“You can’t sleep?” he said conversationally, but he looked suggestively down her body like a character in a movie, and this was a movie, she thought crazily and wearily, and didn’t care what she did any more.
“No, I had a dream. I didn’t expect to find you here.”
“On the graveyard shift this week.”
“No, I mean in the house. That could be called trespass, you know.”
He liked this show of spirit. He sat one buttock on the table, poised, posed like a TV cop, looming over her, sipping his coffee from Russ’s elephant mug. “If I hadn’t been invited. We have keys, of course. Security, you know.”
“What do you know about security?”
She meant it to be metaphysical but he replied testily, “I’m head of the shift.”
“And what do you survey, in the house in the dark while we’re all sleeping—and not sleeping?”
“I only came in to pour some coffee.”
“And how do you know that the coffee will be hot at three in the morning?”
“Jakob made it half an hour ago. I guess he was working, he was wearing those dance clothes.” He gestured at the black square of the big kitchen window, through which they could see the lighted window of the surveillance shed at the end of the property. “Russ just came down and got some. He lent me this cup. It’s a regular beehive of activity here in the middle of the night.”
“How do you mean?”
“Seems like everybody’s awake, except Delany.”
“Too bad we took the cameras out, you’d know everything about everyone.”
“We know enough.”
“I bet.”
He actually looked shocked. “We don’t misuse it!”
“You mean, by coming into the house and poaching our coffee?”
“And you’re the hardest to understand, you know, Connie.” Only one of the cops who had worked in the Atrium, with the Boy Wonder and the guy in the blue suit, still would think of calling her Connie.
“I go by Morgan, you know.”
“You really are quite a good-looking woman, you know.”
“Yes2 You think so?”
She had done this quite a lot at one time, and she felt again the mixture of adrenaline and residual erotic charge from her dream coalesce into a black recklessness. She stood up, and he moved toward her. She had forgotten how heavy hands could be, touching her. She had kept herself apart for a long time now. Not that this was much of a change.
As a kisser, his technique was pretty good. What a pity it was going to be wasted: Morgan realized that she didn’t have the energy for this.
“Thinking you could straighten me out?” she asked wryly as he leaned back.
“Well, I guess …”
His nervous energy irritated her. She said, “I make it with men too, when I make it. You have the concept skewed. I’m catholic in my tastes.”
“I don’t care.” His mouth was a little tight.
“You’re on duty,” she said, “and I shouldn’t lead you on.”
“Lead
me
on?” She could see he was affronted by the thought that she had been the aggressor. She laughed a little, and he released her abruptly.
“Sorry,” she said, “but it’s not very bright, you know.”
He stepped away slightly, turned away slightly to adjust his cock inside his pants. As he did, John flitted into the door of the kitchen, Aziz behind him, and seeing Morgan pulling her robe back into order and Sal groping his crotch, they faded with surprisingly similar expressions of disapproval, which grated on Morgan more than Sal did—but it wasn’t worth going after them: it would just make the whole silliness more tangible.
“Sony,” Sal said sulkily. “I shouldn’t’ve done that.”
Blue walked into the doorway, a towel across shoulders, and said, “Hello, Morgan, I was looking for you. This is Sal, the policeman. I saw John with his camera. He and Aziz were taking pictures of the dance upstairs. John thinks you have been intimate ? He said not to come in here, that I’d interrupt.”
Morgan laughed through Sal’s black look. “No, sweetie, we haven’t been fucking, if that’s what you meant by
intimate.
You certainly have learned all the right euphemisms.”
“I have been reading a great deal.” Blue grinned and Morgan laughed, but Sal, like Queen Victoria, was not amused.
Morgan supposed it wasn’t fair to tease him: like shooting fish in a barrel. “Yeah, well, I think that he got the wrong idea somewhere. I can’t imagine where.”
“But who would not think … especially one whose specialty is documentary …” Blue made a telling gesture encompassing robe, Sal, the windows (night implied). Blue was like a movie portrayal of a gay procurer, a kind of swish levity, a humor beyond Sal, who took his cigarette, drank the last of his coffee in a gulp.
“Documentary!” he said, “it’s more like a fucking soap opera,” and, turning out the kitchen light as he went, slammed the door behind him.
