The Heist of Hollow London, page 6
Having no slate, and no available eyes with which to look out the window, he asked the car to turn on an audio channel. “Something with local news,” he told it, in the hope of getting some sense of what the city was like.
Arlo was used to not being able to access whatever he wanted, so he hadn’t clocked how limited his selection of in-flight entertainment had been. Other passengers had been able to access the net and news media, but Arlo only had an edited range of music, humor, sport, and discourse channels. So while the world had spent the last two days talking of little other than the collapse of Oakseed, it came as a complete surprise to Arlo to hear a succession of professional commentators, pop streamers, and other celebrities giving their views on the situation and what consequences they expected would follow. When Arlo understood what was happening, he found himself tuning in and out of the voices, reeling away from them as he tried to connect this seismic global development to his personal situation, then latching back onto the voices in the hope of finding new facts that might make sense of it all.
Arlo’s mind instinctively resisted the idea Oakseed could fail. The fact of the company had been so drilled into him, had felt so inevitable, so impossible to fight. He knew this was how they wanted him to feel, but that didn’t stop him feeling it. Above all, something in him still regarded the company as his company, and wanted it to succeed.
Arlo forced himself to think past all this. When he considered it rationally, it was clearly true that Oakseed had collapsed. It explained why he wasn’t dead: Samson hadn’t been fired, the company simply no longer existed to support his medical entitlement, and the hospital had refused to proceed. Arlo laughed at the thought: if the company had held together just a few more hours, he’d be dead and Samson would be alive. Someone, somewhere had done him a huge favor by calling in the receivers when they did. He wondered who it was and if he’d ever get to thank them.
It didn’t explain why he was in Vancouver with someone else’s eyes in his head and a case shackled to his wrist. Or if it did, he was still missing some pieces of information that would connect it all up. It was clear Oakseed no longer held him, so he must have been sold to someone else. Someone in Vancouver. He must be on his way to them right now.
He wondered what had happened to Drienne. Until now he’d assumed she’d be going about her life in their old apartment, but that clearly wasn’t the case. It was possible he’d never find out, and he hated that thought.
* * *
The car came to a stop in what sounded like an underground car park and the engine turned itself off. Had he arrived? Arlo waited a few moments, but nothing happened. He’d assumed someone would be here to meet him.
“Well?” he asked the car. “What now?”
The car didn’t reply.
Arlo checked his slate, but it still demanded authorization before it would do anything. He tried to open the car door, but it was locked. Surely whoever arranged all this wouldn’t go to all this effort just to let him die in an underground car park. He had literally no enemies; he hardly even knew anyone. And why send him all the way here? You can lock someone in a car just as easily in Shanghai.
Minutes passed.
Then the car door opened.
“Sorry,” said a woman in a deadpan, amused drawl. “I meant to be here when you arrived, but I was on a call.”
“It’s fine,” Arlo replied automatically.
“Come on up.”
“Who are you?”
“My name’s Mia Ostrander. I’m your new holder.”
* * *
They took an elevator to the twelfth floor. Arlo knew it was the twelfth floor because the elevator had a voice that said so. Mia led Arlo along the hallway, holding his hand lightly. The hallway seemed spacious (judging by the echo), had thick carpets, and smelled faintly of marzipan. They arrived at a door that Mia opened, and then she led him inside.
“Let me take that,” she said, lifting the case from his hand. The cuff sprang open and fell from his wrist.
“Thanks,” said Arlo as he massaged his wrist where the cuff had been. The skin wasn’t irritated—like most mades of his generation, he was equipped with grafts on vulnerable areas that were designed to hamper suicide.
“Can I offer you a drink?” Mia said as she guided him over to a recliner (a very comfortable one, with a rich, authentic leather smell, not that Arlo had ever smelled real leather). By now he was pretty sure what was in store for him. Probably a lot of the brand ambassadors would end up in places like this, becoming fuckdolls for the wealthy. It could have been worse, he supposed. But then, he didn’t know what she was into yet. There could be pain, degradation, mutilation, et cetera.
He asked if he might have a green tea.
“Of course,” said Mia. “You can take off his bandages now.”
Arlo was confused by this until he worked out Mia was talking to a third person, whose presence in the room Arlo hadn’t clocked until now. This third person approached Arlo and introduced himself as Darboe.
“Don’t worry,” said Mia, “he’s a registered nurse, not just some guy I picked up off the street.”
“Are you sure they’re ready to come off?” said Arlo.
“Should be more than ready,” said Darboe. Gently, he slid a tool under the bandage by Arlo’s left temple, twisted it, and did something else Arlo couldn’t identify—and the bandage came free, including the cooling gel sacs that had molded themselves to Arlo’s eyelids. He tried to open his eyes but the lids were stuck together.
“Don’t force them open,” Darboe told him. “Just wait.” He daubed gently at Arlo’s eyelids with a moist wipe and they began to loosen.
“Now,” said Mia, “I have some news for you which will come as a shock, but try to stay calm because it’s good news for you in the long run.”
“Okay,” said Arlo.
“Oakseed has collapsed, it’s gone out of business.”
