Cyberpunk

by Victoria Blake

  fell into a half-sleep, and fretted as if in a dream.

  “No, that’s all right,” Lee said softly. He was sitting on his mattress, leaning back against the wall. The cardboard sign was facedown on the floor. The

  kazoo was in his mouth, and it half buzzed with his words. “We’ll be all right.

  I’ll get some seeds from Delmont, and take the pots to new hideouts, better

  ones.” It occurred to him that rent would be due in a couple of weeks; he

  banished the thought. “Maybe start some gardens in no-man’s-land. And I’ll

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  KIM STANLEY ROBINSON

  practice on Vic’s harmonica, and buy one from the pawn shop later.” He took

  the kazoo from his mouth, stared at it. “It’s strange what will make money.”

  He kneeled at the window, stuck his head out, hummed through the kazoo.

  Tune after tune buzzed the still, hot air. From the floor below Ramon stuck

  his head out his window to object: “Hey, Robinson Caruso! Ha! Ha! Shut the

  fuck up, I’m trying to sleep!” But Lee only played quieter. “Columbia, the

  Gem of the Ocean.”

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  GETTING TO KNOW YOU

  By David Marusek

  In 2019, Applied People constructed the first Residential Tower to house its growing army of professionals-for-hire. Shaped like a giant egg in a porcelain cup, APRT

  1 loomed three kilometers over the purple soybimi fields of northern Indiana and was visible from both Chicago and Indianapolis. Rumor said it generated gravity.

  That is, if you fell off your career ladder, you wouldn’t fall down, but you’d fly cross-country instead, still clutching your hat and briefcase, your stock options and retirement plan, to APRT 1.

  Summer, 2062

  Here she was in a private Slipstream car, flying beneath the plains of Kansas

  at 1000 kph, watching a holovid, and eating pretzels. Only four hours earlier

  in San Francisco, Zoranna had set the house to vacation mode and given it

  last-minute instructions. She’d thrown beachwear and evening clothes into a

  bag. Reluctantly, she’d removed Hounder, her belt, and hung him on a peg in

  the closet. While doing so, she made a solemn vow not to engage in any

  work-related activities for a period of three weeks. The next three weeks

  were to be scrupulously dedicated to visiting her sister in Indiana, shopping

  for a hat in Budapest, and lying on a beach towel in the South of France. But

  no sooner had Zoranna made this vow than she broke it by deciding to bring

  along Bug, the beta unit.

  “Where were you born?” Bug asked in its squeaky voice.

  Zoranna started on a new pretzel and wondered why Bug repeatedly asked

  the same questions. No doubt it had to do with its imprinting algorithm.

  “Take a note,” she said, “annoying repetition.”

  “Note taken,” said Bug. “Where were you born?”

  “Where do you think I was born?”

  “Buffalo, New York,” said Bug.

  “Very good.”

  “What is your date of birth?”

  Zoranna sighed. “August 12, 1961. Honestly, Bug, I wish you’d tap public

  records for this stuff.”

  DAVID MARUSEK

  “Do you like the timbre of Bug’s voice?” it said. “Would you prefer it lower

  or higher?” It repeated this question through several octaves.

  “Frankly, Bug, I detest your voice at any pitch.”

  “What is your favorite color?”

  “I don’t have one.”

  “Yesterday your favorite color was salmon.”

  “Well, today it’s cranberry.” The little pest was silent for a moment while it

  retrieved and compared color libraries. Zoranna tried to catch up with the

  holovid, but she’d lost the thread of the story.

  “You have a phone call,” Bug said. “Ted Chalmers at General Genius.”

  Zoranna sat up straight and patted her hair. “Put him on and squelch the

  vid.” A miniature hologram of Ted with his feet on his desk was projected in

  the air before her. Ted was an attractive man Zoranna had wanted to ask out

  a couple times, but never seemed able to catch between spousals. By the time

  she’d hear he was single again, he’d be well into his next liaison. It made her wonder how someone with her world-class investigative skills could be so

  dateless. She’d even considered assigning Hounder to monitor Ted’s

  availability status in order to get her foot in his door.

