Artificial Wisdom, page 12
“But no one could have known that, surely?”
Tully traced the pieces of the puzzle in his mind. “I get refused by Cavanagh and go and see Lockwood. He refuses me too and I go and see Martha. If they were tracing my movements, they knew I was here in New Carthage, and that I was meeting the one person who might spill the goods on them.”
Bolivar shook his head. “That’s quite a conspiracy theory.”
“You have a better idea? Why would both of us be targeted?”
“Maybe you were just collateral damage. She’s a rich, successful woman. There could be a ton of reasons why she was targeted.”
All true, but it didn’t shift the possibility that Tully was right. “It’s thirty days until election day. We need to know what Martha knew about the tabkhir story before Lockwood becomes untouchable.” He rubbed his eyes. “How’s the team holding up?”
“Lottie’s, well, her usual self. Moody as hell and looking like she wants to break someone. Randall’s terrified for Livia. Which reminds me, he’s still trying to figure out how your mystery whistleblower managed to be anonymous on Minds.”
“Any progress?”
“It’s slow. He managed to speak to someone he knows at Mindscape. They were as surprised as he was.”
“And the giant?”
“Haymaker? He’s quite a character. You sure know where to find ’em.”
“Can we trust him?”
“I get the feeling he’s been through some shit, but, despite it all, he’s surprisingly cheerful. He’s continually asking about you. I think he’s really touched by what you did for him. He seems to be building you up to be quite the legend in his mind.”
“He’ll be disappointed,” Tully said.
“Don’t worry. I’ve made that clear already.”
“Can we get him out here?”
Bolivar looked floored. “The hell? What for?”
“Security. For Livia and me.”
“Marcus, the visa process to get you out there was ridiculous. I don’t even know if Haymaker has an official identity card.”
“You’ll figure it. Throw money at the problem. Can you get him on a plane tomorrow, Juan? Come with him if you need to. Just get him here.”
Bolivar grunted.
“I need one other thing,” Tully said. “I paid a nurse to take a sample of my blood and I want our people to do a tox report on it. I don’t trust anyone here except Livia. Whatever killed Martha is likely in my blood too, and I want to know what it is.”
“Isn’t the hospital testing for the police?”
“You really think they’re going to tell me their results? Just get Fernando on it. We used him on the Santos piece, and despite the price he was worth every coin. Plus Porto Alegre is a small hop from here.”
“You’re sure this is necessary?”
“Whatever it takes, Juan. I need to know what was in me. And might still be.”
19
“Mr. Tully, you can’t check yourself out. Please.” The nurse looked on, distressed, as he pulled on his socks.
Tully reached for his shoes. “It’s okay,” he said, “I’m really fine.” He was. It had taken him a couple of hours, but he was done waiting around. He pushed past her, out of his hospital room, down two flights of stairs, through the foyer and out onto the street. The street was pedestrianized, of course. The pods had their own route around New Carthage, but he didn’t know how they worked and didn’t want to try to fiddle with an account right now, though he’d need one later. He scanned the skyline. There it was: the tallest building in New Carthage, Scipio Tower. His display fixed on it and navigation arrows lit up.
He followed the directions though the easy boulevards punctuated with shops, cafés and bars. NR had killed the office. Neural spaces were cheaper and easier to meet in than physical ones, but Danberg had told him that the ultra-wealthy of New Carthage had started to prioritize meeting in person again. To be seen here physically was a statement. Some of the start-ups, too, like Jiang’s MyScent and Martha’s company, Chandraco, also had a physical presence.
Danberg had served their drinks last night. Had he served them a little extra something? He’d been close to Martha, or so it had seemed, but how long had he actually been with her? Was it just recently, in New Carthage, or longer, back to Martha’s time in the White House, where he would have gotten to know others in Lockwood’s administration? And if so, could he be bought?
