The Resurrected Man

by Sean Williams

  Verstegen's expression darkened further.

  “Tell me what's going on in Faux Sydney,” he said, slowly and evenly, the threat of violence in his words palpable.

  “It's the end, Verstegen. The end for you, anyway. You can't avoid it any longer. There's no point trying to set up Lindsay, or to drag Mancheff into it. I'm going to tell the MIU as much as it needs to know, and no more. Once the case is solved, Schumacher will be glad to save any ground he can—and after QUALIA, that won't be much. They'll chalk it up to obsession arising from a mental disturbance of some kind—and that's where it'll stop. You might as well give in now.”

  “No!” Verstegen almost roared.

  “Yes,” Jonah countered. “You know it as well as I do. There's nowhere left for you to go.”

  Verstegen opened his mouth, then closed it. His expression became calculating. His gaze wandered, then settled on Marylin.

  She held his stare as evenly—and for as long—as she could, even though it sent shivers down her spine. She saw at least thirty-five murders in those eyes, and countless hours of calculated cruelty. She couldn't believe she had never noticed it before.

  But there was only one question she really wanted answered and if it kept him distracted just for a second, all the better.

  “Why me?” she asked, her voice low and gravelly, as she planted her feet against the wall behind her. “Tell me that, Verstegen—why you made my life a living hell for the last eighteen months.”

  He smiled. “You had the right connections.”

  “To whom?”

  “Ask Jonah. He'll tell you. But don't take it personally when he tells you that it really had nothing to do with you. Ultimately, you meant nothing. You were an opportunity too good to pass up. That's all.”

  She bunched her muscles prepared to spring.

  “No,” said Jonah, his face a mask of agony. “Marylin—it won't make any difference.”

  She leapt.

  Verstegen opened his arms as though to enfold her within them.

  She clenched her fists as she flew towards him.

  He disappeared before she could strike.

  This time, he didn't come back.

  When the incoherence had passed, and she remembered where she was and what she was doing, she managed to nudge Jonah to the rack and inspected his wound.

  The blade had been small, but heavy and serrated, and had entered point first just under his ribcage on the left side. She could only guess how much damage had been done. Certainly, he was in a lot of pain and seemed to be bleeding internally as well as in copious amounts from the wound itself. He was conscious, but fading fast.

  She held him, soothing her own aches and pains in private. There would be time for recuperation later, once she had worked out how to get home.

  “Jonah,” she said. “You have to talk to me.”

  His eyelids fluttered. “I set him up,” he said. “Lured him into taking the plunge by making him think I really knew—and it worked. This is as good as the confession I'll hopefully get in Faux Sydney.”

  “But you did know,” she reassured him.

  “I needed more than that.”

  “Fassini?”

  “Yes.” He looked up at her. “I'm going to ask ACHERON to erase me too.”

  She stared at him. Suicide? “I don't know what you're talking about.”

  “Erase me from the simulation. I'm probably dying anyway. I couldn't stop him hurting me; didn't have the right sort of knowledge. But I could bargain with ACHERON for your life. Are you glad?”

  “I'll be happier when I know who ACHERON is,” she said.

  He smiled weakly. “ACHERON is the key to Verstegen's success—or was, I should say. It has all of QUALIA's powers but without the regulation. It even has the power to subvert QUALIA—by undermining decisions, altering or concealing data, or influencing behaviour. But it's not truly intelligent in its own right. Its more of a symbiont, feeding off QUALIA without anyone noticing, and vice versa.”

  “And that's how he operated? By back doors in QUALIA?” Marylin couldn't help a look of disbelief. “I can't believe no one spotted it.”

  “They couldn't,” Jonah said. “Especially not QUALIA. That's the remarkable thing. ACHERON has been there all along, but QUALIA has never known. ACHERON is QUALIA's unconscious.”

  She stared at him for a second as the revelation sunk in.

