The Resurrected Man (29 page)

For the second time in twelve hours, Jonah was greeted at the terminus of a d-mat journey by Jason Fassini. The smiling agent helped him out of the booth and into a waiting manual wheelchair. When he
was seated, he had resources to spare to observe the environment around him. He was in a busy, windowless area that resembled an airport terminal. People with baggage walked by, sat in plastic armchairs or leaned against walls. The air was cold and overly air-conditioned. Under a constant babble of voices, each speaking in a different accent, it seemed, he could hear cyberjazz—produced by the sort of muzak AI that either never played the same tune twice or never played a single tune once, depending on one's definition of what constituted a tune.

“
Salut
.” Fassini seemed as affable as ever. “Did Marylin have time to fill you in on what's happening?”

“Not really. She was in a rush to get moving.”

“Typical. We're in Ottawa. Odi Whitesmith's with the rest of the eye-tees over there while us plebs deal with the baggage.” He grinned. “No offence meant.”

“Eye-tees?”

“Ivory towers. An affectionate term for those who perform less groundwork—and more shitwork—than others. Me, I like to stay this side of orbit. Avoid the papertrap.” The agent pulled Jonah's bag out of the booth and put it on his lap. “Your argot's a bit behind. We'll have to work on that.”

“
Pososi moyu konfetku
.”

“Not bad.” Fassini's grin widened. “Full marks for attitude, anyway.”

The agent wheeled him to where Whitesmith stood with two other MIU officers, both female and wearing bulky, armoured uniforms. Ten sealed, matte-grey cases rested nearby. Two men and a woman standing on the far side of the room were plain-clothes agents like Fassini, Jonah guessed, possibly locals keeping their distance to act as backups in case of trouble. Not counting Marylin, who was presumably on her way, that left two more MIU officers to come.

Local time was six o'clock in the evening. It felt much later. He was tired, and surprised himself by not feeling hungry at all. The nanomachines at work, he supposed.

“Aren't we supposed to catch a flight?”

“Patience, friend.” Fassini patted him on the shoulder. “When we're all here.”

Whitesmith noticed them, nodded, but continued his conversation with the two officers. Jonah watched him closely. He seemed tired, too. His stubble and hair were both much thicker than before. Given the robustness of most grooming agents, it must have been some time since he had applied nanofood to his skin.

Jonah ran a hand across his own scalp and was surprised by the rasp he felt there. He probably looked no better than Whitesmith. The brief glimpse he'd had in a mirror while getting changed had confirmed that he was still much thinner than usual, but at least parts of him were growing back to normality.

Whitesmith finally broke away from the two officers and walked over. “Hello, Jason. McEwen, give me your left hand.”

He obeyed the request. Whitesmith turned it palm-up and pressed something against his skin. He felt a slight sting, and tugged it back automatically. Whitesmith half-smiled.

“Sorry.”

Jonah examined the skin of his palm but could see only a slightly darker patch of skin, a freckle that hadn't been there before. “A breeder, I presume?”

“ID, in case you're questioned. The hologram will appear in about forty-five minutes.”

“Reversible?”

“Better than that. It'll decay within twenty-four hours.” Whitesmith waited for a second, then went on. “You have a temporary rank of Special Agent.”

“Will I be armed?”

“No.”

“I didn't think so.” Jonah clenched a fist around the brewing nest of nanomachines. “Unarmed and unarmoured. The rank is
supposed to make me feel better about myself as they gun me down, right?”

“If it'll help, yes. Otherwise, don't use it. You only have it to get through customs—and to convince WHOLE you're one of us.”

“You'll have to convince
me
of that, first,” Jonah muttered.

“Just remember that we'll be behind you when you go in, and we'll be waiting for you when you come out. Any fucking around and it's us you'll have to deal with in the end.”

Jonah said nothing. Whitesmith's heavy-handed approach exhausted him. Although he expected that of a C-1 Detective, it rubbed him the wrong way.

Perhaps sensing his irritation, Fassini stepped in to ask, “How long until the others get here?”

“Any moment now.” Whitesmith turned to face the field agent, but his eyes returned frequently to Jonah. “Marylin is running a few minutes behind. We'll meet her at the plane.”

“What's Quebec like for communications these days?” Jonah asked. “Last I remember there was an embargo on Pool and satellite traffic.”

“It's still in place,” Whitesmith said. “There's a high-altitude balloon grid we can use if we can't make a direct link. There are also a number of ground-based networks we can patch into manually—mobile phones, landlines and so on. It's not completely isolated.”

“Not for us, anyway,” Fassini put in.

Whitesmith cast him a sharp look and went back to his fellow officers.

“What do you mean?” Jonah asked.

Fassini shrugged. “The embargo works both ways, now. First they didn't want out, and now they can't
get
out. It's messier than anyone here will tell you. I hear stories of kids learning from DVDs because they can't get decent AI tutoring.
Futz
, some of them are still using Encarta! KTI don't like people to know how much the embargo has already
cost Quebec because anyone with half a brain knows it's only going to get worse.”

Jonah absorbed this in silence. The breakaway of Quebec from Canada had insulated the former from the United States early in the twenty-first century, lending it some initial protection from the collapse of the entire North American economy. The subsequent, if short-lived, rise of the expansionist US New Right as it swallowed its parent country, had also bypassed Quebec, primarily because of threats from France, a supporter of both the fascist ideals of US President Emes and Quebec.

