Synners (11 page)

Manny gave a short laugh. "I know all about them. They'll have representatives in Topanga tomorrow night for a presentation, which will include much stronger selling points."

Travis's face didn't change expression. "The pathways from each socket all end up, without exception, at the limbic system, the seat of our basic emotions—rage, fear, pleasure. When the sockets are engaged, stimuli will induce these things directly, for the duration of the experience. The consumer plugs into the feature presentation—music video, movie release, commercial, standard TV fare—and undergoes a three-dimensional experience." Travis's sudden, brief smile was bizarrely sunny. "Your advertising people will understand how to make good use of this."

Manny nodded, feeling uneasy.

"Now, here"—two areas on either side of the brain stood out in sudden highlight—"sockets feeding into the temporal lobes will enhance whatever data come in. Interactivity again—the consumer can cooperate in the forming of the images. Useful for games of any level of sophistication. It will feel quite extraordinary. Mystical, if you like."

Manny wasn't sure that
liked
was how he'd have put it himself.

"Manipulation of the parietal lobes"—two other areas of the brain stood out—"will give the illusion of movement. Your people will no longer have to move about physically in hotsuits to produce effects like walking, climbing, and so forth. And the consumers will feel it without needing hotsuits of their own."

"Wait a minute," Manny said. "I thought there was no way to stimulate those areas without producing a corresponding movement."

Travis looked impressed, which pleased him. It meant Travis was getting the message:
Don't try to skid one by me, because I know what you're
doing.
"There was no reliable way, until now. Dr. Joslin developed a technique to block the physical movement from the sensation. It comes partly from the suppression of movement during REM sleep and partly from the old phenomenon of the ghost limb—where an amputee feels a limb no longer there. It's a kind of combination and reversal of those processes with an extra sideways twist." Travis glanced down at Joslin's gawky form on the table. With her head concealed in the box, she looked too much like a scrawny victim of decapitation. "She's really quite brilliant," Travis said, as if he couldn't believe it either.

"We cover the frontal lobes as well," he went on, "one for each hemisphere. Your people should find they feel more creative. Among other things.

"One socket each goes to the auditory and visual cortices. Technically your video people could use only those two sockets to produce a music video, but it will be a fuller experience using all the sockets. Less like a video, more like a waking dream. More like a real experience." Travis flashed his weird smile again. "What we've done—what Dr. Joslin has done, really—is hardwired an out-of-body experience. The feel of an out-of-body experience, I should say."

Manny had no reply to that. Travis dabbed lightly at the corner of his mouth with his ring finger and shut off the screen. "You can get up now, Dr. Joslin. Thank you."

Joslin squirmed down on the table, and Galen offered her a hand as she hopped off, smiling proudly at Manny. "So," he said, "you want to see mine, too?"

Manny looked at Travis. "Nothing was supposed to be done down here until Diversifications gave the go-ahead."

Travis's chin lifted a little. "Dr. Joslin is the chief of surgery. It was her decision."

"Loosen up, Manuel," Galen said expansively. "When this breaks, even if only a tiny percentage of people jump for It, it's gonna be harder getting a reservation in here than getting political asylum on the moon. And nobody knows what kind of trouble you're gonna have getting it legalized in the States, I don't care how many legislators Diversifications has on their tit. Did you see the look on that judge's face last night?"

"Earlier this morning," Joslin said in a loud stage whisper. She was massaging Galen's shoulders with both hands, making his ill-fitting jumpsuit even more rumpled.

Galen patted her thigh absently. "When I got into that courtroom and found out that goddamn feel-gooder had already modified some twitch's implants, and they were already fooling with direct—"

"That, at least, is taken care of," Manny said, forcing a genteel smile. "I'm sure the Upstairs Team at Diversifications won't have any problems with either of you already having undergone the procedure. But technically you do need permission from us before—"

"Oh, get
off it, Manuel."
Galen laughed. "It's
Lindy's
thing."

"Not anymore. When Diversifications took over EyeTraxx, it also took legal possession of all copyrights, trademarks, and patents originating with EyeTraxx. Have your lawyer look it up on the agreement for you."