“We embarrassed the poor man,” Morgan said, smiling into the dark. She knew Blue could see in the dark.
“I am beginning to decide that is not always bad,” Blue said.
“No,” agreed Morgan. “Though I do not set you a very good example, in terms of formal good manners.”
As her eyes adjusted to the halflight, she turned to leave the kitchen, and Blue touched her arm, the hand warm and light against skin still sensitive and ready for fever. Something that was not as simple as arousal, and felt far more dangerous than casual sex with strange policemen, knifed through her, more psychic than physical, but as demanding.
“You are going to have me in knots,” she said with some dif ficulty.
“Don’t you know anything about this yet?” said Blue. “I have been wondering …” The shadows hid Blue’s expressions.
“I don’t know exactly what ‘this’ is,” said Morgan precisely. “It is interesting, but I don’t think I have the analytical skills to find out.”
“Oh, but you taught me …” said Blue.
Morgan shook her head slowly. “I have just listened.”
“I wish you would dream with me,” Blue said softly, eyes still downcast. “How can I tell anything this way? I have learned from you about dreaming; it is what I need. And beyond that, it was you who taught me that all that can be known in a language are the ideas which made the language in the first place.”
This piece of her own scholarship provided the cold-waterbath of common sense. Morgan let go the shoulder she had gripped with a tense hand.
“None of the others know me as you will,” said Blue.
“Will I? I hope not,” she replied, and left Blue standing, went to bed, and slept immediately and without another dream.
She woke up to heavy knocking, angry voices. Sal had been found beaten to death in the back alley, and they had come to question the household.
Company for dinner
Jakob was up dancing, he says, and the Grey man says he was with Blue part of the time—John says he was in the studio editing tape after shooting with Aziz. He says Aziz went back to Jakob, Jakob says not until later, Aziz says he dozed on the couch. Delany had insomnia, but stayed in her room—Blue was watching the full moon—I was with Sal until he went out, and then asleep—Russ had his coffee and went to sleep. he says. no proof but our word for any of us. because the vid is altered, messed up by the storm.
Can’t believe it was one of us, but they say there was a drug in the coffee—put there after Jakob made it? Or while he made it? I told them Sal’s remark about seeing everyone but Delany—Russ says he came down for coffee and then slept soundly—not logical caffeine effect? So they did blood tests and he was indeed drugged too—but did he do it to cover up?
And is Delany strong enough to beat even a sleeping man? Could she reach him if he was lying on the ground? For he fell where he then died, and wasn’t moved at all—or could Jakob kill so premeditatedly from one of those dopey trances? Could John keep his mind on the job long enough? Could alien Blue find an alien reason to kill?
And of course the others think of me—they have only my word, and the dubiously-valued corroboration of Blue, to contradict what John thinks he saw, to establish that I didn’t indulge in sex, or wasn’t raped and took revenge for it—they all attest to my self-control and good brain for planning (how flattering)
So like characters in a movie or a mystery book, we go about regarding each other with suspicion and looking for clues
I am not interested in clue—I want to know who values life so little—having fought for mine through the fog, I find in the back of my thoughts a little fondness for it, and I would hate to lose it now
Because isn’t that the crux of the biscuit—since it was one of us, does that mean it hasn’t stopped with Sal? And if so, who next?
I wonder what Blue thinks of it all—I cannot seem to suspect anyone, even while I have learned well that I do not know how to know anyone. And then there are the visitors to our house. If Sal could walk in, who else, what secret midnight meetings? Despite all this brilliant “security” of which they are all so proud—an interesting speculation, but not fruitful
“That doesn’t work,” said Morgan. “He was in the house. Drinking coffee from one of our mugs. We talked.” He had her in his office at the Atrium, taking yet another statement.
“What do you mean?” said the grey man. “Nothing like that shows on the surveillance.”
“Test me if you like,” she said. “I came down and he was pouring coffee. He leaned on the table and drank coffee out of Russ’s elephant cup, he flirted in a heavy-handed way, I was kinda pissed off with it so I pushed him a little, he kissed me, I kissed him off, he left. John and Aziz saw us, and so did Blue.”
