Synners

by Pat Cadigan

  He almost got away; it almost got him.

  Both, for some infinitesimal measure of time (damned Schrodinger world)-he was feeling himself being reeled into it and watching from a safe distance as it moved along each new item in the review queue, sowing itself in little flashes of yellow, in a driving beat-

  He flickered away to the meat and tuned in the brain like a small, feeble radio.

  The brain was still running, but it had a new balkiness. He could not have depended on it to work a routine; it would have garbled each line in the act of reading it.

  Abrupdy he realized that if he could have removed this new shell of garbled operation, he would have something very similar to the thing sitting in Manny Rivera's area working away on the items in the frozen release queue.

  In the meat-vernacular, I stroked out on them, he thought, almost wonderingly.

  It had been coming for a long time. The flashing lights, the floating sensation. From Medical's area he got the term trans-ischemic attack and the knowledge that they had known all along, since the night they'd grabbed the hacker, and they'd just pumped some antistroke medication into the meat during the detox and called it their best try and hoped that the sockets would help him.

  Poor meat. Nobody cared. Not even me.

  It hadn't really been a very big stroke. If he'd still been inside the meat, he would have been up and walking around, a little more vague than usual, a little more argumentative, talking crazy shit when he talked at all, and nobody would have noticed anything out of the ordinary about that.

  You were good at that. Talking crazy shit and video. What made America great.

  The problem was, the meat was going to stroke out again, any time now, and when it did, that would be the big one, and as long as the wires were in the head, that meant the big one-the Big One-would charge right out of the meat, into the wires, into the system, where the little one was already waiting, and if-no, when-the two of them got together, they'd make something that couldn't be called a stroke, not anymore. Something like an unguided missile, a loose cannon rolling through the system, and when it found a receptor site, someone on-line with sockets-

  Gina? Gina?

  Her console was off, her pit empty, stone-home cold and dead, like she was never coming back.

  Ludovic was gone, too. He turned a facet of his attention briefly to the top-down graphing of their respective worldlines. He couldn't be sure that they were together now, but it seemed more likely than not.

  He flickered on Medical, but there was no one there, either. Dammit, what time was it? The middle of the night.

  The kid in the penthouse.

  – -

  Rivera had been right about one thing, Keely thought woozily. The good stuff didn't make you as sick. Or sick at all. He looked over at the antique liquor cabinet gaping open. Booze had never been his particular preference; it was like using a shotgun to pick off a mosquito, or maybe putting yourself in a trash compactor to swat a fly on your nose, too broad-spectrum. On the other hand, there was something to be said for being broad in the spectrum. He had climbed into that old trash compactor and found that it sure did the fucking job. Maybe not too visual, but it was getting the fucking job done that counted.

  And that was a big fucking job, after the message from Rivera. It was still on the screen across from where he was sitting on the couch with the bottle trapped between his thighs. I know you cracked my system. Damage nowhere near as great as you anticipated. I'll be up to look into the final disposal of your case tomorrow. You can expect the worst, if you like.

  Son of a bitch must have gotten all his joints loosened to be that blatant, Keely thought, taking another swig from the bottle. Probably wouldn't do any good to try pointing out he wasn't the only hacker in the world, anyone could have been fucking around and managed to crack in and stone his crows. Could even have been his own little on-line net-pal, Visual Mark, cavorting out of his box.

  The message on the screen flickered and then disintegrated. "Speak of the devil," Keely muttered as the familiar partial room appeared, the clouds rushing like a hurricane was imminent.

  "Tell me you're awake!" Mark said, jacking the volume up all the way.

  Keely staggered over and fell into the chair in front of the screen. "Sh. The grown-ups are all asleep." He leaned his face heavily on his hand. "Say, you been up to some dirty tricks in Manny Rivera's private computer."

  "No time to talk. Listen for it: you're free."

