To Hold Infinity (9 page)

“Adam Farsteen, LuxPrime courier. His ID implant's in place.”

The world ebbed away from Yoshiko, then swept back in.

Strong young hands supported her elbows.

“It's not your son, ma'am.”

She hung her head, and wept.

 

A table drifted up past theirs. Its integral seats were occupied by a group of rich Fulgidi, laughing and joking, quite carefree.

Yoshiko stared at them, seeing a poor dead thing. A once wondrous vessel whose miracle, life, was gone.

“—some more?” Vin was asking.

“I'm sorry, Vin.”

“More daistral?”

“Ah—No, thanks. I haven't finished this one.”

Their own mag-lev table turned slowly, some five metres above the floor. Over Vin's shoulder, through the vast window, a range of violet snow-capped peaks swung into view.

“Your friend should—Oh, is that her?”

Maggie Brown was waving up at them, from the major-domo's desk.

Their table descended, lightly touching the carpet long enough for Maggie to take her seat, then lifted once more.

“How's Jason?” asked Yoshiko, after Maggie and Vin had introduced themselves.

“Fine. He's in a crèche. Nice facilities.” Maggie ordered brandy, and accepted the glass which rose up from the table's central iris. “More to the point, how are you?”

Yoshiko looked out at the distant mountains.

“I'm OK.”

Maggie drained her glass of brandy in one long gulp. Vin watched her in surprise.

“So what,” Maggie asked, “did you find at your son's house?”

Yoshiko closed her eyes.

“A body.” Vin's voice was soft, matter-of-fact. “A LuxPrime courier. Buried in the grounds.”

“You're kidding.” A pause. “Tell me more.”

Vin related the story, while Maggie drank a second glass of brandy. Yoshiko felt too numb to be astonished.

“It's a good job you called me,” Maggie said finally. “The local NewsNets have interesting regulations on how news is posted.”

“Placing context and keywords can be…sensitive.” Vin cleared her throat. “I know what you mean.”

Seeing Yoshiko's blank look, Maggie explained, “There are lots of ways to bury a story. What you need right now is publicity, to get people looking for Tetsuo.”

“I don't know…”

“And you say he's a Luculentus now? I didn't think that was possible. Most people on Earth wouldn't know that.”

“It can be hard to compete here,” said Vin. “Even if Tetsuo were used to dealing with unenhanced Fulgidi: many subject themselves to intense, life-long education programmes.” Her level tone neither condemned nor praised. “They use all sorts of ware to assist in negotiations, technical matters, you name it.”

“That's my hook, then.” Maggie leaned forward intently. “A lonely Earther, lost in an advanced culture, desperate to make his way…”

“Your hook?” Yoshiko felt dull and stupid.

“Absolutely. I'll hyperlink the item to my Skein reportage as current affairs background.”

Yoshiko gathered her concentration.

“Are you sure this is going to help?”

“It may mean the proctors won't stop looking,” said Maggie.

“I agree.” White light, reflected from distant glaciers, flowed across Vin's headgear as she nodded.

Major Reilly seemed pretty serious
, thought Yoshiko, but said nothing.

Something wet dripped onto her cheek. Above, at a drifting table, revellers clinked glasses and laughed uproariously, unheeding.

 

As they flew over mist-shrouded woods, Maggie raised the subject of LuxPrime technology.

“There's practically no info about it in EveryWare,” she said.

“I'm not surprised.” Vin must have been lightly interfaced, or not at all, with the flyer. Her attention was on Maggie and Yoshiko. “We don't discuss it much.”

“Please, don't talk about anything which makes you uncomfortable.”

“No problem. I guess you want your audience to think what it must feel like to be Tetsuo right now. I can't imagine.” Vin shook her head. “I'm no more conscious of my implanted plexcores than of my brain.”

“Plexcores?”

