Free Synners by Pat Cadigan Page B

into BizNet, not G-Clef. The musicians are all on PerfectPitch, the techies are downloading Circuit Break—"
    "—and the rest of the world can go hang," Sam said thoughtfully.
    Fez laughed. "By George, she's got it. Well, anyway, what this says, more or less, is that Diversifications investigated the possibility of a takeover of Hall Galen Enterprises as a whole, and Galen cut a deal, divesting himself of the EyeTraxx business unit, and they took that in a settlement."
    Rosa put a finger on the screen. "Is that this part here— 'growth opportunities altered in reorganization, closing the aperture around the IBU? What's an IBU?"
    "Independent business unit," Fez said absently. "A term for everything and everything in a term. There's a cross-ref here to MedLine, in Research: Human/Brain/Neurophysiology."
    "I can read that just fine," Rosa said. "But why in hell would an item like this have a cross-ref in Med-for-god's-sake-Line?"
    A small box blossomed in the lower central area of the screen, blinking a notice: 24 min. free access time left.
    "Fucking gougers," Sam said, pointing at the box. The number changed to 23 as she watched. "That makes me so mad. Fucking surcharges."
    Rosa shrugged as Fez touched the speed box at the top of the screen and selected the MedLine cross-reference out of the small menu that appeared at the bottom of the screen. "Could be worse. They could have just raised all the rates across the board."
    Fez chuckled. "They might yet. 'Truth is cheap, but information costs.' I can't remember who said that."
    "Vince What's-His-Name," said Sam. "Died in a terrorist raid or something. I thought you said all information should be free."
    "It should. It isn't. Knowledge is power. But power corrupts. Which means the Age of Fast Information is an extremely corrupt age in which to live."
    "Aren't they all?" Sam asked him.
    He smiled his dreamy little smile at her. "Ah, but I think we're approaching a kind of corruption unlike anything we've ever known before, Sam-I-Am. Sometimes I think we may be on the verge of an original sin."
    She didn't get the reference, but she felt a sudden chill run up the back of her neck. "Goose walked over my grave," she said.
    "To get to the other side," Rosa murmured. Sam gave her a look.
    "Besides being rich," Fez said, "you have to be extra sharp these days to pick up any real information. You have to know what you're looking for, and you have to know how it's filed. Browsers need not apply. Broke ones, anyway. I miss the newspaper."
    "Don't you get one?" Sam asked, surprised. "I do. Even while I was out in the Ozarks, I had no trouble at all getting The Daily You."
    "Feh. That's not a newspaper. In my day we called it a dipping service, and it's not even a good one. A bunch of glorified headlines in a watereddown hodgepodge. Ah, at last." Fez froze the screen and began scrolling line by line. "Dr. Lindel Joslin, installed at blah, blah, blah, brain-path research, blah, blah, receptors, receptors, more receptors—" Several more lines marched up the screen. "Here it is. Hm. She's an implant surgeon. Research completed under the auspices of Hall Galen Enterprises and EyeTraxx, any and all subsequent patents now wholly owned by Diversifications, Inc."
    "Patents?" Rosa said.
    Fez shook his head and read a little farther before straightening up, pushing his hands against the small of his back. "Can't make head or tail of the rest of it. Medspeak."
    Rosa laughed. "Crank that translator into overdrive, and let's see what she can do."
    Sam was still studying the screen. "It still doesn't explain why some esoteric biz item about a takeover of a rock-video company would have a crossref in MedLine."
    "Well, obviously because this Dr. Joslin was being funded by EyeTraxx," Rosa said. "Diversifications must have taken over her funding, so they've taken over whatever she was working on. It begs the question of why Eye Traxx was funding her. Tax shelter?" She nudged Fez.
    "One possibility." He