by Dave Swavely
A generation ago, no one would have believed that the business district around Wall Street would again become a veritable ghost town after dark, but no one would have predicted the destruction of the World Trade Center either, in the generation before. Crime always increases when an economic crisis occurs, especially after a series of them, and the recent proliferation in this area had been enough to justify the curfew. Just as the 9/11 disaster symbolized how vulnerable the United States had been to terrorists, the quiet on these night streets now showed how much of a threat organized crime was to the American Confederacy.
So the denizens of this New York night were primarily criminals whose hope of profit was enough incentive for them to risk breaking the curfew. They had dominated the night in this area for decades, ever since the gradual attrition of NYPD officers working the late shift had dwindled their numbers down to an ineffective ratio. In fact, there were times during that sad epoch in New York history that the only police on the streets at night were those who were paid to look the other way. This “surrender” of the night was understandable, because prior to it over 95 percent of all NYPD casualties had been occurring after dark.
But in recent years, things were changing, thanks to some more ambitious leadership in the city and the decentralization of the American government, which freed up more money and encouraged more self-interest at the local levels. Inspired by the grand experiment of Saul Rabin’s Bay Area Security Service in San Francisco, the NYPD hired and heavily subsidized a native rent-a-cop outfit called Garden Safety Services, which was transformed into Gotham Security. City legislators instituted the curfew and (also following the BASS model) granted “freedom of deadly force”—a license to kill—to these “Dark Knights.” During these early years of the program, however, they were often referred to as the “Dead Knights,” because the criminal organizations that had become entrenched in the city night were not prepared to give up their own operations without turning the Big Apple into a bloody battleground.
Though the costs were already high, however, the New York government and Gotham Security were continuing the fight and expecting to win at least some modicum of law and order before too long. Enlistment had not been a problem so far—there always seemed to be people with a military or law enforcement background who wanted more action and were willing to put themselves at risk for a five-year term, after which they could retire comfortably. The “career path” was therefore similar to that of a professional athlete—except that an athlete doesn’t find himself in a vicious firefight about once a week. Each agent had to take his chances for five hours every night, four nights a week, during the street patrol or “hard” shift. The other half of their night—the “soft” shift—was spent in a safer location, often babysitting one of the big buildings. And so far this had been a good year: in its first nine months, less than one in five of them had been killed or incapacitated. That was slightly better than the statistical average since the founding of the company—the employees all had about a 25 percent chance of buying it before their five years were completed.
On this particular night in early November, two future statistics named Korcz and Stephenson sat in their patrol car, moving slowly down a snowy street, surrounded by deserted skyscrapers. Their yellow vehicle was the only one within view, though a few blocks back they had passed a “real” taxi that had broken down and been abandoned on the street earlier in the day. It looked almost the same as the car they were driving, but it wasn’t heavily armored like theirs, which was one from the fleets of “night taxis” that Gotham Security had purchased when the curfew went up. It had been a mutually beneficial arrangement—the cab companies had no more use for such heavy secure cars, now that they would not be driving at night anymore. And the armor on them was already so formidable that very little modification was necessary for their new work. Gotham also chose to keep the color, and to give their agents matching body armor, because the yellow was easily recognizable and distinguishable from the criminals, who were usually draped in blacks and grays to blend in with the night.
Korcz was a big Russian man, with a bald head and a pock-marked face. He appeared even bigger than he was next to his partner, who was a wiry little man no more than five foot six. Stephenson didn’t look like a “Dark Knight,” or any other type of cop, but was qualified based on his inner constitution. Unless he was lying about it, he had a doctoral degree in mathematics, but was so much of an adventurer at heart that he had become bored with teaching at a college. Korcz, on the other hand, didn’t even speak English that well—his childhood in Eurasia had left him undereducated in the arts and sciences, but toughened by the third-world streets. He was more familiar with the art of pugilism and the science of ballistics, therefore, and he caught a break a few years back in San Francisco when a brother’s friend took him on as a peacer with BASS. After he made some irreparable mistakes in that notoriously demanding organization, the brother’s friend helped him to get this job on the other coast. After almost three years here, he had already faced death too many times to count, and every night he was more afraid of dying than he would ever show.
This dream thing with Stephenson didn’t help, either.
“I tell you, it’s odd,” the little man was saying. “I’m a scientist, sort of, and you’re a skeptic. But we both have to admit it’s possible.”
Korcz continued driving, not saying anything.
“Right?” Stephenson asked again. “They’ve worked this stuff out. It’s not religious crap. They admit it’s experimental, and all that, which makes me inclined to believe it more.” He paused to see if his partner was ready to say anything yet, then went on. “And this one isn’t just in their ‘possible precog’ range—it’s off the charts, I’m telling you. I called the company today, I think they’ll want to know about this one. I mean, if they got a lot like this during testing, or since it was released, they would have it in the manual. But the numbers aren’t even in the manual!”
“Drimscepp?” Korcz finally said. It was his way of saying “Dreamscape.”
“Huh?”
