Base Metal (The Sword Book 2)

by J. M. Kaukola

  After the war, though, the Authority didn't bow and exit stage left. They'd found other reasons to stick around, whether it was a 'resource crisis' or just 'too fluid' a situation. As Kendrix liked to say, 'no government ever gives up power'. Firenze thought he was probably right. Suze, too. They were right about a lot of things, but none of it was worth throwing his life away.

  Firenze was the first of his siblings not to go to jail. He'd escaped the Old Chicago dronetown, a little chunk of hell wedged between the baffles. Like all dronetowns, it was out of work because of automation and the stand-down. Unlike the rest, the dole was withheld due to violence. His mother had scraped together three jobs and uncounted gig-works, just to get him out. She'd stuffed her mattress full of printed-credits and prayed that one of her kids would make it. He couldn't betray her. He wasn't going to end up another sad little dronetown tale, especially not on account of misguided idealism.

  His mother's credits got him over the baffles and into a school, and he owed her more than that.

  Once he broke into loward, he'd had to scrabble on hard work, natural talent, and refusal to ever fall back under the baffles. He would prove mom right and everyone else wrong. He was the top of every class, the very model of the academy, and the kind of grad student that professors fought for. When he got the assistant slot, the stipend should have been enough to push him halfway up the ward. Instead, he'd picked up the few pieces of kit he needed for fab work and sent the rest back home to mom. Neland liked to show him off, call him a 'bootstrapper' for the other profs, but Firenze knew better. Mom pushed him, long before he'd learned to pull. Let Suze and Kendrix have their rants and protests. Firenze was going to keep his head down, stash his credits, suck up to every prof, and wait for his chance to save his family.

  Besides, he had more than enough on the net to keep him busy.

  His glasses chimed, the stems buzzing behind his ears. The countdown in the lens' corner neared zero. Professor Neland would be calling soon, and it was time to get back into the game.

  He crawled back over his dry-rotted mattress and wedged himself between the lumps. He caught his own reflection on the fridge door. His hair was matted, his skin pale, and bags hung under his eyes. He needed to clean up.

  He slipped the synth-flesh sheath from his forearm and exposed the dock. The IV clicked into his wrist-port, and the hardjack followed. He laid back, clicked his arm into the elastic restraints, and waited. The computer box beside him chimed twice. He braced. One long tone sounded. Two. Three.

  Pandemonium.

  He drowned in light. He seized and thrashed on his padding. His veins blazed with the resonant sun dawning within, and raindrop sweat boiled from his freezing skin.

  There was tranquility.

  Like the moment before sleep, he slipped into darkness, warmth, and ever-softer pillows. His body vanished as the jack disabled motor functions. He drifted upon the conscious sea, as one with the pull of the tide and press of the breeze.

  He was back. Or rather, he was arrived. He was in the net, deeper and truer than most would dare to dream, wrapped in their pathetic goggles and softjacks. He was seated in his room, his real room, with the thick leather chairs and the ocean wind through the curtains. He could smell the seaspray, feel the sea's breath on his skin, hear its waves roll under the moonlight. Here, the colors were more vibrant, the scents more poignant. The glass tabletop gleamed. His toes dug through the gentle massage of the carpet-threads. He could hear, could feel, the snap-pop of the logs on the fire.

  He was alive.

  He stood from his chair, felt the shift in his clothes. In this realm, he wore only the finest. He turned to his mirror, checked himself before taking the call. He did cut a better figure on the net. He wasn't vain enough to go for a full-body lift, but was definitely his best-self, with a decent tan, a little tone, and just a dab of cologne. Why wouldn't he be an improved self, when he could edit the foundations of reality?

  "Giving yourself a show?" Lauren asked. The mask sat in her chair, wineglass tipped insolently over her fingers. She quipped, "I think Narcissus desires his pond back."

  Firenze flicked, and the mirror was gone. He answered, "Just making sure I look good for the meeting."

  "If you're going for seduction, I don't believe you align with Professor Neland's preferred demographic. But feel free to try."

