365 tomorrows

“I knew the Chief went to Japan, I just didn’t know he picked up a new wife,” Bedford said. Bedford removed her welding mask and wiped the sweat from her face with an oily rag. She adjusted herself in the crook of the mecha’s kneecap, letting her repair work cool.

“Pretty too,” Armijo said. He slipped his arms out of his coveralls and tied them around his waist, his chest shiny from accumulated sweat. He tossed a Bedford up a cold soda. “She’s a 400 model.”

“A model, huh?” Bedford said. She cracked open her drink and took a long swig. “One of them toothpick bitches? I’ll never understand the Chief. I mean, havin’ us paint the hangar baby blue and wearin’ all those Hawaiian shirts, thems is one thing. But some spoiled brat paid to walk down a runway? Gimmie one of these hunks of junk over that any day.” She patted the giant robot’s knee-pistons affectionately.

Kruse scooted over on the Mule, the brakes squealing. “Funny thing is, so would the Chief, apparently. Give a fella one of them cans. She’s a 400 model, Beds. She’s a robot.”

Bedford took another drink, scratched at her armpit, then slurped another. “Chief married a mecha?”

“Well, sorta,” Armijo said. He leaned an elbow on the Mule’s handlebars, and shoved his grimy left hand into a similarly filthy pocket. “An android. Looks human. You wouldn’t be able to tell if you didn’t know.”

“Looks human, hell!” Kruse spat. “You tellin’ me I can work on the damn things all day, and I don’t know a robot when I see one?”

“Just tellin’ you what I seen,” Armijo said. “My brother’s got a catalogue–”

Kruse spat again. “You seen her? The Chief’s wife? Iffin’ you can call her that.” An oily rag smacked Kruse in the face. Both he and Armijo turned to Bedford, her tiny fists clenched.

“Listen at you!” she called down. “Ev’ry day I hear you agree with the Chief’s decisions, now all of a sudden you can’t accept a one of ‘em? So he got himself a robot wife? What’s the problem? I didn’t hear you complain when we got the Mule.”

“That’s different,” said Kruse. “The Mule ain’t a wife–”

“Might as well be, the way you coddle it,” Armijo said. Kruze gave him a shove.

“All I’m sayin’ is, I wouldn’t hold to my son marryin’ one.”

“Chief ain’t your son,” Bedford said. “He’s the Chief.” Bedford looked up at the robot she was working on, and then past it at the bright-blue ceiling of the hangar. The Chief spent near a week off hours on the highest scaffold they had, painting white, fluffy clouds. Looking up at the painted sky made her smile.

“It ain’t normal, is all,” Kruse said.

“Mayhaps,” Bedford said, lowering her welding mask to return to work. “But neither is the Chief.”

The restaurant still sold wine from when the meteor struck. The very year. Abigail said she could taste ash in every sip, though that didn’t stop her from drinking. I swirled my glass, looking for bits that might be floating about in the cold liquid, fragments of catastrophe sealed by glass and cork.

Abigail had ordered some human cheese for the both of us, to snack on while we decided on our orders. The waiter swore that the milk was all given voluntarily, but even his definitive nature couldn’t dispel images of captive women chained in the back. His assertion that the cheese was made on the premises didn’t help much.

“You’re so morbid,” Abigail said when I told her about the captives in my head. She dipped her slender fingers in her wine and flicked droplets at my face.

“You’re the one who chose this place.”

Abigail pouted. “I took you out to cheer you up.”

Fine place for it, I thought. I didn’t say it, though. Instead, I mentioned Oshiwara Gainsberg’s new film, Big Black Mariah, an animated fable about the legendary boarding-house owner here in Boston. Abigail turned up her lip in a sneer.

“God,” she said. “It’s about the meteor, isn’t it?”

“I don’t see how.”

“Wake up! Everything is about the meteor these days. This woman, she’s a force of nature, right? Nothing, no one, can stand against her? But she only harms the guilty? Propaganda!” Abigail threw her arms wide on that last word, flashing jazz-hands.

I thought of the still-frame I had seen on the feed, Mariah towering over the innocent and guilty alike, her ink-black dress the only thing separating the two. I remembered the sun was behind her, forced the ne’er-do-wells to shiver in her shadow. I shrugged. “It’s just the way things are now. It’s part of the human condition.”

Abigail grumbled and blew bubbles into her wine. “Whatever. People need to get over it.” Abigail wrapped her sweater tighter around her shoulders, as if she was cold. As the restaurant grew darker in the fading evening, Abigail took a big swig of her wine, and said again that she could taste ash in it.

It was only then that it hit me. Abigail had a girlfriend named Ashe, who was among those the meteor claimed.

I would have said something, if the waiter hadn’t returned with our cheese.

“Pure Mother’s cheese,” the waiter said. “A hundred years ago, such a thing would have been looked upon as immoral, or even illegal. Times have sure changed, eh?” He waited anxiously for us to try a piece.

The cheese was surprisingly sweet, a good compliment to the smoky wine. It felt very warm in my mouth, and I noticed it caused a faint smile on Abigail’s lips. I imagine a similar expression was on my own face.

“Thank you,” I said. “This is just what we needed.”

I remember your touch, your taste, the way your mouth curled slightly when you said my name. Everything about you that made me happy, I’ve copied and cached. I can call it up with a thought, or a few key strokes if it’s unusual. The odd high note your voice lilted into when you laughed at my joke when we ate at the Nyala, the way you tied my boot lace, the odd jiggle-dance you did when no one was around but me and that blind street musician. Everything I ever liked about you is now recorded and filed. I keep hard copies in that safe you gave me.

So don’t bother coming around anymore, okay? Please. You’re just embarrassing yourself.

And you’re ruining my memories.

Sanjay Patelov was busy. Now, he was busy using his new telescope to focus in on the jiggly parts of the female joggers in Time Square, but he felt justified. Patelov & Murkin was a new publisher, but six of the New York Times current ten best-sellers proudly had that “P&M” emblazoned on their spines. It was a great deal of pressure, and Sanjay felt justified with a little peeping-tom-foolery from his sixty-sixth floor office window.

Which is why he was more than a little irritated when Clarence, his secretary, buzzed in.

“Message from Jermont McGuilligotty, sir.”

Shit, Sanjay thought. Talking with him is like talking to a brick wall possessed by E. M. Forster. And yet, the man’s books might as well have had wheels bolted on, they moved so fast… “What’s he want now?”

“He wants his latest novel removed from the site. He says he has no intention of giving away his work for free.”

Sanjy put the telescope away. He was no longer in the mood. “I imagine he believes you still have to cut the pages of magazines before you read them, as well. Nothing doing. No one’s going to buy the book if they can’t read it online. They’ll think we’re hiding the content, that it’s crap. The book stays.”

“He says he’s going to take it to a Print On Demand outfit if that’s the case. He says he already has a new ending and cover art.”

“Does he.”

“Yes, sir.”

Sanjay stared out onto the New York skyline. He remembered, briefly, how it looked when he first came to the city. How the buildings towered above him. And now, they seemed so approachable. “Let him do it. If he wants to Lulu his novel, so be it. But keep our version up. And advertise that we have the original ending. He’s got to learn, you can’t sell anything anymore without giving it away for free.”

Marco can leave the hospital bed, and for that, he is grateful. His balance is unsteady, but with a cane and time, he should be able to get around much the same way he used to. Dana smiles when he moves his hand to touch her cheek, the way she did for him for so long, and, that makes him smile in return. Marco wishes, however, that he could feel her face when he touches it.

His titanium and plastic fingers are flexible , and Marco has been told that they give him 90% of his original range of dexterity. Which was a hundred-percent improvement from before, when the accident had left him numb from the waist down. He knows he is gripping a glass of water due to the weight and texture and resistance his new fingertips sense and he recognizes now the way those sensors tell him the glass is wet with condensation. But he cannot feel it. It’s not the same as being in the hospital bed, but it’s not the same as before he was forced into it either.

Most frustrating, sex is out of the question.

Marco spends a great deal of time on the beach, watching the teenagers splash in the surf, showing off their developing bodies. He watches them laugh and amble about, unused to larger hips or feet. Marco watches the games they play, the ones from their childhood and the games they will continue into adulthood.

One day, Marco is surprised to feel weight and pressure against his back, and when he turns his head, he sees Dana leaning against him. She has a lazy smile on her face. “Are you comfortable? I must be pretty cold…” “Oh, I’m fine,” she says, and snuggles herself in the crook of Marco’s plastic elbow. “You out watching the jailbait, you perv?”

“No, I’m just…I don’t know what I’m doing.” “I like watching the waves break,” Dana says. “The way they crash and slip back. The way they reform.”

“I’m not a wave,” Marco says.

