by Pat Cadigan
It was strange, but sometimes she couldn't remember what it had been like; it was almost as if those years had never happened. Except for Mark; that was where the mileage really showed.
Just do the videos and hope for the best.
Sure. Do the videos. Do it their way. She looked around the pit. This was a place to make commercials, and fool with feature releases, and maybe play a few nifty games, but it wasn't rock'n'roll. Rock'n'fuckin'roll. Jesus. Yah, what the hell, we'll just put that in a nice clean box and keep it business, keep it all business, and maybe she'd go out of her mind in the nice clean box.
Grow the fuck up. She might give the Beater that one, but she wouldn't give him the rest of it, at least not until she knew what it was. If you had to surrender, you at least ought to get to know what you were surrendering to. They owed her that much, Mark most of all.
Just do the videos. Hope for the best. Wanna jam? Can you top it, lover? Not today.
She had just stepped out into the hall when the door directly across from her own opened, and she was face-to-face with the guy she'd punched. He froze, staring at her as if he thought she was going to pop him again. That was a good one. Or maybe he wanted to pick a fight, get his own back on her. He didn't look like the type, but you never knew. Maybe she should offer him a free shot.
Or maybe she should pop him again, for staring. "You want something?"
He shook his head wordlessly. His face looked pretty swollen, and there were three or four flesh-tone squares spotting his cheek.
"You know you can get toxed on that shit?" she said. He blinked at her uncomprehendingly, and she tapped her own cheek.
"Stuff builds up in your system, and you get off. Watch out, it can make you a little stupid."
Now he looked thoughtful; probably trying to decide whether he was toxed or not. Life was pretty fucking hard when you couldn't tell the difference.
"Wait!" he called.
She turned to him disinterestedly. "Yah?"
"I was just wondering…" He came out a little farther into the hall, touching his wounded face. "I was just wondering why you hit me."
"It was a mistake, all right? You got in the way."
"I see." He shrugged. "Well, then, why did you want to hit the other guy? Or anybody?"
"Is that supposed to be important to you?"
"I thought that since I wasn't going to get an apology, I might get an explanation."
Gina laughed. "You want a lot, don't you? Homeboy, you just keep asking. Who knows, maybe someday someone'll put an egg in your beer."
He almost looked like he understood. Hell, maybe he did. She headed toward the elevators.
12
"You're good," Manny said, resting a hand on the covered tray in front of him on the table. "There's really no question about that, never has been. You do good commercials, but you're not doing enough of them."
Sitting across from him, Gabe eyed the cover on his own tray. You didn't eat while Manny talked. First, Manny had to explain to you why he would sully his lunch hour with a subordinate. LeBlanc had once suggested making lunch with Manny an Olympic event. Well call it the biathlon-first, you see how much torture you can absorb, then you see how much food you can eat in his presence before you vomit. Right? We need that, right?
Gabe had to press a finger on his injured cheek to keep from laughing. Watch out, it can make you a little stupid. He shifted in his chair, accidentally pressing his cheek harder.
"And checking the time logged on each assignment, anyone can see you're taking too long on the commercials you do produce." Manny stared at him evenly, waiting for an answer.
"I'll try to pick up the pace," he managed, barely moving his lips. His voice sounded strange and distant, as if he were speaking from behind a character facade in a wannabee program.
"Gabe. Trying isn't good enough." Manny shook his head slowly. Like a bad actor in a camp movie, Gabe thought; the whole situation seemed more and more unreal. Except for the throbbing in his face, which had begun again in hot earnest. "You're just going to have to do it, before the next quarterly figures go Upstairs. I can just about guarantee that when they graph your time spent against your number of completed assignments, they'll start talking personal audit. That's everything you've got in memory, on chip, in long-term storage. They'll want to see it all, and they'll question every requisition you've made in the past two years. You'll have to explain and justify everything, completed projects, fragments, the whole thing."
Manny paused to let him digest that one, but all he could think about now was the aroma that had started to seep out from under the covered tray in front of him. It turned his stomach. He slipped another patch out of his shirt pocket and applied it to his cheek. The throbbing receded after a few moments, but the smell of the food became even more nauseating. Something fried, he thought, besides himself. Watch out, it can make you a little stupid.
"And if you're thinking of dumping everything you have, you'd better reconsider." Manny leaned forward, bracketing his own tray with his forearms. "As low as your numbers are, a bare cupboard will look very suspicious. They could get the idea you've been working on some project of your own, unrelated to the job. I don't have to tell you what will happen if they think you've been abusing corporate equipment." Manny's serious expression changed suddenly. "Is everything all right in your personal life?"
Gabe winced. What was he supposed to say? Well, let's see, this morning, my wife left me, and then I came to work and got punched in the face by a complete stranger. Now I'm apparently toxed on painkillers I shouldn't be toxed on, and they've made me a little stupid. Did you mean besides that?
He became aware of the rather long moment that had passed since Manny's question and shrugged awkwardly. "Everyone has problems."
