Perion Synthetics (5 page)

Cam nodded his head and smiled.

“Something I said amuse you, Mr. Gray?”

“No, no, I like it, this whole flack persona
you’ve got going on. Underneath it all, you’re just a big ol’ dork, aren’t
you?”

“We all are, but if you want to get anywhere
with these people, you probably shouldn’t refer to them as such. No dork, geek,
dweeb, or otherwise.”

“Are we talking about Chuck specifically?”

“Chuck is a good man; he doesn’t deserve to
be called names. Brilliant in a lot of ways, and dedicated, like Mr. Perion.
They’re good friends, you know.”

Of course he knew. The dossier on Charles
Huber was ten pages long, detailing every acquaintance he had ever made, both
professionally and personally. None of the names meant anything to Cam yet, but
it was interesting that the timeline and Chuck’s professional accomplishments
seemed to end simultaneously when he joined up with Perion Synthetics. How could
a man so prolific in his twenties and early thirties resign himself to R&D
at a corporate giant?

“So, Perion put the team together himself?”

“We’ve always cultivated the best minds,
real time travelers,” said Sava.

The term made instant sense to Cam, who upon
seeing the synthetic guard crumble at his feet had wondered if the whole trip
were some kind of dream, an interactive movie being pumped into his brain in
the back room of some sim parlor. No amount of promotional footage could have
prepared him for seeing the tech in person, seeing that perfect blend of machinery
imitating life. Even with his years of experience, Cam had found it hard to
disguise his astonishment.

“We need people who can keep up, who won’t
succumb to complacency just because they met their Q3 quotas.”

“The best of the best, right?”

“Is that envy, Mr. Gray?”

“It just raises questions.”

“Such as?”

“Well, the big one,” said Cam, sitting up in
his seat, “is that as far as I can tell, Perion City is one big beta test for
your synthetics program, right?”

“In a way. Mr. Perion’s first tenet of
business is that we’re customer zero. If we don’t use the product, how can we
ever hope to make it better?”

“Ah yes, the Perion Tenets of Business.
Number thirty-eight: make sure each product has functioning genitalia.”

Sava folded her arms. “I never said they
were completely functional.”

“Okay,” continued Cam, “so ballpark, how
many synthetics with partially functional junk do you have running around this
place?”

“The PC is home to four hundred and sixty
thousand residents, give or take. Almost a third of those are synthetics.”

“In what capacity?”

“It varies,” said Sava. “You’ll see.”

The Perion Expressway began to veer
easterly, away from the colossal Spire rising up from the center of the city.
The car exited and turned onto a side street, giving Cam a proper look at the
monument to Perion success. Someone had turned the sharpness filter all the way
up, adding details he had never noticed before in marketing collateral.

“It really came out of nowhere, didn’t it?”
he asked.

“It looks better at night. By day, the
mirrors make it practically invisible.”

The car pulled over as the Spire loomed, now
visible through the tinted glass of the moon roof. They had stopped in front of
an open-air cafeteria set behind an expansive patio. Only two of the outdoor
tables were occupied; they had umbrellas to shield them from the glare of the
Spire.

Sava made no effort to move.

“Do we go?” asked Cam.

“In a minute,” she replied, consulting her
phone again. “There’s something I want to show you first.”

“Another demonstration?”

Sava ignored the question. “Across the way
there is a child development center.”

Cam followed Sava’s gaze and took in the
squat, two-story building. A large mural adorned the left side of the school,
mirroring the orange monkey bars and green swing sets of the attached
playground.

“At eleven-thirty, classes will break for
lunch, and the instructors will take the children across the street to the
cafeteria. You see the policeman waiting by the sidewalk? He’ll stop traffic in
both directions until everyone has crossed.”

“You have your own police force as well?
Paid for by the state?”

Sava scoffed. “State money means state
involvement, and we can’t have that here. Our police force is a blend of Scorpios
and humans, mostly prior service military. They were put in place to acclimate
synthetics to the idea of civil authority.”

A bell rang out across the street and
moments later the front doors of the school opened by themselves. A group of
children appeared—Cam counted twenty before giving up—chaperoned by four adult
women.

“How many synthetics do you see?” asked
Sava.

