ofAsimov's most popular series, but she has also published memorable stories such as 'The Stone Garden,' 'Synthesis,' 'Flight,' 'California Dreamer,' 'Casting at Pegasus,' 'Entrada,' 'Rat,' 'The Centaur Garden,' 'Skin Deep,' 'Songs the Sirens Sing,' and many, many others. Her novella 'Gas Fish' won theAsimov's Readers Award in 1996, and was a finalist for that year's Nebula Award. Her first novel, The Drylands, appeared in 1993 to wide critical acclaim, winning the prestigious Compton Crook Award for Best First Novel. That was followed in short order by her second novel,Chimera, and her third, The Stone Garden. Her first short story collection, Synthesis and Other Virtual Realities, was widely hailed by critics as one of the best collections of 1996. Her most recent books are a trilogy of mystery novels written under the name Mary Freeman, and coming up is a new science fiction novel,Horizons. A graduate of Clarion West, Mary Rosenblum lives in Portland, Oregon.
Much ink has been spilled in recent years worrying about the erosion of privacy caused by computers, but as the disquieting story that follows indicates, hold on-you ain't seennothing yet!
A man's eyelids twitched as the tiny skull and crossbones icon flashed across his retinal screen. Uh-oh. He blinked away the image and scowled at the office door. The feds. 'Sit tight and pay attention,' he said to the new kid sitting in the chair beside the desk.
'What's up?' New Kid leaned forward. But the door was already opening, the soft whisper as it slid aside a reassurance that this was a high-end operation, that your money was being spent wisely. The real-life, physical office, the expensive woolen carpet and real wood furniture echoed that reassurance. No sleazy, virtual private eye here… you were at the top of the ladder in a hard office. Not that the suit cared. He took off his shades, slipped 'em into the pocket of his very well made business tunic and fixed icy gray eyes on Aman's face. If he didn't like what he saw, he was too well trained to let it show. 'Mr. Boutros.' The suit didn't offer his hand, sat down immediately in the chair across from the desk. Cast New Kid a single pointed glance. Jimi. Aman remembered his name at last. Raul's latest, given to him to baby-sit and maybe even train.
'My assistant.' Aman put finality in the tone. New Kid stays. He kept his body language relaxed and alpha, waited out the suit's evaluation of his options. Inclined his head at the suit's very slight nod. He had won that round. You won when you could. 'How may I help you?'
The suit pulled a small leather case from inside his tunic, slipped a tiny data disk from it. Without a word, Aman extended a port. Clients did not store their files on the net. Not if they were paying Search Engine's fees. The disk clicked into place and Aman's desktop lit up. A man's head and shoulders appeared in the holofield, turning slowly. Medium-dark, about twenty, mixed Euro/African and Hispanic genes, Aman noted. About the same phenotype as New Kid-Jimi-a history of war, rape, and pillage made flesh. The runner's scalp gleamed naked, implanted with fiberlight gang-sign. Aman read it and sighed, thinking of his fight with Avi over his fiberlights. Tattoo your political incorrectness on your body for the cops, son. Just in case they don't notice you on their own. Stupid move, Avi. That hadn't been the final argument, but it had been damn close. Several data-file icons floated at the bottom of the field. Food preferences, clothing, personal services, sex. Aman nodded because the feds knew what he needed and it would all be here. 'Urgency?' he asked.
'High.' The suit kept his eyes on the runner's light-scribed profile.
Aman nodded. Jimi was getting tense. He didn't even have to look at him -the kid was radiating. Aman touched the icon bubbles, opening the various files, hoping Jimi would keep his mouth shut. Frowning, because you never wanted the client to think it was going to be easy, he scanned the rough summary of the runner's buying habits. Bingo. He put his credit where his politics were. Not a problem, this one. He was going to stand up and wave to get their attention. 'Four days,' he said. Start high and bargain. 'Plus or minus ten percent.'
'Twenty-four hours.' The suit's lips barely moved.
Interesting. Why this urgency? Aman shook his head. No kinky sex habits, no drugs, so they'd have to depend on clothes and food. Legal-trade data files took longer. 'Three point five,' he finally said. 'With a failure-exemption clause.'
