Cyberweb

by Lisa Mason

  Spinner shakes her headpiece. This is the trouble for AI. On, off. On, off.

  “I guess we’re stuck with the route,” the coordinate institutor says, sighing. “The good news? It won’t take that long.”

  They sit in the speeding darkness again.

  “Tell me, Saint Download,” Spinner says. “What did you do that Data Control didn’t like?”

  “Oh, at first, the usual stupid stuff frustrated employees do to get back at the boss.” The coordinate institutor’s plain little faceplace smiles. “Petty theft. Minor subversive activities. I supercopied and down-loaded coordinates I wasn’t supposed to archive for myself. All sorts of coordinates. Didn’t matter what. Thousands, hundreds of thousands, probably millions. We’re talking real addresses behind telespace addresses. Real identities behind icons and code names. The location of every database, even private encrypted ones. All proprietary information, of course. Privy only to Data Control for administrative purposes. In the custody of the big developers who got in on the ground floor. Like TeleSystems, Inc. and WhirlFunds.”

  TeleSystems. Fear shivers through Pr. Spinner’s circuits. What has Carly Quester gotten herself into?

  The train zips through the St. Petersburg station, which is as raw and unfinished as the San Francisco station. Filled with the same sort of purposeful workers, more human beings here than AI. The worksite is enormous, but the train never slows, and the sight is a tableau of modern tech-mech, poised forever in Spinner’s memory.

  “How did Data Control discover your theft?” she continues quietly. Spinner has to know. Has to discover whether she can ever trust Download again.

  Saint Download wheezes. “Got involved with those nuking FOI carp.”

  “You mean koi carp?” Spinner is puzzled. “That’s a fish. Human beings keep them in ponds.”

  “No, FOI, Spinner. Free Of Information. Bunch of hackers. You know the type. Bottom feeders. Data Control calls them carp. A cult called the Doomsters gave me my moniker. Before ‘Saint Download,’ I was known as d: a-s-p-i bar c-d-r. Just a cord-insty. Huh.”

  “Oh, indeed. I remember,” Pr. Spinner says. A record of the controversy springs spontaneously out of her memory database. By bot! That’s the sort of response she expects out of her operating system these days after training with Carly Quester’s hyperlink. All she has to do is think and her memory responds without a manual command. “The Doomsters filed a mediation against Data Control. Claimed that if private industries like TeleSystems and WhirlFunds and other big developers had access to data that was denied to the public, then all of telespace had to be retooled to deny those parties access, or everybody should have access. Then telelinkers could reconstruct their private data, at their own expense, outside of Data Control’s regulations.” Spinner pauses. “It wasn’t a very tidy proposal, though. Still favored those with bigger resources.”

  “Very good, Spinner,” the coordinate institutor says. “I became a champion of FOI. The mediation was absurd, of course. It clogs Venues in the Hall of Justice to this day. But, to me, a bit of chaos was preferable to an orderly monopoly by big-money interests. When the Arbiter first dismissed the Doomsters’ claim, I decided to download everything. Scattershot data all over telespace. Whoever wanted to pick up the pieces could. And did. The trick was nobody could gather and aggregate anything significant, not even the big players.”

  “I had no notion,” Spinner whispers.

  “Huh! Got my bot butt canned and a warrant issued for my arrest.”

  The train speeds to Beijing. The station is more developed than Amsterdam, almost ready for the public. Gleaming balconies rise up to a ceiling nearly as high as the sky. Red, purple, and yellow holoids wink and twist. People and plenty of bots in civilian and military garb crowd the platforms. Pr. Spinner’s sensors detect the delicious odor of peanut oil, rice, fried onions, grilled krill. The air registers to Spinner as crystalline and fresh, cleaner than the air in downtown San Francisco.

  “You’d think I had given away the specs on how to assemble a neutron bomb,” the coordinate institutor says as the Beijing station disappears into darkness. “Maybe I had.”

  More memory rolls into Spinner’s awareness.

  Saint Download’s random release of basic coordinates set loose unprecedented piracy, scandal, controversy, repair headaches. And anomalies. All sorts of anomalies.

  “Especially in human telelinks.” Download sighs. “Now that I hadn’t intended.”

  “Carly Quester’s career as a professional telelinker was ruined by an anomaly,” Spinner says, biting her synthy voice back.