  It explained so much: how Verstegen had been able to steal LSM data, deliver victims without revealing the source of the transmissions, fake Jonah's UGI, tamper with security data so blood samples wouldn't be recognised, manipulate Jonah's simulated brain in such a way as to trigger an InSight attack—and more. It was the ultimate tool for someone who wanted to use d-mat as a weapon.

  ACHERON is QUALIA's unconscious.

  She could even see how it had come to be under Verstegen's control. He had joined KTI on the strength of his security and AI skills and had actually helped configure QUALIA for KTI's specific needs. At some point he must have isolated the subconscious components of QUALIA's nascent mind, but not removed them as he later claimed. Instead, they had been partitioned for his own use. With the unconscious mind's intimate links with QUALIA and KTI, anything could be done without QUALIA, KTI's official overseer, consciously noticing.

  Complete freedom, if it was true.

  “It hit me after my memories came back,” he said. “During the simulation, in fact. QUALIA triggered an InSight episode that must have been designed to waste time—or to knock me out of commission entirely. It didn't seem likely to be an accident, and if it wasn't—” He shrugged, which made him wince. “The fact that QUALIA also gave me deliberately misleading evidence only confirmed my guess.”

  “When did QUALIA do that?”

  “Ask Fassini to show you the mass/energy reserve data. That proves it.”

  “But why?” Verstegen hadn't answered that question to her satisfaction. “What did he mean by me having the right connections?”

  “He wanted to hurt Lindsay,” Jonah said. “That was his rationalisation for the killings all along. And the best way to do that was through me, via you. The fact that you worked for the MIU was just a bonus.”

  She grimaced; seventeen women had died because they looked like her, and ultimately who she was had been irrelevant? She would rather believe that Verstegen's parting comments had been a deliberate swipe.

  “What does Lindsay have to do with this? He's been dead for three years!”

  Jonah shook his head. “Maybe the real me will tell you. I'm tired, Marylin, and I hurt—and there's no real reason to be here any more. I've done what I came to do.”

  “Which was?”

  “To save you, of course.”

  “Nice try,” she said.

  “No, really.” He looked sad, then. “Verstegen knew I'd come close to guessing the truth, but he didn't know how close. I gave him one last chance to kidnap you by bringing you to Faux Sydney, and he took it.”

  “You set me up?” Suddenly she wasn't sure who she was most angry at: Verstegen for betraying KTI and the MIU, or Jonah for betraying her. “You used me as bait?”

  “It seemed reasonable at the time.”

  “You—” She stopped, swallowed. The pain in her throat was from bruising, she told herself. “If you'd really cared, you wouldn't have done that.”

  He said nothing—although she could see plenty in his eyes that needed saying.

  “Jonah, I—”

  He shook his head once, then he was gone too.

  She was alone.

  The knowledge filtered through to her by nonverbal means that she could follow Jonah any time she liked. Indeed, ACHERON's odd communications implied a sincere desire for her to choose that path. Death was something the excised unconscious had witnessed on numerous occasions yet had only once so far, with Jonah's erasure, played an active role in.

  QUALIA's missing id, it seemed, was just as curious as the rest of its mind.

  But she opted
to live rather than to die. She had work to do, and information to relay. She couldn't take on faith Jonah's comments about what he had planned to attempt in the real world. If Verstegen retained the upper hand, the contribution she could make to the case was invaluable.

  Her overseer still functioned. Obviously the virtual world ACHERON had built possessed some links to the outside world, for she was able to open a VTC channel to the MIU workspace. The data she could access through it was limited, however, and QUALIA wouldn't respond to her hails for attention. Being under the wing of the AI's unconscious appeared to have made her invisible too.

  After several minutes of fruitless searching, she tried calling Jonah's unit in Faux Sydney. The housekeeper answered immediately.

  “Communication with these premises is restricted. Please provide UGI identification.”

  She reeled off her number automatically. “I have Blue-2 security clearance—”

  “All security clearances have been temporarily revoked,” announced the AI. “However, calls from your UGI have been authorised. Please hold.”

