Neurotopia

by Tony Mohorovich

  Still groggy, Sky summoned footage of her mother. Winona had been moved to a private room (at the request of Sky’s father, according to the records). There was just enough space in the tube for her mother’s maya. They lay there together, side by side, mother and daughter.

  < Incoming message, ma’am, > announced Uncle Jesse.

  ‘If it’s my father, ignore it.’

  < It’s from Mym Mento. >

  Sky sat up so fast she hit her head against the ceiling. She rubbed her crown. ‘How did she find me?’

  < No idea, ma’am. >

  A truncated version of the android appeared and the message played. ‘I’ve been hearing rumors of a woman making a mess out in the red-light district. Apparently, she has a tactical swarm, not the sort of tech we see down here very often. People are askin’ questions. Some think she may be an Earth spy. Word is, she screwed over members of the Som cartel and they’re not exactly thrilled. On the other hand, the Som have plenty of competitors. So whoever that woman is, she now has a new enemy and new admirers. If you happen to bump into her, I’d like to have friendly word. And soon; looks like she forgot to destroy the brains of the witnesses, which means they can identify her. I’d hate for the Som to come knockin’ on her door before we had a chance to chat.’

  ​7:3

  Sky returned to Mym Mento’s Memorium as fast as her Earth legs would carry her. When she arrived, the mechanical sales assistant was nowhere in sight.

  ‘Hello?’ Sky called out, but no answer came. It had occurred to her that Mym Mento could be working for the cartel. Sky kept her swarm at the ready, one thought away from unraveling.

  She walked down the aisle, passing memories of the dead. Sky heard a sudden grinding and turned to see a security wall at the store entrance drop with a clang, shutting her off from the outside world. The wall compartments opened up and the various gun barrels swivelled in her direction.

  ‘Leave your suitcase where it is,’ the tinny voice of Mym Mento said. ‘I have a fetish for staying alive.’ The voice came from above. Sky looked up to see the android hanging from the ceiling, two of its insectoid legs aimed at her, gun barrels protruding.

  What are my chances, Uncle Jesse?

  < Slim, ma’am. >

  A maya document appeared and Mento explained, ‘This is a contract for the secure storage of your swarm in exchange for your valuable time, after which the swarm will be returned to you.’

  Sky agreed, and the document was sent to their respective contractual insurers (Sky’s expensive ticket to the Moon had included basic contractual cover). She left the luggage on the floor and stepped away. One of the android’s legs collected the swarm case and examined it.

  ‘Does it cloak?’ the android asked.

  ‘Cloak…?’

  ‘Does it have cloaking technology?’ the android said, ‘You know, invisibility.’

  If it did, neither Sky nor Uncle Jesse were aware of it. ‘No.’

  The android grunted, ‘Must be an older model then,’ and placed the swarm into a compartment in the ceiling. ‘Never mind, it’ll still be of use.’

  Of use? To whom? Sky wondered.

  A third android leg extended and a sheet of red light passed across Sky’s frame.

  < Weapon scan, ma’am. >

  When the scan finished, the wall guns retreated into their hovels. The android dropped to the floor and lowered its weapons. ‘This way, please.’

  A panel in the rear wall slid open, revealing a dark hallway. Sky followed the android inside. The door shut behind her and she heard bolts locking. When her eyes adjusted, she found herself inside a narrow staircase that wound its way further underground.

  Sky followed the scuttling android down the steps until the staircase opened at the bottom to a broad room with a low ceiling, lit by dim electric lanterns, reminding Sky of twilight on Earth—neither light nor dark. The place was a clamor of metal and prefab, wires and circuits, technology new and old in various states of disrepair. In the center of the workshop stood a tinted chamber.

  In the dim light, Sky walked into a low-lying table and corked her thigh on one corner. She groaned, rubbing her leg, and then saw what lay on the table; the bodies of two men, wires sticking out of their bloodied scalps. One had a sizeable hole in his neck. They showed no sign of breathing.

  ‘I thought you were a rumormonger,’ Sky said.

  ‘I am.’

