Asimov's Science Fiction 03/01/11

by Dell Magazines

“How old is the contact?”

  I search my memory. Of course, if my memory were good for much, I wouldn’t be doing this.

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Ah.” A tiny light bulb appears above Ming’s pixilated head. “You had a flashback?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “I was in a bus, riding through a ghetto.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know. Gray tenements and hardware stores. Black, Jewish, Latin.”

  “Could be anywhere,” Ming says.

  “Then it came to me. A memory. A girl with curly bangs. Petite. Short, dark hair. She was standing in a door. The sun was behind her. I remember blowing curtains.”

  “Audio?” Ming says.

  “No.”

  “Smells?”

  “Smoke.”

  “Interesting.” I hear Ming clicking, fussing. “Who was she, do you think? Lover? Friend? Not to put a fine point on it: did you get sexy vibes?”

  “She was holding a cigarette. She put it out. That was all.”

  “What’s the affect? How did you feel?”

  “I felt hope.”

  “Sounds like a hard case,” Ming says. “You’ve got a pile of weak markers, there. Not to put a fine point on it: this could take a long time.”

  “Not to put a fine point on it: how long are we talking?”

  “No more than two weeks. You mind wearing glasses for that long?”

  “Not if they’re fashionable.”

  “Awesome. Here’s the plan. I’ll send you a lim kit by mail: glasses, headphones, a slow-release scent capsule. Be careful with them; you have to return them when you’re done. We’ll run visuals on you by day and try some scents and audio at night. Of course we’ll be monitoring your reactions the whole time.”

  “Will I notice anything?”

  “What do you think, Einstein? They call it subliminal stimulation for a reason. No, you won’t notice anything, but your body will. Conditioned responses and such. You can go about your normal business, but you’ll feel a bit disoriented.”

  “What else is new?”

  He grins. “Don’t make any impulse purchases. Seriously, Ray, you sure you want to put yourself through this? All to dig up the name of some ancient one-night stand? Some face in the crowd?”

  “For hope,” I say, “I’d put myself through anything.”

  I lie awake that night thinking about the girl I’m going to find—the beautiful woman buried in my memory. The thought of her waiting back there, out there— in there —is like a good song that never stops playing. Who was she? Did she love me? Has she forgotten all about me, as I’ve very nearly forgotten her?

  Thursday is coffee with Ruben, a quick discussion of the FoodWay contract. I get lost on the way to the meeting. The bus routes have changed again. I check the mapping services, but they’re all behind the times, or maybe ahead of the times.

  I end up in a new hood, fresh towers going up on all sides, a smell of melted polymers in the air. You can see the buildings growing like huge black crystals, invading the light-polluted sky. The construction-bots are hard at work. I hear them, busy as bees, droning like a microwave.

  At last I find the location of the lunch meeting, a new joint by the river with tapestries and rattan furniture. Espresso steam wanders like the Milky Way across the eyes of the prettyboy cashier. The cashier tells me I look like Van Gogh, but, you know, less green. I wire him a big tip.

  Ruben sits in the back, waving. Ruben is Claire’s replacement. I never met Claire. I have only met Ruben, and only twice. He tells me I look tired. I tell him espresso has that effect on me. I tell him it’s ironic.

  “You remember Boris, right?” Ruben says. A big flat-nosed man nods from a nearby chair. “And Yevgeni?” Ruben says. Another figure swivels. “They’re looking for an update on the Vendi account,” Ruben says.

  “I thought this was the FoodWay account,” I say.

  “It is,” says Ruben. “It’s also the Vendi account. The Vendi account is a sub-account of the FoodWay account.”

  “Just show us the proofs,” the man named Boris says.

  I wire them some proofs I have in my portfolio. I don’t remember making the proofs. Maybe I subcontracted for them. At any rate, the men seem satisfied. They pay me with a bundle of account-addresses and passkeys, access to microfinance funds maintained by a Balkan state. It’s a little shady, but I don’t complain.

  Boris says, “Pow,” when he transfers the account numbers. I remember him now. He always says Pow.

  Yevgeni says, “Don’t spend it all on one face.”

