Heaven is a Place on Earth (7 page)

Ginny watched the steward as he happily patrolled the uncarpeted aisle of the windowless plane, checking that no one had slid out of their seat and that all the latched ones were fed and watered.

“
Hi there,” Ginny said as he went past. “Do you think I could get some water?”

“
Of course, Ms Galton,” he said. No doubt her name, seat, flight details, were all there. Including her network status, it seemed. “If you'd like to latch to the plane you'll have a much better flight,” he said. “And if you want to unlatch, we have full QNet connectivity throughout the journey. No need to suffer the grim reality.”

Ginny smiled at the disconcerted steward. People told her she had a good smile, big and generous. It seemed to put the young man more at ease. “It’s all right. I like to give it a break now and then. If you’d just bring me that water.”

The truth was that Ginny had been running on minimal aug ever since she met Naumann yesterday. She daren't latch to anything in case a pot plant or a post box turned out to be an untagged assassin. It sounded like crazy paranoia just to think it but Ginny was taking no chances.

She waited until Andy was gone, then re-opened the virtual folder on her lap. She flicked through the pages of the research she was doing. Her recent brush with Brisbane's underworld had left her feeling stupid and ignorant – not to mention vulnerable. There was clearly a whole world out there she didn't know or understand and this endless trip was her chance to fill in a few gaps in her education.

And she was learning some very surprising things.

Like that being untagged was neither as impossible nor as uncommon as everyone seemed to believe. The authorities even had a name for it, “turning ghost”. Maybe her friend Cal was dead or maybe he’d turned ghost. Dead didn’t matter to the police. Turning ghost would normally be no big deal either. Thousands turned ghost for one reason or another each year, it seemed. Whether it was deliberate or just an accident, the tag teams tracked most of them down in the end and brought them back online. “Tag teams” or just “taggers” was what criminal types called the police missing persons officers. The division the nice Detective Chu worked for. She heard Tonia's voice saying,
You're some fucking tagger's bitch
. The hatred in her tone still made Ginny shiver.

When she chased down the term “lotos eaters” – obviously a term of contempt on Tonia's lips – she found it came from Homer's
Odyssey
– one of those books Ginny had always meant to get around to reading one day. According to what she found, a bunch of guys landed on a North African island and started eating drugged lotus fruits. Which made them stop caring about their quest to get home and just want to hang about getting stoned. Not very helpful, Ginny thought, until she found a footnote that mentioned that “in popular culture the term is used by members of the infamous September 10 terrorist group to refer to anyone who uses AR or VR technologies.”

So she chased down that reference and found September 10 was bunch of nutjobs who spent their free time sabotaging communication lines. September 10 was growing in stature as a terrorist movement after some audacious and effective attacks. It was named after the day in 2049 when the US government made electronic tagging compulsory for every man, woman, child and domestic animal in the country.

Naturally, by 2049, most people in the States were tagged anyway. If you weren’t tagged, how would the stores know when you came in to be served? How would your message services know where to find you? How would people who were latched know not to walk into you or drive right over you? If your tag didn’t keep the network informed about where you were and what you were doing, you might as well not exist.

And that, of course, was the reason for the law. It could be very useful for certain people not to exist. People who didn’t want to be found or people who were doing things they shouldn’t be doing. Such people became known as ghosts – and governments, Ginny discovered, are scared of ghosts. In the twenty years since the US passed its law, similar laws had been passed in the European Union and then in most other states around the world.

But it wasn’t just criminals and misfits who dodged the taggers. There were also many people who objected to tagging as a matter of principle or of religious conviction. Some of these people organised themselves into terrorist groups and some of these groups formed uneasy but horribly effective alliances to disrupt and destroy the societies they hated so much.

So there were tag teams to track down the untagged and it was a serious and deadly business. The amazing thing to Ginny was that it was all so low-key. She had never seen anything about taggers on the news, and she'd certainly never heard of the September 10 terrorist group. It made her nervous to think of all this going on below her radar. Maybe she should pay more attention, scan a wider set of feeds.

She closed her displays and stretched her legs, wondering how much faith she could put in all those conspiracy theory feeds she'd been dipping into. Looking around she found the sight of her lolling, staring fellow passengers disturbed her. It was creepy, she realised, seeing it all in a way she never had done before. The unlatched were deep in full immersion virtual reality, free of the constraints of the real world, their sagging bodies kept artificially relaxed so that they didn’t hurt themselves as their minds roved through simulated worlds. In unlatched VR they could be where they chose to be, their bodies altered by up to twenty per cent from their natural form. And that could make a lot of difference if done well. Latched or unlatched, when you moved out of minimal augmented reality and let the machines take over your sensorium, you gave up all hope of ever seeing anyone as they really were. The vast majority of people thought this was a good thing – a damned good thing. The next best thing, in fact, to Heaven itself.

