“But you said—”
“I said to do as you’re told, not to barge into our building and demand a meeting. What the hell makes you think you have the right to demand anything from us?”
Andrew didn’t reply. He was tired of being cut off, chastised, and stripped of the confidence that had gotten him past O’s intimidating front lobby. He’d felt so sure about what he’d say to Parker, at least in the hovercab. But not only had he found Alexa as well, Parker was being much harsher than Andrew expected. Arguments which had felt reasonable on the drive now felt paltry and naive.
But another voice inside Andrew said, No. I won’t.
He turned his thoughts to Chloe. He’d botched his departure; trying to reassure her this morning had only worried her further. He should’ve slipped away while she was sleeping.
“Oh, take it easy, Parker,” Alexa said, watching Andrew squirm. “He’s such a good kid. Look: he dressed up for us and everything.”
Andrew couldn’t help himself. He looked down, suddenly very aware that his finest outfit would be outstripped by Alexa and Parker’s exercise shorts. His very presence was suddenly embarrassing. He wished now that he’d worn a hoodie and jeans.
Parker turned to Andrew. But before speaking his eyes ticked toward Alexa, and again he got the impression that part of Parker’s anger was chest-pounding.
“What the fuck do you want, Andrew?”
“I …” Oh, come on, have some balls and speak your mind. Things can hardly get any worse. “I wanted to talk about Chloe.”
“Of course you did.”
“What about her, Andrew?” Alexa asked.
“I want out.” The first words were the hardest. He choked a little forcing them out. “I won’t keep pretending. This agreement is over. I don’t care if I’m breaching my contract. I don’t care if you blacklist me or … or worse. I can’t do it anymore. It’s tearing me up inside.”
Alexa listened to Andrew’s speech with intent eyes. He finished, then she seemed to cogitate.
“He wants out,” she said, turning to Parker. “He says that lying to Chloe is tearing him up inside.”
“Oh,” Parker replied, bewildered. “Okay.”
“He doesn’t care what we do to him. He’s done with us. Facing our wrath might be bad, but it’s a dull shadow compared to what Chloe would say.”
Andrew started to open his mouth, but then Alexa realized her mistake. She raised a quick finger before he could speak: “I mean, it’s a dull shadow compared to how he’d feel, on the inside, if he had to keep betraying the woman he loved. Is that about right, Andrew?”
It was. It just sounded wrong coming from Alexa. He swallowed and said, “That’s right.”
“Maybe I should call up a copy of your contract.”
“Maybe.”
“And we can void it right here.”
“Okay.”
“You do realize there will be penalties, Andrew. I wasn’t kidding. The specialty nanobots already in your system? They will make things difficult for you.”
That was an interesting choice of words.
He didn’t trust himself to speak. He nodded instead.
“And of course, you will never work for O again. Do you understand that?”
He nodded again.
“Nor in any acting job. Ever. Because if Chloe saw you in a Crossbrace ad or on a vidstream and knew that you were an actor …”
“I have my writing. I’ll be fine without acting.”
But something was wrong here. Parker was watching them both.
Alexa shrugged. “Suit yourself.” She turned to Parker. “Call up Andrew’s contract.”
Parker didn’t move.
“Parker?”
“Shouldn’t we discuss this before—”
“Call it up. Now.”
“But Alexa. His files are all in the spindle drive inside the big conference room and—”
“You can’t get it right now?”
“Not unless I—”
“Maybe Andrew remembers his contract. Maybe he can draw it up for us.”
Andrew wavered as their attention turned back to him. “I don’t have a copy. You wouldn’t let me h—”
“Maybe you can act it out, then. Being an actor and all.”
“How can I—”
“Andrew?”
“Yes?”
“You don’t have a contract. You never did. What you signed was legal boilerplate we use for glass table performers. We would never have brought you into this without a full AI workup of your personality. Without a full history of your recorded actions. When you signed up for that video service in March, did you read the full terms and conditions first? Of course you didn’t.”
Andrew blinked. How had they known he’d signed up for a service in March?
“Or what about when you wrote that essay and Headlines wanted to republish it and sent you a contract to release one-time reprint rights? That was your work, Andrew. The very thing that matters most to you, artistically speaking. But you didn’t read that contract either, did you?”
“The essay?” He remembered. “But I was still in high school! How the hell did you—”
“You never read contracts. That’s what the AI analysis told us. You do, however, make jokes when you’re uncomfortable. You do call your mother once a week, though you talk about the most inane things. You hide your fears about never succeeding with your writing and acting behind sarcasm. That’s Doctor Dennison’s opinion, anyway, according to the notes she takes during your therapy sessions.”
“But how can you possibly—”
“You don’t have a contract, Andrew, because you don’t need one. Because you were always one of two things to us. You were either an asset or a liability. On the asset side, you could help us figure out Chloe Shaw. You could still do that if you chose not to do what you’re trying to do. And maybe you should. Because the only other thing you can be to us if you’re not an asset is a liability. We don’t release our liabilities into the world. There’s too much at stake. So no, Andrew, we have nothing on file for you. There is no official record of any business you’ve done with us. All public interactions you’ve had with anyone or anything that might remotely tie you to us have been meticulously scrubbed behind you. I wouldn’t suggest taking on any sideline work. It will be hard for your employers to pay you when they can’t even find you. Almost as if your Crossbrace ID was corrupted. As if you didn’t exist.”
