Richard Morgan - Altered Carbon

“This is an airtight chamber,” said Nyman redundantly. “We will receive a sonic cleansing to ensure that we bring no contaminants into the clone bank. No reason to be alarmed.”

A light in the ceiling pulsed on and off in shades of violet to signify that the dust-off was in progress and then the second door opened with no more sound than the first. We walked out into the Bancroft family vault.

I’d seen this sort of thing before. Reileen Kawahara had maintained a small one for her transit clones on New Beijing, and of course the Corps had them in abundance. Still, I’d never seen anything quite like this.

The space was oval, dome-ceilinged, and must have extended through both storeys of the installation. It was huge, the size of a temple back home. Lighting was low, a drowsy orange, and the temperature was blood-warm. The clone sacs were everywhere, veined translucent pods of the same orange as the light, suspended from the ceiling by cables and nutrient tubes. The clones were vaguely discernible within, foetal bundles of arms and legs, but fully grown. Or at least, most were; towards the top of the dome I could see smaller sacs where new additions to the stock were being cultured. The sacs were organic, a toughened analogue of womb lining, and they would grow with the foetus within to become like the metre and a half lozenges in the lower half of the vault. The whole crop hung there like an insane mobile, just waiting for some huge sickly breeze to stir it into motion.

Nyman cleared his throat, and both Prescott and I shook off the paralysed wonder that had gripped us on the threshold.

“This may look haphazard,” he said, “but the spacing is computer generated.”

“I know.” I nodded and went closer to one of the lower sacs. “It’s fractal-derived, right?”

“Ah, yes.” Nyman seemed almost to resent my knowledge.

I peered in at the clone. Centimetres away from my face Miriam Bancroft’s features dreamed in amniotic fluid beneath the membrane. Her arms were folded protectively across her breasts and her hands were folded lightly into fists under her chin. Her hair had been gathered into a thick, coiled snake on the top of her head and covered in some kind of web.

“The whole family’s here,” murmured Prescott at my shoulder. “Husband and wife, and all sixty-one children. Most only have one or two clones, but Bancroft and his wife run to six each. Impressive, huh?”

“Yeah.” Despite myself, I had to put out a hand and touch the membrane above Miriam Bancroft’s face. It was warm, and gave slightly under my hand. There was raised scarring around the entry points of the nutrient feeds and waste pipes, and in tiny pimples where needles had been pushed through to extract tissue samples or provide IV additives. The membrane would give in to such penetrations and heal afterwards.

I turned away from the dreaming woman and faced Nyman.

“This is all very nice, but presumably you don’t shell one of these whenever Bancroft comes in here. You must have tanks as well.”

“This way.” Nyman gestured us to follow him and went to the back of the chamber where another pressure door was set into the wall. The lowest sacs swayed eerily in the wake of our passage, and I had to duck to avoid brushing against one. Nyman’s fingers played a brief tarantella over the keypad of the pressure door and we went though into a long, low room whose clinical illumination was almost blinding after the womb light of the main vault. A row of eight metallic cylinders not unlike the one I’d woken up in yesterday were ranked along one wall, but where my birthing tube had been unpainted and scarred with the million tiny defacements of frequent use, these units carried a thick gloss of cream paint with yellow trim around the transparent observation plate and the various functional protrusions.

“Full life support suspension chambers,” said Nyman. “Essentially the same environment as the pods. This is where all the re-sleeving is done. We bring fresh clones through, still in the pod, and load them here. The tank nutrients have an enzyme to break down the pod wall, so the transition is completely trauma-free. Any clinical work is carried out by staff working in synthetic sleeves, to avoid any risk of contamination.”

I caught the exasperated rolling of Oumou Prescott’s eyes on the periphery of my vision and a grin twitched at the corner of my mouth.

“Who has access to this chamber?”

“Myself, authorised staff under a day code. And the owners, of course.”

I wandered down the line of cylinders, bending to examine the data displays at the foot of each one. There was a Miriam clone in the sixth, and two of Naomi’s at seven and eight.

“You’ve got the daughter on ice twice?”

“Yes.” Nyman looked puzzled, and then slightly superior. This was his chance to get back the initiative he’d lost on the fractal patterning. “Have you not been informed of her current condition?”

“Yeah, she’s in psychosurgery,” I growled. “That doesn’t explain why there’s two of her here.”

“Well.” Nyman darted a glance back at Prescott, as if to say that the divulging of further information involved some legal dimension. The lawyer cleared her throat.

“PsychaSec have instructions from Mr. Bancroft to always hold a spare clone of himself and his immediate family ready for decanting. While Ms. Bancroft is committed to the Vancouver psychiatric stack, both sleeves are stored here.”

“The Bancrofts like to alternate their sleeves,” said Nyman knowledgeably. “Many of our clients do, it saves on wear and tear. The human body is capable of quite remarkable regeneration if stored correctly, and of course we offer a complete package of clinical repair for more major damage. Very reasonably priced.”

“I’m sure it is.” I turned back from the end cylinder and grinned at him. “Still, not much you can do for a vaporised head, is there?”

There was a brief silence, during which Prescott looked fixedly at a corner of the ceiling and Nyman’s lips tightened to almost anal proportions.

“I consider that remark in very poor taste,” the director said finally. “Do you have any more important questions, Mr. Kovacs?”

I paused next to Miriam Bancroft’s cylinder and looked into it. Even through the fogging effect of the observation plate and the gel, there was a sensual abundance to the blurred form within.

“Just one question. Who decides when to alternate the sleeves?”

Nyman glanced across at Prescott as if to enlist legal support for his words. “I am directly authorised by Mr. Bancroft to effect the transfer on every occasion that he is digitised, unless specifically required not to. He made no such request on this occasion.”

There was something here, scratching at the Envoy antennae; something somewhere fitted . It was too early to give it concrete form. I looked around the room.

“This place is entry-monitored, right?”

“Naturally.” Nyman’s tone was still chilly.

“Was there much activity the day Bancroft went to Osaka?”

“No more than usual. Mr. Kovacs, the police have already been through these records. I really don’t see what value—”

“Indulge me,” I suggested, not looking at him, and the Envoy cadences in my voice shut him down like a circuit breaker.

Two hours later I was staring out of the window of another autocab as it kicked off from the Alcatraz landing quay and climbed over the Bay.

“Did you find what you were looking for?”

I glanced at Oumou Prescott, wondering if she could sense the frustration coming off me. I thought I’d got most of the external giveaways on this sleeve locked down, but I’d heard of lawyers who got empath conditioning to pick up more subliminal clues to their witnesses’ states of mind when on the stand. And here, on Earth, it wouldn’t surprise me if Oumou Prescott had a full infrared subsonic body and voice scan package racked into her beautiful ebony head.