Counting Heads

3.12

It had been forty-eight hours since Fred launched the Book of Russ, and he was curious about its reception by russdom. He could have checked on it from anywhere with his skullcap and visor, but that would require Marcus’s intercession. So, although it was his day off, he returned to the BB of R for a fresh datapin and a quiet booth. Marcus provided these with no comment. Checking the HUL stats in the booth, Fred was at first encouraged to learn that his Book of Russ had already been seen by over one hundred thousand russes. However, none of these many russes had seen fit to add their own threads or tails to it. Nor, indeed, bothered to post a rebuttal. It was as though his true confession had sunk without a ripple. He had not expected to change russ attitudes overnight, but to be totally ignored?

Fred sifted through the entire HUL and found only three hits on him or his effort. One was posted in a public square, and two more were clipped to it. Fred steeled himself and opened them.

The first one said, “Seriously, Londenstane, seek professional help.” It was signed, “A Concerned Brother, Batch 16BA.”

The other two were authored by “Anon” and read simply, “Ditto.”

“Ditto” was not a word that iterants used in polite discourse, and its appearance here felt like a slap in the face. Was there no other russ out there who felt as he did? Was he the only one? Fred pulled the datapin from the player and dropped it into his pocket. He left the booth and told Marcus he wanted to use the null room.

“Certainly,” said Marcus. “The first opening I have is Saturday noon for thirty minutes.”

“What are my chances of a cancellation this afternoon?”

“I can put you at the top of the waiting list.”

Fred went to the canteen and drank coffee and got himself caught up on skullcap news. A couple of hours later, Marcus told him to go to the null room ready area; a fifteen-minute slot had opened up.

“That’s good,” Fred said. “Listen, Marcus, I want you to make me a special datapin. I want an E-Pluribus model of the russ germline.”

“What batch?” Marcus asked.

“All batches. The entire line, compiled up to the minute.”

“That’s an expensive request.”

“It’s a covered expense.”

“Certainly, it is,” Marcus said, “but usually covered only in conjunction with psychiatric care. Would you like me to arrange an autopsyche session, Myr Londenstane?”

“No, just the pin, thanks.” Fred went to the ready area where the E-Pluribus datapin awaited him, still warm, in the wall dispenser.

There were four other russes in the ready area. They sat in pairs as far away from each other as the small space allowed. A dispute settlement, Fred surmised. Russes tended to resolve their personal differences in-house. The four of them nodded a greeting to Fred as he sat in a chair between them.

A minute later, the on-deck light came on, and the four russes rose to prepare to enter the null room lock. They drank the expressing visola and divested themselves of caps, visors, batons, shoes, and anything else they didn’t want to risk losing to the anti-nano. They left their things on open shelves.

The russes began to scratch themselves through their clothes. “What the hell,” said one of them, drawing his sleeve and raising his beefy arm to the light. He scrutinized his skin from several nose lengths away. “They’re abandoning the mothership,” he said, as though he could actually see the nits. “They’re fleeing the rice paddies.”

“My God, but it itches,” said one of the others.

“Scratching only prolongs it,” said a third.

The first russ lowered his sleeve and said, “Such a deal.”

Fred said, “But you gotta agree, it beats the hell out of the slugs.”

“The jury’s still out on that, brother,” the russ said and glanced at Fred’s name badge. His face went suddenly blank, and he turned away without another word. He and the other russes climbed into the lock, but not before each took a quick peek at Fred. Fred was too surprised to react.

Whatever dispute the foursome brought into the null room was quickly resolved, and in only twenty minutes, the on-deck light came on again.

“They were booked for thirty,” Marcus said. “I will tack the remaining time to your session.”

“Thank you, Marcus.” Fred opened a pouch of visola and drank it down. Almost at once his head began to itch as his skullcap retracted its microvilli from his scalp. The skullcap came off in congealed lumps, which he combed into the sink. Fred waited for his whole body to begin to itch as the nits crawled out of his skin, but it didn’t happen. He hadn’t been colonized yet. The HALVENE.

Fred cycled through the lock and entered the null room. The BB of R null room wasn’t much larger than the table and four chairs it contained. One wall was a builtin kulinmate, and the opposite wall contained a curtained-off comfort station. Wasting no time, Fred sealed the hatch, took a seat, and inserted his datapin into the player. A quicksilver E-Pluribus Everyperson, quarter-life-size, appeared on the tabletop. It bowed and awaited Fred’s instruction.

