Complete Atopia Chronicles Part 38

He looked towards them. They all nodded curtly in unison. I wondered if they realized that nationality was another idea that pssi was about to render irrelevant. Or perhaps, more to the point, a good chunk of the world was about to become de-facto Atopian citizens.

"Yes, let's go ahead with the release. We are about to make history, ladies and gentlemen."

"Imagine, a trillion dollar IPO," I heard Hal muttering under his breath as he reviewed the launch details, stars gleaming in his beady eyes.

Getting up to leave, I said goodbye to both Jimmy and Nancy on private channels. I nodded politely to the Chinese guests, then to Kesselring and the rest of the Board. I even nodded to Hal, thanking him for not interfering in the Infinixx proposal.

The black granite and gla.s.s of the conference room melted into the deep mahoganies of my private office. I was making for the bar. A nice scotch on the rocks was just the thing I needed.

Marie was sitting against my office desk, her long shapely legs crossed in front of her as she leaned against it, propped up by her arms. Cigarette smoke was rising slowly around her, and she took one more puff and put it out in the crystal ashtray on the desk. She leaned forward and stood and walked towards me, waving me off. She'd get the drink.

"I know Hal is a pain, Pat, but you shouldn't let him get to you," she said finally, plucking my favorite scotch bottle from the collection. A gla.s.s appeared in her hand and ice cubes c.h.i.n.ked softly together as she poured the whiskey over them.

"It's not that, Marie. I need to find out what Kesselring is hiding from me," I replied. "Shifting Infinixx up on the release schedule was just too easy. Hal folded without even a peep."

Marie raised her eyebrows. "Sometimes things just make sense, even to Hal."

"Maybe, but Kesselring didn't even seem surprised. I have the feeling something else is going on, and I need someone with, well, special skills to have a look at this from the outside."

"On that note, your old student Mohesha from Terra Nova called again," explained Marie. "She wants to set up a talk. It sounded very urgent. In fact, more than urgent."

I decided to shift back into a much younger version of myself, and was now dressed in a short black skirt and cream silk chemise while a sub-proxxi of Marie walked my real body home from the Solomon House. I sighed and looked down admiringly at my legs, reaching down to straighten my skirt, sliding a hand along my thigh as I did. I trembled slightly at my own touch.

"No, it's too dangerous to talk with the Terra Novans right now," I replied.

"But not too dangerous to be talking with gangsters who've been trying to infiltrate Cognix?"

I stared at Marie. Of course she knew what I was thinking.

"Sintil8 doesn't really want to stop what we're doing, he just wants his cut," I replied. Criminals were reliable in their predictability and motivations, if nothing else. "He has the kind of backdoor connections and freedom to operate that may yield us some answers."

The problem wasn't just my suspicions about Kesselring or our disagreements anymore. The huge depression we'd been tracking up the Eastern Pacific had transitioned from tropical storm status into full blown Hurricane Newton, and Hurricane Ignacia was spinning up into a monster Category 4 out in the North Atlantic. The way these storm systems were behaving had gone from being simply unusual to downright suspicious.

By my calculations, these weren't natural storms anymore.

Taking a good long pull on the whiskey, I straightened up and looked Marie in the eye.

"Set up the meeting with Sintil8."

Ident.i.ty: Jimmy Jones "I'M SORRY JIMMY, but that Patricia Killiam. Where does she get off talking about happiness? I'm really concerned about her."

"No need to apologize Dr. Granger," I replied. "I'm worried about her too. She just hasn't been herself lately."

We were taking an aimless wander through a few floors of the hydroponic farms, on our way back from Kesselring's office after the Board meeting. Kesselring kept his offices perched at the very apex of the connecting structures on the top floors of the vertical farming complex. Even the master of synthetic reality liked to keep his specific reality above the riffraff.

Over a hundred floors up, I enjoyed the views down on Atopia from here-the green forests capped by crescents of white beaches and the frothy breakwaters beyond. Through the phase shifted gla.s.s walls, the sea still managed to glitter under a cloudless blue sky. The humid and organic, if not earthy, smell of the grow farms reminded me of the days I used to spend out on the kelp forests with my dad as a child.

"I'm getting tired of her routine as the famous mother of synthetic reality," continued Dr. Hal Granger. "Sure, fluidic and crystallized intelligence are important, but isn't synthetic emotional and social intelligence the key to all this?"

We'd all heard this speech before, repeated endlessly on his EmoShow, and now that I was on the Council, I was being given the treat of getting to hear it in person as well. Dr. Granger's claim to fame was as the creator of the technology that could pick apart and decipher emotions, and you could be sure he wouldn't ever let you forget it. I tried not to roll my eyes.