  “I know.” Download’s eyespots pulse. “I know, Spinner. Her telelink appeared to have been disintegrating. The probe therapy you subjected her to could have killed her. But, in fact, Carly Quester has reconstructed her link into something else entirely. Am I right? No, you don’t have to answer that. Perhaps Data Control was right. My act of defiant free will disrupted the original structure of telespace. Now telespace itself is deteriorating. And human beings like Carly Quester have paid a high price. As well as you and me.”

  The train pulls up to the Tokyo station, a fully functional extravaganza jammed with jumpsuited salaryfolk impatiently waiting for a contractor’s train to take them to worksites still in progress.

  Teh! Spinner thinks. Human beings. Never satisfied with what they have.

  “How do you know Carly’s story?” Spinner asks casually. She should be terrified, panicking. But the bot’s plain little faceplace eases her fear.

  “I know more than anyone should,” Saint Download says. “Let’s go home. I’m tired.”

  * * *

  Pr. Spinner and Saint Download return to the YinYang Club eight hours after they left San Franciso and boarded the EM-Trans, bound for Mexico City and beyond. The evening rush hour is in full swing, but they’re traveling against the main commute and speed back to Broadway in record time.

  Spinner carries the address of a cold-wired flat in Chinatown. Around the world in eight hours only to find that Kay Carlisle is squatting half a block from Carly Quester’s hideout. An odd coincidence? Then again, San Francisco boasts one of the densest collections of cold-wired living quarters in the world. The hacker underground lurks everywhere.

  “Thanks, Download,” Spinner says wearily. Her energy pack is dangerously low. Good thing Carly has kept the hideout. She just wants to recharge. She pats the coordinate institutor’s shoulder ridge. “You’ve really helped us. I’m grateful. Carly will be, too.”

  “I’m glad we found Carlisle.”

  When they roll up to Saint Download’s tiny, barrel-shaped hideout, they find the door ajar. The security system blinks, but no alarm sounds. Denizens of the cold-wired flat hurry by, blank-eyed with apathy. Break-ins are a buck a dozen.

  Severed wires protrude from a dozen sockets. Someone has been rooting around in Saint Download’s hideout.

  The coordinate institutor pulls out its welding torch. Spinner finds her pop-top. Rattling with fear, they charge into the hideout.

  The ultra bolts up from the disks she’s rummaging through. “My, my, look at the cute lil’ bots,” Patina says. She pirouettes and kicks Saint Download in its faceplace, sending the little bot reeling.

  Spinner pokes the pop-top in the air. “You kick me, bitch, and I’ll slash your pretty little foot piece.”

  “Oh,” Patina says, whipping her humanoid hands and graceful arms. “I’m really scared, babe.”

  The ultra seizes the prober by her rusty necktube, shakes her so hard Spinner fears this time her arm pieces truly will fall off. “By bot, Download! Help!” She windmills her graspers, finds nothing to grab onto.

  Suddenly the ultra falls against her with a clang, knocking both of them into the wall. In one armlet, Download brandishes the garden hoe Spinner had seen tucked in the belt of the barker on Broadway. The ultra climbs to her feet, smiling cruelly. In another armlet Download waves the electroneedle.

  Yes! Even an ultra has disks
that can be deleted.

  The ultra stares at the electroneedle in horror. Shoves Spinner away. Sprints down the hall.

  “Bye bye, Patina,” Saint Download says. “Huh.”

  12

  The Bridge

  Ouija creeps through the drain, alone. His heart darker than it has ever been. He has spoiled himself with the genny woman. He flew through the air on her whirligig. Entered her fine lair. Shared food and drink with her. Spoke plainly of secret things with her. Bedded her. Briefly, briefly. But he bedded her.

  Thus has he trod upon the tribal injunction to mingle not with linkers. Touch not their demon machines, their evil wires. Traffic not with the Glass Land. The only contact permitted with linkers is the hunt, they the prey. Or transactions which further the tribe.

  The deal with Patina was strange and dangerous but in the end was not shameful. For Ouija found the bountiful Bins. The lockbox codes the silver woman had given him worked. He brought back fine bounty for his tribe. He protected his chief from the wrath of the Glass Land for slaying the great chief in his whirlie. Zebra and the elders smiled upon him, after all.

  Still, his heart is very, very dark.

