by Pat Cadigan
Joslin's expression went from vapid to oddly intent. "It's out of control."
Manny gave a politely puzzled laugh. "Pardon?"
"You'll see." She giggled. "Maybe when you lie down on that table, huh? Come on, Hally." She sidled out of the room, pulling Galen after her.
Manny shook his head. "Jesus wept."
"For Zion," Travis said, startling him. "In a way she's right. About it being out of control." He cleared his throat and turned the screen on again, recalling the image of Joslin's brain. "We're of a milieu where brain implants are commonplace now, so we won't have to overcome the things many of my instructors in med school talked about. But the full ramifications of this procedure are not apparent yet. Not even to us." He nodded at Joslin's brain on the screen. "We really have little idea of what will come up out of that organ through a direct pipeline. We can make a few educated guesses, and we might even be right about some of it. I understand the, ah, feel-good clinic doctor had already stimulated output through altered implants on one, ah, patient. They were watching pornographic images when the police arrived."
"Indisputable proof of this thing's entertainment value," Manny said dryly. "If rather mundane."
"One wonders about the not-so-mundane. The images were feeding only to a screen, but not from the screen directly to another recipient," said Travis. "We've established that output is far easier than input. But to be frank, we have not clearly established all the effects of input. Except for certain things. For instance-" He indicated the screen again. "The temporal lobes." The highlighted areas shrank, and the color of the area in the left hemisphere changed to orange. "That is the left mesial temporal lobe. If the emotional centers in that particular region do not activate at precisely the right time, a panic attack will ensue. It feels exactly like a heart attack." Pause. "Those prone to the condition can be treated with implants that keep the activation regular. The condition can be induced in a normal brain, however, by an inhibitory neurotransmitter, something that will keep the neurons from firing properly. The inhibitor could be encouraged by input, for example. Just one example."
Several long moments passed in silence as they both gazed at the screen. "I understand what you're telling me," Manny said at last. "I'm just not sure how I should take it."
"You can take it any way you choose," Travis replied. "The world just became that much more subjective. Preparatory to socket implantation a detailed map of the brain is assembled and kept on file." Travis turned the screen off. "The files will be carefully guarded against unauthorized access, of course."
"Of course." Manny felt his energy level sink as the stimulants in his system began to wear off. He glanced at his watch. "Why don't you prepare me a complete report, zap it up to my mailbox. Mark it confidential. I'm due on the evening L.A. jumper. Things are piling up back there. Last night was a real monkey wrench."
Travis's gaze was steady and expressionless. "Would you like those in 3-D or hardcopy flat format?"
"Both. I like to have something I can make notes on in an informal setting. Without hardware."
"And is the Diversifications system secure enough?"
"Now, yes. We have a pet hacker who's already gone to work on it.
He followed Travis out with a thousand different ideas jockeying for position at the forefront of his mind.
7
"Hallelujah," said Melody Cruz with her usual exaggerated good cheer, "it's another day! Anybody here care which one?"
"Not me," Gabe muttered groggily as he shuffled into the living room and plumped down on the mile-long couch. Twenty minutes of shower-massage had been either too little or too much; he wanted nothing more than to sink into the sofa and become one with the cushions.
"I just knew you'd see it that way. Well, here's the ugly truth of it, big guy: deadline on the Gilding BodyShields spot looms big as life and twice as graphic, you should pardon the expression."
Gabe grunted. "Tell me something I don't know."
"I'm getting to that. But first, this reminder: lunch with Manny Rivera today. Another good reason to get the Body-Shields spot wrapped."
"Okay, okay," Gabe said. "Nag." He sat up a little straighter, but his eyes still refused to open all the way.
"And we've got a mailbox close to capacity here. Three more items, and they're gonna hit you with the surcharge. I don't wanna say they're gougers or anything, but if you don't do something soon, they're gonna name the node after you. The Gabriel Ludovic Electronic Postal Node, funded entirely by you. I wouldn't want that carved on my tombstone."