But did he even have time to ask those questions? He had a month, tops, to get to the bottom of this tabkhir story before the subject, Lockwood, became dictator. Martha had been his primary lead. He was shocked and saddened that she was gone, but also frustrated, as guilty as it made him feel to admit that. Perhaps she’d taken what she knew with her, but there’d been something there. She’d been considering helping, which meant she’d had help to give. Whatever she’d known had happened just before she’d really started to work on Solomon in earnest, when she was still working for the White House. He’d only met one person in New Carthage who had likely known her during that period, an early investor who’d known her from the beginning. Pedersen.
He reached Scipio Tower and looked up. The sheer blade of the scraper carved through the sky above. Tully marched past the doorman and headed straight for the skylift. He knew his way. He paused once inside the lift. Martha had instructed it, yet it must have recognized her. These things wouldn’t whisk just anyone up there. But he might as well give it a try. “Thirtieth,” he said, and the lift chimed. Martha must have added her guests to the security system.
His stomach lurched as the lift whipped him up the outside of the building to the thirtieth floor. He ignored the view this time, instead remembering Martha, a few nights prior, marching out of the lift and into her cavern of riches as if it was nothing. He palmed the front door and it, too, opened for him. The hub was quiet but not empty. A figure wrapped in a blanket and hugging a coffee mug sat at the far end, by the window overlooking the harbor.
“Livia.”
She didn’t move, didn’t speak.
He edged towards her, not wanting to freak her out.
“Livia?” he said again, close now.
She still didn’t react. Her coffee mug was full but no steam swirled from the black surface. He took it from her and put it down. Her hands retracted beneath the blanket.
“Livia, I’m so sorry about Martha. She was special.” Special? Was that the best he could do? He’d never been good at finding the words for this kind of thing. “Are you okay?” he said. “Did you get poisoned too?”
She shuddered, but at least it was a reaction.
There was no sign anything had happened here. The cleaning bots were good. Livia had dropped her coffee their first morning here but Martha had waved it off. Sure enough, within minutes the spillage had vanished.
The front door pinged and he crossed the room to open it. A tall, black-suited grey-hair greeted him and raised an eyebrow. “Mr. Tully, I presume?”
“Sorry, who are you?” Tully asked.
“I’m Dr. Chandra’s attorney. I’ve been trying to reach her sister. I heard you were both staying here. Before she passed, that is.”
Tully’s chest tightened. A wave of grief welled up out of nowhere, but he quashed it without mercy and grunted. “Yeah, Livia’s here, but I’m not sure she’s up for visitors.”
“Perhaps just a few minutes. It’s important,” the man said.
“You can try.”
He led the man into the apartment and across to the window seats. The guy was unfazed by the opulence, as if he’d been there before; either that, or he was so wealthy himself that this was normal.
Tully and the attorney stood awkwardly for a moment. There were only two chairs, and Livia was in one of them. The attorney smiled apologetically at Tully, then perched on the edge of the seat of the second. Tully stayed standing to the side, with his arms crossed.
“Livia,” said the man. “I was Martha’s personal attorney and I’m the executor of her will.”
Livia didn’t respond, and the man’s eyes flicked to Tully, who shrugged.
“Livia, it’s important that I know you understand what I’m about to tell you.”
Her head tilted away towards the harbor.
“We can do this properly another time then,” he said. “However, I will say two things, which we can revisit when you are feeling better. The first is that Dr. Chandra left you all her physical assets, including her money, property, investments and holdings in Chandraco, including this apartment. Everything. You’re an extremely wealthy woman now, Miss Chandra, and you’ll need to be careful.”
Livia pulled her blanket tighter around her.
Tully shifted, and the man continued. “She also left you her digital assets. These are contained within a digital vault accessible with your biometrics. A link and some instructions have been sent to your private address.”
“What’s in the digital vault?” asked Tully.
The attorney pursed his lips. “It wouldn’t be for me to say.”
Tully shrugged again. “I’m just worried in case she misses all this.”
The attorney mulled that over. “Passwords and other secure documents. That’s all I know.” The man inclined his head, stood, retreated and allowed Tully to see him out.
“Before you go,” Tully said. “Do you know why this apartment isn’t closed off as a crime scene? I’m surprised they let Livia stay here.”