"Yes, I suppose," Manny said. "But I don't think you'd care to work under the conditions of a personal audit. You'd be monitored every moment. Even while you were sketching out the barest scenario, they'd be listening and watching on-line. Most people would find it impossible to work under those conditions, but the Upstairs Team would be expecting you to up your productivity. The Upstairs Team does not understand the creative individual, you see. Therefore, it's the responsibility of the creative individual to adjust, to be creative enough to learn how to play the game their way."
The game. House of the Headhunters rose up in his thoughts, fragmenting his concentration. He'd put on far too many patches trying to kill the pain in his face, he realized. That was what she had meant, the woman who hit him. A little stupid, that was a good one. Or as Marly would have said, A little stupid, hotwire? Looks to me like they broke the stupid-stick on you.
Manny was looking at him oddly now, and he realized he was smiling. He turned it into a grimace and touched his face.
"Clooney told me Gina Aiesi hit you, is that right?" Manny said, resting one hand on the cover of his tray.
"Accident," Gabe said. "Just one of those dumb freak accidents."
"I see." Manny toyed with the handle on the cover. "You'll take what I've told you seriously, now, won't you, Gabe? I'd hate to see one of our best people get into difficulties after such a long career." He hesitated, and Gabe waited for him to hint that perhaps he needed a little consultation with Medical on the possibility of implants to improve his concentration. Instead Manny uncovered his tray, signaling the onset of actual eating.
Gabe followed suit and then sat there with his numbed, swollen jaw, looking down at the pork chop, the mashed potatoes, the corn on the cob, and the mixture of celery and carrot sticks.
"Ah," Manny said. "Direct from our executive kitchen. Rediscovery Cuisine is the one food trend I can really get my teeth into. So to speak." He favored Gabe with a cordial smile as he picked up the knife and fork and began to saw away on the pork chop.
The thugs that had been waiting in the alley, if it was an alley, came at them with the mindless savagery of machines set on kill. The program carried him through the motions. At least it wouldn't
let him ruin the choreography, and the hotsuit compensated as much as it could for his lack of physical ability. But it wasn't up to his usual standards of verisimilitude.
Perhaps, he thought as Caritha took down some of the attackers with sting-shots from the cam, it was all the painkiller coming between him and the illusion. He was too aware of the sensors plucking at his nerves, delivering the simulated sensations of punches and kicks, both giving and getting, with more of the former, of course. The program didn't have a masochism setting.
What the hell, he thought, watching his fist smash dead center in the head of a shadowy figure. He had a little more experience with this than he'd had a couple of hours before. His face throbbed against the inside of the headmount, but the feeling was distant and painless, less immediate than the sensation of impact the sensors put to his knuckles and ran up his arm. When you hit someone, you were supposed to feel it yourself, after all, though the program made tough stuff out of you-taking a punch or giving one, you could just shake it right off. Like Marly; he had a glimpse of her jabbing her fist into a thug's midsection, doubling him over so she could give him a knee in the face. He fell back as another one threw liiinself at her from the side, slamming them both into a wall. They went down, and a moment later the thug was flying backwards, arms windmilling. Gabe stepped to meet him and managed a fair imitation of a karate chop to the back of his neck.
Marly saluted and then looked alarmed. Before she could shout a warning, he took a giant step to the right and clothes-lined the killer that had been about to take him down from behind. He turned to see how Caritha was doing.
She was having a ridiculous tug-of-war over the cam with the last of their attackers. Forcing his arms up high, she tried to kick him in the crotch, but he danced out of the way, still keeping a grip on the cam. Gabe took a step forward, but Marly was already flying past him. She tackled the thug from the side, and they all fell to the ground together with the two women on top. Gabe took another step toward them and then looked around.
The alley was empty again, except for the trash. Dutifully the hotsuit gave him the sensation of cold chills and goose bumps. He stared down the length of the alley, trying to discern if there might be one more. He didn't know; they were on blind-select. Cautiously he turned toward Caritha and Marly, who were still busy pounding the thug into the ground, and then felt the presence at his left elbow. One more, of course, the old just-when-you-thought-you-were-done-you-got-a-surprise-fist-in-the-face ramadoola. He braced himself, and his face gave a sudden throb shot through with a sharp pain. The sensors in the headmount were far more limited than those in the 'suit, but he didn't think he could take even the limited illusion of another punch in the face.
He came around swinging fast and hard and felt the peculiar shock of connecting with nothing. He turned around quickly, fists up, but there was nobody to hit, no one next to him at all, but the sense of another presence remained strong. His jaw was throbbing nastily now, anticipating the blow.
"Alone at last," Marly said, looking up and down the alley. The spot where she and Caritha had been beating up the attacker was also empty.
"Solidified holo," Caritha said knowingly, brushing herself off. She examined the cam for damage. "The only place it's actually solidified is in your mind. They must have shot our retinas when we came in, ran an analysis of our wavelengths, got the subliminal code."
"I hate that," Marly said. "I just hate it when they use your mind against you like that. If we'd had the savvy to walk through here with our eyes closed, they never could have touched us, but once you've seen one of them, the illusion's burned in, even if you close your eyes after that. You gotta fight em."
