Fairweather

by Jones, Raya

  If she hadn’t, we wouldn’t have met.

  She gave us the slip by boarding another bus that left right away. It didn’t go to Pheonix-1. She got lost changing buses at random all over the crater, bolting whenever she caught glimpse of an oriental man. She saw people watch her and look away when she looked back at them. They probably stared absentmindedly, their gaze lingering because she was pretty, alone, and out of place on the bus. The people she should have worried about, she didn’t notice at all.

  They were the sort that Mandy deliberately ignored—teenagers in gaudy biosuits and garish fashion accessories. Two of them had followed her from the Phoenix-3 stop, and three more joined later on, until all five surrounded her. On her left sat an albino boy. A slightly older girl with spiky hair and overdone makeup sat down on Mandy’s right, and pressed a small handgun to her lower ribs, careful to keep it out of sight of the onboard camera. Mandy’s camera recorded away. The girl demanded Mandy’s ID card and pert. When she saw the Cyboratics logo on the card and no citizenship status, she told the others, ‘Told you she’s exec.’ Mandy laughed shrilly. The girl snapped, ‘What’s funny, rich bitch? This gun’s real and you are being kidnapped.’

  Mandy said like ranting, ‘You are just kids. You can’t even do your makeup properly and this spiky hairdo is so passé. He’s coming after me. Please kidnap me and hide me in the Edges, please,’ she pleaded. One of the others blurted that they were not from the Edges, and the girl with the gun sharply told him to shut up. Mandy said, ‘They won’t pay you any ransom. They’ll tell you to go ahead and kill me because you’ll be saving them having to pay their ninja.’

  The youngsters debated whether she was bluffing or not. The girl with the gun told everyone to shut up, and ordered the albino boy to activate the emergency tab on Mandy’s ID. A menu of emergencies popped up. He chose ‘Kidnapped.’ The communication space displayed a blank placeholder for a man. ‘Speak,’ the shadow ordered in a flat tinny voice.

  The girl with the gun spoke. ‘If you want to see her alive again, you’d better do what…’

  ‘Kill her,’ interrupted the voice. The communication was terminated.

  ‘It was supposed to be someone from your family,’ the girl told Mandy, taken aback.

  Mandy replied, ‘It was.’

  The youngsters stared at her with terrified awe. Mandy told them, ‘They’ll track you down. They’ll find out who you are and where you live. Their ninja assassin will get you for this.’

  ‘But they want you dead.’

  ‘They like to keep it in the family.’

  The bus descended to the next stop. A plump black girl stood up, saying that she was getting out of the whole gig. ‘Yeah, let’s get out of here,’ said the albino and dropped Mandy’s ID card in her lap as he rose to follow the others. The ringleader stashed away her gun, gave Mandy her pert back, and rushed after her gang.

  It was late at night when Mandy got back to the hotel. She took her medication and ordered supper on room service, but felt too sick to eat. She dictated her letter to a Luciolite bracelet. In cyberspace, her whisper was converted to text telling how stupid she was to ignore her mother’s advice. Her mother Ella couldn’t protect her because not even she has this much influence over Wye Stan Pan. And on Earth Ella has no influence at all, because here lives the seventh clone.

  Lying on the bed fully dressed, with full lights on, she fell asleep.

  She woke up in the small hours of the morning with one lucid thought on her mind. Their ninja will know to find me in this hotel for which they are paying, she told her letter. The thought made her break out in cold sweat. She started packing essentials in a travel bag, then changed bags for a lightweight one, and changed again because that bag was out of fashion. Hours later she still couldn’t decide which accessories were essential. It was already daybreak. She had no idea where she was going, but one lucid thought kept repeating itself: He knows where to find me. He dances in cyberspace and his shadow illuminates everything that comes under it.

  Eventually she stuffed the Luciolite scarf into a pocket, and left everything else scattered all over the room.

  Again, she took the pedestrian route down. Arriving at the bus terminal, she ditched her pert in a trash bin. Perhaps it occurred to her that she could be tracked down through the signal. When the ticket machine asked for her destination, she opened her mouth and ‘Phoenix-3’ came out. She paid using her ID card.

