Cosmos Incorporated (12 page)

It is a struggle to keep the Orbital Ring in service, and only cosmodromes like the one in Grand Junction are still able to transport people there. Still, machines are constantly being invented that allow man to be less and less tired.

Plotkin walks through open-sky souks where various scavenged high-tech materials are sold. There are people selling cigarettes, which are illegal in 90 percent of the North American territory. He passes two or three neurogame arcades, where men openly sell versions of pedophilic, sadistic virtual-reality pornography that is outlawed almost everywhere else. Toward the north, near the hotel, it is still relatively calm. It is only when he crosses an enormous four-lane boulevard called Nova Express that he really passes beyond the border of the neighborhood responsible for the reputation of Monolith South: Ottawa Village. Here, your security level drops more than a few notches.

According to Grand Junction’s internal ecology plan this Monolith Hills enclave south of the strip is part of the “low society,” as it is referred to by General Statistics. In a way, a very certain way, it is closely connected to Junkville.

The paradigm is there, supervisible, in the form of blinking signs that indicate it like writing on a wall. In the
PERMANENT INDEPENDENT ZONE FOR THE LOWER CLASSES—
read: the poor—people exploit one another without the slightest qualm. Ottawa Village, fifteen kilometers to the south of Junkville, is like a predator face-to-face with its prey. In Ottawa Village, the cosmodrome pimps act like kings of the city and the Orbital Ring.
“Suck my cock, bitch, and I’ll get you a visit to the Cape.”

Here, in this place that has managed to rise minutely above Junkville, throngs of procurers from the strip work the world like a job, feeding copious streams of bribe money into the Municipal Consortium’s various black boxes.

In Junkville, you have only to look around to make a killing. Some people compare it to the intensive overfishing of the twentieth century, when there were still noncloned fish. Rumor has it that there are true open-sky recruitment centers there, and that they are never empty, day or night.

In general, Ottawa Village sits between Nova Express, in the 22000 blocks, and extends south to Pluto Street, 10000 numbers lower. This is the heart of the strip, with Leonov Alley as central Broadway, and dozens and dozens of streets where bars, brothels, nightclubs, arcades, fast-food places, and various cockfighting pits crowd together under the glacial polychromy of neon signs. It is here that one passes through the “solar system” with its nine successive streets bearing the names of our sun’s planets. A veritable concentration camp for whores. All the diseased flesh in Junkville that is still capable of being used is gathered there. Especially the flesh of minors.

Past Pluto Street and the 9900 block of addresses, a vast area of electroneural arcades and gladiatorial arenas, whose flying saucer–shaped hulls seem to have only just landed between V1 Street and V2 Street, things grow progressively calmer. The start of Leonov Alley, at the corner of Voskhod Boulevard, may not exactly be SonyDisneyWorld, but it seems like nothing more than a trendy nightlife hotspot, with a few picturesque antique porno theaters (still working).

It is often said that the Devil loves to disguise himself, and will even dress up as Christ, if he must, in order to attract the damned.

He no longer needs to go to all that trouble.

The Devil’s best camouflage, in this day and age, is the Devil himself.

The black monolith stands, obviously, in Monolith Plaza, at the corner of Mercury Street and—of course—Monolith Street. It serves as the symbolic starting point of the “solar system.” It is only a poor slab of black carbon-carbon, three hundred fifty meters high, standing on a broad pedestal and facing, via Monolith Street, a long slope that goes down toward the valley and the lights of Grand Junction. Its hieratic presence in the middle of this square peopled with whores, pimps, and their motley clients, with crude noises and lights, is totally incongruous; it seems almost as obscene as it is ridiculous. It is as if some deity ended up on the wrong floor, and had never been able to get back on the elevator to Heaven.

Plotkin walks for hours, climbing from the 9900 block back toward the Hotel Laika.

