Raphael Carter - The Fortunate Fall

She knew.

I have played this scene over and over, with the moistdisk slotted into the back of my head, until the pain has almost—not quite—worn away.

I waited for her in the living room, pacing, too restless to sit down. When she manifested, I saw the videophone swivel toward me. She was looking through its camera so she could see me as I was, not just a default image generated by her moistware. When the camera focused on my face, she looked at me with surprise that quickly turned to disappointment. “Is something wrong? You’re not wearing your research.”

“I transferred it to this.” I tapped a memory-wedge at my temple, not holding the single African moistdisk, but a battery of Russian ones that I’d dug out of various drawers—looking like a roll of toroidal candies in assorted flavors. Six held her research; the seventh was quietly recording our conversation, in case I needed evidence of what had happened.

“Oh,” she said. “If there’s something wrong with the 6000s, you know, they’re on warranty—”

“I know,” I said shakily. “A little bird told me.”

“I see.” She looked puzzled, but did not pursue the line of questioning. “So, are you ready to find that interview?”

“Keishi, I think I may have misled you, and if I have, I’m sorry. I’ve been working alone much too long to change now. I know you put a lot of work into that research, and I appreciate it, but that’s all I really need. I’ll take it from here.”

“Nice speech,” she said flatly. “How long did it take to write?”

“Keishi, I’m serious—”

“You think I’m not?” She turned away suddenly, walked over to the videophone table, and leaned against it. “So when should I plan on screening your first interview, or do you just want me to stay on call?”

One more hurdle, and it would be over. I said with an effort: “I’m going to record to a disk for now and have it screened later. And… I’m going to file for repartnering, Keishi. It’s nothing personal. Or rather, I mean, it is personal and not professional. I’ll give you the highest rating. But I don’t think it’s going to work out. Between us.”

Her eyes and the vidphone’s eyes watched me together, like two cats. Unnerved by her silence, I blurted out: “I mean, after all, Anton will be back soon, it’s really not fair—”

“Anton has been Net-silent for two days,” Keishi said. “He probably rejected his bugs in some back alley, and they’ll have to bring his brain home in a sausage casing. Don’t try to tell me this is about him.”

Her eyes stared into mine, unflinchingly, but the vidphone glanced at the rosebox on the table. “This is about that encyclopedia of yours, isn’t it? That’s why you’re not wearing the moist-ware I gave you.”

I felt myself silhouetted by the accusation, like a deer by headlights.

“You really thought I didn’t know,” she marveled. “Maya—I wish I didn’t have to be the one to tell you, but I don’t see any other way. Every screener you’ve had must have known. Screening out sex is the main thing we do, after politics. People use suppressors, but even so, you get memories, traces. When somebody comes through completely blank… well, it’s not hard to guess why.”

“How much do you know?” I asked, trembling as though she’d touched me.

“I know you’re wearing a suppressor chip that you haven’t had out for a very long time. And that making it look like an encyclopedia is a typical Postcop trick. And that when I look into your memories, there’s a hole you could drive a ten-year marriage through. All of which means that you’ve had some good tea in your time, though you don’t remember it very well.”

“What are you going to do?”

She looked at me in exasperation. “I’m going to tell the whole Net, make a huge scandal, ruin your career, and get you disappeared, what do you think? Maya, I’m not going to ‘do’ anything. I would never have brought it up if you hadn’t forced me to.”

“Thank you.” I sat down, relief stinging my eyes. “I should have known. I guess I’m a little paranoid—oh, all right, I’m a lot paranoid. A felon on News One has to be. If one hint of my past made it out on the Net, I’d disappear, you know, kak korova yazikom menya slizala. ”

“Like a what?”

I smiled, grateful for the change of subject. “As though a cow had licked me with its tongue. Meaning completely. The way you do when you run afoul of the Weavers.”

“I’ve never heard that expression in my life,” she said. “It never fails; just when I think I’m finally assimilated. Hang on, let me get that down.” She took out her totem, a faux-granite obelisk, to put her fluency chip into learn mode. Then she set the totem down on nothing; there must have been a table there where she was, but to my eyes, it simply hovered in the air.

“That might not be a good idea,” I said. “If it’s not on the fluency chip, it’s probably because someone doesn’t want it there. The Postcops might throw you a tea party just for having it in RAM.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Agent 99, I live for danger.”

I sputtered—relief was still making me giddy—but recovered in time to produce a creditable “Oh, Max.”

“Really, Maya, I don’t care what you do,” she said with (so it seems to me now, playing it back from the disk in slow motion) a studied indifference. “Speaking strictly under the Cone of Silence, why don’t you just take the damned thing out and put in a real encyclopedia? You can count on the 6000s to prevent any brain damage—His-Majesty-In-Chains does not make idle guarantees. And I can fix your Netcasts to look like it’s still in place. You can have your memories back. And… and the rest of it.” She shrugged. Her body was pretending to examine the tabletop, but the vidphone’s eye was pointing right at me. “It’s something to think about. We don’t have to talk about it now.”

I looked at her in horror. “You’re a cuckoo.”

“What?”

“You’re a Postcop. Or”—and a blade of ice slid into my heart— “are you a Weaver?”

“What makes you think that, Maya?” she said in a tone that was not at all what I’d expected. “How could I be a Weaver?”

“Anton Tamarich is drinking tea, and you’re his cuckoo,” I said. “No wonder I’ve never seen you except in virtual. You’re sitting in some control tower, running, what is it, my sixth loyalty check, or are we up to seven now? Don’t you people ever give up?”

“Oh,” she said, looking down. “I see. That’s what you think. Maya, it isn’t true.”

“Come on. I know the drill by now. You just gave me a textbook incitement to violate parole—nice and hypothetical, nothing that would look too pushy on the disk. Perfect, in fact. You’re a lot better than that idiot they sent last time, I’ll give you that.”

“Whatever I may be, I’m not a Postcop,” she said.

“Really? Let’s see—” I sent out a query to the Net “—your resume says you graduated from Leningrad University. Lapshina is still dean of the department there, isn’t she? I’ve known her since before you were born, if you’re the age you look. If I were to call her up…”

“By all means.”

I moved toward the videophone. She was still standing in front of it. When she wouldn’t move aside, I reached through her for the touchplate.

“Oh, God.” She sat down without bothering to materialize a chair; it was an eerie effect. “I was hoping you were bluffing.” Of course I had been, but I wasn’t going to tell her that. “No, she won’t remember me and yes, my resume is a fake. But it’s not what you’re thinking. Maya, the degree takes four years at a minimum, and there’s no way to expedite. Do you have any idea how absurd that is for a multimegascops?” She had talked herself out of fear and into anger. “The Net makes universities obsolete. Anyone with a bandwidth over room temperature can learn how to screen from the Net in a few hours. All those years of university training—they’re not trying to give you knowledge, they’re trying to control it. They’re weeding out the ideologically impure.”