Robert J. Sawyer - Identity Theft

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IDENTITY THEFT

Robert J. Sawyer

The door to my office slid open. “Hello,” I said, rising from my chair. “You must be my nine o'clock.” I

said it as if I had a ten o'clock and an eleven o'clock, but I didn't. The whole Martian economy was in a

slump, and, even though I was the only private detective on Mars, this was the first new case I'd had in

weeks.

"Yes,” said a high, feminine voice. “I'm Cassandra Wilkins."

I let my eyes rove up and down her body. It was very good work; I wondered if she'd had quite so

perfect a figure before transferring. People usually ordered replacement bodies that, at least in broad

strokes, resembled their originals, but few could resist improving them. Men got buffer, women got

curvier, and everyone modified their faces, removing asymmetries, wrinkles, and imperfections. If and

when I transferred myself, I'd eliminate the gray in my blond hair and get a new nose that would look like

my current one had before it'd been broken a couple of times.

"A pleasure to meet you, Ms. Wilkins,” I said. “I'm Alexander Lomax. Please have a seat."

She was a little thing, no more than a hundred and fifty centimeters, and she was wearing a stylish

silver-gray blouse and skirt, but no makeup or jewelry. I'd expected her to sit down with a catlike, fluid

movement, given her delicate features, but she just sort of plunked herself into the chair. “Thanks,” she

said. “I do hope you can help me, Mr. Lomax. I really do."

Rather than immediately sitting down myself, I went to the coffee maker. I filled my own mug, then

opened my mouth to offer Cassandra a cup, but closed it before doing so; transfers, of course, didn't

drink. “What seems to be the problem?” I said, returning to my chair.

It's hard reading a transfer's expression: the facial sculpting was usually very good, but the movements

were somewhat restrained. “My husband—oh, my goodness, Mr. Lomax, I hate to even say this!” She

looked down at her hands. “My husband ... he's disappeared."

I raised my eyebrows; it was pretty damned difficult for someone to disappear here. New Klondike was

only three kilometers in diameter, all of it locked under the dome. “When did you last see him?"

"Three days ago."

My office was small, but it did have a window. Through it, I could see one of the supporting arches that

helped to hold up the transparent dome over New Klondike. Outside the dome, a sandstorm was raging,

orange clouds obscuring the sun. Auxiliary lights on the arch compensated for that, but Martian daylight

was never very bright. That's a reason why even those who had a choice were reluctant to return to

Earth: after years of only dim illumination, apparently the sun as seen from there was excruciating. “Is

your husband, um, like you?” I asked.

She nodded. “Oh, yes. We both came here looking to make our fortune, just like everyone else."

I shook my head. “I mean is he also a transfer?"

"Oh, sorry. Yes, he is. In fact, we both just transferred."

"It's an expensive procedure,” I said. “Could he have been skipping out on paying for it?"

Cassandra shook her head. “No, no. Joshua found one or two nice specimens early on. He used the

money from selling those pieces to buy the NewYou franchise here. That's where we met—after I threw

in the towel on sifting dirt, I got a job in sales there. Anyway, of course, we both got to transfer at cost.”

She was actually wringing her synthetic hands. “Oh, Mr. Lomax, please help me! I don't know what I'm

going to do without my Joshua!"

"You must love him a lot,” I said, watching her pretty face for more than just the pleasure of looking at it;

I wanted to gauge her sincerity as she replied. After all, people often disappeared because things were

bad at home, but spouses are rarely forthcoming about that.

"Oh, I do!” said Cassandra. “I love him more than I can say. Joshua is a wonderful, wonderful man.” She

looked at me with pleading eyes. “You have to help me get him back. You just have to!"

I looked down at my coffee mug; steam was rising from it. “Have you tried the police?"

Cassandra made a sound that I guessed was supposed to be a snort: it had the right roughness, but was

dry as Martian sand. “Yes. They—oh, I hate to speak ill of anyone, Mr. Lomax! Believe me, it's not my

way, but—well, there's no ducking it, is there? They were useless. Just totally useless."

I nodded slightly; it's a story I heard often enough—I owed most of what little livelihood I had to the local

cops’ incompetence and indifference. “Who did you speak to?"

"A—a detective, I guess he was; he didn't wear a uniform. I've forgotten his name."

"What did he look like?"

"Red hair, and—"

"That's Mac,” I said. She looked puzzled, so I said his full name. “Dougal McCrae."

"McCrae, yes,” said Cassandra. She shuddered a bit, and she must have noticed my surprised reaction

to that. “Sorry,” she said. “I just didn't like the way he looked at me."

I resisted running my eyes over her body just then; I'd already done so, and I could remember what I'd

seen. I guess her original figure hadn't been like this one; if it had, she'd certainly be used to admiring

looks from men by now.

"I'll have a word with McCrae,” I said. “See what's already been done. Then I'll pick up where the cops

left off."