Cam studied the women carefully as they
herded the children to the edge of the sidewalk.

“I’m going to guess three.”

“Why just the three?”

“Well,” said Cam, “to put it indelicately,
the fourth one is… rotund.”

Sava chuckled. “There you go, proving Dr.
Bhenderu correct. The
rotund
woman you pointed out is one of his
experiments, a synthetic by the name of Mrs. Albright. Dr. Bhenderu believes a line
of synnies with perfect bodies would have a detrimental effect on the body
image of their human owners. And while there are some applications that call
for a slim chassis, others do allow some leeway.”

“Fat robots,” said Cam. “Who would have
thought?”

“She’s not fat,” said Sava, peppering her
monotone with a hint of anger. “She’s slightly above the average weight of an
American woman her age.”

“Not that I can blame her, right? She’s
exactly how you designed her. I just wonder what Mr. Albright thinks of his
wife’s weight problem.”

“Don’t be simple,” said Sava.

“Well, you said
Mrs.
Albright.”

“It doesn’t mean she’s married; it’s just
part of her imprinted identity. She didn’t really get her master’s in child
development from Vassar either.”

“Do the children know their teachers are
synthetics?”

“Not at this age. We don’t broach the
subject until they’re much older.”

“They don’t figure it out themselves?”

“
You
can barely pick out the synnies,
Mr. Gray.”

“Sure,” said Cam. “I’m just a city boy with
no reckoning of your new-fangled walking machines. But these are the children
of the best of the best of the best. If they aren’t smart enough to sniff out
the robots, surely the synthetic children can recognize one of their own.”

“How did you know?” asked Sava.

Cam smirked. “Yeah, that was the whole point
of your little guessing game, right? Look, making that guard eat pavement was
pretty incredible, no doubt, and I’m blown away by the attention to detail in
those teachers.” He sat forward on the seat and looked out the window again.
“But look at those synthetic children, look at their faces and those of the
human kids next to them, look at how they observe the world. Not even your
engineers can reproduce the look of wonder on a child’s face. Given how smart
you claim your people to be, I’m surprised you even tried.”

Sava crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes
at Cam.

“This whole aggregator thing you’ve got
going on,” said Sava, moving her hand in a circle, “it’s just an act, isn’t
it?”

Cam shrugged and watched the children disappear
into the cafeteria. “You people are pushing the limits of human decency here.”

Sava pursed her lips, but said nothing.

“The kitchen is a marvel of efficiency,” said Cam.

His sliver glowed red at the sound of his
voice.

“There are five stations, each with its own
cutting area and sink. Utensils hang above on steel racks, a knife block in
each corner. Five synthetics man the stations—if
man
is even the right
word—and each one has its own program. They mash their ingredients into a
component, drop it on the conveyor, and repeat. At the serving counter, three
synthetics dish out the main course, a small selection of sides, and desserts,
mostly cookies or Jell-O.

“Two things of interest here. The
fundamental difference between synthetics and humans is that the robots don’t
tire. None of them are stopping to stretch their backs or crack their knuckles.
Repetitive movements do not faze them.”

Cam swiped his sliver while he considered
the phrasing of his second thought. Beyond the serving line, he caught sight of
an agitated Sava standing outside with one hand pressed to her ear and the
other gesticulating wildly. Chuck Huber, renowned for his contributions to
advanced robotics, was evidently a bit of a dawdler—a dilatory scatterbrain
when it came to social interaction, as Sava had so eloquently put it. When she
excused herself to make a phone call, Cam used the opportunity to slip into the
cafeteria kitchen to see if synthetics were being used in the food service
industry. With the exception of the mustachioed man in a chef’s hat watching a
vidscreen at the back of the kitchen, it appeared they were being used
exclusively.

“They don’t tire,” Cam continued. “They
don’t seem to lose focus at all. Even when I came in, they barely noticed me.
Strangely enough, I feel they all know I’m here.”

The synthetics were all wearing the same
uniform: black slacks, white, button-tab tunics, and aprons as pristine as the
floor on which their polished shoes walked. The one closest to Cam had black
hair cut close to his head and a light beard on square features. The nametag on
his tunic read
Gerard
.

