Freenet

by Steve Stanton

Roni nodded in appreciation. “Even better. Where’s he holed up?”

  “Bedside vigil. New Jerusalem West. You want me to scramble a crew and summon Ngazi?”

  “No, leave the freak out of this for now. We’ll let the first run fade and throw the dogs off the scent while this one ferments like fine wine. I want this under wraps and exclusive. Give me a day to get the real story.” Ngazi was an autistic savant who provided emotional colour to the wirehead feed for the feelie users. He had no natural capacity for language, but his brain had overcompensated from birth with an increased ability to engineer digital emotion. Roni didn’t like to bring Ngazi in too early on his feature stories, and meant no disrespect with the office moniker. “What else do we have?”

  Gladyz splayed a hand to her thoughtscreen. “The escaped orangutan is still on the loose. It’s getting political, tagging on the omnidroid scandal.”

  Roni smiled at the synchrony of his universe. “Perfect lead-in. We’ll call it the Hairy Ride.”

  Gladyz van-Dam shrugged. “You’re the man.”

  “And you’re the best. Let’s wreck this world.”

  Gladyz raised her hand up for the customary palm slap of promise, and Roni gave his editor a grand smack. They had a good working system based on mutual respect and compromise. They trusted each other to keep strict confidence while they ferreted out the truth, brainstorming ideas and feeding off the energy, and they put on a grand public spectacle six days a week on all public channels—the Daily Buzz.

  Roni ambled into the makeup salon while Gladyz primed the studio crew. The famous orangutan was biogen, and researchers were testing for signs of psychic ability—all very bad-boy amid persistent rumours that the omnidroids had developed precognition. Nothing better than controversy to pump the pipe on the newsfeed, and this one had good scare factor—no one would buy lottery tickets or invest in the stock market with omnidroid mindreaders on the loose. A deal-breaker like that could alter the equilibrium of power and ruin the digital economy, but he’d tag on the controversy with poetic licence and hint at conspiracy to set up his next feature story, all part of the media game. News was for exploitation, and Roni was the best in the biz.

  Derryn the beautician made quick work of Roni’s strong features and firm jaw as the first script began to trickle in on Roni’s earbug. Lots of interesting stuff today, not just celebrity crap. A blight in the northern wheat fields was giving corporate critics fresh ammunition in a call for biodiversity of the food supply. A motion had been launched again in parliament to give voting rights to cybersouls in storage, a move that could shift significant economic influence to a group of eternals who were technically dead. And, for lovers of body culture and the Way, a cooperative symphony was being conducted based on the galvanic skin response of participants connected to sensors in the auditorium seats, some type of flash musical experience.

  Derryn was a true artist, gay in every sense of the word and a continual source of ribald humour for all the staff. He called Roni his “little masterpiece,” hinting at bigger things to come and claiming to have seen a few contenders. He had a deadpan delivery and a knowing wink that might have made him a star onstage, but today his jokes fell on deaf ears as Roni continued to ruminate about Simara Ying—the little omnidroid pixie niggled in the back of his mind like a bitter seed caught in his teeth. Why the hell would Transolar leave an accused criminal on a doomed troopship? No room in the lifeboats? Or perhaps they were multitasking as judge, jury, and executioner! Either way, Roni would nail sympathy from a sophisticated audience and dangle accusations for juice while he pranced on the public stage at his editor’s direction. Gladyz was no slouch. The whole team was a collective work of art—a creative gestalt in which innovation arose out of interaction.

  They spent four hours putting together a twenty-two minute show, then shot it live in the studio with Ngazi and the full crew—traditional, timely, with the cutting edge of reality that made all the difference these days. Social netcasting was a big challenge, and Roni took it seriously. Relationships were what drove the news, motives and motions in the background, causes before effect. He wanted to know why the news was happening before he expounded on the when and what. He wanted to taste the bitter edge of tragedy, smell the stench of treachery, and relish in the sweetness of hard-earned exultation. And the groupies—whoo-boy, Roni loved the ladies despite Derryn’s charms.

