twitched while he scanned it.
When he replaced the report in the envelope and held it out, Grimester, who
had been hovering behind me, shot past my elbow and snatched the envelope.
I didn’t have a chance to do anything but clench my sphincter a little tighter.
Grimester pranced to the sidebar along the southern wall and put the ICEpak
into the iToaster. The executive models had a setting for incinerate, which
made the envelope flare for a fraction as it vaporized.
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“That’s probably not the only copy,” I pointed out.
“True,” Prescott agreed. “But it is one less.”
I tried to follow the reasoning there, but couldn’t. “That’s also not the first package I’ve received,” I added.
“Through our own network, no less.”
“Yes, sir. I figure that’s just to make us angry.”
“Did it work?”
“How so?”
“Are you angry?”
I looked at Yullg, who popped a joint in his jaw.
“A little,” I admitted. “But it’s the sort of outrage that increases productivity . ”
“That’s good, Max.” He watched the iToaster as it auto-cleaned its bay of
the gritty remnants. “What was in the first package?”
“A term paper, from LVSIB.”
His mouth tightened. “The actual paper, or just the citation?”
“The actual paper.”
“That is interesting.” he said.
“How so?”
“I never wrote it.”
I was confused, and said as much.
“I intended to. Or rather, I intended to put my name on it. But I never had
the opportunity.”
“This one certainly had your name on it.”
“Hence why I thought it was interesting.”
“Ah,” I said. Theory-brain told me to keep it simple. Let him talk.
“Do you know who is doing this to me, Max?”
“I’m working on it, sir. I have a—” Theory-brain made me bite my tongue.
“I have some data that might be useful.”
“Might?”
“It’s still very theoretical.”
He shrugged as if that detail wasn’t important. “Yullg doesn’t believe in
theory. Perhaps you should give him this data.”
I swallowed, and took a moment to gather my courage. This was, of course,
the response theory-brain had tagged as highly probable, and in order to not
get trapped with that suggestion, I had to proceed carefully. “I’m not sure
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that’s a good idea, sir.” When he didn’t say anything, I plunged on. “The
packages are coming to me. Not you. At this point, this person believes I am
integral to his design. If you re-chain this to EnforD, it’ll raise the profile of the issue. It’ll be harder to control.”
He considered that for a fraction, his fingers idly drumming on his desk,
and then he nodded. “Control is the issue, isn’t it, Max? If we do nothing,
then the blackmailer doesn’t know if his messages are being received. He’ll
wonder if he has control, and so he’ll keep sending packages.”
“Allowing me time to identify and locate him.”
“That is a dangerous proposition, Max. It offers . . . many variables.”
I glanced back at Yullg. “He offers one. You sure you want to be that inflexible?”
Prescott Four let his eyes flick toward his chief knuckle-dragger. “That is
an interesting point, Max.” His fingers drummed once more on the desk and
then stopped. “You have until the end of the rotation,” he said. “At which
time, I will COCT your ICID to Yullg.” He flashed me a smile that was all
teeth and no humor. “I’ll indulge your Theoretics for a cycle or two.”
“Thank you, sir,” I said. “I will do my utmost to have this resolved ASAP.”
“I hope so, Max,” Prescott said.
Yullg popped his jaw again.
Trip BinBin was waiting at my office. “Did you find the tag?” I asked as I sat
down behind my desk, and started to massage my temples. I always got a
tension headache after meetings with upper management. Having Yullg there
had only made this one worse.
Trip hooted, and banged on his ’tray keyboard. Trip was an IT monkey. A
modified chimpanzee, he had a predilection for primary colors, which
expressed itself as a yellow beanie and a blue vest. His Jaynes LinkTray was
slung low across his chest, and a large red “Free Genetics!” holostat curled
around the bottom edge of the unit.
The speakers set in the ’tray housing popped with noise for a fraction before
modulating into a human voice. I had been working with Trip long enough to
know that first spit of sound wasn’t zero-tech feedback, but was a triggered
sound effect—aural commentary on the synthesized human speech about to
follow. “No tag.”
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The voice wasn’t the generic voxtrack, but one that had some subtle
modulation and inflection. Like most IT monkeys, Trip was a tweaker. Every
piece of hardware he used was a mod-kit; nothing ever stayed OTS long with
them. “Log hole,” the voice added.
“Really?” A log hole meant an AsManD discrepancy, a mismatch between
electronic data and physical assets. “Where?”
More banging. “Patent Directorate Asset transfix to FinD, part of SI & R.”
Back to that again. The Systemic Introspect & Reorganization. The end of
CorEsp brought about CILR, which in turn, led to the i3Cee. Prescott Four,
during the media blitz showcasing the new era of ICE-applied valuation, had
been caught on-feed wondering how couriering packages could offer
humanitarian reform. As a result, every division and directorate suffered
through a costly self-analysis, resulting in a number of early retirements, ROI layoffs, and internal restructuring. The SI & R.
