Company Town

by Madeline Ashby

  “Everything.”

  Síofra set down a mug of something steaming in front of her. Turmeric-ginger-chamomile. The same hangover cure she herself would have chosen. “You don’t have to do this,” he said. “Not right now.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I kinda do.”

  Síofra nodded. He stretched out on the floor beside her, propped on his elbows. As he crossed his ankles, his trousers rode up a little. The freckles on his inner left ankle formed a perfect circle, like a fairy ring.

  To stop staring, she focused on the display. “Is there a camera behind the bar?”

  “Several. The clearest feed is the one from the bartender’s right eye.”

  “So it was live while Layne and I were there?”

  A pause. “According to the end user licence agreement, recording during work hours appears to be a condition of employment.”

  “Show me.”

  The bartender switched between filters of vision as he worked. Thermal vision was pretty handy for knowing exactly when a martini was icy enough. The shaker always turned a special shade of purple before he poured out its contents. Layne and Hwa weren’t always directly in his line of sight, but he did keep glancing at Hwa, toggling between filters as he tried and failed to focus on her face.

  It was odd, seeing herself the way augmented people saw her. The bartender couldn’t turn his eye off, so he always got an adulterated version of her. First there was the Stop Staring version, where her face was a real-time render of what it would have been had Sunny made different decisions as a mother. Then there was the thermal version, where her left side was just slightly brighter than her right, on account of all the tangled nerves and blood vessels. But he spent the most time in the iContact filter, as the focus-detection algorithm in his eye found everyone in the crowd around the bar who was trying to catch his eye, and ordered their faces into a queue for service. Hwa’s face didn’t show up in that filter. She was just a dark, empty blur, like a shadow. Like a ghost.

  No wonder he’d kept offering Layne another round first.

  Hwa kept her attention on the bartender’s hands as he mixed the drinks. He kept his hands in full view, focusing on them in a way that seemed intentional. Maybe that was part of his contract, too. Hwa watched him pour the last two drinks for her and Layne. Nothing amiss. Then the bartender retrieved the next face in the queue, and began mixing a martini. He switched to thermal vision. He focused on the shaker.

  Something flashed bright white in his vision.

  It was there, and then it was gone; the bartender flipped over to focus-detection and the flash vanished, like he was trying to rid himself of a common glitch. Hwa was just a shadow Layne was talking to. Then Layne fell. Then Hwa moved. The other faces in the room scattered away from them, focused on them and not the bartender, depopulating his vision. Hwa twitched back along the reel. She landed on the right moment. There in the centre, frozen in that single second, the blazing white shape loomed.

  “It’s him.”

  Hwa nodded. “Aye. But what would he want with Layne?”

  Síofra watched her carefully. “Do you not see it?”

  “See what?”

  Síofra logged in. He had a whole folder to show her. He twitched back along footage until he found the place he wanted. Hwa recognized the weigh station within the Angel from Montgomery almost immediately. Once more, she saw herself in thermal vision.

  And there, behind her, that blinding white heat in the shape of a man.

  “But…” She couldn’t look away from the image. “Joel’s the one with the death threats.”

  “And you’re the one with a stalker.”

  “But…” Hwa frowned. “That would mean that whoever switched the rounds during the drill … killed Layne.”

  “Perhaps your friend picked up the wrong drink, Hwa.” He looked toward the air mattress. “May I have one of those pillows, please? Dawn isn’t for a few hours.”

  * * *

  Hwa didn’t hear him leave. She didn’t properly remember falling asleep, either. They’d been discussing next steps, and then for some reason he started telling a very long story about a job he’d done at a reactor in Vladivostok, and it involved an explanation of Russian baths, and talk of hot steam and cold pools, and how you had to be careful not to go to sleep in the sauna, and she thought it would be fine to close her eyes, just for a minute. After that, she slept until the door buzzed her awake.

  “I didn’t order this,” Hwa said, squinting outside at the delivery man holding tiffins of food.

  “T’were a gentleman’s name on the order, Miss. Said your head were right logy.”

  Hwa pinched the bridge of her nose. “Aye. He’s not wrong.”

