by Liam Clay
“But why stop there?” Ireland replies. “Maybe I should drop down through the border too, and join one of the NGOs helping the rabble at street level.”
Red smirks. “Even better. Although if I was a gambling woman - and I am - I’d need heavy odds to bet on you lasting a week in the Underworld.”
“And you would?” Ireland rallies. Red smiles back, overtly sexual. Then she rolls over and smacks her tightly muscled ass.
“Hell no. They’d go to war over what I’ve got, tear me to pieces in the name of love.”
Ireland has no response for this, and the conversation is allowed a merciful death. I find myself wondering what Red’s game is. It’s clear the Mark isn’t interested in a challenge; he’s new to this, and all he wants is to pluck some low hanging fruit. But either way, my work here is done. When the Key introduces us later tonight, our prior conversation should be enough to forge a basis of trust.
CHAPTER 2
Anex. One drop in your linked eye will get you rolling, although a few of my clients are already begging to do more. Clear, tasteless, odor free and undetectable, it is both stimulant and hallucinogen, kicking in within seconds of drop. None of which is particularly ground-breaking, but that’s just the beginning.
This shit also happens to be a fun-times virus for your retinal computer. It hacks your software and sends it on an unlicensed carnival ride, and the better your gear is, the loopier the AI goes. It’s like giving a mad scientist access to your optic nerve, your neocortex and the net, no questions asked.
Anex terrifies your average user the first time out. But when you get right down to it, loss of control is what drugs are all about - they come around soon enough. And I haven’t even told you the best part yet. If anyone tries to blink your system while you’re rolling, they get dosed too. Only for 30 seconds, but that’s more than enough time to leave an impression, believe me. It’s a security system, a guerrilla marketing campaign and a supremely kickass party trick, all rolled into one. It kills with people like tonight’s Mark.
I’m poolside on the roof half an hour later, dosing some 18-year-old kid. He’s a nobody, and green as a weed to boot, but his meal ticket is a key player in the vegetable market. This woman is probably drunker than is strictly wise. And apparently she has some serious guilt issues where her job is concerned, because she’s been giving me the full rationalization routine. It’s funny how many doors - and by doors I mean mouths - my current profession opens up.
“They’re all terminal.” she’s saying. “Lungs seared to shit, maybe a year left, two tops, and not a dime for a transplant. Why not let them experience something besides chronic pain before they croak?”
The veg market is a big part of the industry, and growing massively every year. But that’s not overly enlightening, I would imagine, if you don’t know what industry I’m talking about. It was called the entertainment business, once upon a time. Think make-up artists, cinematographers, pornstars, the Hollywood sign. (Although the white letters are long abandoned now, along with the rest of L.A.) You know, movies.
First came the good old days, a silver screen golden age. Enter CGI, and the industry starts to evolve. At first it’s just a money thing. Explosions are bigger, badder, and more importantly, cheaper when rendered digitally. But then civilization starts to lose its shit, I mean really blow it. As I stand here helping this kid trip his first balls, half the world is a bombed out, polluted, disease-ridden mess. (Or so I’m told.) Add the closed military states, cookie cutter suburbia and the parts of the earth that were never worth filming in the first place, and you’ve got a major location scouting problem.
CGI to the rescue again. Before long, almost all backgrounds in film are being produced digitally. Then retinal augmentation hits the market and we enter a whole new phase. (People avoid calling it augmentation because of the city’s humanity laws, but that’s what it is, no matter how much organic material is used to make retcoms these days.) Suddenly thousands of people can ‘ride in’ on a single person’s implant simultaneously. Reality TV to the umpteenth power.
It begins as an internet craze: egomaniacs broadcasting their lives in real time, with perverts and the chronically depressed riding in. But the industry gets its hooks in soon enough, and now you’ve got feature films acted out scene by scene and edited together, with millions of people riding in on each character once the finished product hits the market. Seeing what they see, thinking what they think, fucking who they fuck.
