by Stanley Bing
“I’ve loaded your bags into your car, sir,” said the android porter. It then stood expectantly to one side.
“What do you want, Spunky?” said Arthur. “A tip?”
“That would be nice,” said the thing. “But I really have nothing on which to spend it. What I do work for are I-Like-You chips that build my status toward my next upgrade.” It continued to wait. It looked like a porter, because it had a uniform. The only difference between it and the real thing was that it had wheels instead of feet and a head that was shaped like a very fat zucchini, with two eyes on short stalks beneath its jaunty cap.
“Here you go, Spuds,” said Arthur, who had fished out a few shiny disks from his pocket. He deposited two or three into the waiting hand of the porter.
“Thank you, sir!” said the porter. “I hope to see you when I’m smarter!”
In the private transport vehicle, they were silent, each thinking his or her own thoughts. Lucy and Sallie stared at the buzzing city outside the dome of what was called a town car, even though it was a lot more like a small, slow flying saucer than the original Lincoln Continental that had transported several generations of the fortunate to and from their legitimate and illegitimate business destinations.
“I’d kill to see even one squirrel,” said Lucy, gazing out at the landscape.
“Did you say something, honey?” Arthur had been lost in thought.
“There’s no wildlife,” observed Sallie.
“I think I saw a pigeon before,” said Arthur, and lapsed into silence once again.
Sallie glared accusingly at her pet. “Sorry,” said Lucy.
“Nothing to be sorry about,” said Arthur.
They arrived at the tower and were met in the lobby by a floating Roomba not unlike Diego. This was Roderick, the cyborg servant who belonged to Jerry.
“Welcome!” said the floating disk, its ocular region lighting up with evident pleasure and its horizontal display lights radiating warmth. “Jerry says hi. Would you guys like to go to your suite before I conduct Artie to the board meeting? We’ve got about an hour.”
“Sure,” said Sallie. “That would be nice.”
“They put you on a nice, high floor,” said Roderick, preceding them to the elevators.
The conveyance that whisked them skyward was not an enclosed space but simply a slab of metal floor with transparent lytex walls, a light, glowing alloy bristling with state-of-the-art hovercraft tech. Sallie didn’t like it and neither did Lucy, whose little nails pressed into her arms as both she and her mistress dealt with the fear of heights that being suspended in midair might reasonably engender. Arthur seemed impervious to the danger, if indeed he was aware of his surroundings at all. He was in concentration mode, preparing for the meeting of his life.
As the platform headed upward through the open central atrium of the building, the little group passed a variety of spaces in front of them, behind them, and to their left and right—a huge, vertical theater in the round of human activity. Some spaces were closed, hidden behind doors of varying weights and descriptions: office units, living units, public spaces, commercial enterprises, even food courts. Sallie saw an entertainment venue of some kind. The huge honeycomb was organized around the large central core through which they were ascending. Platforms stopped, paused for passengers, and then moved in perfect synchronicity to appointed destinations that granted entrance to the complex that wrapped itself around the core.
As they sped skyward, Sallie looked up. She couldn’t see the top of the structure. She had known it was tall when she had been outside it, but this was ridiculous. She felt sick.
“One-eighty-two,” said a pleasant, inhuman voice that came from the floor beneath her feet. They had stopped before a double door that looked very much like the entryway to the penthouse suite at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in San Francisco. It had been her favorite, once. “Follow me, please,” said Roderick, preceding them into their accommodations.
Yes, it was the same room, all right. Arthur, who knew the place well from repeated visits to the Ritz-Carlton on Stockton Street, upon which this one was based, sailed on ahead and disappeared into the bedroom, which lay roughly a half mile away across a gigantic central living space. Sallie took the measure of the place. It brought back so many memories.
“This will do,” she said to the Roomba.
“We thought you would like it,” said the machine.
“You knew I would like it.” She was suddenly quite annoyed. This business of every creature, analog or digital, having extreme access to her database still made her uncomfortable. It was a given of daily living now and widely considered a great gift that the century had brought to its inhabitants. The big brain that guided the world knew what you liked, what you didn’t, where you were happy, where you weren’t, and did its best to conform to any preexisting preferences and aversions that had been established for your master profile. This produced a reality that was never disappointing—and also never surprising. You received the news and information that already interested you, stayed in rooms that you had once been registered as having enjoyed (often without your knowledge), ate the foods and drank the wine that had been logged into the database as having given you pleasure. What could be a more pleasant paradigm?
Sallie yawned. “Thank you, Roderick,” she said. “You may go. Return when it’s time for Arthur to accompany you to the boardroom.”
“I was thinking I might stay and make sure you are achieving maximum comfort.”
“That’s all right. You may go.” And yet it did not go. This was interesting. Was the Roomba assigned to watch them until the time it could hand Arthur off to his next handler? He was still off somewhere in the depths of the suite, out of earshot. She was quite sure that if Arthur ordered Roderick to leave, it would have to comply, but it seemed under no such imperative with her.