  “You guys need a new shtick,” I say.

  Yevgeni says, “Forget shtick. Take a look at those crumpets.”

  He’s looking at something behind me. I ask, “Do they have crumpets here?” For some reason everyone laughs.

  Friday I pick up the limpack. The glasses are smart enough. In Boondock Montana they might pass for a real accessory. There’s also a patch that goes under my arm. The scent pack is a little thing that clips to my collar. The earphones are labeled, For Night Use Only.

  I put the glasses on and wait for something to happen. I stare hard at the lenses, searching for subliminal images. I don’t see a thing. There’s a button on the frame. When I press it, I see Terms of Use displayed in the glasses, pre-signed, though I don’t remember signing anything. I skim the legalese.

  . . . by submitting to subliminal mnemonic stimulation, you grant to the Federated Archives rights and access to all private records bearing on the identification of target events, and further . . .

  . . . signify your understanding that monitored reactions will include, but not be limited to: pupil dilation, muscle contraction, skin conductivity, sub-vocalizations (in complying polities), vocalized pseudo-references (i.e. Freudian slips), heart rate, respiratory rate . . .

  . . . for the sole purpose of tracing so-called “unconscious memories” . . .

  An awful lot of boilerplate for a process that amounts to hi-tech fortune telling. I press the button again, and the contract disappears. I put the earpiece and headphones in my computer case.

  Friday night is a free night. I check my feeds. Diane wants to talk. Someone named Betty wants to get to know me. Roger will be at the 2fer. I post a vague status so no one will be offended.

  I activate the bedroom mirror and try the glasses with ten different shirts. Nothing matches, so I put in an order: yellow, imitation jacquard. I hit the fridge and say, “Shake me. Banana.” I drink the shake and pick up my shirt at the hall dispenser.

  Before I leave, I check the mirror again. “No date, no fate,” I tell my reflection.

  The 2fer is a dead zone, not a prettyboy or chickadee in sight. Funny; it used to be so hip. I look for MacAttack, but it’s gone. The Shark Lounge is closed for renovations. I have a running tab at the Shark Lounge, and the scanner by the door picks up my RFID. It tells me there’s been a change of location; try Reagan Street. I don’t know where that is. I hit the maps and there’s no Reagan Street anywhere in the three cities. Big surprise. Presidents are out. All the streets are named after Japanese baseball players now, like the parks. I decide to try One-Eight.

  The neighborhood around One-Eight has changed. It’s a candyland, now, all glass and light, a carnival atmosphere. The tourists have gotten hold of it. I miss the gritty look it had last month.

  Inside One-Eight, everything smells like frangipani. They’re doing smoke-art above the dance floor. The west bar has been colonized by a flock of chickadees trading drug-laced pacifiers. Not my scene. Light breaks in the east: a prettyboy winks at me above the milling heads. Something in my brain cries out cashier, but I can’t think where I’ve seen him. A little while ago I hooked up with a wrap shop cashier, but that was a chickadee. I remember breasts, knee-high boots.

  The prettyboy sidles to my side. “Van Gogh!”

  It connects. I grin. “A little less green.”

  �
��Take a sip of that.” He points at the drink he just handed me. “You may turn green after all.”

  The drink tastes of sweetness, joy, disinhibition. “What’s your dating tag?” I say to my new companion.

  “Michael.”

  “Like the archangel.”

  “Sure. If you behave.” He studies my face in the glow of the smoke-art display. “How long have you been around, Vincent?”

  At the moment, I can’t remember. I flash him my stats. He skims the numbers. “Well, well, Mr. Old-Timer. Looks like you’ll be paying me, tonight.”

  “That’s all right. I’m rolling in credit.”

  “You’d better be,” Michael says. “I’m two thirds your age.”

  I nudge him toward the bar. “Come on. I’ve got a fresh credit line I’ve been waiting to tap. Russian oil money, peaking on a scare. Let’s blow it before they invent cold fusion.”

  “I don’t know if they take oil here,” Michael says.

  “They’ll take it the way I plan to spend it.”

