Counting Heads

2.12

The CPT station in the central canyon of APRT 7 disgorged throngs of tired Applied People commuters. They streamed across the platform and hustled to the elevators. Fred took his time. The bead train ride had been uncomfortable enough with its g-force acceleration and turns. His poor internal organs were still knitting themselves back together and didn’t need the extra stress. Fred found a bench to lie on for a bit. He let the rush hour flow around him with its familiar sounds, while above him, clouds drifted across the four stalks of the tower. A quarter million people lived in each stalk, and all of them, like Fred, worked for Applied People. Fred had spent his entire life in this arcology, or in others just like it. Even the hab at Mars Station had been arcological. It would never occur to a russ to question this living arrangement, except that at this moment in his life, Fred did so. To my cloned brothers, he mused, where has it got us—to spend a hundred million russ years living in these things?

A transit bee stopped to check on Fred’s condition, and Fred sat up and waved it away. He went to the bank of elevators, bypassing the turbo lifts in favor of a lounge car. In his condition, it was better to take things easy. He was early and in no special need to race home. The lounge car he chose had empty couches near the media pit and a vacant armchair or two in front of the fireplace. As he entered, a soothing protomusic, more noise than signal, seemed to greet him. Weary clones, wearing every possible permutation of Applied People brown and teal livery, trudged in and parked themselves in favorite corners. Fred crossed the thick carpet to the bar.

A man on the stool next to him said, “Good God, man, you stink!”

Fred turned to him. It was a pike—the name JULES was embroidered on his name patch. Jules wrinkled his sunburnt nose and continued. “What ’appen to you? Get sheep-dipped?”

“Yeah,” Fred said and turned away. At the moment, he wasn’t up to the effort of pretending to being friendly to a pike. He ordered a beer before remembering that he had to stay off alcohol for a few days. He changed his order to a soft drink.

The lounge car made its ascent at a leisurely pace, stopping only at double-naught-numbered floors on the way up and five-naught on the way down. Fred decided to skip his stop going up and disembark on the way down. He needed a little time to dwell on his problems: Costa, Cabinet, Reilly, the HALVENE, and the possibility of clone fatigue.

Fred realized that he had just made a short list of his troubles. Russes were famous for their lists. Their donor brother, Thomas A., had been an incorrigible list maker. After he lost his life in the assassination attempt, the Secret Service entered Russ’s apartment and found a remarkable collection of lists. On scraps of paper stuck to the refrigerator, in computer files, in notebooks, on the backs of envelopes. Grocery lists, equipment checklists, Christmas card lists, ranked lists of women he’d like to sleep with. The government kept them; there was even a display of Thomas A.’s lists at the Smithsonian. Fred mused, To my cloned brothers: lists are our own form of blank verse.

When Fred decarred on the 150th floor, he transferred to a local lift for the remaining floors and then took a spokeway to Deko Village, an economy neighborhood located deep within the core of the Northwest Stalk. His front door greeted him and slid open. “Tell Mary I’m home,” he said to the tiny foyer. There was no reply, so he said, “Mary?”

“I’m in the bedroom,” she sighed.

“Sorry if I woke you.”

“You didn’t wake me. You’re home early.”

“Yeah, a little.” Fred waited to see if she was going to say anything more. She didn’t, so he went to the living room where the slipper puppy was waiting next to his armchair with his slippers. Fred unstrapped his stout, brown brogans—damp with HALVENE—and watched as the puppy dragged them, one by one, to its lair in the closet for polishing and deodorizing. For you, he thought, I’m going to risk my integrity?

He leaned back in the armchair and relaxed. After a while, since Mary had not made an appearance or continued their conversation, he said, “Are you hungry? I’m hungry. My stomach is literally empty. Maybe we should eat something before we go.”

“Go where?”

“Rolfe’s. Reilly says they’ve reserved a table.” Reilly might not actually show up, but best to leave that alone for now.

“Rolfe’s?” Mary said. “Today’s not Wednesday.”

“You know,” Fred said, trying to keep his tone breezy, not that you could fool an evangeline, “that’s exactly what I said.”

After a little while, Mary said, “Whatever are you talking about, Fred?”

“The canopy ceremony.”

“Oh, that,” she said. “I’m not going.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t feel like going anywhere.”

Fred knew better than to argue the point. “To tell the truth,” he said, “neither do I. Let’s stay home. We can dial in and eat here.”

“You go ahead. I’ve been eating all day. I left you something in the kitchen.”

Fred struggled out of the armchair and went to the kitchen, which in this economy apartment amounted to a large chromium kulinmate in a nook off the living room. There, on its counter lay a plate. On the plate was a stack of small, rolled-up pastries.

“See it?”

