Fairweather

by Jones, Raya

  It was late at night when we returned to the same airport two decades later. Securos guards escorted us off, and Jan took over as per instructions. Fred and I materialised in what used to be his room. Nothing of his remained there. Even the window was gone, replaced with a wall portal that blended into the dove-grey wallpaper. When the family had moved there in his childhood, his parents immediately bricked up all the windows except his. They didn’t need views of slums to remind them of their low status in the clan. Young Fred didn’t care for the view either, but insisted on keeping his window. He loved the sunlight. Most of all, later in his youth, he loved to see the light of dawn touch Suzie’s face when she slept in his bed.

  Now he was back. The sun wasn’t rising fast enough for him, and at the same time he fretted that he might miss it. The window was only boarded up. If I gave him a hand to remove the board, we’d see the sunrise, he said. When I pointed out that his cousin wouldn’t like him ruining her wall, he said that he still owned the apartment and he didn’t like what she’d done with the place. It was furnished simply and tastefully with exquisite things, perfectly placed, making the place feel more spacious than it was. ‘Is it some style?’ I asked, following him to a utility cupboard behind the kitchen.

  ‘Exactly, it’s a style,’ he said with contempt, pulling out manual tools.

  ‘It’s neat and pleasing. Your home was a cluttered mess.’

  He spun around, waving a crowbar at me. ‘It was my cluttered mess. It didn’t come out of a fashion magazine. My clutter came with stories. I haven’t told you half of it.’

  ‘Most of your stories are about how you’ve outwitted someone in an auction.’

  ‘There are other stories I can tell you, now that you’re almost grown up.’

  We dismantled the portal in his room. He started to scrape off the wallpaper where he thought the edge of the board should be. I asked him why he was doing it like this. ‘An android could do it in next to no time.’

  He snapped, ‘Not with you around, O Dark One of Cyberdom. Go scan something.’

  Returning there after scanning for bugs and finding none, I saw him stand in front of the wall with his arms folded, eyeing it as if it were a personal enemy. Within seconds of being scraped away, the wallpaper healed itself. ‘Mu bloody Tashi is not going to beat us with their self-repairing wallpaper, Al. The dark forces are not going to stop us from seeing the light. I’m not—’ I interrupted. ‘I’ll get your window back if you let me do it the commonsense way.’

  ‘Oh, Shapes rotate within shapes

  all right, go ahead. I’ll make us tea.’

  ‘Not yet, I’d like you to watch me.’ I set up the mat.

  ‘I’m bored to death with watching you.’

  I switched the mat to external display. ‘This time you’ll see what I see. Can I borrow your resident ID?’

  He sat down grumpily. ‘Yeah, okay. Beats me why you can’t use a visitor pass.’

  I logged in. He saw the local Main Street take shape in phantom shop-fronts and ghosts of billboards all around me. I changed mode, and he saw the audio-visual façades dissolve into eddies of alphanumeric scrolls. He saw the scrolls swirl out of vortices in the ocean of signal pulses. My movements, precise and repetitive, made some flows fuse and other flows split. My actions spliced data and caused ripples in immense pools of digitised human follies and fears, wonders and woes.

  I hoped he was seeing all that without following what I was actually setting up.

  Soon after I logged out, the android I had hired arrived with the necessary tools. The room had a window again in less than an hour. Fred switched off the house lights. There was already enough natural light. The landscape of slums and industry was emerging from the gloom of night. I spotted the distant biodome that used to be Boss Ben’s place, and told Fred how I once stood there seeing this place.

  He told me how he stood right here on that very same evening. ‘We already faced each other before we came face to face. Are you still saying it’s not destiny?’

  ‘It’s a coincidence,’ I said, but a shiver ran through me. I stared at his profile, seeing him in natural light for the first time.

  It was like seeing him for the first time.

  Fred spoke almost inaudibly. ‘That evening I believed that I’ll never see sunlight again. After hearing that Suzie was dead I entered darkness for good. And then you’ve brought me back to the light.’

