One of Us

It's trashy, superficial, and vacuous. I call it home.

When the car turned into my square I took it off auto and drove it myself. I can get all brave when the parking lot is in sight. My building used to be one of the flashest hotels in the area, but then one day someone decided that two hundred yards down the way was far cooler. Everyone checked out of the Falkland virtually overnight, some even carrying their suitcases by themselves. Within a week it was abandoned. By the time I opted for having a stable place to hang my hat, it had applied for and been granted ‘characterful’ status – then turned into private apartments. A SWAT team of interior decorators was called in to make the place look run-down. They did quite a good job, but if you rub hard on the walls in the apartments you can tell the grime's just colour-wash, an environmental laughter track.

I let one of the building's regulars valet-park my vehicle, as always mentally waving it goodbye. I could afford a collapsing car now if I wanted, but I don't really trust them. I've heard too many stories about people who've slipped one into their pocket, popped into a restaurant for some lunch, and then found the car re-expanding at the table. The last thing you want when you're halfway through your tagliatelle is two tons of vehicle on your lap.

Laura Reynolds was still unconscious but also still alive, and I hauled her over my shoulder and hurried into the building. The whole of the first floor has become a kind of freak show bazaar, a throng of fun-seekers and working girls – with a constant backdrop of noise coming from a hundred different stalls. At first glance it looks kind of cool, in an ‘If you are over forty this is your worst nightmare’ kind of way, but take my advice: the drugs are generally cut to shit and you don't want to tangle with the girls. Most of them are method prostitutes: the nurses carry catheters, the meter maids give you tickets enforceable by law, and the schoolgirls like terrible bands and always come straight from an argument with their mothers. The only highlight is the homeopathic bars, where you can get wasted on just one sip of beer: there's a healthcare firm has ambulances out the back with engines running twenty-four hours a day.

Deck was standing right inside the entrance, looking tense. The anti-smoking laws are even tougher inside Griffith, and it drives him berserk. He was also alone.

‘Where the fuck is he?’ I said, heading straight for the elevators on the other side of the foyer.

‘On his way.’ Deck held his arm out to keep the doors open as I manoeuvred into the elevator. Luckily by then I'd remembered my apartment number. ‘He wasn't exactly awake when I called.’ Two guys tried to get in the elevator with us, but Deck dissuaded them. He's a good couple of inches shorter than me, and on the wiry side – but it would be a mistake to read anything into that. His face is a little wonky, but his ease with his scars communicates an entirely valid confidence in his ability to handle himself. He's kept in practice at the whole violence thing, working occasional muscle for local businessmen while holding part-time square john jobs. We made a policy of never working together, back in the old days, but I know that if I ever needed someone covering my back, Deck would be that man.

As we stood outside my door he took Laura from me and held her upright as I fumbled with my keys.

‘You going to explain this to me at some stage?’ he asked mildly.

‘At some stage, yeah.’ I pushed the door open, listened for a moment, then helped Deck drag her in.

Four

We got her laid out on the sofa, and I was halfway through making coffee when there was a buzz at the door. I had my gun out before I knew what I was doing, and Deck held his hands up.

‘Be cool,’ he said, squinting through the peep hole, and kicking aside the small pile of newspapers which had arrived while I was away. ‘Just the old guy.’

Woodley lurched in. ‘I take it you understand this is going to be double rate?’ he rasped, setting his two bags down on the floor. ‘It's nearly four in the morning.’

‘Just shut up and get on with it,’ I said. ‘You'll get four times the rate if you understand that mentioning this to anyone could be fatal. For you, not her.’

Woodley harumphed for a moment, trying to hide a satisfied leer. If there's anything the old berk likes more than money, I can't imagine what it would be. He peered at Laura Reynolds: when he saw the blood-soaked towels he blanched, and waved a hand vaguely at Deck. ‘Let them out, would you, young fellow?’

