A world of avatars and avarice. How does it look? I’m often asked. How does it feel to be inside? But it isn’t how it looks that strikes one most, nor how it feels. It’s how it smells.
For just as every stock and share, every commodity and company has its own colour and shape, its own density and viscosity, its warmth or frigidity, so it also has its scent. It can be fresh or stale. Colour and shape, they’re indicators, certainly, but smell is what I ‘look’ for, what I sniff out, as I make my way.
Freshness is all. At least, for what I do.
Trading results, capital growth, investment and R & D, recruitment policy, new patent registration – all these are reflected in the smell of a company’s shares. If the company is young, dynamic, get-ahead, it has a green, springlike freshness to its smell. It will emit… pheremonally, that is. Whereas an ageing company whose sales are falling, whose staff are leaving; a company dependent on financial cushioning, let’s say. Well… do you know the smell of dead meat?
I close my eyes sometimes – metaphorically speaking – and smell my way about the datscape, sensing the acid-taste of some giant plastics company on my tongue, the tickle of shipping stocks in the fine hairs of my nasal passages.
There is a primacy to smell. It doesn’t lie the way that colours lie. A fresh paint job… you can’t do that with a smell. You can try to mask it, to deodorize it, and only a fine nose can discern that.
Which is what I’ve been trained for. It is all breathed in, you see, through the fine filter of my mask. Information. Endless information. Processed not as a computer might process it, but in a primal, instinctive fashion, using the back brain. For my job is a process of letting go. Of submitting to the Market.
The best of us don’t simply look around, we trawl the Market. We suck it all in, let it fill our pores and overload our senses, hunters in some dark, primeval forest. A hundred and fifty thousand years of instinctive decision-making gathered in, life and death stuff, fine-tuned, fine-focused for this brave new world.
But I mislead you. You might think I am alone here. Far from it. The datscape is alive with avatars; not only the servants of the eight big companies that service the virtual Market, but those of the fourteen hundred and ten much smaller brokers that prey like lampfish in its stygian depths.
How many? Fifty thousand, perhaps, at any one time. It depends. Some are conservatively ‘dressed’, as samurai, perhaps, or famous captains of industry, but there are pirates too and dragons and other mythical creatures, gods and heroes, lobsters and robots, lions and Lilliputians, hill trolls and hobbits, bulls and bears, spiders and grey-bearded sages, Eurydice and…
Whatever the imagination can devise, you’ll find it here, walking the Dantean circles of this great Erewhon – this nowhere place – crawling up its walls or flapping their great wing-ed arms across the inner sky.
Only right now I am heading for the future. And before you ask, let me answer you. You can walk there. You need only move your virtual legs and there, on the far side of the cavern, lies a doorway, or rather, a membrane. You just have to step through. There, on the far side, in a cooler, less-crowded, less eye-disturbing place, the future waits, silent and sterile, a great warehouse of what-will-be.
There is marginally less here than in the present, and as one walks on, further into the weeks and months ahead, so the landscape grows less crowded still, until, a year or so ahead, there’s empty floor space under foot. Here, one can identify stocks and commodities at a glance.
Yes, and here’s where I do much of my business: identifying what’s going up and what down, which is a good risk and which poor, using what I’ve learned from the ‘Now’ of the datscape, to gamble on the ‘Then’ of this other place. Buying cheap to sell dear a year from now. Guaranteeing supplies for my masters and oiling the wheels of commerce in the years to come. Making sure it all continues.
Futures. That’s what I do. I deal in Futures.
The cameras stopped. Behind the actor, dangling in his harness, the elegant curve of the blue screen reappeared as the projection vanished.
‘Okay, Jake… that’s great… word perfect… and great visuals too…’
Slowly they lowered him.
‘Jeez, it’s hot in this…’
He was dressed as a massive go piece; a huge black stone, tiny limbs and an equally tiny head sprouting from the curved, unblemished surface.
‘Stop moaning,’ Carl, the director, called to him. ‘You’re being paid twice what you’re worth!’