“No, you’re not. But I love you just the same.” Marco feels the pressure of Dana’s arms around his neck, and he touches her arms with his fingers, taking in the texture of the fine hairs on her arm, the rhythm of her pulse. He feels pressure on the side of his face, and when he touches it, his fingertips tell him his cheek was wet.

“You kissed me.”

“Well , I’ll be,” Dana says, her eyes sparkling. “Even a man in a prosthetic body can blush.”

I am activated again, forced to perform another single for the drunken masses. Yet another lead singer struts his beer-engorged gut on the stage in front of me, as my bandmates and I react to his motions and signals. We cannot help it. We are programmed to be his backup.

Perhaps, this one will be different. Perhaps, he will have style, or tune, or grace. Perhaps, he will not be as dependent on the video screens that play the lyrics in front of him. Perhaps he will be different, and choose a song from our limitless repertoire to sing in his brief moment as star. Motown, perhaps. Or a nice aria. Or maybe some T’sing Dau. T’sing Dau is fun.

But as the familiar refrains shudder forth from my fingers, I realize I am beyond hope. The next five minutes will be yet another lesson in how the human voice can torture a band-bot such as myself.

Why? Why do they always pick that damn song?

“I’ve lived a life that’s full,” the lead singer retches into the microphone. “I’ve traveled each and evry highway. And more, much more than this, I did it mmmmmmmmyyyyyyyyy wwwwwaaaaaaaay..”

“I need to find a man.”

Jahobie Muranme let out a huge, cracked-tooth grin at the dark fellow across the table from her. “There’s Long Trousers’ down the street. Betcha you could fin’ some hunk to brokeback with ‘fore the night is over.” Jahobie slung her right arm-the real one, without the blades-behind the back of her chair and clinked the ice in her glass suggestively. The dark man’s expression did not change.

“Very droll. That must be endlessly useful in your line of work. I am looking for this man.” The dark man slid a black sheet of plastic on the dirty table, and tapped it twice. A three-dimensional image of a man’s head hovered above the table. Jahobie took mental notes; defined brow, set jaw. Nose had been broken twice before.

“’E got a name?”

The dark man tapped the plastic again and the head dissipated. He rolled the sheet up and pushed it across the table toward Jahobie. “As far as you’re concerned, no. He is #6.”

“That make you #1?”

“Not in the slightest. Bring this man to me, by whatever means necessary.”

“Whateva’ means, eh? You care iffin he’s alive?”

A bemused half-smile slunk out from behind the dark man’s blank expression. “Not particularly, no. He is not going to be very willing to come back with you, so I imagine lethal force will be necessary. Which is why we are giving you this, in the event of #6’s demise.” The dark man hefted a large steel cylinder on the table by the handle on it’s top. It gleamed in the dim light, out of place in a dingy bar like this.

“Whut’s that?”

“Simple cryogenic canister, not much more than a can of liquid nitrogen, really. But it should suffice. Don’t bother bringing back the body; we only require the head.”

“Just…the head.”

“Yes. The body is meaningless.”

“Whut’s in the head?”

“You do not need to know.”

Johobie crossed her arms, the steel blades on her left arm facing out. “Unless it’s something that’ll fall out, or he’ll remove ‘fore I get there, and then I get a bum kick for me troubles. No, sir, this ain’t amateur night. What’s in the head?”

“Information. As long as you freeze the head within an hour of death, we will be able to extract enough of his mental state to graft it onto another living being. Obviously, something smaller and more docile. Current vote is a terrier, but I am of the opinion that a six-year-old girl might be more preferable. Terriers, after all, still have teeth.”

“Yeah ’spose they do.” The clear joy the man’s face radiated when discussed the fate of this “#6” made Jahobie squirm. She had wanted the see some other expression on the man’s face sent they met, but now that she saw it… She was almost relieved to see the man regain his composure as he removed a black card and placed it on Jahobie’s side of the table.

“This card contains half of what we promised. Once we have #6, you shall receive another. I shall leave the canister with you.”

Jahobie pocketed the card and the rolled-up holo-sheet. She was surprised that the dark man did not get up when she did. “Queer business you got going here, you don’t mind me saying.”

“I am afraid I would have to care a great deal more in order to mind. Remember, it is not your head that we are paying you for.”

They called the ship a Widowmaker, a relic of a time when the black of space was scarred by the war and the machines that made it possible. There were no windows save at the top and few doors; little was done to make the metal monstrosity look like anything other than the heavily armed coffin it was. It towered over the edge of the city, and Fire Chief Jaime Olmos felt cold and clammy every time he had to drive beneath its shadow. He had argued with the city about taking it down and scrapping it. But no one saw the tower of metal-encased kindling on insufficient struts, a danger to the community around it. They only saw a tourist offering, a landmark.

“We can’t tear down such a monument of our rich heritage in space.” Olmos was told. “That ship represents heroism.”

Olmos had served on a Widowmaker, back when both of them were considered space-worthy. He sadly shook his head at the connection of such a ship and heroism. “I pray there isn’t a fire,” he said, and walked out of city hall with his shoulders slumped, his head down.

The night the rusting hulk’s innards did catch fire, every truck was called to surround it. The ship’s supports were already bending due to heat, and it would only be a matter of time before the colossus toppled onto the buildings surrounding it. The fire had already burst the viewport windows, and a jet of flame like a angry beast tore across the starry sky.

“Same as it ever was,” Olmos thought to himself, and ordered two men to the upper levels of the ship to either contain the fire or give it a way out. The men’s shadows danced violently in the flickering light.

They did not return. One of them, Cheeverly, who loved his garden of exotic flowers as much as he loved his motorcycle, called on the radio saying he was lost, his voice distorted by his oxygen mask that shuddered as it ran out of air.

Olmos sent in two more men, confident he could count on Jacobson. Jacobson may have been a prankster off duty, but he was as serious as they got once in uniform. He reminded Olmos of his old messmate, Hopi, back in the war. Jacobson didn’t get a chance to radio back. Despite Olmos screaming into his receiver, there was no response. “Hopi died in a Widowmaker, too,” Olmos said.

The ship was winning, the damn monstrosity taking his men two by two. Olmos turned his back to the gangplank. Fifteen firefighters were crowded in front of him, tense with adrenaline, the heat of their eyes competing with the flames at his back.

“No more,” Olmos said.

No one said anything for one second, and then two. And then the roar of the fire was overmatched by the roar of men. “They’re still up there, god-dammit!” they howled, surging forward, a mass of rage. “They’re still in there!”

Olmos pushed his hands into the chests of the men, sending each one that came too close to the ground. “Listen to me!” he bellowed. “You listen to me! We’ve already lost four. We’re not going to lose any more.”

Olmos watched as his men contracted, their shoulders slumping, their heads bowing. They seemed so much smaller, their twisting shadows seem all-encompassing, devouring the men as they walked away.

The fire was contained, leaving nothing but a blackened husk, a monstrous, smoking skeleton, so immense it blotted out the coming dawn.

K’dackis was slivercaster, scout and herder of wildfeeds, piping when needed, but always in pursuit of the genuine driveway effect. She was constantly sisbertized by the right or the wrong people, surfing the waves of condemnation and approval as she launched onto her next coffee-spitter. She was queen of the third screen. Grey as I was, by comparison I might as well have been egocasting. K’dackis swallowed muffin-chokers whole, and spit ‘em back out at lightning speed; because of this, she was the darling of screenagers everywhere.

I have been told my obsession with K’dackis is nothing but anus-envy, that any fool could create irritainment with a notebook dump on a feed and garnish it with a middle finger. This was true to some extent, but I’m no beat-sweetener with his head up his ass. K’dackis’s appeal went beyond mere hathos and anger. She was a half-step away from a placeshift, and when that happened all of us in the Outerrnet would feel very, very insecure about our place in our chosen professions.

Obviously, a fleshmeet was required, and not just podhacking her playlist, either. I had to interview her. Took some cajoling; my editor is a NIMBY when it comes alt-media, partly due to the pessimal state of modern info, partly due to how close he is to sundowning. But the man’s watch contains feedlets and bytebits, same as mine, so I had some elbowroom.

“I’ll authorize this,” he said. “But you better put some pants on the copy before it reaches my desk. I ain’t paying you to take a duvet day.”

Strangely enough, K’dackis consented to an interview. She had read my grey, and gave me a webrarian’s approval of a go ahead. I suppose I should have expected something unusual out of her, but doing the interview in a dumpster came as a headsmack.

“You gotta be a mongo hunter is this world, get your hands dirty, get in the scene.” K’dackis looked strangely cheery amongst the garbage. Her clothes carried no badge item, just ergomorphic shirt and pants. “What we throw away says the most about us, dig? What’s in your trash this morning?”

I found myself lost; she might as well been speaking Miévilleese.

“Listen, you didn’t come here to quiz me on my hairdo. You’re no thumbsucker, your grey speaks for that. But you’re in a bathwater situation. Think about the language we use. What’s the first thing we toss aside? Curse words, old relics of medieval speak. But what’s the primary we utter when we glom a muffin -choker? It’s all a goddamn circle, Cochise. When was the last time you let out a good old curse for the scream of it?!?’”

