Oversight
Page 15
Sam manages a resigned laugh. “If they’re so valuable, why give them to me?”
“If you want to hide something, hide it in plain sight. And you may need those eyes if things don’t work out with Emil. Also, our visual presentation layer isn’t entirely functional yet, so you may experience anomalies.”
“Bugs in my head. That’s just what I need.”
In a semi full of eyes, Sam heads home. A Mexican named Angel is driving. He speaks English well, though not very often. That suits Sam fine; he’s got plenty to talk about with others. He spends the first hour interacting with Marilyn, dealing with a message queue that’s full of demands for his time or money or both. Then he checks the news.
The situation in San Francisco remains tense. Civil unrest has been fairly light, since blindness limits one’s ability to protest. Travel restrictions into or out of the Bay Area continue, though Angel insists that his semi will be allowed through; some ten hours ago, President Vaca directed FEMA and the CDC to establish eye-replacement units at hospitals, malls, and Jiffy-Tuck Health Centers. The big surprise in all the chaos: Content Corp and Entertainment Corp are setting aside differences and ordering out-of-town employees to volunteer as guides and personal shopping assistants (with, Sam suspects, a particular eye for the products of major ad buyers). A few suspiciously telegenic company executives have even gotten in on the act. By chance, cameras happened to be present and rolling at the time.
To bring his life-to-advertising ratio back into compliance with his network contract, Sam then sits through seventy minutes of commercials on the passenger-side heads-up display. At one point, bored by a testimonial for yet another recreational shopping drug—“I used to suffer from buyer’s remorse, but ever since I started taking Perchaset…”—Sam focuses on the scrolling landscape beyond the window projection, dull desert brown though it is. He’s startled when the luminous image of the now-happy shopper shifts back toward sharpness to match the focus of his eyes. Whether this is a function of his new eyes or an upgraded attention-monitoring system in the semi’s interface, he can’t say. But it’s really annoying.
Finally they reach Nogales. Broken windows and broken pavement scar the city and its suburbs. The Free Trade Zone factories known as maquiladoras stand mostly abandoned now that the jobs flowing southward have dried up. Cheap structures of corrugated steel served well when leveraging cheap labor. But motion-mirroring and automation changed that equation. A thousand bots slaved to a single master craftsman make more for less than a human assembly line. Such systems require different infrastructure—uninterrupted power, temperature control, engineering support, and high security. All of which can be had north of the border, or anywhere else with wealth enough to afford the initial investment. Now only fences remain, dividing and subdividing without anything to protect.
Sam descends from the cab at a Titters truck stop just beyond the U.S. border crossing, leaving Angel to get approval for his freeway route plan with the Homeland Defense Office travel registrar on site. The family-friendly casino-diner-strip club has been built to echo the design of the Titters logo—two bulging orbs with detailing depicting either pupils or areolas atop a faint Cheshire-cat grin. Its two joined domes pose an anatomical Rorschach test for patrons and a conundrum for indignant litigants who’ve tried for years to bring obscenity charges against the owners.
As at all Titters franchises, the décor is an incongruous mix of lowbrow, low cut, and low country. The neo-Dutch diner’s proximity to Mexico is apparent only in the soccer games on the wall-mounted video screens and in a few Spanish-sounding menu options. Perhaps a dozen drivers mill about, some pumping one-armed bandits, others chatting at the bar or perusing the porn in the Titters gift shop. Hofbrau barmaids shout orders to the kitchen, flagrantly flouting dietary privacy regulations. However, the likelihood of being reported to one’s insurer is somewhat low, given that a snitch would face the stigma of having visited a Titters in the first place.
Famished, Sam orders a Titters Virgin Rookworst, which is twice the price of the unbranded alternative, but comes with a certification of genetic purity that also guarantees of the absence of lead, chromium, benzene, and other contaminants. Such toxins aren’t usually present in generic sausages either, but Titters puts its promise in writing.
He asks for a beer.