  She waited nervously, wondering what was going on at the other end—and hoping someone would know how to free her from the simulation. She couldn't just d-mat out; there was no virtual booth for her to enter. There had to be another way to separate her pattern from that of the cylinder, thus allowing it to be recreated in an ordinary d-mat booth, or by Resurrection. She didn't entirely trust ACHERON to do it for her.

  ACHERON insinuated the thought into her mind that she didn't really have to leave at all. There was nothing she couldn't do here that she could also do in the real world—and plenty that she couldn't. Hot-wiring opened up tremendous opportunities for those with the resources to sustain them.

  She could see its point. The illusion was so good as to be no different from reality, certainly not in any perceptible way. She felt the same as she always did—regardless whether she actually was or not—and the detail invested in her surroundings lacked nothing.

  Even Jonah's blood on her hands, drying and becoming sticky and brown, was indistinguishable from the real thing.

  But she wasn't tempted. She just wanted to go home and sleep. It was over at last, bar the shouting.

  Her overseer flickered as the call was put through. At first all she saw was Jonah, standing in the centre of the lounge, looking exhausted. The rest of the room quickly gained her attention. Trevaskis, Fassini, Geyten, Schumacher and Whitesmith stood or sat in a ring around him—the last with an expression of grudging respect on his face. Verstegen confronted Jonah with a gun—her gun, it looked like—in his hand, his posture aggressive and defiant. To the left of him, unarmed, stood herself.

  The expression on her face mirrored that of her own: confusion showed in the wideness of her eyes and the open mouth. Clearly she could see the face of her copy in the simulation and experienced the same instant identity crisis. Who was real? Or, more importantly—who wasn't?

  For a split-second, the tableau was fixed. Then Verstegen moved. The pistol came up, and she called Jonah's name automatically at the same time as her other self. Jonah raised his hands in self-defence and began to step back. Trevaskis lifted his own weapon, a fraction behind.

  The gun came up to eye-level, then turned inwards.

  With a single shot, Verstegen did what had taken only a thought in the hot-wire simulation.

  In the real world, it was his blood she was spattered with, not Jonah's.

  Seeing that made her realise that it wasn't over yet, and would probably never be—for either of her. They were different people, now.

  And there really was no going back…

  The interior of the hotel room was dark and warm, even though outside it was the middle of the afternoon on a cold winter's day. The curtains were drawn and the sounds of the city were effectively cancelled out by the same loudspeaker system the room's housekeeper used to address the room's sole occupant.

  Jonah hadn't bothered turning on the wall entertainment unit. He achieved more effective results with his overseer, pasting virtual screens in the room's dead spaces. Lying on his back on the queen-size waterbed, he felt like he was floating in a sea of images, buoyed by the gentle pressure of information passing through his mind. None of the images had sound active, however, and the silence trivialised the events brought to him from around the world—as though stripping them of language robbed them of relevance.

  Primary among the images were those of WHOLE-led riots in New Zealand and Iceland, two countries that had embraced d-mat completely and whose trust, according to the popular news services, had been most deeply broken. Mancheff, having eluded capture in Quebec, had been raising groundswell support for his movement by broadcasting the details of the Twinmaker murders.

  Although the riots themselves were fairly small, they made sensational headlines. All the good publicity KTI had generated by founding and funding the MIU had evaporated overnight. Fabian Schumacher and KTI's board of directors were doing everything in their power to reassure the world, and beyond, that the actions of one man didn't necessarily mean the entire system should be put on trial. The effectiveness of this rearguard action remained to be seen. At least three hasty inquests at varying governmental levels were attempting to ascertain exactly how Herold Verstegen had managed to subvert the justice system so thoroughly that, in the end, only with the help of someone from outside the EJC had he been apprehended. EJC Chief Commissioner Disario had personally pledged to increase funding to the MIU, thereby ensuring its financial and investigative independence from KTI. Jago Trevaskis appeared, beaming, on the occasional bulletin to put in his Euro's worth.