  The voice came from both the android and the tinted room. The perforated holes in its walls allowed the exchange of air and sound. A round silhouette sat at a table lit with old holo screens, flickering with data.

  ‘Then why the bodies?’ Sky asked.

  The silhouette spoke with her own voice this time, minus the android, ‘How else do you expect me to collect information? Ask nicely? Don’t worry, I didn’t kill them; the city did that. No shortage of dead for sale, more than enough for my line of work.’

  Sky shuddered. Even the dead had something to trade here.

  The silhouette—whom Sky assumed was Mym Mento—stood, then approached the tinted wall. There she took a seat facing Sky, though her features remained obscured. ‘A trusted client of mine is willing to bid for your services,’ the woman said.

  ‘What services?’

  ‘You have unique skills. Few have access to a swarm, and even fewer can operate one.’

  ‘I’m not here to make money.’

  ‘But you are. I assume you still need 5000 lunes to pay for information on Geppetto?’

  The name hung in the stale air.

  ‘Good,’ Mento said, taking the silence for agreement. ‘My client will cover the cost of my services, if you are willing to do a little work in return. My client estimates the task would take no more than a quart-centa, maybe less, including travel, and level clearance.’

  Uncle Jesse converted the lunar metric time to Earth standard; the job would take about one and a half hours.

  ‘A quart-centa’s work for 5,000 lunes? Your client is either very generous or the job involves a lot of risk.’

  Mento shrugged. ‘My client has even riskier propositions with greater rewards, but they’re reserved for proven contractors who can cloak. Consider yourself lucky you’re even getting an offer.’

  Sky considered herself many things, but lucky was not one of them. ‘How do I know your information is worth the risk?’

  The silhouette snorted, ‘I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that. Besides, in all my years, I’ve only come across the name Geppetto twice in connection with the Tellinii virus. The second time was when you walked into my store.’

  ‘And the first?’

  ‘Is worth 5000 lunes to me. But I’m curious; how did you hear of Geppetto?’

  ‘That’s my business,’ Sky said. She wondered whether Mento was lying, looking for a sale from a desperate customer. After all, Sky had mentioned Geppetto on their initial meeting. For all she knew, that might have been the one and only time Mento had heard of Geppetto.

  ‘What’s the job?’ Sky asked.

  Mento sent her a maya with a confidentiality agreement. It provided that Sky would become an indentured servant for a decade if she breathed a word of the job to anyone. Sky agreed.

  ‘Like you, my client is not fond of the Som,’ Mento began. ‘The cartel is responsible for some of the worst violations of the One Law, but most victims have neither the means nor the desire to sue them. My client would like to dispose of the cartel’s kingpin, Som Razer.’

  It took a few moments for the offer to sink in.

  ‘You want me to kill someone?’

  Mento’s silhouette appeared to nod. ‘One someone and four bodies, to be precise. Som Razer has numerous backup bodies into which he can download a copy of his mind. My client wants you to dispose of four of these backups.’

  Sky waited, half-expecting Mento to say she was just joking. Mento waited, too.

  ‘I’m not a killer,’ Sky said.

  The figure crossed her arms. ‘Says the woman with the
military swarm.’

  The mundane nature of their conversation struck Sky as absurd. Here they were discussing a murder, something unthinkable on Earth… literally.

  ‘Who’s the client?’ Sky asked. ‘Another kingpin?’

  ‘That’s confidential.’

  Sky began to pace the lab. ‘You don’t need a swarm to kill someone. Surely your client could get an android or even nanobots to do the job.’

  ‘My client has already tried other methods.’

  And evidently failed, Sky realized. ‘That’s not comforting.’

  ‘The target has excellent security systems in place to ward off attacks by artificial means.’

  ‘A swarm is just as artificial.’

  ‘Yet yours remained undetected in the brothel, despite their security systems.’

  That made sense, Sky thought, otherwise Gregos and his gang would not have left her luggage in the room.

  ‘This could get me killed.’

  ‘A lot of risk for a lot of gain. Sounds like a good deal to me.’

  ‘And what if I fail?’