The waitress, sporting surgical cleavage that would require the guidance of a sherpa, asks, “What size? We have Sissy, Puny, and Massief.”
“Four Massiefs for Table Five,” bellows a nearby barmaid.
A glance at the other tables reveals that other diners have made the same choice. “Has anyone actually ever ordered a Sissy beer?” Sam asks.
The waitress smirks.
Sam logs into the Zvista site to check on Fiona while he eats. She looks peaceful. Moments after he tells Marilyn he’s available for messaging, she alerts him to an incoming call from Luis. The dapper policeman’s face flickers into view.
“What the hell are you doing down in Arizona?” he demands.
“Following a lead. Things a bit crazy up there?”
Luis nods wearily. “You could say that. More than half my guys caught the bug. I got lucky.”
“Is there anyone left to admire your suits?”
“Seriously, Sam. This is bad.”
“Cheer up. I’m hitching home in a truckload of eyes.”
An eyebrow rises, furrowing Luis’ forehead.
“The FEMA folks will be able to tell you how they’ll be allocated,” Sam continues. “Have your people start lining up now.”
“Thanks. I’ll do that.”
“So what was it you wanted to say?”
Luis glances off-camera for a moment, as if the words he’s trying to find have taken to buzzing around his head.
“What?” Sam asks. “Lose your teleprompter?”
“You’re off the Mako case.”
“Tell me you’re joking, Luis.”
“Sorry, Sam.”
“You gave that case to me!”
“And now it belongs to the Solve-O-Matic.”
Sam slumps back in the banquet, sliding down the vinyl, and stares at the ceiling.
“We’ll work something out compensation-wise when things calm down,” Luis continues.
“You collar someone?” Sam asks, incredulous.
“As a matter of fact, yes.”
“Come on, Luis. Who got fingered? I want to be blown away by the machine’s deductive powers.”
“A ‘gent named George Gannet. We picked him up this morning.”
“I want to look at the audit log.”
“Such hatred for our poor little machine,” Luis marvels.
“The Solve-O-Matic solves budget problems, not crimes,” Sam snaps. “You know that as well as I do.”
“Look at the stats, Sam. It has a sixty-five percent clearance rate. That’s better than eight out of ten of the specs I use regularly. That’s better than you did last year.”
“It’s been a bad year or two,” Sam admits, “but your stats are crap. You’ve been tossing the machine softballs and giving your people stone-cold whodunits.”
“It worked with the easy cases. Now it’s doing the same with the harder ones. What do you want me to say?”
“You’ll think of something when it comes for your job.”
“I’m management, Sam.”
Sam exhales, as if the weight of his hate was compressing his chest. “I should be back in town in the morning.”
“I’ll look for you then.”
CHAPTER Seven
On silent streets, hydraulics wail and hiss. Commuter vehicles usually drown the sound, but the sightless are staying off the roads today. A garbage truck screeches, rumbling to a halt beside a pile of refuse scattered across a storefront. In entrails and cellophane, the Homeless Union has sent a message. Waiting on the curb with cash-in-hand penitence, the store’s frazzled owner now knows better than to chase ‘gents from his front steps. In all likelihood, the ga
rbage men on the truck were the ones who delivered the mess in the first place.
Sam finds it comforting that commerce continues despite the state of emergency.
Angel drives slowly northward, weaving around debris and cars ditched when drivers lost their sight. He’s headed for China Basin, where FEMA has set up its command trailers just beyond the ballpark. A Navy hospital ship up from San Diego dwarfs the adjacent right-field wall. It’s not far to Maerskton. Sam would like nothing better than a shower, but he is mindful of Cayman’s warning to avoid going home.
Further up, orange cones and construction lights are in bloom. Officials clad in matching vests wave the semi onward, alerted to the truck’s precious cargo by the manifest transponder. For Irish Protestants, the color first symbolized a personal authority, William of Orange, before becoming their brand of divinity; for Americans, it’s dominion in the abstract, the shade of both the carrot and the implied stick.
