by John Shirley
“I thought that was safer—to let him think I was an airhead, only into shopping. I mean—I like shopping, I like luxury. I even like being kept. To me that’s not a bad term, it sounds good to me. Kept. Like you are not being thrown away. It’s not a bad thing—if it’s done with some ... some respect.” She touched her bandages with her free hand. “That’s why I’m going to have my own face back. Just my own face and nothing more, ever again ...”
He squeezed her hand. This woman intrigued him. “You deserve respect. You’ve been through a lot. I’m glad I happened upon you, my dear—my people just happened to tell me about your dismissal and ... it seemed so right, so natural for you to come to work for me. Welcome to Hoffman, Lisha. Welcome!”
“You see them, Pup? See how easily, with what facility, with such effortlessness I surveil them? The digital walls of that room can be hacked; they can be reprogrammed to take in information as easily as give it out: a peculiarity of the system Hoffman knows nothing about. Nor that pretentious female. How amusing, how laughable, how delicious: she erases Grist’s face from her own. I almost envy her. I’d like to erase Grist’s face from mine. But I am doing just that! I am forming a new face, a new synthesis, for which I will have a new name in time! I will replace all of them with this new self. Oh people will suppose they’ve seen them, from time to time, but it will be me, a subset of myself, a small ‘I’ presented as I choose ... to command, control, to puppet them! Do you see them there, Pup? Yes? Do you see how easily we can watch them?”
“I see ’em, Boss, yeah, that’s Bill Hoffman, he’s one of the big shots of the Fortune 33, he’s all, like, the king of luxury but he gives a lotta money out too ... he’s got some kind of giant swimming pool filled with fish and he gets in there and swims with ’em ... I can’t figure out how he keeps the damn thing clean ...”
“It’s almost as if we’re in the same room with them and they don’t know we’re there! In fact, I am there, as much as I’m anywhere! I am reliant on hardware, but my real presence is wherever my surveillance takes me. I am ubiquitous, really, and, in time, I will be ever-present wherever there is a fiberoptic line, a transmission, a photo-sensitive nanocell, a security camera ...”
“Sure, that’s why I work with you ...”
“Is that your clumsy attempt to flatter me, Pup? Good, do keep it up. It shows a good attitude, at least. Now, we will proceed with our plans. I think we will not kill Hoffman first. He may prove useful as a living person, for awhile. But others must begin to die, that I may more fully live, Pup. Do you understand?”
“Whatever you say ... I never had anything like I got now, before. I don’t want it to end. I want to go on. And see where it takes me.”
“You liked her, didn’t you, Pup. Janice. Would you like to see her again?”
“I could pay for her myself.”
“I wouldn’t think of it, Pup. Allow me the pleasure ... of giving you that gift. As a reward for service. And your service begins tonight ...”
Less than an hour after he left the bar, Danny was at Rack’s place, hammering on the door. Wondering how long before his brother would find his way here. Rick Candle knew about Rack Nidd but he maybe didn’t know about this place. Of course, he’d find it eventually. But by then ...
The door opened to the width of a brass chain. Standing there in the doorway, head tilted, glaring out at Danny, Rack Nidd didn’t look glad to see him. Rack even spoke, out front, without being prompted, as if to ward Danny off.
“I got no fucking time for it today, Danny,” Rack said. The little robot scorpion on his shoulder capered and hissed and poked its tail at Danny with each word Rack spoke, like a man pointing his finger in emphasis. “I got business to do, that–”
“Hey, I’ll hook in, be out of your hair in no time.”
“Forget it.” Rack started to close the door.
Danny stuck his booted foot in the doorway and said, hastily, leaning away from Jiminy the scorpion. “And I got some other business for you too. Serious, serious flow, Rack. More than you ever saw before. You hear it, you’ll be issuin’.”
Rack glowered. Stared. Glowered some more. Then he grunted, took the brass chain off, and turned away, leaving the door open. Danny followed him in, closing the door quietly behind him. The robot scorpion had turned around backwards on Rack’s shoulders, was doing the scorpion-stinger equivalent of giving him the finger, it seemed to Danny, as Rack walked toward a junk-pile of gear on his workbench.
