The Dyson File, page 8
“Then why was Velasco overtaxed? Why not divert more resources to the Dyson Project?”
“Because my options were limited without additional income streams,” Boaz said. “The Fourth Engine Block was our only large-scale project until we won the Dyson bid, so it’s not like I was in a position to hire tons of contractors to supplement our workforce. Not if I wanted to keep the books balanced. We had to make do with the people we had until we secured more work. Which we did, I might add, so Velasco’s workload would have tapered off if he’d . . . ” Boaz trailed off. His demeanor calmed somewhat, and that sad smile came back. “I’m sorry. I think you know the rest.”
“Did Velasco say or do anything that led you to believe he might commit suicide?”
“No, nothing that told me he was stressed out any more than the rest of us.”
“What about the quality of Velasco’s work near the end?”
“I didn’t notice any problems there, though again, the technical side of the business isn’t where I spend most of my time. I don’t recall any complaints, either from the project team or the customer, so let’s go with no news is good news on that front.”
“Fair enough.” Isaac jotted down a few notes. “What will become of the project’s leadership moving forward?”
“We’ll move on as we always do. This isn’t the first vacancy I’ve had to fill on short notice, though the cause is a bit more dramatic than I’m used to.” He let out a somber sigh. “Anyway, Horace Pangu will take over as engineering lead, though in truth that’s a bit of publicity sleight of hand.”
“How do you mean?”
“Unofficially, I’m going to have Leon Traczyk take over Velasco’s responsibilities. Traczyk will head the day-to-day project work while Pangu will continue to act as a figurehead for the project. I hired Pangu as more of a PR stunt than anything else. The Pinball Wizard himself, working for Atlas! Even managed to poach him from SourceCode two months back. I needed to do something to turn around our public image after the Society sabotaged one of our trials, and Pangu had reached out to me, expressing an interest in our company. So I took him up on it.”
“Why is Traczyk taking over?”
“Two reasons. He’s already on the project—he was part of Velasco’s team—and he’s a hell of an engineer. I almost chose him over Velasco when I was putting together the team to handle Dyson.”
“One more question, and then I believe we can move on for now. Do you know or have any reason to suspect why Velasco committed suicide?”
“I’m sorry, Detective, but the answer’s no. We’ve already touched on the stress he was under, but his demeanor didn’t seem unusual to me. Tired, yes. Stressed, absolutely. To the point of suicide? No. Every project has its rough patches, and we’ve all had to push ourselves to clear them, Velasco included. On top of that, we’d just been awarded the project! Velasco would have received some well-earned downtime while I worked to bulk up the project team. Thinking of it that way, his death doesn’t make any sense.”
“Understood. Thank you for the information, Mister Boaz. That’ll be all for now. Would you be so kind as to send for Mister Traczyk next?”
CHAPTER SIX
The first thing Isaac noticed about Leon Traczyk was how he picked at his beard, sometimes plucking pale brown hairs free and flicking them away, only for them to flutter down onto his flashy red business suit. The senior engineer didn’t seem cognizant of the tic as he waited for Isaac to prepare his virtual screens.
Isaac tried not to rely on his “gut” when he could help it. He preferred the steely comfort of facts over the ephemeral strengths of intuition, but sometimes his intuition tickled the inside of his mind and he listened.
Because more often than not, it was right.
He closed all his screens then began opening the same ones all over again, one by one, at a painfully slow pace, then proceeded to fine-tune their positioning to form an orthogonal grid.
“This is my first time being interviewed by SysPol,” Traczyk offered, perhaps to fill the silence as he shifted in his seat uncomfortably.
“Is it now?” Isaac asked without looking up. He shifted one screen a millimeter to the right, then nodded. Everything lined up perfectly now.
“Yeah.” Traczyk flashed a friendly smile. “You’ll go easy on me, won’t you?”
“Is there a particular reason we should go easy on you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because I’m nervous?”
“And why might you be nervous?”
“Uhh . . . ” Traczyk grimaced, then turned to Susan. “Hey there. You with SysPol, too? Which division are you from?”
Susan must have detected Traczyk’s unease on her own, because she stared back at him with cold, unblinking stiffness. If her eyes had been drills, they would have bored into his skull.
“Sorry I asked. Sheesh!” Traczyk looked away and adjusted his collar. “Did you turn the heat up in here or something?”
“Mister Traczyk,” Isaac began, “I’d like to start by discussing your relationship with the deceased. Could you describe it for us?”
“We were working on the Dyson Project together, but I’m sure you already know that. He was the engineering lead, and I was his second. We formed a pretty good team.”
“How was he to work for?”
“Fine, though it was more about working with him than for him. We were a team. In the trenches of the project together, figuring our way through one headache at a time. The primary technical specs were very much a collaboration between the two of us.”
“Did you see any indications Velasco was overworked?”
“Of course, I did, but that’s nothing new. We all pushed ourselves hard, especially near the end, and Velasco pulled his weight with the rest of us.” Traczyk let out a long sigh. “He’ll be missed.”
“Did you speak with Velasco shortly before he committed suicide?”
