The Presence

by Paul Black

Corazon moved closer. Deja could smell her perfume. It reminded her of the Mexican beach she had visited with that professional trainer.

  “To tell you the truth,” Corazon said, “you’re probably one of the only true friends I have. Except, maybe, for Dr. Haderous.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “The lead technician in my development.”

  Deja paused and took in Corazon’s beauty. It wasn’t till now that she noticed how elegant the clone’s bone structure was. Deja had never met Goya’s real wife, so she didn’t have any reference to compare the two. Considering all the other “corrections” that Goya had made, she guessed Corazon’s features had probably been enhanced.

  “You never answered my question,” Corazon said. “Do you really think he has ... How did you put it? ... ‘the hots’ for me?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Deja said devilishly. “That was the best come-on I’ve ever seen.”

  The car fell into silence again, and Deja and Corazon bounced slightly while its suspension adjusted to the road.

  “Hey, Cor. Do you think Marl is a, well, you know ...”

  “A Silent One?”

  “Right. I mean he had such a strange way about him, don’t you think?”

  Corazon closed her eyes and smiled. “I thought he was wonderful. And yes.” She looked at Deja, and her rings narrowed. “He’s a clone, but he’s not like me. This man is very different.”

  “Spooky is what I’d call him. But what if he’s something else, some kind of ... super-clone?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “No, really. You’d have his baby, my Network would do a special, and I’d be producer of the year!”

  Corazon rolled her eyes and laughed, but a melancholy quickly washed over her, and her attention shifted to the passing cityscape.

  “Hey, Cor, I was only kidding.... Cor?”

  “Deja,” she replied, still staring out the window, “I can never have children. It’s another one of my predispositions.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” Deja took her hand. “Another one of Alberto’s requirements?”

  Corazon nodded.

  “I’m beginning not to like this husband of yours.”

  Corazon sighed. “Sometimes I wish I could ...” She turned back and took Deja’s hands into hers. “Promise me something?”

  “Yeah, sure.... Anything.”

  “Promise me that if he hurts me again, you’ll help me leave him?”

  Deja considered her request. “Sure I will.”

  “Thank you.” Corazon kissed Deja on the cheek.

  Deja pulled the center console back and put an arm around Corazon. “Don’t worry. If he hurts you again, we’re going to kick his ass.”

  As the limousine continued uptown, Deja sensed how delicate Corazon was. It didn’t feel like she had the correct mass, and her frame seemed as if her body was held together with high-tension wire. She stroked Corazon’s hair, trying to comfort the clone, but having never had a sister or a mother, Deja was afraid her effort was marginal, at best.

  The limousine pulled up in front of Deja’s building and stopped. Pavia rapped on the divider, the silhouette of his hand looking even more massive from the refraction.

  Corazon tapped in the code, and the divider retreated into the backs of the front seats.

  “Your apartment, Miss Moriarty,” Pavia said.

  The car door slowly opened, and a rush of cool night air cut through Deja’s mesh top. She collected her coat and began to get out.

  Corazon grabbed her arm. “Wait ...”

  Deja could tell Corazon was struggling with her new emotion. “It’s okay,” she said. “Just tell me what you’re feeling.”

  “Do you think I should–” Corazon looked away.

  Deja smiled and leaned next to her ear. “Don’t worry,” she whispered. “I think he’s the kind of guy who’ll find you.”

  11. MY DEAREST MOTHER

  “Good fucking night,” Cooper said. He pushed away from his station and stood. “Or maybe I should say good morning.”

  Tsukahara looked up from his Netport and bowed his head.

  Cooper began to reply, but he stopped midbow. His forehead wrinkled, then he gave a hollow smile and walked out of the room.

