Beautiful Intelligence (25 page)

But Hound was the master of nexus deletion. They hadn’t called him Goodman for nothing.

With Zeug’s nexus trail blown to the winds, and his dream images camouflaged or – more likely – voluntarily halted, Hound took a different tack. Leonora had spent three percent of her entire cash hoard to create the biograin simulacrum of Zeug, which stood out now like a virtual lighthouse; at least, to those interested in bizarre new computers. It did not matter that local mash kids and nex-hack brats investigated it, tried to penetrate it – the idea was to make it visible to Zeug. Hound set it up in Algiers to be on the safe side though; well away from Annaba.

The idea was that Zeug and fake Zeug never met. Hound would spot Zeug long before that eventuality.

For some days the simulation ran in splendid isolation. A confederacy of local nex-hackers – average age, nine – made a cash offer on the simulation, which they wanted to take apart in order to work out what it was. A hundred kids were in on this deal, according to the message Hound intercepted. It made him feel sick. Childhood was an old fashioned concept it seemed. He rejected the deal and sent the confederacy on a wild goose chase along the virtual Silk Road – far, far away...

Then, circling like a vulture over that part of the nexus representing the desert to the west of Annaba, he spotted something.

At first he did not grasp what the source of the signal was. It was located in the heart of Bejaïa, a coastal city half way between Annaba and Algiers. It was registered as a charity, and yet from its heart the blandest, the most insignificant of breezes blew, along the line of least resistance between it and the fake Zeug.

Hound at first discounted it. The nexus was so vast an environment it contained a trillion tiny currents, representing the myriad of interactions between humans and humans, and humans and computers. This was nothing special.

Yet he found the combination odd: charity building, location near Annaba, line of least resistance. Also, the significance level of the signal was extremely low, much lower than, say, the financial transactions of the charity would be. Even the support comments, hate comments and spam on the charity’s e-boards were more significant. That too-low level suggested a deliberate reduction in importance for the purposes of concealment.

And then there was the nature of the charity. It was the home of a local asylum.

Hound put maximum effort into disguising his appearance. He created a fake hang-gliding club to explain his apparent interest in virtual soaring. He gave himself a new ID, including appearance. He didn’t bother with money accounts however, since he’d only be using his disguise for a timeblip: a hundred seconds, max.

From a Bejaïa home for the elderly he sent a query, using it as a tunnel into the charity records. He discovered that the source of the signal was a new resident.

Had
to be Zeug!

In the real world, he grinned. This looked good.

He spent his final minute soaring over the image of the charity building as represented by the nexus. It was large, dusty, ramshackle, surrounded by farm animals – and some camels, he noted – that the charity employees used to supplement their meagre income.

The charity cared for insane locals, but there was a bit of a storm raging around the recent arrival. According to some of the more intelligible residents, this person was trying to take over the place.

~

They held another tête-à-tête in the mint tea caf. It was quiet, inconspicuous, and only a few hundred metres from the roadside dumpster park in which, disguised as plastics recyclers, they dossed. They took care not to order too much food on any one occasion, in case some smart kid spotted the mismatch between diet and domicile. Plenty of the local teen gangs made their profits on blackmail.

Tsuneko prepared herself for bad news. She was still a little surprised that Leonora had inducted her into the AIteam, and so cultivated a negative attitude to counter the feelings of optimism that threatened to well up. But the news was good.

Hound said, “I’ve done a featherweight scan of the whole charity. It was set up forty years ago by some local do-gooder. Man, not much by way of income, but also not much by way of outgoings. They don’t pay rent f’rinstance.”

“They own the building?”

“Yep. About thirty residents, mostly women. Seems men still believe women are the mad ones. It’s a big building, though. Don’t like that so much.”

“How does that affect us?” Leonora asked.

“We’ll have to go to Bejaïa ourselves. This can’t be done nex style.”

Tsuneko felt her heart sink. She had assumed that Hound would effect some miraculous scam over the nexus. “Why not?” she asked.

“Aritomo. Too risky.”

“He is on to us?” Leonora asked.

