The Tourist

by Robert Dickinson

  “I’ve told you, Tunnel Boy, I’m not Geneva. If it’s just medical it won’t be reported.”

  “Unless he’s notable for something.”

  “I’ll do what I can.”

  “Thanks, Hayek. Do you want me to continue following the client?”

  “No. It’s too easy for her to lose you in London. I want you to come back. I have an address for this Delrosso. He’s a registered extemp.” He sends it: it’s on the other side of town from my flat, but on the way home. “I’ll do what I can with our girl. You should pay Delrosso a visit.”

  I want to tell him I’m a rep. I shouldn’t have to talk to extemps about their involvement with criminals. “Isn’t this a job for your people?”

  “I’ve cleared it with your manager.” Hayek is having fun. “All you have to do is ask questions.”

  “Questions. Should I start with a threat?”

  “Imply one. He’s an extemp. He’ll crack.”

  Two and a half hours later I’m in Picon Delrosso’s expensive neighbourhood. Big houses in a wide street with a lot of trees. His neighbours, according to native lore, are businessmen, football players and, mostly, other extemps. At home Picon was a regional resource administrator with a spotless record, unremarkable mid-level Facilitation. Here he lives in a walled-off house large enough to hold an entire kin. According to Hayek he lives alone. It’s not uncommon with extemps. Kinship obligation, along with the rest of our oppressive society, is one of the things they’re trying to escape.

  His gate, a wrought-iron thing in an antique style, is slightly ajar. There’s a silver vehicle in the drive that looks as if it hasn’t moved for a while. It’s tarnished and streaked and, around the wheels, weeds have pushed through the paving. There’s a stone path through a lush and overgrown lawn ringed with trees dripping from the recent rain.

  I push the button next to his door. There’s faint music coming from inside the house: rapture, which fits Picon’s age. Wandering lines over a rhythm like a slowing heartbeat, a favourite with the early users of tonin.

  The door is opened by a native woman. It’s always tricky guessing their ages. This one could be fifteen or she could be thirty. Her blank expression might be childish or it might be tonin or some native opiate. She stares up at me without saying anything.

  “I’m here to see Picon Delrosso,” I say.

  She continues staring.

  “I’m with the security team at Resort Four.”

  For a moment I wonder if she doesn’t understand This English. I’m about to try my Early-19th German when she steps back, turns and walks away. As she hasn’t closed the door I take this as an invitation.

  The hallway is big and empty. According to Hayek, Picon registered as an extemp ten years ago, which means he must have been among the first. He’s spent the last nine in this house. He hasn’t done much with the place. There’s no furniture in the hallway, the walls are a plain beige and the wooden floorboards an unpolished dark brown. The early tonin users—we used to call them raptives—usually prefer plain decor. It’s less distracting.

  The woman pads towards the source of the music. I follow with a sinking sense that Picon is going to embody all the worst stereotypes about extemps.

  He does.

  At the back of the house is a large room with big windows looking out over a garden as lush and untended as the one at the front. There are long sofas around the walls. The woman heads straight for one of these and lies down.

  Picon is sitting on the sofa on the right, talking into a phone. He’s a thin man with fine features and transplanted black hair. He talks while staring at a screen on the opposite wall. He’s using This English. “Fifteen per cent. No, fifteen. That’s what we agreed. Fifteen.” He sounds fluent, but then he should be after ten years. I can’t make out the other side of the conversation but I recognise the tone of somebody who wants more than fifteen per cent. If it’s a deal this could be interesting: extemps aren’t supposed to engage in business with the natives. Picon doesn’t seem concerned at being caught mid-negotiation. He glances at me and shakes his head as if he thinks I’ll sympathise with his difficulties. There’s another woman, similar to the first, sitting at his right. She’s staring at a mobile phone, native fashion. There are six or seven small devices on the cushions on his other side. None of them look like weapons. The screen shows images of natives milling around in the open as a horse is led across a patch of mud. “Thank you,” Picon finally says. He lowers the phone and glances up at me again and then sends a message. He picks up one of his devices and points it at the screen, which goes black. He picks up another and the music stops. He smiles at me. The smile is not friendly. “I don’t believe I know you.”

  “I’m from Resort Four. I’m here because of one of our clients.” I tell him our client’s name. I tell him she left the resort without informing us and we’re concerned.

  “You’re Safety?”

  “Happiness. A rep.”

  He relaxes slightly. “I see a lot of people here. I don’t remember that name.”

  “How about Christopher Gurley and Wilson Knight?”

  He pauses. I can almost hear him asking himself how much I’m likely to know. “I know Christopher Gurley, yes. That is,” he qualifies, “I’ve heard of him. I wouldn’t say I know him well.”

  “He’s following our client. When I asked him why he told me to talk to you.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me.” He tries to take control of the conversation. He’d been a regional resource administrator after all: he outranked me. He thinks he still does and—consciously or not—assumes the manner of an overworked manager listening to the tiny problems of a subordinate. “He’s trying to deflect attention from himself and I’m a known local figure. I have social contacts with many natives. Gurley knows them. He’s one of these people who hang around on the fringes, hoping to make money. But I wouldn’t use him.”