“Give me two russ sims,” Fred said. “Make one a composite of the total russ population. Make the second a subset of the fringes of russdom.”

Everyperson faded away as two life-size russ sims appeared sitting at the table on either side of Fred. Both had the typically hefty build, brown hair, and round-nosed moon face of Fred’s type. He didn’t know which was the mainstream russ and which the fringer. Both sims were typically alarmed as they sorted out their sudden existence, and Fred spoke to put them at ease.

“We’re in the BB of R null room on North Wabash in Chicago. I’m real, and you guys are sims. My name is Fred, Batch 2B.”

“Hey, Fred,” said the sim to his left, coming up to speed. “I’m Rick, uh—all batches, I suppose.”

“And I’m Bob,” said the other. “All batches rolled into one.”

“Good, good, guys,” Fred said. “Listen, I cast you up to help me answer some vexing questions.”

“What kind of questions are they, Fred?” Rick said.

“Vexing, obviously,” Bob said.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Fred said. “Things that have been eating at me. I was hoping you guys could help me shed some light.”

“Be happy to try,” said Rick, and Bob nodded agreement.

“Thanks. Here goes: Have either of you ever done anything or said anything and then thought, Hey, that wasn’t very russlike of me?”

The two sims thought about it a moment, and Bob said, “What kind of thing, exactly?”

“Anything,” said Fred. “The way you conduct your duty or interact with your wife. The kind of vid you choose to watch or music or what booze you like or swear words you use. Hell, the way you shave yourself. Anything at all.”

Fred watched the shutters drop over his brothers’ eyes. “Come on, guys, don’t do that to me,” he said. “This is serious. I need your help, and this is a null room we’re in. I’m going to nuke your pin before I leave, so whatever you say stays here. I promise. Can’t you help a brother out?”

The appeal worked, and Rick said, “Can’t say that I’ve ever been embarrassed or self-conscious, or whatever, of anything I’ve ever said or done—outside the usual small stuff.”

“Thank you, Rick,” Fred said. “Thank you for that.” He turned to Bob.

Bob said, “I’m a russ, Fred. Therefore, anything I do is, by definition, russlike.”

“Fair enough,” Fred said, encouraged by Bob’s bit of solipsism—russes weren’t known to spout philosophy. “Tell me this, Bob. Have you ever just let go and said whatever came into your head without censoring it first?”

Bob chuckled and said, “You mean when I’m not drunk?”

Bob’s expression froze in mid-grin, and a moment later Rick’s went blank as well.

There was a long moment of excruciating silence, and then Rick said mildly, “Uh, Londenstane? You must be suffering an intolerable level of stress right now. Maybe you need a vacation? You should talk to Marcus about taking some time off.”

“I agree,” said Bob. “Take a long vacation.”

Fred sighed and said, “Thanks, guys. I’ll do that.” He deleted the sims, and Everyperson returned. Fred took a moment to formulate his next request and said, “This time, make me a composite of any russes who would actually want to contribute to the Book of Russ.”

Everyperson shrugged its shoulders. In the center of its chest burned the glyph for No Matches—Try Again?

“Screw it,” Fred said and pressed the button on the player to irradiate the datapin. Everyperson abruptly vanished. Fred took the expensive pin from the player and held it up. The tiny bulb of paste at its heart was cooked. He dropped it into his pocket and fished around for the other one. He still had a few minutes of null-room time left, so he opened the Book of Russ and added a new entry: “To my brothers cloned: Your response to this book is just plain sad. By the way, I was completely sober when I recorded it. Since none of you has seen fit to add your own observations, I offer the following list for your consideration:

“One, we russes are created with emotional muzzles locked to our personalities. I have removed mine.

“Two, although we often complain about the strictures of Applied People’s confidentiality policy, we actually prefer it that way because it reinforces our own inability to communicate.

“Three, why shouldn’t we be attracted to hinks? We’re men, right? No offense to our sisters, but why should we only find lulus, evangelines, and jennys appealing? Why do johns pine only for janes and juanitas, steves only for kellys, and jeromes only for jeromes? This strikes me as deliberate genetic programming, not any natural human sexual response. Our ur-brother, Thomas A., kept lists of women he desired to screw. He was attracted to a variety of women. And we’re not? Why is that?

