"Do you know why?"
"We are assuming a malfunction in the machine--"
"A very convenient malfunction," Mary says.
Parmenter shakes her head vigorously. "Very inconvenient, actually, for the
estate. It could create all kinds of mischief."
"No vid records?" Lodge looks stern. "You presume upon the dignity of
this court, Miz Parmenter. Wouldn't you call it deceptive not to tell us this
earlier?"
Parmenter looks as if her stomach is bothering her. She decides, once again,
to say nothing.
"You've brought proof of these changed circumstances?"
"Tech confirmation. The vid, audio, and all bur medical and transcribed
records for the day of Mr. Crest's death are blank."
Lodge leans back in his chair and shakes his head, again with a pixie smile.
"My," he says. "Very awkward indeed."
"Sir, I amend my request to all of the available records," Mary says quickly,
176 GREG BEAR
Parmenter accepts this without protest. There is really nothing more she
can say; the judgment has been issued, and there is no appeal.
But Mary does not have any idea what sort of shambling, crippled victory
she has won.
"We need to talk," she says to Parmenter in the hall outside.
"I don't need to talk with you," Parmenter responds.
"Vid recorders are supposed to be foolproof."
"Not so, apparently. And don't go fishing in our offices for conspiracies.
This is damned embarrassing."
"I need the tech's file."
"It's simple. The vid recorder has a link to Mr. Crest's pad, to allow him
to deactivate it should he wish to. He did not deactivate it, but something
worked its way through the pad after his death--time unknown--and broke
through the vid system firewalls."
"It was hacked?"
"That's our best guess. I think you can imagine how tough it is to hack a
billionaire's system. Listen, Miz Choy, we're lobe-sods here, just doing what
the heirs need to have done to protect their interests. You have all that's left.
My office had nothing to do with this, except to find it out too late to come
up with a good defense. Don't drop a ton of bricks."
Mary is inclined to believe her, but professionally can make no blanket
pronouncements. "Please send--"
"I know Nussbaum's sig," Parmenter says. "I was in lock and key before I
moved to keyhole and private law. I have to go now. Anything else?"
"Professionally, I should say thanks."
e
"It's nothing," Parmenter says, and then gives a small, pained laugh. "Really,
nothing at all."
11
Denny Tower is a long crystal prism standing on one point, supported by four
cylindrical pillars that rise to intercept the facets of the base. The Workers Inc
Northwest central office for the Corridor fills ten floors in the pillar that rises
to meet the western slant of the tower, near the junction. Above the junc
tion, the tower rises an additional twelve hundred feet, its top brushed this
late morning by a broken deck of smooth gray clouds. The tower's usual blue-
gray sheen has been modified to sunny gold to offset the gloomy and feature
less sky.
A I
'oil,mA ocnrr Martin Burke through the orientation and
/
SLANT 177
center. Workers Inc is very careful about providing access to this center. Temp
agency records on clients are immune from Federal and Citizen Oversight; and
the records in client tracking are the most comprehensive and critical of all.
In a real sense, for Workers Inc, this is the inner sanctum of a temple, where
the physical and mental vital signs of millions are fed into living, continuously
heart of one before.
"We get the inputs from house monitors, agency medicals, therapists, city
and state proceedings," Carrilund explains as they enter the darkened display
circle. "All household diagnostics, all procedures, work records and employer
evaluations, and diary reports from our volunteer study clients, come here and
are processed. Nobody can connect individuals with the data; that's forbidden.
The whole system is protected by four INDAs instructed to code-lock the data
if a hack should be attempted. Only the personal presence of the top worldwide
executives of Workers Inc--about thirty in all--can unlock the data if that
happens. We've never had a successful real hack. We've never even managed
to irritate the system with test hacks."
Carrilund catches his faint smile and lifts one eyebrow. "Famous last words,
you think?"
Martin folds his arms, looking around the dark circular room. "No, I was
thinking about something else... As to the security, I really can't judge."
"We've offered a two million dollar reward to anyone who manages to get
past the first firewall," Carrilund says with that brittle sort of pride Martin
has often seen in players in an immense team effort. "There are nine walls
beyond that, each equally difficult. Nobody's collected the reward.
"We've been told by experts that we're better than National Defense."
