"The Transgenic Falcon"

“You have still failed to provide a single good reason why I should allow someone wholly untrained to question the ’lin-I,” Simone Ferguson said to Belinda, completely ignoring me.

Belinda is tall, especially in her heels, but Ferguson had her beat. Where my old flame was solidly built like the Mid-Western farm girl her mother and grandmothers had been, Ferguson all harsh planes and vertical lines; narrow hips, narrow shoulders, long hands with even longer graceful fingers defined the woman.

She had thick black hair, which had been cut short into teardrop shaped bunches, with all the points facing back or down. It made her long face more sever, exposing her cheekbones, and emphasizing her blade narrow nose. Combined with her quick precise movements, it gave her a very avian vibe.

“As I said, Dr. Ferguson, we are investigating Dr. Cho’s death, and the death of six of the Eolin-I. That alone should be reason enough,” Belinda said, as frostily cold as Ferguson.

“Well, it’s nice to know there is so much concern for my charges, but even someone like you can see that the only members of the Eolin-I which might have useful information are dead.”

“Not so,” I put in drawing out my slight Texas twang. It earned me two sets of baleful eyes looking at me. I held up my tattered copy of the Fifteen Steps, “It says here in chapters three, five and even eleven, the solution to any investigation is comprised of pieces of information which look unrelated in isolation, but when put into context fit together.”

Both women’s lips quirked in very small and superior smiles. I wondered how much trouble I’d get into noting the two of them have a lot in common. No, no, it was too terrifying to even contemplate.

“A how-to book for an investigator, how quaint,” Ferguson purred with nearly concealed malice.

“Every profession has its reference works, Ms. Ferguson; I just carry mine because most of my work is not in the lab or office,” I said, with a big smile.

“Doctor Ferguson, Mr. Hunt, it is Dr. Ferguson, not Ms.,” Ferguson told me with a haughty toss of her head.

“I’ve got multiple doctorates too. Thing is, I gave up measuring dick size by education years ago.”

Now I get a smile with teeth in it, though to be fair, it might have had more in common with a snarl than a smile. “Men never stop measuring the size of their dicks,” Ferguson said and arched an eyebrow in challenge.

I let it hang in the air for a second while I think about my next move. It’s clear going head to head with Ferguson was not going to get anywhere. She’s the Queen in her department. I could have ordered a nuclear strike by getting Johnson on the phone and explaining that she is obstructing my investigation, has been all day in fact, but was that the best way? Maybe not.

“Dr. Ferguson, why exactly are you concerned about me speaking with the Eolin-I?” I asked, my tone quite and neutral.

“The family has taken a huge loss, twenty percent, all in one day. The ’lin-I are already upset. Your interrogation of them could cause irreparable damage.”

I saw Belinda open her mouth to say something, but I gave her a minute shake of my head. “Talking to them could damage them? How?”

“They are not human, Mr. Hunt. While the Eolin-I have some intelligence, their conscious minds are not like ours. They are gentle creatures, inherently kind and caring. They want to please, it is part of who they are, but if you ask questions they can not answer it could set up a feedback loop, ending with catatonia. It happened in early prototypes and I do not intend to risk it with only viable clan unit we’ve produced.” Ferguson shook her head, realizing she’d been talking too much and giving up too much ground. “What is it you hope to find out by talking to the ’lin-I anyway?”

“Dr. Cho brought six of them into his lab, late at night, and consequently died with them. Knowing why they were there could help us understand why they and Cho were killed.”

“Oh, if that is all you need, I can tell you why the ’lin-I were there,” Ferguson said brightening. I raised my eyebrows to ask the question. “Constantine and I created the Eolin-I, but they still present a lifetime of work. Sadly, Dr. Cho was a man of wondering attention. Once Gen-Tech began moving the project towards production, he lost interest and moved on. But the ’lin-I were his children, in a way, so he liked to visit with them. Since they have been designed to be janitors, they are nocturnal. So if Constantine wanted to see them it had to be at night.”

