by Raya Jones
‘What?’
‘My life.’
He didn’t tell Angerford that he had contacted a 1Step chief who called herself Ferrari, and put it to her that if any corporate spook were to get him — any corporation — the letter he had deposited with CrimSol about his near-miss collision with Indigo will be made public. She arranged the alert. To change the subject, Rinzler inquired lightly, ‘April chose you? Please tell me that the trouble you’re here to solve isn’t April acquiring free will.’
‘Andronets already have free will. A degree of autonomy is built into the personality configuration. April was given a list of candidates which clearly showed I was the best choice.’
‘Oh, that game. Who needs mathematical game theory!’ laughed Rinzler. But he kept glancing up and down as if expecting an ambush.
Angerford spoke like putting a man out of his misery. ‘Roke won’t bother you for a while. I’ve told him that you have something I need which I can report only to the President.’
‘And he bought it?’
‘Yes, I think so. He’ll need very strong motivation to do you harm at the risk of undermining my investigation.’
‘He can make it look as if OK have done it.’
‘Yes, he hinted at that. I told him it’s in our interest to keep you alive for now, and I can get Wye Stan Pan to order him to protect you.’
‘Wow,’ said Rinzler, thinking, Thanks a bunch, mister. Now Roke Steiner won’t leave him alone until finding out what it is he knows that could be reported only to their president.
They stepped off the escalator into a spacious, immaculate, and empty foyer. The school trip had gone to the museum.
The foyer was housed in a transparent dome that rose above the planetary surface. Beyond it shone the stars. ‘Here’s your window,’ said Rinzler, happy to see Angerford crane his neck upward.
‘It scares the hell out of me being on the surface. The lethal flares of Proxima…’
‘Don’t worry. We’ll get a two-second warning if the shields fail. I can’t promise you a warning for when those kids finish at the museum. We probably have half an hour peace and quiet.’
They sat down on a comfortable bench.
Angerford took his fill of star constellations alien to him.
Rinzler took out his pad to check things.
Things started to make sense. Almost. A new storyline was taking hold of his mind. Everild is a Cyboratics agent prepped to replace Indigo in OK. Somehow they had her teleport ID faked to duplicate Indigo’s. She had the personality transplant but jumped the gun ahead of completing the plastic surgery. Roke sent Monday to eliminate her. Monday shot the real Indigo by mistake.
Or perhaps Monday was meant to shoot Indigo. Jan is spying for Cyboratics. Indigo threatened to expose her mother. Roke eliminated her.
Either way, Roke did it.
There was a single hair out of place. It seemed unlikely that Roke Steiner would plant a single hair of Kendall’s at the crime scene.
When Angerford had his fill of the stars, they rode the train back. They were the only ones on board.
The platform at the town terminal was empty but for Markus, who stood leaning against a pillar near the escalator waiting for Rinzler.
There was no avoiding him. Angerford went ahead to give them privacy.
‘Latifah, Bin Abdullah’s niece…’ started Markus.
‘You do know her!’
Markus winced as if it pained him. The woman had asked him to ask Rinzler to tell her uncle that she and Louis Huang were staying at the gang’s compound. ‘It’s not what you think,’ Markus hastened to add, accurately guessing what Rinzler was thinking.
‘Why can’t she tell him herself?’ asked Rinzler.
Markus explained. ‘The boss doesn’t want it in case her son-of-a-bitch uncle doesn’t believe they’re safe and sound, and gets the wrong idea that we’re holding them hostage.’
Rinzler spoke sceptically, ‘Are they guests of Lex Ludovic? No offence, Markus, but I can’t imagine the Terror of the Greys having a soft spot for essencists.’
Markus blurted, angrily, ‘Look, it’s not easy for me, okay? My mom told me to look after the Huang boy.’
‘Your mom told you?’
Gangsters have mothers too. Markus’s mother lived in Cardiff. Louis Huang took lodgings with her sister. It’s a small world — very small if, like Markus, you were born in the shipyards of Tao Ceti. The essencist community offered his family safety, dignity, and a stable livelihood. Putting up with low-tech seemed a price worth paying. But after a few years Markus couldn’t stand it anymore. Look what it does to people’s head, he told Rinzler. ‘Louis used to be one of the sensible ones in school, and now he’s terrified of androids.’