  ‘If you fail, and survive, you’ll have to submit to a scan to prove that you honestly intended to complete the contract. If you pass that, my client will not sue. As for Som Razer, my client has others on standby to finish the job and mop up if necessary. But right now, you are the best candidate, so you get first pick.’

  There must be another way, Sky thought. She found herself trapped by uncertainty; unable to go one way or the other.

  ‘Don’t forget…’ Mento added, ‘… Som Razer’s people are looking for you.’

  Mento flipped a maya to her; it was footage of Sky on the brothel bed and Gregos on top of her. ‘The cartel pulled these memories from their people. If, in the unlikely event they don’t find you, they’ll put a bounty on your head and then someone surely will.’

  Sky could not believe what she was hearing. ‘This is ridiculous. They try to rape me and force me into prostitution, and because I escaped they want me dead?’

  ‘You dented their reputation, and reputation is wealth.’ Another maya appeared. This one showed footage of a man on the floor, blood draining from holes in his chest. Sky gasped when she recognized his face. It was Nathaniel—the young man who had escaped the brothel with her.

  She had laid with him only hours ago. He had rested his head on her breast and she had caressed his hair.

  Sky had to support herself against Mym Mento’s table of corpses. Her head hung from her shoulders.

  Is this real?

  If it was a sim, she could not shut it off.

  Nathaniel.

  Mento said, ‘You were wise to come here as soon as you did.’

  The image of the murdered Nathaniel had seared itself into Sky’s mind. She had not thought to destroy the brains of Gregos and his gang. Her mistake had led to Nathaniel’s death. She felt tears forming. She grit her teeth. The tears halted and instead her chest burned with rage.

  ‘Whatever you decide, girlie, it couldn’t hurt to get out of Shackleton City for a while, or get a new face, or flip your sex, or all the above, up to you. You’re in deep, no matter which way you turn. If you ask me, you might as well fight.’

  Sky had come to the Moon for the cure, yet had ended up marked for death for reasons beyond her control. She was both closer and further from helping her mother.

  ‘So?’ Mento asked.

  Sky felt as if she were being squeezed in a vise so hard that her insides would burst out at any moment. She wondered whether Earth would allow her to return once they scanned her and saw she had committed murder.

  ‘How long do I have to decide?’

  ‘Now. Like I said, you’re first pick but I have other contractors lined up. What do you say? Do we have sammati?’

  Sky weighed her options. The scales swung from one side to the next without resolution until…

  ‘Yeah,’ Sky said at last, her voice hoarse, reluctant. ‘We have sammati.’

  Mento flicked data across to her.

  ‘Here are your instructions. Whatever’s in your brief is not my business, I am merely the conduit. If you have any questions, you’ll find secure contact details embedded. My sales assistant will see you to your swarm.’

  Mento’s silhouette got up from her seat, turned, and faded into the background.

  ​7:4

  The job was on Level Two.

  Sky had to leave the Old Quarter and return to Ground Central Station where the level lifts were located. The cheapest lifts were situated outside the station, seven of them in total with mammoth-sized platforms. They were cheap because hundreds of thousands of Ground dwellers used them to get to work on the upper levels. Sky entered one such lift along with about 100 others, body to body, odors mingling. Most of her fellow travelers wore uniforms of one kind or another; the uniforms of employees, assistants, and servants.

  A music-maya played as the lift rose. The singer’s voice was ethereal. She sang naked while grinding on top of a giant muscled man. ‘Puh!’ one old-timer jeered. ‘In my time, entertainers just had to take off their clothes. Now they have to screw to get noticed.’

  About ten minutes and fifty stories later, the lift arrived on Level One, or “Lower shin” as some called it, on account of the Apollo statue’s shin being prominent there. Sky wondered why she had never heard Ground dwellers refer to their level as “Foot”. Uncle Jesse’s research suggested that only those who lived above Ground used that label—it was derogatory term, and some cultures found it particularly insulting. In recent years, young Ground dwellers had compromised and started referring to their level as “Ankle”.

