Tears in Rain Part 25

Paul raised the bowl and started to drink from it. He made a slurping noise as he sipped and, from time to time, he would stop to chew the miso. He took a very long time to finish it.

"They put them in jail. They'd kidnapped a guy. They were criminals. Or rather they are, because I think they're still alive."

"Your parents are criminals?"

"Does that surprise you? The world is full of them. You ought to know. It's part of your work," commented the inspector sarcastically.

He carefully wiped his lips with his napkin and, for the first time since he had sat down on the sofa, he lifted his head and looked into her eyes.

"I was eight when I was left on my own. Maitena raised me. She died when I was fifteen. You could say it was a happy childhood-thanks to her. I already told you that I have nothing against reps."

He stood up and threw the disposable bowl into the recycle bin. Bruna followed him with her eyes, not daring to say a word. Paul returned and sat down again. His thigh was brushing against the rep's hip.

"Do you know who owned the loft you went to this morning?"

The question disconcerted her. She was too submerged in the smell of him, in the heat of his closeness, in the dizzying intimacy of the moment, and it was an effort to emerge from it.

"The murdered memorist, I presume."

Lizard shook his head. He had a curious expression on his face, somewhere between mocking and belligerent.

"No. It belongs to Nopal. It's one of your friend Nopal's properties."

Bruna gave a start.

"Are you sure?"

"He didn't say anything to you, did he? I've already warned you: he's not to be trusted."

It was ridiculous, but Bruna wasn't at all pleased by the news. The a.s.sailants' use of the hidden door and the second staircase-didn't that suggest a sound knowledge of the place? She sensed a profound weariness sweeping over her and with it, a return of all her aches.

"I'm exhausted," she groaned.

"I'm not surprised. Here, have your injection. I think it's due."

Lizard handed her the injector tube, and the rep shot the paramorphine into her arm. Slowly, fresh waves of well-being began to wash over her body.

"Better?" asked Lizard, leaning toward her and placing a hand on her back.

Again, it was a totally natural gesture, a half-embrace, intoxicatingly affectionate.

"Muuuch better," mumbled Bruna.

She wanted Lizard with her entire body, with her mind and her heart, with her hands, with her all-consuming s.e.x, and with her mouth, capable of murmuring sweet nothings. She would have thrown herself on top of him were it not for the sudden drowsiness irresistibly closing her eyes. But hold on a minute. Hold on. Maybe it was too sudden. She made an effort to arouse herself.

"Why am I so sleepy?" she asked in a fuzzy voice.

"I gave you a sleeping pill together with the paramorphine. It will do you good to rest."

In the warm apartment, under the thermal blanket, wrapped in the inspector's embrace, Bruna felt cold. I don't want to fall asleep, she thought. Lizard the Reptile had turned up by her side after the beating. What a coincidence, as Nopal would say. And now Lizard had brought her to his apartment. And he'd put a photo of a rep on the screen so that she'd see it, and he'd told her an absurd story about a melodramatic childhood. She inhaled deeply, trying to stay awake, but the drowsiness was like the lid of a coffin closing, shutting her in. The small death of sleep. Or eternal, everlasting death. She felt a stab of fear. Lizard the attractive Caiman had drugged her. She was engulfed by the darkness of sleep before she could determine whether Paul was her lover or her a.s.sa.s.sin.

Central Archive, the United States of the Earth.

Modifiable version ACCESS STRICTLY LIMITED.

AUTHORIZED EDITORS ONLY.

Madrid, January 29, 2109, 15:27

Good afternoon, Yiannis

IF YOU ARE NOT YIANNIS LIBEROPOULOS,.

CENTRAL ARCHIVIST FT711, QUIT.

THESE PAGES IMMEDIATELY.

ACCESS STRICTLY LIMITED.

AUTHORIZED EDITORS ONLY.

UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS IS A CRIMINAL OFFENSE.

PUNISHABLE BY IMPRISONMENT UP TO.

A MAXIMUM OF TWENTY YEARS.

Robot Wars Keywords: Human Peace, Tenth Geneva Convention, coltan mines, the Congo Crisis, Replicant Conspiracy, Lumbre Ras.

#6B-138.

Entry being edited The Robot Wars, which began in 2079 and ended with the signing of Human Peace in 2090, are, together with the Plagues, the most serious armed conflicts suffered by Earth. The scale of violence that swept the planet in the second half of that century led to the signing of the Tenth Geneva Convention in 2079, which was ratified by almost all of the independent states (153 of the 159 then in existence). They agreed to the subst.i.tution of traditional armed conflict with robot battles. Armies would be replaced by mobile, fully automated fighting forces that would engage each other in combat, like a gigantic, reallife version of a computer game. The architects of the treaty thought that in this way the carnage would end, or at least be reduced, and that wars could be converted into a type of strategic pastime, in the same way that ancient medieval tournaments were a milder version of genuine battles.

However, the consequences of this measure could not have been worse. In the first place, within hours of the agreement having been signed, war broke out throughout almost the entire world, as if some nations had been waiting on hold, robots at the ready, to commence battle. (Some political commentators, such as the renowned Carmen Carlavilla in her book Slippery Words, argue that the Tenth Geneva Convention was merely a commercial maneuver by the manufacturers of war robots.) As the wealthiest countries possessed a vastly greater number of robots than the poor countries, they had no intention of respecting the treaty despite having signed it, and they attacked the automatons with conventional troops, who destroyed large numbers of them because, based on the Geneva specifications, the robots were hamstrung by a chip that prevented them from harming humans. This chip, needless to say, was illegally and surrept.i.tiously removed within a few weeks, the result being that the vast fields of smoldering sc.r.a.p iron were instantly covered again in blood.

