Silver Screen

by Justina Robson

  “OK,” I said.

  Peaches nodded and picked up the jug. She poured the orangeade down the sink and put the jug on the drainer.

  “What?” she said. “You didn't think I was going to drink that crap? I just needed something to do. Did you want some?”

  “No, thanks.” We went through to the engineer's room to see if Lula had turned up. She was sitting at her workstation, which was flashing dense lines of code at her.

  “Busy?” Peaches said.

  “This is the actual code trace of Roy's last minutes,” she said, stopping the scroll and taking her feet off the console. She peered around us. “Shut the door.”

  We huddled closer to the screen. The language was unintelligible to me and Peaches both. Code level was something only freaks like Roy used anymore. And Lula.

  “The time stamps are on the left.” She pointed. I was surprised at how much stuff could happen in a quarter of a second.

  “Does anyone know you're looking at this?”

  “Maria asked me to look at it, dolt,” she said, elbowing me. “I'm now the best code reader they've got. I guess Elliott, on Red, and Athena, on Blue, will be checking it over, but no news so far. Anyway, to get back to the point, look here.” She put her blunt finger at time 10.14.59.15 and traced across the squiggles. “This is the beginning of the instruction which triggers the money exchange. Later—” she moved far down the list “—there's when the addressing takes place. For a while—a quarter—this money hangs around on the wire. It had to wait for a special marked packet to tell it where to go. That's where the others lost it. So did I. But you have to go back, not forward, to find it.” She put her finger somewhere in the halfway point. “This is the first address signal, issued before the money leaves his account. See, it looks like it's a part of this synchronization exchange between 901 and the USA site in Washington, but it's not. Anyway, the signal goes into a wait loop somewhere in the Swiss pool, waiting for a second instruction to tie with the money. That instruction didn't come from this system. I thought that maybe it still hadn't come, so I logged into the Swiss pool to look for it. I found Roy's money; it was still there. The address hadn't activated. But here's the really odd part; as soon as I saw that money, it was gone.” She turned to us expectantly.

  “Yeah?” Peaches said after a moment.

  “The Shoal took it,” Lula said with patience. “But if I hadn't been looking the Shoal may have left the money there a lot longer before taking it. Nobody else could take it, so it wasn't bothered that I would steal it. It's like it was waiting for someone to come looking for it. To prove where it went.”

  “How do you know it was the Shoal?”

  “The address is only a temporary gate in the network. When I went to find out what was there, it was just some blank place in a Pacific Area Telecom site.”

  “I'm guessing that was meant to be one in the eye for the Company,” I said, “otherwise why hang around for anyone? He'd expect them to check when the bank notified them of the transfer.”

  “Maybe,” Lula said. I could tell she wasn't convinced. “But the long and short of it is that now we know how to set up money transfers to the Shoal.”

  “Oh, wait a minute.” Peaches stood up straight and waved her hands. “This is getting a bit thick for me.”

  “Yeah, me, too.” I shot Lu a glare to stop her saying any more. “Let's keep our heads cool. We'll just look for information right now and decide what we do with it later. There's no reason to go for the Shoal.”

  “You're chicken,” Lula said, but in an easy voice, and she shrugged. “Bet you do in the end.”

  Of course that one would be down to me, as the only implant there. Just as I was about to think of some scathing retort the door chime sounded. It was Maria.

  “Babes!” she said breezily, arms wide, eyes brimming. “How are we doing?”

  Sympathy No. 8, with just a touch of Bravado Under Distress. I felt in my pocket for an antacid. We assured her, from a safe distance, that we were just fine. Then, seeing that we were forming a kind of wall in front of her, I made myself move, reach out, and pat her arm. “Thanks, Maria. We just want to get back to work. It's easier not to think about it when you're busy.”

  “Oh, I know,” she said. “I've been run ragged all day and night. And there's more. I need you for a meeting now, Julie, and you later, Peach. Lu, you keep on that stuff and let me know the minute you find anything.”

  “I will,” Lula said brightly, refocusing on the gibberish.