"What was more important to understand?" he asked angrily while we walked through the hydroponics. "What someone says, or the emotional reason behind why they said it? Who knows more about happiness than me?"

"I'd say they're both just as important," I replied. Dr. Granger had used his growing fame to secure the position as head psychologist on Atopia. No matter what one thought of him, it was best to tread a careful line.

He stopped walking and turned to look at me.

"Exactly."

One of the grow farm staff walked by and gave Dr. Granger a curt, respectful nod. His office was a few floors down from here, far away from the other senior staff, which was unusual. Observing him on our walk I think I knew why.

As we were walking, Dr. Granger had been watching the blank faces of the psombie inmates, and each of the staff had almost stood at attention while we pa.s.sed. It was a structured and controlled environment, one that made him feel both powerful and safe. And important.

Most of the psombies here were people incarcerated for crimes, their minds and proxxi disconnected from their bodies as they waited out their sentences in multiverse prisonworlds. Even in paradise, we needed correctional services. Their bodies were consigned to community work around Atopia in the interim, safely guided by automated psombie minders.

While most of the psombies here were inmates, an increasing number were people who donated their bodies for community work while they flitted off amusing themselves in the multiverse. These people judged their bodies without enough value to even warrant leaving their proxxi to inhabit them.

"We'd better start a new special file on Patricia," he said after a pause.

I shrugged. It wasn't my place to argue. We continued walking.

"Shimmer!" he called out to his proxxi, who then appeared walking beside us.

Shimmer was a perfectly androgynous creature. As a synthetic being, s.e.x was superfluous in the biological sense, but still critical in others. It was Shimmer's ability to understand aspects of both s.e.xes, and fluidly understand their emotional dynamics, that had made Dr. Granger famous. It was his lifetime's work, although most people whispered that it was based on taking credit for his graduate students' efforts over the years.

"Yes, Dr. Granger?" Shimmer replied. "Do you want me to start a new log entry on Dr. Killiam? Already done, sir."

"Thank you Shimmer," replied Dr. Granger, smiling at his proxxi. "Now please, I need to speak with this young gentleman alone."

"Yes Dr. Granger."

Shimmer faded away.

Hal turned to look at me while we walked, his hands now clasped behind his back.

"Do you really think it's possible?" he asked, returning to the reason he had asked me to walk with him today. "I mean, with the technology we have now?"

"Absolutely," I replied. "The project has been going on for some time, as you well know, in fact using some of your own work. Conscious transference-a lot of people have been working on it. But the trick, of course, is to get it right, for you to stay you, in the process."

"And if I agree to support you, to support this, you will make sure that I'm the first?"

As good as medical technology was these days there was always the risk of the unexpected, of some accident sending you suddenly into the forever of oblivion. Dr. Granger wasn't as concerned about his life, however, as much as he was about his fame surviving.

"Yes," I replied simply. "It will take some time, though, certainly not before the commercial launch of pssi."

"Good, good," he said thoughtfully, apparently satisfied. He smiled at the mindless faces of some psombies that we pa.s.sed.

"You know, Jimmy, you're always working, you should find yourself a nice girl, find some emotional balance."

He'd started into his EmoShow routine now, his face now serious and concerned.

He laughed. "I'm sure a good looking young man in your position must have girls throwing themselves at your feet. What I mean is you should find someone special."

Saying nothing, I just nodded and silently continued on our walk down to his offices. I had found someone special, but I wasn't going to share that with him.

Susie was a girl I'd had a special attraction to for a long time now. She was a unique soul, her emotions and sensations finely attuned, and I'd always felt like we shared a special bond.

I'd known her as a fellow pssikid, but she'd come to my attention again, and become a celebrity in her own right, when as a teen she'd turned herself into a living piece of installation artwork by mapping the emotional and physical state of each of the world's ten billion souls into her pain system.

She literally felt the pain of the world; a bloated stomach when the Weather Wars flared up again in India, a burning calf for food riots in Rio, a painful pinp.r.i.c.k when terrorists blew up a monorail transport in California.

Susie bravely bore the pain of the world like a Mahatma Ghandi of the multiverse, imploring people to stop what they were doing. Her impa.s.sioned pleas, featuring her painfully writhing nubile body, had been happily broadcast on obliging, bemused world news networks as the latest and greatest from the magical world of Atopia.

Her star had risen, and in turns had made her the source of both ridicule and inspiration. After a short while, though, the world had gotten bored and gone back to its media mainstay of killing and maiming.

For Susie the project hadn't been a fad, but her calling in life. Even when the world had turned off, she'd kept going. In the process, she'd gained a small but diehard following of hippie flitterati that protected her from the ridicule of the world, forming an almost impenetrable sphere of free floating flower children that inhabited the metaworlds around her, like petals on a painful daisy.

