Dominic’s hand lashed out, catching Ray a ringing blow to the ear. He fell off his bar stool and smashed his head on another stool. Before he could even grunt, Dominic was there, hauling him upward, dusting off his clothes, and inviting him to sit down. Ray saw stars. The old anger surged in him, and the humiliation. He shook with the effort of suppressing the urge to attack Dom.
Dominic took his own seat. “Not priceless. Not irreplaceable. Remember that. But very, precious. Check your account.”
Breathing slowly to calm himself, Ray pulled on the chain he wore around his neck to reveal his fob. He checked his account balance and discovered a much bigger number than he could have imagined.
“Thank you,” he said. He remembered the crying girl that had begged for relief and wondered if he would ever spend any of the money without thinking of her.
“A token of my appreciation,” Dominic said, slapping him on the back. “Our little venture is turning out to be much more effective than I had hoped. That man you did this morning? Government. I now finally have my line on virgin digital IDs. I’ll build government-certified profiles to create all sorts of upstanding fake citizens. I’ll make a fortune. These things?” He tapped Ray’s port. “These things are the key. Raymond, did you know that monkeys, when they want to be threatening, will stare at you open-mouthed?”
“I didn’t know that, no,” Ray replied.
“They do. And the more teeth you can see, the more threatening the stare. They lunge. They make their hair stand on end to seem bigger.” He pulled an implant from his pocket. “These are my teeth, Raymond. They are helping me to scare all the other monkeys. So much neater and tidier and more civilised, don’t you think? Not like the old days when the only option was to gun people down in the flow or leave something nasty on their doorstep to get results.”
Ray, despite the buzzing in his ear, risked a question. “Does this mean you don’t put out hits then? Just the thingweb stuff?”
Dominic paused in the act of bringing a glass of water to his lips and fixed Ray with a cold, hard stare. “Why, Ray? You’re not thinking of leaving me, are you? Because no one leaves me without my permission.”
“Of course not,” Ray blurted. “That just seemed…” Ray searched for the right word. “That seemed more traditional than I thought you were.”
Dominic chuckled and took a drink. “Traditional. That’s one way to think of it. I try to avoid it. It’s always… ridiculously complicated. Very hard to keep quiet and untraceable. And sloppy. You don’t want to be messy, do you Ray?”
Ray felt a chill run up his spine. Disappearing later was going to be more difficult than he’d hoped.
HAROON
Haroon met Yoshi at Kaiten Noodle downtown. The garish colour scheme hurt his eyes, but the food was cheap, and that would be increasingly important in the days to come.
“Yo, tomodachi.” Yoshi grinned. “Good to see you in person. I was thinking we’d become message-only friendies.”
Haroon pulled him into a hug. “Sorry brother,” he said. “I just needed some breathing space, you know?”
“Fair enough, fair enough,” Yoshi said, and they took a table. The place was getting busy, so they placed their orders right away. “So how are you doing? Have you talked to Saba?”
“I’m going to see her tonight,” Haroon sighed. “It will be a horrible conversation.”
Yoshi gave him an incredulous look. “You’re going to split up with her?”
Haroon bit his lip, trying not to cry. “I—I don’t know what to do, Yoshi. I’ve made a child. I should stay with her. I want to help. But—”
Their drinks rolled up on the conveyor belt. “Well, I was pretty certain you’d stick around, but…” Yoshi took a sip. “This is kind of a big thing. I’m not sure I’d have the guts to stay. Can’t play tournament-level Outrider if you’ve got a baby waking you up at 3:00 a.m., right?”
“Yeah,” Haroon sipped his soda, not tasting it. “She’s going to expect me to have some sort of master plan to make it all work out; only, I got nothing. This would be a long, hard slog. I’m not even sure how we would do this without her father killing me.”
“Do you love her?” asked Yoshi.
