Fairweather

by Jones, Raya

  A few months went by.

  Freedom resumed his routines and kept a strict diurnal cycle. I kept no timetable or routine. I ate when hungry, slept when tired, and stopped to switch mats when one had to be charged. We led parallel lives, and this suited us both. Sometimes he invited me to join him for a meal, and sometimes our meal times coincided. He had different menus for what he called breakfast, lunch, and supper. He read his mail over breakfast, scrolling the messages on a small pad in front of him. During lunch he viewed the local news on a wall screen.

  Seeing me enter one breakfast-time, he switched off his mail and hurried to set a place for me at the table. ‘I had a strange dream,’ he announced as soon as I sat down. ‘We were having a picnic on the cliffs of Ground Zero.’

  ‘You grew up there. That’s not strange.’

  ‘No, it was odd. I can’t stop thinking about it. When I watched you on that portal of yours…’ He saw me startle, and quickly added, ‘I wasn’t spying on you.’

  ‘You can’t see in the physical what I do in virtual,’ I muttered, annoyed.

  ‘Quite. You blank the external display. All I see is your dance, ever so precise and graceful… Sorry, sorry. I came by to ask you to join me for lunch but you were busy. You were so absorbed. You didn’t notice me. I don’t make it a habit watching you,’ he stressed. He lied. Afterwards I checked my surveillance and saw that it wasn’t the first time he stood in the doorway watching me.

  He continued, ‘You hardly ever smile, you’re so tense, but when I see you doing whatever it is you do, you look happy… Right, this dream! Those XT-Pro portals you’re using first came around when I was a teenager.’

  ‘You were 23 when they first came on the market.’

  ‘Was I? You’re probably right. But the prototype came out a decade earlier. It was bulkier and even more power hungry than the first generation on the market. They gave it to us kids to test. How old were you when you first stepped on a mat?’

  ‘I don’t remember ever being without one.’

  ‘Gosh. Well, I don’t get on with total immersion. But Suzie—I’ve told you about her, the girl from Suzuki, you know, the Phyfoamicals family—she really took to it. I haven’t thought about her in years until now. In the dream you kept changing into Suzie, and she into you. So strange.’

  ‘The Suzuki are Japanese like me. Why a picnic?’

  ‘Probably because I see you mostly at mealtime. You should ask why the cliffs, the Western Rim. I’ve never went there in my life. Nobody goes there.’

  ‘A lot of people do. Pilgrims come from all over the galaxy.’

  ‘Nobody in their right mind goes there! Do you know anything about Ground Zero? Outside the Phoenix towns is the land of the lawless. They call it the Edges. People get robbed and killed there. What’s the point of sightseeing in the physical anyway? You get a better tour in the virtual. You don’t have to suffer the humidity and smog, the stench and mosquitoes, or get cramps in your legs. The slums are edited out and you always get an excellent view of the cliffs. Al, my dream was like that. It was clean and happy like an advert. More coffee?’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘When I woke up and realised it was about Suzie, I thought how odd it was that it should be such a happy dream, considering what happened to her.’

  He was waiting for me to ask, so I asked, ‘What?’

  ‘She was murdered in the Edges.’

  ‘That’s bad,’ I said lamely. ‘Was she going to see the cliffs?’

  ‘No. Cyboratics assassinated her. She hid from them for thirteen years. She was a true survivor. A year before they killed her we met by chance.’ He added softly, ‘I loved her so much. I’ve never stopped loving her. In a way I’ve never stopped thinking about her. Go figure it out, Al. When I saw her in Terminal 37, that’s the airport of Phoenix-3, I wanted to give her something. A memento for old times’ sake. It had to be untraceable. I didn’t want her to be tracked down. I went to the nearest souvenir stall and bought the first thing that didn’t have anything electronic in it. A useless thing, a fluffy pink rabbit with fake diamond eyes and “Harvey” embroidered on it.’

