Artifacts

by Greg Egan

  Dallaporta had a small-calibre pistol in his hand, and a neat hole in his temple. I put two fingers to his neck; he was certainly dead, but still warm.

  I felt a flicker of guilt break through the numbness of shock―but this wasn’t the time to agonize over the way I’d treated him. He’d killed Grace Sharp, and he hadn’t been prepared to live with that. If the fear of whatever I’d been about to tell him had been enough to drive him to suicide, he would have done it sooner or later, regardless.

  I took out my notepad to call the police.

  Then the supernova faded, and a new image took its place.

  An apartment building, swept by rain. The camera zoomed in on a figure climbing between two of the balconies. The magnification kept increasing, relentlessly―and by the time the woman turned and showed her face, it filled the screen.

  My stomach tightened. I glanced back to the neat, too-professional hole in Dallaporta’s skull, reassessing everything. But … who could have videoed me? If Cogent’s people had known I was on the balcony, why had they walked straight in?

  The image changed again. Me, planting one of the phone bugs.

  I laughed in disbelief. They’d all but slaughtered this man in front of my eyes―and now they were trying to blackmail me into silence with a couple of petty misdemeanours?

  “There are small traces of your skin under his fingernails.” The voice came from a metre behind me; I started, but I didn’t actually jump. “Not enough for him to have left a mark on you, but enough for DNA analysis.”

  I turned around slowly. The man was about my age, and only a little taller. He wasn’t pointing a gun at me, but he looked suspiciously relaxed.

  “The police will find out that Helen Sharp hired you―but they’ll have no grounds for a warrant to compel you to supply them with tissue samples. Not if they don’t see this.” He gestured at the screen.

  I said, “And why would they imagine I’d want to fake this man’s suicide? Breaking into his apartment proves nothing―”

  “I think that depends on whether someone tips them off about the hundred thousand dollars in your Swiss bank account. Grace’s close-knit linguistic community must have done a little whip-around, and bought themselves some justice for the man with the <> word.”

  That shut me up. If the account really existed … that was breathtaking. Had Cogent been watching me all along, setting this up?

  He smiled. “If you’re good, you can keep the hundred grand, of course. No tax; the whole thing’s organized beautifully through a holding company in Macao.”

  I didn’t have the presence of mind even to be tempted; I was still trying to come to terms with the whole Byzantine scheme.

  I said, “Forget it.” I walked straight past him, towards the doorway. I reached it, heart racing, then turned and looked back; I couldn’t see him anymore, but I didn’t think he’d moved a centimetre. Killing me would create too many problems, too many holes in their beautifully scripted VR experience―and the odds were stacked against me even if I did go straight to the police.

  I said, “So what did you expect me to tell Helen Sharp? ‘Screw your mother, the case is closed―and please don’t ask any questions, I’m late for my flight to Macao’?”

  “You’ll think of something. Believe me, you don’t want to fight us.”

  I laughed angrily. “One pissy little VR company, and you think you can pull all the strings?”

  The man said, “I’m not working for Cogent. They have no idea you’ve even taken an interest in them.”

  I peered into the darkness between the rows of screens. “Some VR industry consortium, then.” For some reason I’d started shaking; I think it was rage. “You’re still not above the law.”

  “Oh, there’s more to life than Virtual Reality.” He sounded amused.

  “Yeah? Who, then?”

  There was silence for a while, then I could see him approaching. “I can’t tell you that. But there are some people you can meet―if you want to―who might help you put your doubts to rest.”

  “Who?”

  “Maria Remedios. And her daughter.”

  “I thought you didn’t work for Cogent―”

  “She works for Cogent. I don’t. Though you could say it’s my job to watch over them both.”

  The further we drove from Dallaporta’s corpse, the more compromised I knew I’d become―but I couldn’t walk away from a chance to learn what it was I’d missed all along. Even if the revelation was intended to guarantee my silence.

