Idempotency (20 page)

At least, that was how it used to be.

These days, he was suffering from a serious case of salesperson anemia. He was attempting to sell one of the most buzzworthy products he’d ever been associated with, and yet he was having trouble keeping an unstrained face when talking about the wonders of living an alternate life. The negativity toward his own personal experience was palpable.

It had been months since Dylan had had any contact with Nimbus, Simeon, or anyone of any recondite nature, for that matter. He had done hours upon hours of research, careful to use public networks, heavily encrypted. Kristina had worked with him, as a friend.

Together they had pieced together a picture of SOP from the most consistent of the various rumors and innuendoes flooding the corpNets and darkNets.

The most credible account that Dylan stumbled upon centered on a popular anonymous virt that had gained notoriety a decade past before the term
darkVirt
had even been coined. Known as the assembleMultiVirt, the virt was empowering anonymous, virtual, and peaceful assembly for protests against various corporations. Soon after launching, private information about various corps was streaming through the assembleMultiVirt in waves; employees and customers began feeling a sense of informational freedom that had not been allowed for decades. The assemblies began to garner national news attention.

The nadir of these events occurred when one particular financial corp on Wall Street, named TinSureCorp, which specialized in long-term striated US treasury and bond insurance, was found to be corrupt almost entirely through the efforts of a dozen anonymous whistle-blowing employees who had met within the assembleMultiVirt. The company had been buying their own insurance on various bond assets through a wholly owned subsidiary. They would then use a second wholly owned subsidiary corp to purchase a specially timed wave of bonds, causing a currency fluctuation. As the currency moved a fraction of a percent, the TinSureCorp customers would come calling, themselves included. Ultimately, none of this would have made a difference, netting out at zero, except for the fact that TinSureCorp was subsidized partly by the US government. As insurance was paid, TinSureCorp collected a small fraction of generous taxpayer assistance.

No one knew who the TinSure “Twenty Whistlers” (as they had become known) were, but through their collaboration within the assembleMultiVirt, they were able to discern exactly how the shenanigans were being parlayed. TinSureCorp was brought before Congress to testify and ultimately died a quick and ignominious death. To the chagrin of the small fraction of society that was paying attention, their CEO dodged jail time, as did the rest of their executives and the board. One upper-level manager was given probation for several months.

The assembleMultiVirt had been based out of Copenhagen and had skirted US network enforcement due mostly to no one caring. However, after the TinSureCorp scandal, corp IT departments were on high alert. A coalition of corps banded together to file suit against the assembleMultiVirt for acting as a deliberate accomplice to intellectual-property theft. The problem was, once the suit was filed, the Danish authorities didn’t know who to serve it to. assembleMultiVirt management turned out to be untrace, anonymous.

The physical servers were equally untraceable. A raid on a large warehouse turned up a small, but very advanced, custom router that appeared to be haphazardly loading and balancing traffic from several dozen third world countries. Further investigation turned up similar setups in those node countries. A spiderweb of connections was thoroughly explored by investigators who were paid by the corps filing the suit, but it was all to no avail. Ultimately, the assembleMultiVirt was taken offline, but never was its provenance discovered.

The anti-darkVirt corp coalition eventually dropped their suit for lack of a target, and redoubled their efforts on lobbying. This lobby quickly placed heavy emphasis on regulating network traffic, as well as noncorp darkTech: hardwired brain and ocular implants. Thus was born the DIA, the Drug and Implant Administration, out of the ashes of the previous DEA. The National Network Security Bureau had already been monitoring all US network traffic prior to the TinSureCorp scandal; but after a few trivial congressional votes, the NNSB was allowed to monitor for darkVirt activity regardless of place of origin. The latter half of that law, disregarding place of origin, had been a monstrous and mostly tacit change to NNSB’s charter, pushed for by the international corps who were part of the anti-darkVirt lobby—the NNSB was now operating worldwide on behalf of international corps. It was due to these fierce regulations that forced darkVirts, as well as darkTech implant creators, firmly underground and out of the eyes of regular consumers.

