The Terminal Experiment

CHAPTER 36

Spirit, the simulation of Peter Hobson’s immortal soul, continued to watch Sarkar’s artificial life evolve. The process was fascinating.

Not a game.

Life.

But poor Sarkar — he lacked vision. His programs were trivial. Some simply produced cellular automata, others merely evolved shapes that resembled insects. Oh, the blue fish were impressive, but Sarkar’s were nowhere near as complex as real fish, and, besides, fish hadn’t been the dominant form of life on Earth for over three hundred million years.

Spirit wanted more. Much more. After all, he could now handle situations infinitely more complex than what Sarkar could deal with, and he had all the time in the universe.

Before he began, though, he thought for a long time — thought about exactly what he wanted.

And then, his selection criteria defined, he set out to create it.

Peter had decided to give up on Spenser novels, at least temporarily. He’d been somewhat shamed by the fact that the Control version of himself was reading Thomas Pynchon. Scanning the living-room bookshelves, he found an old copy of A Tale of Two Cities his father had given him when he’d been a teenager. He’d never gotten around to reading it, but, to his embarrassment, it was the only classic he could find in the house — his days of Marlowe and Shakespeare, Descartes and Spinoza were long past. Of course he could have downloaded just about anything from the net — one nice thing about the classics: they’re all public domain. But he’d been spending too much time interfacing with technology lately. An old, musty book was just the thing he needed.

Cathy was sitting on the couch, a reader in hand. Peter sat down next to her, opened his book’s stiff cover, and began to read:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way.

Peter smiled to himself: a sentence worthy of the Spirit sim. Maybe being paid by the word was as good as being dead for letting one stretch out a thought.

He didn’t get much farther than that before he became aware, in his peripheral vision, that Cathy had put down her reader and was staring at him. Peter looked at her expectantly.

“That detective, Philo, came to see me at work again,” she said, pushing her black hair back over her ear.

Peter closed the book and put it on the end table. “I wish she’d leave you alone.”

Cathy nodded. “So do I — I can’t say she’s a bad sort; she seems courteous enough. But she thinks there’s some connection between my father’s death and Hans’s death.”

Peter shook his head in wonder. “Your father’s death was just an aneurysm or something like that.”

“That’s what I thought. But that detective says he may have been killed deliberately. He was on an antidepressant drug called phenelzine, and—”

“Rod? On an antidepressant?”

Cathy nodded. “I was surprised, too. The detective says he ate some food he shouldn’t have and that caused his blood pressure to shoot way up. With his medical history, that was enough to kill him.”

“Surely that was an accident,” said Peter. “He failed to pay attention to, or maybe just misunderstood, his doctor’s orders.”

“My father was very meticulous, you know that. Detective Philo thinks his food order was tampered with.”

Peter was incredulous. “Really?”

“That’s what she says.” A beat. “Do you remember Jean-Louis Desalle?”

“Jean-Louis … you mean Stroke?”

“Stroke?”

“That was his nickname at university. He had these veins that bulged out of his forehead. We always thought he was about to have a stroke.” Peter looked out the living-room window. “Stroke Desalle. God, I haven’t thought about him for years. I wonder what became of him?”

“He’s a doctor, apparently. His account may have been used to access my father’s medical records.”

“What could Stroke possibly have against your father? I mean, heck, presumably they’d never even met.”

“The detective thinks someone else was using Desalle’s account.”

“Oh.”

“And,” said Cathy, “that detective knows about me and Hans.”

“You told her?”

“No, of course not. It’s none of her business. But somebody did.”

Peter exhaled noisily. “I knew everyone at your company must have known about it.” He slapped his palm against the couch’s armrest. “Damn!”

“Believe me,” said Cathy, “I’m as embarrassed as you are.”

Peter nodded. “I know. I’m sorry.”

Cathy’s voice was cautious, as if testing the waters. “I keep trying to think about who might have had it in for both Hans and dad.”

“Any ideas?”

She looked at him for a long moment. Finally, simply, she said, “Did you do it, Peter?”

“What?”

Cathy swallowed hard. “Did you arrange for Hans and my father to be killed?”

“I don’t fucking believe this,” said Peter.

Cathy looked at him, saying nothing.

“How can you ask me something like that?”

She shook her head slightly. Emotions played across her face — trepidation at having to ask the question, more fear about what the answer might be, a touch of shame over even contemplating the issue, anger simmering. “I don’t know,” she said, her tone not quite under control. “It’s just that — well, you do have a motive, sort of.”

“Maybe for Hans, but for your father?” Peter spread his arms. “If I killed everyone I thought was an idiot, we’d have bodies stacked up to the rafters.”

Cathy said nothing.

“Besides,” said Peter, feeling a need to fill the silence, “there were probably lots of angry husbands who would have liked to have seen Hans killed.”

Cathy looked directly at him. “But even if what you say about other angry husbands is true, none of them would also want my father dead.”

