Perion Synthetics (30 page)

“Yeah,” said Joe.

“Good.” Gantz turned and pointed at Nico.
“And you, you little junkie. Lay off the synth and take care of my boy here. If
I find out where you’re getting that shit from, I’m hauling you and your source
in on charges.” He gave Nico a half-hearted shove as he passed him. “He
needs
you.”

Nico stopped scratching his neck long enough
to look at Joe, who had drifted back to the window.

“Is there anything I can do for you, boss?”
he asked.

“Yeah. Get Ms. Kessler’s people on an
obituary for Dad. Tell them it’s a just in case thing.”

Nico pulled out his palette and made a note.
“But I thought your dad was going to cover up his death?”

“Get this straight, Nico. That thing out
there is not my father, no matter how much you or I want to believe it. My father
is dying right here in front of us. So please, do as I ask. Get an obituary
drafted. People should know how James Perion lived and died.”

Something caught in Joe’s throat.

“The world should mourn the passing of the
real James Perion, not the synthetic.”

Joe’s sliver began to flash fifteen minutes before eight
o’clock on Monday morning, but instead of heading to the seventieth floor to
hear about synergy and market verticals, he took the elevator down to the lobby
and exited the north doors of the Spire into the Victoria Perion Memorial
Plaza. It had a circular arrangement, with two large half-moons of black,
wrought-iron fencing closing in from both sides, leaving openings at the south
and north ends to connect the Spire to First Street. Set along the low fences
were small tables, each with its own white umbrella. At the east and west
points, mobile carts sold coffee, smoothies, and various breakfast snacks.

Joe had been at his table for ten minutes,
staring at an uneaten blueberry muffin, when Sava Kessler showed up.

She was wearing a black blazer over a
blood-red shirt; silver sunglasses obscured her eyes, but she took them off as
she approached the table.

“Good morning, Mr. Perion,” she said. “Mind
if I sit?”

“Ms. Kessler, please,” he replied, giving
her as much of a nod as he could afford. “What brings you to the Spire so
early?”

Sava placed a tall cup of coffee on the
table and sat down. “I have a meeting with your father at eight-thirty. Won’t
tell me what it’s about, but what can you do?” She scoffed. “He can be very
secretive when he wants to be.”

“Dad’s got a lot on his plate right now.
Arranging to have an aggregator come into the city probably takes a lot of
work, especially if you’re trying to keep it quiet.”

Sava stopped mid-sip.

“Ah, so that’s what your meeting is about,”
said Joe.

“Why would he want to do that?”

Joe shrugged. “He won’t tell me. But
hopefully he’s rethought the plan and just wants you to talk to the aggregator
over vidconference or something.”

Sava sat back in her chair and crossed her
arms. “It might make sense as a PR move, but we’ve got no products heading to
market yet. The only other reason would be to answer some accusation laid by
another company, and I haven’t heard a peep out of Vinestead’s people in weeks.
So what is your dad trying to head off?”

How about the fact that a synthetic is
running the show now?

“I don’t know,” replied Joe. “I don’t
know where his head is at these days.”

Except he did know. It was lying in a
hospital bed with oxygen tubes sticking out of its nose.

“If Mr. Perion is looking for some PR love,
my department can deliver that without involving a media house. I’ll see if I
can talk him out of bringing someone in.”

“I wouldn’t get your hopes up. When Dad gets
an idea in his head, he doesn’t back down.”

“Neither do I,” said Sava.

A light breeze ruffled the umbrella above
them. The plume of steam from Sava’s coffee bent under the pressure.

Joe tried not to think of his father, but
the image of a shriveled hand on blue hospital sheets was stuck in his mind. He
had stared at it since waking up in the chair next to the bed, convinced it
might move, that James Perion would make a miraculous recovery. But the only
thing Dad could move was his chest, and even then a machine was doing most of
the work. He wasn’t dead, but he wasn’t alive. He was just a wilting flower
waiting for winter in a morphine haze.

“Are you alright?” asked Sava.

Joe fought back the tears and tried to
compose himself. “I’m fine,” he said. “I was just thinking about…”

About facing life without Dad. About having
a synthetic control the destiny of the most innovative company on the planet.
Synth J was supposed to carry on Dad’s dreams, but over time, its focus had
shifted from bettering the world to the preservation of its own existence. How
an aggregator fit into that, Joe wasn’t sure.

