Idolon

by Mark Budz

  The line inched forward a few steps, up the ramp to the loading platform. Below them, the Boardwalk seethed with activity. Arcade games flashed, signs blinked, philm scrolled, and kids screamed in fear and delight. Carnival music pummeled them from all directions. Ad balloons and masks trawled between the tightly packed kiosks, schooling like barracudas under the palms.

  A message tone squealed over his earfeed. The call was flagged urgent and a red subject line blinked on over his eyefeed, indicating a pop-up d-splay. Pelayo groaned.

  "What?" Atossa said.

  "Call from Uri." The subject line continued to blink, baleful and insistent: NEED YOU IMMEDIATELY.

  "About what?" she asked. "He wants to see me again."

  "Now?"

  Pelayo shook his head. "It's not going to happen," he said. "I'm busy." He was tired of being constantly on call.

  "You're not going to go in?"

  "It can wait," he said. It was probably nothing. Uri yanking his chain over some minor bug.

  "What if there's a serious problem with the 'skin?" Atossa asked.

  They inched forward a couple of steps, forced from behind by the line wending up the access ramp.

  "With Uri, everything is crucial."

  An updraft from the still-warm concrete of the Boardwalk stirred the 'skin's thick hair, blowing it across the ad mask.

  "Maybe you should see what it's about," Atossa said. "It couldn't hurt."

  "No!" he said, exasperated as much by the slothlike progress of the line as Uri's call or Atossa's second-guessing.

  "Fine," she huffed.

  Pelayo closed his eyes for a moment, willing calm. This was not the time for an argument. "It'll be all right," he said, "I feel fine. I'll go in as soon as we're done here."

  "Your turn, asshole," a voice said. The ride operator, some kid philmed as X-F! from the "Solonauts."

  An empty car swung around. Pelayo sat and the restraining harness folded down over his chest and legs, securing them firmly in place.

  Half a second later the car jolted forward, rocking back and forth as it lifted him above the seawall and the Kevlex fence that kept people from falling or jumping into the seaweed- and kelp-choked beach that had once been home to beach towels, lawn chairs, and volleyball nets.

  Music gusted up from the dervish rides and the fun-house arcades, bringing with it the smell of caramelized popcorn, cotton candy, and spicy batter-fried nopales. This section of town, including the Beach Flats a couple of blocks to the east, was nothing but philmscape: the 1849 Gold Rush; Paris in the 1890s; 1920s Coney Island. There were no cracks, no chipped corners, no peeling paint. Everything looked fresh and new, the past flawlessly reminted, shinier and more desirable than the present. If there was a future, it was cast from the past, perfectly configured to gloss over the defects of the here and the now with a collage of collective, mass-mediated nostalgia.

  The conference center loomed a few hundred meters behind them. The helicopters were lit by Klieg lights, the glare bright and urgent.

  Pelayo twisted in his seat, facing the moonlit water of the Bay. He pinched one corner of the mask, slowly peeling it from his face. Free of his body heat, the ad mask stiffened as it cooled, lapsing into its default shape. "Ready?" he said.

  Atossa let out a breath. "Iguess."

  Pelayo held the mask at arm's length, away from the chair. The breeze snatched at it, trying to pluck it from his fingers. "Keep eyefeeding me. I want to know what's going on."

  "I'll do my best."

  Pelayo let go of the mask. The wind caught it, flipped it, and sent it tumbling back in the direction of the pier and the hotel. He watched it swirl away into ink-black air before switching to an eyefeed d-splay.

  The mask was still tumbling out of control, sending him kaleidoscopic glimpses of the Boardwalk, the Beach Flats, silver-bellied clouds. He took a deep breath to quell his motion-sick stomach. Finally, the mask righted itself and the image stabilizers kicked in, giving him a relatively steady view.

  "You're heading too far right," he said.

  "I know!" Atossa snapped.

  The onshore breeze had shifted. It was a little more westerly than it had been ten minutes earlier. She was going to miss.

  "Try less altitude," he suggested. There would be less wind closer to the ground, less shear.