Over the coming years, various theories and conspiratorial claims abounded as to who was the creator of the assembleMultiVirt. Dylan’s head spun as he read about the possible candidates. They included the decades-long-defunct AFL-CIO operating in some shadow form, several potential brilliant tech hackers who had suffered some kind of falling out with their various corp overlords, sundry overseas corps who may have a grudge against their first world counterparts, and US-based corps. In some of the more extreme conspiracy rants, second or third world governments were even postulated to be the culprits.

Dylan was fairly certain Simeon had played a part in the nascent stages of the assembleMultiVirt story. While he would have guessed this without any corroborating evidence, he became convinced after several accounts from corpNet reports at the time that cited a key individual from the Twenty Whistlers as having had a virt avatar that “emanated flames from his flesh at all times” within the assembleMultiVirt. Rumors also laid claims to the individual having a laugh that mimicked “a hyena, high on sulfur hexaflouride.”

Life imitates art—indeed
, thought Dylan.

After Dylan returned from an uneventful business trip to Turkey, the holidays jumped up on him, attempting to pass as quietly as the moon on a stormy night. On Christmas morning, which happened to fall on a Sunday, Dylan had awakened as he would have any other weekend. His coffee was freshly brewed at precisely 9:00 a.m., the food dispenser chose pancakes (it recalled Dylan’s fondness for pancakes from his past few Christmases, unbeknownst to him), and his media wall was peppering him with dozens of multidimensional feeds from across the corpNets. If it hadn’t been for the various parades and celebrations, he surely would have missed Christmas altogether. Reluctantly, Dylan acquiesced to social conventions, and pulled himself out of his Sunday stupor long enough to visit a few close friends, and an aunt and some cousins who lived in L.A., which happened to constitute almost all of the family he had left.

He even visited his great-uncle. Randall Dansby was now being housed in a full-time care facility in Santa Barbara. The scrambled trueElderly led a simple life, and was now aging naturally. Doctors estimated that without assistance he would die within the year. What remained of the Dansby family, particularly Dylan’s aunt, felt this course of action to be the most compassionate for the confused man.

As he entered the sterile room, Dylan was shocked at his uncle’s graying hair and feeble posture. He stayed long enough to accompany Randy on his short afternoon walk. When they reached the outdoor patio, Dylan tried to engage Randy in quiet conversation about NRS. If foul play had been involved, maybe his uncle would be able to corroborate the story. Unfortunately, when Dylan asked his first question about NRS, Randy simply mumbled nonsensically about a music group from the 1990s.

Dylan returned from his short break on a Thursday night, and decided to go into the office on Friday, December 30, because he had nothing else to do, he knew he’d be the only soul there, and perhaps, for once, he could actually get some work done. When he arrived at his desk that morning at eleven, he found a small notecard sitting on his chair, which read
Get coffee, 1PM.

Dylan immediately popped up from behind his desk, his heart racing. This was it. This
had
to be it. Unable to function, he took the liberty of a long lunch at the SolipstiCorp cafeteria. He munched on a drab turkey sandwich while anxiously perusing various news feeds. He could barely concentrate. At precisely one o’clock, Dylan entered the coffeehouse, only to immediately collide with a behemoth of a gentleman. The man-beast’s latte exploded onto both men, and the man who towered over Dylan’s stout frame let out a girlish yelp, followed by a profuse apology for not watching where he was going. The man insisted Dylan take a few credits in order to dry-clean his jacket. He refused, but the man was overly persistent, causing Dylan to get the hidden message and finally give in. The two men shook hands and Dylan felt a small encryptChip transfer into the palm of his hand.

Now smelling distinctly of coffee, he was shaking in his office chair, his knees bouncing as if they were attached with rubber bands. Just past two, an encrypted chat pinged him. With a few flicks of the wrist, Dylan used the encryptChip private key the coffee man had given to him, and an encrypted message suddenly flickered to life:

BEGIN 256 PETABYTE OpenPGP PUBLIC, PRIVATE, & AUTHORIZED ENCRYPTED CHAT SESSION . . . AFFIRM THREE TIMES TO ACCEPT PUBLIC KEY AND SIGNED CHAT FROM:

NIMBUS:NIM_e874563cc101. . .<256PB>. . .333d5

[NIMBUS 13:05:24] Dyl-Pickle. Sorry for the wait. Reach under your desk. Sim wants to meet in darkVirt. The chip is the key, the card under your desk is the location. The location/key tuple will be valid and online between the times of 20:00:00 − 20:01:00 PST next Friday. See you soon.

