Perion Synthetics (4 page)

Something felt off about the room.

“Narration,” he announced. “The welcome
ceremony at
The
Perion City is an understated affair, with no luxuries
to speak of save air-conditioned transport, culminating in an unsettling
invasion of privacy. The entire process takes place in a small room in the dank
bowels of an outpost, far from sunlight or any amenity that would make one feel
at ease. One wonders why anyone would want to visit Perion City if this is the
reception they are afforded.”

Cam swiped a finger over his sliver and
paused the recording.

“What you said earlier about all people
having to come through here, that’s not entirely true, is it?”

Sava stepped into the scanning chamber and slipped
her fingers around one of the handles.

“Only those who have high-level clearance
can bypass the scanning,” explained Ferko. “There’s no telling what Vinestead
would be able to do with a man or woman roaming our streets. If that person got
behind locked doors… well, you can understand why we have to be careful.”

“Is that the company line, Ms. Kessler?” Cam
swiped his wrist again. “Is it James Perion’s position that Vinestead is
actively engaged in corporate espionage and/or sabotage?”

“Perion Synthetics acknowledges that our
proprietary technology is the most sought-after advancement of this millennium.
Any inference of misbehavior by Vinestead International is solely the
observer’s prerogative.”

“And off the record?”

“Off the record, Vinestead can burn in hell
for all eternity.”

Cam nodded. He had heard the vitriol before,
scrawled across the virtual walls of VNet and on the very real walls of the
techno-paradise of Umbra, CA. He made a mental note to find out which side Sava
fell on: fading hipster searching for a cause or die-hard freedom fighter itching
for a scuffle.

“Has a synthetic ever been smuggled out of
the city, by Vinestead or a Chinese syndicate?”

Sava hesitated as the glass partition slid
into place. “Once,” she said, her voice muffled. “Before my time, a van was
discovered on the Perion Expressway six miles from I-10. By the time they reached
it, the thermite in the synny had dissolved most of the floor and the drivetrain.
There wasn’t enough physical evidence to tie her abduction to a person or
persons.”

“That’s just begging for a dramatic
reenactment,” said Cam, pulling out his phone. He opened a notepad application
to capture some private thoughts. “Now, does everyone refer to synthetics by
gender? Not by
it
?”

“How would you feel if someone called
you
an it?” asked Sava.

“That’s different. I’m human.”

“According to this report,” said Ferko,
“you’re only
mostly
human.”

“Besides, gender isn’t exclusive to us.”
Sava blinked away a sudden dizzy spell. “Animals, vehicles, weapons…”

“Yeah, but animals have the equipment that
makes them a boy or a girl.”

“So do our latest generations of synthetics,”
said Sava, smiling. The glass partition retracted and she stepped out, her bare
feet silent on the carpeted floor.

Cam made a note to check out some of this
equipment
.
He laughed at the idea of sending Banks a photo of a synthetic wang.

“I assume I check out?” asked Sava.

Ferko nodded. “You’re mostly human too, but
no Vinestead tech in either of you, so I’ll sign off.”

One of the AGs stepped forward with a
palette and had Ferko press his thumb to it.

Sava slipped her shoes on. “If you don’t
have any more questions for Mr. Ferko, we can proceed.” She gestured to the
door.

They didn’t go back the way they had come.
Instead, the guards led them out of the room and left down a hallway until it
ended at an elevator. As they rode up, Cam tried to discern the sound of
synthetic breathing above the hum of the cables.

The doors opened on an expansive hangar that
led out to the Perion Expressway. A fleet of company vehicles lined the
perimeter of the space. In the middle, twenty or so camo-clad AGs engaged in
light sparring, their weapons and helmets set on benches to the right and left.
They paused only briefly to acknowledge the new arrivals.

An older man with stripes on his shoulder
stepped forward and nodded at Sava.

“Mr. Gray, this is Captain Javier Espinoza.
He leads the security team here at Outpost Alpha.”

“Pleasure to meet you,” said Cam, shaking
the captain’s hand. He nodded to the AGs. “Fine group you have here. Are they
all synthetic?”

Espinoza smirked and glanced over his
shoulder at his men.

“What do you think, Mr. Gray?” he asked.

