You're listening to the new Mutual Audio Network. Welcome home. The following audio drama is rated PG for parental guidance recommended. Welcome back to the Sonic Society for episode 830. I'm David Alt and Jack Ward is at his son's wedding this weekend. He'll fly back to see if we can get the old girl off the ground and back into the audioverse skies, speaking of which another episode of the fourth Ambit Specters is loaded and we can trickle
her into the heart of the tortoise. So far nothing has started her but where there's life there's hope and it all begins right here on the Sonic Society. My name is Giles. I never even knew what a tracker was. I certainly never wanted to be on the track. But then I started finding things out. I need to tell you about the second Ambit and the third and the fourth. There is a fourth Ambit and you need to start thinking about it. It's thinking about you.
The fourth Ambit. Episode 4 Specters. This will be my fourth entry. I'm sorry. I think the wardens are doing something. I don't know what. I don't feel right. The problem with incarceration or with any digital suspension, extension or immersion is that you have no way of checking yourself. I haven't had contact with my body and I don't know how long. Apart from not knowing how much your cognition is being directed from the outside, was that
dream last night really mine? Am I really reminiscing about my time with Krebs or is someone searching for something in my neural net? Apart from all that, you get at least I get feeling like I'm a drift. I think a mind needs a body. You work independent of it too long and you lose yourself. Or at least you doubt yourself. Now for instance, is this headache I have real or is it something being imposed upon me by the gear that keeps me
here? Is it a machine driven phenomenon or is it truly coming from my body? Avoid incarceration if you can. Entry number four. Where to begin? In my own estimation, I don't think I had ever done anything immoral. I did lots of illegal things but that certainly didn't make them immoral, especially considering the source of our laws. The interests advocated by the corporate model can hardly be said to shape law in a moral or just direction. But I didn't
think of myself as a paragon of moral action either. No, I was a moral. Morals didn't enter into it. They were irrelevant to my work or my life. Until fascia gave me their last assignment. Hello guys, solzer. Well this is your lucky day. Vazou one down. How would you like to be free from fascia? What do you mean? I mean, I'm about to give you an assignment which will free you from your obligation. We'll give you 15,000 CS credits and you can just walk away.
You want me to assassinate the Pope? No, not exactly. Look here. This is Jerry Rowland. He was a tracker for fascia before you came in. Good too. But he left fascia under some unusual circumstances. We had him doing some boundary work at the event horizon in the Ambit and at the CW in the second Ambit. Well one day he was showing one of our other people, a sector of the CW and he just disappeared. What does that mean? We didn't know. Our man was with him one second and the
next he was alone. So he dropped off line? Not exactly. There was no exit routine. No record of his leaving in the CC roles. In fact, there was no record of his having started that immerse. Vazou two down. Jesus. Jerry had a hom set up so we went there to see what might have happened. This is what we found. Was there a fire? No. I won't show you the close-ups but it all came through his tent. Vazou three down. Oh Jesus, turn that off. I don't want to see that. Vazou's up. I wanted
you to see that he was dead. I could see that from the photos. I needed you to see that he was dead and gone. He was cremated. His body is gone. So what? What is this all about? Have you ever heard of a specter? You got to be kidding me. Have you? Sure, it's a fairy tale. What have you heard? There ghosts. There's supposed to be avatars without tethers. Without tethers in the ambit. Without leashes in the second ambit. Whatever. They're just a rumor. Not exactly. Are you are
you going to tell me this rolling guy is a specter now? That's right. Oh come on. I've seen him, guys. All right. Whatever. What has this got to do with me? What do you want me to do? You're a tracker, guys. We want you to track him down. Track a specter. That's right. He's in the second ambit somewhere. We want you to find him and we want you to get him offline. Get him offline. That's right. You just showed me he doesn't have a body. That's right. All right. I don't believe that
this guy really exists. But if he does, you're asking me to kill him. I don't know that I'd use that word. He's already dead, guys. We're just asking you to bring him offline. Bringing a person offline, knowing that they no longer have a body to withdraw into. Now, is it murder when you stop the pump of blood and the electrochemical dance of neurons in the brain? Or is it when you erase a personality? Is it when you break apart the mind's container?
Or is it when you make a mind unrecoverable to itself? However, that's achieved. At the end of the interview, Salzer gave me the credential codes to get fitted with a second ambit avatar. I came offline and headed back to the apartment I shared with Boral. I sat in the bench under the window. Boral had bought Dmitrius, a cat two weeks earlier. He jumped up into my lap and together, we looked out the window and tried to wrap our minds around
what was being asked of me. Specters were ambit legends. I had never taken them seriously. Like ghosts in material beings in the material world, specters were supposed to be non-computational beings in the computational universe of the ambit. I had never heard that they were people before or had once been people, but that didn't alter the impossibility of their existence. And Salzer was telling me that this impossibility was real and that it had once been a person
face as tracker before me. And he no longer had a body, but his mind was alive in the second ambit. And they wanted me to destroy that mind. Hey Boral. Hmm. How'd you be doing something secret? Air kitty kitty. I'm off until tomorrow. Something wrong. Hmm? No. It's all your friend, Prince, today. Yeah? The battery's ringing out in his wheelchair just outside the WWE. You okay? I embarrassed his all. Yeah, I guess. You want anything? No, thanks. We out of kitty treats. I don't know.