“Well, thank you for letting me know that, Dr. Ferguson, but I still need to ask a few questions myself. The Eolin-I are nearly invisible as far as people are concerned, there is no telling what they might know, but don’t know is helpful.”

The fire came back into Fergusson’s eyes at this. “This project is already in major trouble, and as Chief Scientist I can not allow you to endanger it further!”

I pulled on an earlobe, “It seems to me you’re looking at this all wrong Dr. Ferguson. Yes, the program is in trouble. This set-back, combined with the uproar of Gen-Tech creating thinking beings, for sale, is the kinds of thing which make executive boards re-evaluate their support. True?”

“Yes, and you point is?” she asked icily.

“My point is I am working directly for the Chairman and CEO. When I solve this case, I’ll be in his good graces, and can put in a good word for you and the project.” I said, then shut up. I figured that Ferguson had placed all her career-path chips on being the one to bring the Eolin-I to market. Being responsible for making this project a success is the kind of mojo that lets you move from the lab to the board room.

With someone else I might have made the other part of the equation, namely that I had Otho’s ear and could piss on this project from a great height if I didn’t get what I wanted explicit, but you get better results from smart people by letting them think through the unsaid.

“If I allowed it there would be strict rules.” Ferguson said after a moment of silence. “I would be present, you will only interview one of the ’lin-I, picked by me, and it will not be in the communal living area.”

“I can live with that,” I said.

“And,” Ferguson continued, “If I think that you are upsetting the Eolin-I, I will end the interview immediately. There will be no argument about it in front of the interviewee. Are you willing to accept these rules, Mr. Hunt?”

It was an odd turn of phrase, somehow formal, like she said it all the time. Still it gave me most of what I wanted, so I was willing to go along. “Yes,” I said.

“Yes, what?” Ferguson asked, sharply, her thin nostrils flaring.

“Yes, Dr. Ferguson, I can accept those rules,” I answered promptly.

“Very good,” she said and turned away. I traded a look with Belinda; she seemed as nonplused by this little exchange as I was. If I am being completely honest, talking to the Eolin-I wasn’t absolutely required, but I’d kick myself daily for years if I missed the chance to speak to the first sentient species, other than humans, in the last thirty thousand years.

Belinda slid over to stand next to me, and was giving me an apprising look. Being the suave, erudite fellow I am I asked, “What?” See, a real word smith, me.

She smiled, a good happy smile, not a calculated one. “I’m impressed, Eamon. You found the way around Ferguson, without having to fall back on your blank-cheque from Otho. I didn’t know you had it in you.”

The praise made me feel vaguely uncomfortable, like getting told you’re hot by an elderly aunt. I’d made some kind of phase change with Belinda; from annoying but useful ex to…I don’t know to what, but definitely something different.

“Just a lucky line of attack. Are the Eolin-I really that fragile?” I asked needing to talk about anything other than my word play.

Belinda held up a hand, tipping left then right, “Sort of. The fact they talk tended to make a lot of folks who should have known better treat them like slightly slow humans. Which they are not. If you give them an IQ test they will come in at the bottom of the Low-Normal range. But it is a category error, since you would be measuring them against the human scale.”

“I get it, they might seem dumb to us, but for them they are, what? Smart?”

“Wrong measure, again.” Belinda replied, “They designed, and they have had nearly the exact same nurture and life experiences, so there is almost no variation. In any case they seem very child-like. Their size and limited vocabulary tricked some of the original team into treating them like human children and expecting them to be able to grow and react the same way.”

“Let me test my understanding here.” I asked, “The researchers created the ’lin-I and did such a good job, even with the way they look, that they wound up treating them like humans, right?” Belinda nodded. “So they expected too much of them and ’lin-I got upset. That doesn’t seem like a huge deal, thinking beings get upset, then they get over it”

“You forgot one thing; the neural programming.”

