Idempotency (35 page)

Responding calmly, he asked, “May I have an ETA as to when you will have mapped our patient, Miss Okafor? How many synapses need to fire in your brain until you can tell me that simple fact?”

She sighed. “I don’t know, I need more time. It shouldn’t take more than a day.”

“Can we begin his reprogramming before you’ve mapped—”

“No! How many more times do I need to explain this to you—”

“Shut up!” Coglin’s body flinched slightly, as if he were going to raise a hand to Kya’s holoVid. Though his shoulders slumped back down, his face flushed further with anger. He drew a ragged breath and snarled as he said, “Show some fucking respect, Doctor. You work for me, don’t fucking forget it. I’m paying you to do whatever I goddam want at whatever goddam time I want it. You will fucking obey me!”

Kya blanched. Sensing as much, Reverend Coglin leaned in and his image grew in front of Kya, his holoVid image mere inches from her own face. Had they been in the same room, she would have smelled the breath from his rotting lungs. Then he added in a soft and raspy voice, “My life is nearly over, Doctor, and if you don’t do exactly what I ask, I will have no compunction about ensuring the same fate for yours.” Enunciating so much that Kya saw tiny holographic spittle floating toward her, Coglin added rhetorically, “Now, how many times do I need to explain this to you before I make myself fucking clear, you filthy cunt?”

Dr. Okafor’s head was shaking visibly. Her breath had run and hidden far away from the image of the evil man in front of her. “Yes, sir,” was the only tepid response she could muster before hanging up.

“That one, Sindhu! No—Sindhu! No! Pick the other one!”

Mitlee hollered and pointed at the holoVid as if she could control the actions of the unsuspecting object of their observations. It was a voyeuristic game of cat-and-mouse.

“Mit, calm down. She’ll get there at some point soon enough. If not now, later,” Nimbus replied patiently, patting the girl’s dark hair. Mitlee slumped forward in frustration.

The pair were sitting not-so-patiently in a circular yurt; a brownish tentlike structure that was paradise compared to the miles of slumland that surrounded them. This particular slum was located on a hillside in the middle of the southern Nevada desert. Across the river stood the decrepit town once known as Laughlin, Nevada. Laughlin had long ago succumbed to ghosts. Virt gambling and Indian casinos had electronically demolished all Nevada towns aside from Vegas. No one complained, however, as these once vibrant, now deserted towns made great public land for the lower class to visit indefinitely.

Inside the yurt a bevy of activity was taking place. Mitlee and Nimbus were on Sindhu observation watch. Jay-san, Grepman, and Chicklet were huddled together waving hands over a holo-display that mapped out various portions of the inner workings of the Titus facility. Various rooms and hallways were color coded, while the majority of areas remained unmarked. A few paces away from the trio, Simeon sat on a couch, talking incessantly to someone only he could see within his ocular implants.

“Yep, I realize that it’s the third time in the past year, but what would you have us do? It’s not like we could have stayed there. We were obviously compromised.” Simeon’s salesmanlike voice bumped up a notch, “C’mon, Fish. Money isn’t an issue—” The person on the other end of the line cut Simeon off.

Catching his wife’s gaze, Simeon rolled his eyes and she smiled back at him playfully. Mitlee clutched at her arm and pointed at the hologram floating in front of them. Simeon followed the girl’s finger and noticed the top of a forehead bobbing at the bottom of the vid feed. Simeon bolted upright.

“Sorry, Fish, I gotta run. Something just—” He was cut off again, but interjected: “Yep, nope, I got it. I will. Yes. I promise, I will update you morning, noon, and night. Okay, gotta go. I love you, too.” Simeon mock-smooched the image in his ocImps and blinked them off. His eyes flared red briefly before returning to their normal flame color.

Simeon hurried over to Nimbus, who quickly asked, “Well, should we try it?”

“Yes!” he replied. “Do it.”

“Okay. Mit, you heard him. Send it.”

Mitlee smiled wide, clicked on her BUI, then began emphatically poking the air in front of her. The forehead on the vid hologram froze, then swung around 180 degrees, forcing a wad of hair into the camera. The hair began to bob cautiously in several directions. Everyone in the room held their breath.

“Do you think it worked?” Mitlee asked impishly.

“Shh!” Nimbus scolded.