Haroon was silent for a beat and then nodded. “Yeah, I think so. I figure that’s why I was so angry with her when she told me. Felt like she’d betrayed me. Or she hadn’t trusted me enough to ask about getting married. Or talk to me about her father and his plans.” He suppressed a belch and took another drink. “I suppose you’re gonna tell me love will make everything all right?”
Yoshi laughed. “How many romance holographs do you think I watch? I know real life is just a little bit different.” It was Yoshi’s turn to be quiet. Then he said, “What’s it like, anyway? To be in love?”
Haroon swirled his drink around in the glass. “Different than I expected,” he said. “All that stuff about feeling giddy, and sweaty palms, and weird feelings in the bottom of your stomach? Never happened. There’s just this… this sense of calm, really. I mean, before we found out she was pregnant, of course. But kind of like all of the tumblers in a mechanical lock have clicked into place and the door opens nice and smooth and you feel like you’ve always been together and always will be.”
“I’d never be able to ask my dad that question,” Yoshi said. Haroon nodded. Yoshi’s parents seemed pretty solid together; they clearly respected each other, but he had never seen them be affectionate. Haroon had the sense just asking the question would embarrass them.
“This is what killing me about all of this. I do want to be with her. And the baby. But I would be such a disappointment to her. She’d be better off without me.”
Yoshi made a sad face and came over to hug him. “Don’t say that. You know it’s not true.”
Their food arrived, and they spent a few minutes getting it organised to eat. “So what are you going to do?” Yoshi said, between mouthfuls. “I mean, I can’t believe you’ve really got nothing going into this.”
“Don’t I?” Haroon replied, bitterly. “I figure we’d maybe have her mum and her sisters for support, if they don’t disown us. Her dad is pretty archaic about women. I don’t have anything more than the basic income, and no family help to speak of. The RCMP would probably be the fastest route to a regular paycheque, but their washout rate is crazy high. The hours on the job would be brutal too. I’m not sure I’ve got the brains for this.”
“So you’d be marrying more than one woman, really,” Yoshi waggled his eyebrows at him.
“Ack, I hadn’t thought of it that way,” Haroon gulped down his soda. “But yeah. I suppose. The thing that worries me most, well, apart from her father killing me, is afterwards. I was looking at the RCMP because some day I wanna go back to J and clean it up. Like, really go in there and clear it right out. It seems it’s like this black hole that gets attention only when stuff spills out into the main city. I’d need to rank up, and for that, I’ll need more than the undergrad degree. So I’d have to be a green cop and a new dad and try to study at night, for years, all while trying to be a halfway decent husband.” Haroon rubbed a hand over the stubble on his chin where he was attempting to grow a beard. “Have I ever mentioned what my home life was like?”
Yoshi gave him a sort of lopsided smile that was both admiring and rueful at the same time. “Yeah, I think it’s come up a few times. You’re a little short on the role model end of things. But listen, about the studying…”
“Yeah?”
“You know how I said in my last message there were some weird things going on at the tournament I was at last weekend? The leading team suddenly passing out and forfeiting? Turns out they were using these.” He pressed half dozen implants into Haroon’s hand. “I want you to have them.”
“Uh, thanks? Pretty sure I’d be great at passing out without help.”
“Give me a minute to explain, Mr Sarcasm,” Yoshi glared at him. “I did some asking around. Apparently, these things are good for recording your
brain when you’re in a smooth groove. You know how I live for those times in the game when everything clicks and I hit every combination at the right time and see every move coming? And how I can’t do that if I’ve not slept well or I’m hungry or whatever? These things allow you to replay your best brain. I’ve been thinking about it and I figure you could use them at night to give you a solid hour’s worth of clear-headed study, instead of three hours of struggling and jacking yourself up with too many cups of coffee.” He reached over and tapped Haroon’s forehead. “Just promise me you won’t be like those fools and use them for several hours straight. Apparently, those players I mentioned had been for days with them, practising, and then used them all that day, in a high pressure tournament, too.”
