Just Compensation

by Robert N. Charrette

  Genifer, fearful of the turmoil downtown, insisted on taking a vehicle rather than Metro. Metro would have put them right into the Telestrian enclave, and the passes Shayla had arranged would have gotten them in from the station as easily as from a public parking garage. But Genifer wouldn’t listen to his argument that the classic Gallant would stick out as a target for anyone looking for the “haves.” Convinced that if trouble spread, it would spread over public transportation, she thought the danger less to go by car than by rail. Again, Tom gave in. It wasn’t that big a concession, since he really wasn’t expecting trouble either way; he just didn’t like driving in the city any more.

  On the way in, he realized he didn’t know anything of the circumstances of Andy’s death. He figured he ought to know the basics, if only to avoid embarrassing himself.

  “Your note didn’t say what happened to Andy.”

  “It was an accident. Apparently he was working late in some sort of experimental simulator. The techs had all gone home and something started to go wrong. Since Andy was in the Matrix working on a virtuality simulation, he didn’t know what was happening in the real world, and a bug had cut out the warning circuits. There was an explosion and a fire. He didn’t have a chance. Lola says that if they hadn’t known from the computer records that Andy was in the simulator, they wouldn’t have been able to identify him. The body was incinerated to ash.”

  “It’ll be closed coffin, then, I guess. A pile of ash isn’t much to look at. Oh, well, it’s not like I would have recognized him.”

  “Don’t be insensitive.”

  He’d thought he was being practical.

  Tom really didn’t remember what Andy looked like. It had been a few years since he’d seen him, and Andy had been just a kid them. He would have changed a lot, possibly even Changed—but Tom was pretty sure Genifer would have told him if that had been the case. “What I meant was that Andy was—what?—ten or eleven last time I saw him. He hadn’t even hit puberty.”

  Genifer had a recent picture, of course. When their drunken father had smashed his way back into their life,

  Genifer had been pleased to see him and to make the acquaintance of their half-siblings. Even after their father had been killed, she’d kept up ties that Tom would rather have seen dissolved. Since the car’s dogbrain was handling the highway driving, Tom couldn’t avoid looking at the picture she dug out of her purse. He made what he hoped were proper half-brotherly noises of approval. They were good enough to satisfy Genifer. Unfortunately she took the feigned interest as real, and spent the rest of the trip detailing the kid’s boring corporate and school career. She was still going when they left the car and walked to the gateway of the Telestrian East Family Enclave, where the viewing was being held at the public facilities center.

  Corporate security was tight at the enclave’s entrance; Genifer had to insist on a family relationship to get past the guards. The gateway guards were armored and packing more than a basic load. Tom wondered if there was something to Genifer’s concerns after all. He’d heard the stuff on the news about near riotous scuffles between police and those “gimme” beggars of the Comp Army, but he’d put all the fear talk down to media hype. Now he wasn’t so sure. Corps didn’t spook as easily as your average vid junkie. He reconsidered the garage he’d chosen and decided it was safe enough—he hadn’t seen anything out of the ordinary on the streets they’d traveled. He did resolve to leave as soon as possible. No point tempting fate.

  Their escort to the public facilities center wasn’t standard. Genifer seemed to take it as a courtesy, but Tom had seen this sort of thing before and knew it for what it was: Security’s unwillingness to let non-employees roam freely. Something had definitely put a bug up Telestrian’s hoop.

  The room set aside for the viewing was small and crowded. Tom’s first scan didn’t turn up anybody without a Telestrian employee badge. He recognized Shayla Walker and guessed that the two nearly identical young woman nearby were two of Andy’s three sisters. He’d never been able to tell the triplets apart. He wondered where the third one was. If she didn’t have to be here, he surely didn’t.

  Genifer started to drag him toward the group. Tom balked, noting the hulking ork with a possessive arm around Shayla’s waist.

  “Who’s that?”

  Genifer didn’t have to ask whom Tom meant. “Shayla’s friend. His name is Ricky Gonsalvo. Everyone calls him Chunk.”

  “He’s an ork.”

