They could see and count all the people who went in and out of that building, and then it wouldn't take even an especially smart cookie to realise who the Japanese woman with suspiciously similar cybernetics was when she left and immediately fled the city in the care and company of Nomads.
Facial recognition would have given Dr Hasumi's identity, and from there, they could have just waited until she resurfaced again. I suspect they were somewhat surprised when Taylor Hebert reappeared while Sakura Hasumi was still going about her day-to-day activities. The fact that we still have identical cybernetics between us would just add to the mystery. I felt that was the reason for the invitation. To be frank, I didn't know what to say about it. I was just going to try to avoid speaking about it if at all possible, and lie if I couldn't be vague. Perhaps she'd assume I had hired a stand-in and sculpted her to look like Hasumi, and I was pulling her strings like a puppet.
I nodded, "Yes, of course. She never told me about you, though." I shook my head, joking, "Otherwise, I would have asked for a bigger allowance."
If anything, she looked slightly relieved, although it flashed so quickly that I might have imagined it. I'd have to go back and replay this experience to be sure. It was a bit odd that she was taking my word for it, but before I could think about that, she placed her hands lightly on the table and said, "Taylor, I have to apologise. Years ago, when you shifted interests so radically, I was afraid that you had been murdered and had your identity stolen. I sent William here to check and, if necessary, to avenge you."
Yeah, I had already guessed that. I would have liked to be more angry about it, but all I said was, "Perhaps he could have knocked at my door and not defaulted to kidnapping." At that point, the likely combat gynoid walked back in carrying both a full tea service on one tray and a tray of little pastries and small mini-sandwiches in the other. The ninja in question smiled ruefully and rubbed the back of his neck.
She started serving us and poured tea for each of us but left the cream or sugar to us. I put a little of each in and used the spoon to agitate the beverage gently, being careful not to be so uncouth as to bang my spoon on the side of the cup, "Having said that, I don't think it would be advantageous of me to hold a grudge." I was actually shocked and amazed that she had apologised at all. I had considered the possibility, but I suspected that the ninja, this William, would apologise, not Gram.
Gram smiled and inclined her head, "I'm so glad, especially that you are you. I was a little worried that you had done something terrible to yourself, like those two gentlemen that you helped fuse into one in Los Angeles."
Ohhh... Ab, or Paul and Will Ochoki. The two twins that I had installed that interesting Zetatech "neural oscillation synchroniser" on. I had totally forgotten about them, which wasn't like me. That meant that Gram was spying on me, or at least had a dossier about exactly what I had done at work, anyway. I wouldn't say that that hadn't influenced my network either. I had taken a bit away from it, but it was very limited.
But this was an option that was being tossed into to my lap; perhaps I could get her to think that my synchronisation was a lot more limited than it was. The issue was that this would still be incredibly valuable, at least to the very rich like her. It would be an even worse version of immortality than being digitised by either Soulkiller or my own private brain-scanning system, but it wasn't like there were a lot of alternatives here, so a lot of people might be interested in it anyway.
I wouldn't be, even if I was Gram. They already had serious life extension and could expect to live at least two hundred years. If you weren't an old fossil like Saburo Arasaka, that meant that you had a lot of time to wait for further improvements in the same life extension technology. When it was first introduced, you could only live about one hundred and twenty years. It's possible it will be improved and improved, and functional biological immortality, or bio-indefinite mortality as I liked to think of it, could be achieved just by waiting.
"Oh... no. I hope those two brothers haven't been vivisected or anything. While I found Zetatech's technology very interesting, and I admit I may have disassembled the implant before installing it... I'm definitely not interested in being altered like that," I said, chuckling. Then I tilted my head to the side, "I do find it odd that you're taking my word for everything, though. Not having ole Bill here hold me down so you can interrogate me properly, eh?"
"Ah... we can speak to that, but..." she glanced up, "If I could have the room, please. You too, William." I raised an eyebrow as both the likely combat gynoid and the combat cyborg left the room. William looked as though he was going to complain but finally sighed and nodded, leaving. She tapped something on the table, and I briefly felt my ears pop. I blinked, glancing to the left, seeing a slight distortion in the air, while Gram smiled, "Even if someone was still here, they wouldn't be able to hear us speak, and holograms would stymie attempts to read our lips."
