The look crossed Stango's face again. It's hot shit, isn't it? “This is what Yulani was selling."
The mention of her name was cold water in Gordie's face.
“Was she running it, too?"
The hot-shit expression faded. “Only a partial proto, but enough to make for a good sales pitch."
Gordie thought back to the pseudo from the club.
“Shit, Stango."
“What?"
“I'm running it, too, aren't I?"
Stango grinned. “I slipped it past your dog when you sat down."
Gordie's heart clocked up. A watchdog was a standard piece of code resident in brainstem processors that continually scanned memory space presumed empty under the assumption that virulent code would take up this space. When the dog found anything of concern, it activated a series of inoculation agents—programs to help clear the problem.
A programmer could sidestep a dog, though, by building a table of false pointers and tricking all but the most sophisticated routines into thinking that memory space was clean.
Which is exactly what Stango had done to him.
Yulani was dead, and if Stango slipped him the same code, then he was in danger, too.
His face flushed with the thought.
“Come on, Gordie. I wouldn't do that to you no matter how much shit we've been through. It's not like that."
“Not like what?"
“The code didn't kill her. You can dump it anytime you want. Just slip out and dump the files."
Gordie's fingertips absently rubbed his elbow. “Tactiles could do it, you know? You could simulate an attack, or about anything else. The right command to the nervous system could make the host's body tear itself apart."
“I'm telling you, man, that's not it.” Stango threw himself on a beanbag chair. “I mean, maybe the code did kill her, but not like you're thinking."
Gordie raised an eyebrow, but Stango pressed on.
“Yulani presold the system to ImagineIsland, you know? Just like optical."
ImagineIsland was a huge amusement park, complete with virtch games and rides that totally annihilated even Gordie's imagination. They had been a natural mark for optical push, and Yulani played them for a sweet package well before the code had ever actually run.
“This is a helluva lot bigger than ImagineIsland, Stango. You get full tactiles and you can..."
Can what? Gordie thought. Full tactiles meant the coder could shape reality, embed physical things in the mind of the viewer. The possibilities were scary as hell. Gordie immediately pictured representatives of every spook agency on the planet lining up outside Stango's door, complete with sunglasses and briefcases crammed with cash.
“Shit,” Gordie said in a whisper.
Stango's smile stretched across his face and his eyes gleamed like they were on fire.
“So she sold while you coded. What's the problem?"
“Pick a directory."
Gordie pressed a node. There were just short of a thousand files, far less than a full neurosystem would require. “You're not done."
“And what's there isn't ready. It locks and hangs, and leaves people in mindspace until it gets a reset."
Gordie chewed the inside of his cheek, glancing sidewise at Stango. They both knew what the problem was. Stango was out of his element with production code and the nuances of interface construction. Yet, he had always been uncomfortable letting anyone else touch his ideas. It had taken Gordie a year to gain his trust, and after their clash it surprised him not one bit that Stango was working alone.
“When was it due?"
“Two months ago."
“The entire package?"
“Yes."
“So, that means the prototype shell is what, four months late?"
“More like five."
“Shit."
Billions of dollars were at stake by now, and investors probably clamoring for heads. ImagineIsland was huge in itself, but it, in turn, was owned by DigiCorp Markets, the largest conglomerate on the globe and a group known to be unpleasant when things got rough. Gordie had had some exposure to how things worked in the corporate environment, and this idea was big enough that he smelled DigiCorp's fingerprints all over the deal.
“I bet DigiCorp is ready to piss their pants."
“I need your help,” Stango said. “I need you to code this interface."
This time it was Gordie who laughed. “That's a good one."
“Don't you see it, Gordie? DigiCorp killed Yulani as a message. They'll kill me, too, if I don't deliver the system in the next three months."
“You're kidding me, right?"
Stango's gaze raised hackles along Gordie's neck. “You need to find who killed Yulani. I'm telling you it was DigiCorp. I need to deliver a working package. You make it work, I give you a connection."
Despite himself, Gordie grinned. “It'll never be done in time."
“You could do it."
He shook his head. “I don't code anymore."
Stango slipped back into the mask of bravado Gordie had admired so much as a kid. “Then I suggest you consider what a lifetime in jail will be like."
The image of the inspector's brown boot reminded Gordie of why he was here. His ribs throbbed. Stango was right. What other choice did he have?
“Can you get me into DigiCorp in less than two weeks?"
“You get the interface working well enough to show, and we'll have a meeting the next day."
Gordie chewed his lower lip and checked the time stamp.
“It's Friday today. Saturday, actually. Tell DigiCorp I'll have something by this time next week."
“Are you sure? My ass is toast if I bring them in before you're ready."
“It's not your ass I'm worried about, Stango. I need time to work through their system. Either you get them in here this time next week, or I suggest you consider what DigiCorp might do if you don't have a system."
Stango grinned like a kid caught with candy in his mouth.
“You got a deal,” he said.
