Company Town

by Madeline Ashby

  The reporter smiled winningly. Dimples appeared in her cheeks. “And do you share those beliefs?”

  “Yes,” Joel said. “I think mankind has always used tools to improve basic standards of living. In this case, we’re using these machines to do dangerous work that would put human crews at serious risk.”

  “Do you share your father’s beliefs about the Singularity?”

  Joel blinked, the way he did when he heard something he couldn’t quite comprehend. “Pardon me?”

  “Your father has gone on record stating that he believes super-advanced artificial intelligence will eventually take over our planet. Is that why he trusted the reactor to the Krebs machines? Because he believes that only so-called strong AI can do the job?”

  Joel’s mouth opened. Nothing came out. Hwa cleared her throat. Instantly, Joel stood up straight. “My father…” His voice cracked. Hwa couldn’t keep the wince off her face. “My father almost died of neo-polio,” Joel said, finally. “He was born on an anti-science commune in Northern California, and it was the site of a major outbreak. Until he got his augments, he was in constant pain. He had to relearn how to walk, how to type, all of those things. But even so, he’s always told me that he felt luckier than the other kids. Because he didn’t get measles, and that’s the reason he’s still alive today.”

  Joel licked his lips. “My father’s beliefs about the future aren’t the reason I’m here. I’m here so that I can talk to my peers about our future. And I don’t think that’s what you’re interested in. So I think I’m done talking to you. All of you.”

  A cacophony of questions and a sparkling array of flies rose up as he descended the podium. Hwa got between them and him as he went through the doors. “Nice work,” she said, as the doors closed behind them.

  “I think I’m going to throw up.” Joel bolted for the fire stairs. He charged up the first flight so fast Hwa almost had to chase him. “I want to go to my room.”

  “Hey, slow down!” Hwa put a hand on his shoulder and he whirled on her, eyes dilated, sweat dotting his hairline. “Calm down,” she said. “It’s just adrenaline. It’s not real.”

  “I think I need a new implant,” Joel said. “I’m not supposed to get stage fright. I’m not supposed to get frightened at all.”

  Hwa snorted. “You did not look frightened up there. You looked great. You did great.” She grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him a little. “That feeling that you’re feeling? That’s not fear. That’s exhilaration. You’re excited, because you totally nailed it back there, and that’s okay. Okay?”

  One corner of his mouth curled up. “Okay.”

  Then he threw his arms around her. For a minute, Hwa didn’t know where to put her arms. When she did, she felt both firm new muscle stretching across his back and shoulders, and sprig of pride blooming up in her. The boy was already stronger. It was time to level up his training.

  “Is this weird?” Joel asked.

  “Only a little,” Hwa said. “People don’t really hug me.”

  “I can’t hug my dad.” Joel backed away. A pink blush blossomed in his cheeks. “Sorry.”

  “No, it’s cool. We should, uh … feel the love. Or something.”

  Joel’s head tilted. “Just so you know, I don’t want to have sex with you.”

  “That’s okay. People don’t. Generally. Want to have sex with me.”

  Joel smiled. “It’s too bad Daniel isn’t here. We should buy him a present. Let’s go to the gift shop.”

  * * *

  Finally they were allowed to leave the state dinner, and Hwa could go back to her room check up on any news about Layne’s death. To her surprise, the NAPS had rushed Layne’s toxicology report. Maybe Rivaudais had pulled some strings—he wanted to clear that food safety inspection, after all. Prove that it wasn’t his liquor that had killed an innocent member of USWC 314’s tech support. That it was an allergy, or an accident, something he could fire somebody over and be done with it. And that’s exactly what the report ruled: Layne’s throat had closed suddenly due probably to an anaphylactic reaction, and she’d asphyxiated. There was no explanation for the foam in her mouth.

  Hwa flopped back on the bed. The images followed her gaze, strobing across the ceiling. Calliope. The Aviation. Layne. Layne on the floor of the Aviation, pink oozing out of her mouth and onto her hair, her eyes wide.

  “Go Jung-hwa.”