“Sheesh, I wouldn’t put it strong as that,” Hound replied. “Let’s say... he’s not off us. He knows we’re somewhere on the North Africa coast. He knows where the trail went dead – not so far east, I regret to say. Still... this whole section of the Med coast is a total mess because of the Euro refugee influx. Don’t worry too much. We can hide in that mess.”

“Which we are.”

Hound nodded. “Which we certainly are. Also, don’t forget – the fake Zeug could be spotted by one of Aritomo’s spy computers. He knows the score. Therefore we go there in person and spring Zeug from the charity building. Man, when the nexus updates – well, that’ll be when Aritomo might get to hear about us. But we’ll be minutes, maybe hours gone. Vanished into the desert like... like...”

“A hatifa,” said Leonora.

“A...?”

“A voice in the Sahara desert,” Leonora said. “A lot of the local computers use that as an identity on which they ply the dunes of the nexus.”

The caf owner walked up to them, pouring mint tea into the pewter autoserve. “Hawatif,” he said, his yellow teeth showing as he grinned. “They seduce unwary traveller. They lie about fortress visible only by moonlight. It is the madness of the desert, mon ami. More vegetable stew? I add apricots.”

“Uh... yep,” Hound said. “Thanks.”

Leonora glanced over her shoulder as the man strolled off. “He is safe?”

Hound nodded. “He checked out. Good guy, actually. Might have to ask him about boats to Bejaïa.”

“Boats?” said Tsuneko.

Hounded nodded. “Speed essential. Man, the desert’s too risky now, unless we wanna shout
here we are!
in big sand-buggy shaped letters.”

~

Hound strolled along the Med coast. Rows of tents seemingly held upright by their own stench stretched as far as he could see. The nexus, being a Japanese invention, struggled with this nonconformist chaos; the world’s many refugee camps were the slowest updated of all nexus objects. Hound loved it for that. He felt safe, invisible, cosseted by random human activity.

Ninety percent of refugee camps lay on coasts, because of the devastation caused to shoreside cities by sea level rise; the world was greenhousing with no apparent end in sight. The Annaba camp was no exception to this rule, the sea littered with plastics, rags, dead boats and shit. Even a few bodies. And it was a magnet for gulls. Gulls were doing especially well out of the concentrated human misery.

He gazed at the tall white hats of local mercantile elite: juveniles all. “Cheap black! Ketamineballs! Coke-on-a-stick!”

An old man in a grey Berber robe and lime green sandals approached him. For a few moments the two men appraised one another.

“You looking for someone, buddy?” Hound grunted, fingering his belt as if for a weapon.

“You travel, monsieur?”

Hound shrugged. “Maybe. West, not far. You splash?”

The old man grinned. “My yacht, s’asperger le visage d’eau.”

“Man, you got a
yacht?
You like working in human sewers, eh?”

The old man shrugged, then grinned and spread his hands wide. “I make the money from the travels, ami. I go anywhere, west, east, even north.”

“Sure you do. Listen... how much for a there-and-back to Bejaïa?”

“Much metal.”

“Metal?” said Hound.

“No cash. No credit.”

“Wasn’t talking about
credit,
” Hound said, adopting a mocking tone of voice.

“For obvious reasons I don’t accept cash, ami. Pardon.”

He turned away, but Hound reached out to grab his arm. “Listen, man. Give me a cash quote for three passengers. You know, just out of curiosity.”

The old man glared at him. “You disrespect me.”

“Do it.”

The old man hesitated, then frowned. “Fifty.”

Hound had known that the man would name a ludicrous price. “Five and you got yourself a deal,” he replied.

The old man stared, and Hound wondered if he had offered too much. If he appeared to the old man as rich and stupid every crim in the neighbourhood would be on to him. “Five, monsieur? A joke.”

“Five,” Hound repeated.

“Ten.”

“
Five.
”

The old man hesitated. Hound suppressed the grin that threatened to break out over his face.

“Oui, monsieur. Five it is then. In cash, up front.”

Hound shook his head. “Two and a half when we get to Bejaïa, two and a half when we get back.”

Now the old man looked angry. “So, you work in la comédie?”

Hound nodded. “I sure do.”

“Very well.” The old man pointed to a headland a kilometre away. “Be there at dawn tomorrow.”

Hound nodded. “And who shall I tell my friends is taking us to Bejaïa?”

“They call me le Diable.”

