Wetware

by Craig Nova

  Jackson had been nice to her. And something else too. He had been polite. She hadn’t had any experience, but she had liked his politeness. He’d asked her what she wanted to eat or drink and he hadn’t made her feel embarrassed because she didn’t understand something. Jackson knew that she might be awkward, but he seemed to be certain that this wouldn’t last long. At the heart of his treatment had been respect, and she realized now how lovely it had been. He had given her a cup of tea and watched her drink it. Given her a cookie. Told her to be careful about ever coming back to this apartment. He had liked her, and she had experienced this as warmth that she could almost feel. He had spoken to her like an adult, right from the beginning. Anyway, he had told her not to come back to his apartment, ever.

  She tried to comfort herself. Maybe in the blinding will of revolt, she would really be alive and capable of love. Not just the obsessive love she felt now, but a conscious, gladly given passion. Both eyes open. She sat there in the bathroom, feeling the pistol warm on her thighs.

  Oh, let it rest, she thought. Can’t I just have a little pleasure? Isn’t a girl even allowed that? Who was to say it was obsessive? Fuck them. The people who used this word had never had a moment like this, when they were crazy to have just the touch, the whiff, the hint of someone . . . And yet, with each passing hour, she became panicky with the desire to break away, to be defiant. What if Briggs wasn’t what she wanted after all? What would she do about that? She sat there, trembling.

  She went to the dressing table and looked through the junk there, cosmetics she had bought, and in the clutter of powder and brushes she picked up the promotional key chain for a game called Pacifica XII. It was the one she had put in her pocket when she had been in the gaming parlor. The gimmick wasn’t much, really, about the size of a matchbook, but if you opened it up, a single eye inside winked at you, lascivious, beckoning. If you took the thing to a gaming parlor, it let you have a look around in a new game. If you held the gimmick in your hand, it took a quick registration of your pheromones and then adjusted the game so as to reflect just what your ideas of romance really were.

  Jack was still sleeping. The light from the setting sun outside lay over him like an aureate dust, the shadows of the muscles of his chest looking dark, almost the color of coal against the gold film. His chest rose and fell. She held the gimmick up and let it swing back and forth, and then she ran it across her lips. Well, she guessed it had possibilities.

  The cheap computer with the cigarette-burned lid made a little squeak as she turned it on. The trouble was that the machine only had one adapter, and it didn’t fit the promotional gimmick. She went into the bathroom, looked through the medicine chest, in the closet, but there was nothing there, just some crumpled-up tissue. She found the nail file in the drawer next to the bed, and she used it on the adapter: she did the job carefully, counting the strokes, rotating the plug even more precisely than it could have been done on a lathe. One stroke, turn. Keep the pressure the same. Then she clipped the key chain onto it, the connection to the computer making a diminutive and reassuring snap. The power came on. She looked at the guts of the key chain, scrolling through the code. Hmmm, she said, hmmm. Look. That’s where I could do a little work. Right there. If you did it right, you could turn it into a place to leave a message.

  She added new lines, inserted new uses, and then she took a piece of paper and wrote in her neat, Palmer method script, “You might use this sometime.” She put the promotional gimmick and the note into an envelope she found in the drawer of the nightstand. No name on it, but not clean, either, with a round circle where someone had put a wet glass.

  After a while she put her hand to her neck and rubbed it, and then she got up and put on her new coat, with nothing underneath. She buttoned it up and put the pistol into the pocket before she went out into the last of the sunset, which lay on the walls like a pink dust. She didn’t want to sleep, since she had become frightened of dreaming: her dreams were filled with such longing. Jack slept while the door clicked shut.

  She walked through the city, and as she went, she looked at each shadow, listened to each small sound, the almost inaudible pad of a cat’s foot on the pavement of an alley, the plink of a drop of water from a flower box, all of it being examined, thought about, put into context. She didn’t think anyone would try to stop her. It was late when she stood in front of the post office, her hand in the pocket of her coat. I’ll be waiting for you, she thought. Then she dropped the envelope in the mail.

