Free Black Glass by John Shirley

from their holographic eyes. “Bulwer” squinted; “Claire” looked at him balefully; “Grist” winked.
    “What about the others?” the real Grist asked. “What about Hoffman?”
    “Problems with Hoffman—it’s simply giving me problems.”
    “Not surprising, somehow.”
    “And the Japanese language template in the Yatsumi semblant—it creates some kind of differential wave, ripple noise–”
    “We may have to use a truncated Yatsumi semblant. At least at first,” Grist suggested.
    “So now there’s three of them—we can try the merge again so you can see it–”
    “Do it, do it, I don’t want to spend any more time in this mephitic air than I have to.”
    “Really, Grist, we do have air conditioning.”
    “It’s not enough, not around you. Do it, I said.”
    “This is an unauthorized use of a semblant,” said Claire PointOne’s semblant, looking around. “I will shut down and erase.”
    “No, actually, you won’t,” Sykes said. “I’ve removed all the piracy protections.”
    “You can’t be switching me on like this,” the Bulwer semblant said, “without checking with the real Bulwer—this here, it’s–”
    The Grist holographic head turned to the other two. “Oh, shut
your logorrheic mouth, he knows what he’s doing.” He turned to look at the real Grist. “Go ahead, old friend.”
    “We’re doing just that, thanks. Sykes?”
    Sykes hit ENTER. The three semblants shimmered—and faded, to instantly reappear on the center disk, together.
    “This is–” Bulwer’s semblant began.
    “—totally objectionable.” Claire’s was saying as ...
    . . . they merged, into one distorted face.
    “Muss them zorn stang at aye-oh-well-dot smith no wesson oil,” the jittering, unsteady image chattered. “Vreedeez vent howl doctor the Pep-Pay, Michael I good king Wenceslas Dharma, how about a little head little lady, point zero approximates nothingness, point one fulfills all, all sum totals times acquisition is love, vanity is love, seven thousand shares of my front teeth too prominent ...”
    The faces had combined to be visually askew, matching the verbal mish-mash.
    “Sykes?” Grist said, staring at it.
    Sykes worked feverishly at the input.
    The face looked like a cubistic painting, to Grist. Maybe two Picassos superimposed. “I am the Not one,” it said, “who used to be ten thousand barrels a day, crude can be divided more times than that nigger Washington Carver’s fucking peanuts to you mother please don’t touch me there with that metal thing it hurts why does Dad have to die just when I’m not in the mood to be touched today, Hank, I’m just not a bird up the ass of my seventh stick this morning like a burning bush of gynecological dimensions–”
    “Sykes?”
    Sykes shook his head, hit a power button. The holograph switched off, the voice ceased.
    “They’re fighting it,” Sykes said, taking off the glasses. There were sweat rings around his eyes.
    “Then fight back. I insist you make it work—and soon. I need it soon. I suspect the board is planning on moving against me—I need to know.”
    “It’ll take time to control it—if it can be done at all–”
    “Oh you’ll control it, Sykes. You must keep it growing—but with careful control.” Grist’s voice had become soft. Almost like
a father whispering a warning to a noisy child in church. “You’ll consolidate them and you’ll control what you consolidate and you will make no excuses. I am sick of your excuses. Do you understand me, Sykes? And if you fail me, I will simply take away everything you have. Everything. Your money and your Cassandra. I’ll let you ponder that for a while. And then I’ll have you picked up and I’ll have your arms and legs surgically removed and leave you on the sidewalk on skid row. Naked. Just picture that! What would they do with you? It’s tempting to do it anyway.”
    Grist had Sykes’ attention, for once. The tech prodigy gaped at him. “That’s ... too