Headspace

by Damien Boyes

  DeBlanc downs a second glass of bubbling liquid, pulls his hand through his hair, considers for a beat then rakes through the bowl, chooses a shyft and presses it to his neck.

  His demeanour changes instantly. His shoulders drop. He swivels his head three laps around his neck then takes his time once again refilling his glass.

  “C’est mieux,” DeBlanc exhales.

  “Do you recall if you had any plans last night?” Galvan asks.

  “Plans?” DeBlanc mumbles, as though unfamiliar with the word. He saunters back to the couch, flops down next to the woman, crosses his legs broadly and trails his fingertips over her exposed thigh. His eyes have glazed over. She has yet to move.

  “Yes, sir,” Galvan says. “Do you know where you might have been last night that would have left you near the water treatment plant? We’re trying to recreate a timeline of events leading up to your assault.”

  DeBlanc’s eyes flick up into his head. I take this opportunity to leave my post by the stairs, stroll slowly around the room under the pretence of browsing DeBlanc’s art collection, while angling toward the bar. Intense spotlights pour down from an invisible source on the ceiling, illuminating various objects along the back wall. Each is perched on a marble pedestal flecked with gold. A miniature bronze gazelle. An intricately carved horn. A wooden devil mask. A gilt-edged book. Something that looks like a dinosaur skull. Fifteen different items in all. I reach out to pick up the book and DeBlanc calls, “Do not touch that. It is worth more than your family.”

  I stop, curl my fingers back into my palm, pull my arms down to my sides, turn around, force the corners of my mouth up at him, and continue toward the bar.

  “I had no plans,” DeBlanc says to Galvan, waving away the question, clearly lying.

  “We don’t have much else to go on, Mr. DeBlanc. We found a bot, are you missing one?”

  He considers this, answers offhandedly. “As it happens. One of my personal security robots seems to be missing.”

  “Last reported near the waterfront?” Galvan asks.

  “Yes,” he says, his mouth halfway to a sneer, “so I was told.”

  “And are you missing anything else? Anything you might have carried on your person?”

  “Such as?”

  “A bag? Jewelry, cashcards, devices of any kind?”

  “Nothing. I don’t wear jewelry,” DeBlanc says, flitting his hand in the air before running it down and over his chest. “I prefer to project an understated air.”

  This time I’m not quick enough to stifle the laugh. Mr. DeBlanc glances over at me but doesn’t say anything. Whatever was in that shyft has him completely mellowed out.

  Galvan indicates the foil wrapping DeBlanc’s neck, “Is this your only cuff?”

  “I have a number of them,” he responds. “But now that you say—” his eyes snap back to focus “—my VonGrotier!”

  “A VonGrotier?” Galvan murmurs, clearly unimpressed. “That’s a…valuable…piece of hardware. Could you—” DeBlanc’s already deposited his glass on the low stone table and floated from the room, his robe trailing behind him.

  Once he’s gone, I hurry to the bar, reach my hand into the bowl and shuffle through the caps until I’ve found five emblazoned with Xiao’s mark. It doesn’t take long. I palm them and come out from behind the bar just as DeBlanc flies back into the room, arms waving.

  “Thief!” he bellows, marching to Galvan. “My VonGrotier, it is missing. I have been robbed.”

  “Can you provide us with an image or serial number?” Galvan reaches into his jacket for his tab.

  “Of course, of course,” DeBlanc says and disappears into his head. A moment later, my tab buzzes with the information, but he doesn’t come out after it. Galvan and I stand watching his immobile skyn for five increasingly awkward minutes as the expression on his face slowly droops, like the muscle fibres in his face are dissolving before our eyes.

  When he finally comes out of his head, whatever it was he saw in there was more powerful than the shyft’s relaxation effects. He looks like he’s just been handed a death sentence.

  “Everything okay, sir?” Galvan asks.

  DeBlanc’s head jerks up at the sound of Galvan’s voice, like he’d forgotten we were in the room. This is it. Co-operation time’s over. He’s just seen whatever it was that called off the other two victims.