  It had been a long week, starting with the “Davis incident” and continuing through four days of intense hub recalibrations. Tsukahara was puzzled by his superior’s odd demeanor after his meeting with Director Slowinski. Gone were Agent Chaco’s good-natured ribbings, which Tsukahara had come to accept as his superior’s unique show of affection. But after the Davis incident and the subsequent meeting with the director, there was a distinct change in Agent Chaco’s attitude toward him. The only English word that came to mind was respect. Tsukahara leaned back in his chair and stretched off another brutal day. The clock on his Netport shifted to 2:13 a.m.

  All at once, the computers started signaling the detection of a detonation similar to the one in the Davis incident. Panicking, Tsukahara fell forward and slammed into the edge of the counter. He wasn’t rated to use New American VirtGear, and hunting through a console could take several minutes. The computers signaled again, and Tsukahara eyed Cooper’s headgear. The innocuous disc of biotechnology was no bigger than a slice of sushi roll.

  What the hell, he thought. He had already gambled once this week, why not twice?

  He pulled the collar of his shirt down, exposed the connector at the base of his neck, and raised Cooper’s VirtGear to his forehead. He hesitated, and it quivered in his hands before its tentacles lunged at his face. The cerebral engagement was so strong it snapped his head back. Tsukahara pulled wildly at the unit, but the last tentacle found the connector in his neck, and he succumbed.

  As his vision recovered, Tsukahara saw before him the universe known simply as The Net. Anyone not used to the vastness of cyberspace could quickly become disoriented and “crash,” but Tsukahara had logged many hours and immediately began searching for the stream that had triggered the alarms. Trying to find the data was like finding a single star in a galaxy. But Tsukahara’s training had taught him how to let go of his major senses and listen with his “virtual” sense. He often thought that the West lacked the insight that Eastern cultures took for granted. This innate sensibility was the reason Japan had produced so many Virtual Masters.

  Tsukahara released his mind and began sensing for the data stream’s “emotional” signature – or as his instructor back at Nippon University called it, its “chi.” He quickly recognized the urgent signature and rode it back to its source. The detonation had taken place in the resonance chamber of a processing facility in the West Indies owned by La Nourriture de la Société Commerciale de Dieux. It was a Category One, like before, with no fatalities but a larger injury count than the French accident. Twenty-three people had been exposed to high amounts of biohazardous discharge and were being triaged at the scene. A ripple of data caught Tsukahara’s attention. At first, it appeared to be a mundane report, but as he listened for its chi, he sensed a second message within the data.

  Tsukahara began hacking the file into two distinct bundles. While he focused on the task, he felt a tremor run through the Net. Its presence was almost imperceptible, but he had learned never to discount any shift.

  Moments like these made Tsukahara feel the most comfortable; floating in the noiseless void of the Net, only his mind and the skill with which he controlled it mattered. He let his virtual sense hunt for the tremor’s chi, and within seconds he could feel its energy from somewhere out near the rim of the net. Suddenly, it was all around him. And though he couldn’t see it, he could sense it hovering like a panther waiting to strike.

  “Yoichi...” it whispered inside his mind.

  Tsukahara reflexively hacked into a GlobeNet code run, knowing it would resequence when the tremor got within sampling distance. But just before the DC zone, the run ejected him. Tsukahara frantically looked about, but there were no legal data flows to tap. He eyed a 911 s
tream as the tremor gathered around him.

  Screw it, he thought. He punched into the stream and was instantly back in the Washington grid.

  Tsukahara pried off the VirtGear and entered the sequence to mask his digital footprints from the DC police. He clicked the load button and watched the code cascade down his screen.

  “That was one damn fine ride, mister.”

  Tsukahara turned and found his superior leaning over his shoulder.

  Agent Chaco smiled and motioned to the screen. “Watch your construct variables. The DC cops know our code structures.”

  Tsukahara spun back and studied his masking. A bead of sweat slid down his ribs.

  Chaco leaned down behind his ear. “I love fucking with the DC boys.”

  Tsukahara shifted perspective to a broader view of the Washington grid. He watched as his masking deflected the DC Police past the NSA’s security walls and into the general East Coast corporate zone.

  “Nicely done, Tsuka. I didn’t know you had it in you.”

