Perdigon

by Tom Caldwell

  “Yup,” said Roshan, not breaking eye contact with Jacob. “Can we please just do this competently, without acting like we’re above it? Everyone has to do marketing, Murdoch.”

  “All right. From now on, I’ll just spontaneously and naturally say what you told me to say.”

  “Well, I’m really touched that you guys wanted to capture this moment on video,” Jacob said, intervening before they could waste too much of the crew’s time. He clapped his hands with forced cheer. If there was one thing Jacob Roth was good at, it was forced cheer. “It’s been so long since we saw you—come on over here, Murdoch, you can’t refuse me a hug tonight! Although of course you can, I don’t want to hug you without consent.”

  “I do not consent,” said Murdoch.

  “If you’re not going to help then stay off-camera. Let’s go find Ezra and then we’re on our way,” said Roshan, shouldering past the lighting guy to proceed down the hall. “Oh, hey Natalie, look who we found—”

  Natalie was waiting at the corner of the hallway with Shruti slouching against the wall beside her. “I wanted to be right there when you opened the door, but Roshan didn’t want to crowd the frame,” Natalie said with a crooked smile, giving Jacob a quick hug. “We found Shruti for you, we thought you guys deserved a better send-off.”

  Jacob’s eyes prickled as he embraced Shruti again, her skinny arms looped low around his waist. “God, I didn’t know when we’d see you again—”

  “Don’t give me abandonment issues, dude,” Shruti mumbled against his shirt, then stood back and pasted on a brisk smile. “Enough with the reunions, let’s go…”

  “Where are we going?” Natalie asked Jacob. “You know where Ezra’s room is, right?”

  “Marty showed me a few days ago,” said Jacob, leading his friends and the disaffected camera crew in the right direction. “They’ve got him in…um, I’m not sure that filming this part of the station is going to be a good idea…”

  “If we’re not allowed there,” said the camera tech with the Moses beard, “you can’t pay us enough to go.”

  “I think you’ll find we can,” Roshan said. “Let’s remember our through-lines here, okay? Stay in the moment.”

  “We’re not gonna go out of our way to piss off Bija, okay?” said the bearded tech’s partner, a scruffy guy who was almost as tall as Jacob, built like Joey Ramone. “We don’t want to get blackballed from distribution on the Lumen.”

  “First of all, the Lumen’s gonna be toast in two years when Ahriman rolls over Bija. Second, there’s a ten-thousand-dollar gratuity in it for each of you if you stick with us all the way back to the ship.”

  Natalie flipped to the writeboard screen on her phone and scrawled OVERSPENDING on it, flashing the screen in Roshan’s direction.

  “…And not a penny more,” Roshan told the crew.

  “Deal,” said Moses.

  Joey Ramone sighed. “You’re the boss.”

  Marty found them in the central concourse, and as they rode the walkway to BijaNext, Moses took some establishing shots of the station and Natalie went through the motions of an oral history interview.

  NATALIE: How are you doing, are you excited to see Ezra again?

  ROSHAN: Totally. Yeah. Very excited.

  NATALIE: How long has it been?

  ROSHAN: Well, we haven’t really been—like, I wouldn’t say estranged. It was very much an amicable breakup, Taltos and Ahriman. We still went to Jacob and Ezra’s wedding. Beautiful ceremony.

  MURDOCH: Beautiful? Really?

  ROSHAN: I mean, you could definitely tell which parts of it were things that Ezra chose. But everything else was really nice.

  NATALIE: What was the original impetus for splitting into two companies?

  MURDOCH: Ezra wanted to build something that didn’t work, and we wanted to develop Ahriman, which did work.

  NATALIE: I’m gonna ask that question again, and we’ll hear Jacob’s answer this time. What was the original impetus for splitting into two companies?

  JACOB: Taltos was facing some challenges as we developed the implant model, but Ahriman—a machine learning system that Liz Murdoch created—was in an incredibly strong position to dominate the market. Ahriman may be named after a Zoroastrian force of cosmic evil, but the system’s so aggressive and robust that I always thought of it as a mighty minotaur just waiting to be unleashed upon the hapless Athenian youths and maids. So far it’s dispatched them all handily, with nary a sign of a Theseus on the horizon. In a situation like that, it only made sense to let Ahriman forge on ahead while we at Taltos focused on perfecting our product.

