Architects of Emortality - Brian Stableford [128]
“What is it, Oscar?” Charlotte said.
“I tried to call Walter,” said Wilde. “This is what I got.” His own face was immediately replaced by that of Walter Czastka’s silver-animated sim.
“Damn you, Oscar Wilde,” the sim said, apparently without having bothered with any conventional identification or polite preliminary. “Damn you and Rappaccini to the darkest oblivion imaginable.” “That’s not very nice, Walter,” Wilde’s voice countered, although the image on screen was still the sim’s. “We have a responsibility to our AI slaves not to use them in this tawdry way. They can be pleasant on our behalf, but we shouldn’t require them to be insulting. It isn’t worthy of us.” “Damn you, Oscar Wilde,” the sim repeated. “Damn you and Rappaccini to the darkest oblivion imaginable.” “Nor should we lock the poor things into tight loops,” the Wildean voice-over added. “It’s a particularly cruel form of imprisonment.” “Damn you, Oscar Wilde,” said the sim yet again. “Damn you and Rappaccini to the darkest oblivion imaginable.” It was obviously programmed to make that response to anything and everything that Wilde might say. Charlotte cut off the tape and punched out Czastka’s phone code herself.
“Dr. Czastka,” she said when the sim appeared, “this is Sergeant Charlotte Holmes of the UN police. I need to speak to you urgently.” “Damn you, Oscar Wilde,” replied the sim stubbornly. “Damn you and Rappaccini to the darkest oblivion imaginable.” Charlotte restored the link to Wilde’s helicopter. His face had creased into an anxious frown. “I have a horrible suspicion,” Wilde said, “that we might already be too late.” Charlotte looked at the comcon’s timer. They were still thirteen minutes away from their estimated time of arrival at the island. She punched in another code, connecting herself to the commander of the task force whose hovering copters had surrounded the island.
“What’s happening?” she demanded.
“No sign of her yet,” the answer came back. “She can’t possibly have landed without being seen. If anything happens, Sergeant, you’ll be the first to know, as per New York’s orders.” The local man did not seem particularly pleased by the fact that he had orders to check all his moves with a mere sergeant. The fact that she was from New York probably added an extra hint of insult to the tacit injury.
“What do you mean, too late?” she said to Wilde, having cut back to him yet again. “If he were dead, it could only be suicide. His phone sim may be the stupidest obsolete sloth still in use, but there must be silver-level smarts somewhere in his systems. If he were actually dead, they’d override the sloth.
We’ve put the whole island on full alert!” “Even if he is not dead,” Wilde said stubbornly, “we may still be too late. That is what Rappaccini intends.” There was nothing to do but wait and see, so Charlotte sat back in her seat and stared down at the agitated waves, letting the minutes tick by. Michael Lowenthal did not attempt to engage her in conversation.
They were still two minutes short of their ETA when the voice of the local commander came back on-line. “We have visual contact with the woman,” he said.
“Relaying now.” When the picture on the copter’s screen cleared, it showed a female figure in a humpbacked suitskin walking out of the sea, looking for all the world as if she were enjoying a leisurely stroll after a few minutes in the water.
“We’re going in,” said the commander.
“Not yet!” said Charlotte. “We’re coming in now! Don’t set down until I do.
Leave her to me.” She was not entirely sure why she had told him to wait, but she was acutely aware of the responsibility of enacting Hal Watson’s authority—and it was, after all, her investigation too.
Charlotte watched raptly as the woman who looked like Julia Herold paused at the high-tide line and began detaching the hump on her suitskin, which presumably contained a built-in paralung. The camera eye zoomed in, not because it was refocusing but because the helicopter carrying it was moving closer. Obedient to Charlotte’s order, however, the machine did not complete its touchdown,