Kevin Anderson - Resurrection, Inc.

Servants—just property, buying and selling, mix and match. If you don’t need them anymore, just get rid of them. Jones winced, trying to swallow his guilt. That wasn’t it at all. Julia would understand, if she understood anything. She gave no sign. She never did.

He entered the Guild building, with Julia tagging obediently behind. Off-hours and empty, the lobby smelled dank with disinfectant and the decontaminated residue of cigarette smoke from the smokers’ lounge on Floor 2. The air carried several levels of subliminal noise, humming and hissing, static from the white-noise generator that supposedly created a more peaceful work environment. The air conditioner kept the air pumped to a just-below-comfortable temperature. He had not come to the headquarters off-hours since… since just after Fitzgerald Helms had died.

Now that the lobby was without other people milling about, Jones could see where too many feet had begun to crush the nap of the red dura-carpet. Overhead in the ceiling panels he could hear a repair-rat scurrying about its pre-programmed path, checking wiring, replenishing fluorescent cylinders, dissolving dust and grit. The building’s directory screen had been shut off, leaving a blank gray rectangle on the wall above the two vacant desks where receptionists normally sat.

“This way, Julia.” He moved quickly to the dead escalator that led to the mezzanine. He walked up the rubber-jacketed stairs that seemed frozen halfway out of sync. Julia followed.

The mezzanine level was also empty. He knew the entire building could not be deserted, and he was finally relieved to notice two other men standing together down one of the corridors, and at the rear of another hall he noticed a Servant janitor patiently waxing a floor. Darkened cafeterias were lined up in the main lounge area of the mezzanine next to a couple of Guild-members-only bars that served drinks and sandwiches at lunchtime. A barber shop sat empty beside the rest rooms and showers; three public Net booths stood beside various potted plants in the open areas.

The one functional upper-floor lift waited at the far side of the open mezzanine area. Though he and Julia were almost the only ones in the entire building, the lift still took a full minute to return to the mezzanine. He ushered Julia into the clonewood-paneled interior of the lift and then joined her, requesting floor 14 from the panel.

“SPECIAL ACCESS PERMISSION REQUIRED FOR UPPER-MANAGERIAL LEVELS. ”

Jones bent over to speak into the cloth-covered microphone patch. “I’m here to see Guildsman Drex. I have an appointment—my name is Jones, Enforcer, Class 2.”

The lift door closed, sealing them in the narrow chamber. Annoying easy-listening music wafted through the air as the computer searched Drex’s appointment calendar. The lift started to move upward, apparently satisfied that all was in order.

Jones took Julia’s hand and patted it; but her hand was limp and the flesh felt cold.

He stood apart from her. Might as well begin the separation now . Jones let out a long, low breath, discouraged. He had never quite realized how strong his conscience and guilt had grown. Self-defense mechanisms? He realized now—or at least he had been trying to convince himself—that he never should have purchased Julia in the first place.

Working at Resurrection, Inc., watching the way they processed the human bodies, the way they treated Servants as products —it had made him pay attention to things he had not thought about before. Escorting Servants for hours and returning home to find Julia unmoved and silent still caused his stomach to tie in knots. He could speak to Julia, and she would respond in her own way, but she would give only answers, never questions, never comments, never expressing an interest. She sat in a trance all day long; when he slept at night, she rested primly in the shadows, motionless, waiting for the daylight. No matter how hard he tried, Julia was not a friend, not a companion. Her very existence had an eeriness, an offensiveness, that Jones couldn’t reconcile with himself.

No, he never should have gotten Julia in the first place.

Days before, Jones had placed a classified ad in the Guild’s message and information transfer network. All such ads were immediately routed first to the upper-management levels, and then slowly worked their way down one level at a time as the higher echelons declined the items for sale or exchange. Rank did have its privileges.

Jones didn’t know what happened to used Servants. Since a Servant’s tiny battery pellet would continue to power the microprocessor for a century or so, a Servant must certainly be expected to outlive its owner. Jones couldn’t believe that Servants would be destroyed (of course, Resurrection, Inc. would say “deactivated” or “decommissioned”) when they were no longer needed. When someone returned a Servant to the corporation, the Servant was probably reprogrammed and sent out again—who was ever to know?

But he couldn’t bear the thought, even the slim possibility, of Julia—blank, mannequinlike Julia—being destroyed because he had cashed her in for a refund. Jones had no intention of making a profit. He wasn’t doing this for the money. In fact, even after only a short month of owning her, he had decided to ask a fairly low price, less than he had paid for her.

His ad had trickled down the Guild hierarchy, finally being snapped up by a fourth-level Guildsman, Mr. Drex, still in upper management, a good owner for Julia. Drex had asked Jones to come and show him his female Servant.

Jones did not know Drex, nor had he even heard of the man. But the administrative system of the Guild was so intricate and complex that few people bothered to learn of anyone in authority other than their own immediate supervisors. Jones didn’t think he even knew the name, offhand, of the ultimate boss of the Guild itself… nor did he particularly care.

The lift doors slid open, and Jones quickly moved out into the black-and-white tiled upper-management levels. Everything in the Enforcers Guild was supposed to be black and white, he thought ironically. The managerial levels were efficient but not ornate. A few other lights supplemented the fluorescent panels set into the ceiling. The air conditioning up here felt even cooler than in the lobby.

Jones stared for an instant, and then the doors of the lift slid shut behind him. Julia wasn’t with him; she hadn’t bothered to move out of the elevator. He whirled and punched the button again, opening the lift. “Come on! Don’t just stand there!” He tried, and succeeded, to build up some frustrated and impatient anger. He didn’t really want to be angry at her. She couldn’t help it. Would she always remember him like this?

Julia moved out and followed him dutifully. Far down the hall a man’s silhouette waved at him. “Mr. Jones! Down here.”

Jones signaled that he had heard and quickly strode toward the man. “Julia—Command: Follow!”

He flicked glances back and forth as he passed other darkened offices; in the off-hour shadows he could see the individual offices decorated to each manager’s preferences. Jones felt self-conscious, wishing he had chosen to dress in a more formal fashion. Too late now. No matter, this would be just a simple business transaction anyway.

One entire wall of the Guildsman’s office was a giant, polarized plate-glass window, from which he could look out on the dizzying panorama of the city. Bright sunlight poured in, filtered of the damaging intensity that would have caused his expensive oak desk to blister and peel.

Drex stood up as Jones and Julia went through the door, keeping his gaze mostly on the female Servant. The Guildsman had thick salt-and-pepper hair cut squarely about his shoulders and with a geometrically precise straight cut to his bangs. The wrinkles about his eyes had been accentuated with indigo dye so that his crow’s-feet looked like a blue web spreading out from where his eyelids met.