Upload

by McClelland, Mark

  "Mosby, the sunset is back." It was Scorpio's voice again. "The time is now."

  His disruptor still in hand, Raymond stepped out onto Escutcheon Street again. The sidewalk was empty. He looked back down the alley. The search light had stopped in front of the gateway. He looked up and saw that it was a police glider. Someone was about to come out through the gateway, he realized, and the police were simply providing cover. Estimating that it would be at least ten seconds before the newcomer entered the scene, Raymond dashed back to the body of his attacker and searched the man's pockets. He found nothing. Then he noticed the man was wearing a leather necklace. He ripped it from around the man's thick neck and pocketed it. He then stepped back, dialed up the power setting on his disruptor, and fired; the man's body was vaporized.

  The search light swept down the alley toward where Raymond stood; the police must have seen the burst of his weapon. At the same time, he heard the gateway door open. He made an all-out sprint across Escutcheon Street and ducked into a bar that had heavily tinted windows. It was a dark bar with no more than a dozen customers. It smelled of Telmerian spice cigarettes; the smell seemed artificial, reminding Raymond that he was in a v-chamber. Without concern about raising suspicions, Raymond turned and watched through the window. The police glider appeared over the top of the warehouse across the street, then settled down to street level. Raymond took the necklace out of his pocket and looked at it. From the black leather strap hung a rough-hewn medallion, made from a soft metal, perhaps tin. A crude T-shape had been punched into the metal at a 45 degree angle.

  Raymond pocketed the necklace and looked out the window again. There was a man talking to the police now. Escutcheon Street had been deserted when Raymond looked down at the necklace; the man had to have come from the gateway. From this distance, he couldn't quite make out the man's face. He wondered whether it was Manolo, disappointed that his trap had failed. But if it was a trap, it couldn't have been Manolo's—it was too poorly executed.

  "Something going down?" came a male voice from behind Raymond. Raymond turned to see a young man in mirrored sunglasses, his wavy hair greased back, his black shirt half-unbuttoned. On his chest was a metal medallion just like the one in Raymond's pocket.

  "There was a disruptor blast in that alley," responded Raymond, "and then—"

  "Shit, that's..." The man's voice trailed off.

  "You—" Raymond turned to the man, but he was headed out the door. As Raymond watched, the man who had been standing next to him crossed the street and joined in the conversation. The man pointed to the bar, and the other three men looked to where Raymond stood.

  "Not good," said Raymond to himself.

  The man who had entered through the gateway lowered his head and spoke. Someone behind Raymond, inside the bar, said "What's up, boss?" Raymond recognized that this was no coincidence. He dropped to the floor as a disruptor blast blew out the window of the bar. The shot had come from behind him.

  Raymond leapt through the now-missing window, rolled out of the way of another scorching blast, then took off at a dead sprint down the street, away from Cookout. He weaved and dodged, two blue beams of police laser fire narrowly missing him. He dove behind a delivery truck. He heard the footsteps of a man pursuing him, also running. Somewhere shy of the truck, the footsteps stopped. Raymond drew his pistol, dropped to the ground, and saw what he had hoped to see: a pair of feet. He fired. A cry of pain pierced the silence, and a body dropped to the ground where the feet had been. It was the man in sunglasses. Raymond fired again. The body was vaporized.

  Raymond heard the police glider revving up. He scrambled forward and peered around the corner of the truck. The glider was headed toward him, and the man who had entered via the gateway was going into the bar. He would be coming out with backup, no doubt—the bar was probably a guild hangout. It was just Raymond's luck that he would get mixed up with some thug gamers' guild when he had real work to do. The big goon he had killed in the alley was probably the avatar of some 14-year-old kid v-worlding on a Saturday morning, working his way up by running protection for a guild leader who didn't want to get jumped at the gateway.

  "Scorpio, any word from Manolo? Am I too late?"

  "No word."

  As the police glider moved overhead, Raymond rolled underneath the truck, out of view from above. He heard the glider continue down the street and turn down an alley—the obvious place for him to have run, he figured.

  "Scorpio, create a new user with my Fenton account, give the user this same avatar, and push her through the gateway."

  "Acknowledged."

  Within a few seconds, Raymond saw a woman identical in appearance to Celia walk out of the gateway alley. At the same time, four men came out of the bar, weapons drawn.

  "Run her south," instructed Raymond.

  The Celia clone took off running to the south. An array of weapons opened fire from in front of the bar; she didn't get far. The group of men hooted and high-fived each other, then returned to the bar.

  Now, to sneak past while their backs are turned.

  Raymond crept out from beneath the truck and jogged as quietly as he could to the edge of the bar window. From inside, he heard men calling out drink orders. He casually walked past the bar, looking across the street so that anyone looking out would see the back of his head. He broke into a run again as soon as he was past the blown-out window, and he ran all the way to Cookout and entered the restaurant without pausing.

  Once inside, he saw a short Hispanic man rising from the last booth. Their eyes met. The man made an exaggerated motion to look at his watch, then looked at Raymond disapprovingly.