  At the bar there are mirrors and fluorescents. I get a good look at Michael. He really is an angel. Gold hair and feather-soft skin. I promise myself not to forget his face. I’m generous with promises when I tap new credit.

  I stroke his forearm. “Boy, I’m going to blow a fortune tonight. All on one face. Don’t tell Yevgeni.”

  “Don’t tell who?”

  I shake my head. “Cross-connect.”

  Michael points at the menu. “Hey! Look what they have!”

  I follow his finger to the drink specials, laugh and give him a squeeze.

  “Vincent and I,” Michael tells the bartender, “are going to share a Starry Night.”

  Saturday morning is Michael in a mask, Michael biting a zipper, Michael tossing me this way and that. Michael has nice abs and shoulders, no chest. His skin is soft and hairless, like a child’s. I’m happy with his appearance, with my own performance. Sometimes I like being an Old Timer.

  We rip my flimsy folding bed from the wall and frolic like two castaways. For once, I’m glad to be living in cheap housing, even if it means moving ten times a year.

  By the time we’re tuckered out, it’s bright morning. I climb out of bed and get my glasses off the nightstand. Michael watches me put them on.

  “You’re limming, huh? I noticed those last night. Face, place, or thing?”

  “Face,” I say, climbing back into bed. “Some girl I used to know.”

  I don’t tell him what the girl means to me. I don’t tell him her face is like a song, a holiday decoration, a sudden intensification of sunlight—an image that fills me with hope.

  Michael says, “Don’t get too excited. I tried it once. Limming. I was looking for an old video game I used to play, when I lived with my mother in her bungalow in Cuba.” His voice grows steadily quieter as he speaks, so that listening to him is like falling asleep.

  “All I remembered,” Michael says, “was standing in a palace, by the sea. Thousands of rooms. I didn’t remember what the game was about. Only that scene.”

  I hear an argument through the thin walls, the sound of streaming TV, unfamiliar languages. A chorus of alarms serenades us, fades.

  “It didn’t take long to track it down,” Michael says. “A day of limming screenshots. Glasses only. After ten hours they called with the ocular response charts. I played the game again. It was awful.”

  “Those old games never hold up,” I say. “The industry’s advancing at light speed.”

  Michael shakes his head. “That wasn’t the problem. The thing is, before I found the game, I felt like the past still existed in some way. You know? Like it was all out there waiting for me. But when I played that game, I realized it was gone. The bungalows, my mother, the beaches, the coastline. Even Cuba. Does Cuba still exist?”

  He squints, as though he can see the scene above us even now, the palace by the sea with its myriad towers and windows.

  “Maybe it’s not so good to have a strong memory,” Michael says. “Maybe in some ways it’s smarter to forget.”

  I stare at the ceiling through my glasses. Michael’s story hangs over us like a tent. I feel that we’re trapped in a cell, that our silence is eating up the air. We’re going to suffocate if we don’t speak soon.

  “That’s too bad,” I say. I give Michael a kiss. “I’m going to the bathroom. I’ll be right back.”

  When I come out of the bathroom, Michael is gone.

  On Sunday I have another meeting for the FoodWay contract, across town in a corporate park. The bus routes have changed again. The trains are on a reduced schedule due to a police investigation. No one seems to know what the investigation is about. I try to rent a car, but the computer on the phone says my credit is bad.

  “Which credit?” I say. “I have two hundred credit lines in my pocket portfolio.”

  The AI says, “Sorry, chump. I’m not licensed to reveal that information.”

  “Is it the Russian oil? Did they invent fusion power?”

  “How would I know, jerk?” the AI says and disconnects.

  I decide to risk the zip-lines. I head to the terminal and strap myself into the suit. A robot hooks me to the cable, and next thing I know I’m reeling across town, my own private sky-car. I feel nauseous. The lim is getting to me. I keep picturing blowing curtains, flowing cigarette smoke. I hear a girl’s voice.

  By the end of the trip I’m dizzy as though after deep dreams. The zip-line dumps me in the wrong neighborhood. I stagger across the landing platform. “What the hell?” I say to the robot at the terminal. “I have an appointment, you know.”