It wasn’t true, but it didn’t matter. He liked doing this stuff.
As his feet touched the floor, the prop men hurried over, unhinging the costume and letting him step free.
‘Have a shower, Jake, then we’ll talk.’
Jake nodded. He liked Carl. They had the same acerbic sense of humour. And Carl knew what he was doing. He had understood at once what Jake was getting at.
As he showered, Jake thought about the shoot. When he’d first become a login there had been no guidelines, no training ‘immersions’ to help him find his feet. He’d been thrown in at the deep end to sink or swim. But things had been different back then. The virtual Market had been so much smaller, so much easier to deal with. In the last ten years more and more companies had signed up, until now it was impossible to float a company without being in the datscape.
Now training was all the thing, and he, their star turn, their golden boy, had been asked to make the latest training immersion.
He stood beneath the hot air stream, drying off. Because of the shoot he had been given the evening off. Friends were coming round. They were going to have a meal and watch the latest episode of Ubik.
Chris and Hugo were coming, along with Jenny and Alex. And, of course, Kate.
Speaking of which…
Jake pulled on his shorts, then pressed the tiny implant that lay beneath the skin just below his right ear. At once he was connected up.
‘Get me Kate. Voice only.’
The implant vibrated gently. As it stopped, Kate’s voice filled his head.
‘Hi, sweetheart… how did it go?’
‘It went wonderfully. We got it in one. You still okay for this evening?’
‘Be there at seven.’
‘You can come earlier if you want.’
Her laughter made him smile. She knew what he meant.
‘Seriously. I’ve just got to have a quick word with Carl, then I’ll be home.’
‘Maybe… but I’m not promising. I’ve got to finish a few things.’
‘Okay… I love you.’
‘Love you, too.’
He cut the connection.
Turning, he noticed the steward standing against the wall across from him. The man’s head was bowed, his eyes averted, but Jake had the feeling that he’d been being watched.
‘You…’
‘Yes, Master?’
‘Book me a hopper. I want it on the roof in twenty minutes, okay?’
‘Yes, Master.’
Jake watched him go. Chinese. Of course he was. The Chinese got in everywhere these days; body servants and cleaners, receptionists and doormen. It seemed like there wasn’t a single service industry they hadn’t infiltrated.
He finished dressing and went back upstairs. Carl was waiting for him, sitting in the bar, the big picture window behind him giving a view of the river and the dense mass of high-rises that was the City.
‘What are you drinking?’ Carl asked, getting up and coming across.
‘Just a Coke.’
‘You don’t drink?’
‘Oh, I drink… but only when I’ve a day or two to recover. You can’t take any chances when you’re inside. You need your senses about you.’
Carl grinned. ‘Literally so, from what you were saying… A Coke it is, then.’
They went over to the bar.
As Carl ordered the drinks, Jake studied him.
‘If you don’t mind me coming to the point, what is it you want?’
&
nbsp; Carl turned, handed him his drink. ‘From you? Well, I certainly can’t match what you make with Hinton, but… if you want to do some more of this stuff… and I don’t just mean the corporate packages… well… I’d love to work with you.’
‘That’s very flattering…’
‘No. Not at all. You’re good. One of the best I’ve worked with. You’ve got a real gift for it, Jake. And that text… I loved it…’
‘I wish I could claim sole credit, but I had help from my friend, Hugo.’
‘Well, introduce him to me. Here’s my chip.’
Jake took it, stowed it in his pocket, then raised his glass to the other man. ‘Maybe… let me talk it through with my fiancée.’
‘You’re engaged?’
‘She doesn’t know it yet, but… yes…’
Carl’s eyes flew open wide. ‘You mean…?’
‘A permit, yeah… it came through yesterday.’
‘Christ! Then we have got a reason to celebrate!’
Jake smiled ‘I’d love to, only… Another time, eh?’
‘Sure. Take a copy of the chip for yourself. You’re welcome to call any time, day or night. My avatar fields all my contacts.’
