Hieroglyph

by Ed Finn

  What next? Voting privileges for crows and cows and canids? How was that going to work?

  Back in fine fettle, Gaia shone at him with active hair follicles framing her head like seaweed, rippling from blond to brunette and rainbow shades between. A blast of enhanced charisma-from-a-bottle made Carmody curse and shut off the smell-o-vision feature of his goggles.

  She knows I hate that.

  Gaia’s aivatar made a pointed gesture with one, upraised finger, waving the finger like a wand, casting forth a series of reminder blips:

  STOP AT AUTODOC TO ADJUST YOUR IMPLANTS. FIX THAT DAMN MALFUNCTIONING MOOD FILTER!

  ELDER-CARE SAYS PICK UP YOUR DAD, OR WE’LL PAY STORAGE OVERCHARGES.

  GET EGGS.

  Carmody winced, hating whoever invented aivatar-mail, endowing the voluptuously realistic duplicates with artificial intelligence. Of course, he could spend time mastering the latest tricks . . . like assigning an aivatar of his own to reply automatically, fending off work interruptions . . .

  He tried to will her image to a far-back corner of the percept. Mr. Patel will have my hide if I don’t file my report on transportation trends. I still think they indicate a turnaround in air freight that—

  Gaia’s aivatar clung to one of his maglev-zep performance charts, resisting his efforts to dismiss her, continuing the series of chiding reminders while his impatient, leave-me-alone wind pushed her backward. The chart collapsed and surrounding data got caught up in the meme-storm as she blew backward in a blur of data-splattered robes.

  Carmody’s percept reached some kind of overload. One corner contorted as graphs and prospectus appraisals whirled around each other, crumpling into a funnel-cyclone, like dirty water circling a drain, sucking his entire week’s labor—and his wife’s protesting analog—toward some infosphere singularity.

  “Cancel!” Carmody shouted. “Restore backup five minutes ago!”

  He kept issuing frantic commands but nothing worked. Reaching and grabbing after the maelstrom, he did something wrong, triggering a cyber lash-back! Searing bolts of lightning seemed to lance between his eyes.

  Shouting in pain, Carmody tore off the immersion goggles, clutching them in both hands. Laying his face on the cool surface of the desk, he suppressed a sob.

  I used to think I was so hip and skilled with specs and goggs. Now, kids are replacing them with contact lenses and even eyeball implants that juggle ten times as much input.

  Can I really be so obsolete?

  “Bob?” A real voice, grating in his real ears. “Bob!”

  It was Kevin’s voice. Standing next to the desk. Carmody didn’t move.

  “Are you okay, Bob? Is there a problem, man?”

  Glancing up, eyes still smarting and misty, Carmody shook his head.

  “Just resting a sec.” He put up a brave face, knowing better than to show any weakness to this young jerk, his assistant, clearly angling for Carmody’s job.

  “Well, I’m glad of that,” the younger man said. But a smug expression told Carmody everything. The breakdown of his percept and loss of all that work . . . he knew it was Kevin’s doing! Some trick, some hackworthy sabotage that Carmody would never be able to prove.

  Does he have to gloat so openly?

  “I thought I better let you know, Mr. Patel is on his way down. He wants a word with both of us.” Kevin’s look of anticipation was so blatant, Carmody had to quash a troglodytic urge to erase it with his fist. Kevin might have learned some surface tact if he had gone to university or worked at a regular people job. But no. His generation absorbs technical skills directly, like suckling from a—

  The right metaphor wouldn’t come. Strangely, that was the last straw for Carmody.

  Enough is enough.

  “You look terrible,” the younger man added. “Maybe you better visit the loo and clean up, before . . . Where are you going? Mr. Patel wants . . .”

  Carmody had one hand on the windowpane and the other on its frame. Staring through the gap and down twenty-three stories, he inhaled, feeling resolution build, overcoming panic, layering upon the panic, amplifying his panic into something that felt more manly.

  Determination.

  Time to end this.

  Carmody felt eyes turn his way, staring as the window swung wide. His left foot planted on the sill, pushing till he stood, teetering along emptiness.

