Shyft

by Damien Boyes

  The carton dings and I pull the tray from the packaging and use a tea towel to carry it over to the couch, tell the IMP to play a local news feed.

  I sit in front of the wallscreen and mindlessly feed myself fork-fulls of curried something while watching the world go to shit.

  The Mayor made a statement fifteen minutes ago that’s trending worldwide: in the light of Petra Anderson’s rampage at an illegal shyft bar, and in response to the increase in crime and a blatant disregard for Standards from some members of the restored population, she has no choice but to push for a new tracking system, with awareness of location and activity, to be implemented in all Reszos, one that includes a remote shutdown to stop anyone out of control.

  Galvan is at the press conference, standing arms-crossed behind Chaddah and Doyle and the Minister of Standards and a bunch of other people I don’t recognize.

  Now Standards wants to track us. All Reszos under constant watch by Standards.

  How’s that going to help? Cyphers don’t register with Standards in the first place. That’s the whole problem.

  This is absurd. I don’t want Standards tracking my every move.

  The Mayor continues to drop bombshells, says she’s also authorized an increase in Standards agents in the city, with heavy concentrations in the Market and Reszlieville.

  She’s bringing down the hammer. I can’t tell if she’s capitalizing on the events to bolster her re-election campaign in the face of a convenient tragedy, or a grieving mother lashing out at the death of her child.

  Except her child isn’t dead, he’s still on storage at Second Skyn, and her convenient re-election platform means trampling on the rights of a few hundred thousand of her citizens.

  The link has blown up, both vocal cons and very vocal pros.

  I get why the public’s outraged, as with any tragedy there’s the knee-jerk urge to overreact. Launch a new ‘War On.’ People are scared. They want to feel safe and they’ll sacrifice another slice of their freedom to get it. Except in this case most of the people getting behind this idea won’t be under threat of a government employee accidentally switching them off.

  And most of this is my fault. How many of the latest Standards offences or killings can be tied back to me, one way or another? Probably more than I even know.

  What if I just gave up, went back into storage? Would Ankur’s fragment give up too? Or was it the fragment that brought me back from the dead? What if it’ll never let this end? Am I trapped in an endless cycle of death and rebirth that we’ll be forced to play out forever?

  Jesus, what if Buddha was right?

  I shake my head. I’m being dumb. There’s nothing metaphysical about this. No karmic retribution at play. This is a man-made problem with a man-made solution. Neural impulses that lead to action with no regard for consequences, and nothing more.

  What I need is information, I need to be proactive. Find the fragment before it can hurt anyone else. And it looks like Elder is the key to all this. I need to know where he’s been. Better yet, where he is. It also wouldn’t hurt to know more about this Ankur. Where he came from. How to contact him.

  I need help.

  And I just happen to have the answer man on speed dial.

  I get the IMP to leave Saabir a message but his perfectly-coiffed image appears on my wall almost instantly. Four in the morning and he’s dressed for dinner.

  “Ahh, my favourite pro-bono client,” he says with a smile.

  “I thought I was paid in full, services rendered,” I reply.

  He laughs. “Correction noted. Apologies. As it happens, I had planned on contacting you later this morning.”

  “You have something?”

  “I have been in contact with the Police Service and with a representative from Standards, and they assure me you aren’t under active investigation.”

  “Agent Wiser said different.”

  “That doesn’t mean you don’t have an open case file. It’s just currently a low priority.”

  “So I’m off the hook for whatever I did to get kicked off the force?”

  “Unless you give them reason to turn their attention back to you. Which you seem to be doing your best to accomplish.”

  “Trouble follows me around.”

  “So it would seem. But you contacted me, so, Mr. Gage, how may I be of assistance?”

  “I need you to look into some people for me,” I say, and even if I couldn’t see him on the screen I’d be able to hear his eyebrow arch.

  “Can you be more specific?”

  “Elder Raahmaan.”

  “Your former Transition Counsellor.”