Galen laughed again. "Big fucking deal. Without us Diversifications wouldn't have shit, so don't go splitting fucking legal hairs with me,
Ma
nuel.
I don't have to be pissed on by some taco flunky whose grandmother went over the border squatting under a load of jalapeno peppers in the back of a pickup truck."

Manny's calm never deserted him. "My full, legal name is Immanuel Castille Rivera. My ancestors were
conquistadores,
and their line had been long established in this hemisphere by the time your forebears were quarantined for smallpox at Ellis Island. Not that such things matter. It has been fortunate for my own advancement that the tradition of the old barrio gangs never took hold in my family, and I grew up without believing that ethnic slurs had to be avenged for the sake of my manhood. I do, however, take a dim view of unprofessional behavior, something I share with the Upstairs Team."

"So? No offense, then." The arrogance was gone from Galen's face. "Hey, I made a few bad investment decisions, and Diversifications was ready to ride in and take over. Like
conquistadores,
eh?" He shrugged. "EyeTraxx had a history of that kind of stuff anyway, but what the fuck. Now I'm gonna be even more fabulously wealthy than I ever was, and after today we don't gotta bother with each other, as long as Diversifications keeps up their payment schedule."

He leaned back against Joslin, who put both arms around him and rested her chin on his shoulder. Considering the differences in their heights, it was a comically awkward pose. "Frankly, I wouldn't want to be where you are, anyway," Galen went on, regaining a little of his old cockiness. "I still say you're gonna have to go some fucking distance to turn public opinion on what looks like a faster, easier way of mind control and brainwashing, all that shit. There's still plenty of people around who believe that manic-depressives and the schizos and the migrainers and the epileptics and the narcoleptics and
all
those leptics are morally wrong to have little buttons in their heads to keep them even. Hell, there's still plenty that think test-tube babies are a fucking atrocity. And that doesn't even cover the fucking AMA priesthood and the FDSA. They're gonna be screaming rape all over the place. It's gonna be a real mother's mother of a headache, and I don't like headaches."

"And what about you, Dr. Joslin," Manny said. "Do you have any thoughts on the matter?"

Joslin's expression went from vapid to oddly intent. "It's out of control."

Manny gave a politely puzzled laugh. "Pardon?"

"You'll see." She giggled. "Maybe when you lie down on that table, huh? Come on, Hally." She sidled out of the room, pulling Galen after her.

Manny shook his head. "Jesus
wept."

"For Zion," Travis said, startling him. "In a way she's right. About it being out of control." He cleared his throat and turned the screen on again, recalling the image of Joslin's brain. "We're of a milieu where brain implants are commonplace now, so we won't have to overcome the things many of my instructors in med school talked about. But the full ramifications of this procedure are not apparent yet. Not even to us." He nodded at Joslin's brain on the screen. "We really have little idea of what will come up out of that organ through a direct pipeline. We can make a few educated guesses, and we might even be right about some of it. I understand the, ah, feel-good clinic doctor had already stimulated output through altered implants on one, ah, patient. They were watching pornographic images when the police arrived."

"Indisputable proof of this thing's entertainment value," Manny said dryly. "If rather mundane."

"One wonders about the not-so-mundane. The images were feeding only to a screen, but not from the screen directly to another recipient," said Travis. "We've established that output is far easier than input. But to be frank, we have not clearly established all the effects of input. Except for certain things. For instance—" He indicated the screen again. "The temporal lobes." The highlighted areas shrank, and the color of the area in the left hemisphere changed to orange. "That is the left mesial temporal lobe. If the emotional centers in that particular region do not activate at precisely the right time, a panic attack will ensue. It feels exactly like a heart attack." Pause. "Those prone to the condition can be treated with implants that keep the activation regular. The condition can be induced in a normal brain, however, by an inhibitory neurotransmitter, something that will keep the neurons from firing properly. The inhibitor could be encouraged by input, for example. Just one example."

Several long moments passed in silence as they both gazed at the screen. "I understand what you're telling me," Manny said at last. "I'm just not sure how I should take it."

