F. Wilson - Dydeetown World

Didn't recognize her at first, what with her hair cut close to the scalp and all. She was standing by the chute to the shuttle ramp, all her belongings in a single bag on the floor beside her, her face a tight, anxious mask.

"Afraid I wouldn't show?"

"I knew you would," she said with conviction. "Just afraid you'd be late. I'm on the next shuttle."

"Where to?"

"The Bernardo de la Paz platform."

"Oh." That had been Maggs' first stop. It had taken me a while to trace her itinerary, but I finally learned-

"Have you got it?"

"What?" I came back to the present. "Oh, yeah. Here." Had the greencard in my hand. Passed it over.

She grabbed it away like a starving man grabs food, and sighed like he would with his first bite. "Thank you. Thank you, thank you."

"Means a lot, huh?"

A little-girl smile: "Oh, yes!"

"Like what?"

"Somebody believed in me enough to help me pass as Realpeople."

"How do you know it's not a fake? How do you know you won't get red-lighted when they check your genotype as you try to pass through Emigration?"

She looked insulted. "Stop it!"

"How do you know he wasn't going to go up to the screening area and leave you standing there with the alarms going off while he boarded the shuttle and headed out?"

"I just know! " she said in a shocked tone. Guess the thought had never occurred to her.

"He was a crook."

"No! He was an agent"…her face clouded…"and the R.A. will catch up with whoever did such a thing to one of their top men. He believed in me and I believe in this card. It's all I have left of him."

Dumb. Dumb! Had to tell her the truth, whether she believed me or not.

"He was a crook. That's how he got these."

Handed her a small sack containing ten of the little Joey Jose statues. After almost toppling over with the unexpected weight, she looked inside, then looked at me, questioning.

"They were Barkham's and-"

"Bodine — his real name was Kyle Bodine."

"Whatever. I took a share. Figure the rest belong to you. They're worth less on the outworlds than here, but it’s enough to set you up pretty, so take good care of them."

Knew she'd have no trouble getting them out — Earth restricted only the importing of gold.

Her eyes got sort of liquidy. "I don't know what to-"

"Not going to cry are you?" Didn't want a scene here.

She smiled faintly. "Nope. I'm trying to forget how to do that."

"It's easy. I forgot a long time ago."

She was silent for a time, looking around and biting her lip. Then she said: "Well, thanks anyway for giving this to me."

"Fair's fair," I told her. "Anyway, I came out way ahead. Won't have to work for clones again."

"You never ease up, do you?" she said as her face rearranged itself into harder lines. "I was almost hoping you'd…"

"What?"

She shrugged uncomfortably. "I don't know…change your mind about me…about clones…a little."

Looked away. "You've got about as much chance of seeing that as I have of changing yours about Barkham."

"Bodine," she said mechanically. "And why don't you just leave it alone?"

"Because he was a no-good dregger and that's the truth."

"It can't be. I won't let it be."

"The truth stinks sometimes. Lots of times."

"Not this time. Whatever you or anybody else thinks of Kyle — or whoever he was — I know he loved me and wanted me and no one can take that away."

"We'll see."

"No. You'll see. But in any event-" She smiled stiffly and stuck out her fight hand. "You did your job well and I thank you for it."

"Will you thank me when you find out that card's a fake?"

"Only one way to prove it to you, isn't there?"

Her eyes held mine. She was so sure . Maybe she had to be. Maybe she had to hold onto the belief that someone out of all the Realpeople in all the worlds would do right by her. Too bad she had such lousy judgment.

She picked up her bag and stepped into the upchute. As she rose toward the Emigration platform I moved back so I could watch her be processed. She walked to the counter and inserted her greencard in the slot, then slipped her arm into the tissue sampler.

Stood and watched, repeatedly rubbing my sweat slick palms on my jump while the processor checked the genetic makeup of Jean’s sampled cells against the data in the central bank.

And then with a smile that must have been blinding at close range, Jean was passing through, triumphantly waving the greencard in my direction, and heading for the shuttle.

Gave her an elaborate shrug and turned away.

Stood at the edge of the platform for the Brooklyn tube and watched the shuttle rise blueward, a black dot against the rising sun. Someone who went in for that sort of thing would probably think it was beautiful.

Thought about that greencard…and the few tense moments I'd had there wondering whether it would work.

Don't ask me why I did it. Don't know. Haven't become an oozer or anything like that. Nothing's changed. Just happened that when I returned to my compartment for a fresh jumpsuit I came across the one with Jean's bloodstains on it and the idea hit me.

The challenge appealed to me. The challenge and nothing more. So after I gave the astonished Elmero twenty of the statuettes — his fifty-percent share of what I'd found — he was more than willing to arrange the fix as a favor for his dear good friend Sigmundo. Said the blood on the jumper would enable his contact in CenDat to locate Jean's genotype and change her status in no time. True to his word, he handed me a new, genuine greencard in a tenth.

Watched the shuttle disappear from view, well on its way to the first stop to Out Where All The Good Folks Go.

Pulled out the bogus card Barkham had given Jean and dropped it over the edge of the platform. It fluttered and see-sawed into the dimness below. Soon it too was out of sight.

"It's Be Kind To Buttonheads Week. Let your neighborhood wired wonder plug himself into your wall." (datastream graffito)

The next two years were pretty uneventful until I lost my head.

Literally.

Being decapitated will always rank as my most memorable experience. Not my favorite, but very memorable. Happened right in my own home, too.

Someone had strung a strand of molly wire across my compartment doorway. Neck high. Couldn't see it, of course, so I stepped right through it. Correction: It stepped through me. A submicroscopic strand of single molecules strung end to end. If it hadn't made that faint little skitch as it cut through one of my neck bones, don't know what would have happened.

Yes, I do. Would have died right inside my doorway.

Wouldn't have been pretty, either. A turn to the left or right, or a slight lean forward, and my head would have fallen off in a gaudy spray of red and bounced along the floor.

Didn't feel a thing. But that's supposed to be typical of molecular wire. Could guess what brand it was, too: Gussman Alloy. Hundred-kilo test. Cuts through a human body like a steel-trimming razor through cheesoid.

As the door slid shut behind me, my skin began to burn from a line just below my Adam's apple all the way down to my toes — a million white hot needle pricks. My knees were getting soft. That was on the outside. Panic was roaring to life on the inside. Had to do something — but what?

Gently clamped my weakening fingers around my neck and shuffled across the single room in the direction of the only chair like someone balancing live dissociator grenades atop his head. My legs were starting to give way as I neared it. If I fell or even stumbled, my head would slip and loosen all the connections with the rest of my body and it would all be over. Forced myself to turn slowly, got the backs of my knees against the seat, and lowered myself down as gently as I could. My arms were getting tired from holding my head on, but at least I was seated.