8
Identity: Patricia Killiam
I was sitting on another of the interminable board meetings, but at least I had something I wanted to accomplish at this one.
We were in the Solomon House conference room at a working session on marketing materials for the pssi launch, this one focusing on stress. One of the items I’d managed to get on the agenda was pushing Infinixx forward on the release schedule, so Nancy was there with me to help make the case. Jimmy was there as well, now a part of the Security Council. He sat beside Nancy.
We were about to start watching the advertising video, but so far all we’d been doing was listening to a monologue by Dr. Hal Granger about his happiness index, and how it was the core measurement on which the whole pssi program was based. His program was becoming ever more popular as it traded off the Cognix brand, but I had no idea what people saw in him. His ego had long since outstripped his talents.
The Chinese representatives were dialed-in today. They were nodding politely as they listened to Hal, but he was getting on my nerves. Again.
Synthetic reality wasn’t the only thing pssi was useful for. Flooding neural systems with smarticles had made it possible to actively regulate ion flow along axons, helping us to stop, and even rehabilitate, neurological diseases such as Parkinson’s. Alzheimer’s had been a big win for us nearly twenty years ago, and was now a disease of the past—at least for those with money. Much of Atopia’s construction had been funded by revenues Cognix had derived from these medical breakthroughs.
Stress, however, was something different.
After conquering, or at least taming, most of the major diseases, stress had become the biggest killer in the rich world. It had many sources. Sometimes it was just the grind of our environment—noise, pollution, light, advertising, change—but mostly it was the sense of losing control, of not being where we thought we should be or who we should be with.
Finding ways to deal with memories was the foundation of almost all of the solutions.
The human mind had a nearly endless capacity for suspending disbelief, and we’d found this was an effective vector in the fight against stress and anxiety. Some said we were just teaching people to fool themselves, but then again, when were people ever not fooling themselves?
I sighed.
But all we could do was supply the tool. How people decided to use it was entirely up to them, despite all the recommendations I could make.
Finally, Hal finished his rambling presentation, and the advertisement started.
“Have you ever wished you were free from the constant bombardment of advertising? Pssionics now makes it possible!” said the extremely attractive young man featured in our commercial. “Saving the world from the eco-crunch is going to be the best thing you’ve ever done for yourself !”
The meeting was being conducted in Mandarin, but our pssi seamlessly reconstructed everything in whatever language we preferred, even visually translating culturally distinct body language and facial expressions.
Fifty years ago, they’d been predicting we’d all be speaking Chinese by now, but in the end, the ultimate lingua franca was the machine metadata that intermediated it all. Everyone spoke whatever language they wanted, and the machines translated for us, so nobody needed to learn more than one anymore.
The study of languages was just more roadkill left behind on our headlong race ahead.
As the advertisement droned on, I couldn’t help feeling mounting disgust with the way it focused on happiness. Sure, it’s important, but what exactly is happiness? What we were pushing wasn’t exactly what we were pitching.
Soon enough, the ad finished and faded away into the familiar rotating symbol of Atopia, the pyramid and sphere.
“So what do you think?” our marketing coordinator asked.
Still staring at the rotating logo, my mind had wandered into thinking some odd features of the storm systems coming up the coast toward us.
“I liked it,” Dr. Granger responded, nodding ingratiatingly toward our Chinese guests. “I think I’m going to make some slight changes to the empathic feedback.”
“Sounds good,” said Kesselring, here in his primary-subjective for once. “As I was saying before, all the psychological, neurological, and, well, all test results have been compiled. Everything looks good for launch.”
He smiled an unbecoming grin at me. I raised my eyebrows but said nothing, and everyone around the table clapped. Everyone but me.
“Patricia?” Kesselring looked at me. “Anything to add?”
“I liked it, looked wonderful. Who could possibly resist a pitch like that?”
Kesselring’s lips pressed together. “You have something to say?”
I paused, struggling, but I couldn’t help myself. “How has this ‘happiness index’ become such a central barometer?”
I was treading on thin ice with the Chinese delegation here, but the urge was too strong.
“Isn’t happiness the central, single most important thing in a person’s life?” Hal turned to me, assuming a defensive posture. His reality-skin began sporting the revolting smile he loved to use on his EmoShow. He looked like a weasel on Prozac.
“I wouldn’t argue with you.” I held up my hands in mock defense. “But this is supposed to be a serious medical evaluation, not a popularity contest. And knowing about happiness is different than actually creating it.”
“Patricia,” Hal responded in a measured tone, as if I were a guest on his show, “I think you have some issues going on here, some issues beyond this discussion.”
“Don’t try to deflect this.”
“Of course not,” he laughed. Now he was the one with his hands up. “I’m just saying, maybe you should have a look at your own happiness indices before you go knocking the program.” He looked at me with raised eyebrows, trying to convey his simple, dishonest frankness to everyone in the room.
