Chasing Shadows: Visions of Our Coming Transparent World

by David Brin

  Silence reigns.

  Please let him be here.

  Removing her flats, she places them neatly beside the metal steps, then climbs onto the nearest gantry. Tiny waves lap against the crossgrid hatching, wetting the soles of her feet. Thick strands of the kelp drift back and forth in the artificial current, the tangle so dense she cannot see more than a couple of handspans below the surface.

  You wouldn’t want to fall in.

  Scanning the landscape of watery tanks that disappear into darkness, she sees no sign of anyone.

  “Professor Ramage?” she calls, her voice shattering the quiet. “Anyone?”

  The waters swallow her words, offer nothing in return.

  She crouches, delves a hand into the tepid waters, pinches a piece of the superkelp between thumb and forefinger. The fibrous strand has a textured feel, less rubbery than your garden-variety kelp, and more palatable to modern tastes.

  What are you hiding?

  Tess’s words echoed in her head. Find out what you can.

  Zoe tears off a piece of the kelp, gives it a sniff.

  Briny, but otherwise odorless.

  It was an ingenious idea.

  People would eat the food, enjoy it for its nutritious and tasty qualities, yet have no inkling they might be inviting a biochemical Trojan horse into their bodies. Who knew what purpose it might serve? Finding recreational drug users for the police. Identifying those with fatal diseases for life-insurance firms. Hell, maybe it was simply delivering an agent that made people docile.

  Analyzing the kelp’s twenty thousand or so genes would give little clue as to which ones might be facilitating the biotech, as the genes interacted in dizzyingly complex ways with each other and the host environment.

  Examining the intestinal flora of somebody who’d eaten the superkelp would be equally unenlightening, any active microbial agents hidden among the trillions-strong bacterial and viral zoo.

  No, the only way one might uncover such manipulations would be to get hold of the design—or the designer. One Professor Peter Ramage, most likely. He was GeneLife’s Head of Biological Research; politically well-connected, monomolecular sharp, and somebody who still liked to get their hands dirty.

  “Zoe!”

  Startled, she drops the piece of vitan, like somebody might’ve been eavesdropping on her thoughts. She twists. It’s him.

  “Professor Ramage?”

  “My apologies for sneaking up on you like that,” he says, mischievously. He’s in his forties, but his face is boyish. “A weakness of mine, I’m afraid.”

  “Lucky I wasn’t holding anything valuable.”

  The lanyard of his ID badge trails from the pocket of his black woolen jacket. He glances at the piece of broken kelp. “Oh, that kelp is incredibly valuable, believe me.”

  The silence is just getting uncomfortable when he speaks again. “What are you doing here anyway?” Realizing his confrontational tone, he attempts to add some levity. “Not trying to sabotage our new superfood, eh?”

  He’s on edge, Zoe thinks.

  “I find this place soothing,” she replies. “The lap of the water, the sway of the fronds, the peace. And during a night cycle with the bioluminescence casting everything in a soft glow? Bliss.” Then, studying his face carefully, she hits him with the question. “What secrets does this vitan hide, Professor Ramage?”

  “What?” His eyes are wide, and his skin has paled.

  So it’s true.

  “I mean this stuff lowers cholesterol, reduces blood pressure, raises protein absorption—how did you achieve all those amazing health benefits?”

  “Right, the health benefits.” Like the passing shadow of a fleeting cloud, he relaxes again. “Come by the labs next week, and I’ll let you in on a secret or two.”

  “Sure.” She gets up. “So, I better get back now. “She skips down the steps, fakes a trip, and collides with the professor. “I’m so sorry!”

  “No harm done.”

  Down by her side, his ID badge is now tight in her palm.

  He’ll only notice it’s gone when he tries to get back in his office.

  By that time she plans to be long gone.

  “Next week, Professor Ramage,” she says. “I’ll hold you to that.”

