by Lou Anders
Once inside the café proper, Ian stops in front of the holo menu —qappuccini and brazilian roast qoffee, honestly—pretending to read it, shaking his head. He disapproves of the women integrating their thought-images as the qPin processors attempt to classify neural patterns in terms of qualia, of world-perceptions, deciding which patterns to entangle.
“You didn't like San Francisco, did you, Ian?”
He lived there for two years. Now he says: “What do you mean?”
“Nothing. Never mind.”
According to the menu notes, a qappuccino contains equal mixes of steamed milk and quantum foam. Don't ask me who dreams this stuff up.
I take a seat near the round inner doorway, the one painted as a giant white letter “Q”: a bit of marketing I find amusing. Beside it, a small holo sign reads: Follow the Quantum Tunnel. And, in smaller floating blue script: Free upgrades this week!
The whole café setup is to entice consumers into the product test-room for market research. They get to play; our psych teams get to watch.
When Ian brings back the coffees and sits down, I remain still. After a moment, I take my cup, place it in front of me, and flick it with a fingernail. The sound is a half-musical clink.
“You're not drinking it? Janey mac, Ryan, are you feeling all right?”
Yukiko used to say that in a County Louth brogue. She was a great mimic. Ian isn't.
The Clanking City moved across the…
I blink away the vision. There's nothing wrong with daydreams. I hope the two young women outside manage to share theirs.
“Do you want my resignation?”
There. I've brought it out into the open.
“Jesus H. Christ, Ryan. I want you to pull your goddamn finger out. You remember churning?”
“Oh. Well, yeah…”
It was the old-time gospel according to a business guru called Kawasaki. In the old days, when Apple produced an initially superior product (a computer that used a mouse, if you can remember such a thing), a competitor called Microsoft brought out an inferior version. But Microsoft churned— Kawasaki's term—as they made major improvements, over and over, working to a timescale of months, not years. They buried the opposition.
I never was much of a history student.
“So we need to churn, my friend.” Ian gets up, coffee in hand. “Come on, let's go see.”
“I've seen it.”
“Come on.”
Ian walks through the giant Q. I can stay behind or follow. As Ian enters, the qPin in his left earlobe flashes briefly. The system must recognize him, or it would complain about the latte he's carrying: ordinary customers have to leave theirs in the café.
I take a sip of my cappuccino—sorry, qappuccino—and put it down. As I follow, I'm in the company of several youngsters whose qPins are strobing overtime. They look at me as if I'm weird…or rather, they stare at my bare, unadorned earlobe.
You ungrateful little snots, I want to say. I developed telepathy. Doesn't mean I have to use it.
Luckily they cannot read my thoughts.
At the Quantum Tunnel's far end, Ian sips his latte and waits for the youngsters to pass through the gateway.
“I'll get you authorized,” he tells me, “in just a second.”
I feel too tired to tell him it's pointless. Ian breathes in deeply, puffing his chest like some parody of a drill sergeant as he uses his qPin and struts inside. After a second, I follow along.
The youngsters pass straight through the hanging golden schematic and the blue holo text that proclaims Persistent Entanglement Explained. They're more interested in upgrading their implants than learning the principles. For God's sake, how many people think about the magical mystery behind even old-fashioned TV and cell phones?
I remember Yukiko, how she sat entirely still and focused on me as I talked about moving magnets to choreograph electrons dancing in a length of wire, so that other electrons across the nation dance in time along their own wires.
“You see the magic in everything, don't you, Ryan, my love?”
For sure, I remember Yukiko's magic. I ache with its absence now.
“Three out of every seven qPins in the world,” murmurs Ian, gesturing at the product displays, “are ours. Two dozen competitors share the remaining market. But that could change in an instant.”
The youngsters gaze enraptured as upgrade signals flow into their qPins.
“They're not interested”—I gesture at them—“in who they buy from.”
“Right. Do you care?”
