Company Town (6 page)

Hwa blinked. “What?”

“Every year, on his birthday, I receive one of these.” From his other pocket, Lynch withdrew an empty fist. He opened it. As he did, something glowed. A small white square. Not white like the colour, but white like brightness itself. Like light. Like lightning. Hwa smelled ozone as it crackled into being. Something hummed in her teeth, and there it was: H
APPY
B
IRTHDAY,
J
OEL.
Y
OU HAVE ONE MORE YEAR TO LIVE.

“That's from his last birthday,” Lynch said, and pocketed the … whatever it was. “His birthday is in June. If I do not act, his final year of secondary school will also be his final year of life.”

Hwa swallowed. She wanted desperately to sit down. Or throw up. She took deep gulping breaths instead. In: two, three, four. Hold: two, three, four. Exhale. And again. And again. How had the thing accessed her memories like that? How had it played them back so accurately? It was like her memories were already squirrelled away somewhere, for other people to watch.

“Beyond the Singularity?” she asked.

“Yes. I believe that these artifacts have been engineered to appear here and now by an artificial superintelligence, or group of superintelligences, to tell me about Joel's death.”

Hwa wished she'd eaten something. Then she'd have something to vomit all over Lynch's shoes. That would have been nice.

“You believe that?” Hwa asked. “You really, truly believe that some…” There was no proper hand gesture to communicate the enormity of what Lynch was suggesting. “Some … god-like AI is trying to warn you about your son's death?”

“Yes. I believe that there is a conspiracy of sentient artificial super-intelligences to kill my son.”

“Like the Terminator.”

Lynch's lip twitched. “No. That would be preposterous. Imagine the energy required to send physical matter backward across a line of spacetime, when we have printers right here and now that could do the job based on programming sent from any hacked satellite in low orbit. Why, the mundane AI we all depend on every day is already far too vulnerable to brainwashing. And the implants.” He snorted. “The implants commercially available on today's market are, frankly, no more solid than Swiss cheese. That's why all of mine are custom coded, just like my drugs.” He smiled and held up his hand, like a magician about to pull off a big trick. “Imagine: centuries from now, a post-human civilization triangulating our temporal and celestial location, and sending back retro-viruses reverse-engineered from the building blocks of their own code? How frustrating that must have been for them. Of course they finally just sent a card.”

Lynch bent down a little to look her in the eye. It was obviously difficult for him to move like that. Scaffolding held up his body the way it might hold up a ruined cathedral. He was being totally sincere, she realized. He believed every word that was coming out of his mouth. He hadn't the foggiest notion that he might be completely out of his fucking mind. He smiled at her and took her hand to help her straighten up.

“Do you believe in the deep future, Miss Go?”

Her knees popped as she stood. “I never plan that far ahead.”

His dry lips pulled back from his teeth. It was like a smile. Sort of. “Well, I do. And there are others like me who do, too. We've been planning for the arrival of these sapient un-consciousnesses for quite some time. Through our business developments, and through our investments, we've been trying to prove our willingness to work with these forces when they eventually arrive. It's an extension of the Roko's Basilisk idea.”

Hwa decided that this was probably not the right time to remind Lynch that she was a high-school dropout, and that while she was fluent in multiple languages, her mother-tongue was cursing. She had no time for corporate lore, or fairy tales, which were apparently the same thing these days. “Did someone … I don't know …
sell
you this idea? Like maybe at a seminar, or something? Like a time-share?”

Lynch looked aghast. “Do you take me for a
rube
? Some gullible old
rube
that buys into every promise of eternity? I'm not a religious man, Miss Go. Far from it. I see things as they truly are. I'm prepared for the future. Humanity is coming to an end. Some day people like you—people who remain fully organic—will be nothing more than specimens in a museum of humanity.”

“I bet you say that to all the girls,” Hwa said.

“Oh, I do not mean to offend. I think yours is a very brave choice.”

