The Future of Love Read online

  “How could she be using an O technique before she worked at O?” Charisma asked.

  “She learned it from her mother,” Benson said.

  “We don’t teach it to table girls,” Parker said. “It’s too hard to learn and there’s no advantage for them.”

  Alexa was smiling. Chloe caught a glance, then looked away. It was getting harder to hold onto her anger.

  All this fucking. All this analytical sensory overload.

  “It just seems like she’s doing it, then,” Houston said. “It’s coincidence.”

  Alexa piped in. “I’ve reviewed a lot of footage. She only had this one time in her personal life, but I could show you how she used the same technique on her table partners. Apparently, there was quite the clamor among guys on Voyos to work with Chloe Shaw.”

  Olivia caught Chloe’s eye. “Where did you learn how to do that?”

  Chloe looked at Alexa helplessly.

  “She didn’t learn it,” Alexa said. “She figured it out.”

  “No way,” Parker said. “We developed it using Beam AI. Even The Beam took six months of sifting through our records to suggest it.”

  “I won’t show you for obvious reasons,” Alexa said, “but the AI tells me Chloe was using the technique when she was sixteen.”

  “On who?” Houston asked. “I thought she was—”

  “On herself.”

  Chloe felt herself blush, but said nothing.

  Curiously, she was more aroused than embarrassed. How much had those perv nanobots seen of her over the years?

  “The Beam didn’t exist when she was sixteen,” Benson said. “Not even in beta.”

  “That’s right, Benson. It didn’t.”

  All eyes turned to Chloe. Except for Parker. He was still studying.

  Logan came. Brad came. And still, Parker watched like a professor, a thoughtful hand to his chin.

  “The AI is reading it wrong,” Parker said. “There’s no other way. Without Beam AI, she’d have to …”

  “She’d have to have figured it out for herself.”

  “But it’s an aggregate technique, not something that can be guessed at. It’s response-based and needs a pool of subjects like we had in our customer records. She would’ve had to have reviewed hundreds of hours of porn, but even if she knew what she was looking for, I don’t see how she could do it. We had gigs of biometric data to go with the simple visual recordings.”

  “The AI agrees. Like you said, Parker: there’s no other way a technique like that can be developed.”

  “But obviously there’s something missing because …”

  Alexa watched Parker with satisfaction. “You understand now?”

  “Are you implying that Chloe somehow siphoned what she needed off of Crossbrace?”

  “How else would she have enough data?” Alexa answered.

  “I didn’t suck anything off Crossbrace,” Chloe said.

  Olivia stood, looking at the others. “Am I missing something?”

  “Think about it, Parker. It makes sense, given what we’ve learned about her.”

  “And what’s that?” Olivia looked at Parker, whose eyes were fixed on Alexa, full of shock. “Parker? Answer me, dammit!”

  Parker’s head slowly turned. He looked at Chloe and his eyebrows raised as if to say, Well played, Chloe. I have to give you credit on this one.

  But on what one?

  But she knew. Deep-down, Chloe knew.

  Parker and Alexa seemed to have put this all together and the others hadn’t, but that was because only they knew about Chloe’s strange new connection to the network.

  Chloe had hacked Alexa’s personal files; Chloe had hacked her way into Alexa’s apartment; Chloe could now get Crossbrace and The Beam to do pretty much whatever she wanted.

  Was it really possible she’d always had that connection, yet had only realized it recently?

  If it took mountains of Crossbrace information and Crossbrace AI to learn the “technique” in the videos, was it possible that the network had given her what she needed to learn it … without Chloe ever even realizing it was happening?

  Had she fucked Brad — and herself, apparently — using this Volsatz O simply because it “felt right” at the time?

  Surely not.

  But a presence inside Chloe was nodding along.

  She could almost hear its deep voice:

  You know it’s true, Chloe. And they know more than they’re letting on.

  It’s not just your connection to The Beam that made this possible for you. It’s something deeper — something Alexa and Parker know but haven’t said.

