Oversight (6 page)

Examining the GeneTrak data with a sector editor reveals a jumble of numbers and letters. Sam admits to himself that he’s out of his depth. Jacob would know if it meant anything. If he was alive.

Sam leans back on the bench and rubs his face with his hands.

“Marilyn,” he asks, “is Tony Roan available?”

“Yes.”

“Please put me through, audio only.”

“Tony? It’s Sam again.”

“Hey, how’re things?”

“Interesting. What time do you get off?”

Tony chuckles. “Five p.m. That’s government work.”

“Must be nice. Are you up for a drink?”

“Well, tonight’s the last night of Earning Man. I was gonna check it out. You want to meet there?”

“Sounds good.”

“Connection closed,” Marilyn says. “Based on speech analysis, the network has determined that your call was unrelated to business. You will be billed at the social rate.”

From May 1 through May 3, the Earning Man Festival transforms the normally staid financial district into a rave. For three days, business in a four-block area is suspended. Lawyers, accountants, and corporate professionals of all stripes shed their inhibitions and revel with abandon. Clothing is optional.

Marilyn voices the required disclaimer: Video logging has been disabled in the area, except by the police. No one wants to be confronted, or perhaps blackmailed, with embarrassing behavior. Still, there are always dozens of noncompliant cameras—the wide eyes of the porn economy looking for skin. It’s a dangerous business, though. Many voyeurs wind up in traction.

Sam pushes his way through the crowd toward the Ferry Building, following Tony’s locator signal. The sidewalk is slick with beer and sangria. Protruding from a doorway, four legs jostle, tangled, pants bunched about the ankles. The rhythm of coin-filled maracas rises above the shouting. Overhead, flags depicting the dollar bill loll from office windows—not the purposeful stare of George Washington, but the Eye of Providence, the pyramid uncapped, beneath the words Annuit Coeptis, “He has favored our undertaking.” Profit proves divine.

Great moments in commerce, in the form of floats, motor slowly along the Embarcadero. Sam waits at the crosswalk, momentarily entranced by the spectacle. A twelve-foot-tall John Paul Getty drifts by. Reincarnated in papier-mâché and chicken wire, he bears a banner that proclaims, “The meek shall inherit the Earth, but not its mineral rights.” The beat cop directing traffic is oblivious.

When Sam reaches the Ferry Building, Marilyn announces that Tony is within twenty feet. Even over his earpiece, she’s barely audible amid the press of people.

Finally, Sam sees Tony dancing with a young woman in face paint. He’s the sort who doesn’t act his age; there’s something about his demeanor that suggests a college professor. He looks like he spends more time sitting than shimmying, but still, he’s got the moves. He’s grinning ear to ear.

A sudden shove knocks Sam to the pavement. All he can see are shoes and bare feet. Someone offers a hand, but Sam’s fists are clenched. He stands on his own.

The jackass responsible is hard to miss: a slam-dancing partier wearing a necktie but no shirt.

“You!” Sam barks. “Calm yourself down.”

The man replies with the finger. In answer, Sam grabs it and pulls down, as if playing the slots.

Wrist bending backward, the reveler howls and drops to his knees to keep the bone from breaking.

One of the man’s friends lunges. An amateur blow.

Sam counters with a jab to the throat. The man gasps and buckles.

Freed, the shirtless man grabs Sam around the knees. Fist meets face, but Sam can’t shake the tackle. He loses his balance. A foot slams into his back. Bystanders join the brawl. The fight spreads like a brush fire.

Sam is back on his feet when he hears the crack of stun batons. There’s a cut on his face. His back aches. But he’s pretty sure he gave more than he took. Somehow that’s important.

Someone grabs him. He pivots and swings.

Tony has the good sense to duck. “It’s me, Sam. Let’s go.”

Winded, Sam nods and follows. They weave northward through the crowd, finally emerging in a makeshift market that doubles as a first-aid station.

“You should have someone look at that cut,” Tony says.

Sam rolls his head backward and forward to test for injury, then shrugs. “I’m okay.”

“What happened back there?”

“Who knows,” Sam says, unwilling to admit to having lost it. “Where’s that girl you were with?”

“Dunno. Didn’t get her name.”

A police cruiser is hovering over the Ferry Building, lights blazing down.

