Singularity's Children Box Set

by Toby Weston

  A squalid flat with too many kids. A father immersed in a virtual world, while a baby cries. Hate-filled faces. Decaying roads. Decimated forests. Gyrating hips and lolling tongues. Hilarity and champagne. A seagull thrashing, caught in a plastic web. BHJ’s logo and tagline appear…

  The words blaze for several beats, and then a shocking slash of something red splashes across the letters. Perhaps it is paint, flung from an anarchist’s brush; but more likely blood, streaming from a slashed carotid. The slogan dissolves, as if the red fluid is acid, eating away at the letters. New words are formed…

  Something is very wrong. The security men rush the man, but all lights extinguish before they can reach him. He breaks through a gap between rows of seats, feeling his way in the darkness between people now panicking. The transparent mask over his face has already shifted to show a new set of features, and his jacket is lying somewhere beneath the stampeding crowd. When the lights are eventually turned back on, he is just another member of the panicking audience streaming through the flung-open doors.

  Thirty thousand miles away, floating in a bag of mucus, in a dark room of hums and clicks, somewhere within the cramped wards of an orbiting medical facility, an old man cries out in rage, consumed by a tantrum of frustration, kicking his liver-spotted feet against the pliant walls of his synthetic amniotic sac…

  Chapter 4 – Knight driving a White Stallion

  She ignores an ageing billionaire letching unselfconsciously at her reflection in a mirror as the lift climbs to the roof. Jeno glances at himself, adjusting minutely the strands of his perfect hair. The venue for tonight’s soirée is Beluga, the enormous floating lens-shaped party dirigible currently moored to the 120th-floor roof garden of the Kedah Tower.

  The roof is thronging with revellers. Only shoulder-high panels of glass—or something like it—separate them from a seven-hundred-metre drop. Above, lights move silently against the deep blue and violent-pink sky. Drones of all sizes crowd the spaces between the city’s towers. Up here, cotton suits, handmade mechanical watches and bulk precious metal are the uniform. Roof-people here are low key, reputation and wealth suppressing the urge to peacock.

  Stella and Jeno step out of the elevator and become part of the crowd flowing towards the gangway. They join an informal queue. A Camera Bee, wearing a quarter-size ghost avatar, orbits them briefly, before scooting off to find something more interesting to stream.

  The crowd in front parts like biblical waters to allow a Sheik, dressed in white, followed by a small caravan of shrouded wives, to pass between them.

  Stella looks down as they cross between the building and the floating party craft. She wonders if Jeno would jump after her in a dramatic display of simulated grief if she was to fall. She suspects he would; it is a long way down and the material he would capture on the way, played back in syrupy slow motion, would rate very well.

  A hundred and twenty metres in diameter, Beluga is a huge, hovering nomad. Its hull is a lens-shaped carbon-fibre monocoque, packed with honeycomb cells of low-pressure helium. Once it is filled with revellers, to compensate for the additional weight, it will engage MEK plasma thrusters set invisibly into its perimeter, deflecting thin hypersonic jets of plasma to fake anti-gravity. Thick cables, looped below the gangway powering the PA and lights, also supply juice to keep on-board cells topped up. Once everybody is aboard, it will set off for some untethered soaring, mooring at other venues throughout the night to let partygoers join or leave.

  “Do they think it’s funny?” she asks Jeno.

  “What’s up, baby?”

  “Bringing me here to another huge disk, drifting in endless circles?” Recently, she has started to feel, more acutely, the bars of her gilded cage.

  “I don’t know what you mean. You’re not funny. You’re my tragic Juliet. My sad, serene, beautiful damsel.”

  “You don’t think they are aiming for irony? It would make a nice montage, wouldn’t it? The slowly spinning Farm, remote and poor, fades to the glittering disk of Beluga hovering over KL, the Caliph’s jewel of the East?”

  [Message] – Contract breach – Erosion of fourth wall – Fine 1Mc

  “Bastards.”

