Synners

by Pat Cadigan

"You think so? I coulda got the same effect going up in a jet and taking a power dive, or strapped a cam on a rocket and shot it up, then run the footage in reverse. Any of those methods would have given me the same kind of rush. All I had to do was make the image move the right way. It's supposed to be a fall in context. Out of context it's just pictures going real fast." She licked her lips, swallowing hard on a dry throat. "What did you ask for-fucking pictures going fast, or a stone-home fall?"

  Valjean frowned hard. "You're making me confused now."

  "It's not me," she said, forcing a blase tone into her voice. "It's being out of context. But you got to know your context, because you're only gonna get one shot at getting into it."

  He paused, thinking it over. "How do you know that?"

  "When I make a video, and something doesn't work, I take it out and throw it away. No use for it, doesn't fit the context. That's okay for footage, but what about thoughts? You're not gonna be any kind of thought sitting in the cosmic trash barrel, and if you don't know the context, that's where you could end up."

  There was an eternal moment when nothing happened at all, and then Valjean let go of the woman. She teetered, recovered, and slid down onto the carpeting in a heap, looking dazed. Gina waved a finger at her and she crawled away, out of Valjean's reach.

  Valjean stayed on the rail, the knife in both hands and his face all puckered up. The stone shapes were racing on the cape, more like meteors now. She had a brief thought about falling stars as she took another step toward him, and then another, until she was within reach of him. He seemed to be unaware of her, even as she leaned forward and put one hand on his shoulder. The patterns on the cape began to fade in and out in spots, flickering, wavering. She watched his face carefully as she took a firm grip on him and started to pull him forward. His left eye was bloodshot; more than bloodshot. It was starting to fill up with watery pinkish tears. Gina pulled at him a little harder, and for a moment he resisted. Then he slid forward off the rail, still holding the knife in both hands as if he were praying.

  Gina took the knife from him slowly and carefully. Valjean gave her a searching look and started to say something, but the guards were suddenly all around them, pulling him away from her.

  "I'll take that knife."

  Gina turned to Clooney, holding the knife between two fingers. "Don't tempt me, asshole, you're on my shitlist."

  "I'm the ranking employee here." He snapped his fingers and held his hand out.

  Gina flicked her wrist and the knife suddenly blossomed in the tacky green carpeting between his feet. "Oops," she enunciated into his outraged face. One of the security guards clamped a hand on her arm.

  "Remove this woman," Clooney said, rolling his eyes. "Obviously she's as disturbed as her rock'n'roll buddy here."

  She twisted away from the guard easily. "I can remove myself. Fuck you very much, stooge."

  Two of the guards removed her anyway. As they marched her past Ludovic and the Dinshaw woman, Valjean was singing "Coney Island Baby." He was flat.

  26

  Valjean finished singing and collapsed at the doctor's feet in a huddled pool of twitching patterns. It was the same tall doctor Gabe had just seen in Mark's pit arguing with Gina. Her face remained stubbornly impassive, even as she started to remove the cape and discovered the connections that Valjean had been so careful to camouflage running from the hardware in the collar to the sockets in his head. Gabe felt a wave of queasiness sweep through him as she bent down and instructed the semiconscious man to give the disconnect command.

  Dinshaw nudged him, and he started guiltily; he had all but forgotten her. "Are you all right?" he asked her, but she waved the question away, pointing at the door. Manny was just coming out from the elevators, looking haggard and disheveled in a vague kind of way, as if he'd just been awakened from sleep.

  Clooney rushed at him, starting to explain something about being the ranking employee and the call from Security bouncing to him because Manny had been unavailable. Manny seemed to endure Clooney without really listening, giving most of his attention to the doctor and the security guards. He turned briefly to look at Dinshaw, frowning when he saw Gabe standing beside her.

  "You're probably going to get it for being on the scene again," Dinshaw said in a low voice. "How is it you always find your way up here when someone's going to jump?"

  "Just lucky, I guess," Gabe said, feeling awkward. A guard came over to him with Valjean's cape and thrust it at him.

  "Here. She's your friend, you give it to her."

