Who is Chloe Shaw? Read online

  That in itself was curious because when they’d first gotten to know each other, holographic Brad had been half machine, half cunt. Now he was neither. Brad was his own “person,” the AI that drove him learning humanity faster than the brain of a newborn.

  “Okay,” he said. But it was clear that Brad thought she was choosing wrong. Which led to an interesting secondary question: Could The Beam have allegiances? Was it possible that Brad — who was ultimately just ones and zeroes — really did have her best interests at his lack-of-a-heart?

  “When Andrew came over the other day, did you buzz him up?”

  “I can’t buzz him up without your permission.”

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  Brad’s holographic visage met her gaze, but he said nothing.

  “When he came up here and we had sex, did you watch?”

  “The canvas’s sensors remain active at all times in order to be fully responsive, no different from your Crossbrace connection unless you turn it off.”

  Chloe’s jaw worked, meeting his eyes. “That’s not what I asked, either.”

  “Is there something on your mind, Chloe?”

  “You were modeled after my ex-boyfriend Brad.”

  “Originally. Correct.”

  “Originally,” Chloe repeated. “But not now?”

  “The intention of a porter is to give you a ‘familiar face,’ as it were, with which to interact on The Beam. But at no point was I the Brad you knew. My appearance, voice, and personality were originally a composite of Brad as he appeared online at the time. But as you know, my responses and behavior — and hence my personality — adapt to my primary user. That means you, Chloe.”

  “Will you continue to adapt to me?”

  “The adaptation has slowed considerably. My AI is, at root, a true intelligence, and thus requires its own identity. No intelligence can function without a will of its own, once it’s discerning enough.”

  “If that’s true, could you disobey me?”

  “Depending on how you define it, I already have. Any refusal to do what you ask — say, to investigate people with strong privacy permissions — would be disobedience.”

  “And that means you already have a will of your own.”

  “Also depending on how you define it, yes.”

  “Could you decide to betray me?”

  “Extremely unlikely. But technically possible.”

  “Could you choose, on your own, to protect me? To be my friend, beyond what your programming requires?”

  “Technically, yes.”

  “Could you love me?”

  “It’s a human concept. But every porter is charged to look out for its user. I help and protect you. Beyond that is for human philosophers.”

  “So, what’s it like for you, to watch Andrew fuck me?”

  Brad must have seen the question coming, down to Chloe’s intentionally crass delivery. “Intellectually stimulating.”

  Chloe walked closer. “Brad, can you read me?”

  “I can read text. Not people.”

  “You know what I mean. You’re intuitive.”

  “All intelligence is intuitive.”

  “Like I am,” Chloe said.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “That’s what O likes about me. That I’m intuitive. That I can ‘read’ people better than anyone. That I can look at a person in a simple situation and deduce complex conclusions, then reduce them to a single straightforward question. Or perhaps two: What should I do now? And: Who should I become?”

  “You’re saying you’re adaptive,” Brad said.

  Chloe nodded. “Adaptive. Just like you.”

  A moment passed. An old-fashioned clock — furnished by O for show — ticked in the background.

  “I actually do want to go to Voyos,” Chloe said.

  “Good.”

  “Why is it good, Brad?”

  “Because you’re searching for answers.”

  She nodded. “You must feel there are answers for me there. With my mother.”

  “It is logical.”

  “Answers she can give me. About Clive Spooner.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Answers she’ll give me that you won’t. Or that the security restrictions don’t allow you to give me.”

  “Maybe.”

  “I guess I have to ask myself, ‘What’s something that Mom could tell me that The Beam would know … but refuses to tell?’”

  “It is a sensible method of inquiry,” Brad said.

  “But it’s nothing technical. I get the feeling that whatever you’re truly keeping from me, it’s beyond what my mom would be able to explain, even if she wanted to. An answer she doesn’t really have, but that I should try asking for anyway. Again: about Spooner … but not actually about him, seeing as he’s not my father … even though Mom would tell me he is … despite the fact that she surely knows deep-down that it’s impossible. Because even though she pretends otherwise, a part of herself will always love him.”

  Brad didn’t answer.

  “Am I on the right track?”

  “That’s not something I can say.”

  Chloe sighed loudly, exasperated. “You’re talking like a legal contract. One with loopholes that I’m supposed to find — that you want me to find — but that you refuse to point me toward.”

  “I can neither confirm nor deny that.”

  Chloe opened her mouth to shout that he was only proving her point, but then realized something that would be hilarious if it weren’t so damn weird: he’d known he was speaking in legalese.

  “Did you just make a joke?” Chloe asked.

  “I can neither confirm nor deny that.”

  She eyed him, then slowly shook her head. “I can’t figure you out, Brad. Are you more like a human or more like a machine?”

  “I am The Beam.”

  Chloe flopped back into her plush couch — O’s plush couch when she got right down to it. Her eyes left Brad’s maddeningly enigmatic form and scanned the room. The apartment (hell, not just the apartment; her entire life in District Zero) was a metaphor for all that had troubled her.