“Wait, you used neural programming on them?” I asked, shocked, though I shouldn’t have been.

“Of course, all Gen-Tech animate products are programmed, they have to be. The ’lin-I are intended to be janitorial crews. Part of the user-story is that they will not lie or steal or trade loyalties. And they are programmed to enjoy their work as well. It’s important to remember they are created and they are not humans.”

I felt my face get still. I couldn’t believe how casually she said it. Slavery is a fine old tradition for humans. As much as we like to think it is gone, the truth is it still exists in various parts of the world. One of the traits of any slave owner is the de-humanization of the slaves. The unbeliever, the mountain folk, the people from the river, the Eloi, the workers down in the bowels of Fitz Lang’s Metropolis, all less than human to the overlords.

Somehow this was worse though. The slaver owners also always said their chattel were happy doing the work they did. With the neural-genetic wizardry of Gen-Tech they actually were. They didn’t even have a choice in the matter.

“So, if someone forgets their limitations, and crosses the neural programming, that’s when a problem occurs. What happens then?” I asked.

“It leads to distress, especially if there is a conflict of loyalty.” Belinda said.

“Distress? That’s all?”

“Unfortunately it can set up a feed-back loop, especially in the early models. The “eager to please” setting was too high. If loyalty to the company was called into question it warred with wanting to please the person they were interacting with. In most cases it leads to catatonic withdrawal and death. New species are very tricky to get right.” She had the good grace to look pretty unhappy about it.

It kept me from hating her, but it was a close thing. Did living and working in Gen-Tech so isolate people that they didn’t hear what it sounded like when discussing thinking beings as products? I didn’t have time to rail at her about it, if Ferguson came back and found us yelling at each other she’d cancel the interview right away. I put my anger away in a box and shut the lid. It wasn’t healthy, and it sure as hell wouldn’t stay locked away, but it was enough for the time being.

Dr. Ferguson did come back at that point and led me to a small, dimly lit room. She drew the line at letting Belinda in. She was allowed to watch on the cameras, but not participate. Just as well, I didn’t need the distraction of trying to figure out if it was her I was mad at or the whole set up that brought her to the point where she didn’t see how jaded she was towards the Eolin-I.

I was sitting in a comfortable and rather low chair when Ferguson brought in the Eolin-I to speak with me. I’d seen the holograms of the dead janitors in Cho’s lab, but there is a huge difference between the quick and the dead.

Where the fur on the ones I’d examined had been matted and dull, this one’s was gleaming and perfectly brushed. He padded along on bare feet next to Ferguson, glancing around timidly, as they came into the room.

I’d been told to stay in my seat, to be less intimidating. I waited for Ferguson to shepherd him to his own seat, one with a little steps so when he was seated the Eolin-I was more or less at eye-level with me.

“Jomain, this is Mr. Hunt,” Ferguson said, “He would like to ask you some questions.”

I smiled, resisting the urge to grin. I’d had daydreams of being part of First Contact with an alien species since I was a child, and now it was here; if a little different than the younger me had envisioned.

“Hi, Jomain,” I said kindly.

“hullo,” he said in a quiet, but clear voice, bobbing his furred head towards me, then climbing on to the chair opposite. Joamian’s eyes were bright and lively, and a color of brown I’d only ever seen on a dog. But there was far more intellect behind those eyes than any hound every born.

“I am going to be right over here, Jomain,” Ferguson, said, “Please don’t be nervous and if there are any questions that make you nervous, we will stop right away, okay?” Her tone was completely different than I’d heard from her before. My mind rebelled at assigning the word ‘maternal’ to such a driven, ball-busting bitch, but it was the one that was most accurate. Who would have thought she had it in her? Still it was nice to see she didn’t have a ‘do as I say, not as I do’ attitude, at least when it came to her charges.

“Okay, Dr. Ferguson,” Jomain said, a slight lisp in his voice. She stepped back to the wall on the left.

