Complete Atopia Chronicles (41 page)

“Isn’t happiness the central, single most important thing in a person’s life?” rejoined Hal, assuming a defensive posture.

As he turned to face me, his skin began sporting that revolting smile he loved to use on his EmoShow. To me he looked like a weasel on Prozac. His program was becoming ever more popular as it traded off the Cognix brand, but I had no idea what people saw in him. His ego had long since outstripped his talents.

“I wouldn’t argue with you Hal,” I replied, holding up my hands in mock defense, “but this is supposed to be a serious medical evaluation, not a popularity contest. And
knowing
about happiness is different than actually
creating
it.”

“Patricia,” Hal responded in a measured tone, as if I were a guest on his show, “I think you have some issues going on here, some issues beyond this discussion.”

“Don’t try to deflect this,” I snapped.

“Okay fine,” he laughed. Now he was the one with his hands up in mock defense. “I’m just saying maybe you should have a look at your own happiness indices before you go knocking the program.” 

He looked at me with raised eyebrows and tried to convey his simple, dishonest frankness to everyone in the room.

“I am happy!” I shot back before I realized what I was doing, my voice louder than intended. I closed my eyes and shook it off, taking a deep breath.
Little bastard.

The room fell quiet.

Kesselring rolled his eyes slightly and smiled towards our Chinese guests.

“Let’s move onto the next topic, shall we?” he asked around the table, and everyone nodded. “So, you all have the information about pushing the Infinixx launch ahead of the pssi launch. Who would like to open the discussion?”

“Give me one good reason we should let this happen,” immediately fumed Dr. David Baxter.

“David, you’ve seen all the phutures Nancy has presented. Almost every scenario comes out pushing the Cognix stock higher as we establish this with early adopters,” I countered. “You’re just annoyed because it’s not under your thumb.”

“That has nothing to do with it,” replied Dr. Baxter, and a tumult of angry voices and arguments began while Kesselring sat quietly and watched the whole thing, sighing. After a few minutes of this, it seemed we were at a stalemate when Jimmy spoke up.

“Okay everyone, I will give you one very good reason,” he shouted out. He stood up, raising his hands to quiet everyone. I could see him wink at Nancy.

“I’ve managed to secure an agreement with both India and China to launch simultaneously with us.” Even as he said it, the Chinese representatives began nodding their understanding and agreement.

Gasps issued forth around the table. Details of the negotiations sprang into everyone’s workspaces the moment Jimmy spoke and we all dropped off a splinter to have a look. Having India and China agree to a simultaneous launch wouldn’t just be a commercial coup, but a major political one for Atopia as well.

“How in the world?” said Dr. Baxter, his voice trailing off while his mind assimilated the back-story.

“You’re giving up a lot here,” said Kesselring. “A lot, but I can see the balancing act and the payoff. I like it. Are there any objections?”

Kesselring looked automatically towards Dr. Granger, who looked like he was about to say something, but then just shrugged and shook his head, looking towards Jimmy. Kesselring looked towards Jimmy as well and smiled, nodding his congratulations.

“I assume you’re good with this Nancy?” asked Kesselring, looking back towards her.

Kesselring looked directly at me. “I’m ready to make this happen, but I need one thing from you.”

“Yes?” I had a feeling I knew what was coming next.

“I need you to put this Synthetic Beings Charter of Rights on the shelf until after the commercial launch of pssi.”

I sighed and looked at the ceiling. He knew exactly how to exact his price for this.

“Yes, I can do that. But it will be at the top of my agenda as soon as we launch.”

Kesselring smiled. “Then we’re all agreed.”

Approving murmurs began to circulate. I reached out and held Nancy’s hand in mine, and smiled at both her and Jimmy. I was so proud.

“So, are we a ‘go’ for a worldwide press release?” sighed a resigned Dr. Baxter. He was Bob’s father. Talk about an apple falling far from the tree.

“Yes,” replied Kesselring, “assuming this is acceptable with our Chinese delegates?”

He looked towards them. They all nodded curtly in unison. I wondered if they realized that nationality was another idea that pssi was about to render irrelevant. Or perhaps, more to the point, a good chunk of the world was about to become de-facto Atopian citizens.

