The Unincorporated Man (23 page)

“Who knows and how much?” she pushed.

“All the major media outlets, and therefore, by extension, the world.”

“Mosh, do they have Justin’s last name yet?”

“No, and if you know it don’t say it now. Has a stewardess come up to you yet?”

“Yes.”

“Let me speak to her.” Neela held her hand, pinkie and thumb extended, out to the stewardess, who touched her own hand to Neela’s, thereby “transferring” the call. The stewardess then brought her thumb and pinkie to her own ear and mouth.

“Yes, sir.” The stewardess paused. “I understand, sir.” After a moment she said, “Thank you, sir. He wants to talk to you.” The stewardess held out her hand and Neela took back the call in the same manner she had given it out, under Justin’s curious gaze.

“Neela,” said Mosh, “the exit is covered with bots and reporters. You won’t move a meter without being mobbed.”

“I suppose,” suggested Neela, “we could stay here for the flight back to Florence.”

“Way ahead of you, but the media already rented out all available seats on that flight, so I’ve taken the liberty of renting a luxury pod that’s being added onto your own. The nice stewardess will take you to it once it’s attached. You’ll take it back to Florence, stay in the pod, then head back to Boulder. You’ll be met at the gate by a security detachment. Dr. Wang and Gilbert will be waiting there as well. Ask them some personal questions to make sure it’s not a reporter who’s made a face change.”

“Something tells me you’ve done this before, Mosh.”

“Long story that I’ll probably never tell you. Any other questions?”

Justin coughed. “I take it that I should brush up on my press conference techniques now?”

Neela, much to her surprise, laughed, and then mouthed the word no.

“Neela,” said Mosh, “I’ve gotta go. Someone talked, and I need to plug that leak.”

“It was probably Hektor,” Neela said, without any hesitation.

“Neela, convenient as you may find it, not everything that goes wrong is Hektor’s fault.”

She ended the conversation with a quick flick of the wrist and gave Justin a shrug.

“Might as well make yourself comfortable. Looks like it’s going to be quite a ride.”

“As if it hasn’t been already,” he countered.

They both slumped back down into their respective seats, realizing that their short little joyride was about to get a whole lot longer.

Hektor was sitting alone in his tiny rented office in Boulder, pleased with the day’s work. He’d alerted the media…
all
the media. He’d exposed pretty much everything there was to expose: the basic story, Justin’s miraculous reanimation, GCI’s involvement, and even Hektor’s own unsuccessful attempt to have Justin incorporated. Yep, he’d blown the lid sky-high off what was supposed to remain a “quiet” operation. More to the point, he’d blown the lid sky-high off what
he’d
been told to keep quiet. And even though he’d probably dug himself a grave a mole couldn’t get out of, he was truly pleased. Because, for the first time in his life, Hektor Sambianco was using his natural and learned abilities completely for his own ends, however veiled they might be. He’d disgraced himself and his company, he’d probably ruined an ancient man’s life, which even he had to admit may have been uncalled for, and he’d done it solely out of self-preservation. But none of that mattered now. He was freer than he’d ever felt. He wasn’t kissing anyone’s ass, because he no longer had to. In fact, if by some miracle a god were to appear from the heavens and offer him a chance to take it all back—to make everything the way it was before Boulder happened, before Justin happened—Hektor would have said no.

“Hektor,” his DijAssist chirped, “you have a call coming in from the DepDir.”

“Thank you, iago—put him through.” Hektor put his briefcase on his desk, opened it up, and activated the screen inside.

“Your avatar is your secretary, Sambianco?” the DepDir asked, clearly enjoying the moment. “Isn’t that a little embarrassing?”

“Gosh, Kirk,” Hektor answered, knowing how much the DepDir hated being called by his first name, “when you reassigned me, somehow my privileges got revoked. An oversight, I’m sure.”

“I’m sure. I’ll look into it.”

“But not to worry, Kirk, I’ve been keeping busy. A secretary would just have gotten in the way.”

“Yes, Hektor. I can see you’ve been busy.”

“Anything else… Kirk? I’ve got a full slate today.”

“Yes, actually. One thing.”

“Yes?” Hektor’s lips curved upward slightly, in anticipation of what he knew was about to come.

“Have you gone Alaskan, Sambianco?!”

Now it was Hektor’s turn to enjoy the moment. “Me, sir? No, sir.”

