Rifters 2 - Maelstrom

by Peter Watts

  And there were other dangers if you went with a wet link, dangers especially relevant to those with Desjardins's tastes. There were still people out there who refused to recognize the difference between reality and simulation, between fantasy and assault. Some of them were savvy enough to hack the things they found politically objectionable.

  Take the present scenario. It was a pretty sweet set-up, all told. He had two girls strapped face-down on the table in front of him. One of them was hooked up to a DC power supply by alligator clips on her nipples and clit. The other had to be content with lower-tech forms of punishment, which Desjardins was currently administering with an unfinished broom handle. Three others hung inverted against the far wall, passing time until their own numbers came up.

  It was exactly this sort of environment that certain disagreeable types took pleasure in messing with. Desjardins knew of more than one occasion in which the victims of similar scenarios had miraculously freed themselves from their restraints, coming after the user with steak knives and hedge-clippers. Incompetent but enthusiastic neutering generally followed; in at least one case the emergency interrupt had been overridden, keeping the player on the board right up to the final curtain call. Such things were more than enough of a damper in a feedback skin. If you got nailed through a neural link, you could end up impotent for life.

  Which was, of course, the whole idea.

  Achilles Desjardins was more cognizant of the risks than most. He took, therefore, more precautions than most. His sensorium was strictly standalone, with no physical connection to any kind of network. He'd lobotomized the graphics circuitry to reduce its vulnerability to wildlife; it could only present chunky, low-rez images that would drive any normal connoisseur crazy, but Desjardins's own wetware more than made up the difference. (The pattern-matching enhancements in his visual cortex interpolated those crude pixels into a subjective panorama crisp enough to leave the most jaded wirehead drooling.) The scenarios themselves were scrubbed and disinfected right down to the texture maps. Desjardins carried way more than his weight in this cesspool of a world; no way was some TwenCen puritan going to mess up any of his well-deserved moments with Mr. Bone.

  Which made the sudden and complete failure of his system extremely disquieting. There was a brief sharp prick in his neck and the whole environment just disappeared.

  He floated there a moment, a stunned and disembodied being in an imperceptible void. No sounds, no smells or tactile feedback, no vision—not even blackness, really. Not like a window gone dark, not like closing your eyes. More like not having any eyes to begin with. You don't see blackness out of the back of your skull, after all, you don't—

  Fuck, he thought. They got in. Any second now everything's going to come back online and they'll be spit-roasting me on a pole or something.

  He tried to flex his fingers around the interrupt. He didn't seem to have any fingers. All his senses remained offline. For a moment, he thought he might get off easy; maybe they hadn't infected his program, maybe they'd just crashed it. It made sense—it was always easier to kill a system than subvert it.

  Bit they shouldn't have been able to do either, for fuck's sake…and why can't I feel anything…?

  "Hello? Hello? Is this thing on?"

  What—

  "Sorry. Small attempt at humor. I'm going to ask you a few questions, Achilles. I want you to think long and hard about the answers."

  The voice hung there in the void with him, sexless and innocent of ambience; no reverb, no quiet hum of nearby appliances, no background noise at all. It was almost like a Haven voice, but even that seemed wrong.

  "I want you to think about the ocean. The very deep ocean. Think about some of the things that live down there. The microbes, especially. Think about them."

  He tried to speak. No vocal cords.

  "Good. Now I want you to listen to some names. You may recognize some of them. Abigail McHugh."

  He'd never heard of her.

  "Donald Lertzman."

  Lertzman? How's he involved?

  "Wolfgang Schmidt. Judy Caraco."

  Is this some kind of Corpse loyalty te—oh Jesus. That Haven contact. Pickering's Pile. It said it could find me…

  "André Breault. Patrician Rowan. Lenie Clarke."

  Rowan! She behind this?

  "Ken Lubin. Leo Hin Tan the Third. Mark Showell. Michael Brander."

  Yeah. Rowan. Maybe Alice isn't so paranoid after all.

