“I like consistency” Mace said. “It was an easy life to grow into. I could have been content for.. .well, for life. We had just under seven years. I found out she was going to be on Mars again—a last-minute change, she’d been on her way home from Ganymede—so I was able to lever myself onto a security team escorting a PolyCarb board member on a tour of Martian cities. More than that, I ended up in charge of his security. We arrived after Helen had been on the surface for some time. I couldn’t get to her, the site was locked in by one of Mars’ famous dust storms, but we spoke regularly. The storm was clearing, Listrom was in the final stages of his tour, there would be time for a reunion. Then I stopped hearing anything. Communications went down, and I panicked. I left Listrom in the hands of my second and forced my way onto a transport heading for Hellas Planitia. I got there and took charge of on-site security. I was wrong, it was a violation of procedure, but I couldn’t let someone else... anyway, some things went missing, like I said. An augment from a cyberlink and one of the site recorders.”
“Were you held responsible?”
“I could have been. That was the threat. But I wasn’t, not officially. Something was covered up, I just could never tell what. It’s common practice for disasters to be modified for practical reasons. This has all the earmarks of one of those. Still, there wasn’t any good reason to deny
Helen’s presence at the site. Unless “ He shook his head, eyes hard,
pained.
“But you aren’t really searching anymore. Are you?”
He shrugged. “You’d think I would’ve found something by now if there were anything to find. But I still have my suspicions, just no way to follow up on them.”
Nemily picked up the pendant from the nightstand. “How did you come by this?”
“A gift from Helen.”
“Why?”
“Hmm?”
“Why would someone you live with give you a persona encoding of herself?”
“She said she wanted me to keep it, just in case. That last job was a long separation for us, all the way the hell out to Ganymede.”
“Did you try analyzing the entire construct?”
“It’s layered. I was able to use the top part to model my domestic personality. But the rest.. .well, you know how complex these things are.”
“They require a dynamic interpreter, something that can utilize but is not dependent on algorithmic matrices.”
“In other words a conscious mind. I know. Unfortunately it’s against the law.”
“Not entirely. Commercial use by any but the owner of the encoding is illegal. So PolyCarb could access it.”
“But I don’t intend to ask them. This is all I’ve got of Helen, I’ll be damned if I let them take it away.”
“Or I could.”
“Excuse me?”
She dangled the pendant and let it swing. “I could do this for you. I could become Helen.”
Twelve – AEA, 2118
SOUND THUNDERED THROUGH THE TURRET, the syncopated throb of bass with drum coursing around the walls like electric current seeking ground and, denied a place to sink itself, retracing its path. Mace lay in the center of the atrium, staring at the skylight high above, his hands slapping the beat against the floor as Nemily danced around him, bare feet keeping time with bare hands in syncretic convocation, totemic and umbeset. Sweat sleeked her body, beads fell on him like mistfall; her hair, wet, sent tendrils across her face and neck. A note shrilled above the rest and her head snapped back in response, eyes half-lidded, whited. He glanced at her, brief shifts of attention quickly returned to the darkening dome, and each time felt his own adumbrated hunger, tantrically deferred. He could smell her, which made rest difficult enough without also seeing her. The music helped lull one set of urges by eliciting others, but the trade was temporary, a mask for his wants.
In a flurry of chords, the thunder ended, leaving thickness in his ears and a shuddering sense of release in his arms and legs and neck. He stretched; the floor was oiled with perspiration.
Nemily stepped over him, crotch aimed at his sternum, and grinned around gulps of air. She shook her head, showering him. He could not look away now. Her chest bellowed, light caught against skin contouring muscle and fat. Her nipples appeared the only dry places in all that surface. Mace pushed up on an elbow and reached one finger into the tangle of hair.
“Who was that?” she asked, closing her eyes.
“Santana.”
She lowered herself carefully, reaching back to find his legs, moving her hands to the floor, settling her buttocks between his thighs while he kept his finger in place, mindful not to hurt her. He felt her feet slide along his hips, along his sides, then bracing against the small of his back so she could pull herself toward him. She extended a hand to his penis. He added another finger and worked more methodically. Within a minute her breathing, never calmed, changed qualitatively. She pushed herself against his hand. In the next minute she heaved, as if trying from within to exchange herself, one body for another. Mace watched, fascinated.
“Damn…” She laughed. She pushed up, caught an arm around his
neck, and pressed against him. She laughed again, then, wriggling into position, she eased around him.
Mace sucked the air through his teeth. He was too tired. His legs trembled and his arms burned, but there was no way to stop except to finish. For a panicked breath he thought his body would fail him, emptied and selfish. When he came, the panic blent with relief and surprise and left him happily immobile, arms outspread, laughing with Nemily.
He dozed and woke with a cramp in his left thigh. His back ached as well from lying on the floor and his groin felt vaguely bruised.