Fred raised the plate to eye level and examined the morsels. “What are they?”

“Cajun pepper fish rollmops. I recipeed them myself.”

“You did?” This could be very good news. It meant that she’d gotten out of bed today. And that she was trying out new things. But in the kitchen? Evangelines were allergic to all things culinary. Even dialing up a recipe was asking a lot.

“That’s great,” he said. “I’ll eat some right now.”

He brought one to his mouth, but she said, “No, don’t! I changed my mind.”

Fred hesitated, the rollmop millimeters from his lips. He felt as though he were standing in a tippy canoe. It had been like this since their wedding day five years ago. At first, living with an evangeline was exhilarating. Lately, he could do without the state of constant suspense.

Mary, still in the bedroom, said, “It’s too hot, too spicy. It’s got habanero pepper in it.”

“I love hot foods.”

Mary sighed. “Then go ahead. You know better than me, Fred. You always do.”

Fred returned the rollmop to the plate. He wasn’t home five minutes and already he was over his head. He listed his options: not eat a rollmop, eat one, eat several, or not eat any but say that he had. That about covered it. He could safely rule out the first and last options. If Mary had gotten out of bed to make these things, he’d better either try them or say that he did. But it was foolish to lie to an evangeline. So the only question now was how many to eat. If they were as hot as she said they were, even one might upset his poor, HALVENE-abused belly. He took a glass to the dispenser and drank a half liter of rice milk to dampen the way, then chose a fat rollmop and bit into it.

It was spicy, all right, but nothing he’d call hot. He popped the rest of it into his mouth and swallowed it. “It’s terrific,” he said, reaching for a second and a third.

“Just wait,” Mary said.

He didn’t have to wait long. The back of his tongue began to burn, and his throat closed up. His eyes bugged, his nose watered, and sweat beaded on his scalp. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t see. He groped for another glass of rice milk.

“Fred, are you all right?”

He choked and coughed and couldn’t answer.

“Fred? Can you hear me? Come here!”

“Just a minute,” he croaked, wiping tears from his eyes, grinning, heading for the bedroom, invited in, at last.

SHE WAS PROPPED up in their large bed. Her hair was a mess, and she had food stains down the front of her nightgown. But she cleared a space for him to sit next to her, and that was all that mattered.

“Here, blow,” she said, handing him a tissue. “I told you they were hot, but you wouldn’t listen to me. I should have chuted them with the rest. Honestly, I don’t know why I kept them.”

Fred blew his nose and said, “It’s nothing. They’re really good.” He blew his nose again and said, “What you watching?” She had a little scape open at the foot of her bed. It looked like the interior of a garden where nothing much moved. “Is it Shelley?”

“Uh-huh,” Mary said. “They had problems feeding Judith today. It looks like things are speeding up, healthwise. She’s sinking fast.”

Fred leaned over to peer into the scape. It was the breezeway location. The breezeway connected two wings of the death artist’s Olympic Peninsula beachfront bungalow. Looked like it was just after lunch on the West Coast, overcast, plenty of exotic plants in large colorful pots along the cement brick floor. Judith Hsu lay on a chaise lounge in the shade. Two evangelines sat with her, Shelley and one of the others. Both evangelines wore wide-brimmed hats, and from this angle, Fred couldn’t tell which of them was his and Mary’s friend.

Mary sniffed him. “Fred, you’ve been dry-cleaned!”

Fred shrugged his shoulders.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It’s no big deal.”

“Of course it’s a big deal. Were you hurt?”

Now came the best part. Fred sat still while Mary searched his face with those big brown evangeline eyes of hers. And while it wasn’t easy to lie to an evangeline, her eyes couldn’t lie to him either. Her soul possessed no curtains or veils. Fred said, “I’m not hurt,” and peered into her eyes. He scattered his words like bait to lure her out into the open.

“I didn’t ask are you hurt,” she said. “Obviously, they’d patch you up. I asked were you hurt.”

His confidentiality oath prevented him from telling even his wife any details of his missions. But there was no need, for Mary could see everything.

Evangelines had been introduced thirty-two years earlier to meet a market demand for personal companions for wealthy women. Certain affs needed a breathless audience for their empty lives. Only prototype batches totaling ten thousand evangelines were ever decanted because market demand had collapsed. But the market’s loss was a russ’s gain.

Fred held his wife in his arms and summarized his whole, crazy day—without saying a word. She glimpsed his fear and panic and pain. After a while she hugged him and broke the spell. “My poor man,” she said and pushed him away. “Move aside. I have to pee.”

Fred watched his wife climb out of bed. Evangelines were skinny little things. At least compared to jennys they were. And small-hipped and flat-chested, compared to michelles. But in the sack, Mary was beyond comparison. When they made love, Fred begged her to keep her puddlelike eyes open so that he could witness in them the astonishment of every touch.