  He bagged the Daily Buzz to applause from the staff and complimented the best van-Dam crew in the business with a nod to Gladyz and blind-faced Ngazi. They were all expert professionals who loved media culture in their bones and blood. As Roni was fond of repeating like a mantra to anyone who would raise a flagon of beer with him at the Dog and Hoar after hours: “Life is for living, and the net for sharing—long live the news!”

  Today Roni skipped the pub meeting after work and took the overhead tram downtown to chase down his story. He settled in his seat and searched through virtual data on the back of his closed eyelids, where he found V-net reference to twenty-four more omnidroids, biogenic relatives to the pixie girl, Simara Ying. They were all very young, teenagers or less, which seemed reasonable for new biotechnology, but two had recently been killed in a freak accident—a helicopter crash! Roni could feel his red news-nose heating up in the fog with Santa on the way. Two omnidroids doing a short hop out in the sticks on Zuloo Island got caught in a surprise storm and drowned in the sea when the chopper went down. Seven crewmembers miraculously survived and were found floating in a lifeboat. The transport company, Redikit, was majority-­owned by Transolar Corp., the big boys.

  Bingo.

  There was his lead story blaring in his brain: a mysterious conspiracy against omnidroids foisted by the biggest interplanetary transportation conglomerate in the three worlds! A hint at homicide, a thread of possibility—that was all he needed to fling some feces in the air on the Daily Buzz.

  New Jerusalem West Hospital was a majestic spectacle in the sun, all glass and gold to reflect the heat and protect the underground corridors where lives were saved and families preserved. Roni flashed press credentials at a security cordon inside, but didn’t specify his reason for visiting. He already had the room number from Gladyz and didn’t want to draw any attention from media vamps or paparazzi. “Just background stuff,” he said with a celebrity smile and nonchalant wave as he sauntered past the guards to the elevators. The narrow hallways downstairs were cluttered with supply carts and wheelchairs, but the medical staff seemed calm and controlled as they coped with another day in the trenches. The place smelled of liniment and detergent, a sharp shock to the olfactory senses.

  Roni found his target ward and poked in the open door to find the Bali boy sitting in vigil with muscular arms folded across a burly chest. A teenager sat in a nearby chair with his feet dangling above the floor, an elf boy with features much like Simara’s, perhaps a younger brother. No police in the hall, no sign of Transolar authority. “Zen Valda? I’m Roni Hendrik from the Daily Buzz. Mind if I come in?”

  Zen stood but made no gesture of greeting. He was a handsome kid with auburn curls, well tanned and physically photogenic. Touching was a faux pas on Bali, and Roni was unsure of etiquette. He kept his hands to himself and peered at Simara Ying, asleep in her bed. “How’s she doing?”

  “She’s okay,” Zen said. “No change.”

  Roni nodded and edged into the room. The Bali boy looked haggard on close inspection, eyes dark, forehead grim. The elf child watched him with the steady stare of an empath, kind of creepy. “Are you a relative?”

  The child studied him with intensity as though testing his aura or body magnetism or something weird like that. “Simara is the elder of our group. I’m Fermi.” He bowed with adult aplomb. “Honoured to meet you.”

  “Thanks. Have you seen my show?”

  “I’m watching several episodes now.” He pointed to his forehead. “Very interesting.”

  “Oh,” Roni said, “omnidroid.” He should have known the biogens would huddle
together in times of trouble. “I’m sympathetic to your cause.”

  The child barely blinked from his digital delirium, but at least he was a fan.

  Roni turned his attention to Zen Valda. “I know you’re in a difficult situation, and I can help you both, even if you’re on the run from the law. There’s no better place to hide than in plain sight on the news. No one can try anything funny with a thousand eyes looking on.” He offered his camera smile, but got little response from the Bali boy. “You’re a hero, you know, rising from the underground, protecting the downtrodden—people love that stuff. And the court will be supportive.”

  Zen nodded with glum weariness as he resumed his seat. “She didn’t do it.”

  “I believe you.”

  “They tried to kill her.”

  “I wondered about that.”

  “They crashed the ship on purpose, just the way Simara said it would happen.”

  Roni kept a mask of concern on his face while his inner soul danced with glee. Crash a troopship to kill one little elf girl? That was great copy for any editor. He could see it all—giant ratings, big bonus. “Any idea why?”

