Roo'd (4 page)

He screwed the lid roughly onto the jar and tossed it under the bed. "I wrote a short compiler to process the data I've got so far, but I don't have enough processing power. Nobody does. I know my code is crap but it just doesn't matter at this scale. To prove my work, to make it worthwhile, I need to figure out how to keep the cells from eating themselves, locate a reasonably intelligent endomorphic creature that has had its DNA fully mapped, and then co-opt all the computing power in China to run the comparisons." He rubbed his hands over his eyes.

A faint thumping noise began, Fed's leg jumping nervously against the bottom rung of the stool.

"Okay." said Fed, quietly. His voice trembled slightly. He stared wide-eyed into space, his hands fastened tightly to his knees, fingers rubbing the junction where his sockets turned to flesh.

"Okay" he said again, louder. He looked at Tonx, a smile playing across his face. "You find me a data set for a real smart endomorph and I'll get you the computational power to design a match."

Tonx opened his mouth, closed it again. He frowned, and opened his mouth again.

"From all the computers in China." Fede said, and pulled out his chording keyboard.

Poulpe tapped all ten fingers roughly onto the desk and pulled off the headset. The lights in the room slowly brightened as the panel set into the desk dimmed, an aesthetic touch by the Japanese designers who had implemented the system. As the room brightened Poulpe's log notes slowly faded from view on the walls around him, cast by projectors hidden in the molding. He watched as three charts he kept placed near the doorframe slowly disappeared. They showed a steady upward march of tic marks, and were listed against a timeline of three years.

The black plastic housing on the top of the tank next to him hummed gently, filtering the blood and loose bits of skin and muscle out of the water. He squinted at the display he'd stuck neatly to the outside of the tank, watched the pixels flash and dance there. Reaching out a finger he traced the fat grey cable running out of the display and into the water, connecting neatly to the beige plastic lid of the baby-food jar just under the surface next to the glass. He paused a moment, watching the red and yellow LEDs softly blinking on the top of the jar. A pair of glass pipettes had been pushed through the lid next to the cable, antibacterial medical tubing leading from them to the machinery in the tank top. Poulpe tapped gently on the glass, looking at the tiny gray mass perched on the brown stump of growth medium in the jar. He lightly jiggled the cable, watched the jar's contents slowly rotate until two small orbs swam into view. Poulpe examined the squid's eyes, willing them to life.

"Wakey-wakey" he said softly.

Poulpe stepped back, admiring the view it afforded of himself. He liked how he looked in the LCD screen, liked the way the squid brain perceived him. As always he wondered at the tracers and blurs of color that followed his motions. He'd observed that the overall picture took on richer, redder tones when the tissue was in pain, and cooler colors when fed or when feeding was likely to occur, but that wasn't really his business. In any case it certainly wasn't validated by any scientific analysis, and as such Poulpe refused to pay it any heed.

He stood up and carefully removed his paper-thin sanitary tyvec suit. He folded it with practiced ease, pressing the creases flat with familiar fingers before stacking it in the disposal. His hands adjusted his tie as he left the study, humming tunelessly to himself. Once in the kitchen he took down a covered bowl of soup and half a baguette, remnants from lunch. As the soup heated he grated fresh Parmesan over slices of tomato on the bread and put them in the oven to heat. The soup chimed just as he finished. Taking a white towel from its hook next to the microwave door he carefully placed the bowl in front of the window and slid the adjustment open just enough to allow a breeze. He slipped on his shoes and coat and stepped outside for a smoke, confident that the oven would cut the heat in time to prevent the cheese on the bread from burning.

It was early evening, a lull spot in the circadian rhythms of tourists and locals alike. Now was a shift-changing time, when cleaning crews came and went, sure not to disturb residents as they went out for early dinners or late lunches, or slept the dead, ignorant sleep of tourists, bodies discovering themselves under new skies. Poulpe slipped out of his building and onto the stoop, nodding at a Polish couple that was huddled under the doorway's overhang. A late October rain was threatening, fat sullen drops probing at windows and the hoods of cars. He lit his cigarette with a match from a matchbox that fit nicely in his coat. He had a case of them in the apartment; he'd first bought them from the cafe where he'd found them, after he'd discovered how well they fit in his jacket pocket. Now he ordered them from the manufacturer every six months. The Polish couple relaxed at the smell of his Portuguese cigarettes, lifting their own butts with stained fingers. Poulpe recognized the bluing around their cuticles as an indicator of neurological damage from the house cleaning supplies they were using. He didn't ask about it.

