His suitcase feels heavy, a bead of sweat forming between his shoulder blades.
Twitchier than he’d like, Lion looks for a short line. Waits his turn at an eye-scanning terminal painted the dull beige of a dying moth, behind a family from someplace flat. Ohio, his first guess, possibly Indiana.
The bead of sweat still there.
But he clears the eye scanner no problem—then gets randomly selected for an entrance interview.
Threat levels rev. He does his best to conceal the reaction, knowing the eyes-in-the-sky are feeding his micro-expressions to a security AI running statistical emo-algorithms, probably a nano-sniffer scenting the air as well. Hunting excess sweat, irregular pheromones, DNA for all he knows.
A sign hanging from the ceiling directs him to the yellow lane, where he queues up behind an couple of elderly European backpackers, carrying walking sticks and sober expressions. Waits for what feels like an entirely inappropriate length of time. Then it’s his turn.
He steps up to a small glass stall, like an old-fashioned tollbooth. A heavyset black woman peers back at him from the other side, standing beside a long table. Midsixties, official attire that hasn’t fit her in years, a small American flag pinned to her lapel.
He passes over his passport, sets his bags on the table.
“Coming from?” she asks, looking him up and down.
“Malaysia.”
“Purpose of trip?”
“Visiting a friend.”
A long pause as she rifles through his passport. Then a hard-edged glare. “Are you a Scurvy? Bringing fruit into the country?”
“Fruit?”
“Pears, kumquats, the like.”
“No.”
“Are you certain?”
“Yes,” says Lion, confused. “What’s a Scurvy?”
Her grim look becomes a bureaucratic scowl. “Anything to declare?”
“No.”
She opens the top of his sling-pack, sliding the contents onto the table. Notebook lands with a thud. Tobacco flakes. The copy of Dune. He has a sinking feeling. If things keep going like this, no way she won’t find the money.
But the sight of Dune stops her.
She picks it up, holding the book in her hands a little too tightly, staring at the cover with some faraway sadness sweeping across her eyes.
“Dune,” she whispers.
He nods, not sure what to say.
She stares at the cover for what feels like a very long time, finally looking up at him.
“It was my son’s favorite book.”
Lion notes the use of the past tense, feels his em-tracking machinery whirl to life. Signals traveling nerve fibers become neurochemicals bridging synaptic clefts. That’s how he finds the future he needs.
A way forward.
He hesitates, knowing if he plays this card he’ll be violating an old rule, a decision made early, a promise to never use empathy as a weapon, a promise he’s about to break.
“Was?” he asks, making direct eye contact, already knowing the answer. “Does he have a new favorite book?”
“Afghanistan,” she says, clutching Dune. “That war seems like a long time ago. Not for me. I think about him all the time. You know what I think about—how he died so far away. In a very foreign place. Carter, that was his name, even when he was little, didn’t like sleeping over at friend’s houses. He liked to be near his mother. And I think of him getting shot, so far away, in a place where he didn’t know anyone. He would have wanted his mother then.”
“Keep it,” he says. “If it reminds you of him, you should keep it.”
“Really?”
“Please.”
She smiles at him then, the light coming back on in her eyes, “You’ve seen them—the Scurvies.”
“I have?”
“Just didn’t know it. They’re everywhere right now, why I had to ask. Extreme gamers, dressed up in white-on-white clothing. Into old consoles. Sega, Atari. And fruit. We get a lot of them coming from Malaysia, trying to smuggle in exotic fruit.”
The puzzle slots together. The street displays he saw everywhere, outside of Allah Bling, corner of Houston and something. The poly-triber from the night before, Jenka’s white-on-white suit, even Pong—that old Atari game. One question remains: “Why are they called Scurvies?”
“That’s what they go by,” says the woman. “I didn’t make it up. We got a memo,” pawing through a stack of papers to her left, finding an official-looking letter. “’Cause of the fruit stuff. Some biodiversity thing, clamping down on the import of exotics.”