  "Good. Now I want you to think about biochemistry. Proteins. Sulfur-containing amino acids."

  ??!?!?!…

  "I can tell you're confused. Let's narrow it down some. Cysteine. Methionine. Think about those when you hear the following words…"

  It's a mind-reading trick of some kind, Desjardins thought.

  "Retrovirus. Stereoisomer. Sarcomere."

  A quantum computer?

  They didn't exist. Of course, that was the official story on most banned technology, but in this case Desjardins was inclined to believe it. Nobody in their right mind would be caught dead around a telepathic AI. That had been one side-effect the Q-boosters hadn't seen coming: the whole quantum-consciousness debate had been resolved overnight. Who'd ever choose to build something that could sift through their minds like a chess grandmaster noodling around in a game of Xs and Os?

  Nobody, as far as Desjardins had been able to tell.

  "Ion pump. Thermophile."

  But if not a quantum computer, then—

  "Archaea. Phenylindole."

  Ganzfeld.

  Not a computer, except for the interrogation interface. Not telepathy either; not quite. Cruder. The faint quantum signals of human consciousness, cut away from the noise and sensory static that usually swamped them. Properly insulated from such interference, you had a better-than-average chance of guessing what your subject was looking at, or listening to. You could feel the vicarious echo of distant emotions. With the right insulation, and the right stimuli, you could learn a lot.

  So Desjardins had been told. He'd never actually experienced it before.

  "Good. Now, think about the assignments you've had at CSIRA over the past month."

  Mange de la marde. Just because some disembodied voice told him to think about something, didn't mean he had to leap up and—

  "Ah. There's a familiar pattern. Here's an exercise for you, Achilles: whatever you do, do not think of a red-eyed baboon with hemorrhoids."

  Oh, shit.

  "You see? Nothing's more doomed to failure than trying really hard not to think about something. Shall we continue? Think about your CSIRA assignments for the past six months."

  A red-eyed baboon with--

  "Think of earthquakes and tidal waves. Think of any possible connections."

  Isn't this a security breach? Shouldn't Guilt Trip be doing something?

  Earthquakes. Tidal waves. He couldn't keep them out.

  Maybe it is. Maybe Trip's seized up my whole body. If I even still have a body. How would I know?

  Fires.

  Oh Jesus. I'll give everything away…

  Threads of emerald light, lancing through the fog.

  "Think of containment protocols. Think of collateral damage."

  Stop it, stop it…

  "Did you plan it?"

  No! No, I—

  "Did you know in advance?"

  How could I, they don't tell me any—

  "Did you find out afterward?"

  If Trip's working, my body's already dead. Oh motherfucking blood-spewing sickle-celled savior…

  "Did you approve?"

  What kind of stupid question is that?

  Nothing, for a very long time.

  I feel awful, Desjardins thought. Then: Hey—

  Despair, guilt, fear—chemicals, all. Hormones and neurotransmitters, a medley brewed not just in the brain, but in glands throughout the body. The physical body.

  I'm still alive. I've still got a body even if I can't feel it.

  "Let's talk about y
ou," said the voice at last. "How have you been lately, healthwise? Have you had any cuts or injuries? Anything to break the skin?"

  I'm feeling a bit better, thank you.

  "Any symptoms of illness?

  "Any inoculations within the past two weeks?

  "Blood tests? Unusual reactions to recreational transderms?

  "Real sexual experiences?"

  Never. I'd never inflict that on a person…

  Silence.

  Hey. You there?

  With a blinding flash and a roar like an angry ocean, the real world crashed in from all sides.

  * * *

  After a while everything desaturated to normal intensity. He stared up at his living room ceiling and waited while a cacophony of ambient sounds faded down to a single, rhythmic scrubbing.

  Someone's in here.

  He tried to rise; a sharp pain in his neck kept him from any sudden moves, but he managed to get erect and stay that way. In only the most innocent sense, unfortunately; his feedback skin was folded neatly to one side. He was completely naked.