"Right. What's in it?"
"Only the most comprehensive collection of junk mail in the entire Los Angeles area. Offers so refusable it's amazing they don't implode."
"Anything from Cassandra? Cross-ref Sam?"
There wasn't even a pause. "Not today."
"Delete it all, then."
"You sure about that?"
Gabe yawned. "Real sure. I'm not in the mood. Do we have any grapefruit juice?"
"We should, unless you sneaked into the kitchen in the middle of the night and drank it all without telling anyone."
Gabe grunted again and pushed himself up off the couch. Melody's voice followed him, switching to the ceiling speaker in the kitchen.
"Took another chunk out of your account for your share of the mortgage on this dump, just thought you'd like to know. Wanna know the balance, or would you rather be surprised?"
"Surprise me." Gabe held a glass under the juice tap on the side of the refrigerator and pressed for six ounces, unsweetened. The juice was bitter and icy, hitting his sinuses a moment after it hit his palate. He leaned against the refrigerator, eyes squeezed shut, pinching the bridge of his nose. His sleepiness had dropped away in a rush, leaving him wide-eyed with a lingering undertone of fatigue.
"That's about it as directly concerns your miserable life," Melody went on conversationally. "In the general news Malaysia is still trashed, your tax dollars at work. Another day of food riots throughout the British Isles, while here in town the price of the Gatsby Restaurant's Gourmet Breadloaf goes to twenty dollars per as of this morning. Kinda makes you wonder, don't it?"
"Not really," Gabe said. "I work in advertising, remember?"
"Gilding BodyShields. Deadline: jump it or lump it."
"All right, all right, you said already." He refilled his glass and went back into the living room.
"Hey, you said a trigger-word. Watch the triggers, and you won't cue the nag subroutine when you don't want to."
"Actually, I did want to," Gabe said, settling down on the couch again. "I need to be kept after until I get it done."
The four-screen dataline in the wall across from him was running highlights from General News on the two left-hand screens, while a script more formal than Melody Cruz's headline summary ran on the upper right. The lower right screen displayed an abbreviated menu. Gabe picked up the remote and thumbed for the Popular Culture format.
"Pop-Cult comin' atcha," Melody said. "Anything in peculiar or the usual mix?"
"The usual, thanks."
"Don't mention it." Pause. "To anyone. Ever. If I'd known I was going to end up like this when I agreed to license myself for dataline modules, I'd have slit my wrists."
"Me, too," Gabe murmured, watching the parade of items that the summarizer had gleaned from FolkNet, the Public Eye, and the Human Behavior nets, with tidbits from BizNet thrown in. Popular Culture was a bottomless pit of raw material for commercials, and he badly needed some raw material this morning.
A shortened version of his old pharmaceutical spot ran between a segment on new trends in breakfast habits and an item on the sudden jump in popularity of video parlors among people with implants. He'd won a minor award for the pharmaceutical spot, nothing too flashy, just a commendation from the National Pharmaceutical Board for responsible presentation two years ago. Which was as good as a lifetime in the Age of Fast Information.
You know how it is, Gabe: What have you done for us
lately, and when are you going to do it again?
Shut up, Manny, he thought. "Melody!"
"You barked?"
"Run down a short list of the contents captured from Pop-Cult for me, will you?" Maybe her voice would drown out the sound of Manny's in his head.
"Okay. Gotta hot report on those breakfast habits, which you saw, and a nonstory about implantees flocking to video parlors, you saw that, too. Also in the queue, we've got-hey, hey!-a big scoop on pet implants, is that something? Nobody wants to paper-train Rover anymore. Now you can get an AKC-registered springer spaniel who can walk himself. Hey, get yourself a poodle named Physician and say, 'Physician, heel thyself.' Come on, don't groan-whatcha wanna bet Physician comes up top of the trend for dogs' names inside of a month?"
"A million billion dollars," Gabe said, shaking his head.
"You do and I'll own you. Won't that be embarrassing, in hock to a dataline module. I'll reset all your defaults for food porn."