  The robot displays a virtual person on its public interface screen.

  “This is your appointment, moron. Change of venue. It’s in your public calendar. What, did you forget? Stupid!”

  I’m getting sick of these new AIs, with their so-called authentic attitude. “Appointments are old-fashioned, anyway,” I grumble, and stalk away.

  It’s an old neighborhood, behind the fashion curve by a year at least. Helium-purple and obsidian trim, pennoncels and half-arches, neo-Brancusian curvomatics. Flowerbeds.

  The FoodWay appointment is in a curved faux-stone tower, a gray talon. I’m only an hour late. Except now they’re no longer FoodWay, and Ruben’s a no-show. In the rented conference room I find a short Asian man at a teak-top table.

  “Simon!” he says, rising to greet me.

  “I’m Ray,” I say. “And I think I’m in the wrong place.”

  “What are you looking for?” the Asian man says.

  “FoodWay. Vendi. Design contract.”

  “Yes!” he says, smiling. “Except, no. No more FoodWay. Now, Lodexho-Yu.”

  “Bought out, huh?”

  “Last night. I am Jurgen.”

  “Jurgen?” I take a seat at the teak-top. “What have you done with Ruben?”

  Jurgen’s face puckers with confusion. “Who?”

  “Ruben,” I say. “Tall guy. Good taste in shirts. He was filling in for Claire.”

  “Who?”

  “Claire. She works for FoodWay. I mean, Vendi. I mean, Lodexho-Yu.”

  “We are Lodexho-Yu.”

  “So Claire no longer works for you?”

  “Who is this Claire?”

  “I don’t know. I never met her. All I know is that she hired Ruben.”

  “Ruben?”

  “The guy with the shirts.”

  “My friend,” Jurgen says, “we all wear shirts.”

  I have no response to this. Jurgen gives the table a rap. “Simon,” he says.

  “My name is Ray.”

  “We are concerned,” Jurgen says, thumbing through a laminated portfolio, “about your designs.”

  “What’s wrong with them?”

  Jurgen squints at one of my proofs. He flips it over. He rotates it. “They are . . . old-fashioned.”

  “That’s because FoodWay,” I say, “is an old-fashioned company.”

  “There is no FoodWay,
” Jurgen says. “We are Lodexho-Yu.”

  “I know.” I pat the table. “Things change. I understand completely. You have my total support.”

  “Ray.”

  “My name is Simon.”

  “Simon.”

  “I mean Ray.”

  “We will accept your designs, Ray. But we insist on owning full modification rights. And there will be a currency downgrade.”

  My blood goes bubbly. “No more Shanghai electrics?”

  “We are prepared to give you,” Jurgen says soberly, “a fully diversified collectibles package—”

  “Collectibles!” I practically fall out of my chair.

  “With autotrades enabled—”

  “You’re paying me in comic book and action figure securities?”

  “—in five major markets—”

  “Just let me redo the contract!”

  “And that,” Jurgen says, “is our final offer.”

  I feel the flashback coming a second before it hits. The memories rise in me like nausea. Flowers in a field. The Eiffel Tower gowned in light. A fly on a yellow curtain. A woman’s voice. Where did I encounter these things? Five years ago? Ten years ago? What do they mean?

  “Ray?” Jurgen’s voice comes from far away. “Simon? Ruben?”

  “It’s okay,” I stammer. “I’m limming. It’s a government project. I’m connecting with my past.”

  I get to my feet, knocking over my chair.

  “I’m looking for a girl,” I explain. “Someone I used to know . . .”

  “Ray? Are you all right?”

  “My name,” I shriek, striking the table, “is Vincent!”

  Pain runs up my arm; the memories vanish. Beyond Jurgen’s worried face, I see a new skyscraper going up, teeming with construction-bots, crawling into the sky like a monstrous caterpillar. “There goes the neighborhood,” I say.

  Jurgen shakes his head.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m tired. Too much espresso. It’s ironic, you see. Can we reschedule? Would Tuesday work for you?”

  “On Tuesdays,” Jurgen says, “I live in California.”

  I stare at him for a full minute before I realize I’ve been brushed off.