Brain Plague

'She's a dynatect. Don't you want help with your work?' Hesitantly Chrys raised the patch to her neck.

'We never need help with our great work. Others seek help from us, but we are too busy.'

Microbes with attitude. Maybe this 'Deathlord' would give them a scare. 'I bid you visit them.' She held the patch to Selenite's neck.

'Remember to touch my hand first,' Selenite warned. 'To make sure of consent.'

Opal waved her hand. 'Chrys is just learning. Relax, we're at home.'

'She won't always be at home. Chrys, we're so glad you pulled through. I know it's a challenge to manage Eleutheria.' She sounded doubtful that Chrys was up to it.

'Have something,' Opal urged.

A drink emerged from a shelf in the 'tree.' Blended fruits, like the first bloom of summer. Chrys savored the taste on her tongue. 'Where do all the . . . gods' names come from?'

Selenite motioned to a seat, disguised as a polished stump; its plast molded gracefully to seat her. How the other half-a-percent lives. 'I earn my name.'

Opal's dimples showed. 'The micros know us remarkably well.' Well enough to flatter, Chrys guessed. 'They name their populations, too.'

'Like 'Eleutheria'?' asked Chrys.

'Eleutheria is our formal name for your strain. It means 'free spirit.' But micros call other strains by informal epithets, such as 'wizards' or 'blue angels.' '

'What do they call mine?'

'It's rather crude, I'm afraid.'

Selenite said, 'A loose translation would be 'libertines.' '

Opal explained, 'It means they let their children mate with any kind of people.'

Chrys narrowed her eyes. 'Any bright enough.' Just what she needed—microbes with a reputation.

Selenite's eyes had been flashing busily. She drew closer. 'Chrys, your people tell me they kept all the plans of the Comb.'

'So I hear.'

'Amazing,' whispered Selenite, shaking her head. 'Listen. I have this contract for structural improvement.'

'Improvement? On the Comb?'

'It ought to have been Titan's job, but Titan, shall we say, took little interest in ...'

'Maintenance,' finished Opal.

Maintenance on the Comb, the work of genius. Chrys eyed Selenite with new interest. 'His death left me in a fix,' Selenite explained, 'because, it turns out, the only complete set of plans was in his head.'

Chrys nodded slowly. 'What sort of maintenance would the Comb need?'

Opal looked askance. 'What doesn't it need.'

Selenite frowned. 'She's a great building. Just a small problem of fenestration.'

'Of what?'

'Fenestration. The placement of windows—Titan's spiral fenestration was legend. But unfortunately—'

The Comb appeared, growing absurdly amid the redwoods. Her form expanded, appearing larger and closer, until the ground level came into detail. 'The Comb, like all Titan's buildings, grows from the bottom up,' Selenite explained. 'So the top execs never need change their office; they just keep rising upward. Whereas below—' She pointed. 'Here is the youngest ground level. Look closely.'

The legendary windows soared beautifully up the honeycombed chambers. But in the bottom row, nearest the ground, each window was cracked. Fine grooves ramified through every pane.

'You see?' said Selenite. 'If the newer floors all come up like that, it's a disaster. No easy fix, either. Whatever we do has to go in from the roots up.'

'I see.'

Selenite clasped her arm. 'Here's the deal. We'll subcontract your people for a megacred. It's not much, but they'll get back in touch with the business and reconnect with customers. What do you say?'

A megacred? Seven digits? Chrys's mouth fell open. 'Fern? Aster? What's this about?'

'The Deathlord's minions seek our genius,' replied Aster, such pretty magenta. 'But the Comb is an ancient monument. We build for the future.'

The two carriers were watching her, testing her nerve. What did they expect her to do, send a thunderbolt? 'The future becomes the past,' she told Aster. 'The past needs restoration. Is the job too hard for you?'

That must have got them. She counted the seconds.

'The Deathlord offers too little. Ask more.'

Chrys looked up. 'They want more money.'

Opal exclaimed, 'You mean they'll do it?'

Selenite frowned. 'Let me negotiate, dear. Okay, one-point-five and that's final.'

'Okay,' said Chrys, before anyone could change their mind. 'We'll take your offer.'

Selenite put another patch at her neck. 'We'll send you our memory cells detailing the recent pattern of development.'

In the corner of Chrys's eye, her credit balance expanded by several digits, spreading across the screen.

'How's it look?' asked Selenite. 'Did the funds transfer okay?'

Seven digits. One point five million credits, plus her last three-digit sale. 'It takes up the screen,' Chrys observed. 'I need to reduce the font size.'

For a split second there was silence. Then Opal collapsed laughing. ' 'It takes up the screen!' '

'Stop it, Opal,' said Selenite, trying not to smile.

Opal pressed her hand. 'Chrys, you're going to be so good for us.'

Chrys closed her eyes. Then she forced them back open. 'Look, I really am grateful, but it's a lot to think about.' A million credits; she could pay her brother's health plan and then some. A new painting stage ... Yet how the devil were micros inside her head supposed to fix a building? 'I need to get home and sleep on it.'

'You'll sleep here tonight,' said Opal. 'We promised Andra.'

'What?'

Opal smiled. 'Tomorrow we'll go house-hunting. I know just the place for you; you'll love it.' The Comb disappeared, replaced by an elegant townhouse with an upsweeping facade and a pair of caryatids holding up the terrace.

Chrys raised her hands. 'Saints and angels—I am getting back to my cats and my work.'

The two carriers exchanged glances. 'There's trouble in the Underworld,' said Selenite. 'It may have reached your neighborhood.'

'Trouble?' She had not checked the news all day. Chrys rose swiftly. 'I have to get my cats.'

Opal rose with her. 'Chrys, you carry nearly a million people. You can't risk their lives.'

'My cats are as good as your damn people.'

Selenite's face twisted. 'I know the neighborhood; I've been there on call enough times. I'll take you down, with a couple of octopods.'

Another dizzying climb in the lightcraft; Chrys thought her head would never clear. Then the lightcraft deposited her and Selenite at the top of the tube, where they had to take the bubble car down.

Her neighborhood was still intact, but directly below the Underworld burned, the homes and shops of the most crowded and desperate simians. The bubble car crept down the alley, its view obscured by haze.

'It's barely breathable,' Selenite warned. 'The bubble's filter is working pretty hard.'

Chrys's heart beat faster. Her cats had to breath, too.

They turned a corner. There was her old high-rise, stretching clear up to the next level. But the door to the basement was smoking. Her door.

'Let me out.' She pounded on the plast.

The plast opened. She stumbled out, coughing, her eyes streaming.