The Diamond Age (20 page)

  But the man with the red dreadlocks was a very reluctant witness indeed, and unfortunately the information locked up in his brain was unique. No airborne cine aerostat or microscopic surveillance mite had recorded the data Judge Fang sought. And so the magistrate had decided to revert to the time-honored methods of his venerable predecessors.

  Chang strapped the prisoner (who would only identify himself as a Mr. PhyrePhox) to a heavy X-shaped rack that was normally used for canings. This was purely a humanitarian gesture; it would prevent PhyrePhox from thrashing wildly around the room and injuring himself. Chang also stripped the prisoner from the waist down and situated a bucket under his organs of elimination. In so doing he happened to expose the only actual injury that the prisoner would suffer during this entire procedure: a tiny, neat scab in the base of the spine, where the court physician had thrust in the spinal tap the previous afternoon, and introduced a set of nanosites- nanotechnological parasites- under the supervision of Miss Pao. In the ensuing twelve hours, the 'sites had migrated up and down the prisoner's spinal column, drifting lazily through the cerebrospinal fluid, and situated themselves on whatever afferent nerves they happened to bump up against. These nerves, used by the body to transmit information such as (to name only one example) excruciating pain to the brain, had a distinctive texture and appearance that the 'sites were clever enough to recognize. It is probably superfluous to mention that these 'sites had one other key feature, namely the ability to transmit bogus information along those nerves.

  That tiny scab, just above the buttocks, always drew Judge Fang's attention when he presided over one of these affairs, which fortunately was not more than a few times a year. PhyrePhox, being a natural redhead, had deathly pale skin.

  "Cool!" the prisoner suddenly exclaimed, swiveling his head around in a spray of dreadlocks, trying as best he could to look down and back over his freckled shoulder. "I got this feeling of, like, stroking some, like, really soft fur or something against my left inner thigh. That is so bitching! Do it again, man! Whoa, wait a minute! Now it's the same feeling, but it's like on the sole of my right foot!"

  "The attachment of the nanosites to the nerves is an aleatory process- we never know which nanosite will end up where. The sensations you are experiencing now are a way for us to take inventory, as it were. Of course, nothing is actually happening in your thigh or foot; it all takes place within the spinal column, and you would feel it even if your legs had been amputated."

  "That's really weird," PhyrePhox exclaimed, his pale green eyes going wide with amazement. "So you could even, like, torture a basket case." His eye and cheek twitched on one side. "Damn! Feels like someone's tickling my face now. Hey, cut it out!" A grin came over his face. "Oh, no! I'll tell you everything! Just don't tickle me! Please!"

  Chang was first stunned and then furious at the prisoner's breach of decorum and made a move toward a rack of canes mounted to the wall. Judge Fang steadied his assistant with a firm hand on the shoulder; Chang swallowed his anger and took a deep breath, then bowed apologetically.

  "You know, PhyrePhox," Judge Fang said, "I really appreciate the moments of levity and even childlike wonder that you are injecting into this process. So often when we strap people to the torture rack, they are unpleasantly tense and hardly any fun at all to be around."

  "Hey, man, I'm into new experiences. I get lots of experience points for this, huh?"

  "Experience points?"

  "It's a joke. From swords-and-sorcery ractives. See, the more experience points your character earns, the more power he gets."

  Judge Fang straightened one hand and snapped it backward past his head, making a whooshing sound like a low-flying fighter plane. "The reference escaped me," he explained for the benefit of Chang and Miss Pao, who did not recognize the gesture.

  "Feels like there's something tickling my right eardrum now," the prisoner said, snapping his head back and forth.

  "Good! That means a nanosite happened to attach itself to the nerve running from your eardrum into your brain. We always consider it an omen of good fortune when this happens," Judge Fang said, "as pain impulses delivered into this nerve make a particularly deep impression on the subject. Now, I will ask Miss Pao to suspend this process for a few minutes so that I can have your full attention."

  "Cool," said the prisoner.

  "Let's review what we have so far. You are thirty-seven years old. Almost twenty years ago, you co-founded a CryptNet node in Oakland, California. It was a very early node- number 178. Now, of course, there are tens of thousands of nodes."