  The scrubbing sound was coming from the bathroom.

  He didn't have any weapons. At this point he didn't think he needed any; if the intruder had meant to kill him, he'd be dead already. Desjardins stepped tentatively toward the hallway and nearly took a header into the wall; Mandelbrot, true to form, had got in his way and tried the classic feline figure-eight-around-the-legs takedown.

  Desjardins spared a silent curse and crept toward the bathroom.

  Someone was standing at the sink without any pants on.

  Seen from the back: medium height, but built like a Ballard stack. Dark hair, flecked with gray; navy cable-knit sweater; black underwear; little scars all over the backs of the legs. Bare feet. His pants were draped along the counter; he was scrubbing at one leg in the sink.

  "Your cat pissed on me," he said without turning.

  Desjardins shook his head; his neck reminded him of the stupidity of that gesture. "What?"

  "When we had our session," the stranger said. (Desjardins glanced in the mirror but the man's face was tilted down, intent on his task.) "I assume someone in your position knows about Ganzfeld techniques?"

  "I've heard of them," Desjardins said.

  "Then you know you have to minimize extraneous signal. Nerve blocks on all the main sensory cables, everything. I was just as disconnected as you."

  "But you were talking—"

  The intruder nudged a small beige fanny-pack on the floor with his foot. "That was talking. I just set up the dialogue tree. Anyway,"—he straightened, his back still to the door—"your stupid cat pissed on my leg when I was laid out."

  Good for my stupid cat, Desjardins didn't say.

  "I thought only dogs were supposed to do that."

  Desjardins shrugged. "Mandelbrot's kind of a mutant."

  The intruder grunted, and turned.

  He wasn't exactly ugly. More like what would result if someone with limited artisan skills carved a human face in a totem pole; it might not run to your taste, but there was no denying a certain crude aesthetic. More tiny scars on the face. Still; not quite ugly.

  Scary, though. That fit. Desjardins didn't know exactly what it was that made him think that.

  "You're immune to Guilt Trip," the intruder told him. "Want to guess how that happened?"

  The Algebra of Guilt

  The naked 'lawbreaker was watching him with wary curiosity. Not much actual fear, Lubin noted. When you routinely juggled thousands of lives for a living, you probably figured that other people were the ones with cause to worry. Sudbury was a safe, law-abiding place. Wielding his godlike control over the real world, Desjardins had probably forgotten what it was like to actually live in it.

  "Who are you?" Desjardins asked.

  "Name's Colin," Lubin said.

  "Uh-huh. And why does Rowan have such a hard-on for testing my loyalty?"

  "Maybe you didn't hear me," Lubin said. "You're immune to Guilt Trip."

  "I heard you. I just think you're full of shit."

  "Really." Lubin laid the slightest emphasis on the word.

  "Nice try, Colin, but I kind of keep up on that stuff."

  "I see."

  "Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's indestructible. Just off the top of my head I can think of a few commercial enzymes that break it down The right kind of reuptake inhibitor blockers could do the job too, I'm told. That's why they have these tests, you see? That's why I can barely go two days without some bloodhound sniffing my crotch. Believe me, if I was immune to Guilt Trip I'd already know it, and so would every security database up to geosynch. And you know, the really odd thing about this is that Rowan must know that alread—"

  He never had a chance to move. Lubin was behind him in the space of a syllable, had one arm locked around his throat in two. The long curved needle in his other hand tickled Desjardins's eardrum suggestively.

  "You have three seconds to tell me what it's called," Lubin whispered, relaxing his grip just enough to permit some semblance of speech.

  "ßehemoth," Desjardins gasped.

  Lubin tightened his grip again. "Place of origin. Two seconds." Relaxed it.

  "Deep sea! Juan de Fuca, Channer Vent I thin—"

  "Worst-case scenario. One."

  "Everything dies, for fuck's sake! Everything just fades away…"

  Lubin let him go.