“Yes, let’s go ahead with the release. We are about to make history, ladies and gentlemen.”

“Imagine, a trillion dollar IPO,” I heard Hal muttering under his breath as he reviewed the launch details, stars gleaming in his beady eyes.

Getting up to leave, I said goodbye to both Jimmy and Nancy on private channels. I nodded politely to the Chinese guests, then to Kesselring and the rest of the Board. I even nodded to Hal, thanking him for not interfering in the Infinixx proposal.

§

The black granite and glass of the conference room melted into the deep mahoganies of my private office. I was making for the bar. A nice scotch on the rocks was just the thing I needed.

Marie was sitting against my office desk, her long shapely legs crossed in front of her as she leaned against it, propped up by her arms.  Cigarette smoke was rising slowly around her, and she took one more puff and put it out in the crystal ashtray on the desk. She leaned forward and stood and walked towards me, waving me off.  She’d get the drink.

“I know Hal is a pain, Pat, but you shouldn’t let him get to you,” she said finally, plucking my favorite scotch bottle from the collection.  A glass appeared in her hand and ice cubes chinked softly together as she poured the whiskey over them.

“It’s not that, Marie. I need to find out what Kesselring is hiding from me,” I replied. “Shifting Infinixx up on the release schedule was just too easy. Hal folded without even a peep.”

Marie raised her eyebrows. “Sometimes things just make sense, even to Hal.”

“Maybe, but Kesselring didn’t even seem surprised. I have the feeling something else is going on, and I need someone with, well, special skills to have a look at this from the outside.”

“On that note, your old student Mohesha from Terra Nova called again,” explained Marie. “She wants to set up a talk. It sounded very urgent. In fact, more than urgent.”

I decided to shift back into a much younger version of myself, and was now dressed in a short black skirt and cream silk chemise while a sub-proxxi of Marie walked my real body home from the Solomon House. I sighed and looked down admiringly at my legs, reaching down to straighten my skirt, sliding a hand along my thigh as I did. I trembled slightly at my own touch.

“No, it’s too dangerous to talk with the Terra Novans right now,” I replied.

“But not too dangerous to be talking with gangsters who’ve been trying to infiltrate Cognix?”

I stared at Marie. Of course she knew what I was thinking.

“Sintil8 doesn’t really want to stop what we’re doing, he just wants his cut,” I replied. Criminals were reliable in their predictability and motivations, if nothing else. “He has the kind of backdoor connections and freedom to operate that may yield us some answers.”

The problem wasn’t just my suspicions about Kesselring or our disagreements anymore. The huge depression we’d been tracking up the Eastern Pacific had transitioned from tropical storm status into full blown Hurricane Newton, and Hurricane Ignacia was spinning up into a monster Category 4 out in the North Atlantic. The way these storm systems were behaving had gone from being simply unusual to downright suspicious.

By my calculations, these weren’t natural storms anymore.

Taking a good long pull on the whiskey, I straightened up and looked Marie in the eye.

“Set up the meeting with Sintil8.”

Identity: Jimmy Jones

“I’M SORRY JIMMY, but that Patricia Killiam. Where does she get off talking about happiness? I’m really concerned about her.”

“No need to apologize Dr. Granger,” I replied. “I’m worried about her too. She just hasn’t been herself lately.”

We were taking an aimless wander through a few floors of the hydroponic farms, on our way back from Kesselring’s office after the Board meeting.  Kesselring kept his offices perched at the very apex of the connecting structures on the top floors of the vertical farming complex.  Even the master of synthetic reality liked to keep his specific reality above the riff–raff.

Over a hundred floors up, I enjoyed the views down on Atopia from here—the green forests capped by crescents of white beaches and the frothy breakwaters beyond.  Through the phase shifted glass walls, the sea still managed to glitter under a cloudless blue sky. The humid and organic, if not earthy, smell of the grow farms reminded me of the days I used to spend out on the kelp forests with my dad as a child.

