of streetside sociobiology, mitigated by a loyalty to friends, a mystical faith in brain chips and amphetamines. His underside a masochistic dwarf, the troll
of self-doubt, lacerating itself with guilt.
And then Swish, a woman with an unsightly growth, errant glands that were
like tumors in her, something other people called “testicles.” Perpetually hungry for the means to dampen the pain of an infinite self-derision that mimicked her father’s utter rejection of her. A mystical faith in synthetic morphine.
. . . Jerome mentally reeling with disorientation, seeing the others as a
network of distorted self-images, caricatures of grotesque ambitions. Beyond
them he glimpsed another realm through a break in the psychic clouds: the
Plateau, the whispering plane of brain chips linked on forbidden frequencies,
an electronic haven for doing deals unseen by cops; a Plateau prowled only
by the exquisitely ruthless; a vista of enormous challenges and inconceivable
risks and always the potential for getting lost, for madness. A place roamed
by the wolves of wetware.
There was a siren quiver from that place, a soundless howling, pulling at
them . . . drawing them in . . .
“Uh-uh, wolflost, pross,” Bones said, maybe aloud or maybe through the
chips. Translated from chip shorthand, those two syllables meant. “Stay away
from the Plateau, or we get sucked into it, we lose our focus. Concentrate on
parallel processing function.”
359
JOHN SHIRLEY
Jerome looked behind his eyelids, sorted through the files. He moved the
cursor down . . .
Suddenly, it was there. The group-thinking capacity looming above them,
a sentient skyscraper. They all felt a rush of megalomaniacal pleasure in
identifying with it; with a towering edifice of Mind. Five chips became One.
They were ready. Jessie transmitted the bait.
Alerted to an illegal use of implant chips, the trashcan was squeaking down
the hall, scanning to precisely locate the source. It came to a sudden stop,
rocking on its wheels in front of their cell. Jessie reached through the bars
and touched its input jack.
The machine froze with a clack midway through a turn, and hummed as it
processed what they fed it. Would the robot bite?
Bones had a program for the IBM Cyberguard Fourteens, with all the
protocol and a range of sample entry codes. Parallel processing from samples
took less than two seconds to decrypt the trashcan’s access code. Then—
They were in. The hard part was the reprogramming.
Jerome found the way. He told the trashcan that he wasn’t Eric Wexler,
because the DNA code was all wrong, if you looked close enough; what we
have here is a case of mistaken identity.
Since this information seemed to be coming from authorized sources—the
decrypted access code made them authorized—the trashcan fell for the gag
and opened the cage.
The trashcan took the five Eric Wexlers down the hall—that was Jessie’s doing,
showing them how to make it think of five as one, something his people had
learned from the immigration computers. It escorted them through the plastiflex door, through the steel door, and into Receiving. The human guard was heaping
sugar into his antique Ronald McDonald coffee mug and watching The Mutilated on his wallet TV. Bones and Jessie were in the room and moving in on him before he broke free of the television and went for the button. Bones’s long left arm spiked out and his stiffened fingers hit a nerve cluster below the guy’s left ear, and he went down, the sugar dispenser in one hand swishing a white fan onto the floor.
Jerome’s chip had cross-referenced Bones’s attack style. Bones was trained
by commandos, the chip said. Military elite. Was he a plant? Bones smiled at
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WOLVES OF THE PLATEAU
him and tilted his head, which Jerome’s chip read as: No. I’m trained by the Underground. Radics.
Jessie was at the console, deactivating the trashcan, killing the cameras,
opening the outer doors. Jessie and Swish led the way out, Swish whining
softly and biting her lip. There were two more guards at the gate, one of them
asleep. Jessie had taken the gun from the guy Bones had put under, so the
first guard at the gate was dead before he could hit an alarm. The catnapping
guy woke and yelled with hoarse terror, and then Jessie shot him in the throat.
Watching the guard fall, spinning, blood making its own slow-motion spiral
in the air, Jerome felt a perfect mingling of sickness, fear, and self-disgust.
The guard was young, wearing a cheap wedding ring, probably had a young
family. So Jerome stepped over the dying man and made an adjustment; used
his chip, chilled himself out with adrenaline. Had to—he was committed
now. And he knew with a bland certainty that they had reached the Plateau
after all.
He would live on the Plateau now. He belonged there, now that he was one
of the wolves.
361
THE NOSTALGIST
By Daniel H. Wilson
He was an old man who lived in a modest gonfab, and over the last eighty
hours his Eyes™ and Ears™ had begun to fail. In the first forty hours, he
had ignored the increasingly strident sounds of the city of Vanille and
focused on teaching the boy who lived with him. But after another forty
hours the old man could no longer stand the Doppler-affected murmur of
travelers on the slidewalks outside, and the sight of the boy’s familiar
deformities became overwhelming. It made the boy sad to see the old man’s
stifled revulsion, so he busied himself by sliding the hanging plastic sheets
of the inflatable dwelling into layers that dampened the street noise. The
semitransparent veils were stiff with grime and they hung still and useless
like furled, ruined sails.
