Asimov's Science Fiction 12/01/10

by Dell Magazines

  Small talk has never been my strength. But just the same, I asked about his journey north.

  “It was nice enough,” Gilchrist assured. Then his smile brightened, and with a mild knowing laugh, he said, “You don’t care about my trip.”

  “I don’t,” I agreed.

  “I’m the object of your fascination.”

  Not liking how that sounded, I sighed and looked back at the screen.

  “What would I possibly want with you?”

  “It’s a puzzle,” I agreed.

  My host sat back against the cracked vinyl. “Let’s allow the suspense to grow. Shall we?”

  The manager emerged from the kitchen. Two menus appeared inside the table, partly obscured by decades of scratches and stubborn stains. With a finger, I dragged my menu close, and once again Gilchrist said, “Anything you wish.”

  It was the tone of a parent speaking to his birthday boy.

  “Steak,” I told the manager.

  His eyes were pleased. “What cut, sir?”

  “All of them.”

  Now his eyes bulged.

  I laughed.

  If Gilchrist noticed my juvenile humor, he didn’t show it. Intent as can be, he stared at the television, at the opening credits to MASH AFGANISTAN. Or no, he was reading one of the news scrolls running beneath.

  Later, studying my bio, I decided that his eyes were definitely reading. Comparing the time to the logs of the news feeds, I determined that my new friend was either interested in who was the father to a certain starlet’s baby, or he was absorbing a little snippet of political nonsense.

  “Today, at the opening of the new session of Congress, Senator Randolph Cosgrove said, ‘The House can vote as it wishes. The public elects its 435 Representatives, and that body is free to proclaim whatever it wants. But our country depends on the Senate and President for its continued survival in a shriveling world, and I would be derelict in my duties, not to mention a lousy citizen, if I surrendered any of my authority, my wisdom, or, for that matter, my well-deserved capacity to make my competitors grovel.’”

  I ate sirloin cut from a once-living steer, and Gilchrist devoured most of a tofu burger and half of his yam bakes. We talked politely about nothing important, mostly trading stories about our respective towns and lives. Then some invisible switch was flipped, and the host turned serious. Leaning across the table, he asked me the first of many questions about my doppels and my tactics and the broad strategies that I employed on various worlds.

  To the best of my ability, I answered the questions, sharing the dreary little secrets. But why I did what I did yesterday and last year, and why I didn’t do something else ... well, even when I referred to my bio, I couldn’t give him much meat with the insights.

  Twenty probing questions earned me dessert.

  Vanilla ice cream and real chocolate sauce were delivered, neither as tasty as the phony stuff that I ate every other day. But I never turn down free food, and he watched me gorge, and while I was spooning up the last of the cold sticky goodness, Gilchrist said, “Abalone.”

  We hadn’t touched on that doppel yet. “What about him?”

  “He isn’t that much like you.”

  “How would you know? You only met my doppel once.”

  “But I know a great deal about him.”

  I waited.

  “How did you build him? Tell me, please.”

  “My techniques interest you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Because you want the same kind of success?”

  There was a brief pause, and then he said again, “Yes.” But with a different tone, drawing the word out.

  I talked for half an hour, explaining how I began with me and ended up with this doppel. A template of my personality was coupled with Commons software plus some odd little flourishes that occurred to me for no obvious reason. I mentioned five major tweaks before the king was finished, leaving an independent organism with a tiny kingdom and a handful of knights. After forty wars and eleven attempted assassinations, Abalone was a juggernaut. No other doppel interested me half as much, and Gilchrist proved to be a happy audience, nodding and grinning as he focused like a madman, acting as if his own bio would somehow miss my next careless boast.

  The bill arrived, and he paid it, adding a substantial tip.

  “Well, this has been a very pleasant evening,” seemed like a reasonable concluding statement. He said those words with conviction and then acted as if he was standing, but when my hands touched the tabletop, he paused. Amused, he suddenly said, “Green Light.”