  Something to do with your father.

  Curiosity resurged. In a moment, Chloe remembered her anger, born of impotence and frustration. She’d allowed herself to be dragged here because Alexa was dangling knowledge like meat before a starving dog.

  Now she was jumping through hoops to please the others?

  Fuck the others.

  Chloe had come to learn what she most wanted to know. And if she didn’t get some satisfaction on that particular issue soon, the starving dog was going to leap up and bite the hand that teased it.

  “Parker?”

  Alexa turned to Olivia. “We can explain later.”

  Her head snapped hard toward Alexa. “We? Oh, yes, please do. I’m so glad you and Parker worked this all out without us. Solid job on that, you two. But now that we’re all here, maybe you can let the kitty come out to play. Because I for one am getting mighty fucking sick of being disrespected and screwed with!”

  “Later.”

  “Now!”

  Calmly, patiently: “I said, later.”

  Olivia crossed her arms. “Then why are we here? Why did you call us all to the boardroom, if we couldn’t see it without Parker explaining and if you were only going to cockblock it more?”

  “I need a vote,” Alexa said.

  Benson sounded aghast: “What vote?”

  “I want the board to approve an allocation of O funds for use on a yet-unarticulated Chloe Shaw project.”

  Chloe snapped out of her trance. “If you think I’m going to be part of some—”

  “Sit the fuck down, Chloe, and keep your mouth shut.”

  “What project?” Benson said.

  “Yet-unarticulated. Unspecified.”

  “You want a blank check,” Charisma said.

  “If that helps you to understand.”

  “For how much?”

  “Fifty to one hundred billion credits.”

  Clamor erupted.

  Chloe took it all in, feeling small and explosive. On one hand, she was humbled watching six of the most powerful people in the NAU throw down in a fight over her, and far too intimidated now to weigh in. On the other hand, she was still angry about all of this. How dare they discuss her as if she were a pawn? There would be no ‘Chloe Shaw project’ without Chloe Shaw.

  Hadn’t she been project enough for them already?

  This ended here.

  This ended now.

  But Chloe couldn’t find the strength to raise her voice above the clamor. There was too much temper, too much pent-up hostility boiling over. Alexa had apparently been dragging their faces through her spiritual crap since the beginning, going so far as to allocate significant company resources, money, and time to its study. The other five seemed to have gone along, but now that Alexa wanted a huge sum without answers to balance her request, claws were out.

  The room eventually settled. Threats were made — openly, this time. Olivia said that the board could block her, could find a way to oust her. Alexa asserted her ace, implying again that if the board went against her, she could overrule them. She seemed to want official approval, but would take it if she had to.

  Olivia and Alexa nearly came to blows, each threatening to leave the other, each pointing out that the Six didn’t have to stay six people strong, and that various parties could ultimately do just fine if they broke off on their own.

>   “STOP!” Alexa shouted. “Just sit the fuck down, whether you agree with me or not!”

  Charisma remained standing and said, “You don’t give all the orders around here.”

  Alexa sized her up, seeming to wonder whether she should reassert that yes, she did give all the orders. Instead, she spoke in a calm voice, “I founded this company. Argue all you want, but if you can stop feeling wounded I don’t think any of you are too stupid to pretend that we didn’t discuss this company’s vision from the start.”

  “‘The Future of Sex,’” Benson said. “I remember. But we were heading into that future together. It wasn’t supposed to be you, or you and Parker.”

  “We’re driven by more than innovation,” Alexa said. “I saw your eyes roll when I mentioned this earlier, but what I said to Chloe is true: O’s beating heart of still holds a deep belief that what we’re doing serves a greater purpose.”

  “That’s your bullshit,” Houston said, “not ours.”

  “I insisted, Houston. Go back and look at our original contract. I know you laughed, but you still signed. I believe that everything happens for a reason and I always have. You all bitch and moan when I dig up our old chestnuts: me and Parker back with Eros, combing through women at that Colorado ranch like contestants on a game show. We nearly found what we were looking for then, in Bridget Rice. That one got away, but I never stopped looking. I’ve never hidden my agenda — not even a little.