It suddenly occurred to me that I could probably kill her unless the table itself was a secret, hidden robotic guardian, anyway. I tapped the wood and shook away the intrusive thought. There was nobody alive that was badass enough to kill someone in the penthouse of Konpeki Plaza and then escape without being ruthlessly murdered by both the security of the building and the security of whomever he or she murdered. I certainly wasn't, plus I didn't even have the motive. But my mind, being my mind, couldn't help but see options, "He didn't want to leave; I suspected he thought I was dangerous to you. Why the privacy?"
Her windchimes-like laugh reappeared, and she regarded me with momentarily slitted eyes, like a pawn shop owner who was given a Rolex watch to hawk. Assessing. Finally, she said, "Dangerous to my heart, such as it is, perhaps. Before I answer your question, you mentioned you would have asked for more allowance. Is that something you'd be interested in? Fabulous wealth?"
I snorted, almost aspirating my tea. I sat the cup down and regarded her levelly, "I'll be frank, Gram. The only reason I came here is because I am worried about what you can take from me, not what you can give to me. All things being equal, more money is better than less money. But, I am already making a lot, for me anyway. The entire point of money is to give you more options, and I just feel like taking anything from you would vastly reduce my options, and create all manners of fetters tying me down."
She smiled, it seemed genuine, but I didn't know. I knew she was a lot better social predator-type than me, so she possibly could fake that, "Yes, a fabulous product from what I can tell. I haven't tried it myself, of course, but I have someone using it every day. If their brain hasn't melted in a year, I will give it a go. How wondrous it would be to have more time in a day."
Her eyes almost sparkled at that, and then she got more serious, "My assistant, Edgecrusher, has modelled that, from when you release your next version of your product, there will be an approximate fifty-two per cent chance that your invention will be ..uh.. acquired from you, somehow, per quarter." She tilted her head to the side, "Along with a twenty-four per cent chance this, Dr Hasumi will be kidnapped as well. Knowing all this, are you sure you want to go it alone? You'll have fetters one way or another before too long."
I did some quick mental math. I let the former possibility be A and the latter be B. Then P(A∪B), or either one occurring, had a probability of a little over sixty-five per cent. But P(AB), or both occurring, only had a probability of about fifteen per cent, although I didn't know if that was precisely how I should calculate it because there seemed to be a lot of overlap in "steal invention" and "kidnap inventor" in my mind.
So, instead, I tabled that and figured that there was an eighty-eight per cent chance that at least my invention would be "stolen" in the next nine months. That was more pessimistic than my own guess. I was thinking seventy-five per cent myself, but I was only using my intuition. I had already had a phone call from one of Dynacorp's investment analysts scheduled in the next couple of days. I had looked up the man who requested to speak to me online, and he was an entry-level analyst for M&A's, so it was likely that they were trying to get me on the cheap. I had to appreciate his daring in attempting to make the acquisition himself rather than notifying his boss, even if I wouldn't sell for the low amount he would be authorised to give.
I supposed I would trust the more pessimistic numbers more. After all, any quant that was called Edgecrusher had to be either a serious math head or possibly an AI.
I sighed, "Well, it is what it is. The longer I continue manufacturing, the more money I will make. And I suspect whatever happens; I'll be given at least a pittance. I'll just have to use that to start some other venture. And even if I end up in a cage someday in the future, it will, hopefully, be a cage of my own making."
This caused her to golf clap politely and smile knowingly, "Bravo, bravo. Your mother said something very similar to me once, although the context was totally different. Did you know I, myself, am a servant?"
I couldn't help myself, but I smirked, "The net mentioned something about the Astor-Armstrong being a subservient family to the Astors, a cadet branch."
"Mmm... yes. All of the Astors of the main branch family live in Low-Earth Orbit now. Over time they just wanted less and less to do with how the sausage was made, you see. We make sure that they want for nothing and aren't troubled by pesky things, though," she said in a conspiratorial tone.
