Andy Behoo scratched at his arm awkwardly. “You do know you’ve been stung, don’t you?” he asked.
“Stung?” Louise took a guess. “You’re not talking about insects, are you?”
“No. The door sensors spotted it as soon as you and your sister came in. There are nanonic bugs in your skin; like miniature radios I guess you’d call them. They transmit all sorts of information about where you are, and what’s going on around you. There are four on you, Genevieve has three. That we can detect, anyway.”
She drew in a shocked breath. How stupid! Of course Brent Roi wouldn’t let her walk round freely. Not someone who’d tried to sneak a possessed down to Earth. He was bound to want to see what she did next. “Oh sweet Jesus.”
“I reckon Govcentral must be nervous about foreigners right now, especially as you come from Norfolk,” Andy said. “What with the possessed, and all. Don’t worry, this room is screened, they can’t hear us now.”
His sellrat swagger had diminished as he tried to reassure her. In fact, he’d become almost sheepish, which made him actually quite pleasant, she thought. “Thank you for telling me, Andy. Do you scan all your customers?”
“Oh yes. Mainly for dodgy implants. There’s quite a few gangs try to siphon our software fleks. Then we do sell bugs ourselves, see, so sometimes we get cops coming in and trying to find who those customers are. Jude’s Eworld has a strong neutrality policy, which we enforce. We have to, or we’d never sell anything.”
“Can you get them off me?”
“All part of our customer service. I can give you a more detailed scan, too, see if there are any others.”
She followed his instructions, standing in the cubicle, which gave her a comprehensive bodyscan down to a subcellular level. So now someone else knows I’m pregnant, she acknowledged in resignation. No wonder Earth’s population value their privacy so, they don’t get very much of it. The bodyscan located another two bugs. Andy applied a small rectangular patch similar to a medical package (same technology, he said) to her arms and leg; then she pulled up her T-shirt up so he could press it against her back.
“Is there any way of knowing if the police sting me again?” she asked.
“An electronic warfare block should tell you. We had a shipment of front-line equipment in from Valisk a couple of months back. I think there’s still some left. Good stuff.”
“I think you’d better put one of those removal patches on the list as well.” Louise called Genevieve into the room, and explained what’d happened. Thankfully her sister was more curious than outraged. She peered at her skin after Andy took the nanonic package away, fascinated by the removal process. “It doesn’t look any different,” she complained.
“They’re too small to see,” Andy said. “Which makes them too small to feel. They shouldn’t call it getting stung, really. More like being feathered.”
When Genevieve scooted back into the shop to continue her appraisal of consumer goodies, Andy handed over the box of Kulu Corporation neural nanonics to Louise. “You need to check the seal,” he said. “Make sure it hasn’t been broken, and see that the wrapping hasn’t been tampered with as well. You can tell that by the colour. If someone tries to cut or tear it, the stress turns it red.”
She turned it over obediently. “Why do I have to do this?”
“Neural nanonics connect directly into your brain, Louise. If someone changes the filaments or subverts the NAS codes they could get into your memories or manipulate your body like a puppet. This guarantees the set hasn’t been tampered with since it left the factory; and you have the Kulu Corporation’s assurance that their design wouldn’t sequestrate you.”
Louise gave the box a closer examination. The foil seemed intact and clear.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you,” he said quickly. “It’s a standard speech; we implant fifty of these a day. I mean, think what would happen to the shop or the manufacturer if anything like that did ever happen. We’d be lynched. It’s in our interest to make sure everything’s kosher for you. Another reason we have sensors at the door.”
“Okay, I suppose.” She handed the box back. Andy broke the seal in front of her, and took out a small black capsule a couple of centimetres long. He slotted that into the back of a specialist medical implant package. The only other item in the box was a flek.
“This is the operating didactic, which is standard, but it also contains the first time access code specific to this set,” he told her. “Basically, it allows you to activate the neural nanonics. After that, you change the code by just thinking of a new one. So even if someone got hold of your flek afterwards it wouldn’t do them any good. Don’t worry, it’s all explained in the didactic.”
