PART 2

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NoId

Marc looked up into the corner of his vision where Goa's utterance poised in twitching FreeFont. Her EKG, EEG, heartrate, kinematic status and subtle suggestions of GeSpeak and SuVox had given the four letters an overtone of irritation, confusion and the tiniest bit of dread that would have been completely and utterly lost on anyone who associated words, letters or even communication with the esoteric form of static marks on an unchanging surface.

The back of Marc's throat closed the tiniest amount and two fingers on his right hand made a minute but practiced twitch – had Marc thought about doing it instead of simply losing himself to the action, the gesture would have been far too exaggerated.

Nft

Infant. Marc sealed the insult with a GoogleZon droplet. Look him up. Or, more accurately, Look him up so that I don't have to tell you how to do your job again. I don't care if your father is my lodge brother. You're adorable and all, Goa, but you're manning the front so that I can actually get some work done. Leave me to my business and show some initiative for once.

Said business was harder and harder to do lately, of course. The franchise empire had contracted from twenty-five restaurants to eighteen over the past couple of years but that was just the economy. Retrenching to the flagship and dirtying his hands with the tedium of food service had been Alicia's idea. He would have just as soon sold the whole stupid thing after Mom died. Yum Brands had made him a semi-decent offer that

NoID

Goa accompanied the more impassioned, more insistent vit with an eyegrab. A glaring eyegrab at that; the sensoriums favored by youth had the same effect on their progenitors as Elvis and MySpace had in generations past. Goa had her colorspace amped to something resembling a Tim Burton dreamscape and her eyes didn't rest in one place long enough to focus. Nonetheless, Marc was a little jealous - as always – of the acuity that teenagers took for granted... and which no amount of restruc, regene or AO could quite match.

And that was just what she had defaulted to of course. He was seeing the public output of her private eyespace, scrubbed sanitary of the individual quirks, feeds, tweaks, and tidbits that made one's perception their own. Marc suspected the blank spots at the outer reaches of her eyespace were reserved for the vits of her friends and chosen celebrities, as well as whatever distracting mindcandy she'd subbed to. That's how he organized his own. Pranavit Singh was debuting a new exopiece at Citi Taskent, even old farts like him knew that. If Goa wasn't in on that she'd be officially deviant, at least as far as her peers were concerned.

But there the man was, the source of all her consternation, mute and unenhanced amongst a full foyer of annotated, animated diners. Unfashionable as all hell. My god... are those... eyebrows?

The un-annotated, un-enhanced whitespace around the man was disquieting even at a degree removed. Even the deviants and winos had been chipped for a dozen years or more, they received no benefits otherwise. Yet here this man stood, for all intents and purposes a hole in the fabric of space-time. No name, no zip, no allergies, no eMed, no profile at all, public or private.

TM, Marc suvoxed. Tourist Mode. It was a mod he'd upped his sensorium for when Alicia was into saving the world. Even without reading chips, TM would give you contextual info, visual inferences, secondary associations and semantic relevances for anything you looked at so that even the dumbest objects became smart – as smart as the world could make them. A week in Dhabi and she'd given up on the notion, thankfully; The Now was so much more pleasantly experienced at a reasonable technological remove.

The sensorium – Marc's own private Djinn, own private Idaho, own personalized layer of ubiquitous computing between that which Marc experienced as self and that which the universe experienced as Marc – flipped seamlessly from the passive information collecting of normal experience to the active information gathering of Tourist Mode. A Googlezon droplet flashed the stranger's face and compared it with the amassed intelligence of The Cloud faster than Marc could ask. Its answer came back even quicker. Null.

Marc began to feel a pang of regret for stomping down on Goa so hard. She was thirty years younger than Marc and light years ahead technologically; she had probably performed this very ritual prior to pestering him. Had likely come up with same result in less time than it had taken him to think of trying it. Just to check his sensorium, Marc suvoxed the bromeliad next to the maitre'd stand.

Guzmania Lingulata “archos.” Lighting inadequate. Property of Angeles Exotics. SerNo 4458765558, Leased thru 791231.

And that, Marc thought, is why I don't rawk TM. He was no closer to a solution and this so wasn't his zone. Every child, every adult, every criminal, every foreigner, every AI, every semisapient pet that had been born, hatched or forged in the past twenty years had a chip. There were probably Uncontacteds in the Amazon somewhere without them, but they sure as hell weren't standing in line for overpriced kitsch nachos and tilapia crepes. The Five Worlds agreed on little but one thing they did agree on was universal identification. Having none was about as alien as you could ask for -

Marc's blood went cold. He looked at the mystery man again. Hard to tell without the cromag fur but the eyes are the same.

Roger Erickson Skyarc, Marc suvoxed into the sensorium. Instead of the typical three known photos, assorted commemorative coins, biographies and dramatizations he was expecting, Roger found himself presented with an Interpol shield and a personal eyes-only. Marc blanched, accepted the terms and started out of the office.

“Seat. Booze. Words.” It was an audible transmission for Goa, not rendered in whatever tones her sensorium synth calculated appropriate but an honest-to-god voicetrack. The language felt odd in his mouth, the formality wholly inappropriate for the setting. Like writing a greeting card in cursive to ask someone to pass the salt. Marc couldn't remember the last time he'd used spoken language on someone he hadn't slept with or sired but he was going to have to start. And he knew beyond a reasonable doubt the formality of it all would knock Goa off her ass and onto some sort of reasonable action.

