by John Meaney
In Skein, a Luculentus with golden headgear smiled at him.
‘Keinosuke Sunadomari, and you’re on your way here in person.’
‘Hsiu Li-Cheng, I certainly am.’
They used in-Skein audio, zipblips of sound, compressing sentences to millisecond-duration.
‘This can’t wait. Can you ensure we’re not being eavesdropped on?’
‘Excuse me, this is Skein.’
‘Assume you had a rogue Skein designer, with full knowledge.’
‘That’s not—All right, we’re secured.’
Neither of them made any attempt to create in-Skein images of themselves matching the spoken words; but Li-Cheng caused his visual representation to raise one eyebrow - a thousand times faster than reality.
‘Tell me,’ said Sunadomari, ‘about the worst rogue Luculentus of all. Rafael de la Vega.’
‘Problems with the soul-father transfer caused it . . . a long time ago. Come off it, Keinosuke, we don’t even do that any more.’
‘Soul-fathers.’
‘Right.’
Gradually during the past century, the practice had, well, died out. In the past, a Luculenta chose a soul-daughter, a psychological successor; while a Luculentus chose a soul-son. When the elder was nearing a natural death, he or she would transfer chosen fragments of their selves into their chosen successor. Passing on the best to another generation.
It was a form of continuation; it was a form of suicide. For the scanware to work so deeply, it had to deconstruct the neural quantum states. Like smashing an object to see how hard it is, quantum scan destroys the very state it records. The Luculenti minds were heisenberged to random oblivion.
But fragments of their minds survived, incorporated in the next generation, who might or might not be genetic descendants.
‘De la Vega’s mind was screwed up during the procedure? When he received from his soul-father?’
‘That was the finding of forensic examination a century ago. Modern methods might reveal more.’
‘I don’t think that matters,’ said Sunadomari. ‘When I learned the story, it called him a mind-plunderer. Ah . . . He used similar ware?’
‘Exactly. His vampire code - that’s how forensics named it - derived from the old soul-successor transfer systems.’
‘Have you always known this, my friend? Or are you retrieving it from knowledge archives as we speak?’
‘From archive. I’m no historian.’
‘So tell me more about his demise.’
‘He was defeated by—’ Li-Cheng’s eyes widened. ‘Are you playing a clever game, old friend? Or do you truly not know who the Judas goat was?’
‘Judas goat?’
‘A newly upraised adult of mature years - newly arrived on Fulgor - with plexcores embedded purely to tempt de la Vega to attack her. So you didn’t know. But the whole case was classified, obviously.’
‘Tell me.’
‘The person who acted as bait was called Yoshiko Sunadomari. ’
‘But—’
‘Bravery clearly runs across the generations.’
‘Coincidence.’
‘Of course. Or subtle causality, for how many of us’ - Li-Cheng meant Luculenti - ‘have any interest in being a peacekeeper? ’
Sunadomari could dive into his childhood reflections for influences, but for now it was irrelevant.
‘So my ancestor was the bait, and peacekeepers trapped de la Vega?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘I don’t—’
‘Perhaps this should wait until you get here.’
‘If anyone is eavesdropping now, despite your monitoring, will they guess what it is you want to tell me?’
Li-Cheng’s image, in Skein, gave a thousand-times-accelerated smile.
‘If they already possess the knowledge, then they’ll know what I’m referring to. If they have no idea, then I’ll be providing them with classified information.’
‘They know already.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘I take responsibility for the decision.’
‘I’m sure your great-great-grandmother would have approved. So. De la Vega expanded his plexcore array, to increase the capacity. He was attempting to plunder dozens of minds.’
‘That would tip his neural systems through phase transitions, wouldn’t it?’
‘If you mean the new mind would no longer think like a human being, you’re right. Yet it would still be a coherent entity, provided the plexcore array functioned correctly. But you can’t scale them up.’
‘Surely you can. The topology is—’
‘Lightspeed delays across synaptic interfaces. The farther apart the processors are, the more—’
‘Understood. I hadn’t realized. He was spreading his mind across physically distant plexcores.’
‘In the end, yes. We have the whole collection in our museum here, the old plexcores. Or nearly the whole collection, at the moment.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘One’s on loan to the multiversity for study. It’s a long-term thing.’
For an entire second, Sunadomari withdrew from Skein, sucked in a breath, glanced at the two peacekeepers in his flyer’s cabin with him, then immersed himself in Skein once more.
‘Let me guess,’ he said. ‘You lent it to a Dr Greg Ranulph.’
