Synners (20 page)

"Little by little, Gabe. Took years."

"What's wrong with a simple headmount?"

"Not big enough. The
world's
not big enough. If it were, we wouldn't need to make worlds like this."

A skate slipped past him, flicking its tail like a whip, followed by a waving mass of jellyfish in assorted sizes and colors. Gabe ducked reflexively, and one of them dragged its streamers across his shoulder. The barbs on the end struck sparks of light. One of Consuela's inventions. "Are you ever going to put this on-line?" he asked.

"It
is
on-line, for anyone who cares to find it."

"How do you live? I mean, what are you doing for paying work?"

"Sleeping with benefactors."

"Oh."

She laughed heartily, a deep, grand-opera kind of laugh. "Listen, it's not so bad. We're all art lovers, after all." She laughed again. "Do you remember when we used to share space downstairs? You must, you're here. You were almost never here then, though."

"The expense," he said. "I couldn't justify paying even half rent on a place where I would just sit and stare." He looked around, shaking his head. "Catherine was right."

"She left you yet?"

Dumbfounded, he stared at the octopus, nodding. "Quite recently."

"Next time you sleep with someone, make sure it's a benefactor."

He took a breath and then blew it out. "Ouch. I felt that one, Con."

"You were meant to. Listen: the benefactors I sleep with never see me. Not
me.
They don't even know what I look like, and they don't care. They come in here and step into whatever world it is they want made for them, and I take care of them. A headmount isn't big enough. Though they all use hotsuits. It's a living, it's what I have to do." The octopus winked. "It's not so bad. They're just humans, after all. Just humans. You're holding one of them up."

"Sorry," he said, stepping back from the rock. "I'll go."

"Don't apologize. Come back instead."

He laughed. "I don't think you need a studio-mate to help with expenses anymore, Con."

"But maybe you need to feel good." Her voice came from the rose. He turned it to look into its heart. Her face gazed out at him, clear and wise.

"I'm not a benefactor," he said uneasily. Consuela had never seemed the slightest bit interested in him before. The whole idea made him a little queasy and more than a little curious.

"You could be a benefactee," she said. "Or whatever it's called."

He dropped the rose and backed toward the door. "Not me. I just—" He shrugged. "Not me, Consuela."

"Stop."

Gabe froze with his hand on the knob.

"If you don't come here, go
somewhere.
Do you get me? Go somewhere."

He ducked his head in a nod and fled, pulling the door shut behind him a little too hard before he half ran back to the rental in the parking lot.

He had to pull around a large private car to get back out onto Olympic; perhaps it belonged to Consuela's benefactor, the one he had apparently delayed with his visit.

"Go somewhere," he muttered as he edged into the slow-moving traffic on Olympic. "Go somewhere. Sure thing, Con. If the clog ever lets up, I can go to the moon."

"Yes?" said Manny, standing at attention.

The formally dressed woman sitting on the couch in the crowded sunken living room stood up. She was a representative from one of the western states, but at the moment Manny couldn't remember which one. "I'm sure you're expecting this question, so I'll get it out of the way for all of us." She looked around with a professional smile. "It seems to me that this procedure, as you call it, has enormous potential for abuse. What sort of safeguards have you considered?"

Manny mirrored her smile. "You'll pardon me for saying so, but this seems to be a, ah, legislative matter."

Everyone in the room laughed.

"Precisely." The representative folded her arms. "So perhaps I should reword the question. Why should we push for legalization of a procedure that has such enormous potential for abuse? And with such potential do you really think the American people will even want it?"

