Gene Wolfe - Viewpoint.pdf - fantasy - rhea137

This is true: Gene Wolfe, who grew up in Houston, Texas, attended Edgar Allan Poe Elementary School. Much

later, he produced some of the most important science fiction of the last forty years, including The Book of the New

Sun, The Urth of the New Sun, and The Book of the Long Sun. He has won two Nebulas and three World Fantasy

Awards, as well as the British Science Fiction Award and the British Fantasy Award. The Urth of the New Sun earned

the Premio Italia.

New short fiction from Gene Wolfe is always an event; stories besides this new wonder can be found in

collections such as The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories (another wonderful title, as

wonderful as that of the abovementioned Kit Reed collection) and the newest, Strange Travelers.

Viewpoint

Gene Wolfe

"I have one question and one only," Jay declared. "How do I know that I will be paid?

Answer it to my satisfaction and give your orders."

The youngish man behind the desk opened a drawer and pulled out a packet of crisp bills. It

was followed by another and another, and they by seven more. The youngish man had

brown-blond hair and clear blue eyes that said he could be trusted absolutely with anything.

Looking at them, Jay decided that each had cost more than he had ever had in his entire life to

date.

"Here's the money," the youngish man told Jay softly. "These are hundreds, all of them. Each

band holds one hundred, so each bundle is ten thousand. Ten bundles make a hundred thousand.

It's really not all that much."

"Less than you make in a year."\

"Less than I make in three months. I know it's a lot to you." The youngish man hesitated as

though groping for a new topic. "You've got a dramatic face, you know. Those scars. That was

your edge. Did you really fight a bobcat?"

Jay shrugged. "The bullet broke its back, and I thought it was dead. I got too close."

"I see." The youngish man pushed the packets of bills toward him. "Well, you don't have to

worry about getting paid. That's the full sum, and you're getting it up front and in cash." He

paused. "Maybe I shouldn't tell you this."

Jay was looking at the money. "If it's confidential, say so and I'll keep it that way."

"Will you?"

Jay nodded. "For a hundred thousand? Yes. For quite a bit less than that."

The youngish man sighed. "You probably know anyway, so why not? You can't just go out

and stick it in a bank. You understand that?"

"They'll say it's drug money."

For a moment the youngish man looked as if he were about to sigh again, although he did

not. "They'll say it's drug money, of course. They always do. But they really don't care. You

have a lot of money, and if it gets into a bank Big Daddy will have it in a nanosecond. It'll take

you years to get it back, and cost a lot more than a hundred thousand."

Though skeptical, Jay nodded. "Sure."

"Okay, I didn't want to give you this and have them grab it before five. They'll take a big cut

of anything you spend it on anyway, but we've all got to live with that."

Jay did not, but he said nothing.

"Count it. Count it twice and look carefully. I don't want you thinking we cheated you for a

lousy hundred thou."

Jay did, finding it impossible to think of what so much money could buy. He had needed

money so badly that he could no longer calculate its value in terms of a new rifle or a canoe. It

was money itself he hungered for now, and this was more than he had dared dream of.

"You want a bag? I can give you one, but that jacket's got plenty of pockets. It's for camping,

right?"

"Hunting."

The youngish man smiled the smile of one who knows a secret. "Why don't you put it in

there? Should be safer than a bag."

Jay had begun to fill them already-thirty thousand in the upper right inside pocket, twenty

more in the upper left, behind his wallet. Twenty in the left pocket outside.

"You're BC, right?"

"Sure." Jay tapped the empty screen above his eyes.

"Okay." The youngish man opened another drawer. "As a bonus you get a double upgrade.

Couple of dots. Sit still." Jay did.

When the youngish man was back behind his desk, he said, "I bet you'd like to look at

yourself. I ought to have a mirror, but I didn't think of it. You want to go to the men's? There's a

lot of mirrors in there. Just come back whenever you've seen enough. I've got calls to make."

"Thanks," Jay said.

In the windowless office beyond the youngish man's, his secretary was chatting with a big

security bot. Jay asked where the rest rooms were, and the bot offered to show him, gliding

noiselessly down the faux-marble corridor.

"Tell me something," Jay said when the bot had come to a stop before the door. "Suppose

that when I got through in there I went down to the lobby. Would there be anything to stop me

from going out to the street?"

