The Beam: Season Two (76 page)

“I’m a student of history.” Vale chuckled. “And as you all know, I’m older than I look. Not too long before I was born, the world was one, joining hands to raise the moon base and the radio array that let us see the beginning of time. The world had joined hands before the Fall, but then Old America decided to cut itself off in the name of triage. Then we joined hands again — internally, this time — to survive the chaos of the ’30s. We joined hands behind Crossbrace. We joined hands behind The Beam. Today, the NAU is more connected than ever. We’re functioning, day to day, as an enormous single mind. And yet
this
is how we spend our unity. By focusing on division.”
 

He paused, looking around the room and daring anyone to speak.
 

“It’s time to join hands again,” he said. “Behind Project Mindbender.”
 

Micah felt the bottom drop from his stomach. “Mindbender” was as taboo a word as “Beau Monde.” Once upon a time, the nation had dreamed about uploading minds to The Beam, but it had been in the afterglow of Renewal, dreams of the restoration of the Golden Days still dancing in citizens’ heads like visions of sugar plums. Mindbender as it existed today was a secret, buried so deep that Xenia had its own police force to make sure it stayed covered. It wasn’t the project that the NAU had forgotten decades earlier. Now it was an advanced initiative that wasn’t yet ready for prime time.

The silence broke. Cabinets chattered, arguing, darting angry stares around their respective groups and at each other. Vale held up his hands.

“Oh, it’s just a beginning. Nobody is talking about going full-digital anytime soon. It will take much of the next century to perfect and make safe, but ladies and gentlemen,
it will happen
. Anyone can see the signs and predict where we’re headed. Who, other than those with a conscientious objection to the network, isn’t plugged into The Beam at all times? You out there watching at home: Are you downloading today’s activities into a life-log from your memory as you watch? Are you maintaining open connections so that you and your friends in other districts can be together — in sound and sight — even though you’re apart? How many of you are using habit and efficiency apps that tracked your movements all day? Do you have a smart fridge? Is there a roast in the oven…and if so, did you put it there? Did you even have to decide, or have you set your canvas to dedicated preference? If you’ve done that, how long has it taken your canvas’s AI to separate your whims from your real desires? How long has it taken your canvas to know when you’re kidding, when you’re being flighty, and when you actually want or need something you can’t quite put your finger on…but that it can figure out, and easily provide for you?”
 

Micah’s head was spinning. Vale’s resumed speech hadn’t quieted the room. If there were a judge with a gavel, he’d be banging it hard and calling for order. Did Vale know what Xenia was doing with the modern version of Mindbender? Or was this a pipe dream — another bit of whimsy from the idealistic new president? The process of uploading a mind, once quirks were ironed out, would begin at the highest levels, uploading geniuses that the NAU couldn’t lose to death. It would be phenomenally expensive — typically out of reach to all but the Beau Monde unless supported by a grant. What possible good would it do to inform the masses? Was this all a coincidence, his pulling the old Mindbender nugget from the zeitgeist?

“We’re alone in the world,” said Vale. “One union. One people. We’re all Earth has left, in terms of mankind’s advancement. We shouldn’t focus on division. We must focus on unity. Because we are a
union
. We once had shared goals, but we’ve fallen out of practice. Now we’ll have a
new
goal. And when, eventually, we learn to live as digital beings, no longer needing to fight as viciously for resources, we’ll have achieved this great union’s promise.”
 

Vale turned his head to look directly at the Enterprise group, his eyes meaningful.
 

“All of us,” he said in a much softer voice. “Together.”
 

Shit
, thought Micah.

The room boomed. The audience stood and began to surge forward. The White House had automated security, but it usually stayed at bay for diplomatic reasons. Now the sweepers came forward, upright like large bullets, hovering with a scent like ozone. Their jackets were bright white, smooth carapaces devoid of features. They moved toward the retreating audience then drifted toward the dual podiums, waiting.
 

The room quieted. Vale, apparently finished, fell a step back. The wrap-up began to uncomfortably unfold, but what Vale had said couldn’t be unsaid.
 

All of us. Together.
 

And that look he’d given the Enterprise group.

Whatever Vale had in mind, whatever knowledge he had of Mindbender today, he’d made one message abundantly clear:

Whenever Mindbender went live, he intended it to be a social service.
 

Free for those who received social services.
 

For members of Directorate.

Chapter 6

The feed ended. Sam sat in his apartment, staring at the screen, as Beam Headlines replaced the Prime Statement.
 

He seemed to recall something the Directorate president had said about Project Mindbender (a term Sam remembered from old Internet legends, right up there with something called “Y2K”), but his mind had already shuttled that aside so he could forget it. He’d normally grab his canvas or at least a pen and write it down so it wouldn’t exit his leaky brain forever, but Sam was too shocked by the bigger thing he’d seen at the Primes.
 

Or rather, what he
hadn’t
seen.
 

Sam closed the Beam connection then stood to pace. He had no implants left in his head, but he suddenly felt like the entire world — both as people and as those using the network — was able to peek beneath his skull. He wanted a hat. Perhaps one made of foil.

“Motherfucker. Mother
fucker!”
 

Sam moved faster, looking down at his feet. His errant arm struck a chair and made it wobble. The other arm hit a tablet on the kitchen counter then jabbed the tablet toward a glass of water Sam had forgotten from three days ago, knocking it to the floor. The thing was actual glass, having come with the low-end apartment and probably a hundred years old. It detonated like a bomb, splattering Sam’s socks with old water. It had probably been an antique.
Surely
been an antique. An antique was anything twenty years old or older, right? How much of his stuff was antiques? And where exactly was the line between “antique” and “old piece of shit”?
 