The 9900 block alone contains a good hundred addresses; hence its name. It is home to one of the largest arenas on the strip; there, gladiators of all types face off against one another. Collectively neuroencrypted historical reenactments have been wildly popular for some time with the public, who gathers en masse in the rare places only partially controlled by the UHU to see “authentic” Roman gladiators, battles between superheroes, and famous battles that end occasionally, if not often, with actual deaths. Fractures, wounds, and amputations are the rule. The fights take place in beaten-earth amphitheaters with participants in the uniforms of Roman soldiers, Thracians, and retiarii; and in zero-G cabins where they dress as Superman and the X-Men. It is said that some directors of the UHU Governance Bureau admit that “violent sports, placed under reasonable ethical control, are an excellent substitute for imperialist aggressiveness and war.” Plotkin hears wisecracks on this subject in the streets as he passes by groups of people loaded on some drug or another, legal or illegal—there are many for sale on the Monolith Hills strip.
Grand Junction’s a model, did you hear? We’re going to export the 9900!
He hears laughs and incredulous exclamations. But the more time that passes on this planet where he has apparently lived for fifty-six years, the more he understands that there is less and less sense in the claims of the UHU directors—the “masters” of the world.

No more frontiers to conquer; no more war to face; no more limits to reach beyond. There are good times ahead for the professional gladiators.

Bread and circuses.

The circuses, especially, are in for a brilliant ride, in these times when they are permissible and welcomed so much that they may well exceed their origins.

Back to the hotel now. Time to waste away in front of his neuroquantum console.

El señor Metatron reappears just as he is crossing Nova Express.

ALERT.

The message blocks his view as he steps up onto the curb of a small street lined with third-rate cybersex shops. The words flash bright orange in front of an android-whore covered in black latex who strikes a series of lascivious poses in the front window of a specialty boutique.

The android Vega 2501 is there too. El señor Metatron recognized his genetic imprint on a cash machine a little further up on Moon River.

He must be avoided at all costs. Plotkin should take a left there, now, at the next corner (Alpha Street), but he does nothing.

He doesn’t know exactly why he is acting this way—why he doesn’t leap to follow the imperious instructions of the invisible light blob that is hovering above the pavement next to him, at the corner of a building, in front of a shop window, under a neon sign, a few inches from the aerosol-sculpted hairdo of a whore.

He walks calmly in the direction of Moon River. He walks calmly in the direction of the android. He walks calmly toward one of the possibilities that the instruction program did not anticipate.

>
A NIGHT WITH THE MACHINE FROM THE SKY

The android is walking in front of him, heading north. Back to the hotel, no doubt.

The LED display in his right eye informs Plotkin that it is 2:18 in the morning. What has the android been doing in Monolith South, beyond Nova Express? Why here, in this neighborhood full of whores, illegal dope, and crime? Why the hell had he needed to get cash on his way back to the hotel?

Because he spent all his money on the strip between the “solar system” and Nova Express, that’s why. Because he has plenty of cash. Even contracted androids get paid well by certain orbital corporations. And the strip is full of merchandise available for cash, and so is Ottawa Village.

Sexed androids are becoming more and more popular with humans. It seems logical that, in return, sexed androids would be attracted to
Homo sapiens.
And it is likely that, for an android who worked for almost twenty years in harsh lunar conditions, there is hardly any difference between a
biological human structure
aged twelve or fourteen years old and one twice that age. Male or female probably doesn’t matter much either.

Something is pushing Plotkin to follow Vega 2501, or whatever his name is. El señor Metatron immediately makes his disapproval known, but the neuroinstruction program seems to be perfectly operational on this point. All the reflexes of a secret police agent are deeply and clearly ingrained in him.

He plunges into the crowd, never taking his eyes off his prey, turning away, bending to reattach a Velcro shoelace, or loitering behind a handy obstacle when, occasionally, the android half turns to look in some clothing or sex shop. He plays with his programmable clothing in an intelligent manner—that is, without overdoing it. He always keeps his distance.

His learning, the discipline acquired, the spy-killer training are so strongly embedded in his psyche that he is rapidly able to detect something abnormal in Vega 2501’s maneuvering.

He is trying to determine whether or not someone is following him.

He is trying to spot a possible tail.

Have I already been found out?
Plotkin wonders.

