The Beam: Season One (5 page)

Ten minutes later, a tall man in a white lab coat with dark black hair appeared at the end of a hallway and greeted Doc. Doc rose and shook the man’s bony, clammy hand.

“I’m sorry we’re so chaotic today,” said Killian. “We had a bit of an incident with the protestors, see, and…”
 

“I heard,” said Doc. He thought of adding something about how obnoxious the protestors were to grease the conversational skids, but he’d yet to gauge the man’s political temperature.
 

“Well, it’s led to a bit of a kerfuffle. Anyway, I apologize. Don’t let your first impression get to you! We’re ordinarily very composed and professional around here, and if you’re going to…”
 

Doc laughed good-naturedly. “It’s hardly my first time here.”

Killian stopped and looked at Doc, confused. “Really? I understood I was introducing you to our product line.”
 

Doc shrugged. “Have you gotten new products in lately?”
 

“Oh yes.” Killian’s confused look vanished, something delighted replaced it. “We get new shipments constantly. The pace at which we’re cracking the neural nut, so to speak, is staggering. Once the Series Six nano software patch was developed and we learned that we could up-or-down-regulate CNS neurons, the cortex became our playground. What Einstein said about how we only use ten percent of our brains? Well, that leaves a lot to uncover. I can’t discuss it all yet because it’s preliminary, but let’s just say that what’s becoming possible by the week has us all quite excited.” Killian’s eyes had grown wide. He seemed positively giddy with discovery.
 

“I haven’t seen the Series Six nanos,” said Doc.
 

“Really? How long have you been in this game?”
 

Doc gave his disarming smile. “Long enough.”
 

“Well, they’re hardly new,” said Killian. “But of course, you wouldn’t call them Series Six, would you?” Doc had a moment in which he thought Killian was going to slap his own forehead. “You’d call them Paradigm.”
 

“Oh, of course,” said Doc. But he’d never heard of Paradigm nanos, either.

“Anyway, I don’t mean to imply that it’s all about nanos. The neural mapping field is also very promising, of course,” Killian added, making for a doorway at the end of the hall that Doc had never been through before. He’d thought it was a utility room.

“Of course,” said Doc.
 

They reached the door. Killian bared his arm and allowed a concealed scanner to read his Beam ID, then used his fingers to draw a complicated pattern on a swipe screen near the door. Doc was looking directly at Killian’s hands, but he’d never be able to replicate the pattern. It seemed almost random.

The door beeped and hissed open. “Well, come on in,” said Killian, leading the way.
 

Once inside the room, Doc’s breath evaporated. The lab was stark white, and every surface chattered with Beam activity. Even the floor under Doc’s boots hummed in response. The room was filled with devices Doc had never seen before, arranged on what almost looked like display racks. There were long work benches circling the room’s perimeter. Some of these seemed to be staffed by electronics workers who were peering at tiny devices through magnifiers, but other areas looked like biological wet benches. Doc saw vials of reagents, manual and auto pipettes, and what looked like jars filled with gel.
 

“Most of the actual production is automated,” said Killian, “but for research — at the macro and not nano level, of course — it’s all done by human hands unless it’s too precise or dangerous. Our technicians all have the latest ocular implants. You’ve seen these?” Killian snatched something from a rolling cart and then extended his hand. Two eyeballs stared up at Doc.
 

At first he was repulsed, but Doc couldn’t resist reaching out and taking one of the things between his fingers. It was soft and squishy and slimy, exactly like it looked.
 

“Interior is carbon nanotubes,” said Killian, dropping the remaining eye to the floor and then stomping on it with his shoe. He reached down and retrieved the eye, which was completely unharmed. “Just let Moe try to poke you in the eyes with these suckers,” he said, miming a
Three Stooges
eye-jab. Hardware is all NextGen biologic, grown with synthetic neurons and innately dependent on resident Series Six nanos.”
 

He tossed the other eyeball to Doc, who caught it. Doc looked down, shocked. The best ocular upgrades Nero had shown him were either small sensors implanted at the back of the cornea or full robotic orbs made of glass.
 

“The software is uploaded via BioFi, of course, same as your skills downloads.”
 

