Echoes of Another Read online

  He picked the last option and then had the fabber brew him a cup of yerba mate while he waited for his breakfast to print. “News,” he said.

  As he sipped the hot drink, its dried grass scent filling his nose, he listened to Tasha report on an explosion downtown. He felt his stomach clench again. A guy might be taken out at any time, by anything, he thought. Even here in Toronto where that sort of thing never happened.

  His wristband beeped and he groaned as he looked at it. His grandfather had called out emergency services again; this would be the fourth time in as many weeks. A stubborn man all his life, but worse now that he was in his hundreds, he refused to get a DPA installed or even hire part time human help, preferring instead to call Seth at all hours. And lately he’d started doing things like bringing the paramedics out for mundane stuff like a random blood pressure check. He was going to get in trouble with the police for tying up emergency personnel at this rate.

  The fabber dinged and he took his breakfast to his small table, waving a hand over it to cool it faster. He would have to go over to his grandfather’s apartment as soon as he’d finished eating, and he’d be lucky to get him settled down and happy again before noon. He loved his Nonno, to be sure, but it was getting increasingly hard to be patient with him. Seth always felt incredibly guilty afterwards if he felt he’d been too short or gruff with the man.

  As he drained the last of his drink, Seth offered a quick prayer to the creativity gods to leave him with some energy to make use of whatever time he could rescue later today.

  MAURA

  Silence descended on the boardroom when the door opened. The staff members seated around the table, her most trusted senior managers, drew in their breath when she walked in.

  Maura Torres would have been an imposing figure even without her height and strong build, or her position as head of EduTain. She had dark hair and dusky eyes, which she accentuated with minimal makeup, and a stylish, modern haircut. Her suit was tailored and immaculate, its colour designed to emphasise her olive skin. She walked with an unwavering, measured gait, the hard heels of her shoes striking the floor firmly.

  Maura was also very annoyed. She hated unexpected events.

  She assumed her place at the head of the table, and her assistant moved quickly to put a steaming cup of tea in front of her. Maura took a few moments to get comfortable and waved her hand over the table surface, bringing a screen to life. Only after she had spent a few minutes reviewing the agenda did she acknowledge everyone else in the room.

  “I would like to apologise for being late,” she said, pressing her lips into something that might have been a smile on a more congenial person. “Apparently, there was an incident downtown; everything had to be rerouted for security reasons.” Maura raised a dark eyebrow and pinned someone with a look. “I hope you’ve got a report for me. What happened? Is this some local and minor problem, or is there a broader underlying concern we haven’t detected yet? Does this have the potential to affect business operations either immediately or in the future?”

  Michael, a short and faintly nervous man, straightened in his chair. “I just spoke with the police. At this point, they don’t believe it was a terrorist incident. Nothing in their intelligence reports, or indeed, our own, suggests there are any active cells for any group in this city. Rumours suggest it might be something to do with organised crime, but that’s pure speculation, in my view, as the local gangs haven’t bothered disputing over physical ‘turf’ in a long time. Everything was automatically rerouted to evacuate the victims. It is still under investigation, but I should get an update in maybe an hour or so. A police spokesperson will make a public statement in about two hours.”

  “So the assessment is?” Maura prompted.

  “In the models I ran using an updated version of our threatcaster analytics software, there is a high probability this was an isolated incident; possibly a maladjusted teenager messing about. It will not have a material impact on our current or future plans,” Michael replied.

  Maura paused to consider whether she considered the answer satisfactory, and she felt tension draining from her body. The sudden blare of her pod’s emergency tone during the morning commute had triggered unpleasant memories, stuff she thought she’d left behind when she’d immigrated to Toronto. She nodded, and Michael quietly exhaled. “Talk to me again when you know more and after you’ve rerun the models with any new data. Moving on. Danielle,” she said, “your report please.”

  Danielle, who was in charge of business intelligence for the company, looked startled for a moment, clearly not expecting to be called on so soon. Maura was pleased to see she recovered quickly. “Uh, yes … Our contact inside Sensate has confirmed Project Relax is, as you suspected, their attempt to nail the motion sickness problem once and for all. They are experimenting with transcranial stimulation and supposed calming odours.”

  “Odours?” Maura raised both eyebrows. “I can’t imagine that’s meeting with much success.”

  “No, ma’am. Sometimes, the test subjects are violently ill, depending on the scents used.”

  Maura nodded. The virtual reality industry had been throwing everything it had at motion sickness research for some years. Hardware improvements had brought latency down and resolution up dramatically, but the human brain was proving stubbornly difficult to deceive. A large portion of the population still experienced nausea when accessing a room-sized VR simulation. Trying to use the sense of smell, Maura thought, was a strange way to attack the problem.

  “Interesting,” she said aloud. “But rather stupid. That is why I insist all of you know your industry history. Who knows why that applies in this case?”

  Michael perked up, looking pleased with himself. “Smell-o-vision. Something they tried back in the … 1970s? 1960s? Right around then, anyway. Scents released in movie theatres to enhance the immersion experience. Lots of technical problems, and it got a bad reputation straight out of the gate. I don’t think it would have gone any further even if it had had a flawless launch, though, if only because scent is a personal experience. Many memories are associated with smell.”