  She brought the tiffins in and opened them. The kitchen looked different. Cleaner. Neater. Good Christ, he’d done the dishes. His performance reviews weren’t kidding about that quest for perfection.

  “You didn’t have to do the dishes,” she said, when she called.

  “Good morning to you, too.”

  “And thank you for breakfast.”

  “I thought it might help. Do you plan to go to school with Joel?”

  “Aye.”

  “And after that?”

  She had stuffed the shirt with Layne’s blood into a self-sealing pouch. Hopefully its time on her floor hadn’t contaminated it. “Have to see a man about a blood sample.”

  “And where is he, now?”

  Hwa shook her head, then remembered he couldn’t see. “You’re not coming.”

  “Hwa—”

  “It’s not your kind of place,” she said quickly. “You’re too…” Pretty, she wanted to say. “You’re too fancy.”

  “You would feel the need to protect me.”

  Hwa rolled her smile inside her mouth. “Aye, and I already have one bodyguarding job. Which reminds me, I want you to call Joel and take him out somewhere, when my shift ends.”

  “Where?”

  “Anywhere. Just get him out of the flat.” Hwa cleared her throat, thinking of Zachariah’s softbot coiling one of its many arms around her neck. “He asked me to come live there with him. Joel did.”

  “That’s sudden. Are you sure the two of you aren’t moving too fast?”

  “Very funny.” She contemplated the air mattress and the boxes. Síofra had slept on a yoga mat with a blanket spread over it. “I’d be in Tower Five a lot.”

  “That would make things easier.” He coughed. “Running, for example.”

  “Aye. Running.”

  * * *

  School was fine, but Mr. Branch was sick for the day, so science club didn’t meet. Hwa suggested they do a full circuit, just to burn off the day, but Joel wanted to keep working on his project in the library. At least, that was what he said in order to get her into the library. His story changed the moment they were inside.

  “What do you have here that’s about serial killers?” Joel asked.

  Mrs. Gardener’s tattooed eyebrows rose only slightly. Her forehead would not permit any further wrinkling than that. “Quite a bit, as a matter of fact,” she said. “It’s a very popular presentation topic in Mr. Harris’s Introduction to Psychology elective.”

  “Could I please see what you’ve got?”

  “Certainly. Are you looking for books, periodicals, media, threads, or immersion?”

  Joel brightened. “You have immersions for that kind of thing? Really?”

  Mrs. Gardener lowered her voice to a delighted whisper. “You have no idea. If you want, I can let you walk through Whitechapel. Or Leimert Park. Or Jones Beach. Even the Manson houses! Every scene of every crime in the catalogue.”

  Hwa blinked. “Seriously?”

  Mrs. Gardener nodded. “The more recent cases sometimes have their faces changed—when the victims’ next of kin wouldn’t license their likenesses—but all the other details are the same. Some of the nudity is fogged over, naturally.” She snapped her fingers. “Not for you, though, Hwa! You’re not a minor, any
longer.”

  Hwa grimaced. “That’s fine, thanks. Had my fill of it.”

  “We’re interested,” Joel said, as though he hadn’t heard her.

  “No, we’re not,” Hwa said.

  Joel held up a finger. “Just a moment, please.”

  He walked a little ways away from the immersion booth. “What are you at?” Hwa asked. “I thought you wanted to work on your generation ship thing—”

  “I think your friends are being hunted by a serial killer,” Joel said.

  Hwa blinked. “Eh?”

  “Well, Dad took me on a trip to D.C., because he had to talk to Congress? Or a subcommittee? Or a hearing? Something like that. Anyway, I went to the FBI’s Museum of Behavior. It used to be called the Evil Minds Research Museum. I don’t know why they changed it; I think Evil Minds would have looked better on the t-shirts in the gift shop. But they had a whole exhibit about serial killers. It was next to the Wall Street exhibit.”

  “Serial killers.”

  “Yeah. They’re pretty rare. And they don’t happen as much, anymore, because of the birthrate and data collection and stuff. Also now that the DSM says you can diagnose psychopathy in children—”

  “Why would you think someone like that killed Calliope and Layne?” She shook her head. “Sorry. My friends.”