Here, I'll get you some milk. Boral. Boral. Yeah. You ever hear of a specter? Yeah. What have you heard? A bunch of foolishness. You're tracking fairies now. No, no, just research. You know Seth Weiner? No. English department. Did a thing on myths last year. It might want to talk to him. So you think they're a myth? Yeah, he thought so. What do you think? I wouldn't call it a silly rumor a myth. It gives it too much dignity. But I'm not trying to get tenure either. You think it's silly, though?
Yeah. Yeah. Me, too. Here you go, little fella. Boral thought like I did. It was all a silly rumor. Unless Salzer was right. I went through the material he had provided me with. Rollin had specialized in event horizon stuff. The event horizon is the computational front of the ambit. The place where new nodes are added. Corpses are constantly jockeying for position they're trying to get the most advantageous positions.
I'd flown over sections of the event horizon in the skycar, but I'd never done any work there myself. I did know someone, though. Fiverr. He was a friend of mine from back when we were putermenials together. And he was just a kid, but he'd been working for Senexacorp's for a couple of months. He had told me that they were mostly sending him to the event horizon. So I decided to give him a visit. I told him I had been asked to track a specter. Oh, man, that's crazy.
Your assignments are so much better than mine. I didn't tell him what else I'd been instructed to do. I asked him what he'd heard about specters. They're liminal bio. It's all just rumors about CC conspiracy or some kind of AL-loose in the system. Nobody knows. I've heard they're seeing more at the event horizon. And that's what they say. The H-coulders seem. But you know, they work long hours. They start seeing avatars without tethers. That's the theory anyway.
But if you're supposed to be tracking one, oh man, that is fundamental. I want that gig. Why would they be at the horizon? I don't know. Some people think it has something to do with the rain or the enamelies to kick out juggernauts. Nobody knows though. My dossier on this one said that he'd be wearing a faux leash. A leash? He in the second ambit? Yeah. How they know that? I don't know. You got to get a new corpse by how yours is going to wendle. Yeah, I don't know.
How do they expect you to find him if he's got a fake leash? Well, I don't know. I didn't want to tell five that this specter was supposed to be face his previous tracker. So I couldn't tell him I had a visual on the guy. I wanted to find out what he knew. So I told him a little. Not enough. Hey! You know, there might be a way to idea fake leash. How's that? You want to subcontract this one? I bet I could do it. I don't think that'd be a good idea. Okay, you can owe me. No thanks.
I'll figure something out. No, no, it's Kippy. It'll be fun. I'll just throw something together. See if it works. It won't take long. Well, don't go out of your way. No worries. It's almost like I lured him into it. The next day I went in town to to the CC's 2A Licensing Agency. I was fitted out with an avatar for the second ambit. The second ambit differs from the ambit in a number of ways, but the first thing is that you need a representational avatar to even enter.
Each and every raw has to have absolute fidelity to the actual body of the person that that avatar represents. So they took all the readings of my body, logged them, stamped them official, and for the first time in my life, I was given 2A access. The second ambit, reportedly the most powerful, realistic virtual environment ever created. I couldn't wait to see what it was like. I reported back to Solzor. Hello, guys. I assume everything went well. Fine. I am 2A.
I'm kind of excited actually to see what they're saying. I wish we had time to let you go for a little wander and enjoy the sights, but your time in is too good. We just got word that Roland's been spotted. What? He's in a place called the ballin' off. Vise a two down. Here's the address. You want me to go there now? He's not seen very often, guys. This chance may not come up again for a while. What am I supposed to do? I told you what you're supposed to do. Credenza up.
Well, how am I supposed to do it? Jesus, Solzor, I've never even been in the second ambit. Calm down, guys. It's not that different. And I'll show you how to do it. Look here. Draw one open. Nobody knows how these spectres inhabit the system without being tied into the engines, but we do know that their own computation has a locus. In the head of that avatar. Now, Solzor pulled out a device that looked like two kite handles pressed together. You know what that is?
No. Well, one of them is an ace. An active code enabler. They use them at the horizon to ride code in the uncoded space. Okay, I've heard of them. Well, there's two of them ganged here. And they both been altered a bit. They worked together and they're working the second ambit. You turn them on here and here. Now, they're safe when they're together like this. But look here. Solzor pulled the handles apart. And an opalescent string of computation was suspended between them.