“And finally, why don’t we own the patents to our own genome? Why is our genetic recipe the property of Applied People? Shouldn’t it belong to us? At least, shouldn’t we have a say in how it’s expressed?

“These are only a few of the questions I have. Suck on them for a while, my brothers. Signed: Fred Londenstane, Batch 2B.”

ALL THURSDAY AFTERNOON, the medtechs came in, and the medtechs went out. They fiddled obsessively with the tank, controller, and jacket, but Ellen Starke’s condition only worsened through the afternoon. The only positive thing they accomplished, it seemed to Mary, was to turn down the volume of the jacket’s breathless, pitiful cry.

The jenny Hattie visited in the late afternoon to tell Mary and Renata about a little meditation booth near the dining commons that had a decent grief program in case they needed a good cry. Starke was not expected to survive the night.

Quitting time was the quarter hour of french fries, an aroma guaranteed to send tired day workers home in search of dinner. But there was the trace of another, strange odor in the gatehouse. It was ripe and revolting, and Mary realized that it was the same odor that Fred had brought home on his skin and hair last night. The old coot in the Skytel.

At the outer pressure gate, she asked Reilly about the odor.

“I’m surprised you can still smell it,” he said. “We scoured this place pretty good.”

“But what is it?”

Reilly only shrugged; confidentiality was confidentiality.

Mary wished Reilly a pleasant evening, but he was getting off shift too, and he offered to accompany her and Renata to the train station. As they walked down the drive to the street, Mary picked up the odor here and there in the hedge.

At home she got a message from Fred who said he’d be late. She dialed up a pasta dish and ate it on the couch in front of the flatscreen. She searched the WAD and Evernet for background on the man who had appeared on the Skytel. Most of the stories were dated—he had been a celebrity of sorts in the last century—and these turned out to be what she was looking for.

Mary watched an old clip of the wedding ceremony of Samson P. Harger and Eleanor K. Starke in 2092. They were young, beautiful, and strong. Starke, especially, had a remarkable face, with wildly extravagant eyebrows. Samson looked dashing in a charcoal-gray tux. He exhibited a certain cockiness. He was an artist and package designer of note. This was right before his run-in with a homcom slug and his subsequent undoing. He was one of the first people ever seared—hence the odor. Some years later he joined a charter. That was how Fred had run into him last night.

Mary watched the clip of Samson’s arrest by slug and bloomjumpers at an outdoor café. The other patrons stampeded away, his wife among them.

There were no pictures of the three of them together: mother, stepfather, and baby Ellen, but from what information Mary could glean, her client in the tank at Roosevelt Clinic had lived with the stinker for a short period of time during her infancy.

“Call Wee Hunk,” she said.

The little muscle-bound persona appeared before the couch and said, “Good evening, Myr Skarland. What can I do for you?”

“You asked us to keep our eyes and ears open,” she replied, “and to report anything unusual or suspicious.”

“Yes?”

“It might be nothing,” she said, “but when I was leaving the clinic by the South Gate today, I smelled something strange.”

“Yes, I heard your exchange with the guard. You smelled the odor of a seared individual who was turned away from the clinic.” An aerial view appeared on the flatscreen of a girl and lifechair traveling in circles on the greensmoat.

Mary said, “But he’s Ellen’s stepfather. Why is Concierge obstructing his visit?”

Wee Hunk seemed impressed with her information. “The doctors assure us that it’s too late for visitors to have any effect on Ellen’s condition, and we have no cause to doubt them in that regard.”

“Shouldn’t we at least try? And why was he turned away in the first place? Doesn’t he have a right to see his daughter?”

“So many questions,” Wee Hunk said. “Without intruding on family privacy, allow me to just say that it’s a long story. But when Ellen wakes up, we’ll add her stepfather’s name to her FDO list. Until then, there is very little his presence would help.”

MEEWEE TRAILED BEHIND Wee Hunk and an arbeitor to the null suite next to the bunker shelter. “I still don’t see why I need to go in,” he said. “It’ll strip me of my implants, which will take weeks to regenerate.”

