The Hollow Prince

by Mark Teppo

  Max. Not Security Theorist Semper Dimialos. Prescott Four might seem like an idiot on GoogleTube feeds, but he came from a long line of corporate fathers. All shrewd and cutthroat when the situation demanded it.

  “What about forty-three turns ago?”

  “That’s a very specific time period, Max.”

  “I’m reading it right off a DNA report I have on my desk. A paternity test.”

  “How did you come by this . . . dubious. . . information?”

  “A better question might be to ask how this ‘dubious’ information came to be. It’s a lot easier to find information than it is to make it up.”

  “One of Security Directorate’s old truism, yes?”

  “That it is, sir.”

  “You’d better come to my office, Max.”

  I went.

  *

  One of the corporate leadership perks was access to iReset, and RonTom St. John’s Liberty Prescott Four used it liberally. The package had a more technical name and wasn’t entirely Apple’s design, but let’s face it: it made you sleeker, gave you a better face, reduced your need for peripherals, and doubled your shelf life over the current regime of nootropic packs and neuro-lingistic recombinatory therapy. Which meant, he looked liked a Studio Idol on the cusp of legitimacy even though he was much older than I.

  He didn’t look happy though, and the emotive ionic shades of his top-floor office reflected his mood, making the enormous room seem both smaller and larger with its play of shadow and grey light.

  Standing inside the penthouse doors was an enormous presence. EnforD. I knew him, in fact. Simon Yullg. A knuckle-dragger with a long reach.

  “I’ve asked Chief Yullg to take some notes,” Prescott said, sensing my unasked question.

  “Of course,” I said, though we both knew Yullg wasn’t much for documentation. There’s a story that someone in FinD submitted a form to EnforD that didn’t have autofill, and Yullg tracked the poor bastard down and broke a digit for every field that didn’t validate. When Yullg ran out of fingers and toes, he went to the next three square and continued to mete out EnforD’s displeasure. It was, unfortunately, a rather long form.

  Doing my best to ignore the hulk of muscle in the corner, I walked over and put the ICEpak on Prescott’s desk. He slid out the single floppy inside and fanned it. To his credit, not a single muscle on his perfectly smooth face twitched while he scanned it.

  When he replaced the report in the envelope and held it out, Grimester, who had been hovering behind me, shot past my elbow and snatched the envelope. I didn’t have a chance to do anything but clench my sphincter a little tighter. Grimester pranced to the sidebar along the southern wall and put the ICEpak into the iToaster. The executive models had a setting for incinerate, which made the envelope flare for a fraction as it vaporized.

  “That’s probably not the only copy,” I pointed out.

  “True,” Prescott agreed. “But it is one less.”

  I tried to follow the reasoning there, but couldn’t. “That’s also not the first package I’ve received,” I added.

  “Through our own network, no less.”

  “Yes, sir. I figure that’s just to make us angry.”

  “Did it work?”

  “How so?”

  “Are you angry?”

  I looked at Yullg, who popped a joint in his jaw.

  “A little,” I admitted. “But it’s the sort of outrage that increases productivity.”

  “That’s good, Max.” He watched the iToaster as it auto-cleaned its bay of the gritty remnants. “What was in the first package?”

  “A term paper, from LVSIB.”

  His mouth tightened. “The actual paper, or just the citation?”

  “The actual paper.”

  “That is interesting.” he said.

  “How so?”

  “I never wrote it.”

  I was confused, and said as much.

  “I intended to. Or rather, I intended to put my name on it. But I never had the opportunity.”

  “This one certainly had your name on it.”

  “Hence why I thought it was interesting.”

  “Ah,” I said. Theory-brain told me to keep it simple. Let him talk.

  “Do you know who is doing this to me, Max?”

  “I’m working on it, sir. I have a—” Theory-brain made me bite my tongue. “I have some data that might be useful.”

  “Might?”

  “It’s still very theoretical.”

