Matter is not the universe, but rather only a single-dimensioned manifestation perceived by human beings.
I didn’t sleep all that well and was up before dawn on Jueven. That was unheard of in Thurene. Rather, to admit waking that early was unheard of. Instead of lying there looking at the ceiling or turning on the slumbereze, I got up. The slumbereze was for emergencies. It always gave me a headache the morning after I used it. The villa medcenter said it was mental. It was wrong. I knew that aspect of my physiology far better than it did.
My study was even quieter before dawn, and work was more restful than trying to sleep. I decided to work on the Reynarda commission. That made sense since it was most likely someone involved there was trying to kill me—or warn me off.
The best places to find information about people are in their bedrooms and from their lovers, their real financial accounts, and the tax and regulatory records of the government. Discovering the first source would have meant days, if not weeks, of digging to determine who their lovers were and where those bedrooms were located—and the next steps would have been both illegal and dangerous. Attempting to find their real financial records, especially those involved with Eloi, would have been more dangerous and also illegal. That meant the easiest source of information would be the records of the Civitas Sorores itself, and breaking into those records was far less dangerous and comparatively less illegal. Not that I intended to get caught, but no good thief ever does. Besides, I could claim it was only research. I might even get away with a research claim since I’d never been caught before.
I settled into my chair. Comfortable as it was, it had other functions. Most important were the full-physiological links that allowed complete virtie access to the netsys, along with full-band back access to Max and the analyses he’d run earlier.
Civitas Publica.
With that command, I stood in a soaring foyer. The walls were golden brass and the floor a shimmering black marble. Black stone and gold must be embedded in the human psyche. There were no windows, just four high archways. Set in onyx letters above each brass arch was a sector name—REVENUE, FINANCIAL REGULATIONS, RECORDS, TAXATION/TARIFFS, HEALTH, ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT, PUBLIC SAFETY. There were archways for all of those departments, and more, yet there were only four archways. That’s what you can do in a virtual setting. I tried not to think too hard about the implications and walked toward the Records archway.
An androgynous golden-haired clerk sat on a stool behind a raised podium of the golden brass. He/she smiled politely and warmly. “Your inquiry?”
“Corpentity records. Public registrations, entertainment.”
“Through that door.” A solid golden oak door and doorway appeared in the solid brass wall to the clerk’s right. On the door was the legend PUBLIC REGISTRATIONS, ENTERTAINMENT.
“Thank you.” Politeness never hurt, even to system virties. Especially since the sisters recorded and kept records of virtie access. Most people didn’t really understand. Those records could be used in both civil and criminal justicing.
I walked to the door and opened it, then stepped inside, into another foyer. From it radiated another set of archways. Each held an illuminated set of letters stamped into the brass in the area that would have held the keystone, if the arch had been stone. I took the “Pleasure-Related” archway. Beyond it were illuminated displays, each almost like a museum case. Each case was fronted in antique glass, under lights, and the framed space displayed large text on creamy parchment. The corpentity’s name was at the top, followed by the registry number, local virtual address, local physical address, and key officials. Beneath that was a description of the business activities.
Eloi Enterprises was fairly far along the virtual corridor. The local virtual address was Gibson Gates. The physical address listed the Eloi Complex, Pier One, Left Bank, Nouvelle Seine, Thurene. I copied those to my own files—through Max and his security system.
Registry numbers all had keys, encrypted keys.
My system was simple enough—try all the combinations that Max had worked out and get around the three-times rule through a little program to bypass and reset the clock back several hundred nanoseconds after each try, thereby erasing the record of each previous attempt. It wouldn’t have worked unless someone had the kind of resources I had, and most who did wouldn’t have needed to do what I was doing.
That’s always the best position to be in—where the defenses are designed against someone else.
Even so, it took almost ten standard minutes. That’s a long time for that kind of virtie operation. Then the front of the display case swung open, becoming a glass door. I went into the small chamber. The door didn’t close behind me. It re-formed closed, behind me. Slipshod programming. What else could you expect from bureaucratic virtie programmers?
A thick black book sat on a reading stand. I opened the cover.
The first page was more description. There wasn’t much there. Eloi Enterprises was wholly owned by the brothers Eloi—surprise. It had six subsidiaries: Classic Escort Services, Classic Entertainment, Classic Properties, Classic Media and Publications, Classic Investment, and Classic Research. I read the following pages, a page for each subsidiary. Each of the first five was exactly as anyone would have expected from its name. The description of Classic Research started out with the usual combination of verbal pabulum and boilerplate and kept going until near the end. I reread the one paragraph closely.
…Classic Research is engaged in determining optimal receptivity to its services, and to those of other subsidiaries of Eloi Enterprises, primarily on reality-based perceptual levels…research is also ongoing on other integrated perceptual levels, both reality-based as well as including traditional virtual settings, in order to establish services better adapted to clientele on an individual basis…
All that sounded perfectly logical, but there was something about the phrasing, especially the term “reality-based.” It could have been badly written, but I didn’t think so. The way I read it was that Classic Research was up to something, and they had to at least use broad weasel words so that when it came out they could claim it was in their registration, since ongoing registrations were also considered as updates and modifications to the original charter granted by the city sisters. And the city sisters didn’t care so much what the corpentities did, but they cared a great deal about businesses misrepresenting what they did.
