F. Wilson - Dydeetown World

Relief, but not much. Had to stay stiffly erect. Couldn't last like this very long, though. Risked taking a hand away from my neck to press the reform button. Felt the chair move up against my spine and the back of my neck and head, fitting itself to me. Kept the button pressed for maximum fit until the padding had formed forward to my ears and had wormed its way between my arms and body. Thanked myself sincerely for investing in a top-of-the-line polyform recliner like this.

Safe for the moment. Swallowed and felt something tear free in my throat. Got my hand back up there real fast. But how long could I hold it there? Everything was going numb.

At least now I could think. Still alive — but how? Even more pressing — Why and who? Who would want to behead me? Could only be one -

Saw movement outside my door and had the answer to my question. But not quite the answer I had expected. The custom chair and the one-way transparent door were a couple of instances of inconspicuous consumption I'd splurged on since the windfall of the Yokomoto affair. The door had appealed to the voyeur in me, I guess. Mine is an end-corridor compartment and my door faces down the hall. The door lets me get to know all my neighbors without them knowing me. Nice that way.

But the guy coming down the hall now was no neighbor. He was pale and pudgy, had a high forehead, with beady little eyes and a small mouth crowded around a fat nose. Never saw him before. He came up to the door, glanced around, then pulled a tiny aerosol cannister from his pocket. Thought I saw a brief blur of motion back in the hall but my attention was centered on him as he sprayed the air in front of the door at the neck-high level. He waited a couple of seconds, then waved the cannister through the fading spray. The molly wire was gone, its molecular bonds dissolved. The murder weapon was now just a bunch of Gussman alloy molecules floating randomly through the air of the hallway.

The guy didn't leave right away. He stood and stared longingly at the door. Could tell from his expression he wished he could see through it so he could dwell on the end result of his handiwork. Almost wished the door could go transparent both ways so he could see me sitting here looking back at him, giving him the finger. With a sigh and a wistful little smile he turned and walked away.

Who the hell was he? And why had he tried to kill me?

Tried? He hadn't failed yet. Didn't know how I had hung on this long and didn't know how much longer everything in my head would stay lined up with my neck. Needed help, and fast!

Wheeled the chair over to the comm unit and told it to call Elmero's private number. Knew he was there. Just left him.

"El!" I said when his sallow, skeletal face appeared on the screen. My voice was soft and hoarse.

"Sig! Why're you whispering? And why're you holding your throat? Sore?"

"Need help, El. Real bad."

He smiled that awful smile. "What you into now?"

"Trouble. Doc still there?"

"Out in the barroom."

"Send him over. Gonna die if you don't get him here real quick. Molly wire."

The smile disappeared. He could tell I wasn't joking. "Where are you?"

"Home"

"He's on his way."

The screen blanked. Swiveled the chair around and stared down the empty hall, trying to figure out why that guy wanted me dead. Had only been back in business for two weeks…

The life of the idle rich had become a real bore, mainly because I couldn't act rich. All I could do was be idle. That was the problem with getting a windfall in something illegal like gold. Had to fence it through Elmero and keep my spending at a level that would not attract attention in Central Data.

But even if it had all been legal, it was hard for me to spend anything near what I had. Didn't like to travel, didn't drink or sniff much, didn't do luce or stim, didn't have friends to squander it on. Did buy some top quality buttons as a treat. Spent a lot of time in pleasureland with a succession of them snapped onto my scalp, trying to saturate my limbic system before beginning the slow, painful process of cutting myself off.

Then the wean began, stretching out the intervals between buttoning up, lengthening them to the point where I'd feel safe getting dewired. The wean was now almost a year along. Hardest thing I've ever done, and idleness only made it harder.

So I opened my office in the Verrazano Complex again. Thought that would be pretty idle for a while, too, but who shows up the first day? Ned Spinner. Didn't call, didn't knock, just strutted into my office and started yelling in that nasal voice.

"Dreyer, you lousy rotten dregger! I knew you'd be back sooner or later! Where is she?"

"Where is who?"

Knew he meant Jean. Spinner had hounded me for months after her "disappearance," even at home. Finally I'd moved to an outer wall compartment and lost him for a while. Now he was back. Must have had my office cubicle watched all this time.

Hated the jog. He was in the same dark greeen pseudovelvet jumpsuit he always wore. He thought he had friends, thought he had influence, thought he was a talented entrepeneur. And he was…but only in his own mind. In real life he was a lousy pimp clonemaster.

"Don't know any more than Central Data tells you, Spinner: She took a shuttle off-planet and from there emigrated to the Outworlds."

"Dreck! She's still on-planet and you know where!"

"In all honesty, I don't know where she is. But if I did know, sure wouldn't tell you."

His face reddened. "If that's your game, fine. But sooner or later you're gonna slip up. And when I catch you with her, it'll be all over for you, Dreyer. I won't bother with grand theft charges. I'll take care of you myself. And when I'm through with you, even the garbage chute in this roach-hole building won't accept you."

The man had a way with words.

Shortly after he left, a real customer showed up. He was slim, smooth, maybe thirty, his shiny hair leaf-sculpted in the latest, tinted perfectly to match the lemon yellow of his feather-trimmed clingsuit. The height of fashion. Up on the latest. Hated guys like this. Maybe because his clothes would look ridiculous on my cuboid frame, but mostly because he dressed to proclaim that he was up to the minute on style and all he really advertized to me was that he didn't have a mind of his own.

His name was Earl Khambot and he said he needed help finding someone.

"My specialty," I said. "Who're we looking for?"

He hesitated, uncertainty breaking through the high fashion facade for the first time since he'd stepped in. For an awful minute I thought he was going to name some clone that had wandered off. Didn't want any more clone work. But he surprised me.

"My daughter," he said.

"That's a job for the M.A., Mr. Khambot, and they don't like independent operators making waves in their pond."

"I…I haven't told the Megalops Authority.

A definite glitch here. A missing kid was cause for hysteria. After all, you were only allowed one. That was the law. You had one chance to duplicate yourself and after that the population problem was left to natural attrition. That one chance was damn valuable to you. You couldn't buy a second for anything. Anything. If that one precious child disappeared, you went screaming to the Megalops Authority. You sure as hell didn't come to some hole-in-the-wall independent operator in the rundown Verrazano Complex. Unless…

"What's the glitch, Mr. Khambot?"

He sighed resignedly. "She's an illegal."

Ah! That explained it. An extra. And above-and-beyonder. A one-more-than-replacement kid.

"Take it she's an urch now? You want to hire me to find an urch? How long since you placed her with a gang?"

He shrugged sullenly. "Three years ago. We couldn't let them terminate her. She was — "