“What’s the fruit about?”
She wags the letter. “Not getting scurvy. I guess gamers forget to eat. The fruit started out as some kind of reminder. After those kids died in Korea, it became a thing, a whatchamacallit, a subcult.”
“Scurvies,” he says.
She nods, stamps his passport and slides it back. Starts to slide the book back, but he stops her.
“Seriously, you should keep it.”
Hesitates, takes the book, and breaks into another smile. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Welcome to America, honey. You have a blessed day.”
BROTHER, CAN I BORROW YOUR NINJA?
He assumes Arctic knows of his arrival. With their surveillance capabilities, Jenka probably got an alert the moment Lion cleared customs at JFK. Decides to be as cautious as possible, eschewing the ease of an Uber for the anonymity of a traditional yellow.
Not as easy as suspected.
It takes a half hour to find a cabbie willing to accept cash to keep things off the meter. A tall Ethiopian in a psychedelic dashiki, internet radio tuned to an English-language broadcast of camel racing in Libya. Lion remembers hearing about this: The next-generation robo-jockeys controlling the camels are neural-laced with human jockeys controlling the robots, an entirely new form of slavery, or just the way we live now.
Lion asks to be dropped at the Soho Grand, then offers an extra fifty bucks for the privilege of borrowing the driver’s phone.
“My friend,” says the driver, catching his eyes in the rearview, “how illegal?”
“No,” says Lion, trying for convincing, “nothing like that. I just lost my cell.”
“Sure you did.”
“Say I didn’t.”
“Then I’ll ask again—how illegal?”
“Not illegal.”
“How dangerous?”
“For you, not at all.”
“Make it a hundred.”
“No can do, my friend,” says Lion. “I don’t need it that bad.”
“Sadly,” he says, passing over the phone, “I do.”
It’s an ancient iPhone, once gold in color, now faded to sweat-stained yellow. Lion texts Jenka and Richard, apologizing for the gap in communication, explaining he was now borrowing a stranger’s cell, claiming his own phone had been stolen along the way, closing with noon the next day as when he’ll arrive at Arctic for their meeting. He gives them no other options.
“Thanks, man,” he says, passing the phone back to the driver and glancing out the window. It must have rained recently, puddles on the streets, and the early evening air crystalline in every direction.
But traffic still crawls.
Forty-five minutes later, he exits curbside, beneath the long shadow of the Soho Grand. Setting his sling-pack on the sidewalk, he undoes the drawstring and digs around inside until his cabbie has taken a left at the corner. When taillights fade from view, Lion straightens up, re-slings his pack, and starts to tow his suitcase down the street.
Five blocks later, he finds the Truth, one in a new series of Joie de Vivre boutique hotels that have sprung up lately. Sprightly numbers with the impossible geometries of 3-D-printed facades. Gaudí 2.0. Each branch in the hotel chain is named after core Millennial values, Lion knows, because he was peripherally involved in the marketing plan.
One of his more forgettable em-tracking jobs.
Lion
was the one who pointed out that naming hotels after Millennial values—the Truth, the Purpose, the Community—now that his generation had reached the age where the luxury of billboard ethics had been derailed by the verities of life, might be lucrative. “Aspirational nostalgia,” he dubbed it.
But he misses the Ludlow.
His room at the Truth comes in two flavors, traditional and augmented. Traditional includes a robo-fish aquarium embedded into one wall, another holds a pink neon sign, displaying a long line of bubble text. A quote from Dr. Martin Luther King: “I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality.”
Lion considers this for a moment. Decides things didn’t work out too well for Dr. King. Then again, he also thinks, when have truth and love ever produced the desired results.
Augmented is cheaper. It means the hotel has leased virtual space to outside companies for advertising purposes. Put on a pair of its private-label smart glasses and the room becomes a series of living billboards. The desk clerk said the longer he wears the glasses, the less his room costs.
