Last Tango in Cyberspace

by Steven Kotler

  A drop of translucent blue liquid in each eye.

  “To anyone with a lick of street sense,” continues Tajik, “nothing, nothing is more nerve-wracking, attention-grabbing than a meth head.” The flutter in his eyes vanishes; his pupils return to normal. “Artificially induced nystagmus with one drop, complete remission with two. Did you catch the mustache twitch? I’m very proud of that. Took me six months to perfect. And, in exchange,” tapping a finger against the vial, “the Tong paid for my lab.”

  “Jenka is Tong?” asks Lion, incredulous.

  “No,” says Tajik, picking his gun back up and shoving it into Lion’s left eye, “he just pays well.”

  A starburst of black fills his vision, followed by a crack of pain. Deep in his skull. He tries to back up, but something’s in his way. Squinting with his good eye, he sees an array of platinum chains in a squat glass case directly behind him, blocking his retreat. He’s managed to wedge himself tight.

  “Kamal,” says Tajik, “do the honors.”

  Red satin shirt crosses over to Lion and yanks his sling-pack off his shoulder, undoes the buckles and dumps its contents onto the counter. Moleskine, Dune, snuff container. A harder shake knocks free the bank envelope with its thirty grand and sends strands of tobacco everywhere.

  “Jenka messed up,” continues Tajik, absently brushing tobacco from his tracksuit with one hand, pressing the gun harder into Lion’s eye socket with the other. “In your first meeting. Told you he’d come from KL. He knew, sooner or later, you’d find me and put it together.”

  “So you’ve been waiting for me?” says Lion, hearing the unsteadiness in his voice.

  “Jenka asked us to keep an eye out,” cackles Tajik, shoving the gun into his socket even harder. “What he didn’t know, not until recently, is that you’ve been carrying around what he wanted all along.”

  Lion spins his head sideways, dislodging the barrel, feeling the pain dial down a notch. Tajik makes a sucking sound with his teeth, then casually sets the gun on the counter and picks up the snuff container. “Haven’t seen this in like seven years.”

  The pain in his skull recedes, but his cornea still burns and tears are blurring his vision. Through the haze, Lion semi-watches Tajik carry the snuff container over to a small workbench. He grabs a jeweler’s magnifying glass attached to an accordion arm.

  Pulling the magnifying glass toward him, Tajik clicks on a ring light before closing his hand around the container. Pale amber glow illuminating slender silver cylinder. A second later, opening his hand, the container pulses again, revealing an engraving on the cylinder’s exterior—not one Lion’s ever seen before.

  Chemistry notations, a formula of some kind, and not winking out.

  “Sietch Tabr,” says Tajik, flashing teeth.

  It takes Lion a moment, but then he gets it: “The formula?”

  “The formula.”

  “It’s been there all along?”

  “Not all along,” says Tajik. “I did the engraving on the inside, the signature, and put the electric potential sensors in the cap. This,” pointing at the chemistry notations, “was added much later.”

  “Sensors?” asks Lorenzo, taking a quiet step forward. “Reading what?”

  “Brainwaves,” says Tajik. “EEG at a distance. It’s keyed on suppressed mu waves.”

  “Suppressed what?” asks Lorenzo, another quiet step.

  “It’s one of the signatures of empathy,” says Lion, maybe a little too quickly, trying to distract attention from Lorenzo. “When your mirror neurons fire, mu waves are suppressed.” He looks back at Tajik. “So that’s another thing Sietch Tabr does—it alters mirror-neuron firing patterns?”

  “Not right away, but repeated use does. When anyone who has tried the drug a number of times holds the cylinder, the sensors activate and it brings up the formula.”

  “So that’s a prototype?” asks Lorenzo, another casual step forward.

  “He moves again,” says Tajik, talking to Kamal, pointing to Lorenzo, “shoot him in the knees.”

  “Who added the engraving on the outside?” asks Lion, definitely a little too quickly.

  Tajik ignores his question, tossing the snuff container to the moped rider. “Get this to the courier.”

  In one seamless motion, the rider plucks the cylinder out of the air, drops it into his messenger bag, and heads out the door.

  “And yes,” says Tajik, “it’s a prototype.”