  "My apologies," said Raymond, once the two of them were seated. "I ran into a guild." He took the metal guild emblem from his pocket and showed it to Manolo. Manolo, a middle-aged man with receding hair and sloped shoulders, unfolded his plump hands to reach for the emblem, then waved it off with a gesture of disinterest.

  "Yes, yes," said Manolo with a note of mild annoyance. "Hammers are everywhere."

  Raymond looked quizzically at him.

  "You don't know the Hammer?" asked Manolo. His eyes narrowed slightly, but his voice sounded off-hand. "Big cross-world guild. Fee-based, but nothing too steep. They get a lot of kids, kids who like to think they're dangerous. You been out of it?"

  "I suppose so. I've been doing my own thing."

  "That's good to hear." He nodded approvingly. "Something big?"

  "Pretty big. Nothing public, but it's big for me."

  "And you've run into trouble."

  "Yep. I guess you get that a lot?"

  Manolo nodded. The waitress came to take their order.

  "We'd like some peace and quiet," said Manolo, "and a side of onion rings." He handed her a small fold of cash and smiled after her, then turned to Raymond again. "So, Celia, what's your situation?"

  "I've got the Bureau on my back, and I want to conceal my physical movements. Outdoor movements. I don't want them to know where I sleep at night."

  "What's your surveillance status?"

  "I'd like to know."

  "I'll need your IID."

  Raymond hesitated. It had occurred to him that Manolo might ask for his international ID, but he was hoping that there was some way around this.

  "I'd like access to do the digging myself."

  "Access?" Manolo broke up laughing. The laugh trailed off into a smile of fond pity. "Access, oh that's funny. You've never gone this high up, have you, Celia? It's not like I can just hook you up with a node address and some credentials and you're on your way."

  Raymond met and held Manolo's gaze. He debated lying, he debated skirting the question. He shook his head 'no'.

  "Bureau authentication is basically crack-proof," explained Manolo. "People granted the sort of data control you're talking about have auth implants that perform DNA verification against the surrounding cells before coughing up the necessary certificates. These Bureau systems are under a mile of barbed wire."


  "Damn," said Raymond, genuinely impressed.

  "And these implants self-destruct if they lose contact with the approved DNA, so you can imagine how hard it is to get your hands on one."

  "Yeah." Raymond considered making a joke about entering a high-security FBI facility carrying a severed head, but he was neither stupid enough nor respected enough to make light of his situation. "So," he said matter-of-factly, "you have an insider, and he needs to know who I am before he can help."

  Manolo nodded. "Precisely."

  "Okay," said Raymond. "I'm not sure I'm going to be able to get what I want, then."

  The waitress came back with a basket of onion rings and tossed it on the table between them. Manolo proceeded to dig in. Raymond grabbed a ring, but he was too nervous to eat.

  Manolo ripped a sheet from the roll of brown paper towels that sat on the table. "Okay," he said, wiping his fingers off. "We'll start with your surveillance status. Then what?"

  "I want records of my outdoor movements within a specific area wiped out."

  "During what period of time?"

  "The last two years."

  "Two years! What the hell are you trying to hide?"

  "I told you—where I've been sleeping."

  "You think they don't already know that?" Manolo chuckled.

  "Nope."

  "Then I've been mistaken about you. You're an amateur. There's no way they don't already have an address for you." Manolo returned to the onion rings.

  "Oh, I'm sure they do. I just want to make sure it's the wrong one."

  Manolo looked at him in disbelief, a bemused grin on his face. Raymond met the look straight on.

  "I know we've never talked money before," said Raymond, "but I could certainly sweeten the deal."

  Manolo disparaged the offer with a lift of one eyebrow.

  "If you're right," said Manolo in a considered tone, "then I could really use someone like you. Give me your IID. If the Bureau doesn't know about your hiding place, I'll wipe out records of your movements myself."

  "Okay, here's the deal. Nearly every day, I ride my bicycle to a motor home in the woods. I want to make it look like I stop underneath a rail overpass and never go any further. You follow?"

  "Sure. You want to make it look like you've been living under an overpass. And you don't think they'll see through that?"

  "Doesn't matter—I'm just buying time. If I give you my IID and the coordinates of the overpass, can you take it from there?"

  "Sure. That is, if you're right about them not already knowing where you live."

  "You'll find the coordinates and my IID in the canals of Amsterdam, in one hour."

  Manolo slid the remaining onion rings off to the side, indicating that they were done. They stood and shook hands.

  "Now," said Raymond, "if you want to avoid any chance of getting mixed up in a messy scene, you should probably leave first."

  "Right."

  Manolo left the restaurant, and Raymond went to the women's room. He spent a few minutes in a stall, then made his way out to Escutcheon Street. His hand rested on his disruptor as he exited Cookout. Outside, there was no sign of unusual activity. No police gliders hovered overhead, no sirens could be heard, nobody was standing watch on either side of the street. He walked to the corner and took a look down the alley. It was empty. The Hammers must have bought the death of his avatar double. He jogged to the gateway, stepped through the half-open door, and exited Telemesis.