"No, sir."

"You're going to be standing out here waiting for me when I come out, right? I'd never make

it to the elevators." "Will you need a guide at that point, sir?"

The blank metal face had told Jay nothing, and the pleasant baritone had suggested polite

inquiry, and nothing else. Jay said, "I can find my way back all right."

"In that case, I have other duties, sir." "Like talking to that girl?"

"Say woman, sir. To that young woman. They prefer it, and Valerie is an excellent source of

intelligence. One cultivates one's sources, sir, in police work."

Jay nodded, conceding the point. "Can you answer a couple more questions for me? If it's

not too much trouble?"

"If I can, sir. Certainly."

"How many dots have I got?"

"Are you referring to IA stars, sir?" Jay nodded.

"Two, sir. Are you testing my vision, sir?"

"Sure. One more, and I'll let you alone. What's the name of the man I've been talking to?

There's no nameplate on his desk, and I never did catch it."

"Mr. Smith, sir."

"You're kidding me."

"No, sir."

"John Smith? I'll bet that's it."

"No, sir. Mr. James R. Smith, sir."

"Well, I'll be damned."

Scratching his chin, Jay went into the men's room. There were at least a dozen mirrors there,

as the youngish man had said. The little augmentation screen set into his forehead, blank and

black since he had received it between the fourth and the fifth grades, showed two glimmering

stars now: five- or six-pointed, and scarlet or blue depending on the angle from which he

viewed them.

For ten minutes or more he marveled at them. Then he relieved himself, washed his hands,

and counted the money again. One hundred thousand in crisp, almost-new hundreds. Logically,

it could be counterfeit. Logically, he should have shown one to the security bot and asked its

opinion.

Had the bot noticed his bulging pockets? Security bots would undoubtedly be programmed

to take note of such things, and might well be more observant than a human officer.

He took out a fresh bill and examined it, riffling it between his fingers and holding it up to

the light, reading its serial number under his breath. Good.

If the bot had called it bad, it would have been because the bot had been instructed to do so,

and that was all.

Furthermore, someone had been afraid he would assault the youngish man the bot called

James R. Smith, presumably because metal detectors had picked up his hunting knife; but Smith

had not asked him to remove it, or so much as mentioned it. Why?

Jay spent another fifteen or twenty seconds studying the stars in his IA screen and three full

minutes concentrating before he left the rest room. There was no bot in the hall. A middle-aged

man who looked important passed him without a glance and went in.

Jay walked to the elevators, waved a hand for the motion detector, and rode a somewhat

crowded car to the lobby. So far as he could see, no one was paying the least attention to him.

There was another security bot in the lobby (as there had been when he had come in), but it

appeared to pay no particular attention to him either.

Revolving doors admitted him to Sixth Avenue. He elbowed his way for half a block along

a sidewalk much too crowded, and returned to the Globnet Building.

The security bot was chatting with the young woman in her window-less room again. When

she saw Jay she nodded and smiled, and the doors to Smith's office swung open.

Smith, who had said that he would be making calls, was standing at one of his

floor-to-ceiling windows staring out at the gloomy December sky.

"I'm back," Jay said. "Sorry I took so long. I was trying to access the new chips you gave

me."

"You can't." Smith turned around.

"That's what I found out."

Smith's chair rolled backwards, and he seated himself at his desk. "Aren't you going to ask

me what they're for?"

Jay shook his head.

"Okay, that will save me a lot of talking. You've still got the hundred thousand?" Jay

nodded.

"All right. In about forty-seven minutes we're going to announce on all our channels that

you've got it. We'll give your name, and show you leaving this building, but that's all. It will be

repeated on every newscast tonight, name, more pictures, a hundred thou in cash. Every banger

and grifter in the city will be after you, and if you hide it, there's a good chance they'll stick

your feet in a fire." Smith waited, but Jay said nothing.

"You've never asked me what we're paying you to do, but I'll tell you now. We're paying

you to stay alive and get some good out of your money. That's all. If you want to stay here and

tough it out, that's fine. If you want to run, that's fine, too. As far as we're concerned, you're free

to do whatever you feel you have to do."

Smith paused, studying Jay's scarred face, then the empty, immaculate surface of his own

desk. "You can't take those chips out. Did you know that?"

Jay shook his head.

