Visions of the Future (45 page)

The reporter wasn’t doing anything. She was just sitting there. She wasn’t even saying anything. All he could smell was her perfume. It made him nauseous.

“There has to be stronger regulation in terms of who gets to be sensory net reporters. Certainly, infomaniacs must be prevented from working as sensory net reporters, and other psychological screening seems in order, for antiauthoritarian and defiance syndromes across the spectrum. Trip lengths should also be limited. The longer the trip the greater the effect.”

He moved nervously on his couch. This was boring beyond belief. He turned out quickly to glance at the globe to see if anything good was available. Not even the Moon was on. He tuned back in.

“As Dr. Montseny mentioned, there is very little information on infomania. That is why we’ve started doing direct research. In fact,” the speaker gave an insincere smile, “we’ve arranged for a special surprise.” He gestured at the reporter in the audience and she stood up. “My wife is even now acting as a Sensanet ™ reporter, thanks to a generous corporate donation.”

He could see around the hall now. Every last fucking one of them looked fat and self-satisfied. Especially the thin ones. They seemed unreal compared to the Lithuanians, dead or living. Or the Siberians, or the Israelis. The speaker droned on and on.

“Our researcher, Henri Houston, is one of our brightest young doctors. He has been experiencing the sensory net for two weeks now and Henri is tuned into this conference even as we speak.”

He remembered something unpleasant. Reaching down he got his water bottle and took a drink. He put it down and flicked a toggle switch on the side of his Sensanet ™ seat. He chuckled at his absent mindedness. He could hear his supervisor going on and on.

“I’m here,” Henri said. He heard his own voice over the loudspeaker. He was hesitant at first. He had hardly used it in days.

“What can you see?” asked the psychiatrist at the podium.

“As much as you.”

“What can you smell?”

“Expensive perfume… a little sweet.” The crowd laughed.

Quickly, his boss asked, “Where have you been today?”

There is a pause. Then, “Lithuania, Siberia, the Moon, Mt. Everest, Israel, New York.”

“What was it like?”

There is a longer silence. “What was it like?” he asks himself out loud.

A bit testily, the psychiatrist asks again, “Yes, what was it like? You are a trained observer after all.”

“After all… after all… I can’t say. It is a horrible cliché but… but ya’ gotta be there… ya’ gotta…”

“But you weren’t there!” his boss reminds him.

Dr. Houston smiles, bemused. “Yes, I guess you’re right… but…” he trails off again.

“It is your job to describe it,” the doctor insists.

“No. Not now. Not for you. Not anymore.”

He disconnects from the net. He looks at the globe. The light is still off in Vilnius. He thinks about tuning into Siberia again but shakes his head. He can’t stand watching any more. He turns off the
Sensanet
™ and watches as the globe fades. Stiffly he walks over to his comp and calls up some Lithuanian language apps. He chooses one. Practicing the simple forms of address, he starts packing.

The water whispered to Simon’s brain as it passed his lips. It told him of its purity, of mineral levels, of the place it was bottled. The bottle was cool in his hand, chilled perfectly to the temperature his neural implants told it he preferred. Simon closed his eyes and took a long, luxurious swallow, savoring the feel of the liquid passing down his throat, the drops of condensation on his fingers.

Perfection.

“Are you drinking that?” the woman across from him asked. “Or making love to it?”

Simon opened his eyes, smiled, and put the bottle back down on the table. “You should try some,” he told her.

Stephanie shook her head, her auburn curls swaying as she did. “I try not to drink anything with an IQ over 200.”

Simon laughed at that.

They were at a table at a little outdoor café at Washington Square Park. A dozen yards away, children splashed noisily in the fountain, shouting and jumping in the cold spray in the hot midday sun. Simon hadn’t seen Stephanie since their last college reunion. She looked as good as ever…

“Besides,” Stephanie went on. “I’m not rich like you. My implants are ad-supported.” She tapped a tanned finger against the side of her head. “It’s hard enough just looking at that bottle, at all of this…”—she gestured with her hands at the table, the menu, the café around them—“…without getting terminally distracted. One drink out of that bottle and I’d be hooked!”

Simon smiled, spread his hands expansively. “Oh, it’s not as bad as all that.” In his peripheral senses he could feel the bottle’s advertech working, reaching out to Stephanie’s brain, monitoring her pupillary dilation, the pulse evident in her throat, adapting its pitch in real time, searching for some hook that would get her to drink, to order a bottle for herself. Around them he could feel the menus, the table, the chairs, the café—all chattering, all swapping and bartering and auctioning data, looking for some advantage that might maximize their profits, expand their market shares.

Stephanie raised an eyebrow. “Really? Every time I glance at that bottle I get little flashes of how good it would feel to take a drink, little whole body shivers.” She wrapped her arms around herself now, rubbing her hands over the skin of her tanned shoulders, as if cold in this heat. “And if I did drink it, what then?” Her eyes drilled into Simon’s. “Direct neural pleasure stimulation? A little jolt of dopamine? A little micro-addiction to Pura Vita bottled water?”

Simon tilted his head slightly, put on the smile he used for the cameras, for the reporters. “We only use pathways you accepted as part of your implant’s licensing agreement. And we’re well within the FDA’s safe limits for…”

Stephanie laughed at him then. “Simon, it’s me! I know you’re a big marketing exec now, but don’t give me your corporate line, okay?”

Simon smiled ruefully. “Okay. So, sure, of course, we make it absolutely as enticing as the law lets us. That’s what advertising’s for! If your neural implant is ad-supported, we use every function you have enabled. But so what? It’s water. It’s not like it’s going to hurt you any.”

