The Automatic Detective Part 8

"How wonderful!" she exclaimed with all the glee of a cheerleader on prom night. She clapped her hands. A section of carpeted floor parted to reveal a stairway in the middle of the room. Napier jumped up and took me by the hand again. "Come along, Mack. I've got something to show you."

She pulled. It didn't even occur to me to resist. I was swept along in the gravity well of this small biological creature. Down the short flight of stairs, a laboratory waited. And what a lab it was. All chrome and stainless steel. An entire automated a.s.sembly line, with the latest in drone workers, occupied one wall. There were laser welders, supercomputers, and enough spare parts in neatly organized racks to build a horde of vacuum drones. Blueprints covered the walls or hung, framed and laminated, from the ceiling. The place must've occupied the entire floor beneath her apartment. There was a noticeable lack of b.u.t.tons though, and a dearth of switches and levers. Like her apartment, the lab seemed impractical. It also appeared unused, judging from its extreme cleanliness, lack of any noticeable projects, and deathly stillness.

The butler auto was already waiting at the foot of the stairs with a fresh Atomic Kiss, which she took.

"Thank you, Humbolt." She looped her tiny arm in mine. A little squeeze and I could snap the bone in two or three places. It was then that she reminded me of April, and that absolute trust that usually children have because they don't know better. But Napier had to know. She could probably rattle off the pressure rating I could exert with one servo twitch. But she didn't seem the least bit put off by it. She led me through the lab, blithely chatting as if we were old friends.

"Come here. Let me show you some things I was working on before I retired. All theoretical, of course. Drawing board stage."

We approached a stainless steel cabinet, and its doors slid apart to reveal rows upon rows of blueprints in clear plastic tubes. She ran her hands around them, selecting very specific ones with girlish giggles, and handing them to me, saying things like "Hold this would you, dear?" and "Oh, this is just the keenest thing right here." Forty-five seconds later, I had sixteen specs under my arms.

A seventeenth tube cradled on her shoulder, Napier zipped over to a counter, popped the tube, and poured out the spec, which she spread for me to see. "This is a high-intensity laser emitter," she explained. "Handheld. Or it would be if I could get hold of a battery small and powerful enough."

She s.n.a.t.c.hed another from me and laid it out. "And this is a new mechanical ball joint which could increase robotic flexibility by six or seven degrees." She huffed. "Except it keeps snapping under excess pressure."

Humming, she sorted through the other tubes under my arm. "I've got a swell improved countergrav generator somewhere in here that I know you'll love."

"You designed these?" I asked. "All of these?"

"Oh, Mack, aren't you just the yummiest." She reached up as if to pinch my cheek, but technically, I don't have cheeks and even if I did, they wouldn't be subject to pinching. She settled for a soft caress. "Of course, I did, silly. They're not all my work. Most of this is modification and improvement on the work of others. Someone has a problem they can't fix, they come to me. It's wonderful. I get to see all the latest breakthroughs before anyone. Sometimes, I even get to invent them myself."

I scanned her face again. Bright-eyed and grinning like a sprightly schoolgirl. My visualizer must've been glitching. "How old are you?"

"Twenty-two," she replied absently. "I'm a child prodigy." She laughed. "Or, I guess I used to be. Now I suppose I'm just a plain old genius. Y'know, Mack, if you're going to be a detective in this town, you might want to know things like that."

"I'm not a detective," I replied, but she didn't hear me.

She chirped. Really, she did. "Oh, I know you'll just love this!" she exclaimed as she threw down another set of specs. "It's a shrink ray. Never got around to building a prototype for testing, but there's absolutely no reason it shouldn't work. Then again, I thought the same thing about the improved freeze ray, and that ended up melting stuff." She scowled, and her nose scrunched. "Not much practical use, but kinda neat."

I covered the blueprints with one giant mitt. "That's great, Miss Napier, very impressive."

"Lucia," she corrected. "It's Lucia. I insist."

"Lucia. Fine." Even the inexhaustible patience of a machine had its limits. "I've taken off my coat. I've let you paw me. And I've looked at your lab and your blueprints. Now it's time to answer my questions."

A strange expression crossed her face. I pegged it as disappointed, possibly a little hurt. Didn't make a whole lot of sense, but what functional bot understood biologicals? Not me. And frankly, I was glad I didn't. Cold machine logic worked fine for me, even if the Glitch sometimes encouraged me to ignore it. This was not one of those times.

Napier's frown deepened into a childish pout, and some rogue electrons danced around the edges of my guilt index. I didn't apologize because I hadn't done anything wrong except get a spoiled little rich girl back on track.