“…about Nico.”

Sava raised an eyebrow. “Mr. Shaw? Why?”

“He’s got a rush problem. Not enough to keep
him from doing his job, but enough to raise eyebrows.”

The words spilled out of Joe without much
thought; his mind was busy elsewhere, going over memories that would become his
only keepsakes after his father finally succumbed.

“Huh,” said Sava. “I wouldn’t have thought
his job was that stressful. Maybe you’re riding him too hard?” Sava’s blue eyes
sparkled over her smile.

“He’d have to show up for work first. And
even then, he’s so jacked I don’t even know if he understands where he is.”

“Have you told Mrs. Shaw?”

Joe shook his head. “I don’t think he and
Katherine are getting along these days.”

“Well, there’s your synth addiction,” said
Sava, tapping her fingers on her coffee. She paused, and then patted her breast
pocket. From inside, she pulled a code card and tossed it onto the table.

“What’s this?” asked Joe.

“It’s for Mr. Shaw.”

“More rushing isn’t going to help him.”

“No,” said Sava. “It’s not that kind of
program. This will cut through the withdrawal symptoms and heighten lucidity—kind
of like an anti-rush. It might help Mr. Shaw find a baseline when he starts to
come down.”

“Thanks,” said Joe, picking up the card. It
sported the typical Perion silver with a band of blue adorning one corner. He
slipped it into his pocket.

“Also, it’s not exactly legal,” said Sava. “Whoever
smuggled it in took the time to load it on a one-use card. I’d keep it away
from any members of law enforcement if I were you.”

Her phone beeped; she glanced at it and
sighed. “What’s the point of scheduling a meeting if he’s just gonna want me
there early?”

“Synth—?” Joe caught himself just in time.

“Synth what?” asked Sava.

“Nothing.”

“Alright, well, I hope everything works out
with your assistant. I’d hate for you to have to go through the trouble of
finding a new one.” Sava stood and adjusted her blazer. “If I see Mrs. Shaw around,
I’ll try to feel her out, woman to woman. Maybe she and Mr. Shaw could use some
counseling.”

Joe nodded, but he couldn’t throw his
empathy behind something as minor as a marital dispute. There were bigger
things going on in the world.

“Don’t worry,” said Sava, placing her hand
on his shoulder. “Things will work themselves out.”

Looking into her mirrored lenses, Joe
replied, “Yeah. I’m sure he’ll be fine. You be careful with that aggregator.
Don’t let them walk all over you.”

“Ha,” said Sava. “If I can handle weekly
interviews with Lauren Simmons, I can handle one measly aggregator. Whatever
your father’s intentions, I’ll keep the company’s best interests in mind. After
all, it’s the company I was hired to protect, remember?”

“I was wrong to doubt you,” said Joe. “Won’t
happen again.”

“See that it doesn’t,” said Sava. “Have a
good day, Mr. Perion.” She turned in her glossy heels and headed for the Spire,
walking with her shoulders pulled back and her legs reaching out in purposeful
strides, reminding Joe of his mother.

The image of Victoria Perion as an early
generation synthetic flashed in Joe’s head, but it didn’t last. There was no
way to see his mother as anything except human, no way to see her face restored
to the smooth, unblemished skin of her youth. A real memory fluttered out of
the mist, one of Joe tucked in beneath the sheets of his childhood bed and his
mother sitting on the edge, telling him he could do anything, overcome
anything.

The scene broke down and he found himself
staring at the table.

Joe pushed the untouched muffin away and got
up to leave. In the atrium, dutiful Perion employees scurried about, each of
them a spinning gear in the great machine, each knowingly or unknowingly
carrying out the master plan set in motion by Dad so many decades ago. Would
the workers be so eager to perform their assigned tasks if they knew their
orders now came from a synthetic mind, from ones and zeros vibrating along the
synaptic strings inside a Katsumi chip?

Joe rode the elevator up to the sixty-eighth
floor. The walls came alive during his ascent, displaying a rotating selection
of propaganda and public service announcements. A short video showed three
Aries-class synthetics assisting a group of elderly engineers in their day-to-day
tasks, as if they cared who helped them out of their chairs. Hopefully they
were too senile to realize their twilight care had been pawned off on machines.