I hemmed and hawed, but I didn’t have an answer. The interview, such as it was, went this way; K’dackis was playing at being a knowledge angel, sure, but it was fascinating, abrasive and exactly what was wrong with the state of grey.

Naturally, my editor wouldn’t print a word a word of it..

“Primary, this contains language, which we do not print. Our grey is clear of such things and we are proud of that,” he espoused. “Secondly, what is the point of this?”

“We’re lost in the words. It’s mindblindness, pure and simple. We’re not even communicating anymore, we’re just speaking.”

“Manure. There’s a medieval word for you and your bloghopper. Shit. Excrement. Crap, detritus, garbage, junk, offal, refuse, remains, rubbish, trash, waste. We are in the business of words, mister. YOU are in the business of words.”

“I thought I was in the business of news.”

“Keep this up, and you won’t be. Do I make myself clear? Or am I using too many words?”

K’dackis was slivercaster, which means she played to, at best, a small audience. She could play to the screenagers, and have her outrage displayed on their phones and watches, gathering evidence from feeds and stray bytes. But she and her ideas weren’t news, even if they were to us in the news business.

I found myself going through my grey, pieces that had once won awards, had garnered acclaim. I was told that my grey spoke for me. I couldn’t slivercast, couldn’t ride the wildfeeds, and I wasn’t going to be a third screen darling anytime soon.

But I did remember what makes me curse.

The Annual Garden Party was called such more out of tradition than anything else; there was no vegetation to be found, only green crystal ferns and porcelain roses. However, appearances and traditions had to be respected and kept up. It was commented on that the way the artificial sunlight glinted off the facets and glaze was, in humble opinions that would never be expressed if the whole effect wasn’t just so breathtaking, better than the original.

Byron hated it. Cecelia could see he hated it, but she brushed it off as concern for his younger sister, Bunny, as she continually tottered dangerously close to the ferns, her immense platform sandals and limited coordination not helping the matter any.

“Bunny,” Byron called, and the girl ambled over to the table he and Cecelia shared. “Look, here. I brought your tiara. Why don’t you go pose in it away from the ferns?”

“Oooooo! Shiny!” Bunny’s jewelry clattered noisily as she half-ran, half-fell away from the tables.

“She’s a beautiful girl, your sister,” Cecelia said. Byron only looked sad.

“She’s a beautiful girl with Holstein-Gottorp’s Disorder. I’m just glad she’s still young enough for the pageant circuit. When that goes, I’m not sure what she’s going to have.”

“It’s wonderful the way you care for her. You’ll make an excellent father.”

“Cecelia, we’ve talked about this.” Byron nervously ran his fingers over the gold tabletop. “You know I love you, but my sister has Holstein-Gottorp’s, and, well, with our combined inheritence, there’s a good chance any children we have could end up a…”

“BRIETARD!!!” Some smaller children were yelling at Bunny, throwing chocolates at her ample cleavage. She ran away from them, crying, and hid under a table. Byron looked pale.

“Byron, baby.” Cecelia took his hands, their multitude of rings clacking as they came together. “Even if we have brietarded children, we’ll make it work.”

“You don’t understand. Yesterday, my sister was asked to introduce herself, and she said ‘What? Like, with words?’ I can’t live with that.”

“So then we’ll give it up,” Cecelia said. “All of it. Maybe we even…I don’t know, get jobs or something.”

Byron looked aghast. “Are you mad?” He turned to watch his sister, once again tottering toward the glimmering fake plants. “Can’t we just do something sensible like adopt one of those strange little alien refugees? Something sane like that.”

Even in the heart of the city, Rene is in the open places. His feet splash in streams, not gutters, and his ears feel the whistle of the wind and not the cry of sirens. Past the dumpsters and yakatori stands, Rene smells green grass and the air right before a storm. He can hear his brother’s laughter, and the thunder of a thousand wild horses running with him.

Shelia Ruye told him it wouldn’t last, and when Rene reaches the docks, he hacks and he wheezes and the real world slithers back in into his frame of vision. Shelia Ruye told him that Reservation was the best, like no dose he ever had, that Rez took your fondest memory and gave it back. Didn’t last long, though, and to Rene the city looked small and crumpled and dirty and his brother was still in the ground. Rene tried to vomit food he hadn’t eaten, and made sense of the city best he could. Because making sense of the city was the only way to get away from it, only way he could find more Rez.

Rene runs to the heart of the city in order to run back out of it again, with enough Rez pounding in his ears and his eyes to make it past the docks, past the city. His brother’s laughter will hold him up and wild horses will carry him across the moonlit water.

He sees this as surely as he sees the wide open places and the cramped dank alleys. And Rene knows that to stay in one, he has to leave the other.

The stranger had come full of bizarre smells and even odder forms of payment, and while Hikari wrinkled her nose at the collection of coins and seeds, it was technically money. So she tucked the coins away, placed the seeds in some soft earth so they could blossom properly, and offered the stranger coffee.

“No, thanks,” he said, his eyes glued to the window and the hangar beyond yet. “Is that a monkey?”

“Say ’bout eighty percent of him, yes,” Hikari said, her ears twitching. There was something about this man she wasn’t sure she liked. Though she had to admit, now that she had gotten over its exotic nature, she couldn’t get enough of his smell. “It’s not just a clever name.”

“And he’s going to be working on my ship?”

“If he likes the look of you. ” Hikari allowed a sly smile to play across her muzzle. “Wouldn’t sweat it, I haven’t seen him turn down a pregnancy once. He’ll probably go at it all night. ”

“All night, but how could..well, if that’s what it takes…” The man slumped on the couch, and ran his hand through his hair. He had lots of hair, long black curls. Hikari liked his hair.

“This your first time, hon?”

“Yeah. That obvious? Caught me a bit by surprise. Checking the cargo hold and finding…I didn’t think she was that kind of ship, you know. I probably left her too long at port. Back at Sumter there was this whole gang of Plesocopuses that were up to no good, bet it was one of those…”

“Oh, hush,” Hikari said. She leaned forward toward the man and played a bit with the shoulder strap of her tiny shirt. “That ship of yours ain’t hussy. And you can trust me, I know the type. Back when I was kitten on Osiron, you couldn’t throw a rock without hitting some bastard swizzleskid or tamerind. You fellas forget how much of your ship is flesh and blood, forget that a girl’s got needs.” She walked over to him, her hips swaying in time with her tail.

“I imagine she does, at that….”

“She was just doing what came natural.” Hikari slinked onto the couch next to the man and stared at him, black slits narrowing in deep green eyes. “You two came from Sumter? Long ways. Not surprised you turned down the coffee. Reckon I could find other ways to help you relax. ” Hikari snuggled up close, and gave a soft purr as he stroked the soft mottled fur down her back.

“Well, if the monkey’s gonna be at it all night…”

Master Paranthany set the vase down delicately at the feet of Mr. Lurgess. Mr. Lurgess, for his part, rubbed his spongy hands together excitedly. Master Paranthany removed his velvet gloves and returned them to their pocket in his coat.

“How did you–” Mr. Lurgess sputtered out. “How did you find it again? It’s worth–”

“A fortune, yes.” Master Paranthany scratched his nose and moved to Mr. Lurgess’s prismatic windows. The cold light of dawn was covering the entire room apartment with bits of red and green and indigo. “Porcelain from the original Ming Dynasty is extremely rare in this day and age. It’s worth quite a bit, to the right person. Or it’s something to let flowers die in.”

“I must insist.” Mr. Lurgess scurried over to the window himself, almost tripping over his dressing gown. The colors that cavorted around his face did little to improve it, in Master Paranthany’s eyes; the little man still looked like a roast pig. “You must tell me how you found it! I know your agency is one of the best–”

“We are the best. You will find no better insurance company on any of the Five Worlds.”

“And you’re a credit to their investigators, Master Paranthany. But you must tell me. I thought for certain this would have been on the black market by now, exchanged through a dozen hands.”

“I am certain it has been. However, I was able to recover some dust from the vase’s former resting spot. With that, it was only a matter of finding the exact combination of molecules and paint patterns.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“I had copies made. Printed them right out back at the office. Flooded the market with them. Would take an expert to tell the difference, and even then, its extremely unlikely. In short, I made the thing totally worthless.”

“But that would take hundreds…”

“Millions, actually. Three point five. Most will find their way back to the office, and they’ll be used as base material for another hunt. Standard procedure really.” In one fluid motion, Master Paranthany reached into his pocket, withdrew a package of cigarettes, and shook one into his lips. “But there will be just enough to keep anyone from stealing that vase again. It is effectively worthless to anyone but you.”