I'd been trying to get in touch with Susie for a long time, but it was nearly impossible to get through her protective entourage. I needed a way in. My security systems had recently flagged some unusual and illegal splintering activity from my old friend w.i.l.l.y, and it seemed I had found a way.

"Well, you're in tight with Susie," I explained at a lunch I'd arranged with w.i.l.l.y later in the day.

The light dawned in w.i.l.l.y's face, realizing what I'd asked him there for. I'd kept the reason for our meeting secret, and upon arrival I had enclosed us in an extremely tight security blanket. I could see his need for money begin to spin the cranks behind his eyes.

"If you help me," I explained, "maybe I could help you."

"Sure," he replied slowly, trying to hide his greed, "and what would you help me with?"

"I could help you," I answered, "by getting access to higher order splintering."

"Oh yeah? So, what, like you could double my account settings or something?"

"Much," I laughed, "much more than that w.i.l.l.y. I could show you how to fix the system to have almost unlimited splintering. You'll blow everyone else in the market away."

He glanced at the glittering blue security blanket around us.

"So n.o.body else can know what we're talking about, right?"

"Absolutely, w.i.l.l.y. I'm the security expert, remember?"

"Right."

"So what's the deal then, Mr. Security?"

"If you can get me a date with Susie, but I mean, really set me up with her, you know?" I paused, waiting for him to acknowledge what I meant. "Then I'll set you up with what you need."

"You can really pull it off, with n.o.body else knowing? No risk?"

"I sure can," I responded, smiling. "n.o.body will ever find out. Let me explain."

w.i.l.l.y leaned in closer.

"I'll download a list of vulnerabilities in the Atopian perimeter that you can use to connect with the outside, and then I'll show you how to anonymize your conscious stream."

The perplexed look on his face changed and grew into a smile.

10.

Ident.i.ty: Patricia Killiam I CURIOUSLY WONDERED how many ways this unpleasant specimen of humanity had inflicted death upon his fellow man-fellow man being something of a stretch given his own current state of being. That being said, Sintil8 projected the image of an attractive and urbane gentleman, his elderly face smiling warmly from under a manicured wave of properly graying hair. Intelligent eyes sparkled at me darkly.

"Nice press conference today," said Sintil8, flashing a mouthful of perfect teeth. "Such a wonderful thing you are doing, saving the world."

The sarcasm was as thick as his Russian accent.

"Thank you," I replied simply, not taking the bait.

We studied each other.

"So, Patricia, what exactly would you like me to find out for you?" he asked with an equal parts soothing and menacing voice.

"These storm systems, for one," I replied cautiously. "I want to know if this is some kind of new weapon. It seems the sort of thing you'd know about."

He laughed. "Ah, I see."

We were sitting in a sumptuous penthouse atop one of his many skysc.r.a.pers dotting the landscape of New Moscow. Views from the top of the world stretched out brightly below us in the midday sunshine, and I caught glimpses of the Moskva River snaking out into the smoggy distance below.

Sintil8 was comfortably draped on a black leather couch across a gla.s.s and steel coffee table from where I was, still dressed in blue silk pajamas. He was wrapped up in a velvet house coat and wearing gray fur slippers, one of which dangled casually off a foot as he crossed his legs. I was perched uneasily on the edge of my matching couch.

As we spoke, one of his minions, or disciples depending how you looked at it, swept smoothly across the landing to hand him another gla.s.s of scotch. Her scarred and mottled body was barely a shrunken stump suspended between impossibly spindly metal legs, with matching thin metal arms.

Sadly, she wasn't all that unusual. Mandroids-humans with extensive robotic replacement limbs and parts-were becoming all the more common as entanglements in the Weather Wars continued to spread. Medical technology could stop soldiers in the field from dying from almost any inflicted trauma, apart from major brain damage, and so had begun the steady stream of half man, half machines into societies around the world.

Of course, this one was no soldier, but had instead done it to herself. Sintil8 was the leader of a cult that grotesquely encouraged its closest followers to consume their own bodies; literally a ritualized eating of themselves that was matched with a gradual replacement of their disappearing body parts by robotic ones. Consuming themselves was the path to spiritual and corporal enlightenment; so preached Sintil8.

"Thank you," said Sintil8 as he accepted the drink.

This included consuming her own eyes, I realized with horror as she turned to attempt what she must have thought of as a smile my way. Dark caverns yawned out at me from where her eyes should have been. In the depths of the shadows at the backs of her scarred orbitals, I could see the glittering red of photoreceptor arrays.