“The surveillance we can rescue shows …”
His hesitation was telling. “What?” she said.
“Nothing.” Then, seeing her tighten her lips, he went on, “I mean, it shows nothing. No activity. Dark kitchen. Dark hallway. From midnight on. But if you, Blue, John …”
“Russ, apparently. So Sal said. Came down for coffee, then slept. Jakob, up dancing. John and Aziz filming him—Blue says. I thought you had no cameras in …”
“You have windows. Looking into them isn’t illegal—yet.”
“You told me you—”
“There are no cameras in the house. Just as I promised. The outside cameras show just what a person standing there would see. No more.”
“Standing really close to the window, I bet.”
“Yes, indeed. You want me to feel guilty about that? Sal is dead, and we don’t know why. I’m tired of this,” said Mr. Grey, and Morgan looked at him sharply.
“Look, do you really think it’s one of us?” Morgan asked, then grimaced. “I sound like someone in a bad mystery. It could have been anybody. It happened outside the fence.”
“Yeah, well, inevitable. This is a bad mystery. Until people started giving me statements, I might have believed that. But when the surveillance memory shows nothing at all but the odd bit of static, and everyone has stories to tell, then I know there’s an inside connection. One of yours? One of ours? Infiltration?”
“You said the media …”
“Yeah, we’re tracking down all the hate mail.”
“We’ve had hate e-mail.”
He cocked his head, looking like an owl. Owls are raptors, she reminded herself. He didn’t speak.
“Yeah, well.”
He growled.
“All right. All right. I should have told someone. Give me a break: I brought them so you could have a look at them.” She handed him memory. “And they all have their time and date stamps too.”
He laughed at the first two.
“And
return addresses? Now
that’s
making life easy for us!”
“Yeah, seriously deficient. I figured those ones were nonstarters.”
“You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to bash someone.”
“I thought you had surveillance out there.”
She was shocked by his harsh bark of laughter. “We have surveillance on
you
when you’re out there. Who told us we had to watch the watchers?”
Then she too laughed. “I can’t believe it …”
He grimaced a half-grin. “Yeah, well … someone will probably be hauling my ass on a carpet for that.”
“So, who do you suspect?”
“Whom? Never mind, don’t give me that look. Well, you’re clear because you’re too short, and Delany is clear, just because of the angle and severity of the blows. But as for any of the others—well, the lightning strike seemed to have pretty well fried about three hours of sound memory. There are bits and pieces … but no continuous record. Now I’m going to have to see if that was really lightning, or more of what ails the video. If we had had cameras in the house … and if you had agreed to have the chip implants for the house computer, like everyone else in the civilized world, instead of wearing them like jewellery …”
“Don’t try to make me feel guilty. I know we live in the dying days of civil liberties, but I’m not giving up.”
“The only thing I can do to protect you and Blue is to leave the file open, and spread a tale that it was an outside attack. If it’s anyone in the house, maybe they’ll do something suspicious.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Blue is a suspect, you know. And I suppose you could be suspected of collusion.”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake!”
“It’s not funny. How are we going to disprove it? Blue is incredibly strong, Blue can pussyfoot, Blue is computer-savvy, Blue has no chip—thanks to you.”
“Innocent until proven guilty, I thought.”
“In the best of all possible worlds … Could we put a couple of cameras inside now?”
“No.”
“Just in the public rooms, downstairs—”
“No!”
“Will you at least try to convince Blue to have the implant?”
“No!”
“You know I could bug your house system in a minute.”
“Yeah, and John and Russ have alarms wired. Anything you do, they can undo.”
“Yeah, well …”
“You had to try, eh?” she said angrily. “Just when I’m thinking you maybe know what I’m talking about—”
“Don’t you try to make
me
guilty either,” he snapped. “If you or Blue were where Sal is, where do you think the world would be?”
“If
Blue
were there? We don’t even know if they’re keeping track of these people they’ve sent down. One of them could fall off a cliff just as easily. And as for if
I
were dead, it wouldn’t mean a thing to anyone.”
“There you’re wrong, and you damn well know it. Do you want our alien to learn cynicism in quite that final a way?”
“Our
alien?”
