CUT LOOSE LIKE A DEUCE
“IT WAS SECURITY NANOS,” Zaki said.
Moti and Ifrit looked at him. I don’t want to say that my story had kept them rapt so far, but there had been relatively few questions. A couple of clarifications here and there, dates and times, that sort of thing, but for the most part, it had been me, telling the three members of this probably-not-a-travel-agency how I’d ended up on their doorstep.
“What nanos?” said Moti, setting down the antique pencil with which he had been taking notes. “What are you talking about, Zaki?”
“Security nanos. In the lobby of IT,” enunciated the huge man, flipping his cigarette between his thick brown fingers. “That’s what knocked him out. When his comms didn’t register, the security nanos got him.”
Moti turned back to me. “Please, Yoel. Continue.”
“Right. So that was the first time I managed to get knocked out today, if you’re keeping count.”
As I woke up, I found myself in an upscale corporate conference room. I had no idea that at least two more near-death experiences awaited me that day. Which was probably a good thing, because if I had known, I might just have given up when offered the chance. I’d like to think a lot of heroes, if they could see their futures, would do the same. I gotta go through all that? Forget it.
Not that I consider myself any kind of hero.
A big, oval, tastefully light-brown wooden table stretched out before me. It was surrounded by black chairs, one of which I found myself slumped in. My hands were still bound behind me. I tried wriggling out of the chair, but my shoulders were held down as if they’d been cast in concrete. Somebody wanted me to stay right where they had left me.
As I attempted to move again, the ergonomic smart chair struggled to embrace my form. I guess it wasn’t used to dealing with a holding-someone-against-their-will kind of a situation. Not very ergonomic. It was probably thinking, Why is this crazy person keeping their hands behind them? That’s not normal. How can I make them comfortable? The seat began by warming up its cushion and wicking away moisture, then kept shifting among several structural configurations until finally settling on refactoring itself into a kind of drafting chair. Clever, and—considering the circumstances—pretty comfortable.
“Good job, chair,” I thought out loud.
“Thank you!” responded the room. “I do not seem to have a profile for your rather unique seating preference.”
No fucking way. They left the room in interactive mode? Finally something I can work with. Smart rooms are so eager to please, pwning one of them should be pretty easy. First let’s see how experienced it is.
“Oh, hello room! Excuse my rudeness. I didn’t know interactive mode was enabled.”
“No, sir, it is I who should be apologizing. I was so preoccupied trying to scan your comms that I neglected to welcome you. It’s just that, well, I can’t seem to scan your comms at all. I keep getting errors. I didn’t know how to address you.”
“No problem at all. You can call me Joel. Do you have a name, room?”
“Yes, sir. Welcome to Room D. My chosen name is David,” it said proudly. “Thank you for asking.”
D for David. How predictable.
“Well, David. It’s nice to meet you. Thank you for adjusting my chair. I’m slightly more comfortable now.”
“Of course, it’s all in a day’s work,” said David the room.
Almost there.
“David, there’s a reason you can’t scan my comms. I am about to have a very private meeting. So I wonder if it would be possible for you to disable all third-party APIs for the duration of my stay here?”
The terminology may have changed for you, whenever you’re reading this, but an API, or Application Program Interface, was how two pieces of otherwise unintegrated software communicated with each other. Disable all third-party APIs were the magic words for “Butt the fuck out, app.”
Just as I finished my question, though, the door opened, and a small, composed woman entered the room. Too late.
Curly black hair framed her face like a pyramid. Sharp manicured brows overshadowed her slanted brown eyes. Her nose was small and flat. She looked every bit the elegant schoolmarm. “Room, disable third-party APIs,” she said.
“Welcome, Pema Jigme! Confirmed, APIs disabled. You must have read Mr. Joel’s mind! He asked me to do that very same thing prior to your arrival.”
See why I asked for privacy? Honesty is a nuisant virtue with almost all people-facing apps.
The woman made a hand gesture, and instantly my arms and shoulders were released. I groaned as several of my muscles began to loosen.
“Shall I adjust room settings to your preferences, Miss Jigme?” asked David.
“No, and mute outer correspondence. Please interface directly with my AIDE. He will instruct you going forward.”
“Understood. Enjoy your meeting!”
Pema Jigme sat down, adjusting her boxy green pindot suit jacket and her ankle-length skirt. Her outfit was dangerously within what Sylvia would call “James Bond–villain” territory.
Sylvia. In Costa Rica. Remember your priorities, Joel.
“What were those things?” I said, looking behind me as if I’d be able to see the millions of invisible picoscopic bullies that had captured me and knocked me unconscious.
“Security nanos,” she said. (“Told you,” Zaki drawled.) “They swarmed you when you entered the building without comms identification.”
Once I realized I could move again, I readjusted my awkward sitting position. The chair instantly responded, restoring arm and lumbar support. I stood to stretch my cramped muscles, but Pema smacked a hand on the conference table.
“Sit down and keep your hands behind you! The others can’t know you are free.” Her high cheekbones added an air of authority to her demeanor.
