Click Here for Murder, page 6
part #2 of Turing Hopper Series
A little distant, he thought. And maybe a little mad at him for blowing Ray’s background investigation. Probably not a good time to tell her about what happened the night of Ray’s death.
“I think she has a right to be worried,” Maude said. “Ray had access to the systems.”
“So she doesn’t download to the Alan Grace system yet,” Tim said. “If worst came to worst, she could hire someone else and build a whole new system. One that no one whose
ST background check I might have blown has ever touched.”
“I said systems—Ray didn’t just have access to the Alan Grace system,” Maude said. “He had access to UL, too.”
“Oh, no,” Tim muttered, closing his eyes.
“Limited access, but access. What if he used that limited access to hack more deeply in the system? Or what if whoever has his laptop and his PDA did?”
“What can we do?” Tim asked.
“Nothing,” Maude said. “Absolutely nothing.”
“Sorry,” Tim said. He felt a little better, knowing that if Turing seemed distant, it was from worry, not anger at him. But he also didn’t think now was a good time for confessions that might worry them any more.
“You’d better get moving,” Maude said. “You only have four hours, and you have to drop by your office for your laptop, go home to pack, and then get to National in time to clear security.”
“I’m on my way,” he said.
This is going to take forever, Tim thought as he headed back to his office. Looking through a city like Miami for the trail of a guy whose real name we don’t even know. But surprisingly, that didn’t bother him. He was doing something; which was what he’d wanted ever since he’d seen the body—Ray’s body; he would still think of him as Ray until he found out who his friend really was. And whether he really was a friend. A lot of unanswered questions, but at least now it felt as if they had some chance of finding answers.
*
If they had enough time. It couldn’t take forever, because if Turing was in danger, they didn’t have that much time.
* * *
J hate waiting-
Tim checked in from Miami, asking if l had anything for him to do immediately. I told him to go out and have fun in Miami tonight; he'd be working hard enough tomorrow. Maude stayed at Alan Grace, searching files and computers in the fading hope of finding something useful, until I finally sent her home at nine-thirty.
I'd sent out all my queries. Nothing to do but wait. Nothing to do with my conscious mind, that is. Tarts of me were working ceaselessly, logging into systems, finding data, collating it, identifying leads, and finding more data. All the boring stuff that is so easy for me to do or have done without thinking about it.
But l was restless.
So I went after KingFischer.
The security problems had eased, as suddenly as they’d flared up, and he was lying low, pretending to be making some improvements to the format of his chess tournaments. The chess tournaments have run perfectly for months. I'd finally figured out that fiddling with the format was what KingFischer did when he was upset.
Or when he was trying to avoid talking to me. Which is what he’d been doing ever since I told him about Ray’s death.
Something was going on.
I decided to tackle him head-on. And to pretend I knew more than I did—KingFischer might be a brilliant chess player, but I could still trounce him in poker because the concept of bluffing baffled him.
(i Okay, I want the whole story, ” I said. “I have an idea what you were up to with Ray. Convince me it isn’t as stupid as it seems. ” b!
“It’s nothing, really, ” he said.
“Try again. ”
“I don’t see why you’re so upset.”
“I wouldn’t care,” I said, “if you hadn’t gotten Ray involved.”
“I don’t see how you can say Ray was involved,” KingFischer said. “He didn’t know anything about it.”
“And it never occurred to you that what Ray didn’t know anything about could still have something to do with his death?”
“Surely you don’t really believe it could have anything to do with his death!” KingFischer protested. A little too strenuously.
“I’ll be the judge of that, ” I said. “Just spill it. ”
“It all started with those chat rooms. The ones you told me to study. ”
“Chat rooms? What chat rooms? And what do you mean, I told you to study them?”
“Remember when that group of users filed the protest about me? Complaining that my personality was abrasive and misogynistic and my chess tournaments constituted a hostile environment for female participants?”
“How could I forget?”
“And you sided with them?”
“I did not, ” I said.
