Authors: Craig Strete
"I was on duty
last night. I saw several men, but none after curfew. We had a woman after curfew, but no men," I
answered, beeping in an affirmative to Commander Hartmann's call.
The old man's eyes
burned in my monitor. The old man may have looked like a corpse but there was something fierce
and wild about his eyes. They seemed to look right through me.
"Who are you
looking for? Perhaps I can check with Central and locate him for you?"
He shook his
head.
"I could send out
a mobile unit to locate him for you."
"I'll find him
first. I don't need you to find him. I'll find him first and then . . . ." He let the sentence
trail off.
"Does this friend
of yours have a name?" I asked, trying an indirect tack. If we could pin down an associate,
maybe we could trace back to him.
"He's no friend of
mine!" snarled the old man, an edge of violence in his voice. "I've got a
message
for
him."
There was an
unspoken threat in his manner, in the way he emphasized the word
message.
"Perhaps we could
help you deliver the message," I volunteered.
"No! Not yet. The
only message I got for him is under my coat."
He tapped one of
the bulky pockets of his overcoat.
I punched into the
mobile unit, x-rayed him, scanned him with a metal detector. The unmistakable outline of a knife
came from the pocket he had tapped with his unmanacled hand.
I debated
immediate confiscation, but tabled it. As long as he was talking, and since he was manacled to
the mobile unit and couldn't go anywhere, there was no sense in taking any overt action that
might make him stop communicating. Nothing forced here, just playing along, hoping he would give
out some useful information.
Central punched in
again. "Hartmann here. There is no, repeat,
no
record of this man anywhere!" There was a
note of panic in his voice. I could tell he was shook up and I didn't blame him. A contradiction
like this could disrupt our entire society.
I wiped my hands
against the armrests of my womb couch. I was sweating like a bandit caught on a monitor! At
least this night wasn't boring anymore, I'll say that much. It was turning out to be one hell of
a strange night.
The old man looked
back over his shoulder again. He seemed to be waiting for someone.
I piped into
Central with a query. "No possibility of programmer error?"
Hartmann punched
right back. "None! We've checked and double-checked! We've got a file on every living human
being! We've got everyone but him!" In the background of Hartmann's signal, I heard the sound of
voices in heated argument.
"Who are you?
Please identify yourself," I asked again, at Hartmann's insistent urging.
To my surprise, he
told me.
"My name's Farris.
Jonathan Farris." Again the old man looked back the way he had come, and shivered in the rain. He
was cold and wet and miserable. If there hadn't been something so wrong with him—so
evil
is the word I guess I'm looking for—maybe I would have felt a little bit of pity for the old man.
But there was something very wrong with this old man, something terrible and grim which stopped
any pity I might have felt toward him. Besides, I'm a wombcop. I don't have much pity for
anything or anybody.
"Shall I bring him
in?" I queried Central.
Before I got an
answer the old man spoke again.
"Bantam is his
name. Michael Bantam is the one I'm looking for. He's behind me, I'm sure. I might have passed
him in the rain, but he'll be along."
"Checking on
Bantam," clacked my computer link-up.
"I've got to meet
him. You've got to let me go," said the old man, shaking his manacled hand. "I'll be late and I
mustn't be late." A shadow of worry moved across his haggard face.
"But . . . ," I
started to say through the mobile speakers.
"Release him
immediately!" Hartmann's terse command snapped across the relays. "Have him followed! We want a
record of everyone he meets, file tapes on everything he does or says!"
My hand jumped off
the console board, curling into a fist with shock. I was stunned by the command, which was
contrary to everything I had ever been taught. I've never let a violator go free! Not once in ten
years! Not once!
"Damn it, Davis!
That's a direct order! Snap to it!"
I shook myself
into action, punched in the release command. I had a sick sensation in the pit of my stomach as
my fingers tapped in the order. This was contrary to everything I stood for, everything I
believed in.
The manacle
automatically came unsnapped. The old man nodded his head and backed away from the mobile unit,
massaging his freed wrist.
"At least let me
confiscate the illegal concealed weapon?" I asked Central. "My God, I can't let . . .
."
"Denied."
Central's reply was immediate.
"You're free to
go," I heard myself say. My hands shook on the console and I fought with myself to keep from
automatically reaching for the laser triggers. My mind was crying for a burn-down. My trigger
fingers twitched instinctively.
"I've got to get
going. He'll be coming along and I've got to find him," said the old man, touching his overcoat
pocket. "If you see him, you tell him that Jonathan Farris is going to get him. I'll see him
killed for what he did to me."
"What does he look
like? How will I know him when I see him?" I asked.
On a monitor
beside my head, a series of telephoto stills of Michael Bantam appeared on the screen, piped in
direct from Central. As the series of photographs flashed across the screen, biographical
information automatically printed out across the bottom half of the screen. Central's computers
were really on the ball.
"You'll know him
when you see him," said the old man with a smile that had no smile to it. "He's young, red hair
cut short. There's a scar over his left eye and his face is pale like dirty newspaper. You'll
know him when you see him. He'll be coming along grinning, he'll be laughing at me, but not for
long." Again the old man let his hand rest meaningfully on his overcoat pocket.
"If I see him,
I'll tell him you're looking for him," I assured him. I glanced at the monitors. A pretty
accurate description the old man gave. At least there was a record of Michael Bantam.
