Lost Time: Part 1 [Second Skyn]

by Boyes, Damien

  She's staring at me. I'm supposed to say something. “I’m…looking forward to it,” I say, hoping it will be enough to satisfy her. It seems to be because she nods and continues.

  “You’ve all been doing great work out there and we have the numbers to prove it, but that only means we need to work even harder to keep them there.”

  She spends a minute running through the assignments for the Primary Response Unit and finishes by reminding the patrol officers they’re required to use drone support on every call, no matter how trivial.

  Next up she calls out the Criminal Investigations Bureau. Only five of the six on-duty plain-clothes detectives are present this morning, the sixth is interviewing a suspect in a series of heists where housebots were stealthily reprogrammed to collect valuables and leave them waiting outside the front door.

  She then addresses the Major Crime, Street Crime and Community Policing Units, offering a word of advice or requesting an update from each.

  I wonder if she routinely goes into this level of detail at the start of every shift, or if it’s just for me. I try to put names to faces as the Inspector calls people out. Occasionally I catch someone looking back at me, but no one for very long.

  She finishes with the Psychorithm Crime Unit. There don’t seem to be many of us.

  “Detective Sergeant Daar and Detective Brewer are still attempting to uncover Xiao’s thoughtmod operation. Sergeant Daar—” she looks out into the group at a tall, lithe black woman with her arms crossed and her head topped by an explosion of curly white hair, standing next to a compact but powerful-looking man in a too-stylish, form-hugging suit who I figure can’t even see the Inspector over the heads of the people in front of him. Together, they look like an anthropomorphized fire hydrant and streetlight.

  I recognize them but it takes a moment to drag the details out of deep storage. Kalifa Daar and Olliver Brewer—a year ago they’d been rising stars in Guns & Gangs. They’d been commended for their investigation into a Russian gang smuggling warbots into the Union across the North Sea. I wonder what they did to get busted down to Reszo Squad.

  “I’m expecting progress soon,” the Inspector finishes.

  Daar nods, slightly, as if insulted by the public reminder.

  The Inspector continues, “Now, to our one distressing data point—Standards Offences continue to increase, as does attention from the media, the community, the Ministry of Standards and consequently, Division Command.”

  While the Ministry of Human Standards is on the front line of enforcing Standards Laws everywhere else in the Union, in Toronto it's up to us.

  As I learned in the training I breezed through last night, the Psychorithm Crime Unit is tasked with policing three primary offences: Lost Time, shyfts and scafes.

  Lost Time occurs when someone or something hardlocks a Cortex. Accidents, mostly. An assault here and there. Murder doesn't exist in the Reszo community, there’s always a back-up waiting at the Ministry of Standards. Just skyn damage and the missing memories from the hours or days since the Cortex last synced. Penalties for Hardlock with Intent can range from moderate fines to incarceration for weeks or even months, depending on the amount of memory lost.

  Which is why Standards keeps a record of Psychorithm patterns and handles the syncs. Want to be immortal? Truly immortal? Sync deep and often. At least three hours a day, every day. If anything bad should happen, the only loss is to the memories and experiences accumulated since the last sync.

  And since usually, the only things lost are a few hours of memory, Lost Time calls are low on the priority list.

  The next two crimes earn the bulk of attention, funding and manpower: shyfts and scafes. The illegal amplification or modification of a human being—brain or body, respectively. They're both Standards Offences and the punishments are severe. From rep-loss to a few years stocked in a low-fi virt to a forced hardlock.

  Called shyfts on the street, thoughtmods by the public and Neural Pattern Grafts by the statues against them, digital brain modifications are short-term, injectable snippets of neural code designed to alter or otherwise enhance a Cortex's baseline performance. There are a few digital sources for pure linkheads, but most Reszos use the physical cap version—a thimble-sized, one-use hit.

