The Administration Series (25 page)

"You must have a reason for dragging me in here. What is it?" He stared at her directly, challenging her.

If that was how he wanted it.

"The senior para-investigator in charge of the enquiry here." She felt her lip curl on the title, but couldn't stop it.

His eyes narrowed. "Toreth? What about him?"

"Why are you interested in him?"

"What makes you think I'm interested?"

"The strategically placed bruises on your face recently, for one thing." She'd briefly considered asking him if he thought he was in danger; that might shake him a little. However, she opted for the more direct opening gambit. "I wouldn't have thought you'd go in for pain, Warrick."

"It didn't hurt," Warrick said with the trace of a smile." And he did it with his mouth, not his fist."

"I'm not joking. I'm concerned about you. To do his work properly, he has to have at least one, possibly two, personality disorders. It's in the general psych profile of para-investigators."

He brushed a speck of fluff from his trousers. "You seem to think you know a lot about it."

"People like him are selected as interrogators. Psychologically he's barely an adult. He's a case of arrested development. A type," she said precisely. "He'll never do anything surprising. They've written books about him — I can lend you some if you want to see what you're getting into."

"A book might be useful, at that." Warrick tilted his head. "I don't suppose that you have anything about persuading cases of arrested development to pay their share of bar tabs?"

Distancing himself from the discussion. "He's not interested in you, you know. He can't even see you as a person — you or anyone else. He's only interacting with his own projections."

"Don't we all?"

"Beside the point. He — "

"If I may remind you," he interrupted, "you are the one who once told me to interact more with people outside the sim or I would require your professional help. And now I am, you're telling me to stop, or I will require your professional help." He raised one eyebrow in mock enquiry. "Is there
any
possibility of your establishing a consistent position on this particular topic?"

She couldn't help being irritated by his wilful refusal to take her concerns seriously. "How about, you ought to spend more time outside the sim interacting with non-sociopaths? Is that really so much to ask, Warrick?"

Having been provoked into the careless phrasing, she expected the answer, and the ironic quirk of his lips that accompanied it. "Apparently."

No sign that the word sociopath meant anything to him, or stirred any doubts. "People like him are dangerous. They charm you and make you think they're something they're not."

"Oh, I know what Toreth is. Don't concern yourself about
that
."

"Then you've got to realise he's using you." There must be some angle to exploit, for everyone's sake. "You've got something he wants. Any idea what it might be?"

His smile flickered into life again. "Now you're wounding my ego."

She had the grace to smile. "Sorry. I understand sexual attraction. And he's a handsome, healthy specimen, I'll give him that. And if he's any good, then good for him. But he's a predator, Warrick. Sooner or later, you'll find out why they recruited him. A relationship with someone like him isn't a question of playing with fire — this is Russian roulette. The gun
is
loaded. I'd hate to see you get hurt."

"Your concern is very touching, I'm sure, but we don't have a relationship. We just fuck. Does that make you any happier about him?"

"Fucking
is
a relationship, even if you don't want to admit it." She looked at him thoughtfully. "Frankly, if sex is all it's about, I do wonder why you would choose someone like him. Some day, you'll have to tell me about your parents."

"You can overanalyse these things, you know." Warrick looked at his watch. "Not to hurry you, but what does any of this have to do with work?"

"My job is to assess the fitness of SimTech employees to use the sim. You've been going into the sim with him."

Warrick tilted his head, looking at her with curiosity. "He has a name. Why don't you use it?"

She hadn't even noticed. "You've been in the sim with Toreth. And at that point he, and his relationship with you, become my concern."

He leaned back in his chair, pointedly relaxing. "Everything has been booked and logged. The computer passed his psych test. He won't do enough hours to qualify for your attentions. It's all been done according to the protocols."

"I'm sure it has." Warrick wouldn't lie about something so easily checked. "Have you had sex in the sim?"

"Yes." The quick, confident answer didn't match up with the resentment in his eyes that she had the power to ask these questions.

"Which protocols?"