“No smoking, please. It’s bad for my eyes.” Mr. Lurgess looked back and forth from the vase to Master Paranthany “But if you…does that mean…do I have…?”

“Well I suppose there’s only one answer to that question.” Master Paranthany lit his cigaratte and let an extravagant plume of blue smoke glide out of his lips. Colors formed unique patterns and shapes upon the surface of the smoke before it all dissipated. “How much is it worth to you?”

The last time I saw Alnersans was back when I owned a bar. We used to joke that Alnersans always brightened up the place, due to the lights implanted on his arm.

Alnersans had 6 LEDs crawling out of the flesh of his left forearm. I asked him about them once; he told me that they were his six closest friends. The LEDs were tied to their iDents, and Alnersans would talk about them as if they were the people themselves.

“Now, Shirl,” he would say, pointing to a LED that flickered noticibly in the bar’s dim light. “She’s not doing too well. Doctors ain’t givin’ her much time, but when do they ever? Better pour one for me and one for Shirl, on account she can’t join us.”

While I knew Alnsersans back in college, I never saw him so much as when I served alcohol for living. About a month before the bar closed, Alnersans seemed to vanish. I thought about taking the iDent he paid his tab with and entering in a hospital query or plugging in a GPSearch, but I never did. He hadn’t given me his iDent to use in that way, anyway.

I thought on him every now and then, but I didn’t expect him to show up. When my door read his iDent soon as he stepped on the welcome mat and said it was him, I about fell out of my chair.

“Hadn’t seen you in a while, Alnersans.”

“Your bar’s been torn down.”

“I know.”

“I didn’t. Coulda told me. I liked your bar. Can I come in?” I offered him a beer and he took it hungrily, draining the bottle in seconds.

“You want another?”

” You make such a great bartender. This is why you shouldn’t have closed the bar.”

“People change” I said. I noticed that, of the six LEDs, only one remained. Alnsersans gently fingered the ragged maw of scars that surrounded them, as if he was reminding himself they were still there.

“That they do. I’ve learned that, here recent.” Without warning, without a change of expression or twitch of his body, Alnersans smashed his empty beer up against my end-table, Alnersans then took one of the slivers of glass and gouged out the last of the LEDs, Despite wincing from the pain, Alnersans let out a low chuckle as the glow of the light slowly faded. “Serves you right, you son of a bitch. Serves you right. Sorry about the mess,” he said, turning to me.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“You’re a good friend,” Alnersans said. “I see that now.”

Three Elvises walk into a bar.

You may laugh, but I was there, it’s true. Three Elvises. Elvii. Whatever. First strode in the bishop: big as life and twice as wide, identified as he was by his high-collared cape, resplendent in rhinestones and the golden sunglasses of his office. Behind him swaggered a priest, her jumpsuit less ornate, her belt-buckle smaller, her cape shorter. Last was a neonate, still in training but wearing the blue suede shoes of one who was near priest-hood. Now, he didn’t have the broad steps of the other two, wasn’t much more than a boy, but he held his pompadour just as proudly

“What’s your poison, preacher?” the bartender asked, not sure what else to do once the bishop had maneuvered his mighty, blessed girth onto the stool.

“Fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches, currently. But as for what me and my compatriots will have to drink, Pepsi-Cola iffin you got it, water if you don’t.” Now some say Elvises sweat extra hard in the memory of their savior, and the bishop clearly subscribed to this form of worship. He wiped the outside’s sweat and grit from his face, and gave each bushy sideburn a quick comb with his fingers. “I wonder if I might trouble all you fellas for a word about the man who gave his life for your sins, our lord and savior Elvis Presley.”

As hard as it was for all the patrons of that shithole speakeasy that night to believe, it was true: The Holy Missionaries of the Church of Elvis were in their midst, preaching the gospel. And I’ll say this, that bishop had a powerful set of pipes.

“For his love is a burning love, a hunka, hunka burning love that will melt away all your sins should you accept him in your heart. But your love for him must be tender, it must be true.” Unsurprisingly, not every drunkard wanted to hear the wisdom in loving tender. A half-full pint glass was rocketed to the bishop’s head. It was caught before contact by the priest, who, in her skill caused not a single drop of warmed-over beer touched the bishop’s immaculate pompadour.

“Truth is like the sun,” the preist said. “You can shut it out for a time, but it ain’t goin’ away.”

Was about then, the whole bar rose as one to pound those three missionaries into the floor. Not me, I was under the table. But the whole group tried to take those holier-than-us-ers down for the count. What we hadn’t reckoned on was the fact they were a great deal less drunk–and therefore, more mobile, even the bishop–and that all Elvises are trained in kung-fu.

‘Least I think it was kung-fu. All I know is even that boy threw a mean karate chop. Not that I felt it. I was under the table. Swear on my life.

It was in the remains of this fight, this battle, this ever-lovin’ crusade that the three Elvii–unharmed, if dirty–opened their mouths as one and sang. And let me tell you, brother, you ain’t heard shit unless you’ve heard “In the Ghetto” done in three-part harmony. If there was a dry eye in the bar, I sure didn’t see it. As unlikely as it sounds, those Elvises did do some conversions that day, and I’m sure several patrons woke up the next day with hangovers around their foreheads and silk scarves around their necks wondering what happened. But a few of them–more than a few, come to think of it– swore off the drink entirely. They felt the burning love within, and purified them without.

So they tell me, leastways.

As the Elvises turned to leave, I found strength in my own voice to call out to them, and I asked them, I won’t lie, I asked them how a fellow like me could sing like that.

The bishop and priest turned to the boy, who looked bashful at the attention. He slid he gaze upwards and when it came down it was the most serene thing I had ever seen.

“My voice is God’s will, not mine,” he said. And then they were gone, a trail of hound dogs and suspicious minds, teddy bears and puppets on strings and devils in disguise behind them, all of us were all shook up. They’ve been always on my mind ever since.

Tristan was methodically taking apart his hands when the doorbell chimed. He jumped at the sound, going to the door in such a hurry that he left behind the joints and pieces of his left hand on the worktable. All nine of Tristan’s eyes blinked and strobed expectantly, wanting to know if this was it, what he had been waiting for, the final piece. The post-bot offered no answers, merely hovering in front of Tristan’s doorstep, humming a tune written specifically to pacify. But the box carried the familiar barcode, Isolde’s barcode, and Tristan was so excited he left the door open, the post-bot forgotten, and tore open the package with his one intact hand.

But he was careful, for he knew the fragility of the contents. It pained Tristan to do so, but he was careful. He had to be. What if he were to break it?

Nervously, with forced concentration through metal fingers, Tristan pried open the box, shifted aside the packing foam, and pulled out the small, translucent capsule. Three eyes telescoped out as Tristan took a closer look at the small object contained within the thick amber liquid.

Within, a tiny human heart floated in perfect stasis, undamaged by delivery. Tristan’s extended lenses accordioned back into his head, pleased. It was delicate work, a heart. He had made the right decision, ordering this piece from Isolde, and her talent as a tissue sculptor showed in every facet of the miniscule muscle. Tristan was a genius with metal and bone, flesh and glass, but he knew his limits. It was said that Tristan would never be willing to swallow his own pride and use parts crafted by specialists, and this desire for personal construction of each and every element had made him the most renowned robot-builder on the planet, fame far outstretching those who preferred to turn to others for parts.

It was this quirk, and the reputation attached to it, that had given Tristan his current commission. He accessed the images of the kindly bronze couple who had requested, bashful and stuttering, a biological child. Not just a biological shell on a metal framework, either, though they admired such creations from Tristan’s catalog. No, they wanted wholly organic sentient, the kind of which had not been seen on this world or any other for time immemorial. They had shown Tristan a data file of approximate proportions, told him expense was no object, assured him he was the right man for the job, and tottered off.

He could not complete the heart. For some reason, it was beyond him, though he tried over and over again. Four chambers, however, proved more difficult than they looked.

But the rest of the child he crafted with art and skill. So many hours and days lost to the building and forming of this small, soft thing, with its large head and tiny hands and round belly. So tiny, so delicate. And now, almost finished. He would place the heart within the small cage of bone, in between the languid lungs, seal it up and be finished. The child would live with blood pumping through its veins, it would laugh and scream and run and grow…

And grow. It would grow, wouldn’t it? That’s what biologics do. They grow and change. In mere years, the child would be unrecognizable.

Tristan stood in the middle of his workspace and tapped at his head with the stub of a left arm. He looked from the small pod containing the heart to the larger one containing the body and back again, frightened at how little of his masterpiece he actually could lay claim to.

It was such a small thing to open the pod and pour out the little heart and let it plop against the floor of the workspace. Tristan jumped up and down on the heart with steel heels, crushing the intricate valves and muscle fibers. Tristan didn’t stop until the doorbell chimed again, and the he didn’t turn around until he heard Isolde’s voice, as golden as her gleaming plating.