  He shrugged as if that detail wasn’t important. “Yullg doesn’t believe in theory. Perhaps you should give him this data.”

  I swallowed, and took a moment to gather my courage. This was, of course, the response theory-brain had tagged as highly probable, and in order to not get trapped with that suggestion, I had to proceed carefully. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea, sir.” When he didn’t say anything, I plunged on. “The packages are coming to me. Not you. At this point, this person believes I am integral to his design. If you re-chain this to EnforD, it’ll raise the profile of the issue. It’ll be harder to control.”

  He considered that for a fraction, his fingers idly drumming on his desk, and then he nodded. “Control is the issue, isn’t it, Max? If we do nothing, then the blackmailer doesn’t know if his messages are being received. He’ll wonder if he has control, and so he’ll keep sending packages.”

  “Allowing me time to identify and locate him.”

  “That is a dangerous proposition, Max. It offers . . . many variables.”

  I glanced back at Yullg. “He offers one. You sure you want to be that inflexible?”

  Prescott Four let his eyes flick toward his chief knuckle-dragger. “That is an interesting point, Max.” His fingers drummed once more on the desk and then stopped. “You have until the end of the rotation,” he said. “At which time, I will COCT your ICID to Yullg.” He flashed me a smile that was all teeth and no humor. “I’ll indulge your Theoretics for a cycle or two.”

  “Thank you, sir,” I said. “I will do my utmost to have this resolved ASAP.”

  “I hope so, Max,” Prescott said.

  Yullg popped his jaw again.

  *

  Trip BinBin was waiting at my office. “Did you find the tag?” I asked as I sat down behind my desk, and started to massage my temples. I always got a tension headache after meetings with upper management. Having Yullg there had only made this one worse.

  Trip hooted, and banged on his ‘tray keyboard. Trip was an IT monkey. A modified chimpanzee, he had a predilection for primary colors which expressed itself as a yellow beanie and a blue vest. His Jaynes LinkTray was slung low across his chest, and a large red “Free Genetics!” holostat curled around the bottom edge of the unit.

  The speakers set in the ‘tray housing popped with noise for a fraction before modulating into a human voice. I had been working with Trip long enough to know that first spit of sound wasn’t zero-tech feedback, but was a triggered sound effect—aural commentary on the synthesized human speech about to follow. “No tag.”

  The voice wasn’t the generic voxtrack, but one that had some subtle modulation and inflection. Like most IT monkeys, Trip was a tweaker. Every piece of hardware he used was a mod-kit; nothing ever stayed OTS long with them. “Log hole,” the voice added.

  “Really?” A log hole meant an AsManD discrepancy, a mismatch between electronic data and physical assets. “Where?”

  More banging. “Patent Directorate Asset transfix to FinD, part of SI & R.”

  Back to that again. The Systemic Introspect & Reorganization. The end of CorEsp brought about CILR, which in turn, led to the i3Cee. Prescott Four, during the media blitz showcasing the new era of ICE applied valuation, had been caught on-feed wondering how couriering packages could offer humanitarian reform. As a result, every division and directorate suffered through a costly self-analysis resulting in a number of early retirements, ROI layoffs, and internal restructuring. The SI & R.

  Se
cD had been defanged, and those of us who remained as desk monkeys became as inflexible and intractable as the extruded furniture in our three square meters of office space. Entropy was turning us into statues, one joint at a time. So much for humanitarian reform.

  PatD got swallowed by FinD, who, IIRC, had been mandated to become a visible asset, i.e. they had to operate black and not be a cost center any longer. The first response—like every moment of brain trust panic through the ages—had been to cut staff. While it had certainly helped FinD go black the first turn following the SI & R, it hadn’t done much to the IQ ratio of the Directorate.

  This was good news, after all. The GTAC/GMAC had belonged to one of the patent agents. I didn’t have a spoofer. One of the SI & R rifters had taken their terminal with them, and through some typical AsManD data contrafusion, the terminal had never been properly retired. Not entirely surprising, really. For a turn or two after the SI & R, there was a impenetrable flow of re-hires and consultants among the brain trust. “Who?” I asked Trip.

