I couldn’t bear to make eye contact with the tour group for more than a few seconds at a time, so I kept glancing out the window at the bright cityscape. The sky was black and the moon obscured by fog; more Brown Haze for tomorrow. A snarl of blinking red and white lights from the day’s fifth rush hour entranced me for a second, but the sound of ten people twitching woke me up. I couldn’t get a tenthsecond’s rest that night.
My homunculus went and found that errant bit of religious crossthink: it came from the jackgig request up at the monastery. A distraction. Victor Mature stepped up to the mic to take over the tour.
(Stock footage of Bill Cosby entered from skull-right and accepted a cigar from Freud with a smile. “Some acumen agents may appear as imaginary friends.” A human-sized cartoon cigar with flickering red ash for hair, goggle eyes rolling and stick-figure limbs akimbo, marched into view and waved. The crowd giggled as if on cue.)
In headspace, the homunculus flew into view and unfurled a parchment. A green visor hung from its horns and it waved a quill pen in one claw. Cute. My helicopter to the country was ready. I blinked my signature at the parchment and the image derezzed.
The children were all quivering eyes and hair slicked down against clammy skin (—delete that, only happythink tonight!). Victor gave the standard disclaimer, pointed out the gift shop and cheerily spat out the company slogan, “We’re Not Just Jack.”
(Corporate logo, cue jingle.)
The helicopter was still ready, and I was already late. There was no way the elevator would get me to the roof on time. In headspace, My Pet Dog scuttled forward and stared at the copter’s scheduling systems with his puppy-dog eyes. He scored twenty seconds for me. I took the steps up to the roof three at a time, swallowed a lungful of whipping smog on the helipad and hopped aboard.
(My Pet Dog was a droopy old basset hound with folds of brown and white fur draped over his snout. Designed to curry favor with acumen and humans alike, he almost never failed. Even a helicopter had to submit to his cuteness.)
“Are you well rested, or just patched?” the pilot asked. He was old and had that skinny-guy-with-a-paunch look that ex-athletes and the unpatched had. I didn’t know his name or number, so I couldn’t look him up on the jacknet. Small talk. Grr.
“I’m patched,” I said, trying to sound a bit apologetic. “That’s business, you know, a working girl has to make a living.” He smiled when I said “working girl.” What a Neanderthal. My Pet Dog had already sniffed out his body language and idiolect, cross-referenced it with his career choice, and suggested a conversational thread.
I looked out the window. “Shame, isn’t it?” I knew he’d know I was talking about the smog.
“The Brown Haze. Have you ever seen a white cloud? I know you live in the city.”
“Sure I’ve seen them, in the country. Won’t there be some over the hills by the monastery?”
He nodded once, as people of his temperament tend to. “Yeah.”
Then I realized that I was only hearing him with my ears. He wasn’t jacked at all. He’d just waited for me instead of overriding his helicopter and taking off without me. He’d done—what was it?—a favor.
It was hot in the cockpit, too hot, and my connection to the net faded. Victor Mature was beginning to warble, but the wetnurse rushed up and gave me a shot of sleepytime before my jack overheated entirely. Snoozeville.
* * * *
“Excuse me, I only had three seconds of the language,” I said in heavily accented Greek. The monk just smiled, showing that he actually had a pair of lips under his thick black beard. It was quiet outside, and cold.
“Welcome to Saint Basil’s,” he said in the bland English of disk jockeys and foreigners who’ve had their accents eradicated. “I’m Brother Peter.” He smiled weakly, his lips still moving slightly, like he was talking to himself. Or like he had just had a jack installed. (“It is two thirty five ay em,” the homunculus whispered.) The monastery was impressive from the outside, at least: a squat four-story building made of thick carved granite. The lawn was well-kept, but still a bit wild, with weeds and poorly pruned brushes lining the walkway up the hill. I heard some crickets chirping away in soothing unison. It reminded me of the city, but quieter, like the volume was turned down on the universe. The noise of the jacknet was far away too, like waves lapping a shoreline just out of sight.
“My God, you’re tired.” I looked him over but couldn’t see any of the telltale sweat or twitches. My own patches responded to that stray thought with another surge of tingly chemicals to the bloodstream. I blinked hard and rose to the tips of my toes. “I’m sorry, I’m … you know … I am not used to people who … actually let themselves get tired.”
“People who are not from the city,” Peter said. He didn’t smile this time, but he muttered something to himself after he spoke, then bowed his head slightly and took a step backward. “Come in, please.”
I slipped through the door and frowned. The walls were plain old drywall, with an icon or two hanging from nails for decoration. The ceiling lights were old yellow incandescent bulbs, and the monastery’s little foyer smelled of wax, incense, and unwashed feet. I got another burst of crossthought. (“… have mercy on me, a miserable sinner.”)
The source was here, somewhere down below. I could feel a jack pinging nearby, a strange chanting beat. There was only one of them, though, not the thousands I was used to in the city. Like one water droplet falling into a still puddle, it stood out.
Even out in the real world, it was quiet. Wind moved over the grass. Peter tugged on the sleeve of my blouse.
“Ms. Angelakis, you’ll need to retire for several hours at least. Morning prayers are in ninety minutes. Then we hold a morning liturgy, and of course—”
“Women may not attend the liturgy. After the morning meal, we will meet again so we may begin my examination of George Proios, who needs a jack installed,” I said along with him. There were only two variances. Peter said “your examination” instead of “my examination,” which I expected. More importantly, he said “removed” instead of “installed.” And his lips moved even after he finished speaking.
“What? Why would he want his jack removed?” I asked, my voice spiking enough to make My Pet Dog wince. My ego agent immediately got FedEx on the jacknet and had them send my tools out. “I wasn’t told this was a removal. A removal requires tools and facilities that I do not have. A removal needs a medical doctor. I’m just an installer. Assembly-line stuff. I’m unskilled labor.”
“Brother George does not want his jack removed. However, he requires it. We require it. He is a medical doctor and can assist you in that regard. He believes he can work with you, which is why he requested you.”
In the headspace, I ran to one of the phones and hit the hot button, but there was no dial tone.
The inky blackness of my headspace solidified into a curved stone wall, a cave with no entrance or exit. The homunculus tried to fly to the shadows, to the open networks, but slammed against the mental block and fell at my feet, twitching. The wetnurse knelt down to repair it. Outside, I was still, staring off into space.
“Ms. Angelakis?” Peter asked. He waved his hand in front of my face.
I stepped back up, my vision refocusing on the outside world. Peter’s lips twitched silently. I wanted to rip his beard off, to feel the wiry hair in my hands, but the wetnurse sedated me. From a few feet under the floor, I felt George Proios’s malfunctioning jack repeating one recursive command, one thought, over and over. In the corner of my headspace, I sensed him, like an old file I’d forgotten to delete, like a shadow on a cave wall.
(“Step up, there’s a world out there!” Victor Mature demanded. Kelly snapped to attention.)
“He’s having his jack removed,” I said to Peter. “How can he assist me?” The wetnurse ran about my headspace with cold compresses, but I got all flushed anyway. I could feel the heat pouring from my skin. Peter’s expression didn’t change; his eyes were distant and his body still but for his twitching lips.
“You do not need his help, just his consent,” he said, finally. His voice retained that dreamy, flat tone, like a computer or a jazz radio announcer.
“Jesus forgive me!” I said. “I’m not going to break half a dozen laws and risk a man’s…” I stopped and realized what I had just said.