She lay face down on the cushioned bench, with a pair of collar wings holding her neck steady. Andy pushed her hair to one side, ready to apply the medical package to the nape of her neck. There was already a tiny nearly-healed scar on her skin. He knew exactly what it was, he’d seen it a thousand times before, every time the implant package was taken off.
“Is everything all right?” Louise asked.
“Yes. No problem. It just takes a minute to line this up right.” He datavised the bodyscan cubicle’s processor. Its memory file of her scan confirmed there was absolutely no foreign matter in her brain.
Andy took the coward’s way out and said nothing. Mainly because he didn’t want to alarm her. But something here was desperately wrong. Either she was lying to him, which he couldn’t believe. Or . . . he couldn’t quite decide what the other options were. He was trespassing deep in Govcentral territory. All that did was enhance her mystery up to the level of pure enchantment. A babe in distress right out of the sensevise dramas. In his shop!
“Here we go,” he said lightly, and put the package over her existing scar. Now there would never be any proof.
Louise tensed slightly. “It’s gone numb.”
“That’s okay. It’s supposed to.”
All the medical package did was open a passage through to the base of the skull, and ease the capsule containing the densely pleated neural nanonics into place. Then the filaments began to unwind from each other and porrect forward, their probing tips slowly winding their way round cells as they sought out synapses. There were millions of them, active molecular strings obeying their AI formatted protocol; instructions determined by their own structure of spiralling atoms. They formed a wondrously intricate filigree around the medulla oblongata, branching to connect with the nerve strands inside while the main filaments seeped further into the brain to complete their interface.
With the implant package in place, Andy fetched the didactic imprinter. Louise thought it looked like a pair of burnished stainless steel ski glasses. He put the flek in a small slot at the side, and placed it carefully on her face. “This works in pulses,” he said. “You’ll get a warning flash of green, then you’ll see a violet light for about fifteen seconds. Try not to blink. It should happen eight times.”
“That’s it?” The edges of the imprinter had stuck to her skin, leaving her in total blackness.
“Yep, not so bad, is it?”
“And this is the way everyone on Earth learns things?”
“Yes. The information is encoded within the light, and your optic nerve passes it straight into your brain. Simple explanation, but that’s the principle.”
Louise saw a flicker of green, and held her breath. The violet light came on, an otherwise uniform sheen broken by that unique monotone sparkle which a laser leaves on the retina. She managed not to blink until it went off. “Your children don’t go to school?” she asked.
“No. Kids go to day clubs, keeps them busy and you make friends there. That’s all.”
She was silent for some time, considering the implications. The hours—years!—of my life I have sat in classrooms listening to teachers and reading books. And all the time, this way of learning, of discovery, existed. One of the demonic technologies that will ruin our way of life. Banned with
out question. That’s nothing to do with keeping Norfolk pastoral, that’s denying people opportunity, stunting their lives. It’s worse than cousin Gideon’s arm. She clenched her teeth together, suddenly very, very angry.
“Hey, are you all right?” Andy asked timidly.
The violet light came on again. “Yes,” she snapped primly. “I’m fine, thank you.”
Andy didn’t say anything else until the didactic imprinter finished. Too scared he’d say the wrong thing again and annoy her further. He hadn’t got a clue why her mood had swung so fast. When the imprinter did come off, it revealed a very pensive expression.
“Could you do me a favour?” Louise said. A knowing smile licked along her lips. “Keep an eye on Genevieve for me. I promised I’d buy her something from here, so if you could steer her to some kind of gadget that’s relatively harmless I’d be grateful.”
“Sure, my pleasure. Consider her guarded from any possible digital grief.” Andy had to use a nerve override impulse to prevent her from seeing how crushing that request was. He’d been counting on using the time it took to implant the neural nanonics to talk to her. Yet again, Andy blows out, he raged silently. Just once, I’d like to score with a major babe. Once!