Jomain returned his wide and trusting gaze to me. His eyes were roving all over me and I wondered if this was normal for Eolin-I. Who could know? They were a whole new species.

Jomain pointed one little paw-finger towards me. “Your shirt” he said, “It’s beautiful”

Finally someone who appreciates aloha shirts! I was more than a little relieved, if another species had made a joke about it, I would have seriously had to reconsider my wardrobe. Its one thing if my fellow humans are jealous enough of my style to have to run it down, but getting heat from outside ones species is another thing all together.

“You like it?” I asked.

“Yess. Can I touch it?” Jomain asked, leaning forward a little, then stopping and waiting for permission. Politeness or programming?

“Sure,” I told him and leaned forward to put myself and my shirt in touching range. Jomain reached out and rubbed his fingers on the smooth cotton a few times. A human would have grabbed the edge of a sleeve, to use their thumbs to rub the fabric, this was more like being petted. After a few seconds he stopped and sat back, so I did too.

“Jomain, I am sorry about your brothers,” I started. Ferguson had told me the Eolin-I already knew about the deaths. The little creature’s eyes dulled at this and he looked down.

“The ’lin-I are sad,” he confirmed.

“We all are, Jomain. They were in Dr. Cho’s lab, did you know?”

“Yess, Dr. Fergusson say.”

“Did that happen a lot? Going into Dr. Cho’s lab?” Jomain looked up and tilted his head to the side, just like a dog that had heard a new sound.

“A lot?”

Right, I was expecting this, sort of. Ferguson had warned me they did not have a huge vocabulary and were often quite literal in their thinking. I tried again.

“Did you ever visit with Dr. Cho in his lab?”

“Yess,” Jomain said with a bob of his furred head.

“How many times did you visit there?”

“Many times” Jomain said, and then added something for the first time since I’d met him. “Dr. Cho like to see us. He is nice man. He made us.”

“Yes, he did,” I agreed. “Now, I am going to ask you a couple of questions, but I want you to know there is no wrong answer, and you won’t get in trouble or anyone else in trouble no matter how you answer, okay?”

Jomain nodded seriously. I shot a glance to Ferguson, but she didn’t wave me off so I continued. “Did you ever see anyone other than Dr. Cho in his lab?”

He thought for a minute then said, “No. We come out in the quite time. We are supposed to stay away from Bigs if we see them.” Bigs were what the Eolin-I called humans, not a bad designator for people who all towered over them.

“No one else?” I pressed.

“Mr. Taylor, one two times. He has long hair like me,” Jomain added helpfully.

“Good, Mr. Taylor, he worked with Dr. Cho. What about Ms. O’Neil, she has long hair too?”

Jomain shook his head. So, no O’Neil.

“When you visited Dr. Cho, what did he do?”

“He look in eyes, look in ears, look at teeth” Jomain offered, then paused, “He always pet us, and tell us we are good. We like Dr. Cho very much, he like us very much.” The heartbreakingly simple statement was offset by my being able to see the frustrated frown on Fergusons face. I made a mental note to follow up about that later.

“Jomain, I want you to think hard on this question; was there a time when Dr. Cho was upset? Any time you remember?” I asked, then waited. After a moment the Eolin-I nodded.

“Yes,” Jomain said simply.

I smiled, from a human it would have been a wiseass remark, but Jomain was just answering the question that had been asked. “Recently? In the last few sleeps or times you were in the lab?” I asked, completely unsure of how long his memory was.

“Yes, Dr. Cho, he angry with Mr. Taylor, and he angry other time by himself. We not like when Bigs angry.”

Ferguson drew in an involuntary breath at this. Jomain’s head snapped around to look at her. She’d told me the Eolin-I were very sensitive to emotions. Between what Jomain had said and done, it was obviously true. I wanted to glare at her for distracting him, but took a deep breath to control my own feelings. I needed to know what the Eolin-I knew and getting angry with one of their closest, ah, teachers wouldn’t help. Unfortunately neither would pressing him right away. I’d have to go at this a laterally if I wanted the real facts.