Stephanie was nodding now. “Mmm-hmmm. And your other products? VitaBars? Pure-E-Ohs? McVita Burgers?”

Simon spread his hands, palms open. “Hey look, everybody does it. If someone doesn’t buy our Pura Vita line, they’re gonna just go buy something from NutriYum or OhSoSweet or OrganiTaste or somebody else. We at least do our best to put some nutrition in there.”

Stephanie shook her head. “Simon, don’t you think there’s something wrong with this? That people let you put ads in their brains in order to afford their implants?”

“You don’t have to,” Simon replied.

“I know, I know,” Stephanie answered. “If I paid enough, I could skip the ads, like you do. You don’t even have to experience your own work! But you know most people can’t afford that. And you’ve got to have an implant these days to be competitive. Like they say, wired or fired.”

Simon frowned inwardly. He’d come to lunch hoping for foreplay, not debate club. Nothing had changed since college. Time to redirect this.

“Look,” he said. “I just do my job the best I can, okay? Come on, let’s order something. I’m starving.”

Simon pulled up his menu to cut off this line of conversation. He moved just fast enough that for a split second he saw the listed entrees still morphing, optimizing their order and presentation to maximize the profit potential afforded by the mood his posture and tone of voice indicated.

Then his kill files caught up and filtered out of his senses every item that wasn’t on his diet.

Simon grimaced. “Looks like I’m having the salad again. Oh joy.”

He looked over at Stephanie, and she was still engrossed in the menu, her mind being tugged at by a dozen entrees, each caressing her thoughts with sensations and emotions to entice, each trying to earn that extra dollar.

Simon saw his chance. He activated the ad-buyer interface on his own implant, took out some extremely targeted ads, paid top dollar to be sure he came out on top of the instant auction, and then authorized them against his line of credit. A running tab for the new ad campaign appeared in the corner of his vision, accumulating even as he watched. Simon ignored it.

Stephanie looked up at him a moment later, her lunch chosen. Then he felt his own ads go into effect. Sweet enticements. Subtle reminders of good times had. Sultry undertones. Subtle, just below normal human perception. And all emanating from Simon, beamed straight into Stephanie’s mind.

And he saw her expression change just a tiny bit.

Half an hour later the check came. Simon paid, over Stephanie’s objection, then stood. He leaned in close as she stood as well. The advertech monitors told him she was receptive, excited.

“My place, tonight?” he asked.

Stephanie shook her head, clearly struggling with herself.

Simon mentally cranked up the intensity of his ads another notch further.

“I can make you forget all these distractions,” he whispered to her. “I can even turn off your ads, for a night.” His own advertech whispered sweeter things to her brain, more personal, more sensual.

Simon saw Stephanie hesitate, torn. He moved to wrap his arms around her, moved his face toward hers for a kiss.

Stephanie turned her face away abruptly, and his lips brushed her cheek instead. She squeezed him in a sudden, brisk hug, her hands pressing almost roughly into his back.

“Never,” she said. Then she pushed away from him and was gone.

Simon stood there, shaking his head, watching as Stephanie walked past the fountain and out of his view.

In the corner of his sight, an impressive tally of what he’d just spent on highly targeted advertising loomed. He blinked it away in annoyance. It was just a number. His line of credit against his Pura Vita stock options would pay for it.

He’d been too subtle, he decided. He should have cranked the ads higher from the very beginning. Well, there were plenty more fish in the sea. Time to get back to the office, anyway.

Steph walked north, past layers of virtual billboards and interactive fashion ads, past a barrage of interactive emotional landscape ads trying to suck her into buying perfume she didn’t need, and farther, until she was sure she was out of Simon’s senses.

Then she reached into her mind and flicked off the advertising interfaces in her own implant.

She leaned against a building, let her brain unclench, let the struggle of fighting the advertech he’d employed against her pass.

That bastard, she thought, fuming. She couldn’t believe he’d tried that crap on her. If she’d had any shred of doubt remaining, he’d eliminated it. No. He deserved what was coming.

Steph straightened herself, put out a mental bid for a taxi, rode it to Brooklyn, and stepped up to the door of the rented one-room flat. She knocked—short, short, long, long, short. She heard motion inside the room, then saw an eye press itself to the other side of the ancient peephole.

They knew too well that electronic systems could be compromised.

The door opened a fraction, the chain still on it, and Lisa’s face appeared. The short-haired brunette nodded, then unlatched the chain, opened the door fully.

Steph walked into the room, closed the door behind her, saw Lisa tucking the home-printed pistol back into her pocket. She hated that thing. They both did. But they’d agreed it was necessary. “It’s done?” Lisa asked.

Steph nodded.

“It’s done.”

Simon walked south along Broadway. It was a gorgeous day for a stroll. The sun felt warm on his brow. He was overdressed for the heat in an expensive gray silk jacket and slacks, but the smart lining kept him cool nonetheless. The city was alive with people, alive with data. He watched as throngs moved up and down the street, shopping, chatting, smiling on this lovely day. He partially lowered his neural firewalls and let his implants feed him the whisper of electronic conversations all around him.

Civic systems chattered away. The sidewalk slabs beneath his feet fed a steady stream of counts of passers-by, estimates of weight and height and gender, plots of probabilistic walking paths, data collected for the city planners. Embedded biosensors monitored the trees lining the street, the hydration of their soils, the condition of their limbs. Health monitors watched for runny noses, sneezing, coughing, any signs of an outbreak of disease. New York City’s nervous system kept constant vigil, keeping the city healthy, looking for ways to improve it.