SecD had been defanged, and those of us who remained as desk monkeys
became as inflexible and intractable as the extruded furniture in our three
square meters of office space. Entropy was turning us into statues, one joint
at a time. So much for humanitarian reform.
PatD got swallowed by FinD, who, IIRC, had been mandated to become a
visible asset, i.e., they had to operate black and not be a cost center any longer.
The first response—like every moment of brain trust panic through the ages—
had been to cut staff. While it had certainly helped FinD go black the first turn following the SI & R, it hadn’t done much to the IQ ratio of the Directorate.
This was good news, after all. The GTAC/GMAC had belonged to one of
the patent agents. I didn’t have a spoofer. One of the SI & R rifters had taken their terminal with them, and through some typical AsManD data
contrafusion, the terminal had never been properly retired. Not entirely
surprising, really. For a turn or two after the SI & R, there was an impenetrable flow of re-hires and consultants among the brain trust. “Who?” I asked Trip.
“Kip Birmingham Sandeesh, Prime Doctor.”
“Where can I find him now?” Suddenly, it seemed like my clever (read
desperate) plan might actually work.
“Deceased.”
Or not.
“Family?”
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“Grandson.” More key ban
ging. “RPC null.”
“That’s interesting,” I said, falling back on a phrase of Prescott Four’s. My
theory-brain tried to construct a viable scenario. If the terminal still had its original GTAC/GMAC, then it should be visible on the iStructure dashboard.
That would, in turn, give us a Ring Positioning Coordinate. It would follow
that the son’s GPIT—if he was indeed behind this blackmail—should be
readily available.
Since it wasn’t, that certainly made the case for his being my prime suspect.
“When did Prime Doctor Sandeesh expire?”
“EOL 3T post-EOE.” A pause, inserted by a hairy thumb resting on a space
bar. “Anniversary of EOL: 1Cyc.”
“This rotation?”
Trip triggered a noisy sound effect. His equivalent of confirmation.
“Well, now . . .” I mused.
Grandfather gets WTFed during the SI & R. Dies three turns after leaving
the company. The anniversary of his death was the first cycle of this rotation—
the cycle before the arrival of the first package.
The best part of this revelation was that I had an excuse to call Sophie.
While in-transit to the domicile still registered to the Sandeesh Familial
Asset Library, I called her.
Halfway through the protocol handshake, she was there in my head. “Hello,
Max.”
“You were right.”
“Of course I was. Data integrity is not ICE’s—”
“No, when you said there was a ‘but.’ You were right about that.”
“Thank you, Max,” she said, her voice changing timbre somewhat clumsily.
“I appreciate you acknowledging that point.”
“But it wasn’t a spoofer. The terminal wasn’t properly retired. I’m going
there now to retrieve it.”
“What is your intention?”
“I’m going to find the guy, and—”
“With the terminal.”
“Oh, ah, yank its data and melt its processor core, probably.”
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Her voice went cold on me. “Place it in electrostatic suspension and cede
it to my Corporate Persona.”
“Hang on—” My mail icon blinked. And look, she’s gone and started a
document trail. “Okay. Can we discuss this first?”
“There’s always room for discussion, but not on this topic. I have a security
breach that requires reconciliation. I must protect my assets.”
A mental image of Yullg and his large knuckles flashed through my head.
“Of course,” I said, my mood deflating. “We’ve all got to cover our assets.”
I glanced at the mail icon, triggering the menus, and marked the incoming
message from her as R & U. “There.”
“Thank you, Max.” She paused, and when she spoke again, her voice had
returned to its softer tone. “You’re not happy. I can tell.”
“No kidding.” I raised my eyes toward the ceiling of the ’tubebus and shook
my head. “It’s just—you know what? Never mind.” I should have ended the
handshake, but I left it open. My theory-brain had nothing to offer.
“I like your face better when you are smiling,” she said quietly.
My head snapped down, and theory-brain started looking for EyeMonitors
along the seams of the cabin. “You can see me? Right now?”
“I can always see you, Max.” Her voice was almost a whisper, as if she was
embarrassed to have been caught watching me, and then the handshake
suddenly ended.
But she kept watching, and when I nearly died at the Sandeesh domicile,
she triggered the iMed alert that saved my life.
Prescott Four made a personal visit to my private room in the ICE infirmary.
I caught sight of Yullg and Grimester outside as he shut the door.
He dropped an opened ICEpak on my lap. “I’ve rechained your mail to
Yullg,” he said. “This came a winding ago.”
