The Steel Kiss

Her phone hummed and she took a call. After a brief conversation she hung up. Shrugged to Rhyme. “Another reporter about my statement to the press—about the security patches that CIR uploaded to its clients. The story’s got legs.” She was pleased. Word apparently was spreading about the dangers of products embedded with DataWise5000 controllers. And, according to the reports, people were paying attention.

She added, “Even if companies aren’t intimidated into Chaudhary’s security updates, at least we can hope their customers read the stories and stay offline or unplug their appliances.”

Rhyme’s computer sounded with an incoming news story on an RSS feed. “He’s sent out another chapter of the manifesto.”

Greetings:

Another lesson delivered.

My feeling is that people, begin as innocents. Some philosopher, I don’t know whom, said that way back. One of the famous ones. We are born sweet and pure. We do not have an inbred lust to possess Unnecessary things, to have a better car, a bigger hot tub, a better-definition television set. A MORE EXPENSIVE STOVE!!! We have to be taught that. But, I feel taught is not the right word. The right word is INDOCTRINATED. It’s the product manufacturers, the marketers, the advertisers that browbeat and intimidate us into purchasing bigger and better, suggesting we can’t live without this or that.

Yes, think about it. Think about your Possessions. What do you have that you can’t live without? Precious little. Close your eyes. Walk through your house in your mind. Pick up an object, look it over. Think about where you got it? A gift? From a friend? It’s the FRIENDSHIP that’s important not the token of it. Throw it out. Do this with one thing a day.

And, more important, stop buying things: Buying is an act of desperation and, apart from staples like clothes and simple food an addiction.

You do not NEED a kitchen appliance, that costs so much it could feed a family of four for a year. Well you’ve PAID the price…  literally.

—The People’s Guardian

“Nut job,” muttered Mel Cooper.

As good a diagnosis as any.

“If he’s guarding the people why is he killing them?”

“He’s only killing the ones who buy or install expensive products,” Rhyme pointed out.

“A distinction that’s lost on me,” Archer said. She scanned the diatribe carefully and said, “If he knows the premise of the philosophy, tabula rasa, he must’ve heard of John Locke. He’s playing down his intelligence again. What look like intentional misspellings. A few unnecessary uppercasings—so to speak.”

Rhyme laughed at her comment; one of those words was “Unnecessary.”

“Colon where a semi would be more appropriate. But using one means he knows how to use the other. Wrong use of ‘whom.’ ”

“Okay,” Rhyme said, not much interested in the profiling. “We’ve established he’s corrupting Ms. Peabody’s English lessons on purpose. Let’s get to the evidence. Where did you find that, Sachs?” It seemed there were two separate locations she’d searched; he could tell this from the separate containers.

“I did a fast grid in Benkoff’s apartment. Since the unsub’s using a remote, he doesn’t need to be inside a victim’s location. From the lists, he knows who has a product with a smart controller. But I took some samples anyway. Just in case he got in to Benkoff’s kitchen and added an accelerant.”

“Ah yes,” Rhyme said. “He might not have trusted that the natural gas would cause enough damage. Mel, check that first.”

The evidence collection bags Sachs pointed out each featured a glassine strip on which was written the room it had been collected in. The contents were several spoonsful of ash.