All That We See or Seem, page 5
“I’ll help you look.”
“Thanks.”
He gestured at the counter, topped by a line of casserole dishes and covered plates. “Neighbors have been coming by at all hours now that Elli’s disappearance is in the news.”
“Probably to check on you and see if they can figure out how you did it.”
Piers winced. “Yeah, I think you’re right. Are you always like this?”
“How do you mean?”
“Thinking the worst of everyone. And blunt.”
She took a moment to think about it. “I suppose so. Sorry if I come across as rude. I’m not very good with people. Maybe it comes with the territory of being good with machines.”
“It’s fine. It’s just that with Elli gone . . . I’m not at my best either. But I appreciate you coming to help. I really do.” Taking a deep breath, he went to the counter. “Anything you can’t or won’t eat?”
Julia shook her head.
She watched as he spooned mashed potatoes, sliced roast beef, tonged string beans onto two plates and put them in the microwave. She thought about what he must be feeling: his wife gone, possibly in mortal danger, himself suspected, and unable to share what was really going on with anyone except herself. Impatience, annoyance, self-pity receded. Yes, her life had been interrupted, but he was in a much worse place. Let me try harder, she vowed silently.
“Back to the burner phone and tracking,” she said. “Can you tell me how you got the burner and when you activated it?”
Piers returned to the table with the microwaved plates, setting one down in front of Julia and keeping the other for himself. He handed her a set of silverware.
“I got it on Friday, after that call. I didn’t know what to do, but I knew I needed to move around untracked, and I thought my phone was probably no good if they called me on it. I drove to the Right Value Wireless in Carre Center and bought the burner. Activated it right away to see if everything worked. When I came to see you, I only had the burner on me.”
“Burner phones aren’t any good if you don’t know how to use them,” Julia said. She began to eat. In her famished state, everything tasted excellent. She could feel her own mood improving. “It’s easy to buy real-time location data from the phone companies—it’s one of their biggest revenue streams.”
“That data is anonymized by law.” He began to eat as well.
“Yes, but it’s trivial to de-anonymize. Think about it: They can easily pick out your regular phone from the anonymized data based on your address. Then they see your phone travel to Right Value, and a new device gets activated there and travels back to your house with your regular phone. Now they know the new device is yours.”
Piers looked sheepish. He set his fork down. “Seems so obvious now that you’ve explained it. Let me get rid of the burner phone.”
“No. Don’t do that. Now that they think they know how to track you, we can take advantage of it.”
“How?”
“I don’t know yet. Let’s finish eating first.”
*
While Piers cleaned up, Julia went around the house to make sure all the curtains were drawn. She tried to move without leaving obvious silhouettes that could be seen from outside. The other rooms were also a mess—Piers had been busy. Julia saw no signs of an everyfixit or other household robots; apparently, Piers and Elli didn’t use them, which tracked with what Piers had said about his discomfort with machines.
“Tell me about her,” she said when she returned to the kitchen.
Piers, washing the dishes at the sink, seemed taken aback.
“You came to me because you thought I could tell you whether the video is real.”
He nodded.
“I explained that I can’t do that if I know nothing about her,” she said. “If I’m to help you, whether it’s to find clues about Elli or what the kidnappers are after, then I have to know as much about her as possible.”
“I see,” he said. “I guess I’m still surprised that you know nothing about her. I just figured that given your technical background—she’s one of the biggest names in vivid dreaming.”
“I don’t know any oneirofexes at all, and I’ve never tried vivid dreaming.”
“Is there a reason?”
She could sense the growing skepticism behind the question. Perhaps Piers thought he had made a mistake in going to her, thinking she was the kind of “hacker” who could help him. Come to think of it, she wasn’t sure he was wrong about that. Could she really help?
She did her best to answer. “I guess I’m a very private person. I don’t like doing anything that feels like I’m revealing too much about myself. Don’t like being photographed. Don’t use any social media. I don’t even watch subscription TV. Dreaming in the presence of strangers . . . not my thing.”
“I can see why,” he said. “Vivid dream gatherings can be very intimate. I still remember everything about my first one.” His voice grew wistful. “Close my eyes, and I’ll swear it was yesterday. Though it was more than ten years ago.”
“Was that how you met?”
“That first time was when I fell in love with her,” he said. “I didn’t get to meet her until later.”
She nodded. “Tell me about what it’s like at a vivid dream gathering. Pretend you’re explaining this to a total novice, someone like . . . your mom.”
Piers chuckled as he loaded the last plates into the dishwasher. “My mother would never go to an oneirofex. I’m not good with technology, but I try. She wouldn’t even redeem the elder-monitor service I got her. A vivid dream gathering is like a combination of cinema, theater, meditation. . . . You ever been to a concert?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, so picture that, except everyone is on the verge of falling asleep—what they call the hypnagogic state.”
“One, that doesn’t sound fun at all; two, I still can’t picture it.”
