“You know, I have a question for you,” Sam says in monotone. “Why did you kill George Gannet?”
Nial barely reacts. “What’re you’re talking about?”
“That’s what the Solve-O-Matic says,” Sam continues, figuring that the Demendicil he took at the FBI office will hide his lie. “I asked Luis to give the box a crack at Gannet’s case, just as a lark. And it came up with your name. It just seems like the sort of thing you might want to explain.”
The silence is uncomfortable.
“You used Gannet to kill Jacob because Gannet had the sight,” Sam says. “In his eyes, Jacob was someone else, someone he hated.”
Nial sweeps his coat back and reaches for his gun.
It happens so fast Sam barely has time to react. He lunges forward, knocking Nial back onto the hood of his air car. The gun falls to the pavement.
Left arm holding Nial, Sam swings with his right.
Nial blocks Sams’s blows with eerie speed. He rolls to the side, pulling Sam to the ground and knocking the air from his lungs.
Sam gasps as Nial stands.
Both men look for the gun. Sam sees two. The real gun, now camouflaged with graphics, looks ghostly; a projection of the gun lies nearby.
Aching, Sam rises. Gibbon and Indri draw their weapons.
Nial scrambles toward his weapon. He grabs for the pistol, but his hand passes through it. He grabs a second, then a third time. It’s not there. He turns toward Sam.
Both men glare like gunfighters. But only one is armed.
Sam points at Nial and says, “Fire.” A targeting reticle forms around the detective. It closes about him and he collapses, wracked by spasms.
Sam can’t help but smile.
Agents Gibbon and Indri lose their translucency. “Well done,” Gibbon says with a flourish. “Did we startle you?”
Feigning surprise, Sam steps back. “Were you here the whole time?”
“We’ve been following you since you left,” Gibbon answers. He pulls a restraint cord from his pocket and proceeds to bind Nial. “Command, terminate network access for Nial Fox.”
“You were just using me for bait,” Sam says.
“After your disappearing act in the BART station, I figure it’s the least I could do.”
“I guess you all are getting the hang of Oversight.”
Neither agent recognizes the term.
“Cayman’s overlay system,” Sam adds. “That’s why the gun appeared where it wasn’t, right?”
“You mean the government’s overlay system,” Gibbon corrects. “We call it AVE. Augmented Vision Environment.”
Sam looks surprised. “Only the military would propose such a neutered name,” he says.
“No, only the Roman Empire.”
“The what?”
“Sorry, ancient history.” Gibbon says. “Let’s go. I have orders to get you to the airport.”
Nose pressed against hardened plastic, Sam admires the view from his window seat on Flight 761 to Seoul. Clouds emerge from concealment beneath the starboard wing, crawling as if on a conveyor belt. Below lies a gunmetal ocean. Standing in for the sound of waves, the air-conditioning system supplies a dull roar. Sam sees mile-wide letters floating atop the sea: “Ask your cabin attendant for a Sea Breeze made with genuine Oblivion Vodka.”
The cabin reeks of chicken or pasta.
Sitting next to Sam are agents Indri and Gibbon. The former is snoring; the latter is enthralled by Sky Mall Magazine.
Sam passes a couple of hours watching The President Goes Hunting, in which the Commander-in-Chief’s flight-simulator experience enables him to take to the skies in an F-22 and personally conduct air strikes against terrorists posing as atheist civil-rights attorneys.
Following the film, Sam declines an invitation from the two FBI agents to join a game of canasta. Instead, he logs into the network to review his notes and to see if he can get any further information on Nial Fox, now in federal custody. But his queries to Dr. Ursa and to Luis remain unanswered.
Upon landing at Incheon International Airport shortly after midnight on Sunday, Sam and the two agents endure several hours in a bio-containment area. When they’re finally cleared, they find six men in similar suits waiting for them just beyond border control. Handshakes are exchanged; the group heads for a black SUV parked in a no-parking zone outside.
