Authors: Christopher McKitterick
“
Of course, dear,” Liza said, patronizingly. “I’m involved with it right now. I’m a musician, you know, and all the musicians are involved with
Commute
today. Care to join me?” She smiled again, raising an eyebrow.
“
Oh, yes,” Susahn replied, sending a signal to Liza’s server to link their 3VRDs in the orchestra hall.
Liza no longer stood, but sat in a form-shifting seat before a winding golden instrument that exhaled a mellow range of notes. Susahn suddenly felt awkward simply standing near her talented friend, so she shifted pov to that of a vocalist nearby, that person’s self cloaking Susahn like a well-tailored dress. Or perhaps the sensation was more like drowning in a breathable substance that was actually another person. Liza smiled when she had a moment’s rest from her horn, when a ring of saxophones suddenly burst forth from the millisecond silence between scores.
Starting to relax now, Susahn added more senses until she was fully immersed in the monopera. As the day wore on, as she became more and more consumed with the music and as more and more of her friends gathered around her and Liza, Susahn selected more and more options, until, sometime in the afternoon, she had the subscription’s full menu running and was still desiring more. Passion filled her as every nerve in her body sang with pleasure, as invisible fingers of light caressed her pale skin in harmony with the music, in harmony somehow with fragrances that perfectly matched the notes, with occasional glorious bursts of bitter or salty or chocolate-sweet flavors that filled her mouth as other parts of her body tensed with something akin to orgasm. Even Liza was impressed with Susahn’s command of the monopera.
So the day was consumed. It was a glorious day by any estimation, and Susahn’s days were mostly very good. By evening, she had spent two days’ worth of her husband’s large salary, mostly on access costs. Usually, except in rare cases when Susahn sold a song—and that brought in very few percents—she had no income. But, then, she didn’t need to, not when her husband’s subscription was the top-rated show whenever it fed live. He earned more than 500 percents a year, more than five average workers. And he was famous.
So Susahn led a good life, even though she woke every morning with a vague feeling of dissatisfaction. She was sure it wasn’t that she wanted children, although her husband persistently harped her to apply for permission to get pregnant every time he returned from a mission. No, she didn’t want that. Children were, well, disgusting in some abstract way she couldn’t identify. Certainly, they would be a drain on her finances. Children were very expensive to raise, and it had to be done intheflesh. She had a good life without them, and the idea of having to clean up green diarrhea made her skin crawl. Who knows how her cultured friends would react if she revealed that her husband wanted a baby?
Anyway, she led a good life, and this was one of the better ones, although she couldn’t necessarily recall exactly how it differed from the rest. That didn’t matter.
Then, at approximately 6pm, Susahn’s fine day was transformed into an amazing day.
“
Mrs. Pehr Jackson?” a gorgeous middle-aged man’s 3VRD asked her. He was dressed like royalty, but not extravagantly; high fashion that was also timeless, tailored to fit in such a way that revealed the well-built man beneath the exotic materials yet conservative in cut. No cosmetics. He was vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t place him.
By the reaction of Susahn’s friends, she realized he was not only 3-verding her, but also projecting into all their splices. He might even have come to the orchestra hall intheflesh.
“
Yes,” she answered, unnecessarily, since all her standard citizenship data was available to anyone interacting with her 3VRD.
“
My name is Luke Herrschaft, Director of Feedcontrol.”
The revelation sent shockwaves through those near her; even the monopera itself seemed to stutter, at least its participants within hearing cut their performances and gave the man their attention.
Susahn tentatively drew back from full fivesen engagement in the monopera and investigated his claim. Her breath caught in her throat when she read his data and found that, yes, he was who he claimed to be. She even sent a tracer along the main information highways that swirled through EarthCo’s datacenters, coming back affirmative. She put her hand against her heaving chest and asked a question with her eyes. Yes, now she recognized him, from his yearly “State of the Corp” addresses.
“
I would like to have the pleasure of your company this evening,” he said, his voice powerful and measured. Somehow, he managed to speak in a cadence that matched the vocalist now singing. “A pivotal scene in your husband’s program is about to show, and I would be honored to be with Pehr’s wife while she witnesses his greatest hour.” A smile Susahn couldn’t decipher spread across the man’s chiseled features.
“
Oh, my, Director,” she gushed, “the pleasure would be all mine. But—”
“
All arrangements have been taken care of. You will find a car waiting for you in front of your house. I hope to see you soon.” He gave a slight bow and vanished.
“
All the gods, Susahn!” Liza cried. “I can’t believe it. Herrschaft himself inviting you. . .”
Susahn quickly said her goodbyes and terminated the splice. She forgot all about the monopera when she opened the front door of their first-level townhouse and gazed out onto the street at a sleek, black high-speed aircar with little cloth flags waving from antennae along the sloping roofline. The evening sun shone through diaphanous smog that lined the buildings even this far from the city, the airy mantle beautiful in the light.
When she closed the outer wall’s gate behind her, stepping onto a gravelly sidewalk, the car’s door automatically opened and a bronze voice from within called her name, beckoning her inside. She took another tentative step forward and looked into the shadowy heart of the limousine, noting a figure already on the tan leather seat.
“
Susahn, it’s me,” the man said, “Luke Herrschaft. Please join me.”
“
Director-?” she said, stunned by his intheflesh appearance. But was he here intheflesh? No, of course not. Who was Susahn Jackson to warrant such an appearance?
“
Yes, call me Luke, please,” he said.
For the second time in as many minutes, she ran a tracer to verify his reality. When it came back affirming the shape inside the car was, indeed, Director of EarthCo Feedcontrol Luke Herrschaft, intheflesh, Susahn nearly fainted.