  Moments later, he glanced at me, his face rearranging itself to his usual jolly self. ‘Right! I guess you want to dash to the cliffs straightaway. No?’ His eyes widened in surprise to see me shake my head. He moved away from the window, ‘You’re right. Let’s get some sleep first.’

  I told that I didn’t intend to visit the cliffs before going to Cy City. He frowned, ‘But you might not come back alive.’

  ‘That’s why.’

  ‘I’ll make us tea,’ he muttered and left as if escaping.

  Returning with tea, he announced loudly, ‘I couldn’t follow what you did online, it looked so complicated. Couldn’t you just walk into the shop like anyone else and hand the voucher for Suzie’s package?’

  ‘That’s exactly what people who live in the façades saw you do.’

  ‘You can wear my avatar anytime, honey,’ he intoned sarcastically. ‘Are you going to tell me why I wanted to retrieve that package? What’s in it?’

  ‘She called it her wedding ring and told me to retrieve it if my life was in danger from Cyboratics. If something happens to Wye Stan’s system as a consequence of something happening to me, it will look as if you are behind it.’

  ‘Good Lord. Damned if I do and damned if I don’t. But he’ll trace it to you.’

  ‘His hackers are on my tail all the time, especially Dot Com. If I activate this chain of events it will be difficult to trace the source, but she will. She’ll trace it to your firm.’

  ‘Who in my firm would do that?’

  ‘You. It will come directly from you. I’m using your CEO signature.’ I watched for his reaction. There was none. ‘That’s how I’ve got Blade and Swift to set up the hoax in Callisto.’

  He face disclosed nothing and his hand didn’t tremble. He sipped his tea, not taking his eyes off me.

  ‘Don’t fire them, Fred. You have an excellent team. I can’t crack the wall around you even when I know it’s there. If you start disciplining people for incompetence, it will be known that your signature was compromised. So far nobody knows except us.’

  ‘What’s to stop me throttling you right now?’ he asked without any hint of worry or anger.

  ‘You’ve never killed anyone. You push buttons and other people do it.’

  ‘What’s to stop me from pushing a button now?’

  ‘Any order to that effect will be immediately retracted by you. Or so it will appear.’

  ‘I see your point,’ he said calmly. ‘If you live long enough, spare a moment to study the visible and hidden power structures of OK. The hidden structure is far more powerful, and I’m at the very top of it. I can take the embarrassment of being tricked by you. I’ll simply execute anyone who sniggers. The only real threat to my position right now is you abusing my own signature to make me commit political suicide. If you’re right that I didn’t kill anyone before, you are giving me a strong motivation to make you the first. How can you be so sure that I won’t?’

  ‘You love me.’

  He burst out laughing and had to put his cup down. ‘You fell for the cover story? Dear oh dear!’

  Then his tone changed. ‘I was like you once. There was someone I believed loved me, and then he… Let me show you the moment of no return. Open Terminal 37 archives of that evening. Check out that lounge.’

  We saw the social worker materialise seconds before me, still adjusting her hair when I popped up. She smiled warmly, speaking to me, and led me to sit down. A younger, dark-haired Freedom Cordova materialised nearby and returned my stare with a quizzical look before going to sit within earshot. He to
ok something out of his travel bag. It was the Russian doll. He removed all the nested dolls until at the very centre he found a pin.

  The pin held information about the Council of Nine. When he removed it from the doll, a feedback blip was sent to the makers of the novelty. It was a genuine market survey, but the man who gave him the doll monitored the survey and knew that Fred received the recruitment offer. By receiving the offer, Fred was forced to accept it, because now he knew too much. There was no turning back. ‘You see, Al, you became Jexu Jiu at the same moment that I became… what I am.’

  ‘What are you?’

  The sun broke through the clouds, its light flooding the room. Fred squinted in the sudden dazzle, and smiled warmly at me. ‘I kept that Russian doll as a terrible reminder. And then it acquired another meaning. When I showed it to you it was the first time I saw you smile. I hated to lose it. That and the wine.’