The counterattack by the automatons proved so devastating and out of control that more deaths were doc.u.mented in six months than there had been in all the world wars that had gone before. The Congo Crisis belongs to this era. As is well known, 80 percent of the reserves of coltan, a mineral essential for the manufacture of all sorts of electronics, is to be found in the former Democratic Republic of Congo. The exploitation of the coltan mines had been the source of numerous conventional armed conflicts for a century, but the Robot Wars exceeded previously known levels of violence by far: the entire population of Congo was exterminated, with the sole exception of the president, Nge Bge, and the two hundred members of his family, who were all out of the country when the ma.s.sacre occurred and who continue to be the coproprietors of the coltan mines to this day. together with a shelf company that is in reality secretly controlled by technohumans.

****(Note the totally unjustified and erroneous alterations to the text! I insist on the urgent need for an internal investigation. Central archivist FT711)****

The so-called Congo Crisis was not the only extermination of an entire nation to occur during the Robot Wars, but it was probably the most important and the best known. The major world powers rapidly toughened their positions regarding this crisis and, in the end, the Geneva terms appeared to be adhered to down to the last detail: in the isolation of the devastated Congolese territory, among rusting metal and yellowing bones, robots spent more than a year destroying one another. Finally, the day came when the countries involved tacitly buried the Tenth Geneva Convention and went back to sending human troops to the front. As of that moment, until the Robot Wars ended, they were fought with both human soldiers and automatons, a fatal combination that resulted in a horrific mortality rate. A carnage which, interestingly, the replicants escaped since, adhering to their customary practice of civil disobedience (all the rights, none of the obligations), they refused to partic.i.p.ate in battle. Eminent authors, such as Professor Lumbre Ras, n.o.bel Laureate in Physics, have talked of an android conspiracy to decimate humans. They maintain-with abundant doc.u.mentary evidence-that behind the extermination of the Congolese and the return to traditional warfare can be seen the backroom dealings of these artificial creatures, who, intimately linked through a secret lodge, const.i.tute a genuine power on the sidelines whose sole aim is to subjugate humans.

****Crisis memorandum****

For the attention of the overall supervisor of Zone PPK

In light of the serious irregularities I have observed in the archives in the past few days, and given that my previous-and frequent-reports have produced no response from my immediate superiors, I have decided to resort to emergency protocol CC/1 of the General Law Governing Archives and submit a crisis memorandum to the person responsible for the zone.

I have been making note of a growing number of erroneous alterations to the texts of several archives (see attached doc.u.ments). The alterations lack an EID (electronic identification; in other words, is it unclear who is responsible-a fact that is, in itself, already highly irregular). They are totally false, and all const.i.tute blatant defamation of technohumans.

The aforementioned alterations are increasing rapidly both in number and in the brutality of the tone and the lies. The present doc.u.ment is a good example of what I am referring to. In reality, and in contrast to what is being maintained by the anonymous author, it was primarily combat technohumans that were killed in the Robot Wars-as in all the wars, unfortunately. This is why they were created. No techno refused to fight, as far as we know, and it goes without saying that the coltan mines do not belong to any android but rather to the Nge family and to a very human arms consortium that produces war robots. Moreover, the supposedly eminent Professor Lumbre Ras does not exist; no amount of checking in Wikipedia and the annals of the n.o.bel Prizes produces any result. This shows how crudely the articles have been falsified.

Given all of the above, it seems reasonable to a.s.sume that the alterations follow a plan and have a concrete aim. It is not up to me to a.n.a.lyze what this purpose is, and to what extent it could be a question of a conspiracy, given the critical period of interspecies violence we are currently experiencing in the region (and not just in the region: it would appear that similar disturbances are happening in Kiev, New Naples, and Cape Town), but the alterations should undoubtedly be investigated with the utmost urgency by the appropriate person. I am so convinced of the extreme seriousness of the situation that, in light of my fear of a possible delay in response, I am going to do something that I have never done in my forty years as an archivist: I am going to keep the article in my inbox instead of returning it to the editing section and, in addition, I will send a copy of said article-and of this memorandum-to my personal computer.

I await your rapid response, and remain yours sincerely, Yiannis Liberopoulos, central archivist FT711

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX.

Adelicious aroma of coffee and toast awoke Bruna. She opened her eyes and had to close them again immediately, blinded by the brilliant whiteness of the snow. But that briefest of glances was enough for her to put her world back in place. She was in Lizard's apartment. She'd spent the night there. The inspector had sedated her. But he didn't appear to have killed her. Bruna smiled at the nonsense that had just crossed her mind and cautiously opened her eyelids again.

"You've been sleeping for twelve hours. I was beginning to get worried."

Lizard was rushing back and forth, displaying an exhausting energy.

"I have to go down to the police precinct. Stay as long as you like. I've authorized the computer to recognize you. You can go in and out of the apartment and ask the screen for whatever you need."

"I a.s.sume I can only ask for certain things, though," she mumbled with her furry tongue.

"Obviously...To have a shower, eat something. I've given you basic domestic access. You wouldn't want me to open up my entire life from one day to the next."

Paul was speaking in a lighthearted tone, but Bruna blushed.

"I don't want anything," she grunted.

On the other side of the windows, the world was enveloped in a quiet, squeaky, white blanket.

"You drugged me last night."

"What?"

"You gave me a sleeping pill without my knowledge."

"It strikes me that it did you good."

"Don't do it again."