Perion Synthetics (9 page)

“Chez Cosimo at seven,” repeated Sava.
“Don’t piss me off any more than you already have.”

“Yeah, or you’ll dismember me. Got it.”

Sava dropped the used code card into her
purse and secured it on her shoulder. She turned and headed for the back of
Southpoint Synthetics where Tank Maddox stood with one foot propping the door
open.

“She’s not pleasant,” said Roberta. Her hair
fluttered in the slight breeze; she turned to face the wind.

Cam watched her glistening eyes as they
observed the world.

Perceptive, he thought.

“Tell me about Los Angeles.”

Roberta hadn’t spoken in a while, had
instead spent the last ten minutes approximating the act of eating an ice cream
cone Cam had procured from a passing street vendor. Though she likely couldn’t
enjoy the dessert, she attacked it with the same fervor of a girl much younger,
and much more human.

“Cameron?”

“Oh, yes,” he stammered. His mind had
wandered due to the gyrations of a synthetic tongue as it lapped at the melting
ice cream. “Los Angeles, the Windy City.”

Roberta laughed, having settled on a
distinctive trill over the last few hours, likely the result of some algorithm
to gauge Cam’s reactions to her various chuckles and giggles.

“I don’t think that’s right,” she said.

Cam sipped at his Screwdriver. “My mistake.”
He cleared his throat, causing a nearby waiter to perk up. “Los Angeles, the
City of Brotherly Love.”

“Another drink, sir?” said the undoubtedly
human waiter—no logical creature would have embedded those ridiculous bicycle
tires in its ears.

“He might have had too many already,” said
Roberta.

“Los Angeles, the City of Angels; the
Entertainment Capital of the World; the House that Banks Built; La-La Land; the
Big Easy…” Cam handed his empty glass to the waiter. “Chi-town.”

“I’ll bring you another as long the madam is
driving you home.”

“I’m not sure she knows how,” said Cam,
sitting back in his chair. He put his hand to his chin and scratched at the
fresh stubble. “What about it, Roberta? Are you licensed to operate a motor
vehicle?”

Her eyes drifted to the street where the
bikes outnumbered the cars four to one.

“I can ride a bike,” she said, dabbing at
her mouth with a napkin.

“Seriously?”

“Well, I haven’t in a while, but you never
really forget.”

Cam’s laugh was amplified by the alcohol,
but it evoked such a proud smile from Roberta that he didn’t care how foolish
he looked or sounded. Besides, it was still early and the patio was mostly
deserted except for a few gray-haired engineers sitting down for their early
bird specials.

“Anything for the madam?” asked the waiter
as he returned with a glistening Screwdriver. “A glass of wine perhaps?”

“Oh, I don’t drink,” said Roberta.

Cam wanted to ask whether she meant alcohol
or all liquids, but the words wouldn’t come out. Roberta was being a good sport
about the whole
not being human
thing. There were times, however, when
his questions pulled them out of the fantasy and back to the world where she
was just a collection of gizmos and whatsits, a synthetic being manufactured
and programmed in a lab somewhere in the Spire. She was aware, at some level,
when his questions went too deep, but was it programmed indignation? Was it
code that made her eyes flutter, that gave her pause—all to let Cam know he had
touched a nerve, and more importantly, had hurt her feelings?

The answer was elusive, and the booze certainly
wasn’t helping.

“You’d like LA,” he said at last. “Lots of
stuff for a girl like you to get into. We’ve got traffic, pockets of
high-density crime, and a professional football team that hasn’t been to the
playoffs since before I was born. It’s a smorgasbord of excitement.”

Roberta reached out and put her hand on his.
“And it’s got you.”

Cam laughed as he shifted in his chair,
crossing one leg over the other. Turned on by a robot, he thought. If Banks
found out, he’d never let him live it down. With a quick swipe of his sliver,
he severed the uplink feed. When his phone beeped a few seconds later, he
ignored it.

“I’m sorry,” said Roberta, withdrawing her
hand. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“Not your fault.” Cam chugged the rest of his
drink and then rattled the ice in the glass. “Just sometimes I forget you’re…”
Again, the words faltered under the weight of some undefined sense of civility.

“I’m what?”

Her ice cream cone sat melting on a bread
plate as she waited for an answer.

