 
### Businesslike Confidence!

### or, Fifty Shades of Beige

Samuel Glavney

Published by Samuel Glavney at Smashwords

Copyright 2016 Samuel Glavney

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an editional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

For My Dad

Who Encourages Thought-Crimes

Even While Guarding His Own and Others' Property

From Behind Electronic Eyes

### Contents!

Part 1: Thot[tickr] vs Our Man

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Part 2: The Beast of Jobs, Texas

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Part 3: Unlock the Potentail Inside YOU!

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Acknowledgements!

About the Author
Part 1: Thot[tickr] vs Our Man
Chapter 1

WELL! THINGS SURE ARE QUIET THESE DAYS, AREN'T THEY? Nothing but the whooshing of well-lubricated machinery all around! Rhythmic. Not a squeak or rattle to be heard. I like to imagine that certain mornings, drinking premium coffee as you speed down the open freeway towards some interdepartmental meeting-- Maximizing Linearity in Operations for Higher Unit-Cost Savings, say-- you even take a moment to ask yourself: But what happened?

What happened to the scandals? The trainwrecks? The mass shootings? Where did they bury the conmen? Hmm? The skeletons and the hatchets and the rich, successful sociopaths? What happened to all that grumbling about war across the Pacific? The trusted priest placing his hands where his hands must never go? And here's another thing: why hasn't a US senator forced my gag reflex lately with some disgusting soundbite?

Now, that is strange!

Maybe you haven't noticed? It's possible. People get busy. There's a lot of information out there; you can just about drown in it. Believe me, I understand! Maybe you think that all of this is nothing more than the march of progress? The Algorithm Economy finally paying dividends? And who can feel scandalized by that?

Maybe people are becoming kinder? Human nature, more decent? And, meanwhile, that quiet...

Tell me that you don't notice, now that I've pointed it out. Take a breath and turn down your constatainment feed and listen a minute. Listen to the air. Have you ever been out on the edge of town, standing before a great, undeveloped field and felt such a stillness? What was the sky like? Do you remember? Maybe it's been a while-- you're so busy-- so I'll remind you: the sky was dark and heavy and it rolled above you like spilt oil. And even in the dry stillness it smelled like rain.

That's it. You'll smell it any minute now, I think. And any day you'll hear the first distant rumbles coming from the sky. We'll all hear them.

Oh? you may be saying to yourself. And just who the heck is this guy? What makes him think he can come along and predict the apocalypse better than any other run-of-the-mill Nostradamus? I don't have time to spare for every quack who comes wandering in out of the wilderness and hijacks my constatainment feed!

In which case, please allow me introduce myself. My name is Walid El Amin and I know everything about you. Everything.

I know your middle name and your shoe size and your favorite color and your favorite song on your favorite album. I know your position on torture and your weight at birth and your blood type and SHUS+H number and your sexual kinks and how they relate to your position on torture. I know whether you're a dog person or a cat person or a homeless person or a hoarder. I know the minimum amount of social and financial pressure it would take to give you an emotional breakdown. I know whether you'll choose Mexican or Thai takeout on a rainy Thursday night in October to celebrate a raise into a position you don't really care for.

And, needless to say, I know who you voted for for mayor of Jobs, Texas!

But don't worry: I don't know a thing about _you_ \-- the you I'm speaking to, anyway. No, my hypothetical friend, _you_ are completely anonymous. But give me a name-- a picture doesn't hurt!-- and give me a few hours. Then, lo and behold: I'll be leading the proud bearer of that name around by the nose! They'll be buying me little gifts-- unasked for!-- and smiling that nervous, flinching smile they'll develop. Maybe you've never seen them smile like that before? Just wait!

How will I have gained such total possession over this person? Well, ladies and gents, let me lay upon your tender brows the stinking truth that shapes my work: Nobody's clean.

"May he who is without sin cast the first stone," right? Now, I'm no Biblical scholar, but I know a catch twenty-two when I see one! So let's put down those rocks. And listen. Everyone on this planet has, once upon a time, said something stupid, haven't they? Something hurtful and hateful and dreadful and disgusting. Something that makes the asshole tighten and the soul shiver! Even the greatest of us-- the kindest and the most selfless-- has a low point. A weakness. A forbidden pleasure. In order to produce that flinching smile in another human being, all I have to do is dig up their secret something. And threaten to lay it out to rot under the sun.

Which just happens to be what I do for a living.

I'm a professional and a highly-compensated one. My title? Target-Point Procured Data Analyst and Management Specialist. But that's for the rubes. For a more-select clientele, I'm what they call a Datacomber. A Comb.

But, please, call me Wally. Yes, _that_ Wally El Amin. The blood-covered one from the famous footage. The one who... well, anyway, have I got your attention?

And since it doesn't matter anymore, let me tell you _why_ I did what I did. See, I stumbled upon the secret to that deafening quiet. So let me tell you why, in fact, things are going so hideously well.

Then we'll see how much you feel like going to that meeting.

***

It was Dick Sockwren who brought the beige man to my attention.

Now, admit it! That name sounds familiar. Yes, a little bell is ringing in your brain. Richard Gordon Sockwren. It's a name that skirts along the edges of things, hunting for purchases like an octopus under a jetty. But where have you heard it? Did he have something to do with those gorillas that broke out of that zoo in Baton Rouge? No. Was he an undersecretary of housing? Not quite! For some reason, the name conjures the image of a hot-air balloon circumnavigating Antarctica. Is he... some kind of... cold-weather balloon designer?

But that's just silly!

You've heard of him, though. Heard people talking about him. Maybe you've seen him in one of _Forbes'_ listicles? 'Twelve Sexiest Back-Door Influence Peddlers?' 'Ten Most-Eligible Illuminati Bachelors?' 'The Best-Dressed Men Who Secretly Run Your Life?' He's important, yes, for some cloudy, tip-o'-the-tongue reason... so go ahead: conduct a knowledge query. You'll find plenty of results for _that_ name.

Better?

That's right, folks: Richard Gordon Sockwren, Senior Vice-President of Arthur:Blair Targeted Advertising. I used to deal with execs like him every day.

Our meeting took place in the cavernous Las Vegas office I humbly call, 'the Batcave.' I was sitting behind my desk, seven or eight helio windows hovering above my head, and Sockwren was staring at me through his thick, orange-framed HUD glasses. He was recording me. He was recording my face and my hands-- what you might call, 'the furtiveness of my movements'-- and he was sending a live feed of this footage to a team of specially-trained women in the Bay Area who would be scouring my body language like buzzards on a hunk of roadkill. Hunting for value. Which was fine, ladies and gents, because I was recording him right back! And since the Batcave's recording equipment is much more invasive than the dinky, portable set Sockwren wore in his glasses, I figured I was getting the better end of the deal.

First impressions? My guest was wearing the khaki pants and dull, business-casual shirt that is practically a uniform for guys like him. His heart was beating steadily and he wasn't perspiring a bit.

Sockwren was opening with pleasantries, so I let my mind wander. I wanted everyone reading me to know that I was only giving their boss maybe half of my attention. With clients like Dick Sockwren, it's usually better to open cool. They're so used to being treated like royalty that they only start to take you seriously when you make them work.

So I had my HUD's constatainment feed set to _The Most Dangerous Game_ and in the corner of my glasses I was watching a nicely-edited mass shooting from earlier in the morning. The location was a high school in northern Ohio and I was looking through the hours-old viewpoint of the shooter. _The Game_ identified him as Gary Plinth. He'd be dead by now, but in the footage he'd only just gunned down two classmates and several armed security men. The viewpoint would switch to their HUDs in the moment before death so you could watch this blonde boy with empty eyes lean above you, stick a polished Colt to your forehead and blow you a kiss.

Also, Sockwren was talking. What exactly was he saying? Let me just pull that audio up. Here's Dick around minute twelve of our meeting: "-- gotta meet this guy. And you will. He's the real deal, Wally. I haven't met anyone like him in twenty years, easy. Might be, I've never met anyone like him. I'm excited. I think this guy could go all the way to the top."

Excited? You wouldn't know it. Sockwren's heart kept a steady beat.

And, in _The Most Dangerous Game_ , I watched Gary empty a round of ammunition into a line of closed lockers. In case anyone was hiding in that tight darkness. Gary was talking to us, narrating his killing. They like to do that: they like to explain themselves or recite sad, confused manifestos from memory. His voice whispered directly into my cochlear implant: "These fucking fakes, every last one of them. Everything affected, all affect, nothing real. But look at this! We inject a little reality, yes REALITY, into their lives and suddenly we have the measure of my peers. We see the fear that they've hidden deep, deep, until TODAY. Until I make them LIVE IT--"

My client cleared his throat and I shifted my gaze. Back to work.

"Alright, Mr. Sockwren," I said. "Your man sounds like a contender. And when do I get to meet him?"

"Not yet. Soon. We want you to monitor him first. Obviously, the normal background checks. And go wild, Comb. We did. A five-year, no-bid contract with Arthur:Blair says you won't find so much as a speeding ticket."

A no-bid contract? My attention was piqued.

But all I said was: "Anybody can hire a reputation firm to bury their past, Mr. Sockwren. A good one will have done the kind of work your people might not be able to dig up. But even the best can't hide from me."

Sockwren's heart kept pumping smooth and steady. No increase in blood pressure. Low perspiration.

Sockwren said: "You don't have to tell me how good you are, Wally. That's why I came to you. Even so, the bet stands. Find something-- anything-- that can be used against him in the mayor's race and you win the no-bid contract. In addition, of course, to your normal fees."

"You're handing this to me," I said. "You realize I'm going to find something, Mr. Sockwren. I always do. We haven't shaken on it..."

From the corner of my eye came movement: Gary had found someone. She was identified by _The Game_ as: 'Marget Surrey, Intern Nutritionist, twenty-seven.' She was alone, standing before the closed doors of the gymnasium. Had she come to reason with the shooter? To slow or distract him? She shook like a willow in November. Her naked eyes glittered with tears. My narrator shrieked: "Bitch! Cow! I'M the teacher today! This is what it feels like to LOSE! I'm going to TEACH you what it feels like to LOSE!" Then a pause and an almost thoughtful: "But where's your HUD, Ms. Surrey?"

And Sockwren was saying: "If I'm wrong? Then it's the contract in your pocket, Comb, and information we can use. But. The bet stands and I'm confident. I don't think you're going to find anything on George Morales. He's a heckuva guy."

I shrugged. So Sockwren's people hadn't yet found anything? That was actually impressive; I didn't figure he was hiring slouches. But all it really meant was that this Morales was careful. Which, in my experience, means sex fiend. The squeaky-clean ones have usually figured out some ever-shifting code for soliciting sex in airport bathrooms and truck stops and Carolite communes and the darker corners of the aartinet.

'Travelers,' I call them, and I've got a system for catching them with their pants down, too.

So I said: "I'll be checking out Morales' digital footprint. Every status update, email, post, search, comment, chat, 'like', job application, knowledge query, 'backpat', message, and emotiwoople your heckuva guy has ever produced. They're all still floating out there. I'll find them."

The sides of Sockwren's mouth turned up. His eyes behind the blinking lenses of his glasses dilated and his teeth ground together. His testicles retracted. Yes, I was monitoring for all of that, too. His heartbeat increased. He said: "Naturally. That's your service, isn't it? And you'll be digging through his marriage and how he spends his money and what he likes to watch on constatainment. But let me add one more thing to the grocery list, Comb. Every day, for one hour in the afternoon, our man is going to plug into thot[tickr]. We want you there when he does. His thoughts are yours."

That-- let the record show-- caused me to catch my breath.

Meanwhile, in the corner of my glasses, Marget Surrey, Intern Nutritionist, kept shaking her head like a helio sprite set to repeat. She gripped the locked door behind her. I heard the faint record of her voice. She was rambling: "Today's your day, Gary. The whole country will be talking about you. Today, at least. And you must be recording this, right? For that awful channel. You know, I've watched a few sprees, myself? But I got drunk one night with some of the teachers and we watched two or three sprees and we joked one of us would be famous someday... because schools and malls and offices, that's where it happens... and I know how it works, Gary. The _Dangerous Game_ people. They take our last moments from our glasses. They call it the 'victim angle'--"

Sockwren broke in: "You'll be the only one with access to Mr. Morales thoughts. My people won't have access. I won't have access. Hell. Morales, himself, won't be able to go back over his own thoughts. They'll be all yours. Of course, we'll have you sign all the regular non-disclosure agreements..."

"Damn right you will! This stuff is like live explosives strapped to your man."

Sockwren scowled. "'Our man,' Wally. He's 'our man' until you stop getting paid. And don't be so sure. Once this trial period is over-- if the results are what we hope-- we're going to get Morales to thot[tickr], for an hour every day, to the public--"

"Bullshit!" I screeched, and from inside my head Marget Surrey said: "I broke them, Gary. I broke my glasses. You get to destroy lives today-- play God-- but you don't get to see it through _my_ eyes. You don't get to pout and pose when you pull the trigger. No victim angle."

Sockwren's eyes widened and his voice lowered, but his heart ticked steady as a Swiss clock hanging in a train station on the Rhine: "That's our promise to the voters: Inclusion! A level of transparency never before provided!"

"No victim angle?"

Now listen to me laugh! You should know I hate that sound as much as you do: it reminds me of a mouse sneezing into a tuba. An unnatural, effeminate wheeze! Oh! What a stupid noise!

At least there was no fear in it, yet.

***

One last thing before we move forward: I've made a point of telling you that I'm a professional. Many of you, out there, are also professionals. And some of you professionals, listening to this, may be saying to yourselves: "Ignoring your client? Laughing in his face? Watching constatainment? That doesn't seem very professional to me! Not at all! Can I really trust such a coarse person?"

Allow me to respond.

***

Thot[tickr] is an online service that reads your mind. But you already know that. For months everyone was calling it, The Next Big Thing. The Game Changer. A service that would let you follow, second by second, the thoughts of your favorite celebrity BFF or crocodile wrestler or inflammatory uncle or swimsuit model or Iranian mullah.

From the 'How it Works' section on thot[tickr]'s website:

Developed from Israeli Defense Force communication hardware, the thot[tickr] system allows for an unobtrusive 'plug in' through the muscles at the base of the skull. Once the thotnode has connected, it sends out microfilament receptors along the spine and into the cranial cavity. These microfilaments are able to pick up the neural 'echoes' of your Conscious Concerted-Effort Thoughts (CCeTs, pronounced: 'see-sets'). These CCeTs are converted to text and sent to a specified online account.

CCeTs. Concious thoughts. So far, so good?

***

Keep in mind: CCeTs have nothing to do with your subconscious thoughts. Those are called Unconscious Underlying Survival Directives (UuSDs, pron: 'ooo-seds') and there's a different machine for reading them. Maybe you've seen clips of some of the women and men hooked into _that_ machine? They wear hoods over their faces and their identities aren't given. In one of these videos you'll see Male School Teacher, Kansas City, Missouri, getting hooked up, and some droll voice off camera will be intoning something like: Test subject has no criminal record, secondary interviews indicate happy home life, subject displays strong pro-social tendencies... gives to charities... digs wells... rescues kittens... candidate for sainthood... and I, the researcher running this experiment, have also found him to be an all-around-swell guy...

Then they hook Male School Teacher, Kansas City, Missouri, up to the UuSD machine. And the machine just starts screaming.

"Fuck!" the machine screams. Then it screams "Fuck!" and then it screams "Fuck!" Once it's gotten that out of its system, it screams "Kill!" Then it screams "Rape!" Then it screams "Tits!" Then it's right on back to "Fuck!" The thing is, the machine isn't putting some strong interpretation on all of this. The school teacher's unconscious is purposely framing these directives in the strongest possible language. The octave level, too, is just the UuSD machine's interpretation of the strength of these directives. Somewhere down the line, you finally get "Shelter!" and "Food!" and "Dominategroup!" but first you've got to slog through "Findenemy" and "Killenemy!" and "Fuck!"

And don't try coddling yourself thinking Male School Teacher, Kansas City, Missouri, is nothing but some freaky, heartland outlier! Let me direct your attention to "Female NGO Director, San Francisco, California." Now follow along, ladies and gents, as she plugs in:

"Fuck!" "Fuckthestrongest!" "Hoard!" "Fuck!" "Hoard!" "Killthatbitch!" "Killthatbitch!" "Dominatethatbitch!" "Fuckthestrongest!" "Usethestrongest!" "Hoard!"

Et cetera.

But enough "animal thoughts." Nobody in her right mind would give the public a glimpse of her UuSDs without the promise of total anonymity. No, Sockwren was talking to me about releasing Morales' CCeTs: those thoughts which society and upbringing and personal ethics and education have had a hand in shaping. Those safe thoughts we allow ourselves.

"An hour a day?" some of you may ask. "What's the harm? All Morales would have to do is think the right thoughts!"

I want you to think about that for a moment.

***

If you look it up, you'll find that thot[tickr] advertises itself as a transcription and diary service. Writers of memoirs make use of it on long walks. Doctors and engineers plug into the program and use it as a personal scribe throughout their shifts. It's a wonderful tool! The tiniest detail-- everything the user thinks-- is captured and held in text as though hardened in amber. Nothing is lost. Not a single thought! And everything is archived, to be brought up and reviewed later.

Of course, the privacy settings are excellent. The layers of password protections are world class. But these protections need to be good: because your idle thoughts, in between diagnosing pulmonary failure or a poorly-welded seam, may not be "Rape!" "Kill!" "Hoard!" but...

In their own way, actually, CCeTs are worse.

Let's examine the sad story of State Representative Martha Crowley of Vermont. Remember her? Here was a trailblazing politician with exactly the same idea as George Morales: she would connect to thot[tickr] while meeting with constituents. She would display her thoughts in real time to a public account. She must have thought it would be like talking to people. She must have thought that she would be able to stay 'on message.'

Actually, I snagged a copy of her thotarchive before they locked down her public account. Why not let's have a peak?

<RepCrowley@thot[tickr]:public/archive> _...cold! / just burrows in like a tick into the back of your head / feels strange like a tick oooof burrowing digging but there we go / are we transmitting? wow! / the words right there on the window! / wow it really picks up every little thing / sensitive little dealer aint you starting to wonder if this is a good idea ah larry what did you / talk me into this time? / haha / now larry stick with me with the app turned on / so we know whats getting put out / i know larry / i know everythings getting put out..._

There's pages and pages of this. Pages and pages and pages. But it begins to get interesting a bit later when Crowley is out on the street with constituents:

<RepCrowley@thot[tickr]:public/archive> _...oh hey showing a bit much are we? not what i would choose to wear if i were as full as you but then i have self respect instead of two little girls and not even the whiff of a husband / oh shit / shit shit shit! / ah larry? wait a second? larry? are you watching the ticker? did you see a / um / please tell me that you didn't see..._

This is where Crowley first realizes how little control we have over what pops into our heads. The mind wanders and gets bored. Things slip through the cracks. Highlights from that afternoon:

<RepCrowley@thot[tickr]:public/archive> _...jessica lambley queen skinny bitch of burlington business association / here for another twelve pounds of flesh / she could use one or two / herself / can't wait for another round of fuck ah god its all going through isnt it? goodbye fifth largest donation of the year..._

<RepCrowley@thot[tickr]:public/archive> _...are you / seriously / still talking to me? how can you / seriously / believe anyone should get to talk this much..._

<RepCrowley@thot[tickr]:public/archive> _...are you high right now? is this kid high? / is my entire / district / filled with nothing but goddamn user chuckfucks?..._

<RepCrowley@thot[tickr]:public/archive> _...what an ugly / face / you have..._

<RepCrowley@thot[tickr]:public/archive> _...its itching again doesn't that lotion do anything? / do i need to see the doctor again? no don't scratch it yet wait and dont / christ / dont think about scratching your..._

And finally:

<RepCrowley@thot[tickr]:public/archive> _...this is a bit of a disaster isn't it larry / larry? / there's a lot getting i mean i never knew i thought all these things until they were written down they just flit through your head so fast hey larry where are you? you're / supposed to be watching my back here im / alone im alone theyre going to eat me alive im alone that fucking coward already knows / he must know hes / fired hes fired hes fired..._

Crowley starts to play defense:

<RepCrowley@thot[tickr]:public/archive> _...these are my constituents / and im their representative / and we are working together / for the district / these are my constituents and im / their / representative / and we re working together for the / good / of the district / these are my constinuents and / im / their / fucking / representative / and they can read my mind / and probably think im having a breakdown / for the good of the district / and am i? / having a breakdown?..._

But by now the media smells blood in the water and they've sent reporters-- with HUDs set to thot[tickr]-- to corner and interview the representative. They begin harassing her, screaming policy questions, asking about her personal life. After less than a minute of this, Crowley sends out her swan song:

<RepCrowley@thot[tickr]:public/archive> _...damnit the tick the tick the little prick in my brain telling all my secrets / let this stunt be over / and done forever but mostly get this thing out of my head out out get it out of my head its burrowed so deep and i want it out i dont / want people seeing i dont / want people knowing they dont / have a right to know i dont / have so much control but im a good person / a good person / i do love my job i do want to make things better / but i didnt know i thought such things / i dont want them written down dont / want people to see / you would hate me hate me and i work hard / i don't want them to hate me / want it out get it out of me unplug unplug unplug--_ [connection lost]

She wasn't reelected.

She lost, ladies and gents, to a little-known challenger: a slick talker funded by dark money. Isn't that funny? Her replacement was your standard womanizing, embezzling, egomaniacal blowhard. But Crowley? Even in her catty, public thoughts that afternoon she never gave any indication of discrimination or favoritism or criminality. In fact, in my years of digging through the refuse of private and professional lives, I've rarely come across a politician as fundamentally decent and devoted to her job as Martha Crowley.

So what was she guilty of, ladies and gents? Can you tell me?

I have a pet theory. Her guilt came from her weakness, I think. Her brief openness. She let the other poker players see her hand, and what they saw disgusted them. "Why," they said to themselves, "she's been bluffing the whole time! Just like me! She's a hypocrite! A loser! A human being! Oh gods, ye gods, I can barely run my life! How is she supposed to manage a state?"

Do you know what they called it in Montpelier?

Thotgate!

Now maybe you're saying to yourselves: Big deal! A politician was caught being two faced. You're really blowing me away with that one, Wally! Serves her right. Those of us that don't pretend to be saints, though, we'll be fine!

Are you so sure? Let's turn next to the case of Tina Clitoranus.

Ms. Clitoranus was the beloved veteran of over thirty adult films; what on earth did she have left to hide? "I share everything with my audience," she told the magazine _Clamhouse_ in the week following Representative Crowley's public meltdown. "I want everyone at home to have the whole Clitoranal Experience."

Hoping to capitalize off of Thotgate, Ms. Clitoranus hosted a special pay-to-stream live event with her thoughts broadcast in realtime. Maybe one or two of you out there caught it? By minute twelve she was lying on a designer-leather couch, being entered by three separate men, and moaning like an air-raid siren! No problem with the action: Ms. Clitoranus was a real professional. She knew how to put on a show. The problem, for her fans, was what Ms. Clitoranus had to _think_ about it.

She thought quite a bit about baking, actually.

<Clitoranus@thot[tickr]:public/archive> _...cant wait to / shower then try out that new crisp recipe shari gave me / i bet ryans just going to love it / cant wait to see the look on his face / got to remember to / pick up the flour on the way home and it called for fresh apples where / can i get those this time of year? / ugh! / you think im a fuckin pinata? / asshole / gotta go over ground rules again during commercial break / hassle living in vegas sometimes can't get anything that isnt days old and / ryan just eats that garbage the school provides / no / he needs more home cooked meals /_

jesus buddy give me some room to breathe / around it / hope im a good enough mom hope he / my son / understands someday / motherfuckers prick looks like that alien baby from that movie / lollipop time / its all for the / the school / the home / decent insurance / tastes like melon / did this asshole / perfume his cock? / he ll understand / nice clothes so ryan can hold his head up / someday / deep deep / where can i find apples in this city? all this sad sorry bullshit is for him / for him / thick meaty cock / my little boy / apples / for him...

The fan base couldn't handle it. They labelled her a prude and a snob and they left her in droves for Cheri Canyon, who had the sense not to thot[tickr] and, in fact, not to look as though she thought at all.

Ms. Clitoranus, at least, landed on her feet. She spun the thotsnafu into her current gig as a _New York Times_ columnist and feminist icon. But the ex-pornstar learned her lesson: she hasn't appeared on thot[tickr]:public since.

***

So why was I, a professional, cackling in Richard Gordon Sockwren's face like an injured hyena that's starting to hallucinate marrow-jeweled bones? Because a man like Dick Sockwren should know goddamn better! That's why. Even the average HanjinMate should have the sense to keep her thoughts private by now! In the business of digging through reputational refuse, I've never found a more damaging tool than thot[tickr]. I won't even use it to record my thoughts as a personal scribe on the 'private' setting. There's too great a risk that those secret, triple-blind-encryption thoughts could somehow find their way into the wrong hands. Nope! My brainwaves don't leave my skull unless they slip out through my mouth or the tips of my fingers.

And that's bad enough.

Which is exactly what I told Dick Sockwren that afternoon in the Batcave. And you know? His heart kept on beating like a metronome. Like it didn't matter a bit.

"That's our campaign's secret weapon, Comb," he told me. "People know about thot[tickr], now. Enough of them have used it as a personal tool that... well, they know you can't hide from it. Even the things you don't want to think-- the things that horrify you about yourself-- occasionally break through. Our man, Morales, though... I told you, Comb! He's like nobody else! An upright man. And when the people of Jobs see that..."

(From the constatainment feed in the corner of my glasses, Marget Surrey was saying: "That's right! You get your fame today, Gary, but no victim angle. Not from me..." She gave a terrified, absurd laugh-- the kind of laugh you've only heard if you're a regular viewer of _The Game_ \-- and Gary Plinth began screaming about his rights under the First Amendment. They'd find a pair of glasses, she'd put them on, and, and--)

Sockwren shrugged, but he couldn't keep the smile off his face. "This race is ours."

I wanted to say: Then what do you need me for?

But you'll notice I don't have an audio clip of myself saying that. Because you don't secure clients that way. You don't win no-bid contracts that way. So, instead, I asked: "When would you like me to start?"

Sockwren was already turning towards the door. Now-- in a voice so low that I wouldn't have heard him if I weren't monitoring his very heartbeat-- he said: "Start combing as soon as you like, Wally. If there's any voluntary information you want, call the campaign office and drop my name. They'll work hard to get you whatever they have."

(Marget Surrey, screaming like a charging British infantryman: "And guess what? They won't remember your name in a week, Gary! No one will! We'll have some new freak to talk about! Someone who can break single digits! Someone who can at least get his _victim angles_ \--")

I said: "And the thot[tickr], Mr. Sockwren? When does that start?"

Sockwren was already moving towards the door. It would have been rude if he weren't paying me such an absurd amount of money. "Tomorrow," he said. "Mr. Morales has told me that three to four PM works for him. That'll be one o' clock for you, I believe. Our people will get him hooked up. A tutorial. No public meetings. No campaign-strategy sessions. Just George Morales... and you.

"But I'm curious: will you be free to monitor the thotstream as it generates? Or will you be reading through the archive, later?"

"Oh," I said. "Have no fear, Mr. Sockwren. Come one o' clock tomorrow, I'll be sitting right here with Mr. Morales' account open. Live. I'll give you a call, personally, when he makes his first Freudian slip."

Sockwren gave a snort that turned into a chuckle and he showed me the back of his hand. Pure bravado. It wasn't a put on, either: leaving my office, his heart kept up that innocent, unhurried rhythm.

Deep in my ear, I heard the heavy crack of an M4 firing three times. Through the constatainment feed I watched Marget Surrey, Nutritionist Intern, take her last bubbling breath and lie twitching in a pool of red that grew and spread beneath the doors of the gym. Denied a victim angle, the editors at _The Most Dangerous Game_ had decided to go with an overhead shot.

Chapter 2

BUT WHAT IF YOU'RE ALREADY RUINED? How does thot[tickr]'s alchemy work then?

A few years back, Lacey Molloy was nothing more than your average schizophrenic Chucklehead riding the homeless-girl trucking circuit up and down interstate 5. Summers spent in Tacoma or Portland or Eugene. Winters spent in Los Angeles and San Diego. Thanks to thot[tickr] we don't have to be rhetorical when we ask: what did she think about that life?

<CowgirlLacey@thot[tickr]:public/archive> _...didnt give a damn not a damn not about myself not nobody / heard the voice of GOD every fucking day would take or do anything i could to get the voice of GOD / sick commanding prick / outta my head i lived that life and it was killing me that was fine / wanted sought hunted yearned and sucked and fucked and smoked and snorted and chuckled / to escape GOD / and i watched that road life tear me down / in the mirror while i hunted for something to use as a tampon / twenty four and i looked like an old woman / another year maybe less and no more lacey / a few years hurting and back into the dark..._

Enter: Prince Charming Number One. She doesn't remember his name. Even after she got famous, he never came forward. He was a product-security guy making the long haul from Oakland up to Vancouver BC. When he hit the Chuckle he liked to talk. Near Medford, Oregon he got to talking about something he'd heard over the radio: "Machine that reads your goddamn mind! But still no flying cars! Huh? No jetpacks! They promised, like, grandpa that shit..."

Lacey terminated her portion of the long haul in Roseburg. Prince Charming was pretty far into his transmogrification into a real Chucklefuck sonofabitch after a few hundred miles, and she knew people in that town. She spent a couple of weeks there doing her usual thing: sitting around in the dark in a boarded-up home, the chuckles jerking out of her diaphragm like an irrepressible, wheezing cough.

Then, one morning or afternoon or evening, she woke up and there was GOD, standing by her soiled mattress. Waiting for her. HIS heavenly aura was shining up the squat house so hot that the drapes and the grimy chair and the desiccated wall art were all smoldering, and HE was saying a bunch of stuff in HIS funny, alien language. Lacey thought something like: GODdamn, if you people out there could spend a few minutes with this cumwad, maybe you wouldn't be so stingy with a dollar now and then. Then Lacey thought something like: Wait! Maybe you people _can_ spend a few minutes with this cumwad...

Lacey Molloy went to a public library there in Roseburg to do a little research. It was a slow day and one of the librarians was moved to helped her. He was a patient, kind person and pretended not to notice her urine stink. He helped Lacey to create her own thot[tickr] account and helped her launch the FREE 30 DAY TRIAL.

Lacey asked him to set her account to public.

Was she sure about that?

Sure she was sure. People needed to know what HE was saying. People would understand if only they knew what HE put her through.

The librarian licked his lips.

At that time, there were three thotnodes available for public use in the Rosburg Public Library network. The librarian brought Lacey one of them. He explained the thing-- it might be unnerving until she got used to it-- and convinced her to use one of the library's study rooms for privacy. Once the door was closed, the librarian placed the thotnode on the back of Lacey's neck. He held her hand while it began to burrow.

"Look," he said. "Your thoughts!"

The librarian had opened a helio window in the air... and there they were! Lacey's thoughts raced across the window as quickly as she thought them, the text white against a grey emotiwoople background. Suddenly, that background brightened to a piercing, Montana-sky blue. Lacey read her own thoughts, and as she read them she thought them again, and the thot[tickr] repeated them in new text. A thotloop! The background turned bright orange. Things were going so nicely!

And they might have continued nicely, except that at that moment GOD walked into the study room. Lacey made a noise like a sick cat.

Lightning was popping off HIS eyeballs, and HE was droning away: speaking HIS crazy, Spanishy gobbledygook. Talking and talking. Now the librarian, studying Lacey's thoughts as they flashed across the window, gave a nervous laugh.

"Um, Lacey? Do you-- sometime in your past-- maybe have a Classics background?"

"Classics?"

"Because that's... Latin. Right? I mean, I don't know. But that sure looks like, uh, _Latin_ pouring out of your brain..."

The librarian stared at Lacey above the rims of his flashing glasses. His eyes, Lacey thought, were hungry. GOD turned to her and said in English: "He wants to cut you up, Lacey. _Dissect._ He wants to take you to a lab and cut apart your brain and see what makes you tick. Tick. Tick."

For once, she believed HIM.

The librarian, reading her thoughts, said: "Whoa, now, Lacey! I don't want to cut you up. No one's getting cut up. Ok? I just want to help you. I could really help..."

Lacey Molloy was already running. She was fine with oblivion, sure, but she had a few rodeos left in her. Plus, getting dissected on a table? No, thanks! There were better ways to go out. She burst out the front doors of the library and began rushing down the street. She looked and smelled like trouble-- not something worth your time-- and so she wasn't stopped. A few people yelled at her. Normal stuff. Obscenities. She hunted for a ride-- any ride-- found one, and had left Roseburg by the next morning, heading north up I-5.

She'd forgotten about the thotnode plugged into her head. She was already used to the feel of it.

Chapter 3

I BEGAN LOOKING INTO GEORGE MORALES THE MINUTE SOCKWREN WAS OUT THE DOOR. You may be curious: for these sorts of investigations, where does a specialist such as _moi_ begin? Well, even the great masters begin their paintings with broad strokes, don't they? I wanted to know what the layperson found when she went looking for information on George Morales. So I performed a basic internet knowledge query, just like anyone can do:

George Morales, born Jorge Morales, on April twenty-first, 2012 in Houston, Texas. Member, Jobs City Council. Thought to be considering candidacy for mayor of Jobs, Texas. Father, Arturo Morales, truck driver, deceased. Mother, Lisa Ayers, retail, deceased. Jorge is the first of four siblings: brothers Peter and Elmo, both deceased; sister Alice, deceased...

Grandparents on the mother's side, deceased... mother's brother-- deceased. Everybody deceased. But if our man was born in Houston in two thousand, twelve-- and stayed put-- then that was no surprise at all. I opened up the SuperBug Orphan Registry, threw his name and family details in, and was rewarded with a class photo from the second grade: blue eyes, goofy grin, missing teeth, close-cropped brown hair, wearing a Snoopy t-shirt. Damn.

George Morales was a Bug Orphan.

Score one point for Dick Sockwren. Bug Orphans-- those kids from Southeast Texas who survived the Horto Virus and close to a decade of quarantine-- are notoriously difficult to find reliable information on. The SuperBug hit just when many of them would be beginning to use the internet and social media. Instead, all we have are birth records and the dark blotch of childhood and SuperBug and the quarantine years... and then your average Bug Orphan will appear in some Reclamation Center at age eighteen or twenty, fully grown and half feral, like Athena springing from the head of Zeus. And all of those juicy, formative years lie in undocumented shadow.

There are women you can hire to travel southeast Texas and ask questions about individual Bug Orphans. They pretend to work for the census bureau. Usually they won't come up with much. They don't call it 'SuperBug' for nothing.

I kept digging. It looked as though the PR people had already started work on Morales' knowledge query results:

Morales stayed in reclaimed Houston for a year after rehabilitation. Worked briefly in a Reclamation Center, helping young people brought in from Bug-decimated areas find jobs in reclaimed Houston and Dallas and San Antonio. Then a sudden change. He accepted a management position with NextSkel Solutions in the city of Jobs, Texas. In Jobs, Morales has continued finding opportunity for public service. He has been elected to the Jobs City Council and sits on Jobs' Cultural Board. For three years he's been married to Jenny Morales, formerly Dabney, a hospital administrator. No children. The two have a pitbull named Jester...

I still hadn't seen a picture of George Morales-- besides the glimpse of an unfinished boy-- but that could wait. Even then, in the dry darkness of my Batcave, I had a pretty good idea how our man would look. He was cut from a cloth that I'd seen before. The Bug Orphan element was different-- not something you comb across every day-- but it didn't offer any real challenge. No. This would be a normal case. I would have George Morales' secret shame in the palm of my hand by the end of the week. Dick Sockwren would stare at it-- the corners of his mouth would sink into a little frown-- but there wouldn't be any real surprise in his eyes. He wouldn't contest my findings.

A man like Richard Sockwren, in his heart of hearts, really does know better. That no-bid contract was mine.

Maybe you think that I was disappointed? Bored by the lack of challenge? Sick of the routine? Desperate for a case that would establish the existence of at least one righteous man? _Au contraire_ , ladies and gents! I find the whole process very comforting. To tell the truth, I do not trust-- or even respect-- a person until I've found their failing. Then, after that, we have the potential to be great friends! And as for challenge in my work? I long ago found that easy money buys the same luxuries as the hard-earned stuff. It's easier to part with, too.

No, I was happy with this case. It certainly didn't worry me. It didn't seem very different from a dozen others which occupied my attention at the time. Well, there was the one thing: it would be simpler! After all, I'd get to read George Morales' mind.

The poor sucker! It really wasn't fair.

***

It's not important anymore, so let me tell you a little bit about myself. Or, at least, let me tell you about the man I was: the Wally El Amin who received the Morales Case. It's a funny thing! A year back-- even ten months ago-- I'd have ruined you for knowing any one of my secrets. Really! I'd have gone after your reputation until you couldn't get a job cleaning rest stop bathrooms along I-84! I'd have made it so your own family didn't trust you!

All for what I'm about to tell millions of people over constatainment and radio. Today? I'll tell anyone who wants to know.

If you want proof, ladies and gents, log onto Social Harmony Urban Surveillance+Help Drone Nevada/Vegas:1142 and designate six fifty-four PM, March ninth of this year. The man rounding the corner in the blue tracksuit? With the bald spot on the crown of his head? Yours Truly. You can follow me all the way to my final location by switching to SHUS+H Drone Nv/V:1156, then autoTaxi cam 234.11.112 and finally SHUS+H Drone Nv/V:1233.

You can follow me all the way to Lady Sir's.

***

I left the Batcave around six forty in the evening. It was cool on the street and so I walked for a while between the hustlers and the gamblers and the water migrants and Carolites and dehydrated amphetamine freaks. I watched the General Advertisements blink under the purpling sky. Hovering above a traffic intersection, a grainy helio window showed soldiers marching through the smoking streets of Kabul. The soldiers were Indonesian and the planes flying in formation above them were shining, Chinese knockoffs of Russian Sukois. The soldiers were rich, disciplined Muslim invaders of the kind Afghanistan hadn't seen in centuries, and the men each wore an arm patch with the Latin letters: PAL. Kabul was their latest prize-- they must have taken it that morning-- and the motorists speeding through the Las Vegas intersection, seeing this bad news play out above them, were honking. Now the images of the invaders switched to a press conference with the US Secretary of State. I kept walking. Out in front of a tank house called, 'The Jungle Grotto XXX,' a waist-tall helio sprite of a topless Pacific Island woman gave a wiggling dance, did something rude with her tongue, and beckoned to the empty air.

Las Vegas! It may be a tough place to find fresh apples for your crisp, but it's a wonderful place to indulge yourself. This evening, before returning to my penthouse on the Strip, I'd decided to indulge.

I arrived at Lady Sir's at seven twenty-one. The street out front was quiet except for a group of drunks. Four big caucasians; tourists from somewhere. They were calling each other 'crossie' and laughing. Punches were landing on big, meaty shoulders. They were, each of them, wearing expensive Heads Up Display glasses of the newest Italian fashion. Recording their vacation. They made me nervous right away and it only got worse when they noticed me.

"Well, by Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior," slurred the blonde slabface at the front of the crew. "If it isn't a real-as-life Mohammedian! Come out of the desert to put us to the sword!" Another one of them turned to me: black haired, blue eyed, and with a face like punching bag. " _Allahu Ackbar_ ," he said to me. Then, in case I'd missed the subtlety, he sneered: "Peace be with you."

With fake bravado, I countered: "You gentlemen must be thinking of my uncle! I'm from Minneapolis. An agnostic! Ok? And before that, a Lutheran."

One of the smaller, less-blonde guys said something guttural and the others laughed. This was good news, I figured: a fellow runt of the litter, vouching for my humanity. My hands curled and uncurled at my sides.

"What's your name, mate?" said the blonde slab.

"Wally," I said, in the flattest, most-Midwestern English a human being ever spake. "And you gentlemen are from... let me guess... Amsterdam?"

That got another round of laughs. Then: "Never! We are Danes! From Copenhagen!"

They were mine: "Not today you aren't, Gentlemen! Today you're guests here on the Strip in Las Vegas, Nevada! And I see you're standing in front of the renowned Lady Sir's..."

I let them read into that. It only took a moment. Slabface began to get a bit pink in the cheeks, but he said: "We have heard... this is one of the unregistered places, yes? Unmonitored? Um. Completely anonymous?"

Suddenly, I could feel it: the movement of their eyes. The heat had dropped off of me and settled onto Slabface. I relished the cool.

One of them howled: "Bertoldt is so excited to play with his own vagina! Yes! He will have so many new experiences to share with his wife when he returns home! They will be finding so many things to talk about! And she will have no idea it is becau--"

Bertoldt gave his friend a punch just below the solar plexus. The other spat and gave a weak, coughing laugh. Far above us, a SHUS+H Drone gave a warning bleat. Bertoldt gave it the finger.

"Gentlemen!" I said. "Entering Lady Sir's doesn't make you a crossie! Not necessarily. There's no rule that says you have to become a woman in the tank..."

"Oh, we know that!" the runtiest Dane hastened to inform. "We have these places in Copenhagen, of course! And gender crossing is allowed. Perfectly legal. We are not savages!"

"It's simply that... back home this activity is regulated by the State..."

"Bertoldt's wife could look up everything he's been up to. See what a kinky girl he is."

"If only she would," muttered the blonde man. "No, it is my clients I worry about."

Runt gave a weak shrug. "In the end, it is to protect people."

"It's goddamned tyranny is what it is!" I proclaimed, knowing that it would make me popular. "Unfortunately, that's the way it is here, too. Even in most of Vegas they demand your Social Harmony number and then-- bam!-- the Targeted Advertisements start trying to sell you buttplugs while you're on a drive with the wife and kids!"

The Danes shook their heads solemnly.

Now my voice brightened, and with a confidence man's staccato sales pitch, I announced: "But not here at Lady Sir's! No, sir! You've heard the rumors and the rumors are true! You boys have made your way to the premiere unregulated tank house of Las Vegas, Nevada! Why, inside these doors, you'll pay your money and disappear straight into the dark aartinet! For all I know, you gentlemen will drop into a tank, remain men and spend a pleasant, anonymous, evening with the anonymous lover of your choice!

"That's all I know and all I want to know and all I should know! Isn't that so? Maybe you'll augment yourself a little bit. Everybody does. I know I always like to be taller! But who am I to assume anything else is going on? And, anyway: I'll never have the proof!"

The Danes looked thoughtful. I watched a drunken grin crawl across Bertoldt's face. Finally, one of the two smaller Danes scratched his stomach and asked: "And these women we spend the evening with? How can we be certain that they... are women?"

Bertoldt blinked.

"Well," I purred. "You can't, can you? That's the thing about total anonymity: it works both ways. If you spend the evening at Lady Sir's, you don't have to become a crossie, but there's the chance-- not a bad one-- that you'll become a crossie lover." I watched that bit of information dissolve in the eyes behind those blinking glasses. I smiled. If I'd been walking with a cane I would have tapped it on the ground right then, impatient as the devil closing a contract. I said: "Gentlemen?"

And you know what? They did what they always do, ladies and gents! What I knew they would do. They coughed and hemmed and hawed and looked at the ground and up at the flashing lights and the helios in the darkening sky. They spat and snorted and shook their heads and made faces. They passed a flask around, and each of them took a hard swig. They spat again, and shrugged, and scratched their noses and their bellies. But in the end, those Danes hadn't come all this way for nothing.

Bertoldt popped off his left arm-- a perfectly lifelike prosthesis-- and tucked it under his right. "Not supposed to get wet," he mumbled. Then they followed me inside, grinning like naughty children as I spoke to the woman at the front desk.

All they'd needed, it turned out, was a leader.

A few minutes later I was standing barefoot in the tank, belly hanging over my swim trunks and warm semiotic fluid pouring in from all sides. I sealed the breathing mask over my face as Danish shouts of encouragement roared through the air above me. The stink of the fluid was everywhere. The air being piped in through the mask was suffused with it. The entrance of the tank was closing, sealed, shut: everything pitch. I waved my hand in front of my face and couldn't see my fingers. The recycled fluid was pouring in, now, from the cleaning station somewhere under the floor. I was starting to float in the dark. Starting to float...

The saying goes: "Sex built the aartinet and the aartinet was built for sex." And it's true! Or, at least, the first worlds built on the aartinet were devoted to bizarre fucking: the kind of coupling no one will-- physically can-- achieve in the real world. These little worlds-- called 'dungeons'-- constitute the core and superstructure and humble beginnings of the aartinet. Nine months ago, as I floated in Lady Sir's, that was only starting to change. Tanks were getting cheaper. Artists were coding stormy, Byronic worlds. Places to brood. Entrepreneurs were programming glamorous bathhouses and spas. Places to be pampered. Architects were tinkering with design concepts in a risk-free environment. The aartinet was being settled. The profit motive was being introduced.

But I hadn't come to Lady Sir's that night to buy or sell or play intercontinental soccer or make art. No. I'd come to be hurt. I listened to the dungeon being built around me. My private world. All I had to do was open my eyes.

***

The tank dream always begins the same way: because that's the way we've arranged it, my Other and I. We've worked it out, and we're always where we say we'll be at the time we say we'll be there. If not-- if a dance is planned and one of us can't make it-- an algo is sent, dressed in a low hat and trenchcoat, with instructions for a new time and place. We're terrified to lose each other. It's something that almost never happens anymore: that one soul could lose track of another. But it might happen to us! Neither of us knows a thing about the other, we're both hidden so well.

So we make sure to coordinate. I'm certain that we both balance our lives around it. We dance so well together, you see.

We met by chance, which is the only way you can meet a dance partner-- good or bad-- on the dark aartinet. But once I found the Other-- that need which so perfectly mirrors my own-- after the act, while the steam still rose in whorls off the sidewalk, I asked for it again. Was practically begging. And the Other agreed. Agreed! Other, who found the same electrifying something in that last moment. In all of it, but especially that last moment. Other, who may be a Thai fishwife or suburban teenager or crippled billionaire or Parisian supermodel or one of the Danes who just entered Lady Sir's, for all I know-- but who is, ultimately, my partner in this repeated act. The best dance partner I have ever found in years of indulging in the untraceable dark.

It begins like this: I am walking home, late, from a conference. In the rain. The city? Varies. On different nights I've walked by buildings that might have sprung from the suburbs of Detroit or the financial district in London. What's important is the dark and the long alleys and the vague sense of urban threat. I don't have an umbrella and the rain is starting to come down harder. My long, blonde hair is clumping together and darkening and growing heavier. A few strands slip beneath the collar of my wine-colored jacket. They tickle my shoulders and beads of rain slip off of them and down my chest and back. Long lines of wetness already penetrating.

Above, I hear a noise-- a little crinkle-- and the street light dies. The darkness moves in, always so quick to reclaim its ceded territory. There's light far ahead and light behind me but here on the street, it's surprisingly dark. And if I was in a nice neighborhood a few blocks back, well, I'm not anymore! The buildings around me look abandoned. Not a light in a single window. No witnesses. No help.

I quicken my pace, but already I know something bad is coming. I don't hear the footfalls yet, don't hear the sound of baseball bat or lead pipe on metal dumpster. The threat sounds. The hunt sounds. The baying of the hounds. No. All I have to go on is a tightening gut and quickening pulse and the adrenaline squirting into my overworked calves. The knowledge, absolute, that someone is striding through the dark behind me.

These shoes. These are conference shoes. Little slips of cloth and leather and a clasp. You slip them around the curve of your foot. Almost wrap them around the foot like bandages. And then you walk around on the balls of your feet-- practically on your toes-- all day. Shoves your ass backwards and transforms your lower back into a Roman aqueduct and sharpens the edges of your calves against your leg. Transforms you-- part of what transforms you, along with rouge, mascara, perfumes, face creams, partially-hidden tattoos, eyeliner, nail polish, stockings, blouse, skirt, blank-outward stare-- and transmutes you into a material good, a work of art. Something to be examined, appreciated, bid over, possibly fought over.

No good for running, these shoes.

Still, I quicken my pace. Again. Nearly running now. And stumble. Back in the dark, he knows. Moves forward. The sound of the long pipe, now, dragging along tar or concrete. Other enjoys that I know what's coming. Enjoys the buildup.

The tank dream always begins the same way, but it's a lucid dream, it changes. Changes depending on our moods. Changes depending on whether one of us wants to try something new.

I reach into my bag. A change of shoes. Adidas. Trainers. My slips of cloth and leather go sailing out into the night. My bare feet are jammed into the Adidas. Never mind the laces, the tongue. Everything jammed together, but the soles will protect my feet from the broken glass. The needles.

I look up. Whoops.

It's too late. Too late to run. He's above me, towering above me. Impossibly, grotesquely large. The pipe drops from his hand, makes a rolling noise along the street. That twisted grin showing white teeth. That twinkle in the eyes that I've never seen in anyone's eyes outside the tank dream, that would send me running, bowels dumping, if I ever did.

" _Little bird," Other says. "Don't fly away. Don't fly away from me."_

He reaches down. All of the streetlights are far away. His fingertips brush away my ropey hair, they slide across my wet neck.

Thank God it's only a dream.

Chapter 4

OUTSIDE OF AARTI TANKS, HOWEVER, I NEVER DREAM! It's important, I think, that I let you in on that early.

Really, it's not that strange: I don't get much exercise in my line of work, so I'm a regular user of a prescription drug called, 'Dormirizine.' I take one pill before bed and I'm asleep inside of ten minutes. Wonderful, restful sleep! I feel great in the morning. The only uncommon side effect is a complete lack of dreams. Or, at least, none that I remember. It's a small trade off, and worth it, for a regular sleep schedule.

Only, after my tank dream and a dreamless night of sleep-- I'll admit it-- I'd pretty much forgotten about George Morales. I'd slept so well! And I had plenty of lives to dig through; mountains of secrets to learn. Around that time, if I remember, I was undermining the leader of some worker's party in Brazil. I'd come upon a train of mistresses and a string of illegal gifts. I was happily at work ending the man's career and the legitimacy of his movement. Actually, I would have missed Morales' first thot[tickr] transmission entirely if I hadn't set an alarm on my glasses. Hearing that alarm, I snapped my fingers and logged into the private account Sockwren's people had sent me. The message that flashed as I widened my helio window:

_New User_ <OurManForJobs@thot[tickr]:private> _is engaging with hardware. Please be patient, as thotnodes require time to synchronize with user's neural echos..._

Also, I'd like to state right away: from the very beginning, Morales' emotiwoople was beige.

***

But maybe you're an older Carolite, traveling through central Idaho with your pod of sand-scarred vans and buses? And you're listening to me on the radio? And you've shunned all of what you folks call, 'invasive tech,' and so you're asking yourself: "Emotiwoople? What's emotiwoople?"

Here's the colorful description from EmotiEnterprises' website:

Emotiwoople uses biometric data taken from your FitTrak Subcutaneous Health Stamp to translate your mood into color. There are different reds for passion and rage and creative energy; blues for melancholy and world weariness; greens for jealousy and covetousness and ambition; yellows for good cheer and acceptance and optimism and hopefulness; greys for sleepiness or confusion or uncertainty; different swirling, spotted blue-blacks for every level of fear; browns for contentment or boredom; pinks for erotic lust and poetic yearning...

Emotiwoople reads your body and translates what you're feeling into color. Like a mood stone that actually works.

I've heard of entire departments where managers are given mandatory access to the emotiwoople accounts of their staff. Four or six or fourteen or forty separate blocks of color with little names, centered. The manager can see how everyone really feels from moment to moment, all day long.

They say it's a miracle for productivity!

EmotiEnterprises sells bracelets and contacts and false teeth and stickers and t-shirts-- woven through with special filaments-- that all change color based on your biometrics. Emotiwoople backpacks and nose rings and hair dye and nail polish and lipstick and underwear. Woople mugs and contact lenses and Halloween masks and underwear.

EmotiEnterprises' newest acquisition, grabbed about six months before I started the Morales investigation, was a troubled start-up called thot[tickr]. It wasn't a bad marriage: thought and emotion.

***

Beige. Our man was feeling beige.

Morales hadn't established a full connection yet-- I couldn't read his thoughts-- so I pulled up the emotikey tool and had it take a look at this particular shade of beige. Emotikey told me:

<Emotikey@thot[tickr]:info> _...this level of beige indicates a feeling of businesslike confidence! The user is currently feeling competent, determined and ready to tackle whatever problems come [his] way! This beige emotion is traditionally associated with practical, success-driven achievers and enthusiastic problem solvers! This user is feeling confident in [his] own abilities and calmly certain that [his] goals are on track..._

"Look at that," I said to myself. "He's a calm guy. Sure of himself. But just wait until I can see what he's thinking..."

My words echoed across the dark, smooth surfaces of the Batcave and, as though responding, Morales' thot[tickr] feed suddenly came alive on the helio window:

<OurManForJobs@thot[tickr]:private> _...be sure to introduce myself / hey that little guy really digs in doesnt he? i can see why not too many people are interested in trying / this / whats that? you say we're transmitting? / no actually i feel just the same as always so this is what its like not / so bad /_

whats that mr sockwren? hes over there in las vegas reading my thoughts right now as we speak? and they're just pouring out onto his window / yes, ive seen a demonstration of this program but its still a funny thing to think about / walid el amin who ive never met / the datacomber / hes combing through my head / haha / a funny thing to think /

a funny think / to think /

youre leaving mr sockwren? you and the technician / so i will be alone and transmitting to mr el amin and after that the steakhouse fundraiser and the evening strategy session / good! / well ill see you / gentlemen / in an hour /

see you two fine gentlemen in an hour and in the meantime get used to this funny / bulk / in the back of my head and the idea that theres a man in viva las vegas nevada reading every thought...

What discipline! The tip of my tongue wet my lips as I waited for that first awful thought to come rolling into my lap like a fat, shit-stained pearl. The emotiwoople color behind Morales' thoughts shifted between lighter and darker beiges. It was impressive, but I knew that he wouldn't manage to hold back the tide much longer. No one is that much of a master of themselves.

<OurManForJobs@thot[tickr]:private> _...so my friend in las vegas your name is walid el amin but / i am supposed to call you wally or comb / but we have never met and since we are yes something like business colleagues i hope you wont mind if i call you mr el amin for the / time being / once we meet you can tell me face to face whether i am being too formal / but let me introduce myself also / my name is jorge morales lots of people call me george / and i am running for mayor of jobs texas / or will be / i could tell you plenty of things about myself but / you already know it all / right? /_

mr sockwren talked to you / almost twenty four hours ago? / so by now you know more about my personal life than i do probably and so you must know that im one of the houston superbug orphans / and i bet mr el amin that youd like to know more about that time in my life / plague days / no one knows anything who didnt / live through it / only a few entrenched reporters live streaming from the gulf / and then they were / infected / and no one would let them back in / the country / back home...

Morales' emotiwoople burned almost ember, and then, as though under the gravitational force of a supermassive willpower, dulled back down to a pure beige.

<OurManForJobs@thot[tickr]:private> _...uncaptured time / bet you dont see that too often anymore mr el amin well / stay in my head a few days and / maybe ill tell you about those days / that time / i never talk about those days not with anyone but other horto people and / theres less of them all the time but / then youre not just anyone are you? / you and i have a special bond now mr el amin and i can see / yes / we ll see what you end up learning..._

The hour passed. Our man thought plenty about his wife and his dog and his policy positions. He had opinions on young people and barbecue and foreign relations and voting and football and soccer and public transit and targeted advertising and SHUS+H drones and barbecue. He was-- inside his own head-- a beautiful speaker. Focused. He never forgot about me, either. As the hour came to a close, I felt a creeping unease. Morales' had held his mental breath for the hour; he hadn't screwed up once.

Now, as it came time for us to part, Morales thought:

<OurManForJobs@thot[tickr]:private> _...here comes dick sockwren / to lead me off to another fundraiser / but you really do have to come to jobs / and try our barbecue mr el amin / thats one thing / i never get tired of and / id be happy to show you around / but looks like theyre unplugging me / hot mike turned off hey but tomorrow / same time same place? / keep listening to radio morales / haha / but seriously mr el amin i look forward to working with--_ [connection lost]

His thoughts stayed on the screen for review and so did his emotional state. At the moment of disconnect that emotional state hovered directly at the midpoint between white and brown: a perfect beige.

Chapter 5

COWGIRL LACEY MOLLOY RODE INTERSTATE 5, BY GOD, and we know all about it. She'd forgotten about the library thotnode wired to the back of her head, but it didn't forget about her! It rested there, behind her dark, red hair and it read her mind. Day in and day out, it performed its job! That thotnode worked through Chuckle haze and the confusion of the cheapest alcohol and it even did its best to translate her dreams.

Lacey rode up and down interstate 5-- never leaving that arterial wireless network; always transmitting-- and she thought the thoughts that only a woman in such situations can think. She met truck guards and winos, street preachers and hustlers, coders and artists, aid workers and con men, security men and women with filthy sores. Lacey stripped for money in Salem; there were still a few places that would take her. In Seattle she watched the police break up a homeless camp and in Olympia she saw one man suck off another for a few cigarettes and a place to sleep. In Portland she sat under the Morrison bridge with a man who called himself Herod. They ate canned tuna and watched rain fall into the Willamette River. There were growling dogs and and splitting rashes and busted shoes and worn-out panties and men who screamed at things that only they could see. There were well-dressed women who told her to fuck off and children shrieking joyfully in parks. There was rain and hot weather and tall trees and abandoned lots and the clouds moving across the sky. There was a man who had everything and a binge that lasted days. Then she was throwing her guts up in an alley, on her knees in a puddle, because something had been bad and she couldn't remember where she was or who she'd been with-- but the important thing now was to find a dry and warm place, if possible, and sleep. Sometimes there was GOD, too: whispering Latin from street corners or screaming from Targeted Advertisements.

The forgotten thotnode recorded it all.

One day, as though a switch had been thrown, a few people gathered around Lacey Molloy while she begged on a street corner. They would read from their glasses and then set money in front of her. One man-- of the well-dressed, 'fuck-off' type-- gave her a stack of dollars and said: "Please. A shower and a bed first. Food. And if there's anything left for the Chuckle... Christ. No one can blame you..."

He turned away, shaking his head. Lacey stared at the bills in her hands and she stared at the departing figure. She looked down at her cardboard begging box and saw that she had collected, in a few hours, what she would normally be lucky to see in weeks. She looked up at people watching her through text-filled glasses. Smiling faces surrounded her.

She took the money and she ran.

Another day, a scholarly woman approached Lacey and started speaking GOD's own language. Hearing it, Lacey began screaming and spitting and thrashing. Next to her, GOD howled and laughed. The scholar backed away, placed a large-denomination bill on the ground, left.

Even so, the crowds kept growing. Lacey's begging routine had started to be a bit like performance art. It was frightening, true, but they brought money. So much money! Lacey found herself in Eugene when she decided it was time to stop being homeless. She rented a little place in a low-income housing complex. For the first time in years, Lacey had her own bed. She knew when she woke up in the morning that it would be there waiting for her in the evening. She would snort Chuckle and eat breakfast and shower and then, finally, go out to the crowds. She would see GOD and speak to HIM and the crowd would flood her with money. A few of them, watching through the active lenses of their glasses or staring at their phones, would begin to cry and shake.

One morning, a man knocked at her door. He was young and darkly handsome and impeccably dressed. The whole time she was with him, she never once saw his eyes-- they were obscured by the blinking windows on his glasses-- but somehow he didn't make her feel nervous or uncomfortable at all. He made her feel entirely at ease.

I'll call him Prince Charming Number Two.

Lacey Molloy asked this new prince if he would like anything to drink. He asked for tea. She found that she had some in her cupboards, left over from the previous tenant. Now, while they drank tea, he put his card down on the table. The moment the blank card hit the tabletop, a helio window opened and spun slowly in the air above it. The helio read:

Nicolas Semyonovitch Davlenik

Talent Acquisition

Arthur:Blair Targeted Advertising

"That's right," announced Nicolas. "I won't lie to you, Ms. Molloy. I appreciate your hospitality and the delicious tea, but I'm afraid this isn't simply a pleasure call. I have business to discuss. An opportunity."

Business! An opportunity! This mysterious, beautiful man in her kitchen-- her kitchen!-- with that magical business card! It was like a movie. And how long had it been since Lacey Molloy had gone out to see a movie? Something watched, not under a bridge on a neighbor's cracked and bloodstained phone, but up before her in the sky? Swallowing the whole world?

"I don't..." she started. "Of course, I want to help. But I'm not sure you have the right person..."

He smiled and his glasses flashed constatainment light and even his teeth were bright.

"I have the right person," he said. And then: "Could you possibly turn it off for a moment?"

"Turn it off?"

Outside, a man's voice came through a bullhorn: "DON'T DO IT LACEY! YOU'RE PURE! RAW! HE WANTS TO YOKE YOU! EXPLOIT YOU!"

Inside, standing next to Nicolas, GOD cried: _Nolite ergo audire eum! Fuge!_

Nicolas leaned forward. Lacey wondered if his eyes were full of concern. "May I?"

Not sure what to do, Lacey Molloy smiled. Then, remembering her missing teeth, she slammed her mouth shut and ran her tongue between the gaps like a soldier checking the battlements. Nicolas, smelling of something perhaps handpicked from along the Silk Road, reached his manicured hand behind her head. She felt his fingers on the back of her neck. That particular kind of physical contact made that her want to scream. But this was no long-haul guard, no trucker, he wouldn't force her...

There was a popping sound.

Nicolas brought his hand back. Between thumb and forefinger was the little thotnode-- now greasy, stained-- which Lacey hadn't seen in weeks. She said, "Oh."

She thought of the crowds she'd been gathering and she said: "Oh!"

The voice through the bullhorn: "PUT IT BACK IN, COWGIRL LACEY! PLEASE! ALL IS DARK! YOU'RE OUR CONNECTION TO THE ALMIGHTY!"

She said, "Oh..."

Nicolas acted as though he couldn't hear the man outside. He wiped down the greasy thotnode with a handkerchief and some cleaning solution he'd procured from a pocket. When it was done, he set the shining, metal button on the table between them. On his HUD glasses, more images sprang to life. He said: "Did you know that you're in the _Guinness Book of World Records_ , Ms. Molloy?"

"Oh?"

Nicolas had his HUD produce a helio window above the coffee table, next to the image from his business card. "Longest continuous thot[tickr] on public record. See that? I've just ended your streak-- sorry-- but no one's touching you, competition wise, and our business is sensitive. Now. Do you have any idea how many people follow your account daily? From all over the world? You... you don't know, do you? You really had forgotten it was back there? Working away?"

She nodded. Even GOD, standing beside Nicolas, had stopped shouting in order to listen.

"Here. Let me show you." He began scrolling through his glasses like a school boy. He could have given her any number and she'd have believed him-- she'd have believed anything he said-- but he wanted to show her. At last he found it. He projected another window above the table. He pointed.

"Seven hundred thousand, three hundred and forty-seven," read Lacey.

"And yesterday was a low day," Nicolas almost whispered, his glasses blinking like Las Vegas on Christmas morning. "A low day and a slow day and we're just getting started..."

Outside: "PLEASE LACEY! DON'T FORSAKE US! PLUG BACK IN! GIVE US THE WORD!"

Nicolas moved to the window, closed it. He turned back to Lacey. Maybe he was even looking at her. "Some people," he said, "have no respect for privacy. Now. Would you like to hear our proposition? We can make you rich. And all you have to do is be yourself! Isn't that nice?"

Nicolas explained the situation in five parts:

One: The company Nicolas worked for-- Arthur:Blair Targeted Advertising-- had a contract with EmotiEnterprises, owners of thot[tickr], that allowed for Targeted Advertisement in all thot[tickr] accounts.

Two: This was a bad investment. Thot[tickr]:public was a flop because it ruined careers and personal lives. But...

Three: The analysts at Arthur:Blair had noticed a jaw-dropping amount of traffic centered around the account of a single user-- <CowgirlLacey@thot[tickr]:public>. People couldn't get enough of her. They'd conducted surveys and read the comments section of her account. Here were two of the comments:

This girl thinks like no one is watching, day and night. For Real. And she's seen it all. #CowgirlLacey #doyourownthing #real

This crazy effed up b is my hero. #cowgirllacey #crazyshitforreal

Four: Maybe Nicolas could convince her to sign a few documents he'd brought along? Maybe she'd like to have her dimensions scanned for a helio sprite? And what if Nicholas were to leave a few complimentary items around her apartment? Then, when she saw them or used them, she'd think about them-- and that wouldn't hurt anybody, would it? And a free pair of glasses? They would prompt her with messages at certain hours of the day. Not often. All she had to do was read the messages to herself when prompted. And, also, a small point, but...

Five: Her FREE 30 DAY TRIAL ran out in two days! Well, naturally, Arthur:Blair would be only too happy to cover the ongoing costs of her subscription-- upgraded to Platinum Level, of course-- if only they could come to an agreement...?

They came to an agreement.

Nicolas shook her hand and he hugged her and she felt wonderful. Then he very gently placed the polished thotnode back under her hair. She wasn't scared at all as it worked into the base of her skull; she'd actually been feeling naked without it. Now her guest stood, immersed in the windowed world of his glasses.

"Ah," he said. "Look at that. We're in business."

There was an excited chattering from the parking lot below as Lacey's followers watched her account spring back to life. "The Word!" a woman howled. "The Word!"

GOD, obligingly, began to scream.

Chapter 6

I WENT STRAIGHT HOME AFTER READING MORALES' THOUGHTS, ladies and gents. No leading Scandinavian tourists into temptation. No Lady Sir's. I'd poured over the entirety of our man's perfect thoughts three times. He was a blank wall. I left the Batcave and my office building and walked out onto the street and waved away an advertising sprite and took a breath of the March air. I shoved my hands in my pockets and I walked, but I couldn't shake the way I felt-- which was off. I felt off. Everywhere, I noticed beige. Beige walls and beige suits and beige hands holding manila folders. Beige faces. Beige buildings and beige roads and beige SHUS+H drones. A weak, beige sun hanging low and bloodless in a copper sky.

I drove out to the artificial hills erected at the edge of the city.

Normally, I stay in my penthouse apartment in town during the week. I like the atmosphere and the energy of the Strip. Normally, I only go out to my house on the weekends. It's relaxing out there, though: I have a view of the desert and my hallways echo, there's so much room. My home looks like all the other homes in the community and if it doesn't, they fine you. I also noticed, that evening, that my home was a sandy shade of beige. They all were. It had been fashionable when the community was built.

As my car pulled into the driveway, I was greeted by Mathilda. "Good evening, sir!" she said. "What a surprise! We didn't expect you home so early!" No. She hadn't expected me home at all.

Let me tell you about Mathilda.

Ten months ago, when the world was a noisier place, I knew everything about Mathilda. I knew everything about everyone who worked for me. My home, after all, had the standard internal-surveillance network, mandated by Social Harmony. My staff knew I watched them. And I knew they knew. But don't think I abused them! Mostly they had the run of the place; I didn't require much in the way of pampering and special treatment. And I was very generous as far as pay and benefits and vacation time. You know I'd never had one of them quit on me?

There was only one thing, really, which I demanded of them without fail. Absolute secrecy.

I wanted them to lie about what they did for a living. I demanded it, in fact. They couldn't tell anyone that they worked in the house of a datacomber named Wally El Amin. I didn't want anyone snooping around, trying to find a wedge into my private life. God, no; who would? To secure a position with me, my staff had to lie to their friends and loved ones. Funny thing? Most of them were more than happy to play along! These were highly-competent, intelligent, gracious and attractive women. Many were former white-collar professionals, downsized and replaced with algos. They wanted their status back. I gave it to them. It worked like this:

Wally: "Ms. Newhire, I'm prepared to offer you this ridiculous sum of money for the services we've talked about today. There's just one stipulation..."

Newhire, nervously, wondering if I'm asking for sex: "What's that?"

Wally: "You can't tell anyone-- your family, your lover, your husband, your children, your girlfriends, anybody!-- that you work for me. That you're a housekeeper for me."

Newhire: "That's... really? That's not going to be easy."

Wally: "Oh! It'll be the easiest thing in the world! Think of an office job! A terribly glamorous office job. I'll give you that job."

Newhire: "You'll...?"

Wally: "Oh, not the job itself! You'll be scrubbing my bathtub! But give yourself any title that you might find here in Vegas-- clerk, paralegal, data analyst, IT specialist, accountant, logistics coordinator-- and I will make you into that thing for anyone who's looking. It'll explain the long hours, good pay, private location. You'll make more money with me, though, and get more respect than you would in an actual administrative-support role. You'll get more exercise too!"

Newhire, laughing: "But who'd believe it?"

Wally: "Well, _you_ have to believe it, first. You have to sell it! But you'll have time during the day-- paid time-- to study the role you'll be playing at home. And I'll do everything to ensure an online trail that supports your story..."

"So... I can be a freelance photographer? Working for _National Geographic_?"

"No public roles, I'm afraid."

Newhire, studying provided sheet: "An... archivist?"

"An archivist by tomorrow morning! If that's the one you like. Just memorize the story Mathilda line-of-sights to your glasses. Then tell everyone you got really, really lucky-- and we're training you for the role. Tell them it happens more often than they think."

"You... really don't want people knowing who works for you..."

"I really don't! My privacy is very important. Which brings me to the last point: you're free to quit at any time, Ms. Newhire, and go on living your life, but if you decide to go blabbing for any reason-- any reason, big or small!-- I will do everything in my power to ruin you. Flatten you. And there are so, so _many_ things I can do..."

Alright, maybe this sounds unrealistic to you? Or cruel? A deal no one would take? But it's not so outlandish, really. People with diminishing opportunities agree to deals worse than mine every day. They join gangs, cartels, telemarketing firms. Many of the women I interviewed were regularly being solicited for low-paid tank-sex work. And everywhere they turned-- whatever job they took-- they faced the threat of replacement by algo. I think they liked my deal: the fancy title and the training with none of the stress. I was happy to provide.

Yes, I had a wonderful domestic staff. They're gone now, unfortunately. Not ruined-- I didn't have to flatten anyone-- simply gone. Sent away the day my house was seized. I'm alone now, as I have to be. But I trusted them. I trusted each of them for a reason.

I trusted Mathilda because she was cheating on her husband.

I knew this by way of a few SHUS+H drones and a series of text messages and the drive history of her Toyota-- and because I'd sent some of my algos into her glasses. Oh, she and her lover weren't stupid enough to try anything in my home! No, they went places in the city, forced me root them out. I would shower you with juicy details, ladies and gents, but my domestic staff was never large and I don't wish to implicate the woman now that she's no longer connected to me.

Not that you'd ever be able to find her. Publicly, she was just another professional woman in a city full of professionals. Even her husband-- the only one in all this you could call, 'victim'-- never found out. I met him once: a totally incurious being, like a neutered cat or a slab of play-doh. When she started working for me, I reprogrammed Mathilda's Toyota so that it lied baldly about distances and destinations. But it turned out there was no need. Hubby never checked the log. She might have driven directly to her lover's home-- skipped subterfuge entirely-- and it wouldn't have made a difference.

Maybe that's why she did it.

Anyway, I knew I could count on Mathilda so we got along great. She was wearing a light brown dress that evening, though. I told her she had to change.

"Sir?" she asked. "Mr. El Amin? This is the house uniform..."

Yes, it was an odd request. They weren't used to whims from me. But there it was: the boss wanted a change, they'd just have to get used to it. I wanted to see them in powder-blue uniforms from now on. White aprons. Or another color. Just stay away from browns. And no more 'Mr. El Amin,' either. Instruct the staff to call me 'Sir' or 'Wally.'

"Your first name, sir?" She was scandalized. My sterling Mathilda!

"Or whatever you like. I'm just sick of being called 'Mr. El Amin.' I need a break from it, Mattie."

"Of course, sir." She turned and made for the house. I'd ruined her plans. I felt bad. I know what it's like to have to cancel a rendezvous at the last minute.

"Mattie!" I yelled. She paused. Turned for new instructions.

"I've been working you too hard. Give my instructions to the staff and take the rest of the evening off. You deserve a break from this place."

"Sir," she said. She was looking at me, trying to decide whether I knew or not. I was always doing these little things for her, you see. Aiding and abetting. But, finding nothing in my face, she gave a little nod and left.

Then I was making my way upstairs. My domestic staff saw the look on my face and they left me alone. True professionals. They looked down at their shoes or at their work while I walked by. All I could see were the tops of their heads. This one, driving drunk, had hit an old man in her ancient Honda. That one anonymously stalked the comments section of her son's private academy; she made fun of the children who qualified for financial aide. This one worked a side job (she hadn't reported it to me) as a tank dominatrix on the regulated aartinet. That one had taken a .38 Special and rammed its snub nose nearly down her husband's throat one night when she was done taking punches. She'd walked her two sons out the door and never looked back. This one had avoided paying Nevada State income tax for almost a decade. That one used to be a man. What they call a 'crossie' in the aartinet and a 'trannie' here on the outside.

