"Many people are ninety-four now." Jackson looked away from her eyes. Rich genemod brown, but flat and shiny as a bird's. "Ms. Lester, what did
you mean when you said that Mr. Wayland left this room only when the nurse 'led him to the feeding area'?" Her shiny eyes widened, and then she shot a look of
sly triumph at the comlink. "Why Dr. Arano - didn't you access your patient's records on the way over here? I told you I'd authorize your access."
"The go-'bot ride was short. I only live three blocks away."
"But you had four minutes of idle waiting for a
go'bot!" From her chair she gazed at him with brow-raised in triumph. He'd bet anything she wasn't genemod for IQ.
He said calmly, "I did not
access Mr. Wayland's medical records. Why did the nurse have to lead him to your feeding room?"
"Because he had Alzheimer's, Dr. Aranow. He'd
had it for fifteen years, long before the Change. Because your much-vaunted Cell Cleaners can't repair damage to brain cells, can it, Doctor - only destroy abnormal ones. Which left him with fewer
every yea r. Because he couldn't find the feeding room, much less take off his own clothes and feed. Because his mind was gone and he was a drooling, vacuous, empty shell. Whose damaged
brain finally just gave up and killed his body, even if it had been sens elessly Changed!"
She breathed hard. Jackson knew she was goading him,
daring him to say it: You killed him. Then she'd probably sue.
He didn't let himself be provoked. After marriage to - and divorce from
- Cazie Sanders, Ellie Lester was a stupid amateur. He said formally, "The cause of death will, of course, have to be made by the medical examiner from the City of New York, after autopsy. This
preliminary report is concluded. Comlink, off."
He put the link in his bag. Ellie Lester stood up; she was an inch taller than Jackson. He
guessed the autopsy would show one of the Chinese or South American inhibitors that simply make the brain forget what to do, make it stop sending signals to the heart to beat or breathe. Or maybe the
autopsy wouldn't show it, if the drug was enough ahead of the detection technology. How had she delivered it?
She said, "Perhaps our paths will
cross again, Doctor."
He knew better than to answer. On his mobile he made the call to the cops and took a last look at Harold Winthrop
Wayland. The wall screen came on. The house system must have been pre-set.
". . . final election results! President Stephen Stanley Garrison
has been reelected by a narrow margin. The most startling feature of the results, however, is the number of Americans casting ballots. Of ninety million eligible voters, only eight perce nt voted.
This represents a dop of -"
Ellie Lester gave a sharp crack of laughter. " 'Startling.' God, he's a disease. Why would anyone bother to
vote anymore?"
"Maybe as an act of witty parody," Jackson said, and knew that by his saying it, she'd won after all. And it was no
comfort that she was too stupid to recognize that.
She didn't see him out. Maybe Design had decided that manners, too, were irrelevant.
But as he left the dead man's bedroom, he looked closely for the first time at the small framed photos on the wall. All but the last were predigital copies, fad ed and uneven in color. Edward
Jenner. Ignaz Semmelweiss. Jonas Salk. Stephan Clark Andrews. And Miranda Sharifi.
"Yes, he was a doctor, too," Ellie Lester said
maliciously. "Back when you people were really necessary. And those are his heroes - four Livers and a Sleepless. Wouldn't you know?" She laughted.
Jackson let himself out. The holo of the black man had been replaced by a Roman slave, heavily muscled, handsome but clearly not genemod. A Liver. The slave knelt as
Jackson passed, lowered his eyes, and opened his mouth. Translucent manacles of hologr aphic gold bound him to Ellie Lester's doorknob.
"She's
the far end of a bell-shaped curve, I know that," Jackson said to his sister Theresa. "So it shouldn't bother me. Actually, it doesn't bother me."
"It bothers you," Theresa said in her gentle voice. "And it should."
They sat in the atrium of their apartment,
having drinks before dinner, which would be old-fashioned mouth food. The atrium wall facing the park was a transparent Y-shield. Four stories below, Central Park rioted with autumn color under its
invisible e nergy dome. The Manhattan enclaves had recently voted to restore modified seasons, although the vote had been close. Above the shield the November sky was the color of ashes.
