Chimera (25 page)

The company consisted of Paul and a tall Korean woman named Yongae who worked in teleportation. Either she was extremely good at drawing people into conversation, or my experience truly fascinated her. She wanted to know everything about life with the Infinite Pocket, and then she wanted to know everything about my death. She had a theory that if people could be killed, teleported, and revived at their destination, we might beat the human transportation problem. I pointed out that I wasn't about to volunteer to be killed in order to make a meeting in Santa Monica. When she asked whether going to another star would entice me, I said it would just make me pause a little longer before I said no. I remembered Mycroft's discussion about the Singer project and what would happen if you lost an essential part of you. Death and revivification held a similar risk. So did the scanning process for teleportation. She pointed out that AIs could be safely teleported; if Singer solved their problem, would I let my digital self go out in a robot body? And I had to admit that even then, I wouldn't. Call me a Luddite, but you have to be mad to risk your mind for any purpose.

It was a nice evening, much nicer than I'd expected, and Paul and Yongae repeated that a guest room was ready if I wanted it. But at some point in the evening, I had begun to see what I had to do, so I thanked them and left.

Back on the pert, I used Zoe's computer to call the number Vallejo had given me. I expected to leave a recording, but Chumley answered. "Maxwell. Anyone get you a silver hammer? Ho, ho, ho."

I never would've guessed that he knew classical music. People surprise you. I said, "And a very scary Christmas to you, too. Vallejo around?"

"His wife and kids stopped by after Christmas mass. I can put you through to the coffee room if it's important."

"Don't bother. You're still on the Gold-Tauber case, right?"

"You calling to confess?"

"Sorry. My present isn't as good as that. I've got a lead for you. Singer Labs was working on a secret project to digitize minds, essentially creating AIs from them, sort of the ultimate form of virtual reality. In theory, the digital mind solves tasks in a computer or a bot shell, then they write the experience onto the subject's brain."

"Why's that a present?"

"Didn't you say Doyle and Blake came from Singer? They may've been part of a test using AIs derived from human minds. A dangerously unsafe experiment. One that'd be bad publicity, and might make Singer responsible for the deaths of Gold and Tauber."

"And that'd get the cat off."

"That, too."

"What's your source?"

"Sorry. I promised not to say."

"We'll look into it."

"That's all I want for Christmas."

"You hear anything else—"

"I'll let you know. The next best thing to being a cop is doing their work for them."

"Next time you're in the station, you can have a donut. If you're really good, you can sit in my car and I'll run the siren."

"Promises, promises."

I disconnected and watched the sea until the pert veered onto Sunset. By the time I made it home, I was too tired to see phantoms on my furniture. I wished I had asked Zoe her religion, so I would've known what God to ask to watch over her. I hoped her camp was a Libertarian's model of ethical capitalism, and I tried not to think about the ways that unregulated business people have treated their workers throughout history. In bed, I closed my eyes and thought, "She's tough, God. You don't have to give her a lot of attention. Just watch her back until I find her, okay?" Then I went to sleep.

Mycroft called the next morning. I had to keep reminding myself that I was looking at a talking dolphin and not a sim that someone had synced to his voice. He said, "Good morning, Max. I wish I had better news."

"Which is?"

"Three quite competent lawyers have gone over Zoe's trial. Without new evidence, there's nothing to bring to a judge."

"They did this on Christmas Day?"

"Zoe doesn't have holidays off. And the price I paid for a few hours' work must've seemed like a Christmas present."

"I told the cops about Singer."

"I expected you would."

"Will you help them get the story on the AIs?"

"I can give them some hints. But Singer's lawyers are as good as mine. I doubt we'll breach corporate confidentiality."

"Sometimes you get lucky."

I spent the day packing. I could've walked away from everything I owned, but I didn't have to, so I didn't. It's true I could've moved out in an hour, but I had the day, so I took it. I put padding around the breakables. I labeled each box with its contents. I noted a few things that I hadn't used in a year and set them aside for the Salvation Army. When Rita and I were together, we'd moved often. She had always complained about the way I threw things together. After I stacked my worldly goods in the middle of the living room, I almost took a picture to send her.