"Would you?” Her green eyes seemed to dance. “Oh, thank you, Mr. Lomax! You're a good man—I

can tell!"

I shrugged a little. “I can show you two ex-wives and a half-dozen bankers who'd disagree."

"Oh, no,” she said. “Don't say things like that! You are a good man, I'm sure of it. Believe me, I have a

sense about these things. You're a good man, and I know you won't let me down."

Naïve woman; she'd probably thought the same thing about her husband—until he'd run off. “Now, what

can you tell me about your husband? Joshua, is it?"

"Yes, that's right. His full name is Joshua Connor Wilkins—and it's Joshua, never just Josh, thank you

very much.” I nodded. Guys who were anal about being called by their full first names never bought a

round, in my experience. Maybe it was a good thing that this clown was gone.

"Yes,” I said. “Go on.” I didn't have to take notes, of course. My office computer was recording

everything, and would extract whatever was useful into a summary file for me.

Cassandra ran her synthetic lower lip back and forth beneath her artificial upper teeth, thinking for a

moment. Then: “Well, he was born in Calgary, Alberta, and he's thirty-eight years old. He moved to

Mars seven mears ago.” Mears were Mars-years; about double the length of those on Earth.

"Do you have a picture?"

"I can access one,” she said. She pointed at my desk terminal. “May I?"

I nodded, and Cassandra reached over to grab the keyboard. In doing so, she managed to knock over

my coffee mug, spilling hot joe all over her dainty hand. She let out a small yelp of pain. I got up, grabbed

a towel, and began wiping up the mess. “I'm surprised that hurt,” I said. “I mean, I do like my coffee hot,

but..."

"Transfers feel pain, Mr. Lomax,” she said, “for the same reason that biologicals do. When you're

flesh-and-blood, you need a signaling system to warn you when your parts are being damaged; same is

true for those of us who have transferred. Admittedly, artificial bodies are much more durable, of

course."

"Ah,” I said.

"Sorry,” she replied. “I've explained this so many times now—you know, at work. Anyway, please

forgive me about your desk."

I made a dismissive gesture. “Thank God for the paperless office, eh? Don't worry about it.” I gestured

at the keyboard; fortunately, none of the coffee had gone down between the keys. “You were going to

show me a picture?"

"Oh, right.” She spoke some commands, and the terminal responded—making me wonder what she'd

wanted the keyboard for. But then she used it to type in a long passphrase; presumably she didn't want

to say hers aloud in front of me. She frowned as she was typing it in, and backspaced to make a

correction; multiword passphrases were easy to say, but hard to type if you weren't adept with a

keyboard—and the more security conscious you were, the longer the passphrase you used.

Anyway, she accessed some repository of her personal files, and brought up a photo of

Joshua-never-Josh Wilkins. Given how attractive Mrs. Wilkins was, he wasn't what I expected. He had

cold, gray eyes, hair buzzed so short as to be nonexistent, and a thin, almost lipless mouth; the overall

effect was reptilian. “That's before,” I said. “What about after? What's he look like now that he's

transferred?"

"Umm, pretty much the same,” she said.

"Really?” If I'd had that kisser, I'd have modified it for sure. “Do you have pictures taken since he moved

his mind?"

"No actual pictures,” said Cassandra. “After all, he and I only just transferred. But I can go into the

NewYou database, and show you the plans from which his new face was manufactured.” She spoke to

the terminal some more, and then typed in another lengthy passphrase. Soon enough, she had a

computer-graphics rendition of Joshua's head on my screen.

"You're right,” I said, surprised. “He didn't change a thing. Can I get copies of all this?"

She nodded, and spoke some more commands, transferring various documents into local storage.

"All right,” I said. “My fee is two hundred solars an hour."

"That's fine, that's fine, of course! I don't care about the money, Mr. Lomax—not at all. I just want

Joshua back. Please tell me you'll find him."

"I will,” I said, smiling my most reassuring smile. “Don't you worry about that. He can't have gone far."

* * *

Actually, of course, Joshua Wilkins could perhaps have gone quite far—so my first order of business

was to eliminate that possibility.

No spaceships had left Mars in the last ten days, so he couldn't be off-planet. There was a giant airlock

in the south through which large spaceships could be brought inside for dry-dock work, but it hadn't been

cracked open in weeks. And, although a transfer could exist freely on the Martian surface, there were

only four personnel air locks leading out of the dome, and they all had security guards. I visited each of

those air locks and checked, just to be sure, but the only people who had gone out in the last three days

were the usual crowds of hapless fossil hunters, and every one of them had returned when the dust storm

began.

I remember when this town had started up: “The Great Fossil Rush,” they called it. Weingarten and

O'Reilly, two early private explorers who had come here at their own expense, had found the first fossils

on Mars, and had made a fortune selling them back on Earth. More valuable than any precious metal;

rarer than anything else in the solar system—actual evidence of extraterrestrial life! Good fist-sized

specimens went for millions in online auctions; excellent football-sized ones for billions. There was no

greater status symbol than to own the petrified remains of a Martian pentaped or rhizomorph.