  “Remedios was one of the first volunteers to test the TAP implant,” the man explained casually. “First she’d helped design it―and then she got to experience the results first hand. I think she must have found the reality exhilarating, in a lot of ways―but very frustrating, too.”

  “Why frustrating?”

  “Even with neural hardware, learning an exotic new language is always difficult. For an adult.”

  I didn’t reply. He continued, “She managed to find a good neurosurgeon willing to give her daughter the implant. Not here, though. Overseas. Which simplified things, really―it was easier to turn a blind eye.”

  That chilled me. “And you let her go ahead and do it? Just so you could see the results?”

  He laughed. “Well, not me personally. But that was the general idea.”

  And the results? I thought back to some of the more pessimistic technical papers I’d read on the subject. Maybe natural languages―which had co-evolved with human intelligence―were crucial for the early stages of intellectual development … and even if relatively “artificial” latecomers like sign made perfect substitutes, maybe TAP was just too different to perform the role of organizing the neural structures which made higher thinking possible. And maybe the fact that so much of the language was encoded in the chip, instead of the brain, meant that vital conceptual networks were missing―or at least, inaccessible to other regions of the cerebral cortex which needed them in order to mature.

  It still made no sense, though. If the daughter was living proof that the implant would do unspeakable damage to the infant brain, why not just publicize that fact? Why had Grace Sharp died to win a court case which could have been won by simply disclosing the truth?

  Maria Remedios lived in a modestly comfortable house on the north shore. My escort had phoned ahead; she was expecting us. As I followed him down the hallway, she met my eyes; there was unconcealed shame in her steady gaze―but a strange, almost proud defiance behind it. I looked away, confused. If she’d crippled her own child with the TAP implant, no wonder she’d left Third Hemisphere―but why was she so beholden to Dallaporta’s killers that she’d let them use her to manipulate Cogent? Had they threatened to imprison her? To put her child in an institution?

  We ended up in the living room, but Remedios didn’t invite us to take a seat. The man said, “So, what’s she been up to? Still spending every last waking moment on the nets?”

  Remedios shot him a poisonous look, and didn’t bother replying. I thought he was being cruelly sarcastic. Then he turned to me and explained, “Incoming data only, I’m afraid. We wouldn’t want her airing her grievances to the world.”

  Remedios left the room. I heard her say, “Jane? Ms O’Connor’s here.” Then she returned, with a young girl in blue-and-white striped pyjamas, maybe eight years old.

  Jane greeted me and shook my hand solemnly―or mock-solemnly. One look at her knowing grey eyes, and I knew I’d made exactly the wrong guess about the implant’s effects.

  “I was hoping I’d be allowed to meet you,” she said. “Uncle Daniel’s been complaining about you for weeks.” She glanced at the man, without obvious malice―more like a chess player regarding a formidable adversary. “And he doesn’t often let me have visitors.”

  I didn’t know what to say. “Uncle Daniel” interjected helpfully, “I think Ms O’Connor is still in the dark, Jane. She doesn’t understand―”

  “Why anyone would want to keep me prisoner? Why a
nyone would go to so much trouble to keep other children from growing up with TAP?” Her tone went beyond precocity; she didn’t come across as some child actor mouthing an adult’s lines. Every word simply negated the implications her appearance would normally have conveyed.

  And her bluntness was unnerving, but it cut through my own diplomatic hesitancy. I said, “That’s right. I don’t understand.”

  Jane smiled calmly. I don’t believe she was resigned to her situation―but she was patient. Very patient.

  She said, “With the implant, you can play words―or scan them. Experience them, blindly―or understand them, completely. Uncle Daniel’s not a big fan of understanding, though. He thinks there are certain words which should be played and not scanned.”

  “What kind of words?”

  She raised one hand, palm towards me. It was an ironic gesture; she must have known I was oblivious to IR.