Once she realized no apology was coming, her sulk pa.s.sed as quickly as it arose. She smiled very slightly, sipped her drink, and headed back to the apartment stairs.

"Fine, Mack. Ask your questions." She cast a demure look over her shoulder as she climbed the stairs. "Although I would point out that there are many men who wouldn't mind being pawed by me."

"I'm not a man," I said after I joined her in the apartment.

"No." She flopped down on the couch. "You're a machine. A beautiful, elegant, flawless machine." She bit her lip as she looked me up and down. She had that look in her eye, the same gleam Doc Mujahid got when she was staring at my programming codes streaming across her monitors, a look of awe and appreciation. But where the doc also had a clinical detachment, Napier showed no such disinterest.

I'd heard of deep technophiles, disciples of science so enamored of technology that it compelled them toward odd attractions, strange compulsions. No one as of yet had confessed publicly to the inclination, but it was only a matter of time until the Temple of Knowledge gave the green light. The technos would come bursting out into public life. In the meantime, they were only a rumor. There might not even be any. Or there might be thousands. No way to know yet, but if they were out there, then Lucia Napier was a prime candidate for charter membership. The way she kept staring at me, disa.s.sembling me with her eyes down to the barest blueprints, was downright ravenous.

I wished I had my d.a.m.n coat back. Rather than ask for it, I decided to get this over with as fast as possible and be on my way.

"I'm looking for Tony Ringo."

Her playful grin faded. "Now what did a worthless little boy like Tony Ringo do to draw your attention?"

"So you know him?"

"Yes. But then again, you already know that, don't you? Why else would you be here?"

I have no expressions to read, but something must have given away my thoughts.

"Oh, I'm not going to deny we used to hang out together," she said. "He was fun for a little while, good for a few laughs. Harmless, really."

"I think he's taken some friends of mine," I said, surprised that I volunteered the information. There was something unsettling about Napier, and it thrust some odd compulsions into my own behavioral directives.

"Tony?" She waved her hand. "Please, Tony couldn't hurt a fly. Not that he wouldn't try. He's just . . . incapable. A rather pathetic little boy pretending to be a big man."

"Well, maybe he's through pretending. Or worse, maybe he still is pretending, only now he's worked up the guts to give it a go and screw it up."

She tossed her blond hair across her right shoulder. "Possible, I suppose. But why would Tony take these friends of yours?"

"I don't know. h.e.l.l, I could be wrong. Only way to know is to find Ringo and ask him."

"And if dear Tony doesn't feel like answering?" she asked.

"I'll persuade him."

"Tony can be a very stubborn boy."

"I can be a very persuasive bot," I replied.

She stood and circled me once more before laying both palms on my chest. "Prove it. Persuade me."

I stepped back, and she nearly fell over.

"Lady, I don't know what you're into, but I'm not interested."

I expected that familiar pout to cross her face again, but I guess she'd heard me say no enough times to catch the hint. She smiled, and there was something predatory about that smile, like this wasn't over yet. But it was. The file was closed, the program deleted.

"I a.s.sume you've tried the Hotel Swallow already," she said.

I nodded.

"Honestly, I don't know much of Tony's habits. We weren't that close. It was purely a physical relationship. He's very fond of a place called The Golden Diode. It's a club on the bad end of Pi Street. Can't say if he still haunts the place, but he likes jazz and getting drunk. If he's not there, it's a good bet he'll be in the area."

"Thanks."

I turned to leave, but Humbolt stood in my way. He held out a coat to me. It was mine, but clean and pressed. "Here's your coat, pal. I took the liberty of givin' it a quick splash and dry. I could st.i.tch up the tears if you gave me a few more minutes."

"No, thanks." I took it back and threw it over my shoulder. I'd put it on later, but for now, I wanted out of here. I headed toward the levitator pod and safety.

Napier followed. "Come back any time, Mack. I'll leave your name with the front desk, let them know to let you up anytime you please. Anytime."

I didn't reply. But staying away from Proton Towers was now on the short list of directives, right in front of not poking my optics out with a diamond-tipped auger.

The tube's doors parted, and I stepped inside. I was tempted to keep my back to Napier, but something made me turn. She was still smiling, though it was a softer, less frisky expression. I wondered when the d.a.m.n doors would close. They were two seconds behind schedule.

"Tony likes jazz. Don't know if that'll help, but he does."

"Jazz. Got it."

Mercifully, the doors started sliding shut.

"And, Mack," she said. "Hope you find your friends."

"Me, too."

And then the tube sealed itself, and I was on my way out of Lucia Napier's world for good.

8.

I figured Ringo wouldn't be showing up at The Golden Diode for his drink until evening. If I'd had any other lead to follow up, I would've continued my search. But I didn't, so I relocated my amateur detective work to a secondary directive and started on the other things I needed to do.