His comm vibrated against his hipbone. He had several optional units that he could wear about his person, but he was from an era where the first early comms had been pagers - simple alphanumeric devices - and he'd never gotten out of the habit of wearing a belt-mounted unit.

Poulpe nodded politely at the Polish couple and shuffled around towards the opposite side of the doorway, eyes squinted against the smoke that drifted into his eyes. "Yes?" he asked, lifting the comm to his ear.

"Oh" he said. "One moment please."

Poulpe switched the phone to his other hand, wedged it between his shoulder and his head as he took the cigarette out of his mouth. He went to drop it, reconsidered, and offered it to the Polish man. The man, an old, graying lump of a person, took the cigarette gingerly. The woman smiled at Poulpe, yellowed teeth jagged in her bloodied gums.

He turned his back on the couple. His free hand tapped out a silent staccato against the doorframe, his fingers a blur hidden by the fold of his coat. The comm chimed lightly, a secure connection established between himself and the voice on the other end of the line, and his hand stilled.

"All right. Go ahead" he said. A few words came through the comm, a quiet buzz against the background of the city.

"Yes. Of course. Right away." he said, and abruptly hung up the phone. He shoved it into his coat and stood still for a moment, his hand resting against the doorway. Then he fumbled in his jacket for a cigarette, dropped his matches and knelt suddenly to retrieve them, jerked a match from the box. He paused for a moment as the match came to life, lit his cigarette against the plume of the flame, inhaled. Poulpe's eyes focused on his fingers holding the dead match. After a moment the trembling stopped. Poulpe nodded approvingly as his fingers moved smoothly to put the matchbook back in his pocket, and finished his cigarette.

A short time later Poulpe sat quietly in his living room, staring out over the rooftops at the grey sky beyond. His gear was spread our in front of him, the needle resting tip-up, glistening. This was not proper; Poulpe never took his gear out of the windowless bathroom. But things were not as they should be.

For three years Poulpe had been working for his sponsor, as arranged, pursuing an elusive yet - he was certain - achievable goal. He had estimated three to five years to reach that goal, but his sponsor had apparently decided to exercise a termination clause in their agreement. Poulpe had not yet reached the goals he had been told to reach, despite making great progress. He knew that his sponsor had found him profitable, albeit in a limited way. His research was of narrow scope; it was not easily applied in marketable ways. Not at present.

Poulpe's work was expensive. His equipment was top-of-the-line. The samples he purchased from the exotic fish stores were of extremely limited quantity, and hence, very expensive. His habits, also, cost a great deal, despite being the sole reason he was able to work as he did. His fingertip traced the bruised flesh around the Teflon sleeve embedded in the crook of his arm.

Once, a long time ago, Poulpe had been widely recognized as brilliant. A leader in his field. Later, he was recognized as being somewhat misguided, and then, as very valuable when kept under the right conditions. Now he was here, at the end of that long, bright arc, and knew that a change must be made. Either Poulpe produced, or that arc died.

Poulpe was scared. He did not want that arc to die.

He found his fingers preparing another hit of a very expensive and somewhat exclusive combination of drugs. It was his third in as many hours, and yet the clarity he needed had still not developed. He knew he could not do much more without losing a whole day, a day gone to the white crystalline light that would seep through the edges of his thinking until there were no more thoughts, only an aching hot understanding. He couldn't afford that. He wouldn't see his supplier for another week, and this would leave him without for three days. He couldn't not have it for three days.

