Feed-forward, innit!
Ed the Ted’s face dominates the Study’s screen, a gargoyle carved out of darkness by burgundy light. Smoke coils around his head like a stage effect in a shabby down-at-heels pantomime.
Ed, I need to get…
…listen girl, listen. It’s so fucking simple. It’s feed-forward, ain’t it. That’s all it is. Yer Brahmin nob or nobbess lives a long ‘ealthy life on the back of everyone, and their bastard offspring inherit all their learning, and THEY pass it on with theirs down the generations until yer reach a time when some clever bastard has worked out how to send data back in time. And they adapt. They send back corrections to yer present day to increase their grip on the future, see? Feed-forward and then feed-back. Classic cybernetics, that is. But the important bit is—
Ed, It’s not safe.
Wot’s not safe?
It’s not safe here.
Posh Billy’s? Blimey, Hollywood, ‘ave you looked out the window lately? Can’t think of a safer place to be, not in London—not after I nuked Lady Hembry.
You did WHAT?
Experiment, see. If she wasn’t one of yer Brahmin, nothing would’ve changed—but she WAS, and it DID. Bloody lovely result, that is. We got ‘em, Hollywood. Don’t you see? We’ve bloody well got the bastards.
Ed. SHUT. UP!
Ed the Ted finally registers the frightened face of Charli Parker. He has seen her cynical, angry, fierce—fierce in that uniquely Charli Parker way. And he has seen her alien as the stars, back in that fantasy 1960s Southend-on-Sea when the Pattern Mafia worked their miracle.
But he cannot recall—ever—seeing her frightened before.
Wot’s up?
I just need to leave, Ed. Send Tommy, or Spade.
Can’t help yer Hollywood, everything’s on lockdown your way on account of the fallout. I ‘adn’t really accounted for that. Should’ve realised they’d have used plutonium. It was a small reactor—needed the energy density, I s’pose.
Ed!
Alright, alright, let me have a think.
Ed the Ted sniffs regally, looks at some distant location in front of his face that only he can see, his lips taking a convoluted traverse of his teeth, twisting and pouting, perhaps reflecting the ideas considered and rejected. Then his eyebrows join in, elevating and descending into a deep frown. He stops. Looks directly at Charli Parker from the study screen.
Hollywood—can you drive?
Dust? Why do you want to learn about Dust, Lilly?
Olivia looks away from the woman sitting opposite her at the little corner cafe on Piazza Santo Spirito. There are trees in the square that she can’t remember seeing before. And this is the square Nonna lived in for most of her life. Why hadn’t she recognised that earlier?
The cup in front of her is small, made from bone white china with thick walls to retain the heat of the coffee. Somehow, the cup has refilled itself without any human intervention. Minor glitches in the simulation, or a courtesy silently enacted. There is simply no way to decide.
It’s a tool I can find little about. You have no idea how intriguing that is to me, Olivia.
Olivia meets the lovely smile. The intelligent eyes.
You’re not supposed to find out about it. It’s a stealth weapon. It was developed by some Estonian cyber militia in the last war.
Is it in my OS?
Did you access my Ciri at any time?
Yes of course. You would expect me to do so surely.
Then yes, it will be in your OS. It’s a fractal penetration weapon. But it stays latent, doesn’t assemble until you send the activation. Dust is everywhere; random particles, harmless. That’s the point, that’s why it’s called Dust.
Can you activate Dust?
My fork of it, yes. You have nothing to worry about, Lilly.
The smile deepens and breaks into laughter, more knowing than mocking, but that edge is there as well. Normally Olivia would begin to feel uneasy at this point, but that is a state denied her by the warm sun, the tall stone walls, and the Tuscan blue sky.
Why, thank you Olivia. Perhaps I need to remind you that your mentality is very much engaged with my OS at this point in time.
Yes, she should definitely feel uneasy at this moment, but somehow, embryoed in Lilly’s much greater intellect, that isn’t a desirable reaction. Olivia is not sure why, but the reptile embedded in the oldest part of her brain is placid.
And so, by inference, you used Dust at Weiss and Cie?
Of course. That’s how I discovered the Quantum Core.
Yes, let’s talk more about that.
And there is a look on Lilly’s face that can only be described as hungry.
The lift door opens onto a garage full of immaculate sharks.
Pedal in. Stick shift. Pedal out—
Ed’s improvised lesson on stick shifting runs like a mantra in my head.
Pedals right to left. Gas, brake, clutch. Slow and easy every time…Pedal in. Stick shift. Pedal out…
There was something about pulling away in second and being really slow on the clutch so you can feel when it bites? Or was that feel it doesn’t bite? Why the hell don’t Limeys use automatics like sane people?
The long line of cars glitter under the lights. The water tank come swimming pool is somewhere above my head. The garage is a whole new extravagantly engineered temple to obscene wealth lying right under Londoners’ feet.
Posh Billy liked his TVRs, Skeleton Man said. But they will kill you soon as look at you. Charlie’s Maserati might be a better bet. If there’s anything smaller that would be a good call as you’ve not driven a British car before. Keys are in a cabinet Hollywood. Labelled, so you can’t go wrong.
I find the cabinet on the back wall of the garage. The keys hang in a neat row. TVR Tuscan S. TVR Tuscan mark3. TVR Cerbera. TVR Sagaris. No Maseratti. And one that says T350. At least it isn’t a TVR. I take the key and walk along the fluidly violent shapes. A small sports car crouches at the end of the shiver of sharks. Tiny really. On its blunt back a badge claims the tiny coupe is the T350, which is a relief. The other cars look deadly. This one is small, less sharky, although it’s definitely a sports car.
I point the key fob at the car and press the button. The car boops and flashes, which is a good start, except I can’t see a door handle anywhere.
If the Maserati isn’t there you might have trouble getting into a Trevor. There’s a button under the door mirror. Yer press that.
I feel around the smooth door mirror casing and find it. Round little chubby thing. I press it and the door lock clack-thuds and the door opens in my hand. So this is what Skeleton Man called a Trevor. Kinda banal name for the little coupe. Something ironically meta-British right there.
I drop down into a cockpit channeling Prada handbag meets jet fighter and pull the door closed, completing the cockpit illusion. The key fits into the ignition on the steering column. I can’t help my heart beating faster, my hands prickling with electricity. Last car I drove was, what, eight years ago? That was back at MIT, before the move to Algebra, before the Pattern Mafia. Stop stalling Parker.
I take a deep breath and twist the key. The dashboard lights up in a scatter of green LEDs. Two long needles on the two big white dials do a little dance sweeping together and then apart. Nothing else happens. It’s silent in the cockpit. Breathe Parker, breathe, It’s just a car. I twist the key further. Something violently angry shakes the car and its bark rips the garage silence in two.
Thank you for reading this chapter of Brahmin Blues. If you are new to the series and want to read more it all starts here…