If he had one tenth this power, Martin believes he could advance the science
of human social systems by decades... But he is merely a peon in the corporate
scale of things, a rogue scientist not part of the team.
"What about the data displays here? Who gets access to them?"
"Top execs and key employees only, on a need-to-know basis confirmed by
our own oversight board. The data is used for a number of purposes, but we
couldn't connect the data to any individual even if it were a matter of life and
death."
"I see. You've never used the data to do research?"
Carrilund gives him a sidewise look and narrows her eyes in amusement.
"We have an INDA and a staff of fourteen advocates who decide what we use
this data for. They've never okayed research for its own sake."
"Pity," Martin says.
"Um," Carrilund says, with a small smile. "This is also the only room where
we can access the data. It's large enough to accommodate about thirty people."
"All of the execs at once, if need be."
"Exactly." Carrilund requests two seats. They rise from the polished black
178
GREG BEAR
takes the seat beside him. He watches her movements with more than profes
sional interest; the combination of power and healthy grace, with the dignity
of her middle years, is a distraction from his focus. A wistful voice at the back
of his awareness asks if Carol, his former wife, wears this such grace and power
now, as well.
"Before our meeting with the board and other experts, I want you to see
what we've been seeing for the past two months. Can you read sociometrics?
We use standard icons and indicators."
"I presume I can, then."
Carrilund leans her head back. Projectors around the room have focused on
them and now provide triangulated feeds of light and sound to their eyes and
ears. The room takes on the empty graded blue of a cloudless desert sky; a null
hum surrounds them. The feeds override any other images or sound at fir
st,
and for a disorienting moment, surveying the floating console of controls above
his hands and the disorienting void, Martin feels as if he is about to enter the
country of someone's mind, a journey he has not made in four years . . .
Then Carrilund's voice comes through clearly, rooting him. "Remember,
our clients have volunteered to be part of this," she says.
His vague sensation of weightless nausea goes away. "I would have agreed,
if I were them."
"Mr. Burke, we need your mind free and clear. We do not need freewheeling
moral judgment."
"Of course," Martin says with some irritation.
"You've gone upcountry in the mind of an individual. We're riding the
flow of the river upcountry into the simulated heart of a community. I'm sure
eou appreciate this opportunity."
Martin wonders if she is being patronizing, but it doesn't matter. This is
indeed like standing on the beach of a new sea, and his qualms and flashbacks
quickly fade. "I'm ready," he says.
"The community has a puzzling and possibly dangerous fever," Carrilund
says. "Let me show you what we've learned."
The blue changes to grass green. A plain extends to infinity. Bushes and
trees grow up from the plain. They become a thin forest, with canopy and
undergrowth. He touches the virtual controls here, there, and with some non-
tactile fumbling, he acquaints himself with its basics.
"This is the threshold," Carrilund says. Her voice sounds directly in his
right ear; she seems to be speaking softly, breathlessly. The effect is seduc
tive. "We'll start with charts and graphs and stay until we get a sense of
scale and some detail. Then we'll venture a little deeper. All the trees and
bushes here--"
"Personal event graphs--Smithfield Tri-chromas, with each growth repre
senting a thousand clients," Martin says.
:
-. A;c,c fi,:,lA
(-n he rnatted now if you wish."
/
SLANT 179
and female, and other--sexual transforms, he presumes--and then sexual orientation.
This display recognizes fifteen orientations, some of them maladaptive
and usually therapied in Western culture--disapproved of even in this
liberal age--which of course calls up questions of survey accuracy and the
honesty of reporting individuals.
With some shock, he sees that the numbers of individuals matching these
"outlaw" orientations is much higher than the figures he is familiar with.
"The sexual orientation stats are based on survey results cross-correlated
with entertainment-seeking patterns and have a maximum reliability in the
more extreme sub-fields oabout eighty percent," Carrilund says. She has slaved
her display to his explorations, he realizes she sees what he sees, and is good
at guessing how he might react, what he is thinking. Then why bring me here
at all. I'm supposed to offer some surprises,
"The numbers showing possible deviant behavior are way up," he says.
"Pedophiles, supermales, omniphilia with destructive context... Much higher
numbers than I'd expect."
"And they're on the rise. Some of the numbers are nearing what we would
expect in society without effective therapies. Figures haven't been this high
since 2012. An obvious danger sign, don't you think?"
