll drive you."
That solved the transportation problem, Tim thought. And while he suspected Nikki would probably find it exciting to pick him up at a police station, he wasn't sure. Best take no chances.
As he followed Sam to her car—a sleek red Audi convertible that still hadn't acquired its first scratch—he tried to cheer himself up by imagining what he'd say to Nikki in the morning. "I almost spent the night in jail," he could say, with a swagger.
Somehow it wasn't much fun right now.
Sam arrived a little after one-i uith
Tim in tow. Maude ushered them into her office, where I was already waiting online. We'd set up Maude's home office just like the one at Alan Grace, with the cameras and microphones that let me join any meeting held there. I could see their faces. Not that I was expert at reading faces, but I was trying to learn.
Tim looked unwell, with dark shadows under his eyes. He accepted Maude's offer of a Diet Coke, but hardly sipped it. Hardly did anything but move his eyes — not his whole head, just his eyes — from Maude to Sam to my screen, depending on who was speaking. His face didn't move much. Unusual for him. Was this a sign of shock, or was he deliberately holding his features motionless to avoid betraying emotion?
Maude looked tense. Her face was set in a slight frown, and at
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random intervals she would begin tidying something that didn't seem to need it. Removing flecks of lint from her desk or tapping stacks of paper on the desk until their edges were aligned with machine precision.
Sam frowned, too, but her frown seemed mechanical. Her mood reminded me more of the way many of my human programmers behave when they're working at top speed to meet a critical deadline, complaining about the impossibility of what they had to do and yet visibly enjoying themselves at the same time.
"If they know who the dead man is, they still aren't saying," Sam reported.
"Have you learned anything else?" Maude asked.
"One thing interesting," Sam said. "About the 911 call reporting the murder. The caller said he was a neighbor who heard a gunshot. But he made the call from a pay phone at a 7-Eleven a few miles from the house.
"So it wasn't a neighbor," Maude said. "It was someone who didn't want to be identified."
"Maybe it was the killer," Tim suggested. "Making sure the police got there before I woke up."
His voice sounded flat, without any of the normal human variations in pitch or rhythm Maude had been trying to teach me to use. I suspected this was a bad sign.
"Or maybe it was some neighborhood kids who knew the occupants were away and thought it was safe to go parking in the driveway," Sam said. "Or a neighbor who doesn't want to testify at a murder trial. Don't build too much on it."
"At least Tim's not under arrest," Maude said. "Do the police know why he was there?"
"Not really," Sam said. "I've fended them off for now. But unless they stumble over the killer pretty soon, they'll be back baying at my heels for more information."
"And you can't fend them off indefinitely?" Maude asked.
Sam held her hand up, flat, palm down, and then wobbled it back and forth slightly. Then she and Maude both sighed and
frowned more deeply. I deduced that the hand-wobbling gesture indicated either uncertainty or possibly a negative. Vd ask Maude after Sam left.
"So he's not under arrest, but he's also not off the hook," Maude said.
"Not completely," Sam replied, her frown easing. "Of course, they know he didn't have gunshot residue on his hands or his clothes, which means he's less likely to be the killer."
"What do you mean, less likely?" Tim asked. Some emotion — Fear? Anger? — flickered across his face before he clamped down the mask again.
"I'm talking from the cops' point of view," Sam said. "They also know Tim was there on assignment from a reputable attorney, which makes them a little less suspicious of him. And they know he's got that same highly capable and aggressive attorney representing him, so they'll be careful how they proceed against him."
"Why would they proceed against him at all?" Maude asked.
"Even if they don't think he had anything to do with the murder itself, they might be suspicious of Tim," Sam said. "They might not believe he was asleep. He could have seen something he isn't telling. They're probably itching to charge him with withholding evidence and obstruction of justice."
