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Jack three alpha, interrogative coordinates ...The link was dead.
Energy flared to my right, and then the shells began walking through the
brush, trees falling, crashing toward me...
I sat upright in bed. Another variation on the old flashblacks. No
communications, no way of finding out where anything was, and fire coming in
from everywhere.
After a moment, I got up and walked around the darkened bedroom,trying to cool
down and dry off.
Eventually, I did get back to sleep.
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When I got up on Sunday morning, two hours later, I ran yet another varied
route hard. While it helped my system and jumpiness, I was still worried about
the DNA business and the sniper. I wanted to link Aliora, but she was always
at church with the children on Sunday morning. Sometimes Dierk went, and
sometimes he didn't.
So after I got cleaned up and dressed, I went back to work on the H&F report.
I'd already decided to defrag the system and just get through it. That way, I
could concentrate on the Centre report, without distractions.
I checked the image comparator. The system hadn't found any, and reported that
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a full comparison would take over six months. I canceled the routine.
At about two, I took a break and linked, hoping Aliora was in. She was. She
was still wearing a tasteful navy blue dress. She usually wore dresses to
church, but not often otherwise, unless the occasion happened to be formal.
"Jonat... are you linking to get a compliment on your restraint with Charis?"
She grinned.
"That would be nice. You should like the outfit."
"Charis said I would." She paused. "That's not why you linked."
"It's not. Something happened yesterday. Did Charis mention the servie at
Antoinette's?"
"No."
"He looked at me. It was as though his worst nightmare had appeared. He was
petrified."
"You haven't been...?" She shook her head. "He wasn't a Marine?"
"Too young. Early twenties at best. You know the kind Maria likes, the almost
Latin-lover type? Young, handsome, dark... that was him down to the last
byte."
"You can be fearsome, Jonat."
"But not in a boutique with my niece, and that's the second time..." I went on
to explain about the incident at Dominic's. I didn't mention the problem in
Epaso or the sniper. "And you remember at the opera?"
"You think someone's used your DNA for a clone or a cydroid?"
"What would you think?"
"I don't know."
"There's no way to find out anything. I did report it to the safos, but all I
talked to was one of the AIs.
She ... the image was a woman ... took the information. That was strange, too.
She claimed that there were no true AIs."
"Why would it do that?"
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"Maybe to get a better voice profile," I answered. "I hadn't thought of that.
But that would mean..."
Aliora winced. "You are worried."
"As I said, wouldn't you be?"
"Is there anything you can do? Ask people ... check around?"
I laughed. "Who would tell me anything? In a case like this, the Privacy Acts
just make it harder. The safos have told me all they can ... or will. There's
no way I can search the continental GIL files. The news nets can't report more
than an outline of unidentified unregistered clones of cydroids, and they
can't show faces until or unless there's a criminal conviction."
"Would you want your face or your name used if someone filed a frivolous
charge against you?" Aliora countered. "Would you want to go back to the days
of the old USA, where there wasn't any such thing as privacy? Where anyone
could link or net or print anything about anyone, so long as it couldn't be
proved false?"
"I don't know. Today, we're at the other extreme. All sorts of problems go on,
just because no one can say anything, unless they have ironclad proof. You
publicly suggest wrongdoing that you know is going on, and unless you've got
more proof than it takes to convict the Executive's spouse, you'll be faced
with a preemptory closure order and a judgment for damages. So there are
conspiracies everywhere, and gray areas all over westside. In politics, the
compromise is the 'fictional' drama. There the Privacy Acts prove a shield,
because the claimant has to prove that the 'fiction' is truth, and who wants
to admit to a crime or bad judgment publicly? And what about that new show, If
This Was True..."
"That's pretty bad, but it's still better than the old days."
"Wasn't good then, and it's not good now."
"That's life, Jonat."
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I supposed it was. I forced a smile. "So ... did she like the outfit?"
"She did, and she also liked the lunch. You made her feel special, and little
girls like that. Just so long as it's an occasional treat."
"I listen to you on that, sister dear."
"It's agoodthing. You'dspoilher outrageously."
"Probably not if I were in your position. It's fun to bean uncle. Besides,
that's because she's nice to me, and she doesn't want that much."
Aliora laughed. "She's smarter than that. She already knows she'll get far
more from you that way. You'll give anything to someone who doesn't ask and
who treats you with love and respect."
"Nine years old, and she's already smarter than I am."
"About that." Aliora paused. "You're not seeing anyone, are you?"
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"No. You know that."
"Sometimes..." She forced a smile, one that vanished. "Have you heard the
news?"
"What news?"
"Everett Forster was murdered last night."
"What? How? He was going everywhere cydroid, I thought."
"The safos and the nets aren't saying. There's speculation..."
Speculation, again, theoretical possibilities.
"... that it was a PAMD agent that bypassed his security system and shot him
on his back veranda with a rifle from a distance."
Bypassing a security system and still needing a rifle? "He has a big estate?"
"Fairly large ... ten acres."
Ten acres in Southhills easily cost thirty million creds. "Had to be a
professional, then. The safos have every public millimeter of Southhills
monitored, and Unite probably had every private millimeter scanned."
"I can't see why they want him dead," Aliora said.
"Because he's prominent, and because, after the furor over the new ion drive
that Unite has developed, there's no way he'll ever make it available to the
Martians or the Belters. That's just a guess, but it makes sense."
"I still can't believe they don't have anyone in custody."
That didn't surprise me, especially after my own experiences of the past days.
"The nets might not know."
She shrugged. "What are you going to do now?"
"There's not much I could do, and I've got work to do."
"That's all you do."
"Might as well make credits instead of sitting around."
"You'll never meet anyone holed up in your office."
"I tried doing things to meet people, you might recall. I did it for over five
years, andI never met anyone.
I ran into Marilyn at a client's, and that lasted longer than any of the
others."
"Except Shioban."
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"Except Shioban," I agreed. "But I didn't meet her seeking people out,
either."
"Whatever you're doing, or not doing, brother dear, it's not working."
She was right, but I didn't have any solutions.
"Do you want to come to dinner on Friday?"
"I can't. I'll be in Fargo."
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