  * * *

  On the way up to the cubicle complex where Ramage’s office is located, Zoe puts on her spex, checks his public diary. Media duties and the Beijing delegation occupy his next couple of hours. After that it’s showtime with Chad Legarde. He won’t be stopping by his office anytime soon, so she doesn’t need to rush.

  Yet.

  She makes lazy orbits of his office, checking in with nearby colleagues, downtiming in the nearest VR pit, brainstorming on the corridor smartboard, but a good opportunity fails to materialize. It’s getting close to the point when she’ll need to be upstairs, when a buzz of excitement ripples through the cubicles.

  “Jude Law’s coming up!”

  “That the guy from Minority Report VI?”

  Like meerkats, heads bob up across the office.

  “Nah, that’s Tom Cruise. You never seen Gattaca? Solid chrome.”

  “Wow, dude must be ancient. The wonders of modern medicine.”

  Zoe’s colleagues are filing to the elevators, chatting excitedly.

  This is my chance.

  Except one recalcitrant worker sat two strides from Ramage’s office door isn’t budging. There’s no way Zoe’s sneaking in unnoticed. She pulls on her spex, sidles up to the woman. Ruth Travis, Human Resources Associate, reads the text scrolling across the crest of her lenses. Through blink-gesture recog Zoe fires off a snifferbot to scrape whatever info she can about this Ruth Travis.

  “Not a fan of Jude?”

  “I can’t stand him.”

  Zoe turns toward the hubbub across the office, ostensibly to seem as if she’s considering the commotion, when in reality she’s swiftly scanning the data on Ruth. Saccading eyes are a dead giveaway that you’re not giving someone your full attention, or worse—giving them a digital once-over—when wearing spex.

  Zoe skims: Thirty-seven … divorced … resides in Islington … one child, Elsie … vice-president of the Islington Ladies Lawn Tennis Association … favorite books include—

  Zoe has an idea.

  “Me neither,” she says. “And his current flame, Anastasia whatsherface, you know, the tennis brat—I despise her.”

  “He’s dating Anastasia Karpolenko?”

  “As far as I know.”

  Ruth cranes her neck. “Do you think she might be with him now?”

  “I’d bet on it.”

  Ruth’s off in a dash, her desk chair spinning in her wake. “My daughter’s a huge fan,” she calls over her shoulder. “She’ll kill me if I don’t even try to get an autograph.”

  Zoe doesn’t waste any time, slips into Ramage’s office before Ruth is out of sight. Heart hammering she rifles through his desk drawers, flicks through his filing cabinet, but even in the paperwork pertaining to vitan, there’s no inkling of anything related to any hidden biosurveillance. She’s ready to give up, when her gaze alights on the bottle of scotch and accompanying tumbler on the chest-high walnut bar table by the window. A smear of liquor clings to the side of the glass.

  Drinking.

  What if he isn’t simply tense?

  What if he’s having second thoughts?

  She stares out the floor-to-ceiling windows. London stretches away beneath her, a patchwork of gleaming towers and dilapidated ghettos, wealth and poverty, every one of the million upon millions caught in chaotic tides that sweep them into unknown—and unknowable—futures.

  On a hunch, Zoe crouches.

  Taped to the underside of the table is a transparent folder, a sheaf of papers inside. Even from an oblique angle two bold words are clear: EYES ONLY.

  Thirty seconds later, adrenalized and euphoric, she’s on her way to the elevators, the memory card of her smart phone a few megabytes closer to capacity. She�
��ll upload them to Green Dawn’s anonymous servers as soon as she’s given them a quick—

  “Hey!”

  It’s like somebody’s thrown a bucket of ice water over her.

  Game’s up, sister.

  She swivels—to find the human resources woman staring at her with an expression half-pitying, half-annoyed. “FYI,” she says, “Jude Law isn’t dating Anastasia Karpolenko!”

  Zoe’s heart beats again. “Damn, I’m sure I read that somewhere. Sorry!”

  Outside the elevators she discreetly drops Ramage’s ID badge beside the potted yucca plants. Then she’s heading up to The Gastronomique for the final business of the day: a little spot of guerilla filming.