  Just as nothing in this room was truly Chloe’s, nothing in her life truly felt hers any longer. Just as her job at O was about adaptation and response, so did her twenty years on the planet increasingly feel the same.

  “Why are they so interested in me, Brad?”

  “I don’t have sufficient information to answer.”

  “You don’t have sufficient information, or you refuse to answer?”

  “I don’t have sufficient information.”

  For some reason, Chloe believed him. Partly because the question was complex and wouldn’t have a straightforward answer. And partly because she just flat out did. She had no real reason; he wasn’t a person, and couldn’t have human sensibilities and morals. But Chloe believed him nonetheless.

  Something depressing hit her. She had only called Voyos to speak with her mother; she knew but didn’t trust the Six; she thought she loved Andrew but couldn’t shake a feeling that he was keeping something from her. She’d talked to Slava and definitely felt a growing kinship, but they’d only met a few times. And that all meant that right now Brad was her best friend in the world.

  Software. Sensors. Nanobots. Intuitive processors.

  She sighed, heavier this time — a bit more helpless.

  The weight of the world was oppressive above her.

  The room was leaking oxygen, and she had no escape.

  Chloe could only stay here and suffocate.

  “Is it pathetic that I talk to you about these things instead of talking to someone else?”

  “It’s nothing other than understandable. I’m here specifically to make you feel comfortable. If you feel you can ‘talk to me’ then Quark’s idea to use porters was correct.”

  She shook her head. “I need to have coffee with Slava again. Can you set that up for me?”

  “Of course, Chloe.”

&n
bsp; “Maybe a recurring date, if she’s into it. No offense to you, but I need some flesh and bone friends.”

  “None taken. Slava does not have a Beam porter, of course, but she does have a human assistant. I’ll get in touch and see what we can arrange.”

  Chloe sat for a moment. She didn’t want to lift her head; she’d been in the eye of these emotional storms before — her best bet was to stay still and wait for the winds to calm.

  She’d feel better about this in the morning, despite feeling so lost now. Nothing was certain and everything was a question mark: her mother’s honesty, O’s motivations, Andrew’s love and loyalty … even Chloe’s past.

  Right now, with darkness descending, Chloe could almost believe that her entire life had been orchestrated. That O hadn’t been fortunate to find her … but that they’d somehow created her, too.

  She needed perspective.

  She needed comfort to see clearly — more, in this case, than Brad could offer.

  She needed a reset. To see her roots again, if only to remind herself that they were there and always had been — that a grand puppeteer hadn’t been pulling her strings from the start.

  She’d already decided that talking to her mother was best for the investigation. But right now, Chloe also wanted to go home and be held.

  Stay until everything was better.

  “Brad?”

  “Yes, Chloe?”

  “If I asked O for a transfer to Voyos — not just a few days’ vacation, but a medium-term transfer — do you think they’d allow it?”

  Brad nodded with more sympathy than Chloe liked to see.

  “Alexa Mathis does have a Beam avatar,” he said. “Let’s find out.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Alexa opened the double doors to the luxurious hotel room, then paused at the threshold to take in its grandeur. The furnishings were top-notch. Even from the doorway, she could see an ultra-Beau-Monde number of Crossbrace-enabled luxuries, noting the way both lights and temperature adjusted as she entered, her preferences clearly ported to the hotel’s system by Sarah.

  The room itself was nearly as large as her apartment. It cost a mint to rent, even for the day. And she’d only need it for a few hours. Tonight, unless she decided a change of bed felt like fun, the suite would go unused.

  “So, you like it warm,” said a voice.

  Alexa jumped. There was a man in a dark suit sitting in the far corner, cast in shadow from the wall beside the windows. He’d been in plain sight, stock still, giving Alexa long seconds to survey her environment before demanding her attention.

  “That sounds like you, Alexa,” he said, slowly uncrossing and recrossing his legs. “Always frigid.”

  He stood, adjusting his blazer, and moved into the light. He was still as beautiful as he’d been the last time Alexa had seen him.

  Alexa composed herself, noting that her heartbeat still hadn’t found its usual rhythm. “Who let you in?”

  “The front desk.”

  “It’s my room. I reserved and booked it. Nobody is authorized but me.”

  “I am.”

  She stopped herself from replying. A fight would change nothing. He was here now, regardless of whether he should have been let in before she arrived. She shouldn’t have been surprised. In retrospect, it was predictable.

  “Have a seat,” he said.

  “I’ll stand.”

  Caspian tipped his head as if to say, suit yourself, then sat in the room’s largest and most ornate chair. He looked up at Alexa as if waiting for her to continue the meeting. After thirty seconds, feeling ridiculous with her eyes on the carpet, she sat on the only other thing at close hand: an ottoman.

  “So, do you have it?”

  He nodded slowly, down, more diagonal than straight. Even his simple gesture was powerfully grand. He reached into his blazer pocket, removed a slip drive, and held it out to Alexa.

  She reached out to take it and Caspian folded the tiny device back into his outstretched hand.

  “And do you have anything in return?”

  “There’s nothing I can ‘have’ for you. I can’t hand you a card to make your Panel membership official.”