They were all so uniform, yet purposefully
unique in their own ways. Some stood tall, breathing heavy. Others were slumped
over, sweat beading on their foreheads.

“I can’t tell one from the other,” Cam
admitted.

“That’s the point,” said Sava. “The ultimate
goal is for synthetics to be indistinguishable from humans in every way. Adding
routines to make them sweat or appear fatigued serves no real purpose other
than to make them more
real
.”

“Seems a little reckless.”

“How so?” asked Espinoza.

Cam stepped forward and locked eyes with an AG
who was staring a little too intently. “That one there, giving me the stink
eye. What if I went over there to kick his ass only to find out he’s a
synthetic and can’t feel pain?”

“Who says they can’t feel pain?” asked the
captain. “There’s a reason we call them Automated Guards and not Killing
Machines, Mr. Gray. A certain amount of illusion is required for protection of
the city; we learned that early on. Humans respond to aggression and danger,
not passive authority. So he’ll keep acting tough, staring you down until you
move on, but unless you pose a real threat to the PC or its inhabitants, he
doesn’t have authorization to engage you. He’s harmless.”

“Right,” said Cam, staring at the blank
faces, “but how do I know that
before
picking the fight?”

“You don’t, Mr. Gray, so maybe you
shouldn’t. Thank you for your time, Captain Espinoza, but we need to get going.
We’ve got a lunch meeting in the city that I don’t want to be late for.”

Espinoza bowed slightly to Cam. “Enjoy the
city,” he said, turning to rejoin his team. Over his shoulder, he muttered,
“Try to stay out of trouble.”

Trouble? Cam was investigating the state of
synthetics in the city of Perion; trouble was inevitable.

He walked closer to the Automated Guards and
put up a friendly hand.

“Gentlemen,” he said, flashing his press
badge, “Could I have a moment of your time?”

There was no response.

“Captain?” asked Cam.

“Alpha Company, attention!”

The AGs assembled in front of Cam and stared
straight ahead.

“Alright, if you would, please raise your
hand if you’re a synthetic.”

Twenty-four hands rose into the air.

“Okay,” he said. “Any humans in here?”

No one moved; all twenty-four hands remained
raised.

Espinoza chuckled. “They don’t see a
difference, Mr. Gray.”

“That’s some hard-hitting reporting,” said
Sava. “Why don’t you ask them what their favorite color is?”

The PC grew up gradually around the Perion Expressway.

It started with warehouses, giant
manufacturing buildings dotting the horizon like teeth, their metal roofs
creating blinding glares that brought Cam’s hand to his eyes. Sava referred to
this part of the city as The Fringe, so called because it employed the healthy
minority of Perion City residents who didn’t hold multiple degrees and whose
only contribution was manual labor. They lived in barracks-like apartments set
far back from the road, creating a second city of rough edges and rougher
people. Here, Perion turned a blind eye to the lack of polish, allowing
businesses to cater to the immediate clientele, provided they kept it close to
home.

Cam squinted through the window, spied a
giant pink gorilla sitting atop a gentlemen’s club.

“Bleeding edge of the technological
frontier, the brightest and best of their generation, and there’s still a
market for depravity,” said Sava. “They like to pretend it’s just for the
laborers, but every once in a while you see someone from the city sneaking out
here, looking for some decadence. Human nature, I suppose.”

“Well, it’s not just that,” said Cam.
“Evidently you have women in the city who are willing to take off their clothes
for money. Unless you’ve got synthetics showing off their jackports.”

Sava rolled her eyes.

“That’s not a no, Ms. Kessler.”

“We don’t have any synthetics in the sex
industry, not as strippers or prostitutes or otherwise. Mr. Perion wouldn’t allow
it.”

“And yet you make them anatomically
correct?”

“You should ask Chuck about that. We’re
meeting him for lunch downtown.” Sava checked the time on her phone and sighed.
“We may be late.”

“Chuck?” asked Cam, skimming through the
dossiers in his mind.

“Chuck Huber is one of the chief architects
of the synthetics program. I’ve arranged a meeting so he can prepare you for
the things you’ll be seeing.”

“You make it sound like I’m going to lose my
mind or something.”