  Tsukahara stood and bowed. “Agent Chaco, I can explain.”

  “What, that you responded to an alarm, beat a Russian Predator Stream and successfully outmaneuvered some of Washington’s finest? Come on, you did better than most of the people in this department. Don’t worry. I’m not one of those by-the-book guys. I think there needs to be a little improvising now and then. And by what I saw, you can improvise with the best of them.”

  Tsukahara wiped some sweat from his forehead and felt the indent left by the unit. “Thank you, Agent Chaco ...” He hesitated.

  “You’ve got more to report?” Chaco asked.

  “When I was in, there was ... something.”

  “There always is.”

  “This was different.”

  “How’s that?”

  Tsukahara wiped again. “It was very subtle. Under the threshold.”

  “Yeah, so? There’re lots of things in the Net. Old programming, errant streams, some of that shit’s over a hundred years old.”

  “No, it ... it spoke to me.”

  Chaco leaned against the counter and eyed him. “It what?”

  “Spoke to me virtually.”

  “Okay, say you did feel something. What do think it was?”

  Tsukahara struggled to find the English word that would adequately describe the presence.

  “Take your time. Remember, the bad guys can strike in many ways. If you felt something, I want to know.”

  “It wasn’t evil.”

  Chaco folded his arms. “Go on.”

  “I cannot find the correct words, Chaco-san.”

  “Just do your best. Think of a simple word that describes it, you know, like sharp or fast or–”

  “God.”

  Chaco’s eyebrows went up. “You felt the presence of God?”

  “I cannot think of a better word, Chaco-san.”

  “Ghost in the machine ...” Chaco said to himself.

  “Begging pardon?”

  “Hell, it’s your country’s animation. Ghost in the Machine was an old animated movie from the late 1990s. I saw it once, a long time ago. It was about God in the Net, but they called it something else.”

  “Gaia,” Tsukahara said.

  “Yeah, that’s it. Mother of the planet or something like that. Weird shit.”

  “This was not female.”

  Chaco shook his head and laughed. “Oh yeah? So God’s a man?”

  “Sir, there is something else. When I was in, I discovered a dual stream at the site of the signal.”

  Chaco grew serious. “Really? Were you able to feed it back?”

  “Just a little. I had to break off when the predator appeared.”

  Chaco put his hand up. “It’s late, Tsuka. Just download it to my pad, and I’ll read it tomorrow.” He handed Tsukahara his netpad and slipped his coat on. “What did you see when you were extracting that dual stream?”

  “Test results from genetic mapping.” Tsukahara ported the Netpad and transferred the data.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, Chaco-san. I am sure.” Tsukahara handed the Netpad back.

  Chaco adjusted his coat collar. Tsukahara could tell he was struggling with this new bit of information.

  “What do you think?” he asked.

  Tsukahara hesitated.

  “Just use a single word, you know, like before.” Chaco was now studying the new data. “And don’t say God.”

  Tsukahara thought for a moment. More sweat rolled down his ribs. “Cloning,” he said finally.

  Chaco studied the data for a moment, then slowly chuckled. “I’ll tell you, Tsuka, you’re just full of surprises. That’s pretty much what this data is showing.” He looked up. “Well, it’s late. I’ve got an early flight tomorrow. Good night.”

  Tsukahara bowed.

  Chaco walked to the exit, but stopped short of the door. “You did well,” he said.

  Tsukahara watched the door close behind his superior, and the room fell quiet. He pulled his chair up to his station and launched his Netmail.

  My dearest mother,

  Today you would be proud of me ...

  12. WHAT AM I DOING?

  The questions raised by Deja’s dossier had left Chaco with an uneasiness that was fighting hard with his new feelings for her. He just loved the way she laughed, especially when her hair moved like she had used a truckload of static as conditioner. He passed a finger over her file image, and the Netpad’s organics quivered.

  “What are you up to?” he whispered.

