tube? What does that tell you about its in-
him in Endless City, stalking him in meat-
come? Does it suburb or supra? Or does it dis-
space. So, if we track Cobie’s movements for
appear into the Jumble—that’s another slice
the past six months and expand that to in-
of information. Just finding the home-locus of
clude an area-search of everyone who passed
the blot is critical. If the blot abruptly disap-
within his local radius, eliminating all the ran-
pears—whoever’s in the suddenly revealed
doms, minimizing the residents, we should be
space, there’s your list of suspects. Track them
able to reveal any unusual patterns that are
now.
semi-congruent with Cobie’s. Every traff ic-
If the blot doubles back, twists and turns,
cam, every security monitor, every smart-
moves across the map in an erratic pattern to
phone, every ad-tracker, every functioning
make sure it isn’t being followed, it still gives
device plugged into the net, and every app on
itself away. It reveals it has a secret to hide.
all of those devices—every photo or video or
Just one problem.
audio captured within Cobie’s radius was raw-
Yes, there was a blot—but it wasn’t follow-
data if you had the resources to tap into all
ing Cobie Ferguson. It was Cobie Ferguson.
those separate data-feeds. Miranda did—and
Every time it shut down, there was Cobie. No
had.
other suspects.
Eezy-peezy, right?
Miranda was good. Cobie thought he’d been
Wrong.
careful; he’d only shut down his blocker when
Because the next part of the assumption
he thought he was in the presence of other
was that if someone could upload “Death by
blockers. But Miranda tracked everyone leav-
Oompah” to a high-end sextable, they’d also
ing the blank areas and Cobie’s presence was
be smart enough to know that simply step-
the only repeating factor.
ping out onto a public street would create a
Well, crap.
permanent record of their every movement.
The case just got a whole lot weirder. I was
Their every step and gesture—every fart,
now looking for an invisible murderer—one
sneeze, and exhalation—would be logged
who wasn’t blotted but still didn’t show up in
somewhere. There would be only one protec-
any data-feeds. One who could track his target
tion: a blocking field.
even when the target was inside a blot.
Blockers are usually licensed to celebrities,
Okay, let me think about this. If the answer
politicians, corporate leaders, billionaires, and
isn’t in the evidence you’re looking at, it has to
various government agencies. Ordinary citi-
be in the evidence you’re not looking at. Mi-
zens have to demonstrate a compelling
randa had brute-forced the raw data, she’d
need—witness protection, stalkers, restrain-
minimized all the randoms and all the resi-
ing orders, that kind of stuff. Anyone else has
dents, and anyone else who might have had
to pay a hefty premium—because why would
business in the area.
you want to hide your movements if you
So . . . the man or woman or neut that I was
weren’t doing something unlawful?
looking for was probably a shifter, like me—
A blocking field interrupts the local flow of
someone who could burn through a dozen
packets associated with your image, your
identities in a week. A lot harder to track, but
voice, your location, everything. All the data
not impossible. It requires some pretty deep
going back and forth between your devices
scanning, but you can find identities that are
and the rest of the world is triple-encrypted.
too shallow, too perfect, too well construct-
You show up on the displays as an empty
ed—or just too good to be true.
space.
Miranda had flagged identities she trusted,
But even an empty space reveals a lot—es-
individuals who’d existed in her own databas-
pecially if it’s ambulatory.
es for three years or longer. That eliminated
If the blot tracks to the restroom, did it cen-
more than half of the randoms. Others were
ter on the men’s, the ladies’, the neuts’, or the
minimally suspect candidates—too old, too
ENDLESS CITY
125
ANALOG
young, physically disabled, medically impossi-
Every time you turn on the electricity, you
ble, emotionally unfit, intellectually impaired,
leave a data-trail. Every appliance. Every light
chronically ill, and so on—all the different out-
bulb. Every electrical socket. Everything.
liers.
Everywhere.
