JULY 2114 Concern for man
himself and his fate
must always form the chief interest of all
technical endeavors, concern for the great
unsolved problems of the organization of
labor and the distribution of goods -
in
order that the creations of our mind shall be
a blessing and not a curse to mankind. - Albert Einstein, address to California
Institute of
Technology, 1931 Diana Covington: San Francisco For some of us, of course, nothing would be enough. That sentence can be taken two ways, can't it? But I don't mean
that having nothing would ever be satisfactory to us. It isn't even satisfactory to Livers, no matter what pathetic claims they lay to an "aristo life of leisure." Yes, Right. There isn't a single
one of us that doesn't know better. We donkeys could always recognize seething dissatisfaction. We saw it daily in the mirror. My IQ wasn't as high as Paul's. My parents couldn't
afford all the genemods Aaron got. My company hasn't made it as big as Karen's. My skin isn't as small-pored as Gina's. My constituency
is more demanding than Luke's. Do the blood sucking voters think I'm made out of money? My dog is less
cutting-edge genemod that Stephanie's dog. It was, a fact, Stephanie's dog that made me decide to change my life. I know how that sounds.
There's nothing about the start of my service with the Genetic Standards Enforcement Agency that doesn't sound ridiculous. Why not start with Stephanie's dog ? It brings a certain satiric panache to
the story. I could dine out on it for months. If, of course, anyone were ever going to dine out again. Stephanie brought her dog to my apartment in the Bayview Security Enclave on a Sunday morning in July. The day before, I'd bought pots of new flowers from BioForms in
Oakland and they cascaded over the terrace railing, a riot of blues much more varied than the colors of San Francisco Bay, six stories below. Colboat, robin's egg, aquamarine, azure, cyan, turquoise,
cerulean. I lay on my terrace chaise, eating anise cookies and studying my flowers. The gene geniuses had shaped each blossom into a soft fluttery tube with a domed end. The blossoms were quite
long. Essentially, my terrace frothed with flaccid, blue, vegetable penises. David had moved out a week ago. "Diana," Stephanie said, through
the Y-energy shield spanning the space between my open French doors. "Knock knock.." "How'd you get into the apartment?" I said, mildly
annoyed. I hadn't given Stephanie my security code. I didn't like her enough. "Your code's broken. It's on the police net. Thought you'd
like to know." Stephanie was a cop. Not with the district police, which was rough and dirty work down among the Livers. Not our Stephanie. She owned a company that furnished patrol 'bots for en
clave security. She designed the 'bots herself. Her firm, which was spectacularly successful, held contracts with a sizable number of San Francisco enclave, although not with mine. Telling me my
code was on the 'bot net was her ungraceful way of needling me because my enclave used a different police force. I lounged back on my chaise and
reached for my drink. The closet blue flowers yearned toward my hand. "You're giving them an erection," Stephanie said, walking through the
French doors. "Oh, anise cookies! Mind if I give one to Katous?" The dog followed her from the cool dimness of my apartment and stood blinking
and sniffing in the bright sunshine. It was clearly, aggressively, illegally genemod. The Genetic Standards Enforcement Agency may allow fanciful tinkering with flowers, but not with animal phyla
higher than fish. The rules were very clear, backed up by court cases whose harsh financial penalties make them even more clearer. No genemods that cause pain. No genemods that create weaponry, in
its broadest definition. No genemods that "alter external appearance or basic internal functioning such that a creature deviates significantly from other members of not o nly its species but also its
breed." A collie may pace and single-foot, but it better still look like Lassie. And never, never, never any genemod that is inheritable.
Nobody wants another fiasco like the Sleepless. Even my penile flowers were sterile. And genemod human begins, we donkeys, were all individually handcrafted, in vitro on-of-a-kind collector's ite
ms. Such is order maintained in our orderly world. So saith Supreme Court Justice Richard J. Milano, writing the majority opinion for Linbecker v. Genetic Standards Enforcement Agency.