"Hm," Martin says.
The display changes to softly shifting patches of rainbow color, like a tart
sorbet between courses of a rich meal.
"I'd like you to see a constellation of dendritic charts for diagnostic toilet
evaluations."
"All right," Martin says, grinning despite himself.
"About a third of our clients have diagnostic toilets. Generally upper four
percent in earnings. A greater percentage of naturals and high naturals; generally,
they're therapied for thymic rather than pathic imbalances."
New charts appear on a deep midnight ground like wildly radiating stars.
Carrilund highlights three of the stars clustered near the center. "Working
outward to current date, these are reports beginning two weeks ago of diseases
or infections within client households."
Martin points with one finger to bring up numerical statistics. Of the four
million households surveyed, infections have been detected in more than forty
percent. And the supposed infections change with time, beginning with warts
in skin sloughs from shower and bath gray water (diagnostic toilets almost
always interpret the entire household sewer system) and leading to a virtual
epidemic of bronchial and nasal infections.
"What about medical reports?" Martin asks.
Carrilund brings up these stats as simple bar charts laid over the dendritic
stars. They show no increases in hospital visits or medical arbeiter attendance
to treat such illnesses, which is what Martin would expect, knowing that nearly
all viral outbreaks are easily controlled by medical monitors found in most of
180 GREG BEAR
"The toilets are giving us false reports day after day," Carrilund concludes.
"Even when checked and reset."
Martin thinks this over, mind racing. "But you've told me... You're concerned
about mental therapy fallbacks."
"Use your controls and bring up charts of our therapied clients in this
population. Now match them with the households whose diagnostic toilets are
acting up."
With some fumbling and false starts, Martin makes the correlations.
"Sorry," he says after a couple of minutes. "There. Households with therapied
members are the source of all false disease reports."
"I wanted you to see for yourself. That took us two hours to find last week,
when we decided to run neural data searches. The trend is consistent."
Martin rubs his cheek with one finger. "I'll need stats for thymic disturbances
in the overall client list..." He finds the display. "Up twelve percent,
but only previously therapied people show the increase. What about pathic
imbalances and criminal behavior?"
Carrilund keys in an entirely new display. "Remember, this is professional...
You've signed strict nondisclosure."
"I remember," Martin says softly.
"We've had a twenty-five percent increase in arrests for social disturbances
and other misdemeanors, and a five percent increase in felonies, mostly assaults
and rapes, but a few murders, as well. It's been Worker Inc policy not to
employ individuals with a record of violent crimes, even when they've been
therapied... We leave those folks to the rehab temp agencies. So if our hypothesis
is correct, that we're seeing an epidemic of fallbacks, we would expect
e
our greatest increase to be in thymic disorders. And it is."
"What about the misdemeanors--do you have pull-outs for category?"
"Here's the breakdown."
The display rises before them like a sun cut into pie wedges. Martin examines
the icons and captions for more details, punching his finger at the
virtual display, poking empty air.
"You have ten thousand twelve hundred and three cases of disturbing
the peace, social misbehavior requiring PD action, in the past week," Martin
says, stroking his cheek more rapidly. He frowns. Details o
n selected
cases come up. "Public displays of nudity. Blatant racial insults. Let's get
away from criminal behavior for a moment and look into complaints of unprofessional
actions. How many referrals for client misbehavior have come
back to this office?"
Carrilund finds him the right folio within the display and the charts and
figures for these incidents appear. They take him some time to sort through.
He is most interested in the sudden increase of incidents of expressed racism
in the work place--evidence perhaps of bigotry, the old devil of genetically o,A ,-,dr,,rllv rnixd rotulations. Most forms of racism are now regarded as
/
SLANT 181
Workers Inc seems to be experiencing levels of racist behavior not seen since
the teens and twenties.
Irrational and pernicious. And outbursts of public obscenity--
"Any ideas?" she asks.
"Can we get national figures here?"
"No," Carrilund says. "But I've been authorized to let you know that these
figures are remarkably uniform for North America, including Mexico."
"Workers Inc has a problem with politeness, it seems."
Carrilund chuckles ruefully. "That puts it mildly."
"There seems to be focused antisocial activity in your clients... But what