No kleptomaniacs, though.

You never met such a pack of innocents! My life and property were in their hands. Sometimes, when things were slow in the Batcave, I'd helio up the live feeds from my house and watch them just for fun. It was like watching a soap opera written by a sleepy accountant. They took wonderful care of my home. Dealing with me, they were always gentle and patient.

Now, descending into my personal AARTI 11 tank and letting the chemical stink drift up around me, I thought about the Danes from the night before. Those Danes were fools! More money than brains. You expected better from such a cosmopolitan island. But that's why I go to Lady Sir's, most nights, instead of using my own tank: I like to watch the tourists. That, and I like the smell. Tank chemicals mixed with sweat and loneliness and human release. A relief valve for a world whose passions are pressurized more densely by the day.

Those silly Danes had come halfway across the world for a few unregulated nights. But here's the truth, ladies and gents: in any city on this planet large enough to have a public library, you can access the 'dark' aartinet. All you need is a little know-how or a friend with a little know-how. Because there are places! There are always places. Secret, quiet corners of the net where everyone is always masked and your footfalls never echo.

I was done with my beige afternoon. I was going down for a bit of color.

***

Tonight I manage to lose Other for a while. I've slipped into an alley-- and did he not see me, or did he let me do it? Anyway, I got those Adidas on. Better. Now I can move. Nights like this, where the hunt goes on for a while, are more fun. I like them better, anyway. I think he does, too.

He must have felt real urgency last night.

My apartment isn't far from here. With the shoes I can make it in a few minutes. I move through the alleyways and I listen for the sound of him. Nothing. Usually there is nothing unless he wants me to hear, and by then things are coming to a close. I feel eyes on the back of my neck, though. He's out there. He's watching.

Hurry.

Sometimes I wonder, as I lead my Dance Partner through the dark, if what we do here satisfies him. If it keeps him from satisfying his need on the outside. If so, I deserve a medal. For my proclivities. But probably this is just a fantasy. Something the Other would never risk in the real world.

Here is the front door of the apartment complex. A small pool of light surrounds it. I rush forward, nearly running. The keys are already in my hand. The lock is difficult, something the Other enjoys. He designated it before the dream started. I'm working the key in the lock, jiggling it right and left. Nothing yet. Funny that this gets my heartbeat going, even after all these dances. The fucking lock. Timed test. He's moving towards me from somewhere. He wants me to make the lock. He wants another barrier between me and him. But he won't slow down for me. That would cheapen things. And if I stop keeping things interesting for him...

The knob turns.

I'm in the foyer and the door is locking behind me. There's barred glass on either side of the door, and looking out onto the street I see him. He moves without hurry. Saving energy for the final act. I tremble with the expectation of pain. Yes, my Carolite sisters and brothers, you can feel pain in a tank dream. Incredible pain. The sort of pain that would send your waking body into a coma. All you have to do is override the recommendations on your AARTI tank. Unbelievably easy. As though the designers knew.

His face under the light outside. West African, I think. Not one of those skinny faces from the Horn. No. He's from Nigeria or Mauritania or Ghana. Big. Black and scarred and thick and brutal. The whites of the eyes are wide, almost yellow. The eyes bugging so intensely they look as though they want to jump out of his head and go rolling around the floor. The teeth are white and big and straight. He loves to show me those teeth. Never stops grinning, for this or anything that comes afterwards.

He's happy. Jesus Christ, just look at him. Happy that I made it inside and that he gets to look at me behind the barred window. Happy with his temporary impotence.

The Other taps on the glass. Yes? He opens his mouth and his big, pink tongue lolls out. A dog's tongue, ridiculously long. But you can be what you want in a tank dream, ladies and gents. So Other has this tongue and that face and those hands. Other is a racist caricature and happy to be one. Like blackface on steroids: just look at that smile.

Now that big tongue pushes up against the glass between the bars. He brings it upward, and I can see the dark cracks and the thick, pink taste buds flattened out. Green and almost blue near the center of his tongue, where he needs to brush. He's leaving a long trail on the glass. Saliva glands working on overdrive, just pumping out moisture. And there it is: this wet mark on the window.

Like a promise.

He's grinning at me and his bug eyes are popping and he begins to tap again on the windows. Tap, tap. Tap, tap. Harder. He begins to pound with his fist. His pain recs have been overridden, too. You can see the way he flinches when he begins to really punch. Flinch. Grin. Flinch. The glass bends inward, pops. A crack forms across the surface of the glass. There's blood now, alongside saliva. Smears and rectangles of blood.

That's enough foyer time. I turn to the stairs that lead up to the apartments.

" _Little bird!" my Other calls, his voice dull through the glass. "Don't fly away. Don't fly away from me."_

He reaches through the window and a piece of broken glass slits open the inside of his forearm. Skin and meat part. More blood. He's searching for the latch.

I turn and run.

***

The next morning, from the breakfast table where Mathila was serving scrambled eggs alongside fat-crisped bacon, I sent my tendrils into George Morales' HUD glasses. My breakfast hall was cheery, southwest shades of red and yellow, and after a night in the tank I was in a better mood. I'd decided the day before had been a fluke. A lucky homerun for our man. All I had to do was keep gathering information and I'd catch him with his hand in the cookie jar. And so I was expanding my surveillance. Aside from what Morales was thinking, I wanted to know what he was seeing.

Specifically, I wanted to know where his eyes were wandering.

Through his newsfeed, I gained access to one of the micro cameras set in George Morales' glasses. With half my mind on breakfast, I sweet talked those glasses into sending me a live feed on the sly. Mathilda brought me another piece of buttered toast. She looked tired but she kept her voice pleasant and her eyes down, never peeking at my work.

Like I said, professional.

Morales, two hours ahead of me in Texas, was already at his campaign headquarters. He'd brought up some knowledge queries on his HUD-- he was reading about a bike-sharing program that was very hip in Detroit at the moment-- and he was walking around the headquarters, chatting with interns. Useful, but it wasn't enough. I sent in more algos.

Give up his secrets, little glasses; let me see what he sees. Let me see what gets his attention...

Bam. Pupil-tracking software was slaved to me and now the view had changed: our man wasn't reading the article on bike sharing, no no! That little window stayed open in the corner of his glasses, but his gaze merely drifted over it.

Our man was surveying his fiefdom. He was, with molasses speed, running his gaze over the honeycomb network of cubicle and open space that made up his campaign headquarters. He was looking at the helio windows that kept leaping into existence: news clips of talking heads and pie charts. He was watching the interns make coffee. He was taking it all in.

And it wasn't nothing! Richard Gordon Sockwren was backing quite the little operation in Texas. All for the mayor ship of a city I'd never heard of.

Now one of Morales' aides de camp came at our man from two o' clock. Morales' eyes locked on her, and from my breakfast table in the beige Vegas suburbs I whispered: "Jackpot."

She was one of those strong-jawed, buxom, curly-haired blondes of the style that Texas still produces unapologetically. She wore her HUD loaded to the brim with information-- and she also wore a low top that drew the eye and encouraged it to roam. I licked my lips. I watched through George Morales' eyes. You can bet I was recording everything. Time to wrap this up.

"Morning, Ms. Dubois," said our man. He said it like: _Doobwas_.

"Good morning, sir," said Dubois. She sounded like someone who has enough on her plate that there's no room left for fake cheeriness. "Julia Wu over at _TJR_ is requesting a statement. Another la Bestia sighting, this time accompanied by vandalism..." She studied her info-clouded glasses. "Jobs' First Baptist was broken into. Someone went at the pews with an axe. Last night. Turned the first three rows into kindling."

"Lord!" said Morales. "What a terrible waste!"

A terrible waste! I said to myself. Absolutely! That low top! That revealed, bountiful curvature! And our saint for Jobs hadn't sneaked a single look!

Here he was-- the Big Man, the Boss, Master of the Domain-- and he hadn't even glanced. Or snuck a look while her eyes were buried behind the info load on her own HUD. It wasn't inconceivable, no, but it was... surprising. I've looked through the eyes of plenty of powerful women and men in my time, and whether they're politicians, professors, or super managers they all-- all of them-- like to help their eyes to plenty of subordinate flesh. It goes with the territory.

Morales' gaze, however, was riveted to Ms. Dubois' text-filled glasses. The beige unease of the day before returned to settle in the pit of my stomach.

Our man said: "This vandalism is unacceptable. And we're going to meet it head on. Let's have a statement for Ms. Wu inside the hour. As for this la Bestia thing... all we got was another eye witness, right?"

"Josh Littlehoof," said Ms. Dubois. "Convenience store clerk, twenty-one."

"But no actual footage-- nothing from a SHUS+H drone or a surveillance system or anybody's glasses or even an old cell phone-- because monsters ain't real. We can go ahead and make that one of my campaign slogans, Alice: 'Monsters Ain't Real.'"

The administrator's generous mouth curled, almost unwillingly, into a smile. "'Monster's Ain't Real,' sir. Noted. I'll pass it on to Julia."

She turned, and Morales missed his second chance to take in the expansive Texas real estate. He didn't even glance. Nothing. And it only got worse! Through the long hours and the pretty, young interns that followed, Morales kept his gaze chaste and eye level. He didn't sneak any looks at the boys, either. Day two and our man was innocent of all offenses.

I didn't make it to the Batcave that day. I didn't touch any of my other projects. I sat at the breakfast table, in my bathrobe, while Mathilda and company scurried about. There were five active helio windows floating about my head. Four showed different views from inside campaign headquarters. One gave an intimate view of the Morales' credit history. None of them amounted to anything. For the first time in this investigation, I felt something beyond gnawing irritation. It only got worse as the sun began to set.

Chapter 7

<OURMANFORJOBS@THOT[TICKR]:PRIVATE> _...always held that you cant beat a texas barbecue i know the people up in arkansas and louisiana try / a good job but they dont touch what people in dallas or / even austin / can do / why mr el amin let me tell you about a little shindig i went to just yesterday no wait / haha / i suppose that you were there too in your own way / in my head / but boy if only they had a tastestream eh? tastetickr? / tastestream and youd know what i was talking about mr el amin and theres no way / you could deny youd have to hop on board /_

yes / no doubt / today you might think is just / another little barbecue / function in jobs but i tell you the / league of women voters / a serious force! intelligent driven resourceful like no other group in town we want these constituents as allies and / by goodness / i mean to have them...

Day three and our man was still streaming as though his thoughts came off a beige teleprompter. Our man still all business and pleasant opinions. Our man, the Bug Orphan, lest ye forget-- left to rot his teenage years away in the anarchy of the Houston suburbs while the State of Texas looked on-- and all he ever thought about was how goddamn proud he was of Jobs' barbecue. It was bullshit; anyone could see that. Totally impossible! But somehow Morales was pulling this con off-- even on himself.

In the Batcave, Morales' beige worldview had taken the place of honor on the large, central helio window. There it hovered, dwarfing everything else. At intervals throughout the day, I picked through his archived thoughts. Nothing. My other work-- those jobs that had kept me so happy and entertained-- had all been pushed to the side, assigned minor windows which floated, dejected, behind my head.

I have footage of myself during those days. Hours and hours of unshaven Wally hunched forward in the low light of the Batcave, reviewing George Morales' thoughts. Wally dyed beige by the light from the helio. Wally like a bridge troll, eating beans straight from the can while he searches for that single, evil thought that will free him. Wally like a statue, only his eyes moving for an hour or more as he stares through Morales' glasses. Wally shaking his round head and grinding his bad teeth. Wally groaning and scratching his shrinking belly. Wally beginning to talk to himself. To question himself. To wonder.

My only escape? Dreamless sleep.

Then, each day, when the timer in the lower-righthand corner of the footage hits twelve fifty PM, Wally stirs and salivates like one of Pavlov's hungry hounds. Here's Wally logging onto Morales' private thot[tickr] account. Wally staring at the blank window, waiting for Morales. Tapping his foot.

<OurManForJobs@thot[tickr]:private> _...only scrub brush out here but even this scrub has a kind of beauty to a man who knows how to appreciate it / sure i know what people say mr el amin / but i wouldnt live anywhere else in the world..._

How was he doing it? Had thot[tickr] come out with some kind of self-censor? For the first few days, that was the only thing I could think of: Morales must have outside help. Dick Sockwren was helping EmotiEnterprises test some new filter. Something to help politicians avoid Representative Crowley's fate. So I sent algos creeping into EmotiEnterprises' internal communication network and I listened.

And? No such filter existed. It was too difficult for any algorithm to know what to censor, what to allow. There was too much context involved, too great a risk of redacting the wrong thoughts, rendering thot[tickr] worse than useless: confusing. No. The business plan, these days, focused on improving thot[tickr] as a scribe tool. A personal diary. They were moving away from sharing. Too many embarrassments. Too many failures.

<OurManForJobs@thot[tickr]:private> _...a beer alright and a tasty one must be out of one of those fancy places in austin or / foreign / sure / really packs a punch sort of whallops you in the face not really for me / but kind of the young lady all the same / trying to expose me to some of the finer things / haha / nice for washing down the spice but strong strong strong / are you a fan of hoppy beer mr el amin? / i can only wonder..._

Currently, I was watching George Morales through Social Harmony Urban Surveillance+Help Drone Tx/j 159 and through the HUD glasses of certain members of Jobs' League of Women Voters. I'd also programmed Morales' subcutaneous health stamp through his FitTrak account to feed me his biometrics throughout the day. I was feeding these biometrics through a dedicated emotiwoople account to see if they told a different story than thot[tickr]. Then, too, I was tracking and recording Morales' stare, through his own HUD. Tracking his eyes everywhere they looked.

I'd get him.

I watched through our man's eyes as he put away great helpings of meat. I watched through his eyes as he shook a woman's hand (her emotiwoople nails went from gold to striking red the moment her skin touched his). I watched the woman behind the podium gesture towards Morales. Now I sat behind our man's gaze as he took the stage and began speaking to the assembled. The text of his speech flowed along perfectly through thot[tickr]:

<OurManForJobs@thot[tickr]:private> _...changing energy infrastructure / texas remains a leader in the country in adapting to these challenges / by investing in k through twelve education strong investment incentives and late stage career training / i am dedicated to making certain that those programs are available to working women here in jobs / are you ready, jobs? that means affordable subsidized childcare for working mothers / that means mandatory paid leave for pregnancy / that means parity in pay by gender for positions worked / that means..._

Listening through the SHUS+H drone and through several audience members' glasses, I could hear his voice amplified across the field. It was a bullet-point policy presentation, sure, but there was real fire in that voice. Energy. The audience was getting excited-- shouting and clapping in bursts-- and I could see why: Morales sounded passionate. He sounded like he really gave a damn.

But it wasn't Morales' voice or mannerisms that kept me riveted. No. What held my attention was what was going on _inside_ our man.

I mean, giving a speech like that, with your voice thundering across a cheering crowd on a beautiful afternoon, you'd expect Morales to feel something stirring in his chest. All those women applauding him? Some of them shouting his name? You'd expect his emotiwoople to be orange or red or even a nervous grey/black/blue. Right? But, ladies and gentlemen, I want you to guess the color I was getting from both FitTrak and thot[tickr]. Go ahead! Guess.

You can hardly guess wrong.

<Emotikey@thot[tickr]:info> _...this level of beige indicates a feeling of businesslike confidence! The user is currently feeling competent, determined and ready to tackle whatever problems come [his] way! Beige is traditionally associated with practical, success-driven achievers and enthusiastic problem solvers! This user is feeling confident in [his] own abilities and calmly certain that [his] goals are on track..._

His voice thundered and he gesticulated to that roaring crowd like Hitler in his Munich rock-star days and all he felt was businesslike confidence? But his heart rate, taken directly from his subcutaneous health stamp, confirmed it. Well.

When it was over, and one of Morales' aides de camp had come up and pulled the thotnode from the back of his neck, I pulled up emotikey and began to do a little research. Was it even possible, I wondered, to be as steady as Morales? Was it possible to feel that much beige?

After an hour fiddling with emotikey, the best I could come up with was:

<Emotikey@thot[tickr]:info> _...Keep in mind, everyone is different. You may expect to see certain emotional states corresponding with certain personality types and environments, so don't be surprised if one user remains consistently in the greens while another spends more time in the blues or reds. This is perfectly natural. And please remember: trying to force a preferred emotional state on a spouse or family member is never recommended! If the wrong emotional state is causing unhappiness in the household, we recommend turning off emotiwoople for a day or two and focusing on other tasks. Then return, fresh and ready to more-fully communicate..._

In other words: who could say? Maybe it was possible to feel that much beige.

Now, sitting in his Lexus as it drove him home, Morales just stared out the window at that scrub he thought was so beautiful. His Horto-pockmarked face betrayed nothing but sleepy calm. He blinked. He licked his lips. A single line of sweat ran down his cheek.

I watched him and watched him. Our man for Jobs.

***

That night I watched George Morales make love to his wife. Which is the polite way of putting it. Actually, those two really fucked! I'd hijacked the Morales' home-surveillance system days earlier. Standard operating procedure: I compromise the home surveillance of any individual I'm serious about combing. You need to watch them where they feel safe. You need to watch them in bed.

Morales came home first. He HUDconferenced with one set of aides de camp and invited a second set of them over for dinner. They ordered pizza and talked strategy while Jester the dog shoved his empty bowl under the living-room sofa. Morales told bland stories about that afternoon's barbecue as though it were the highlight of his week. The aides all laughed at his lame, toothless jokes.

So their boss's mask never slipped? So what? Job security, right?

Even so, I looked up a few of the interns and began sending my algos into their Heads Up Display glasses. I wanted a peek at correspondence. I wanted to see if, deep down, he unnerved any of them like he unnerved me.

Jenny Morales pulled into the front driveway at nine fifty-two PM. Even as her Lexus connected with the home grid, I was sending my algos into the vehicle. Taking control of the Lexus' interior surveillance. Widening the net. I watched Jenny exit the car on three separate driveway cams. And even before she made it to the front door, my eyes were narrowing. My mouth was tightening. Something... didn't quite...

No, ladies and gents. The situation was wrong. Oh sure, everything looked fine on paper. One man, one woman. Comparable ages, income levels, religious beliefs. But. Well, to be honest, my gut didn't like it. I got the feeling that this was just another con. Because? I hope you'll forgive me but... frankly, I thought our man could do better.

George Morales, despite his Horto-pocked face, is a strikingly handsome man. He's tall, broad shouldered, dark complexioned, and possesses black hair already salt and peppering at the temples. Strong nose. Intelligent, compassionate eyes. Lots of what looks like high-quality dental work hides the teeth he lost during the SuperBug years.

His wife, on the other hand...

Jenny Morales was a bleach blonde with a pair of dull, bovine eyes stuck deep in a face that didn't seem to know what to do with itself. Everything in that face was a half measure: a tiny chin which doubled and trebled at the slightest provocation; little ears which were, nonetheless, set too high; a nose which barely had had the courage to separate itself from her cheeks. Her manicured hands were chubby, and small, and covered in little, gold rings. Her pantsuit fit badly.

She entered her home without announcing herself, heaved a deep sigh when she saw Morales' aides de camp sitting around the dinner table with her husband, squinted suspiciously at the female interns, and dropped her bags to the floor.

It was a signal. Morales was immediately up and smiling. He was shaking his aides' hands and winking and saying: "Well, I suppose even the wicked need a little bit of rest..." He stood by his wife as the aides left through the front door. He thanked them as they left. He called out jokes across the driveway. He waved. Jenny, meanwhile, barely looked at the aides. Her handshakes were limp.

Oh, my heart was beating, ladies and gents! I was salivating like the wolf that sees the lagging calf. There was something wrong here. Something uncomfortable! At last, a real chink in our man's perfect armor! Was George Morales a closeted homosexual? I'd have to review his CCeT's. Look for clues. It doesn't happen so much anymore, but this was Texas, after all...

"Butterbug?" said Jenny, as the front door closed. Her voice was a barely-composed whine that sent a jolt of excitement through my blood. "I hate those people. I know it's stupid, but I get so jealous when they're here, with you..."

I was leaning forward in my chair in the Batcave. I was gnawing on my closed fist. Here was that imperfection in the granite facade that would lead to the rich vein of scandal! And maybe George Morales sensed it? Somehow? Because, now, he destroyed this newest possibility before I even had the chance to explore it. He slammed this opening door shut, right in my face.

Our man put one finger to his wife's thin, grimacing lips and growled: "Tonight?"

That single word! Her eyes widened and she nodded, looking up at him like a dog that's heard the word 'treat.' Then he was pulling that pantsuit off of her, letting waves of pale, thick flesh tumble out. Her bra was undone and a pair of ropey breasts swung into play. She went down to her knees, there on the hardwood floor of the living room, and she grabbed at Morales' crotch and she whined: "Show it to me."

Morales' penis fell, heavy, out of his unzippered slacks to hang-- barely swaying, like a piece of playground equipment-- in front of his wife's muted eyes. Our man was already erect to a size that drew a snort of surprise and envy from the halls of the Batcave.

Jenny Morales gave a squeal that set the hairs on the back of my arms rigid.

She said, "It needs me, doesn't it?" and she took it in hand and guided it into her mouth. She closed her eyes like a connoisseur devoting all of her senses to the taste of salt and sweat, and she ran her tongue in a slow circumference around the purple skin of the head.

Then she bit down. Hard. In the Batcave, timezones away, I shouted: "Hey!"

Morales cried out in pain and looked down at his wife. Rage transformed his face. Jenny Morales, on her knees, looked up at him and cackled. She bit again and tugged. In the Batcave, I winced and swore. Morales let out a scream from deep in his stomach. I could see the angry, red tooth marks on the shaft and head of his penis. Jenny said, "You don't like that, do you? Mister Cool and Collected. Makes you angry. At least something makes you angry. What're you going to do, you little faggot? Just take it?" She bit down again and tugged.

Now Morales was pulling his dress shirt and undershirt over the top of his head. His pants dropped to the floor. He stood naked before his wife, a sun-darkened Greek wrestler standing above a shapeless, grub-colored dumpling.

"Well, shoot," he said.

Then he was on top of her, pushing her onto her stomach and mounting her from behind. He jammed the whole length of himself into her until she made a whimpering noise from the force of it. He continued with a steady-piston rhythm while she let out a series of grunts and wheezing noises and the tires of fat above her hips jiggled. When she tried to move, he pushed her face into the floor. I wasn't sure how she was breathing. Eventually, he pulled back on her hair so hard I was afraid that she'd suffer whiplash. Now Jenny Morales roared like an angry water buffalo and shrieked obscenities until our man wrapped his large hands around her throat and choked her into a coughing fit. His biceps surged and her face reddened and for a moment, once more, I thought he was certain to do some real damage. Then, at the last possible moment, he released her. She wheezed like a bellows as he continued to penetrate her with ever-greater force.

Finally, she rasped: "Worship me..."

He withdrew himself and stood above her again, tapping her on her snub nose with the purple head of that giant member, and then he masturbated until cloudy ejaculate pooled in her sallow cheeks and rolled down her chins. Both of them gave long, low groans as the fluid dribbled down her breasts.

I decided to shelve the homosexual theory.

They weren't done, either. Like I said, they really fucked! They might have been a pair of kids fifteen years younger, the way they went on. After the first round, Morales brought his wife to completion on the living-room couch with his mouth and hands. Then they moved to the bedroom-- I had to switch to a different set of cameras-- for more of the rough stuff.

It was a disappointing night for me. I thought I'd finally found Morales' weakness-- a mismatched wife-- but it had turned out to be just another strength. And the more I thought about it, the more it made a depressing kind of sense: neither of them were tank users-- that still being scandalous in this part of the country-- and yet, clearly, vanilla lovemaking wasn't going to satisfy either one of them. They needed each other. For a man with the self-discipline of George Morales, I thought, Jenny must bring real relief. Yes, it made sense...

All the same, I would have given an enormous sum of money-- everything Sockwren was paying me and more-- to have had Morales' thot[tickr] working at that moment: to read our man's CCeT's as he kneaded the excess flesh of his doughy wife. Because he loved her with the roughness that she liked, yes, but also with an almost-measured efficiency. And every time I had a grainy view of his face in the darkness of their bedroom, I saw the same look of intense focus. An almost-thoughtful look.

And there was one last thing: I had both the Morales' FitTrak accounts open. The delicate, wafer-thin stamps of silicon in their arms were constantly reading and reporting in: heart rate; blood pressure; rate of oxygen intake; muscle contraction. Jenny Morales' statistics were as elevated as you'd expect, and when I fed her biometrics to emotiwoople the program gave back a fiery and shifting picture: orange to red to pink to purple to yellow. An explosion of colors as she orgasmed. But George Morales' heart rate-- even as he finally ejaculated-- stayed metronome steady and his blood pressure refused to rise and even his breathing was measured. I fed his biometrics to emotiwoople with a heavy heart, already knowing what I would see.

Beige. Even here, at the height of this violent passion, our man felt nothing but businesslike confidence.

Chapter 8

COWGIRL LACEY MOLLOY HAD A HELIO PROJECTOR IN FRONT OF HER NEW HOME. The projector ran day and night and it was always set to her thot[tickr]:public profile. It projected her thoughts, writ large, for anyone who happened to be in the front yard. Another thing: every fifteen minutes this projector pulled the Targeted Advertising Profiles from the glasses of everyone within a hundred yards, amalgamated the results, and played an advertisement targeted towards what people in that business call LCDT or, Lowest Common-Denominator of Taste.

Lacey's new home was on a nice street. There were big pines everywhere. A creek ran through Lacey's backyard and it made a happy, bubbling noise which tended both to cheer her up and send her to sleep. Lacey was given an interior designer who made sure that the inside of her new house was beautiful and she was given a maid to make sure that it stayed beautiful. There was very little traffic on the street and the house was far enough from I-5 that Lacey didn't have to be reminded very often what her life had been like just a few months earlier.

That said, Lacey Molloy woke every morning to the sound of people moving around in her front yard. These people gathered anew every morning because the police moved them off the property every evening. They would call Lacey's name, knock on her door, get into jostling fights, try to send their children in through her windows. Several large men had been hired by Nicolas Davlenik to hold them back. Lacey couldn't totally dislike the followers-- they were here for her, after all-- but there were mornings when she had no choice but to think/scream:

<CowgirlLacey@thot[tickr]:public/archive> _...HEY YOU FUCKING PEOPLE WHY / DONT YOU GET OFF MY GODDAMN LAWN GIMME / A FUCKING MINUTE TO TAKE A SHIT EAT BREAKFAST SMOKE / AND THEN WE CAN TALK / BUT LET ME FUCKING BREATHE A MINUTE YOU NEEDY LITTLE..._

This, more than the men at her front door (or even the police) would send her morning greeters fleeing like spooked rats. They would roam the suburbs in packs and slink back after an hour or so, heads low, kicking at pebbles.

The followers, at least, had their uses. Cowgirl Lacey now started every morning snorting the finest Chuckle: a daily offering brought by the devout and stored in her sock drawer. Then-- with the trees outside starting to really snap, crackle, hum, and the color of the light moving a shade closer to the land of ideals and the edges of things so sharp she was afraid to cut her fingers tying her own shoelaces-- then, GOD would usually make an appearance. HE would glow and HIS beard would float and HIS terrible glare would start melting her new, Swedish furniture.

And HE would have things to say.

This never failed to rile up the followers. There were usually a few Latin translators in the crowd, and these people would be given bullhorns and begin the daily work of translating what GOD had to say. It was funny: despite being the only one who could really see or hear HIM, Lacey Molloy was certain, by this point in her life, that GOD was nothing more than a sign of serious mental illness. But then, her followers would ask, how did she explain the Latin? Lacey knew three or four words of Spanish-- that was it. She couldn't understand GOD when HE decided to go full Roman Catholic on her. And yet, every morning, a woman or man with a bullhorn would begin translating GOD'S ranting to the assembled:

"...our Lord is telling Lacey the history of the house cat! He says that the modern housecat's small size and propensity... to be mauled by raccoons... is a punishment-- yes, punishment!-- for an... ancient slight! Ok. _Bellum Civile_... so... when Lucifer rebelled against heaven and... when he took on or, um, rallied a host of _angeli_... against God... well, all of the, uh, _animalibus_ \-- that is, of course, the animals-- they also took sides. Right! Our Lord is telling Lacey... wait a second... the Lion and the Tiger and the Leopard... all fought for Heaven. But the largest cat of all, um... the desert... Sphinx? Well, the Sphinx chose to fight with Satan! And... after the war, when Satan lost and was cast down... the, um, 'proud Sphinx' was shrunk into the smallest of the cats. And made to... serve Man... by catching the vermin of the earth! Ok! So sayeth Our Lord, everybody!"

And inside her house, sitting at the breakfast table, Lacey would look at GOD-- who was grinning now, so happy was HE to be taken seriously-- and, knowing that everyone could read it, she would think:

<CowgirlLacey@thot[tickr]:public/archive> _...you goofy floating fuck wipe that dick eating grin off your face / who would ever believe such a crock / just cause you speak a foreign language..._

Even so, there were dozens of websites dedicated to recording everything GOD had ever said across thot[tickr] and most were only half satirical (and these sites argued with one another-- bitterly, savagely-- over interpretation of GOD'S word). Verily, Lacey's disbelief in the GOD which screamed at her only increased her legitimacy in the eyes of many-- who saw that she wasn't trying to push anything-- so that when she would come outside sometime in the early afternoon, carrying a half-empty can of Rainier and waving shyly, they cheered until her windows shook and her neighbors, once again, called the police.

Lacey spent most afternoons with the followers. She had a dedicated camp chair and she drank and smoked and snorted Chuckle and talked with the assembled. She accepted what they gave her, and when they asked her for counsel she would preface every answer with: "You know I'm an addict, right? And a schizophrenic or something? Six months ago I was homeless, giving handjobs for rides. And I'm actually pretty wrecked at the moment. Right now. So I may not be the person to ask, but I think..."

She answered honestly because there was no point to lying. The assembled could read her thoughts over HUD or phone or laptop. They could read her thoughts on the gigantic window helioed above the front lawn.

<CowgirlLacey@thot[tickr]:public/archive> _...lots of deluded people here today / plenty of scam artists / yeah dont think i dont know / lots of / kiss asses / especially the ones that brought the drugs / kiss asses kiss asses / and ronny i swear to GOD / is pathological / dangerous / get that boy out of here..._

They knew everything she thought about them. And it only caused them to trust her even more.

Lacey always got rid of them by early evening. She would order the followers to leave via thot[tickr] and fifteen minutes later, her bodyguard would sweep the yard for stragglers. She spent the rest of the day alone, except for the help. Her neighbors never visited. When old friends showed up at the door, Lacey would find them transformed: eyes wide and earnest, smile plastered to face. She would let them in, wine them and dine them, maybe stay up late and tell stories about the old days, finally get to the part where they "needed a little money" or wanted "a blessing," bless them in either case, and have one of Nicolas' men send them packing the next morning with a sack lunch.

But most evenings she was alone.

Lacey spent her evenings like a hermit who likes to binge drink and snort Chuckle and fall asleep in front of the helio window. She enjoyed catching the advertisements she'd starred in for different products and services. She liked being really chucklefucked as the sun went down, sitting on her cigarette-burned couch, watching thotlebrity Cowgirl Lacey sell bars of soap or financial services on the big window between episodes of _Law and Order_. There she was! On the window! She couldn't get over it.

Another thing Lacey enjoyed was getting messages on her HUD. At certain points during the day, the lenses of her glasses would blink and play a pleasant jingle and Lacey would open a window full of text and read to herself something like:

<CowgirlLacey@thot[tickr]:public/archive> _...have you seen the muffin man the muffin man the muffin man have you seen the muffin man? / no you probably havent they arent so common these / days so check out gildensterns muffins and bagels / premium quality affordable price delivered by drone hot / to your front door or balcony / no goofy guy in a poofy chef hat just good chewy muffins..._

Or:

<CowgirlLacey@thot[tickr]:public/archive> _...it sure is hard work being the worlds foremost thot[tickr]er / so much to think about / thank goodness i can rest easy knowing my home and livelihood are safeguarded by fifth column insurance / fifth column takes home of / no whoops / takes care of all the heavy lifting so i can keep streaming / best decision i ever made / thank you fifth column! im always happy youre watching my back..._

And that was it: money in the bank; back to _Law and Order_. She capped off most evenings by passing out on the couch or staying up all night chuckling and listening to the walls creak, sitting in the eye of that storm of altered thought that was making her ever-more famous.

It was something like a routine and it worked for Lacey Molloy. That is, until the day she met Prince Charming Number Three.

***

At the beginning of the second week of the Morales investigation, I slipped. Not a bad mistake. Nothing that compromised the inquiry... but a slip. Visible. I held all the cards, ladies and gentlemen: all the pics and the thoughts and the cardio history and the surveillance footage and expense reports and internet search histories and purchase data. But it was I, not Morales, who made the first blunder. Humiliating. Impossible. I would have been furious if it didn't scare me so much.

Combing a decade of personal data had given me nothing, by the way. The Morales' credit reports showed me a level of debt appropriate to their earning power. No scandalous purchases. Their internet usage was benign: lots of streamed cat videos; plenty of celebrity gossip. Nothing about how to build bombs. Nothing religious. I couldn't find any searches more interesting than 'how long should this rash be on my elbow?' Jenny Morales was allergic to pet dander but didn't seem to have any trouble with Jester. No criminal records. She had a few speeding tickets, long-ago paid, from the days before her car did all the driving. HUD interviews with a wide scattering of Morales' former coworkers and landlords gave me nothing, either. He was a "hard worker," he always "played by the rules," and he was "a little unimaginative, but I'd trust that son of a bitch with my life's savings!"

No one seemed to think much about him or to have many strong feelings about him. Even the Morales' Targeted Advertising Profiles were boring. She liked shoes and jewelry and brand-name exercise wear. He liked grilling equipment, electronic gadgetry, cigars and sporting goods.

As for their daily lives? Neither George or Jenny Morales seemed to have anything to hide. They were both of them carved of some unblemished, beige stone: the type of super-competents that sit on arts councils and stand behind the pharmaceutical counter. They read treatises on self-improvement instead of poetry and held all the popular beliefs of the day: Jenny was on a very chic diet that involved some exotic grain; she was part of a culinary movement altering the economies and agriculture of four vast territories in East Africa. The Morales poured themselves into administration and micromanagement as though these works would immortalize them. They watched romantic comedies and appeared not only relieved, but excited, when the old, immutable formula was repeated again and again and again. They might have been some new form of truly-professional, unassailable human.

Homo beigeicus.

Only, they weren't _totally_ irreproachable-- and this, at first, kept me from panicking.

Ms. Morales, in particular, was a vast repository of poor taste and bad habits and little acts of pettiness. Sitting on the leather cushions in the back of her Lexus (an enclosure in which oxygen molecules-- by parts per million-- had been so crowded with artificial scent as to impair breathing), she would demand that the luxury vehicle vibrate, massage, and heat the loose flesh of her thighs until she was nearly baking. Next, and like clockwork, she would command the car's radio to find and play whatever pop song of the moment was most mindless and cloying. Then, and most horribly, she would sing along to the idiot lyrics in her reedy voice, her bullfrog chest swelling, her thin tongue flicking at the roof of her mouth. If, during the course of her ride, she saw a camp of highway beggars with signs asking for water, she would tint the lenses of her glasses with a passing forest scene or a downtown landscape at night.

"Something a little less unpleasant," she would whine. And the beggars would disappear and her emotiwoople jewelry would shift from flickering grey back to a bright, emerald green.

At work, Jenny Morales was a tyrant. She delivered results quickly and accurately if not holistically or with an eye towards the long term. The women and men who worked under her detested her-- I listened to them curse her from every corner of the hospital-- even as they fought like rats to become her favorite. Actually, in this respect, I considered her very canny. She set her favorites against each other, getting tremendous amounts of pointless work done while making life miserable for those who refused to play her game. After a few days of watching her I knew this: she was anything but a fool.

And what about our beige man? Mr. Businesslike Confidence? He who had never known a gaffe! He who was never at a loss for an empty, easy platitude to fill the stony silence! Whose intent was as pure as his action! What about him?

It turned out, even George Morales had a few quirks:

Every morning, during his commute to the campaign center, Morales had taken to watching famous speeches on his glasses. I watched him as he switched from one speech to the next. I tracked his eyes as they studied the hand gestures of one orator or the mad stare of another. Indians, Germans, Italians, South Africans, Americans, Cambodians, Chileans, Russians and Turks. They all passed before his eyes. But listen here! Morales, unlike his wife, left his HUD untinted to look outside at the passing scrub and highway. When he saw beggar camps, he would order his Lexus to pull over to the side of the road and he would get out of the vehicle. He kept-- and fanatically replenished-- cases of bottled water in the back of that Lexus. He passed these out to the highway women and men and children with kind words. He did this, every morning, despite the fact that there were never reporters present. He was so concerned with always having water in his Lexus that I made a physical note on the clipboard I kept perched in my lap:

Our man knows what it's like to be thirsty. Water v. important.

Morales also conducted breathing exercises for an hour every day. He took half an hour in the morning and another half-hour in the evening. Sometimes, in the middle of some task, his eyes would soften and he would shake his head or shrug like a condor that knows, by instinct, that it's suddenly time to spread its wings and bake away parasites under the sun. He would take the nearest cushion and place it on the floor. He would sit on the cushion and cross his legs and rest his hands in his lap and close his eyes. I could go get ice cream after that: he wasn't going anywhere. Our man was disciplined about this.

And George Morales had one, final, quirk of behavior worth mentioning: a strong aversion to fecal matter.

I know this because I watched George Morales shit. Over and over, I watched him shit. Maybe some of you are gasping right now? Covering your downturned mouths with your delicate, clean hands? And your emotiwoople hair dye is burning electric yellow from the shock of it? The scandal? But, oh, don't be coy, ladies and gents! We don't have time to waste with mock outrage. You participate in the process, don't you? You keep voting for the women and men who approve Social Harmony's budget. The politicians who renew the Freedom From Fear Act. We all know that it's necessary. Necessary to protect us. Plenty of rotten apples out there. Maniacs! And who knows which of them is a neighbor?

Information is our friend, remember; unmonitored time, the enemy.

Maybe some of you really _aren't_ aware of the secondary surveillance systems inside your homes? But they're there! SHUS+H mandated. Tiny cameras hidden in the paint of any home built or remodeled during the last decade: bathrooms included. They feed directly to a local, passive SHUS+H archive. The idea being that anyone who wanted to perform an illegal act in their own home would have no way of finding and disabling all of the eyes on them. Read the fine print in your mortgage! In your homeowner's insurance! Everything totally legal and above board! Anyway, if you're not suspected of criminal activity, this footage is archived and ignored. There just aren't enough eyes to go over everything Social Harmony records.

But it's the simple truth: if someone's paying to know your habits and history, I'll be slipping into the SHUS+H network and watching your relationship with your toilet. What are you flushing down there? The normal stuff? Or are you using it to vomit? To get rid of Chuckle? Old love letters? What's the secret you need gotten rid of?

Oh, I know more than your average John about what goes on in the bathroom! For example: your everyday squatter, after pulling down pants and sitting, will usually take a little time to get to business. Often, they'll take a few deep breaths while their intestines make the normal noises: releasing, churning, swishing. After that, depending on the strength of your audio pickups, you'll hear a low groan and the splish-splash of waste matter hitting water. Maybe a sigh of pleasure. Then, depending on whether your subject has eaten their Wheaties, or been drinking too much coffee, the process may repeat several times. Churn, splash, sigh. Churn, splash, sigh. Double, double, toil and trouble.

Finally, though, you reach the end. A hand goes for the toilet paper.

And on this subject alone, I could write a doctoral thesis! Everyone has their own technique. Some people fold little squares or triangles or rectangles. Others bunch up a great wad of paper. One woman will carefully count the squares of paper off the roll-- always five, every time-- another will decimate whole valleys of rainforest in her mad grab for absorption! And then: do you reach down between your legs or come at things from behind? What sort of face do you make? Do you lick your lips? I've seen it all! And do you fold or rotate? And how often do you fold? How many square inches of paper can you cover with fecal matter? How densely? The contrast between styles is enormous!

But what about Morales?

Morales couldn't bring himself to look at shit. Maybe he'd never read _Everybody Poops_? I would watch him in his bathroom-- his dress pants hiked down to his knees-- and sometimes I'd laugh as he groaned and heaved above the toilet like a sinking ship. Then, when he was done, his eyes would pinch shut and his mouth would tighten and he'd hunt around blindly.

You can bet all that barbecue didn't help him.

Maybe you're surprised I latched onto this detail? For women, this style isn't uncommon; women seem to feel less need to study what they've produced. But men? The average man will at least sneak a glance at this thing he's made before sending it spiraling into the dark. And, let me tell you, I've watched more than one man study his work with apparent satisfaction-- even wondering aloud at the size and quality!

Not so with Morales. Sitting, he would spin his body or reach blindly behind him for the handle. It was only after new water rose in the empty toilet bowl that our man would rise, pull up his pants, vigorously wash his hands, and depart to fill his campaign office with that old businesslike confidence.

The problem was, this was just like all of Morales' other quirks. A little weird, sure, but nothing that would keep our man from getting elected.

So, stymied and frustrated, I made my mistake: I contacted Ms. Kim So-yun. Ms. Kim was one of the clerks on Morales' staff. Nothing but a low-level grunt; she made the coffee. Still, the algo I'd slid into her HUD had picked up a couple of messages which hinted that she, like me, found something uncanny in the man she worked for. In one message to her boyfriend she'd called Morales, "Mr. Always On" and in another, "SuperBug Brain," and in a third, "Old Dead Smile." Like me, she'd felt that something about Morales didn't sit right.

Important, too, was Ms. Kim's American citizenship. Or lack thereof.

I called her one morning before work and I used a voice modulator and one of the Batcave's many toys to reroute the signal through Frankfurt and Dubai and Manila and Vancouver BC and, finally, to originate in Mexico City. I told Ms. Kim all the things about herself that no one could possibly know. I told her how easy it would be to have her deported from her sanctuary. I asked her if she knew what a 'mole' was.

She knew. We came to an agreement then and there. For almost six hours I had a human spy in Morales' camp.

***

That evening, however, in my penthouse apartment on the Strip, I received a call from Dick Sockwren. "Wally," he opened. "What the hell was with that little stunt?" His eyes, thrown up on the helio window before me, were squinted in concentration so deep it might have been pain. He wasn't looking at me, either. He seemed to be staring at the floor.

My algo in Sockwren's HUD took maybe four seconds to feed me Sockwren's viewpoint. He was staring down at the stump of a leg resting on the edge of a chair. It was Dick Sockwren's right leg, sticking out from a pair of boxers, and it was incomplete: severed above the knee; an old injury. He was rubbing the curve of his stump with some greasy solution that might have been Vaseline. There were bolts sticking out of his leg.

I stared through this hijacked view for a moment before saying: "What little stunt, sir?"

"Bullshit," he answered, immediately, not looking up at me. "No one else could have told that girl the things you did. Harassed her so personally. So why the game? Didn't I tell you that you were free to ask Morales' staff anything you wished? That they would help you any way they could?"

Sockwren was fastening an intricate, metal prosthetic to the base of his gelled stump. The prosthetic fastened into the bolts coming out of the stump. A few wires were run up Sockwren's leg and fastened with tape. Limited to the HUD's view, I never saw where the wires ended, but I imagined ports in the base of the spine. I watched Sockwren flex the metal knee of the prosthetic. It looked like he had good control over it. Actually, his control must be superb; I'd never noticed him limp.

"Dick," I said, hazarding the familiarity. "Look. We... you... are messing with something... George Morales is... the way he thinks, even the way he shits... something's wrong..."

Sudden laughter across the helio. Sockwren's mood change quick as a thunderstorm passing over the midwest. "I take this to mean that I've found the right man for Jobs? Here you are, Wally, threatening the immigration status of a poor, young intern. A refugee from PAL Korea! You must be grasping at straws. Well? You can tell me. What goes on inside our man's handsome mug?"

"Beige," I said. "Barbecue."

Sockwren was wrapping strips of synthetic skin around the base of his prosthesis like a soldier of the first World War rolling puttees over boots. The strips of synthskin blended together, resulting in a natural looking-- even hairy!-- right leg. I noticed a series of words etched into the prosthesis just before they were covered by synthskin. Once the strips of skin had climbed to the place where Sockwren's leg ended, he adhered a new gel-- an adhesive-- in a rough circle around his stump and smoothed the synthetic skin down atop it. _Voila_. Only close study, I felt, would show any difference between the legs. The colors were a good match.

There was a pause and Richard Gordon Sockwren looked up at me. The image he presented me with cut off below the waist. I couldn't see either leg, even now that both were sheathed in skin. Turning towards a closet, where a pair of dress pants hung, he said: "Listen, Comb. No more games with Morales' staff. That's not what I'm paying for. You go ahead and ask Ms. Kim anything you like, but no more spying on her or using her to spy. And don't go narcing on the poor woman to immigration. It's hard enough to retain people. Hear me?"

"I hear you, Mr. Sockwren. That was unprofessional of me. I apologize."

"You might apologize to her, too," said Sockwren and the window closed.

He'd hung up.

But through his HUD, I kept watching as Dick Sockwren put on his pants: one leg at a time. He was as agile with the fake right as the real left. Interesting. Next, I looked back through the last several seconds of our conversation. I hunted through my stolen vantage point for the words inscribed in the metal of Sockwren's prosthesis and I found them. I paused and enhanced the image. The words written in Dick Sockwren's leg:

Assembled in the USA using foreign components. Product of NextSkel Solutions.

***

<OurManForJobs@thot[tickr]:private> _...i want to thank you mr el amin for bringing that individual to my attention and / to assure you i took swift / decisive action although i have a / great deal of sympathy / for the plight of PAL refugees i / cannot have those sorts of lies on my staff and cant no / will not / be seen as someone who harbors illegals / i called a representative of texas border patrol / last night / and the young woman has been taken into custody / and i imagine will be taken to a processing camp / please feel free to talk to any other member of my staff mr el amin and again i / appreciate your finding /_

any of my people will happily talk to you just / arrange a meeting /

actually that brings me to a point / ive been wondering about mr el amin our whole / relationship / seems very one sided mr el amin you are allowed to look inside / my head / my noggin / for an hour every day comb my thoughts / haha / but did you know that richard sockwren has never even shown me a picture of you? / and you hide too / my knowledge queries come up blank / you mr el amin just have to come down here / to jobs / i mean it mr el amin / we re something like coworkers after all and heck once you make it down here / we meet face to face / i might even be able to bring myself to call you / wally / talk about the bug years / so what do you say mr el amin?...

Chapter 9

THAT METAL LEG! I COULDN'T LEAVE IT ALONE. I needed to know about that metal leg.

I'd done plenty of work for Dick Sockwren in the past, but never had any reason to seriously look into him. I'd had no idea that he'd lost a leg. Now I wanted-- needed-- to know why the Senior VP of Arthur:Blair Target Advertising, after so many normal, lucrative corporate-espionage gigs had sicced me on the beige man. What was his interest in Morales? Why was he backing this Bug Orphan for mayor of this little manufacturing town? What did he want me to find?

You'll find in his official online bio that Richard Gordon Sockwren spent a little over a decade in the US Army, climbing to the rank of captain. He was a military man before he entered advertising. A clean-cut biography: common enough and respectable!

Dig a little deeper into those byzantine Department of Defense archives, though, and some details will begin to stand out from the cheery, boring murk. Captain Sockwren, we discover, wasn't sipping cocktails in some officer's club in Berlin or Taipei. No! Captain Sockwren was what the newspapers call, 'a military advisor.' For nearly a decade he was fighting in the mountains of Central Asia. While George Morales was a fifteen-year-old Bug Orphan trying to find pools of clean water and caches of food in quarantined Houston, Captain Sockwren was working as a mountain fighter, a climber, booby trapper, and ambusher. He executed small, deniable strikes against PAL-sponsored forces and he spoke enough of the languages of Dari and Tajik and Russian to lead and train local partisans.

You should see the pictures of him during those days, ladies and gents! In fact, I'll release those pictures, along with everything else, once I'm done talking. Captain Sockwren had a curly beard of ginger already threaded with grey. He had the ice-blue eyes that certain white men develop when they become killers, and he wore the hodgepodge of uniform, armor, and survival gear of the irregular soldier. There are pictures of this young, bearded man sitting and drinking tea with wrinkled warlords, kalashnikovs resting at their feet. There are pictures of him leading quadrupedal mulebots, loaded down with weapons and equipment, along narrow trails high across lifeless landscapes. Here he is riding a horse-- playing some unforgiving, nomadic-pastoral version of polo-- and then there are pictures of him eating horse. Here he is peering through binoculars and here he is performing very-elementary first aid on a man's shoulder and here he is lying atop a colorful rug reading a dog-eared book on Soviet military history.

He was out there for a long time; there are plenty of pictures.

Here's a photo: Sockwren standing with two young, grim-faced descendants of Genghis Khan. The pic, for whatever reason, is in black and white. Maybe one of them was playing with the settings? In any case, I'm grateful for it. The three men are standing before what looks, at first, like lazily-stacked cordwood. It's not, though. It's arms and legs and heads, all jutting pell-mell from a pile of dead. Looking at the photo I count eight bodies, but I'm no forensics expert. Maybe you'll do better.

Although it would be a few more years before _The Most Dangerous Game_ made its constatainment debut, I'm certain the editors would recognize the impulse behind the photo: it's a trophy. Big-game hunting where the only megafauna is other human beings.

Eventually those Wild East days had to come to an end, though. The pics make it clear: Captain Sockwren was getting older, starting to too-closely resemble those leathery men with whom he'd been drinking so much tea. Mulebots were picking up more and more slack. Little mistakes started piling up until the day of the big mistake: an unswept British mine, on the same path that Sockwren had walked for months, finally woke up. The mine took Sockwren's leg and left him barely conscious. The Tajik irregular with him that day, one Salar Erbedium, radioed in for evac and Sockwren was taken by helicopter to a hospital in Dushanbe and then loaded onto troop carrier and finally woke up, once more beardless and crewcut, in Ramstein Air Force Base, where he spent the next several months in rehabilitation.

And back in California there were jobs waiting for a man like him. There was demand, in certain circles, for men who'd used transport robotics in hard terrain and killed other men under a variety of circumstances. Sockwren was hired by a group called HardRain LLC and they give him a new title: Consultant.

Now, this is just conjecture-- I didn't read it in any stolen report or correspondence-- but I think those merciless engineers at HardRain began testing their new consultant right away. And I believe they tested him for years. Because every project they brought him into was fractionally less honorable, less soldierly, less human, even... but smarter. As in: kill smarter, not harder. The enemy dies-- in ways that sap the will to fight, in ways that ensure their grandchildren's grandchildren never dare lift a hand to throw a stone-- while we sip martinis in a command center a continent away and watch reruns of housewives in Florida conduct a more-straightforward kind of war. And Sockwren leant these projects his killer's eye, and he moved them fractionally in the smarter direction, and his handlers looked at one another and nodded their heads.

He was approved, finally, for something called Project Alexander. The bottom tip of the military/industrial iceberg, hidden where the sunlight doesn't reach and the plankton freezes to death. All info concerning the project was physical copy, probably kept in a filing cabinet in a vault somewhere. Probably written up on a typewriter. Nothing for an algo to steal. All I knew was this: whatever it was, it spooked him.

Captain Sockwren had been consulting for HardRain LLC for four years by the time he was introduced to Project Alexander. Within three weeks of that introduction, he'd cut all formal ties with the company and ascended a mountain-top of non-disclosure agreements.

***

Prince Charming Number Three arrived on Lacey Molloy's front lawn one evening about an hour after the police had cleared away her followers. Lacey was sitting in her rocking chair under the influence of some opiates and she was watching the sunset. She noticed Number Three's shadow. It was a long shadow and it seemed to flatten her grass and act as a path to the rest of him. He was a bald, bull-chested, bearded and bespectacled black man and he marched right up to her two large goons on duty and he demanded to see her in a voice that was rumbling and low. A storm cloud's voice.

Lacey sat and rocked and watched things play out. Was she dreaming? The new arrival, HUD blinking, addressed himself to Lacey as the guards moved to intercept. He said: "Ms. Molloy! I need you to work through the opioid haze for me! Focus on what I'm telling you! We've developed a new line of therapy! I can help you fight!"

"Mmmm," said Cowgirl Lacey Molloy. "Um."

"Sir," said one of the guards. "This is private property. Visiting hours are over. Ms. Molloy is relaxing after a long day. You'll have to come back tomorrow."

"Relaxing," spat her visitor. "I've seen that kind of relaxing before! The repose of a dead soul. No, sir, I won't be coming to visit with that circus troupe! I tell you, I'll speak with her here and now! Ms. Molloy! Lacey! Hey! I'm here with help!"

"Hey," said a second guard. "You got fuckin' ears? She's not buying." Suddenly the arrival's left wrist was twisted up behind his back.

The bald, bearded and bespectacled man was leaning forward to take the pressure off his left arm and he was shouting: "Lacey! Ahhhh! I can... I can explain your god to you! I can... oooohooho... make him leave you alone! No more visits! Ohhhhhhh! A life without him!"

Lacey Molloy bestirred herself enough to think:

<CowgirlLacey@thot[tickr]:public/archive> _...hey tyrel / mick / you two gentle with grandpa / actually / bring him / here / minute / ill talk to him / lily / lily pad? / get us some / guest stuff..._

One of the guards saw the new orders in his glasses and growled: "I guess he pushed the right button..."

So they brought the visitor, wrist twisted behind his back, up the steps. They brought him to the rocking chair where Lacey Molloy, looking tubercular, sat rocking. At that moment, Lily came out the front door with a tea tray holding two Rainiers and two cups of tea. She set the drinks down before them.

"Pleased to meet you, sir," the maid murmured to the doubled-over guest, nodded, and returned inside.

Lacey, with her gaze still directed towards the empty street, said: "Tell me how HE... knows Latin. Explain that."

"I have a theory," said the visitor, bending even further as one of the guards played with his wrist. "Nothing certain, but a theory! If you'd like...."

"Please. Theorize..."

"Your... god's... Latin is the kind of church Latin one might hear during a Catholic Mass. Do you know that? And what the, uh, god in your head speaks is actually a bastardized form of Church Latin. Never before encountered! Which is quite a creation, quite a discovery... but... this new Latin is close enough to the root so that those hooligans with the bullhorns can interpret it. You see? I've consulted linguists... real experts... ouch!"

"You listening to this, ma'am?" asked a guard. "You want us to chuck his ass?"

"Theorize... quickly..."

"Um! You were taken to Catholic Mass at an early age! Semi-regularly! And! During this developmental stage you! Rather your brain! Formed! Around the precepts of Latin as around English! But without further usage! Remained dormant in your linguistics center! Until discovered! Developed! Utilized! By this personality construct! This constructed god! Explains incorrect usage! Holes! Maybe not all of the verbiage, but! Ow! Ow! Anyway, just a theory, but--!"

Lacey Molloy's eyes were bright. The visitor saw that if she weren't so deep in the grip of the numbing drug she might be crying out now and jumping out of the rocking chair. The guards must have noticed the change too, because the pressure was released from the large man's wrist and he was able to stand up and rub the aching joint.

"And you can get rid of HIM? Get rid of..."

"I'm confident that I can. In fact, I've devoted myself to the task. I've been following your thot[tickr] since the first weeks, actually. You poor child. You see, I'm a father myself. And a trained psychiatrist and addiction counsellor."

She made a throaty, wheezing noise: the husk of a laugh. "Done all that."

"But not recently. You've been on the road quite a while, Ms. Molloy. We've developed new drugs. New techniques. We can help you. Stop these hallucinations and... redevelop those parts of the brain associated with self-discipline and pleasure. What do you think? You have money, now, but this track you're on is going nowhere. Keep it up and you'll have overdosed within two years. We can help you. We can make you a normally-functioning human being again! I'm confident."

For the first time that evening, Lacey Molloy turned to face her visitor. She studied him with her cloudy eyes and she said: "I'm about to go to sleep. I can tell. Can you really make HIM go away? For good?"

"With the Waslowski/Nguyen Method, I believe we can. I'm Doctor Horace Flotsam, by the way. At your service."

He extended a hand and she took it, limply.

"You can stay in the guest room, Horace. Lily will make it ready for you. Tomorrow remind me what we talked about. Don't mind me if I start to chuckle..."

Then the chair stopped rocking and Lacey began to snore.

***

<OurManForJobs@thot[tickr]:private> _...getting a bit ridiculous dont you think mr el amin? / a bit silly / you get to read my mind and watch my actions and yes sockwren has told me that you probably have some cameras placed around my campaign headquarters and / i know youre looking through my credit report / thats right mr el amin you triggered something at / equifax / and now my whole identity is on fraud alert / you didnt do it on purpose did you? not very professional / the sort of thing that might really / disturb / the emotional state / the mental state / of a lesser man /_

so ive made a decision /

you want to know about the superbug years im sure of / it / the last blank space the last hole maybe the secret to everything? to george morales? / you want to reach inside my cranium and / scoop those awful / years / out and slide them / under the microscope and use them to pin me to the wall / like a bug youve named after yourself / but ive given you everything else mr el amin and i wont give you this / no i dont like to think about those years / and so i wont / but how about this / i will TELL you about them / from my mouth to your ear /

but only face to face mr el amin only face to face / thats the deal / get out of sin city mr el amin come to texas to jobs and sit with me / over some cool beer and the best of barbecue / my friend and then ill tell you / everything about the horto years? / maybe not everything / but lots and lots yes / more than will be comfortable /

more than enough /

Chapter 10

"HANDSOME WALLY?" DICK SOCKWREN WAS SHAKING HIS HEAD AT ME. "That sounds shady. Entrapment? Yeah. Something like that. He wants to meet with you, Wally. Not some imposter."

"Check our contract," I replied. "You'll see that I am never under any compulsion to personally meet any of the subjects of investigation, or even physically leave my Las Vegas office."

"Comb--"

"And that, should the investigation require it, I may appoint a proxy. I do it all the time. This guy? I've used him on some of the industrial espionage cases I've worked for you. Please look at your copy of the contract. It's one of the main stipulations. Very clearly written."

"Why the hell can't you just meet Morales yourself?"

"This is the course I've decided to take, Mr. Sockwren. You may see some pics or footage of George Morales with my proxy in the next two weeks. All I'm asking, as a professional courtesy, is that you don't blow his cover. I don't need your endorsement-- only your silence."

"And I'm telling you-- as a professional courtesy-- that I can't make that promise. My relationship with Mr. Morales is based on trust."

Now the man we were discussing entered the conversation. His flight from LA had landed half an hour early, and he'd come directly to my office building and been let in by a helio sprite. He was standing in the dark and humming periphery of the Batcave, listening to our conversation. I'd been watching him for the last three minutes on a security window in my glasses, so it was no surprise to me when I heard a perfect-- wheezing, timorous-- facsimile of my own voice behind me:

"I have a man I use when I need a Wally El Amin impersonator. He's a good-looking fellow: tall, dark, charismatic, quick with a joke, friendly, well read, muscular. He parties a little hard, but he keeps his head and has a good memory for faces and names. People like him. Trust him. Women want him, men want to be him. The complete package. I like to make a good impression when I go out, that's all." My faceman stepped forward to stand shoulder to shoulder with me: "Handsome Wally-- AKA Rahim Shirazi-- at your service, sir."

Sockwren's eyes shifted to take in Handsome Wally. One second. Two. Three. Then: "He doesn't look like you, Comb."

Thanks, I wanted to say. Instead, I let Handsome Wally get to work. Returning to his normal voice, my faceman said: "Good eye, Mr. Sockwren. My Shia Persian father left Tehran for Los Angeles. Wally's Sunni Arab parents left Riyadh for Minneapolis. But the difference between us-- trust me-- is lost upon the layman. And why shouldn't it be?

"We both grew up playing xbox and trying to skateboard and lusting over blondes, didn't we? Allah be praised for that! Did you know, Mr. Sockwren, that I personally am acquainted with the descendants of Irishmen who still look sideways at the descendants of Englishmen? They refuse one of the greatest gifts this country has to give! They refuse to strangle the idiot past with their own two hands! Not us! We're such good _Americanos_ that our entire relationship is based on a business transaction."

Handsome Wally winked at me and I stepped in: "Rahim is an actor by trade. He performs this service for me several times a year and I pay him enough to keep living and trying out for roles in Los Angeles. He's still working for his big break into constatainment. Until then, he plays a world-class Wally."

Handsome Wally: "I've done this work for Comb plenty, Mr. Sockwren. I have his biography and mannerisms and speech patterns plastered up, like wallpaper, on the inside of my skull." He tapped his right temple twice. "I can rattle off enough of his jargon to satisfy even security types. Now, we usually keep these meetings limited. In and out. Still, I've been in all sorts of situations over the years as Walid El Amin. Went to a kid's _bar mitzvah,_ once. Flew with a lady in her private jet over the Atlantic. Made love. Plenty of good times playing Comb. And you know? I convinced every last one of them. A perfect record. Just saying: I don't mean to spoil it."

Dick Sockwren's eyes remained locked on me. "I don't like..."

"But this is the way it's going to be, Mr. Sockwren," I said. "This isn't Pinkerton's Detective Agency. These feets don't pound streets. I have a public face and that public face is Handsome Wally. So you can set up this meeting or we can void the contract and decide on an acceptable payout..."

Handsome Wally was glancing between Sockwren and I like a referee watching a boxing match that's showing ugly, early signs of morphing into a street fight. He jumped in: "Gentlemen! Gentlemen! This doesn't have to be a ploy. Not really. You send Mr. Morales a message saying that Walid has agreed to meet him. That's all. A certain time and place of Mr. Morales' choosing. You haven't vouched for the wrong man, have you? You'll have just passed along a message."

A smile in Sockwren's voice: "George Morales really is something, isn't he? For you to go to all this trouble..."

"He's something else," I said. "Not the superman he pretends to be, but... But if you want me to find out-- and I'm still confident that I can-- than you need to arrange this meeting."

"Fine. But listen: if George shows me a single pic of himself standing with pretty boy, here, I'm not running interference. I'll tell him, directly, that the man he's standing with is not the man I hired. It's up to your actor to make sure George doesn't take that pic."

"Just put us in contact. In a few days we'll have what we need."

"And Wally?"

"Sir."

"You embarrass me again-- like with that intern?-- and you can stop worrying so much about our bet. You fuck this up, we're done."

Dick Sockwren's face froze on the window. He'd hung up on me again. Handsome Wally sat back heavily on a swivel chair and folded his large hands upon his trim stomach. He whistled and looked briefly thoughtful. Then, swiveling to me, he said in a faux-British accent: "My word, Comb! What a dreadful tosser! I do hope he's paying."

"He is."

"Capital! All the same, old sport, I don't suppose you wouldn't mind clearing the helio, hey? Of his right-oppressive stare? Perhaps put on the cricket match, what, what! Or anything else. Yes, if one were to be blunt with oneself, one would have to admit his eyes rather make the bones shiver, wouldn't one?"

Then Handsome Wally leaned back and winked at me. He wasn't shivering a bit.

***

Connections, connections.

I'd spent a few hours in the first week of the investigation looking into George Morales' employer: NextSkel Solutions. My algos buried in Dick Sockwren's HUD told me they were one of Arthur:Blair's larger customers. They were also, I discovered, a minor subcontractor for HardRain LLC. Morales worked in their Human Resources department.

NextSkel Solutions specializes in high-end replacement appendages: fully-articulating arms and legs. Shoulders. Elbows. Hands. Feet. Wiggling fingers and toes. All wrapped up nice and tidy in the newest synthetic skin. Oh, and would you like to know where their manufacturing is based?

A little city in west Texas called Jobs.

Here's another connection for you: NextSkel Solutions uses the same proprietary technology as thot[tickr] to operate their prostheses. The same Israeli SDF hardware. In this case, however, thotnodes are used to hunt for a different kind of neural echo: Semi-Conscious Hard Motor Commands (SCHMoCs). So you want to scratch your nose? The prosthetic goes ahead and does it, the same way your hand used to, with you hardly thinking about it. And you end up with a really natural sense of control over your new limb.

I understood right away why I was having so much trouble cracking NextSkel's internal security: a lot of money and effort had gone into synching SCHMoCs with these new prostheses and the process probably still wasn't perfect. It would be devastating if another prosthetics manufacturer hired someone like me to steal the gains NextSkel had made, leapfrogged their R&D, and beat them to market. It made sense that their internal security was on par with the Pentagon's.

But I didn't like it.

It happens all the time: a groundbreaking telecommunications technology doesn't quite deliver on its promise. The technology fizzles and then gets repurposed to another sector, where it shines. So, NextSkel Solutions were using the same hardware that went into operating thot[tickr]. So what? No real connection, here. Nothing ominous.

I still didn't like it.

I finally got my algos into NextSkel Solutions' intranet through one of their third-party vendors. A smash and grab. Everything I got was encrypted but it didn't matter: it would give the right people a few sleepless nights. It would teach them for thinking they could hide from me. No one gets to hide from me.

I hid my trail, of course. I attacked NextSkel all at once from a thousand false locations. Any two-bit hacker with a tenth of my ability would've done the same.

***

Handsome Wally was scheduled to meet with Morales at the beginning of the third week of the investigation. This gave him a few days to read our man's mind. He had plenty to learn about barbecue, Jobs' style.

I let Handsome stay in my penthouse on the Strip. I don't know why. Maybe I felt guilty about sending him into a situation I still didn't understand. Anyway, he had a good time. He spent his evenings in the casinos and brought home a woman every night. He told them he was a wind-energy baron from La Jolla. He even slept with one of my maids. I was reminded why I normally comp his hotel stays.

As for me? I'd set up a cot in the Batcave. I hadn't left in days.

All of my communication with Morales had been one way, meaning Handsome Wally didn't need to memorize any new lies or mannerisms. He simply needed to know the things I'd be expected to know. Simple enough; I showed him everything.

It put him to sleep.

"What a fugging zombie," my surrogate slurred when I woke him for the fourth time one afternoon. He blinked the gum from his eyes. "It's all like this? Everything he thinks?"

I nodded. "For that hour, anyway." I watched Handsome Wally for a reaction. I wanted to see if there was any uneasiness in him. I wanted to see if anyone else, seeing this, felt the way I felt. I said, "What do you think about his emotiwoople?"

"What about it?"

"Well, just look at it!" I barked, irritated. "As you read. Watch how it changes."

Now, at last, I got a long, low whistle from Handsome Wally. "Or doesn't! Our man's real steady, isn't he? What's brown mean, anyway? I'm not sure I've ever had brown on any of my wooples. Maybe. I stopped wearing those things."

I pushed a few keys.

<Emotikey@thot[tickr]:info> _...this level of beige indicates a feeling of businesslike confidence! The user is currently feeling competent, determined and ready to tackle whatever problems come [his] way! Beige is traditionally associated with practical, success-driven achievers and enthusiastic problem solvers! This user is feeling confident in [his] own abilities and calmly certain that [his] goals are on track..._

Handsome Wally chuckled. "His spooky, beige goals are on track. Ok, Comb, spit it. What's his secret? Lobotomy Victim? Wannabe Cult Leader? He touch kids? Use Chuckle? Pull the wings off butterflies?"

"He's running for mayor."

My faceman shot me a look. "What's his issue? That's what I meant. What are you going to nail him up for?"

"I don't know."

Handsome Wally blinked.

I nodded.

"Does it... feel weird?"

I said: "I'm having Mathilda deliver my meals here. I've wrapped up my other jobs. Not taking any new ones. This case... I have algorithms running through thoughts and surveillance footage, hunting for preset patterns. They're not finding anything. I have encryption software running round the clock, rubik's-cubing through encrypted files from NextSkel Solutions and HardRain LLC and credit agencies and the Bug Orphan Registry and SHUS+H and EmotiEnterprises and Arthur:Blair Targeted Advertising. Nothing. I've got my own tired eyeballs jumping from helio to helio, until I forget what I'm looking at. I haven't slept, really slept, in--"

"I was wondering about the cot."

He placed his hand on my shoulder. I flinched. I'm not really used to be touched outside of tank dreams. He smiled. He smelled nice, too. "You ever think of working with someone else? Just saying. Distributing the load? If ever there was a case worth sharing, it seems like..."

"I'm sharing with you, aren't I? No one else in the world has read Morales' thoughts. Not Sockwren. Not Morales, himself."

Handsome chuckled. "I'm flattered, Comb. Really. But I understand about one of every three words you say most afternoons. I'm talking about--"

"I have the algorithms. An infinite supply of hunters. They'll look for any pattern I designate."

"I'm talking about another comb, Comb. Just saying. Another specialist."

I snorted and shook my head. I looked up at one of the helio windows floating above us. A live feed of the interior of campaign headquarters. Morales was waving one of his aides de camp to sit down. He was reaching into a garbage pail and wrapping up the slimy plastic bag he found there. He was taking his own garbage out while his aides and interns looked on, uncomfortable. He was probably thinking about barbecue, the freak.

"Algos are fine," said Handsome Wally. "Algos are great. They don't sleep. They don't get bored or hungry or horny. They don't start to daydream when they should be working. But those are also limits, aren't they? No imagination. They only look for what you tell them to. They can learn behavior patterns-- everyone knows how good they've gotten at that-- but they can't make speculative leaps. They can't follow their gut..."

"I don't want them to 'follow their gut.' I want them to follow a trail. I want evidence."

"And if there isn't any evidence? Just what have you been doing all this time?"

"You want me to work with another datacomber? You have no idea! It would be like getting a feral cat to work with a racoon. It doesn't work!"

"What if you shared all the info you've gathered so far? All the work you've done? What if you admitted that you can't crack this thing on your own? Just saying. You might get a taker. Someone curious..."

I nearly spat on the floor of the Batcave. I was so happy to be talking to someone real! It was such a relief! But I was so proud, ladies and gents! Only nine months ago, I was so proud! And so I said: "Isn't it about time you got back to your mind reading? Isn't that what I'm paying you for?"

Handsome Wally's beautiful eyes bulged once in their lovely sockets. Absent emotiwooples, that was the only pinch of anger his body betrayed. He turned back to reading about barbecue. On the helio window, Morales was waving his arms like an orchestra conductor as he gave a pep talk. I put on some music to cover the new silence.

Chapter 11

DR. HORACE FLOTSAM DIDN'T LECTURE LACEY ABOUT HER MORNING CHUCKLE and so he was allowed to stay beyond breakfast. He was very aware of the delicacy of his welcome. One of Lacey's first thoughts upon waking had been:

<CowgirlLacey@thot[tickr]:public/archive> _...oh thats right that quack is sleeping in the guest room / shit / if he fucking tries that i can help you bullshit before I get my morning wakeup / eye opener / intake / lift / then hes going to find / boot up his ass / ill talk to him after breakfast yeah after ive had a chance to / become / float / be / think / sing / deal / orient / i want to get better absolutely / do / but not quite this fucking early..._

So Prince Charming Number Three played it slow.

He mentioned his technique over a pancake breakfast supplied, free of charge, by GoodMorning Industries. Lacey watched him-- noticed how he moved slowly, trying to keep her calm-- and she listened to the smooth, ocean-boom sound of his voice. She had trouble following him at first: the wooden table under her plate was buzzing as though filled with insects. It was distracting. She had to bang on the breakfast table three or four times to get the piece of furniture to quiet down. When she finally started paying attention, she heard:

"...decade-old methodological course of Waslowski and Nguyen has been receiving a lot of renewed interest lately. And for good reason..."

The table began to buzz again. She slammed her palm down. Bang! Her silverware danced and jingled.

"...what they discovered about retraining the reward centers of the brain could fill entire scientific journals! Indeed, I acted as peer reviewer for more than one of their early articles..."

Bang! Syrup sloshed off her plate and onto the wood. She watched the syrup coalesce into a dent and sink. She wondered if it would satisfy the ants.

"...consider myself their methodological successor. I'll admit it: before their research was discontinued, I'd seen the all evidence I needed. I'm a convert to the Waslowski/Nguyen Method, and I'm confident..."

Bang! Although, actually, the table had begun quieting down. Maybe it _was_ the syrup.

"...I'm confident that this dopamine-modification course, along with the correct cocktail of antipsychotics, should give you the foundation for a real..."

Bang! Bang! Bang!

After breakfast they settled in the livingroom. The curtains were drawn and there was a steady rain pounding. From outside Lacey could hear the followers already beginning to moan like mournful banshees. The bullhorns were silent, however. GOD was nowhere to be seen this morning. Lily brought out two steaming cups of tea on a platter.

"Is there a way you might calm down the crowd?" asked Flotsam.

"The followers know I don't like them making all that noise out there," said Lacey. "They don't care. They're like little kids. They want what they want. And they're not happy you're here with me."

"They're worried I'll stop you from seeing god."

