Rewired: The Post-Cyberpunk Anthology

alienation is just a phase-shift away from transcendence. That the crippling inability to believe anything is just a phase-shift away from the admirably cosmopolitan determination not to believe anything. That bleak cosmic futility is the flipside of the freedom and power of the scientific method, the sense that you’re standing on your own ontological feet and can walk without crutches now. All these supposed oppositions are really only ambiguities. And the alienation that causes you to retreat to the firm but lonely citadel of your own personality is one small phase-change away from a wild charge outside the fortress to amaze and scatter the besiegers and loot their baggage train. There’s some fucking neat stuff in that baggage train. It belongs to other people at the moment, and yeah, some of it is noisome junk, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t find some nice uses for the rest of it. Swords have two edges, and arrows fly wherever they are pointed.

When you’re our age, if you want to stay alive and supple, inside you have to spend a lot of time looking hard at things you really hate. We’ll never have the imaginative fire we had when we were twenty years old. If we have any advantage over those twenty-year-old guys, it’s that we know a fucking galaxy of things they didn’t know…. But if I’m not going to end up as some self-satisfied fart doing dekalogies to put my kid through college, I’ve got to push it and push it and push it some more.”

Mary Rosenblum Search Engine

Mary Rosenblum recently returned to science fiction after several years writing mysteries, and in this story blends the two genres with a noir twist. Her PCP sleuth, here called a profiler, never really needs to get up from his keyboard in order to find his man. In a world where everyone has an implanted ID chip and where all transactions are recorded, all it takes to track someone down is access to data and a hacker’s feel for the flow of information. But if you work for Big Brother, make sure to check your humanity at the door.

* * *

Aman’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 handmade?” 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?”