“Skills downloads?” He ignored “BioFi,” which seemed to be the less important of the two totally foreign things Killian had said.
 

Killian waved his hand. “Like learning ballet or whatever.”

“Oh,” said Doc, mystified.
 

“And that’s the other thing. This is BioFi version 7.6, which enables zottabytes of data to be transmitted in minutes. We
could
operate at much lower speeds and fidelities for skills transfers, of course,” Killian continued, “but we do still get better fidelity with a hard connection. And I don’t have to tell you what the arrival of 7.6 means for the transfer of meta-neural data.”
 

“You can say that again,” said Doc, feigning a laugh.
 

“It’s just all so exciting to us,” said Killian, still giddy. “And for you too, if you’re to educate your customers. You know about the dislocation paradigm?”
 

“Well…”
 

Killian was so excited, Doc didn’t even have to pull a response from his ass. The scientist rushed to explain: “With an upload, I mean. Where people worry about emergent properties like consciousness, identity, and all of that, because who wants to become just bits in an archive, without being who they were before?”
 

“Not me,” said Doc.
 

“Exactly. But what we’ve done, thanks to the arrival of 7.6 and the speeds it allows (especially when tethered; you don’t have to go wireless), is to create a buffer during the transfer process, allowing neural data to exist not just within the body and not just within The Beam, but effectively in
both
, with sixteen separate redundancies to ensure that…”
 

A bell-like noise cut Killian off. He and Doc turned to look at a rectangular screen that had appeared on the wall to Doc’s right. The screen showed the girl Doc had met at the front desk, still seated. Something had changed in her manner. Before, she had been bubbly and exuberant, but now she seemed somehow bothered.
 

“Um… Mr. Killian?” she said.
 

Killian smiled. “Yes, Vanessa!”

“Um… there’s someone here to see you.”
 

“Well, I’m in with a client now,” he said, then swiped the screen closed. A moment later, it opened again.

“Mr. Killian?”
 

“Yeeeees…”
 

“You really should talk to him.”

“Well, then, Vanessa,” said Killian, annoyed, gesturing toward Doc. “Maybe you’d like to explain to Mr. Greenley why…”
 

But of course, Doc wasn’t Mr. Greenley. He suddenly understood why Killian thought it was his first time here, why the girl thought he’d arrived early rather than late, and why none of what Killian was taking for granted made a molecule of sense to him.
 

“That’s the issue,” said Vanessa, looking side to side nervously. “
The person out here to see you
is Mr. Greenley.”
 

Behind Doc, a magnetic door lock clicked into place, and an armored guard began walking toward him.

Chapter 5

Nicolai sat to the side of the lectern, looking on as a cluster of glass eyes watched Isaac Ryan deliver the speech Nicolai had written for him. The speech was thick with rhetoric, because rhetoric worked. People didn’t want to hear new information. They wanted to hear the same old things over and over, until they began to sound true.
 

Nicolai listened to his words pouring from Isaac’s mouth, annoyed. Annoyed with himself for writing them, and annoyed with the people watching Isaac’s persuasive dark eyes on their tablets, walls, and countertops for believing them. There was nothing in the speech that was literally untrue, of course, but there was nothing in it that was really true, either. The whole thing was bullshit… shades of meaning cobbled together in such a way that, when taken together, appeared to say something.
 

Isaac’s speech explained how the Enterprise — his own party’s opposition — was only concerned with itself. It was and always had been the party of the selfish. Enterprise’s organizers had said, “We will not take care of you,” and people had flocked to their ranks. Those people couldn’t be blamed, said Nicolai’s words on Isaac’s lips. The party attracted gamblers who were happy to trade the security of aid (all expenses paid and credits supplied for living expenses, like in the Directorate) for a shot at greatness. But how many people among the Enterprise ever became great? How many “amazing creative talents” ever earned a more than a handful of credits’ worth of income? But on the other end, how many among the Enterprise starved because their party wouldn’t provide for them when they failed? How many were downtrodden because those in the Enterprise’s upper echelon wouldn’t reach down and help their brothers and sisters to stand?
 

