The deflated gorilla stood up. “Um… I had a date last night. First time since getting clean. Things were going well. She’s in the program as well, so we got a lot in common.”
People coming down off the 'T' talked at length about absolutely nothing and with no inflection whatsoever. It was just a monotone string of words that contained all the provocative, compelling qualities of white noise.
“I had veal Parmesan… I think. Maybe it was chicken. I think it might have been chicken because, you know, didn’t want to make a bad impression. Veal sometimes makes people uncomfortable. I try to be sensitive to that now. Um… afterward, she invited me back to her house. We went to the bedroom…”
Viekko cringed. The last thing his tattered psyche needed right now was to listen to some burn-out’s failed sex life. He closed his eyes and offered a silent prayer promising to dedicate himself to any god who could stop this.
“I guess… you know I always have that urge for a dose of the T, but I’ve never been so close to relapsing as I was in that moment. It was like everything was dead from the waist down. I mean it worked. I was able to… you know… perform. It’s just… nothing happened like it used to. It was just like... two pieces of meat slamming together.”
Oh well, at least Viekko could keep his Sundays free.
The man paused for a moment watching the crowd. “I guess that’s it.”
Blinky finished taking her notes. “Very good,” she said without any change in expression. She spoke in odd bursts like the words gathered behind her mouth and only shot out when the pressure built enough. “Reintegration into society is very important. Okay. Mr. Spade, do you have something to share?”
Damn it. Viekko wasn't surprised. He had managed to get through the last two meetings without talking. He could pass again, but he risked a 'refusal to participate in program activities' on his record, so he stood up.
Everything is fine, he reminded himself. Just tell them. Everything is fine. Things are tough, but he was getting through it. Every day is a little better; that's the key one. They like that.
Viekko started to speak. Apparently, his mouth didn't get the message from his brain.
“I was making dinner in my kitchen the other day,” Viekko said in a low, dream-like voice. “I had a knife in my hand, and... I remember thinking that I wanted to stab myself in the leg. Just to try and remember what... things felt like. I was pretty sure I would feel pain. I might have felt fear. Maybe excitement. I miss excitement the most.”
The moderator blinked even more than usual as she chicken-pecked notes into her computer. Her expression still didn’t change, but it did become, somehow, more intense. Not a good sign. She looked up. “What did you do then, Mr. Spade?”
“I finished making dinner.”
More notes. Lots of blinking. “Mr. Spade,” she continued, “if you had access to triple-T, would you use again?”
“Of course not, I’m done with that,” said Viekko waving his hand in a dismissive gesture. At least his mouth got that message.
“Why?”
As Viekko stood there, mute, he frantically searched his brain for the right answer. Failing that, he searched for an answer. Any answer.
“Mr. Spade?” Blinky repeated. She sounded impatient. Viekko was suddenly aware that some time had passed. How long had he been standing there with a dumb look on his face?
“I... I don't know,” said Viekko, “I just... I don't know.”
He sat back down. Blinky finished her notes. Viekko didn't have to read them to know that they said, 'High risk of relapse. Requires constant surveillance.'
****
Passing information through the Neuvonet was difficult. Human-to-human interaction was either heavily monitored or restricted all together and sending large amounts of data was nearly impossible.
But Cronus found a way.
It was simple. In a world where human-to-human interaction was restricted, Cronus had to find a place where it was open. In a world of complete surveillance, he had to find privacy. Most importantly, it had to be so important to the Information Consortium and the Corporation that they would never shut it down.
Cronus found The Adult Virtual Immersion and Socialization Interface, known throughout the Neuvonet as the Electric Bordello.
Within that system, human-to-human interaction was allowed because there are some things machines could not replicate. There was no surveillance because humans liked to do those things in private and the Corporation liked it because people would pay a lot of money to do those things. Even if someone were listening to the goings-on within the Electric Bordello, to use that information would signal an end to, perhaps, the Corporation’s single most lucrative endeavor.
Cronus loaded himself into the virtual start-up chamber. There was nothing around him except a small mirror suspended a few meters away. It wasn't an empty room; there was literally nothing around him: no walls, no ceiling, no floor. There was something to walk on, but it wasn’t physical, more of a point of reference than anything else. It was just empty, black space. Every visitor to the Electric Bordello customized their start-up chamber however they wanted, and Cronus took minimalism to an extreme.
“Welcome, Mr. Kitamu.” The sensuous female voice seemed to come from everywhere. “Choose the body for you and others to enjoy.”
Cronus glanced at himself in the mirror. His appearance was the same here as it was in the physical world, from his thinning hairline down the old, grey sweatpants he was wearing when he pulled his immersion goggles over his dark, baggy eyes. He turned his head and examined himself for a moment. He looked tired; more tired than he was accustomed to and looked skinnier than he should. He could almost see his ribs poking up from his pale skin. He could change his appearance to literally anything he wanted and often programmed something interesting for himself, but he was in a hurry. He decided his natural physical form was good enough for today.