“Then what the devil do you think you’re doing?”

“Why, my job, Kirk.”

“Your job was to keep a lid on this till we could find someone to replace you!”

“Ahh, right. ‘Replace me.’ So you mean I
wasn’t
supposed to inform all the major networks and news bureaus about Justin?”

The DepDir didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. The look he was giving Hektor more than sufficed.

Hektor was unruffled.

“Oh, by the way, Kirk, how is it going?”

“How is
what
going!?” If the DepDir could have reached through the screen and strangled Hektor his expression left little doubt that he would have.

“Finding a replacement? For me, that is. Any volunteers? Wait, don’t tell me, no one wants my job. I have to admit, this assignment is a real career-buster. Oh, wait, my career’s already busted, how convenient for me.”

“I should have had you transferred to the Oort Cloud, Sambianco,” the DepDir snarled. “You should be testing environmental suits on Mercury. But don’t you worry. I’ll make sure you will.”

“Kirk, aren’t you forgetting something? I don’t work for you anymore. You transferred me from your staff to the independent assignment with the board. I’m
their
problem now. I suggest you sit back, relax, and enjoy the show. It won’t affect you too badly either way. You’re the ‘brilliant’ executive who got rid of me before I could really damage your career. Or, at least, that’s how I suggest you play it out.”

The DepDir was about to launch into another tirade when he started to laugh.

“You’re too smart for your own good, you realize that, don’t you?”

“Yes sir, I do. But I’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain.”

The DepDir paused for a moment. Now it was his turn to crack a smile, though it seemed far more malicious than Hektor’s. “You’d better win, Sambianco.”

“I know” was all Hektor could muster.

The DepDir cut off the connection. Hektor closed his briefcase, got up from behind his desk, and was about to head out of the office when iago interrupted him again.

“Busy, busy iago.” Hektor chuckled. “Quite a life I’m leading, eh?”

“Humor’s never been a strong point with you, sir; however, if you want, I can laugh.”

“Don’t bother, iago, just tell me who it is.”

“It’s Irma.”

Hektor couldn’t help but smile again. Perhaps it was his lucky day.

“Transfer to handphone.” Hektor lifted his thumb to his ear. “Irma, to what do I owe the pleasure? Are you in Boulder?”

“You son of a bitch. You had to make me work, eh?”

“Irma, I haven’t the foggiest idea what you’re talking about.”

“You know very well what I’m talking about. You could have told me his last name.”

“Oh, that,” Hektor said, smiling.
What on Earth is she going on about?
“I gave you enough information to work with, Irma. You know the rules.”

“I suppose I do. Look, any tidbits you have would be great for the story. Have you spoken with him yet?”

“Who?”

“What do you mean, ‘who?’ Justin Cord. Who else?”

Hektor hesitated, trying both to absorb the shock of what he’d just heard and to hide it. That was all Irma needed to realize she’d just made a rookie mistake. Hektor told no more than the beginning of a lie before Irma interrupted.

“Oh, shit, you didn’t know, did you?”

No use lying now
. Hektor shrugged and smiled. “Well, I do now.”

“How could you not know with all the resources of GCI?”

“The truth is, Irma, I am not in the best of positions with GCI right now. But this little tidbit will certainly be of use in rectifying that situation.” Irma started to ask him not to divulge the information but suddenly stopped, snarled, and cut the connection.

“Iago,” Hektor commanded, “get me all the information you can on Justin Cord, then set up calls with all the news services and the board. I think I just found out how to make this hot story absolutely too hot to handle. Oh, I’m also going to need some convincing statistics to show that I am on the trail of whoever it was that screwed me over by paying the ten million credits.”

“But Hektor, you are not on the trail. You stated it would take ten years and millions of credits to discover the true identity of the person or persons responsible.”

“Job security, iago. Just do it.”

“As you wish, Hektor.”

It took Irma a precious thirty seconds to stop ranting until she was calm enough to explain her blunder. “Goddamned rookie mistake. I may as well have graduated from Harvard.”

“Enough,” said Michael. “We have to get the story out, and now we won’t be going after it alone.” They took a few seconds to consider their options.