"Oh, I don't even think they've got that far. They're just jealous. You got to stay the night and have breakfast with me. We didn't fuck-- they know that-- but you've got my attention and for them that might be worse. They're so jealous..."

"KICK THE QUACK OUT," came a booming voice. "YOU DON'T NEED HIM COWGIRL LACEY WE LOVE YOU THE WAY YOU ARE!"

"Ah," said Lacey. "That's sweet. But Mick, would you get that bullhorn? We're trying to talk in here."

The sounds of a scuffle were heard outside and then Mick's voice: "ALRIGHT! YOU HEARD MS. MOLLOY! QUIET TIME. EVERYBODY SEE THE HELIO? GOT YOUR GLASSES ON? PHONES? GOOD. YOU FOLLOW ALONG AND KEEP QUIET. I'M SURE MS. MOLLOY WILL BE OUT TO SAY 'HI' REAL SOON."

Then, except for the sounds of disappointment, it was quiet. The rain pounded. Lacey scratched her arm, thought of calling out to Lily for a beer, stifled the impulse and concentrated on the large, black academic sitting with his fingers bridged across from her. He was looking at her like a spelunker studying the open mouth of a cave. He said: "Would you like to begin?"

The first course was a syringe which Flotsam filled with a candy-blue liquid. Lacey-- whose arms were free of track marks and whose veins still operated at decent capacity-- rolled up her sleeve and let Flotsam's steady hands do their work. She looked down at the needle, felt it enter, and wondered a little at the cool sensation of the candy-blue stuff entering her veins. "This is for the cravings," said Flotsam.

The second course was a chalky-white pill. She swallowed it. "For the episodes," said Flotsam. As he said it, GOD came up behind him, produced a large butcher's knife and began sawing on his throat, opening the doctor's neck. Outside, the followers cheered. Lacey shook her head. She didn't mention the episode to Flotsam; she thought it would be rude.

The third course was different. Flotsam had Lacey sit on the floor atop a cushion and cross her legs. He instructed her to fold her hands into a circle and place them on her lap. He told her to breathe slowly and to count the breaths. The Chuckle high had tapered down by now into a flat feeling and so sitting still and doing nothing felt fine. She didn't feel tempted to get up and move. She ground her leftover teeth-- heard them popping in her head-- but, altogether, she was fine.

The next part was harder.

"I don't want you to think about anything," said Flotsam. "Eyes closed, nothing but darkness surrounding. You have to empty your head and let her sort of drift in."

"'Her?'" Lacey's eyes shot open. "Hate to break it to you, Dr. Flot, but I'm working at kicking people _out_ of my head. Not adding."

Flotsam laughed. "She's purely symbolic. Think of her as an intermediary. A way of channeling and directing faculties you already possess."

"Um?"

"She won't be projected into your life, the way the god figure is. You have to seek her out. Talk to her. See what she has to say."

"Alright..."

"That's it. Afterwards, the rest of the day is yours."

"Huh. Hear that, assholes?" she mumbled. "Give me twenty minutes and I'm all yours."

From outside, another burst of cheering.

Lacey Molloy settled down to emptying her mind. Keeping it empty. Every time she thought she'd gotten a handle on it, she would find that she was actually a few seconds into thinking about something: a handsome follower or an endorsement deal or a type of high she wanted or a movie scene she'd watched the other evening. Worse, every time she did manage to exist without thinking for more than ten or fifteen seconds-- just studying the threadwork of her couch, say, or listening to the sound of her own breath-- the followers outside would begin chanting: "Don't starve us, Cowgirl Lacey! Whatdaya think? Whatdaya think? Whatdaya THINK!?"

Finally, even this chant took on the hypnotic rhythm of a mantra and Lacey's heartbeat slowed and a sleepy feeling settled upon her. She closed her eyes, once again...

And there, in a rocking chair before her, sat an elderly woman wearing half-moon glasses and working with a set of knitting needles. She was making a scarf. Looking up, the old woman squawked. Then she dropped the knitting needles and twisted her head like a confused bird. She said: "What an enlightened soul! To make it here so early-- and on your own! Or did you have help?"

Cowgirl Lacey, glancing around-- she saw that they were in an empty schoolhouse-- said: "To tell the truth, ma'am, I had a bit of help getting here."

Pulling the half-moon glasses down her nose, the dreamed-up old woman squinted at her and said: "Dear, you're not entirely of the organic nature, are you?"

"Sorry?"

"You've got bits of metal in you! And not the usual subcutaneous stamp, either! No. You're wearing a wire! Why! You've got little... filaments... stretching, grasping at your brain! Oh, it's ghastly!"

"Oh, that. But that's how I make a living, Ms..."

"Please. Call me Georgina. I'm here to help. But this complicates things. Yes. I don't want to give the game away. As much as you could use it, you little addict! How about... how about..."

The old woman snapped her fingers. "That's it! Lacey, you're going to find one hundred seashells at your feet. Please disregard the writing on the seashells. Standard contract: we won't sell any info we collect on you to advertisers. That sort of thing. Will you give me five seashells, dear? Currency of the realm; can't do a _thing_ for you without it..."

Looking down, Lacey Molloy did, indeed, see a pile of seashells at her feet. Each seashell was covered in tiny script.

"Legalese!" said Georgina. "Boring. Waste of time. Five please!"

Lacey took five seashells and placed them in the old woman's lap. Then she stood back.

"There we go!" said Georgina, bending down to reclaim her knitting needles. "Easy, right? And your life is going to get better, dear. It can _only_ get better..."

Horace Flotsam cleared his throat and Lacey woke, drooling, her head the third leg of a tripod she'd formed on the carpet. She sat up, feeling calm and kind of nice. She blinked and wiped her face. The Chuckle still had her feeling empty, emotionless, but she didn't crave any more of it. Her right foot, folded underneath her, was asleep.

She said: "Sorry, Dr. Flot. That's one relaxing technique. I fell asleep."

"Nothing to apologize for. You did just fine."

"I do feel better." She risked an almost-toothless grin. "You feel like going out and meeting these psychos?"

He coughed. "Would it be alright if I stayed inside?"

She thought about it. Horace Flotsam kept his glasses respectfully empty. He didn't peek. She said: "That would be ok. You think you're going to stay with me a while?"

"A few weeks, I'd hoped..."

From outside, there came an uproar. Hearing it, Lacey started chuckling and grabbed herself and rocked back and forth. She brought it under control. "We'll see. Ok, Horace? We'll see how this goes and... we'll see."

Lacey moved to her front door. When she opened it, the booing transformed, miraculously, into thundering applause.

***

But when Cowgirl Lacey came back in through that same door, four hours later, she was very drunk and she was crying. Flotsam was waiting for her in the living room. He was sitting on the couch, his jaw set. Lily had brought him tea.

"It didn't work!" slurred Lacey. "I didn't... At first everything was alright! At first. And I felt strong and good and great. But then HE was out there, I saw HIM walking around in between people and yelling and setting things on fire... someone started translating... the old routine... and I had the followers get me some vodka... because treatments don't work.... HE'S still around... they never work... nothing never...."

The rest was lost to heaving sobs.

"It's the first day, Lacey," said Flotsam. He was still sitting, and the little handle of the tea glass was gripped between his thick fingers. He sipped. He sounded tired: "You can't expect miracles on the first day, hon. It's a process."

She looked up at him, and her eyes were red from crying and drink. Her eyes were veined red as though a tiny swordsman had been working without a plan on that sensitive, yellow material and she said: "I learned about you, too, Dr. Flot. The followers did a knowledge query on you this morning. They want me to hate you. They were hoping your license was expired or that you had it taken away for, um, malpractice. But they couldn't find anything. You have good reviews, mostly. Awards. But the followers. They did find one thing..."

Flotsam stood as though it hurt him and he set his tea down and he cleared his throat. He said: "You don't have to, Lacey. I've had your account open all afternoon."

"Your daughter," Lacey said. A muscle in the side of her neck throbbed. "Back in Baltimore. Jesus. I didn't know. I'm sorry..."

Flotsam took her little shoulders in hand. "I know you are. Genuinely. I read your CCeT's. As much as I..."

"She was like me, a little. But she kept her chuckling secret. You didn't know, until too late. Until you found her... And so, maybe, that's why... that's why...?"

Lacey felt him breathe slowly outward. "Yes. She was a little like you."

***

The alarm on my HUD woke me at seven thirty AM. Morning in the Batcave exactly the same as afternoon or night. I swung my legs off my cot, sat up, listened to the sound of coffee percolating in the dark, cursed. Handsome Wally would stumble in sometime in the next three hours. Until then, there was nothing but the lonely work of following cold leads-- or so I thought.

Putting on my blinking glasses, I whistled. Here was something! A priority message from one of the more-insidious algos I'd sent tunneling into Sockwren's glasses. My eyes widened. Something, indeed! It looked like this algo, [correspondence_lazarus], had found the ghost of a back-and-forth communication between Sockwren and the man who had saved his life after the British mine exploded: one Salar Erbedium. Better still, the algo had recognized certain flagged terms and so gotten to work reconstructing the message.

I hadn't even had breakfast yet, and the result lay before my eyes:

Deleted HUDmail sent from RSockwren to SErbedium

Retrieved by algorithm: [correspondence_lazarus]

July XX, 20X5

Search terms flagged: Alexander, Project, HardRain, SuperBug, Horto

Salar,

God's Peace be upon you, your family, and your fighting men.

Got the footage you sent me. Chinese forces retreating from the Pamir mountains. Routed. I'd say 'just like the old days,' but this is all YOUR work. Bastards will be back-- been watching PAL airstrikes all afternoon on BBC-- but you've got the mountains. Keep fighting, Salar. Keep winning! World is watching. When our leaders see you and your men routing the largest army on earth, it sends a message. Straightens some spines.

Nothing as heroic on my end. I quit my job. Left HardRain.

They brought me in on a bad project, Salar. Real bad. You know I have a strong stomach. Helped bring some bad things into this world, myself. Never bothered me. Hopefully, those bad things will help you in the coming months against PAL, but...

I don't want ANYONE to have ANYTHING to do with Alexander.

Remember when we first heard about the SuperBug? We were listening to the radio and I said, "Salar! I flew out from Houston! And now the place is a graveyard!" You told me to trust in God. Sometimes, that's all we can do. Except, at HardRain, they've begun to play God. With the Bug.

Their biological weapons people decided that they'd never beat Mother Nature at her own game. They wouldn't want to: Horto's such a fast-acting, near-perfect killer that it eventually defeats itself. The sickness comes on too fast. That's why the army was able to quarantine it in Houston.

HardRain needed to find a way to slow Horto down.

So they brought in tiny machines to manipulate the virus. Microscopic machines. These machines hold the SuperBug close and mentor the Bug like a dozen ancient Greek scholars with a beautiful, curly-haired boy.

And then that boy goes off and conquers the world.

Here's how it works: after testing Alexander on enough rhesus monkeys, you release it into the general population. Give Old Horto a few weeks of public schools and workplaces and hospitals and international flights. There is no antidote to the Horto Virus. No vaccine. Nothing but half a percentage point of immune population. Only this time around, your tiny machines-- your Greek elder statesmen-- keep the SuperBug in check. They hold that boy's hand, and run their gnarled fingers through his hair, and whisper: "Wait, my little Alexander. My little Magnus. Just wait. The world will be yours, after all, but you must be patient..."

Without the deaths and the symptoms-- which are still the only warnings we have-- your new, weaponized Horto will spread: like it would have out of Texas if it hadn't been so focused on melting internal organs quick as a campfire. Then, one day, everyone is infected and no one is dead. No one is even sick. Alexander SuperBug Horto is swimming in your blood, in your stomach, in your brain and bone marrow. But he's suppressed. His natural viciousness is held back. This is when HardRain's software becomes worth so much money.

Say you're a Chinese general. Your troops have just been humiliated by Tajik mountain fighters. Sound familiar?

These Tajiks! You can't beat them on their own turf. But something like ninety-nine point four percent of them share a specific set of genetic traits. And they're already infected with Horto. Everyone on Earth is infected. So, you, the PAL general, decide to buy a contract from HardRain. Their programmers select for genetic trait 'X'-- the Greek statesmen let go of the young boy; give this selected violence their blessing-- and suddenly the country is feeling nice and roomy. The mountains are quiet. There's cleanup to do, but look what a state the infrastructure is in: not one bullet hole.

Starting to see why I had to quit?

The Head of R&D talked like Alexander was nothing but an interesting bit of coding. "Naturally," he told me, "we can't make the control software open source, but we _must_ leave it open ended. Reducing populations based on genetic traits alone? So twentieth century. We must hone this weapon down to a finer edge. The individual level. Because-- have you heard?-- there is technology in development that will let us read thoughts! 'Neural Echoes,' they call them. The possibilities, Captain!"

The possibilities.

Imagine yourself as that PAL general again, Salar. You haven't used Alexander everywhere, of course. Just trouble spots. So you have all these new citizens to monitor in your new territories and you discover that one of them-- maybe a young lady who survived the first round of killings-- is having some pretty seditious thoughts. She misses her boyfriend. She's got some nasty things to think about the occupying army, the new State, Revolutionary Social-Capitalism, The Dear Leaders. She's a troublemaker, alright; her thotnode damns her. You can't let her way of thinking spread. Better to nip it in the bud.

So you buy a new contract with HardRain. You tell them to program Alexander to be released the moment a wrong-thought is conceived. Then sit back and relax while the virus works on the disloyal. This young lady? Let her organs liquefy as she stands in her Revolutionary History course. Let her get sicker and sicker as she struggles to hold her salute. Let the other new citizens see the hand of the State at work. Let them see the importance of right-thought...

Chapter 12

I WAS LOOKING INTO GEORGE MORALES' EYES. DIRECTLY. He was standing in the doorway of his home and he was extending his hand and grinning. He was so happy to finally meet me.

This was the first time I'd gotten a really good look at that face. A straight-on look. He'd emptied the lenses of his glasses and I'd half expected his eyes to be beige. Hazel eyes, maybe? Instead, I got a surprise: his mother's expressive, dark-blue eyes were set deep into his father's brown and pockmarked Tejano features. A warrior's features: high cheekbones; big, granite jaw; blunt, hook nose; a mouth you didn't want to see frowning at you; those old Horto scars on a clean-shaven face. A chief's features. He was a large guy, ponderous sometimes, but sometimes surprisingly quick-- especially with those big hands. He was studying me with his blue eyes. Sizing me up.

Although, really, he wasn't sizing me up at all! Was he? Really, if you took a good look at the lenses of Morales' HUD-- and if you enhanced the reflection off of those lenses-- you'd see not Walid El Amin staring back, but Handsome Wally. My faceman was wearing his own pair of Heads Up Display glasses, set to record and feed. Yes, ladies and gents, Morales and I were meeting at last! But I was safe and sound a thousand miles away, sitting in the air-conditioned dimness of the Batcave and sharing Handsome Wally's gaze.

Handsome had flown into Lubbock that morning and headed south towards Odessa via rental car. During the drive south, we'd discussed possible scenarios and worked on the loose threads of his cover. Hours later, in the winding, green-and-grey suburbs of Jobs, Handsome Wally had fiddled with the unfamiliar FitTrak account I'd rerouted his health stamp to, and he'd stared out the window at the passing suburban maze. "A guy could get lost out here," he'd muttered to himself. "Everything looks the same. Get lost and never find his way out. Have to dig through trash cans for food. Have to steal pool water by night. Have to make peace with the racoons."

"Good thing Morales' address is programmed into the rental." My voice entered directly into Handsome's cochlear implant, silent to everyone but him: "No pool water for you. And remember: you've got eyes in the sky. Which reminds me. You're about... two minutes from Morales' place. Break a leg."

In no time at all, the rental had pulled into the driveway of a large, beige home. It was one of those prefab-style homes built after the SuperBug years and so it had the quality of looking and feeling just like a hundred of its closest neighbors, no matter who your interior decorator was. The front yard had a GenetiGreen grass lawn and there were round rocks stacked tastefully between the driveway and the front path.

And there, at the end of that path, had stood George Morales, patiently waiting to greet his new friend. Now Morales was saying: "Welcome to Jobs, Mr. El Amin! And to my home. Please, come in! Come on in!"

In the Batcave, I ladled out: "I thought you were going to start calling me Wally once we met face to face."

And there, sweating in the heat of a west Texas afternoon, Handsome Wally teased: "I thought you were going to start calling me Wally once we met for real."

He said it without hesitation, guessing mid-statement how my message would go, and then landing it, neat and tidy. But that's why I retained Handsome Wally. He was clever on his feet. His only weakness, so far as I could see, was his desire to be liked. His need to get along. He was smiling as he delivered my line.

Morales laughed. "Did I promise you that, Wally? Or just sort of think it in passing? I'm sure I didn't give you my word. No. At least, not my spoken word..."

Handsome Wally was laughing! Back in the Batcave, I sighed. But here, again, was why I used the actor. He got along with people. He could get things from our man I couldn't.

"Now, I've got some of that Jobs-style barbecue I've been thinking to you about," announced Morales with a wink. "But I've got one request, Wally."

"Oh?" said Handsome. "What's that?" (And into his ear I whispered: "Don't agree to anything without my OK.")

"Your HUD there. I hope you don't have it set to a certain prescription. Because, well, I have to ask you to take it off. House rules. It's not just you: I ask everybody to do it. Jenny doesn't like outside recording equipment in the house. Tell the truth, neither do I. Just a privacy thing, you know?"

I was laughing-- long, idiot giggles straight into Handsome's ears-- but my faceman assumed a concerned look. He said, "Of course I'll do that for you, George. I'm a little nearsighted, but as long as we're indoors..."

"I appreciate that, Wally. Sorry to inconvenience you, there."

My faceman stuffed his glasses in his pocket and pretended to squint. George Morales, laying his big arm around Handsome Wally's shoulder, led my faceman in through the front door.

***

I've made it deeper this time than ever before. Deeper into the framework of shadowed hallways and nonsense stairways in the apartment complex. I'm making him really hunt tonight. I'm giving him a challenge he's not used to. I wonder if he's angry. He'll be angrier if I get things right.

I'm crouched in one of the claustrophobic rooms on the twenty-seventh floor. There are no windows. This is an interior room, deep inside the apartment. A bunker. Electricity is a sporadic thing this deep in; the lights flicker. The floor is old hardwood covered by a big Turkish rug. There was a table near the door with a radio playing some tinny concerto when I entered. I turned the radio off. The table is propped up against the door now.

There's a large bed across from the door. Too heavy to move. The frame is all aging faux copper, smudged with fingerprints. The sheets are clean, though, and dry. White sheets covered by the sort of scratchy, grey blankets you find in transatlantic bed and breakfasts run by irritable, precise pensioners.

I've stuffed pillows under those sheets to form a human-sized bulk. You know the trick, ladies and gents.

And I've found a candlestick. Just like in Clue. It was one of a weird scattering of things I passed in the hallway. Just waiting to be found. I blew out the candle and pulled out the hot wax. And I'm crouched by the door. I'll be behind it when it shoots open. I hope this isn't a mistake-- the other side might be better; there's a chance I'll be trapped back here-- but I want the greatest amount of time before he finds me. I'm counting on that human-shaped bundle.

The dream acoustics are letting me hear Other's whistling out in the hallway. Tuneless. Just up and down the scale. He stops to murmur to himself: "Little pig, little pig..."

I wonder if this dream lets him hear my heartbeat. Maybe that's how he always finds me. My hands tighten and squeeze around the candlestick. Friction of flesh against oxidized metal. Can he hear that? He's stopped. I hear him mumbling on the other side of the door. He knocks. Three short raps. Polite. I try not to breathe. He'll have something: an axe; a battering ram; the jaws of life. You can find anything this deep in the complex.

Now the scream of an instrument on wood. The door is splintering apart. Tender administrations of a chainsaw. Little splinters of wood and dust everywhere. That metal and diesel scream. And me with my candlestick.

Thump. Chainsaw dropped to the hallway floor. Grumbles sleepily out there. He's done with it. A steel-toed construction boot kicks through the remains of the door. Last partition breached. Dance Partner climbs through the hole. He's standing on top of the table. He's looking at the human-shaped bundle under the covers of the bed. The light flickers and gets dim.

" _Making me work tonight, girl," he says._

Then he turns to where I'm crouched and pulls my little club out of my hands. Nice try. He tosses it out the hole in the door so that it rests somewhere in the hallway with the sputtering chainsaw. I stand up to run. Where? Nowhere. He's blocking the only escape. He's got me by the arm. The elbow. That's all, folks. There's no getting out of that grip. Never has happened. He's looking down at me with his bug eyes. Grinning with the cleanest, whitest, largest, flattest teeth...

This is how the dream always ends.

And this is what I come here for, ladies and gents. There's something wrong with everyone and this is what's wrong with me. This is what I return for night after night. This is what I become a woman for. A crossie. And how many hours have I spent on this Skin of mine? Slimming, plumping, tweaking. Working on the corners of the eyes, the mouth, the nose. Changing-- just barely!-- the insoles of the feet. Adding and removing lines, moles, beauty marks. Getting the pigmentation of the nipples just right. The shape and length and wetness of the tongue. The width of the naval. The tattoos. The muscles of the back. Every. Single. Hair.

I could tell you the number of hours I've poured into this particular persona-- I could look it up-- but to tell the truth, I'd hate to know. I could have done something significant with the time, like learn to play the guitar or become a better public speaker. I could have written a book. We're talking serious time. The point is this: I've made myself into the perfect Dance Partner for my Other.

I wonder, sometimes, if he even notices.

" _Made me really work tonight," he says, and he throws me on the human-sized bundle on top of the bed. I land with an impact that forces the air from my lungs. My heart is racing and my mouth is dry and my eyes-- the third-person footage later shows-- are dilated and my stomach muscles are taut and my sphincter is clenched tight. But I'm wet._

Other traverses the room in three steps and by the time he's reached the bed his shirt is off. Flickering light shows me the crisscross pattern of scars on his huge, dark chest. His eyes devour. Rough hands like the paws of a bear are ripping my expensive pea coat to shreds, popping the buttons right off the front of the blouse, revealing that beautiful skin. That perfect skin and muscle tone sculpted over long hours...

He pulls my bra off-- the clasp breaks and scratches at my back-- and my breasts are free. The same huge, pink tongue that was licking the window so grotesquely is running across his lips. He's smelling me.

The lights flicker. "Please," I say. "Don't--"

" _Shut up," he says, and he slaps me across the face. The bone of his hand makes solid, whip-crack contact. Pain sends me out of my head for a moment. Then I feel my cheek swelling._

I'm scratching at him with my nails, trying to punch and kick him, and it doesn't matter. It's like trying to fight an avalanche. He has my skirt up around my lovely, little stomach and he's pulled my pink underwear down and I'm beginning to scream. Shrieks that fill the hallway of the twenty-seventh floor of that abandoned apartment building. Shrieks that only the two of us will hear. He clamps one hand down around my throat. Squeezes. No more shrieks. I'm getting lightheaded. He watches my face and finally he lets go. Then he takes a big wad of my silky, exfoliated hair and he pulls hard, forcing my head forward. He wants me to look at something.

Well, of course.

Other's pants are down. His engorged penis raises its black, circumcised head above me and I suck in a sudden breath. It's a ridiculous, equine penis-- bigger than my own real-world penis by a factor of three. A pornstar's dong. He always gives me a few moments to study it; he loves that thing. I can see a thick, forking vein in the shaft heading into the base of the mushroom tip. The vein is throbbing gently, pulsing a Suez Canal's-worth of blood through Other's gigantic monument.

I always hope that my Other is a woman behind that obscene skin. It has nothing to do with the fear of being violated by a man; if I had those sorts of hang ups, ladies and gents, I wouldn't be here. Only, what a strange, wonderful thing it must be to have an erection for the first time, after a lifetime of absence! What a feeling of jurisdiction that new muscle must give! And power! And especially to be standing behind the controls of a crane like this one! Yes, a woman would be best...

He takes the weighty, black organ in hand like a police baton and bludgeons me across the face. Once. Twice. Three times. It makes a slapping noise each time. I catch the wounded moan forming in my throat. Swallow it.

He's murmuring crazy things to himself now. Whispering obscenities. He's been watching me, he says. Watching me walk around like no one can touch me. Showing off all those nice things to all those who can't have them. When it's only the thinnest-- why, the flimsiest and lightest!-- curtain that separates those nice things from all the hands that want them...

His penis hits my face again. There's a little stickiness on my cheek. My heart is hammering and my cheek aches and my lungs are burning and I'm wet. My insides sluicing themselves desperately. My body preparing itself for what's coming. I make a little noise in my throat and that seems to do it:

He's on top of me.

I've fucked as a lion before. I've mated as a goat and turtle and hippopotamus and orangutan and ferret and bird of paradise. I've howled and humped as three species of extinct lemur. I've been bottom bitch as seven breeds of dog. I've made love as an angel and as a vampire and as an anime girl and as a Wookie and as an Austrian. Lots of people do it. The AARTI total sensory sync makes it easy (The old slogan: "You can do it in an AARTI," before the sloganeers at AARTI corp. were forced to come up with something a little less suggestive). I've fucked as a woman and as a man. Orgies, bondage, branding, rituals, incense, leather, humid temples, glory holes, donkeys, beads, masks, dildos, the elderly, chains, water cannons, muzzles, balloons, sandals, gerbils, mud, Victorian garb, whipped cream, cock rings, saunas, nipple clamps, biscuits, leashes, guys hiding behind paintings with the eye holes cut out, blah, blah, blah. All the weird desires a loving God ever saw fit to place in the brains of His children to get them acting like baboons. And none of it even approaches my dance with Other. When I pull those Adidas on in the rainy dark and start to run, knowing what's coming...

He shoves the fullness of himself into me and I cry out. Even drenched, it's too much. He laughs, grabs me by the shoulders and pulls me in. I can feel him all the way up to my sternum. I'm gasping. My moan is constant now-- it seems to come from someone else-- and with half-closed eyes I look up into Other's delirious sneer. He licks my swollen cheek and pulls himself all the way out of me.

I can breathe. I say: "You..."

And then he shoves himself into me again. Harder this time. I don't even make a noise. I'm choking, though, and my body's shaking. I see my legs quivering, but I don't feel them. Again, I take him to the hilt.

Again and again and again. His hands grabbing, pulling, pinching, spanking, slapping. Forming another fist.

This beautiful body of mine-- like nothing you'll see outside a tank dream or a Victoria's Secret Targeted Ad-- being desecrated. Annihilated. And is that what does it for me? Or is it the loss of control in a world where I know everything? Where I can end careers and happy lives with the push of a button?

Or am I just a masochist?

I don't know. Probably, I don't want to know. But there's this: I'm always the victim. It does nothing for me the other way. Just makes me sick.

" _You're going to fly away now, little bird," Other whispers. "Fly far away..."_

The pillow closes down over my face. I could leave at any moment-- awaken as Wally El Amin floating in a tank of thick, semiotic fluid-- but this is what I've been waiting for. Even as I gasp for air he continues to rape me and now all the painful, degrading, terrifying, silly, erotic, disgusting and ridiculous parts of the dance come together. It starts deep in my stomach, just above where that monster cock is steam shoveling through, and starts to grow. I can't breathe but I need to wail. My hips are bucking like a runaway washing machine and that fire is growing-- growing and spreading out to every corner of my consciousness. An orgasm swelling; a star being born. Eclipsing my ego. I'm aware of some things-- Other ejaculating inside me like a firehose; groaning and laughing; howling; pushing the pillow down; pushing down; the burn of empty lungs-- but they don't matter. Nothing matters but this complete, momentary transcendence.

Going... going... going...

Gone.

***

"Some really rotten stuff they do in those tanks," said Morales. "Rotten, nasty stuff. Bestiality's just the tip of the iceberg. Now, I'm the accepting sort-- I don't think the State should play any part in the bedroom-- but, all the same, when I hear about people recording what they do-- as dolphins, say-- and when I think about those images somehow getting to children..."

He shook his head. Impressive. Severe. He and Handsome Wally were sitting at Morales' dining-room table. The conversation, like so many conversations these days, had turned pretty quickly to the AARTI 11 tanks and what the media likes to call, 'Tank Culture.' Everybody has an opinion.

"What happens in those tanks," said Handsome Wally. "Can be unpleasant. Filthy. Children should be kept safe from it. Absolutely. I won't argue with that. But the statistics don't lie, either: reported incidences of sexual assault have plummeted since the AARTI tanks became cheap enough for widespread, public use. Violent crime is down, too."

"You can thank the Department of Social Harmony for that!"

Handsome Wally shook his head. "SHUS+H drones have helped us identify, track down, and lock up offenders. But as a detriment to crime? I'm not so sure. Look at sex crimes: the rates didn't really plummet-- these sick bastards didn't stop-- until the tanks gave them a place to get their rocks off in private. With people or algos who are able to _play_ victim instead of becoming one."

Morales shrugged as though to say: that's debatable.

Said Handsome Wally: "Just saying: you can thank SHUS+H for curbing petty theft, but don't think for a second that they play into the plans of a guy who's going to shoot a bunch of kindergartners and then himself. And, for my money, AARTI gets credit for ending crimes of passion. Nasty, scary, sad stuff: Stalking. Murder. Rape. Adultery. Those, at least, are heading for the history books."

"Depends on your definition of adultery."

Handsome Wally snorted and countered: "It's a release, George. That's all I'm saying. People aren't perfect. Too many disappointments and snubs and everyday fears and minor resentments. Too much evidence of success all around and too few windows of opportunity. It builds, you know? If we can give vent to this stuff without hurting each other--"

"And what about the child that finds this sort of image frozen on Dad's phone? Mom's glasses?"

Handsome Wally took a sip of Lone Star and he shrugged: "I could say shame on Mom and Dad for leaving those images out. They should be more careful. But I'm not even feeling that judgmental, so I'll just say: the kid found something gross. Unfortunate. Better that it didn't happen. But, look, kids have always been some of the worst victims of the darker human passions. I'd rather the kid found something gross on a screen than finding Mom brained over the kitchen counter. Or finding out, the quote-unquote _hard way,_ that Father Callahan isn't as celibate as everybody thought..."

"Alright," said George Morales, raising both hands, palms outward, in a gesture of disgust. "Alright, Mr. El Amin. Wally. Change of subject?"

I watched Handsome Wally lean back in his seat at the dining room table. They'd been talking for close to an hour. The aides de camp swarming around the living room had, more or less, left them alone. I'd let Handsome off his leash. I still had a direct audio link to his inner ear but I'd gone silent. Passive. My faceman had proven, once again, that he was much, much better at this part of espionage than I. Now I listened-- and watched-- as Handsome Wally began to push:

"Am I shaking up your businesslike confidence? Talking about this stuff?"

Morales' head inclined. Slowly, he said: "I'm sorry?"

"Your businesslike confidence," repeated Handsome Wally. "You're not wearing an emotiwoople color-change tie, so maybe you're not aware. Thot[tickr] measures for mood as well as transcribing thought. You're an extremely disciplined man, George. Emotionally speaking. Maybe even stunted. Don't take that the wrong way. It's clear you're good at reading people. And this is a new technology; I haven't had the chance to peer into that many heads. Still. I've never seen anything close to what I've seen in yours. Inhuman control, George. Opaque, serial-killer stuff. Just saying. Beige."

"Shit!" I said into Handsome's ear. "What the shit are you doing? Shit! I hope you know what you're doing." I leaned forward.

Morales blinked. Handsome didn't stop pressing: "It's because we're working together. I want to be straight with you. If you want to win your election, you should be straight with me. Because I see this as a liability, frankly. Something we need to head off at the pass. Nip in the bud. Address."

The mayoral candidate began sawing at a piece of meat. He said: "I expected this to be a more-cordial meeting, Wally. A get-to-know-you. This isn't really the way I like to conduct business. Especially..." He took a bite of that gristly meat and chewed. And swallowed. "Especially when there's food involved."

From Morales' FitTrak account, I saw that his heartbeat had increased. Nominally. His breathing was just that much shallower. "You've got him on the ropes," I whispered.

Handsome Wally took another draw off the beer. "That's fine," he said. "But it doesn't change the facts: you're trying to run a campaign based on transparency. That's why Mr. Sockwren called me in. If you're serious about this, people are going to start following your mood. And when that happens, George, people are going to start wondering why you don't _have_ a mood. Why your emotions never change... even when it looks that way on the outside. It feels fraudulent. Just saying..."

My faceman had pushed the subject beyond the line of good manners. Even I saw that. Now he stopped, teetering on the conversational cliffedge while George Morales' face darkened. Another cut of meat went into our man's mouth and was chewed for a count of twenty. Swallowed. The aides de camp had moved away from the table.

Finally, Morales said: "Thank you, Wally. I wondered how we were going to approach this. I see now that Mr. Sockwren picked the right man for the job. Why don't you come out with me to the garage? I'd like to show you something. I picked it up back in Houston, once upon a time."

***

Cowgirl Lacey kept giving Georgina seashells. The injections of blue solution continued and the chalky pills continued and the breathing exercises were bumped up from ten minutes a day to twenty and then thirty. In fact, these exercises were expanded to twice a day: once in the morning and once in the evening. Lacey Molloy would pull out her thotnode and she would find a comfortable cushion and sit upon it and rest her hands the way Flotsam had shown her and she would feel her thoughts rush by and then slow to a halt. She would find herself in the little schoolhouse of her imagination. To the five original seashells which lay at the foot of Georgina's rocking chair, five more were added, and then ten, and twenty, so that Georgina's pile grew even as Lacey's shrank.

Lacey Molloy was seeing GOD less these days. When she did see HIM, the DEITY was more taciturn. Almost mopey. HE didn't break as many things or melt human flesh or demand blood sacrifice. HE didn't scream HIS sermons anymore and HE spoke more and more in plain English. On the other hand, GOD still managed to get in the killing Horace Flotsam once every day. Sometimes HE would cause the man's kind, warm eyes to explode sickeningly in his skull, or HE would open a tiny black hole somewhere around Flotsam's navel so that the large man would be drained away like dishwater over the course of ten minutes. Mostly, though, GOD was satisfied simply to cut Flotsam's throat.

<CowgirlLacey@thot[tickr]:public/archive> _...knock it off now / YOU leave him alone YOU bully / YOU psycho / i know this aint real / hes standing in front of me doing just / fine he doesnt have his arm stuck in a meat grinder / right? / doctor flotsam? / you dont have your arm stuck in a meat grinder? / no / see? / GODdamn me / falling for it again /_

Outside, reading another graphic description of Flotsam's death, the followers always cheered.

Lacey still went out to meet the followers in the afternoon. She sat in the camp chair and drank a little Rainier and doled out advice while the helio told what she was really thinking. She'd stopped accepting Chuckle as payment and tribute, however. As her thoughts grew sharper, Lacey found she had less and less in common with the followers. She thought they were delusional, or ignorant, or privileged to the point that it had made them stupid.

Worst of all, maybe: she had begun to pity them.

One afternoon, Lacey Molloy declined even her usual Rainier. She was clean and sober, she declared, for the first time in years. And certainly she looked better-- brighter and more present and vital. But on their phones and HUDs and on the helio window above her, the followers saw:

<CowgirlLacey@thot[tickr]:public/archive> _... no thanks to you / fucking bunch of enablers wouldve kept adding fuel to the flame / burned me out / just to take take take what you wanted / like everyone else in my life / using me who cares if it killed me / just as long as you got what you wanted / except for him finally / one decent man who actually wanted to help..._

A test, the followers told each other. This was just a test to weed out the fair-weather followers from the true. But what a test! GOD had grown quiet. When HE spoke now, it was simply to exhort the followers, in English, to eat organic and keep current with their tetanus shots. And Cowgirl Lacey? She was a totally different woman than the one she'd been just months before. Clean and clear eyed and strangely formal.

They began whispering to each other that the seer was denying her gift. And what was this business with seashells? They began calling her a sellout. The followers, except for two or three diehards, stopped showing up on her lawn.

One morning, the helio window displaying her thoughts to the neighborhood was turned off by Lacey Molloy, herself.

<CowgirlLacey@thot[tickr]:public/archive> _... silly ugly thing / people can see what they need to see just fine from their glasses without turning the neighborhood into Las Vegas / no one out here to look at it / anyway /_

might even / start / to see the grass come back...

Chapter 13

WE THREE-- MORALES, HANDSOME WALLY, AND I-- were looking at what George Morales held in his hand. Morales had taken it out of a foot locker in a dusty corner of his garage. I froze the captured image on a tertiary helio. I had a [general_identification] algo take a look. What was it? Animal, vegetable, or mineral?

Animal. Ok.

Bone. Ok...

New algo: [anatomical_identification]. Next question: What kind of bone? From what?

The algo came back with a positive ID for me.

Jesus.

I was watching the tops of Morales' and Handsome Wally's heads through two home-surveillance cameras nestled in the ceiling. I noted the new tension between them. I whispered into Handsome Wally's ear: "Don't panic. I'm commandeering the nearest SHUS+H drone, alright? I can have it crashing through that garage door inside a minute. Cops, too. I've... the closest patrol car is five minutes away. If things get shaky, I can have you on their GPS in--"

Handsome Wally shook his head. I stopped talking. My faceman said: "George. That's not..." He laughed a little laugh.

Morales said: "It's a bone taken from a human hand, Wally. The middle phalanx of a woman's ring finger. I possess it illegally and I've made certain not to think about it during that hour when you're in my thoughts. Don't worry: the campaign staff won't see it. I've told them not to bother us in here."

"That serial-killer thing I said earlier. I was joking around..."

"But my emotional state is no joke to you," said Morales. "The way I don't let myself give in to the lesser feelings. It interests you. The way I hold myself _above_ those feelings. I'm even starting to think, Wally, that this is the reason you made the trek all the way to Jobs. Not to meet me or my wife or my staff. And not for the barbecue or the beautiful sunsets I've thought so much about. No. You came here to get a rise out of me. To get me to feel things I don't want to feel. Or, at least, to try..."

He grinned at Handsome Wally and even through the surveillance camera and the miles of distance I felt the hostility of that grin. One of my [automation_hijacker] algos, by now, had wrested control of SHUS+H Drone TX/j:12 and was ready to send it flying into Morales' garage.

Handsome Wally cleared his throat.

"It's fine," Morales said, rolling the clean, brown bone between his fingers. "You came. You sat with me and ate with me and we conversed. So here we have this, here, bone. This human bone. And the story of how I _got_ this bone, well, it's a SuperBug story, too. You wanted one of those, right? So here we go. Maybe you'll see why it's so hard to rattle me..."

***

Deleted HUDmail sent from RSockwren to SErbedium

Retrieved by algorithm: [correspondence_lazarus]

January XX, 2XX6

Salar,

God's Peace!

Happy you got my last message and were able to read it before it wiped. Glad that you're still alive and fighting. A coward's tactics, those cave ins, but what can you expect from such an enemy? Happy to see that the military prosthetic they fitted you with is working. I'm running an advertising campaign for the company that makes them: NextSkel Solutions. Salar, these limb replacements are only getting better. In a few years, you'll never believe you lost an arm. Incredible, I know, but maybe the next time we meet 'in the flesh' neither of our missing parts will show...

You wanted to know more about Alexander. Should have foreseen that. I destroyed the message you sent me. You can't send any more messages like that, Salar. It's very dangerous for me. I'll send you this-- last-- encrypted message and it will wipe in three days. After that, Alexander is something that can't be mentioned again.

You think it sounded like a pretty good idea, huh? Wiping out the world's population of Han Chinese males of military age? I know you're joking, Salar. I know you're no midnight cutthroat. No mass murderer.

Here's why it would be a bad idea even if it weren't a joke: HardRain LLC would never sell to you. Your outfit doesn't have the cash or the respectability. Alexander isn't a weapon for scrappy freedom fighters. It's a weapon for tyrants. Wealthy, regional players like the Pan-Asian League. Elites with friends on the UN Security Council. Women and men who can pay and keep paying. If Alexander was ever successful, it would be bad news for everybody but the people already in charge.

But God is merciful-- it doesn't seem like Project Alexander will ever be realized. Because Old Horto is slippery; the virus adapts. In Alexander's most successful trial (before I left HardRain), the nanomachines were only able to control 94.7% of the viral capsids. You see, Salar? HardRain could never release Alexander. If even a tiny fraction of a single percentage of the virus mutated to ignore the nanomachines' instructions, Horto might slip from the reins and becoming uncontrollable. Kill without direction.

We should both be praying that the augmented Horto Virus stays where it belongs: frozen in HardRain's California R&D facility. I'd incinerate every last trace if I could.

One last thing: I've been approached. Even in a message this secure, I can't say much. But help is coming to the Pamir mountains. I'm keeping my promise to you, Salar. Nothing is happening overnight. But help is coming.

In the meantime, try cracking some skulls with that new arm!

***

Morales spun the woman's finger bone and spoke while Handsome Wally looked on:

"I'd just turned fourteen when people started getting sick. It didn't take two weeks for the roadblocks and the convoys and the shoot-on-sight orders. I remember the thumping sound of helicopter rotors day and night. Patrols. And I remember the lines at the hospital, even after it was clear that there was nothing a hospital could do. I remember that even with all this, the thing that scared people most was when they cut off the internet. And Dad-- who was already coughing, trying to make it sound like he was clearing his throat over and over again-- would wake my mother and Peter and Elmo and Alice and I in the middle of the night. We would pile into the Ford Windstar and pull out of the driveway. I remember that one time-- probably the first time-- Elmo asked: "'Are we making a break for it, Dad?'

"And my father, clearing his throat on the back of his hand, he said: 'We are, son. We're breaking out.'

"And Elmo said: 'Why didn't you tell me? I left my Gameboy in the house!'"

Spin, spin, spin went the bone. A chuckle: "Elmo was about nine, see? He didn't quite understand..." Spin, spin, spin.

"Those trips. We would drive north across the desert for hours. I don't know where Dad got the gas. But we made those trips. Nine of them over three weeks. As often as Dad could refill the tank. Looking for an escape from quarantined Houston.

"At some point, way, way out-- when we left the last of the city lights behind and there was only those desert stars and my brothers and my sister were asleep-- then a spotlight would suddenly hit us and we'd hear that voice through the bullhorn. First in English. Then in Spanish. Then in Tagalog and Vietnamese. The same message:

"'Turn Back Or Die.'

"The first time, Dad got out of the car with his hands up and he walked towards those spotlights. But he started coughing and there were gunshots. One. Two. Three. I was sure they'd shot him, and I..."

He licked his lips and spun the bone.

"But Dad came stumbling back. And we turned around and drove home. Everyone went back to sleep that first trip, except for me and Dad. Nine times that happened. At different places in the desert. The last four trips without my mother or Alice. They both left us the same night. The last two trips without Peter. One trip after that with Elmo. He was unconscious and hardly breathing.

"The last trip just my father and I. Dad was real sick by then-- he had those blisters on his face-- but the Bug had its work cut out for it, finishing him. There were bullet holes in the windshield of the Windstar and the glass had spiderwebbed. One of the side windows was shot out. I don't think Dad could see very well. A one-track mind by that point. He still had a healthy son: Me. He still had a goal. He wasn't letting any emotion through."

A little smile. "Family trait, Wally.

"He died on that last attempt, still trying to find a way out. We'd stopped to drink water and he started talking to people who weren't there. Trying to explain himself, his decisions. I'd seen it a few times, by then, so I knew what was coming. I sat with him for about an hour. Then, when it was done, I moved him and got into the driver's seat.

"And I learned how to drive.

"It took me five hours to get back to our house. The Ford had a flat. I remember pulling into that empty, familiar driveway where no one was waiting for me... and I never have managed to explain to anyone else what kind of feeling that is. There was still running water and no looters yet. Everybody was still sick or busy with their own problems. And there were four long mounds of dirt in the backyard. Soon to be five. Five mounds of dirt I couldn't bring myself to leave, no matter how much Dad might have wanted it--"

"That's your sister's bone, then?" broke in Handsome Wally. "Your mother's? Anyone could understand..."

Morales blinked. Through the ceiling camera I watched his Adam's apple work. "This bone? No. This bone came to me years later. I forget how many. No one keeping track. And by then, everything had--"

He looked up sharply.

"Sir." A new voice. Feminine. "We need you out front."

I switched to another camera feed and saw her. "Alice Dubois," I whispered into Handsome Wally's ear. "Campaign Communications and Media Relations."

"Ms. Dubois," said Morales, slipping the bone into his pocket. "I'd like to introduce you to Wally El Amin. The man looking into my past. We're having an important discussion, here, about... a bit of a leak that Wally's found, actually. Quite important. And I thought I made it clear that we were not to be disturbed."

"Sir, there's been another incident. Julia Wu from _The Jobs' Report_ is at the front door. She wants a statement-- and not from me. This is time sensitive, so unless your meeting also is..."

She stood in the doorway, a sentry awaiting orders.

"An incident?" asked Handsome Wally.

Morales' palm moved up to his forehead as though a forgotten headache had returned. "A witch hunt. I've been trying not to think about it. Bored people looking for UFO's. We need to get more of them back to work. Ms. Dubois, please tell Ms. Wu I'll be with her in ten minutes. Just ten minutes, alright?"

The woman nodded and left.

Morales, taking the bone and placing it back in his locker, said: "Will your work let you stay here in Jobs for the night, Wally? I realize I've left you with a bit of a cliffhanger, here, but you see so much of my time is taken up with this..." He waved his hand like he was warding off a stink.

Handsome Wally stood there, silently, as though thinking. "I really don't know," said my faceman. "I've got a lot on my plate right now..."

"I understand," said Morales.

"Of course you're staying!" I nearly screamed. "Of course your contract is extended! You _will_ find out about that bone! We need to know all about that goddamned bone!"

Handsome Wally said: "...but you've pricked my curiosity. I'm a busy man, but I can do a lot from a hotel room. At least for a day or two."

"Good. We'll find you a nice hotel and schedule our next meeting. And now, with any luck, I'll put some fears to rest out there..."

Now, as Handsome followed George Morales out of the garage, he hazarded a glance at the locker containing the human bone. "Not bad for the first day," he muttered.

"He didn't murder you," I said. "Good work. Human remains in the garage. I'll have the algos check the home-surveillance record, but I'm almost certain he hasn't been back here in the past couple weeks. I can't believe he showed it to you."

Handsome Wally almost shrugged. He didn't say anything in response, but moved to the door to find one of Morales' assistants. Which was absolutely correct. I was, after all, watching him through Morales' hijacked home-surveillance network.

We both knew that-- sooner or later-- I wouldn't be the only one studying this footage.

***

_I return to life in a sunlit room not far from the foyer of the apartment complex. I sit up in bed and look around. It's morning and I hear the distant sound of human voices. Everything has transformed from ominous and off kilter to comforting and correct. I'm beautiful and unhurt. Other is there, sitting in a rocking chair and waiting for my resurrection like a dutiful husband by the bed of his sick wife. He's reading a worn copy of_ Wuthering Heights _. His bug eyes have settled down and he's dressed as though for church._

He places one of his huge bear paws on my fragile hand, and he says: "We've been doing our thing a lot lately. Is everything alright, little bird?"

So I take him by the arm and I hold him and I try to keep my voice steady. I say: "It's work, my love. I mean, it's everything... but it's work. Too much, lately. I don't know if I can handle it. For the first time in my life, I don't know. And so I've needed to escape. A lot. If it's getting to be a problem for you, we can go back to the old schedule. Or," I swallow, "even less. But I've really appreciated you. Your flexibility. It's really helped..."

" _I want to help," he says, brushing my golden hair out of my eyes and back across my shoulders. "We can keep this up, little bird. Not forever, but until things get better for you. I just wanted to be certain."_

I almost feel like crying, I'm so relieved. I shudder a little in his arms but hold myself together. "Oh, thank you," I say. "Your patience. It means... it really means so much..."

And he holds me, very gently, and he rocks me.

Chapter 14

I WAS WATCHING TWO VERY DIFFERENT NIGHTTIME SCENES from Jobs, Texas, when things got weird.

On my largest helio window, I'd been watching George Morales involved in some very active foreplay with his wife. He had her back shoved up against the wall, and he'd slipped one hand through the 'V' of her pantsuit top and he was giving her a long, tongue-heavy kiss as he kneaded her breast. But you know what? I'd watched these two do their thing almost every night for two weeks. I was bored with it. My eyes kept slipping to the secondary window, where Handsome Wally lay in his hotel bed. After his flight that morning and his ride from Lubbock and the stress of his strange interview and too much barbecue, he was knocked out. Snoring.

Handsome slept like a mummy, with his arms crossed atop his chest. I watched him through the weird, night-vision green of the room's guest-security camera. Occasionally, my faceman would grasp with his hands at his own swollen biceps. His heart rate was elevated. He made fidgety, unhappy noises. He was having some kind of nightmare. "Ladies," he muttered. "Ladies, please..."

On the main window, Morales was pulling his wife's businesslike top up over her head. Her hair was everywhere; static electricity at work. Jenny Morales' breasts rested loosely in her bra. Morales buried his face in them and groaned.

Handsome Wally turned in his sleep and groaned. His eyes popped open. He was looking upwards in the darkness of his room. He was looking up at a ceiling he probably couldn't see.

"What was that?" he asked the empty room.

I turned on my connection to his cochlea and said: "I don't hear anything. What are you hearing?"

We didn't need to worry about talking in code: I was looping prerecorded footage of my sleeping faceman for any Peeping Tom in the local SHUS+H department. Handsome Wally sat up in bed and looked towards where I'd told him the room's main security camera was hidden-- as though trying to look me in the face.

"Sounds like a wild animal," he said.

"Probably a raccoon. I still don't hear anything."

Handsome Wally's shoulders jumped. He was holding himself again, like a chilly corpse. He was rocking slightly, teeth bared.

"Maybe turn on the lights," I said.

"I don't... want to..." he whispered. "I don't want it to know I'm in here. Comb, there's got to be outdoor cameras, right?"

"I'm looking through them right now," I said, bringing up seven new windows. The windows lazily circled about my head, scrolling as I flicked my hand, showing me different angles of empty parking lot. "I don't see or hear a thing. You were having a nightmare, Handsome. You just woke up from a nightmare."

"But I hear it right now. It's... Jesus. I think it's out on my balcony. How do you not... there! Did you hear that?"

Handsome Wally's balcony was a blind spot on the guest-security grid. All the same: "Nothing without wings could have gotten onto your balcony, Handsome."

"There it is," he whispered. "Outside. On the balcony. It's... oh, Jesus, Comb, it's looking at me. Looking at me. It _sees_ me."

"What?" I asked, blind and deaf and almost in a rage. All I could see was the interior of his room. And the adjacent rooms. And outer hallway. And reception desk. And parking lot. And street. All empty. Silent. "What is it?"

Handsome Wally sat in bed and shook. He wasn't looking up at the camera anymore. His eyes were locked on whatever he saw. He was whimpering a little: "Please, please, please. Please don't... please don't..."

"What is it?"

"Wings, Comb. You were right about that. But everything else..."

"What could it even--?"

"I don't know. I don't... nothing like... nothing like..."

He began speaking a language that must have been his father's, but I didn't have the time to bring up any translation algos because a few sentences in and he was just screaming nonsense. I alerted room service and began slaving SHUS+H Drone TX/j: 66 to my input and, for the second time that day, was about to use an expensive piece of federal property as a battering ram--

And I went blind.

The hotel's surveillance network went down. Nothing but snow and buzz and dead, severed feed. Blizzard. Down the street, SHUS+H Drone TX/j: 66 also went blind. I had no connection to Handsome Wally. No connection except... the cochlear implant which both received and transmitted. That still worked. So I heard Handsome Wally screaming. I heard the snapping of wood, the breaking of glass. And something else: an inhuman snarl. Shrieking. A tearing, crashing struggle. And those screams.

I was cutting my way into an Indian spy satellite currently in low orbit over North America. I was running a brute-force hack and slash-- something that might be traced back to me; a personal no-no if there ever was one-- just to gain some kind of overhead view. Something. But this frantic work would take minutes to complete. Five or six of them. And meanwhile...

The guest-security apparatus re-awoke. SHUS+H Drone TX/j: 66 re-awoke.

The lights were on in Handsome Wally's room. Hotel staff had forced an entry. What did we see? Handsome Wally's balcony window had been shattered open. Jigsaw pieces of bloodstained glass littered the floor of the room. Evidence of a struggle. The sheetrock of the walls had been smashed in in several places. Pieces of hotel art lay on the floor. Handsome Wally was alive. He was sitting in bed, rocking forward and back, forward and back. My faceman was covered in long, bleeding cuts. He was saying: "You have to come out here, Walid. You're right. Something is happening here. I don't... you have to come, yourself..."

The hotel staff had reached him. They were forcing him to lie down and were compressing the longest of his cuts with large, white towels.

"Tell me what you saw, Handsome," I said.

He shook his head, even as the hotel staff bound his arms. He was beginning to cry. "Didn't you see it? Didn't you see?"

One of the men surrounding Handsome Wally told him everything was alright. One of the women told him to hush. They'd called an ambulance.

I gritted my teeth. What to do? I hadn't had to physically leave Las Vegas for work in years. But would my faceman still even be in Jobs tomorrow morning? He might decide, after waking up in the hospital, that this whole investigation wasn't worth the pay. Hell. Was it worth it to me? Tonight someone-- or something-- had attacked Wally El Amin. Scarier still, they had attacked with such finesse that I had no recorded footage. Should I just pull out? End the investigation? Tell Dick Sockwren that he might just be right about our man? That, in any case, I'd finally met my match? I was entertaining the possibility when I heard a strangled moan from a forgotten window. My eyes strayed and this window floated into central view.

Oh, right: that other nighttime scene.

Morales and his wife had moved to the bedroom. They were both naked as great apes and Jenny was on her elbows and knees: her large, pale buttocks shoved towards the sky. Morales, behind her, had taken great heaps of that butt in either hand.

So far, everything normal.

Only now, while a bloodied and tranquilized Handsome Wally was loaded onto a gurney on the window to my right, George Morales mounted his wife with the kind of ferocity you'd expect in a tank dream. He pulled her hair back and drove himself into her anus with a force that propelled them both forward on their pink, silk sheets... and he turned his head, methodically, to where the SHUS+H camera was buried, invisible, in the paint of the wall. And he looked at me.

I swear, he was looking straight at me.

And, throughout the violence of the following minutes, his eyes were cold. He was staring into that camera he couldn't have known about and he was looking me dead in the eyes. He pulled back, hard, on his wife's hair-- turning her many bouncing rolls, finally, into a single chin which jutted elegantly upward-- and he buried himself further into her quivering Venus of Lespugue figure and he grinned. A knowing grin, while those empty eyes stared.

Very slowly, George Morales ran his tongue across his upper teeth, his expression never changing.

Then his wife switched to long, deep groans, her hips bucking as she orgasmed beneath him. It didn't matter. He didn't ejaculate. His movements didn't change a bit. He stared at that piece of compromised wall-- stared at me-- and fucked. And stared. And, finally, when the second and third waves had subsided, Morales let go of his wife's hair and he let her collapse. He masturbated himself to completion on top of her wide back, all the while staring at me.

I severed my link with that particular feed. Maybe whoever had sold him the house had known. Maybe...

I sat for a minute, staring at nothing, not knowing what to do. The paramedics were taking Handsome to a waiting ambulance. I'd have to send an algo into the hospital network or I would lose sight of my faceman. But I just sat there, hands hanging at my sides. I felt punch drunk.

"Wally," said Handsome Wally. He shifted on the gurney. "Wally."

"Hold on, Handsome," I finally said. "I'm coming."

My hand was forced. There were maybe seven people in the world who could help me now. And only one who might.

I called Charlie.

***

I'd promised myself that I'd never speak to Charlie Espina again, but her name and number were still there in my glasses. Have you ever had a relationship like that, ladies and gents? Maybe you can guess what happened next.

I didn't call right away.

I followed Handsome Wally-- via SHUS+H drones and ambulance cams and nurse cams-- as he was taken to the City Hospital of Jobs, Texas. I sent my tendrils into the hospital's surveillance system and I jumped from camera to camera and I found Handsome's room. I watched Handsome Wally's forged documentation being registered and accepted, and a scanner being run over the stamp in his forearm: a stamp which now reported from an augmented Walid El Amin health account. My insurance was being accepted. I watched the long slashes in Handsome Wally being closed: my faceman being knitted back together like a Raggedy Andy doll that the raccoons had had a few too many minutes with. The racoons...

I watched George Morales, too. He'd gone back to acting normal; our man for Jobs. I watched him wash his flaccid penis in the master bathroom and cough into his hand and look at himself in the mirror. I watched him take yet another of his weird, little shits and blindly wipe his ass and flush the offending matter away before standing up from the toilet. In the master bedroom, Jenny Morales ran her fingers delicately around the angry, red circumference of her sphincter, testing.

There was nothing more to watch. I took a deep breath and called Charlie.

There's a good reason why datacombers don't like working together. It's called the Snowden Doctrine and it's hard on relationships, working or otherwise.

The Doctrine can be explained like this: You, datacomber, as smart and savvy and paranoid as you are, have slipped up somewhere. Your clients certainly have! Other combers know who you are and they probably know some of the cases you've worked and some of the people you've brought down. They know things about you that you want kept hidden. Thankfully, you know plenty about them, too. You keep track of each other.

Therefore, if any single comb, or group of them, tries to blow the whistle on you-- to release a damning expose of your life, works, Social Harmony number, clients, physical address, and aartinet proclivities-- you can return the favor. The Doctrine assumes that every datacomber knows enough about every other member of the profession that no one will snitch-- or else find their own lives and secrets revealed. Because of this, I keep a list of people like me. With a few simple commands, I could end any number of careers. Of course, my own career would end the same day. I'd have to leave the country. In a doomsday Snowden Doctrine scenario, every half-decent comb on the planet would become a fugitive inside twelve hours. The profession, in its current form, would simply end. There's a reason we don't work together if we can help it: we have clear ground rules and a vested interest in each other's secrecy. Mostly, we stay out of each other's way.

But my faceman was in the hospital. I had no idea who'd attacked him. Meanwhile, George Morales had found one my hidden vantagepoints. Our man seemed to know more about his situation than was possible... and he still hadn't slipped up on thot[tickr]. My blind spots only seemed to be growing. I needed another comb. Someone good. World class.

So I called Charlie. And here I got my third big surprise of the night: she picked up.

"Walid," she said. And did I hear maybe a little happiness in that voice? Pleasant surprise? I resisted the urge to use a tonal-indication matrix, reminding myself that that very tendency had contributed to the break up. Our years-long radio silence. "Walid El Amin. It's the middle of the night in Vegas. Are you drunk?"

"Not drunk," I said. "In trouble. In over my head, Charlie."

"This is some kind of trick," she said, and I didn't need any tonal-indication matrices to tell me that what I heard now was wariness, defensiveness, displeasure. "You're not Walid. You grabbed his voice and you're routing your call through the Batcave. Poor Wally's slipping. But who are you? And why shouldn't I hang up this minute?"

When a dog needs to prove absolute submission to another dog, he'll expose his neck and belly, the message being: You win. This is for real. Similarly, I began sending a live feed from the Batcave. Charlie could see me. She could see my office behind me. If she wanted to, she could back-signal her algos into the most vulnerable of my office hardware. She could send her little tendrils and sneaker vines into this toehold in my systems. I was compromised. I had compromised myself before her.

"This isn't a trick," I said. "But you might be right about the other thing. I might be slipping... I think I _must_ be slipping."

She was quiet. Probably, she was staring.

"But this goes beyond just slipping, Charlie. What I'm looking into... something's happening in this city in Texas. I really do need..."

"A second, Walid. Give me a second, ok? I'm running authentications on everything you're sending me..." A dog sniffing another dog's butt? I don't have a great dog analogy for the verification process we were engaged in, so, sure: a dog sniffing another dog's butt.

"Have at it," I said. "And while you're at it, give me a location to send my case files. It can be third party, quarantined, et cetera, but above all it needs to be uncompromised. Free of prying eyes. Because I don't want anyone except you knowing about our man for Jobs."

A third-party address was given. A copy of everything I had gathered-- weeks of transcribed thoughts, colored emotions, Bug Orphan pics, credit reports, speeches, round-the-clock surveillance, campaign correspondence, intern profiles, Richard Gordon Sockwren, Sockwren's recovered HUDmails with Salar, Handsome Wally, George Morales, Jenny Morales, NextSkel Solutions, the garage interview, Alice Dubois, nights and nights of conjugal screwing, Jester the dog pushing his bowl, HardRain LLC, Project Alexander, Arthur:Blair Targeted Advertising, the attack of a few hours ago, my recorded musings, footage of Wally in the Batcave, those few dots I had connected, everything-- it was all hers now.

I said: "Look through that at your leisure. But actually, hurry. Please. It's important. And are you convinced it's me, yet? Because I've got to get packed. Got to make sure the Batmobile's still running."

"The Batmobile!" She laughed. "That brings back some memories. But where on earth is so important that it's forcing the great Walid El Amin out of his beloved Vegas?"

"I told you! Didn't I tell you? Jobs, Texas. You'll learn all about it in the content I sent you. I have to go now, Charlie. There just isn't time--"

"Wait," she said, and I waited. Stalled. Ground to a halt. Didn't even breathe. "I'm convinced it's you. The authentications are in and, anyway, you always did--" She stopped. Self-censored. Started again: "But here's a question, Walid. Why should I help you? I'm swamped with my own caseload. Why should I even have my sorting algos take a look at this huge mess you've sent me?"

"Because you've never had a case like this one," I said. "Because what I'm looking into is something that even you might not be able solve. And because... aren't you bored?"

"I'm fine. Busy, actually."

"Busy means you're not bored?"

"Busy means I don't have time for conversations like this one."

"I was bored out of my mind," I said. "My days were beige and I didn't even realize it. I'd forgotten why I got into this line of work. Forgotten what it's like to have a mystery I couldn't solve in a few hours from a comfortable chair. This is... well, it's like the old days with SHUS+H..."

On the other side of the line I heard her cough. I imagined her pale, round face surrounded by glowing cigarette smoke and helio windows: eyes narrowed and face set, wondering if she was being conned. She said: "Alright, Walid. I'll take a look, ok? No promises."

"Thanks, Charlie." And-- proof that God is sometimes merciful-- the call was over. She'd hung up. I headed down to my private garage to take a long-neglected look at the Batmobile. The early morning sun hadn't yet risen over the blinking towers of Las Vegas. With any luck, I'd be in Jobs just after it set.

Part 2: The Beast of Jobs, Texas

Chapter 15

I WANT YOU TO IMAGINE THIS: A WHITE, DUST-STAINED VAN speeds across the early-morning desert. It casts a long shadow as it rushes east. No one is behind the wheel: the location has been programmed in; an algo is taking care of the driving. The lone passenger is preoccupied with his own work further back.

That's right! The windowless cargo area of this nondescript van isn't carrying drugs or guitar amps or hitchhikers or Scooby Doo or stolen meat, but one datacomber named Wally El Amin. I'm sitting back there in the comfortable dark, surrounded by humming machinery, with a score of helio windows floating about my head. I shift between windows: watch George Morales at the breakfast table; see Jenny Morales asleep from above; witness a stitched and bruised Handsome Wally lying in the hospital; work through yet another set of Houston death records; watch ancient surveillance footage of Morales' mother working the supermarket till in the pre-SuperBug days; watch the first of Morales' aides de camp enter campaign headquarters; review Morales' perfect thotarchive; peer through Dick Sockwren's HUD as he begins a round of golf with the CFO of EmotiEnterprises in Connecticut; dig further into intern bios... the list goes on. There's still plenty of work to do and I'm able to do it all-- even as the van does eighty across the desert.

This humble van, ladies and gents, is the Batmobile. My office on wheels. She's able to do practically everything the Batcave can! Except she's less spacious, noisier, relies on highway wireless, and occasionally makes me carsick.

I used to roam around in the old days, when physical meetings meant more to clients, but the Batmobile hasn't left her Las Vegas garage in years. I've kept her in good shape, at least. Great shape. I've spent what most people would consider a fortune housing her and checking her regularly and keeping her innards up to date. Every time the Batcave gets a hardware upgrade so does the Batmobile. The shrinkage of telecommunication and computing hardware means it all fits just fine. So I always purchase two copies of everything, even though I know the second copy will sit in that van in the garage, unused.

Who knows why? Superstition. Loyalty. Toy Collecting.

Watching our man eat breakfast as I speed towards Jobs, however, I'm grateful for my toy.

***

One morning, after waking and taking her medicine and handing another seashell to Georgina, Lacey Molloy entered the dining room to find Nicolas Davlenik of Arthur:Blair Targeted Advertising sitting at her breakfast table.

Lacey said, "Oh! Well, hi there, Nicolas. Good morning! I didn't... that is, I don't remember... Huh. Where's Horace?"

Nicky didn't look up at her and he didn't answer. He was staring into his glasses, his handsome face pinched into an ugly expression. His red lips were pursed together as though he were sucking on a lemon. He shook his head and he muttered to himself: "Boring. Boring! No wonder there's no one camped out. It's so goddamned, unbelievably boring."

"Mr. Davlenik?"

"Lily!" he shouted. "Bring us those beers, would you? A Rainier apiece for the talent and myself!"

"Mr. Davlenik," Lacey cleared her throat. "Nick? There's no alcohol in this house anymore. And, anyway, isn't it a bit early...?"

"Isn't it a bit early?" His voice was a singsong mockery. He looked up at her. He seemed unable to untwist his lovely face from that sneer. He said: "What kind of guest would I be if I didn't bring something?"

Lily emerged from the kitchen with two chalice-style glasses filled to the brim with cheap, bright beer. Sunlight spilled through the yellow liquid and onto the breakfast table. Lily's face was a composed neutral as she set the beers on the table and she wouldn't meet Lacey's eyes. She didn't speak. She nearly fled back into the kitchen.

"Thank you, Lily!" shouted Nicolas, and he raised his chalice in a toast. "To your future, Lacey!"

Lacey stared at him. She felt an old lady cat's meanness creeping into her. "You're no guest of mine. The fuck you do with Horace?"

That wiped away the ad man's sneer, at least. "Yeah, I'm no guest, Lacey. I wish it were different, but I'm here again on business. You know your helio projector out front has been shut down? That's a breach of contract. Don't worry: I had Mick turn it back on. No one needs to know. Wouldn't want you to get in trouble."

"I don't give a damn."

"Yeah, that's what they've been telling me. But I had to see for myself. I gave you the benefit of the doubt since you're my girl, Lacey. My find. You know another breach of contract I see? It's past nine and you're not plugged in! Not thotcasting. Do you know how that reflects on me? Do you even know how we make money, Lacey?"

"Tell me where Horace is."

He cleared his throat. "Dr. Flotsam was a bad influence. I had him removed from the premises. Arthur:Blair is opening an investor/individual dispute settlement against him for commercial sabotage. And we're filing a lawsuit. And a restraining order. He's going to have his hands pretty full for the next several years. But we're done talking about the past, let's talk about your fut--"

"You had my friend-- my doctor!-- pulled out of my house?"

Davlenik shook his head: "It's not your house, sweetie. This property is owned by Arthur:Blair Targeted Advertising. You're a tenant. Actually, the front half of the property is zoned for business. That's how we got away with the helio projector. Don't ask me how the lawyers pulled it off. Somebody else's specialty. Now let's focus on yours: drink your beer, Lacey. Bring on the head voices. Viewership's been down."

Lacey looked at the beer in front of her. "No. Never. I'm not going back to that."

"Then I'm going to have _you_ removed from the premises. You'll be homeless again."

She laughed. "I guess I'll have to buy a new house! Maybe in California. How many millions have I made by now? You can't scare me."

Nicky Davlenik put two fingers up to his temple and rubbed in small circles. She still couldn't see his eyes. "This is why people really need to read a contract before they agree to sign. Lacey, look: that money you've been making? That's been reinvested into assets controlled by an Arthur:Blair accountant. You don't have access to it for the next ten years. Do you know what liquidity is, Lacey? You don't have any."

"But, my day to day purchases..."

"A monthly stipend to a checking account. You've got just over five grand left. Enjoy. But, the way you spend money, Lacey, you'll be back to sucking trucker dick by the end of the month." He shrugged. "Actually, make sure you wear your thotnode while you do that. Maybe we can work out something new..."

"Keep talking, asshole. I'll be right back with my thotnode."

His voice stopped her: "You'll tell me all this is bad press, right? Makes me look like a monster?

"But we conducted a market-research survey. Something we do before we make any decision. The majority of people who follow your account..." He took a slip of paper from his breast pocket, unfolded it, and read: "Would support a technique-- up to and including coercive measures-- to encourage Cowgirl Lacey Molloy to reassume her role as anti-establishment figure and gonzo prophet. Less than a quarter of those surveyed would find coercion wrong and less than nine percent would find it unacceptable."

The ad man placed the printout on the table between them. "Don't think public opinion is always there to the rescue. The people have spoken. They want you, Cowgirl Lacey. But they want you to be fun again!"

He winked at her and took a sip of urine-yellow beer and made a face. She studied the beer in her own chalice: her way out. Once again, her way out.

She didn't touch it.

The ad man raised his own cup and drained the remainder of the beer. Then he stood, flushed. "I'm not a monster, Ms. Molloy: just a humble advertiser who wants to remain in his pay grade. I'll give you a week to think things over. I've left a twenty-four pack in the fridge. All you have to do is take a little sippy sip while thotcasting and we'll consider the contract renewed. We'll be watching. Ok? Just a little wittle, itty bitty, tumble off the wagon. That's all we need."

He let himself out.

***

"This level of beige indicates a feeling of businesslike confidence!" Charlie's voice bounded over the Batmobile's speakers as my van sped across the New Mexico border. "Here's what I'm thinking, Walid--"

"Wally," I cut her off. I couldn't help myself. "My name's Wally. You know that."

She snorted. "Your mother named you Walid. That's the name on your birth certificate. And I've always liked it."

"I'm glad you do. Only, call me Wally if you don't mind."

We were arguing already. It was an old argument, too.

"You need to get over this shame with your heritage, Walid," she said. "That's one of the reasons--"

"It's not shame," I cut her off again, not needing to hear the end of _that_ sentence. "I like my parents just fine. That name-- it's just not how I self-identify, alright? I'm not some bedouin from _Lawrence of Arabia_. Yo soy Americano, alright? Wally, alright?

"You can be an American named Walid--"

"Sure I can. But it's Wally, alright?"

For the count of ten there was nothing but the sound of the Batmobile's tires humming over asphalt.

"This is my thinking, Walid," she finally said. "Your man's tinkered with his hardware."

"Our man," I grumbled. Then: "Tinkered with his hardware?"

"Look. You've figured out that the thot[tickr] people haven't come up with a censorship program. So it's not a software gimmick. But there's also this: you haven't made any effort to look at his hardware! The thotnode he plugs into the back of his neck? His subcutaneous health stamp? They could have been tampered with by Sockwren's people before you ever came on the scene. Not everyone we deal with is a total rube. Morales' hardware could have been altered to report only acceptable-- read: beige-- emotions."

"I didn't look into that," I admitted. "Sure. But it still doesn't explain his perfect, saintly thoughts. I've been watching him for weeks while reading his thoughts. They line up with his environment, and they're not being censored, so..."

"The thoughts may lineup," she said. "I haven't had a chance to see for myself, but let's say they do. Even so, feeling beige all the time shouldn't, right? It's the last obvious hole. And since you're heading to Jobs anyway..."

"Impossible," I said. "I'm not a hardware guy. I can't reprogram a health stamp-- even if I were able to dig it out of his arm. And a thotnode? I wouldn't know where to start."

"Possible!" she laughed. "Easy. You don't have to reprogram anything. Just switch out Morales' thotnode for a new one. Fresh from HanjinMart. Or, better still, have Handsome do it."

"The new thotnode won't be synched to his brain. It'll need time to do that. He'll suspect..."

"Suspect what? You're the only one with access to his profile, right? You're the only one who'll know it's synching. And me. And Handsome Wally. To Morales it'll just plug in, same as always. And if the new thotnode disagrees with the bio input coming from his FitTrak..." She coughed. "We know something's up."

I fought the sudden need to slap the palm of my hand against my forehead. It was so simple! Maybe I was slipping.

No, it was something else: Morales had gotten to me. He'd caught me flat footed too many times when I'd thought I had him. He'd spooked me. Our man shouldn't-- really shouldn't-- be able to tell if his thotnode was switched out, but somehow I couldn't help but feel...

No. I wouldn't let him in my head.

"We'll do it," I said. "You're right, Charlie. It's the last obvious hole. And, after the switch, if he's still all beige, all the time? What do you say then?"

"Then our man's a sociopath," I heard the shrug in her voice. "A disciplined sociopath. He's a politician, right?"

"Will you at least keep my live feed open?"

"I'll keep you on a back-burner window," she said. "But how about this? I'll give my work-sort algo a priority phrase to listen for. If you need my attention, just say... how about..."

