I scan the results as they come. I met Ari Dubecki—Dub—at counselling. Over the past six months he’s soared in the New Gladiator rankings and earned himself a vocal fanbase-the Dubsters-who praise him for his brutality in the ring and his aw-shucks charm outside it. He’s supposed to be in the fight of his life tomorrow night: a one-VS-one to become Ludus Humanitech’s next Novi—only a fight away from a spot on the arena team. He’s poised on the edge of superstardom. Hard to imagine what he’d gain from coming after me. Unless someone had something on him. More blackmail?
His rep-feed shows tons of activity—public appearances, responses to fans, training videos—until two days ago, when his rep goes dark. Lots there but not much to go on. Nothing to explain what he’d want from me.
As for Doralai Wii, she's the strangest mystery of them all. Something had happened between us, we were more than just acquaintances. The building shows she visited a few times, and not just pop-ins. Overnight stays. Which, of everything I’ve learned, everything I can’t believe the last me did, is the biggest mind fuck. How could I start something so soon after Connie?
Maybe we were just friends, who knows? But I wouldn’t bet on it. Her rep goes dark even earlier than Dub’s, the blackout starting just after I died.
She could have swapped to a new StatUS-ID, but without access to SecNet, I can’t know for sure. Her last address puts her in the east suburbs, with a husband who died a month or so after she disappeared.
StatUS only returns a few shared contacts, all of which look to be derived from the counselling meetings I attended.
Elder Raahmaan, the Extropian activist who lead the meetings.
A guy named Shelt who partnered with Dub in a skyn-rental shop they called In The Flesh.
Tala Vivas, a soldier who won a get-out-of-death-free lottery with a government-sponsored restoration
.
Carl Enright, who voluntarily abandoned his skyn and put his rithm back into storage.
And Miranda Dale, who StatUS doesn’t have much on at all.
They all have one thing in common: over the past six months, for one reason or another, they’ve all dropped off the grid. Carl gave up and went back into storage. Tala and Miranda both committed crimes—Tala shot up a scaflab that had been producing skyns of pre-pubescent kids for the black market, and Miranda bludgeoned her husband to death—and had their rithms stocked. Doralai and Elder simply disappeared. Dub lasted the longest, even became a bit of a celebrity. Then he attacked me.
Only Shelt’s still around. And he hasn’t left his shop in months.
It can’t all be a coincidence, all these people dead, boxed or disappeared.
Plus, Dub wanted something from me. Something in my head. Something I know.
Except he doesn’t know I wasn’t syncing. I don't know anything.
I have to put the pieces together. Figure out what the fuck happened to the last me and why I’m back now.
I don’t believe I’ve killed anyone, or that I’d ever worked for a criminal, or that I really died in a gang war. No matter what anyone says, I know myself. I’m not a murderer. I need to prove to Agent Wiser and everyone else I’m innocent.
And I need to figure out who brought me back.
I can’t move on, can’t even start to grieve for everything I lost if I don’t know who was behind my restoration. Otherwise, I’ll be looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life.
I tell the IMP to call Shelt and leave a message when he doesn’t answer, asking him to get back to me, then get the IMP to keep a look out for rep-hits on Doralai Wii, Elder, or Dub, in case they decide to come out of hiding. Not that I’m expecting either to happen.
And that’s it. That’s the sum total of my ability to act. I’m more caught up than I was, but I’m still nowhere closer to figuring out why I’m here. None of this is going to help me. It’s all ancient history. Dead knowledge.
No. I need to start in the present. My present.
I need to find out who brought me back and work from there.
I need to start where I started.
Time to meet my maker.
StatUS-ID
[a646:d17e:8670:511f::Finsbury/D//GAGE]
SysDate
[08:25:36. Friday, April 12, 2058]
Before the accident, I used to go out of my way to avoid Reszlieville. Stepping out of a proper brick and glass city into what looked like the epicentre of an alien colonization caused a sudden-onset cognitive dissonance that made me woozy.
Woozy, it seems, was nothing.