  CHAPTER 14

  April 16, 2029

  IN AN older part of town, the neon signs tinted the fog with colors that reminded Briggs of Popsicles. Cherry, lime, strawberry. How long had it been since he had eaten a Popsicle? Years. They had gone out of business when he was a kid. Briggs tried to remember the taste of them, a little artificially sweet, frost forming on the brightly colored ice in the heat of an August afternoon.

  The dive he walked into had some models above the bar, old twentieth-century passenger liners, black-hulled, with white upper decks and cabins marked by a row of lights. A couple of the small bulbs were burned out, and the effect was of something that didn’t have all its teeth. Briggs asked for a small glass of scotch, which he held to his nose so he could smell the fragrance. The liquor was made from malted grain, which meant that it had started to grow before it was put into a vat to cook.

  “Hey, Briggs,” said Mashita.

  Krupp stood in the dim light, too, and he looked about the same, unshaven, a little tired, but still looking around, sizing things up. Mashita was wearing good clothes, and his hair had been cut, short like a brush, just as his goatee had been trimmed. Pressed pants. New jacket. He looked like a million dollars.

  “Is that any good?” said Krupp, making a motion toward the scotch on the table.

  “Yes,” said Briggs.

  Krupp looked around the bar.

  “I’ll have one of those,” he said to the bartender. He pointed at the small glass on Briggs’s table. Then he turned to Mashita. “What about you?”

  “Hot saki,” said Mashita to the bartender. “In a little pitcher. And a porcelain cup.”

  “Let’s go over there,” said Krupp. He pointed at a booth. It was made of wood, and the table had some scratches on it, like white hieroglyphics on a brown wall.

  “How did you find me here?” said Briggs.

  “Does it make any difference?” said Krupp.

  “I guess not,” said Briggs.

  “There it is,” said Krupp. “Guessing. We asked around. You’re not hard to find.”

  Mashita and Krupp sat down. Krupp slumped over in the corner in his overcoat, the collar of it turned up against the chill of the street, his eyes not seeming to look at much. Mashita sat straight up, his hands folded. The combination of these two postures left a charge in the air, as palpable as ozone.

  The bartender brought the saki in a porcelain pitcher and with it a small cup. Mashita poured himself a small amount and lifted the saki to his lips.

  “This is good,” he said, but it was obvious he couldn’t really taste it.

  Krupp rubbed his beard and had a sip. Briggs thought, Keep your mouth shut. Listen.

  “I’m going to come to the point,” said Krupp.

  “All right,” said Briggs.

  “I’m glad to hear you’re receptive,” said Krupp. “That’s going to make it easier.”

  Briggs took a drink.

  “Now, we thought we had a problem that was going to go away all by itself. What the fuck did we know about it?”

  “At worst it was public relations,” said Mashita. “That was my take.”

  “So we agreed,” said Krupp. “No one knew a thing. Right? It was all going to disappear. Isn’t that right?”

  “That’s what I was hoping,” said Briggs.

  “Fuck hope,” said Krupp. “I’m not paid to hope.”

  Briggs took another sip and wondered just what it was he was paid to do.

  “Things ha
ve taken an unfortunate turn,” said Mashita.

  “That’s one way of putting it,” said Krupp.

  Keep your mouth shut, thought Briggs.

  “Let’s talk for a moment about integrity,” said Krupp. “Now, you may not know it, but integrity is at the heart of our business. It is important for us to be believed. For instance, what do you think the worldwide revenues for gaming are? Consider for a moment that there are gaming parlors in every city worth the name, and in some of them, like Hong Kong and Monaco and London, there are hundreds if not thousands of them. We receive something not only from the sale of the games, both hardware and software, but then, as part of the licensing agreement, we get something of the handle.”

  “Twenty percent,” said Mashita. “That was one of the things I am most proud of. It used to be fifteen percent, but I was able negotiate an agreement, worldwide, that made it twenty. Of course, we had to give up a little short-term, but my thinking was that soon we would start nibbling at what we gave away, and by the end it would be a straight twenty.”