  ‘You didn’t have to blow up your home. Why are you telling me all this? Are you recruiting me to the mythical council?’

  ‘No, you’re too sceptical.’

  ‘Well,’ I said sceptically, ‘they are supposed to be so mighty, but Mu Tashi is a small subsidiary of Nanotronics who are not even among the big five.’

  ‘They will be if their lad gets his way. OK wasn’t in the top league until I put it there. It’s the individual who gets recruited, not the corporation. Calvin Cray has got in recently. He’s a nasty little twerp.’

  I didn’t believe any of that. ‘I get it. He’s the new guy. He needs to impress. He hears a legend about a mystic hero who will bring down the Council of Nine, and he thinks he can be the One-capital-O to take out the Other-capital-O.’

  ‘Where did you hear that?’

  ‘I’ve made it up.’

  ‘That’s why it’s wrong. The legend is actually about the One who disrupts the Nine.’

  ‘One or the Other. Same thing.’

  ‘I despair, young people today! Mythology is wasted on you. Calvin Cray is not much older than you are and just as boring. But you’ve got his motive correctly. He tried to impress by having you killed. You’re wrong about his reasons. He worries that I’m too intimate with a CSG chief, and I blab in my sleep about the Council of Nine.’

  ‘And what do the rest of the nine think?’

  ‘Those who know me better know that I don’t leave important matters to chance.’

  ‘And Wye Stan?’

  ‘He knows me very well. He knows that I’d tell you about the Council of Nine when I’m wide awake.’

  ‘Then please go to sleep.’ I’ve had enough of that nonsense.

  I played the video from the mall, finding the moment when Fred arrived there. His younger self combed the maze of stalls and kiosks pretending to examine merchandise. Then Boss Ben walked in dwarfed by his bodyguards, flanked by young boys and holding my hand. Fred manoeuvred through the crowd so that he was right behind us when Boss Ben and I took our place in the queue. I began to tremble uncontrollably… It was the moment Boss Ben asked me why I was shaking so much. Fred standing behind us learned that Suzie was dead. His face disclosed nothing at all.

  Next to me on the sofa, Fred’s face disclosed nothing at all. ‘Why are you shaking so much?’

  I rose with effort and packed away the mat, mumbling that I was in a bad state that day.

  ‘I’m asking now, not then. It’s happening again.’

  Trembling, I sat back down close to him, and it stopped. ‘It’s a confluence of random gaps in the flow of human life,’ I said, ill at ease.

  ‘That’s very poetic of you suddenly.’

  I spoke with difficulty. It wasn’t a metaphor. Sometimes gaps in the flow of information form a kind of continuity. It’s like when many conversations are going on in a crowded place, and by a fluke everyone stops speaking at the same time for a split second. When you string many lulls over time, it looks like a dark stream flowing under its own volition.

  He reminded me that I was offline in Terminal 37. I was offline in the Gold Leaf. ‘And on the Moonrat?’

  ‘I don’t get it online. Online I’m in it somehow. You saw how I see cyberspace.’

  ‘Too much was moving too fast for me to see anything.’

  ‘Me too. Sometimes I can only intuit the shape of the movement. That’s when I see most clearly. You are delivering me to Wye Stan. It’s the right thing to do, Fred. It goes with the flow of that dark stream.’

  He opened his mouth to speak, but at first nothing came out. Then he managed, ‘What do you want for breakfast?’

  We left Ground Zero in a hired air-car at dusk. It was a slow way to travel such a distance, and Fred made the journey twice as long by taking a zigzag route. He changed vehicles three times, using false identities. He didn’t want his people to know he was visiting the president of Cyboratics.

  The next morning we entered Cy Land. An automated message informed us that our vehicle was scanned for weapons. Finding none, a further automated message welcomed us to the nature reserve. A ‘restricted zone’ notification appeared when we were still many miles away from Cy City, although its ziggurat already dominated the horizon. The message listed locations where we may land to admire the citadel from afar. Fred landed the car in a marked area on the brow of a low hill. ‘Why didn’t you fix our authorization?’ he asked, turning off the engine. ‘How are we going to storm the city?’