Choice had little to do with it. Money was the thing. When you had no money, you had no choice. But there was no use explaining that to someone like Zachariah Lynch.

“But you still have time to change your mind, Miss Go. If you choose to take this position, you will have the full benefits that come with being part of the Lynch organization. After three months' probation, you could have the latest stimplant, a chiplab, gene therapy. Whatever you like. Stay with us, and you will never have another seizure again. You will never get glaucoma. And the angioma, well…” She heard the soft machine whisper of his joints moving as he gestured elaborately.

Hwa swallowed. “You sure know how to make an offer.”

“My youngest boy is very special to me, Miss Go. His brothers and sisters don't see it, of course. They didn't read his mother's genetic analysis. I've never bred with a finer woman, and I never will again. I've known her since she was a child, you know. I knew her parents. I introduced them.”

“That's…” Hwa tried to think of a word that wasn't
sick
. “Cozy.”

“He's everything I always wanted, and more. And he's the only one fit to take the reins when I'm gone. But he can't do that if he's not here.”

Hwa set her shoulders. “And you want me to protect him?”

“
He
wants you to protect him, Miss Go. And I trust his decision. I have to. He's the future.”

Lynch raised his hand. Hwa held hers up to stop him. “Wait. I have a question.”

“Yes?”

“Does Joel know about these threats?”

Lynch shook his head. “No. These are more profound mysteries than he is ready for. And as his father, I don't want to frighten him. He's already lived every day with the threat of kidnapping, being my son.” Lynch looked into her eyes. “If you decide to take this position, my one stipulation is that you not tell him why your presence is so very necessary.”

Lynch waved. The walls fell away. Joel stood surrounded by his family, talking with Síofra. He was totally unaware of how his older siblings—his
much
older siblings—were staring at him. But Hwa knew that look. It was so plain she felt a little embarrassed for them for being so obvious, and embarrassed for the kid for not picking up on it. They were jealous. They were jealous that this skinny little brat with no discernible skills was being picked first for a job they'd been training for since they were born. Jealous that Daddy loved Joel best. Jealous that he loved fucking—or maybe just inseminating—Joel's mother, so much so that he wouldn't shut up about it. Jealous that Joel would get all of the money and power and almost none of the hassle of putting up with the media maelstrom and bottomless fountain of bullshit that was Zachariah Lynch. Just plain jealous. And it was eating them up, inside. Hwa didn't need special lenses or filters or access to one layer of reality or another to put that together. It was plain to see with the naked eye.

Lynch could worry all he wanted about killer robots or reptoids or tentacle monsters from outside of time and space. It was probably easier for the old man than facing the truth. The people who really wanted Joel out of the picture were already in the room with him.

“I have big plans for this town, Miss Go,” Lynch whispered. “And I'd like my son to be a part of them. Now, do we have a deal?”

Hwa looked at Joel. He was so alone out there. Just this kid listening to all the adults. Wondering what all the fuss was. He gave her a very shy, hopeful smile.

“You.” She pitched her voice at Joel, loud enough so his siblings shut up. “Come here.”

Joel crossed the room to meet her. “What's wrong?” he asked.

“You really want me for this job?”

Joel smiled. He nodded emphatically. “Yes.”

“It'll be hard,” Hwa said. “Can you handle that?”

Again he nodded.

“I won't go easy on you just because of your family name. I don't give a shit about that. You want me to train you, then you follow my rules. You do what I say, when I say it, and how I say it. You don't whine, and you don't complain, but you do tell me if you're hurt or you're sick. Okay?”

“I don't get sick,” Joel said. “And I've never really been hurt.”

Hwa grinned. “We'll fix that.” She glanced at Joel's father. “We have a deal.”

“Good. Please give Daniel your contact information, and so on. We'll need your Social Insurance Number. Joel, come with me.”