Lion turns the glasses over in his hands. Little round John Lennon frames with nano-projectors lining the rims, like marching, gold-plated ants. He tries them for a few seconds. The bedspread sells shaving cream, the robo-fish peddle a lime-green liquor, the King quote animates, tastefully, asking for nonprofit donations. But there’s too much scrolling, winking and blinking. Overloads the life recognition machinery.
He takes them off a few seconds later.
Lion drops the glasses on his nightstand and heads into the bathroom. Teeth brush, toilet flush, it’s still early but his habit machinery seems to be running bedtime routines.
The countdown again, apparently. But didn’t he just sleep on the plane? How tired he is, of being tired.
Back in the bedroom, a thorough investigation reveals there’s no easy way to turn off the MLK sign. Lion gives up and goes to sleep in its neon-pink twilight, an old T-shirt draped over his eyes. Dreams in pink as well, which leaves him feeling cartoonish upon waking in the morning.
Caffeine his first priority.
Lion finds a Ludlow-identical coffeemaker on an end table, cocks the chrome arm, and chooses the lie that is large cup. Then a long shower.
Silver snake jets extend from the wall as he turns on the water, seventeen by his count. An LED light built into each. So the liquid needle streams form a crisscrossing laser show in the stall, and actually dazzling.
Lion realizes this may have been another of his suggestions: “Millennials have short attention spans,” he’d told the hotel execs at that meeting. “Treat them to art in places they don’t expect it—like the shower.”
After toweling off, he downs the coffee in a few gulps and climbs into his straight-world uniform. Grabbing his sling-pack from the bedside table, he punches into the hallway and heads for the elevator. Out the front door of the hotel before 9:00 A.M. The map on his phone finds a bank three blocks away. Boots on the ground get him there just after opening.
A light rain, the bank’s windows tinted black and water streaked. He ducks through a gold-plated entranceway, a bas-relief engraved with the Code of Hammurabi, making no sense at all.
There’s no line to get to a teller, though Lion’s request requires the attention of a branch manager. He taps Arctic’s Amex on the counter as he waits.
The manager arrives in a lurch. Some Nordic species, exceptionally pale, with a spotless blue blazer and well-manicured eyebrows. Gazes at him suspiciously. “Marlene tells me you’d like a cash advance.”
Decides to nip this in the bud. “If you call the number on the back, you’ll find I’ve been pre-approved for the full amount.”
Blazer nods understanding, eyebrows disagree, but thanks to that conversation between Lorenzo and Charlotte, eyebrows lose this round. Lion’s been approved for the max advance.
Eighty grand doesn’t fit in a single oversized envelope.
Fits in four.
They fill the main pocket of his sling-pack. He turns down their offer of a complimentary security escort and heads for the door feeling a little like a gangster. The feeling evaporates once he hits the streets. Two steps onto the pavement and he realizes that walking around New York with a satchel of cash is the kind of thing that might attract actual gangsters.
The very first taxi he sees, flagging like a madman.
“Eighty-nine Jane Street, please,” sliding into the seat, slamming the door with too much velocity.
Ten minutes later, 89 Jane turns out to be a combination Japanese noodle shop and craft coffee bar. A large rectangle, entirely made of light wood. Floors, walls, ceilings, in monochromatic beach. No name on the door, no decorations inside. Just wood paneling and wood tables.
Entirely robot operated as far as Lion can tell.
He has no idea what to do next, then notices two small squares cut into the back wall. The first holds a comb microphone beside a small screen.
Must be where you place your order.
The other is currently empty. But, as he watches, the back wall descends into a slot in the counter and an old school robotic claw slides out a bowl of noodles. A closer look at the screen reveals there are only two choices on the menu: noodles or coffee.
Extreme minimalism. Touted as an appropriate reaction to choice paralysis, taken, Lion decides, to its logical conclusion.
He orders coffee and waits for the claw. After it arrives, he carries the cup over to a wooden table in the corner, same bleached color as the rest of the room. Putting his back to the wall, Lion notes an emergency exit to his right, and a clear line of sight to the door.