The games section wasn’t nearly as exciting as Genevieve had expected. Jude’s Eworld was actively promoting a thousand games through its display screen catalogues, with direct access to ten times that many over encrypted links to publishers; covering the whole genre from interactive roles to strategy general’s command. But as she flipped through them she could see they were all variants of each other. Everybody promised newer, hotter graphics, unrivalled worldbuilding, tac-stim activants, ingenious puzzles, more terrifying adversaries, slicker music. Always greater than before, never different. She sampled four or five, standing inside a projection cone beamed out from a high-wattage AV lens on the ceiling. Bore-ing. In truth, she’d begun to tire of them back on the Jamrana ; like spending a whole day eating chocolate cake, really.
There didn’t seem to be much else in Jude’s Eworld that was interesting. Their main market was neural nanonics and associated software, or else no-fun processor blocks with strange peripherals.
“Hi. How’s it going, there? Are you hyping cool yet?”
Genevieve turned to see the gruesomely oiky little shopboy Andy smiling ingratiatingly at her. One of his front teeth was crooked. She’d never seen that on someone his age before. “I’m having a lovely time, thank you so much for caring.” It was the tone that would earn her a sharp slap from her mother or Mrs Charlsworth.
“Uh huh.” Andy grunted, fully flustered. “Er, I thought perhaps I could show you what we’ve got to offer for kids your . . . I mean, the kind of blocks and software you might enjoy.”
“Oh whoopee do.”
His arms re-arranged themselves chaotically, indicating the section of the shop he wanted her to move towards. “Please?” he asked desperately.
With an overlong sigh and slouched shoulders, Genevieve shuffled along despondently. Why does Louise always attract the wrong type? she wondered. Which sparked an idea. “She’s got a fiancй, you know.”
“Huh?”
A modest smile at his horror. “Louise. She’s engaged to be married. They announced the banns at our estate’s chapel.”
“Married?” Andy yelped. He flinched, looking round the shop to see if any of his colleagues were paying attention.
This was fun. “Yes. To a starship captain. That’s why we’re on Earth, we’re waiting for him to arrive.”
“When’s he due, do you know?”
“A couple of weeks, I think. He’s very rich, he owns his starship.” She glanced round in suspicion, then leaned in towards the boy. “Don’t tell anyone I said this, but I think the only reason Daddy gave his permission was because of the money. Our estate is very big, and it takes a lot to keep it running.”
“She’s marrying for money?”
“Has to be. I mean he’s so old. Louise said he’s thirty years older than she is. I think she was fibbing so it didn’t sound so bad. If you ask me, it’s more like forty-five.”
“Oh my God. That’s disgusting.”
“It looks so awful when he kisses her, I mean he’s virtually bald, and hideously fat. She says she hates him to touch her, but what can she do about it? He’s her future husband.”
Andy stared down at her, his face stricken. “Why does your father allow this?”
“All marriages are arranged on Norfolk, it’s just our way. If it makes you feel any better, I think he really likes Louise.” She’d have to stop now. Crying shame, but it was getting really difficult to keep a straight face. “He keeps on saying he wants to have a big family with her. He says he expects her to bear him at least seven children.” Jackpot! Andy had started trembling with indignation—or worse.
Her day made, Genevieve gently took his hand in hers, and smiled up trustfully. “Can we see the hyper cool electronics now, please?”
Understanding arrived within Louise’s mind like a solstice sunrise. Quietly irresistible, bringing with it a fresh perspective on the world. A new season of life begun.
She knew precisely how to utilise the augmented mentality opening up within her brain as the filaments connected with her neurones, controlling the expanded potential with an instinct that could have been a genetic heritage it was so deep seated. Audio discrimination, analysing the murmur of sounds resonating through the door from the shop. Visual memory indexing, saving and storing what she saw. Pattern analysis. A test datavise, requesting an update from the medical package on her wrist. And the neuroiconic display, sight without eyes, moulding raw data into colour. It left her giddy and sweating from excitement. The sense of achievement was extraordinary.