Ah. I kind of thought that her asking me if I wanted fabulous wealth was a test; I mean, of course, it was, but I didn't know precisely the correct answer because for many Corpos, "Absolutely, you old bint!" would have been the expectation of a correct answer.
So she had basically taken over the family and placed the actual Astors into a gilded cage, just like I was trying to avoid. Well, I didn't care. Plus, it was very, very likely that the Astors didn't even care. Perhaps she liked the moxie in me. I thought it was approval, but still, I took a sip of my tea, "This still doesn't answer the reason-"
She interrupted me, "It's my superpower, dear."
I almost spit my tea all over her face, which I thought would have been a faux pas. Instead, I got out chokingly, "Huh?"
"William did run a pretty thorough if abbreviated word association on you, if you recall. He told me that you were convinced that you had a superpower. You know, like in the comics," she said mildly, "It's why I sent everyone away. Roughly a third of Astors, and by extension, us, develop one, of course."
Of course? Bullshit! I wanted to yell. I was the only parahuman on this planet! I could suddenly feel my power thrumming with curiosity. I hissed internally at it. No, I wouldn't vivisect Gram! At least, not yet!
I stared at her until she continued, "It's very often useless. Very, very often, but I have one of the most powerful ones that has ever been documented. It's always a knowing , you see. And I know if someone near me speaks the truth. I presume that you know biology, or medicine, or something along those lines. Incredible. There hasn't been a recorded case like that since the 17th century when Ronan Astor received the power to know mechanical timekeeping devices. He became the best watchmaker in the world."
Okay. My first idea was that I should decapitate her and escape out the window. I could probably survive sliding down one hundred stories somehow . If she could tell the truth from lies, then I had been very lucky that I took to mostly the truth, or shades of it. Then, I concluded that perhaps, she was insane or delusional.
Insanity would make sense, but I was still kind of in shock. I couldn't really help it because she claimed to be a Thinker, or at least whatever the local equivalent was. She claimed it was a superpower, but I supposed that it could just be a super-genius intellect. Even her miraculous claim about Ronan Astor could just have been a genius intellect combined with being on the autistic spectrum, with a fixation on watchmaking.
The possibility that she was merely a super-genius didn't make it better, though. I presumed that she had done tests, and even if what she was really doing was just super-accurate cold reading, like I once suspected Sarah of, then that wasn't good, either. If anything, a level of genius that could emulate a Thinker's power was in every way worse, although it did make me want to examine her brain a little bit, and not just because my power was trying to push me to do so.
I coughed and sat my tea back into the saucer, and said, "I presume that this is a family secret?" She inclined her head, "It sounds unbelievable. Sure, I am a genius in medicine and biology, but I was just using, to myself, the phrase superpower to encapsulate that."
"Lie," she said, frankly, monotone.
A lucky guess? I used all of my mental capability to still my expressions and said, randomly, "I am a virgin." I was sure that I was letting nothing leak out.
"Well, good for you. That is a little surprising, though, I have to admit," she said wryly. Fuck, I should have picked something else, but I was flustered.
After that, I tried a number of different lies and truths, although, after that, I kept them impersonal, such as what I ate last night. Gram seemed pleased as punch to play along, amused by the whole thing.
Before I could think too hard about this and talk myself out of it, I had one more test. I disconnected. I suddenly felt stupid and kind of like I had just suffered a stroke. My Haywire comms were still working, though, and that meant myself-no, not myself, my other-self could talk through my body, kind of like I was a robot. This normally wouldn't be possible, but I specifically reconfigured the permissions and allowed it. While I was just floundering, she said to Gram, "My favourite colour is pink."
I didn't wait for a reply, I mentally mashed the reconnect button, and suddenly, I was back. The merge process for the memories was a little odd. In a blink, I had more memories. Even if it was only a couple of seconds, and while it wasn't quite like I had experienced those things myself, it wasn't too far off from that, either. At the same time, I had experienced both sides, too, so it was like I experienced those things while simultaneously not. It was a bit weird.