  “Yes, of course it is, why wouldn’t it be?” DeBlanc says, his distraught voice barely contained. “Now, I’m afraid I must ask you to leave. This interview has concluded.”

  Galvan anticipated this too, doesn’t let DeBlanc’s sudden change in demeanour fluster him. “If you could answer a few more questions, Mr. DeBlanc, it could greatly help our investigation. Don’t you want us to find out what happened during your lost time? It will only take a few more minutes.”

  “No,” he says his voice as hard as it can be under the tranquilizing effect of the shyft. “I made a mistake. There has been no crime. Now, you must leave. I insist.”

  Galvan looks over to me, unsure what to do next. My turn.

  Whatever DeBlanc saw in his head has scared him. Terrified him. Let’s work with that.

  “Wearing a piece of hardware like your missing cuff to a secluded area in the middle of the night,” I say, crossing the room to stand beside Galvan. “Are you sure you don’t remember where you might have worn an item like that? With a pair of silverseal shoes and a gilt-thread suit. You were very well-dressed for a spontaneous hike.”

  “I said I don’t,” he replies, his eyes darting back and forth between Galvan and me.

  “What about your Cortex? We have it back at the lab—do you consent to have one of our techs examine it for trace memories?” He doesn’t need to know it’s fused.

  “You can do this?” he asks quietly.

  “Oh, yes,” Galvan confirms. “We’ll hook it up and comb through it to see what we can find about what happened last night.”

  “You’ll be able to spy through my memories?”

  “Only those deemed pertinent to the case,” Galvan answers.

  “What’s left of them,” I add.

  “I absolutely forbid it,” DeBlanc states.

  “Well, thank you for your time, Mr. DeBlanc.” I say, turn and tread toward the elevator. “Detective Wiser, lets go finish the report and close this one up.”

  DeBlanc’s face falls even further as he watches us leave. I can’t tell if he’s relieved we’re dropping the case or even more scared we’re actually leaving. Ordinarily, I’d be happy to walk away from this rich asshole and let him deal with his problems on his own, but there’s something else going on here. And the fact that he doesn’t want to tell me means I definitely need to find out what it is.

  “Mr. DeBlanc,” I say, stopping at the foot of the stairs to the foyer, “just one more thing.”

  I turn and extend my hand, open my fingers to reveal the shyfts cradled in my palm. “Could you tell us where you obtained these?”

  He sighs wearily and shuffles over, looks down to the shyfts. His lips curl, ready to fling an insult, but something catches and he chokes back whatever it was he was about to say.

  I follow his eyes to the shyfts in my hand and notice one of them is cycling through a series of forced-perspective images.

  A birthday cake.

  A snowy meadow.

  A glowing campfire.

  It’s a Dwell, the memory playback shyft. The edges of my vision sparkle and I have to concentrate on remaining upright. I hadn’t bothered to look at the contents of the shyfts I’d pulled from the bar, just the logos on the end.

  A Dwell. I can slot this, get a clear image of the driver who killed Connie, make a much more detailed composite with the AMP. All it means is risking my brain and my rep and my job.

  The shyfts start to rattle and I notice my hand is shaking. I snap it shut and realise DeBlanc has been talking.

  “—a party recently,” he finishes. He knows he shouldn’t have these but is shielding his
guilt with nonchalant anger, waving away any responsibility on his part. “Someone must have brought them. Why do you ask?”

  I counter his nonchalance with a veiled threat. “We both know these shyfts are illegal, Mr. DeBlanc. From what I see, you’ve got a few hundred in that bowl. If they’re not yours, tell us the name of the person who brought them.”

  “I don’t recall,” he says, artfully casual.

  “Did that same person put caps like these into the pockets of the skyn you were wearing last night?” I counter.

  DeBlanc has no quick answer for this.

  Galvan steps up, pulls his binders from his belt. “Rene DeBlanc, you are under arrest for the possession of unregulated neural modifiers. You have the right to remain silent—”

  DeBlanc’s mouth is gaping. I raise my hand, stand Galvan down.

  “Do you know the punishment for this particular Standards violation?” I ask.

  “This is intolerable. Do you not understand I am the victim here?” his arrogance is back, and ratcheted up. Right where I want him.