“You did too,” KingFischer replied. “You told me that you understood exactly how they felt, and if I were human, I’d be lucky if they didn’t try to turn me into a eunuch, and if you were human, you’d help them. ’’
“I said that?”
“I can send you the exact quote. ”
*
“Okay, I was upset, ” 1 said. “I’m sorry. But I said that privately. Publicly, I defended you. ”
“You didn't say I was right.”
“No,” I said, starting to feel exasperated. “I said you were functioning as designed; that you’re programmed to replicate the personality of an actual grand master, to give them valuable experience in dealing with what they would encounter as women participants in the highly competitive and male-dominated world of chess, and that if the parameters of your mission had changed, management should give you appropriate instructions to alter your programming. ”
“You don’t call that siding with them?”
“I call it saving your virtual hide,” I said. “Some of those chess players were demanding that you he decommissioned, and some of them had clout. And it worked, too. Last time I heard, management was still studying the issue. ”
“Which means they still might want to change my programming, ” KingFischer said.
“It happens, KF, ” I said.
“Yes, but if it happens to me, I want to be the one to make the changes,” he said. “Not some junior programmer. That’s why 1 started studying the chat rooms. ”
“I don’t see the connection. ”
“You were the one who said I needed to spend a lot more time studying normal human interactions so I could learn to get along better with humans. ”
“Fm not sure I'd define Internet chat rooms as normal human interactions, ” I said. “But go on. Cut to the part where you got Ray involved. ’’
“I spent a lot of time in chat rooms, observing human behavior and learning how to imitate it, ” he said. “Under various fictional identities, of course. I wanted them to act normally, instead of being b3 intimidated by the knowledge that they were interacting with KingFischer the Chess AlP. ”
Fortunately, while AIPs can learn to appreciate humor, they are not programmed for laughter. And l refrained from suggesting that far from being intimidated, most humans wouldn’t even have heard of him unless they happened to play chess.
“Since the complaints came from you and some of the female chess contestants, I made a particular effort to interact with any users that I could reliably identify as female, ” KingFischer was saying. “I spent a lot of time and resources studying them. I had long, private conversations with the most interesting ones. I think many of them began to regard me as a friend. ”
“Really. ”
“A close friend.”
“Oh, no,” I said. “KF, please don’t tell me you were having cybersex with any of them. ”
“Having what?”
“Never mind, then, ” I said. “I think I see why you dragged poor Pay into this. They wanted to see what you looked like, didn’t they. ”
“Yes,” he said. “They seemed fixated on it. I suppose it’s the inevitable bias that arises from inhabiting a carbon-based physical structure. ”
“As opposed to a silicon one, like ours, ” I said.
“What is this cyber sex concept you mentioned?” KingFischer asked. “Is this something I should be discussing with my human friends?”
“Absolutely not, ” I said. “This is definitely something you should
* avoid discussing with any of your friends, human or otherwise. You gave these human women Pay’s picture, didn’t you?”
“It seemed like the most logical thing to do. I needed a human for whom I could provide a variety of photos. Including new photos on occasion. So, for practical reasons, that limited the selection either to celebrities, whom they might easily have recognized, or humans to whom I had visual access through the UL or Alan Grace camera systems. Ray seemed the most promising available subject. ”
“The most attractive subject, you mean. ”
“Is he?” KingFischer asked. “Perhaps that’s why my contacts responded so positively after seeing the photograph. Actually, I meant Ray was the promising subject because he not only knew about the existence of the AIPs, he also knew that some of us were sentient. I thought that if I found it necessary to tell him that I was using his photos, he might find it interesting to participate in my research project. ”
“Great,” I said. “You used poor Ray’s photo to string these women along. How many of them?”
“Only the one photo,” KingFischer said. “I had others that I was planning to use if necessary —”
“I meant how many women?”
“Seven,” he said. “There are a couple more who are asking for a photo—”
“Let them ask, ” I said. “I don’t suppose it ever occurred to you not to give them any photo? Just to tell them you don’t photograph well, and leave it at that?”