“
If we don’t get underway soon,” he said, “we might miss the show’s beginning. I always like to experience a pivotal show from my enhancer-theater back at Central. Let’s not be late!”
“
Oh, of course, Dir—” She blushed. “Of course, Luke.” And she climbed inside. The door shut from above, like a hand sealing out the world. The car accelerated so fast Susahn nearly gasped again. The heavy-fast feeling was stimulating, especially since it wasn’t a simulation; everything was stimulating, being so near this man. She took several deep breaths to compose herself. She was, after all, not some backwoods girl but an accomplished singer and songwriter. Her friends were glamorous and cultured, famous in the world of music. Her husband was the most well-known man in EarthCo. Even more so than, perhaps, Luke Herrschaft.
“
That’s better,” he said, a smile growing across his dark, handsome face like an entity of its own. Her heart sped. She smoothed the folds of her now-out-of-date skirt and tunic, embarrassed once more that she wasn’t curr.
But over the next half hour, Luke’s smooth voice and sensitive personality slowly calmed Susahn. They shared real drinks, which disarmed her more, giving her a pleasant lightheaded feeling. She began to feel as if he were a close friend, even a potential lover. . . . Just the idea of such a tryst made her head spin. Everything about him was disarming yet attractive, and eventually she began to give him certain messages with her eyes. She knew how her dark blue irises and long lashes affected men, and she knew how to use them. Luke responded well, returning her body language in his own, masculine way. At one point, Susahn brushed her fingertips across Luke’s hand—to verify he was really here, intheflesh, she told herself. The contact made her nerves tingle all the way up her arm to her neck.
Then the car landed atop a lone building overlooking acres of antennae, surrounded by ring after ring of wire fences and then farmland. He let her know this was Feedcontrol Central. She had arrived.
Stepping out of the limousine, one hand supported by Luke, Susahn reflected on her day. So far, it had been the greatest of her life. If she died now, she would be happy. That nagging dissatisfaction had lost itself in the wake of the aircar somewhere near St. Louis; that hunger for something she couldn’t name deep inside her had been fulfilled.
And, feeling his strong hand around hers, Susahn was sure the best was surely yet to come.
One part of Luke Herrschaft’s split self stood in a shockproof room 120 meters below Feedcontrol Central’s ground level. Input ports and 3VRD projectors, which transmitted commands only transmittable from here and revealed data visible only in this room, surrounded him. Three women and two men constantly and tirelessly operated controls and watched projections as he tapped into the raw feed and muttered occasional orders to the workers.
Another copy of Luke Herrschaft personally roved through EarthCo’s netways in search of others behind the President of the United States’ assassination attempt. Herrschaft was certain the pol hadn’t acted alone; no politician ever made an important decision by himself, he thought. Revenge would be at least as painful to the mastermind as it had been to him. But first he would find out who did it and why.
The third slice of him escorted Mrs. Pehr Jackson into Feedcontrol Central, giving her a personal tour on the way to his private projection room #3. His presence with her had been very small since she hadn’t required much attention, as expected. But now he shifted the bulk of his consciousness into that pov, confident his people could handle the setup routines of
Lone Ship Bounty
. Every day, the people in that room tailored and fed several subscription programs without difficulty or assistance. Little did they know the weight today’s program would carry, that today would be wholly different than all the previous.
Herrschaft felt his old self roll upon the mechanical shoulders of a fine robot walking arm-in-arm with Mrs. Jackson. With that reminiscent sensation followed the familiar confidence—drawn not only from walking as a powerful man again and almost believing in his reality, but also from being present as great plans bloom, from having spent the afternoon tailoring in person a number of programs. And from the presence of the future all around him, a future he had orchestrated, a future that would give him ultimate control over the Solar System—power drawn from crushing others.
These thoughts overrode the vague incompleteness he sensed in himself.
He turned a gently smiling face to Mrs. Jackson, imagining whatever real face he still possessed grimacing in delight at the huge moment hanging about them like tapestries of change.
Then came the memories. He had been uncareful the past few seconds—indeed, for the past hours—taking too much time for reflection and dreams. Idle moments always unearthed the past, displaying the corpses of his childhood. They began to dance the story of his youth, laughing at him through teeth clogged with soil, sounding like wind through fall leaves. Rattling loose memories best left buried.
He had been a “millennium baby,” born at the turn of the twenty-first century. His mother gave birth to him in a shabby tarpaper-sided house near Big Stone, South Dakota. Big Stone was a town of about 100 people bordered by a rotting lake on one side, a cheese factory on another, and a canning factory on another. Agricultural fields isolated the town and factories from the rest of the world. A power plant stood nearby, serving energy states away and consuming trainloads of coal daily. A highway ran through the middle of town, traveled mainly by pickups and farm equipment. Slowly, each business in the town was in the process of dying. Some had died quickly, especially the larger ones.
Luke’s mother had only been 15, so his father—30 years old at the time—promptly married the girl when she refused to have an abortion. This much Luke was later able to piece together; he heard enough of his father’s side of the arguments as the big man screamed into the telephone for what seemed like a full year before the divorce was final. Elder Herrschaft’s threats to label his wife insane convinced her to let him take custody of young Luke; Luke was four when his father moved him to another house in town, five when his parents were divorced.
The man never laid a hand on Luke in violence, except to punish misdeeds. Fear of elder Herrschaft’s perforated leather belt made a model son out of Luke, at least by the man’s definition. Luke learned not even to speak out of turn; by the time he was 12, he learned not to speak to the man at all.