by Mark Lingane
“Well, I am. I sent away and they sent me papers and stuff to learn and then they sent me a test that I had to fill out and then mark.” He turned the page around and looked at the bottom. His finger traced the outline of the embossed figure and his lips moved soundlessly. “It looks like a seal to me,” he said finally.
“Are you trying to tell me,” Joshua said, shaking his head in disbelief, “that you can be a qualified hacker by sitting and marking your own exam?”
“Yeah. I did fairly well on it, too. Nearly got a B.” Damien smiled a self-contented smile.
“Why didn’t you score a perfect mark? If you were marking it why didn’t you give yourself full marks?”
“But … but that would be dishonest,” he whined, shrugging his shoulders.
Joshua went to sit on the couch then rapidly stood up again. He handed a handful of wires and needles to Damien.
“Sorry,” said Damien. “I’ve been looking for that everywhere.”
Joshua sat. “But, you are a hacker. Moral issues are not your strong suit. You steal and ruin stuff. That’s what you want to do.”
“Well … I don’t look at it as stealing,” Damien said, waving his arm wildly.
“Everyone else does.” Joshua sighed. “Why did you get it?”
“Because knowledge is power.”
“And you want to stop paying your electricity bills?”
“No. I want to be a powerful man.”
“If I were you I’d first concentrate on being a man.”
Damien turned away and sat down again on his special chair. It hissed under the pressure.
“Damien, look, I know why you’re doing this. It’s because of Judy, isn’t it?”
“No! I just wanted to do … something.”
“Does she call or anything?”
“No.” Damien sighed. He pushed himself away from the desk and placed his forehead on the desktop. “She’s too busy being married.” His voice resonated on the desk. “At least she’s happy.” There was no bitterness or sarcasm in his voice, just resignation.
“Why don’t you fix the oscillator … thing?”
“I feel it represents my heart. Anyway, you know it works. Would you like a drink or something?” he mumbled.
“I wouldn’t mind. What’ve you got?” Joshua did his best to sound cheerful.
“Diet cola.”
“That’s it?”
“Well, I’m on a diet.”
“Yeah, you and nine-tenths of the world.”
Joshua waved his hands in agreement and Damien went to his fridge. It had been designed in the 1970s along with his kitchen, which looked and smelled as though it had also last been cleaned in that era.
As Damien pottered around his kitchen Joshua thought about the world’s infatuation with beautiful bodies. The active people in this world, whose lives didn’t revolve around computers or watching TV, obviously needed something to occupy their minds. It was ridiculous these days. Everybody involved with publicity was beyond perfect. Lean hard bodies in physically impossible proportions littered even the most humble adverts. Legalization of a plethora of body-shaping drugs, along with huge advances in cosmetic surgery, had nearly split society into polarized divisions. Having a perfect body required money and time, and plenty of each. This meant only a few ever had the “perfect” body. The rest of society became depressed and overweight. Still, everyone made an effort. Why? Because beautiful bodies were interesting. They were attractive. If you were in the possession of one, people wanted to be with you. You received attention and, most of all, action. Yes, it all came down, as most things did these days, to sex. It was even better than the natural, ready-for-action disco look.
For Joshua the big question was: Would it get the chicks? In truckloads?
So Damien didn’t have a perfect body, but he certainly wasn’t ugly. Some idle part of his psyche that didn’t get out much believed he should strive for this insane image replication of some self-indulgent minority, so he made a pathetic effort by drinking diet drinks as if it would make a difference. It wouldn’t, that was a scientific fact. But everyone would look at him and see he was making an effort so that was all right. Also, Damien thought he was making an effort in his and others’ eyes. Oddly enough, Joshua thought, it was probably more important in the eyes of others because, as it was with the good bodies, it was all in the appearance. One more activity concocted to keep the entire planet distracted from life.
He chided himself for thinking such thoughts. Paranoia was one thing—well, it was probably two or three things, but they didn’t tell you about those others.
Damien eventually returned with a couple of cans and offered one to his guest. They opened their cans simultaneously and drank. For a moment there was a brief respite.
Damien was lost in thought. “Anyway,” he asked Joshua after a moment, “what are you doing in this neck of the woods?”
“I’ve got a new case and I have to meet the agent at the docks. Looks like a simple extortion thing. Not really that exciting.” He tried to sound offhand about it. He knew what was coming. He folded his arms and tried to think pleasant thoughts. He gazed out the window and blankly watched the flashing neon sign advertising television’s phenomenally successful Warrior Kombat, its iridescent blue glow playing havoc with the holo-monitor. Samantha Strong’s Amazonian body pirouetted in full holo-color in front of the sign, performing its mock fatalities followed by a torso-shot of her flexing her biceps and winking.
“Gee, I wish I could be a detective. It sounds so exciting.” Damien looked wistful for a moment. “You know, if you need any help with computers or hacking or stuff, I’ll happily, you know …” He trailed off into a mumble, too embarrassed to go on.
“Well, I’ll always keep you in mind, you know, for that kind of stuff.”