Why the hell was I
letting him go? What the hell was going on down at Central? Had they gone soft in their computer
programs? I slammed my fist down on the console, punching in angrily to Central. I was going to
get some answers! I'd had about all I could take. I didn't know what the hell was going on. This
man was a criminal whether he was on file or not, and I had every right to burn him
down.
I started to
speak, but the old man cut in and I listened and waited, choking on my own anger and
frustration.
"He'll never get
away with it! Nobody does that to me and gets away with it! I'll see him dead before the night is
gone." The old man was livid with rage.
The
circuit-monitoring panels were all flashing emergency reds and I knew the computer system was
pushing toward an overload.
I punched a sharp
query at Central. "What the god damn . . . ?"
"Why don't you
follow me?" said the old man, beckoning the mobile unit toward him. "Just down this street and
left a little ways down the alley. Yes, why don't you follow me?" He began walking.
I looked at my
sector chart. The alley was the cut-off point at the end of my patrol sector. That was someone
else's territory. I punched in this information. Awaited a go-ahead.
"Hartmann here.
Ignore boundaries. Follow without restriction or limitation. Full monitoring, automatic filing,
total surveillance."
I shrugged. It was
a day for breaking the rules. I activated the mobile unit and it began tracking and pursuing the
old man. Together, they moved down the street toward the alley.
I started to beep
in an acknowledgment of the order.
Suddenly,
everything went dead. Console, monitors, link-ups, activation circuits. Everything. Nothing
coming in, nothing going out. Computer overload. It had to be. The existence of the old man with
no identity records, with no file tapes, was an insoluble problem. It wasn't supposed to be
possible.
The womb couch
cradled me like a hand, the release catches that would free me from its comfortable grip frozen
into place by the power failure. I sat in the dark, felt like a helpless stuffed animal in the
hands of a child.
I never felt so
useless in my life. I struggled against the lock in the couch web, trying to force it manually,
but it was impossible to shake loose. I was stuck there, helpless, like a butterfly stuck to a
display board with a pin.
I shouted my
frustrations at the darkened console in front of me. There was nothing I could do but wait.
Nothing, not one damn thing!
It wasn't a minor
overload. It must have been the granddaddy of granddaddies. My entire sector, from street unit to
computer master terminal, had blanked. Whoever was responsible for programming a computer
solution on this case ought to get burned down. It was an error on the scale of programming a
computer to find the square root of zero! Somebody was going to be up the computer without a
program!
There must have
been one hell of a lot of damage to repair. My wrist chronometer wasn't working. Just guessing,
I'd say I sat there maybe an hour or more. Probably closer to two.
The power came
back on around 0418 hours. Maybe 0419.
Central was on the
line while I was still blinking my eyes, trying to adjust to the console lights when they flashed
back on.
Commander
Hartmann's voice almost broke my eardrums. I winced under my audio helmet and turned down the
audio pick-up.
"What's happening
down there?"
he demanded.
I rubbed my eyes,
waiting for them to adjust. The monitors were flashing back on, focusing and retuning for maximum
image clarity.
"Locate Pick-up
27, Monitor 7," I shouted. The monitor for 7 had not focused properly yet. The blurred pattern on
the monitor merged and then refocused. The forward progress of the mobile unit that had been
assigned to the suspect had been stopped dead in its tracks just as it was turning into the
alley. When the power surged on, the unit completed the turn, its scanners probing the
alley.
"Position,"
clacked the computer. "Pick-up 27, Monitor 7."
Mobile unit moved
forward into the alley, scanners set. Audio punched in.
Tapes were filing.
Red flash on my console. Mobile unit activated an emergency panel. Other units from other sectors
were on standby with possible intercept patterns.
There was a body
in the center of the alley. My mouth dropped open in shock. The computer frantically began
absorbing data, counter-referencing, automatic alert all sectors.
That haggard face,
the sunken eyes, the old coat. A knife sticking out of the old man's chest.
Unmistakable.
I went to full
zoom, extreme close-up, lateral pan. Very clearly marked. A color-coded homicide tag attached to
the handle of the knife. I punched in for a close-up on the card. It told me that the victim was
murdered, unmonitored, discovered by first shift of sector eight, assignment G, shift one
carry-over, that the body was overdue for pick-up by sanitation. There was a blue sticker on the
end of the tag that meant preserve body for evidence, autopsy mandatory.
Sweet
Jesus!
The
computer read out,
"Decedent
. .
.
Farris, Jonathan Franklin, male. Caucasian. Age
57.
Birth-date
2053/03.09.
Causation:
Knife wound through
right ventricle.
Estimated time expiration
... 3 hours, 27 minutes,
55 seconds when first discovered.
Update est. t. exp.
this scan: 6
hours, 19 minutes, 31 seconds.
Death
. . . instantaneous.
Conclusion
. . .
Homicide. Motives
. . .
unknown. Suspects
. . .
unknown.
Actual
crime unmonitored. No more information available without request through proper channels to
sector 8. Case jurisdiction . . . sector 8. System breakdown, factor in loss of information.
Suggest alternate . . . ."
I cut the computer
off and sat on the switch that hooked me into Central. Commander Hartmann appeared on a video
monitor to my right. My console camera automatically plugged me into his office.
We just sat there
and stared at each other, too shocked to even speak. I felt sick, physically sick.
"When a man dies,
they take his identity file off record," said Commander Hartmann. His face was pale with shock.
"The computer was able to correctly identify Farris. . . ."
"But . . . ," I
started to say.
"From information
already on file in the Death Register," he continued.