  “I wonder,” asked Danielle, “if they’re trying to brute-force predict the associations using data from each individual’s DPA?”

  Michael let out a low whistle. “That would eat up enormous amounts of processing power, even by today’s standards. Especially for older users. All that history to sift through?”

  Maura’s smile had genuine warmth this time. She enjoyed watching her team interact, particularly during their more thoughtful and creative exchanges. It made her feel like she had family again. She was looking forward to the weekly brainstorming session all the more.

  “Yes,” Danielle continued. “Crazy amounts. And then there’s the issue of using synthetic fragrances.”

  “Indeed,” Maura said. “Allergies are still hugely problematic. As I know very, very well.” Everyone smiled. Maura’s aversion to colognes and perfumes was legendary. “Okay, encourage our contact to keep a close eye on the transcranial work, but maintain a safe distance from the scent research, or he’ll be wanting vomit danger pay. Tell him he has another deposit coming.”

  “Of course,” Danielle replied.

  Maura sipped her tea, frowned at it, and set it aside. The assistant paled.

  “On to business development. Kwame,” Maura said, “what more do we now know about our current acquisition targets?”

  Kwame tapped the table and brought up a projection showing the logos of several companies. “I have gone through a dozen scenarios and narrowed the list to these six possibilities, based on financials, staff involved, and technologies of interest. Of these six,” he tapped again to change the image into an ordered list, “the top two are optimal.”

  “Rationale?”

  “Xperience has the highly regarded Dragon Slayer series which would make the acquisition a PR coup,” Kwame said. “Imprint Tech has excellent revenue on the back of its medical training packages but i
s struggling with cost controls. It’s more likely to be receptive to an offer from EduTain.”

  Maura reviewed the list and made a decision. “Start work on Imprint first. The head of Xperience is self-assured and confident; I met her a few years ago when I got my MBA. She would be harder to negotiate with. But she’ll have to consider us if we swallow Imprint as we’ll be too big of a threat then.” She looked around the table. “I’d like to get back on schedule, so let’s save the rest. Until tomorrow.” Without waiting for a response, she left.

  HAROON

  J-District. End of the line.

  Seventeen-year-old Haroon got out of his pod, squared his shoulders, and spat. Not for the first time did he wonder why this sprawling cesspit was allowed to exist in the beating heart of the city, surrounded by so much splendour.

  He walked around the stacks of crumbling cinder blocks erected at the end of the flow path. Designed to keep pods out, the heaps were more symbolic than functional; they were also covered in rude graffiti.

  Haroon stepped off the well-worn footpath and slipped into the shadows cast by the derelict buildings, even though the snowdrifts made it harder going there. Years ago, when the second big real estate bubble had finally burst, and the city began haemorrhaging residents to the rest of the province, Toronto had initiated a great rejuvenation project. The surrounding neighbourhoods had slowly been upgraded. They had flattened old buildings and replaced them with smart, connected structures. Anything of historical value was gutted and refurbished. As very few people bothered to actually own their own transportation anymore, parking lots were ripped up and lush, green parks installed in their place. Many of the roads were reclaimed for pedestrian traffic.

  Everywhere except here. Roughly bounded by the 400 Flow to the west, Driftwood to the east, Downsview Dells to the south, and Steeles to the north, the area once known as ‘Jane and Finch’ had been through several rebrandings, but none of them had taken. Now it was just J-District: a depersonalised name for a region most city residents would rather forget. Squeezed in on all sides by the citywide gentrification, it had become the last refuge for the destitute, the unwell, and the so-called Analogues, a large group of people who flatly refused to stay digital and hook up to the thingweb.

  Over time, it had morphed into a big, dark spot on the grid. And with the darkness came the crime. The municipal council had stopped sending the police directly into J, preferring instead to use it as a containment area for the city’s worst elements.

  It was crowded, it was filthy, and it stank.

  It was also Haroon’s home.

  He felt the simmering resentment again. He’d discovered a book called Leviathan recently, while on the outside. Written in sixteen hundred and fifty goddamn one, it had described life then as being nasty, brutish, and short. Why wasn’t it different by now?

  Walking quickly, he hunched his shoulders against the cold and passed by crammed-together shops and rundown tower blocks. Somewhere, someone was cooking dinner; he could smell boiled cabbage. It was cheap and easy to grow, but it always made him feel sick. To him, it was the stench of poverty.

  He headed north, crossing the street to avoid the alley where a snarly mutt liked to scrounge through the garbage bins. He checked the sky: the sun was climbing fast and would soon be overhead, eliminating the shadows he was creeping through, making him more visible. The District was not a place where you wanted to be caught walking alone, even in the daytime.

  Haroon wondered if he should find a gun. He knew they could be fabbed easily. On the outside, you had to have training and a licence to print one, then you had to purchase the one-time fabber pattern download. He suspected it came embedded with identifying information or some sort of biometric trigger link to make sure only the licensed owner could fire it. And you’d need a silencer to muffle it because otherwise, the citywide sensor network would send a ‘shots fired’ notification to police. Here in the District? Someone had probably figured out a way to get around all of these controls, but he’d never had the nerve to ask anyone. He didn’t want the attention it would bring.

