Realms of Light

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  “Yes, I do,” I said, “if you consider uploads to still be family members. Remember, to an upload, that copy may be you. She wouldn’t really be killing you at all, just switching you to her own form of life, and even that might only be temporary.”

  “An incarnationist? You think one of my uploaded relatives is an incarnationist?”

  I hadn’t heard the term “incarnationist” before, but I understood right away what it meant, and what the tone of voice Nakada was using meant, as well. I had never seen the old man so flustered—in fact, until now I had never seen him flustered at all. Now, though, he seemed thoroughly scrambled. He clearly found the idea that a member of his own family could believe in the transferability of identity repulsive.

  “There might be other motives as well,” I said.

  “And there are two active copies of me?”

  “I don’t know whether theirs is still active,” I said. A thought struck me at the mention of the copies. “I’ll bet that... well, I didn’t find any record of any human suspects visiting Epimetheus lately, but I’ll bet one of your uploads transmitted a copy there, and that’s who’s been running the Seventh Heaven negotiations.”

  “You think there’s a duplicate of one of them, too?”

  “And you can probably find out which by checking transmission records.”

  He blinked, and his jaw sagged slightly, and I remembered that he was still jacked in. I could guess where in the nets he was going.

  Then he was back, his face hardening. “Shinichiro,” he said. “My son Shinichiro.”

  I knew the name from the family records; his was the most recent of the three deaths among the old man’s children, and he had been dead for about twenty Terran years. I didn’t know much beyond that, so I didn’t say anything.

  “A copy was transmitted, just as you said.”

  “Then I think he’s your assassin,” I said. “Or at least the ringleader.”

  “But you have no proof.”

  “I have no proof,” I agreed.

  “Then you have not completed the job to my satisfaction.”

  “I’ve identified the assassin.”

  “You’ve named a likely suspect. That’s not good enough. To accuse my own son, I need more than this web of suppositions and guesswork.”

  “It’s not your son,” I said. “It’s an upload that thinks it’s your son.”

  The old man’s face froze at that, and then took on a new expression.

  I don’t ever want to see anyone look at me like that again. Usually the old man hid his emotions, kept everything under strict control, but I’d cracked that reserve earlier, and right then it broke completely. Despair and rage were written in his eyes and on every feature.

  Maybe it was an act. Maybe he was really still as cold and controlled as ever, and pasted that look there deliberately.

  I don’t think so, though. I think I had touched something he really cared about, said something he didn’t want to hear—and something that he knew was true.

  “I talked to the copy of you aboard Ukiba,” I said. “It knew what it was. It knew it wasn’t you. It knew an upload isn’t human, no matter what it’s copied from, and that means you know it. You know that’s the truth. That upload isn’t your son. It’s an imitation, a software emulation.”

  “It’s all I have left of him,” the old man said.

  “But it’s not him,” I insisted. “It’s software, not wetware.”

  “It’s all that’s left,” he repeated, “and if you’re going to accuse him of trying to murder me, I need more proof than you’ve given me so far.”

  I wasn’t really surprised. He had told me he thought it was a member of the family, and he had seemed to accept the idea, but that was when it was theoretical and non-specific. Now that it was a particular individual, one who he apparently loved, it was different.

  “I need access to your family networks, then,” I said. “And I’d like to interview Chantilly Rhee, and Kumiko Nakada, and the upload you call Shinichiro, in that order.”

  “I’ll arrange it.” His voice was cold again.

  Something about the way he said it beeped for me. “You know Shinichiro did it,” I said. “You just want proof.”

  “I believe that’s what I said, Mis’ Hsing.”

  He had obviously recovered from his moment of shock.

  “Fine. I’ll get you your proof. Maybe not enough for the law, but enough for you to be sure.”

  “That is all I ask.”

  “How soon can I see Mis’ Rhee?”

  “I believe she should be at her desk; would you prefer to speak to her in private?”

  “I’d prefer to speak to her somewhere I know the Shinichiro upload isn’t listening.”

  Even as I said it, though, I realized it was probably too late to keep it from learning what was going on. While I was sure the old man had a dozen layers of security on the office we were in, Yoshio-sempai had checked on the medicals and on the transmission logs, and there were probably a dozen other beeps as well—the upload might not know we had narrowed it down to a single entity, but it must know we were getting close. It had already tried to kill the old man once, and just as I said, it wouldn’t even see it as murder—as far as Shinichiro was concerned his father was safely backed up in a couple of places, and shutting down his original meatware was just a maintenance issue; he’d be rebooted as soon as possible.

  As for me, I wasn’t family, I wasn’t important, I wasn’t anyone. Killing me was just debugging the situation. If I was lucky it might try to buy me off instead, but if it really had access to a running copy of the Yoshio upload a simple question would tell it that wasn’t going to work.

  At least, I certainly hoped the old man’s back-up would have that much respect for me; Grandfather Nakada had certainly claimed to when he hired me.

  That brought up an interesting question, though—was Shinichiro’s copy of Yoshio-kun cooperating? Did it agree with what Shinichiro was trying to do? From what I knew of the old man’s character, I didn’t think it would, but it might play along until it had control of its situation.