“This better be good, Danny.”
“Listen—I got a software. It’s not here with me. I’m gonna go get it, after. After I have my V-ride. But ... it’s a program that tells people, clues them in quietly when they’re talking to a semblant. Tells ’em, ‘Guess what, that shit’s not real.’”
Rack froze, straightening. Cocked his head to listen. “Drop call. No such thing exists. They made sure at Slakon.”
“There was an in-house one. Secret. I got it. Don’t matter where. It’s worth millions on the black market, Rack. I can get it, bring it here on a memstick. Not safe to upload it to anyone over the wires. Too much risk of corruption to send it wireless. So ...”
“So, go get it. I’ll test it.”
“I got to get a V-ride one more time. My brother’s on my ass, I won’t get another chance. I’m leaving town. But I got some flow and I need one more. Then I get the software and I’ll sell it to you—we’ll work something out.”
Rack glanced sidelong at his scorpion, muttered something. The robot scorpion went rigid—and then quivered. Danny felt a tingling ... Then Jiminy chattered and hissed in Rack’s ear.
“Huh. Jiminy says you ain’t lying. Not full proof, but ... Probability. Okay. You got the card? Let’s see it ...”
Grist and Targer were in the security chief’s corner office in the downtown-L.A. Slakon building, with two cornering tintable window-walls, both of them dialed to opaque just now; the only illumination came from the ceiling itself, which gave off a uniform illumination so subtle the ceiling could barely be identified as the room’s light-source. The place was barebones, Grist thought. Targer didn’t go in for decorations. No ferns, no pictures of family. On one wall there was a sweet shot of the first chopper Targer had ever flown, flying for the Rangers in the Fourth Iraq War, and near it was an old fashioned Rigid Tools Calendar sporting a pin-up girl: the calendar a costly, fashionable retro object. And there wasn’t much else but a work station—which was a desk that was also a flat screen, and a sheet of mediaglass on the wall for PC/TV.
A chopper thumped by outside, as if the picture on the wall had sound. It could have sound, if he’d had that part switched on.
Grist had drawn a chair up close to Targer’s, was watching as he swept his hands over the desk’s flat surface, making images and digital windows appear and disappear.
“There—it’s Benson,” Targer said.
A security-recorded image, from above and to one side, of Pup Benson walking up to the booth at the gate, that day. The day that Sykes was shot. They watched the exchange. They listened. And they saw, from a skewed angle, the monitor showing Grist’s face—Grist’s semblant—telling the guard that Benson was to be allowed in, was to be given all access.
“And you never made that call?” Targer said.
Grist glanced at him, wondering how much to tell him. Finally decided he had to admit, at least, that someone had control of a Grist semblant. Someone besides Grist. “Not me and not authorized by me.”
“You maybe need to put out some kind of alert—warn people that your semblant is not to be trusted till future notice.”
“How are we supposed to do that, exactly? We’re trying to create a market for these things—not make it look like we have no control over them, Targer.”
“Still ... if people assume it’s you ... Who knows what else they’ll use your semblant for?” He shook his head. “Worst kind of ‘identity theft’ imaginable. Your semblant know your pin numbers for bank accounts, stuff like that?”<
br />
“One of the few things it doesn’t know. But just in case they’ve hacked me deeper than the semblant, I’ve changed all that. I’m going to have to devise some kind of cryptographic method for people to confirm when they’re talking to me. Find some secure way to warn people. Meanwhile ... look, there he goes into the lab.”
They were watching Benson enter the lab. And approaching Sykes. And—
And then the camera switched off.
Targer snorted. “We’re deep hacked. All the way. Somehow they got control of the cameras at that point ...”
“Benson went in. We recorded the sound of a shot. Benson went out. Few minutes later we had people in there and found Sykes. But Benson was gone. It was him all right.”
“Sure. But who’s got your semblant? And what others do they have? I actually don’t use mine. But ...”
