Midday at Tom Lee’s. Busier now, though the rain still kept most people away from the outdoor tables. One was occupied: an andro with rainbow hair, shaved high over the forehead, long at the back. Hi-maintenance. Looked at me as I walked past. Admiring the way he/she was admired. Eyes matched the hair, swirling colours. Gorgeous.
I felt plain. Went in. Went to the counter and bought a juice. Waited.
The juice was finished before the server came over to me. “Tom Lee’s got five minutes. Over there.”
Better than I’d hoped. I made my way to the mirrored door beside the bar. It opened without a sound and slid shut behind me.
I was in a sort of air-lock, facing another mirror. Watched myself with resignation while around me unseen cameras checked my ID and ran the contents of my sack through some sort of weapons scan. Tried to look indifferent. I’d been in here once before but that didn’t prevent the chill which fingered my spine. I don’t like tight spaces and no one but Tom Lee himself was likely to be able to persuade either door to open. He knew I wouldn’t be armed and he couldn’t be in any doubt about my ID. Keeping me on hold was his way of reminding me who was in control.
I didn’t need reminding. Even more, I didn’t need to be made to think about IDs. The way my thoughts had already started to develop was too unpleasant.
After a couple of hours, which a chrono would have registered as around twenty seconds, the mirror turned into a door and opened.
“Humility.”
“Tom Lee.”
There were no windows in the room. Above the door behind me and to my right, banks of screens showed him every corner of the restaurant and gave a good view of the street outside. I’d have been surprised if there weren’t other vids available scanning a far wider segment of town. I didn’t sit. There wasn’t a second chair.
“You looking for me.” Not a question.
“Yes. Got you a contact with the Port if you want it.”
“Daisy?” He wasn’t impressed.
“Her if you want. Also a man named Steven. Concessions superintendent. Looking for someone good for the food stalls.”
No way of knowing if it impressed or even interested him, but he didn’t throw me out.
“That all?”
Yes. Go now. If you don’t ask, you may never need to know.
“Got something here I’d like you to see.”
He nodded when I hitched my bag round to unfasten it. His scanners would have told him it held no threat to him. I fumbled for a moment and then brought out the chip I’d found in Jon’s envelope.
He looked at it without moving from his seat. “ID chip.”
My guess had been right. Had I wanted it to be? If it hadn’t been, I was further than ever from knowing what was going on. I let myself marvel for a second at the perversity of human thinking before I asked the next question. “It still alive?”
He shook his head. “Not likely. ID’s not meant to survive without neural link-up. Can go on a few hours but that’s all. ’Less you have a lifebox, of course.”
“What’s that?”
He reached across. Lifted the chip from my hand. The dirty fingernails barely brushed my skin. I tried not to shiver.
“Box to store these things. Has artificial synapses. Medics use them if they’ve got a long operation for augments and need to lift the ID for a while. Without it…” He shrugged, tossed the chip and caught it, closing his hand. “Dead meat.”
So I hadn’t been walking round with a dead woman’s live ID in my sack. I was glad of that. Perhaps she wasn’t dead?
“So a person can live without an ID?”
He opened his hand, looking down at the chip in its palm before he looked up at me. I wondered in what past life he had gained his medical knowledge. His eyes were cold. Dead.
“Depends.”
“On what?”
“What you mean by life. Most times you lose your ID it scrambles your mind. Easy enough to insert but then it’s too tight into the brain to be pulled permanently. Can bypass for a while but for all time…
Another shrug. Now I hoped the woman was dead. I held out my hand and, after a moment in which I thought he might not agree, he dropped the chip back into it. I put it in my sack with care. Unlike Tom Lee, I couldn’t separate it from the flesh it had once monitored. Tried not to think what was in my own skull. Tried to control the anger. We are all androids, tied to a chip which is nothing more than a miniaturised bureaucrat. The Elders had been wrong: there was more supervision, not less. Tom Lee was watching me and I had no idea at all what went on behind his skull-face.
“Word is out you asking questions all round. What you Linked to, girl?”
It seemed to be everyone’s day to call me girl.
“Not sure. Trouble, perhaps.” No point denying what he already knew.
“Thought so. I don’t want a share. You got more questions, you ask someone else. Tom Lee’s not the place for you till you got it sorted, you hear?”
“I hear.”
“So why you waiting?”
The door behind me had opened. I didn’t move. Something like resignation came and went in his face.
“What now?”
“Girl called Luna. Street kid. Blader. Northshore. Your ground?”
“Maybe. So?”
“Trouble out at those flats. She may be in trouble, too. You might be able to help.”
“Why would I want to?”
“No reason.”
“That’s right. You going now?”
I went. He probably wouldn’t do anything about Luna, might not even be able to trace her, but I’d had to try. Tom Lee didn’t have a reputation for using kids and I’d half-hoped he might be able to shield one from whatever was going down.
I made my way back between the busy tables. The man at the door nodded as I left. The gesture had a sort of permanent look. That was when I realised what Tom Lee’s dismissal also meant: he wouldn’t be buying from me. If he wouldn’t, nor would anyone else. I’d lost my wine market. Now I’d have to find out what was behind Jon’s death and do something about it – or else look for a regular job.
I hardly noticed the rough jolting of the bus on my way back to the Port. I was too busy wondering whether the damaged cube which Jon had given me, and at which Byron had looked without expression, had once been what Tom Lee had called a lifebox.