Chapter Twenty-ThreeWarrant

Gideon had managed four hours of sleep and was trying to eat breakfast when somebody knocked. It was eight on Tuesday morning. He opened the door expecting a delivery and found two men waiting to talk to him. The older one held up a leather folder. There was a badge in it, which was as much as Gideon could take in before the man put it away.

"Dale Kessler, National Security Agency. This is my partner. Can we come in?"

"Do I have to let you?"

"No. It would make this easier."

"For me or for you?"

Kessler smiled. He was about fifty and looked fit, in a plain windbreaker with an expensive haircut.

"We've been following some unusual traffic along the West Coast. There's a connection to a group we're interested in. Terror adjacent, that's about all I can say. Some of it went through your router last night. I'd like to ask a few questions and look around. Ten minutes, and we're done. Unless you'd prefer the other way."

"What's the other way?"

"It takes longer."

Gideon let them in. He wished he'd had more time to decide, which was probably why Kessler hadn't given him any.

He'd cleaned at two in the morning, after the laptop left in Soph's car for The Lab. He had removed the network traces of Eliza's visit and left enough ordinary mess that it wouldn't look as if he'd cleaned for a search. Bowls, a sock, borrowed AI textbooks. He showed them around as if they were his parents and he wanted them to believe he studied here. The partner spent some time looking at the marionette rig without asking what it did.

"Who lives here?" Kessler asked.

"Me. Friends stay sometimes. I've got a hammock."

"Anybody staying now?"

"A friend from out of town. She's out."

In the kitchen Kessler looked at the thermostat. Gideon tried not to watch him too closely. There was nothing on it now except the temperature, but he wondered whether Kessler knew what had been using it.

The partner picked up a little plastic cylinder from the counter and asked what it was.

"You probably don't want to know," Gideon said.

He pressed the button anyway. It vibrated hard enough that he dropped it. The cylinder went around on the counter until he stopped it and wiped his hand on his jacket. Gideon had made it to give a marionette a shiver, but didn't explain. The man left the other parts alone afterward.

They checked the bedroom and the spare room. Kessler looked into the open closet at the rack.

"That's a lot of computer for one student."

"Stanford," Gideon said.

It seemed to be enough of an answer. Then the partner noticed Rat's helmet on the desk, with its cable beside it. She'd gone out with Soph and left it there as casually as a pair of boots. He didn't touch it. He looked at Kessler and nodded.

"You are with the government?" Gideon asked.

"Yes."

"Don't you need a warrant for this?"

"No," Kessler said, and thanked him for his time.

They left in a black car. Gideon stood at the door with his soggy cereal and tried to remember the badge. He should have asked to read it. He called Soph instead.

"Two scary guys just searched my house."

"Who?"

"Said NSA. Kessler. I didn't get a proper look at the badge. They noticed Rat's Link and didn't say anything, just looked at each other. Can Richard's lawyer check their names?"

"Come to The Lab. We'll be there."

Gideon hadn't been inside before. The Lab was three floors below the building in West Oakland, past two doors that needed Richard's hand and another that needed Max's. By the time he reached the chamber he'd begun to think there couldn't be any more doors. Then he saw Atom and forgot about the doors entirely.

He'd known what to expect. Everyone had told him. It still took a while to look at the cables entering his skull and the fluid moving under the membrane over what was left of his chest. Gideon kept a hand on the doorframe.

Rat gave him frames. Atom greeted him through them.

"You can take a minute. It's a lot the first time."

"Can you see me?"

"Through Rat's frames. You're behind me. Here."

Gideon turned toward the character. Atom suggested sitting, and he took a rolling stool beside the chamber. After looking at it for another minute he turned the stool so the glass was behind him. He could talk to the person in the frames that way.

He described the visit. Richard listened with his arms crossed while Max made notes. Soph was on the floor by the wall. Rat stayed near the door, where she could leave without having to ask anybody to move.

"They were checking something," Gideon said. "I keep thinking about the helmet. He didn't ask what it was. He just looked at the other guy and they were done. They must have known what they wanted to find."

Richard asked where the parts had come from, then whether anyone at Gideon's house had ordered them. Gideon couldn't answer the second question without asking the others.

"Find out," Richard said. "And leave your laptop outside while we talk. We'll use the isolated equipment. Max, can you check these frames?"

"The laptop too?" Gideon asked.

"You let two strangers walk through your apartment. Yes," Richard said.

Gideon put it outside. He told them Wes had saved the doorbell footage. The car had a fleet label, and Wes had found a photograph of the same car outside Sentek.

"Give the original to the lawyer," Max said. "That doesn't tell us who sent them. And don't use the number on their card to verify them. She'll find the office number herself."

At Wes's cousin's place in Fremont, Gideon found an old conference picture of Kessler. The caption named his employer. Another picture showed him with Ruiz at a Sentek recruitment booth. He printed the pictures with their dates and page addresses and took them back to The Lab.

"They're contractors. Kessler used his real name," Gideon said.

"They could still be doing government work," Richard said.

Gideon took a folded menu out of his pocket. He had run out of places he trusted to keep notes. The lawyer had found the office number herself, and the office said it hadn't sent either man. She was filing a report. He showed Richard the name of the person she had spoken to.

"Keep that with the video," Richard said.

Who else could they ask? Somebody who wouldn't start with who owned the computer. Gideon suggested Villanueva. In her seminar he'd never been allowed to leave an answer at obviously. Explain it, she'd say, and he'd discover how little of it he could explain. He hadn't enjoyed that much. Soph had gone to her artificial minds course in the fall too; she would remember them, and she knew the ISIS papers.

Richard asked whether Gideon could arrange a private meeting.

"I can ask. She's busy, but I think she'll want to hear this."

"Just ask for the meeting. I don't want you putting everything in the email."

Gideon agreed. He had no idea how he would have begun explaining it anyway.