Mirage

Twenty-Six

tactical parameters, security enhanced facility, path map in place, sensor log consistent with template, sublevels sealed, primary levels combined AI and organic surveillance, interco

"Damn thing is tougher than I thought," Cupra said. "Look at this scoring. Shouldn't even be here."

"Amalloy," Gambel commented quietly. He looked around. "Lock it till we get to the lab."

They continued down to the third sublevel and brought Bogard into a room filled with familiar-looking equipment. Mostly diagnostics, but a standby niche stood against one wall. They brought the robot to it, turned it to face the room, and eased it back into the depression.

"Doesn't quite fit right anymore," Cupra said.

"Yes, well, if we melted part of you, I imagine your clothes would need altering."

Cupra grunted, moving to a console to the left of the niche. "Ready?"

"Let's try it," Gambel answered. standby mode disabled, co

"I can't decipher this stuff."

"You should learn."

"Why? Are we going to get another one?"

Gambel gave his partner a critical look, then returned his attention to the readouts.

"There's no brain left here," he said finally.

"You're sure?"

"Pretty sure. I think we should get Kedder in here to be sure, but… Bogard is not much anymore. The radiation must have burned out most of his pathways. Sixty, sixty-five percent degradation."

"I love it when you sound like you know what you're talking about."

"If you'd paid attention during the briefings then you'd know what I'm talking about, too. Look." Gambel tapped the console. "See this? It indicates volume of positron transmission through the matrix. It should be higher. That means Bogard's ru

"Ha ha. I'm going to call Kedder."

"Do that. I won't feel safe until this thing is shut down completely."

"You don't know how to do that?" Cupra asked.

"Not now. Most of Bogard's failsafes look just as crippled as the rest of him."

"I'd feel better if we hadn't used a nuke."

"Why? Anything smaller and Bogard might be more functional."

"But we'd have had a body."

"And more questions. Go call Kedder." tactical analysis, zero surveillance, sealed lab, comline on security routing, analyzing encryption, code entered, call established, recorder on, searching searching searching, no external surveillance verified, unsecured facility, escape probabilities increased to eighty-plus percentile, analyzing available equipment "There's a problem," Cupra said. "They took Avery."

Gambel frowned. "Who took him?"

"Golner. Kedder set it up."

"Damn. Idiots. Where are they?"

"The garage."

"Tell them to do nothing with him till one of us gets there."

"Already did. But the word came from the top floor. Avery was at Imbitek this morning."

Gambel blinked at his partner. "Oh." He shrugged. "Let me finish here. Is Kedder coming?"

"I'll bring him back."

"You're going?"

"I don't know what you're doing here. I might as well do something useful."

Gambel nodded. "Check with One before you go."

"Yes, sir, boss." Cupra turned to leave.

"Cupra?"

"Yes?"

"When this is over, I'm requesting a new partner."

Cupra gri

Cupra left the lab and Gambel shook his head. "Idiot." He checked the readouts again, then looked up at Bogard. "The only question I have is, how come it took so long for someone to call you in? You must've been wandering around down there ever since. Where were you?" interrogatory parameters referent primary instructions, negative violation, negative obligation, reply not required, refer program buffer sublevel C-two, continue analysis of supplemental systems Bogard said nothing.

Gambel shrugged. "As far as I'm concerned, you are gone, my friend. I'd rather you had burned up in the blast, but…" He worked the console. "We'll let Kedder take a look at you. He's our positronic man, but I think I know enough to tell. Meantime, we don't want you wandering off, so…"

Clamps extruded from the sides of the niche to secure Bogard.

"Gambel?" a voice called.

The agent went to the comline. "Yes, sir?"

"I want to see you in my office. Now."

"Yes, sir. Be right up." He walked up to Bogard and studied it for a moment. "You know, I could get to like working with robots. I don't really see the big problem." He shrugged. "Oh, well, not my decision. One calls, have to see what's going on. I'll be back."

Gambel gave the monitors one more look, then left the lab. niche locks bypassed, command override initiated, survey internal surveillance, continues zero, sealed lab, initiate second tier program Bogard's body seemed to ooze out of the niche, leaving the locks in place. The co

The transport sat at the end of a long alley within sight of one of the maintenance accesses to the Special Service HQ. The building alongside which she had parked contained an extension of the government law library, and her vehicle ID transponder offered, when requested, a permit for a pick-up from the library. Mia was unsure what exactly she would be picking up, but Ariel had assured her that the permit was routine, and so far no one had challenged Mia's presence. It was sloppy of the Service not to, though. An Auroran embassy vehicle, parked for nearly an hour just down the way from a high security complex, for no apparent reason.

She had spent that hour going through the disk from Lanra. In many respects they had duplicated each other's efforts. He had gone through the same lists, rejected the same names, kept many of the same possibilities. At the top of his list of suspects was Alda Mikels of Imbitek.

But he also considered Gale Chassik, the Solarian ambassador, as a possible. As evidence he cited several meetings between Imbitek people and the Solarians at the embassy. But that meant little to Mia-it had been a Solarian company that had installed the RI at Union Station, and Imbitek had installed a good part of the accessory systems. Cooperation at some level was to be expected.

There had been three meetings between Chassik and Mikels.

"So what?" Mia asked aloud. "Ariel probably knows Mikels, too…"

Another name on the list was Bok Golner. "So you came up with him, too…" Lanra had a slightly more extensive file than she. Golner had been with almost all the larger anti-robot, Earth-firster organizations, some for only a few weeks. She had expected that. But he worked as an environmental service tech for Cyvan. So through a long chain of corporate co

He had also included a section on an investigation of his own client, DyNan Manual Industries. Lanra was thorough; he had no intention of working for anyone who he would otherwise find culpable. The file contained the usual statistics on perso

Mia was not so sure. She had seen the way people compartmentalized their ethics-things they would never do at home, they did effortlessly at work; politics they would never advocate in their personal relations, they applied ruthlessly in public affairs-so a "policy statement" from the head of a fundamentally revolutionary organization did not impress her.

But then Lanra returned to business and Mia saw what must have intrigued him. The consortium Lanra mentioned had approached Looms a year-and-a-half ago. The committee had been headed by Mikels. Till then, Looms owned stock in Imbitek. After the meeting, Looms divested-at a loss. Mikels and others in the consortium had evidently initiated a program to hurt DyNan. Looms had been forced to buy back majority control in his own company very quickly to defend against a takeover. It had cost Looms a good portion of his personal wealth, but as of two months ago DyNan was seventy-two percent owned by Looms.