Following the Slow War—ten years of persistent IT/guerilla resistance, culminating in the relatively smooth ousting of the technophobic Emesian government—Quebec had found itself alone against a United States that comprised by far the greater portion of the North American continent. Not even after Texas was permitted a partial secession from the Union did Quebec consider relaxing. From the long years prior to independence, through to the decade or more spent facing an insurmountable enemy that virtually ignored its existence, it had grown stubbornly insular and defensive. And that, more than anything, accounted for its irrationally persistent refusal to accept the new technology that had already overtaken the world.

Once, Jonah had admired the determination of the Quebec nation for refusing to tolerate a technological advance it deemed morally unacceptable—even though he couldn't accept their reasoning. But now, if what Fassini said was true, the country was even more isolated than it had been at any other point in its history. It was now an island of horse-drawn carriage owners surrounded by a sea of automobiles. The economic upturn taking place around Quebec had bypassed it completely. There was no way to compete—economically, rationally, or even morally—nor to justify the actions of a relative minority that wielded power under the banner of national identity. Not when the Quebec people were suffering. It was stupid to keep fighting.

The interchange booths nearby, nearly fifty in all, turned over at a constant rate. Jonah watched as a parent coerced their young child into a booth, despite its strongly voiced disinclination. As the door shut on the booth, the child's tearful face was clearly visible, looking afraid of being abandoned.

Eventually, the two MIU officers arrived, one after the other, and Whitesmith began handing out cases to be carried. Fassini remained in charge of Jonah and the wheelchair. That, plus Marylin's lateness, meant that two cases remained unclaimed. Whitesmith picked up one of them with a grunt. The last was shouldered by one of the local field agents.

They headed off along a downward-sloping corridor, moving deeper into the mass-transport complex. The Ottawa interchange existed not so much to regulate movement across the international borders of the United States, but to monitor traffic, and even then GLITCH did most of the work. There were no security checks within the giant terminal and few live guards. They passed cafes, newsagents, Pool access-points, CRE and VTC suites, and it seemed that everybody was taking advantage of the break in their journey to use the facilities. Visitors with money were welcome in every port of the United States of America.

Since the complex also doubled as an airport, flight schedules were updated by local information channels. Jonah used his overseer to tune into one of these, and discovered that the only commercial flights were to neighbouring Quebec. Even these were few and far between, given that Quebec was only a river's width away. The rust-belt of Hull, at one time half of the Canadian National Capital Region, had been cut off during the violent clashes of the 2008 Secession, but the people who lived there received regular deliveries of goods and people via barges and ferries. No one had put forward any plans to rebuild the bridges, and Jonah guessed that while the current embargo lasted it wasn't terribly likely.

Their plane, a subsonic 200-seat jet, had already landed at a nearby concourse and was ready to board. The plane was due to leave in ten
minutes and Jonah could feel tension radiating from the agents and officers around him. He wondered how long it had been since any of them had last been on a plane. Air travel was much riskier than d-mat, even taking the Twinmaker into account. If something were to go wrong in midair, it would be disastrous. Jonah didn't want to contemplate the possibility of sabotage, or even to think much further ahead, to what might be waiting for them when they landed. Stewards were ready for them when they reached the concourse. He was helped out of the wheelchair and into a window seat via the plane's rear entrance, where the MIU had booked the back five rows. The remaining space in the plane was only half-full.

Fassini sat next to him. The aisle seat was left empty but for one of the grey cases. The rest of the agents scattered themselves across the five rows, eerily silent for such a large group of people. When he checked the public bands, he heard nothing. No doubt they were communicating by prevocals on a private channel; Fassini was staring straight ahead, his eyes focussed in the middle distance. Jonah's own overseer remained steadfastly silent.

“QUALIA? Can you hear me?”

“Yes, Jonah, for now,” replied the AI. “Communications between ground and orbit will be limited once the plane is ready to depart. Consequently there will not be a channel available for us to converse.”

I'm being locked out
, he thought.
Fuck them.
“I need some info before we leave, then. We've been assuming that the Twinmaker kidnaps his victims at the time of departure, but that needn't necessarily be so. What if he's cutting into the network at a later point, where security isn't so tight? If we could plug that gap, we'd stop the murders.”

“I have investigated many such avenues, Jonah. All are sealed.”

“Still, it wouldn't hurt to look. At least let me follow in your footsteps.” According to the information channel, the plane had been delayed and wasn't due to leave for another fifteen minutes, presumably to give Marylin enough time to join them. That gave him a little
while to rest and to think. “I'll admit to being curious, too,” he went on. “It's something I've never had a chance to look at closely before.”

“Of course. I'm downloading the relevant data to you now.”

“Thanks.”

He settled back into the seat while the download progressed, and closed his eyes. The smell of synthetic cushions and plastic brought back memories of Lindsay, which he firmly suppressed. He had his father's diary in his jacket pocket, but didn't want to know what his younger self might have revealed in an earlier plane flight.

How much had he, unintentionally, contributed to Lindsay's work? He would probably never know. But the thought that some aspects of him might have been incorporated into the design for QUIDDITY, and, therefore, QUALIA, was a disconcerting one. He had never had a sibling before, and he was pretty sure this would be the worst time to go looking for one…

He opened his eyes ninety minutes later with a vague memory of noise, movement, and, on the fringes of consciousness, a dream about drowning in quicksand. The plane was taxiing, and for a moment he was convinced he had dropped off for only a second or two. When he tried to move and provoked a dozen twinges from stiff muscles, he realised the truth.

“Nice of you to join us,” said Fassini, nudging his elbow.

“Huh?” Jonah shook his head. “I didn't mean to fall asleep.”