The colonization process is complete. Now the aliens are terraforming.
Galvan pulls us up next to a wide, rolling green space surrounding a spiralled amphitheatre. The cruiser ejects the drones as I climb out and take a deep breath, the air somehow warmer and sweeter here than a few blocks away at the station. I shade my eyes with my hand and watch the multi-faceted surface of a giant, iridescent, egg-shaped hotel across the street articulate to follow the sun.
The cruiser pulls away to find somewhere to wait as the drones take position above our heads, one for each of us. Their array of multi-spectral cameras and filters calibrate then start scanning the crowd, streaming the captured bio/kin through SecNet and matching faces to names, searching for anyone of interest.
“Did you know,” Galvan asks as we merge into the briskly moving pedestrian traffic, “that at any given time, there are at least five thousand cyphers in the GTA, probably more.”
Cyphers, I learned yesterday, are psychorithms who managed to get their brains decanted into a new skyn without informing Standards. A cypher can be anyone, from anywhere. And not being tied to an identity makes being a criminal that much easier. They’re so dangerous, Standards has a shoot-to-kill policy.
“The problem is,” Galvan continues, “cyphers are next to impossible to find. Neither Standards nor the Service has a convincing means to identify them. Sure, I know what you’re going to say, SecNet identifies dozens if not hundreds of unknown StatUS-IDs every day, and any one of those could be an unregistered skyn, but that includes everything from improperly processed tourists to undocumented immigrants to glitches in bio/kin recognition. Neither Standards nor the Service has the manpower to chase every one, so unless they’re caught in the act doing something illegal, cyphers are mostly able to pass uncontested.”
“Agreed,” I ask, only half-listening, mesmerized by agribots scuttling across the hanging vegetation of a sail-shaped sky-farm down the street. “It’s a problem.”
“It is. So I fixed it.”
Suddenly the agribots aren’t so interesting. “Fixed it how?”
“Well, bioSkyns are nearly indistinguishable from ordinary human bodies. Excepting for certain elements at the cellular and genetic level, and the lack of an organic brain, of course.”
“Of course.”
“But it turns out ‘nearly’ is enough to work with. Skyns have an elevated average body temperature, fewer fluctuations in pulse, a subtly different thermographic spectrum—”
“Galvan, skip to the end. What about cyphers?”
“I've rolled some code that should allow us to isolate unregistered skyns from the broad set of SecNet null hits.”
“Why didn't you say that?”
“Yes, well, that is to say—it's theoretical. There’s—”
I stop mid-step, making people behind us grumble as they’re forced to swing around. “You’re saying you think you’ve solved one of the PCU’s most serious problems—one of Standard’s priority ass-sticks—and you’re not sure if it works?”
“No, I mean, yes, it should—I’ve tested it on data from known bioSkyns, and I’ve had a few low-probability hits on live trials, I just haven’t tested it in the field. I only started working on it when I found out about my promotion, and the Inspector has been keeping me close to the station—” He shakes his head, resets. “Anyway, I've got a nice cypher-specific bio/kin d-base started. It’ll take a while to gather up enough data before we’re ab
le to tag cyphers with any certainty, but the more data we collect the easier it will get. Here,” he says tapping his tab, “want to take it on its first field test?”
My tab buzzes in my pocket. I slip it out, extend the screen, slap it around my wrist and give the IMP permission to let Galvan's app run. It launches and fills the curved display.
Galvan points to the screen on my arm. “I’ve modified the StatUS rep-view overlay to highlight suspected cyphers instead of Social Faith rank,” he says, leaning over to point to where we’re standing on a live, top-down map. “You’re in blue. Other Service personnel are highlighted in gold—there’s me. Green’s ordinary citizens. Anyone with more than a 75% match to known or suspected cypher bio/kin will show up in red.”
“Theoretically,” I say.
“Yes. I mean, I have tested it. The fundamentals are sound. As we increase the sample size, it will become more accurate. It should—it will—work.”