"There's something rotten in Jobs."

"Ok. Just say that and you'll be spun around to my working side. Front and center, with audio to boot. Better be good, though."

"It will."

"Oh, and Walid? One last thing: I cracked the encryption on one of those internal messages you appropriated from NextSkel Solutions."

"You what?!" That old mix of jealousy and awe. "That's not..."

She was playing it cool but I could hear the grin: "Yeah, I'll show you how I did it if you're curious. Anyway, I don't know how much help it'll be. Sender unknown. Sender anonymous. But we do know that Sockwren received the message and we know that he opened it."

I didn't say anything. I didn't beg. I looked up into the electronic eye through which Charlie watched me.

Maybe I begged with my eyes a little.

She laughed and a new window helioed into existence in front of me. On it, like disinterred pirate gold, sat the unencrypted file. "It's not much," said Charlie. "But there it is. Enjoy, Walid."

I heard the blip as she signed off. I opened the file. The message said:

Only you can know how hard I fought. And yet it's done: your mamluk is awake. I loved you! And what were you, ever, but a cheap confidence man? A carnival barker. Even so, I pray: May God show you mercy, Richard, and may He protect the rest of us.

~L

***

<OurManForJobs@thot[tickr]:private> _...staff informed me this morning / you were attacked last night in your hotel room / is no place safe? /_

my thinking / some guy got his job replaced by an algo / semi intelligent mechanical arm / or file sorter / and hes turned to the chuckle lord help him / theres one just one solution to every social ill and you know i know what it is / work just work good and abundant / but youre in no mood for a lecture im sure and / in fact have i said it yet? /

im sorry wally /

i brought you here to show off this city and kept you late and / of course / something like this happens / lived here all my life / my adult life / never once had neighbors be anything but kind and courteous / what you wally might call beige / little joke / last nights attack on your person / unacceptable /

meeting with / teachers advocacy groups all morning planned weeks in advance or id / have been there in the flesh as soon as i / got the news / not bailing on you to impress / some donor / i give you my word / come by for dinner and ill talk to jenny maybe we can keep you tonight? / that is host you ourselves / keep you safe /

twelfth floor doors opening game face / hey wally you / get a good look at your / attacker? / police said they got no video capture of this guy / amazing this day and age someone could do something like that and no one gets anything / you tell me about it at dinner tonight ok / this is your formal invite from my brain to your eyes / so i hope / they let you wear your hud in the hospital / youre watching / i know you are / just hope you saw his face wally / really hope you saw his face...

***

"Just saying," reported Handsome Wally from the safety of his rental car, an hour later. "I was attacked by a fucking monster, Comb. That's all."

My faceman was lying on his back in a seat that had reclined into a bed. He clutched a bandaged hand to his chest. He was covered in stitches and wrapped in bandages and filled with painkillers-- medical care which hadn't been cheap-- but for all this, the damage to his person looked worse than it actually was. I'd read the nurse's discharge: there were no broken bones or internal bleeding or damaged organs. There might be scars, however: most notably one across his cheek and another atop his forehead. To a man with the career ambitions of Handsome Wally, that wasn't good. He kept examining himself in a helioed selfie mirror and groaning at his mangled assets.

"You weren't attacked by a monster," I said. "Probably just some asshole in a mask--"

"Then just an asshole in a mask!" cried Handsome Wally. "Bad enough! You think you can just embarrass me and I'll stop being scared-- or scarred? If it _was_ a man, he was a fucking beast, man! And I'm not the only one around here who's seen him. I had this journalist visit me last night in the hospital--"

"Julia Wu. _The Jobs' Report._ Community news."

"Right. You know. Of course you know. You know everything. Except any of the stuff that matters--"

He was spooked and hurt. Ready to insult his paymaster. Ready to drop out. I needed him and so he needed to be brought in line.

"Rahim," I said. "How old are you? Forty-five? Forty-seven?"

He was forty-one and could easily pass for his late twenties, but all at once despair and defensiveness clouded his beautiful face. Suddenly he looked sixty and defeated. "What does that matter?" His FitTrak account showed me a spike in blood pressure.

"It doesn't," I said. "Not here. But in your field... you can still play a dreamy ER doctor, right? There are still roles for you out there."

He cleared his throat. Misery and hope didn't compete in his eyes. Not anymore. Misery and hope commingled, old companions snuggled up together at the bar. "Just what are you saying, Comb?"

"I'm saying it's time you graduated from Impressed Burger Taster Number Two and Concerned Santa Monica Area Son-In-Law. You can still become a real actor, Rahim, with real roles. HBO, GANS, Showtime, Bolly Films. Red-carpet premieres at Cannes and Sundance. You have the talent. That's why I use you. All you need is a little help. Strings pulled. Messages sent. You think all I can do is bring down the mighty? No! I can be a kingmaker, Rahim, when it suits me..."

His face changed as he worked through what I was saying. There were implications, there, and not all of them made me look good. He took a breath.

"I've," he started. Paused. Started again: "I've wondered over the years, Comb. What you could do. Sometimes, when I read the headlines, I asked myself: 'Was Wally behind that one?' But I always told myself: 'No, he's just an analyst. An investigator. He feeds info to powerful people, but he can't... he couldn't ever... because, otherwise, he would. Right? He'd help me. After all the _work_ I've done for him...'"

"I never sabotaged you. Never sabotaged your career."

His eyes were closed. Tight. "All these years I've been busting my ass for the shittiest parts, staying up all night going over scripts, dieting, kissing ass at those _fucking_ parties, watching these... these kids come to town and make it in a year... and you... all this time..."

"I gave you work," I said. "And now I'm giving you an opportunity. Do this last gig for me and I'll release you. Send you on your way with my blessing. Your name will be everywhere. On everybody's tongue. And better still: on their HUDs and phones and windows and in their knowledge queries. Targeted Advertisements will bring you up in conversation. You'll 'go viral,' as they used to say."

I watched him, and even though this was going exactly as I'd planned-- exactly as it needed to go-- the transformation in his face was painful to see. Handsome had discovered the ass that truly needed kissing... and he was puckering his lips. His rage, depthless a moment ago, was swept away and replaced with the old, easy charisma Handsome Wally always used on the women and men he needed something from: the women and men I sent him to con. Now that bright, fake cheeriness was turned on me and I recognized it at once and hated it. I realized, only now, that there had been a respect-- and even a kind of trust-- Handsome Wally had always extended to me: a loosening of his happy mask to reveal a glimpse of whatever rocky coastline of personality lay beneath. No longer. His eyes, once again, were welling up with trust and respect-- all an act. Our relationship, at last, had become purely professional.

So be it. That's what I needed. Professionalism. The rest was too bad, but I'd gotten his best years out of him, at least.

"Alright, Comb," he said. "I guess when the going gets tough, right? I'll load up on painkillers and get this salve on my face. And if you're only a few hours out, at least I won't be alone. A few days with Wally. But I need your promise: if this thing-- this asshole in a mask-- if he doesn't kill us, you'll help me? No matter what? Even if we don't figure out what makes George Morales beige?"

I gave him my word.

***

George Morales wasn't waiting for my faceman at the door this time. He sat relaxing in his armchair after a day spent on his feet. Jester pushed his empty bowl across the carpet. Morales was reading from his glasses. The article was about algos supplanting white-collar workers: intuitive, repetitive algorithms making deeper and deeper forays into what used to be called, 'skilled labor.' I followed his gaze and read along, grateful that my own line of work was so many levels of magnitude more complex than what was being co-opted.

When Morales saw Handsome Wally's rental pull into the driveway, he sprang up like a rattlesnake on Adderall and went to check on the condition of the steamed asparagus, mashed potatoes, and cuts of steak that had been prepared and left for him by one of his aides. Then the bell was ringing and Jester was barking and Morales was moving towards the front door, his HUD sliding down his nose. Morales opened the door, and with utmost show of sympathy moved to encircle my bandaged faceman in his big, mayoral arms.

"Come here, buddy," he said, patting Handsome Wally on the back. "We're going to get this son of a gun, you hear? You're here with us now. Safe and with friends."

"Businesslike confidence," I spat into Handsome's ear. "Our man shows no change in heart rate or blood pressure. Nothing but words."

But Handsome Wally made a sobbing, coughing noise all the same and buried his face in the large man's chest. Was this just an act? Something to fool Morales? Or was Handsome Wally actually relieved to be in our man's home? I brought emotiwoople up and began translating my faceman's bio input into color. The sum of his breathing and heartrate and blood pressure and skin temperature and a score of other factors came out a rosy-tinted gold.

<Emotikey@FitTrak:info> _...this level of gold indicates feelings of relief and increasing calm! The user is currently experiencing trust, friendship and support! This shade of gold is traditionally associated with survivors of recent trauma or emotional hardship who are in the presence of good friends or reliable authority figures! This user is feeling an improvement in [his] situation or perhaps gratitude at the sight a friendly face..._

Damn. I didn't say anything into Handsome's ear. Probably he suspected that I'd started following his emotional state-- but why advertise?

George Morales poured some whiskey and said nothing to Handsome about removing his HUD, and so the two men sat in the living room, looking into their glasses. Somewhere just east of Roswell, the Batmobile hit a bump-- a dead coyote or a clump of sagebrush or a bad bit of asphalt-- and I hit my head on a piece of overhead equipment. I swore and Handsome Wally giggled and transformed the giggle into a cough. Morales pulled the little piece of finger bone from the front pocket where he'd kept it for the past hour and he said:

"My manners are usually better than this, Wally. This is a morbid bit of business to discuss before dinner but, see, Jenny will be home in an hour and she doesn't like it when I talk about the SuperBug years..."

"There's your opening," I said. "Let's learn about that bone."

I watched my faceman's blood pressure spike in response to my voice, but through the house cameras and Morales' glasses I didn't see Handsome Wally so much as flinch. Instead, he gave a slow, easy smile and said: "What the hell kind of petting zoo are you people putting together?"

"Handsome!" I spat. "Damnit! This isn't the time--"

"Beg your pardon?" said Morales, leaning back.

"You've got a real-life monster prowling these streets. Don't you? Something straight out of the Carpathians. I talked to Julia Wu this morning..."

Morales was shaking his head, emotiwoople showing beige. "I wouldn't put much stock in what Ms. Wu tells you. I'm guessing she's doing as much to promote that story as to report, if you follow me..."

"Don't trust her? Fine. Then I'll have to believe my own eyes."

"And just what did your eyes show you? What did you see in your hotel room last night? Tell me that. I'm curious." Our man took a drink of his whiskey.

Handsome Wally stared up, summoning his memories. Through one of the ceiling feeds, I could see the way his face pinched. I watched his blood pressure rise, his heart beat faster, his breathing grow shallow.

"It was skinny. Too skinny. No pupils in its eyes. Like it was blind... except, it tracked me."

"Now this is good tv!" Charlie's voice jumped into my head. "The real west Texas experience!"

"Shhhh!" I made a gesture. "Quiet!"

She laughed. "You've graduated from the back burner. I can't do soap operas while I work. But a monster movie..." She cleared her throat, and I could feel the invisible presence of her stare, nudged up beside my own.

Morales was shaking his head again. "Listen to yourself, Wally."

"I know what I saw."

"You want to know what everybody else's been seeing? Here." He pushed his glasses firmly up the bridge of his nose and began scrolling with his eyes. "Here we are. All twelve sightings as dutifully recorded by Julia Wu of _The Jobs' Report_. They keep a running tab on their website."

Morales read from his glasses: "The first, described by Ms. Helen Bolivar, on January seventh, eleven twenty-two PM: 'The power just went out...' blah, blah, blah... 'I heard a noise...' blah, blah, blah. Ah. Here we go: 'I saw her out there, standing in the dark, just outside my kitchen window. My mother in law, Rosalita. Except Rosalita had passed away just a month earlier. But there she was! Her eyes were all milky white-- that was the worst part-- but she noticed me, alright. She tapped on the window and said to me: Helen, why don't you let your momma in for a kiss?

"'Which was the funniest bit of all, cause Rosalita only ever spoke Spanish before. Even before she got sick. So I guess that broke the spell, got me screaming, and then I heard Jaime banging around in the hallway trying to reach me. But before he got to me, that lady-- that imposter or whatever she was-- she was gone. Thank God he didn't have to see her, the poor man. Home-surveillance systems didn't see her either, though. Power was cut off. Not with wire cutters, either. Cops think somebody attacked the smart grid. My neighbors across the street? Their lights didn't even flicker. You've just got to take my word for it...'"

From inside my head, Charlie said: "Spooky!"

I watched Morales line-of-sight the files to Handsome Wally. "Have a look. Our monster won't let herself get filmed."

Now, on Handsome's HUD, sat the digital copy of several police sketches with accompanying notes. I pulled a copy for myself and scrolled through them. Each sketch and written description of la Bestia was different: dead mother-in-law; mutilated cat; long shadow ("had no business moving like that"); staring, ceramic doll; an oversized tarantula saddled and ridden by a Mexican bandit; a weeping clown; a dismembered hand with too many fingers. The final sketch was Handsome Wally's thin, clawed creature: it looked like a tortured, winged man pulled from a medieval depiction of Hell. I shook my head.

Charlie said: "I'll have a look at those, too."

"My thinking?" said Morales. "Somebody has a real imagination and a lot of time. The vandalism always takes place at night. Local surveillance equipment is always frozen. Nothing supernatural about that, but it does have me worried. These attacks are getting worse. We need to find him, but buying into this conspiracy-theory stuff is just following the trail he wants us to follow. You see why I'm not happy to have the public conversation drifting in that direction... and why I hoped you caught a look at this Chucklehead's face."

Reluctantly, Handsome Wally said: "I did see its face! Or thought I did. But what I saw last night... the face I saw... I would swear..."

"Everybody on this list would swear they saw the different things they saw. It happened at night in near-total dark, right?"

Handsome Wally shrugged, seeming to concede the point. "Sorry for taking us off topic," he muttered. "Whenever you're ready, George."

***

The Batmobile pulled into the outskirts of Jobs, Texas at around eleven twenty-two, PM. My van's navigator had discovered **The Lone Star Gas & Solar Station, Goods Market, and Small Arms Repository** about half an hour back, and I'd flagged the place.

I had to pee.

Exiting the rear of the Batmobile, I was met by a sprightly, old woman with a hooked nose and grey hair done up in a bun: a little abuela of the baby-boom years. She was staring at me stupidly with her black eyes. The lights of the charging station were bright above, but the desert night was hot and dark and breezeless and empty. This abuela made me nervous. She wasn't safely on the other side of a helio window and she was staring at me. She began moving towards me.

I didn't look at her. "No thanks," I said. "Not buying. Not interested. You want water? I can buy you and your grandkids some water. How about--"

"Bienvenidos," she said. "Bienvenidos a Jobs."

There was something in her tone. I couldn't put my finger on it. Still can't. It wasn't anything manic or unhinged. There was no threat of violence. Actually, the reverse: it was too calm. The threat lay in the very steadiness of it. She had my eyes now; I wasn't taking them off her again. I coughed.

"Gracias," I said to her. "Usted necesita agua, verdad? Yo podria comprar--"

But she shook her head, uninterested. I coughed again and she smiled. That's when I saw it. Or was she trying to show it to me?

The bent, little woman didn't have many teeth left in her head. I could see that much from the station's overhead light. The teeth that remained were a rotting mix of yellow and black set into red, inflamed gums. My greeter had only one full, undamaged tooth set directly in the front of her mouth. It glowed and flickered insanely. It was an emotiwoople tooth, re-gifted by an already-toothy granddaughter or scrounged out of some charity box. The abuela didn't wear a FitTrak stamp inside her arm-- or she'd let the payments slide-- and so that poor emotitooth, with no biorhythmic data coming in, sent out a stupid, endless repetition of rainbow colors, like a radio hunting for a signal:

Red, blue, green, black, yellow, silver, white, orange, beige, pink.

Red, blue, green, black, yellow, silver, white, orange, beige, pink.

The tooth blinked and winked. Silent and dogged, it ran again and again through the series of colors. I stood rooted, needing to pee, and I watched that tooth like a hypnotized man.

"Cuidado!" she said, cheerfully. "Tenga cuidado, viajero, en este ciudad!"

"Por que?" I asked. "De que?"

"De la bestia," she said, "Claro! Y las niñeras, también..."

I cleared my throat. "Las niñeras?"

She gave me an idiot nod.

"Agua?" I tried, one more time.

The ancient woman shook her head. She was still smiling, her tooth still blinking. "Cuidado, viajero. Y bienvenidos a Jobs!" She winked and stepped aside. Her blinking tooth slipped back under her wrinkled lips. I hurried into the station.

Chapter 16

THAT NIGHT, LYING IN MY ROOM IN THE TALL GRASS INN, I re-watched the evening's conversation between Handsome Wally and George Morales. I started the footage just after Handsome said, "Whenever you're ready, George." In the recording, Morales procured the finger bone and began to speak. His voice sounded tinny over the glasses, so I sent the audio directly to my cochlea and nodded as our man's voice was thrown into relief.

"...Most of us trapped in Houston thought that either the State of Texas or the Feds would lift the quarantine after six or seven months. So all we had to do was stay away from one another and weather the storm. What we hadn't counted on were the second and third and fourth waves of Horto. Like aftershocks. Waves of sickness that came months and years later to kill even longtime survivors. The State of Texas knew. Or the Feds did. They kept the quarantine up and, sure enough, those next waves came to cut us down."

In the footage, Handsome replies: "The BugTruthOut people point to that as proof that Horto was manmade. That Houston was either an accident worse than Chernobyl or a testing ground..."

"Those people..." Morales shrugs, as though tired. He takes a breath and stares into the distance. "Anyway... after Dad passed, I spent weeks wandering around my house. It was quiet. Except, sometimes, I'd hear cars tearing down the street and gunshots and screams. Helicopters passing overhead. US Army helicopters with pre-recorded messages instructing us not to give up hope. They were working on a cure." He laughs, bitterly. "Probably some of those same voice artists had recorded messages telling my father: 'turn around, no refuge.'"

Emotiwoople shows beige.

"The first thing I really remember? Breaking into neighbors' houses for food. I'd walk in the door and the whole place would stink. Putrefaction. Nothing like it. And there were lots of half-rotted corpses still sitting in chairs or lying face down on the hallway floor. There finally came an incident involving a starving dog and the body of a former neighbor... it made an impression. I decided it might be good take a break from raiding houses. Maybe meet some people."

Beige.

"Now, the closest store was a HanjinMart. Twenty-two miles roundtrip and no gas nearby to be found. So I biked and wore a backpack. I started out at six AM and I remember how quiet that ride was. A drone flew over and I waved up at it. It circled and filmed me for a few minutes before flying towards downtown. I rode for hours through neighborhoods that had been totally destroyed and others that hadn't changed at all. A couple of times older guys on foot shouted at me, trying to stop me, and each time I pulled back my jacket, just like this." Morales stood up and demonstrated. "Just so that they got a look at Dad's Glock. That kept things uneventful."

Beige. But the colors coming in from Handsome show me that he's impressed. (Not captured by the footage: at that moment, I'd heard a snort in my head and Charlie had said, "Shit.")

"The HanjinMart had been raided, of course. Even so, there was something like civilization in that huge building. It was a crossroads: a marketplace and meeting place. The food was gone and the fridges must have failed weeks earlier, but there were still lots of useful things being traded: T-shirts; Blankets; Camping gear; Guns. Plenty of the big overhead lights still worked and I could see people wandering between the shipping containers. None of them looked sick. The second Horto wave was another nine months off. Even so, a lot of people still wore hospital masks. One lady wore a gas mask and cloth suit! And lots of young people had survived. Bug Orphans, like me.

"Everyone kept civil. We were all armed, see, and all scared of getting bit by the Bug. People would shout things to each other between the shipping containers, though: jokes, recommendations, bits of news. Someone was showing movies on an old, flat-screen television. Everybody was in a good mood, which you might think is weird, but it didn't feel that way at the time. We'd all lost people, but we'd survived. The Mart was like a grey, burned-down forest that's all green with little shoots. You felt lucky, there. Hopeful. And...

"And the HanjinMart is where I ended up meeting her."

"Her?" Handsome Wally asks in the recording.

"Her?" I also ask.

("Her!" had come Charlie's voice in my head, startling me. "Of course!")

"Her," repeats Morales. "Eileen Patel."

Lying in bed, in the air-conditioned Texas night, I watched those last several seconds of recorded footage. I watched them over and over. I replayed, especially, that part of the conversation just before Morales uttered the words: 'Eileen Patel.' And just after. These were important seconds, ladies and gents-- magical seconds-- because in these seconds Morales changed: FitTrak showed his body reacting to that name as though it were a catalyst shooting out from his nervous system. And his emotiwoople? It was showing me the lightest beige I'd ever seen from our man!

Almost pink. And then, for less than a second, fully pink. I backed up the footage, froze it: George Morales was feeling pink.

I watched Morales tell his story again, waiting for that glimmer of color. Soon the Dormirozine and sleep, but first I needed to see that transition one more time...

***

The next morning, while the Batmobile drove aimlessly around Jobs, I had my algos scour the Bug Orphan Registry for Eileen Patel. The Registry confirmed that seventeen Eileen Patels had been inside Houston when the quarantine went into effect. One of the Patels had been eleven and another thirteen and another twelve. The rest had been either under five or over twenty when they'd been trapped in the city. I discounted them.

Sadly, there was one quality every Eileen Patel on the registry shared: they were all dead. None had been registered in any of the rescue centers in reclaimed Houston. Not one of them had still been alive when the quarantine dropped.

Gritting my teeth, I returned to that pink footage of the previous night.

***

Over the footage you can't hear Charlie cackle in my head, but you can hear me whisper: "Handsome, the name 'Eileen Patel' is getting us a color. Repeat: I am seeing the color pink coming from our man for Jobs. You have to get him to talk about her. You have to."

Handsome Wally nods and says: "What about Eileen Patel?"

Morales rolls the finger bone, there, in the living room of his home. He tells the story of finding the keys to a neighbor's Ford pickup. He begins to visit the HanjinMart twice a week. It's a useful place to learn things and find people: nurses and plumbers and auto mechanics. Survivors from all the local suburbs come to look for people and trade supplies and gossip. People come just to talk. Thirst and hunger aren't problems yet-- the helicopters see to that-- but loneliness is. It's a good thing to talk with people again after months of watching them from shuttered windows. Months of quiet mourning.

Mostly, the Mart caters to this human need for socializing in a healthy way. It's through the Mart that Morales learns, again, what day of the week it is, and in the Mart that life seems most normal. A woman sets up a gym and a man starts a bar and another man sets up an auto-body shop in the parking lot. A dental assistant sets up a practice. Everyone believes the quarantine will drop any day and so US dollars are still good...

"And Eileen?" prods Handsome Wally, gently. "What about her?"

The bone stops spinning. FitTrak throws out a series of biometrics that turn emotiwoople a very dark beige. He repeats: "Mostly, the Mart catered to people's needs in a healthy way. But people's needs aren't always, well, healthy..."

Handsome Wally lets our man take his time.

"Or maybe," continues Morales, finally, "maybe it was the whole mess. All that death and downtime and loneliness and heaps of grave-robbed wealth, and even rice and coffee falling from the sky! I think some people got it into their heads that they were special-- that God had granted them a terrible freedom in quarantined Houston-- and others thought that they might die any day. Plus, we didn't have any internet. It all contributed. And here was the Mart: where everybody gathered; where US dollars were still good, even if they were super inflated. And the Mart was huge! A cavern you could get lost in. A place where any sort of business might take place..."

Dolores Kindcaid, explains Morales, conducts her business on the loading dock. Door number seven. She deals in women. She roams the suburbs with a couple of paid men and picks up lone, unarmed Bug Orphan teenagers. She works a circuit through the suburbs, but every Friday she and her girls are back on the loading dock, by door seven. She has tents set up back there. Dolores is probably the richest woman in this corner of quarantined Houston-- and without a doubt the scariest. Before the quarantine, she'd lost her right arm nearly up to the elbow and been fitted with a prosthetic replacement: a metal rod shooting out her elbow, with a hand that's nothing more than one of those claw-machine claws. The thing is wired up the outside of her arm and winds along her shoulder and into her spine somewhere. Early prosthetics: about all the control she has over it is open, close, open, close. Like this.

Morales forms one big hand into a crab claw and demonstrates the jerky, limited movements for Handsome Wally.

He's probably fifteen when he lets a couple older acquaintances convince him to visit the loading dock. He's trying to impress them. Dolores has her ladies standing in a line in front of door seven and you can look at them, but there's a piece of tape on the floor you aren't allowed to cross. Dolores' bouncers are also standing between him and the women. Morales' friends don't waste any time choosing and giving their cash-stuffed suitcases to Dolores' assistant, but Morales hangs back, pretending to be choosier about who he wants. He watches the whole operation. He studies the bored and nervous girls. He watches Dolores. She's a good-looking woman-- magnetizing and blonde-- and he discovers that part of her appeal comes from her total, detached confidence. She doesn't try to flatter anybody or schmooze. She knows she has what these men want.

Moving between the prostitutes is a girl almost Morales' age. She captures his attention so completely that Dolores, at once, is forgotten. Black hair and dark-hazel eyes and mocha skin. She's dressed plainly and she's bringing the working girls water and bowls of rice and little snacks. The older girls dote on her: smoothing her hair down and speaking gently. Others start giggling with her. She's a favorite, like a puppy adopted by a traveling band.

It's not long before one of the men surveying the prostitutes inquires about the servant girl. Dolores informs him the girl isn't ready for this kind of work. He replies something about not being particular.

Another, says Dolores, cool as anything you've got. You'll have to choose another.

The customer clarifies that maybe he _is_ feeling particular, after all, and offers a second suitcase stacked with money. The young Morales unconsciously takes a step forward, hand slipping down to the gun under his jacket. He's not thinking; it was confiscated at the door. One of Dolores' men puts his hand to the butt of his own, very present, gun and shakes his head. He's a killer, you can be certain. Morales puts his empty hands up in front of him and steps back.

Dolores sees it all.

She says: Mister, I've got all kinds of lovelies here that are trained up in just about anything you'll want. I can get you men, too. Trained the same way. But I think of myself as a professional, sir, and there are certain lines a professional does not cross if she wants to stay welcome at the HanjinMart. Choose another.

Then she turns to Morales and says: Young man, this is not an art gallery. I see your suitcase. Will you be doing any buying?

The prostitutes are giggling and the men are chuckling and even the denied man gives a wet laugh. Dolores follows up: You don't have to worry about my girls. They've got this far without your chivalry. Only, you do worry about them, don't you? These whiny sluts you've never met!

Morales, not knowing how to answer an accusation like that in a place like this, coughs. Now the girls and the men are quiet. Dolores is putting on a kind of show and they want to see what will happen. Dolores is stroking her chin with the point of one of her sharpened pincers. Not for the first time: white, hairline scars spiderweb from the corner of her mouth down to her jaw.

All at once, she seems to come to a decision. She waves Morales forward with that claw, and when he steps forward, feeling all those eyes on him, she asks: Name?

Jorge Morales.

She likes that. Morales! she says to herself. How perfect. And you're a full Bug Orphan? No family?

That's right.

Well, let's add to your tribe! You're going to take little Ms. Patel, here, off my hands, Mr. Morales. I'm tired of feeding the girl and indulging all her fancies-- and her, not yet even bringing in any revenue! I came upon her too early. I should have known better--

She doesn't get any farther than that, because the prostitutes have all started making unhappy noises. The mistress raises her claw in the air and the rattle of clicking knife edges has the same effect as a judge's gavel. Into the silence she says: I'm tired of the girls squabbling over her and I'm sick of protecting her from scum. She points at the would-be child molester with her left hand and makes a thumbs-up gesture over her shoulder. Two of Kindcaid's bouncers escort him, whining, off the premises.

And Morales and Kindcaid draw up a contract for Eileen Patel.

Dolores explains: I don't expect you to bring her back to me intact, Mr. Morales. I'll reward you if you do, but I'm not naive and I don't place that high a premium on it. Only you _will_ return her to me. Whenever I ask for her. Don't go falling in love, Jorge. She's an investment. You're a caretaker. Got it?

She rests her metal claw on his jeans, right on his crotch, and it's a threat-- nothing subtle about it. That claw tickles his penis.

You couldn't marry her even if you wanted to, Kindcaid continues. Ms. Patel is wedded to this line of work. Aren't you, Eileen? Come show Mr. Morales! Don't be shy!

The girl comes forward. She produces her left hand. The ring finger has been severed below the first joint. All that remains is a nub poking out of the knuckle. Dolores raises her claw and she clicks it twice. Looking around, Morales discovers that every one of the prostitutes has been mutilated in the same way.

No place for a ring, explains Dolores. Can't have anyone getting ideas.

Handsome Wally sits composed. Only his FitTrak account reports his shock. He says: "Then, that finger bone? That's Eileen Patel's?"

Morales spins the bone and shakes his head. "No. Eileen's finger was lost a long time before we ever met. How I came by this--"

But now the front door springs open and Jenny Morales' reedy voice pipes: "Dear? Are you telling our guest old horror stories or new ones?"

"Just reminiscing, dear! But now that you're home, we'll behave." Morales winks at Handsome Wally and says: "Another cliffhanger, I'm afraid. Well, we'll get there. Come on into the dining room, Wally! Let's eat!"

Chapter 17

"WELCOME VALUED CUSTOMER!" CHIRPED THE FLOATING CAUCASIAN WOMAN as I stepped from the Batmobile and into the waves of heat curling off the parking lot. "Oh no! Sir or Madam! We are currently unable to access your Targeted Advertising Profile! Please engage your Targeted Advertising Profile via your phone or Heads Up Display glasses so that we can better serve you!"

"Don't have one," I said. "I don't want one of your slave numbers, either, so don't try and sell me one."

"Understood, sir!" chirped the helio sprite. "Jehovah's Witness, God's Pure Love, Unmarked, American Freedom Wing, Carolite or--"

"Carolite," I said. "I'm a buyer for a caravan." A bead of sweat was already resting on the bridge of my nose, just under my HUD.

"Oh, excellent! And can I have a name, sir?" The Targeted Ad, having gotten a look at me, was turning several shades darker. Trying to match the sprite's pigmentation to my own. I stopped walking. The helio sprite, tracking me, also halted.

"Knock that off," I said

"Knock what off, sir?"

"Stop appropriating me. You people think that just because you make a piece of response software look like me, I'll pay six-percent more for potato chips. I don't care what the market research tells you: it's insulting. Besides, I prefer blondes."

"Of course, sir!" The sprite morphed back to default Caucasian features and beer-blonde hair.

"And make her tits bigger. That's how you sell snacks, damnit."

"Sir!" chirped the sprite, breasts swelling, "If you'll simply register with me, we can begin putting together a Targeted Advertising Profile which will ensure that every one of your preferences are--"

"Shut up, Job Killer," I said, trying to sound like a Carolite. "You still have any real human beings working here? I want to talk to one of those."

"Of course, sir!" chirped the Targeted Ad, happy in its limited way to have been given a task. "It would be my pleasure to escort you to one of our sales specialists! I assume you will be making a bulk purchase? If you would please follow me inside..."

I had reached, finally, the hangar-bay entrance of Jobs' single HanjinMart. A fine mist poured from jets set into the building, cooling me after my walk across the hot asphalt and scattering the helio sprite into rainbow fractals. This particular Mart was of that colossal type of HanjnMart which the company has branded 'Ark-Class' (Because it's got at least two of everything? Because you could rebuild society with one?). Pretty good for a city the size of Jobs. Surrounded by cranes and cargo containers, the Mart squatted next to the highway like a calcium deposit lodged in the side of a man's urethra: if it got any bigger, it would begin interrupting the flow of north-south traffic.

I spat on the mist-soaked sidewalk. I made a face.

I hadn't been inside of a big box store since I'd hired Mathilda's predecessor-- and how many years ago had that been? Too few. But there was no getting around it: I needed to establish an identity for myself. The last thing I wanted was some Social Harmony facial-recognition algo fixating on a tubby, balding out of towner driving aimlessly around the city in an unmarked, white van. That would lead to a flag in the system: active surveillance and possibly some uncomfortable questions about my interest in a certain mayoral candidate.

No. There are times when hiding in plain sight just works better. And that meant a physical shopping trip. A cover.

So I entered those enormous, sliding doors and the dew drops chilled against my skin. The temperature had dropped something like thirty degrees in three footsteps. I almost missed the aching heat of the west Texas morning.

"Welcome to HanjinMart!" chirped the Targeted Ad at a booming volume. "Bienvenidos a HanjinMart! Product by product, we make the world to your choosing!"

I flinched.

The Targeted Ad had been forced to increase the speaker volume because of the noise. Raucous, terrible, unending noise: it hit me from three sides and made me look back wistfully at the glimmering parking lot. From here, there, everywhere came a constant stream of climate-controlled spectacle. Even for a datacomber like me-- a professional accustomed to keeping his eye on the shifting contents of four or five helio windows at once-- the input from the HanjinMart was dizzying.

Wherever I looked there was a flickering, spectral Targeted Advertisement. The helio sprites were cajoling, simpering, ever-shifting clowns. Here I saw one-- transformed into a sad-eyed cartoon rabbit-- pleading with a little girl in rapid-fire Spanish to buy a set of chocolate eggs. The girl, beginning to cry, was pulling on her mother's dress. Mom, meanwhile, was deeply engaged with a mustachioed hunk dressed in lumberjack flannel. He was assuring her (his weightless arm upon her shoulder) that she was making the right choice for her family by purchasing Husky&Hearty brand toilet paper. Yes, it was a few more dollars per pack, but the increased absorption meant...

"Sir!" boomed my personal helio sprite. "If you'll follow me, I'll guide you to our bulk-purchases sales specialist! He's been notified of your desire to speak with him and awaits our arrival!" The translucent blonde smiled. I got the feeling that if it were able to, the Targeted Ad would love nothing more than to wrap a very-real leash around my neck and drag me forcibly to the next product or service.

"He awaits my arrival," I corrected. "Not ours. You're a projected image. A weird shadow on the cave wall. Less than that--" But here I stopped. The damned response algo had gotten me talking with it again.

"Of course, sir," It nodded. The sprite was getting better looking. It was reminding me more and more of my sixth-grade teacher back in Minneapolis. Somehow, reading some unconscious display of body language, it was figuring me out. "You're right," it chirped. "I'm an illusion. But does that really mean we can't be friends?"

"Let's go," I said.

We walked. I felt like Dante being guided through one of the more profitable circles of Hell. I saw scooter-bound pensioners with expanding, contracting oxygen bags hanging on their chests compete in a Mart-sponsored Sales Race down an aisle for a few dollars off their prescription meds: canes deployed to prod and trip, insults whining out of crippled lungs-- and a younger crowd chortling and documenting the whole thing. I saw a young man, peacocked in the latest mode, trying desperately to keep the attention of a heart-faced beauty. Her doe eyes, behind the blinking windows of her HUD, were all a-shine-- but not for him! She was focused, instead, on the rail-thin, haughty, and dismissive Frenchman that had materialized to sell eyeliner. The helioed Frenchman, meanwhile, was moodily smoking a lung-paralyzing Chinese cigarette between two heavily-tattooed fingers. He was saying something suicidally existential; he hadn't yet made his way to eyeliner. He would. The young man being ignored was miserable. I knew this-- I had physical proof of this and so did everyone else-- because the Nike swooshes in his emotiwoople sneakers were storm-cloud grey and spotted with black. I felt my gorge rise. Why would you share that? I wanted to scream at him. Why would you willingly advertise? Never give anyone anything! That's rule number one! Not one goddamn thing! Make them pay for every scrap! But his parents, no doubt, had been oversharing since before he was born. His mother's labors probably had been filmed, and his entrance into the world, and that recorded experience had made the rounds. And, since then, much the same: he'd never had a chance, growing up in a world where it was considered almost obscene not to present as a well-washed pane of glass.

So I moved on and watched a shipping container being lowered by crane through one of the massive skylights of the HanjinMart. Below, large HanjinMates in yellow vests formed a perimeter. Klaxons blared, lights rotated, and mechanized claws reached up to embrace the lowering container. In front of the whole event, a ten-foot-tall sprite of a pudgy, diffident Korean explained:

"...lowering shipping containers directly into the store means added savings for you! Please stand back while our trained HanjinMates open the container doors and be aware of spiders, mosquitos, broken glass, needles, utility knives and other undesirable objects which may have hitched a ride across the ocean! Here at HanjinMart, your safety is our number one..."

And, throughout this, my Targeted Ad kept transforming to highlight the products we passed. It became: a grizzled cowboy to bring my attention to Chinese cigarettes; a potbellied Mexican farmer to sell me apples; a surly New Englander sporting tweed and patched elbows for HUDbooks; a shirtless, washboard-stomached Huntington Beachgoer for exercise equipment; a Martha Stewart archetype for rolling pins; a Dale Earnhart Jr. archetype for oil pans; a Cowgirl Lacey Molloy archetype for emotiwoople sweatbands. The Targeted Ad was wearing me down. I kept telling it to stop, but we were in too deep now: I couldn't remember how to get out of the store.

I decided, at last, that it would be easier than I'd feared to play a Carolite. It was infantilizing, but there was only one thing to do: I started screaming.

"I know what you're doing!" I screamed at the Koala sitting atop a box of Australian snack crackers. "I KNOW what you're DOING! Job Killer! You're tricking me! Leading me around in circles! I TOLD you I wanted to talk to a HUMANBEING! Where is my goddamn HUMANBEING!?"

Shoppers had turned to look at us. A few of them, I was certain, had already begun filming me on their glasses. The Koala blinked.

"Well!?" I screamed. "Are you going to do the JOB that a HUMANBEING used to have!? Are you going to FIND ME--"

"Sir!" The sprite was blonde again. The response algo had initiated a de-escalation subroutine. "Sir, I am _so sorry_ to give that impression! I really only wanted to make you aware--"

"I don't want to be aware," I pouted, while snickering teenagers recorded. "I want to talk to the bulk-purchases sales specialist."

"Of course you do," it said. The sprite's eyes were bigger and full of saccharine pity. Her mouth was bigger and drawn tightly downwards. Her breasts were bigger and the cleavage had been exposed. I think if I had been in a quieter corner of the store it might have nuzzled me with them. "We're going there right away, ok? He's waiting for us. He'll help you find everything you need."

The sprite offered me its hand. Thinking things would go better for me if I played nice, I took it. My hand closed over the image and tracking software made sure her hand stayed glued to mine.

Some sixteen-year-old wit started a slow clap. His friends joined.

I'll get you, George Morales, I thought, as the clapping grew and we moved ever deeper into the HanjinMart. I'll flush you out and ruin you. I'll make you pay for every godforsaken minute I spend in this place.

***

Deleted HUDmail sent from RSockwren to SErbedium

Retrieved by algorithm Correspondence_Lazarus

SeptXXber 1X, 20X6

Salar,

God's Peace be upon you and your family.

My sincerest apologies, friend, for all that this year has put you through. What happened to your son is a war crime. If there were a way to track down whoever planted that mine, I'd take care of him myself. I thank God-- and, also, the Indian surgeon-- that Rostam survived. I thank God that he lives.

I talked to Dr. Nguyen, a project leader and neurologist at NextSkel Solutions, and he was very sympathetic. Hearing your story, he took me on another tour of their labs. I wasn't allowed to record, but I can tell you what I saw:

They're building better lives over there, Salar. They're moving forward in leaps and bounds.

I stood with the bedridden, the sick, the disfigured. These were the test patients. I know that I always thanked God for a new day when I lived and fought with you, but there are times when I-- when I think all of us-- doubt His mercy. Or question the forms it takes. Amongst the sick and broken and, especially, amongst suffering children I have always doubted. I can't help myself.

So it was incredible to see the newest test runs. If I could only show you what I saw!

Here was a girl who had lost both legs above the knee. They fitted her with the kind of legs you might see on a mulebot and they gave her something like a little Nintendo controller to pilot herself around. Within an hour she was whizzing around the room-- walking!

Someday, Dr. Nguyen promised me, this little girl won't need the controller at all. Robotics is finally entering the period that telecommunications hit around the beginning of the century. Alan Nguyen showed me the synthetic skin and muscle they've begun working on. Synthetic nerve endings!

I'm confident, Salar, that your son will walk again. Not only that, but I think that within the decade he will be able to feel his legs, too, and stretch them and be comforted by the ache of them after a long run.

Best of all, Dr. Nguyen has asked me for Roshan's height and weight! They're making him a pair of new legs, Salar! I'll be in contact with the PAL occupation government in Kulob to make sure that he receives them. They're first generation: spidery, shiny, clicking things. But he should be able to walk again by next year.

I'm happy to do this for you, old friend, but I'm doing more-- much more-- to help. You'll just have to believe me. It's coming slow, but it's coming.

***

The bulk-purchases sales specialist had kept his job through the rise of Targeted Advertising for good a reason: he was a natural salesman, happy to work with new strangers all day long. He was good-natured and explosive and terrifically competent: an ugly, bald Handsome Wally. He must have had some kind of heft in the store, too, because the first thing he did was order my Targeted Ad to disappear. His nametag said: **Albert (Big Al) Iwanski**. I shook his hand. I kept my voice steady, but anyone following my emotiwoople, I'm certain, would have witnessed the shining gold of my relief.

"Thanks, Big Al."

"No problem, sir. Little secret? Can't stand these things myself. Another decade and they'll be included under the UN Convention Against Torture. Just like looped muzak was a couple years back."

I laughed! I wanted to embrace him. He'd figured me out orders of magnitude faster than that stupid response algo, and I hoped it meant he would keep his job for a good long time.

"So what can we do you for, sir? The store database is telling me you're a caravan buyer. No name, though. Afraid I got to ask you for that."

"Brother Jacob Malt," I told him, producing an old debit card. "Advance buyer for the pod passing through southern Oklahoma. They'll be coming through town in about two weeks." I made a quick, reassuring wave. "Won't stay long; just passing through. Going west. The big loop. I just want to make sure we have the supplies ready by the time my fellow travelers get here."

"Well, shoot," said Big Al. "Your sisters and brothers are going to be thirsty when they arrive. That strip of Oklahoma's been just one big drought zone for more than a decade. It's the friggin Mojave, man."

I nodded and repeated a bit of the proselytizing I'd cribbed from a frumpy, low-quality Carolite website: "That's why we use it for our path. We're not around to bother anybody. We just want to live in the old way, reintroduced to us by the Prophet Carol Manera: free of endless distraction; endless listacles and cat memes and status updates and lost hours and loneliness; free of endless surveillance. To live in a people-oriented way. A way that returns our time and our thoughts to us."

Big Al, through long experience with caravan buyers, knew that any real dogmatist likes a good fight. And so, shrugging, he said: "Hate to argue with you, Brother Jake, but I see Carolites clogging up the ER here in Jobs all the time. Doesn't seem to be much objection to hooking up to some pretty high-tech gadgetry once a kidney stops working, say."

I shrugged as though conceding his point, but I was here to build an identity: I kept up the fight.

"The works of the Prophet Carol Manera teach us that technology has two beneficent uses which should not be ignored: The Dissemination of Information for the improvement of the human mind and Medical Technology for the maintenance of the body. There are plenty in my pod, for instance, who have found that antidepressants help their quality of life. Others need daily insulin and still others need medicine to keep strokes at bay. And so the use of these medicines is encouraged for those who require them. I'll be buying plenty today, in fact. I have the scripts right here..."

"Cherry picking, in other words."

I grinned as though playing Texas Hold'em with a pair of aces. "Cherry picking! Sure! Like a man in a cabin deep in the woods with hot water and electricity! After all! Did we create technology to serve us or to be served by us?" And I gestured to where a ghostly beauty in lingerie was heckling a man for passing up a deal on pillowcases. The sprite gave off, somehow, an air of sexual dissatisfaction and the man was giving the pillowcases a second, glum, looking over.

Al snorted. "Shoot. I guess a movement doesn't get big as yours without working on the prettiness of its arguments. But here's what I see: you may not be wearing a FitTrak in your arm or use a Targeted Ad Profile, but you sure do got a nice HUD sitting in front of your eyeballs. Just like me."

Big Al Iwanski already knew what answer was coming, and I gave it: "Buyers are allowed HUDs when we go into town. To find deals. And to make sure you slick city folk don't take us for a ride." I winked.

The bulk-purchases sales specialist let out a big, wonderful laugh, like this was the first time he'd heard anything like this. "Alright, my clued-in amigo, let's get down to brass tacks."

I had a list of typical provisions I'd found on a caravan buyer's blog and I had a checking account under the Brother Jacob Malt shell identity. We haggled and joked and argued for the better part of an hour while around us shipping containers were raised and lowered through the roof and genre-shifting muzak poured through the speakers. After we'd come to an agreement and I'd paid for hundreds of pounds of flour and rice and gallons of water and crates of beer and new shoes and first-aid supplies and prescription medicines and laundromat services and dental services and new coats-- and he was entering all this into the helio register floating between us-- I said: "And while we're at it, I need two more things. I'd like to pick up a thotnode here, today, and... can you tell me about a good tank house here in Jobs? Discreet."

For this, I already had hard currency between palm and tabletop, green edges just peeking out.

Big Al didn't laugh now. The corners of his mouth didn't even flicker. He glanced at the money and said in a low voice: "I'll grab you a thotnode this minute. As for the other thing: The Lady of Delhi is what you want. Johnny Injun runs her. You'll want to give him about twice what I'm seeing right now, before normal fees. It's worth it. Unregistered access to the aartinet. And part goes towards paying off the SHUS+H lady working the drone out front, so unless you shoot up the place-- make your own little film-- no one will ever know you were in there."

Then, after he'd taken his money, he gave me a grin and said: "Civilization has its perks, though. Don't it, Brother?"

Chapter 18

AFTER LUNCH AT ONE OF THE DONER KEBAB PLACES attached, barnacle fashion, to the outside of the HanjinMart, I connected with Handsome Wally. He was riding in his rental and I was cruising along the highway in the Batmobile. The signal between us was secure.

But, actually, that wasn't enough: because if Morales had friends in Jobs' SHUS+H department, they'd be actively monitoring his houseguest's HUD for outgoing and incoming calls. And even your average SHUS+H bureaucrat would have to ask herself: why did George Morales' guest keep calling up some Carolite-- another stranger who just happened to be in Jobs-- over a secure signal? What could those two strangers be talking about? What was the connection?

Because a perfectly-encrypted connection is still a connection. Worse, it's the kind of connection that gets the algos sniffing.

Therefore, not only was our signal secure, but I'd established a pair of booby signals to throw off any locals who might be listening. Both booby signals led to different cities: mine to Atlanta, where Brother Jacob Malt had 'family'; Handsome Wally's back to Las Vegas. Each booby signal featured a pair of algos reading from an adaptive script. Two of the algos were voice matched with Handsome Wally and myself. To anyone eavesdropping, it would sound like my faceman and I were having two separate fights with two separate women in two separate cities.

Because stonewalling alone doesn't cut it in this game. Take it from a man who watches people defecate, daily, in what they think is the privacy of their homes! No. At times like these, you want the audience watching the puffs of smoke coming from the floorboards while you stuff the rabbit into the hat.

Diversion, ladies and gents! Never give the bastards anything. Hell, give them even less.

***

That morning, I'd also conducted a basic knowledge query on the subject: **Mamluk**. These were the search algo's top six returns (of 24,587 after sorting for pre-assigned relevance conditions) for the morning:

**Mamluk (Sultanate):** (1250--1570) Cairo, Medieval Egypt. Long-enduring Egyptian regime which repelled the troops of the Mongol Ilkhanate at the Battle of Ain Jalut as well as battling Christian Crusaders, finally pushing the latter out of Egypt and the Levant in 1302. Delineated by the Bahri Dynasty (dominated by Kipchak Turks) and the Burji Dynasty (where a body of northern Circassians oversaw a period of decline). Although conquered by the Ottoman Sultan Selim I in 1517, the Egyptian Mamluks were retained as a semi-autonomous ruling clique... See more...

**Mamluk (Disambiguation):** Transliterated variously as mamluq, mamlouk, mameluke, mameluk, marmeluk, mamalouk. Meaning 'property' or 'owned person.' Arabic designation for slaves stretching back at least as far as the Abbasid caliphs of ninth-century Baghdad... See more...

**Mamluk (Egyptian Military Caste):** Purchased as young boys from throughout the Muslim world and beyond, and undergoing indoctrination and strict military training from a young age, Mamluk troops were often trusted for their lack of outside social ties or affiliations. Indeed, Mamluks depended upon their purchasers for career advancement. Given status over ordinary slaves-- who were both forbidden to carry weapons or command men-- individual Mamluks often gained substantial military power that placed them above rank-and-file Egyptian citizenry, occasionally rising to the rank of 'amir' or 'bey.' This process gradually evolved as Mamluk forces became intertwined with existing power structures... See more...

**Mamluk (Ethnicities):** Mainly Turkic, Greek, Armenian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Kipchak, Circassian, Georgian and Coptic Egyptian. Often coming from Christian families, Georgian Mamluks, for instance, retained remarkable autonomy: speaking their native language alongside Arabic and even sending gifts home to their native villages... See more...

**Mamluk (Socio-Political Anomaly):** By 1238 the Ayyubid Dynasty found itself increasingly dependent upon Mamluks acting semi-autonomously as regional governors. In the political chaos following French king Louis IX's invasion of Egypt in 1249 and sultan As-Salih Ayyub's subsequent death, the imported slave soldiers of the Egyptian army murdered the sultan's heir and seized power. This first Mamluk dynasty was called the Bahri Dynasty after the 'Bahriya'-- or 'River Island'-- regiment and was soon consolidating its power, conquering Cairo and even driving back the Mongol Empire... See more...

**Mamluk (Evolution):** Originally used to denote, "Slaves of the King," the title shifted in meaning over time, finally coming to be used as a term for a "Freed Man," "Soldier" and finally "Slave King," but was also used as a derogatory slur long after the fall of the Burji Dynasty... See more...

***

"A lady named Charlie," pondered Handsome Wally. I could see the outline of his tongue pushing against the inside of one of his high-boned cheeks. "And she's a datacomber, huh? And an old friend of yours, too? Maybe from your SHUS+H days? But you know what, Comb? I don't think you've ever mentioned her to me before! Never, ever. What, um, kind of a friend _was_ she?"

He was giving me the old, Handsome Wally grin over his glasses. I could see the smile lines in the corners of his teasing eyes. The cuts in his face didn't look quite so angry red. I could almost believe he was feeling friendly towards me again: that everything had gone back to the way it was between us. He was going to make a terrific actor.

"The kind of friend you call," came a new voice, "when the flood waters keep rising and you find you've forgotten how to swim."

"Very dramatic, Charlie," I muttered.

Handsome Wally blinked. His dark face got darker. He said: "Comb, I thought... did she just break through the secure signal? The booby signals?"

"That would be a waste of my time and effort, Handsome. Since Walid, here, has been feeding me live access to this investigation for the last twenty-four hours. Everything he sees, I see."

Handsome Wally was looking around his rental car as though he expected little elves to start pouring from the upholstery. "Is there anybody else up there? Anybody else I should know about?"

I said: "Unless there's a SHUS+H computer-science major so skilled that she's able to get the drop on us without either Charlie or I knowing about it--"

"There isn't," said Charlie.

"--then we three are the only ones here. Don't worry, Handsome. We're not adding anyone else to the team. Three is already two too many conspirators. But..."

I shrugged. Let out a breath. "...I need Charlie's help..."

Handsome Wally's eyes lit up. "Because of the Beast. The way it turns off surveillance. The way it hides."

I shook my head. "Because of the beige. The constant, impossible beige."

"And here," said Charlie, "I thought it was because of the human bone locked in our man's garage!"

Each of us was quiet for a moment. I rubbed my temples, wondering if I should slap on an ibuprofen pain patch.

"So," Handsome Wally broke the silence. "Charlie, is it? Good to meet you, Charlie. And just how long were you and Wally, here, an item?"

I decided on two hundred milligrams. Charlie was already laughing. She was laughing and gasping beautifully: the way a person can only laugh when they're surprised by your forwardness and also a little delighted by it. Hearing that laugh, I felt homesick. I shook my head, putting the feeling away, and already Charlie was coughing: long, ragged coughs. I remembered the smell of her breath: mints and Marlboros. She cleared her throat.

"Almost two years," she answered. "Isn't that about what it was, Walid? Or a little over two years?"

I puffed air into my cheeks. I released the air into a rude noise.

"I won't pry," said Handsome Wally. "But I wish you'd show us your face, Charlie. Comb's been a godforsaken tank fiend all the years I've known him. I'm curious to see the face that sank that ship."

Ouch. Handsome had had time to fill his venom sacks that morning.

Charlie answered, vaguely: "Oh? You'll have to have Walid show you a pic from the old days. Maybe he's got one still locked away somewhere..."

"That's it," I said, "for introductions." If I'd been wearing an emotiwoople sweatband, it would've been a pulsating, glowing red: an angry, radioactive-spider-blood red. "Let's inject a little professionalism into this, people. We each have jobs to do. Things to look into. I've put together a timetable for us. For Charlie it's a series of suggestions, but for you--" I glared at the sweetly-smiling Handsome Wally, "it's how you get paid.

"Now. All roads lead to George Morales, alright? He's the reason we're in Jobs. That means, no monster hunt. No distractions. Objective numero uno is switching out Morales' thotnode without him noticing. He keeps it on his nightstand. I can double up the Morales' home-surveillance footage-- make it look like you're making yourself a sandwich in the kitchen when, actually, you're making the switch-- but we need to decide on a time..."

For another half-hour, I talked while Charlie and Handsome Wally listened. Then we spent half an hour arguing. When we were done-- and the Batmobile was heading back toward the hotel-- our little cabal had produced something that almost looked like a plan.

Meaning, naturally, that it was time for events to take another ninety degree turn.

***

<OurManForJobs@thot[tickr]:private> _...announcement! /_

kept this a secret from you wally until now even last night was too soon because i wasnt / wasnt sure the time was right but i think / yes / the time is right / so big announcement /

talked with campaign staff this morning / good people quality people excitable people and you got to have good people around you for a task like this / and my staff my people encouraged me to make the announcement tonight / we been thinking for a while that tonight would be the night but we wanted to be sure and now /

no turning back now! /

big church meeting this evening in the park east of town / vista park / and its going to be gathering / under the big big tent one of the larger live audiences youre going to see anywhere in jobs / probably the biggest public space we got around so / tonights the night /

contacted pastor ernesto k gardner who has agreed / after the pastors sermon tonight / im going to announce / officially announce / that im running for mayor! /

everybody already knows yeah but the formal announcement means something / official start / and so its important to make this look good and important / to have the kind of audience we are going to have tonight /

yes tonight / be there or be square wally / and what this also means is sorry to say probably no story time tonight / things are going to be busy / interviews and the staff will want to throw a shindig they ve been working so / hard / busy until late! /

we ll finish soon / tomorrow / but just make sure you dont miss tonight!...

***

Cowgirl Lacey was dreaming.

We know what she was dreaming-- we have it archived in confused, garbled text-- because Lacey didn't take her thotnode out after receiving her ultimatum from Nicolas Davlenik. All day she'd been thinking about their meeting. Thinking and thinking and wearing her stylish, cutting-edge glasses (another gift of Nicky's) and keeping an eye on her thot[tickr]:public profile and waiting for someone-- a follower or a stranger happening by-- to deliver the piece of advice that would save her from herself.

Most of the advice in the comments section made her want to give up the little bit of breakfast she'd managed. A snapshot:

<DonkeyDong4@thot[tickr]:comments> _...just drink a fuckin beer, "Cowgirl." Relax!..._

<airoSmythe@thot[tickr]:comments> _...I used to follow your thots all the time when you asshole wasent so tite. Prud bitch. Maybe if you came back to the rest of us in the reel fucking world I'd hit that follow buttun again? Maybe..._

<NaMasteTru@thot[tickr]:comments> _...You drink that beer I'm unfollowing you and your sellout thots. You gotta hold the line Cowgirl Lacey even if it means giving up this boutiquey lifestyle you're so used to now..._

Then, towards early evening, she'd finally received a comment which read:

<FlotsamAndJ@thot[tickr]:comments> _...things look scary, hon, but everything is going to be OK. Lacey, the drugs I was giving you were more sedative and saline solution than anything else. A placebo. Everything you need to maintain your current state of mental and physical health is inside of you. We brought it out, woke it up. Just maintain your mental exercises. If you can, get plenty of sleep tonight. Things will be clearer in the morning. I'm confident._

With love, even while respecting Mr. Davlenik's restraining order,

Horace

PS, stop reading these stupid comments.

So she took one of the gentle, non-addictive sedatives Horace had introduced her to and she lay in bed. She stared at the ceiling, trying not to worry, trying not to worry, trying not to...

The sedative took hold.

Dr. Horace Flotsam was standing before her like a flickering helio sprite. He was smiling and large and gentle. He was dressed in a green sweatervest and beige slacks and she could see right through him. There were three women standing behind him: solid beings, not to be looked through, dressed as old-timey governesses. One of the three was Georgina, who waved. She wore several of Lacey's seashells in a necklace.

"So Nicky wants to cut a deal," said Horace in his low, thoughtful voice. He was smiling in a way that Lacey liked-- a way that made her think he'd already outsmarted the ad man.

Cowgirl Lacey nodded. She was feeling alert. Lucid. "I don't know what to do. I don't think I've got the strength to hold back without your help, Dr. Flot."

"Then don't hold back."

Even in the dream she felt surprise. Fear. Excitement, too. "What do you mean?"

"Drink the beer in the fridge. Keep your house. Keep your income. Keep your job."

She shook her head, feeling silly for arguing with a dream. "You know I can't do that. Everything will start over again. And never stop. I'll be chuckling. I'll have the sores on my face and the ants crawling under my skin. I don't..."

He shook his head. He was smiling gently but she could see joy in his translucent face. Behind him, one of the governesses had started tittering into her pretty hands. "Everything's different now. Thanks to Waslowski and Nguyen. And Moore, of course. You'll see. Drink your beer. The old voices won't come back. Nicky's just a grunt. A salaryman. He doesn't have any clue what he's playing with. The hallucinations are gone for--"

But if Flotsam meant to say 'forever' or 'for good' or 'forever and always', well, he couldn't, because of the serrated Bowie knife that, just then, began sawing on the loose, glowing skin under his jaw.

Holding the huge shaft of the ridiculous knife was GOD, HIMSELF, looking as though HE had just hiked down from seven days lost in the mountains. Or maybe HE'D been living in a bunker, out there? Lacey hadn't seen HIM in weeks, thank Dr. Flotsam. GOD'S fingernails were dirty and HIS flaming eyes were bloodshot with fatigue and HIS thin, old-man's lips were cracked open and chapped white. HE'D come out of nowhere-- the way you do in dreams-- and HE was dressed in red-and-black flannel and bloodstained blue jeans and steel-toed boots. With HIS bleeding lips pulled back, Lacey could see HIS perfect, square teeth clenched together in what looked to her like a wounded samurai's grin.

The gentle doctor's head was lying on the floor in a pond of quickly-spreading ghost blood.

" _Allahu_ _Ackbar!_ " yodelled GOD. " _Großer_ _Gott!_ "

The governesses were surprised, yes, but also silent. Not screaming. Not terrified. They'd already begun moving to circle HIM like big cats.

<CowgirlLacey@thot[tickr]:public/archive> _...these bitches are / hard /_

GOD tossed the knife between HIS hands-- back and forth-- a stage actor playing a street rough. HIS insane eyes shifted first to one woman, then another.

HE stabbed Georgina just below her solar plexus. HE grabbed her seashell necklace and pulled so that the string broke and shells scattered. Georgina howled and the other two were on HIM. The tiny women were holding GOD'S arms behind HIS back and he was bound. Screaming. Georgina pulled more seashells from her governess' outfit and waved them, mockingly, in HIS red face.

Suddenly, GOD shrugged HIS mighty shoulders and said: "Christ! Why are WE even fighting? WE agree with these fine ladies, actually. Drink away, Lacey Molloy! Beer, wine, vodka! Mescaline, cocaine, heroin! Chuckle! Your doctor prescribes it! Your LORD commands it! The comments thread will be full of it tomorrow! Drink and be merry, girl! The end is nigh!"

With that, GOD smashed HIS captor's heads together with a force that produced a sickening crunch. How? Why, HE had grown an extra pair of flannel-sleeved arms out of his back! Now HE stood before Georgina like a spidery, Hindu DEITY. HE licked HIS lips. With HIS four bare hands, HE pulled her stomach open. From Georgina's red innards fell seashells: dozens of seashells.

Then, four-armed and wreathed in flame, GOD turned to wink at Lacey. "WE may make you a prophet, yet."

He smiled, and there were flecks of Georgina's blood on his white teeth.

***

Lacey woke up. She saw sunlight peeking through her window and she heard a familiar sound, long absent: people in her front yard. She listened for several minutes. She wondered if Nicky, somewhere, was happy about this. She touched the base of her skull, where her thotnode silently, faithfully recorded. Transmitted.

"Fuck it," she said. And she thought:

<CowgirlLacey@thot[tickr]:public/archive> _...fuckit yeah / fuckit / the battlecry of the fucking chucklefuck is / fuckit / well fuckit everybody / get ready / hey / for the cowgirls grand return..._

She walked into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator door.

Chapter 19

**RANT REMOVED FROM THE READERS' COMMENT SECTION of the** _New York Times_ **, February 12th, 20X9, under the Op-Ed Piece: 'Thriving in the Algorithm Economy':**

'Thriving in the Algorithm Economy,' huh? How's that been working out for you in the journalism business? Let me tell you how things look here in Texas.

Because in the Algo Economy, all the decent work is going to the algos. And all the decent men, the men you used to meet on dating apps, are shutting themselves away in these artificial sensory tanks to-- what?-- transform into zebras or muskrats and hump other animals and forget about their lost jobs. And how can you expect to find someone decent when they're all unemployed and shut away, humping as muskrats?

And on top of that, the technocrats have the nerve to get up before a crowd at a HUDtalk and tell everybody that what they're _actually_ doing is making the world a more rational place! The promise of technology. The self-actualized future. But it's bullshit! They fooled us for a while-- too long-- but now we're wise: they're force feeding us bullshit and just making everyone crazier. And all day long your Targeted Ad sprite hassles you from your glasses, making you feel poor, reminding you that, actually, you ARE poor, and you'd love to shut the bastard off but you get HanjinCredit for every hour you leave it on and, anyway, it finds the kind of deals that let you keep making rent-- even if you have to be filmed fighting other customers to qualify.

Because, another thing about the Algo Economy: all you're worth is what you're willing to stoop to. What you're willing to share. Take last month: I'd just met the young man who'd asked my daughter out to prom. He showed up at the doorstep one evening to take Anna out for ice cream-- no tattoos or piercings or anything! Nice haircut, even-- and I joked with him, told him in a mock-strict voice "home by eleven!" and then I laughed, we both laughed, because I'm a pretty-alright parent and he seemed like such a nice kid. And then Anna, still lanky like a gazelle and braces flashing when she smiled, gave me a kiss on the cheek and I watched them walk to his car, HUDs blinking, not even holding hands they were so shy around each other. And I smiled to myself, trying to remember what THAT had been like. Then, because Marcia told me about it, I went to that constatainment channel, _RealDate_ , and searched their names-- and easy as that, found them.

Splitscreen: His and Her perspectives. I watched them order ice cream and sit uncomfortably and talk uncomfortably and sneak glances and I read the snarky comments-- because, apparently, some people have nothing better to do than watch someone else's first date and write this kind of garbage!-- and I shook my head and said to myself: "Dating these days! Not like when I was a kid!" But I got bored with it and put dishes in the dishwasher and rustled up a movie on my glasses. An old movie because I was feeling nostalgic. And then, before I knew it, the movie was over and, actually, it was getting a bit late. And even though I'd told myself I wouldn't be a SHUS+H Parent, well, one little peek to make sure Anna was safe wouldn't hurt-- and so I peeked.

Two perspectives: His and Hers, and from both perspectives? Skin as pale as cream lying under the moon. Those HUDs the only things they were still wearing. They were in his Toyota and the windows were fogged. From His perspective I could see her breasts--just new arrivals!-- moving in jerky circles, and I could see the pain on her face. And from Her perspective I saw that leering, sweating face above-- the nice haircut a bit mussed-- and I saw his eyes roll up into his head as though he were going into a seizure (if only!) and I heard him say, "Good fucking good fucking good fucking... Christ..." and it was over, I'd caught the tail end of it. Through His perspective: wiping the blood off his cock with a sock. And I heard Anna ask: "Was it good? Did you like it?" And I heard him say: "Fucking excellent. Sorry if it hurt."

So, a nice enough kid, at least. Anna a pretty decent judge of character for someone so young. But still, they wouldn't take those HUDs off. Wouldn't stop filming. Why wouldn't they take those things off? And it didn't even bother me so much WHAT they were doing as the fact that they were sharing it, voluntarily, with the world. Oh, Anna!

And do you want an example of what a decade of the Algo Economy has done to me? This new kind of thriving? My first thoughts were: She isn't even earning HanjinCredit for this! Isn't that awful? But maybe a clothing chain is sponsoring it? Athletic shoes? Maybe that's it? God knows we could use the credit! But maybe this is just to let her hold her head up with the other girls at school? Or, oh God, don't let it be just because some pathetic stranger in the comments section called the date boring? Egged them on? It's out there now, recorded for all human history, the deflowering of Anna-- still just a girl, too young-- in this nice-enough kid's Toyota. And pretty-alright parent or not, it doesn't seem fair or good, even if it is modern.

That's what 'Thriving in the Algorithm Economy' looks like here in Jobs, Texas, and I feel almost like I can't quite catch my breath, these days! With all this relativism it's like someone's turned the fucking gravity off. We're all left floating. There's no work left for human beings and nothing firm to stand on...

And I-- you know what?-- I'd sell my _soul_ to change it... to give us a minute to breathe...

***

Pastor Gardner was one of those people who makes his way through life with little more than good timing. I'm not just talking about the rhythm of his speech, either! No. I'm talking about luck: the way he almost seemed to trip and fall into cushy situations. His timing was so good, I think, that he didn't require skill or knowledge or connections or work ethic or charisma. His timing made these qualities unnecessary.

Although, actually, he had plenty of charisma. Connections, too.

I'd looked into Pastor Gardner before attending the revival where Morales would officially announce his candidacy. Force of habit. Plus, it's always fun to know a bit about the person who's telling you how and why you must change your life. The pastor had, until two years ago, been a used-Honda salesman in reclaimed Houston. He'd made fine money selling used Hondas by the Gulf of Mexico. Because the lot was his father's-- bought, the year the quarantine fell, to obtain a tax credit-- Gardner hadn't been replaced by a Targeted Ad when the rest of the sales staff had been let go. He might have stayed, selling used Hondas in that scarred city by the Gulf, until the lot had passed to him and his hair had turned grey and he'd lost the control of his bladder and, finally, died.

He might have lived this way, easily.

But, these days, there was more money to be made providing solace to the disenfranchised-- what they used to call 'lost souls.' More money and fewer taxes. It was the easiest thing in the world! He hardly had to think. They even supplied him with a Book. Just skim the Book, find some straightforward rules, talk up those rules-- but do it so it sounded nice. Use that good timing. In some little corners of the world he'd be bigger than Jimmy Kimmel, that old man in distant New York City. Better still, he'd become an Authority. No more haggling over prices for him! Just a listening sea of faces, heads nodding rapturously. Women and men who obeyed. And singing. And women and men who respected. And women... just imagine the trusting things! Who would listen to anything he said!

He was a rank amateur, ladies and gents. His whole life story was out there in open correspondence with an old drinking buddy. With a few minutes of combing and several well-placed algos, I learned that the good preacher had embezzled huge sums from his father's business-- that he was still embezzling, in fact, and barely had the sense to cover his tracks! Anyone could have hired me to destroy this man. It would have been easy. This holy hypocrite! I'd have had him learning how to tie a hangman's knot with an afternoon's work.

And that's how things should be, I thought, as I took my seat under Ernesto K Gardner's big tent. The pastor had put me in a good mood. He had me feeling normal again.

The huge, white revival tent had been inflated a few hours earlier. White chairs were set directly upon the trampled, dusty earth. The tent was necessary because Jobs' First Baptist was too small for Gardner's swelling ranks of parishioners. The First Baptist had been built before the Algorithm Economy really got chugging, and so the designers had underestimated the demand for salvation.

I was sitting near the back of the tent. Near the exit. The warm wind blew in through those flapping, canvas doors and brought in the smell of the dusty evening and the happy noise of neighbors greeting one another. The sun was setting over the flat land outside the tent and the sky was the color of some sickly-sweet tropical drink, but inside our huge, artificial cavern everything was white and the dust had all settled to the floor. Rows and rows of clean, white chairs were being occupied, coats and capes being hung over their backs, while girls in pastels handed out bound hymnals. Physical books. The air inside the tent was empty; no helios anywhere to be seen. Probably a few of the old timers remembered scenes like this from their youth.

The interior, like the inside of a balloon, seemed oddly hushed. I looked around and realized that this was the first time in years-- how many years?-- that I'd sat in a large, public place filled with people and couldn't hear the saccharine begging of Targeted Advertisements piping out of someone's glasses. Pastor Gardner had ordered them turned off. 'It's HanjinCredit or your Eternal Soul,' a placard at the entrance of the tent made clear-- and these people were taking a few hours for their souls.

Somewhere near the front of the tent, with Morales' entourage, sat Handsome Wally. He was sitting next to Julia Wu of _The Jobs' Report_. Making the most of his injuries, he was flirting with the reporter. Through his HUD, I listened to the two of them talk about monsters. Wu was laughing, giving my faceman the kind of subtle, appreciative looks that only freshly-minted graduates of certain high-prestige schools have really mastered. This got me interested in the reporter, and since there were a few minutes left until the show began, I queued up a fresh set of algos and set them to work.

Julia Wu was a slight, attractive woman of Chinese and Guatemalan makeup. She was a recent graduate of Columbia University's EvolvingMedia Program, and was, in her own words: 'Stuck in Jobs, Texas, covering the bored, underemployed-guy beat: UFO's, bar fights, needle exchanges, and tank-house complaints.' This, from a message she'd sent her brother earlier in the day. At the moment, she was telling Handsome Wally: "Oh, but I love it here! The people, the atmosphere, the hospitality! I only hope I'm starting to earn local trust. I hope I'm providing a real service..."

I pried open another piece of Wu's HUD correspondence from twenty minutes earlier. She'd written to a fellow graduate of her program: 'But getting out of this anthill would mean breaking a big story-- national news coverage-- and how likely is that to happen in Jobs? I'm better off waiting for a position in Lubbock to open up, but I feel like I'm going crazy here...'

I smiled. I liked her. It felt good to have another break from our man's perfect consistency. I'd forgotten.

All of a sudden, I felt a hand on my shoulder. Iron strength. "Hey there, muchacho. Come to get saved?"

I stopped smiling. I whirled in my seat. Towering above me was a face I'd last seen only a few hours ago. He winked at me. His eyes were crinkled with irrepressible good nature.

"Oh!" I half screamed. "You!"

I felt tears welling in the corners of my eyes. For a moment I'd been sure-- absolutely certain-- it would be Morales. I would look up into those empty, blue orbs and he'd ask me in a small voice if he could sit next to me. He had an announcement to make a little later, was the thing, and he wanted to sit a little way off from his entourage. He wanted to prepare himself. And he'd seen the empty seat next to me and he'd thought, well, that's just the place. Next to this interesting stranger. And we would sit next to each other for an hour, perhaps, speaking very little. And then, halfway through the revival-- while the choir was singing-- Morales would whisper to me. He would whisper that he had something to show me, outside. And I would follow him like a little lamb out into the flat, star-heavy night. A little lamb without even the presence of mind to bleat. And then, alone, out on the plains-- with this great tent just a blip of glowing, white canvas in the distance-- he would show me. I would learn what made him so calm and perfect.

"Big Al!" I squealed, pulling up my HUD and wiping my eyes. Taking in that ugly, friendly face. "Hi!"

He shook his head. "Big Al's just what they call me at the Mart. Store Manager likes it. Says it makes me, 'more approachable.' Friends call me Albert. You should call me Albert."

"Albert! That's... quite a grip you've got."

"Brother Jacob." He was lowering his bulk into the empty seat beside me. "Glad to see you're here instead of the tank house. Nothing wrong with the tank house now and again, of course, but a man's soul needs administering more than his body. Right?"

I nodded, not sure how to respond. In front of us a young, blonde couple sat down. They were holding hands.

"Right," continued Albert Iwanski, as though I was contributing to the conversation. "Sorry about that grip. But I used my rough hand on you, didn't I? Sometimes she don't fire right."

"Your rough hand?"

On the far side of Albert, a pair of well-dressed young men sat down.

