Solaris Rising: The New Solaris Book of Science Fiction
Page 25
The girl went inside and Dov saw that Kitty had been watching him watch her. “Something?” he asked. “Or did I already miss it?”
She made a see-saw motion with her free hand. “Sometimes you don’t notice what you’ve noticed until you notice that you didn’t notice at the time.”
An enigma wrapped in a puzzle with a hole in the bottom; he smiled. “You never know, I guess.”
“You never can tell,” she corrected him and checked the watch pinned to her flowery scrubs. “Damn, I’m late.”
Dov looked at his own watch. “Are you sure?”
“Excuse me, I will have been late. The domino effect.” Instead of hurrying away, however, she turned to look at the record store.
“She’ll come over, won’t she.” Dov cupped one elbow and rested his mouth briefly against his fist before he realised and propped his chin on it instead. “By herself, do you think?”
“That coin is still in the air, hon.” Kitty looked at her watch again. “Damn, now I really do have to run.”
Dov stared after her, allowing himself a few quiet moments in her wake before it subsided and the day resumed in whatever form it now had. That was as close as he came to getting his mind around the concept of wave functions collapsing. Kitty had actually tried to walk him through it once. He had understood each part in succession but all of it together, not so much.
A young mother pushing a stroller with a sleeping toddler paused to look in the window at something. Dov moved aside to let her ease the stroller over the threshold without waking the child. Boy? Girl? He hadn’t looked closely enough. Maybe, he thought as he went back inside, he could avoid doing so.
Which, in keeping with the apparent theme for the day, was really silly. Kitty would have laughed and told him that wave function had collapsed elsewhere some time ago with no help from him. Then he would have asked her – again – about the difference between wave functions that hadn’t collapsed and those he didn’t know already had, but he wouldn’t have understood the answer – again. He had been tempted to ask her if any of these wave functions, whatever they really were, could collapse if there was still someone somewhere who didn’t know it had but it sounded too silly even just in his mind.
Considering how full of silly things his head was today, this might have been the right time to ask. He started to pick up the newspaper and then grabbed the novel he’d left next to the register instead. The paper was full of collapsed wave functions but not as far as he was concerned. Today he wouldn’t collapse anything if he could possibly avoid it. At his age, the possibilities weren’t endless so he might as well hang onto as many as he could.
Of course, that might be more difficult after the cameras were installed.
Now that was Olympic-class silly. He decided to distract himself by changing the window display. He hoped Kitty might make it back before he went home at six; no such luck. This week, a tall, skinny guy named McTeer had the evening shift. McTeer was one of a handful of people the owners had hired just to plug personnel gaps in their various interests. More than that, Dov had no idea – none of the people who took over for him was given to chitchat and McTeer was practically mute. Hi or hello was his limit, occasionally hey; other than that, he either shrugged or grunted, and never at the same time. He wasn’t hostile, he simply wasn’t very responsive, like a stranger in an elevator or a waiting room. Maybe that was how he saw his job, or at least this particular assignment, Dov thought, and wondered where McTeer was really going and what he’d be like when he got there. If he ever did. As Kitty had said in the course of an explanation Dov otherwise no longer remembered, all take-offs were optional, all landings were mandatory, and all destinations were guaranteed because everybody had to be somewhere.
‘OnWatch – Security & Assurance’ read the large, royal-blue letters on the side of the white van, in the kind of dignified typeface Dov associated more with a stationer or a printer than a security company. The woman who climbed out of the cab was dressed in an immaculate sky blue coverall that seemed to have been made for her. Maybe it had – the name ‘Fabiola’ was embroidered rather beautifully in dark blue thread over her left breast pocket.
“Not a big space to cover,” she said in a light Spanish accent as she looked around. “But I’ll be here a while. I’ll have to run some wire, do a little drilling. But don’t worry, that won’t take long and I’ll put down drop cloths to keep the dust off your stock.”
“In this store, the dust is part of the purchase price,” Dov said.
“Well, at least there’s no food to worry about.” She moved to the centre of the store and looked around again, more slowly this time, as if she were measuring by eye. Then she turned to him with a slight frown. “Are you the owner?”
“No, but I can sign any work orders or receipts.”
Her frowned deepened as she gave him the same measuring look. “Funny, I could have sworn you were the owner.”
“If you need to speak to them, I can get their number –” He started toward the office. He actually knew all four phone numbers by heart and there was a longer, more detailed contact list in the register but he wanted to get away from that stare.
“Nah, don’t bother,” she said cheerfully. “I must be thinking of another job. I’m pretty busy these days. Suddenly everybody wants cameras. Orders are through the roof.”
“Really?” Dov was surprised. “And here’s me thinking Big Brother was still the black sheep of the family. So to speak.”
“That’s a good one.” The woman grinned at him. “It’s an insurance thing. Burglar alarms aren’t enough now for a lot of these carriers, they want a belt and suspenders. Besides, when’s the last time you heard one of those go off and you didn’t think it was a false alarm?”
