Perion Synthetics (28 page)

“Ms. Kessler is waiting for you.” It was the
same voice, but it came from the left this time. “She will explain everything.”

“Oh, she will, will she? Well then what the
fuck are we waiting for? Take me to her.”

The AG on the right stepped aside and held
out a hand. “This way.”

They walked single file down the hallway.
Gil found the more steps he took, the easier each one got. He thought perhaps
they had drugged him, as the lack of coordination reminded him of nights spent
at Pritchard Sansbury’s after transcending the borders of some new synth
paradise. Except now he appeared to be coming back online at a faster rate,
getting stronger as time wore on.

At the end of the corridor, they turned
right and stepped into an elevator which had opened just as they were coming
around the corner. As they rode up, Gil inventoried the synthetic standing next
to him, checking out the various weaponry and immobilization equipment. There
was a service pistol on its hip, but it was strapped down. There was no way he
could make a grab without the guard behind him reacting first.

The elevator doors opened onto a new hallway
with a softer décor. Instead of sterile white floors, Gil’s footsteps fell on
beige carpet. Tan wallpaper coated the hallway; faded images of autumn leaves
dotted the wall every few feet.

“In here,” said the guard, opening a door
for Gil.

The room inside was dominated by a large,
oak conference table in the center. Around it were a dozen chairs and seated in
two of them were Cam and Cyn. They looked up when Gil entered, gave each other
a glance, and returned their eyes to the table.

Gil followed the guards and sat in the seat
next to Cyn. He tried to catch her eyes, but she seemed distracted, almost
tired. At least she hadn’t been too roughed up in the raid at the warehouse.

“I see you made…” he started to say, but
then the doors on the opposite side of the room opened.

They entered one at a time.

First came the guards. There were four of
them, obviously synthetic, with faces that eschewed any resemblance to humans.
Reflective lenses covered their eyes while antenna-like wiring ran down from
their hairline. Each was built like a slightly bigger version of the Automated
Guards who had brought Gil upstairs. Although they had nothing in their hands,
their belts were replete with imposing weaponry, including needlers that had
been banned in the U.S. for decades.

Behind them came two men in lab coats. They
glanced uncertainly at the three aggregators and shook their heads. The second
one looked back over his shoulder at Sava Kessler.

She stared at Gil for several seconds, a
smirk on her face.

The next man through the door made his heart
race.

“Fucking Gantz,” said Gil.

The chief of police wore a trembling
grimace, and his bloodshot eyes held to the floor. He hurried to stand behind a
chair next to Kessler.

Ten feet at the most, thought Gil. Ten feet
of varnished wood was all that separated him from Robert Gantz, chief of police
and backstabbing asshole. With his strength returning, Gil thought he might
have it in him to rush the table and get in a few good punches on Gantz before
they’d be able to pull him off. Though, the synthetic guards would have much
faster response times. Maybe if he created a diversion…

The doorway darkened again, and Gil’s mouth
fell open. At first, he almost didn’t recognize the middle-aged man with
slightly graying hair. It wasn’t until he took his place between Kessler and
one of the lab coats that Gil figured out who he was.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said. “Thank you
for coming. I’m James Perion.”

“You fucking—”

Gil felt his body move on its own and in an
instant, he was up on the table and running for the founder and CEO of Perion
Synthetics, intent on choking the life from his body, intent on making the
rumors of his death into fact.

And then Gantz, that fucking liar. Gantz
would be next.

“Gilbert, directive,” said Kessler, barely
raising her voice. “Stop.”

Something wet and cold reached into the
small of Gil’s back, spreading into his stomach and hips. He froze in the
middle of the table as his abs contracted involuntarily. Shivers ran down his
legs, icing every muscle, gluing his feet to the wood.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Gantz
mouthing the words
I’m sorry
.

Gil tried in vain to give him the finger.

Construction on the north end of the Perion Expressway was
supposed to have been completed in the spring of 2014, and yet by the summer of the
following year, the road was still full of traffic cones and evercrete debris.
While someday the four lanes would be more than enough to handle the traffic
coming out of the executive villas, the current reduction to one lane had cars
crawling along the blacktop.