With heavy traffic around Seoul, the drive to the Joint Security Area Hilton at Panmunjom takes almost three hours; civilian air cars are not permitted within fifty miles of the DMZ or the airport.
The JSA has been the site of rapid development since the sixtieth birthday celebration for North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in February 2043. Without addressing persistent rumors that Kim died from excessive consumption of cheese in 2014 and was replaced by a double, the Korean Central News Agency marked the occasion by announcing the publication of the Great Leader’s latest statement of policy, “Implementing Juche Revolutionary Themes During My Sixth Decade.” Though incomprehensible from a literary viewpoint, the attractively bound document did at least succeed as marketing: It carried an endorsement from Telomeritis, a leading maker of homeopathic anti-aging products. It was the first such official publication from the North Korean government to sport such sponsorship, an auspicious change in the eyes of the West. The new hundred-year plan called for “a revitalization of self-reliant socialism in the face of Western anti-humanism”—which North Korean government officials interpreted as a mandate to develop the country’s tourist trade around the ransom industry.
Having never divined the fine line between kidnapping and tourism, North Korean tour operators have been seizing travelers around the globe with impunity for the past seven years. Following payment for meals (gluten-free, for a surcharge), accommodations, and deportation, DPRK guides escort their captives by train to the JSA, stopping along the way at staged villages for guided shopping breaks. Few can resist picking up memorabilia of their ordeal. At the conclusion of the journey, the guides show their charges to the tunnels dug under the JSA in the 1970s—recently renovated with rest rooms for those with insufficient bladder strength to make the two-mile trek—and turn the other way to allow an “escape.”
Despite the ostensible outrage of the international community, the practice continues due to the intervention of China, forever menacing the West by proxy while simultaneously posing as peacemaker. And both the U.S. and the UK have long recognized the value of North Korea as justification for otherwise-unsustainable security spending. Moreover, the international community has come to find institutionalized kidnapping useful as a kind of handshake. Under the oversight of Pyongyang, and with the cooperation of South Korea and the international insurance industry, a stable, well-regulated market for the exchange of people has emerged.
Sam spends the next few hours in briefings with members of various U.S. government intelligence and security agencies, along with their South Korean counterparts, and a hostage-insurance claims adjustor from International Hostage Brokers, Ltd. Sam’s part is quite straightforward: Approach the exchange point, hand over the glasses, and return with Amy to the safe zone. It’s the contractual details about media rights, commissions, and residual fees that prove difficult to negotiate. Jet-lagged, Sam dozes through much of the discussion and the concurrent meal of soup, kimchi, and assorted side dishes.
At the appointed hour, Sam follows Agents Indri and Gibbon and the others to the staging area, an attractively manicured garden on the north side of the hotel. Flowers frame inspirational posters that offer slogans like “No price is too dear for freedom” and “Your wallet is your hope.” A gravel path meanders toward the military checkpoint run by the Republic of Korea. The transition is abrupt, shifting at the hotel’s property line from sentimental signage and topiary animals to guard dogs and razor wire.
Agent Gibbon produces a sealed white envelope from his pocket. “Dr. Ursa said you were to have this,” he explains. Opening the envelope, he removes what looks like a breath mi
nt and some dental wax. “He said to affix this to the roof of your mouth, someplace comfortable.”
There are no evident markings. “What is it?”
“I don’t know. Dr. Ursa said you should bite it if you need to reach us.”
“Is it toxic?”
“He didn’t say. But he stressed that you must spit it out as soon as you bite it. Is that understood?”
“Understood.” Shaking his head, Sam applies the wax beside his left top molar and embeds the tiny pill within it.
Sam and the two agents descend into the tunnel that leads to the north, beneath the border and beyond. Pale green paint is peeling off the walls, revealing concrete beneath. Bare bulbs blare. In the absence of distractions, the asynchronous footfalls of the three men beg to be ordered into something more rhythmic. Sam shifts his gait to fall into time.