He found her in the bedroom, sitting on the edge of the bed, her face vacant, the case of augments open beside her. She had showered; her hair still let trails of water down her shoulders. Mace sat on the floor to watch her, his back against the wall. All his muscles seemed a gesture away from trembling exhaustion. He wanted sleep.
Her eyes shifted as if seeking focus in fog. She did not see him. Cyberlinks never dreamed, except, occasionally, after ghosting, which most CAPs never did. They had this instead, and their sleep, he had been told, was formless absence.
“You have a call,” the flat, emotionless voice of the automated house system said.
Nemily did not react. Mace got to his feet. “Who?”
“Linder Koeln, PolyCarb security”
“Tell him to wait for a moment.”
Just then, Nemily took a deep breath and removed her collator. She inserted her synthesist, blinked, then smiled at him. “Sorry, I didn’t like leaving you on the floor, but...”
“It’s all right. I have to take a call.”
“Oh?”
“Do you want to listen? It’s Koeln.”
She looked uncertain. “Did you know he’d call?”
“I half expected it.”
She nodded, still frowning. Mace took her hand and squeezed.
“Accept call and record,” he said.
“Mr. Preston?”
“Yes, Mr. Koeln. What can I do for you?”
“Frankly, I thought there might be something we could do for each other. My sympathy for the unfortunate events this morning. Forgive me, but I still need to discuss a matter with you. It seems, though, that things have gotten complicated. I thought perhaps you could use some help.”
“What sort of help?”
“Most obviously and immediately, legal help. I’m not sure what that was about this morning, but I could arrange for PolyCarb’s legal department to take you into its sphere of protections.”
“Do you really think that much help is necessary?”
“I’ve never known Structural Authority to detain anyone without compelling reasons. It could become necessary.”
“This morning may have been a simple misunderstanding.”
“I doubt that. Its full complications may have simply not yet been revealed.”
“Really. Now that interests me, Mr. Koeln. I would like some help along those lines.”
“What lines?”
“The reasons for my arrest. Naturally, they didn’t tell me anything. That’s one reason they released me. To detain me after petition for release has been filed, they have to give a reason before a justice and my representative.”
“Then obviously they didn’t want to tell you.”
“Or it was a misunderstanding.”
“What do you really think, Mr. Preston?”
“I think I would like to know. Perhaps you could make inquiries?”
“SA security isn’t in the habit of confiding in corporate security—”
“Don’t be coy. I used to work for you people. I know all about your habits and theirs. You have to decide if the questions you want to ask me merit a little personal investment.”
“Quid pro quo?”
“More or less.”
“Stat check, Mr. Preston. I’ll see what I can do for you. In the meantime, could we arrange a meeting?”
“Call me in the morning and let me know what you have for me. We can meet for breakfast and see about clearing up your problems.”
“In the morning, then. I look forward to it.”
“Thank you, Mr. Koeln. End.”
Mace rubbed his eyes, then looked at Nemily She still wore a disturbed frown.
“What did you just do?” she asked.
“Hopefully, I just got some answers.”
“You lied to him, though. Structural Authority did tell you what it was about.”
“Not entirely. I’m still not sure why I would be a suspect in the destruction of a station I’ve never been to.”
“Then why—?”
“Why arrest me? Simple. They want to scare me into doing half their work for them. If we’re right, Glim Toler is at the center of this and they want me to find him. They think either I already know him or that I can discover where he is. He’s gone to ground somewhere and they don’t have the time or personnel to find him quickly.”
“That’s funny. I was starting to think that Mr. Koeln was doing the same thing to me.”
“Starting to? You don’t now?”
“I’m not sure. When he told me who my sponsor was, it changed everything. Your wife worked for PolyCarb. So did you. I think he wants me to find who’s using her name inside the company.”
“Why would he think you could?”
“If I were part of the plot, wouldn’t I know who my contact is?”
“The problem with that is assuming PolyCarb would hire that many members of a conspiracy ...” He stared at her, the faint outline of a pattern teasing at him. “If the person doing the hiring were the one Koeln’s looking for, though...”
“But the name of my sponsor is Helen Croslo. Your wife.”
“Doesn’t help, does it? House, connect to Cambel Guerrera.”
“Working,” the house responded. “You have an incoming call.”
“Who?”
“Philip.”
Mace looked at Nemily. “This needs to be private.”
She nodded and stretched. Mace watched her body, feeling his own begin to respond. He grunted and went to his closet. He pulled on a robe and went down to his study.
“Morning,” he said to Philip’s image on the flatscreen.
He cocked his eyebrows. “It’s after midcycle, Macefield.”
“Afternoon, then. Hello.”
“I wondered if you would care to join me for a late lunch.”
“Urn... I’m entertaining myself, Philip. Is it important?”
“Not particularly”
Mace saw no change in Philip’s expression, but he understood that it was important. “I suppose I ought to get out. Who knows when I might be back in detention?”
“Are you in trouble, Macefield?”
“Nothing major. I’ll see you in an hour or so, all right?”
“Of course.”
The screen went blank. “House, what about my call to Cambel Guerrera?”