  When Ted saw her, he smiled and said, “Hey, Zoe, how’s our little prototype?”

  “Driving me crazy,” she said. “Refresh my memory, Ted. When’s the

  Inquisition supposed to end?”

  Ted lowered his feet to the floor. “It’s still imprinting? How long have you

  had it now?” He consulted a display and answered his own question. “Twenty-

  two days. That’s a record.” He got up and paced his office, walking in and out

  of the projected holoframe.

  “No kidding,” said Zoranna. “I’ve had marriages that didn’t last that long.”

  She’d meant for this to be funny, but it fell flat.

  Ted sat down. “I wish we could continue the test, but unfortunately we’re

  aborting. We’d like you to return the unit—” He glanced at his display again,

  “—return Bug as soon as possible.”

  “Why? What’s up?”

  “Nothing’s up. They want to tweak it some more is all.” He flashed her his

  best PR smile.

  Zoranna shook her head. “Ted, you don’t pull the plug on a major field test

  just like that.”

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  GETTING TO KNOW YOU

  Ted shrugged his shoulders. “That’s what I thought. Anyway, think you can

  drop it in a shipping chute today?”

  “In case you haven’t noticed,” she said, “I happen to be in a transcontinental

  Slipstream car at the moment, which Bug is navigating. I left Hounder at

  home. The soonest I can let Bug go is when I return in three weeks.”

  “That won’t do, Zoe,” Ted said and frowned. “Tell you what. General Genius

  will send you, at no charge, its Diplomat Deluxe model, pre-loaded with

  transportation, telecommunications, the works. Where will you be tonight?”

  Something surely was wrong. The Diplomat was GG’s flagship model and

  expensive even for Zoranna. “I’ll be at APRT 24,” she said, and when Ted

  raised an eyebrow, explained, “My sister lives there.”

  “APRT 24 it is, then.”

  “Listen, Ted, something stinks. Unless you want me snooping around your

  shop, you’d better come clean.”

  “Off the record?”

  “Fuck off the record. I have twenty-two days invested in this test and no

  story.”

  “I see. You have a point. How’s this sound? In addition to the complimentary

  belt, we’ll make you the same contract for the next test. You’re our team

  journalist. Deal?” Zoranna shrugged, and Ted put his feet back on the desk.

  “Heads are rolling, Zoe. Big shake-up in product development. Threats of

  lawsuits. We’re questioning the whole notion of combining belt valet

  technology with artificial personality. Or at least with this particular

  personality.”

  “Why? What’s wrong with it?”

  “It’s too pushy. Too intrusive. Too heavy-handed. It’s a monster that should

  have never left the lab. You’re lucky Bug hasn’t converted yet, or you’d be

  suin
g us too.”

  Ted was exaggerating, of course. She agreed that Bug was a royal pain, but

  it was no monster. Still, she’d be happy to get rid of it, and the Diplomat belt was an attractive consolation prize. If she grafted Hounder into it, she’d be

  ahead of the technology curve for once. “I’m going to want all the details

  when I get back, but for now, yeah, sure, you got a deal.”

  After Zoranna ended the call, Bug said, “Name the members of your

  immediate family and state their relationship to you.”

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  DAVID MARUSEK

  The car began to decelerate, and Zoranna instinctively checked the buckle

  of her harness. “My family is deceased, except for Nancy.”

  With a hard bump, the car entered the ejection tube, found its wheels, and

  braked. Lights flashed through the windows, and she saw signs stenciled on

  the tube wall, “APRT 24, Stanchion 4 Depot.”

  “What is Nancy’s favorite color?”

  “That’s it. That’s enough. No more questions, Bug. You heard Ted; you’re

  off the case. Until I ship you back, let’s just pretend you’re a plain old, dumb belt valet. No more questions. Got it?”