I allow a slow exhalation before answering. “You said you didn't want my resignation.”
“Didn't I mention churning?”
My stomach rumbles at the word, and I start to smile, but Ian frowns. In the old days, he'd have laughed until he farted.
“You've changed, Ian.”
“Yeah…” He looks at the youngsters, rather than at me.
Knock, knock.
I hear the invitation as a sound inside my skull. I shake my head. Luckily Ian doesn't notice.
And then I surprise myself. Perhaps my unconscious has noticed the tension in Ian's shoulders as he comes to some decision about me.
“I'm working on something new,” I tell him. “Kind of a story, kind of a fantasy game, and it's all nebulous so don't ask me too much yet. And it's a shared quest.”
Ian stares. Slowly blinks.
“You mean…a three-user sharecast? An n-user ‘cast?”
So he's not forgotten his nerd roots. N-user, where n is any number greater than three.
A prince who dreamed, bathing in the thoughts of thousands of his subjects…
“Could be.”
With a step backwards, Ian says, “You fancy the Four Seasons tonight? I promised Jacqui and the kids, but you're welcome to join us. We haven't hung together for…too long.”
“It is too long,” I tell him. “But tonight, I'd rather just go home.”
Ian looks for a place to dump his latte, but there's nowhere. He says, “Home alone in Stephen King country? Don't you get…tired of it?”
He'd been going to ask whether I got lonely.
“I've got a new product to work on, remember?”
“Well…Yes. All right, buddy.”
Ian claps me on the shoulder, and we leave side by side. But our footsteps are out of sync, and when we shake hands in the foyer, there's something awkward about the gesture.
When I rode the subway this morning, the car was hot inside although it's only March. I was pleased by the notion that we're beginning to share each other's thoughts, but can't keep subway cars cool. I'm staying aboveground now as I reach Grand Central…and carry on walking.
“I'd rather just go home,” I told Ian; but I can be alone anywhere. I notice a diner I've not used before. I slip inside and order a bagel and espresso.
“Take a seat, pal. Be a minute.”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
The small round tables are bunched close together. I lean on my table, chin on hand.
The royal court, vast and hollow, formed of dark gray metal, was dominated by a construct formed of crystalline webs. Overall, the webs formed a bulging cylinder perhaps a hundred feet wide, while inside the cylinder a shadowy horizontal form floated.
A sword lay lengthwise along his body, the hilt clasped in his gauntlet-covered hands, like a statue of some dead knight except that this was no ordinary death, this was the Sleeping King who—
“Coffee. Bagel.”
The waitress thumps them down on the table.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.
My subconscious swears using Grandfather Jack's voice. It always has.
I eat half the bagel and drink all of the coffee. Afterward, in the bathroom, I splash water on my face, although what comes out of both taps—I still don't use the word faucet in my thoughts—is lukewarm. Then I leave, not sure where I'm going, walking approximately south among commuter crowds.
In Washington Square, I buy a bag of hone
y-roasted peanuts from a vendor. A handful of stalls stand in an arc close to the outdoor chess tables. Chewing the sweet nuts, I watch a young woman relieve a bespectacled, gray-bearded tourist of his cash, using a checkmate that comes from nowhere.
Smiling, I turn away and stop. One of the stalls features hanging dreamcatchers, woven constructs with dangling feathers, supposed to capture wandering dreams. The tan-skinned man behind the stall wears jewelry of silver and turquoise. His right eye is opaque with cataracts. He taps a sand painting, multihued layers trapped between glass, and looks at me.
What does he expect me to say?
Shama looked up at Master Teldrasso's face, no longer seeing the milky left eye, and waited for his nod before beginning to work the bellows that—
Shivering, I break eye contact. Then I walk away fast, past the penned-in area where dog owners exercise their pets. I'm hurrying, not knowing why.
Close to its original location, an old haunt waits. The KGB Bar's claustrophobic rooms remain dark red; old photos of Beria and his cohorts still hang upon the walls. The literary crowd is absent, which means there's room to sit.