  "Ha ha." he replied. "I'm trying to land somewhere between 'dressed for the part' and 'not trying too hard'. This could be a big break."

  She gave an aside-glance, which meant she was deep-scanning some database. She said, "I believe I can anticipate his ideal personality-presentation fashion schema, based on his activity history and applied heuristics. Should I prepare a wardrobe for you?"

  Firenze sighed. He asked, "Did you just hack his history?"

  "No." She answered. The too-innocent look on her face told him everything he needed. He fixed her with his best 'I don't believe you' stare until she admitted, "I scanned corporate databases which had already profiled him, then sampled their anonymized libraries until I'd matched the profile. No unauthorized access required."

  He said, "We're gonna have to talk about privacy."

  "An illusion." she countered chipperly. "Stop wasting cognitive cycles on it, embrace your total self, and you'll be much happier."

  Firenze didn't bother arguing, mostly because he didn't disagree and partly because he'd helped design the scoop she'd just employed. Instead, he reached forward and conjured a wardrobe.

  At a high level, what he was doing was searching directories to activate a mapped object to overlay onto his avatar. This object was itself comprised of a series of textures and embedded functions that would render sensately for each user, based on their level of integration in the net, be it goggles, soft-, or hardjack. For an amateur to do this, each line of code would have to be applied or activated through user interfaces and menus. For him, it was autonomic and profound.

  In the physical world, he was slumped over his mattress, eyes flickering under closed lids. Electric symphonies played across the prod and wires stuck in his arm, a seductive mathematical rhythm, the melody of electric liberation. This was not enough. Novice hardjack users still wouldn't be able to overcome mental boundaries; any particular motion would be translated from meat-space intent to virtual equivalent. Attempting to raise your arm would raise your avatar's arm, and walking through the sim would be much like walking through the physical. Specific codes and commands would open interfaces or change the operating field, but for all intents and purposes, the user would have to use a computer inside a computer.

  Firenze was no amateur. His mask was well-synced, and he had access to far greater subtlety and power. He could squint and reveal the code tucked into the wardrobe, embedded in every shoe and sandal. He could see the glimmer of handles and pointers, hiding just below the surface. He could reach out and change them directly, with the application of direct thought, translated by an assist box and mask that been synergized and adapted to his every pattern and trait. He could stride the world on a whim. He could evoke a location in his mind, the mask would execute, and they would arrive.

  This was not skill. Sure, programming mattered. The ability to read and think in strings of data, code, and base math served as a useful foundation, but few problems required on-the-fly scripting, and the mask was far more suited to that task. Where he needed to sling script, it was better to lay pseudocode and then allow the mask to iterate intent into execution. It was far more critical to develop the all-encompassing link between mind and machine, the bond symbiosis between user and mask.

  Every assist mask required adaptive code, while the best verged on the harsh line of legal AI. Reaching the peak of man-machine-interface required weeks - months - of training, working out the mistranslations, and establishing the unique shorthand between them. Firenze had been working with Lauren for years, building hardware, and adapting software within a shared profile. At a certain point, the mask ceased to be a tool. With
enough development, the runner and mask were a blended entity, determining function and execution as efficiently as a person in meat-space might reach out to pick up a stone. When that theoretical person moved, they didn't have to think about the electrical current in their nerves or the chemical instructions in their muscles; their movements were automatic and natural, as required of a synthesized system. This was the endstate of the hardjack.

  Firenze picked a pair of shoes - brown loafers, retro-reconstruction style - and then he wore them, as simple as meat-space. The wardrobe vanished, and the directory folded away into the net.

  "Looking good, cowboy." Lauren said. She'd sprawled sideways over her chair, flashed a double-thumbs-up from her near-inverted position. In that moment, she wore a wide-brimmed hat and silver spurs, like something out of the reliquaries. Then it was back to business-casual, with no sign of the curious flash.