  Desjardins staggered forward against the sink, gulping air. Lubin could see his face reflected in the mirror: panic subsiding, the higher brain kicking in, reassessment of threat potential, dawning awareness of—

  Three breaches he'd just committed. Three violations when Guilt Trip should have risen from within and throttled him even more tightly than Lubin just had…

  Achilles Desjardins turned and faced Lubin with horror and fear spreading across his face.

  "Maudite marde …"

  "I told you, " Lubin said. "You're a free agent. Vive le gardien libre."

  * * *

  "How'd you do it?" Desjardins slumped morosely on the couch next to his clothes. "More to the point, why? The next time I show up for work I'm screwed. Rowan knows that. What's she trying to prove?"

  "I'm not here for Rowan," Lubin said. "Rowan's the problem, in fact. I'm here on behalf of her superiors."

  "Yeah?" Desjardins actually seemed to approve of that. Not surprising. Patricia Rowan had never exactly endeared herself to the lower ranks.

  "There are concerns that some of the information we've received from her office has been tainted," Lubin continued. "I'm here to cut out the middleman and get the unadulterated truth. You're going to help me."

  "And I'm not much good to you if my brain seizes up every time you ask a touchy question."

  "Yes."

  Desjardins began getting dressed. "Why not just go through channels? GT won't raise a peep if I know the orders are coming from higher up the food chain."

  "Rowan would peep."

  "Oh. Right." Desjardins pulled his shirt on over his head. "So tell me if I've got this down: you ask me a bunch of questions, and if I don't answer them to the best of my ability you stick a needle in my ear. If I do, you let me go and the next time I go to work I set off more sirens than I can count. They take me apart piece by piece to find out what went wrong, and if I'm very very lucky they'll just throw me into the street as a security risk. Is that about right?"

  "Not exactly," Lubin said.

  "What, then?"

  "I'm not the snuff fairy," Lubin said. In fact, that was exactly what someone had called him, nearly two years before. "I don't leap gaily from door to door killing people for no good reason. And you're going to do more than answer a few questions for me. You're going to take me to work and show me your files."

  "Not after—"

  Lubin held up a derm between thumb and forefinger. "Trip analog. Short-lived and fairly inert, but it looks pretty much the same to a bloodhound. Stick it under your tongue fifteen minutes before gettin
g to work and you'll pass the tests. If you cooperate, no one will know the difference."

  "Until you bugger off and take your analog with you."

  "You're forgetting how Guilt Trip works, Desjardins. Your own cells are producing the stuff. I haven't stopped that. I've just dosed you with something to break down the finished product before it hits your motor nerves. Eventually it'll get used up and you'll be a happy little slave again."

  "How long?"

  "Week or ten days. Depends on individual metabolism. Even if I do bugger off, you could always just call in sick until it wears off."

  "I can't, and you know it. I got my immunes boosted when I joined the Patrol. I'm even immune to Supercol."

  Lubin shrugged. "Then you'll just have to trust me."

  * * *

  It fact, it had been lies from the word go.

  Lubin had not freed Achilles Desjardins. He'd merely stumbled on the discovery as they both lay on the floor, disconnected from themselves and strangely linked to each other through a mechanical interrogator. The derm he'd presented had been an acetylcholine booster, a memory aid one step removed from candy. His words had been spun on the fly, woven around the 'lawbreaker's reactions in the Ganzfeld: Rowan, yes. Strong reaction there. No reaction to rifter names, but horror and recognition at the thought of earthquakes and tidal waves and mysterious fires.

  Desjardins had pursued the truth, and recoiled from it. He had not set any of the larger wheels in motion. As far as Lubin could tell, he didn't even know how many wheels there were.

  He hadn't known that he was immune to Guilt Trip, either. That was especially interesting. Desjardins had been right—it would be impossible to avoid one of CSIRA's spot checks for more than a day or two. So barring the unlikely possibility that Desjardins had acquired his immunity within the past few hours, his body had done a lot more than throw off GT; it had managed to hide that fact from the bloodhounds.