Andrew looked between them. There were places to sit, but he couldn’t imagine sitting. Ever again.
“I just want out,” he croaked.
“Of course you do,” said Alexa. “But you haven’t thought it out. If you had, then you’d realize you don’t actually want out. You have a great thing going. You’re paid, you’re laid … everything is roses. But if we let you go? Well, without a contract to stipulate how that might work — without any evidence that any of what we’ve done together ever happened or that there even was an ‘Andrew Braverman’ for us to do business with … well, I doubt things would be better.”
Be strong. You knew they’d threaten you. Remember how it’s been. Remember the look in Chloe’s eyes. Remember how you’ll feel tomorrow if this isn’t fixed today.
And with the thoughts, Andrew’s attention turned inward — to his stomach, tied in knots. To his thoughts, eclipsed by a dingy cloud. To every inch of his skin, crawling with discomfort.
“I want out,” he repeated. “No matter what.”
Alexa seemed about to respond, but then her head twitched and she touched her ear. She turned away, then walked toward the door.
Once she was gone, Parker said, “Think carefully about this, Andrew. I told you: stay with her as yourself. You don’t need ‘out’ to do that.”
But Andrew held his center. And thirty seconds later, Alexa returned.
“I have a compromise to offer you,” she said. “Obviously we can’t afford to just ‘let you go,’ and if you have any sense in you at a
ll, you’ll recognize that Chloe is an extremely important asset to this company. Your love, regrettably, cannot be allowed to truly conquer all. We won’t throw up our hands and tell you to have fun; we’ll let Chloe go; we’ll stay out of your way and let you waltz into the sunset together. But you’re barely useful to us right now as it is. We saw your encounter with her last night. And the way you left her this morning before coming here to make this pitiful little stand of yours.”
Parker said, “What are you talking about?”
“He’s already a liability, Parker. You know how Chloe is. It won’t be long before she doesn’t trust him at all. It won’t be long before she really, truly starts piecing things together. We’re already losing her. You saw how carefully she dodged escort duty on Voyos and since.”
Even under the circumstances, Andrew felt his heart swell. Chloe has been dodging escort duty? Because of him?
“If this goes on much longer,” Alexa said to Parker, “he’s going to ruin everything. She’ll stop working entirely. She’ll be an emotional wreck. She will move from asset to liability, and then where will we go?”
“You can’t seriously be thinking of letting him off the hook.”
“I said it was a compromise. He can’t just out us all, but he can’t stay where he is, either. It’s not sustainable. You saw how she was when he left, before the nanos in Andrew’s apartment stopped broadcasting. Do you really think they can just go back to being the couple we’d hoped them to be, regardless of what he does after this? The seeds have been planted in Chloe. She knows something is wrong. So yes, we can get rid of him and take our chances. Or we can change his role.”
They were talking as if Andrew wasn’t there, but he wasn’t sure if he could speak. On one level, their discussion satisfied so much of his otherwise-unbearable curiosity. But on the other hand, Parker and Alexa’s casual discussions about “getting rid of him” implied just how small of a threat Andrew was to O … and how truly expendable he was.
“Change it how?”
“Let her break up with him. Create an external reason for him to be acting so strangely. If they choose to get back together after the breakup, we let them, and we keep our hands off this time. In a weird way, everyone wins. Unless she refuses to take him back, that is. In that case, only Andrew loses and we try again with someone else.”
Before Alexa could say more, Andrew snapped, “I’ll do it.”
Both heads turned to him.
“I’ll do it,” he repeated. “Do whatever you have to and I’ll take things from there.”
Parker and Alexa stared at each other.
“The board will never go for it,” Parker finally said.
“They’ll have to. It’s the only way. We’ve tried controlling the system and this was the result. We can either keep trying to command the two of them and make things worse or we can take our hands off the wheel. Worst case is that we have to start over. But at least that way, we keep Chloe. She’ll probably even start working again.”
That last part felt like it should be a bigger deal than either Parker or Alexa were making it out to be, seeing as O had clearly banked so much on Chloe’s rising fame. Why weren’t they insisting that she go back to work having sex with other men? Was she really so valuable beyond her escort duties that they’d risk everything to maintain her trust?
“They’ll never do it,” Barnes repeated. “We need a majority vote and there’s no way we’ll get it. Maybe Andrew’s asshole belligerence inspired you to consider a compromise, but things aren’t this black and white to the others. They aren’t here. They aren’t seeing how impossible the alternatives are.”
“I’ll convince them,” Alexa said.
“They know we meet in secret,” Parker said. “They know that we’re keeping something from them. You can’t convince them of anything. And for the same reason, neither can I.”
The room was silent. Finally, someone spoke.
“I’ll convince them.”
Not Alexa’s voice, nor Parker’s.
It took Andrew several long seconds, his heart pounding, to realize the speaker had been him.