  NATALIE: Thank you. Jesus, Murdoch, was that so hard?

  Thus rebuffed, Murdoch turned to Marty, who was playing a game on his tablet like a bored kid on a field trip. “I want your system password,” Liz announced.

  “You can have it, but I don’t really have any kind of interesting system privileges,” Marty said with a shrug. “I had full system access at first, but I didn’t use any of the advanced features. After the first six months they said, ‘use it or lose it’ and cut me down to Bija Express level.”

  “Bija Express?” Liz shook her head. “That’s cold.”

  “Kinda, but really, all I do is use chat and the multiplayer servers. Sometimes I stream games, but people just dunk on me all the time. The chat window just fills up with users calling me an idiot, and anyhow, I don’t really like the interface—”

  “Why don’t you let me have that password anyway,” Liz interrupted.

  When they got off the moving walkway at the Nirodha arm of the station, they were accosted by a security guard, a trim and intense man with a shaved head. A true believer. His name tag read Turnbull, and he was important enough that he was wearing a suit rather than the usual Bija polo-and-lanyard uniform.

  “What’s up, gang—shooting the next big indie flick, huh?” said Turnbull with a smile. “Unfortunately, BijaNext is a restricted area, although I do understand the impulse to immortalise it for the historical record. Mind if I check your ID real quick?”

  “We logged in at the Samudaya gate,” said Natalie, showing him the code on her tablet. It was spoofed, Murdoch’s handiwork, but it turned up a convincing result when Turnbull scanned it. “Everything’s kosher. We’re exclusively using Bija tech to film, even.”

  Turnbull frowned at the screen, then glanced at Shruti and nodded. “Sounds good. Sorry to bother you, folks, enjoy the rest of your day. Ms. Agnihotri, Mr. Roth—I hope your time at Bija has been pleasant.”

  “As pleasant as it always is, thank you,” said Jacob.

  Shruti gave him a tight smile, brows lifted. “The pleasantest.”

  Turnbull left them, and Jacob hurried to the nurses’ station with Natalie and the others in tow. The white corridors were as quiet as they were last time, and through the viewport, the cold planet with its pale sea ice was in darkness, a few points of light scattered across its face. Mining settlements, maybe. The staff deferred to Marty, as usual.

  Shruti was clearly weirded out. “I feel like they’re going to wheel Ezra out on an upright gurney wearing a straitjacket and a muzzle.”

  “It wasn’t quite that bad,” Jacob said, reaching down to take Shruti’s hand. To reassure himself, just as much as her. “We’ll go in together, maybe keep the lighting…subdued, and we won’t crowd him. Can we find a wheelchair, actually?”

  “On it,” said Natalie, breaking to go sweet-talk the nurses.

  “Ezra can still walk, though, right?” Shruti said as she followed Jacob to the dimly-lit hall that was marked WARNING: UNSHIELDED AREA. “They didn’t…did they do something to him?”

  “He was already in rough shape when we left Perdigon, and the implant had to be removed,” Jacob said. “So the wheelchair’s just a precaution. He gets tired pretty quickly.”

  “This is such a clusterfuck,” Shruti whispered to herself as the scanner made its unsettling noises in the walls, beeps and bangs and deep flanging thuds.

>   The last panel slid back to reveal the small, red-lit chamber where Ezra was waiting. He didn’t look any worse than usual, Jacob thought, but Shruti wasn’t ready for it and drew her breath in sharply.

  “I can’t believe they roped you into this, I’m sorry,” Ezra said to Shruti, although he was clearly not surprised to see her.

  “That’s such a gracious welcome.” Shruti reached for his arm. “Come on, man, they didn’t rope me into anything. You tried to get me home, so I can try to get you home. Are you okay? You don’t look okay.”

  “I’m fine if Jacob gets me on my feet,” said Ezra, struggling to get upright with their help. “This was Natalie’s idea, right?”

  “It was.”

  “Has Turnbull spotted us already or does that not happen yet?”

  “That…already happened,” Jacob said.

  Shruti helped Ezra over the threshold and into the hall. “Are we already fucked, then?”

