Skin Deep
Page 11

I ignored the comment, squatting down beside the pane of glass, inspecting some other notations she’d made on other topics. “Searching for patterns in the things Panos wrote online?”
“I thought there might be hidden messages in his forum posts,” Audrey explained.
I nodded. When I’d studied handwriting analysis—and, in doing so, created Audrey—I’d done a little tangential research into cryptography. The two disciplines moved in the same circles, and some of the books I’d read had described decoding messages by noticing intentional changes in handwriting, such as a writer crossing some of their Ts at a different slant to convey hidden information.
That meant Audrey had some small cryptography expertise. More than any of the rest of us did. “This could be useful,” I said, tapping the pane of glass.
“Might be more useful,” she noted, “if I—you—had any real understanding of cryptography. Do you have time to download some more books, perhaps?”
“You just want to go on more missions,” I said, standing.
“Are you kidding? You get shot at on those missions.”
“Only once in a while.”
“Often enough. I’m not so comfortable with being imaginary that I want to see you dead on the ground. You’re literally my whole world, Steve-O.” She paused. “Though, to be honest, I’ve always been curious what would happen if you took LSD . . .”
“I’ll see what I can do about the cryptography,” I said. “Continue with the analysis of his forum posts. Stop with the chemistry sham.”
She sighed, but reached out and started to erase the equations with her sleeve. I walked away, pulling out my phone and bringing up some books on cryptography. If I studied further, would I create another aspect? Or would Audrey really acquire the ability, as she implied? I wanted to say the first was more likely, but Audrey—as the most self-aware of all my aspects—got away with things I wouldn’t have expected.
Tobias joined me as I sorted through the volumes available electronically.
“Report?” I asked him.
“General consensus is that this technology is viable,” Tobias said, “and the threat is real, though Mi Won wants to think more about the effects of dumping rampant DNA strains into the body’s muscles. J.C. says we’ll want to confirm independently that I3 is in lockdown and that the feds are really involved. That will tell us a great deal about how honest Mister Chay is being with us.”
“Good idea. What’s that contact we have at Homeland Security?”
“Elsie,” Tobias said. “You found her cat.”
Yes, her cat. Not all of my missions involve terrorists or the fate of the world. Some are far more simple and mundane. Like locating a teleporting cat.
“Give her a call,” I said absently. “See if she’ll confirm for us what Yol said about contacting the authorities.”
Tobias stopped beside me. “Call her?”
I looked up from my screen, then blushed. “Right. Sorry. I’ve been talking to Audrey.” She tended to throw me off-balance.
“Ah, dearest Audrey,” Tobias said. “I sincerely think she must be some kind of compensating factor in your psychology, a way to blow off a little steam, so to speak. Genius is often accompanied by quirks of the mind. Why, Nikola Tesla had an arbitrary, and baffling, aversion to pearls of all things. He’d send people away who came to him wearing them, and it is said . . .”
He continued on. I relaxed to the sound of his voice, choosing a book on advanced cryptography. Tobias eventually wound back around to his report on what the aspects had determined. “This brings us to our next course of action,” he said. “Owen’s suggestion is perhaps the most relevant, and Ivy won’t be able to complete her psychological analysis unless we know more about the subject. Beginning by visiting Panos’s family is advised. From there, Ngozi needs more information from the coroner. We may want to go there next.”
“Reverse those,” I said. “It’s . . . what, three in the morning?”
“Six.”
“Already?” I said, surprised. I didn’t feel that tired. The engagement of a new mission, a puzzle to solve, kept me alert. “Well, still. I feel more comfortable about visiting a coroner office this early than I do about waking Panos’s family. Liza gets to work at . . . what, seven?”
“Eight.”
So I had time to kill. “What leads do we have on the corporations who might be behind this?”
“J.C. has some thoughts. He wants to talk to you.”
I found him leaning against the wall near where Ivy was working; he was chattering away and generally distracting her. I grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him away. “Tobias said you have something for me.”
“Our assassin,” he said. “Zen Rigby.”
“Yes, and?” J.C. couldn’t have any new information on her—he only knew what I knew, and we’d dredged that well already.
“I’ve been thinking, Skinny,” J.C. said. “Why did she show up when you were on your date?”
“Because her employers knew Yol was likely to go to me.”
“Yeah, but why start surveillance on you that early? Look, they have the body, right?”
“So we assume.”
“Therefore, the reason to watch you is to tail you and see if you find the data key. There was no reason to watch you before Yol arrived. It tipped their hand, you see? They should have waited until you were called in to I3.”
I chewed on that for a minute. We liked to make fun of J.C., but the truth was, he was one of my most practical aspects. A lot of them spent their days dreaming and thinking. J.C. kept me alive.
“It does seem odd,” I agreed. “But what does it mean?”
“It means we don’t have all the facts,” J.C. said. “Zen might have been trying to bug us, for instance, hoping we’d go to I3 and reveal information.”
I looked at him sharply. “Wardrobe change?”
“Good place to start,” he said. “But there are a host of other reasons she could have been there so early. Perhaps she’s employed by a third company that knows something is up with I3, but doesn’t quite know what. Or maybe she’s not involved in this case at all.”
“You don’t believe that.”