Theresa wore a loose flowed dress that fell in graceful folds to her ankles; Jackson had the vague impression that it was out of fashion. Her face,
without makeup, was a pale oval under her silvery blonde hair. She was twelve years younger than Jackson 's thirty.
Theresa was fragile. Not
in her slender genemod body, but in her mind. Jackson's private belief was that something had gone wrong during her embryonic engineering, as something sometimes did. Genemod was a complicated
process, and once the zygote had b ecome blastomeres, no further permanent engineering was possible. Not, at least, by anyone on Earth.
As a
child Theresa had hated to go to school and had clung, weeping in a quiet and hopeless way, to her bewildered mother. She didn't like to play with other children. For days she stayed in her room,
drawing or listening to music. Sometimes she said s he wanted to wrap herself in the music and melt into it until there wasn't any more Theresa. Medical tests showed high reactivity in her
stress-hormone response system: high cortisol levels, enlarged adrenal glands, the heart rate and gut motility and ner ve-cell death associated with presuicidal depression. Her threshold for
limbic-hypothalamic arousal was very low; she found anything new to be threatening.
In an age of custom-engineered biogenic amines, nobody had
to stay fragile. Throughout Theresa's girlhood she had been on and off neuropharms to rebalance her brain chemistry. The Cell Cleaner would have made that problematic, since it destroyed everyt hing
in the body that it decided didn't belong there, that didn't match either the DNA patterns or approved set of molecules stored in its tiny, unimaginable, protein-based computers lodged in and between
human cells. But by the time the Change brought th e Cell Cleaner, it no longer mattered. At thirteen Theresa announced - no, that was too strong a word for Theresa, she never "announced" - she had
said that she was finished with neuropharms "for good."
By that time, their parents had both died in an aircar crash and Jackson was his
sister's guardian. Jackson had argued, reasoned, begged. It had done no good. Theresa would not be helped. She didn't argue back; intellectual debate confused her. She sim ply refused to allow a
medical solution to her medical problems.
However, at least she didn't - Jackson's secret fear - attempt suicide. She became even more
reclusive and more elusive, one of those gentle pale women from an entirely different century. Theresa embroidered. She studied music. She was writing a life o f the martyred Sleepless woman,
Leisha Camden, of all irrelevant pursuits - another woman who had been entirely eclipsed by a different generation of far more ruthless females.
When the Change occurred, Theresa was the only person Jackson knew who refused the syringe. She could not ground-feed. She could become infected by viruses and bacteria,
and did. She could be poisoned by toxins. She could get cancer.
Sometimes, in his darker moods, he thought that his sister's elusive
neurological frailties, so divorced from her intelligent sweetness, were the reasons he'd become a doctor. Just lately it had occurred to him that Theresa's frailties were also the re ason he'd
married someone like Cazie.
Watching his sister pour herself another fruit juice - she never drank sunshine, alcohol, or any of the synthetic
endorphin drinks like Endorkiss - Jackson thought that it was wrong to have his life so shaped by a younger sister who was softly, stubbor nly, unnecessarily crazy. That he was weak to have allowed
it to happen. And that around Theresa what he felt was strong, probably in comparison, which was itself a weak way to look at it.
"Peole like
Ellie Lester," Theresa said, "they're not whole."
"What do you mean?" He didn't really want to know - it might lead to another of Theresa's
tentative, tortuous discussions on spirituality - but the sunshine in his drink was pleasantly affecting him. His bones were starting to relax, his muscles to swa y, the trees below to hum in a
nondemanding harmonious background. He didn't want to talk. Certainly not about the data he'd looked up on Ellie Lester when he got home, which included discovering that she would inherit control of
her great-grandfather's e normous fortune. Let Tessie babble instead. He would sit I the humming twilight and not listen.
But all Theresa said
was, "I don't know what I mean. I just know they're not whole. All of them. All of us."
"Ummm."
"there's something wrong inside us. I believe that, Jackson. I do."
She didn't sound as if she believed it. She
sounded unsure as always, with her hesitant soft speech and loose flowered dress. It occurred to Jackson that in an enclave where dinner parties often ended up naked for communal feeding, he hadn't
actually s een the shape of his sister's body for years.