"I believe in offering people a choice," Manny said smoothly, getting another round of appreciative laughs. "We're not asking for a law to make it
mandatory,
only permissible. When implants first became generally available for therapeutic reasons—epilepsy, manic-depression, autism, and other neurological disorders—there was, as I recall, quite a lot of public concern over the potential for abuse there. And we all know there
is
abuse. There isn't a fair-sized city anywhere in America—or in the world, for that matter—that doesn't have its share of feel-good mills, fitting the irresponsible with ecstasy buttons, giving on-off switches to people who are merely weak in character. Nonetheless, I don't think any of us would deny a manicdepressive the opportunity to function normally and effectively, free of drugs that may wear off prematurely or have irritating side effects. I don't think any of us would refuse a second chance to someone with brain damage sustained in an accident—"

He went on, aware of Mirisch from the Upstairs Team beaming at him and nodding. Mirisch, the Great Grey Executive, with his silver hair and matching silver suits. Mirisch hadn't thought he was really capable of addressing a roomful of senators and representatives and other VIPs. Manny was giving him an eyeful and an earful tonight.

Several hundred words later he wasn't sure he'd completely satisfied the representative, but she sat down without further comment.

On the left side of the room, an older man with more sideburns than face waved a peremptory finger at him and stood up without waiting to be acknowledged. "Say we get it legalized. You're not actually suggesting that this procedure be performed on
school-age children?"

Manny inclined his head slightly. "I believe I mentioned that, except for cases of organic damage, autism, seizure disorders, or dyslexia, it's not meant for individuals who have not attained full physical growth." Manny looked away, searching the room, and then nodded at an elegant black woman before the man could say anything else.

"You mention freedom of choice," she said. "However, we all know that often freedom of choice is a fantasy. You've told us that direct input to the brain will be a more vivid experience than even what a head-mounted monitor delivers. Isn't there a danger here of literally putting ideas into people's heads, of
programming
them?"

"That's
what I was trying to say before," called the first woman. "I think
that
potential for abuse could outweigh the benefits."

Everyone was looking at him expectantly now, including the nowunsmiling Mirisch.
Watch this, Grey Boy.
"That could be true," he said slowly, "but Dr. Joslin's research has uncovered some very interesting facts about brain output and input, one of those facts being, it's far easier to obtain output than it is to input anything. Stated another way, it's far easier to express one's self than to learn anything, as any of you with children may know only too well."

He got a respectable if tentative laugh on that one. Mirisch was almost smiling again. "Dr. Joslin has, in fact, researched the possibility of using sockets for instant education—instant doctors, for example, or instant lawyers. Instant politicians—" Another laugh. "Instant architects, instant neurosurgeons, and the like. However, it seems humans learn by doing. An instant neurosurgeon, for example, would still lack experience. Dr. Joslin emphasized to me that sockets do not impart
experience.
And there is the matter of the medium. The output of a given brain would be stored in a variation of the conventional software we use now. 'Literally putting ideas into people's heads' would be more likely if we used the sockets for a direct connection between two or more brains."

The woman looked troubled. "And would that be feasible?" she asked.

"It's not feasible now," he said. "Perhaps that is one of the things that should be legislated
against."

The laughs were still tentative. An older Oriental woman directly in front of him stood up. "Why have you decided to launch this great breakthrough, as you call it, by using it as a more efficient means to produce
rock
videos?"

She got a round of applause for that, especially from the older man in the back, who shouted, "Good question!" Manny glanced over at the bar, where the Beater stood silently nursing a drink, and waited for the room to quiet down before he answered. Mirisch looked positively stony now.
Don't
sweat yet,
Manny thought at him,
wait till I'm circling around your spot
on the Upstairs Team.

"It's not a more efficient production of rock video that we are interested in, exactly, but rather the individual involved. He goes by the professional name of Visual Mark, and Dr. Joslin informs me that the visualizing center of his brain is hypertrophied—overdeveloped, that is, so overdeveloped that he should have no trouble at all sending out anything he visualizes. We also have another possible candidate, though less is known about that brain. Perhaps we might be able to find someone in a loftier type of profession, but rather than conduct a talent search, it seems far more efficient to go with someone we already know is suitable." Manny allowed himself a small laugh. "As for rock video—well, it's what he does for a living. He's a volunteer, in case anyone's wondering, which is another point in his favor. We might find someone in another line of work with even better visualization abilities, but there's no guarantee that person would agree to pioneer for us."