And with that, the mirrors enclosed him once more. He was gone. The others in the room seemed to take that as their cue to leave. They drifted out of the room without saying good-bye, and took Joel with them. She saw him cast a glance at her over his shoulder as the mirrors closed behind him. Soon only Síofra was left.

“So,” he said. “What did
you
see in the crystal ball?”

 

4

Bruises

Hwa didn't tell him what she'd seen in the crystal ball. Nor did she tell anyone. She was tempted to tell Mistress Séverine, when she handed in her notice, but her union rep seemed not to care about why she was leaving. “Of course you must take this job,” she had said. “It's tailor-made for you.”

“I'll be back to school,” Hwa said. “And there's health benefits. Better than the provincial plan.”

Séverine had taken Hwa by the shoulders. “We will miss you. But opportunities are thin on the ground, in this place. You must take them as you find them.”

And so they cashed out her pension, and Hwa put down first and last on a shitbox studio in Tower One. Eileen told her she should apply for something better, but even looking at places in Two or Three made her feel like a fake. It wasn't like she had a lot of stuff, anyway. And she had no plans to entertain. School started the following week, and with it came a raft of shiny new toys Hwa was supposed to wear all the time. She wasn't sure which she hated more: the specs, the bug in her ear, or the stupid tartan uniform.

“Doesn't it get distracting, like? Hearing me breathing?” Hwa asked.

“Only at first,”
her new boss said.

Her feet pounded the pavement. She ducked under the trees that made up the Fitzgerald Causeway Arboretum. Without the rain pattering on the hood of her jacket, she could hear the edges of Síofra's voice a little better. The implant made sure she got most of the bass tones and vowels as a rumble that trickled down her spine. Some consonants and sibilants, though, tended to fizzle out.

“You get up earlier than I do, so I've had to adjust.”

Hwa rounded the corner to the Fitzgerald Hub. It swung out wide into the North Atlantic, the easternmost edge of the city, a ring of green on the flat grey sea. Here the view was best. Better even than the view from the top of Tower Five, where Síofra had his office. Here you could forget the oil rig at the city's core, the plumes of fire and smoke, the rusting honeycomb of containers that made up Tower One where Hwa lived. Here you couldn't even see the train. It screamed along the track overhead, but she heard only the tail end of its wail as the rain diminished.

“It's better to get a run in before work. Better for the metabolism.”

“So I've heard.”

Síofra probably had a perfect metabolism. It would be a combination of deep brain stimulation that kept him from serotonin crashes, a vagus nerve implant that regulated his insulin production, and whatever gentle genetic optimization he'd had in utero. He was a regular goddamn Übermensch.

“Look out your window,” she said.

“Give me your eyes.”

“I'm not wearing the specs.”

“Why not?”

“They're expensive. I could slip and fall while I'm running.”

“Then we would give you new ones.”

“Wouldn't that come out of my pay?”

A soft laugh that went down to the base of her spine.
“Those were the last owners of this city. Lynch is different.”

She rolled her neck until it popped. All the way across town, her boss hissed in sympathy. “Look out your window,” she reminded him.

“Fine, fine.”
An intake of breath. He was getting up. From his desk, or from his bed?
“Oh,”
he murmured.

Hwa stared into the dawn behind the veil of rain. It was a line of golden fire on a dark sea. “I time it like this, sometimes,” she said. “Part of why I get up early.”

“I see.”

She heard thunder roll out on the waves, and in a curious stereo effect, heard the same sound reverberating through whatever room Síofra was in.

“May I join you, tomorrow?”

Hwa's mouth worked. She was glad he couldn't see her. The last person she'd had a regular running appointment with was her brother. Which meant she hadn't run with anyone in three years. Then again, maybe it would be good for Síofra to learn the city from the ground up. He spent too much time shut up behind the gleaming ceramic louvers of Tower Five. He needed to see how things were on the streets their employer had just purchased.

She grinned. “Think you can keep up with me?”

“Oh, I think I can manage.”

*   *   *