Nico Shaw’s driver had been unsympathetic
about the delay, content to tap out the beat of whatever music he was listening
to on the steering wheel while avoiding Nico’s pleading glances through the
glass partition. If they didn’t find some alternate route and make it to the
Spire by nine, then Nico would be late. And being late for a meeting called by
James Kirkland Perion was not an option. If anything, Nico should have been an
hour early.

It was all Katherine’s fault, of course. She
had set her alarm for six-thirty and was up and about when Nico’s alarm went
off an hour later. In her infinite kindness, she had silenced his alarm before
it could properly do its job. Later, when he awoke to find the house empty and
sun pouring in through the windows, it was already a quarter past eight. A
quick shower and the suit closest to the door was all he could afford before
the company car pulled up. He had climbed into the back seat still struggling with
his tie and urging the driver to floor it—a directive he seemed to have
forgotten.

The car pulled up in front of the Spire at
ten minutes to nine. Even on the best of days, it would take at least fifteen
minutes to clear security and ride the express elevator up seventy floors to
Perion’s personal meeting room.

Nico’s sliver beeped.

“Where are you?” asked Joseph Perion, James
Perion’s son and heir to the throne.

Nico didn’t even waste time responding. He
made for the front doors, forgetting to take it slow in the July heat. By the
time he arrived at the security checkpoint, the sweat was visible on his
pressed shirt. He waved his badge over the scanner and waited for the usual
hassle from the Automated Guards.

“Mr. Perion is waiting for you,” said the AG
standing next to the metal detector. He waved Nico through without scanning or
patting him down.

In the elevator, Nico took out a code card
and pressed it hard against the back of his neck. The rush came on in seconds, flowing
through his extremities as if a swarm of bees were dancing beneath his skin.
According to the elevator’s display, there was plenty of time to complete the
load before he made seventy.

Goddamn Katherine.

Making him oversleep had put the whole day
out of whack. There was supposed to be plenty of time to wake up, have a quick
workout, surf the feed for a little while, and then slip out onto the back
porch with a code card and a glass of orange juice. The morning rush helped
prepare him for the day, a synthetic psych-up he needed like most people needed
coffee. And he had almost missed his daily fix thanks to his wife.

When the elevator doors opened, visions of
serene beaches and gorgeous women undulated in his periphery. It took a moment
to bring the true reality of the hallway into focus.

An AG let him into the meeting room, but
with the synth drowning his synapses, Nico barely registered the somber mood.

“I’m not asking for the morality of it,
Chuck. Just tell me whether the architecture can support it or not.”

James Perion sat in the leather throne on
the far side of the cozy room, alone against a mural of the Perion Spire at
sunset. Around him on a small arrangement of couches were Chuck Huber, Langley
Bhenderu, a woman Nico didn’t recognize, and finally, Nico’s boss, Joseph
Perion.

Joe looked up as Nico entered the room and
motioned for him to sit down. He didn’t mention the time.

“We’ve made great progress,” replied Chuck,
“but at this stage, it is much too early to tell.” He motioned to the woman.
“As you can see, this is the most advanced chassis we’ve produced to date. The
internals came direct from R&D and haven’t even been through a full QA
cycle yet. From our tests, we believe the chassis is solid. However, the brain
is a different matter. Roberta only retained fifty-eight percent of her
imprint’s memories and personality. And that was after several reloads. We may
be able to get as high as seventy percent imprint saturation, but we are up
against immovable physical limitations. Katsumi has never produced the kind of
synaptic density we would need to pull this off.”

Nico took out his palette and began making
notes. Engineers had a habit of rambling and without some sort of
documentation, the details of the meeting were sure to be lost or
misremembered.

“What do you say, Dr. Bhenderu?” asked
Perion. “Can she pass for her imprint?”

Dr. Bhenderu’s head wobbled from side to
side. “This is not something I have tried, but I don’t believe her friends will
be able to tell the difference. The true question, Mr. Perion, is whether her
imprint accepts her new life in a synthetic body.”