Haroon shifted in his seat, frowning. “But these look like they need a brainjack and I don’t have one—”
“I know, that’s why—”
“And I cannot let you buy me one,” Haroon said firmly. “I can’t do it anymore, Yoshi. I gotta be able to make my own way.”
“Aaaand I knew you’d say that, so that’s why this would be a loan. With interest.” Yoshi took a bite of his food. “Besides, how else am I going to say I got a cop in my pocket?”
Haroon had to laugh. “Ohhh, so that’s how it’s going to be, eh? Cold, Yoshi. Real cold.”
“So’s your burger. You gonna eat that?”
Haroon looked down, not at his burger, but at the strange implants in his hand. He felt the first flutterings of possibility, and smiled.
MAURA
The local financial press had discovered the replay device.
“I’ll take one more question,” Maura said, looking out over the sea of journalists and vroggers all pointing recording devices at her. Some of them had excessively bright lights. She picked one at random. It was of no consequence, really. She could guess what the question would be no matter who she selected.
“Nagesa from the vrog Virtual Reality Toronto,” the woman said. “The TSX will open in about fifteen minutes. Given the documented ability of this device to provide actual reality right inside your head and so completely eviscerate your company’s core products, what kind of bloodbath are you expecting in the market?”
There it was. Maura clamped down on a surge of irritation. She loved her adopted country, but one thing always irked her: Canadian-based companies never seemed to get a good headline at home. It didn’t seem to matter how well the company was doing, or what it might be up to in terms of philanthropy or community service, the pro and amateur press always managed to find a negative to focus on. And there was a perverse sense of glee in the reporting if a company put a foot wrong or got caught out by something.
Maura chose her next words carefully, knowing the stock brokerages would incorporate an analysis of her statement into trading algorithms even before she stepped away from the mic. “Thank you. First, I think you’re overstating the capabilities of this flow device. It can reproduce certain sensations, of course, but it is still in the very early—”
“Won’t stay that way for long!” someone in the audience shouted.
Maura pretended not to hear. “And second, EduTain has been aware of this technology for some time, and we have been reviewing ways of utilising it. We see it as complementary rather than competitive. As I think I’ve said to you before, we’re always looking at the big picture.”
“You didn’t answer my question,” Nagesa said.
Maura flashed a smile she didn’t feel. “I expect there will be some movement today. There usually is when the market learns about something new and doesn’t know how to price it in. But as I said, this is not new to us, and this will settle out before our next quarterly earnings filing. We’re here for the long haul. Thank you, everyone.”
She stepped away from the podium and headed for the lift, ignoring the additional questions being shouted at her back. As the doors closed behind her, she felt very unsettled. She couldn’t shake the feeling she’d badly misread her audience. Her usual way of dealing with most situations was to project calm confidence and a steady hand at the tiller. Now she was wondering whether she shouldn’t have gone for more excitement and perhaps even admitting to some uncertainty.
She didn’t have to wait long to find out. Pauline met her at the lift door, bearing a tablet that she handed over without a word. Maura skimmed the headlines. Eight stories had already been filed. All the authors had cast EduTain as a stodgy company about to be blindsided by something new and blast.
Maura gave back the tablet, and they went back to Maura’s office. She woke her computer and pulled up a screen for the exchange. “That’s not good,” she said after a minute.
“What?” Pauline asked.
“Significant pre-market activity on the stock,” Maura said.
“Shorting it?”
“I hope not,” Maura said. Pauline came around behind her to watch the market opening.
The verdict was swift and brutal. Within three minutes of the opening of trading, the stock’s value had been cut in half. Within five minutes, it was cut in half again. By the time it finally plateaued, ten minutes after opening, it had lost ninety percent of its value, and it was still falling. Maura wondered what she would do if it was delisted.
She turned off her computer.
“Well,” Pauline cleared her throat, came out from behind the desk, and sat down, looking stunned. “That was dramatic.” She straightened a little, trying to put on a brave face. “However, what was the old phrase? It’s only a paper loss. Once everyone is done panicking, I’m sure it will come back up. Probably right after we work out an approach for the device and announce something.”