  Gabe didn't want to touch it. He balled it up quickly, making sure the connections that had been in Valjean's skull were well buried in the folds of material.

  Dinshaw drew away a step, looking at it with distaste. "That's a real inspired piece of technology."

  "Isn't it."

  Clooney stalked past them looking miffed as the largest security guard eased Valjean's limp form over his shoulder and followed the doctor to the elevators.

  "You weren't hurt, were you?" Manny asked Dinshaw. He was squinting at her strangely, as if he were trying to decide whether she was somehow at fault for all this.

  Dinshaw shook her head.

  "Good. That's good." He looked a bit puzzled as he went back inside. Gabe and Dinshaw stared after him.

  "What's wrong with this picture?" Dinshaw said, rubbing her neck where Valjean had been gripping her.

  "I don't know," Gabe said. He looked down at the cape. A last bit of residual energy sent a soft wave of grey through the white material, like an animal letting out a final breath.

  White Lightning in a mason jar. If it worked once, it would work again. Except it didn't.

  The level in the jar went down steadily, little by little, and it wouldn't come for her. It burned the way it was supposed to, but tonight she was fireproof.

  Here it comes.

  She tried to block the thought with another swig from the jar. Yah, and here this comes, now leave me alone.

  Take a little walk-

  – and here it comes-

  Here this comes. Shut up, motherfucker. Too hard, it was too fucking hard to think about.

  – a little walk with me-

  – into the context-

  Context this. The jar was half-gone now, and she felt nothing, nothing, nothing. The kid with the heelprint on his forehead was jumping again tonight. Christ, didn't he have someplace else to go, something else to do?

  "We do"-dit, dit, dit-"what we do. We do it"-dit, dit, dit-"because we can."

  Gina put her hand down on the sticks, capturing them. Flavia waited a moment and then slid them out again to play the edge of the table.

  "Know what you're looking for. Know it." Flavia pushed the mason jar aside. "Know you through the wire, know you for always."

  Gina pulled the mason jar back in front of her and held onto it. "I don't think you're fucking ready to know me tonight."

  That sharp-enough-to-cut grin. "Toxed enough yet?"

  She shook her head slowly. "Not toxed at all. Should've known it would happen someday. I passed the saturation point, can't put a load on anymore. The only thing to do is get myself Purged and start over quick. Before the odometer hits six zeroes."

  "Sure." Flavia whacked her on the cheek with one of the sticks. "Feel that?"

  Gina gave a short, surprised laugh. "No."

  "Toxed enough." Flavia beckoned to someone behind her. "Ready. A little traveling music, please."

  Don't do it, she told them as they took her out. Don't fucking do it, crushed in the back of the rental with Claudio and his magic fingers. We do what we do, we do it because we can, don't do it, she said as they took her down into the cellar. Don't do it, Claudio laying her down on the mattress, arranging her comfortably, pausing to kiss her on the mouth. Struck by White Lightning, hope you like your barbecue extra-crispy. Don't do it. The connections were ready in Flavia's practiced hands. Don't do it, she said. Last time: don't do it.

  Then they did it.


  The brain feels no pain, Good God, y'all, can you believe with me?

  They said they could. Claudio's magic fingers, the Fender in Dorcas's grip, Tom holding on to the phantom train, and Flavia beating, beating, beating.

  Well, you got it, it's totally painless, but they never mentioned it would feel like painlessly driving eight nails through your head going in and painlessly ripping your arms and legs off coming out again. And they only mentioned what you'd gain, they never mentioned what you'd lose, they never got to that, and what the fuck, even you can't tell sometimes. Right. Because we do what we do, we do it because we can… but do you know what you can do?

  You can do this-

  – take a little walk with me-

  A little way, a long way, invaded, visited, and then left; walk all night, and then run and run and run until you forget. Were you running from something or to it?

  Struck by White Lightning. Hope you like your barbecue extra-crispy. (She thought she heard someone yell in pain, but that was ridiculous, that couldn't have been. The brain felt no pain.)