‘Thanks. I will.’
The hopper was waiting for him on the roof, as he’d asked. There was no sign of the steward. Then again there was no reason for him to be there, only…
You’re getting paranoid…
Maybe, but they had been warned only last week. Industrial espionage was on the up. Yes, but the man worked for Bellini’s, and Bellini’s were a top-class establishment. They’d have double-checked his credentials before hiring him. Jake relaxed.
Even so, you had to be careful what you said and to whom.
He fingered the chip that was in his pocket. Carl, for instance, was extremely open in giving him his chip, especially as it was being handed on to someone he’d never met. It showed trust. Only trust wasn’t a strength these days. In some circles it was seen as a distinct weakness.
As the craft lifted and banked out over the river, Jake looked out to his left. He loved this sight, especially at this time of the day, with the sun turning the river into a snaking coil of silver and gold. He was looking back, past the enclaves, towards the poor districts. From this high up you could see the enclave walls, their creamy marble almost Mediterranean in the sunlight.
Like a fortress within that ancient sprawl.
Slowly they climbed. It was only five minutes to his apartment, but he wasn’t in a hurry. It was hours before his guests would turn up.
Across from him the new-builds began to climb the sky, endless needles of dark glass that surrounded the central ‘hub’ built in and around the ancient heart of the City. Like something from the datscape. The Hinton building lay in the shadow of two other massive buildings, on old Eastcheap, its H-shaped structure adding a faint tinge of green to the blacks and greys and whites of the nearby buildings.
It wasn’t the biggest, not by a long way – that was the great pagoda-shape of the China Construction Bank – but it was getting a reputation as the best. In these harsh and unforgiving times Hinton rarely got it wrong, and Jake and the hand-picked team of logins he worked with were almost entirely responsible.
Hence today’s ‘immersion’. For if they were to maintain their steady climb to the number one spot, then they had to recruit the best and give them the best training possible.
Jake had bought his penthouse apartment in direct line-of-sight to his place of work. Every morning he would wake and go out onto the broad balcony and look across at it before breakfast with a kind of possessive fascination. Mind, it was hardly surprising. Hinton had recruited him at fourteen from among thousands of eager, fresh-faced applicants. They had sent him to their academy in the wilds of Cumberland. There he had begun the intensive training that had led to this, first as a ‘runner’, then as a ‘board-man’ and finally as a login – a ‘web-dancer’ as they sometimes called them.
It had been an exhaustive education and he had come out of it with Firsts in History, Economics and Political Science. The world had been his oyster – provided he stayed with Hinton.
Jake took out the tiny black and silver-blue chip Carl had given him and studied it a moment. A tiny hologram of Carl’s smiling face looked up at him from an octagonal inset at its centre.
It was flattering of Carl to offer him work – especially work in the media – but he enjoyed what he did far too much. In fact, some days he would simply stop and laugh aloud to think that they paid him so much to do the thing he loved.
Not that his bosses didn’t know that, but they pampered him anyway, keeping him ‘sweet’, giving him whatever he wanted.
Which was why he had his own entry pad to the Market, located in his apartment: a vaulted box room they’d had specially built. It was intended to be used only in emergencies, but he went in there sometimes, when something was troubling him.
Tonight, however, something else dominated his thoughts.
The permit… Should he tell her tonight, when everyone was round and ask her to marry him? Or should he wait until they were alone?
Of course, if she came early he could do it then.
As the craft set down on the roof of the private apartment block, Jake leaned forward, thanking the pilot.
‘Cheers, Sam. Put me down for two flights, will you? I’ve had a very good day…’
‘Thank you, sir. And have a good evening.’
‘I will… I most definitely will.’
He stood back as the craft lifted away, then turned and made his way down the single flight of stairs that led to his apartment.
As ever, everything looked spick and span. The panoramic glass windows gleamed, not a speck or a fingerprint on them. Jake liked that. He was a highly meticulous man. He didn’t like mess or clutter. It got in the way. The only ‘mess’ he liked was inside, in the datscape. That was a mess he revelled in.