Humanity must not be altered past recognition, lest we lose what it means to be human. Two hands, one head, two eyes, two legs, a functioning heart, the necessity to breathe and eat and shit , this
is humanity in perpetuity. We are the human beings. Or, in this case, the dogs. And yet here was Stephanie, theoretically an
officer of the law, standing on my terrace flanked by a prison-sentence GSWA violation in pink fur. Katous had for adorable pink ears, identically cocked, aural Rockettes. It had an adorable pink
fur rabbit's tail. It had huge brown eyes, three times the size of any dog's eyes Justice Milano would approve, giving it a soulful, sorrowing look. It was so adorable and vulnerable looking I
wanted to kick it. Which might have been the point. Although that, too, might be construed as illegal. No modifications that cause pain.
"I heard that David moved out," Stephanie said, crouching to feed an anise cookie to the quivering pink fur. Oh so casual - just a girl and her
dog, my illegal genemod pet, I live on the edge like this all the time, doncah know. I wondered if Stephanie knew that "Katous" was Arabic for "cat." Of course she did. "David move out," I agreed. "We came to the place where the road forked." "And who's on your road?" "Nobody," I sipped my drink without offering Stephanie one. "I though I'd live alone for a while." "Really." She touched an aquamarine flower; it wrapped its soft tubular petal around her finger. Stephanie grinned ."Quel domage. What about the German software
dealer you talked to such a long time ago at Paul's party?" "What about your dog?" I said pointedly. "Isn't he pretty illegal for a cops
pet?" "But so cute. Katous, say hello to Diana." "Hello," Katous said. Slowly I lowered my glass from my mouth. Dogs couldn't talk. The vocal equipment didn't allow it,
the law didn't allow it, the canine IQ didn't allow it. Yet Katous's growled "hello" was perfectly clear. Katous could talk. Stephanie lounged
against the French doors, enjoying the effect of her bombshell. I would have given anything to be able to ignore it, to go on with a neutral, uninterested conversation. I could not imagine that.
"Katous," I said, "how old are you?" "The dog gazed at me from enormous sorrowful eyes.
"Where do you live, Katous?" No answer. "Are you genemod?" No Answer. "Is Katous a dog?"
Was there a shade of sad puzzlement in its brown eyes? "Katous, are you happy?"
Stephanie said, "His vocabulary is only twenty-two words. Although he understands more than that.
"Katous, would you like a cookie? Cookie,
Katous?" He wagged his ridiculous tail and pranced in place. There were no claws on his toes. "Cookie! Please!" I held out a cookie, which was from Proust's Madelines franchise and were wonderful: crunchy, fragrant with anise, rich with butter. Katous took it with toothless pink
gums. "Thank you, lady!" I looked at Stephanie. "He can't defend himself. And he's a mental cripple, smart enough to talk but not smart
enough to understand his world. What's the point?" "What's the point of your spermatic flowers? God, they're salacious. Did David give them
to you? They're wonderful." "David didn't give them to me." "You bought them yourself?
After he left, I would guess. A replacement?" "A reminder of male fallibility." Stephanie laughed. She knew I was lying of course. David was never fallible in that department. Or any other. His leaving was my fault. I am not an easy person to live
with. I needle, pry, argue, search compulsively for weakness to match my own. Worse, I only admit this well after the fact. I looked away from Stephanie and gazed through a gap in the flowers at
San Francisco Bay, my drink frosty in my hand. It is, I suppose, a serious flaw in my character that I can't stand to be in the same room for
ten minutes with people like Stephanie. She's intelligent, successful, funny, daring. Men fall all over her, and just for her genemod looks, red hair and vio let eyes and legs a yard and a half
long. Not even for her enhanced intelligence. No, she has the ultimate attracted for jaded males: no heart. She's a perpetual challenge, an infinite variety that custom doesn't stale because the
tariff is always about to be revoked. She can't really be loved, and can't really be hurt, because she doesn't care. Indifference, coupled with those legs, is irresistible. Eve ry man thinks he'll
be different for her, but he never is. Her face launched a thousand ships? Big deal. There's always another fleet. If pheromone genemods weren't illegal, I'd swear Stephanie had them. Jealousy, David always said, corrodes the soul. I'd always answ3ered that Stephanie was soulless.