  [Message] – Contract breach – Profanity – Fine 0.25Mc

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Let’s get another drink, Jeno.”

  “Do you think you should? Do you think you need it?”

  “Fuck off, Jeno!”

  [Message] – Contract breach – R-Rated Content – Fine 0.5Mc

  “You’re upset. Let’s just sit and watch the city lights.”

  “Fucking bastards!”

  [Message] – Contract breach – Repeated R-Rated Content – Repeated Breach – Fine 20Mc

  The club is packed. The atmosphere is dense and saturated with powerful bass and strobing psychoactive patterns. The discordant undulating whine of a Zurna dances around the electro percussion. In KL, of all the Caliph’s cities, the ascetic and orthodox most closely approach the decadent and immoral.

  “Is this thing bothering you?” a large, dark, handsome guy is asking.

  Stella sees Jeno flick round. He’s already dropping into a combat crouch. Stella sighs. The subscribers had loved the ruckus with Marcel so much that, in the few weeks since, TeenLife™ has manufactured half a dozen similar encounters. So dull! They find something that works and milk it to death until everybody is sick of it, then they glom onto whatever works next. It’s stifling.

  A sudden rush of air is a welcome cool breath across Stella’s hot cheeks.

  The breeze is the effect—the cause a rolled-up dumb magazine, which the newcomer has just used to swat Jeno’s Bee halfway across the dance floor. Jeno’s avatar is slow to react to the violence that has just passed through its head. Trying to maintain consensus, his graphics update. Blood sprays across his face, like the offal from a fat insect meeting an onrushing windscreen.

  Stella laughs delightedly. She hardly remembers the experience. “Yeah, he is. Would you mind educating him for me?”

  Jeno looks troubled and starts to speak, but the guy in the jeans and thin, suede shirt proceeds to wave his hands disdainfully—and apparently blindly, as he is not wearing Spex. His flailing palm and back of hand deliver a rapid barrage of slaps to Jeno’s cheeks, alternating each side of the virtual boy’s face. The attack wouldn’t work on a real person, but the effect here, as Jeno’s physics engine tries to respond to the slapping, making his head ricochet from side to side, is hilarious slapstick.

  The Tele-Presence Bee is corkscrewing its way back, flashing blue and red alarm lights and calling for assistance. It is clearly damaged, precessing in tight little circles, unable to hover cleanly. A pair of burley bouncers approach, responding to Jeno’s alarm.

  Stella is still laughing as the guy takes her by the arm. She is surprised by the feeling of compressed flesh and the warmth from his hand. Her body enjoys being touched by something substantial. She finds herself being propelled towards one of Beluga’s balconies. Jeno—and his whining, wounded drone—are trying to follow. The bouncers are forcing an intercept course across the dance floor. They all meet together just inside the balcony. Stella is beginning to think she is going to get thrown out, and TeenLife™ isn’t going to like that at all; but she also realises that she doesn’t really care.

  Jeno staggers up. Keeping the wounded, whirling light-bee within the space occupied by his head forces his avatar to adopt a sickening, circular swaying. His face is streaked in blood; he appears to have wiped it with his sleeve.

  “Stella, are you okay? Did he hurt you?” Jeno splutters.

  The guy is amused. Although he is not wearing Spex, he can hear Jeno through the Bee’s tinny speakers, since it has stopped with the sirens. He ignores the drone and addresses the bouncers.

  “The drone was intimidating this lady,” says the guy. “I suggest you talk to my lawyer. He saw the whole thing.”

  A new avatar materialises inside Jeno, who is forced to respond
to a violation of consensus, and takes a step back. The new avatar is a short, bald, bespectacled Jewish New York lawyer caricature. He immediately begins rattling off legal jargon to Jeno and the bouncers. They look at him blankly until two more avatars appear—TeenLife™’s own lawyers, summoned by a Sage woken up to supervise the escalating situation. They are large and tanned, muscles bulging beneath their Italian suits. The three legal oids enter into some sort of accelerated legal fencing, their conversation squeaky and barely intelligible to Stella. The guy winks at her. The bouncers look confused, not sure what to do now.