“I am ready,” Cronus declared. “Starwood’s room, please. Password: Before the Fall.”
There was a pause. “You have not made any changes to your appearance. Are you sure you want to continue?” the female voice asked.
“Yes! Yes, I am sure!”
“Very well. Your date, user name Miss Starwood, has already arrived.” A door appeared in the nothingness and opened to a white, glowing beyond. He rolled his eyes as the nonexistent hinges squeaked for effect followed by the flourish of a string quartet. A breeze blew in from the opening and ruffled his remaining hair. The voice continued and Cronus mouthed along with the words, “May all your fantasies be fulfilled.”
Cronus stepped through the door before the voice was done talking and waited for the room to load. Starwood must have picked a room template titled 'Sultan's Paradise' or 'Crimson Explosion' or maybe even 'The House of Too Many Cushions and A Metric Ton of Lace'. The bed was, of course, the centerpiece of the room and it was large enough to host a nine-person orgy. It was useful to have enough space to entertain, after all.
There was just one person on the bed at the moment. Starwood was apparently trying for something exotic today; she had picked long black hair, dark, almond eyes, an olive complexion and covered her body—which Cronus had to admit was very well…proportioned—with a silk robe that didn't so much cover her nakedness as diffuse it.
Cronus waited a few moments for everything to render and glanced up at the ceiling. Jayzus, they put cushions up there too? he thought. “Verify direct connection to Neuvonet user profile Starwood.”
“Protocol identification a match.” A male voice this time. “Network address a match. Testing connection. Direct connection to Starwood confirmed.”
“Hello to you too,” said Starwood her voice as smooth as the satin sheets she laid on. She rolled over to look at him. “You look like shit.”
“This is what I look like,” said Cronus rubbing his hand over the bald spot on his head. “Are the files ready to transfer?”
“You know, it looks bad for two people t
o just show up in a room, exchange huge amounts of data and leave without so much as a ripple on the sheets,” the woman replied as she sat up.
“I'm very busy. Busy, busy. You promised files. I promised files.”
Starwood sighed as she slid to the edge of the bed. “Prepare transfer protocol ‘Underneath the Covers’. Verify connection user profile, Asshole.”
“You changed my user name in your system?” Cronus observed, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He’d already been here too long. He wanted to get back.
Starwood cocked her head. “It seemed appropriate. What's the matter with you lately?”
“What do you mean?”
She got off the bed and wandered over to the minibar across the room. “You've changed since you came back from Titan. None of the hack and slicers see you anymore, and when we do you're rushed or distracted, like you got somewhere to be.”
“I found terabytes of data on Titan. And it was only a sliver of what was there. What exists are scraps. Only a few surviving pieces of a massive puzzle burned in a bonfire. The picture is so large and what I managed to save is so small.”
“And yet,” Starwood dropped a few ice cubes in a tumbler, “you have time to root around a woman’s past?”
“You sound jealous,” Cronus said, still standing in place watching Starwood move.
She laughed slightly as she poured some bourbon. “See, that’s what I’m talking about. Jealous? Why would I be jealous? We don’t have a relationship. What I have is a vested interest in the data you are supposed to be recovering. Instead, you seem obsessed with this ‘Isra Jicarrio’ person.”
“She is important. I don’t know why. Every time I pull a string, I find her at the end and every path I follow leads to her.
“You know what I think?” Starwood said, turning to face him with a cold, calculating, perhaps even predatory look on her face. “I think you like her.”
“If that is the narrative as you see it, so be it. It is not my concern. Although it worries me that you believe the only way I can show affection is by uncovering what a person tries to hide.”
Starwood strutted back to the bed, drink in hand. The red, lace nightie swirled around her body in a way that made Cronus have to adjust his stance. She sat back down on the bed and gave him a coy smile. “Tell me, have you ever been with a woman outside the Electric Bordello?”
As Cronus felt his mouth go dry, he looked around the room, desperately trying to find something or some way to change the subject. Mercifully, they were interrupted by a beep and the ethereal male voice. “Data transfer complete.”
Starwood sat up, still holding the glass of whiskey, and closed her eyes. She stayed perfectly still for a few minutes and when she opened them again whispered, “Heracles Project?”
“And that's just a taste,” said Cronus. “The records of it are sparse on Titan, but it is somehow connected to the Fall, I can feel it. Isra is connected to it too. So don't worry about me, I know what I am doing.”
“Okay, point made,” said Starwood reclining slightly. “Just be careful out there.”
“Incoming Ministry communication from Isra Jicarrio.” The male voice intoned again.
Starwood rolled her eyes and, in an exasperated sigh, said, “Of course.”