  “Affirmative.”

  Pneumatic seals hissed as air pressure equalized, the car came to a halt, and

  the doors slid open. Zoranna released the harness and retrieved her luggage

  from the cargo net. She paused a moment to see if there’d be any more

  questions and then climbed out of the car to join throngs of commuters on

  the platform. She craned her neck and looked straight up the tower’s chimney,

  the five-hundred-story atrium galleria where floor upon floor of crowded

  shops, restaurants, theaters, parks, and gardens receded skyward into brilliant haze. Zoranna was ashamed to admit that she didn’t know what her sister’s

  favorite color was, or for that matter, her favorite anything. Except that

  Nancy loved a grand view. And the grandest thing about an APRT was its

  view. The evening sun, multiplied by giant mirrors on the roof, slid up the

  sides of the core in an inverted sunset. The ascending dusk triggered whole

  floors of slumbering biolume railings and walls to luminesce. Streams of

  pedestrians crossed the dizzying space on suspended pedways. The air pulsed

  with the din of an indoor metropolis.

  When Nancy first moved here, she was an elementary school teacher who

  specialized in learning disorders. Despite the surcharge, she leased a suite of rooms so near the top of the tower, it was impossible to see her floor from

  depot level. But with the Procreation Ban of 2033, teachers became

  redundant, and Nancy was forced to move to a lower, less expensive floor.

  Then, when free-agency clone technology was licensed, she lost altitude tens

  of floors at a time. “My last visit,” Zoranna said to Bug, “Nancy had an

  efficiency on the 103rd floor. Check the tower directory.”

  “Nancy resides on S40.”

  “S40?”

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  GETTING TO KNOW YOU

  “Subterranean 40. Thirty-five floors beneath depot level.”

  “You don’t say.”

  Zoranna allowed herself to be swept by the waves of commuters toward the

  banks of elevators. She had inadvertently arrived during crush hour and

  found herself pressing shoulders with tired and hungry wage earners at the

  end of their work cycle. They were uniformly young people, clones mostly,

  who wore brown and teal Applied People livery. Neither brown nor teal was

  Zoranna’s favorite color.

  The entire row of elevators reserved for the subfloors was inexplicably off-

  line. The marquee directed her to elevators in Stanchion 5, one klick east by

  pedway, but Zoranna was tired. “Bug,” she said, pointing to the next row, “do

  those go down?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “Good,” she said and jostled her way into the nearest one. It was so crowded

  with passengers that the doors—begging their indulgence and requesting they

  consolidate—required three tries to latch. By the time the cornice display

  showed the results of the destination adjudication, and Zoranna realized she

  was aboard a consensus elevator, it was too late to get off. Floor 63 would be the first stop, followed by 55, 203, 148, etc. Her floor was dead last.

  Bug, she tongued, this is a Dixon lift!

  Zoranna’s long day grew measurably longer each time the elevator stopped

  to let off or pick up passengers. At each stop the consensus changed, and

  destinations were reshuffled, but her stop remained stubbornly last. Of the

  five kinds of elevators the tower deployed, the Dixon consensus lifts worked

  best for groups of people going to popular floors, but she was the only

  passenger traveling to the subfloors. Moreover, the consensual ascent

  acceleration, a sprightly 2.8-g, upset her stomach. Bug, she tongued, fly home for me and unlock my archives. Retrieve a file entitled “cerebral aneurysm” and forward it to the elevator’s adjudicator. We’ll just manufacture our own consensus.

  This file is out of date, Bug said in her ear after a moment, its implant voice like the whine of a mosquito. Bug cannot feed obsolete data to a public conveyance.

  Then postdate it.

  That is not allowed.

  “I’ll tell you what’s not allowed!” she said, and people looked at her.

  The stricture against asking questions limits Bug’s functionality, Bug said.

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  DAVID MARUSEK

  Zoranna sighed. What do you need to know?