  Layne was talking. Her eyes didn’t move, but her mouth did. She spoke through the bloody foam, but it sounded like she had no trouble. Like she was just chewing on some gum, or some candy. Like the bubbles in her mouth were sweet.

  “You should get your eyes checked, Hwa.”

  “I just had them checked,” Hwa told her. “Dr. Mantis checked them.”

  “Check them again.”

  “I’m fine. My eyes are fine. My brain is fine.”

  “You’re not fine. You’re really fucked up.”

  “Yeah. Well. I’m not dead. That’s something.”

  “You have a blind spot. A big one.”

  “No, I don’t. Dr. Mantis said I don’t.”

  “It’s a big black hole in your vision, Go Jung-hwa. And you’re going to fall into it.” Layne’s mouth opened. Hwa saw down inside it. It wasn’t pink, or even red. It was black and huge and deep and cold. Like the ocean. “You’re going to fall into it, just like the rest of us, Hwa. Hwa. Hwa. HWA!”

  She sat up. Joel had both his arms up, forearms out, blocking the sweeping blade of her arm. Sweat rolled down her neck. Slowly, stiffly, she lowered her arm.

  “Your lights were still on,” Joel said. “And you were shouting.”

  The adjoining rooms were to help her protect him, not the other way around. So much for that idea. She ran a hand over her face. “Sorry.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I had a bad dream. That’s all.”

  Joel turned around. The images from Layne’s and Calliope’s files were still projected up on the ceiling. “Well, no wonder.”

  “Oh. Shit. Sorry.” She raised her arm to wave the pictures away, but again Joel blocked her movement.

  “Are those your friends?”

  “Aye.” Hwa nodded. “They are. Were. They were my friends.”

  Joel sat down on the bed. He tucked one leg under him and leaned back. “Two USWC 314 members, both with Krebs machines in their bodies, a month apart.” He raised his voice slightly. “Prefect, does time of death for each of these women match the same phase of the moon?”

  “No.”

  Joel shrugged. “Just a guess. Sometimes these things are lunar.”

  “These things?”

  “Serial killers.”

  Hwa shook her head. “No. It’s not that. Layne died when she was at the bar with me. Not like Calliope.”

  Joel turned to look at her. “Your friend died right in front of you?”

  Hwa’s lips went hot. She looked at her knees. It occurred to her that her arms and legs were bare—she was just in a singlet and her underwear—and Joel hadn’t even mentioned her stain. Jesus, the kid was so good. Great, even. Zachariah Lynch was right. His youngest really was the best of the line.

  “Yeah,” she said. “She died right in front of me. I couldn’t…” She clamped her lips shut for a moment. “It happened really fast.”

  Joel grabbed another pillow and placed it behind his head. Then he lay down perpendicular to her along the foot of the bed. “Prefect?”

  “Ready.”

  “Confirm Joel Lynch.”

  A pause. “Confirmed.”

  “Execute override code Juliett Lima Oscar, 080378.”

  Slowly, the mosaics over the redacted forensics reports dissolved away to reveal complete documents. More images appeared. So did other documents—and they looked to be internal memos, with the Lynch letterhead over all of them.

  “What did you just do?”

  “I have a backdoor to the Prefect system.” Hwa watched Joel pull up Calliope’s and Layne’s rep
orts. He blew past all the personal data and opened up the designs of the Krebs machines. “Requesting profile data on all team members related to Krebs development, including classified material.” A series of folders with headshots and employee ID numbers appeared. Joel turned to her. “Anything in particular you think we should look for?”

  Hwa stretched out alongside him to stare at the ceiling. “Filter out all developers not living in New Arcadia.”

  A significant number of employees faded from view.

  “Fifteen men and five women,” Joel said. “We really have to work on that ratio.”

  Hwa checked her watch. “Prefect, if I gave you my old password to the Belle de Jour system, could you try to match these names against client and appointment data? They’ll be encrypted.”

  Another long pause. “That will not be a problem.”

  “User G-O space J-U-N-G hyphen H-W-A; password G-zero-F-C-K-Y-R-dollar sign-L-F.”

  “Nice,” Joel said. “Subtle.”