  It was not unusual for my mother to be away for days, but she always returned before my supplies ran out. We kept constant contact through a secret site we called my toy-box. As soon as the social workers left, I posted the record of their visit in my toy-box for my mother to see. A fortnight later she still hadn’t opened it or left any message. That was unusual. When my food and water ran out, I went to the people who lived in the yard. They often invited me to eat with them when I played with their children. Now they said, ‘You’d better come and live with us. If anyone asks, we’ll say you’re one of our own. We’ll call you Al so nobody will know who you are.’ They heard rumours that Boss Ben was seeking Yoko’s child. Some of them did construction work on the fortress he built for himself and his gang, and they hadn’t seen my mother there for over a week.

  Several days later the gangsters reached our edge of the Edges. They searched the factory and recognised hardware that Boss Ben had given my mother. They gathered everyone in the yard at gunpoint, and threatened to kill all the men unless someone told them the whereabouts of Yoko’s child.

  I stepped out and they took me with them.

  Inside the gangsters’ fortress the air was clean, there were lush green plants, and those who lived there seemed well-fed and cheerful. Boss Ben ruled from a solarium with a view of Phoenix-3. He pointed out the distant town as soon as I was brought in. ‘There’s nothing over there that you can’t get living here with me, Al.’

  He discovered that Yoko had a child only after they cremated her. If I was half as good as she was, I could have anything I wanted, he said. If I wasn’t, he’d find me some other job in the compound. Walking away from him wasn’t an option.

  Several young boys lounging on divans watched me intently.

  Boss Ben believed that my mother was killed by rival gangsters who were jealous of the advantages that her services had given him. Eliminating her damaged his business, and he took it personally. His people soon found out who had pulled the trigger and captured him. The man was begging to die long before they finished with him. They made a video. ‘Would you like to see what happened to your mother’s killer?’ asked Boss Ben.

  I didn’t, but he made me watch it. When I retched, he had the video paused and repeated so that I wouldn’t miss a thing. Boys who had seen it before were saying, ‘Here comes a good bit. Hey, watch this!’

  Boss Ben had me sit with him. He stroked my hair and face, telling me that what they did to my mother’s killer is the fate of anyone who crosses him.

  The boys who helped me to get cleaned up afterward told me what to expect that night. ‘That’s one service your mommy didn’t give the Boss,’ they said. He liked young boys and especially liked them weak and scared like I was.

  It was early evening when I was led back to the solarium. Low-lying fog obscured most of the ground. The brightly lit biodome of Phoenix-3 floated above it like a mirage of an alien world.

  Seeing that I was upset, Boss Ben gave me the option of demonstrating my skills in the morning rather than right away. I told him that it didn’t make any difference. My mother had taught me all her tricks, and I was as good as she was, but I couldn’t demonstrate anything without her wedding ring.

  He pointed out that she didn’t wear a ring. I explained that it was a file with her passwords. She tucked it for safekeeping in Phoenix-3.

  ‘Go get it,’ he pointed to a wall portal.

  I told him that it was a local store. It could be accessed only from a portal physically located in the town. When he asked, suspicious, why should Yoko do that, I explained that it was for extra security. He accepted that. He decided we’d go together right away. His boys jumped to get his air-car ready.

  Many years later I accessed surveillance archives from Terminal 37 where he had taken me. I was surprised to see how short he was, dwarfed by two bodyguards who kept
a step behind him. To the scared child I was he seemed a giant. He had me hold his hand and marched me through a maze of stalls and kiosks. Security guards deployed to strategic positions as soon as Boss Ben walked in, but it was merely routine. There wasn’t any law preventing him from walking into an airport—and there wasn’t any law protecting him from being shot on the spot. He saw me stare at the guards and told me, ‘You’ll learn the rules of the game, Al. Don’t make a nuisance of yourself and they won’t have an excuse to zap you. Don’t imagine they’d lift a finger to help you. You’re one of us.’

  Androids touted for customers. Holograms advertising services and goods phased into each other, jingles intermingling. People scurried about on their business. Vendors who couldn’t slink away in time greeted Boss Ben as he passed. It was a grey market area, semi-legal, and he did business there. ‘Look around you, Al,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing here I can’t get for you. Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.’

  Three of his boys had come along too. Boss Ben sent one of them to get a 20-minutes visitor pass from a dispenser. We took our place at a queue. People ahead of us entered booths when a green light shone. Then a red light shone, and their legs vanished from under the flap-door. A moment later there was a blip, and a different person came out.