  “And someone named Ankur.”

  He’s silent for a long second, then says, “A name derived from Sanskrit, meaning ‘sapling’ or ‘sprout.’”

  “If you say so.”

  “I understand your connection to Mr. Raahmaan, but may I ask the nature of your interest in this Ankur?”

  “He killed me once. Twice, maybe. Probably trying to again.”

  “I see,” he says, then purses his lips and takes a heavy breath.

  “I will endeavour to be as useful as possible, of course, for I am in your debt. And while I do perhaps possess lines of enquiry that go beyond what is available to you, I would caution you against setting your expectations too high for what little I may be able to uncover. What is it, exactly, you would like to know in regards to these two men?”

  “Current location, mostly. Where they’ve been. Who they’ve been with.”

  “I see,” he says, and seems like he wants to continue but hesitates.

  “What?”

  “If I am to be completely transparent with you, I don’t believe I will be any more successful in my enquiries than you.”

  “So you won’t help me—”

  He raises his hands. “I mean only to suggest, if I may be so presumptuous, that you have resources at your disposal that outstrip mine.”

  “What do you mean, ‘resources’?”

  “You were a member of the Toronto Police Service, were you not?”

  I see where he’s going with this. “They don’t let you keep playing with the equipment when they kick you off the team.”

  “And you have no connections to that time? No one you still may trust?”

  “My partner, but he’s dead.” The only other person I know is Special Agent Galvan Wiser and he’s the one holding my case file open.

  “When I contacted the Service Liaison I was directed to an Officer Karin Yellowbird. She seemed…sympathetic to your situation.”

  Yellowbird. She had lingered behind after Agent Wiser’s visit. She did say we’d been friends. Top-secret friends if we had.

  “You think she might help me?” I ask.

  “You won’t know until you try,” he answers.

  StatUS-ID

  [a646:d17e:8670:511f::Finsbury/D//GAGE]

  SysDate

  [20:01:34. Tuesday, April 23, 2058]

  After a night of desk-bound uselessness and wasted time by myself at home this morning, I’m actually looking forward to counselling.

  Elder has a hard time holding the meeting together. The feeds have been wringing the story like a wet towel and the arKade is all everyone wants to talk about. How did I single-handedly take out those Past-Standard skyns? Were there really human-animal hybrids? Torture stations?

  Even Miranda couldn’t completely feign disinterest.

  Only Carl and Elder avoided the topic, and I know Elder’s just doing a professional-level job of hiding his curiosity. Sensing we’re not going to get much done tonight, he ends the meeting early and while the others congregate at the snack table, ready to hammer me with questions, he pre-empts their fun by dragging me across the gym and making it clear no one is to follow. They watch us from a distance, clearly put out.

  Dora’s been sneaking glances at me all night. She was the first thing I noticed when I walked in. No one remarked on it, but she had ditched her usual conservative bl
ack, flat-soled shoes for a pair of calf-length silver boots that look brand new.

  There’s been a change in her, subtle but distinct: her contributions more open, maintaining eye contact, laughing with the group. She even shared about visiting the Hereafter on her own.

  She’s waiting for me now, biding her time by insinuating herself with the rest of the group and nibbling on the edge of a chocolate-chip cookie held gingerly on a square ‘Happy Birthday’ napkin. I’m surprisingly eager to talk to her too.

  It’s been a few days since we last spent time together and seeing her again reminds me how much fun I’d had. She’s been the one spark of colour in my otherwise gloomy restoration.

  I smile at her over my shoulder and raise a finger, asking her to wait, as Elder leads me away.

  “I thought I’d spare you their questions,” Elder says. “And I wanted to speak to you privately.”

  “So you could grill me yourself?” I say. Actually, I’m keen to hear what Elder has to tell me. He’s going to have a unique take on what went on at the arKade. He smiles, but there’s a sadness to it. “I can’t say much, it’s an active investigation.”