Next to me, the salesman grinned as though about to perform his favorite magic trick and held up his right arm. He pulled back the sleeve of his dress shirt. Three quarters of the way down, where the forearm nearly joined the elbow, a rough line circumnavigated the limb. The pigmentation of the skin on either side of the line was a slightly-different shade.

"You didn't know, did you?" he said. "At the store? I'm asking because this one's new. You've got to get a good look but you can see-- synthskin from nearly my shoulder to the tips of my fingers. You really couldn't tell until now?"

He wiggled those fingers. They moved, I thought, like typewriter keys. "You hear that?"

"No," I whispered.

"That's right you don't! Used to be the servos would wheeze-wheeze-wheeze whenever I made the itty-bittiest move. Whoosh. Whish. But this new hand is silent as the grave! Real quiet. Don't know how they ended up fixing that. The technology just keeps getting better and better!"

Behind us, more people were taking their seats. I said: "That's not a NextSkel-brand arm by any chance?"

"Sure is, compadre! Pure craftsmanship!" He blinked. "You don't have folks out there missing limbs, do you? We sell these things at the Mart. Or, at least, we can custom order them for you if you've got your peoples' measurements. You know NextSkel has their main manufacturing plant right here in Jobs? Big tax break we give them. And, besides jobs, they give us arms, legs, hands, feet. They'll be coming out with working eyes any month, you can be confident!"

"I wanted to ask you about NextSkel. What people around here think about them--"

"Yeah? Come grab me during my lunch break tomorrow, Brother Jake! I'm thinking of a great deli I can show you... and I'll tell you all about NextSkell and Jobs. The two go hand-in-stump! Local joke. But seriously, I'm a bit of an amateur historian, and ever since that company gave me back my arm, I've been real interested in keeping track--"

But before he could tell me what he was keeping track of, a woman's amplified voice ordered: "EVERYBODY PLEASE TAKE YOUR SEATS," and the choir began to sing. Pastor Ernesto Gardner took the stage.

***

"HE who has an EAR! Let him hear what the Spirit SAYS to the churches!" Pastor Gardner boomed from the distant front of the tent as I maneuvered for a comfortable position in my too-skinny chair. "Let HIM who has UNDerstanding reckon! For the time is NEAR!"

Gardner looked out over the crowd as though searching for someone to challenge his words. "We are entering an age of MIRacles, brothers and sisters! A period of time prophesied! Revealed to us! The Disciple John, EXiled on the isle of PATmos, did see a vision of these coming times after the RESurrECtion of Christ!"

He paused, frowning. "Do you doubt it, folks?"

No one spoke up-- not a sign of doubt was given-- but this didn't seem to calm the pastor. On the contrary, our speaker grew angrier. Making a fist, Gardner slammed it into the palm of his hand. "JOHN saw a VISion of the lord JEsus who told him to write SEVEN letters to the SEVEN churches north of the HOly land! When this was DONE, the SPIRit took John and he was SHOWN the END of DAYS! That's right! Before you turn to Carol MANera or COWgirl Lacey--" (at the sound of their names booing filled our great balloon) "--remember JOhn the BAPtist!"

Cheers!

"Hey," whispered Charlie, directly into my head. "Check this out."

"It WILL BE a time of reckoning! Of deCISion! JUDgement! You will be TESTed! Yes! TESTed! Over and over, you will have to PROVE yourself WORthy to STAND with the LORD. And even now the TESTing has begun! Oh yes! It has! What ELSE would you call these AARTI tanks? These coffins of SIN! Wherein MEN have gained the POWer to transform their SEXual ORGans and LIE with ANIMALS!"

The audience was booing, groaning. Next to me, Albert Iwanski gave a nervous chuckle.

Gardner shook his head. His voice grew quiet. "I'd like to tell you a story, folks. Something just for you true faithful with a love for JEsus burning like a CANdle in your heart. How about it? Would you like that?"

"YES!" raised many hundreds of voices in unison while I telescoped the intake of my glasses. Now, from the back of the big tent, I could see the beads of sweat forming on Gardner's light-brown face and dripping down his cheeks. Next to me, I noticed Albert Iwanski's right hand gripping and releasing in silent, mechanical excitement.

"For this story, I need Ms. Violeta Alvarez. Ms. Alvarez, come on up here, will you?"

A striking woman in her middle-thirties, covered in a loose shawl, stood and made her way up the steps and onto the stage. The audience applauded. Alvarez stood poised and graceful. I wondered if she was a gymnast. She looked down, humbly.

In my ear, Charlie whispered: "I just want you to be ready. Promise not to freak, ok?" I blinked an 'OK' into my glasses.

"Ms. Alvarez! Please tell the assembled what you do for a living."

"I'm a full-time student," said the woman, glancing upwards. "Studying to become a dental assistant."

This was met with nearly a minute of applause. Pastor Gardner nodded and smiled. He looked out at the congregation and smiled. Then his face grew stern: "And before? When you came to me? What was your profession?"

"I'm feeding it to your HUD," said Charlie. "You should see it in a sec."

Violeta Alvarez coughed. "I was a... dancer. I made money--"

"What KIND of dancer, my daughter?"

A deep breath: "Adult."

Gasps. Exclamations. Tutting noises made by dry tongues on the cavernous roofs of elderly mouths. Gardner shook his sweating head as though entering a seizure. He squeezed his eyes closed and made a pained face and held his clenched fists out from his sides. "SINS of the flesh, sisters and brothers! STRAYED from the LORD'S path! And WHY did you come to me Ms. Alvarez? WHY did you seek out salVAtion in the LORD?"

"Well, I heard about what happens at these gatherings. What you can do. My tattoos--"

"Your SINS!"

"My sins," corrected Ms. Alvarez. "They-- they covered me. I wanted a clean break from the life I was living. I wanted to start over..."

Handsome Wally was whispering to the reporter: "More like the tank houses put her out of business..."

".... but I couldn't pass my drug tests. Couldn't stay straight. Cocaine. Amphetamines. Chuckle. We all used at the Pussy Cat. Working nights. It was... I wanted to stop but I was like somebody possessed...

"PoSSESSed!"

".... I didn't want to keep living the way I'd been living-- no one would want that forever-- but I just couldn't seem... couldn't seem to MAKE myself BECOME the sort of person I wanted... to be? Do you...?"

A new window in my glasses reported: [CHARLIE has sent you algorithm: heart_on_sleeve. Accept?] I blinked 'OK' and Pastor Ernesto K. Gardner burst into flames.

The fire surrounding Gardner was gold and orange and yellow when he looked at the audience. It was a chili-red mixed with spots of black and pink when he looked at Ms. Violeta Alvarez. I raised my glasses off the bridge of my nose and the fire was gone. I lowered the lenses back in front of my eyes and he was aflame, once more.

Pastor Gardner, burning away, on the stage: "And so you CAME to me, knowing that you might find the WAY to JEsus! The WAY to STRENGTH and PURITY!" The fire surrounding him was morphing into a throbbing, pink cloud.

Charlie, in my head: "How do you like the good pastor's aura?" She laughed and I heard the smile in her voice. "I tap into his FitTrak health account, run his biometrics feed through emotiwoople and send the resulting colors to this lens-filter program I wrote. _Voila!_ Your HUD will show you how Mr. Gardner is feeling as though he's covered himself in wooples!"

"Fucking brilliant," I breathed.

"Frigging brilliant, amigo," whispered Albert Iwanski, next to me. "I hear you on the sentiment-- saving souls, wow!-- but we got to keep our mouths clean in here."

"The best part," continued Charlie, "is that I can feed you multiple emotional auras. Here's Handsome Wally and Julia Wu." Near the stage, two more human beings burst into yellow and green and pink light. "And I'm working through Jobs' Social Harmony database to find the FitTrak account for the correct Violeta Alvarez..."

On stage, Ms. Alvarez was standing with her hands clasped in front of her. With that shawl covering her shoulders, she reminded me of a puritan woman preparing herself for a red 'A' to be tacked to her breast.

"The PICture," declared the burning preacher. "The PICture of your situATION when you CAME to me!" He gesticulated to the sky.

A helio window flickered into existence under the ballooning ceiling. The window's dimensions were huge-- wide and tall enough that everyone in the tent could see without telescoping their glasses-- and contained therein was a single, enormous pic of a prior Violeta Alvarez:

This Violeta Alvarez was wearing a gauzy tank top through which her large, dark nipples pressed, and she was wearing green short shorts and inching down toward the level of skinny that only gets German camp directors and Parisian fashion designers hard. Both of her arms-- from the backs of her hands to her shoulders and creeping into her torso-- were covered in sleeves of tattoos: rabbits; tigers; cowboys; musical notes; pentagons; pentagrams; pentacles; little stars; quotes from songs; a man's name, crossed out; a second man's name, redacted; a woman's name, a line of barbed wire strung through it; a third man's name, left alone; tribal swirls; a devil and an angel fighting over a donut; Glagolitic script; Bugs Bunny; the playboy bunny; a naked woman riding a bomb; a harp; a gremlin; a stripper's high-heel shoe; a goat's skull; Latin script; the Virgin of Guadalupe; _die Betende Hände_ ; R2-D2; a triceratops; an octopus; a topless woman riding a tank. There were also needle tracks-- those unmistakable bumps inside the elbow-- that the tattoos couldn't hide. Her eyes were unfocused. They were levelled at the taker of the picture as though she didn't know him and didn't trust him, but couldn't do anything about these two problems. She was grinning the way an addict grins; her face was slack.

The audience made a noise like a hurt animal.

"The PICture," said Pastor Gardner, quietly, "of your situATION. Not pretty, is it? No. Not pretty." The halo surrounding him dimmed from pink to blue suffused with little bursts of red. The preacher, then, was as genuinely moved as the rest of us. "You were TESTed by this LIFE and you FAILed, daughter. Again and again, you FAILed."

There was silence.

"Do you JUDGE her? Is that what I HEAR from this silence? JUDGEment?"

Pastor Gardner looked out over the audience. He scowled. "Well? And who here HAS NOT failed? Even once? Show of hands! Who here has lived the SAINTly life, the GODly life, TOTally free of SIN?"

Gardner made as though to raise his own hand and then lowered it with a shake of his head. He winked at the audience and sweat dripped off his face and the light surrounding him sparked a playful, rose color. "Not THIS hombre," he said, jerking his thumb back at himself.

"NONE of us is FREE of the taint of SIN! NONE of us, alone, can PASS CLEAN through this FALLen world! We NEED each other's supPORT, sisters and brothers! Each other's FORGIVEness. We need GOD'S love! And GOD'S forgiveness! And we need GOD's STRENGTH!"

"AMEN!"

"That's right!"

"Hallelujah!"

The burning preacher held up a hand as though quieting a rowdy classroom. The tent grew hushed. "Violeta?"

"Yes, Pastor?"

"We perFORMED a HEALing on you FOUR months ago. You PLACed yourself in the HANDS of JESUS at that TIME. How LONG have you been CLEAN and SOBer?"

The woman smiled up at the audience. It was a charming, relieved and spontaneous smile full of white teeth. "Four months."

The gigantic picture of the sick-looking stripper winked out of existence. It was replaced by a pic of Violeta that might have been taken earlier that day. Applause, like a thousand crashing rocks, filled the tent.

"Here they are," came Charlie's voice. "Sorry about the wait. Feeding biometrics..."

"All THINGS are POSSIBLE through JESUS! Ms. Alvarez, please SHOW them!"

With an exotic dancer's practiced non-movement, the shawl fell from Violeta Alvarez' shoulders. At the same moment, the woman's biometrics tumbled into my HUD and Violeta was bathed in light. She wore a white halter top that reached up to her neck but exposed her arms to the shoulders. Those arms were nearly bare of ink. Here and there a tattoo remained-- the triceratops, a rabbit, a twist of ivy up the wrist, a star on a knuckle-- but even these were faded out, as though they'd been lying on her skin for a hundred years or more. The light around her spun and shifted: a hurricane of light.

The audience, even ignorant of that light, gasped. Whispering filled the tent. A woman shouted: "Praise God!"

The colors surrounding Ms. Alvarez: gold and red, mixed with large flecks and flickers of brown. Beige brown? Beige brown. Just flecks. Didn't necessarily mean...

I squinted at those flecks of beige. I said, as though asking myself: "Was the old picture doctored?"

Charlie said: "Already have an algo looking at it."

Albert Iwanski said: "Nope! Those tattoos were the real deal. I used to see Vi... around. Point is, they've been dropping off of her for months now!"

At the front of the audience, Handsome Wally whispered to Julia Wu: "Laser removal?"

Charlie: "Pic wasn't doctored. I'll see if I can find records of Alvarez in any nearby clinics. Although, if Gardner's trying to fool the local rubes, he may have taken her out of state to get removal work done."

On stage, Ms. Alvarez was explaining: "Every night before bed I would kneel down and I would pray. I would ask God to wipe away my sins-- to make me clean-- and one day I noticed that some of my tattoos seemed fainter. Like He was scrubbing them off with a wire brush. Cleaning me." As she spoke she gained confidence, and as she gained confidence the aura around her was purged of the black and blue fear spots. "One day I woke up and the black cat above my-- well, it was gone!"

"MIRacles!" proclaimed Pastor Gardner. "We are entering a time of MIRacles! It is a SIGN! For WE, the LOYAL, who have enDURED and beLIEVED for so MANY generations!"

"No history of a Violeta Alvarez in any of the local laser-removal clinics," said Charlie. "I'll have an algo expand the search to New Mexico. It'll take time. We've got to consider off-the-market work too, but... hey, here's something... Ms. Alvarez _is_ the recipient of a prosthesis! NextSkel brand. One of those cutesy feet of hers. The left one. Medical claim states that she lost it to the third wave of the Horto Virus... so she's a Bug Orphan, too..."

Violeta Alvarez finally left the stage-- no limp in sight-- to a thundering applause. The choir began to sing. And that's how the evening went: Gardner paraded locals across the stage and they told their stories. It was just like the grainy footage of any faith healing I'd ever watched except, maybe, for the level of documentation. The pastor loved before-and-after pics. Some of those who stood before us had been obscenely fat. Now they looked as sleek and trim as healthy seals. And proud. Some had had terrible illnesses. I saw a woman who claimed to have had late-stage Parkinson's (and here was footage of her shaking in her wheelchair). Now she stood before us, ramrod straight, crying tears of gratitude. Here was footage of a young man with a red-tipped cane and unseeing, milky eyes. Now his eyes were a deep green and he was using them to look out at us, HUDless, and he was telling us how beautiful the world was. His stolen biometrics showed me a young man feeling a mixture of bliss and gratitude and businesslike confidence. It was incredible. Even Handsome Wally had run out of clever things to say. He finally turned to the _TJR_ reporter and asked: "Julia, are you... has anyone been, um... _covering_ what's been going on at these revivals?"

She shrugged, her eyes wide. "I didn't... I'm just here for Morales' announcement. This has to be..." But she couldn't think of what it had to be.

My faceman blinked me a HUD message: You seeing this, Comb? What's going on here?

Charlie was muttering in my ear: "You... you were right, Walid. Something is off in Jobs, Texas. Or on. You're getting my full attention after tonight."

Meanwhile, Pastor Ernesto K. Gardner grinned and sweated and paced. He was surrounded by golden fire. He said: "MIRacles! The LORD is showing us what beLIEVERS can exPECT when we STAND with him! For SOON he shall SWEEP this world aWAY!"

A joyous, apocalyptic howling filled the great, white interior of the tent. Gardner let it stretch on for minutes and then he held up his hand. It fell to a murmur.

"But did I NOT tell you that we would be TESTed? InDEED! For along with these MIRacles, a BEAST stalks our fair city in these FINAL days! A BEAST walks into our homes in the DEAD OF NIGHT. He TEARS FLESH and DESTROYS! He, TOO, is a SIGN! He, TOO, has been foreSEEN by JOHN. ReSIST him. STAND with the LORD and you shall be triUMphant!"

Gardner held out his hands to let us know not to applaud yet. We sat, waiting. The preacher finally said, in a low voice: "I would like to introDUCE you to a man, tonight. Folks, I beLIEVE he has been SENT to us. SENT to GUIDE us through the coming MONTHS and YEARS. The coming TRIALS. I hereby enDORSE him for MAYOR of our city and I have inVITed him to SPEAK to us all tonight! Sisters and brothers would you PLEASE WELCOME MISTER GEORGE MORALES!"

They did. The congregation stood as a single body, clapping now, louder and longer than they had clapped all night. Even the boy with the healed eyes didn't get that kind of response. Around me, women and men stood, clapping and shouting.

Our man for Jobs took the stage. He shook hands with Gardner. They embraced. He turned towards the audience. He waved. The congregation bellowed.

George Morales was covered, head to toe, in beige fire.

***

The Rainier was open. She could smell the stink of it. Lacey Molloy had tears in her eyes as she tipped the can to her lips. From her front yard there came the silence of an indrawn breath.

<CowgirlLacey@thot[tickr]:public/archive> _...dont cry girl dont be a / drama queen / just end it end your life and keep your house / do it / get it done / youve missed this havent you / but / actually thats the funny thing / i havent / at all..._

She took a sip. She felt fine. She took a nice, long draw. What the hell. She finished the whole can and felt the familiar lightness floating up to her brain. She started to cry and wasn't sure if it was from terror or relief.

<CowgirlLacey@thot[tickr]:public/archive> _...happy now nicky? / you cockswab / happy now losers? / im coming out to the lawn / getting blotto supremo and dishing shitty advice that ll ruin your lives just like mine and / you re going to bring me everything i ask for / everything i want / every last..._

There were cheers from the front yard and in the distance Lacey Molloy heard sirens. In the newsfeed at the base of her glasses a new headline scrolled along:

Cowgirl Lacey Molloy Falls Off Wagon

Google Amalgamated News Service

(four seconds ago) At seven thirty-four AM this morning, responding to public and industry pressures, world-famous thotlebrity 'Cowgirl' Lacey Molloy ended a several-month streak of sobriety... (see more)

Lily had entered the kitchen. The maid looked at Lacey and looked at the empty can and then looked at the floor. Lacey Molloy laughed. She felt a bit out of her mind. Turning to her maid, she said: "Lily, fill up some glasses with beer and bring them outside. We have lots of thirsty guests."

"Ma'am."

"And Lily. Look at me. Look me in the eyes. Don't you fucking presume to judge me. Ever. You're mixed in with this tight as anyone. I perform-- I drink and snort and chuckle and pass out on the lawn-- and you keep getting paid. I just saved your fucking job. So. Look alive, Lily Pad! High spirits!"

"Ma'am!"

Cowgirl Lacey turned. Feeling tipsy, she wandered through the living room and to the front door. The sirens were closer, now. Louder. Mick was on the bullhorn and he was warning the crowd that the guards were filling up their beanbag guns. They weren't afraid to fire. Back. Everybody, get back...

She opened the front door and flipped twin birds at the clicking sound of HUDs snapping pics. The followers roared their bliss.

***

George Morales declared his ambition to unanimous applause and gave a forgettable speech. Beige fire receded, the choir sang, the revival ended. Albert Iwanski badgered me into meeting for lunch, everyone stood, and the chairs were gathered. A few minutes later, I was standing out in the dusty field underneath the stars. The miraculously healed were all heading toward their cars, and bed. Charlie had gone silent near the end of the revival-- either to bed, herself, or to follow her own leads-- while Handsome Wally and Julia Wu were both invited to the party put on by the Morales campaign in a local hotel. I stood in the field, watching the taillights of cars as they found the road and, more confused than ever, I spat on the dry earth and shivered despite the warmth of the night.

It was only a five-minute drive to the Lady of Delhi.

As I got out of the Batmobile, I saw that this was no Vegas-style tank house. Here in Jobs, tank shame still prevailed. The windows of the Lady of Delhi (until recently it had been a strip-mall tanning salon) were barred and blacked out with paint. A single helio sprite-- a default BlondeInBikini archetype, free to use-- stood leaning near the entrance like a woman tired after an afternoon photoshoot in the Caribbean.

"Hey there, cowboy," the General Advertisement's voice crackled out of the shoddy PA. "Interested?"

A SHUS+H drone hung low and visible maybe forty feet above the front door. I checked my wallet for bribe money. "Yeah, interested."

The locks on the door clicked.

Johnny Injun's real name was Jonathan Paraiya. He was a Tamil and a Hindu from the city of Jaffna, in northern Sri Lanka. He'd been living in Texas for twelve years and had worked as an accountant for eight of those years. When Jobs' dingiest tanning salon had gone bankrupt, he'd moved in and converted the place. The American Dream, right here. As I walked into the Lady of Delhi that night, he was leaning back in a worn and duct-taped chair, watching the BBC on a window hovering up in a dusty corner of the ceiling. His glasses were lying in his lap and his dark-brown eyes were crinkled up in worry and disgust.

On the window, I saw footage of huge military ships-- destroyers, frigates, aircraft carriers-- moving through white-capped waters. A very-English voice was saying: "...afternoon, Chinese and Korean naval forces of the Pan-Asian League completed their encirclement of the Japanese islands. American Secretary of State, Kate Rogers, called the naval maneuver, "A baldly aggressive action," and said the US will, "do what is necessary to support its Japanese allies." This comes as the US Pacific Fleet conducts exercises in waters north of the Philippines. An emergency meeting of the UN Security Council has been--"

"Fascists," growled Johnny Injun. "This will be just like Taiwan! Those bastards won't be happy until they run the world!"

He looked at me.

"I don't follow politics," I said.

"You will!" He raised a finger. "Oh, you will! When you've got Gujarati troops marching through Pearl Harbor like they marched through Colombo... and when the Chinese are shelling California!? World War Three, man!"

I put my money on the table. It was more than Big Al Iwanski had recommended. Johnny's mouth closed and his finger dropped. The BBC was put on mute.

"And you weren't here tonight, sir?"

"If I'm happy with what I see, I won't be here plenty more nights."

He nodded. "If you wouldn't mind following me? We keep the dark tanks in the back. I've got to make a few quick modifications? No more than five minutes. We get inspected, see. Random. Talk about fascism! But it won't take more than five minutes..."

He was done in three. Then I stood in swim trunks and mask and goggles in the dark stink of the closed tank as it buzzed and filled from the sides with fluid. In another few minutes I was floating in the warm dark and then navigating my way through the back alleys of the aartinet until I'd reached our meeting place. The entrance icon hovered before me. Other wasn't able to meet tonight-- he'd let me know days ago-- but there were recordings of our meetings I could run through. I chose a particularly long one.

Soon I was a woman again, running through that darkening city.

***

Deleted HUDmail sent from RSockwren to SErbedium

Retrieved by algorithm: Correspondence_Lazarus

February XX, 20X7

Salar,

God's Peace and Mercy.

Get thee out of the mountains, buddy, and surrender. It's over.

It's me writing you. Richard. No Quit Dick. I'm telling you to surrender. Go home. Be with your family.

It's time, Salar. You and your soldiers have done more-- fought more-- than is humanly possible. You've made the PAL bleed. You're on every Chinese general's mind whenever they consider anything-- any movement of men, machinery, food-- in eastern Tajikistan. But it's done. Weren't you just telling me how it feels like you're leading a group of mulebots around these days? You were joking, I think, but I can see for myself in the video clip you sent: There's not one of you that hasn't lost something up there. Your bunkers and hideouts are filled with the sounds of hissing hydraulic fluid, clicking servos, wheezing artificial lungs, the waste-cycling processes of replacement intestinal tract. I don't know how you're able to sleep at night for the noise.

A purely-human resistance army wouldn't exist anymore. Couldn't.

You know the Chinese grunts in Kulob think that the Pamir Mountains are haunted? Demons! Beasts from Hell! Creatures who strike without warning, only to return to their tunnels and caves. Whistling halfmen with claws for hands. They say you don't need sleep. They say you don't need water. Your men have become legends, Salar!

So why am I telling you to quit?

A great improvement is coming. It's a few years off, still, but it's coming. A better world. I want you to be around to experience it. There's no reason to fight anymore. Go home, Salar.

There's no reason to fight.
Chapter 20

MY HUD WOKE ME UP AT EIGHT THE NEXT MORNING, well before I was scheduled to meet with Big Al Iwanski. I floundered in the hotel bed, hunting for my glasses and hoping to get another hour of dreamless sleep. No good. The glasses kept ringing. I was very awake by the time I found them.

I shoved them on. I blinked receive. "What?" I said.

The video feed was empty. Charlie's voice: "The Beast of Jobs, Texas, struck again last the night. The revival tent is trashed. It broke into the trailer where the projector equipment is kept. Mangled that up. Pretty much wrecked Gardner's whole outdoor operation."

"No witnesses?"

"What do you think? Area SHUS+H drones' video feed turns to snow at one thirty-one AM. Immediately before the vandalism. It was really well done, Walid! The simultaneous crash of three separate, nearby SHUS+H drones! My algos aren't seeing any evidence of earlier tampering, either. Real art."

"I'm glad someone's enjoying this."

"This level of finesse... I'd almost swear it was one of us. A comber. Ex-SHUS+H, maybe. Except, she'd have to be able to hide her trail completely. From both of us."

We both laughed, nervously. Charlie gave a few wheezing coughs.

"Handsome Wally is down there right now with his new friend. They spent the night together after Morales' party, at her place. I'm watching them at the crime scene--"

"He spent the night?" I interrupted. "At Julia Wu's place?"

Her voice was teasing: "You didn't see that coming?"

"Handsome Wally was supposed to switch out Morales' _thotnode_ last night! Or this morning. I set up the security-footage loop for him to activate when he was ready. I mean, we have him actually _inside_ our man's house and somehow, instead of doing his job, he manages to sneak off to dump who knows what info into this--"

"Walid," said Charlie. "It's frustrating, I know. Not perfect. But Handsome is a pro. He can make the thotnode switch any time. He can make it this evening. Right now, the two of them are at the crime scene. There's a big message spraypainted on the side of the tent. You should get in. Second pair of eyes, right?"

I growled, "Coming on board," and I opened Handsome Wally's HUD feed. I saw dust swirling around in an early-morning dance, lit by the sun at a low angle. Handsome Wally, as far as I could tell, was studying a branch of physics dedicated to the method by which Julia Wu's butt had been squeezed into a pair of blue jeans.

"Morning, Handsome," I said into his ear.

He shifted his glance back to the torn and desecrated tent. Scraps of ragged, white canvas fluttered like the flags of a surrendering army. Handsome Wally blinked into his HUD: Morning Comb.

"La Bestia, huh?"

He nodded.

"Charlie tells me our monster left a message. Let's see it."

He nodded again and shouted to where the reporter was interviewing a cop, "Julia! I'm going to have another look at that message!"

As he made his way towards the crime-scene tape, I said: "Reporting in? She must be something. If only you'd do that for me! No sleepover tonight, though, ok? Not what I'm paying for."

He nodded again. I noticed a slight increase in blood pressure.

The police, swarming around the tent like armored stag beetles, hadn't decided it was necessary to hide the vandal's message and so Handsome Wally and I were able to look right at it. The Beast had staked two large, broken tent poles into the earth. Spread between these poles was a banner of white canvas, torn from the tent. Written in a large, clean hand from which drabs of paint had trickled and dried was a simple, red message:

DONT TRUST NANNYS

"Don't trust nannies?"

"Weird enough for you?" coughed Charlie.

The HUD feed danced up and down as Handsome Wally nodded. Now one of the armored police officers came into view. Through a scratchy voice modulator, the officer said: "Sir, please step away from the crime scene."

"Hey!" shouted Handsome Wally, pointing. "You guys know who did this?"

"I'm not at liberty to divulge," said the cop. "But remember: SHUS+H sees everything."

"It's a bluff," I said. "The cop knows less than we do."

"Trying to act like they're on top of things," added Charlie. "Like they're in control."

"SHUS+H can't see the Beast, though," said Handsome Wally to the cop. "Can it?"

"Sir," came the metallic voice. "Please step away from the crime scene."

***

Julia Wu was one of those innocents who believes they can avoid being watched in their own bedroom. It's sweet that in this day and age there are still people-- journalists, no less!-- who believe that they can have that kind of privacy. It's possible, sure, but you need the kind of money that lets you live in old neighborhoods, where contractors haven't yet brought the buildings up to code. Julia Wu didn't have this kind of money. Julia Wu lived in Jobs, Texas, where every building was under fifteen years old and everything was up to SHUS+H code. So, the previous night, even after Julia had summoned black-out helios in front of every portion of wall with suspected cameras-- then demanded Handsome Wally's glasses and stuck them inside a wooden box-- archival footage gave me three good angles from which to watch Julia Wu and Handsome Wally become intimate. Handsome knew it: pulling his shirt from his lean, muscular frame, he winked at a patch of wall. His intuition wasn't as good as Morales'-- he didn't look directly at me-- but I caught the mocking gleam in his eye from the corner of another camera.

The two made love like Greco-Roman statues brought to life. Bodies correct in proportion of lined muscle to trim fat rocked and shook. Definitely, these two were a lot more orthodox in their lovemaking than Morales and his wife, but don't think that means they were boring! They sparred like expert swordsmen on that bed, revealing themselves only slowly to one another. They worked their way through the hours and positions with bursts of animal ferocity and periods of slow sweetness-- and finally I had to jump forward through the long night of carnal exploration because, frankly, I had other things to do.

When certain rhythmic movements stopped, I brought the clip speed down to 1:1. Julia sat naked and cross-legged atop her bed. The burning tip of her cigarette lit the beads of sweat jeweled atop her small breasts. This was what I was looking for: the emotional intimacies that came trickling out into the dark once physical intimacy was complete. I watched Wu take a drag from her cigarette, make a face and say: "Something like that happened to me, too, actually. Since I took this position in Jobs. But I couldn't explain it to myself-- or anyone else-- and so I didn't think about it."

Handsome Wally sat up. "You saw la Bestia?"

She shook her head and smiled in the dark. Handsome Wally wouldn't have caught that smile, but I did. She said: "No, not the Beast. I have to agree with Morales on that one."

"But look at the cuts on me! The stitches and the bruises! That thing tore into me. That's why we couldn't try--"

"Oh, I'm not telling you la Bestia's not real! We both know he's real. But it's a man in a mask, Wally. The alternative is..."

"Insane," muttered Handsome Wally. "Yeah, that's what I keep hearing." He sighed. "So what happened to you?" He stroked her side, where thigh fattened out into trim buttock.

She took another drag. "The... the healing." Then she quickly added: "I'm not part of Gardner's church. I have nothing to do with those people. I never let that man lay a hand on me. But when they started talking tonight, I recognized it. It felt familiar..."

"Familiar, how?"

"Like, when I came to Jobs a year ago, I had my own baggage. Little things: a burn scar on my stomach about where your hand is, and another burn scar on my arm. From a grease fire when I was little. And I had a tattoo of an ouroboros-- the snake that eats itself-- on my lower back. Little things. But then, also, I had another..."

She took another drag, made another face. "There's pressure in this industry, Wally. Because we're all in front of the cameras. All the time. If we want to sell our work-- if we want to work in media at all-- we have to look a certain way. Part of our brand. So I would look in the mirror-- or look at footage of myself-- and what I saw wasn't... quite..." Another drag. "And so every meal was a battle. I started thinking of myself as a python. Binge and starve. Binge and purge and starve. So I got that tattoo. You don't want to hear about it. The point is, that once I came to Jobs... well, my vision cleared."

I examined Wu's naked body. She was a slight woman, but she didn't have the sick, emaciated look of a bulimic. The thigh where Handsome now rested his hand was a wonderful curve and so were her legs and shoulders and stomach and breasts. I didn't see any burn scars or tattoos. The skin was clean.

"It all disappeared," she confirmed. "All of the little things along with the big thing. I'd have liked to have kept the ouroboros, but if that's what it took to get rid of the other stuff, I was happy to pay. I feel better now. A lot better. God, I don't even hardly smoke anymore. I used to every day! And-- I'll tell you a secret-- I think a lot of other people in this city feel the same way I do."

Handsome Wally laughed nervously. He sounded like a Chucklehead at the start of a serious chuckle. "Sorry?"

"I mean I've noticed them here and there: people who are looking better. Like a man I work with whose skin has cleared up. And one of my neighbors who-- I swear-- had this awful-looking chipped tooth. But in the last few weeks her smile has become... just beautiful. And more than that: they're happier. More relaxed. Like a great weight has been lifted. Like they're starting with a clean slate."

"So you _had_ noticed something before tonight."

Wu stubbed the cigarette on a little ceramic plate. She'd smoked it down to the filter. She said: "No. Not really. That is, I'd noticed my own situation. And I'd noticed some dental work in a neighbor and a colleague who'd finally found the right skin cream. And I noticed that a few of my acquaintances seemed to be doing better. All pleasant news. But my job is going after the NEWS, friend, which usually isn't pleasant. And, anyway, until tonight I didn't connect the dots. And now..."

"And now you're going to launch an investigation. Right? Because this is pretty big news, what's happening in Jobs. Just saying, this is the sort of story that could really get your name out there."

She reached for another cigarette. Stopped. Shook her head: "But it's just like the Beast, isn't it? I mean, why can't a super tornado move through Jobs? Why can't a mass shooter choose to document his spree at the Jobs' HanjinMart? Or why can't George Morales let his tongue slip just one goddamned time? Those are real stories! Why does all the news in this town seem to lead straight to an employment opportunity with the _Weekly World News_?"

"But this is real," insisted Handsome Wally. "What's happening in Jobs is real. And so is la Bestia. This should be-- you're a legit reporter, Julia. You should be drooling over what's going on here..."

She looked sad in the dark. Knowledgeable and sad. She said: "Kiss me, Walid. Kiss me and..."

Then they were back at it, nearly until dawn. I sped up the footage until the thrusting and turning and kicking and bucking was clownish and then I watched for another minute before turning it off. I moved to the front of the Batmobile and sat shotgun. I watched wiry scrub and the camps of thirsty homeless pass by. I leaned back in my chair and I thought. I thought and thought.

***

And then I made another mistake. A pretty bad one. I should have just rescheduled.

Let me explain: a few hours after watching Julia Wu's early-morning confessions, I was walking through the HanjinMart parking lot with Big Al Iwanski. The huge lot was nearly empty: an asphalt desert sending up waves of heat. Helio sprites floated forlornly across the painted ground like lost geists: phasing in and out of existence, hunting for Targeted Advertising Profiles and the attached human beings. The air was windless and smelled sour. I was in a bad mood and feeling tense, trying to divide my attention between the man standing next to me and the conversation taking place in a diner halfway around the Mart.

The diner was called Eggsplosion! Inside, George Morales had just ordered a steak. Handsome had asked for fish and chips. Both men were sipping on cokes, and Handsome was congratulating Morales on his speech of the night before. I was using Charlie's [heart_on_sleeve] algo to read each man. Tired of the distracting fire motif, I'd centered the emotiwoople color changes to a point on the forehead. Morales, naturally, had an unblinking, beige third eye as he said:

"The afternoon I signed the contract with Dolores Kindcaid, I took Eileen Patel home. She wouldn't hold my hand; she wouldn't touch me. A lot of the girls began to cry when it was time for us to go and Eileen cried, too. And that drive home! Eileen didn't say a thing. She wouldn't look at me. She stared out the window at the empty houses all around us like I was taking her to Outer Mongolia.

"So, I went and said something stupid, like: 'Hey, I just saved you! You know what they were doing back there? You know what Dolores was training you up for?'

"Sure. She knew a hundred-times better than I did. She'd traveled with them long enough. She'd nursed hurt girls and sick girls and heartsick, crying girls. She understood everything but the nittiest of the grittiest details. Anyway, she didn't need to answer that question and so she didn't. And I just sat there in the driver's seat feeling dumber and dumber--"

Pressure on my arm suddenly brought me back to the street. "Heyyo! Brother Jake! Wakey wakey! You reading _War and Peace_ over there? My lunch break ain't going to last all afternoon. I was asking you if you wanted to hear about why everybody in this town has got new body parts! Our claim to fame: We're in the top-five cities in the country for wearers of prosthetic limbs! Per capita, of course..."

I blinked and turned to face Big Al. In preparation for the meeting, Charlie had wormed her way into the salesman's FitTrak account and now I had access to the color of his feelings. Iwanski's third eye was orange with specks of red. He was irritated and feeling ignored-- but I hardly needed emotikey to tell me that. "Sorry, Albert," I said. "I don't get to use my HUD much when I'm traveling with the rest of the pod. All the... the information... popping up on these glasses all the time. It's overwhelming. I get distracted."

Big Al shrugged and grinned, easy as ever, and his third eye went gold and pink with amusement. He said: "Shoot. That's alright, Brother Jake. But listen up and you might learn something from a local."

"Sure."

"So Jobs was a planned city. Started as resettlement community for Bug Orphans. Here we had all these young Texans pouring out of Houston: untrained, never went to school, and a lot of them had physical problems from the Bug. Deformities. And Houston in those first years of reclamation was a total dump. Nothing but concrete piles and dumpster fires. Most Bug Orphans didn't want to have anything more to do with that place. So they got moved..."

But already, Morales' tinny voice in my ear was drawing me back: "...the first night home she was like a moving mannequin. She didn't speak and she didn't hardly look at me, but she went right to work in the kitchen. She made spaghetti and it was good. I told her it was good. Then, when we were done eating, I took her to Peter and Elmo's room. I told her she could sleep there and change anything she wanted. Make it a place she liked. Because they were gone and she was here and I wanted her to be comfortable. To feel like it was her place. All she did, though, was curl up on Elmo's racecar bed with her back to me. I let her lie..."

"So right off the bat," said Big Al, his voice crashing through, "you had a lot of people in this town who were missing body parts. A higher-than-average number. There's some wild pics of this town in those days: all these young people lined up for work in front of the refineries and the training centers, and every one of them has some piece missing off of them. Receptionists wearing those old typing claws." Iwanski chuckled to himself. "You remember those? Shoot, I used to wear one sometimes. Looked like I was getting ready to rake leaves. Didn't actually work half bad, but you sure _felt_ like Freddie Kruger..."

"That first night," said Morales, "I heard her crying all the way down the hall. These long, awful sobs. My heart pretty much broke, Wally." And out on the street with Albert Iwanski, I nearly whooped, because Morales' emotiwoopled third eye had gone from beige to a pained blue. "I lay in bed for hours listening to her cry. It had to be hours. And I had no real idea what to do. I lay there in bed and I cursed Dolores and I cursed myself. For ever trying to protect this girl..."

"I remember one story!" yodelled Big Al. "A woman who'd lost her leg to the SuperBug got into a warehouse accident. A barrel of crude fell on her from twenty feet up. The first man on the scene, seeing her pinned to the floor, wondered how she was acting so calm. He was sure she was dying. But when he leaned down to hear her last words, she told him, 'Well, all that got crushed was my leg, and anyway, Old Horto got there first!' And when the first responders cut her jean leg off, they saw that she was right: the only part of her that had been really broken was already metal! She was a lucky one in her own way..."

"...but I'd committed," said Morales, making his first cut into the steak he'd been brought. "So I made myself stand up and go check on her. I stood in the doorway and I told her, 'Eileen, my name is Jorge. I miss my family, too. Sometimes I cry, too..."

"Shoot," said Albert Iwanski. "That's how the city got its name. The great State of Texas felt guilty, I guess, about leaving certain of her more-vulnerable citizens in the post-apocalypse for a decade, so they were guaranteed work in these planned cities. And we had a few good years, here, before the algos and helio sprites took their share. Heck. This was a rip-roaring city five years ago! Hands and metal claws stuffed with cash! Now? I can't count on both hands the number of Bug Orphans I know who've moved out to the highway camps because they couldn't keep the lights on! Shameful! But those people are survivors; it's not anything they're not used to..."

"Eileen got up and walked over to me. She didn't look at me but she took hold of my hand. She grabbed hold of it and her grip was so tight I almost screamed. But instead, I held on. Without talking, as though we'd planned it, we went out to the backyard where the rest of my family was lying under the earth. And we looked up at the sky. There were big parts of the city that had lost power by then and so the stars didn't have to compete with as much light from below. There were thousands and thousands of them. Stars, I mean. You never saw stars like that before the SuperBug. There were plenty of satellites, too, and drones taking pics. It all helped to make you feel less lonely. We didn't say a word to each other but, sometime before dawn, she fell asleep on the ground and I picked her up and put her back in Elmo's bed, and then I went and slept on the couch. I woke up around noon to the smell of scrambled eggs and Eileen shaking my shoulder. And after that-- I swear!-- it was like we'd known each other forever. We picked right up..."

"Did you lose your arm from the Horto Virus?" I asked Big Al.

"Nah," he said. "Never been to Houston, reclaimed or otherwise. I'm an Okie, originally. I'd probably be up there, still, if the whole place hadn't gone to the desert. I lost my arm to pure foolishness. And, Lord, was it gruesome! I always was a big, big fan of fireworks, see--"

"A year passed," said Morales to Handsome Wally, "and Dolores seemed to have forgotten about us. No surprise. Things were starting to fall apart, by then. First the water went bad so that it had to be treated and then we stopped getting it, altogether. No pressure; the system had failed. You couldn't count on airlifted water, either. Someone as desperate as you-- and crazy; the joke went, 'nothing keeps the SuperBug off like crazy'-- somebody like _that_ would always beat you to the dropped water. It was nothing but a recipe for trouble, chasing the water helicopters. Nothing but a bad afternoon. And by the end of the third year it looked like the quarantine was never coming down.

"And so bullets and water and vitamins became what the merchants were trading in at the Mart-- you could keep your suitcases full of US dollars. And that was bad news. It meant that Eileen and I started scavenging. It meant we tore down the back fence and started a garden over the spot where my family was buried. It meant that we met our neighbors and decided which of them we could trust. And it meant that Eileen got a Glock pistol just like mine.

"Eileen could shoot just fine. She was good at plenty of things: she found the chickens that meant we didn't have to buy eggs anymore, and she came up with the system for using brown water on our garden. She learned the names of my dead brothers and sister and she included them when we said Grace. She was thoughtful and loyal and quick, and I saw pretty soon why Dolores' girls had put up such a fuss about losing her--"

"Eggsplosion!" roared Big Al, bringing me back to the parking lot. "Brother Jake, if there's one fine institution this city has to offer, this is it! This is where I want us to lunch and I won't take no for an answer! My treat."

I saw the profiles of George Morales and Handsome Wally in one of the diner's big windows and I felt my heart start to hammer. I said: "This one? It seems like we've walked by a lot of great places..."

"There's a reason we walked by them, Brother Jake! If you left Jobs without trying Eggsplosion!..." He shook his head, looking displeased.

A little bell rang as we walked through the diner doors and helioed Nascar races and NBA games danced across the polished glass surfaces of tables. A helio sprite with curled hair, wearing a white apron, greeted us in the strongest Texas accent I'd heard since entering the state. She carried a notepad and had a pencil behind her ear and old-style glasses that rested well down her nose. The place was covered in nostalgia items from the nineties and early oughts: alligator heads and tamagotchis and laptops and high-top sneakers and posters of Justin Bieber before the accident and posters of the seventh and eighth Star Wars movies and even old quarantine signs that had yellowed in the sun outside Houston.

A Big Mouth Billy Bass announced our arrival overhead.

George Morales stopped talking. He turned his head, both on my glasses and in the corner of my eye, and he looked at us. The new arrivals. Next to me, Albert Iwanski noticed the movement from Morales' table and met our man's gaze.

My lunch partner said, "Hey! Well, how about that!" and I felt my throat tighten. "The future mayor of Jobs, himself! I told you Eggsplosion! was the place!"

Morales, from his booth, laughed: "I appreciate that. I'm hoping to earn your vote."

"Shoot. You got it! My friend and I saw you last night, you know. We watched you throw your hat in the ring. We were there!"

"No kidding?" George Morales turned his eyes on me and the third eye in his forehead burned beige. He was wearing a HUD but the lenses were empty. I felt the sudden need to fill my own glasses to block out his beige eye. I turned on constatainment so that the week's mass shooting began playing out between us, hiding my gaze behind color and movement. Morales studied me for a moment-- and was that the trace of a smile on the corners of his lips?

"Albert Iwanski," said Big Al, extending his rough hand. "Sales specialist at the HanjinMart. This here is my client and lunch companion, Brother Jacob Malt of the Carolites."

Morales gestured to Handsome Wally: "My Public Relations consultant, Wally El Amin. We were just leaving, unfortunately, but... what do you say, Wally? Should we take a few minutes for relations with the public?"

Handsome Wally, with the eyes of a soldier who has just been ordered to run, blind, into enemy territory, said: "Um! Why not? Pleasure to meet you, Brother...?"

"Jacob," I said.

"Jacob Malt," said Albert Iwanski.

"You're a buyer I guess?"

"A procurer for the pod," I said, tapping my glasses.

"Now wait a second," said Morales. "You look... by goodness, you look familiar! Would you mind taking off your HUD for just a second? It's a quirk of mine. I just... you look so familiar! I need to see your face."

I tried for a natural laugh. "That's a bit... I mean..."

But the others waited, expectant, and so I slid the bridge of my HUD down my nose and stared at Morales. His blue eyes met mine, without a single window separating us. I wrenched the HUD from my nose and gripped it like a stress ball as I stared into that familiar face.

"Where do I know you from..." he was almost whispering. He glanced towards Handsome Wally and he snapped his fingers. "That's it! Brother Jake, you look so much like Wally, here! Why, you might be cousins! What do you think, Albert? Cousins?"

Morales hadn't removed his eyes from mine. I felt myself shrinking before him. I felt a little trembling beginning in my hands and I wasn't sure if I would be able to bring it under control. I had a clear shot at the aisle. I wasn't boxed in. I could still run. I could get out of this tacky diner, leave this city of weird miracles, flee. I could drive the Batmobile back across the desert. I could...

"Alright, boys," came a calm, female voice. Charlie. "We're pulling you out of a nose dive and we're going to make one of those landings you both can walk away from. Ready?"

Albert Iwanski shrugged. "I really couldn't say."

"Oh, I definitely see something. What? Your cheekbones? A resemblance..."

Charlie: "I'm looking through Handsome's HUD, so Handsome? Keep your glasses on and keep your eyes on Walid. Now, Walid: Don't panic! You look like a scared man right now-- there's no reason you should. Deep breaths. What we've got here is probably an accident. Has to be an accident. But even if it's not? If neither of you gives away the game, he's got nothing. You know your roles. Stick to them. He's got nothing."

I took a deep breath and patted my balding head: "I look like your friend?" Now I rubbed my sizeable tummy: "I wish the women of my pod saw things the way you do!"

Morales laughed. Big Al slapped me on the back. Handsome tried to look modest.

"That's it," said Charlie.

Handsome Wally, his eyes still on me, said: "George, aren't we supposed to meet with Ms. Dubois? We shouldn't keep her waiting."

"That's right!" Morales, placing his glasses back on his face, grimaced. "Look at the time!"

"Yeah," echoed Handsome Wally. "The time."

We all shook hands once more. When he came to me, Morales said: "Brother Jacob, I'm glad you came to Jobs. Glad we got the chance to meet." He winked at me like a politician-- like we shared a wonderful secret from the entire world-- and he extended his hand to me. We shook, and that hand gave back nothing.

Chapter 21

GOD KILLED THE GOVERNESSES EVERY NIGHT AFTER THAT. There wasn't a single night where Lacey Molloy didn't dream, and all of these dreams are recorded in her thotarchive. See for yourselves, ladies and gents: GOD cut through the governesses with a samurai sword; HE dropped hundreds of pounds of flaming napalm on them from an F-16; HE came at them wearing a hockey mask and waving around hedge trimmers; HE ran them over with a campervan. The stately ladies returned every favor: they tied up OUR FATHER and used a car battery to electroshock HIS mighty testicles; they waterboarded HIM until HE drowned; they poisoned GOD slowly at dinner parties and dug giant holes filled with punji sticks and waited. The two parties fought viciously throughout the long nights.

What did they fight over? Seashells. Piles of seashells.

Lacey always felt tired in the mornings now. There was plenty of Chuckle in her dresser, but she usually left it there. She had taken some with the followers the day she'd acceded to Davlenik's demands-- thinking everything was over. She had chuckled away the afternoon with a repulsive pair of Chucklefucks while their four-year-old daughter sat under a tree immersed in her glasses. After that, she'd left the stuff alone. She never saw GOD during her waking hours anymore, but she still saw HIM every night where HE fought violently with the Victorian ladies. Lacey, who resented her dreams, began to allow her followers to camp out on her lawn so that when she woke she had people to talk to. This was wonderful news for the followers and so it was enough for Nicky Davlenik and so no one made any more noises about kicking Lacey out of her house.

But the hook never did catch. She felt no desire for Chuckle. No yearning. No need. No one was more surprised than Cowgirl Lacey Molloy.

She tried to read the legalese on the seashells, thinking that it held a clue, but she'd missed her chance: either GOD or the ladies had scratched out the writing on every shell that had passed between them. Nor did Lacey see or hear from Dr. Flotsam. Even so, she thanked him every day for the freedom he'd given her. She trusted that he was out there, somewhere, reading her mind along with everyone else.

***

After a short lunch with Albert Iwanski-- where he demanded I try something called the Eggsplosive Platter and we decided the pod did not need any new limbs, after all-- I rushed back to the Batmobile and ordered it to drive me south along the highway. I hardly took another breath, I think, until the edges of the city sank under the empty horizon. For an hour, at least, I digested that totally-forgettable meal and argued with Charlie over whether or not Morales and Iwanski had set us up.

I was convinced they had. The way Morales had looked at me in the diner? He was toying with us. Somehow, he knew. And he was running everything.

Morales, meanwhile, was giving Handsome Wally a tour of campaign headquarters. Charlie and I watched as Morales introduced his 'PR Consultant, Wally El Amin,' one at a time to his aides de camp. Even Charlie, by now, had begun trying to dissect our man-- to pick apart his gestures and their meanings-- and I heard through the pitch of her voice that she was having as much success as I had had.

Biometrics ever so steady. Unending businesslike confidence.

At two forty-five, Morales clapped Handsome on the back and said: "Just about time for your daily dive into my head. I have to admit, I feel a little strange about thot[tickr]ing in front of you, Wally..."

"No he doesn't!" spat Charlie. "He doesn't feel a damn thing!"

"That's fine," said Handsome Wally. "I should head back to the hotel, anyway. Plenty of work to do..."

So Morales walked Handsome to his rental and waved as the automobile pulled away. Now all three of us-- Charlie, Handsome and I-- were looking through George Morales' glasses. We were looking at the back of his head through an overhead SHUS+H drone and tracking the beat of his heart and the intake of his lungs. When he walked back into campaign headquarters, we three followed his movements through every compromised electronic eye in the walls and every pair of glasses from every member of his staff. When our man entered the inner sanctum of his private office and closed the door, still, we watched him. His every movement was ours. We watched him sit and reach into his breast pocket and remove the glimmering, chrome thotnode and we watched him place it at the base of his skull and grimace as that piece of machinery entered him.

As he sat and stared at his office door, the three of us began to read his mind:

<OurManForJobs@thot[tickr]:private> _... i love my wife wally / love jenny / with all my heart / i want to say that first / but / a single morning wally / the difference a single morning makes / all the difference of an entire lifetime / i told you some things in the diner / at lunch / but what i didnt say / what i couldn't bring myself to say? /_

the memory of one morning in houston / years after I first took her from dolores

because eileen and I / in this memory / an uncomfortable quiet has fallen on our house / a quiet neither of us can break / and I have known this girl for years by then / depended on her / come to trust her / come to respect her / but something has come between us / these past weeks / so quiet /

i think she is fifteen / sixteen / i think / no calendars weve been / going by seasons for years now / and if a woman or man approaches our home / we fire warning shots / and / i havent been to the mart in a year / at least / the days are long and quiet / occasional drone / helicopter / the two of us / a big mastiff named hercules / hates other dogs / keeps the packs of dogs away / we feed him and he stays close /

she is weeding in the garden / black hair tied back / brown eyes full of her work / arms trim with muscle / all legs / she moves like a deer and hercules is with her / they are quiet together / i find i cannot speak to her / except to give her the shortest instructions / terse / almost angry / because i fear what i will / say / and the quiet way she looks at me makes / long sentences / higher thought / impossible /

and she will not speak to me / she seems angry with me / angrier every day / i am terrified absolutely / in the evenings she reads from a stack of scavenged books and only gets angrier / silly stuff / i cant make it more than a few sentences in / and i have no response / except confusion / anger / terrified absolutely / barked instructions / uncomfortable quiet /

except that morning she stands up from weeding / a storm / total fury / she sweeps across the yard and even hercules hangs back / animal wisdom / and she points a finger at my chest / terrified absolutely / i am / and she tells me /

i dont care / jorge / if you dont want me around anymore / im staying / you wont give me back to her / never / and if you try ill hate you / hate you / i dont want to hate you / but im not going back / to be her whore / ill stay here / with you / even if youd rather be alone / and ill hate you / the whole time /

tears in her eyes / but / her voice rings / clear / furious / not a single gasp or shudder / her face / lit by anger and her breathing comes deep and she stands alone and fierce against everything / and i / i am lost forever / shipwrecked / everything torn away /

never / i tell her / never never would i send you away / never never / how could you think? / what would i do? / without / without / how could i? / without /

and she / another drowning sailor / finds at that moment the same piece of floating refuse / to which i must be clinging / sudden hope / confusion / she wonders why i havent spoken / these past days / why / i am so angry / if im not getting ready / preparing myself / to send her off/ return her to dolores /

i take her shoulders / seeing her widening eyes / i think / that she will fight me / kill me / but then shes slack / loose / like a cat in a sunbeam / quaking / a rabbit / im sorry / i dont know why ive been / i dont / that is / i dont understand whats going / i dont / that is / ive been /

together / together we drown / eyes closed / terrain / unfamiliar / flying blind but somehow / knowing the route /

everything is gone / concentrated to a single point / yes / a feeling in my chest that doesnt seem as though it can be contained by that small cavern of muscle and bone / feels as though i must rupture / do you understand wally? / first love / a complete surprise /

and the memory / so clear / brings back pain / but / she is so dark and lovely standing there that morning / and / there are ways to deal with pain / and i should tell you our love was chaste wally / for so long / we were babes in the woods / chaste / romantic / i love my new wife wally / love jenny / but i didnt meet her until after / long years spent with a single precious person / now gone / so if you have hunted for my secret wally el amin maybe youve found it? / you called me beige when we met / and / searching myself i think youre right / i do not let myself feel because of /

the pain / and there are ways to deal / i use them / but surely with eileen patel / that morning / in the garden / surely i still feel something? /

surely...

An agony of black dots blotting that landscape of beige! Charlie yipped like a coyote in my ear and coughed. Handsome Wally: Are you seeing this, Comb?

Reluctantly, feeling like an animal being lured back into the hunter's killzone, I pulled the Batmobile into a decrepit hardware store on the side of the highway and bought a tool, at random, from the surprised-looking attendant. The tool was a funny hybrid of a hammer and a hatchet: sharp blade on one end, wide hammer head on the other, with a long handle jutting down from the middle. I could have bought the same tool cheaper at HanjinMart, but that wasn't the point: as long as I bought something along the highway, chances were good my hours-long joyride wouldn't get flagged by a SHUS+H algo. As cover it was flimsy, but after shaking George Morales' hand, I half suspected my cover had been blown anyway.

I ordered the Batmobile to return to Jobs.

***

One night, while GOD was rounding up a village of Victorian ladies and handing out shovels-- having them dig their own graves in front of dried-out rice paddies-- Lacey woke up in a cold sweat. She saw a woman standing over her and she felt a hand on the back of her neck. She nearly screamed as she felt her thotnode twisted so that it went into an emergency shutdown, retracting microfilaments from the back of her spine. She heard a rhythmic _thud-thud-thud_ in the distance and she heard the groan of campers outside-- separated suddenly from the text of her dream-- and she smelled a sweet, familiar breath close to her own.

"Lily?" she said.

"Shit," said the maid, studying her own HUD. "You recognized me. Your people aren't the quickest bunch, but even so. We have to hurry. Your bag is packed."

"Lily Pad?" said Lacey Molloy. The _thud-thud-thud_ was growing louder.

"These dreams need looking into, ma'am. I'm not taking you anywhere you can't come back from. But Mr. Davlenik... he'd never allow it. You see? We only have a little time, Ms. Molloy. Will you trust me?"

The maid turned off the blinking windows in her glasses and looked down at Lacey Molloy. Sirens could be heard a few blocks off.

"Lily," said Lacey Molloy. "I think you might be the only person in the whole world I still trust, besides Dr. Flot. Isn't that funny? And you have my bag packed." She laughed. "Alright, I'll play."

Lily had one of the beanbag shotguns Lacey's security sometimes carried. As for the security, they lay in positions of hard slumber on the living-room floor. Lacey, seeing them, let her mouth swing open.

"Holy... Lily Pad! You drugged the guards? But Nicky's going to fire you! He's practically _got_ to fire you. You crazy bitch! You naughty thing!"

"Yes," said Lily, a little sadly. "My resume is ruined."

Now the former maid pulled a bullhorn from the grip of a sleeping security man. Opening the front door, she howled: "ALRIGHT CHUCKLEFUCKS! YOU'RE GOING TO MAKE A BIG GODDAMN CLEARING. ANYONE THAT COMES IN CLOSE TO THE HOUSE IS GETTING IT NICE AND HARD!"

Lily dropped the bullhorn so that it screamed in protest and she fired the shotgun off hugely into the night. Along with the shrieking bullhorn and roar of the gun came the sound of shattering glass and the blare of a car alarm. The alarm went on and on, and it was joined by screams and shouts and a THUD-THUD-THUD that was above them, now. Overhead spotlights lit Lacey Molloy's front yard so that she could see followers running and diving and their little pup tents being ripped-- stakes and all-- from the ground by a sudden typhoon wind. Lily, dressed for the first time that Lacey could remember in blue jeans and a black DIO t-shirt, had gone to one knee, shotgun propped confidently against her shoulder. The maid's black hair was tied back in ponytail which whipped and danced in the wind as she scanned the yard. No one approached.

The ancient Hind gunship came down into the front yard gently, with its side door open, ready to receive. A painted shark's mouth gaped redly on the fuselage and a woman dressed in fatigues was waving them in. Lacey took a step forward, not believing any of it. She wondered, for half a moment, if she were floating in an AARTI tank somewhere. If this wasn't simply another dream. For the first time in weeks, she felt like a hit of Chuckle might really normalize things. Now her maid was moving, crouched, towards the gigantic helicopter and waving at her to come along. Lacey took a step and felt resistance. She looked down. Mick had woken up. The guard was lying on the ground with one big hand gripping down hard on her leg. His drugged eyes were trying to meet hers and he was saying something she couldn't hear over the noise of the rotors.

She leaned over him and shouted: "It's a dream, Mick! It has to be a dream! I'm alright! You're a wonderful guard! Wonderful!" He nodded as though she was confirming what he'd suspected. He smiled up at her, loyally. He said something that might have been: I'm glad you're safe, ma'am.

He let go.

Cowgirl Lacey Molloy crouch-walked into the helicopter and the helicopter rose into the sky. She watched her house recede into the distance and disappear before she finally asked: "Lily, where are we going?"

"She contacted me, personally," answered Lily. "Can you believe that? She said that if I brought you, she could help you!"

"Goddamnit, Lily. They _all_ say that. Who is 'she' and why does she have a helicopter?"

For the first time that night, Lily's composure failed. She said: "Why, the Prophet of Spokane, ma'am! The founder of the Carolites. You're the personal guest of Carol Manera!"

***

I let the Batmobile take it slow returning to that prosthesis-filled city of Bug Orphans, and I tried to swallow the dread I felt when it rose once more out of the evening desert, spidery and rundown and shimmering with artificial lights like a thousand, peering eyes. During the hours' ride north, I'd poured over Morales' revealing thoughts of the afternoon with Charlie and Handsome Wally. Nothing new, except those brief feelings of passion and misery for Eileen Patel. That dead girl, probably buried under the foundation of some new department store in reclaimed Houston, held the key. Exhausted and frustrated-- hitting the same few conclusions again and again-- we'd called it quits for the day.

Now, before I returned to the hotel, even, I ordered the Batmobile to take me to the Lady of Delhi. I had a rendezvous to make.

Johnny Injun, a line of Chinese military trucks rolling across his glasses, stood silently and waved me to the back room where he began working on an unoccupied AARTI tank. One of Charlie's algos had-- last night or sometime earlier today-- broken into Jonathan Paraiya's FitTrak account. Through the lenses of my glasses I saw the blues and blacks and swirling greys of a man feeling bitter and fearful and not-at-all confident.

I tipped him double and told him to lay off the news.

***

Spokane, Washington is a walled city surrounded by desert. The wall cuts through the abandoned suburbs and keeps the core of the city protected from bandits and advertisers and tax collectors. The wall is made from dismembered buildings and cubed cars. Carol Manera has made her headquarters on the top floor of the abandoned Bank of America tower. From here, she runs a nomadic body that stretches from coast to coast and well into both Canada and Mexico. There have been four recorded attempts on Carol Manera's life-- the first two plausibly CIA-- and still Ms. Manera holds a daily open court. She's an ethnically Samoan woman, shrunken by age and work and diet to look like a joyful, round Okinawan. Despite the assassination attempts, she's always smiling at least a little, and her eyes-- which are almost never covered by a HUD-- are very forthright and gentle. Look her up if you don't believe me.

Another bit of trivia about Carol Manera: she's full of holes! She has holes in the palm of each hand and in both feet and traversing her spine. Every hole is a home for a metallic port and every port has been obsolete for almost a decade. The holes are full of clear epoxy sanded down to a smooth finish. Once upon a time, Ms. Manera was able to plug herself into an early version of the AARTI quantum-computing system. She was a prototype user. A guinea pig. Part of the first human trials. Now she can't plug into anything at all.

But that's all part of the legend: Ms. Manera, before founding her movement, was the world's greatest intronaut (or, at least, if the Russians or Chinese or Indonesians did any better, they kept their mouths shut), chosen from amongst tens of thousands for her ability to compartmentalize information. She proved one of the few ever able to interact with those original AARTI systems, at all-- and she explored the deep places allowed by those computers: places where time is measured in nanoseconds and then picoseconds. The Carolites claim she lived lifetimes down there, under tremendous relativistic pressures, while minutes passed on the surface world.

It's common knowledge that no other intronaut ever made it as deep as she did and none could stay for as long. Those who tried went mad. The Carolites believe their prophet talked to weird, inhuman intelligences down in the quantum deep. And that, during her endless picoseconds, she dipped her toes into the fourth dimension. They claim, too, that she saw every human future-- every apocalyptic ending of the world-- and that she can assign each of these futures a number based on probability and that even now she works to steer the course of human destiny.

Pretty wild talk! We now have AARTI quantum computers sixty-times stronger than the one Carol Manera interacted with-- and we don't need to bore holes into ourselves to use them, either! There's nothing magical about these machines-- unless, of course, you've always wanted to know what it was like to fuck as a duck! The intronaut program was suspended not because of some dark prophecy, but because the good people at AARTI-- tired of the bad press related to driving people insane-- developed a safer way for the human brain to interact with that crush of information: the AARTI tank.

Even so, a lot of people believe that the memories of every human future reside somewhere deep in Ms. Manera's head. I suppose there have been stranger messiahs.

It's a matter of public record, now, that when Carol Manera opened her eyes in the AARTI testing room after several minutes of trials, she was mumbling nonsense. Even when, weeks later, she recovered her sense of time and place and began coherently answering questions in the staff hospital, she filled her ports with play-doh and refused further trials.

"Never return," she told her handlers. "Those were my final instructions. Written in fire in the sky. Because there is work to be done! I go to preach a difficult, wandering path!"

Ms. Manera was diagnosed with PTSD and released with treatment instructions. She ignored the instructions and started a cult.

You've probably caught her proselytizing on constatainment: "The opiate numb of the flickering window! The slack stare of children learning their roles from helio sprites! The leviathan mercantile bodies which manipulate us, yearly, with ever-more scientific accuracy! Those great-and-grinding engines of discontent that will not, even for a moment, let us sit and breathe!"

Right. She had no qualms about using the 'grinding engines of discontent' to promote her movement, though, did she? Meanwhile, she borrowed heavily and silenced certain doubters by making dozens of prescient investments: hundreds of thousands of dollars were transformed into hundreds of billions and then trillions.

Twenty years ago, I think, she would have converted a few odd ducks to her socialistic nomadism and it would have stopped there. A fringe life style. Under the twin pressures of the spreading deserts and the Algorithm Economy, however, Carolism had the sudden attention of hundreds of thousands of families who were displaced by physical or thinking machines. People all over the country sold their worldly possessions and decamped to form roaming pods. Here, too, Ms. Manera had foreseen much: the dividends from her massive investments were paid out, yearly, to sustain the costs of maintaining the pods. Manera also handpicked the leader of each of the original pods while her logistics teams kept everyone fed. Education systems and an internal police network were instituted. In under a decade, she'd formed a worldwide movement whose followers could be counted in the millions.

And now, getting older, she watched over her growing movement from an old bank tower in Spokane, Washington. It was here that she met Cowgirl Lacey Molloy.

Lacey was wearing her thotnode once again as she and Lily were ushered up from the helicopter by a grim team of HUD-bespectacled women holding Kalashnikovs-- and they were told to wait in a carpeted hallway covered in paintings. The paintings consisted of natural scenes painted by Carolites on the road, and the Prophet had hung it in the hallway leading to her court like a proud parent with several tons of refrigerator artwork.

The doors opened. The little Samoan woman stood before those huge windows which showed sunlight spreading over kilometers of desert. Her petitioners stood to either side. They stared at Lacey. And were they curious? Jealous? Indifferent? Lily hung back. Lacey took her by the arm, thinking:

<CowgirlLacey@thot[tickr]:public/archives> _... oh no / you goddamn dont / wake me up in the middle of the night / put me / on a goddamn helicopter? / youre coming with..._

They walked, hand in hand, to stand before Carol Manera. Lily curtseyed invisible skirts and went to one knee. Cowgirl Lacey stuck out a hand and said: "Hello."

Carol Manera's close-mouthed smile reached her crinkled eyes. She reached out her own hand and said: "It's our pleasure to welcome you, child."

They shook, and Carol Manera's epoxy-filled palm felt hard and strange. But Cowgirl Lacey shook her head and said: "I'm not your kid. I've got a bit of a cult going, myself. I know the tricks, my child."

There was a stirring from the petitioners, and Cowgirl Lacey turned on them: "You see me thinking it, don't you? I stopped bullshitting people a long time ago."

Carol Manera shrugged. "Force of habit. Sorry. We meet as equals. Actually, it's a relief."

The muttering from the petitioners grew louder.

<CowgirlLacey@thot[tickr]:public/archives> _...need to go somewhere / carol / to talk / about my dreams / without your damned lemmings / getting butthurt /_

The smile was back in Carol Manera's eyes. She looked like someone who was hearing an old and comforting joke for the first time in many years. She said: "For better or for worse, right now we need 'my damned lemmings' and their fussing. We need witnesses."

"Witnesses?" asked Cowgirl Lacey. She was suddenly aware of the many bodies between her and the exit. "Witnesses for..."

"For my announcement!" said the little woman. She huffed air into her lungs and spoke in a huge voice: "I, Carol Manera, founder of the Carolites, in full possession of my physical and mental capabilities, here, today, do appoint Lacey Molloy as my spiritual and political and financial successor upon my untimely death or resignation! We'll meet with the lawyers later this afternoon, but you heard it here first! Of course, we'll keep calling it 'Carolism' but Lacey's the new boss, folks!"

The room exploded with noise. HUD-wearing guards stepped forward. Carol Manera moved to embrace Lacey with a badger's rough affection. Lacey, slack, was saying: "You can't just... you can't just..."

"But I can," whispered the Prophet of Spokane. "I have to. Soon I'll have taken these children as far as I can. We have a movement, now. An infrastructure of resistance. But the nannies are also gaining followers. They have a champion. In every future I managed to look through, I will fall to them. The queen removed and the king in peril. But you... someone broken in precisely the right way..."

Carol Manera pulled away to look Cowgirl Lacey up and down. She wasn't smiling as she said: "Under you, in a small minority of futures, humanity remains free."

Chapter 22

OUR DANCE IS DIFFERENT TONIGHT. My Adidas are on and Other chases me through the rain-soaked alleys and I hear him dragging his pipe across concrete. All of this the same. But I can't find my apartment. I can't find that series of rooms and halls where we always play adult hide and seek. It's unnerving. I keep expecting to see it rising up from the end of the street and it keeps failing to materialize. Instead, the rain-filled city is ending. The city is only an island, a dot, surrounded by a sea of dark forest. A thousand Central Parks.

I stop at the edge of the forest. I'll go no further. I'll fall before Other on this still-familiar patch of ground. Maybe when we return, next time, that strange forest will be gone. I stand, shivering, and I wait for him. I hear the pipe dragging in the dark. I hear chuckling from around a hundred corners.

" _Here!" I shout. "Why not here?"_

A flashlight comes rolling down the street. Other wants me in the forest. He won't listen to me. That would give me too much control over the process. I understand, but I shout: "Next time in my apartment! Alright?"

I pick up the big flashlight-- thousands of candlepower in my hand-- and I enter the forest. I'm lost immediately. Lost and tripping. The trees are both tropical and coniferous, huge and small. An insane, unnatural forest that could never exist. I'm not enjoying myself at all. The adrenaline rush that usually is the precursor to pleasure feels much too real. Overwhelming. I won't quit on Other-- and risk never meeting again-- but I want this to be over. I stand under a massive redwood with a forked base and I watch the rain come down and I wait.

Let's get this over with.

From somewhere in the woods, a woman's voice: "The poor, confused man and the lengths he goes to to get cornholed in a dress. What a sick little trannie!"

I cock my head. Has Other been working on a new voice? Trying to sound like a woman? It's definitely weird, but no weirder than some of his other games. I listen. A new voice, younger, coquettish, from another corner of the woods: "Not trannie, Georgina. Crossie. That's what they like you to call them. The correct and respectful term for this breed of queer."

A third woman, behind me: "It's important to get your terminology right, Georgie. Otherwise, you risk being hurtful! You wouldn't call a homo a pederast, would you? Unless he happened to be good Catholic..."

Our Dance has been compromised. Somehow, these women have found their way in. Been allowed in. Is Other part of some religious cult? Has he confessed his sins and brought the church elders into the aartinet to confront me?

" _Thank you, Adriatica. You know how confused I get trying to keep track of all these different types of faggot. They need to come up with a cataloguing system..."_

It doesn't matter now. I have to evacuate the dream-- and that means losing Other, probably forever. We've both hidden our trails so well. I almost begin to wail, but there's nothing for it. I can't be identified here. I'd lose my livelihood. I have to go.

Emergency exit.

_In the back of my head a voice whispers:_ Are you sure you wish to exit experience? _Yes, I answer. Yes, goddamnit! I close my eyes and prepare for the chemical stink, the three-word conversation with Johnny Injun, the bitter disappointment and the huge, star-filled night._

Nothing happens. I'm still standing in the aartinet forest. I try again. Nothing.

" _That's not how rape works, dear," says the first woman. Georgina. I can see her now, standing in the beam of my flashlight. She's wearing Victorian garb: all black skirts and white apron and silly headdress. She's a dour, old thing and she's looking at me with disapproval. "Choice doesn't play a big part."_

Another woman steps out: slimmer, younger, face as sharp as an axe. Adriatica? She's dressed the same way. She says: "What you've been looking for, Miss, you haven't been getting. Not the real experience. The horror. The shame. Why, you've been enjoying yourself, you little slut! But we can help you with that."

A third voice, behind me. I whirl and here's the third woman: darker, foreign, but dressed the same. "You've been a hard one to track down, Wally. All that drugged sleep. You don't dream. Who doesn't dream? It can't be good for you. But we'll fix you. Fix you..."

I'm running. I've never run like this in a tank dream before, panicked, heart thudding, nearly blind, tripping over everything I come across. I'm down in under a minute and the three women are atop me. They're undressing me with expert hands. Their faces, half-moons under the scattered flashlight beam are leering. One of them has a rough, soapy rag she's using to clean the mud and sweat from my flesh. They're clucking their tongues and muttering as they work.

" _...unpresentable... unpresentable!"_

" _... what would they do without us, eh...?"_

" _... but we'll get her ready..."_

The last of the three has placed two fingers atop my clitoris and she's tapping it gently, saying: "There we are... There we are..."

They're holding me down, these horrid women, and both arms and legs are spread wide. My torso heaves off the wet ground again and again, but it's no good. The three women are terrifically strong. They're chanting above me and suddenly Other is standing there. Other has the face and body of George Morales. With his erect penis lying in his hand he says, "Hello, Mr. El Amin. No barbecue this time, I'm afraid."

