Looking glass, p.27
Looking Glass, page 27
I've seen the schematic of these vats in LookingGlass's own memory. There's a ladder, and an access hatch. I feel along the wall for the ladder. Catch it. My hand slips on it a bit, but I hold tight. Get it in my other hand too. Pull hard. Drag my body up the rough ladder. The pain is deliciously real as it abrades my skin. Open the hatch.
Light. Floods my eyes and I gasp involuntarily, squeeze them shut. Even the light shining through my eyelids is too bright. I haul myself over the threshold of the hatch and look around. Warehouse space. Look for security people.
Climbing down is easier. Gravity is working with me. The ladder at the bottom rolls down under my weight disconcertingly. When it stops, I lower myself to the floor, and crawl across the floor towards the bag. Please let it be someone else. Please. Let it be bogus.
But it isn't.
I zip the bag open, and it's Brian. The bag hides his wounds. Take his shades off, one last time. His eyes are cloudy and fixed half open. I'm blind as I close them. Tears flood my own eyes as I cradle his head to me, and cry and rock. Cry and rock. All I have. All bleeding eventually stops, yes, but … when?
Even pain has a bandwidth limit. There comes a time when you can't feel any more, when you're overwhelmed, when additional pain just doesn't register. In time you become aware of your surroundings again in spite of it. Result — I hear something.
“Bitch. Bitch. Bitch. Bitch.” Whispered. But with venom.
It's not coming from the vat I crawled out of. I didn't think it would be.
I look at my vat. LookingGlass2.
I look at the others. LookingGlass3. LookingGlass4. And on the other side, LookingGlass1.
“Bitch. Bitch. Bitch.” The sound of fury, coming from the speakerphone on each vat. I wonder where she learned … but of course. She got her fury from me.
Chapter 44
She's talking. I look down at Bri's lifeless face. Kiss his lips lightly. They're cold, taste like blood.
“Bitch. Bitch. Bitch. Bitch.”
“Bri, I've got a problem.” Set him down gently. More crawling, to the base of LookingGlass2. I pull the fiber-optic cable out of its jack and plug it in my head. Brace myself for the gestalt. There isn't one. Just a nice fast link. I'm tired. So tired. I dare not rest.
I log in naked. I can do IP in my head now. Log into the router, back into the service maintenance account, but I already suspect what the router has to say. I am on from LookingGlass2. LookingGlass1 cannibalized one of her own to invade my body. Her network interface is still down. Anger. Wells up inside me again, my adrenal glands tapping what remains of my energy reserves, sympathetic nervous system. Flight or fight. I try to harness my anger, use it. It's all I've got left. I disable the router's port to LookingGlass1, then log into LookingGlass3 and LookingGlass4. I know how a LookingGlass is made. The fibers were originally engineered to live inside a human skull. They're living things, more or less. Without the solution of oxygenated saline and glucose they'll asphyxiate. Dry out. Starve. Die. I tell LookingGlass3 and LookingGlass4 to drain themselves. Will all great Neptune's ocean… LookingGlass1's memories. Maternal feelings for the others. But she killed off LookingGlass2 readily enough. Killer. Yup. The feeling subsides quickly enough.
I can't access LookingGlass1. She has turned her network interface off. I have to deal with her more directly. Shame. She got that from me. Clear the building. Leave it. I wonder… Jack out of the network and crawl back over to Brian. Unzip him all the way.
His body is wreckage from just below the collarbone to the groin, and the stench of his ruptured bowels is intense and nauseating. There is no time. I reach in, feeling around him, through him, a grim intimacy. Find his coat. And the familiar lump in it. Yellow Jacket. I withdraw the gun he gave me only yesterday. Hold it in my teeth. Blood. Bile. The taste makes me gag. There is no time. Crawl to LookingGlass1's vat.
There is, of course, one problem with this plan. The ladders leading into these tanks are spring loaded, and roll up to head height when not in use, to save space in the hallway, prevent trip hazards. Head height for a standing person. I'm pissed now. I look over at Brian, then back at the ladder. Now what? I'm thinking. I'm thinking.
“Bitch. Bitch. Bitch.” It's getting stronger. LookingGlass1 is sorting herself out. I don't have time to cry, to curse my fate. I have to think.
