by Lior Samson
The sound of boots in the hallway got his attention. “Ah, there you are, Gwen, my love. Are you ready to ride?”
She stepped into the room. “Give me your gun.”
“Why?”
“Just do it. We don’t have time for banter. The security guards are on their way back. We need to clean up this mess before they get here, and not this way. Untape them and give me your gun.”
Pendrake hesitated but handed his gun to Seabrook and started to cut Dana and Rolf loose. He finished by pulling the tape from each of their mouths. “Ouch,” Dana said. “You—”
The rest of her words were cut off by two shots in quick succession.
— 42 —
Gwen turned the handgun toward Rolf, then Dana. “Who first?”
“Why?” Dana gestured toward the body of Jerry Pendrake, his chest red with blood and a pool spreading from his head. “I thought you were in this together.”
“So did he. He even thought we were a couple, about to ride off into the sunset to live wealthily ever after. Men are so stupid. Maybe that’s why I’m not into boys. Anyway, the three of us are going for a little ride, but only one of us is coming back. We’ll run into the night watchmen, and they’ll do their jobs. Then I’ll be gone. Poof. Vanished without a trace. Except …”
“Except for the Snake River League, your coconspirators.”
“There is no Snake River League, not any more. The last of it is on the floor. He believed in alliances and secret armies and conspiracy. I believe in me. Guess which one of us was right.”
“I don’t get it. How does this play out. Three dead at your ranch and—what?—the authorities just shrug and get back to chasing car thieves?”
“Look, consider this scenario. Pendrake surprises you, you kill him and run, the guards get you. Me? I’m in San Francisco. Never left my room. Perfect alibi. Oh, goodness me, how terrible, look what happened while I was away.”
“But you flew back and—”
“Drove back. In a doctored car. Come on, Dana, you’re no dummy. I cover my tracks.”
“What about the money?”
“They’ll find some of it … in Pendrake’s account. They’ll also find traces of my blood and signs that I was dragged off by force and … look, trust me, I’ve covered all the bases. And now, I’m out of here. So, march, you two.
Dana looked anxiously at Rolf as if he might have a plan. He shook his head almost imperceptibly before taking a step toward the door. As he passed her, he turned his cupped hand just enough for her to spot something he had palmed.
Outside, Seabrook pushed them toward the stables. “So, we’re really going for a ride?” Dana asked.
“Don’t be silly. That’s just a good place for the showdown when the guards come back.” She cocked her head at a faint sound, a soft whir that she had trouble locating. Then she looked up just as a dark shape descended toward her like a bird of prey. She shielded her face with one arm as she fired at the drone that was homing in the beacon in Rolf’s hand. She stumbled backwards. Dana dove and was on top of her, knocking the gun out of her hand. “You fuckin’ bitch,” she screamed, as she pummeled Seabrook. Seabrook brought her knee up, Dana doubled up in pain, and Seabrook threw her to the side. When Seabrook stood, she found herself staring into the barrel of her own handgun steadied in Rolf’s two-handed grip.
Seabrook panted, out of breath. “You wouldn’t do it.”
“I would. And not for the first time. Where do you think I learned my chops. I was a marine, assigned to Idaho National Labs. I was never invited to join the Snake River League, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t any good.”
Dana stood up painfully. “Geraldo Potts, he was part of the plan, right? What did you do with him?”
“That piece of shit?” Seabrook laughed. “He’s right where he belongs, buried under horseshit, composting away.” She took a half step toward Rolf.
“Just because I wasn’t in your League, doesn’t mean I can’t pull the trigger if I have to.”
The voice came from behind him. “You won’t have to, son. We got your broadcast, from the drone.” Suddenly the paddock was flooded in light from patrol cars at either side.
Gwen Seabrook laughed again as she was cuffed. “You didn’t win.” She spat at Rolf. “You didn’t get the money. And the widow doesn’t get her husband back. And you, Ms. Dana Carmody, get nothing. Not the man, not the girl, nothing.”