Though I'd managed to remain relatively calm during the journey home, seeing Woodley dithering around brought it home just how ill Laura Reynolds was. The only time I'd give the old twonk house room was when things were close to the edge. I grabbed one of his bags and shoved him in front of me towards the main bedroom. Meanwhile Deck opened the other bag and let the remotes out – small crab-like machines, the size of tarantulas. Attracted by the smell of blood, they clambered straight up onto the sofa, and started nosing around.

Deck and I had used Woodley on and off for five years, back in the bad old days. He had once, he claimed, been a telesurgeon for covert army operations – conducting surgery remotely through satellite links. There was no way I'd found of establishing whether this was true, but it was certainly the case that he couldn't stand blood. We'd shown him some once, just to check. He didn't mind the sight of it, so long as it was mediated through the remotes' cameras – just didn't like the reality of the actual stuff. After he was court-martialled (unfairly, so he claimed, though he declined to specify what the unfair charges had been) he couldn't get a proper licence, so he hacked out a living catering to people like me. People who every now and then needed something biological sorted out, and who couldn't go to a hospital. Old fool he might be, and I strongly suspected he collected string and slept on the beach somewhere, but boy could that guy stitch. Nicely healed scars in my shoulder, chest and leg – all of which had once been bullet wounds – were testament to that.

I stood where I could see both Laura and Woodley, and watched as he got down to work. The old man's hands were trembling big time, but that wasn't a cause for concern: the controls had anti-shake mechanisms built into them. He put the glasses and gloves on, and within moments the remotes were speeding up and down the woman's arms. After a while one of them hopped off the sofa and delved in the bag, reappearing with a fridgipacked bag of plasma. Woodley clucked and frowned with concentration.

Deck appeared next to me, handed me a cigarette. I fitted a prism filter on the end and lit it gratefully. The filters are a pain in the ass, stealing half the flavour, but it's the only way of smoking indoors without the wall sensors ratting on you. The cigarettes dissolve after use, which is convenient, because possession of them is a misdemeanour. Smoking in LA these days takes more planning than conducting a minor war.

‘So?’ Deck asked.

‘Later,’ I said.

Deck smiled, settled back to watch the remotes. He's a patient man – far more so than me. You could dump Deck in the middle of the Gobi desert, and he'd just look around and say, ‘Is there any beer?’

‘No,’ you'd reply, obviously.

‘Water?’ You shake your head, and he'd think for a minute:

‘Anywhere to sit?’ And he'd walk over to the nearest fairly comfortable rock, and sit there for as long as it took for either beer, water or a parallel universe to appear.

After a while I got fidgety, and checked the answering machine. This works pretty well, considering, hardly ever telling me that 67•0*3∼ has called about the ;,,, t[{+®3, and so I was surprised to see I had no messages. I'd been away for two days. I'm not an especially popular guy, but people tend to ring me up at fairly regular intervals to bug me about something trivial. I experimentally banged the side of the machine.

‘Piss off,’ it said. The machine's been sulking since I threw my coffee machine out. I think they had something going together.

‘Nobody's called?’

‘Since midnight, no. Most people tend to sleep sometimes.’

I stared down at it. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Which was the difficult word?’

‘When did you last give messages?’ I asked, very slowly.

‘11.58 p.m. yesterday.’

‘Tonight?’

‘I remember it clearly. You pressed the button lightly for once.’

‘Problem?’ Deck asked.

I didn't bother to ask the machine if it was sure about the time. If there was any useful cross-breeding that could have taken place in my apartment, it would have been between the answering machine and my alarm clock.

‘Someone's been in the apartment tonight,’ I said.

‘Has been?’

It's not a huge apartment. We checked the few remaining spaces. Deck walked carefully into the second bedroom, tossed the closets and looked under the bed – came out shrugging. I did the same in the main bedroom.

‘Nearly finished,’ Woodley said I passed behind him, expecting me to hassle him. ‘And for your information, she's an occasional user. Smack – but not for a while – and a little bit of Fresh.’

This didn't surprise me. ‘What do I need to do now? Recovery-wise?’ The closets were empty. Nothing appeared to have been taken. You'd have to have pretty specific needs to want to steal something from my bedroom. The memory receiver was still in the closet, and that was all that really mattered.