“Okay, let’s give it a shot,” I say, and lift my arm. The display changes from a top-down map to a magic-mirror view of the street, shows me a tree-lined, haute couture runway, lousy with stunning examples of human perfection. Like an Olympic village where the athletes all moonlight as supermodels, each and every one of them sporting outfits conjured from the minds of their personal clothing designers an hour before they put them on.
Even Second Skyn’s in the fashion business now. Every year during Fashion Week, they unveil a new line of bodies to covet. Back before the accident, the most popular was Apple, a lithe bob-cut blonde with a boyish chest, laser-green eyes and a dimpled chin. There was a male version too, looked like brother and sister. I don't know who's popular these days but the same artfully cantered eyebrows have passed three times in the last forty five seconds, every one of them arched over irises shining like aquamarine.
But none of them show up outlined in red on the tab.
“Nothing.” I say.
“Let’s keep walking,” Galvan suggests. “See what happens.”
We continue past an apartment complex that looks like it grew in place on a blossoming fractal endoskeleton, then a mixed-use tower who’s pollution-gathering framework could have been woven by a team of massive techno-organic spiders, then swing south into the lee of a multi-level shopping complex that overhangs the street like a massive cast of a termite colony.
That’s where we spot him. Our tabs hum simultaneously on a red figure outlined against the sea of green.
I hold up my tab.
StatUS-ID: Unknown
CYPHER PROBABILITY: 92%
RECOMMENDED ACTION: Detain Subject
The cypher’s got a model’s good-looks—windswept black hair, dark eyes and brows, the skin of his light brown pecs jutting from the low-neckline of a thin white T. He’s seated on a long bench, scanning the crowd, sipping some kind of green juice like he just finished teaching a yoga class.
“Holy wow,” Galvan says, tracking the cypher through his spekz, a delighted grin spreading his face. “It really works.”
“Let’s make sure,” I say and have the AMP double-check the cypher’s bio/kin through SecNet. It throws a null response, not sure who it is either.
Still doesn’t mean he’s a cypher. Could be a handsome illegal. “Walk past him,” I tell Galvan. “Don’t look at him, just walk past. I want to see what he does.”
Galvan shrugs and ambles past the suspected cypher, his conspicuous Service drone trailing behind like a balloon on a string.
The cypher pretends not to notice, waits until Galvan and the drone pass before standing and heading in the opposite direction. Right to where I’m waiting.
“Good morning,” I say, putting myself in his path. A scowl crosses his face but when he notices my Service drone, his lips tighten.
“What can I do for you, Officer?” he asks, swallowing hard.
I pull the tab off my arm, pact it and hold the tip up to his eyes. “You can watch the light for me.”
He turns away. “You have no right,” he says. “I didn’t do anything.”
“Then you won’t object to a quick psychorithm pattern scan. You are restored, aren’t you, sir?”
“I don’t have to put up with this,” he says, and turns to walk back the way he came, but Galvan and his drone are already behind him.
“Either you stand still while I scan you—” I say and unholster my weapon, thumb it to stun. “Or twitch on the ground while I scan you.”
He sighs, sweeps his eyes around for another way out, then relents, takes a breath, puts his head up and opens his eyes.
“Watch him,” I say to Galvan, step up and use the tip of my tab check his pattern against Standards. The skyn isn’t registered, who knows who’s inside? He shuffles from foot to foot while the tab searches. A moment later the ID comes back—Chadwick Len.
Ha, I know this guy.
Arrested him once when I was in Major Crimes and he was a scrawny white guy with bad skin and a truck full of stolen wallscreens. He’s got outstanding warrants for Robbery, B&E, Possession and Uttering Threats. And his rithm is currently registered to a different skyn that’s currently under house arrest.
“Long way from home, Chadwick.” I say.
He sucks a breath to argue but before the words leave his lips, his face falls. “I want a lawyer.”
Looks like Galvan’s little program works. We got ourselves a cypher.
What a surprise this kid is. I wasn’t expecting much when I first met him, but he’s just done something a whole governmental agency couldn’t. He’s come up with an answer to the cypher problem.
