When Marta Ex first appeared to Gabriel Clarke, he was changing Chatsworth strip-malls into shining mini-Xanadus and disused sidewalks into gold-paved expressways. In the Xanadus, slim long-legged girls sipped cappuccinos in shiny perfect chrome and glass coffeehouses, while perfect muscular men with bright tailored clothes discussed in deep, authoritative tones the possibility of getting a handout.
Gabriel toggled the Mediation Processor off and looked at the drab grey 80's-era strip-mall, its parking lot ripped out and replaced with scruffy dead brown grass. Inside a donut shop, two dumpy housewives slurped coffee. Outside, two sagging middle-aged men had gone bumming.
He could turn the strip-mall into a collection of hunter-gatherer huts, 20s-era art deco shops, or virtually anything he wanted. And yet he could still interact with anyone. It was just a veneer, a wallpaper over the plainness of reality.
A veneer you could get lost in, he thought. ICONix, his employer, had turned him loose with the prototype of the consumer MP, technology recently wrested from the government by the media conglomerates though much lobbying and well-placed contributions. Technology used to make combat more effective, now repurposed to make media more profitable. Gabriel had worked with old-style Interpretation Processors since he was in school, powerful engines that turned text into animated, hyper-real 3D experiences to be refined for linear or interactive production. But the MP was real-time. It overlaid reality. It was orders of magnitude more powerful. It was unbelievable.
Gabriel shook his head and turned the MP on again. Xanadu was back. He looked out across the San Fernando Valley. Streets of gold led to fantastic dreamlike architecture, perfect people came and went.
Except one.
He almost didn't notice her, simply because she was ordinary. Tall, thin, with short-cut black hair and blue eyes. Young, in her teens. But with an asymmetry that looked real. She sat on a public transport bench and looked up at him calmly.
"Hi, Gabriel," she said.
Gabriel started. "You...who are...you know me?"
"Yes." She smiled, enigmatic, catlike.
"I'm sorry, I haven't been..."
The girl got up and walked towards him. Reached out a hand to touch him.
Her hand passed through his.
Gabriel stepped back. Looked at her, wide-eyed. Toggled off the MP.
There was nobody sitting on the bench. Nobody near him. Just the housewives and bums in the strip mall.
He shivered. Where did she come from? He wondered. Was she a help avatar from the MP? For a moment he considered calling ICONix for help, or taking the interface leads from the back of his neck. His intuition, normally vociferous, was strangely silent.
He toggled the MP back on.
She was back on the bench, looking at him calmly.
"Are you part of the help system?" Gabriel asked her.
"No." She laughed. "I'm me."
Gabriel frowned. "And who are you?"
"Marta Ex."
"Ex?"
"And you're Gabriel Clarke. And this," she said, waving a hand at the incredibly beautiful Valley, "Is all fake."
"What...what are you?"
She smiled. She was clearly having fun. "Just a bored girl in Australia."
"You're...where?" Contact with an alien, he thought, remembering the time on the couch with USG Oversight, after that time at school with the surveillance system. He should get out, report a hack of the USG partitioning system, shut down and get out. But.
"Australia. No reason you should have heard of it."
"Don't make fun of me."
"Oh, but it's so easy," she said, standing up and walking towards him again, studying him. "You don't know me? He never told you?"
Gabriel shook his head.
"Remember when a certain person left your life? He landed in Australia."
Thunk.
It dropped into place. Alan Clarke. His disappearing father. The revolution that people whispered about, when they thought they were well away from the Eyes and Ears. The weird stories his mother would tell.
"You're my sister?"
She laughed. "No. Not even close. He fathered you. He created me."
)
In the near future, combat technology (the Mediation Processor, or MP) has been forced out of government hands by powerful corporations. Now, this reality-bending capability serves the grander purpose of making media more profitable by literally putting a sheen on things. In this dystopia stride two attractive young people, Gabriel Clarke and Marta Ex. Each has a real problem. They have attracted the attention of USG Oversight, which jealously safeguards the U.S. against any outside threats. But both Gabriel and Marta are products of one of the most brilliant minds of the 21st Century--and they have their own secret advantages when bullets start flying.