  Mask personalities were emergent. Most templates came with a set of default profiles to choose from, varying from professional to personable. Some were more adaptable, and there was always a gray market for disreputable personality clusters, but all shared certain similarities and functions. The mask's core function was to interface between user and net, but also act as a guide and safeguard. It was interface and assistant in one, and the longer a mask/user pair ran together, the more proficient the gestalt became.

  There were exceptions. Occasional hostile models required a purge, but those were exceptionally rare. As a rule, the adaptive code produced an optimized, complementary personality suited for the individual user. However, this did lead to long-term issues.

  The longer a mask ran, the more it emulated, the more the program would develop artifacts and tics, bits of code accrued from abandoned evolution, scoured from errant thoughts of the user, or plucked from the miasma of the net. For this reason, the mask software was confined to the hardware of the assist box, and not permitted to host to the open net or fully load into the user's wetware. These constrictions prevented the transmission of viruses across the mind-machine barrier and preserved the integrity of the user's mind, while also safeguarding the mask from rampant corruption. Even with these, degradation was inevitable, and the masks required regular resets and retraining sessions.

  Firenze had not done this.

  He'd told himself that he'd avoided a reset because he wanted to push efficiency to a higher threshold and that his research required the improved speed. He excused that it would be too large a hassle to rebuild her. He reasoned that he'd shown no signs of aberrant behavior, no tell-tale marks of feedback disorder. He was well in control, so long as he kept his logs and paid attention. There was no reason to wipe the mask yet.

  She flashed him a smile, and he returned it, despite himself, and enjoyed the warm satisfaction that bloomed in his chest. There was no reason to purge the template.

  He said, "I need you to go stealth."

  Her smile vanished. She replied, "Oh, sure, I get it. I prep the party, but once it's started, I'd better make myself scarce." She made a sound like a popped balloon and added, "Chauvinist."

  "That's not it."

  "Racist?" she offered.

  "Not better, but probably closer. Look, Neland's got some strong opinions-" he was talking to an empty chair. He sighed, "We can talk later." Somehow, he always managed to piss her off. He blamed the philosophy classes.

  The phone rang. Network connections dialogued, hand-shook between Neland's softjack and Firenze's direct link, requesting access. Firenze picked up the old rotary phone, and Neland sat opposite him.

  The professor wore his sportcoat open and tieless, looking more set for golf than whatever meeting he'd just departed. Neland's craggy face broke into an expressive grin as he looked about the room. He nodded appreciatively and said, "Nice place you've built."

  "Thank you." Firenze answered. He didn't bother to mention that Neland could only see it and hear it. You needed a hardjack to grok the whole thing, but him owning that piece of hardware wasn't exactly public knowledge. He said, "I've put a lot of work into it."

  "It shows. You've got an eye for this. This means I picked the right man for the job."

  "Job?" Firenze asked. He forced down the butterflies in his stomach and tried to pretend this was something from the blue. Of course, he'd heard rumors that Neland was setting up funding for some big AI experiment. Those tales had perforated the campus commons. He might also have cracked the database for confirmation, but he wasn't going to show Neland that. Instead, he forced himself to be curious and calm and resisted the urge to squeal.

  Neland explained, "I was very impressed by your work on false-rendering and sensate feedback in a softjack. At first, I thought there'd be too much low-end processing drain, but the scaling was bang on. Heat, voltage, timing, everything. Doctor Kusowa wouldn't shut up about it, tried to steal you from my program. I had to take a look, and... well, consider me impressed."

  "Thank you, professor. Integrated virtual worlds are a real passion of mine." Firenze had mastered the art of academic understatement, at least through the net. If this had been in meat-space, he'd have been near a panic attack by now. In here, he was perfectly cool.

  Neland continued, "Your work shows. I'm about to start a project involving adaptive code and AI comparison. It's a crossover with Doctor Singh's work in technoethics, and we're really digging into the intersection of technical and social conflict thresholds. Would you be interested? We could use you on the tech side. I can explain more once you've signed the non-disclosure. How about it?"

  "Sounds interesting." Firenze said, his heart pounding up into his throat.

  "So you'd consent to the NDA?"

