Analog SFF, January-February 2007

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Manny should have figured something like this was coming, but he'd been relying on Anne getting a hint of it, hearing some rumor or another, and she'd heard nothing. This was more like a coup than an official action. A great many Congresspeople (both chipped and regular) were fighting to get the “temporary” suspension of services reversed, but the plotters had done their jobs well.

  Too well, some would say. Already, the basic HV news channel (the only one still working, with the national weblinks down) was reporting a stock market plunge as corporate offices lost touch with each other and market feedback suddenly fell apart. The plotters had cut off the chipped from most of their resources, sure, but they'd cut their own throats in doing so. There wasn't much Manny could do but try to keep everybody calm and set up some emergency measures.

  He was composing yet another placating response when his ‘plant notified him it had lost all wireless communications. “Even with the appliances?” Manny asked. Routing mail through the processor in the refrigerator wasn't pretty, but it got the job done.

  YES, EVEN THE APPLIANCES, came up in Manny's vision. WIRELESS SIGNAL WAVELENGTHS APPEAR TO BE COUNTERED BY OUTSIDE SOURCES.

  “Jamming, eh?” Now Manny was back on familiar ground. “Figures they'd schedule it today. We've still got electricity, right?"

  LIGHTS ARE STILL ON. Manny grimaced; no need to be snide, he thought.

  “Well, let's light those home fires and lay out the welcome mat before our visitors arrive."

  Preparation is vital to survival. When the knock came at his door, Manny was right beside it. He unlocked it, pulled it ajar, and went back into the living room. Two men in black coats with black suits underneath pushed the door open as Manny settled into his big heavy recliner. They entered silently and closed the door behind them.

  “So tell me,” Manny said, clearly but in a friendly tone. “Is this a talking visit, or a shooting visit?"

  “We merely wish to talk, Mr. Gonzales,” said the taller of the two, his voice smooth as a viper.

  Manny relaxed marginally. “Have a seat, if you wish. Want a beer?” Several cans stood on the coffee table, fresh from the fridge. The men shook their heads. “Could you toss me one, then? Any old one is fine.” After a moment of staring, the shorter man obliged, and Manny popped the top with some satisfaction. “So I see you're taking the classic ‘men in black’ approach. You're going to threaten me to change my ways, and act strangely enough that nobody's going to believe my story, right? Disinformation and coercion, all at once. Have to say, it's a sweet idea..."

  “You're an important figure in the chipped community, Mr. Gonzales,” the taller man said, interrupting. The shorter man moved slowly around the room, examining Manny's belongings. “We understand you were instrumental in organizing the chipped community in this election."

  “Citizens getting involved, sir. Absolutely nothing illegal. I understand that your bosses managed to shut down the internet and cause a recession. Cheers to your side, then.” Manny raised his can, then took a sip.

  “Inconvenient. Your rabble-rousing causes concern. Disorderly."

  “But well-informed. I imagine that's part of the problem; there's certainly been enough rumbling up on the Hill. Still, this whole shutdown deal, you have to admit, that's even more disorderly. I'll go so far as to say sloppy. I mean, it's not as if it'll stay down, and it's not as if we won't find out who's behind it."

  “A series of freak accidents. Suspicion is not proof, and without proof, nobody has anything."

  “I see. So another page out of the Big Book of Cover-Ups: if you can't kill the witnesses, discredit and mock them so that they seem like nuts, even if they're citing hard facts. So what do you have in store for me?” The tall man just looked at Manny steadily. Manny thought he had the ghost of a smug smile on his stony face.

  “You assume we have anything to do with your allegations."

  “Two intimidating men in black show up at my door just after my wireless network is jammed, and not one of them has the good grace to be ... who was it ... a young William Smith. You don't sit down, you don't drink my beer, you make threatening comments, and while you don't admit to what I've said, neither do you deny it. What the hell else am I supposed to think?"

