THE SURFACE—WESTEURO
CALAIS FERRY TERMINAL
For the first time in her life, Rubi was living like a neo-nomad.
Luce had found himself, post-seizure, in London, and—in what passed for a burst of cooperative spirit—had scheduled their face-to-face. “We can meet after this stupid Macbeth I’m seeing.” He didn’t complain about ads, ads, ads; he seemed preoccupied.
Anselmo Javier’s Sapience Assessment peers had identified the theatrical event in question—a live performance in the West End.
Once Luce showed, Anselmo would let go of the idea that he was the Singularity.
They got standby tickets on the ever-jammed ferry across the English Channel. Rubi waited out the queue by working in her law-school reading room, learning case law on terrorism and camera jamming. When she couldn’t absorb any more, she gave press interviews about the raid in Paris.
She dug into work, trying not to worry about Dad being in Guelph. Who had called this meeting of his @bloodhound cohort? Was it him? Was he going to #crashburn?
She had gone to Chicago for implant surgery when she was fourteen. Returning, she found her father in bad shape: starving, depressed, obviously threatened by the fact that she was empowered, now, to take her flesh as far from him as she pleased, for as long as she wanted.
He hung on and she ran, signing up for a deburbing module in Guelph. Dad chased her down, imagining she’d been abducted or brainwashed.
He was on smartdrugs then. As long as he stays clean …
Forget it. Stay busy. Rubi visited with the family who’d been targeted in the Paris attack. She worked with Manitoule to structure a potential gaming wager between her and Gimlet, to work out how to benefit the SeaJuve appeal.
Whenever she started mentally looping, whether it was about Drow, Gimlet, or how she’d jumped into a real fight with a real terrorist, Rubi surfaced, went down to the nearest underground gym, and wore herself out training.
Blissful happyface all the time wasn’t a realistic life goal. Happ claimed that discomfort and transition fueled personal growth. Unless you wanted to opt for an extreme low-carbon lifestyle, to plug in to a pod with a feeding tube and an IV dose of Contentment, you had to rise and fall.
Ride the highs, work up from the lows.
As highs went, Calais turned out to be quite a pretty one. The region was a green strip within the WestEuro Densification Zone. She was strolling through its carbon-fixing district, admiring its arrangement of windfarms and topsoil printers, when Drow tooned in beside her.
“So much for your vacation, eh?” Dad’s knobby old feet were bare and grass-stained; he wore yoga pants. Tattooed maggots, fine white lines, were barely visible on the skin of his chest and back. Someone had run clippers through his hair—each white strand gleamed, and the hexagonal goggle scars on his temples were flushed pink.
Rubi gave a rueful shrug. “I’ll see London now.”
“Don’t mope, dope. London’s straight-up wonderful.”
“Didn’t know you’d been.”
“School trip,” Drow said. “Before the Setback. There might be historical footage in Haystack.”
One of the fans who monitored their every breath, in realtime, would dig up the footage now and tag them.
“What’s on your mind, kid?”
“Emergent sapients.” She couldn’t talk about Luce. If Drow found out Anselmo was investigating their client, he’d tell in a heartbeat. Fortunately, Drow would almost certainly think she had the Paris incident on her mind. “I’ve been reviewing case law on the AI bans.”
The culture of all eyes, all ears had #crashburned society’s premeditated murder rate. How did you plan or carry off a killing with implanted cameras uploading the feeds from everyone’s eyes, while trachea mics caught every utterance?
Sexual assault numbers had been trending down for decades: even in the middle of the twenty-first, apps like SayYes and Gaslight Analysis became ever more effective at setting and checking boundaries, assessing your fitness to give consent, letting you revoke it anytime.
The days of She musta misunderstood, officer, or I didn’t know he was thirteen! or C’mon, they led me on had been sandblasted by transcripts and video footage.
As violent crime waned, though, people began to fear something else would fill the gap.
“Homicidal singularities and #killertech?” Drow said. “Just the boogeyman du jour. In my day, every other scary sim was about a serial killer.”
“Serial killers did exist. They weren’t just stories.”
“Killer AI probably wouldn’t be like anything you’ve fought in-game. Why? You worried that’s what shut off the cameras in Paris?”