The old man was gnarled and bent, and his tendons were like taut cords
beneath the skin of his arms. He wore a soiled white undershirt and his
sagging chest bristled with gray hairs. A smooth patch of pink skin occupied
a hollow under his left collarbone, marking the place where a rifle slug had
passed cleanly through many decades before. He had been a father, an
engineer, and a war-fighter, but for many years now he had lived peacefully
with the boy.
Everything about the old man was natural and wrinkled except for his
Eyes™ and Ears™, thick glasses resting on the creased bridge of his nose and
two flesh-colored buds nestled in his ears. They were battered technological
artifacts that captured sights and sounds and sanitized every visual and
auditory experience. The old man sometimes wondered whether he could
bear to live without these artifacts. He did not think so.
“Grandpa,” the boy said as he arranged the yellowed plastic curtains.
“Today I will visit Vanille City and buy you new Eyes™ and Ears™.”
The old man had raised the boy and healed him when he was sick, and the
boy loved him.
“No, no,” replied the old man. “The people there are cruel. I can go
myself.”
“Then I will visit the metro fab and bring you some lunch.”
DANIEL H. WILSON
“Very well,” said the old man, and he pulled on his woolen coat.
A faded photo of the boy,
blond and smiling and happy, hung next to the
door of the gonfab. They passed by the photo, pushed the door flaps aside,
and walked together into the brilliant dome light. A refreshing breeze ruffled
the boy’s hair. He faced into it as he headed for the slidewalk at the end of
the path. A scrolling gallery of pedestrians passed steadily by. Sometimes the
fleeting pedestrians made odd faces at the boy, but he was not angry. Other
pedestrians, the older ones, looked at him and were afraid or sad, but tried
not to show it. Instead, they stepped politely onto faster slidestrips further
away from the stained gonfab.
“I will meet you back here in one hour,” said the old man.
“See you,” replied the boy, and the old man winced. His failing Ears™ had
let through some of the grating quality of the boy’s true voice, and it
unsettled him. But his Ears™ crackled back online and, as the slidestrips
pulled them away in separate directions, he chose only to wave goodbye.
The boy did not wear Eyes™ or Ears™. Near the time of the boy’s birth, he
had undergone direct sensory augmentation. The old man had seen to it
himself. When the boy squinted in just the right way, he could see the
velocity trajectories of objects hovering in the air. When he closed his eyes
entirely, he could watch the maximum probability version of the world
continue to unfold around him. He was thankful for his gift and did not
complain about his lessons or cry out when the old man made adjustments
or improvements to the devices.
The city is unsafe and I must protect the old man, thought the boy. He will probably visit the taudi quarter for used gear. Mark his trajectory well, he told himself. Remember to be alert to the present and to the future.
The boy expertly skipped across decelerating slidestrips until his direction
changed. Other passengers shied away in disgust, but again the boy did not
mind. He walked directly to the center strip and was accelerated to top
speed. A vanilla-smelling breeze pushed thin blond hair from his disfigured,
smiling face.
• • •
364
THE NOSTALGIST
The old man smiled as he cruised along the slidewalk. The systematic flow of
identical people was beautiful. The men wore dark blue suits and red ties. Some of them carried briefcases or wore hats. The women wore dark blue skirts and white blouses with red neckerchiefs. The men and women walked in lockstep and were
either silent or extremely polite. There was a glow of friendly recognition between the pedestrians, and it made the old man feel very glad, and also very cautious.
I must hurry to the taudi quarter and be careful, he thought. The rigs there have all been stolen or taken from the dead, but I have no choice.
The old man made his way to the decelerator strip, but a dark-suited
businessman blocked his path. He gingerly tapped the man on his padded
shoulder. The businessman in the neatly pressed suit spun around and
grabbed the old man by his coat.
“Don’t touch me,” he spat.
For a split second the clean-cut businessman transformed into a gaunt and
dirty vagrant. A writhing tattoo snaked down half of his stubbled face and
curled around his neck. The old man blinked hard, and the dark-suited man
reappeared, smiling. The old man hastily tore himself from the man’s grasp
and pushed to the exit and the taudi quarter beyond.
Bright yellow dome light glistened from towering, monolithic buildings in
the taudi quarter. It reflected off of polished sidewalks in front of stalls and gonfabs that were filled with neatly arranged goods laid out on plastic
blankets. The old man tapped his malfunctioning Ears™ and listened to the
shouts of people trading goods in dozens of languages. He caught the
trickling sound of flowing refuse and the harsh sucking sound of neatly
dressed people walking through filth. He looked at his shoes and they were
clean. The smell of the street was almost unbearable.
