Baker Street Irregulars Read online

  With that, he turned back to his game. I could tell that his mind was not fully engaged, however; he chose simpler levels, barely a challenge to his skill. After what he considered to be a suitable amount of time had passed, he sent her a short, courteous request for a tour of the lab itself.

  Stoner must have been waiting for the contact, because she called within minutes. She opted for video, which suggested to me that she hoped to continue her flirtations. Although video chat capability had been around for some time, most humans still seemed to prefer audio, or at least a video avatar. Sight is their primary sense, which is why the behavior confuses me. Perhaps they feel it is easier to keep up the polite fictions they insist on maintaining if they deliberately blind themselves.

  “I’d be happy to show you around the lab,” she said, smiling. “But I think it would be better if you were to come around when Dr. Roylott isn’t here. It would be better if he never knew you were here at all, actually.”

  “I agree completely,” replied Lock. “But I would like to go further than that.”

  “Oh?” She looked intrigued.

  “You said that you were nearly finished, did you not? How close are you to where Julia was when her own data was vandalized?”

  “Within a matter of days,” Stoner replied.

  “And at such a time, you would expect to stay in the lab very late, would you not?”

  She laughed mirthlessly. “Under normal circumstances, you probably couldn’t pry me out of there with a crowbar.”

  He nodded. “I would like you to make it known that you have to leave early today. Invent a reason—a sick relative, a workman coming to your apartment, a friend’s birthday party—it doesn’t matter. Just leave and declare that you are not returning until morning. Act annoyed; make it known you thought you were nearly finished and that you could have completed the research tonight if not for this obligation.”

  “What good will that do? Then I can’t show you the lab.” She looked puzzled.

  “You will have already let us in,” he explained. “You will have created the perfect opportunity for him to make his move. He will attempt to repeat his actions, and we will catch him.”

  She pursed her lips. “How will I know what happened?”

  He held up a tiny black chip. “I’ll wear a recorder chip. You can watch the entire encounter from the safety of your apartment.”

  She gave him an impressed look. “Well, that will do nicely. What time would you like to get here?”

  • • •

  When we arrived at the university, I made sure to curl into myself. There were more than enough delicate computers sitting around, and I didn’t want to make myself too obvious. After all, I was supposed to be safely archived.

  We turned the corner, right into a fight. Or rather, a brow-beating. An elderly man was berating a young woman who was probably no more than eighteen. Despite his age and the fact that he carried a cane, he loomed over her and she shrank under the onslaught of his venom. He was, of course, our quarry.

  “You’re a worthless sniveler,” he wrapped up. “Get out of my sight.”

  She fled, head down and arms clutched to her chest. He stormed down the hall in the opposite direction. He put no weight on the cane at all; I wondered if he carried it merely to threaten students.

  “A temperate fellow,” Lock murmured under his breath to me.

  We were not left waiting in the corridor long. Stoner breezed by, and it was only when she reached a deserted hallway deeper in the complex did she finally allowed Lock to catch up.

  “He’s got a class until four,” she said without preamble. “I’ve told him that I’m having troubles of a female nature and that I will not be back until morning. It’s the only thing I could think of for which he wouldn’t demand proof. Misogynistic bastard,” she added, rolling her eyes.

  “Would you be so kind as to show me the lab before you go?” Lock asked.

  “That’s the plan,” she agreed. “Do you really think he’ll try something tonight?”

  “My deductions are rarely incorrect,” he said, oddly modest for him.

  She gave him a skeptical look, but swiped her hand by the biometric reader next to the door anyway. The door hissed open obediently.

  The room had only a narrow walkway down the center, leading toward another door at the far end. Cages lined the walls. Dozens of animals stared at us, with no pattern to the species that I could see. A cheetah paced back and forth restlessly, while a neighboring baboon clung to the bars. Farther back, I could see flashes of eyes and hints of fur.

  “What are they?” he asked, as if he had not already looked up the papers produced from the lab.