This in itself was an odd development. Normally, I was loaded with free time. Except for going to work, visiting my shrink, and maybe a stab at socialization every now and then, my schedule consisted entirely of standing in the corner of my apartment, not consuming much juice, staring at the walls, a bot with nothing but time and nothing to do with it. Now I had a short list of objectives that didn't include driving a cab and staying out of trouble.

I stopped by a robot wash and charged a wash and wax job. The Diode might have a dress code, and a smudged cha.s.sis might prove a hindrance. It didn't take long to get back my gleaming cha.s.sis. There were still traces of damage to my paint job, but beyond that, there wasn't a hint that I'd been subjected to anything more traumatic than an overweight pigeon perching on my shoulder. That was the miracle of my one-of-a-kind alloy, so experimental that there wasn't even a name for it yet. I felt better, more functional. Illogical, since the wash did little to improve my performance except clear some grit from my right elbow joint, and that was a .0003 performance hindrance.

I went back to Jung's apartment and waited for him to get back from work. There was a newspaper waiting at his front door. I found a seat on his sofa and scanned the paper cover to cover while running an internal diagnostic for Grey's worm. Reading was such a low level task, it left 99 percent of my processing power free to dig around in my electronic brain.

It'd been a while since I'd read a paper. The details were different, but the world was all the same. The Biological Rights League was saying bad stuff about robots. The Learned Council was pushing some new technological breakthrough. The Big Brains were discussing the utopian world we-I guess that included me, too-were creating. A couple of labs exploded. Crime was up. Mutant births were up. Pollution was up. Business as usual.

There was a brief article about my apartment exploding on page eight. It measured exactly two inches by one inch, including the stock photo of me. Explosions weren't that big a deal in Empire, but you'd think my former celebrity status would've earned me at least another three-fourths of an inch.

Internally, I'd come up with nothing, something I was getting used to. Grey's psychic empathy with machines must've been pretty high-end stuff. Or maybe by now my maintenance protocols had already expunged his influence, isolated and devoured the foreign program. It was always possible.

There was a distinctly metal against metal knock on the door. A robot. Immediately, I thought of Knuckles. But there was no reason to suspect he'd found me here. Still, my aggression index hoped to h.e.l.l it was as I opened the door.

It was Humbolt, Lucia Napier's butler auto. "Yo, Mack. Gotch'ya gift from Miss Napier here." Without giving me time to refuse, he strode into the apartment with a big box under his arm. He tossed the box on the coffee table and saluted. "There you go, pal. Enjoy it."

He moved toward the door again, but I grabbed him by the shoulder.

"Don't wrinkle the suit, bub," he said.

"What's this about?" I asked.

"Retune your audios, Mack. It's a gift from the lady. Y'know, the one you met earlier today. Cla.s.sy dame. Big penthouse. Real doll in a squishy organic way."

"I didn't ask for anything."

"You don't have to ask for gifts. That's part a what makes 'em gifts."

"What if I don't want it?"

"Then throw it out," he replied. "The boss wanted me to deliver it personally, so that's what I did. What you do with it afterward ain't my problem." He stepped back and smoothed his jacket. "But if I were you, I'd take it. You could use some style, if you ask me."

"How'd you find me?"

"You stuck in a question askin' loop, Mack? The lady has ways of keepin' tabs on guys."

"Guys like me?" I asked. "Guys like Tony Ringo?" Maybe Humbolt was right. Maybe I was stuck in a loop.

"She don't bother with losers like Ringo," he said. "Guess you must've caught her eye."

I went over to the box and opened it. Inside was a dark blue suit, pinstriped. I pulled out the jacket and wasn't surprised it was large enough to fit my shoulders. It looked expensive and obviously custom-made. I wondered how much it cost Napier to have one whipped up so quickly.

"It's a fabric of the boss's own design," said Humbolt. "Fireproof, puncture-proof, and wrinkle-resistant. Breathes like cotton, though you ain't likely to notice that. Durable stuff. You'll pop a st.i.tch before it does. Ink ain't even dry on the patent papers yet, so the lady must like you."

I tossed the jacket onto the table. "What does she want in return?"

He shrugged. "Nothin'. She just likes givin' gifts."

"Gifts to guys like me," I said.

He nodded. "To guys like you."

I couldn't see the point in asking Humbolt any more questions so I let him leave. I laid out the suit on the couch and scanned it slowly up and down. Pinstripes weren't my style, but it was a nice garment, complete with a dark blue trench coat. The only thing missing was a hat.

There was also a card. It read: Dear Mack,

If you're going to play detective, you should at least

look the part.