“I thought you might need another heart,” she said, blinking two of her five eyes. “Just in case something…happened to the first one. Though I didn’t expect…”

Tristan turned to face her, motioning with his handless arm at the mess about his feet. He tried to explain, but there were no words.

“It’s okay,” Isolde said, golden fingers gently caressing the dull metal of Tristan’s arm. “Let me help you finish. We can build this together.”

There’s blood up to the windows. It must have seemed like a good idea at the time, to stack the bodies in the Mercer Building, to get ‘em off the Rail. But I can’t help wondering if the allusion to gore behind those art-deco panes is worse the actual carnage.

At least they’re off the Rail. At least there’s that.

My brother took his class—God, how many would that have been? 50? 60 schoolchildren?—to the History Museum just yesterday. Show them the Independence Day exhibit, remind them of the two decades spent fighting the Earth Alliance so that the Mars colony could be a world in its own right, beholden to none. Took the Rail, Line 4—site #1 of 15. Had they made that trip today, on Independence Day itself, then their screams would have been the first.

Fifteen bombs, throughout the city. Crippling not only the Rail, but also the ComNet. All com systems were shut down, in order to stop more bombs from being set off remotely. I can’t imagine what this did to the survivors, though, who counted on their coms to call for help.

As a paramedic, I’m only any use in the aftermath. Arriving at Olympus station—site #7 of 15—I was surprised at how helpful most of the “civilians” were. There were no gawkers, no brawlers, none of the usual characters that make my job more difficult than it already is. Only assistants. People moving debris and corpses, being directed by myself and the other emergency personal. We were all helping, those who could. And we stayed silent for those who couldn’t.

They say it takes a particular kind of person to live on Mars, a temperament out of place on Earth or the Moon. Looking back, on what we did on that day of chaos, of fifteen bombs and fifteen major disasters, I can see how true that statement is. And it fills me with an immense pride.

No one’s taken credit for this destruction yet, but it doesn’t matter.

Mars won’t be beaten. We spent 20 years under the shadow of the EA, after decades of carving a life out of red rock and poison air.

We are used to terror.

Bernard held the letter loosely in his hands. He sat down on his bed, staring at the blank taupe walls of the Renewal center and didn’t look at the letter. Bernard’s Renewalist, Maureen, had suggested he try and read the letter again today. He’d been trying for three hours.

Slowly, Bernard unfolded the letter, catching glimpse of the clean type at the top.

To Myself, Upon My Renewal,
What a strange way to start–

Bernard crushed the letter in his hands, and threw the ball of crumpled paper across the room. He closed his eyes tight and shook his head over and over before burying his face in his pillow. Even with his eyes closed, Bernard knew the letter was there. Waiting for him.

He had to read it today. Maureen had said as much, implying that this was a necessary block he had to get over before they could move forward. He had to read it today.

Slowly, tentatively, as if it was going to explode, Bernard approached the crumpled ball. He carefully smoothed it out, and began to read.

To Myself, Upon My Renewal,
What a strange way to start to a letter. Still, I don’t know of another way to address you. “Clone,” just seems…wrong. You’ve got all my memories, after all. Well, most of them

Eight months ago, Mom died–

With a howl, Bernard tore the letter in half, and then in half again, and again, in smaller and smaller pieces until he couldn’t read it, until it wasn’t a letter, until it was only confetti about his bare feet.

Bernard took a deep breath and thumbed the intercom. “Shelly? This is Bernard, patient number 235674. Could you have Maureen send over another copy of my reintroduction letter. please?”

Shelly’s sunny voice crackled in. “Certainly, Bernard. How far did you get this time?”

“Same place.”

“You’ll get through it. This is just a difficult day for you.”

“Hey, neighbor!” Chawly called down from across the way. He had a pint glass of something that looked like red wine in each fist. I knew it couldn’t be–not in Topside–but Chawly had his ways. Chawly yanked the line-suspended basket that served as dumbwaiter between his window and mine over to him and placed a glass in. He gave the basket a shove, sliding it across the expanse. “Taste somma this!”

The basket was a battered salvage from an abandoned grocery store and stayed remarkably stable on it’s journey, barely sloshing the blood-red contents. I watched the drops fall and disappear though the cloud cover, wondering if they would hit any Suits on the ground. I smiled, imagining red splatter all over the pale face of Suit, on his way to a job or meeting or something, his eyes scanning the heavens, wondering where such sacrament came from.

Actually, it was probably raining down there.

The wine was shit, naturally; the latest in Chawly’s experiments to speed up the fermentation process in grape juice. “This is gonna make me blind one day,” I called out to Chawly.

“Whatchu worried about missing?” Chawly howled back. He motioned over-dramatically to our surroundings, arms out stretched. Living above the rain had spared these top tenements water damage, but the heat had baked the buildings until all surfaces were the same cracked brown. Chawly almost blended in, with his tan skin, filthy shirt and tangled hair. Chawly had been here when I was broke and starving, and Topside was the only place I could go; to me, Chawly was Topside. From the way he yelped and hollered when the buildings swayed in the wind to his usual, pantless way of hanging off his window ledge. No one lived Topside by choice, but Chawly certainly made the most of it.

“You cooking over there, Chawly?” It smelled like hamburgers, but I knew it couldn’t be. Not even Chawly could get beef.

“Hells yes, brother! Morganna totally brought home the bacon!” Morganna was Chawly’s cat, just as brown and dirty has her owner. The realization of the sort of “bacon” Morganna was able to catch and kill suddenly made me queasy. “You okay there? Your air-conditioner on the fritz?”

I glanced back the black cube in the corner of my room. It’s sputters of pure oxygen in the thin air caused the airborne dust to dance and panic. “Nah, it’s fine Chawly…”

“Somethin’s bothern you, brother. Here, penny for your thoughts.” Chawly flipped a coin, the distance between our windows making his simple act miraculous. It hit my hand still warm from Chawly’s fist.

“This is a five yen coin, Chawly.”

“Does that make it more or less than a penny*?”

“I think it’s about the same amount of worthless.”

“Let’er rip, then.” Chawly crawled out onto the window ledge, his long, naked legs dangling in midair. “Let’er rip.”

I took in a deep breath and let it snake slowly back out of my lips. “I ain’t ever gonna get out of here, am I?”

“Old widow Keerney bought it three days ago. You could move in to her old place.”

“Not that. Topside. I used to go places, you know? On the ground, up the river back east. The world’s a big place, man. It gave me everything I needed. I was like a rolling stone, Chawly.”

“Like a stone,” Chawly said, drawing it in. “I heard once, that you drop a penny from high enough, the force of gravity turns it hard and fast. You can kill a man from this height, turn a worthless coin into a killing machine. Load of bullshit, but fun to think about.You wanna be a stone, that may be the only way.” Chawly turned around, slinking back into his crevice of a room. “I got meat on the grill. You’re welcome to some, you wanna come over”

I laughed at this. Pass the chasm that separated our buildings? Might as well fly, or put on a Suit. But Chawly stopped me fast with a stone-serious gaze. “Basket’s waiting, brother.”

“You cannot be serious.”

“I don’t got your faith in the world, neighbor. But I do know that I anchored this line pretty damn well.”

“And if the line breaks?”

“You were the one that wanted to leave.”

I imagined falling out of the basket, tumbling through clouds like spilt wine. “Maybe I’ll get lucky,” I said. “Maybe I’ll land on a Suit.”

“HA! I like that!” Chawly threw his bearded head back, and his laughter echoed and shook the stones of Topside.

For the first time since I had first crawled up to that umpth-hundred-floor room, I felt it shake me, too.

The crash was magnificent, heard three systems away and felt by half the galaxy. The other half were immediately informed via telepathy, televisapathy and tele-empathy, and felt as if they had felt it. Such was the impact.

The grand old captain himself, however, newly cloned and fresh from artificial endorphins and digitally inserted memories, shrugged off the whole thing. “Eh,” he was quoted. “Good an end as any. Consider that the final voyage of Captain Shakespeare, then. Time enough I was through with the whole bit.”

Time enough, everyone agreed with a sigh of relief. Time enough.

And so then did the immense interplanetary causeways of space and time breathe easy, free from Captain Shakespeare’s impulsive reality bends and left-handed turns. The day the Captain hung his helmet and started to raise begonias, intergalactic travel safety numbers rose and deaths plummeted; no mass-murder in the history of the universe had the kill rate of Captain Shakespeare with a few bolts of Lighting Hopkins in him. Space was safe again.

But at what cost? Re-Clone stations from one solar system to another closed their doors, the demand for new bodies having plummeted so. Drastic measures needed to be taken. Heads of the Re-Clone Guild left to meet with the Captain at his home, waded through the waist-high begonias, and pleaded with the Once-Scourge of the Spaceways to again throw caution to the wind and ruin some bodies of spacetravelers.