  Maria could never use anybody's real name. Friends sometimes called me Jules or Joo (very good friends); Lula could be Lu or Lulu; Peaches was Peaches, or you were in trouble. I saw her expression turn ugly as I glanced back, and I quickly made a show of being eager to go with Maria.

  It would be easy to think of Maria as fluffy and helpless, as I once had. But this was to fall into her deadliest trap. Maria was a tank. Pink and fluffy and tasting of candyfloss, but the treads had a way of crushing you to the same lifeless pulp as any other tank once you came in their path. Recently, the only way I had come to be able to stand her was to imagine a series of fantasies about killing her whenever she wasn't looking. As I followed her I saw my hands closing around the scrag of her neck and squeezing, choking, throttling the marrow out of her bones. It was fortunate she didn't know that Roy had made a dungeon game along these lines, too, or she'd have been even happier that he was out of her hair.

  At this stage I could still think of Roy casually, with some humour. It occurred to me that maybe the impact of his death had not really hit. Death felt more dreary and sullen than I did. It became lethargic and careless and didn't wash its hair from one week to the next. I wondered if we three were all a bit hysterical.

  We picked up the fabulously surly Joaquin in the corridor and trooped towards the big lounge. When we arrived I saw that Vaughn was there again, pixie in tow, and another man I hadn't met before—on his own and casting curious looks at the HughIes.

  “Anjuli.” Vaughn stood up. “This is Josef Hallett, our legal advisor.”

  We shook hands. Josef was a tall blond with the kind of handshake which only comes from lifting a lot of weights in full gravity. His eyebrows were coloured darker brown and he wore green contacts, but not garish ones. His suit was pure silk. I've always thought male vanity interesting. So transparent—am I supposed to be impressed or to compete? In station overalls, I thought, I would be impressed. I sat down.

  “To business.” Vaughn turned to me. “I'm sure you've heard by now about the case filed against us with the World Court?”

  I nodded.

  “Mr. Hallett will be synchronizing our defence. After some talks with myself and the other heads of section we have decided that it would be best if you were to act as the expert witness when they are discussing the status of the AI.”

  They all looked at me with expectant expressions. I was suddenly aware that whatever I said next would determine, in a way I couldn't fully understand, the whole scenario in which this case played out in the court and here within the Company. It was the time to be decisive and confident, but I did not know which angle would be for the best. Even my delay before speaking was critical. Fearful and unnerved, I put myself at the mercy of chance.

  “Yes, of course. I'd be happy to.”

  “Good.” Vaughn nodded at Hallett. His pixie put her hands together beneath her chin in faux delight. I had to restrain myself from scowling.

  Maria leant forward.

  “The Company position is a complicated one,” she said to Hallett. “We should arrange some time to discuss it. After the funeral, perhaps?” She glanced at me.

  “All right.”

  Joaquin made a note of it. We all stood up, shook hands again. Hallett and Vaughn left.

  “The body has gone home,” Maria said as we both watched the door through which they had gone. “His sister is making the arrangements. She wants it to be quick. She's going to send out invitations and so on, sometime today or
tomorrow. So our work will be disrupted. I'll arrange the cover for you if the whole Team wants to go.”

  “Thanks.” I tried to imagine Jane arranging the funeral. It would probably turn out to be the kind of affair where you were actively encouraged not to stay. Maybe Roy had left a will. I examined Maria closely. She looked tired. “I didn't know we had a Company position on 901,” I said. “It's never quite come up before.”

  “Oh no,” she agreed, nodding, “but between now and your meeting I expect you and the Steering Committee will have settled on something persuasive. Mr. Hallett made some suggestions this morning which I've put in your intray messager. Look it over when you have the time.” She got up and paced around the sofa, digging in her pocket for a strip of nicotine gum. Joaquin's docile eyes followed her. “And, Julesy—you and the others…you're OK?”

  As questions go, it was as vague as they come. She turned to wait for my answer, looking with searching snaps of her eyes, drumming her fingers lightly on the back of the couch.

