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Worse when you realize that there were several people in the room watching you do it.
Me and an empty room. Chair and a mirror. Some art. And the door. Right. I remembered the case file, which laid out the normal architecture of the datavault. Back through the door (which we’d used to enter) and I would instead be in a small virtual library. Complete with an electronic “card catalog” for maintaining the depository’s inventory as well as VD’s final casework. A drone-an artificially programmed personality-mocked up as a reference-section librarian was available for help. And bringing a “book” back through the door downloaded a copy to the DataScanVI’s auxiliary port.
Small. Ordered. Convenient.
I opened the door.
I’ll say this… I had been warned. Warned in the case file as delivered by IAB. And still, I was overwhelmed. The subtlety with which the perp had sabotaged us was staggering, really. I didn’t doubt for a moment that all the data was still there-the DSVI’s safeguards did not allow for erasure, ever-but it was all cu
The library had become an underground warehouse that stretched away from the suddenly-very-small door I’d stepped through for several miles. Three stories high, by estimation. Stacked floor to ceiling with shelves crammed full of nondescript wooden crates. Aisle upon row upon section. I shuffled along the smooth concrete floor looking to my left and right at the endless collection. There were lift-trucks for retrieving items off the very top shelves; one of the vehicles up on a stand for maintenance, and another leaking a small, spreading puddle beneath it that smelled of brake fluid. Every step sounded hollowly and then died without an echo. Even sound got lost in this immense room.
I chose an aisle at random and walked along, checking out crates. They were solidly built in the old-fashioned way, with real, heavy wood and nailed shut. Each was stenciled with an arcane system of numbers and letters, though not necessarily shelved by any kind of system I could easily discern. I knocked on a few, kicked hard against a few others. Nothing wrong with the physics program, as my big toe throbbed from the effort. I dug behind one stack, pulling out a small box that left a sliver of my thumb and sent me to sneezing from the gray swirl in dust I stirred up. Smashing it against the floor, I nearly laughed when a few dozen gold detective shields spilled out over the concrete walk.
Millions. Maybe billions of possibilities. So stu
No. I recognized it now. This was right out of the Indiana Jones section of The System’s Studio Tours. Even if they weren’t on wireless or plugged in, millions of people walked through this “warehouse” every year by pulling on a VR helmet. You run from the giant rolling boulder (which was probably crated and stored in here somewhere as well), ride along in the big car chase scene, and then walk through the government warehouse from the end of the movie.
This was that warehouse.
And lost in here somewhere, right behind the Ark of the Covenant, would be our master inventory list and the key to opening all our VD casework.
I think that may have been when the glimmer of hope, the one I’d carried with me through most of the day, finally died.
It’s just another part of the problem, working Virtual Division. When you get right down to it, the work is a lot of number crunching and sifting through data. There aren’t any high-speed chases or ru
It wasn’t impossible to get in trouble on The System. People did it everyday. Quite easily, in fact. What was difficult was getting in so much trouble that it justified a program that probably cost the city millions. Not when a keyboard jockey could do most of what a chromed detective could do.
So, escorted by Detective Curtis back to the uptown station, I did what any good detective does. I drank some coffee and I sifted data. Curtis fed it into me, the data that is, through barely civil conversation. And I tried to ignore his suspicious glances, which filled every quiet moment.
“Simply put,” he said as we paused outside my closet office, “the DA’s trial schedule is falling to hell and she’s going to blame us. There are three high-profile cases on the docket, including the serial killer Brendon LaChance, any one of which might go belly up because we can’t track the damn evidence. Chain of custody issues aside, we can’t find it all!”
“Uh huh.”
There was that avalanche building again. Growing heavy on his brow and starting to tumble down his face. “Something you might want to remember is that IAB is pretty damn fireproof. We don’t burn as easily as other divisions. In fact, we often do the burning.” He glared at me, long and hard. “I can serve up VD as easily as the next guy.”
With straight lines like these, I might seriously think about asking for permanent assignment with Curtis once this case was closed. There was some potential here.
“Have you come up with any new conclusions?” he asked.
“It must be Wednesday,” I said. Took another sip of my coffee. “Yep, there’s a hint of chocolate in there. Which means Claire at Espresso-Daily served me a double shot extra-light mocha. That’s my usual Wednesday poison. Fascinating, don’t you think? I hated coffee for so long. But chocolate, that I could handle. And I needed the caffeine buzz on Wednesdays to help get me through the week. A personal choice becomes so routine that now I take evidence of that routine as fact.”
“I meant about the case,” Curtis said. Tone, dark.
I shrugged. Opened the door to my closet. Inside was my own support chair and a condom-wrapped datajack. “Have you found any co
I knew the answers, of course. And he knew I knew them. Another glower. Another shake.
“So there is no high profile tap. No third-party hack. It’s not financial. And there’s no way this was accidental.”
“So what’s left?” Curtis asked.
Strike a pose: roll the lower lip back against the teeth, one finger tracing along the line of my jaw. The Detective. About to say something profound. So it wasn’t murder. There wouldn’t be any headlines in the morning. But it was still a crime, and we still had a job to do.
“Personal,” I told him.
Then I shut my closet door.
Plugging into my virtual office, I dialed up some atmosphere. Overcast and heavy showers. The street lamps outside penetrated the gray rain just enough to wash me out of the shadows. A great noir moment.
Minus the trench coast and beautiful dame.
I paced in front of those too-large windows, the kind of office I’d never have on the force except inside The System, and thought. Something I was missing…
Well, my coffee, for one. I’d left that on a utility shelf inside my closet. If I wanted to check the mirror on the back wall, I could see it. And myself, sitting easy in my chair, twitching. Not Bogey-style twitching-that purposeful tic that made him such a character. Chasing rabbits.
I thought about programming up some cigarettes. Or dressing the part in a beige trench coat and a felt fedora. Then logged in my drone instead. He entered through the door behind me, keeping far back in the shadows. Probably slouched. Against the wall or standing alone in the middle of the room, Sam Spade had a great slouch.