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When the lab boys dragged their feet, she hopped on their backs and rode them mercilessly. It got to the point that the lab began to dodge her communications. To combat that, she hauled Peabody down to the lab for a little face-to-face persuasion.
“Don’t try to sell me that SOS about backup, Dickie.”
Dickie Berenski, privately known as Dickhead, looked pained. As chief lab tech, he should have been able to delegate a half dozen drones to ward off a personal confrontation with an irate detective, but every one of them had deserted him.
Heads would roll, he thought, and sighed. “What do you mean SOS?”
“Same old shit, Dickie. It’s always SOS with you.”
He scowled but decided to make the acronym his own. “Listen, Dallas, I got you the breakdown on all the over the counters, didn’t I? Flagged them personally as a favor.”
“Favor, my ass, I bribed you with box seats for the Arena Ball play-offs.”
His face went prim. “I assumed that was a gift.”
“And I’m not bribing you again.” She jabbed a finger into his puny chest. “What’s the deal with the VR goggles? Why haven’t I got your report?”
“Because I haven’t found anything to report. It’s a hot program, Dallas—” His eyebrows did a little suggestive dance. “But it was clean. No defects. So are all the other options on that unit—clean and up to code. Better than,” he added, his voice whining faintly. “We should have so good. I had Sheila take the whole unit apart and put it back together. Damn fine equipment, top of the line—higher than top. The technology’s off the scale. But that’s to be expected. It’s a Roarke product.”
“It’s a—” She broke off, struggling not to show her surprise or distress at this new tidbit of information. “Which plant manufactures it?”
“Hell, Sheila’s got that data. Off planet, I’m pretty sure. Cheaper labor. And that baby was right off the ship. Hasn’t been on the open market more than a month.”
Her stomach had clutched and tightened further. “But it’s not defective?”
“Nope. It’s a real honey. I’ve already put in for one of my own.” He wiggled his brows hopefully. “Of course, you could probably get me a unit at cost.”
“You get me the report, now, every single detail, and release the unit to me, and I’ll think about it.”
“It’s Sheila’s flex day,” he whined, his mouth stretching down in a search for pity. “She’ll have the report finished up and on your desk by noon tomorrow.”
“Now, Dickie.” A good cop knew her quarry’s weaknesses. “And I’ll see about making you a gift of your own unit.”
“Well, in that case . . . hang for ten.” Cheery now, he hurried over to a computer bank tucked in one of the cubbyholes in the lab’s beehive.
“Dallas, one of those units probably goes for two thousand, base.” Peabody stared after Dickie in disgust. “You overbribed him.”
“I want that report.” Eve imagined that Roarke had a case of the units somewhere for promotional giveaways. Giveaways, she thought with a sick roll in her stomach, to politicians, employees, prominent citizens. “I’m down to three days. And nothing. I won’t be able to waltz Whitney toward an extension.” She looked back over as Dickie pushed out of the cubicle.
“Sheila had it almost nailed down.” He offered a sealed disc and a hard copy. “Look at this. This is a compu-graft of the VR pattern for the last program. Sheila’s highlighted a couple of blips.”
“What do you mean, blips?” Eve snatched the page and studied what appeared to be a series of lightning bolts and swirls.
“Can’t say for certain. Probably the subliminal relaxation, or in this case, substimulation option. Some of the newer units are offering several extended subliminal packages. You can see these shadow the program, slide in every few seconds.”
“Suggestions?” She felt her energy surge. “You mean the program was fitted with subliminal suggestions to the user?”
“Common enough practice. It’s been used for habit breaking, sexual enhancement, mind expanding, and so on for decades. My old man quit tobacco on subliminals fifty years ago.”
“What about planting urges. . .such as self-termination?”
“Look, subs give you little nudges toward hunger, consumer goods, or aid in habit breaking. That kind of direct suggestion?” He tugged at his lip, shook his head. “You’d have to go deeper, and I’d say it would take a long series of sessions to make the suggestion stick on a normal brain. Survival instinct’s too strong.”
He shook his head again, convinced. “We played those programs over and over.”
Particularly the sexual fantasy sequences, Eve thought.
“Ran them on test subjects, into the droid for analysis. We got nobody jumping off the roof. In fact, we got no unusual reaction from anyone or out of the droid. It’s just a top flight, that’s it.”