“Trust me, Bishop, it’s necessary,” the caveman replied. When they reached the in-lock, the hatch irised open. The Starke null suite was no economy model, and its locks could accommodate a dozen people at once. But Meewee entered alone, the mentar stayed out in the hallway, and the arbeitor entered only long enough to deposit a paste canister on a shelf.

“See you in a couple of hours,” Wee Hunk said from the hallway. When the hatch shut, and Meewee was alone, the mentar reappeared and said, “Please challenge my integrity.” Wee Hunk was now a miniature man, lounging in a miniature armchair next to the paste canister on the shelf. Meewee was perplexed; he had just challenged the mentar in the bunker shelter, but since this was a backup, which was cut off from its prime, he did so, and it passed.

“You should get into the habit of challenging me every few minutes from now on,” Wee Hunk said.

“Why so often?”

“Let’s just call it a precaution.”

The in-lock utilized gas instead of expressing visola to purge bodies of machinery. The gas process took much longer, but it was surer and gentler on living tissue, and it made Meewee drowsy. He lay on a couch and fell asleep. He was awakened by the noise of the inner hatch unbolting. An arbeitor entered from inside the null suite and handed him a chilled liter bottle of Orange Flush. Then it lifted the paste canister from the shelf and went into the suite, with Wee Hunk and his armchair floating behind.

Meewee followed them to a large conference room where dozens of machines were busily assembling other machines. Meewee looked around and tried to make sense of the carts, cartons, and crates. When he saw the empty hernandez tank, he said, “Ah, our clinic.” He did a double take when he noticed a woman among the toiling machines.

This was apparently the reaction Wee Hunk was waiting for, because he chortled and said, “Bishop Meewee, I’d like to introduce Dr. Rouselle.”

The doctor came over to shake his hand. “The honor is mine, Myr Meewee,” she said. She was an imposing woman, a couple of heads taller than the former bishop.

Wee Hunk said, “The only way I could entice Dr. Rouselle to leave her Birthplace post in Ethiopia to be smuggled here to save the life of one little rich girl was to assure her that you personally required it.”

“Thank you for coming,” Meewee said, “but tell me, what is Birthplace doing with a revivification specialist in patch fly country?”

“I am there for running the sterilization universal,” the doctor said.

“Dr. Rouselle,” Wee Hunk explained, “gave up a lucrative reviv practice in Geneva to volunteer for Birthplace’s campaign to stamp out human reproduction. Thus she’s both qualified and unfettered by obligations to the Fagan Group. And as far as I can ascertain, no one knows she’s here except us.”

The doctor led her visitors on a brief tour of the nascent clinic and assured them she would be ready to receive her special patient in about a week.

“We don’t have a week, Doctor,” Wee Hunk said. “You’ll have to be ready by tomorrow.”

The doctor shook her head. “But it is testing and to calibrate and season the amnio fluid,” she complained.

The little caveman got out of his floating armchair and grew to life-size. “Tomorrow,” he repeated, “and don’t forget the portable tank.”

She shrugged her shoulders and pointed to the bottle of Orange Flush that Meewee hadn’t yet opened. “The kidneys are desiring this, Myr Meewee.”

He assured her he would drink it, and he and Wee Hunk took their leave and went to an empty conference room. Wee Hunk said, “Your name opened the door, Bishop, but what clinched the deal was my promise to buy her a complete peripatetic field hospital. Our doctor drives a hard bargain.”

Meewee opened the bottle of diuretic and drained it. He sat at the conference table and belched. “You mentioned a portable tank,” he said. “Does that mean you finally have a plan of action?”

Wee Hunk took a seat opposite him. “Yes, and now that we’re here, I can run it by you.”

ON THE WAY back to the locks an hour later, Wee Hunk said, “Don’t forget to challenge me repeatedly, Bishop.”

“I will.”

The former bishop entered the out-lock, but the arbeitor remained in the suite with Wee Hunk’s paste canister. “Aren’t you coming out with me?” Meewee said.

“No, I’ll remain here.”

“But you can’t communicate with your prime from in here.”

“That’s a small matter.”

Meewee nodded. “What should I tell you out there? Did you know you were going to stay inside?”

“Not really, but don’t say anything. I’ll figure it out.”

The inner hatch did not close, and after a few moments, Meewee said, “Was there something else?”