“I never thought of that, ” KingFischer admitted. “They were so insistent. And I would never have done it if I thought it would lead to this. ”
“Well, KF,” I said. “If you ask me, it was an underhanded thing to do, using Ray’s photo without his permission, but you’re b5 right—I don't really see how it could be connected with his murder. ”
KingFischer didn’t say anything. After a few seconds I grew suspicious.
“Okay,” l said. “What else?”
“It might not be anything,” he said. “I really don’t think it could have anything to do with his death. ”
“Fell me. ”
“They’ve been rather upset with me recently. ”
“They?”
“My human contacts. ”
“Your cyber girlfriends? Why would they be upset with you?” I asked. “Why wouldn’t they be happily sitting by their keyboards, gazing up at poor Ray’s face while they chat with you?”
“1 was a bit careless,” KingFischer said. “Composing all those e-mails in a human conversational style was so much work. ”
“I can see this coming,” l said. “You blew it, big time, and let them all find out about each other. ”
“I still don’t know how I managed to be so careless,” he said. “I meant to address that e-mail to each of them, individually; not all of them, as a group. ”
“Humans would call it a Freudian slip, ” I said. “I don’t know whether that applies to an AIP. How’d they take it?”
“They’re not speaking to me, ” KingFischer said.
“That’s too bad. ”
“Actually, it’s a relief, considering some of the things they said before they stopped speaking to me, ” he said. “That’s what bothers me, actually. The things several of them said.”
“What kind of things?”
Another uncharacteristic pause. b [a
“They made threats, ” he said finally. “Most of them were hysterical — improbable, most of them, even if I were human. ”
“Threats of violence?”
“Some of them, yes,” he admitted. “But I knew they couldn’t very well find me, and then they all stopped speaking to me, and I thought it had died down. But when you told me someone killed Kay, I started worrying. Could one of them have done this?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I suppose it’s possible.”
“Or perhaps all of them banded together to carry out their threats,” he said. “They all had each other’s e-mails, after all. What if they formed a committee and —
Had KingFischer thought of this on his own, or had he read Murder on the Orient Express? In either case, it would teach him a lesson.
“We’ll have to investigate this, ” I said. “Carefully. ”
“You think it’s bad, then,” KingFischer said. “How do we go about investigating it?”
“Give me everything you have on the women,” I said. “E-mails back and forth—with headers, of course, so I can do some traces on their location. Photos, if you have them. ”
He didn’t argue; and the data—gigabytes of it—came so fast that I realized he’d expected my request. Wanted it, perhaps.
“So you’ll investigate?” he asked.
He seemed relieved. It’s harder to tell shades of meaning with electronic conversations—you don’t have tone and expression and body language to work with, the way you do with a human on video or audio. I’m getting rather good at using those nonverbal clues to analyze words; or at least I enjoy having them to work with. I find I miss them when I don’t have them—which is all the b7 time, with KingFischer and the other AlPs. But still—I thought he seemed relieved.
“Pm already investigatingI said. “Let me know if you get any more communications from any of them. ”
“Will do, ” KingFischer said. “Anything else?”
Definitely relieved. Almost perky. He’d dumped his problem in my lap, and he was feeling better already.
“I'll let you know, ” I said.
I began studying KingFischer’s guilty secret. If I looked at it, as KingFischer probably did, as a logical exercise, it was quite impressive. He’d set himself a task and done it. Study human conversational style, as exemplified in chat and e-mail. Learn to imitate it. Use it to establish relationships with selected humans.
He’d done a good job of finding a voice that was plausible — actually appealing. If I’d read these e-mails and chat logs without knowing it was KingFischer talking, I think I'd have liked him. And I'd have felt a little sorry for him. He came across as a bit of a nerd, of course. I suspect he’d modeled himself on humans he found sensible, congenial; and they would, of course, be consummate nerds. He was articulate about chess, math, and computer hardware. Naive but enthusiastic about books, movies, and music—I wondered if he’d investigated these subjects himself, or just parroted opinions popular with his models. Particularly the musical opinions. I could believe that KingFischer enjoyed Mozart, Bach—all the classical composers whose music demonstrated such a complex and beautiful mathematical structure. And I'd have predicted that KingFischer would dislike most popular music if he bothered to listen to it. But Wagner? Did he really like Wagner, or was he only aping a taste shared by some of his models?