  The lift emptied and a third of the crowd headed to the lift for the next level, including Sky. A half hour later she arrived on Level Two (Upper Shin).

  She followed the crowd out through the security checkpoint. She was relieved to find a marked improvement in her surroundings. In fact, she felt right at home. It was more spacious than Ground, possibly because there weren’t so many people. The structures were solid and generally well maintained. It was cleaner, more orderly. The crowds were better dressed—washed, at least, perhaps a middle class. The light from the sun-tunnels was brighter here. It was much like Detroit.

  If this is like home, imagine what the remaining four levels are like?

  Sky caught herself rubbing her fingers again. The web between them was either peeling or pockmarked with raw slits. She returned her hand under its sleeve, then followed the instructions in her brief and made her way to the Catacombs.

  *

  In each cubicle, a body lay in hibernation, identified by a name, serial number, and the expected duration of their sojourn. Some had incurable biological diseases, others had been hacked, and some of these were infected with the Tellinii virus.

  Sky’s footsteps, and that of her guide, echoed up the building’s hollow center. The Catacombs were a morgue for the yet-to-die. Patients were stacked beside each other in coffin-like cabins. The place looked like a hard-copy library of humans.

  ‘Might I ask, Ms. Hoy-Atcliffe,’ the sales rep began with the precise blend of compassion and professionalism of a funeral director, ‘are you choosing a stasis cubicle for yourself or a loved one?’ His words were out of sync with his lips, like a badly dubbed sim; Sky’s language program was translating his Azerbaijani and simulating his voice in English.

  ‘Just myself,’ Sky answered. ‘My health insurer suggested I book a cubicle in case of a hack or illness. They said it would lower my premiums.’

  ‘Very wise,’ the sales rep nodded, adjusting his cuffs. Sky felt at ease with him as he was not fond of eye contact, which may have been either a personality quirk or a sign of disdain.

  ‘How long can they stay like this?’ Sky asked, referring to the patients.

  ‘It depends on the client’s age and health. All we can do is slow down ageing, not stop it, at least not yet.’

  ‘How long do the Tellinii infected last?’

  The
sales rep shook his head, a hint of discomfort in his voice, ‘Months usually. Rarely longer than a year before their neurals degrade.’ He caught his lapse and snapped back into sales mode, ‘But it’s far superior to the one week it usually takes Tellinii to claim its victims. Do you have an infected loved one?’

  ‘And this facility is secure?’ Sky asked, changing the subject.

  ‘Naturally. Security is our priority,’ the rep said. ‘We have 24/7 monitoring of every part of the environment. In the event that an intruder is equipped with a visual-cloaking device, the system can identify their neural signals.’

  The brief provided by Mym Mento explained that the mystery employer would take care of the Catacombs’ surveillance and defense systems.

  Sky’s swarm, Uncle Jesse informed her, was able to detect common frequencies used by security cameras and provide estimates of the cameras’ locations. It was an additional program, not part of the swarm’s default abilities. Sky assumed her father had installed it for her benefit. According to her swarm, cameras covered every meter of the Catacombs.

  Sky had no idea how her employer could thwart every camera, let alone the hidden defense systems, but she dearly hoped they would honor their part of the agreement.

  ‘I appreciate your focus on security, but I do have envious competitors in my line of work,’ she said. ‘Privacy is a priority.’

  ‘Ah,’ the sales rep glanced at her, ‘then you will be wanting our premium suites. Unfortunately our director is away on business; he handles the premiums by appointment.’

  Sky checked the Earth-timer ticking down in her vision—11:55 minutes left. ‘I am eager to reserve a cubicle as soon as possible. I understand that five other companies operate in this space.’ Sky stared up the length of the human library; the stories above were emblazoned with unique brand colors and insignia.

  ‘Yes, yes, of course,’ the rep nodded, ‘I will contact my director—’

  ‘I’m willing to compensate you for the short notice,’ Sky said. A maya of 300 lunas hovered in her hands, funds supplied by her employer.

  The man straightened. He stared at the virtual currency, his nostrils flaring. Sky hoped he would take the money, otherwise she would have to resort to more persuasive methods.