She was twenty-eight, seven years my junior, which meant seven years more advancement in the allowable technological evolution of Homo sapiens. They had been a fertile seven years. Her father
was Harve Brunell, of Brunell Power. For his only daughter he had bought every genemod on the market, and some of that hadn't quite arrived there, legally. Stephanie Brunell represented the
penultimate achievement of American science, power, and values. Right behind Katous. She
plucked a penile blue flower and turned it idly in her hands. She was making me choke on my curiosity about Katous. "So, it's really over with you and David. Incidentally, I glimpsed him last night
at Anna's water fete. From a great distance. He wa s out on the lily pads." I asked casually, "Oh? With whom?" "Quite alone. And looking very handsome. I think he had his hair replaced again. It's curly and blond now." I
stretched and yawned. The muscles in my neck felt hard as duragem chains. "Stephanie, if you want David, go after him. I don't care." "Don't you? Do you mind if I send your rather primitive house 'bot for another pitcher? You seem to have drunk this whole one without me. At least your 'bot works - the
breakdown rate on the cop 'bots have accelerated yet again. I'd think the parts fra nchises were owned by crooks, if they weren't owned by some of my best friends. What's your 'bot's name?"
"Hudson," I said, "another pitcher." It floated off. Katous watched it fearfully, backing
into a corner of the terrace. The dog's absurd tail brushed a hanging flower. Immediately the flower wrapped itself around the tail, and Katous yelped and jumped forward, quivering. I said, "A genemod dog with some self-awareness but afraid of a flower? Isn't that a little cruel?" "It's supposed to be an ultra-pampered beastie. Actually, Katous is a beta-test prototype for the foreign market. Allowable under the Special Exemption Act for Economic
Recovery, Section 14-c. Non-Agricultural Domestic Animals for Export." "I thought the President hasn't signed the Special Exemption Act."
Congress had been wrangling over it for weeks. Economic crisis, unfavorable balance of trade, strict GSEA controls, threat to life as we know it. All the usual. "He'll sign it next week,' Stephanie said. I which of her lovers had influence on the Hill. "We can't afford not to. The genemod lobby gets more powerful every moth.
Thin of all the Chinese and EC and South American rich old ladies who will just love a nauseatingly cute, helpless, unthreateningly sentient, short-lived, very expensive lapdog with not teeth."
"Short-lived? No teeth? GSEA breed specifications -" "Will be waived for export animals.
Meanwhile I'm just beta-testing for a friend. Ah, here's Hudson. The 'bot floated through the French doors with a fresh pitcher of vodka
scorpions. Katous scrambled away, his four ears quivering. His scramble brought him sideways against a bank of flowers, all of which tried to wrap themselves around him. One log fl accid petal
settle softly over his eyes. Katous yelped and pulled loose, his eyes wild. He sot across the terrace. "Help!" he cried. "Help Katous!"
On that side of the terrace I had planted moondust in shallow boxes between the palings, to make a low border that wouldn't obstruct the view of the
Bay. Katous's frightened flight barreled him into the moondust's sensor field. It released a cloud of sweet-smelling blue fibers, fine as milkweed. The breathed them in, and yelped again. The
moondust cloud was momentarily translucent, a fragrant fog around those enormous terrified eyes. Katous ran in a ragged circle, then leaped blindly. He hurled between the wide-set paling and over
the edge of the terrace. The sound of his body hitting the pavement below made Hudson turn its senors. Stephanie and I ran to the railing. At our feet the moondust released another cloud of fibers. Katous lay smashed on the sidewalk six storied down. "Damn!" Stephanie cried. "That prototype cost a quarter million in R&D!" Hudson said, "There
was an unregistered sound from the lower entranceway. Shall I alert security?" "What am I going to tell Normam? I promised to baby-sit the
thing and keep it safe!" "Repeat. There was an unregistered sound from the lower entranceway. Shall I alert security?" "No Hudson," I said. "No action." I looked at the mass of bloody pink fur. Sorrow and disgust swept through me: sorrow for Katous's fear, disgust for
Stephanie and myself. "Ah, well," Stephanie said. Her perfect lips twitched. "Maybe the IQ did need enhancing. Can't you just see the
Liver tabloid headlines? DUMB DOG DIVES TO DEATH. PANICKED BY PENILE POSY." She threw back her head and laughed, the red hair swingin g in the breeze. Mercurial, David had once said of Stephanie. She has intriguing mercurial moods. Personally, I've never found Liver