I turned the pages to the financials.
Abruptly, the figure of a woman appeared from the page, less than a yard high, yet somehow towering over me, in that fashion possible only in virtual settings. She was one of the Virgines Vestales. Although she was empty-handed, blue-green rays radiated from the extended fingers of her right hand. “Access here is restricted.” Initially, her fingers were too bright to look at directly, even on the sysnet.
I clicked in vision control. That compromise was unsatisfactory. Toning down the glare left everything else too dark to discern. That suggested the glare had another purpose. I tried programming in polarization. Some freqs made the glare worse, but one combination almost eliminated it.
There was a keyhole in the middle of the locket on her right wrist.
Before I did more, I rummaged back through all the old city codes, then asked Max for a pattern—how lock codes tied to entity names. He came up with three.
The second one worked.
Like that, I had the financials up before me. I copied them almost without scanning them. It wouldn’t be long before something negative happened. Fast as my systems were, they weren’t finished with the copying before a line of fire slammed through the back of my brain. My virtual brain.
SYSTEM ALERT! A siren screeched. It wasn’t a Civitas alarm, but mine.
Home. Full defense!
I didn’t leave the chair, not with all the links. I scanned all my systems and defenses.
The villa was isolated. The attackers had boosted energy inputs on all the civic power lines and commlinks. Max, as programmed, had severed the links. For most villas, that would have dropped them into a standby status—or at most onto stored power, solar inputs, or fuel cells. But most didn’t have solar panels and fuel cells adequate for full functioning. The taxes on “excessive” independent power were designed to keep all but the very wealthiest from building self-sufficient strongholds—or those of us who had sacrificed luxury for independence. Then, too, I’d found creative ways around the law—such as two inefficient, but powerful Varian generators that weren’t listed as an independent power system in the Tax Code. I also had two separate fortified underground entrances/exits not on the plans filed with the Civitas Sorores, a definite violation of the Codex.
Interrogative power status? I pulsed Max.
Alternative power sufficient to maintain all defenses.
Interrogative attacks?
Null this time. Energy concentrations built on Civitas power feed. Bypass of restrictors on main system in place.
That meant someone had played with the external power feeds. Once my system “thought” the crisis was past and attempted to resume normal operation, the energy surge that followed was designed to overwhelm my secondaries, and that would allow dataworms, viruses, and general mayhem into all my systems. My secondaries were stronger than that, but the surge could cause more unnecessary damage. Interrogative mobile repair module?
Sensors have detected probable clone operatives with high-explosive delivery systems.
Clones or cydroids with grenade launchers—all three illegal in Thurene or anywhere on Devanta. That almost certainly pointed to Eloi Enterprises. Could I drag in someone else? It was worth the effort.
Call for a special limousine. Promise maximum emergency fees.
Landlines have been severed and an electroshield projected around the villa walls, replied Max.
Are the operatives inside the shield?
Affirmative.
The operatives were disposable. Illegal clones. That meant Legaar—or their creator—wanted to push me into doing my own dirty work. Or Max. Anything I did would all be recorded and documented, with a civil and possible criminal complaint to follow. There wouldn’t be any direct evidence of the electroshield, either.
I ran through the analyses of the attack. It was all AI response.
Did Eloi or Maraniss have sublinks and portals into all of Civitas Sorores? Even if Eloi had trap warnings and AI response just on the official records for Eloi Enterprises, that was a violation of Civic Codex. The only problem was that to reveal that, I’d have to confess to having violated the Codex as well. Legaar and his corpentity advocates had certainly thought that through.
Project mobile repair module image toward initial severance point.
I watched in my mental screens as an image of the mobile repair unit moved out of the utility space.
It was barely clear of the villa when the first grenade came flying across the dead outer defenses of the wall. It exploded satisfactorily, and Max projected external damage to the module—twisted metal over the forward treads and a rear skirt on the same side ripped clear. The holo projection kept moving, if more slowly.
Two more grenades followed. One came from the northwest corner, behind the cherry orchard, my very small orchard, that was homage of sorts to one branch of my family, a reminder that selling orchards led to little good, except perhaps literature or drama. The other grenade came from the northeast, more from the space between my wall and Soror Celestina’s. Many villas shared walls, but the previous occupant hadn’t cared for the sister, nor she for him. But then, I hadn’t cared for him, either.
Both landed close enough to the projection that Max turned the image into little more than scrap metal with treads.
Send another projection. Use evasive tactics.
The attack was AI-directed and clearly a response to my snooping into the registry. I doubted the AI knew what exactly was inside the villa. I wanted the clones occupied while I tried some of my new toys.
One was a nanite-burst englober, with an energy tracker.
I sent one toward the clone operative hidden between my wall and that of Soror Celestina.