  Keely listened. Somewhere in another part of the penthouse, there was a series of small clicks. The door. He swiveled around drunkenly, expecting to see Manny Rivera marching into the room with a flat smile on his face. Decided this couldn't wait till tomorrow. Got a court order to drill your skull; go along quietly with the nice people waiting outside, and there won't be any trouble. But no one came in, nothing happened at all. He turned back to the screen.

  "Did you just unlock the door?" he asked, laughing a little.

  "Yes. I want you to leave here, go down to my simulation pit and yank the connections out of my head."

  "Come on," Keely said, waving a hand clumsily. "You can do that yourself, I know how it works. You just think 'disconnect' or 'quit' or something."

  "My meat won't do it, and I can't make it work from this side. You-"

  "What side?"

  "On-line. From inside the system. I'm not in the meat anymore, I told you, I got out of my box-"

  "Yah, you sure did," Keely said, sloppily jovial. "I bet that was you, messing around with Rivera's shit, fucking with this and that. That son of a bitch doesn't know about you, he thinks I did it. Whatever you did. What'd you do, anyway?"

  "I just looked," Mark said irritably. "What's the matter with you?"

  "Not a fucking thing. I am toxed on the Upstairs Team's private label. They may be a retrograde bunch of cocksuckers, but they sure can pick 'em. Ain't plotzed once in fucking hours of straight drinking."

  "You don't have to be detox for this," Mark said hurriedly. "Just get out, go to my pit-"

  "And where is your pit?" Keely asked, yawning.

  "On sixteen. Last one on the left at the end of the hall as you come out of the elevators. My body'll be there-"

  "But your mind flies free." Keely gestured dramatically. "Isn't that right?"

  "Get on the elevator, go down to the sixteenth floor. I'll unlock the pit door, all you have to do is push it open, walk in, take the connections, and yank them out of my head."

  "That," Keely said, leaning forward to peer closely at the monitor, "would probably smart a whole fucking shitload. Probably stroke you out, maybe even kill you. Assuming I could get them out. Why don't you just nip in from your side and trash your console? That'll shut it off, and it'll be like the same thing, the connections'll deactivate."

  The image on the screen froze, and Keely had the definite feeling his net-pal was no longer with him. But he'd left his calling card, or maybe his bookmark was more like it, so he had to be coming back. He could drink while he waited. Keely took another swig and then put his head down on the desk beside the keyboard.

  After a little while he realized he was looking at a laptop that had been bolted into the desk with a bunch of add-ons. Son of a bitch-if he did want to walk right out his allegedly unlocked door, he could just rip this little piece right out of the desk and have himself info-to-go, see-you-later-data, juice-on-the-loose…

  "I can't," Mark's voice said, startling him out of the half stupor he'd fallen into. Keely pushed himself upright and stared blearily at the screen.

  "You can't what?"

  "I can't get at my console. It was a good idea, and I should have thought of it earlier myself, but it's too late. It's there. It got out of Rivera's area, and it found the meat. Now all it has to do is wait for it to stroke out big. Hell, maybe it's going to make the meat stroke out big."

  "What the fuck are you talkin' now," Keely said, trying to keep his eyes open. "Who's strokin' who?"

  The voice in the
speaker became one with the buzz rising in his own head as whatever Mark was trying to explain slid all over him and fell off. He must have thought it was pretty important, though; every time he opened his eyes, Mark was still there on the screen, saying, "One more time. I'll tell you one more time, and you answer me…"

  The kid obviously wasn't used to alcohol. Young people, Mark reflected sourly. They'd always had it too clean, too efficient, even in their drugs. They took stuff that did one thing, or one other thing, and it was all a terribly neat way to get toxed. Sharpshooters; they couldn't stand up to the old cannonball.