“She is not responding.”
“Cancel.”
Nemily was dressing when he got back to his bedroom.
“I have to go,” he said.
“I gathered as much. Who’s Philip?”
“Another associate. He hasn’t been as involved as Cambel, but he’s been irreplaceable.” He looked at her and saw her listening attentively. All he wanted to do suddenly was call Philip back and tell him to forget it, that it was over, that he wanted nothing more to do with it. That option no longer seemed possible.
“Your friends are loyal,” Nemily said.
“I suppose they are. Sometimes I wonder why I haven’t been the easiest person to get along with. Cambel, for instance—to this day I don’t know why she stays with me.”
“She’s been helping you search for Helen?”
“Partly At least, do the data search. She set up a collection system, a set of blinds to mask her from her sources, and then she sends what she finds on to me. After several months of it we started doing other things. She acts as an agent for me, finding freelance security work—mostly corporate datasphere security, countersurveillance measures, things like that—and I in turn do recovery work on a lot of the unrelated data she finds. We’ve made a nice stipend together.”
“Do they feel the same way about your search?”
Mace considered the question for a long moment. “I don’t know. I always assumed one day I’d wake up and it would be over. Either I’d have found my answers or I wouldn’t care. Maybe I just needed something important to happen to let me know that it’s over, that it’s all right for it to be over. Does that make sense?”
“I don’t know. I don’t understand people with normal brains all the time. So why aren’t you interested anymore?”
“I don’t know that I’m not, it’s just that it started feeling impossible. With luck, we’d find something. You can’t base a life on nothing but luck. The obsession... it burned out... somewhere in the past year or so... and I just kept on out of habit.”
“Hobbies are important.”
He was startled at the critical tone in her voice. “Do you have a point to make?”
“Something like this—” She swallowed audibly. “Something like this, you either finish it or walk away completely Anything else and it just lingers.”
“Speaking from experience?”
She nodded.
“So what haven’t you finished?” The sudden anxiety in her face surprised Mace. “Toler?” he guessed.
“Partly Lunase, mainly”
“And Toler is Lunase, is that it?” When she nodded again, he said, “I suppose you tried to just walk away.”
“And he followed.”
“All right. So we finish it.”
“Which?”
“All of it. Yours and mine. Toler, Helen, anything else... ?”
She looked at him with hopeful uncertainty, a smile challenging the worry that dominated her features. “Why?”
“Because I love you.”
Later it occurred to him that Nemily’s expression must have mirrored his own and that perhaps the resonance of reflected expectations increased beyond honest response. He was as surprised as she appeared to be and within that frame of artless exposure, just before the complications of assessment damascened their reactions, he thought he saw acceptance and a clean pleasure. Mace did not know why he said it, then did not know if he meant it, although he felt oddly pleased with himself. It occurred to him then that she might not believe him or might not want to believe him. Nothing, though, prepared him for the reply she gave.
I’m…” she began, then shook her head slightly, as if puzzled.
“How?”
“I don’t... respond... the way you do,” she said.
“You said something about not understanding people with normal brains. I thought that was a joke.”
She sighed, desperately uncomfortable. “Why? You said you vi
sited Everest—the ghosts?”
“Yes.”
“And you’ve taken advantage of the possibilities of having different personalities in the same somatotype? I mean, I used to wonder about that myself—why a client couldn’t simply choose another companion instead of going to all the trouble to switch persona overlays. But I think people are just... incomprehensible about sex.”
Mace smiled. “That’s probably the best way to look at it.”
“But there’s benefit for the ghosts. The overlays set up a psychological buffer.”
“I never thought about it that way.”
“Most people don’t. But by the same token, did you ever ask any of them why they weren’t permitted to run full persona encodings?”
“No.”
“The augments they use, for different personality types, are very limited, little more than a set of behaviors. Nothing to support them, just... instructions... for an act.”
“I figured as much. Anything more and they’d start to develop conflicted personalities themselves.”
“That’s true, but the reason is a little simpler than just the well-being of the ghost. After a while, they would become incapable of using the surface personas. It wouldn’t load. No more empty space for it.”
“Wait. The capacity for absorbing information—”
“Intellectual information. Details to supplement information already present. Facts. Numbers. Memories. Not emotions. Did you ever wonder why you have only so many emotional capacities? I mean, the potential for new knowledge seems almost infinite, but you’re born with only so many emotions which mature over time, modify, adapt, acquire texture—but you never wake up one day and learn a brand new one. A different way to use what you have, maybe, but you don’t find anything beyond what you’ve always had. Unless it’s the result of dysfunction. You know about people who lack one or more emotions—they’re considered aberrations—but you don’t know anyone with more emotions than what we know about. Do you?”
“I never thought about it.”
“Think about it. Love, hate, envy, joy, despair, resentment, like, dislike—a few others. Everything comes out of a combination of these. The spectrum can be nearly infinite, true, but it can always be described within a finite number of simple states. There are only so many hormones, right?”
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