I take a rum and Coke to a corner table, and sit without drinking. Then I carry the glass back to the counter and ask for Coke, no rum, assuring the barkeep that she didn't mishear: I've changed my mind.
To form the new game story, I need to allow the daydreams to come. Drunkenness is not creative.
Yukiko and I, along with Ian and others, used stories—we called them telemetaphors—to lead people into calibration-hallucinations for the early qPins.
In the first stage, we simply scanned the about-to-be-paired individuals as they watched the same pictures in reality, to the same soundtrack, smelling the same scents. But telemetaphors drove the second stage, as users attempted to create similar pictures in their minds—pictures they might eventually both see—and to hear the same imaginary sounds, feel the same feelings.
And how's this for internal dialog? Am I crazy?
I drink three Cokes in quick succession, trying not to think.
Martin is still on duty. He gets up from behind the desktop monitors, looking surprised.
“I thought you'd be in Stratford by now.”
“Got something to do. Work.”
“Well.” The qPin in Martin's left ear blinks scarlet. “Good.”
“Um…I don't suppose I could get into the café first?”
“No, you couldn't.”
“Oh.”
“But I could. Hang on.” His qPin flares.
The door marked qCafé slides open.
“Thanks a million.”
In the darkened café, lights begin to flicker and the cappuccino machine boots up, or whatever the things do. I ask for a qappuccino massimo. When it arrives, I carry the mug through the Q-shaped doorway and follow the Quantum Tunnel to the far end, to the closed door.
Dark crimson shifts within the sensor plates.
Ian believed he had to authorize my entry here. Martin must think I'm in the café, prevented by the building's control systems from venturing further. After all, my earlobes are bare and no, I don't have a qPin inserted through some other part of my anatomy, though I've heard stories of—
The door slides back.
The product cave is only half-lit, reminding me of the subterranean cemetery that shelters Yukiko's remains.
(And I know there's only thing that prevents me from stepping off every high place I visit, from falling into the void. For I have seen myself through Yukiko's eyes, and felt everything she felt for me, how precious she thought I was. I cannot destroy a thing that mattered to her, even myself.)
Oh, my dearest, dearest love.
The universe has ripped her from me: my lover, my soul, everything that was good in my world.
Knock, knock. The invitation sounds.
Ian doesn't know. No one knows; although sometimes, Irina stares thoughtfully at me. She might suspect that Yukiko and I led the way, and wonder why we never claimed public credit.
Because Yukiko and I shared thoughts.
We were the first in the world.
The invitation repeats inside my head: Knock, knock. As a holding action, I sip my cappuccino, hot espresso bitterness beneath creamy foam. To my right, the holo brightens into sapphire blue: Free upgrades.
You have no idea how upgrade-capable I am. But the building system knows.
“All right,” I say aloud. “I accept.”
Ian and Martin know…hell, everybody knows I have no implant. What they don't realize is—
Pulses of red and white race across the walls, quickening and brightening, as a low bass thrum slowly builds, louder and louder, until the carpet vibrates beneath my feet.
—my entire body is a qPin.
Nova-light slams into me.
I am incandescent. I burn as quantum op-codes pour through me, particles reset, and a thousand giant fists hammer me out of the universe. I flare and the world snaps down to point-size…
Yukiko.
…is gone.
Sideways-on, with the carpet pressed against my cheek, I watch a cleansebot work, cleaning up dried foam. I can smell the old coffee, though the mug has rolled out of sight.
Dropped it as I fell.
So I'm awake enough to appreciate the obvious. I turn sideways, then push myself up, reach a kneeling position. I get to my feet.
“Thanks. I suppose.”
There is no reply from the building system. Every display is dark. The power hum has stopped.
“Ah, ya gobshite…”
The front of my pants is stained dark, and I don't think it's coffee.
“Scared the piss out of me.”
Floor-level lights wink once, then nothing. So that's my answer.