  “Now, Tom—

  “It’s not that I have anything against them ..Tom said automatically.

  “Except when they’re in the family. Can we just be polite tonight?”

  Tom didn’t say anything more. If he did, they’d be into another round of a very old fight. Whatever he thought of Shayla’s taste in boyfriends, this wasn’t the place to make a scene.

  He said hello, extended his condolences, went through the introductions, and edged away from the conversation as soon as he could. There was a refreshment bar set up in one corner. There being nothing serious available, Tom acquired a tall glass of mineral water. Without intending to, he also acquired a conversational partner.

  “Hi! I’m Josh Barnaby.” said the scrawny desk geek in the ill-fitting suit. The Telestrian badge confirmed the name and said that Barnaby worked for Cyberdyne in something called Software Revisions. “I worked with Andy. You must be his brother.”

  “Half-brother.”

  “Oh, yeah. Okay. I knew that. The one in the army.” Tom hoped the software only needed obvious revision. He was wearing his uniform.

  Barnaby didn’t seem to notice Tom’s less than warm reception of his conversational gambit, but he had noticed something else. “I couldn’t help seeing your reaction when you came into the room. Do you know Mr. Gonsalvo?”

  “Never met him before tonight.”

  “Don’t like orks much, do you?”

  “They’re people, just like anybody else.” Tom said, giving the answer he’d learned to give.

  “You’ll pardon me if I say you handle the popularly approved line with something less than conviction.”

  Tom gave Barnaby a suspicious glance. “Just what sort of a conversation do you think we’re having, Mr. Barnaby?”

  “A friendly one, I’d hoped. After all, humanity is found among humans, isn’t it?”

  So that was it. Tom knew the slogan from his days with Humanis, before he’d learned of their real agenda and their connections to the terrorist group Alamos 2000. He still sympathized with the attitudes, but just couldn’t go along with their chosen path of expression. “That was a long time ago. I’m an army officer now.”

  “The military doesn’t restrict membership in policlubs.” True enough; this was America, after all. “But it does discourage public association of the uniform with any political organization. As they say, a soldier serves his country, not his country’s politicians.”

  “And they tell the truth by my lights, sir.” Barnaby said earnestly. “Every patriot knows the country comes first. Things will not always be as they are now.”

  “I don’t think we’re having this conversation, Mr. Barnaby.”

  “But I thought—”

  “Think again.”

  Genifer arrived at Tom’s side as Barnaby faded into the press. “Who was that, Tom?”

  “Someone who hasn’t learned to live with the times. And speaking of time, have we put in enough here?”

  She looked him over, searching his face for something. Whatever she found prompted her agreement. “All right. We can go.”

  They did.

  >NEWSNET INFOMERCIAL FILE

  TELESTRIAN CYBERDYNE [COURTESY-TEL INDUS.]

  NORTH VIRGINIA FOCUS FILE [REC: 8-21-55]

  TELESTRIAN CYBERDYNE: THE ADVENTURE OF THE FUTURE

  Navigated your car around town recently? Spent hours balancing your household budget? Found any part of your home at less than optimal temperature? Of course not. At least not if you have the benefit of cybernetic
control systems or computer aids from Telestrian Cyberdyne.

  You know us, you trust us, and we’re glad you do. There’s more to us than you know, and we’re helping you in lots of ways. Just because we don’t touch you directly, doesn’t mean we’re not there, or that we’re not helping. For example, much of what you own and cherish was built on robotic assembly lines guided by Telestrian Cyberdyne systems. In uncounted ways we’ve made your life easier, and we’re only just getting started.

  But the past isn’t what we’re about. Under Stephen Osborne’s leadership, we’ve broken away from the undistinguished pack of computer and robotic suppliers, into the realm of the leaders in innovation. We’re stepping out and making our place in the world, with everything from interfaces for everyday appliances, to Governor Saul Jefferson’s personal schedule manager, to important electronic systems for CAS’s top-of-the-line Stonewall main battle tank. Other companies may be one step from the future, but at Telestrian Cyberdyne, we’re already programming it.<<<<<

  11

  Andy didn’t have to worry where death’s sting was—he’d found it. All around him. He’d known that life outside the corporate enclave was rougher and dirtier and noisier and less orderly than he’d been used to, but he hadn’t realized just how much more it was of all of those things. But he was a shadow now, and this was his life. And if it didn’t match his fantasies of what such a life would be like, he’d just have to get used to it.