“No, of course not.” Piers shook his head and laughed. “I’m terrible at this. How about I show you some arena videos when I’m done here? They don’t capture what it’s like as a dreamer, but at least you’ll get a better idea than my babbling.”
“All right. You said it’s very intimate? I can’t imagine any sense of intimacy when you are in a venue with thousands of other people.”
“Well, that was something Elli was really good at. Making you feel like she saw you, just you.”
Julia shrugged. She knew something about people who could do that. Not pleasant memories.
“There are recordings, right?” she asked. “I understand that oneirofexes sell them.”
“Vivid dream recordings are all personalized,” said Piers. “You can buy one only if you go to a gathering, and it will be based on your own cephaloscript. Not only is it illegal to obtain someone else’s script, but it will be nearly incomprehensible and boring.”
“Like hearing someone recount their dream,” Julia said, catching on.
“Yes, exactly.”
“And there’s no way to buy just a recording of whatever the dream guide”—she struggled to find the right word for something she didn’t understand—“does? Without the cephaloscript of any dreamer?”
“You are thinking of the prompt track,” said Piers. “I suppose the artists could make such a thing, but it won’t sell. While Elli has a broad outline for each dream, the exact prompts aren’t preset. They are based on the reaction of the dreamers at the gathering. It’s like a jazz concert where the improvisation is all driven by the audience reaction. A recording wouldn’t give you anything close to the real experience.”
Julia nodded. She was starting to understand vivid dreaming better—or at least one aspect. In a world of mass-produced digital clones and AI-generated trash, anything that required human craft, that required live presence, was going to command a premium. A performance that couldn’t be recorded fit the bill.
“If you want to know her, you have to know her work. There’s no other way,” Piers said.
Julia imagined Elli trying to monitor and orchestrate the brain patterns of thousands simultaneously. It seemed impossible. “I think an oneirofex must rely on their AI for some aspects of the performance. Is that true?”
“Yes. It’s impossible for Elli to do what she does without her personal AI. It’s her instrument, really.”
“Do you still have access to her personal AI?”
“Yes. We can go to her studio.”
“Then I might have a solution.”
SIX
This is where she practices,” Piers said, ushering Julia into the room.
The studio, an upstairs bedroom with walls covered in acoustic-dampening panels, was mostly empty save for the VR recording station near the back wall, replete with consoles and monitors. Julia peeked at the processor modules under the consoles and sucked in a breath: more computing power than some small corporate clouds.
A mannequin covered in cameras and sensors lay in a recliner to the side, and a neural-sensing VR headset rested on a bust-shaped holder next to the recliner. Glancing around, Julia easily picked out more cameras and microphones tucked away in the corners.
“What exactly does she do with this setup?” Julia asked.
“First, she acts as the dream weaver and records the prompts on this dream deck.” He pointed to a black box covered in knobs and dials near the VR station. “That’s actually the same one she uses at performances. She loves that thing. And then she plays the track back for herself as the dreamer to see if the dream is compelling.”
Julia furrowed her brow in confusion.
“Sorry, I should have given you more context,” Piers said. “Right, I promised I’d show you some arena videos. Which do you prefer: VR or plain old video?”
“Plain.”
He walked over to one of the consoles, woke it up, and looked into the camera over the monitor.
“Wait!” She reached out to block the camera.
“What’s wrong?”
“Her AI. What kind is it?”
“She subscribes to Cognita, but I believe she has added a ton of customizations. Her work is very specialized.”
So it would have a cloud tether, at least, she thought. “What level of authorization did she give you?”
“Admin.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.” He looked slightly offended. “Elli and I kept no secrets from each other.” However, his voice trailed off near the end as he realized he might need to reevaluate that sentiment.
“Don’t activate it until we’ve secured your network,” Julia said. “I don’t want anything we do to get out of this house into the cloud. I should have done that first thing after I came in. Even the thermostat data can tell people things if they look hard enough.”
Piers looked unconvinced. Still, he asked, “What do you need?”
She was glad that he didn’t argue with her. “Where’s your fiber-optic cable access point?”
“In the basement.”
He led her downstairs and then opened the basement door.
Julia, going over in her mind all the things that she might have overlooked, said, “If your alarm system has already uploaded pictures of me, delete them from the cloud right now.”
“I never consented to auto uploads. Any pictures and videos would still be on the camera.”
“Assuming the camera manufacturer actually obeys that preference. Better delete them anyway.”
They descended into the unfinished basement, lit by a few bare lightbulbs. Julia found the optical network terminal and unplugged the data cable leading to the router. She took out a small box, plugged the cable into it, and then patched the box back into the router with another short cable.
“What’s that?”
“A firewall. I’ll configure it to block out every kind of traffic that I don’t want going out. After this, Elli’s AI will think all network access has been cut. That might cause it to behave differently, but it can’t be helped. Can I have your phone again?”
“Why?”