Gabe slumped farther down on the couch, letting her voice wash over him as she went on listing the items in the recently saved files. He'd bought the Melody Cruz module separately and installed it himself, jamming it permanently in humor mode. At times it could be a bit macabre, and Catherine had accused him of being a throwback to the days of happy-talk news. Catherine couldn't seem to differentiate between happy uud funny.
From where he sat he couldn't see the door to Catherine's olfice, but he didn't need to. It would be sealed as always, the white-noise soundproofing engaged so there was no danger of Melody Cruz's humor offending Catherine's sensibilities or disturbing her while she punched up real-estate deals on her console. Hermetically-sealed Catherine Mirijanian. For all he knew, she ate and slept in there. He was living out of the guest room himself these days, so he couldn't prove she was making any use of their bedroom. He couldn't even prove she'd noticed he wasn't.
Maybe if they'd had more kids, even just one other-he winced at himself. Considering how things had gone with the one child they'd had, the idea was absurd. Still, Sam's babyhood had been the best time between them. If it could have lasted longer, he and Catherine might have gotten into the habit of being good to each other, good for each other.
No, still absurd. More children would have meant more people he could disappoint, while for Catherine it would have meant more people to disappoint her.
He heard a series of light rattling clicks then; Catherine's door was unsealing, and she was coming out.
"Melody!"
"What, you again? I mean, huh?"
"Email everything to my office, I'll scan it over there."
"The summary, too?"
"Yah. Go mute. Just leave the dataline on in real time." He sat up tensely. There was no time to slip back to the guest room and wait for Catherine to clear. Perhaps she would ignore the fact that the dataline was on and just go about her business. It wouldn't have been the first time.
In the next moment he regretted his thoughts, as he always did when he saw his wife, regretted everything, especially the way things had gone so awfully wrong with them. She was one of those women whose looks had improved as she'd gotten older. Her Middle Eastern ancestry had given her strong, well-formed features and a head of thick hair most people could obtain only at cosmetology clinics. Her skin was the shade of deep honey, a little darker than when he'd last seen her. She had someone who came in once a month to give her dye jobs, something he didn't think she really needed. Her own skin-tone had always looked perfect to him, like her hands; never given to long, red claws, she kept her hands very plain and neat. Whenever he looked at her hands, he remembered that there really were things about her that he loved, things that were still there, somewhere, if only he could figure out how to reach them.
"I'm showing a house," she said, standing at the far end of the sofa.
He blinked at her without comprehension and then realized she was announcing that she was going out. He turned down the volume on the dataline. "A house? You mean a condo?"
She shook her head, smoothing her long wine-colored vest. "A detached residence. Someone is selling, land and all."
Gabe put on a smile. "And not even on the San Andreas Fault? That's wonderful. Congratulations. I'm happy for you."
"That may be premature," she said, a bit primly. "The deal hasn't gone through yet, but the buyers can afford it." She smoothed her vest again, checked her platinum cuff links, brushed invisible lint from her narrow trousers.
"Well, good luck, then. I hope it comes through."
Her full lips twitched. "If it does come through, luck won't have much to do with it."
Gabe nodded contritely. "Of course. I forgot."
She stood there looking at him steadily, and he found himself suddenly wondering not how she had ever gotten so far away from him, but how he had ever been close to her.
"My commission on this one puts me in house range. I know about another coming up for sale soon." She surveyed the living room slowly before her gaze came to rest on him again.
He frowned, looking around himself. "And?"
She was silent.
"Well, what?" he said. "Are you saying you want to move to a house? Is that it?"
"Yes." She wet her lips. "I want to move to a house."
"Okay. All you had to do was say so-" He broke off, the realization creeping up on him like a hotsuit sensation of rising water. "You want to move to a house. Not me and you, but you. Alone."
Her dignified features took on an expression that might have been regret. "I guess that's what I want to say."
"You guess? That's not like you. You don't trust to luck, and you don't guess."