  “If I play this word … I feel a boundless sense of loyalty and pride towards my team … my city … my State … my nation!” Her face shone with fervent, agonized, almost hysterical joy; she looked like nothing so much as one of the flag-waving school girls they’d whipped into a patriotic frenzy as ornamentation for the 2000 Olympics. “But if I scan it … “ Her expression faded into one of faint amusement―as if someone had just tried to dupe her with a very old, and very obvious, scam.

  “This word plays as what many religions call ‘faith’.” Her face was radiant, but tranquil now. “The peace that defies understanding.” She smiled apologetically. “Except, of course, it doesn’t. Scan it, and the mechanics are transparent: one foot down hard on an entrained neurochemical feel-good pedal―with cognitive, aesthetic, and cultural echoes linked to the context in which the training was acquired.”

  I glanced at Remedios; there were silent tears moving down her face. They wouldn’t lock up the mother, or institutionalise the daughter. They’d kill this child, if they had to. That was the only reason she’d helped them program the death of Grace Sharp.

  “Now, this is what the Buddhists call ‘enlightenment’.” Jane closed her eyes and smiled serenely. “Similar raw pharmacology, but the higher-level components are different. There’s a kind of heavily self-affirming cognitive myopia: every mental tool which could expose the true nature of the state is explicitly negated.”

  I thought of James, lost in wordless tranquillity. The package he’d swallowed whole, the mind virus fine-tuned by centuries of evolution, declared: Language is dangerous, language deceives you … because language could have shown him the way out of the hole he’d dug for himself.

  “And this is … sexual love, desire? Call it what you like, but if you scan it―”

  Something cut her short. Maybe it was a look from her mother. Or maybe it was the expression on my face.

  Jane continued smoothly, “There are others. I won’t list them all―but growing up with the implant makes them obvious. And Uncle Daniel’s friends don’t believe that a subculture with that knowledge would be … conducive to their idea of social cohesion. They feel very strongly about that.” She turned to face him―and her expression now contained more pity than anything else. “And I do understand. Because I’ve found the word for their affliction, too. I’ve found the word for the love of power.”

  By the time I got home it was almost midnight. Mick’s room was in darkness, but he was still playing the game; I sat down beside him and removed the headset gently, then reached over and logged him off.

  He opened his mouth to apologize, or invent some excuse. I said, “Just shut up and listen.”

  “What happened? I was worried.” I hadn’t told him everything―but he knew I’d gone to meet someone connected with Grace Sharp’s death.

  I tried to speak calmly. “I’ve screwed up the case. Badly. I’ve made some stupid mistakes, and now I’m going to have to drop it. Okay? That’s all I can tell you. And we’re not going to talk about it again.”

  He stared at me, incredulous. “Why? What did you do?”

  I shook my head. “I said, we’re not going to talk about it.”

  He started blinking away tears. I took him in my arms; he didn’t fight me, but he said angrily, “I don’t believe you!”

  I said, “Sssh.”

  Later, I lay on my bed in the dark, rolling between my thumb and forefinger the smooth cold object, like a small ceramic bead, which Jane Remedios had slipped into my hand.

  If she’d managed to copy her implant, this chip would encode her entire TAP vocabulary. And to an adult it would be useless―but a newborn child who started with the knowledge it had taken her eight years to acquire might surpass her in half that time.

  They’d be watching me closely―but they couldn’t be watching everyone. I believed I could pass the chip on to someone willing to use it, if I was careful.

  So I lay in the dark, and tried to decide.

  Between the silence of power and mystification, the unearned suspension of disbelief, the way things had always been―and the torrent of understanding which would sweep it all away.

  YEYUKA

  On my last day in Sydney, as a kind of farewell, I spent the morning on Bondi Beach. I swam for an hour, then lay on the sand and stared at the sky. I dozed off for a while, and when I woke there were half a dozen booths set up amid the sun bathers, dispensing the latest fashion: solar tattoos. On a touch-screen the size of a full-length mirror, you could choose a design and then customise it, or create one from scratch with software assistance. Computer-controlled jets sprayed the undeveloped pigments onto your skin, then an hour of UV exposure rendered all the colours visible.