Hound made a hat-tipping gesture at the old man, a grin on his face. “Very funny, grandad. See you at sun up.”

Hound watched as the old man walked away. When the old man vanished into tent city Hound made off the beach at speed, heading for the sand-covered alleys behind the refugee canteens, where for an hour he hid amongst huge piles of disinfected clothes. There was no sight of the old man, though, nor any cronies. He waited for another couple of hours, in case the old man decided that after all his passengers were rich and stupid – there could be any number of footpads working for the benefit of grandad. As afternoon waned he decided he was safe. The deal, it seemed, was a deal.

Back at the dumpster park he explained the situation. “I got us a ride on a private boat,” he said. “If it’s just the old man tomorrow, we’re safe. If he turns up with hired muscle we won’t risk it.”

“Who is this old man?” Leonora asked.

“Local taxi driver. Man, there’s quite a few ’round this joint. But he seemed okay. I know bad vibes – no-one better.”

Leonora looked unhappy. “He could shoot us, gas us, drown us.”

“He ain’t gonna do any of them things,” Hound replied. “He just wants the money. It may be a refugee camp out there, but its Mecca for crims, which means available money no questions asked. I had to offer him cash, though, ’cos we’re metal light.”

Tsuneko said, “What about all our belongings? Best not to take them to Bejaïa.”

Hound considered. “Could go either way,” he said. “Could be we never come back here. We were heading for Morocco, and that’s still an option.”

“I am not leaving my possessions here,” said Leonora. “The future is unknown.”

Hound nodded. “Let’s assume we’ll be in and around Bejaïa for a while. Then maybe head west with Zeug – I’m talking best case scenario. Either way, we need to take our gear with us. Hey, listen, we’ll dunk our valuables in rubber plas. Standard tourist precaution, yep? Takes a while to open up, so not an easy hit. A crim is a crim – they look for an open window, you know?”

Leonora shrugged. “I am sure you know what you are doing.”

Hound smiled. “When I know anything at all.”

Manfred watched as Pouncey explained what she had done to prepare the suite of three apartments for occupation. Joanna and Dirk stood behind him, peering over his shoulder in the gloomy light – they dared not use lamps, or even candles, for fear of exposing their position to street walkers.

“I built this door to block off the end of the corridor linkin’ the apartments,” she said, gesturing at the contrivance of recovered wood and rust-brown metal. “The three apartments all have functionin’ locks, but this is the extra obstacle at the end, in case any of the bis do a runner.”

Manfred nodded, glancing back. Orange stood a few metres away, watching.

“Lock him in our apartment, Jo,” he said.

Joanna stared. “Him? You called it him.”

Manfred stared back. “Yeah. I did. Um...”

“You believe them to be people now. Orange is a boy, obviously.”

Manfred felt his face go pink. “Well, I guess...” He shrugged.

They waited while Joanna pushed Orange back into the apartment, then shut the door. “It will not be long before they grasp the essentials of handles and keys,” she told Manfred.

“I know,” he muttered.

Pouncey continued. “Aye, a good point. See this black cloth? It hides the lock and key. Same for the apartment doors. I filched keys and stuff from a local store. Whenever you leave or enter, use the cloth to conceal what you do, then at least the bis won’t see a key being used. Should slow ’em down.”

“Dat good idea,” Dirk said, “but not last forever.”

“I know,” Pouncey replied. “Let’s hope you can teach ’em English, eh?”

“Hope so!”

Manfred walked back to the three apartment doors at the end of the suite corridor, all of them shut. Light was almost nonexistent – blacked out windows along the side of the corridor. “What about these locks?” he asked.

“I put new ones in this morning.”

“Locks and
keys?
”

“Would be insane to use e-cards,” Pouncey pointed out. “Nexus trace. Indigo.”

Manfred nodded. “Yeah... clever Indigo.”

Joanna led him into their shared apartment, allowing Dirk to investigate his while Pouncey made final alterations to the end door. Manfred heard hammering. He glanced down at the three warm spectrum bis shuffling around.

“They look bored,” he said.

“To
you
maybe,” Joanna said. She touched him on the arm, gave him a look of concern. “I am worried about us all.”

“Why? ’Cos I called Orange him?”