"You can take it any way you choose," Travis replied. "The world just became that much more subjective. Preparatory to socket implantation a detailed map of the brain is assembled and kept on file." Travis turned the screen off. "The files will be carefully guarded against unauthorized access, of course."

"Of course." Manny felt his energy level sink as the stimulants in his system began to wear off. He glanced at his watch. "Why don't you prepare me a complete report, zap it up to my mailbox. Mark it confidential. I'm due on the evening L.A. jumper. Things are piling up back there. Last night was a real monkey wrench."

Travis's gaze was steady and expressionless. "Would you like those in 3- D or hardcopy flat format?"

"Both. I like to have something I can make notes on in an informal setting. Without hardware."

"And is the Diversifications system secure enough?"

"Now, yes. We have a pet hacker who's already gone to work on it.

He followed Travis out with a thousand different ideas jockeying for position at the forefront of his mind.

"Hallelujah," said Melody Cruz with her usual exaggerated good cheer, "it's
another day!
Anybody here care which one?"

"Not me," Gabe muttered groggily as he shuffled into the living room and plumped down on the mile-long couch. Twenty minutes of showermassage had been either too little or too much; he wanted nothing more than to sink into the sofa and become one with the cushions.

"I just
knew
you'd see it that way. Well, here's the ugly truth of it, big guy: deadline on the Gilding BodyShields spot looms big as life and twice as graphic, you should pardon the expression."

Gabe grunted. "Tell me something I don't know."

"I'm getting to that. But first, this reminder: lunch with Manny Rivera
today.
Another good reason to get the Body-Shields spot wrapped."

"Okay, okay," Gabe said. "Nag." He sat up a little straighter, but his eyes still refused to open all the way.

"And we've got a mailbox close to capacity here. Three more items, and they're gonna hit you with the surcharge. I don't wanna say they're gougers or anything, but if you don't do something soon, they're gonna name the node after you. The Gabriel Ludovic Electronic Postal Node, funded entirely by you.
I
wouldn't want that carved on
my
tombstone."

"Right. What's in it?"

"Only the most comprehensive collection of junk mail in the entire Los Angeles area. Offers so refusable it's amazing they don't implode."

"Anything from Cassandra? Cross-ref Sam?"

There wasn't even a pause. "Not today."

"Delete it all, then."

"You sure about that?"

Gabe yawned. "Real sure. I'm not in the mood. Do we have any grapefruit juice?"

"We should, unless you sneaked into the kitchen in the middle of the night and drank it all without telling anyone."

Gabe grunted again and pushed himself up off the couch. Melody's voice followed him, switching to the ceiling speaker in the kitchen.

"Took another chunk out of your account for your share of the mortgage on this dump, just thought you'd like to know. Wanna know the balance, or would you rather be surprised?"

"Surprise me." Gabe held a glass under the juice tap on the side of the refrigerator and pressed for six ounces, unsweetened. The juice was bitter and icy, hitting his sinuses a moment after it hit his palate. He leaned against the refrigerator, eyes squeezed shut, pinching the bridge of his nose. His sleepiness had dropped away in a rush, leaving him wide-eyed with a lingering undertone of fatigue.

"That's about it as directly concerns your miserable life," Melody went on conversationally. "In the general news Malaysia is still trashed, your tax dollars at work. Another day of food riots throughout the British Isles, while here in town the price of the Gatsby Restaurant's Gourmet Breadloaf goes to twenty dollars per as of this morning. Kinda makes you wonder, don't it?"

"Not really," Gabe said. "I work in advertising, remember?"

"Gilding BodyShields. Deadline: jump it or lump it."

"All right, all right, you said already." He refilled his glass and went back into the living room.

"Hey, you said a trigger-word. Watch the triggers, and you won't cue the nag subroutine when you don't want to."

"Actually, I did want to," Gabe said, settling down on the couch again. "I need to be kept after until I get it done."

The four-screen dataline in the wall across from him was running highlights from
General News
on the two left-hand screens, while a script more formal than Melody Cruz's headline summary ran on the upper right. The lower right screen displayed an abbreviated menu. Gabe picked up the remote and thumbed for the Popular Culture format.