The absence of input while advancing through the tunnel prompts the mind to manufacture sights and sounds. It’s not that Sam can’t handle being disconnected; he’s bought silence many times. Rather, there’s a sense of something unfinished about this place without ads, like music that fails to resolve to the tonic.
“Are we there yet?” Sam asks, to break the silence.
Indri looks to Gibbon for guidance.
“It’s a trick question,” Gibbon deadpans.
And then they’re there. There are two doors, side by side, glass framed by metal, leading into identical chambers. At the far side of those rooms, duplicate doors offer an exit to the North Korean side. On the tunnel wall, there’s a video display, intercom, hand scanner, and lens.
With no one visible on the far side, the three men wait. Ventilation fans hum the tune of eternity, a note forever sustained.
Finally, a light appears on the far side, refracted through the glass in the doors. Amy is there, flanked by two men in fatigues. She looks well-kept.
After a moment of discussion, a voice sounds over the intercom: “Shall we proceed?”
Gibbon presses the talk button on the input panel. “We’re ready,” he says, and nods to Indri.
When Indri opens the right-hand door, a green panel over the doorframe illuminates. Over the left-hand door, a red light comes on.
The two agents look at Sam. “You’re on,” Gibbon says.
Sam withdraws the rose-colored glasses from his pocket. “Just put them on the ground?” he asks.
“Unless you see somewhere else to put them,” Gibbon says.
Sam steps into the chamber and carefully places the spectacles on the concrete floor.
Amy Ibis, meanwhile, has stepped into the adjacent chamber. She lifts a hand in a half-hearted wave.
Behind Sam, the door slams shut. He turns to see Indri through the glass, standing with arms folded, smiling a stupid smile.
One of Amy’s captors shuts the door through which she entered. Metal bolts clack and the lights in each chamber brighten to provide a better view of the goods being exchanged.
Gibbon moves to the south-side input terminal and begins the authentication process. His counterpart on the North Korean side does the same.
Looking for options, Sam finds only walls.
Amy places her hand on the glass between the two chambers. Condensation clouds the space between her fingers and around her palm. Her face furrows, perhaps in concern.
Sam reciprocates, pressing his hand against hers. He feels nothing but mistrust.
“I know you killed him,” he says, knowing she cannot hear him.
Amy’s response, as near as Sam can tell, is “Thank you.” He wonders what she thought he said.
The northern door in Sam’s chamber and the southern door in Amy’s open simultaneously. The air from the northern side smells of mildew and decay.
One of the men on the far side beckons, pulling a gun from his jacket. “Give me the glasses,” he says.
Sam complies. His mind races. Why wasn’t he informed he would be traded? Was it just deceit, or was the knowledge withheld for his protection? Perhaps Caddis just wanted some insurance, in case the glasses didn’t work as advertised—which, of course, they won’t.
The man with the gun tosses a mustard-colored Faraday bag to Sam. “Put it on,” he demands.
“Usually these come in black,” Sam observes.
“Midnight was sold out,” the gunman answers.
Sam dons the bag and cinches the braided cord around his neck. The form-fitting fabric is, as advertised, “breathable enough to ensure that captives survive transport while blocking electromagnetic transmissions and muffling objections.”
They bind his hands behind his back and lead him away. The North Korean national anthem rises and falls as they approach and pass speakers every hundred yards or so.
After they emerge from the tunnel, Sam waits for a few minutes while the paperwork for the transaction is concluded in some sort of visitor’s center. With network access blocked, he can’t ask for real-time translation.
His captors lead him outside. They search him thoroughly for weapons but notice nothing unusual about his mouth. Then they force him into the back of a vehicle.
“Where are we going?” Sam asks.
No one answers.
No one speaks during the drive. The only sounds come from machines: tires on gravel and cement, the engine’s hoarse hum, passing cars, and the whine of brake pads. Sometimes music intrudes, imposing momentary structure on the ambience.