tabloid headlines as funny as everyone else seems to. And I'd bet that neither "penile" nor "posy" was in the Liver vocabulary. Stephanie
shrugged and turned away from the railing. "I guess Norman will just have to make another one. With the R&D already done, it probably won't bankrupt them. Maybe they can ever take a tax
write-off. Did you hear that Jean-Claude rammed his write-off through the IRS, for the embryos he and Lisa decided not to implement in a surrogate after all? He discarded them and wrote off the
storage for seven years as business depreciation on the grounds that an heir was part of long-term strategic planning, and the IRS auditor actually allowed it. Nine fertilized embryos, all with
expensive genemods. And then he and Lisa decide they don't want kids after all." I gazed at the throwaway pile of pink fur on the sidewalk, and
then out a the wide blue Bay, and I made my decision. In that moment. As quickly and irrationally as that. Like most of the rest of my
life. "Do you know Colin Kowalski?" I asked Stephanie. She thought briefly. She had
eidetic recall. "Yes, I think so. Sarah Goldman introduced us a some theater a few years ago. Tall, with wavy brown hair? Minimal genemod, right? I don't remember him as handsome. Why? Is he
your replacement for David? "No." "Wait a minute - isn't he with the GSEA?" "Yes." "I think I already mentioned," Stephanie said stiffly, "that Norman's company had a special
beta-test permit for Katous?" "No. You didn't." Stephanie chewed on her flawless lower
lip. Actually, the permit is pending. Diana -" "Don't worry, Stephanie. I'm not going to report your dead violation. I just thought you
might know Colin. He's giving an extravagant Fourth of July party. I could get you an invitation." I was enjoying her discomfort. "I don't
think I'd be interested in a parted hosted by a Purity Squad Agent. They're always so stuffy. Guys who wrap up genetic rigidity in the old red-white-and-blue and never see that the result looks like
a national prick. Or a nightstick, beating d own innovation in the name of fake patriotism. No thanks." "You think the idealism is fake?"
"Mot patriotism is. Either that or Liver sentimentality. God, the only think bearable about this country comes from genemod technology. Most
Livers look like shit and behave worse - you yourself said you can't stand to be around them." I had said that, yes. There are lots of people I
couldn't stand to be around. Stephanie was on a political roll, the kind that never made it to campaign holovids. "Without the genemod brains
in the security enclaves, this would be a country of marching morons, incapable of even basic survival. Personally, I think the best act of 'patriotism' would be the a lethal genemod virus that wiped
out everybody but donkeys. Livers contribute nothing and drain off everything." I sad carefully, "Did I ever tell you that my mother was a
Liver? Who was killed fighting for the United States in the China Conflict? She was a master sergeant." Actually, my mother died when I was
two; I barely remembered her. But Stephanie had the grace to look embarrassed. "No. And you should have, before you let me give that tirade. But it doesn't change anything. You're a donkey.
You're a genemod. Y ou do useful work. This last was either generous of bitchy. I have done a variety of work, none of it persistently useful.
I have a theory about people who end up with strings of short-term careers. It is, incidentally, the same theory I have about people who end up with strings of short-term lovers. With each on you
inevitably hit a low point, not only within the purported "love" affair or fresh occupation, but also within yourself. This is because each new lover/job reveals fresh internal inadequacy. With one
you discover your capacity to be lazy; with another, to be shrewish; with a third, to engage in frenzied hungry ambition that appalls you with it's pathetic ne ediness. The sum of too many careers or
too many lovers, then, is the same: a composite of personal low point, a performance scattergram sinking inevitably to the bottom right quadrant. All your weaknesses stand revealed. What one lover
or occupation missed, the next one will draw forth. In the last ten years, I have worked in security, in entertainment holvids, in country
politics, in furniture manufacture franchises (more than one), in 'bot law, in catering, in education, in applied syncography, in sanitation. Nothing ventured, nothi ng lost. And yet David, who was
after Russell who was after Anthony who was after Paul who was after Rex who was after Eugene who was after Claude, never called me "mercurial." Which is certainly indicative of something.