‘No, it’s a team effort, but he’s not on the list.’
‘Then Dr Petra Helsen.’
‘She’s on the team. But . . . tell me you don’t think there’s another de la Vega.’
‘There is.’
‘Helsen’s an ordinary human, my friend.’
‘I wonder about that, but she’s no Luculenta. I do know someone who fits the description well, however.’
‘So are you hunting for this person?’
‘SatScan and full surveillance on the ground, but it’s not helping. On the other hand, I don’t think it matters where she is physically.’
‘She’s attacking through Skein?’
‘Exactly.’
‘Then that’s how we’ll find her.’
‘See you in reality, soon.’
The flyer cabin came back into awareness. His conversation with Hsiu Li-Cheng had lasted less than two seconds. Neither of the peacekeepers showed any awareness that there had even been a discussion taking place. It was the kind of thing one grew used to as a Luculentus, the ability to move things along at the speed of thought.
But Rafaella Stargonier was just as fast.
FORTY-THREE
FULGOR, 2603 AD
A steel eagle circled overhead, while Roger stood on the quickstone forecourt, stared at the student house he theoretically still lived in, and used his tu-ring to open up a small holospace. Thanks to the eagle, this enquiry would appear to originate from the Spalding home, where it clanked along inside the hypozone. But not everything depended on Xavier - the turing had spyware functions he had never used before, his last gift from Dad.
‘Got it.’ It was quicker to use control gestures and abbreviated subvocalizations. ‘And show.’
He now had access to the logs from Alisha’s room. Her nipples were so pink on soft white breasts, as she climbed from the bed where she had slept naked—
‘Shit.’
Face burning, he fast-forwarded through to where she made a call, then zoomed in. She had not spoken in clear, but her lips moved as she subvocalized. A second holospace opened above the tu-ring, showing the ware’s analysis of her words.
‘Roger,’ she was saying. ‘I have to be at Aleph Tower at nine. I’m meeting Rafaella Stargonier. She owns the building, I think.
‘If you get this before I leave, you could come along. If you like, I mean. It would be good to . . . Never mind.
‘See you later.’
He shut the display down.
‘Shit. Shit.’
If he had only dared to log on to Skein. She had left a message for him. For him. No need to spy inside her room’s memory. All he had
needed to do was check his own bastard messages. How many hours he had wasted from cowardice?
He looked up at the steel eagle, wondering what Xavier made of this.
‘Maybe I should—’
‘Hey, Roger!’ From an upper balcony, Stef was leaning over. ‘How did you guys get on last night?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘You know what I’m . . . Oh, a gentleman never tells, huh?’
‘We didn’t—’
‘See you in class. You can tell me then.’ She blew him a kiss. ‘Later.’
Then she went inside.
Crap.
He re-opened the hololog at the same point, scanned forward until Alisha appeared to be making another call. He zoomed in once more. This time she was calling for an aircab to take her to Aleph Tower. Speeding the log forward, she did nothing significant until leaving the room two minutes before the aircab was due.
Not caring now whether he was tracked, he called down an aircab of his own, and told it to take him to Aleph Tower. The steel eagle flew overhead - the call would still appear to have originated from the Spalding home - but surveillance might realize that a physical human being had boarded from the multiversity campus, and wonder who it was.
Once at the tower, he requested that the aircab remain hovering while he alighted.
‘Roger.’ The shaven head of Xavier appeared in holo. ‘Open up a query to the building system. I’ll piggyback from here.’
‘But the people inside—’
‘We can scan a system a lot faster than we can persuade a person.’
‘All right.’
He pointed his tu-ring at the quickglass wall, and waited. In ten seconds - a long time in computation - a shaky moving holo appeared next to his hand. Alisha, staggering from Aleph Tower, almost falling into an aircab.
‘One moment, Roger. Shit.’
‘What is it?’
‘The aircab was commanded to take her to Killian’s Dive in Quarter Moon. But it wasn’t one of mine, damn it.’
‘Sir?’
‘I mean the aircab. I own—Ah, you are using one of mine. Good. Get back in, and you’re off the grid.’
‘But I don’t know what—’
‘Roger, there are two peacekeeper flyers over my roof. I’m going to try to contact Superintendent Sunadomari before they get inside, but I have to shut this down now.’
The holo was gone.
Overhead, the steel eagle was flying away. All Roger could do was climb into the aircab and tell it where to go.
‘Killian’s Dive. Quarter Moon District.’
The aircab soared upward.