  “I don't think that the things you said in the report on Roy's death were very kind,” I said, “or very accurate. But if you're worried that we'll take it further, then you can stand down. Roy and Jane had a hard enough time of it. We're not ready to go stirring up more trouble. I don't think—” and I paused to realize the largest lie of all “—that she would want that.” And then the truth: “We won't be pressing for another inquiry after this one.” If we found anything, I was already certain that OptiNet would not be getting away with an inquiry. It would be something much bigger.

  Maria smiled and sighed out through her nose in relief. “Well, some good news at last in my day,” she said. “But I hope you won't be offended when I tell you that it's been decided to suspend Green Team from Core duties. At least until the end of the court case—” her mouth turned down “—and after that perhaps it might be a good idea to look on it as a time to spread your wings. You've all done a splendid job here. You ought to capitalize on it.”

  It was interesting, I thought, how she could make such good eye contact when delivering threats. It tokened a genuine enjoyment of the situation. Meanwhile my heart gave an extra large thud. I wondered if it was their intention to leave us earthside after the funeral, or to keep up appearances and just cut us out of daily business. I would not give her the satisfaction of telling me, however.

  “Right,” I said and nodded with my head down to hide my anger.

  At that moment Peaches and Lula came in looking fairly thunderous themselves.

  “Babelets!” Maria greeted them. Joaquin got up so they could sit on the sofa where he had been. Lula marched straight through him and threw herself into the corner, hands in her lap. She ignored Maria.

  “Darling,” Peaches said with real ice in her tone.

  Maria affected not to notice. “I've ordered coffee and biscuits for all of you. It will be here in a jiffy. You sit down and take it easy. I must go and check on the other Teams who are having to cover you, the poor pets.” And she was gone, Joaquin a black crow in her wake.

  We looked at each other across the dead-flower arrangement. We knew.

  “This is bollocks,” Lula said. “They just threw us out of the office.”

  “One day, that woman…” Peaches began, but didn't finish. She shook her head. “How did she ever get this job?”

  “Have you checked access to the system?” I asked.

  “We'll get it,” Lula said. “They can't keep us out of everything.”

  “Whatever.”

  The silence was stony. “I can't sit here,” I said. “Let's go out.”

  We went down into the ring and took a railcar a few stops to the café centre. On a balcony festooned with fake ivy we sat and ordered coffee. I had bread-and-butter pudding with custard. Peaches had amaretti biscuits. Lula sulked over a double espresso, and crushed sugar crystals under her spoon. At a table next to us a birthday party was starting the first cocktail of the day with Manhattans. We noticed them as their conversation turned.

  “Hey,” one of them said, “what about this court case? Can you believe it?”

  “I don't think they'll win it,” another replied.

  “Who?”

  “Roy whatsisname and whoever. And if they did, then what? Are we going to end up being run by the damn thing?”

  “I wouldn't work here if it was in charge. I'd go to Astracom.”

  “You liar, José, you'd work here if a chicken was in charge, you lazy bastard…” and they laughed and went onto something else.

  I was tempted to say that a chicken was in charge—a headless one—but I didn't. They weren't in the mood for that kind of bitter humour. On her napkin Lula drew a crude picture of a rooster running in circles around a dead body screaming, “One of the warders is dead, one of the warders is dead, whatever shall we doodle-doo?”

  Peaches leaned over and scowled at it. “Wring the necks of the others,” she said, “if today is anything to go by.”

  The Artificial Intelligence Steering Committee met that evening in the main conference suite on station. It was not a long meeting and entirely devoted to outlining what would be said in court. By the time it had finished, I was no longer in any doubt about the real view of the Company over 901. Afterwards Dr. Klein caught up with me in the anteroom.

  “Anjuli?” she said, plucking my sleeve. “You don't look very happy.”

  “I find it difficult to believe that you are going to play for this old dualist hokey about simulations of mental actions in AIs and actual human mental actions being categorically different,” I said, standing and facing her without bothering to conceal my disappointment. “It's no more than a form of simple racism, and you know it. Besides which, I doubt that any lawyers who earn enough to pay for their own breakfasts will be put off by it. So you have calculated that the jury and the media will do what reason won't. You may be right—I hope you're not. Yes, I'm not happy at having to be the one to try and support this crap. Full marks for observation.”