  “Perhaps we come to offer some friendly advice."

  “Friendly?"

  The tall man ignored the barb. “Politics is not like the old days. It doesn't pay to have grass roots mucking up everybody's machine. It's unhealthy, too. All that stress. Did you know that people involved in politics are prone to high blood pressure and heart attacks? It really is the stress of the job. And you with a wedding coming up and all. Ms. Daley would be so disappointed."

  “I see. It's nice of you to be worried about my health. Not that your approach is new; I think they've been using that line since the very first protection racket. ‘Gee, Og, you've got a fine wife, healthy kids, sharp mastodon spear. You really wouldn't want to risk falling into a crevasse out on the ice; better let Thak lead the hunt."

  “Your names are inaccurate. Og and Thak were not considered name words."

  Manny blinked, surprised. “Are you trying that bizarre behavior now? You've been playing it straight since you got in here, man, you might do better just keeping that up.” Not the least because that was a lame attempt, Manny didn't say.

  The shorter man spoke up suddenly. “Power source."

  Manny and the taller man looked over. The shorter guy was looking at Manny's chair. He must have a built-in device, Manny thought, though probably not a full-blown implant; no network would let him keep those kinds of secrets.

  “Specify,” said the taller man, his tone flat.

  “His chair is charged,” said the shorter man. “Wasn't on the briefing."

  Manny suddenly smiled. “Ah, there we go."

  “Where are we going, Mr. Gonzales?” The tone was wary and arch, even if the expression changed not a whit.

  “It wasn't really a ‘go’ comment, Agent Burroughs. More of a ‘there the files are, finally’ kind of comment. Are you sure you won't have a beer?” Manny gestured again at the table. He glanced at the shorter man, who had turned to stare at him. “Agent McFarland? Are you sure?"

  Burroughs stared, his face still expressionless, but Manny thought the smug was gone. McFarland stepped one pace closer and looked at the chair. “Focused antenna receiver, coaxial cable connection to transmitter or physical processor.” He looked a little ill.

  “Actually, the coax goes to a splitter which goes to three separate transmission points at different locations. Even if you jammed everything in my apartment, there were plenty of people in reception distance. We've been livecasting citywide. With special links to Internal Affairs in the PD and FBI."

  “How did you get those names?” Burroughs asked, his voice hollow.

  “Friends of mine took some good images from the feed, circulated them as far as we could, over long distance lines and everything. Took a while to find a friend in DC with a dial-up modem in this day and age. Not everyone in the Bureau is willing to play the heavy for the string-pullers."

  McFarland sighed, sat down on the couch, and grabbed one of Manny's beers. Burroughs stared at him but McFarland just shrugged. “I'm off duty, anyway,” he mumbled, then drank deep.

  “Look, guys,” Manny said, “I've got no problem with either of you. You're messengers. On the one hand, veiled threats and strong-arm tactics are in no way cool, but on the other, sometimes you got to do anything you can to get by. Believe me, I sing that tune in my sleep. Point is, it's the guys at the top who are running scared. I don't know why we scare them, or why they think I'm a ringleader, but they do, and they're trying to get back to business as usual. But it's not going to work. The chipped don't have to react that way."

  “Machine superiority in action, I suppose,” Burroughs said coldly. “Just do what the computer tells you, yes, sir."

  “You never did listen to what I was saying, did you? Implants are tools, nothi
ng more. You think it's the machine that does the decision-making, but I'll bet your minicomp controls your life more than my implant does mine. Plus, you know, you've got your evil overlords to serve..."

  Burroughs abruptly turned and walked out. McFarland sighed, put down his beer, and followed. At the doorway, he paused, turned, and asked, “Does it hurt much when they put those machines into you?"

  “Just the injection. About like giving blood. And you have to lie there on the remote control bed for a few hours until they finish the assembly job. But they let you sleep through it."

  McFarland nodded, then turned and left.