  That any person or organisation should profit from the Twinmaker's activities bothered Jonah deeply—but it wasn't his place to say anything.

  Nowhere was his face portrayed or name mentioned. The moment the MIU had been satisfied of his innocence, he had renewed his Non-Disclosure Option and cut his ties. The news services were aware of his role in the Twinmaker investigation, but Privacy Laws prevented them from revealing his identity to the public. He was happier that way, even though occasionally an overeager newsnet reporter tracked down his message service and begged for an interview. It wasn't really annoying; indeed, it was almost flattering. Had the agency been a going concern, he might have changed his mind. The publicity would've been good for business.

  But he hadn't decided, yet, what to do about JRM Data Acquisition Services. He had already sold the unit in Faux Sydney, with most of its furniture but minus all of Lindsay's equipment, for a figure much higher than he would happily have accepted. That, plus the accrued earnings from Lindsay's estate, put him on a very solid financial footing, although the knowledge that he need never work again did little to reassure him.

  He was already sick of waiting.

  There was no mention of Lindsay Carlaw in the news, anywhere.

  “You can't stay hidden forever,” Marylin said, her voice coming clear and loud from Artsutanov Station despite passing through a number of anonymous relays along the way. She was allowing her hair to grow back naturally, without artificial assistance or enhancement. Her face looked more familiar for it.

  “I can do anything I want, within reason.”

  She smiled. “But I know you. I'm surprised you've lasted this long.”

  “Well, I've been busy.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Catching up on things.”

  “Such as?”

  He gestured vaguely, and returned the smile.

  “You know Odi's looking for you.”

  That surprised him. “Why?”

  “I think he wants to offer you a job.”

  “Same question, but more so.”

  “Probably for the same reason he offered me a promotion: because we're good at what we do.”

  He grimaced. “I don't believe that for a second.”

  “Speak for yourself.”

  “Okay, but you know what I mean.”

  “Actually, I don't.
”

  “Well, then.” He wasn't sure he did either, but he suspected she was fishing for something. Her expression was unreadable. “Just stop bugging me, will you? I'm expecting a call.”

  “Okay, okay. I can take a hint, even if you can't.”

  The line went dead.

  He closed his eyes and let frustration flow freely through him—flexing the emotion as he would a muscle he was trying to relax. What hint? Marylin had called him at least once every twelve-hour period since he had taken up residence in the hotel. He wasn't entirely sure if her motives were altruistic; he suspected that she suspected what he already knew—that there was business yet to be dealt with. He didn't plan on moving until it was out of the way, and she wasn't going to stop hounding him until he told her what it was—or until she finally told him whatever it was she wanted to get off her chest.

  That was the price he would have to pay, he guessed, for manipulating her. For using her as bait. For robbing her of her choice. She would've gone ahead with his plan to trap Verstegen, or so she said, but the fact that he'd pushed her into it—regardless of the fact that he simply couldn't have asked her without Verstegen knowing—left a bitter taste in her mouth. He felt a hint of distance and even resentment underlying every conversation, no matter how brief. He had no idea how to melt that ice, or if he should even try.

  If he even wanted to.

  As for the “other” Marylin Blaylock, left hot-wired following the erasures of the copies of Verstegen and Jonah himself—she had been frozen in cold storage since the “real” Verstegen's suicide. Until the legality of her existence and her independence from the “real” Marylin Blaylock had been decided, the EJC preferred to shelve the problem while other matters were dealt with.

  Her testimony, however, had proven crucial to the understanding of what Verstegen had done; it had supported everything Jonah had claimed in Faux Sydney. And her willingness to be frozen had also earned the gratitude of the EJC. She almost certainly would not be erased, as Jonah and Verstegen's copies had been by their own hands. The question was: could the world vouchsafe the existence of two Marylin Blaylock's at the same time?