  I blinked. I said, “What?”

  “You’re familiar with the foundation,” he said. Not a question, but a statement of cold fact.

  I nodded.

  “Green Light likes to inspire worthy souls. With cash, and not in small quantities either.”

  Breathing didn’t seem important just then.

  “You suspect, I’m sure. I think you’ve had premonitions for my real purpose in being here.” Gilchrist had color, the excitement pumping blood into that narrow young face. “The Green Light Foundation is considering a substantial gift to someone of genuine talent.”

  I swallowed, or at least tried to.

  Then he sat back, watching television again. Conspicuously avoiding my eyes, Gilchrist nodded wisely when he said, “Abalone, your king. Now there sits a genius worthy of our support.”

  I hadn’t spoken to Nelson in three months. I never had the urge and couldn’t remember the last time he called me, which made it exceptionally peculiar to see his face early on a Saturday morning. Odder still, Nelson was smiling and sober. What he wanted was a mystery until he named a mutual friend, and then he launched into the sketchy beginnings of a very unlikely story.

  I warned him not to believe rumors, certainly none coming from that insufferable busybody.

  “But you did have a long conversation with her ex-husband. Am I right?”

  “Maybe.”

  “There’s no ‘maybe.’ You did or you didn’t.”

  Summoning up a measure of bristly righteousness, I explained, “First of all, my news is not a secret. I can tell whomever I want. And secondly, I wanted advice from a trusted, informed friend.”

  “A friend you made playing tee-ball.”

  “A very good tee-baller who happened to go to law school.”

  “Until he couldn’t make the grades.”

  I sat back and said nothing. But I tried to say nothing in a defiant and borderline proud fashion.

  Nelson never looked happier. “I’ll admit to being angry,” he said. “Which was exactly what my source wanted from me. You know how she likes to piss me off. Anyway, she told me how your ‘champion’ came to town and got you drunk on bloody meat, and then Mr. Gill admitted—”

  “Gilchrist.”

  “He admitted being from Green Light. Convinced you that you were going to be one rich bastard. Then, wham. You’re not the genius in their crosshairs. It’s this doppel, this fancy figment of your imagination.”

  “So you’re not so angry anymore,” I said.

  He broke into a taunting laugh.

  I suggested that he shut up.

  “You know, this has happened before,” Nelson said. “Endowments have been granted to entities that aren’t as real as you and me.”

  “I found twenty-three cases,” I said.

  “Up late doing research?”

  I hadn’t slept two hours last night. “Except these other entities were awarded small gifts, microscopic annuities,” I explained. “This is different. Green Light wants to launch a new social experiment. Gilchrist explained that the funds are to be used enhancing the skills and intellectual talents of my creation.”

  “What’s your doppel’s name?”

  “Abalone.”

  “Yeah, I don’t like that name.” Another laugh seemed important. When he was finished, Nelson said, “It doesn’t take any special brilliance to see what they want here. Green Light is fueled by Green Arr
ow, which happens to be a biotech firm, which is probably going to be the main supplier for this operation. And wouldn’t that be sweet? They help generate a fully conscious, flesh-and-blood, legally sentient entity, and they make a profit at the same time.”

  Gilchrist had never mentioned that end game. He didn’t need to. Since last night, I hadn’t stopped thinking about the possibility.

  “On the other hand,” Nelson began, and paused.

  “What hand?”

  “Somebody has to be in charge of all that fine money. I’m guessing that’s your role. As overseer, an administrator. Think up some noble-sounding title and pay yourself a respectable wage.”

  “That’s what I’m planning to do.”

  “Did your champion suggest a salary?”

  “He did.”

  “Is it? Fair, I mean.”

  I shrugged.

