by Jim Nelson
“I privately wondered if Aggaroy was double-dealing,” I said to her. “Working with someone else.”
“Who?”
“I won’t speculate.”
“The Brandt campaign?”
“I won’t speculate,” I repeated. “But I would think it's an avenue worth looking into. Unfortunately, my time is short. If there’s any other questions you may have, please direct them to me.” I transferred my Nexternet ID to her personal digital tablet.
“I might need to speak with someone else with the campaign.”
“Let me know and I’ll have the Mayor’s office contact your superiors to discuss the situation.”
That made her jaw grind shut. I told her good day and returned to the hotel.
Detachment—
*
To perform a mainline is to toy with the very neural precautions and safeties Cassandra Chancellor had helped design twelve years earlier. Man was not meant to live two lives. The mind is not a nest for two birds to roost. My memex socket felt warm and puffy, and the skin around it was tender and enflamed.
“He’s running a line filter,” I huffed, out-of-breath. Some people call them "life filters" because they strain out all of life’s impurities.
Gannon had installed a line filter on his retention server, a piece of software designed to shape and smooth his memories before being committed to long-term storage. A line filter would always portray him and his life in the best light possible. Pool days have perfect weather. Service people are always prompt and delighted and delightful. His line filter also portrayed others as second-string character actors in the hypernovel that is Gannon Chancellor’s life. It’s expensive technology and requires tremendous customization to get right.
Line filters are a must for celebrities, of course, people constantly sharing their lives across the Nexternet. If you hyperstream an excerpted life—if you live the life of your favorite Nexternet star or personality—you may naively think they enjoy perfect existences, dream worlds of the rich and beautiful.
It didn't take long for politicians to do the arithmetic, and soon they'd all installed life filters too. This was software for people who planned to write history by writing their own history. Someday the corporations will figure out how to mass-produce the customized algorithms and the price will come on line filters. Everyone with a memex will be able to stream their life story as though they were the narrator, the protagonist, the director, and the star of a dream world.
“His raw memories aren’t stored on his retention server,” I told Gillette. “They’re being edited down in real time. He comes across stiff as a two-by-four.” Judging by Gannon's Nexternet following, there are a lot of people in this world who mistake this stiffness as resolve, or good breeding, or a strong backbone.
“What about the memories stored on his memex?” Gillette asked. “They'll still be raw and unshaped.”
“I need to raid everything from the server first. Once the cops seize the machine, it’ll be out of reach.” I swallowed a mouthful of water from the carton Gillette offered. It was crisp and wonderfully ice cold. It tasted like he’d scooped it from the Arctic Sea and delivered it to me via Iditarod.
“Don’t lose yourself,” he said.
“Detachment—”
*
After my conversation with Det. Whitcomb, my priority became protecting the campaign. In the lobby, I informed Ms. Darren the police would be requesting the hotel's surveillance video. I suggested she make the street-level video available right away but asked she consult with me first before offering them the interior surveillance. If Aggaroy had been in the hotel bar the night before, it was imperative I know before the police did, for the sake of the campaign.
After finishing some business upstairs, I returned to the New Montgomery entrance. From under the protection of the eaves, I watched the police investigation unfold.
At the police line running along Market Street, a man stepped under the tape and approached the mouth of Stevenson Alley. Here was a man with a face I will not forget. From a distance, it appeared a pale prune, the ridges of his face so pronounced, they cast shadows. As he neared, well, I know cheap plastic surgery when I see it. This was a man who’d tried to shave twenty years off his looks and wound up with a crumpled sack for a face. He walked the lanky walk of a simian. His arms hung down around his waist. His shoulders slumped inwards and forward. This man was C.F. Naroy, Aggaroy's business associate.
My research into his background included photographs from third-party sources. One interesting fact to note about C.F. Naroy: He had remarkably few photographs publicly available. A smart businessman, consultant or otherwise, knows a quality retouched photograph is essential for promoting one’s skills. Better still, a professionally-produced introductory video to attach to your Nexternet identity. Mr. Naroy had abstained from these basic business practices. I could only imagine his business suffered as a result.
From atop the steps, I could see down into Stevenson Street. Mr. Naroy met Det. Whitcomb. They addressed each other with quick tips of their chins. They seemed to know each other, perhaps not intimately, though. I wondered if this would work in his benefit. If Det. Whitcomb was going to expand the investigation beyond the mugging angle I suggested, then it seemed to me Aggaroy's business associates should be the first questioned. Mr. Naroy struck me as a tad chummy with her, I thought. I sensed preferential treatment.
Together they examined Mr. Aggaroy’s body. At one point, Mr. Naroy turned and faced me. He was staring me down. I stiffened and squared my shoulders in return. It’s important to appear collected, never intimidated. I wondered what had been said between the two of them. Certainly I hoped Det. Whitcomb would have enough professionalism to keep our discussion private, regardless of their past.
Once Naroy left the scene, I reentered the Palace lobby and crossed to the elevators. Ms. Darren once again met me while walking.
“The press has contacted us about the matter,” she said. “The campaign has been raised in their questions.”
“I certainly hope you said nothing to them about the campaign.”