  Had faking his death been the right decision? There were advantages to being “dead.” After all, who would bother to hunt down a dead man?

  But he was a dead man with an agenda. He stared at the walls of what was now his home and tried to decide if he was ready to get on with it. The walls, with their blistered and peeling paint and unidentifiable, multi-hued stains, were disheartening. Just like almost everything since his “death.” He’d taken this one-room in the Green Tree Hill Apartments, a run-down, sleazebag motel that offered monthly rates. The ad for the apartment had sounded far better than the reality had turned out, but it was better than the rest Andy had checked out. Some of those hadn’t even had locks on the doors. He’d taken it because he needed somewhere to slump, and he needed to conserve his cash, especially after dumping so much for upgrades to the Sony.

  Even though Andy had paid extra for all the security features that Green Tree Hill offered, he didn’t feel safe. How could he, when he didn’t trust those features? He was sure half of them were nothing more than fake security operation labels and hot air on the part of the landlord, and half of the rest were inoperative. The door and window locks worked; he’d found that out the first night when someone had tried to break in. He’d pressed the PanicButton to no effect, which was how he knew that system didn’t work, but fortunately the prowler hadn’t been able to defeat the door’s physical locks and had gone on to easier pickings. The incident had left Andy feeling vulnerable. What if the prowler had been a troll who wanted in? The locks wouldn’t have slowed down a marauder of that strength.

  If Andy was going to survive in the shadows, he’d need contacts; runners always had contacts. But being afraid to go outside wasn’t the way to make connections.

  Or friends.

  For the first time in his life Andy was out on his own, really out on his own. He had no one to turn to: no friends, no family, no colleagues, not even a boss or teacher. He hadn’t realized how fast a person could get lonely. He wanted to talk to someone—just talk was all—without worrying whether that someone was assessing him as a target for a mugging or a sexual assault—which left out all the other residents he’d seen so far in the Green Tree Hill Apartments. Maybe if he knew some of them better, he wouldn’t think they were eyeing him as easy meat. But he didn’t know any of them. He didn’t know anyone on the street. Everyone he knew was corp. If he tried to talk with anyone he did know, his secret would be shot, and everything he’d done would be for nothing.

  Which it would be anyway, if he didn’t make some connections.

  It was time to stop putting it off, time to jack in and take a shot. Andy had always been more comfortable meeting people in the Matrix. It made sense as a place to start.

  His choice as a first stop was Nell’s Basement, an address he’d picked up while lurking on the shadownet. Supposedly the place was connected to Eskimo Nell’s, the rumored runner hangout that was his base in his virtual fantasies. He figured the virtuality bar would be mostly full of wannabes like himself, but he hoped there might be a scout or two looking for new talent. He couldn’t expect a direct connection to runners; the addresses of the places where the real runners hung weren’t modemed around where anybody could gander them. If they were published anywhere, it would be in Shadowland, the real runners’ net, but Andy didn’t have a way into that place. For now, he’d have to try what he could. If he got real lucky, maybe someone at Nell’s could hook him into Shadowland.

  He switched on the Sony and ran diagnostics on his additions. The console was a real cyberdeck now—not a powerful one, but better than the off-the-shelf console it had been. Real deckers didn’t use off-the-shelf, because there wasn’t enough edge, and edge was what kept you alive in the shadows.

  Hoping that nothing would disturb his meat body during his trip, he jacked in.

  Decking into Nell’s Basement was easy. The ice was light and pure white, though tricky enough that some skill was needed. Andy had more than enough to breeze in.