“Yes.”
“Did he give you any indication he was about to commit suicide?”
“No. Nothing like that.”
“Did he say anything that might explain why he killed himself?”
“Can’t think of anything, sorry.”
“What did you talk about?”
“The project.” Traczyk shrugged. “And whose efforts Boaz would acknowledge during the party.”
“Would you say you knew Velasco well?”
“Oh yeah. Definitely. You don’t spend as much time as we did on the same project and not get to know the other guy.”
“Did you consider yourself friends with him?”
“Friends?” Traczyk sat back. “Yeah, I guess you could say that.”
“How close were the two of you?”
“Umm, I don’t know. Hard to say. Not super close or anything.”
“Did you sometimes hang out after work?”
“Sometimes. When we could. We were both so busy.”
“Did the two of you play any games together?”
“I don’t know. Sometimes? Who doesn’t unwind with a little VR?”
“Which games did you play?”
“I don’t remember off the top of my head.”
“You don’t remember?” Isaac asked doubtfully.
“Oh, wait!” Traczyk snapped his fingers. “Yeah, of course. It wasn’t often, but we played Solar Descent a few times together.”
“What type of character do you play in that game?”
“I have a few accounts, but my favorite is an abyssal shadow. I’ve always enjoyed stealth mechanics in games, so shadows are right up my alley. He’s a Nadirian named Swift Blade-in-the-Dark. Most people I play with call him ‘Swifty.’”
“Is that the character you used while playing with Velasco?”
“Umm. Yeah, probably.”
“Are you sure or not?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. I was using Swifty.”
“Which class did Velasco play?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Which class did Velasco use while you and he played Solar Descent together?”
“Uhh . . . why do you want to know?”
“Please answer the question.”
“Well, I’m not sure . . . ”
“Why not? You had no trouble describing your character. You’re clearly familiar with the game and enjoy it to some degree. Plus, you said the two of you had played together.”
“A few times. I don’t remember his class.”
“Then what archetype did he use? Melee or ranged? Solar or Abyssal? Attacker, defender, or support?”
“A ranged combatant of some sort.”
“What kind?”
“I’m not sure. There are a lot of classes in Solar Descent. You can’t expect me to remember all of them.”
“A fair enough point,” Isaac conceded. “Did his character wear any armor?”
“Uhh . . . ”
“Surely you have some recollection of what his character looked like.”
“Of course.”
“Did his character have armor?”
“Nothing that stood out to me.”
“Then his character’s face wasn’t concealed by armor?”
“Not that I recall.”
“What race was he playing?”
“Uhh . . . ”
“Let me guess.” Isaac let out a resigned sigh. “You don’t remember that either?”
“We didn’t play that often!”
“Or perhaps there’s another possibility. Perhaps you and Velasco weren’t friends. Perhaps you never gamed together, and you’ve been lying to us this whole time.”
“About a game!” Traczyk blurted.
“And how much else, I wonder?”
“Well, I thought . . . ” His eyes flicked over to Susan.
“Don’t look at me,” she said in a cool, stern tone. “Between the detective and me, he’s the nice one. If you’re forced to deal with me, then you’re already in deep trouble. Do you know what I did to criminals in my last job?”
“What?” Traczyk asked, his voice cracking.
“Shoot them dead.”
He shrank back from Susan’s intense stare, a horrified expression on his face.
“She’s being honest, too.” Isaac knitted his fingers on the table. “Now then, why don’t you start telling us the truth? Before I decide to charge you with lying to a police officer.” He glanced over at Susan. “Or perhaps I’ll let my partner interview you alone.”
“Okay.” Traczyk held up his hands. “Okay! I’m sorry! No need to get all dramatic on me. Look, I just . . . this is really awkward for me.”
“What’s awkward?”
“Talking about Velasco.”
“Why?”
“Because I hated his guts, all right?” Traczyk’s face twisted up with a combination of shame and snarling anger. “He’s dead, and I’m just so angry!”
“Why?”
“Because now that lazy bum has saddled me with even more of the workload!”
“Then the part about you and him working well together?”
“A lie, yes. I don’t know what happened, but Velasco’s work has been absolute garbage for months, leaving me to pick up the slack.”
“Any idea why?”
“Not a clue, and that’s the truth. If I’d known what was wrong, I would have tried to fix it. If for no other reason than to make my life less of a living hell!”
“Did you mention any of this to your superiors?”
“No.” He snorted. “What? You think Boaz cares? He’d just tell me to stop being such a whiner. ‘Being crybabies isn’t in our wheelhouse,’ he’d say. ‘Suck it up and get the job done.’ I’ve been down that road before. I know where it leads.”
“Why lie to us about this?” Susan asked.
“Because, like I said, I felt awkward. I know I was angry at Velasco, but I didn’t want to speak ill of the dead. Is that really a crime?”
“It is if you lie to us,” Isaac pointed out. “Do you know why Velasco committed suicide?”
“No.”
“What was your working relationship with Velasco really like?”
“We butted heads, but most of the time we kept it professional. It wasn’t until the last few months that things grew worse. That’s all I know, okay?” He sighed. “Anything else you need from me?”