  "Sure." Firenze stated. He wanted nothing more than to jump around the room and holler like an idiot.

  "Great." Neland said. He leaned back into his chair, satisfied, and offered, "Just a head's up, we're going to be looking at the edges of dumb AI and self-modifying code. We'll be pushing the envelope of rampant growth, so it will involve State sponsorship. This will look fantastic for your doctoral." He leaned forward, extended a hand, and finished, "I look forward to having you on the team."

  Firenze shook it, eagerly, and said, "I look forward to being there! Thank you for the opportunity, sir!"

  "Not a problem. I'll send you the paperwork. Take care." Neland vanished.

  Firenze waited until he was positive the connection had been terminated. Then, secure in his privacy, he let out a deafening triumphant scream, near doubled over in exuberance.

  "You'd think you'd won something." Lauren said. She stood next to her chair, a bottle of cleaner in her hand. She sprayed it liberally across the leather, her nose wrinkled in disgust, and said, "He put a groove in it. There's an old specist man-groove in my chair."

  Firenze spun her around from the shoulder, brought her face-to-face, and exclaimed, "I got it." The words didn't feel real. "I got it!"

  "He's still an asshole." Lauren stated.

  "Yes! Yes, he is!" Firenze agreed. "He's an amazing specist asshole who just opened the government-contract door! That means money! That means respect! That means more space between me and dronetown, and less time until I can pull mom out of that shithole!" He paused, looked her dead in the eyes, and said, "I couldn't have done it without you."

  "Aw shucks." She stated, with mock-humility. "I've only got the combined knowledge of the entire net at my disposal. How much help could I have been?"

  "Oh, shut up and take a thank-you."

  "You're welcome." She replied. She leaned forward and whispered, conspiratorially, "And Grant-" She paused, head tilted to the side. Something had broken her concentration.

  The red phone rang, its crescent-moon handle rattling against the cradle. Three letters hung over it: KDX. Kendrix. Lauren glared at it, furious enough to melt the dial.

  Firenze pulled away and excused, "I've got to take this."

  "I know this part." She said. "This is when you go from 'couldn't do this without you' straight to 'go hide in th
e registry'."

  "That's not-"

  She was gone.

  Firenze sighed and picked up the phone. This time, there was no visual connection nor datalink. Kendrix was too paranoid for that, holed up in his ledhead shelter with holos of giant robots, jackbooted espos, and vaults of shitty read-only files.

  On the phone, a robotic voice asked, "Is it raining?"

  There was always a ridiculous passcode. Firenze sighed and replied, "Both cats and dogs have taken shelter."

  The phone squelched, and a dialog request appeared. Firenze tapped the cradle, and Kendrix stood in the room. Kendrix always stood. He had a fear of chairs. The ratlike man shifted from foot to foot, eyes flicking around the study walls, and he had to tear his left hand from his mouth to send a command. White lights and silver scaffold bloomed from behind him and swept over the walls. Traces, scans, and scramblers rushed into every nook or cranny.

  Firenze had work to not show his annoyance. "It's clean, Kendrix. No need to scan my node."

  "Shh. No names. Not yet. Haven't swept."

  "I swept it. I built it! It's clean, K." Firenze insisted.

  "Gotta be sure." Kendrix's scaffolding collapsed back into the box in his hands, lights, sirens, and caution tape wrapping as they fell into the void. He tucked the container into his coat and asked, "You seen it?"

  "Yeah." Firenze sighed. "I cracked-"

  "Shhh! Don't say it out loud!" Kendrix insisted. He dropped to a whisper and asked, "Did you open it?"

  "No. I wanted to ask you-"

  "Good. I brought some things." Kendrix fished out a briefcase, spun it open on the coffee table to reveal the gleaming silver implements within. "Plasma Torch version seven-five, plus seven-six beta. Jaca's Thermonuclear Cracker. ICEBREAKER. Fuzzyconch. Jaws of Strife. Thanks to a few friends, I've even tossed in a couple of the ISA's pet h.k. autocrackers."