Beautiful Red

by M. Darusha Wehm

  There was a bit more explanation of the way things worked, and some chit chat among the participants, but Jack wanted to get back to her room to check out the schedule. She had no idea how she was going to go about finding out about the human programming work; she doubted there would be a course on Advanced Consciousness Control. She left the orientation session as soon as it seemed politic to do so, and headed back up to 10734.

  Chapter 22

  Jack stuck her key in the viewer's slot and when the friendly voice said, "Hello, b0xenjester, how can I help you?" she replied, "Show me the meal schedule for today." She saw that there was a late sitting that evening for dinner, and asked the viewer to remind her ten minutes before it was time to go. She then asked to see the schedule of classes for the next two days.

  There was a huge selection of programs available, and at first Jack had trouble believing that it was possible for even a large and well organized group to deliver this many courses and workshops over two days. Then, on closer inspection, she realized that only a small portion of the offerings were live, in-person events. Most of the programs were downloadable tutorials or immersive simulations. For a group that had a strong anti-progress component this seemed odd, but Jack suspected that few of the people involved in the beginner’s events fell into this category anyway.

  She looked at the course listings, and sorted it by live events. Her eye had caught a few interesting choices among the simulations, but Jack wasn’t here to actually learn about how to recruit performance artists, an overview of the various law enforcement agencies with the major firms, or advanced body-painting techniques. She was here to talk to the actual people running this outfit, so she had to surround herself with living, breathing bodies.

  She picked a couple of selections at random, and the viewer automatically prompted her to sign up for a work shift. She looked through the options and saw that there were spaces available for people with programming skills. She immediately put her name in for a couple of shifts there, and the viewer shifted back to her schedule, showing options for four more courses. Jack filled these new slots with more in person events, and by the time she was done she was registered for almost all of the physical space courses.

  She finished up just as Red Five reminded her that her meal sitting was about to begin, so she pulled her key out of the slot and headed out of her room. She walked over to the main building, and all of a sudden realized that there was so much open space here that she could see the sky. It was dull grey, but there were pinpricks of light showing through. She wondered if any of them were stars, or if they were all satellites for everywherenet, surveillance or internal firm communications. She was walking along, craning her neck up to see the lights in the sky when she literally bumped into someone.

  She jumped back and began to apologize. The other person, a tall, blonde man in a one piece suit of a soft dark material, laughed and said, “Don’t worry about it. I did the same thing the first time I was here.”

  Jack flushed despite herself and said, “I guess it’s no shame to be a noob.”

  “Nope,” he said, “everyone is at some point.” He stuck his right hand out for her to shake. “I’m Lars,” he said and they shook hands as Jack introduced herself. “Oh,” he said, pausing to pull a small device with a screen from a pocket and consulting it briefly. “I think I have you in my Introduction to Body Work session tomorrow.”

  Jack smiled shyly, not remembering any of the courses for which she had registered. “Could be,” she said, opting for as much honesty as she thought she could get away with, “I’m a little overwhelmed at the moment and it’s hard to keep it all straight in my mind.”

  “Well, you’re registered for the right class, then,” Lars said with a wide smile, “after all the augmentation we're used to, we’re all pretty handicapped without the ‘nets and a smart system integrating it all. Hell, even I don’t trust my memory.” He waved the device in his hand at Jack. “You’ll find the class interesting, I think,” he continued.

  “I hope so,” Jack said, smiling. “Were you heading into the meal hall?”

  “I was,” he said, turning toward the door of the main building, “shall we eat together?”

  “I’d like that,” Jack said, amazed at her good fortune to find someone whose brain she could pick for the next half hour. They entered the main building and climbed the large central staircase to the meal hall. The previous sitting was just finishing up, so Jack and Lars had to wait a while for a couple of seats to free up. When a table became available, they slipped in and sat down.

  “So,” Lars asked as they looked over the brief menu scrolling in the tabletop, “what brings you to the compound?” Jack knew that this question would come up, and had prepared a response. She had hoped that the first time she tried out her answer it wouldn’t be with a Red staffer, but maybe it was better to find out early if her cover was going to be blown.

  She had decided to go with the premise that the closer she stuck to the truth, the better off she would be. She explained that she had been a frequenter of the underground boards and had heard of a few of the Red actions there. "Eventually I wangled an invitation to an open house party - that was just last weekend, actually." Lars smiled, and indicated that she should continue. "I went and really got interested in what the people there were doing, but also some of the other things going on elsewhere. One of the organizers suggested I come here, and, well, here I am." Jack smiled in what she hoped was a winning way.

  Lars nodded, and said, "That's a pretty common story. Most of our people found us by just noticing things and getting interested. We're not really popular as such, but as you can see, we get a lot of interest." Jack looked around and saw a good three dozen people sitting around the tables in the room, and of course, this was only about a third of the people attending the complex. She shook her head in amazement, and looked down at the menu scrolling on the table.