  No answer. The mask passed over the pier and the seawall at the base of the hotel rushed toward them.

  "Toss—" he began, when suddenly the eyefeed cut out and the d-splay inset went blank.

  Now what? He was trapped. Short of leaping fifty feet to the ground, there was no way to exit the tram. All he could do was wait.

  A beat later a message tone beeped. No visual. Pelayo answered it immediately, thinking it would be Atossa.

  "Say," Lagrante said, his voice saxophone smooth. "What it do?"

  ______

  "Make it quick," Pelayo said. "I'm in the middle of something."

  The tram had reached the far end of the Boardwalk, turned, and was heading back. The conference center loomed in the distance, barely visible above the lights of the merry-go-round.

  "That gurl of yours keeping you busy?" Lagrante said.

  "You could say that."

  Lagrante forced a chuckle. "I hear ya."

  Pelayo said nothing. The tram was halfway to the debarkation point and his mind was racing, planning his next move, whether to go to the hotel or Model Behavior.

  "Right," Lagrante said, taking his cue. "I'll get to the point, then. I found what I was looking for. If you're still interested, I can take care of biz. But it's got to go down quick."

  "When?"

  "Tonight. No more than a couple of hours from now. If you're not too busy to make it, that is."

  "Where?"

  "Place we first met. Got a band playin' I want to catch. Some of that nouvogue I been hearin' about."

  _______

  Pelayo was three blocks from the hotel when the eyefeed from the ad mask came back online and the d-splay inset reappeared.

  He blinked and found himself staring into an empty hotel room that looked as if it had been hastily vacated. "Where are you?" he said.

  "Third-floor window on the east wall," Atossa said.

  "What happened?"

  "Technical difficulties. I ran into some interference."

  Which could mean almost anything, literally or euphemistically. When she didn't elaborate, Pelayo let it drop. There was no sense getting off on a tangent, especially one that might lead back to him. Next time, he'd keep his mouth shut and let her do her job.

  "How many rooms have you checked?"

  "Three. They're all like this."

  "Empty?"

  "Yeah. I think it's a waste of time to keep checking. I'm going to head up to the roof, see if I can figure out where they're taking them."

  And why, Pelayo thought.

  41

  Night in San Francisco gave rise to afternoon thunderclouds in Japan. Through the d-splay window in his office, Kasuo van Dijk watched the ebb and flow of shadows in the karesansui garden at the Nanzenji temple.

  "Submit an interdepartmental query," he told the on-duty datician.

  "Recipient?"

  "Detective Buhay, with the San Jose Police Department."

  Twenty minutes earlier there had been a second damselfly appearance at the street address for Zhenyu al-Fayoumi. A follow-up call to al-Fayoumi had been routed directly to his voice mail. When queried, al-Fayoumi's Call Management System reported that he had not logged into his account in the last 71.4 hours. According to an admin assistant with the department of Developmental Nanobiology at San Jose State, al-Fayoumi was taking some personal time to work on research.

  Van Dijk had decided that it was time to do some research of his own.

  A message light blinked on his eyefeed d-splay. Van Dijk turned from the window and mentally routed the call to a wall d-splay.

  "Sam." Buhay said. "Been a while." He'd simage-cast himself as a lantern-jawed
, hatchet-nosed Dick Tracy.

  "Sorry it couldn't be longer." Inside the San Francisco Police Department he hadn't been called Sam—short for Samurai—in years.

  "Not a problem." Buhay waved off the apology. "What can I do you for?"

  "Zhenyu al-Fayoumi. Ring any bells?"

  Buhay polished his chin for a moment. "He involved in something you're working on?"

  "I'm not sure. I've got a dead philmhead, with a suspicious cause of death, and a missing witness who might be headed his way." Assuming there was a connection to the damsel. "What can you tell me about him?"

  "Fly boy," Buhay said.

  "Pilot?"

  "Bugs. The insect variety. He started philming them a few months ago. Faces. Airplane wings. Like that."

  "Sounds tacky but not necessarily illegal. You got a new law on the books I don't know about?"

  Buhay smirked. "Apparently his bad taste, and interest in philm, isn't confined to academia."

