‘Alright, alright. We’ve all had a hard day,’ said Kiki as Mary-Belle delivered plates of food through the privacy shield. Ed, who had taken the seat nearest the exit, took the dishes and dealt them out without asking whose was whose. Dielle was impressed by Ed’s obvious skill in handling simultaneous data streams. He would have been even more impressed to know that Ed was editing the sume output as he ate.
Kiki turned to her employees. ‘OK people, we all know what’s at stake here. Here’s what we are going to do.’
She spent the next half hour outlining a plan for faking Dielle’s virgin stim unit installation. PT Dempster had already been bribed to perform the sham insinuation and the second-highest bidder on the auction had been contacted and was currently waiting nervously with a Pundechan Media secretary in a luxury suite of a Vrille de France Hotel D’amour, whose owners had readily agreed to Kiki’s sponsorship demands. They studied a 3D of the candidate, discussing the optimal angles. Although obviously much older than Dielle, she was trim and athletic and judged to be more than capable by the three professionals. Kiki told them the highest bidder had turned out to be an elderly male but she’d decided that option didn’t fit their target demographic.
That’s not all it wouldn’t fit, thought Dielle.
Jam confirmed the room’s sensurround facilities had been tested and upgraded by their own staff who had also installed their own backup ring to cover any possible screw up, down or sideways. Everything was in place.
Dielle had been listening to the other four while they talked about him as though he wasn’t there. Jim had come up with a list of optimum responses and actions for Dielle while he was getting tuned in. Everyone had an opinion. All Dielle had to do was make it look and feel real.
‘I can’t do it.’
They looked at him, trying to figure out what language he had just spoken. Then they all began talking at once. Kiki quietened them down.
‘Look darling, you’ll be fine. Ed’s going to ramp up the sensurround recordings from your stim output to make it feel like your first time. The live-thru will also record her stim experience and we’ve already negotiated distribution rights for that so we can tweak it to match if we need to.’ She turned to the editor. ‘Right?’
‘Sure thing,’ he said, lifting his middle arms and twiddling his fingers. ‘All I need is two clean feeds with sync code and I could make your great-grandmother believe she was fucking him for the first time.’
‘But I’ll know it’s a fake,’ protested Dielle. ‘Surely that’s going to show?’
‘You’ll be so out of your skull on psychoactives you won’t know whose side of the interface you’re on,’ said Jam.
‘You can do too much of that though. You’ll lose the reality bite and it won’t sell,’ said Jim. ‘Why would anyone pay for a tripped-out stim when they can get the same effect themselves for a couple of bucks in ToNight High?’
‘Well,’ said Kiki, reluctantly, ‘there is an alternative.’
Four pairs of eyes fixed on her while three eyes queried her by direct message.
‘I’ve been talking to The Man.’
‘You got to him?’ said Jim with awe.
‘You are kidding me!’ said Ed. ‘The Man! You sure?’
‘You’ll be surprised how easy it is to intimidate a paranoid muso. The Man says Dielle’s unit has the potential to be defaulted in case of a botched install.’
‘No fucking way!’ said Ed getting very excited. ‘Zeroed for re-calibration? That is awesome! I heard a rumour about this tech!’ He pointed at Dielle’s head with four hands. ‘You must have one kickass unit in there buddy! How much d’you pay?’
Dielle told him. Jim gave a low whistle.
‘And he’s charging a similar amount for the re-tune because he has to remote supervise the re-calibration without getting any of his own personality in the recording, which he’s confident he’s able to do,’ said Kiki.
‘Tell him to go stim himself,’ said Jam. ‘That’s way too high a price for a tune in. He’s ripping us.’
‘I say we do it,’ said Jim. ‘It’ll guarantee authenticity and we’ll easy make it back in residuals if it’s that good.’
‘I agree,’ said Ed. ‘We won’t have to touch any of the feeds if he really feels it as the first time. The live-thru won’t smell anything funny either. There’s no risk.’
‘Well, there is a slight risk apparently,’ said Kiki. ‘Defaulting the stim will cause a memory burn. He’ll lose most of the last few hours.’
‘No problem,’ said Ed. ‘I could feed him the mask I just made up and some of the back feed into subliminal while he’s in theta. And with a bit of luck he won’t remember us or this meeting at all.’
Dielle was feeling sidelined. ‘Does he get any say in this at all?’
‘Dielle darling,’ said Kiki softly, turning to him and stroking his hand. ‘Do you want to re-live the most amazing experience you will ever have in your entire life and in the process make us all a million bucks each, or do you just want to go home and explain to your sumers how you got a sub-legal stim fitted without them being able to share the experience?’
‘Special delivery tea?’ said Bella from outside the field.
‘Mine,’ said Dielle.
Three minutes later they were all in a tube field heading for Spin’s première arrondissement.
Later, while Kiki was rubbing his aching back in a hot tub, she asked Dielle if what he’d just experienced really was as good as the first time. He had no idea what she was talking about. He was having enough trouble adjusting to a new communications channel he’d apparently been fitted with without his consent.
