“Eleven weeks! That was…” He tried counting backward, his thoughts in a riot. “Our first time! Saba!” He couldn’t stop himself from blurting out his next thought. “You talk about love? Do you actually love me? Or was I just a convenient donor?”
She gasped and pulled away from him, crossing her arms over her chest, hunching as though he had punched her in the stomach. “How could you—?” She stopped and gulped, tears pouring freely down her cheeks. “Of course I do. You were the nicest boy I’d ever met! You’re cute, you’re funny. Clever. I-I thought we could make it work.”
“You could have asked first!”
“What would you have said?” Saba demanded.
“I don’t know!” Haroon shouted. “We’d only just met!”
“That’s not true!” she yelled back. “We’d been out on dates before that!”
He stood up and kicked the chair. Saba flinched in a way that made him burn with shame. Haroon turned away from her, his chest heaving.
They were silent for a long time. Then she said, “You don’t know what it’s like, growing up in a war. Wondering if the sound you hear overhead is a commercial solaplane or a recon drone. Whether when you open the door it will be your sister back from a secret trip to school or a killbot that’s followed you home. Or even if the house you left that morning will still be standing. We moved seven times before the peacekeepers finally got to our region. Do you know how much of this is pure luxury?” She waved her hand, indicating his apartment. “Education is free here. There’s an income to provide the basics while you’re having your kids and strong laws to protect jobs. Universal health care. And we’re not constantly going to war! I only just now started to sleep through the night! I didn’t mean to rush us… but when father announced we’d be going back…” Her breathing was now ragged, convulsive. “I didn’t plan it, not really. I swear.”
Haroon wasn’t listening. He was thinking of his father and wondering now how he had ended up with a child he hadn’t wanted. He didn’t know what a father was supposed to be like. He remembered the regular beatings his father had given him, and how he had cowered and cried as he was pummelled.
Only now, when he looked up into his father’s face in his memory, it wasn’t Subhan’s face he saw, but his own.
“I need out,” he said, and stormed off, leaving Saba weeping in his kitchen as he slammed the door behind him.
PART III
KEL
The rain was nearly horizontal; the wind gusted and howled, rattling the door. The summer thunder made the windows vibrate.
Kel ignored the noise. She was sitting by herself at a corner table in an old-time bar on Bloor St. called, appropriately enough, Tradition. She was sipping saffron vodka, straight up. It wasn’t something she liked overmuch, but it had been her grandmother’s favourite drink, and the perfume of it brought back nice memories.
The bar featured real wood, probably the original stuff from when the place was built, and genuine draught taps that had to be pumped by hand. It smelled of stale beer and oil soap. A real antique, the place was, and it appealed to Kel today for reasons she couldn’t explain.
It was her third or fourth drink of the afternoon. She had a pair of EduTain’s AR glasses on, and to her eyes, it looked like a news-program anchor was sitting at the table right across from her.
“And finally,” he said in a pleasing baritone, “Toronto police have announced they are officially looking into those very strange claims involving Casino Max we brought to you yesterday. In case you missed it, we interviewed several people who came to the TorNews flagship program Public Outcry to complain they had all attended Casino Max last week, had won big and then realised long after they had returned home from the casino that they had not received the payout they were sure they had won. For their part, Casino Max officials claim that, in fact, there weren’t any big winners last week at all, much less several.”
The announcer leaned forward, looking earnestly into Kel’s eyes. “Now, far from being a run-of-the-mill gambling scam, TorNews’ investigation of the matter revealed some odd details. All the people involved claimed to have won roughly the same amount of money at the same type of machine, and none of the claimants appear to be connected to each other. Many of them were incensed to hear about similar complaints, suggesting a rumour mill had prompted several copycats to cash in. Police say they have no reason to suspect impropriety at the casino and are treating the matter as being a drug-related incident. However, their spokesman, Constable Bryer White, admitted he had no clues yet on what drug could cause the same hallucination in so many people. We’ll update you as more details become available.”
Kel groaned, pulling off the glasses and letting them clunk onto the table top. She could guess what had happened. Someone at the casino had tried handing out complementary implants and drinks. The addictive dopamine surge associated with what it must feel like to have a big win would be sure to keep customers coming back to lose money, wouldn’t it? Except they hadn’t realised the experience would feel so real those same customers would feel they had been ripped off, somehow.
The bartender, an older man with a slight paunch who looked like he would be just as comfortable behind a bar in the 1800s as he was today, sidled up. “You know, lady,” he said, as he filled up her glass. “Ordinarily, I’d be concerned about you coming in here outta the blue and drinkin’ this much while lookin’ so glum. Never a good sign when people are doin’ that, eh? But I gotta say, I’m just happy to have the custom.”
Kel looked around. She hadn’t noticed, but the place was empty, and now she thought about it, it had been ever since she came in “Where is everyone? Does this place just not fill up until the evening? Or is it the weather’s been too awful?”
