restored VR temple of Karnak was vacant, and the sunlight without warmth fell on my shoulders again. Almost immediately, the temple vanished, and I stood in a room with dusty antique wooden filing cabinets.
Not that I didn’t trust Father, but the first search was for Elysa Mujaz-Kitab. There wasn’t one person on Earth or in Federal Service with that name—or on the out-of-date data from a half-dozen out-systems. I tried Elysa, but there were over two thousand people with that name as part of their registered identity. I couldn’t sweep for redheads. That was privacy-protected. And a sweep of medical adjustors netted exactly ten Elysas, from what I could tell, none of them anywhere close to the woman I’d met.
So…I went to a sweep of the multis who acknowledged biological expertise, and who had more than nanite template capability…then ran that against a resource capability macro and a personnel macro and then against a product output macro.
While those were running, I set up another series of screens, a junk screen that took in wealthy individuals, private foundations and action groups, and netmedia figures, running those against the same resource and talent macros. That took longer, a great deal longer.
Once I had that personalized search-and-window engine running, I began to set up the parameters that would describe exactly what kind of technical ability was necessary to create advanced nanites of the type that had presumably been targeted at me.
I hadn’t quite finished putting together that search when the bright green flash from the half-open wooden door—and the gentle bell—informed me that someone wanted to appear.
I checked the gatekeeper, and slipped out of the net and let my vision readjust to the real light of my study, watching as Myrto’s image appeared. He looked less perfect in real-time than his sim, with the black hair longer, slightly on end. “You wanted to talk?”
“I don’t know if you heard,” I said quietly, stifling the urge to cough—I knew coughing would hurt—“but I got iced with some sort of stiff allergenic reaction. Put me out for nearly two weeks. I’d gotten a lot done before it happened, and it looks like I’ll still be on schedule.” I shrugged apologetically and scanned the OneCys head compositor’s face closely, watching for any reactions.
“Heard something along those lines. Your brother. I wasn’t certain if he let me know for fairness or to gloat.”
“Both, probably.” I laughed, very gently. “We’re not immune to sibling rivalry.”
“How is it—the plan?” Myrto asked cautiously, feeling me out as to whether I’d done anything at all.
“It looks good, especially the high-culture offerings. How are things going with everything else?”
“Smooth…we’ve really got something here, and the rest of the team’s humming…. The option possibilities are almost done.”
Meaning that I was behind a bit, and that they’d be waiting. Also meaning that nothing else was off schedule. I’d figured that, but needed to know.
Myrto smiled. “You can have another couple of days if you need them.”
“I don’t think I will. If I do, I’ll let you know.”
“Do that.” With a practiced and warm smile, he, or his realtime sim, vanished, and I was once again looking eastward, over the valley, at the clouds that would probably climb into thunderstorms later in the afternoon.
I slipped back down into the net and checked the results of the first reduction. Among the multis were five possible candidates, just five, although my target could as likely be an individual as a multi team. More likely, in all probability, because teams left more traces.
Then I went back to structuring the third search. One of my side searches showed that there was no name Mujaz-Kitab, or any translated or transliterated variations, but that Mujaz and Kitab were both transliterated versions of ancient Arabic and both were key words in the titles of tomes by an
Michael Bray, Albert Kivak