The list of DigiCorp contacts sat on Gordie's machine, taunting him to get started. Gordie had spent most of his high school career cracking security systems, a process that taught him how unwise it was to play the game halfway. Just the idea of confronting a conglomerate as large as DigiCorp Marketing gave Gordie a string of hives. DigiCorp was an amorphous blob like millions of lines of code jumbled into a jigsaw puzzle with no picture to guide him. If what Stango said about their involvement in Yulani's death was true, they could make the inspector's boot look like a joy ride at ImagineIsland.
The idea of slipping past their firewall sent spiders crawling up his neck.
So the first thing Gordie did was to ignore the list and get to work on the interface. Getting it to perform was the most important thing right now, anyway.
He dropped a virtch into Stango's design space and ran multidimensions alongside the configuration code. It had been a very long time. Invisible sheets of rust flaked off his mindspace with a sensation like skin peeling.
Stango's code was ugly; there was just no other word for it. Each routine was a unique piece of thought, the whole woven together to form a glob that would bend and break under constant use. To survive for any length of time the framework for data systems had to be more like the undergirders of a bridge. Stable code was all about consistency and syntax, elegant calls and pure form, error handlers that landed softly—and, yes, damn it, brackets with standard tabs. A bridge was not always the sexiest of structures, but the good ones used symmetry and redundancy. Their beauty lay in repetition, and they always got people from point A to point B.
Gordie found the switching mechanism that linked biological nerves to the processing core. This was the foundation. He ran his hands along the data flow, shifting to view 25-space so he could look at the nano driver. His code from so long ago was unchanged here. Not surprising—it was damned good work.
A red icon flashed in his view.
&
nbsp; “Hey,” the icon said in Gordie's own voice. “You've found the primary optical switch. This is the real goods, okay? It's also my code. You can't have it. Don't worry yourself any, though. If you're good enough to get here, you're good enough to write your own damned routine, okay?"
He smiled.
He had written this copyright routine right after discovering how to make the thing work, and the “condescending asshole” tone of success colored his voice like butter on toast.
Gordie's virtch rose through the interface. Code floated around him like a kelp sea. He felt the almost physical scrub of their binaries. It had been a very long time.
A month retailing, three months in a desk job with a design company, another six working with hardware gaks, a month hiking the mountains in Tennessee where his dad had once been a small-time banker and his mom had sold real estate.
None of this had suited him.
He was a code jockey. He always had been, and now—floating among visual representations of thought, weaving through function calls and virtual pointers and pieces of audio that hummed and creaked like hulls of old ships at the bottom of the ocean—Gordie saw that he always would be.
All this was his, now.
His code.
His world.
He breathed it in, feeling ones and zeros scour his lungs, imagining oily silicate clouds of digital smoke as he exhaled. Somewhere in his cerebral cortex, Gordie's brain churned—and at that moment, a plan formed without conscious thought.
Maybe he wouldn't need to confront DigiCorp at all.
He should have thought of it earlier, but wasn't that the way of all ideas? Stango could get him into contact with DigiCorp—true. But after what Stango had done with Yulani, Gordie would never really trust him again.
The coroner's office had autopsy records, though. He could probably even find medical records if he dug around a little. And, maybe the newsnets would unearth additional information over the next couple of days. Those were straightforward hacks with a lot less risk. The idea of putting off his assault on DigiCorp's security system was as welcome as hot chocolate in December.
* * * *
The autopsy report said Yulani suffered a massive heart attack, probably induced by a genetically weak valve.
Gordie didn't buy it, and his still tender ribs reinforced the idea that the inspector wouldn't either. Internal processors don't get wiped by accident. The inspector was like every venture capitalist Gordie had met: a man as interested in defeating people as he was in winning the game. He wouldn't be buying shares in the “natural causes” answer anytime soon.
So, Gordie slipped his virtch back into the data stream and found storage for Yulani's doctor. The doctor used a Caffee key for security, code over five years old. Even now most companies weren't truly data conscious. If he had seen it once he had seen it a thousand times: A business bought security, then didn't keep it up-to-date.
His virtch played a quick game of “Match the Key,” then found Yulani's records.
Unlike Stango's design space, this was a visual only. Taking his time to ensure he didn't leave anything behind, he ran data through various open and proprietary text readers. It was the ZerenBook that eventually gave him what he needed.
Yulani's records included notes about colds and shots. Blood scans. Pap smears. Tests. Genetic studies. Even an entry that indicated she had once miscarried. His heart tugged at that one. Unable to stop himself he checked the date, saw it was well before his time, then realized he didn't know how he felt about that.
Nothing about Yulani ever came easily.
He found nothing to indicate she might have had a weak heart.
Not a thing.
Convinced he could learn nothing else, Gordie slipped his virtch out of the stream and closed her records.
It was late.
His head hurt, and the inside of his mouth felt like it was coated with cotton. All-nighters didn't used to take so much out of him. He was getting old. He rubbed his temples and stared out the window. The night was like a brand-new dollar bill, crisply dark, perfect and unwrinkled. A full moon gave the street harsh edges. Old phone wire hung like outdated clothes; round-fendered cars parked like beached whales; a single streetlamp spread a sodium cone in the distance.