“I should have known,” Dov said with a small laugh. “I mean, this is a pretty good space but it’s not ballroom size. There’s not much I can’t see from behind the counter.”
“Well, the cameras’ll catch all that and more, you included.” She leaned toward him, lowering her voice slightly. “I always remind all the good working people I meet on a job that the moment I flip the on switch, the only privacy’ll be in the facility. Word to the wise.” She tapped the side of her nose and winked.
Dov became aware that he had his index finger pressed to his upper lip, covering the scar that was all but invisible now. Irritated with the old habit, he jammed his hand in his pants pocket. “Thank you. Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Not a thing,” she said. “I’ve done this so many times, I can sleep through it. Just pretend I’m not here.”
“Let me know if you change your mind,” he called after her as she went out to the truck. His hand was already out of his pocket, going for his face again. He put it in his pocket again and went back to his stool behind the register.
He seldom saw that look of appraisal any more, not like when he was a kid with all the grown-ups staring at him and exclaiming how good he looked, that surgeon was an artist, you’d almost never know. Some days, he’d spend every waking hour hiding his mouth behind a book or a piece of paper or his hand. Till he was thirteen, when pretty Ruth Shapiro had saved him by giving him his first kiss and declaring he was the best kisser in Hebrew school (maybe the best in public school, too, but she only kissed the boys in Hebrew school). After that, his self-consciousness had faded right along with the scar.
Still, once in a great while, he would suddenly become aware of his finger resting against the area under his nose, hiding not only what was there – a scar he could barely see himself any more – but also what wasn’t: the two little folds that ran vertically from the base of the nose to the flesh of the upper lip.
It was called the philtrum; he had looked it up. Most people didn’t seem to know the term or care what it was, but they all had philtrums. They didn’t seem to notice that he didn’t, not even Ruth Shapiro, whose full, pouty lips made hers look especially pronounced to him. Apparently it was one of those things yo
u only missed if you’d never had it.
Someone made a polite, throat-clearing noise and Dov came out of his reverie to see a young woman standing at the counter with a few dull metal bracelets and a set of salt-and-pepper shakers shaped like dancing goldfish. He rang them up for her, automatically glancing toward the table outside. Still no Kitty; past where she usually stood, he could see the OnWatch woman taking boxes out of the back of the truck and stacking them on a dolly. As she wheeled it into the store, the prints seemed to catch her eye and, for a moment, Dov thought she was actually going to stop for a look but she didn’t.
Dov wondered what would have happened if she had and then Kitty had come along. He remembered something Kitty had told him about waves emphasising each other or cancelling each other out, depending on how they collided. Then there was another customer waiting to pay for something else and he put it out of his mind.
The afternoon stream of customers was a bit heavier than usual and just about all of them were in the mood to buy something, which kept him busy enough that he practically forgot about the OnWatch woman except when the sound of her drill reminded him. It was a small drill and the noise wasn’t as loud or as grating as the average power tool. A genteel drill, Dov thought, watching the woman attach a bracket high up on the wall in the far corner, just below the ceiling. She sat astride the top of her step-ladder with casual ease, untroubled by the height. A well-balanced individual, Dov thought. Not to mention tidy – true to her word, she had covered everything immediately below her, although any dust she’d raised was invisible. The white drop cloths looked as immaculate as her coverall.
The monitor took up a lot of space on the desk in the office but that didn’t bother him as much as the black computer tower on the floor underneath. It was just the right size and in the right place for him to bang his knee on it every time he sat down.
“Pretty clear picture, isn’t it?” the woman said, urging him to be as pleased as she was.
He made himself nod. The display rotated every five seconds among four separate feeds, three in the store and one on the back wall of the office, just above the door to the tiny employee lav. If he hadn’t known what he was seeing, he wouldn’t have recognised it. He barely recognised himself when the office came up on the screen, but then the camera was positioned above and behind him. The woman looked pretty much the same, though. Some people, the camera loved. They were photogenic, or telegenic, whatever. Him, not so much, but he still couldn’t see himself all that clearly –
He’d been staring at the screen for at least two minutes, he realised suddenly, maybe longer. Every time the display changed, it sort of blinked, like an eye. Store 1 2 3 4 5, store 2 2 3 4 5, store 3 2 3 4 5, office 1 2 3 4 5; store 1 2 3 4 5, store 2 2 3 4 5, store 3 2 3 4 5, office 1 2 3 4 5. The effect was both annoying and hypnotic. Like real television – all it needs is a laugh-track, he thought sourly.
“Is there something wrong?” the woman asked, concerned now.
“Oh, no, not at all,” he said quickly. He was hiding his lip in the curve between his index finger and his thumb, as if he were thinking something over. With an effort, he pulled his hand away from his face to point at the tower. “Why not put that… thing, whatever it is, on the desk with the monitor?”
“This is a very sophisticated system, not in general use yet. We tell clients to keep it out of sight. Don’t tempt fate, or individuals weak in character.”
Dov gave a short laugh. “Yeah, I guess it would be embarrassing to have to report your security system stolen.”