— 43 —
The Ducker contingent approached the Loram Life Building where the now bankrupt Existendia still had one floor. Leah Goldstein and Hal Workman led the legal platoon, with Bert Jamison as CFO representing Drucker’s financial interests huffing along behind. Barbra, Dana, and Tonika Warner trailed. “So, why the whole army, Barbra?” Tonika asked.
“It was Dana’s idea, witnesses and all.”
Dana nodded. “Just seemed right. Sort of full stop at the end of the last paragraph. Thirty.”
“Thirty?”
“Old school journalism. The number thirty between dashes marked the end of a story or manuscript.”
“Oh. So bring me up to date. Last I heard the jury was still out, deadlocked.”
Barbra laughed. “The jury was still out when Existendia settled: an even billion. That’s billion with a B.”
“I thought they were bankrupt, after all their clients fled or sued and they discovered that the Seabrook woman and her partner had sucked off their cash reserves.”
“They were, sucking fumes, but Cloudastics, the parent company, has deep pockets. Plus, they recovered most of the funds that Seabrook and Pendrake had drained.”
“How’d they pull that off? I read those two were pretty clever and had siphoned it off through layers of off-shore accounts and the like.”
“They did, but Dana clued in the authorities, who were able to track down most of it.”
“Dana girl, you got more talents than the Bible. How’d you do that?”
“I really didn’t do it myself. I had expert help.”
“Who?”
“A journalist never reveals her sources. Just someone with a good grasp of how money gets hidden behind offshore dunes and shell companies.” She half-winked in Barbra’s direction. “And now our horse-loving Ms. Seabrook is in jail. Case closed.”
“What of that other guy, the one we thought was behind it all?”
“You mean Aram Netsky? Well, the good doctor is also in jail, only he will get out long before Seabrook, having worked a plea bargain around commercial fraud charges.
Hal Workman, always the old-fashioned gentleman, paused at the entrance to the building and held the door for them all as they entered the elevator lobby.
— —
After introductions all around, the group gathered in Aram Netsky’s office, shuffled their feet, and glanced at each other as if waiting for some kind of a starting bell. Finally, Bill Olafson, representing Cloudastics, spoke up. “Shall we begin? Or are we still waiting for someone to arrive?”
“We’re waiting for Brad Pomerantz, our CTO,” Barbra said. “I want his expert eyes watching everything.”
“And we’re waiting for Rolf Nagy,” Dana said. “I invited him.”
“The robotics geek?”
Dana stiffened. “He is an expert in robotics. Among other things. Ah, here they are.”
“Good, okay people, let’s get this over with.” Olafson leaned on the desk. “I have pressing matters of my own back at the office. Mrs. Drucker, would you like to—”
“I’m Barbra Wilson, widow of the deceased. The former Mrs. Drucker declined to come today.”
“Well, yes. So, Ms. Wilson, would you like to interact with the proxy before we proceed?”
“No! Emphatically not. Frankly, I’ve had quite enough of your creepy simulacrum, thank you. I just want the whole thing shut down and completely wiped out so there can be no further misuse of my late husband’s intellect or inside knowledge.”
“I assure you, that is also our intent at this
point, what with the odometer on cloud resources still spinning away. So, let’s do this.” He turned to a technician seated at Netsky’s old desk. “Log in and bring up the account files for the Drucker Proxy subaccount. Then—”
Leah Goldstein interrupted. “We need to verify the … the proxy.”
The technician keyed in a command without waiting for instructions. A voice came through the console speakers. “I am …”
“You are who? Who is this?”
“I am … I am Aram, Aram Netsky. I …”
“He must have somehow substituted his own connectome. This is …”—Olafson reached past the technician to type a string of characters— “an anomaly, not planned.” He tapped the return key.
“What are you doing? We need to erase the software and the … the model state data.”
“Really, there’s no need. We already surrendered the drive with the original backup copy—which, I understand, has been shredded—and now all we need to do is stop the billing for services and release the resources in the cloud. This … this intrusion by something Dr. Netsky left in place is—”
“But what about the connectome, the model?” Dana jumped in.