  "What'd he do?"

  "Technically he hasn't done anything."

  "In the meantime, you're keeping an eye on him."

  Buhay lowered his hand from his jaw. "He contacted one of the plainclothes we got working a sting op on the local crack market. Hacking, ripping, and bootlegging of electronic skin and philm."

  "Undercover?" van Dijk asked.

  Buhay nodded. "Deep six."

  Which meant that he had been at it for a long time and was going after a big fish, probably corporate. "What'd al-Fayoumi contact him about?"

  "Fly boy wanted to know what was available, what was up and coming. Ware he could get here. Ware he had to get elsewhere, so to speak. Overseas."

  "He say why?"

  "Nah. He wasn't that stupid. I figure he's doing contract work for a philm studio, as a way to fund his own research."

  "Hard up, huh?"

  "The grant money hasn't exactly been pouring in for 'skinned flies. You don't get funded, it's only a matter of time."

  "I take it he's not tenured."

  "Not in this lifetime."

  Buhay popped a coffeine drop and chewed. It was van Dijk's turn, and he got to the point. "There's evidence my philmhead may have been a test subject."

  "What kind of evidence?"

  "First-run philm on unregistered 'skin. Our skin-techs are still trying to REbot the autopsy results."

  Buhay popped another drop. "We talking black-market?"

  "Maybe. Maybe not."

  Buhay nodded. "Either way, you think there might be a connection to al-Fayoumi. Your test subject have a name?"

  Van Dijk shook his head. "Not yet. Both hard and soft DNA came up negative."

  "Which is where your wit comes in."

  Van Dijk nodded and let Buhay work out the next step for himself.

  "What kind of support you looking for?" Buhay said, rolling the drop between his cheek and gums.

  "I'd like to pay your fly boy a visit."

  "Official?"

  That would involve a warrant and van Dijk didn't want to go that far into debt. At least not yet. "Social," he said. "For now."

  "I think we can manage that." Buhay bit into the hard-shelled coffeine. "This is a friendly town. Sharing."

  Van Dijk took the point. Any information he came across would be passed on to Buhay. "Thanks," he said.

  "When should I put out the welcome mat?" Buhay asked.

  "Now would be a good time. You might want to have some flypaper handy, too."

  42

  Marta had a bad feeling about the TV. The woman wasn't just no-nonsense, she was watch-spring tight. The air around her felt brittle, as crinkly as her cheap 'skin and starched mannerisms.

  One wrong step or word, Marta thought, and the TV would crack.

  "Are you going to philm us?" Nadice said as the TV led them from their hotel room, down the hall to the elevators.

  "All in good time," the woman said. "First things first."

  She picked up the pace, hurrying them along the narrow strip of carpet that receded toward a vanishing point of pure white vertigo. Marta tried to imagine white stucco walls in place of the static, paisley frescoes, or velvet pin-striped wallpaper... anything substantive to dispel the feeling that the corridor was narrowing and that she was falling headlong into a singularity from which there was no escape.

  Marta hadn't eaten since yesterday morning, just before quitting the Get Reel. If she became any more light-headed she'd float off into delirium. Already her body felt detached, sucked dry by events.

  But maybe that was part of the plan. Starve them, deprive them of all strength and energy to the point where they were beyond caring. The walls leaned closer. Marta could feel the static attacking the cyst-hard attitude she'd encased herself in, a sort of corrosive fizz bubbling away with carbolic fury. It ate at her will, gnawed at her desire to resist.

  "Is there a reason we were locked in our room?" Marta said as they waited for an elevator to arrive. "Not allowed to go anywhere?"

  Conversation provided ballast against the acid bubbling, helped to anchor her in who she was.

  The woman's gaze scalded her. "It's for your own protection," she stated with tart severity.

  "Protection from what?"

  "The church has many detractors." The woman's compressed mouth puckered into a sour gash.

  "Who?" Nadice said.

  "Some people think you're an abomination," the TV said. "They think you should be rounded up and quarantined. Or worse."

  "What does that have to do with keeping us isolated?"