  A hint of a smile from the prisoner. "You almost got me there," he said. "No way am I going to tell you how many nodes there are. Of course, no one really knows anyway."

  "Very well," Judge Fang said. He nodded to Chang, who made a mark on a sheet of paper. "We will save that inquiry for the latter phase of the investigation, which will commence in a few minutes.

  "Like all other CryptNet members," Judge Fang continued, "you started out at the first level and made your way up from there, as the years went by, to your current level of- what?"

  PhyrePhox smirked and shook his head knowingly. "I'm sorry, Judge Fang, but we've been through this. I can't deny I started out at level one- I mean, that's, like, obvious- but anything beyond that point is speculation."

  "It's only speculation if you don't tell us," Judge Fang said, controlling a momentary spark of annoyance. "I suspect you of being at least a twenty-fifth-level member."

  PhyrePhox got a serious look on his face and shook his head, jangling the shiny, colorful fragments of glass and metal worked into his dreadlocks. "That is so bogus. You should know that the highest level is ten. Anything beyond that is, like, a myth. Only conspiracy theorists believe in levels beyond ten. CryptNet is just a simple, innocuous tuple-processing collective, man."

  "That is, of course, the party line, which is only believed by complete idiots," Judge Fang said. "In any case, returning to your previous statement, we have established that over the next eight years, Node 178 did a prosperous business- as you said, processing tuples. During this time you worked your way up the hierarchy to the tenth level. Then you claim to have severed your connection with CryptNet and gone into business for yourself, as a mediagrapher. Since then, you have specialized in war zones. Your photo, cine, and sound collages from the battlegrounds of China have won prizes and been accessed by hundreds of thousands of media consumers, though your work is so graphic and disturbing that mainstream acceptance has eluded you."

  "That's your opinion, man."

  Chang stepped forward, visibly clenching the many stout muscles that enwreathed his big, bony, close-cropped head. "You will address the magistrate as Your Honor!" he hissed.

  "Chill out, man," PhyrePhox said. "Jeez, who's torturing whom here?"

  Judge Fang exchanged a look with Chang. Chang, out of sight of the prisoner, licked one index finger and made an imaginary mark in the air: Score one for PhyrePhox.

  "Many of us who are not part of CryptNet find it hard to understand how that organization can survive its extremely high attrition rate. Over and over again, first-level CryptNet novices work their way up the hierarchy to the tenth and supposedly highest level, then drop out and seek other work or simply fade back into the phyles from which they originated."

  PhyrePhox tried to shrug insouciantly but was too effectively restrained to complete the maneuver.

  Judge Fang continued, "This pattern has been widely noted and has led to speculation that CryptNet contains many levels beyond the tenth, and that all of the people pretending to be ex-CryptNet members are, in fact, secretly connected to the old network; secretly in communication with all of the other nodes; secretly working their way up to higher and higher levels within CryptNet even while infiltrating the power structures of other phyles and organizations. That CryptNet is a powerful secret society that has spread its tendrils high into every phyle and corporation in the world."

  "That is so paranoid."

  "Normally we do not concern ourselves with these matters, which may be mere paranoid ravings as you aver. There are those who would claim that the Chinese Coastal Republic, of which I am a servant, is riddled with secret CryptNet members. I myself am skeptical of this. Even if it were true, it would only matter to me if they committed crimes within my jurisdiction."

  And it could scarcely make any difference anyway, Judge Fang added to himself, given that the Coastal Republic is completely riddled with corruption and intrigue under the best of circumstances. The darkest and most powerful conspiracy in the world would be chewed up and spat out by the scheming corporate warlords of the Coastal Republic.

  Judge Fang realized that everyone was looking at him, waiting for him to continue.

  "You were spacing out, Your Honor," PhyrePhox said.