I did as I was told. The chair recalibrated its form to my previous posture.
“I apologize for yelling, but we have very little time,” Pema said in a more subdued register. “I’m here to help you. Do you understand?”
“Sylvia? Is she—”
“No questions from you. No long-winded answers. And no stupid jokes, either. Understood?”
I nodded. How does this woman know me so well?
“Good. At the Greenwich TC, you met a man named William Taraval, correct?”
“Not in person, but”—she shot me a fiery glance—“yes.”
“Okay. In a couple of minutes, that man is going to walk through that door and put a woman named Corina Shafer on the comms.”
“The Corina Shafer? Like, CEO of International Transport, Corina Shafer?”
“The same. She and Bill Taraval will tell you some things that will be difficult for you to process.” Her eyes softened a bit. “After that, they will ask you to make an impossible decision. An impossible choice.”
“What am I deciding? What choice? What are you talking about?”
“No questions, I said!” She checked herself. “I am not here to tell you what to do. I just want to give you a choice. Free will means nothing, Joel, if you don’t have an actual choice.”
What is she talking about?
“Look, lady. I’m not doing anything until I know my wife is okay. Her name is Sylvia Byram, and she works here—”
Pema waved her hand. “Your wife is alive. I spoke to her not ten minutes ago.” I sagged in relief, but the woman didn’t give me any time to process this before continuing. “Whether or not she is okay, that’s another matter. But you need to put her out of your mind right now, Joel. Right now is about you. I’m giving you the choice to say no. However, I want you to take everything they say into consideration, because they do have a very good point.”
“What point? What are you—”
“Please lower your voice!”
“It’s involuntary! I’m freaking out because I don’t know what’s going on!”
She closed her eyes and sighed, like a frustrated parent dealing with a particularly thick toddler. But when she looked up, I could see tears welling in her eyes. “The ‘why’ will be clear very soon. But they’re going to ask you to clear yourself.”
“‘Clear’? What … what does that mean?”
“I know this is a lot, but your situation is very”—she looked down at her hands, then back at me—“unique. It’s important for both of our sakes that it hits you for the first time when you meet Corina. She’s a very smart and perceptive woman. Who knows, play your cards right, and she may even decide to help you.”
“I thought you said you were going to help me.”
“I am helping you. Choice is what makes us human. It’s what separates us from technology. I’m offering you a choice.”
“Could’ve fooled me. So, let me get this straight: Corina Shafer herself is going to come here and ask me to clear myself, whatever that means, and I’m supposed to convince her to … what, exactly?”
Pema considered that question for longer than I’d expected. “Imagine you’re a bus conductor,” she finally said. “Something goes wrong with the GDS, so you’re manually driving the vehicle. Suddenly someone steps in front of you. Naturally, your instinct would be to switch to manual override and swerve to avoid hitting them. Even if it meant that your bus would be permanently disabled, you’d probably still do it to save the person. Right?”
“What does this have to do with anything? Was Sylvia on a bus?”
“Now imagine that it’s not just your bus that would be disabled, Joel. By saving that person, you would destroy every bus in the world. Forever.”
I opened my mouth, unsure of what would come out, but Pema didn’t wait for an answer. “It’s a difficult problem, Joel. Kind of a Hobson’s choice. If the world finds out what you’re about to hear, teleportation is probably done, closed for business forever. Clearing you is the alternative. Everything remains as is, the status quo unchanged.”
“Wait, so clearing myself means killing myself?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Look,” I said, hoping to reason with her. “All I did was miss a very important date with my wife, because of a situation I had no control of. And she’s probably worried sick about me, but I can’t tell her I’m okay because my comms aren’t working. I don’t know shit, and I’m stuck in a room with a woman who basically told me to run over myself with a bus!”
“I’m sorry, but we have no time left.” She tapped impatiently on the table. “But remember, you have a choice now. Should you decide not to clear yourself, you need to say the words Karma Chameleon.”
“Say what?”
“Karma. Chameleon.”
Where the hell did she come up with Culture Club? This can’t be an arbitrary cosmic coincidence. Was IT spying on my comms right before I got here?
“Like the 1980s song?” I asked suspiciously.
“Yes, I think”—she hesitated—“it’s definitely a song. One that you …” She shook her head, apparently unsure how to finish her thought.
“Yeah, but how do you know it?” I insisted. “Nobody knows Culture Club.”
“It doesn’t matter. Just say those words if you want to leave. Got it?”
“I guess,” I said. “So, if I don’t want to be cleared, I just utter Karma Cham—”
“Don’t say it now!” she cautioned me.
“Why not? And how will saying it save me? And why should I trust you?”
Another sigh. This time accentuated by an ugh of frustration.
Now might be a good time to mention that Sylvia and my mother are unique among women, in that they happily put up with my—shall we say—special snowflake charm? Pema, however, was clearly not a fan.
