THE SURFACE—WESTEURO
METRO LONDON, SCOTLAND YARD
Any idea of getting to the Waxworks #crashburned on launch: the fans stalking Scotland Yard’s perimeter had grown to a bona fide mob. Protesters streamed rhetoric about birth restrictions; others chanted slogans opposing pet rationing. Cameras jostled for position.
You didn’t see real crowds much, not anymore. Rubi saw, and Whoozed, a surprising number of crepits mixed in with the sim fans and reporters. They repped an invigorated movement for attending to elders. Not surprisingly, people in assisted living had been galvanized by the shocking abuse exposed at Piccadilly.
BallotBox sent her a nascent stakeholder poll, proposing a Global Oversight crackdown on the life-extension multis, an audit for corruption and profit-maxing. This was the second scandal, after all—a pharma corporation had recently undergone #triage because its managers were filching Superhoomin for the black market.
The crowd around Scotland Yard also included vendors. Entrepreneurs sold buns and chuggers. There were street performers, pop-up massage professionals, sunscreen dispensers. Scotland Yard had mustered a line of flesh-and-blood security giggers to hold them at the building perimeter.
“Agent Xavier believes the gamers will disperse to the nearest convenient gym as soon as you tag out of surface reality and boot up Coach for Bastille,” Crane said.
Turning from her view of the crowd, at the window, Rubi cast her eye over the lounge where the police had left the civilians. Gimlet and Frankie had glazed, going into a huddle on the couch. Frankie looked pale, tearful.
Watching felt invasive. Grabbing a pair of blueberry cubes, Rubi grabbed an open patch of floor and dove into her own simulation. Her e-state garden bloomed into view around her; her toon was still wearing the wine-colored dress she’d been wearing in the Games Room with Drow.
If she couldn’t get to the Waxworks …
And do what? Speak to Crane off the record? He’s an artificial entity. It can’t happen.
… she was stuck pussyfooting.
Whatever had triggered Crane’s risky voice-stealing behavior, Scotland Yard would have hashed his memory, along with all their transcripts, when her sidekick rebooted out of the metaphor. Rubi’s task now was to recreate his epiphany, without getting either of them busted.
She scanned her user agreements. Digital metaphors weren’t a secret concept. Plenty of people used graphic representations to track their user stats.
The trick was getting him to see beyond the code.
She turned on her heel, picking her way between blossoming orange trees and took the secret staircase—no castle was complete without one!—back into the cave system Drow maintained below Whine Manor, their family sharespace, a nest of subterranean workrooms.
There she had Crane load up a small, purpose-built reading lounge—couch, gas light, fireplace—and to erect, on either side of the mantel, two perfect Christmas trees. Upon these she imposed her own Sensorium activity and Drow’s. The trees lit up with data as she explained what she wanted.
“I suppose you’re viewing this as code,” she said.
“Do they look unconvincing, miss?”
“Try seeing it through my eyes.” Now she had the trick of visualization, she could see Drow’s current smartdrug binge, a burst of bright new growth on his user profile. “Can you also display cross-sections of the trunks?”
“Historical activity analysis?” Crane asked.
“Yeah. Polish them up, hang them like plaques, above the fire.”
“As you wish.” The slices appeared. Hers was an oval the size of her face, twenty-four layers, each increasing in girth as her data takes increased.
Drow’s, by contrast, showed good and bad years. She could pick out his drug binges with ease in this format: thick bursts of heightened Sensorium activity. The stretches in jail and hospital, too, periods where all of his access was managed, were narrow, unvaried rings.
A tiny wormhole illustrated his recent comms-free retreat at the church in Guelph.
Why had he called the @hoaxers together?
In this at-home version of the Sapience Assessment metaphor, the tree merely showed Rubi’s user stats. None of it integrated automatically with her apps as it had back at @Interpol.
How to reproduce the effect here?
“They’re Christmas trees, aren’t they?” she said aloud.
Happ had been mooching around at her feet, crunching the peculiarities of her current mood. Now it bubbled up moji: a heart, a hug, aural moji of carol singers, images of dining with her starred contacts. Love, feasting, sharing … all the things it thought were important about the solstice holidays.