“That stupid detective is making you paranoid. I swear to you, I didn’t kill your father or” — he spoke the name through clenched jaws — “Hans.”

“But, if the detective is right, these were arranged deaths…”

“I didn’t arrange for them, either. Jesus Christ, what do you think I am?”

She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I know you wouldn’t do anything like that. It’s just that, well, it seems like something that someone in your position might have done … if that someone hadn’t been you, that is.”

“And I tell you — oh, Christ!”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“No, something’s wrong. Tell me.”

Peter was already on his feet. “Later. I’ve got to talk to Sarkar.”

“Sarkar? You don’t think he’s responsible?”

“Christ, no. It’s not like Hans wrote The Satanic Verses.”

“But—”

“I’ve got to go. I’ll be back late.” Peter grabbed his coat and headed out the front door.

Peter was driving along Post Road toward Bayview. He activated the car phone and hit the speed-dial key for Sarkar’s house. His wife answered. “Hello?”

“Hi, Raheema. It’s Peter.”

“Peter! How good to hear from you!”

“Thanks. Is Sarkar home?”

“He’s downstairs watching the hockey game.”

“Can I talk to him, please? It’s very important.”

“Gee,” said Raheema, wistfully, “I never get to speak to him during a game. Just a sec.”

At last, Sarkar’s voice came on the line. “It’s six-all, in sudden-death overtime, Peter. This better be very important."’

“I’m sorry,” said Peter. “But, look, did you read about that murder victim in the paper whose body was mutilated? Several weeks ago?”

“I think so, yeah.”

“That was one of Cathy’s coworkers.”

“Oh.”

“And — ” said Peter, then he stopped.

“Yes?”

He’s your best friend, Peter thought. Your best friend. He felt slightly nauseous. All those dinners together, face-to-face, and now he was going to have to spill it over the phone? “Cathy had an affair with him.”

Sarkar sounded shocked. “Really?”

Peter forced out the word. “Yes.”

“Wow,” said Sarkar. “Wow.”

“And you know that Cathy’s father died recently.”

“Of course. I was very sorry to hear that.”

“I’m not sure I can say the same thing,” said Peter, pausing briefly at a red light.

“What do you mean?”

“They’re suggesting now that his death was murder.”

“Murder!”

“Yes. Both him and Cathy’s coworker.”

“A’udhu billah.”

“I didn’t do it,” said Peter.

“Of course not.”

“But I did want them dead, in a way. And—”

“You’re a suspect?”

“I suppose.”

“But you didn’t do it?”

“No, at least not this version of me.”

“This ver — oh, my goodness.”

“Exactly.”

“Meet me at Mirror Image,” said Sarkar. He clicked off.

Peter moved into the passing lane.

Peter lived closer to Mirror Image than Sarkar himself did. Add to that Peter’s head start and he ended up waiting a good thirty minutes for Sarkar, parked in a lot with only one other car in it.

Sarkar’s Toyota pulled up next to Peter’s Mercedes. Peter was outside his car, leaning against the passenger door.

“The Leafs won,” said Sarkar. “I heard it on the way over.”

An irrelevancy. Sarkar was looking for some stability in the madness. Peter nodded, accepting the comment.

“So you think … you think one of the sims… ?” Sarkar was afraid to speak the thought out loud.

Peter nodded. “Maybe.” They began walking toward the glassed-in entrance to the Mirror Image offices. Sarkar pressed his thumb against the FILE scanner. “There’s proof, apparently, that my father-in-law’s medical records were examined, using an account that belonged to a man I knew at university.”

“Oh.” They were heading down a long corridor. “Still, you would need his password and such.”

“At U of T, they assign account names by adding your first initial to your last name. And for passwords, the default on the first day of classes is always your own last name spelled backward. They tell you to change it, but there’s always some idiot who never does. If a simulation of me was looking for a way into the medical database, it might have tried names at random of med students I’d known back then and seen if any of them still used their old account names and passwords.”

They’d come to Sarkar’s computer lab. He touched his thumb against another FILE scanner. Bolts popped aside and the heavy door slid noisily open. “So now we must turn off the sims,” said Sarkar.

Peter frowned.

“What’s wrong?” said Sarkar.

“I — guess I’m just a bit reluctant to do that,” Peter said. “First, of course, likely only one sim is guilty; the others don’t have to suffer.”

“We don’t have time to play detective. We have to stop this before the guilty sim kills again.”

“But will he kill again? I know why Hans was murdered, and, although I wouldn’t have done the same thing, I can’t honestly say I’m sorry he’s dead. And I even understand why my father-in-law was killed. But there’s no one else I want to see dead. Oh, there are others who have wronged me or ripped me off or made parts of my life miserable, but I honestly don’t wish that any of them were dead.”

Sarkar pantomimed slapping Peter’s face. “Wake up, Peter. It’d be criminal not to shut them off.”

Peter nodded slowly. “You’re right, of course. It’s time to pull the plug.”