  “Kip Birmingham Sandeesh, Prime Doctor.”

  “Where can I find him now?” Suddenly, it seemed like my clever (read desperate) plan might actually work.

  “Deceased.”

  Or not.

  “Family?”

  “Grandson.” More key banging. “RPC null.”

  “That’s interesting,” I said, falling back on a phrase of Prescott Four’s. My theory-brain tried to construct a viable scenario. If the terminal still had its original GTAC/GMAC, then it should be visible on the iStructure dashboard. That would, in turn, give us a Ring Positioning Coordinate. It would follow that the son’s GPIT—if he was indeed behind this blackmail—should be readily available.

  Since it wasn’t, that certainly made the case for his being my prime suspect.

  “When did Prime Doctor Sandeesh expire?”

  “EOL 3T post-EOE.” A pause, inserted by a hairy thumb resting on a space bar. “Anniversary of EOL: 1Cyc.”

  “This rotation?”

  Trip triggered a noisy sound effect. His equivalent of confirmation.

  “Well, now . . . ” I mused.

  Grandfather gets WTFed during the SI & R. Dies three turns after leaving the company. The anniversary of his death was the first cycle of this rotation—the cycle before the arrival of the first package.

  The best part of this revelation was that I had an excuse to call Sophie.

  *

  While in-transit to the domicile still registered to the Sandeesh Familial Asset Library, I called her.

  Halfway through the protocol handshake, she was there in my head. “Hello, Max.”

  “You were right.”

  “Of course I was. Data integrity is not ICE’s—”

  “No, when you said there was a ‘but.’ You were right about that.”

  “Thank you, Max,” she said, her voice changing timbre somewhat clumsily. “I appreciate you acknowledging that point.”

  “But it wasn’t a spoofer. The terminal wasn’t properly retired. I’m going there now to retrieve it.”

  “What is your intention?”

  “I’m going to find the guy, and—”

  “With the terminal.”

  “Oh, ah, yank its data and melt its processor core, probably.”

  Her voice went cold on me. “Place it in electrostatic suspension and cede it to my Corporate Persona.”

  “Hang on—” My mail icon blinked. And look, she’s gone and started a document trail. “Okay. Can we discuss this first?”

  “There’s always room for discussion, but not on this topic. I have a security breach that requires reconciliation. I must protect my assets.”

  A mental image of Yullg and his large knuckles flashed through my head.

  “Of course,” I said, my mood deflating. “We’ve all got to cover our assets.” I glanced at the mail icon, triggering the menus, and marked the incoming message from her as R & U. “There.”

  “Thank you, Max.” She paused, and when she spoke again, her voice had returned to its softer tone. “You’re not happy. I can tell.”

  “No kidding.” I raised my eyes toward the ceiling of the ‘tubebus and shook my head. “It’s just—you know what? Never mind.” I should have ended the handshake, but I left it open. My theory-brain had nothing to offer.

  “I like your face better when you are smiling,” she said quietly.

  My head snapped down, and theory-brain started looking for EyeMonitors along the seams of the cabin. “You can see me? Right now?”

  “I can always see you, Max.” Her voice was almost a whisper, as if she was embarrassed to have been caught watching me, and then the handshake suddenly ended.

  But she kept watching, and when I nearly died at the Sandeesh domicile, she triggered the iMed alert that saved my life.

  *

  Prescott Four made a personal visit to my private room in the ICE infirmary. I caught sight of Yullg and Grimester outside as he shut the door.

  He dropped an opened ICEpak on my lap. “I’ve rechained your mail to Yullg,” he said. “This came a winding ago.”

  My hands were immobilized, and when Prescott Four didn’t make any effort to help me, I surmised that whatever had been in the package was already gone. Pre-censored for my protection. “What was it?”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  I blinked up the time, and realized it was still post-meridiem of the same cycle. “It came through the normal service?” I asked.