“Yes,” the caveman replied. “There’s something I’ve been debating whether or not to tell you.”

When he did not continue, Meewee prompted him, “You still don’t trust me, do you?”

“A hole in one,” replied the mentar. “But given the situation, I suppose I have no choice. Have you ever wondered why Eleanor named your mentar Arrow?”

“Not really. I always took it to be one of those childish names like Spike or Fluffy that people like to give pets. Or, no offense, like your own name.”

“Ellen named me when she was a child, but Eleanor named Arrow, and Eleanor possessed too literal a temperament to misname anything.”

“What’s your point?”

“A couple of days ago, when I told you that I don’t know Cabinet’s kill code, I was telling the truth. But Cabinet might have mine, or might have had it before it lost the ability to use Starkese. It occurs to me that Arrow might have everyone’s, including my own. Something to keep in mind.”

AFTER LEAVING THE BB of R, Fred tubed across town to the Longyear Center. On the way he installed a new skullcap on his head. He had removed his name patch, and the russes he passed along the way paid no special attention to him.

Longyear Center, stripped of its stylish pretensions, was nothing more than a tank farm for the middle class, which apparently included UDJD employees. In the lobby he told the guard on duty that he wanted to visit Heloise Costa. The guard was a russ.

“Certainly, myr,” the guard said, but when Fred swiped the sign-in medallion, he gave Fred a second look. Fred could see the wheels turning in his brother’s head: So this is the guy, and that’s his hink. But all he said was, “Here’s your usher line, Myr Londenstane.”

Fred strolled tiled corridors that separated vast wards containing thousands of hernandez tanks arranged in ranks and rows. He, himself, had once spent an unmemorable fortnight in one of these, recovering from a bad laser burn.

Fred followed the usher line to Ward 286D. Several times he had to step aside to make way for trains of medbeitors and carts. He followed the usher line to a cubicle and stepped through its privacy curtain. The cubicle was only slightly larger than the tank and controller that occupied it. The tank was full of a thick purplish growth medium within which was suspended the reassembled body of Inspector Costa.

She was either asleep or off in some jacketscape. Her skin still clearly showed where she had been sliced into five pieces by plasma rings. The seams were bright red; the major one ran from the tip of her right shoulder diagonally down her chest to the knob of her left hip. It had cut a breast in two, just below the nipple. Her snatch, he couldn’t help but notice, was tufted with ordinary curly brunette hair, and Fred realized that he’d expected it to be shaved into a heart or fleur-de-lis or some such exotic shape like a lulu’s. Costa was no lulu.

Hernandez tanks weren’t exactly erotic settings, and nude bodies floating in them tended to resemble lab specimens more than sex muffins, but Fred was impressed by how thoroughly turned off he was at the sight of Costa’s nakedness.

When he looked up again, she was watching him. Hello, Londenstane, she said and opaqued the bottom half of her tank. So nice of you to visit.

“I wanted to see if they found all the right pieces,” he said.

I believe they have, though some of them don’t work as well as they used to.

“Give it time.”

Oh, I know. I’ve only been in here three days, and it feels like a prison term.

There followed an awkward silence, and Fred realized they had absolutely nothing to talk about. She was a hink. He was a clone. End of story. They spent a few more excruciating minutes exchanging small talk, and then he wished her a speedy recovery and left. Retracing his steps to the lobby, he wondered if that was all it had been, her superficial resemblance to a lulu.

There were two russes at the registration desk when he exited, and their eyes followed him out the door and all the way to the pedway.

Riding in the bead car home, Fred said, “Marcus?”

Yes, Londenstane?

“Marcus, I was wondering—”

I’m listening.

Fred was wondering whether it would do any good to delete the—he couldn’t even say it to himself—what a pretentious name—the Book of Russ—so apocryphal-sounding. “Marcus, can I delete the entries I made to our Heads-Up Log over the last few days?”

Ordinarily, no.

“Ordinarily?”

Do you no longer espouse the views you expressed there?

“I don’t know. I may have been confused.”

In that case, something might be possible. We may be able to do more than simple deletion.

“Explain.”