They were still at the Boulder orport in a privacy suite. The team had already rented temporary offices, and then rented larger ones once they discovered their subject’s last name. Given the media circus that was about to deluge Boulder, effective and private workspaces would be worth Fortune and Fortunate 500 stock. Irma and her team would trade space for information to pay back past favors or get future ones. But as they weren’t sure where they were going, they decided for now to stay at the orport. The privacy suites were simple rooms with desks, chairs, and couches in the amounts requested, and were a secure location in which to conduct business. In an age as advanced and intrusive as this one, privacy suites were one of the strategies society had developed to cope. They were prevalent in orports, hospitals, hotels, resorts, and any other location a traveler might feel the need to conduct business.

“All right,” Irma said, once the team had dumped their baggage, “someone give me some good news.”

“Irma,” answered Michael, “I think you may be in luck. Do you remember that piece we did on tunnel rats about two years ago?”

Irma nodded. “That was the last time we were all in Boulder. If I’m not mistaken, we played the angle of a few brave men pushing too hard for majority. What about it?”

“Well, I did some checking,” continued Michael, “and it turns out we know one of the people who appeared in the images of Saundra’s little mediabot.” Michael brought up the holo-image he was referring to. Standing before them in three-dimensional glory was an unkempt, rough-looking man with a shit-eating grin.

“Hey, we
do
know that guy,” said Saundra. “Looks like he just got majority.”

Michael laughed. “Nice guess. In fact he
did
just get majority. He goes by the name of Omad, and he was one of the tunnel rats we interviewed two years ago. Anyone care to guess how he got his majority?”

No one answered.

He sighed the sigh of a man who had no takers for a game of twenty questions.

“He got it trading in credits for an all-expense-paid, first-class lunar vacation.”

Enrique whistled. “Must’ve been a nice chunk of change.”

“It’s 150,000 credits to be exact,” confirmed Michael.

“What could he have found to earn tha…?” Irma shut up as she realized exactly what he’d found.

“Do we have him?” she asked.

Michael flashed a huge am-I-a-god-or-what? smile.

Irma matched his grin with her own. “When do you meet him?”

“Half hour in a little pub called the Oasis Brewery.”

“Yeah, I know the one,” added Enrique. “It’s on Canyon Boulevard. Been going for centuries.”

Irma was pleased. The pieces were finally starting to fall into place. “I’m going to the Boulder offices to coordinate and get us the funding we’ll need to follow through on all of this. Saundra, I’m going to need you to go to Florence and try to eyeball this guy.”

“Why does she get to go?” protested Enrique.

“Quit your whining,” Saundra said, lost in the information now streaming across her DijAssist. “No can do, anyhow, Irma. Dr. Harper and Mr. Cord are leaving Florence as we speak. The good doctor just made conventional reservations back to Boulder with a stopover in New York.”

“Then go to New York, Boulder, the Oort Cloud if you have to, just get on his tail and stay there. Enrique, you’re with me at headquarters. Crack that ten million, or better yet, see if our mystery payout man—or woman—has money that we can trace. The sooner we get to his account the sooner we know where he is, what he’s buying, and who he’s buying it from. We could make expenses just selling that to the celebrity sites.” She turned to Michael.

“This tunnel rat is the one lead we have that I haven’t stupidly given away. Exploit it for all it’s worth. Spend whatever, go wherever. I’m releasing the story in one hour, which gives you a little less than twenty minutes of talk time with him before you get back to me.”

“Is that wise?” asked Enrique.

“No, it’s not, but we don’t have a choice. We have to assume that Hektor is releasing the story to all and sundry even as we speak, and that it will take the other newsgroups—the ones that bite—at least an hour to confirm that this is not a hoax, or at least real enough to run with.”

“Why wouldn’t they all bite?” asked Enrique.

“More like, why would they?” answered Irma. “Don’t forget who the source is. One Hektor Sambianco, recently discredited GCI big shot, whose stock is in the dump. Couple that with the fact that it’s so close to Mardi Gras and might therefore be a GCI entertainment scam. Which all adds up to buying us more time. My one-hour mark is for the one or two smart editors who won’t file the story away for tomorrow’s bylines, and will instead do some preliminary research immediately.”

“You really think an hour is all they need?” finished Enrique.

“Give or take, but yes, I do. Don’t forget, in this business an hour could mean the difference between a Pulitzer and a pink slip. We have to be first out the gate and just hope we can stay ahead of the pack. Any questions?” Irma waited and saw there were none.

“Go.”