Cam reached out for her hand and tapped it
lightly. “You’re delightful,” he said. “And amazing.” The haze crept in. “And
beautiful. Witty. Erot—”

The blaring of a car horn cut his list of
adjectives short. Cam turned in time to see a bicyclist go tumbling over the
hood of a silver sedan, his ten-speed bouncing back the other way. All traffic
around the accident came to a standstill, but nobody rushed to the biker’s aid.
When he popped up and started looking around for his bike, Cam realized he must
have been a synthetic.

“What in the holy fuck-all is wrong with
you?”

The driver slammed his door as he got out of
the car. He was a shorter man dressed in business casual, with a loosened tie
and white sleeves unbuttoned at the wrist. Not a scientist or engineer, and
therefore not part of the PC elite. Like Cosimo, this guy was just a worker, a
skilly in a city of techies.

“I’m sorry, sir,” said the synthetic. A
section of pink skin hung from its cheek; manufactured muscles of light blue
undulated below a black, fibrous inner wall.

“What’s your tag number, asshole? Who the
hell taught you how to ride a bike?”

Cam glanced at Roberta, wanting to make a
joke about never really forgetting, but the way she was sitting at attention
stopped him. Her eyes were wide and the vein running the length of her neck
throbbed in a rapid tempo. Cam wondered if she had ever been exposed to
violence before today.

The driver, fearing no retaliation, got
right in the face of the synthetic, poking him in the chest with every curse word
he threw out. Then came a genuine shove, sending the synthetic stumbling
backwards. Evidently, it was not endowed with the same kind of lightning
reflexes as the cooks in Cosimo’s cafeteria. Once the synthetic was on the
ground, the driver kicked him in the face.

Roberta gasped, which was all the
encouragement Cam needed to spring from his seat and vault the low wrought-iron
fence at the edge of the patio. He had no idea what he was going to do until he
was pushing the driver away and stepping in front of the fallen synthetic.

“What the hell’s your problem?” asked Cam.
The question activated his sliver and restored the uplink.

The driver blanked for a moment, as if he
hadn’t considered the idea of someone coming to the synthetic’s rescue. His
anger refocused on Cam.

“Who the fuck are you?” he asked.

“Cameron Gray, with Banks Media out of Los
Angeles. I’m investigating no-class Perion employees who beat innocent
synthetics in the street. Perhaps you’d like to take a swing at me so we can explore
the differences between synthetic and human responses to violence?”

“Please don’t,” said the synthetic. He
climbed to his feet slowly, as if he had sustained actual injuries.

“Oh,” said the driver, “so you’re the big shit
aggregator everyone’s been talking about? Well, I’ve got a
feed
for you,
Mr. Banks Media Los Angeles: this is a Perion-only matter. Why don’t you get
the fuck out of my face and out of my city?”

“But don’t you see? Perion-only matters are
what I’m interested in. I want your face under my headline.
Synthetic
Punching Bags: The True Story of Humanity in Perion City
. Your name, your
story, followed by James Perion’s reaction to his employee’s conduct. How does
that grab you, asshole?”

“Please, sir, there is no need for an
altercation.” The synthetic put a hand on Cam’s shoulder.

With his head turned, Cam barely saw the
sudden movement out of the corner of his eye. The driver lunged forward,
swinging a hefty fist at Cam’s face. He felt the wind from the impact as it
stopped an inch from his nose. He stumbled backwards from the shock, and was
caught by the biker.

“Why don’t you pick on someone your own
size?” asked Roberta. She had plucked the driver’s fist out of the air and was
now squeezing. His knuckles popped, audible even as he screamed in pain.

“Roberta, directive! Release him.”

Sava’s commanding voice took the air out of
the confrontation. Even the murmuring of the crowd died down as people began to
notice the half dozen men with guns who had circled the area.

Roberta let go of the driver’s hand,
allowing him to fall to his knees. An ambulance honked its way through the
crowd carrying EMTs. They rushed to determine the extent of the driver’s injuries.
Seconds later, another team arrived to examine the synthetic.

“Did you forget what I told you about
pissing me off?” asked Sava.

Cam took a step back, not liking the smell
of the flack’s breath. “Maybe. Was it after the part where you told me you’d be
following me around waiting for me to fuck up?”

As the adrenaline tapered off, Cam felt
himself start to sway from the weight of four Screwdrivers.

“You’re not here to fight with the locals.”

