"Nothing concerning Lucia Napier?"

I replayed the question a few times to make sure I'd heard her right.

"She called me earlier today," said Doc Mujahid, "and mentioned you'd paid her a visit."

I shouldn't have been surprised the doc and Lucia knew each other. They were both smart ladies. Probably got together every Sat.u.r.day for the Weekly Super Genius Cotillion Brunch.

"She mentioned you were looking for someone."

"Yeah," I replied vaguely. "Personal matters."

"I see."

I waited for her to press the subject, but she let it drop. It wasn't like she had to ask any questions. My electronic psyche lay bare before her on her monitors. She could always open a few memory files and know everything she wanted. The doc wasn't likely to do that. Went against her code of ethics, she'd once explained. The basic programming, the inner workings, those she studied by necessity. The memory matrix she considered off-limits as a matter of patient confidentiality.

"You made quite an impression on Lucia," she said.

"She's just got a thing for robots," I said.

"Is that what you think, Mack?"

"It's true, isn't it?"

"Mmhmmm," she said, more to herself than me.

I filtered that sound through my a.n.a.lyzers and came up with nothing worthwhile.

"And what did you think of her?" she asked.

"I'm not here for a.n.a.lysis, Doc."

She pushed a few b.u.t.tons as more data poured through her monitors.

"Not that kind of a.n.a.lysis anyway," I said. "Can we drop the subject?"

"If you insist."

"I do. I do insist."

Forty-five seconds pa.s.sed before I found myself incapable of keeping my vocalizer deactivated. I usually excel at shutting up, but some compulsion seized me. I blamed it on all the time I was spending with biologicals.

"It's nothing. I'm a machine. Couldn't go anywhere."

"Don't you have biological friends?" asked the doc.

"Yeah."

"And is there any reason you can't have another?"

I removed my bowler and fiddled with it to give my hands something to do. Another bad biological habit. "No."

"Is there any particular reason that you can't be friends with Lucia Napier?"

"She's a technophile," I replied. "I'm pretty sure anyway."

"How is that an obstacle, Mack?"

It was a good question, and I didn't have a good answer. This time I managed to stay quiet.

"Would you like my opinion, Mack?"

"Not really, Doc."

"Too bad, because I'm going to give it to you anyway. I think Lucia could do you some good. She might be able to help you with your a.s.similation issues."

"I don't have a.s.similation issues."

"Yet you continue to isolate yourself through categorization. You insist on calling yourself a 'machine,' for instance."

"I am a machine."

"Yes, you are. But you are also an intelligent being."

"I'm just code, Doc." I pointed to the monitor. "Ones and zeroes, that's all I am."

"Mack, if you were to extract a human brain and open it up, do you know what you would find?"

"Goop."

"Exactly. The consciousness, the personality, the dreams, desires, and phobias, they're all there in that goop, but it's only a great big wad of fat in the end. The soul is not found in the flesh."

"What, Doc? Are you telling me I have a soul now?"

"I don't even know if there is such a thing, Mack. But I do know that thought is thought and that n.o.body truly understands it."

"Maybe," I said. "Or maybe I'll snap one day and kill everybody."

"Happens every day, and not only to machines."

The doc's computer made a soft ping, and she started typing.

"Find something, Doc?"

"Interesting. There appears to be some foreign code intermingled with your behavioral routines. Is this what you're looking for?"

"Maybe," I said, knowing full well it must've been. "Can you purge it?"

She leaned closer to the monitors and spent four minutes, six seconds typing rapidly. The computer would beep irritably an average of every eleven seconds.

"It's there all right, but I've never seen anything quite like it," she said. "It's a worm, but it's divided and dispersed in various files. It shouldn't be able to have much of an effect."

"It's doing something, Doc. Trust me."

She shrugged. "I can't remove it. Not without risking damaging your core programming."

"I'm willing to take the chance," I said.

"I'm not." She pushed a few b.u.t.tons. "There's good news though. Your maintenance protocols seem to be removing it on their own. Fascinating development, really. I've never seen an electronic brain so adaptable."

"Yeah, I'm a walking miracle of superscience, Doc."

She either didn't catch the sarcasm or failed to acknowledge it. She rarely did.

"I think, given enough time, you'll purge the corruption on your own."

"How long?"

"I can't say."