  It didn’t really matter, though; that copy of Yoshio-kun was back on Epimetheus, and I was here in the Nakada compound in American City.

  A lot of things were fitting together. It must have been a copy of Shinichiro that sent those black floaters after me in the Trap; the copy here on Prometheus probably had floaters, too. It must have access to a lot of things. I didn’t know how much control it might have over the household’s environment—could it override the normal protocols? It had gotten at the old man’s dream enhancer, so it had obviously hacked at least some of the systems beyond what it was supposed to be capable of using. There was no way to be sure anywhere in American City was entirely safe—or anywhere on the entire planet, really. This office might be secure, but if the old man had been assuming a human saboteur he might have missed a way in. Ordinarily software was written so that it couldn’t harm people and didn’t want to, but uploads—well, that was part of why they were illegal most places. Uploads could do things artificials couldn’t, could go places humans couldn’t. They didn’t need to eat or sleep, and could be invisible and silent. Most of them didn’t go hacking into secure systems, but if they wanted to, they’d be hard to stop.

  If Grandfather Nakada got through this alive, he was going to need to run some serious purges.

  For now, though, I was supposed to be interviewing suspects, to demonstrate to the old man that Shinichiro was responsible for the attempted murder.

  “Could we talk in here?” I suggested. This room was probably as safe as I was going to get. “I don’t think I’d be comfortable questioning her in her own office.”

  “Would you prefer me to be present or absent?”

  “I don’t think it matters. You’ll be recording it, I’m sure.”

  “Of course.”

  “Then it doesn’t matter.”

  He nodded. “I’ve notified her to come i
mmediately.”

  I nodded, and settled back in my chair to wait. The old man turned to his desktop and started working on something, ignoring me for the moment.

  It was a good chair, very comfortable, and the cloudscapes on the walls were soothing. I found myself starting to relax.

  “Mis’ Hsing,” Yoshio said, startling me back to full alertness.

  “Yeah?”

  “I thought you would like to know that your brother has come through surgery well; the implant has been removed, and I have convinced IRC to accept a payment in lieu of his services. Do you know whether he has any employment prospects on Prometheus?”

  “I don’t,” I said.

  “He may find breaking his contract with IRC will make him less appealing to potential employers.”

  I shrugged. “He’s a grown man. He’ll manage.”

  “Considering the effort you devoted to getting him out of Nightside City, you seem surprisingly unconcerned.”

  “He’s my brother, so I care about him, but he’s not a baby.”

  “I have arranged for Guohan Hsing to be tanked at Eternal Adventures here in American City as soon as his condition is sufficiently stable; my medical systems estimate forty hours will be more than adequate. Obtaining his personal library from Seventh Heaven may prove difficult, however. They have accepted my payment for breach of contract and damages, but seem determined to hold his accumulated dream experiences for ransom.”

  “Then he can start a new library.”

  “You aren’t concerned?”

  “I think I’ve fulfilled my filial responsibilities, thank you.”

  “Forgive me for saying so, but you don’t seem very fond of your family.”

  “My father dumped his three kids to buy a dream; do you expect me to be grateful?”

  “And your brother?”

  I hesitated. “I love ’Chan,” I said. “I really do. But... do you love your niece Narumi?”

  He smiled. “I understand. Moving on, this man Singh—who is he?”

  “He’s a maintenance worker from Seventh Heaven who agreed to help me in exchange for a ride to Prometheus. End of script. I got him here, contract’s complete.”

  “You don’t believe him to be involved in the alleged conspiracy?”

  I shook my head. “If he is, he is one fine, fine actor.”

  “Is he aware that I hired you?”

  I had to think about that. I hadn’t actually told him, but he could have asked Perkins, or Ukiba...

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “In your opinion, is he likely to object to a partial memory erasure?”

  It seemed the old man was already thinking about the clean up. “I don’t know,” I repeated. “I think it would depend on the terms.”

  “And your brother?”

  “My brother,” I said, “agreed to that implant IRC put in him. I don’t think he’d mind a little mental meddling if there was some sort of compensation.”

  “Compensation can be arranged.”

  “Then he’s all yours. And Dad won’t say anything while he’s in a tank, so even if he knew anything you wouldn’t need to worry.”

  Yoshio nodded. “And you?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “No one meddles with my memory if I have anything to say about it. Personal integrity aside, I can’t afford the risk in my line of work—what if you erased knowledge of an enemy I need to defend against?” I shook my head. “No.”

  “I am not surprised.”

  “I didn’t think you would be.”

  “Nonetheless, I thought it worth asking.”

  I shrugged. Then I sat up and looked around. The door hadn’t moved; the cloudscapes still drifted undisturbed across the walls. “When will Rhee be here?”

  The old man frowned. He glanced at the desktop, then put a hand up to the back of his neck to adjust the connection. “I’ve lost track of her,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Her location is not registering.”

  I reached down to where my gun would have been if I’d been allowed to bring it. I hadn’t been, of course; I’d barely bothered to ask. “Are there dead areas close to this office?”

  “No.”

  “She’s making a run for it?”