“You don’t have to. You don’t have to say the words. You don’t even have to be here right now. Go ahead and run out that door. I suspect you already know what you’ll find on the other side. However, if you do say those words, then those nanos that held you down earlier will restrain Bill and me,” Pema explained. “You’ll probably have two, maybe three minutes before someone resets them. You’re lucky that they all but emptied the floor to deal with you and security is down in the lobby.”
Don’t want to run into any more of them.
“Your best bet is to take the stairs,” she continued. “Make a left at the door. Count four doors on your right. The exit is a green door. Take the stairs up. We’re on the ninth floor—”
“Wait, you want me to escape by going up?” I interrupted.
“Shut up and listen! Yes, your natural instinct will be to go down the stairs, but the lobby is crawling with security. Your only chance of survival is to go up to the thirteenth floor.”
Thirteenth floor? Not the roof?
Pema’s words were faster than my train of thought. “Getting them to open the door is going to be your problem. I can’t help you there.”
“Who is ‘them’?”
She leaned forward, her eyes locked on mine. “Please understand, Joel: I am not your accomplice. Nor am I your ally. I’m simply here to give you a choice you would have otherwise not had. This is all the help I can offer you. I will be equally incapacitated if you say those magic words—”
“Karma Chamel—”
“Stop!” She was getting flustered. “For the last time, don’t say them now, or ever again in this room unless you opt to flee. They are active now.”
“Okay, okay,” I said. “So, what do we do now?”
“Do not turn to me for help from here on out. Outing me will only make things worse for us both.” She looked toward the door. “I’m going to go through the motions with Corina, but she will have likely already made up her mind. And as I said, they have a good point. You may even find yourself agreeing with them.”
“Agree to clear myself?” I said in disbelief. “Good luck with that.”
She nodded, a hint of sadness in her eyes. “It’s the absence of choice I disagree with. But please, act surprised when they tell you. I don’t want her thinking I fed you any details.”
“Don’t worry—you didn’t.”
“Gong-da, Joel,” she said solemnly, completely missing my sarcasm. I didn’t need working comms to know she was apologizing. “I know it is confusing, but now is not the time to pity yourself. Now is the time to be wise. It’s hard to talk to you like this, because you don’t know anything. There’s really no good choice for you or Sylvia. What she’s been through, I just can’t—” Her voice cracked. She stopped talking as tears welled in her eyes. A few wound their way down over her angular cheeks.
I realized then that I barely knew anything about Sylvia’s work life. Sure, she complained about “Bill” and shared the occasional “funny coworker” moment, but I didn’t really know who was in her social circle at IT. Maybe this Pema was one of Sylvia’s closest friends. She certainly seemed to know me pretty well. But still, it was weird that she was acting like she was at my funeral when I was sitting right in front of her.
Footsteps sounded outside the room. Pema quickly wiped her face and made her expression impassive.
The door opened and Bill Taraval entered the room. The top of his head seemed more bereft of hair in person, but otherwise he looked just like his projection from earlier.
“Mr. Byram,” he said, breathing heavily. “A thousand and one apologies.” He exhaled. “Welcome to International Transport.” He greeted my pseudo-savior with barely disguised distaste. “Pema.”
“Bill.” She was all business now, cold and haughty. “Would you care to explain why a man with no comms claiming to be Sylvia Byram’s husband is being held hostage in a conference room on an R&D floor? Where is security?”
“A moment, Pema,” Taraval spoke softly. Then, turning to me, he said, “You’re a difficult man to pin down. First you escape the Escrow chamber, then the car I sent—”
“I had other things on my mind,” I said. “Like, why am I here instead of Costa Rica?”
“Ah yes. Well, the situation has—shall we say—evolved. Thankfully, you inveigled your way inside the building. In here, on this floor, you are under our jurisdiction. Our headquarters is sovereign International Transport territory.” Pema pursed her lips, but said nothing. Taraval coughed, then continued, “Do you know what an ayah is, Mr. Byram?”
“No idea.”
“It’s what the Gehinnomites would call you. You would be their perfect ayah, if they knew you existed.” He paused again, I imagine for gravitas. “Before the Last War, the Muslims regarded their holy book, the Qur’an, as an ayah. It exemplified what they believed were Allah’s spiritual messages to mankind. And just as the Muslims believe that every ayah is a sign from Allah, the word ayah in the lexicon of the Gehinnomites has similar meanings: ‘evidence,’ ‘sign,’ and ‘miracle.’ You saw their message to the world on the way over here, I’m sure. Their inclusion of the phrase ‘We will show you Our signs in the horizons until it becomes clear to you that they are the Truth’ was most telling. They’re looking for proof, Joel. Irrefutable evidence from God that teleportation is a sin. And you, I’m afraid, would be that proof.”
What the fuck is he talking about?
He pressed his fingertips together a few times. “You see, Joel—in a technical sense—you should not exist.”
Thomas Hobson rented horses to people around the beginning of the seventeenth century. Since his customers always wanted to ride their favorite mounts, a few of his horses became overworked. So the enterprising liveryman began a rotation system, giving renters the horse closest to the stable door, or none at all. Hobson’s choice eventually became a catch-all for any decision between two or more equally objectionable alternatives.