“I’m getting tired of her routine as the famous mother of synthetic reality,” continued Dr. Hal Granger. “Sure, fluidic and crystallized intelligence are important, but isn’t synthetic emotional and social intelligence the key to all this?”

We’d all heard this speech before, repeated endlessly on his EmoShow, and now that I was on the Council, I was being given the treat of getting to hear it in person as well. Dr. Granger’s claim to fame was as the creator of the technology that could pick apart and decipher emotions, and you could be sure he wouldn’t ever let you forget it. I tried not to roll my eyes.

“What was more important to understand?” he asked angrily while we walked through the hydroponics. “What someone says, or the emotional reason behind why they said it? Who knows more about happiness than me?” 

“I’d say they’re both just as important,” I replied. Dr. Granger had used his growing fame to secure the position as head psychologist on Atopia. No matter what one thought of him, it was best to tread a careful line.

He stopped walking and turned to look at me.

“Exactly.”

One of the grow farm staff walked by and gave Dr. Granger a curt, respectful nod. His office was a few floors down from here, far away from the other senior staff, which was unusual. Observing him on our walk I think I knew why.

As we were walking, Dr. Granger had been watching the blank faces of the psombie inmates, and each of the staff had almost stood at attention while we passed. It was a structured and controlled environment, one that made him feel both powerful and safe. And important.

Most of the psombies here were people incarcerated for crimes, their minds and proxxi disconnected from their bodies as they waited out their sentences in multiverse prisonworlds. Even in paradise, we needed correctional services. Their bodies were consigned to community work around Atopia in the interim, safely guided by automated psombie minders.

While most of the psombies here were inmates, an increasing number were people who donated their bodies for community work while they flitted off amusing themselves in the multiverse. These people judged their bodies without enough value to even warrant leaving their proxxi to inhabit them.

“We’d better start a new special file on Patricia,” he said after a pause.

I shrugged. It wasn’t my place to argue. We continued walking.

“Shimmer!” he called out to his proxxi, who then appeared walking beside us.

Shimmer was a perfectly androgynous creature. As a synthetic being, sex was superfluous in the biological sense, but still critical in others. It was Shimmer’s ability to understand aspects of both sexes, and fluidly understand their emotional dynamics, that had made Dr. Granger famous. It was his lifetime’s work, although most people whispered that it was based on taking credit for his graduate students’ efforts over the years.

“Yes, Dr. Granger?” Shimmer replied. “Do you want me to start a new log entry on Dr. Killiam? Already done, sir.”

“Thank you Shimmer,” replied Dr. Granger, smiling at his proxxi. “Now please, I need to speak with this young gentleman alone.”

“Yes Dr. Granger.”

Shimmer faded away.

Hal turned to look at me while we walked, his hands now clasped behind his back.

“Do you really think it’s possible?” he asked, returning to the reason he had asked me to walk with him today. “I mean, with the technology we have now?”

“Absolutely,” I replied. “The project has been going on for some time, as you well know, in fact using some of your own work. Conscious transference—a lot of people have been working on it. But the trick, of course, is to get it right, for you to
stay
you, in the process.”

“And if I agree to support you, to support this, you will make sure that I’m the first?”

As good as medical technology was these days there was always the risk of the unexpected, of some accident sending you suddenly into the forever of oblivion. Dr. Granger wasn’t as concerned about his life, however, as much as he was about his fame surviving.

“Yes,” I replied simply. “It will take some time, though, certainly not before the commercial launch of pssi.”

“Good, good,” he said thoughtfully, apparently satisfied. He smiled at the mindless faces of some psombies that we passed.

“You know, Jimmy, you’re always working, you should find yourself a nice girl, find some emotional balance.”

He’d started into his EmoShow routine now, his face now serious and concerned.

He laughed. “I’m sure a good looking young man in your position must have girls throwing themselves at your feet. What I mean is you should find someone special.”

Saying nothing, I just nodded and silently continued on our walk down to his offices. I had found someone special, but I wasn’t going to share that with him.

§

Susie was a girl I’d had a special attraction to for a long time now. She was a unique soul, her emotions and sensations finely attuned, and I’d always felt like we shared a special bond.