And with that simple word, what had started out as a human-interest story emanating from tiny Boulder, Colorado, was well on the way to becoming a sociological avalanche soon to shake the foundations of their entire world.

“Mosh, what happened?”

Neela was calling from the docked t.o.p. now effectively besieged by the wall of reporters and mediabots floating around access tube 37. The air was so thick with them that they were actually bumping into each other. The din of reporters shouting commentary into their live feeds accompanied the maelstrom. From the floor of the standing-room-only terminal, it looked like a swarm of angry bees attacking their own nest. The Boulder orport was effectively shut down.

A weary Mosh endeavored to answer via holodisplay. “At New York they knew a man had been awakened from a long cryogenic sleep.” He smiled at Justin, who at this point was standing next to Neela. “While you were in flight
The Terran Daily News
broke the story that our Justin was… are you ready for this?” Mosh didn’t wait for Neela to answer. “Justin Cord.” Mosh also saw that divulgence of Justin’s last name elicited no response either from his young internist or from her distinguished “guest.”

“You knew?” he asked, almost sighing.

Neela nodded.

“Well,” continued Mosh, “I would have liked to have found out in some other way than Eleanor handing me a hard copy of
The Terran Daily
.”

“How did
they
find out?” asked Neela.

“Blame Hektor,” interjected Justin. “He seems to be a convenient reason for anything that makes my life more difficult.”

“Only half correct,” answered Mosh. “From what I’ve ascertained, he was the source for some of the media companies, but maybe not all of them.”

“Bullshit,” Neela muttered. “He probably called them all up and gave them pictures, past and present.”

“Neela,” answered Mosh, “whatever Hektor’s up to is not important now. Wait for someone from the clinic to get to you. We’ll figure it out once you and Justin are safely back home. Do not leave that t.o.p. until you can do it without getting mobbed. Do you understand?”

Neela nodded, and Mosh disconnected.

She paced back and forth within the confines of the t.o.p., trying desperately to get her thoughts in order. She stopped and stared at Justin.

“I’m sorry,” she said, locking her eyes onto his. “I’m so wrapped up in everything that’s happening I’m forgetting about my job—which is you. How are you doing?”

“Neela, how are
you
doing?” he shot back.

Neela smiled sadly. “Thank you for asking; most clients don’t.”

“First of all,” continued Justin, “I’m not ‘most clients.’ Second of all, in case you’ve forgotten your history, I’m familiar with a media circus. Not on this level, of course, but I have been under the siege of the spotlight more times than I can possibly count. So do me a favor, don’t worry so much about me. I can handle it.”

“I’ll be fine,” she answered. “I’d hoped that the media circus thing was going to be the last part of a long and gradual process, and somehow it ended up being the first. Damsah, it’s only your first day, and it’s not even over.” She took Justin’s hand and clasped it between both of hers. “You’re Justin Cord, the Unincorporated Man, and you have no idea what that means.” She motioned her arm to indicate the outside world. “And neither, I’m afraid, do they.”

“And you do?” he asked, earnestly.

“I’m good at my job, Justin,” she answered, releasing her grasp, lest he read too much into it. “For the most part we’re trained to integrate the reanimated individual back into society. But the toughest part of this job, I suspect, will be integrating society to you.”

Justin hadn’t been “alive” long enough to think about what effect he’d have on the world other than possible future contributions. He’d spent the better part of his few hours on Earth trying to gain some semblance of order within his universe. Neela’s comment only made him realize how complicated his new life might turn out to be. He’d always assumed that if his crazy scheme actually worked, his life would be easier—glories of the new world and all. But he was now beginning to realize that it might actually be harder—much harder. Still, he thought, it could always have been worse.

“Well,” he said, “I know I haven’t been awake very long, but at least so far, from what I’ve seen and understand, I rather like this society. Despite one or two quirks, it’s exactly what I was hoping for when I was frozen.”

Now Justin took Neela’s hand in his. She seemed surprised. He sensed she wanted to pull back but didn’t.

“You
are
doing a great job,” he said. “I feel better being in this new world just having you around, and isn’t that what a good reanimation specialist is supposed to do?”

Justin inched his face forward. She quickly put her thumb on his forehead. It was a strange action to take, but it stopped him in his tracks.

“Justin, I really need to explain something to you… .”