The bartender looked disgusted. “Oh yeah, oh yeah, the weather’s a thing. But it’s this new gadget on the path. Supposedly, it gives you the same buzz as the booze, only without the liver damage and the hangover. And you only have to buy it once. You can stick it in your head, play the same buzz repeatedly. Business has dropped like a stone.” He used his bar towel to give her table a wipe it didn’t need. “Kids today,” he huffed and went back to doing whatever it was bartenders do when they’re not serving drinks.
Kel buried her face in her hands and cursed. She didn’t know whether to be appalled or depressed or both. She had designed the replay implant to record flow so people could do more good things, and every day now, she was hearing about people using it to simulate highs, or drunkenness, or for pornographic purposes. And cheating, or whatever it was the casino owners were trying to pull off. Why could no one see the true potential of the device?
Her leg ached. She reached down to rub it. The leg, and her post-assault recovery were her official reasons for asking for a short sabbatical, but really, she had left work because she couldn’t settle down. When she wasn’t obsessing over news about the device’s uses, she kept trying to think of a method to kill the spread of the implant before someone got hurt with it. The irony of it all was killing her: she couldn’t concentrate long enough to record a good session to help her focus for longer periods on solutions.
Kel thought of a virus for the implant software, but she didn’t want to risk something going haywire while it was influencing people’s brains. She also didn’t know where people were getting copies of software. The devices she’d found so far already had the software installed. Whoever had stolen the original must have put up a publicly accessible copy of it that was pulled as soon as the device was replicated. And the implant was hardware as well as software; a physical object that could be printed by anyone with access to a fabber…
A fabber virus! Kel thumped the table when the thought came to her. That was it, yes. Something to infect the fabber network so the device wouldn’t print. Or it would print a dud so enthusiasm for the thing would wane. A passing fad. A weird footnote, like so many others, in Toronto’s history.
Her face flushed hot with shame. Memories of how sh
e’d foolishly stolen the first copy of the device she’d found on the flow – in broad daylight, in plain view of the shopkeeper – kept looping in her mind. On top of everything else, she was worried he had video footage of the incident would be made public. How would she ever live it down?
Kel decided she’d have one more drink and then go home. She felt she owed the bartender that much.
SETH
Visiting the Royal York was always like stepping back in time.
Seth took a moment to admire the grandeur of the hotel with its marble floors, dark wood-panelled ceilings, and massive chandeliers. He was fond of the green analogue clock that graced the centre of a spiral staircase in the lobby. It felt like gentlemen in tails and ladies in flapper dresses would appear at any time, sipping swanky cocktails and discussing that Picasso character.
He took the lift to the main mezzanine and made his way to the Algonquin room for the opening reception of an annual writers’ conference that was always good to be seen at. The room was already half full, with writers from all over the city making full use of the hors-d’oeuvres and drinks tables.
“Seth!” someone called out. He turned to see a small group of people chatting and sipping. He recognised a few from a short course he’d attended late last year. Seth grabbed something of his own to sip and joined them, surprised to discover he was eager to socialise.
The woman at the centre of the group, who he recollected as being a popular fantasy author, was wearing an enormous hat with a swoopy brim and black gloves. He thought her name might be Monica and he remembered she had a particularly dry sense of humour.
“Seth, darling, how are you?” she said. “I haven’t seen you out at a thing in ages. Where have you been hiding? You remember Amachi, Bahram, and Kyra, I think. And this gentleman is Marty.”
As they all gave each other little bows, Seth realised the three he had met before were each wearing something very similar to what he had seen them in before: Amachi was wearing all black, Bahram had a thing for lots of gold jewellery, and Kyra had a distinctive facial tattoo. They all had a trademark style. He wondered if it had anything to do with their sales, as they all outsold him regularly. He felt annoyed with himself for not having noticed this sooner. Maybe he was seeing it now because he was still riding the high from his breakout work session.
“Marty was just telling us how he was working on his first book,” Monica said with a twinkle in her eyes suggested she found it rather amusing. “Go on, Marty, tell him what it’s about.”
Marty beamed, then took a big gulp of his drink. “It’s about this small town in Ontario; I follow it over several generations, and it’s all about how the town can’t escape its past and keeps repeating it. And all the characters are zombies. And! Here’s the twist: they all have the same name.”
“Wow,” Seth said, burying his face in his drink for a minute to cover the expression he wanted to make. “That sounds…” Seth searched for a suitably neutral word, “intriguing! Are zombies a thing again? I’m afraid I haven’t been keeping up.”
Marty’s face fell. “What do you mean again? Has my book been done before?”
Seth resisted the urge to tell him all plots had been done before. “Uh no, not that I’m aware of. Sound like it will be very challenging to write. Can’t wait to see it published!” he finished, sounding insincere even to his own ears.
Monica rescued him. “So Seth, where have you been?”
“Oh, you know, working on this and that. I have my fourth book nearly done now, I think,” he said, keenly aware of the jealous look Marty was giving him. “And, I was doing some, ah, character development for Xperience before they folded.”
“Wow!” Amachi said. “Is this the same one you were thinking about at the workshop? That’s tremendous. I’m still in the planning stages of mine.”
“Nearly done? I remember workshopping your opening scene with you. Weren’t you thinking of this one being a pretty hefty epic?” Bahram asked.”Change of plans?”