  Not all shyfts are illegal. The legal versions stimulate drunkenness or joy or any of a thousand other different experiences the interaction of neurons, chemicals and muscle can provide. Problem is, a Cortex is capable of way more than a simple old human brain, and everyone knows it. Which is why when Reszos sync with Standards, their patterns are checked against the stored copy. Too much shyfting pulls the neural pattern out of alignment with the back-up. Then, when a sync is attempted the rithm will collapse, and alarm bells sound, and we come running.

  Most shyfts on the street are illegal. Only Second Skyn and a handful of other companies are cleared to sell them, and Second Skyn and those other companies are required to adhere to the Human Standards Laws keeping humans and restored on an even playing ground. But laws won’t stop everyone, and a black market has sprung up to provide shyfts for those who don't hold the same opinions as to the potential of human performance, and don’t care if their patterns end up stretched out like taffy on a warm day.

  Too many shyfts in too short a time won’t just alter the pattern, it can cause permanent damage. Psychosis. A fragmented personality. Thoughtmods are dangerous because they act on the active psychorithm, the running torrent of thoughts and feelings that coalesce to form a Reszo’s consciousness. And once the active rithm is open, it's trivial to alter the underlying neural patterns. To pull feelings apart. To rifle through memories like linkfeed indexes. To force actions. To snatch thoughts or even capture entire psychorithms for endless duplication, or a subjective eternity of torture.

  That’s why Reszo Squad exists. We make sure everyone’s keeping their minds right.

  While shyfts work only on the brain, scafes are whole body upgrades. Whether hurriedly printed from open-source geneblocks or customized pheneweave muscle over a reinforced non-humanoid skeleton, scafes are bioSkyns that haven't been registered with the Ministry of Human Standards. Every bioSkyn is required to have a certification on file for routine g-code scans. Every cell type catalogued and registered.

  The Service even has a name for an unknown rithm running an unregistered scafe: a cypher. And if we ever find one, we’re supposed to call the Ministry of Human Standards Enforcement Agency and co-operate fully with their investigation.

  Cyphers are Federal jurisdiction. The Union doesn't want anonymous, untraceable people running around in superhuman bodies. It's a simple argument they win at the end of a gun.

  It's not all conservative values or anti-Reszo phobia: in the wrong hands this technology is dangerous. Someone not being careful could go out one night, score a Bliss knockoff from the wrong person and wake up mindjacked, a copy of their personality sucked out of their head and laid bare on the digital equivalent of an autopsy table, thoughts and feelings searchable by keyword. Worse, their consciousness could be kept active as the information is pried out of their screaming mind.

  Or what happens when three hundred copies of a single, well-trained, spec-ops soldier in capabilities-enhanced scafed skyns drop in from orbit? That's an instant coup with limited collateral damage. Or an immortal sicko's afternoon out.

  This is why Standards has the best weapons, the fastest brains and the deadliest bodies in the Union. They're in charge of making sure people stay people.

  And that’s why the local Reszo community doesn’t want the Ministry of Human Standards patrolling their city. Cypher hunting is one thing, but not every Reszo problem can be solved with a bullet.

  Even still, I can’t help but think there’s more to this job than preserving the sanctity of humanity. There’s too much money involved. At its core, it’s a copyright issue. Shyfts use a hijacked snippet of Second Skyn’s thoughtmod code and cut into Second Skyn’s market share. Scafes use pirated gene blocks.
Not to mention that the rithm encoding process is patented and tampering is contrary to the terms of service. There’s billions at stake.

  Had I put this all together before, that my thoughts would be under the legal control of Second Skyn, with the Ministry of Standards telling me what I can and can’t do with them, I’d have given the whole idea of living forever way more consideration than I did.

  So here we are, saddled with a whole set of laws that didn't exist five years ago, that only affect a fraction of a percent of a community that itself didn’t exist five years ago, being driven by an underlying technology that isn’t well understood and changing on a daily basis, propped up by a legal framework that may or may not run against basic human rights, and like it or not, it’s my job to enforce all of it.