  The virtual bar was full of persona icons, some at the bar, most at the tables. By far the majority of the images were chrome metahumans with bits of clothing or jewelry, or markings of neon, to make them distinctive. There were a fair number of cartoon characters and classic blocky dawn-age icons. A few patrons opted for animated inanimate objects like walking toasters and more obscure things. Not all of the crowd were deckers, some were hitchers. Andy could tell the difference when he looked close enough. The hitchers didn’t have quite the same resolution, and sometimes he could spot a faint line linking one to its gateway decker.

  Nell’s Basement was furnished in shades of gray. Even the icons passing beneath the scattered overhead spots remained colorless under the light. Something in the virtuality architecture, Andy guessed, an ambiance thing. Andy looked around for a table with an open-conversation light, but didn’t see any. There were more tables set back in the gloom, but it was hard to see very far. He’d have to wander a bit.

  He hadn’t gotten three virtual meters before he found a leg stretched out in his way. At least he assumed it was a leg. There were no joints or bulges in the spike of constrained liquid, but it did join to the hip of an icon that looked like a man made of rippling cartoon lightning bolts. The icon’s head was a smooth-mapped human face with glowing eyes. The eyes were staring straight at Andy. So were the eyes of the other icons around the table.

  “Hoi, chummers, looky here.” the lightning-man said. “It’s somebody wants to be the Arnold man and ain’t clued to where they left the texture maps.” To Andy, “You gots too much mem to spend on icon, newbie. You slumming or just plain stupid?”

  It was a provocative question. A runner would give a chill answer, so Andy said, “Neither.”

  “Oooh. That so?” The glowing eyes narrowed to rectangular slits. “My handle’s Zagfoot. Maybe you heard of me.”

  “No.” Andy replied honestly.

  “So you are stupid.” Zagfoot said.

  “Leave him be, Zagfoot.” said a wolf-ork hybrid so close to the original Castle Lowengrim game icon that a circle-R floated in the air over it.

  “When did you go wuss, Wolfie?” Zagfoot shot back.

  With Zagfoot’s attention diverted, Andy started to step around the road block, saying, “I’m not looking for trouble, Zagfoot.”

  The next instant he was slamming face first into the floor. The simsense circuits on his deck made him feel it as though it were real. Andy hadn’t fallen over his feet; Zagfoot had “tripped” him. The decker sneered at him.

  “That’s Mr
. Zagfoot to you, newbie. Too bad you ain’t looking for trouble, ’cause you found it.”

  Andy tried to get up, but the Exterminator’s motor functions were locked. Zagfoot laughed at Andy’s struggles. “Watch this.” the decker said.

  Photorealistic lightnings chewed at Andy’s icon, pitting and discoloring the Exterminator where Zagfoot’s attack program gnawed at Andy’s graphic interface. Andy’s simsense connection translated the attacks as painful electric shocks. His meat fingers flew over his deck’s keyboard as he tried to find a way to escape. Zagfoot’s lock held and the Exterminator’s shiny surface corroded further.

  Andy’s torment abruptly ceased, leaving him limp and disoriented. For a moment he thought he was in dump shock, but then he realized his vision was grayed because he was still in Nell’s Basement. He knew he hadn’t done anything to break the relentless press of his tormentor’s programs. Thankful for the respite, he could only stare as Zagfoot now writhed under attack from someone. The lightning-man froze, looking more than ever like a cartoon, and popped out of existence. On that cue, a small ebon boy in a glittering silver cloak stepped into the nearest spotlight and said, “Verily, there must be more suitable quarry afoot in the Matrix tonight.”

  There was general murmuring of agreement as icons turned away or simply left. Several used a name as they addressed apologies or salutations to the new arrival. Andy had heard the name whispered on the shadownet, but he couldn’t believe he’d heard correctly. The Dodger. The fact that the icon before him was showing in full black demonstrated that this decker was capable of overriding Nell’s ambiance. But it couldn’t be the Dodger, could it? Not Verner’s decker, not here! First, such a legendary decker wouldn’t be slumming in a place like Nell’s Basement. Second, such a wiz runner wouldn’t have any reason to be concerned for Andy. Third, well, third, it just couldn’t be. How could a decker with the Dodger’s rep have so unimposing an icon?