Nana grabbed my arm. “Mike, please."
My eyeset shrilled. It was Grigory. But behind him there was no Pfizer virtuality. Hell, there was no avatar, no sound, just a text link.
You are in deep trouble, my friend, the message said.
"I can explain,” Nana said.
I shook off her hand. “I have a call."
"Mike, damnit!"
"Hold on!"
Nana gave me one last pissed, confused look and stomped away.
"Grigory, I'm here,” I said.
Just eyeball, Grigory texted. Less data, more security.
Sorry. I. What happened? Why are you calling direct? Isn't Pfizer more secure?
No. Grigory shot me a shortcut to the Pfizer virtuality. But there was no office, no waiting-room, not even a park. Just a simple text screen that read:
Pfizer druglife is down for maintenance.
Please check back soon!
We look forward to improving your life.
Maintenance? Drug virtualities didn't go down for maintenance. The legal ramifications were ridiculously huge. They were asking for a class-action lawsuit that might take out the company overnight.
If I was messing with something that could take down a drug virtuality ... I felt beads of sweat appear on my forehead, cluster, and run down my cheeks.
What happened? I eyeballed.
Someone is really, really interested in that video of yours.
Do you have it?
No.
Did you see it?
I think you stumbled on a mature nanofacturing environment.
So?
So, we're not supposed to have mature nanotech yet. At least not the magic stuff, where you can grow things in vats.
I don't get it.
Gods, you really don't understand. Do you know how modern factories work?
I nodded. I'd gotten a taste of it during my King of Brentwood research. They were very automated, and damn smart. Modern factories were hooked into the consumer networks to judge preferences and tweak designs before release, and they automatically factored in historic word-of-mouth marketing results to determine the optimum build quantity and number of variations. Really, really boring stuff, where people got excited when they had a two-percent increase in efficiency, or a ten-percent better algorithm for figuring production numbers.
Yeah, a bit, I eyeballed.
So you know they aren't magic. Mature nanofacturing is magic. Many orders of magnitude more flexibility, and maybe an order of magnitude cheaper. You could have infinite variations, and you could do it a lot cheaper.
So?
So there's the problem. Modern factories are good enough that we're already in a de facto post-scarcity economy.
I nodded. I'd heard it before. Even after the Big Dump, we lived better than most people did fifty years ago. Hell, goods and services had become cheap enough that most people could live just by being vectors, by spreading the word and collecting the dough.
Grigory continued: What happens if you can make stuff so cheap that nothing's worth anything anymore? Another Big Dump? Worse? Do we all go a little crazy? Do we end up praying to concrete tilt-ups full of gray goo?
It made absolutely no sense, and it made total sense. My mom and the fucking King of Brentwood, using a buncha world-changing tech just for a buck.
But where'd they get it? I eyeballed.
There's always rumors about forbidden tech, Grigory sent. The hundred-mile-per-gallon carburator, the 1000-mile battery, cold fusion.
I don't know what you're talking about.
So maybe nanotech's here, but most people are smart enough not to deploy it. Maybe it's sitting in a company basement under a tarp -
Grigory's text stopped scrolling, and his photo disappeared from the IM.
Grigory? I eyeballed.
My eyeset blanked and showed:
There's only one person you need to talk to, Mr Palmetto. One million new dollars are waiting for you.
Truth = Money
Pieces fell into place like Tetris blocks. Forbidden tech, hidden in basements. These fucking weird offers. Clink, clink, a perfect fit.
"Mr Palmetto?” A voice, behind me.
I turned to see spooks. Not old-timey Agents or Men in Black or any of that crap, just two guys dressed in calculatedly nonoffensive T-shirts and jeans so carefully tattered that they might as well have used an algorithm. California-blond hair, surfers’ physiques—they were trying just a little too hard.
I looked around, wondering if I could make it to the car before these guys grabbed me.
"Mr Palmetto,” the one said again, his voice stoner-casual. “We just want to talk."