And then there were the ones with big rip-
If you go to the circuit box and flip all the
ples: deep family ties, long-term business con-
breakers, that’s still no defense. If you have
nections, anyone with a hint of celebrity,
anything in your pocket or your purse that
those were the least likely to be burners.
runs off batteries, if it connects to anything
Burner identities tended to be disconnect-
else, if it taps into, if it reports, if it monitors—
ed, enclosed, not a lot of interaction with the
that’s a data-trail too.
rest of the world. Yeah, that includes a lot of
If you go lo-tech, disconnecting from the
shut-downs, introverts, hiders, and agora-
grid, generating your own life support, you
phobes. And a lot of petty crooks, farmers,
can still be observed—from the sky, from
dealers, and distributors. But those are trace-
across the street, and even through the walls
able too. The problem gets harder when
of the apartment next door. Lasers can read
you’re dealing with pros. A good burner is
the vibrations on your window glass, thermal
usually connected to at least a few dozen oth-
detectors can tell how many people are in the
er good burners to create the illusion of a life.
room, and microwaves can monitor your
Miranda had eliminated at least two thirds
movements.
of the randoms, leaving only two dozen on the
There is no privacy. There is no anonymity.
list of possibles. Not a bad winnowing, but
Put on a burka and walk down the street,
still a time-consuming effort.
you still leave a data-trail. Even if you wear a
Put that aside for a moment, consider some-
mask or a hood, cameras will still record your
thing else instead. Why had Cobie blocked
height, your gait, your body-movements, as-
himself in meatspace? What was he hiding
sembling a pe
rsonality-pattern that will be
from? And as good as his blockware had
matched with the paths you take, the pur-
been—and it was state-of-the-art—how had he
chases you make, the signs that catch your at-
been tracked? The easy answer, the obvious
tention, everything.
one, was that he hadn’t been tracked; he’d in-
Someone smart enough to be completely in-
vited the killer in. And the killer had installed
visible would also have been smart enough to
“Death by Oompah.”
plan a perfect murder. He hadn’t.
A thought occurred to me—
What’s a perfect murder? One that doesn’t
Yes, Miranda had uploaded Cobie’s autopsy
get discovered, one that no one ever knows
report.
about—no one except the murderer.
Cobie had been hardwired into the ma-
So . . . Cobie’s killer wanted the murder to
chine. He was getting direct stimulation to the
be known. Why?
brain’s pleasure center. And just in case, his
It didn’t make sense.
blood had high levels of pain blockers.
Maybe the murderer wasn’t invisible.
Cobie had died happy—very happy.
There was no evidence that Cobie had invit-
So . . . the murderer hadn’t been vindictive.
ed anyone into his penthouse apartment.
That suggested a whole other set of motives.
There was no trace. No physical evidence. No
I leaned back in my chair—in meatspace.
data-trail. Nothing.
Mrs. Kilmartin did likewise in her pink gaze-
And there was no evidence of anyone leav-
bo.
ing afterward, not even a blot.
There’s this:
Which brought me back to the f irst ques-
If you live in Endless City, everything is
tion . . . how did “Death by Oompah” get into
recorded. Everything. There is no privacy—
Cobie’s sextable?
anyone with a warrant can prowl.
Malware? Not with Cobie’s level of hard-
If you retreat to meatspace, you can have
ware. He would have had multiple state-of-the-
the illusion of privacy. You can lock yourself
art firewalls. So he would have had to install it
in your apartment, live off the Basic, and have
himself. . . .
all your meals delivered.
Did he think it was “Frat Boy Shenani-
But that’s still not enough.
gans”—or did he know it wasn’t?
126
DAVID GERROLD
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018
Because the son of a bitch had been wired
span the gaps, canyons, cables, and tubes, bal-
in like a screwhead and narked like a man
conies have been turned into shops, staircases
strapped to an execution table. It was painless
transformed into vertical habitats, banners and
because he wanted it to be painless.
canopies are everywhere, tangles of wires
Son of a bitch.
lead every which way, vertical farms of all
But why then? Following that train of
kinds abound, blankets for walls, ladders, rick-
thought, it doesn’t make sense. . . . Why
ety staircases, an ancient aqueduct, twisting al-
would he want me to investigate a murder
leys wind through various pretenders to street
that didn’t happen? And why would he blow
level, and, beneath everything, abandoned
up my office?
tubeways where trains no longer run, crum-
Unless . . .
bling sewers, the whole a tottering slum,
That was a little far-fetched, but—
clinging to unfinished concrete towers, a gap-
All right, back to Miranda’s reports. There
ing triangular spire, heli-decks, windmills, and
was something I’d missed.
open catch-barrels for the monsoon rains—a
But now I knew what I was looking for. I
wild collection of humanity, clustered in its
had to backtrace the movements of Cobie’s
walls, morphs and neuts, cross-players, gen-
blot. Only a few days were needed; he’d taken
dernauts, inflatos, slendermen, barbies, twin-
a trip, not too far, but far enough. He’d gone to
kles, bearables, mandroids, femmiloids,
a place where his blot overlapped with anoth-
remods, rejuves, sportsters, shifters, grifters,
er blot. Then the other blot disappeared.
xenoids, saleables, whatevers—there’s no di-
They’d merged. Then his blot went home.
rectory. If you have to ask, you don’t want it
So . . . backtrace that other blot—and it goes
badly enough.
all the way back to the Jumble.
