Kelley Eskridge (10 page)

And then it all fell into place, as if the
tranquilizer and the dose of sleep had pushed the clutter in her head
far enough away that she could think again. She paused, began to paw
through her carrybag for her palmtop. She could use the time on the
monorail to review the background on Garbo. This was a Phase Four
kickoff, so there was a lot to learn. And her pens, where were—

“Hi.”

She looked up: Mist, Ash. Snow.

“Hi!” She dropped everything back into her
bag to free her hands so that she could reach out to Snow.

“Where the hell have you been? Are you
okay? You look, I don't know…” Snow pushed back to arm's length and
peered at her.

“I'm fine…well, no, but…oh, it's a long
story and I can't talk now, I have to—” She looked up the ramp leading
to the monorail station. Chao and Bey waited for her at the top. “Oh,
hell, I really do have to go but I'll call you, honest, and I'm really
really sorry about the last couple days, tell me you forgive me?” She
kissed Snow hurriedly. “Do you?”

Snow smiled. “You're an idiot.”

Jackal grimaced. “You're the second person
this week who thinks so. No, it's okay, I like it better when you say
it. I gotta go.”

“Who are those people?”

“Analin Chao on the left, somebody Bey on
the right from Al Isk.” She heard Mist's indrawn breath. “Oh, hi Mist,
Ash.”

“Chao the EVP of Development?”

Trust Mist, Jackal thought. “That's the
one. Coming!” she called, and kissed Snow again while Mist rolled her
eyes and Ash grabbed Jackal's palmtop before it could wiggle out of the
open carrybag. “Oops, thanks Ash.”

“Jackal, what's going on?”

Snow's hair was falling out of its clip,
and Jackal smoothed it back. “I have an audition,” she said, backing
away.

“Huh?”

Chao called, “Jackal, the train!” She ran
hard and just made it, Snow's “Bye!” trailing behind her. Rushing away
from Snow again: one more thing she was going to have to change.

She was used to an audience when she worked:
other members of Neill's workshops, Neill himself, Khofi (
not anymore, don't think about it
), the
bosses and grandbosses of people in the room. Neill was already there;
as soon as he saw the two women behind her, he said, “I've already
spoken to the team, they're expecting observers.” She nodded and parked
Chao and Bey in the back of the room, where Neill joined them after he
introduced her to the group at the conference table. She wasn't
surprised; any evaluation of her fitness in this area would have to
include him. She chewed on it a minute while the team members tapped on
their palmtops and jostled for table space. Fine, she was being
tested—that was nothing new. She scanned the three of them once to make
sure they were settled and then forgot about them.

One of the men raised a finger when she
asked who was prepared to give a background briefing on the project to
date.

“The basic concept is an adaptation of
equipment originally used to study depression,” he said. “In Phase One
we developed a prototype electromagnetic stimulator that generates a
shaped magnetic signal. The signal interacts with and alters the brain
wave activity in the temporal lobes. It's used in conjunction with a
drug that increases temporal lobe sensitivity. In essence, Garbo
alters—elongates—the subject's sense of time for a predetermined period.

“Phase Two focused on initial testing of
human subjects to integrate control of environmental factors with the
time experience, through new applications of existing virtual reality
technology.

“Phase Three began about twenty months ago
and involves stabilized virtual environmental testing on wider
population samples in controlled situations. This testing has been
conducted with co-operation from EarthGov and member states. The first
round is complete, and the second round participant selection is under
way.

“Our goal is a self-contained, active VR
environment that delivers a total individual sensory experience. In
addition, this experience should be customizable, replicable, and
available for indefinite storage and retrieval. Up to this point, we've
tested static environments only, with good sensory success. Civil and
military applications for a customizable experience are under review by
EarthGov. Potential commercial applications include hospital recovery,
psychiatric intervention, adventure experiences, and a safe alternative
for unpartnered sexual gratification.”

Most of the people at the table blushed,
which Jackal found endearing. “Okay,” she said, “anything else I need
to know?”

