“Give me one good reason we should let this happen,” Dr. Baxter immediately fumed.
“You’ve seen all the phutures Nancy presented. Every scenario pushes the Cognix stock higher with early adopters,” I countered. “You’re only annoyed because it’s not under your thumb.”
“That has nothing to do with it,” Baxter said peevishly, and loud arguing began around the table.
“Everyone, I will give you one very good reason,” Jimmy shouted, standing up and raising his hands. He winked at Nancy. “I’ve managed to secure an agreement with both India and China to launch simultaneously with us.”
Pandemonium broke loose for a few minutes while we reviewed the details.
“How in the world…?” Dr. Baxter’s voice trailed off.
“You’re giving up a lot here,” said Kesselring finally. “But the payoff is worth it, and it’ll keep the media’s attention off those damn storms.”
Kesselring’s eyes shifted toward Dr. Granger, who appeared about to say something, but then shook his head, staring at Jimmy. Kesselring looked toward Jimmy as well and smiled, nodding his congratulations. Then Kesselring turned to me. “I’m ready to make this happen, but I need one thing from you.”
“Yes?” I knew what was coming next.
“I need you to put this Synthetic Beings Charter of Rights on the shelf until after the commercial launch of pssi.”
I sighed and looked at the ceiling. “I can do that. But it will be at the top of my agenda as soon as we launch.”
Kesselring smiled. “Then we’re agreed.”
Approving murmurs began to circulate. I reached out and held Nancy’s hand in mine, smiling. I was so proud.
“So are we a go for a worldwide press release?” asked Dr. Baxter. He was Bob’s father. Talk about an apple falling far from the tree.
“Yes,” replied Kesselring, “assuming this is acceptable with our Chinese delegates?”
They nodded curtly in unison.
I wondered if they realized that nationality was another idea that pssi was about to render irrelevant. Or perhaps, more to the point, a good chunk of the world was about to become de facto Atopian citizens.
“Let’s go ahead with the release. We are about to make history, ladies and gentlemen.”
“Imagine, a trillion-dollar IPO,” I heard Hal muttering under his breath as he reviewed the launch details, stars gleaming in his beady eyes.
The black granite and glass of the conference room melted into the deep mahoganies of my private office. I made for the bar.
A nice scotch on the rocks was just the thing I needed.
Marie was sitting against my office desk, her legs crossed in front of her as she leaned against it, propped up by her arms. Cigarette smoke rose slowly around her, and she took one more puff before stubbing it out in the crystal ashtray on the desk. She leaned forward, standing and waving me off. She’d get the drink.
“I know Hal is a pain, but you shouldn’t let him get to you,” she said as she plucked my favorite bottle from the collection. A glass appeared in her hand and ice cubes chinked softly together as she poured the whiskey over them.
“It’s not that. I need to find out what Kesselring is hiding. Shifting Infinixx up on the release schedule was too easy. Granger folded without even a peep.”
Marie raised her eyebrows. “Sometimes things just make sense, even to him.”
“Maybe, but I have the feeling something else is going on. We need someone with, ah, special skills to have a look at this from the outside.”
Marie nodded. She knew who I was talking about. She decided to switch topics. “Your old student, Mohesha, from Terra Nova called again. It sounded very urgent.”
I shifted my pssi-body into a much younger version of myself and was now dressed in a black skirt and cream silk top while a sub-proxxi of Marie walked my real body home from the Solomon House. I looked down admiringly at my legs, sighing, and reached down to straighten my skirt, sliding a hand along my thigh as I did.
“It’s too dangerous to talk with the Terra Novans right now.”
“But not too dangerous to be talking with gangsters like Sintil8?”
“He doesn’t really want to stop what we’re doing, he just wants his cut.” Criminals were reliably predictable in their motivations, if nothing else. “He has the kind of backdoor connections and freedom to operate that may yield some answers.”
The problem wasn’t just my suspicions about Kesselring.
The huge depression we’d been tracking up the Eastern Pacific had transitioned from tropical-storm status and into full-blown Hurricane Newton, with Hurricane Ignacia spinning up into a monster Category 4 out in the North Atlantic. The way these storm systems were behaving had gone from being simply unusual and to being downright suspicious.
By my calculations, these weren’t natural storms anymore.
Taking a good, long drink, I straightened up and looked Marie in the eye.
“Set the meeting with Sintil8.”
9
Identity: Jimmy Scadden
“I’m sorry, Jimmy, but that Patricia Killiam. Where does she get off talking about the nature of happiness? I’m really concerned about her.”
“No need to apologize, Dr. Granger,” I replied. “I’m worried about her, too. She hasn’t been herself lately.”
We were taking an aimless wander through a few floors of the hydroponic farms on our way back from Kesselring’s office after the board meeting. Kesselring kept his offices perched at the very apex of the connecting structures on the top floors of the vertical farming complex. Even the master of synthetic reality liked to keep his specific reality above the riff-raff.
Over a hundred floors up, I enjoyed the views down on Atopia from here—green forests edged by crescents of white beaches and the frothy breakwaters beyond. Through the phase-shifted glass walls, the sea glittered under a cloudless blue sky. The humid and organic, if not earthy, smell of the grow-farms reminded me of the days I used to spend as a child out on the kelp forests with my dad.
“I’m getting tired of her routine as the famous mother of synthetic reality,” continued Dr. Granger. “Sure, fluidic and crystallized intelligence are essential, but isn’t synthetic emotional and social intelligence even more important?”
We’d all heard this speech before, repeated endlessly on his EmoShow, and now that I was on the Council, I had the treat of hearing it in person as well. Dr. Granger’s claim to fame was as the creator of the technology that could pick apart and decipher emotions, and you could be sure he wouldn’t ever let you forget it.
I tried not to roll my eyes.
“What’s more important to understand?” he asked angrily as we walked through the hydroponics. “What someone said, or the reason they said it? Who knows more about happiness than I do?”
“I’d say they’re both equally important,” I replied. Dr. Granger had used his growing fame to secure the position as head psychologist on Atopia, and no matter what one thought of him, it was best to tread a careful line.
He stopped walking and turned to look at me. “Exactly.”
One of the grow-farm staff walked by and gave Dr. Granger a curt, respectful nod. Dr. Granger’s office was a few floors down from here, far away from the other senior staff, which was unusual. Observing him on our walk, I think I knew why.
As we walked, he had been watching the blank faces of the psombie inmates, and each of the staff had almost stood at attention while we passed. It was a structured and controlled environment, one that made him feel both powerful and safe—and important.