by Sean Platt
“Okay,” she whispered.
Leah closed her eyes and allowed herself to settle back into the fugue. She found herself in front of the odd hybrid of rabbit warren and honeycomb, her mind struggling to assimilate the complexity of Crumb’s mind and security. She flew forward, found the earth as hard as before, and again struck at it. Everything again began to dent; she wasn’t going to get through without collapsing the whole works. It wasn’t a question of risk. The chances of failure, if Leah simply tried to bludgeon her way in, were absolute.
She looked at all of the metal-filled cells of the honeycomb, her conscious mind thinking of it as a puzzle. How could you solve a puzzle with no point of movement? A Rubik’s cube had to turn. A lock’s tumblers had to move. But what Leah was seeing was immobile. So where could she even try? Where was the point at which access could be attempted and failed?
She looked at the wall. This wasn’t all security. This mind had been complex before it was sealed. Why would a complex mind wall itself off and thereby cause its owner to become a Respero-fleeing vagrant? No, Leah intuited, this hadn’t been something Crumb had done himself. It had been done to him. But why?
But it was the wrong question. Instead, she asked herself: what would a complex mind do when it was faced with firewalling? What would it do to fight, even when there was no way to win?
Answer: It would create a backdoor.
Leah flew around the honeycomb, looking for access points. But there were none. She was circling surrender when she saw honey dripping from a cell near the bottom.
Honey.
Because the honeycomb was just her own mind’s interpretation of what she was facing, of course it wasn’t actually honey. It was simply something leaking — something that made sense within the larger mind (as honey made sense in a hive) and that anyone might overlook. It wouldn’t be anything particularly poignant, but it could be a key. Something that might lead from clue to clue, deeper and deeper.
Leah flew to the yellow honey and touched it. An image flitted in front of her mind’s eye
(a book)
visible for a thin sliver of seconds. Then the image was gone, along with the honey.
But it was enough. Leah had trained her mind to be sharp and observant, and she’d seen plenty. For that scantest of moments, she’d seen a leather volume, JOURNAL written on the cover. Inside, an ownership attribution: Stephen York.
Who was Stephen York?
She didn’t know the answer, but that fleeting vision had shown her the book inside of a larger context. It had been on a shelf with other books, in a building with a red roof, in District Zero. But that was it. That’s all she had.
Then something went wrong.
As Leah watched, the honeycomb in front of her mind’s eye began to shake. She suddenly intuited that the honey had been structural. In another metaphor, it might have been mortar in a building rather than honey in a comb, and her touch might have unseated enough of that mortar to cause the house of cards to fall. She braced and winced and pulled back, then watched as the top half of the honeycomb bent over, now folded within the space. Then it stopped, damaged but not yet broken.
Crumb.
Leah pulled all the way back out and found Crumb unconscious on the floor. He’d crumpled, one arm pinned under himself and his face on the bare floorboards. She yanked the connection from behind her ear, pulled the Hat from Crumb’s head, and rolled him over. He was alive but unresponsive. Catatonic or in a coma or… or broken inside.
“Crumb!” she yelled. She shook him, knowing it unwise, and yelled again. But he remained limp, eyes closed.
She leaned down and, for some reason she herself didn’t understand, gave him a small hug.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry. I’ll get you to a hospital. A real hospital. I promise.”
Crumb, limp, said nothing.
Chapter 9
Isaac told himself some bullshit, knowing it was bullshit.
My marriage needs this, he said.
Then he inhaled his office air, smelled the Viazo’s digital scent instead, and tried to pretend that he wasn’t shoveling the world’s largest pile of crap.