The Jumble is a self-contained paradox, si-
Crap.
multaneously the most connected and the
And crap again.
most disconnected place in the urban sprawl.
Mrs. Zoe Elaina Kilmartin said some very
It exists, it continues to exist, because no au-
bad words and winked out of her beautiful
thority wants responsibility of the physical
pink gazebo.
realm, no agency dares to attempt cyber-con-
I’d need to switch to a burner identity. Hell,
trol—not any more. No one wants the eco-
I’d probably have to burn through half a
nomic burden, the legal burden—no one
dozen.
wants to inherit the morass of the Jumble’s
This was going to take some thought and
bizarre societies and ungovernable residents.
some careful preparation.
In short, no one knows what to do with it, so
the Jumble exists, a great machine of self-
The Jumble is all proxies and untraceables.
evolving survival.
The whole area is blotted—it’s splattered with
Within its walls, the Jumble is anything and
multiple overlapping blots. And they stack.
nothing: sanctuary, brothel, casino, hideaway,
There are few visible cues. Endless City is
drug den, fantasyland, shops of all kinds—tat-
woven in and out of its structure so deep, it’s
too artists, mutation parlors, transformatories,
impossible to navigate without plugins.
fetish-holes, meal-vendors, cafes, tailors, boot-
Nothing is what it seems. Nobody is who
makers, indigo marketplaces, purple holes,
they pretend to be. If Endless City is one re-
exo-printers, fabbers, xeno-labs, crack-
lentless performance, the Jumble is its physi-
doors—everything. The Jumble has its own
cal counterpart. It’s Kowloon’s Walled City
unwritten rules; you’re safe as long as you fol-
reborn—with a vengeance. The Jumble exists
low them. Don’t take what isn’t yours. Don’t
where three, or maybe more, jurisdictions fail
ask what you don’t need to know. Don’t go
to overlap—each one retreating from the re-
where you have no business. Whatever you
sponsibility of governance. The result is a hole
in the fabric of responsibility: a gigantic un-
only, no credit. No wires, no traces, thank
governed enclave, sprawling like a cancerous
you. Next, please?
amoeba across several square kilometers of
Old identities disappear into the Jumble.
broken terrain. Ancient buildings lean against
New ones come out. And Cobie Ferguson had
each other for support, bridges to nowhere
done a lot of business here. The money wasn’t
ENDLESS CITY
127
ANALOG
traceable, but Miranda’s data-diving had re-
much more intricate and complex map than
vealed large sums converted into cash over a
most people. This iteration of Max Blankman
three-year period. Gambling losses, he said,
was probably getting a lot of attention because
but there weren’t many trips to the Endless
of that. Somewhere—a lot of somewheres—a
City casinos—none that could be tracked. No,
lot of someones were poking someone else
he told his taxman that he gambled in the Jum-
and saying, “Hey, look at this, we’ve got a Max
ble. There were certain games within its walls
who can see us.” There must have been a hun-
not available anywhere else. The taxman
dred sets of eyes on me, my only protection.
didn’t ask for details—and if he had, Cobie
Nobody was going to assault me with that
wouldn’t have answered. Because he wasn’t
many witnesses.
gambling. You didn’t stay as rich as Cobie Fer-
I followed a blinking red arrow up an esca-
guson if you had that kind of gambling habit.
lator, one of the few that worked, the rest
No, he was investing in something else—not
were just stairs, halfway up, then right along
illegal if you intend to use it legally, but def i-
“the becauseway”—called that not because it
nitely illegal if you don’t.
was a causeway, but because it was a “be-
There were only three practitioners of this
causeway.” Because. You either got it, or you
art in the Jumble—well, only three that I
didn’t. Maybe you had to be there.
knew of—but only one of them had a reputa-
Stopped at a noodle shop, put a copper
tion for clean hands. I’d start with Her. Him.
coin on the counter and ducked behind the
Whatever. Depending on the moment. Be-
curtain, still following the blinking arrow,
cause there was no him, her, or whatever—
through six interleaved apartments, then out
Analog Science Fiction and Fact Page 35