CHAPTER SIX
“I said, ‘Search Clive Spooner.’”
Again, Brad refused.
They’d been at this for a half hour, and after Andrew’s strange departure and her ominous chat with the mystery caller, Chloe’s nerves were fried. One or the other would have weakened her; both together cut her at the knees.
She was on fumes — and interestingly, her current questions for Brad weren’t even the ones that bothered her most. She was asking because she felt she was supposed to.
What Chloe really wanted to know was what had been wrong this morning, when Andrew left. She wanted to know what he was up to, why he was bothered, why he’d looked regretful and sad.
What wrong had he crusaded off to fix?
Or for that matter, what wrongs did he feel he had perpetrated against Chloe?
She could get the answers to at least some of those questions. She could get Brad to plug her into City Surveillance, if necessary. She actually didn’t know too much about Andrew. He didn’t talk much about himself beyond his work, and she knew almost nothing of his past.
Of course, Brad could tell Chloe all sorts of things about Andrew. She could get his whole history.
But no. She wouldn’t do that. She trusted Andrew. She loved him. It didn’t matter that he’d left her frightened and fragile this morning. It didn’t matter that he’d upset her, then gone off to places he wouldn’t divulge …
… to do who-knew-what with who-knew-whom.
Stop it. Stop it, Chloe. You need to learn about you, not him. Trust. This is all about your decision, right here and now, whether you trust him or don’t.
Brad, in his usual chair in her apartment, gave Chloe her predicted reply.
“We’ve talked about this. There is no way for me to provide the information you keep requesting.”
She snapped like a twig. “Stop playing both sides, Brad! Either you’ll help me or you won’t. Don’t do that bullshit where you tell me you have a secret, then refuse to tell me. It’s cruel. And not fair.”
“‘Cruel’ and ‘fair’ have little meaning to The Beam.”
“Oh, but sympathy has meaning? You said you were loyal. Does loyalty have meaning to The Beam? You said you’d protect me.”
“I have.”
“I know that in your robot way, you get jealous. I’m a friend, right? As much as you can have friends? You were a bitch when we started working together. Your holographic body inhales and exhales. You get pouty. And proud. I’ve seen you defensive and angry. I don’t believe for a second that it’s all just programming, Brad. I know you by now, and I can tell the difference. You’re observant, like me. You take best guesses. And you know when to bend the rules.”
“This isn’t a rule I can bend, Chloe.”
“Bullshit!”
Brad waited patiently until Chloe, more frustrated than ever, felt calm enough to continue.
“I told you what that man said. He had his own research or data somewhere — something from twenty years ago. Something he and Alexa were working on, though I guess he decided to go over her head. He confirmed a lot of what I already knew, from a totally different direction. It all starts with Clive Spooner. But I can’t get further without you. That’s why I’m spilling it all. I’m choosing to trust you with all of this. Because I believe you’re on my side.” She laughed. “And hell. Because you probably already knew everything I said about my mystery man before I said a word.”
“I actually didn’t. There was a rogue feed in Andrew’s apartment that I could not access — something encrypted — but it stopped broadcasting at around the time you claim this call came in. Maybe someone somewhere could say what happened before Andrew left — but after? It’s like there’s a blind spot.”
“The caller said he had some sort of priority access. Maybe he was able to block other signals so there would be n
o record of our chat.”
“Maybe.”
“Which makes me telling you about it all that more meaningful, Brad.”
Chloe gave him a long, serious look. She understood that Brad didn’t have real eyes and that the holographic ones across from her couldn’t be stared down like a person’s, but his sensors had to be somewhere … and if he could be annoying and righteous and jealous, maybe he could understand aggression, too.
“I can’t tell you non-public information about Clive Spooner, Chloe. It is literally impossible, in the same way it’s impossible for you to turn your head all the way around without breaking your neck.”
“Then what can you tell me?”
Brad sighed. Like a human.
“I can tell you that your suspicions sound grounded. That the bits you’ve assembled stand up to my analysis and agree with what I’m able to access, both on The Beam beta and the searchable regions of Crossbrace.”
“Which bits?”
“What you discussed at the end, with him asking about your childhood? You said you thought his questions weren’t really blind — that he was asking to confirm things he already knew.”
“Yes.”
“And the questions themselves … you’re relatively sure you’ve conveyed them correctly?”
“Word for word, Brad. I’m sure of it.”
“Have you always been able to recall conversations verbatim?”
Chloe stopped. It was a strange question, and one she found suddenly interesting. Most memories and facts and chats and happenings went into and out of Chloe’s awareness the same as anyone else she knew, but the most important ones were photographically clear. She remembered her first sex talk with her mom that way, as well as her first meeting with Barnes. And yes, she’d bet money that she hadn’t forgotten a single nuance of her earlier call.
Without waiting for Chloe’s answer, Brad said, “It’s not really that different from seeing numbers and music as shapes and colors.”
“What are you getting at?”
“I don’t know, Chloe. What are you getting at? If you think he knew something before asking his questions, what do his questions lead you to believe that he knew?”
The Braverman Experiment Page 4
