Counting Heads (42 page)

When Mary arrived home, she didn’t even bother to change her clothes but jumped enthusiastically into Concierge’s recommended lessons on the revivification sciences: neurology, genetics, micromechanics, embryology, biochemistry, and histology. She plowed through units on basal nuclei, fast axoplasmic transport, and Flinn-Long glial grafting. Needless to say, the material was far too advanced for her, and she had no luck finding anything more elementary on the WAD. So she swallowed two Smarts and slogged on, hoping for the best.

When Fred came in, he sat next to her on the couch and watched part of a colorful tour of the sarcoplasmic reticulum, an organelle essential to coma management. After a few minutes, he said, “I don’t get it.”

“I don’t either.” Mary laughed.

“I mean, what does this have to do with your companion job?” He was being disingenuous. He knew exactly what this had to do with her work.

“My sisters and I are trying to broaden our horizons,” Mary said by way of explanation.

“By studying jenny work?”

Mary shrugged. When she looked at him, she did a double take. “You’re up to something, Fred,” she said. “You have it written all over your face. What have you done?”

Fred leaned over to undo his shoes, his big brown russ shoes, and hand them off to the waiting slipper puppy. “I suppose I did do something,” he said.

“Are you free to tell me about it?”

“It’s not really work-related, so I guess I am.” It would be a relief, in fact, to tell her. “Lately, things have got me wondering about clone fatigue.”

“There’s no such thing.”

“I know, but it got me thinking about how we russes are afraid to try out new things and to open up to each other.” He told her about brown shoes and searching the
HUL
for secret files and about starting the
Book of Russ
. He told her about launching a provocative discussion to challenge his brothers to contribute their personal stories without, however, revealing to her the sexual content of his challenge.

When he was finished, Mary pondered his news for a while, sifting the nuances, and then, identifying the real issue, as usual, she said, “What kinds of things do you want to try, Fred?”

Fred leaned over to put on his slippers, hiding his face. “Nothing in particular. Just new things in general.”

“Because you know you’re free to try out new things. No one’s stopping you.”

Fred opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

“Because you’re not my prisoner here,” she went on.

“Really?” he said, plunging blindly ahead. “You’re not just saying that?”

She glowed with sincerity. “If you had your heart set on—you know—something, it would be wrong of me to try to hold you back.”

“You’re too good to me.”

“I’m just trying to be realistic, Fred.”

Fred nodded his head. “Because there
was
something,” he confessed. “Something—well—not proper.”

Mary paused a moment to read him. She seemed a little afraid, but she said, “Tell me about it.”

“I—can’t.”

“Yes, Fred, you
can
. You can tell me
anything
. You know that.”

He looked away from her again. “Well,” he said, clearing his throat, “if you’re sure you don’t mind, there’s this one thing I’ve always wanted to try.”

“Yes?”

“I’ve always wondered—”

“Go on.”

“What it would be like to do
this
.” With a smooth motion, he stood up, leaned over, picked her up, and slung her over his shoulder.

“Fred!” she cried.

“I don’t know if this is clone fatigue or not,” he said and carried her toward the bedroom, her chin jouncing against his back. She pounded him with her fists and bit him.

“Ouch! Easy there,” he said and slapped her ass. But they passed the bedroom door without going in.

“Where are you taking me, Fred?”

“To try something out.” The apartment passed by upside down. Mary saw the tiled floor of their small foyer. “Door,” Fred declared, “unlock yourself.”

The bolt of the front door disengaged.

“No, door!” Mary shrieked. “Lock yourself!”

The bolt engaged.

“That fountain on 450,” he said. “The one with the kissing centaurs—door! Unbolt I say!”

The bolt disengaged.

“Door, lock and double lock!”

The bolt shot back and forth. They laughed to think what someone in the hall must think. He turned her right side up and, not letting her feet touch the floor, pulled the rip tab under her collar and tore her clothes open down the front. Used his teeth to tear her panties.

They liked to watch each other when they came. That evening, he saw in her eyes a circus of clowns and jugglers, hoops and tigers, a heavenly chorus rising in the bleachers.
To my brothers cloned: Those eyes. Those eyes
.

THEY LAY IN bed later and ate dinner. Watched a dumb vid. When he fell asleep, she got up and threw on a robe. She stood over the bed and watched him for a while. This
Book of Russ
thing was potentially very serious.