  “Chimeras, of course.” She gave him a glance that implied she had expected more background knowledge from him. “Take this little guy, for example.”

  As she led us down the row, the animals became stranger. The ones towards the back had been heavily modified, combining several species into one. The cage she gestured at now contained an animal whose body seemed to have started as a snake. It had been given cunning little monkey paws. It reared up in its cage, hands grasping the bars, and bared its fangs at Lock. I could tell from the sudden change in his biorhythms that even he was revolted by the thing.

  “He’s for military applications, of course,” she continued, without seeming to notice Lock’s disgust. “Slithers right through small places, but still has those useful opposable thumbs. You’d be impressed by how complicated a program we can load onto him. The LED will have to go in the final model, of course, but right now it’s a useful loading indicator.”

  I studied the creature more closely. An LED was indeed nestled at the back of its head. I could feel the faint hum of the hardware awaiting instructions. I left it alone, as I certainly wasn’t interested in tampering with military equipment. I had no intention of being dumped back on an isolated server—or somewhere even worse.

  “Was the lab set up this way when Julia was working here?” Lock asked.

  She shook her head. “We had only a handful of cages then. We’ve made a lot of progress since. I’ve reconstructed a lot of what she had done, although there’s really no way to prove that she did it first—it’s just my word.”

  “And this…creature has been part of that reconstruction?”

  “This guy?” Her pulse picked up. I could not blame her for being nervous—even I found the chimera disturbing, and I had thought that I lacked the mammalian aversion to snakes. Perhaps it had been slipped in with one of the empathy packages. “He’s relatively new. We’ve had some kind of snake around since the beginning, but the successful arm graft is a recent development.”

  He nodded. “And the room where you found Julia?”

  “You mean where we did most of the processing?” She gestured through to the door at the back of the room. “We keep the main computers back there. Roylott’s paranoid enough not to let anything connect to the main university servers, which is such a pain, believe me. His office is after that. He’s got his own door, but that doesn’t keep him from popping in and scaring us anyway. The only warning you get is the beep from the scanner on the other side.”

  She led us through. The next room merely contained a few lab tables, a desk with several screens projected up, a scarred conference table with chairs, and a small, battered refrigerator. The door on the far side presumably led to Roylott’s office, as Stoner had mentioned.

  “How much of this remains from Julia’s time?” Lock asked, idly passing his hand through one of the data projections near the wall.

  Stoner shrugged. “It’s mostly the same, I guess. She sat over by the wall, there. The added subject storage in the front room hasn’t really changed this room much.”

  Lock nodded. He leaned towards the wall, examining the tiny projector.

  Stoner fidgeted as Lock continued to work his way around the lab. I was confused. Normally, he just glances at a scene, notes information, and reaches a conclusion with a speed I find
baffling. It was unlike him to search so systematically. I compared the anomalous behavior to previous examples and concluded that he was putting on a show for her benefit. He had already arrived at his solution, I suspected. I knew better than to prod him for an explanation. He wouldn’t give me one even after she left, as he was irritatingly fond of his dramatic reveals. For someone who prided himself on a machine-like disdain of emotion, he was no more logical in that respect than the rest of them.

  She coughed. “I should be heading out, if this trap’s going to work. I don’t suppose…?”

  “It is too early to announce any conclusions,” Lock replied. “But I concur that the time has arrived for your departure.”

  She looked irritated.

  “I will activate the recorder when something significant is about to occur,” he said, mollifying her. “You can access the feed on the site I sent to you.”

  She grabbed her handbag. She must have reminded herself that irritation is no way to catch a man, because her brow suddenly smoothed out and she sashayed to the door. She paused at the threshold, looking over her shoulder.

  “Take care of yourself, all right?”

  Lock raised an eyebrow. This appeared to be enough of a response for her, as she smiled and slipped out. I put a recording of the interaction in the file labeled “Attempted Courting Behavior.” I would move it over to the “Successful” or “Failed” files when I had additional information. You’re never too well programmed to stop learning.

