Bruce Sterling - The Caryatids

To Vera’s consternation, Roman Palatium had some avatars installed. These ghosts strolled their simulated Roman town, moving in the semi­random, irrational, traumatized way that ghosts roamed the Earth. The imperial Roman avatars were rather sketchily realized: tidy cartoons with olive skin and bowl-like haircuts.

One particularly horrible ghost, some kind of Roman butcher in a stained apron, seemed to have some dim machine awareness of Vera’s presence as a viewer within the scene. This ghost kept crowding up in the corners of her spex, with a tourist-friendly look, inviting user inter­actions that the system did not yet afford.

Vera handed the spex back to Montalban. She was powerfully shaken. “You’ve turned this dead town into some kind of… dead movie game.”

“That’s not the way I myself would have phrased it,” said Montalban, smiling. “I’d say that we’re browsing the historical event heap in search of future opportunities.” He stooped suddenly. The tide was out, and he’d alertly spotted a coinlike disk by the toe of his beach sandal. He plucked it up, had a closer look, and tossed it into the bay.

“The Palatium project,” he told her, “is a coproduction of the Univer­sity of Southern California’s Advanced Culture Lab and Dr. Radic’s schol­ars in Zagreb. They’ve done pretty well with this demo, given their limited time and resources. Frankly, those USC kids really worked their hearts out for us.” Montalban slid the spex into a velvet-lined case. “If this demo catches on with our stakeholders, we’ll be catering to a top-end tourist demographic here.”

“But you made it… and it’s just a fantasy. It’s not real.”

Montalban rolled his eyes. “Oh, come now—you built that sensor­web that saturates this whole island! Radic gave me a good look at that construction. That’s brutal software. I sure wouldn’t call it viewer­friendly.”

“The sensorweb saved the life of this island! You’re pasting fantasies onto the island.”

“We could waste our time discussing ‘reality’… Or, we could talk real business!” Montalban sat on the sun-warmed, sloping edge of a bro­ken piece of Polace’s tarmac. He scattered salty dust with a handker­chief and offered her a spot. “Vera, I’m here from Hollywood! I’m here to help you!”

Vera sat. She knew from the look on his face that he planned to ex­ploit her now. This was the crux: they had reached the crisis. “So, John, you want to help us? Tell me how you feel about that.”

“I need to make the dynamic of this situation clear to you.”

Vera posed herself attentively. It felt nice to watch his face, even as he lied to her. He really was remarkably good-looking.

“I have come to this island because, at this moment in the event stream, there’s a confluence of interests.” Montalban pulled a shiny wad of film from his pocket. He fluffed the film open and set it down before them. It flashed into life before their feet.

A pattern appeared in it: something like a plate of spaghetti.

“What’s this?”

“That’s a correlation engine running a social-network analysis. Using this has become part of due diligence whenever we’re trying to wire together a merger-and-acquisition deal. When a map of the stakehold­ers is assembled—very commonly—some player pops from the back­ground and turns out to be the sustaining element… “ Montalban leaned down, stretched out a finger, and tapped one of the central meat­balls within the spaghetti. “That would be you. Vera Mihajlovic. You are right here.”

“You drew all this?” Vera said.

“Oh no.” Montalban laughed. “No human being could ever con­struct a map this sophisticated. Investor-analysis correlation engines use distributive intelligence.”

“Your map doesn’t make any sense. It looks like a plate of spilled food.”

“That’s why I’m explaining it to you,” he said patiently. “It’s true that you lack any formal executive power here. Still, you’re clearly central to what happens here, and this map shows it. The cultists here really look up to you: and I can guess why. First, you were born here. You were the last to leave the island, and the first to return to it. You’re a motivating, legitimating factor for them.”

Vera shrugged. “Can’t you talk to me about how you feel? Just tell me what you want.”

“You have star quality. That’s the simplest way I can put it.”

Vera cut him short with a wave of her arm. “All right: This is a beach, am I right? That’s seawater. That’s a rock. Those are the ruins. Do you see any ‘star quality’ here?”

Montalban drew a taut breath. “Of course I know that! Tell me what you saw in that microcosm that I sent you.”

“What?”

“The hobject, the microcosm. That diplomatic gift I conferred to you. You know. The crystal ball.”

“Oh. That bubble thing.” Vera shrugged. “I’m too busy for hobbies. I gave it away.”

His face fell in raw incredulity. ‘’You did what? ”

“Well, it was a gift, wasn’t it? I gave it away as a gift.”

’’You didn’t explore the microcosm? You didn’t engage with its inter­face?”

“How would I ‘engage’ with a ball of seawater?” She paused. “I re­member it had some little shrimps swimming inside. Were those sup­posed to be valuable?”

Montalban sat up with a look of pain, as if his back ached suddenly. He gazed out to the ruins in the sea. She realized that she had failed him in some deep and surprising way. Montalban was genuinely shocked by what she had done. It was as if he had cooked her a seven-­course banquet and she had crassly thrown away the food and smashed all the plates.

He slowly tapped his fingers on his knee. He didn’t know what to do next. He was completely at a loss.

She spoke up. “I see that I’ve hurt your feelings. I didn’t mean to do that. I’m sorry.”

“It’s just… Well… “ For the first time, Montalban was unable to speak.

“I’m sorry about it, John. Really.”

“I knew this assignment would be difficult.” He sighed. “I’m going to say this in the simplest, bluntest way I can. You love this island, right? This place means more to you than anything else in your life. Well, I came here to give it to you. It is my gift to you. That’s what I meant to say to you. You will be the duchess, the queen of Mljet. I will put this place at your feet.”

“You think you can do that, do you?”

“Yes, I know I can. Because’ I’ve done it before.” A flicker of pain crossed Montalban’s face. “I said that I am a facilitator. I’m good at my work. I’m one of the best in the world, and the world is a lot bigger than this island. If you want this place that you love so much, if you want this island to be your own island, then you can have it. That prospect is writ­ten in the stars, or rather, it is written in this very fine analytical map in the dirt here.”

“What do you ask from a girl, when you give her a gift like that, Mr. Montalban?”

“I don’t ask for anything. That’s why it’s a gift. If you will agree to hold up your part of this deal I want to arrange, then every other element will swing into place. That work will take me a while, but I know that deal can be done: the financing, promotion, production, residuals, a user base, everything. Everything that a modern tourist island needs.”

“So you want me to go into business with you, in some way? That’s what you want? I’m not interested in business. I already have a business. I’m very busy all the time.” Vera stood up. “I think you should go back to California.”

“Sit down,” he demanded. She sat again.

“Look,” he said, “your status quo is just not in the cards for you. You don’t understand this yet, but your story here is already over. You and your Acquis people here, you are way past the stage where you can be just a little extreme techno-start-up on some private island where no one important will notice. That story is gone. Because you accomplished something amazing here. So you have been noticed. You had a big suecess. The Dispensation always notices big success. Always. So: If we don’t arrange that as a win-win-win outcome for all the stakeholders, there’s going to be friction.”