At last, the hair gave way to the forehead, which rose up, displaying two wide, chocolate-colored eyes. The eyes smiled brightly as the forehead began to reverse. Suddenly Sindhu’s upper torso came into the picture, revealing more details of the room she was in; a well-stocked supply closet. Sindhu’s lips matched the smile of her eyes and she waved crazily toward the holoVidCam. She began to speak, and as she did, their holoVid converted her lips into captions on the bottom of the projection.

Thank God. I was worried you guys forgot about me!

“Never,” Simeon stated. “How’ve you been?” His voice would be translated into text and displayed within Sindhu’s ocImps.

Hanging in there
, she said, smirking.
Actually, I’ve been bored out of my mind. When do I get to do something worthwhile? All I’ve been doing is cleaning
robots and avoiding augmented education classes. I’m getting dumber every day
. Had the lip-reading software been able to interpret sarcasm, it might have placed double quotation marks around
classes
.

“Sorry it took us so long, Sindhu—relocation took longer than we anticipated. But we’re all set now out in the Nevada desert. Cracking the various Titus firewalls was no easy task, either. Even now we only have access to the least restricted areas. We’ve been waiting for you to walk into a closet for days now.” Simeon took a deep breath.

Okay, so what can you access?

Mitlee chimed in, but her excited, high-pitched voice was merely translated to bland text, her name appearing on Sindhu’s ocImps. “We can access basic stuff, like supply closets, bathrooms, and kitchens, but that’s about it. And even some of those areas are still restricted access! They’re using a fairly advanced rotating organic cypher, which we’ve cracked, so we’re pretty sure we’re good to go for a while. We have to be careful, though; that’s why we’re sticking with text instead of vid for now. The less data we send, the easier it is to obfuscate, and the harder it is for them to detect.”

No worries, Mit. It’s good to hear from you.

Simeon cut off a would-be reply from Mit. “And on that note . . . let’s practice brevity in these chats. Sindhu, you mentioned classes. What is that about?”

There are optional class sessions every day. They call it augmented education. They didn’t introduce me to them until I was situated and into a routine—I just attended for the first time a few days ago, and quickly verified my initial assertion: These aren’t classes at all. They are virtTripping these students using some new tech. I’m assuming it’s SolipstiCorp’s stuff, but I don’t know. It’s some kind of headgear. When I saw what was going on, I left.

“Were they suspicious?” Sindhu looked confused, so Simeon added, “Of you leaving, I mean.”

Oh, no. The classes are optional. In fact, they really don’t push them on folks at all. Maybe they’re harmless, but I didn’t want to wait around to find out. I’ve talked to a couple people about them, and they sound harmless. They are learning remedial classes; algebra, history, things like that. It seems to be effective, too. So, I don’t know?

Simeon looked thoughtful. Nimbus glanced at him, and he felt her gaze and returned it. She whispered, “Maybe just testing the system?”

“Maybe, maybe not. Subtlety can be a very effective manipulation technique.”

“Or they’re just testing stuff out,” Nimbus added.

What are you guys saying? I’m only picking up half the words.
Sindhu looked nervous.

“Sorry, Sin—Nimbus had a thought that maybe they are testing the system.”

Possible. Still, even if that’s the case, what are they testing? What’s the endgame? Maybe they are just building a smarter workforce? Or reeducating people for the sake of helping the poor.

“Heh, right.” Simeon’s face twisted bitterly toward skepticism. “And I only love my wife for her sarcastic sense of humor.”

“I love you too, dear,” Nimbus deadpanned.

Sindhu jolted to her left as another woman of Indian descent entered the room. The video display began dictating the conversation.

Woman on the right: Hey, Tamalika, were you talking to yourself in here?

The awkward laugh that Sindhu responded with was not picked up by the vid translator.

Sindhu: No, just singing, softly. I do that. I sing. Songs. I sing songs to myself. Softly.

She smiled awkwardly as the other girl grabbed a plainly labeled bottle.

Woman on the right: Good for you, I like to do that, too. I’ll leave you alone to your tunes.

The woman smiled and left. Sindhu’s eyes flared toward the camera.

Shit. I need to be more careful.