Nico was waiting for Joe in the hallway on
sixty-eight, sitting on one of the leather benches with his legs crossed and
one foot bouncing involuntarily. His head shot up at the sound of the elevator
doors opening.

“Someone t-talked,” he said. “It’s all over
the feeds.”

“What is?” asked Joe.

Nico touched a dormant vidscreen on the wall
to bring up a three-split of the Banks Media, Lincoln Continental, and White
Line feeds. Hashtags jumped off the screen in bright white bursts.

Cancer? Dying? Future?

Shares of Perion Synthetics were falling
through the floor.

“Who fed it first?” asked Joe. “Was it
Banks?”

Nico started pacing the hallway. “No, not
Banks. A smaller feed on the East Coast, but it got picked up by The White Line.”

Joe watched the future of the company grow
murkier with each refresh of the stock price.

“What does Synth J have to say about this?”

“You think
I’m
gonna bring it up to
him?” asked Nico. “Fucking hell, Joe. He’s going to think it was
me
!”

“Well, maybe it was. God knows what you’d do
to score your next rush.”

“You’re gonna bring that up now?” He
approached the vidscreen and pointed at the dropping number. “
This
is a
fucking disaster, and you want to preach to me about addiction? This is our
livelihood going down the toilet. Me, Katherine… hell, even you. Your father’s
company is about to be written off by every investor on the planet, and there’s
nothing he can do about it because he’s already got one foot in the grave.”

Nico was panting; sweat beaded on his
forehead.

Joe looked down the hall to the double doors
at the far end. Through them and off to the left was his father’s bedroom. But
Dad wasn’t in there. His mind was gone, or clouded enough to be just as
well—saturated in synth and morphine.

“Shit,” said Joe, taking off down the
hallway.

“Where are you going?” asked Nico.

“To ask Dad a question.”

“But Joe…”

“He’s not dead yet!”

“We don’t have time for this. We need to do
something.” Nico’s shouting echoed in the hall.

“I know,” Joe called back. He stopped at the
doors and pulled the code card from his pocket. He said a little prayer as he
thumbed its shiny surface.

Dad would know what to do.

Ten minutes passed before the code started working.

Joe rose from the chair by the window and
approached the bed, watching his father’s eyelids flutter.

“The Creator is awake?” asked the synthetic
nurse. She had been sitting quietly in the library, listening through the
closed doors, likely plugged into the various monitors keeping watch over Dad.

She was an Aries variant endowed with the
medical knowledge of a gray-haired physician, though her smarts did come at an
aesthetic price. Her face had a silicone tint to it, an artificiality that kept
Joe from treating her like a real person.

“Leave us,” he said, without looking up from
the bed. He waited for the sound of retreating footsteps.

Dad’s eyes swung back and forth like a lazy
metronome before finally settling on his son. Parched lips opened and closed.

Although it had sat untouched for days,
there was still a pitcher of water on the nightstand, along with a glass and a
straw. Joe filled the glass halfway and brought the straw to his father’s mouth.
Dad drank slowly, his throat convulsing as he took down the liquid. When his
lips pushed the straw away, Joe set the glass back down on the nightstand.

“Joey.” His throat rattled when he spoke.

“Dad.”

“You look tired, son. Something on your
mind?”

Joe reached for his father’s hand. For the
first time in weeks, it squeezed back. “Yeah, I’ve got a little problem,” he
replied.

Dad managed a weak smile, closed his eyes
for a few seconds, and reopened them.

“How can I help?” he asked. A sudden
coughing fit belied his offer.

“That depends,” said Joe. “How are you
feeling?”

“Been having bad dreams. About your mother.
And you.” His eyes drifted to the window. “What day is it?”

“The ninth of November,” said Joe. “It’s a
Monday.”

Just hearing Dad speak caused a knot to
tighten in Joe’s stomach. After slipping into a haze a week ago, Joe thought he
would never hear his father’s voice again, that he would have to content
himself with the digitized reproduction coming from the synthetic. He wanted so
much to share his pain with someone, but there wasn’t another human on the
planet who had simultaneously lost their father and yet retained a crude copy.
Now, maybe he could share his struggle with someone who would listen.