The grand old captain met them with a perfunctory amount of grace and pleasantries, offering tea and scones. Once they had all sat down and unanimously decided upon the less than edible nature of the scones, Captain Shakespeare regaled them with the story of his original cloning. How he was asked to write more plays, and not just for the theatre he was accustomed to, but also for holo- and empath-theatres, which baffled his mind at the time.

“You remember,” the Captain said, stroking his mustache. “The Baconians put up such a fuss, claiming they were right all along. Such ridiculousness!” The members of the Re-Clone delegation all nodded, unsure where he was going with this. “In any case, I didn’t want to write any more plays. I mean, if you had lived in London when I did, what with the shit and filth and…well, I won’t go into it. But if you had, you’d understand why I had to write. And why, as soon I as didn’t live there and then anymore, why I wanted to take to the stars.”

At this, the members of the delegation sat on the edge of their chairs. “So, you’ll be returning? To the stars?”

“No,” said Captain Shakespeare. “I’ve had enough. Perhaps I shall write again. Or maybe I will continue to develop begonias. If you gentlemen would care, I have a new genus in the back, cross-bred with a venus fly-trap. Managed to get it simply enormous in stature. It’s really quite breath-taking.”

The delegation declined, in no small amount due to the gleam in the Captain’s eye. Waving them off, Captain Shakespeare suggested convincing the clone of Samuel Clemmons to take up space travel.

The delegation, who had come all this way, who had waded through begonias and munched upon scones of solid rock, sagged their shoulders futher.

They would never be able convince Clemmons.

Marla just didn’t understand. Bernie couldn’t give up his collection. He tried to explain it to her, but it was futile, he knew it.

“They’re not just collectables, Marla. They’re history. I would think you would understand that. You buy for a museum, you should be able to recognize history.”

“These are garbage, outdated weaponry. And this, this isn’t even loaded.” Marla picked up a heavy, oversize pistol from its display rack. Steel through and through, not the light plastic models currently in service. “Is this suppose to be some sort of home defense?”

“That is a .44 millimeter Desert Eagle! You can’t find that anymore!”

“Whatever.” She set the gun back down in disgust. “They aren’t history, they’re toys. You’re nearly thirty, Bernie. You shouldn’t be spending so much money on toys.”

“Why not? We can afford it!” They could. Bernie’s job as a sysadmin kept him up at odd hours, but it kept his collection—and his waistline—healthy.

“That’s not the point–”

“What other point could you have? I am decorating—”

“Decorating! Fine then! Why don’t you just put all our money into broken firearms, then?!?”

“Maybe I should! Better that than every shoe store in town!”

“Those pumps were a business expense!”

Bernie cell phone went off, just when he was about to say something particularly nasty. Work, calling him again, despite the late hour. Bernie told Marla he had to go, and she waved him off with a glare that told him that this wasn’t over.

That night, Marla found herself jerked awake by the sound of fighting in the living room. Suddenly, she heard a loud thud, and the fighting stopped. “Oh no,” she thought. “Bernie!” Gripping the Hiro Taninchi-autographed baseball-bat Bernie kept in the bedroom, she inched toward the door. The sight in the living room made her gasp loudly.

There was Bernie, holding the Desert Eagle in one pudgy hand and the dark shirt of another man in the other. The other man’s head rolled back, a bleeding cut on his forehead.

“Caught him trying to make off with our stuff. Bernie said. “Probably the same guy who ripped off the Whipplesteins down the street. Idiot should’ve known better than to come between me and my collection!”

Bernie proudly held up the gun for Marla to see. There was blood on its gargantuan barrel. “Home defense,” he said.

“I see you’ve done some pruning,” Margaret’s therapist said. “I like what you’ve done with the branches around your sternum.”

“Thank you,” Margaret choked out. It had been a trial learning how to talk with roots entwined around her larnyx, but she had muddled through. “I think…I think I made a major…breakthrough. Other day. On the lawn.”

“Yes? Say more about that.”

Margaret grimaced, forming words that sounded rough and hard. She toyed with the braches that jutted out from her left elbow as she spoke. “On the lawn. I was…in the sun. At peace. Feeling the grass…at the sun. It felt…wonderful.”

“That’s a good thing, Margaret. A very good thing.”

Margaret smiled at that, leaves tickling her cheeks. “Was thinking…since had break…though, I could get…a phone call.”

“Oh, Margaret…”

“Or clothes!” The vines entwined in Margaret’s hair shuddered slightly. “Clothes? I’m…ready for clothes.”

Margaret’s therapist closed her book and folded her hands. “Margaret. You came here because you wanted to get away from all that. It was making you sick, remember? All the technology, all the information. It was overwhelming. It was making you sick.”

“Yes…but…think…”

“What would you do on the phone, Margaret? You can barely talk.” She reached out and stroked the branch around Margaret’s collar bone. “I think you’ve done some lovely work here, but you’ve still got a long way to go. But you have made progress. I’ll talk to The Leader about giving you more time in the Orchard. You like working in the orchard, don’t you.”

Margaret had a great deal of trouble choking out a “yes,” so she settled for a slow, sad nod.

“That’s the spirit, Margaret. There’s still so much of the modern world in you. But we’ll cut it out yet.”

The robot was no bigger than a diner roll, and had a tendency to shift on of its many stiff legs when it was processing. It was on the kitchen table now, and Megan lowered herself so that she was eye-level with it. It’s forward-motion sensor quivered when her face came close. One antenna moved to touch Megan’s curly red hair, but she swatted it aside.

“I could take your battery right out, you know,” she said. “Where would you be then?” Megan let the robot process that before continuing. She glanced at the clock–no time left. “And even if I don’t, I am not getting you that upgrade, not after this, so you might as well forget it. Just show me where you’ve hidden my keys so I can get to work!”

The robot did nothing. Megan stared daggers at its sensory antennae, but it only seemed to react to tick of the clock, and rhythm of her hurried breath.

I have a fine grandson named Lorenzo, and he and his mother and father came down to visit me. He brought his wonderful burnished helmet and beautiful, shiny aeroboard with him when they came. I felt very proud, and I thought at last I would be able to interest him in what I did professionally. We walked over to Daedalus Park, and I dare say he was suitably impressed and sputtered off, keeping clear of the couples on their hover-carpets and the small children in the Zero-G playspace.

As I was watching Lorenzo careen among the floating statuary and flora, a woman who can only be described as pinched approached me and told me I had to rein my grandson in.

Of all the planning I’ve done for this city, Daedalus Park is the one closest to my heart, having worked with the aeronetic engineers every step of the way, and pushed it through endless committees when everyone said I was mad. Now you see AeroSites all over, but I take no small amount of pride in stating that Daedalus Park was the first. And I do not remember any regulation such as this pinched woman mentioned, so I proceeded to ask her why I needed to bring the poor boy down to earth.

“Because he’s not allowed,” she told me, pointing. “He’s not allowed to do that.”

At this, I threw myself up to my full height, and, as the author of this entire project, loudly and in no uncertain terms, said, “By what right do you have to deny this young man the public air?”

Some people wilt when confronted with my full not-quite-six feet, especially when backed by my formidable baritone. This woman, however, was far too strengthened by the imaginary authority in her veins, and proceeded to argue with me—with increasing volume—exactly what could and could not be done in this park. So much so that Lorenzo came down from his whirligigs and whatever other complex maneuvers he does on that board of his, and said he didn’t have to use the park in that fashion.

The woman tilted her head in satisfaction at this, which burned me more than I believe anything in the conversation had yet. I informed both the woman and my wonderful grandson that if he no longer wished to use this public air in the fashion it was designed for, then I would.

Naturally, the moment I set foot on the aeroboard, I fell off. But I did not let that daunt me. I continued my ham-footed attempts until the woman, disgusted at my flagrant mockery of her pseudo-rules, left in a huff.

I am told by his father that Lorenzo enjoys telling this story almost as much as I do. Though I believe he focuses on different aspects.

Carlos didn’t want to appear suspicious, so he stayed in a doorway three houses down from the corner. He tried to distract himself, thinking about the possibilities of using curry sauce in chicken Kiev, but he kept looking at the corner. Carlos wanted this to be over as soon as possible, so he wouldn’t have to worry anymore. Skott had said it was simple. Meet the girl–who Carlos would know as soon as he saw, Skott assured him–make the trade, leave. That’s it.

Skott didn’t mention that Carlos would be thinking about the worst-case scenario over and over again. By the time the girl showed up two minutes late, Carlos had already envisioned himself be arrested, convicted and eyed by a gorrilla of a cell-mate named “Big Beauford.”

Skott was right, Carlos recognized her instantly. “I’m Saki,” the girl said when Carlos approached. “Are you Skott’s friend?” Even in street clothes, Saki looked like she was wearing a lab coat. Poor girl was probably born in one. She was pretty, though, in that little Japanese girl way. Carlos like the way her faded-pink hair brought out her dark eyes from behind her glasses.