  That was the way it was with everything, he thought as he tried to get the kid to rouse for a third time. The dataline was just as particularized, a variety of channels but no variety within channels, organized right down to the bedrock beyond which no further organization was possible, and that was fine as long as nothing ever changed. But if something came along and played fifty-two pickup with all that rigorously organized data, it was shit-outa-luck time, too many fragments scattered in too many directions; total collapse. Like the booze in the kid passed out in front of the monitor. Mark could hear him snoring into the phone speaker. He could also see him if he wanted to, through the cam hidden in the chandelier, but it was a lousy angle.

  He sounded five sharp tones on a high frequency that corresponded to fingernails on a chalkboard, a real teeth-grinder. There was a hitch in the kid's snoring, and then it resettled into normal rhythm.

  "That's just great, kid!" Mark bellowed at him. No response. How many fucking nights had the kid let the liquor supply just sit, and then he had to pick tonight. He should have figured, he should have graphed the kid's movements.

  He should have graphed himself. Then he might have seen it all coming, including the release of the infection from his own sad meat. He blipped his awareness briefly around the net to check on its status. No change in the last fifteen minutes, but that wasn't necessarily good news.

  It was waiting for him in the console in his own pit, in Gina's, in Gabe Ludovic's, in Manny Rivera's, in all the pits, and at every possible contact point for Security and Medical. Security was unaware, but then, it wasn't meant for them. They'd been using the system all night with no problem. It was waiting for him to try to make contact, even just by producing a false alarm. He could have stationed his attention in the Security area indefinitely, coexisting with it unaffected, unless he executed any series of actions, and then it would take him. And if it took him, he wouldn't have to wait for the Big One to surge up out of the meat. He would be the Big One himself.

  He had watched it make its way through the net, following almost the same paths he'd taken when he'd first gone exploring, seeding itself. There seemed to be a kind of tropism at work, as if he were drawing it to himself. Not surprising- it was the stroke he was supposed to have had, and he'd had it and not had it at the same time. Schrodinger's stroke. The meat had stroked out, but he was separated from it, and that wasn't the natural order of things, as far as the stroke was concerned; it wasn't meaning to spare him.

  So it was coming for him, following his own trail as well as it could. There had been a few missteps, but as it spread, it had become more precise, more knowledgeable. It was almost as if the passage of time had stopped for him, just to allow something else to catch up, to reach his level of experience. He was still beyond it, but it was progressing steadily. Not much longer before it discovered the penthouse, and the outside phone line he'd found for the kid, going to waste now while he snored in a stupor. If it had been less prone to error, it might have found the penthouse already, but then error had a great deal to do with the very nature of a stroke. Perhaps he could attribute the coexistence of that fact with his present situation to circumstantial dumb luck.

  Must remember always to try to program a little circumstantial dumb luck into every routine from now on, he thought. But first, must figure out the program for circumstantial dumb luck.

  Right. If it found the penthouse before he could rouse the lad, he'd be cut off from the last person who could possibly keep the Big One from getting out of the meat and into the system. He'd just have to leave by the outside line and hope he could find some place in the bigger system that was safe before it followed him out-

  It's already out there. In the video.

  It was anywhere the video was. And the video had been in general release for… a week? Longer?

  He beeped the console on the frequency of a boat horn, five sharp blasts. "Wake up, goddammit!"

  The kid stirred and almost came to. But he couldn't wait any longer. Either he remained confined and waited for it to catch up with him, or he took his chances in the larger system.

  If he stayed, perhaps he could confine it with himself in Diversifications' system. Except for what was already out.

  No. Maybe he wasn't noble enough, or moral enough, or enough of anything to sacrifice himself. And that wouldn't work anyway, he realized, because once it got him, it would get all of his intelligence, his consciousness, everything, and it wouldn't just be smart anymore. It would be alive.

  He stayed only long enough to throw together a fast routine, an alarm loop the kid could deactivate when he came to, which would trigger an interactive message. If the virus found the penthouse before the kid woke up, there wouldn't be any message, but it was that chance, or no chance.