Isaac gave Susan a quick look. She replied with a shake of her head.
“That’ll be all,” Isaac said, “for now.”
* * *
The first thing Isaac noticed about Horace Pangu was how normal the man looked. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected after learning he’d be interviewing the Pinball Wizard, but a baseline humanoid synthoid hadn’t been one of his guesses. Pangu had renounced his SysGov citizenship centuries ago, choosing instead to live in the Oort Cloud Citizenry where restrictions on self-modifications—be they physical or mental—were almost unheard of.
And yet there he is, Isaac thought, in a synthoid that matches the appearance of his original body. I wonder why.
Horace Pangu settled into a comfortable slant on the chair, one elbow on an armrest and a leg up across his knee. He wore the slightest hint of a smile on his thin lips. It was a polite and pleasant expression, though not a happy one, and his dark eyes acknowledged the grave event that had drawn SysPol here.
“Good day to you, Detective.” Pangu nodded to Isaac, then to Susan. “And to you . . . Agent, I believe?”
“That’s correct,” Susan answered. “Agent Cantrell.”
“From the Admin’s Department of Temporal Investigation,” he mused with a subtle shake of his head. “How quickly the landscape can change. Makes me curious to see what the next six centuries might hold for us.”
“Thank you for agreeing to speak with us, Mister Pangu,” Isaac said.
“It’s quite all right. I was one of the last people to speak with Esteban, so it’s only natural. And please, feel free to call me Wiz. Most everyone here does.”
“I’m surprised to see you looking . . . ”
“Like a humanoid meat sack?” His eyes twinkled with genuine mirth.
“I would have worded it differently, but yes.”
“You’re not the only one.” He gestured down his body with one hand. “Most people are surprised to see me like this. I commissioned this body after Atlas hired me. I don’t know if you noticed yet, but Atlas—in terms of their company culture—likes to keep things natural. They employ few ACs, and most of the synthoids who work here can pass for baseline humans. Cosmetically, at least. Using my original body as a template seemed like a good fit for the job. The path of least resistance, as it were.”
“That said, you’ve never been shy about your views on the future of the human body.”
“Or rather, its lack of a future,” Pangu corrected. “The human form, while tremendously successful on Earth, is a horrible way to expand out into the stars, but people still cling to it for irrational reasons. The only place it can survive without artificial aid or terraforming is the thin film around one rocky planet. Space is vast and inhospitable. It doesn’t care how well evolved we are for one gravity or one pressure or how much we crave oxygen.
“Human flesh is a prison. Modern technology may have breached its walls, but the inmates are so accustomed to their cells that most remain inside, out of fear of change or nostalgia or any number of poor reasons.”
“‘Flesh shackles the mind,’” Isaac quoted.
“It would be more accurate to say the human body is a liability we should all leave behind, though I still hold my original quote is catchier. I take it you’ve read A Tale of Stars and Meat?”
“A while ago. It was required reading in high school.”
“What did you think of the points I raised?”
“Hard to say. I remember struggling to meet the minimum word count on my report. Beyond that . . . ” Isaac flashed a bashful smile. “Philosophy’s not really my thing.”
“You might want to give it another look,” Pangu suggested. “If I’m not mistaken, you’re alive right now because of the advantages I preach.”
“How so?”
“I merely refer to your encounter down on Titan. I don’t pretend to know more than what’s been made public, but can all three of us agree you’d both be dead if Agent Cantrell didn’t have a synthetic body?”
Isaac glanced over at Susan, who nodded with a frown.
“He’s got a point,” she said.
“Both of you are alive in part because she chose to abandon her flawed original body.” He leaned toward Susan. “You did transition willingly, yes?”
“I did.”
“Good.” He grinned at her. “I didn’t want to assume. I don’t know much about the Admin, and some of the rumors are a bit on the ugly side, I’m afraid.”
“It’s all right. I’m used to it by now.”
“Why switch to a company whose culture is at odds with your own beliefs?” Isaac asked.
“I know it must seem like that, but the truth is I wrote A Tale of Stars and Meat four centuries ago, and it was even more controversial back then. The backlash is one of the reasons I became a citizen of the OCC. But time is a funny thing. People over here have become more open to my ideas, and I guess you could say I’ve mellowed a bit with old age.”
“But why Atlas?”
“Because I wanted to be a part of the Dyson Project, and I believed at the time—and still do—that Atlas put forth the better design. That’s the main reason I reached out to Julian about switching companies. It’s quite an honor to be a part of this project.”
“Why did you conclude Atlas has the superior design?”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t answer that. Not without a court order, I’m afraid. SourceCode has me under a nondisclosure agreement, so I’m not at liberty to discuss my time working with them.”
“Of course. I understand,” Isaac replied. “Moving on, did you work closely with Velasco during the last two months?”
“Yes, though a lot of my time here has been spent bringing myself up to speed on the details of Atlas’ approach.”
“What was your opinion of him?”
“He was a very skilled engineer, and a good man to work with, but he was also under tremendous pressure, and it showed at times.”
“How so?”
