The Beam: Season One (6 page)

“The NAU, even today, still has the world’s only stable government,” said Isaac, looking earnestly at the glass eyes in front of him. “Our two parties were formed at a time of unrest, as our borders closed, as our enemies tried to storm our gates. And in the midst of that unrest, the Enterprise decided it was more important to fight over the resources we had and let the strongest survive. It was short-sighted then, and it’s short-sighted now. One citizen should not be rewarded if another must suffer. In the Directorate, we are
all
equal.”
 

Nicolai felt his gut tighten.
That
was the only outright lie in the speech. But it was okay; that particular lie had been told often enough that nobody knew it was a lie. Repetition had turned it true. The spirit of Directorate “equality” said that everyone was taken care of and had a chance to advance. In reality, “equality” meant a ton of low-level managers, number crunchers, data shufflers, and representatives from industries that could easily be automated, all juxtaposed with the highly paid Directorate elite. Nicolai himself was paid well, but there seemed to be a secret club above his pay grade, in the realm of the Isaacs and the Natashas. He’d heard Isaac and Natasha use the term “Beau Monde.” Although Nicolai probably wasn’t supposed to so much as know the phrase (he being merely in the 95
^th
or so percentile), he suspected it referred to the truly elite — the one percent of the population that possessed 99 percent of the wealth.
 

But as Nicolai had written and Isaac had said, no system was perfect. There
were
a lot of starving artists and failed entrepreneurs in the Enterprise. Maybe the Directorate system was the best that could be done. Nicolai couldn’t make up his mind. In an ideal world, he’d knock down the iron rule that said you chose one party or the other, and would plunk himself squarely in the middle.
 

Nicolai looked out across the live audience — a group of several hundred Directorate who’d come to the Orpheum to watch Isaac Ryan speak in person. Their faces were pleased and optimistic, their mouths set in determination. A few nodded along. Part of their fervor was probably due to the add-on Isaac had in his throat — a little gadget that caused his voice to reverberate at the most psychologically persuasive frequencies — but mostly it was Nicolai’s words, coming from Isaac’s mouth. One day Nicolai would finish his novel. One day he’d be known for something other than speeches… if, in fact, he got any credit for the speeches at all.

Nicolai’s fingers twitched — an unconscious gesture he made when he wanted time to hurry.
 

He’d written the speech; he knew it was almost over. When it was, the crowd would applaud (of course; he could see them dying to shower Isaac with praise right now) and for another night, the Directorate’s image in the minds of its members would be secure. They would sleep having decided to remain in the Directorate when Shift came. Their earlier dissatisfaction would seem less vital, less insistent. Groups who had previously felt inequity would feel kinship instead.
 

In the glow of post-speech adoration, Nicolai would shake a few hands as Isaac liked him to, then run off on a very important errand. Listening to the speech hadn’t moved
him
toward pacification. Listening to his own hypocrisy coming from Isaac’s lips made him want to do something very, very Enterprise. He wanted nothing more right now than to run over to Doc’s and pick up his newest purchase — a 2.0 version of his current wetchip. He’d paid a fortune for it and was dying to try it out, to explode into an impulsive, reckless, unstable tsunami of creativity. The new chip was supposed to be safer, deeper, and much, much more effective.
 

He’d had a frustrating few days. First the riot at Natasha’s concert, then the panicked call from Isaac. He hadn’t been able to reach Kai Dreyfus, who not only calmed him but also helped him to think. Kai knew all about Nicolai’s implant. She’d always encouraged him to write his books and make his art. And sure, she was a whore, and a whore would tell her clients whatever they wanted to hear. But Nicolai, always a good judge of character, suspected that Kai might just be the only honest person in his life.

But everything would be fine once he got out there and got his new implant. It wouldn’t matter that he’d done plenty of his own whoring here tonight.

Onstage, Isaac closed his speech.
 

Applause.
 

Heads nodded in the live audience, just as they would be nodding in Directorate households all across the NAU.
 

Nicolai smiled a plastic smile, shook hands, and muscled through too many minutes of mingling. Then he slipped out, hailed a hovercab, and soared through the city toward Doc’s apartment.