I thought about going to a casino. It might've been fun to give Arthur a big grin if he was out on bail, but I decided against it. I wanted to keep the day simple.

I thought about smoking. I'd done my twenty-four with interest. But I had a shiny new lung and another that had begun to clean itself out. I liked the idea of setting out like a knight purified for battle.

I spent much of the afternoon and evening reading Mark Twain's
Life on the Mississippi
and wondering what he would think of the river now that it had gone from clean and wild to dirty and tame. I watched the news; Zoe and I had already been forgotten. There were human disasters and natural ones, political squabbles and domestic ones, little victories in sports and little defeats in weather. I fixed food and ate it, spicy potatoes, garlic, tofu, and peas for lunch, pasta with tomato sauce and spinach for supper. I took a long walk through my neighborhood, then came home and slept. It was a day. I liked it.

Early the next morning, in front of Prosperity Indenture Services, Frederick's military stride came to an abrupt halt at the sight of me. "What do you want?"

"What does anyone want here? Buy me."

"I thought you were a detective."

"I was. Isn't getting indentured like joining the French Foreign Legion?"

"We have to ask a few more questions than they did." He thumbed the office door. The door swung open as the lights came on, and we went to his desk. "You're not wasting my time?"

"I value my time, too. I expect to get top dollar for it."

"Good." He put on a pair of datashades, twitched his fingers a few times above the top of the desk, then said, "Hold up your right thumb."

I did. "This is a hell of a place to hitchhike."

He didn't bother to smile. His eyes stayed focused on a point midway between us. "Chase Oliver Maxwell."

"Yep."

"I'm recording this. Do you grant permission for us to view your medical history?"

"If I don't?"

"Then you can look for another indenture service. We only take healthy clients."

"I grant permission."

"Thank—" He frowned, then looked at me. "You've got an Infinite Pocket."

"Doesn't belong to me. Only way I'd get money for it is on the black market."

"We can't send out a client who may have a weapon."

"I won't have one."

"This says the Pocket is keyed to a SIG—"

"That's right." I popped the pistol out of the Pocket, appreciated its weight in my hand and Frederick's moment of discomfort, then set the pistol on the counter between us. "Take it. The safety's on."

He picked it up. "Nice."

"You've got half a dozen lie detecting programs running on me, right? Voice, eyes, breath, pulse, skin, and facial expression, I'm guessing."

Frederick nodded as he set the pistol aside.

"I no longer have any weapon of any sort in the Pocket. Well? Does anything suggest I'm lying?"

"If we make this contract, I'll have to tell your buyer about the Pocket. You'll probably get a blink test every day to be sure you haven't put anything in there."

"You're a good man, Gunga Din."

He smiled. "I'm glad you're enjoying yourself, Mr. Maxwell. So many of our clients come to us in tears. What're you interested in? Sex work gives the best buck for the bang."

Well, neither of us liked the other's sense of humor. I said, "The same deal as Zoe Domingo. Same work, same camp."

He narrowed his eyes at me, then looked between us, then shook his head. "Her location's legally sealed."

"Do her papers say you can't sell someone to her camp who asks to go?"

"No. But the intention—"

"Isn't spelled out in the documents, is it?"

"Well, no."

"Okay, then."

"How long a term are you looking for?"

"What's the minimum?"

"One year. For a healthy male human, we can pay fifteen thousand UNos, which would come to twenty-two meg US. If you wanted a five-year contract—"

"One's fine."

"Any other stipulations?"

"Nope."

"When do you want to start?"

"Something wrong with right now?"

"Not if that's what you want." He printed the contract and handed it to me. "Sign and date that, and we're in business."

I scanned several pages of fine type. "What does 'reasonable incentives and disincentives' mean?"

"They've made an investment. They have to be sure they'll get some work out of you."

"Yeah. But what's that mean?"

"You don't have to worry about it so long as you do your work. You did notice that your contract automatically terminates if you suffer permanent harm? And you still get to keep the money."

"You're being vague."