  You be the ass to risk. Ever done that? It goes something like this-

  But Flavia was already tearing at her, whacking her across the face with the sticks to bring her out of it even as Claudio's magic fingers plucked the wires from her head and threw them down. Flavia yanked her to a sitting position.

  "Hey, you. Get her out."

  Deja-voodoo. "How the fuck did you find me?" she said.

  "Why didn't you wait for me?" Ludovic's face was pained. "Why didn't you come to me?"

  "You ask a lot of questions for someone with holes in his head. Hotwire."

  He carried her out.

  – -

  Fez's smile was tired. He was sitting alone in the work island Rosa had set up with Percy directly in front of the screens, which were all dark now. It was some indecent hour of the morning, four maybe, and the inn was dead quiet, except for the faint sound of some hard-core party animals, probably Rude Boys, carrying from somewhere farther up the Mimosa.

  "What are you doing here?" she said.

  He yawned. "Research. I just wanted a little privacy."

  "Oh. Sorry. I'll get out of your face." She turned to go back to her squat.

  "No, it's all right. I think I've found out everything I need to know." He jerked his head at her. "Come here. You'll be interested in this."

  She sat down on the floor next to him, yawning and wiping her watering eyes. "I don't vouch for my ability to know anything at this hour, but whack it anyway."

  He gave her a look. "Going native?"

  "Fuck, no." She blinked at the screen of the laptop on the crate in front of him. "Sixteen perfect screens, and you're using Rosa's laptop?"

  "I didn't want to put this up where everyone could see it."

  She studied the screen for several seconds until she realized it was something from MedLine. "God, I can't read this. It's got words like oedema and homonymous hemianopia in it." She paused as the words sank in, and suddenly she was wide awake. "Hemianopia. That's a visual deficit usually caused by a stroke. You don't see stuff on the left side or the right, depending on which hemisphere of the brain is involved." She looked at Fez. "Oedema is the antiquated spelling of edema-"

  "Thank you, I know," Fez said grimly. "Secondary swelling after a stroke."

  "Who?" she asked.

  "A rather disturbing number of people who have sockets. And not just strokes. Other neurological disorders, too. Seizures, sudden onset of multiple sclerosis, Huntington's chorea, Parkinson's-" Fez frowned. "Not enough Parkinson's cases, actually, to be significant." He blew out a breath. "The vast majority seem to be strokes of varying severity, and seizures. But the number of brain tumors ought to be ringing somebody's fire bell, and I don't think it is."

  "All from sockets?" Sam asked, feeling her stomach turn over.

  "They say there's absolutely no physical evidence connecting sockets to any of this," he said, scrolling the dense text forward several lines. "If you can believe them. They're calling it a 'statistically correct sampling of the populace,' unquote, mentioning other factors such as the effects of mutagens from environmental poisoning in the last century."

  "We didn't kick you in the head, your grandparents did," Sam said.

  Fez gave her shoulders a squeeze. "That's my Sam-I-Am."

  "I'm not yours," she snapped.

  He blinked at her in surprise for a moment, and then his face took on a wary look. "This is not the time to be mad at me, Sam."

  "I know." She could feel her face getting warm. Great; she was blushing. She only did that maybe once in two or three blue moons, and it had to be now. She gave an awkward shrug. "Hey, I'm trying to be a grown-up. I don't do so bad most of the time."

  He was looking back and forth, from the screen to her, caught between the two, and she wanted to kick herself. Something big and bad was happening, and she had to give herself away by getting pissy over a casual remark she'd heard from him a hundred times before.

  "Anything I say to you is going to sound lame," he said after a few moments. "I can tell you, 'Sam, you're very young, and I'm a broken-down old wreck' or 'Jesus, Sam, why, you're young enough to be my granddaughter, it's too indecent,' and we both know the meanest Hollywood hack could probably write better dialogue."

  She laughed a little in spite of everything. "Forget about it. I'm sorry. I make a shitty fugitive, and I make a shitty Mimosan, and sometimes I'm a shitty friend, too."

  "It's a shitty world," Fez said lightly, and they laughed together.

  "I'm sorry," she said again, sobering. "It is a shitty world. What about this? Is anyone doing anything?"