  “Bob. What’re you doing?”

  Carmody smiled over his shoulder at his coworkers, none of whom rose to stop him.

  “I’m taking the easy way out.”

  And—he jumped.

  © 2013, Haylee Bolinger / ASU

  CARMODY’S GUT ROILED WITH caveman terror as the first few floors swept by. At least his life didn’t pass before him.

  He knew he should compose himself, but as wind stung his eyes and tugged his hair, a shadow loomed from an unexpected direction—another figure hurtling Earthward. Business suit flapping, clenched fists outstretched as if racing Carmody to the pavement. Dickerson of accounting.

  That sonofagun always seemed much too tightly wound.

  Oh? an honest part of himself replied. And what are you? Taking the coward’s way out.

  Carmody tried to focus on what mattered, with little time left. Is anything important, at this point?

  Abruptly, he heard someone speak. A shout, over the throbbing wind, but conversational, nonetheless.

  “Dickerson is such a maroon! I was at the same meeting when Mr. Saung told us all to jump. But you don’t see me showing off like that!”

  Glancing left, he saw a woman dressed in the slick, pinstripe uniform of a company attorney. He’d seen her around. Instead of plunging superhero style, she had arms spread like Carmody, delaying the inevitable. A rightward eyeflick detected no sign of Dickerson. So now it was the two of them.

  Told you to jump? Boy, that Saung is a hard case. Much worse than Patel. In fact, maybe I should have stayed and fought it out . . .

  Carmody almost replied to the woman—dark humor about falling with her, not for her. But she frowned in concentration, preparing for the fast-looming street.

  That’s what I should do.

  Grimly, Carmody, strapped the goggles back on to his head. Bearing down and gritting his teeth, he mentally recited a personal chant.

  I am a son of light. I am a son of light. I am a son of light . . .

  Nothing. Opening his eyes briefly, he saw that he was halfway to the ground, with much less than half the time left before . . . going splat upon the broad apron that now surrounded every downtown building, protecting pedestrians and vehicles from plummeting jumpers.

  Splat. Me? Come on, focus!

  I am a son of light. I am a son of light. I am a son of light . . .

  He tensed muscles in his arms, back, and thighs—and felt electric tension course along his spine, at last. A crackling that was molten, electric, and fey, all at the same time, seemed to fizz from every pore. It hurt like hell! But he kept up the mantra, frowning hard and willing power into his fists. His feet.

  I am a son of light. I am a son of light. I am a son of light . . .

  From his scalp implants to the tips of Carmody’s toes, power erupted, along with pain.

  I am a son of light . . . and I can fly!

  Bottoming out a couple of stories above the splat barrier, he made second-floor windows shake with the roar of his passage.

  Carmody flew . . .

  . . . AND ALMOST COLLIDED with half a dozen others, amid a throng zooming above Broadway. Carmody’s percept throbbed with warning shouts and small fines applied against his commuter account. But he managed to maintain concentration, leveling off and settling into an uptown flight path without injuring anyone.

  Damn, no wonder they say you should always use a standard launching catapult. Skyscraper-jumping is for idiots! Or, at least, folks who aren’t out of practice like you, fool.

  He turned onto Seventh Avenue, banking in a wide swoop that gained altitude as well. It almost felt . . . fu
n, for just a bit, though the tight maneuver made his stomach churn.

  Okay. What had Gaia reminded him to do? Assuming he was about to be fired and become a house-husband, he might as well cover the checklist.

  Oh yeah. Pick up Dad.

  Carmody turned on the goggles’ aroma detectors and followed a scent of liquid nitrogen. He descended to a low-slow lane, barely dodging a skylarking vette, and did a body tuck to land squarely in the catcher’s mitt at Seventh and Fifty-Eighth Street.

  With ringing ears and scraped palms, Carmody dusted himself off, wincing as body-repair implants dealt with the usual bruises and a fractured finger.

  “Watch out!” came a cry from above. He stepped aside to make way for the next flying person, coming in for a semi-crash landing.

  “There’s got to be a better way,” Carmody muttered. “Sometimes I wish we still had subways.”