Of course, Weingarten and O'Reilly wouldn't say precisely where they'd found their specimens, but it had

been easy enough to prove that their spaceship had landed here, in the Isidis Planitia basin. Other

treasure hunters started coming, and New Klondike—the one and only town on Mars—was born.

Native life was never widely dispersed on Mars; the single ecosystem that had ever existed here seemed

to have been confined to an area not much bigger than Rhode Island. Some of the prospectors—excuse

me, fossil hunters—who came shortly after W&O's first expedition found a few nice specimens, although

most had been badly blasted by blowing sand.

Somewhere, though, was the mother lode: a bed that produced fossils more finely preserved than even

those from Earth's famed Burgess Shale. Weingarten and O'Reilly had known where it was—they'd

stumbled on it by pure dumb luck, apparently. But they'd both been killed when their heat shield

separated from their lander when re-entering Earth's atmosphere after their third expedition here—and, in

the twenty mears since, no one had yet rediscovered it.

People were still looking, of course. There'd always been a market for transferring consciousness; the

potentially infinite lifespan was hugely appealing. But here on Mars, the demand was particularly brisk,

since artificial bodies could spend days or even weeks on the surface, searching for paleontological gold,

without worrying about running out of air. Of course, a serious sandstorm could blast the synthetic flesh

from metal bones, and scour those bones until they were whittled to nothing; that's why no one was

outside right now.

Anyway, Joshua-never-Josh Wilkins was clearly not outside the dome, and he hadn't taken off in a

spaceship. Wherever he was hiding, it was somewhere in New Klondike. I can't say he was breathing

the same air I was, because he wasn't breathing at all. But he was here, somewhere. All I had to do was

find him.

I didn't want to duplicate the efforts of the police, although “efforts” was usually too generous a term to

apply to the work of the local constabulary; “cursory attempts” probably was closer to the truth, if I

knew Mac.

New Klondike had twelve radial roadways, cutting across the nine concentric rings of buildings under the

dome. My office was at dome's edge; I could have taken a hovertram into the center, but I preferred to

walk. A good detective knew what was happening on the streets, and the hovertrams, dilapidated though

they were, sped by too fast for that.

I didn't make any bones about staring at the transfers I saw along the way. They ranged in style from

really sophisticated models, like Cassandra Wilkins, to things only a step up from the tin woodsman of

Oz. Of course, those who'd contented themselves with second-rate synthetic forms doubtless believed

they'd trade up when they eventually happened upon some decent specimens. Poor saps; no one had

found truly spectacular remains for mears, and lots of people were giving up and going back to Earth, if

they could afford the passage, or were settling in to lives of, as Thoreau would have it, quiet desperation,

their dreams as dead as the fossils they'd never found.

I continued walking easily along; Mars gravity is about a third of Earth's. Some people were stuck here

because they'd let their muscles atrophy; they'd never be able to hack a full gee again. Me, I was stuck

here for other reasons, but I worked out more than most—Gully's Gym, over by the shipyards—and so

still had reasonably strong legs; I could walk comfortably all day if I had to.

The cop shop was a five-story building—it could be that tall, this near the center of the dome—with walls

that had once been white, but were now a grimy grayish pink. The front doors were clear alloquartz,

same as the overhead dome, and they slid aside as I walked up to them. At the side of the lobby was a

long red desk—as if we don't see enough red on Mars—with a map showing the Isidis Planitia basin;

New Klondike was a big circle off to one side.

The desk sergeant was a flabby lowbrow named Huxley, whose uniform always seemed a size too small

for him. “Hey, Hux,” I said, walking over. “Is Mac in?"

Huxley consulted a monitor, then nodded. “Yeah, he's in, but he don't see just anyone."

"I'm not just anyone, Hux. I'm the guy who picks up the pieces after you clowns bungle things."

Huxley frowned, trying to think of a rejoinder. “Yeah, well...” he said, at last.

"Oooh,” I said. “Good one, Hux! Way to put me in my place."

He narrowed his eyes. “You ain't as funny as you think you are, Lomax,” he said.

"Of course I'm not,” I said. “Nobody could be that funny. I nodded at the secured inner door. “Going to

buzz me through?"

"Only to be rid of you,” said Huxley. So pleased was he with the wit of this remark that he repeated it:

“Only to be rid of you."

Huxley reached below the counter, and the inner door—an unmarked black panel—slid aside. I

pantomimed tipping a nonexistent hat at Hux, and headed into the station proper. I then walked down the

corridor to McCrae's office; the door was open, so I rapped my knuckles against the plastic jamb.

"Lomax!” he said, looking up. “Decided to turn yourself in?"

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Robert J. Sawyer - Identity Theft

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