He left the hit on the table, put on his coat and walked outside. He lit a cigarette and walked down the market street and across town to the left bank of the Seine. The artist booths were there, cheap sketches by pseudo-talented students and perennial tourist leeches alike, old books, garage-sale dolls, prints from Taiwan of famed French watercolors. Off-color impressionist paintings to be crumpled on flights home, to be taken out and passed around through drink-stained fingers, "I bought this in Paris!" they would say, no-one knowing that the original artist had died of hunger or leprosy or been put to death for sodomy. "I bought this in Paris" they would say, their Euros falling through the mill of the legend of the left bank of the Seine.

Poulpe followed the river south until he found an American selling sunglasses. The tiny stall had all manner of out-of-fashion glasses available, some more expensive than others. He paid the price of dinner for two at any fine restaurant in Paris and collected the sunglasses and a little white cigarette. He crossed the street to the small cafe there; the Mucha Cafe. He sat outside despite the cold, admiring the crowd gathered there. The view was fine. He lit his cigarette, and put on the sunglasses.

The lasers in the glasses were a shock after using his headset for so long; they were not tuned to his particular corneal pattern and took much longer than he felt was necessary to map the back of his eyeballs. His eyes watered and he choked briefly on the harsh smoke as nausea chewed at his belly. Suddenly the sounds of the crowd around him cracked into focus; the cool touch of a tear on his cheek felt reassuring, and the cold seeping through his collar rolled sweetly across his neck. The drugs in the cigarette had kicked in. Just then a prompt appeared floating over the Seine, asking for a channel. A timer flickered into view superimposed over the table next to him, a bright pink character indicating the minutes left before his encrypted wireless connection would cease to exist. Given the lag in the timer's appearance Poulpe guessed the entire process was being tunneled out to some third-world organization.

Poulpe reclined into his chair. He smiled broadly, and launched an email client. He began to write.

Fede went home just before Tonx started practice. He caught the train out of downtown and made it to the housing park just as the last bus rolled out. No one was in. His Mom had left a voice memo on the fridge's comp that she was out with Bark, that he was treating her to a night on the town. He took a pizza out of the freezer, realized the ancient appliance was filthy. Knew that it had always been filthy. Once his pizza was hot he took it from the microwave and, as an afterthought, grabbed a beer from the back of the fridge. The beginning of the day seemed far away, a distant history as he rolled down the hall from the kitchen to his room.

He fell into his chair and swiveled around. The place seemed suddenly tiny, childish. Charts of old scripting languages were tacked to the wall, yellow stickies with IP addresses for long-gone servers peppering their edges. His desk lamp leaned crooked against one corner, its spring broken, hinges splinted with duct tape. The stacks of books on the edge of his desk sat leaden, unopenable. They were all entrance exam aids. All of them.

Fede finished his pizza and clicked off the lamp. He crawled up onto the top bunk and lay staring at the ceiling. The Beowulf cluster in the bunk below hummed quietly, the tiny red and yellow LEDs casting dim shadows against the wall across from him. Fed sighed gently and sat up before pulling off his legs. He took a jar of silicone lube from a crack between the mattress and the bed and applied it to his prosthetics' vulnerable joints, his fingers working deftly in the dark. When he was done he set them aside and massaged a tube of gel over his stumps, kneading the thickened tissue there back into pliability. There was nothing but the sound of his breathing, the hum of the fans in the machines beneath him.

Tonx's idea was amazing, was the coolest bio hack he'd ever heard of, and Fede wanted in on it. He knew he could pull together a virus that could get them the computing power they needed, knew it like a cold hard lump inside his head. A certainty that this chance was his.

And right there beside it was the fear; if he took this on he'd be out of school, dropped off his fast track to the big schools like a kitten from a car on the interstate. Bailing out for no good reason would be noted, his sudden absence ascribed to drugs use or, even worse, an inability to cope with the stress. Even if he came back he'd have to struggle against it.

Fede realized he was breathing fast, stopped and pulled down some deep breaths.

He could always claim medical problems. Say he had a growth spurt that landed him in a hospital for a while doing physical therapy to learn new legs. It had happened before and he'd always come right back.

