Postsingular (15 page)

“Sober?” protested Sonic, gazing down at the lifeless, limp shoon he'd drawn from his pocket, which was an especially creepy sight as the shoon's face still resembled Jayjay's. “How about
dead
? Using the orphidnet isn't the same as being drunk or stoned.”

“It is for some of us,” said Millie, sizing up Sonic's jerky motions. “Not all that many people walk into Natural Mind by accident. Maybe this is where you need to be. A sober living environment. We've got a few bunks open.”

“People live here?” asked Sonic, incredulous. “What do they do?”

“Participate in meetings—and work,” said Millie. “Our clients earn their keep.”

“Tiny me,” said Thuy, running her hands over her face. “I feel like I'm waking up from a dream. But I loved the dream. It's only the Big Pig I want to quit, Millie. Not the whole freakin' orphidnet. All my work's in the orphidnet.”

“The idea is to cut way down before ramping back up,” said Millie. “Honor your natural mind. It's not slow, it's not dull, it's just subtle. Notice your details, remember to feel. Most of our graduates come back for a meeting once or twice a week. It's an island of serenity here. Check it out.” She pulled out a paperback as if to start reading.

“That's all?” said Kittie. “No questionnaires?”

“Like I said, Mr. Topping will interview you in a minute,” said Millie Stubbs.

“Aha,” said Jayjay.

“You pigheads like that word, don't you?” said Millie, baring her strong teeth in a grin.

“Of course you know who we are, right?” said Thuy.

“I see that Mr. Topping is nearly ready for you.” Millie pointed across the room to where a yellow light was blinking beside the open metal stairwell.

They started up the stairs, Kittie and Thuy in the lead. Seen in the murky pastels of the quantum-mirrored walls, the four of them looked like ascending divers.

Jayjay noticed that Sonic was flexing his powerful hands. Was he planning to attack Topping? Jayjay wanted to send Sonic a quantum-encrypted instant message warning him to stay cool, but here inside the Armory, the orphidnet-based quantum-encryption routine didn't seem to be available. So Jayjay settled for messaging Sonic an unencrypted emoticon, a peace sign carved from ice.

“Yeah, yeah,” muttered Sonic. “Be chill, but don't forget to watch your ass.”

The upper floor held a large, low-ceilinged office: fluorescent lights, rows of old-school computers, the hum of ventilation. Hundreds of street-worn Natural Mind clients were sitting before monitors, wearing headphones and navigating with hand gestures. The machines were linked to a hub with a cable going through the ceiling beside a ladder and a trapdoor—all leading to the antenna on the Armory roof.

“How retro,” said Kittie.

In this confined well-lit space, the quantum-mirror glazes were bright and clear. With the floor and ceiling reflecting each other, it felt as if they were suspended in an endless 3-D grid of worker drones.

“I'm thinking of Franz Kafka at his desk at the Workmen's Accident Insurance Company of Prague,” said Thuy. “Is this, like, aversion therapy to make kiqqies hate the orphidnet?”

“We plantin' mines,” said a rabbity-looking thin man sitting at a computer near the stairs. “I calls 'em mines, anyhow. They's links what blow up into ads. Catchin' folks by surprise, you understand. The trick is to stick your ad-mine onto a spot where the filter dogs ain't pissed yet. Who you gals? Maybe we done met on the orphidnet, but …”

“I never remember what I was doing online when I come down either,” said Kittie. “I'm Kittie, and this is my girlfriend, Thuy, and we've got our sidekicks Jayjay and Sonic here too.”

“Prescription John's the name,” said the guy in his country accent. He reached out to shake their hands. “My problem is I'm lovin' that Hawg even more than hillbilly heroin. Been here umpty-five times.”

“You're into the Big Pig too?” said Jayjay.

“Plentifully,” said Prescription John. He nodded toward the wasted-away Asian woman next to him. “This here's Mary Moo. Some of our running buddies carried me and Mary here last week. We was malnourished.”

“This is my fourth time through the Natural Mind spin-dry,” said the skeletal Mary Moo. She had a soft, cultured, California voice. “We're going to keep it together this time, aren't we, John? When we hit the street?”

“I'm in no rush to step out,” said Prescription John. “We sleeping between sheets, eating off a table, and ad-mining the orphidnet for the Man. Copacetic. It's like living with my mamma and playing video games.”