Nicolai listened as Isaac attempted to soothe the Directorate unrest that had culminated in the riot at Natasha Ryan’s concert. Nicolai was particularly proud/ashamed of that bit of spin doctoring. “We forgive and understand those people who were responsible for causing the riot and seek only to help them rise up,” Isaac told the lenses in front of him. It was so perfect/hideous. Forgiving the rabble-rousers showed the Directorate’s compassionate heart.
You can harm us and we will still forgive you
, Isaac’s quote said,
because we are family
.
 

What a bunch of bullshit
, thought Nicolai.
 

But that was true of politics in general, was it not? If Nicolai were an Enterprise speechwriter, he’d be doing the same things as he did for the Directorate, just doling out bullshit of a different flavor. He’d be writing words for Isaac’s brother Micah instead, telling the NAU that the
Directorate
were the greedy ones.
They
were the Robin Hoods who wanted to
 
tax the profits that Enterprise members had worked hard to earn from the sweat of their own brows and wills. Why should the Directorate (many of whom chose to sit around all day without working) benefit from the Enterprise’s intellect and guts?

“There is no perfect system,” Isaac said from the lectern. “There will always be problems, but we cannot draw flame from a match of unsteady premise. We cannot abandon those who are unable to succeed on their own, as the Enterprise does. The Directorate is committed to providing for our members —
for every single one
. You will never starve as a member of the Directorate. As more and more tasks become automated by AI and service robots, you will not truly need to work. We have the best of both worlds. We receive what we need without having to break our backs to get it. When turbulence approaches, always remember who we are and what we have. We cannot riot. Riots make us look like a mob. We are no such thing! We believe in our family, and our family is proud!”
 

None of it was untrue. Directorate members were not required to work. But it was also not really true, because a Directorate living was meager. You got a place to live, you got your services and healthcare taken care of, and you got a stipend for living expenses. But the technology that handled base tasks and made it possible not to work was a double-edged sword, because it gave members things to want. Too many Directorate party members spent their credits on gadgets, then found themselves short on food. So what did they do? They took some of those jobs back in order to earn extra credits. All of their work was based on a fixed income, with few legitimate chances for advancement. Nicolai couldn’t live like that. He was Directorate, but only in the way Isaac was. Both of their “fixed credit allowances,” based on their positions, were so high that it felt unlimited. Isaac had even found a slippery way to reclassify Natasha as Directorate. She was a self-made performer who’d come up Enterprise, but now received an exorbitant salary. The irony was that while her scrappiness had gotten Natasha to where she was, her flat pay rate meant that no matter whether her next album and holoconcerts thrived or flopped, she’d generate exactly the same number of credits.
 

There was something unappealing to Nicolai about guarantees. Risk — the Enterprise’s bread and butter, which the Directorate thought of as gambling — was more exciting. Risk felt like standing on the top of a cliff, feeling your heart beat out of your chest. You might die if you jumped from that cliff, and it was smarter to head over to the wading pool where things were safe. But Nicolai, who’d grown up wealthy, had fled Rome as it burned, trekking through the Wild East with only a pack and a crossbow. He knew the rewards that came from risk. But that had all ended when he’d arrived at the NAU border and met Isaac, and the other bookend had snapped into place. From rich to rich, from safe to safe. Nicolai’s rewarding reckless was lost in the forever between.
 

Still, Nicolai had that seed of adventure and self-determination deep inside him. He wore his black hair too shaggy for a man who could afford follicle-pausing treatments, and wore small, round glasses that had stopped being necessary a hundred years earlier with the advent of Lasik eye surgery. Nicolai could afford eyes that could see through walls, but he wore glasses and instead used his credits for creativity add-ons that were experimental at best and reckless at worst. He had a wetchip in his cortex that scanned his mind when he worked on his books, tried to draw or paint, or touched the keys of his piano. The chip watched the firing patterns that came with creativity, then fired those neurons while tuning down centers that seemed most responsible for internal criticism. “Seemed” was the operative word. Creativity was one of the least understood emergent properties, and tinkering with it was considered pseudoscience at best. Even his dealer, Doc, warned him to proceed slowly lest he do damage that couldn’t be undone, but Nicolai swore that every time he used his creativity chip, he found inspiration more easily. Each time, he got a little bit more out of his own way. Every day, he was inching closer to writing more stories and books… and maybe one day, fewer bullshit political speeches.