I hadn't reacted to Stephanie's jibe, so she repeated it, smiling solicitously. "You're a donkey, Diana. You do useful work." "I'm about to," I said. She poured herself another drink. "Will David be at this Colin Kowalski's
party?" "I don't think so." "I understand. But if David and you are really finished
with each other -" "Go after him, Stephanie." I didn't look in her face. Since David moved out, I'd lost seven pounds and three friends.
So - say I joined the GSEA because I jilted. Say I was jealous. Say I was disgusted with Stephanie and everything she represented. Say I was
bored with my life at the extremely boring moment. Say I was just looking for a new thrill. Say I was impulsive . "I'm going to be out of town
for a while," I said. "Oh? Where are you going?" "I'm not sure yet. It depends." I
gave a last look over the railing at the smashed, semi-sentient, pathetic and expensive dog. The ultimate in American technology and values. Say I was a patriot. The next morning I flew down to
Colin Kowalski's office in a government complex west of the city. From the air, building and generous landing lots formed a geometric design, surrounded by free-form swaths of bright trees bearing
yellow flowers. I guess ed the trees were genemod to bloom all year. Trees and lawn stopped abruptly at the perimeter of the Y-shield security bubble. Outside that charmed circle the land reverted
to scrub, dotted by some Livers holding a scooter race. From my aircar I could see the entire track, a glowing yellow line of Y-energy about a
meter wide and five twisting miles long. A platform scooter shot out of the starting pod, straddled by a figure in red jacks that, at its speed and my height, was no more than a blur. I had been to
scooter races. The scooter's gravs were programmed to stay exactly six inches about the track. Y-cones on the bottom of the platform determined the speed; the sharper the tilt the faster the thing
could go, and the harder it became to control. The driver was allowed only a single handhold, plus a pommel around which he could wrap one knee. It must be like riding sidesaddle at sixty miles per
hour - not that any Liver would ever have heard of a side saddle. Livers don't read history. Or anything else. Spectators perched on flimsy
benches along the scooter track. They cheered and screamed. The driver was halfway through the course when a second scooter shot out of the pod. My car had been cleared by the government security
field, which locked onto my controls and guided me in. I twisted in my seat to keep the scooter track in view. At this lower altitude I could see the first driver more clearly. He increased the
tilt of his scooter, even though this part of the track was rough, snaking over rocks and depressions and piles of cut brush. I wondered how he knew the second scooter was gaining on him.
I saw the first driver race toward the half-buried boulder. The yellow line of the track snaked over it. The driver through his weight toward the
center, trying to slow himself down. He'd waited too long. The scooter bucked, lost its orientation toward the track, and flipped. The driver was flung to the ground. His head hit the edge of the
boulder at over a mile a minute. A moment later the second scooter raced over the obdy, its energy cones a perfect six inches about the crushed
skull. My car descended below the treetops and landed between two beds of bright genemod flowers. Colin Kowalski met me in the lobby, a server neo-Wrightian atrium in a depressing gray. "Me God, Diana, you look pale. What is it?" "Nothing," I said. Scooter deaths happen all the time. Nobody tries to regulate scooter races, least of all the politicians who pay for them in exchange for votes. What
would be the point? Livers choose that stupid death, just as they choose to take su nshine or drink themselves to oblivion or waste their little lives destroying the countryside marginally faster
than the 'bots can clean it up. Envirobots uses to be able to keep up, when there was enough money. Stephanie was right about one thing: I don't care what Livers do. Why should I? Whatever my
mother might have done forty years ago, today Livers are politically and economically negligible. Ubiquitous, but negligible. It was just that I had never seen a scooter death so clos e before. The
crushed skull had looked no more substantial than a flower. "You need fresh air," Colin said. "Let's go for a walk?" "A what?" I said, startled. I'd just had fresh air. What I wanted was to sit down. "Didn't the
doctor recommend easy walks? In your condition?" Colin took my arm, and this time I knew better than to say My what? The old training returns fast. Colin was afraid the building wasn't
secure. How could a government complex under maximum-security Y-field not be secure? The place would be multishielded, jammed, swept
constantly. There was only group of people who could even remotely be suspected of developing monitors so radically undetectabl e - I was
surprised at myself. My heart actually skipped a beat. Apparently I could still feel an interest in something besides myself. Colin walked me
past a lovely mediation garden out to an expanse of open lawn. We walked slowly, as befitted someone with my condition, whatever it was. "Colin, darling, am I pregnant?" "You have Gravison's disease. Diagnosed just two weeks ago, at the John C. Fremont
Medical Enclase, from you repeated complains of dizziness." "There's no complaints in my medical records." "There are now. Three complaints over the last four months. One misdiagnosis of multiple sclerosis. Your medical problems are one reason David Madison left you."