  “Possibly. There are other explanations.”

  “She might have been intercepted, you mean? Or your instructions never reached her, or were countermanded?”

  “You grasp the situation well.”

  “So Shinichiro does...” I saw the old man’s mouth tighten, and corrected myself. “It would appear that whoever is behind this is aware that we’re getting close.”

  “So it would seem,” Yoshio agreed.

  “I need to go after her, then.” I got out of the chair. “Can you direct me to her last known location?”

  “I can have a floater guide you...” he began.

  But then he stopped and looked surprised.

  I had been starting toward the door, but looking back over my shoulder toward the old man, so I saw his face, saw his eyes widen. I stopped moving, and turned to look where he was looking.

  That wasn’t necessarily going to let me see whatever he was seeing, since he was still jacked in, but it’s an instinctive thing, probably goes back a million years. I found myself looking at the door to the corridor.

  I didn’t see anything strange, just a closed door, so I started walking again.

  The door didn’t open. I was almost close enough to touch it, and it didn’t budge.

  “I’ve been overridden,” Grandfather Nakada said from behind me.

  “Overridden how?” I asked, turning back.

  “I can’t open the door,” he replied.

  “I thought this office was secure.”

  “So did I.”

  That was really not what I wanted to hear just then. “How badly are we screwed?” I asked.

  He didn’t try to smooth it. “I’m not sure,” he said. “I cannot say how badly compromised the data I’m receiving is.” He pulled the plug from his neck and let it retract, then turned to the desktop.

  I didn’t wait; I ran my hand down the wall, through the images of fluffy white clouds, and found the manual emergency release. I twisted the handle, and the door cranked open a few centimeters.

  I saw motion in the passageway outside, and stopped. I peered through the crack.

  The blue-and-silver floater was there, hovering directly in front of the crack but turned to face away from us.

  Beyond it were at least two other floaters, sleek black ones, that seemed to be keeping the blue one pinned in place.

  “Father,” an unfamiliar voice said.

  I turned. The desktop had lit up with a face—a face I didn’t recognize, and one that wasn’t exactly 100% human.

  “Shinichiro,” the old man said.

  “Father,” the desktop repeated. “We need to talk.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  “I am listening,” Yoshio said.

  “I believe that this woman Hsing may have misled you.” The face on the desktop moved as if speaking, but was very slightly out of sync with the words we heard. I guessed that the upload only had limited bandwidth to work with; presumably Grandfather Nakada had strictly controlled access to the device.

  The old man threw me a quick glance. “In what way?”

  “I suspect she may have cast a false light upon my situation in hopes of coaxing money and perhaps other concessions from you.”

  “What situation is that, Shinichiro?”

  “There is an experiment I hope to conduct, and I have been pursuing the means to perform it. This involves purchasing a controlling interest in Seventh Heaven Neurosurgery. Since I am at present inconvenienced by my physical nature, I have been forced to make this purchase secretly, through intermediaries.”

  “You refer to the legal insistence that software cannot own stock, or control corporations.”

  “Yes, Father.”

>   “What does this have to do with Carlisle Hsing?”

  “It appears, Father, that Mis’ Hsing has learned of my intentions—I do not know how, but she is, as we know, a talented and experienced investigator. I believe she has misinterpreted my plans. She kidnaped Guohan Hsing from Seventh Heaven, and I assume she did so because she thought his life might be in danger. I take it she has come here to tell you of her misapprehensions, and ask that I be prevented from continuing my activities.”

  “Her business with me is not your concern.”

  “As you please, Father. But I want to assure you, I do not intend to harm anyone.”

  The old man looked at me questioningly. I looked back blankly and shrugged slightly. I had no idea where this was going.

  “I note that you have interfered with the household systems,” Yoshio said.

  “Only so that I might defend myself from slander, Father!”

  “Go on, then. What is this experiment? What do you want with Seventh Heaven Neurosurgery? You know I declined to purchase it some time ago; what makes it worth your while now?”

  “The contract terms for the clients, Father. They granted Seventh Heaven a great deal of control over their physical well-being, and as I read the terms, this allows Seventh Heaven to make arrangements that would not be legal under other circumstances.”

  “Let us dispense with pretense and delay, Shinichiro,” the old man said wearily. “What is this experiment you want to attempt? What do you hope to do with Seventh Heaven’s clients? Explain it to me.”

  The tone of the voice from the desktop changed, from formally polite to forceful and direct. “These people have human bodies they aren’t using, Father, while I, and other uploaded personalities, would very much like to be human again—the legal restrictions on us are surprisingly onerous. I want to be able to own property and conduct business without a slew of artificial constraints. I want to be able to go places that aren’t on the open nets or the family’s systems. I want to have a discrete body again. I can’t just grow myself one; you know about that. If it has a functioning brain, then it’s a person in its own right, and I can’t download myself into it without being charged with murder. If it doesn’t have a functioning brain, there’s no way to download me into it at all. But these people, Father, have brains and bodies they’re barely using, and have signed away half their rights to the company. As I read the contracts, I think it would be legal to remove them from their bodies completely, and put us—myself and other uploads—in those bodies instead.”