It expanded and shrunk as he moved the handles to exactly measure the distance between. The light emanating from the thing was dull, but it made my eyes ache. I looked away. But even then, I could feel it there. Like a heat source. Only more like static electricity. You asked how you was supposed to do it. There it is. It was a garot. I was supposed to take it and sever Rollins head from his body. And I was supposed to do it immediately. I needed more time to think.
But Solzor said it had to be done now. I left his office with the garot. I re-entered the ambit through the Central North American portal. Once past the ice wall, I went straight on. The warren of avenues to the entertainment parks extended away on my right. But on my left was the first public entrance through the bulwark to the second ambit. I had never been through it. In the past, I would have been rejected. The amber-rimmed shimmer beneath the entrance arch would have solidified.
And I would have bounced off as though I had walked into a wall. But not now. Now it would melt away. And I would pass through to a. I took a last look around. Then stepped through. I had been inhabiting the ambit so long that I no longer recognized the limitations of the system. I'd grown accustomed to the imperfect renderings, the less than smooth surfaces, the periodic flickerings of the avatars.
The stuttering after images that sometimes followed quick motion as the computation engines struggled to keep up. But here, the second ambit was... photo-realistic. It didn't feel so much like immersion, but rather like... like visiting the country. I was on a dirt path in a section of prairie. The dirt path paralleled a split rail fence down to a little road. A cross the road was a field. Some crop of violet flowers swaying in a gentle breeze. Was it flax?
It's sweet smell floated above a deeper, earthy smell. Overhead were a few billowy clouds that cast moving shadows on a distant hill where... a windmill gently turned. Who was paying for this, I wondered. I have watched beautiful sunsets in the grey, and they engage all the senses and they're detailed and... amazing. And you don't have to feel self-conscious about watching them because they aren't directed at you. They weren't built for you.
I mean, unless you're some kind of solipsistic zealot and you think that some god constructed everything for your benefit. But if you're normal, you just... contentedly observe and appreciate. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Here, though, in an entirely constructed environment where someone had to build all the beauty and it was made for the person experiencing it. Here, the financial question had to come up. How much did all this cost?
Two people came over a rise to my right, walking leisurely down the road. I instinctively looked up for their tethers. They didn't have any, neither did I. The view of the so realistically rendered sky was unobstructed. Avitars connections to the engines in the second ambit are located below rather than above. It adds to the impression that the space is real. I lifted my left heel and examined the leash that attached me to the earth. It was much less obtrusive than a tether.
It was the only unrealistic elements to the immerse, and when I put my foot back down, it retracted into the soil. You'd never know it was there. A person could lose themselves in a place like this. I hurried down the path to the road just as the two other people were coming even with me. Hello there, hello friend. I tried to respond, but I couldn't. Each of these two people was wearing an identical badge on their shirt. On a field of blue floated a large letter A, A for artificial.
These were not people. These were AIs or ARDs or Hesters as they're called. Artificial intelligences. I knew about them, but they were exclusively two A, so I had never encountered one. According to two A protocol, all ARDs and Hesters have to wear the A so that people won't mistake them for other Ross, other real avatars. I had thought it was a silly law. Since all Ross into A have to have representational avatars, I assumed that it would be easy to distinguish between them and an AI.
But that was because I had only ever experienced the slaved code characters of the ambit. This was completely different, and these two were lifelike. I would never have known that they weren't real people if they hadn't been wearing the A's. You look lost, may we direct you? No. No, no, I'm fine, thanks. All right, have a nice day. Thanks. Isn't it supposed to rain tomorrow? I think I read that this morning. Have you patched that hole in your barn roof yet?
No, the targis could not for now though. I have some time before I meet Nancy. Did you get the shakles yet? I watched them walk away talking. To entirely artificial beings, talking between themselves. It was indistinguishable from watching two people walk down a road in the grey. They were actually going to go somewhere in the system and fix a roof, as though there were a roof or rain coming tomorrow. For them, I guess there was. I tried to get back on task.
I had gone through all the interface protocols, so I knew what to expect, but there was still a thrill at doing it all for the first time. I pressed my thumb to my index finger and opened a visor. I called up an overhead perspective, pulled out to a relative altitude of five kilometers, and input the address solzer had given me. My current position, a blue dot on the map, was connected to my destination, a red dot, by a yellow line.
I set directional beacons at the turning points, then called up a transportation display. I chose a motorcycle, then closed the visor. The bucolic scene around me appeared unchanged. I turned. A great jet black bird was sitting atop the handlebars of a gleaming motorcycle. He eyed me with one round, all-knowing eye, and then spread his wings and took flight. I mounted the machine, it was a hog. The road sped by underneath me.
