Year's Best Scifi 7 Part 9

"I think it wants to be followed," I said. "And it knows we're the followers."

"Let's get following then!" said Prang. "We only have two hours until dawn. We have to find it before it kills somebody else. The museum might be liable."

"I have a hunch we're not going to find it until it wants us to," I said. "Boudin, did you scan those eyes?"

"Out"

"Could they be some kind of photoreceptors?"

"I'll have Paris check them out."

"Good," I said. "While we're waiting, why don't we all get some sleep, and meet at my office at noon?"

"Sleep? Noon?" Prang lit another Camel. "Shouldn't we be out looking for this thing?"

"I told you, I have a hunch. Isn't that what private eyes have? Isn't that what you're paying me for?"

Morning is the only quiet time in the French Quarter. I was dreaming of Darwin again, dispatching killer girls around the universe, when Prang and Boudin knocked at my door.

"You were right about the photoreceptors," said Boudin. "How did you know?"

"Apparently the Enorme is activated by moonlight," I said. "And what about the radioactivity?"

"Still waiting."

"What are we doing here?" asked Prang, looking around my office with ill-disguised disgust. "Where are all your ashtrays?"

"We're waiting for a phone call."

"From who?"

"From a friend, if my hunch is right. I'm sorry, you can't smoke in here."

"What do you mean, a friend?" She took a deep drag and blew it up toward the ceiling. "Tell me more."

"There was something about that phone call in the cemetery. And then last night. Have you ever heard of civil twilight?" She and Boudin both shook their heads. "It's the 26 minutes right before sunrise and after sunset. The half light of dusk, of dawn."

Boudin looked out the window. "So? It's noon."

"Perhaps the moon has a civil twilight as well. It's 12:35, and the moon sets at 12:57, according to the Naval Observatory, even though we can't see it. And if my theory is right-my hunch, I mean..."

My phone rang.

"Jack Villon," I said. "Supernatural Private Eye."

"Kill me..." It was the same voice. I held the phone so Prang and Boudin could hear.

"I know who you are," I said. "I want to help. Where are you?"

"In the dark... dreaming..."

Click.

"Was that who I think it was?" Prang asked, and it was not exactly a question.

"That," I said, "was your Enorme. These calls come only when the moon is rising or setting."

"Civil twilight," said Boudin. "The mind is open to all sorts of strange impressions right after waking or just before sleep. Perhaps it's true of this creature as well."

"When I got the phone call in the cemetery, I a.s.sumed it was the blackmailer or the hoaxer. But it was the Enorme itself, wanting to be found." "Kill me before I kill again?" Prang asked, fis.h.i.+ng the last Camel out of her pack. "A werewolf with a conscience?"

"Not a werewolf," I said. "A robot."

"A what?!"

"The weird 'stone' that is not stone. The photoreceptors. The radioactivity. We are dealing with a device."

"Who built it then, and what for?" Boudin asked.

"I think, unfortunately, we have seen what it was designed for," I said. "It's some kind of war or killer robot. As to who built it..."

"Save it for later," said Prang. "I need to get some cigarettes. And it's time for lunch."

Chez Toi is the best restaurant in the French Quarter. That's the upside of working for a major museum director.

"The curse made more sense," said Prang, after we had ordered. "n.o.body sacrifices virgins to a robot."

"The Mayans didn't know from robots," I said. "Wasn't it Arthur C. Clarke who said that any sufficiently advanced technology looks like magic?"

"That was Jules Verne," said Boudin. "But I must admit your theory fits the facts. According to Paris, the 'stone' is some kind of silicon substance with a toggling molecule that allows it to change from solid to flexible in an instant."

"Synthetique!" I said, digging into my chicken provencale.

"There's one big problem with your robot theory, or hunch, or whatever," said Prang. "The Enorme's half a million years old, remember?"

"Between 477, 000 and 481, 000," said Boudin, checking his scanner.

"So!" said Prang. She pushed her plate away and lit a Camel. "No one could have built a robot that long ago!"

"No one could have carved a statue either," Boudin pointed out. "No one on Earth, anyway."

"Exactly," I said.

"I'm afraid you can't smoke in here," said the waiter.

"Extraterrestrials?" said Prang, blowing a smoke ring shaped like a flying saucer. "Aliens? This is worse than ever. Now I need a science fiction private eye!"