I backed towards the crowd. “Yeah, I bet you say that to all the boys."
"We're here to make you an offer.” The non-talker moved to get between me and the crowd.
"Who are you?"
Big toothy grin, realistically yellowed. “Friends."
"I doubt—"
There was a whistling behind me. The lead spook's eyes widened. Then I felt something pass over my shoulder in a rush of wind. A wireless plane crashed nose-first into one of the spook's faces, its microturbines screaming. He yelled, and the other spook turned to look at him.
I ran. I heard a curse and the sound of feet behind me. I expected to feel someone grab my collar and haul me up short. But there was another whine of microturbines and a crash, and I heard a heavy body bouncing off pavement.
Nana's avatar appeared in my eyeset. “Say thank you,” she said.
"The car's in second street parking."
"And?"
"Thank you!"
Her avatar smiled. “Meet you there."
We met at the Lexus and screeched out of the lot on manual, with the car yelling that it was going to call the police. I swung us inland on Wilshire, where there were lots of roads, lots of options.
"What's going on?” I asked Nana.
"They were blanks,” she said. “Came into the crowd, headed straight for you."
"No. Not them. You."
Nana looked away. I could see her lips pressed tight, reflected in the window. “I've been studying you."
"You've been what?"
She turned back to me. Her eyes were bright, threatening tears. “I'm in the graduate program at UCLA. We're studying how people set different levels of satiety."
There is still a chance to mention USC's new GradSpeed program, which accelerates - MakeMoMoola began.
Oh fuck that. I was so done. I eyeballed the bot off. The words died in my ear, and a panicked little icon danced in front of my eyes, warning of financial ruin.
My words came choppy: “Nana. Like. WTF?"
"You and your mother are the perfect case study. You could be part of her company. You could be running it. And yet you reject, well...” Nana trailed off, looking embarrassed.
Almost everything, I thought. But not everything.
"It doesn't matter,” she said. “Your level of satiety is different. We're getting close to figuring out the triggers. If we can nail them, then maybe we can move to a more rational society—"
"I was a science project?"
"Not really—"
"A fucking science project!"
"Mike—"
"All those weird little questions. What, do you have an implant whispering in your ear, telling you what to ask? Do you stay up at night to report back to your professors?"
Nana squeezed her eyes shut. “Mike, I care about you."
"Like a Petri dish? Like a sample?"
Nana said nothing for a long time. Her shoulders shook, but she made no noise.
We drove for a while in silence. I wanted to stop the car and tell her to get out. I wanted to go home. I wanted to forget about the entire day. First Mom, then the King, now the spooks. It was too much.
"Okay,” she said, sniffing, looking up at me. “Full disclosure. I'll give you all the fine print. Yeah, there was money in it. Studying you, I mean. Motivation an
d satiety research is best-funded by the feds. But it was for the school. The money would be for the school. So. I'm sorry."
I just looked at her.
"I should have told you. When I started liking you."
She wasn't faking.
And that was when I saw it, all of it, the whole big ball that monetized propagation had gotten us into. Because we could have met, and we could have just been a couple, but instead there were hidden agendas and money maneuvering and crap. In that moment, I could have flown to Patagonia or Argentina or wherever, or just went somewhere and planted my house and food and been a rebel.
She told you all this. She didn't have to. And that was honest. That was human.
"I'm sorry,” I said.
Nana sniffled, but said nothing. Her eyes darted to and fro, as if looking for a point on my face she couldn't quite locate.
"I believe you."
"Really?” Nana gave me a thin smile.
"Now I gotta figure out what I've gotten myself into."
"Those guys back there, the surfers, they were government. We get them at the school, snooping around. Campus security throws them out. It isn't part of the contract. They're just like the ones that picked up my ex for drugs."
"Your ex?"
"Long story. You know, drugs are OK, but they don't want you to know how they're made, or how they get here."