“People are wondering,” she replied.
Drow shrugged. “@Freebreeder hackers are the simplest answer, right?”
“Right.” Luce would turn out to be a flesh-and-blood lunatic, someone who needed diagnosis and meds. Rubi just had to prove it to Anselmo. She’d help Luce with his Cloudsight rating, see London, and get on a standby home. Done and dusted and back to Daddy.
As for Drow, the sight of him—here, now, and healthy—eased her worry. “Father Blake’s feeding you up.”
“It’s the plum cake.”
Anselmo pinged her, to see if she was headed to the ferry terminal.
“When’s your meeting … Never mind, I see it,” Drow said. “And there’s a play beforehand? Maybe I’ll try to hook up with him there.”
“With Luce?”
“Sure. Offer some emotional backup before you meet. Good for everyone, right?”
She beamed, sending Drow a hug moji. “If he consents.”
Drow swept his arm up in a familiar mime, something he hadn’t done in years. Graphics caught the move, penciling a cape over his casual yoga gear. Whirling, he pulled it over his face and his toon vanished.
Rubi smiled into the rising wind as she headed for the ferry terminal.
Disembarking in Dover, after a choppy crossing, felt like traveling back in time. Unlike Calais, the port was run down, a skeleton settlement serving the crepit but critical infrastructure of the ferry terminal.
Passengers waited to dock, sloshing back and forth, as the air whipped itself into froth.
“Bad weather’s building up on the NorthAm coast,” a purser told them. “Florida’s battened. Hurricane-strength winds are building near Old New York.”
“Haiti’s going to get scoured again,” someone muttered.
Passengers staggered down the heaving debarkation ramp, crossing an exposed stretch of tarmac to the storm bunkers. Shelter coordinators in safety vests met them at the entrance with towels and smiles.
“We’re built to withstand extremely high winds,” said one, in obviously well-rehearsed patter. “Everyone’s safe.”
“Will we lose data?” Voice from the crowd.
“We expect to keep Sensorium at full capacity, Mer.”
“Transport?” Anselmo asked.
“Emergency only. Car network and trains are offline.”
Rubi felt a rising sense of excitement. My problem is I’m an adrenaline junkie.
Anselmo murmured, “I’m going to be drafted for crowd control.”
“I’ll try for a hospitality shift,” she replied.
“They’ve got good bandwidth here,” he said, “but it can get cold. Get a decent blanket.”
“Okay.” She requisitioned a sweater from stores, then checked in with the gig manager, Moravia. There was a four-hour volunteer shift decanting hot drinks and printing yeast biscuits for the wet, windblown, and increasingly seasick passengers coming off the boats.
The kitchen was running uplink jammers, forcing the public to eat quickly, dry off, and move into the depths of the shelter, to the couches and bunks where people could datadive or sleep.
She was halfway through the shift when a young man, reaching for soup, asked, “Are you Cherub Whiting?”
Dammit. Heads were turning. Rubi handed him the flask with the tiniest of nods. She could feel dozens of eyes on her.
Okay. Drow deals with this constantly, and he’s insane.
Drow’s got a dog to run interference.
The stranger hadn’t taken the soup. He stood, looking gobsmacked, as she held it out, steaming.
“Miso?” she said.
Crickets.
“Your order says a biscuit—here’s the biscuit—and a spindown lozenge. There’s a pharmacist with a printer station over there—”
“Bam!” he said, and she jumped. Hot soup lipped the flask and burned her thumb. “You jumped on that metal horse, didn’t you? Face-to-face with a @Freebreed—”
“I…” She held his gaze. “I didn’t give it any thought.”
“Tear-gassed and everything.” He sneezed. “I must’ve run that vid sixty, eighty times.”
Rubi took the sneeze as an opportunity. “You should take your soup before it gets cold. You’re chilled, and I’ve got people waiting.”
He didn’t move.
“It was nice talking to you.”
Not taking the hint.
Drow would tell him to fuck off.
She set the soup within reach. “Bye, now!”