[Dylan 13:05:34] Wait! I have questions! What about the interview? I don’t have eyes.

[NIMBUS 13:05:39] Interview’s been delayed. Meet in the darkVirt. Kristi’s almost got the Solipsticorp headset working, that will be your eyes.

[Dylan 13:05:46] She does? She didn’t tell me that. And don’t ruin my jacket next time!

Dylan gasped as adrenaline coursed through him. He reached under the desk, and after a few passes his hand fell over a thin slip of paper taped to the underside of his desk. He unstuck the small paper, which was no more than one centimeter in width and ten centimeters long.

“Hot damn,” he whispered.

In precise pencil, the following numbers were carefully written out:

b39F:0:85a3:0:442f:8a2e:0:0370:

0:ff3E:0:f578:9823:9a11:0:7334

Dylan shook his head and grinned.

As the year 2112 flowed effortlessly into 2113, Dylan sat on the large portico of a prominent San Diego resort overlooking the bay in anticipation of a fireworks display that would begin at a moment’s notice. He was attending Frank’s infamous New Year’s Eve party for the fifth straight year. Many of SolipstiCorp’s employees were in attendance—nearly the entire sales and marketing teams, but only the more gregarious software engineers and scientists.

The alcohol had warmed his belly enough to ward off the surprisingly chilly wind wafting off the water. But not enough to numb him from the sight he was about to behold: Kristina was at the party with another man, another developer from SolipstiCorp. They were holding hands, talking with a large group of technobrats. Dylan walked up to the group and tried to make small talk, but the group only seemed to be speaking big talk.

“What’s the news, dudes?” Dylan asked and was met by several uncomfortable smiles. The engineers, as usual, weren’t interested in socializing with the business team.

Kristina rolled her eyes and seemed to latch onto her date a little tighter. Dylan tried to catch her gaze, but this wasn’t the time. He was certain she’d find him later, or she’d let him find her.

An hour passed and the moment happened. Dylan was out on the portico behind Frank’s house, watching the clouds roll in off the ocean. He and Frank were chatting about newly tweaked two-hand tackle rules in the NFL, when Kristina walked past them both. Frank nudged Dylan’s elbow and nodded his head in Kristina’s direction. She and her date were still together, but now she held Dylan’s stare with far more passion than she held her date’s hand.

“Dude, what happened to you guys?” asked Frank.

“I don’t know, Frank. It’s complicated.”

“It’s always complicated, Dylan.” Frank shook his head. “That deathTrip really screwed you up. Anyway, get your ass up and go talk to the girl.”

“Yeah, I think I will.” Dylan hesitated, then yelled out, “Kristina, hold up! I need to talk.” He jumped out of his wooden reclining deck chair and jogged lightly up to her side, neglecting to notice the existence of the clumsy engineer lasciviously hanging onto her arm as if she was his toy, though the roles were quite obviously reversed.

“Hey Dylan! I didn’t know you were here!” she lied, obviously drunk.

“Hey Dyl—“ Kristina’s date, the engineer, started to say hi, but he was slovenly drunk, and as he stuck out his hand to greet Dylan he stumbled at the portico’s edge, and grabbed the handrail to save himself from a potentially perilous two-step stumble down to an expansive lawn.

Dylan grabbed the young man’s arm to help steady him. “Whoa, hey there, buddy, you gotta watch those stairs—they have a way of jumping out at you. It’s Lester, right?” They were equally drunk, but Dylan had far more practice at inebriation than his younger counterpart.

Lester looked up at Dylan quizzically and then toward the bay, which sat at rest below the azure, darkening horizon. “It’s so . . . what’s the appro—pro—propriate word . . .  beautiful—” Lester stuttered and clamped his mouth shut before his cheeks puffed out as if he was about to play a trumpet solo. He swiveled and heartily puked over the handrail.

The nearby crowd let out a chorus of disappointed gasps, and Dylan laughed a little too hard. Kristina shook her head, clearly frustrated by her date’s inability to provide adequate companionship.

“Hey, I want to chat for a second.” Dylan let Lester drop to his knees and grabbed Kristina by the elbow.

“You don’t get to chat with me just because you want to, Dylan.” She had a tendency to say his name almost every sentence when she was drunk.