Architects of Emortality Read Online Free

full of eyes and ears. He was an unfashionably small man, whose girth suggested that his IT was having difficulty compensating for the effects of his appetites. There wasn’t much that could be done to add to his height, but even a building supervisor should be sufficiently well paid to afford regular body-image readjustments.

    “That’s it,” Carnevon said resentfully. “Every last one. The lobby, the elevator, and the corridor are all blind and deaf until I can get the replacements in.” “Thanks,” she said dully.

    “You’re welcome,” the supervisor informed her, implying by his tone that she was not at all welcome.

    Charlotte was supposed to treat members of the public with politeness and respect at all times, especially when they were cooperating to the best of their ability, but something in the supervisor’s manner got right up her nose.

    “If anything turns up on the evening news, Mr. Carnevon,” she said, in what she hoped was a suitably menacing manner, “I’ll make sure that whoever leaked it never holds a position of trust in this city again.” “Oh, sure,” Carnevon said. “I really want it broadcast all over the world that the King of Shamirs was murdered in my building. I can’t wait to give them the pictures of the killer riding up in my elevator carrying a bunch of fancy flowers. Miss Holmes, if anything leaks, you’d better make sure that your own backyard is clean, because it sure as hell won’t have come from me.” “We don’t know for certain that anyone has been murdered, Mr. Carnevon,” Charlotte informed him with a sigh. “And if, in fact, someone has, we certainly don’t know that the young woman who came up in the elevator was responsible.” “Of course not,” the supervisor said sarcastically. “I’m only the one who answered the alarm call. If I’d been fool enough to barge in after seeing what I saw through the spy eyes I’d probably be dead too—and there wouldn’t be any point in your friends staggering around in those damn moon suits. Believe me, Miss Holmes, that wasn’t any accidental death—and he was absolutely fine before that whore called in on him. She was even carrying a bunch of fancy flowers—what more do you want?” What Charlotte wanted, and what Hal would certainly demand, was evidence.

    Carrying a bunch of flowers—even state-of-the-art flowers formed according to a brand new gentemplate—was not yet illegal, although it might one day become so if the forensic team was right about the biohazard aspect of the case.

    “Thank you, Mr. Carnevon,” said Charlotte, meaning Go away, you horrid little man. The meaning was clear enough to have the desired effect, although Carnevon might have decided to hang around out of spite if he’d caught the full import of her thought.

    As the screen above the elevator began to count down the car’s descent, Charlotte turned back to the screen beside the apartment door, which was now occupied by an unsimulated image of her superior officer.

    “I’ve enhanced the audiotapes the team transmitted from the apartment’s ears,” Hal said laconically. “I’m ninety-nine percent sure that we have all the subvocalized remarks. The first of the three he muttered before the girl came in was ‘The age of the human herbivores; the cud-chewing era.’ The second was ‘Posturing apes in fancy dress.’ The third was ‘The devastation of the wild.’ The one that was an aside to his conversation was ‘That posturing ape,’ first word stressed—presumably referring to the man she named, Oscar Wilde. It’s possible, of course, given that he seems to have had posturing apes on his mind, that the previous reference was to the same person, but the fact that he said ‘the wild’ makes it unlikely. It’s also possible, I suppose, that the three remarks might be symptomatic of a suicidal turn of mind, but all the other evidence I’ve looked at seems to be against that.” “Do you have Wilde’s