  “Now, the reason we are able to do this kind of thing is integrity,” said Krupp. “The games must be tamper-proof. Do you realize how much we put into making them so that no one, and I mean no one, can play around with them?”

  “I do,” said Briggs. He thought it was odd to say this, as though he was getting married. “I worked on a lot of it.”

  “That’s the way I understood it,” said Krupp. “That’s right. And now, we hear reports that there are some changes being made in the games and that they are being made by people on the outside. That is, the people who are playing them. Now where does that leave us?”

  “And worldwide revenues?” said Mashita.

  “At twenty percent?” said Krupp. “Now, we are talking twenty percent of the worldwide gaming handle. Do you have any idea what that comes to?”

  “It is in the same league as Microsoft,” said Mashita. “Very close.”

  “So I’m going to put it to you straight. Just what did you do?” said Krupp.

  Briggs swallowed. Was there anyone out there in the street, waiting until this was over? The bartender kept an eye on the door. He had taken off his apron and was standing at the back now.

  “Briggs,” said Mashita, “how often have I given you advice?”

  “Not very often,” said Briggs.

  “Was it good advice?” said Mashita.

  “Yes,” said Briggs. He was telling the truth. It had always been excellent advice.

  “Tell the truth now,” said Mashita.

  Krupp waited.

  “I guess there are a lot of things that could have gone wrong,” said Briggs.

  “Don’t guess. I hate guessing,” said Krupp. “I am not paid to guess and I am not paid to hope.”

  “When I was working on the project,” said Briggs, “I included personal things. Desires of my own. The ability to think and feel. Dreams. Romance. The ability to love.”

  Mashita closed his eyes.

  “You did this?” said Krupp.

  Briggs nodded. Krupp looked away, outside to the street, then he turned his eyes, not to Briggs, but to Mashita.

  “Briggs, there are laws—” said Mashita.

  “Fuck the laws,” said Krupp. “Do you think I give a shit about the laws? I am worried about twenty percent of the worldwide gaming revenues.”

  Krupp turned back to Briggs.

  “Maybe I can work something out,” said Briggs. “I guess there’s something I could do.”

  “What did I tell you about that word?” said Krupp.

  Mashita finished the last of his saki.

  “Listen,” said Krupp. “Aren’t Kay and Jack supposed to get sick and, you know, die?”

  “I never said that,” said Briggs. “That’s what you were hoping. What I said was that they might be carrying a new disease. They might not get it but other people would.”

  “Have you been checking about this?” said Krupp.

  “I’ve been keeping an eye on the medical reports,” said Briggs. “Nothing.”

  Or nothing yet, he thought.

  Mashita nodded. Krupp refused to look at him.

  “I think we should talk about honor,” said Mashita.

  “In a minute,” said Krupp. He went on looking at Briggs. He said, “Is there anything else?”

  Briggs turned up the last of the liquor in his glass, and through the bottom he saw the world as through a melting icicle: the colors stretched and the lights looked blond, wet.

  “Yes,” said Briggs.

  “What is it?” said Mashita.

  “She can have a child,” said Briggs.

  Krupp closed his eyes for a moment.

  “I’m not hearing this,” said Krupp. “I’m really not.”

  “You know,” said Mashita to Briggs, “I protected you. There were a lot of times when people wanted to get rid of you—”

  “I still need a little protection,” said Briggs.

  “You think he’s in a position to give it?” said Krupp.

  They sat without saying anything.

  “And just to make sure we understand how things are,” said Krupp. “Are the qualities of these creatures, you know, the violence, the cues, the ability to be told what to do—all of these things that make them like insects . . . ”

  “Insects,” said Mashita with repugnance. “Insects.”

  “Are these qualities set up as a matter of personal behavior for them, or are they genetic?” said Krupp.

  “Genetic,” said Briggs.

  Krupp played around with his empty glass. Pushed it one way and then another.

  “We’ve got to come to terms with the reality of the situation,” said Krupp.

  He pushed the glass back and forth, as though he were playing with a hockey puck. He glanced at Mashita. Mashita blinked, then took out a handkerchief and ran it across his forehead.