The old man approached a squat wooden stall and waited. A large man
wearing a flamboyant, filthy pink shirt soon appeared. The man shook his
great head and wiped his calloused hands on a soiled rag. “What can I do
for you, Drew?” he said.
“LaMarco,” said the old man, “I need a used Immersion System. Late
model with audiovisual. No olfactory.” He tapped his Eyes™. “Mine are
beyond repair, even for me.”
365
DANIEL H. WILSON
LaMarco ran a hand through his hair. “You’re not still living with that . . .
thing, are you?”
Receiving no reply, LaMarco rummaged below the flimsy wooden counter.
He dropped a bundle of eyeglasses and ear buds onto the table. One lens was
smeared with dried blood.
“These came from a guy got zipped by the militia last week,” said LaMarco.
“Almost perfect condition, but the ID isn’t wiped. You’ll have to take care
of that.”
The old man placed a plastic card on the table. LaMarco swiped the card,
crossed his arms, and stood, waiting.
After a pause, the old man resignedly removed his glasses and ear buds and
handed them to LaMarco. He shuddered at the sudden sights and sounds of
a thriving slum.
“For parts,” he coaxed.
LaMarco took the equipment and turned it over delicately with his large
fingers. He nodded, and the transaction was complete. The old man picked
up his new Immersion System and wiped the lenses with his coat. He slid the
glasses onto his face and inserted the flesh-colored buds into his ears.
Cleanliness and order returned to the slums.
“Look,” said LaMarco, “I didn’t mean anything by—”
He was interrupted by the violent roar of airship turbines. Immediately, the
old man heard the smack-smack of nearby stalls being broken down. Gonfabs
began to deflate, sending a stale breeze into the air. Shouts echoed from
windowless buildings. The old man turned to the street. Merchants and
customers clutched briefcases and ran hard, their chiseled faces contorted
with strange, fierce smiles.
“Go,” hissed LaMarco.
The whine of turbines grew stronger. Dust devils swirled across the
promenade. LaMarco flipped the wooden countertop over, picked up the
equipment-filled crate, and cradled it in his powerful arms.
“Another raid,” he huffed, and lumbered off through a dark gap between
two buildings.
The old man felt wary but calm. When a massive, dead-black sheet of
cloth unfurled impossibly from the sky, he was not surprised. He turned and
another sheet dropped. A swirling black confusion of sackcloth walls
366
THE NOSTALGIST
surrounded him. He looked straight up and saw that the convulsing walls
stretched for miles up into the atmosphere. A small oval of dome light
floated high above. The old man heard faint laughter.
The militia are here with their ImmerSyst censors, he observed.
Two black-clad militiamen strode through the twisting fabric like ghosts.
Both wore lightly actuated lower-extremity exoskeletons, the word LEEX
stenciled down the side of each leg. Seeing the old man standing alone, they
advanced and spread out, predatorily.
; A familiar insignia on the nearest officer’s chest stood out: a lightning bolt
striking a link of chain. This man was a veteran light-mechanized infantryman
of the Auton Conflicts. Six symmetric scars stood out on the veteran’s cheeks
and forehead like fleshy spot welds.
A stumper attached its thorax to this man’s face some time ago, thought the old man. The machine must have been lanced before its abdomen could detonate.
“This your shack?” asked the scarred veteran.
He walked toward the old man, his stiff black boots crunching through a
thick crust of mud mixed with Styrofoam, paper, and shards of plastic and glass.
“No.”
“Where’d you get that ImmerSyst?” asked the other officer.
The old man said nothing. The veteran and the young officer looked at
each other and smiled.
“Give it here,” said the veteran.
“Please,” said the old man, “I can’t.” He clawed the Immersion System
from his face. The flowing black censor walls disappeared instantly. He
blinked apprehensively at the scarred veteran, shoved the devices deep into
his coat pockets, and ran toward the alley.
The veteran groaned theatrically and pulled a stubby impact baton from
his belt.
“Fine,” he said. “Let’s make this easy.” He flicked his wrist and the dull black instrument clacked out to its full length. With an easy trot, he came up behind the old man and swung the baton low, so that it connected with the back of his
knees. The impact baton convulsed and delivered a searing electric shock that
buckled the old man’s legs. He collapsed onto his stomach and was still.
Then he began to crawl with his elbows.
Have to make it out of this alive, he thought. For the boy.
367
DANIEL H. WILSON
The veteran pinned the old man with a heavy boot between the shoulder
blades. He lifted his baton again.
A sharp, alien sound rang out—low and metallic and with the tinny ring
of mechanical gears meshing. It was not a human voice.
“Stop!” it said, although the word was barely recognizable.
The boy strode into the clearing. The old man, without his Eyes™ or
Ears™, noticed that the boy’s legs were not quite the same length. He
abruptly remembered cobbling them together from carbon fiber scavenged
from a downed military UAV. Each movement of the boy’s limbs generated
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