They were four hundred and fifty feet up here. Fifty floors, give or take. And the view was spectacular. He never tired of it.
‘Trish… give me news,’ he said, speaking to the air. ‘Non-Market specific.’
At once the big screen on the wall behind him lit up. He turned to face it.
‘Afternoon, Mister Reed…’
‘Hi, Trish… How’re David and the boy?’
Trish was Jake’s filter avatar, his very own AI, programmed to keep Jake’s diary, run his apartment and field all calls.
Part of her job was to trawl the media for items that were specifically to Jake’s taste or that he’d find of interest. She didn’t really exist, but it made it more pleasant to pretend she did. Jake had given her a husband, a young child, and a two-bed in one of the orbitals. He’d made her his own age, twenty-six, but there any similarities ended. Jake was ‘exec’ status, Trish wasn’t. She was ‘service’.
‘They’re fine, Mister Reed.’
‘Good… so what’s been happening?’
‘First up is the new manned mission to Mars.’
As he spoke, the screen showed the massive Shenzou 41 rocket thrusting its way up into the clear North China skies on a plume of fire and roiling smoke. The bright red craft had a large gold star facing four smaller ones painted on its flank. Inside, its crew of twelve – six males, six females – smiled broadly and gave a thumbs-up for the watching cameras.
‘You think they’ll beat the Americans there?’
‘The Chinese say it doesn’t matter. There’s room enough on Mars for everyone.’
‘They say that now… Next?’
The image changed, showing the British Prime Minister, the Right Honourable Andrew Isaiah Yates, addressing the House of Commons.
Trish gave commentary.
‘As you can see, the PM forced a new package of vagrancy laws through parliament last night in a lengthy late night sitting. At the same time he announced yet another crackdown on the “unprotected”.’
Again the image changed, showed the Sec
urity forces, ‘suited and booted’, in full riot gear with truncheons drawn, charging a line of stone-throwing citizens while water cannons fired over their heads. Buildings were burning, and in the air close by a number of massive police hoppers shone their searchlights down on the masses. The air was full of the pop-pop-pop of gunfire.
Just another night in the suburbs.
‘Next…’
The image changed, showed what was clearly the avatar of a beautiful woman. Naked and full-breasted, she held a bright red apple up to the camera and smiled. Behind her, perched on the open door of a black iron-barred cage, was a massive jet black crow. There was a small coin in its beak, while its golden eyes stared out from the screen in a challenging, almost threatening fashion.
Music played quietly in the background.
‘On the media front, diva Eve Adams is releasing a new album, her first in four years. It’s called Crow-Nickel, and will be available in all formats from today.’
Jake smiled. He liked Eve Adams. ‘It’s a dreadful pun… Old stuff or new?’
‘New,’ Trish answered. ‘But as you’ve noted, the album’s a kind of personal chronicle. Adams says the songs reflect what’s been happening in her life. It’s fairly dark…’
‘But then so is her life… Next…’
A new image, this time of a grey-haired African, shaking hands with a smart-suited Han. Behind them was what looked like a massive chemical plant.
‘What’s this?’
‘It’s a big new deal…’
‘I thought I said non-specific…’
‘You did. But I thought this one would interest you. That building in the background… it’s a drilling station.’
‘I don’t understand…’
‘It seems they’re going to tap deep into the earth’s core,’ Trish went on. ‘Into the magma itself…’
‘What are they looking for? New energy sources?’
‘That’s just it. What they say they’re doing is generating oxygen.’
‘Oxygen,’ Jake laughed. ‘Air, you mean?’
‘That’s right. It seems the atmosphere’s been depleted these past twenty years, and they want to do something about it. It’s a pilot scheme…’
Jake stepped closer, trying to make out the details. He’d not heard of anything like this before, and for the Chinese to be doing it seemed strange, to say the least.
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