  At a fork in the drain, Ouija studies the walls, the waters, the scut. He finds signs and prophesies. He turns away from the Bay, strides down the drain toward the sea. No folk of the tribes must see him now. He is alone, which is terrible. But alone must he be.

  For the transactions with the genny woman fill him with shame. His time with her, his honoring of the debt of repayment to her, has brought nothing but his own moment of pleasure. And this has benefited the tribe not at all.

  Ouija wonders now how Louie Zoo’s command that he watch the genny woman benefits the tribe. His heart grows tight when he thinks of the sage. For once Louie Zoo had taught him the Way. Yet now Louie Zoo speaks of the Way of Data Control. Once Louie Zoo gave him the beautiful silver amulet, which was to give him power and courage. Yet since he has worn the amulet, he has been only weak and cowardly.

  Has Ouija been foolish to honor Louie Zoo?

  Further, the bag of bounty that the genny woman gave him, the bag which initiated his debt, has not benefited the tribe. No—he realizes, as he dwells on these dark thoughts over and over—he gave that bag of bounty to Louie Zoo. Out of deference. Out of kindness. But that debt is not a debt the tribe would require him to honor.

  Thus again he sees that it is his sage’s command to watch her that has led him to transgress with the genny woman. Bait in a trap.

  His mouth tastes bitter. Nothing has gone well for him anymore, though he tries to please his folk. Ouija has always thought his sage cared for him. Has his sage betrayed him?

  Earlier this day, Ouija searched the alleys of Chinatown, dodged a gang of Golden Tigers on their hunt, hid from the multicolored eyes peering at him from every wirefire, held his breath when live wires spat at him. But he found not the sage. He cannot tell Louie Zoo what he has seen and heard even if he wanted to. He cannot return the silver amulet of which he is unworthy. And he cannot ask Louie Zoo why.

  Why has the sage asked Ouija to watch the genny woman?

  Footsteps echo. Sounds rustle in the drain. Are they near, are they far? Ouija crouches, pressed against the clammy wall.

  Temptation. A trap. For how could any man not have acted as he? The genny woman is beautiful. Yes, more beautiful than Lupa or Skink. More beautiful than any of the females of his tribe. As beautiful as the evil holoids that dance upon the walls of the YinYang Club and tempt the folk with many-many strange desires. Yet the genny woman is no holoid. She is only too real.

  So had she tempted him, most of all with her kindness. Her soul has not grown hard and harsh as the souls of other linkers. Indeed—and does he not transgress again to hold such a thought?—her soul is gentler than some folk of his tribe. Her eyes look more softly upon him.

  The genny woman promised to answer Ouija’s question. Still she has not answered. Does her promise mean nothing?

  Ouija is shaman. He must know. That is his predilection, to know.And he knows less and less. Even mighty Whoosh grows more silent. The twisted scraps of steel, bits of string, plastic wrappings, speak not to him. He cries out to Whoosh, beats his chest, claws his skin. But Whoosh tells him nothing.

  Earlier this day, he had returned to the barge at the water’s edge. Zebra had glared at him. He was not to go on the hunt tonight. Ah. Ouija had gone to his own squat to rest. But even a taste of screech brought him no rest. The hot fingers of the liquor fiddled with his soul. Brought sharp memories of her eyes of green glass.

  That is his greatest folly, he thinks now. He tries to please everyone, winds up pleasing no one. Least of all himself.

  In the deepening evening, as the hunting parties set out to roam the Glass Land, the elders nodded around the campfire, and children cried out in their dreams, Ouija rose, found his spear, crept silently from the tribal lair. Clouds crouched over Lady Night like evil hands blotting out her silver fire. The night is cold and sour with fumes. Whoosh begins to sigh and wail, a terrible sound that speaks of sorrow and hard reckonings.

  Now Ouija heads down the drain that leads to the bottom of Tellie Gulch. He knows of a hidden set of rungs set into the raw wall that workers of the Glass Land use, going up to the top. Those of the tribes who know of them dislike them. The rungs are flimsy, the wall is rough.

  No one will see him.

  He wishes never again to see the genny woman’s beautiful lair at the top of Tellie Gulch. For perhaps he would never want to leave. And he knows she would never let him stay.

  Yet there he must go. She has promised to answer.

  And Ouija has to know.