  Alighting in the OK town, she threw the ID card in a bin. Perhaps it occurred to her that she could be tracked down through the transaction. ‘Thank you for not littering our beautiful town,’ said the bin and gurgled mechanically as it digested the card. Nearby surveillance showed her checking her cash card with sudden urgency. It had only a few cents left on it.

  Mandy sat down next to the bin on a pavement smelling of industrial disinfectant. She sobbed with her head buried in her knees, whispering into her bracelet that she wished all this would end. Someone stopped in front of her. Through her tears she saw the immaculate boots of the beige biosuit I wore. She froze, not daring to look up, waiting for it all to end.

  ‘Hello Mandy, may I help you?’ said a precise voice. She looked up. January stretched a hand and helped her to her feet. Mandy told it between sobs that she had lost her pert and ID card and didn’t have any cash. January offered to get her to her destination.

  She inquired, ‘Is there a Freedom Cordova?’

  ‘Freedom Cordova owns an apartment here and he’s back in town. I shall contact him for you,’ offered January. But Mandy said slyly that her visit was a surprise, and asked to be taken there directly. The android placed its hand on her arm.

  Next, they stood in front of a grey metal door in a dimly lit delivery corridor. Mandy said in a shaky voice, ‘Do you know what I am?’

  ‘Of course,’ January confirmed. It gave her a pert, and reported that her cash card was already replenished to the maximum. A replacement ID card would be ready for collection from any local security office within the hour. ‘Wye Stan is watching over you,’ the android concluded reassuringly—and Mandy, her image captured by the camera on Fred’s door, had the appearance of someone screaming silently.

  After the android left she pressed the doorbell.

  There was no response for a long time. She shuffled uncertainly as if wondering what to do next.

  Suddenly the door slid open, and she was yanked into a small hallway, the door closing behind her before she fully recognised the man in a lilac dressing gown that was too feminine and too small for him. ‘Mandy! I’m so glad you’ve come!’ Clean-shaven and clean smelling, Fred hugged her heartily as if she was his own niece. ‘Sorry to have kept you waiting, I was fast asleep,’ he lied.

  The indoors surveillance he had activated as soon as the doorbell rang showed him wearing his Kudo Sigma biosuit. He quickly took it off and grabbed the dressing gown out of his cousin’s wardrobe before rushing to open the door.

  She hesitated on the threshold. ‘Is he here too?’

  ‘Al? No, he’s checked into an inn to work without me interrupting him. Shame, you’d love to see him in his black biosuit on his mat exactly like you imagined him. Well, not as sleek as you imagined with your artistic license, ha-ha.’ Chattering and chuckling, Fred led her through the kitchen and a dining room to a small reception room, stylishly furnished with elegant things that looked more expensive than they were.

  Mandy followed reluctantly. ‘How can you be Freedom Cordova?’

  ‘Something to do with biology and hereditary?’ he suggested, amused.

  ‘This is not your home. It’s a Mu Tashi package out of a magazine. It’s so wrong.’

  ‘That’s exactly what I told Cousin Isabella, word for word! She’s the one who usually lives here. I’m only borrowing the place and her clothes in her absence. So what’s my real home like?’

  Mandy opened her mouth and her stream of consciousness spoke. ‘Like ashes in the darkness of space.’

  He stoppe
d smiling. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Miranda, I’m Miranda.’

  ‘You said Mandala. Never mind. You can change names as you please. I’ll call you Mandy for continuity’s sake.’

  She said, edgy, ‘This design is so passé. I remember it from when I helped Miranda to choose.’

  ‘Another Miranda?’

  ‘I’m not making it up. It’s a real memory. I remember it like it was last week. I checked out this design with Miranda Yang who’s marrying my little brother. I told her not to go for it because it’s too cheap. People will snigger if she goes low-cost.’

  Fred pulled the inadequate dressing gown around himself. ‘Sorry about this garment. If you wait a moment, I’ll get dressed. You’re supposed to ask how I got home.’

  She didn’t ask. She stood stiffly near the door, so he went on, ‘You still don’t believe me. There’s a computer over there. While I’m getting dressed, check out the OK family tree. You’ll find my picture under Freedom Cordova. Go ahead.’ She didn’t move. He insisted, ‘I grew up in this apartment but thankfully not with this interior design. My parents couldn’t afford this “low-cost” package. We are humble people, Mandy, a mere nation of software manufacturers, not the mighty Cyboratics empire.’