Cronus watched Starwood take a long drink and anxiously massaged his hands. “I should go.”
“Is it really so much better out there?”
Cronus stopped. “Sometimes. You never unplug?”
“I try to avoid it. Life outside the Neuvonet is far too demanding. At any given time society, law, culture, and even the physical laws of nature all dictate who you are. We’ve broken free of that. Here, we can be anything, do anything! So why go back? What’s out there that’s so wonderful?”
Cronus thought for a moment. “It’s windy. And the colors don’t look right. Everything’s so imperfectly rendered.”
“Sounds terrible.”
“It's just… not perfect. I should be going.”
“It was nice to see—” her words were cut off as Cronus shut down the program.
Then he was back. He sat up and hung his immersion goggles and handset on a rack next to his chair. He pulled the seat closer to the whirring, beeping computer systems that scanned through multiple data streams and reached out to pull a floating screen closer. It had a small video feed of Isra in the corner, and every muscle in her face radiated impatience. He touched the image, and it filled the screen.
“Isra. Good to see you. How is South America these days?”
“Boring. But that is about to change. Get packed up. We are preparing an emergency mission. Now.”
CHAPTER THREE
Headlines from news wires all over the world describe, in colorful language, the Brazilian Lady of Fire standing up to the brutal Corporate oppressors.
Her trial was swift. Her sentence was long. Corporate leaders wanting to put an end to the worker uprisings that were common in those days assumed that, if Diana Adriana simply disappeared, the world would forget.
But in a world seething in anger over corporate exploitation, the Lady of Fire was in every way the spark needed to light the world ablaze. And once it was set, there was no stopping the flames.
-From The Fall: The Decline and Failure of 21st Century Civilization by Martin Raffe
The African Towers of the Financial Consortium were only a few blocks from the Entertainment District. The office on the 50th floor of Building Delta contained new software for special securities and exchanges and was protected with a triple-encrypted electronic lock, motion sensors, heat sensors, and an isolated quantum firewall to all external networks. Its designer probably used the words ‘unhackable’ and 'invincible' a lot in the brochures.
The red light on the elevator changed to green, and the security system went to standby. Fluorescent lights snapped on and the elevator door slid open.
No security system that has ever been invented can protect against feminine wiles.
Althea and the young man—Remeil, she learned his name was—stumbled out of the elevator holding each other up, laughing as they did. They collected themselves in the hallway; the boy smoothed back his now slightly tousled hair and straightened his silver suit. “Are you sure you want to see this? It really is terribly boring.”
Althea ran her fingers up his arm. “You’re the one that insisted I see it for myself.”
That was mostly true, although Althea would be lying if she didn’t admit to steering him to that conclusion just a little bit.
Remeil leaned in close as if he was going to kiss her, but he tilted his head at the last moment and whispered. “As I said before, I could tell you, but you wouldn’t believe me.”
Althea sighed, mostly for show. It was a signal that she was giving over control to him; that her power, sexual or otherwise, was under his command. What worried her was how automatically she did it. The subtle cues, the body language, all the hacks in the code of social engineering, came back to her as if she’d never given up the life. The boy leaned back with a small smile that suggested he was proud of the effect he had over her. He held out his hand and slurred, “Shall we?”
She hesitated for a moment. Remeil had such a sweet smile. Althea had scammed many men in her time, and a good portion of them were crude, oafish, and cruel. To those men, Althea and women like her—which was to say all women—were just one more thing for them to own, use, and discard. But Remeil didn’t appear to hold this view. He was drunk and had only one thing on his mind at the moment, but that didn’t necessarily make him a bad person; it just made him a lonely person.
She took his hand, and he led her down the hallway swaying the entire way. Their footsteps echoed down the empty corridor as they passed lavish offices with views of the city skyline. These were the invisible seats of power of the African Financial Consortium and, possibly, the majority of the world. The people who worked here were mostly nameless, but their influence held more gravity than some of
history’s most despotic rulers could ever dream of. The offices were all decorated differently, some with golden wood and exotic plant life, others with cold, sterile steel and plastic. Althea wondered what kind of office Remeil would have when they stopped in front of a nondescript metal door. He stood in front of it for a moment before the lock clicked open.
Althea laughed. “Not much security.”
She said that for effect. Feigning ignorance helped a mark feel in control and safe, but it was clear to Althea what she was dealing with.
“Face recognition,” said Remeil smiling. “Rest assured, only a few faces could get in here.”
“Lucky yours is so cute then.”
The boy pulled her inside. Althea’s excitement dissipated when she saw what was on the other side of the door. This wasn’t anything close to the expensively decorated offices they had passed; it was just a box with white plastic walls on all sides. Small partitions separated the space into six workstations. This wasn’t a place of power; it was a place where people did actual work which meant that there was likely nothing of value.
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