"It's easy to put them in to upgrade, but damned near impossible to take them out without

destroying the whole unit and killing its owner. They do that to make it hard to rob people of

their upgrades. I can't stop you from trying, but it won't work and you might hurt yourself." "I've

got it." Jay counted the stars on Smith's screen. Four. "The announcement will go out in

forty-five minutes, and you have to leave the building before then so we can show you doing

it." The doors behind Jay swung open, and the security bot rolled in. "Kaydee Nineteen will

escort you." Smith sounded embarrassed. "It's just so we can get the pictures." Jay rose.

"Is there anything you want to ask me before you go? We'll have to keep it brief, but I'll tell

you all I can."

"No." Jay's shoulders twitched. "Keep the money and stay alive. I've got it."

As they went out, Smith called, "Kaydee Nineteen won't rob you. You don't have to worry

about that."

Kaydee Nineteen chuckled when Smith's doors had closed behind them. "I bet you never

even thought of that, sir."

"You're right," Jay told him.

"Are you going to ask where the holo cameras are, sir?"

"In the lobby and out in the street. They have to be."

"That's right, sir. Don't go looking around for them, though. It looks bad, and they'll have to

edit it out."

"I'd like to see the announcement they're going to run," Jay said as they halted before an

elevator. "Can you tell me where I might be able to do that?"

"Certainly, sir. A block north and turn right. They call it the Studio." The elevator doors slid

back, moving less smoothly than Smith's; Kay -dee Nineteen paused, perhaps to make certain

the car was empty, then said. "Only you be careful, sir. Just one drink. That's plenty." Jay

stepped into the elevator.

"They've got a good holo setup, I'm told, sir. Our people go there all the time to watch the

shows they've worked on."

When the elevator doors had closed, Jay said, "I don't suppose you could tell me where I

could buy a gun?"

Kaydee Nineteen shook his head. "I ought to arrest you, sir, just for asking. Don't you

know the police will take care of you? As long as we've police, everybody's safe." The

elevator started down.

"I just hoped you might know," Jay said apologetically. "Maybe I do, sir. It doesn't mean I

tell."

Slipping his hand into his side pocket, Jay broke the paper band on a sheaf of hundreds,

separated two without taking the sheaf from his pocket, and held them up. "For the information.

It can't be a crime to tell me."

"Wait a minute, sir." Kaydee Nineteen inserted the fourth finger of his left hand into the

STOP button, turned it, and pushed. The elevator's smooth descent ended with shocking

abruptness. "Here, take it." Jay held out the bills.

Kaydee Nineteen motioned him to silence. A strip of paper was emerging from his mouth;

he caught it before it fell. "Best dealer in the city, sir. I'm not saying she won't rip you off. She

will. Only she won't rip you off as badly as the rest, and she sells quality. If she sells you

home-workshop, she tells you home-workshop."

He handed the slip to Jay, accepted the hundreds, and dropped them into his utility pouch.

"You call her up first, sir. There's an address on that paper, too, but don't go there until you

call. You say Kincaid said to. If she asks his apartment number or anything like that, you have

to say number nineteen. Do you understand me, sir?" Jay nodded.

"It's all written out for you, and some good advice in case you forget. Only you chew that

paper up and swallow it once you got your piece, sir. Are you going to do that?"

"Yes," Jay said. "You have my word."

"It better be good, sir, because if you get arrested, you're going to need friends. If they find

that paper on you, you won't have any."

Jay walked through the lobby alone, careful not to look for the holo camera. Those outside

would be in trucks or vanettes, presumably, but might conceivably be in the upper windows of

buildings on the other side of Sixth. He turned north, as directed. Glancing to his right at the

end of the next block, he saw the Studio's sign, over which virtual stagehands moved virtual

lights and props eternally; but he continued to walk north for two more blocks, then turned

toward Fifth and followed the side street until he found a store in which he bought a slouch hat

and an inexpensive black raincoat large enough to wear over his hunting coat.

Returning to the Studio, he approached it from both west and east, never coming closer than

half a block, without spotting anyone watching the entrance. It was possible-just possible, he

decided reluctantly- that Kaydee Nineteen had been as helpful as he seemed. Not likely, but

possible.

In a changing booth in another clothing store, he read the slip of paper:

Gene Wolfe - Viewpoint.pdf

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