Rule 34 - Charles Stross [139]
“You think that’s why Ops sent us to see MacDonald?”
“I think so.” He nods, then sucks at the cancer stick again. “Also”—he shrugs tiredly—“the information-crimes angle.”
You get that hint instantly. ICIU is the red-headed stepchild of CID and IT Support, the spotty teenager with the suspect habits whose bedroom nobody willingly cleans for fear of what they’ll find under the bed. It’s the same everywhere. Most police work boils down to minimizing the impact on society of stupidity; of the remainder, the overwhelming majority is about malice and deliberate evil, but it’s still almost all stupid. Smart cops hate smart crimes, because they take ages to nail down and in the meantime your clean-up metrics tank. And the crime here—assuming there’s anyone to charge with it—is so high concept that it’s making your nose bleed. “What kind of scenario do you think we’re looking at?”
Smoke trickles from his nostrils. “We have bodies, linked in life by a social network, linked in dying by weird coincidences. We have software for scanning social networks and making deductions about the people in them. We have researchers discussing active countermeasures. The question that remains is, did a human being order the software that is conscious to start taking such measures? Or is it an accident?”
“Different charges, either way.” He stubs the cigarette out on the sole of one shoe and pockets the butt, staring at you. For your part, you stare at the roofline of the intelligence building, feeling numb. “If someone gave the order, well, there’s your mens rea and a tidy wrap-up. If nobody did so, then we’re into murkier waters: negligent homicide, maybe.”
“And the software?” Kemal raises an eyebrow. “If it’s conscious—”
“Fuck the software!” You struggle to keep your voice under control. “I know what you’re going to say, and it doesn’t wash. The law’s about fifty years behind the times here, but nobody’s going to shed any tears for a killer robot. If it went off on its lonesome, there is going to be such a shitstorm of new legislation coming down the pipe—” You stop. “Oh,” you say. “Coincidences.” And it’s a good thing you’re not a smoker like Kemal because the blinding flash of insight when Dickie’s time bomb detonates is so dazzling that you’d have dropped your fag, and it’s a fifty-euro fine for littering under the cameras hereabouts.
Lay out the clues like a chain of dominoes:
Mikey Blair, killed by a drug interaction between his spiked enema fluid and his protease-inhibitor prescription. That’s a coincidence, isn’t it?
“John Christie,” whoever he really is, walking in on the crime scene. Let’s call that another coincidence and see where it runs.
Lots more killings, all coincidentally contrived, like the Mohammed case: electrocuted by a homicidal vacuum-cleaner robot, or the German guy, burned to a crisp by his sun bed. Coincidence as a modus operandi: a sequence of little nudges that build to a fatal pay-off. (If one fatal accident fails to materialize, what are the odds that a bunch of other lethal contingencies lie in the target’s future?)
Now consider, further:
“John Christie” walks into your life by way of Dorothy’s hotel. She’s been booked in there by her employers. He (you shy away from thinking about this too hard) manipulates her. Then she gets a request for an ethics review.
If that’s an accident, you’ll eat your warrant card.
But what if Dorothy was a channel to get to you? Specifically, to draw your attention to “John Christie.” Because, because . . . ?
(Your chain of dominoes terminates in confusion. And you’re out of time.)
You blink, shake your head, then walk back inside without waiting for Kemal. “Hey, Moxie, what have you got for me?”
Moxie sits up straight. “I’ve got MacDonald’s most regular contacts, skipper.