The world had been waiting for this since the first thought flickered across the first brain. Now they embraced it in their billions. Inevitably, a lot of people grasped too tightly and wouldn’t let go, even if it killed them. Artificial realities were not Heaven but they could easily become the road to Hell.

Was that what had made Cal kill his tag? Had he suddenly decided to become a conscientious objector, to ghost out for the sake of his sanity? Or did he want to save the world? Maybe September 10 had got to him, convinced him, blackmailed him, seduced him. She shook her head, unable to accept that Cal – who had seemed so level-headed and nice – could have been recruited by terrorists. Killed by them, maybe. She wouldn't put that past the unstable Tonia or the slimy Dover Richards.

—
oOo—

Sydney was a quiet place, empty and decaying like most cities.
Haunted by ghosts,
Ginny thought.
Of every kind
. She picked up a cab at the little airport. The huge old roads were empty, unlit. No one used them except the robot freighters endlessly moving food and manufactured goods out of the robot farms and factories to the robot warehouses and then to the houses. 

The cab was small and plain. The giants of the past – Ford, Honda, General Motors – had long since sold up and gone into the telecoms business. Now cars were made by tiny specialist manufacturers and maybe they’d be out of business too in a few years time. Global warming, pollution, the Oil Wars were all just fading nightmares. They’d been overtaken by events.

Ginny travelled augmented, feeling safer with a thousand kilometres between herself and Brisbane. She watched maps unfold across the unlit freeway, watched ads pop up around her as passing systems sensed her tag. She had decided to surprise her parents – mostly to avoid them saying no. But the only flight had been late in the evening and she thought it would be better to turn up on their doorstep in the morning than in the night. So she had booked a hotel. On top of the staggering cost of the flight, the room had seemed relatively cheap.

When she was close to the hotel, she latched into its augmented reality. The road ahead lit up. Welcome signs appeared. All the wrong turnings turned dim and the right way was a bright and spangled one. The effects were cheap and tacky, but that was to be expected, the hotel business was in terminal decline too. People did their business unlatched these days, meeting in common virtual realities. Whole worlds of artificial business venues existed. Who would travel hours to meet in some dump of a conference centre, when they could hold their meeting in Ancient Greece or a crater on Mars? Who would commute to a downtown highrise when they could stay put and work on the Mont Blanc glaciers or the Oslo Fjord?

It was the same story for holidays. The hotel was a dying concept. For the few people who still travelled, you took whatever you could get.

Ginny, still latched, left the cab and walked into the hotel lobby. She looked around at the deep plush carpets and the Italian marble pillars and her nerve broke. She went native and found herself in the dimly lit and run down reality she had expected. Where the smiling receptionist had stood behind an impressive marble desk, a roboteller was bolted to a beat up wooden counter. Ginny checked around her. She was alone.

“Good evening, Ms Galton,” the teller said. “We’re so glad to see you here at the Sydney Hilton.”

“
Just tell me what room I’m in.”

The machine told her and she went straight there. She locked the door then wedged it shut with a chair. She checked the window. Good. There was no balcony and the walls were sheer and would be hard to climb.

Look at me
, she thought.
Acting like a spy on a mission. Maybe I should sweep the room for bugs and hide my documents in the lavatory cistern.
But it wasn't really amusing at all. Being anxious all the time was no fun and she looked back wistfully to the time when all she had to worry about was money.

That had been just two days ago.

She lay on the bed and dealt with the day's messages. Della had sent a sweet apology for being in such a huff that morning and Ginny replied saying it was all her fault, really. She didn't mention she had left town and was lying low, beginning to understand that what she was going through was not the kind of thing to burden your friends with. The urge to talk to someone about it was strong, though, and she had recorded a long ramble about meeting Detective Chu and how he was a tagger and pretty cute with it, before she deleted the whole thing and started again, avoiding anything to do with her troubles. She mentioned the job opportunity that Derek Naumann had sprung on her and used it to explain why she would be out of circulation for a couple of weeks at least.

You're disturbingly good at this lying business
, she told herself after the message was sent.
Let's see if you can come up with something convincing for your mother tomorrow to explain your first physical visit in ten years.
She fell asleep, fully clothed, with a mash-up of the past two days churning through her mind, explaining to Chu why she had Gavin's body in her kitchen, Dover Richards politely sneering at her ideas for the WorldEnough project, Della and her mother nagging her to join the September 10 group because Tonia needed her bicycle. On and on, round and round, more bizarre all the time but also more stressful. She woke up at one point, undressed, and showered. It was three AM. She watched a Nigerian documentary about the space program which dissolved into further, tortured dreams. At six AM, she woke up exhausted and sat on the edge of her bed for half an hour, watching the sun rise over a mountain lake through the virtual window of her windowless hotel room.

“Hi.”

Her father stared at her as if she was an obscure optical illusion he was trying to fathom.