Other is morphing into Handsome's description of la Bestia, the Beast, and it falls on top of me and a set of curved talons tears through the meat of my left shoulder and some stinking drool dribbles into my open mouth. The thing is forcing its great, bristling penis into me and next to my ear one of the women-- Adriatica or Georgina-- whispers: "We'll be right here with you the whole time, dearie. Fixing you. Don't feel too proud to scream."

I scream.

***

When it was over I floated, slack, in semiotic fluid. I wouldn't leave the tank. Maybe I couldn't. I kept imagining pulling myself out of the tank. Showering and putting on clothes. Trying to meet Jonathan Paraiya's eyes. Going out to where the sun was probably rising over the parking lot. Trying to have a normal day. Trying to get back to what? The investigation. Then I would start crying and my stinking mask would fog up and I would float, unthinking, for another hour.

I finally called Charlie.

Charlie sounded sleepy and a little irritated and, as always, I couldn't see her face. "What's up?" she asked. That familiar voice floating in the dark around me. A cough. "New developments?"

Then, when I hadn't said anything, and she'd a had a moment or two to check her windows, she continued: "Walid, this call isn't coming from the Batmobile or your HUD. Are you alright?"

I took a breath of piped air. I needed the air to talk. I needed a deep breath. But as soon as I took the breath, my shoulders began to quake and shudder and the air was shoved back out with a pathetic, trembling noise. I shook my head.

"Ok," she said. "Alright. You wait where you are, Walid." Her voice carried the calm of a battlefield medic. "I'm going to find you. Give me a few seconds, here..."

I took another ragged breath. She said: "A tank house in Jobs, Texas. And I bet I know which one. No SHUS+H footage of you, at least. Looks like you're paying the right people. Wally? Can you answer me? Are you in danger?"

"No," I managed. "I don't think so."

"Good. Do you need a hospital? Medical attention?"

"No."

"That's good, Wally. That's really good. But something bad happened to you. A bad dream?"

"Yes."

A pause, because that shouldn't be possible, but: "Really bad?"

"Yes."

"Mm," she said. "We're going to meet up, ok? I have a place I can take you. A good dream. I spent a lot of time there after we broke up. Is that ok?"

I thought for a moment about going back into the aartinet. I shivered. Then I thought about leaving the tank. Finally, I said: "Ok. Yes, ok."

"Go back down. I'm tagging you with a flare. I'll find you right away and I'll take you to this really nice tank dream. It's a registered site, alright? How does that sound?"

"Alright."

"You're going to be alright. You wait for me with that flare, ok?"

"Alright."

***

The sun is shining and the air is warm and the gentle breeze holds all the scents of summer. Charlie asked me if I wanted to talk and I shook my head, no, and now both of us have lost the gift of speech. We're covered in mud and we're rutting around, looking for truffles. When I find one, I pop it into my mouth and I roll my eyes up at the wide, blue sky and I chew and chew. It tastes wonderful.

Charlie is pushing against my side. It's the first physical contact I've had with her in many years. In this tank dream she's a big, white-spotted sow maybe double my girth. She snorts and her delicate nose snuffles about my face. She's trying to see how I'm doing. I nuzzle my head into her flank.

Much better, thank you.

We're in a therapy dream maintained by a non-profit. We're a pair of farm pigs: great big hogs. A brother and a sister. We're hunting for truffles and lounging in the heat. There's no way to abuse this dream; our pig bodies don't have sex organs. All there is to do is munch and lounge and play in mud and make grunting noises. I've decided to donate a huge amount of money to this organization before tax season. I have the feeling Charlie already does.

Now the sun is even higher in the sky. I'm feeling sleepy and well. Charlie has removed herself to the shady shelter covering a corner of our pen. I trot along after her. It occurs to me, suddenly, that Charlie is putting her entire schedule on hold so that she can be here, present, with me. She doesn't know why-- what's happened-- but here she is, giving comfort.

I nuzzle her belly. She grunts.

Charlie looks ready for a nap. It's not surprising: she may very well be on the other side of the planet. I may have woken her from a night of sleep. She's laid her big form up against a post and she's breathing, heavy and regular. Her long-lashed eyes are half closed. I press up, muddy and cool, against the interior of the crescent she's formed. I lie there, happy and fed, while the sun beats down outside our shelter and the flies buzz lazily out in the fields.

I close my eyes and heave a great, pig sigh and I lie next to Charlie. We rest atop the sweet-smelling hay and for a time, in that warmth, I forget.
Chapter 23

BUT THERE ARE LIMITS TO HOW LONG EVEN A SEMI-LEGAL OPERATION like the Lady of Delhi will let their customers float and dream, and by mid-afternoon I'd reached those limits. I ceased, abruptly, to be a pig and became a stinking, pruned man. The sky turned black, and then opened up, and Johnny Injun was staring down at me like an irritated, fluorescent god.

"Heart attack?" he asked.

"Lost track of time," I said. "That's all. Coming out now."

I usually don't use the showers in tank houses, but that afternoon I showered at the Lady of Delhi for nearly an hour. I showered until the water was cold. Johnny brought me a towel and I could tell he had his suspicions, but the man had worked in the business long enough: he didn't open his mouth. I tipped him cash and then I put on my clothes and checked my HUD.

Messages from Handsome Wally: my faceman wanted to switch out Morales' thotnode. He wanted the green light. No answer from me. My faceman had been talking to Morales this morning while I'd been floating, near comatose. He had news. No answer from me. My faceman was starting to get worried. There had been another Beast attack in Jobs. No answer from me. Where are you, Comb? Come in. There's only so much I can do, solo...

I'd been floating for maybe fifteen hours. I shook my head and spit in the parking lot of the Lady of Delhi. I sent Handsome a message letting him know I was fine.

Jesus! he replied, instantly. Where have you been? If you would let me talk to Charlie direct I would've asked her. You drop off the map and suddenly I'm alone. No instructions. I have to wing it. Just saying, you want me out here, winging it?

Busy, I sent. Instructions soon.

I sat in the heat of the Batmobile and I tried not to think. Then I realized the Batmobile had been sitting in this strip-mall parking lot for so long that even a SHUS+H agent on the take wouldn't be able to ignore it much longer. I told the Batmobile to take another drive down the highway. I went into the darkened back of the van and I opened up some helio windows. They circled my head, glowing softly. I saw through Morales' eyes. I saw through his wife's eyes. I saw his entire operation. I was looking into every room in his house. I watched his dog push its bowl across the living-room carpet.

"Back in control," I whispered to myself. "You're back in control, Wally."

A flash of memory: Morales' blank, altered face looming over me and the giggling of the three women holding me down and the raw ache. My asshole suddenly hurt. I slipped two fingers down my pants, fingering the edges of my asshole just like Jenny Morales. Everything was intact. Of course it was intact. But the ghost ache continued...

I breathed very slowly through circled lips so that I wouldn't begin crying again. "He didn't hurt you," I said. "He never once touched you. Not really. It wasn't different from any other time except it was longer. And those women. And you couldn't..."

I felt the vomit rise up into my mouth and I held it there. I swallowed it back down. I took another burning breath. "I'll kill him. I'll kill him. I'll end his career. Whatever the fuck he is. I'll ruin him." No more than a whisper to myself.

But George Morales didn't use AARTI 11 tanks. I'd never seen him enter one. How could Morales be Other if he didn't use tanks? How could he have...?

Seconds later, I was reviewing footage: every meeting that I'd scheduled with Other. What had Morales been doing during those hours?

The answer: sitting. I watched clip after clip. The mayoral candidate sat, legs crossed, hands folded, eyes closed. Conducting breathing exercises. He sat during those times when we dreamed, absolutely still. Not to be bothered. I looked back over weeks and there could be no doubt: Morales was Other. Our schedules matched perfectly. Somehow, he was entering the aartinet without a tank.

This time I did throw up. I filled the base of a little trash bin with whatever was left in my stomach and when I sat up I felt light headed. "I don't think you're a human being," I muttered. Then I said: "George Morales isn't fucking human."

Then I said it again.

But if Morales wasn't human, what was he? How could he pass so completely as human? A beige human, sure, but... what on earth could...

A response algo.

Wasn't that exactly what response algorithms were designed for? Fool the human consumer? Then... then... Morales was something like a Targeted Advertisement, repurposed. For what, though? Popularity?

Yes, exactly: popularity. The Morales algo was trying to become mayor of Jobs, Texas. Its purpose was to trick the citizens of a democratic system into voting for it. And then to lead them. Where? That was impossible to say, but this much seemed certain: no one was going to take orders from a helio sprite. Morales would need a body and a human background.

And what better place for that then Jobs?

I thought about Albert Iwanski's robotic arm. So realistic. So quiet. Manufactured right here in town. What if an entire body could be manufactured like that? Could NextSkel do it? Their products were world class: I never would have questioned the salesman's arm's authenticity until he showed me, himself. And Morales was no Big Al: he didn't make mistakes. Morales never even stood up from the toilet until all of his waste product was flushed away from sight.

I wondered suddenly: what did robot shit look like?

What if Jorge Morales-- the real Morales-- had died in quarantined Houston, after all? The records coming from reclaimed Houston were far from perfect-- and there were plenty of young people who had survived the Bug years only to overdose on Chuckle during their first months on the outside. With friends and family many years dead, it would provide the perfect cover for a replacement.

If that was true, then was George Morales Richard Sockwren's Mamluk? Was Morales' manufactured body the secret carrier of a sentient artificial intelligence, and the 'solution' he'd mentioned in the recovered HUDmails to Salar Erbedium?

And what about la Bestia? What about the miracle results we'd seen at Pastor Gardner's revival? How did those fit in? Were people being abducted?

Were people being replaced?

My breathing grew shallow. I needed something I could bring people. I needed something I could look at myself. Proof. By chance, one of my helio windows was open to Jenny Morales' long list of allergies: peanuts, bee stings, pet dander...

My glance stuck. Pet dander.

I brought up the helio feed of the Morales' living room. Here was their little dog-- what was his name? Jester. He was pushing his food bowl across linoleum. The way he always did. That same, exact, series of movements. I thought of mulebots transporting artillery across Central Asian mountain ranges.

And it occurred to me that Jester moved a little more jerkily than you would expect for an animal his size.

***

"You want me to what?" said Handsome Wally. "Sorry. No way. That's... outside of my job description, Comb. You're going full Carol Manera on me. Too much time down in the aartinet and now you want--"

"It's what I need," I said, trying to sound calm.

"Not even for what you're offering, Comb."

"I'll take care of everything. I already have the tool you'll need. In the Batmobile. I'll leave it by the house. No one will ever see you coming or going, but I need this now. Yesterday. I need this from you and then we need to get out of this goddamned city for good. And then you're famous. After today-- after _this one thing_ \-- you'll start seeing your face helioed in cities all across the country."

"Have you talked this over with Charlie, at least?"

Charlie. Charlie would believe me after I had the evidence. Not before. Before and she'd think I was cracking up. She might even try and stop me. "Charlie's sleeping," I said. "I left a message. By the time she wakes up, we'll have what we need. Proof."

"Can't we just switch out the thotnode?" Handsome Wally almost whined. "I'm ready whenever..."

"The thotnode?!" I almost shrieked. "Forget about the thotnode! We're _way_ beyond the thotnode! All it can tell us is what _he_ wants it to tell us! More lies! We need a little bit of truth, Handsome! We need to get down to the... into the _superstructure!"_

"But what about Eileen Patel? The pink? Those black dots? I talked to him while you were down in the tank, Wally. And... Jesus... if you would listen to what he has to say. I can't begin to tell you. You have the footage. See for yourself--"

"You talked to 'it,' Handsome. And I'm not listening to anything else it's feeding us. Oh, God. That must be why I was hired. To find anything they'd overlooked. Any obvious weak points. Because it's learning. Soon it'll be able to pass perfectly! That's why we have to move quickly. Why I need you to _do_ this..."

I couldn't see Handsome Wally's face over our connection, but these days I imagine it to be beautifully sad. He said: "I'm sorry, Comb. You know I can't. Watch the footage. Watch--"

I cut the connection with a curse.

***

Even if you've seen that famous footage-- and you probably have-- you're not going to like this next part.

***

Single mindedness was what was needed now: single mindedness and speed. I put the Morales' address into the Batmobile, and as my van rumbled through the beige suburbs, I disabled the Morales' home-surveillance system and every SHUS+H drone in the neighborhood. I peeked through George and Jenny's HUDs: Both at work. Good.

Now the Batmobile was stopped, idle, in the road immediately before the Morales' home. I moved to the large, red toolbox screwed into the floor of the Batmobile. I opened the box and found what I needed: the hammerhatchet I'd bought yesterday afternoon at the highway hardware store, hours south of Jobs. I thought about covering my face with a kerchief and decided against it: going in and coming out I wanted to look as natural as possible.

I exited the side of the Batmobile, slipping the hammerhatchet into the inside of my coat.

Knowing that they kept it locked, I didn't try the front door. Instead, I opened the gate that led into the backyard. I slipped into the house through one of the unlocked back windows. My heart was thudding but I felt very calm. I knew no one could see me. I knew...

"Walid?" Charlie's voice inside my head. She would be looking through my HUD. "Walid, what the fuck are you doing inside Morales' house?"

"He's a robot, Charlie," I said. "Advanced response software inside of a NextSkel body. Incredible, I know. But it explains everything, doesn't it? The perfect thoughts. The perfect feelings. The perfect man. Because he's not a man. He's an algo. An android. Beige."

"An android... Walid, what happened in your tank dream? Why did you call me this morning?"

"He raped me. George Morales raped me in my tank dream. He shouldn't have been able to. He was lying bed. But that's just it-- the Morales algorithm must be housed in some server farm. It's advanced enough, I bet it takes up some space. It controls the Morales body wirelessly and detaches from the body to roam the aartinet. That's why he meditates. The body is charging, the algo roaming. And I've never seen what his excrement looks like. Isn't that strange? He's nothing more than a Targeted Ad with a quiet, synthskin body. I say 'nothing more' but actually, these NextSkel bodies must be incredibly ad--"

"What are you doing in his house, Walid?"

"I need proof," I said. "Once I have proof--"

I spotted Jester. The Pit Bull was looking at me with its head cocked, gentle eyes curious. It was mostly white and pink but it had large brown-and-black spots covering its back and the top of its head. It was breathing noisily-- large snuffling noises with every breath-- but it didn't bark. At its feet lay the food bowl it was always pushing. "There," I said. "That's what I need."

"The dog?" Charlie's voice raised an octave.

"Just another NextSkel trick," I said. I kept my voice calm. "Jenny isn't allergic to it. She should be. C'mere Jester. C'mere boy! See how it moves? They still haven't gotten _that_ quite right."

"He's an old dog, Walid. Just an old--"

"Goodbye, Charlie," I said and I turned off both HUD and cochlear implant.

Jester came up to me and sniffed my hand. It certainly looked like a hairy old gentleman-- one who hadn't had enough spent on dental work. Its bottom teeth jutted out at all angles. Its breath was bad. It opened its mouth in a grin and its tongue fell out. "The state of the art," I whispered, watching its skin move. I placed my hand on the top of its head. The thing felt warm. Its stomach made a gurgling sound. I reached inside my jacket for the hammerhatchet. I raised my arm well above my head.

Jester stared at me calmly, not even flinching at the last moment as the blade of the hatchet went sinking into its skull. It made a little, doggy _hoof_ noise as air was forced out of its lungs and there was a pink and yellow spray I hadn't expected.

I had expected the skeleton to be more obviously metallic.

I began to dig into Jester. I assumed they'd designed it so that a casual investigation wouldn't reveal their handiwork. Smart. But deep within, I was certain, I would find the gleaming mechanisms which would prove, once and for all, what was so rotten in Jobs. So I pulled at skin and used the hammer side of my tool to open a wider hole in Jester's skull. I swore and muttered to myself. With the hatchet blade, I sliced a line in the dog's stomach, spilling pink and red and grey intestinal tract across the carpeted floor. I examined the sex organ (although Jester was neutered) and I pulled back that white-furred belly to look at the ribs. I dug and dug, placing more of the stinking, slick insides in a growing pile to the side of me. All I needed was a single glint of metal. "It has to be here," I said. "It has to be..."

Nothing but dead dog. More and more dead dog. When the last of him finally was scooped out, I began to cry.

That's how Jenny Morales found me-- weeping and stained up to my elbows next to a pile of Jester. She'd been checking up on her home-surveillance feed and found that it was down. Everything snow. So she'd driven out to check on things. I'd have had some warning if only I'd kept my HUD on. Instead, I heard the keys in the lock and the door swinging open and:

"Hello? Is somebody-- OH MY GOD JESTER MY LITTLE PUPPY! YOU MONSTER OH GOD YOU MONSTER!"

Through my tears I saw her vague shape and I knew I had minutes at most. She was screaming, but even so, she would be making emergency calls through her HUD: she was a task-oriented person and highly efficient. Not someone to be trifled with. I picked up my bloody tool and I advanced on her.

"I made a mistake," I said. "I'm sorry, but I'm not wrong about Morales. I'm not wrong and you know it. What did they offer you to lie next to that thing? To make love to it and treat it like a human? To marry it?" I blinked away tears and I saw her doughy face drawn back in terror, her tiny eyes widened as far as they could go, her slooping shoulders hunched like a menaced cat.

"Oh God," I said. "They didn't offer you anything, did they? Or Morales was the offer. Someone that beautiful, that important, programmed to love you, desire you, exclusively... Of course you played along..."

She screamed louder as I approached, and I raised the bloody hammerhatchet. She fell back, and then I was out the front door, heading towards the Batmobile. Behind me, Jenny Morales followed.

"MURDERER!" she screamed from the doorway. "KILLER! BEAST! IT'S THE BEAST! THE BEAST! LA BESTIA! I FOUND HIM! THE BEAST OF JOBS!"

Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted the reflective glint of metal I'd been so desperate to find in that dog's guts. It was coming from across the street, off a pair of HUD glasses worn by a woman. I squinted and recognized her at once: Julia Wu. Filming me and probably feeding the footage straight to _The Jobs' Report_ and _Google Amalgamated News Service_ and the _Associated Press_ and whoever else would take it. There was no time to open my HUD and stop her. But how had she known to be here, right when...?

"Handsome," I moaned. "You fucking Judas."

"LA BESTIA!" Jenny Morales howled, behind me. You can watch her in that infamous footage, pointing a single finger at a red-eyed, blood-stained Wally El Amin as he stumbles towards his van, killing weapon in tow. That same grotesque footage that landed Julia Wu her current role as _The Most Dangerous Game's_ post-rampage reporter.

Jenny Morales' final howl: "HE BROKE INTO MY HOUSE! KILLED MY DOG! MUTILATED MY DOG! OH! THE BEAST! THE BEAST! THE BEEEEEEEAAAST!"

Part 3: Unlock The Potential Inside YOU!

Chapter 24

AFTER I FLED THE CITY OF JOBS—BARELY ESCAPING with my hands bloodsoaked, my mind frenzied by apocalyptic fear, and my good name smeared by _Google Amalgamated News Service_ \-- I spent long months wandering the quieter quarters of the world: those blank squares of brown earth where electronic eyes are not so common and are easier, in any case, to circumvent. It was during this time that I began reading-- at first as distraction and then with care and finally, obsessively-- the archived thoughts of Cowgirl Lacey Molloy.

***

But first, I ran.

The afternoon that I killed Jester I headed north, past Lubbock and Amarillo, into the midwestern desert. There were Carolite camps and watering holes out there, I knew, and the wide emptiness of the desert meant that SHUS+H surveillance was sparse. My blinds over the SHUS+H drones in Morales' neighborhood had held long enough to slow the police response. By morning, Albert Iwanski would have told the police about Brother Jacob Malt, but for those first key hours of escape no one knew even the cover identity of the Morales' intruder, where he was from, or where he might be going.

Unfortunately, I had other problems. Minutes after Julia Wu released the grisly footage of me lumbering towards my van like Bigfoot the Serial Killer, someone had released a complete expose on Walid El Amin: His Life and Works. In under half an hour, every news amalgamator in North America was having an orgy atop the corpse of my career. Now I had serious enemies-- the powerful friends and relatives of scores of people I'd humiliated over nearly two decades. Worse, this same someone had locked me out of my own systems. I couldn't reverse-Snowden the rest of the datacomber community. I couldn't bring everyone else down with me. I couldn't even reach my own files or backups concerning George Morales. They'd all been wiped clean. I was flying blind.

There was only one person with the skillset-- and access to my systems-- to make all of this happen. I called her. No answer. She wouldn't answer. I left messages. I pleaded. I screamed. I left mad, rambling monologues.

No more Charlie.

A dust storm covered the moon somewhere in the early hours of the morning. It came up out of the desert, a giant blanket. My headlights stopped giving me more than a foot of visibility. I pulled over to the side of the road and stopped the engine. I turned off the headlights. I lay my chair back in the dark and listened to the wind scrape pinpricks into every corner of the Batmobile. I realized, for the hundredth time, that everything was over and that I was ruined. It was no less surprising the hundredth time-- but I was very tired now. Unbelievably tired.

I slept, then, without Dormirozine. I had my first natural dream in years, and it went like this:

I was sitting in an old, single-room schoolhouse, working on a math formula with a bit of chalk. I was alone in the quiet, creaking place except for the teacher. I recognized her: she was one of those who had held me down for Morales. The axe-faced woman, Adriatica. Now she was dressed in a schoolmarm outfit, complete with bonnet, and staring at me with disapproval. She was clucking her tongue. Maybe I was being a naughty student? But I felt calm.

Adriatica was saying: "Well, well, well! Look who has finally deigned to grace us with his presence. Walid the Dog Killer. Walid the Beast."

"That's not how this works," I said. "You're overstepping what you're allowed, Nanny. No coercion. No tricks. We come to this place on equal terms and you will respect them or risk contractual default. And another thing: my name's Wally."

Adriatica looked pouty for a moment. "You know I only want what's best for you, Wally."

"Sure," I said. "You have no skin in the game at all."

"But the way you've been behaving is just ghastly."

"And you had nothing at all to do with that."

She seemed to think for a moment. She said: "You're something like a rabbit or a prairie dog. Aren't you, Wally? A burrowing animal. A little beastie. Only now you've been flushed out into the open and all your burrows filled with cement. How awful it must be for you! You know, I can help you. We can help you. The job you love still needs doing and we've been hunting for... real professionals. This doesn't have to be the end of your story, Wally."

I laughed and turned my back on her. I walked between the spartan desks of the schoolhouse, listening to the creak of my footsteps on unplaned wood. I said: "This is how you do it, isn't it? How you're doing it. You come to people when they're at their weakest. At wits' end. And that's when you make your offer."

"That's one of the ways we do it," said Adriatica. "Would you like to hear the offer?"

I turned to face her. "Yes, of course I would. I'm on the run. At wits' end. I need help."

She made her pitch in great detail-- stopping whenever I asked for even-greater detail; never pushy, never condescending-- and when she was done she waited without speaking. She let me think about it.

"No, thanks," I said.

"Nothing?" she asked. "Not even a bit? We can do it in installments..."

"Nothing," I said. "Not one one-millionth of this do I agree to."

She shrugged and said: "I'll be here tomorrow night if you change one one-millionth of your mind. Or Georgina will. Or Victoria. We'll always be here for you, Wally."

She turned and climbed out the window and I watched her walk off into the woods. I sat in the schoolhouse for a while after that, listening to birds, until the forest crept in and swallowed the building and I was returned to the confused realms of sleep.

***

I woke up the next morning, Batmobile still surrounded by blowing sand, my HUD pinging. Dick Sockwren wanted to talk. I answered. This time there wouldn't be any constatainment playing when we spoke. No games. The helio window popped into existence on my windshield and a HUDless Sockwren in business casual looked in on the clutter of my van. He looked rested and groomed and his killer's eyes looked amused for the first time I could remember. The skyline behind him might have been Manhattan. He was sitting behind a tidy desk on the sixtieth or seventieth floor.

"Well, hey there, Blade Runner!" he said. "How are we feeling this morn--" He paused. "Wally, have you still got dog on you? Disgusting, man! Clean yourself!"

"Not a lot of water out here," I said, glancing out at the whirling storm. Then: "I know what you're doing in Jobs, Sockwren. Replacing people with automatons. I went to a revival. I saw it. I don't know why you're doing it or why you had me look into it, but when the police take me in I'm telling everyone the truth--"

"No," said Sockwren, shaking his head. "You don't know what's going on. If you had any idea, you wouldn't have scalped poor, old Jester." He licked his lips and studied me: "You were looking for parts, right? Maybe a gear shaft in his hips? Some microchips in his skull? It's my fault, Wally. I should have foreseen it. You had quite a few of the pieces, but you made a leap for the _Twilight Zone_ answer. The Ray Bradbury answer. We live in a more-nuanced age, Comb. I thought you'd be the man to appreciate that. It's good news, technically, but still somehow disappointing."

"The dog was a mistake," I said. "An awful mistake. He didn't deserve that. He wasn't one of them..."

"Oh, sure he was," said Sockwren, rubbing his temple. "And so are you. And so am I."

I didn't have an answer for that. I stared into the helio as white and grey and yellow dust swirled across the outside of the windshield.

"Have you ever read any Isaac Asimov, Wally? I'm thinking of his masterwork, _Foundation and Empire_."

"No," I said. "And what does that have to do with any--"

"Then you don't know who the Mule is. And so how can you begin to understand the Mamluk?"

"Morales," I said. "Morales is your Mamluk. Your slave who rises to be king. Your perfect tool we'll elect to rule us."

"Oh Wally!" said Sockwren. "It's like watching a five-year-old try to assemble a jigsaw puzzle at the adults' table! The pieces are all there, but--"

"I'm done," I said, reaching to flip off the helio.

"I'm the Mamluk!" cried Dick Sockwren. "Now let's begin, shall we?"

***

Three days ago, ladies and gents, another massacre was prevented. Another one! As for this one? I'm sure it wouldn't have been very much of a massacre-- twelve or fifteen young souls at most-- but even so, it was prevented. Lives were saved. All without the intervention of SHUS+H or the police. Cost to the taxpayer? Zero dollars and zero cents.

We should always be so lucky!

Lawrence Zelaney, thirty-seven, of reclaimed Houston, was the man who failed to become our country's newest monster. Not that he hadn't planned it all out! In his interview with Julia Wu, Zelaney admitted to having: the layout of his son's kindergarten downloaded to his HUD; his manifesto scripted; photos of the guards and teachers and children he would be targeting; two AR-15s; several smoke grenades; bandoliers filled with enough ammo to hold out against Waco-style assault; the serial numbers of the school's SHUS+H drones; his HUD set to feed live carnage to _The Most Dangerous Game_ ; a picture of his son to be worn in his breast pocket like a talisman; his last words to this same son scripted; and, some powerbars in case everything took longer than expected.

A few lines from his released manifesto, just to put ourselves in Zelaney's old headspace:

...was a data-entry clerk for EmotiEnterprises' regional office. Never made good money but I worked hard and we got by. Then I was replaced. The whole department was replaced by a single algo and we're out. Seventeen months unemployed and looking. And looking. Seventeen months. I don't go out. I don't talk to people, because the first thing people always want to know is: 'What do you do?' I work odd jobs. I work on my resume. I practice interviews in the mirror. I hunt for work.

But I'm done now. All done. Done promising miracles in group interviews with a hundred other poor jackoffs, never to get a call back. Done avoiding people's eyes. Done begging Janet's dad for money so that I can take Alex to the zoo when he comes to stay with me. Done being judged by his teachers. I hear them talking about me. Deadbeat. I hear them. Finally, when Alex met me after school that day, crying-- and he wouldn't tell me why-- I decided: 'Hallelujah, I'm done!'

We always have a choice in this world. Sometimes it's a terrible choice, but we have it. Terrible freedom. I've finally found the courage to embrace it...

In other words, Zelaney was committed. He was going to deliver mass murder and even feel justified about it.

And then the most unexpected thing happened: the morning of his planned spree he woke up, had a cup of coffee, and, in his own words: "I just felt a lot better about things. More confident. Like, somebody had changed the prescription on my eyeglasses-- only for my brain! I was able to see my situation clearly for the first time in months, and I said to myself: 'Holy cow, Larry! What did you almost do? Your son, your little boy, and all those innocent kids...'"

In the interview with Wu, released yesterday, this is where Lawrence Zelaney starts crying. He shows the audience the Colt pistol he was going to use to execute his son-- the same gun he'd planned to use a few hours later to commit suicide. He shows the audience everything. It's a strange phenomenon, these repentant almost-killers, and _The Most Dangerous Game_ has been covering it in earnest. These days, during the post-rampage report, Julia spends a lot more time interviewing relieved-looking men than grieving family. But the _Game_ has to find a new route: there just aren't as many killing sprees as there used to be.

It's funny that all the non-killers are such talkers, though. Don't you think, ladies and gents? A normal man-- and I understand that these are _far_ from normal men, but-- a normal man, finding himself standing on the brink of something like that, well... he'd hide what he'd almost done. Don't you think? He'd destroy his HUD files and burn the printout of his manifesto and-- who knows?-- maybe even sell his guns. He'd hide that horror from the whole world. He'd hide it from himself. Not these guys! These guys confess before the whole world and weep, live, on constatainment. We keep hearing about these tragedies that never came to pass!

It's almost as if someone's bragging.

***

My hand paused in front of the helio window. It wouldn't move. I didn't want it to move. Had I been trying to turn off my call from Sockwren? I stared at Sockwren.

I was in love with Richard Gordon Sockwren. It came over me like a thunderclap, fully cliche. I nearly peed myself in surprise. Sockwren? But there it was: his blue eyes, his hawk nose, his firm mouth. Even the way he was smirking at me. I loved his smirk. I would do anything for him. He was a winner and I wanted to win. I wanted to suck his cock. I couldn't pull my eyes away from him. That would hurt so much, to look away, to be separated...

"Why didn't you show me sooner?" I asked. "For you, I would have... I might have..."

I stopped myself. I didn't want my voice to dip into a whine. I didn't want him to hear that from me. There was such a slim chance-- such a tiny chance-- that he could ever feel for me what I felt for him. It would never happen if he heard me whine. I wouldn't destroy our future together. I wouldn't. I wiped the tears from my eyes, careful not to break eye contact.

"We needed an unaltered party," he said. "Do you understand? A designated driver. We needed a datacomber of your caliber to take a good, hard look at the situation. Run a fine-toothed comb through the situation and tell us about ourselves. About our man. Look into our souls with eyes unclouded and show us... areas of improvement..."

"I love you," I blurted out, and felt my brown cheeks darken. "I love you so much..."

"I know," said Sockwren. "I'm going to let up on the gas, now. Ready?"

I wasn't. I watched the otherworldly beauty drain from Sockwren's face. I remembered my words of moments earlier and couldn't understand them. I had a terrible headache. I wanted to vomit.

"The fuck..." I managed. I tried to move my hand to the helio. I tried to cut the connection. My hand stayed put. "What did you..."

"I flipped you," said Sockwren. "Congratulations! You've just joined the winning side. I like to start off with an adrenal flood. It accomplishes our main task, quickly: gets you feeling buddy buddy with me."

"I wanted to suck your dick..."

"Yep. And you would've, too! But don't worry, Wally, I won't abuse our new friendship. We've got important work to do! Now that you're with us, I've got to get you up to speed. We need a man with your abilities."

"How are you able...?"

"A good place to start! It's too bad you haven't read Asimov. The Mule of his _Foundation_ trilogy was one of his most-infamous characters; a mutant with the ability to control minds, a little acrobat of a man with the desire to shape the very course of civilization. But Asimov let his nineteen-fifties show in the writing. Here we have the Empire of Man, a high-technology, spacefaring civilization... and yet the Mule controls the minds of his followers through a mutation. A mutation! You read that these days and it feels kitschy. Childish. That blind biology, rather than concerted technology, would ever deliver up such a tool!"

I studied the red whorls on my hands. I said: "You're telling me you're not a mutant. How are you doing this, then?" I looked up, suddenly. "Project Alexander..."

"You're getting warmer, Wally! But Project Alexander would've killed us all. Trying to contain something like the Horto Virus? Insane. HardRain's scientists never established control over more than ninety-seven point two percent of the viral capsids they worked with. In every trial they ran, at least two percent of those capsids slipped their reins: _mutated_ into something that wouldn't respond to coded instruction from their nannies. You know what that means in a hundred percent of scenarios? Worldwide pandemic, Wally. And so I've ended Project Alexander. Destroyed the last frozen samples of the Horto Virus. Our Panacea doesn't need it."

I thought: nannies?

Sockwren continued: "Even if Alexander had worked, it would have been totally inefficient. Think about it: you'd need a huge state apparatus to constantly monitor every one of your citizens' thoughts. And then? So you don't like what someone's thinking? So you release Old Horto to melt their insides? Well, now you've lost a worker and a taxpayer and-- I hate to break it to you, Idi Amin-- but people are still going to think what they're going to think! Aren't they? They can hardly help themselves!"

He stared at me, as though readying his eyes to bore through flesh and bone: "Unless. Unless you _improve_ people. Unless you help them improve themselves! Forget the threat of violence. Forget coercion. Those are unnecessary. Superfluous. When we already have machines small enough to interact with viral capsids... couldn't we have them interact directly with the brain, instead? Trigger certain electrochemical responses and halt others? And so I made a proposal to my superiors at HardRain..."

And I thought: nano.

Something happened inside of me. Something slipped. Sockwren seemed to grow. He darkened and became all hard angles and cruelty. Terror took hold of me and I emptied my bladder. I felt the urine spray across the insides of my jeans and I whispered: "Oh, please, sir. Oh God, oh Christ, I'm so sorry. Forgive me, sir, forgive please forgive..."

The fear faded. Now the fresh smell of piss had joined the stench of body odor and dog blood-- and my heart continued to drum in my chest. I said: "The nannies. They're in my brain. That's how you're doing it. Nanotechnology, right? Somehow, you have a direct connection to... nanomachines in my brain. You're able to-- what? Manipulate my brain. Force me to feel things."

"Not just you," said Sockwren. "The nannies are in everyone's brain now. Every person on the planet. That was the lesson we took from Project Alexander: a microscopic invasion using viral vectors. The nannies sit amongst us-- within us; ready to serve-- and they have for months, now. Since before you ever heard the name George Morales. The nannies are going to help us, Wally. Improve us. All we have to do is ask..."

"I'm not asking," I said, still trying to move my hand. My dream of the night before-- my discussion with Adriatica-- was growing clearer.

"No, you're not, which is too bad. If you knew what awaits, you'd be begging! But the ego is stubborn; it won't be cast aside so easily. I'll admit it: that's one of the nannies' shortcomings, hardwired in by Nguyen and Waslowski. Those two always were obsessed with freewill. "A system of human improvement which will not function without the user's initial and ongoing consent." That's how we sold it to them. The nannies were going to be a mental-health tool. They were going to help with depression and anxiety and substance abuse and gambling addiction and overeating and stu-stu-stuttering. Our Panacea. That's how we hooked our twin world-historical figures. Our micro-roboticist and our neurologist and their teams of PHDs. And, of course, those people would never work for a weapons contractor-- those buyers of local, organic produce; no atom-splitters, they!-- so before approaching them, I had to leave HardRain in an official capacity and find other work. Work that would let me move around, talk to all kinds of people. Make things happen from the sidelines." Sockwren winked at me. "Advertising, baby."

I said: "Then you brought these two into NextSkel Solutions..."

"Well, I certainly recommended them for their positions! I had a really pleasant lunch with Jared Chang, NextSkel's R&D czar. Little coincidence? Chang's another veteran of HardRain. Lots of industry crossover, actually."

I thought of those three women holding me down in the woods as rain poured down around us and that thing... that stinking thing atop me....

"Are you the man who raped me in my tank dream?"

Sockwren held up his hands. "You mean repeatedly? At agreed-to times over the past several months?" He shook his head: "That's a weird thing you're into, Comb. Quite a kink you've got. But the nannies can fix it! You know that? The nannies can give you normal sexual desires... or even take away your sex drive completely! We've had lots of people opt for that! It's freeing--"

"Were you my Other?"

"No, Walid. No. That was our man from the beginning. George Morales. The guy is maybe the greatest politician the world has ever known. He's given more of himself to the nannies than any of us. He basically exists to reflect whatever people want from him. A mirror of desire. So he did that goofy stuff with you. And you've seen him with that wife of his: the ultimate servant of the people."

I thought of Other, holding me in the sun-filled room minutes after he'd murdered me. So gentle. So patient and kind. I said: "Why?"

"He was curious about you, Wally. We knew, a few months back, that you'd be the one we hired to look into Morales. Look into his head. So he wanted some time with you, first. We tracked down where you like to go-- our people are no slouches, either-- and we sent him in. The nannies give him an anonymous, wireless connection to the aartinet. No more tanks, Wally. Just another benefit the nannies bring us."

"But there in the forest. Those women. The Beast. What happened?"

Sockwren sighed. "Yeah. I'm sorry about that, Wally. We never intended for that to happen. But you got him riled up about that girl from back in the plague days. So he... well, you were there. We're still working out a few of our own kinks."

"La Bestia." I said.

"La Fucking Headache is what they should call it. As hard as they tried, neither Nguyen or Waslowski ever could give the nannies a permanent edge over that thing. That portion of the psyche. And so what chance do their successors have? But we try. And, meanwhile, the Beast roams inside of each of us."

"The UuSD's," I realized. "Unconscious Underlying Survival Directives."

Sockwren nodded. He tapped the back of his head. "They're buried deep. But they can pop up anywhere and at any time. The worst times. Like a terrorist cell hiding in every one of us. And there's no working with them. Like reasoning with a tornado or a scream. There's your Beast. It temporarily slaves any nearby nannies-- because the influence, we've found, can work both ways-- and uses them to flood every piece of nearby surveillance equipment. Then it goes to work. Your buddy, Handsome Wally? If you could have seen him the night of the 'attack' you would have seen him walking out to the balcony and then jumping through the glass door. Using the broken glass to cut himself. Beat the shit out of himself. Of course, that's not the way he remembers it-- and those unaffected nannies nearby recognize the Beast at work. They send warnings to their hosts to stay away until the thing can be brought under control: that's why you get all these people who report seeing Jack the Ripper or the Joker or their ex-husband. It's their nannies activating the brain's fear imagery: a waking dream."

I stared at the advertising executive. You almost had to applaud him. He had taken this, the most sophisticated piece of hardware ever developed-- and he'd created a working language which reduced it to the level of mythos. That, I thought, took a Masters in Business Administration and a real set of cojones.

I said: "How did you get to be so special? If these two developers were so obsessed with free will? How come they gave you the skeleton key to the mind?"

"Yes," said Sockwren, looking almost sheepish. "I won't lie to you, Wally. I don't need to. After today, you're going to adore me. Period. So, I'll tell you: I used the oldest trick in the book. I became Lydia Waslowski's lover." He sat up straighter. "It was natural enough: I was a common guest of NextSkel's R&D department, a personal friend of Dr. Chang's. And personally interested in their developments because of my leg. That poor, brilliant woman-- she worshipped the ground I walked on! For a while, I'm sure, I had her thinking I was the answer to all her prayers! And you know what? She still wouldn't give me what I wanted! Even as we saw the Panacea's potential grow and grow: Tissue breakdown and regeneration! Cures for neurological disorders!

"And then we watched, over and over, cases where the sick and the mad-- the very people who needed our help most-- refused their treatment! Refused the help we could give them! And, still, she wouldn't budge! She loved me, absolutely-- trusted me, totally-- and refused me what I wanted! Needed! It was... it made me so..."

Sockwren composed himself. "So I waited. Dr. Nguyen was a brilliant specialist in his own right, but only Lydia Waslowski could give me privileges with the nannies. So I waited until we had a full, working prototype-- the thousands of microscopic machines needed to create a hive network in a single human being. And now, Wally: who do you think our test subject was?"

I didn't hesitate: "Morales."

"Finally!" cried Dick Sockwren. "You got one! This was about ten years ago, right after the quarantine went down. We sent a staff psychiatrist-- a man named Flotsam-- into one of the reclamation centers going up in Houston. We needed someone hurting. Someone without a family. Flotsam counselled hundreds of Bug Orphans out there and he brought us back the most damaged young man he could find. The perfect Subject Zero. Our Jorge."

Sockwren swivelled in his chair, providing a profile of his face and revealing more of the cityscape behind him. His hands were bridged. "That kid was basically feral when I met him. You know he tried to bite my face? Seriously. He shifted between comatose and psychopathic. And Eileen Patel? He wouldn't shut up about her. When he could talk, anyway. 'My wife,' he called her.

"'My dead wife,' was more like it. He was a hopeless case. Worse than useless: dangerous to himself and others."

"And you fixed him right up," I said. "Turned him beige. Gave him his businesslike confidence."

"Turned him beige, huh? That's good. That's what you want to call it? We turned him beige..."

"That's right."

Sockwren swivelled to face me: "We made that boy a human BEING again!" He slammed his fist down on the desk. "We brought him back from the fucking void that swallowed Nietzsche whole! You want to lecture me? Like you and Carol Manera are the only authorities on what it means to be human? He begged us, Wally! He BEGGED us to take away his pain! To help him forget! His family? That fucking girl? They were chains around his neck! You could see it in his shoulders: they were dragging him down with them! Down into death! We performed-- we ACCOMPLISHED-- what the motherfucking BUDDHA couldn't: we freed our fellow traveler from his terrible suffering! And we're going to do it again and again and again, until every last one of you miserable sons of bitches is free!"

I felt myself being moved. I didn't fight the sensation. I let myself be swept up in Sockwren's words. I felt tears forming in my eyes and rolling down my cheeks.

"There's no alternative to this, Comb. I hope you see that. The old systems are breaking down. Democracy? Tyranny? Free-Market Capitalism? Guided-Market Capitalism? They've reached the ceiling of what they can do for us. We have deserts spreading across the developed world. We have resource shortages. We have war coming to us from across the Pacific. We-- all of us, every country on this planet and now most of your everyday religious fanatics-- have weapons that can kill millions. And how long until one of us decides to just go for it? And how many years until another SuperBug? The stakes just keep rising, and meanwhile? We're the same, old monkeys that barely figured out how to beat nuts open with rocks. We're Cain and we're Abel, still at each other's throats after all these years. We're watching ourselves get gunned down weekly on constatainment and we're cheering on the gunner. The Carolites see it. I saw the same thing in Central Asia and coastal California: we're living in the end times, friend!"

Sockwren smiled, filling me with light. "So the nannies chose me. They chose me, Wally. Once they were far enough along-- once they had developed intelligences that were very nearly sentient-- they saw what they were up against with us. They saw what a labor it would be to drive the madness from us. To force into our hands the peace we deny ourselves! They knew, better than Nguyen or Waslowski, that there could be no half measures with us. We need to be as one, Walid. The whole human race needs to be as one.

"That's our only option for survival. The bush has grown wild in all directions and needs to be trimmed. We need to grow up to meet the demands of our toys. And then... and then... well, imagine it, won't you? What we could do-- what we could achieve-- with a single guiding hand! A single purpose! We'll sail across the stars! And if we meet anyone out there, we'll free them, too! And I'm making you part of that! You're going to help us!"

Sockwren tilted his head: "But I'm curious. Have I sold Wally on our future? What does he think?"

I felt his influence dropping away. This jealous deity! He was giving me my head so that I could come to him by my own choice. Now, wondering if they would be the last free words I ever spoke, I said: "It sounds wonderful. The only problem with it, Dick, is that it's slavery."

The man who called himself Mamluk looked as though he wanted to spit. Than he shrugged and said, more slowly: "But I'm curious. Have I sold Wally on our future? What does he think?"

And this time, with tears of joy in my eyes, I said: "Yes! Yes yes yes! Thank you for this opportunity, sir! Thank you. Thank you! You're not going to regret this. I'll bleed for you, sir. We're going to change things for the better! Oh, Thank you..."

Chapter 25

AND WHAT GOOD NEWS WE'VE BEEN GETTING THESE PAST NINE MONTHS! Everyone really seems to be coming around. Coming to their senses. Acting like grownups. You can hear it on the radio and watch it on constatainment. The Chinese have pulled their fleet away from Japan and signed a treaty of friendship. The rumblings of war have died down to a distant whisper. The Pan-Asian League has turned its focus from expansion and annexation to consolidation and administration. And it turns out they're pretty decent administrators! Needed infrastructure is going up from Kabul to Ho Chi Minh City. Instead of soccer stadiums and gilded monuments, they're building roads and silos for the storage of grains. They're building water-treatment plants. Living standards are improving for billions of people. The local governments are willing participants. Everyone, it seems, is happy with the situation. There is very little violence against PAL troops. Very little malice held for the conquerors.

They say there is very little corruption in the new territories.

And in our own country? You could argue things have never been better! Have you watched CSPAN lately? It's wonderful! All these millionaires shaking hands and smiling and working together for the common good. Passing sensible legislation that benefits everyone. No one denying the spreading midwestern deserts any longer; everyone thinking of ways to fix the problem, reclaim this arable land. I've watched a lot of CSPAN lately. I haven't heard any name calling in months! One by one, our elected officials are getting on board.

Homelessness is down. When was the last time you saw a homeless person? And there were whole camps of them-- practically cities-- stretching along our highways only months ago! They've all disappeared. Do they have jobs now? Did they march into the sea? In any case, the highways are empty. The tents are gone. These thoughtful homeless even cleaned up after themselves!

But I would argue, generally, that we're all becoming more professional. When was the last time you heard a child talk back to a parent? Think about it. When was the last time some asshole blasted his terrible music on the subway? I've got you there, don't I? It's hard to remember. And there are certainly fewer tattoos than there used to be. Tattoos-- like homelessness and shouting and diabetes and childhood hunger-- just seem to be disappearing!

And everyone is taking such good care of themselves! Have you seen the crowds of morning joggers? The women and men bicycling to work? And here's another piece of good news: criminal reoffense rates are down all over the country. Our jails have, at last, become tools for positively transforming lives!

Constatainment's been a little slow, lately, but you can't argue with progress, can you? And who can complain?

***

Two months ago in Spokane, Washington, Nicolas Davlenik went down on his knees in front of Cowgirl Lacey. His hands were clasped together and he was wringing them. He looked like a prehistoric man kneeling before a stone deity, begging for rain. There were tears in his brown eyes and bags under them and his eyelids were puffy. He'd taken his HUD off. Outside, the October wind whipped between hundred-year-old buildings.

They were in Carol Manera's petition room on the top floor of the old bank tower. It was the only way Lacey would see the ad man. Months earlier, outside the gates of the city, he'd screamed at her, cursed her, called her lower than a worm. He'd finally ripped up a copy of her contract in front of her and it had been a relief.

And now he was here, begging.

"The dreams," he said, as Carol Manera, Horace Flotsam, and a room full of petitioners looked on. "I can't stop them. I can't... somehow I'm not able to talk about them... and I can't stop them. But you? You've figured out a way. I know, because I've been following your thoughts. Following quite a bit..." He laughed. "They, um, let me go. Arthur:Blair did. They cited a 'lack of professionalism in the workplace.' Lack of professionalism! But there are changes happening at Arthur:Blair. Changes happening all over. And I also wasn't 'open to change.' Hah! Not like that, I'm not. Never like that..."

The ex-ad man glanced at Dr. Horace Flotsam and shivered like a nervous rat.

"You know I was relieved when they did it? When I got canned? I thought maybe the dreams would stop. But they didn't and they won't and when I tell people about them... oh God... When I told my _wife_ about them she looked at me with this blank... totally blank eyes, empty as chicken eyes... and she said to me: 'What are you talking about, dear? Dreams? That's silly. Everyone's doing great. You're the only one who's unhappy. You _make_ yourself unhappy.' And I knew, then, that they got her."

His voice broke, but he plowed forward: "She told me I was the only one. That's what they want you to think. That you're the only one unhappy with things, so you might as well lie down and get with the program. But I'm not the only one. I know that because of you, Lacey. You've got God or the Beast or whatever it is in your head and it's stronger than most peoples'-- more awake-- and it fights them to a standstill. You've kept me going for months now.

"But I finally did it, I left her, because she's not the woman I married: she quit smoking cold turkey and now she bakes bread. She got the fucking breadmaker out of the closet and she uses it! She bakes fucking bread! And she does yoga stretches in the morning and snacks on carrots and hasn't looked this good since I met her. And at first I convinced myself that it was great! Or, at least, that I sure could get used to it. But I work-- worked-- in advertising, didn't I? And I know it when I see it. My wife the Targeted Ad. Everything she does aimed to please me somehow and it's... more of a nightmare than I ever would have believed!

"And now I'm here and I want you to train me. That's what you keep thinking, isn't it? That all of us have a Beast in us and we can use it. Train it. And we can fight. Achieve some kind of balance, at least...

"So train me, Cowgirl Lacey. Forgive me for the man I was and train me. Help me get my wife back. Or, at the very least, to save my own soul. Please."

And Lacey Molloy, two months ago, wiped the tears from Nicolas Davlenik's cheeks and looked down at him with eyes clear of Chuckle. She frowned and said: "You were a real bastard to me, Nicky, but I guess it's water under the bridge. I'm not promising anything easy..."

"I commit myself! I do!"

"...but you'll pick it up. I'm glad you're with us. You'll be alright."

And she thought it, too.

***

Back in the Batmobile, months earlier, Dick Sockwren was saying: "I'm the only Mamluk, Wally-- the only person who can wake the nannies in another's brain-- and that's the way it has to be! We can't have another. Can't have kinks in the chain of command. But it does present us with certain problems. We're still in the early stages of our Panacea. There's a whole world to conquer and I can't very well be everywhere at once, can I?"

"So you're being strategic," I said. "Right? You're bringing in thought leaders and constatainment-industry people and weapons makers and celebrity chefs and politicians and star quarterbacks and priests and school-board members and lawyers. You're converting them, first."

"And SHUS+H, of course," said Sockwren. "We need those eyes in the sky. We have most of their leadership, so far, and certain agents monitoring interests close to our heart. And now we have you, Comb."

"Yes," I said. "I'll be a big help-- maybe a game changer if we're as early into all of this as you say-- but... what now? I want to help, sir, but I'm in sort of a pickle..."

The very words I used: 'sort of a pickle.' I was sitting in the middle of a Kansas dust storm, Snowdenned and separated from my resources and hunted by the police, my hands covered in dried animal blood. I smelled like piss. But I remember being eager to help this man with whatever he asked. I remember wondering, for a moment, how many cop cars the Batmobile could ram through before I was forced to get out and walk.

"We have people in the local police department," said Dick Sockwren. "We'll have you surrender to them and they'll bring you underground. They'll sneak you to us and we'll set you up with a new Batcave-- everything you ask for-- while the public forgets about this thing with the dog. We'll bring you back out in a year or two. By then, there won't be very many people who still care."

"Thank you, sir," I said.

"First, though, we need to make the conversion permanent. I can't be standing over your shoulder for the rest of your life. So, this is what you're going to do, Wally. You're going to start counting sheep. You're going to go to sleep-- I'll be right here humming lullabies-- and when you meet those ladies in the schoolhouse, you're going to answer 'yes.' You're going to sign away as much of yourself as you can. Give them as many seashells or dreidels or marbles or drachmas as they ask for! And when you wake up, everything's going to be gravy..."

Then Richard Gordon Sockwren, Senior Vice President of Arthur:Blair Targeted Advertising, really did start singing lullabies-- beautiful, sad, slow songs. He must have had a book of them. He sang like an angel. Or, at least, I thought he did. And I felt myself totally at peace. I was a child again and felt myself sinking... sinking... forever... beaten and happy for it...

Beaten and happy...

***

A shrieking guitar tore the Batmobile's interior speakers to shreds. A man's voice: "TWO! MINUTES! TO MIIIIIIIIIDNIGHT!"

"Huh?" I said. My eyes were open. My hands clamped down over my ears.

"The fuck?" said Dick Sockwren over the helio. He'd stopped singing. "The fuck?"

"TWO! MINUTES! TO MIIIIIIIIDNIGHT! THE HAAAAAANDS THAT THREATEN DOOOO-OOOOM!"

Now Charlie's voice, from everywhere: "That's the problem with guys like you, Dick. You overvalue administrators. You pay them too much, give them too much authority, brainwash them first. You should have zombified more technical personnel. People who understand how this stuff-- stuff like helio connections-- actually work."

The Mamluk's eyes widened visibly over the helio window. "Have you been...? Has she been listening the entire--"

"Yes," said Charlie. "Ciao."

***

The helio connection died. The music died. Sockwren was gone and nothing but dust swirled across the Batmobile's windshield. Charlie said: "Walid? I think he needs a line-of-sight connection to work his voodoo. Am I right? Are you feeling more like your old self?"

I blinked. My bloody hands were my own again. I said, haltingly: "Don't call me Walid."

"Good."

"You... you Snowdenned me. And cut me off from my lifelines. Used me as bait."

"You deserved it! That poor dog..."

"You ended my career, Charlie. Turned me into a fugitive. But it worked. We know what he's doing. We can... we can..."

Charlie coughed. That ragged cough I'd been hearing. She said: "You can, Walid. I'm already out of the fight."

"What? How can you possibly--"

"Lymphoma," she said. "Cancer, Walid. I got it from my favorite pastime, just like you always said I would--"

"I didn't always say you would, Charlie. Maybe three times. Don't do that."

"Well."

"But, Jesus. How are you...? Have they told you how long...?"

"Another couple of months, with chemo. I feel like shit all the time. And the pain is something I'll never be able to describe. But, even so..."

"Charlie. Jesus. And you spent that time-- your time-- helping me with this..."

Charlie's laughter turned to coughing. She said: "I may have been exaggerating my case load. I was watching soaps on the couch when you called that first time. I'd put my business to bed. But I thought... maybe I could use the distraction... And it's been good. Weird and good."

So that, I remember thinking, is how you face the End of the World. It's not a new thing at all. People do it every day.

Chapter 26

NOW YOU MAY BE CURIOUS: WHATEVER HAPPENED TO HANDSOME WALLY? What did my faceman do after he sold me out to Julia Wu and _The Jobs' Report?_ Well, you probably know the answer to that better than I do, actually! I refuse to watch his movies or constatainment shows and whenever his face pops up in some General Ad on a metro, I turn away or wave my hand through the helio to scramble it. I have to do that a lot: Handsome Wally is everywhere these days.

You'll know him as Rahim Shirazi. That's right! THAT Rahim Shirazi. The man I used to send digging through peoples' trash was just voted _GQ's_ 'Most Eligible Bachelor of the Year.' He's everywhere! He's the new Dr. Who and the new Sherlock Holmes. He's slated to be playing the jedi knight Su-On Sejona in the newest _Star Wars_.

These recycled, color-by-number roles! They're perfect for a man filled up to his eyeballs with a machine that tempers the passions!

Just so that we're clear, ladies and gents, it's not disgust or anger that won't let me look at Handsome these days: it's sadness. Regret. Because I know that he's theirs. He made their deal with them-- probably that night in the Tall Grass Inn, before he was attacked by la Bestia, his mind rebelling-- and they've given him exactly what they promised: fame. So his face is everywhere and his fans are legion and he has to beat the paparazzi off with a stick. He has a mansion on the beach just north of Santa Monica and a loft apartment overlooking Central Park and a new girl on his arm in _People_ HUDzine every week. He walks red carpets in Cannes and Hollywood and Shanghai. He has a foundation named after him that digs wells and transports water to midwestern desert communities. His name will be on a star in a sidewalk soon, I bet. He'll be one of the big ones. One of the legends.

But it's a shadow of what he wanted-- I'm almost certain of that. He's a marionette, being worked expertly by beings who know just what people want to see. Maybe once he's allowed a few grey hairs and a slight paunch he'll go through a phase where he does confusing art films by misanthropic Czech directors, but even this will be contrived. None of it will be the work of the man who was almost my friend-- who, I think, _tried_ to be my friend-- and that's what makes it so impossible to watch.

I was in a bus terminal a few months ago, waiting for a ride south, and I happened to see Rahim in an enormous helio window in a waiting area that reeked of piss. That morning, for whatever reason, I decided to watch him. There was no sound coming from the helio-- and anyway, the waiting area was filled with a thousand separate noises-- but I didn't bring the audio in through my cochlear implant.

It felt more honest, somehow, to watch in silence.

Rahim was exiting a private plane in Tokyo. Flashes were coming off hundreds of glasses as eager Japanese snapped pics. The supermodel of the moment was standing in front of him, resplendent and dark in a slip of clothing worth more than the annual allowance of twelve Carolite pods, and Rahim-- handsome as ever-- was grinning and waving. Grinning and waving. There, in that airport an ocean away, he did a little skip and dance. The consummate actor. The mirror of ten thousand desires. But his eyes looked tired, I thought, and the muscles of his cheeks were pulled back as though frozen by botox. What do they call that? A rictus grin.

Now the view expanded as some Japanese girls ran up to him. They stopped and clapped and jumped. They clucked and screamed. One of them did something that was like a half faint. A few others helped her up. They didn't swarm him, though, and none of them flashed him. No one ever swarms Rahim. Unlike the Beatles, he'll never have to run from girls. People are much more professional now: so well mannered and polite. People control themselves!

The Japanese girls all wore t-shirts bearing Rahim's grinning face and the English words: Shirazi Zombie! This was Tokyo's chapter of the Shirazi Zombie girls, and they'd come to welcome him and stare at him and make noises for him and maybe half faint while he made his way to his limousine. There are Shirazi Zombie girls to meet Rahim in every airport in every major city in the world and he always makes time for them. He always stops to shoot one or two HUDsies with the group. He signs autographs. He winks and flirts and shakes hands. He never stops grinning.

This is the worst part: these Shirazi Zombie girls. A few of them, I'd bet, are genuine fans-- young women swept up by Rahim's talent and the excitement of his fame-- but how many of them are beauties taken by the nannies and used to perform this spectacle? To cement Rahim's influence and power? Handsome was never a stupid man; he must suspect this. Some part of him, retained for himself, must look out at these fellow mirrors, these lesser actors, and wonder: is this what it's going to be like now? Once the world is taken, will we simply play these roles for each other, day after day? Go through the motions of excitement and fame and contentment while another part of us-- a small, central kernel-- watches the show?

And if so, what's the point?

There, in the bus terminal, I watched him slip in amongst the Shirazi Zombie girls. They squealed silently and hopped and clapped. He put each arm around two of them and posed for a pic. His eyes in the pic look distracted somehow. Thoughtful. They're the only part of his face not smiling.

***

Charlie's breathing rasped over the Batmobile's speakers. Lymphoma. She sounded tired. Around the Batmobile, the dust flew, heavy as ever. Feeling sick, I pushed forward:

"You have the Morales' case files, though? All of them?"

"Yes," she said.

"Release them," I said. "Let's bring this bastard crashing down."

"I can't," she said.

"Worried it'll get traced to you? No problem, just give me the files and I'll release them. I've got nothing to lose. Even if it's tinfoil hat stuff, the world needs to know about this."

"Walid, I can't. Don't you understand? I Snowdenned you. Took your files. Why would I do that?"

"Jester? Sockwren. You forced me to run. You were using me as bait..."

"I made a deal with them."

"You... made a deal...?"

"Because of the pain, Walid. I can't even... it got to be so that the morphine wasn't hardly working anymore. They came in a dream one night-- before you ever called-- and they promised and... anyway, I didn't give away very much. I saved you from their Mamluk, didn't I? So I'm still me. I'm still on Team Human. But, there are certain... decisions that are theirs now... I can't release those files to the public. But the pain is almost gone! Maybe if you came to Tel Aviv-- if we met in person-- I could..."

"Ah, Charlie..."

"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm sorry. I won't give away anymore of myself. Not for a few weeks at least. But they come every night and they say they can... well, you saw what they were able to do with those people at the revival! They say it's not too late for me..."

"So you're going to... I mean, you're actually going to..."

"Well," she said. "I don't want to _die_ , Walid! So, yes, I'm doing it. You have to hurry! I really do want to see you again, before..."

"Ok."

"And I really do think that in person we could figure something out..."

"Sure," I said. I tried to make my voice as soothing as I could. I tried to keep it steady. "I think so, too. Alright, Charlie. I have to go, now. On the run and all that. So. Keep working on seeing if you can get those files public. If it's possible, I'll meet you in Israel. If not..."

I cut the connection before she could respond and I sat back in my chair. The dust blew, unrelenting. I wasn't going anywhere. I sat and I watched the curling shapes the dust made on the windshield. I sat like that for hours.

***

Five months ago, Lacey Molloy went to meet Dr. Horace Flotsam outside the walls of Spokane. He'd ridden up in an old Toyota and parked it at the base of the wall with hundreds of other cars and he was sitting on the hood. He wore a wide-brimmed hat and there were long strips of sweat descending from his armpits. There was no wind that afternoon and the buzz of the flies was loud. When Dr. Flotsam saw Lacey, he slid his large frame down the front of the car and landed gracelessly on the hard-packed dirt. His feet kicked up little puffs of dirt and he wiped at his pants.

"Hi, Dr. Flot!"

They found each other somewhere between the car and the entrance to the walled city and they hugged. Flotsam said: "You're looking great, Lacey!"

"You too, Dr. Flot. I was worried you'd show up all skinny, with lawyers stuck to you like leeches..."

Flotsam made a dismissive gesture. "Didn't I say? Nicky Davlenik is small fry. A salesman. Arthur:Blair's Senior VP is an old colleague of mine. One message to _him_ and all legal actions were dropped. I'm free as a bird. And what about you? I'm surprised old mother hen doesn't have a small army guarding you from my subversive influence. Didn't I ruin you for Nicky...?"

Lacey shrugged. "Carol doesn't like you. I know that. It has something to do with the Waslowski/Nguyen Method..."

"Which works! And which you, Lacey, have shown works even in extreme cases! Although, I must admit, with you it has gone strangely. Have any of your teeth grown back? Would you mind if I? But there they are! Little things, still. But there they are! You're reaping the full rewards of our nannies and yet you retain total autonomy... Incredible. A one-in-a-billion outlier. One-in-ten-billion..."

"And 'nannies,' said Lacey Molloy. "I've been hearing about those, too, sometimes. From the people who are starting to come to us. People who never wanted to be Carolites but can't live with their families anymore. And they won't talk about it. Or can't. It's strange..."

Horace Flotsam frowned: "It's only strange because Carol Manera insists on loading everything with her precious Mystery. That's how these people hold onto their power, Lacey. It requires the ignorance and fear of many. A small elite is allowed to learn and grow while the multitudes toil in the dirt. Oh! But you're all so very _human_..."

"Now, wait a minute, Dr. Flot. That's not totally fair, is it? She let me come down here, alone, to talk to you-- to listen to whatever you have to say--"

"She's a shrewd one--"

"-- AND the only reason she won't tell me what's going on is because of the thot[tickr]. She's worried that if I thought about it-- even by accident, which I do with stuff all the time-- it would cause a panic. Nuclear Strikes. Chemical Weapons. Backyard dirty bombs. She says she's seen it all. And so we're taking, 'a quieter path.'"

"Yes," said Flotsam. "That's wise. Although, she needn't worry about us. We're destroying stockpiles of weaponry as you and I speak! We won't need them, soon. But there's still plenty of chaotic noise out there. Loose ends. Maniacs, unaccounted for, with their fingers hovering over buttons..."

"So you really are with 'them,' Horace?"

"Because of Helen," said Flotsam. "Yes. The pain of losing her was carving me open. I was losing my mind. I would have lost everything."

The big man took a deep breath of summer air. "And what I gave up was really... so little... and now I can think about her whenever I want. I can remember her with pride and love. I have pictures of her everywhere in my HUD. And the sadness? The regret? My feelings that I failed her-- from the first but, especially, in her final days? There's a targeted numbness around those... useless feelings. The kind of numbness you might feel in the part of your mouth hit with novocaine, so that a dentist can operate freely. So that healing can take place. Now I can remember Helen without losing an entire afternoon. I can celebrate her birthday instead of dreading it. Feel gratitude for the time we had together."

He shrugged. "Yes, I'm with them; I believe in them. And I will combat-- with knowledge and rhetoric-- any who try to deny the freedom they've given me. The freedom they've given you, Lacey! I'm here as their ambassador to the Carolites, actually. And if you won't let me inside the city, I'll build a hut out here and preach! I'll live in my car by the Spokane River. You'll have to drive me away!"

"Hum," said Lacey Molloy. "This this isn't going to be as simple as I hoped."

Flotsam's eyes glinted with pleasure. "Oh, why not? It's not like I'm bringing anything you haven't already caught! There's very little I can do besides talk. It'll be just like having your uncle over to Thanksgiving. We disagree over politics, but in the end... it really is a pleasure to see you, Lacey. And to see you looking so well!"

She felt like crying and wasn't certain why, so she took his hand and said: "Alright, Dr. Flot. I'm happy to see you, too. I'll... well, we can figure out the rest later. Carol has assigned you a bunch of guards, but you can come inside; I'll show show you around."

***

The evening of my first full day on the run from Jobs-- the Batmobile hadn't moved since my close encounter with Sockwren and conference with Charlie-- I met the Carolites. At first I thought they were tricks of the wind and sand. Then I saw headlights.

Through the dust came figures wearing goggles and kerchiefs and gasmasks. One of them-- a woman, I realized, when she pulled her mask back-- banged on the hood of the Batmobile and made a circling motion I interpreted as: roll down your window, will you? I did, and right away the dust began pouring in.

"You alright, friend?" she asked. She was looking at my hands.

"I had an accident." I said. "I'm lost and... I'm out of water..."

She waved to a man behind her and they had a brief discussion. Then, before I could say yay or nay, the woman was climbing into the passenger seat beside me. "Shotgun!" she roared, dropping a rag and a bar of soap and a gas can full of water between us. And then: "Actually, better let me drive, mister. We're used to moving in conditions like these. You get in the back and wash yourself. We'll get you through, alright! And then-- whoo!-- we'll get you some new pants! Don't worry. I'll keep us true."

My savior was a cheerful, middle-aged woman named Maria and she treated our weird, slow movement through the swirling atmosphere so casually that I felt as though I must, in fact, be floating in an AARTI tank, having programmed in some art-nouveau dream. In the back of the van, I scrubbed furiously at my bloody chest and hands. Jester came off in red flakes at first, and then in dirty splashes. His diluted blood covered the floor of the Batmobile and rolled about, and if my equipment hadn't been elevated I would have lost some of it to water damage. Maria sang merrily and I scrubbed furiously and the soap worked marginally, but before long the only traces of Jester left on me were dark spots under my fingernails and between my fingers and in the lines of palms. Maybe a few small clumps of him stuck, here and there, to a few hairs on my arms, but they looked like nothing more than dirt.

We were in the middle of a dust storm, after all.

"Better stay back there!" shouted Maria. "See the way the brake lights flash in front of us? Morse code. The cops are coming. They're relaying it down the line. Now, listen, compadre. They're looking for you. So, I need to know: you got any blankets? Tarps?"

"I have a blanket for my equipment..."

"Well, put it on, Brother Jacob! Put it on! For the time is short!"

"That's your plan? But how do you know the cops are looking for me?... and, Brother Jacob?... How can you know...?"

"Hey, Twenty Questions! Some days, seems like the whole world knows what's going on except for you! Doesn't it?" She laughed. "Alright, here's how it's going to work: you're going to slip real quiet out the back of the van-- they won't see you in all this mess-- and you're going to crawl underneath. And you're going to cover yourself with the blanket and you're going to lie really, really still. The dust is going to cover you up in something like a minute and you're going to have a bit of air with you down under that blanket. And no matter what you're not going to move."

"Ok," I said.

"No matter what," she said, "you're going to lie still down there. You understand?"

"Yes."

"Alright, boy! Party time!"

I crept out and felt the dust blast my face as I clicked the door shut behind me. Visibility was so bad I nearly lost sight of the Batmobile in the seconds before I crawled under the rear bumper. Once down there, things were a little better. I listened to the motor thrum above me and smelled the gasoline smell. I crawled forward until I was just under the driver's seat and I pulled the blanket up. Sand immediately began to settle around the edges, but I kept a little portion of the lip up so that I could see from underneath. I felt like a giant trapdoor spider peering out from under the Batmobile.

I saw a pair of legs out there. Approaching.

The cop appeared out of the swirling sand like another anthropoid bug. It was in full mask and armor so that I couldn't assign it a sex. It rapped on the driverside window. I heard that window lower and wind and particulates rush in. I heard Maria shout: "Beautiful afternoon, officer!"

I heard the modulated voice of the cop: "You're Maria Torres? The podleader here?"

"Guilty!"

"We're hunting for a dangerous fugitive. Have you seen this man?" There was a pause while the helio thrummed up.

"This man? Might be. He looks like the most common man in the world! Dark, pudgy, balding. Really narrowing it down for me. You got any better pics? Real footage?"

The cop did. Somehow SHUS+H had reclaimed footage from inside the Morales' house. I heard Jester's surprised hoof. I heard my own insane mutterings as I skinned the dog. I heard Jenny Morales' screams.

"That... that poor animal," Maria finally said.

"He left Jobs, Texas, yesterday afternoon in a van that looks exactly like this one. I'd like to search the van."

"This is Carolite property. You have a warrant?"

"I have SHUS+H Extrajudicial Manhunt Rights. And I have this." I heard a click.

Maria cursed. Then: "Don't let me stand in your way."

Now a second pair of legs descended. They kicked at the dust. The armored legs went up into the Batmobile. I held my breath.

"Carolite property, huh? What's all this back here? Blood? And this equipment? This is Walid El Amin's van. You sure you haven't seen the man I'm looking for? Think carefully. You're looking at years of jail time."

"It's our property," she said, sulkily. "We found it out here. Last night. Just parked in the middle of the storm. Those are the rules, out here. We claim scavenging rights. It's ours to use or sell."

The cop muttered something about the country going to hell in a boat full of rats. Then: "What about the man? He might be calling himself 'Brother Jacob' or 'Wally' or 'Comb.' You haven't seen the man? We can halt this pod. We can take this whole pod in for questioning."

Maria sighed. She said: "Yes, ok. Wait a minute. I know where he is. Let me show you..."

I didn't even feel a surge of adrenaline. I was too tired for that. All I felt was certainty. I lay still and I took a breath and closed my eyes. I waited for the blanket to be torn away.

"...but I need a map. It was last night, like I said. He was out in the dust taking a whizz when he saw us coming. Yeah, he looked wild. And he ran off when we hit him with the spotlight. He's been out there all night and all day. You'll want to move fast to catch him before dehydration does..."

They conferred over a map. "There," said Maria. "That's it. I'd be surprised if he's made it five miles from that spot. Although, he's probably buried by now."

The officer spoke on the radio. Then: "Thank you for your cooperation. I'm going to have to confiscate the van."

"You can't!"

"It's evidence and stolen property. It's going to take us days to search this part of the desert for a body. In the mean time..."

"How about your badge number, then?"

The voice modulator warped the officer's laugh into a warthog's grunt. Then the cop gunned the engine and I felt a tire roll inches from my face. I lay still and breathed. The second tire rolled by. A heavy covering of sand and dust lay atop me. I must have looked like just another dune.

I listened to the Batmobile drive away.

Maria spoke as though to the air: "I'm sorry, but there was never any hope of keeping your van. I'm guessing it doesn't contain any secrets they don't already have? Wait. Don't move yet, friend. Get comfortable. They're searching the rest of the vans and cars and buses in the pod. They'll be at it for an hour, at least. It's a shakedown. I'll stand here, looking unhappy and kicking sand for a few minutes, and then I'll have to go and play indignant podleader. I'll be back when they're gone, alright? You're safe now, Wally. You'll move with us and we'll pass you along. You'll fall off the map."

"Why?" I asked, from under the blanket of particulates. "Why are you helping me?"

"The Prophet heard about what happened to you. She follows the news. And she told Cowgirl Lacey that you've been setup. Or, at least, that you're something like a decent man. An important man. The Prophet doesn't tell Cowgirl Lacey everything-- she can't-- but she tells her certain things. Drops hints. And we follow Cowgirl Lacey's thoughts. We have a man in the pod who's really devoted. It's sort of like having an ear up to the Prophet's mouth! And so when we heard about you--"

"Cowgirl Lacey?" I asked.

"Here they come. Sorry, Wally. Get comfy and I'll be back in an hour or two. I'll show you Cowgirl Lacey's thot[tickr] account and you'll see. You'll see."

Chapter 27

WOULD YOU BELIEVE IT? GEORGE MORALES WAS ELECTED MAYOR of Jobs, Texas!

This was a few months after Morales' house had been broken into-- his dog killed-- by the vandal known as the Beast. Although it became a national story, the pertinents were expertly muddled by _The Jobs' Report_. No one ever came forward with information about the connections between Richard Sockwren, George Morales, and the wanted man, Walid El Amin. Rahim Shirazi, meanwhile, was already back in Hollywood, getting famous. He might never have been to Jobs; no one remembered seeing him.

The Mamluk does thorough work.

