Silhouette (21 page)

Saul Rabin knew all this, of course, so I couldn't help glaring at him when the holo ended, ignoring Paul's preparatory warnings for a few moments. I felt the almost unnatural aggression rise within me again, which was like an itch that could be scratched only by personal violence. I wondered if this might be a residual effect from the use of the neural implant, or a harbinger that it was about to be used. I imagined losing consciousness and waking up in the cathedral, finding out that I had pounced across the table and viciously strangled a world leader.

But nothing happened, yet, except that the old man began a personal sales pitch about the new technology. He seemed not to have noticed my glare, so I looked down as he spoke, not wanting to push my luck.

 

18

“As you heard, men—” Saul seemed to relish pointing out the masculinity of the group, “the only weakness in this early stage of development is the limitation of the power source. Once we extend their life—and you can bet they will get smaller, too—they will be the
ultimate
in surveillance equipment. As the report said, but I can't help repeating it, ‘For all those times you wish you could be a fly on the wall—now you can!' Isn't that good?”

He seemed genuinely pleased with himself—a rare moment for the old crank.

“Now, you know we could help you with that,” the Macrosoft chief, Otero, spoke up, in the drawl that was often referred to as Tex-Mex. As everyone looked at him, he stretched his hands back and clasped them behind his head, looking too relaxed to be truly relaxed. As evidence of this, the boots soon came down off the table, and the hands back to his lap. “Size is everything, of course, in our research. And that includes power sources.” For some reason, he squinted across the table at the stiff Chinese. “Have you seen the new ‘light dot' we're pushing?” Sun didn't so much as blink, so Otero looked back over at the older Rabin. “That thing will last for six months.”

A few seconds of silence ensued as Saul waited for someone else to speak. No one did.

“I don't know, Oscar,” he prodded, “what would our other friends think about a partnership between two such heinous monopolies?” He then kept his smile fixed on the broad-shouldered CEO, but remained quiet for a while.

“I would think,” Sun finally spoke up, with only the slightest accent, “that such collusion might heighten the suspicions about the Far West that are being entertained by many from the other nations.” He looked at Glenn and Tamois, in that order. Then he looked at Otero and smiled, quite charmingly. “They are already quite convinced that when they look at a net display, you are staring back at them. That's why net rooms seldom have heads in them.” This produced some chuckles from Tamois and Nakamura, and then finally Otero himself grunted in amusement, and returned his boots to the table.

Apparently the discussion was over, because the old man began introducing the next demonstration.

As he did, the table and chairs we were occupying began sliding away from the transparent wall, and from the hole that was left in the floor rose another, similar section with two men standing on it. As if that weren't impressive enough, a transteel barrier slowly emerged from the floor between us and the men, protecting us from them but allowing us to view them clearly. It was then I noticed that one of them wore body armor, while the other gripped an assault weapon.

“I wish we had this application of the Sabon technology back when I was a street cop,” Saul said. “Watch the unarmed man as he activates his Atreides Shield—named after the man in the twentieth century who first conceptualized this.”

The armored man manipulated something on his right hip, and soon there was a shimmering distortion in the air around his entire body. He stood still and watched as the other man raised his gun and fired directly at him for at least five seconds. Every one of the barrage of rounds either bounced off harmlessly or became embedded in the outer perimeter of the nearly invisible barrier, safely away from the protected man. From the location of the suspended bullets, we saw how he would have been struck in the head or chest had he not been wearing the shield.

After the firing was over, the old man proudly explained this phenomenon.

“The shield operates on the same antigravity system as the aeros, the falcons, our elevators, and the bugs, of course. And most of you have heard my very unscientific illustration of the principle, right? The one about holding an inflated ball under the water, letting go, and watching it pop up? The Sabon system works this way, on a molecular level, of course. But back to the shield … Our people have found a way to slave the system to a human body, as you see. So the shield repels anything heading toward it, much like it pushes against gravity and air in our flight system.

“In this proto version, however, until we perfect the limits of the system, the wearer has to maintain a careful balance and use the shield strategically.” He gestured to the shimmering man, who remained standing still, the frozen bullets hanging in front of him. “If he turns the antigravity level up too high, it will dissipate outward.”

The man reached toward his hip, where there seemed to be a hole or “pocket” in the shield, so that he could access the controls. He set the level higher, and the suspended pieces of lead suddenly flew away from him, scattering on the floor.

Saul continued. “But it also presses inward, which is why he's wearing body armor underneath the shield. He would be in considerable pain at this point if he wasn't, because for some reason we haven't yet been able to set acceptable limits without disrupting the system. But it won't be long before we have it perfected, of course.” The armored man reached into the pocket and tuned the shield to a more comfortable level.

“The mobility of the wearer is also proportional to the intensity of the shield, as you could guess. At this level, where it was set for the demonstration you just saw, movement will be considerably hindered.” The man illustrated this by moving around sluggishly for a few moments. “But you would be utterly impervious to projectiles, even explosive ones. On the other hand, when the shield's intensity is lowered, you can move very freely, but would have to avoid the bigger guns.”

On cue, the man with the shield adjusted it so that he could dodge the other man, who came at him with an eight-inch knife. After showing us how quickly he could move, he let the attacker stab hard and repeatedly at his chest, with no effect. At each thrust, the shield retreated ever so slightly, but then it pushed the blade back out before it could do any harm.

“As you can see, men,” the Mayor said as the room began to revert to its original arrangement, “further Sabon development will not only be able to get us to new places, like outer space—but it will also protect us when we're there.”

“And it could equip a formidable army. Or several of them.” This pleasant voice came from the translation grid in front of Nakamura, the Reality G executive. Obviously, this translation program worked much better than the one in my glasses.

