Counting Heads

2.22

After their meal, Fred and Mary’s crowd in the Zinc Room had a round of evening visola, and coffee. Dessert was custard fyllo pie, followed by more rounds of drink.

Occasional outbursts came from the Stardeck, and the lulus Abbie and Mariola went out to investigate. When they returned, Abbie carried a little black homcom slug by its tail between her thumb and index finger.

“They’re smashing them,” she said. “I can’t hardly believe it.” She dropped the biomech strip on the table and, before it could crawl away, trapped it under an overturned daiquiri glass.

“Don’t do that,” said Reilly.

“Don’t tell my sister what to do,” said Mariola.

“I mean, you could get into trouble, get us all into trouble.”

Mary said, “I blocked up our apartment slugway all day, and nothing happened.”

“That’s nothing,” said Gwyn, the jenny. “On the WAD, I saw free-range people ‘harvesting’ them by the hundreds for recycling credits.”

They watched the slug explore its prison, and when its pinhead noetics concluded it was trapped, it simply idled in place. No threats, no sirens, no explosion of pseudopods.

Wes, the jerry, scanned it. “It’s not transmitting to base.”

“What’s it doing?” said Reilly.

“Nothing that I can tell.”

“That just doesn’t make sense.”

“Sure, it does,” said Abbie. “Somebody, gimme a hammer.”

Mariola said, “How many material credits do you suppose one of these would bring?”

“Let’s see,” said the second jerry, Bill. “At least a milliliter of paste, supporting circuitry, several grams of titanium, selenium, platinum, ah, maybe iridium—”

“Not to mention the self-healing tissue and foil extruders,” said Wes.

“And the minicams and emitters and various RF gear,” said Ross, the third jerry.

“Ten or twelve yoodies maybe?” said Bill, and the other two jerrys nodded in agreement.

“Ten or twelve each?” said Abbie, astonished.

“Give or take.”

The group of friends mulled this over.

“Where’s that hammer?” said Abbie.

“Feck the hammer,” Mariola said and took off her shoe.

“Wait, Abbie,” said Fred. “Trapping it is one thing, but whacking it is a felony. You could pull hard time for that.”

Abbie raised the shoe but hesitated. “That’s not what the people on the Stardeck say. They say the slugs are finished. They’ve been decommissioned. Everyone’s pulling them off the side of the building and smashing them. And do you see the HomCom up here arresting anyone?”

Fred said, “Can someone please check the Evernet for an official announcement.”

Wes said, “There’s all sorts of contradictory statements, but nothing I’d call official.”

“That’s good enough for me,” said Abbie. But still she hesitated with the shoe.

Alice, the joan, said, “Imagine—no more slugs sneaking up on you when you least expect it.”

“No more slugs swimming in your bath,” said Sofi, the helena.

“Or biting you in your sleep,” said Gwyn.

“Or having the power to decide if you’re friend or foe,” said Wes.

“People,” Alice said, tears rolling down her cheeks, “we are privileged to witness the end of a dark era.”

Fred waited for her to append some typically joan bit of sarcasm, but she didn’t.

“On the other hand,” said Peter, making good jerome sense, “if they are worth ten or twelve UDC each, and if they are being destroyed and recycled by free-range trash without criminal consequences, then it constitutes a new form of dole and an unfair tax burden on the rest of us.”

“Unless the rest of us get in on it,” said Mariola.

“Okay, okay. Here goes,” Abbie said and again raised the shoe.

“Please don’t,” Fred said. “You risk so much.”

“Right,” said Reilly. “You know who they’ll send to arrest you—Fred!”

A constant roar of excitement now came from the Stardeck, and the Zinc Room was quickly emptying, diners hurrying out to join in the slaughter. Abbie said, “At least I’ll have a lot of company in jail.” She removed the glass and brought the heel of the shoe squarely down on the slug. They all held their breath. The little black ribbon of biotech lay still. But when Abbie tried to pick it up, it began to creep again toward the edge of the table.

Bill said, “Not much of a blow there, lulu.”

Wes said, “They self-repair pretty quick.”

“Here, give me that,” Mariola said and took her shoe back. “You should pretend it’s you-know-who and hit it like this.” She raised the shoe high overhead and brought it crashing down on the slug. The blow sounded like a cannon shot. Now the slug lay flat. Thick, black pseudoplasm oozed like tar from a split along its side.

Wes said, “That maybe oughtta hold it till you get it to a digester.”

Ross said, “Use a public one at a convenience store. And ask for payment in tokens—not on your personal account.”

But the lulus didn’t move. They held each other in their arms and stared at the ruined biomech. Suddenly they began to cry.

“Now what?” Fred said.