I passed through several farming communities, then the landscape changed, fluidly but quickly. I was in the desert. I passed through an adobe village all-earth-colored and curving lines. In the ambit, the architecture was chaotic, different styles crammed up against one another with no sense of continuity. Here, it appeared there were building codes. I rose again out of the desert and into forested hills.
At intersections where I needed to turn, beacons would flash, and I'd slow just enough so that I could make the corner. I didn't know why the conventions of motion had been instituted in 2A, but for the time being, I was glad of it. The wind in my hair felt wonderful, it was a beautiful day, virtual or not. The forest parted, and I rode through hills blanketed with vineyards, then down into some primitive looking lowlands, where the construction was all water and dobb.
Over a rise I came to a community of tents which all sat at the edge of a plane that shifted with the motion of a vast herd of gazelles. I rode on into the mountains. I must have traveled for an hour, it was glorious. The different locales were sewn together seamlessly and each one was perfect. Finally I came to my destination.
The slopes in the valley were terraced, and the valley floor was a checkerboard of rice patties, artis and hester's, all of them different and individual, were working in the fields. Some waved as I passed. I wondered if they knew what they were. It seemed unlikely that they would have freedom to travel throughout the second amit, but did they know that they were confined? Did they know that this place didn't really exist? Did they know what they were?
There was a Christian sect in the news a couple of years ago, the Fredkins I think they were called. They believed that the entire universe was a computer, and that people were like, like individual processors, little algorithms running around inside the machine. It suddenly seemed a little less outrageous to me.
These AI's were made up of the same stuff as everything else in this virtual environment, all code, and it would probably take a great deal of explanation and a leap of faith on their part, to get them to understand something other than code, something outside the code. What do you mean, stuff that isn't made of ones and zeros? That makes no sense. But then I'm made from the same stuff that makes up my world too.
Molecules, atoms, electrons, and they all interact with one another in a very predictable, mechanistic way, just like code. Perhaps it is a machine. Perhaps we can't see it for what it is because we're a part of it. Perhaps there is something outside the machine, just like people have always hoped. The building squatted in the shade of a stand of tree-sized bamboo. As I got off the motorcycle and started toward the building, a little boy left down off the porch and ran to me.
He was wearing a badge with a letter A. May I tend your mule? What? Your mule? He'll need water at least. I looked back to where I had left the motorcycle. In its place was a ragged-looking mule. Ah, fine. Thank you. I wondered if the boy had seen me ride up on a mule. With his continuity be different from mine? I walked through some double doors and into the lounge area. I saw him immediately. Roland was sitting in a high-backed wicker chair just inside the patio.
He was looking out at something I couldn't see. The garot felt suddenly heavy in my jacket. I went over to the bar and ordered a drink. I sat with it and tried to look on a truce it. But several times Roland caught me looking at him. I was sure he was suspicious of me. You're looking for someone. Hey! Hey! Hey! Take an easy friend. Sorry. Sorry. No, I'm just... Just relaxing. Okay, if you're looking for the two new guys, they're out on the veranda. Thanks. I'm not. Thanks.
You want another drink? On the house? No. Thanks. Actually, yeah. Okay. Actually, uh... See that guy over there? Jerry, what about him? You know him? Sure, he's our only regular guy. Practically lives upstairs. He's a regular? Every day. Huh. I'll get you a drink. There was a glass case at the back of the bar. It reflected the room in a ghostly way, and as I sat there, I could see Roland. I tried to watch him discreetly. He did seem quite at home here.
Salzer had said he was rarely spotted, but if he was a regular here... My pulse quickened when Roland glanced at me, then got up and walked over to the bar. Save our, Jerry? Another detox, if you would. Sure thing. He had the langerous manner of an addict. He sat on the stool next to me. As surreptitiously as I could, I examined his left heel. There was a leash that swept down from it into the wooden planks of the floor. There was something wrong about it, though. It just seemed to hang there.
It wasn't nearly as responsive as the other leash I'd seen. But it was close enough, you'd never notice that it was fake unless you were looking for it. Roland put his elbows on the bar and folded his fingers together with profound lethgy. Then he turned to me and smiled knowingly. Are you here for me? What? I thought they were here for me, but they're not. Who? Them! He nodded toward the glass behind the bar. In the reflection, we could see two men coming in off the patio.
They looked toward where we sat, then at one another, then went and sat at a side table behind us. My guess is there from the CC. What do you think? I don't know. They're not here to go upstairs, you know. You look like an upstairs stripper. Here you go. Why do you think they make cocktail napkins so small? I don't know. Or doilys. He gets like this in the afternoon. Let me know if he's bothering you. It's all right. You're a good artist, they've all heard. Thanks, chair. You're a good meat too.
Good meat. Can you beat that? The save art is good gear, don't you think? Hey, hey. Maybe they're here for you, not me. Yeah. Three new guys and one day, no, it's you. They're here for you. Who are you? You hear from me? From Fatia? I know. Are you drunk or something? For days. Right, save art? No, Jare only after about ten hundred hours to AT. Yeah. Any, any ros of stairs? Um, no. Damn. Oh well, a hester it is. It's only a virtual wick anyway. Enjoy your friends. He's not always like that.
