Rule 34

relaxes somewhat. “I have been reading this morning’s reports. More fatalities. One of them is a computer scientist in Boston. The usual methodology applies: a misdirected package. This man, though, was a full professor. Not a spammer. He listed project ATHENA as one of his research areas.”

“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. These are just the public ones, spidered off chat rooms and mailing lists. Here are his business contacts, and here are the folks he hangs out with, dereferenced to meatspace names.” He chucks a couple of tags at your specs and you open them in different windows, as the news spool from the ops room unfreezes and begins to update now you’re back in a shielded room. You glance at the personal contacts, and the bottom drops out of your stomach because right at the top of the list is a familiar name: ANWAR HUSSEIN.

“What the—” You suppress a string of invective: For some reason, swearing tends to alarm Moxie. “The personal contacts. Where does MacDonald know our friend Mr. Hussein from?”

“Our friend who? Oh, him? There are a bunch of local forums hanging off fitlads.net. They’re both regulars under the handles. Let’s see . . . yep, it’s a bed- surfing board. Looks to have a regular crowd.”

“You said the link is via fitlads, yes?” You frown. Anwar is married. Is it the same man? “This Mr. particular Hussein. Can you see if we’ve got anything on him?”

Moxie dives head down into CopSpace while you skim the feed from BABYLON. The death toll from around the world is still rising. You spot a FLASH alert, broadcast from the City Desk to every team—a report of a homicide in the south side, near the Meadows. Life (and death) goes on as usual in the city, even as you scurry round in pursuit of—

“Skipper? How did you know?”

You blink the windows away and focus on Moxie. “Know what?” Kemal appears in the doorway. “Inspector —”

“Mr. Hussein has form, skipper? He’s done time for his part in an identity-theft ring, and hey? Oh, it was you that collared him. Cool!”

“Inspector Kavanaugh. A moment, please?”

Kemal sounds worried. Your stomach lurches. You have an uneasy sense that you are holding the solution to your domino game in your hands if only you could work out where to snap them onto the chain. “Yes?”

“The murder—”

Your phone jangles, a priority incoming. You glance at it: It’s Dickie. You prioritize and answer the detective-in-charge first. “Yes?”

“Liz?” Dickie sounds strained. “You and that fly Eurocop, ye’ve already been and interviewed that professor at the uni? Did ye both go together? Ye did stream everything, reet?”

Eh? “Yes,” you say cautiously. If he’s in the incident room, they’ll know that. So why is he asking? you wonder. “Kemal and I were both there, and we both recorded the session. It’s backed up in Evidence One already. Why?”

“Was MacDonald alive when ye left?”

“What?”

You see Kemal urgently mouthing something at you and flick back to your specs. Another FLASH alert: officer called to Appleton Towers—

“Are you telling me MacDonald’s been murdered?”

“Answer me—”

“Yes, yes! He was alive when we left. I’ve got a witness and two time-stamped evidence streams, Inspector. Do you”—I held the door open, you remember—“shit.”

“Liz. Speak to me.”

“Hold please, I need to check something urgently.”

Without waiting, you put Dickie on hold and poke urgently at your specs. They’re fully lifelogging, and while the main purpose is preservation of evidence, you can at least replay what you’ve seen. You jump back an hour, then rewind at high speed until you get to your departure from Appleton Towers. You were mostly looking at Kemal, talking as you walked, but there—there’s the man coming towards you from outside; there’s you holding the door open.