El señor Metatron suggests that he think about some information taken from the Moon River banking terminal. The identity of Vega 2501—the false identity—does not belong to anyone. More precisely, it is the identity of a person who died in the Ring, but for whom there is no registered death notice. This “person,” an android like him, died on the eve of his departure from the Orbring—the eve of the Flandro attack on the Zero-G Industries facility. Yet his death has still never been officially announced, and does not seem to be recorded anywhere. Only the internal report of a hospital station mentions it. Vega 2501 undoubtedly had something to do with the Ring attacks. He is on the lookout for a possible UHU cop or one from some orbital corporation. Only an authentic NeuroNet genius like himself, el señor Metatron claims, would have been able to ferret out that grain of information.

Plotkin smiles to himself at the outsize ego of the brazier flaming with contentment at his feet. The little guy is very talented, he must admit.

Our “man” is hiding something. Something related to the attacks and the suspicious death of another android.

Something that has some relation to his “inhumanity.”

It is clear now that at some point they must meet.

Past the 30000 block, around three or four kilometers from the hotel, the android goes into a bar. It is a place typical of this northern part of the strip, less noisy than Monolith South. There are the obligatory dancers executing their spins and outdated “sexy” poses around their everlasting aluminum bar at the far end of the large, dimly lit room. The tables are mainly occupied by middle-aged working-class men, probably punters from the nearby cosmodrome construction sites.

At the bar, there are one or two temptresses already at work. Calmly, the android heads for a free stool.

Plotkin knows that Grand Junction’s bars are among the rare establishments in North America—on the planet, in fact—that do not refuse to serve “andros.” That may explain why Vega 2501, after twenty-five years living in orbit and on the moon, in places where such segregation is not only useless but harmful, and is therefore banned, decided to come “find work” in Grand Junction. He is just another one of the pilgrims who come in the tens of thousands to populate the city, its strips and barrios, for a half portion of the dream, for a speck of freedom in its cellophane wrapper, for the more and more distant stars.

The best thing to do is be direct.

Plotkin sits at the bar and orders a beer; the barman hands him a sheet of memory cellulose listing alcohol of all kinds. Animated holographic advertisements pop up next to each choice. Plotkin glances distractedly at the menu, keeping his peripheral attention on the android, who orders a double scotch—perfectly legal in Grand Junction. When the barmaid, a nicely proportioned Anglo-Canadian redhead with green eyes that shine like phosphorescent lamps, comes to take his order, he again opts for a pale ale and gazes appreciatively at the young woman’s body for a moment as she moves to the other end of the bar.

Plotkin notices that the android’s attention is similarly focused; he likes women. Young ones—though this one is an adult at least, around twenty years old. He isn’t a pervert, just an android who prefers to go to bed with
Homo sapiens.
Fine. Time to approach him now.

“Hello. Excuse me, but aren’t you staying at the Hotel Laika?”

Plotkin doesn’t budge from his stool; there are two empty places between them. He smiles pleasantly at the android, who turns to him, surprised, his face almost human save for the perfectly balanced features, the unnaturally bright gray-blue eyes, the bland smile and digitalized expressions, the too-perfect smoothness of his skin. There can be no doubt of his origins.

“Yes,” he replies. “You too?”

It’s as simple as that.

The waitress is Chinese American, a little pudgy, but whose voluptuous curves, accentuated by her black leotard, seem to provoke a good deal of arousal in the android’s emotive sensors. She sets the two drinks down side by side on the corner of the table and takes their money, thanking them for the generous tip the faux human includes in the cosmopolitan Grand Junction currency. Plotkin and the android have moved to this isolated table in the corner of the room, lit only by an old neon Budweiser sign.

Plotkin plays his role perfectly, leading with his knowledge of the space industry.
My office is one of the best insurance companies in Russia, et cetera, et cetera.

Later, it will be almost impossible for him to remember the exact chronology of events—or nonevents. It will be impossible to remember how long they talked, or what they talked about. He will, however, remember the waitresses.

And a few bits of important information gleaned randomly from a few sentences exchanged with the android.

Vega 2501, or whatever his real series number might be, worked his twenty-five years of orbital service for the Brazilian army, mainly on the moon. He then worked in several Ring factories as a security guard, among them Venux Corp, which manufactures—like all the companies in the field—orbital androids.