I’m equal to everybody else now. Or I will be when I’ve learned how to use all the applications properly.
She datavised the implant package on her neck for a status check. A procedural menu sprang up inside her skull, and she ran a comparison. It confirmed the implantation process was complete. She instructed the package to disengage, withdrawing the empty capsule from which the filaments had sprouted, and knitting the cells together behind it.
“Steady on,” Andy said. “That’s supposed to be my job.”
Louise grinned at him as she climbed off the bench, and stretched extravagantly, flexing the stiffness out of limbs held still for too long. “Oh, come on,” she teased. “All your clients must do that. It’s the first taste of freedom we get. Having neural nanonics must be like being allowed to vote, you’ve become a full member of society. Aren’t they wonderful gadgets?”
“Um. Yeah.” He got her to lean forwards, and peeled the implant package from her neck. “You can actually become a full citizen, you know.” The strangely hopeful tone earned him an inquisitive look.
“What do you mean?”
“You could apply for residential citizenship. If you wanted. I checked the Govcentral legal memory core. It’s no problem; you just need a Govcentral citizen to sponsor you, and a hundred fuseodollars fee. You can datavise them for an application. I’ve got the eddress.”
“That’s um . . . very kind, Andy. But I don’t really plan on staying here for long.” She smiled, trying to let him down gently. “I have a fiancй, you see. He’s going to come and take me away.”
“But Norfolk laws wouldn’t apply to you,” Andy blurted desperately. “Not here. Not if you’re an Earth citizen. You’d be safe.”
“I’m sure I am anyway. Thank you.” She smiled again, slightly more firm this time; and slipped past him out into the shop.
“Louise! I want this,” Genevieve shrieked. The little girl was standing in the middle of the shop, arms held rigid at her side as she turned round and round. There was a small block clipped onto her belt with DEMONSTRATOR printed in blue on its top. Louise hadn’t seen her smile like that in a long time.
“What have you got, Gen?”
“I gave her a pair of realview lenses to try,” An
dy said quietly. “Like contact lenses, but they receive a datavise from the block which overlays a fantasyscape on what you’re seeing.” He datavised a code to her. “That’ll let you view direct from the block.”
Louise datavised the code, marvelling at how smoothly she did it, and closed her eyes. The world started to spin around her. A very strange world. It had the same dimensions as the inside of Jude’s Eworld, but this was a cave of onyx, where every surface corresponded to walls and counters, fat stalagmites had replaced the flek sale bins. People had become hulking black and chrome cyborgs, whose limbs were clusters of yellow pistons.
“Isn’t it fabulous?” Gen whooped. “It changes whatever you look at.”
“Yes, Gen, it’s good.” She saw the mouth on one of the cyborgs clank apart to speak her own words, and smiled. The cyborg’s mouth froze open. Louise cancelled her reception from the realview block.
“You can get about fifty different imagery programs for it,” Andy said. “This one’s Metalpunk Wasteland. Quite popular. There’s an audioplug peripheral to change the voices.”
“Please, Louise! This one.”
“All right, all right.”
Andy datavised an off code to the demonstrator block. Genevieve pouted as the cave melted back into the shop. Andy started piling boxes and small flek cases up on the counter. “What supplements do you want?” he asked.
Louise consulted the market menu already included in the NAS2600. “News hound, global eddress directory search, people tracker . . . um the pregnancy supplement for my physiological monitor, universal message script. I think that’s it.”
“You’re entitled to another twenty.”
“I know. Do I have to collect them all today? I’m not really sure what else I’ll need.”
“Take as much time as you need to choose, and drop in whenever you want. But I’d recommend netA, that’ll give you your own eddress, you’ve got to pay an annual fee to the link company, but nobody will be able to contact you without one. Oh, and streetnav, too, if you’re going to stay in London—shows you the short cuts and how to use public transport.”
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