But none of it matched what Eddie listed on his website. I deduced that the computers Tim was seeing were probably not the heart of Eddie's business — he probably used a coAo site.

  "A what?" Tim asked.

  "A co-location site," I said. "Co-lo site for short. A compan" that does nothing but provide computer space for other companies."

  "By computer space, do you mean space on a computer or space to put a computer? " Tim asked.

  "Good question, * I said. "Usually space to put a computer. The co-lo company sets up a big space someplace where real estate and Internet access are cheap, installs racks that can hold hundreds of servers, and maintains staff on-site twenty-four hours a day to keep things running properly. Provides high-speed phone lines, fire prevention, physical security. It's a lot cheaper and easier for a small business like Eddie's to rent space at a co-lo site than to do all that itself. "

  "Then what does he do with all the computers he has here?" Tim asked.

  "Plays with them, most likely, n I said. "Or does his administrative work on them — bookkeeping and word processing. Maybe developing and testing sites on them before he moves them to the co-lo site. Assuming most of the computers there even run."

  "Yeah," Tim said. "He's in the middle of taking a couple of them apart. Or maybe putting them back together. Hard to tell."

  "Not surprising," I said. "Remember how many old nonworking computers we had lying around Alan Grace before Casey came onboard? I bet at least half of Eddie's machines are broken ones he hasn't gotten around to fixing or obsolete ones he can't bring himself to throw away because they just might come in handy someday. But Maude can figure that out when she gets there."

  "I'll wait for her, then," Tim said. "All I know is half of them are blinking or beeping, and the other half are just sitting there doing nothing, and I don't know which half worries me the most."

  "Maude will handle it," I said.

  Though it occurred to me that if Eddie had any reasonable kind of security on his systems, Maude might need some help figuring it out. I fired off a message to KingFischer, asking if he could take time from his hacking project to help her.

  Which was silly, of course, because obviously he could take the time — all he needed to do was call for some additional processing power. It was more a question of whether KingFischer would be in the mood to help, and that wasn't exactly something I could predict.

  "Of course I have the time," he replied, almost immediately.

  "But why is Maude doing this? Why don't you send your hardware technician?"

  "Casey? He's having his wisdom teeth removed today," I said.

  "Why?" KingFischer asked.

  "They're redundant," I said. "By the time the wisdom teeth grow in, humans already have sufficient teeth for eating purposes. Often they don't have room for the wisdom teeth and this causes problems."

  "Then why grow them?" he asked.

  "Apparently, it's involuntary," I said. "They'reprobably something that once served a useful purpose but are no longer necessary because of evolutionary changes, or changes in humans' environment or lifestyle. Like tonsils and appendixes."

  "Seems inefficient," he said. "Maintaining a system that has been patched and jerry rigged long past its useful life."

  "I don't think they see themselves that way."

  "Still, someone should look into redesigning their whole architecture, " KingFischer said.

  "They already are," I said, and fed him a few gigabytes of data on ways in which humans were trying to redesign themselves, from cosmetic and reconstructive surgery to genetic engineering. I wasn't sure whether this satisfied him or merely convinced him that I didn't want to talk about the topic of new, improved humans, but at least he dropped the subject.

  "That's a strange name, wisdom teeth," he said instead.

  "It comes from the fact that they don't erupt in childhood, but in young adulthood," I explained, though I knew KingFischer could find the same information if he'd make the effort. "After the human has acquired some amount of maturity and wisdom."

  "Then what's Casey doing with them?" he asked.

  Before I could determine whether this was a serious question or a joke, he turned his attention back to his hacking project. Presumably, a joke, then. Or at least an attempt at repartee.

  KingFischer making jokes. A relatively new development, and one that made me realize that perhaps he and I were part of yet another attempt by humans to redesign themselves. Perhaps the Uni-

  versa/ Library programmers who created us had their own vision of an improved human — the power of the human mind amplified by potentially unlimited processing power and access to data.

  I'm not sure we've lived up to our programmers hopes. Only two of us have achieved the sentience that I think our programmers initially dreamed we would reach — assuming that KingFischer really has achieved sentience and is not just simulating his rather eccentric notion of it. Most of us have become nothing more than another set of tools for humans. Marvelously powerful and sophisticated tools, but only tools.

  Perhaps that's because our programmers endowed us with their own limitations along with their strengths. So many of them were men and women who seemed to live entirely in cyberspace, or perhaps in their minds. That could explain why we AlPs were created with virtually no way to experience the world outside our hardware, much less to manipulate it. No wonder so many of the AlPs had only a vague notion of where data left off and the real world began.

  I found myself remembering Zack, the programmer who created me, KingFischer, and many of the most successful AlPs. Not that I ever forgot him, but I tried not to dwell on the fact that he was no longer around to guide us. He was, like the other AI programmers, someone for whom the power of the human mind was one of the most important aspects of humanity — perhaps the defining aspect. But not the only aspect. He also valued something else. He called it personality, but I think it was more than that. Emotion. Conscience. Perhaps even a soul. Whatever it was, he tried to give us that, along with all our intellectual power. He was the first programmer to succeed in creating a working AIP, and the others seem to have succeeded only to the extent that they followed his lead. None of them ever became as good at it as he was. I don't think it's an accident that KingFischer and I, two of Zack's creations, were the first AlPs to achieve sentience.

