Fairweather

by Jones, Raya

  ‘I’m glad you’ve grown up. But what has stopped you at the time?’

  ‘Some of the students considered telling the headmaster about me.’

  ‘At this point any normal pervert would pull out sharply. What did you do?’

  I went straight to the headmaster with a detailed report exposing the weaknesses of the school’s security. If I had pulled out, they would have traced my signal to the academy. I had to create a bogus identity to side-track them. I provided a link to a long-abandoned mailbox in cyberspace wastelands. It used to belong to a ghost of someone who died a long time ago in a mining explosion off Titan. When the headmaster asked who I was, I said that I had no name. When the headmaster asked about my employer, I said that I had no master. I said that I lived to find things that are difficult to find and made my living by finding things that people don’t want to be found. Exposing their schoolyard vulnerability was a free demo. I hoped they’d pass my details to anyone in need of services such as mine. Soon people started to hire me.

  Fred burst out laughing. ‘Good grief, the birth of the mythical ronin out of the mists of cyber-time is a coming-of-age story? Well, well, well. How did you track her down?’

  I didn’t.

  Our paths crossed again by chance. Four years after leaving the academy, the CSG hired me to test the January prototype. It was located at a research facility in Piramesse, Cyboratics’ space-city in Alpha Centauri. It was a routine job but paid well. I didn’t find out why the CSG didn’t want to send a genuine agent. I had to go there undercover as their agent. They created the Jexu Jiu badge for me.

  One day a young couple was shown around the lab. They wore extravagant costumes, their faces overdone with makeup, and their hair was done in colourful spikes, which was the fashion among executive youth at the time. They were not introduced to us, but the word was that they were siblings. Wye Stan 8 was due to relocate there from Tao Ceti, and his retinue of cousins began to arrive ahead of him. I overheard the sister being called Fairweather. Perhaps because I couldn’t take my eyes off her, she lingered near me. She told her brother that she’d put my image in her gallery.

  I told her it was out of the question.

  Everyone stared at me astonished that I had spoken out of turn and so rudely to the Pans. But Surtr wasn’t going to make an incident out of it. Cyboratics needed the CSG to approve the new andronet. He advised his sister to get my consent on record. Fairweather assured me that nobody will recognise me. She’d put my stylised likeness in a sleek black biosuit and make my short hair long and flowing. My image will wear a red headband and be standing on a mat woven of cyan light… ‘She said that, word for word?’

  ‘Yes, Fred. She put this image in her Mandala gallery with my consent. That’s where the girl calling herself Mandy must have seen it.’

  ‘You are the one calling her Mandy. Does she look like your Fairweather by any chance?’

  ‘She’s identical.’

  ‘A clone?’

  ‘That was my initial thought, but she speaks as if she is actually Fairweather.’

  ‘Maybe she went into cryonics when she was nineteen.’

  ‘Impossible.’ Fairweather was already twenty-two when we met in Piramesse. She had lost a few years of biological age in transit from Tao Ceti, so we ended up being the same age.

  Three days after the lab tour she came alone, seeking my consent for the image she had created. There was no need for us to meet in person for that. She wanted to make it appear as if she fancied me, but that was a pretext. Something worried her. I gave her a personal contact. She used it for the first time six months later. I had already finished the January job and was staying in Alpha-10. She wanted the CSG to give her asylum in exchange for information about Wye Stan. I told her that I was too junior to deal with that, and put her in touch with someone who directed her to the appropriate committee.

  Fairweather was denied asylum. Much later I discovered that her case had been assigned to Amber May, née Anna Pan.

  Fred concurred. ‘I wouldn’t put it past Anna to curry favour by telling Wye Stan about your friend’s betrayal.’

  I mumbled, overcome by sadness and guilt, ‘I should have investigated why her application was rejected. I had a bad feeling about it, but did nothing. I took it for granted that CSG chiefs must have a good reason for their decision. I don’t make that assumption anymore.’

  ‘Then something good has come out of the sad business. And no harm’s done, eh? The girl is alive and well and wasting Wye Stan’s money.’