  There weren't many choices, but Jack really wasn't picky. To her, nutrient bricks pretty much all tasted the same. She settled on something they were calling lentil casserole and waited for Lars to decide to see what he did. He pushed on a small pulsing light on the right side of the table, which stopped the scrolling, then tapped the table on the name of his choice. The menu flashed once, and then disappeared. Jack did the same, and poked her index finger on the "n" of lentil. "They're pretty quick," Lars said, and sure enough, in less than five minutes two steaming bowls slid down from the track in the wall next to the table. Lars lifted them off the small ledge and set them down on the table.

  Jack looked in the bowl, and wasn't sure what to say. The look on her face must have been obvious, because Lars said, "Oh, yeah, we serve real food here. Some Reds won't eat nutrient blocks, and we have a small farm on the grounds, as well as shipments from friendly farms all over Namerica. I hope you like it." He scooped up a spoonful of stew and chewed it thoughtfully. Jack was still dumbfounded. She tentatively took a bite of the casserole. It was amazing, so full of flavour and textures, like some kind of magic in her mouth. She would have happily spent a day's pay for this meal, and they were giving it away.

  They ate in silence, Lars noticing that Jack was too engrossed in the meal to make conversation. After they were finished, he said, "I guess you liked it." She nodded, still savouring the tastes lingering in her mouth. "There aren't that many people who can cook anymore, but the ones who can seem to like it a lot, and we get more than our fair share of cooks. So we always seem to manage to get good food out here. It's a definite perk for the full time folks, let me tell you."

  They got up and headed for the door. "So," Jack asked, "do you live here?"

  "I'm here most of the time," Lars said, "sometimes I go back to Europe to see family, but I'd say my home is here at the compound. I've been teaching and living here for about two years now."

  "Wow," Jack said. "That's a long time. I didn't realize that the organization had been active this long."

  "Yeah, we’re not as well known as
we could be I suppose," Lars said, "but we've been around in some fashion or another for a good bit longer than I've been here." They left the hall, walking down the stairs and out the front door of the building. At the crossroads of the walking paths, they stopped and looked up at the sky again.

  "It was nice talking to you, Jack," Lars said, beginning to turn away from her. "I'll see you in class tomorrow."

  "Thanks," she replied, and turned toward the building her room was in. She walked toward her room almost in a daze. As she stuck her key in the slot by her door, she began to realize that she was starting to like it here. The combination of open skies and real food were powerful, and she reminded herself of Estella Rowan, Mario Keating and who knows how many others who would never see sky of any kind again. She made sure the door to her room was locked, then stripped and showered. She lay in the small bed, thinking about the things she had heard, wondering if she was wrong. Maybe the Red weren't behind what happened to Rowan and the others. Maybe she was off on a wild goose chase - after all it was completely circumstantial evidence that led her here.

  Hell, she thought, I'm no expert on identifying code authors. What was I thinking; imagining that I could guess who was behind it all? Maybe they really are as nice as they seem here. Maybe…

  She fell asleep wondering.

  The next morning Red Five woke her up with a simple musical alarm. She woke slowly, almost naturally, after about eight hours of sleep. She got up and got dressed, then headed to the hall for breakfast. She ate alone this time, as did most of the other people in the room. After breakfast, she went back to her room to check her schedule. She found the place her first session was being held and took an image of the map in case she got lost.

  She only had a few minutes to get there in time, and hurried down the paths. She found the building without too much difficulty and entered the assigned room. About a half dozen other participants were already there, and Lars was at the front of the room chatting with one of them. He saw Jack and smiled, and she returned the grin. She picked a chair next to a woman with flaming magenta hair and a pair of implanted horns on top of her head. Jack figured that she must be fairly young; that trend was hot again and most of the people who had it done the first time around had had them removed by now.

  "Hi," the horned girl said, "I'm Susanna." She stuck out her hand, and they shook.

  "I'm Jack, nice to meet you," Jack answered. They sat there, neither of them knowing what to say. Before either of them found a way to break the silence, Lars cleared his throat and began the session.

  "Hi, everyone," he said, "I'm Lars and I'll be leading this course, Introduction to Body Work. Now, because this is an introduction, I'm going to assume that all of you are new to the complex and maybe even to the Red, is that right?" He looked around the room at the participants, and was met with a stony silence. "I'll take that as agreement," Lars said to a few chuckles, "and take this opportunity to point out the only thing we really need to get out of this class - we have grown accustomed to using our systems and the nets for communication, so we tend not to remember that our bodies are means of communication also. When we react or don't react with our faces or our postures, we are telling everyone around us all kinds of information.

  "Let's talk about that moment we just had," he said, sitting on a chair at the front of the room. "And while we're at it, we can introduce ourselves. I'll start. I'm Lars, I've been involved with the Red for several years, and I've been living and working here at the compound for about two years now. I noticed that when I asked you all a question, and none of you did anything, it felt like no-one was listening to me." He turned to the person closest to him, a man with gold coloured hair, clothes and skin. "What's your name and what did you notice?"

