Halo | Page 8

of his torpor. He filled a bronze pipe with small green sensemilla leaves and holed up in a haze of smoke and drank tea.
The late afternoon light through the windows went to pure Seattle Gray, the color of ennui and unemphatic despair, and his solitude became oppressive. He needed company, he thought, and wondered what it would be like to have a cat. Then he thought about the truth of it, how often he would be gone and the cat left to itself and the house's machines. "Here kitty kitty," the cleaning robot would say, and the memex would want veterinary programs and a diagnostic link ... fuck it, they all could live without a cat.
Then a hunger kick came on him, and he decided to make taboulleh. "You are not taking care of business," the memex said to Gonzales as he stood chopping mint leaves, green onions and tomato, squeezing lemon and stirring in bulgur wheat with the patience of the deeply-stoned.
"True," Gonzales said. "I'm in no hurry."
"Why not? Since your return from Asia, you have not been productive."
"I'm going to die, my friend." The smells of lemon and mint drifted up to him, and he inhaled them deeply. He said, "Today, ma?ana, some day for sure ... and I'm still trying to understand what that means to me now. To be productive, that is fine, but to come to terms with my own mortality ... I think that is better." The taboulleh was finished. It was beautiful; he wanted to rub his face in it.
----
Not long after he finished eating, a package arrived from Thailand. Inside layers of foam and strapping were the memory modules the Thais had taken. When he plugged the modules into the memex, they showed empty: zeroed, ready to be used again.
Gonzales stood looking at the racked modules in the memex closet. I can't fucking believe it, he thought. In effect, the audit had been cancelled out. Whatever data he or anyone else collected at this point from SenTrax Myanmar would be essentially useless, Grossback having been given time to cook the data if he needed to do so. A fatal indeterminacy had settled on the whole affair.
Grossback, you bastard, thought Gonzales. If you arranged for the Thais to grab these boxes, maybe you are smarter and meaner than I thought.
"Shit," Gonzales said.
"Is there anything I can do?" the memex asked.
"Nothing I can think of."
----
From the background of jungle plants and pastel walls and the signature pieces of curved silver, HeyMex recognized the latest incarnation of the Beverly Rodeo Hotel's public lounge. Mister Jones preferred ostentation, even in simulacra.
HeyMex settled into a sling chair made of bright chrome and stuffed chocolate-brown leather. HeyMex wore the usual baggy pants and jacket of black cotton, a crumpled white linen shirt; was smooth-faced and had close-cropped hair.
A figure shimmered into being in the chair opposite: silver suit and red metal-laced shirt brilliant under lights; black-framed glasses with dark lenses; greased hair combed straight back, a little black goatee and moustache.
"Mister Jones," HeyMex said.
The other figure took a long, slow drag off a brown cigarette. "HeyMex," it said. "What can I do for you?"
"It's Gonzales. Since we got back from Myanmar, he's been passive, hasn't been taking care of business."
"Post-trauma response--give him some time, he'll be okay."
"No, he doesn't need time. He needs work. Have you got something?"
"Maybe. I haven't run a personnel search--he might not fit the exact profile."
"Never mind that. Give it to Gonzales. He needs it."
"If you say so. You'll hear something official later today."
The world went translucent, then turned to smoke, and Mister Jones disappeared back into his identity as Traynor's Advisor, HeyMex into his as Gonzales's memex.
(Ask yourself why the two machines chose this elaborate masquerade, or why no one knew these sorts of things were happening. However, as to the who? and the why? there can be no question. These are the new players, and these are their games.
So welcome to the new millennium.)
----
4. Privileged Not to Exist
When Gonzales returned home, he found a message from Traynor: "Will arrange for transportation tomorrow morning, five a.m., from Northern Seattle Airtrack to my estate. Be prepared for immediate work. Pack the memex and twenty-two kilos personal luggage."
"Shit," Gonzales said. "We just got home. Twenty-two kilos, huh? That means we'll be going ... where do you think?"
The memex said, "Somewhere in orbit."
----
The airport limo held its spot in a locked sequence of a dozen vehicles moving away from the city at two hundred kilometers an hour. Seattle's northern suburbs showed as patches of light behind shifting mist and steady-falling rain. Overhead, cargo blimps flying toward Vancouver moved through the clouds like great cold water fish.
Gonzales got a quick view of a square where white and yellow searchlights played across a concrete landscape, and a gangling