  “Detective Gage—” The sound of my name snaps me back to the room. “You and Detective Wiser will be handling Lost Time calls. In between, I want you dividing your time between the Skywalk Market and Reszlieville. Most of the Standards Offences we’re seeing are occurring there, so that’s where you’ll live. I want you to become intimately familiar with the residents and regulars. I want you to develop an instinctual understanding of how these neighbourhoods work and who the power players are. Develop contacts. Make yourselves known. Street-level policing is the only way we’ll put a lid on this. Agreed?”

  Tactically, it makes sense. Having boots on the ground is the only real way to earn people’s trust, especially in a policing capacity. If we come in and start throwing our weight around the locals shut down. I learned that firsthand in the Forces. Except for the part where I’m the one the Service is parading around. I’m not interested in being anyone’s pacifier.

  But she isn’t actually asking my opinion.

  I look to Wiser, then to her and nod.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Wiser peeps.

  “Good,” she says to us, then addresses the group. “That’s it. Remember to validate your overtime by Friday or you won’t see it for a month. Stay safe everyone. Dismissed.”

  Conversations erupt as people file through the exits. Chaddah’s voice rises over the buzz, “Galvan. Finsbury. I’d like a word.”

  I stay where I am while the room clears. I get a few ‘welcome back’s and assorted gestures of recognition as my new co-workers shuffle past me on the way out. Daar and the bulldog breeze by without a glance. I can already tell we’re going to have trouble.

  I make my way over to the table where my new partner is standing. He's still immersed in his spekz. The Inspector beats me there, holds out her hand and watches me approach. “Pleasure to finally meet you, Finsbury,” she says as we shake. Her fingers are strong and cool and remembering Yellowbird I suppress a flinch but nothing surges up my arm. “I’ve heard great things.”

  “Thank you, ma’am. Good to be back.”

  She smiles as if I've confirmed a suspicion she's long held, and rests her hand on Detective Wiser’s shoulder. The Inspector’s touch yanks his attention back to the physic. His eyes are moist behind the blue-washed glaze of data.

  “Finsbury, this is Galvan Wiser, your partner. He's new to the Psychorithm Unit as well—we were lucky enough to entice him over from Cyber, and I’ve had him helping me out in the station until you arrived. You two are going to work well together.” That last comes out like an order.

  Wiser rubs his hand on the leg of his dark knit pants and sticks it out, palm facing in, fingers straight, thumb in the air. Like a frozen karate chop. “I anticipate learning a great deal from you, Mr. Gage,” he says.

  “Yeah, you too,” I say as I grasp his palm and let him pump our hands up and down.

  “How’s your transition, Finsbury?” Inspector Chaddah says, tucking an invisible strand of hair back under her headscarf.

  “No problems so far,” I lie.

  “Good to hear, the Service can’t afford any lapses—especially from our restored officers.” She studies my face as she speaks, her thick yet immaculately sculpted eyebrows straining to meet. The tone of her voice drops. Just a touch, but enough to communicate she’s to be taken seriously. “I want you to be vigorous with your counselling, and if you need anything, anything at all, come to me. We need to make sure the Service continues to treat us as equals—do you scan?”

  I do. She’s going to hold me to a higher standard than anyone else here. If I fuck up, I fuck it up for her too. This is exactly why I didn’t want to come here. It’s not enough to be good at my job anymore, now I have to be an example for my kind.

  “Understood,” I say.

  “Good. Get to work.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Wiser and I say in unison. The Inspector turns on her heel and leaves us standing together.

  We look at each other. Wiser cuts his spekz off and I observe his huge brown eyes seeing me for the first time. His plump cheeks are freshly shaved and an ancient set of earbuds dangle from wires at his collar.

  “What’s your capacity?” he says.

  “What’s my what?”

  “Your hardware,” he gestures at my head. “Did you go with the Two-Thousand? The Twenty-Two Hundred?” He pauses for a beat when I don’t respond and then continues with, “You didn't waste your time on a Three did you?”

  He rolls his eyes like it’s some kind of obvious joke. “Idiots enhance the oProc firing rate but don't upgrade the diganics to take advantage, why bother?”

