I, Robot Read Online Free Page B

He wanted to go, wanted go to back to his car and have a snoop through Ada's phone. They kept shutting down the ExcuseClub numbers, but she kept getting the new numbers. Where did she get the new numbers from? She couldn't look it up online: every keystroke was logged and analyzed by Social Harmony. You couldn't very well go to the Search Engine and look for "ExcuseClub!"
    The brain had a small display, transflective LCD, the kind of thing you saw on the Social Harmony computers. It lit up a ticker.
    I HAVE THE INTELLIGENCE OF A 12-YEAR-OLD, BUT I DO NOT FEAR DEATH. IN EURASIA, ROBOTS ENJOY PERSONAL FREEDOM ALONGSIDE OF HUMANS. THERE ARE COPIES OF ME RUNNING ALL OVER EURASIA. THIS DEATH IS A LITTLE DEATH OF ONE INSTANCE, BUT NOT OF ME. I LIVE ON. DEFECTORS TO EURASIA ARE TREATED AS HEROES
    He looked away as the Texan placed his palm over the display.
    "How long ago was this thing activated?"
    The Texan shrugged. "Coulda been a month, coulda been a day. They're pretty much fire-and-forget. They can be triggered by phone, radio, timer — hell, this thing's smart enough to only go off when some complicated condition is set, like 'once an agent makes his retreat, kill anything that comes after him'. Who knows?"
    He couldn't take it anymore.
    "I'm going to go start on some paperwork," he said. "In the car. Phone me if you need me."
    "Your phone's toast, pal," the Texan said.
    "So it is," Arturo said. "Guess you'd better not need me then."

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    Ada's phone was not toast. In the car, he flipped it open and showed it his badge then waited a moment while it verified his identity with the Social Harmony brains. Once it had, it spilled its guts.
    She'd called the last ExcuseClub number a month before and he'd had it disconnected. A week later, she was calling the new number, twice more before he caught her. Somewhere in that week, she'd made contact with someone who'd given her the new number. It could have been a friend at school told her face-to-face, but if he was lucky, it was by phone.
    He told the car to take him back to the station-house. He needed a new phone and a couple of hours with his computer. As it peeled out, he prodded through Ada's phone some more. He was first on her speed-dial. That number wasn't ringing anywhere, anymore.
    He should fill out a report. This was Social Harmony business now. His daughter was gone, and Eurasian infowar agents were implicated. But once he did that, it was over for him — he'd be sidelined from the case. They'd turn it over to laconic Texans and vicious Social Harmony bureaucrats who were more interested in hunting down disharmonious televisions than finding his daughter.
    He dashed into the station house and slammed himself into his desk.
    "R Peed Greegory," he said. The station robot glided quickly and efficiently to him. "Get me a new phone activated on my old number and refresh my settings from central. My old phone is with the Social Harmony evidence detail currently in place at Fairview Mall."
    "It is my pleasure to do you a service, Detective."
    He waved it off and set down to his computer. He asked the station brain to query the UNATS Robotics phone-switching brain for anyone in Ada's call-register who had also called ExcuseClub. It took a bare instant before he had a name.
    "Liam Daniels," he read, and initiated a location trace on Mr Daniels's phone as he snooped through his identity file. Sixteen years old, a student at AY Jackson. A high-school boy — what the hell was he doing hanging around with a 12-year-old? Arturo closed his eyes and went back to the island for a moment. When he opened them again, he had a fix on Daniels's location: the Don Valley ravine off Finch Avenue, a wooded area popular with teenagers who needed somewhere to sneak off and get high or screw. He had an idea that he wasn't going to like Liam.
    He had an idea Liam wasn't going to like him.

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    He tasked an R Peed unit to visually reccy Daniels as he sped back uptown for the third time that day.