“You called Drimscepp, danyet?”
“Yes. I did.”
“They did not answer?”
“No, of course not,” Stephenson said. “I left a message. Hopefully I’ll get something more than the usual construct reciting a standard response.” He tapped his antique-style glasses to check the time. “But I think I will, for this one.”
“Maybe it is broken,” Korcz said.
“That’s the third time you’ve said that since we started talking about this,” Stephenson said, shaking his head. Then he shifted his small body to get a better look at Korcz. “Are you scared about this?”
“Are you?” Korcz answered.
“No, of course not. Do I look scared?”
“No, but my point. You think it is true, but you are not a ’fred. Why do you think I am a ’fred when I do not think it is true, ah?”
“Because that’s why you’re denying it.” Stephenson pointed to his head. “You’re denying it, because you’re scared.” Korcz snorted, but said nothing.
“Do you want to see it?” Stephenson asked cautiously.
“I will be tired when my work is done,” Korcz answered, thinking he would have to visit Stephenson’s apartment.
His partner shook his head. “I have it here,” he said.
“You have it … here?” Korcz tapped the brake, as if there was some danger ahead on the street. The little man began searching through his wallet, looking for a tiny dot drive, and since his head was pointed down, Korcz could see the dime-sized jackpatch behind his left ear. It was yellow, the same color as the car and their uniforms. Korcz was surprised at this, because for years all such “headware” had come only in gray.
“You have matching color,” Korcz said to Stephenson, who had found the dot he was looking for.
“What?”
“Your hole in your head,” Korcz gestured at it. “It is the color of the car.�
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“Yeah, it’s new,” Stephenson said with a frown. Then he held up the dot. “Are you stalling? Do you want to see it or not?”
“You spend all that money for the machine,” Korcz said. “You want to find something … ah, how do you say, spectacle?”
“Spectacular,” Stephenson said. “Now quit stalling and watch it with me.”
The bigger man sighed audibly. “We have to go to the back.”
“Right,” Stephenson said. “Stop the car for a minute. We’ll hear it if they call.”
Korcz pulled over a little toward the side of the street, though that was hardly necessary in this ghost town. Both men exited the front doors of the cab and climbed into the back. The passenger compartment doubled as a net room, and after fiddling with the controls for a minute, Stephenson found the dream he had recorded on his new toy.
“I’m gonna show you the enhanced version, because it’s so much better,” he said. “But I’ve seen the other one, and it’s pretty clear what’s going on.”
With this he pushed his last button, and the compartment filled with a hologram. They were seemingly suspended in the sky, looking down on a yellow car similar to theirs, but with less detail. On the top of the car stood two men, one much taller and bulkier than the other. The faces vaguely resembled theirs, but the difference in size between them was exaggerated in almost ridiculous fashion.
“I must see myself as very small compared to you,” Stephenson said with a chuckle. “I wonder what my analyst would say about that.”
“Do you have one of those?” Korcz asked.
“No, it’s a joke,” Stephenson answered. “Now watch what happens. It’s quick, so I’ll slow it down.”
The yellow car began erupting into an orange ball of flame, engulfing the two figures. The sound of the slow-motion explosion roared painfully in their ears for a few moments until Stephenson turned it down. The explosion gradually subsided, leaving a pile of wreckage where the car had been. But the two figures hung suspended in the air, apparently unharmed, hugging each other.
“I wonder what your anal person would say about that?” Korcz said.
“Funny,” Stephenson said. “Now watch this.”
The two attached figures rose up slowly into the sky, as if by levitation, and disappeared into a bright light there. The hologram ended and disappeared, leaving the two real men staring at each other.
“That was our souls, or spirits, or whatever, going up to heaven, right?” Stephenson said. “We’re gonna get blown up, and then the afterlife.”
“You are talking like it will happen,” Korcz observed.
“Valeri,” said the little man, with a grunt of disgust, “let’s review the facts here. I have been recording my dreams every night for two months. The Dreamscape console logs the recurring ones, and it has these categories, one of which is ‘Precog Potential.’ Precognition, my friend. From all their endless research and cutting edge technology, which is way over my head, they’ve determined that dreams falling into this category may point to some future event.”
“May point…”
“Yes, may point. But I’ve had a form of this dream over ten times. And the potential precog levels on the console were way higher than any of the examples in the tutorial. Plus I’ve had the dream more often lately.” He paused for effect. “If these tech wizards are even close to right, Valeri, this is gonna happen, and it’s gonna happen soon.”
“What the hell are you two doing in the backseat?”
It was Arvit’s voice from the front, and her face was on the dashboard screen. Korcz and Stephenson both jumped, and then clambered back into the front of the taxi. They looked at each other, each waiting for the other to say something, which made the moment more awkward.
“Listen, I don’t want to know,” Arvit said. “Go to the Aegis building, north side, right now.” Korcz spun the converted cab in that direction, as the middle-aged woman continued. “This is the Ponchinello ‘Money’ lab we heard about, the one where they produce it and supply it to the employees right in the building itself. Our mole in the lab finally came through with the location, just now. And damn me if my sister doesn’t work in that building during the day. Small world.”
