Read Online The Credulity Nexus by Graham Storrs - Free Book Online Page B

chemicals
masking something worse. “Where am I?”
    Celestina
looked stunning. She always dressed like she was at a film
première, in slinky, revealing designer dresses and fabulous
jewellery. But Celestina could do that, because she wasn't real any
more. She was an upload, her mind running in a computer
somewhere.
    She had said,
“You're with me in Omega Point, dear. Don't worry, only your body
died.”
    Automatically,
Rivers looked down at herself. Apart from the hospital gown, she
looked perfectly normal. She touched her left arm with her right
hand. It felt exactly the way it should.
    Celestina was
smiling. “Don't let that fool you, dear. Nothing here is quite what
it seems.”
    “ I can't afford this.” It surprised Rivers
that this was the first thing she thought, but it was true. Her
skills had earned her what most people would consider riches, but
nothing like the kind of wealth needed to make it to Omega
Point.
    “ No, you can't,” Celestina agreed. “But I
need a special job doing, and you are the one who is going to do it
for me.”
    That's how
she'd got into this mess. Celestina's generosity. She opened a call
to her benefactor's private netID while she was still feeling angry
and resentful enough to do it.
    “ Celestina? It's Rivers. I'm en route to LA
on the same flight as the target. Everything went pear-shaped in
London. He had government agents protecting him. I almost didn't
get out alive. What's going on, Celestina? When I get to the
States, will I have the fucking FBI shooting at me, too? This
little project of yours isn't looking as simple as it did a few
days ago. You'd better tell me who this guy is and what his
connections are, 'cause right now I have no fucking idea what I'm
up against.”
    There. The
message was sent. Let the old tranny chew on that. Maybe if Rivers
had made more of a fuss about this from the start she'd be getting
better support right now.
    But she had
been so astonished by Celestina's offer, so glad to be alive again,
that she had let her guard down.
    “ Just one job, and I get keep the body?”
She'd kept checking because it had seemed too good to be
true.
    She had even
got to choose the robot, have it customised to her own
specifications. She'd insisted on the gecko skin for her hands,
feet, forearms and shins, with an eye to making a living
afterwards. Celestina had suggested incorporating another little
trick skin addition, so she could change colour at will.
    All that had
been great. Picking the body with Celestina, trying on different
shapes, was like going shopping with a girlfriend. That was
something Rivers had never done before. She'd practised with the
robot while she stayed in Omega Point – everything simulated, of
course, but so like the real thing that the transition to the
actual body was completely smooth.
    It was only on
Earth, after spending the long trip down crated up in the hold of a
company freighter, that she began to realise she might have been
misled about how simple the job was.
    But there was
no time to fret over that now. She could hear a thin keening from
outside. The aircraft was falling through atmosphere, just a few
miles up. They would be landing soon. When they hit the tarmac in
LA, she had to find a way to get off the hopper and keep the target
in sight.
    She climbed up
the landing strut so she wouldn't be dangling out in the open when
the gear went down, and hoped that she'd have plenty of time to
work out her exit before the passengers disembarked.

Chapter 11
     
    Somewhere over
the North Atlantic, Rik decided to dump all his half-formed plans
for escape and do the sensible thing: co-operate. Whatever Cordell
was up to, if Rik's attempts to shake off the government led to the
upload and whoever she represented getting hold of this bioweapon,
the outcome could be something he didn't want on his conscience. He
wasn't that keen on the government – any government – having it
either, but he had to admit it was probably safer with