Shaken heads and shrugs.

“Tell me about Phase Four.”

A woman with a harsh voice spoke from the
far end of the conference table. “Phase Four is online editing. Phase
Five will be shared experience, if we ever get there.”

Nods and more shrugs. Jackal put on her
best help-me-out-here smile. “Can you give me a little more detail?
What's the goal, specifically?”

“The technology seems to work by beefing
up brain activity linked to sense-memories. We can replicate places
you've been or generate new ones by stitching together old data in new
ways. But we haven't figured out how to create a framework that can be
altered during the experience. If you go on a virtual cruise and forget
to program sunshine, you get a shitty cruise. So right now everything
has to be built in ahead of time—front-end customization, which as I'm
sure you know is a programming nightmare and way too expensive. But
customizing is where the real market value lies, so…we need to give
people the capability to improve their experience as they go along.
Think of it as the difference between a VR arcade and a lucid dream.”

“Right,” said Jackal. “Then let's begin
there. I suggest we get a list of all the obstacles on the board and
then see if we can categorize them. I want to start by going around the
table so you can each tell me who you are and what your specialty is
with regard to this project.” Of course, she already knew who they
were, that was all in her background notes. But it made a difference to
hear how people described themselves, how they perceived their role.
“After that, we'll free-for-all. Does that work for everyone? Great,
you first.”

She was relieved when it became clear this
group wasn't going to give her any particular trouble. They turned out
to be two research neurologists, a biochemist, two hardware developers,
three programmers, three psychiatrists, and a virtual reality game
designer. All of them except the designer were typical R&D
types—blindingly smart, highly verbal, suspicious of non-technical
language, critical of new ideas, desperate for credit, and terminally
rude. Everyone was scared of the psychiatrists and compensated by
patronizing the designer. Jackal suspected he had the best synthesizing
skills in the room, given his work, so she waited until she saw him
acquire a middle-distance stare and then opened the door for him to
speak. That was the lever that shifted the load; the conceptualizing
picked up speed after that and she could begin to work in earnest,
helping to clarify and structure their ideas and leading them in the
development of an overall project plan. The others were standard-issue
behavioral problems, easily managed by any of Neill's students; even
the hardware developer with the raspy voice who insisted on putting her
bare feet on the table every time she wanted to take over the
conversation.

“I'll enjoy this,” Jackal told Neill after
the meeting. “It's interesting.”

She knew she had done well, so she wasn't
surprised when Bey said, “I'm glad you feel a connection with the
project. It will be easier for everyone to make the transition to
direct Earth Congress administration if the activity manager is trusted
and supports the change.”

“Yes, I'm sure we can minimize the
disruption, although it would be best to relocate everyone before the
critical path tasks are under way. I'll work up a time line in the next
couple of days,” Jackal replied, and the other three relaxed: Bey
patted Jackal's arm, Chao smiled, and Neill, standing behind them, met
Jackal's eye and to her astonishment, bent his head in a tiny but
unmistakable bow.

She ate a late dinner with Snow on the
terrace of her apartment, watching the eastern sky glow with the false
dawn of Hong Kong's night-light as she crunched a piece of fried
chicken skin. She loved the salt and grease on her tongue, and the tang
of the beer that sluiced it down.

“You've had a full week,” Snow said.

“I love that nordic understatement thing
you do. It's so restrained.”

“Hmm.”

“What?”

“I'm sorry you've had a hard time.”

“It ended just fine.” Jackal shrugged,
drank more beer. The meds had worn off, but the feeling of objectivity,
of control, had stayed with her, had even made it possible for her to
share another pot of tea with Chao and finish the conversation about
Hopes.

“Even so.”

“I just wish they'd told me earlier what
they wanted me to do. It would have saved so much stress.”

“Either they thought you might not cut it,
or that EarthGov might not agree to that level of involvement. It
sounds like most of those other Hopes are pretty much for show.”