  Judge Fang had been spacing out quite a bit lately, usually while pondering this very subject. Corrupt and incompetent government was hardly a new development in China, and the Master himself had devoted many parts of the
Analects
to advising his followers in how they should comport themselves while working in the service of corrupt lords. "A superior man indeed is Chu Po-yu! When good government prevails in his state, he is to be found in office. When bad government prevails, he can roll his principles up and keep them in his breast." One of the great virtues of Confucianism was its suppleness. Western political thought tended to be rather brittle; as soon as the state became corrupt, everything ceased to make sense. Confucianism always retained its equilibrium, like a cork that could float as well in spring water or raw sewage.

  Nevertheless, Judge Fang had recently been plagued with doubts as to whether his life made any sense at all in the context of the Coastal Republic, a nation almost completely devoid of virtue. If the Coastal Republic had believed in the existence of virtue, it could at least have aspired to hypocrisy.

  He was getting off the track here. The issue was not whether the Coastal Republic was well-governed. The issue was trafficking in babies.

  "Three months ago," Judge Fang said, "you arrived in Shanghai via airship and, after a short stay, proceeded into the interior via a hovercraft on the Yangtze. Your stated mission was to gather material for a mediagraphic documentary concerning a new criminal gang"- here Judge Fang referred to his notes- "called the Fists of Righteous Harmony."

  "It ain't no small-time triad," PhyrePhox said, smiling exultantly. "It's the seeds of a dynastic rebellion, man."

  "I've reviewed the media you transmitted back to the outside world on this subject," Judge Fang said, "and will make my own judgment. The prospects of the Fists are not at issue here."

  PhyrePhox was not at all convinced; he raised his head and opened his mouth to explain to Judge Fang how wrong he was, then thought better of it, shook his head regretfully, and acquiesced.

  "Two days ago," Judge Fang continued, "you returned to Shanghai in a riverboat badly overloaded with several dozen passengers, most of them peasants fleeing from famine and strife in the interior." He was now reading from a Shanghai Harbormaster document detailing the inspection of the boat in question. "I note that several of the passengers were women carrying female infants under three months of age. The vessel was searched for contraband and admitted into the harbor." Judge Fang did not need to point out that this meant practically nothing; such inspectors were notoriously unobservant, especially when in the presence of distractions such as envelopes full of money, fresh cartons of cigarettes, or conspicuously amorous young passengers. But the more corrupt a society was, the more apt its officials were to brandish pathetic internal documents such as this one as if they were holy writ, and Judge Fang was no exception to this rule when it served a higher purpose. "All of the passengers, including the infants, were processed in the usual way, records taken of retinal patterns, fingerprints, etc. I regret to say that my esteemed colleagues in the Harbormaster's Office did not examine these records with their wonted diligence, for if they had, they might have noticed large discrepancies between the biological characteristics of the young women and their alleged daughters, suggesting that none of them were actually related to each other. But perhaps more pressing matters prevented them from noticing this." Judge Fang let the unspoken accusation hang in the air: that the Shanghai authorities were themselves not out of reach of CryptNet influence. PhyrePhox visibly tried to look ingenuous.

  "A day later, during a routine investigation of organized crime activity in the Leased Territories, we placed a surveillance device in an allegedly vacant apartment thought to be used for illegal activities and were startled to hear the sound of many small infants. Constables raided the place immediately and found twenty-four female infants, belonging to the Han racial group, being cared for by eight young peasant women, recently arrived from the countryside. Upon interrogation these women said that they had been recruited for this work by a Han gentleman whose identity has not been established, and who has not been found. The infants were examined. Five of them were on your boat, Mr. PhyrePhox- the biological records match perfectly."

  "If there was a baby-smuggling operation associated with that boat," PhyrePhox said, "I had nothing to do with it."

  "We have interrogated the boat's owner and captain," Judge Fang said, "and he asserts that this voyage was planned and paid for by you, from beginning to end."

  "I had to get back to Shanghai somehow, so I hired the boat. These women wanted to go to Shanghai, so I was cool about letting them come along."

  "Mr. PhyrePhox, before we start torturing you, let me explain to you my state of mind," Judge Fang said, coming close to the prisoner so that they could look each other in the eye. "We have examined these babies closely. It appears that they were well cared for- no malnourishment or signs of abuse. Why, then, should I take such an interest in this case?