They settled on forty-eight hours with no failure-exemption. 'Ten percent bonus if you get him in less.' The suit stood. For a moment he looked carefully and thoroughly at Jimi. Storing his image in the bioware overlay his kind had been enhanced with? If he ran into Jimi on the street a hundred years from now he'd remember him. Jimi had damn well better hope it didn't matter.
'They really want this guy.' Jimi waited for the green light to come on over the door, telling them that the suit hadn't left anything behind that might listen. 'The runner's wearing Gaiist sign.' No kidding. Aman knew that scrawl by heart.
'What did he do?'
'How the hell should I know?' Aman touched one of the file icons, closing his eyes as his own bioware downloaded and displayed on his retina. That had been the final argument with Avi.
'Oh, so we just do what we're told, I get it.' Jimi leaned back, propped a boot up on the corner of the desktop. 'Say yessir, no questions asked, huh? Who cares about the reason, as long as there's money?'
'He's government.' Aman blinked the display away, ignored Jimi's boot. Why in the name of everyone's gods had Raul hired this wet-from-birth child? Well, he knew why. Aman eyed the kid's slender, androgynous build. His boss had a thing for the African/Hispanic phenotype. Once, he'd kept it out of the business. Aman suppressed a sigh, wondering if the kid had figured it out yet. Why Raul had hired him. 'How much of the data-dredging that you do is legal?' He watched Jimi think about that. 'You think we're that good, huh? That nobody ever busts us? There is always a price, kid, especially for success.'
Jimi took his foot off the desktop. 'The whole crackdown on the Gaiists is just crap. A bread-and-circus move because the North American Alliance…'
Aman held up a hand. 'Good thing you don't write it on your head in light,' he said mildly. 'Just don't talk politics with Raul.'
Jimi flushed. 'So how come you let him back you down from four days? An Xuyen is already backed up with the Ferrogers search.'
'We won't need Xuyen.' Aman nodded at the icons. 'Our runner is organic. Vegan. Artisan craft only, in clothes and personal items. You could find him all by yourself in about four hours.'
'But if he's buying farm-raised and hand-made?' Jimi frowned. 'No universal tags on those.'
Aman promised himself a talk with Raul, but it probably wouldn't change anything. Not until he got tired of this one, anyway. 'Get real.' He got up and crossed to the small nondescript desktop at the back of the office, camouflaged by an expensive Japanese shoji screen. This was the real workspace. Everything else was stage-prop, meant to impress clients. 'You sell stuff without a u-tag and you suddenly find you can't get a license, or your E. coli count is too high for an organic permit, or your handspinning operation might possibly be a front for drug smugglers.' He laughed. 'Everything has a u-tag in it.' Which wasn't quite true, but knowledge was power. Jimi didn't have any claim on power yet. Not for free.
'Okay.' Jimi shrugged. 'I'll see if I can beat your four hours. Start with sex?'
'He's not a buyer. I'll do it.'
'How come?' Jimi bristled. 'Isn't it too easy for you? If even I can do it?'
Aman hesitated, because he wasn't really sure himself. 'I just am.' He sat down at his workdesk as Jimi stomped out. Brought up his secure field and transferred the files to it. The runner got his sex for free or not at all, so no point in searching that. Food was next on the immediacy list. Aman opened his personal searchware and fed the runner's ID chipprint into it. He wasn't wearing his ID chip any more, or the suit wouldn't have showed up here. Nobody had figured out yet how to make a birth-implanted ID chip really permanent. Although they kept trying. Aman's AI stretched its thousand thousand fingers into the datasphere and started hitting all the retail data pools. Illegal, of course, and retail purchase data was money in the bank, so it was well protected, but if you were willing to pay, you could buy from the people who were better than the people who created the protection. Search Engine, Inc. was willing to pay.
Sure enough, forsale.data had the kid's profile. They were the biggest. Most of the retailers fed directly to them. Aman pulled the runner's raw consumables data. Forsale profiled, but his AI synthesized a profile to fit the specific operation. Aman waited the thirty seconds while his AI digested the raw dates, amounts, prices of every consumable item the runner had purchased from the first credit he spent at a store to the day he paid to have a back-alley cutter remove his ID chip. Every orange, every stick of gum, every bottle of beer carried an RNA signature and every purchase went into the file that had opened the day the runner was bom and the personal ID chip implanted.
The AI finished. The runner was his son's age. Mid-twenties. He looked younger. Testament to the powers of
