Аннали Ньюиц - Autonomous

Eliasz was describing his imaginary job at PharmPraxis with what sounded like genuine bitterness. The story was calculated to bring out sympathies in his audience. “I took a job in chem admin right out of university,” he said, “and they put me on a drug that died in trials. Took a year, but they wound up sacking my whole team. If your drug doesn’t get to market, well…” Eliasz trailed off.

“What do you work on?” asked Gertrude. “There are tons of jobs for chem admins around here.”

“I design algorithms that look for interesting emergent properties in organic molecules.”

A tall man with cheap glasses was walking in step with them. “Not my area, but I bet we could find you something, Ivan,” he said. His accent definitely wasn’t local—Paladin did a quick comparison between the tall man’s vowels and those of four hundred other regional accents in English. The best approximation was northern Federation, where Paladin and Eliasz had just been stationed.

“Thanks, um…”

“Youssef,” said the man. He easily met Paladin’s face sensors with his eyes; the bot and the man were the same height. “Pleased to meet you both,” he added.

They reached the Life Sciences complex and Gertrude dug through her pocket for what turned out to be a rather archaic password management device. She waved the tiny lump of plastic in the air when they reached an ash cement building, and the building’s network replied by opening a set of double doors.

Paladin noticed Youssef glance quickly at the sensor-flecked paint of the interior hallway, reflecting the gang of gradually sobering students dully as they passed through and began shedding their jackets. Gertrude, Youssef, and their friends worked on a theoretical and underfunded subject related to protein mutation and aesthetic decision-making. Their lab was in the basement, its equipment at least two generations behind current models. The walls were covered in signs and stickers stolen from other labs. “DANGER! DO NOT TOUCH THE MAGNET!” read a particularly large one over their sequencing cluster. “LIVE CRICKETS” read another.

“Here we are,” Gertrude said, gesturing for light. “Xiu, there’s our printer. The network is called PolarBunnies and it’s open.” She gestured again. “Help yourself to whatever.” Paladin walked carefully around several tables laden with cooling units and test tubes. He printed up some chips while Eliasz made small talk.

As the printer spat out nanoscopic threads, Eliasz managed to bring the conversation back around to those goddamn patent hoarders whom he really had a mind to fuck over somehow.

Youssef was tense with excitement, his body radiating identification with Eliasz’ tale. It was obvious he was about to speak several seconds before he did. “So how would you get back at a company like PharmPraxis for what they did?” Youssef asked. “I mean, how far would you be willing to go?”

“You really want to know? This doesn’t go outside this lab, OK?” Eliasz asked. Everybody was staring at him.

“Absolutely,” enthused Gertrude.

“I’ve got the formula for this patent-pending drug they’re in trials with right now. If somebody else brings it to market first, they’d never be able to claim prior art, because they based it on a molecule they got gray market from some unlicensed lab in the Brazilian States.” Eliasz paused, then gave his best shaky laugh. “I mean, I probably wouldn’t do anything with it, but I could. I really did take the formula.” He patted his hip pocket as if he’d saved the data in a physical medium and stashed it in his pants.

Youssef couldn’t take his eyes off the imaginary data in Eliasz’ pants. Paladin was getting weird readings off his brain: The guy was too excited, almost like he was on drugs or suffering a neurological aberration.

“You should do it,” he blurted out.

“Shut up, Youssef,” said Gertrude, who was checking a box full of samples with a small mass spectrometer. “That’s a serious fucking crime. Not like reverse engineering some old drug that’s about to go public domain anyway.”

It was Eliasz’ opening and he took it. “You’ve reverse engineered drugs before?”

Gertrude snorted. “Barely. He decompiled some Glizmer freshman year and sold copies of it to half our dorm.”

“That Glizmer worked.” Youssef looked angry. “And you know it’s more than that, Gertrude.”

Paladin watched anxiety push blood into Gertrude’s cheeks. Youssef’s lips tensed up. The tall man with the North Federation accent was taking a serious risk talking about this in front of a stranger. Paladin was impressed: Eliasz knew how to make people trust him. Would Youssef spill some serious intel? Apparently, yes.

“If you’re serious, you should meet some friends of mine whose labs aren’t funded by Big Pharma.” Youssef’s voice broke on the word “friends,” and Paladin realized the man’s body was still passing through the final stages of puberty.

Gertrude broke in, her heart rate elevated. “You know, Youssef, not everybody wants to break the law to prove a point.”

Eliasz shrugged like he hadn’t noticed any tension. “I don’t have anything against meeting new people,” he said to Youssef.

JULY 6, 2144

The next day, Paladin and Eliasz returned to the Lex in the late afternoon, long enough before happy hour that the crowds were thin. A few groups of students were quietly studying on their goggles, and a lonely farmer was nursing vodkas at the bar. Across the table from Eliasz and Paladin, his face slightly obscured by soup steam, was Youssef’s friend Thomasie, who wasn’t funded by Big Pharma.

He certainly looked the part. Thomasie’s black hair was gelled into a stylish tangle around his face, and certain fibers of his shirt glowed with the faded logo of a Freeculture org that had died in the 2120s. It was hard to say if he’d kept the shirt for twenty-five years, or simply bought an item artfully frayed and faded to look authentic. Thomasie had a way of leaning in when he talked, as if everything he was saying brought you into his confidence. Unlike Youssef, he had control of his flush responses and heart rate. It was hard to tell when he was lying, though the very evenness of his readings gave something away. He was masking emotional reactions to everything around him.

“Youssef tells me you worked at PharmPraxis and are looking for something new.” Thomasie looked straight at Eliasz, then glanced at Paladin. “That’s a pretty sweet bot you got on a chem admin’s salary.”

“I inherited him from my mother when she died.”

“I see. So what exactly is it that you did at PharmPraxis?”

“Algorithms.”

“And you had access to patent-pending designs, eh?”

Eliasz and Paladin stared at Thomasie and said nothing.

“Youssef told me you were interested in talking to me about some designs you saw.”

Silence was a good way to get additional information, to make the other person commit to the transaction first.

Thomasie tapped his index finger on the table slowly and continued. “My colleagues and I would be interested in taking a look at any designs you might have. We pay for good IP, no questions asked.”

At last Eliasz prepared to speak. Paladin measured the seconds it took for him to ramp up, heard him stabilize his breathing and blood pressure.

“I have the file on me. When do you want to see it?”

Paladin noticed that Eliasz failed to talk specific prices. He was trying to sound like a newbie at this. Perfect for a disgruntled ex-employee.

Thomasie caught the naïveté, and relaxed. He figured he had this one well in hand.

“We can go right now. My car is outside.”

They drove fifty kilometers outside city limits, the solar farms of South Baffin whipping past like vast regattas of smooth black sails. Youssef was drumming on the window and ignoring Paladin while Thomasie and Eliasz sat up front and talked.