She went to the living room and closed the bedroom door, turned on the flatscreen and did a lesson on the physiology of the mesencephalon.

Mary arrived in Decatur early. There was no limo waiting to pick her up, but the day was fine and she decided to walk the few blocks to the clinic. She paid closer attention to the neighborhood along the way. Rich estates and grand houses were hidden behind trees and walls. The clinic, itself, was separated from the street by its own stone wall, wide lawns, and tall hedges. She walked under a sturdy iron arch with florid iron letters that read, “ROOSEVELT CLINIC,” past the parking lot and down the brick drive to the gatehouse. She passed through the scanway with no difficulty. At the inner gate there was a different russ guard on duty, one she knew—Reilly Dell!

“What a surprise,” she said. “Imagine the odds.”

“The odds of what?” Reilly said, squeezing her hand. “That we’d both be assigned to the same facility, or that my fantasy of meeting you without your pet monkey would finally come true?”

“You seem better,” she said. He did, though he still wore the exoassist braces and she could see a trace of the skullcap through his hair. It would be a few more days before either Reilly or Fred could reinstall their implants.

“How’s the job going?” Reilly said. “Shelley’s dying to know.”

Mary wondered if he was making a bad pun. “Tell her it’s a challenge, but marvelous.”

They chatted for a few minutes, and then Reilly said, “I can’t let you in just yet. The other ’leen is still a few minutes out, and Concierge wants to meet the both of you in the plaza together.”

So Mary stood in the
WAIT HERE
box as Reilly attended to other arrivals. She hoped that Renata had a good reason for being so tardy. But Renata didn’t show; a different evangeline arrived and passed through the gate with Mary. Concierge greeted them, as cordial as ever, and escorted them to Feldspar Cottage, but by the direct route this time. As they went, it laid out Roosevelt Clinic policies for the new evangeline, whose name was Georgine.

“It wouldn’t hurt for you to hear the rules again as well,” it told Mary. “Apparently, not all of the evangelines were paying close enough attention yesterday. Especially as regards the protection of the clinic’s proprietary technology.”

Mary had no idea what he was referring to. She couldn’t think of anything Renata might have done to cause her dismissal.

Concierge left them on Mineral Way, and she and Georgine walked up the footpath to the cottage alone. Halfway there they met a pair of clinic doctors coming the other way. Out of habit, Mary stepped off the path to let them by, but Georgine did not. It was only after Georgine stepped through the doctors that Mary recognized them for holos. The clinic projection system was better than any she’d encountered. Still, it was impolite to walk through people’s holos.

Inside the cottage, the jenny nurse, Hattie, was lecturing the night evangelines. “We usually wait till they’ve regained consciousness,” she said, “but with Myr Starke we decided sooner was better. You two,” she said when Mary and Georgine entered, “grab a pair of gloves and join us.”

Feldspar Cottage, at the quarter hour of fresh-brewed coffee, was different than the day before. Throw rugs, shelving units, a table, writing desk, rocking chair, and other furnishings had been brought in and arranged in the two rooms. But the most obvious change was the addition of a daybed in the lower room. Lying on the daybed was a young woman in a sleeveless unitard. She lay on her side, apparently asleep. Cyndee, Ronnie, and the jenny nurse stood around her.

Mary and Georgine each took a package of vurt gloves from a pile of them on a supply cart and joined the others at the daybed.

“You’re new,” Hattie said to Georgine. “I’m Hattie Beckeridge.” Cyndee and Ronnie introduced themselves to their new colleague. Today, all of the evangelines wore saucer hats. Then Hattie returned their attention to the woman on the daybed. The woman had a slight build, pretty face, and bushy eyebrows.

“Is this Myr Starke?” Mary said.

“Yes, well, her empty jacket anyways,” Hattie said. “The medtechs adapted it from a holo sim she cast on her most recent birthday. They’ve mapped it through the controller to her brain.”

Mary looked up at the skull hovering above them in the tank like a ghastly judge, its eyes as dead as the day before.

Hattie took the jacket’s hand in her gloved hand and drew it across the rough fabric of the daybed. “This’ll get the old sensory neurons popping,” she said. “Here, take turns doing this. Nice and easy. We don’t want carpet burns.” Mary pulled on her vurt gloves, and Hattie continued. “Myr Starke will need to wear this jacket for the next eighteen months or so while her new body matures.”

Ronnie said, “But if the jacket looks at the tank, won’t she be frightened to see herself as a skull? I know I would.”

