Cyberweb

by Lisa Mason

  The eye beam spits blurry transcripts across the left perimeter of the bootleg telespace.

  TeleSystems, Inc. was one of the Big Ten coordinators of public telespace. Of course Spinner knows that. Huge. Powerful. A major player ruling technological development for the world. TeleSystems routinely conducted covert sweeps of every R&D library it could find and break into. And during one of those sweeps, TeleSystems discovered the grungy little R&D library of Kay Carlisle.

  Kay Carlisle was a freelancer, an independent engineer jobbing projects around town. Telespace infrastructure, mostly. Whirling within her library were the specs for a feedback hookup she had designed. Buggy specs, incomplete code, according to Carly’s file. Specs Carlisle hadn’t finalized. Hadn’t packaged or taken out to market when a whirligig rear-ended her motortrike on the Golden Gate Bridge and broke her spine. Hit-and-fly. The perpetrator had never been found.

  But TeleSystems, Inc. knew what it had found.

  “The feedback hookup, what is it?” Pr. Spinner says.

  “The last I heard, they figured Carlisle’s invention would integrate noncompatible AI,” Carly says. “Eliminate conversions, messy interfaces, lots of problems with access codes, recursion errors, nonresponsive conversations.”

  “That’s nice,” Spinner says. “But that’s administrative braindrain. Why all the fuss? Surely TeleSystems could have developed that capability itself.”

  “Surely, indeed,” Carly muses. “And I don’t know why the fuss. But my file is clear. TeleSystems wanted the feedback hookup. Wanted it so bad, they were willing to steal the specs. Swiped them clean from Carlisle’s library.”

  A giant vidbar pops on above them, unspooling transcripts of the report in glowing scarlet letters.

  “Carlisle has been in physical therapy six years,” Spinner says, reading details as the transcript flashes by. “Unemployed. No known databased address. She’s bankrupt. Her access code defunct. She couldn’t possibly have discovered the theft because she had no access to public telespace. Not even to her own library.”

  “That’s right. And see there?” Carly’s presence in link points at the transcript. “TeleSystems requested Data Control to issue a summons. But Carlisle hasn’t answered. The summons is the trigger. Her reason to know, you see, even if she doesn’t actually know. Once TeleSystems has custody of the specs for the specified period, and Carlisle has done nothing to protect her property, the corporation can pursue a mediation against her. TeleSystems can claim adverse possession of her intangible real property, seize her title legally. Through a telespace Venue.”

  “But,” Spinner says, “that’s not fair! She has no means to answer the summons.”

  “Oh, hell, Spin. You know mediation doesn’t care about fairness. Mediation only cares about triggers, red flags, rigged appearances that fulfill specified requirements. There’s where I would have come in. My wonderful speciality as a professional mediator—helping the rich and powerful steal from whomever they choose. Including little old ladies and disabled people.”

  Carly’s cube zooms to the obsidian key, slaps the side of it. The key clicks. The eyelid of the logo snaps shut, the black sphere closes. Then the sphere spins off into the horizon, shrinks into a small punctuation mark. A period. The period assumes its proper place in the command sequence. The black alphanumerics of the command sequence dart back into the window. The window folds shut into the side of the black cube. The cube skips along Carly’s perimeter, disappearing into her memory.

  “There you have it,” Carly’s presence in link whispers. “What was to be my next mediation.”

  “Not anymore, Carly Quester!” Spinner cries. “By bot, you don’t have to do this kind of work anymore!”

  For she, the one and only Pr. Spinner, had assisted this human telelinker in seeing the terrible truth of her previous mediation, Quik Slip Microchip Inc., versus Rosa Martino.

  “No, I don’t.” Carly’s telelink slows. “I owe no duty to TeleSystems, not anymore. Now I’ve got to find Kay Carlisle. I’ve got to warn her!”

  Pr. Spinner hums with anxiety. “You can’t go up against TeleSystems, Inc. They’ll crush you.”

  “I almost pursued a mediation against her. Surely now I can help her.” Carly smiles. “I’ve got the file.”

  “As your probe therapist and as your codefendant in whatever telespace crimes we may eventually be charged with, I seriously advise against—”

  The Arachne drops down out of nowhere.

  Carly screams. Shudders.

  “Steady!” Pr. Spinner calls. “Don’t move.”