  ‘She died.’

  ‘They said so? Wye Stan held your mother’s funeral thirteen years before her death. They put Fairweather on ice and brought her back...’ He saw me shake my head. ‘You think that she ought to recognise Jexu Jiu, but you met only once or twice.’

  ‘She lived in my hotel room for two months.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘She died there. I found her body. She took a suicide pill. It was my fault, Fred.’ I was pushing her to make decisions before she was ready. When the CSG rejected her application, I wanted to create a new identity for her so that she could apply for citizenship elsewhere. But she said that life as a citizen was a fate worse than death. I thought that she was just paranoid. I had to be away on another job, and when I came back she was dead.

  He said gently, ‘Don’t be too harsh on yourself. You didn’t have all the facts. You didn’t know that Amber May was a Pan. What did you do when you found her body?’

  ‘I called her brother.’

  ‘But she was running away from them.’

  ‘She was dead.’

  Surtr immediately took the two-day journey from Piramesse to Alpha-10. There was no need. Cy Security had collected her body right away. I told Fred, ‘He wanted to hear directly from me why she did it. I suspect he also wanted to find out how much she’d told me. She didn’t tell me anything. It was Surtr who told me her real name and that she didn’t have a birth-right status.’

  ‘Did he suspect that she was going to betray them?’

  ‘My impression was that he didn’t know until I told him.’

  ‘You told him!’

  ‘She was dead and couldn’t be hurt anymore, and he was distraught. They were very close.’

  ‘And yet she was going to sell them out to the CSG,’ Fred reminded.

  ‘She was trying to protect her brother from Wye Stan. That’s the only thing she told me. She hoped that the CSG could do something about it and her brother would be safe. I had to tell him that.’

  Fred was staring at me strangely. ‘How did he react?’

  ‘He was in tears, saying it was his fault.’

  ‘He cried, he blamed himself, and did it in front of you? It boggles the mind. That’s so, what’s the word, so human.’

  ‘You are too cynical or too hateful of Version 7. Surely not all the Pans are like him.’

  Surtr was a typical arrogant exec youth. He was embarrassed by his emotional outburst and begged me to keep quiet about it. He also wanted me to help him to keep knowledge of her suicide in the family. There was no reason not to promise him that. Fred was the first person I ever told.

  Fred eyed me curiously. ‘Have you had any more dealings with him?’

  ‘No. I relocated to Ronda soon afterwards, which made it easier to put closure on it.’

  ‘And yet you are crying about it now.’

  I wiped my eye, and told him about Dark Sun contacting Harvey Schmidt on the Aurora, and that I believed that Wye Stan was behind it.

  ‘Surtr?’

  ‘No, Wye Stan.’

  ‘Who do you think Surtr is?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I admitted. He looked more obviously a Pan than his sister did, but the official family tree listed four or five males of the same age. I couldn’t make out which one he was.

  ‘Well, partner, I can fill in the gaps in your knowledge,’ said Fred. ‘Mandy paid me a visit just now. That’s what I’ve come to tell you. Either she is a very good
actress or she truly believes that she’s your Fairweather. Check my domestic surveillance. You’ll hear her say that her little brother has married Miranda Yang. After what Version 7 told us about his vision for immortality, you can see why he’d want this alliance with the Teletek clan.’

  ‘Why didn’t he marry a Teletek woman himself?’

  ‘He did marry her in his self-replicating-bastard manner. Wake up, Al. Switch your brain on. Your Surtr is Wye Stan 8.’

  It didn’t make sense—and at the same time made perfect sense. I mumbled a feeble protest, ‘How can Wye Stan have a sister? Is she his clone? They don’t even look alike. Why create a female version?’

  ‘It boggles the mind. Gives incest a whole new twist. But they’re probably not DNA-related. Mandy mentioned her mother Ella. My guess is that it’s the same woman who surrogated the clones from Wye Stan 4 through to 8. She’s as old as the hills. I’d love to talk history with her, but she disappears into cryonics between pregnancies. Wye Stan 8 was her last. She stayed on as his nanny for several years. She surrogated for other Pans too. Fairweather could be one of those other children.’