But then Theresa spoke in a sudden rush. "I read something evil today. Actually
evil. I sent Thomas into the library deebees, for my book. Because of something Leisha Camdem wrote in 2045.
Jackson braced himself.
Theresa often sent her personal system, Thomas, trawling through historical databases, and she often misinterpreted what she found there. Or she became indignant over it. Or she cried.
"Thomas brought me a sentence from a famous doctor who knew Leisha. HanDietrich Lowering. He said, 'There is no such thing as the mind. There is only a
collection of electrical and physiological operations we collectively call the brain.' He said that! "
Pity flooded Jackson. She looked so
distressed, so ineffectually indignant, at this piece of old and nonstartling non-news. But his pity was laced with disquiet. As soon as Theresa had said the word "evil," Jackson had a sudden flash
of Ellie Lester, t aller than he was, teeth bared in a fury that she could not allow into the official medical comlink. She had looked evil 0 and evil, beautiful giantess, and under the unwrapping of
sunshine Jackson cold admit what he had denied before: he had wanted her. Event though she was not really evil, only greedy. Not really beautiful, only obvious. And no more a giant than the sinking
miniature holo of the Pequod beside the dead goldfish in the atrium pool.
He shifted uneasily on his chair and took another sip of his
drink.
"It's evil to deny the mind," Theresa was saying. "let alone the soul."
"Tessie
-"
She leaned forward, a pale insubstantial blur in the gloom, her voice close to tears. "It is evil, Jackson. We aren't just sensors
and processors and wiring, like 'bots. We're humans, all of us."
"Calm down, honey. It was just a sentence written a long time ago. Musty
data in an old file."
"Then people don't believe it's true anymore? Doctors don't?"
Of
course they did. Only Thersea could get this upset over a cliched statement seventy-five years old, based on other cliches two hundred years old.
"Tessie, sweetheart . . "
"We have souls, Jackson!"
Another voice: "Oh, Christ, not another babble-on about souls!"
She came in smiling, mocking, filling the room with
her larger, five foot-three, utterly vital presence. Cazie Sanders. His ex-wife. Who refused to depart his life, the divorce she'd taken from him just one thing she casually disregarded now that
she h ad it. On the excuse that she was Theresa's friend, Cazie came and went in the Aranow's apartment as she pleased, took up and discarded the Aranows as she pleased, pleased herself always.
With her were two men Jackson didn't know - was one of them her current lover? Both of them? One glance at the older man and Jackson knew he was
on something stronger than sunshine or Endorkiss. Sleek, long, unmuscled, he had the deliberately androgyno us body of a vid star, dressed in a rough brown cotton tunic like a pillowcase, already
eaten into small how by the feed tubules on his skin. The younger man, whose genemod handsomeness uncomfortably reminded Jackson of Ellie Lestet's slave holo, wore an opaque holosuit that appeared to
made of thousands of angry, crawling bees. His mouth cruved in a permanent sneer. Would Cazie actually sleep with either of these diseases? Jackson didn't know.
It was difficult to explain why he'd married Cazie, but not very. She was beautiful, with dark short curls, honey-gold skin, and elongated golden eyes flecked with pale
green. But all genemod woman were beautiful. Certainly Cazie wasn't as lovely or lo yal or as kind as Theresa - who, next to her ex-sister-in-law, faded. Nearly disappeared, flickered weakly like a
malfunctioning holo.
Cazie burned with some vital, ungenemod force, darkly intelligent, primal and erotic as driving rain. Whenever she'd
touched him - feverishly, or languorously, or tenderly, with Cazie there was no predicting - Jackson had felt something iron and cold d issolve in his center, something he usually didn't even know he
was carrying around. He'd felt connected to nameless, powerful, very old longing. Sometimes during sex with Cazie, her fingernails raking him and his penis moving blind within her like a hot living
missile, he would be amazed to hear himself weeping, or shouting, or chanting - another person entirely, the memory of which embarrassed him afterward. Cazie was never embarrassed. Not by anything.
