After what seemed an insufferable wait, the sim before her was duly rejected and she at last found herself standing before one of the most cartoonish-looking functionaries she had ever seen. He was small and rodent-faced, with a pair of old-fashioned glasses pinching the end of his nose and a pair of small, suspicious eyes peering over them. Surely he must be a Puppet, she thought—a program given the appearance of humanity. No one could look so much like a petty bureaucrat, or if they did, would perpetuate it on the net, where one could appear as anything he or she desired.
“Purpose in Inner District?” Even his voice was tight as kazoo music, as though he spoke through something other than the normal orifice.
“Delivery to Johanna Bundazi.” The chancellor of the Polytechnic, as Renie knew, kept a small node in the Inner District.
The functionary looked at her balefully for a long moment. Somewhere processors processed. “Ms. Bundazi is not in residence.”
“I know.” She did know, too—she had been very careful. “I’ve been asked to hand-deliver something to her node.”
“Why? She’s not here. Surely it would be better to send it to the node she is currently accessing.” Another brief moment. “She is not available at the moment on any node.”
Renie tried to keep her temper. This must be a Puppet—the simulation of bureaucratic small-mindedness was too perfect “All I know is that I was asked to deliver it to her Inner District node. Why she wants to make sure it has been directly uploaded is her affair. Unless you have contrary instructions, let me do my job.”
“Why does the sender need hand-delivery when she’s not accessing there?”
“I don’t know! And you don’t need to know either. Shall I go back, then, and you can tell Ms. Bundazi you refused to allow her a delivery?”
The functionary squinted as though he were searching a real human face for signs of duplicity or dangerous tendencies. Renie was glad to be shielded by the sim mask. Yeah, go ahead and try to read me, you officious bastard.
“Very well,” he said at last. “You have twenty minutes.” Which, Renie knew, was the absolute minimum access time—a deliberate bit of unpleasantness.
“What if there are return instructions? What if she’s left a message dealing with this, and I need to take something else to somewhere in the District?” Renie suddenly wished this were a game and she could lift a laser gun and blast the Puppet to shards.
“Twenty minutes.” He raised a short-fingered hand to stifle further protest. “Nineteen minutes, fifty . . . six seconds, now—and counting. If you need more, you’ll have to reapply.”
She began to move away, then turned back to the rat-faced man, occasioning a grunt of protest from the next supplicant, who had finally reached the Holy Land. “Are you a Puppet?” Renie demanded. Some of the others in line muttered in surprise. It was a very rude question, but one that law mandated must be answered.
The functionary squared his narrow shoulders, indignant “I am a Citizen. Do you want my number?”
Jesus Mercy. He was a real person after all. “No,” she said. “Just curious.”
She cursed herself for pushing things, but a woman could only take so much.