Plotkin remembers that Sydia Nova 280 was manufactured by Venux Corp. It was quite a coincidence. On the moon, during his contractual service, Vega 2501 had had high-responsibility jobs such as chief mission operator; he surveyed thousands of kilometers on the Hidden Face with the Wilcot-Volkov expedition.
The Dark Side of the Moon
was the Pink Floyd album that had marked the band’s apogee and thus the beginning of its end, Plotkin is sure of it; he knows the group and its history by heart. It is part of the cobbled-together personality he is hanging on to as fiercely as if it were really his own.

It doesn’t matter anymore what is true and what is false.
It doesn’t matter,
he says to Vega 2501, smiling, who at his request is explaining the sexual customs of androids in orbit. It doesn’t really matter whether he is an insurance agent or a professional killer, or whether he spent his childhood in Novosibirsk, or London, or Buenos Aires. None of these details really matter, do they? What counts is the fact that something totally unplanned is beginning, delicately, to take hold of him.

What counts is that he is beginning to live.

Later, when the bar closes, around 3:30 in the morning, they walk back up the strip together to the hotel. Plotkin decides to take a chance.

“Have you met the other android staying in the hotel?”

Vega 2501 seems genuinely surprised. “What other android?”

Plotkin knows he is treading on quicksand here. Yes, he has been drinking, but his reflexes and intuition are unaffected. All throughout the night, an antialcoholic filter has been dissolving and transforming the harmful sugars. He had half a dozen beers, but he feels as if he’s barely had a pint. It wasn’t even voluntary; this is part of his “organic” kit; as a good professional killer for the Order, it is out of the question to let himself be abused by any legal or illegal narcotic. The android probably has a similar device; he is walking quite as straight as Plotkin.

“A female android. I passed her once in the hall,” he lies.

Vega 2501 seems frankly disturbed.

“A
female
android, did you say? So she’s sexed? One of the new androids?”

“Yes; like you, but female.”

They walk slowly but steadily, crossing Telstar Bridge, a simple twenty-four-meter expanse of steel and concrete spanning a millennia-old ravine carved into the hills. They can see the hotel on the horizon, with its holographic dog on the sign turning above the carbon dome, glowing eerily in pastel blue and pink.

“I’ve never seen her. A
female
android—you’re sure? And you passed right by her?”

“Yes,” Plotkin says, still hovering somewhere between a lie and the truth. “Definitely a female.”

The words plunge Vega 2501 into renewed depths of confusion. He does not speak again until they reach the hotel. They part quickly.

“Well, good night, Mr. Plotkin. Thank you for the enjoyable evening,” says the humanoid machine with a synthetic smile, before walking quickly toward the hotel’s southern wing, where his capsule is located.

It’s as simple as that.

Open and shut in the same way.

Plotkin crosses the lobby toward the west elevator. He passes the counter, and notices that the light is on in the manager’s office. The counter and a good part of the space behind it, as well as a sort of attached cubicle separated from the main office by a partition and a little glass door, are full of all kinds of objects.

No. Only three kinds.

Exactly three kinds.

There is a pile of Recyclo™ particleboard boxes filled with packs of cigarettes.

There are translucent plastic Tupperware containers in which Plotkin can discern the distinctive color, shape, and smell of thousands of marijuana buds.

And there are boxes of children’s neuroelectronic games made in India. One of the boxes is open, ripped partway across its width, near an ashtray made of a large crockery plate, in which several Camel and Marlboro butts glow orange in a pile of gray ashes emitting wisps of carbon smoke that fill the entire reception area.

Someone has been smoking cigarettes. Someone has piled boxes haphazardly. Someone has been very busy doing who knows what in the service office, and not for very long, by the looks of it. The delivery is dated earlier that night. Plotkin guesses that by dawn all of it will have vanished.

He obviously stumbled on this at a very bad time, but it is really a stroke of luck for him. The manager is probably in the middle of stowing the most compromising boxes somewhere in the office.

He shouldn’t stay.

He makes a beeline for the west corridor and its elevator.