After two years of marriage, she had divorced Jack son for being "too passive."
He had been afraid, during the messy weeks of her moving out,
that nothing in his live would ever be as good as those two years. And nothing has.
Looking at her now, dressed in a short green-and-gold drape
that left one shoulder bare, Jackson felt the familiar tightening in his neck, his chest, his scrotum, a complex of desire, and rage, and competitiveness, and humiliation that he had somehow n ot been
strong enough to swim in the dark current of Cazie's inner sea. He put down his drink. He need his head clear.
"How are you feeling, Tess?"
Cazie said kindly. She sat down, unasked, beside Theresa, who both shrank back minutely and put out on hand, as if to warm herself in Cazie's glow. Their friendship was inexplicable to Jackson; they
were so different. But o nce someone had come into Theresa's life, she clung to that person forever. And Theresa brought out the protective, tender side of Cazie - as if Tess were a helpless kitten.
Jackson looked away from his ex-wife, and then refused to allow himself that weak ness, and looked back.
"I'm fine," Theresa whispered. She
glanced at the door. Strangers increased her agitation.
"Tess, there are my friends, Landau Carson and Irv Kanzler. Jacson and Theresa Aranow.
We're on our way to an Exorcism."
"To a what?" Jackson said. Immediately he wished he hadn't. Irv drew and inhaler from a pocket of
consumable tunic and sniffed more of whatever was rearranging his neural chmistry. That was the problem with the more toxic recreational drugs: the Cell C leaner busily removed them almost as soon as
they entered the body, so users had to keep renewing every few minutes.
"An ex-or-cisssm," Landau drawled in a phony accent. He was the one
wearing bees. "Haven't you heard of them? You must of heard of them."
"Jackson never hears of anything," Cazie said, helping
herself to a glass of sunshine. The fingernail on her left ring finger was sheathed in a holo of a tiny chained butterfly frantically beating it's wings.
"An ex-or-cissm," Landau said with exaggerated patience, "is simply nova. A genuine brain trot. You'd die laughing."
"I doubt it," Jackson said, and vowed that was the last thing he'd say to this toxin. He folded his arms across his chest, realized that made him look stuff as Cazie had
implied, and unfolded them.
Landau said, "Surely you've heard of the Mother Miranda cults? They're sort of a Liver religion - so typical.
Miranda as the Virgin Mary, interceding with the Divine. And for what? Not salvation or grace or world peace or any of those dreary ete rnal verities. No - Mother Miranda's followers are
praying for immortality. Another Change. If these SuperSleepless could deliver the first syringes, goes this risible theology, then they can just as well go deliver another miracle that makes
all t he grubby little Livers go on forever."
Irv laughed, a sudden bark like ice cracking, and sniffed again from his inhaler. Direct
pleasure-center excitation, Jackson guessed, with hallucinogenic additives and a selective depressant to lower inhibition.
Cazie said, "God,
Landau, you're such an unoriginal snob. It's not only Livers involved in the Mother Miranda cult. There are donkeys in it, too."
Theresa
shifted on her chair, a small agitated gesture that was the kinesthetic equivalent of a whimper. Jackson took her hand.
Landau said, "But it's
mostly Livers. Our newly self-sufficient, self disenfranchised eighty percent. And Livers are the only ones who do exorcisms."
Theresa
said, so low at first Jackson thought nobody else heard her, "Exorcising what? Demons?"
"No, of course not," Landau said. His bees buzzed
fractionally louder. "Impure thoughts."
Cazie laughed. "Not exactly. More like ideologically incorrect thoughts. It's really a political
check to make sure all the good little Mother Mirandites are convinced of her semi-divinity. They just call it an exorcism because they drive out wrong ide as. Then they all create yet another
broadcast to beam up at Sanctuary."
"Real brain-trot entertainment," Landau said.
Jackson couldn't help himself. "And this ritual is open to the public?"
"Of course not," Landau said. "We're
crashers. Humble novices in search of some faith in our pointless and overprivileged lives."
Theresa's quiet agitation increased. Cazie said,
"What is it Tess?"