Marc emerged from the office into the foyer. The overstated presence of a giant portrait of Commander Roger Erickson did not shame him in the least. After all, none of the people standing in the foyer had made the connection, despite the fact that Erickson appeared just as blank in their sensoriums as he did in Marc's. No, nothing to be embarrassed about. After all, to admit that he was incapable of recognizing someone standing under their own framed portrait – the very someone his family's business was named after – the very enterprise he had gone to Harvard to learn how to run – was to admit that the augmented reality he and the rest of the Five Worlds lived in was not a complete and total improvement over the world that had come before. Over the world this relic before him called home. Nothing to be embarrassed about at all.

“No, thank you. Do you have any tables available?”

Roger Erickson: face shaven, not depilated; two wormy, bushy monstrosities over both eyes like some mindspace villain; standing in said foyer and chattering like a monkey... now that caused him embarrassment.

wrdz The vit to Goa was firm and insistent. She was standing in front of Commander Erickson, a punta negri held stiffly out in one arm, green sticky-sweetness spilling over the rim. Words. Use your words.

“Hel-lo - “ Goa said, the intonation and volume freakish enough to cause Roger to draw back.

This is a disaster unfolding, Marc thought as a foyer-ful of fully tagged, fully annotated, fully legitimate citizens stupidly watched the archaic tableau play out. And here this caveman stood before them like some lice-infested, un-bathing monster from the stone age, looking shocked and dismayed by defenseless little Goa.

“Come,” Marc said, and gestured over his head with what felt like large, pinwheeling motions. Commander Erickson stared at him, then walked in Marc's direction. The crowd parted reluctantly like a traffic jam before an ambulance. Marc walked backwards into the office, his eyes never leaving the caveman.

Marc backed up to the desk. He sat down. Commander Erickson looked around then settled uneasily into a chair on the wall. The two men regarded each other across a gap of time and space.

“So... can I get a bite to eat?” Commander Erickson said. Marc stared at him.

“I know you.”

“I imagine you do. You've got my face up on your wall.”

Marc stared some more, completely at a loss in this context-free discussion. It was like playing basketball in freefall or riding a horse underwater.

“Sorry,” Marc said, the words rusty and odd.

“For what?”

For not having the faintest idea how to talk to you, caveman, Marc thought. Commander Erickson had been born in a time before The Internet. On the other hand, Universal Broadband was celebrating its third decade by the time Marc was out of diapers. The Interpol briefing Marc had acquiesced to had explicitly stated that Commander Erickson wasn't simply turned loose off the SkyArc, the ship home to roost after twenty-odd years in transit, twenty-odd years in orbit around Eden, then twenty-odd years homeward. He was fully informed that returning pilots were often taken aback by the effects the passage of time had had on their world. Of course, SkyArc had been the first – and the slowest – of the DeepShips... and Commander Erickson's alienation after sixty years in suspended animation was undoubtedly the strongest.

Commander Erickson had this coming nonetheless. He had been warned. At least, that's how Marc saw it.

“Hello?” Roger waved his hand in front of Marc's face. Marc glared at him. I hear you, Caveman, I just don't know how to communicate in grunts and whistles.

Which is a great reason to give him the letter, Marc thought, unable to focus on the sounds made by Erickson's flapping lips. To think the world once worked like this. To think people once relied on this. The whole idea made him feel very small and vulnerable and painfully aware of the fragile, analog organism that sat like a pit at the heart of his metaself.

Marc stood up and walked across the office. His eyes barely left Commander Erickson. He touched his palm to the wall – his sensorium had always painted it with a lovely tropical scene of Waikiki as it might have been envisioned by Maxfield Parrish, but he realized that Erickson saw it as bare and white. The sunset rippled in his vision and a door opened. Marc had a brief notion to prompt his sensorium to unaugment, but the idea scared him. Instead he reached into the hole, pulled out a plain white envelope, and held it out awkwardly to Erickson.

Erickson looked at him. Looked at the letter. Looked at him again, then took the letter from his hand. Marc sat back down in his chair and watched the anachronism read. Watched his hard face soften. Watched his hard blue eyes mist – it was enough to ignore those wormy things on his forehead. Especially when Erickson's hard mouth twitched into a smile.

It was a fascinating experience even in such an isolated environment. How isolated? The idea came again and this time would not be dismissed. He can't meet you on his terms. You'll have to meet him on his.

Off, Marc suvoxed firmly to his sensorium, then followed it with the never-practiced string of thoughts and micromovements necessary to force the sensorium to acknowledge the command. A warning popped up into his vision immediately: Operating a transport or heavy equipment without augmentation is a violation of SMC 10.371c.42b6. Are you sure? Marc suvoxed his assent only to be presented with another warning: Persons operating without augmentation have been found to experience disorientation, vertigo, depression and dementia. Please annunciate “I understand these risks” to continue. The sensorium assisted him with a helpful audible of the words.

“I understand these risks,” Marc repeated aloud, causing Commander Erickson to look up inquisitively.

And then the world went spooky.

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PART 4