  * * * *

  The news propagated through the chipped community like a shock wave. It was too big to be contained in any one network for long. The FBI tried to deny that two of their agents had been coopted to threaten Manny, tried to show that Burroughs and McFarland had left the agency months ago, but the DC network caught the files being faked. Watchdog groups and oversight committees began howling for blood. And all before the polls closed for the day.

  Woodsley had the big screen on in his office, and lesser staffers were running around like scurrying ants, comparing reports, making notes, and delivering coffee. The senator tried to keep a handle on the unfolding drama, but his mind kept drifting back to wondering where Doyle was. The boy had taken a few days off for reasons he wouldn't share when he took them, but he was really needed now.

  But when Doyle did show up, just after the polls had closed on most of the Eastern Seaboard, it wasn't nearly the comfort Woodsley had hoped it would be. Quite the opposite, actually.

  Woodsley was staring at a news reporter deconstructing the backlash against the anti-implant candidates when Doyle came in. The senator waved the younger man over to him.

  “We're getting slaughtered out there, son. Everybody who stood with me against the damned implants who's up for election is getting smashed."

  Doyle shook his head. “It's worse than that, sir. You haven't been watching the business reports. They're saying we're looking at the end of the American dominance of the economy."

  “Alarmists. Doomsayers. They can't see the big picture."

  “What big picture, sir? That the implants are evil? That's not rational, Senator."

  Woodsley felt his face flushing as his temper rose. “When you've played this game as long as I have, you'll learn to recognize the real threats. Money comes and goes, and besides, if you've got it, you don't need to worry about it. These machines threaten the whole basis of our government, the whole reason for our power. Damn it, boy, they threaten civilization as we know it!"

  “I don't get that, sir. The implants are just tools. They empower people who would have otherwise wasted their lives. If anything, they help people be better citizens. How can that bring the downfall of civilization?"

  “That's exactly it! They give the little people information, organization, all the advantages. You see what's happening on the TV right now? That's because of the damned implants."

  “And what's the problem with that? Isn't that the ideal? A participatory democracy?"

  Woodsley felt his pulse throb in his temples as he rose out of his office chair, slamming his hands on his desk. “Because they didn't earn it! They didn't make deals with the enemy, they didn't chase the favors, they didn't put in the time. All that money spent, all the talking, speechmaking to morons, telling people whatever will get the donations, to get the votes, even if it turns your stomach to do it. All the dealing with media people—media people, for God's sake—just to swing the news a little bit in your own favor. And now we can get taken down by these ... these...” Woodsley floundered for just the right word.

  “Commoners?” Doyle offered quietly.

  “Yes, damn it! They couldn't be bothered to pull themselves out of the muck, so now that they have these machines to help them, they turn on those of us who did? They take away the power from those of us who have actually worked for it, put in the time, and earned it? I blew every favor I could to pull off this shutdown, and now it's all for nothing!"

  Doyle leaned over the desk, matching the Senator's pose. “Let me remind you, sir, you never had to pull yourself up out of anything. Your family didn't even have to pay to send you to Harvard, thanks to your trust fund. Unlike the vast majority of people in the world, who are too busy trying to survive to have time to play the ‘game’ you're so fond of. What you're arguing in favor of is simply class authority, which is what democracy was created to eliminate. Let me also remind you that you've not only burned your favors, you've crippled the country, maybe permanently. And lastly, let me remind you that you used to be a lot more circumspect when you spoke about your goals and actions. I actually wish you'd kept that habit."

  “You don't talk to me like that, boy. It's your job if you don't back down right now."

  Doyle hung his head and sighed, but it wasn't a sound of defeat. He straightened and took a folded piece of paper from inside his suit jacket. “My resignation, sir. I was prepared for this. I had hoped it wouldn't be necessary, but I'm afraid you've proved my suspicions correct."