  "Not as far as I can tell. They're slowing down doing the procedure in some places, and a new clinic in Schenectady that was supposed to open has been delayed. Every single case was reported to be neurologically sound before and after the sockets were put in."

  "Then it's something going into the sockets," Sam said. "I mean, assuming it isn't twentieth-century mutagens."

  "Well, you're not a shitty thinker, whatever else you may be. But according to this nothing like neurotransmitter is going into anyone's sockets. It's all just entertainment stuff-rock videos, Hollywood releases. Commercials."

  "Commercials would do it-" She stopped. "Art told me way back when that Visual Mark could possibly have a stroke in the future. If he's among the cases, that's stone-home evidence they knowingly implanted sockets into the head of someone who was already manifesting a problem."

  Fez went back several screens and scanned a list of names. "Not here," he said after a moment. "Even if he was, we'd go to jail proving it. Receiving stolen meds."

  "I'd cut a deal. It would be worth it." She looked at him. "Hell, I'll go to jail. You stay here, have fun." She paused. "I mean, this is not my favorite place I've ever lived."

  "I knew what you meant," Fez said serenely, going back to the screen he'd been looking at. "The thing to do right now, I think, is give this to Art and let him run with it. If it means anything at all, he'll figure it out."

  "You have a lot of faith in him." Sam sighed. "Actually, that's what I was going to suggest. Art can get around the system, find out all kinds of things. Between him and us we may be able to figure it out. It sure worked before. I just don't know where we'll hide out this time."

  Fez gave her a puzzled frown. "Pardon?"

  "It just seems like every time Art makes some kind of big discovery, we end up wanted for questioning."

  "Only once, Sam."

  "See? A definite pattern." She wiped a hand over her face. "Shit, I'm tired." Fatigue had suddenly resettled itself on her like some tremendous roosting animal. "And I have to go to the bathroom. Pardon me while I go get my little pail and shovel to play in the sand. Don't worry, I'll bury it deep so it won't kill anybody." She got up clumsily and started away.

  Fez caught her hand. "Maybe sometime we can sit down in my apartment-my new apartment, wherever and whenever that may be-and I can
try to explain some of the things I want. And if things had broken just a little bit differently, who's to say? But I've always taken you seriously, Sam. In case you had any doubt."

  She nodded tiredly. "That's okay. Just-" she shrugged. "Next lifetime, let's get it right." She staggered off in search of toilet paper.

  He was in a sort of rest/sleep mode when he first sensed it.

  A presence and not a presence, it seemed as if it were calling to him in a way, signaling, beckoning, from somewhere within the Diversifications system.

  At first he thought it was Gina, coming on-line to be with him after all, but as he sensed more of it, he realized there was nothing of her in it. Abruptly he flashed on the idle meat, still in the pit. The records said it had disconnected and taken itself home, but it was really still there. Records were easy to manipulate, and he'd tried to keep them as normal looking as possible, so as not to let anyone know he wasn't actually disconnecting at all. The prospect of returning to the meat, of being weighted down, was less appealing all the time.

  He wished he had some way of getting the meat to operate at least briefly on its own, without him right there to control it. Then it could disconnect, walk around, go home, and come back. The doctors would accept such a performance as normal, just as they had accepted the little show he had put on for them earlier. After all, they were still busy processing the hordes of Diversifications employees, the social-expression composers, the hardware designers, the administrative people, and the fabled Upstairs Team. Meat was easy to bamboozle. It had to expend so much energy and attention just dragging itself around that it tended to miss a lot.

  In the midst of his ruminations on the meat problem, he felt the thing again, no closer but somehow stronger. From Rivera's area, he realized. His attention blinked into existence there, and without warning it went for him.

  It was a voracious thing, mindless under a facade that was vaguely like himself; impressions of old sensations, pain, compulsion, the old drive toward oblivion. Juggernaut, wanting to devour and to infiltrate, rape, merge. There was a blip of consciousness or near consciousness to it, a shadow of consciousness all destructive in its makeup, and yet no more deliberately evil than cobra venom. It knew nothing else, and in a way it knew nothing at all, except that it would do what it would do.