Korcz and Stephenson had heard about this case that the day cops were working on, and had been close to breaking for weeks. Money was a designer drug that increased memory, stamina, and other capabilities necessary for “getting ahead” in the Manhattan rat race. Unfortunately it also turned many of its users into psychotics or catatonics after prolonged use. Of course that didn’t matter to the people selling it, who in this case were a mob family known popularly as the Black Italians. A few generations back an Italian mob family had united with an African-American one, and like medieval kingdoms of old, their union was cemented by intermarriage. Only this time, in a subsequent flurry of marital concupiscence, many more mixed couples tied the knot, now that it wasn’t taboo anymore, and what could basically be called a new race of criminals appeared on the streets of New York. This was all common knowledge now because the genesis and rise of the Black Italians had been immortalized in the long-running net series Duets.
“The lab is in a hidden room three floors deep in the basement parking garage,” Arvit continued. “I guess the customers pick it up before or after work, or maybe they have it delivered to their desks along with the mail, I don’t know. But I do know that we’re gonna bust the building supe who knows about it, and anybody else in line, but I need you and the others I’m sending to take the lab before they can clean it out and blow it up.” She paused for a couple seconds. “Do you want to say something? You’re looking at each other? No, okay. We’re uploading the schematics for the garage now, and the info on your squad. Stephenson, you can make the call.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” he answered.
“Oh, and one more thing,” she added. “Tyra Ponchinello, Tyrone’s daughter, is in that lab tonight.” A picture of a pudgy, rather odd-looking woman appeared on the screen. “Don’t kill her, bring her in. Understood?”
“We’ll do our best, ma’am.”
While Korcz sped through the gray streets, Stephenson put together a plan to approach the lab discreetly. But by the time they joined two other Gotham cars at the big building, that plan was out the window. The criminals somehow knew that the police were coming, according to the mole in the lab, and were already cleaning out the operation. So it was to be a frontal assault, and fast, because once the mob got what they wanted out of the lab, they would most certainly obliterate it with explosives.
As the squads readied their arsenals and prepared to enter the building, the two rent-a-cops were plagued with the images and sounds from Stephenson’s dream, so freshly implanted in his mind and so eerily resonating with a ring of truth.
11
GHOST STORIES
I didn’t talk to Saul’s ghost for several months after I became CEO of BASS, first because the emotional wounds from my ordeal were too raw, and I didn’t want to reopen them by talking to the man who was at least partly responsible for them. He was also responsible for the good things that happened to me as a result of the ordeal, so my feelings were mixed, but the confusion of not knowing how to classify the old man and his role in my life created some additional hesitation. Another reason was that I was creeped out by the idea of communing with the dead—you could read about it or see it in fictional books or movies, but actually doing it, even in this virtual format, felt something like attending a funeral. And doing it regularly seemed like attending the same one over and over again.
Only one of those problems was alleviated to any degree when I finally decided to access the construct. By the third or fourth time I’d used it, I wasn’t as uncomfortable, because the ghost took on a “life” of its own, and I thought of it more as a different version of Saul Rabin, rather than the man himself. But the mixed feelings transferred to this new “person,” whom I was getting to know better than I ever knew Saul himself while he w
as alive. The more I found out about my former boss’s history and perspectives, he became even harder to categorize in my mind. I couldn’t prove most of his opinions wrong, but I instinctively knew there was something off about at least some of them. And I just couldn’t get my mind or heart around the reasons he had for many things he had done, nor for many things that he advised me to do.
When the Mayor, as he was often called, found out that he was dying of one of the few types of cancer that even great wealth couldn’t cure, he resurrected a secret cyberware project that his son Paul had started for the nefarious purpose of controlling people’s actions through a chip implanted in their brains. (It wasn’t technically a computer chip, but that was a lot easier to say than the scientific name for it.) Saul didn’t want to waste all the time and money that had gone into the project so far, but he also didn’t want it to continue in that direction. Nor did he even think it would ever be possible to control someone else’s moral decisions, because he believed in the existence of an immaterial soul—one of the unconventional ideas of his that I was still trying to understand. So he came up with the idea of using the technology to record and preserve his knowledge and experience for future generations, renamed it the Legacy Project, and had the implant installed in his own head.
Saul was nothing if not a visionary, foreseeing that he might be the first of millions to download the contents of a brain, which he called “the physical storage center for the soul,” so that the resulting construct could tell ghost stories of their lives. The idea was that most people didn’t have the time or skill to write autobiographies for their progeny, but could do it this way with little effort. However, I thought it was questionable whether it would catch on when BASS was done perfecting it, because the kind of people who had enough money to afford quality wetware were still almost unanimously wary of it. They didn’t share Saul’s confidence that the seat of the human will resides somewhere other than the brain, and wanted to avoid any outside control at all costs. I myself had once lived under an extreme version of that fear for several days, and I was still thoroughly unwilling to take a chance with it.