Catch him in the morning and he's almost normal. He's here all the time? Yeah, he's our most regular customer. And we're kind of off the beaten pass, so we don't get too many new visitors except you. And those two. Do you know them? No. The two RAWs at the table were working hard not to pay attention to me. I didn't know if they were really there for me or not, but if they were from the CC, I wasn't about to go after Roland in front of them. I stayed here for a while.
After Roland in front of them. I stayed for what I hope seemed like a casual amount of time than I left. I got a hail as soon as I re-entered the ambit. Emergency interrupt request. Emergency interrupt request. Okay, allow. What the hell are you doing? What are you talking about? You were there with him and you didn't do it. There were some guys from the CC there. I don't give a damn. You want me to kill him with them sitting there watching? I told you you needed to do it now.
It would be suicide to do it with them there. It is suicide not to do what I tell you to do. I'll do it tomorrow. He is there all the time. The barkeep told me. I did not tell you to go have now with the barkeep. I told you to do it now. You are so told me he wasn't seen very often and that's a damn lie. The only thing keeping you out of CC in incarceration is me. The only thing. Interrupt request. Hang on a second. Emergency request. Don't you go offline with me. I got an emergency request.
We are working on an emergency right now. Go to hell. Wow. Gals, you are nothing. You just... I'm Gals. I was helping it. Fine. What's going on? Spectacles. I'm seized by other smangry gear. You're chewing it. I can't chew it. It's coming in. It's coming in. I don't know what to do. Where are you? I mean this... Parkman's... It's an accident. Five. Sector... It hurts. Five. Five. It's a... Shite ship. No need to find... Spectacles. Five. Sector... You... Should... Five. You know... It hurts.
Foul. Five. Five. Five. I knew where his apartment was, so I got offline and rushed to a new station. It was 10 excruciating minutes before I got to Outtown 9. Five. Right through by By Oh Five. My God Oh my god, fight! Five was dead. I wouldn't have even known it was him if I hadn't just talked to him. They looked exactly like the pictures I'd seen of Roland, some sort of surge through his stint. I was dazed.
I don't know how long I sat there with his body, but eventually I realized that it was not a good place to be. I left. I walked. I walked and walked and walked, trying to find the empty place inside that you hear about. But I was a tangled knot of anger and sadness and guilt. I sat and watched the airplanes taking off from the airport outtown 12. Some of the noise cancellation devices weren't working properly and the abrupt bursts from the jet engines added an edge to my mood.
I cried angry tears until they wouldn't come anymore, then I just gaped at the suddenly unfamiliar world. What had I done? Five was just a kid, just a punk-putter kid with aspirations. And I thought I was helping him, but I wanted to know who had done this. Not so that I could expose them. Not so that I could turn them into the C-C, I wanted to kill them. And I knew where to start looking. I had pretty much gotten five the job, Senexa Corporation.
I went back to the apartment I shared with Boral. I flipped the cover on my stent and plugged in. I planned on going straight to Senexa's corporate node, but Fesha got to me as soon as I uploaded. No shit. I wasn't online more than a picosecond before my interface was slaved. They shrink wrapped my propryceptors, then forced all my cognition feedbacks through a devocoder. How they got authorization to do it, I didn't know. Only the C-C engines themselves could do this.
They left me there for almost an hour. Enough to give me a sense of what it might be like to be stuck like that forever. Hello? You are not to contravene my orders. I'm sorry I had an emergency that- I don't care if a catamount was chewing your foot off, I gave you an order. There were two C-Cube guys there, I couldn't do it. I'd like to introduce you to some friends of mine. Salzer gestured over my shoulder, I turned. Looking down from a hanging visor were the two guys who had been with Roland.
Who told you we worked for the C-C? I think Roland told me. How did he know? I don't know. The two exchanged a significant look with Salzer, then their visor folded up and out of existence. The C-C is in on this? You do not need to concern yourself with that. You just do what you told. Now, day after tomorrow you are going back in there and this time you are going to do the job. Are they going to be there again? They are. You can see why I have a problem with that.
They are there to observe only, they won't interfere. Will they arrest me? No. What the hell are they doing there? What? What they do is not your concern, guys. You have a job. Salzer wouldn't tell me anything. But I was getting the distinct impression that I was the next pawn being sacrificed in a game much larger than I could see. I wanted more than anything to find out what had happened to five, but I had to deal with this first. I needed to protect myself. So I made plans.