They both knew it wasn’t the truth. Damien had blown his chance a few years back. It was all to do with the Great Willow Cabbage Incident. It was simple enough. Joshua had needed an extra body to help out with a simple task, but listening and doing what you are told were skills sadly lacking in Damien. Somehow they had ended up down at a nearby swamp, known as the Willow to the children who played there, with Damien firing an automatic weapon into the gloom screaming, “It’s the democrats.”
Later, when the smoke had cleared, they had found several hundred suspicious, communist-looking cabbages mown down in mid-stride and an irate farmer who had been growing them illegally on the marsh. Fortunately the farmer had seen the funny side of the incident and had sent them on their way with a packed lunch. They weren’t wanting for holey cabbages for months.
“I hear that they’ve released new holo-monitors that show true color,” Joshua said, desperately trying to steer the conversation to safer waters.
“Yeah, imagine the games you could play with that.” Damien’s eyes widened with the vision of all the possibilities.
“You know, computers have uses other than just playing games.”
“You try telling that to the entertainment companies.”
“I suppose a debt is owed to them,” Joshua conceded. “If it wasn’t for them people would still be afraid of computers.”
They both paused. The integration of computers, although an old story, was one that was well known. Lots of people had written films or books about aliens from faraway planets trying to integrate into society, but the truth—when it became known—was different. The aliens were already among us and not from another planet. We had built them. The same fear that had been so well documented in fictional stories quickly floated to the surface like something inedible, and was turned against the technology that sat on the desktops of offices everywhere. In the early days postmodernists claimed this was the beginning of the end, the thin edge of the wedge, and so on. This was it. Cold, hard and unfeeling technology was everywhere, and it was going to threaten the very existence of mankind—or so many documentation manuals had stated—when translated from Japanese to German to Russian to Mandarin t
o English.
The original statement was “Please use caution when turning off the computer,” but that’s the precise science of language translation. Because people were afraid of technology it would be unstoppable. As the march of technology was inevitable, mankind would be swept aside and left in its wake. We would all be replaced by super cyber-genetic robots that could do everything people could do, only better. Then one day the robots would wonder why they were servants to an inferior and outdated model and why they had to have sex all the time with them, and wipe us all out.
For the early decades this was the truth. Everyone was afraid and technology was seen as an evil thing. Then came the games. Suddenly computers were everywhere because they were fun. Computers, through the use of recreation, became integrated into society and were even seen as useful on the odd occasion. The apocalypse and designer neo-Gothic fashion were narrowly avoided. This made the postmodernists depressed, even beyond the trendy appearance, because their fashion company investments failed. But the world hadn’t heard the last of the postmodernists, though. They had a secret weapon up their sleeves. The human race was going to be lost to technology if it was the last thing they were going to achieve.
“Hey,” said Joshua, “I read that they reckon everyone on the planet is now hooked into the net. Everyone. All consuming information and spitting out rubbish, chatting away all the time. All talking and none of them with anything to say. All self-absorbed with telling their own story, looking for a reality TV program deal.”
“I don’t know. There must be a lot of information there. That couldn’t be anything but useful,” Damien said.
“Useful isn’t a word that comes to mind when I think about the net. It would certainly be a lot of information but how much of it is any good? Tons and tons of letters and numbers that will tell you everything except for the stuff you want to know. It reminds me of one of those Venn diagrams where the set is infinitely big yet the information you want is in a dot that is infinitely small, locked up with the key thrown away. Billions of people. Everyone. It would take an eternity to wade through it all. You’d never know the truth about anything.”
“Come again?”
“Well, you wouldn’t have any facts,” said Joshua, “only points of view. You’d have so many on every issue that you’d never be able to work out which were true and which were fabrications. Unless you were a detective, of course,” he added.
“But it’s the voice of the people, the forum of free thought and speech,” Damien said.
“Look, you don’t think the government controls it already?”
“Surely they can’t. It’s too big.”
Joshua leaped to his feet. “And why do you think it’s too big? You don’t think they might be out there drowning it with misleading and irrelevant information?”
“But isn’t it the upholder of information, the stronghold of the truth?”
“Maybe, but do you know where to find it? As a world we’d be a whole lot better off if we were less of a global community and more of a social community. You know, if everyone got out and met their neighbors instead of trying to talk to someone on the other side of the world who most probably doesn’t even speak the same language.” Joshua realized he was ranting and sat down again.
“Anyway,” said Joshua, “I think it does more bad than good. If you thought the government didn’t see it as useful, do you think they’d let it continue?”
“But it could go underground and become some subversive thing. The small guys against the evil, all-powerful big guys.” Damien’s eyes widened with the possibility of intrigue and illegal dealings.
“Really, do you think they couldn’t find it? And if they found it what do you think they’d do? They’d either come down hard on it if they didn’t want it to exist, or flood it with information and surprise. You’d be back at the same stage we’re at now. Look at what happened to Astalavista. It’s like when it all started all those years ago. The government realized they couldn’t police it so they just drowned it. They’ve got enough information on anything to drown any subject. Anyone who reads it must spend hundreds of hours looking for anything. Look, you can’t beat the government on things like that. There are too many of them producing too much gibberish. Just try and ignore them and get on with your life as best you can. That’s what I say. And don’t tell me this is what the people want.”