Despite myself, I flinched at the sound of David's name. Some locales are full of gleaming skyscrapers built on infertile, treacherously shifting
ground. Japan, for instance. And then there are place like the Garden of Eden - lush, warm, vibrant with c olor - where only bitterness is built. Whose fault? The Garden dwellers, obviously. They
certainly couldn't claim deprived childhood's. Nothing is more bitter than to know you could have had Eden, but turned it into Hiroshima. All
by your two unaided selves. Colin and I walked a little farther. The weather under the dome was mild and fresh smelling. Stephanie was wrong;
he was handsome, even if his looks weren't genemod. Thick brown hair, high cheek-bones, a strong body. Too bad he was such a prig. Religio us reverence for one's own job, even if the job is worth
doing, is a sexual turnoff. I could picture Colin inspecting his naked lovers for GSEA violation. And then turning them in. I said, "You're
rushing ahead, darling. Why the medical record changes? I haven't even said I'm willing to play." "We need you, Diana. You couldn't have
contacted me at a better time. Washington has cut our funds again, a ten percent drop from -" "Spare me the political lecture, Col. What do you
need me for?" He looked slightly offended. A prig. But of course his funds had been cut. Everybody's funds had been cut. Washington is a
binary system; money can only go in and out. More was going out than was coming in. Lots more: supporting a nation of Livers was expensive when the U.S.A. no longer held the patents for the cheap
Y-energy that had made it possible in the first place. Plus, aging industrial machinery, long kept underrepaired, was breaking down at an accelerating rate. Even Stephanie, with all her money, had
complained about that. The public sector must feel it even more. And deficit spending had been illegal for nearly a century. Didn't Colin think I knew a ll that? He said stiffly, "I didn't mean to lecture. I need you for surveillance. You're trained, you're clean, nobody will be tracking your moves electronically. And if they do
come to anybody's attention, Gravison's disease is the perfect cover." This was true, as far as it went. I was "trained" because fifteen years
ago I'd taken part in an unrecorded training program so secret its agents had never actually been used for anything. Or at least I hadn't, but, then, I'd dropped out before the end . Claude Kowalski
had also been in that program, which marked the start of his government career. I was clean because nothing about the program appeared in anybody's data banks, anywhere. But there was something Colin wasn't telling me, something slightly wrong with his manner. I said, "Who specifically, is it that I won't come to the attention of?" but I
think I already knew. "Sleepless. Neither Sanctuary nor that group on Huevos Verdes. La Isla, I mean." I said, through rising excitement, "Why does Gravison's disease provide the perfect cover? What is Gravision's disease?" "A brain disorder. It causes extreme restlessness and agitation." "And immediately you thought of me. Thank you,
darling." He looked annoyed. "It often leads to aimless travel. Diana, this isn't a joking matter. You're the last of the underground agents
who we're positive doesn't show up on any electronic record anywhere before Sanctuary cultured this so-called SuperSleepl ess on the protected orbital. Well, it's not protected anymore. We've got it
crawling with GSEA personnel. The labs we dismantled completely; Sanctuary will never pull those dangerous genemod tricks again. And that treasonous Jennifer Sharifi and her revolutionary cell will
never get out of jail. Colin's words struck me as understatement: a peculiarly gray toned, governmental sort of understatement. What's he'd
called Jennifer Sharifi's "dangerous genemod tricks" had been a terrorist attempt to use lethal, altered viruses to hold five cities ho stage. This incredible, daring, insane terrorism had been an
attempt to coerce the United States into letting Sanctuary secede. The only reason Sanctuary hadn't succeeded was that Jennifer Sharifi's granddaughter Miranda, from God-knows-what twisted family
politics, had betrayed the terrorists to the feds. This had all happened thirteen years ago. Miranda Sharifi had been sixteen years old. She and the other twenty-six children in on the betrayal had