The questions went on for twenty minutes longer before Mirisch finally stood up and announced the presentation had to come to an end, or there wouldn't be enough time left to enjoy themselves. This drew the most enthusiastic applause of the night. Promise them anything, but give them a party, Manny thought as he stepped aside to let Mirisch take over. It was a relief; he had begun to tire even before the question-and-answer session, though he doubted that anyone had noticed. The old iron control had pulled him through again.

Earlier the control had slipped a little; not much, just enough that he had looked dismayed when he'd climbed into the transport on the roof of the Diversifications building and found the Beater already sitting in the backseat. But the flight out had been smooth and quick, and the Beater hadn't been inclined to conversation any more then he had.

The Beater was still standing down at the other end of the bar, looking at him dourly. The Beater. What kind of a name was that for a fifty-year-old man? That alone would tell you they were cases, that whole EyeTraxx oddlot. At least this one had behaved himself. If he hadn't, Manny knew the Upstairs Team would have held him responsible, and that would have been the end of all the benefits he'd gained from instigating the EyeTraxx coup.

They must have suspected how he'd done it, Manny thought as he watched Despres, the junior member of the Upstairs Team, working on Belle Kearney from the Food, Drug, and Software Administration. No one had asked him a thing when he'd presented Joslin's research to them, along with Hall Galen's financial history and an outline of how Diversifications could acquire EyeTraxx by feinting a takeover of Hall Galen Enterprises as a whole. Joslin's sockets were a little out of Diversifications' usual line, but nobody had said a thing about that, either. An opportunity was an opportunity, and even a lightweight like Mirisch, who had paused in his mingling to beam at Despres and Kearney, could see this was major stuff.

At the very least it would give the Upstairs Team an excuse to party with a bunch of VIPs, which was very possibly the best thing Manny could have done, for them and, consequently, for his career. Privately Manny found many of the so-called VIPs less than distinguished; they reminded him of Diversifications employees of a certain stripe. He also found it significant that many of them had implants of some kind or another, something he had discreetly left unsaid in the presentation. They all claimed the implants were aids for concentration and memory, but Manny suspected there were a few leashed manic-depressives, some schizoids, and at least one bona fide sociopath on inhibitors.

Only one person from the House of Representatives openly acknowledged that her implants were for temporal-lobe epilepsy, but she wasn't present. It had been generally agreed that anyone that straightforward probably wouldn't let little things like Diversifications' overly generous hospitality go by.

If
it came to generosity—the Upstairs Team had been adamant on that point. Anyone who liked the idea well enough without any extra persuasion didn't get any, and those who needed it would have to ask. That was all right; they knew how.

He accepted a drink from the bartender and held it as a prop. Soon he would have to take a stabilizing dose of the stimulant he'd been running on all day. Or, actually, since he'd returned from Mexico. The switch-hitting hacker had thrown his schedule off completely, and he'd had to make up the time he'd lost to prepare tonight's presentation by skipping a night's sleep. Better business through chemistry.

Despres stepped up to the bar for a refill, nodding at him with chilly politeness. Mirisch had taken over the conversation with Kearney, Manny saw, and Despres obviously didn't like being shut out. The yotz probably didn't know that Mirisch and Kearney had gone to Harvard together. School ties were still in fashion. Even tacky school ties, he thought, taking in Kearney's outfit and wondering when her tailor would have mercy on her and sew the collars back onto her jackets. Apparently the minions of the FDSA weren't slaves to fashion. Unfashion, perhaps, but not fashion.

He was amused by the turn of his thoughts, though another part of him recognized he was getting a few symptoms off the stimulants again. Getting some flashover, as the hard core put it. If he had to run much longer this way, he would qualify as hard core himself, and getting detoxed wouldn't do much for his image with the Upstairs Team. It was never a good idea to let them think you had weaknesses.