  He kicked the loop into motion. Five piercing whistles. "Get up, goddammit, the sky is falling!"

  Then he was out.

  27

  Mark's Camadaytime video was in the pipe. Gina tried to watch it four times. The most she could go was two minutes before cutting it off.

  Only a movie. She flicked the restart button on the remote.

  Try again.

  The monitor screen lit up white and blank. After a bit soft shadows began to congeal as the music faded in, a discordant machine-jangler cover of a real old one called "Wasted." So old it was new again. Valjean's rasp invited her to come down on her own, and something in it made her want to move closer to the screen, closer to the shadowy forms pulsing in an out now, writhing. The music made the shadows soft, and the shadows softened the music, and she could taste the texture in her mind, warm and alive like flesh.

  She looked over her shoulder at the half-closed bedroom door. She'd awakened to find Ludovic lying next to her, fast asleep, but on top of the covers, while she'd been underneath. The charm of his refusal to presume should have moved her more than it did, but she had no room in her for charm this morning.

  On the way over last night, he'd told her about the hookup Valjean had rigged. She'd found the idea of the crap in Valjean's head dancing on the cape revolting. And it had to have come out of this video.

  This video. She hadn't taken it through the wire, but she could almost imagine how it would be. Like floating through a tangible fog bank, and as each shadow pulsed, there would be a corresponding pressure deep in the head, an invisible finger pressing here, and here, and here, searching for some particularly sensitive spot. Like being molested in some weird, witchy way.

  The shadows were throbbing more urgently now, rock Rorschachs. Do you see a butterfly here, or a skeletal pelvis?

  – an open window or an open wound-

  She stabbed the quit panel and turned away from the monitor. It had happened again, that feeling of being hypnotized. More than hypnotized.

  She ran a hand over her head, touching the places where the sockets were implanted. Maybe if she could have reached in as far as Mark had, she would have come up with something equally fucked.

  From the bedroom she heard Ludovic turning over, and she waited, but he didn't get up. Go in and get him, see if he could watch this fucked-up postcard from the dark side? When he had popped up again in Loophead's cellar, she hadn't known whether to laugh or cry.

  Why didn't you wait for me? Why didn't you come to me?

  She'd had no answer for that; her condition had not been conducive to explaining her life to him.

&nbs
p; If you're going to do this on a regular basis, I'm going to have to tap into a supply of good stimulants.

  Oh, who fucking asked you? That had spilled out of her, more like vomit than words.

  I'm a fucking volunteer.

  Didn't your mother ever tell you never to fucking volunteer?

  Jesus! He'd pounded the steering wheel of the rental with both fists, making the whole vehicle shake like the piece of shit it was. What does it take? What does it fucking take?

  She glanced at the bedroom again. What does it take? Well, for starters, how does forty-seven miles of barbed wire sound? Just for starters. We'll get to the really lethal stuff later. Because we do what we do, and we do it because we can.

  Suddenly she felt ashamed of herself, for that and for Loophead. I don't know what you did to those people, but they never want to see you again.

  I told them not to do it. I didn't think I was toxed, I didn't feel toxed. I didn't feel anything.

  Hadn't sounded like much of a defense then, and it didn't now. What she'd done to them. She knew what she'd done to them. She'd taken them hard, and manhandled them, each and all together. She hadn't waited for them to give it up, she'd squeezed it out of them, and when they'd given it all, she'd set them back up and squeezed out some more, running over them, shaking them, doing the sound and the music to them, not with them. She hadn't been a synner with Flavia and Dorcas and Tom and Claudio, but something altogether different-

  She looked at the blank monitor screen again, and for a moment her mind made her see phantom patterns still moving on it.

  Yah, we do what we do, and we do it because we can, and where did you learn to do a thing like that?

  "Little Jesus Jump-Up," she muttered. She knew where Mark was, and she knew where Valjean was, and she knew where the video was, in the pipe, out there in release, it had been released-