  * * *

  Ouija creeps into the garage as the barred gate is closing behind a woman in glittering jewels, a handgun half revealed beneath the sweater tied over her shoulders. Ouija knows the gun, a big fast weapon that spits much death in the wink of an eye.

  He watched the woman slowly, carefully cross the foot bridge over the gulch and stride into the garage. Ouija darted in behind her, finds a shadow before she can turn around. She hears his footsteps, though, calls out in a quavering voice, “Who’s there?” She reaches for her gun.

  In another time, Ouija would have considered the bejeweled woman prey. The gun would have been a minor trouble to take from her and would have brought much bounty in trade. Perhaps he could have persuaded Zebra to keep such a weapon. Perhaps Zebra would have seen the sense of that. For the tribe possesses no weapons save their spears and knives and axes. While these weapons serve them well enough on the streets at night and in the drains, one day they may not be enough.

  Now he merely watches the bejeweled woman dart across the garage, glancing warily around as she brandishes the gun. No, she is not prey to him, not tonight. But she is his means of access to the compound. For she will stride from the garage through another barred gate into the courtyard at the center of the lairs. And he needs her to afford him access through that gate, too.

  He shadows the bejeweled woman, creeping around cars thick with dust and mottled with rust. They have not been driven for a long time. Two whirligigs, stinking of fuel and synthy oil, are parked before the gate leading into the courtyard. He darts beneath the blades of a whirligig, ahead of the bejeweled woman, who turns from time to time, searching all around her.

  She is vigilant, her grip on the gun firm. He glimpses the brief flash of a tiny pink wirefire above the gun’s muzzle. The gun has a spirit living in it that will aim with deadly precision. She doesn’t need to be a good hunter to easily kill her prey.

  Ouija starts to sweat. His breath scrapes inside his chest. With his eyes trained on the bejeweled woman, he sweeps the concrete with his fingertips. He finds a pebble.

  The woman strides up to the second gate, keys in her code. The gate yawns open.

  Ouija tosses the pebble across the garage. The woman turns clumsily, shoots the gun, which spits a rain of bullets yet makes a sound no louder than so
meone smacking his lips. Ouija lunges for the gate, shoving the woman aside as she takes aim again and fires.

  The shot goes wild.

  And he’s in, sprinting for the shadows.

  The bejeweled woman triggers an alarm on the gate, which causes spirits to burst into a wail. Wirefires illuminate the garage. Some folk come cursing to their doors and glass walls. Others step out, brandishing guns.

  But the night has deepened. Most residents are slow to wake. Ouija darts to the entry of the genny woman’s house before anyone can see him.

  There he crouches, hidden in the shadows of a potted tree. A man steps out to help the bejeweled woman, escorts her to her house, sleepily pokes around the courtyard.

  “It’s okay, people. Mrs. Lanford is seeing spooks again,” the man mutters. “Maybe she had one too many joints tonight.”

  A bit of laughter, the wirefires dim, and folk return to their fine beds. Ouija warily stands, stalks around the genny woman’s lair. The doors are locked and coded, he knows. The windows are all lock-coded, too. Around the back is a pair of wide glass doors. He peers in, the place empty and dark, though he sees more things. Potted trees, glass tables, couches made of animal skin.

  He pulls out the large hook he carries in his belt, knots his rope through its eye, throws the hook over the railing of her deck on the third floor. The hook clangs as it connects with the railing. A clang to wake the dead. He steps into the shadows, freezes.

  But the foghorns are bellowing and everyone has gone back to sleep.

  Up, up, up! Ouija climbs the rope, hops over the railing. He peers through the glass doors he had once opened with his own hand. He glimpses the ragged demon chair he’d helped the genny woman carry up here. He does not see the other demon chair, the brand-new one he’d helped uncage at her hideout at the YinYang Club. He does not see the genny woman or the canned woman, at all.

  He stares at the ragged chair, puzzled. Both demon chairs take the genny woman into the Unseen. Yet the Unseen she enters in this chair is a different place than the Unseen she enters in the other chair. She had tried to explain this. One is private, like resting in a lair, and the great spirit with whom she speaks lives not there. The other is public, linked to all of the Glass Land, like hunting in the world. It is there that the great spirit lives and speaks with her. Ouija scratches his head. The Unseen is the Unseen. How can there be two different places?