Counting Heads

3.3

Fred had comp time coming to him, and he could have slept in if he wanted to. But russes were constitutionally unable to oversleep, and he awoke, as usual, at six. Mary was gone, and he lay in bed for a while letting his mind wander through his mine field of newly acquired troubles. Finally, he ordered coffee, and when he could smell it brewing, he threw off the covers and padded to the kitchen. He took his coffee to the living room and watched the view outside someone else’s window for a while. But his troubles kept intruding, so he did what russes often did to take charge of their destiny—he made a list:

Mary/Cabinet

Rendezvous

Clone fatigue

Having itemized and prioritized his worries, Fred felt better. A good list, as every russ knew, was a mood elevator. A good list could cut through the fog of indecision and marshal the forces of reason and practically. Fortified, Fred plunged in:

1. Mary/Cabinet—If only he had spoken up immediately when Cabinet appealed for his help under the lake. Then he wouldn’t be here worrying whether or not Nick at Applied People or, worse, Nameless One at the Homeland Command had eavesdropped on their secret exchange. Merely by not informing his superiors of Cabinet’s appeal, he was culpable of aiding and abetting it. And now that Cabinet was through probate, the imperious mentar had leverage over him. By involving Mary in its schemes, it only increased this leverage.

For crying out loud, Fred thought, evangelines were neither trained nor compensated for hazardous duty, and being anywhere near that Starke woman was hazardous in the extreme.

What to do? He could go to Marcus and report the whole thing, take his lumps, which might be as mild as a negative report in his file, or as severe as a reduction in rank. Whichever the case, it was better than sitting and stewing about it. However, though he could face the mentars, he could never face Mary. She would kill him for lousing up her companion duty. She would never forgive him, even if he acted out of concern for her safety.

2. Rendezvous—The 57th World Charter Rendezvous, which would attract fifty thousand plus chartists, was taking place tomorrow. He’d had everything nailed down for its security until the head of the organizing committee, the free-range boob Myr Pacfin, had thrown his tantrum about the pikes.

What to do? Easy, go down to the BB of R and talk to the proxy he cast to deal with the situation.

3. Clone fatigue—There was no such thing. It was all a pile of psychobabble hooey invented by free-rangers to steal work from iterants. It claimed that over time even identical clones diverged from each other, losing germline integrity and acquiring new, less reliable traits. And since the whole market appeal of iterant labor was based on the uniformity of their core personalities, trait instability would diminish their market value. Iterant temp agencies like Applied People and McPeople would falter, and Fred and about a billion other clones would be out of work.

It was hogwash, of course. There was no such thing as identical clones in the first place. Though a germline may start with the same genome, maternal factors, such as mitochondrial DNA and exogenic womb environments and the scattering techniques of induced allele shifting, guaranteed that they were all slightly different from each other. Closer than siblings but more different than natural monozygotic twins tended to be. Even their personalities varied a little, though their core traits were true to type: jennys were nurturing, lulus were hot, and russes were loyal to a fault and addicted to lists.

And another thing, if there were such a thing as clone fatigue, it would only affect new batches, not individuals already almost a hundred years old.

Still, it was a touchy subject for Fred, and he didn’t know why. It seemed to him that he was behaving oddly lately. For all he knew, he was undergoing some normal life change that all russes experienced. Perhaps all russes, at some point or other, cherished a secret lust for hinks (Inspector Costa!) or questioned their own loyalty to their employer. And if they did, how would he ever know, since one of the cardinal core traits of russdom was the total inability to talk about their feelings, even to their brothers?

On the other hand, for all he knew, there was a secret volume hidden in the Heads-Up Log, one that no one talked about but which russes stumbled across in their time of need. A hidden brotherhood within the brotherhood. The fact that he, russlike to the bone, thought of this meant that other russes must also have thought of it. It only made sense.

What to do? Go to the BB of R and research the Heads-Up Log.

So Fred got up off the couch, put on some clothes, and dragged his bruised tired self to North Wabash.

FRED ARRIVED JUST as a wave of russes was leaving the headquarters for their split shifts. To Fred’s surprise, he was a celebrity. Word had leaked about his scuffle with the warbeitor last night. Because of the confidentiality rules, he was unable to set the record straight that he wasn’t the hero of the hour—but that the TUGs’ illegal particle weapon was. All he could do was accept the accolades of his brothers with typical russ humility. (Humility—Fred decided to keep a running list of russ traits that he shared or lacked.)

Fred clocked into a scape booth and asked Marcus to open his Rondy space.

“Certainly, Myr Londenstane,” the mentar said, “but there’s nothing there that can’t wait a few hours. Why don’t you take the morning off. You had a very stressful day yesterday.”

“Thank you for your concern, Marcus,” he said, “but I’d rather do it now.” (Obsessive attention to detail.)

