The Terminal Experiment - Robert J. Sawyer Page 0,87
ask questions. “What’s your name?”
“Peter Hobson.”
“How old are you?”
“Forty-two.”
“Where were you born?”
“North Battleford, Saskatchewan.”
“Now lie to me. Tell me again where you were born.”
“Scotland.”
“Tell the truth: What is your wife’s first name?”
“Catherine.”
“Now lie: what is your wife’s middle name?”
“Ah—T’Pring.”
“Did you kill Hans Larsen?”
Peter watched Sandra carefully. “No.”
“Did you kill Rod Churchill?”
“No.”
“Did you arrange the killing of either of them?”
“No.”
“Do you have any idea who killed them?”
Peter held up a hand. “We agreed only three questions, Inspector.”
“I’m sorry. Surely you don’t mind answering one more, though?” She smiled. “I no more like having to be suspicious of you than you like being a suspect. It would be nice to be able to scratch you off my list.”
Peter thought. Dammit. “All right,” he said slowly. “I don’t know any person who might have killed them.”
Sandra looked up. “I’m sorry—I guess I upset you when I went beyond what we’d agreed. There was some very strange activity when you said ‘person.’ Would you please bear with me for just one moment more and repeat your last answer?”
Peter yanked the sensor from his arm, and threw it on the desktop. “I’ve already put up with more than we agreed,” he said, an edge in his voice. He knew he was making matters worse, and he fought to keep panic from overwhelming him. He pulled the second sensor off his wrist. “I’m through answering questions.”
“I’m sorry,” said Sandra. “Forgive me.”
Peter made an effort to calm himself. “That’s all right,” he said. “I hope you got what you were looking for.”
“Oh, yes,” said Sandra, closing her case. “Yes, indeed.”
IT DIDN’T TAKE LONG for Spirit’s artificial lifeforms to develop multicellularism: chains of distinct units, attached together into simple rows. Eventually, the lifeforms stumbled onto the trick of doubling up into two rows: twice as many cells, but each one still exposed on at least one side to the nutrient soup of Spirit’s simulated sea. And then the long rows of cells began to double back on themselves, forming U shapes. And, eventually, the U shapes closed over on the bottom, forming bags. Then, at last, the great breakthrough: the bottom and top of the bag opened up, resulting in a cylinder made of a double layer of cells, open at both ends: the basic body plan of all animal life on Earth, with an eating orifice at the front end an excretory one at the rear.
Generations were born. Generations died.
And Spirit kept selecting.
CHAPTER 40
It had taken some work, but on December 4 Sandra Philo had gotten the monitoring warrant she’d requested, allowing her to place a transponder inside the rear bumper of Peter Hobson’s car. She’d been given a ten-day permit by the judge. The transponder had a timing chip in it: it had operated for precisely the period authorized, and not a second longer. The ten days were now up, and Sandra was analyzing the collected data.
Peter drove to his office a lot, and also went frequently to several restaurants, including Sonny Gotlieb’s, a place Sandra quite liked herself; to North York General Hospital (he was on their board of directors); and elsewhere. But there was one address that kept appearing over and over in the logs: 88 Connie Crescent in Concord. That was an industrial unit that housed four different businesses. She cross-referenced the address with Peter’s telephone records, obtained under the same warrant. He’d repeatedly called a number registered to Mirror Image, 88 Connie Crescent.
Sandra called up InfoGlobe and got screens full of data about that company: Mirror Image Ltd., founded in 2001 by wunderkind Sarkar Muhammed, a firm specializing in expert systems and artificial-intelligence applications. Big contracts with the Ontario government and several Financial Post 100 corporations.
Sandra thought back to the lie-detector test Peter Hobson had taken. “I don’t know any person who might have killed them,” he’d said—and his vital signs had been agitated when he said the word “person.”
And now he was spending time at an artificial-intelligence lab.
It was almost too wild, too crazy.
And yet Hobson himself hadn’t committed the murders. The lie detector had shown that.
It was the kind of thing the law-enforcement journals had been warning was coming down the pike.
Perhaps, now, at last, it was here.
Here.
Sandra leaned back in her chair, trying to absorb it all.
It certainly wasn’t enough to get an arrest warrant.
Not an arrest warrant, no. But maybe a search warrant …
She saved her research files, logged off, and headed out the door.
IT TOOK FIVE VEHICLES to get them all there: two patrol cars with a