All around, the spectral Natural Mind clients were peering and gesturing at their screens. A windowless office with a closed door ran along the room's rear. Jayjay couldn't peep into the office, what with its walls being covered with quantum-mirror varnish. A light over the office door glowed yellow, same as at the foot of the stairs.

“The Man?” said Kittie, inclining her head in that direction.

“Andrew Topping,” confirmed Mary Moo. “Just agree with him no matter what he says. He's rather overbearing and irritable. But all the other staffers here are quite pleasant.”

Sonic was peering over Prescription John's shoulder, assessing the interface. The screen was displaying a surreal landscape modeling the San Francisco orphidnet activity. As John moved his hands, the view zoomed in and out of the user records, displaying clickstreams as colored paths through meme sculpture gardens and groves of personality trees. Now and then John would flick a fingertip to plant an ad link.

“Are all your ads for Dick Too Dibbs?” asked Thuy.

“Mostly,” said Mary Moo. “Some are for businesses as well. ExaExa, I think, and Stank. I don't worry about the content. You want to stay here, you do this work.”

“You can't trust Dick Too Dibbs,” protested Jayjay, getting down to the purpose of their visit. “I mean, come on, the first President Dibbs got the death penalty for promoting the nants. Doesn't anyone remember anything in this country? Don't be helping the Homesteady Party. They're out to screw the little people. People like us.”

“Feller says the real point of our ads is to slow down the orphidnet,” said John, looking up from his screen. “Make folks unhappy with the status quo.”

“Out with the old, in with the new,” said Mary.

“You know it, Mary,” said John. “Mary used to be a social worker. She drug-counseled me a couple of times before the orphids come.”

“Drugs never appealed me,” said Mary. “Too low, too dangerous. But I couldn't resist the Big Pig.”

“Plant an ad here,” said Sonic to Prescription John, pointing out a spot on the screen.

“You'd do fine in here, kiq,” said John, placing an ad-mine.

The light on the rear wall turned green and the door swung open. A tall, pasty-faced man in a black business suit gestured to the Posse, his mouth bent into a fake smile. Using the limited local orphidnet view, Jayjay spotted a pistol in a shoulder holster under the man's coat.

“Here we go,” said Kittie, stepping forward to lead the way.

“Welcome, Big Pig Posse,” said the tall, doughy man, ushering them in and closing the office door. The quantum-mirrored room had two tapestry-style view screens and a red oriental rug. A humongous wood desk faced the door. To the left were a heavy wood-and-leather couch and, closer to the center of the room, a walking-chair. To the right was a grilled wall emitting a low hum. Ventilation? The view screen on the left wall showed a view of the ad-mining workroom right outside.

“I'm Andrew Topping.” The man gave Kittie's hand an overly vigorous, overly long shake. “You would be Kittie Calhoun?” He turned his watchful gaze upon the others. “Sonic Sanchez, Jayjay Jimenez, Thuy Nguyen. Thanks for coming in.” One by one he squeezed and pumped their hands.

“Ugh,” said Thuy.

“Ugh?” echoed Andrew Topping, looking annoyed.

“Your hand,” said Thuy. “Damp, invasive, an empty simulacrum of masculinity.” Jayjay laughed. Good old Thuy.

Maintaining his smile, Topping asked them to sit down. Sonic, Jayjay and Kittie ended up in a row on the couch on the left. Thuy sat in the big walking-chair, the chair Craigor had delivered here. It had knees and hips both; it squatted down to a comfortable level for Thuy. Topping stood with his arms crossed, leaning back against his massive paneled desk, staring at them.

The limp plastic view screen on the wall behind the desk displayed two views of ocean waves crashing against a rocky point to send up periodic spumes of spray. The left view looked like a realtime natural image; the right view was an ultracomputed simulation, never quite managing to match the view on the left, with pesky triangles and squares popping up in the ocean foam.

The main thing about the room was the metal grill covering the right wall. Jayjay used the room's orphidnet resources to peer deeper. Finer and finer grills lay behind this grill, perhaps as many as a hundred layers of them. Unfamiliar machinery buzzed in the darkness beyond the grills.

“So, all right, I know that Nektar Lundquist told you to come here and foul up our operation,” Topping was saying. “But maybe you don't know that I set you up to come here. The President Bernardo image who sent you to the SUV this morning? He was a spoof I put out there.”