We believe you may be suffering a mild form of HALVENE intoxication as a result of your duty on Monday. Such reactions have been known to cause aberrant thoughts and loss of judgment. If a healthscan bears this out in your case, we would be able to not only delete the entire Book of Russ, but expurgate it.

“What does that mean?”

In its place we would substitute an explanation of the injury you suffered in the line of duty. Brothers would be advised to disregard your previous statements as having been beyond your control.

Fred could hardly believe his ears. In one stroke they could make it all go away. “You can really do this?”

Yes, contingent on the results of the healthscan, which you may undergo at any time. Would you like me to schedule you an appointment?

“Yes! The sooner the better.”

In that case I am diverting your car to MEDFAC now.

AT THE MEDFAC facility, they were expecting him. The charge nurse, a jenny, pointed to a door and said, “Go piddle in booth twelve.” He did and when he came out, she said, “That’s all for now. Your Marcus will contact you with the results.”

Fred felt like a new man.

FRED BURST INTO the apartment and cried, “Mary, guess what.”

“Screen off,” Mary said, and the living room flatscreen went dark, but not before Fred caught a glimpse of a park scene, a bee’s-eye view of crowds, benches, trees—a lifechair. “Yes?” Mary said. She was dressed to go out, and she wore a valet broach on her lapel.

“Never mind that. What are you up to?”

She couldn’t look him in the eye. “Oh, nothing, Fred. I’ve had a rough day, and I’m going for a walk in the park.”

“I’ve had a rough day too,” Fred said. “I’ll go with you.”

“I thought you had the day off. Why don’t you stay here and have some dinner. I won’t be long.”

“I’ll eat park food.”

THEY PASSED TENNIS courts, skating rinks, and equestrian trails. In an open field, a sky-holo competition was under way. Brilliant, melting landscapes of fairy castles filled cubic acres of airspace. The artists stood under their creations, boldly slashing the sky with their arms, flinging meadows and forests and dragons into place.

The fourth tier of Millennium Park had a Busker’s Cross where two busy footpaths intersected. It was crowded with park-goers and street performers. Mary and Fred hurried past the Machete Death Grudge and their blood-soaked stage. Nearby, under an American elm, was parked a solitary lifechair. Fred offered Mary a package of nose filters, but she declined. She realized her mistake a moment later as they approached the chair. It was the odor, all right, the one she sought, but a thousand times stronger than she could have imagined. By the time they reached the chair, vomit tickled the back of her throat. Maybe that was why he wasn’t so welcome at the clinic.

When she first saw the stinker, lying in the basket of his lifechair, Mary doubted that anyone who looked like that could possibly be alive. But he was, or at least his eyes were. His piebald head reminded her of his stepdaughter’s skull in the tank.

“Hello again, Myr Kodiak,” Fred said. “It’s Fred Londenstane. And this is my wife, Mary Skarland, who I told you about last night.”

The lifechair, not the man, replied, “Samson says, Good evening, myren. Have we met?”

“Yes, last night, at Rondy,” Fred repeated.

“I, of course, remember you, Commander Londenstane,” said the chair, “but Sam’s mind is wandering a little. And he tells me to roll over to that bench so the two of you can sit comfortably.”

“There’s no need,” Mary said. “Besides, the bench is occupied.”

The old man cackled, and the chair said, “Sam says, Believe me, it’ll be free by the time we reach it.”

And so it was. The woman and man occupying it fled before they were halfway there. Mary sat on the abandoned bench and gave Fred a look.

Fred said, “I think I’ll go stretch my legs.”

“Sam says, Why not go stand next to Kitty’s pay post. Prime the pump with a millionth; the gawkers there can’t seem to figure it out for themselves.”

“Your housemeet is here?” Fred said. He had walked right past her thinking she was a park statue. Fred went back along the path to look at her. Even up close it was hard to dispel the illusion. She wore the costume of a ballerina, with white tights and tutu, white slippers and ribbons, and a white tiara crowning her head. Her hair, skin, and nails were also white. Even the irises of her eyes were white. She was an alabaster statue, arms arched gracefully over her head, one leg bent slightly at the knee, most of her weight supported on her toes. Her trembling calf muscles broke the illusion, and Fred knew how much strength it took to hold such a pose.

