The Final Cut (Kapamentis Crime, Book 4) by T.W.M. Ashford

Author:T.W.M. Ashford [Ashford, T.W.M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-07-02T00:00:00+00:00

chapter

fifteen

Thaddeus stood outside Drondo’s Diner with his data pad raised to his mouth, repeating the information he had just received to Commander Eelo. Every now and again he had to lower his voice as shoppers walked past him down the strobe-lit promenade towards the arcades at the far end.

“And you recorded this conversation?” Eelo asked.

“Naturally,” Thaddeus replied. “It might not be the best quality audio, though. Had to keep my data pad in my coat pocket in case the contact got spooked.”

“I’ll be honest with you, Cutter. That recording probably wouldn’t do us much good anyway. The voice on the file won’t even be that of our witness, technically, just some random guy with barely anything to do with our investigation. And you can bet Praxo Dyas would spin it that way, too.”

“Do you believe it? All that stuff about the sim scanning people’s minds?”

A pause on the other end of the line.

“I’m not sure. We can’t discount what you’ve heard, however, and somebody had to be privy to where Sakura and Alec Holmes’s rigs were hooked up. Whether they’re actually an artificial intelligence or somebody inside the corporation with a grudge against their employer is another matter.”

“You have doubts?”

Commander Eelo sighed.

“It’s not common for an A.I. to share the same moral code as an organic species,” she said diplomatically. “They simply operate in a different sphere, have a different perspective on things. There are plenty of exceptions, of course, but one has to wonder why this Looking Glass cares so much about saving human lives. If what it told you is true, it wouldn’t even exist if it weren’t for the previous victims.”

“It says it grew out of organic brain patterns. Perhaps it picked up a few human traits along the way.”

“And your species is known for its compassion and selflessness, is it? No, there has to be a better reason for it wanting to bring down Praxo Dyas.”

“Hey, I reckon you’d have a vendetta if your maker imprisoned you on a server, too. When you boil it all down, I think it just wants to be set free.”

“Well, protocol dictates that I have to take any such claim seriously, though the line between intellectual property and synthetic rights is still very blurry. And I’m already wading through enough red tape getting us a warrant to inspect the Praxo Dyas headquarters for evidence of this simulation. Whatever the situation with this Looking Glass individual is, it’ll have to wait.”

“We’re not going to follow up on this?”

“Not if we can’t get inside that corpo-tower, no. If we can prove that Praxo Dyas is actually the company behind this unregulated sim, then we can see about liberating any A.I. that might be trapped inside their servers. Your contact has given us plenty of intel, but not a lot we can actually work with yet.”

“We have an explanation for why the sim is frying people’s minds, but still no proof as to who made it.” Thaddeus gritted his teeth. “Shit. But if

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