  “Possession of an illegal neural modifier. In addition to the stock time—which isn’t much, admittedly, but I’m told is very unpleasant—the second you’re convicted, your rep will be reduced by half its current standing, which is, from what I recall, quite high. Who knows what worms might have been lurking in all that unsanctioned code you’ve been lacing your pattern with. How can anyone be sure you are who you say you are? How can you know yourself? The Social Faith scoring agencies don’t like to take chances.”

  He doesn’t respond. The tendons in his neck are bowstring tight.

  “I’m sure you know what happens to someone with a shitty rep—” I gesture across his living room, “—the Resident Board won’t appreciate you dragging the building’s score down and will rescind your tenancy. Your hotshot lawyers will stop answering your calls.” I look at the woman on the couch. All through this she hasn’t moved. There might not even be anyone home, just a pretty object propped up for show like the rest of the decor, the couch just another display pedestal. “Do you think she’ll stick by you when you’re waiting in line like everyone else to get on the subway?” I let that hang in the air. The tension has drained from his face but the anger still simmers in his eyes. “I’m sure you’ll be able to buy it back close to where you have it now, in a few years. That is, if you have anything left to buy it back with.” I give him a second to consider all this, to let the weight of it settle on him, and I watch as the anger fades, leaving him even more bereft than he was when he came out of his head.

  “You don’t understand,” he says, the arrogance drained away.

  “You’re not telling us the truth,” I say. “About your whereabouts last night. About where you obtained these caps. We’re not in the habit of going easy on people who lie to the police, Mr. DeBlanc, but maybe, if you tell us what’s going on, we can help each other out.”

  Galvan starts to object, I shush him with a look. DeBlanc drags himself back to the couch, slumps down with enough force to dislodge the woman from the position she’s been stuck in. She rolls over without her body position changing, ending with her face buried in the cushions.

  “I don’t know where to begin,” he says.

  “Why don’t you start with where you were last night?”

  “Do you know of the arKade?” He pronounces it with a short second A. Ar-cad.

  Now it’s Galvan’s turn to drop his mouth. He’s been hunting for the arKade for weeks. It’s like a trade show for Reszo crime. Every Rithmist and Fleshmith and Genitect worth knowing about all in the same place at the same time. And no one but those invited find out the location until it’s over.

  My heart kicks up a step. This could be our link to Xiao.

  “You were at the arKade?” Galvan asks, clearly unable to believe what he’s hearing.

  “I was supposed to be,” Deblanc answers.

  “How did you even find out about it?”

  DeBlanc gives him a how-do-you-think? look. “I was invited.”

  “By who?” Galvan presses.

  “Monsieur X.”

  X? Could Xiao himself have sent the invitation?

  “Was it Xiao?” I ask.

  “Xiao?” DeBlanc says, the confusion clear on his face.

  “Xiao. The man who made half of those shyfts you have on your bar,” I say.

  He looks from me to the bar and back again. “I don’t know this Xiao.”

  Galvan steps toward him, raises the binders. That gets his tongue moving again.

  “I swear it to you. The invitation was signed only with an X. That is all. It came by post, if you can imagine.”

  “Do you still have it?” Galvan asks, leaning even closer to DeBlanc.

  “No. I disposed of it as instructed.”

  “Where was it held?” Galvan’s right in his face now.

  DeBlanc shrugs, turns his face away from Galvan. “I don’t know. I was told to meet at a rendezvous near the lake, off Leslie Street.”

  “Just down the street from the treatment plant,” I say, and my voice breaks whatever took hold of Galvan and he lowers the binders then sneaks a look of embarrassment in my direction and steps away from DeBlanc.

  DeBlanc doesn’t even notice. He nods vigorously.

  It’s obvious to all of us what happened last night, but I say it anyway.

  “So you went to this arKade, dressed in a few hundred thousand NAD worth of look-at-me clothing and gear. Someone knew a whole lot of very rich, very stupid people would be traipsing into the parklands, and that eventually the perfect target would come along—a target so sure of their own sense of immortality or messed up on whatever those shyfts were packing that they wouldn’t think twice about strolling home through a deserted area in the middle of the night. Bet they did a little dance when they saw you coming.”