“As you wish. But allow me to schedule you an autopsyche session when you’re done. After what you’ve been through, you may find it helpful.”

“Thank you, but that won’t be necessary.” (Aversion to so-called mental hygiene.)

Marcus opened Fred’s Rendezvous workspace and left him to his chores. There were scores of details to resolve, but as Marcus had said, nothing urgent. Fred called up the proxy he had cast when he bailed from the Rondy meeting. The log said it had been in storage since the meeting adjourned.

A mirror image of Fred’s head and shoulders and a gloved right hand appeared before him. “About time you showed up,” it said. Fred’s proxy wore an expression of patient annoyance, which surprised and embarrassed him. Proxies tended to be locked in to one’s emotional state at the moment of casting. Had Fred’s annoyance with the organizing committee been so apparent? (Emotional transparency—not a russ trait.) If so, blame it on the utter stupidity of the committee chair, Myr Pacfin. (Inability to suffer fools.)

“So,” the proxy said, “how’d it go? Inspector Costa and the mentar hunt.”

“Fine,” Fred said.

“Fine? That’s it? That’s all I get? Fred, it’s me—Fred,” the proxy said. “I’m your proxy. The confidentiality ban doesn’t apply to us, remember? You’re going to delete me when you wrap things up.”

Fred sighed. “Sorry. Let’s see, we captured the last Cabinet backup in an Opticom hub and then cornered the Cabinet prime next to a city waterworks crib under the lake. Reilly Dell was riding shotgun, by the way, and we were glommed by a NASTIE and had to be dry-cleaned.”

“Whoa!” the proxy said. “Back up and slow down.”

But Fred had no intention of backing up or slowing down. “Veronica Tug tells me you hired five hundred TUGs to patrol Rondy.”

“You spoke to her again?”

“Yeah, she saved my bacon last night.”

“Say again?”

Fred rubbed his face. “Let’s just say,” he said, “that the TUGs were in the right place at the right time to do me a big favor.”

“Com’on, Fred. You can’t leave me just hanging like that.”

But he had to; otherwise he’d find himself giving a blow-by-blow of the raid on the mysterious house in Decatur, its warbeitor sentry, the deadly plasma rings, and all the rest. Then the proxy would ask about the canopy ceremony and Mary, and he’d have to tell it about her companion gig and Cabinet. He had to draw a line.

“About this TUG contingent you hired,” he said.

“All right, all right,” the proxy said. “I didn’t hire them, but I agreed to allow five hundred of them to wear armbands and to patrol the convention floor in exchange for keeping our forty pikes off the floor.”

“What? I’m supposed to tell our pikes to sit on their hands?”

“Exactly. The pikes won’t be allowed to show their weasely little faces. The TUGs will be under our command and will limit their actions to verbal persuasion.”

That actually wasn’t such a bad idea. The chartists at these affairs rarely got rowdy and would much rather be policed by fellow chartists anyway, and the TUGs could probably keep the peace with their looks alone. “I suppose MC and Nick are good with this arrangement?”

“Yeah, the mentars are all on board.”

Once nudged in the right direction, Proxy Fred continued his termination debriefing with typical russ efficiency. (Efficiency.) When it was finished, it sighed and said, “That’s it.”

“Nothing else?”

“There is one more thing I thought I’d tell you. I don’t know how much weight to put on it since I’m just a—you know—artificial construct of you, but I had a feeling about this Veronica Tug person.”

“What kind of a feeling?” Fred said.

“A hunch.”

“And?”

“I felt I could trust her. Which was why her helping you is so interesting.”

“I see. Thanks for telling me. And thank you for your service.”

“It was nothing.”

Fred and his proxy watched each other for a few moments in silence, and then the proxy said, “Will you just do it already?”

“Uh, sorry,” Fred said. “Marcus, delete proxy.”

The Fred proxy disappeared. Fred closed the Rondy space and logged into the Longyear Center to inquire about Inspector Costa’s status. She was still in critical condition.

Fred left the booth and went downstairs to the canteen for coffee and donuts. The place was nearly deserted, with so many russes mustered out on extra security details. And any russes not involved in trying to keep the affs from killing each other were no doubt working as bloomjumpers, now that Chicago had no canopy to protect it. (Brave.)

BACK IN THE scape booth, now that his work was finished, Fred asked Marcus for a datapin containing the complete BB of R Heads-Up Log. It was an unusual request—he usually let Marcus navigate the log for him. Marcus produced the pin, no questions asked, and Fred turned on the booth’s isolation field, excluding Marcus and any other snoops. The brotherhood’s booths provided pretty good privacy, not as tight as their null room, but much more convenient.

Fred pressed the pin into the reader, and a directory appeared on the workbench before him.