“Of course. I want to reassure you that you have the support of the hotel and its staff.” She placed a light reassuring hand on my arm. “I’ve re-communicated hotel policy to our morning staff in regard to handling the press. I’ll be sure the afternoon shift is also apprised.”
“Very good. Contact me if—”
A wash of streaking colors—a cacophony of voices and sound—
Detachment—
*
Tired of Gannon's edited, tidy life, I’d risked fast-forwarding. In a millisecond I lived six hours of another man’s life. Sickness overwhelmed me and I had to bail out.
Over those six compressed hours, every person Gannon interacted with treated him like royalty. Men offered firm handshakes and a confident look of full agreement with every statement he uttered. Women stared up into his big blue eyes like a milkmaid stepping off the Greyhound bus and seeing the Hollywood sign for the first time. Truth and fiction was pureed together. How much of this was the line filter fluffing Gannon’s life into a pristine and lushly satisfying dream? How much was raw unreconstructed memory surviving to the final edit?
I consumed more cold water from the carton in great gulps. I poured the last of the carton over my head. Cold water dripped from forehead to chin.
“Detachment—”
*
At lunchtime, I drove from the Palace garage to Mother’s home. Leigh met me in the front room. She appeared wrung-out.
“What happened?” she asked me, dire. She'd seen a news report.
I requested Dana, Mother’s executive assistant, to excuse herself.
“The police are looking into it,” I told Leigh truthfully.
“Did they talk to you?”
“They did."
"And?"
"And, the campaign is not involved.”
“I don’t believe it.” She put her face in her hands.
“The poor, poor man.”
I let her wring her hands.
"What's important is we remain collected and on the same page," I told her.
"But what if the police find out—"
"They're not interested in any of that. They want to know who jumped Aggaroy in the alley and nothing more."
"What if they learned what we—"
*
Like running on a treadmill and the tread halts at once—I fumbled forward in the chair, arms out to catch myself.
“What happened?” Gillette said from across the table. He was monitoring the stream from one of the routers.
“I don’t know," I said. "The stream…halted. It was cut-off. Was the Nexternet link severed?” Maybe Whitcomb had seized the server.
“Your guy edited his memory stream.” Gillette read the display using his thumb to scroll up and down the stream log. “He must have gone back later and trimmed it. He didn't want it saved for posterity. Something embarrassing was about to happen.”
“Or incriminating,” I murmured. “Do you have a timestamp on that last memory?”
Gillette consulted the display. “3:34pm. Thursday.”
A mere forty-five minutes before Leigh and Gannon hurried past the cafe on Lake Street arguing. I was eating my BLT and swatting away mosquitoes. The bruise on Leigh’s arm was fresh. I wondered if Gannon grabbed her at Cassandra Chancellor’s home. Wrenched her arm and shook her to get her to agree with him. Or to convince her to stay quiet.
“Detachment—”
*
I left Leigh to stew in one of her funks again. Without my presence, she was free to prowl the neighborhood for a blue lounge, which no doubt she was doing now that I was gone. I cannot control her, only hope she learns better and has a sense of what's best for us and our future.
To blow off steam, I walked a quarter mile to the campaign center in the Presidio. Here, in an old basketball auditorium, our volunteers spread the word about Samuel Justin’s platform and his inclusive vision for a better America.
When we moved into the auditorium, the YMCA left behind racks of free weights and lifting equipment. In the evening, after the volunteers have gone home to their families, I sometimes like to take advantage of the equipment. My mother taught me a fit body and a fit mind together form a fit soul.
I’d finished my first set and took a moment to admire the view of the Presidio from the windows. San Francisco is beautiful, a world-class city, and it's moments like these when I'm proud to play a part in leading it forward. C.F. Naroy entered and interrupted my idyll. I’d not expected him so soon, but I had been expecting him. If Michael Aggaroy was a friend, then it’s only reasonable he would want to speak to me about Aggaroy's final days in my employ.
Up close, Mr. Naroy was even less substantial than he appeared from afar on New Montgomery Street. Naroy possessed a distant, absent look in his eyes, the appearance of a man who would rather be somewhere else. Almost bored, as it were. There is no excuse for this. I firmly believe in being engaged with whomever you’re conversing with. You are wasting their time as well as your own if you are not making an earnest connection.
Naroy was not this kind of man. He was, in a word, unappealing. Certainly he dressed professionally. I don’t mean to imply he was not groomed. But he spoke with sarcasm and disdain. In a certain time, this was considered dry wit, but that time has long past. Sarcasm is the measure of a man’s malnourished soul. Naroy had not a fit body and not a fit mind, and so his soul suffered.
Then, out of the blue, he began asking me about Leigh and our relationship. It struck me as rude and untoward, and completely unprofessional—
*
“What happened?” I shouted at Gillette.
"I don't know—"
“Are you incapable? You've been given a task—"
"What?"
"I require your full engagement with this process, and yet you seem incapable of following through. Mother taught me the importance of—”
Gillette took two bounding steps around the table and slapped me across the face.
“Break out of it,” he said. “Quit being this Gannon asshole, whoever he is.”