“As I said, we’re years ahead of where
everyone thinks we are. You’ve already dropped your jaw once today, and that
was just a Scorpio, one of the simplest classes we have.”

“What would you say is your most impressive
application?”

“That depends. Our synthetics are capable of
great things, thanks to Chuck’s work. He was the one who solved the four
fundamental problems of synthetics. If you remember…”

“Oh I do,” said Cam, putting up a hand. A
buzzing grew in his ear; something was coming down the line.

“Is that so?” Sava raised her eyebrows. “Do
tell.”

Cam repeated the information streaming from
his whisperer.

“Charles Adam Huber, born September 6, 1971.
Graduated from Christa McAuliffe High School in Sarasota, Florida at the age of
fifteen. Holds multiple degrees from MIT and Cal Tech, and served on the
advisory committee of the National Science Foundation prior to coming to Perion
City. He is known in scientific circles as the man who wrote the vade mecum on
synthetic construction, including progressive modeling of muscle and tendon
mimicry.”

“You have a thorough research team,” said
Sava, “but Chuck didn’t really hit his stride until he came to work for Mr.
Perion. His best work has been here, which is why we’ve progressed while
Vinestead Synthetics is stuck in the mud.”

Cam glanced at his sliver. “You know I’ll be
recording whatever Chuck tells me, right?”

“Whatever ends up on the feed will benefit
Perion Synthetics. I can assure you of that. No, we’re more concerned with a
Vinestead extraction team cutting off your head and reconstituting our
corporate secrets from your gray matter.”

“Okay,” said Cam, rubbing his neck, “now I’m
going to have
that
image in my head all day.”

“Be thankful you still have one,” said Sava.
She pulled a pack of gum from her purse and popped a piece into her mouth.
“Gum, Mr. Gray?”

“Do synthetics chew gum?” he asked,
accepting the offer.

“They can, though I doubt one has ever had
the impulse to do so on their own.”

Cam tapped his chin with his finger as he
chewed. “That means something, but I don’t know what it is.”

Sava grinned.

Turning to the window again, Cam watched the
warehouses give way to cookie cutter neighborhoods that stretched away from the
Perion Expressway in logarithmic spirals. Even the city planners were eccentric
brainiacs.

“How many Perion scientists does it take to
change a flat tire?”

“Seriously?” asked Sava.

“Trick question,” said Cam. “They never get
past trying to reinvent the wheel.”

Sava smacked her gum.

“Speaking of which, doesn’t anyone drive
around here?”

Since turning off I-10, they hadn’t passed a
single car, coming or going, and the supply trucks lining up at Perion Terminus
were nowhere to be found.

“As I said, there’s no unemployment. Most
people are at work right now, though we should be hitting the lunch rush when
we make downtown. The PC was designed from the Spire out, and mass transit was
a large component of that design, which keeps traffic at a minimum. That and
bikes.”

Cam huffed. “Really? The world’s greatest engineers
and scientists ride bikes?”

Sava fell into her flack voice again.
“Physical fitness is strongly encouraged. Perion Synthetics is one of the few
companies that rewards staying healthy.”

“Sounds like a great place to live and work.
I take it you’re happy here.”

Something flashed across her eyes, drawing
them away. Cam had seen people do that before—feeders distracted by the
constant whispers in their ears.

Sava touched the line of jewelry ascending
her earlobe, drawing Cam’s eyes to the intricate designs and diamond insets.

“Looks like it pays the bills,” said Cam.

“Same as your job does,” said Sava. “Even a
first gen Katsumi isn’t easy to come by. And a branded whisperer must be worth
more than most Angelinos make in a year.”

“Perk of the job,” admitted Cam. “If it were
mine to sell, I’d replace it with a KLH Tweeter and live off the proceeds.”

“And the iMerse?”

Cam shrugged. “What can I say? Virtual
reality is where it’s at these days.”

“VNet is a plague on the scene. No
self-respecting technophile goes anywhere near it.”

“So you’re a darknet kind of woman then?”

“No,” she replied, looking up through the
roof of the car. “VNet and all the other immersion nets are blocked here.
They’ve been talking about getting some kind of local network going for
residents, but nothing’s ever come of it. Anyway, you try jacking into VNet
from here and you’ll find yourself in some cozy null space.”