Sam gestures at a nearby drink vendor. Tony follows. Beer acquired, the two wander up the Embarcadero toward the festival’s edge. A few blocks ahead, steep sunlight finds the end of downtown’s shadow.

“So who was it who got killed in the headlands?” Tony asks.

“That’s the question, isn’t it?” Sam sighs. “A doctor by the name of Xian Mako. I don’t know much more than that, except that someone has gone to a lot of trouble to hide his tracks. You remember Luis Cisco?”

“Sure.”

“He brings me in and then tells me to bury the case after my name’s on it.”

Tony shakes his head in disapproval.

“And I would. But, well, now Jacob’s dead.”

“Jacob Gaur?” Tony stops. “I just spoke to him yesterday about his dog. He gave me—”

“He was shot last night. I’m still waiting for the forensics, but I’m not hopeful. It looks like a professional hit.”

“Jesus, I’m sorry, Sam. Is there anything I can do?”

Across the street, Sam catches a glimpse of a familiar face. It takes a moment before he can place him. The sharply dressed man from Aquamarine. Then he’s lost in the crowd.

“Sam?”

“Sorry, Tony. Yeah, there is.” Sam pulls a memory card from his pocket and hands it to Tony. “There are a few files here for low-level analysis. The metadata has been messed with. Not erased, but overwritten with garbage. I think there’s more than meets the eye. But I don’t have the chops to check.”

“Analyze how? Like who altered the files?”

“I doubt there’s a name in there,” Sam says. He looks for the sharply dressed man again, but the crowd has devoured him. “Maybe we can ID the specific virus that did the erasing.”

“You’re thinking of Dmitri?”

“Unless you know someone else with root access to the network. I’d give it a shot myself, but I only know basic scripting. And I don’t have a coding license.”

Tony crosses his arms. “You know I can’t send him stuff, not over the network. Everyone with his level of access is monitored night and day. And he’s not an easy guy to see.”

“That’s why you win a free trip to Redmond,” Sam says, smiling. He knows it’s a lot of ask, but Tony’s a good friend.

“What are you getting me into, Sam?”

“That air taxi right there. You’ll be back before midnight.”

Incredulous, Tony stares at Sam. Finally, he relents and laughs. “You’re pushing your luck. If it wasn’t for Jacob…”

“Ha! You love being back in the game.” Sam hugs him. “Ping me if you need remote backup.”

Home again in Maerskton, Sam collapses on the sofa. The metal walls of his conto are still warm from the sun. At the far end of the container, his bed is unmade. An empty Shock Juice can sits on its side near the trash bin, a testament to his failings as a basketball player. Not that he had a shot at the pros anyway; sports stars are engineered in the first trimester and honed to perfection from the day of their birth.

After a few minutes of doing nothing, Sam checks his messages on his tablet. Jacob’s autopsy report has arrived. He delays, futzing with his preference settings, arranging his files. He knows he has to read the report eventually. Finally, curiosity gets the better of him.

The details are slight. A bullet with no radio signature to the back of the head. A second in the heart postmortem. Likely he was on his knees. No forensic evidence of note. The marks of a pro. Amateurs use guns because energy weapons are expensive; pros use them for the visual and visceral feedback.

There’s a picture of Jacob dead on the floor. Sam looks away. He instructs Marilyn to stream the news onto the wall screen.

Like most people, Sam subscribes to a news bundle rather than face the tyranny of choice imposed by several thousand channels. There are two, Entertainment Tonight and News Tonight. The stories vary depending on one’s shopping profile. Savvy consumers of news know it’s possible to pick and choose from the two content providers’ allegedly limitless offerings for a fee, but only in return for submitting to the occasional marketing interrogation. Lying during questioning, like everything else, is illegal.

Sam scans the top headlines: “New Beatles Album Breaks Sales Records,” “Terrorists Disrupt Shopping in New York,” “President Promises Victory in War on Evil,” “Biomedical Companies Come to the Rescue in Brazil,” “Somalian Gravedigger Shortage Brightens African Employment Outlook,” “Medical Stocks Up on Global Disease Report,” “Senator: Patriotism Measured by Income,” “Liquor Industry Insurgents Capture Riyadh,” “Arms Merchants Criticize Mideast Ceasefire.”

Still feeling wounded by Luis’ jibe about ignorance, Sam asks to see the story about Brazil.