  Ten minutes later he had signed at the desk for his father. The old man was tucked into a carrier pouch, strapped to Carmody’s chest. Awkward and heavy, but with room left to stuff in that carton of eggs.

  If I took the car, I’d have to pay ecobal fees and parking . . . but I’d also have a spare seat to strap him into. Or the trunk. Oh, well, being unemployed will have compensations.

  He took an elevator to the fifth-floor catapult room, paid his dime, and stood in line till it was his turn. Enviously, he watched as some teenagers hustled past the people-launcher to an open-air platform, where each one took a running start and then sprang into the sky. Well, of course anyone could do that, if you had plenty of free time to practice . . . and the agility of youth. Why, twenty years ago Carmody had been quite a big deal at his local hoverboard park. And he wondered if anyone still used them anymore, so graceful, silent-smooth. And it didn’t hurt when you rode a board! Only when you fell off.

  “I am a son of light,” he murmured, preparing his mind for the coming jolt-and-fling, always disagreeably jaw-jarring. “I am a son of light.”

  “You’re MY son,” groused a voice within the carrier pouch. “And need I remind you that it’s dark in here?”

  Carmody rolled his eyes.

  “Hush, Dad. I gotta concentrate.”

  But he unzipped the pouch to a safety stop, so his father’s gel-frozen head could see out. Carmody focused on the mantra, controlling his implants much better this time, with less emotion and a bit less pain, as the robot attendant held a taut saddle for him.

  “I am a child of light . . .”

  This catapult needed tuning. It flung him with a nauseating initial spin. Fighting to correct, Carmody gritted his teeth so hard he wondered if he chipped one. This time, at least, he managed to enter traffic without too many micro-fines.

  “I can fly . . . I can fly . . .” he convinced himself, while roaring ahead, weaving two hundred meters above the street, tired but homeward bound.

  “I . . . can . . . fly . . .”

  DAD JUST HAD TO keep kvetching.

  “You call this traffic?” he demanded, as they cruised over the southwest corner of Central Park. “When we first moved to this city, during the Big Reconstruction, only taxis and buses could fly! And just in narrow lanes! At least once a month, some fool would do a forced landing onto the groundstreet, clogging things, like the traffic jams you see in old movies. Just look at you punks, complaining about getting to flit about like gods!”

  Carmody glanced toward the free zone above the lake, where no rules held—where fliers darted about with abandon, doing spirals, spins, and loops. Sure, that looked kind of godlike, if you thought about it. Maybe Dad had a point.

  But miracles don’t seem that way when they become real-life chores.

  “Like my own pa used to bitch and moan about his airplane flights.” Dad’s voice—querulous and chiding—emerged from the encapsulating globe. Now transformed from expensive cryo-cooled to economical plasticized-state, he wasn’t legally a person. The comments were produced by an inboard AI whose algorithms query-checked their estimated reactions against the billions of neurons in Dad’s gel-stabilized brain, staying relatively true to what he might have said.

  “My pa would fly from Raleigh to Phoenix on business and then back in two days, eating peanuts and watching movies while crisscrossing a continent that his great-grampa took a year to cross by mule, and almost died! But all he could talk about were narrow seats and luggage fees. And went on and on about having to take his shoes off.”

  Yep, this sure sounds like my old man—the same lectury finger-waggings, without fingers. If I hadn’t promised to keep him on the mantel for at least ten years, I’d dump his nagging skull in that lake over there.

  But Carmody knew he wouldn’t. Within a decade the emulation would be much better, perhaps simulating the old guy’s better, deeper side, maybe even some wisdom, too. And perhaps, someday, the glimmering, ever-alluring promise of “uploading” to wondrous realms of virtual reality. If I want my own kids to take care of my head, I suppose I should set an example.

  Anyway, wasn’t this just another example of what Gaia had been nagging him about? A crappy attitude, taking everything too hard. Oversensitivity to life’s harsh edges. An imbalance of grouchy sourness over joy. Okay, things weren’t going too well, right now. But something was definitely wrong inside, Carmody had to admit.