“Technically, I wasn’t fighting with him. He
took a swing at
me
. Plus, you should be thanking me. I was protecting
your investment.”

Cam looked down as a hand slid around his
waist to steady him.

Sava saw it too.

“You’re not here to
fuck
the locals
either.”

“Rude,” said Roberta. “Cameron, can we go
now?”

Cam brandished his teeth at Sava.

“You’re lucky I don’t bounce you,” said
Sava. “I could do it, you know.”

His phone beeped and Cam noticed his sliver
was glowing red.

“So is this kind of behavior common in
Perion City? Do the humans regularly take their anger out on synthetics who
can’t fight back?”

“Sometimes, yeah,” said Sava. “That’s how we
do things. It’s not assault because they’re not human. It’s property damage,
our
property.”

“And the synnies always have to take it?”

Sava scowled at Roberta. “I guess not
anymore.”

Roberta said nothing, but stepped behind Cam
as if he could protect her.

“You turned off your uplink,” said Banks, his voice echoing.

Cam grimaced.

It wasn’t exactly protocol to
hijack the feed and speak directly through the whisperer, but with Banks, it
was downright unsettling. Having that man’s voice in his head was like having a
second ego, and Cam already struggled enough with the one.

At the moment, he had a bigger
problem—trying to stay upright while making use of the facilities at Chez
Cosimo. Luckily, the bathroom’s designers had been bright enough to put thick
walls between each of the urinals, giving Cam something to lean against as he
relieved himself.

“Not now, boss,” he replied. “I’m trying to
piss.”

“I don’t care if you’re up to your elbow in
synthetic cooch—you don’t kill your uplink.”

“Nice image,” said Cam, testing his ability
to stand. Finding the task too difficult, he leaned once more on the wall.
“Speaking of cooch, how’d you swing the deal with Roberta? Sava was pee-issed.”

“I don’t know. I was surprised myself.”
There was a pall, broken by the flush of a urinal. “I really thought Perion was
going to fight me on it.”

“Well, I’m glad you did whatever you did.
Roberta is
awe
some. If she’s what’s coming down the pipe, Perion is
going to make a metric fuck-ton of money.”

“Now you see why I didn’t dump my stock like
the rest of those idiots?”

Cam zipped up and went to the sink to wash
his hands. He noticed the bathroom attendant regarding him with a narrow eye. Cam
tapped the side of his head in explanation.

“Bullshit,” he told Banks. “No way you knew
about this beforehand. Even Kessler was completely blindsided, and she seems
like the kind of woman who does her homework.”

“Jesus, Cam. How much have you been
drinking? Of course I didn’t know about Roberta. All I knew was Perion had
something up his sleeve. He’s a thinker, a problem solver, and all of that
before
a businessman. He’s got more ideas than you’ve got brain cells. He’s a…”

The whisperer went silent.

Cam let the water run in the sink and then dried
his hands.

The tinkling of ice in a glass preceded
Banks’ next words. “He’s a titan. And people should respect him for that.”

“Is that what this is about? Honoring him?”
Cam leaned against a table near the door. “You want me to paint a pretty picture?
Perion’s perfect PC isn’t presenting a promising potential. All menial jobs
will be taken by synthetics, leaving the uneducated unemployable. We’re talking
about a new age of slavery signed, sealed, and supplied by the old man
himself.”

“That’s not his goal,” said Banks, his voice
even again.

“Then what is?” asked Cam. He caught his
reflection in the mirror and smoothed out his hair.

“That’s what you’re there to find out. Why
Perion City? Why the mystery? Based on what we’ve seen today, these things look
ready for real-world testing, and yet Perion’s keeping them close to his chest.
I want to know why.”

“I’ll go find out,” said Cam, jumping in
place a few times. He stumbled on the last hop and fell into the wall. “Or
throw up trying.”

The whisperer ramped up again, feeding the
usual white noise of world news and sports roundups. A trailer for the latest
Bollywood invader played as Cam exited the bathroom.

Chez Cosimo’s Monday crowd was a mix of
stiff-shirted executives and lab-coated engineers. Every table in the main
dining area was full, as were the booths lining the outer walls. Towards the
back, silhouettes of raucous dinner parties danced on the privacy screens. The
door to the largest of the private rooms was slightly open in anticipation of
Cam’s return. Inside, he could see Sava sipping from a glass of wine and
playing with her phone. She spied him through the open door and looked away.