‘Don’t you have androids?’
‘Yes, but we have firewalls against the networked ones. Gen-5 units are walking spying devices.’
‘I see your point,’ agreed Rinzler, and continued business-like, ‘Before I pass any message to Bin Abdullah I need to see both of them face to face on neutral ground.’
‘She might come out, but not Louis.’
‘If I don’t meet both of them, how will Bin Abdullah know that you’re not holding Louis Huang hostage to make Latifah say anything?’
Markus agreed to arrange the meeting.
Rinzler caught up with Angerford at the terminal’s gate, surprised to see him still there. Angerford was studying a display on the palm of his hand, and turned it off when Rinzler came near. There was no point going back yet, he told Rinzler. The decoding had over an hour left. ‘Any ideas how to kill time, Rinzler?’
They jaunted in and out a few bars about which Rinzler had amusing anecdotes to tell. Angerford pretended to listen. He monitored the decoding progress, and at last was able to see the nature of the file. He was about to interrupt Rinzler’s storytelling and take his leave, but Rinzler himself — reading Angerford’s face — switched in mid-sentence, ‘So what is it, what sort of file?’
Angerford did not intend to share the information. He took out his pert.
‘C’mon, you owe me!’ insisted Rinzler. ‘It’s supposed to be something that I’ve asked you to check for me if anyone asks.’
They went outside for privacy.
The bar opened onto a wide balcony overlooking a typical P-7 open space. People passed by. A balloon shaped like a giant lantern floated nearby, advertising Everlasting Life with Memories Intact. ‘“Your Interactive Autobiography for Posterity”,’ Rinzler read aloud the banner that trailed the balloon, waiting for the passers-by to be out of earshot. ‘But it won’t be you, would it? You won’t be there in your Everlasting Life.’
Angerford glanced at him as if wishing Rinzler wasn’t there.
‘They can’t digitise your soul. Apologies for philosophising. What is that file?’
‘Someone’s digitised soul.’
There was no getting rid of Rinzler now.
Angerford gave in, privately rationalising that Rinzler kept in the loop was better than Rinzler snooping. If Rinzler snooped, he might create ripples that would alert other people. Kept in the loop, Rinzler would keep it confidential, Angerford hoped.
They arrived outside his place.
The door slid open to reveal a large spiral column of fast-moving data in the middle of the room. Having entered, the two men stood squeezed with their back to the closed door.
‘Wow,’ said Rinzler, softly. ‘So that’s what a soul looks like.’
‘It’s a teleport pattern encoded in Spare Lives format,’ murmured Angerford.
‘It is someone, a live person,’ Rinzler whispered as if out of deference to the swirling soul. ‘All the world’s cyberspace and all the men and women are data strings who have their exits and their entrances…’ Angerford shot a glance at him, and Rinzler grinned, ‘Apologies for the poetic lapse. Can you download this person? Who is it? How did the…?’
‘If you shut up I might be able to find out.’ Getting busy setting up an
interface, Angerford spoke like trying to control his own excitement and anxiety. How did such a file get to be stored in April? He wished Rinzler would go away.
Rinzler shut up long enough to take a breath, and then finished his question, ‘How did the soul migrate into April?’
It wasn’t something that Angerford cared to discuss with anyone except Wye Stan Pan. Ignoring Rinzler’s barrage of questions, he started to set up a way to display a thumbnail identifier.
‘Fine. I see you’re not going to tell me. Have it your way, Angerford. Is the soul viable?’
Angerford paused and looked Rinzler in the eye. ‘Perhaps you should leave now.’
‘I’ll shut up, I promise!’ Seeing Angerford’s sceptical expression, Rinzler changed his tone, ‘I know what you’re thinking. Whoever this person is has nothing to do with me. It might be corporate secrets.’ And I should leave right now before I find out, Rinzler’s survival instinct screamed. Rinzler’s voice said instead, ‘But I’ve helped you to get this soul. You owe me, mister. I’ll keep it Confidential with a capital C. That I do promise.’