Hattie paused to look up at the skull. “The jacket system has a built-in blind spot so she can’t see the tank unless she chooses to. What’s important initially is that the body in the tank can see the jacket. Her developing new body will need both visual and proprioceptive feedback from the jacket. This is so the new nerve cells insinuate themselves properly into the existing brain tissue. Otherwise, she could suffer everything from mild spasticity to profound Parkinsonian symptoms.

“As soon as you wake up, Myr Starke,” Hattie told the jacket, “we’ll have you doing jumping jacks in here.”

Under Hattie’s direction, the evangelines lifted the jacket and turned it on its back. With the vurt gloves, the holo seemed as heavy as a real body. They lifted her legs and slid the soles of her bare feet against the daybed as they had done her hands. While they worked, the evangelines traded looks and glances, and Mary knew there was news from upshift. But there was no chance to talk, for as soon as they finished the sensory workout, a trio of Johns entered the cottage bearing more cartons of Ellen Starke’s personal belongings: hats, photographs and lamps, a bead necklace, trophies, libraries, and more. Hattie and the evangelines arranged these things on nooks and shelves in the cottage.

When they were finished, Hattie had to leave to make her rounds. “Be sure to keep stimulating our guest,” she said. “Remember, she can see, hear, and smell. We chose some of her stuff for its olfactory qualities. There’s nothing like the smell of home to get one’s attention.”

“How does Myr Starke smell?” Cyndee said.

“Didn’t anyone show you? Never mind, follow me.” Hattie led them to the control unit beside the tank. “Here’s the olfactory sampler—Myr Starke’s temporary nose.” She pointed to a small grate at the side of the unit. “It’s constantly sampling the ambient air and transducing the results directly to our guest’s olfactory epithelium, which is intact. I always use the same shampoo so my clients can learn to recognize me by scent.” Hattie stooped and rubbed her hair next to the grate. “Good morning, Myr Starke. It’s me, Hattie Beckeridge, your day nurse.” She straightened up and continued. “In some ways, odors are more useful to our guest right now than sight. Smell is a simpler, more direct sense.”

She told the control unit to project a model of Starke’s brain. It popped up, a large gray walnutlike thing. “Now add the orbits and show us the primary retinofugal projection.” Two eyeballs appeared at one end of the model brain (which was useful for Mary who otherwise couldn’t tell one lobe from another). The eyeballs were highlighted in red. The highlighting followed two neural pathways to the midbrain where they crossed before continuing to the very rear of the hemispheres. “What we perceive with our eyes at the
front
of our skull has to travel across the whole brain,” Hattie said, tracing a pathway with her finger, “before reaching the visual cortex at the
back
. There the signals are first processed and then sent out to other areas for further processing.”

She told the model to display the entire visual pathway, and the whole brain seemed to light up. “Impressive, isn’t it?” Hattie said. “Vision is our primary sense. Nearly one-third of our brain’s mass is involved in processing it.”

She told the model to display Starke’s actual visual activity. Only the eyes and ropelike pathway lit up and only to the crossover point in the middle of the brain.

“See? The signal gets lost long before it ever reaches her occipital lobes. The lights are on, but there’s no one home. Now let’s compare smell. Show us the patient’s current olfactory activity.”

Two small projections under the eyes of the model brain became highlighted in green. “This is the olfactory epithelium, which lines the top of the nasal passage of the nose. It makes up the olfactory bulbs, the only brain tissue we have outside our skulls. It comes in contact with the air we breathe.” She pointed to the green projections and then to a lobe of the brain adjacent to them. “Olfactory bulbs here, primary olfactory cortex right next door—smell is our
only
sensory system that passes directly to the cerebral cortex. This gives it
unparalleled
influence on parts of the brain that affect emotion, motivation, and certain kinds of memory.”

Finishing the lesson, Hattie took her leave, first passing behind the tank and peering in at the fetus. The evangelines joined her. The little prawn looked to be the same size as the day before.

IN A CORNER of the blast bunker nearly a quarter klick beneath the Starke Manse, Merrill Meewee lay in his makeshift bedroom and stared up at the ceiling. After the household mechs attacked him yesterday, Wee Hunk thought it prudent to move him underground. At least until he figured out who was responsible and how they had penetrated manse security. But while Meewee felt the weight of the intervening layers of earth and limestone over his head, he didn’t feel any more secure and hadn’t managed to get much sleep. If Eleanor’s enemies could pervert carpet scuppers into attack dogs, could anyplace be safe?