Rubi watched images as they rose through her field of vision, vanishing into the cave roof. “Crane, can we make … say, a bunch of ornaments for the trees?”
“Options: popcorn strings, candles, ribbons, tinsel, hanging glass balls, artificial representations of birds, action figures, Santa heads, cross-stitch, trumpets, angels…”
“Glass balls.” She considered. “The miniatures with the swirly stuff inside—what are those called?”
“Snow globes, miss?”
“Yes. Please make snow globe holiday ornaments.”
The mantel grew a crop of glass balls capped with golden hangers. Each snow globe contained a unique diorama: a snow-capped church, a sleigh with reindeer, a ski hill.
She picked up Rudolph. “Can you light up his nose?”
Light winked at the tip of the reindeer’s nose. White and silver flakes twirled around its hooves.
“Perfect. So, Crane—these objects. The more activity, more light and more swirl in the glitter, got it?”
“What activity are we charting, Miss?”
“I’ll get to that. Can you do it?”
“It sounds simple enough.”
“I need sets for each of our trees—mine and Drow’s,” she said.
The Rudolph globe divided, like a cell, leaving one in each of her palms.
She hung them on the upper branches, one on each tree, and repeated the process with a pair of angels, the village church, Dickens’s Scrooge, a ski hill, the Grinch, and a Yule log.
“Still with me, Crane?”
“Indeed.”
“I want you to link each ornament—the intensity of the interior light and how fast the flakes swirl, get it?—to Sensorium activity for one of our apps. Rudolph for Happ, obviously, Scrooge for my money manager, Grinch for Coach—”
“And me?”
“I guess you’re the angel.”
“It may take some time to assemble the code.”
“Farm it out to your contractor pack.” She drummed her fingers over Crane’s markers. Slowly, three times, tap-tap-tap.
“Mer Barnes seeks in-the-flesh contact.”
“In a minute.”
The tree lit up. Coach, as represented by the Grinch, was a dim candle-flicker. The money manager emanated a cheery green light. Her new PR management system, Debutante, was a-churning, probably crunching interview requests from journos. Beancounter, on the other hand, was going nuts over on her father’s tree—
“Is Drow missing meals?” she said sharply.
A long pause.
“Crane?”
“However could you know that, Miss Cherub?”
She flipped the ruby-colored marker in midair, slapping it down in front of the spare ornaments. In the real world, the impact would have been enough to snap the tabletop. “That, my dear Watson, is your question of the day.”
With that, she surfaced, back to Scotland Yard and the waiting room where Anselmo had abandoned them.
Gimlet had gone scrounging in the cupboards, turning up a curiosity, a heavy-looking vest like the ones Anselmo had worn to both of his attempts to arrest Luce.
“Is that a bulletproof vest?”
“I think so.” They laid it on the table. “Come see.”
Rubi ran her hands over the heavy, antique material. “I never really play sims set after the invention of Kevlar.”
“The superhero sim was mid-eighties.”
“We were superheroes. Bulletproof.”
“True.” Their hand caught hers, drawing it into the vest, out of sight.
Of course Gimlet would be able to morse.
They waited a beat, holding her gaze.
Rubi nodded fractionally, consenting.
What they opened with, though, surprised her: My family is collapsing.
She let her face moji her answer to that.
One spouse dying, one fled, one oldfeller dead already. Franks a mess.
She fumbled to reply. Sorry.
Franks invested in Bastille going FWD.
She owed them the truth. I can’t play. I need to be lawyering. Time’s running out for SeaJuve. Plus. Luce.
Gimlet pondered that. Then: Tell the fans you won’t play until SeaJuve has a corporate sponsor and a top-flight legal advocacy team.
Her jaw dropped. That’s … what?
@Interpol will probably underwrite a legal team to get things moving.
Why would they?
Because Pox opposes SeaJuve. If it launches, he’ll resurface. Javier’s desperate to find him.
She chewed that over.
Plus, they want the gawkers off their doorstep.
It was an aggressive move. Especially as she’d already alienated Anselmo.
Ultimatum time. Agree to start play immediately after SeaJuve launch, repeat, after launch.
Reboot my project and I’ll play your sim. A villain move. Of course Gimlet would suggest it.