Angerford hesitated, then gave in, and initiated the protocol.
The data swirl wavered as if undecided whether to be or not to be.
Then it began to condense and transform.
Within half a minute that felt to them as if it stretched on forever, it became the size and shape of a human head.
The two men watched silently as an ethereal skull appeared and took on a human face.
The face forming out of thin air became clearer.
Neither of them needed the nametag to tell them who she was.
Chapter 39
Markus’s message couldn’t have come at a worst moment. Rinzler gawked at Indigo’s mute ghost in the middle of Angerford’s room. He didn’t want to leave. Then the warm glow he always felt when thinking about Latifah filled him, and made it easier.
He arrived at the abandoned warehouse seconds before Latifah and Louis entered it from the street side. When he asked whether Markus was coming, they shook their heads in unison, and Latifah stressed, ‘We are free to come and go as we please.’
Rinzler pointed out that her uncle would want more than her word by way of a convincing proof.
She pointed to the corridor at the opposite end. ‘We can leave through there if we want to. We’re not prisoners. Please tell my uncle that we are staying with Lex Ludovic by choice.’
‘You are telling him yourself,’ Rinzler indicated the button-camera he wore. ‘But he’ll probably be as baffled as I am. Why don’t you stay with your own people?’
‘We feel safer here.’
Louis spoke suddenly like a man stepping out of shadows. ‘They don’t allow April in the compound. Is it transmitting right now?’ He meant Rinzler’s camera. Rinzler told him it was transmitting only to his office for the moment. Louis shook his head, worried, ‘If it’s in cyberspace, someone could see it.’
Yes, you met Samurai Sunrise, Rinzler thought at him. ‘Why are your phones switched off?’
‘We don’t want to be tracked down,’ Latifah explained.
‘But you could switch the phone on and off to talk to your uncle,’ Rinzler pointed out. ‘Who are you hiding from?’
She looked at Louis.
‘You must hear me out.’ Louis spoke with desperate urgency. ‘I must talk to you offline. Alone,’ he stressed, looking at Latifah.
She had no intention of leaving.
They started to argue.
Rinzler suggested that Latifah headed to the dance club and contacted her uncle from there, and meanwhile he and Louis could speak in the alley. She agreed reluctantly.
The stench of death still filled the pitch-black alley. The essencists pulled the collars of their coat up to their nose, and cautiously walked ahead in the dim light of Rinzler’s biosuit. Walking behind them, he recalled the dreamlike hallucination of Schmidt telling him to face the technology.
The technology faced them, blocking Latifah’s way. Its electric blue biosuit glowed brightly and the android face beamed a radiant smile.
Louis stepped back, bumping into Rinzler.
The hiss of a gun ray sliced the thick air.
April collapsed to the ground.
Louis yelled at Latifah, ‘You took the gun!’ Rinzler shook his head at the pointlessness of shooting an android. Another April appeared dead ahead of them, smiling radiantly.
Latifah shot it too. It collapsed next to the first one. Louis started to say something. Rinzler opened his mouth.
A third smiling April materialised, this time behind them.
Latifah bolted towards the club’s backdoor past the fallen androids. She wasn’t quick enough. A hand rose and grabbed her leg. She shot at it as she stumbled down, and the ray narrowly missed Louis.
Both men yelling at her to stop, Latifah emptied more fire into the android on the ground, seriously damaging it. She managed to get free of its grip, and ran to the club.
Rinzler grabbed Louis before he could follow her, simultaneously tapping the emergency pert.
Nothing happened.
Louis wriggled free and ran to the club.
Rinzler turned to face the technology.
April beamed at him.
He tried to speak nonchalantly. ‘Why are you here, April? I hope it’s to clear away the corpse over there.’
‘No. That’s a Monday job. I’m here to deal with you, Rinzler.’