"Well, thanks, Doc." I put my hat back on, trying to not sound disappointed. "Appreciate your time."

She kept her eyes fixed on the screen, engrossed in the new data. She was lost in a sea of binary code.

"I'll let myself out," I said.

She turned her head a few degrees so that she could still look at the screen, but kind of glance at me at the same time. "Mack, I meant what I said about Lucia. I noticed some definite improvements in your socialization functions."

"Maybe it's not her," I said.

"Perhaps not. Would you care to tell me what you've been doing?"

"Rather not, Doc, if you don't mind."

She didn't push because she was too distracted by the monitor readout. "Fine, Mack. Whatever you're doing, I recommend you continue. I think you might be on the verge of a breakthrough." There was a beep, and she nodded very slowly. "Fascinating."

"Yeah, Doc, great stuff, I'm sure. But I gotta go."

Then I beat it before she got the bright idea to hook me up to her computers and take a more detailed look at my digital subconscious.

I needed a recharge. The battery the city stuck me with was good for about twenty-six hours, depending on my levels of activity. When I didn't move more than I had to and basically let my electronic brain run on autopilot, I could stretch it to thirty-two. But getting mixed up with gangsters and brainy dames had burned the juice faster than normal. I still had three hours left, but I never liked to run with less than five in reserve.

I could also use some time to recompile and defragment. I was a learning machine, but all the data I'd absorbed today was mostly a jumble of information until I shut myself down and allowed my electronic brain to sort and file it into manageable bits. I was hoping that after a good night's recharge, I'd figure out what to do next.

I set aside my recharge cycle for another hour, long enough to pay Lucia Napier a visit. Proton Towers at the wee hours of the morning were a pair of sparkling columns, shining beacons circled by ever-present flying gun drones.

Dennis the doorman was gone, but there was another doorman who was nearly identical in every way: the same nose, same eyes, same ever-smiling mouth and chipper demeanor. Either his lack of distinctive features had flummoxed my facial distinguisher or he was Dennis's twin brother. Or a clone. That was unlikely though, since so far all viable clones were bald albinos with a tendency to speak backwards.

Despite the lateness of the hour, I knew Near Dennis would let me in. I'd called ahead, and Lucia had a.s.sured me I was allowed to visit her anytime, day or night, scheduled or spontaneous. She'd also said I simply must come by tonight. When I'd asked if she'd rather wait until tomorrow, she'd said she was too excited to sleep anyway.

I stepped off the pod into the penthouse. Humbolt greeted me, in a brand new cha.s.sis and a freshly pressed cream tuxedo.

"Yo, Mack," said the butler auto.

"Humbolt, good to see you functional again," I replied.

"Can't keep a good auto down. This way."

He led me into the living room and down the secret stairs to Lucia's lab. She'd been busy. The teleportation disk was spread out in a jumble of parts. She held something in a pair of tweezers under a magnifying gla.s.s.

"What did you do, Lucia?" I asked.

"I took it apart. How else was I going to study it?"

I suppose she was right, but I'd hoped she hadn't destroyed the gizmo. Or if she had, I hoped she'd learned something worthwhile.

Without looking up, she motioned for me to come over. "You must take a look at this. It's simply delicious."

She moved aside so I could use the magnifying gla.s.s, but I didn't need it. I zeroed in with my opticals and scanned the whatchacallit. "Yeah?"

"Isn't it amazing?"

"Amazing," I agreed. "What does it do?"

"I have absolutely no idea. Not the slightest notion." She set it down and made a sweeping gesture at the mess. "I barely understand any of this."

She laughed.

"Don't you get it, Mack? I've always understood everything. Everything!"

She hunched back over the disa.s.sembled gizmo and began shifting pieces around.

"Can you put it back together?" I asked.

"Oh, sure, no problem. I took notes."

She held up a handful of papers filled with scrawled handwriting.

"You say it's a matter transmitter?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"Oh, but it's not. It's more of a matter shifter. This part right here, it's some sort of unders.p.a.ce conduit. And this part, it creates a stasis field."

"I thought you said you didn't understand it."

"Oh, don't be silly, Mack. Of course I understand it. Just not nearly as well as I understand everything else. The technology is advanced, prototypical. Except it's not a prototype. It's ma.s.s produced. Someone has a factory spitting these things out, and they're not sharing."

"Some people don't like to share," I said.