And something funny starts to happen. Because the audience is looking through their eyes, you have to give the talent a real environment to work in. So all that old timey film craft - from set design to prosthetics and pyrotechnics - become things again. Except that shooting on location is next to impossible now, so everything has to be filmed on stages. The result is a cramped orgy of gargantuan skyscrapers transformed floor by floor into a myriad of exotic locales, both real and imagined. The result is Opacity.
And who could covet the lives of others more than the terminally ill? Thus the vegetable market. Escapism on such a grand scale has its detractors though, which is why this woman is so quick to defend herself.
“Look at me.” She continues. “My lungs are near-perfect, and I spend most of my life chasing a series of petty diversions. The vegetables deserve to flee reality a hell of a lot more than I do.”
The latest of these diversions voices his dutiful agreement, the exhalation laced with the smell of pussy. Personally, I think this woman deserves kudos for incorporating her various addictions into a fairly tidy sales pitch. Instead I make my own affable noises and bring up payment. I’ve just seen the Key walk by, Mark in tow.
“That’ll be 60K straight credit.” I tell her. “But feel free to make an equivalent offer.”
She leans in, sloppily secretive, exuding synthetic tequila from every pore.
“How about 2 ½ hours of C-list Syrek?”
Ride time is being used as currency more and more often of late. It inflates slower than traditional credit, and a connected individual can make a killing on resale.
“B-list and you’ve got yourself a deal.” I would have been over the moon to get half as much for my last product, but Anex is a new breed.
“Fine, but only 2 hours.” She slurs, reaching up to pat my cheek. “I always was a sucker for a physical specimen.” As if to prove the point, she lets her fingers trail down the side of my neck. “Speaking of which... I’m sure Declan here wouldn’t mind a little help tonight, if you’re interested? I could make it worth your while.”
“Sorry, but I’m already onto my third career. Not quite ready for a fourth.”
She fakes a laugh and pulls away, grasping at sobriety and almost catching hold. “Have it your way. But tell me, how long have you had this stuff on the market? And not the beta version - I’m talking final product.”
I pretend to think it over, even though I know the answer to the day, to the hour.
“Six weeks, give or take.”
She shakes her head admiringly. “You play your cards right, and you’ll be selling to Korezon himself before long. Who knows, maybe you’ll even merit an invite to the Aviary. I hear you can practically touch the sun up there, and every guest gets their own personal ‘masseuse’.”
I shrug like it’s all just business to me, and then point to my tattooed right temple. She blinks, I blink back, retcoms read neurals and voila, I now have 2 hours of B-list on file. Syrek is third in market share, behind only Helix Media and Kore Pictures itself. And although B is fairly common this close to the Heights, it is a rarity in the mid-levels and almost unheard of in the Slump. I should get at least a hundred K for it.
Leaving the woman to babysit her teenage lover, I head for the building’s western edge, where the pool drops away in an arcing waterfall. I find the Key and the Mark floating side by side in the water. They are sipping drinks, looking out over the city, clothes discarded on a nearby chair. I follow their gaze, hoping to match the prevailing mood.<
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It truly is a beautiful view. We are perched amid a range of deceptively fragile glass mountains, all adrift on a gray fog underlit by sourceless fluorescent light. To the west lies the Gulf, although I see it only as a greater darkness through the blanket of pollution. Assuming I want a closer look, my retcom starts to ratchet in, but I blink it dormant before the Hive and its (debatably contaminated) satellite islands can come into focus. Too many sharp edges on those memories, even fifteen years later.
Eager for distraction, I sink chin to chest. Below us, hundreds of enclosed bridges form a web between buildings - some utilitarian, others transformed into nightclubs and celebrity homes. It’s all part of the great Opacian game: climb high enough, and your lungs need never taste the soup again.
My tone now adjusted, I walk to the corner of the pool and crouch down, one foot almost in the water, the other just centimeters from the drop. The Mark glances my way. He appears outwardly calm, but I sense a nervous excitement in him.