The old guy shrugged. ‘Don't ask me. Didn't do that bit. Boys I used to operate on were just given a gun and told to go back out again.’

‘You're a doctor, Woodley. You must have some idea.’

He shrugged again. ‘Chicken soup. Keep her off the bottle for a few days. Or give her a stiff scotch. Whichever works. Don't let her go bungee jumping.’

‘Woodley …’ I stopped abruptly, staring at the head of the bed. The sheets and cover had been turned back, very neatly, as if by a maid. It was so unexpected, so bizarre, that I hadn't even noticed it at first. ‘Did you do that?’

‘Like to think I operate a one-stop service, dear boy, but it doesn't extend to making your bed.’

I paid him off, and waited impatiently while he gathered his stuff together. I ran an eye over the living room, and came up empty. Nothing obvious was missing, and trust me – the decor's so austere you'd notice if anything was gone.

When Woodley had left, I grabbed Deck and pulled him through to the bedroom. ‘The bed,’ I said, pointing at it.

‘We've been friends a long time,’ he said gently. ‘But I just don't care for you that way.’

‘Someone's turned back the sheets.’

Deck raised an eyebrow. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course I'm sure. Does it seem something I'm likely to do?’

‘Not unless there was money hidden underneath.’

‘Exactly.’

‘So someone's picked up your messages and turned back the bed. You got an imaginary girlfriend or something?’

‘Not even a real one.’

‘Nobody else got a key? The building's Super, for instance?’

‘The Super is in prison for breaking and entering.’

‘That's a no, then. Anything missing?’

‘Not that I can see.’

‘Okay, so, to recap: someone's broken into your apartment and done a bit of tidying. You're twitchier than a pig in a tin, and you're waving your gun round like a flag. There's a woman on the sofa with wrists like a road map, and you just paid Woodley quadruple rate to keep his mouth shut. Maybe now would be a good time for you to tell me what's going on.’

I took my dressing gown off the hook on the back of the door, and got Laura Reynolds into it. I stuffed the bloody one in the trash where, knowing my housekeeping, it would probably remain for two years. Laura still seemed to be unconscious, but that was probably due to medication: there was a lot more colour in her cheeks, and with a combination of neat stitching and skinFix her arms looked a little better. Now that the blood had been swabbed away you could see both that the cuts were fairly manageable, and that they weren't the first. Old, white lines in very similar places said that tonight's dive for the tunnel hadn't been the first of its kind. Didn't make it any less important for her, I guessed, or any more clever.

I carried her through to the second bedroom as gently as I could, and got her into the bed. I laid a couple of my old coats on top of the bedding, and turned the heating up a little.

Then I went back in the living room and got the answering machine to repeat the messages which someone had already picked up. There were only three, and they were all from Stratten. The first was polite, the second businesslike. The third just said ‘Call the office. Now.’

Time was running out. I got a coffee and told Deck the score.

In the five months I worked memory, Ms Reynolds had been one of my most regular clients. Though I didn't know her name then, she'd dumped the same memory on me six times.

The memory was this. She'd been down by a stream, in a patch of forest behind the house where she lived. I don't know how old she was, but probably early to mid teens. The day was hot and it was late afternoon, and she'd gone into the wood for something important. The main impression I got was of anticipation, and vulnerability, and the memory always made me feel very young. She was standing there, waiting, when suddenly there'd been a shadow over her, and she'd looked up to see her mom. Her mother was a very tall woman, quite thin, with a mass of reddish brown hair. Laura had slowly looked up until she'd found her mother's face. In the memory what she needed a break from every now and then was the expression she saw there. A look of fury – mixed in with a little glee.

The memory always ended abruptly at that moment, and I don't know what the look meant or what had happened afterwards. I'd always been kind of glad I didn't. It was one of the memories I could understand someone wanting to get away from once in a while.