  The spider scrabbles across the top of Carly’s crisp, white cube. A hairy, reddish orb weaver, the spider pauses on the edge, its front legs fidgeting, feeling about.

  Pr. Spinner slows her spinning cone, braces the bottom of it against the side of the trembling cube. She peers. The spider! By bot, an archetype! The Arachne! To her, it is beautiful. Its fine design, precise body poised, eight exquisite long legs, swiveling compound eyes. As though sensing her admiration, the orb weaver transmutes itself into a jewel-like figure of silver and marcasite. Rubies gleam in its eyebuds.

  “Pr. Spinner,” Carly calls weakly, “I’m afraid. Help me.”

  “Your fear,” Spinner answers firmly, “is part of the archetype, too. Listen to me. The Arachne is you. You are the Arachne. You are only afraid because you see a distinction.”

  Perhaps that isn’t the whole truth, though. The human phobia of spiders springs from a source as ancient as Arachne herself. For the spider is poisonous. The spider can kill. Humanity has a reason to call the spider vermin, to tremble at the sight of it. Shun it. Wish it dead.

  But not Pr. Spinner, oh indeed. Not a standalone AI entity. With rusty ill-designed housing, true. But no flesh. No blood. No means of being poisoned by this wondrous archetype.

  Some legends say all space and time is a great web of creation. A cyberweb pulsing with intelligence, woven by Grandmother Spider.

  “If the Arachne is truly a part of me,” Carly says, gasping, “then I can command it.”

  “Yes.”

  “I can tell it to get the hell off my presence in link?”

  “Yes, indeed! Pr. Spinner says. “Do it!”

  “Arachne,” Carly shouts, “get off me!”

  The spider disappears. Carly’s presence in link sighs with relief. The crisp, white cube shakes itself, careens across the bootleg telespace.

  “Well done,” the prober says, laughing. “But you don’t want to offend the Arachne. She is a powerful ally in your quest to help Kay Carlisle. A powerful ally in your quest to regain access to public telespace. Mastering the archetype is the key to your hyperlink.”

  “Sorry, Arachne,” Carly says.

  The spider reappears, dropping down from the upper perimeter. It scrambles across the fogbank, searching with its front legs.

  “No!” Carly shouts.

  “Jack out,” Pr. Spinner says.

  * * *

  And Spinner finds herself staring at the skylight in the hideout. Dusk has settled over the late afternoon.

  Carly slumps in the chair. Spinner rouses herself, plucks out her neckjack, rolls around to the other side. The woman is pale, gasping for air. Another fine layer of her too-lean flesh has melted away. She opens her eyes, dazed, the green irises dim.

  “I don’t know how the hell I just did that,” she says with a weary grin.

  “You’ve got to learn how to control the Arachne, that’s all.” Spinner helps her with the neckjack.

  “That’s all!” Carly shakes her head, rubs her eyes with her fingertips. “We need more power. I’ll talk to Sashi. Maybe we can hack some volts from the shock gallery.”

  “No, no, no,” Spinner says. “Talk to no one about this. No one must know we’ve got an illegal chair. Besides, the shock gallery jacks those juiceheads around the clock. They’ve got no power to spare.”

  “You’re probably right.” Carly sighs, massages her cheekbones. Link-bitten fle
sh, stretched over the bones. Too tight.

  “By bot, forget about the Arachne for today. You better eat.” Pr. Spinner clucks and fumes. The flesh-and-blood cares so little for her beautiful genny body. It’s a shame. It’s an outrage. What Spinner would give for such a supple, long-limbed housing. “You need protein, vitamins, carbohydrates. You’re wasting away, Carly Quester.” She reaches out a grasper to pinch the woman’s skinny shoulder, and her own shoulder ridge emits a painful squeak. “You’ll never get your hyperlink ready for public telespace if you’ve got no physical strength. You’ve got to take care of yourself.”

  “And so do you, good old Spin.” Carly shrugs away from Spinner’s grasper. Flings down the neckjack. She stands with a sudden energy that startles Spinner.

  “Take it easy.”

  “No, look at this.’ Carly bends over Spinner’s shoulder ridge, examining the groove. “This is terrible. Your arm piece could fall right off while you’re rolling down the street. Why didn’t they put stainless steel screws in there?”

  “Teh! Oh, certainly, why not, indeed!” Spinner fumes over her old complaint. By bot, she’s never ceased to gnash her gears over the screws in her housing, installed there by some careless human being. Purses her mouthpiece in a bot equivalent of a smile. The woman gets it.