Fred knew more or less what was in the HUL. The log was a compendium of russ records and thoughts going back a hundred years to Thomas A. himself. Most of it was related to work issues, the how-tos and wherefores of security work. There was a Brag File describing especially harrowing missions, with confidential details excised. Marcus had already entered yesterday’s scuffle with the warbeitor, though without naming names. There was also a Wall of Honor for russes killed in the line of duty. And one of the most popular features on the HUL was the List of Lists. Altogether, there were over seven hundred thousand entries in the HUL, which, when Fred thought about it, didn’t amount to much considering that they represented about a half-billion russ/years of experience.

Proceeding on his theory that there was a secret log not listed in the directory, Fred browsed the HUL from front to back, looking for anything that might give him a glimpse into the mysterious russ heart. He supposed he could just ask Marcus if anything like that was recorded, but he assumed that if it was, it would be kept secret from Marcus as well. After three hours he gave up. Except for certain lists that scanned like poetry, his brothers seemed about as expressive as trees.

Fine, he would work on that. Fred opened a new volume in the HUL and entitled it the Book of Russ. He took a deep breath and began:

“To my brothers cloned: Contrary to all evidence, we, the sibs of Thomas A. Russ, do enjoy a rich inner life. Why we are so reluctant to share it with others, or even among ourselves, is anybody’s guess. Today I start what I hope will become a new tradition among us—the habit of brotherly openness.”

Fred paused and read what he’d dictated. Overall, it was good; it expressed what he wanted. But it sounded too stilted. Although russes were big on continuing education, they didn’t wear their erudition on their sleeve. He thought about it for a while, blanked the text, and began anew. This time he tried to speak as he would to Reilly. He did, however, keep the phrase “To my brothers cloned,” which he liked.

“To my brothers cloned: I’m fed up with the way we keep everything bottled inside us. It’s not healthy. So, I’m going to speak my mind here and see if any of you will do the same. I propose the Book of Russ to be a place where russes can speak openly to each other.”

Fred paused and read this. It might err in the opposite direction, but it was better. So he continued in the same vein.

“Lately there’s been a lot of talk about the so-called clone fatigue. Of course, there’s no such thing. It’s an urban myth. It’s an attempt by non-iterants to belittle us. But if it did exist, and if I caught it, how would I know?

“Let me put this another way. We all know that we, the brothers of Thomas A., prefer to wear heavy brown shoes. That’s so typical of us that it’s a timeworn cliche. How a preference for shoe color could be coded into our genes, I don’t have a clue. Whatever the mechanism, what would happen if tomorrow I woke up and decided, just for the hell of it, to wear a pair of black shoes. I suspect that everyone I ran into would comment on it. It would cause such a sensation that I probably wouldn’t wear them in public again. But what if the truth of the matter is that while we’re young, we prefer brown shoes but that russes of a certain age develop an appreciation for shoes of different colors? Are you following me? If we were all too reluctant to wear black shoes in public because of the reaction we would get from others, or even to discuss our shoe color preferences among ourselves, eventually we’d all be walking around secretly dissatisfied with our shoes.

“You want my opinion, there’s something unnatural about this state of affairs. I think we’ve been sold a bill of goods. We’re so obsessed with trying to stay true to our germline that we repress anything we think might set us apart. Believe me, brothers, that way lies madness.

“Anyway, that’s how I feel about it, and if I feel that way, I’m pretty sure there’s at least a half million of you out there who feel the same way.

“And so, this is what I’m going to do. I’m going to dedicate this volume, this Book of Russ, to the free expression of russness, and I encourage all of you, my brothers, to add your bit. Tell us all what makes us tick.

“To get the ball rolling, I’ll go first.”

Fred paused to think of the most provocative thing about himself that he could reveal in order to loosen the guarded russ tongue. Eventually, he wanted to get into the whole issue of mission loyalty, but that was probably too explosive a topic to start off with. Better go with something safer and saltier.

“All right,” he continued. “Here goes. I want to sleep with a hink. Got that? I’d like to screw a woman whose body is unlike any other woman’s body in the world. Don’t get me wrong; I love our iterant women. They’re the best. I’m not putting down our ’leens or jennys or any of the other types, not in the least. But once in a while, I wonder, I really wonder what a free-ranger might be like in the sack.

“There you have it. And please don’t tell me that I’m the only russ in the world who’s ever lusted after hinks.

“Your turn. Thanks for listening.”

Fred closed the entry and reread it. He was appalled. His first impulse was to delete the Book of Russ altogether, but he held back. If this was going to work, someone had to take the first step. Besides, he was positive he was right. How could he be wrong? So he did not delete his entry or even censor it. He was tempted to post it anonymously, but that would defeat the whole purpose, so he appended his sig, turned off the booth’s isolation field, and posted the inaugural entry of the Book of Russ. A moment later he wondered what in God’s name he had done.