Theresa burst out, "You shouldn't!" Immediately she shrank back into her chair, then stumbled to her feet. Jackson, still
holding her hand, felt her fingers tremble. "Good night," she whispered, and pulled free.
Cazie said, "Wait, Tessie, don't go!" But Theresa
fled toward her own room.
"Nice going," Jackson said.
"I'm sorry, Jack. I didn't think
she'd react like that. It's not real religion."
"She's religious? My condolences," Landau said. "And in the immediate family, too."
"Shut up," Cazie said. "God, you bore me sometimes, Landau. Don't you ever get tired of supercilious posturing?"
"Never. What else is there, really? And may I remind you, Cassandra dear, that you too are on your way to this ex-or-cissm, hmmmm?"
"No," Cazie snapped. "I'm not. Get out!"
"A sudden mood shift into anger! How exciting!"
Jackson stood. Landau touched a point on his chest; his bees buzzed louder. For the first time Jackson wondered if they were all holos, or if some of the
bees were weapons. Certainly Landau would wear a personal Y-shield.
"Out!" Cazie screamed. "You heard me, you infection! Out!" Her dark
eyes blazed; she looked as much a caricature as Landau. Was she posturing as well, amusing herself with the drama? Jackson realized he could no longer tell.
Landau stretched lazily, yawned ostentatiously, and rose to his feet. He drifted toward the door. Irv followed, sniffing his inhaler. He hadn't said a single word.
When Cazie returned from slamming the apartment door, Jackson said quietly, "Nice friends you have."
"They're not my friends." She was breathing hard.
"You introduced them as friends."
"Yeah, well. You know how it is. I'm sorry about Tessie, jack. I really didn't know Landau was so stupid."
If
this humility was a posture, it was a new one. Jackson didn't trust it, didn't trust her. He didn't answer.
Cazie said, "Should I go after
Tess?"
"No. Give her some time." But from behind him came Theresa's soft voice; she must have heard the door slam and crept out.
"Did they leave?"
"Yes, pet," Cazie said. "I'm sorry I brought them here. I didn't think. They're
real asses. No, not even that - just assholes. Fragments. Partial people."
Theresa said eagerly, "But that's just what I was saying earlier
to Jackson! There's something . . . not whole about people now. Why this afternoon Jackson saw -"
"I can't discuss a confidential medical
case," Jackson said harshly, although of course he already had. Theresa bit her lip. Cazie smiled, humility already replaced by mockery.
"A
murder, Jack? I can't think what else they'd need you for that you can't discuss. A little off you usual practice of the once-monthly accident and the twice-monthly newborn Change?"
He said evenly, "Don't needle me, Cazie."
"Ah, Jackson darling, why couldn't you be so assertive when
we were married? Although I really think we're better off as friends. But Tess, honey" - she turned back to his sister, suddenly kind again, while Jackson was left wanting to hit her, or convi nce
her, or rape her -" you have a point. We donkeys are just coming apart since the Change. Joining Liver cults, or doing brain-deadening neuropharms, or marrying a computer program - did you hear
about that? For dependability. 'Your AI will never leave you.'" She laughed, throwing back her head. The dark curls danced, and her elongated eyes narrowed to slits.
Theresa said, "Yes, but . . . we don't have to be that way!"
"Sure we do," Cazie said. "We're bred to be
forthrightly self-serving, even the best of us. Jackson, did you vote today?"
He hadn't. He tried to look condescending.
"Did you, Tess? Never mind, I know you didn't. The whole political system is dead, because everyone knows it isn't where power is anymore. The Change took
care of that. The Livers don't need us, they're managing quite well in their own little lawless g round-feeding pseudo-enclaves. Or they think they are. Which is, incidentally, why I'm here. We
have a crisis."
Cazie's dark eyes sparkled; she loved crises. Theresa look frightened. Jackson said, "Theresa, did you show Cazie your new
bird?"
"I'll get him," Theresa said, and escaped.
Jackson said, "Who has a crisis?"
"Us. TenTech. We have a factory break-in."
"That's impossible," Jackson said. And then,
because Cazie usually had her facts straight, "Which factory?"
"The Willoughby, Pennsylvania, plant. Well, it's not exactly a break-in yet.