Isaac was fully immersed, marveling at an experience that Natasha no doubt had grown used to these days. Isaac didn’t have much time for virtual recreation, so he hadn’t used the new and extremely expensive Xenia rigs in his office nearly as often as Natasha used the ones in hers. At first, he’d been unimpressed with the top-end machines; they were barely more immersive than a simple visor-and-headphones rig. But when he’d told Natasha that, she’d laughed at him and explained that his experience was lacking because he’d never gotten the nano injection required to use the rig. How was he supposed to immerse himself if his real senses were competing with the virtual inputs? So he’d gotten the injection and had tried again — and that time, he’d been impressed. With the nanos in his brain tuning down his real sensory inputs, the digital inputs had taken over and made the experience almost shockingly real.
Now, as Isaac let his nanos do their work, the feeling of the Viazo’s unreality faded and he began to forget that he was actually in his office, in the rig. The experience was so real, in fact, that Isaac was able to subdue the truth: that he was inside the Viazo to procrastinate and hide. He forgot about the Directorate mob demanding answers, forgot about the Enterprise high-steppers who always seemed to beat him in debate, forgot about Micah, his younger brother who thought he was so goddamn smart. And instead, he told himself some bullshit: that he was here to heal the fracture in his marriage.
Isaac had no time for Natasha. It was sad, but it was true. It wasn’t that he didn’t love her. He suspected he probably did love her (it made sense that he would, right? They’d been married for sixty years, after all), but time was scarce. That was the price of power and fame, and he could still maybe love his wife while also being short on hours. Hence this little artificial errand he was on right now. He wasn’t here because he was hiding, right? He was here because he needed to set things right with Natasha… right?
Feeling the Viazo to be as real as reality, Isaac crossed the floor of a clean white office that he wasn’t actually in and sat in a comfortable chair that didn’t technically exist across from a striking young woman who may or may not have been a real person. The air smelled fresh and clean. Easing himself into the chair, Isaac felt uncharacteristically peaceful.
“Hello, Mr. Ryan,” said the young woman. She was dressed professionally and was sitting behind a professional-looking wooden desk. She had shiny brown hair and full lips. Isaac guessed she was twenty or so — and that’s a legitimate twenty, not a faux twenty in the way that Isaac, who’d been on earth for 84 years, looked to be in his faux thirties. She had beautiful green eyes and a small, upturned nose. Isaac vaguely remembered that somewhere in the Viazo preferences, you could set the clerks to nude. He wasn’t sure if this woman was a clerk or a real person’s avatar, but he kind of wanted to dig into the preferences and find out.
“I’d like to book a virtual vacation for me and my wife,” he said, flinching as the words came out of his mouth. He suddenly realized that he didn’t want the woman to know he was married. Oops.
“Of course. We already have your request,” she said. “You didn’t have to immerse to do the booking.”
“I’m new to this,” he said, feeling stupid. “I didn’t know.”
The girl spread her lips in a stunning smile. “It’s all right, Mr. Ryan. Immersion is tricky. Do you know the Viazo?”
“I know it’s exclusive.”
“Beyond exclusive. You are a very powerful and attractive man.”
Isaac blinked. The comment seemed extraneous. He began to wonder if he’d imagined her saying it.
“I’m sure you’ll want to explore,” she continued, reaching for something. The loose collar of her dress shirt opened far enough for Isaac to make out the top of a white, lacy bra. She straightened up and smiled. “There’s plenty to sample inside
.”
Isaac reminded himself why he was here. He couldn’t lie on top of his lie, so he pretended this was about him and Natasha, and tried to ignore his (possibly virtual) erection.
“I figured I’d make sure everything was okay for the trip. With my wife. You know, while I’m in here anyway.”
The girl shuffled papers — actual papers; ah, the charm of virtual space — and nodded. “You are booked and fully pre-authorized. You will only need to lie in your rigs when you are ready to start. Just be sure to refill your nutrient packs before you do. If you’re taking a week-long vacation, you’ll need to give your nanos something to feed your body while it lays there. And, of course, they’ll keep your muscles toned. You understand that our process results in zero atrophy, and that many of our happy vacationers return from time off stronger, despite a week of motionless unaugmented reality?”
“That’s what they told me.”
“Ah!” she said, looking at something on the paperwork. “I see you haven’t opted for time compression. Would you like to add it?”