  “Why not?”

  “I hear he’s unreliable.”

  “Have you any idea why he might be following our client?”

  “What makes you think I should?”

  “We believe she was carrying tonin.”

  He shrugs. “I haven’t broken any protocol.”

  It’s the guiltiest thing he could have said. I gesture at the devices on the sofa. “Are you sure?”

  I was referring to his discussion about percentages. He misunderstands: he thinks I mean his native woman. “They’re old enough. Besides, the protocols prohibit the sale of technologies,” he says in a why-are-you-wasting-my-time voice. “They don’t say anything about personal use. If they did every rep at your resort would be in breach.”

  One of the devices next to him starts playing music. It’s another phone. “Sorry,” he says. “I should take this.” He hunches forward and talks quickly and quietly. It’s a brief conversation, this time in Modern. I hear enough to tell he’s giving directions. From his weary tone it’s information he’s had to give more than once. When he’s made his point he puts the phone down beside him and shakes his head. “I’m sorry about that. Visitors from the mainland. You were asking about your client. It’s true, yes, she was supposed to be bringing me tonin.” He sounds like he’s about to blame me for whatever went wrong.

  “Is that all she was doing?” There are other questions I could ask. How did he know to expect her, for example. How does he communicate with his old home? He must have a contact at the resort. I don’t push the point. I don’t want to cause trouble for some low-tier Happiness who isn’t doing anything illegal. “Do you know why she was at an airport?”

  “I don’t know what she’s doing. Perhaps she wanted to see the planes. When she didn’t turn up where she was supposed to I was concerned. A young person, alone, here for the first time. It can be confusing. I wanted to make sure she was safe, so I asked a friend to look out for her. He must have involved Gurley. Or Gurley heard about it and thought it was a chance to make money.”

  “You should have contacte
d the resort.”

  “That would have involved a Safety Team. I came here to avoid that sort of entanglement.”

  “So you involved people who know people like Gurley. Did you know his friend threatened me with a machete?”

  “With what?” He blinks at the word. “Whatever that is, I’m not responsible for it. I didn’t ask him to get involved.”

  “He was asking about signatures. Did you tell your friends about those?”

  “Of course not. Besides, what good would it have done them? When I heard she hadn’t gone back to the resort I said I’d look out for her in the usual tourist places and asked them to use their own resources. Like I said, one of them must have blabbed to Gurley. He’s acting on his own initiative.”

  “They followed her to the airport. Do you know how they might have found her?”

  “They’re resourceful, in their own way.” He looks thoughtful, as if he’s reconsidering his opinion of Gurley. “You have to remember these people aren’t stupid,” he says in a tone that suggests this is an important lesson I would do well to take to heart. “You can’t judge them by the standards of home. How long does a rep spend here? A year? Two years? And you spend most of that time in resorts, talking to tourists who are here for a month. Probably following the same script every time, taking them on excursions to the same few places. You might as well be back in the 24th. It’s different for us. We live here. We’re not entirely outside your society—how could we be? But we’re definitely not part of theirs. We know both sides watch us. Nobody trusts us. Why should they? We’ve turned our back on one side and we’re not allowed to join the other. Even if we wanted to, we’d never be able to belong. Other than prisoners, we’re probably the most carefully monitored people in history. Our credit is controlled by Geneva. They can tell us where to live and decide how much we spend. At any moment they can take everything away from us. The locals could do the same. One day enough of them might decide we’re the cause of all their problems. Have you seen this so-called March for Humanity? If their government agrees it can happen, things could get uncomfortable for us. But with all that, our life is better here than it was back in the cities. Our position may be insecure, but that’s the price of freedom. That insecurity has two consequences: we follow the protocols and we stick together.”

  It’s a fluent speech. I wonder if he’s adapted it from the one he gives to new arrivals. When he stops it’s a pause rather than a conclusion. When he starts again he’s a regional resource manager giving a dim subordinate the hard facts. “One way we keep together is by helping each other. It’s a system based on mutual obligation.”

  “A favour for a favour.”

  “Exactly. And tonin is the favour I provide.”

  “And what do you get in return?”

  “Contacts. Support. It’s hard to quantify. Sometimes there’s no immediate return. Sometimes it’s there just to make life more tolerable.”

  “Is it possible somebody else is selling your favours?”

  “It’s possible. But it’s unlikely. Everybody knows the rules.”

  “How are these favours shared?”

  “People come here. As guests. This is a big house. I get many visitors. Some of us like to travel. I’m one of the stops on the way.”

  “My last question: we know she went to London. Do you have any idea why?”

  “No,” he says sourly. “It’s a famous place. Maybe she grew tired of watching the planes and decided she wanted to see famous monuments instead. Maybe she’s found a buyer for my tonin in the community there. If I hear anything—” As if on cue his phone starts playing music again, a different piece this time. “For all I know this is her now.” He picks up the device and glances at the screen. “It isn’t.” He hunches forward and lowers his voice. Modern again. “No, that’s the day after tomorrow. It’s not here. It’s at Adnam’s…” I back away. The women don’t look up from their phones.