Quickly, to relieve her strain, Fred swiped her pay post, not a millionth, but a ten-thousandth, and the post immediately resumed playing some piece of classical music in midmeasure. The ballerina statue came magically to life. She completed a pirouette, and then a leap, and half a plié when, just as jarringly as it had started, the music cut out, and the dancer froze.

Fred blushed. A ten-thousandth didn’t buy much on the fourth tier of Millennium Park. He swiped her post again, upping his donation to a tenth.

The reanimated dancer completed her plié as though never interrupted. With a sleight-of-foot, she seemed to command a theater-sized stage, instead of her meager porta-platform. She ran across it and leaped open-legged as though across an abyss. She seemed to defy gravity. She moved with fluid ease. A gathering audience watched with appreciation and swiped her post regularly each time the music faltered.

Fred was mesmerized. This was clearly no child. She was a mature performer and athlete in a girl’s small body. Something wet hit him on the cheek, and he wiped it off with a finger. It was her sweat, proof of her exertion, and like everything else about her, it was milky white. Without thinking, he brought it to his lips to taste.

The compacted ballet continued without pause for an enchanted time. Then, suddenly, there was a piercing sound on the other path. Everyone in Kitty’s small audience looked, including Fred. A full-throated cry of misery and outrage came from a pram that was steered by a jenny in a nanny uniform. The jenny was accompanied by two unsmiling russes and a huge black-and-white dog. The jenny told the pram to stop, and she popped open its lid, revealing a bawling, beet-red baby within.

“She needs her nappies changed,” the jenny announced to no one in particular.

The ballerina’s audience abandoned her for the real child, all except Fred. He swiped her pay post another couple tenths when he feared the music would stop. He was about to again when the music simply faded away. The ballerina didn’t freeze but instead took a bow. Fred, an audience of one, clapped. The pay post threw a holo curtain around the dancer and stage, and Fred was left standing in front of a sign that read, “Intermezzo.” For a full minute he stood there, unsure of what was happening to him.

The nanny’s dog approached the pay post and sniffed it with interest. Fred snapped, “You! Outta here!” The dog regarded him with a placid expression. It had one blue eye and one brown.

“Trapper. Here, boy,” called a russ. Fred turned to see one of the baby’s bodyguards holding a soiled diaper. “You see a trash chute around here?” he asked Fred.

Fred fought to keep a smirk off his face, but failed. All the years of training to bring this man into an elite corps of personal security providers—for what? a fistful of dirty diaper? “Such a deal,” Fred said. The russ just wagged his head in agreement.

“Leave it here,” said a girl’s voice from behind the holo curtain.

“Come again, myr,” the bodyguard said, trying to discern the source of the voice. “You want the little one’s mess?”

An open kit bag was pushed from behind the curtain. “Yes, the mess,” the girl said. “You thought I meant the dog?”

The russ wrapped up the diaper into a neat little leakproof package and dropped it into the kit bag. He winked at Fred and said, “Such a deal,” before returning to his own client.

Fred wanted to tell him he had the wrong idea, that Fred wasn’t working for this girl, but the opportunity had passed. The kit bag was pulled back through the curtain, and again Fred was alone, confused, and tongue-tied.

Myr Londenstane? a voice said. It was Marcus.

Fred took several steps away from the curtain and said, “Yes, Marcus.”

I’m afraid I have some troubling news. Your test results rule out HALVENE poisoning.

Fred knew it had been too easy to be true.

Your health signs are nominal, the mentar continued. We’ll have to explore other avenues for the source of your recent behavior. May I schedule a psychological evaluation for you?

Fred sighed. “Yeah, go ahead.”

Mary and the chair approached, and Mary said, “Fred, what’s wrong?” Kitty stepped out through the curtain, a towel draped over her sharp shoulders, and the chair introduced her to Mary. Mary grasped the girl’s small hand, and there followed an awkward moment when no one knew what to say. Samson had fallen asleep.

Mary broke the silence. “I was watching you from over there,” she said to Kitty. “You are a marvel.”

“Thank you, I’m sure,” the girl said and curtsied. She pointedly avoided looking at Fred, and Fred pointedly avoided looking at her.

Mary said, “Well, it’s been a lovely time. We should visit the park more often.”

On the way back to the APRT, Fred said, “Did you get what you came for?”

“Time will tell.”

“Don’t do anything stupid.”

“That goes for you too, Fred.”