Brain Plague

'Our bridge to the bloodstream,' said Fern. 'Only the eldest of the elders may cross into the blood and travel with the nanos. We will serve you better than any nanoservo built by the gods, patrolling your veins forever.'

When at last she came awake, Chrys felt as if she herself had explored an eighth world of the Fold. Her vision was transformed.

How would she paint again—and how would anyone ever understand?

As she reached for the disk of nanotex by her bedside, she bounced out of bed faster than she intended. Despite her poor sleep, she felt as if her body could float away; as if the planet had lost half its gravity overnight. She started to comb her hair, a long, painstaking process, but the feel of her flexing arms puzzled her. As usual, the nanotex adhered to her chest, then spread itself in a black film around her body, automatically cleansing her skin. The film of artificial cells took on the contours of her body; a landscape familiar, yet now subtly estranged.

Doctor Sartorius came back to check her out. 'Your Plan Ten nanoservos have started shaping you up, Chrysoberyl.' Their transmissions sent a stream of colored squiggles and blinking text flowing across the holostage. In Chrys's eye, a new call button had appeared; in an emergency, a blink at that spot would bring Plan Ten.

'The plan representative will present your advanced options, during one of your daily checkups.'

Checkups every day—she would never get that spattercone done.

Daeren came in to flash his irises one last time. 'How do you feel?' he asked. 'Anything I need to know?'

'The blue angels again,' the infrared letters sped across her window. 'Tell them we're busy.'

'We're okay,' Chrys said, puzzled by his question.

A quick smile crossed his lips. 'You're talking plural already.' Daeren placed a transfer patch on his neck. 'The blue angels need to 'visit.' Yours can visit, too.' He held out the patch.

'The blue angels say we can visit!' announced Fern. 'Is it permitted, Oh Great One?'

She took the patch from Daeren and placed it on her neck, then returned it with her own visitors. 'If I'm carrying ten thousand of them,' Chrys wondered, 'why do I always see the same two?'

'Only two have been called to be priests,' he explained. 'You may call others, as you wish.'

She shook her head. 'Two are enough.'

'Greetings, God of Mercy.' These letters were blue.

Chris blinked twice. 'Who are you?'

'We are called the blue angels,' the visitor said. 'Your new people are growing well, though they need to curb their lifestyle. They are rather frivolous, I'm afraid, but they'll mature.' Maybe this one was a bishop.

Behind the doctor, the wall puckered in. It seemed to change its mind, then went ahead and opened. As its edges gathered back, there came a sound of scuffling, then a shout.

In the corridor outside struggled a stranger, held between two black-limbed octopods. The man was tossing his head one way then the other, his eyes bright with terror. His nanotex hung loose, as if its power had run down. Extending from the wall, ropelike appendages caught the man's wrists and ankles. His arm was gripped by a woman in gray, a tall Sardish blonde.

The woman in gray turned her piercing eyes toward the doctor. 'Sar, the clinic's full. We need to extend.' Her voice had a tone of finality, expecting obedience.

'Excuse me.' The doctor glided out to join them.

Chrys stared until the door resealed.

Daeren still watched where the door had closed in, his expression grim. 'A slave, he turned himself in. His masters objected. Sorry, it's been a long night at the clinic.'

Master microbes. Chrys frowned. 'That could happen to me.'

'Not if you stick to the rules, and get tested twice a month.'

'What? Like some addict?'

'We all do, even the chief of security.'

She eyed him coldly. 'You said these micros would keep me safe.'

'Safer than you were before.'

'But—' That vampire up on level one, the night before. More slaves every year, turning into vampires, or hauling captives to the Slave World for its microbial Enlightened Leader. 'It's a cancer,' she realized. 'Like the building root cancers. It threatens all the city.'

'Not just the city. It's reached—' He stopped, hesitant.

'How can it go on? Why can't the Palace just round up all the vampires?'

Daeren shook his head. 'The vampires are the least of it. The problem already reaches too far up.'

'Far up? What do you mean?'

'Sar runs run a private clinic for the Great Houses.'

Smart cocaine. Chrys felt a chill down to her toes. Then she frowned and shook herself. 'Well, I want no part of it one way or another. I just want to make art.'

'Of course you do,' said Daeren. 'Nobody says, 'I'll grow up to be a slave.'' He looked her closely in the eye, blue rings flashing. 'Your people pass. You can have them back now, and return mine.'

'Nothing but insulting questions, interminable,' complained Poppy.

'Before you leave,' Daeren added, 'the chief has to certify.'

The wall parted smartly. A woman entered, the Sardish blonde who had brought in the plague victim. Her skin was exceptionally fair; Chrys could see every vein, like ivy on her arms and face. She carried herself stiff as a Palace guard. Her mouth was small, as if she would only release her words on good behavior. 'I am Andradite of Sardis, Chief of Security.'

'Our ancient history tells of the god among gods,' said Fern. 'The Thundergod.'

Nodding to Daeren, Andradite put a transfer patch at her neck, then immediately pressed to his. He did the same for her, swiftly, as if it were something they had done many times. Chrys felt her scalp prickle.

Then the chief's eyes faced Chrys. Her irises flashed bluish violet, a shade deeper than Daeren's.

'The judges,' announced Poppy. 'Throughout history, they brought trouble.'

'We have nothing to hide,' insisted Fern.

Chrys tried to look unconcerned.

'You've done well, so far.' Andradite offered her a patch.

'Much better than some of us expected.' The chief had expected her to fail, Chrys realized. Both agents were hiding something. Why?

'Once you're home, you will hear from us,' the chief told her. 'You will join the community of controlled carriers—a highly exclusive group.'

Chrys doubted that. How exclusive could a group be, to take her?

In her window, next to Plan Ten, appeared another call button, with no label, just the color purple that the chief's eyes flashed. 'If you're ever in trouble,' the chief told her, 'the kind of trouble even Plan Ten can't help, call us. Forget your own name, but remember that.'

FOUR

Fern tumbled through the city of the great Cisterna Magna, tasting its intricate molecules. Throughout the Cisterna, libraries of triplex DNA stored all the learning of Eleutheria. Nightclubs flashed with light- producing enzymes, singing colored music. Through the singing halls tumbled children ripe for breeding, their filaments tasting each other, hungering for just the right mate to merge.

'Fern?' Poppy's light flashed through the optic fibers. 'We need help. A merged pair is having trouble giving birth.'

Fern's spiral tails whirled and sent her spinning down the hall. Between two columns of