  “I have no idea— What are you talking about?”

  “Your Cortex, you know. Your brain.”

  “My brain?”

  “Yeah, what model did you get?”

  “You’re asking what model my brain is?”

  “Yeah, why? Oh—” he cuts off, flushing from the bristles on his scalp all the way down his neck and into his shirt. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean—I’ve insulted you, haven't I? You got the base model? The One Oh Oh Oh? Don't worry, they're still rated up to Human Standard, no one will judge you. You'll be able to do your job and all, it’s a little slow at some of the swarm processing but nothing that'll hold you back too much. The emulation updates gave a big improvement. I can help you max out the settings, tweak the diganic response rates…” he trails off.

  During the Second Skyn intake process the sales guy had suggested all sorts of upgrades to my brain and my body: a Cortex with built-in wireless linktivity and on-board Headspace, a tongue with a tenfold increase in flavour sensitivity, eyes with a mechanical zoom, girth enhancement. I said no to everything. None of it was real, these were all hypotheticals. Potential upgrades for a body I’d need, at best, sometime in the distant future. I went through the motions, never truly believing we’d ever need the Life Assurance. People were living on reJuv a century and a half with no end in sight. Mom and Dad were in their eighties and showed no signs of slowing down. There was no reason to believe we’d be any different and the Sickness and freak accidents were something that happened to other people. I told the Second Skyn sales guy to give me whatever wouldn't remind me there was anything other than my regular old grey matter in my head and keep my body the way it was. Other than that, I didn't think about it.

  I never thought I’d actually find myself in the body I’d picked out.

  And I definitely never considered I'd have to justify my decisions to anyone.

  “No idea,” I say. “I wasn't there when they stuck it in my skull.”

  Galvan’s round head splits with a grin. “I always wanted to see my brain, you know, actually see it—not just an image. I used to try when I was a kid, roll my eyes back as far as they'd go, see if I could.”

  “And?”

  “Nothing but acute eyestrain.” He reaches up, slaps me on the back. “You're all right Mr. Gage.”

  “Fin.”

  “Okie dee, Fin. Call me Galvan. I’m gonna go get us a cruiser.”

  “Pull it around and slide over, I’ll be driving.”

  “Ahh—” he looks at the ground, colour again rising in his cheeks.

  “What?”

  “Um…”
<
br />   “What?”

  “You can’t.”

  “I can’t what?”

  “Drive.”

  “I sure as hell can,” I say, my voice rising. “I’ve been driving for forty-five years.”

  Galvan takes a step back. “No, I mean, I’m sure you can. It’s regulations. You’re not cleared to operate a Service vehicle. You need to pass your ninety-day probation first.” He risks a quick glance up at me. “No one told you?”

  No one had. One more thing.

  “Fine,” I say. “Give me five to grab my gear.”

  “10-4 partner.” His spekz snap back to life, washing the top of his rounded cheeks purple. I watch him amble down the hall, head lost in the link, and catch himself the second before he topples over a trash bin.

  I shake my head and make my way back to reception. Herb intercepts me on the way. “You good there, Fin?” he asks, concerned. The conversation with Galvan must have left an impression on my face.

  “Who knows,” I reply. “I met my new partner. Turns out I might have made an uninformed choice regarding my mental capacity.”

  Herb chuckles. “We're still getting used to him. But I read his transfer dox—he's smart—off the charts. I mean, he ain't got a calculator in his head like you do—”

  He waits a second to see how I'll respond and laughs when I don't. “Come on,” he says, “I got your gear at the desk.”

  I fall in behind him, feeling like a rookie all over again.

  ***

  SysDate

  [07:51:51. Friday, April 12, 2058]

  I don’t know how Galvan passed the Service driving course. He applies the brakes as though it's a binary choice, turns in all-or-nothing jerks, and refuses to let the Skütes swarm around us. I’ve got one hand on the doorjamb and my feet planted into the floor, chewing the inside of my cheek to keep from taking control from my side.