She turned to the next stranded fellow traveler. They seemed similarly starstruck but, thankfully, less pushy. She had to gaily chat to three more people before the guy finally took his soup and huffed away.
I need better role models. Who, besides Drow, could she talk to about this?
The thought of Gimlet rose, unbidden.
No! Hand over a bowl of soup. Print a hot biscuit. Forget that fine-edged smile. Gimlet’s married, remember?
“Hi there! Sensorium is available in the next room. Yes, my name is Cherub Whiting. Enjoy your soup.”
Twenty minutes later, Moravia pulled her out of the chow line. “Boatload of teens on the way, and they’ve heard you’re here. We’ll bed you down in staff quarters, along with your police … friend? Lover?”
“Colleague,” Rubi said. Anselmo had been extremely charming lately, but a glance through his transcript had made her feel as though he might have ulterior motives. “Sorry to be creating problems.”
“It’s not the first time we’ve had a stranded celeb.”
“I wouldn’t say celeb—” The overly polite look on Moravia’s face stopped her. “Moravia, I could fold blankets in a back room.”
“Call me Mora, and don’t worry. You’ve done your bit. Nobody thinks you’re coasting on privilege.”
Rubi’s throat tightened, feeling the phrase as an accusation. They stepped out of the cafeteria’s jam zone, and the black mark of a strike etched itself across her field of vision. The young guy from the chow line had censured her for “rudely disengaging from conversation.”
She could file an appeal—she’d offered a polite goodbye, and Haystack would show it—but why bother?
She followed Mora into a triangular tunnel, made from scavenged corrugated steel, welded together in an inverted V and fixed to the tarmac with concrete weights. Each blast of wind sent rattles through its structure. Rust flakes drifted in the dim light. Rubi could feel metal shavings settling in her dreads.
They rounded a corner to an institutional-looking door, blue paint, and a sign reading AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY, and went down two flights of steel steps to a dormitory.
“Home sweet home,” said Mora.
“This your room?”
“My favorite, anyway. Don’t know why. They’re standardized.”
“The view, maybe,” Rubi joked. The pop-in was an eight-bunk communal, with racks of beds built into facing walls. A white rectangle, denoting a window, was painted on the concrete wall between them. The room was clammy. Rubi remembered, too late, Anselmo’s precaution about blankets.
The manager seemed to read her thought: “It’s just you and Agent Javier in here tonight. Split the linens between you.”
“Thanks.”
Mora nodded, heading off.
Rubi circled the tiny room, flattening her palm against the damp concrete of the painted window. How to decorate? Load up her e-state? Or check out the staff paste-ups?
This felt more like camping. Maybe later she’d build a cave: crystal formations, iridescent moths, bonfire, and a simulated sleeping bag. Invite some people from school.
She stepped into the hall, triggering lights that illuminated a series of doors to identical bunk rooms. Beyond the bathroom door she found empty showers and staff lockers. Farther in, she found a lounge for ferry workers—more painted windows, a proper radiator, mixer for hot drinks. A printer steamed in the corner, currently set to cook saltfish and akee.
Running a saltfish cube, she sat on the elderly couch, declining to choose any upholstery for it, and munched.
“This isn’t weird at all.”
Happ pounced on the cue: “Shall we tag your feels?”
Everyone jammed in a public bunker, and me, here in VIP accommodations, waiting on my personal police escort.
“Not just now, Happ. Thanks.”
It ghosted over her visual implants, one of a crowd of apps rendered as toons: Coach, her gaming concierge, the PR advisor, Debutante. As consolation for getting a public relations manager, she’d insisted on also subscribing to a premium-grade law school tutor, Polly Precedent. Plus Crane, of course, always Crane. Her electronic entourage, there to help her be bigger, stronger, happier, to make the highest and best use of every waking moment.
“What if you tried something fun?” To her surprise, the suggestion came from Crane, not Happ.
She sighed. “Do you have a suggestion?”
“Storm riding?”
“Accept.”
The room disappeared. She rose on a current of fast air, amassing information from weather detection devices installed around the ferry terminal.
Disembodied and out of sorts, she flew above Dover, into blasting thunder and a sizzle of lightning, taking in the spectacle of rain lashing the famous white cliffs.