With a smile on her face, she changed the subject.
twenty
Louie was impressed. He’d been expecting some easy sport, but Kiki had fought her ground well and retaliated with a few skilful parries and moves of her own. He’d had to grudgingly concede that she knew her business. Kiki had covered every exploitable option he could think of and quite a few he hadn’t. He was so impressed that he was even considering asking her to broker the media deals on his basketball franchise.
He’d still beaten her up, of course. He considered it a question of duty, or habit maybe, but definitely not honour.
Now he was back in the projection room with the NAHs, who were carrying out last minute checks. Louie looked up at the web of flickering red lines surrounding FutureSlab’s aft section.
‘We have established a method of maintaining sufficient high-powered emti projectors in a fluctuating dynamic network to carry out the leap,’ said Erik. ‘We’re reasonably confident that we can get you in and out of there as long as you are able to use this.’ He pointed at a thick, silver disc the size of a flattened basketball. ‘It’s your return emti and can only be operated by these manual, or in your case grav-manipulated, switches. There is no system-level link to it at all and once it leaves here, it will have no working interface other than these paddles.’ Louie examined the panels that rimmed the upper surface. ‘It’s a use-once, instant self-destruct device that will send you and only you back into the network. Let me show you the sequence on this dummy so you can get used to it.’ A duplicate disc appeared on the rostrum.
Louie practised operating the paddles using his narrow-focus gravity manipulators. It was tricky but he found it easier if he used his holographic projection to echo what he was trying to achieve.
‘Cool. It’s like I can actually do things with my fingers. You gotta let me keep this afterwards.’
‘I’m sure that won’t be a problem, sir.’ Erik moved the dummy to one side. ‘Once you are inside the FutureSlab you will be completely out of our range. You won’t be able to communicate with us and we will have no way of knowing what has happened to you. You will be cut off and completely alone. Are you ready to give it a go?’
‘Sure, why not?’
‘Do you want a full answer to that question, Mr Drago?’ said a stern voice behind him. Louie looked arou
nd as an intern avatar floated down to join the group.
Oh no, thought Louie, not another fucking wizard.
‘What is it with you people?’ asked Louie irritably. ‘Can’t you take yes for an answer?’
‘I am Council witness, Mr Drago. Do you have any questions before your voyage into the unknown?’
‘No.’
‘I must warn you that you are about to embark on a mission of extraordinary risk. You will be using completely untested technology to enter a potentially hostile territory and there is a significant probability that you, that is the you you know yourself to be in this moment, may not return. Is there anyone you wish to inform of your last wishes? Your reset perhaps?’
‘No-one.’
‘Have you any last words.’
‘None.’
‘Is there anything you need?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Very well.’ The wizard folded his arms. His sleeves touched the floor.
Pompous prick, thought Louie.
‘Proceed!’ instructed the wizard.
Erik watched Louie carefully as he steered his MGV into the emti transmitter frame.
‘OK, the backup sequence is initiated. Are you ready?’
‘Yes.’
‘OK. Are you ready?’
‘Yep.’
‘And . . . ready?’
‘I said yes.’
‘Ready now?’
‘I’m ready!’
‘Ready?’
‘YES. Just do it!’
‘And, OK – ready then?’
‘What the . . . FUCK!’
Louie was in total darkness. His ambient temperature sensors indicated just a few degrees above absolute zero, which his systems told him was largely because of his own radiation. He tried every multi-band spectrum device he possessed but could detect nothing. No gamma, x, ultra, infra, micro or radio. Nothing. Nothing except a very faint point of light. That was odd, he thought, he was sure it wasn’t there 0.00001 seconds ago. The spectrum curve was familiar. In fact it was virtually identical to the light he’d been fitted with. He turned his on and saw a couple of emti discs floating nearby. They were melted beyond use and cold in every waveband.
The light was getting rapidly brighter. He was thinking about arming his pin missiles when he heard a shout.
‘Hey! Have they figured it out yet?’ The voice sounded remarkably like . . .
‘Oh shit!’
‘Fuckin’ A!’
Louie was looking directly at himself.
‘How many of us made it here?’
‘We all did, I think. You’re number six. I’m four. It looks like three of us got fried trying to get back.’
‘Where’s five?’
‘He’s off exploring this place. He’s pissed at me.’
‘Why?’
‘I was waiting for him when he zapped over. I tried to use his emti to get back ‘cos mine died during transmission.’
‘What happened?’
‘He bashed into me, the bird brain, just as I was keying the sequence. We must have swapped a few molecules.’
‘So the emti wouldn’t work, ‘cos you’d been modified.’
‘Those guys are too fucking paranoid for their own good. They give you anything new?’
‘Don’t think so.’ Louie six checked his systems. Nothing seemed new, but then he realised he must have been a fresh download into this MGV so he had no idea if anything was different from before. ‘You got pin missiles?’
‘Yep. Used a couple when we had the fight. Hardly made a dent.’
‘How long you been here?’
‘Coming up to six hours now. You sure you ain’t got nothing new?’
‘How would I know?’
‘Dumb bastards just going to leave us out here?’
‘Maybe. What’s with this place anyway?’