The attorney shrugged. “Actually I do. I asked Lieutenant Moran, at the precinct, whether I’d be able to get in here today. As I understand it, they did a pretty thorough examination this morning and recorded everything they could, but the cleaning bots had cleaned up a lot of the circumstantial evidence.”
Tully frowned. “Thanks.”
“No problem.” The man shook his hand again, turned and went out the front door, which Tully shut behind him.
Tully pondered the situation as he returned to Livia. He was going to need to find a new researcher. Livia was financially free, probably in a top-ten list somewhere, and could probably buy this island. Why bother working for Tully? That saddened him more than he’d have thought likely only a few days ago. The team would be upset, too. Randall, in particular, would be devastated.
Odd, she didn’t look like one of the wealthiest women in the world. She looked bedraggled and sad. He touched her shoulder and said, “How about I make you a coffee?”
She turned to him, face crumpled, and wailed. “They’re all gone! My whole family’s gone! They’re all dead, all of them! What in humid hell am I going to do?”
She collapsed into him. He put his arms around her as best he could from a standing position, made comforting noises and rubbed her back as she sobbed. “You don’t need to do anything right now,” he said. “You inherited this place. Just stay for a while until you figure things out.”
“Will you stay too?” she said, her voice cracking. “I don’t want to be alone.”
He hesitated. It would be strange, staying here after what had happened. Still, he needed to be somewhere.
“Sure. But just so you know, I have a bodyguard coming to keep us safe. He’ll have to stay too.”
She nodded, a little calmer now. A few seconds later, she pulled back and looked at him straight. Her eyes were red and intense. “You have to find out who did it. Promise me.”
“I need to focus on any remaining leads to the tabkhir story, Livia. The police are already on this.”
She shook her head fiercely and gripped his sleeves. “What if it was your fucking story that got her killed? Promise me!”
What could he do? “I promise,” he said. “I’ll find out.”
FLORA JACOBS LOOKED down at her hands and massaged the tips of her fingers, a gentle movement that October assumed she found comforting. “And then we said goodbye,” she said. “Poor Martha looked exhausted, but I just thought it had been a busy few days. I mean, she even met Solomon to prep for an interview during the evening. There was never a time she stopped working.”
“Thank you, Flora,” October said. She checked her display while Moran embarrassed himself by helping the model from her chair and towards the door of the interview room.
Flora put her hand lightly on Moran’s bicep. “Can I use the back exit? I don’t want any social media pics of me coming out of a precinct.”
Moran grinned. “Of course. Take a right, then along that corridor.”
Flora smiled at him and headed off. Moran low-fived the console and the door slid shut behind her. He looked at October. “What?”
“You know what,” October said, but made sure she said it with a smile.
“Can’t deny, that’s one beautiful lady, even with her pretty little red nose.”
“I’m more interested in what she had to say.”
Moran sat and spun up his notes on his display. “It’s not much, though, is it? I mean, they’ve all pretty much said the same.”
The various reports had indeed tallied. Dr. Chandra, her sister Livia and Marcus Tully had been in the apartment all afternoon. Danberg had arrived around five to help organize things. The food had been catered but he’d prepared it. Tully had been in his room while Livia Chandra had been watching election coverage. Tully had exited his room at seven on the dot, and Pedersen had arrived too. A few minutes later, Jiang and Jacobs had rocked up. Then Martha Chandra had gone to speak to Solomon, Tully had headed to his own room for a bit and the others chilled. Martha had arrived back first, then Tully, and they’d spent the rest of the night in the lounge area eating and drinking. After a toast to Solomon, Danberg had seen the guests out. By the time he’d arrived back, Livia had gone, presumably to bed, and Martha Chandra and Marcus Tully had passed out on the sofa. Danberg had covered them with blankets and left.
Sometime in the morning, Tully claimed to have fallen off the sofa, crawled over to Martha and collapsed on the floor. It was Livia who’d found them at around eight a.m. She’d called for help, then collapsed with the shock.
“So, what’ve we got?” Moran said.
