down a bead trail of clear gel. When its carapace was empty, Gray Bee helped it leave the canvas, and together with their wasp, they backtracked to the museum lobby.
The wasp and beetle rode patrons out the exit. When they were clear, Gray Bee signaled the other mechs waiting in the main hall. Hundreds of museum visitors milled about the grand space under towering displays of resurrected monsters of prehistory. There were cockroaches the size of alligators, a blue whale made of shaped water, a disassembled tyrannosaurus rex, and Asian elephants.
At Gray Bee’s signal, the beetle launched itself from a spot above a security cam and glided across the hall spewing from its carapace a trail of yellow smoke. At once, evacuation alarms sounded throughout the rambling museum building, and pressure barriers snapped into place around individual works of art. Museum arbeitors began herding patrons to the exits, and flying scuppers chased the beetle. Before it could be captured, its wasp escort destroyed it, incinerating it with a blast of laser fire. Then the chase was on for the wasp. The nimble mech was not so easy a prey: it could shoot back. It led the scuppers in a dogfight through the galleries. Eventually the scuppers knocked it down and surrounded it, but before it could be taken, it destroyed itself in a small fireball of weapons plasma.
With the mission accomplished, Gray Bee rode out under a convenient hat. Ninety minutes later, after all the excitement had died down, order was restored, and human curators went through the galleries. They dropped pressure barriers and inspected the artworks for damage. It was another hour before they reached the Harger painting, and when the barrier fell, it appeared that the painting was untouched. But then, a tiny spatter of cadmium red near the center of the canvas peeled off and fluttered to the floor where it disintegrated into a smudge of pigment. Another spatter peeled off, and another, until whole layers of color cascaded to the carpet in speckled heaps.
Redeeming a Favor
Andrea ordered a light lunch at St. Gaby’s on Union Square. She shared her booth with a half-dozen shopping bags, the spoils of a leisurely morning browsing the district’s exclusive showrooms. She was pleasantly exhausted — her new body still lacked an entire day’s worth of stamina — and E-P was solicitous of her health. E-P did not raise any objections to these excursions, even though it knew exactly what she wanted before she did and could have produced everything with their house hold extruder. This was what it routinely did for hundreds of millions of consumers through its E-Pluribus “Just What I Wanted” shopping service. Ask for a new pair of shoes, and moments later they drop into the receiving bin in your closet. Not any shoes but shoes to die for, within your budget, and complementary to your wardrobe. Just what you wanted.
Sometimes Andrea wondered why E-P never offered to shop for her. On her bad days she suspected that it was because she was an experimental appendage of the mentar, that it was gathering data on her, and that she could be terminated anytime when she no longer proved useful. But today wasn’t one of those days. Today Andrea was new. Real people, each representing a whole other preffing universe, passed by her booth. Handsome men made fleeting, inviting eye contact. The coffee was outstanding, and lunch never tasted so good, not even in her tank.
When Andrea finished, she wasn’t ready to leave, so she ordered dessert and retreated inside her head to the Starke house to see what Lyra was up to. There were currently 110 persons at the Manse, including Ellen, her companions, and Dr. Rouselle. There were 508 employees at the Enterprises headquarters, including Meewee. Lyra knew who everyone was, where they were, and what they were doing. Such trust to place in a mentar and then not teach it how to protect itself.
MARY WAS SITTING in her favorite floral-print armchair in her Manse suite living room. She was surrounded by a dozen holocubes floating in the air. One of them showed the death artist’s breezeway where the Leena still lay in a comalike trance. Jennys and evangelines attended to her. Most of the rest of the cubes displayed search hits: two-or three-second clips of other Leenas making Dark Reiki spirals with their fingers. Lately, there were hundreds of hits per hour.
One of Mary’s holocubes was following Georgine as she carried a lawn chair across the Manse grounds. “Oh, and Mary,” Georgine said, “that person we talked about? She’s someone the Sisterhood uses and recs. She insists on realbody/real-time meetings, and because of that she’s booked up solid for the next six months. But I see there’s an auction going on for a late cancellation slot at 3:30 this afternoon. The auction closes in twenty minutes. Interested?”
Mary said yes, and the holocube switched to the auction. Although the high bid for the last-minute appointment was fairly steep by normal evangeline standards, it was nothing special for Mary, and although she would never ordinarily take advantage of her wealth, these were extraordinary circumstances, and she raised the high bid by an intimidating amount.
Only then did she stop to consult with Fred.
Mary could hear a lot of shouting and turmoil in the background. “We’re lucky to get her, Fred.”
WITH THE AFTERNOON appointment set, Mary changed into her bikini to enjoy the noontime sun out on the lawn with Georgine. On her way out of the suite, she swiped all of the holocubes off, except for the breezeway with the Languishing Leena. This one she placed in the center of the coffee table. Then she threw on a robe, grabbed her shades, and headed for the door. But before she could leave, a phone call arrived from Bishop Meewee. “Tell him I’m unavailable,” she instructed Lyra.
“He says it’s of the
“
Meewee appeared in Mary’s living room as a full-sized holo. “Mary Skarland, my favorite person,” he said, making a holo salute. “Thank you so much for seeing me.”
“It’s my pleasure,” Mary replied. “We don’t see each other often enough. What can I do for you?”
Meewee opened his mouth to speak but seemed to be having difficulty getting started. He walked once around the coffee table and stopped to stare for a long moment at the ailing Leena. Then he made a second circumambulation before finally halting directly in front of Mary and saying with starch in his voice, “Mary, I need to see Ellen. Today. Right now.”
Assertiveness did not become the man, in Mary’s opinion, and she replied, “You know I don’t run Ellen’s calendar, Myr Meewee. Lyra does. I’m sure you’ve already approached her about it, and she’s turned you down, but, honestly, she’s the
“You underestimate your influence around here,” Meewee replied.
But Mary couldn’t be swayed. “Ellen is going through a lot right now, and we’re finally making some progress. I would hate to see her lose ground. I don’t mean to be hurtful, Myr Meewee, but Ellen told me in no uncertain terms that she does not want to see you. Period! But I suppose I could pass her a message if you had one.”
“Thank you, but a message won’t do.” Meewee stared down at Mary’s small, sandaled feet for a long moment, then looked up into her eyes. “Mary Skarland, I would like you to remember that day, not so long ago, when you stood before me, your arm bleeding, your clothes torn and stained. You were clutching a rolled-up bag containing the dying head of Ellen Starke. Do you remember that day?”
Mary flinched. Remember that day? If only she could forget it.
“That was the first day we met, Mary. I brought Dr. Rouselle and the portable tank to the clinic, remember? It cost me the life of a friend to accomplish that. You were a hero that day, there’s no denying it. But you didn’t save Ellen’s life by yourself, did you? That’s why I claim the privilege to speak to you like this, though I can see it pains you. Would you say, Mary, that on that day at the clinic your mission was grave?”
