Acts of Conscience by William Barton Page B

go, told him to fuck it, kicked off from the front of a nearby locker bank, making the flexible plastic boom, sailing away from him, toward the door, going on home.
    How many times have I come here like this, come in and slumped in my chair, staring at an empty wall, waiting... Not waiting for anything. The appliances know what I want, listen to my thoughts, anticipate my needs... like servants in some old movie, some movie from before the days of vidnet, before the days of... anything at all. Image of silent men and women dressed in black and white, silent men and women standing in the shadows, reaching out silent hands for rich man’s coat and velvet top hat...
    Slim silent woman in black dress and white apron, polishing silver and wood and... Rich man’s eyes on her slim, starved back, eying a curve of hip, the hidden length of thigh and...
    Somewhere now, the icemaker tinkled, making me whatever the bartender software thought I wanted, knew I might be needing just now, while the vidnet display swirled, turning the far wall to a wilderness of mist and color. What would I see next? A cooked up script about those far gone days? I can just imagine. Now I’ll see some skinny, famished maid, some charwoman bending over her silver-polishing job, bending over, back of her too-short black dress rising up...
    Here and now, a pulsing yellow light of warning, superimposed over the landscape of my stock exchange access node. Somewhere in my head, a soft whisper, whisper from the apartment sentience: Important message from the trade controller AI, Mr. du Cheyne. Important message...
    Go ahead.
    Jesus, I can’t make these decisions. Call up the ERSIE lawyers and tell them I’ll take the eight hundred thousand? Or sit tight and wait for the resumption of trade you think is coming? Another whisper, in a subtly different inner voice: Cusp of decision axis may come with insufficient lead time for you to participate effectively in procedural processes, Mr. du Cheyne. Rule sieves suggest you grant this software per diem power of attorney. Meaning it thought it was going to have to jump fast when the time came.
    Uh. “Granted.” Said aloud, seeming to echo eerily in the empty apartment, though the walls were as acoustically perfect as cheap consumer technology permitted. A quick look. OK. So nothing’s really happened since last night. B-VEI still flagged and frozen. Board of Trade Regents now in closed session. At the stock ticker... the transitional value of twelve thousand shares of ERSIE stock was valued at 817,468 livres. OK. So it’s gone up a little bit.
    What does it mean ? Does it mean the bidders believe ERSIE will win the legal battle going on in Kiev just now? Does it mean I should sell? Eight-hundred-seventeen-thousand livres, for Christ’s sake...
    But what if they’re wrong? What if my software knows what it’s doing? How much is that B-VEI stock going to be worth tomorrow if... if... Then that familiar soft touch from the apartment: You have a visitor, Mr. du Cheyne. That wretched Mr. Rothman, come to sneer at my things and offer me more money? Or brandish ever scarier threats?
    The AI said, A Miss Tallentyre, representing client services for Berens-Vataro Enterprises. A small, hard clenching inside, filling me up with nameless dread. Next act.
    o0o
    Much later, I sat in the darkness, staring at an empty wall. The household kept trying to read my thoughts, trying to bring up the vidnet link and do what it was supposed to do... a faint blush of dawn forming on the far wall, hesitating, then going dark again.
    Miss Tallentyre’s visit wasn’t so different from the previous night’s meeting with the ERSIE lawyer. A round of meaningless chatter, then getting down to business, telling me historical bullshit I already new, her company’s opinion of what might happen, again, just a rehash of news reports. Asked me how much the lawyer offered me for the stock options and didn’t seem surprised at the answer. Asked if