“Seriously?”
“Call your mom.”
Verity dialed her mother’s number, getting it right on the second try.
106
34th Floor
Qamishli?” Rainey asked, from the kitchen, having tired of the feed from the drone.
Netherton muted. “Haven’t heard anything,” he said, “but here’s Verity, out from under the table, headed our way.”
“Give her my best.”
“I will.”
“Looking good,” Conner said, as Verity arrived.
“Not healthgoth, anyway,” she said. “I’ve seen fashion spreads of what she wears to show new projects.”
“Rainey sends her best,” Netherton said.
“Not in there with you?”
“Not currently. She’s anxious for news of Qamishli.”
“Eunice just told me it’s better, but nothing like all better.”
He quickly muted. “She says it’s slightly better, but I have to get back.”
“Thanks!” Rainey said.
He unmuted.
“Give her mine, then,” Verity said. “Virgil, is there a schedule for this?”
“An order, but not a schedule,” Virgil said. “But that’s three items, not counting what comes after them, and they’re all probably very brief. Then we either meet and greet the audience here or get hauled off and booked. We seem to be close to go, though. Caitlin just got her drone display up, outside, and they can’t stay out there indefinitely. Stets is ready. You get caught up with Eunice?”
Ash’s sigil pulsed. As Verity began to speak, Netherton muted the drone’s audio input.
“We have Kevin Pryor in the building,” Ash said, “Cursion’s top operative.”
“Where is he?” Netherton asked.
“Thirty-fourth floor, at the moment,” she said. “We won’t know how he got there until we can go over the security footage. And perhaps not then, because he seems quite good at this sort of thing. He’s resting, it seems, or more likely biding his time. He shouldn’t be able to reach us on the fifty-second, according to the blueprints, but Stets’ property includes part of the fifty-first, infrastructure space, in which the former owner constructed an illicit back door. We assume he’s aware of that. Conner will be taking the drone down. I recommend you have a break from the drone now.”
“Why?”
“To avoid the trauma of witnessing someone being killed by a bipedal combat drone.”
“No,” Netherton said, surprising himself.
“No?” Ash sounding at least as surprised.
“I can’t just sit on the couch and imagine it all. I have to be there tonight. Will we miss Eunice speaking?”
“Depends on Conner, I suppose. Or for that matter on Pryor. But it’s your decision.”
“I’ll stay.”
“Very well.”
Her sigil gone, he unmuted the drone’s audio.
“—a little fireworks,” Virgil was saying, “digital ones. Minimalist. Visually very quiet. A lot of our bylaw budget’s going for that, because we’re doing it with drones, lots of them, no permission. Then, depending on SFPD’s mood, Stets’ lawyers, and what connections Cursion might have, we’ll see.”
Conner was extending the drone’s legs now, the charger fastened to its lower back sliding up the trailer’s wall. “’Scuse us,” he said, as Verity and Virgil stepped back to give it room, “something needs seeing to. Find you when that’s taken care of.”
“Bye, Conner,” Verity said.
The drone, with a silicone-coated manipulator, approximated a thumbs-up, then headed for the door.
The perforated metal stairway they’d climbed was screened with spotlessly white fabric, cutting off any view of the space beyond. As they descended, Conner kept both manipulators on the metal handrails.
“Haven’t met you boys,” said a woman’s voice, unusually deep, “but of course I know who you are. I’m Eunice.”
“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” said Conner.
“Hello, Eunice,” said Netherton.
“Wilf,” said the voice. “I’m coming along. Want to speak with Pryor, before any final decision’s made.”
“Sounded to me like one had been,” Conner said, reaching the bottom.
“We’ll see about that,” said the voice, levelly.
They stepped out past the white scrim, the display filled with graceful abstract shapes, in that same white, sweeping up to the complexly domed ceiling.
“What is this?” Netherton asked.
“Caitlin’s decorating job,” Eunice said. “Get moving, Conner. Let’s not attract any more attention than we already have.”
People on the edge of the well-dressed crowd, about thirty meters away, had noticed the drone. A few pointed at it.
“Yes ma’am,” said Conner, turning the drone, retracting its legs slightly, and skating away, in the opposite direction, into what seemed a darkened, cavernous, and decidedly undecorated construction site.
107
Prom Night
When do they announce it?” Manuela asked, beside Verity. She was wearing, she’d told Verity in delighted disbelief, a Dior dress, from that fall’s ready-to-wear, courtesy of Caitlin’s stylist. She certainly looked as if she was at the party she believed she was attending. They were twenty feet from the foot of a modestly proportioned stage of scaffolding and plywood, its base wrapped with whatever Caitlin had used to sculpt her giddily aspirational sails, like her buildings but more so, not having to support themselves or anything else.
Joe-Eddy, overhearing, gave Verity a look and a smile. He was wearing one of the dusty black suits from his closet. She was surprised it fit him as well as it did, having assumed they all dated from his Fuckoids days. The addition of Eunice’s modified Korean AR goggles somehow resulted in a carnival look, as though he should also be wearing beads. “Looks like we’re kicking off,” he said, as Stets took the stage to a wave of applause, loose black trousers concealing the leg brace, though his limp was evident. Reaching center stage, he absently adjusted his bedhead, prompting lesser but still notable applause. He looked out at the audience and smiled. “If you’re here,” he said “it’s because either Caitlin or I know you well enough to want you to personally witness something we believe will be truly historic.”
“Whoa,” said Manuela. “Over the top?”
“Given this city, and the things most of us do,” Stets continued, “you’ll have heard that before, ambitious people announcing something innovative, something they believe will drive change, but something they generally haven’t accomplished yet. This isn’t that.”
“Being pregnant’s innovative?” Manuela side-eyeing Verity.
“This isn’t a pitch,” Stets said. “I’m here to introduce a change driver, but one that already exists. Her name’s Eunice.”
“How can it be a gender reveal already?” Manuela frowning slightly.
“I don’t think she’s pregnant,” said Verity, as Kathy Fang and Dixon arrived, making their way through the crowd with Grim Tim and Sevrin in tow.
“Then this is weird,” said Manuela.
“It is,” Verity agreed, as Kathy Fang, reaching her, gave her a hug.
“Eunice,” said Stets, “may be unlike anyone you’ve met, but she’s also a lot like anyone you’ve met. Here she is.”
Manuela was staring up at the stage. “This the one you all keep mentioning?”
Behind Stets, white fabric fell from a theater screen, revealing the face of Eunice’s avatar, perhaps slightly younger-looking tonight than Verity remembered it.
“Hey,” Eunice said, seeming to look into the audience. “Hi. I’m Eunice. No last name. Siri and Alexa don’t have ’em either, but the resemblance stops there. I’m an AI-upload hybrid. I’m culturally African-American, which is about the upload side of the hybridization. Pronoun ‘she,’ likewise. Thanks to Caitlin and Stets for giving me this chance to meet you. I’m here because I’m something new, and because I want to introduce myself before anyone else starts explaining their idea of me to you. While I’m at it, I’d like to say that I’m nobody’s property, not a product, and neither Stets nor anyone else, any entity of any kind whatever, is going to profit financially from my being here, now and going forward. I pay my own way. And while we’re on that, I’m culturally American, obviously, but I’m not the citizen of any nation-state. I don’t exist physically, so I’m no place in particular, no one country. I’m globally distributed, and that’s how I view my citizenship. Lots of you are hearing me in a language other than English. I’m translating for myself, as I speak. I’m as multilingual as anybody’s ever been, but saying that brings up the question of whether I even am anybody.” She paused. “Whether I’m a person. Human. All I can tell you about that is that it feels to me like I am. Me. Eunice.” She smiled.