The grey man slapped the cover of his terminal shut, threw the memory across the room onto the cluttered table. “You have no fucking idea,” he said. “Get out of here before I put you in jail just to prove I can.”
Discretion is the better part of valor, Morgan reasoned. She closed the door very quietly behind her. Inside, something bulky hit the wall beside the door, and she heard the flutter of pages spilling from a file. She didn’t know whether to laugh or be frightened. She opened the door again.
Paper littered the floor by the door. The grey man was standing by his desk, leaning on his fists, his shoulders shaking—with laughter, and a great guffaw escaped him when he heard the door open. Morgan began to chuckle.
“It’s a mess,” she said.
“Never mind,” he said. “Just get out of here and let me work. You are an intense annoyance.” But he was still laughing.
The second time, she tried slamming the door. The thin wall shook gratifyingly. Behind the door she heard him laugh again.
“It’s not
that
funny,” she muttered resentfully as she attacked the elevator call-plate.
“This is Hester. This is Andris.”
“I’ve heard a lot … ,” they both started, stopped and laughed, but Salome was already moving into the video suite. “Crass!” she said. “Spinal!”
“It’s a compliment, Andris,” said Mr. Grey dryly. Salomé grinned, but she was already in the pilot seat, sliding into the rig.
“Hester,” she said to the tech, “but if Dad calls me Salome, don’t do the double-take. It’s my other name.”
“Bryant. It’s cued up at midnight,” said the tech. “I’ve checked it down to the byte. No sign of splice.”
“Yeah,” said Salomé, “that’s good. Very good. I see your notes here. Nothing’s overlooked here: that saves me a lot of work. But … look, cope me here.” He leaned into the copilot rig. “Now watch. We’re going to go macro here. Look for loops. But our wombat will be clever. Won’t loop everything. There’ll be four or five layers.”
After that, Grey and Andris were watching magic, with a few cryptic incantations.
“The cars?”
“No, but here’s a cat. And the hall light.”
“Great moiré.”
“Look at this segue. Smooth, but here—is that counter always that height?”
“Bandwidth conservation?”
“Showing off, I think. Look, I see that as signature …”
Mr. Grey was surprised to see that almost two hours had passed when Salome pushed herself out of the rig.
“There are twelve tracks,” Salomé said. “They range from one byte per scan to about three megabytes per scan. I’ll put them on the big display. Here’s the kitchen in the dark, right? That’s the big one. That’s easy. But if it just looped, it would be too obvious. So here’s a random cat. Loops three times, different loop length, between midnight and dawn. Water dish each time, same number of laps. And it says meouw. Same voiceprint. Then there’s the streetlight. See the fluttering? That’s supposed to be tree limbs in front of it, but if you look, it’s just a cross-scan with a black lattice. Was the wind blowing at that time last night? Would the rain have obscured the light more? Then the counter, there, catches the edge of light from the prism in the window. That one’s cute, because there is a cross-current when the cat comes in, but there shouldn’t be, because the cat doesn’t have to open the door, she just comes through that triangle cut out of the outside corner there, see? There is light and shadow showing through that triangle, cut off by her body, but if you play the hall, the hall shows dark, and when the cat comes down the hall, it’s a different size. See where the tail cuts the door edge? And look how it bends its legs to get through the cat door, and the kitchen one doesn’t have to. That hall stuff’s a pale cat. The pixel-level alterations are on the fur. This wasn’t a brown tabby when it started, but the kitchen one is a brown tabby. Are there two cats in the house?”
Andris looked at Mr. Grey. “There used to be three, but two died,” said the grey man. “The others were big marmalade toms.”
“Were you already recording before that?”
“Yes, but it’s on a loop. We don’t save everything. We certainly don’t save footage of looking through a window at a cat going to eat in the middle of the night.”
“Somebody does. Are your feeds secure?”
“Sure,” said Andris, but Mr. Grey said, “Of course not. There are three people in that house who use video intensively, and one who uses it minimally—technically that is. Copping a feed is the easiest video hack to do. Even I can do it, with good equipment. Kids in day care cop the baby monitor.”
“Yeah, it’s not rocket science,” said Salomé. “The only thing I can suggest is to look for deviousness. That one-byte-per-scan layer? It’s a signature. Look.”