Well, actually, yes. Next to the shelter where he lay was the Starke null suite. As null suites went, it was a world-class design. Nothing could penetrate it, not EM radiation, long-wave Earth vibrations, cosmic rays, ultrasound, or any other known means of spying, not even quantum entanglement, or so Eleanor had claimed. She used to brag that not even God, herself, could eavesdrop there. Maybe that was where Meewee could get some sleep.

Meewee’s neck hurt, and his windpipe was sore, and he was bruised where the carpet scuppers had pummeled him. Arrow may have saved him from strangulation but Meewee had had to specifically tell it to do so. Arrow possessed some awesome capabilities, but a quick-thinking bodyguard it was not.

he said in Starkese

The mentar replied in Starkese

Meewee got out of bed and padded naked to the bathroom. Eleanor’s bunker shelter was roomy and well appointed. A party of thirty or so people, accustomed to first-class accommodations, could wait out a nuclear attack or biowar and its aftermath here in princely comfort.

Meewee cleaned up and dressed and went to the galley for breakfast. Wee Hunk was waiting for him as a life-size man in an ocelot fur robe. “A hearty good morning to you, O man of the cloth,” the mentar said, offering his ID in Starkese without even being challenged. “I do hope your little scuffle yesterday with the vacuum cleaners hasn’t interfered with your appetite. The kulinmate down here is loaded with exceptional dishes. You should try the sourdough waffles.”

Meewee only grunted acknowledgment and sat at one of the long, cafeteria-style tables. When a waiterbeitor rolled over to take his order, he eyed it warily before asking for juice, toast, strawberry jam, and coffee.

“You’ll be pleased to know I’ve identified the security breach,” the mentar went on brightly. “Apparently, there was dust adhering to your skin and clothes that carried instructions for subverting our household mechs. You probably picked it up while still at Starke headquarters.”

“Cabinet?”

“Probably, but not necessarily,” the mentar said, and a diorama of the clinic cottage interior opened on the table next to Meewee. “Ready for your update?” Inside the diorama, the tiny figures of evangelines and Johns were rearranging furniture. Meewee’s eye went directly to the daybed where a resurrected Ellen Starke seemed to be lying, asleep. It was a jacket, he assumed.

“She still comatose?”

“Sadly, yes. Her condition has not improved, and her prognosis worsens by the hour. According to the continuity counters, Concierge has not attempted to edit or distort my observations. However, it did intercept the amnio syrup sample I tried to smuggle out and terminated the employment of my evangelinian smuggler.”

“We
must
get our own specialist in there.”

“I don’t disagree,” the robed caveman said, “but I’ve come to the conclusion that our best course of action is to remove Ellen from the clinic and treat her here, with a specialized autodoc if necessary.”

“Here? In the bunker?”

The waiterbeitor returned with Meewee’s breakfast. He spread jam on his toast and took a tentative bite.

“Yes, in the bunker. In the null suite, in fact. I’m assembling an impromptu revivification clinic in there even as we speak. I’ve purchased a hernandez tank, syrup, controller, and all the various pieces. And I’ve located a suitable autodoc.”

They watched the activity in the cottage as Meewee ate. When he was finished, Wee Hunk said, “The big problem is how to remove her from the clinic.”

“I thought you were her guardian,” Meewee said. “Can’t you just sign her out?”

“Yes, but doing so would force their hand. If some agency is indeed killing her gradually, in order to make it appear to be a result of the reentry crash, giving them any notice of our intent would only result in her immediate murder. If we are to remove her, we must do so in a lightning assault with no forewarning.”

Meewee wiped his mouth and refolded his napkin. “What exactly did you have in mind?”

THE NEWS FROM upshift was that a swing shift evangeline, and not Renata, had been fired for breech of clinic policy. Mary couldn’t be sure of the particulars because of the inferential nature of evangeline communication, but it appeared that Celia, whom Mary hadn’t met, had dipped a small vial into the tank and tried to smuggle a sample of the amnio concentrate syrup out of the clinic. It was further intimated that she had done this under the instructions of their client’s mentar, Wee Hunk. Her smuggling attempt was discovered, however, and she was summarily discharged. Nick rescheduled Renata to cover today’s evening shift and assigned Georgine to fill in this morning.