Alice said, “Oh, Fred. For once, everything is right. Come on, guys. Let’s go join the fun.” She led the others to the Stardeck. Everyone followed, except Peter, the russes, and the jerrys. Mary and Shelley held back only long enough to see how strenuously their russes might object. Fred scowled, and Reilly frowned, but this wasn’t enough to hold the evangelines, and they hurried to catch up with their friends.

Peter said, “Just think of the billions of credits our society has spent building and maintaining the whole slug-based nanocyst detection infrastructure. And for that matter, the canopies.” He rose from his chair. “Don’t worry, gentlemen, I don’t intend to join in the crime spree, but I am curious to watch history in the making.”

Then it was just the russes and jerrys sitting across the table from each other.

“Don’t look at us,” Wes said. “We’re sworn to uphold the law, not break it.”

“That’s good,” said Reilly. “Otherwise, Fred would be required to bust you too.”

“Not if you’re on sick leave,” said Wes. “I’d imagine that after your swim today, you guys get a week or so off.”

Fred and Reilly exchanged glances. It was apparent the jerrys knew something of their day’s adventure.

Reilly said, “Actually, I have some R & R coming to me. How about you, Fred?”

Fred shook his head. His injuries weren’t considered serious enough. “I have tonight off and a day of comp time.” Reilly signaled to Fred to look toward the door, and Fred turned to see dozens of jerrys and russes leaving the Zinc Room. At the same time, Wes pulled a package of Suddenly Sober out of his pocket and offered pills to Bill and Ross. He took one himself and washed it down with a final swig of whiskey.

“On duty?” said Fred.

“Yeah, it just came through,” Wes said. “They’re scrambling the troops.”

“About the slugs?” Fred said, suddenly anxious for Mary and their friends.

“No, not slugs. There’s a rush on personal security. Seems that the affs are killing each other all over the UD, and they’re doubling and tripling their security teams.”

Fred said, “A round of score settling?”

“Yeah,” said Wes, “sparked by Starke’s assassination.”

Ross said, “They’re calling it a ‘market correction.’” He and the other jerrys har-harred at that as they left the table, leaving Fred and Reilly alone.

“I read this article,” Reilly said, pouring himself a glass of ginger ale, “that compares the affs of today to princes in the Middle Ages. No strong kingdoms or national governments to cramp their style. All these little principalities, sovereign unto themselves, competing for land and resources. All their little wars and mercenary armies. That’s what we are, you know, mercs.”

Fred shook his head. “I’ve been thinking about that too,” he said, “and I disagree with you. The pikes are the mercenaries, the jerrys and belindas are the cops, and we russes are the palace guard.”

Reilly thought about that. “You’re right. I like that better. Yeah, the palace guard. I wonder if Thomas A.’s ancestors were in that line of work. We’ve saved more than a few royal heads in our time.” Reilly rose on his mechanical braces and tried to stretch. “Well, it’s been a long day,” he said. He saluted Fred and left the table. Fred was all alone.

To my cloned brothers, he mused, to remain free men, we must resist the temptation to swear allegiance to any family but our own.

BECAUSE OF HER duty with the death artist, Shelley was a minor celebrity at APRT 7. Admirers on the Stardeck stopped her every few meters to offer comments about her client, Judith Hsu. After a year of remission, Hsu’s condition had recently taken an aggressive turn, and her viewership had increased accordingly. Hsu’s skin had become hidebound with scar tissue, and she could barely move at all. Her skin was so fragile at her elbows that bending her arms could potentially split it and expose her joints. And the poor woman’s pruritus was unbearable. She couldn’t stop clawing at herself. The jenny nurses had to tie her hands in soft restraints to keep her from scratching herself to shreds.

Shelley acknowledged her fans’ attention, but it was clear to Mary that she did not relish it.

The Stardeck was a killing field. People wielded shoes, pocket billies, and wine bottles in their slaughter of the small, black defenders of cellular integrity. Foolish revelers climbed on the balcony railing to reach them, unmindful of the three-kilometer drop. Steves took advantage of their extraordinary height to fling slugs off the walls with spoons into the waiting clutches of tipsy, oxygen-deprived berserkers. “Heave ho!” the steves cried each time they flung one. “Heave ho!”

Incongruously, other people stood patiently in an orderly queue beneath a slugway and waited for unsuspecting slugs to exit the building. After a quick look around, Mary and Shelley joined the end of the line.

Shelley seemed to walk with a limp, but Mary didn’t mention it. Instead, she said, I’m thinking of retraining.

Oh? Shelley said. In what area?

I looked up the stats to find which female type has the widest duty opportunities. You know which it is?

Shelley scratched her throat and said, The jennys I would suppose.