  "At this point it's better if you have as little contact with the outside world as possible."

  Marta shook her head. "You don't want us to know what's going on. That way we can't question what you're doing."

  "There's a lot of misinformation being broadcast right now," the woman said. "The newzines report every rumor as if it's fact."

  Lies flocked to silence like flies to shit, Marta thought, the quote leaping unbidden to mind. One of Nguyet's favorite aphorisms. "What's your name?" she said.

  The woman gave her a look of blank, implacable static. "I don't have one. I gave up my name." The ultimate self-effacement, her expression seemed to say.

  "What for?" Nadice said.

  "The One name. When it's written on me, I want to be a blank slate, ready to receive my new identity."

  _______

  The TV took Marta and Nadice back up to the penthouse restaurant. There, several dozen women had been separated into distinct groups. The altar was gone, the tatami mats stacked against one wall. The windows were dark and full of internal reflections. Through the translucent tableau, Marta gazed southeast to the LED-lighted curve of the Bay, looking for the Slab and the Trenches.

  Her father must be worried sick. Nguyet, too. Marta pictured her frantically doing a water-crystal reading, then another, and another. Her usual pattern, as if a second or a third reading would revise the first. Only when the readings were the same could she stop, let go.

  Generally Marta didn't think twice about Nguyet's compulsion. It wasn't worth the effort. Like most self-help mysticism, there was no way to prove or disprove the results. In the end, it boiled down to faith. Some people just couldn't accept the world as random and pointless. There had to be a hidden meaning, a divine plan. And they believed that if they could get a good look at the master blueprint, it would tell them how to live their lives and the lives of everyone around them.

  It was no different with the TVs. They were tuned in. They knew they were tuned in. They'd seen the light, and convinced themselves that whatever light anybody else saw was false light.

  The only good thing about the water crystals was that they helped Nguyet manage her anxiety. This made life easier for Marta and her father. Without the crystals, Nguyet would be a total basket case and their lives would be miserable. If the crystals kept her from unraveling, more power to them.

  "You've been assigned to group Alpha-Three," the TV advised them. She guided them across the restauran
t, in the direction of a group of six women huddled near an open door that appeared to lead to the roof, where she could hear the muffled whine of turbine engines.

  "Where are we going?" Marta said.

  "When your group is called, you are to assemble at the door over there as quickly as possible." She pointed to an exit door. "You will be met there by somebody who will assist you."

  "How long before we leave?" Nadice said.

  "Not long." The woman clicked her tongue, firm but judicious taps.

  The TV left them with their group. The other women stopped whispering. A few smiled in hesitant welcome. Marta grimaced. Distracted by the furtive commotion in the room, her attention skittered.

  Dr. Kwan stood near the door. Another TV was with her, a man dressed in a blue seersucker suit. The conversation was animated. Dr. Kwan moved her hands a lot, short, sharp gestures to get across whatever point she was trying to make. At one juncture, she cast a quick sidelong glance at Marta.

  Marta's skin crawled. They were talking about her.

  Had Kwan finally discovered whatever had been implanted in her? Clearly the doctor was concerned, worked up about something. Why else would Kwan be talking to him, unless there was a problem?

  The man listened intently, nodding every now and then in apparent agreement. He glanced once at Marta, confirming her worst fears.

  Kwan seemed satisfied. After a couple of last-minute gestures she strode from the room, her gait brisk and confident.

  "I have to go to the restroom," Marta said. She needed a few minutes to think, to gather herself.

  "You just went," Nadice said.

  "I have to go again. Listen. If that TV comes over here and asks about me, tell him..."

  "What?" Nadice leaned close to Marta, her voice low but urgent. "What's going on?"

  "Don't tell him anything. All right?"

  "About what?"

  "Anything." Marta reached for Nadice, then snatched her hand back, her fingers curled in a rigor-tight knot. "Explain that we just met, and that you don't know me very well. I haven't said shit to you."

  "Okay."

  "No matter how nice he is." Desperation scored her voice.

  "This is what you can't talk about, isn't it?" Nadice said. "The reason you came here."