  ‘Why are you shaking so much?’ Boss Ben asked.

  ‘I’ve never teleported before.’ I clang to him as if for protection.

  ‘Yeah, I know what you mean. It gives me the creeps too. Well, Al, you’ve got Yoko to thank for that. Why did the bitch have to get herself shot in the head? She put me in an awkward situation by letting herself get killed. You go and fetch it, Al. I’ll be right here waiting for you.’

  When you log into the virtual city through a public portal, your body materialises in a secure hold. And when you logged out, your body is downloaded exactly where you left. Boss Ben knew that. He didn’t know about the pass that the social workers had given me. When I swiped it, expecting to connect to their office, I was instantly teleported to an exclusive airport lounge.

  One of them was waiting for me.

  Watching the archives many years later, I saw her materialise in the lounge a split second before me. She was still adjusting her hair when I popped up. At the time I had no inkling that it wasn’t routine. It didn’t occur to me to wonder why anyone should go to so much trouble for a kid from the slums.

  She smiled warmly and said that I’ve made the right choice. She’d chaperon me to Terra spaceport, and someone else would then accompany me to the CSG academy on the moon. Someone wanted to sponsor me. Sponsors are often anonymous. They get incentives from their corporation for doing it, and their corporation gets merit points with the CSG.

  We sat down. There were few people around, and they kept to themselves. Soft subdued music played. The adverts were mute. A man in a designer biosuit, carrying a travel bag, materialised nearby. Seeing me gawking at him, he returned my stare with a quizzical look, and strode away.

  The social worker asked me for my real name. I said, ‘Jexu Jiu’. The meaningless words caught my eye as they scrolled in mid-air behind her, advertising a deodorant. Perhaps she didn’t know or didn’t care. She had me spell it. I didn’t get a chance to change it until three years later, and never again invented a name on a whim.

  Behind her the Phyfoamicals logo that trailed the Jexu Jiu advert morphed into a young couple in perfect health scaling Ground Zero cliffs. They came to some level ground without sweat, and laid out a picnic under an unrealistically blue sky. The advert was clean and happy like Freedom’s dream.

  Several hours after Freedom told me about his dream, I called him to the chamber housing the maintenance machinery. He rushed over, his yukata flapping, assuming the worse. ‘Is it the gravity thingamabob on the blink? I’d hate to lose the porcelain. I know you’re going to say that they make new antiques all the time, but the stories that go with those particular objects are irreplaceable.’

  ‘Everything’s fine. Sit down.’

  The chamber was dimly lit. I kept my face in shadows. I didn’t want him to see that I’d been crying. I spread a blanket on the cold metal floor between the machines and sat down cross-legged. He sat down too, pulling the yukata tightly around him for warmth. ‘So what’s this about?’

  ‘Picnic.’

  ‘Picnic, eh? How typical of you, a minimalist picnic! Not a morsel of food or a drop of drink!’

  ‘We need to talk.’

  ‘You’re scaring me, Al. Have you been crying? Why have a make-believe picnic here of all places?’

  ‘There are no bugs here.’

  ‘Now you’re really scaring me. Am I under investigation?’

  ‘It will look suspicious if I remove the CSG’s surveillance. I have to be accountable.’

  ‘You are under surveillance. I get it. The life of law enforcement, eh?’

  ‘I’m freelance. The CSG are my biggest client.’

  ‘Freelance?’ He stared at me bemused, and then conceded, ‘It makes sense, I guess. After six months living with the RK-17 crowd, you don’t strike me as one of them. I wasn’t aware they outsource to… What are you, a freelance auditor? I see now why you had to borrow the identity of a bona fide agent to come here. Why are you telling me this? Why now?’

  ‘I need to find out what happened to Suzie,’ I mumbled, not trusting my voice not to betray emotion.

  He jumped to his feet in agitation, waving a finger at me. ‘No, no, no, don’t even think of it! It’s so far beyond the call of duty. Heck, it’s not even a matter of duty in your case, Mister Freelance! There’s no need for you to risk your life for something you’re not paid to do. I’m done here.’ He turned to walk away.