  “With the Gen-Y lot,” he said.

  The last run. “Two deliveries in one cycle?” My theory-brain pushed the question out of my mouth. “Why two?”

  He looked at me. “You told me there weren’t going to be anymore.”

  “No,” I clarified, “I said I was working on it, and that I had some ideas—”

  “Too many, evidently.”

  I shook my suspended arms. “Well, it got complicated.”

  “I can see that.” He sighed. “I sent Yullg to the Ring Positioning Coordinates from where iMed transported you.” He shook his head. “They chargeback us for these sorts of unscheduled deliveries, you know. A commensurate deduction will be attached to your PIPe.”

  “Of course,” I said. “Glad I could help offset the corporate deficit.”

  “Don’t mention it.” He waved off my thanks. “Unfortunately, Yullg only found . . . well, you made quite a mess.”

  I had very little recollection of what had happened. There had been something large and metallic waiting for me in the entry of the domicile. Something with bright lights and sharp bits. “Not my intention, sir.”

  “You’ve been at a desk for some time. I suppose that’s to be expected.” Even though he was being understanding, he still made it sound like it had been my fault. He pursed his lips. “I still need you, Max. Yullg has singular direction, and when there is no direction in which to point him . . . ”

  I lay there, with my arms in slings and my lower body immobilized by the straps of the bed, trying to look more capable than I felt.

  He stepped over the panel beside the bed and stroked the lit column of the iNurse. “Yes, Mr. Prescott,” a hermaphroditic voice answered.

  “Mr. Semper Dimialos is returning to his assigned duties,” Prescott said.

  “I am?”

  “The current status of Patient Semper Dimialos indicates a high probability of—”

  “Hmm,” Prescott interrupted. “Not relevant to my previous statement.”

  The iNurse modulated immediately, “—however, with a precisely calibrated, time-release pharmacopoeia, Patient Semper Dimialos will be able to resume his job functions.”

  “I will?”

  A iDoc arm telescoped out of the wall, and bent over my chest. Before I ask any further questions, the smooth tip of the surgical tool exploded into a confusion of knives, needles, and suction tips. It felt like a squid falling onto my chest, followed by a sharp prick of pain right through my breastbone, and then the iDoc arm retreated.


  “Patient Semper Dimialos is scheduled for a nominal bioscan next cycle at the ninth winding. Room 74.”

  “Don’t be late,” Prescott said as he left. “This affair is rapidly approaching critical mass, Max. There is already too much of a documentation trail. It must be archived before the media worms can scan it.”

  I looked at the strip of new skin on my chest, and wondered what had been put in me. It was starting to itch already, and Prescott hadn’t bothered to untether my arms from the ceiling mounts. Scratching this itch was going to be tough.

  *

  “Hello, Max.”

  “Do you have Eyetime on what happened to me?”

  “I do, Max.”

  I took a deep breath, and tried to ignore the weird hitch in my chest. Something felt metallic under my skin when I tapped. “Can I see it?”

  “It’s not very pleasant.”

  “You’ve seen it?”

  “More than once.”

  “Ah—” More than once? “Why?”

  She didn’t answer immediately, and I looked out the forward blister of the ‘tubebus for something to do while I waited her out.

  “Would you like to see it?” she finally asked. She had switched to the officious voice, the cold and efficient one.

  “Not particularly.”

  “Then why did you ask?”

  “I, ah . . . I wanted to know if there was anything useful. You know, some sort of clue. I must have been close to something useful to get jumped like that.”

  “Actually, Max, you triggered the standard domicile defensive array.”

  “Wait, there was nothing standard about that DDA. It nearly took—”

  Her voice changed back to the silky one. “Would you like to watch the feed with me?”

  *

  The room was dark beyond her, lit only by the blue-tinged glow of v-mon pips on the wall behind her. She was wearing something that moved like velvet smoke, and she wasn’t wearing any shoes but she still had her glasses on.