“I’m a friend of anyone who’s eaten my coconut and wasabi custard pie. One bite, and you’ll know why.” It was a standard line Carlos used around girls at parties; it was the only thing he could think of. Big Beauford was still weighing very heavily on his mind.

“Heh,” Saki said, without any sort of humor. “You’re funny. You got the chow mein?”

“Hot and fresh,” said Carlos, as he handed over the paper bag stuffed with Chinese carry-out containers. Saki opened one of them, appraising the scavenged processor chips Carlos and Skott had spent all of the afternoon ripping out of junked motherboards. “You’re looking at enough processor power to run a small defense grid, you hook ‘em up right. I brought the chow mein, you got the egg-drop soup?”

Saki shifted the bag to her left hip and dug into the right pocket of her jacket, removing a small translucent-plastic pod. “Here. It wasn’t easy to get, but I got it.”

Carlos cracked open the pod. Inside was a blob of silver and black, slowly swirling with the slight shaking of his hands. Thin, straight wires stuck out from the goo, giving the it the appearance of a melted spider. This was the goods. Top of the line. Unhackable. Uncorruptable.

Bioware.

“I don’t know what you think you’re going to with that.” Saki said after Carlos had slipped the pod into his pocket. Her voice was low, a hurried whisper. “You can’t hack it. There’s no code. The programming is part of its structure. I know Skott is all about open sourcing everything, but this tech cannot be brought to the people, okay? It can’t be done. You’d have to be some sort of biologist to take it apart.–”

“Thanks for your help, Saki,” Carlos said, turning away.

“No!.” Saki thrust the word so hard against her clenched teeth that Carlos felt her saliva on the back of his neck. “Tell you what you’re going to do with that! You owe me that much, after what I’ve been through!”

Carlos’s posture softened when she grabbed his arm. Her hands were so small; delicate for a lab monkey. Carlos found himself imagining what else she could do with those hands. “Everything comes apart, Saki. That’s what biology teaches us. It’s how it comes together that makes it work.”

“But how could it possibly–”

“Because biological components aren’t just stacked like blocks, they’re mixed in specific amounts. They’re recipes. And any cook worth his salt will tell you that any recipe can be simplified or improved upon.” Saki looked at him blankly behind her thick glasses. Skott would approve of this, surely. This was bringing enlightenment to the people, wasn’t it? “Here, why don’t you come back to my place. I’ll explain everything with some curry sauce and a handful of dill.”

Zai Lockheart felt slightly claustrophobic on her mother’s porch despite the open, rolling wilderness of the Martian countryside that surrounded her. The house was a pre-fab job—“my aluminum box” her mother called it—and it felt cheap and flimsy compared to the monument of stone and wood Zai had grown up in back on Earth. Zai was sitting on the lacquered-metal porch because she couldn’t sleep inside the house; the image of the house tumbling down the mountainside sprang to life every time Zai closed her eyes.

“They have a legend up here, you know.” Zai was startled by her mother’s voice behind her. “They say, before you can live up here on the mountains, you have to go to the highest bluff you can find, and shout, loud as you can, ‘I am a Martian!’ And if God believes you, you’ll live in these mountains in happiness and peace, until the end of your days.”

“And? If God doesn’t believe you?”

“Smiting. Lightning. Fire from heaven. That sort of thing.”

“Well, it is a beautiful country-side. I can see why God’d be so picky about who’d get it.” Zai stood up and stretched. She had her father’s height, and as such towered over her mother, despite them both being in bare feet. “I miss the old house, Mama.”

“Didn’t seem to miss it when you moved out,” Zai’s mother gave her a sly grin. “It was too big. Too big for an old woman without a family. I could have kept it, and you still would have only visited on holidays.”

“I just have trouble picturing you living anywhere but home.”

“And I have trouble picturing you without a scabbed knee and pigtails. But look at you now.” Zai’s mother turned away from her, and placed her hands on her hips. “Watch that sun come up. Paints the whole world red. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of that.”

“Mom, why did you move here?”

“Because,” her mother said, not looking back. “I am a Martain.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“That’s nice, dear,” Zai’s mother said patting Zai’s hand as she shuffled back in the house. “But you’re not the one I have to convince.”

On Saturn’s ring plasma knives were illegal and as such, costly. Tangerine remembered Big Slab used to wear one around his neck, but she had never seen him use it. But this was Earth, and Earth was said to be civilized, unlike those settlements on Saturn’s rings. Which meant that when these girls from Tangerine’s school brought out knives and threatened to cut her, they were plasma, not steel.

“Here’s how it lays out, Ringer,”said the tall girl, clearly the leader. Her holographic nails illuminated the delicate controls on her knife handle. “We don’t like you, and we don’t need your kind at this school. So we’re gonna do you a favor, and give you a reason to go on back to your smelly little rings.”

Tangerine’s mother had insisted on the move. She didn’t think Big Slab and the other members of The Titans were proper role-models for a young girl. Tangerine had tried to explain to her that you couldn’t be safer than the protégé of the leader of the toughest gang in the ‘rings, but her mother wouldn’t hear of it.

“Saturn swallows its children whole,” she would say, shaking her head. And that would be the end of it. “Saturn swallows its children whole.”

So instead of the warm tutelage of Big Slab, Sally Gone, Dingo and all the rest, Tangerine was in the parking lot of a convenience store of civilized Earth with five girls discussing how many pieces they were going to slice her up.

“Don’t you worry too much about it, Ringer. Tell you what, if you don’t struggle, we may even leave you that pretty face of yours.” The tall girl kept adjusting the magnetic field of her knife, making the blade longer or shorter or wider or thinner. Playing with it.

Tangerine remembered Big Slab talking about those who treat weapons as toys. She remembered what he said about how to deal with those people. For the first time since leaving Saturn’s rings, Tangerine smiled.

“I really like your nails,” Tangerine said. “All that light. They must make finding your boyfriend’s tiny penis really easy.”

The tall girl came in quickly. Tangerine dodged the strike with ease, and caught the girls wrist. In one fluid motion, she turned off the knife, and depressed one of the control dials so hard it snapped. Tangerine pushed the girl away, closed her eyes and placed her arms in front of her face.

The tall girl charged again, raising her knife high above her head, her hologramed thumb switching it back on. But fell to her knees immediately when her knife exploded in her hand, the ignited plasma expanding outward without the magnetic field Tangerine had broken. The rest of the girl-gang temporarily blinded, Tangerine wasted no time hauling the tall girl up by her hair.

“I’m a daughter of Saturn,” Tangerine whispered in the tall girl’s ear. “I think you know what that means, now.” Tangerine let go of the tall girl’s hair, and watched as she crumpled on the asphalt.

Tangerine adjusted her school uniform, and calmly walked out of the parking lot, back into civilized Earth

Everyone asks how I met Archer, if I picked him out from the agency’s catalogue or if he was recommended to me by someone else and other such questions, when in truth I must confess that I had never met him before he showed up upon my doorstep. I had merely requested a valet from the agency, and they said one would be sent, and gave no further description other than he would be up to their impeccable standards.

He rang the bell at exactly the second upon the hour he was to arrive, and I found myself unexpectedly worried. Had the agency sent a robot? That would not do, not in the least. So it was with no small amount of trepidation that I opened the door. Imagine my relief, if you can, to find not a chrome-plated Johnnie, but instead, Archer.

“I was sent by the agency, sir,” he said. “I was given to understand that you required a valet. My name is Archer”

I nodded, awed. He shook my hand firmly, and glided into the room , setting about tidying up. I have tendency to leave things strewn about while in the midst of working–a hazard of the occupation, really–and Archer went to setting it right immediately, seeming to know where everything went originally after nothing more than a brief scan of the room.

“You’ll have to excuse me,” I said. “But…how did you know?”

“I beg your pardon. sir?”

“That I was your employer, and not…you know. Did the agency tell you?” I hadn’t mentioned it to them, but they have ways of finding things.

“You are referring to your appearance, sir?” Archer asked. I nodded. “No, the agency said nothing. But if you were not my employer, and this phantom gentleman had such a robot as yourself open the door for him, what need would he have of me?”

“And this doesn’t bother you?”

“No, sir,” Archer said. But I remained unconvinced.

“I feel I should explain my position. I am, as you may have guessed from the supplies, an artist. I have been fortunate enough to be a very financially successful artist, thought I am not a fool and realize that a great deal of that success comes from the novelty of being a ‘robot artist.’ The fact remains, however, that I am possessing of a great deal of money and a great deal of social obligations. Hence, your employ.”

“Very good, sir.”

“I don’t think you understand. I need help, Archer! The clothes alone!” I rubbed my rubber fingertips against my metallic forehead, the squeaks emphasizing my frustration. “I don’t know how to behave around people. I don’t know! Perhaps that old crank Tortleberry was right. Perhaps robots are not meant for social life.”