  Zen dropped his eyes in the negative, but the child piped up: “They tried to kill us all and failed. In desperation they made a terrible mistake in trying to murder our elder, and that’s why you’re here to reclaim justice for all.”

  Roni chuckled with affable humour. “Well, I’m just a newsman, but I’m sympathetic to your cause. There are a lot of mixed reports in the media, and some bad vibes on the sound bite. But rest assured I’ll tell the real story.”

  The elf boy nodded again with eerie eccentricity. “Simara says you’re very good at what you do.”

  Roni tipped his eyebrows up in alert to this fabled biogen telepathy. “Can she talk to you from her coma?”

  “Mothership can hear her. The collective mind.”

  Roni stepped closer to Simara. The dark-haired girl was quite exquisite in person. Her vidi pic did not do her justice. A light brush of pink showed on high cheekbones, and her pointed chin seemed firm and determined even in sleep. “So she’s in there? She’s not brain-dead or lost to oblivion?”

  “She’s resting,” Zen said. “She’ll be back soon.”

  The hope in his voice was tinged with tragedy, poor kid. A simple Bali boy flying in space with an omnidroid elder connected to a psychic mothermind! Man, what a story. “Where are you staying, Zen? Do you have anyone looking out for you?”

  “I’m staying here,” he said with dogged weariness.

  “Come home with me and get some rest. I have a huge apartment with all the comforts. I’ll bring you back in the morning to interview Simara. Let her sleep for now. Fermi and his kin will keep an eye on the room.” Roni put on his best camera smile, guaranteed to please and toothy with enthusiasm. “Your girl’s safe here.”

  Zen hesitated and glanced at Fermi. “Okay. I guess if Simara speaks well of you.”

  “Great. We’ll grab a bite, get the details nailed down. C’mon.” He almost slapped the boy on the shoulder with masculine exuberance, but stopped himself just in time. No touching on Bali, no fraternization. What a weird culture! And no sex, a whole planet of people afraid to share chromosomes mangled by solar rads, humanity’s children flying too close to the sun and forced into sterility. Too bad.

  Zen bent over Simara’s prone form and closed his eyes in a moment of reverence, lost in some inner vision of solace. Was he trying to contact her? Praying for her? Roni felt a catch in his throat at the wonderful scene. Better and better.

  On the walk to the transit station, the Bali boy slunk along with the shadows whenever he could and glanced periodically at the sun as though it was a public enemy. On the tram, he fidgeted nervously, rubbing at the base of his throat and wincing as he swallowed.

  Roni leaned in close to him without drawing attention. “You okay?”

  “Are you sure it’s safe out in the open like this?”

  “Yes, it’s safe. We have heavy atmosphere on Cromeus, good protection. Don’t worry.”

  The boy nodded and seemed satisfied, but his hands never stopped moving. He rubbed his knuckles and picked at his cuticles as he surveyed fellow passengers with furtive interest as though they might be zoo animals on display. Long sleeves were in vogue with high boots and hats, so there was not a lot of stray skin to upset any obscure Bali sensibilities. Perhaps the facial tattoos were weirding him out.

  “I see you’ve got a brand new earbug there. Must be top art, huh? Set you back?”

  Zen reached to touch his ear as though reminded of something foreign. “No, it was free. They pay me to login, but I can’t really get the hang of it. I struggle just to tune it out. All that fragmented data is so distracting. I don’t know how Simara does it day after day, the rush of virtual experience, the madness and chaos.”

  Roni nodded sagaciously. “I know what you mean. The V-net never sleeps.”

  “You keep the noise on all the time?”

  “No, I hold high filters. Only my editor can get through to me, and a few close friends. I use it a lot for research. I’m always working, you know, in the news business. How long have you been with Simara?”

  “Just a few weeks, but I know she’s innocent.”

  “Sure.” Faith shone in the kid’s face like an epiphany, lovely stuff. “I’m a firm believer in the burden of proof. Do you think it’s true what they say about omnidroids, that they can see the future?”

  Zen looked down at his fidgeting hands as though peering for clues or pondering rarefied possibilities. “No, it can’t be true. She gets herself in too much trouble.”

  “Oh?”

  “She stumbles in the dark. She hits people without reason. She’s the most frustrating woman I have ever met.”