But this was different, he knew. They would be watching more closely, this time. But still…

Fede finished rubbing gel into his stumps and lay back, pulling his goggles down over his eyes. Notes filled his vision, sketches of a virus that would take the DNA map Tonx was to find from some ectomorph and check it against a map of the human brain. They'd decided to go for broke; if it worked they would need some serious value to sell off the results, and knowing how to make a dog smart wasn't going to cut it. Not when you'd taken over China to find out how. Not when you'd virused the world.

Fede smiled, almost giggled. He pulled himself up on his elbows and flipped his goggles up, staring into the dark. In the dim light the stacks of books, the piles of notes on exams and dry half-dead languages, the trash from the last few years of his life crouched chaotically on his desk. He fell back onto the bed and laughed before yanking the goggles back on, the rubber straps catching the hairs on the back of his neck.

He was just starting to put together some basic processing modules when they chimed, lightly. It took a minute for Fede to realize what it was, the reaching fingers of the sound pawing at his cerebellum, pulling him back from the program. He fumbled to open the session, watched the chat client come up:

% What up, ltlman?

$<> Working. You get something?

% We got lucky.

% This channel secure?

$<> Should B. BRB, let me C yr con.

% Ok, I use,..<@
$..
$>>>>>>

Fed's hands flew over the chord as he rerouted their session through several secure servers, set up a one-time certificate to use, and re-initialized. Garbage characters flew across his retinas, randomness flooding his buffers to throw off any listeners. Their chat session connected again:

<$CONNECTION RE-ESTABLISHED>

$<> Looks good.

% OK. Listen. I have a contact in France. High-end corp doing undrgrnd work on big gambit. Just got ordered to dump three years of work because he wasn't meeting their bottom line. Was told to start working on dead boring plastic-eating bacteria. Wants to sell out and get out. Will give up whole genome map for Pacific Octopus in exchange for our getting him out.

$<> Octopus is good?

% Highly endomorphic. Vry vry smrt; not well understood, but definitely fits. French contact has mapped and used tissue >2 yrs will supply working notes also.

$<> LOL Fuckyah! Perfect.

% He may know how to stop cancer's detection using squid's endomorphic tissue w/stem cell sequence; he pioneered the approach. Has same prob. as us - can't compute match for final recombinant.

$<> Solve both prob at once. Neat.

% We'd be stealing him from a major corp; they've got armed forces. We will have to produce fast to publicize results before they find him.

Fede felt something catch in his throat. His eyes unfocused. Somewhere, millimeters from his cornea, tiny vibrating pieces of glass tried to force the image of a blinking cursor onto the backs of his eyeballs. This was not what they had talked about. This was dangerous, suddenly. But if they pulled this off, Fed realized, they would own patentable rights on a way to increase human intelligence. The owners of this technology would become more than human. The world would change.

Fede sucked in a breath, hard. His heart hammered in his ears. He blinked, saw Tonx had written more:

% Can you do it in 2 wks?

% I guess this means no school 4 U. 8-)

The cursor blinked in Fed's eye. Something inside him tightened, hardened, released. He could do this. He would do this.

$<> 2 wks no prob w/out sleep.

% Excellent. It'd be better if you were local - can you move in over here?

The Beowulf cluster hummed beneath him, the subtle vibration an indication it had started its nightly log cleanup routines. The musty smell from the old tech in the room sat heavy in Fed's nostrils. The apartment he had known all his life sprawled still around him, lifeless. He was done here, he realized suddenly. Despite all his work there wasn't anything for him to stay for.

$<> OK.

% Come over tomorrow. Room will B tight; Poulpe wants 2 vst.

$<> Poulpe?

% Poulpe is contact; means octopus in French.

$ He needs backdoor 2 undrgrnd tight & now. We'll disappear him. You do the data.

$<> What r rsks?

% LOL. many. No pain no gain, ltlman. wlcm 2 undrgrnd.

Fede cancelled the trace; he'd already followed it when Tonx started the call. His senses filled the room, the size of this choice a weight heavy on his chest. There was no cooler task than this; it made dissecting public viruses look like a crossword puzzle. But it was dangerous. Corporate extractions were no joke. And he'd be set back a semester, easy, if he ever made it back to school at all.

He laughed, nervous, realized that a semester of school was the least of his worries, now.

It was a long time until he slept.