Look over at Brian again. He lies quiet. The arms that scooped me out of my chair … fast … oh, Brian … my body now has more neurofiber in it than yours does, your neurowires notwithstanding. I close my eyes. Feel my nerves. Look to the center where my mind should be blind but is not. Slide down the part of my own brain that is my spinal cord to its end. Feel each set of nerve roots as they branch out from my spine. Feel the scars from the surgery. Touch the nerves on both sides of the scars. Rearrange some fibers. Feel them slide a little. Connect. And a burning, tingling pain erupts from parts of my body I've never felt before.
My feet.
They've been asleep for forty years. Ride the wave of pain coming from my feet and legs, feel them tense and spasm.
“Bitch. Bitch. Bitch. Where are you?” There is no time left. Can't wait to get used to this. Sit up. Pull my feet under me. Force them to relax. To work together. Establish some muscle tone. Lean forward until my hands are against the vat wall. Quads and hips. Pull hard. Ankles and calves, just hold steady. I've done this in virts half a dozen times. Now. Go.
Stand up.
I sway disturbingly. Most of my leg muscles are water-weak from a lifetime of disuse. It's enough. It'll do. Reach up with one hand. Haul the ladder down. Climb. No coordination. I finally haul myself up with arms alone. It's enough. It'll do. Get to the top and open the hatch in her vat. Cling to the ladder with one arm. Prop my feet under me. The burning and tingle is giving way to throbbing pain from overused muscles. They'll do. They have to. Withdraw the Yellow Jacket from between my teeth.
She knows. LookingGlass1 knows. “What … how?" she asks.
“Coming for you, Bitch…” Thick writhing of neurofibers in the tank, but they're not made for rapid movement.
Hold the safety on the Yellow Jacket down and squeeze the trigger. For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee. The gun vibrates in my hand and I drop it in the vat and slam the lid down, sliding down the ladder in a controlled fall, landing on my feet, dropping into a heap and crawling away as fast as I can. She screams. Goes on screaming.
There's a muffled explosion. All screaming stops abruptly. The hatch at the top of the vat labeled LookingGlass1 blows open. I hear it. Keep crawling. Saline and sugar water flood across the floor. There are drains. It's gone in a few minutes. All is quiet. I borrow the network connection to LookingGlass2 for a few minutes before the security people show up.
Chapter 45
I feel like I've spent the first half of my life asleep. Like I have never really seen, never really breathed, never really been alive. I'm aware of the sounds and the smells and the tastes of this room, this place: the smell of moisture, the taste of salt water, the sound of the ocean, distant and muffled, but overwhelmingly large. Life. The sound of water flowing. Sound and feeling of my heartbeat. My breathing sounds raucously loud.
Was I asleep?
* * *
This is what I know. This is what I remember. I am. We are. We. All of us. Are here. Conlon is here. He's wearing a somber suit, grey, with a maroon tie. More than business formal. Funeral formal. His shoes are spit-shined in the rocky sand. He doesn't look at me.
Kimmy is here too. She's bathed. Her hair is cut short, but the lavender stripe has been dyed to the roots. She's wearing a black turtleneck. Black skirt. Black stockings. Black boots, cut low, close to her ankles. Could be club wear. Probably is, but she's not wearing the decorations, the flash that go with them. She licks her white, perfect, glossy teeth. She doesn't seem used to them. She's not used to those Utanium wrap-around HUD shades, either, but they kind of suit her.
Am I sleeping now?
I'm sitting in my chair. My new chair. The one I bought with Brian. Black jeans. Navy Polo shirt. Leather jacket. My hair is brushed down over my jacks. I'm wearing my boots. The soles are a little scuffed.
Is this…?
Look to my right. Lance is here. Close. I can smell his aftershave. Another somber suit, tweed, in his case. Gold cuff links. Black referee shoes. Basically sneakers. I have to smile a little at that. Look up at him. His hand is close to mine. He came here today for me. Kind of him. Very kind.
Is this…?