Mary closed the bathroom door, and Fred lay back in bed and watched Shelley’s scape. Shelley was not only their friend, but Reilly’s spouse, and a member of their Wednesday night crowd. Something in Shelley’s scape moved and caught his attention. The door to one of the bungalow wings opened, and two more evangelines came into the breezeway. It was a shift change. The two offgoing ’leens, one of them Shelley, joined the newcomers at a round patio table at some little distance from the unfortunate Myr Hsu. They were giving the shift report, and he upped the volume:

“—she can hardly bend her arms,” one of them was saying.

“Or form her words,” said the other.

“Chewing is almost too much for her.”

Fred checked the time. If Shelley got on a train in the next hour, she’d make it in time for the canopy ceremony, even if Reilly couldn’t.

Fred went out to the living room and stood opposite the window wall. It wasn’t a real window—their apartment was a good half kilometer from the nearest exterior wall—but it showed the realtime view from the window of a luxury apartment high in the same stalk. Just now the sun was dipping behind O’Hare Picket on the Illinois countryside. Fred wiped the scene away, replacing it with the phone frame.

“Reilly Dell,” he said, and a jittery view of his friend opened. Reilly was in a CPT bead car. The two men grinned at each other. There was nothing much they had to say. Obviously, both had survived the day. They made a little small talk and signed off.

Fred returned to the bedroom to change into house togs. That was when he noticed that the slugway near the ceiling had been stopped up with a towel. His heart skipped a beat. He tapped on the bathroom door and said gently, “Mary, someone’s plugged the slugway.”

Not waiting for a reply, Fred climbed on a chair and pulled the towel out. Immediately, six slugs came through and spread out across the walls and ceiling.

Mary watched from the bathroom doorway. “I saw on the Evernet how they’re going to retire them along with the canopy tonight.”

“That’s not likely,” Fred said. “If anything, we’ll have to increase their numbers. And double the visolas. And put bloomjumpers on every corner. And still, we won’t be safe!”

She was staring at him. Softly, he continued. “It’s a felony to obstruct a slug. We could be arrested.”

“Then why aren’t they here arresting us?” she said. “I plugged it up hours ago, and no one’s arrested me yet.” She returned to the bathroom and said, “Come in here and give me your opinion.”

There was a quarter-sized Mary in the bathroom mirror walking back and forth on a short runway. It wore a sexy lamé dress of blue and plum. Meanwhile, Mary sat at the face dresser and fine-tuned a mannequin of her head. She had set it to gala face and was tarting it up even more.

So, we’re going out, after all, Fred thought. Mary rubbed a wide band of gentian powder beneath the mannequin’s eyes, pulled the lashes longer, and plumped the lips slightly. She made the skin creamy brown and the irises and hair black.

“It’s quite striking,” Fred said, “but it looks like something for—you know—New Year’s Eve. Not an evening at Rolfe’s with the gang.”

“You think?”

“I don’t know. How should I know?”

“You’re probably right.” Mary reset the mannequin to cocktail face and experimented with colors. Meanwhile, one of the slugs had entered the bathroom and was heading for Fred across the tile floor. Fred stood still for it to latch on to his ankle. There was a slight prick as it sampled him. It immediately dropped off, as he knew it would. One taste of the HALVENE and the little ribbon of biotech was satisfied that he posed no threat to society.

When the slug crept toward Mary, however, she dropped her nightgown on it and retreated to the gel stall. Fred shook his head and freed the slug from her clothing. “Honestly, Mary,” he said, “you’re begging for trouble. What’s got into you?”

“Funny you should ask,” she said and turned on the mist, drowning out all conversation.

The slug, undeterred, crept up the glass door to the stall’s slugway near the ceiling. Like it or not, the slug would have its taste. Fred, meanwhile, decided he’d better use the face dresser before Mary finished her shower. He sat under the boxy appliance and said, “Fred’s party setting.” He didn’t need to use a mannequin; he had only three faces—house, work, and party—and he never altered them. He lowered the dresser and buried his head in its soft, warm folds. It quickly washed, shaved, toned, and made up his face, while at the same time hydrating his skin and trimming his hair. Fred bit down for a peppermint ultrasound mouth scrub.

When Fred removed the dresser, his own pint-sized figure was posing in the mirror. It wore alternating styles and colors of leisure suits.

“That one,” he said, picking a jaunty, plum-colored crepe jumpsuit that would match Mary’s getup. The little Fred in the mirror took a step forward, grinned, and turned on its heel.

To my cloned brothers: we are one handsome son of a bitch.