  ‘How do you know so much?’

  ‘I’m in the business of knowing.’

  ‘She is Version 7’s sister too.’

  ‘Only in the technical sense of being born out of the same womb,’ he said dismissively. ‘Go find her.’

  I had no intention of doing that. I told him that I’d find out what she’s up to when my networks are fully restored. I didn’t want to start hacking security firms before my system was up to speed.

  ‘You don’t need to hack them,’ said he. ‘Archives of all the security firms operating in Ground Zero, all bus companies, taxies, independent factories, the lot, will be legally accessible to you when I authorise you.’ He laughed at my frown. ‘Welcome to my town. Don’t look at me like that. You know what I am.’

  ‘Yes, you’re a bastard. You made me hack security archives when we first arrived.’

  ‘No, no, I didn’t make you, I let you. You were up to speed and so cocky after playing that hoax on me in Callisto. Didn’t it occur to you that as a military chief I have some authority on security in an OK town? Dear oh dear, Al, sometimes you do surprise me with your innocence. It was a wise move making me a Harvey Schmidt partner. I have resources that could help us to solve the Mandy Mystery. Find Mandy please. Please find her.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘She’s asked me for asylum.’

  ‘Anyone junior enough in your firm can track her down for you.’

  ‘Don’t you want to find her yourself?’

  ‘No. I want to find out what she’s up to.’

  ‘Isn’t it the same thing?’

  ‘No. I want to make sure I know what she’s up to before she finds me again.’

  ‘I see your point.’

  ‘She knew what Wye Stan’s private place looked like. She described you being there.’

  Fred nodded, frowning, ‘Yes, that was uncanny. I haven’t been in his marble hall since the funeral. I know what you’re thinking, but he didn’t download me behind your back. Your counterattack kept him busy. Ripples of the havoc you’ve created in his networks are still visible to my spies. The million-dollar question is how do you know what his room looks like?’

  I told him about the image that Wye Stan posted to Harvey, and how the sprite had configured itself into his personal space. Fred stared at me astounded. ‘You’ve invaded his personal space! But I didn’t see any rabbit there.’

  ‘Then he didn’t let you into his real personal space. Harvey is invisible outside it. Whenever Version 7 logs in, Harvey whispers in his ear. If he cares to listen Harvey will tell him the story of our journey to Earth up to when we stood by your window watching the sunrise,’ I said.

  Fred just sat back, his fists clenched on his knees, cursing under his breath.

  I took the trash out.

  Fred doesn’t make slips of the tongue. He either wanted me to know that he’d been in recent contact with Wye Stan—or wanted me to believe that he was.

  When I returned, he said, strained, ‘Some things I try to keep hidden from him for my own salvation.’

  The residents of Phoenix-3 were proud of their vertical city. Even the downtown Levels, where the inn was, were immaculately maintained. Sunlight streamed in and combined with artificial daylight to create bright and clean public interiors. Benches and fountains, tubs of manicured shrubs, and hanging baskets overflowing with flowers were placed at regular intervals along broad promenades that spiralled through the Levels like a double helix. It was a town designed for strolling, and people did. Healthy and well-dressed citizens strolled singly, in pairs and small groups at a genteel pace. They stopped to chat in a neighbourly manner. Hardly anyone wore a biosuit. It was a town to live in. Bars, cafés, boutiques, and children’s playgrounds lined the promenades. Large screens displayed OK news, mostly trade statistics, which nobody bothered to watch. There were no intrusive commercial holograms and none of the inane babble that assaults you in Terminal 37.

  Fred smiled to see me looking right, left, and centre in my eagerness to see everything at once. ‘Do you like my town?’

  I smiled back. ‘It’s great. Was it like this when you used to live here?’

  ‘Pretty much the same, except that the teleportation grid wasn’t installed yet. There used to be cars that always caused accidents, and the elevators were notorious for breaking down.’

  ‘What is it like uptown?’

  ‘Pretty much the same, except that the bars and boutiques are more expensive and the people are snootier. I could take you there but people will recognise me and I’ll have to explain why I’ve picked you up in the Edges.’

