Cyberpunk

windings,” I said, shaking off the professional paranoia. “I’ll let you know.”
    “Please do,” she said, and then: “Max?”
    “Yes?”
    “Thank you for calling.” And then she was gone.
    Theory-brain was telling me she was a wethead who had VMed her brain, splitting personalities to take advantage of the unused processor cycles in her brain. I went and took a cold shower, trying to drown theory-brain.
    Theory-brain got back at me while I slept, filling my dreams with dozens of Sophies, each one with a different personality.
    I kept my sanity by holding tight to a loop of her last four words.
    Ante-meridiem, another iDeeBoy was waiting outside my office. I iSigned and took the ICEpak into my office. Flipping the bits that made my three square a black box, I opened the envelope.
    Thirty fractions later, I dropped the security screens and made a handshake with Prescott Four’s XA. “I need thirty fractions,” I told him when the call connected.
    Micro-pause. “Next rotation. Four Cee—”
    “No, I need them right now.”
    “I’m sorry, Security Theorist Semper Dimialos, but your request is out of compliance with your EnforD Registration. I cannot, obviously, comply.” Prescott Four’s Executive Administrator was a rail named Equus Grimester, a man prone to fashion explosions and dismissive sniffing. I got one of those sniffs now, coming through loud and clear on my audio link.
    “Ask him about Giselle.”
    “I will not, ST Semper Dimialos, and I would like to remind you that you are in violation of i3Cee 7, part 11g, as well as i3Cee—”
    “But, i3Cee 12, part 7a,” I interrupted, “states that any employee may request—once a turn—a thirty-fraction window of the CEO’s time, so as to—”
    “I know the i3Cee,” Grimester interrupted me, punctuating the sentence with an especially loud nasal inhalation.
    “Good. I want my allotted time with Prescott Four, and I’d like it now.” I gripped the edge of my desk tightly to stop my hands from shaking.
    Another pause, longer this time, and when Grimester came back, his tone had gone all obsequious and musical on me again. “One fraction, please.”
    It was more like a hundred fractions later when Prescott Four’s voice rang in my head. “Salutations and variations, Security Theorist Semper Dimialos,” he said, with an air of restrained jocularity. “My XA tells me that you’ve requested a 30fPA communication. I haven’t had one of these in . . . I can’t remember the last—”
    “Giselle Akkwild Haussingterre,” I said, getting to the point. If I let him, Prescott Four would ramble on for most of my allotted time, and then Grimester would cut me off before I got more than a few words out.
    “Excuse me?”
    “Tell me about Giselle.”
    A long pause, one that lasted well beyond my thirty-fraction limit, which validated a few theories rolling around my head. When Prescott Four spoke again, his voice had lost its levity. “She doesn’t exist, Max.”
    Max. Not Security Theorist Semper Dimialos . Prescott Four might seem like an idiot on GoogleTube feeds, but he came from a long line of corporate fathers. All shrewd and cutthroat when the situation demanded it.
    “What about forty-three turns ago?”
    “That’s a very specific time period, Max.”
    “I’m reading it right off a DNA report I have on my desk. A paternity test.”
    “How did you come by this . . . dubious . . . information?”
    “A better question might be to ask how this ‘dubious’ information came to be. It’s a lot easier to find information than it is to make it up.”
    “One of Security Directorate’s old truisms, yes?”
    “That it is, sir.”
    “You’d better come to my office, Max.”
    I went.
    One of the corporate leadership perks was access to iReset, and RonTom St. John’s Liberty Prescott Four used it liberally. The package had a more technical name and wasn’t entirely Apple’s design, but let’s face it: it made you sleeker, gave you a better face, reduced your need for peripherals, and doubled your shelf life over the current regime of nootropic packs and neuro-linguistic recombinatory therapy. Which meant, he looked liked a Studio Idol on the cusp of legitimacy even though he was much older than I.
    He didn’t look happy though, and the emotive ionic shades of his top-floor office reflected his mood, making the enormous room seem both smaller and larger with its play of shadow and grey light.
    Standing inside the penthouse