  ‘OK is the second most powerful corporation.’

  ‘Ah, well, there’s that side to it too. But it wasn’t always like that.’ He smiled friendlily. ‘What brings you here, my dear?’

  She started to warn him about a terrorist coming to Pheonix-3 using his name, then noticed Fred’s puzzled frown, and mumbled, ‘It was you. I’m not thinking straight. Please help me. I need asylum.’ He kept staring at her. She told him that he could keep her for himself and his friends.

  Fred sighed. ‘It’s tempting, you are such a pretty woman, but Al will do his nut.’

  ‘Do his what?’

  ‘He’ll be outraged.’

  ‘He hates you sleeping with other people?’

  ‘It’s not like that. We are strictly business associates. He’ll say that I’m taking advantage of you, and he can be very scary when he gets it into his head to rescue nineteen-year-old girls from corporate bastards.’

  ‘He’s their ninja. He’s after me.’

  ‘No, no, stop it right there! Al is the good guy. He doesn’t work for Cyboratics.’

  She turned around, restless, and for a moment her face was hidden from Fred’s camera. Her voice broke into sobs, ‘I didn’t say Cyboratics. It’s not Cyboratics who are after me. You don’t believe me. You think I’m crazy.’

  ‘Not as crazy as you want me to think.’

  His tone of voice made her stop sobbing. ‘I forgot my medication at the hotel and I can’t go back because he knows to find me there.’

  ‘What does your medication do?’

  ‘It stops me from thinking.’

  ‘Heaven forbid you should start thinking! Please don’t fetch your medication, start thinking. Just because you are paranoid doesn’t mean that nobody is after you. I’m not being sarcastic, Mandy. I know enough about the politics of the Pan clan to believe you. But you’re wrong about Al, so wrong.’

  ‘How else could he know about Harvey Schmidt? It’s my one single secret and they’ve found out and told him.’

  ‘He is Harvey Schmidt.’

  ‘He can’t be. Schmidt is not Japanese and he lives in Tao Ceti.’

  ‘Well, that’s cyberspace for you, Mandy. We can be anything anywhere.’

  When Fred returned to the kitchen wearing his khaki Kudo Sigma Safari, she was gone.

  Fred jaunted directly into my room at the inn and woke me up, nudging my shoulder. ‘This separation isn’t working,’ he chirped and sat down on the bedroll, pushing my legs out of the way. I sat up reluctantly, yawning and rubbing my eyes. His face glowed eerily in the glow of the frog animation. ‘So, this is what you’re up to when you’re alone, watching a cartoon? No naked girls? If you were a son of mine, I’d be seriously worried. Why are you smirking?’

  ‘I’m happy to see you. It’s been so long. Less than five hours already. You are very cheerful. Got laid last night?’

  ‘No, even better, I’ve discovered that someone in my firm is plotting a coup against me.’

  ‘And that’s better?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ he said with passion. ‘Now I can charge in full steam ahead falling on them like a ton of bricks and heads will roll!’

  ‘Just stun them with clichés, Fred. Why are you really here?’

  ‘To wake you up, Ninja Menace. You’ve got work to do. Don’t give me that indignant look. I’m not bossing you. You have tons of work to do, no?’ he probed slyly. He was wearing the same biosuit that had been taken off him in Cy City—not a replacement of the same model. I recognised the old-fashioned barcode on the sleeve. The barcode was merely decorative, but by making it unique per item Kudo Sigma justified overpricing their product. Version 7 sent it back to him, I noted.

  I went to the bathroom and stayed longer than I needed to. Mandy was right. The man is a kaleidoscope. You see a pattern, then you shake the same facts, and another pattern appears.

  Washing my hands, I stared at my mirror reflection but in my mind’s eye saw Wye Stan. His face sharp, pale and unsmiling, speaking quietly and precisely with no malice, telling Fred that he let my mother go in order to ensure Fred’s loyalty. I imagined Fred in Wye Stan’s airy hall of marble and glass. Between landing at Cy City and materialising in the tomb-room, my teleport pattern was suspended for nineteen days. Where was Fred?