Chapter 6

Doc sat in an overstuffed chair in his apartment on the 47
^th
floor of Tuco Towers, a conjoined pair of skyscrapers connected to one another by bridges. The bridges were a novelty and branding angle for Tuco and nothing more. Even if there was any point in going from one building filled with apartments of people you didn’t know to another, the people at the top of the towers were rich enough to afford hoverskippers. Even Doc could afford a hoverskipper. He didn’t have one because hoverskippers were (like the city’s ancient, horse-drawn hansom cabs) for tourists. He had his car, though, and while it would be clunky to climb into it through the magnetic port at the end of his hallway and cross to the other tower, he could do it. He’d do that before walking across those stupid bridges, which were mainly used by the Towers’ teenagers to hook up and fuck.

Right now, Doc was supposed to be watching a holo to unwind from a long day of scrambling, as a hustler like himself always did.
 

Instead, he was
trying
to watch the holo, but couldn’t move his mind from what he’d seen in the lab.
 

The upgrades he’d seen were troubling enough. Revolutionary new nanobots? Eyes that looked real but could do… well, whatever they could do? BioFi? What did it all mean? And how had that lab been there the whole time he’d been visiting Xenia… and yet they’d kept it from him? He was one of their best salesmen. Doc hadn’t just been plunked into Tuco Towers, where the rents were exorbitant because the security was top-notch. He’d
earned
his way into wealth. Xenia couldn’t possibly think he wouldn’t be able to sell those upgrades.
 

And that led to the most troublesome thing about Doc’s afternoon — a crawling certainty that the only reason Doc wasn’t supposed to see the upgrades in that lab was because his customers would never be allowed to buy them.
 

When Greenley (the salesman Doc had been mistaken for — a man whose elite clients
were
allowed buy those elite upgrades) had made his unfortunately timed appearance, Doc had realized the depth of the shit he’d landed in. He had learned, quite accidentally, just how far the field of human advancement had come. If what Killian had told him was even half true, people who used those upgrades would be almost like superheroes. How much of a person’s mind could be backed up on The Beam these days? How far had virtual meetings advanced? If the level of immersion that
seemed
possible was indeed possible, users of the new technology would be able to sit in a chair beside a canvas and feel themselves fully somewhere else. With a snicker, Doc’s mind immediately drifted to the applications in immersive porn. Just imagine the filthy knots into which fetishists could twist themselves when those new tricks came on board.

And that was just the stuff he’d seen. His new, unauthorized knowledge didn’t include the other devices Doc had seen around the lab — items Killian hadn’t had time to tell him about before they’d been interrupted. Some of those things had looked like weapons. Others had looked like spare body parts. The human arm hanging on the wall… what could it do? Could it shoot deadly rays like in old movies about the future? Could it punch a hole in Plasteel? Could it disrupt the life energy of anyone it touched, thus making it a hand of death? There was no way to know.
 

In the lab, Killian’s eyes had been panicked when he’d realized his mistake. The guard had advanced. A few minutes later, another two guards had entered and Doc had found himself surrounded. He hadn’t been able to help himself. He’d raised his hands. Killian, regaining his composure, had then laughed and told Doc that there had been a mistake, but that he wasn’t in Nazi Germany. Killian had smiled wide and waved the guards away, chastising them for giving their guest the wrong impression. But Killian, Doc noticed, still hadn’t unlocked the door, or told the armed men to leave.
 

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Stahl,” Killian had told him. “We seem to have made an unfortunate mistake.”
 

“Hmm,” Doc replied, noncommittal.

“Fortunately, our gaffe is reversible.”
 

Doc had looked at the guards, his eyes wary. He was usually cool and in control, always smooth and often sarcastic — a sometimes-cocky asshole. But as he’d eyed the guards and their weapons (a sort he hadn’t seen before), Doc felt his usual persona melt away. He stood in the middle of the room unable to move.
 

“Oh, please,” said Killian, laughing. “What is this, a standoff?”
 

“I don’t know,” said Doc. “Is it?”
 