  Prefect showed them four files: three men, and one woman. The woman and one of the men were a married couple. Two weeks ago, they’d visited a nice Russian girl named Maria together. It wasn’t their first meeting with her; they’d met earlier in September, and from Maria’s review of the encounter, it looked like it was going to be a regular thing. Maria mentioned no feelings of doubt or weirdness about the arrangement—they had not asked her to do anything that wasn’t previously outlined in their initial conversation, and had not tried to overstay their time or undercharge for fees. They paid on time and made new appointments the same day. In other words, perfect clients. Hwa screened them out.

  The two profiles that were left looked eerily similar. Two white guys with programmer tans and the same deer-in-the-headlights expression that everyone wore while being issued an ID badge. Their names were Smith and Mueller. Mueller was a relatively new hire from Arizona. He’d written his dissertation on sustainable methods of extracting energy from experimental matter. Before that, he’d served in the JROTC. Technically, he was still a member of the National Guard, even if he was working in Canada on a visa. By contrast, Smith was Canadian. His doctorate came from Waterloo. He had been with the company for fifteen years.

  His profile was covered in redactions.

  Hwa pointed at the profile. “What are all those logos, at the top of the page? Above all the black parts, I mean.”

  “Those are project logos. They’re so you can see at a glance what people have worked on. See, there’s the logo for Project Poseidon.” He pointed. Hwa recognized the image from the sign indicating the experimental reactor. But there were others: a single drop of blue on a white ground, a red dragon rampant, a circle of white dots on a green square. That last one reminded her of something, but she couldn’t remember what.

  “Prefect, what other projects beside Poseidon has Smith worked on?”

  “Project Clearwater, Project Blake, Project Changeling.”

  Changeling. How did that image and that word match up? How were fairy babies switched with human ones at all reminiscent of a ring of white on grass green? She’d read the Irish folk tales in Mrs. Cavanaugh’s class, just like everyone else in New Arcadia. And changelings were switched in the cradle. They didn’t come from fairy rings.

  And just like that, she knew. She knew exactly where she’d seen that image before.

  “Hwa? Is something wrong?”

  For a kid with an anti-feeling chip, he was still pretty damn good at reading her. She turned to Joel. She forced some sheepishness. Faked embarrassment. “Just realizing I forgot to report to Síofra,” she said.

  Joel beamed. “I’ll bet you could ping him now. He doesn’t sleep very much.” Hwa didn’t ask how the boy knew that. “Do you think he’ll like our present?” Joel continued.

  “Aye,” Hwa said. “I reckon he will.”

  14

  Metabolist/Subspace/LynchLabs/ Tower Three

  The trip back to New Arcadia was smoother than the trip out. Joel slept most of the way. Hwa used the time to look at some more employee profiles. By the time they arrived, it was early afternoon and Joel was talking about meeting some friends from science club to discuss next steps.

  “Do you have your outfit for Homecoming, yet?” Joel asked.

  Hwa turned and gave him the finger. “Don’t ruin my day. I’m going home.”

  “Don’t forget the Falstaff paper!” Joel yelled.

  The train back was mostly empty, for a Sunday. Maybe people really were leaving. The crowds were a little thicker on the Demasduwit. It was one of those crisp autumn Sundays that made her happy to be out on the Atlantic, where the air was clean and the sky was clear. She let herself be overcharged for a big mess of dandelion greens, yams, and eggs, and she took the stairs up to her place without once encountering the tobacco dealers who made it their usual Sunday afternoon meeting place or the anti-reactor kids with their chittering ads and radiation spam.

  The door to her apartment hung ajar. Plastic splintered and threaded away from the jamb. When she touched them, the locks fell through the door. She heard them clunk heavily on the square of carpet remnant she’d scavenged in lieu of a welcome mat. After all, she hadn’t planned to welcome anybody. Why was she focusing on that one detail? Why did her mind seem to get smaller, at moments like this?

  Every time she told other women about this kind of moment, she told them to walk away.