He could do better than this dump, he supposed. Optical push had left Gordie in pretty good shape when he'd quit the company, and he'd probably never have to work again if he didn't want to. But he liked the anonymity of this place.
The ability to hide amid the average gave him comfort.
* * * *
Stango, wearing a dark blue suit with a faint weave of gold striping, sat at the head of an oblong table. He twirled a quarter in his fingers, twisting it and letting it slide from between his thumb and index finger to between his ring finger and pinkie. A projection screen ran with 3D animation that served as the entry into his presentation. Inch-thick carpet muffled sound. Insulated walls added to the pall, eggshell white and lined with alternating splash images of turquoise and blue—the colors of success recommended by every advertising agency on the globe.
Colors Yulani had often used, Gordie thought as he waited.
The coin flashed and glinted as Stango worked it. His spindle-thin fingers moved like a black widow incessantly working her web.
“They're late."
Gordie accessed the time. Two-oh-nine in the afternoon.
“Negotiating tactic,” he replied. “They want you to sweat."
“Well, they're getting their wish."
Gordie was more concerned than usual, too. His role in these types of meetings had always been the trusty gak sidekick to Stango's business vision. He was never intended to be the center of attention, so he could vent his nerves more directly, breathing deeply or running his hands over the arms of his chair.
But today he was hunting a murderer. He had no option but to dig into DigiCorp, and today was the day.
Six people from DigiCorp stepped into the room, most placing wireless clients on the table. The room beeped with wake-up alerts. Chairs squeaked.
Stango cleared his throat and spoke. “Good afternoon. Before I get started, let me introduce you to Gordon Rath. He's a longtime friend, and the man whose work has brought the product a long way since you last saw it."
It was strange to hear Stango call him by his full name. Faces around the room focused on Gordie. The leader of the collective spoke. She was a woman of forty-five or so with swept-back ash-blonde hair and conservative makeup, her lips crisply darkened with a maroon tone.
“Good afternoon, Gordon. I'm Salee Taggart, vice president of corporate operations at DigiCorp Marketing.” She turned to the slight man at her left. “This is Harold McIntyre. He's the ImagineIsland program manager. I'm sure I speak for him when I say we both look forward to seeing what you've done."
McIntyre nodded. His face was thin and pinched, his nose small and hooked downward. He wore a tan suit with a bow tie and an off-white shirt underneath. His hands were older than the rest of him, covered with skin that bunched up at the knuckles and was beginning to show age marks.
In-house retired, Gordie thought as he returned the nod. Any doubts about whether DigiCorp had taken the project over from ImagineIsland were now dispelled. His stomach twisted with memories of how the process of selling optical push had felt so grimy, sitting through the river of oblivious executives that flowed through the office and spoke in tones that always seemed lighthearted and jovial at first, but only ended up sounding contrived and condescending. He had never wanted to work for a big company, and now he remembered exactly why.
“Gordie was with me when we developed optical,” Stango continued on. “He's the real deal."
A man who had taken a seat against the wall—away from the table—stared at Gordie with an expression like a fan's sweep in August, light but obviously there, fleeting and startlingly cool. He was a kid, really, maybe just out of college—or maybe hadn't even gone. He sat on his chair at a crooked ang
le, wearing a sport coat three sizes too big over a black T-shirt and a rack-thin body. His arm levered over the adjoining chair like a piece of loose siding. His skin was white paste. A handful of bronze-black hair fell over his forehead like a pad of rusted steel wool. Looking as closely as he could without being rude, Gordie noticed silver glints of at least three jacks glimmering from under the kid's ear.
Hardwire connections.
He had heard of the practice, drilling mounts into the ridge of the skull to allow direct connection, hence avoiding the security overhead of wireless when a local connection was available. Early performance data said a direct connect pushed a terabyte a full four-hundredths faster than wireless. The idea of a direct jack to a brain-based processor, while by no means new, had fascinated him at first. But seeing the rings embedded in the neck of an actual person, and seeing the way the kid's eyes glimmered with the same metallic flaring as the connections gave Gordie a sense of dread.
He had always been the one pushing the envelope.
Now this kid sat in their conference room with three gleaming hardwire connections that screamed “Obsolete” into Gordie's ear as loudly as if it were a jet engine on full afterburner.
“So,” Salee Taggart said. “What do you have for us today?"
Stango pointed to the display and began to speak. Everyone turned their attention to the screen, but Gordie's mind stayed with the kid.
Taggart had said his name was Will Darbringer, and that he was a consultant—another oddity that made Gordie uncomfortable. It wasn't unusual for a company to contract development, or to buy up code as it happened. But it was odd for a company with the reputation of DigiCorp to rely on a kid contractor for their technical expertise in a meeting like this.
Shaking his concern, Gordie forced himself to get to work.
He glanced at Salee Taggart.
The good thing about cracking the system of someone in the room was that it provided immediate feedback about a person's local dog. He still remembered sitting in Mrs. Pauli's English Language class and seeing the glimmering red light flashing inside her cornea. He managed to slip away that time only because he noticed the problem visually before her dog routine could catch him.
Asimov's SF, October-November 2006 Page 21