“I am perfectly happy!” I snapped before I realized what I was doing. Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath. Little bastard.
The room fell quiet.
Kesselring smiled toward our Chinese guests. “Let’s move onto the next topic, shall we?”
Everyone nodded.
“So you all have the information about pushing the Infinixx launch ahead of the pssi launch. Who would like to open the discussion?”
“Give me one good reason we should let this happen,” Dr. Baxter immediately fumed.
“You’ve seen all the phutures Nancy presented. Every scenario pushes the Cognix stock higher with early adopters,” I countered. “You’re only annoyed because it’s not under your thumb.”
“That has nothing to do with it,” Baxter said peevishly, and loud arguing began around the table.
“Everyone, I will give you one very good reason,” Jimmy shouted, standing up and raising his hands. He winked at Nancy. “I’ve managed to secure an agreement with both India and China to launch simultaneously with us.”
Pandemonium broke loose for a few minutes while we reviewed the details.
“How in the world…?” Dr. Baxter’s voice trailed off.
“You’re giving up a lot here,” said Kesselring finally. “But the payoff is worth it, and it’ll keep the media’s attention off those damn storms.”
Kesselring’s eyes shifted toward Dr. Granger, who appeared about to say something, but then shook his head, staring at Jimmy. Kesselring looked toward Jimmy as well and smiled, nodding his congratulations. Then Kesselring turned to me. “I’m ready to make this happen, but I need one thing from you.”
“Yes?” I knew what was coming next.
“I need you to put this Synthetic Beings Charter of Rights on the shelf until after the commercial launch of pssi.”
I sighed and looked at the ceiling. “I can do that. But it will be at the top of my agenda as soon as we launch.”
Kesselring smiled. “Then we’re agreed.”
Approving murmurs began to circulate. I reached out and held Nancy’s hand in mine, smiling. I was so proud.
“So are we a go for a worldwide press release?” asked Dr. Baxter. He was Bob’s father. Talk about an apple falling far from the tree.
“Yes,” replied Kesselring, “assuming this is acceptable with our Chinese delegates?”
They nodded curtly in unison.
I wondered if they realized that nationality was another idea that pssi was about to render irrelevant. Or perhaps, more to the point, a good chunk of the world was about to become de facto Atopian citizens.
“Let’s go ahead with the release. We are about to make history, ladies and gentlemen.”
“Imagine, a trillion-dollar IPO,” I heard Hal muttering under his breath as he reviewed the launch details, stars gleaming in his beady eyes.
The black granite and glass of the conference room melted into the deep mahoganies of my private office. I made for the bar.
A nice scotch on the rocks was just the thing I needed.
Marie was sitting against my office desk, her legs crossed in front of her as she leaned against it, propped up by her arms. Cigarette smoke rose slowly around her, and she took one more puff before stubbing it out in the crystal ashtray on the desk. She leaned forward, standing and waving me off. She’d get the drink.
“I know Hal is a pain, but you shouldn’t let him get to you,” she said as she plucked my favorite bottle from the collection. A glass appeared in her hand and ice cubes chinked softly together as she poured the whiskey over them.
“It’s not that. I need to find out what Kesselring is hiding. Shifting Infinixx up on the release schedule was too easy. Granger folded without even a peep.”
Marie raised her eyebrows. “Sometimes things just make sense, even to him.”
“Maybe, but I have the feeling something else is going on. We need someone with, ah, special skills to have a look at this from the outside.”
Marie nodded. She knew who I was talking about. She decided to switch topics. “Your old student, Mohesha, from Terra Nova called again. It sounded very urgent.”
I shifted my pssi-body into a much younger version of myself and was now dressed in a black skirt and cream silk top while a sub-proxxi of Marie walked my real body home from the Solomon House. I looked down admiringly at my legs, sighing, and reached down to straighten my skirt, sliding a hand along my thigh as I did.
“It’s too dangerous to talk with the Terra Novans right now.”
“But not too dangerous to be talking with gangsters like Sintil8?”
“He doesn’t really want to stop what we’re doing, he just wants his cut.” Criminals were reliably predictable in their motivations, if nothing else. “He has the kind of backdoor connections and freedom to operate that may yield some answers.”
The problem wasn’t just my suspicions about Kesselring.
The huge depression we’d been tracking up the Eastern Pacific had transitioned from tropical-storm status and into full-blown Hurricane Newton, with Hurricane Ignacia spinning up into a monster Category 4 out in the North Atlantic. The way these storm systems were behaving had gone from being simply unusual and to being downright suspicious.
By my calculations, these weren’t natural storms anymore.
Taking a good, long drink, I straightened up and looked Marie in the eye.
“Set the meeting with Sintil8.”