Perhaps there were shabbier districts in Lucis City; perhaps there were more dangerous; but none could match old Quarter Moon for sleaze. Roger walked away from the ascending aircab, feeling dirty already. From a doorway, a small man beckoned.
‘Hey, you like girls?’
‘No. I mean yes, but—Sorry.’
Dark buildings, bright holos. Perhaps night could add a veneer of glamour; in daylight, the streaks on walls that ought to self-clean were evident, while beneath the warm scents of cooking that floated from cheap eateries, pungent undertones were lurking.
The entrance to Killian’s Dive was a vertical oval, ringed with long-fibred matting. The fibres curled, and it took him a moment to understand the pubic symbolism. He wanted to puke.
Inside, he took in the silver bar set diagonally across the half-lit space, the customers that sat or stood, tired or morose or stunned-looking, drinking whatever morning drinkers took. None of the customers was Alisha.
Behind the bar was a large man with motile purple tattoos crawling across his scalp. His thick-muscled arms were bare, except for steel rings set around wrists and biceps that appeared to be set into the flesh.
Usually, a human bartender added a touch of class, since any quickglass room could provide service. Here, the big man provided visual intimidation - and probably backed it up with violence as needed.
How am I supposed to question him?
This was stupid.
I can’t threaten someone like that.
He turned and walked out on to the street.
‘Lovely, luscious girls,’ said a dark-skinned woman in front of him, her low-scooped top displaying large, soft cleavage. ‘They’re sitting around in their underwear at the house right now.’
‘I don’t—’
‘And you can choose any you want.’
Blood pulsed in his groin.
Oh, God.
‘For you, lover, there’s a discount. It will be—Oh.’
A tall man was extending his fist, his tu-ring flashing a holo sigil directly into Roger’s eyes.
‘Peacekeeper,’ he said. ‘We’re watching this area, just so you know.’
Roger nearly fell to the ground, as if the ligaments in his knees had detached.
‘You look like a nice lad,’ he continued. ‘What do you do for work? Her, we know.’
‘I’m a, er, student. At the multiversity.’
‘Good for you.’
‘I . . . Thank you, officer. Thank you.’
He backed away, waves of sickness washing through every internal organ, nodded to the officer, then strode to the corner, turned and carried on walking to the end of the block. There, he leaned back against the wall, not caring about the faint scent of ancient urine, just rubbing his eyes and trying to bring his mind together.
‘Hey, lover.’ It was the woman again. ‘Don’t pay any mind to him. The girls are still there waiting, and you know they’d just love to meet you.’
‘No. Just . . . No.’
‘Are you sure?’ When she wiggled, waves of motion rippled up her cleavage. ‘Really, really sure?’
‘Go away.’
Something seemed to snap out of existence inside her eyes, and she simply turned and walked away. Once at the corner of the main street, her gait changed, becoming a saunter once more.
Roger turned away, and realized he was at the head of an alleyway that ran behind Killian’s Dive. One step at a time, while an internal voice complained, he made his way to the rear wall, then stopped.
The wall was black quickglass, worn and crusty outside, its interior still malleable. He stared at it for a moment, then pulled up a menu in his tu-ring, checking the expanded list of commands available to him now: the maintenance services and engineering aspects normally hidden beneath security.
He formed the instructions, pressed his forearms against the wall, and waited. It took some twenty seconds for the inner layers to respond and seep through the hardened parts like liquid tar. First several drops, then runnels of black quickglass twisted around his forearms.
When he backed off, the quickglass came free with squelches and popping. He gave it another two minutes, allowing it to merge with the smartmaterial sleeves of his clothing, and begin to creep downwards. While the integration continued, he set up several shortcut commands, and kept them in the tu-ring’s execution space, ready to initiate.
Earlier, fear had made him want to throw up. Now he felt like a sick patient in the euphoria when the vomiting was past, able to move and not care. He was almost lightheaded as he walked back on to the side street, then turned again and found himself at Killian’s Dive; and then he went in.
The huge bartender was still there.
‘Excuse me,’ Roger said.
But the bartender pointed to one of the other customers, then at the man’s empty glass.
‘You want I should get you another purple stripe?’
‘Uh-huh.’
Big fingers, his hands like crushing machines, tapped a control sequence on the metal countertop. An iris opened before the drinker, and a glass rose up, its contents a Turing pattern that reminded Roger of fog in the hypozone.
‘So whaddyou want?’
‘Um, one of those, please. Purple stripe.’
‘Huh.’
The command was a single tap against the countertop. The bartender was already
starting to turn away when Roger held up his fist, a small holo image floating above his tu-ring.