“What’s that?” said Isaac.
“Your nanos are already in your brain, downtuning your natural inputs — and, unless you opt out of it, stimulating endorphin release,” said the girl. So that was why he felt so happy and horny. “But just recently, we’ve also been approved to offer a patented neural process that slows your experience of time while immersed. It means that a day in real time can be made to feel like two or more days inside. It’s the ultimate efficiency tool for the busy man or woman: experience your vacation in full, but only use half the time in your busy, real-world schedule.”
Isaac’s eyebrows rose. A way to spend the required time with Natasha without wasting a full week!
“I want that,” he said.
“It comes at an extra charge,” said the woman.
“How much?”
“Depends on the acceleration factor. A compression factor of two doubles the price of your vacation. One-point-five compression costs less, at…”
“How much to make my vacation take eight hours?”
Isaac thought the woman would balk, but instead she pulled out a calculator. It was a prop for effect, of course. Even if the woman was real, The Beam would give her the answer instantly.
“That’s a compression factor of twenty-one,” she said, looking up.
“I figure I can fit it in when I’d usually be sleeping.”
“Very clever. For an extra charge, I can also stimulate the effects of a night’s sleep on your body. We can move you into an alpha-theta-delta-REM progression while keeping you immersed.”
“Okay,” said Isaac, getting excited. He was going to get to take a week-long vacation overnight and wake up refreshed with no loss of time. Everything was coming up Isaac.
The woman touched some keys on a stylized canvas console and shuffled more prop papers. She turned to him and said, “With your week of full immersion in our Ibiza simulation, enhanced, full experience roster, with the five-star hotel and all expenses included, platinum upgrade package, time acceleration factor of twenty-one and sleep simulation, your total is… one point seven six million universal credits.”
“Put it on my account.”
The woman pressed something on her console, then frowned.
“What?”
“It says you’ve reached your cap,” she said, staring at the antique console screen.
“That’s ridiculous,” said Isaac. “Check it again.”
She did, but of course it was unnecessary. The false reality of virtual space had him totally convinced. The woman wasn’t “checking” anything. It was all ones and zeros, there were no mistakes, and touching a board wasn’t required to run a process. The girl herself probably wasn’t even real.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Ryan. You won’t be able to make any purchases exceeding three hundred and sixteen thousand credits for… seventeen days.”
“Our cap is fifteen million per month!” Isaac blurted. “You’re telling me that I’ve maxed that in two weeks?”
“Well, you or…”
“Wait,” said Isaac, holding up a hand.
The account, of course, was joint.
“Would you like me to…” the woman started to say, but Isaac had already called for emergency withdrawal, not bothering with the slow rising process recommended to save the brain from the trauma that could come with suddenly shifting realities.
Head spinning, feeling like the room was too dark and rotating slowly, Isaac stood inside his office and ran toward the door. He tripped, feeling vertigo, and smashed into it. His anger multiplied. He willed himself to coherence, stood, and yanked the door open. While his head was still struggling to reconcile the last shocking change in realities, he was assaulted with another; as the soundproof seal on his office popped, his ears were deluged with Beethoven, which Natasha was listening to in the living room at full volume.
Isaac wanted to make a statement. He crossed to where an illuminated window displayed BEETHOVEN - FIFTH SYMPHONY on the glass coffee table in front of Natasha. She was lounging on the couch, eyes closed, wearing a pink and white sleep mask, one arm draped casually back behind her head like a diva on a chaise lounge. He grabbed one of his own service trophies — a heavy metal civic award he’d received last year — from a shelf and threw it hard through the coffee table. The table, made of Beam glass, shattered into a million tiny safety cubes instead of sharp shards. Then the canvas, sensing a disturbance, killed the music as if Isaac had smashed the mechanism that was playing it.
“ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?” he blurted.