“What are you implying, Mr. Nakamura?” the old man responded, after a pause.

“I am more concerned about what
you
are implying,” the dwarfish man answered.

“I'm afraid I don't follow.”

“I am concerned about the reason for this protest we have seen.”

“Demonstration,” Oscar Otero said to the translation grid.

The Japanese man looked at him oddly for a moment, probably because he heard the same word he had just said returning to him, through the program. But then he realized what was going on, and he turned off the translation grid with his mind. The holo disappeared, and the only movement Nakamura had made was a brief fluttering of his eyelids.

Apparently the man could control the translation program, and who knew what else, with the cyberware inside his head. As I thought about this, it occurred to me for the first time that Saul himself might be wearing such equipment, and if so, he might be able to activate the chip in my head merely by thinking about it. Was this his plan, to wield me like a tool at some point during this meeting? Would he use me to silence an opponent who asked pesky questions, as Nakamura was about to do? Or did he have something more subtle, and more insidious, in store for me…?

I shook my head, trying to quell my paranoia and replace the racing thoughts by focusing on the conversation that had begun at the table. A controversy was brewing there, about whether or not the old man was a Nazi.

 

19

“Are you threatening us with the military technology you are developing?” Nakamura said, obviously able to speak English just fine without the translation program. “Or are you trying to sell it to us?”

“Does it have to be one or the other?” Saul answered with an expression that indicated he was not taking the man entirely seriously. This seemed to fluster the tiny Asian, and the cheeks on his disproportionate head were turning more red than brown. I supposed this was because of a perceived loss of honor, or simply the same nervous emotion that I was feeling in this kind of company. He was probably new to this, like I was, and so I felt a pang of sympathy for the little man. Or I may have been just looking for another excuse to despise the Mayor.

“Maybe I want to see
who
will be threatened by it,” the old man continued. “Or who
wants
to buy it.” He kept his gaze on the Japanese man. “Or who will try to steal it.”

“Or maybe you're a Nazi who wants to take over the world, like they say,” Oscar Otero said with a chuckle.

“A ‘nutzie'?” Saul said. That was how the Macrosoft chief had pronounced it. “Oh, a Nazi. What our critics say about us. Crushing freedom under our boots for the sake of security and progress, and so forth. That is utterly inane, of course; it reveals an embarrassing ignorance of history.” He grunted and looked at the European leader in the multicolored robe. “Charlemagne, you are familiar with the history of your continent. Tell everyone how much Hitler and I have in common.”

“Well, I have to admit,” said the androgynous guest, “there are some similarities.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the old man's head retreat slightly, but he said nothing.

“The Führer believed in using the rule of law to enforce his ideological perspective,” Tamois explained. “And his martial government did practice extreme prejudice with criminals, as you do.”

“I hope you're not planning to conquer your neighboring countries, Saul,” Stan Glenn said with a twinkle in his eye.

“Thank you, no,” the older Rabin said, matching the American leader's levity, but then turning more serious. “Everyone believes in using the rule of law to enforce their ideology. You should know that, Charlemagne. What else are laws for?”

The multicolored man raised his eyebrows, squinted his eyes, and turned his head slightly.

“To preserve freedom,” was his answer, but it sounded more like a question compared to the confidence in the old man's voice.

“What is freedom?” Saul Rabin said. He looked around the table for a moment, but no one spoke up. “If you say that every citizen is free to have his own ideology, that itself is an ideology. And you'll have to enforce that ideology with laws, if you want people to be able to live by it. I am not like Hitler, nor do I like Hitler—but not because he ‘enforced his ideology.' I don't like Hitler because I do not agree with his ideology.” His gaze now went back to Tamois.

“Double-talk,” blurted the dwarf from Reality G. Then he looked to his right for some support. Otero shrugged, Glenn smiled weakly, and Tamois shuffled in his seat. My sympathy for Nakamura was now being replaced by resentment, because he was making all of us uncomfortable. Or was some virtual hand rearranging my brain to get me primed for murdering the little mutant? I found myself thinking how I could possibly pull it off, and wondering whether Min, or Sun's big bodyguards, would try to stop me. I even briefly scanned the table area for blunt instruments, until I realized how foolish this was and forced myself to focus on the conversation again.

The Mayor was waxing eloquent about the nature of freedom. “How much freedom does a train have when it has no tracks?” he was asking rhetorically. I had heard all this before from him, and back then it had been impressive, because he treated me so well, and I didn't particularly like the kinds of people he was criticizing. But now this self-righteous hot air just grated on me; I wanted to spare the world from ever having to hear it again. And whether he was Hitler to his subjects was irrelevant—he was already Brutus to me.

“Mr. Tamois also mentioned the summary-execution privilege.” Zhang Sun said this from the left of the dwarf, abruptly changing the subject. His choice of words to describe the BASS policy was more than ironic. Yes, we did allow our peacers to use lethal force at their discretion, and three-time offenders faced the threat of capital punishment, either on the street or in the cathedral. But “summary execution” sounded so cruel and unforgiving that it effectively cut through the facade of decency created by our PR people. And to call killing criminals a “privilege” was too coincidental, coming from the only other leader at the table who would condone such a policy.

“Yes, and as I've always said,” Saul responded, “deadly force can be good or bad, depending on who uses it.”

Sun just nodded, and I stared at him, beginning to wonder if the old police chief and the Chinese warlord might have more in common than just their martial manner. If the Sabon technology of this West and the cyber technology of that East were married along with the latter's military, the amount of power they could wield together would be staggering. So maybe there
was
a world-domination plan going on here. Perhaps the allusion to the German fascist, who allied himself with a massive army from the East, was not so far off after all.…