  “Hey, guys. Let’s let the oids figure this one out, okay?” The man takes out his wallet and peels off two large colourful notes. Their animated surfaces denote them as currently holding 20Mc and some change—about a week’s work for a bouncer. He takes one in each hand. The two bouncers, the only officials physically present, briefly exchange a look and then each takes a note. With a nod, they swivel away, leaving the lawyer bots to continue their high-speed duel.

  “Hi, I’m Uday,” says the guy.

  Stella laughs. “Hi, I’m Stella.”

  “Nice. Shall we fuck off out of here?”

  They push through the circle of fascinated spectators at the edge of their little vignette and out onto the balcony. The Beluga has cast off and Kuala Lumpur is gliding silently by beneath them. Stella recognises the dark splurge far below as Titiwangsa lake. She had gone there a few weeks ago with Jeno for a romantic picnic episode; Jeno had hired a little rowing boat—but, of course, she did all the actual rowing.

  Uday ignores the shocked expressions and exclamations as he straddles the glass barrier. He extends a hand and waves for Stella to follow his lead.

  Preceded by an impressive amount of noise, a sleek luxury auto—Stella recognises the Destrier stallion logo—appears from beneath Beluga. The pearl white vehicle rises up next to the balcony. The door nearest them hinges open. Uday steps carefully across and, with practised grace, slides in and sits. He lets the auto buckle him in, then leans out and extends his hand to Stella. He is smiling, so she giggles. A limping, swaying Jeno and his two lawyers are approaching. Stella is quickly over the banister and finds herself reaching her leg across the gap. The auto is tracking the Beluga perfectly. It is surprisingly easy to step one foot across.

  She is now holding onto the glass balustrade with both hands, with one foot on the doorstep of the hovering auto and the other on Beluga’s curving hull. Hundreds of metres below, a shallow decorative pond will offer little in the way of a soft landing were she to fall. She lets go one hand and Uday takes it. Now she lets go with the other and, with a little lunge, is holding the top of the door. She quickly squirms inside, sliding over Uday to sit in the other seat. The doors lower. Their laughter is suddenly very loud as outside noise is abruptly shut off.

  The Destrier surges through the night, cutting between tall towers.

  Kuala Lumpur—the Caliphate’s eastern prize—is one of the world’s most glittering cities. It occupies a unique niche in the global economy as the financial isthmus linking the Caliphate, Çin and the countries of the Forward Coalition. The politics and economics of these entities are fundamentally incompatible; but here, within boardrooms, bedrooms, clubs and virtual spaces, they interact in a complicated delicate dance. To add another layer of indirection, anything too hot—fringe arrangements that are too abhorrent to either counterparty’s ideology—can always be routed through the famously neutral neighbouring city state of Singapore. Even when counterparties are technically at war, relations can be maintained; the flames of commerce are kept burning, so corporations can get on with wealth concentration, unencumbered by the fleshy ideologies of their human attendants.

  The auto reaches its destination and glides directly in through the sliding doors of Uday’s penthouse. They reverse the vertigo-inducing manoeuvre. Stella watches the auto as it drops away to park itself somewhere below.

  The decor is expensive—a rich bachelor’s crude idea of refinement. Teak and pale slate. Books, antique ceramics and subdued lighting. They kiss. Uday strokes her hair and moves to lift away her Spex. Stella shakes her head; not ready to face the world through naked eyes, she lets her kimono slide to the floor instead.

  [Message] – Contract breach – Inappropriate & R-Rated behaviour – Fine 200Mc

  Chapter 5 – Razzia

  “Of course, they want to bring us down. They want to win! It’s a competition! It’s always a competition! Life is a God-damn competition! But we are winning, Ben. And we keep winning. So, what can they do?” George paused, looking to his audience of one to furnish him with the answer. When nothing was forthcoming he continued.