  “Every time I pull out the old app console and ask the AI questions like I did yesterday, you all bitch and moan, but you know this is part of the mission. Mostly you tolerate my spirituality. My anthroposophic bullshit. But now I’m pulling the ace, putting my foot down and insisting we take it seriously. It’s time for this company to put its money where its mouth is, even if some of you have forgotten what that mouth has been saying all along.

  “I was right about the Spooner data on the Spindle; it captured Chloe discovering and using an advanced, network-discoverable technique before we had learned it ourselves. I was right that we keep searching for an avatar because it looks like we found one. It was right to keep our eyes on the future because there’s more and more proof that we’ve found it. Do you really not believe yet that everything happens for a reason? That there is a grand plan? That there are purpose and synchronicity in everything? Chloe walked right into our office. And even she doesn’t know why she thought it was right to come to us. Only that it was right, because there was a grander plan for us all.”

  Eyes rolled. Annoyed, patronizing, reluctant grunts rang around the table.

  Alexa looked at Charisma.

  “Yes,” Alexa continued. “I want a blank check on this project. But at most it’s only a hundred billion. Not a small amount, but it hardly threatens to cripple us. Believe me, if this project using Chloe goes like I imagine, I’ll be back to ask for more. The O Corporation is looking at a major shift in direction.”

  “And when,” Houston asked, “do you plan to explain yourself?”

  “When you need to know.”

  “You’ll just handle all of this yourself in the meantime.”

  “Yes, Houston. Using O’s money and resources to do it.” She raised her eyebrows. “Is that a problem?”

  Houston grumbled.

  “Chloe is an O asset. Right now, I speak for O. If you interfere, it’s because you’re thinking of yourselves, not the greater mission. And if you do, you’ll be dealt with as problems to solve. For now, you need to know that O was looking for Chloe. It found her. And now you’re going to hand her over to me. You’re going to sign off on this and trust me. Consider it a blessing. There will be no more people barging in on us. Fewer arguments from Parker. No more Andrew. No more threats.”

  “Except from you,” Olivia said.

  “No more impossible puzzles to solve,” Alexa said, staring Olivia down. “You don’t have to trouble your pretty little heads any longer. Chloe is mine. What becomes of her future with O is up to me, and me alone.”

  Chloe clenched her fists. Alexa’s presence was powerful and so far, she’d kept her mouth shut, but there was something boiling inside. Something not quite organic, born of numbers and digits and flashing lights. Chloe could see the room’s Fi, hear the spindle drive under the table as it unfolded vast archives and spoke directly to her furious mind.

  Who is Chloe Shaw? she wondered from above herself. But as she listened to Alexa drone on about owning Chloe and deciding her future without consent, she increasingly had an answer:

  Nobody to fuck with.

  Nobody to trade like she didn’t matter at all.

  Her fists clenched tighter.

  She could see The Beam. Hear The Beam. Touch The Beam.

  It was in all her senses. She was one with it and it was one with her.

  Chloe knew her own future, and it was different from the one Alexa had planned. She knew that future even now, even as she hated to admit it. She knew it as clearly as any binary decision, either on or off, zero or one.

  The dim lights flickered. The two paused projections above the conference table vanished.

  Heads looked up and around at the second’s disturbance, but none looked to the problem’s source. Except for Alexa.

  “You’re dismissed,” Alexa told the room.

  Nobody moved.

  “Dismissed!”

  Reluctantly the others rose. Houston left first, followed by Olivia and the Youngs. Chloe was on her feet, but Alexa’s stare froze her.

  Only Parker remained, but Alexa gave him an almost imperceptible nod as if to say, I’m not as furious as you as with the others. We’ll talk later. And then Parker, too, was gone.

  The door closed.

  Chloe, though she couldn’t have said how, somehow locked it.

