“Is that actually even possible?” Redhouse asked me.

“To black someone out and then control their body?” I asked. Redhouse nodded. “I’ve never heard of it ever happening.”

“That’s not the same thing as it not being possible,” said Speaker Roanhorse.

“No, ma’am, it’s not,” I said. “But if it was something that was possible, it’s surprising that it hasn’t been done before. Neural nets are built to be resistant to hijacking,” I said, and paused.

“What?” Redhouse asked.

I briefly debated what to tell them, but then thought, screw it, this is the Navajo Nation’s leadership. I wasn’t blabbing to just anyone. “The neural network in Johnny Sani’s head is one of a kind,” I said. “It’s entirely possible it’s fine-tuned for something like this. It would make him a unique case.”

“Why him?” Becenti asked. “Why do this to Johnny Sani?”

“Anyone else leaves a trail,” I said. “Johnny Sani never left the Navajo Nation. All his medical records are here. He has no outside identification except for his Social Security number, and he’s never used that for anything. He doesn’t appear to have ever had a job that wasn’t paid in cash, under the table, including this one. He doesn’t have a whole lot of friends, and very few family members.”

“In other words, if you want to use someone for a medical experiment, he’s perfect,” Redhouse said.

“That’s about right,” I said.

Becenti fumed some more. “I knew Johnny Sani,” he said, to me.

“Yes, sir,” I said. “I had heard that.” What I had actually heard, from Klah Redhouse, was that in his earlier days Becenti had carried a torch for Johnny and Janis’s mother, June. It was never reciprocated, as far as anyone could tell, but that didn’t make it any less real to the current Navajo Nation president. Old flames die hard.

Becenti pointed to the display, which had reset to the beginning of the video, with Johnny Sani’s head in the frame. “I want you to find out who did this,” he said. “And then I want you to snap their head off.”

“I will do what I can, Mr. President,” I said. I was not entirely sure if protocol called for “Mr. President,” but I didn’t think it would hurt.

“Anything we can do to help, you let us know,” he said.

“Officer Redhouse has already been an immense help,” I said. “I’ll let him know if there’s anything else I need.”

Becenti nodded and left the room.

“When are you going to release the body to the family?” Roanhorse asked, after Becenti had gone.

“Soon,” I said, to her. “Our specialist is finishing up his examination of the network in Sani’s head. As soon as that’s done I think we can release the body.”

“I understand you’re helping the Sanis get Johnny back here,” she said.

I glanced over at Redhouse at this comment. His expression was blank. “Arrangements will be taken care of, yes,” I said. “The person helping has asked to remain anonymous to avoid any possibility of spectacle.”

“I’m wondering why this anonymous person decided to help,” Roanhorse said.

“Because somebody should help, and this somebody could,” I said.

“You do understand what ‘anonymous’ means,” I said to Redhouse, after Roanhorse had left the room.

Redhouse pointed after her. “That’s the speaker of the Navajo Nation and also a good friend of my mom,” he said. “You try to keep a secret from her.”

“Don’t let it get back to the Sanis,” I said.

“It won’t,” Redhouse said. “And now you better give me something to do to help you, because you put a target on my head with the president.”

“I was trying to make you look good!” I protested.

“I appreciate the gesture,” Redhouse said. “But you’re not the one he’s going to be calling, asking for updates.”

“There is something you can do for me,” I said. “Go through the Nation’s medical records. See if there’s anyone else like Johnny Sani. Someone who got sick with Haden’s, got meningitis, but then recovered.”

“What do I do when I find them?”

“Tell them not to take any jobs from strangers, for one,” I said.

Redhouse smiled at that and departed. I called Tony.

“Trying to get a report ready,” he said, as soon as he connected.

“I won’t try to stop you,” I said. “But I do want you to check something specific for me.”

“Can I charge extra?” Tony asked.

“As far as I’m concerned, sure.”

“Then tell me what it is.”

“Check the code for anything that could knock out the Integrator,” I said.

“Like, make them unconscious?”

“Yes,” I said. “The Integrator unconscious but the body still functional.”

“Can’t be done,” Tony said. “Integrators aren’t just passive receptacles for their clients. They need to be aware to assist.”

“I believe you,” I said. “Check anyway.”

“And I suppose you want this for the seven o’clock.”

“That would be nice,” I said.

“I’m charging you holiday rates,” Tony said.

“Works for me,” I said. “Get to it.”

“Already gone,” he said, and disconnected.

I looked up and saw Johnny Sani looking at me. I looked back him, silently.

Chapter Eighteen

“ALL RIGHT, YOU are not going to believe this shit,” Tony said, walking up to our standing table at Alexander’s Café, in Cady’s Alley, Georgetown. Vann had designated it as her place to interrogate Brenda Rees in a relaxed atmosphere. We were at a standing table because cafés disliked threeps hogging chairs, a small piece of technological bigotry that I didn’t really give a crap about one way or another.

“Who are you?” Vann asked the other threep, walking up with Tony.

“Tayla Givens,” she said, before I could answer for her. “Tony and Chris’s roommate. Tony told me we were stopping here on the way to a movie.”

Vann looked at me to see if I cared if Tayla heard what we were about to talk about. I gave her a small body movement that effectively communicated the thought meh. Vann turned back to Tayla. “This is a confidential discussion, so don’t talk about it.”

“If you want I can turn off my hearing,” Tayla said. “I do it often enough around Tony anyway.”

“Hey now,” Tony said.

Vann smiled. “It’s fine. Just don’t repeat anything.”

“Tony’s technically a patient of mine,” Tayla said. “I’ll file it under physician’s confidentiality.”

Vann turned back to Tony. “What shit are we not going to believe?”

“Chris, you asked me to look for code in the software that knocks the Integrator unconscious,” Tony said.

“Yeah,” I said. “And you found it?”

“No,” Tony said. “I told you that you needed the Integrator to be conscious to assist their client, and that still stands. What the software actually does—or can do—is much weirder. It robs the Integrator of their free will. And then it wipes their memory.”

“Explain this,” Vann said. She was suddenly very attentive.

“Integrators stay conscious for two reasons,” Tony said. “One, it’s their body and they have to have veto control over any dumbass thing a client wants to do, like pick a fight or jump out of a plane without a parachute. Two, because integration isn’t totally clean, right? The neural network transmits the client’s desires to the Integrator’s brain. The brain picks it up and moves the body and makes it do what the client wants. But sometimes the signal isn’t strong enough and the Integrator needs to step in and make it happen.”

“The Integrator has to read intent and assist,” Vann said. I suddenly realized that Tony didn’t know Vann had history as an Integrator.

“Exactly,” Tony said. “So knocking out an Integrator isn’t just morally wrong, it also defeats the purpose of integrating in the first place, which is giving the client the illusion of a functioning human body. A body with a knocked-out Integrator is going to have a hard time walking, or doing anything with anything approaching standard dexterity.”