He crossed his arms. "P-Leisure. And, before you ask, yes, it was SMS — he wanted to know about it for the investigation. He signed the release."

She sighed. "Warrick, you know how I feel about sense-memory stacking. It's dangerous."

"It's nothing of the kind. With the proper screening and supervision."

"It's addictive," she said firmly.

Warrick shook his head, his fingers tapping on his biceps. "One student overdoing things doesn't make an addiction."

"Tara developed an addiction to the sim, and the excessive immersion precipitated her breakdown. Those are
facts
, Warrick, and your personal feelings about the sim do not change them."

"We have precautions in place. It won't happen again." Tacitly conceding the point, without acknowledging it.

"And what happens when the technology is sold to the general public?"

"Other precautions will be put in place." He shook his head, again half smiling. "Marian, the world is full of things that are dangerous if people misuse them. SimTech can't be held responsible for the irresponsibility of others. If we avoided technology because some people
might
hurt themselves with it, then we'd still be in the caves, worrying about burning our fingers."

"Sex is hardly a necessity for survival." Then, as his eyebrow arched, she quickly added, "Exotic virtual sex, I meant."

"I realised. But the sim isn't simply about SMS, as you well know."

"Of course not. No doubt Para-investigator Toreth has some suggestions for other uses."

Warrick froze in the chair, absolutely still. Marian cursed herself silently — such carelessness was unforgivable, however angry his obstinacy made her. Odd and infuriating in itself that he could effortlessly cut through years of training and hit a nerve every time.

"I won't sell technology to I&I," Warrick said, icily precise. "They will never have it while I'm alive and in charge of SimTech."

That she didn't doubt. "I know. I'm sorry, Warrick — truly I am. I misspoke. But addiction
is
a danger, and it will do SimTech no good to face the problem later, rather than now."

He nodded. "I appreciate that. You know we're always working on safety improvements. Besides — " His voice sharpened again. "You can always go round me and speak to P-Leisure directly, as you know."

As she had about Tara. Marian was poised to launch into the results of her last attempt to talk to P-Leisure when she suddenly realised that he'd very neatly sidetracked her from the real reason she'd called him in. She tried to find a route back to her concern.

"If you are going to use an SMS protocol with a non-employee volunteer, I want to talk to him, to make sure he understands the risk."

His eyebrows went into action again. "That's a rather sudden concern for Toreth's health."

"I'm still worried about
you
. You didn't get those bruises in the sim. What happened to Tara can happen to him and you'll be the one who gets hurt in the fallout. I don't think you understand the risk you're running by pursuing this."

"I'm not 'pursuing' anything. Or anyone, come to that. We met, we fucked, we liked it. That's it. If it weren't for the sim, once or twice would have been enough for him. He's far more interested in it than he is in me."

"And what about you? How interested are you in him?"

To her surprise, he cocked his head, seeming to genuinely consider his answer.

"From a sexual standpoint," he said at length, "he's without doubt the most talented partner I have ever had. Personality-wise, he's really not my type." He stood up. "I hope that answers your question, because I have a meeting to get to. With P-Leisure, as a matter of fact. I'll tell them you said hello."

"We're not done."

"Yes, we are." He straightened his sleeves. "If you have any more questions, Dr Tanit . . . well, you know what you can do. I can't stop you. Good afternoon."

She could have stopped him. She could have told him to sit down and actually listen to her concerns, or she would cancel his sim access. However, what would it have achieved beyond increasing the distance between them?

Some people, she reflected ruefully, simply refused to allow themselves to be helped the easy way.

After informing her admin that she would be busy, Marian locked her door and pulled out the session records. This was something else she had the authority to do, as Warrick's parting remarks had pointedly demonstrated that he knew. Therefore, she was utterly unsurprised to find that everything was in order, labelled and properly annotated. There was a link to the protocol they had followed, analyses of responses and experiences, signed consent forms for the participation of a non-company member.

She doubted she would find anything in the visual reconstructions, but it was worth skimming for signs of anything amiss. Turning down the office lights, she skipped through the session, her face illuminated by the changing images on the screen. As usual, it was an uncomfortably voyeuristic experience, even given her professional detachment.