  Secretly, I’m glad for the distraction. I’m in no rush to get to work. I’ve got another night of spectating ahead, sitting back at camp while the strike teams are out hunting. They hauled in four more cyphers today. By the time I’m back on active duty there’ll be none left.

  “So you met Kade?” Elder asks.

  “You know her?” I counter.

  “Only by reputation.”

  “She was wearing a beaver skyn, sic’d her goons on us.”

  “I don’t think she would have let anyone hurt you. She was a pacifist at heart, at the forefront of expanding the boundaries of what it means to be human. A true revolutionary.”

  The only boundaries she was straining against were the bounds of sanity. “She had people in boxes eating each other.”

  He sighs but gives a slight nod. “I am aware of the practice. You witnessed a portion of the Bright initiation ritual—a symbolic shedding of the flesh—designed toward becoming an acolyte of the Transhumanist faith. First you are eaten, then you eat someone else, then you eat yourself, and in the end, you are freed from the flesh.”

  I shake my head. The world is going insane. “Sounds fucked up,” I say.

  He strokes his jaw. “I’ll concede, on the face of it, the process may appear extreme. But no more extreme than transcending the bonds of humanity.”

  Something about the way he answers makes me think. I drop my voice, lean a little closer.

  “Have you done it?” I ask.

  “No,” he says quickly, then looks away, as if embarrassed. “I have not yet been called as an acolyte.”

  “Wait—but you would? If you were called?”

  He presses his lips together. “If I were called—”

  “Shit, Elder,” I mutter. I’m repulsed by the very thought of cannibalism, and he’s sad no one’s offered him a turn yet.

  He nods, accepting my judgment. “Progress is messy, Finsbury. It is violent. Just like with Kade. I didn’t always agree with her methods, but she and I, we were on the same side. We believed the same things.”

  “You didn’t see what I did. If that’s the future of humanity, I want no part of it.”

  “We each must follow our own paths, Finsbury. Kade believed, as I do, that we as a species can be so much more than what we are, and worked toward that goal every day of her life.”

  Something in his words catches me off-guard. “What do you mean ‘believed’?”

  He checks over my shoulder. Only Shelt, Dub and Dora are left, and Dub’s lofted Shelt up in a chair with one hand while actively pressing a reluctant Dora to climb up as well.

  “A woman was murdered in South Africa last night,” his voice gets quieter. “Emily Castor, an Australian national.”

  “And?”

  “And I believe Emily Castor was Kade.”

  Could that be possible? Kade did abandon hundreds of millions of dollars worth of equipment and skyns when we busted in on her party. If it didn’t belong to her, the loss may well have made someone angry. Angry enough to kill over. If it’s true, that’s another life I can add to my tally of sorrow.

  “What makes you think that?” I ask.

  “A number of disparate elements, admittedly, but together they add up to a solid hypothesis. Emily Castor was an outspoken proponent of rithm rights, the Kade persona echoed many of the same themes.”

  “That’s thin.”

  He holds up a long finger. “There’s more. Kade constantly updated her feed. Religiously, you could say. It hasn’t changed since just before Emily Castor was killed. Additionally, it’s been reported that her apartment had a state-of-the-art telepresence installation. The kind that would be necessary to operate a skyn from half-way around the world.”

  “Still, that doesn’t mean—”

  “You said Kade was wearing a beaver skyn. Do you know what genus the beaver belongs to?”

  I shake my head.

  “Castor.“

  Shit. I got someone else killed. She didn’t deserve to die. Even if she was on Standards most wanted list. Even if she was a criminal. “Even if this is true,” I ask. “Why tell me?”

  “Kade saw her arKade as an art project and a social movement and a political statement all rolled into one, but she had backers—it was a profit generator for them, nothing more. The raid called attention to it. Attention I’d imagine her backers didn’t appreciate, and didn’t want to see spread.”

  “So they had her killed to limit their exposure.” Just as I thought.