Lights dim and a glorious sunrise appears on the wall screen, followed by a montage of empty white-sand beaches, roadways without traffic, and Rio de Janeiro minus its thirty million residents. A seductive voiceover whispers, “Rio. Its virgin shores await. This May, take advantage of the local health crisis and get some of the best deals ever…”

Sam sits forward and interrupts. “Marilyn, cease streaming. Why the sponsored version?”

The lights rise. “I’m sorry, Sam. Please be more specific”

“Come on, you can parse better than that.”

Marilyn answers haltingly, slowed by self-diagnostics. “My parsing routine is functioning as per specifications.”

“Why are you displaying the sponsored version?”

“Please be more specific.”

“Stop with this passive-aggressive crap!” Sam shouts.

“Please attenuate your voice. Exceeding normal input levels results in distortion, which hinders speech recognition.”

“Just tell me why you chose the sponsored version over the pay-per-view report.”

“You choose free programming 83 percent of the time,” Marilyn says, sounding disappointed.

Chastened, Sam says nothing for a moment. Then, “What else?”

“The Homeland Defense Office rates this story ‘Depressing.’”

“I can take it, Marilyn.”

“Your serotonin level suggests that you’re feeling down.”

Falling back into the sofa, Sam rakes his fingers over his scalp. “Override health criteria and show me the damn clip. The other one.”

Another voice speaks. A woman’s voice, but not Marilyn. “Mr. Crane. Your Network Services agent has just suspended your health monitoring routine. While this program is inactive, you will be ineligible for medical coverage. This serves as notice as required by the Insurer Protection Act.”

“I’ll make sure not to choke on a pretzel or anything.”

The room goes dark again. Rio appears, shrouded in haze. People step gingerly through streets choked with sewage. The beaches are jammed with sunbathers wearing UV suits and dark glasses; the city’s tourist board typically pays to have the crowd thinned in post-production. The camera closes in on a doctor’s reflection in a red eye. Then pulls back to reveal a hospital ward filled to capacity. The voiceover begins.

“Half a billion of the world’s nine billion people are visually impaired or blind. Up to three-quarters of global blindness is treatable but for political will and funding. Here in Rio de Janeiro, things are looking brighter. While an insect-borne outbreak of the disease the media has dubbed “the blind plague” continues to ravage the city, a consortium of global biomedical companies has stepped in to provide relief.

“Doctors from the United States and Japan have been working around the clock to give the blind sight, using eyeballs grown in the lab. The result is miraculous.”

A boy smiling, touching his face, seeing again. His doctor addresses the camera. The subtitle says, “Doctor Eva Seal, Duke University Pediatric Center.”

Dr. Seal speaks quickly. “It’s exciting to be able to deliver cutting-edge healthcare to such an underserved population. Eye surgery on this scale was unthinkable a few years ago. But using a Cherry Picker, it’s like changing a light bulb.”

A wary patient is being fitted with a massive cube-shaped helmet. The voiceover resumes. “The Cherry Picker is a remarkable telesurgery module developed by Automated Science, under license from the United Farm Workers Union. As its name suggests, the machine is derived from fruit-processing technology. Operated either by local or remote technicians, the device can perform eye transplantation in ten minutes. The hardest part for the patients is the twelve-hour wait before sight begins to return.”

The segment ends and the lights brighten. Among the credits: “Produced by Content Corp with a grant from Automated Science.” A screen menu appears, offering a chance to buy stock in Automated Science.

“Buy a thousand shares of Automated Science stock now, and receive the option to purchase ten shares at today’s price in six months,” Marilyn effuses. “What’s more, if you act today, we’ll add you to our insider mailing list. Be the first to know about important company information. But act quickly—this offer is too good to last.”

Too tired to be skeptical, Sam is tempted. “Marilyn, read me the titles of a few recent press releases,” he says half-heartedly.

“’Automated Science Names Werner Shetland Chief Fabrications Officer.’ ‘New England Journal of Medicine Shows 63 Percent Increase in Management Retention Among Corporate Officers Treated with Jenuflect.’ ‘Automated Science Announces Licensing Deal with Biopt Corporation.’ ‘Automated Science Donates $100 Million to the American Bar Association for Favorable Consideration—’”

Sam sits up. “Marilyn, stop. What was the third one?”

“’Automated Science Announces Licensing Deal with Biopt Corporation.’”

That’s the company Ernesto mentioned. “Tell me about Biopt.”