  “So what’s this really about?” asks Lion. “Corporate espionage? Industrial sabotage? Clearly, the autism drug line Jenka fed me is bullshit.”

  “You really don’t know?” says Tajik, baring pointy teeth.

  Lion really doesn’t.

  “Patents,” says Tajik. “Patents first, revolution second.”

  “I don’t get it. Why are you working with Jenka? With Arctic? I thought you were a Rilkean.”

  “Turns out being a Rilkean is not quite as profitable as being an ex-Rilkean.” Then Tajik says something else, sounds a little like “punk-ass Luther,” but before the words are out of his mouth, the front door of the shop bangs open. Followed by the piercing whine of hinges under high strain. Lion spins and sees a storm of red hair blowing in—wearing a familiar army jacket.

  “Tajik!” shouts Penelope. “You jobby-flavored fart lozenge.”

  Tajik drops the snuff container and reaches for his gun. Penelope doesn’t pause. She keeps marching toward the counter, her left hand grabbing the bottom of her T-shirt, yanking it upward. Black lace bra catches everyone’s attention.

  Also why Kamal never saw the Taser in her other hand.

  She fires. Her aim is true. Next second, Kamal does the drop-and-twitch. The shotgun skittering across the floor. Second after that, Tajik gets treated to a variation of the same move Penelope used on Shiva.

  Or was it Kali?

  Either way, before he can react, Penelope snaps out her fist, catching Tajik in the throat with one hand, then jumping over the counter and twisting the gun out of his hand with the other.

  Does not quite go as planned.

  Tajik drops the gun, but as he does, there’s a tremendous bang. Misfire. And the sight of God’s name exploding, launching a shrapnel of gemstones in every direction. Before Lion can duck, he takes a diamond to his forehead. His head snaps back and he can feel his flesh rip. Penelope shouts something, but his ears are ringing so he can’t hear the words.

  Sees Lorenzo pointing at the door, sees Penelope shouting again.

  Then the adrenaline hits full force, snapping him into action. Lion grabs his sling-pack with one hand, sweeps its contents off the counter and into the bag with the other. He spins away and tries to take a step toward the door, but before he can execute, a freight train barrels through his liver. Lorenzo has wrapped him up in his arms and is now bull-rushing him through the door. His wrist smacks something on the way out and the dead buffalo cut springs to life. Bleeding again, but not his major concern. It’s the blood pouring out of the cut on his brow that’s the bigger issue. Seeping into his eyes, blurring his vision.

  “Run,” shouts Lorenzo, as soon as they’re outside.

  He does as told.

  Hazy images of café denizens staring at them as they sprint past the electronics store and down the block. Lorenzo thundering beside him. Then around the corner and down another side street. For a moment, Lion thinks he sees Penelope running with him.

  Does she wink? Maybe she winks.

  A few more blocks at a fast pace before Lorenzo starts coughing and slows to a halt. Lion pulls up beside him, panting hard. It takes a few seconds to catch his breath, then he uses the bottom of his T-shirt to wipe his eyes. When Lion can see again he realizes they’ve run back to the edge of the Bird Park. Penelope is gone. Lorenzo looks like he’s about to puke. No one seems to be chasing them.

  “Fuck me,” he says, taking tobacco out of sling-pack, attempting to roll a cigarette. Not working properly. His hands are shaking. Lion walks over to the wooden f
ence and leans up against it to calm down.

  “That was—”

  But a noise like a homesick foghorn drowns out his words.

  Coming from above.

  He looks up.

  Sitting just beneath the mesh netting that encloses the Bird Park, perched high on a tree branch: a rhinoceros hornbill, white eyes, dark pupils, and definitely holding his gaze.

  BE WATER, MY FRIEND

  Lorenzo buys a chilled can of soursop soda from a street vendor, which Lion presses against his eye as they walk. The end result is vision more distorted than before. Also, the can appears to be decorated with a cheerful Triceratops wearing a tutu, a tiara, and a bra stuffed with leaves. Dino-drag, Lion recalls, started as a Japanese fetish, exported as a crossover anime, and really weird in close-up.