“That's what Chao said.” Actually, she had
said
Most of the people you meet at your
investiture will be little more than circus ponies. Don't be fooled by
the glitter
. “Lots of artists dedicating their lives to
furthering world peace through mixed media. Doctors setting up free
clinics in separatist trouble zones. Scientists whose research will be
funded by EarthGov and given back to member nations. People like that.”

“And people like you.”

Jackal nodded slowly. “But not many.”

Snow raised an eyebrow and went on
nibbling a chicken thigh.

“I believe we're going to be presented as
project managers.”

“Non-glamorous.”

“Exactly. Oh, sharks, I don't want to seem
ungrateful or anything but I just wish it could, you know, sound
better. Everyone else will be highly describable and I'll be the
project manager from Ko.” She fished in the fruit bowl on the table for
a satsuma and began to peel it carefully, concentratedly, so she
wouldn't have to look at Snow. “I know it's dumb. And selfish. And I
wouldn't tell anyone but you. It's embarrassing to care about it.”

“Well, considering you've been raised to
take on this big public mantle, I can understand it being disappointing
to find out it's just a plain black umbrella after all. Hey, can I have
some of that? I love these things.”

They chewed contentedly for a minute. Then
Snow wiped her chin and said, “Why do you suppose Ko wants to hide what
you're doing?”

“Huh?”

Snow gave her a you-heard-me look.

Jackal threw her satsuma peel scraps onto
the table. “Can't you just let me have this for a while?” she said, and
only then realized that she was angry. And underneath that, scared of
the conversation, scared to think too much. “Can't I just have this one
good thing without there being something bad about it?”

“I didn't mean—”

“I don't care what you meant. Ko doesn't
want a lot of visibility in the investiture because it's not like we're
really a nation of our own yet as far as EarthGov is concerned. Okay?
So I'm not really as good as the rest of them to begin with, and it's
important that we keep that our little secret for as long as possible.
And thanks very much for bringing it up.”

They sat in bruised silence for minutes.
Jackal knew that Snow was hurting but too stubborn to leave. And Jackal
was too angry to be the conciliator.

“Fire and ice,” Snow said.

Another silence.

“There you go again,” Jackal said, “it's
that nordic thing.”

“Peel another one of those.”

She handed half a satsuma to Snow and
chewed on a segment. The juice was sharp in the corner of her mouth
where the salt had been.

Snow's voice, when she finally spoke
again, was quiet. “I didn't mean anything about you. I think you'll be
a great Hope, you'll do a wonderful job. I don't want to take anything
away from you. But I think you've been really jerked around and I don't
understand why you don't want to look at that.”

Jackal chewed her way through another bit
of fruit. You don't know the half of it, she thought. She wondered how
to explain her fear to Snow without telling the rest. Finally she said,
“What do you think it's like for Jeremy Sawyer right now?”

Snow sat back and thought about it. That
was one of the things Jackal loved about her, that she wasn't jarred by
conversational side trails. She assumed that they had a point, that the
different threads would wind together in the end. For Snow, they almost
always did: her mind worked that way.

“I'd be scared. I can't imagine being cut
off from my web and my community. He must feel so alone. And guilty
about his family. And vulnerable.”

“Of all of those, which do you think is
the worst?”

Snow said, even more quietly, “Being
alone.”

Jackal arranged her second set of satsuma
peels into a careful abstraction on the tabletop.

Snow said, “Do you really believe that
protesting poor process and bad communication would be cause
for…whatever you want to call it? Expulsion?”

“The Hope doesn't bite back in public,”
Jackal answered. “The Hope doesn't embarrass the sponsor. The Hope is
only valuable as long as she is perceived to be an asset to the
company. Don't look at me like that. It's true for everyone. It's just
a little harder for me right now. I'm lucky to be a part of Ko. They
take good care of us. Everyone has to compromise to be part of a
community.”

Snow scowled, but her shoulders unbent a
little. “All right. I understand about compromise.”