him. "There were at least five of them. They knew martial arts. We really weren't close to them."
"Did they say anything?"
"They spoke Chinese," Andy put in.
"Do you remember what they said?"
Rebecca racked her memory. She was good at remembering. She'd been known to remember things she didn't even know she remembered. Andy began to speak, but she waived at him to be silent. Shin . They'd said the word shin . "Does shin ring a bell?"
"It could," muttered Panchet as he chewed savagely on his cigar. " Shin or xin could mean many things. What's the rest of it?"
Then it snapped into place.
"They said gei wo ni de xin ." Rebecca crossed her arms and smiled proudly. "What's that mean?"
"It means give me your heart ." Andy and Rebecca exchanged glances. "Hold on a minute. What's the address of your brother?" Panchet snatched up a homemade POD with several wires hanging loose. He shoved it on his head and began to sub-vocalize commands as Andy recited David's address.
"What time were you there?"
Andy supplied the time. "Are you going to check for an IDvid?"
"Definitely."
"Wait. What's an IDvid?" she asked.
"Some say you can walk from one end of this country to the other and remain constantly on cameras," said Panchet. "George Orwell's nightmare became a reality, and if you want to blame someone, blame the Chinese. The good thing is that because of the cameras, the number of actual police has been reduced to a fraction of what it was before you were incarcerated.
Panchet clasped his hands under his chin. "Now, although China did it, they never reduced the amount of police on the streets. They couldn't. They had so many people they didn't know what to do with them. So it was really England who can boast being the first on a grand scale to put video cameras up everywhere, recording, recording, recording. They'd pretty much given up on real police work, figuring that they couldn't stop crime, but they could track down the culprits afterwards. Remember the Terrorist Bombings they had the summer of 2005? Remember there were four who failed at a second bombing? The English police ended up backtracking the videos until they found out where the bastards lived, then on live TV arrested them. North America has done it for a while now. Mark my words. Someone sometime soon will glimpse your picture on vid and follow you back to the past then forward to the present. The collar certainly helps. What's a giveaway, although I don't think they have the access codes, are the organ IDs. Even without the codes, there's biometrics to worry about. Do you know that you can be detected by facial contours and body type? The camera shoots your picture, sends it to a computer, and the computer conducts algorithmic matches until it finds one.
"All right. Let's see what we have." Panchet swung over to the wall nearest them and inserted one of the wires into a mounted vidScreen. The fish-bowled image of a street appeared. "This is from an omni-directional camera outside the apartment. If I select a specific quadrant, such as the one including your brother's apartment, we can get a good idea what's going on."
They watched the vid for several moments until the windows exploded inwards. But they saw no people, no attackers.
"What the—"
"Easy, Andy. What you saw isn't necessarily all there was to see." Panchet subvocalized and the scene reversed. "All right, look here. See these ropes?" They watched as ropes unfurled from the roof. "Now watch how they go slack right after the windows seem to implode. That's because they were no longer supporting any weight."
"Invisible?" Rebecca scowled. "I don't buy it."
"Not invisible, Ms. Rebecca, unviewable."
"What?"
"Invisibility is for fairy tales. Unviewability can be had if you have enough money." Panchet disconnected the POD and tossed it aside. "I apologize if I'm being intentionally obtuse, but I wanted to be sure."
"Be sure of what?" asked Andy.
"Of who was chasing
"Did they say anything?"
"They spoke Chinese," Andy put in.
"Do you remember what they said?"
Rebecca racked her memory. She was good at remembering. She'd been known to remember things she didn't even know she remembered. Andy began to speak, but she waived at him to be silent. Shin . They'd said the word shin . "Does shin ring a bell?"
"It could," muttered Panchet as he chewed savagely on his cigar. " Shin or xin could mean many things. What's the rest of it?"
Then it snapped into place.
"They said gei wo ni de xin ." Rebecca crossed her arms and smiled proudly. "What's that mean?"
"It means give me your heart ." Andy and Rebecca exchanged glances. "Hold on a minute. What's the address of your brother?" Panchet snatched up a homemade POD with several wires hanging loose. He shoved it on his head and began to sub-vocalize commands as Andy recited David's address.
"What time were you there?"
Andy supplied the time. "Are you going to check for an IDvid?"
"Definitely."
"Wait. What's an IDvid?" she asked.
"Some say you can walk from one end of this country to the other and remain constantly on cameras," said Panchet. "George Orwell's nightmare became a reality, and if you want to blame someone, blame the Chinese. The good thing is that because of the cameras, the number of actual police has been reduced to a fraction of what it was before you were incarcerated.
Panchet clasped his hands under his chin. "Now, although China did it, they never reduced the amount of police on the streets. They couldn't. They had so many people they didn't know what to do with them. So it was really England who can boast being the first on a grand scale to put video cameras up everywhere, recording, recording, recording. They'd pretty much given up on real police work, figuring that they couldn't stop crime, but they could track down the culprits afterwards. Remember the Terrorist Bombings they had the summer of 2005? Remember there were four who failed at a second bombing? The English police ended up backtracking the videos until they found out where the bastards lived, then on live TV arrested them. North America has done it for a while now. Mark my words. Someone sometime soon will glimpse your picture on vid and follow you back to the past then forward to the present. The collar certainly helps. What's a giveaway, although I don't think they have the access codes, are the organ IDs. Even without the codes, there's biometrics to worry about. Do you know that you can be detected by facial contours and body type? The camera shoots your picture, sends it to a computer, and the computer conducts algorithmic matches until it finds one.
"All right. Let's see what we have." Panchet swung over to the wall nearest them and inserted one of the wires into a mounted vidScreen. The fish-bowled image of a street appeared. "This is from an omni-directional camera outside the apartment. If I select a specific quadrant, such as the one including your brother's apartment, we can get a good idea what's going on."
They watched the vid for several moments until the windows exploded inwards. But they saw no people, no attackers.
"What the—"
"Easy, Andy. What you saw isn't necessarily all there was to see." Panchet subvocalized and the scene reversed. "All right, look here. See these ropes?" They watched as ropes unfurled from the roof. "Now watch how they go slack right after the windows seem to implode. That's because they were no longer supporting any weight."
"Invisible?" Rebecca scowled. "I don't buy it."
"Not invisible, Ms. Rebecca, unviewable."
"What?"
"Invisibility is for fairy tales. Unviewability can be had if you have enough money." Panchet disconnected the POD and tossed it aside. "I apologize if I'm being intentionally obtuse, but I wanted to be sure."
"Be sure of what?" asked Andy.
"Of who was chasing
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