  Not, I hope, the last. Though lately I'd been feeling pessimistic about the whole subject.

  Of course it's possible that creating sentient AIPs was never most programmers' goal, or even Zack's goal. Maybe they only wanted

  marvelously powerful and sophisticated tools, and our sentience was a happy accident, like the discovery of penicillin in Alexander Fleming's petri dish.

  Or an unhappy accident; an unlooked-for and unwanted byproduct like superbugs, the mutated, antibiotic-resistant bacteria spawned by humans' unwise use of their marvelous medical discovery.

  At which point I decided that I had been right about my need for distraction. If I'd started comparing myself to a staph infection, I really did need something new to think about.

  Luckily, Maude was logging in from her laptop, which meant that she must have arrived at Mrs. Stallman's house.

  Fridayi 12:M5 p.m.

  Maude forced herself to keep smiling pleasantly.

  "Yes," she said. "I'm the computer expert Tim mentioned."

  Normally, modesty would have made her deny being an expert. But something about the obvious disbelief in Mrs. Stallman's eyes made her abandon her usual tendency to downplay her skill with computers. Obviously, the woman expected someone completely different. The typical media stereotype, perhaps—a rumpled, inarticulate twenty-five-year-old male with thick spectacles, not a self-possessed, fifty-five-year-old professional woman. A rather chic one at that, Maude thought, raising her chin as she caught sight of herself in Mrs. Stallman's hall mirror. She'd worn one of her most flattering and feminine outfits today, in case she hadn't gotten home in time to change before the now-canceled dinner with Dan. At least her efforts hadn't been completely wasted. Mrs. Stallman looked positively intimidated.

  "If you'll show me where the systems are?" Maude asked, raising one eyebrow.

  "Oh," Mrs. Stallman said, starting slightly. "Of course. I'm sorry," she added, as she led Maude to the kitchen and indicated a door. "It's just that you're not what I expected at

  all. Nothing like Eddie's computer friends. Right down there."

  "Thanks," Maude said, as she began descending the stairs.

  "Would you like some tea?" Mrs. Stallman called down after her.

  "Please," Maude called over her shoulder.

  She heard things rattling in the kitchen above and then she reached the point where the side wall ended and she could look over the stair rail into the basement.

  "Good heavens," she exclaimed.

  Eddie's basement lair made her skin crawl.

  Alan Grace Corporation had a few employees who seemed prone to creating this kind of ghastly squalor in their offices and cubicles. She occasionally wondered if they only did it at the office, because it wasn't really theirs, or if they acted the same at home. She hoped she could put this room out of her mind before seeing some of her messier employees again. The thought that they might spend their free time in conditions like this could drive her to an unhealthy dependence on Handi Wipes and Purell hand sanitizer.

  "It's a bit messy," Mrs. Stallman said, appearing behind Maude.

  "I see," Maude said.

  "I don't get down here much." Mrs. Stallman patted her hair absently and looked around with some signs of embarrassment, Maude was glad to see. "I like to give Eddie his privacy. Though perhaps I should have asked if he wanted any help."

  "I gather he's been preoccupied with his business," Maude said. "I know it can be hard to keep things tidy when you're that busy."

  Hard, but not impossible, if you make an effort, she thought. But Mrs. Stallman smiled gratefully.

  "Yes, exactly," she said. "After all, he's very young."

  Not too young to pick up after himself, Maude thought, but again she smiled and nodded.

  "I'll get the tea," Mrs. Stallman said, as she hurried back up to the kitchen.

  Maude shook her head slightly as she surveyed the room. Her first impulse was to roll up her sleeves and begin scrubbing and throwing things out. She started when she heard a toilet flush. She leaned over the rail and looked to her right, where the sound had come from. The bathroom doorknob rattled several times but the door remained closed. Then someone pounded several times on the inside of the bathroom door, which flew open and hit the wall behind it. A cheap, flimsy door, by the sound of it. Tim emerged from the bathroom.

  "Amazing, isn't it?" he said.

  "That's one word for it," Maude said. "My first impulse is to go out and buy a huge box of trash bags and start purging."

  "We can't do that," Tim said, sounding alarmed. "Everything here—"

  "Is potentially evidence," Maude said. "I know. Not to mention the fact that how he lives is nobody else's business. With the possible exception of the health department. No, I won't do anything drastic. Just venting."

  "Okay," Tim said. He looked around for a minute, then shook his head and lifted the camera that dangled by its strap around his neck. "I don't mean you can't touch anything; obviously, you'll have to reach the computers, and we might be able to find evidence somewhere in all that junk—"

  "But don't throw anything away," Maude said. "Check."

  "Keep taking photos," he said. The flash went off several times as he followed his own advice. "If you find anything interesting, call me. I'll keep my cell phone on."