  A block later a mirror hanging in a furniture showroom confirms his suspicions: cornea scratched, a lightning bolt of red amid a sea of white. Also a gash on his brow, not very deep, but face wounds tend to bleed a lot—which explains the looks he’s been getting from strangers.

  Above them, the late afternoon monsoon is moving in, darkening the sky to the color of an amethyst bruise. They’re about six blocks east of the Bird Park, approaching the red-bricked sidewalk surrounding the sultan’s castle, trying to piece together whatever it was that just happened.

  “I thought Penelope worked for Arctic?” asks Lorenzo.

  “Uh-huh,” says Lion.

  “And Jenka works for Arctic?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And, technically, you work for Arctic?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “So?”

  “So.”

  And down another block.

  The traffic has gone from bad to worse. Gridlock, horns, and the silver flash of mopeds splitting lanes. Lion finds the sight of mopeds is producing an unconscious startle response. Like seeing shark fins in the ocean. A jerk-and-wince two-step that’s drawing even more looks from strangers.

  He knows the response is a bit of prehistoric habit code buried deep in the amygdala. Overexpressed in em-trackers, something else he remembers learning from Fetu. Also remembers the same thing happened the last time he had a gun pointed at him. When Sonya got him arrested.

  Except that time, the stimulus wasn’t mopeds. It was Maglites—what he’d been clubbed with while busting a rhesus out of jail, seconds before he hit the ground, monkey skittering across the floor and cop drawing his gun. The last image seared into his data banks. Though, thinking it through, Lion decides the difference between a cop shoving a gun in your face and a thug shoving a gun in your face cannot be measured by any technology currently available on earth.

  “Good thing,” notes Lorenzo, “they don’t see Scottish breasts very often in a Muslim country.”

  “Allah be praised.”

  And down another block.

  “Patents,” says Lion, as they round another corner, coming onto a wide boulevard. Droves of knock-off vendors lining the sidewalk. “Tajik said this was about patents.”

  “And revolution.”

  “Yeah,” pausing by a stack of Louis Vuitton purses, “but patents first.”

  “So,” says Lorenzo, “Muad’Dib didn’t patent Sietch Tabr?”

  “For the Rilkeans, it’s a sacrament, right? Sietch Tabr. It’s their way to live the questions. That doesn’t seem like the kind of thing Muad’Dib could patent, even if he wanted to.”

  “So Tajik stole the formula for Jenka—which means he does what? Gets the patent first?”

  “Even if Arctic gets the patent, how does that become revolution? An autism drug, I can see. But an uprising?”

  Lorenzo stops to light a cigarette, “You said things had gotten too surreal for this to be a Big Pharma play.”

  “Can I have one of those?” asks Lion.

  Lorenzo passes him a cigarette. He digs his lighter out of his pocket and takes a healthy inhale. “I don’t know,” Lion says on the exhale. “Did you see which way Penelope went?”

  “No.”

  “Me either,” which, he decides, irks him more than it should.

  Lorenzo notices the irk and stops walking. “Kemosabe, I know I told you to forget about her.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Don’t listen to me.”

  “Don’t listen to you? What about Ambergris? The voodoo stripper. You made a speech.”

  “I did. I changed my mind.”

  “You’re backing down?”

  “I see you,” says Lorenzo. “You sleep more than anyone I know; you smoke more pot than anyone I know.”

  “Says the man with the psychedelic pharmacy in his pocket.”

  “I got holding duties. Long tour, and I’m the only one who won’t go on a bender and do all our supplies. We’re not talking me, though, we’re talking you. The sleep, the weed, the need to damp it down. I get it. I wouldn’t want to feel what you have to feel. But you’re exhausted from everything it takes to be an em-tracker. So a woman who can wake you up—that’s got to be interesting, right?”

  “Yeah,” says Lion, “when someone’s not shoving a gun in my eye, definitely interesting.”

  They start walking again. The fake Louis Vuitton handbags become fake Chanel handbags, tall stacks arrayed on wobbly tables being sold by vendors in faux-Prada.

  “So,” asks Lorenzo, inspecting a Lucite Lego Clutch Classic, like a see-through lunchbox for some swank third grader, “did we learn anything today that’s gonna help you find Muad’Dib?”