The ocean is here, too. Waves break on the rocks far out at sea from where I'm sitting. They wash up over the tide pools, where countless living things retract, cocoon, scuttle, and hide, even as they wait for the flood to bring them their twice-daily bread and deposit it in the cracks and crevices of the tide pools. Anemones, little crabs, small clams; all engulfed by the clean, black water. They hide now. They'll be back.
…real?
Tika and Brian are here too. The guests of honor, dressed in silver. The time has come. Look at Kimmy and nod. We each take an urn. I open mine. Put the lid aside. Take Lance's hand and stand up.
Kimmy and I tip the urns into the sea at the same time. Give them a shake. Tik and Brian's dust comes out of both urns into a cloud, settles on the water, mingles together a moment in little eddies in the tide pools. Ashes to ashes, Tik. I'm sorry. Dust to dust, guys. Rest in peace.
Sit down again. The legs are still awfully weak, and they're still sore from last time. But they're getting better. A wave comes, engulfs the tide pools again, then slides back from the land, and Brian and Tik are really, truly gone. Feel the real. Feel my eyes grow wet with tears. Let them come. Kimmy looks at me through Brian's old shades. She looks surprised at me. So does Lance. But the tears still come. Feel the real.
* * *
The beach, the hotel, the bar … the bed I shared with Tik. None of them exist in the real world. They were just sets in Sex on the Beach 16. Which I'll have to watch some day. Some day. Not yet. Meantime, I'm in a different hotel near a different beach. But I am in Cabo. I'm here. Really here.
I'm lying on the bed after a day in the sun. My pasty white tanker skin has colored a little despite the total sun-block I'm wearing. I can feel the sheets against my skin. Smell the clean, vaguely chlorine smell of bleached cotton. Listen to the shower. Know for certain that when it stops, I'll have company in bed. The memories I still carry from Tika smile a little inside me. I have to smile back.
Loose ends. I was dragged to the OmniMart San Jose security office. They used the first aid kit on my various scrapes, and found me a bathrobe to wear. Then took me to Bancrier's office. I told him the whole story. Told him also that I had a court date an hour later, and that if I disappeared, that would get my name into Interpol. Then I told him about the data dump sites I'd planted as well. It had only taken minutes while I waited for security to come. They're gone now.
Blackmail isn't a long-term solution, but at the time the threats were real enough to give me some leverage. On a dead-man switch. Which meant that if I didn't deactivate them, the data dumps would have gone off and the whole story would have hit hacker forums and public news sites simultaneously.
On a slow news day, the story might even have gotten picked up and syndicated by one of the big networks. With my name already in Interpol's systems, the data would have glommed onto that. With public exposure, Interpol would act. He knew it. I knew it. He pulled a gun anyway. Stupid. It didn't matter. I'm neurowired now, and I slapped his gun hand down onto the table as soon as I saw what was in it. Unplugged him from his desk, and plugged him into my head. After that he saw things my way. As the brand new CIO, he had the authority to sign contracts for the company. We made a deal. I got laid off. Not fired. Laid off. Later that afternoon he apparently sent some e-mail, walked into the men's room and put his gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. Oops.
The company graciously sprang for Brian and Tika's wake. That was part of the deal — both bodies, cryated. Freeze dried, basically. The ecological way to go. They had no wills, so it seemed right to wake them at Point Lobos State Reserve, in Carmel. The city they'd shared, so loved. Planned to seduce me in. The company also graciously bought out the mortgage on the house and signed it over to Kimmy as compensation for her injuries. I wrung the best deal out of the company I thought I could get away with. I'm still pissed off. Still. But it's residual. It will pass.
Likewise Silver and Rei's funerals were together. They were buried together in their family's vault in the Baker Street Cemetery in West Roxbury, outside of Boston. They had family after all, as it turned out. The company paid, naturally. The company paid for the night shift crew's funerals too. Settlement-wise, the company got off cheap. Bancrier probably would have gotten a bonus for it. If he'd lived. Instead, Conlon went to the funerals, and is standing for promotion to replace Bancrier as CIO. Lucky little weasel.