supposedly been so genetically altered they don't even think like human beings anymore. A different species. Exactly what the GSEA was supposed
to prevent. Yet here the twenty-seven SuperSleepless were, walking around alive, a fait accompli. And not even "here" - a few years ago the
Supers had all moved to an island they'd built off the coast of Yucatan. That was the word: "built." One month it was intern ational ocean, no "there" there, the next month three existed a genuine
island. It wasn't a floating construct, like the Artificial Islands, but rock that went all the way down to the continental shelf, which was not especially shallow at that point. Luckily. Nobody
knew how the Sleepless had developed the nanotechnology to do it. A lot of people passionately wanted to know. Nanotechnology was still in its infancy. Mostly, nanoscientists could tak e things
apart, but not build them. This was apparently not true on La Isla. An island, says international law, which predates the existence of people
who can create one, is a natural feature. Unlike a ship or an orbital, it doesn't fall under the Artificial Construct Tax Reform Law of 2050, and it doesn't have to be chartered under a national
flag. It can be claimed by, or for, a given country, or can be assigned to it as a protectorate by the UN. The twenty-seven Supers plus hangers-on settle on their island, which was shaped roughly
like two interlocking ovals. The United States claimed La Isla; the potential taxes on SuperSleepless corporate businesses were enormous. However, the UNS assigned the island to Mexico, twenty miles
away. The UN was collectively unhappy with the Americans, in one of the downward cycles of international opinion. Mexico, which had been getting fucked over by the United States regularly for
several centuries, was happy to receive whatever monies La Isla paid to leave the inhabitants strictly alone. The Supers built their compound
under the most sophisticated energy fields in existence. Impenetrable. Apparently the Supers, with their unimaginably boosted brainpower, weren't geniuses at only genemodification; they included
amount their number of ge niuses at everything. Y-energy, Grav tech. From their island, officially if unimaginatively names La Isla, they have sold patents throughout the world markets on which the
U.S. can offer only the same tired recycled products at inflated prices. The U.S. has 120 million nonproductive Livers to support; La Isla has none. I'd never before heard it called Huevos Verdes.
Which translated means "green eggs" but in Spanish slang meant "green testicles." Fertile puissant balls. Did Colin know this? I stooped to
pick a blade of very green, genemod grass. "Colin, don’t' you think that if the Supers wanted Jennifer Sharif and their other grandparents out of prison, they'd get them out? Obviously the
successful counterrevolutionaries want the senior gang right where you've got them." He looked even more annoyed. "Diana, the SuperSleeples are
not gods. They can't control everything. They're just human beings." "I thought the GSEA says they're note." He ignored this. Or maybe not. "You told me yesterday you believed in stopping illegal genemod experiments. Experiments that could irrevocably change humanity as we know
it." I pictured Katous lying smashed on the sidewalk, Stephanie laughing above. Cookie! Please! I had indeed told Colin that I believed in
stopping genetic engineering, but not for reasons as simple as his. It wasn't that I objected to irrevocable changes t o humanity; in fact, that frequently seemed to me like a good idea. Humanity
didn't strike me as so wonderful that it should be forever beyond change. However, I had no faith in the kinds of alterations that would be picked. I doubted the choosers, not the fact of choice.
We'd already gone far enough in the direction of Stephanie, who considered sentient life-forms as disposable as toilet paper. A dog today, expensive and nonproductive Livers tomorrow, who the next
day? I suspected Stephanie was capable of genocide, if it served her purposes. I suspected that many donkeys were. There were times I'd thought it of myself, although not when I genuinely thought.