  ‘I’m not doing any storming. You are the military commando guy. Sorry, CEO who pushes buttons.’

  ‘Don’t push it, sunshine. So, what’s the plan? Walk up to the gate and say, “Greetings Earthlings! Take us to your president”?’

  I told him that there were no gates at ground level. He responded, ‘I’m glad you’ve done some reconnaissance! Al, I’m as nervous as hell about this. Just tell me the plan. Or are you afraid that I’ll tell Wye Stan?’

  ‘I was hoping you’d let him know we’re here.’

  ‘That was your plan? Rely on me to betray you? Sorry to disappoint! You can’t expect me to call him and say, “Hey, Version 7, I’m in the neighbourhood and guess who’s with me”, eh? Anyway, you could’ve contacted him using my signature.’

  ‘I don’t know how you talk with him.’

  ‘As little as possible, that’s how!’

  ‘Or what you call him.’

  ‘Self-replicating bastard motherless son of a bitch, that’s what I call him! Unless I’m annoyed with him and then I call him rude names.’

  ‘Or what you call me.’

  ‘We never speak about you.’

  It was a glorious pristine day in early spring. The perfectly symmetrical white ziggurat soared into shimmering blue sky. Even the air traffic around it seemed choreographed so as to enhance the sense of order and tranquillity. No roads led to it. Between the city and us was a wide stretch of bog, sedge and reed. The moors stretched as far as the eye could see. Lone and self-assured, the citadel stood proud of ancient land reclaimed by Nature thanks to human intervention.

  I strolled around the hilltop, telling Fred the names of plants, until I found a patch of ground that wasn’t too muddy. Sitting down on the bare earth, I started to take food out of my rucksack and place it on the ground. I brought things that Fred used to get for us in Milkwood and which I knew he liked. He laughed. ‘It’s all or nothing with you, either a minimalist picnic in my maintenance chamber or this lavish spread in the wilderness. Look at all this stuff! When did you sneak it in? I love this salad.’ He caught a glimpse inside the rucksack. ‘You didn’t bring your mats.’

  ‘No.’ I took out the wine, and finally a loaf of bread made with real wheat.

  ‘My God, this is the last supper!’

  ‘Technically breakfast, almost lunch,’ I corrected. ‘Could be our last. Do you hear that bird? It’s a skylark.’

  ‘You are well informed about nature.’

  ‘I stole my education from Cy-High. They teach about this region. The first Wye Stan created the ecosystem by having many extinct species resurrected
from DNA relics. He’s responsible for more nature reclamation than anyone else.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, shame he didn’t know how to quit naturally and has started to clone himself.’

  ‘If I followed what the CSG had planned for me, I could be living over there right now.’

  ‘No, Al, if you went there when you were sixteen you wouldn’t have lived a day after entering his city. He doesn’t have any use for you as a citizen.’

  The wine and warm sun made us drowsy. We spoke little. I watched cars fly to and from the ziggurat in an orderly manner and regular intervals. All the cars were slate-grey and probably bore the Cyboratics logo. None flew near enough to see it.

  At high noon, it suddenly felt as if the sunlight had a dark side, and I started to feel familiar icy tendrils in the heat of the day.

  ‘Time to go?’ asked Fred, noticing my expression change.

  ‘Yes. He must know we’re here by now. Why doesn’t he fetch us?’

  ‘We could be just having a picnic admiring his clockwork world.’

  ‘We’ll have to fly in.’

  I walked to the car, Fred following and saying that we’d get shot down. I told him that he didn’t have to come. He could call for a taxi to pick him up.

  He pushed me aside and got into the driver’s seat.

  We flew to the citadel. When we ignored the restricted-zone notification, their security overrode the car’s controls and brought us to a landing platform. They already knew who we were.

  Four armed human guards led us through a spacious corridor with marble floor and a glass wall that overlooked a bright central area, several stories below, with fountains and ornamental plants. Humans and androids went about their business. I wanted to see more, but the guard behind me nudged me to keep walking.