She lifted her chin defensively. "It's not easy to say."
He blew out a breath and sat back against the couch cushions. "Yah. I know."
"Once it would have been for both of us," she said, sounding suddenly urgent as she leaned forward on the arm of the couch. "I used to picture it that way. If you think it doesn't hurt even now to let go of that, then it's just as well things have turned out the way they have."
The grapefruit juice seemed to be eating a hole in his stomach. "Really, Catherine? Tell me-does it hurt because it's us, or because it spoils your one hundred percent success rating in the Valley?"
Now she glowered at him. "My success rate with this residence is zero."
"And you'll never forgive us for that, will you?" He shook his head. "Me and Sam, we really put the screws to you."
"Cassandra's a child. What's your excuse?" She came around the front of the couch and sat down on the cushion next to him, well within the borders of her own cushion. Real estate had given her a well-honed sense of territory, he thought, feeling a bit dazed. "We could have had a house together seven years ago, if you'd had any"-she struggled for a moment- " any anything. You could have gotten ahead instead of treading water, you could be in a position of power right now. I kept hoping you'd wake up and realize you were wasting yourself. If you had, we'd have that house, and maybe we'd even still have a daughter to live in it with us."
"I still have a daughter, even if she's emancipated," Gabe said sharply. "She's not like a goddamn house, you know, there's no title, no deed."
"If you'd had the wits to use your job to your own advantage, maybe Cassandra would have wanted to be more than a bum, living in holes with a lot of vermin and outlaws-"
"I think all she ever wanted was to be accepted as she was. And I never wanted the goddamn job to begin with. You wanted me to take it, and then because of all the things you insisted we had to have, I had to stay with it, and I got trapped there."
"And what were you going to be instead?" Catherine gave an amazed laugh. "An artist. What the world needs is another artist, especially if his name is Gabriel Ludovic. Was I supposed to support all of us while you answered the call of the muse? You even wasted that. You were going to pursue it part-time nights and weekends, remember? I had no problem with that; hobbies are good."
"It wasn't a hobby!" he said.
>
She laughed again, waving his words away with one hand. "Fool yourself all you want now, but that's all it would have been. One in two million make it as artists. The rest end up in little dumps that pretend to be galleries, or doing porn for next to nothing. That's a real prestige career, isn't it. As a hobby it would have probably done you some good. But-" She spread her hands and looked around. "I don't see any holo loops, I don't see any environmental designs, I don't see anything that qualifies as even an attempt at fine art, because you didn't go through with it. You just sat around bitching about the job until I couldn't stand the sound of your voice. That's why I was always against your quitting your job for art's sake. Even if you'd been that one in two million, I knew you just wouldn't produce."
"It was the job," Gabe said, suddenly wanting to make her understand once and for all, if she was going to leave him. "The job took too much out out of me, I didn't have enough energy left over for my own work."
"No," she said firmly. "You just didn't want it badly enough. Otherwise you would have pulled yourself together and just done it. You'd have done it under any circumstances, in any condition-Christ, quadriplegics used to paint pictures holding brushes in their teeth, because they wanted to paint more than anything in the world-"
"Look, I didn't have to live like this, I could have lived with less-"
"But I wouldn't." Her dark hair fell forward over her left shoulder, and she slapped it back. "And we had a daughter to think about. It wasn't her art, it wasn't my art, it was yours. It was up to you, not us, to find a way. It was up to you to work around our needs. If you'd wanted to starve under a pier, you shouldn't have had a family."
"But we didn't have to have my income-"
She sat up straight, looking at him as if from a great height. "I don't carry anybody. And nobody carries me. You knew that when we got married."
"Poor Sam," he said suddenly.
She looked as if he'd slapped her. "What about Cassandra?"
He tried to put it into words, but it wouldn't come. "Never mind. That slipped out. You're leaving. Case closed. To tell you the truth, I don't know why you didn't leave me a long time ago. What's the matter, couldn't you afford a house till now?"