Chapter Sixteen
Dex saw Stella Bish coming toward him from what seemed like a mile away. Almost everyone spent so much time on their avatar’s appearance, they might as well all be wearing t-shirts that read “Please look at me, aren’t I beautiful?” Bish had a slightly different take on that beauty than most of the other folks in the market. Her avatar wore a long, cream coloured dress of a design that aimed to emulate satin. She seemed to be going for an effortless elegance in the midst of leather underpants and bright blue feathered wings.
Fair enough, Dex thought, knowing that his own image with the old fashioned dark suit and hat was somewhat unusual as well. Bish walked through the middle of the plaza, disrupting the birds and turning them into a maelstrom of avian clouds as they squawked and rustled up into the sky. She knew how to make an entrance, Dex had to admit.
She approached the bench where he sat and Dex played along by standing as she approached and touching his hand to the brim of his hat. She might have control over the independent contractors in Marionette City, but she surely didn’t have a monopoly on anachronism. She sashayed up to him, a hint of a smile on her lips. “So, gumshoe,” she said, “what did you call me up here for?”
Dex gestured for her to sit and she gathered up her skirts, as if to avoid soiling them on some invisible dirt and sat gingerly next to him on the bench. “Seems like you’re the go to gal around here,” he said, “if you want to get anything personal or interesting made.” She smiled and Dex thought he detected a kind of preening expression in the avatar. “No, really,” he continued. “It seems like you’re the only game in town if someone wants a little extra work.” Her smile faded and Dex pressed on. “There isn’t a whole lot of independent programming that goes on around here that isn’t under your umbrella, is there?”
She held his gaze and her avatar face betrayed nothing. Who knew what was happening autonomically with her physical body. If there was one thing Dex knew, it was that Marionette City was made for liars. “My people are the best,” she finally answered. “The market regulates itself. What can I say — people come to a trusted name for a trusted product. There’s nothing new here. I offer a kind of guarantee. Who doesn’t like that?”
“That’s fine,” Dex said, “but it seems like there might be people who are so keen to get into your inner circle of contractors that they’d be willing to kill for the job.”
She looked taken aback and Dex wondered how many of her expressions were calculated and how many were genuine. “You can’t mean that Reuben Cobalt was killed for his contracts? That’s...” She paused, as if choosing her next words carefully. “That’s both appalling and stupid.”
“Only if you don’t think about it,” Dex said. “You know that Reuben was a multi, right?’
She looked down, then said, quietly, “I had guessed that it was the case.” She raised her head and looked Dex straight in the eyes. “I’m not one of those bigots, Mr. Dexter. All I care about in here is my business and I really don’t give a damn what people do outside of their working lives. Heaven knows people would be surprised to see my private life. But I don’t know anything about Reuben’s... uh ‘author’ doesn’t sound quite right. What’s the correct term?”
“They usually say ‘creator’ or ‘first’,” Dex said.
“Okay,” she continued, “his creator. I have no idea who that is. And I couldn’t care less. He did fine work, Mr. Dexter. Like you will never know. We lost an artist.” She looked away and Dex paused a moment.
“Fine,” he said. “Assuming that the killer also knew that Reuben was a multi, maybe it was easier to rationalize. You’re not really killing a person, you’re just ruining some code. It’s not murder, it’s vandalism. And if it means the difference between complete obscurity and a solid slate of contract jobs, it might be a reasonable career move.”
“Hmm,” Bish said, thinking.
“Not so stupid after all,” Dex said.
“I’d disagree,” she said, “but my perspective is different. At first glance it might appear that programmers are a dime a dozen, but the truly great ones are hard to come by. Sure there are tons of people offering services, but there are only a few who can really make things happen. It takes more than a perfunctory understanding of language — only a few people have the skills to make something new here. I choose my people carefully, Mr. Dexter. That’s why my positions are so sought after.”
“I understand that,” Dex said. “So I have to ask, have you filled the void? Have you replaced Reuben’s position?”
Bish looked uncomfortable, but said, “I do have a long list of people waiting for work. Vacancies don’t last very long.”
“So you have someone in mind for a replacement,” he said.
“I do,” she answered. “But I do think you’re going in the wrong direction.”
“That may very well be,” Dex conceded, “but I’d still like to see your short list of replacements.”
Bish was silent for a moment. “I don’t want you harassing my people,” she said. “It’s bad for business.”
“I realize that,” Dex said, “but having your staff eliminated can’t be good for morale, either.”
“Very well,” she said, pinging his system for a download. He accepted and a small file transferred over to him. “I trust you will be discreet.”
“I’ll certainly try,” he said, as she rose from the bench. She turned to him and he stood.
“Have you visited Mr. Farone, yet?” she asked.
Dex was taken aback. “I’m sure you know I have,” he said.
She turned to walk away and said, over her shoulder, “I hope you find what you’re looking for.” She linked out of Marionette City without waiting for an response.
Dex opened the file she had sent him and looked at the names. His memory wasn’t perfect, but it didn’t take long before one name jumped out at him as a familiar one. Sterling Ljundberg, number two on the list. Dex ran through his notes and was reminded that Ljundberg was one of Reuben’s buddies from the philosophy boards. And there he was, a contender for Reuben’s newly vacated job with Stella Bish. Dex didn’t like coincidences much and this one was too great to ignore. Time to talk to Ljundberg again.