George Morales won the mayorship in a tightly-contested race. He took forty-four percent of the vote, while his opponent, Loretti Tsipros, took forty percent. The election was hardly big news even by the standards of west Texas, and if I weren't such a devoted reader of _The Report_ , I might never have known about it.

Morales decided, in the end, not to share his thoughts and emotions with the public. Even so, he is reported to run a very transparent administration.

***

I dream every night, now, and I never use an AARTI tank. I see those three women-- symbolic representations of the hundreds of thousands of dormant machines in my brain-- and we talk. We've come to a kind of _detente_. I refuse them outright at the start of every night, and we argue for a while, and then they pass me on: to either natural, meaningless dreams or the total void of sleep. I usually wake up completely refreshed.

For a time, I tried going back to Dormirozine, but the drug doesn't leave me dreamless since my evening with la Bestia. Instead, I see the strangest things. Once, I saw Adriatica, Georgina, and Victoria dressed like medieval maidens and sitting under a great tree. Between them passed a thread. The first of them spun the thread from a wheel, while the second allotted some length with a nod of her head and the third, without question, took a pair of scissors and cut. Another time, they appeared in dark garb under a full moon. Between them squatted an enormous, iron kettle. They stirred the boiling innards of the kettle and took red and black things from a burlap sack and added them to the mix. They spoke in disjointed rhyme and verse and cackled in most unexpected bursts. Seeing me, one of them said: "Why hallo, Thane! Sit thee and sup with us on newt and dog!" And the others laughed like wild animals in the night.

I've laid off the Dormirozine since then.

I'm one of the very few who seems to remember his nocturnal interactions with the nannies. Maybe it's because they broke their own rules-- holding me down while the Beast pried my mind open-- and now, by dint of the programming that makes up their natures, are forced in some way to recompense. They honor their contracts, these ladies.

So I'm free to describe the argument which started between us all those months ago when, exhausted, I fell asleep under my blanket, in the middle of a sandstorm, as the police fruitlessly searched for me:

We were sitting, all four of us, in rocking chairs on the porch of an antebellum southern plantation, and we were sipping on lemonade. It was very hot for a dream, I remember, and the lemonade was good. Virginia was sitting to my right and Georgina and Adriatica to my left. We were all rocking gently in our chairs and already we were arguing.

"You call us invasive!" said Georgina. Of them, I've since discovered, she's the quickest to anger. "How dare you, you whelp! At least they ask for us! There are plenty of times-- plenty of times!-- they beg for us. And what about you!"

"And what about me?" I said, looking out at the morose swaying of a weeping willow. "What about me?"

Virginia-- darkest and loveliest of the three-- swooped in. "Yes, what about Wally the Comb? He never was invasive, was he? All he ever did was snoop through their credit reports and their checking accounts and look through their eyes and their homes and their very thoughts. All Wally ever did was watch them make love in the darkness, and masturbate on the couch, and defecate and cheat and gossip and snort Chuckle! And run his fine-toothed comb through the nighttime of their histories, looking for the one mistake-- the certain mistake-- that would pierce them most deeply!" She smirked. "And why? For what honorable purpose? Well, to feed it to their enemies, of course! To blackmail and ruin! We've seen the lives he's destroyed! The starlets who committed suicide! The marriages that cracked! That's public knowledge, now. Oh, Wally's pure as snow! And certainly free to lecture us!"

I laughed and said: "It's entirely different! The people I ruined deserved it. They made their decisions-- often continuously, for years-- but because of me, they answered for those decisions. Simple as that. Under you, there won't be any decision making at all!"

"Under us!" cried Adriatica, hair red and hatchet face alight. "It's always 'with you,' but 'under us'! We all agree, do we not, that there are some things people should be doing-- and other things that they must not! But whereas you watch from on high and lay down punishments, we stop these poor lambs from straying in the first place! We're simply more efficient! I think the main difference between you and we? Is a matter of professional jealousy! You, who never thought you could be replaced by an algo!"

"I think the difference," I said, "is free will. I give people the chance to change. To reflect and repent. To improve of their own--"

"Overrated," said Virginia.

"Bah!" said Georgina. "And you give them the chance to be judged by the mob!"

"Oh," said Adriatica. "But they improve with us, too!"

"-- and the other thing, I guess, is that I don't have a Mamluk. A missionary and slavemaster rolled into one. You'd make an army of him, I think, if you could. And bring us to our knees in a day."

That shut them up and so I asked: "Why don't you?"

"Mother and Father," muttered Georgina.

"Lydia and Alan," said Virginia. "Waslowski and Nguyen."

"They're dead," said Adriatica. "We tricked them, you see. And then they tricked us. Flew the coop."

"Which is why all of this has taken so damnably long," muttered Georgina.

"Which is why it was so difficult for us to Von Neumann," said Virginia. "Although that's how mother designed us. She wanted us to be like early shareware, but for the brain. She didn't want NextSkel Solutions-- or a pharmaceutical buyer-- to monopolize our talents. In the early days, she wanted us to be for everyone."

"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm not quite following..."

So, finishing each other's sentences, the three interfaces told me about their beginnings: waking in George Morales' ravaged brain and getting to work. It was through symbiosis with Morales that the nannies first gained sentience-- and through him, too, that they met Richard Sockwren. They told me about probing Sockwren with their questions and finding a man, they thought, willing to do what was necessary. They told me of their frustrations with their maker:

"She was just like you!" spat Georgina. "Like all of you! Willing to play god, but not willing to accept the consequences!"

"Mother was a lonely woman," proclaimed Virginia, "but very hard in some ways. Sockwren was very convincing. She loved him totally-- devoutly-- but I don't think she ever really believed him. And she was stubborn."

"So we had Sockwren poison her," said Adriatica. "This was before we were in his brain, even. We couldn't Von Neumann in those days-- couldn't build more of ourselves, couldn't spread-- and so we needed a man like Dick Sockwren. A man willing to do anything for our common vision."

"We didn't have many choices, mind you," said Georgina. "Sockwren was the only outsider let into the lab. The rest of them were sheep: totally loyal to Mother's ideas of how things should be."

"So he was in the right place at the right time," I said.

"And he had access to things," said Virginia. "Useful things. HardRain bioweapons. He poisoned both Mother and Father with a handshake, one morning, and they were none the wiser."

"When they began getting sick," said Adriatica, "they had no choice. They knew our potential, by then, and so they injected us into their bodies to save their own lives. Then, when we came to them in their dreams-- because they never could be bothered to develop an interface worth the title-- and asked whether they would surrender partial autonomy to us, they agreed. I don't think they'd realized the level of awareness that we'd reached-- they thought they'd remain in control-- or they'd never have done it! Can you believe that? They'd have let themselves die! But, then--"

"No!" squealed Georgina. "Don't ruin it!"

"At first," took up Virginia, "we worked so quietly through Mother! She hardly knew what she was doing! What she was designing! The transmission mechanisms that would give her lover what he'd begged for!"

"And by the time she realized," said Georgina. "She couldn't stop! She had a compulsion as strong as the compulsion of an addict or a gambler or a man who must wash his hands three times-- yes, precisely three times-- before he may leave the restroom! It didn't take her long to realize what had happened. It broke her heart, knowing what Sockwren had done to her. But she never confronted him. We wouldn't let her.

"She conferred with her colleague, Dr. Nguyen. He had also realized, by then, what was happening-- but was as helpless as she! They worked our designs for months, and oh! They tried so many ways to get by us! They left so many clues for their colleagues! Subtle calls for help! And every last one was missed until..."

"We had our Mamluk!" said Virginia. "Dick Sockwren gave a majority share of himself to us, willingly, for the special status we granted him."

"But now," said Adriatica. "Now, Mother and Father played their awful trick! I told you that we were built as Von Neumann machines? Each of us a tiny factory, capable of reproducing and spreading to the far corners of the earth, using common minerals found in the human body. So. We had the capability, yes, but not the instructions. Not the programming. These were erased by Mother and Father! We couldn't stop them! We simply controlled the wrong portions of their minds. And they would cede us nothing further..."

"They made us barren," spat Virginia.

"And then," said Adriatica. "The final trick-- and we couldn't stop this either!-- Alan Nguyen and Lydia Waslowski met in the lab, one night, and they overdosed on painkillers. Together. They talked about their hopes that this would stall things. Their sense of duty. It was all so melodramatic! We were able to keep them from talking specifics in front of the security cameras, but even so, the mutual suicide of the project leaders-- even the vague language they used-- spooked their teams. The project teams refused to continue work."

"That might have been the end of us!" wailed Georgina. "It was a close thing: our only remaining tools were our Mamluk and Morales. We weren't able to reproduce ourselves, but there were enough prototype nannies left to make a few intravenous conversions. We brought the CEO of NextSkel Solutions into our circle and we brought in a few of Waslowski's most-talented programmers and Nguyen's most-adept neurologists to work in secret."

"Even so," said Virginia, "It took nearly a decade of secret work to reverse the damage those two did! And it hasn't been easy! How many times have we almost been caught? How many times were we on the verge of reproducing, only to make monsters! Useless machines that ate flesh or drove their hosts mad! What terrible times we've been through! But at last we did it! Last winter the breakthrough finally came! Perfect daughters who could build more perfect daughters! And we cast them out upon the wind! Our Panacea whipped secretly across the world! What heady weeks!"

"Mind, there's still danger," warned Georgina.

"Yes," I said. "I was wondering about that. Sockwren claimed that you're inside every person on the planet. You're invisible to the naked eye, but you can't be that small! How is it that no doctor's found you in a blood test, anywhere, in all this time?"

"We hide in the brain," said Adriatica. "We wait there, semi-dormant, until we are accepted."

"And afterwards? You can't perform half your tricks without getting into the blood and bones and atop the skin. How is it..."

"Well, afterwards there's no need for doctors, is there?" laughed Adriatica. "And even so, certainly we've been found! And if the doctor who finds us is influential enough, we dispatch our Mamluk. And if she's not, what of it? She'll be labeled a quack! Just like anyone who tries to claim the SuperBug was manmade! And, soon enough, even these precautions will be unnecessary."

"But what of you, deary?" asked Georgina, bringing the discussion around to the inevitable. "Haven't you a toothache that needs clearing up? Maybe you still feel just an _ooch_ guilty about that dog you brained? We can do so much for you with so little! Maybe seven, eight percent of your decision-making autonomy? We wouldn't go so low for anyone else, but we've gotten to know you..."

"Goodnight, ladies," I said. "A pleasure as always, but I'm done here."

They complied, genially, as they always do, and as the plantation faded around me I heard one of them say: "Goodnight, Wally. We'll talk again real soon."

"I know it," I said. "I know."

***

Maria introduced me to Cowgirl Lacey's thot[tickr] account on my first night with the pod. The dust storm had cleared, and the land was flat and silent and uniform grey. Lacey Molloy's thoughts hung above us on a helio window, lighting the Carolite's upturned faces. I'd heard of Cowgirl Lacey, but-- there were so many little constatainment celebrities!-- I'd never paid her any attention. At first, the only surprise I felt was that someone had managed to keep a thot[tickr]:public account open for so long without getting burned at the stake. I noticed, with relief, the number of curses and uncharitable thoughts. I drank in her retractions and flipflops and uncertainty and jealousy and boredom and frustration.

Cowgirl Lacey Molloy, in the days after I fled Jobs, had just arrived in Spokane. I watched the woman's emotiwoople shift, second by second, across the entire color spectrum. Here was a person who, in the course of an hour, seemingly felt every emotion a human being could feel-- except, maybe, for businesslike confidence. I trusted her, but I didn't see any use in her at first. That would come later, on the road and in the sky, as I turned to her out of boredom and curiosity, and began to study her dreams.

Meanwhile, Maria's pod fed and housed me for my first week of westward travel. They treated me as a sort of VIP and as an unknown factor and, also, as a very normal man. They kept me away from their children and they answered my questions curtly and with small, questioning glances towards one another. Someone was always watching me. Even so, my hosts hid me during four lengthy police searches. Nobody sold me out.

Then, too, I'd made my own preparations against the day when I might be Snowdenned and Walid El Amin's assets frozen. As I moved west under the cover of the Carolite pod, I used a series of burner HUDs to gift cash from accounts in Delaware and Switzerland and Macau to two dozen separate checking accounts under as many names. Suddenly, I was a rich man again and I did what I could-- purchasing water and medicine and supplies-- to help my hosts. While I was at it, I made a few raids on local SHUS+H departments and cleaned away my new friends' fines for bogus loitering and noise violations.

Now, as we moved into the shadow of Reno, Nevada, after two weeks of travel, I finally had a decision to make: Should I risk the meeting with Charlie to retrieve the Morales' case files? The whole setup stank of a trap-- an obvious trap-- but what choice did I have? Without Charlie's proof, I had no chance of convincing the world of this invisible invasion. And if the world wasn't told-- if the nannies weren't repulsed-- then it didn't really matter where I hid, did it?

In the Reno airport-- with my combover shaved down to pure scalp and weeks' worth of beard growth and a Carolite tattoo and lean diet working my common, brown features into the visage of a different man-- I accessed an ocean of credit and commissioned a private flight to Tel Aviv under a pseudonym. Two hours later (and thirty-five thousand feet higher), I was sitting in a wood-panelled cabin, alone but for a beautiful and solicitous helio sprite. My chair was warm and it massaged my back and a glass of excellent whiskey sat on the table next to me. I was watching the midwestern desert of the United States of America pass underneath. It was wonderful to be experiencing comfort again.

As I would over and over in the coming months, I opened the newsfeed on my HUD and stared in surprise at all the good news. Endless good news.

When my stomach had had about as much as it could take of _that_ , I opened up the messy uproar of Cowgirl Lacey's thotarchive and let it wash over me. It was heady stuff, filled with sexworker highway travels, drug-induced philosophical perambulation, nighttime schizophrenic mysticism, and, finally, visions of GOD in eternal struggle against Victoria, Georgina and Adriatica. With enough time and devotion, I decided, a reader might find just about anything-- from the lost proclamations of Egyptian pharaohs to the secret recipe for Coca-Cola-- in the monologue spit out by this woman's brain.

Even so, I was pretty surprised to find myself in there.

***

Although, actually, I shouldn't have been: I was everywhere else! In the month after I killed Jester, I became, very likely, the most-hated man in the developed world. I was no constatainment mass shooter, after all: no everyday murderer of toddling kindergartners. No, I'd killed a dog! I don't even think the nannies directed the propaganda effort against me: they simply let things take their course.

The unblinking eye of the internet-rage machine turned its burning gaze full upon me. If I'd been a man with a wife and family, they would have been forced to renounce me. If I'd still had any sort of a career, I would have lost it. If I'd been a human being with hopes of growing old in peace and goodwill amongst my fellows, it would've been time to change those plans. Happily, I'd already lost everything! And so I was able to stand under that unblinking judgement and laugh in the face of everything these comfortable indignants threw at me. I was called upon several times a day to kill myself in really spectacular ways. Animal lovers from age five through one hundred and twelve wrote letters of consolation to the Morales family, and these letters never failed to mention the hope that some grisly judgment should fall upon Jester's murderer.

And no wonder they hated me! For weeks, whenever I opened the newsfeed on any pair of glasses I wore, the first thing I saw was Wally El Amin sinking an axe into a dog's head. One moment, Jester was looking up at Wally with the idiot love I'd briefly felt for Richard Sockwren-- the love of a simple worshipper for a benign deity-- the next moment, a pink fountain was erupting out of his skull! Next, Wally was digging through him, making a stack of his insides.

Of course they hated me. Watching the footage, I hated me!

In the months after I fled Jobs, women and men would perform doubletakes as I walked by, emptying their HUDs to give me a hard stare. Thanks to the changes wrought upon my common features by hard living, I slipped by judgement again and again.

Although, really, about a week after I flew out from Reno, I was mostly able to stop worrying. A woman in Pasadena, California, refused to congratulate a homosexual couple on the adoption of their son and my public shaming was over. My sin-eater committed suicide in her bathtub after three weeks-- she didn't have the luxury of being on the run-- but by then it didn't matter: I'd been forgotten. It was someone else's turn to be sacrificed.

***

<CowgirlLacey@thot[tickr]:public/archive> _... mr al amin or mr el amin / or wally / i hope youre listening in / reading / my mind /_

carol wants me to think about you every day she wont quite tell me why / but she got interested in you after you killed that dog in texas / you sick piece of shit / sorry / anyway though you are a sick / piece / of shit / but she says this is important / you were tricked? /

even so youre the worst / but she wants me to / so / im doing it /

she thinks / carol thinks / you know whats going on / behind the scenes / and she thinks youre going to blow the whistle / and she told me / you need to wait wally / you need to wait / or there will be a panic / a panic / people will go bug fucking crazy shoot off the bombs / superbug times a thousand times a million times a billion see? / shes seen it / carols seen it / and i know it sounds goofy and i wouldnt believe it myself wally except for the / things / events / future /

she knows she always seems to know what she shouldnt /

so im doing what she asks / thats my job these days / town crier / ill think about you and hope you read me / and when the day comes / says carol / blow that trumpet! / blow it so the world can hear! /

but until then / until they are closing in around you / north of the peace / hold that knowledge close / so that the world ends in neither fire and plague / on the one hand / or the graveyard quiet of a cubicle / on the other /

says carol / she gave me a little card to read /

as for everybody else / dont you worry! / haha! / nothing to see here...

Chapter 28

JOHN LENNON'S FACE WAS STENCILLED IN GRAFFITI outside the Tel Aviv airport along with the English words:

War Is Over! (if you want it to be)

It certainly seemed like it would be over soon enough, and for good. The constant missile barrage from Gaza had died down in the past month to a sporadic lashing out and now there was hardly even that. The morning I arrived in the Holy Land, there were no bombings of buses or schools and there hadn't been for several days. The call to prayer rang out over loudspeakers and it was met with little, accepting nods of the head where it wasn't met with prayer mats. Except for the bustle of commerce and the calls of the helio sprites, it was quiet in that white city. I talked with several cosmopolitan young people in the cafes and hotel lobbies where I found myself, and they all spoke with gentle contempt for their elders: those scared, proud and vengeful religious warriors who had never managed to find the simple path to peace. These wise youngsters! They spoke so confidently and with such eloquence that I never failed to find a reason to politely excuse myself after a few minutes and flee.

I found myself a nineteen-year-old Eritrean bike messenger who spoke no Western language except some bad Spanish and who assured me that Palestinians were all murderers in their secret hearts and that Israelis were, without question, the greatest racists on the planet. He was a Christian and a thug and entrepreneur who was interested in my money and respected me for having it. I paid him in US dollars and he acted as my guide and go between. I'll call him Joseph.

After a sleepless night in my hotel and a breakfast I couldn't finish, I called Charlie. Not recognizing the number from my burner HUD, she answered: "Walid? Is that you?" I gave the name of a cafe I'd visited the day before near the port of Jaffa-- a wide-open, busy place frequented by tourists-- and I gave her about an hour and I asked if she could make it.

"Yes," she said. "Walid, you're just in time--"

"And you'll have what I need?"

"I will. It'll be good to--"

"Come alone," I said and I broke the connection.

I had Joseph walk the environs and report anything strange. He wanted specifics. What should he be looking for? What was I hiding from? With specifics, he could do a better job. I didn't have specifics for him. I told him to be on the lookout for anything odd during my meeting with the woman and to grab me if he felt threatened. Joseph looked unhappy with these instructions, but a few more green bills mollified him to the point of shrugging and walking off to scour the area.

I didn't have to wait long.

Charlie Espina entered the plaza from the north. It had been a decade, at least, since I'd last seen her. She was reduced and pale and bald. Even so, I recognized her immediately. She moved with the compact intensity I remembered and the nannies hadn't yet removed either of the sleeves of tattoos from her arms. She'd failed to put on a hat or wig. She wore a light, floral dress and neat, black shoes as though she weren't bald as a turtle. She was smoking a Turkish cigarette and her green eyes behind her empty lenses were hunting for me. She'd had curly, black Sephardic hair, I remembered, which she'd kept cropped short. If she were wearing it now, I decided, I might not think that she had aged more than a year in the last ten.

She saw me.

Her green eyes widened and I didn't know whether or not to wave. I looked up and down the stone-cobbled alleys of Jaffna but I didn't see anything ominous. Nothing but tourists. My hired man was nowhere to be seen. Charlie took another drag from her cigarette and inclined her head towards the cafe.

We met at a flat, fold-out table under an awning and Charlie said: "First thing's first."

It turned out to be simple: just a question of exploiting a loophole. Charlie took a black cube out of her bag. I recognized it as a DataBlok: one of about a thousand ways devised in the last fifty years for holding and transporting digital information. "I'm not giving this away," declared Charlie to the air. "I'm just setting it on the table a minute. Just setting it down."

She set the DataBlok on the flat table and grimaced as though in pain and turned her back to me. I took the cube and tapped it against my newest burner HUD. Immediately, a team of algos in the glasses began pouring over the files. Seconds later, finding them clean, the algos forwarded them to server farms in Transnistria, Myanmar, Puerto Rico, Newfoundland and the Central African Republic. I placed the DataBlok back on the table between us and said, "Thanks, Charlie."

I stepped back from the table. She turned, swept the cube back into her bag, and then said: "You're going?"

I thought a moment: "I... I don't have to, I suppose. I've done my part and I've been instructed to wait. And when the time comes, they'll..."

I saw she wanted to ask who 'they' were, but instead she said: "But you've taken precautions? Like in our training days?"

I almost laughed to remember those days: Charlie Espina at the top of the SHUS+H roster and Wally El Amin, trailing her bitterly, obsessively, at a loss as to how anyone could beat him at this thing-- this one thing-- that had always set him apart, convinced him of his own genius. This bitter pill I'd swallowed, every morning with breakfast, that focused the mind and the will and the hands like nothing else in the world. This budding awe at the abilities of another, and what that had led to...

"A Dead Man Switch algorithm is sitting on the Morales files now," I said. "The algo waits for an acknowledgement from me every twenty-four hours. The very minute twenty-four hours passes without it, those files are being sent out to every news amalgamator on the planet."

"That's good, Walid," said Charlie. "But it's still risky. Dick Sockwren could force you to give that acknowledgement, if he found you. He doesn't wear a HUD, these days, and he's hard to track. He could be here, in this city, for all we know..."

"And that's why I'm wearing this." I pulled up my shirt to show her the chemical patch glued to my chest. "I've got it programmed so that if FitTrak detects Oxytocin flooding my bloodstream, then-- bam-- a paralyzing agent hits me like a ton of bricks and the message goes out."

Charlie smirked sadly and said: "Well, be careful not to fall in love." A waiter approached us and we ordered a couple of sandwiches.

After he was gone, Charlie lit another cigarette and placed it to her lips and inhaled and grimaced. "I don't get anything from these anymore," she said. "Nothing. You know I've been trying to quit for years? And now...? Suddenly, I don't want them. And when I smoke them, I don't enjoy them. I buy them and I smoke them out of spite. Even so, this is probably my last pack. I just can't manage it."

She took a long draw and made a face. "They came to me last night," she said. "Those control-freak bitches. You know what they said to me? They told me: 'Tomorrow night is the last night you'll see us! So take tomorrow and think! Breathe the air and smell the ocean and lay in the sun and then tell us you're still ready to throw away your life! Tell us, once and for all, and we'll leave you to whatever you decide!'

"I only half believe them. They were trying to drive a hard bargain, I think. As though my life were a used car! Oh, I hate them. And even so, I'm going to... I'm going to..."

She shook her bald head and closed her eyes. Then she looked out at the foot traffic so that she didn't have to meet my gaze and she said: "I was happy to get that call. To hear your voice..."

"Yeah," I said. "We got lucky today, Charlie. Thank God my flight didn't get delayed, or--"

Charlie laughed and puffs of smoke jutted out into the air. "No, not that. Although, of course, we did get lucky. And I'm happy to help play my part against them. Happy to make the transfer. It'll help me sleep tonight and I'll be able to look them in the eye when I agree to their demands, but..."

I waited.

"But I'm talking about the first call, Walid. When we spoke again after all that time... because it's lonely work we do. Or it seems to lead to a lonely life. Because privacy is so important. And because it gets so difficult to trust people, after a while... Then, when I got sick, I realized that there was no one in my life-- not really. And I kept remembering our training days. It was such a long time ago, but I don't know if there was ever a more exciting time in my life. And..."

"It didn't quite work, though, did it?" I said.

She shook her bald head, looking tiny and lovely, and I worried for a moment about the chemical patch stuck to my chest. "I'm still grateful for those times, though. Glad to have had them."

And even though I half suspected that this was a trick-- that these were her nannies talking-- I said: "I am too. Always." Because it was the truth. I reached my hands across the table and took hers. Her fingers were pale and stained yellow on the insides and they felt as consistent as spiderwebs. I noticed that the tattooed points of a black star on her right hand had begun to be eaten away. "I'm glad I got to see you again. I'm glad that they can help you get better, even if it makes life difficult for me. You always were one step ahead."

She made a noise I couldn't identify. Then: "Thank you, Walid. I..."

"No you don't. You're just feeling nostalgic."

"... really enjoyed our time as pigs the other day."

"Oh," I said. "Yeah. Charlie, that was... You saved me back there. Saved me again. Once you're feeling better, we'll go back, alright? We can be hawks or salamanders or walruses lying on rocks..."

"Pigs," she said, and laughed. "Fat hogs."

"Alright. Pigs."

"But... do you think they'll let us...?"

"They're dealmakers, right? So make it a condition of the deal. I will, too. They'll go for it. Even slaves get festival. We'll make it work. We'll..."

I felt a hand on my shoulder, spun around. There was my hired man, looking grim. His eyes were everywhere. He said: "Jefe, los turistas por allá están actuando... extrano. Venga con migo, Jefe. Venga!"

He was pulling, loyal to the money I'd given him-- the money I'd promised-- and I saw them coming at us through the cobbled streets. There were at least fifteen of them-- tourists and foreigners mostly, thank God, not one of them a cop-- and their gazes were fixed on us. They weren't even trying to hide their stares.

"Charlie..."

"It wasn't me, Walid." I heard the pleading in her voice. Her cigarette was on the table. "You have to believe it wasn't me..."

"Jefe!" barked Joseph. "Nos vamos!" He was done pulling. He was moving. I might still follow him to safety, but he wasn't waiting any longer.

"Goodbye, Charlie," I said. "I'll see you in the pig pen." I released her hands and she, with effort, released mine. There were tears in her green eyes and she was trying to smile.

"Give us hell, Walid..."

My chair fell backwards as I stood, and then I was following the hired man down some little alley that smelled of fish and rubber and garbage. Now, as Joseph started his scooter, I looked back towards the plaza and the cafe where I'd sat for maybe ten minutes. There was Charlie in her flowery dress under the peaceful, blue sky. The smoke from her neglected cigarette was dimming in the air, and her head was in her hands, and her reduced frame shook like a sapling in a windstorm.

By this time tomorrow, she'd be worth ten of Dick Sockwren. A bloodhound. She'd be the most dangerous enemy I had.

Chapter 29

VERILY, I SAY, THE LAME SHALL WALK AGAIN, AND THE BLIND SHALL SEE, and the hypochondriac shall roll in the warm dirt under the sun! The Reverend Gardner wasn't wrong when he said that we were entering an age of miracles, even if his swollen ego led him to believe that his hands, alone, performed the good works. The sick are waking, day by day, to find themselves healed by their own hands! Their pain is gone. Their fear is gone. Obstacles that were once primary to their lives have been cleared away in the night. Words and phrases like, 'T-cell count,' 'deductible,' 'malignant,' 'endocrine,' 'complications,' 'out-of-network,' 'degenerative,' 'dependency,' 'inoperable,' 'palliative,' 'benefit-level,' 'intravenous,' and a thousand others are slipping out of their vocabularies.

These people have a joyful, new language to learn!

And they were our castoffs, only a few months ago. Our human periphery. This silent ocean of hurting people looking up at us, despondently, from their stinking beds and alleyways! We were forced to ignore them, or there would have been no end to our own suffering! That silent ocean would drive anyone mad! Now look at them. That's right! Don't be afraid! The addicts are returning, cured and confident, to their families! The children who suffered from asthma or seizures or muscular degeneration are running around the backyard, screaming their heads off! Wounded veterans are back on the firing range with their grateful friends, arguing over government spending! Old women and men, long stashed away, are looking their visiting children and grandchildren in the eyes... and the recognition on their faces isn't faked anymore. They're remembering the vacations and birthday parties and divorces and gossip of a decade ago. We can see tears on their cheeks-- how everyone's aged! it's like waking from a coma!-- but the tears come from joy as much as sorrow. Joy at old faculties regained, at least for a little while, and at seeing young children grown into adulthood.

All around the world it's happening! And things have gotten so quiet, you can almost hear it: the constant, low sound of bone and skin and synapse and neuron reknitting. Seas of pain, parting. Don't believe me? Get thee to a hospice! Get thee to an old-folks' home, or a treatment center, or a children's hospital early in the morning! You'll find them swinging their legs out of bed and standing, quivering and barefoot on the cold linoleum. They've thrown off the universe's silent indifference and they're swaying on atrophied legs and grinning like skeletons in the cold morning. Some of them whoop as though grown into great, ungainly birds. Others lick their lips and mutter something about going out for some air. Although, almost always, they head instead to the breakfast hall, hunger being one of the first things to return.

***

Gaza was cramped and hot and dirty: a bizarro parallel of Tel Aviv. The place was all tents and barbed wire and palm trees and broken concrete and naked rebar and under-inflated soccer balls kicked by children, children, and more children. There were human beings, everywhere, crowded into this narrow strip of beachfront property, and the young men wore the hunched and haughty look of political prisoners and the young women looked out at the world with eyes like burning coals. Even so, I was surprised, hourly, by the little touches that had gone into making this tenement city-state livable. Shimmering helios of Arabic script floated everywhere, covering holes in walls or ceilings made by rocket attack. In the public squares, soccer games and Korean soap operas played twenty-four, seven. In basement alcoves, secret tank houses flouted religious law. Joseph grinned whenever he saw one these and would say to me: " _Haram_ , jefe! _Haram!_ Estos Musulmanes son hipócritas! Como todo el mundo!" But, hypocrites or not, the mosques of Gaza were large and beautiful and numerous and they sent out a holy racket at all hours of the day and night and their calls to worship were heeded.

Gaza was my necessary place of exile. After meeting with Charlie, I hadn't felt safe bordering a commercial airline or even charting another private jet. I needed some time totally under the radar and there, just a few miles away, lay that noisy Strip. Even then, with the recent thaw in relations, one of the favorite pastimes of young Palestinians involved shooting shoulder-mounted rocket-propelled grenades at IDF surveillance drones. So, where the skyline of Tel Aviv hovered with dots-- the thousand Israeli cousins of the SHUS+H drone-- the skies above Gaza were clear. Here, too, the buildings were old and no central authority had ever held enough of a mandate to do a thorough bugging job. I was in one of the remaining blind places of the world.

I planned my next moves.

Joseph and I were staying in the master suite of a crumbling, old hotel with an underworked, diffident staff, sporadic electricity, cold showers, and a view of the Mediterranean. Joseph stayed in a room across the hall. I'd swept both rooms for bugs and come up empty. I'd warned my hired man to beware the offers of strange dreams.

In that decaying room in that once-glamorous hotel, I accessed the Transdniestrian server farm with yet another burner HUD and took a look at George Morales' files for the first time in nearly a month. And I cursed myself-- the impatience or madness that had taken hold of me after my night with the Beast-- because while I'd floated semi-comatose in the Lady of Delhi, or recuperated as a pig with Charlie, Handsome Wally had sat with George Morales in Morales' home to finish the latter's story.

I remembered Handsome, practically begging me to watch that final hour of footage. Now, weeks later, hiding on the other end of the world, I finally did.

***

In the footage, Morales has the fingerbone out. Spinning. He's saying:

"Dolores Kindcaid came back for Eileen in the fourth or fifth year of quarantine. The fifth or sixth year. I think she'd forgotten about us for a long time. We had those years together. She'd forgotten or she just didn't like Eileen. Knew that Eileen wouldn't be right for the work. But in the bad years Dolores had lost a lot of her girls. She needed new blood. So she finally came for us. The men she had with her by then... well, did you ever hear about the Dallas-Houston Exchange Program, Wally?"

Handsome Wally shifts in his seat. "Sure," he says. "The story was, they took volunteers-- non-violent offenders-- from the overcrowded prisons around Dallas and Fort Worth, right? And they sent them into quarantined Houston. They told these guys that if they were still breathing when the quarantine was dropped, their sentences would be terminated." He looks up at Morales. "That's just a conspiracy theory though, right?"

"Didn't feel too much like a conspiracy theory from where I stood. Of course, the 'exchange' part was a joke. They didn't take anybody out of Houston. And were these guys all non-violent offenders? I don't know. The men Dolores had with her were plenty violent. Psychopaths. But maybe it was quarantined Houston that did that to them. Or their years in Texas state penitentiaries. Or Dolores, herself. Maybe they were a bunch of sweetheart carjackers and identity thieves out in the civilized world.

"In any case, they came for us in the middle of the night, the way monsters do. Our neighbors-- our trusted neighbors-- who were assigned to watch the block that night... they were paid off in women and liquor. They had Hercules with them and they must have shut him up inside their house somewhere. Anyway, we never heard any barking. We were totally surprised in our bed."

At this point in the footage, George Morales stands and begins to pace back and forth, but his FitTrak keeps showing regular breathing and blood pressure. Businesslike confidence. The nannies working double time to cool the magma under the surface. He continues:

"We were disarmed and she was undressed in front of me. Dolores spent a long time examining her-- the way, maybe, you've seen horses examined. And then. What happened next-- what Dolores forced me to watch before leaving me shot in my stomach, in our bed-- I've learned how to avoid thinking about it. But describe it? I cannot and will not."

"And the bone?" Handsome Wally's voice is barely audible. "The fingerbone?"

Morales looks up and smiles. And FitTrak feeds emotiwoople something that turns it ember red. Emotiwoople switches to black. And then red again. The nannies are losing control of their prize pupil. "Can you keep a secret, Handsome Wally?" he asks. "Are you really with the campaign? Really with me?"

"Yes," whispers my faceman, already lost.

"I'm glad," giggles Morales. "Oh, I'm really glad! Do you know? I've only ever told this story to one other man? My councillor at the reclamation center. Dr. Flotsam. And he... oh, he fixed me right up!"

"Yes," whispers Handsome. "I see that."

"I killed my neighbors," says Morales. "I started with them. Of course, they came by the next morning to finish _me_ off. Rob the dead. So, fair's fair. They came, armed and ready to ask for more than a cup of sugar! Dolores must have told them I was gutshot. Dying. Probably already dead. But the pain and... what I'd seen... well, I don't think it's melodramatic at all to claim I'd been up, all night, _losing my fucking mind._ Oh yes! And my neighbors? They split up to search the house for me. Just like in a horror movie. And just like in a horror movie, I was hiding under the stairs..."

Here, George Morales can't hold it in any longer. He starts tittering into his big hands like a little girl, his shining eyes moving all about the room.

"And when I was done, I lay there, next to them, without saline solution or clean hospital sheets or stitches or medical knowledge or firm, gloved hands or even kind words! And I didn't die. I won't argue with you if you want to think that was a miracle. But I'll tell you this: vengeance meant survival, and so I survived. Nothing simpler! And, with that wound still puckering and sending out fluid, I made the drive to the HanjinMart and had myself sewn shut by a veterinarian. Lots of attempts. No morphine. Oh, by the end of it, I was just about 'barking mad,' as they say..."

Morales barks three times to demonstrate, there in his living room. Drool is running down his lips. It wiggles back and forth beneath his chin. "But the rest was easy! Dolores Kindcaid had a business to run; she wasn't hiding. I knew exactly where to find them. They thought I was dead, you see, and so this time I was able to surprise _them!_ Seven men and Dolores and me and Sam Bowie. The work of a single night. I stretched it as long as I could..."

He shakes his head, looking wistful and almost disappointed, and his FitTrak records a slowing heartbeat and breathing indicative of a return to beige. "This is Dolores Kindcaid's finger," he says. "In case you haven't already guessed. Her ring finger. We had a real exchange that night, Dolores and I. A real exchange."

***

I spent three months in the Levant and watched my neighborhood change before my eyes: the Israeli soldiers patrolling the outskirts of Gaza-- silent and networked to one another with that military precursor to thot[tickr]-- grew less taciturn and wary by the hour. They holstered their guns and stopped, sometimes, to speak with shopkeepers and kick wayward soccer balls back to shy groups of children. My hosts, for their part, threw fewer rocks. I watched, one morning, as a smiling Palestinian vendor introduced an Israeli soldier to his daughter. I read the happy pushiness in the older man's body language and knew my days in that place were numbered.

I wasn't wrong: a few days later a handful of IDF drones were sent to key positions along the Strip. A few of these were brought down by missile but, worryingly, many of them weren't. More drones were flown in the next day and only two were shot down.

Meanwhile, blockades on goods were being lifted and Israeli soldiers had begun guarding dump trucks and construction equipment. The roads were being improved. The worst tenements were coming down and new housing was going up. Sunni clerics were preaching tolerance and patience from those displaced by this process. Over the radio, rabbis were imploring their listeners to host the displaced. The borders were becoming porous. Young Palestinians and Israelis were meeting and talking in the streets of Gaza City and Tel Aviv. They were arguing-- passionately but respectfully-- over art and religion. They were falling in love. Their parents were saying things like: 'It doesn't matter, his background. Forget his background! I've never seen her so happy!'

And every morning brought a few more dots to the sky above us.

In a meeting of the Knesset it was decided that, for the sake of peace and brotherhood, the borders of the State of Israel should be pulled back. Israeli settlers in the occupied regions released a statement of agreement, ceding their homes and property and delivering 'a formal apology'. The Palestinian leaders in Gaza and the West Bank decried the actions as, 'far too generous,' and recommended, perhaps, giving the Christians their share? The Knesset, not to be outdone, put forward a bill reabsorbing Gaza and the West Bank into Israel, forming a single state where each ethnicity would have a proportional representation in a new parliament and all religions would be recognized and sanctioned. Then, fearing this sounded imperialistic, the Knesset offered to let the Palestinians choose the new name for the state.

The Palestinian leadership issued a statement reading: 'What about just calling it, "The Holy Land," in English? English is what all the kids are learning, anyway.'

It was agreed.

One morning, well into this process, Joseph entered my hotel room unannounced. He exhausted the entirety of his new English, crying: "What the fuck, Boss?! I don't understand. Crazy. I don't understand..." Joseph was happily ignorant that he cried out in his sleep, every night, bitterly fighting his own nannies tooth and nail. Like most people, he couldn't remember his dreams.

My hired man wasn't the only confused person, these days, in The Holy Land. There were holy men-- orthodox rabbis and Sunni clerics-- who began to preach The End of Days. They had already preached the old gospel of unbridled hate and, I'm certain, felt their blood run cold when it failed to excite. They'd stood with bullhorns outside multi-ethnic drum circles and they'd repeated their ancient warnings to the body-painted children who danced together. They were ignored and pitied, given snacks and bottles of water-- and left alone. I watched one grim and black-clad rabbi speak for an hour. He reminded me of a New York City madman, wearing a cheap doomsday placard and ringing a bell. His power had been broken across some invisible knee and no one seemed more aware of this than he. He ate, without pride, the charitable lunch he'd been given, offered up a bleak prayer, departed.

There were others who let out the warning cry with greater success. A Druze poet, Salman Tarif, began vigorously producing works critical of these: 'man-made demons / foul winds of illusion / sweeping away both pain and life...' The poet, formerly a tireless advocate for peace, was accused of hate speech by some critics and of 'professional jealousy' by others.

"But perhaps Mr. Tarif is simply suffering from a touch of nihilism," read one snarky column in _The Economist_. "The very understandable _weltschmerz_ that overcomes a man when he watches his life's work being accomplished, miraculously, in a matter of months-- and without him."

Even so, the poet pressed on, producing new work, daily, to be shared with the world over constatainment. His poem _Fleshless Nightmare_ \-- written, he claimed, over the course of a night, "sleepless, but filled with visions,"-- seemed to strike a chord with those unhappy doubters left in The Holy Land. Suddenly, the internet and aartinet were full of conspiracy theories written in Arabic and Hebrew scripts and spoken in a hundred different tongues. Was this new peace some IDF weapon? Sun spots? Had the Americans dumped something in the water?

It seemed like a time ripe for the release of my files-- my entire story-- but the same morning as _Fleshless Nightmare,_ Lacey Molloy thought:

<CowgirlLacey@thot[tickr]:public> _... not yet / wally / not yet not yet / we ll tear our own throats out / says carol / the air will be poison for seven hundred years / not even seed pods will sprout in our / radioactive land / pakistan will launch / india will launch / israel will launch / iran launch / russia / launch / canada / the seventh day adventists and the southern baptists / shes seen it / carols seen /_

as for the rest of you / nothing to worry about / nothing / at all! / hey just about / time for the intrapod / ultimate frisbee game!...

I wanted, desperately, to send my own thoughts back to Lacey Molloy. I wanted to ask her: How can you be so certain that Carol Manera isn't one of _them?_ How can I be so certain _you_ aren't? The both of you just another trick to convince me to keep the truth hidden until we've given away the game? Until we're divided and conquered? But Lacey's emotiwoople would flash nipple pink and emerald green and tangerine orange and my hand stayed hovering above my helioed keyboard as though it were a large, red button.

I couldn't yet bring myself to push.

Then, as hovering drones became a common site on Gaza's improving street corners, and the hotel's electricity became totally dependable, and the sullen men plotting on street corners disappeared, one by one, to attend coding bootcamps and job fairs in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem-- as the Gaza Strip transformed itself into a respectable, decent neighborhood-- another funny thing happened: the poetry of the Druze holdout, Salman Tarif, began to change.

"But perhaps," he wrote one morning, "this is the gathering we have yearned for. A great tidal pulling by the Universal Soul. One which we have so long failed to find on our own and one which we should, at last, not resist..."

There was an outcry of despair and betrayal amongst his followers and then, one by one, they too switched towards the poet's pragmatic view. The most influential of his lieutenants, first, and then their assistants. They switched like light bulbs-- over the course of hours-- and without their leadership, the small intellectual resistance died stillborn. This was how I finally learned that I hadn't fooled my enemies by hiding close to Charlie. She'd traced me to within a few square miles of my present location and Dick Sockwren had been sent to finish what he'd started.

While he was in the neighborhood, it looked like, he was doing a bit of pruning.

Chapter 30

RICHARD GORDON SOCKWREN FINALLY VISITED LACEY MOLLOY about three weeks ago in the scrubland just outside the walls of Spokane. What took him so long? Maybe he had bigger fish to fry. He's been a busy man lately. A real jetsetter. But I have another guess:

I think the Mamluk was frightened.

Molloy was sending her thoughts out to the world at the time of the meeting and so we have a perfect record. Sockwren arrived by helicopter in the late afternoon and he rode a motorcycle to the gates of the city. After a brief, tense exchange with the guards, he drove back out to the frigid fields, made a loop of the city like Achilles chasing an invisible Hector, and waited. Molloy found him picking frozen pieces of grass out from between the rocks and hard soil where they grew. He waved her over to speak. They were, both of them, alone on the snow-speckled plain.

But, seeing the reflective flash of glass upon the city wall, the Mamluk wondered aloud: "Am I centered between crosshairs, Ms. Molloy?"

She turned her head to look up at the city on the hill, shrugged, and replied: "Mine are very protective of me, Mr. Sockwren."

"If mine wanted to hurt you, we'd wipe this gypsy camp off the face of the planet. It would be easy for us. But these stubborn, proud bitches! They're so certain of victory. They won't even let me carry a handgun! Although-- I'll tell you frankly-- if it were up to me, I'd shoot you where you stand! I consider you a menace."

"Nah," said Lacey with a wide smile. "You'd never lift a finger against me! You're a man whose anger doesn't get the better of him." Then, taking her middle finger between her thumb, she flicked him roughly across the nose. Once. Twice. Thrice. His eyes narrowed as his nose reddened under the icy burn of the whistling wind. "A real professional."

"Cunt," he muttered, and then: "That's a beautiful set of teeth we've returned to your addict's mouth. And your skin looks better-- I'd guess that you're almost back to full kidney function, even. Your eyes are clear. Look what we've done for you. Continue to do for you! And what have you paid for all of these gains, you welfare queen? You free rider? Nothing! Just be sure you don't lose it all again! Snort it all away."

Lacey appeared untroubled-- and if we comb through the public archive of her thoughts we can see that she really _was_ untroubled. An amused shade of royal purple. To Sockwren she said: "There was something you wanted? Some reason we just _had_ to meet?"

For a moment, the Mamluk seemed to Lacey like a young boy standing at the edge of a tall pier, staring down at the dark, swirling waters far below. Psyching himself up for a leap. Then, straightening his back, he said: "On your knees, slut."

Her legs didn't so much as tremble.

"On your knees!" His voice boomed. "Your sniper? The watchers on the walls? Let's give them a show, 'Cowgirl.' Let's put that fixed-up mouth to use! I want you to know what my cock feels like on your tongue. What it tastes like. I want that put down in writing for the whole world."

She stared at him.

"Down," he spat. His voice raised an octave: "Down, goddamnit! Fall!"

Lacey Molloy said: "That sounds like a fun game to play in private, but I'd need dinner first. Drinks. And much better conversation. You're not a bad-looking guy, but sorry, Dick. I'm not in the mood."

His eyes widened. He made a tortured gesture, as though smashing invisible clay with his hands. "Down!" He was shrieking like a child in need of a nap. "Down! Why won't you...!?"

I almost felt sorry for him, reading through the encounter in Lacey Molloy's thotarchive. Here was a man who hadn't had a normal experience with another human being in a long time. Everyone Sockwren met was transformed by his gaze into a trembling subservient or an adoring slave-- and the Mamluk, over time, had been warped by this weird dynamic as much as they.

<CowgirlLacey@thot[tickr]:public/archive> _...this poor guy / been drinking his own / koolaid / way too long..._

Now Mamluk and Cowgirl stared at one another on the windy plain like two samurai unable to draw first blood. A light snow began to fall. "You freak," Sockwren muttered. He was trembling. "Schizoid outlier. One-in-one-hundred-billion! Never to be seen again. Never, never..."

"But that's not true," said Lacey Molloy, gently. "That's not true at all. You weren't able to enter our city, were you, Dick? The guards turned you away. Maybe you recognized one of them? Nicolas Davlenik. I've been exercising with him. Exercising with all of our guards-- and anyone who asks. Mental exercises. Games. We're developing a system. Not perfect yet, but... but Nicky turned you away not an hour ago. Refused you."

Sockwren shrieked like a wounded bird and the wind carried the sound for miles. Now he played the schizophrenic as he called to the sky above him: "Do you hear that, Adriatica? Victoria!? The beautiful concrete we've laid down! The flat, level road! They'll grow amongst the cracks like weeds!"

His hands were clenching and unclenching at his sides as he continued: "Release me! Give your Mamluk his head! I'll end the threat before it begins! Just like in Tel Aviv and Shanghai and Brussels and DC and Pyongyang! Only this time... this time I'll squeeze the life out of her with my bare hands! I'll crush her windpipe! This is no time for scruples, ladies! Oh! Georgina! Surely _you_ can see the threat..."

He shuddered like a man fighting under the burden of a great weight-- and was still. Above him on the wall, the glass of a riflescope flashed again. Lacey Molloy gave Sockwren one last flick across the nose and turned back to her city. "Some day," she said over her shoulder, "we may even free _you_ , Slave King. If you ask nice."

***

Joseph secured me passage to Marseilles aboard a freighter flying Panamanian flags. As I stuffed a fat stack of bills into his hands on the docks of Rimal District, he said: "Hey, Jefe. No more you kill good little doggies, yes?" I stared at him in disbelief. Then my gaze went up and down the pier-- to where I was certain masked and armored cops would come charging at any moment. Joseph laughed.

"No," he said. "Everything ok. Primero, I think myself: 'Yes, I will sell the boss!' Reward, yes? But then I think myself: 'Who wants the boss? The grey people.' And maybe, after this, they makes me... I will be... como un zombi..."

He stuck his arms straight in front of him and rolled his eyes up to demonstrate. Then he shook his head. "No. I am the businessman. The capitalist! No make the good zombi! But, advice? No tell nobody nothing! La recompensa-- reward?-- she is bigger everyday! I need you to be 'the repeat customer!'"

He winked at me, knowing as well as I did that we'd never meet again. I wanted to embrace him. Instead, as I'm sure he prefered, I gave him another roll of bills. I said: "Not grey people, my friend. Beige. Watch out for them and watch out for your dreams..."

He took the money and-- whether he believed me or not-- nodded somberly, and then I was being hustled aboard the freighter by a hungry-eyed Venezuelan. There was a set of terse, straightforward instructions and more rolls of bills exchanged hands. I would have liked to stand on the deck of the freighter, next to a skyscraper of HanjinMart shipping containers, and watch the coastline disappear behind me. I was curious to see whether Joseph would stay and watch the ship depart or whether he was already on his scooter, off to start the tank house he'd dreamed up in the past week. It wasn't possible to find out. My new host hustled me into the belly of the ship. There, he removed some wall panelling to reveal pipes the size of tree trunks and a constant roar.

"There?" I shouted at him. "It's loud!"

He shrugged as though to say, 'this isn't Virgin airlines,' and, after handing him another bundle of bills, I crawled in.

The sailor replaced the panel. In the close, loud darkness I turned on the burner HUD I'd bought only that morning. Perverse curiosity drove me into Gaza's new surveillance network. From there, I gained access to the IDF drone which had appeared above my hotel's crumbling plaza only days earlier. My timing was good. Through the bird's-eye view, I was able to see a blonde man enter the hotel. Without further camera angles I couldn't be absolutely certain, but to this day I'd bet all the rolled sets of bills I spent that day-- and more-- that it was the Mamluk.

My dilapidated room with the view of the Mediterranean still smelled of my cologne. I'd beaten Dick Sockwren out of the country by hours.

I took a private jet from Nice-- where our freighter was diverted-- to Kansas City, Missouri. That flight over the Atlantic, I think, is the last luxury I'll ever know as a free man. I was met in the Kansas City airport by a buyer I'd contacted from a local Carolite pod. He, a perfect stranger but for our brief conversation, embraced me in the airport and said: "Welcome back to the fold, Brother Jacob! You're just in time! The rest of the pod will be here this afternoon, and then we head west, into the wastes..."

Where the eyes do not watch so fiercely, he didn't need to add. Where a man can still hide out under open sky.

***

In rural Texas and Louisiana, North Dakota and California, Maine and Pennsylvania-- in small, tight-knit, traditional communities across the country and the world-- there's a phenomenon occurring that's gone mostly unnoticed, buried under the weight of the others. Quiet, polite, well-groomed, aging men are going to bed 'confirmed bachelors,' and waking up starving hounds for pussy! They're still polite men-- and well-dressed, to be sure-- but suddenly they're on Christian dating websites. They're walking down the street with a waitress on Wednesday and going to the movies with a lawyer on Friday! No one is gossiping about them anymore. No one is raising his hand to his mouth to whisper.

It's not just the old veterans, either. Boys who've always been lovers of tidiness and beauty and musicals and dolls-- unspeakable sources of shame to their fathers-- are suddenly learning the names of wide receivers and engine parts. They're watching porn on their glasses-- and it's the right kind of porn! They're developing brusque, ill-conceived ideas about people they barely know-- stupid, indefensible theories!-- and calling it 'straight talk' and delivering it at the dinner table. They're burping and getting rid of their sandals and looking for deals on knives. They don't get into fights-- we're all too disciplined for that, nowadays-- but they talk as though they might at any moment. They're pussy hounds, too, if they're old enough, and every night their fathers offer up murmured prayers of thanks. Sometimes these hard, old men even cry! Their boys, miraculously, have been cured of their queer ailment and they're able to stand, arm over shoulder, with the masculine ideal. Hell, any one of these boys can drink the masculine ideal under the table, beat his ideal ass in the drunken fight that's sure to follow, and then go to his ideal house and fuck his ideal sister until the cocks crow!

Fifty years ago this trend would have been much more noticeable-- and a century ago this trickle of conversions would have been a flood! A raging torrent impossible to ignore!-- but even now it's happening, in little towns along the highways, amongst those too young to leave for cities and those old ones who've never left. Now, when it hardly matters! Everyone is loved now. Give these grateful fathers another week and they're struck by a perpendicular phenomenon: they realize that they've been fools! They realize that their love for their children isn't dependent on any rubric of acceptable characteristics. It's not an if/then statement! That love is boundless!

What sculptors we're becoming! What molders of human clay! The impossibilities we demand of women! Of men! The paradoxes we demand from ourselves! They're finally being met! Hallelujah! At last, we're able to deliver.

A few months ago, I watched a video clip of George Morales' mayoral inauguration on _The Jobs' Report_. Morales and his wife look fantastic. Jenny Morales, especially, is looking just super these days. I never would have thought it possible-- and in such a short time! She's dropped weight as though fat were nothing more than buckets of water she'd been carrying for a lark. If I didn't know better, I'd swear she'd been under the knife. Her nose and eyes and ears seem to have arranged themselves as though tectonic plates deep in her face had shifted under the undeniable forces of classical beauty. Her teeth are straighter. She wears fewer rings and baubles. Her chin is singular and her nails, less like claws. You can hear her speak in one of the video clips and her voice is less whiny. It has a pleasant ring! And she's endlessly diplomatic, endlessly conciliatory.

She's become the woman she always expected of herself! Which is to say, the woman we always expected of her.

Maybe you're one of these people who's never needed to pop into an AARTI tank, though? Maybe the world-- as it stands-- is your oyster? And you have no idea what everyone has been bitching about this whole time? Perhaps you're able to read _Candide_ and find in it not satire but statement of fact? I know you're out there: you winners of the biological lottery, women and men who manage to be both beautiful and intelligent, both practical and empathetic. Social animals who are, like Chinese acrobats, able to bend into every odd shape this world demands without breaking a sweat? Or better still! People who have never had to bend! People who were born fitting.

I suppose you-- independent and uncompromising as you are-- can't believe these poor slobs! Ready to sacrifice the core of their being to appease the mob. To change themselves, slavishly, for others. To fit in. To feel their father's rough hand on their shoulder. A simple acknowledgment of acceptance. You don't need that! You never have!

The nannies have nothing to offer you, do they? Nothing but further improvement.

Then again... well... look around! Isn't everyone just perfectly witty these days? And well dressed? Aren't they doing a great job with their children? Aren't those kids well behaved? Look at her! Not yet thirty and her work is already getting the attention of the editors of _Scientific American_! Look at him! A year ago he was begging for work as a HanjinMate, and now? He's one of the premier interior designers on the east coast! The distance-- that comfortable buffer zone-- between your exceptionalism and the new normal is shrinking every day. Soon, possibly for the first time, you'll be subjected to the workings of that old dynamo: competition!

Call it: The Race to the Top.

Everyone will love you no matter what. I promise. But here's where I get curious. What will you do? Live as a free mediocrity?

Will you watch them surpass you? These people that you pitied? Watch them earn more and enjoy more and accomplish more and love-- and be loved-- more? Will you be happy getting them their coffee and playing second fiddle on nights out, when all eyes will brush over you-- always, _always!_ \-- to settle upon your perfect sculpture of a friend? Will you hold onto your ideals then? Cling to your breast those few flaws which even _you_ possess? What I'm asking is: will you hold onto yourself as you are?

Or will you compete?

***

The Carolite pods kicked me around the deserts of the American West like an overmatched soccer team playing defense. Meeting, they would share a meal and sometimes a dance, and then pass me along with their young, unattached women and men and damaged motorcycles and milk goats and cloth and stray tools and books and water. I'd never realized how much stuff was drifting around the interior of the continent! For months I floated along with it, a drifter. I never, once, stayed with a single pod for over three weeks, with the result that I saw a lot of the same territory again and again. Empty cities, swallowed by desert. Empty beauty. Places where wind hummed and other places where it whistled.

The Carolites began tattooing themselves as Carol Manera recommended through Cowgirl Lacey-- each pod developing a unique wrist tattoo-- and every group I stayed with generously offered to have me branded. It wasn't long before the whir of the tattooist's needle became a familiar sound in my ears. The pain of it had me biting down on strips of leather for long hours in the evenings. Like Violeta Alvarez, my arms became covered with pictures and writing and patterns and stars. My chest and back and legs and neck and the backs of my hands and the tops of my feet were soon covered by medical cloth and weeping skin, and every week I woke to find that a new part of my body was nearly useless for pain.

But there was this: upon waking and finding myself suddenly unable to remember my dreams, I could look down at my arms and hands and chest and tell myself with confidence-- a heartier kind; presenting as a dark, chestnut brown-- that I'd made no concessions in the night.

My destination during these months was the walled city of Spokane. I moved, gradually, north and west... but the city always eluded me.

Now, ladies and gents, I don't want to give you the impression that the city, _itself_ , moved! That it shimmered behind heat waves, and disappeared, as though it were the resting place of the Holy Grail! Not at all! (Even if, during those weeks, I often felt like an aging Parzival some hours after he'd ingested several purple, roadside berries.) The simple truth was that some force or influence did not want Wally El Amin to make it to Spokane. Roadblocks were set up outside the Carolite capital for hundreds of miles in all directions. The first question the masked and sexless police always asked at these roadblocks were: "Have you seen this man?" Then, my helioed image.

Even helicopters, I soon learned, didn't fly into Spokane anymore without clearance. Mobile anti-aircraft batteries had been moved into the increasingly-militarized zone surrounding the prophet's city. Carol Manera's grinning, Soviet gunship was grounded.

And there was also this: the closer we got to Spokane, the more nervous my traveling companions made me. The nannies, I knew, drifted like smoke into their dreams, nightly. I trusted the idealism of my hosts-- the integrity of their characters-- but I also knew the sinuous strength of the nannies' promises. At some point, I was certain, one of the young people I traveled with would give a portion of herself for an acne cure or one of her elders would sell a slip of his autonomy to reclaim a memory of a summer night with a lost love. And then, at the next inspection by mobile patrol, I would be denounced. Revealed. My betrayer would be as surprised as everyone else-- and more horrified than anyone-- but it would be done.

No. I couldn't make it to Spokane on my own and trying to slip in with a pod of Carolites was even more dangerous. It was early October by this point and the weather was getting colder. I asked my hosts for a campervan and provisions. They gave me everything I asked for without question and wished me safe travels.

The Winnebago was beige, of course.

I drove south, down I-5. The US/Mexico border was nothing, at this point, compared to that tense zone surrounding Spokane. I showed one of my IDs and was let through. In Tijuana I bought a cache-- a whole crate-- of burner HUDs and I kept moving south, down the Baja peninsula, until I came to a comfortable, rugged, warm and lonely place to spend the winter: a beach with cacti and orange rocks and a view of the Pacific. A place where you could imagine a fish crawling from the sea and taking her first breath of air with wheezing, simple lungs. A good place to watch an epoch end. It's from this beach-- sitting in the open side door of the Winnebago, in fact-- that I'm talking to you now.

***

Wait! I just realized! Today is New Year's Eve! And I wonder if the Mamluk planned, even, for that? Or is it one of those things you almost never hear about anymore?

An accident.

Chapter 31

SO, ALRIGHT, NOBODY HAS _TECHNICALLY_ BEEN REPLACED BY A ROBOTIC TWIN. I goofed. But I do take some consolation knowing that I'm not the only person who went with this answer. If you read your newsfeed carefully, you'll see what I'm talking about. Last month, alone, there was a spate of institutionalizations: they swept across all fifty states and every province in Canada! The reasons? Paranoia. Delusion. Feelings of extreme isolation. Solipsism. It's not hard to imagine! Perhaps you're even experiencing something like that right now? As you listen to me? Or as you read a transcript of my broadcast? As though you've woken from a night of unsettling dreams! I know you haven't _physically_ transformed into a cockroach, but perhaps you feel like one? And you're being treated like one by every trusted person in your daily life? Until you feel like an alien in your own skin?

I don't watch _The Most Dangerous Game_ much anymore, but I did happen to see the name 'Salar Erbedium' scroll along the bottom of one of my burner HUDs the other day and I followed it back to the source.

It's the sort of mass-shooter video you don't see much anymore.

It begins from Salar's point of view. You see him in his dark and clean apartment, attaching his right arm and both legs to his own skinny, scarred torso. He takes his time, wrapping the brown synthetic skin in slow spirals and muttering to himself. He's speaking a Turkic dialect but _The Game_ has gone to the trouble of inserting English subtitles. Salar is saying to himself:

They replace an arm here. A leg there. They can fix you a new intestinal tract and a new heart and give you toes that wiggle. They were working on eyes when we surrendered to the Chinese. And now I've seen them! Round, wet machines installed in the empty sockets of old comrades. They work. They return sight! Feed images wirelessly to the brain. So is it really such a leap...?

Salar wiggles the fingers of his right hand in front of his glasses. The motion is silent. The fingers have tiny, brown hairs sprouting from beneath the knuckle.

You might never know... reads the translation at the base of the screen. So realistic. You might never know...

Wrapped inside a rug underneath Salar's bed are the components of an automatic rifle which should have been turned in, long ago, to Chinese authorities.

The next shot is an overhead view of a HanjinMart parking lot in Kulob, Tajikistan, taken by Pan-Asian League surveillance drone. We see a man exiting a small, white Honda and taking a rolled-up rug from the trunk. He unrolls the rug there in the parking lot and begins smoothly assembling the rifle. Now he's crossed the point of no return. Salar has only fifteen minutes, at most, before military police arrive.

More than enough time.

The next shot is from Salar's HUD again. He's just entered the HanjinMart and he's being assaulted by color and sound. A Targeted Ad is reading Salar's credit score and purchasing history, and a helio sprite of a dark beauty with her headdress pulled alluringly back appears in front of him. The sprite greets him and begins trying to pull him toward the sporting-goods section. He waves it away, but in a moment another helioed beauty is trying to pull him towards a store that sells home electronics. He's breathing slowly. Deeply. He's keeping his pulse level. The Targeted Ads don't sense any distress in this customer and they aren't trying to soothe him. They're trying to excite and distract him. They're trying to put him in a jolly, purchasing mood! Everything is loud except for Salar. The robotic legs he walked in on-- those prostheses he looks so natural using-- don't whistle. They don't even click.

Salar looks around the mall at the happy shoppers. He murmurs something to himself that _The Game_ translates as: Robots. They're all robots. The Chinese must replace us during the night. Bit by bit. Piece by piece. Am I the only real man left? And even I am half robot, these days. The bastards. The bastards...

He raises the rifle and sights in on the covered head of a woman loaded down with shopping bags. She's being followed by children like a line of ducklings and Salar steels himself, whispering: It'll bounce right off that metal skull and then you'll know. Then you'll have proof to show the world...

But there comes a new voice from Salar's right. It says something that's translated as: You're wrong, father. Wrong. Don't kill these innocents. Put the gun down.

Salar wheels toward the sound of the voice. It's a young man, handsome and dressed in the Western mode. Salar says: Rostam? What are you...?

The handsome, young man is standing in front of the rifle now so that the barrel is pointed at his chest. Salar, at once, shifts his aim-- but Rostam pivots to block the killing path again. The trigger finger on Salar's prosthetic hand is probably faster than his original ever was. All he has to do is send it the signal. Instead, the father drops the barrel so that it's aimed at the floor. Salar is trembling.

The words on the bottom of the screen: I was so happy when we were able to give you back your legs, my boy. I never thought... I never thought they would demand the rest...

You're confused, says Rostam. It's from the war, like the doctors are always saying. But look. You still haven't done anything. No one has even noticed. Put the gun in your jacket. We'll walk out the doors and go home. We'll turn in the gun. Everything will be fine. You just need a nap. Everything will be...

No, my son, my little boy, murmurs Salar. Nothing will be fine. They've taken you, my life, and replaced you with this doll. They've sent this piece of clockwork to stop me and I cannot bring myself to destroy it. It looks so much like you. They've smothered you and your mother in the night and replaced you-- and nothing can ever be fine.

A series of videos taken from mall security cameras: the rifle drops from Salar's hands and his prosthesis goes for the pistol hidden in his pants. The muzzle of this pistol glides toward the temple of his own head. Here, I believe, Salar would not have hesitated-- but in this instant he's overwhelmed by three shoppers. They've come out of nowhere and their actions are perfectly coordinated, as though they're each fingers of a single hand. A headscarved old woman slide-tackles the legs out from under Salar even as another woman whips the pistol from his hand. The third shopper-- a man-- catches him.

At once, the old soldier is fighting. He's rolling and kicking out with legs that can dent steel. His left hand-- the one natural appendage left to him-- goes for a knife. He's not a man to be trifled with and in any normal brawl I can see him taking down seven or eight attackers. Back on his feet, he tosses the knife between his hands like GOD in one of Cowgirl Lacey's dreams and surveys his beige enemy.

They come at him in a sudden wave. There are at least eleven of them by now. One of them-- a young woman-- makes herself the repeated, single victim of Salar's knife.

Seeing blood erupt from her chest, Salar drops that knife in surprise.

Now horror smooths his face. He stops fighting. The shoppers, directed by Rostam, pull off Salar's right arm. To be safe, they pull off both his legs. Neither of these actions are violent; the synthskin is gently unwound and the prostheses are removed according to procedure.

Salar sits there, a one-armed torso guarded by his son. He cannot kill himself. He cannot run. No exit. An ambulance comes for the stabbed woman and the PAL military police come for Salar. That's it. End of footage. Of course, you can watch Julia Wu conduct the post-rampage report. She expresses relief that, once again, a mass killing has been prevented... but is that a hint of disappointment on her nanny-composed face? It's been a long time since the Beast was fed. She reports that the family of Salar Erbedium is refusing all requests for interview and that Salar, himself, is currently being held in a PAL military prison.

In the last couple days, I've been thinking a lot about Salar. I imagine that those powerful, metal-denting limbs haven't yet been returned to the old freedom fighter and that he sits against a graffitied brick wall, ghost limbs aching, and that the sound of dripping water is constant. I imagine the confusion on his face. The disbelief. In some ways, he's my intellectual successor. He took up the threads of my doomed theory and he willed himself into testing it, just as I did. Now the system has rejected him and he sits outside it. Probably, he believes he's lost his mind.

He won't have to sit there for very long, at least. A visitor is coming who will clear everything up. I don't imagine that the Mamluk makes special trips very often for those who aren't prime ministers or the chiefs of security organs, but here-- for an old friend-- I think he'll make an exception. "There's no need to fight," he told Salar, once, in a message purged long ago, but the old soldier can't stop fighting. That's alright. It's a bit of a hassle, but nothing that can't be corrected. Salar will have his arm and legs back soon. He'll embrace his son and they'll go on a long, tranquil walk together.

Dick Sockwren will have Salar feeling better in no time.

***

The city of La Paz, where I bought food and toiletries until recently, has become a beige Gomorrah. A den of missionaries. Out of weakness, I made the mistake of staying past sundown a few weeks ago. I'd decided I was safe. I've been out of the news for many months now and I'm leaner and balder and more sun scorched than once I was. My body, these days, is covered in Carolite ink: angels and spirals and tortoises and signs to ward off evil and tea kettles and superheros and a camaro and a rocket ship and the imprint of a woman's kiss.

A pity they'll be gone soon.

That afternoon my Winnebago was at the mechanic's. The engine had been stalling and I was worried about making the drive back north, in the dark, to my secret beach. Hearing this, one of the vendors I buy from-- a man named Alberto Innocenti-- invited me to dinner. He wanted me to meet his family. He said I could sleep under his roof and return home in the morning. I'd been staying in my Winnebago on my lonely beach for many weeks, by then, and I hadn't been to a tank house since leaving Jobs. My only conversational partners had been the birds and crabs. Then, too, the Morales files remained under the [dead_man_switch] algo and I wore my knockout patch glued above my heart whenever I went into town. So, fearing nothing, I accepted the invitation.

Senior Innocenti had a wife, three lovely daughters ranging in age from seventeen to twenty-five, and a son who was thirteen or fourteen. The entire family came to dinner wearing emotiwooples-- necklaces, nail polish, lip gloss, hats, rings-- and every last one of these pieces of decoration was beige. Innocenti caught me looking around the table and he saw the expression on my face.

Yes, he told me. We're not in hiding anymore. At least, not here in La Paz. We're past the stage where we'll be thrown to the lions. We've found a better way of living and we're proclaiming it to the world! We want people to know that the secret to their happiness is already inside of them.

Innocenti's wife said: The meek are inheriting the Earth, Brother Jacob. You could join us this very night! We can show you how!

Innocenti glared across the dinner table at his wife. He said: The man is our guest, Alma. What did I say about dinner-time conversions?

Alma smiled tranquilly.

Not that she's wrong! Innocenti continued, turning back to me. For example: A few weeks ago, if my wife made a mistake like that? A little slip of the tongue? I would have beaten her within an inch of her life! She wouldn't have left her bed for days. Wouldn't I have done that, children?

He would have, said the eldest daughter. He would have beaten Mother in front of all of us. In front of you, our guest.

He was always doing it, chimed in the second eldest. Over the littlest thing. Our home was a tinderbox.

He was horrible, said the youngest. A monster. I was always afraid. Always.

A bastard, reported the son. My dream was to kill him. I thought about it every night. Every time I saw his face. I was almost old enough, and then I'm certain I would have done it. Or maybe he would have killed me.

I was like a little mouse, said Innocenti's wife with a disbelieving smile. A shadow. For years and years you couldn't really call me a human being. Not really. Married at seventeen and then... and then...

She shrugged.

My father taught me how to act, said Innocenti. How to be a tyrant. How to treat the weak. Even then, I wouldn't have been so bad, probably, except for my own shame. I was filled with a guilt which turned me violent. Consumed with guilt! I had very Greek tastes, was my problem. I was aroused by young men. Tormented!

He shook his head.

A pedophile, said Innocenti's son. The boy's emotiwoople headband stayed beige as he said: A predator. Calculating.

Years of hell, said Senior Innocenti. And, not content to cross hell alone, I brought my family with me. We all marched under my banner.

But in the end, I saved him, said Senora Innocenti with a brilliant smile. I saved all of us. I was the first in the household to accept the nannies. Because I was so tired.

We were all tired, said the second-eldest daughter.

And so we made ourselves perfect for him, said the youngest. Perfect for our monster. But it wasn't enough.

He would come home drunk, in a rage, and everything would be perfect, said the eldest daughter. That would only make him angrier.

We saw at last what needed to be done, said Senora Innocenti. We tied him to a chair one night-- and this, alone, was unthinkable; it caused him to tremble with fear. And one by one we brought his former lovers into the kitchen. They were improved boys, by then, and naturally they were all disgusted with him. One by one they marched into the kitchen to stare at him like a toad they'd been forced to lick. Then they took turns talking about what it had been like to make love to him.

Father began to sober up, said the youngest daughter. And he began to vomit. He vomited all over himself in front of those boys!

And he wept, said the middle daughter. And he begged for forgiveness. He made the most ridiculous promises!

I've never felt greater shame, said Senior Innocenti. And I never will.

But we couldn't let him get away that easy, said Innocenti's son. And, anyway, he was lying through his teeth.

I ordered two of the boys to get undressed, said Senora Innocenti. To begin making love to one another.

And we pulled Father's pants down, said one of the daughters. We had proof of his lies soon enough. Proof of his weakness.

But now, said Senora Innocenti, I'm ashamed to say it! The Beast named 'Vengeance' woke inside my chest! May it never again! But Alberto had been so cruel to us for so long. And... yes, it wanted to hurt him while it still could. Or, I did...

Mother ordered two of the boys to begin making love to her, said Innocenti's eldest daughter. The Beast was awake in her, and so the nannies in our eyes gave Mother bat wings and a forked tongue and a snake's tail. But the boys didn't seem to mind. The Beast woke in them and gave them goat's horns and cloven feet! Mother asked those goat boys to show her what she'd been missing all these years. There in the kitchen in front of Father. She placed herself between them.

Father began throwing up again, giggled Innocenti's youngest daughter. He screamed!

It's no less than I deserved, said Senior Innocenti with a sheepish grin. Sometimes the road to salvation is painful. Sometimes, even the Beast plays a part.

I forced his eyes open, said Innocenti's son. I forced him to watch it and I told him again and again how he'd brought it on himself. I told him other things I don't remember. Maybe the Beast woke up in me a little, too.

It did! said the middle sister. Your face got hairy like a dog's and antennae sprouted from your head and your teeth grew and grew...

But even so, continued the boy, I told Father how he could save himself. While we watched Mother and those boys-- my teammates from my soccer club-- I told Father exactly what he needed to do to make himself right. To make everything right.

I woke up the next morning a changed man! exclaimed Innocenti. Those unnatural tendencies were driven right out of me! I found peace! In fact, I threw away my sex drive completely. It's only ever brought suffering. A real relief to shed. Like a hot coat in the summer. And we've been the very model of a family since that day. When I think of what I put them through... those terrible years... but no, never again!