  “It’s possible. There are also rumours—very quiet rumours, mind you, but rumours nonetheless—that certain shyfts were discovered to contain a Trojan, and were possibly linked to a series of robberies.” He lets the statement hang.

  DeBlanc and the others. Other people knew about that too. “And they think she was involved?”

  “I don’t believe she had anything to do with it, but who is to say? A scorched earth response is indiscriminate in its collateral damage. But if they came after her, who knows who else they may believe a threat.”

  “You think they might target me?”

  “I can’t say. I wouldn’t expect so, I just wanted you to know the possibility existed.”

  “Do you know who her backers were?”

  “I don’t. No one seems to for sure. There are rumours, but nothing more.”

  “Xiao?” I ask. He nods, once, quickly.

  “Who else?”

  “Joachim Mata, the Brazilian billionaire. It’s said he has ties to the Amigos.”

  “We nabbed a few of their skyns yesterday.” He nods again.

  He runs through a few more names, each of them with ties to one of the Five Marks. I can’t imagine I’d be a target of this specific retaliation. If Kade’s backers were looking to avoid attention, the last thing they’d want to do is assassinate a police officer, but then again criminals aren’t exactly known for carefully considering the consequences of their actions.

  “Thanks Elder,” I say and look over my shoulder. Dora’s the only one left, loitering by the doors. Elder sees me looking at her, gives me a sly grin.

  “I need to ask you something,” I say.

  He looks me in the eye, strokes his chin, like a father having ‘the talk’ with his teenage son. “We have no provisions against dating within counselling—it isn’t necessarily encouraged but…”

  “Dating—what?”

  “You and Doralai—”

  “No, no. Jesus, it isn’t that.” Heat is spreading up my cheeks. Why am I embarrassed? We haven’t done anything. And even if we had… “xYvYx—” I blurt, “—do you know him?”

  He tilts his head back, narrows his eyes. “The Rithmist?”

  “Yeah, he was working for Kade.”

  “Yes…” he answers hesitantly, drawing the syllable out.

  “What do you know about him?” />
  “I know that he’s very talented, very opinionated, and no stranger to scandal. Finsbury, I’m—” he pauses “Why do you ask?”

  “I can’t tell you,” I say.

  He gathers his thoughts, then says, “I’ve never met him in person, but I know him by his reputation. He is intently interested in the inner workings of the link, in the fables and the superstitions, and has a sizeable following. And he is a substantial Rithmist, especially for a non-Reszo.” He narrows his eyes. For the first time since I walked into counselling I can’t tell what he’s thinking. “Is that what you wanted to know.”

  “I want to know if you would trust him.”

  He considers for a moment then says, “The xYvYx I know may be talented, but has only his self-interest at heart. I cannot speak to his current state of mind, but if you have entered into some kind of dealing with him, I would advise caution.”

  I’ll be cautious, but I don’t have any choice but to trust xYvYx. I need the ReCog and don’t see any other way to get my hands on it.

  “Thanks, Elder,” I say. He squeezes my shoulder and walks past me to clean up the snack table.

  I take a moment to catch my breath and meet Dora at the exit.

  “That looked intense,” she says.

  “He was trying to keep the group from putting the screws to me.”

  “And what if I were to try putting the screws to you?” she says, suppressing a smirk. She’s flirting with me. I’m all at once flattered and excited and ashamed of myself for liking it. I can hardly believe this is the same woman who couldn’t lift her head to make eye contact two weeks ago.

  “You’d get a pass,” I reply, non-committal, and push the door open for her.

  “Thanks again for the other night,” she says, and curls her small hand around my bicep as we walk out into the night air. It’s cool for April and she pulls a little closer, just for a second, before releasing my arm and stepping back. “It meant a lot to me. I feel so much more—at home—with myself.”

  “I’m glad,” I say, trying not to think too much about her, about the tingles I got when she pressed herself against me. “I enjoyed it too.”

  “Maybe we should do it again? I think the more I’m exposed to new things, the easier everything will be.”