  He’d been resisting adjustment, and no one on Earth could force him. I can straighten out all by myself, he grumbled, knowing how puritan and old-fashioned it sounded.

  They used to prescribe drugs. He shuddered to imagine what an unsubtle bludgeon that must have been. Nowadays—

  I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to adjust my implants, to let me see a picture wider than just downsides. So I can choose to cheer up easier. Especially if I’m going to be looking for another job. Be a better husband and father. Maybe go back to my music. Or at least concentrate better when I have to fly!

  On impulse, Carmody swung left at Eighty-Third and cruised between condominium towers with their own landing ledges on every floor. Wary for incautious launchers, he slowed to a near hover at the end of the block, exertion stinging his eyes as he looked down and west at P.S. 43, where little Annie attended second grade.

  The school’s protective force field shimmered like reflections off the Hudson, a kilometer farther west. A brilliant safety feature, invented to give parents some peace of mind that their children were safe—the dome sparkled every time an object crashed into it, erupting with half-blinding brightness. In just the few seconds he had been watching, dozens of flashes forced Carmody to damp down the filters of his goggles.

  Thank heavens for the dome.

  WHAM! Another collision, as a student slammed against the inner surface, caroming amid a cascade of electric sparkles before zooming off again, to swoop and cavort amid some incomprehensibly complex playground game. Giving chase, a girl sporting red boots, garish epaulets, and a ponytail struck the force field with her feet, amid a shower of sparks. Crouched legs helped her spring off again, in hot pursuit.

  Carmody had no such endurance. Concentrating, biting his lip, he managed touchdown on the condominium building’s roof. Then he stepped to the edge, muscles and nerves twitching.

  Kids. Their generation takes it all for granted. They’re the ones who’ll roam the sky with real freedom, painless and comfortable—all of them—with the powers of superheroes. He sighed. I just hope some of them appreciate it, now and then.

  He looked for Annie . . . and the goggles picked her out from the recess throng. A small figure, dark hair kept deliberately natural, though with a tidy ribbon, she flew amid a formation of friends, in a calmer, less frenetic game. Annie’s own specs must have alerted her to the parental presence, because she split off from her pals, doing a lazy dolphin glide just inside the closest part of the barrier, back-stroking, giving Carmody a wave, a smile. It filled his heart, in such a heady rush, that he swayed.

  Then a bell sounded. Recess ended. Juvenile implants tapered down, damped by teacher control, forcing them to
land. He stood there, intending to watch till Annie filed back inside the school . . . only then Carmody’s phone rang. A curt, businesslike summons, impending at the left edge of his percept.

  The boss. Crap. And just when I was remembering how good life is. Well, let’s get this over with. I was a company hotshot till last year, so there ought to be a decent severance.

  Mr. Patel’s image wasn’t aivatar but true-view, beamed from his office. Carmody grimaced, knowing that his own glowering expression would be conveyed to the manager. Resigned, he felt determined to face what was coming, with dignity.

  Look, I know this wasn’t a great day . . . he was about to start. But Patel spoke first.

  “Bob, I wish you had stayed, but I understand your reasons. Look, I know things haven’t been great, lately . . . I didn’t pay close enough attention to personnel dynamics and thought you were exaggerating your concerns about Kevin. But his stunt today proves you were downplaying, instead—”

  Carmody interrupted.

  “Then you know it was his doing—?”

  Patel shrugged. “Sure. Oh, he used a new grilf trick that’s hot on the streets, right now. But come on! Like we don’t have people out there, hovering over the new? Arrogant putz, his worst sin was having such a low opinion of our skills!”

  “Huh . . . then my work . . .”

  “I’ve got the report. It needs several polishes before I take it upstairs, but I think your trend analyses are unassailable. You just underestimated market obstinacy. It needs a phase factor of at least two weeks to take into account how everyone holds on to their biases and assumptions. But we can pounce on the transport upswing in ten days. Good work! You’ll have my notes for those polishes by the time you get home.”

  Carmody reversed his own assumptions. Instead of asking about his severance package, he decided to switch tracks.