Mind Over Ship

side.”

On the tier above Annette Beijing stood the Academy’s newest inductees — two Leenas from Burning Daylight Productions. They had quickly become the iterant visitors’ favorite celebrity, and jerrys, jeromes, and johns all shouted to call the Leenas down.

A jerry named Buddy got one of them, and together he and the Leena strolled across the marble plain to a distant stone structure in which the prep booths were housed. Buddy was proud to have the Leena at his side. She looked eerily like an evangeline, only hotter. A superb ass and large breasts went a long way to sex up the rather plain evangeline germline.

In a prep booth, Buddy was fitted with a visceral response probe. After the discomfort passed, the Leena led him to his first scenario room. It was a long, narrow, empty room that suddenly became a tennis court. A man in a white shirt and shorts and carrying a racquet approached them. He looked vaguely familiar, and though Buddy couldn’t place him, he took him to be an aff, and without even thinking, Buddy assumed the habitual deference of a service clone. But to his surprise, the aff addressed him with easy familiarity. “Buddy, Leena, welcome,” he said. “Care to join us in a game of doubles?” There was a woman, also vaguely familiar, waiting across the net.

Buddy was at a loss for words. He worked for people like this, and never once had they asked him to join in a tennis game.

“Hey, forget about that,” the man said. “We’re all equals at E-Pluribus. And besides, I’ve heard so much about the famous jerry prowess on a tennis court, I would be delighted to see it for myself.”

The game was fast and challenging. The aff and his partner were strong players, as was Buddy’s partner, the Leena. Though, truth be told, he was more impressed by the bounce of her breasts than the power of her backhand. And every time he glanced at the aff, the man seemed a little bit more familiar until, with a slap to his forehead, Buddy realized he was a recent client of his, a Myr Hasipi. Buddy had served as his bodyguard for six weeks. And his partner was not his wife but his lover, whom Buddy had fetched for the boss whenever the coast was clear. Across the net, she winked at him.

After several strenuous sets, the tennis party took refreshments in the clubhouse lounge, a place Buddy had only ever entered as a bodyguard. It was a special thrill to have steves and johns wait on him. And the Leena, with beads of sweat trickling down her cleavage, adored him with her big brown eyes.

“So, Buddy,” Hasipi said, “you remember that spot of trouble I was having a while back?”

Which one? Buddy wanted to say. Myr Hasipi had been up to his eyeballs in shady deals.

“Don’t say it out loud, Buddy, but you know the case.”

It must be the bribes and kickbacks, Buddy thought. He had been tasked to deliver a few of them himself. Or what about that so-called accident in Istanbul? Buddy grinned and said, “I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”

Hasipi guffawed. “Good man.”

Summoning Death from the Air

The sun topped a sand dune and jabbed Fred in the eye. He turned on his side, but the desert caught fire and there was no returning to sleep. The morning list marched through his mind: kiss Mary, roll out of bed, cycle out of room, toilet and shower, news and mail, coffee, dress, kiss Mary good-bye, leave the apartment. But when he leaned over to accomplish item number one, he discovered that Mary was gone. Her spot on the mattress was already cool to the touch. Barely 6:00 A.M. and his routine was already gummed up.

But Fred had a flexible personality — he was a russ — so he propped himself up on one elbow and squinted into the harsh light. They had fallen asleep gazing at the Milky Way in the desert. “Room, default walls,” he said, and the plain, too-small room returned around him. There was barely enough space between the bed and wall for him to maneuver. Unlike the null suite at the Cass, the null room in their apartment had no sitting room, kitchen nook, or closets, let alone full bath and toilet. Instead, it had built-in counters, shelves, drawers, and a narrow comfort station with a curtain. Fred had to stand in the comfort station when he reset the bedroom into a day room. The bed contorted into an armchair. Out came the end table and lamp, the shelves and another armchair. Default windows and posters appeared on the walls. Fred and Mary didn’t spend any daytime hours in here and hadn’t gotten around to decorating.

Fred gathered up the empty flasks of Flush, spent chem-pacs, and other trash and cycled out. The null lock was not a sauna but a plain, closet-sized, gas-exchange two-seater. Out in the hallway, he heard voices from the living room — Mary and two more evangelines, it sounded like. He turned the other way and continued to the bedroom. Since moving in, they hadn’t actually slept in the bedroom, instead spending every night in the null room. Fred ordered fresh clothes and a skullcap from the closet and went to the bathroom. He could feel the tingly sensation of the nits already recolonizing him, and the skin of his wrists and ankles were reddened by the daily assault of visola and nits. But it was nothing a little lotion couldn’t handle, and well worth it. His limp cock was crinkly with dried cum. He squeezed himself and brought his hand to his nose to inhale Mary’s oceanic fragrance. Well worth it.

WHILE IN THE shower, Fred caught up on news and mail. He was shaved, trimmed, and spritzed with cologne. He donned his old robe and moccasin slippers and set forth in search of coffee, item six on his morning list. In the living room there were, as he had guessed, three evangelines: Mary on the sofa in her robe, her bare feet tucked beneath her; her best friend Shelley, who was strapped into a Slipstream tube car and was visiting by holo; and Cyndee, one of his escorts at the prison, who was present in realbody. They cut short their conversation when he appeared in the hallway.

“Good morning, Cyndee,” Fred said into the silence. She offered her hand, and he gave it a gentle squeeze. Her hand was small and delicate. Evangelines were such dainty women, which was one reason why he loved them so. He turned to Shelley and made a holo salute. “Hello, Shell.”

“Hello, Fred.”

“You’re looking well.”

After she made no reply for several long moments, Fred continued around the coffee table to sit on the sofa next to Mary. “Good morning, dear heart.” He leaned over and kissed her cheek, finally satisfying item one on his list. Mary was scratching her ankle. He took her hand and kissed it too and held it out of harm’s way. Other than itchy ankles, Mary seemed at ease. Cyndee, too, appeared relaxed, which probably meant that their client’s condition was improving. Not that he gave a crap about Ellen Starke’s condition except in how it rubbed off on Mary.

He had lied about Shelley looking well. She looked a mess. She drooped in her seat. She had puffy eyes. Her hair was flat and dull. She peered at him with cool resentment.

“What are we watching?” he said in a hopeful voice. On the coffee table were a half-dozen stacked holocubes. In one he recognized Shelley’s employer, Judith Hsu, the renowned death artist, who was reading from a paper book. A second holocube showed a ride through a pinkish sewer on a stream of lumpy, greenish slurry. A third depicted a funeral tableau of a black enameled coffin and bowers of snow-white carnations.

Mary said, “We were comparing Hsu’s earlier deaths to her current one.”

Fred turned to Shelley. “She’s already on the next one? I guess I missed the last one.”

Shelley stared blankly, and Mary said, “It just premiered last week, Fred. Though it hasn’t really found its legs yet.”

The arbeitor arrived with Fred’s coffee and Danish, and he released Mary’s hand. Mary was disappointed, for her ankle still itched. Fred seemed to be adjusting to life outside prison, all things considered. He sure was making good use of the apartment’s null room. His sexual appetite was Olympic. He was working too. With his acquittal, Applied People had been forced to reinstate him, though not willingly. Mary’s hand crept back to her ankle.

In the sewer holocube, the cam entered a section where the walls turned from pinkish to bluish, and the