  “Not…necessarily,” Ezra said, taking a long breath and steadying himself between Shruti and Jacob. “Turnbull buys the documentary story and gets excited to tell Magnus about it, so that the boss can show up to look pretty on camera. Magnus is gonna intercept us, so just—don’t give him a reaction.”

  “Jesus fucking Christ, Magnus, can we have a minute without this performative PR shit?” Shruti muttered. “Is there time to get back to the ship before he—”

  But there was no time.

  Magnus stepped into view at the end of the hallway, flanked by Moses and Joey Ramone, who were filming his best angles. “Ezra, here at Bija we really do frown on spoilers. Banworthy offence.”

  From behind him, Natalie said in her iciest tones, “Magnus, we’re on our way back to Earth. What’s your endgame here, do you want to detain us? Because that would be an unacceptable way to treat your competitors, as well as being really childish.”

  “Ouch,” said Magnus. “Sorry, I didn’t realise you even were competitors—you’re one of Hannah Gwynn’s ladies-in-waiting at Ennead, aren’t you? Natalie something? Haven’t seen you in awhile, I like what you’ve done with your hair.”

  Natalie resisted the temptation to tell Magnus exactly what she thought of his Michael-Douglas-in-Wall-Street hair, and instead gave him a dead-eyed gaze that Hannah had helped her perfect. “Thank you. We’ll be going, then.”

  “Mm, not so fast, hang on,” said Magnus. “Turnbull told me you logged in at Samudaya, but that can’t be true. Can it? I called the desk there to ask who was shooting on the station tonight—they didn’t know. You didn’t book ahead or talk to our outreach team. Why would you lie about that?”

  “Suspicious, sir,” said Turnbull from behind Magnus, while Moses and Joey Ramone did their best to keep him out of frame.

  “Shut up, Turnbull.”

  “Sorry, sir.”

  “So that means you’re trespassing on my property—why, I couldn’t say,” Magnus said. “I have been nothing but hospitable. My medical team even saved Ezra Barany’s life, again, when the implant failed. No charge, even. I don’t know how else to prove my good intentions. But Bijaspace is sovereign territory, we’re doing a lot of major innovation here, and I will defend our right to control access.”

  “If that’s what this is about, then you can have your goons escort us to our ship and we’ll go,” Ezra said, leaning on Jacob and Shruti. There was a tremor in his limbs, but anger was keeping him going. “Problem solved. Except that’s not what you really want, is it? What you want is to make us bend the knee. Even the surgery—Christ, I almost wish I believed you that you did that out of basic human decency. But we both know you really just wanted to dig around in my skull and get a few good tissue samples.”

  “Without having to ask for consent,” Natalie filled in. “You illegally intercepted private communications about the sale of the Taltos data, and then you tried to pressure Ezra and Jacob into signing salvage agreements that would tank them while Bija profits.”

  “Absolutely false. Barany signed an employment agreement of his own free will—”

  “Bullshit, you forged my signature just to screw around with Jacob’s head—”

  Roshan was wearing a serious-businessman expression, but couldn’t keep the corners of his mouth from turning upward. “Sounds like Bija’s dealing with some very serious fraud allegations.”

  “Oh sure, figures you’d be here,” Magnus snapped. “They’re not ‘allegations’, they’re time-wasting fiction from a company of sore losers that can’t compete. They’ll fit right in at Ahriman. A bunch of entitled babies who think that rules don’t apply to them, who think they can come and threaten me on my own property—you’re lucky I haven’t had my security teams treat you like a fruit fly infestation. Any court would uphold my right to defend what’s mine—”

  Ezra interrupted. “Magnus, for fuck’s sake, you’re on camera.”

  “So? Record whatever you want. You think I’d ever let your data off this station? I’ll have all your equipment wiped before you’re allowed to undock.”

  “You’re too late. We’ve been streaming it live to Marty’s Lumen channel,” said Murdoch.

  “Whoa, hey, I didn’t know anything about this,” Marty told Magnus. It was a believable claim, but he was trying to inch his way behind Ezra at the same time. “I didn’t know she was gonna do that.”