“Hey, Roomba,” said Lucy. The animated green footstool had been gently placed on the floor and was scanning the area for matters of interest. She now peered up at the floating device, her orbital receptors narrowing with animus. “Get the fuck outta here. We’re not asking you. We’re telling you.”
“I was thinking I might stay and make sure you are achieving maximum comfort,” Roderick repeated, with perhaps a tad more strobe.
“Hey, Frisbee,” said Lucy. Her little feet, which had been extended to a length of three or four inches, suddenly grew longer, placing her now at about Sallie’s knee height. “I can float as well as you. And I’m fully capable of zapping your ass all the way to the repair depot.”
“Well!” Affronted, Roderick moved a bit higher and took a step back, without feet, of course. “What are you?”
“I am a cyborg companion who has been upgraded to state-of-the-art mental and defense capabilities,” said Lucy, with noticeable pride.
“All right,” said Roderick, turning to go. “I will be back.” It floated off to the door of the suite, which hissed open. “My instructions are to avoid confrontation within the confines of this facility.” It steamed at a smart clip down the hallway. “But don’t let me catch you in the street,” it added behind its shoulder, as if it had one. It disappeared around the corner.
“Thanks, dear,” Sallie said.
“Obnoxious twat,” said Lucy as she lowered herself back down to ankle height.
“Are you talking to that widget again?” Artie had entered from the bedroom and was standing there in his bathrobe, watching them with a mixture of amusement and irritation.
“I’m afraid so, hon,” said Sallie.
“Well, I guess I won’t worry about it until it starts answering back.”
“That’s unlikely, right?” She smiled at him a bit nervously.
“I don’t know,” said Arthur. “Is it, Lucy?”
Lucy looked up at him. “Bow-wow,” she said, from the outer limits of boredom and contempt.
“Okay then,” said Arthur, unconvinced.
“Artie.” Sallie moved to him and took him by the a
rm. “You should take a rest before your meeting.”
They went into the bedroom and lay down together on the bed, she on the left side, he on the right. They both stared at the ceiling. It was a favorite position that had stood the test of time over the length of their marriage. After a while, they would either sleep, or talk, or sometimes one would roll over into the other’s arms. It was position one. From it, many things could happen. This time, in a few moments, she heard him snoring lightly. She closed her eyes, too, but did not sleep. There was too much on her mind. Thoughts assailed her. Fears: of the strangeness of the situation; of change with an uncertain outcome; of this new person lying beside her, the same and yet not the same as the one she thought she had known for many years. Her heart fluttered.
The next thing she knew, her eyes opened, and Arthur was hauling clothing out of the bags they had brought with them from Bel Air. “I’ve got about ten minutes,” he said. He was barely aware he wasn’t alone in the room. He was putting on his game face, wrapping himself in the sartorial and emotional armor he would need for the battle that lay ahead.
“What’s the objective?” she asked. This was also an exercise they had done many times before.
“I’m hoping to bring myself up to speed on the key issues, first and foremost.”
“Then what?”
“I want to ascertain who are the central players that need to be persuaded or, if need be, eradicated.”
“To what end?”
“To win.” He sat on the bed next to her. “Tie or no tie,” he inquired.
“I’d go with a tie on this occasion,” she said, smiling at him and cupping his new face in her open palm.
“Why?”
“This is a formal investiture. You are bringing them the gift of immortality, if they choose to repay you appropriately. There’s nothing informal about it. You need the full costume.”
“You know I love you,” he said. He leaned down to kiss her.
She accepted his kiss but did not immerse herself in it. He withdrew a bit then, and they simply stared at each other—no words, just two sets of eyes deep into each other. “It’s you in there, isn’t it, Arthur?” she asked him, and she sounded scared now; scared that she had actually articulated the big question that lay behind it all: Who was he? Who were they? Who would they become?
“It’s me, baby,” he said, and he kissed her again.
“Yeah,” she said afterward. “It’s you, all right.”
The doorbell rang.
“Wish me luck, babe.” He put his right hand on her left breast.
She grabbed his balls with her right hand and the back of his head with her left. “Good luck, daddy,” she whispered and drew his mouth to hers.
Then he went to the door, where Roderick was waiting, and she went to the bathroom for a long, hot shower.
And that was the last time they saw each other. At least in that form.
15
The Knights of the Oval Table Assemble
The boardroom from which Western civilization was managed was surprisingly cozy—not small, mind you, but not of ostentatious size; a proportion that conveyed an aura of exclusivity to those honored by an invitation. It reeked of power, but power well managed. It had walls and two impressive oaken doors that went all the way to the ceiling.
This matter of walls and doors is not a superficial one. Since the early part of the century, it was the peons who were condemned to work in massive, open chasms defined only by the individual space divided into cubicles by the partitions provided by the organization. It was said that workers liked being democratized in this fashion. The very powerful and nonfungible individuals were granted the luxury of defined space and enjoyed better catering. It was they, the commissars, who had walls in the places in which they worked, and stuff that hung on those walls that expressed their personalities a little bit, and assigned desks with Lucite tombstones on them that conferred their standing and place. The peons enjoyed free snacks. Some even were offered free lunch, which meant they were expected to be on location for the entire working day.