  Outside Hayek says, “That was a slight improvement, Tunnel Boy, but I’d still recommend formal training.”

  “What did you make of him?”

  “Based on what I could hear he had good taste in music.”

  “I wouldn’t have guessed you were a raptive.”

  “I was young once,” Hayek says in a faraway voice. “And human.” I assume it’s his idea of a joke. “But he was lying about something.”

  “How could you tell?”

  “Extemps are always lying about something.”

  An hour and a half later, I’m back at my typical single-person dwelling. I turn on my 21st media devices—laptop, television—and promptly fall asleep.

  I’m woken by a bip from Hayek. “We have news.”

  Three hours have passed. I’m still groggy. One day we will learn to do without sleep and all the inconvenient stages of semi-consciousness. I’m staring at a television screen. It shows a still picture of a flooded street and rolling text about a cricket score.

  “Our heart attack victim has died.”

  “Do we know who he was?”

  “I’m still waiting to be told.”

  “And our client?”

  “I will let you know when we find anything. In the meantime you should sleep. Your heart rate is elevated. You run the risk of hypertension.”

  “Thanks, Hayek.” He is monitoring my signature. “You can stop listening now.”

  “Tunnel Boy,” he says, “don’t you know the machines are always listening?”

  I recognise the question. It’s from Artegal, one of the earnest entertainments his generation listened to as children, a series about a benign superintelligence from the future. Cantor used to quote lines from it all the time: he thought it was hilarious. “Yes,” I recite back, “but do they understand what they hear?”

  “No, Yonec.” Hayek finishes the quotation. He can’t help himself. It’s probably burned into one of his augmentations. “But they remember until the understanding comes.”

  The state of the road

  You stop for a break. The back of the vehicle swings open and you see they’ve reversed into a hangar from which everything belonging to this era seems to have been removed. There are toilets at the far end and some food has been set out on a folding table. Their driver tells you they will stop for half an hour. Then they will drive for another four hours. Then you will be given a new driver. “So we should be there tomorrow?” It’s the first time you’ve spoken to her.

  She hesitates before answering. “The day after.”

  You realise you already knew this: you’d asked the same question that morning. You hope they haven’t noticed.

  Riemann waits until she leaves before he talks again. “When you travelled,” he begins. He considers the bread rolls in one of the containers. Eventually he picks one up and tears it open. “Could you eat the food?” Casually. You’re wary. That’s how they ask the important questions: quietly, while they pretend to be concerned about food.

  Or he really is concerned. This is his future. Maybe this thing that looks like bread isn’t bread. You remember having the same doubts.

  “I went back to the 21st.” You refused to answer questions at your trial and wouldn’t talk to Consideration Panels. You’re not sure why you’re ready to talk to him. Is it just because of his name? “The food was strange.”

  “What was it like?”

  You want to tell him: One day you’ll see for yourself. “How long have you been here?”

  “I arrived the day before I collected you.” He’s still considering his piece of bread. “I had one day for briefing. How long were you in the 21st?”

  He’s sly. You have to stop yourself from answering. Then you realise you couldn’t answer because you don’t remember. You thought you did, but it’s gone. “Everything in the 21st was made in factories,” you say. “I went to one of their markets. There was food from India, America, Africa. All over the world.”

  “I read about that. Did you try anything?”

  “I wasn’t there for t
he food.”

  He chews thoughtfully. “Why were you there?”

  Their hosts have been careful. They’ve provided only basics he might recognise: fats, protein, plant matter for decoration. It’s no better or worse than the food they gave you in prison. You take a mouthful of bread, partly to put off answering his question, partly to show him it’s safe. “We had to know what you were doing,” you finally say. You don’t know what he’s been told.

  “You should have asked. It was no secret. What we were doing was a salvage operation. We were rebuilding civilisation. Learning from the mistakes.” He says it as if he believes it. He’s young. “Nationalism, the way they organised society. The waste. But we also wanted to learn from the things they did right. Technology, culture. Things that were useful.” He nibbles at a crust. “Apart from watching us, what did you do?”

  “Culture.” Once again, you wonder how much he knows. Your trial and what happened next are in his future. “You sound like a Consideration Panel.” How much would they tell him about that when they won’t even let him travel in a vehicle with a window? “We knew about your culture. The clearances.” He doesn’t respond. Maybe he’s too young to have been told. You try a different approach: “These people you’re trying to find: why are they worth all this trouble?”

  “They’re well connected.” He doesn’t elaborate. He pretends to be fascinated by his food. You try to imagine his life. He’s sent forward to search a ruined city. When he goes back the city will still be alive. He’ll live to see it destroyed. And then, if it’s the same person, he’ll go back to the early 21st and look for you. Why? Because of what he sees? Or because of something you tell him?

  You say, “Two weeks.”

  He’s forgotten he asked the question. “What?”

  “The 21st. I was there for two weeks.” That’s all he needs to know.

  He chews thoughtfully. “It must have been memorable.”