Then last week I came back from lounging round a hotel pool in Santa Barbara to find I had an email message from an address I didn't recognize. Before I even read it I ran a check on the source: sometimes people set their mail to send back a received signal when it was opened. The domain code didn't set any alarm bells ringing, but even so I got the console to hardcopy without technically opening it.

The mail was from this same woman. We'd never been in contact before – all transactions were brokered through REMtemps on a double-blind confidentiality principle – but she mentioned the memory, and I worked out who she was. The message said she had something she wanted me to carry, and would make it worth my while.

I stared at the piece of paper for a few moments, then set fire to it and let it burn in an ashtray. I spent the rest of the day round the pool, and the evening in a bar at the beach end of State Street, playing pool and bullshitting with the locals.

When I got back I had another message from the same address. It listed a phone number. It also mentioned twenty thousand dollars.

I watched a movie on the in-house system for a while, but you know how it is. The back brain makes a decision instantly, and no matter how long you put it off, you know what you're going to do.

At about midnight I left the hotel room and went back to the bar. There was a phone box round the back, out of sight, and I called the number from the message.

A nervous-sounding woman answered the phone. She had me describe her memory in detail. Then she told me what she wanted. She had another memory, one which wasn't usually a problem. Ten years ago she'd gone on vacation with a man she'd just met, to some place on the Baja she'd known for years. Ensenada. They stayed there a while, hanging out, eating seafood, having a good time. Then she'd come back.

‘That's it?’ I asked.

She'd recently met a new man. She liked him a lot. In fact, she was thinking of getting hitched. But they were going to go away together first, just to make sure. He wanted to go to the same town she'd been to with the other man all that time ago. She tried to suggest going somewhere else, but Ensenada had become a kind of lovers' in-joke between them, and it would have looked weird if she'd insisted.

I still didn't see the problem, and said so. As long as you steer clear of some of the taco stands, Ensenada's a cool place to be.

She said she didn't want to go back remembering what it had been like with the other man. She thought it might make her see things differently this time. She really loved this new guy, and didn't want to compromise the trip.

I know it sounds odd, but believe me – that's the way other people's lives work. They're both more bizarre and more trivial than you can imagine. Most clients had far worse reasons for forgetting something for a while: in a way I sort of respected her attitude, and wished I had a woman who was taking me that seriously.

I still didn't see why we were doing the cloak and dagger stuff. All she had to do was specify me when she booked the storage.

So she told me. She was going to be away for ten days.

Stratten wouldn't accept a booking for more than a week, I knew that. He seemed to have pretty much cornered the memory market, and I assumed therefore that he was kicking back to a couple of key cops somewhere, but if they heard he was extending the time limit all bets would be off. Also, the memory the woman wanted to leave wasn't a fragment. It was for the whole period, three entire days.

No-one had ever tried anything remotely that long before.

I thought I was going to say no, but instead found myself just telling her the money she was offering wasn't enough. I would have to go on leave from REMtemps for a week and a half. I could earn that much anyway in that time, without the risk of pissing Stratten off.

‘Fifty grand,’ she said.

I have a way of dealing with temptation. I just succumb, and get it over with.

Early the following afternoon I sat in my room and waited for the transmission. A third of the money for the current job was already in my hands, and on its way to three different accounts. The rest would come later. The woman had found a hacker with a lashed-up transmitter, and this dweeb had been able to acquire the code of my receiver. This spooked me a little. I made a mental note to find some way of hinting to Stratten, when the job was done, that the system wasn't as impregnable as he thought. If he wasn't careful the black market was going to start cutting into his business. Worse than that, memory temps could find themselves stuffed with all kinds of shit they weren't expecting or being paid for.

I spoke on the phone with the woman and arranged a time for her to take the memory back. It was a different number from the one she'd originally given me: presumably the home of the hacker.

Then I closed my eyes and got myself ready to receive.

It came moments afterwards. A pulse of noise and smell that filled my mind like the worst migraine you've ever had, magnified a hundredfold. I grunted, unable even to shout, and pitched forward out of the chair onto the carpet, hands and legs spasming. I seemed to go deaf and partly blind for a while, but that was the least of my problems. I thought I was going to die.