“You don’t, Neela,” he said, interrupting. “For all I know you have a boyfriend or even”—a lascivious smile made an impromptu appearance across his face—“a girlfriend.”

“I do
not
have a girlfriend,” she answered, swatting his shoulder, “so you can get that image out of your mind.”

“Which gets us back to the boyfriend,” he replied.

“No boyfriend, either.”

At the realization of her availability, his smile continued to brighten.

“And you can get
that
image out of your mind as well. Look, Justin, it won’t happen. Not now. Not ever… even… even if I wanted it to.”

An admission?
he wondered.

“It?”

“It,” answered Neela. “In your era, wasn’t it illegal for a patient and doctor to be intimate?”

Justin scratched his chin, considering the question. “Well, it was frowned upon, but it happened a lot—still it
was
illegal under certain circumstances. Are you saying it’s actually illegal to consider such a relationship?”

Neela was relieved by Justin’s changed body language. He had gone from being aroused to inquisitive. Inquisitive she could deal with. “
Very
illegal, and also
highly
immoral,” she answered. “Actually, you’d be better off not thinking about it like a doctor-patient relationship. I misspoke.”

“Then how?” he asked—more wounded than curious.

Neela looked up while trying to find an appropriate analogy. It didn’t take long. “How would you have felt,” she said, now refocused on Justin, “about a priest sleeping with a teenaged member of his or her congregation?”

Justin’s face went blank at the implication. “You’re shitting me, right? That bad?”

Neela nodded solemnly. “While I’m not familiar with the expression, I can assume its meaning. So the answer is, no. I am not ‘shitting’ you. In fact, I may be understating it.”

“
Understating
?” he gasped. “Perhaps it’s
you
who doesn’t understand.” In the recesses of his mind he fervently hoped so.

Neela shook her head. “When revival first became an option for those who’d made up the second generation of revives…”

“Second generation?”

“Yes, Justin, there were no survivors from the first generation—none, that is, until you.” She paused and looked at him anew. Coming to terms with his uniqueness was like standing in the surf and being pummeled by a series of waves. Each wave had different implications, shifted her ever so slightly, and reawakened her awe.

She continued, “I suppose if no one survived it’s silly to call them the first generation, but they were at least prescient enough to have themselves suspended, even if with outdated technology. Circumstance, as I explained to you earlier, was their undoing. It was the second generation, post–Grand Collapse, that was responsible for the harshness of the doctrine we live by today.”

“What happened?” he asked.

“A lot,” she answered. “To be fair, no one really knew how fragile the mind of a revive was… how susceptible to suggestion they truly were. I could recount the sordid tales of abuse and deception that served to rob this second generation of any and all worldly possessions, much less their sense of self-worth and dignity, but I’ll leave you with a far more effective argument—70.”

Justin shrugged.

Neela frowned. “That’s the actual percentage of those who either committed suicide shortly after revival or attempted it.”

She waited for the enormity of the number to sink into Justin’s psyche. When she was satisfied that it had, she continued. “Don’t forget, suspension as a life extension option was begun by a fringe element of society. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it never gained acceptance in your era, and had barely gained acceptance in ours—that is, until it was actually proven viable.”

He nodded in agreement.

“There was no system in place,” she continued, “no ‘soft pillow’ to land on for this second generation of revives. No data with which to base treatment. It was a ‘good morning and welcome to the world’ sort of affair and then an ‘oh by the way, all your family and friends are dead—here’s a little starter money, good luck.’ ”

“Not much of an acclimation process,” said Justin.

Neela nodded. “Now you see why I was so upset that your integration has gone so bloody wrong. I keep waiting for you to fling yourself off a building or be hit by a wave of interminable depression, but you seem strangely immune—of course, it’s only been a day.”

“Like you said, Neela,” he said, half joking, “it’s still early. I could jump off a building or whatever it is you people do to off yourselves these days.”

Neela shot him a worried look.

“Don’t worry, dear,” he said, laughing. “I assure you I plan on staying around for a while. But at least I now have an inkling of why the ‘no date’ doctrine is so entrenched.” And then, gazing deep into her eyes, he said, “Pity.”

Pity indeed
, thought Neela, suppressing her heart for the sanctity of her soul. She’d never once felt anything for any of her revives. That is, not until now. She told herself that it must be his uniqueness. But something more was stirring—perhaps intellectual, perhaps admiration. She’d sort through it later once things settled down.