Making the world safe for hypocrisy, I thought. It made sense. First carburetors, then drugs, now nanotech. Why not? The beloved government, keeping the economy safe for the masses. Except for little things like the Big Dump.
"I think they're with the guys who're making me the big offers."
"Why? What happened?"
"I saw something I shouldn't have,” I said. I told her about my afternoon, the call from the King, and the anonymous offers on my eyeset.
But, before I got to Grigory, Nana's eyes got big. “It's the nanotech thing,” she said.
"What?"
"UCLA. Go to UCLA."
"What?"
"Just drive!"
I told the Lexus to take us to UCLA. It sounded very happy as it announced that was a very high probability-of-revenue area.
I wanted to beat the dashboard with my fists.
* * * *
At UCLA, men in white coveralls were cleaning a big activeink banner for Virtual Sex Paradise off Royce Hall. Edges of it still moaned and cycled through bits of garishly-colored avatar sex. The network informed my eyeset that:
Campus residents, class attendees and guests are prohibited from verbal product meme propagation, except occasionally in casual environments. Active-display clothing cannot cycle more than once every five seconds, and sound must be muted. Have an excellent day at UCLA, your Home of Higher Learning in Los Angeles.
Nana took me to her professor, who sat in an office covered wall-to-wall in old-fashioned books. It looked to be a statement and not a Luddite form of reference, since the books were all covered with a thick layer of dust. The fiftiesish man looked first terrified, then surprised, then pissed. My eyeset identified him as Professor Rich Esparza, and listed his sponsors, which included the Center for Social Engineering and Pfizer and the government's Taxman arm. Nana let him fume about how she was ruining the experiment, before giving him a quick rundown of what I'd been through.
Before Dr Esparza could react, though, another man poked his head through the door. He was young and bald, like the fashion of twenty years ago, and he blinked at us through a heavy binocular eyeset. My eyeset identified him as Creepy Non-Entity. There was an old-fashioned intel inside logo animating where his sponsor list should be.
"You're the kid who ran into the nano?” he asked me.
"Seems that way."
"Mike, this is Dr Peterson from NanoEngineering,” Nana said.
Dr Peterson nodded. “Yeah, yeah, they call that nanotech, growing a few diamonds, separating a little seawater, doing the Little Shop of Horrors bit on the plants.” He put his arm around me. “But we know there's more, don't we?"
"I, uh, guess so."
"We would've helped the government manage the transition, but they're so shortsighted, they just don't get it."
"You have mature nanofacturing, is what you're saying?” I said.
Dr Peterson laughed. “More than that. Hell, we could probably take out the planet—"
"Peterson!” Dr Esparza snapped. “This isn't a joke. I have an experiment in ruins!"
Dr Peterson laughed and went to hug Dr Esparza. “Oh, and that's so terrible, you'll never find another subject, will you?"
Esparza shook him off. “Stop making fun of me."
"I'm not.” Peterson went and sat on the edge of the desk and looked at me. I saw data scroll in his eyeset. “Problem is, you're caught in the middle of all this, Mr Palmetto. Isn't that right?"
"Don't call me that name!"
Peterson looked at Dr Esparza. “There. There's some data for you."
Peterson turned back to me. “And this is serious. The monetized propagation culture has put our research back half a decade. Nobody wants to hide away. But what do you have to do to do serious research? Hide away. Same thing you have to do for art, or writing, or anything else we consider of value. And now your mother and a fireplug with a third-grade education want to use mature nanofacturing to enhance their personal fortunes. Oh brave new world, and all that."
"What do I do?” I asked him.
As if on cue, my eyeset opaqued.
We have one million new dollars waiting for you, Mr Palmetto. We think you will believe this much better than any alternative.
Truth = Money
I told them about the message. Dr Peterson smiled. “See what they want,” he said.
I sent a quick message for the reply-to address:
Okay, let's talk. How does this work?