One hand on the chair's back, I struggled to my feet. Looking down on my wrinkled suit and water-stained shoes, the memory of C.F. Naroy faded into place like an old-fashioned photograph emerging in a bath of developer. An afterimage remained, a double-exposure burnt into the photographic paper: I loathed Naroy when I was Gannon, and I loathed Naroy when I was Naroy. I’d escaped America for ten years to improve myself, and when I returned, this was the best I could muster. I was prune-faced, lanky, empty.
“Come on, break out of it,” Gillette said again. “You're C.F. Naroy. You’re a great guy.”
“Don't,” I said weakly.
“I know what was flowing through that amplifier."
The blue egg of neuro-mimetic gel hung heavy from its gold threads. The mercury flakes swirled and churned like a snowstorm globe shaken violently.
“I hope you’re going through this for a good reason,” he said.
“It's for Gannon’s sake,” I said.
“That’s more than he would have done for you,” Gillette said.
“I’m here for my mother’s sake too,” I said.
"Hey—his mother. How about putting C.F. Naroy first. Don't forget him."
“I forgot about someone else.” I was woozy. “I forgot about Leigh.” I blinked and sucked in a deep gulp of air. “Why’d you cut the server link?” I said to him. “I didn’t say the identity word.”
“Neurotransmission was cut at the source,” he said.
“The police have Gannon’s server."
“We still have his memex, though.”
Gillette had brought a four-pack of ice-cold water to the table. I tore open another carton and drank.
“Let's run the memex,” I told him.
“You need to take a goddamn break,” Gillette said.
“No time,” I said.
"These won't be filtered down," he said. "This will be raw, unreconstructed experience. This is putting your finger in the electrical socket."
"One more," I said again. “Then I’m out.”
Shaking his head, he began rearranging the equipment's configuration. We no longer had to stream over the Nexternet. All these memories were stored directly on Gannon’s memex. Before I was living Gannon’s life as he wanted to be remembered. Now I would be living Gannon’s life as it was, moment-by-moment.
Gillette activated the amplifier. The blue egg leaped in the cage like a heart seizing up.
“Detachment—”
*
Goddamn bitch lying to me about everything I can’t believe her for a moment she’s crashed out on Pharjé and using me for all I’m worth I’ve worked my ass off for her and she is throwing it away seeing another guy another man behind my goddamn back people think I’m stupid because of my looks if she thinks she can—
Detachment—
*
The weight of Gannon's anger caused me to collapse from the chair and onto the floor. Gillette helped me back up to the chair.
"Max phoned him," I said to Gillette. "Max told him Leigh was out at Lands End with me. Gannon flew into an instant rage." I was sobbing. "He raced out there to his death." I was sobbing for the son of a bitch.
"I don't know who any of these people are," he said.
I killed Gannon. I was all but sure of it. I wanted his girlfriend so bad, I would have done it. Go back into that memex and I'll see me killing Gannon. Go back into that memex and I'll see Naroy killing me.
“I can’t control the replay clock anymore,” I breathed. “Send me to the last sixty seconds.”
“That’s it? The last sixty seconds?”
“I can’t take him anymore,” I said. Living the raw psyche of another man’s life while somehow maintaining your own is annihilating.
“Let me dial down the neural signal,” Gillette said. When I protested, he said, “Shut
up, I’m doing it. You need some distance from the raw throughput. It’s the only way you’ll know what’s going on. Otherwise, it's a sandstorm in there.”
I drank the last of the water. I dropped the spent carton to my feet.
“Detachment—”
*
Lightning shatters the night sky into white-outlined fragments. At the edge of the cliff, two figures stand, a lanky man and her. It’s Leigh—I know her figure, I know her posture, I know the way she keeps her hair. The man is Naroy, I’m certain. I can’t see his pruned-up face, but it's his slouched back and his hangdog head in silhouette. They’re locked in an embrace. Max was right. He told me exactly where to find them. I owe him—
It’s no effort to separate them. My arms pry them apart. The dumb look on her face, it's of utter surprise. She’s in a blue-out, can’t remember me, can’t remember all I’ve given her—a life with future and purpose—she can’t even remember her name because she’s so goddamn blue and blank.
And Naroy is as taken aback. He stares at me like he’s never seen me before in his life. He’s in a blue-out too, dammit all. His disgusting grimy paws on my girl, the woman I’ve given everything for—Adam and Eve under the fig tree of Wisdom and they sense their guilt and I am God to punish them. And by God, I will punish them.
Naroy crumples to the ground. My hand feels crushed for only a moment, and then comes the dopamine pleasure at seeing him in pain. He goes embryonic in the dirt, rocking on his side, covering his face with both hands. An easy roundhouse dropped him. A real man wouldn’t have dropped so easily—
Weightless. Night sky a black heaven—no earth beneath me. Call for help and fail to hear my voice over the wind sluicing around me. My smiling father tosses me in the air and I land in his hands. He tosses me up and giggling I am weightless falling to his smiling face. Free of gravity's grasp I call Mother's name and—
*
I returned to consciousness weeping and lying across the peacock-blue rug. My neck and temples and wrists were sore and tingling numb. Gillette was crouched over me, shaking me by the shoulders.