"You walk through a dark alley with your eyes closed if you want," Caritha said. "They'd have just had something a little more substantial waiting for us."
"Maybe," Marly said, massaging her knuckles, "but I hate giving them the satisfaction of knowing they made me hurt myself instead of them having to do it themselves."
"You want a fair fight, become a boxer." Caritha started up the alley, and Marly followed, beckoning to Gabe.
He looked around quickly and then found it, a strange spot about the size of a dime floating at the limit of his peripheral vision. Glitch in the program, he thought, irritated.
"Hey, hotwire!" Marly called, invisible now in the darkness ahead of him. "You comin', or you waitin' for the night nurse to come out and collect you for your bed in the ward?"
The glitch floated dizzily, then sailed around him to plant itself on his right. He turned again just in time to see it shrink sharply, as if it were receding up the alley after Marly and Caritha. His jaw sent a spear of pain all the way to his temple. He winced, automatically putting a hand to his face and making contact with the outside of the headmount, ruining the illusion completely.
"Uh… I'll meet you later," he called. "Disconnect.
He was about to stash the saved program in the lockbox under the desk when it occurred to him to check the system's security status.
Everything was normal, no intrusion had been registered, which could have meant nothing. It was the worst-kept secret of the computer age that B amp;E programs outdid watchdogs regularly. His own imagination getting the better of him, he decided. He was too toxed to concentrate on the program, but he could jump at shadows. As if Manny could spy on him without his knowledge. The only person he could think of who was capable of a hack like that was Sam. Or some of her friends.
But someone else had been there in the program. The thought refused to go away, and he leaned on the console, trying to think through the pain in his jaw that also refused to go away. It didn't make any sense. Neither Manny nor anyone else could audit him without an official corp requisition for an audit program, which would automatically notify him he had company. And without an audit requisition, the system was impenetrable. Was supposed to be impenetrable, nominally to preserve employee confidentiality but actually to discourage in-house hacking.
Someone else had been there in the program, his mind insisted. Whether that made no sense or all the sense in the world, someone-or something-had been there. Possibly a hacker cracking in from outside and moving on to some other part of the system when nothing of real interest showed up.
His inner eye could see the glitch-spot zipping away up the alley. Not winking out or closing, but moving away. Going to Marly and Caritha. As if it found them more interesting than it did him. But this time he hadn't left the program running along without him; if the glitch had indicated an intruder, the intruder had been thrown out when he'd ended the run.
He put a standard breach-of-security report on the flat-screen, started to fill it out, and then paused. If he reported his suspicions, he'd have to provide a copy of the simulation he'd been running. And wouldn't Manny be interested in that.
Groaning, he sat back in the chair. He could just shoot himself and get it over with, that would take care of everything.
Shit. Call it a hacker. A hacker wouldn't get far; Diversifications' security would either throw the hacker out, or lock on for a trace and subsequent arrest. Either way he wouldn't be involved. Even if a hacker got something from him, what use could it possibly have been? House of the Headhunters had been so generally available, even collectors didn't care that it was out of release, and it wasn't like he was sitting on a pile of sensitive information.
Forget it, he told himself; it felt sick and eerie, but it was ultimately nothing and would stay nothing. Probably never happen again. He put another patch on his face, and then another before he filled out a sick-leave form and zapped it to Medical. As long as he was getting nowhere, he might as well go home and be nowhere.
Watch out. It can make you a little stupid.
Watch out-
He ran a hand over his face, frowning at the memory of Gina Aiesi as he inched forward in the rental.
– it can make you a little stupid.
If that meant not having more sense than to get on La Cienega in the m
iddle of the afternoon, she'd been right. God, when was the city going to admit defeat, scrap GridLid, and lay new lines with improved security and better transmission times, he wondered. Part of an illegal message that had leaked through GridLid's blocks was still showing at the top of the nav screen: Why don't you just park this toy and take a walk? The Doctor feels you don't walk enou
That would be Dr. Fish. One of Sam's heroes. He shook his head. Sam's admiration for outlaws might have been incomprehensible, until you factored in Catherine. With good guys like Catherine, you didn't need bad guys, and bad guys would look pretty good.
He played with the screen as he advanced little by little toward the freeway. At this rate, he would probably get home at his usual time, even if the freeways were half-decent. He could have waited out the rest of the day on a cot in Medical and made better time during the traffic-restricted rush hour. He could have stuck with the simulation and not noticed the day passing, except to take short breaks to put on more killers. Maybe with enough killer in his system, he might even have felt like doing one of those loathsome commercial spots. BodyShields: protection from everything except-what? Clogs? Hackers?
The nav unit beeped to notify him that Olympic was passable, if he wanted to take it down to the San Diego Freeway. He put on the audio, which informed him of the same thing in an even, cordial male voice, and then went on to warn the rest of the mobile public away from La Cienega.
It took him ten minutes to squeeze into the correct lane to make the turn. Down at Olympic a cop on a scooter was diverting all traffic from the lane onto Olympic. GridLid was supposed to relieve cops of most traffic duty; Gabe could read the disgust in the cop's face as she waved him onto the cross-street.