“Of course not,” said Killian. “You’re one of our best salesmen.” But he was merely mouthing the words. Killian hadn’t even known who he was, and still didn’t.
 

“Hmm,” Doc repeated. His arms had raised slightly from his sides when the guards had approached, even after he’d lowered them from over his head. He looked like a man about to sprint, once he determined the correct direction in which to run.

“But I hope you understand,” said Killian, “these upgrades are for a client who demands high levels of discretion.” But that, too, was bullshit. Doc, who was well-steeped in the art of bullshit, knew bullshit when he heard it. What he was seeing wasn’t a custom order. It was a product line. This wasn’t all for one company or person; it was for a whole
class
of people — a class that Doc, while well-off, wasn’t elite enough to represent. What he was seeing represented a widening of the gap. Doc thought,
The rich get richer
.
 

“Uh-huh,” he said.
 

“So… and this is awkward, I know… we can’t allow you to remember these items. For the client’s privacy, you understand.”
 

“I see,” said Doc. And now, he did see. They were going to wipe his memory. They wouldn’t have a Gauss Chamber, because this was a lab, not a hospital. Wholesale erasure wouldn’t be necessary, anyway. They’d use a hand unit. Doc would lose the last fifteen minutes, and would later find himself unsure whether he’d seen any new wares this week or not. He’d probably call Nero on Monday and ask for a new appointment. Nero, duly briefed, would play along.
 

And so he’d told Killian that he understood, and he’d allowed Killian to wave him clean. Afterward, he’d affected the vacant, vaguely optimistic expression appropriate to a fresh wipe while a tech ran a small sensor above his long blond hair. The tech had declared him current as of approximately the time he’d been in the bathroom washing his face. Then Killian had led him out without hurry, knowing that Doc’s ability to form new memories would be impaired for several more minutes. He’d told him that there was nothing new this week, and had suggested Doc call Mr. Nero on Monday. Doc had thanked him, gone back down to the street, and had hailed a cab. He’d gotten the same cabbie as before. The cabbie had jerked the cab at every stoplight, nearly causing Doc to plow his face into the divider.
 

Sitting in his apartment, mulling his troubling (and unforgotten, unwiped) time at Xenia, Doc swiped the air to make the holo he’d been pretending to watch vanish. It was a stupid show anyway. Whiny people with their whiny problems. It wasn’t even distracting him. He could still see everything that had happened today, thanks to the wipe firewall he’d had implanted and the accompanying spoof under his hair. As a man who’d had to scrap and connive his way to success as a salesman, it wasn’t the first time someone had wanted Doc to forget what he’d seen.
 

“Canvas,” Doc said.
 

His wall chirped.
 

“Search biological enhancements.”
 

A large globe of Beam pages appeared in the air in front of him. Doc preferred his results visually clustered in an intuitive web, like a Beam-generated mind-map. Closest to Doc was a window showing a common distributor of artificial limbs, and beside it was Hammacher Schlemmer. Neither were helpful. He wasn’t looking for replacement parts, and Hammacher Schlemmer hadn’t changed in the fifty years it had been selling upgrades instead of shoe buffers from in-flight magazines. All of H-S’s add-ons were useless novelties for rich people who had literally nothing else to spend their credits on: bioluminescent toes to show users see where they were walking at night; tongue modifiers that made everything taste like ice cream. He frowned.

Doc held the index finger and thumb of each hand up in front of him, then peeled the web open between the limb distributor and Hammacher Schlemmer. Deeper pages rolled forward and the outer layer curled back like a banana peel. Nothing. He turned the globe, peeled the other way, following the H-S path, toward upgrades and away from medical limb replacement. But it wasn’t right.

“Search biological upgrades.”
 

This time, the front page was Omnipedia. Of course. But he didn’t want to know the theories behind biological enhancement, particularly the vanilla’d version. He twisted the web, spun it to find its edges, and saw that the scope was still wrong. He was already feeling discouraged. If Xenia had tried to wipe his mind to make him forget what he’d seen, what were the chances that it would be available, publicly, on The Beam?