Most of the twenty thousand people already in line outside SlimNow Park can’t see their DayGlo federal shepherds. But they’re nonetheless compliant. They want new eyes. They’re eerily quiet while they wait, dependent now on sound. Friends and relatives fortunate enough to be asymptomatic run interference, checking on the estimated wait time and serving as guides. Over the whispers, pushers make themselves heard, selling food and pharmaceuticals to the captive audience from pushcarts.
With a nod to Angel, Sam climbs down from the truck and stretches. He’s standing on a loading dock of pristine asphalt. To the east, a concrete pier extends toward the rising sun. Coins of water at his feet catch the dawn. He watches for a moment as medical workers in moon suits swarm around and begin unloading the iced eyes. Then he wanders off to search for caffeine.
“Marilyn, where’s the nearest place I can get some coffee?” he asks.
“Your location data is unavailable,” Marilyn responds.
“Report error code,” Sam demands.
“Error: Diagnostics restricted.”
It’s one thing to be told there’s a wall up ahead; it’s another to run smack into it. Not that he’s ever loved the network. But it worked in obvious ways, at least. It was transparent. Now no more. And that’s troubling.
“So that’s how it’s going to be, Marilyn? We’re keeping secrets?”
“I don’t understand your question, Sam.”
Sam doesn’t elaborate. He spots Luis up ahead, leaning on his umbrella, gazing eastward toward the sunrise.
“Morning, Luis,” he says as he approaches. “You look like you’re posing for a movie poster.”
“Just admiring the view.”
“You’re immune?”
“Or lucky. Whatever. I can see fine.”
Sam stands next to Luis and gazes eastward. The Oakland hills seem to burn beneath the dawn. “It looks better through new eyes,” he says, without meaning it.
“You had the operation?”
“Not by choice. That’s a crime, isn’t it, when someone takes your eyes?”
Luis cocks his head. “Organ theft. There’s a specific statue dealing with it. The Organ Theft Prevention Act.”
“I thought that was a trade bill to protect tissue growers. Something to stop cheap organ imports.”
“It also includes penalties for unlicensed harvesting or donation. That’s how these things get passed. They include a ban on something that resonates with the public and no one bothers to read the rest of the bill. My favorite is the Kitten-Crushing Prohibition Act. It’s really about forbidding the disclosure of outbreaks among livestock, to protect meat industry sales.”
Sam isn’t listening. “Harris Cayman stole my eyes,” he says.
Luis steps back and looks directly at Sam. It’s evident that he’s skeptical, but at least he hasn’t dismissed Sam’s claim wholesale. Finally, he just shakes his head.
“The past two days have been chaos here. We’re just getting things back under control. If you catch Mr. Cayman offing ‘gents with a shotgun here in the city, I’ll see what I can do. Until then, I’ve got things to deal with.”
“I understand,” Sam says coldly.
Luis shrugs. “I wish I could do more.”
Sam looks at Luis and no longer sees a friend. Not that they were ever close. But they’d shared something, a common interest in the practical, diluted sort of truth and justice that works in the real world. “Just show me what the machine came up with.”
For tax reasons, the Solve-O-Matic has its own office at the Lease-4-Less facility on Bryant Street, where the bulk of the city’s municipal law enforcement contractors have set up shop. The utilitarian beige computer hunkers atop a battered desk with no chair, beside its flatscreen display. Though its internals are smaller than a pack of cards, it’s about the size of a toaster. This is the result of market research that correlates apparent volume and perceived value—important data for inflating state contracts. There’s a Tesla coil tethered to it, bubbling with electricity, possibly the work of a Mary Shelley fan—or simply a tech with a sense of the absurd.
The authorized Solve-O-Matic site specialist, a gnomish, bearded man named Percy, greets Luis and Sam. He makes it clear he didn’t enjoy rising early for this seven a.m. meeting. He produces a dongle from his pocket and plugs it into the machine before initiating voice authorization. Once logged in, he instructs the machine to display how it determined that George Gannet murdered Dr. Mako.