As she expected, the SMS session matched the filed protocol. Some of it was interesting enough, but none of it surprised her. She noted that they briefly discussed the lack of progress in the investigation into Kelly's death, but nothing else about Toreth's work. The professional reticence of a para-investigator, or something more?

There was a second session yesterday, which hadn't followed an established protocol. That had been properly booked as part of Warrick's allocation of personal sim time. He'd even made notes on it and booked a working session next week, on his own, to test out some modifications.

She started to run through the hypothetical observer record of the session. There were no sensory tricks involved, nothing but a straight simulation of reality, in a low-lit, bare, nondescript room. She watched it through carefully, rewinding parts and occasionally freezing the digital flow into still images, which she left scattered around the edges of the screen. The pictures slowly built up, overlapping.

Warrick, naked and with his arms bound behind him, kneeling in the centre of the room. The blindfold bisecting his pale face. Dark hair disarrayed, and curling with virtual sweat. Fingers spreading wide against the small of his back as his shoulders arched. Sharply defined lips caught open in the middle of whispered words.

"Please, don't."

Toreth standing by him. Kneeling. Touching. Admiring the realism of a hand mark flushing red against white skin. His fingers in Warrick's hair, pulling his head back. Smiling as he looked down at him.

"Please."

Just a game. A game for which there was so much scope in the sim, where it would leave no tell-tale bruises. Marian tapped her finger against her chin, watching the intent, absorbed faces of the players. She hadn't lied to Warrick — she'd never imagined this would be something he wanted. A sign of how little she knew him.

At the end of the session, they lay together, panting, almost laughing. She cut off the visual reconstruction, leaving only the words. Her gaze wandered over the collection of images as she listened.

"It doesn't work, does it?" Toreth asked.

"No. Don't get me wrong, though. It was good — very good — but not like it was outside. I wonder why?"

"Because it's not real enough," Toreth replied immediately. "It's much too safe for you."

"Yes. Yes, of course." Warrick's breathing became regular, his tone more analytical. "Not as intense. Yet everything is mechanically fine. There has to be a way of making it work."

Silence, then Toreth suggested, "You should try taking out the disconnect code. Would that have helped — if you couldn't have stopped me? No easy way out."

"Mm. Perhaps. But it's not possible. The disconnect has to be available at all times. It's a fundamental part of the design."

"Couldn't you let people choose to turn it off?" Toreth asked.

"Absolutely and categorically no. Safety is paramount."

Marian sighed, frustrated. Still blind to the true risks of the thing — she'd tried so hard to tell him.

"It's too dangerous," Warrick continued in an odd echo of her thoughts. "Users have to feel secure, not trapped."

"Yeah, but that's what you
want
."

"Yes," Warrick said, his voice cool and measured. "So I'll have to look for another way round the problem. There'll be an approach that will work; I just need to find it."

"Why bother?" Toreth had begun to sound a little impatient, or maybe just bored. "Why not stick to what the sim's good at? All your fucking weird games — all the things you can't do outside. Memory stacking whatever. And we can play
my
game in the real world. Or aren't I a good enough fuck out there?"

Warrick laughed. "God, no. Or rather, God, yes. Whichever — more than good enough. But the sponsors would like it. There's a market, you know. I'm hardly unique. Although I'm not denying I would like it, too."

There was a silence for a few seconds, then Toreth laughed as well, suddenly breathless. "Stop it. Ah — you've got to show me how to do that."

"You'd need a lot longer in the sim. I've been practising for years. Shall we get out and go for a real coffee?"

"Sure."

The tape cut out, and Marian played the scene over again with the sound off, watching the body language. Professionally, she found nothing to worry about. There was no sign of adverse effects, nothing which would justify banning Warrick or the interrogator from the sim. However, it did confirm her opinions and, to her surprise and personal distaste, Warrick's. Toreth was manipulative and dangerous, and Warrick understood him perfectly. They were . . . comfortable together.