  “You don't have to, if you don't want to,” she said. “We can get another Team to donate one of their psychologists.”

  I looked at her for a few long moments. Her grey eyes held no trace of ironic awareness. A cold sensation, like a lump of lead expanding slowly under my liver, spread through me. So that was the way it was to be. I was tempted to say something stupid like, Did they pay you enough? Instead I settled for, “No, that's OK. I'll be the brain donor. You keep signing the prescriptions.” It was a declaration of war, about as subtle as a fist in the face, and I was cold and glad to see a corner of her pinched mouth twitch with unhappiness.

  “Anjuli,” she said sharply as I turned away from her.

  I looked back. Around us the other committee members were all involved in their own conversations. The observation lights in the unit cameras were all switched off. Dr. Klein moved towards me hesitantly. She looked grey under her makeup. “This is not a game,” she said.

  “What is it, then?”

  I saw her fight not to look around the room, not to lean close and whisper. Her hands on the small lapfile she was holding gripped and released it in repeated spasms. We could still be overheard by anyone wanting to listen.

  Finally she found her word, “Survival,” and brushed past me and was gone, ignoring another delegate trying to get her attention by almost running him down.

  I looked at the floor for a second or two, gathering my thoughts. When I looked up, Maria was standing there. Her gaze was forthright and displeased.

  “Julie,” she said in a confidential tone, “you really must do something about these HughIe problems.”

  “What?” It was hard to follow her. I was expecting her to say something about the scene with Dr. Klein.

  “Come with me.” She took my arm and marched us out of the anteroom and into the deserted outer corridor. “Look.”

  Joaquin was standing there, hovering just slightly. Other than that he seemed perfectly normal.

  “And?”
I was irritated with her for distracting me.

  “Oh, he isn't doing it now!” she exclaimed, stamping her foot. “This is always the way. But as soon as you're gone it will start again. I just know it. It's 901 playing some childish little prank, and I've had enough of it. I'm warning you, Anji, if you don't do something soon, everyone is going to vote to have the whole thing scrapped—junked. And good riddance. 900 never did anything like this. We'll go to an earlier version…”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Ugh!” Maria threw up her hands in despair and folded them like armour plate across her chest. After a moment she hissed, “He puts his tongue out. And picks his nose. He flicks it at me. It's disgusting. And every time I have a difficult conversation with anybody and they say anything sharp, he stamps his feet and throws a complete fit. I'm telling you, it's 899 all over again and—” she looked at me and there was real hatred in her “—it's humiliating. And other ones do other things.”

  I had to try very hard not to imagine the sombre Joaquin having a tantrum in case I laughed. Right now he stood at Maria's shoulder with a tragic expression and his textbook hauteur.

  “What does Vaughn's do?” I asked; in the name of research, of course.

  “I don't know,” she said, “but he's switched it off for now. I can't go back to just using terminals and microphones—talking to nothing. It's your job to sort this out.” She was adamant.

  “All right.” I cast a final glance at Joaquin, but he did nothing. Maria glowered. “I'll get on it right now,” I said, “but from home. I'm tired. I'll see you later.”

  “Please.” She nodded at me and a smile almost crossed her lips. Gratitude didn't come easily to her—or it came too easily. That she was finding this so hard obviously meant she was at my mercy. In earlier and happier times I could have derived a lot of satisfaction from that. Now it just made me feel exhausted. I took the stairs down to the lowest level and walked home along a half mile of deserted path where it wound through the office canyons.

  It was significant that Maria had chosen to mention 899. She was always theatrical and excessive in her comparisons, but this was beyond that. I thought that it was uneasy recollections of the Texas incident which had been behind a lot of faces at the table this afternoon, and this confirmed it, even though there was no evidence whatsoever that that incarnation of the AI had been to blame for what happened.