  The lights flickered again.

  It was only Alexa and Chloe, finally alone.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “Have a seat,” Alexa said.

  “I’d rather stand.”

  “I am not your enemy, Chloe.” Alexa stood behind the opposite chair, hands across its back. Finally, seeing that Chloe didn’t intend to move, Alexa sat.

  “You like old movies, don’t you?”

  Chloe said nothing.

  “Some of the movies you and Andrew watched, they were among my favorites. Old 2-D films we used to watch in theaters, back when I was a younger woman.”

  “You looked about the same, though, right?” Chloe’s fists were still clenched at her sides. She thought she could feel the room’s electricity, sufficiently enough to plunge them into darkness with a thought. Whatever had gone wrong with her was now perhaps turning the corner and heading in a different direction.

  Alexa nodded and smiled. She didn’t take Chloe’s bait, though Chloe knew for a fact that Alexa Mathis in 2025 looked almost exactly the same as she did today in 2060.

  “There was one called The Twilight Zone. Based on an even older TV show. Did you see it?”

  Chloe said nothing.

  “There was one story about a kid with terrible powers. He could make anything happen just by using his mind. But he couldn’t control it. He was only a kid. The power was too big for him. He didn’t want to do what he did, but he didn’t know how not to.”

  Alexa put her hands on her knees, leaning forward.

  “I don’t know how it is for you right now,” Alexa said, “but I think you might be able to shut this building down. Maybe you could do the same thing to the city. Maybe you could touch all the air circulators in all the buildings in DZ and close them off or somehow send poison gas through them. I don’t know. I met you as a prodigy in my chosen field, Chloe, but I realize now that you’re much more than that.”

  Alexa leaned forward. “What it is about you? It makes you special in all the ways O wants most to build upon: you’re intuitive, so you can adapt to and exploit anyone. You’re a perfect blend of mind and body. Your genesis is tied to what almost became the Anthony Ross life-and-sex app, so you’re a sexual sava
nt. But that’s not all there is to you, right Chloe? Especially now. You feel your new power. But like that kid in the movie, you don’t know what it means or even how to use it?”

  Alexa leaned back. “And that scares you, doesn’t it?”

  Chloe clenched her fists. The lights winked off and on.

  Alexa watched her, unfazed. “What I told the others is true. In one way or another, I’ve been looking for you all my life.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Anthroposophy believes we find ourselves most fully through immersion in virtual worlds. It believes that if there is a God, he’s to be found inside. It’s not the blasphemy that some see it as. God takes many forms. If you believe, then God is everywhere.”

  “I’m not your God.”

  Alexa laughed. She patted the table in front of the chair opposite her. “Of course you’re not. Please. Sit.”

  Slowly, Chloe sat.

  “Your father,” Alexa said, “is Noah West.”

  “That’s not possible. The Beam says—”

  “The Beam’s records are incomplete. I can give you all my data later if you’d like. I think you’ll find that it slots right into a ‘hole’ you see in The Beam. But think about it, Chloe. If your mind works half the way I think it does, this might even sound right to you, given what I know you’ve already learned.”

  Chloe thought. Parts shuffled in her mind like a broken clock’s cogs trying to reassemble themselves: a Syndicate, Clive Spooner, her mother, nanobots.

  Especially nanobots.

  “My mom never said she met Noah West. She couldn’t keep that from me. She’s seen him on Crossbrace and talked about him, because who hasn’t? But—”

  “They never met. Clive used an experimental sex aid on your mother. It was an injector that contained—”

  “Nanobots,” Chloe finished.

  “Quark nanobots. Nanobots designed to determine what a person wanted and give it to them. Nanobots that could intuit all sorts of things from the slightest of signals, then know that person better than they knew themselves. Sound familiar?”

  Chloe weighed what Alexa was saying. She still didn’t entirely understand, but what she saw was clear. Chloe could intuit all sorts of things from the slightest of signals and know a person better than he knew himself.