Natasha took the fuzzy sleep mask from her eyes with an irritating lack of alarm, then looked up at Isaac and said, “What? I thought you were in your office.”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!” he spat, his anger increasing as she stared up at him with doe eyes. “In just two weeks, you managed to…”
“Your soundproofed office,” Natasha continued, cutting him off, “which you soundproofed so that my presence wouldn’t disturb your important work.”
“What the hell, Natasha? This is the debate you want to have, when…”
“I can listen to it at whatever volume I want without damaging my ears thanks to my cochlear upgrade,” she said. “I can hear the nuances when I play it this loud.” She lowered her eyes and batted her eyelashes — something that made Isaac want to put a boot through her throat. “I am a musician, you know.”
Isaac could only stare. “You are unreal.”
“What? Why do you care?”
Isaac stared at her, then said, “Canvas.”
The canvas made a chirp in response.
“Total expenditures of this household, month-to-date.”
A soft voice said, “Fourteen million, six hundred eighty five thousand, eight hundred and twelve universal credits.”
Natasha, unmoved, continued to stare at her husband. Her long red hair was tied up to look casual but had surely taken hours of primping. Her long, thin, pale arm was still slung over her head. Isaac found himself wanting to snap it at the elbow.
She said, “If you ask for it in NAU dollars, it’ll tell you the number of cents, too.”
“What have you been spending our money on? Fourteen fucking million? When we had our cap set, we received special dispensation. It was above the highest cap the Directorate allows. Impossible to hit!”
“I know,” she said. “With only three hundred thousand left this month, we won’t be able to buy groceries. We’ll starve!”
“Answer the question.”
“Cars. Planes. Vacations. What do you care? I’m buying my way out of loneliness.”
Isaac rolled his head back. “Oh, holy motherfucking…”
“What do you care? You don’t spend it. You just sit in your office and work. You take virtual meetings with your brother. You take real meetings with your brother. Sometimes, when I see you for two minutes, you bitch about your brother. So yes, I spent a lot of money. What
does it matter to the great Isaac Ryan? Look at how much your dole is, and how much mine is. We have billions in savings. Why does it remotely matter?”
“Because people watch us, Natasha. You wonder why you end up being the target of riots? Oh, geez, I don’t know. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that with Shift approaching, with everyone in both parties acutely aware of how they made the wrong choice and pretending that the other choice might have made a difference, you ride around in fancy cars wearing furs, replacing a hundred percent of your parts with enhancements. Who are you, anymore? Should I pull up our wedding album?”
Natasha’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t you dare,” she snarled. Their wedding, over sixty years ago, had happened before Natasha had her first nanos — fat scavengers and rejuvenators that turned her from the soulful, beloved songstress into the thin plastic doll she’d become. She’d tried several times to have their wedding photos recreated in her new image, but Isaac wouldn’t allow it. He’d finally locked the photos down inside his own private files. Natasha saw her old photos as round and fat, but Isaac thought she’d been beautiful back then — in her twenties for real instead of fake, unenhanced in face and body, round enough to be a woman.
“I earned my money, and I can do what I want with it,” she said.
“Sounds like Enterprise thinking,” Isaac said.
“If you remember, I used to be Enterprise,” she snapped. “Someone made me shift.”
“For much larger pay, guaranteed.”
“Pay you don’t want me to spend! I could have been with your brother, and not had a cap! I should be allowed to spend three, four times what I do!”
That made Isaac’s skin prickle, but he couldn’t let her get to him. “Fourteen million in two weeks, Natasha. You deserve the hate you get, doing that. The average Directorate dole is still under twenty-five-thousand a year. Do you know what those people’s spending caps are?”
“Oh, fuck off, Isaac!” she shouted, standing from the couch. “This is about equality for you? Then give your fucking money away. Be Robin Hood more than we’re already expected to be. I gave up Enterprise for you. I used to have incentive! My excellence used to be celebrated, not hated! Now here I am with money I can’t spend and a husband who doesn’t love me, who can’t write a fucking speech without his Cyrano, who spends all his time running from his problems…”