“Yes, I heard about that in the car on the way here.”
“What?”
“It was on the radio.”
“Goddammit, I gave specific instructions—” Mia stopped. “I’m sorry, I asked them not to tell you about the Oakseed situation in the hospital or on the flight because I wanted you to focus on your recovery. I was going to explain it all to you when you got here. So you know?”
“I don’t know how it happened.”
“It’s complicated, as I’m sure you can imagine. Right now it’s chaos—sites they were renting had to be vacated immediately, other properties have been seized by governments in lieu of tax or whatever. Oakseed have been desperately consolidating all their remaining physical assets on their remaining sites. Everything’s for sale.”
“Am I the only one you’ve bought?”
“For now.”
“Try opening your eyes,” said Darboe.
Arlo gave a small nod, then with trepidation let his sticky eyelids twitch. They parted quite easily. His vision was blurry, though.
“Feel okay?”
“Sore,” muttered Arlo. The lids felt bruised, as if he’d been punched in the same place in both eyes with the exact same amount of force, and it hurt to blink, but he hadn’t blinked in well over twenty-four hours and he couldn’t resist the compulsion to do so.
“That’s normal.” Darboe held a slate in front of Arlo’s eyes and it shone lights into them, making him wince. “This is very good work.”
“Shanghai has amazing people for this kind of sensory and neural surgery,” said Mia. She was sitting directly opposite Arlo, also in a leather recliner.
“It’s healing perfectly.”
“Good.”
Darboe finished his examination and moved out of the way. Arlo’s vision was clearing and he was able to get a proper look at Mia. She was older than Arlo had expected from her voice: he’d imagined her to be about his age, but perhaps, he reflected, we always imagine people to be about our own age if we don’t find any cues to the contrary. She seemed to be in her early forties. She was statuesque; she sat with her legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles, and a large, elegant hand was curled around a glass of some thick green juice. She had keen eyes and straight hair worn in a sweeping side parting, which divided her hair into a larger deep red side and a smaller orange side. She wore a shirt patterned in orange and white triangles, red jeans, and no shoes. Her nail polish also matched her hair: left hand and right foot red, right hand and left foot orange. The shades of orange and red were all identical.
In contrast to Mia herself, the spacious apartment in which she stood was decorated in muted colors. It contained a tasteful mix of modern and vintage furnishings. There was no clutter anywhere.
Arlo wasn’t sure his eyesight was quite as good as it had been before the operation, but maybe it would sharpen up in time. Which made him want to ask—
“Why did you force me to have this operation?”
Mia smiled. “That’s a fair question. Don’t forget your tea.”
Arlo glanced at the coffee table to the right of his chair and saw a cup of green tea on it. Lettering down the side advertised a local sushi restaurant and featured images of their most popular dishes: by touching the images and speaking their names you could order them. “Are you going to answer my fair question?” he asked.
“Yes.” She looked over at Darboe. “Thank you,” she said pleasantly.
Darboe nodded and started packing implements into a black bag that sat on the floor next to the recliner. Mia stood and walked over to him and made arrangements for him to return for a follow-up examination of Arlo tomorrow. While they did this Arlo turned to the window, which looked out on a rich forest unlike any he had ever seen. He wasn’t totally sure it was real, and he searched for tells that it might be a screen, moving his head to see if it scrolled true. It appeared to be real.
Darboe finished packing and held out a fist to Mia. She took it in both of her hands and kissed it. “Thank you.” Then she returned to her chair and sipped her juice while Darboe left the apartment. When he was gone, Mia made eye contact with Arlo and smiled.
This was it, Arlo thought. She was going to tell him to undress, so she could check out the goods. Probably the eyes were some particular kink of hers, a different color or something like that, she wanted her fuckboy to be just how she liked him—
“So you’re probably assuming this is a sex thing?” Mia asked. “Middle-aged lady alone in her swanky apartment.”
“Well … yes.”
She chuckled and nodded. “That’s understandable. But no, actually I want you to help me steal some money from Oakseed before the receivers get their hands on it.”
Arlo laughed. Then he realized she was perfectly serious. “What?”
“Yeah.”
“But I can’t … I’ve never done anything like that before.”
“I know. But you are the only person for this job. And I’m afraid you can’t say no.”
6
EUGÉNIE?
This was a nightmare and she had to make someone understand. It was bad enough where she was before, believing she was a made without rights or options, but now she’d been cut off even from the few points of security she’d had, and it seemed she was to be sold like cattle. Like cattle.
She tried to stand and felt dizzy, so she sat back down and tried to calm her breathing.
There might be an opportunity here, she realized. If she could communicate the truth of her situation, perhaps the mistake that had been made so long ago could be rectified. Perhaps she could find her family again. She wondered what they had been told about what happened to her. The memories of her past were dim and shapeless, like something seen through a filthy window, and she felt like the more she held on to them, the more she bent them out of shape. But there was a large, fine house, with high ceilings, and she could feel the emotions in that place: it was full of love, and she’d felt safe there. Outside the house was dangerous.
She’d been outside the house as long as she could remember.