After a few minutes the shaking lessened – enough that I could crawl to the bedside table and grab a cigarette. I hauled myself up onto the bed and lay face down for a while, waiting for the pain to go away. It started to, eventually.

Half an hour later I was sitting up and drinking, which helped. My sight was clearing and I could hear once more the sound of people larking around by the pool below my window. I still felt like shit, but at least I was going to live.

The brain is designed to accept life piecemeal – not as sounds, sights, feelings and tactile impressions condensed into a single bullet of remembrance. Our minds are structured by time, and like things delivered sequentially. I hadn't really considered the difference between getting a quick, single fragment of someone's life, and taking on three days' worth of experience in one hit. It was like having the world reconfigured as a place where time and space meant nothing, and everything was one. If I hadn't already spent years bench-pressing with my mind I'd probably have been slumped in a corner, drooling and staring into nothingness.

As it was my head was still humming and thudding, trying to wade through what it had received and sort it into chronology and types. I could feel countless threads of data squirming over each other like snakes, searching for some kind of order. Sunburn on my shoulder; salt on my lips from a Margarita; a flash of sun on a car window. A thousand sentences all at once, some of them leaving my head, others coming in. My brain was lurching under the weight, misfiring like a heart on the verge of arrest.

I reached unsteadily for the phone. Large amounts of room service was what was on my mind, but first I had to call the woman and let her know that the transmission had gone through. I'm quite professional about these things. I dialled the number and waited as it rang, holding the glass of iced gin up against my forehead and panting very slightly.

There was no answer. I tapped the pips and redialled. This time I gave it thirty rings, before putting the phone back again. I knew she wasn't going away until the next day, so maybe it was no big deal. By then it was forty-five minutes since the dump. Probably she was out, making arrangements – or perhaps she'd gone home.

I munched slowly through a burger delivered by an offensively self-confident bellboy, keeping half an eye on what was going on in my head. It felt like a hard drive running optimization software, without enough slack to swap all the data around. Fragments of her golden vacation were lodging into place, but the rest was still jumbled and hazy.

When I was done with the food I called the number again. I let it ring for a long time and was about to put it down when someone answered. ‘Hello,’ said a voice I didn't recognize. ‘Who is this?’ There was a weird sound in the background, like a tannoy.

‘Hap Thompson,’ I answered, slightly taken aback. ‘Is my client there?’

‘How the fuck do you expect me to know, dickweed?’ snarled the voice, and the connection was severed.

I tried the number again, immediately. It rang, but there was no answer. Then I called the operator. She told me there was no fault on the line but wouldn't give me the address.

I called Quat. He said he'd call me back. I stumbled around the room for ten minutes, gobbling aspirin like candy.

Quat called, hack done. The number was from a booth in the first class departure lounge of O'Hare airport.

I called the other number I had for the woman. The line was dead. Then I blacked out.

When I came to, I was pretty scared. Two reasons. The first is that it had never happened to me before, except the tiny blips you got immediately after receiving a memory. The second was that my client had clearly fucked me over.

I checked out of the hotel and drove fast back to LA along Highway 1, bolting myself into the apartment. I panicked when I found a note had been stuffed under the door, but it was only from my old neighbours, the Dickenses. They were a nice young couple with three kids, originally from Portland. Year ago someone came up with an idea to sell everyone on how well the country was doing. They invented an imaginary family: parents of a certain age, such-and-such background, current and past employment, recreational habits, kids' sexes, ages, SAT scores and eye colour – they were very specific. Then they hung an entire campaign around it, staking their reputation on claiming that such a family was so many dollars better off every week – thinking nobody could disprove it. Problem was, they screwed up. There was such a family – the Dickenses. Some suit in the Statistics Bureau panicked and took a contract out on them, and they'd been on the run ever since. The note just said they'd seen someone sniffing around, and they were gone. They left me their keys, and said I could have the milk in their fridge.