“Well—”

Yoshiko half-listened to them, feeling very tired. Down below were a few miserable sheep, bigger than the Terran norm. Soon, though, the pastureland was gone, swallowed by rolling mists.

“VSI comprises smartatom sheets, folded throughout the brain. Interfaces to the plexcores.”

“So a neural impulse can start in the organic brain, and continue seamlessly into the plexcore?”

Maggie's really very good at this
, thought Yoshiko.

“And vice versa. Thought is distributed, almost holographic,” said Vin. “Consciousness is an emergent property of competing waves sweeping across the brain…or across brain-plus-plexcores.”

“So you've just increased, ah, processing capacity?” Maggie paused. “Or are there qualitative differences?”

“How can I tell? I've never been an unenhanced human. Er…Sorry.”

“No need to be embarrassed.” Maggie grinned. “I'm used to being stupid.”

Vin laughed.

“What about Skein?” Yoshiko surprised herself by asking.

Vin's laughter died. “I can't imagine life without it. That's why Septor hated Earth so much, I think. We had fast-comm links between the three of us, but our Skein access was limited to gateways through EveryWare. It was appalling.”

“Like fish out of water?” suggested Maggie.

“Exactly so.”

 

Entwined curves, like pale-blue nautilus shells, nestled among pristine lawns. Maggie's hotel.

Vin brought the flyer in very fast past some tennis courts, then dropped smoothly to land.

“Thanks, Vin,” said Maggie. “As soon as I've picked up Jason, I'll start work on my article.”

As the cockpit membrane softened, Yoshiko suddenly remembered what Vin had said to Major Reilly.

“Vin? Didn't you mention something about a sponsor?”

“For upraise? Yes, that's a requirement.” Vin frowned. “Tetsuo was sponsored by Rafael de la Vega.”

“Maybe Maggie could—”

“I've met him!” Maggie gripped Yoshiko's arm. “When I was interviewing someone at the Skein conference. I'm sure that was the name. Do you know him, Vin?”

“Not really, but Lori, my soul-mother, does. Very sexy, she thinks.”

“And—?”

“And she's right, but sometimes he makes my blood run cold. I can't say why.” With no physical gesture, Vin caused a holo still to appear: a dark-featured man, extraordinarily handsome, with piercing eyes.

“That's him,” said Maggie. “Rashella introduced us.”

Vin froze. “You mean Rashella Syntharinova?”

“Yes. I was interviewing her. Why? What's the matter?”

“It's not been released to the lower—ah, the public access levels, but Skein's awash with the news. Rashella Syntharinova killed herself.”

“Suicide? Are you sure?”

Vin looked from Maggie to Yoshiko.

“That's what everyone says.”

 

“Which would you recommend?” asked a coarse-looking man, raising his collar against the night's cold breeze.

“That one's OK.” His companion pointed at a floating bubble, which descended to the cobbled street.

The bubble's membrane opened, and a scantily dressed woman beckoned the man inside.

Rafael, from his seat under a glowglobe, watched as prostitute and client drifted upwards, into the darkness.

He pulled his dark heated cloak warmly about him.

The remaining man walked underneath bobbing spheres containing glamorous-looking girls, some performing dance steps, then stopped below one whose occupant was a huge woman, standing with her massive thighs apart. He gestured, and the bubble descended. He stepped inside and then that sphere, too, lifted and was gone.

Rafael stood up, unobtrusively pulled a smartfilm mask across his face, and continued his peregrination through the Floating Worlds district. No one glanced at him; the mask convincingly altered his features.

Dark alleys, bright sleaze: holos beckoning the unwary and the desperate into clubs where any taste was catered for. He walked, enjoying the feel of hopeless hunger which hovered behind the counterfeit glamour.

He turned away from the crowded main thoroughfare. The streets grew quieter, with unlit stretches between the clubs, and fewer floating bubbles. The lower end of the market plied their trade from doorways and street corners. Some of them bore black eyes, chipped teeth.