  Faced with losing his most trusted and most competent underling, Woodsley's anger drained right out of him. The election results kept rolling by in the background, but the old senator ignored them. “Come on, my boy, you know I was just in the heat of the moment. Don't leave me now, just when I need your help the most."

  “I'm sorry, sir. I can't. You've been telling me for years about the game, but seeing what it does, what it made you do, I've decided I don't want to play. And I can't be here when they come for you for this."

  “What are you talking about, Doyle? This was all done with personal phone calls, off-the-public-time dinners, private e-mails. It's not like we didn't learn from past scandals. There's nothing leading back to me."

  “They'll find out, sir. They always do, even when the media's blinkered. Everything will come out, whether sooner or later, because of people with conscience.” Doyle sighed, and turned. “Numerous citations support this conclusion."

  Woodsley stared at Doyle's retreating back. He knew he'd heard that phrase somewhere before, but he couldn't remember where. He slowly sat, numb to the noise of his great political failure crashing down around him.

  * * * *

  In the next few days, it made no difference if one was wired up or not; with very few exceptions, nobody likes a politician who gets caught.

  Woodsley and his co-conspirators swiftly found themselves identified and outed as the people who crashed the economy. The implant networks allowed the citizens to make their feelings clear: laws applied to the rich and powerful as well as the common poor.

  Even faced with the implant-recorded testimony from Doyle's new machinery, Woodsley was one of those few able to buy his way out of a direct indictment. He got censured on the Senate floor, and was forced to bow out of politics permanently. In the years to come, he sometimes thought it might have been better to go to jail.

  During the fallout and scandals, long-simmering frustrations had a chance to reappear. Peter McDougal marched with tens of thousands of others on Boston's brick-paved Government Center plaza, protesting the twenty-four-hour voyeurism of the Homeland Surveillance Initiative, at roughly the same time that Ellen Cho and Tom Jamison met up after work to march with still more thousands of citizens around Chicago's Loop and then rally in the Federal Center Plaza. All across the nation, everyday Americans expressed their annoyance at the decades of observation with little or no effective anti-terrorism results to show for it.

  In Atlanta, George “G-Dog” James released a lengthy report detailing the systematic racism perpetrated by the “good-old-boy” network that ran the city's medical services. He was just one of so many small cogs documenting how the human machine was grinding them down, using the implants to document, verify, and organize their findings. The more people spoke up, the more corruption and dirty secrets came to light. And once revealed, the implants wouldn't let their holders forget
the facts, no matter the distractions that were created.

  Jake Williams set up a community watch center in his Phoenix neighborhood, with help from his new wife, Lilah. They kept an eye not only on the physical safety of the streets and houses, but also on the land-grab attempts of the big chain stores, and their district's city council representative, and what he was doing with his time and power. Jake was lucky; they had elected a good man and kept him in place, but it helped to keep an eye on things political, just to make sure nobody got any selfish ideas. After all, Jake thought, if I don't look out for the interests of my forthcoming kids, who will?

  And although Big Carl was not motivated to do more than sit in his dank South Side apartment and watch HV and simmer in his frustration, his implant still participated in the local network, protecting Big Carl's rather limited interests as well as the greater good.

  The implant networks were doing a good job of holding government and corporate society responsible, finally, for any of their sins the populace could discover. However, there was a question as to whether the networks were ready to take the next logical step.

  * * * *

  The night before his wedding Manny could only doze. He wasn't drunk; that was last night's bachelor party and he'd been recovering all day. He wasn't nervous; marrying Anne Daley was the finest choice he'd ever made and he was secure in that. No, he wanted to be married already. He was excited about the ceremony, the reception, excited about all of it. So he dozed and tried to get a little rest, even if he couldn't fall asleep fully.

  The flashing words from his implant brought him awake. The ‘plant was calling him by name. “What is it?” he asked. He'd never upgraded to the voiceless option, where you could just think to your ‘plant and it would understand you. After so many years, it now felt strange for him not to speak when he used it.