  Chapter 11

  The v-chamber returned to a workstation, and Raymond dropped into the office chair that appeared below him. He heaved a sigh. His eyes burned, his heart raced, and he was covered with sweat. He opened the v-chamber door, walked to the kitchenette, and had his shake machine make him a banana-espresso shake. As he drank it, his thoughts drifted to Anya.

  "Oh, crap." He suddenly remembered telling her he would be in touch. At the moment, the thought of talking to her seemed like hell. But she would probably worry if he didn't at least let her know he was okay. He walked back to his v-chamber workstation with his shake, sat side-saddle on his office chair, and spoke a text message for her, letting her know he was exhausted and would be spending the day sleeping. He sent it, then downloaded some random image of an Amsterdam canal, embedded his IID and the rail bridge coordinates amid the pixels, and posted it on the same site where he had posted his sunset meeting request.

  Raymond sighed deeply as he made the mental adjustment to pursue his next bit of work. He spent a minute with his eyes closed, breathing deeply, combating fatigue as best he could. If he did succeed in uploading, the need for sleep was a requirement of life he intended to eliminate.

  He connected to his bunker network again and went over the results of the NBC diagnostics. All tests had come back positive. He proceeded to the third step: initiating and testing Molly's simulated physiology, to make sure it was ready to be paired with her brain. He first started a crude brain-sim process that would serve as a placeholder for her uploaded mind. Next, he started the physiology process. As all subsystems of the physiology came to life, signal traffic between the brain substitute and the physiology increased. Soon, the physiology appeared to have reached a balanced state that corresponded to that moment when one's consciousness releases a dream and recognizes reality. Raymond then started a test suite that simulated external forces acting upon the body—changes in temperature, oxygen level, and other environmental conditions that should trigger measurable responses. All results were positive. He proceeded to test reflexive responses to direct physical stimuli—a hammer to the knee, a bright light in the eye. The tests and their expected results were well documented and easy to run. He skipped through, performing only those tests he felt were most important, and within fifteen minutes he was satisfied that all was in order.

  "Scorpio, has the Amsterdam image been taken down yet?"

  "Yes."

  Manolo had received his IID. It could already be in the hands of the FBI insider. A jolting shiver ran through him. He felt so exposed, and was no longer in control of his success factors. But he saw no other way to avoid an obvious connection between him and his precious Ivar Svensson identity.

  "Okay," he said to himself. "Focus on the tasks at hand." He glanced at the clock on his upper workstation display. It was already 10:00 AM.

  All was ready. It was time to upload Molly's mental data into the NBC. He put the physiology simulation into a ready state and terminated the brain substitute. It was time to plug in a real brain.

  Whenever he worked with remote hardware, Raymond liked to have a video feed of the hardware itself. It was a sanity check, to make sure the hardware wasn't smoking or sitting in an inch of water. He had one of his robots look over the NBC that was to house Molly's mind, and he watched its video feed as it performed a brief inspection. Everything checked out okay. The bunker server room looked to be in order, as usual.

  Within his v-chamber workstation, Raymond set up a window into the v-world that would be Molly's new home, so he could watch her awaken. When Molly awoke, she would find herself alone in a v-world identical to the one he had created for Bento, right down to Bento's favorite toys—Raymond had not had enough time to create a replica of Molly's teddy bear. That she would have no companions worried him. Bento had received constant attention from the scientists, and was eventually introduced into a community of a-life chimps. The introduction had not gone well at first, the a-life chimps treating Bento as an outsider. They hooted threateningly, driving him out of their community, even throwing stones at him. But, eventually, Bento had been adopted into the community at the bottom of the male hierarchy. Raymond wanted to give Molly a community, too, but he had not thought to grab a copy of the a-life chimp code before stealing the NBCs, and now the FBI had it all locked down. He might be able to find public domain code that would work, but he couldn't know how long it might be before he would have time to pursue this.

  "Hank—I'll give her Hank the Handler."

  Raymo
nd drained the last of his shake and triggered the upload. A 3-D display of a brain appeared before him, showing the signals sent out by the neuristors as they came to life. Molly's mental data, so carefully recorded and mapped during the scan, was moved into position in its new brain. Patterns of light spread quickly up through the primitive core of the brain, then through both hemispheres of the display. One lobe after another came to life, activity spreading outward from center. Finally, the cerebral cortices lit up, indicating that Molly might be gaining consciousness. Raymond nervously drummed with his feet, repeatedly looking to the array of warning indicators. They remained dark. The physiology simulation came out of its ready state—the connection between mind and physiology had been opened. The brain started to receive sensory signals and send directives to the body. Raymond noticed movement in his window on Molly's v-world, and he turned to see her stirring to life in her new home.

  He tried to imagine what Molly was experiencing. The last thing she had known, she was an ill chimp undergoing some new treatment, sleep spreading through her body as the humans shaved her and applied patches to her skin. Now she was waking up in an environment that was probably a lot like the zoo primate house she had known most of her life, except there were eighty-foot bamboo walls instead of a metal fence, and a forest canopy far overhead. Molly was waking up alone, but with a body that felt healthy. He wondered whether she was able to detect how foreign the environment truly was, whether something might seem fundamentally wrong to her.