Rafael pulled up his cloak's hood, hiding his headgear.

A girl turned to look at Rafael. She stood casually, but her eyes were reptilian, hard and calculating.

“Show you a good time?”

Coarse accent, makeup thickly applied. Young. Legs in stockings, or perhaps a tattooed web—a centuries-old courtesans' code. Narrow hips. Much scrawnier than the mature Luculentae that Rafael preferred.

“Why not?”

He followed her into a bleak hallway. Paint flaked from dank walls, and the corridor reeked of bodily fluids and despair.

The girl stopped and turned. “Thirteen credits, all the way.”

Light from a fitful glowglobe cast the lines of her young/old face into unflattering relief.

Wordlessly, Rafael held up his anonymous cred-ring to her sensor.

“Follow me, babe.”

His skin tingled. Surveillance system.

 

<<>>

 

Ignore.

His smartmask, which had already altered his features, was extending itself to cover hair and exposed flesh with an invisibly thin layer, melding at the throat with his monomolecular suit. His hands, too, were protected.

He would leave no trace of himself behind, in this place of tawdry dreams and disappointed fantasies.

The girl's room was bare, furnished only with a narrow bed and a stool. A blurry holo of a small house stood on the window sill. Her home? What kind of childhood had she led?

“Let's get you ready, honey.”

“If you like.” Rafael threw back his cloak, then ran a finger down her slender, fragile neck.

His senses quested, but there was no surveillance in here. Unless the girl yelled, her hidden help would not come to her assistance.

“Oh, yes, baby—” She closed her eyes and rocked her hips in a parody of pleasure.

She pressed herself against him.

“No—”

His fingers dug like steel claws, constricting her arteries, and her breathing quickened, like a runner at the marathon's end. His own excitement mounted.

Come on, fight. That's it. Fight for life.

She struggled.

Rafael's breath, too, was coming hard and fast.

She fought and kicked, and Rafael's heart thumped wildly with pleasure, ever faster as her strength slowly ebbed. Finally, in a nicety of timing, he climaxed just as death rattled in her crushed throat and life's light faded from her small pale eyes.

He let the body slump to the floor.

It lay there, twisted unnaturally. Already, a stench was rising from the soiled meat.

Rafael gathered his cloak and swept out of the room, down the hallway—ignoring the worthless surveillance system—and out into the street.

Power thrummed inside him.

At the corner, two big men took a step in his direction, perhaps just to sell him some illegal pleasure, but he met their eyes and they glanced away.

Power.

 

He used the underground tube system, in preference to an air-cab. As his car pulled into Lucis Central, it detached itself from the rest of the train and rose up a vertical shaft, and deposited him in a small cobbled plaza.

An unarmed proctor nodded to him, and Rafael smiled back. In the Floating Worlds district, only two kilometres away, the proctor would have had a partner and a drone, and carried a hand graser.

As Rafael walked, he retuned his cloak to a gaudy blue, slashed through with gold. He reconfigured his smartmask into an obvious caricature of a wolf.

The Lupus Festival was in full swing. Crowds were thronging Pietanaro Square, and the neighbouring Vitanova Gardens. Rafael took one of the suspended silver walkways, bought a drink from a vendor, and stood against a rail, admiring the dark trees and their bright symbiotic blooms lit by a thousand dancing glowglobes.

Flute music drifted through the leaves.

“Happy Lupus!”

A Luculenta, arm in arm with two Fulgidi—her staff, perhaps: it was festival time—greeted Rafael. She tuned her wolf mask to transparency. Her face was lovely.

“Happy Lupus,” Rafael replied, but kept his mask opaque. It was the most polite way to decline an invitation to join them at an opera or poetry contest.

She smiled without regret, and continued along the walkway. Elegant people passed below, going about their genteel celebrations. Floating Worlds, and the other Lowtown districts: did they ever think of them?

Rafael breathed deeply of the scented night air. It was so wonderful to be alive.