  * * *

  “Strictly only official guests, ma’am.”

  The security guard’s neck is as wide as his head, sinews straining against the collar of his tux, and he’s mastered the art of the conversation closed look. Already his attention’s moved onto the next guest in the line.

  Zoe ducks away, calls Tim, the kitchen porter, through her spex.

  “Hey Zoe,” he answers, shouting, a background din of clanging pans and barked orders threatening to drown out his voice. “What can I do for you?”

  “I need to get into the vitan launch party,” she replies. “But I don’t have an invite. Think you could sneak me in through the kitchens?”

  “For you, no drama.”

  “Thanks, Tim. Two mins, service elevator doors.”

  “Gotcha.”

  Two minutes later, Zoe steps out the service elevator doors, a perspiring Tim giving her a quick smile and a flick of the head. “Follow me.”

  Thirty seconds later, after zigzagging through the steamy helter-skelter of the Gastronomique’s kitchens attracting several looks ranging from cheeky winks to undisguised disgust, Chad Legarde issuing a constant stream of orders as he whirls around his culinary domain, Zoe is milling with the rest of the guests.

  She snatches a flute of champagne from a passing silver tray, drains the glass, then snatches a second glass before the tray’s out of arm’s reach. The alcohol races to her head, but she needs its relaxing warmth.

  Any second somebody’s going to clock you for the interloper you are.

  The restaurant’s usual complement of tables have been cleared away, the two hundred or so guests mingling in small groups across the marble floor, their chatter noisy like the roar of a river. A small podium constructed in the heart of the space is empty except for some vitan promotional banners and a microphone. Tangled fronds drape from the low ceilings, interspersed with soft off-white globes reminiscent of giant pearls, subconsciously proclaiming the message that this new superfood is as healthy and natural as other fruits of the sea.

  Healthy? Perhaps.

  Natural? No chance.

  She taps her phone, an intense desire to give those EYES ONLY photos a closer inspection, but now isn’t the time.

  What have they slipped into the geneline?

  What do they want to know?

  Soon as she uploads the pics to the Green Dawn servers, those secrets will be common knowledge, and it’ll be out of her hands.

  Then I can concentrate on what’s important: Luke.

  Near the podium, there’s a ripple of excitement, and suddenly Chad Legarde leaps into sight. “Excuse me.” Zoe pushes through the throng, gets closer to the action.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Chad begins, his delivery animated, “it is with great pleasure that I welcome you to The Gastronomique. When GeneLife invited me to prepare a menu to celebrate the launch of their brand-new superfood, vitan, I felt deeply honored. For a chef, kelp is traditionally a difficult ingredient…”

  At the edge of the restaurant Zoe can see the serving staff congregating by the entrance to the kitchens, their platters stocked with the first dish—avocado and walnut mousse with strawberry shavings. She feels another bout of revulsion, thinking about what’s coming for the diners. Shaking off her misgivings, she starts filming with a discreet tilt of her smart phone; recording with her spex is out of the question due to the ID tagging.

  The footage is streaming live onto Green Dawn servers.

  Two minutes and I can be out of here.

  While she waits for Chad to finish his speech, her phone still recording, she navigates to her gallery application. The temptation to wait any longer before learning what GeneLife is smuggling into the vitan geneline is too great to resist. She flicks past the first couple of images, then zooms in with a reverse pinching motion when she comes to the meat of the classified document.

  The truth stuns.

  Green Dawn were right about the surveillance biotech.

  Vitan is designed with a sophisticated panoply of genes that, once activated in the host environment, will construct a small biological arsenal capable of gathering a whole suite of medical data on the subject.

  Cellular health. Genetic damage. Toxin levels.

  And DNA sequences.

  What they’d not figured though was that this data would be anonymized.

  The tech wasn’t going to be used to identify anyone.