“It will be pretty big,” Seth nodded. “It will come in around two hundred thousand words, I think.”
Amachi dramatically faked a spit take. “Good lord, Seth. I am trying to do the math on that in my head, but whatever it works out to, it’s a ridiculously high number of words per day. What’s your secret?”
“A new implant, actually,” Seth said, feeling proud of himself. For once, he felt like he had figured out something other people hadn’t yet.
“Oh, not the thing I keep hearing about?” Kyra said. “The weird brain playback gadget?”
Seth nodded. “Yeah, that one. I managed to catch one of my best creative sessions with it, and now I just fire it up when I’m ready to sit down.”
“Wow,” said Marty. “What a great idea. I would pay money for that. I mean it.”
“Me, too,” said Monica. “Seth, are you selling copies of your session? I find it so hard to put away the distractions these days. Too many good VR things to get lost in.”
Seth grinned, delighted. “That depends; how much do you think it’s worth?” They laughingly shouted out numbers at him and he could hardly believe his luck. They were all much, much higher than what he’d been thinking. He pointed at Marty. “Sold, to the highest bidder. And to the rest of you at that rate, too, if you’re serious.” Everyone started poking their wristbands to initiate transfers.
When they were done, they toasted Seth. “Are you staying for the whole conference?” Kyra asked him.
Seth considered his options. He’d only planned to stay for the reception, to say hi to some familiar faces; only a few sessions scheduled for tomorrow had looked interesting. But he had a hunch that word of his productivity tool would get around. It might not be a bad idea to stay accessible. In fact, it might be lucrative. And since he was unemployed and now in debt for all his new equipment…
RAY
When he walked in the neighbourhood now, there was more than deference in people’s eyes. There was unmitigated fear. He heard whispers that he had the ability to inflict terrible nightmares on people at will. More than once, he had glimpsed someone crossing himself or making the sign to ward off the evil eye as he passed. It boggled his mind that people would do that around him. Around Ray, that little kid that had taken years to work out he didn’t need to be afraid of his mother any more. And in this day and age, too. How could people be so superstitious in the midst of all this smart technology? He didn’t know it was what Dominic was saying, or whether it was the sight of the ‘guests’ staggering out of the plaza that was doing it; he suspected it was both.
Stranger still, it seemed like even the guys on Dominic’s crew were giving him space. Not showing fear, exactly, but finding ways to leave the room whenever Ray appeared. Big, rough guys who must have seen it all by now.
Not that it mattered. He didn’t have the time or the energy to talk to any of them anyway.
Dominic was on a tear. On slow days, Ray would run through his routine at least ten times, each replay just as horrifying and as gruesome to watch in action as the first one. Through snatches whispered into the victims’ ears, or the bits and pieces he heard during the rare times he was let out of the room to eat, he had worked out that Dominic was pushing further into the fabber network. He was selling black market fabber recipes, stuff the average Joe on the flow wasn’t supposed to be licensed to print. He was bullying his way into politics, taking payments to intimidate certain candidates into calling off their bid for office. His hackers were slicing into big companies to use their big server CPU cycles for encryption cracking. Ray was sure he’d heard someone say something about trafficking in illegal mods and printed body parts for the overseas markets.
At night, in the dark and under his bed covers with a dim light, he made more notes, piecing together a bigger picture of the crime and corruption in the city. The company he suspected of killing Mick was right in the thick of it, with a history of suspicious industrial accidents involving Analogue workers from J-District,
and ties to at least two rival gangs. The question was, why Mick? What had he ever done to them? And which person had ordered the hit?
Lack of sleep was making it hard to think. Dominic was bringing in anyone who had ever resisted him in the slightest, or hinted they might resist him, even members of those other gangs. For all their toughness, they fell to pieces just as quickly as the others Tomasso brought him.
Ray rolled his shoulders in his quiet room, shook his head to stay awake. He was desperate not to be caught sleeping on the job, but it was so deathly silent in here when he was alone and waiting, and there was nothing to do but try to avoid thinking of the contorted, terrified faces he had just seen. Or worse, speculate on how those replays had been made.
The door swung open, and Ray stood slowly, moving with the unhurried, preternaturally calm pace he had developed in his role. Dominic walked in alone.
“Ray, Ray, look at you, my good soldier, all by yourself, waiting for your next assignment. You must be starving. Come, eat with me,” he invited.
He followed Dominic up the stairs into the bar. It was pouring rain outside; it might have been the fifth day in a row they’d had rain. Ray wondered how waterproof the downstairs area was. The places he’d stayed in as a child had always leaked: water, cold air, awful smells.
They sat on the barstools. Sylvie must have heard them, because she came out almost immediately. Her eyes went to Ray; instead of the friendly smile he’d seen the last time, she swallowed and glanced nervously away. Dominic snapped his fingers at her, a frown on his face, making his demand without saying a word. She vanished to fetch their meals. He stared after her, tapping a rhythm on the bar top, thinking. Ray tried not to fidget.
Dominic turned to him. “Raymond. You’ve turned out to be quite the asset, did you know that? Just how valuable? Go on, ask me. Ask me how valuable you are.”
“How valuable am I?”
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