“So.” he says. “I hear you have something we need.”
I nod, savoring his use of the word need. (So much better than want, its lesser cousin.)
“Then why misrepresent yourself back there with the groupies? Must be hard to offload drugs if no one knows you’re carrying.”
“I like being underestimated.” is my honest reply. (If I’m going to piggyback this guy into the 200s, I need to develop a rapport based on carefully disseminated truths.) “And I have standards to uphold as well.” I add. “Anonymity helps keep the D-list off my back.”
The Mark turns to the Key. “That true?”
She looks me over with appraising eyes. “Sure is. Hell, I’ve seen him spend an entire night around inferior talent without tipping his hand.” She laughs deep in her throat. “They were convinced he was an insurance salesman by the end.”
This, by contrast, is a well-calculated lie. Together we are inferring that the Mark has made the cut, that he is special. He may see through us on an intellectual level, but it should affect him nonetheless.
“Those try hards were E-list at best.” I counter. “Self-broadcasting, with fifty thousand followers at most, using unqualified tech support.”
(Most actors begin their careers in the reality biz, earning credit promoting nightclubs, beauty products and weight loss programs while they build their followings. These days, the studios come knocking with bit parts around the million follower mark.)
Sitting down with my legs over space, I pull out my dropper. This is what my attacker was after. The Mark’s gaze is drawn to it like a tongue to an absent tooth. The Key notes this and chooses to stand, offering a glimpse of perfectly crafted breasts as she drifts backward in a swirl of luminous bubbles. Seems I’m not the only one trying to land a long term client. “Well you’re in luck.” she tells me. “Because there won’t be any garbage talent where we’re going tonight.”
I query with an eyebrow and she smiles, canines splashed pink by the dancefloor lights a floor below.
“You know the new Letiva vehicle, the one Kore Pictures has been keeping so hush? Well they finished the stage for it last week, and...”
“You’re shitting me.” I say, legitimately impressed. “You’ve been granted access to the christening?”
“Just got word an hour ago. And rumor has it Letiva is going to be there - in the flesh, no less.”
“What’s a christening?” The Mark interjects, surprising me with his ignorance. A flash of unspecified emotion crosses the Key’s face, but it’s gone in an instant. Then she’s floating over to jab a playful finger into his manicured chest hair.
“It’s where anyone who can conceivably lay claim to being anyone will be tonight. Unless you’re having second thoughts?”
He flexes unconsciously. “Don’t question me, woman. You know I’m ready.”
And that, my friends, is how you turn a Mark into a Ladder.
CHAPTER 3
Letiva is an enduring legend. Born in a Helix breeding program, she rose to fame in the superhero genre long dominated by her kind. Until, in an unprecedented move, she jumped ship to become a mainstay on the independent rom-com circuit. And when the First Lady (as her fans affectionately call her) aged out of that niche, she was able to slip gracefully into a series of period piece character roles. Now she’s set to make her starring comeback in a major Kore blockbuster, the first Helixer ever to do so. Word is she’s had a total body reconstruct - some real cutting edge, fountain of youth type shit. But despite the frantic efforts of every gossip show in town, not a word has been leaked about the film’s plot. Leaving the big reveal intact for tonight.
We’ve hailed a choppertaxi, which is skimming rooftops on its way to Paradigm Tower - one of Opacity’s most iconic studio skyscrapers. The trip is made more interesting when we enter a freshly laid datamine field. Among the calling cards of the infamous Silver Sphere hacker group, these holographic disco balls are harmless unless flown through, at which point they will spike an aircraft’s systems with a juicy hit of malware. Glancing idly to my right, I spot a drone seeding a nearby skyscraper with more of the offending nano-projectors. A Korezon janitor bot should be along shortly to clean the whole mess up, but for now it’s up to our cabbie to avoid the spheres manually. He responds by turning up his music, continuing to eat sushi, and basically ignoring the situation entirely. I find myself oddly comforted by his utter disregard for our safety.