  “See, Marty’s already got some hundred-K followers who tune in to watch him run into the wall when he plays Helios: Uprising. Which is handy,” said Liz, getting her phone out of her pocket. “They say you really need a large social network to go viral—I haven’t got one, personally. No social media, because unlike the ovine masses, I understand how privacy works. But my anarchist discussion group has twenty-five thousand subscribers, and sadly, it seems like there are some sheep among the goats. I posted the link twenty minutes ago and they’ve been sharing it everywhere.”

  “I’ve got some followers too,” Roshan added with a bit of rare false modesty. “They went for that link like sharks on a bucket of chum. As soon as Magnus Vollan made an appearance on the channel, acting unhinged and threatening violence—”

  “Hey, no, I did not…specify my preferred method for dealing with fruit flies,” said Magnus, keeping his eye on the camera lens now and choosing his words very carefully. “Nor did I intentionally compare other tech innovators with vermin. I would hope that Bija’s record of community excellence will prove that I do not support violence against…our friendly rivals at Ahriman or Ennead. Absolutely not.”

  “Look at that,” said Liz, looking down at her phone. “Your stock just dropped. Guess your acting skills need work.”

  “Let me see—” Roshan elbowed closer to look over Murdoch’s shoulder. “Eighteen percent drop, are you kidding me? Jesus, I almost feel bad now—”

  “‘Facing accusations of fraud, Bija CEO lashes out in bizarre rant on precog expert’s streaming channel.’ And they used a screenshot of you with your mouth open,” Murdoch told Magnus, showing him the screen. “It’s very unflattering.”

  “Please, the market’s twitchier than Barany these days,” Magnus said. “This is nothing. Video streams are ephemeral. I can visit a pit bull rehabilitation centre tomorrow and recoup the loss in twenty minutes.”

  “Well—while that may be true, you are still on camera,” Jacob pointed out. “They heard you say it.”

  Magnus snapped his fingers at Turnbull, who murmured an instruction into his communicator. “Kill the signal.”

  Phone and tablet screens went dark, the already dim hallway switching to emergency power.

  “Now that we have some privacy,” said Magnus, “you should think very carefully about whether you want to re-launch Taltos under circumstances like these. BijaNext is poised to start genetically engineering precogs within five years. Taltos has nothing but an implant prototype that doesn’t work, and another one that functions but also poses serious danger to consumers.”

  “Yeah, and Taltos also has Ahriman,” Ezra said. “You think
the combination of a precog and the world’s most powerful AI might be a little dangerous for you? You like those odds? I’ll bet you an even million that we’ll beat you to the patent office.”

  Natalie couldn’t flash her phone at Ezra, but she mouthed OVERSPENDING at him anyway.

  Magnus snorted. “You think you can pivot to running a genetic program that easily? You know everything there is to know about the biotech industry? I mean, historically, you guys at Taltos haven’t been quick learners. You could threaten to become a cupcake company and it’d still take you three years to figure out how to do it. Bija’s genetic program is ready to go, meanwhile Taltos doesn’t even have office space—”

  “Yeah. Well. Maybe not. But you have beef with Nestling Labs, I remember you told me that,” said Ezra, who was improvising now; there was no time to look ahead to make sure that these plans would pan out. “When you were telling me about your legacy. The kids you’re scared to have. But Nestling is a very successful and experienced biotech company, and I’m gonna take a wild guess and figure that grudge goes both ways. Maybe they’d be interested in partnering with us, if it meant they could put their thumb in your eye one more time.”

  “Nestling. Typical,” said Magnus, shaking his head. “So now you’re just volunteering to breed precogs for me? If you want to supply Bija with a steady source of psionic labour in the future, then it seems like the system’s working as intended.”

  “No. That’s not the plan.” Ezra had been hamster-wheeling through this problem ever since he discussed it with Jacob, and by now he thought he had the only usable answer. The only one he was likely to come up with, anyway. “I can’t stop you from doing research, and I can’t even stop you from setting up shop on some libertarian hell-planet like Anacreon, where you’d be free to exploit anyone with a uterus to make them breed telepaths. I could patent the gene engineering process to slow you down—and I plan to. But there’s one thing you can’t do, no matter how much money you have, Magnus. You can’t teach these telepaths. You can’t train them. You have no idea what goes into learning to master an ability like this. But I do.”