My hands were immobilized, and when Prescott Four didn’t make any effort
to help me, I surmised that whatever had been in the package was already
gone. Pre-censored for my protection. “What was it?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
I blinked up the time, and realized it was still post-meridiem of the same
cycle. “It came through the normal service?” I asked.
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“With the Gen-Y lot,” he said.
The last run. “Two deliveries in one cycle?” My theory-brain pushed the question out of my mouth. “Why two?”
He looked at me. “You told me there weren’t going to be anymore.”
“No,” I clarified, “I said I was working on it, and that I had some ideas—”
“Too many, evidently.”
I shook my suspended arms. “Well, it got complicated.”
“I can see that.” He sighed. “I sent Yullg to the Ring Positioning Coordinates
from where iMed transported you.” He shook his head. “They chargeback us
for these sorts of unscheduled deliveries, you know. A commensurate
deduction will be attached to your PIPe.”
“Of course,” I said. “Glad I could help offset the corporate deficit.”
“Don’t mention it.” He waved off my thanks. “Unfortunately, Yullg only
found . . . well, you made quite a mess.”
I had very little recollection of what had happened. There had been
something large and metallic waiting for me in the entry of the domicile.
Something with bright lights and sharp bits. “Not my intention, sir.”
“You’ve been at a desk for some time. I suppose that’s to be expected.”
Even though he was being understanding, he still made it sound like it had
been my fault. He pursed his lips. “I still need you, Max. Yullg has singular
direction, and when there is no direction in which to point him . . .”
I lay there, with my arms in slings and my lower body immobilized by the
straps of the bed, trying to look more capable than I felt.
He stepped over the panel beside the bed and stroked the lit column of the
iNurse. “Yes, Mr. Prescott,” a hermaphroditic voice answered.
“Mr. Semper Dimialos is returning to his assigned duties,” Prescott said.
“I am?”
“The current status of Patient Semper Dimialos indicates a high probability of—”
“Hmm,” Prescott interrupted. “Not relevant to my previous statement.”
The iNurse modulated immediately, “—however, with a precisely calibrated,
time-release pharmacopoeia, Patient Semper Dimialos will be able to resume
his job functions.”
“I will?”
A iDoc arm telescoped out of the wall, and bent over my chest. Before I
could ask any further questions, the smooth tip of the surgical tool exploded
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into a confusion of knives, needles, and suction tips. It felt like a squid falling onto my chest, followed by a sharp prick of pain right through my breastbone,
and then the iDoc arm retreated.
“Patient Semper Dimialos is scheduled for a nominal bioscan next cycle at
the ninth winding. Room 74.”
“Don’t be late,” Prescott said as he left. “This affair is rapidly approaching
critical mass, Max. There is already too much of a documentation trail. It
must be archived before the media worms can scan it.”
I looked at the strip of new skin on my chest, and wondered
what had been
put in me. It was starting to itch already, and Prescott hadn’t bothered to
untether my arms from the ceiling mounts. Scratching this itch was going to
be tough.
“Hello, Max.”
“Do you have Eyetime on what happened to me?”
“I do, Max.”
I took a deep breath, and tried to ignore the weird hitch in my chest.
Something felt metallic under my skin when I tapped. “Can I see it?”
“It’s not very pleasant.”
“You’ve seen it?”
“More than once.”
“Ah—” More than once? “Why?”
She didn’t answer immediately, and I looked out the forward blister of the
’tubebus for something to do while I waited her out.
“Would you like to see it?” she finally asked. She had switched to the
officious voice, the cold and efficient one.
“Not particularly.”
“Then why did you ask?”
“I, ah . . . I wanted to know if there was anything useful. You know, some sort of clue. I must have been close to something useful to get jumped like that.”
“Actually, Max, you triggered the standard domicile defensive array.”
“Wait, there was nothing standard about that DDA. It nearly took—”
Her voice changed back to the silky one. “Would you like to watch the feed
with me?”
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• • •
The room was dark beyond her, lit only by the blue-tinged glow of v-mon pips
on the wall behind her. She was wearing something that moved like velvet
smoke, and she wasn’t wearing any shoes but she still had her glasses on.
I took the hint and left my shoes in the foyer, along with my coat, belt, and
ICID. Taking my hand, she led me into the single room of her domicile. Other
than the tiny points of lights on the wall that were the anchors for a flood of virtual monitors, there was a uVert couch and a PedTrac mounted on a low
stool.
She sat next to me on the couch, our thighs lightly touching. She spun the
PedTrac expertly with her toes, and the wall disappeared beneath an octal
grid of monitors, where we could—among other feeds—watch the footage of
me, getting pulped by an automated security system. Just like she said.
About the time it had picked me up by the hands ( so that’s how the bones had been broken), I noticed how rapid her breathing was. She noticed that I had noticed, and I stopped feeling the sympathetic pains from the ass-kicking
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