“Jomain,” I said in my calmest voice, “Do you like your work?”

“Work?”

“Keeping the building clean, taking away the trash, vacuuming, do you like that?”

A very real and chillingly human smile graced Jomain’s face. “Oh! Very, very much! We keep the building clean! The desk places, the lab places and the beautiful long straight halls, we know them all and keep them,” he told me with several nods for emphasis. I couldn’t help but grin in sympathy to his enthusiasm.

“Some day, we clean whole building! Ms. Ferguson say we will have many nests, lots of brothers and many mothers!” Jomain continued.

I glanced at Ferguson, then back to Jomain, “She says that, does she? And that will make you happy?”

“Oh yess,” Jomain agreed, “It is what we for, keep building clean. ’lin-I proud of keep building clean, it our building.” ’

“Yes, it is,” I agreed. I hated to do it, but I needed to bring this back to Cho and the deaths. Making this child-like being happy and then sad again felt like I was kicking a puppy, but it had to be done. “Jomain, how many sleeps ago did Dr. Cho and Dr. Taylor get angry at each other?”

I watched as he thought, then touched his thumb to the fingers of each paw-hand several times. “Many, many sleeps” he finally said. Well, that was no help. Or was it?

“Jomain, please do that again, touching your fingers for the sleeps,” He complied and I watched. He counted out seventeen days.

“Seventeen,” I said, mostly to myself.

“Sseventeen?” Jomain asked.

“Its how many sleeps.” I held up my hand and with the index finger of my other hand tapped each finger in order. “One, two, three..” I counted out to seventeen, all the time Jomain watched with intent focus.

“What are?” he asked in wonder.

“Numbers, they are called numbers. It’s how Bigs know many from many many.”

He reached out and tapped my pinky, and then startled the hell out of me, “Four, eight, twelve, sss-si-“ he stumbled.

“Sixteen” I said distinctly.

“Sssixteen,” Jomain said with a nod, for all the world like a human setting a piece of information firmly in memory.

Ferguson had taken a half step away from the wall and was glaring at me. She tapped her wrist meaningfully. She was about to end the interview.

“Jomain, do you know when Dr. Cho was upset by himself?” I asked quickly.

“No, I not there, I hear from other ’lin-I.” Well it was probably too much to expect. Time to wrap this up.

“Thank you for talking to me today, I liked it very, very much. Dr. Ferguson is going to take you back to the nest now.” I waved to Ferguson.

Jomain jumped down from his chair, looked at Ferguson, then back at me.

“Can Jomain ask question?” he said to me.

“Sure,” I agreed, interested.

“You look for ones who end ’lin-I, yes?”

“Yes, I do.”

“What do you do when find them?”

“I’ll make sure they never hurt any Eolin-I again,” I said solemnly.

“Promise?”

“I promise, Jomain,” And I meant it. I’m not a great person, I lie, I’ve cheated and stole and probably will do so again, but one thing I don’t do is make promises to children and break them. It’s a thin shred of integrity, but its one I defend. The Eolin-I might not be human, but they were like children in their openness and trust. And I would rather be dead than renege on my promise to one.

“Good. I tell other ’lin-I. Thank you, Mr. Hunt,” he said and turned to let Ferguson usher him out.

I pulled out my G-T issued phone and rang up Johnny Round.

“What’s up Eamon?” his tiny face asked.

“I think we should make sure Mick Taylor doesn’t go anywhere,” I told him without preamble.

He frowned, “You think Taylor is the killer?”

“Not sure yet, but there’s something going on with him, and there’s some evidence that points at him. It’s too early for me to say, but I’d like to be able to put my hands on him when I need to ask some more questions. Can we have him watched? I’d rather not have you arrest him quite yet.”

“Not a problem. I’ll order a system-wide log watch on him. We’ll know his whereabouts at all times. I’ll order an alert if he tries to code out or use one of acrologies vehicles.”