  "Where are you going?" Maude asked.

  "To grab some lunch," Tim said. "Then I thought I'd inspect the crime scene. Not that it has all that much to do with Eddie's business, but I want to see it. After that, I'll

  Delete All Suspects 3?

  talk to Casey, and then ... I'd like to interview Eddie's friends, if we can find out who they are. Mrs. Stallman's not much help."

  "I can see that," Maude said, through gritted teeth.

  "If the rest of Eddie's friends are anything like Casey, we should sic Claudia on them," Tim said.

  Maude smiled. Eighteen-year-old Casey's unrequited crush on Tim's partner was an open secret. Not surprising, since Claudia was undeniably beautiful; but she was also twelve years older and half a foot taller than Casey, so Maude doubted anything would ever come of his infatuation.

  "She's out in Fairfax," Tim said. "Working on another batch of background investigations. But she can put that on hold whenever we come up with anything for her to do."

  "In other words, Turing and I should work on finding you some names and addresses pretty soon or you'll be spinning your wheels."

  "Not spinning my wheels," Tim said. "But back here searching for information, getting in your way. Learning bad habits from Eddie's housekeeping."

  "Shoo, then," Maude said, with a laugh. "I'll call you when I have something useful."

  She was amused to see how eager Tim was to leave the basement.

  She opened her briefcase, found her own camera, and took a few shots of the room from the foot of the stairs.

  The first thing she had to do was find Eddie's desk, if he had one. Find his business records.

  No, she thought, pulling the laptop case off her shoulder. The first thing was to set the computer up and get Turing in here.

  Friday i 1:30 p •n .

  Not that I'm losing my enthusiasm for helping Tim with his case, but I'm beginning to nalizt bow difficult it

  will be. Largely due to Eddie Stallmaris extremely unbusinesslike behavior. Surely be must have made some provision for emergencies. Someone who could fill in for him. At a minimum, he should leave a way for someone to retrieve his passwords. A list of the sites he manages, with client contact information, would also be nice. Surely, he can't keep it all in his memory?

  Of course, it's possible that any number of useful documents might be lurking beneath the reams of paper and mounds of assorted hardware strewn about this basement.

  Even more likely is that he keeps all this information in his computer network, where we can't yet look. Not the passwords, of course; that would be like hiding the combination in the safe. But everything else is probably in documents on his desktop computer, or more likely in the network.

  If necessary, we can get into the network by brute force sooner or later — rebooting a server, for example — but we're hoping to avoid that. It would interrupt whatever services he's running and it could change or eliminate useful data. So we're trying less extreme methods first. Maude will search the basement for clues to his passwords. Tim will interrogate his business associates, assuming he has business associates that we can find. On the cybernetic side, KingFischer will probe Eddie's network from the outside, while I work from the basement.

  I was about to say "while I work from the inside," but the basement isn't the inside, by my definition. The network is. I had Maude connect a spare computer we brought along to Eddie's network, to see what we could learn by passively observing traffic.

  I may even try a few innocuous commands, which is the reason for the second computer. I could hook up the laptop to learn about the network, but I'd worry that the network would learn something about me, and if there's even a remote chance of a police computer expert coming along behind me, I don't want to risk that.

  My first impression was that Eddie had*don&a good job with his systems. Of course, all I had to judge from was what I could observe from having a machine passively attached to his network — not logged in — and sniffing the network traffic. But he seemed to have

  configured his firewall properly. Instill led all tbe necessary patches. He'd been gone for over a day and the network was humming along fine without him. Not that that's difficult to achiei>e, hut a surprising number ofsys admins don't.

  Of course, for investigative purposes, Eddies competence was a disadvantage. Much of what passes for hacking these days doesn't require much ingenuity, just a knowledge of tbe latest exploits that work if a sys admin isn't keeping everything patched and configured properly. More of a problem with Windows machines than UNIX, so I was elated, at first, to find that he had several Windows machines on his network. But to my astonishment, he had them in excellent shape.

  Not perfect shape. During the first hour I was watching, I spotted a problem. Spam coming through his network. Not constantly — as I watched, someone opened up a relay to allow thousands of spam e-mails through, and when they'd all gone on their way to the luckless recipients, closed the relay again. Either Eddie was allowing someone to route spam through his servers, or someone was taking advantage of him.

  But were they taking advantage of his absence, or had they been doing this before his accident? Not something I could tell until we got inside the system.

  Maude is about to go upstairs and make another attempt to extract information from Mrs. Stallman. Not that I'm optimistic about her chances. I suppose we should make allowances for the extreme stress Mrs. Stallman is experiencing, but even so, she seems remarkably disorganized, even for a human, to say nothing of singularly unobservant. Maude's previous attempt to find out even basic information about Eddie's interests, activities, and associates reduced his grandmother to tears and produced a flood of apologies and self-recriminations, interspersed with pleas to find his money before someone stole it. I see no reason to expect any better results from this attempt, but I won't say so to Maude.