  “They’ll claim the rules are unfair! Of course they will! And conveniently they will have a better system, which shares all our wealth with them in some magical, wishy-washy, hand-wavy way, where we all get to live happily ever after in fairyland Eden!”

  He stared at Ben. “It’s bullcrap! How often does that ever work out? It’s clear to everybody who isn’t blundering around in self-delusion that the Pinkos will line their nests as soon as they get any real power. Yes, we are on the side of profit. That’s capitalism! If everybody is selfish it works. That’s why it works! God, this is so basic! It’s fair. Only the terminally naïve think that putting somebody—or even some damn Sage!—in charge will make it better. Of course it won’t! It’s bullcrap!”

  George was furious. This spluttering, fuming diatribe showed no signs of abating…

  “These ideas are infectious. I told you Pritchard was going to war and that we were going to win… well, now I’m not so sure. Look at the young people—they are lapping it up. Incredibly, it’s the educated ones, too. Although, I suppose, that shouldn’t be a surprise, as it’s always the liberals at Pinko universities where this type of thing festers.”

  George took a break. He had become agitated and spoken with his mouth and lungs instead of merely thinking the words. Now he was out of breath. Far away from where his avatar was berating Ben, his physical body was panting enriched air through coiling tubes to replenish depleted levels of oxygen. His avatar leant back in its leather chair. He closed his eyes and breathed. They were sitting in the study of the Baphmet townhouse in Kensington. Ben hadn’t been back for several years, but the smell of leather, paper and polished brass woke memories of countless parental rebukes delivered in this very room. It was probably why George had summoned him here.

  “Atlantis is doing a very good job,” George resumed, sitting forward again. “The idiots seem to love that charlatan Niato and his stupid publicity stunts. We know he’s backing the Mesh, supporting illegal networks, undercutting us with the trash they are churning out in their inefficient workshops—Fabs, isn’t it? And these FAC things?”

  George threw his hands in the air to convey utter perplexity. “How’s that even supposed to be better? Fully Autonomous Corporations!? Companies run by programs? It sounds like a nightmare to me. How’s that supposed to make things fairer? At least our Sages advise people—seems like the Pinkos want to take humans out of the loop completely. Our system respected human shareholders; Niato would probably rather just hand over the profit directly to his pet monkeys! He’s nothing but a spoilt kid playing Zookeeper at his big, self-indulgent animal shelter! Somehow, though, he gets armies of brainwashed kids churning out his communist propaganda for free. All to keep a bunch of retired animals happy!”

  Ben was weathering the storm by enumerating the relics and heirlooms arranged around George’s study: a plastic Forward flag and some dried willow twigs arranged in a gleaming metal coffee pot; a photograph of George and First Minister Pritchard on the deck of a naval vessel; a photograph of Ben’s mother looking stunning, probably taken years before Ben was born; various paintings of various Baphmets posing in a collection of heroic historical vignettes.

  “Pritchard needed Clearing House, Ben! Now we are a laughing stock and he holds me responsible.”

  A beautiful orange and
navy blue Çin bowl stood impeccably centred on a small, ornately carved nut-wood table. It was filled with the generic BHJ fruit selection. Ben reached forward and took a grape, a tiny constellation of fruit flies floated away from the disturbance.

  It seemed George was done. The torrent had ebbed. Ben decided now was the time to begin his apology.

  “Look, that was a cluster fuck. I’m sorry, but…”

  “Ben! Why have I never been able to wash that filthy mouth of yours out? But this time you are exactly right! This is a disaster! You launched our new, high-profile private espionage service, only to get us all hacked and royally rogered at our inception party!”

  Ben winced, remembering the ‘We Stand on the Corpses of Peasants’ moment.

  “Except, of course, we can’t allow people to believe that. So, I have to swallow my God-damn pride and stand by the inept ramblings of that doppelganger. We have blamed my bumbling rant on illness. And I’m sure you understand how much I just love having people think I’m an old fool!”