  Don’t even stop, she told the people in her self-defence classes. If there’s something wrong with your door, and you think there’s been a break-in, just keep walking. Don’t go in. Just go somewhere safe and call for help. You don’t know who’s in there, waiting for you. You don’t know what they’re on, or how crazy they are, or what they plan on doing to you. Don’t go in. Whatever you do, do not open that door.

  Hwa put her groceries down. And her backpack. She rolled her neck. Flexed her feet. Cleared her wrists.

  She kicked the door in so hard it bounced off the opposite wall.

  No one came running out. No guns started blazing. There was only the echo of the door hitting the wall and the flutter of seagulls from the stairwell and the chaos that was her apartment. She could see it from here: shelves shoved over, display cracked on the floor, bed and pillows cut up with their stuffing spilling like guts in a combat drama.

  Her oven was on.

  She could see straight into the kitchen from the door, and in the dimness the oven light was the only real illumination. It was for this reason that she went in, and only this reason, even though she knew the invader could be hiding in the washroom. It was the only other room in the place, and the only space large enough for another human being. She didn’t even have a proper closet, or proper cabinet, just an old luggage cart with clothes hanging on it. So if someone were still there, they were in that room.

  She stepped through the door. One step. Two. Three. Turned right. The washroom door was shut.

  She pretended the room belonged to Joel, and checked all the corners and behind the door. No one. She crossed into the kitchen and found her good vegetable knife out on the counter. It was under the shattered remains of an antique lacquered bento box Rusty had given her. Odd, that no one had taken the knife. She gripped it hard, blade facing up, so the muscles engaged in the stabbing would be her stronger underhand ones, not her overhand ones.

  She kicked in the door of the washroom.

  A reek of shit and piss hit her in a slow, awful wave. The room smelled like hot roadkill. They’d shit in her sink. In the shower. Piss was everywhere, dried and yellow. Her garbage was strewn across it. They’d pissed on that, too. Her toothbrush was in the toilet, stuck in a pile of her tights and rash guards. There was cum on her hairbrush. At least, that’s what it looked like. Hwa dropped that in the toilet, too, and then realized she’d just have to fish it out again and walked away.

  LOOKING FORWARD TO RAPING YOU, her mirror said, in dried toothpaste.

  In the oven were two baking sheets. Both were full of melte
d plastic and fibreglass. A thin film of gold and silver coated each thick puddle of goo.

  They’d melted her brother’s trophies.

  She turned the oven off. Sank to the floor. Felt its heat on her back. Smelled the molten metal and alloy and whatever else it was that they made those things out of. It was probably toxic. It was probably giving her cancer, right this very minute. Somewhere in her body the assembly line was going all wrong and the cells were dividing toward her doom.

  She didn’t care.

  Outside, someone shuffled past her door, and then shuffled back. The old homeless guy. He was a skinny white man who wore a tattered yellow slicker and boots with no socks. “Are you all right, Miss?”

  Hwa wiped her eyes with the ball of her hand. “Not really, no.”

  “You had a break-in?”

  She nodded.

  “You gonna call the cops?”

  It occurred to her that she didn’t really have to call them. Not if she didn’t want to. That was the other thing she always told other women: Call the police. Start a paper trail. Establish a pattern. Now she understood why some of them never did. Because it felt so useless. So stupid. What would she tell them? I broke some guy’s finger and he called his buddies and they fucked up my place and they say they’re going to rape me. Yeah, you’re right, Officer. I probably shouldn’t have broken his finger. This is all my fault. Sorry for bothering you.

  It wasn’t like those trophies would ever come back together. It wasn’t like the cops would help her clean up. It wasn’t like she’d ever really feel safe here, ever again.

  “You know, if you don’t call them, and the super finds damage later, you lose the deposit,” the old man said.

  “That so?”

  He nodded. “Happened to me, once.”

  Hwa stood up. She grabbed some clothes off the rack. “You know what? You stay here tonight. I’ll be back later. Maybe.”

  * * *

  Nail led her down to the subspace alone, which meant she didn’t hear about her backpack or her groceries until she was inside the door, where Rusty stood waiting to take her coat.

  “My goodness,” he said. “Look at all that.”