“I need to install a piece of code on it, a ‘guard tower,’ so that Talos can watch over your phone. It needs to oversee all traffic going out of this house.”
She could see his jaw clench. “I hardly know you, and you’re asking me to give you control over everything.”
“Good point,” Julia said. The long day had been unsettling, and the constant need to convince him—she wasn’t even sure she wanted to convince him—was wearing. She wondered again why she was here—had she ever made a positive difference in anyone’s life? “We don’t have any reason to trust each other. If you want to call this off, I’ll walk out this door, and we’ll never see each other again. Maybe that’ll be for the best.”
Piers looked at her without speaking.
She was sure he was going to take her up on her offer and was already thinking about the best way to get away from the house unseen when he shook his head and said, “Whatever it takes. I don’t know how to find Elli or what they want from her, and from what I know about you—admittedly not much—you’re my best shot.”
He unlocked his phone and handed it over; Julia installed the guard tower.
From what I know about you. What did he know about her? Yes, she had been famous at one point for hacking, for getting into places she shouldn’t have been in, for looking at things she shouldn’t have been looking at, for being a criminal. Was that all he saw in her? All that he needed?
She forced the bitterness away. Once again, she reminded herself of his state, the oppressive, terrifying uncertainty. His life had been interrupted, put on hold, as a terrifying man on the phone told him that his wife was in his power and he had to do precisely as he was told. All things considered, Piers had the right to act much more like an asshole than he actually was.
“Just curious,” he said as they climbed back up the stairs. “How would the thermostat data have been a risk?”
“Now that I’m here, that data will show a slight change in the heating and cooling curves, indicating the presence of an extra person in the house. That kind of data is usually not well secured, and if you’re being watched, someone—or more likely their AI—will think of looking at it. Considering that you’re under suspicion already for Elli’s disappearance, do you really want the police to think you’ve got another girl in here?”
“I see.”
Maybe she was imagining it, but she thought she heard admiration in the acknowledgment.
*
Finally, they were back in the studio.
Piers activated Elli’s AI and instructed it to bring up a video on the curved wide monitor over the console.
The venue was a small theater shaped like a bowl with approximately a thousand seats arranged in tiers around a circular stage at the center. Elli, in a flowing white dress, danced slowly around the stage as she chanted. While ethereal music played, the audience leaned back in their seats, their unfocused eyes on transparent displays suspended above their faces. It reminded Julia not so much of a concert as of a New Age performance, a sound bath maybe, or a group meditation.
“This auditorium is designed for vivid dreaming,” Piers explained. “The seats have built-in sensors to monitor brain activity—that makes it much easier, as otherwise, the dream guide has to rent the equipment to modify the seats for every performance. Once everyone’s seated, the oneirofex plays music, sings, chants, recites poetry, shows videos, and so on to put the audience into a trance state.”
“Kind of like hypnosis?”
“I guess so? The key is that she does this to everyone in the auditorium, not just one person.”
“Is her AI given access to all the audience’s personal AIs?”
“Yes.”
“So that’s how she does it.” Julia was catching on. Elli’s AI, collaborating with each user’s personal AI, helped her discern trends and patterns in thousands of cephaloscripts in real time. Vivid dreaming was an art form that required the dream guide to extend her skills through AI; that was what Piers meant when he said AI was Elli’s instrument.
“Does she entrance them by amplifying alpha and theta waves?” Julia asked. “Or are we talking about recognition of more refined neural patterns and biofeedback?”
Piers shrugged. “I have no idea. You’ll have to ask Elli’s AI for the details. The way I understand it, Elli essentially guides the audience to dream together. Each individual dream is prompted by images projected on their HUD, images that are particularly meaningful to them, generated by a collaboration between Elli’s and the audience member’s AIs. However, the emotional journey they all go on is collective, an improvisation woven from their individual dreams by the oneirofex.”
Julia watched the screen. A room full of people dreaming with open eyes, connected yet also separate, guided by the dancing figure onstage, a magician weaving a spell.
“The video really isn’t enough,” said Piers. “Like I said, you have to experience it. The best way I can describe it is: You feel you’re part of something grand and epic; you’re surrounded by love, and you belong. The dream is the way life ought to be, and your other life, the life outside the dream, is fiction.”
You’re surrounded by love, and you belong.
Julia turned to Piers.
“I want to try it.”
Piers’s phone rang.
*
“Have you found what I wanted?” The same male voice from before.
“No, because I don’t know—”
“Who did you go see today?”
A long pause. “Someone who I thought could help me. But they didn’t want to help.”
“Good. I’m glad you are telling me the truth. It’s important for us to trust each other, don’t you think?”
“I want to talk to Elli.”
“No.”
“How can I trust you if I can’t talk to her?”
“I told you. You’ll try to speak to each other in code. I can’t have that.”
“You have to tell me something about what you’re looking for. I really don’t know!”
“She has . . . me,” the man said reluctantly.