  “Rule number one: No guns.”

  “Good rule.”

  “Not a choice. Blows my system out. I walked away when it happened with Sonya, walking away now.”

  “Did you sign a contract?” asks Lorenzo, setting down the clutch.

  “Yeah,” says Lion, “but Arctic’s got their formula and I got thirty thousand of their dollars. I’m going to fly back to New York and brief Richard, which I’m contractually obligated to do, then I’m going to punch Jenka in the mouth, which I’m morally obligated to do. Then Zorn out.”

  Around another corner.

  The wide boulevard is gone, replaced by a narrow lane wedged between anonymous mirror-clad high-rises throwing long shadows. Too dark for Lion’s comfort.

  “Are we lost?” he asks.

  “Just wait…”

  Lorenzo leads him down the block. The lane widens suddenly, the sea of buildings parting to reveal a miniature village tucked between skyscrapers. Tiny Japanese-style row houses, mochi ice cream shops, and directly in front of them: Bang-Bang-Bang, a store specializing in robot toys, sci-fi paraphernalia, and the full back catalog of Mondo 2000. In the window, a life-sized Bruce Lee doll standing dead center, complete with black gi and Jeet Kune Do patch over his left breast.

  Lion takes a step closer and the doll turns to face him. He must have tripped a sensor. Silky smooth motion, cutting-edge animatronics, and the voice a perfect match for the genuine article: “I said empty your mind. Be formless, shapeless, like water. You put water into a cup, and it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle. You put water into a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Water can flow, or it can crash. Be water, my friend.”

  “Copy that,” says Lion.

  “Check it out,” calls Lorenzo, “it’s a Voight-Kampff machine.”

  He turns to see Lorenzo holding a do-it-yourself kit of some kind. A photo on the cover of what looks like a Polaroid camera attached to a small screen attached to an accordion.

  “A what?”

  “From Blade Runner,” explains Lorenzo, “the Voight-Kampff machine. It measures empathy.”

  Like the electric potential sensors Tajik built into the snuff container, thinks Lion, smarting at the memory.

  “It’s how you tell replicants from real people,” Lorenzo continues. “It’s the original proof-of-life detector.”

  To his other side, a couple of teenagers have walked up to the window. They must have tripped the same sensor.

  “My style
,” says Bruce, “you can call it the art of fighting without fighting.”

  Lion feels like he’s been doing the opposite: the art of fighting is fighting. But Lorenzo’s not wrong—Penelope definitely has his attention.

  Then a moped sharks by to his left. He flinches again, breaking the sensor’s beam once more.

  “Do not pray for an easy life,” says Bruce. “Pray you can endure a difficult one.”

  THE BENE GESSERIT STAY STRAPPED

  The sight of their hotel arrives with a rumble of thunder, a crack of lightning, and the afternoon monsoon, coming down in sheets. The sky has become a thick layer the color of split-pea soup. Gutters spring to life. Cigarette butts, red candy wrappers, crushed beer cans, swept away in an instant.

  That last block takes a while.

  Dripping wet, they trudge through the front doors of the KL Journal, finding the hotel has erected an emergency dry-off station just inside. A slender table made from polished chrome, a stack of towels, and a thickset chambermaid shyly distributing them, as if looking at wet guests were a kind of taboo.

  “Thanks,” says Lion, taking two towels, passing one to Lorenzo, thinking about the last time he was handed a towel, the ninja in New York, and how very long ago that feels.

  A gust of wind rattles the front door.

  “I’m about as useful as a steering wheel on a mule,” says Lorenzo, wiping himself off and dropping the drenched article into a hamper.

  “Me too,” says Lion, patting the towel against his soaked jeans to no avail, “pretty crushed.”

  “If it stops raining and they open the beer garden, I’m onstage in a couple of hours.”

  “Unless Tajik sends henchmen to kill me in my sleep, I’m on a plane tomorrow.”

  “I didn’t think about that—he knows where we’re staying.”

  “I thought about it,” says Lion, dropping his towel into the hamper. “I don’t think it’ll happen. He didn’t want to kill us, at least I don’t think so. Tajik got what he wanted from me. Penelope, though, her he probably wants to kill.”