I repressed a shudder. Panopticon surveillance is every would-be dictator’s dream and here in Gen-Tech, they were only a half-step away from it. I vowed then and there to never, ever, live in this or any other acrology. Sure cameras are everywhere in our society these days, but you could usually content yourself with the knowledge that the massive take from them could never truly be organized and shifted. Inside Gen-Tech they had the computational power and a narrow enough population and geography to make it work. Luckily for me Round didn’t seem to notice my visceral horror, people at the top of the information pyramid would never understand.

“What has you looking at Taylor anyway?” Johnny asked.

I gave a shrug, not really wanting to talk about it. But I knew him well enough to know he wouldn’t let me stonewall him. “He’s has money trouble, he has access to the lab, and there’s some evidence he and Cho had an argument in the last three weeks. But it’s not even close to enough to say he’s the one.”

Round looked at me with for a few seconds. “Eamon, you know what we said on the force; if you think its one guy, it usually is. The clock is ticking, you know.”

“Johnny, you told me you wanted this wrapped up with a bow for the HPD; as of now, I don’t have anything close to that, this is just a hunch.”

“If you say so. But as soon as you’re sure, lets pull him in, yes?”

I nodded and signed off. Simone Ferguson came back in. She looked thoughtful. I decided to take advantage of that and see if I couldn’t keep her off-balance a little.

“Thanks for letting me interview Jomain. He was quite helpful.”

“Really?” She asked. I tried to decide if she was more surprised at the thanks or the assertion that Jomain had had something useful to say.

“Absolutely, every bit of information helps. I’d like to ask you some questions, if you have a few minutes?”

She nodded and sat on the edge of the table. It put her head above mine, which was starting to seem like a common habit to me. Maybe it was all part of climbing the corporate structure, never giving up any advantage.

“Were you aware of what Jomain told me? Before he said it?”

“What do you mean?” Ferguson retorted, “That Constantine and Taylor argued in front of the ’lin-I?” I gave a nod. “No, not specifically, but it’s hardly a surprise, Cho could be hard-headed and didn’t suffer dissent from his team easily.”

“Did you two knock heads when you were on his team?”

Simone gave a thin smile, “I was never on Constantine’s team. I was brought in once the Eolin-I were considered stable. My responsibility is to bring them up to production readiness. It’s a very different job than creating them.”

“And it didn’t bother you that Cho kept in close contact with the ’lin-I?”

“Not really. He is, was, the chief designer, it only stands to reason that he’d want to keep an eye on them,” Ferguson lied.

“Really, Doctor? I saw how you looked when Jomain mentioned how much the Eolin-I liked Cho, and when he mentioned being petted by him.”

She waved a hand, dismissing the thought. “Oh, very well. Yes, it is annoying that Cho would pet them. I’ve been saying for months we should recode the ’lin-I for less fur. They are not destined to be pets and the fur they have is too tempting for the weak willed. I’ve had to reprimand several of my staff about it. It would be better if they didn’t look like plush toys.”

“So it’s fair to say you and Dr. Cho got along?”

She gave me an evil and superior smile, but said, “Yes, I think you could say we got along quite well. Speaking of getting along, you did very well with Jomain. I am not easily impressed, but your ability to handle his emotional needs was exemplary.”

“Is it really that hard? I’d say it just took a bit of patience and empathy.”

“Touché,” Ferguson replied with a graceful nod.

“Can you tell my why you never taught them to count?” I was basically finished with my questions, but willing to satisfy my own curiosity.

“Ah, well, we didn’t teach them because we didn’t think they had an advanced enough neural structure to learn,” she told me, looking a little abashed for the first time since I met her. There’d be some good money to be made by betting no one else around here had seen that look before.

“Seems like Cho designed better than even he knew, huh?”

“So it would seem, Mr. Hunt, so it would seem,” Ferguson agreed.