"You had one all along," I said. "I never believed in the supernatural. I believe in the real world, and as Shakespeare said, 'There are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy. ' "

"That was Voltaire," said Boudin. "But your point is well taken."

"You've both been watching too much Star Tank," said Prang, signing the check. "But whatever the Enorme is, I want to find it and get it back. What do you say we take a ride?"

The parking valet brought the big BMW around and gave up the keys with a visible sigh of regret.

"Where do we start?" Prang asked, as she peeled away from the curb (and I closed my eyes). "Any hunches?"

"None," I said. "I doubt the Enorme would hide in the cemeteries again, unless..."

"Unless it wanted to be found," said Boudin.

Prang's car phone rang.

"Prang here."

"Yes, find... Kill me..."

I lunged for the speaker phone switch. "Where are you? Are you awake?"

"No, dreaming..."

"Where are you?" asked Prang.

"City, city of the Dead..." He was fading. "Please kill me... before I wake..."

Click. Dial tone.

"City of the Dead. Big help!" Prang said. "New Orleans has over twenty cemeteries in the city limits alone!" The phone rang again.

"Prang here. Is that you, Enorme?"

"Keep your opinions to yourself," said Chief Ward. "Where are you, Prang? I hear your statue is gone missing again."

"I'm out for a drive, if it's any of your business," said Prang. "And don't worry about the statue. It's under control."

"We have ten calls from people who saw it walking up Rampart Street just before dawn. Prang, what is this thing? A monster? Is it the murderer we're looking for?"

"Don't be silly, Ward. It's just a statue."

"We're putting out an all-points, shoot-to-kill."

"You can't do that! It's museum property."

"Stealing itself? What is this, Prang? Some sort of insurance scam?"

"Hang up!" Boudin whispered.

"Huh?"

"Boudin's right," I whispered. "Ward's using the phone to track you!"

"d.a.m.n!" Prang clicked off the phone. "I thought he was awfully chatty!"

We cruised the "Cities of the Dead," looking for opened gates. The GPS screen on the dash of the BMW allowed me to follow our progress without looking out the window and subjecting myself to the terrifying view of the pedestrians and cars Prang barely missed.

"You're sure that was it on the phone?" Prang asked. "I thought it only called during the so-called 'civil twilight.' Right before or after moon rise."

"Maybe it's changing," I said. "It is activated by the moon, but only communicates when it's dormant.

Dreaming. Perhaps it is dreaming more. Perhaps we are stimulating some new response in it."

Boudin's scanner-communicator beeped.

"Anything new from Paris?" Prang asked, lighting a fresh Camel and pitching the old one out the window.

"Just filling out what we had," said Boudin, checking the tiny screen. "The Enorme is solid all the way through. There is no internal anatomy at all, only field patterns in the pseudo stone activated by a tiny nuclear power cell buried in the center of the ma.s.s. The Enorme appears to have been grown, like a crystal, rather than made..."

"But who put it here?" Prang asked. "And why? There were no humans here half a million years ago.

Just hominids, half human, hunting in packs."

"That's it!" I said. "Charlie's Angels!"

"Charlie who?" asked Boudin.

"Darwin. I've been having these weird dreams about Charles Darwin."

"Is this another hunch?" Prang asked.

"Maybe. Suppose you wanted to speed up evolution. How would you go about it?"

"Soup up the chromosomes?" offered Prang, as she deftly maneuvered between an eastbound c.o.ke and westbound Pepsi truck. I concentrated on the GPS screen again, where we were a flas.h.i.+ng light.

"Make conditions harder," said Boudin. "Apply pressure."

"Exactly!" I said. "Suppose you found a species, a primate, for example, right on the verge of developing intelligence, language, culture. But it doesn't really need all that. It is perfectly capable of living in its ecological niche. It has intelligence, or at least enough; it makes fire; it even makes some crude tools-stone hammers, wooden spears. It has spread all over the planet and adapted to every environment, from the equator to the arctic. It is perfectly adapted to its environment."

"It's not going to evolve any farther," said Boudin.

"No reason to," I said. "Unless. Unless you seeded the planet with a killer-or killers. Killer robots.

Berserkers that would pursue this species, relentlessly. Something that was big, fast, and hard to kill. And smart."