  He just wanted out of here.

  Behind him, he heard an old motorcycle roar to life, and he winced as the sound blasted up the road, bouncing and echoing off buildings. There were still quite a few stinky gas combustion vehicles in the District, and every time one roared, he tried to imagine how loud and smelly the city must have been when there were millions of them, all growling at once. It boggled his mind to think of that much constant and insistent background noise. They always woke him up here. And emergency sirens! Because apparently, the only way to get human drivers in their noisy vehicles to move was to make even more racket. How had anyone ever slept through the night?

  Picking up speed, he rounded a corner and slammed into a huge man dressed in dark clothes. The impact sent him sprawling. Haroon scrambled to his feet, hands raised, and shifted his position to put the wall behind him. “Sorry, sorry. Didn’t see you coming.”

  The man said nothing. He looked Haroon up and down, blinking, assessing.

  His fist was solid iron.

  The punch crashed into Haroon’s stomach and lifted him right off his feet, sending him flying backward. His head thudded into the cold cinder block wall, and he collapsed to the ground, where he lay, writhing in agony, gasping, unable to breathe. He tried to get up on his hands and knees, mouth opening, closing, sucking nothing. The man watched him for a moment, his face expressionless.

  Finally, he lifted Haroon and stood him up; still wheezing, Haroon bent double, desperate take in air. In one swift movement, the man grabbed the tail of Haroon’s coat to pull it up and over his shoulders, and yanked it inside out and off him. Then he shoved Haroon backward and walked away. He never looked back.

  Haroon landed hard on his tailbone, but the pain was a mercy. The jolt was enough to force him to start breathing again. He sat there for several minutes, gulping in deep breaths, clutching his stomach and willing himself not to throw up.

  The cold started to bite. Stifling a groan, he got up and half ran, half stumbled home.

  His apartment was on the fourth floor. The lift had stopped working years ago, so he had to stagger up the disintegrating stairs. He unlocked his door, banged it shut and let out a long sigh. This was the third time he’d been mugged in as many months and he wasn’t sure where he would find another coat, especially in January.

  A movement in the next room made him freeze in fear.

  His father was home.

  RAY

  The drone had exploded. That much he knew.

  Blood. There was blood everywhere.

  There were people moving, talking, shouting, hurrying.

  They were so close, but they all sounded so very far away.

  The lights. So bright. Halos around them.

  Ray shifted, trying to see, and then screamed — a long, horrible wheeze-shriek that was alien, weirdly muffled. His body was on fire, filled with hot pockets of coal burning him from the inside out.

  Air… He couldn’t get enough air.

  “Blast trauma,” someone said. “Some sort of explosive device. Had already gone into hypovolemic shock before the parameds injected the wound stasis foam. Get more synthblood racked up.”

  “Mobile scans showed a ruptured tympanic membrane, collapsed left lung, probable alveolar haemorrhage, and an alveolar rupture in the right,” another man said. “Secondary damage includes thirty-four penetration injuries and counting. Splenic laceration and rupture, multiple fractures. Head trauma from where he was thrown by the blast.”

  “Why haven’t we determined our lockdown status?” asked the first man.

  “On-site scans were clean. Looks like we’ve got shrapnel from the device, bone fragments from the other victim, his own bone fragments, brick fragments, bits of his clothes and multiple empty sites that were probably ice shards, but no biological agents. This seems to be an old-fashioned bomb.”

  It was a drone, Ray thought. Not a bomb. Bu
t he couldn’t work his mouth to say the words.

  “I don’t like the sound of ‘probably.’ Get the high-resolution equipment in here. I sure don’t want to be the last to find out some jackass with a basement kit has managed to hack a new henipavirus and we’re ground zero.”

  “On it.”

  A woman leaned over Ray and looked at a display above his head. She was dressed in brightly coloured scrubs with a strange, dancing pattern on the tunic.

  “When are we getting the RCMP forensic data share?” she asked, over her shoulder. “I want to run the projections on other injuries and outcomes.”

  “They’re on scene now with the Toronto police,” said the second man. “Maybe thirty minutes before they upload?”

  Where was Mick? Ray wanted to ask the woman. Mick had always been there before, to help him, protect him. Mick was his best friend.

  “Tabarnak,” said a new voice with a strong Quebecois accent. “This guy? Un drôle de moineau. He’s got none of the implants, no augments, no biomems. A tattoo, does he have one of those?”

  “Can’t tell,” said the woman. “That arm was shredded.”

  Someone else was slicing open his tattered and smouldering clothing, peeling it off section by section, teasing it out of his wounds. Every movement brought another wave of excruciating pain that made him convulse.

  “Turn it up, get this poor bastard to lights out.”

  Ice filled his veins.

  Blackness.

  KEL

  Out in the hab, Kel examined the macaque’s body. “Meike, what do you suppose happened here?”