His mind was wandering, heading down rabbit holes. Pieces of shit and antiques were nothing to be thinking about. He reeled his scattered attention in, momentarily forgetting why he was so agitated. Then he saw his canvas and felt a deep reaction to seeing it that felt like a punch in the gut. He was suddenly afraid of The Beam. Why?

Oh, yes. The threats that must be coming.
 

And sure enough, Sam’s canvas began to ping. He’d set Shadow’s encrypted Null forum box to alert him when new mail arrived, and there was no way to turn off the sound without opening the inbox itself to change the settings. He didn’t want to do that. The subject lines of the messages, even if he didn’t open them, were sure to be terrible. Null had been rallied and ready. They’d been eager to break shit. Shadow had puffed his chest and implied that great revolutionary change (Null’s favorite kind of change, mouth-breathing basement dwellers that they were) was at hand.
 

“Watch the Prime Statement,” Shadow told them, “And you will motherfucking see some motherfuckers get pwned.”
 

Well, maybe not that exactly, but it had been something like it. Sam didn’t remember. He’d made his post, he’d raised the alarm, and he’d told them all to watch the big wall behind the representatives at the Prime Statement, where Shadow would make magic things happen to prove the size of his dick.
 

Across the apartment, there was a loud beeping. The coffeemaker. Sam had forgotten he was making coffee. He saw the carafe full of black liquid, remembered, and grew suddenly furious. That motherfucking coffeemaker didn’t understand just how badly Sam was screwed.
 

It hardly mattered that there was a wall between Shadow and Sam. This was
Null
. Null had brought down banks; they’d liquidated a major corporation without its permission. Legend said Null had had pink hats delivered to all 101 of the supposedly anonymous senators “just for the lulz.”
 

And now they had an excellent reason to reclassify Shadow from friend to
persona non grata.
It was only a matter of time before his comeuppance arrived, wrapped like a gift.

The coffeemaker gave a reminder chirp. Sam picked up a heavy paperweight and hurled it at the machine.

“Shut the fuck up!”
he screamed.

The paperweight hit the carafe, but the carafe wasn’t made of glass. The knock merely tapped it off its base, causing it to slosh coffee from its top and onto Sam’s reader tablet, which was beside it. He started walking over to mop up the coffee and save the reader, but then his mail bonged again and he forgot all about it.
 

“Shit. Shit. Shit.”

This wasn’t even his fault. This was Integer7’s fault. Integer7 had left him high and dry. It wasn’t like Sam had even asked for it. He’d simply found a loose end, had reached out to those who could help him, and, yeah, he’d talked about disrupting Shift.
 

But how much could one Beam malcontent do? Null were a force unto themselves, but they were still real people with real income needs. The best they were ever going to do would be to
goose
Shift. That’s all Sam had really been going for, anyway. Shake the box; see what comes out. See if this Beau Monde thing showed up, and whether the party changes by the folks he was watching actually made a difference.
 

He was just a kid with too many tattoos and useless glasses. He wasn’t Shadow. He was harmless.
 

Contradicting him, the canvas continued to ping.
 

Sam opened the laptop then flicked to the Null box with a feeling of peeking through his fingers during a vid’s scariest part. Two of the subject lines caught his attention.
 

YOU ONLY PLAY NULL FOR FOOLS ONCE
 

YOUR CLOCK IS TICKING

He slammed the thing shut. What exactly was the clock ticking on?
 

Sam could imagine. It was ticking toward Null finding out who Shadow really was. But what then? Would they kill him? No, that seemed severe. But they could empty his accounts. Bug his connection so he’d never again be alone. Cover his walls, twenty-four hours a day, with nonstop gay porn.
 

Should he run? Should he try to explain? And why wasn’t that fucking coffee done?
 

Sam started to run through his limited options. He could contact Integer7. Or better: He could
blame
Integer7. After all,
he
hadn’t screwed anything up, right? It had been Integer7 who’d promised and then failed to deliver the big upset on the White House wall.
 

But, he realized, that wouldn’t work because Shadow hadn’t so much as mentioned Integer7 before now. It had been half by accident, half intentional. The first rule of Null was that you didn’t talk about Null, and even citing a Null hero as the architect of a Null plot was a kind of tattling. Integer7 had spoken to Shadow, not to The Beam at large. It was up to Shadow — and Shadow alone — to decide whether to tell the others, and to accept what followed. But in practice, all of it meant that if he tried to blame Integer7 now, he’d just look like a coward in search of a scapegoat.

His handheld rang. Without looking at the screen, Sam picked it up and hurled it at the ground. Too late, he realized he’d need it, especially if he was afraid of his canvas. It shattered as if it had resented being whole, tiny pieces scattering to the four winds.
 

Ping.
 

Ping.
 

Ping.

Sam looked at the terminal. He could get a new terminal and try to hide, but what would it change? He’d still need to access his old mail unless he planned to go underground and never return. His terminal was custom, as secure as he hoped to ever be. He couldn’t avoid The Beam forever. He should face the music now before it got worse. He could try to tell his hate-mailers that Integer7 had been the one to drop the ball. He had to do something.
 

Sam opened mail then forced himself to read through the subject lines. They made his gut twist, but at least once he’d finished, the messages were no longer unknowns. The first part of the bubble had popped. Now, he had to build some momentum. He had to open a few. See what was waiting.
 

Sam clicked one of the messages at random. Unsurprisingly, it contained indignation and a veiled threat. But it contained something else, too. The final line said:

youve been a friend to null but today you made you a fool & null too. the forum has a new thread saying you have 24hrs to prove youre not nps or some fake. show us something good or else.