  ‘I’ll do it whether you help me or not.’

  He turned back and sat down again. ‘Look, Al. I’m very fond of you. I’ve come to think of you like a real nephew…’

  ‘There’s no DNA match between us.’

  ‘You’ve checked? What gave you the notion we might be even remotely related?’

  I checked it after breakfast, but didn’t tell him that. I said instead, ‘You tell people that I’m your nephew. I had to see how easy it is to access the information.’

  He sighed. ‘Al, I won’t pretend that I don’t like to know what has happened to her, but I’ve lived with not knowing for so long it doesn’t matter anymore. I appreciate the gesture, I really do, but you’ll put yourself in danger. You might get killed—and for nothing. You won’t be able to find anything.’

  ‘You don’t know what I can do.’

  ‘Believe me, Al, you may be good at what you do but this is something else. It’s not auditing or whatever it is you do. It’s so out of your league. What the heck, I’ll come clean with you if you promise to let it go.’

  ‘I don’t let go when I start a search.’

  ‘Then don’t start! If you want to help, help me to contact the one person who might be able to find out. I’ve heard rumours of someone with no name and no master. It’s not certain whether it’s a man or a woman…’

  ‘A man.’

  ‘Oh, right, I guess you’ve heard it too. Most people don’t believe he exists. It’s always a friend of a friend who knows someone.’

  ‘He exists.’

  ‘I’m glad you’re confident about that. Help me to contact him,’ he said slyly. ‘I don’t know where to start. Some call him the Tracker… Why are you smirking? Some call him the Retriever… What’s funny?’

  ‘You call him Al.’

  Freedom studied my face.

  He gave up. ‘I’m too transparent and you’re too sharp. Yes, it was my cunning ploy to divert you from digging for information about Suzie. I should’ve seen it coming. How can I prove you’re not the mythical ronin? How can you prove that you are?’

  ‘I prove by results.’

  He humoured me. Suzie was hunted down by Cyboratics because she had sabotaged some project of theirs. That was all he knew, he said. Cyboratics wouldn’t make it
known that an unethical secret project of theirs was sabotaged. When I pointed out that he must know something to know it was unethical, he grumpily retorted, ‘It must’ve been unethical because Suzie felt so strongly about it. She sacrificed everything. I couldn’t do that. I wouldn’t have lasted a week in the Edges, and she lived there on her own for thirteen years. What can you possibly dig up, Al? Should I continue to call you Al?’ I nodded. ‘What is it to you anyway? I’ve been telling you about Suzie and the other kids for months. Why are you suddenly so melodramatic about it?’

  ‘You didn’t tell me that she lived in the Edges and was assassinated by Cyboratics until today.’

  ‘So? You’re reacting as if your own mother died… Sorry, sorry. I hope your mother is alive and well. I’ll tell you something I know for a fact.’

  Shortly after Suzie went on the run, the CSG started a deep audit of several corporations, including Cyboratics and OK. He had no stomach for it. It made him decide to quit there and then. I knew for a fact that he didn’t quit his managerial position until several years later. But he was telling me his story, and the chronology was irrelevant. ‘Al, if anything could be found, they would have found it.’

  Perhaps they did, I thought. The tracer I put on Haüyne’s discovery yielded a result. The tag was dated to the time of that audit. Someone in the CSG had ‘tickets’ to the contest of giants. I didn’t tell Freedom any of that.

  He insisted, ‘I don’t want to be involved, Al. I really don’t. I’m a coward. Ronda is as far as I could get to get away from corporate politics. I’ve promised myself to live a boring long life and never go back to Earth.’

  ‘You live alone surrounded by brand-new antiques, useless things without anything electronic in them.’

  He stared at me, perturbed. ‘My God, you’re right. Like seeking some reassurance that it wasn’t my gift that had led them to her, eh? It was only a Harvey rabbit. Things like that are harmless, aren’t they?’

  I couldn’t speak for the lump in my throat.

  ‘I’m freezing here. It’s fine for you in your biosuit. You should’ve warned me to dress for a picnic al fresco.’