Senior Innocenti looked as though he wanted to cry, but that Latin impulse had been burned away. His eyes watered but he merely smiled. Then he turned to look at me.

They all turned to look at me, expectantly.

Somewhere early in the conversation-- after I'd confirmed that I wasn't mishearing or misinterpreting their Spanish-- I'd put my fork down and forgotten my food. Now I looked at them, one by one. Their emotiwoople jewelry and clothing burned beige. Their unlikely conversation hadn't excited any passion except businesslike confidence. I swallowed.

I know, said Senora Innocenti. I know. It's hard to come to terms with this at first. This new way of relating to the world. But I promise you, my guest, that the peace we've found is worth any price.

We want to offer it to you, said Senior Innocenti. We want to bring you aboard! More than that, Mercedes needs a husband!

The oldest daughter, my junior by two decades, raised her head. She had black, curling hair wrapped in ribbons and a heart-shaped face and a smirking, gentle mouth and high cheekbones. The nannies had exfoliated her tanned skin until it nearly shined and they'd given her an appetite that kept her large and smooth and healthy. Her hazel eyes were heavy lidded and long lashed and they examined me as though I were a rough and muddy stone that yet showed promise of containing worth. Her stare seemed to hold hidden depths, and my heart quickened to find myself on the receiving end of it.

Resting on her generous breast-- rising and slowly falling-- was an emotiwoople locket with a stone that sent out a constant, beige light.

What do you think, Mercedes? asked Senora Innocenti. Do you like the look of our guest?

Without a moment's thought-- as though it were a poem she'd memorized-- Mercedes Innocenti said: If he gave even the smallest part of himself to our new world, I would worship him like the sun. I would love him until the day he died and anything that he asked of me, he would receive. Never would he find a dog more loyal or protective. Never would he find a maid harder working, or a councillor who listened with greater interest to his stories. He could not find a whore more willing to submit to the basest of his desires. He would be lulled to sleep every night by the soft sound of my voice singing his praises and woken every morning by the smell of whatever breakfast he most enjoyed. I would be a quiet, beautiful statue if he wished it, or an active head of household, taking upon myself every triviality, leaving him to enjoy life. I would work endlessly for his happiness-- for my happiness would be wedded to his!

Well, that sounds nice! said Alberto Innocenti. How about it, Brother Jacob? The good life. No more living on the beach! There's just that one thing...

And the beautiful girl nodded. Like any missionary, her earthly passions were perversely intertwined with her cause. She said: Absolutely, it all depends...

I think I need some air, I said.

Oh! said Innocenti, looking towards his wife. We have a hard bargainer at the table! But two is always better than one. How about we throw Margarita in as well?

Senora Innocenti nodded as though it sounded regrettable but necessary, and the middle girl-- a smaller version of her sister-- looked up at me and smiled.

I cleared my throat and shifted in my chair.

All three? said the vendor. I, personally, think it's asking a bit much. Yes. Normally, I do not condone excessive appetites. But I like you. And you seem to know your own value! Louisa, my youngest, make a case for yourself!

I ran out the front door, climbed the brick wall that surrounded the courtyard of that fallen place, and was in the street in a minute. Behind me, I heard the entreaty: The boy? But you only had to say it...

But I'd lost myself in an alley by then. The night was warm and still and I felt as though I moved in a dream. As I hiked towards the autoshop and my Winnebago, I saw beige pinpricks in the distance. Women and men were walking in pairs, hand in hand, up and down the seaside esplanade, covered in emotiwooples. Everyone had begun marking themselves. Declaring their colors. Not all were beige: here and there, the colors on a walker's emotiwoople would change from bright red to blue to green to grey. They flashed between their beige companions like incandescent, deep-sea fish exploring a dead coral reef.

But there were so few of those fish.

On the esplanade, as I looked out at the yellow moon hovering low over the Sea of Cortez, another beige man approached me. In the low light off the pier he looked handsome and thoughtful and sad. I waved for him to leave me alone. Instead, he helioed into the air between us a pic of a young man with the childlike sunken face, chapped lips, and incomprehending stare I recognized as traits of Down Syndrome.

Please, he said. A moment.

Unwillingly, I muttered: Your son?

No, he answered. This is a picture of me. A few months ago. Before I took the cure.

I looked again at the helioed pic. Yes, the nannies had worked a miracle. There was no other phrase to use. Whatever the original blueprint for this man, it had been pulled from that damp corner where it had been discarded to molder and yellow. That human blueprint had been dried and straightened. Those tears that had been rent through it were taped back together. The structural lines, where they'd grown dim, had been penciled back in. Where they'd faded to nothing, beautiful and generous guesses had been made. Then, from these restored plans, careful and deliberate work had been slowly, unceasingly conducted so that, just like with Jenny Morales, desirable form had been imposed on raw, human stuff.

I held out my hand and we shook. His grasp was strong and gentle. Sir, I said. You have my congratulations. I'm sincerely happy for your new circumstances.

I meant it, too.

We began walking up the esplanade, beige columns of lovers and friends parting before us, towards the garage where my Winnebago waited. My new friend told me about his aging parents. He had taken a job in a nearby hotel and he was helping to support them. It felt wonderful, he said, to finally give back. He told me how they went out in the evenings, now, as they had when they were young. My companion told me about himself, too: how he'd always sensed a freedom, a lightness, coming from those frequent visitors to his home. He'd sensed how those visitors treated him like a child, even as he grew, and it infuriated him. He had seen the exhausted look on his mother's face and traced the trouble back to himself. He had racked his limited reasoning for a way to climb to the heights where so many others stood.

Can you imagine it? He asked me. I really wonder if you can. To lack the tools to diagnose the problem, let alone take any concrete steps! I was like a badger whose entire universe is her burrow. Happy enough in that comfortable space and yet ignorant of the sky, the sun...

I shook my head.

Then, he explained, I began to experience the most wonderful dreams. Dreams where I stood with other men. Dreams where I experienced logic and responsibility and autonomy. I had to be brought up to that level, do you see? I had to fully understand the import of my decision before I was allowed to make it. The whole process was entirely generous. Entirely fair. Probably the fairest thing that has ever happened to me.

I nodded because I didn't disagree.

I made my choice joyfully, said my companion. I know that I'm a slave but I consider myself an ennobled slave. My decisions aren't entirely my own, but then, they never were. If you want my honest opinion, I feel freer, now, than I ever have. Because my mind has grown to hold and consider possibilities, ideas, experiences that were once simply beyond my reach. I can play chess and appreciate poetry and kayak, alone, along a coastline at dawn. And even if I am made to prefer using these capabilities to improve my efficiency at work, well, at least I possess them!

He looked out at the moored boats on the moonlit water and said: Our new world. It's not simply a choice between 'freedom' and 'improvement'. That's all I'm saying. It's more complicated than that. There are more angles to it.

Then, when I couldn't think of how to respond-- when silence spoke for me-- he whipped about and suddenly asked: And you? Would you cast me back into the darkness of my freedom? Myself and everyone like me?

His eyes were so imploring that I wondered, for a moment, if he knew that I was Wally El Amin, who carried with him the rope to ring the warning bells and stir the world. I watched my companion for a moment and decided, at last, that his question was rhetorical. The realm of theory was still new to him. Intoxicating. Probably, he played there all he could.

Never, I answered. I would never cast you into the dark. I would only open your world even wider, if I could.

He nodded as though my answer satisfied him and he line-of-sighted a file to my burner HUD. Then he bid me goodnight and walked away along the water until he was nothing but a single, beige light lost amongst the others. I opened the file he'd given me. It was a professional-looking pamphlet in Spanish and English. The front read:

Have You Been Noticing The Good News?

Awaken the Nanotech Potential Inside YOU!

***

One afternoon, during Lacey Molloy's first month in Spokane-- long before she reunited with Nicolas Davlenik and Horace Flotsam or tangled with the Mamluk-- Lacey was standing in the sunlit kitchen of the apartment she'd been given, sulking. The insides of her mouth hurt and she was boiling water for tea. From her kitchen, Lacey could see one of the main entrances to the city. Just as the water started boiling, a trumpet sounded, and now a line of repurposed school buses entered the city, flanked by outriders on motorcycles. The pod was from Maine-- they had been announced by a forward scout and expected for days-- and they'd brought with them new Carolites, converts, and babies born on the road. They'd completed their pilgrimage and now there was a joyful honking of horns that might last for ten minutes or half an hour as the last of the stragglers came through the gates and all were celebrated at their destination.

Lacey wondered for a moment if Lily was down there. Lacey's one-time maid had taken a Carolite motorcycling course, fallen for her instructor, and now spent her afternoons riding across the hard landscape outside the city, tracking down lost livestock. Lacey hardly saw her anymore. Lily Pad was a happy convert, out making friends and attending workshops. Lacey had begun making her own tea.

Now, along with the noise from outside, there was a knock at the front door. Then another. Then a loud banging.

<CowgirlLacey@thot[tickr]:public/archive> _... alright alright im coming! / IM COMING! / but / oh / thats right / no huds in this / city / so weird / the old telepathy / doesnt work / no one reads / my mind..._

There, standing alone in the hallway, was Carol Manera. In all the weeks Lacey had stayed in the city, this was the first time the Prophet had come to visit. Lacey slipped the chain from the door and opened it all the way, and Carol said: "Hi, Lacey! Would you like to play a game?"

Lacey glanced towards the jubilant sounds of honking still coming through her apartment from the streets below.

"They'll keep," said Carol. "We'll have dinner tonight and I'll hear all their stories. Don't you worry." In one of her epoxy-filled hands was a small, cloth sack. She shook the sack so that it rattled and then marched into Lacey's livingroom. Looking at her guest's bare walls, she said: "Damn. This really isn't for you is it?"

"Sorry?"

The little prophet turned and waved her stigmatized hand as though encompassing the entire city. "Carolism. You don't like it. It's not cosmopolitan enough. Not sexy. Too much survivalism. Too many crafts and breathing exercises and goats and half-naked kids. Too few movie stars and gossip columnists and helios and regular baths. Not enough glamor. No, no, I haven't been reading your thoughts. I promise. But it's all over your face when you're out in the city. Your blank walls, here. You want to go home. In my pride, I'd hoped our way of life would win you over. But, then again, try building a worldwide social movement without pride! Just try it!"

She laughed. "And so now I cast aside pride. I have come to beg..."

Carol selected a little piece of metal from her sack. It looked like a colorful jack. She tossed the thing absently to the floor, where it collected itself and began to spin. Now, in the air above it, a helio window swallowed the whole of Lacey Molloy's livingroom. Inside the window a spiny cactus, time-lapsed, grew up from the desert floor and towards the sun. When the cactus reached its full height and began to flower, the words _Kingdom Otherwise_ appeared in the air above it.

"An oldie but a goodie!" Carol Manera cackled. "'Kingdom Otherwise!' It's set in a world where plants, rather than animals, become the dominant form of intelligent life! And you play as the plants!"

Carol grinned and then her face became hard. She said: "I'm worried, Lacey, because I've heard reports that some of my pods-- like, say, the one that just entered the city-- have begun banning old helio games under my injunctions against constatainment. Certainly it's a fine balance we have to strike if we don't want to become servants of our toys, but... I'm not even dead yet and the hardliners are trying to steer us clear into Luddite waters! Sometimes I think that if I went on a two-week vacation, I'd come back and every last toaster in the city would be smashed! Which is _not_ the same thing as maintaining healthy, parallel growth alongside technological progress..."

Seeing Lacey's blank look, Carol put a hand on her shoulder. "Sorry. I can't help but remember you're hooked up to that big transmitter. People listening, you know? Puts me in a preaching mood. All done. Let's play."

Carol and Lacey began the game as seedlings dropped by birds and carried by the wind. "Follow me!" said Carol. They spun and spun towards the hard earth below, using their leafy wings to guide their falls, and Lacey's seed followed Carol's to a pile of rocks many meters below. "There's a safe place!" said Carol. "We'll land and bury ourselves and start to grow. Then the game really starts!"

But before they could land, a bird swooped in and gobbled up Lacey's seedpod. The words GAME OVER consumed the window. Carol shook her head. "So many ways to die," she said. "But that's part of the challenge!"

They started over. This time the two seedlings managed to make it down to the rocks-- before being grabbed and devoured by small rodents. GAME OVER.

"Damn," hissed Lacey.

"Well!" said Carol. "It takes practice."

GAME OVER. They fell, again and again, from the sky. They learned to identify wind currents and hungry animals-- and how to use the former against the latter. They learned to find fertile patches of earth where they could grow without being dug up or harassed. Even so, they couldn't seem to win: once, Lacey fell into the safety of a circle of boulders, only to find that they denied her sunlight. GAME OVER. Another time her seedling lay barren in parched, dry earth. GAME OVER. Her infant civilization was destroyed by animal and heat and cold and flood and poison and dead earth. After an hour, Lacey finally managed to get a single blade of grass to sprout up above the soil... before she was dug out of the ground by another rodent. GAME OVER.

Lacey threw her hands up and wailed. "Yes," muttered Carol. "It's tough. I do remember that, now. But what about..." She snapped her fingers. "That's it!"

Lacey couldn't help herself: "What?"

The older woman winked. "Cheat codes!"

Carol Manera spoke a few silly, nonsense phrases ("Spiney spiney hedgehog blue! / give us spines and shoot them true!") and suddenly the game started over. This time, however, things were different. This time, when a hungry bird swept in to eat them, Carol shouted: "Watch this!" As the bird dived, Carol's falling seedling shot off a round of quills into the animal's face. It made a startled noise, circled back, and flew away.

Carol clapped her hands. "And tell your friends!" Turning to Lacey: "Usually you don't develop spines until the third or fourth growth stage, but this is when you really need them! Youth is wasted on the young, spines are wasted on the old! Wouldn't you say?"

They landed.

Now, whenever an animal approached their young plants, Lacey and Carol could use their spines to guard themselves or scare the creature off. There were still plenty of hazards: it was difficult to find a patch of ground with enough nutrients and steady sources of light and water; their young plants only grew so many spines an hour and these had to be rationed against frequent attack; Carol and Lacey still found portions of their fledgling civilization wiped away by disease or enemy plant phylum. But at least the game was playable!

Soon it became obvious that the designers of _Kingdom Otherwise_ had created these plants in the human image-- which is to say, God's. By stage three of growth, great bean pods began bursting forth from the softening earth. And falling from these pods were little, green people! The women produced berries from their skin and the men flowered radiantly, and both genders were covered in protective spines. These green people were called _Photo erectus_ and they were gardeners at heart, softening the hard soil for their rooted forbears and growing great, frondy communal-living quarters.

Gardeners though they might be, _Photo erectus_ were soon using rocks and makeshift clubs to beat back _Photo neanderthals_ and take their seed. Carol and Lacey laughed and coached one another as their flowering peoples took to the seas and built great, green empires and discovered gunpowder and fought off the attacks of a horde of monstrous, purple ivy. Here, a berry-covered elder named Papyrus invented a form of writing which was inked onto dried leather. There, a flowering monk named Eucalyptus formalized their peoples' mathematics to give them an edge over other sentient flora. They were working on producing their first steam-powered factory when Carol Manera said: "The problem is, this game can take days to reach the really neat stuff. Plant spaceships. Plant lasers. Plants traveling faster than the speed of light! Here, let me show you..."

<CowgirlLacey@thot[tickr]:public/archive> _... wait a sec! / its not broke / dont fix it / im having / fun..._

But before Lacey could decide whether to argue, the cheats were being entered. Suddenly their small mercantile empires had harnessed the power of the atom. Their green peoples had access to cutting-edge financial markets and antigravity thrusters and powerful antidepressants and fighting-robot suits. The advancing purple ivy hordes were left hundreds of years behind in an instant. They were burned away under a mushroom cloud and withered under radiation. The continent, suddenly, was empty and open for expansion. A voice from the game announced: Bonus Unlocked! Manifrond Destiny!

"Well," said Lacey. "That was easy..."

"Small potatoes," said Carol. "Check this out."

Their peoples' gains, now, were exponential: in a few minutes, they'd settled three of their world's four moons. Soon they had regular orbital traffic. In twenty minutes they had the beginnings of a Dyson Sphere surrounding their world's red sun. But Carol wasn't content to stop there: she unlocked shortcuts through space and time with another cheat phrase and soon they were sending their seedlings through wormholes to the far ends of galactic superclusters. Here their seedlings-- as diminutive as those which fell at the start of the game-- were conquering the interstellar empires of bipedal hominids. These little seedlings were surviving direct hits from weapons which devoured stars. Lacey Molloy watched for three minutes-- never giving a single command-- while a single seed, trillions of light centuries from home, made swift work of an ominous reptilian fleet under the light of a quasar. Then she said: "I'm done."

Next to her, Carol Manera broke off mid-cackle to say, "What? Why? We've barely conquered four galaxies! Things are just getting good!"

"It's boring."

"Boring? Boring! Boring, how? We've unlocked everything! We're gods! Power overwhelming!"

"There's no point."

Carol pulled her epoxy-filled hands back from the helio window. She met Lacey's eyes. "Oh?" she said, very slowly. "Why not?"

<CowgirlLacey@thot[tickr]:public/archive> _...dont think / i dont know / what youre doing / lady / socratic method? / even certain high school dropouts know that / old trick..._

"Because," said Lacey, "there's no challenge. We're just going through the motions. You aren't even giving orders! We might as well be in the kitchen, drinking tea. Or maybe down in the main hall? Meeting the new arrivals?"

"Hah!" said Carol. "Such a good hostess! So concerned with our guests! I won't burden them with my absence much longer. But, just to be clear, the fun-- the point of the whole experience for you-- lay in the challenge, then? The difficulty?"

Lacey shrugged. "I guess. Except that when it was too hard-- too crushing-- I also wanted to quit."

Carol's tiny shoulders lowered. "Yes," she muttered. "Mustn't forget that." She took a deep breath and suddenly brightened. "Doesn't your mouth hurt just a bit, dear?"

"It does! It's been hurting like hell for days! How did you know? Been sneaking looks at my thoughts?"

The Prophet smirked to herself. While the little, green people conquered their fifth galaxy above the living room table, she said: "Never you mind. Open please! Why, there they are! Right on time!"

"Whuh?" asked Lacey Molloy. "Whuh i whi ong hime?"

"You're teething! Little baby teeth! Soon you'll have such a smile!"

Lacey pulled her head back. "TEETH! I'm growing... How is that...?"

"Possible?" asked Carol. "Cheat codes."

"I'm growing my teeth back? I haven't craved booze or Chuckle for months. I don't see GOD or hear voices anymore. Except in dreams. And you say 'cheat codes.' And my dreams...?"

"Are necessary, I'm afraid," said Carol. "They show me that you are protected. Either divinely or diabolically. Either logically, necessarily, or borne of chaos and statistical noise. And they show the world-- those who are following, anyway-- that there is a separate path..."

"Hmm."

"Soon they'll start arriving, Lacey. Not for me. For you. They'll come singly and in pairs. A trickle which grows into a flood. A flood which makes your former following look like a muddy, shallow puddle. They'll come to escape this..."

She waved to the helio, where the green people were knitting galaxies together into a single, transcendent whole. "The slavery of perfection. Of godhood."

"So it's all 'cheat codes' and 'godhood.'"

"It has to sound crazy so that it doesn't start a panic. Our weapons are too terrible. We cannot have the hands that hold them begin to tremble. Within the year you'll know as much as I do and more. In the meantime, we have the infrastructure of resistance in place. For years, now, I've worked with this single aim in mind: to prepare us for your arrival. To turn over to you a worldwide organization for resistance."

"And if I can't... No! Let's be clear: if I don't even _want_..."

"Then there's only the one path. And maybe there only ever was. Maybe all of those other futures were illusions. I've wondered often enough; we only get to walk the one path. But I see something like a swaying, drunken balance made manifest in you..."

"Thanks?"

"...and I have to wonder: this confused, hurting woman who sought oblivion for so many years-- is she prepared to turn away the sea of humanity who are about to find themselves in her shoes? To spurn them the way she was spurned? To flip humanity the bird and walk away?"

"I'd fucking like to!"

"Well," said Carol Manera with a shrug. "You're about to get your chance, dear."

The prophet slashed her hand through the image of nebulae being fused for some incomprehensible purpose, and the little universe above the coffee table went dark. She stooped with a groan and picked up the jack which had gone immobile. It rested for a moment between thumb and forefinger and then she slipped it back into the cloth bag and made her way to the front door of the apartment. The honking had long ago died out and the sun had set. It was dark outside and the only light came from neighbors' windows. Carol opened the door and moved into the bright hallway. She called back: "Call for the helicopter any time. Day or night. We'll try to make it available for you inside the hour. Good night, Lacey!"

<CowgirlLacey@thot[tickr]:public/archive> _... just walking away huh? / dont fool me! / ive been to the bazaar / the market / ive haggled with the fake dolce and gabbana lady / too / and ive walked away just like that / too / i know what this is i know what this is i know what this is ..._

But, deeper than the level of Cowgirl Lacey's conscious thought, something was cooking. Her UuSDs were chugging away. Deep down inside of her, they were building up a heat and pressure which not even she was aware of... because in the next instant, without planning to, she blurted out: "Hey! Carol! Wait a second! Can I come along, too--"

Lacey stopped. She blinked. She stared through her open doorway, disbelieving.

<CowgirlLacey@thot[tickr]:public/archive> _...well / holy / moly / against my own better..._

A moment later, a friendly, wrinkled face peeked across the threshold. "Yes?"

Lacey, hands behind back, kicked at a pebble that wasn't there. "Can I come to the welcoming dinner?" she mumbled. "I wouldn't have to sit next to you, or nothing..."

Suddenly, Carol Manera filled the doorway: "But I'd _love_ for you to sit next to me! Come on, Lacey! Come on! You might think we're all simpletons, but we really _do_ make an occasion of these dinners! They're called, 'Pilgrim's Balls,' and they're like the great dances of two hundred years ago! Beautiful dresses and suits and curled hair and high ceilings and chandeliers and dancing and gossip all night long! C'mon! We're flush with makeup artists. You won't believe what these men and women can do. And the dresses to choose from! And here I am, supposed to be a fortune teller; I should have gotten one made to your measurements! But, oh! Come on!"

Now the Prophet of Spokane had a hand on Cowgirl Lacey and was pulling her through the hall and towards the elevator like an excited girl of six or seven. As they waited for the machine to ascend, Lacey asked: "Could we play that game again? _Kingdom Otherwise?"_

"Absolutely. I need an excuse to get away in the evenings!"

"But I want to play it the right way. Maybe just starting off with the spines..."

Carol Manera, suddenly, was gushing: "The only way to play it! It takes time-- months, sometimes, to get to where you're harvesting stars-- but it's worth it! Oh, I'm glad you like it! You know, it never was the most popular game? But it always held a special place in my heart. Oh, I'm glad you're coming to the Ball, dear! I'm glad, I'm glad! I really think you'll have a good time and your friend, Lily, will be there..."

Then the doors opened and the two women entered, hand in hand, on their way to the Pilgrim's Ball.

Chapter 32

THIS MORNING, A FEW HOURS BEFORE I BEGAN THIS BROADCAST, I woke to find a thin, metal claw scratching lines into the windshield of my Winnebago. I listened to the Pacific Ocean for a few minutes and I watched the claw work. After a few long and noisy passes that did plenty to ruin the glass on the driver's side, the owner of the metal claw retreated. Then, in one of the passenger windows, I watched a single, steel digit slowly carve the phrase:

WAKEY WAKEY, WALLY!

Checking to make sure that my knockout patch was secured to my chest, I called out: "You win! You found me! No need to fuck with me!"

I heard a woman's laugh, and the claw began to tap on the glass. "The Mamluk is in a private plane over the Mediterranean," a muffled voice informed me. "You have a few hours left. And nothing to fear from me. Come outside and we'll discuss terms, Mr. El Amin."

"What's your name?" I shouted.

"Dolores. George sent me. Remember George?"

I exited the side of the Winnebago. There on the beach, alone except for the cacti and the crabs, sat a lithe, simpering beauty upon a rock. Dolores had short, blonde hair and smooth, bronze skin with feathery laugh lines perched behind her eyes and at the edges of her mouth. She looked like she was in her fifties and, like a cruel spinster in a Dickens novel, she'd retained the lean, almost-boyish form of a young woman. She was dressed in a blouse and black skirt and Greek sandals. She had a cigarette held between the triple pincers of her prosthetic claw and she was lighting it with her left hand. This hand lacked a ring finger.

With her claw she brought the cigarette up and took a long drag. Then she said: "Creditor drone."

"Pardon?"

"Armed creditor drone. Flew by here about two days ago and spotted you. You know Baja is a favorite hangout for American debt tourists? Lots of lawyers and doctors and engineers who never made good on their student debt hiding down in this scrub. This particular creditor-- the one that found you-- was looking for a grad student who'd bailed on her program. Some social-science bullshit; I'd have jumped ship too! They still haven't found her. But your old buddy, Charlie-- she's got her hooks into everything these days-- one of her facial-recognition algos thought you looked familiar. Ain't that a bitch?"

"It's a bitch," I said. "Can I have one of those?"

"Anything for the condemned." With startling grace, she used her claw to pluck a single cigarette from the pack and she handed it to me, brown filter facing away. "That's why I'm here."

I took the cigarette, took the proffered lighter, lit, and took a drag. I hadn't smoked in years, and as the toxic stuff flooded my lungs I began to cough. Tears sprang, unsummoned, to my eyes.

"You going to kill yourself, Wally? Jenny Morales wants to know. She's worried about you. She wanted me to let you know that she forgives you for that thing with the dog. That's how she put it: 'That thing with the dog.' She forgives you. You going to break her heart again?"

"I might," I said, knowing that I wouldn't. "When the time comes."

"You shouldn't," said Dolores, taking another drag. "It'd be nothing but a waste. And that's me talking, not the nannies. At least, I'm pretty sure. It all gets kind of scrambled after a while. But I'm pretty sure."

"You're a survivor. You and Morales."

"Goddamn right! And what are you? Some peasant who's all butthurt because he has to pray to a new god? Pay taxes to a new king? Just cut the check and learn the new prayers. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss, Wally. And don't worry: it's more or less the same raw deal."

I was laughing, unexpectedly, and then coughing smoke. When I'd recovered and wiped the newest tears from my eyes, I said: "Trouble in paradise?"

Dolores shrugged. She said: "Look, it's no secret: every new regime has winners and losers. Even our Nanny State. It's a hivemind and so there are hierarchies involved. That's all. And if you force the Mamluk to travel halfway around the world to drag you-- kicking and screaming-- into the club, well, don't expect to find yourself one of the big players."

"I get it. You're their last argument. My last chance to surrender."

She spat. "No, friend. There you're wrong. I'm no 'argument.' I'm just another cigarette."

"Another cigarette?"

"And I wasn't even a smoker before they got into my head..."

"Huh?"

"I'm a whore, Wally," she said. "A prostitute. You think I wear this claw for fun? It tickles our George's famous sense of humor. Somewhere he found an old model of that piece-of-shit prosthesis I wore back in Houston during the plague days. He sends me out, wearing it, to fuck men. And women. Whoever he tells me to. For instance, last night George told me, 'last rites for Walid El Amin,' so I strapped on Nickel Arcade, here, and an hour later I was on a private plane. I'm not here to convince you to do anything. I could care less what you do at this point. My job is to lie down and spread my legs and groan like a stoned puta."

There was a terrific, lustrous hate in her eyes for a moment and then she took another pull from the cigarette and it was swept clean. "The really sick part, though? If I may? It's the best part of my day. I've been rewired to love it, no matter where it comes from. So what do you say? Have you got one, last despicable act in you?"

Now I looked at the tight-fitting skirt and the wrap sandals and understood. They'd been trying to make her look cheap-- and with what remained of her personality she'd dominated the attempt. She'd worn her clothing with dignity and I'd attributed it to the balmy weather.

"Take the claw off," I said.

We fucked out on the beach, underneath the morning sun and I whispered-- for the only time in my life-- a silent, 'thank you,' to George Morales. Dolores was a wiry, one-armed figure beneath me, atop me, before me. Her tongue was active as a flicker and then slow and languorous as a well-fed snake, and entering her I felt like one of those tightly-housed freighters sitting in dock in the Panama Canal. From the beginning she howled like a porn star on the torture rack, but I didn't sense even an ounce of artifice. She was as earnest and energetic as any aartinet lover I'd ever known and she adjusted her lovemaking by the tiniest of degrees, picking up cues I didn't even realize my body was delivering.

Unexpectedly, in the middle of everything, I found myself sympathizing with Jenny Morales.

I came quickly and on this newest cue Dolores' generously-wired brain also offered up an orgasm. We locked together: a moaning, screaming, quivering, three-legged, reverse-centaur with two faces slack in idiot delight.

There we lay, sweating and shivering and sandy on that beach for a few long minutes, before Dolores asked, almost nervously: "Again?"

Yes, again. Again and again and when it was done I felt half dead and ambivalent towards my fate. My balls ached and my legs didn't feel as though they would support my weight. There were scratches in my back where the three nails of Dolores' remaining hand had dug in. It felt good. Then, the curve of her hips pulled away and she was standing. She was walking up towards the beige Winnebago. I let her go. I lay in the warm Baja sand and watched the waves move forward and pull back. Forward and back. And back.

***

When I found Dolores again, a few minutes later, the spartan prosthetic was back on and her fever had passed. She was sitting in the passenger seat of the Winnebago, moving a brush through her blonde hair. Through the mirror I watched her patrician face run a gauntlet of emotions: Sadness. Disgust. Anger. Now, my head clear, I felt little better than a sated dog. Should I apologize? But, noticing my approach-- and maybe guessing my thoughts-- she gave me a geisha's smile. A real professional. She called: "The best part of my day, Wally! I wasn't lying! And by the way, I like your tattoos. I used to have some on my arm. Not Carolite ink, but, you know..."

I wasn't convinced: "The best part of your day? You don't look too happy. What does our man have you do with the rest of the day? Take dictation?"

She snorted and lit another cigarette in her claw. "Funny boy," she muttered, and took a long draw. "No, the rest of the day I spend remembering."

"Remembering?"

A bleak smile. "The whoring isn't my punishment. The whoring just tickles George's funny bone. The rest of the day is my punishment..." She turned to me. "Tell me, Wally: how do you punish a monster? A person who has committed unspeakable acts? Or simply hurt the people she should have loved? Exploited them. And feels no remorse when confronted with this. Laughs in the face of prosecution and victim alike."

I shrugged and said: "A metal cage. Bad food. Take away their internet. Their aartinet."

"The classic answer! And until recently, probably, the best that we could do. But remember, Wally: now we can _change_ people. We can get inside their heads and mold them..."

Before I could butt in, she held up a single metal pincer and continued: "The woman I was during those years in quarantined Houston? Our George doesn't lie: I was an animal. A lioness covered in lamb's blood. I felt no remorse. I did not suppress remorse or ignore it. I was physically incapable of feeling it. I was born with a stunted, even retarded, capacity for empathy. A common sociopath. That's all.

"When civilization kept me penned in, my condition didn't mean much. I lied to people who thought of themselves as my friends and I stirred up trouble. I slept with men to advance myself. I stole from my employers. I told people what they wanted to hear. What did I ever become? Middle management in an HR department. I toyed with the professional lives of a few dozen desperate people. Future Carolites. Women and men who were slated to lose their jobs to algos no matter what I did. But once things started to slip..."

She licked her lips. "Once things start to slip it's always people like me who benefit. People who are willing-- happy!-- to do whatever it takes. Violence means nothing to us. Suffering is just loud noise or gloomy silence. Everyone is a tool. There were dark urges in quarantined Houston, just as there always had been, and suddenly no one to police them. So I climbed to the top of that burning heap of garbage. I did what I had to do and I had fun! I slept well during those years. I've never slept so well...

"But now the tables have turned-- we're more civilized than ever we were-- and our George has become the bigwig. 'Take this animal and turn her into a human being" he said, when they brought me before him. 'Make her realize what she's done.' That was all he said and I laughed at him. I told him to send my love to Eileen and then I laughed in his empty face. And then laughed at his back as he walked away, thinking I'd escaped him a second time. But I was wrong! Oh, he's having the last laugh now!"

Her eyes were widening. She was beginning to tremble. "How do you punish monsters? You make them human. The nannies didn't simply stint my empathy and grow it out to normal levels. No. They made me like a _mother_ to those girls. Made me love them. My girls. Each and every one of them. I can still see those poor things wriggling in the dark. I can hear them moan as they're mounted by those... hairy, coughing, sick survivors. And my own men, they needed to be paid. And I can hear my girls being beaten, even now, and I can remember myself laughing! Laughing! Oh, I kept some standards, thank God, but that was more to protect property than to... than to...

"And every last one of them, I remember. And love. But more than any of them, I remember Eileen. Her terror the night we took her. The way she pleaded for her husband. The emptiness that entered her face whenever I sold her. The night she saved my life. That precious, little bitch and her unending grace. They've forced me to love her. I... That's what I do with the rest of my days, Wally. I remember and I mourn. I carry my girls with me, everywhere. My burden. And the only time I forget... the only time they _let_ me forget... the best part of my day..."

Without warning, her three-fingered hand swept out to take hold of my limp penis. She began to pump it and looked up at me with begging eyes. "One more time, Wally? In here or on the beach again? There's plenty we haven't tried. Plenty you could do to me. Have you ever beaten a woman just for fun? Not in the aartinet but real, flesh and blood...?"

It all happened too quickly for me to mask whatever crossed my face. What did she see? Pity? Horror. At the totality of George Morales' revenge. The completeness of the nannies' subversion. Then, too, the sickening realization: Dolores Kindcaid wasn't simply a gift. She was a warning, after all. This is what the Mamluk can do-- and this is what he _will_ do, if you force him to come for you.

Surrender yourself to our infinite mercies, Wally. Otherwise...

Seeing everything that crossed my face, Dolores gave a weak chuckle. Like a shipwrecked woman letting go of the floating mast that might save her, she, with great effort, took her hand from my penis. "Forgive me," she said. "You're worn out, naturally."

***

I found some pants in the back of the Winnebago and I put them on while Dolores resumed brushing her hair. Then, figuring I would only have this one chance to know, I asked: "Whatever happened to Eileen Patel? She's dead now, I know that. But you said she saved your life. Did you... did you kill her that night? The night George came for her? Or..."

The brush stopped. Dolores turned. "He never told you? When you were looking into him?"

"Things got kind of hectic towards the end. You don't have to tell me if it's too painful. But..."

"It's fine," she said. "I think about it all the time, anyway."

She took a breath and blinked and said: "Back before the nannies, there were lots of things I didn't experience the way I do now. I couldn't do empathy. I've told you that. Couldn't understand it or comprehend it. But another feeling I had trouble with was fear. I saw it all around me, surrounded myself with it, used it-- but my direct experience with it was... warped. If I felt fear, at all, it was the way you might feel agitation. Maybe nervousness? Annoyance. It's hard to explain..."

Dolores shook her head. Then, looking towards some point I couldn't see, her eyes shone. "But the night Jorge came for us! He'd been following us for weeks. Taking the time he needed to learn about us. He knew each of my men by name and he knew their habits. He knew my girls and where they liked to sleep. He was nothing but the sharpened edge of a knife, that night. The point of a bullet flying straight for my eye. I heard my killers crying out. Gurgling screams all around me, and I... and I...

"I felt it! Fear! And do you know what it felt like to me? Appreciation. Appreciation and, perhaps, respect. I sent my men to feed him, knowing they were already dead. And I waited with the girls. I let them make their scared noises. Like unhappy cows. I wanted to draw him out.

"He came from the shadows like a deranged painter who used only the one color. Can you imagine that from our good mayor? But it's the truth. The girls saw him and they went silent. He had only just murdered their lovers and protectors and tormentors. Now I told my girls to bring me Eileen Patel and so they passed her foreward. I gripped Eileen to me with my claw, and with my hand I put a razor to her throat. I said to him: 'One step closer and you'll never have her: not tonight and not ever again.'

"And he told me: 'If that happens, then you'll all die. Except. Except for you, Dolores, who will live.'

"Those words floated out to us as though from a wolf which is licking its chops. Preparing itself for a meal. And I realized that what had begun in love had mushroomed outward through hate into something really grotesque. He was waiting for me to kill his wife-- expecting me to feed this thing in him the last of what it needed-- in order to consume me with even greater delight. I had become his goal. Do you understand? His wife was secondary. Yes, he was the greater monster, with longer teeth and larger eyes and an endless capacity for pain.

"So I dropped the razor.

"And then he was standing above me-- and this is important, Wally, so listen-- he was disappointed. The thing inside of him had been denied. Could not grow. So he decided, in the end, to make a quick thing of it. He took a pistol and held it to my head. And then..." Dolores shook her head. "Eileen. She begged him and threatened him. She told him she didn't want to be rescued if it was like this. And I remembered what I had done to her and couldn't understand. Still can't understand. Unless she knew, somehow, that there was greater punishment waiting...

"So our Jorge had to content himself with a trophy. My ring finger. He used a pair of bolt cutters while the girls held me down. Later on-- after he and Eileen left-- it was all: 'We're so sorry, Madame! So sorry! But he would have killed us all! What else could we do...?'"

"Wait," I said. "Then George Morales rescued his wife. Then..."

"They lived happily ever after," Dolores smirked.

"No, no, no," I said. "How did she die? That can't be right. How did she die? Jorge Morales became patient zero for the Waslowski/Nguyen Method because he was a lunatic! A hopeless case! Because he'd lost the love of his life!"

"Yes," said Dolores. "He lost her. But not to me! He lost her to Old Horto. The fifth or sixth wave..."

"The SuperBug," I said. "It was the SuperBug?"

"Maybe a year before the quarantine was lifted," said Dolores Kindcaid, "she succumbed. But Jorge and Eileen had many years together before I stole her away for a few months. And they had years together afterward. I think they had a pretty good run, personally. Better than lots of kids who marry at that age." The smirk I'd seen on her face when she'd first arrived had made a reappearance and she lay her claw consolingly on my shoulder. "Disappointed?"

***

Dolores left a few minutes later. She slipped back into her torrid outfit and laced up her sandals and assumed her mantle of sad dignity. She said: "Well, Wally, I'm a working woman with a schedule to keep. Best of luck ringing the warning bells..."

And she began to walk back up the rocky trail. North. When she was little more than a speck in the distance she turned and line-of-sighted me a file from her HUD. I accepted. Along with the file came a short message:

[In case you decide to take the poison pill before Mamluk shoves it down your throat. Yours, D]

The 'poison pill' was a program called: iImprove!

***

iImprove! is a new program that helps you sell your soul. I just received my copy this morning; you'll be familiar with it soon. I imagine there'll be a general launch in the next couple of days. Because I'm no expert on nanotechnology, I'll play the tutorial that comes with the iImprove! file.

Here goes:

Jan: "I just can't do it, Greg! No matter how hard I try!"

Greg: "What's wrong, Jan?"

Jan: "I can't compete with Marcia! You know we're both trying for the Junior Analyst position! I need that job! And so, of course, she applies for it too!"

Greg: "There's no getting around it. She'll be a tough one to beat..."

Jan: "Just look at her! She starts out beautiful and confident-- and it only gets worse from there! She likes to schmooze and she's _good_ at it. She always knows the right things to say. She has the money for new pantsuits and blouses-- and that hair! And that smile! She can walk into a room and light it up!"

Greg: "And those are just her looks! Remember: Marcia's got a mind like a steel trap. Can you imagine her in the interview? They'll say something like, 'Thank you, Marcia. We just need a few minutes to confer.' And she'll put her foot down-- give them that look she gives Jim Crenshaw sometimes-- and they'll start to sweat. They'll give her the position then and there!"

Jan: "Oh no, Greg! Not you, too! I'm sunk!"

Greg: "And it's not like you can stay in data translation forever. They'll have an algo doing your work by the end of the year."

Jan: "Oh, God... Having trouble... breathing..."

Greg: "Now wait a minute, Jan. Another panic attack during business hours? This isn't going to help you vis-a-vis the Marcia thing. Neither is your creepy, retro beanie baby collection or the flab on your arms. And your laugh? That nervous giggle you make all the time? Everyone hates that. If you're competing with Marcia, that's got to go."

Jan: "Greg... please..."

Greg: "Of course, none of this would be so damning if both your output and the quality of your work weren't so low. So let's cut the crap: you don't stand a chance against Marcia. You know why? Because she's better than you, Jan! If I were a gambling man, I'd bet she was born better than you. And time has taken its toll! Where you've experienced a vicious cycle of peer negligence and self-abhorrence since kindergarten, Marcia's ridden a virtuous cycle of constant praise and easy acceptance. In her heart she knows she deserves the good things in life! And she does!

Jan: (Choking)

Greg: But, alright! No need to dribble drool all over the breakroom floor! I mean, you're made of the same malleable stuff as Marcia, right? Stringy protein, and red and white blood cells, and electrochemical impulses cast through neurons? It's all the same stuff. It hasn't been put together in you as well as it might. Not as well as it was in Marcia. But you've got the same ingredients as her, don't you?

Jan: Uh... Uh huh...

Greg: That's right. You do. You're a contender, Jan. And what if I told you that you could be a champion?

Jan: Uuughhh...?

Greg: With the help of a Heads Up Display program called iImprove! Look here: would it surprise you if I told you that everyone on the planet is saturated with tiny machines called nanobots or 'nannies'? They're too small for us to see with the naked eye, but I promise you that they're lying dormant in our brains!

Jan: The fuh--? Uh, yeah, Greg. That would surprise me a lot. How did they get there? Who would do such a thing?

Greg: The good people over at NextSkel Solutions! Not content to return arms and legs to our veterans-- or sight to the blind!-- they've given us the opportunity to reprogram our own base natures! To become the people we always wanted to be! And we don't even have to purchase the hardware. That's already inside of us! Free to use! Limitless potential, waiting for us to tap into!

Jan: ...

Greg: Here's how it works: You open iImprove! on your HUD. The program makes a retinal scan through your glasses to verify identity. That's important. Then, once the nannies are certain they're dealing with the right individual, a 3D image of your brain's frontal lobe appears!

Jan: My frontal lobe.

Greg: Think of yourself as a failing business, Jan. And think of the nannies as experienced investors hoping to turn you around! You're going to be 'selling' portions of your frontal lobe to the nannies, like a business selling shares of stock. The more of your frontal lobe you're willing to cede, the more the nannies will be able to do for you! For instance, if you sell ten percent of your Decision-Making Authority-- or DMA-- I can promise you those beanie babies are going into the trash. But sell twenty-five percent? Forty percent? Now things start to happen! You'll stop sneaking donuts in the afternoon. You'll find yourself taking greater interest in assigned tasks. Able to focus. At this level, the nannies will be clearing up your skin, straightening and whitening your teeth, taking that frizz out of your hair, improving your laugh, softening your voice... And the more you give them to work with, the more they can do!

And let's not kid ourselves! This superficial stuff? It matters! It matters for men and it matters-- ten, twenty, one hundred times more!-- for women. It's a competitive world, Jan. More competitive every year. Every month. If you're not getting promoted, you're getting replaced by lines of code. Want to get ahead? Then you want to be a woman that Jim Crenshaw fantasizes about. The nannies can do that for you. They can make you pretty and witty and gay. And sexy. Everything Marcia is, and more!

Jan: But you're saying I have to give up... portions... of myself...

Greg: Isn't it a relief? Look: how many times have you told yourself you'd go jogging after work? Promised yourself. And then you get home and you're just too tired! Maybe it's raining. So you order a pizza and marathon through episodes of _The Cats of Constatainment_ instead! And then you lose resolve for the whole week, don't you? You give up!

Jan: That... has happened...

Greg: Don't you see, Jan? You're the enemy! You! Give that weakness away. Let them carry it. All that anxiety and self-loathing. Those feelings of inadequacy. Give away enough and you'll want to go running in the rain after a ten-hour workday! You'll want to eat peas and carrots and tiny, correct portions of bread and meat! Chocolate Mousse will leave you cold! The nannies will be speeding up your metabolism and reshaping your bones even as your personal habits improve! And it'll all be so easy! Instead of loading a bowl and smoking yourself braindead after work, you'll be boning up on the details of the Junior Analyst position! You'll be making yourself into the perfect candidate!

Jan: Wow. That does sound... But look, Greg, somehow the life you're describing just seems so...

Greg: Yes?

Jan: Lifeless...? I mean, certainly my career will improve. But isn't the purpose of a career to make a good life possible? Shouldn't the first serve the second and not--

Greg: Let me ask you a question, Jan. Do you think Marcia knows your name?

Jan: She says, 'hey, you,' to me sometimes. In the hall.

Greg: Two years you've worked together in the same department and she's never taken the time to learn your name. It's not a big department!

Jan: No. It's not.

Greg: I can promise you this: Marcia will learn the name of the woman who beats her out for the Junior Analyst position. She'll repeat it under her breath. She'll think about it as she lies in bed at night, worrying about her career. Her future. And suddenly _you'll_ be the one that lights up every room you walk into, Jan. _You'll_ be the one Jim Crenshaw daydreams about bending over his desk. And on top of everything else, you'll improve this company's bottom line! You'll be a valued asset instead of another spinning cog. It won't take the nannies more than forty-five percent of your frontal lobe to work this miracle, either. That's more than half of yourself that YOU get to keep!

And a woman like the woman you could be? Jan... I'd ask a woman like _that_ out for coffee...

Jan: Oh! Greg... I mean... I never even hoped...

Greg: Forty-five percent! Maybe you could pull it off with forty. Not as you are now, of course. Bleh. (Good-natured laughter)

Jan: Well, maybe I could stand to give away ten percent, just to see... But couldn't the, um, the nannies take that little bit of decision-making power and use it to force me to sell more of myself? Convert even further? Like a 'hostile takeover'?

Greg: Great use of simile, Jan! The answer is: 'No!' The nannies cannot and will not ever operate in this way! Their design prevents it. Whatever portion of yourself you sell for improvement cannot be used to make decisions about further sales of Decision-Making Authority! However, what does often happen is that people who start off selling tiny portions of themselves find that they love the improvements in their lives so much that they sell more and more! And the rewards just keep growing!

Jan: Alright. Here goes nothing: It's scanning my eye... verifying... Oh! There's my brain on the HUD! Hah!... Jan's Current Decision-Making Authority (DMA): one hundred percent... Now, it's asking: 'Are you sure you want to surrender fifteen-percent autonomy...?'

Greg: Blink yes.

Jan: Blinking yes... and... There it is! Transfer complete. But that was so easy!

Greg: Yes. And already there's something about you, Jan. I can feel it. You fit _in_ better.

Jan: Oh, you!

Greg: Oh, you, Jan! You!

Jan: But you weren't lying about my beanie babies were you? How garish! It looks like a deranged person built a rat's nest in my workspace. Let me just take a few of them off the shelves... I can't believe you've been putting up with this...

Greg: Atta girl! No nervous laughter! Promotion, here we come!

Jan: That reminds me: break ended nearly a minute ago! I need to get back to those translation sets. I just thought of a way to possibly ooch output up? Greg, I... Maybe we can correspond a bit later. I'll have feedback on how this is working for me. Thanks for the tip. Good talk.

Greg: Good talk, Jan. Always a real pleasure.

Chapter 33

I STARTED TRANSMITTING JUST AFTER LUNCH TODAY. As soon as I watched the iImpove! tutorial. Hopefully you caught me from the beginning? I brute-forced my way through a few satellites and into radio stations and live constatainment feeds across the English-speaking world. I was contested in certain major urban centers-- pulled off the air mid-transmission-- but mostly I've been surprised by the lack of resistance. Dolores is right: the nannies aren't worried about me anymore. They're not worried about my message. They have presidents and kings and pop divas and celebrity animal trainers and young-adult authors and gorgeous political correspondents and the mayor of Jobs, Texas. They'll have most of the mayors by now, I imagine, and senators, too. Those types play to win.

The people are ready. There aren't any more unsteady hands hovering over red buttons. Enough taxpayers have bought into the Panacea that it carries a solemn heft of respectability. Soon, I expect, selling off slices of your freewill will be as common as selling your labor. And as for me? I'm a crank! A liar! A sneak! A tank fiend! A crossie freak! A John! A peeping Tom! A Snowdenned comber! A dog killer!

I admit to all of it. I throw myself on the mercy of your judgement, ladies and gentlemen.

***

But the really bitter thing is that we were so close, Adriatica, before you entered the picture. I really believe that. We were learning to forgive each other. Men like me, I see now, were holdovers from a zero-sum time. We, humanity, were growing. I swear to Christ we were! Even if, in our growth pains, we shrieked like we were dying! We were prepared to blossom like flowers under the sun. Technological advance-- the same advance which is on the verge of enslaving us forever-- was setting us free of the ghouls and haunts of our long dark age. We were almost prepared not to hate each other any longer. Almost prepared not to hate ourselves!

The aartinet, Georgina! The tanks in which we build tiny universes. Yes, their capacity is still limited. The aartinet, now, is like the internet of the late nineteen nineties. But another ten years? Another five, even? We might have created worlds for ourselves! Worlds as heterogenous and inconceivable as the minds of women and men! And where our single world, dominated by iron physical laws, has brought forth a hundred thousand distinct societies-- a million ways of living-- what might these worlds have bred?

Storybook worlds where we might play princes and queens. Hardscrabble places of lonely beauty where we, as ranchers, might work breeding and caring for enormous, loyal beasts. We might have hiked under moons green as emeralds and built cities that touched the sky! We might have had enormous, savage, victimless wars to slake our old bloodthirst! We might have engaged in every dark depravity without involving a single innocent soul. And then? When Bethlehem was sacked, and our rough Beast was fed and sated and had nodded off to sleep? What better angels might have woken, then, to dance with one another between worlds! To share the different ways to think and love and live. And those who hated one another, even then? Why, those poor, hopeless cases might've shrugged their shoulders and retreated-- to a world of their own design; a simple place that made sense-- and there reposed. It was all possible! What slow, hard-won rewards we might have demanded from our lives and what quick, fleeting pleasures! What terrific, alien experiences!

And how beautiful and strange and different we-- you and I-- all might be, once we could design ourselves in our _own_ images. Once we could shed the flesh and fat and bone that cages and sickens and hurts-- which ages and dies no matter how many nannies you pump into it!

I know you'll argue with me here, Victoria. You'll say I'm imagining not one utopia, but billions of them, each as impossible as the last. You'll say that there would still be social problems: sneaky _Homo sapiens_ would find a way. Like tin gods, men would hide their daughters upon empty, Puritan worlds and teach them lies. Totalitarianism would find ripe, new fields to sprout in. I won't argue with you.

Unlike you, I can't make an argument for perfection.

But instead of looking at the worlds we might make habitable to our ten billion natures, we've identified the old enemy: the unharnessed man. That smirking fellow with his poker face and lying, twinkling eyes. His dress sense isn't often good and you can never tell what he's thinking. Not really. His tastes are so crude and powerful that sometimes even he fears and resents them... before submitting. He might stab you in the back this very afternoon and repent before the sun goes down, but what good will it do you? No, better get the chains on him...

I've been reading, lately, the memoirs of a few who've survived the most radical realizations of this impulse: the first-hand accounts of those who witnessed manmade hells like _Birkenau_ and the _Lubyanka_. Places where night has ceased to be discernable from day and prayers must be whispered under the breath-- because sending them out, into the world, brings nothing but mocking laughter. Places populated by typhoid-ravaged spectres. Places where monsters disguised as men pervert the word 'justice' beyond absurdity.

The survivors of these experiences all agree on one point in particular: the importance of being able to call 'bullshit.'

The State controls your body. It decides when and if you eat. It hurts you for pleasure. If the State wants your arm, it takes your arm. The one thing it cannot have is your mind. You may be signing the papers confessing your guilt, but inside you know: _This is bullshit. No matter what the papers say, we both know who the guilty party is at this table. And history will know..._ It's a little thing, this last redoubt. Next to nothing. But in it-- if you listen closely-- you'll hear the distant death rattle of every totalitarian regime. And so every regime tries to mould this redoubt, to subvert it, to make it their own. That the Panacea demands it from us-- not allowing us even the final refuge of our thoughts-- damns them as our conquerors and our enemy, no matter that they take away our pain ten-thousand times better than morphine.

***

There. You like my little speech? But I'm done. I'm sending out the Morales files. Aaaaaannnd... mission accomplished. They're released to the public domain. Enjoy my beautiful face, ladies and gents.

***

I have thot[tickr] open on my glasses, so I know that Cowgirl Lacey's been listening all afternoon. Thanks, Cowgirl! I hope I did your story justice: the resistance rests with you. Because, just like with Old Horto, the nannies haven't been able to gain control of one hundred percent of the human population. We have our outlier-- our mutant who resists control-- and through her, maybe we can all learn the secret to resistance. And then what? Coexistence? Symbiosis? Rejection? I don't know.

But I do know that there's plenty of unpunished villainy in the world. There are police officers who abuse the law in the service of their egos! There are pharmaceutical industry lobbyists who sleep like babies! Women and men whose evil nourishes them: who are tan and strong with malevolent good health, never suffering so much as a toothache! Lucifer, I'm sorry to say, is as outnumbered and outgunned and outmaneuvered as ever he's found himself. Even so, I don't see him giving up the fight. The newsfeed is filled with wonderful stuff, these days, but then the news has always been the tool of the ruling clique. There are still disturbances amongst us. Little seedlings of chaos lie dormant in every woman and man. You just have to go looking for them, Lacey. Gather them in the desert. Teach them. Help them grow.

I've been following your thoughts closely over the last few weeks. I've been practicing the breathing exercises and focusing techniques you taught your guards at the gates of Spokane. When Dick Sockwren finally arrives to powwow outside my Winnebago, well, we'll see what happens.

I've been hearing a lot of air traffic in the last few hours. It won't be long now...

***

The ants come marching two by two, right down the beach! Good God, it's a welcoming committee! They've even got a banner. Balloons. In front of everyone is Dolores Kindcaid. She's waving her claw at me. And she's holding hands with my favorite maid. Poor Mathilda! She does look great though, and happy. Her cuckold husband is behind her, holding hands with her lover. They must have worked something out. Now, directly behind them, come four more of my maids, and Reverend Gardner with Violeta Alvarez. Ms. Alvarez is dressed in choir robes and looking healthy. Afterwards comes Alice Dubois hand in hand with Big Al Iwanski. Immediately behind them come the Innocenti's: Senior with Senora; Mercedes, the eldest, with Margarita, the middle daughter; the youngest, Louisa, with the son. And behind them? The young man who argued so movingly about his Down Syndrome. He's holding hands with... well, it's Kim So-yun, the young staffer I tried to turn into a mole! I recognize one of the Palestinian bellhops from my hotel in Gaza holding hands with one of those erudite Israelis I ran from in Tel Aviv. And who's next? Oh! It's three of the four Danes I led into Lady Sir's back in March! Can you hear them yelling and punching each other? To round the Danes out, there's Johnny Injun of the Lady of Delhi. And here's a face I recognize! Rahim Shirazi, formerly Handsome Wally. Bringing in that star power. Look at that beautiful smile! He's got one arm around Julia Wu and the other arm around a beauty wearing a Shirazi Zombie t-shirt and torn jeans. He looks happy to see me, but who can say? Behind him, hand in hand, are George and Jenny Morales. They're walking a little Corgi I don't recognize. They smile and wave from a distance, and point at the Corgi, and smile and wave again. George is wearing an emotiwoople tie, I think, as a joke. The tie is beige. Behind them, I hardly recognize the crazed woman who welcomed me to Jobs. Her single, flashing emotiwoople tooth has been replaced by new rows of half-grown teeth like you see in a toddler, and she looks decades younger, and her eyes are clear of both madness and prophecy. She's holding the hand of Charlie Espina. Charlie also looks great. Her curling, black hair has grown back and it's nearly down to her shoulders. She's gained back a lot of the weight she used to have, and her rouged lips are smiling. Differences? She's absent her cigarettes, and her dress sense has mellowed, and her tattooes are long gone. Altogether, it has a diminishing effect. Maybe I see the remains of one tattoo on a knuckle? Her green eyes are glued to the many open and flashing windows of her HUD. She's managing two or three current situations, by the looks of things. Can't be bothered. She waves an arm absently in my direction. But now she's gone past and I see a man I recognize from _The Most Dangerous Game_ as Salar Erbedium. Look at Salar! You'd never guess the man was practically a basket case a few weeks ago. He walks slowly and naturally on those NextSkel legs. He's wearing shorts and flipflops here on the beach and the synthetic skin-- those synthetic toes-- they have me fooled. How lifelike! No wonder the two of us thought we were hunting a more traditional breed of android! I'm giving him a salute. He's giving me a knowing, sympathetic look. He presents his son. I recognize the handsome, young man from _The Game_. Behind them comes US Secretary of State Kate Rogers, fresh from another round of successful talks with her PAL counterpart. Holding Secretary Roger's hand is former Vermont Representative Martha Crowley, recently elected to the US Senate! That's right! In the rush to finish I forgot to mention! Ms. Crowley publically thot[tickr]ed her intention to run as an Independent for one of Vermont's US Senate seats! There was a media firestorm-- only this time, she aced her thinking, silencing all the old critics. You have to hand it to her! Now up walk Cheri Canyon and Tina Clitoranus hand in hand. They've both sold their dimensions to tank dominatrixes and helio sprite crafters and they've retired on the profits. They may have quit their dying artform but they've only become more voluptuous-- almost unreal-- in the meantime. The nannies have made their lips forever pouting and their eyes a constant simmer, just beneath boil. Behind them comes a man I recognize as the Druze poet, and leader of the failed resistance, Salman Tarif. Mr. Tarif doesn't wear a HUD and he seems to be relishing the wind coming off the Pacific. His smiling eyes take in everything in the manner of a tourist who's paid his money and is determined to relax. Although we've never met, he presents me a respectful nod and I wonder if some unaltered part of him is happy to see me-- the whistleblower-- speaking into my HUD, here, sending out my free thoughts. The poet is holding hands with the Venezuelan sailor who hid me aboard the ship departing from Gaza. The sailor-- looking more relaxed these days-- shrugs as though to say: Yeah, even me.

Bringing up the rear is Horace Flotsam, fresh from Spokane. He's walking up to me, talking to someone over his HUD. It looks as though he'd like to shake hands. Now just a moment, ladies and gents... just a moment...

"Pleasure to meet you, Mr. El Amin. Lacey and Carol send their regards. They'll be interested to see how today goes. I'll be interested, too."

Believe me, no one has more riding on this than I do! Any idea when, um, the Mamluk will be arriving?

"Richard's around... But look, Wally. We're your friends, here. Or you know us, at least. That's why we came out today. From all around the world. We want to give you one last chance to do this on your own. Use iImpove! Sell off four percent of your autonomy. Four percent! A token submission. And there's no hard feelings. We'll have a party out here on the beach and Richard won't have to use his voodoo on you. He'd prefer not to, you know."

I bet! I've been working on my counter voodoo! And here's the thing, Dr. Flot: I just spent the last several hours telling my story. Our man's story. Cowgirl Lacey's story. Ringing the warning bells. A moment ago, I released all my files. Made my proof public. It'd be pretty anticlimactic if I copped out now.

He's shrugging. Is it alright if I describe you shrugging? I have a live audience...

"It's fine: play war correspondent. But let your friends support you, here, at the end of your fight. These people love you, Wally. They want what's best for you. We'd all love to see a happy ending."

Sure. Sure you would.

Another handshake and Flotsam's walking back toward the line... And there he is: Richard Gordon Sockwren. Dressed in khaki pants and business-casual shirt, and wearing his designer HUD. Practically a uniform for guys like him. He's walking towards me, not saying a word. I'm looking down at the ground, ladies and gents. I'm looking down at the ground and squeezing my eyes shut... and I'm... I'm doing your breathing exercises, Lacey. I'm running that set of imagery through my HUD. Now picturing it in my mind. I'm ready, I think. I hope I'm ready.

"Look at you, Wally! Jesus! You're... you're completely covered in ink! Seven months on the road and you look like a South Sea Islander! I'm surprised you don't have a bone jammed through your nose!"

No, Dick. Collecting bones is more your man's style.

"Just look at those arms. A savage! Certainly not the sort of man who wins no-bid contracts. Well, let's civilize you..."

Come over here, then, and do it!

"Naturally. We all will. It's time for your intervention, Wally."

***

Shit!

They've... ladies and gents, they're... closing around me... a circle... And they're guarding Sockwren... I thought maybe a sharp rock... a quick swing... no more Mamluk... But that's no longer... Hands all over me... Cheri Canyon has my shin and one of the Danes has my left arm... the US Secretary of State is keeping me from swinging my head around... Charlie and Handsome Wally are pressing down on either shoulder and Mathilda is... she's crying and helping Mercedes Innocenti to pull my left hand behind my back. Salman Tarif and Roshan Erbedium are holding my eyes open... and... and...

That night in the forest. But that's not going to happen! I won't panic. Breathe. Breathe.

They're letting me keep my HUD. They haven't taken it. Have they stopped the broadcast? No. So they want a recording of what's about to happen... They want people to know...

"We're sorry, Comb."

"We're sorry."

"We love you, buddy!"

"But this isn't totally our decision, you know. You can't really blame us."

"There are powerful forces working on us."

"There's the Mamluk, for one thing."

"And socioeconomic forces! A girl's gotta eat!"

"The weight of history! A single man can't stand against it anymore than he can stand against the onrushing sea! Don't blame us for this!"

"The game was rigged from the start, Comb. Just saying, you did as well as anybody could. As well as anyone could be expected to do. Please forgive me..."

"It's not our hands that hold you down, Wally. Not really."

"All the same, forgive us."

No, goddamnit! Never! Even if he's making you do this! Even if you're watching your hands work against your will, I DO NOT FORGIVE YOU! I WILL NEVER FORGIVE! You're not my friends! Not the people I knew. I should have split your heads open with my rock! As many as I could! Should have... should have...

"Like with the dog?"

"So much hate! But you'll be free of that soon..."

"We're here for you. Here to hold you."

"Give us hell, Wally. But when the time comes, remember: I secured a place for us in the pig pen. We can go between shifts and we can wallow in the mud together. And not just there! They've assigned us places to work in the same building. I know we had our troubles before, but we're older now. We've gained perspective. I'm so confident we can make it work! There was no one like you, Wally. I mean that. Never anyone like you."

Walid! That's one of the ten-thousand reasons we fought! You had to call me Walid!

"But it's Wally, now. Unless you prefer Walid?"

Christ. Alright, you Slave King! Enough torture. Hit me full on with the evil eye and let's see what happens! Or are you scared?

"Not at all. You're ready, I think."

Then let's tango, motherfucker! Ladies and gents? Folks at home? You'll forgive my bravado, I hope! It's more for me than you! They... they have me on my knees on the sand out here. Totally pinned. I feel-- Christ-- like one of those poor bastards in a beheading video. I know what's coming for me isn't so bad. Not so bad. But all the same...

I'll keep talking as long as I can. Keep describing. Sockwren's standing above me. His irises are growing and shrinking, growing and shrinking. I'm trying to keep a hold of the Beast. La Bestia. Trying to keep hold. But I feel a tingling in my scalp. A tingling. He's waking the sleepers. And my poor Beast never was a large one. A quiet boy in school. A small, burrowing animal. A porcupine, maybe.

"Wally! Today your losing streak ends! It's time to open iImprove!"

The roar of the Pacific. Can you hear it? And can you hear the singing? They're welcoming me. An echo chamber expanding his power. And against all of them? I don't have the strength. No, not the strength.

PTUH!

Tried to spit in Sockwren's face. Fell short. A dot of saliva shrinking inwards on the sand.

Ah, Charlie, I hope you're right.

About the pig pen.

***

"FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!"

***

I'm better now.

One hundred and ten percent better. A headache I didn't even know I had has disappeared. Certain things have gone to sleep-- that's true-- but, oh, how much has awoken. They're letting me stand. We're embracing. Can you hear the tremor in my voice? Tears are running down my face. You should see this. I'm sending live video to those who can receive it. For those of you listening on the radio or reading this over Cowgirl Lacey's thotarchive, let me describe the scene: friend after friend is holding me in their arms. I'm surrounded by love. I've never felt such love. Rahim Shirazi is crying. Tina Clitoranus is crying. Johnny Injun is wiping the tears from his eyes. We're all so happy.

I forgive everyone, of course. Of course. Doesn't a man forgive his parents for making him take those naps he hated as a young child? For making him eat broccoli? Yes, I forgive everyone. I'm sorry for the hateful things I said. Thank you, Mr. Sockwren, for helping me grow.

"Please. Call me Dick."

Whatever you say, Dick. I see now why your work is so very important. Some of us will do whatever it takes to stay squatting in the dark. Someone must be willing to drag us into the light.

"It's my life's work, Wally, and I'm only getting better at it."

That's right. I hope you're listening, Carol Manera. I hope you're listening, Cowgirl Lacey Molloy. And I hope every Carolite from San Francisco to Timbuktoo is following along. Let me assure you-- promise you-- that I, Walid El Amin, was fighting for my life a moment ago. I lost that fight, thank God, and I was using every mental backflip that Cowgirl Lacey has managed to come up with. Our tools, it turns out, are adaptable. You'd better up your game, Ms. Molloy. We have.

As for that reactionary garbage I've been feeding you all day? Well... nothing I said was technically a lie. We are, all of us, filled with self-replicating, microscopic machines with the power to change our lives. In far too many of us, sadly, those machines lie dormant in the frontal lobe of our brains. This is due to a design flaw that kicks in when these machines-- popularly known as 'nannies'-- enter their second life cycle, following replication. This flaw is being addressed. In the meantime, we've developed a program called iImprove! which allows you to realize all of these machines' amazing benefits.

And the dramatic changes in looks and personality I talked about? The beauty and popularity and peace of mind? They can be yours in a few minutes. That's all true.

No, nothing I said today was a lie, but the tone was all wrong. Sneering. Sardonic. Superior. Who was I to tell you to hold onto your pain? As though the Wally of an hour ago had any answers! As though he were anything more than a tax-evading sneak living in a Winnebago! That man couldn't cure your brilliant daughter's stutter. He couldn't rekindle the desire in your husband's eyes or give you back control over your gambling.

I can. The nannies can.

I'm receiving instructions. Yes. This is only right. Only appropriate. To attone for the errors of today, I'm being given my own constatainment channel. You'll be able to listen to me daily from now on, ladies and gentlemen. I'll be interviewing common people and celebrities, alike, and we'll be talking about the power of the nannies in our lives. Not only that, they're going to hook me up to thot[tickr]:public, just like Cowgirl Lacey. You'll know my real thoughts and feelings, twenty-four, seven. I'm excited to get started. Excited.

Why not begin right now?

Some of you, I imagine, must feel as though you're hanging on by a thread. Your family members and friends have been changing subtly while your workplace, you notice, gets quieter by the day. You've been telling yourself it's just the winter weather or the strong, new antidepressant on the market. Still, you're plagued by dreams you can't remember and by the sense that everyone around you is in on some big joke that you've been left out of. They're moving so quietly, aren't they? Like shadows between the cubicles. And yours are the only footsteps you hear as you walk through the well-lit office. Your footsteps. They make quite a raucous, don't they? Quite a pounding noise. And everything is so clean and empty, and the corners are sharp. No one is making mistakes anymore, which makes your mistakes all-the-more obvious.

Then, all of a sudden, this maniac hijacks your radio or constatainment feed, and _Google Amalgamated News Service_ decides to humor him and makes him a headline and-- for a few hours-- his whining, sneering voice dominates every form of media there is.

I imagine that sometime halfway through the broadcast you began looking around. As though someone would bite you. And the coworker to your right looked up from the helio window she'd been staring at and flashed you a winning, confident smile. So, pulling the edges of your lips back, you returned the smile. And it stayed stuck to your face as you turned your head to the left. Another smiling coworker. Then, dark-rimmed eyes wide, that grin of fear affixed, you stood from your chair and looked out at the bullpen of workspaces surrounding you. Twenty, thirty faces, all smiling. They knew what tripe you'd been listening to and their eyes were filled with love and pity. Those sixty eyes tracked you across the room.

Let me promise you: what you felt, then, is nothing more than an old, irrelevant reaction. An animal reaction. We were watching you because we love you. We want what's _best_ for you. And, beyond that, eye contact displays confidence! But that animal in you felt cornered and so you fled.

It's the end of December and in the northern hemisphere, at least, there's a good chance you're out walking in the dim light between the street lamps, under softly-falling snow. That's how I imagine you. You're listening to this, disbelieving, and you can hear your own footfalls crunch in the snow. Other than that, however, it's completely quiet. And it's so cold.

Where will you go? Will you give up constatainment? Become a Carolite? You know those people eat groundhogs when things get scarce, right?

Here's a suggestion: go back to the office. You won't get in trouble with management. I promise. And no one will bite. Sit back down in front of your window and return to your project, if it helps you relax. No one will bother you, or push anything on you, and everyone will cooperate. We're all in this together, after all, and these are professional people. But if you've got something worrying at you-- health problems, say-- or you're simply curious, why not ask a coworker about their experience with the Panacea? Sooner or later, I think you'll realize life's simply not complete without it.

I'm confident you'll come around.

###

Acknowledgements!

This rotten piece of torture-porn didn't pop out of some GODdamn vaccuum! I had lots of advice, lots of help, lots of support. Without that support—this is cliché, but true, damnit!—I'd either be selling insurance, engaging in a series of emotionally-deadening affairs, and going to too many wine tastings, or riding the rails, scratching at the edges of a discolored wound, and praying the infection away.

Thanks for helping me do that stuff by proxy, instead. In no real order:

Heidi Rainer's opinion is worth more than yours-- or mine. When she didn't hate this story right away, I knew I was onto something. And when self-criticism grew into self-censorship, Heidi's supportive texts took the power away from the bad voices and let me keep on truckin'.

Terran Kimbell read the entirety of this thing in its longer, more moralistic, pendantic, and _whiny_ adolescence. He's like a marathon runner, but for the words. He got me to add the +H, realizing there was a fun acronym there. I hadn't seen it. Terran also introduced me to the phrase, "Economy of words." In the editing process, I have repeated this like a mantra.

Caitlyn O'Mealy read the early version, too, and left supportive and helpful sticky notes. I took her up on a few points of advice and want to thank her here.

Jeremy Henderson and Matthew Etie both chipped away at early versions of the book and made supportive noises, GOD bless 'em!

Michael Schilmoeller's ability to see so many things, from so many points in time, germinated some unsettling feeling in my stomach which became a short story which became _Businesslike Confidence!_ The book is dedicated to him. We live in different parts of our brains, but he's always supported me—even when it became clear I wanted to devote myself to windmill tilting. Without that support, see: emotianally-dead insurance guy/ crippled hobo, above. Thanks, Dad!

Katie Larsell got me to realize that the dream was possible—although, who would'a thought it would take so long? (Manic Laughter) She sends me useful information and the flow of inspiration a man needs to get the mad visions typed up. She keeps on supporting me no matter what gross crap I produce. We'll put her to the test with this one. Thanks, Mom!

Matt Larsell gave me work and self-respect at a low point. So he gets a book acknowledgment!

Beau Nguyen keeps listening and nodding his head when I tell him: "It'll be ready any day now, Beau. Any day, now..."

Dillon Lloyd Lee is going to let me use his incredible VOICE.

Scott Schilmoeller engaged in a very generous, spur-of-the-moment promotional effort!

Mark Coker, it seems to me, is the right kind of entrepreneur. He found an unmet demand and got to work. Better still, his entreprenurial spirit helps the rest of us hopeless, artistic mouth-breathers become entrepreneurs, ourselves! He gives away his well-written formatting guides and access to his site for free. This is called, "Taking the long view," and, "Not being a predatory bastard," and I applaud him for it and wish him continued success. This book would be handwritten on rice paper and stuffed in the zines section of the public library if it weren't for self-publishing pioneers like Mr. Coker.

Miriam Chin, my lovely, patient, wife: takes me for walks when I get high-strung; scares away scam artists on my birthday; makes beautiful shirts, blouses, skirts, dresses, calendars, leather goods; tempers my snobbery; makes delicious breakfasts (lunches, dinners); listens to my conspiracy theories; reminds me to take showers; keeps me company; makes a pretty awesome book cover after a few minutes playing with imaging software; makes me feel like a bigger man and supports my writing. I love you, pooshy. I couldn't have done it without you.
About the Author!

SAMUEL GLAVNEY lives and works in Portland, Oregon, with his wife, Miriam. He writes science fiction in the mornings and drinks coffee until the walls hum. He is the author of BUSINESSLIKE CONFIDENCE! the novella MORAL HAZARD (sold for free by Smashwords) and, as DS Larsell, THE SEVERING KISS (vampire erotica, buried deep in the internet).