I took my Sylvia and ID to the C-C's 2A Licensing Agency and spent almost every credit I had on buying access to the second ambit for that ID. I needed to be able to get in without facial knowing. That done. I went to see Krebs. I'm right in the middle of something. I need your help, Krebs. Yeah, Krebs, God, last time you almost got me in a planter box. This is nothing like that. Well no, fence, God. Just hear me out, will you?
Let me tell you what I want and then you can tell me to go to hell if you want to. I want to, I feel, just listening to you is dangerous. All I need is some advice on how to set up a gestural override. I'm not asking you for code. I'm not asking you to do anything except to talk to me for a couple of minutes. What you want? You have some verbal overrides set up that work outside immersion, right? To bring you offline if you have to? Yeah, all quotes do for fail safe safety.
I want to set up a kinesthetic override. What for? When you're immersed it's all just rolling sodium. Why not use a vocal? Because if someone wanted to prevent you from going offline they'd block your vocals so you couldn't preempt. But they wouldn't expect a physical override. I've never heard of one. Neither of y, not with a stent. You think it's possible? Yeah, it probably is. Crabbs knew a great deal about the neurological underpinnings of immersion.
Because he was a quadruplegic he was particularly interested in and knowledgeable about the kinesthetic systems. Immersion by way of a stent, the only way to enter the second ambit, overrides these systems so that any volitional gesture is realized in the avatar in the immerse, not in the physical body, in the gray. This is why immerses are inert when they're online. If their physical systems weren't overridden their bodies would shout and jump around like spiders on a hot skillet.
So a stent allows the system to intercept neural signals before they're realized in the body. I needed to intercept the signal before the system did. And I wanted it to be physical because vocal commands are the normal input for raw immersion. All fail safes, crebs is included, are so-called vocal gestures. If someone wanted to block your failsafe they'd block your vocals. They wouldn't think to block a non-vocal gesture. As usual, crebs had a brilliant suggestion.
He reminded me that not all neural activity is interrupted. There are autonomic systems that the immersion engines leave alone. Files, temperature regulation, digestion, the brain performs these functions well enough on its own. Stents monitor these areas but there are no filaments to govern them. So if you could make the stent think that a specific physical routine was autonomic rather than volitional it would leave that gesture alone. I wrote a little routine for myself.
Then I went to visit an old friend. Io was a tracker who had been something of a mentor to me when I'd first started. He worked freelance exclusively. I knew now that he mostly did small jobs but when I started I thought he was the king of valence code. I found him in one of my old haunts. Is that guys? Hey long time no waggle bio, Vincent de Bonine. Yeah, I've been busy. Lucrative. Somewhat. Do tell bio. Thanks I'll pass. I might have some work for you though if you're interested.
You got the wrong man bio, I'm king of the subcontract, I don't do that. I don't think you can help me. I need someone with 2A access. She. What do you need? Can I put us on a private pipe? She that is just rude. Fine. That is not socially accepted. Yeah. What's the gig? I want to give you an address. I want you to go there tomorrow and watch what happens. Just watch. That's it. How much? Ten thousand CS credits. To watch. That's right. How do I know you're not just trying to get a visual on me?
What? Someone could have hired you to lure me there. No, no, I just need a witness to what I'm going to do. I'm not a very good witness. I tend to forget things when I get in front of a C.C. judge. Not that kind of witness. I just need to be sure that there's at least one other raw around when I do something. What are you doing? I'm killing a specter. I always agreed to be present. It wasn't the money that convinced him though. It was curiosity. With that done, I went to A again.
This time in my Sylvia and ID, I wanted to talk with Roland. Whatever had happened to five had happened to him first. He must know something. It was 900 hours to A.T. when I got back to the ball and off brothel. The front desk hester told me Roland was on the patio, so I got up a pie of juice and wandered out. The patio opened out onto a sort of courtyard where umbrella tables were artistically strewn around. It was a beautiful sunny day.
Roland was leaning back in a chair, examining what looked like a bloody Mary with great care. I watched him, wondering what it must be like to be stuck in the system like an arti. His body had been dead for more than a year, more than a year of consciousness bound within the system. I couldn't imagine. After a moment he chanced to glance in my direction, and upon seeing me he broke into an insuciant smile and waved me over.
Although I had entered the second amit using my Sylvia and ID, my avatar was still bound to my RL physique, so he recognized me. As I walked over to him, I looked around. There were several other people lounging about, but they all appeared to be hesteres and artis. Don't worry the CC guys left when you did yesterday have a seat. Thanks. So you're here for me, aren't you? I don't know what you mean by that. You're from Fesha. Yeah. Thank God. I am so ready to be out of this place.
All the days run together. I feel like Dorothy. Dorothy? In the poppies? A lotus eater? How long have you been here? Days, weeks, I don't know. What took you so long? I just follow orders. Don't we all? Are you going upstairs, have yourself a hester before we go? No, I don't think so. I've been waiting a long time. I don't mind waiting a little longer. No thanks. Listen. They haven't told me a whole lot. What happened to you? What do you mean? How'd you get stuck here? I don't know.