Someone addressed her as Drienne, her hateful made name. She tried to ignore it, but the speaker assumed she just hadn’t heard, and said it again.
The speaker was Andrée, the young made who’d accompanied her from Shanghai. She had a red mark on her face after getting herself involved in the altercation between the mades and the receivers. She’d been at the front of it all, screaming “LIARS!” and hurling herself at the receivers, fists flailing. Andrée wasn’t built for fighting, and it had been a stupid thing to do, very typically stupid. You couldn’t expect any better.
The mades had calmed down now. There’d been a moment when it seemed like the receivers might be overwhelmed by sheer weight of numbers, but one of the receivers speaking through an amplifier had pointed out to the mades how difficult it would be for them to survive if they left the building, as their accounts had all been closed along with Oakseed, and opening new ones could only be done by their new holders. Which was obvious, but the mades were too stupid to realize it for themselves.
“Fuck off,” she told Andrée, who was talking nonsense about something. When Andrée just stared at her, startled, she said it again, louder. Several people nearby turned to look. She glared at them until they looked away.
She needed to find someone she could talk to about her situation. The people who seemed to be in charge at the moment wouldn’t do at all. For now the most important thing was not to slip back. She could feel her mind being dragged back into that dim oblivion. She had to remember who she really was. Her name was—
What was her name? God, she was forgetting already. It was …
Where was Arlo? He always helped her with this, when she had these occasional blessed moments of lucidity. He held on to all those details about her, like her name—
It would be on her slate. She kept a file of notes about herself for just this reason. She picked it up and opened the storage tree, but the file wasn’t there. Of course, the slate had reset itself during the journey here. She would just have to try to remember.
Eugénie? Was that it? It sounded right. Eugénie Eugénie Eugénie. The more she said it to herself, the righter it sounded.
Yes. It was right.
Eugénie opened up a new note on her slate and wrote “Eugénie” in it. She lay back on her bedroll and focused on the knowledge that she was Eugénie.
* * *
Mia seemed to think Arlo might have heard of her, or that her name might at least ring a bell with him, and he felt dumb for not having a clue who she was. But as she told her story, he realized it was exactly the kind of thing that would have been filtered out. It touched on all kinds of issues he wasn’t supposed to take an interest in, or even be aware of.
“I was taken into Oakseed’s academy in Richmond when I was nine years old,” she told him. “When I graduated they took me on—initially in waste optimization, but I really wanted to be a product designer, and that’s when I became the lead on Naildit.”
“Oh!” said Arlo. “You invented that?”
“Yeah. I mean there was a whole team, but the core concept was one of my magic-hour proposals.”
Smart nail polish with easy connectivity to all your Oakseed devices, affordably priced—the kids in Shanghai loved it, went nuts whenever a new limited edition came out. Arlo felt very impressed to be face-to-face with the person who thought of it. “I’ve sold a lot of that stuff.”
“Of course you have. And of course Oakseed owns that shit because I was under contract, and I always knew that was how it worked. Which is why, when I was twenty-nine, I left to set up my own company, MO. You heard of that?”
“I think so.” (He wasn’t sure. Probably not.)
“We had a neat line in smart houseplants that could reprocess waste matter, but that’s probably not the kind of thing they had you selling.”
“I was mostly on wearables.”
Mia nodded. “So it was all going great, we were set for an expansion drive, I rejected an offer from Oakseed to buy me out, and they came back with a lawsuit saying they didn’t need to buy me out because—you really didn’t hear about this?”
Arlo shook his head.
“Okay, so get this: They said anything I created came from my personality, and my personality was shaped by being in their academy from such a young age, therefore, even though I was no longer their employee, my intellectual property was still their intellectual property.”
Arlo took this in, then he said, “Fucking hell.”
“Right?”
“That’s outrageous.”
“Outrageous fuckery even by their standards. Don’t get me wrong, I do realize your situation is much more horrible, and that’s basically what the deal has always been for you—”
“Well, yes.”
“—but I still thought it was low to say, ‘Hey, we got you when you were nine years old, so that means we own you for life.’”
“So did this go to court?”
“Yeah, and I won.”
“Wow.”
“And then they appealed, and they won.”
“Oh.”
“And then I appealed, and I lost.”
“So what did you do?”
“They offered me a job—a very good job, to be fair, very well paid—and they figured I’d take it because what else was I going to do? The whole thing was them saying fuck you, you should never have left, and we’re gonna make an example of you to everyone else who’s thinking about leaving.”
“And … you didn’t? Take it, I mean?”
“I didn’t. I retrained in law so I could work on IP cases like this one and maybe undo what happened.” She shrugged. “Still haven’t hit that goal, but I make a living.”
“So where does Oakseed collapsing leave all this? Do you get your rights back?”
Mia laughed. “Oh bless you, no. Intangible assets are being sold too, and my personality is registered as a very valuable intangible asset. But this is an opportunity, because Oakseed would never have sold it to me for any amount, whereas the receivers will sell to whoever comes up with the money. I have actually lodged a legal challenge asserting I should get it back for nothing—it won’t stand up, but the process should take at least a couple weeks to play out, which gives me time to find the money so I can buy it.”