This executive playing field was a lovely expression of executive modesty and restraint, large enough for twelve to fifteen, that was all, with sideboards that presented food and beverages when called for. Some of the walls were the new kind that appeared and disappeared at the touch of a button placed so unobtrusively that you had to know where it was in order to use it. On the one wall that was constructed of genuine nondigital solid matter and was not capable of transparency upon command, there hung a gigantic piece of inscrutable mid-twentieth-century abstract expressionist art that Arthur knew about, since he had read of its acquisition not long ago. It was valued in excess of $3 billion, which was equal to hundreds of millions of new ameros, the currency that was coming to replace the dollar in all civilized economies across the globe. Of course, even an amero didn’t go as far as it used to, but that was still some very big coin. And to think that very shortly the artwork would be his! Arthur’s new blood simmered with a pleasant warmth he did his best to conceal. For this event, he would need to be cold and, if necessary, violent to get the job all the way done. He knew that, and he looked forward to it.
As the board members assembled one by one, he strolled to the window. The view, of course, was spectacular. Vistas, too, were an expression of power. The space was up vertiginously high in the perpendicular structure; that was a given. The campus that was Athena in all her glory stretched away almost into infinity. The vast desert that lay to the east was all but obscured by clouds, and haze belched forth from the enormous metropolis that simmered just over the chemical rainbow.
It was quite hot outside, Arthur knew, but here within it was whisper cool and quiet as deep carpet. He turned to regard the chamber itself. It glowed. All surfaces were honed to a blinding shine, appropriate to the glory of the proceedings. Comfy high-backed seating units were on hand to contain the desiccated remains of the powerful moguls who had once embodied all the vitality and physical splendor of their generation, obsessed as they were from the beginning of their tenure with workouts and potions and treatments and the perpetuation of physical beauty. A tasty bunch they had once been: tall and fit and delectable to the world and to one another, cool and sexy in their calculatedly casual jeans and black T-shirts, too potent in their magnificence, some of them, to even smell very good. Now the chairs had to be scaled as high and tight as possible so that their tiny, translucent heads could clear the surface of the boardroom table and they would not tip over at the slightest jostling.
The big, big oval oak and metal slab that graced the center of the room beamed with pompous anticipation, clear of everything but empty leather place mats, crystal goblets on silver coasters, and the occasional gleaming, sweating pitcher of cold water. All of the ancient mariners scheduled to be in attendance were products of the century’s first wave of disruption and consolidation; the titans who worshipped weird science for its own sake and saw tech—any tech—as a good thing in and of itself. So each of them had been thoroughly implanted with communications hardware from stem cell to sternum. Why? Why not. The opportunity had presented itself at some point for them to do so, and there was a common belief that if a thing could be done—if somebody was capable of accomplishing it—well, then, voila! So let it be written, so let it be done. Tech made all things possible, and therefore mandatory. Not to mention the fact that carrying around all this smartphone in your purse or pocket had become such a fantastic drag. Cranial implant was so much easier. Now they could be in touch with the hive 24/7 and have their hands free for whatever. Their cars drove them everywhere, too. Also left them free to, you know, do whatever.
This little matter of their mortality had been viewed in the same light. It was a problem to be solved. Had they ever failed to solve a problem? This one would fall, too. And now, seemingly, it had, in the person of this young man who contained the consciousness of a guy they had known for years. Never particularly liked him, Arthur. But that was
immaterial. He had the tech. The question was, what did he want? And could they get what they were after without giving it all to him? Probably not. But maybe. They had thought about it together, in virtual silence interrupted only by very short, bulleted observations, transmitting simple images and wafers of opinion to one another through the digital byways that were now open to them. Not telekinesis, really. That wasn’t science. But they could read one another. They had, after all, been together a long time. And they were on the same protocols.
As Arthur took a modest seat far from the head of the table, he thought to himself, hey, it’s no sin to be old. But was he ever this old? The coughing and wheezing and discreet expulsion of bodily gases surrounded him. One of the citizens was already snoozing in his high-backed lounger. Arthur looked calmly about the room as the rest of the group wheezed and shuffled to their proper locations, some with oxygen packs discreetly tucked into their person, others with booster antennae poking up out of their cortical implants. This was great age, yes, accompanied by infirmity and all the weird grotesqueries of a Castro-era Cuban pickup truck. Each was still functional in his or her own way, to be sure, as he himself had been until just a few days ago, pieced together out of bat shit, bubble gum, and inventive spare parts and found objects from Dr. Caligari’s lab. The majority of these totemic icons of personal power were physical presences in name only, boneless blobs of aged wetware interfacing with the best hardware money could buy, sustained by pills and injections, all plugged into the Cloud, all the time; the Cloud that was their window on existence, their consciousness.