  As the morning wore on, I saw giant yellow butterflies perched between shoulder blades, torsos wrapped in green-and-violet dragons, whole bodies wreathed in chains of red hibiscus. Watching these images materialise around me, I couldn’t help thinking of them as banners of victory. Throughout my childhood, there’d been nothing more terrifying than the threat of melanoma―and by the turn of the millennium, nothing more hip than neck-to-knee lycra. Twenty years later, these elaborate decorations were designed to encourage, to boast of, irradiation. To proclaim, not that the sun itself had been tamed, but that our bodies had. To declare that cancer had been defeated.

  I touched the ring on my left index finger, and felt a reassuring pulse through the metal. Blood flowed constantly around the hollow core of the device, diverted from a vein in my finger. The ring’s inner surface was covered with billions of tiny sensors, spring-loaded funnel-shaped structures like microscopic Venus fly-traps, each just a few hundred atoms wide. Every sizable molecule in my bloodstream that collided with one of these traps was seized and shrink-wrapped, long enough and tightly enough to determine its shape and its chemical identity before it was released.

  So the ring knew exactly what was in my blood. It also knew what belonged, and what didn’t. Under its relentless scrutiny, the biochemical signature of a viral or bacterial infection, or even a microscopic tumour far downstream, could never escape detection for long―and once a diagnosis was made, treatment was almost instantaneous. Planted alongside the sensors were programmable catalysts, versatile molecules that could be reshaped under computer control. The ring could manufacture a wide range of drugs from raw materials circulating in the blood, just by choosing the right sequence of shapes for these catalysts―trapping the necessary ingredients together in nooks and crannies moulded to fit like plaster casts around their combined outlines.

  With medication delivered within minutes or seconds, infections were wiped out before they could take hold, tiny clusters of cancer cells destroyed before they could grow or spread. Linked by satellite to a vast array of medical databases, and as much additional computing power as it required, the ring gave me a kind of electronic immune system, fast enough and smart enough to overcome any adversary.

  Not everyone on the beach that morning would have had their own personal HealthGuard, but a weekly session on a shared family unit, or even a monthly check-up at t
heir local GP, would have been enough to reduce their risk of cancer dramatically. And though melanoma was the least of my worries―fair-skinned, I was covered in sunscreen as usual; fatal or not, getting burnt was painful―with the ring standing guard against ten thousand other possibilities, I’d come to think of it as a vital part of my body. The day I’d installed it, my life expectancy had risen by fifteen years―and no doubt my bank’s risk-assessment software had assumed a similar extension to my working life, since I’d be paying off the loan I’d needed to buy the thing well into my sixties.

  I tugged gently at the plain metal band, until I felt a sharp warning from the needle-thin tubes that ran deep into the flesh. This model wasn’t designed to be slipped on and off in an instant like the shared units, but it would only take a five minute surgical procedure under local anaesthetic to remove it. In Uganda, a single HealthGuard machine served 40 million people―or rather, the lucky few who could get access to it. Flying in wearing my own personal version seemed almost as crass as arriving with a giant solar tattoo. Where I was headed, cancer had very definitely not been defeated.

  Then again, nor had malaria, typhoid, yellow fever, schistosomiasis. I could have the ring immunise me against all of these and more, before removing it … but the malaria parasite was notoriously variable, so constant surveillance would provide far more reliable protection. I’d be no use to anyone lying in a hospital bed for half my stay. Besides, the average villager or shanty-town dweller probably wouldn’t even recognise the thing, let alone resent it. I was being hypersensitive.

  I gathered up my things and headed for the cycle rack. Looking back across the sand, I felt the kind of stab of regret that came upon waking from a dream of impossible good fortune and serenity, and for a moment I wanted nothing more than to close my eyes and rejoin it.