Simeon replied, “Nicely played. We’re reading your lips and translating to text, you don’t need to vocalize. Just mouth the words.” Sindhu nodded, and Simeon continued: “Sindhu, two things we need from you. First, we think we know a way to unlock your encryptChip for one hour a day. As Mitlee noted, they use a unique rotation on their encryption, but we are better. We should be able to give you full access to the entire facility between the hours of two and three a.m. During this time you will appear to be asleep in bed, but you should be able to go anywhere in the complex.”

Sindhu rolled her eyes. Words flowed onto the Vid display quickly.

God, Simeon, please stop with your passive voice. You think you’ve given me access? It should work? Tell me definitively. Will it work?

Simeon smiled. “Sure. Yes. Probably. At least, we think so. We’re pretty sure about this one.” He began to chuckle.

Mit piped up, “Sin, it will work. I’m certain.”

Thank you, Mitlee. And the second thing?

“Simple. Take the classes. They’ll want you to take a pill. It has nanoTech, which allows the SolipstiCorp headgear to integrate with your cortex. We’re going to use your new ocImps to intercept the data streaming from the headgear. Then we can analyze it back here. You just need to find a way to avoid taking that pill.”

I already took the pill.

Simeon wasn’t listening. “Maybe spit it out?”

I already took the pill, Simeon.

“Or just swap it with another pill?”

Sindhu’s eyes rolled like a slot machine.

Simeon! I already took the pill! The first time I went to the class. They fooled me. Gave it to me when I walked into the room, I didn’t think twice. I thought it was a stimulant—so stupid of me. They gave me a pill and a cup of water, then I turn a corner and see all these people virtTripping on beds. I’m not putting on that headgear!

“Well, damn. Okay.” He sighed. “We were hoping to start your cloaked hour with a less risky task, but . . . we can’t afford to wait any longer. We need you to infiltrate the classroom during your hour. We must know what is being transmitted into people’s heads.”

What’s the rush?

Simeon glanced at Nimbus and shook his head. When Dylan’s e-mail to Frank utilizing the word
potent
had been discovered by the team, Simeon’s mood had turned dour. It was one thing to recruit an innocent pawn to covertly help in a good cause, it was another to cause an innocent pawn to be captured. Simeon feared for Dylan’s life, and the weight of that fear was not lost on Nimbus.

“Sin, we think they have Dylan,” Nimbus said. “We don’t know what’s going on, exactly, but we intercepted a message from Dylan—he used his safe word. More worrisome, however, is that we’ve gained access to logs that imply his location has remained unchanged for two days now, somewhere in the northern tip of the facility—the Saint Titus wing. If we’re reading our hacked Titus logs correctly, we’re afraid his vitals show he is in a deathTrip. That’s all we know, but it’s enough to make us very concerned.”

From the front of the yurt, standing behind everyone, Kristina let out a small yelp. She had just arrived moments before, but hadn’t announced her arrival yet. She had been holding a duffel bag, which she let fall to the dusty floor.

“Oh no, Kristina, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know you were there!” Nimbus ran to the back of the yurt and put an arm around Kristina’s sobbing shoulders. She looked over at Milee and said, “Mit, get Kristina some water and then bring in her bag.”

Meanwhile, Sindhu had just asked,
When did Dylan even
arrive?

Grepman an=/ Jay-san walked up behind Simeon. “The day he went offline,” Grepman answered after Nimbus had settled Kristina.

Shit.

“Since when did Sindhu get to Titus?” Jay-san asked innocently.

Simeon ignored him and began to say something, but before he could, Sindhu spoke.

Give me Dylan’s coordinates.

“We should get Sindhu’s Titus encryptID so we can track her. Assuming she’s equipped with one?” Jay asked casually.

“I already got it, Jay. Pipe down,” Simeon shot back impatiently, then looked back at Sindhu and shook his head. The flames in his eyes flared. “Sindhu, it’s too risky. You can’t even get to the northern wing in an hour, let alone get back into your room. You must focus on figuring out what’s being transmitted through the virtTrips.”

Fine, I will—but still, give me his coordinates. If something changes—if something happens, I don’t want to have to wait to hear from you.

“Sindhu . . .” Simeon locked eyes with his short-haired Indian protégé. He bit his tongue. “I don’t like this. Do not do anything rash. You have to promise me this. I want your sincere word.” He shifted from biting his tongue to his lip, shook his head, then added, “Seriously, Sindhu, swear on the memory of your father.”