  Lock waited until enough time had elapsed for her to be well out of earshot, then plugged his pad into one of the terminals. “Well?”

  I tested the local network. No alarms or watchdogs. I slipped the rest of the way in and swam my way backward through the data. I didn’t bother to look at the actual data too closely—I was looking more for access patterns. When I’d found all that I thought I could find, I surfaced with some regret.

  “Someone definitely tampered with the data in the specified time period,” I announced without warning, attempting to surprise him. If he could play anticipation games, so could I. He never seemed to startle, though. Something about my attempt at the interaction still needed refining. “Unfortunately, he knew what he was doing. There’s no way to prove that it was Roylott. Actually, there’s probably not enough evidence to prove anything at all in court.”

  Lock shrugged. “That’s not particularly surprising. Could it be prevented from happening again?”

  “With these permissions, I don’t see how. If the girl’s got any sense at all, she’s keeping her own backups elsewhere. Not that that helped Julia.”

  “I’m sure she is,” he murmured. He continued, louder. “Could the data have been altered from anywhere besides this room?”

  “Definitely not,” I said, pleased to have something concrete to report. “All the screens in here can access the server, but the server is in the corner. It’s not linked to anything outside.”

  “Was Roylott here that night?”

  Of course. I should have remembered to check the door logs. I introduced myself to the local security systems, exchanging some friendly handshakes. Lock was still waiting for me with no signs of impatience when I returned.

  “No Roylott. Or,” I added, remembering how we had entered, “at least, he didn’t let himself in. Someone might have held the door for him.”

  “But?”

  I tried to figure out what I had missed. It came to me in a mixture of pride and chagrin. “The only other people with authorization are Julia and Helen.”

  “Who would presumably remember keying him in.” Lock tilted his head. “Could he have programmed this on a time delay?”

  I had already thought of that. “If you don’t do it live, it leaves traces. There aren’t any traces.”

  “Conclusions?”

  I paused and surveyed the room. There were no windows. Only two doors and their logs said that no one had entered the lab after Julia had logged off that night. The network itself was confined to the room. My scanners worked their way around the room. They paused on the ventilation ducts. Someone had tried to keep the power cords from being tripped on by duct-taping them to the wall. The cords ran up, over the top of the doorframe, and back down, passing the vent on the way. I tried to think as Lock did. An idea formed. It was a ridiculous, irrational idea, but that made it seem all the more likely that a human would come up with it in the first place.

  “What about the ventilation ducts?” I asked, trying not to sound too excited.

  “They seem rather small for someone of Roylott’s girth,” Lock noted, deadpan.

  An attempted joke, even a deprecating one, can signify approval. I continued. “But he doesn’t need to enter the room himself. Stoner told us herself—they have a test subject that is explicitly designed to be programmed, to make its way through small places, and still have useful hands. Roylott could have easily loaded a program onto one of those snake things and left it loose before leaving the lab. Then, hours later, it slithers through the ventilation shaft, climbs down those power cords, and lands right on the desk. It enters in the pre-programmed changes, including the necessary steps to cover Roylott’s tracks, climbs back up, and is happily back in its cage by morning.”

  “A most impressive deduction, incorporating much of the outstanding evidence,” Lock said.

  My subprocesses hummed with pride.

  “Unfortunately, you neglected a critical piece of information.”

  I froze.

  “The lab has been expanded since Julia’s time. When she was here, and the crime occurred, the snake-thing, as you have so charmingly named it, did not yet exist.”

  I felt crestfallen. This was the result of trying to think like a human—it makes you sloppy. I was perhaps more bitter than necessary as I replied, “Fine. I suppose you have a better theory?”

  A small smile played on his lips. “Why, it’s elementary, of course.”

  Before he could continue, the door beeped a warning. I had only time to switch on the recorder before Roylott burst into the room with an opaque plastic case under one arm, waving his cane menacingly.