“Ever cuffed anyone?” I ask Galvan.
He shakes his head. “Not outside of training.”
“Then today’s your lucky day,” I say and hand him my binders. “Chadwick here’s an expert.”
StatUS-ID
[fdaa:9afe:17e6:a2ef::Gage/-//GIBSON]
SysDate
[16:33:31. Thursday, January 16, 2059]
I’ve pounded on the heavy metal door for ten minutes, hard enough my hand hurts, hard enough the neighbours noticed, and still no answer.
There’s a big obvious camera just above the entrance, probably more scattered around. I have no doubt they can see me out here. Maybe the clinic doesn’t accept angry returns.
I was careful on the way here, but couldn’t shake the sensation of being watched. I stayed on foot, checking for tails. Doubled back. Made random detours through heavy-traffic areas. If anyone was following me—Service or Standards or otherwise—I couldn’t spot them, but the feeling remained.
I detoured past a thrift store and I splashed out on a new winter wardrobe. The most expensive piece was a Pre-Union, urban-camo, N4B parka with a privacy hood, plus a couple pairs of well-worn jeans, a few plaid button-ups that were in style two decades ago, and a pair of heavy boots. I droned the extras home and binned what I’d been wearing. It didn’t help. Even in these new clothes the cold is biting.
I step back from the door, rubbing the side of my hand. Knocking won’t work. I need to find something more drastic to get the Russian’s attention. Back down the alley I find the remains of an old metal fence. I have to stop every thirty seconds to put my hands under my armpits, but eventually I work one of the metal pilings loose from the frozen ground, carry it back to the door and wave it for the camera.
“I tried polite,” I say to the lens. “In ten seconds I’ll show you how much of an asshole I can be.”
I get to seven before the track-suited blonde from yesterday shoves the door open and levels the sights of a Norinco snub-barrelled twelve-gauge at my face.
“Otvyazhis’,” she says. Fuck off, my head translates for me. I can’t believe I still know Russian.
She won’t shoot me…I don’t think.
I let the post slip from my fingers. “Your customer service sucks.”
“Otvyazhis’,” she says again.
I straighten. “I don’t think so. You shoot me and you get the politsiya. You want them poking
around your excuse for a Restoration Clinic down there? On health code violations alone you’re running back to Russia to avoid jail time.”
She licks her lips and huffs a white cloud, weighing the shit she’ll have to deal with if she shoots me versus standing in the cold and answering my questions. Finally, she lowers the weapon.
“Sixty seconds,” she says and zips her track jacket up to her neck.
“Who had me Restored?”
“Ya ne znayu,” she replies with a shrug.
“You don’t know or you won’t tell me.”
“Ya ne znayu,” she repeats, stamps her feet. “No names. Part of the deal. Thirty seconds.”
“Come on—”
“Twenty.”
“You can’t just yank someone out of storage and dump them in a new body. Who gave you the pass phrases? Who dealt with Standards?”
“Advokat.”
“Who?”
“Saabir,” she says through half a snarl. “The lawyer. We’re just the scafers. This shit is his job.”
“Where?”
“Up the street.” She jabs north. “Make a left. Follow the stench of rotting paper. Now time is up. Come back and I deliver your skyn to the fuck farm.” She lowers her weapon, stamps her feet, spits Teper’ otvali at me and slams the door.
Wasn’t pretty, but it worked.
Now to find this lawyer, and I already know the place.
I smelled it on the way here.
StatUS-ID
[a646:d17e:8670:511f::Finsbury/D//GAGE]
SysDate
[12:31:48. Friday, April 12, 2058]
Once a wagon comes to collect Chadwick, Galvan calls the cruiser back and takes us out of Reszlieville, heads for the Market. We leave behind buildings out of a fever dream and plunge into the shadows of the concrete and glass behemoths of the downtown core. More modern structures are appearing here but sixty-story skyscrapers packed side to side are pretty tough to replace, which helps keep the financial centre rooted firmly in the last-century.
Lost Time: Part 1 [Second Skyn] Page 12