Meanwhile, I can practically hear the questions bubbling in the Ladder’s brain beside me. First and foremost, he’s wondering if he will get to bang our gracious guide tonight. Well the answer is probably not. A Key is just what the name implies: a tool for unlocking social doors that would otherwise remain closed. Anything else is strictly at her discretion, and my bitchy side is whispering that this guy doesn’t pass muster.
And secondly, he wants to know why I can’t just sell him some product and get lost. Best to explain a few things to him, then.
“You’re wondering why I’m still here, aren’t you?” I ask over the chopper blade hum. He shifts in his seat to look at me.
“The thought had crossed my mind.”
“I’m not surprised, considering you’ve never been to a christening before.” (Neither have I, but he doesn’t need to know that.) “Want me to explain it to you?”
He nods guardedly.
“Alright, as you can imagine, building a stage for a major picture is brain-hemorragingly expensive. So to offset production costs, most studios use the newly completed set to host a christening.”
The Ladder looks skeptical. “How does throwing a party help them pay their debts?”
“You’ll understand when you see what they charge us at the door. But it will be worth it, believe me.” I wave my arms around to indicate general largess. “We’re talking the event of the season here: part red carpet gala, part rave, and definitely BYOD. Your choice of poison says a lot about you, though. Off the rack will get you laughed out of town, so your stuff’s got to be designer. But custom product requires a gatekeeper, someone to guide people through the experience.” I tip an imaginary cap in his direction. “Thus making me a necessary accessory.”
He absorbs this information as the Paradigm heaves into view. I’ve seen skyscrapers from the previous century, and they look like broken toothpicks compared to this. The building is an octagonal bastion of black glass, cold and forbidding, over 100 meters to a side. A giant middle finger belittling nature’s own efforts at grandeur.
Our cabbie homes in on an adjoining landing pad the size of an aircraft carrier. Below us, heli-limos are disgorging a flood of pampered humanity onto the shit-stained tarmac. It is becoming increasingly difficult to stay calm. Years of steady climbing have brought me to this point, and although I still have a long way to go, the Paradigm is a major milestone. Anex is changing everything.
We make a smooth landing at the tail of a snaking taxi rank. The Ladder blinks payment into a wall-mounted screen and the door releases, flooding my pupils
with harsh runway glare. After making a few final (and largely pointless) wardrobe adjustments, we step down into a biting gale.
Everything on deck is yellow and black, beeping and blinking, coated in a film of grease. A retrofitted baggage train grinds past, on its way to collect the event’s more prestigious guests. The Ladder, I notice, is looking nervous. I give him my best lopsided smile.
“Come on buddy, loosen up! How often did you dream of this moment while your nose was buried in programming manuals?”
“Right, yeah.” He cocks his head to one side. “Hey, what’s your name by the way? I feel like we’ve met somewhere before.”
I loop a congenial arm over his shoulders.
“You can call me Anex.”
And with that we’re off, just three great friends out for an innocent night’s fun.
The landing strip narrows into a steel bridge some five meters wide. At its terminus is a gothic arch fashioned of rare wooden beams (although from what brand of tree I have no idea). Carved and gilded to the point of absurdity, this is the Paradigm’s famed grand entrance. The crowd presses in. All manner of outlandish attire is on display, and of the moment it may be, but haute couture has the drawback of consuming serious square footage. The press soon becomes a crush: filigree ripping, silk wings snapping, five-foot coat tails trampled underfoot.
Our wardrobe choices are made to look inspired as we weave easily through the struggling elite. The arch looms overhead and then we hit a wall of security, all false smiles and sluggish courtesy. I wonder if the Key is having any doubts about her choice of Ladder. If the opinion makers don’t see his value it will damage her reputation, and a few consecutive failures could see her blacklisted from these levels, probably for good. But his credit must be solid at least, because when he blinks the head bouncer, the man nods affirmation to his cohorts. They step forward and begin to frisk us, one guard per person.