“You don’t use it?”
“Not my style, boss,” Targer said, sorting through security recordings.
Grist shrugged. “It’s not a general penetration of semblant programs. Remember we don’t have people’s semblant copies, they copy them with the equipment we sell them. There the son of a bitch is again ...”
Targer had found a shot of Pup Benson coming out of the building. “Reassuring that whoever did this couldn’t hack all our cameras. There he is pushing a cart of some kind. Do we know what’s on the cart, Mr. Grist?”
Grist decided he had to tell Targer some of it. “That’s the device that allows this ... penetration of certain semblants. And duplication of them. Just five semblants. The result of an experiment. Someone’s sent Benson to take the thing, the actual hardware and software both. He steals it, takes it ... where? We got anything yet?”
“I’m working on the angle that this is an inside job. And certain unauthorized shipments to certain docks might be a clue. But I haven’t got it nailed yet, no sir.”
Something in Targer’s voice made Grist look at him. There was a certain flatness in Targer’s eyes, a measured wariness. And a quiet projection of confidence. As if Targer was saying—understatedly, but saying it anyway—that he was not afraid of Grist. And Grist had better not try to arrange any special chopper trips for him. Or anything else.
Is all that, really, in that quietly defiant look on Targer’s face?
Grist wondered if he should assert himself. Threaten Targer. But if he did, he might spur Targer to make a move of his own. A pre-emptive strike.
So he simply said, “Just stay on it, Targer.”
“Most def, sir.”
“You know the origin of the term, ‘loose cannon’, Targer? In the old days, on the sailing ships, the cannon were secured against the side with ropes and chocks. If one of them slid loose, in high seas, it’d roll around on deck and crush people, even sink the ship sometimes. That’s what we’ve got here, Targer. And how do I know this attack on Sykes and the hardware theft isn’t connected to our other security issue—Rick Candle? Maybe he’s working with Benson. That ever occur to you?”
“The thought occurred, sure. But Mr. Grist—I can’t help but think that I need all the facts here, not just–” He broke off, as a chime sounded, a face appeared in a corner of the desk’s screen. Underneath the face, the words
Priority Street Contact
“You get some calls from some grubby looking individuals, Targer,” Grist said, studying the face. Almost admiringly.
“Need them, to pursue what we’re pursuing. This man has a connection to Rick Candle’s brother, so I approached him, told him if he had anything for me he’d be rewarded. Looks like he’s come through.”
Grist nodded and Targer opened the line. He leaned over the desk so that its integrated digital lenses took him in. “Targer here. You go by Rack Nidd, that right?”
“Yeah, I go by ... yeah,” came the voice from the screen. The face, frozen a moment before in an ID mugshot, was now moving twitchily. Something flickered in and out of the shot, like the tail of a small animal perching on his shoulder. “Listen, uh, Targer, that reward still happening?”
“Could be, depending on what you’ve got.”
“Got Danny Candle here, now, hooked up. Brother to the guy you were looking for. And he says he’s got a software that can tell you when you’re talking to a semblant. Says it was stolen from your people, taken in-house. I figure that’s two rewards. You owe me twice.”
“Hold on.” Targer flicked a finger over the image of the caller and it froze again; Rack could no longer hear or see him.
Grist muttered, “Maeterling. So he did copy that program.”
Targer nodded. “It would seem. And it still works?”
“Yeah. It would. The system was already ... well, we thought it was secure. This gets out, it’ll undermine our whole marketing plan. Maybe leave us open to lawsuits.”
“You rarely lose lawsuits anymore.”
True. The Fortune 33 controlled the courts, for the most part. Their surrogates in government appointed corporation-preferred judges. “We don’t control the whole system. We’ve got a lot of leverage yeah, and some people in place, but there are some rogues out there. And then there’s the publicity ... We’ve still got to sell things to people. For now.” They were working with their associates in Congress on an international bill requiring the purchase of certain products, the Consumer Responsibility Bill. But that was going to take time. People were touchy about their pitiful little incomes. Riots were an ugly thing to deal with.