“Virginia?”

She waited for him to get over his surprise and step back out of the doorway so she could enter.

“You brought a bag,” he said, eyeing the big canvas shopping bag that had her meagre wardrobe in it.

“
You'd be surprised how hard it is to find anywhere that sells luggage in Brisbane. Is Mum about?”

“
Here,” he said, taking the bag off her and walking ahead down the short corridor. “Come on through.” Raising his voice, he called, “Cheryl, it's Virginia come to see us.” He stopped and turned to Ginny, then put his free arm round her in a hug. “Well this is a surprise. What on earth brought this on? She's not that bad, you know.”

“
I don't know what got into me, Dad. I rode a bike the other day and I remembered how you taught me all those years ago.”

“
A real bike? I didn't know they made them any more.”

“
Maybe they don't. I found this one in a – ”

“
Darling! You came!”

Cheryl Galton pushed her husband aside in her rush to throw her arms around Ginny. Not in the least offended, Ginny's father relinquished his hug and stood back, smiling on, as his wife enfolded their daughter.

“Oh darling, I spoke too soon. It was quite treatable. Nothing at all to worry about. And look at you, flying all that way to be with me. I feel so ashamed but I'm so glad you're here. The worry has been so awful. I try talking to Bob about it but – ” The mention of her husband's name reminded her of his presence. “Bob, be a dear and put the kettle on, would you. Your poor daughter has just travelled all that way and you're just standing there looking useless.”

With an “Oh, yes. Right,” Bob set down the bag and wandered off to the kitchen.

Cheryl sighed and shook her head, letting Ginny see how patiently she put up with her father's stupidity. “Come and sit down, darling and I'll tell you all about what the doctors said.”

And that's it
, thought Ginny.
No explanation necessary
. She should have known her mother was so self-obsessed that everything was automatically about her. Anyone could have turned up at the doorstep and Cheryl Galton would immediately assume they were there because of her. No question that your only daughter might turn up after a ten year absence because she has problems of her own. No need to make enquiries as to her health or well-being, just sweep her up into the vortex that is Cheryl Galton and carry on as usual. It made Ginny's muscles tense, a visceral memory of the reasons she had fled to Brisbane all those years ago. And yet it was an easy and comfortable role to play, as a bit player in the great drama of her mother's life, a part she knew by heart and understood to the core. Later, Ginny knew, her part would change from heroine to villain as her mother began to feel the potential burden of coping with a house guest at such a time of trial and tribulation, but that too would be familiar and easy to deal with.

-oOo-

There was no guest room. Ginny would sleep on the sofa. Making the few domestic arrangements that were required to accommodate this unexpected visitor and fetching a doona and a couple of pillows stressed her mother so much she retired early, leaving Ginny to chat to her father over a cup of cocoa he made in her honour.

“
I can't remember the last time I drank cocoa,” she said, cradling the cup between her hands. “Not for real, anyway.”

“
How's the music business?” he asked.

“
Humming along.” It was an old joke between them. “It's been a bit of a struggle lately but something big might be on the cards. I need to do a proposal. I was hoping I'd get a bit of P and Q here to work on that.”

Her father pulled a face. “Good luck with that. I think your mum will probably want to spend a bit of time with you.” Code for, everybody under this roof is part of Cheryl's audience.

She smiled to let him know she understood the situation. “I'm looking forward to spending time with you,” she said. “Both of you. I spend too much time in the tank anyway.” He raised his eyebrows in agreement. It's what everybody said these days.

“
You're free to borrow mine while you're here. I'm only working mornings now. It's just a temporary thing, they say, until the business picks up, but, you know...”

“
Shit, Dad, Are you looking for another job?”

“
Who'd have me at my age?”

He was right. In the post-boomer age, anyone over fifty was lucky to have a job at all and her father must be sixty by now. “Would you be all right, if...”

“Don't worry about us. We've got our superannuation. That'll see us through 'till we reach pension age. If worst comes to worst, I'll sell the Ferrari.” She didn't even bother to look up whatever a Ferrari might be. He stood up, clearly uncomfortable talking about his troubles, and said goodnight. “You just hurry up and write that smash hit musical so we can all retire in luxury.”

“
Yeah, no worries. I'll start on that as soon as I've finished the score for the next Bollywood blockbuster.”

She sat alone after he'd gone, feeling anxious and low. No wonder her mother was acting up. She'd find a million things to complain about, a million non-existent problems to whinge about, but she would never mention what was really worrying her.
At least
, Ginny told herself,
I'll be here to deflect some of it from Dad
. The prospect of which made her feel even worse. Still, she was here now and she'd have to tough it out, fret about her dad, put up with her mum, finish Old Vienna, and come up with a kick-ass proposal for WorldEnough.

Think of it as saving your worthless neck from the bad guys
, she thought. But it wasn't much consolation. Hardly any at all, really.