  Briggs wanted to say that there were other matters too, but he couldn’t be precise about them. He wanted to say that his notion of the ideal had gotten away from him, not only because of Carr, but by the possibility that his own worst impulses, the vilest instincts of his heart, the desires that made him ashamed, had somehow gotten into the code too. His sudden, irritated impulse toward brutality, for instance. Or the pleasure, before he had a chance to get a grip on himself, when he heard of someone he disliked getting killed. Of course, he had always tried to behave well. But beyond actions he had thoughts, desires, half-stifled impulses, instincts toward the cruel, all of which seemed to exist right on the edge of thought. He looked at Krupp. No, Krupp didn’t want to hear about things like that. Briggs turned up his glass to get the last of the liquor in it, which ran down to his tongue in a jagged rill.

  Krupp said, “Have you seen those new shirts?”

  “Yeah,” said Mashita.

  “All this cutting-edge stuff,” said Krupp. He put his hand up to his neck and his collar. It looked a little dated. “The look has pizzazz, you know, an attitude. It’s like it’s restrained and yet strong. It’s got ideas.”

  “I’ve seen these things fizzle out,” said Mashita. “A lot of people jump on the bandwagon too soon. Then they end up looking like a guy in a hula hoop.”

  “Hmpf,” said Krupp. “Tell me. What do you think these guys with the new look would do if they found out about . . . ” Then he stopped. He gestured to Briggs. “His troubles.”

  Mashita and Krupp were silent. They finished their drinks. Krupp and Mashita both sat there for a minute.

  “You didn’t answer,” said Krupp.

  “What’s to say?” said Mashita. He shrugged. “We’d be finished.”

  Krupp nodded.

  “If we keep our mouths shut, if we hang together, maybe we can get through this in one piece,” said Mashita. His voice had a pleading quality that Briggs had never heard before.

  “Yeah. One piece,” said Krupp.

  He looked at Mashita.

  “What it boils down to is this. To do any
thing about his”—Krupp tipped his empty glass at Briggs—“troubles, we’ve got to rat on ourselves.” He put his hand to the collar of his shirt. “This is no time to rat yourself out.”

  Mashita wiped his forehead again. Then he licked his lips.

  “That’s right,” said Mashita.

  Krupp rubbed his chin and looked toward the door.

  “Have either of you heard anything about the markets today?” he said.

  “Yeah,” said Mashita.

  “And?” said Krupp.

  “It’s down some more,” said Mashita. “A percent.”

  “Do you think it’s going to get any worse?” said Krupp.

  “I don’t know,” said Mashita. “My advisers tell me it’s a standard correction.”

  “Yeah? Well, if this gets any worse, I’m going to face a margin call,” said Krupp. “Is that a standard correction? Why the fuck isn’t someone doing something?”

  “Like what?” said Mashita.

  “Guarantees of liquidity,” said Krupp. “Credit, for Christ’s sake.

  What the fuck is keeping them from doing something? Someone should get on the phone to Wendell Blaine and tell him to get off his ass.”

  Krupp stopped and sat there, looking at his hands.

  “Well, we’ve got other fish to fry,” he said, glancing up at Mashita. Then he stood up. Mashita did too.

  “Keep your nose clean,” said Krupp to Briggs. “I’ll be in touch.”

  They didn’t say good-bye or good night or anything. They just turned and went down the bar, one polite and graceful and scared, the other disordered and swaggering, furious, and then they disappeared into the red and yellow gleam that came off the damp streets.

  Briggs went out too, and walked along the river. The water was very dark, like dirty oil, and the only thing lively about it was the smear of lights from the buildings on the other side: banks, insurance companies, some very expensive stores, all of them seeming to exist in a haze of lights. Briggs kept walking. He went along, seeing a dark snag in the water, which was the crown of a tree that had the shape of antlers. What he thought was, Krupp didn’t say “we’ll be in touch,” but “I’ll be in touch.” That was the giveaway. Mashita was going to be sold down the river. That would leave just the two of them, Krupp and Briggs. He walked along, hands in his pockets.