  Carly goes to the cupboard, tosses out things. A packet of cat food. A handful of cocktail mix lifted from the YinYang Club. A cube of herb broth. A can of synthy oil. “Ah-ha!” she says. Turns the oil can over, shakes it, taps it against her fingertip. Not even one drop.

  “Never mind about me,” Spinner says. But it’s true, she worries constantly, obsessively about whether her arm pieces could fall off. She needs her arms as much as any human being. As any creature. But her old complaints seem petty compared to the terrible tasks they face now.

  “I’m gonna get you some synthy oil. For your arm pieces, okay?”

  “Don’t go.” Spinner is struck with anxiety. Too much anxiety for one day. Night is falling fast. “My arm pieces can wait another day.”

  “No, they can’t.” Carly pulls on a jacket, tucks the pliers into her waistband. She takes an empty mustard jar that, when filled, will hold a week’s supply of synthy oil. She digs in a drawer, sorts through pop-tops from cans of vegetables and fish. Takes one, tests the metal edge on the wall. The edge cuts a deep scratch in the crumbling plaster. A weapon, oh certainly. A tool.

  “Don’t go, I ask you,” Pr. Spinner says, buzzing with dread. “Please. You don’t have to go now. It’s dark.”

  “Sure I do. Night is the best time to crack crankcases, good old Spin,” Carly grins. “You oughta know that.”

  And before Spinner can reason with her, Carly Quester is gone.

  3

  The Ultra’s Deal

  “Yee-yee-hee!” Ouija’s cry echoes in the alley next to the white stone tower that leans toward the bay. Pijs dart and fly, wings flapping like the hands of the dead. Ouija cares not. Let them go. Pijs eat scut, thus taste of scut. Ouija knows of better prey.

  “Yee-hee-hee!” Joy swells his heart. To hunt the hills, his tribe by his side, a skin of screech slung under his arm, the gray stone rough and hard beneath the skin of his feet. He runs, panting, with the hunting party. Lady Night shines above. A blood-red moon blooms in the east, signifying evil in the air. Breathe lightly, hiss through teeth. For a gulp may bring evil inside your head.

  The Glass Land hums and growls, winking its multicolored wirefires, flashing many-many signs and strange prophesies. The tall towers rise up, cars cough and grumble in the street. Every stone path teems with fat prey and fine booty. Lockbox Bins brim with riches. Ouija pauses, listens. Head cocked to one side.

  Great Whoosh whispers secrets, making spoor of the Land whirl and tumble in mysterious heaps, crisscrossed wisps, chunks in the gutters. Sometimes the tribe can use the spoor, plump their beds with soft paper or plug holes in their lair through which Whoosh chills their bones. Usually, though, such spoor is scut. The last of the waste, used and used till it has little use, even to the tribe. Yet even when the spoor is of little use, sometimes Ouija can find a use. Sometimes the shapes and patterns tell Ouija secrets.

  “Ouija,” Skink whispers as they crouch by the leaning stone tower. Skink has bedded Ouija for nearly three moons. Her skin smells of him as well as the oily bitter scent of tribal stain that darkens her pale face to a slippery nut-brown. Her straw-colored eyes peer out from the spirals she’s inked across her brow and cheeks. The row of steel rings piercing her nostril make a tiny clinking sound as she leans against Ouija. “What say you, Ja? What sign is this?”

  Between her chipped yellow fingernails, Skink has caught the corner of a leaf of paper. A scrap with black ants frozen on it, ants which speak messages to Ouija. His father knew how to make the ants speak, had taught him how to read years ago when he was but a cub. His father lives no more, so now Ouija practices the reading art with his sage, Louie Zoo. For Louie Zoo tells Ouija he will understand many-many signs and prophesies this way and thus prosper as a shaman.

  Ouija takes the scrap from Skink with his conjuring hand. With his worldly hand, he holds his long spear in the Way—lightly in fingers, firmly in fist, resolutely in mind.

  Zebra scuttles over and stares at the scrap, taut and silent. His snarling lips show broken brown teeth. Zebra braids his white hair, smears the tight strands here and there with tribal stain. Zebra knows the Way of the linkers. How the ones who touch the wires enter the Unseen and speak with the spirits there. How linkers touch the canned folk and the spirits that live within the canned folk. Zebra knows that many-many spirits live in the wires, in the canned folk, in the wirefires, in the very glass of the Glass Land.