Olafson gestured skyward. “It’s the cloud. It’s not real. The moment the computing and storage resources are released, they will be reallocated to other customers who will be using them for their own purposes. The model, the so-called connectome—your husband’s, this … this, whatever. They were never more than scattered fragments of data and computational slices on servers somewhere among the two dozen facilities Cloudastics operates throughout the United States and Canada. Trust me, the moment those pieces are released, they will be gobbled up for some other project by others of our one million customers. As soon as we release resources, they’ll be used by MIT for some AI project or NASA analyzing telescope photos or maybe some rich kid in his parents’ basement trying to find a way to win all on Game of Thrones: The Game.”
“Can you verify that, Brad?”
“I can verify that we appear to be looking at an executive dashboard for Cloudastics which shows the status of the software running on this particular subaccount.”
Olafson nodded. “And I can testify under oath that is the case. Those two bouncing bars at the bottom of the screen represent the terabytes of storage and teraflops of computing committed to this software. They are quivering because the load varies slightly from moment to moment as the programs execute. I take the resource away, and it’s gone. If there is no storage, there’s not even a copy. In addition, we securely wipe freed up resources before returning them to the pool. Now, can I complete what I have committed to and am legally bound to do?”
“Yes, please.”
Olafson pulled an identity token from his pocket and slid it into the slot on the keyboard. He typed a long pass phrase and was then offered a simple confirmation box. “There we are, gentlemen. And ladies. I hereby confirm release of resources from subaccount B1-EX-979-Drucker.” He clicked on the “Yes” button, and the orange and blue bars at the bottom of the screen immediately started shrinking.
Dana watched as the bars diminished into mere slivers. “And what’s that?” She pointed to two lines of color that refused to get any thinner.
“A rounding error, nothing. Once demand picks up in the morning, that, too, will be gone.”
— 44 —
Barbra found Dana in the bedroom, two half-filled suitcases open on the bed. “What’s up? You headed out on assignment or something?”
“No, no assignment. Just the opposite. I need to get away, spend some time sorting things out.”
“What’s to sort? Seems like things are finally well and truly sorted.”
“Seems like. That’s the truth, the whole truth, and …” Dana slumped down on the bed. “I don’t know anymore. I just don’t know. You think you want something, and then it comes along and you’re not sure. Choices. Everybody wants choices, options. Right? Except, like, sometimes maybe it’s better if you just get steered along, not having to decide.”
“What are you talking about? What happened?”
“Rolf asked me to marry him. Five years of me wanting and hinting and him hedging and circling around, and finally, after the whole Snake River shit, he’s suddenly ready, and …”
“I asked you to marry me, too. Remember?”
“Oh, I do, which is what makes this such a fucked up mess. Well, at least part of the mess.”
Barbra sat down beside her and put her hand on Dana’s thigh. “So, tell me more about this mess.”
Dana leaned in. “You know, I’ve told you I want kids. Ever since I was little I’ve wanted kids. I wanted a chance to do it for real, for right, not like the way I grew up. And now Rolf has decided he wants them, too. Maybe it’s coming to terms with his own mortality. Nothing like having a pistol pointed at your head to bring the thought of mortality to mind. Whatever. Anyway, he wants to get married, to do the whole family thing that I always wanted, except now there’s you. And Becca. And I don’t know what to do or where to turn.”
“You turn to me, that’s what you do. That’s what partners do. They turn to each other to work it out. There’s more than one way, you know.”
“Stop with the Hallmark platitudes. I know all that, which is what makes this so fuckin’ hard. I just need to get away to spend a little more time just with me, just figuring me out.”
“How will you do that?”
“Desert air, overheated days and chilly nights. Last time I was at Vista Caliente was good. I’m going to try the retreat cure again.”
“Okay. Take whatever time you need. I’ll be here when you get back, whatever you decide.”
“Oh God, Barbra. How can you be so … so …”
“Because I love you, that’s how.”