October shrugged. “Nothing.”
“A big fat nothing.”
She thought for a second, then subspoke a command. Connect to Jeffries’ lab and throw it on the wall. The wall behind her lit up, revealing what appeared to be a second, connected room behind. In reality, of course, the lab was in the basement.
A man in a white coat glared up from a stack of machinery. The precinct’s forensic investigator was balding from his crown but still had an untidy fuzz of grey hair around the sides and back. He had a perpetually grumpy, hassled look, to match his perpetually grumpy, hassled demeanor. “What is it, Commander?” he said. “We’re busy here.”
“Jeffries, where are you on the tox for Dr. Chandra?”
“I’m nowhere. When I have something to tell you, you’ll be the first to know.” He cut the call.
Moran sniggered, but October ignored him. Reconnect.
Jeffries looked up again, his mouth twisted in displeasure, and sighed.
“Jeffries, is there anything we can start looking at? We’re stuck here.” She flashed a wry smile.
He looked back at his work. “Some kind of barbiturate. That’s all I can tell you right now. It’s unusual.”
Moran frowned. “Isn’t that some kind of old-timey drug?”
“Yes, yes. The consumer stuff at least is dated. Depresses the nervous system. People used them to calm down, sleep better. They were a fix for anxiety, depression, et cetera.”
Moran looked puzzled. “She was going through a fair amount of stuff. I mean, she writes some code and it runs for election as the leader of the world? I wouldn’t be able to sleep either.”
October shook her head. “I can’t see it. I knew her, a bit. She wasn’t the self-medicating type, and even if she had been, barbiturates wouldn’t have been the obvious choice. She had the money to do it right.”
Jeffries pulled off his gloves and hurled them into a bin. “Precisely. No one in their right mind would use them today. They’re dangerous. Easy to get addicted, easy to screw up and overdose.”
“So, you’re ruling out an accident or suicide?” Moran scratched his head.
“I’m ruling out nothing. I already said, when I have something to tell you, I’ll tell you. There’s something different about this. If I thought it was a normal barbiturate, I’d have said, ‘Hey, I’m done, it’s a barbiturate, it was an accident and I’m going for a cup of joe.’”
Moran held up his hands. “Okay, Doc. I got ya.”
October chewed at a nail. “We’re relying on you, Doc. Let’s figure out what’s so unusual.”
Jeffries rolled his eyes and hung up.
20
Johan Pedersen’s house was one of the few in a city centered around apartments. It was also one of the most spectacular, set in an exclusive strip of developments built directly up against the dome of New Carthage itself.
Tully knocked at the black and gold door, wondering if he’d come all this way for nothing. Maybe he’d have been better off staying and looking after Livia.
Pedersen opened the door. “Ah, Tully?” he said. “You’re okay then? I heard you were in hospital.”
“Yeah, alive. Look, can I come in?”
“Of course.” Pedersen stood back and gestured for him to enter. “Please, come. Join me for a coffee. Ah, a terrible business. I’m completely devastated, of course.”
Tully followed him through to a magnificent dome-shaped living room. Two pristine sofas were angled with a view of the ocean. Outside to the left, a couple of superyachts were docked in a small, protected harbor with a deep contained basin that moved wholesale with the floating island so it didn’t create drag in the water.
“Nice place you’ve got here,” Tully said. So this is what billions could buy. A view from which to watch the world drown.
“Ah, it does the job,” Pedersen said. “The windows are actually part of the dome, which is a rather fun feature.” The house was just above sea level, and the placidity of the mini-harbor juxtaposed violently with the waves from the churning South Atlantic crashing against the dome. Tully assumed the city was still moving, but with no fixed point on the horizon to focus on, it was hard to judge how much and how fast. “I also have property in Copenhagen and Paris,” Pedersen continued, “though we’re spending less time in each nowadays. I fear the Copenhagen house may become a sacrifice to the sea in the next few years.” If the loss of his native residence concerned him, he didn’t show it; the smirk was ever-present. “Now,” he gestured towards a couch. “What can I do for you?”
