Architects of Emortality - Brian Stableford [20]
Charlotte still had a gut feeling which told her that the real author of this crazy psychodrama was right in front of her, taunting her with his excessively lovely presence, but she didn’t dare say so to Hal. Hal Watson was no respecter of gut feelings.
“Have you traced the call which summoned Dr. Wilde here?” Michael Lowenthal asked Hal Watson. Charlotte heard the hesitation in Hal’s voice and knew that natural discretion must be begging him not to lay all his cards on the table where both Lowenthal and Wilde could see them, but he answered the question.
“It was placed some days ago from a blind unit, time-triggered to arrive when it did,” Hal reported reluctantly. “Effectively untraceable, I fear—the ticket too.
My best surfers are working on it, but they haven’t even been able to track the woman to or from the building. I need the DNA analyses before I can take the next step.” The wall unit buzzed as another caller clamored for attention.
“Hold on,” Charlotte said to Hal, thumbing the relevant key. Rex Carnevon’s face appeared on the screen as the image of the apartment blinked out.
“I have tenants, you know,” said the building supervisor rudely. “As long as your quarantine lasts, half of them are trapped inside their apartments and the other half are locked out. Your forensic team drove off thirty minutes ago.
What’s the holdup?” “Please be patient, Mr. Carnevon,” Charlotte said, painfully aware that she was under observation from all sides. “We’re conducting an investigation here.” “I know,” Carnevon retorted. ”What I want to know is when you’re going to conduct it somewhere else.” “We’ll let you know,” Charlotte said brutally, switching back to Hal without further ado.
Hal’s face didn’t reappear. The tape patched together from the apartment’s eyes was playing again. Now there was somebody in the apartment. This section had been recorded several days before. Gabriel King, alive and well, was talking to a young woman.
“Ah,” said Oscar Wilde softly. “Cherchez la femme! Without a mysterious woman, the puzzle would be lacking its most important piece.” Charlotte studied the woman carefully, although her back was turned to the camera. She seemed to be authentically young—perhaps eighteen or nineteen years of age—with a profusion of lustrous brown hair that she wore unfashionably long.
When the tape switched to a different eye, Charlotte saw that the woman had clear blue eyes like Michael Lowenthal’s. She also had finely chiseled features—but they had not, of course, been molded in recognition of the same ideal of beauty as Lowenthal’s. Psychobiologists had produced seven supposed female archetypes and seven male ones; whereas the woman’s flesh had been sculpted into a variant of the most commonplace female archetype, Lowenthal had been modeled on one of the less fashionable male ideals.
Even in this day and age, when cosmetic engineers could so easily remold superficial flesh, the exceptional beauty of Gabriel King’s visitor was very evident—but it did not seem to Charlotte to be as striking as the beauty of Michael Lowenthal, or of Oscar Wilde. That, presumably, was a matter of taste and sexual orientation; Hal probably saw things differently.
King and his visitor were speaking to one another, but the sound track had not yet been added to the tape. Charlotte watched as the two of them moved toward the bedroom door, and saw the woman stop the gantzer in his tracks, compelling him to turn and kiss her on the lips before proceeding into the room and closing the door behind them.
The kiss did not seem particularly passionate to