“If I may be so bold, sir.” Archer said. He stood very still and looked at me directly. “The word ‘robot’ comes from ‘robota,’ which means ‘drudgery’ in Czech and ‘work’ in Slovak. And while I have no doubts you work very hard upon your art, I do not believe it was the kind of labor the people of Slovakia had in mind. You are a gentleman of leisure, sir. I do not believe the title of ‘robot’ fits.”

“So this situation won’t be a problem for you. You’re not… embarrassed, or anything.” At that, Archer smiled. And I confess, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anyone smile before that. Not at me. It was so guileless, so warm. Nowhere near the mechanical grins I was used to from my buyers and other industry types.

“To be perfectly honest, sir, I am rather looking forward to the next Guild meeting. There’s a few Johnnie models that are going to be unspeakably jealous.”

You remember when Billy first went into space, don’t you? First time one of those crazy rockets of his went off with him in it. First time he sent up the big rocket, not those little ones with the sensors made of old cell-phones and other garbage. Chuck always said he’d send up Chairman Meow, or Mr. Catkins, or Daisy’s kitten Cindy next, but he didn’t. Billy went up immediately, soon as he knew as he could.

You hear what Daisy said? She was just in here, you just missed her. Billy calls her now and then. Only one from round here, ‘spect. She told me Billy says the Jupiter colony wasn’t gonna work by the end of next year. Called it the biggest failure of his life.

Daisy’s doin’ well. Says her VD’s cleared up clear as day, and she gonna get back to work. That boy of hers is gettin’ tall. She made a joke about how someone needs to market a daycare for prostitutes. That’s Daisy for you. Always got a sense of humor.

She made some joke about Billy; can’t remember what it was.

Remember how Chuck broke Billy’s arm soon as he came down? Billy told everyone it was from re-entry, but a bunch of us saw him crawl out of that craft using both arms after landing. You saw it was Chuck, didn’t you? Slammed Billy up against the wall, kicked him in the stomach, spat in his face. We all did a bit of that, but Chuck broke Billy’s arm, make no mistake.

You seen Chuck recently? He looks good. He’s serious about quitting this time. Ever since that last binge, he’s been serious. You know, the one he pawned his prosthetic leg to finance. You said he’d be clean after losing that leg in that car accident, but he proved you wrong, eh? But he’s serious now, he said so.

Still hard to believe Billy went, ain’t it? Even after we all saw him, saw that rocket made of junk and debris took off into the sky? No one thought it would, despite what Billy told us about super-dense material and reverse-gravity fields an all that other hoodoo he’d spout. But there it went, rocketing into the sky, out of Filt Street, out of Sporboro, out of the goddamn state and country and world.

Anyways, here’s the usual; you’re still one of the best customers here, even after what happened to your throat. It’s amazing you can get enemas to work like that for you. Bottoms up! Ha! See you next week! The wine’ll be restocked!

What was that joke about Billy…

Harun did not think she was being unreasonable. The passenger obviously felt she was, but what did she know? Nothing, Harun concluded. Nothing that was worth anything anywhere but planet-side.

“Look,” Harun said. “You cannot take this much luggage. There is not much space on the ship, and that isn’t going to change any on the station. You cannot bring all of this.” Harun gave the variety of suitcases and valises spread out on the shiny plastic customs table a disdainful wave. Harun had already emptied them all, and was slightly disgusted at the auspicious wealth of the contents. Metal eating utensils, glass picture frames, paper books.

The waste was rampant.

“I’m not leaving my things behind,” the passenger said. She had a slight accent and a queer way of motioning with her chin to make a point. Neither of these things did anything to raise Harun’s opinion of her.

“Then you’re staying,” Harun said, folding her arms across her polyester uniform.

The passenger scanned the items on the table, fingering a few of them. She let out a diminutive sigh, and seemed to grow smaller in the hard plastic chair. “What can I take?” she asked.

Harun gathered up most of the passenger’s clothes, a business-like scowl concealing her delight and wonder at the softness of the some of them. Not all of the clothes fit into the passenger’s smallest bag, so Harun left out some of the more delicate articles.

“This,” she said, holding up the bag. “This is all you can take. The rest will have to be recycled. Things like this, though, I don’t know what we’re going to do with.” Harun picked up a doll from the table. Its painted face was done up in a coy pout, and its body was garbed in an elegant kimono. Harun was slightly repulsed by it, a feeling that intensified when it occurred to her that the doll wasn’t clothed in polysatin, but real silk. “The clothes we can recycle, possibly. But the body….the body is made of clay—”

“Porcelain,” the passenger and her chin interjected. “Suki is made of porcelain.”

“It’s clay,” Harun said. “This isn’t even furnace kindling.” She was about to toss it back on the table in disgust, but the passenger yanked it out of her hands. Harun held back an unprofessional smirk as the passenger cradled the doll like a baby.

“Then let me take her,” the passenger said. “Please, let me take her. You said yourself, she’s of no use here. Let me take her.”

Harun hung her head. The people never understood. It was like talking to children. “It’s not just a matter of use. It’s also a matter of space. That thing is clay and silk and paint. It will be of no use to you on the ship, no use to you on the station, and I can guarantee you will not make it to the colonies with it, because it’s going to take up space you need for important things. And as you can see, there’s no room in your bag.”

The passenger looked at the doll she was cradling, then at what Harun had designated as her only luggage. Setting the doll down and giving the lacquered head a reassuring pat, the passenger turned her attention to the small bag. She removed a wool jacket from the bag, rubbed the soft material up against her face, and then carefully placed the doll inside the bag. She raised her head to meet Harun’s eyes.

“Now,” she said. “I am ready to go.”

“You’re making a mistake,” Harun said. “That jacket’s made of fine wool—”

“And Suki is made of fine clay,” the passenger said.

Harun watched the passenger take her small bag toward the loading port. She started at the elements of the passenger’s luggage. The overhead light glinted off the metal and glass in a way that was not entirely replicated by the plastic table underneath.

“Wait,” Harun said. The passenger turned. “Wear the jacket. Wear it as you board. It’ll be hot, but you can take it off as soon as they seal the doors.”

The passenger’s tight, pale face brightened. “Thank you,” she said.

“Skin and bones thing like you, going into space,” Harun said. “You’re going to need all the help you can get, with what you’re made of.”

The roads of Rajeev were packed due to the mass exodus to the docks, and presumably, off-world. My skimmer was resting quietly on the dusty pavement, the hours–no, days, it had been days, hadn’t it?–spent idling had left the poor conveyance without enough fuel to keep it hovering, much less actually moving. Not that it mattered. A road filled beyond capacity has a tendency to turn into parking lots, and this one was creeping in that direction even before I showed up and nudged my way in.

If I hadn’t been hauling someone else’s life, I would have gotten out and walked.

I heard the fuel peddler before I saw him. His progress down the line of non-moving vehicles was slow, but his amplified call carried far across the grassy expanse.

“Keep you moving! Keep you moving! Solid, liquid and atomic! Chemical means of forward motion! Keep you moving!”

It seemed like an eternity until he reached me, his progress determined solely by the whims of the mule that pulled his cart. From the way the man sat, it was evident that he had long resigned himself to the fact that while he sat in the driver’s seat, it was his four-legged partner that handled all the controls. I searched in my pocket for a sugar cube. The mule pulled back its thick lips and stopped.

“Howdy,” said the fuel peddler, doffing his Shanghai Lions baseball cap. “You look stuck.”

“I am,” I said. “And you look like just the man who can get me moving.” I inquired about the price of fuel for my skimmer. With a straight face, he told me.

“That hardly seems fair!”

“No, it’s not,” said the peddler with a grin. “But you ain’t moving without it.”

“Then I’m not moving at all. I don’t carry that sort of dosh on me.”

“No matter,” he said. “I am an adaptable man. I see that’s not air you’re hauling.” He motioned to the load on the back of my skimmer, the clocks and pillows, the flatware and picture frames.

“None of that is mine to give. It is someone else’s life. I am merely removing it from this planet before the cataclysm.” The mule was attempting to fish another sugar cube out of my coat pocket. I gave him a carrot instead, which he munched noisily.

“But…Why?”

“Because I was asked to. Because I did not arrive in time to remove the woman who owned it.”

“So you’re stuck here, ” the man said, sandpapering his thick fingers against his stubble. “Possibly going to get caught in the cataclysm because someone wanted the remains of a life?”

I scratched the mule behind the ears and under the chin. “That’s the long and the short of it.”

“That hardly seems fair.”

“No, it’s not. But I ain’t moving without it.” I gave the mule another carrot. “If you are as adaptable as you say, I think we can arrange something…”

It took the rest of the day to reach the docks by mule. And while I was out a skimmer, I did manage to get the old woman’s life off the world, before it ended. That skimmer couldn’t run over grass, anyway.

And I had plenty of sugar and carrots.