  Nelson studied me. Sitting in his own tiny apartment, in a gracious northern city with cheap buses and overlapping welfare rolls, he wore a heavy sweater and a smart, vaguely predatory expression. “None of this is ‘fair.’ Your damned doppel is going to end up being a thousand times richer than you, and with a fresh coat of flesh over those new bones, he’ll be better-looking too. Not to mention famous and wealthy and eventually free. A man of consequence, a king striding about a new world, and what happens to the man who made him possible?”

  I was tired of this conversation. I considered cutting the channel between us.

  But then Nelson said, “I won’t tell you what to do, Larry. I can’t. But I’d like to remind you that there are laws and that they’re pretty clear on this matter. Your doppels belong to you. They are intellectual properties released into synthetic worlds laced with their own hard rules, and whether these entities fly or crash depends on your suggestions and their luck, not to mention both of your innate skills.”

  “So?”

  “So make certain that you and a real attorney read the contract through. Pay attention to your property-right clauses. Pay attention to the codes of this artificial earth. And don’t even think about certain possibilities until everything is signed and pretty and very legal.”

  “Don’t think about what?”

  One last laugh, and Nelson shrugged. “Really, there’s no way you’re getting me to say that aloud.”

  Gilchrist arrived in a rented car. He was thirty seconds early and utterly pleasant, telling me that I had a nice home when I didn’t and a lovely old street, which I did. We shook hands for the second time. I invited him into my unlovely house, into my basement. He looked at the La-Z-Boy before settling on the sofa, and I took my normal position before admitting, “I still have doubts.”

  “You shouldn’t,” he said. “What’s going to happen is historic, and you’ll be one of the main elements in this event. Believe me, we didn’t pick you by accident. Your doppel is an act of genius, and now that you’ll have endless resources to bring to bear ... well, imagine what kind of successes you can build on top of what you’ve already done.”

  I wanted to scream and didn’t.

  I wanted to read the contracts for the fifth time but couldn’t. I had hired three different attorneys, two AIs and an old white-haired man recommended by my Maddy. Flipping the pages before my eyes was important. Feigning deep concentration was essential. And Gilchrist waited, ready to grant me twenty years of internal debate. That’s how extraordinarily patient he acted.

  I signed where my signature was needed and initialed where initials were mandatory, each one of my marks feeding into a secure depository, and he did the same ceremonial gestures, and I told my bio and his that I was entering this agreement willingly, and that’s when everything felt finished. Our business was done, and it wasn’t even Saturday night.

  “Let me take you to dinner again,” he said. “My treat, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  Both of us laughed.

  “Where would you like to go?” Gilchrist asked.

  Maybe a little too quickly, I said, “Back to the same place. I don’t know when I’ll get a chance for beef again.”

  He smiled. “I’d happily give you a lift.”

  I hadn’t quite expected that. “No, I really should ride. I’m trying to lose a few pounds, and these feasts aren’t helping.”

  At the ready was a good-humor laugh. We shook hands for the last time, and he asked, “How about seven again?”

  It wasn’t quite five. “Fine. I’ll see you then.”

  “Very good. I’m looking forward to it, Mr. Voss.”

  I walked him to the yard, watched him drive away. Maddy was out in her yard, waving at me in a neighborly fashion. I returned the gesture and slipped into the garage—a piece of storage space designed to shelter my nonexistent car. What was waiting in the garage was worth more than all but the very best automobiles. I had to use most of my savings just to rent this equipment, but measured by a different scale, this was well worth the investment.

  The machines had already spliced their way into my house. The body suit and helmet were cumbersome until they were awakened, and then my mind was agonizingly slow, leaden. I found myself standing inside the main castle, in the Great Hall. Like a statue, I could do nothing while the doppels and a thousand extras raced past me. And then the augmenters engaged. I was suddenly part of the throng, immersed in the conversation and excitement, everyone waiting for an audience with their king.