  DeBlanc buries his chin in his chest, probably imaging life in a low-fi stock, or chiding himself for being so careless—either last night or not bothering to put away his drugs before the cops arrived. Or both.

  He may look and act like some kind of Greek god, the world literally at his feet, able to handle anything, but inside he’s still a spoiled, self-centred octogenarian. He’ll do whatever it takes to keep his lifestyle.

  Gives us something to work with.

  “There’s more,” DeBlanc whispers. Tears are blooming in his perfect green eyes. They overflow and spill down his cheeks.

  I’m struck with a pang of regret for revelling in his misfortune, but only a small one. He’s still an asshole.

  He sniffles, wipes the tears away and says, “When I went into my Headspace, to get the information on my VonGrotier, I noticed messages. The first one was a transaction notification, from my bank, confirming a withdrawal.”

  “A withdrawal you don’t remember making,” Galvan says, there’s sympathy in his voice now too. DeBlanc nods his head in confirmation. “How much?”

  “Everything. They took everything,” he says. He’s shaking. On the verge of a breakdown.

  “But there was something else, wasn’t there?” I ask, playing a hunch.

  DeBlanc doesn’t answer. He only nods, barely moving at all.

  “Tell us. We can help you,” Galvan says.

  “You can’t help me,” DeBlanc says. “That is the point, entirely. No one can help me, not now.”

  “Try us,” I offer.

  “The message warned me not to go to the police. It said if I did, I would regret it.”

  “We can protect you, Mr. DeBlanc,” Galvan says.

  “No one can help me. No one can protect me. The damage is done already.”

  “Why,” I ask. “What did it say?”

  DeBlanc laughs, once, a laugh that’s balanced on the precipice of madness, and then looks up at us, his eyes wild. “The message,” he says, “was from me. Pleading. It told me only things I would know, and then it told me, if I co-operated with the police, if there was an investigation, they’d torture him�
��me.”

  Galvan whistles softly. “A mindjack. They psyphoned the rithm from his Cortex and dug his personal info out of his stolen pattern.”

  “How could this happen?” DeBlanc says, rising to his feet and taking Galvan by the hand. “Can you fix this?”

  “It was probably one of those shyfts we found on your skyn at the scene,” Galvan says, tugging his hand loose and stepping back out of DeBlanc’s reach. “It installed a trojan that allowed the attackers to invade your Cortex, bypass the firewalls and copy the rithm right out of your head. They couldn’t have forced their way in. You’d have to agree to it.”

  “I caused this—” DeBlanc says, and for the first time I can see through the charade of his new skyn to the scared old man within.

  “Shit,” I say. “Okay, Mr. DeBlanc, we’ll keep this quiet for now. No official investigation.”

  “Are you sure—” Galvan starts, but is cut off by a muffled cry and a thump from the other end of the couch. I swing around to see the blonde’s finally awake. She sitting on the floor, legs stretched out in front of her.

  “What the hell, Rene?” She’s clawing the hair out of her eyes. “Why was I face-first in the couch—” she notices us and her eyes flare. She reaches down, runs her hand over her crotch, inspects her fingers, looks up accusingly. “Did you let your friends at me again while I was zoning?”

  “Not now, Serenity,” DeBlanc sobs. “I am ruined.”

  “We’ll be in touch,” I say, and we show ourselves out.

  StatUS-ID

  [fdaa:9afe:17e6:a2ef::Gage/-//GIBSON]

  SysDate

  [00:42:52. Friday, January 17, 2059]

  Shelt greets us with hugs that go on a little too long.

  He steps back, massages my biceps, looks me up and down. “Nice skyn,” he says.

  “It wears a bit tight,” I say and he squints for a second then hiccups through a laugh.

  He looks almost identical to the skyn Dora had hijacked to get us in here. Average height, average build. Perfect camouflage. He could be anyone.

  But he can’t hide his personality. He’s jumpy, moving in sharp, exaggerated bursts. His clothes look like they’ve been on him for a month. Any suspicions I had that he was working with Dub are rapidly evaporating. He’s scared.