“Trade secret, huh?” she asked.
“Is it? I thought it was common knowledge. This way.” An expertly cut pane of glass at the base of the Immortal Tower pivoted on its center as they approached to grant them entry to the soaring seven-story atrium that greeted visitors to Ageless’s headquarters. A pair of security androids flanked the entrance, ready to deal with any unwelcome guests—politely, but firmly. A refurbished marine anti-vehicular mecha was hidden inside a false structural pylon on the far side of the lobby should polite-but-firm fail to be a sufficient deterrent, but this was not widely acknowledged.
The lobby was dim and nearly empty as they made their way to the lifts. It was already past sundown, and most of the building’s workers had gone home for the day. Tyson nodded to the nightshift front desk attendant as they passed.
“Reggie.”
“Good evening, Mr. Abington. Working late?”
“Story of our lives, hey Reg?”
He laughed. “I heard that, sir.”
Tyson came to rest in front of his private high-speed lift with Dr. Spaulding close behind. Three different biometric systems confirmed his identity before the doors opened to grant them entrance.
“Plus one,” he said as they passed through the doors.
“Plus one, what?” Elsa asked.
“Plus you. That’s how the guns in the elevator know I’m not being coerced and they don’t need to shoot you when we reach the tenth floor.”
“I thought you said in the interview that a human is involved in the decision loop by law!”
“And one is. In this case, I decided not to kill you. The imprecision of language can be such fun.”
The press of acceleration pushed down on the soles of their feet. Tyson’s private lift only had one destination, and it got there quickly.
“How did you remember the guard?” Elsa asked.
“Hmm? Reggie?”
“Yeah, do you have an alert in your augmented reality whenever an employee is in your field of vision. Their file, maybe?”
Tyson snorted. “Reginald Sojourner Birmingham took a knife for me twenty-seven years ago when I was just a dumb kid and he was my bodyguard. Some tweaker outside a nightclub got lucky and stuck it between the base of Reggie’s helmet and the top of his backplate while I was in the alley trying to jack into the tweaker’s girl. I promised Reg that night in the hospital his family would never want for anything again. He spent three months on a ventilator while the docs regrew his spinal cord below the C-7 vertebrae. Took him a year to learn how to walk again. He has two daughters and a lovely wife who bakes me an entirely inedible fruitcake every Christmas, every one of which I’ve saved as building material for a winter home on the southern continent when I finally retire. So no, I don’t need any tricks to remember his name. Anything else?”
Elsa shrunk back into herself. “I’m … sorry.”
“It’s all right,” Tyson assured her. “I know what people think of me. It’s even useful, sometimes. But in private like this it can be a bit … jarring.”
The lift reached it apex with a gentle Ding. The doors opened onto Tyson’s familiar territory. His first home, really.
“Holy shit,” Elsa said behind him, just above a whisper. She physically backed into the elevator car.
“What’s wrong?”
“What’s—” She swallowed. “What’s holding up the ceiling?”
“Ah. I see.” Tyson strode over to the window and wrapped a knuckle against it with a tunk tunk tunk. “Several tons of space-grade transparent aluminum. It’s quite solid, I assure you. It’s just tricking your eyes. Don’t worry. I work in here every day.” He held out a reassuring hand.
Gingerly, Elsa took it and inched her way out of the lift. As soon as she’d exited, the doors closed and the capsule retreated back into the floor, the contours of its top disappearing into the swirling patterns of the carpet.
“That’s a hell of a trick,” Elsa said once she’d collected herself.
“You know, I haven’t had anyone new up here in a couple of years who could appreciate it that much. Thanks for reminding me what that looks like. Paris?”
“I’m here,” his assistant’s voice called from everywhere and nowhere.
“Ghost protocol, please.”
“Of course.”
All around them, the once transparent window that separated the floor from the ceiling frosted over as if an impenetrable fog had suddenly fallen over the city.
“Don’t be alarmed,” Tyson said. “This just keeps prying eyes from lipreading while we hold our meeting.”
Elsa nodded. “I understand.”
“Paris, can you join us, please?”
Paris’s familiar shape appeared in the opaque window. “Hello, Dr. Spaulding. It’s good to meet you in, well, person.”
“You two know each other?” Tyson asked.
“She, ah, recruited me for the Teegarden expedition,” Elsa said. “I didn’t know you were an AI.”
“Ah.” Paris fluttered her shoulders and smiled. “Passed another Turing test.”
“Sorry, I meant no offense. We use AI in the lab every day. They’re invaluable. Just not quite so … sophisticated.”
“None taken, Doctor. I’m a special case.”
“That she is,” Tyson said. “Dr. Spaulding, if you would be so good as to give Paris permission to access your files, she’ll be more than capable of throwing together the visuals and cites for your presentation on the fly. Isn’t that right, Paris?”
“I’ll be happy to,” the AI said reassuringly.
“The data sets are pretty dense,” Elsa said uncertainly.
“I’m a quick study.”
“What the hell.” Elsa shrugged. “You’re the ones paying for all of it anyway.” She pulled a small tablet from her purse, thumbed it, then typed an incomprehensibly complex string of characters into the passcode field. Tyson couldn’t have remembered it even if he’d wanted to steal access later.
“That’s your password?” Tyson said. “How can you remember it?”
“It’s just five sets of seven characters. Anyone can do that.” She opened a couple of different fields and keyed a few command prompts. “Okay, Paris. You should