Something about the way the android said it gave him the creeps. He hit the emergency pert again. Again, nothing happened. ‘What sort of deal, April? Please visit my office for terms and…’
April cut him off sharply, sounding like Jeremiah, ‘You know too much.’
‘I do?’ he asked bemused, fumbling in his pocket for the regular pert. ‘What do I know?’
‘Stop looking for Everild,’ April said sternly, sounding like Angerford.
‘Who is Everild?’
‘If I tell you I’ll have to kill you,’ retorted April, sounding like a cliché.
Rinzler folded his arms. Even if he teleported out of the alley, there was nowhere to hide for long from the andronet whose units were everywhere. Something came over him, a strange calm. To his own astonishment, he heard himself say, ‘Then tell me.’
‘Everild is…’ began April, stepping forward. Its face emptied of expression, its voice altered, and it sounded distinctly like Schmidt’s anime samurai, ‘Bukimi no tani.’
‘Who?’
The April unit stood mute and motionless.
Rinzler started to back away, at first not taking his eyes of it.
The android remained motionless, its empty eyes emptier.
His heart missed a beat as his pad suddenly chimed in the silence.
April remained inactive.
He reached the club’s backdoor and entered it, bracing himself to face an active April. But the cluttered storeroom was empty of humans and humanoids. He took out his pad. The incoming message was from Angerford: Edge of the world. Now please.
I’d be there already if things worked, he replied in thought, and accessed the biosuit’s Help Centre. It informed him that the emergency pert had three free trials, which were now spent. The manual also revealed that the designer rot had a limited duration, and would fade away within a month. It could be renewed for an additional fee. ‘Bloody Mu Tashi,’ Rinzler cussed aloud.
He cautiously peered into the main room. The loud dance music played, but there were only a few dancers. He couldn’t see the essencists. Near the storeroom door stood an immobile April, its hand stretched forward as if the android had been switched off in the middle of giving something to someone. Rinzler walked passed it gingerly, half-expecting it to come to life and grab him.
It didn’t.
Exiting the club through the front door, he spotted the pair several yards away on the dark balcony. They stood illuminated by the glow of advert balloons, speaking as if arguing. Latifah briskly walked away before Rinzler c
ould reach them. Louis stopped him from following her. ‘She contacted her uncle and she knows her way around. She can take care of herself.’
‘That’s what I worry about. I’ve seen her idea of taking care.’
Louis didn’t waste time. ‘Indigo didn’t kill herself.’
‘Everyone knows that. She was shot.’
‘I mean, she didn’t kill the one who died. An android called Monday did it.’
‘I know. The woman you met isn’t Indigo, but she probably believes she is. Where is she now?’
Louis didn’t know. She gave him a way to contact her, a childhood den that she didn’t use since she was ten. The abandoned site had migrated to cyberspace wastelands, but was still accessible with the password she gave him. He left her a message as agreed. She didn’t pick it up. When Rinzler suggested that perhaps she had other priorities, Louis pointed out that Indigo was very anxious to know that her Vesuvians were safely together.
Indigo would be, Rinzler knew, remembering the dead woman’s love for her pets. ‘Do you know for a fact that she didn’t read your message? She could have hidden her tracks.’
Louis doubted it. ‘I’m the only one she ever told about that site. She kept it secret from the other girls who used to bully her in the foster home. The “red gang” she called them.’
‘She’s told you all that?’ Rinzler wondered how much of someone’s memories could be downloaded into another person.
‘We had a long talk. She said that if she doesn’t pick up my message I must contact you,’ said Louis, his face glowing orange and pink. An OK balloon advertising educational games rose in front of them.
‘Why me? Does she know me personally?’
‘I have no idea,’ replied Louis. ‘All I know is that April has copied her. Her soul, she called it. I don’t understand the technology.’
‘Me neither, but I know it can be done. Still, there can’t be two of the same person at the same time.’
‘April downloaded her with her body partially changed to override that.’
‘You seem very knowledgeable suddenly.’
‘Indigo told me.’
‘Yes, the long talk,’ Rinzler said sceptically.
‘She is Indigo. How else would she know about her secret childhood site?’