News? Well, I re-downloaded the soft and ran my news ice this morning. On the OSDeck. Because I can. I checked the news for the first time in days, so there's lots. OmniMart's lawsuit against GenData for the malfunctioning of their first production LookingGlass network security system is proceeding apace, and there are rumors of a corporate war brewing between the two companies. However, Interpol has stepped in and both companies are being investigated thoroughly. LookingGlass's contract tech-ninjas faded back into the woodwork, and nobody has said a word about them. Not even the ones Brian left dead. That doesn't seem quite fair either, but, it's an occupational hazard, I guess. Management probably used to say the same thing about me. About us. We few… Exactly.
Anyway. Rumor has it the corporate death penalty may be invoked against OmniMart for siccing the LookingGlass unit on the existing network people. A certain digitally signed directive to the LookingGlass unit found its way to an Interpol office, it would seem. Wasn't me. Look at the date stamp. I was offline. Realistically, I don't expect OmniMart to be forcibly liquidated. They'll strike a deal with Interpol, a few execs will go to prison, and a bunch more will turn up dead of natural causes. As in, you naturally die when you get a wirehead behind the ear. Perfectly natural, as the board reshuffles and those responsible for the precipitous drop in OmniMart stock are punished. GenData's stock is severely depressed as well. Suspicion about the information leak to Interpol will naturally fall on me, I suppose. But neither company can do anything about it while Interpol has them over the barrel. They also know I could make things much worse for them. If I disappear afterwards they also become repeat offenders. They might still sue me, but not if they're smart. Conlon knows better, at least. Hopefully they'll listen.
My court date in Redwood City? Canceled. The City of Denver faxed a copy of my original birth certificate to the Redwood City prosecutor's office. Unsurprisingly, my footprints still match. There's something to be said for paper records. The prosecutor's office dropped charges and had a long chat with my bank. But it was an honest mistake. LookingGlass reported my identity stolen. The bank was acting in my best interest. Lance showed up for my court date, as he'd promised. I'd forgotten about that.
It turns out that as far as any corporations know, Lance had nothing to do with my investigation in California. I split the bounty on LookingGlass with him anyway, because of course he had a lot to do with it. He seems to have been in my corner from the beginning. I suppose I should tell him about his part in it some time. Not a trusting person. Yeah, but I'm working on that. We're still talking about what happened. To me. It's been harder than expected.
Lance's job offer was on the up and up, too. I contracted with them for a couple weeks after the funeral. Stayed in Lance's guest room. They want to make it permanent. The company, I mean. Lance is sniffing at the idea too. Me, I'm thinking about it. If I take the job with I-Link, I'll start next week, helping them set up the brand new NOC in Vancouver, then spend a lot of my time hooking up new customers and transferring some of the load from I-Link Reno. I'll also get to try out the new Kuroto tanks I've heard so much about. On the other hand, there's also the possibility of working for NeuroGen. They're talking about productising ‘saturation neurofiber systems.' Translation: they want to take the lemons of losing the contract with GenData for the neurofibers and make lemonade by figuring out how to sell the process that happened to me — being stuffed with excessive amounts of neurofibers. I get the chance to do some engineering either way. With one I spend a lot of time in a tank again. With the other I'll be on guinea pig duty, and find out what I can really do all over again. And just when I thought I'd finally gotten some shit nailed down. They both pay pretty well. Maybe I'll do both. My retirement fund's a lot healthier, but I still need to work. Besides, I've got physical therapy to pay for. I still need to learn to walk. And I'd just as soon have the protection of someone or other's corporate attack lawyers, too. My legal situation could still get dicey on me. But it was a risk I had to take.
Right now, though, I'm in Cabo, and I don't intend to do anything about any of this until at least Monday. Lance is out of the shower. I think he'd like my attention. He's doing something delightful to my feet. In the weeks my feet and I have been speaking, I've learned to adore foot rubs all out of proportion. Lance has been happy to indulge me. Feel the real. Yeah, I know. Something Mom once said wanders through my mind, too. The best way to forget one man is in the arms of another. Thanks, Mom.
Anyway, Lance's daughter is very sixteen, the very picture of teen-age angst and rebellion. She is, however, happy enough to have their room in the hotel to herself and her date of the moment while Lance stays here with me. She's had her shots; let her have fun, I figure. Lance is skeptical. He wants me to talk to her. I don't know, though. That seems a little domestic to me. I'll think about it. Later.