  It was going to be used to build a detailed and highly accurate picture of the health of the nation. Via this data, health services could be planned that would be precisely tailored to the needs of the country. Without money wasted on well-intentioned but ultimately ineffective programs, millions upon millions of pounds, not to mention countless lives, would be saved. With this technology in the wild, the chances of a cure for Luke’s condition became a little less slim.

  Vitan could revolutionize medicine.

  And it could only happen if it was kept top secret.

  Ramage had understood only too well that the government’s clandestine plans for vitan could make it a tremendous force for good.

  His quandary must have focused on whether the asking price for such a system—covert, invasive surveillance, paternalistic, even if well-intended—was too high.

  And it seems like he thinks not.

  Of course this whole scheme was offensive, at one level. The paternalistically secretive approach couldn’t be allowed to stand for long, or the potential for Big Brother abuse would grow. No wonder Ramage was collecting a thorough dossier, to make it all public and transparent at the right time. After the benefits flow, when it’s too late for insurance companies to silo the shared information people need.

  That Luke needs.

  And I almost ruined it. Zoe frowned. Ramage is smarter and wiser than me. And I almost spoiled it.

  “… so without further ado, I present my first dish. Bon appetit.”

  Still reeling from her discovery, Zoe kills the gallery app, returns to live camera footage. With mounting worry, she watches the first guests grab their starters and tuck in. She makes sure they’re in focus on her screen. The modified strawberries don’t take long to perform their magic, rogue elements in their biochemistry reacting with human saliva.

  Distaste comes first, the diners spitting the rancid-tasting food into their napkins, but the chemical party in their mouths is only just getting started and they’re along for a much more turbulent ride. The retching begins, diners succumbing like dominoes, some projectile vomiting, others dry heaving the acid bile of empty stomachs.

  Chad Legarde looks on in horror.

  People are screaming, piling for the exit.

  Zoe’s one of them, the ruinous footage already uploaded. And yet, at her core there is relief. They didn’t lie about the poison. Just nausea, they promised.

  If Green Dawn had used Zoe instead to kill…? Zoe knew she would have spent the rest of her life hunting them down.

  In the tide of bodies, she checks one of the newsfeeds on her phone, and her jerky footage stares back at her, the story already making news headlines. Switching to the markets, she watches GeneLife’s share price drop like a line scratched by an angry child.

  The crash means the government will take over GeneLife.

  The board won’t be accou
ntable to the shareholders.

  They’ll be accountable to the electorate.

  Things wouldn’t change overnight, but they would change.

  And Luke’s going to get a chance.

  Outside, her cell rings.

  “Nice work,” says Tess.

  “Fifty thousand, right?”

  “You’ll get your payment. What did you learn about vitan?”

  Zoe listens to a distant siren racing through the city. “Nothing,” she lies. “And it wasn’t for a lack of effort. Maybe your information was wrong.”

  She’ll be damned if she’s the one who shuts down vitan.

  Tess snorts. “You’ll have to sniff around again after the dust settles.”

  “Uh-uh. I’m out.”

  “What did I tell you before?” Tess says with a nasty edge. “We own you.”

  “Nobody owns me,” Zoe snaps back. “I told you. I’m out.”

  She hangs up. Maybe she agrees with Green Dawn’s aims, but she doesn’t agree with their methods. What I did, I did for Luke.

  Green Dawn won’t expose her. They’ve got too much to lose, throwing one of their own under the bus. They’ll pay her the money, and then she and Luke will hit the black market. Ukraine looks a good bet.

  Before Tess can call back, Zoe speed-dials her brother.

  “Hey, Zoe,” he answers. “Good day?”

  “Yeah, not bad.”

  She wonders how the vertical farm’s going to change once it becomes state-owned. And then—hey, why not?—open sourced? So that all these methods finally fulfill their promise in millions of diverse hands? She always loved the wheat fields, loved running her fingers through the stalks. She hopes that’s one of the crops they bring back.

  “So, listen,” she says. “You keep your hands off those strawberries?”

  “Of course.”

  “Good. I wouldn’t want you falling ill.” She gazes up, watches a plane passing high overhead. “We’re going on a trip.”