  Rumor whispers that Zebra was once a linker himself.

  Mostly, though, Zebra knows how to hunt. Hunting is his predilection, thus he is chief. The tribe comes to Zebra for matters of the hunt. But any transaction with linkers that does not involve the hunt fills Zebra with terror. Whenever linkers or canned folk or the Glass Land Itself seeks to speak with tribe—for they do seek to speak, and often—Zebra turns whiter than his hair. Trembles with dread. “What say you, my shaman?”

  “Truly ‘tis an omen.” Ouija nods as he studies the frozen black ants. The scrap flutters and flaps as Whoosh worries it. Whoosh possesses many-many moods—sour breaths and salty gasps, sweet mighty bellows and screaming tempers. Whoosh’s worrisome breath upon the scrap is a sign that Whoosh looks sternly upon the black ants. That the omen they speak of is of consequence to the tribe. Ouija stares. The ants strike their poses and their meaning becomes clear.

  ATTENTION!

  ANYONE WHO DOES NOT HAVE ONE OF THE FOLLOWING:

  A SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER, CALIFORNIA IDENTIFICATION NUMBER, FED/CA MEDCARE ID OR TELESPACE ACCESS CODE.

  PEOPLE PLEASE READ THIS OR LOCATE SOMEONE WHO CAN

  WE WANT TO HELP YOU!

  You, your families, and your friends must go to the nearest shelter.

  We have food, medicine, clothes, and beds.

  Go now, if not for yourself, then for the sake of your children and elderly.

  YOU ARE HEREBY REQUIRED TO GO TO A SHELTER

  CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO

  CIV CODE SEC 501.18(1)(a)(III)9D)

  “Pah,” Ouija says, releasing the scrap to Whoosh. The scrap skips away. “‘Tis only the Glass Land again, begging us to go to the confinement camps.”

  “Where they will feed us to the wirefires,” says Skink. Her pale eyes swim with fear. “And the spirits of the Unseen will eat our souls.”

  Zebra takes up his long spear, takes out his axe. He creeps around the stone tower, beckoning the tribe to follow him. Zebra heads down the alley toward the cluster of towers they call the Barko. When the moon blooms low behind the hills, linkers will leave the Barko or come there from the many-many cars, ships, twirlies in the air, and trains below. They come to feed their souls through the wirefires to the spirits of the Glass Land. So many souls. Th
e spirits of the Unseen must be very hungry, for they never have enough souls to feed upon.

  Ouija’s mouth turns down.

  ‘Tis a good time to hunt.

  Zebra motions them toward a row of comm booths, glass and metal stalls with demon eyes blinking blue and green. White and red ants crawl across the demon eyes, freeze for a moment, then march swiftly way. And wires, always wires, with their evil claws and pointed beaks that linkers plunge into their necks. Even the ones who do not plunge wires into their necks go to the Unseen in other ways. They slide disks into slots beneath the demon eyes. They push buttons to make the spirits talk to them. And they speak back to the spirits through the wires, gazing at the demon eyes as though in a trance.

  They do all these dreadful things of their own will. Disdain sours Ouija’s tongue. Some linkers look evil, some look sad, some have no more joy or wisdom than a scrap tossed by Whoosh.

  All are prey to the tribe.

  Zebra beckons the tribe to crouch behind the comm booths, hide themselves. Ouija loathes standing so close to a demon eye, but he crowds behind a booth with Skink. Skink is very short and very round. Her breasts and belly draped in plastic wrap bump against him, arousing him at once. Her belly has been getting rounder lately. Skink giggles. Her straw-colored eyes flutter. She whispers, “My Ja,” and reaches for him.

  Zebra’s hand snakes out from the comm booth in front of them, his fingers making signs. Prey. Ouija pats Skink, smoothes her coiled hair, pushes her back against the booth. He tenses.

  There!

  A giant twirlie hovers over the street, touches down. The shiny metal is mottled pink and green, pale blue and silver, all curving and sleek. The twirlie is in some ways lovelier than a woman’s body in its sheer perfection and voluptuousness. He catches himself in the awful thought. Ouija glances at Skink, sees her flinch and blush. Sees her burning stare. Skink often knows what passes through his head, though he speaks not. Ouija thrusts the forbidden thought away.