Sam awakens, not knowing how long he’s slept. The truck in which he’s riding drives up a steep ramp and stops. The men accompanying Sam step out of the vehicle. They shut the doors behind them.
Metal slams on metal. It sounds like a shipping container being closed. Or at least that’s what his conto sounded like when he shut the doors. Sam imagines himself as a matryoshka doll, gray matter encased in bone, in a vehicle, in a box.
“Where are we?” Sam asks, the heat of his breath turned back on his face by the bag on his head.
Silence.
A truck engine starts outside. From inside the container, the sound is muffled. There’s movement again.
Squinting in a futile effort to see through the bag covering his head, Sam inadvertently brings up a copy of the manual for his eyes. How thoughtful, he muses, that the text has been stored within the circuits woven into his eyes, so he can access it without a network connection.
Diagrams appear in neon yellow over the void before him. The title reads, “AVE Alpha Test Documentation for the Biopt Retinal Interface Controller (BRIC).”
Another prolonged squint toggles the file away. Paging through the help documents and test histories turns out to be a matter of exaggerated winks and blinks.
One passage of impenetrable military jargon catches his attention: “Starting in 2049, the Augmented Visual Environment (AVE) will be extended beyond warfighter tactical support (WTS) to include networked environmental interaction (NEI) through gesture-based commands (GBC). Application programming interfaces (APIs) for client-side server synchronization and predictive rendering (CSSSPR) in the BRIC will remain classified until a security review has been completed.”
Mako must have figured out how to piggyback on military infrastructure to deliver overlays to modified eyes. Perhaps that was the moment it all began; while the military was working to arm the mind, Harris Cayman had been working to subjugate reality under a layer of imagination. In that convergence, marketing became martial.
About an hour passes as Sam explores the history of his new organs. Then there’s a sudden jolt. Sam hears the doors of the cargo container open, followed by the doors of the truck. Hands grip his arm.
“Let’s go,” says a voice. Fingers tighten and direct him out of the vehicle and the container.
Sam recognizes the sound of airplane engines. “Where are you taking me?” he asks.
He recoils as a needle pierces his arm. He struggles, weakens, and sleeps.
Sam awakens slowly. He’s in a warehouse. The air is warm and dry. Columns of sunlight, given form by du
st, descend from windows above. He’s strapped to a table, propped up almost vertical. The restraints make it hard to breathe. His network-signal meter tells him he’s still cut off from the world.
There are doctors, or people dressed as such. The equipment around him suggests a makeshift operating room.
“Fool me once, shame on me,” an unfamiliar voice says. “But you would fool me twice.”
Sam cannot shift his head to see who is speaking. Then something like the face of Emil Caddis moves into view.
“You look different, Emil.”
Emil barely acknowledges the observation. “These glasses you have are fakes.”
“Like you. You’re not the man who pushed me out of the airplane.”
“Perhaps you need glasses,” Emil retorts. “As do I.”
Sam’s heart is racing. He tests his restraints. “Why do you want them so desperately?”
“To restore the sight that we took away.”
“We?”
“Harris Cayman and I.”
“You’re working together?”
“We were, until Dr. Mako made a mess of everything by trying to sell his work to the Chinese. And Amy threw a wrench into the works by killing him.”
“You almost lost his eyes.”
“Fortunately, Harris was able to recover them. If only he’d realized Dr. Mako had keyed them to the glasses, I wouldn’t be about to remove them from your head.”
Sam feels ill. “That was not part of the deal.”
“Oh, but it was. Harris would do anything to save his Amy, even use you as an organ mule.”
“My eyes won’t be any help,” Sam insists. “Everything will be—” He’s about to say that severing his optic nerve will re-encrypt the data in his eyes, but he realizes that would reveal he had gained access already.
“Everything will be what?”
“It will be pointless because you don’t have the glasses.”
Emil crosses his arms. “We’ll see about that. It’s only a matter of time before we track them down. Everything is logged on video somewhere.”
Oversight Page 20