Maura’s mouth twisted. “Wait for it.”
“What?”
Maura’s wristband beeped. She looked at it and blew out the breath she’d been holding. “The bank. It’s not even a personal note. It was automatically generated.”
Pauline’s hand flew to her mouth. “The bank? What for?”
“Insufficient market cap. They’ve cancelled our acquisition financing. Boom, just like that.” Shaken, Maura stood up. “If you don’t mind, I need some alone time just now.”
Pauline left. Maura walked on unsteady feet to stand in front of her Van Gogh, hoping to find solace in his orchard.
KEL
Kel glanced up from her work. Someone was banging hard on her apartment door.
She checked her wristband, wondering who it could be. The video from her door monitor showed two men in dark suits. They were looking at the camera. One of them made a motion towards his ear. She turned on the audio.
“Dr Rafferty, we know you’re home. Open up immediately.”
Kel flicked off the wristband and went back to work. She didn’t know who they were, and she was not in a mood to discuss anything with demanding strangers just now. She almost had the fabber virus finished. It was fiendishly difficult work: not only would it have to spread undetected, it would have to be specific enough to kill prints of her device, clever enough to spot mods of her device and kill those prints, and yet not cause other issues.
A surge of anxiety gripped her. She’d seen the report about EduTain’s stock tanking because word of the device had hit the financial press; fortunately, it had been just before the Canada Day holiday weekend and virtually no one else was paying attention. But it wouldn’t be long before the media started digging for their autumn news cycle stories or some thingweb vrogger created a conspiracy theory about it. Kel reckoned she had maybe a week left before it was truly out of control.
There was another noise at the door, and Kel froze in shock when she realised it was from someone forcing entry. She recovered quickly, transferred a copy of her virus to her wristband, secured her computer, and looked for something she could use as a weapon. Kel cursed the lack of effort she’d put into decorating. She grabbed a brass candlestick from a shelf, an item she’d received from her grandmother’s estate. Kel tucked it behind her back. It wasn’t huge, but if she c
ould keep it hidden and then be quick, she might injure one or both long enough to get out of the apartment and into public view.
She turned to face the doorway of her living room just as the two men walked in calmly. One of them had his hand conspicuously in his pocket, where there was something large and lumpy.
“Dr Rafferty, are you usually this rude to guests?” said the man who had spoken earlier.
“Guests don’t show up unannounced or break in,” Kel replied. She wished she had thought to thumb the emergency beacon on her wristband. “Who are you?”
“We’d like to talk to you about this,” the man said, showing her a copy of a replay device. His partner remained silent, still holding whatever it was he had in his pocket. It looked like it was pointed at her.
Kel tried to keep her expression neutral. “What is it?”
“Please don’t waste our time,” said the man. “We know this is your work, Dr Rafferty. Every fabber unit has a unique ID code associated with it. Whatever it prints has that code embedded in it, and whatever machine scans and prints something has its ID inserted in the print too. And so on and so on.” He pretended to examine the implant. “This copy is a seventh, meaning it’s a copy of a copy seven times over. The trail is easy to follow if you know how to look. It leads straight back to you. Yours was the first.”
“What is it?” Kel said again. “And why are you here?”
“The problem with this is…” he said, walking forward to halve the distance between them; Kel gripped the candlestick tighter and tensed to strike “…it only records twenty minutes’ worth of experience, which means you have to play it over again to get into the same state. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be possible to get it to replay again very quickly, which means there’s an annoying sensation of resetting. Breaks the concentration. We have assumed, based on your publicly available work, that you’re also responsible for the invention and design. We don’t quite understand how this thing works, but we like it a lot. So we want you to give us an original copy and we want you to fix the design so it doesn’t do that. A nice, seamless loop would be ideal. Or better yet, much longer replay times.”
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