  ‘People recognise you here. They stare behind your back.’

  ‘Perhaps they’re staring because we are strangers in town.’

  ‘No, they definitely recognise you. I can tell by the fear in their eyes.’

  He smirked with grim satisfaction, then darted a suspicious glance at me. ‘You’re having me on. No? Isolate their image for me later and I’ll cross-reference it with OK Personnel.’

  ‘You can’t give me orders.’

  He stopped walking. ‘Do you have an idea where I’m taking you?’

  ‘You are not taking me anywhere. I went out for a stroll and you’ve followed me.’

  ‘You settled your bill—my bill, since it’s under my name—and you’re bringing all your gear with you.’

  ‘I always take everything with me. You know that.’ Before he could remind me about Cy City, I added, ‘Under normal circumstances I do.’

  ‘And our circumstances are normal?’

  ‘Yes. You’re in your town terrifying citizens, and I’m on the move with mysterious people out to get me.’ Walking again, I told him that my system was still a few days short of being fully restored. I planned to spend a day or two in each of the other towns.

  ‘The inns will be all the same. It’s a chain,’ he pointed out.

  ‘There might be differences in the quality of the ventilation and cleanliness.’

  ‘I see I still have a great deal to learn about your lifestyle,’ he chuckled. ‘Can you imagine yourself living in a place like this? Being a regular citizen?’

  ‘It’s a fate worse than death,’ I quoted Fairweather.

  He asked which town I was going to first. I told him Phoenix-1, to see where my mother grew up. He pointed out that I won’t be allowed into the executives’ quarters, and she never went downtown. I shrugged. ‘Then I won’t see where she grew up. I’ll just do the towns in numerical order.’

  ‘You need Terminal 32 for the buses.’

  ‘I know. It’s two Levels down.’

  ‘Yes, but you need to go up a Level and across to the other promenade to get the elevator down to Level 2. There’s no direct pedestrian access from here. There used to be, but since the invention of teleportation, the space has been grabbed to cram in residential apartments
the size of shoeboxes. I don’t feel like walking all the way back up. I don’t have all day.’

  ‘We can say goodbye here.’

  ‘Not yet. I want to show you something.’ He grabbed my elbow…‘For Heaven’s sake, Al, disable that bloody protective shield. I can’t kidnap you with it on.’

  We materialised in a deserted yard on a raised terrace at a derelict industrial site.

  Overhead, a dense steel lattice of pylons and masts, crisscrossing high-power cables, scaffolds, gangplanks and ladders leading to higher terraces, stretched against the backdrop of the towering outer shell of the town. Air traffic whizzed to and fro. Freight trains shunted noisily nearby. Fred strode away. I followed, wondering why I couldn’t tear myself away from him.

  He stopped by the railings near a spiral staircase. I looked down to flat roofs and asked what was down there. It was mostly empty warehouses, he told me.

  ‘Why are we here, Fred?’

  ‘I’m bringing you into my world.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘The world of spies and spooks,’ he chuckled. ‘Don’t look so alarmed. I’m not trying to recruit you, you silly sod. I need your specialist services. I need you to be at your scariest Jexu Jiu. Audit the last month of departmental memos with your fine-toothcomb and then rake behind the source codes. I want solid incriminating evidence. Are you recording this conversation? Will it count as a formal contract?’

  ‘It will, but I haven’t agreed to anything yet. If I take this job for you, what will you do with my findings? I’m not comfortable with the idea of helping you to execute people.’

  ‘What do you think you’ve been doing for years? Have you ever checked what your corporate clients do with your findings, how many heads rolled because of information you’ve retrieved?’

  ‘No, I didn’t, and I’m getting very uncomfortable with that.’

  ‘Your timing for having a moral crisis sucks! Let’s agree on this. If you do a good job, I won’t be able to accuse anyone unjustly. As for those who deserve the firing squad, I promise to fire them in ways that don’t involve their death. But please don’t let them know that I’ve gone soft in my old age. Can your conscience live with that?’