  Chaco was finding it hard to wrap his head around this new wrinkle in the Goya case. Every time he started to formulate a plan, his thoughts grew twisted. At first, he thought Deja was distracting him, but then he wrote it off to nerves associated with his first field assignment. Finally, he decided to listen to his gut, which usually served him well, or at least as well as any computer model, and caught the earliest jump jet to New York. He intuited that Deja would be the link between Ms. Goya and the man with one set of clothes, but he had absolutely no inkling where to begin. Maybe if he hung around under the guise of a business trip, he would get to meet Deja’s new friend with the weird eyes and, with any luck, maybe even the man with one suit.

  Chaco sequenced through his itinerary and called up his hotel. On Steiner’s advice (because he was from New York and knew all the best places) Chaco had booked a room at the The Thin. Steiner assured him that it was very très chic.

  “Good morning, The Thin Hotel and Spa,” said a pretty Asian girl dressed in a uniform from a century he couldn’t quite identify. “Where may I direct you?”

  “Reservations.”

  Chaco waited as dancing icons infotained him with the hotel’s food and accommodations. Another Asian girl appeared wearing the same uniform.

  “Hello, Mr. Sonny Chooko,” she chirped, confirming that he was dialoguing with a sim. “Your reservations for one room, queen bed, and full T-Net connection are in system and awaiting your arrival today at 11:30.”

  She was pretty hot for a string of code. “The name is pronounced Cha-co. And do you have anything with a view and a king?”

  “One moment, please.”

  The dancing icons highlighted the Thin’s state-of-the-art fitness center. The spa looked pretty basic.

  “You’re in luck,” the girl said upon her return. “We have a king available with a view.”

  “Great, I’ll take it.”

  “Excellent. It would be our pleasure to accommodate you, Mr. Sonny Chaco. Please place your right index fingertip in the panel on your screen.”

  More dancing icons followed, but this time only as a multicolored background behind the security thumbprint panel.

  “Thank you. Is there anything else The Thin can do for you, Mr. Sonny–?”

  “No, Mr. Sonny Chaco is very happy now.”

  “And so are we. Thank you for choosing The Thin, New York, a member of the Rim Holdings Co., Ltd. Goodbye.”

  What was up w
ith that name, Chaco wondered and turned his attention to the ground 28,000 feet below. He didn’t care much for flying. The thought of being cooped up inside 50 tons of metal and plastic was unsettling enough, but coupled with being surrounded by business types jacked to their Netpads, the whole experience was a big pain in the ass. Many were virt conferencing, and as Chaco looked back over the rows of passengers, he couldn’t help but snicker at all the people with portable VirtGear hugging their faces.

  “Would you like anything else?” a holo attendant asked.

  “I’m cool,” Chaco replied.

  “The climate controls are located in your armrest if you’re uncomfortable.” The attendant moved on to the next passenger.

  Looking down at the endless gray mass that blanketed the Northeast always depressed Chaco a little. Even though urban planning had allotted thousands of acres as “green havens,” it was still basically a nightmare to live in, unless you were wealthy enough to have a second home somewhere on a beach or in the mountains. And even if you could escape, it could only be for a brief time, because eventually the need to conduct business would drag you back like a bad addiction.

  He clicked open his Netpad.

  “Good morning, The Thin. Where may I direct you?”

  “If I wanted a dozen roses sent somewhere today, can you arrange that for me?”

  “We would be happy to send a dozen roses, Mr. Sonny Chaco, to anywhere in the world. What is the address?”

  Chaco gave the girl Deja’s office address, along with a simple note, and settled back into his seat. A dozen coral-colored long stems would set the mood, but only so far. Deja was the kind of girl who could always accept a gift graciously, yet at the same time make you feel she knew there was a hidden agenda, whether there was or not. Chaco also knew that if he could score some tickets to the musical The Giuliani Story, the king with a view would seal the deal. He clicked his Netpad open.

  “This is Deja.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Handling another Bishop Green crisis. Where are you?”

  “Sixty miles out of La Guardia, preparing to land.”