My family is falling apart.
Holding Bastille hostage was tantamount to emotional blackmail. But Scotland Yard could strong-arm the legal superstars she needed. If launching SeaJuve would tempt Luce out of hiding, they’d ante up the carbon tonnage.
Gimlet wasn’t done. Controversy draws media attention to our wager. Casino and the games companies will kick in, too.
How could she tune out now, of all times, for a game? With Drow on the road, skipping meals?
A rush of tears caught her by surprise. She should be in Sensorium, begging him to eat. At Heathrow, on standby, in a queue to hightail it home. If her father had lapsed into food avoidance, it was only a matter of time before he went sniffing after a mass grave in old Winnipeg, or worse.
She blinked away visions of him slitting his wrists in some anonymous pop-in.
Agreeing to run a game, instead …
Playing was just … what? Fleeing her problems?
This is the best opp to resurrect SeaJuve and find Luce, Gimlet morsed. The touch, on her palm, was clear and featherlight. And it was as if they knew her thoughts. Not mere frivolity.
The knot in her chest detangled. Nodding, Rubi said, “Debutante?”
“Yes, Mer Whiting?”
“I’d like to compose a press release.”
She released Gimlet’s hand. Under the vest, their skin had warmed; the air of the lounge felt cold.
They went back on the record and buckled down.
Hours whirled away. @Interpol and the casino got onside so fast, it was as if they’d made the proposal, not her. The game companies sent specs for printed costume overlays: a Parisienne serving girl, for Rubi, and an ice-blue frockcoat, for Gimlet.
She caught a shower in the police gymnasium while they made the clothes, finally cleaning herself up. Misfortune, meanwhile, was tasked with roping off an area where the two of them could speak, in the flesh, to the crowd.
In Waterloo district, SeaJuve Ops rolled out a launch countdown, putting in final gig requests for sailors.
“Okay. Get dressed, meet the public, and you can probably start play by sundown tomorrow,” Anselmo said.
Rubi slid the maid’s dress—a tissueweight sheath—over her primer, tightening the laces on either side.
“We’ll be reading your transcript in realtime,” he added. “If Luce Pox reaches out, we’ll need to trace his home server.”
She felt a guilty sense of relief: so much for calling Drow. If he was out sniffing after cadavers, she didn’t want Anselmo clueing in.
An awkward pause.
“You’re not wrong about Luce,” he said. “He could be a personality upload. A polter.”
His concession made her suspicious. “But you think there’s more to it.”
He shrugged. “Becoming a polter is supposed to be beyond reach. Cutting the cord? The account logs when the body dies.”
“Digital immortality is the @jarhead holy grail,” she said. “There must be some very bright scientists on it.”
“We’ve pinged them,” Anselmo said. “They say no.”
“So, what now?”
“I’ve made an ultimatum of my own,” he said. “@Interpol has agreed the @PoxWorkingGroup can meet with one of my consultants. We’ll head out after the press conference.”
Finally putting his cards on the table.
“And then?”
“Then we ship out to Tampico to investigate the other transmission.” Anselmo fiddled with an extra lace that had been in the print bundle. “So. You and Barnes—”
Rubi set her fists on her hips, checking whether the dress would be apt to swish, daring him to finish up that sentence.
“Does it seem strange that you both ended up in this decision chain?”
Was that marginally better than having him ask if they were an item? “Frankie and Gimlet went to Macbeth because of Drow composing their background music.”
Truthfully, though, she had wondered, too. Was it as innocent as it seemed, or too neat by half?
Anselmo gestured at the window, at the crowd waiting in front of the platform and speakers. “The last #flashmob this big was over thirty years ago.”
“Let’s give ’em a reason to go cocoon,” Rubi said.
“Agreed,” he said, and offered her an arm, like some kind of old-fashioned courtier. Rubi waved it off, deploying her baton instead.
Stiffly, he opened the door. Whatever rapport they’d maybe had, in the beginning, they were jangling now, discordant. Just as well—for Luce’s sake, she needed to keep things on a professionals-only footing.
“Find a breach, right?” She breezed past, all business. “Jump in with both feet!”
“Just make sure you stick the landing,” Anselmo replied, bringing up the rear.