Against Gravity

The Arlington rested between tall buildings constructed from the same quarried sandstone as the rest of Edinburgh, but unlike the structures in the narrow, crowded streets of the nearby Old Town this was an edifice entirely of the late twenty-first century. The mirrored surfaces of its windows were visible between broad aluminium interstices jutting out at strange angles over the street below, giving the whole a malleable, almost plastic appearance. From the opposite side of the street, Kendrick leant back, gazing up at the broad expanses of glass that reflected anything but the buildings around them. The hotel's windows were programmed instead to reflect other city skylines – perhaps Milan or Hong Kong. He saw the reflection of a building impossibly sculpted in the shape of a sickle, as if designed for a world with little or no gravity, and a view totally in opposition to the reality of the staid architecture behind him. The effect wasn't very subtle, he decided, and spoke more of money than of taste.

Kendrick stepped across the street towards the hotel's wide entrance. Now its glass doors displayed a different view, one that cleverly integrated both Kendrick and the people walking past him into yet another environment…

When he stopped and stared at the broad expanse of the main entrance, a chill ran through him as he recognized the landscape displayed. His reflection appeared to be standing on a wide grassy plain, while behind him the ground curved distinctly up into the distance.

The illusion was well programmed, so that the closer Kendrick came the more he could see. Despite himself, he glanced round at the ordinary street surrounding him as if to check that it was still there. Then, looking back, he moved his head from side to side, finding he could see a little way further along the plain on either side before the illusion shattered into unfocused rainbow colours. Curving walls slid off into the far distance before they became shrouded in cloud and mist. It was the same terrain he'd been seeing during his recent seizures.

Feeling shaken, Kendrick passed in through the door. Instinctively, he reached into his pocket and touched the business card that nestled there.

The receptionist smiled and shook her head. "I really don't know, sir. The building has a range of programmed window environments, but I couldn't tell you who programmed any particular one. It's just not the kind of information we would possess."

''You don't know any way I could find out who was contracted to design the current environment?"

The girl wore lipstick like gluey fire, and Kendrick's augmented vision picked out the fine grain of face powder on her cheeks and her neck, even the fine pattern of capillaries just below the surface of her skin.

She smiled again. "That's not exactly the kind of information we'd have to hand."

He sighed and shook his head. "I'm here to meet a Marlin Smeby. Could you let him know I'm here, please?"

"Mr Gallmon?" said a voice from behind him, and he turned. A woman stood there, dressed in an immaculate suit of night-blue wool, smooth ebony skin stretched over well-trained muscles. Kendrick recognized her voice, since she had taken his call an hour or so earlier. She looked like the kind of woman who might equally well be an ex-athlete or ex-military – perhaps even both.

She extended a hand. Her grip was strong, assured. "My name is Candice. If you're ready, I'll take you up to Mr Smeby now."

He glanced down at his own green T-shirt and casual slacks, and shrugged. "Please, after you," he said.

He reckoned her accent was maybe that of a native New Yorker. Life there was hard these days, and the city had become a neglected and forlorn shadow of its former self. Rumour had it that snipers still hid out in certain deserted Manhattan office buildings, preying on passers-by.

He followed Candice to the bank of lifts beyond the reception area, admiring the way in which the fabric of her trousers slid across her buttocks as she walked, seeming to reveal more than if she'd worn nothing. She stepped back, allowing him to enter the open lift first. Its doors slid shut silently, and she touched a floor button. After that they rode upwards in silence for a while.

Smeby's… bodyguard, secretary, aide, whatever she was finally turned to him. "I'm sorry, but I couldn't help overhearing what you said to the young woman at the desk."

Kendrick looked at her, surprised. "You mean about the programmed windows?"

Candice nodded. "Yes, the Archimedes. I was up there once. Very hard to forget."

Kendrick was thunderstruck. "The Archimedes? You were on board?"

"Part of a rotating detachment, before the station was abandoned." The lift started to slow down.

"That must have been quite an experience," he said carefully.

A smile played at the edge of her lips. "Quite an experience, yes. Doesn't it make you wonder what's up there now?"

"I can't begin to imagine. The whole thing was…" He paused, not sure what to say.

"Crazy, I think you were going to say." Candice smiled, as if to suggest that she didn't mind.

Of course, Kendrick had realized all along that he must be seeing something like the Archimedes during his seizures. But that was all it was – a figment of his imagination. Something like the Archimedes, but not bearing any relation to anything real. Just some random environment that his augments had dredged up from his subconscious as they wove themselves ever more inextricably into the stuff of his brain. Nothing more than that. Yet seeing it there, externalized, as if it had been ripped from the recesses of his mind and reproduced so precisely, that had been shocking, even frightening.

And it raised the question he'd been asking himself all those long months: why, of all things, would he hallucinate about the Archimedes?

The elevator doors opened and Kendrick stepped into a room large enough to house a medium-size conference. A long, low table, set up near the windows, had a variety of computer equipment scattered across its surface, including some expensive-looking gridcom gear. Smeby himself stood by the wide window, staring absent-mindedly out over the people walking in the street far below. His arms were folded across his chest, as if hugging himself. He turned and stepped forward when he noticed Kendrick standing there.

Kendrick heard the elevator doors close behind him and turned to see that Candice had left them alone together.

Kendrick held the business card between his thumb and forefinger, where Smeby could easily see it. "You could have just given me a call," he began.

Smeby laughed, as if appreciating a point well made. "But then you wouldn't have wanted to satisfy your curiosity by coming here, would you?"

"How did you find me?"

"You are Kendrick Gallmon, aren't you?"

"That depends."

"Your identity is entirely safe, Mr Gallmon. My employer wishes to speak to you."

Kendrick stuffed his hands in his pockets and hunched his shoulders; the room felt immediately cold. "I don't see anyone else around, unless you mean Candice."

"I work for Max Draeger."

"Draeger? You work for Max Draeger?" Walk out now, thought Kendrick. "Then we have nothing to say to each other." He turned and headed back towards the elevator.

"Mr Draeger wants to know if you've been suffering from any seizures recently," Smeby called after him.

Kendrick stopped to turn and stare at Smeby. "Fine -you've got my attention. But why should you care?"

"Another question. You know there are upwards of two thousand still-living Labrats. Are you still in contact with any of them?"