The woman’s sidelong glance suggested to Dov that the word jejune was in her vocabulary. “People don’t always steal. Sometimes they just smash stuff up.”
“True,” Dov admitted, trying not to feel chastened. “But that transmits everything to you, right?” The woman nodded. “So even if someone did smash it up, you’d have a record of everything up to the point where it stopped.”
“Yeah. But then there’s the cost of replacing the unit.” The woman grabbed a takeout menu Dov had left lying on the desk, wrote a figure in the margin and showed it to him. “Will that be Visa, MasterCard, or Amex?”
Dov blinked, aghast. “That much? But it’s just a computer. Isn’t it?”
“Well...” The woman grimaced. “That’s the simple description. I’d give you the full rundown but to be honest, I don’t really understand it well enough. I mean, I understand it but –” She looked around quickly, pointed at the telephone next to the keyboard. “I understand that enough to use it but don’t ask me to explain how it works. I’m installation – I plug in wires, I hook up cameras, I adjust the focus and set the time-stamp. I can show you how to re-wind so you can check what happened two hours ago or last night – it’s not too hard. And here’s the quick-start.” She stood a small instruction pamphlet to one side, between the keyboard and the monitor. “It’s got all the instructions you’re gonna forget I told you.”
Dov chuckled politely. “How far back does it go? I mean, how long will it record before it records over whatever it’s already recorded?” He paused, replaying what he’d just said. “Did that make sense?”
The woman laughed. “Yeah, I gotcha. It’s unlikely you’ll ever need anything beyond the previous twenty-four hours. But if for some reason you ever do, we’ll have it archived. But I gotta tell you, in all the time I’ve been doing this, I never heard of anyone having the cops ask them for ‘surveillance footage’ –” she made air quotes that Dov could almost see. “Except on a TV show.”
She produced several forms for him to sign, gave him copies, and before he could ask her anything else, she was scurrying around, packing up her tools, collecting empty boxes, styrofoam inserts, and folding up drop cloths. He went to carry the ladder out to the truck for her but she waved him off with a firmness he didn’t dare argue with, despite her cheerful smile.
So that was that. Perched on the stool behind the counter, Dov looked directly at each of the three cameras in the store – one in the far corner, one over the door to the office, and one on the wall directly opposite where he was sitting. And when he sat at the desk in the office, the fourth would be looking over his shoulder.
Abruptly, he realised he’d been looking from one camera to the other every five seconds. “Oh, hell,” he muttered. Yesterday he’d been silly; today, head-bugs were eating his brain like Pac Man. The cameras hadn’t even been in for a day – not even for an hour – and he already had some kind of bizarre OCD. He slipped off the stool thinking he’d go back to the office and then remembered the camera there. He’d forgotten to allow for that one when he’d been doing his weird OCD thing just now. Damn it, he couldn’t even get that right.
Leaving the ring-for-service bell on the counter, he went back to the office anyway, striding past the desk without looking left or right to shut himself in the tiny lavatory. Privacy at last. He flipped the light switch; the bulb flashed and went out.
Now he had real privacy, even from himself. The way he was going, by tomorrow this would seem like a luxury. And still, he realised, he had a finger over his lip.
He opened the lav door intending to stride back out to the store again still not looking at the monitor on the desk, except it was the first thing he saw. The view of the top of his head was just long enough to tell him that he’d been in denial about how much he was thinning up there. Then the screen blinked and he saw the girl from the record store had come in. Blink: someone was at the table outside looking through the box of prints and it wasn’t Kitty. He rushed into the store. The girl glanced at him but he barely noticed. There was no one at all at the table looking at anything.
Dov started toward the stool behind the counter but some impulse made him turn around and go back to look at the monitor. Two of the cameras had a view of the table; the one in the far corner showed no one standing there. The one over the office door, however, said there was. The person was mostly hidden behind the front door frame but Dov could see enough to recognise the coverall. He c
ould even see part of the sign on the truck and that she had left the back doors open.
He went out to the store. No one was there; the truck was gone. Still, he went all the way out to the table and stared at it for some ridiculous length of time. Two teenaged girls who had been looking through a pile of old postcards stopped to give him a wary look. Dov flashed them a perfunctory smile and went back to the office.
The far corner camera showed him what he had just seen; the other was still watching the woman from OnWatch flipping through the prints.
And the camera across from the counter showed him sitting behind the counter, reading a paperback.
Dov and the display blinked together. He fidgeted through fifteen seconds before the screen showed there was no one behind the counter. Something flickered or twinkled in the lower lefthand corner of the monitor but it was too small to make out even with his reading glasses. He had to get the magnifying glass out of the drawer to see they were numbers, tiny little white numbers changing so quickly they were flashing. Would a time stamp have that many digits? Before he could see whether they were going backwards or forwards, they disappeared.
He straightened up, rubbing his lower back although he felt the ache only distantly.
The woman said they archived the recordings. Maybe they’d been re-running the feeds to synchronise them. Maybe the clock on that thing was out of step with the one at OnWatch.