Ten minutes later a familiar ninja saunters into the room. Balthazar Jones, one extremely bribable jeweler, two steps behind her. The ninja heads for coffee; Balthazar heads for Lion, taking the seat across from him. Black velvet jacket over a TUPAC FOREVER T-shirt, living screens built into its elbows displaying faux-corduroy patches in various professorial shades.
“My man,” says Balthazar.
“Mr. Jones.”
A complicated handshake. A bit of small talk that Lion needs to cut short, as politely as possible.
“Down to business, then,” Balthazar says, pulling a purple velvet drawstring bag from an inside pocket. He also removes a black velvet mat no bigger than a credit card and sets it on the table. Out of the bag and onto the mat, a shiny diamond in the two-carat range.
Lion grabs for it, but Balthazar knocks his hand away.
The jeweler reaches into his jacket pocket again, removing a miniature robo-claw in a bluish metal alloy. Like someone shrank the coffee-serving robot. He uses the claw to flip over the gem, cut side down, revealing a tiny electrode embedded in its back.
“Touch the tips of the grasper to the middle of the stone and it creates a magnetic current, lets you remove it from the circuit board. Put the new one in the same way.”
He passes the instrument to Lion.
“How long for the upload.… Is that the right word?”
“Tricky. If you want to KO the whole system, almost instantly. But that’s not what you asked for. This,” pointing at the diamond, “does what you need. As long as there’s a wireless device nearby connected to the net, the data will break free. But it could take a while.”
“What’s a while?”
“If everything works, twelve hours.”
“Hey-hey, Lion Zorn,” says the ninja, her hair in pigtails, a Hello Kitty backpack over one shoulder and two coffee cups in her hands.
“Hey-hey,” says Lion.
“I will kill-kill both of you,” snarls Balthazar.
She plops down beside him, not exactly a soft landing. Pigtails bob, coffee comes dangerously close to spilling over.
“Dial me up that 411, Lion Zorn, what’s the say-say.”
“Woman,” growls Balthazar, “I’m tryin’ to put my mind inside your mouth. It ain’t takin’.”
Lion ignores them. “I’ve got your end,” he says
, depositing the sling-pack onto the table. “Do you have anything to carry it in?”
The ninja unshoulders the backpack. Lion realizes it’s the Goth Kitty model, black cat with pink whiskers, in Cleopatra garb. He glances around the room. Nobody seems to be paying any attention. In four quick motions, he transfers four oversized manila envelopes from bag to bag, then leaves a fifth on the table.
“That’s eighty for the diamond,” he says. “Can I drop another ten for one more favor?”
“How may I be of service?” asks Balthazar.
“Brother,” says Lion, “can I borrow your ninja?”
THEM DAYS ARE GONE
Lion heads east, chewing up the blocks on the way to his meeting with Arctic. Buildings like tall gray soldiers to his left and right, but his eyes are locked dead ahead. A hard left on Sixth Avenue and another stretch of strides brings him to the corner of West Eighteenth.
And no farther.
There’s a sizable crowd blocking forward progress. He hears horns blare, metal crunch, and a high-pitched whine, like a gear-stripped motor revving its way to a heart attack.
Can’t see over the bodies to source the sound.
“What’s going on?” he asks an older Mexican man standing on the edge of the throng.
The man looks him up and down before answering. Lion notices that the silver in this guy’s brush mustache matches the piping on his guayabera.
“What we got here,” he says eventually, his accent Texas twangy, “a couple Uber Autonomous in a tussle. Started out a fender bender, but then them cars went crazy, tryin’ a murder each other.”
He points out a woman to his left, a gash below her ear, blood streaking her cheek.
“Lady over there took a hubcap to the head.”
Serious proof of life, thinks Lion.
“Use-ta-could talk some sense to an automobile.” Shaking his head, “them days are gone.”
Lion retreats a few feet but can’t find an easy way through the crowd. Backs up a block and heads north.
Last Tango in Cyberspace Page 26