  He was still sitting on the bedroll when I came out, but now the room light was on. I told him, ‘I need you to be my partner.’

  ‘You need a woman in your life. Mandy is…’

  I interrupted, ‘If you are a partner of Harvey Schmidt I could tell you about Mandy, also the girl story behind this frog.’ I switched it off and sat back down beside him.

  He burst out laughing. ‘So there is a girl. Such a relief! What do I have to do?’

  ‘Nothing. The Registrar will send you documents to confirm the partnership, but you’ll be legally my partner from the moment the form is received.’

  ‘Go ahead and submit it. I’ll get us breakfast.’

  ‘The vending machines are on the left down the corridor.’

  I finished the registration by the time he came back with sandwiches and coffee. Sitting down and putting the food on the floor in front of us, he announced, ‘I have a terrible confession to make.’

  ‘You’re not really the CEO of OK military intelligence?’

  ‘No, not that…’ He saw me examine a sandwich. ‘Sorry about the peanut butter, I know you’re not keen on it but they’ve run out of pot noodles.’ He started to eat his sandwich. I didn’t touch mine. ‘Go on, eat. It’s protein.’ He sipped his coffee. ‘This is awful. Al, I have to tell you something that might shock you. I like doing this with you, drinking undrinkable coffee from a vending machine and eating off the floor. You’ve corrupted me completely with your lifestyle. I can’t bear the thought of luxury anymore…’ He sighed, giving up, when I didn’t react. ‘Cheer up. That was my confession. So what’s next on the agenda? Shall we go and rescue Mandy?’

  ‘I have no intention of going anywhere near that woman.’

  ‘You invited her to be in our tribe. You couldn’t take your eyes off her. You were like a teenager in love. Can you legally tell me now what’s between you and that girl?’

  ‘It’s not her. There was another one. We sort of met in school.’

  My mother taught me to shadow other kids without leaving a trace. She set rules. Never submit your own work. Observe what students do and learn from their mistakes and successes. Change proxies often. Stick to students of low status, because executives’ children are surrounded with high security. Don’t get caught. ‘It’s not the diploma but the knowledge that matters,’ she told me. When I was nearly ten, she advanced me to Cy-High, where most students enter three or four years older than I was. I soon realised that the s
ons and daughters of the ruling clan had better assignments than anyone else had. They were secretive about their real names, but I traced their student IDs from their usernames on the schoolyard… ‘Hold on,’ Fred interrupted. ‘Are you telling me that you know what the Pans teach their own children behind fortified firewalls?’

  ‘I guess so. They had better biology projects. Wye Stan did more than anyone else ever did for restoring Earth’s natural environment. He was a man of great vision...’

  ‘Yes, yes, their brainwashing has worked on you. Tell me about the frog.’

  ‘It’s rana temporaria, the European Common Frog. It’s one of the extinct species that Wye Stan revived from DNA relics. He was…’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, a savour of little frogs. I’m waiting for the girl story.’

  ‘I’m getting to that.’

  I broke my mother’s rules. I shadowed high status students and stayed with one girl, nicknamed Fairweather, for two years. I wanted her to get good grades. She did the frog animation but couldn’t get the anatomy correct. I intercepted her submission of the project, corrected the frog, and it won a prize. Afterwards I continued to correct her homework, but never let her know who I was. We never communicated directly. A couple of years later, I tried to track her down. ‘What for?’ asked Fred.

  ‘I was a teenager in love.’

  He looked at me sceptically.

  ‘I guess it was the challenge,’ I admitted. There was no hope of intimacy between us, but tracking her down was a hacking challenge. My only lead was her younger brother, nicknamed Surtr, who was still in school. I infiltrated the schoolyard via his student ID. To make a plausible cover story, I hacked the identities of several other students too, and then let all of them detect my presence on the pretext that I was investigating how easy it was to infiltrate schoolyards. My plan was to tell Surtr that I ‘suddenly’ discovered that his sister used to be stalked, and then say that I wanted to contact her to make sure she wasn’t still being stalked.

  ‘He fell for that?’ Fred asked, incredulous.

  ‘I didn’t get to tell him. It was a stupid plan. I’m glad I didn’t carry it through.’