He/she/it never knew what happened. The englober projected a high-energy shield around the energy source of the target, then disassembled a very small amount of ultra-ex. Since the field held the energy within the shield—for less than half a second—before the shield and miniature generator failed, everything englobed was reduced to very small fragments. Unfortunately, as I discovered, looking at the large gap in my wall and the section of the sister’s behind, the explosion created larger fragments beyond. It also destroyed the electroshield, most probably carried by the operative.
Max took out the other operative, who suddenly stood exposed on the wall beyond the cherry trees. Nothing exotic. Just an instabile bullet fired from an old-fashioned slug thrower. No sense in using the new toys where Civitas surveillance could record them. The electroshield had covered the englober, but once the shield failed, the slug thrower was better.
Leave the mess for the Garda to observe.
Affirmative.
With broadband open again, I fired a report and complaint to the Garda.
They wouldn’t be happy. They never were.
They didn’t even bother with a virtie response. Instead, a patrol flitter dropped into my front courtyard in less than three minutes. That was most revealing—and disturbing.
The scans revealed a real patroller, if in nanite armor-cloth, with shifting bodyshields. That was very bad.
I decided to walk out and meet him. It was better than allowing him or her inside.
The morning sky was a silvered blue-green. By even midmorning and especially by afternoon any place without climate control would be hot and muggy. I couldn’t recall an autumn day as unreasonably hot. Maybe the sun’s radiation had peaked, and the atmospheric service was having trouble with the orbital solar screens. I was sweating slightly by the time I walked down the stone steps to where he waited by the one-person flitter. His namestrip read JAVERR.
He didn’t look at me. Not at first. He pretended casually to survey the damage—another gap in the upper section of the wall overlooking Soror Celestina’s garden and a crater in Cuarta Calle outside my gates. I hadn’t noticed that before. He pointedly overlooked the three areas of shattered paving tiles outside the utility entrance.
“You arrived quite quickly,” I said pleasantly. “Thank you.”
“I’m surprised that you filed a report, Seignior Donne. Unauthorized use of ultra-ex within Thurene carries a heavy penalty. I trust you realize that.”
“I’m quite aware of that, Patroller Javerr. However…I wasn’t the one who employed the explosives. You might test the outer surfaces and the pavement outside my walls. I think you will find that the attack was directed at me.”
“That is quite possible, but if you are found responsible, even as a target, for inciting the attack, there is the charge of complementary accomplicement.”
The young patroller had clearly been briefed—and paid off—most likely by Legaar—in some fashion impossible to track. He’d also been told to use the letter of the law—or the Codex. So I’d been threatened in two fashions, one after the other, and all because I’d wanted to see the financial registry figures on Eloi Enterprises. The ones I’d copied only bore a passing resemblance to the actual figures. Of that, I was certain even before studying them. But that resemblance might be enough to give me a better idea of what Legaar was hiding.
Maybe it didn’t have anything at all to do with Maraniss and Elysium, whatever and wherever Elysium might be. Maybe it was just a programmed response as well, warning anyone who got curious to leave Eloi Enterprises alone.
“I’m certain that whoever is behind the attack would enjoy that, but if you check the past records of the satellite surveillance monitors, they should show the slightest haziness that accompanies the use of an inward-directed electroshield.”
“The feeds were disrupted, but we will check the original records, Seignior Donne. We always do, especially in your case. You’ve been known to follow the shadows, and that is where vanishments occur. The sisters are not pleased at unexplained disappearances.”
“I’ve had nothing to do with anything like that.”
“Not that has been proved. That is true. For now.”
Another warning. Two, actually.
“I do appreciate your directness. Thank you.” I smiled. I kept smiling until he was in his flitter and well on his way back to his Garda station.
Then I walked back into the villa. Unexplained disappearances? I’d never vanished anyone. Caused a death or two, yes. Were there so many disappearances that the Garda was looking for someone to pin them on? Why me?
Max, commission an independent lab to take samples from all the outer walls. Promise anything, but get them to authenticate the results and send a copy to the Garda. Three copies. One for our records. One to Officer Javerr, and one to Captain Shannon.
Yes, sir. Max was programmed for SpecOps salutations, to me, and to those who respected them, and to the customs of others, insofar as the system could determine them.
An analysis of the figures I’d copied was next. I couldn’t exactly claim I’d stolen them. The “originals” were still in the registry, and were the city advocates or the Garda to charge me, I’d claim that I had nothing. I wouldn’t by then. They’d look silly trying to claim that I’d breached their systems. Besides, if I’d wanted to have paid an advocate three times my fee, I could have gotten most of what I’d lifted under the Open Records Act. The problem was that it would have taken close to a year, and the process would have alerted Legaar Eloi and given him a year to target me before I could even find anything.
Less than a stan later, I had an answer…of sorts.
I’d had to compare Eloi’s financials to the major pubs and the overall trade and commerce stats, but it was clear enough that Legaar was funding some sort of major research effort. Compared to pure tech operations, Classic Research had a similar level of expenditures, but why did Eloi need a pure research budget at all? For an entertainment corpentity?
Of course, no other source anywhere in the public domain had any information whatsoever on Classic Research. I was going to have to get very creative. And I’d have to survive while I was being creative.