  “Because they were prostitutes,” Joel said. “That’s who they kill. Mostly. Prostitutes.”

  Hwa closed her eyes. “The correct term is sex worker, Joel. I belonged to the sex workers’ union. Okay, b’y?”

  “Okay. I’m sorry.” He sounded genuinely apologetic. It was hard to tell for real. But he was the kind of kid who liked to know the right words for things. “But, if you’ve been looking into it at all, I mean, if you had some data to make sense of, you could put it into the immersion unit. There’s a lot of processing power. You could even ask the AI inside some questions! It’s been really helpful, with the ship design.”

  “If I’d been looking into it.”

  Joel looked at the floor. “You know, investigating it.” His voice cracked. “It would be private. Outside the Prefect system.”

  She let the full weight of her gaze fall on him. “Joel? Is there something you want to tell me?”

  “You might want to change your privacy settings,” Joel mumbled.

  Hwa rolled her neck back to look at the ceiling. Master control room, she reminded herself. She waited for the overhead lights to beam some patience into her eyes. “I’m going to make you very sorry, during tomorrow’s workout.”

  He sighed. “I know. But…” He gestured at the booth. “This is better, isn’t it? Better than going out there on your own.”

  She didn’t know how to tell him that his instincts were better than he knew. That in all likelihood, the person killing her friends was probably after her, too. On the other hand, an offsite storage facility for all the data, all the footage, was probably a good idea. If she stored it somewhere else, maybe the people peeping her Prefect account would think she’d given up.

  “You don’t get to go in there, with me,” Hwa said. “I don’t want you looking at that shit. Any of it.”

  “I won’t see anything! I’m a minor!”

  “Aye, exactly me point. You’re too—”

  “I thought you were trying to toughen me up,” Joel said. “And not just physically. It’s going to be my town, someday, Hwa. I have to take care of it. I have to learn how to take care of it.”

  Mrs. Gardener walked them to the booth. It was fashioned entirely of glass, or something like glass that wouldn’t break and wouldn’t transmit sound. You could wear the helmet in perfect silence, and no one would be annoyed or distracted by your commands. As Hwa watched, Mrs. Gardener waved her way into the booth with her right hand. The doors clicked open, unfolding as though to embrace the booth’s next visitor. Mrs. Gardener pointed at a couple of X’s on the floor marked out in tape.

  “Stand on those,” she said. “You have to hit your mark so it can calibrate. Now, where would you like to start?”

  Hwa shrugged. “The beginning, I guess.”

  Mrs. Gardener smiled. “Whitechapel, then. Oh, before I forget.” She dashed behind the help desk and came back with a towel. “Tuck this into your collar, would you? The booth is just so tough to clean. There’s a special cleanser and everything, and it’s unbelievably expensive. I tried vinegar and water once, and the damn thing reported me to the company!”

  Hwa plucked at the towel. “Um … Why exactly do I need a towel?”

  “For when you throw up, of course!” Mrs. Gardener shut the doors to the booth. She started programming something into a panel only she could see. “Good luck!”

  Hwa waited until Mrs. Gardener was gone, then she untucked the towel and left it in a heap on the floor. She reached for the helmet and wiggled it down across her head. It smelled terrible: bad breath and cheap pomade. Her skin would probably break out tomorrow. As if standing in a glass booth talking to yourself in front of the whole library weren’t embarrassing enough.

  PLEASE FOCUS, she read in large white letters on a black ground.

  Hwa focused.

  LOOK LEFT.

  She looked left.

  LOOK RIGHT.

  She looked right.

  LOOK UP.

  She looked up.

  LOOK DOWN.

  And as she looked down, Helmut the Assistant Librarian walked up to her and introduced himself. He was a tall white guy in grey trousers with a black turtleneck sweater. He seemed excited to see her. He held out his hand. Hwa shook it.

  “Welcome back, Hwa! It’s been a while!”

  “Three years,” Hwa said.

  “Wow! Time flies! So, you want to go to Whitechapel?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, can you just sign this waiver, for me? The manufacturer needs to know that you don’t hold us responsible for any adverse effects you might experience.”

  “Sure,” Hwa said.