If I knew I wouldn't be stuck here, some anomaly in the CC engine is probably because I was liminal so long. Ask Fesha. They must have finally traced it. Otherwise, why would you be here? How did your leash get severed? What are you talking about? How did it happen? What? Your leash. How did it get severed? My leash is right here. That's my problem. If I could sever it, I would believe me. Look. What do you call that? I can't get rid of the damn thing.
Rollin hiked his boot up onto the table and pointed to the leash that spanned the distance from his heel to the ground. It was clearly more slack than any leash I'd ever seen. It was inert. But Rollin didn't seem to realize. He didn't know. He was a specter. I've tried to exit the system. Probably a hundred times. This leash though. I don't recognize the CC engines anymore. You brought a patch though, right? Tomorrow. I'm bringing it tomorrow. Well not now. I don't know. They didn't tell me.
So I have one last day in paradise. Guess I should enjoy the hester's while I can. Where is your body in the gray in Arhel? I set the... or it's... Well, I don't remember. Funny. I think whatever anomaly is keeping me here is screwing with my memory. I feel a little... How to see. At least I'll be out before the rain. It's supposed to stay sunny through tomorrow. Is it? You like it here? I don't like being stuck here. Not other than that, it's not bad.
I'm looking forward to talking to someone other than a hester. Not that they're all bad. They're just... There's a lot they don't know. Some of them are better than some people I know though. Salzer for instance. Is he your contact? Yep. Duplicit is bastard. Yeah. Never told me about you for instance. I thought I was Fatia's only tracker. I thought I was too. There's some things I'd like to ask you. I have some questions for you too. You have some time? I do.
Why don't I show you around a little? See the tram up that hill there? You can take that over and down into the qualling delta. It's a nice trip. I'm game. And when we get back I'll introduce you to the better hester's. Some of them won't remind you why people want it a second bit. Roland and I spent several hours together, traveling on the train over to the delta, walking along a marshy coast, crowded with shorebirds, and talking.
Roland had several more drinks on the train, which made him even more garrulous. But he really was like the lotus eaters. He couldn't stay focused on any topic for more than a few moments. He was like a dreamer. The hester's we met knew more about themselves than he did. He couldn't remember how long he'd been there, where he had come from, what he was supposed to be doing, none of which seemed to trouble him.
He was somewhat curious about me, but not enough so that I couldn't redirect him when he asked something awkward. It didn't take me long to realize that he wasn't going to give me any information that would help me figure out what had happened to five. And my reservations with taking Roland offline were somewhat attenuated by the time I spent with him. He wasn't really alive. He wasn't living anyway. He had no idea what he was about. He was just drifting.
Somewhere deep inside himself, he must have known it. That's why he'd drunk himself into a stupor every two a day. In the end, I found a way to ease my conscience even further. It was another lie, but I thought it would be better for him too. So the CC will be there? Yeah. I don't get it. Me either. They don't tell me much. Are those pelicans? Yeah. They look like a fighter squadron, don't they? Yeah, you'll remember, right? But not to be afraid, they're just there to watch. The CC guys? Right.
They won't stalk you. You can still do it. Right, let's cut into that hut over there. Great in my time. We made our way back to the brothel, and I left Roland. I tried to remind him that I was returning the next day, but he was belining for the bar. He seems to have already forgotten that I had been there at all. With the rest of the day, I tried to find something on the news notes about what had happened to five, but there was nothing.
There was nothing in the police files I could access, either. Someone was covering it up. But who? Sinexic corpse? The CC? I went home. Some guy in an Irish cap was waiting in our apartment building for a pneumocar. He almost ran me down as I was getting off. Hey, oh, oh, oh, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. Take it easy. I thought it was empty. It is now. Thank you, thank you. Have a nice, nice day. When I got to the apartment, I found that someone had broken the voice lock.
Luckily, Boral was there. You got the wrong place. It's me. Guys. Yeah. Oh, Christ. Hang on. Sorry, some guy came by looking for his sister or something. I thought you were him again. What happened to the lock? Some damn kids or something. Broke everyone in the building, pain in the ass. We have to use the keypad now? Yeah, I couldn't remember the damn code had to call Sasha. Where are you going now? Distal. Haver got sick. I got to work tonight. I made a Pavlova. It's in the fridge.
Be nice to Demetrius. I will. Bye. Hmm. Boral left and I spent the night alone with Demetrius. I found it difficult to sleep, but it wasn't killing Roland that was keeping me awake. It was five. When I went to A the next day, the system let me upload directly outside the brothel. May I tend your mule again? Thanks. I walked into the lobby feeling conscious of the weight of the grout in my back pocket. The hester at the front desk waived to me. Hello again.
