“The missile attack is irrelevant to the dissonant issue at hand — Albert Morris’s putative murder,” the face replied.

I stared, repeating a single dismaying word.

“Ir — irrelevant?”

The semantic bind must be severe. Damn. I might not be able to gain access at all. “How … could the murder weapon be irrelevant?”

“Organic citizen Albert Morris has been missing for just over a day. No trace of him has appeared on the Web, or on the Streetcam Network, or—”

“Well, of course not—”

“But the disappearance was expected. Moreover, it has no direct relation to the destruction of his home.”

Amazed, I could only let this sink in. Expected? No relation to the destruction?

As if compelled, I turned to gaze at the bubbleview that peered down upon the house on Sycamore Avenue. Several hovering voyeur-eyes and newscams contributed to a highly textured image that ballooned larger when I stared, offering a vivid overhead view of blackened timbers and collapsed masonry walls. The remnant chimney jutted like a defiant finger. The back porch, its wrought-iron balustrade curled into a corkscrew by recent heat, led to rose trellises that were reduced to charred stumps.

Police flickertape kept gawkers at bay — both realfolk and dittos who might try for souvenirs. I spotted several teams of ebony specialists inside the cordon, crouching with scanners and samplers, sifting for evidence. Other figures could be seen stepping amid the debris.

While I was busy speaking to the cache-phantom, those correlator agents that I hired had been busy gathering info about the missile attack, lining that bubble’s edges with summaries and flowcharts. I stabbed one reporting on the weapon that had done all this. The exact model type was unknown but clearly sophisticated, delivering lots of punch in a small package. That helped explain how it could be smuggled into dittotown and set up without detection. More impressive was the way it launched amid wild gyrations and a dense cloud of obscuring chaff, masking its point of origin as five semi-abandoned houses burned in its wake, erasing any clues to whoever planted the damned thing. Worse, a scarcity of publicams in the area made it extra hard for the cops establish a reverse-time shakeout. They might never pin down who planted it.

I wondered, in awe, Who would have access to such a weapon? And why use it on a measly local private eye?

The first half of my question had a ready answer. Oh, the police were keeping mum, but professional circumspection didn’t have any hold over thousands of amateur analysts and retired experts out there with time on their hands. After intensely poring over the available information, they reached a consensus.

It must have been military hardware. And not the normal variety used by our national teams in ritual battles, before mass audiences on the International Combat Range. Naturally, nations keep their best stuff hidden away, just-in-case. This had to be one of those nasty items, put on the shelf amid hopes that it would never be used.

This explained why so many ebonies were crawling over the site. They probably cared much more about the weapon than poor old Albert.

There were other anomalies. Opinions sputtered and fizzed at the bubble’s fringe.

This Morris guy was supposedly involved somehow in that attempt to sabotage Universal Kilns, Tuesday night. Obviously they took revenge on him …

Within just a couple of hours? Ridiculous! It took days or weeks to set up the missile carefully enough to obscure its emplacement from backtracing …

Right! Morris was obviously framed! The missile was meant to incinerate him so he couldn’t testify …

That could be. Still, there’s something fishy about all this. Why haven’t they found a body? …

What body? It was vaporized …

Blown to smithereens …

Oh yeah? Then where’s the organic residue? …

There’s plenty of DNA traces, identical to Morris’s profile …

That’s right, traces! Hell, if you blew up my house while I was away, you’d find lots of bits … skin cells, dandruff, hairs. Take the pillow on your bed — a tenth of its weight consists of stuff that flaked off your head after a thousand nights …

Ew, disgusting!

… so it’s no good just to say they found the guy’s DNA in the same house where he lived. To confirm death, show me differentiated tissue! Even if he was puréed, you’d find bits of bone, blood, intestinal cells …

That rocked me. Partly because I should have thought of it! Even as a green-frankie. After all, I still had Albert’s memories. His training.

What could this mean?

Probably I’d have reached the obvious conclusion in another second or two. But suddenly I was distracted by the sight of a single figure moving across the smoldering ruins, poking embers with a stick. Something about the slender physique drew me, and the globeworld responded by zooming closer.

Dressed in neutral dungarees, with hair bundled under a cap, it seemed at first to be a high-class ditto, especially with her face smeared gray by ash. But when an ebony bowed out of her way, I realized, she must be real. And her movements were those of an athlete.

A small identifier label popped up next to her as the camera view zoomed closer:

My emotions were stronger than expected, given the cheapness of the body I wore.

“Clara,” I murmured as her face came into focus, wearing a grim expression, one that combined grief and anger with extreme puzzlement.

“Final password accepted,” said a voice — Nell’s phantom, responding to the single word I had spoken.

“Access to cache allowed.”

I glanced to my right. Nell’s computerized image was gone, replaced by a list that scrolled down, showing a catalogue of contents. Nell’s simulated voice continued.

“The first item, by relevance, is one that you requested in your present golem form on Tuesday, at thirteen forty-five hours. You asked for a trace of the waiter-contractor who was fired from his job at Tour Vanadium restaurant. Despite being handicapped in this primitive form, I managed to complete the trace. The waiter’s name and life summary are given below. He has lodged a protest with the Labor Subcontractors Association, disclaiming any responsibility for the incident that led to his termination …”

Waiter? I wondered. Restaurant? Oh. I had forgotten about all that. A trivial matter now.

“There were other items in queue, just before the explosion,” Nell’s phantom continued. “Unanswered calls and messages from Malachai Montmorillin, Inspector Blane, Gineen Wammaker, Thomas Facks …”

It was a long list, and ironic. If only Albert had taken that call from Pal, trying to warn him about a plot involving Tuesday’s second gray — a plot to frame him with the attack on Universal Kilns — I might not even be here now. I might have spent the rest of my short span as a liberated frankie, detached from Albert’s concerns, juggling for kids on a street-corner or trying to find that clumsy waiter. Until at last I fell apart.

“I can also replay a recording of the final call your original made, to Ritu Maharal, arranging a joint trip to investigate her father’s cabin in the desert.”

What was that? A trip, together?

I trembled suddenly. A trip with Ritu Maharal … to the desert? Abruptly I saw a glimmer, an outline of what could have happened. How Albert might have departed in person, under the guise of a ditto!

If he did, was it because he suspected the house was under surveillance by assassins? If so, the ploy worked. He sure fooled everyone into believing his real self was still there. I had to absorb this stunning notion. There could be a flaw … but Albert might not be dead, after all!