“Excuse me,” said Cam, approaching the prep
station. He held out his press badge, but the cook didn’t look up from his
cutting board. “I’m Cameron Gray with Banks Media out of Los Angeles. Would you
mind if I asked you a few questions about your work here?”

Gerard remained mute, focused.

Pull a head of lettuce from the pile. Run
it under the faucet for fifteen seconds. Make four cuts equidistant from each
other. Chop into four piles. Combine in bowl.

“Everything is scripted and precise,” said
Cam, dictating again. “Dishes are set just far enough away so they don’t
interfere with the process. The same goes for utensils. Some are
balanced—carelessly, I might add—on the edge of the counter, with their blades
pointing outward. Where is OSHA when you need them?” He tapped his chin. “An
experiment is needed.”

When Gerard reached for a new head of
lettuce, Cam pushed one of the knives off of the counter. It fell halfway to
the floor before the synthetic caught it by the blade and replaced it. His
hands moved faster for several seconds to make up for the lost time and then
settled into his normal tempo.

“Please don’t do that.”

Cam narrowed his eyes; Gerard’s lips hadn’t
moved at all. It wasn’t until the voice spoke again that Cam realized it was
coming from the man in the chef’s hat. He had come off his perch to deal with
the intruder, and it appeared he was none too happy with the interruption.

“You the aggregator?” he asked.

“I is. Cameron Gray, Banks Media, Los
Angeles. And you are?”

“Customers aren’t supposed to be back here.
Health code and whatnot.”

“I’m not here as a customer. Tell me, are
all of your employees synthetic?”

“Last time I checked,” said the chef. His
nametag was conspicuously absent.

“And how long have you exclusively employed
non-humans?”

“What is that? Non-human?”

“Sorry,” said Cam, consulting his notes. “What
do you call them here?”

“This one here I call Gerard. See? That’s his
name right there on his nametag. That one over there is Wolfgang. And Pikel,
Miller, and Cooke.”

“The cook’s name is Cooke?”

The chef grunted. “Am I going to have to say
everything twice?”

Cordial, thought Cam. He looked around to
see if any of the synthetics were interested in the conversation, but they
seemed unaffected by their boss’ hostility.

“You knew I was an aggregator,” said Cam.
“So you were expecting me?”

A curt nod.

“Which I’m guessing means a memo of some
sort was passed around. And it would be a waste of said memo if its only
purpose was to inform you of my impending arrival. Therefore, I can only
conclude that not only were you told to expect me, you were also instructed to
be receptive to my questioning, under the directive of Perion the Almighty.” A
beat went by. “You get me? Or do I have to say it twice?”

The chef considered Cam for a moment.
“Cosimo Castelluccio,” he said, forcing a smile. “How can I help you?”

“How long have you worked here, Mr.
Castelluccio?”

“Four years.”

“And before that?”

“Sous-chef at Mandola’s San Francisco.”

Cam looked around the modern but
unimpressive kitchen. “You gave that up to come here?”

“My little girl goes to the school across
the street. I work lunches here to make sure she gets a good meal,” Cosimo
explained. “In the evenings, I’m executive chef at Chez Cosimo.”

“French restaurant, Italian cook. Makes
sense.”

Cosimo shrugged and nodded to the men and
women mixed in with the children at the serving counter. “Like any of these
eggheads can tell the difference. The only man in this city with a palate is
Mr. Perion, and I’ll give you two shakes of my monkey tree as to who brought me
in.”

“Ah,” said Cam. “Tell me about that.”

“It’s nothing much,” said the chef, patting
his large stomach. “One night, five years ago, I’m working the line at
Mandola’s and it’s a busy Friday. I have to call in an extra roundsman because
my saucier got a little third degree up and down his arm. Everything’s going to
hell and it’s getting late, and like some kind of goddamn celebrity, in walks
Mr. Perion. He’s got an entire entourage in tow, and Governor Howard,
and
some MX nationals I ain’t never heard of before. Mr. Perion sits down, doesn’t
even look at the menu, and orders pasta fazool for the entire table. I’m thinking,
is this guy crazy or what?
Of all the dishes I can prepare, this guy
wants the meal my mother throws together when she’s on her period.”