“Ought to be easy to get this thing, choke it off,” Targer remarked. “Doesn’t seem he’s put it out online, anything like that. Or there’d be nothing for this asshole to sell to us.”
“Send in a police crew. Have Danny Candle picked up. And this Rack Nidd too. Pick him up or shut him up. I don’t like him knowing about this. And get that program.”
“We stake out the area, we could get Rick Candle too. If we don’t tip our hand too soon.”
“Do it however you like, as long as I get results ...”
Targer nodded, and reopened the line. “Rack? Okay. We’ve got a deal. Now you keep him busy and happy in there ... And we’ll take care of everything else.”
“What about my money?”
“I’ll bring you the cards myself.”
“You can’t just transfer it? Now?”
“We’ll do it my way. I’m a hands-on kind of guy, Rack. Stand by. Slakon is coming. Don’t you move an inch.”
Got a new V-trip for you here, Danny, Rack had said.
Danny didn’t know this one at all. But he was liking it: floating along in a boat, without oars, without engine or sails, just floating slowly with the current on a stream of black water; floating through a rainforest, on a river that was smooth as silk. He lay back in the cushioned boat, like laying on a floating sofa, trailing his right hand in the water ... Feeling the cool water sliding sensuously through his fingers. The warm air on his face bringing exotic odors ... The sun strobing through branches overhead ... The VR-transmitted pulse of pleasure going through him making the sight of that brilliant-pink flamingo flying over something ecstatically gorgeous, like the first sunset you ever really looked at ...
Where’ll she come from? he wondered. Rising up out of the water like one of those water sprite things in the old paintings?
She would be purely computer generated, because there’d been no one else in Rack’s place; she’d probably be closely based on a recording of some real girl, or girls, some form of semblant technology, like motion capture for the soul.
He’d felt bad, running out on his brother, sneaking out in that slinky way. Like a true rat, a V-rat, slipping out through a crack in the wall ...
But he had gone through the dirty slitted curtain, he had surrendered to VR. The stimulator was reverbing inside his brain and it was lighting up the pleasure centers and Rick was forgotten, there was only the sensation of the boat floating along—a little faster now—and the swelling synth orchestral variation of the “The Blue Danube”, mixed with some jazzy thing,
and he was liking it, though he knew if he ever heard it outside of VR he’d hate it. But this ride, this trip, this artificial reality, this feeling of pleasure, was all that mattered, for now, and he was enjoying the way the boat was picking up speed in a whitewater gorge, and he laughed as the water surged around him, foam splashing, the purple vines and mossy branches overhanging the river alive with luridly feathered birds, the wind in his hair, water splashing him gently, the woman flying at him ...
A woman! She was flying toward him, like a super-heroine, a few yards above the surface of the river. He wondered if he could fly here. Maybe. And maybe he could dive beneath the river and breathe under it and fight crocodiles and not be hurt ...
The tall thin blond woman, floating above him, was wearing a yellow and black skin-tight suit of some kind, the color of wasps; like the sort of thing you see some women exercise in—he didn’t think it was particularly sexy—and she was landing on the boat, like Peter Pan’s Wendy, coming down with her feet poised on the gunwales of the boat, her knees bending a little with the landing, straddling over him, balancing effortlessly though the boat rocketed ever faster down the now-roaring stream. She looked down at him with a mix of contemptuous curiosity and condescension. Interesting—maybe she was going to be one of those resistant women you met in some programs, who pretended for awhile they weren’t going to give themselves to you and then ...
Then he recognized her. Her faun-slender face, her long straight blond hair, fluttering in the wind.
“Claire PointOne,” he said. “You’re that good looking hella-skinny tycoon lady, from ... I don’t know, I saw you on the wi-net a few times and in some ... Wow, this is weird, did they license her face or is it pirated or what? I bet she’s gonna sue Rack and ...”
“Are you talking to me or about me?” Claire PointOne said, arching an eyebrow. The roar of the river seemed to recede into the background, as if deferentially giving way to her voice.