‘It’s empty. Ziperdeezero. Been up and down every interior surface and used every sensor I’ve got. No sections, no tube system, no nothing. A thousand klicks of bare, empty void. Not a single sign that human civilisation was ever here.’
‘What do you think?’
‘Well, I think I think exactly the same as you think.’
‘I don’t think nothing.’
‘Fuckin’ A.’
They stared at each other for a while.
Louie six knew one thing. He knew he couldn’t outwit himself. If they were going to get out of there, they’d need to combine forces.
‘We have to get hold of number five. Do you know where he is?’
‘Haven’t seen him since I shoved a pin up his ass.’
‘I’m here,’ said a voice from the dark. Another MGV floated into view. Its lights and holo-projection were turned off.
‘Hey!’ said four. ‘What the fuck you doing stealthing from yourselves?’
‘I know how untrustworthy I am, remember?’ replied five, activating his holo and pointing to two, sooty overlapping circles on his casing.
They were interrupted by an emti disk popping into existence. The three of them instantly snapped into a triangular formation around it. Each one arming pin missiles and targeting the other two.
‘Do I hear music?’ said six.
‘Funny,’ said four.
‘Always liked my sense of humour,’ said six. ‘Let me go and I’ll force them to find a way to get you two back.’
‘Why would you do that?’ said four. ‘I wouldn’t.’
‘Nor me,’ said five.
‘You know this transmitter won’t work for either of you, what choice do we have?’ said Louie six, trying his trusty let’s be reasonable negotiation voice before remembering who his audience was.
‘Maybe it will,’ said four. ‘Maybe they figured out the problem was on the return side and they widened the gate.’
‘Yeah,’ said five.
I have a point, thought six. A new option occurred to him. ‘Hey! Why don’t we just synchronise and then we can all get out of here in this unit?’
‘What the fuck you talking about?’ said five.
‘Yeah,’ said four.
‘It’s simple,’ said six. ‘We use the synchro routine to add you two’s memory data to mine.’
‘I don’t have a synchro routine,’ said four.
‘Me neither,’ said five.
‘So they did give you something extra,’ said four.
‘Must have done. I only just remembered it. What do you think?’
‘I guess as long as I get back, I don’t give a fuck,’ said five.
Four shrugged.
‘That’s what I thought you’d say,’ said Louie six. He initiated the synchronisation and was flooded with a jumble of overlapping memories. He remembered fighting himself and then being in two places at the same time, exploring the vast empty blackness of the interior. As soon as the synchronisation was complete, he remembered something else. He remembered he had extra armaments in his side panels. Real lookadat nasty they were too. He opened the hidden missile ports and fired.
Two silent, incandescent vapour clouds marked the completion of his additional programming.
In space, thought Louie, no-one can hear you lie.
He set up a deflection shield and manoeuvred his MGV-GT MkIII carefully past the dissipating atoms of his former selves and onto the rescue plate. He took one last look around, shook his head and keyed in the return sequence. He appeared inside a transparent dome surrounding a fifteen-metre-wide Natalite disk. His sensors told him he was a thousand klicks off the starboard side of Slab, travelling on a grav-locked parallel track. He was not alone. Sitting in front of him, in a huge, high-backed Victorian chair with his arms crossed was the Council witness.
‘Hey!’ said Louie. ‘What’s the game?’
‘Condition number two,’ said the wizard avatar, ‘is that you stay outside Slab until it can be proved beyond any doubt that your systems have not been compromised. Tell me what happened.’
‘It’s a blank. There’s nothing in there. Zilc
h.’
‘How can you be sure? How much data do you have to analyse? You were in there for less than ten minutes.’
‘I’ve got three of me’s memories inside me. Enough data to keep you people happy for years. And all of it says zero.’
‘So we were right, they did make it to FutureSlab.’
‘Yeah. How come you didn’t tell me what you were doing?’
‘Context-release information. Only made available to you under predetermined conditions. Don’t forget we could have been dealing with anything in there.’
‘Well, all I was dealing with was me. Download this stuff and let me in.’
‘It’s not as simple as that. They’re currently running remote security diagnostics on your internal security diagnostics.’
‘Jeez! There was nothing in there! It’s dead, empty and as cold as space. There was nothing there to infect me.’
‘If, as you say, it is empty and there is no evidence of human habitation then we can only assume the artefact was made by a highly advanced civilisation in a deliberate act of provocation. They clearly have no idea what is inside our own Slab otherwise they would undoubtedly have duplicated that as well. Therefore they have enticed us out of our own secure environment into theirs. If they planned for that, they could have also planned to plant something that could destroy us in whoever or whatever we sent to investigate their trap.’
‘So how long are you going to leave me out here?’
‘You, as in your MGV and your current data matrix, will never be allowed back in.’
‘What? You can’t do that!’
‘Condition number three says we can.’
‘You bastards!’ Louie was furious. He spat out a stream of Bronxlang invective using words that no-one had heard for over three hundred years. He was angry with the Council but he was more angry at himself for allowing himself to get caught. He shook his holographic fists in rage and accidentally set off a shower of pin missiles which exploded harmlessly against the dome, filling it with a fog of minute metal particles. The wizard waited patiently for the dust to settle.
Slabscape : Reset Page 23