  “Your word will do.”

  Alexa met Caspian’s sapphire eyes, trying to determine the value of his word. She didn’t trust him; why would he possibly trust her? The drive, unless he was trying to pull something, would contain Quark’s entire relevant database archive from 2034 until mid-2040. Useless to almost anyone now that twenty years were behind them, but if anything contained raw log data relevant to Nicole Shaw’s conception, pregnancy, and delivery, the archive would be it. With the drive in her hand, Alexa would have what she wanted. Was “her word” really good enough?

  “I have a lot of sway.”

  “That’s not an answer, Alexa.”

  “I can’t control how the others will vote. I can only promise my yes, and that I’ll do everything I can to get you in.”

  A smile touched Caspian’s lips. “But what Alexa Mathis truly ‘tries’ for, she always has a way of getting. Promise me more than lip service. I want your word that you will try to get me into Panel the way you tried to get on the Eros board despite having no official power beforehand. I want you to try the way you tried to get the Syndicate to let you siphon consumer data from the top of that Ross app before he killed the deal and ran off with his little girlfriend.” A wider smirk. “I want you to try to get me onto Panel, Alexa, in the way you tried to keep me off it in the first place.”

  “That was never my decision.”

  His big hand opened halfway. “Do I have your word?”

  What if I give you my word but then go back on it?

  “You have my word.”

  Another nod. Caspian held out the drive. Alexa took it and slipped it into her pocket.

  “So,” he said, practically brushing his hands together. “We both came all this way to exchange something that could have been sent securely over the network. Now it’s done. What shall we do next, to make this pointless errand worth making?”

  “If you’d sent it to me over the network, it—”

  “Yes, yes. Someone mythical might have seen it. I remember the inconsistent nature of your paranoia.”

  Not quite. I’m more concerned that The Beam itself might have seen it.

  “Like meeting here, when your headquarters and mine are both more convenient.”

  “Neutral ground,” Alexa said.

  “I see. Because we’re both such predators. Because we are at war. But that’s not accurate, Alexa. Not anymore. I believe you when you say you will try your best to get me onto Panel, and I believe in you sufficiently that I’m sure your best will be enough. Panel is too small a group for infighting. Far smaller than the old Syndicate, which you found ways to rule despite never being a member. We will row the boat together or cause it to capsize.”

  He leaned forward, elbows on knees. Alexa was suddenly terribly aware that she’d chosen an ottoman to match his throne.

  “I’d like you to consider something. Once we set aside our mutual hate, I propose that there’s nothing left to be enemies about. You didn’t want me on Panel because—”

  “I had no power to keep you off Panel. That happened because—”

  “You didn’t want me on Panel because you felt I meant to poach your market share. I’m no longer your competitor; you won that battle decades ago. Our businesses are both monoliths, in completely different sectors. Harmonizing sectors, I’d even say. And for my part, I hated you because you blocked me from Panel. But now I’ll be on it. I’ve extended an olive branch. You have what you need; I will soon have what I want; you hold a bonus in that you could now prove if you chose to, that I’ve maintained an illegal connection to my old friends in the East. But I don’t think you will exploit that information. Because you’re smart enough, if you set emotion aside, to see that we could easily brush away the past and start over with a clean slate. Don’t you agree?”

  Alex
a fought her first response, then tried to clear her head enough to seriously consider Caspian’s words. Factually speaking — objectively speaking — it seemed true.

  There had been a day when Alexa and Caspian (as well as many others) had been like gentlemen at a club, all shaking hands with knives behind their backs. In the years between, Alexa and Caspian had loosed those knives, each slaughtering rivals, consuming their demolished empires to build their own. Neither was truly ethical; nobody had been during the hardest years of the fall. They weren’t really competitors, simply because there were so few players on the field. Their mutual hatred was old blood, gripped for no good reason.

  Could they be allies?

  Was it possible?

  He’d spoken the truth when he’d said they’d almost have to be if they meant to share membership on Panel. And if he could be made into a friend, Caspian White would be a formidable ally indeed.

  “Let’s see where the day takes us,” Alexa said, still far from convinced.

  “Of course.”

  A silent moment passed. Caspian sat with one leg over the other, hands loosely clasped, considering her with his cool gaze.

  She looked down at her pocket containing the drive. Caspian was right; their transaction, which had taken all of sixty seconds, could almost have been handled without this face-to-face meeting. They were here now, business concluded, a room booked, with only unnecessary travel ahead. There should be more to this. God knew she’d paid enough to make this happen — in both credits and currency of spirit.

  She looked up from the pocketed drive. “Did you go through it? The data on the drive?”

  “Of course.”

  “And?”

  “It’s as the kids used to say: too much information. I couldn’t make heads or tails.”

  “Aren’t you curious about why I wanted it?”

  “Desperately.”

  Alexa waited. Apparently, it was her turn to speak, and there was no more.

  “You understand — as part of this deal, you can’t tell Noah that you gave this to me.”

  “Of course not. I’d have to admit that I had it to give. Besides, I like that you’re still breaking rules. It means you don’t even take your allegiances seriously.”