  My wait proved brief. An alert guard noticed my face and realized what I was, bringing me straight to the front of the line. Great doors opened. The king was where he looked his splendid best, sitting on that very high throne while his happy subjects proclaimed their love and boundless fealty. He saw me at a distance and waved me forward. Every guard and administrator was impressed, and the lovely witch-queen sitting on her smaller throne gave me a very inviting wink. My arrival meant that the most important essence of all was paying them a visit. The only difficulty was when the Erebus hounds took it upon themselves to sniff my hands and crotch, ten different men yanking at the leashes and begging my forgiveness for this unthinkable breach in etiquette.

  I waved aside the insult and pressed on.

  “It is you,” said the king with delight.

  “Your Excellence,” I replied, not bothering to bow.

  He didn’t expect a bow or any other token nonsense. Our relationship was set, and nothing would change that. The king of a contrived realm had to surrender his authority to such as me. But he did have enough curiosity to ask, “What brings you here, Sir? As an essence, no less.”

  “I have news,” I said. “Great, unexpected news that involves you.”

  Intrigued, he pitched forward on the throne. “Yes? Tell me.”

  “You are mine, and now you are dead,” I said, yanking the gun from its hiding place—a neat little tool that did its work in an instant.

  I arrived five minutes early for dinner. The restaurateur welcomed me as his personal savior, gave me iced tea and a bowl of beef jerky, and then he hurried into the kitchen, probably to check on his stocks of steak and veal. I drank and ate the salty meat and watched a few minutes of some old documentary. Vaguely familiar faces were talking about those awful days when the Repression began. Except it was a new event for them, and they were part of the history, and I knew most of the facts and nothing else about the events that took place during seven rough months when I was a boy.

  I watched the angry faces and listened to pieces of what they said, but mostly I was busy feeling happy. I kept smiling. I kept watching the time. I wasn’t even a little worried when it was 7:03 and Gilchrist hadn’t arrived. In fact, I was relieved. He knew what I had done, and of course he wasn’t going to sit at my table. No untidy scenes for me tonight. I decided to celebrate on my own account, and my new best friend emerged from the kitchen and took my order and practically skipped on his way back to oversee the robotic chiefs.

  Moments later, a figure came from the back of the restaurant. I didn’t see him until he sat in front o
f me.

  I said, “Oh,” and laughed nervously.

  Gilchrist laughed with more confidence. Snapping up a piece of jerky, he put it to his nose and sniffed and flinched at the salty stink, and he held it up to the light before placing back it into the bowl, very quietly saying, “Of course you shot him then. You didn’t dare wait.”

  “I couldn’t,” I agreed.

  “Because he was a political creature, a survivor on a brutal treacherous world, and he would have recognized the situation. The game. How you would have stood to benefit with his abrupt and untimely death.”

  I kept waiting for that sense of falling, of plunging out of control from some great height. But all that happened was a nagging feeling of discomfort, as if weak hands were trying to suffocate me.

  “You went to experts, yes. Which was reasonable. But that king of yours was the one authority that you should have asked for help. He would have offered hard questions, and he might even have sniffed out the duplicities at work.”

  “Duplicities?”

  Gilchrist said nothing.

  I said, “Green Arrow.”

  The young face grinned and blinked before saying, “That organization knows nothing about you. Or for that matter, it knows nothing about me either.”

  The invisible hands grew stronger, tightening around my neck.

  “But on the other hand, I do represent another foundation. Not one with a name or the need for names. But we have a mandate and resources of some considerable reach, and our awards, trust me, are as profound and life-changing as anything that can be done with a few billion dollars.”

  “Is it Nelson?” I asked.

  “You think your old friend might be to blame. Is that it?”

  “He had a role in this. Didn’t he?”

  “And so did I. And so did others. But mostly, this is about you, Mr. Voss. You are the active force here.” He leaned back against the stiff old vinyl, saying, “I meant it, Sir. That I was a fan of your promise but thought your gifts were wasted. And sometimes it is best ... in situations like this ... to take a comfortable citizen and make him less so. Put him into a place where he cannot depend on inheritances for his next meal or the roof over his head.”