The response was almost instantaneous. A crappy avatar appeared in my eyeset, something out of a ten-year-old off-the-shelf site. I mean, black suit, slicked-back hair. Of course it had to be the government.
"Have you decided to accept our offer?” it asked.
"Are you a bot or a person?” I said.
"Does it matter?” The avatar's environment expanded to fit my field of view. He sat in a fakey-looking corner office overseeing generic cityscape.
"Of course it matters. If you are who I think you are, why don't you just make Mr Padilla disappear?” A quick smile from the cheap avatar. “There are ramifications. Especially with someone so highly placed."
Meaning, governments aren't immune to class-action lawsuits, either, as George Montrachet vs the FDA proved a decade or so ago. Or they were afraid of the King's Chinese buddies. Or any one of his other cat's-cradle of connections.
"What do you want from me?"
"Our offer is one million new dollars for a strip of the local memory of your eyeset for the last twenty-four hours, as well as the video you have stored in your head."
Fuck. Fuck fuck. They knew about the video. Of course, they'd taken down Pfizer's virtuality to get at it.
"How would it go down? If I accept?"
"We'd take your eyeset and provide you with a replacement. For your internal memory, we'd query the logs to make sure you didn't upload it beyond Pfizer, then we'd have it surgically removed. A fifteen-minute procedure, in and out."
"And of course you'll let me have independent observers and transmit live video of the procedure?"
A thin-lipped smile. “You can trust us."
And it would be so easy, and so much safer, if I had a little accident.
And even if I didn't, what would I get? A few bucks, a pat on the head, and a thank-you for maintaining the status quo? Just so the world could spin for a few more years unperturbed?
"Thanks, I'll consider it,” I said, and cut the call.
Nana and the professors looked at me, with the comical blank expressions of people trying to piece together a one-sided conversation.
"I can be a new-dollar millionaire if I let th
em cut the retinal cam memory out of my head."
Nana shook her head. “Don't do it."
"He can stay here,” Dr Esparza said. “If the feds think he's with us, they'll back off. Plus, his AI is so high, enrollment has gone up seventeen percent, relative to last week, during the time he's been here."
"Professor!” Nana said.
"Well, it has. He has some serious social currency."
I thought about it. I really did. But I knew that even if the feds backed off, I wasn't suited to school life. The preening and subtle put-downs, the stupid pecking orders, all that. Like monetized propagation, but without the money.
Like. Money. All the restrictions. Like this morning.
Blinding flash.
There was something else I could do.
"I need to go outside,” I said.
They frowned, but let me go outside. I saw them watching from the window. Probably trying to get their software to read lips, or patch into the campus security systems to mic my words.
I made another call. This one to Fernando Padilla, King of Brentwood.
It took me to a full-blown virtuality that mimicked what I imagined was his backyard: a big expanse of sculptured stone with a sapphire-blue pool artfully arranged in the middle, and panoramic views of downtown Los Angeles through tinted one-way glass walls. The detail was fractal and convincing, the illusion only spoiled by my monocular view. Padilla had slimmed himself down for the virt; his perfect black hair was combed immaculately in place, and gleamed like it had just been waxed. He had a neck. My mom lounged near the pool on a piece of outdoor furniture that looked like shat Styrofoam and probably cost more than my house. She was wearing a sundress, not a bikini, for which I silently gave thanks.
"Is she real?” I asked the King, gesturing at my mother.
"As real as it gets,” he said. His voice was honey-sweet, hypnotic. The voice of someone who had time to speak, who you had to listen to.
Mom launched off the lounge and came to poke a finger in my face. “Of course I'm real! You think I'd let anyone copy me?"
"You'd think that, even if you weren't real,” I said.
Her eyes jinked sideways, uneasy. “You ungrateful little shit! I—"
"Perhaps we should see what he wants,” the King said. Mom glared at him, but stepped back.
"So what is it, Mr Palmetto? Is this our meeting? Does this stand in stead of our evening?
Interzone Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine #220 Page 4