Close; they’re second. It’s actually the juanita/janes. There will always be houses to tidy, you know, and drinks to fetch, and pillows to fluff. The best employment security and the lowest pay scale.

Little by little, the two evangelines advanced to the head of the line. When it was their turn, and a slug came through the slugway, Mary and Shelley just stood watching it slither up the wall, neither of them making a move.

“It’s getting away,” said someone from behind.

“Catch it!” Mary said.

“You!” said Shelley.

Soon the slug was out of reach. The evangelines laughed and left the queue. They went to sit at a table in a quiet corner, away from the bedlam.

Shelley eased herself carefully into a chair. “So, you’re thinking of taking up Domestic Science?”

“Right.” Mary laughed. “Even better—this morning I took an intro course in Cake Design.”

“You’re kidding.”

Mary shook her head. “But seriously, don’t you think we should be qualified for something?”

Shelley scratched her arm thoughtfully. “I hope so. I’m thinking of retraining, myself.”

“You? You’ve got it made!”

Shelley sighed. “I don’t know how many more of these deaths I can take. Remember the last one when my hair fell out? Well, look at this.” She unfastened her sleeve and exposed her arm for a moment. Her skin was inflamed and swollen, an early sign of scleroderma, Judith Hsu’s current terminal disease.

Shelley didn’t have scleroderma; the symptoms were false, psychosymptomatic, all in her head. Her rash was an occupational hazard of the evangelines’ high degree of empathy.

“The breast cancer was bad enough,” Shelley continued, refastening her sleeve, “but this one is killing me. I have this stuff all over my body. Reilly hasn’t been able to touch me for weeks!”

Mary scratched her throat and said, “I’m so sorry, Shell,” but she wasn’t sure she meant it. Not that she’d enjoy feeling sick, but at least Shelley was working. At least she was a companion. Mary leaned over to scratch her leg, just as a slug that had somehow eluded the massacre crawled up her shoe and fastened to her ankle.

“Damn!” she said.

“What is it?”

“Alice is right. It’s high time we were rid of these monsters. Here, give me that cup.”

Shelley handed her a heavy china coffee mug, and when the slug dropped off, she hit it. The slug didn’t even slow down.

“Hit it harder,” Shelley encouraged her. “Hit it in the middle; that’s where the brain is.”

Mary hit the slug again, to no avail. “It’s tougher than it looks,” she said and raised the mug over her head. This time she swung so hard the mug shattered. “I dinged my hand,” she said.

“But you killed it.” The slug lay still, its side split open.

“You can have it,” Mary said, lifting the slug by its tail and offering it to Shelley. “Thanks, Mare, but you whacked it.”

“Fred would kill me.”

“Same with Reilly.”

“Anyway, whacking it felt good.” Mary stood up and flung the mech over the banister to fall five hundred stories.

WHEN FRED CAME out to the deck, the Skytel billboards were announcing ten minutes to showtime. He sat with Mary and Shelley, and what was left of the gang reassembled around them. There were plenty of free chairs now that so many people had left to cash in their kill or to report for duty. Already a fresh wave of slugs was descending from the side of the tower to begin evening rounds. An army of them entered the building via the Stardeck slugways, and some detoured to roam the deck and test random ankles. Few people objected, their fury spent for the day.

Fred said, “Our jerrys got scrambled for special duty.”

“Arresting friends and designated others?” said Peter.

“No, I don’t think so. And Reilly went home to bed.”

“I know,” said Shelley.

They ordered more drinks, more food, and watched the Skytel cycle through its usual smorgasbord of civic and commercial messages: sports scores, stock quotes, population clock, birthday and anniversary dedications, celebrity news, ads. A news headline crawled across the boards: Chicagoland breaks out of its shell at midnight!

“How condescending,” said Alice.

Sofi said, “If there’s anything I’d like to smash more than a slug, it’s that monstrosity up there crowding out our moon.”

“Many have tried,” said Fred.

“It seems a rather large target to miss,” Alice said.

“True, but it’s farther away than it appears, fifty-five thousand kilometers, in fact. And it’s modular, not much more than prisms, lenses, and mirrors, and the servos that point them. Hard to kill, easy to repair.”

A vibrant message rippled across the boards: “Chicago, give yourself a hug!”

The lulu Mariola giggled. “Now tell me, wouldn’t you miss that if it was gone?”

“No, I wouldn’t!” Sofi said.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if it did follow the canopies into retirement,” said Peter. “Advertising revenue alone isn’t enough to justify it anymore. Never was, in fact. And there’s no public messages on it people can’t easily access by other means.”

Mary said, “Why’d they put it up in the first place?”