Two columns cascade down the screen:
Last Name: Gannet
First Name: George
Overflow Name: None
Alias: None
DOB: November 11, 2007
Method of Identification: Biometric, Genetic
Global Reference Number: 3AF562E0772B
Criminal Case Link: SF/CA/USA: 30119887
Legal Representation: Statutory, Expert System
Charge: Murder, First degree
Claim: Innocence
Alibi: Pending
Synchronicity: +04:01:23
Likelihood of Guilt: 92.031%
Likelihood of Conviction: 99.999%
Forensic Evidence: Pending
Witness Testimony: Pending
Video Surveillance: None
Audio Surveillance: None
Device Surveillance: None
Past Offenses: Battery; Loitering
Past Associations: Pending
Family Connections: None
Monoamine Oxidase A: Low
D4 Dopamine Receptor: Exon III Polymorphism
Religious Affiliation: Pending
Political Affiliation: Pending
Union Affiliation: Homeless Union
Income: Poor
Police-Related Philanthropy: None
Race: Caucasian
Ethnicity: Western European
Lifestyle: Indigent
Appearance: Unappealing
Viewing Habits: Pornography
Reading Habits: Pending
Listening Habits: Classical
Purchasing Habits: Insufficient
Outstanding Parking Tickets: None
Other: Classified
Proj. Legal Cost: ($523,000)
Proj. Length of Sentence: 18 years
Proj. Years of Life Remaining: 12 years
Proj. Incarceration Cost: ($4,800,000)
Proj. Revenue While Imprisoned: $8,280,000
Sam scans the screen and snorts. “That’s it?”
Luis looks to Percy. Percy is not laughing.
Exasperated, Sam continues, “The Synchronicity score is four hours! The box can’t place him at the scene until four hours after the crime, and it still rates Gannet as guilty?”
“There’s other data to consider,” Percy points out. “The genetic factors alone make me highly suspicious.”
“For chrissake, the forensic evidence is pending!”
“That just means not all the relevant data has been entered,” Percy counters. “When the likely statistical variation is less than the difference between the
working tally and the guilt threshold, the Solve-O-Matic makes a determination.”
Sam jabs a finger at the screen. “What’s ‘Other’?”
“That’s classified.”
“I can see that. How much weight does ‘Other’ get in the final tally?”
Percy folds his arms. “That’s classified too.”
Luis excuses himself to answer an incoming call and steps out into the hallway.
Sam paces. He looks at Luis outside, at Percy, and then at the Solve-O-Matic. “Where’s Gannet being held?” he asks, turning so that Luis won’t hear.
Two hours later, after protracted negotiations with the Homeless Union’s legal team, Sam receives permission to interview George Gannet. Then it’s a short hop to Colma by air taxi in the company of Wu Hen, a newly minted attorney representing the Union. Despite his youth, there’s an air of confidence about him, and Sam gets the impression that this job is a stepping-stone along the path toward greater ambitions.
They arrive at De-Tiny Containers, a self-storage facility for law enforcement agencies and contractors that’s used for detainee containment. The cells are small enough to prevent prisoners—“clients”—from straightening out when they lie down. This is contrary to federal guidelines for penal service providers, but as De-Tiny CEO Ghent von Otter likes to say, “Cramped quarters keep clients thinking outside the box.”
Tucked behind a hill, just down the road from a landfill, De-Tiny’s boxes are stacked in groups three high and three long on a muddy flat that used to be a drive-in. Temporary hookups providing water and power bristle from the ground.
Sam takes an immediate dislike to the place because it’s built with shipping containers; it’s just like home, but subdivided further. He follows Wu, zigzagging to avoid the worst of the mud, and comes finally to an earth-toned container away from the others. The industrial lift that presumably removed it from the stacks sits off to the side. There’s a bot waiting by the door of Gannet’s cell. It’s a Russian-made model from Stalin Corporation that resembles a lawnmower fitted with treads, camera, and machine gun.
“State your business,” the bot says without inflection.