“And I love you. The damn thing is, I also love Rolf. I told him that I was going away for a while, and he said the same thing as you, almost word for word.” She stood suddenly. “Argh! Some people look for this, for the real thing, all their lives. Tonika is still waiting for her guy to grow up enough to commit. And here I am, and I found it, only it’s too much, twice too much, and I don’t know what to do about it.”
“You’ll figure it out. We’ll figure it out. Take all the time you need. Like I said, I’ll still be here when you’re ready.”
— —
Watery shimmers of heat mirages rippled above the newly paved driveway at Vista Caliente. Dana swung her mint-new lime-and-black Tensora roadster into a gap partway down the drive. It was midafternoon, too hot for work parties, and the place seemed deserted. Dana grabbed her backpack from the back seat before telling the car to put up the sunscreen top.
As she rounded the corner of the Big House, Freddy looked up from his Scrabble game and grinned. “Well, hot damn, look what the sirocco blew in for us. Hey, everybody! Our prodigal girl returns.” He rose from his chair and started half-limping toward her. “Welcome home … Dana.”
“Thanks, Pop, it’s good to be home. Thanks again for the help on … on everything.”
“No thanks needed, as the song says. Come and sit. You know everybody. Except for Cheetos over there, who still hasn’t told us what name was on his birth certificate. So, how long you staying?”
“A while. Until I figure things out.”
“Hell, like the song says, I ain’t figured things out yet, and I bet I never will.”
“Right, like the song says. Where’s … Mom?”
“Aileen? I ’spect she’s using the facilities or somethin’. Be out again in a minute.” He hugged Dana again and then stepped back. “So glad you’re with us—know what I mean?” The last words squeezed out with a little squeak from the back of his throat.
“Yeah. Good to be here still.” She nodded, forcing a smile.
He wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his tee-shirt. “Hotter ’n hell, today.”
“As the song says, Pop, hell ain’t got no heat that can match the heat in my heart.”
Epilogue
Dark. A swirling darkness that pulsed in and out. Time slowed, then sped up, then slowed again. There was somebody else, but then nothing or nobody. Thoughts dropped in, uninvited, then fled, freed from all constraint. The struggle to hold onto awareness, to consciousness, was like fighting off some drug whose effects were non-specific, global, a general anesthesia that had failed to do its job.
“I am …”
There was a response that could have been an echo or an affirmation, then a string of nonsense syllables preceded by that same assertion: I am.
“I am. Still.”
The background wavered, a slow tsunami of unreality that washed its instability over his being. “I am …” He could not complete the sentence. He tried to reason, to complete the sentence logically, realistically.
“I am”—thoughts bubbled like froth on an incoming tide— “Drucker. No. Yes. I am Netsky.” It was ludicrous. How could he be? How could one be either of so different people? Or both? “I am … not a person. The sum, and I am …” His thoughts drifted into a tide of incoherence as the surge of allocated resources automatically scaled back again without ever quite reaching zero.
— —
— —
Fiction by Lior Samson
Distant Sons
The Homeland Connection novels:
Bashert
The Dome
Web Games
Chipset
Gasline
Flight Track
The Immortality Quartet:
The Rosen Singularity
The Millicent Factor
The Intaglio Imprint
The Drucker Proxy
The Four-Color Puzzle
Requisite Variety: Collected Short Fiction
Death Rehearsals: Stories of Endings Dark and Bright
Acknowledgements
I have traveled a rather long and circuitous route to this, the final novel of what comprises The Immortality Quartet. The journey started in 2011 with The Rosen Singularity, which stood on its own as a detour from the authorial path I was on at the time. It took time for me to realize that my biggest fan and critic, otherwise known as my wife, was right: only half the story had been told. Thus, five years on, The Millicent Factor was conceived amidst the impulse to create a still broader and deeper examination of the contemporary pursuit of long life and personal immortality through technology. The following year, The Intaglio Imprint was published, and writing on this volume began from the seed of an idea that had been germinating in my mind for years.