But somebody was just outside the Y-shield this afternoon with bioelectric and crystal equipment. The sensors picked them up. If you'd check your business net, Jack, you'd kno w that. But oh, I
forgot - you were out investigating murders."
Jackson kept his temper. Cazie had received a third of TenTech in the divorce settlement, since
her money had kept the company afloat during the disastrous year when a nanodissembler plague had attacked the ubiquitous alloy duragem, and business had di ed like Livers. He said evenly, "Nobody
got inside, did they? Nobody can breach security on a Y-energy shield. At least, not . . ."
"Not Livers, you mean, and who else would be out
in the wilds of central Pennsylvania? I think you're probably right. But that's why we should go and have a look. If it's not Livers, who is it? Kids from Carnegie-Mellon, sharpening their
datadipping sk ills? Industrial espionage by CanCo? SuperSleepless like - gasp! Miranda Sharifi, obscurely interested in our little family-owned firm? What do you think, Jack? Who's messing with
our factory?"
"Maybe the biosensors are malfunctioning. Another failure like duragem."
"Maybe," Cazie said. "But I checked around. Nobody else is having sensor failure. Just us. So I think we better go have a look. Okay, Jackson? Tomorrow morning?"
"I'm busy."
"Doing what? Your not busy - that's the trouble, none of us are busy enough.
Here's something to do, something that impacts our finances, something with actual substance. Come with me."
She smiled at him, full voltage,
her long golden eyes full of the sly pleading missing from her brash words. Jackson knew that later, when he lay in bed going over and over this conversation, he wouldn't be able to re-create the
compelling quality of h er. Of her eyes, her body language, her tone. He would remember only the words themselves, without grace or subtlety, and so would curse himself for saying yes.
Cazie laughed. "Nine o'clock, then. I'll drive. Meanwhile, I'm starving. Oh, Tessie, here your are. What a pretty little genemod bird. Can you talk,
cage bird? Can you say 'social dissolution'?"
Theresa held up the Y-energy cage and said, "He only sings."
"Like most of us," Cazie said. "Desperate discordant tunes. Jackson, I am hungry. And not for mouth food, either, tonight. I think we should keep Tessie company
while she eats, and then you should invite me to dinner in your so-tasteful feeding ground."
"I'm going out," Jackson said quickly. Theresa
looked at him in a quick surprise, as quickly veiled. He never knew how much she knew, or guessed, about his feeling for Cazie. Theresa was so sensitive to distress; she must intuit that it would be
imposs ible for Jackson to go calmly with Cazie to the dining room, take off most of his clothes, and lie on the nutrient-enriched soil while his Changed body absorbed everything it needed, in perfect
proportions, through his feeding tubules. Jackson couldn't do it. Although the lure was powerful. To lie there under the warm lights, their changing wavelengths carefully selected for a relaxing
effect on the mind, to breathe the perfumed air, to turn on one elbow to talk casually to Cazie, to watch Cazie feed, lyi ng on her stomach, her small fire breasts bared to the earth . . .
Impossible.
He waited until his erection had subsided before he stood and stretched with
elaborate nonchalance. "Well, people are waiting for me. Good night, Cazie. Theresa, I won't be late."
"Be careful, Jackson," Theresa said,
as she always did, as if there could be any danger inside the Manhattan East Enclave, protected by a Y-shield from even unwanted weather. Theresa had not left the apartment for over a year.
"Yes, be careful, Jack," Cazie mocked tenderly, and his heart caught when it seemed he heard regret mixed with the tenderness. But when he turned
back, she was fussing again over Theresa's bird, and didn't even look at him.
There was tomorrow.
Damn tomorrow. It was a business trip, to find out what was going wrong at the Willoughby plant. He owned the damn company - or at least a third of it - he should check
the factories' printouts more, give order to the AI running it, link with the TenTe ch chief engineer, check up on problems. He should be ore responsible about his and Theresa's money. He should . .
.
He should do a lot of things.
He walked out into the cold November night, which under
the dome felt like a warm September night, and tried to think up someplace he might actually want to go dinner besides home.
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