  The participant said, "I'm known as g0lden," at that, some of the others giggled, "and I noticed that I didn't know how to answer. I could have answered for myself, but how do you answer a question that's directed to everyone? So I just did nothing."

  "That's good," Lars said, "a good observation about how that happened. Next," he said, gesturing to Susanna, "what did you notice." She talked about how she is not used to being addressed as part of a group, and didn't know how to respond. As a group they continued to talk about how they rarely encounter situations where body language is relevant, let alone necessary. Lars taught them simple gestures, how to hold your body to indicate comfort or distress, and how to notice facial expressions and simple cues from others.

  They discussed how what once had been perceived as simple courtesy had all but disappeared from normal conduct, how conducing relationships without ever seeing the other party was the norm and how the body was seen as an unfortunate encumbrance by many people. Jack thought that the class seemed to be more about talking about how the world of flesh was perceived and used than it was about learning specific skills, but either way it was actually pretty interesting.

  By lunch time Jack had completely forgotten about what she was really doing there at the complex, and instead was focussed on all the ideas she had heard and discussed in the morning's class. She walked to the main building with Susanna, where they continued talking about the concepts of the morning's session. At lunch, as they were discussing whether negating the value of the body was a way for firms to control the workers, Jack had a mental image of Estella Rowan, and seriously wondered for the first time what was happening to her body. Her mind was gone, but her body had to be somewhere; even if she was dead, her body had to be somewhere.

  Why had no-one noticed her? Noticed either her missing body or her body where it didn't belong. How could someone just disappear?

  Chapter 23

  00110

  The blackouts continue; they are more frequent now, at least one a day. And when I dream, I dream such things I cannot believe, and I fear they are not dreams, these images I see in the night. They seem more like memories but when I wake I can only remember the sensations, the emotions, not the actions.

  I can feel them coming on, those moments when I am no longer myself. It feels like a download but more invasive somehow, like sex without the pleasure. I fight them, the blackouts, but it only makes the pain worse. And when I come back, it is like a hangover magnified, the pain, disorientation and tension. I don't know how to fight this any more. I have to end this, but what can I do? What can I do?

  Chapter 24

  The thought of Estella Rowan reminded Jack of her purpose at the compound and renewed her resolve to find out who was behind the consciousness programs. She had her first work shift after lunch and was hopeful that whatever they would have her doing as a programmer would shed some light on the situation. She agreed to meet Susanna for dinner at the middle sitting, and headed off to her room to find out where she was supposed to go for her work shift.

  The morning class had been interesting and compelling, but now as she walked all the way back to her room to find out a piece of information that would take just a second on the nets to retrieve, she was becoming less enamoured with the whole Red philosophy. It was nice to play historical and pretend not to have everywherenet or integrated systems, but there was a good reason everyone adopted those technologies in the first place.

  Jack entered her room, and stuck her key into the viewer. She found the location of the programmers' lab and took an image of it. She had a few minutes to spare, and tried to call up a mashup of the whole complex map and her schedule for the rest of her stay. Amazingly, the viewer complied, and she gratefully took an image of the map showing everywhere she needed to be and when she needed to be there. It wasn't as good as having a system do it all for her, but if she found a few spare minutes she could program her local system to remind her where she was going every time she had a new session.

  She yanked the key from the viewer, and headed back outside. She walked briskly to the programmers' lab. When she arrived, she met a handful of other obvious noobs and a couple of people who were clearly going to be showing them the ropes. Jack was curious to disco
ver what they even did, since it seemed like the Red tried to avoid systems and the nets as much as possible. A few other people arrived, and one of the staffers addressed the group.

  "Hi, everyone," the tall nondescript woman said, "You can call me Luj. I'm going to show you all around our systems and get you all set up with jobs to do. These tasks might not be glamourous, but they need doing and you all need stuff to do, so there you have it."

  "Now, you will have noticed that we don't tend to use wireless here very much - some of the people here aren't equipped for it. Most of us in the labs do use it, though there are ways for anyone who isn't chipped. Is there anyone who would prefer a hard wired line into the system?" The members of the group looked around at each other, with looks of confusion on their faces. Jack found a use for some of what she had learned in the morning and spoke up.

  "I don't think any of us prefer a hard wire, since it looks like most of us don't know what you're talking about." Luj laughed, and a few of the other noobs made affirming noises.

  "Fair enough," Luj said, "well, I'd better start there." She moved over to a workstation and pulled out a long cable from the wall. "Most of the Reds who don't use wireless still use the nets at least some of the time. They get implants where we all have our wireless nodes that allow a cable to be plugged in."

  "They what?" one of Jack's fellow noobs asked, alternately shocked and amazed.