The nonthought appalled me. I doubted Colin could understand all this. "that's right," I agreed. "I want to help stop illegal genemod
experiments." "And I want you to know that I know that under the flip manner of yours, there's a serious and loyal American citizen."
Oh, Colin. Not even boosted IQ let him see the world other than binary. Acceptable/not acceptable. Good/bad. On/off. The reality was so much
more complicated. And not only that, he was lying to me. I'm good at detecting lies. Far better than Colin at implying them. He wasn't going
to trust me with anything important in this project, whatever it was. I was to hastily recruited, too flip, too unreliable. That I had left my training before its compl etion was de facto
unreliability, disloyalty, unacceptability for anything important. That's the way government types think. Maybe they're right. Whatever
surveillance Colin gave me would be strictly backup, triple redundancy. There was a theory for this in surveillance work: cheap, limited, and out of control. It started as a robot-engineering theory
but pretty soon carried over to police work. If there are a lot of investigators with limited tasks, they won't cohere into a single premature viewpoint about what they're looking for. That way,
they might turn up something totally unexpected. Colin wanted me for the equivalent of a wild card. I don't mind. At least it would get me out
of San Francisco. Colin said, "for the last two years the Supers have been entering the United States, in ones and two, heavily disguised both
cosmetically and electronically. They travel around to various Liver towns of donkey enclaves, and then go home, to La Isla. We want to know why. I murmured, "Maybe they have Gravison's disease." "I'm sorry, what did you say?" "I said, have you made any progress penetrating Huevos Verdes?" "No," he said, but then he wouldn't have told me if
they have. The sexual innuendo he missed completely. "And who will I be keeping under surveillance?" The excitement was a little bubble in my
throat now, still surprising. It had been a long time since anything had excited me. Except David, of course, who had taken his sexy should and verbal charm and se nse of superiority to hold in
readiness for plunking down temporarily in the middle of some other woman's life. He said, "You'll be following Miranda Sharifi." "Ah." "I have full ID information and kit for you in a locker at the gravrail station. You'll pass
as a Liver." This was a slight insult; Colin was implying my looks weren't spectacular enough to absolutely mark them as genemod. I let it
pass. Colin said, "She's only made one trip off the island herself. We think. When the next one happens, you go with her." "How will you be sure it's her? If they're using both cosmetic and electronic disguises, she could have different features, hair, even brain-scan
projections all masking her own." "True. But their heads are slightly misshapend, slightly too big. That's hard to disguise." I knew that, of course, Everybody did. Thirteen years ago, when the Supers had first come down from Sanitary, their big head had given rise to a lot of bad
jokes. The actuality was that their revved-up metabolism and altered brain chemistry had caused other abnormalities, the human genemod being a very complex thing. Supers are not, I remembered, an
especially handsome people. I said, "Their heads aren't that big, Colin. In some lights it's even hard to tell at all." "Also, their infrared body scans are on file. From the trial. You can't move the position of your liver, or mask the digestive rate in your duodenum."
Which are both pretty generic anyway. Infrared scans aren't even admissible in court as identity markers. They're too unreliable. Still, it was
better than nothing. All of this was better than the nothing with David. The nothing of Stephanie. The something of Katous. Thank you,
lady. Colin said, "The trips off Huevos Verdes are increasing. They're planning something. We need to find out what." "Si, senor," I said. He wasn't amused. We'd walked nearly to the perimeter of the security bubble. Beyond its
faint shimmer, a body pod had arrived for the dead scooter racer. I could just see some Livers loading him into the pod, at the very edge of my range of genemod-enhanced vision. The Livers were
crying. They got the body into the pod, and the pod started down the track. After fifteen feet there was a sudden grinding sound and the pod stopped. Livers pushed. The pod didn't move. The
funeral machinery, like so much other important machinery lately, had apparently broken down. The Livers stood staring at it, bewildered and
helpless. I walked with Colin inside Building G-14 looking dizzy, as a victim of Gravison's disease occasionally should.
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