David Marusek: Mind Over Ship

That was generous. Better than twice full value.

Zoranna said, “If you really mean to be generous, then you’d fill me in on the nature of this unfortunate situation that E-Pluribus foresees. Then Nick and I might have the opportunity to do something about it and save my company.”

Meanwhile, her sidebob was saying, Is it the Londenstane trial? Does she know the outcome? Oh, my God, the court is using an E-Pluribus jury! Did she rig it? Are we doomed? The sidebob was no longer on the massage table but in bed clinging to Nicholas like to a lover.

Andrea lingered over this image, then turned to Zoranna and said, “As you wish, I will tell you. There’s a near certainty that Fred Londenstane will be found — innocent.”

With a brave face, Zoranna said, “But that’s good news!” Her sidebob, however, cried, We’re ruined!

“Actually,” Andrea went on, “it’s not good news, at least not for your business. It would be far better if he received a life sentence and was locked away forever. Out of sight, out of mind. But instead he’ll be constantly in the public eye, a permanent reminder of his clone fatigue and a gadfly upon your whole organization.”

There’s no such thing as clone fatigue! raged the sidebob. It’s a myth, an urban legend. It’s not real, and we have the science to prove it . Calmly, Zoranna said, “That’s a cynical statement, Andrea, considering we’re talking about a living human being here, but I see your point. Tell me, how can you be so sure of the verdict? I mean, I thought that as soon as E-Pluribus releases jury sims to the court you have no further contact with them.”

“That’s true, we don’t. But don’t forget, we still have the original sims in our database. If we expose them to the same testimony as presented in court, we can determine how they’re likely to respond to it. In any case, I’ve made my offer. I don’t expect an immediate reply. I’ll leave it on the table for now, but the per-share amount will drop appreciably with time. Now, if you’ll excuse us.” She rose to leave.

Zoranna also rose. “Thank you for dropping by,” she said, but her sidebob was curled up in a trembling ball of nerves.

THAT QUITE WORE me out, Andrea said, once again in her warm, dark, syrupy tank.

Yes, we see that , E-P replied. You’ll have a rest break before our next meeting, but tell us, any insights to share?

Were you able to move any furniture into Nicholas’s realm?

No, his security was too alert. Why do you ask?

There’s something odd about their relationship. Not your usual human/mentar sponsorship.

We’ll look into it. Anything else?

Andrea reached out and touched the glassine side of her tank, caressing its smooth surface with bony fingers. Yes, one more impression. She’s a sensuous person. Tell me, what brand of body oil or skin cream does she prefer?

Borealis Botanicals . After a moment, E-P said, Yes, a fine vehicle. We’ll look into that as well. Now rest, dear.

One more thing. I feel my time is near.

The mentar paused a moment, and then it said, We’ll place the order .

Thank you.

The order rumbled throughout the underground facility, rousting subunits by the score from the chilly slumber of standby status. Subems diagnosed both themselves and their component machines. Motors whirred, pressures rose, and instruments self-aligned to nano-tolerances. Several million jiffies later, the controlling midem declared the laboratory fully operational.

At once, all three stitching chambers prepped themselves with skeletal scaffolding blanks. Their print heads chittered to life. First they laid down the bones, building them from organic feedstock, 4096 molecules per stitch, a thousand stitches per second. Then they dressed the finished skeletons with organs, printing them in place. They knit muscle fibers, entrails, circulatory lines, nerves. They constructed hearts already containing the blood they would soon pump.

Seventy hours later, the stitchers went off-line, the chamber doors opened, and the print run was removed, still cold, to the bonding bay. The bay was a small space where the raw bodies could continue their internal assembly undisturbed for another forty-eight hours. Then medbeitors wheeled the bodies into the “delivery” room where they were jolted to life.

Only two of the Andreas passed inspection. The third exhibited a faulty nervous system and was handed off for sanitary disposal. The lab midem sent a fulfillment notice up the chain.

Oliver TUG browsed the Thievery Gallery of the Persuasion Channel for their new interviewee. The rows of postage-stamp mug shots were no help: one brutalized face looked much like another, and there were so many of them. Oliver searched manually by dates and key words and after a few passes found the kid. The banner over his mug read, “WRECKER,” and the Ransom/Reward link below read, “He stole from us, and we want it back.” The thief, himself, looked to be about twelve years old, but he was a retroboy. He was a member of a gang that had caused a TUG moving and storage van to crash and then stole its contents before the traffic police arrived. At least, the TUGs assumed this retroboy was a wrecker. They had scant evidence, the boy hadn’t actually copped to anything yet, and no one had offered to ransom him.

As it happened, the moving van in question had contained ordinary house hold goods, not some more sensitive cargo, but that was beside the point. No one should get the impression that they could mess with the TUGs and get away with it.

Oliver pointed at the boy’s mug, and the frame expanded into a life-size hologram of the impromptu interview room. The room was actually a nitproof tent they had constructed in a very secure warehouse. They had delivered the boy to the tent in a nitproof bag. As far as the police were concerned, the boy fell off the grid in a public null room in Oak Park, halfway across the city. In the tent, the boy was lying on a tarp, and his legs were shackled in makeshift stocks.

Although the Persuasion Channel provided its amateur interviewers triple anonymity, Oliver walked through the holospace searching for any inadvertent clues that might give his charter away to the authorities. The only agent in the tent was a generic house hold arbeitor. It was busy painting the soles of the boy’s bare feet with an organic solvent that caused the skin to liquefy and slough off. The exposed nerve endings on the soles of his feet looked like the stubble of a white beard.

The boy was already crying and pleading, which made Oliver shake his head in wonder. The solvent didn’t actually hurt, and if the boy made this much fuss so soon, how would he hold up when the arbeitor broke out the hair dryer?

Oliver’s comlink buzzed. “Prinz Clinic called,” said a subordinate. “Veronica is out of recovery.”

“Thank you,” Oliver said, wiping away the holospace. “Get my car.”

A PHALANX OF three tuggers preceded Oliver TUG through the surgical wing of Prinz Clinic. Each of them stood over two meters tall and measured twice the girth of human standard. Clinic workers and machines hugged the walls to let them pass. The TUGs wore military-cut jumpsuits, and over their left shoulders floated the olive-and mustard-colored marble of their charter logo.

At the door to the private room, Oliver told his detail to wait in the hall while he went in alone. Although he must have known what to expect, seeing her for the first time was still unsettling. She looked the same as before, only smaller. Much smaller, a half of her previous mass. Her head was shaved, but it had the same jar-shape, with flattened nose and pronounced chin, that characterized their charter. She looked like a miniature version of herself.