Your friends are waiting for you on the patio. Thank you. I went out onto the sun drenched tiles. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust. The CC guys were at a table beside a potted tree fern off to the left. Roland was exactly where I had seen him before, by the railing, looking dreamily out at the verdant hills. I looked around for I.O. but he wasn't there. There were three hester at a table to my right, and one other dark-haired woman sitting beside the pool.
I couldn't see if she was wearing an A or not, but she was definitely a she. I.O. wasn't there. I didn't want to do it without him there. I needed a witness. The woman beside the pool had swung her legs over and was kicking leisurely at the water. When I looked over, she caught my eye, and very deliberately raised the back of her hand to her mouth. It was the exact gesture I.O. had used. That was I.O. She was a woman.
She could conceal it in the ambient, have a male avatar there, but they didn't allow that to A. Here you had to look like you, R.L. You. So, I.O. was a woman. Hey, Roland had spotted me. I thought you were never coming. Come on over. This was it. I walked over to where Roland sat. Did you bring it? Yep. Let's get on with it. I'm ready. All right. I took out the garalt. The two C.C. guys shifted nervously. One of them stood up. They're pretty anxious, huh? I guess. Look here.
Press these, then pull the handles apart. Wrap it around, and then just give it a yank. Roland took the garalt and opened it. Oh, sweet home. Ha, ha. Oh, the first thing I'm going to do is get me a real man hat. They don't make them worth a damn here. Roland wrapped the string of computation around his neck, then paused. Hey, it tickles. Say, I'll get your address from Solzor. I'll take you for a drink on the C.U.R.L. I'd like to think that he was gazing on something beautiful when he did it.
That his last vision was of something magnificent and sublime. But it wasn't. He was looking right at me when he did it. His eyes were clouded over with drink and completely without fear, thankful almost, because I had lied to him. I had told him that using the garalt on his avatar would return him to his body in the gray. And so he killed himself without a last profound moment. He killed himself, not while experiencing beauty. He killed himself, while staring dumbly at me. Guys, get up.
The CC guys had come over. Come with us. Come with you? We're special agents with the CC constabulary. I know who you are. Come along, then. No thanks, I'm going home. I'm afraid not. Look, I did what I came to do. I'm going home now. All your volitionals that aren't in compliance with our instructions are blocked. You might as well come with us willingly. There's nothing else you can do. I glanced over by the pool. Io was standing now, watching. Her calves were still wet. She looked.
Lovely. One of the C-cubed guys stepped closer. Come on! All right, all right. I raised my hands as though they were holding a gun on me. What are you doing? Leaving. I clapped my hands together over my head in the fail safe gesture I'd prepared. I was back in the apartment I shared with Boral. Roland was dead, and the two C-cubed agents wanted some answers from me, but for the moment at least I was free.
I quickly logged back on with my Sylvia and ID and went to an anonymous public storage site. I spent a half hour describing what I had done, how I had done it, and fascia's role in it all. I copied the site to 12 other public storage utilities, then I sent a subtitle squirt to Salzer to give him access to one of the storage sites.
The C-cubed guys had expected to see me use the garot on Roland, but he had done it himself, and Io had seen the whole thing, so they had no way of incarcerating me for his murder. Roland did it himself and there were witnesses. For Salzer, he had said that I would be free from fascia if I completed this project for him. But that was only because he had expected the C-cubed to take care of me. I had sidesteped them, so I didn't know what he'd do now. That's what the public storage was for.
Insurance. I stayed offline for two days, with both IDs. Nobody broke down the door to the apartment. Nobody shot out the windows. It seemed to have worked. I went to fascia. I asked to see Salzer. I assume you saw my message at the public storage. I did. We did not appreciate it. I've copied it to other storage sites. I know how Blackmail works, guys. Oh, I hardly think it's Blackmail. I told you, if you did this job, we'd tear up your contract. Apparently you didn't trust me. Trust you.
Go to hell. Our relationship is not based on trust. It's based on threats and coercion. And now, mutually assured destruction. Fesha might survive my little present getting out, but I know you wouldn't. So now I've got you in the same lo-hold you've got me. Don't talk to me about trust. Talk to me about the end of the affair. You're getting yourself another tracker. And that was the end of my formal relationship with fascia corpse. I was free. But I wasn't. Five was dead.
That left me with some unfinished business who had killed him. And why? The fourth Ambit is written and performed by Dawson Nichols, produced with music and effects by Jim Horn, copyright 2001 by the Ambit group, All Rights Reserved. For information on this or any other Ambit group production or to order copies, please visit our website at www.ambitgroup.com. Join us for episode five when Giles tracks five's murderer into the event horizon. That's it, sadly, for this week at least.
Looking forward to seeing Jack back, it does get a little lonely in the silence of the tortoise, so until next week for Jack and myself, David Alt, this is the Sonic Society. Be care of yourselves, everyone.