  Instantly, her eyes filled with boilerplate. She sped to the end, and signed her name with one finger. When she’d finished, the boilerplate dissipated into fog. The fog was grey and dim, lit only by spots of orange glow that might have been flame. Hwa heard horses and something rattling. She looked around—a big team of black horses was about to run her over. She jumped out of the way and straight into a puddle. The horses pulled a carriage full of laughing women in corsets and tiny hats. When it pulled away, a man stood across the street and looked at Hwa. He hadn’t been there before. He had an impressive brownish beard streaked with white, and his top hat perched above a head of the same. He brandished a cane, and it tapped on the wet cobbles of the street as he crossed it to meet her. When he ascended the sidewalk, he held out one elbow. There was an awkward moment where they both stared at his protruding joint, and then at each other. Maybe these people didn’t believe in shaking hands. Hwa stuck out her own elbow, and touched it to his.

  “You’re supposed to take it in your hand, and let me lead you,” he said in a very deep, rough voice.

  “I don’t really like being led,” Hwa said.

  He nodded. “As you wish.”

  “Who are you?” Hwa asked.

  “You may call me Mr. Moore,” he said. “Welcome to Whitechapel.”

  * * *

  “Could I put this data into an immersion unit?” Hwa asked Sandro, once her time in Whitechapel was over.

  “Sure,” he said. “What, you want an AI to work on it? ’Cause I’ve got one here. Not, you know, top of the line or anything, but not bad. Fan-crafted. Kind of a DIY thing.”

  “That’s cool,” Hwa said. “But I’ve got some elsewhere.”

  “Your call,” Sandro said. “What’s in the bag?”

  “’Nother sample.” Hwa tossed it to him.

  He peeled it open. “Your shirt? Your blood?”

  “My money. My questions.”

  Sandro shrugged. He plucked the shirt out with a pair of long chopsticks, then threw it into the scanne
r. He pressed the green button with one big toe. He chewed his thumbnail as it ran. Then he pressed another button with his toe and leaned back in his chair.

  “Got cold tea, if you want,” he said. “In the cooler.”

  Hwa pulled two bottles free from a brick of foam, and tossed one to him. She watched him drink, decided it was safe, and took a long pull from her own bottle.

  “How’s she gettin’ on?” Sandro asked.

  “I’m on nish ice with this job.”

  Sandro’s lips twitched. He nodded to himself. He leaned forward in his chair, and spun to face her. “I’ve been getting me hands dirty with the other sample you showed me. Wicked stuff. Evil. I don’t want it, no more. I want it gone, whatever it is.”

  “And what is that?”

  Sandro stood. He stretched. He gestured for her to stand, too. “Come on, then. Let’s have a peek.”

  He made a pulling motion in the air, and a frosty pane of glass slid aside, exposing another room. They strode through. Inside the new room was a set of five terrariums.

  Inside the terrariums were different clots of decaying flesh.

  Sandro waved some buzzing flies—real ones, not botflies—away from the glass boxes of rot. As Hwa looked closer, she saw that two of them appeared to still be alive. They pulsed. Their terrariums fogged. Hwa tried to breathe through her mouth. Not that doing it that way was much better. The scent stuck to her tongue like rancid fat.

  “The fuck is that shit?”

  “It’s tissue,” Sandro said. “Programmable tissue.”

  Hwa thought of Síofra’s broken nose, and how quickly it had healed. “What, like a regimen?”

  “Like fucking cancer, more like. Fucking uncontrollable. I keep hiving it off and trying to kill it.”

  “Aye? Any luck?”

  He shrugged his massive, oozing shoulders. “It’s cancer. It hates radiation.”

  “What, you’ve got like random isotopes just lying about?”

  “Nah. I had a friend take a sample under her shirt, during treatment in St. John’s.” He drew a line across his throat with one finger. “Killed it right dead.”

  Hwa pulled up a stool and watched the samples. They seemed to breathe. Each of them were hooked up to various bags of fluid. One of them looked like beer. How had Calliope gotten something like this in her system? All the USWC members were extremely cautious about health. Testing for all types of cancer was regular. Having unprotected sex was verboten. Unless you went off-book. And Calliope had.