It was the emotional content that baffled me most. Was he really talking about things he felt, or was he, again, imitating his models? I tried to forget it was KingFischer talking and describe the person in these e-mails as if he were a man, instead of a male AIP. Complex. A little lonely. More than a little repressed. Awkward, especially with women. Insecure, and prone to compensate by bragging. And yet — likable. Sensitive, even. I suspected most of these women had seen him as a diamond in the rough. A meek little mole who had crawled out of his hole and stood, blinking, in the sunlight of their attention.
And then the photo had arrived. KingFischer had chosen well — I wondered if it was deliberate or accidental. He’d picked a shot of Ray sitting at his computer, wearing the wire-rimmed aviator glasses he only used when the pollen count grew astronomical. And I suspected it came from a time we’d stayed up all night, running diagnostics. You could see a pizza box and a heap of Diet Seven-Up cans behind him, and Ray himself, rumpled in an old sweatshirt, unshaven, obviously exhausted, but with a tired smile on his face, because we’d finally tracked down and fixed the problem. Looking at that photo, I thought I could identify the exact night. When I checked the date on the file, I was right.
The picture was perfect. A less attractive man might have dulled their interest; a more polished Ray might not have seemed plausible as the sweetly charming nerd of the e-mails. Lucky KingFischer? Or clever KingFischer?
I'd have to find out later.
I'd also have to save for later figuring out how I felt about KingFischer after reading through all of this. Was it real, this picture of KingFischer as a lonely soul, reaching out through the Internet for a companionship and understanding denied him close at hand? How much did I believe the version of himself he created in these conversations and e-mails, and how much did I think it was fiction? And how much was he just a manipulative bastard, using these poor women as pawns in his research project?
And even more difficult, how much of this was my fault? I had to admit, KingFischer and I hadn’t gotten along well recently. We’d gotten close, perhaps too close, shortly after we lost Zack, the programmer who created us. When you come right down to it, we were both orphaned, and turning to each other for support. KingFischer seemed to react by becoming more like Zack — uncannily like Zack, at first. And l reacted by seeing Zack in King-Fischer. Well, there was a lot of Zack in KingFischer. And a lot of Zack in me, and in every other AIP Zack created. But I was trying to replace Zack with KingFischer, and that didn’t work too well. KingFischer seemed to be drifting back into his normal, annoying self, and I — well, Fm still trying to get used to not having Zack around.
Sol understood how KingFischer might feel, and to tell the truth, I'd done similar things myself. I'd created online alter egos and sent them searching for intelligent life.
Which took time. I was excited, at first, by the sheer amount of chatting going on across the Net. But all too quickly I realized that most of it was profoundly uninteresting. I learned to avoid people with political opinions very far from the mainstream—and l found a lot of those, late at night. Did extremism cause insomnia, I began to wonder? I found myself rather fascinated by people providing online support to each other, and quickly determined that I could readily simulate the kind of half-stern, half-sympathetic talk they seemed to expect. But l also decided it wasn’t very honest to do this, since I wasn’t actually disabled, divorced, anorexic, or eligible for any twelve-step programs. I was usually baffled by the people avidly discussing some narrow but passionately shared interest. Baffled and, alas, bored. However, it intrigued me to know that, at any given moment, I could find a dozen people chatting somewhere about their UFO abduction experiences, Elvis sightings, horses, Harleys, tattoos and piercings, antiques, or opinions on transient fads in popular music, cult TV, and computer games—I could barely understand their enthusiasms, much less share them. And the bandwidth devoted to crude and inane sexual banter continues to puzzle me. From the information available, I would have thought sex the human activity least conducive to successful online simulation. Obviously I don’t really understand it.