I snag a barista's black apron from behind the counter, and I'm wearing it as I pass through the foyer. Martin stares but merely says goodnight as I leave fast, out into the street, looking for a department store.
It's getting late but this is Manhattan, with everything available. In fifteen minutes I'm wearing a new tracksuit, with the whiffy pants and the barista's apron zapped in a flash-trash, gone.
From the balcony inside Grand Central, I sip a strawberry-and-banana smoothie and watch passengers move about on the concourse. Then I close my eyes, wondering if visions of the Clanking City will come to visit; but all I see is the orange of my eyelids; what I hear is a chaotic babble around me.
There are no green uniforms. Eyes closed, I think about what I've just seen beneath the balcony. The military guard of the past decades has gone from the station.
There…
I can feel the sensor strips like a distant itch. I can hear the near-silent movement of hidden AI guns, swiveling inside black glass casings.
Putting down my unfinished drink, I descend the steps to the concourse, checking the departure boards that most qPin-wearing travelers ignore. I love the poetic rhythm of the names. Poughkeepsie. New Haven.
My first experience of the States was Richmond, VA, when I was on sabbatical from Imperial College. I found the Virginians friendly, open to strangers, just as I'd grown used to in Ireland then failed to find in London. But in Connecticut I discovered a basic law that applies everywhere: commuters are miserable.
Traveling back on the train, I close my eyes again, allowing my head to sway, sensing no trace of the Clanking City.
I expected intense visions. Since the upgrade, I've felt nothing.
As the train slides into my station, I catch the fading end of a dream: Yukiko standing before a polished brass sphere that is taller than a man. And her voice: “Get away, ya blaggarts.”
The sculpture was in Trinity College, set back from the gray cobblestone courtyard. The words, in a perfect Louth accent, came from Yukiko's mouth, shooing away well-fed youngsters who were begging for money.
It was my first glimpse of Yukiko.
As the youngsters left, she murmured: “Ya wee skitters.” Yet the manga book she was holding w
as Japanese.
Then she caught my eye, and I had to reply: “Konnichi-wa.” We both laughed; and that was our beginning. As we walked to the refectory that first time, Yukiko said little. Such moments of moving stillness are what I most remember.
Yukiko was already set to transfer to London the following September. I was still trying to decide whether I wanted to carry on to PhD. I was broke, tired of lodgings with damp-smelling carpets, fed up of eating takeout curries.
But University College, London, was exploring new directions in neuroscience that fascinated Yukiko. By the fall we were there, Yukiko at UCL and me at Imperial College, sharing an apartment in Kilburn.
In Grandfather Jack's day, in the 1950s when he lived in London, Kilburn was the Irish ghetto. Boardinghouses everywhere bore signs that read NO IRISH OR DOGS.
Now I'm here in Connecticut, another emigrant from the Old Country. Diaspora is a national tradition.
Through coalescing darkness, I drive into the forest, and finally up the long stony track to home. I park the car, and jack it in to recharge. Then I walk away from the house.
At the forest's edge, everything is quiet. A dark shadow flits overhead, near-invisible against the night. For a moment I think of demons gliding among strange towers that cannot exist.
Hands in pockets, I head home. Lights shine amber as the system registers my approach.
For a moment I can pretend that Yukiko is inside, waiting for me.
As I lie back, my head seems to continue backwards and down into the pillow, falling into dreams. My last thought is, Back to the Clanking City.
But that is not what I experience.
I'm drunk, pissing up a white-painted wall in moonlight. Six of my comrades are doing the same.
“Come on, Jack.” Rory is zipping up his uniform shorts. “Man with the smallest dick buys, right?”
“But I'm always paying for the drinks,” I tell him.
There's laughter as we stumble back across the well-kept lawn. The scent of rhododendron is strong in the night. Gordon, weaving, shushes us with one finger to his lips, then giggles. Finally we're past the gateway pillars and out onto the road.