  Roni chuckled. “Sounds like a peach. But how did she know the troopship would crash?”

  The Bali boy shrugged. “From detective analysis, not magic. She has a lot of data going through her brain, but she doesn’t use it very well. She gets surprised by simple things just like everyone else. She’s no hypnotist or anything like that.”

  “Telepathist, I think is the term.”

  Zen shook his head at the impossibility. “Why would someone who can see the future spend her life running the hard trade route to Bali? Why live with daily danger and crash into rocks?”

  “That, my friend,” Roni said with a beatific smile, “is the real story.”

  He pieced together the panorama of his opening gambit over food cubes and squirts of allkool back at his apartment—the son of a politician, follower of the desert god Kiva, an expert in salvage and recycling technology. There was even a love angle and crude mismanagement of feminine wiles, a complicated string of ex-girlfriends and casual sex with an older woman—amazing what strangers would tell a newsman as they tilted on the edge of exhaustion. People had always opened up to Roni, even as a precocious school reporter. He had a friendly face and could boast a genuine smile at will. He knew how to prod with gentle interest while appearing suave and sincere. The rest was just human nature at work, a cathartic need to unburden and cleanse the soul.

  Roni tucked Zen into a comfy couch and left him to dreamland as he began transcribing the evidence for his editor. Gladyz would love this one. She was a sucker for interpersonal conundrums and mismatched sexuality, much like their own tangled relationship twisting back through the years. She had slept with him only once, during his early apprenticeship as an upstart anchorman. He had charmed her and she had wooed him—it was difficult to tell in retrospect who had instigated that elusive moment of discovery. But it never led to a call-back, and the awkward stage had long since passed. Now they were working too hard to notice the possibility of a rematch still lurking in limbo, hiding behind a smokescreen of coarse jesting and crude innuendo. Just as well.

  “I think we’ve got a wild one,” he told her when he got to work the next morning. “A conspiracy against omnidroids, an attempt at genocide on the orders
of Transolar Corporation.”

  Gladyz ducked her forehead. “Are you kidding me? They’ll crucify us!”

  “What if it’s true?”

  “Then we’d be dead already.”

  “They can’t touch this smile. I have a degree in delusions of grandeur.”

  “You got that right.”

  “This is the big one, baby. They’ll remember us forever.” He batted eyelashes with dramatic flair. “And it will look great on your resumé.”

  Gladyz smirked. “That’s good. ’Cause I’ll probably be out of a job.”

  “I’ve got enough to make solid accusations. Two dead, one in the hospital, and twenty-two with stories to tell. But no hard evidence yet—these guys are pros. I say we go public and see what climbs out of the sewer. Take a look at my synopsis and tell me what we can do for vidi. How’s the orangutan story playing out?”

  “Back in the box, dead end on the newsfeed. They lured him out of hiding with some orange pussy and a banana cube.”

  Roni chuckled. “How the mighty biogen are fallen.”

  “All men are the same.”

  “Not me, hon. I’m different. I’m better.”

  She smiled. “I’ll look at your outline and take it upstairs. Give me half an hour.”

  Roni ambled through the cafeteria line for a quick omelette and took a cream latte to the makeup salon, where Derryn fussed over a pimple on his chin while he tried to sip his drink.

  Gladyz barged in with enthusiasm after only a few minutes. “They love it upstairs! I’m scrambling the crew and summoning Ngazi for a full-spectrum netcast. Derryn, you’re in for makeup on the girl. We’ll start with a bedside scene to rouse public sympathy. No names, no slander. I’m thinking a bouquet of flowers to get funerary undertones. Then we’ll swing to a close-up of the cute Bali boy sitting in vigil like a sad puppy by the casket. Ngazi will have the feelie crowd weeping at his devotion.”

  Roni tipped his cup in acknowledgement to her exuberance as Derryn stroked his skin with a soft brush. He loved his job.

  “They want to do a series,” Gladyz said. “A complete exposé—good foreplay, strong prodding, followed by lingering doubt. They want in-depth coverage on this one, not the usual wham-slam-thank-you-ma’am. They believe in you, Roni.” She fanned a faxslip with exultation. “We have a budget!”