“Propaganda.”

“Give yourself a hug?”

“Not for us,” said Peter. “Propaganda for the other side of the globe. The Skytel is not geosynchronous, you know. It follows the night and spends as much time over enemy and/or unaligned territory as it does over ours. The wanted posters were a little before your time, Mary, but imagine a nightly rogues gallery of fatwah posters with princely rewards for indicted extremists, dead or alive, up there where everyone could see it, mug shots as big as Texas. The extremists hated the Skytel and tried to shoot it down many times. While it tormented us with adverts here, there it might feature your next-door neighbor and put such a price on his head that no one could resist the temptation to bring him in. No one was safe from us. The Skytel was one of our most potent weapons against the Outrage for a while.” Peter raised a glass of wine and toasted the Skytel: “To blood money.”

The central billboard opened a window to show a close-up of a woman in a formal jumpsuit.

“What channel? What channel?” people asked across the Stardeck. The woman introduced Chicago CEO, Forrest Slana. The CEO’s roundish face seemed to compete with the Moon behind him. He beamed pallid sincerity upon all sectors of the great city.

Good evening, Chicago, he intoned. In a few moments, I will turn you over to our masters of ceremony, but first I wanted to say a few words about your decision to lower the city’s canopy.

Decision? Did we vote on it? someone asked on an open channel. And a hundred voices answered, Shut up!

Our canopy, this shell of charged squamous plates, this bubble of anti-nano, has served as Chicagoland’s hard hat these last sixty-eight years. As he spoke, the CEO glanced over his head, pretending to look up at the canopy. In that time, it has saved many lives and much property. It has intercepted and neutralized over a trillion extremist weapons. In the last sixty-eight years, it has failed us only twice, and we will always remember our neighbors who perished on those days. A sober pause here.

But today’s world is a different, better, safer place. The Outrage is over, thank heaven, and we won. The atmosphere and oceans and land are free of NASTIES. They have been flushed away, their energy depleted, and no new ones are being nanofactured.

Both Mary and Shelley looked at Fred—is that true? No new NASTIES? But he was still off-line and unable to follow the speech.

Meanwhile, this barrier over our heads costs us dearly. Operation and maintenance alone comes to one hundred credits per capita annually. And that’s a lot of yoodies that I’m sure you’d rather spend on other things. And so, as the first major city to raise a canopy, Chicago will again lead the way and be the first to drop it. We will, after sixty-eight years, finally and willingly break out of our shell!

He pretended to rap against the canopy with his knuckles. Somewhere there was generous applause, though Mary didn’t see anyone clapping on the Stardeck. As a relative newcomer to this world, Mary was curious about how her Applied People colleagues were taking all this. The canopy—the Skytel for that matter—was a fixture in her sky from as far back as she could remember. And as far as the Outrage went, she had learned about it in History class.

But if there are still evil haters out there, cooking up new terrors to unleash on us, continued the CEO, let them know that though we lay down our defenses today, we will not dismantle them. On the contrary, the canopy pickets will be maintained in a fully functional status. We will be able to respond to any threat at a moment’s notice. Another round of unseen applause.

And now, on with the show. I am thrilled to introduce to you our hosts for the evening, the sensational Debbie Mix and her irrepressible symbiont, Alkanuh. Let’s give them a big-shouldered Chicago welcome.

Mix and Alkanuh appeared in frames on either side of the CEO. They giggled. They waved. They made silly faces. Their frames jumped together into the center, covering over the CEO.

Yar, said Mix. Me and the yik here are riding in a VIP box doing lazy eights inside Soldier Field. There’s quite a crowd here tonight. How many people would you say, Al?

The other boards opened multiple views of the crowded stands of excited spectators, the stage in the center of the field, and pages of background data and stats.

Hoo! said Alkanuh.

The stadium crowd cheered and booed.

I think that translates to four hundred thousand. Am I right, Al?

The canopy show devolved into a typical, star-studded pastiche of the type one could find at any hour on the WAD, the type of show that clones didn’t particularly enjoy because there were so few clone celebrities included. So, although the boards were bursting with glittery musical numbers, tasteful nudity, and risqué comedy, there was nothing entertaining or even characteristically Chicagoan about it, and the Stardeck crowd tuned it out.

Fred asked Mary, “You want me to take your—ah—recyclables down to a digester?”

Mary smiled. “Thank you, Fred, but that won’t be necessary.”

“You got someone else to take them?”

She shook her head.

He’d already guessed the poor results of their harvesting, but he enjoyed the interrogation. “I don’t understand,” he said. “How many did you bag?”

“We limited out, didn’t we, Shell?”

Shelley nodded enthusiastically, with big brown eyes.