  Shall Bug reprogram itself to enable Bug to process the file as requested?

  No, Bug, I don’t have the time to reprogram you, even if I knew how.

  Shall Bug reprogram itself?

  It could reprogram itself? Ted had failed to mention that feature. A tool

  they’d forgotten to disable? Yes, Bug, reprogram yourself.

  A handicapped icon blinked on the cornice display, and the elevator’s

  speed slowed to a crawl.

  Thank you, Bug. That’s more like it.

  A jerry standing in the corner of the crowded elevator said, “The fuck, lift?”

  “Lift speed may not exceed five floors per minute,” the elevator replied.

  The jerry rose on tiptoes and surveyed his fellow passengers. “Right,” he

  said, “who’s the gimp?” Everyone looked at their neighbors. There were

  michelles, jennies, a pair of jeromes, and a half-dozen other germlines. They

  all looked at Zoranna, the only person not dressed in AP brown and teal.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, pressing her palm to her temple, “I have an aneurysm

  the size of a grapefruit. The slightest strain . . .” She winced theatrically.

  “Then have it fixed!” the jerry said, to murmured agreement.

  “Gladly,” said Zoranna. “Could you pony me the Œ23,000?”

  The jerry har-harred and looked her up and down appraisingly. “Sweetheart,

  if you spent half as much money on the vitals as you obviously do on the

  peripherals,” he leered, “you wouldn’t have this problem, now would you?”

  Zoranna had never liked the jerry type; they were spooky. In fact, more jerries had to be pithed in vatero for incipient sociopathy than any other commercial type. Professionally, they made superb grunts; most of the indentured men in

  the Protectorate’s commando forces were jerries. This one, however, wore an

  EXTRUSIONS UNLIMITED patch on his teal ball cap; he was security for

 
a retail mall. “So,” he said, “where you heading?”

  “Sub40?” she said.

  Passengers consulted the cornice display and groaned. The jerry said, “At

  this rate it’ll take me an hour to get home.”

  “Again I apologize,” said Zoranna, “but all the down lifts were spango.

  However, if everyone here consensed to drop me off first—?”

  There was a general muttering as passengers spoke to their belts or tapped

  virtual keyboards, and the elevator said, “Consensus has been modified.” But

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  GETTING TO KNOW YOU

  instead of descending as Zoranna expected, it stopped at the next floor and

  opened its doors. People streamed out. Zoranna caught a glimpse of the 223rd

  floor with its rich appointments; crystalline decor; high, arched passages; and in the distance, a ringpath crowded with joggers and skaters. An evangeline,

  her brown, puddle-like eyes reflecting warmth and concern, touched

  Zoranna’s arm as she disembarked.

  The jerry, however, stayed on and held back his companions, two russes.

  “Don’t give her the satisfaction,” he said.

  “But we’ll miss the game,” said one of the russes.

  “We’ll watch it in here if we have to,” said the jerry.

  Zoranna liked russes. Unlike jerries, they were generous souls, and you

  always knew where you stood with them. These two wore brown jackets and

  teal slacks. Their name badges read, “FRED,” and “OSCAR.” They were

  probably returning from a day spent bodyguarding some minor potentate in

  Cincinnati or Terre Haute. Consulting each other with a glance, they each

  took an arm and dragged the jerry off the lift.

  When the doors closed and Zoranna was alone at last, she sagged with

  relief. “And now, Bug,” she said, “we have a consensus of one. So retract my

  handicap file and pay whatever toll necessary to take us down nonstop.” The

  brake released, and the elevator plunged some 260 floors. Her ears popped.

  “I guess you’ve learned something, Bug,” she said, thinking about the types of

  elevators.

  “Affirmative,” Bug said. “Bug learned you developed a cerebral aneurysm at

  the calendar age of fifty-two and that you’ve had your brain and spinal cord

  rejuvenated twice since then. Bug learned that your organs have an average

  bioage of thirty-five years, with your lymphatic system the oldest at bioage