“So I was right,” said Jayjay to the Posse. “And Topping is Faction X.”

“Excuse me?” said Topping.

“One of my beezies hypothesized your scenario,” said Jayjay. “But we came in here anyway. We were curious about you. And a little interested in quitting the Big Pig. And, yes, we're here to tell you to stop overloading the orphidnet with malware and spam. For God's sake, Topping, why are you helping Dick Too Dibbs? Don't you have any rational self-interest? With Too Dibbs in power, the world might end!”

“You'd probably like Dick Too Dibbs more than you realize,” said Topping. “He doesn't support the nants at all. He's by no means an ideal representative for my employer's interests. But at least my employer has the man's ear. He's hoping to make his case so as to guide events in an optimal way. But it's by no means a sure thing.”

“You're talking about Jeff Luty, right?” said Jayjay.

“I'd let Mr. Luty do his own talking,” said Topping. “Should the occasion arise. Should he in fact be alive. Natural Mind's primary funding is from Jeff Luty's former company ExaExa, yes. The quantum-mirror varnish that protects our unfortunate clients—unobtainable from any other source. Public knowledge.” He held out his hands for silence. “Let's get to the point. In the course of monitoring our motley advertising force, I get a good overview of the orphidnet. And you four have come to my attention. Two in particular have skill sets that could be useful to my employer. This young man; this young woman.” He leveled his index finger at Sonic and then at Thuy. “I'm prepared to hire all four of you—just to have them.”

For a moment Jayjay felt jealous. What about all his new physics ideas? Stop it, Jayjay. Get over yourself. An ugly, heavy scene is coming up. Watch Topping. Get your beezies to figure out the scenario. And don't forget that grill in the wall.

Sonic shook his head. “I'm not gonna work here planting those dumb-ass ads for—”

“Your skills are about Doodly Bug,” Topping interrupted. “It's more than a game. It's a laboratory for exploring brane theory, multiversal quantum mechanics, and the art of Calabi-Yau manifold construction. Your work stands out, Sonic. And Thuy's metanovel—”

Suddenly Jayjay got the big picture. “Luty wants to get to the Hibrane!” he cried out. “He wants to bring back Ond Lutter to help him! He wants to neutralize the orphids and feed Earth to some new nants!”

Topping regarded Jayjay levelly. “I couldn't discuss that even if I wanted to. My wikiware has me under nondisclosure filtering. You'll be the same, once you accept your ExaExa consulting contract. That's another good reason for me to sign all four of you.”

“What contract?” asked Kittie. “I mean, how much are you offering us? And what would we have to do?”

“Forget it,” repeated Sonic. “We don't need ExaExa and their bullshit mind control. We've got Nektar's garage to live in, and we've got those
Founders
royalties happening for us too.”

“Hear me out,” said Topping testily. He outlined the terms of the offer. So as to block any possible disclosure of sensitive information, consultants had to install ExaExa's custom ShareCrop wikiware onto their scalp-orphids with full personal access permissions. The consultants' wikiware would feed them business-related data, and of course the wikiware would monitor the consultants' business-related thoughts and filter their instant messages. No physical office presence was required, and the pay would be just this side of bodacious.

“Bullshit,” said Sonic. “Bullshit bullshit bullshit.”

Jayjay looked at the two women.

“Would there be any work at all for Jayjay and me?” said Kittie, forcing a wry smile. Like Jayjay, she was disappointed not to be a main attraction. “Maybe we should take the contracts and use our money to open a Losers Club, Jayjay. But I don't know that Thuy would—”

“It's out of the question,” said Thuy. “Azaroth warned me about you, Topping. You actually think I'd let you put spying wikiware bosses in my head? My creativity would go out the window. I'd have nothing to live for.”

“So no, then,” said Kittie, playing the leader. “Offer unanimously refused.”

“Aha,” said Topping, his eyes lighting up. “Aha, aha, aha.” He feinted at Sonic at the far left end of the couch, then whirled to bodily scoop up Thuy and carry her to the grilled wall. The hum behind the grating rose in pitch. A stiff breeze began drawing across the room.

Thuy wailed, trying to twist away. The others ran to her aid. Kittie was the first one to reach Topping; fruitlessly she tore at his arms. He seemed on the point of hurling Thuy against the grill—why?