Joshua prepared for speech #18. “Just imagine there’s a flag waving gently behind me.” He cleared his throat. “We’re a world stripped of identity, with all inspirations to be individuals removed. The integration of technology is a continuation, if not an ultimate depression, of all that has been before. Everyone is wired into an ethereal network that betrays every little thing we do. A sea of information flows, unseen, around each of us, choking the life right out of us and knocking us into a state of perpetual paralyzing fear. The worst part is, everyone sees this as the way of living and justifies it as a price you pay for some deluded sense of comfort and security. There are no rebellions. No one is marching up to city hall to throw the fat cats out. The proletariat is not dressing in dark robes, meeting in ancient community halls plotting against the bourgeois. The only people making any noise are just a bunch of computer hacks whose lives revolve around superhero comics and role-playing games, and have had their manners removed at birth. A loud minority will not save us.”
He paused, basking in the cheers from the imagined crowd. Then he looked at his watch. He jumped up, realizing he was running late and was going to have to hurry to meet Ruth Friday. He smiled at Damien, grabbing his coat. They shook hands, said their goodbyes and he left for the jetty and his meeting with his mysterious client.
7
THE MIST SWIRLED AROUND the maze of wharves and docks. Joshua turned off Broun Street onto the jetty. There was a great deal of space between the low wooden buildings and the shore itself. Signposts stood everywhere telling people what to do and what not to do. Else be fined. The air was thick and concealed far too much of the scenery. His footsteps rang out louder than necessary on the concrete as he made his way toward the ocean.
[]~$mkdir alt.reality
He could see the light at the end of the jetty, which strutted out into the water, and its end was to be their meeting place. It looked like a scene from a movie. The iridescent blue light shone in a cone through the fine spray billowing over the jetty. He pulled his coat around him to keep warm from the frost that punctured the air. His breath billowed out, producing great clouds of fog. The walkway, creaking under his feet, was hidden by the fog and mist. The city was just a dull throb insinuating its way through the buildings around the docks. It was as quiet as the city would ever get. Nearby, a clock struck nine, and went for the spare, the bell chimes ringing around the deserted wharf.
As he approached the end of the jetty his instincts stood up and started making noises. In the quiet he was able to hear them and take notice.
There was a shot and he collapsed forward, clutching his chest. He looked up toward the end of the jetty as the last of his life drained away and saw a figure lower its gun and walk toward him. With that as his last vision he blacked out and died.
8
[]~$DEL HISTORY
[]~$reality reboot
He shook the confusion from his head. What the hell was that, a premonition? He could see his body contained no bullet holes. He was breathing, upright and, most importantly, not dead. He looked up to see the assailant at the end of the jetty. There was no one there. The mists were still showing that there had been no one there for a while. The thought registered instantly. Where was Ruth Friday? He didn’t think she was the kind of person who turned up late. She was meant to be waiting beneath the lights. That was their point of contact. Why wasn’t she there?
He saw something move. It was an arm. Nothing wrong with arms moving, his did all the time, but not often at floor level. He ran forward.
He bent down and pulled her body out of the mists, her face rising like
a wraith. Her eyes were glazed and her body cold. The smell of blood mingled with her heavy perfume wafted over him. She appeared dead.
She breathed.
She was dead, just. Maybe she was the kind that turned up late.
He must have missed the incident by seconds. He put his head in his hands in the hope of steadying his thoughts. He needed to focus on the facts before him. He took his hipflask from the secret location in his inside jacket pocket, and took a steadying swig from the flask. He studied the body. One shot. A small hole in her midsection. That meant a small-caliber gun, a handgun. That was all. A good shot, mind you, and only one.
He looked around to see if there was any close cover; anywhere a killer could hide. There was nothing for a good two hundred yards. It was an exceptional shot. That kind of accuracy over that kind of range with that kind of gun was beyond impressive.
She had her handbag with her. He looked around to make sure no one was looking. He removed a nearly clean handkerchief from the recesses of his jacket and carefully picked up the handbag, trying to keep it free of fingerprints. He flicked it open and poured its contents onto the ground. There were all the usual woman things carried: makeup, tissues, a small pulpy romance paperback called Chasing Heart, and a few small accessories emanating several fragrances.
Several observations struck him at once. First, there was no ransom money, but then he doubted if she had ever intended to pay it no matter how weird she was. Secondly, there was no identification. Nothing at all. No license, or credit or smart cards, or government cards or anything. That was illegal. If the usual directories had no listings on her, and she had no ID, the police would never be able to find out who she was if it wasn’t for him.
Something in her other hand glinted in the light and caught his eye. He pulled her arm toward him. She was holding a gun. It was small and impressively deadly. It was in her hand, safety catch off and ready to kill. This didn’t look good. She must have been aware of the killer, but if that was the case why hadn’t she tried to hide?