Perion lifted a questioning hand. “Well, has
anyone asked her?”

“It is not that simple,” said Dr. Bhenderu.
“We have to put her out in the world, back in her old life, to see if she will
be accepted.”

“Then do it,” said Perion. He had a way with
imperatives, handing out difficult tasks with ease where most people struggled
to ask politely.

“We can’t,” said Chuck. “The download we got
from the source wasn’t a full imprint.”

“How did that happen?” asked Joe.

“There was an incident with subject
acquisition,” Chuck replied. “By the time she was brought in, she was already
expired.”

Nico’s finger paused on his palette. The
flippant mention of death had made his ears perk up.

“We expect saturation to increase with a
proper imprint,” said Dr. Bhenderu. “A viable brain will provide more than
enough data; my tests confirm it. The algorithm needs more effort, but it will
be ready when the new Katsumi chips arrive. We will swap out Roberta’s cortex
and try again.”

Perion put his hands to his face and rubbed
away his frustration. A sigh escaped between his fingers.

“And when do we expect the chips to arrive?”
he asked, hanging his head.

Chuck Huber consulted his palette. “There’s
a nine month lead time, and that’s with us at the top of the list.”

Joe shifted in his seat, uncrossing and
recrossing his legs.

“Well,” said Perion. “That’s disappointing.”

“How so?” asked Chuck.

Perion didn’t look up. “Because,” he said,
trailing off.

The synth haze retreated; silence filled the
void.

“Because he’ll be dead in six,” said Joe.
“So yes, if it takes nine months for Katsumi to deliver the chips, you might as
well cancel the order, because Dad won’t be around to sign for them.”

Nico thought for a moment he had misheard
his boss, that the words had been rearranged by some lingering rush effects, but
there was no mistaking the reaction in the room. Both Chuck and Bhenderu sat
slack-jawed, looking from Joe to Perion and back. Roberta seemed unfazed by the
announcement.

Perion looked up and tried to smile at his
son.

“Is this true, Mr. Perion?” Nico’s throat
felt dry, and the words came out uncertain.

For the first time since Nico walked in, the
titan looked in his direction.

“Joey didn’t tell you?” he asked.

Joe shook his head. “I kept hoping you would
change your mind.”

“Change your mind about what?” asked Nico.

The founder of Perion Synthetics sighed and
sat further back in his chair. His eyes rose to the ceiling. At the odd angle,
his face looked more worn, the lines a little deeper.

“Do you know why half of the people who are
diagnosed with cancer die as a result?” he asked.

Nico shook his head.

Perion’s eyes came back down as he tapped on
the table. “Thirty percent of this country lives below the poverty line. That
means no health insurance and no way to pay for medical treatment. Surviving cancer
is no longer about finding a cure; now it’s about finding a way to pay for that
cure.”

“So poor people can’t afford it,” said Nico.
“What does that mean to you? You could have footed the bill for everyone who
needed it last year.”

“Dad could throw every dollar he has at it,”
said Joe, “but it wouldn’t solve the real problem.”

“Surely no problem is unsolvable,” said
Chuck.

“The therapy only runs on Guardian Angel
chips,” said Joe.

Nico felt the words like a punch in the
chest. Guardian Angel—pretty much the only tech outlawed in the City of Perion.

Perion would rather die than have Arthur
Sedivy’s endotech in his city, let alone his body.

“They hold the patents,” said Joe.
“There’s…”

“What my boy is trying to say, Mr. Shaw, is
there’s no other way to do this.” He turned his attention to Chuck and
Bhenderu. “So now you see why I commissioned this project. This isn’t just some
theoretical exercise for you to sit and ponder; this is life and death. My life
and my death. If I don’t get out of this meat suit by the end of the year, then
that’s it, game over, everyone goes home.”

Nico thought he saw Joe wince.

“Why didn’t you mention this before?” asked
Chuck. “Had we known what was at stake, we would have… moved faster, put in
more hours. You withheld critical information and this… this is no mere
shipping deadline we’re up against.”