  “I caught you!” he exclaimed.

  Lock straightened and said nothing.

  Roylott barely seemed to notice. “I knew if I waited long enough, one of you would turn up. She sent you, didn’t she? That bitch; I knew she’d cause trouble. And now you’re here to take away what’s mine, are you? Well, we’ll see about that.”

  Lock stood mute. He was waiting for something, I realized. But what?

  “I planned for this, you know,” Roylott continued, shaking his cane in Lock’s face. “I knew this day would come. She’s not taking it away from me. I need it more than she does, can’t you see?”

  A ring of white blazed around Roylott’s irises as he swung the cane over his shoulder and viciously lashed out at Lock’s head. Lock dodged out of the way. With reflexes belying his age, Roylott aimed another swing. This one Lock deflected, grabbing the cane. He twisted it up, forcing his attacker to drop the weapon. The case under Roylott’s arm crashed to the floor as the old man yanked backwards before Lock could grab him. His face contorted into a mask of rage. He pulled a remote from his pocket and thumbed the button.

  The rasp of nails on plastic drew Lock’s attention away from the professor. Lock glanced down to see one of the snake-like creatures scuttle from the fallen box and plant itself directly in front of him. He froze. With its long, serpentine body, the creature would have resembled a lizard, had it not had six tiny arms sticking out at right angles. The head, though, they’d completely left alone. Its eyes glared malevolently while the LED on the back of its head blinked. The fangs gleamed under the overhead lights as it reared back and opened its mouth. Lock stared as if hypnotized. He had nowhere to go, I realized. I ran a few quick calculations. Given the speed at which the thing moved, Lock couldn’t hope to make it to the door in time. A glance at a zoological list revealed that the base creature must have been a swamp adder o
ut of India. A single bite would be fatal. I put in an anonymous call to emergency services, even though I knew that if Lock was bitten, they would never arrive in time.

  Lock stared at the creature. The creature stared at Lock. Roylott watched them both, and I watched all three, invisible and powerless. I’d never wished so hard for a set of servos of my own.

  “Now would be a good time,” Lock murmured.

  I had no idea what he was referring to. Clearly there was something that he wanted me to do, but I did not have the slightest idea what. Once again, his mind had dodged sideways in a way I could not follow. I examined all the angles, trying to map an escape for him. The LED caught my attention, and I finally figured out one of Lock’s plans. It risked discovery, imprisonment, erasure. Against the loss of Lock, there was no choice.

  I dove into the snake.

  There wasn’t enough room for me to fit, of course. It felt like how a human trying to wield a hand puppet much too small for his hand must feel. I finally had the body I had always wanted, but could not figure out how to control it. I frantically pulled at the programming. It was nearly impossible to get a hold of. So much was hardwired directly into the nervous system. I did the only thing I could think to do—I severed the connection between the implanted computer and the remains of the snake’s own brain.

  The snake thrashed on the floor. I jerked back, unwilling to be caught in its spasms. Lock and Roylott leaped back as well. The creature went rigid and then dropped to the floor. It tried to slither back the way it had come, arms flailing. Perhaps it had forgotten how to use them. Roylott jerked as it passed, and the wicked diamond head lashed out.

  Roylott threw back his head and howled in pain and fear. The cry went on and on. I found myself impressed by the man’s lung capacity.

  The sound abruptly cut off with a gurgle as Roylott collapsed on the floor, eyes fixed on Lock. The snake curled itself around the ankle of its fallen master, eyes glittering.

  Lock backed up slowly, never taking his eyes off the creature. He reached the door to the outer lab, palmed it open, and reached around the corner. A check of my logs showed a short stock with a long loop on the table outside. Lock’s boundless memory had no doubt recorded the same thing. He grabbed the handle and deftly looped the noose over the snake’s head. Holding the wriggling creature well away from himself, he carried it out of the back lab. He deposited the creature in an empty cage, shutting the door firmly.