• • •
Dex pulled up the contact information he had for Ljundberg, but he got the “not online” message. Fine, it was getting late and not everyone showed themselves online all the time anyway. He paged over to his notes and found a link to the board where he’d first encountered Ljundberg. He ran a search for the man’s name and saw that Ljundberg hadn’t posted there in some time. In fact, he hadn’t posted there since before Dex had spoken to him days earlier. That wasn’t entirely unusual; looking at the man’s posting pattern, he’d been a sporadic participant for the last few months.
Dex was pretty sure he ought to be able to find out more about Ljundberg, but he didn’t have the skills to even figure out where to start. He felt like he was abusing whatever bizarre relationship they had, but he pinged Annabelle anyway, explaining that he wanted any information on Sterling Ljundberg’s activities online in the last week. He provided all the contact information he had and sent the message. He figured she’d get it in the morning and get back to him later on, but she answered back right away via voice chat.
“Hey, Dex,” she said. “If I didn’t know better I’d think you were just making excuses to talk to me.”
“I don’t need an excuse,” Dex lied, “but I do need help. I’m starting to think you should have taken this case off my hands a long time ago.”
“Bullshit,” she said, “you love this stuff. Besides, I’m no investigator; I’m just a code monkey. This is just one of those times when it takes two to tango, you know?”
“Sure,” he said. “I really do appreciate your help, though. I want you to know that.”
“I do,” she said, softly. “Look, here’s the thing. I’ve written up a search script to see if I can track Ljundberg t
hrough my secret back door to the everywherenet. But it’s going to take a while to run.” She paused a moment. “If you have some free time, you wanna just talk for a bit? No strings, we’re just pals — you know, a conversation. If you have the time, of course.”
Dex really didn’t have anything else to do and with his new work schedule he had more than enough time to hang out with Annabelle if he wanted. What the hell, he thought. He figured he owed her something for all the crap he’d been getting her to do for him, not to mention for being such an asshole the other night. He could probably suck it up and make small talk for a few minutes. “Sure, kiddo.” he said. “I’d love to.”
• • •
Dex surprised himself. They talked for a good three hours and it wasn’t really that bad. Annabelle told him about some of the sneaky ways she tapped into the security sectors of the everywherenet to get information she wasn’t really supposed to have. A lot of what she said went over his head, but she was so into it that some of her excitement rubbed off on him and he found himself asking her to explain things he’d never even remotely cared about before. She asked him about investigating and what that was like and he talked about that feeling you get being all wrapped up in a puzzle and having to just poke it at its edges until a little piece comes free, then following it until you get out and can see it for what it is.
Partway through the first hour, Dex refilled his glass and he heard Annabelle do the same. They talked for a while about their day jobs, which was an easy source of bonding. Annabelle was a low level grunt programmer for a major train firm in Europa and she had all the same bullshit in her job that Dex had in his.
“Europa,” Dex said, confused. “But you’re on my local squad.”
“Yeah,” she said. “I used to live there, but my firm got acquired by a big Euro outfit and I was transferred. I moved physically, but since I’m not Street I never bothered to switch squads. It’s worked out fine, since I’m still more or less on a Namerican time schedule. Everything’s virtual anyway, so I’ve hardly even noticed the change.”
They continued to talk shop, comparing strategies for getting annoying people to stop bothering them and coming up with clever ways to tell managers that their ideas were stupid without losing their jobs. Dex shared his recent discovery that if you fucked up just enough, they’d reduce your hours without cutting your benefits and suggested that Annabelle should try it.
“Somehow I doubt I could get away with that,” she said, her speech having gotten a little looser as they got further into the night. “You know there’s something about you that just makes people want to help you, right?”
“Um,” Dex said, laughing, “I actually think it only works on you.”
Annabelle snorted and that made Dex laugh even harder. “You totally don’t see it, do you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, trying to get the laughter under control.
“You have this, I don’t know, vulnerability combined with menace,” she said. “It’s a very potent combination. I think it’s what makes you such a great investigator. People feel compelled to help you, no matter whether they’re motivated by fear or compassion. It’s weird.”
“No,” Dex said, “you’re weird.”
“Well, I knew that,” Annabelle said. “That’s why I like you. Dangerous, needy guys turn me on. I never know if they’re going to hang me from a meathook and ravish me or curl up in my lap and let me stroke their hair. It’s the not knowing what’s coming next that’s so hot.”
Dex didn’t know what to say to that and an awkward pause hung between them for a while. He polished off his drink and finally said, earnestly, “I’m sorry I’m not the man you think I am.”
Annabelle laughed lightly. “Don’t be sorry, you’re perfectly wonderful. I just need to remember that I can’t make everything I want happen just by wishing it were so. I guess it’s an occupational hazard.”
Dex laughed again, wondering how she could be so easy with this. He knew how much it hurt to have something you want so badly to be close enough to taste, but only to watch it walk away from you. Quietly, he said, “I wish I could be what you want,” but Annabelle wasn’t listening anymore.
Instead, she interrupted, excitedly saying, “The script is done! And you’re not going to believe this. Unless I somehow fucked this up beyond all recognition, our guy has completely vanished.”