"We can't know the circumstances at every camp. That clause is there simply to make sure you don't refuse to work."

"And this bit? About accepting the camp's medical services?"

"Some people pretend to be sick. The doctors can catch that."

"I see."

"You're free to walk away, Mr. Maxwell."

"I know." And, knowing that I no longer was, I signed to make John Hancock proud. When you choose a course of action, commit to it.

Frederick took a dull grey band from a cabinet, fiddled with it, then handed it to me. "You know what this is?"

I nodded.

"Put it around your neck."

This part was harder than the signature. The Little Angel would transmit my location at all times. If I left an area where I was supposed to be, it would beep a warning. Then it would sound a siren that would grow louder up to, but just short of, the point of causing permanent damage to my hearing. Then it would send a stimulus to the pain centers of my brain that would rapidly increase in sensation. If I continued to stay outside the designated area, it would trigger my sleep centers. One would-be escapee fell unconscious in a stream and drowned. The Supreme Court ruled that wasn't the indenture company's fault; the escapee had signed a contract accepting the Little Angel. Just as I had.

I looked at the date Frederick had set on its side. After next Christmas, the band's molecules would abruptly fail to adhere, and I would be free. I put it around my neck, then snapped it shut. It shifted to lie smoothly on my skin like a wisp of gauze. A year of your life should weigh more than that.

After putting on the Little Angel, I transferred fifteen meg of indenture funds into a savings account. Part of the rest went to my landlady. A smaller part went to the storage company that would pick up my furniture. The largest part went to Brady Xi with a short history of Zoe's case and instructions to investigate Singer Labs and Oberon Chain.

I lingered a second over tapping "send" on the final transaction. That was my last legal instant of freedom.

Frederick sent me into a small room for an Insta-Scan to confirm that I was healthy and to make sure I hadn't hidden anything in my body. My clothes and everything I had carried with me, including the SIG, went into a shipping box to join my possessions in storage.

Frederick gave me a set of gray underwear, socks, coveralls, and slip-on shoes, then a pert token and an address in Simi Valley. His farewell was, "Thanks for doing business with Prosperity Indenture Services. Recommend us to your friends!"

Clothes are the softest prison walls. In the elevator, a business woman in a sleek suit wrinkled her nose slightly and edged away from me. On the street, I kept getting "what's one of them doing here?" glances. It was a relief to enter the privacy of a pert.

If I'd known how long it would be before I had privacy again, I would've treasured that ride more. Instead, I wondered what I would find, and what I had left undone.

The ride ended too soon in the fenced-in yard of a warehouse. Several humans and chimeras dressed like me waited in the sun. I started toward a tall, thin woman in burgundy coveralls. Without glancing up from her datapad, she said, "Over with the others."

I said, "Skin cancer's fairly permanent."

That got me a glance. "Noted, lawyer. I think your free zone includes the shade along the other building."

I nodded to her and headed there. Two steps short of the shade, the Little Angel began beeping. The sound was annoying, but not so annoying as baking in the sun. I took another step. The alarm around my neck screamed, and so did I. My entire body felt like snack time for fire ants. My muscles convulsed. I fell and barely managed to scramble back away from the shade.

Ms. Datapad said, "Huh. Guess I was wrong," and continued to jot on the pad.

An older Asian man in indenture grays helped me stand. "How you doing?"

I was slick with sweat, and my legs danced like the Scarecrow's in
The Wizard of Oz
, but the pain had stopped almost instantly. "Fine, now."

"I'm Cho."

"Max."

"What you in for?"

"One year."

"Huh! I do five. Bank going to repossess house. One year, huh? You be okay when you get out, if you made right investment."

"I made the right investment."

More indentures showed up while Cho told me about his wife, kids, granddaughter, and mother. None of the others were dressed in grays when they arrived; the woman with the datapad got the newcomers fitted with coveralls and Little Angels. As the yard filled, I realized that many indentures chose to postpone their service until the day after Christmas. I asked Cho why he didn't wait for New Year's, and he laughed. "Western New Year come too early. Beside, sooner I start, sooner I finish."