Brain Plague

'Your people have been chosen for an extraordinary mission,' Judge-390 told Jonquil. 'Your mission is to save the gods themselves from destruction.'

'Eleutheria is honored to be of service.' How well Jonquil remembered the false blue angels, and the great 'passing over.' They had just commemorated the event's twenty-fifth anniversary.

Rose added, 'Salvation of the gods has always been my mission. ' Jonquil brushed her filaments, flickering, 'Be dark!'

'All participants in this service must apply for security clearance.' Judge-390 produced a long chain of hydrocarbon, with many complex side branches, each with data tags to be filled in. A similar chain, about twice as long, Jonquil noticed, was presented to Rose. Much annoyed, Rose caught the molecular paperwork in her filaments and hauled it off.

The judge approached Jonquil alone. 'Has the double agent served you faithfully?'

As far as Jonquil knew, Rose had done little worse than preach 'enlightenment' to a few followers. 'She set up food service for the homeless. The Council grumbled at the expense, but after all, even the gods have soup kitchens.'

'She tells us nothing. Have you learned much?' 'She showed us how the masters attack the brain, precisely which neurons they flood with dopamine.'

'Did she say how they locate starships to hijack?' 'She denied that masters take slaves by force, but she's starting to reveal the truth. She also helped us figure out how the false blue angels hid from our taste. They engineered their own genes to produce the surface proteins of microglia and astrocytes— making themselves taste like human cells.'

'The false blue angels—most unsettling,' the judge agreed. 'Report everything you hear. Meanwhile, we shall teach you our photo codes: the patterns of light that identify you as security, and other patterns to help you pass falsely as masters. You must keep these codes to yourself. Above all, never tell Rose.'

'Chrys, imagine you're the plague.' Andra's command projected through the long, twisting branches of the neurons, simulated at human size. 'You've just entered a new brain, and you want to master it without alarming the host. So you cross the blood-brain barrier, taking care to avoid activating microglia, and you find your way to the medial forebrain.' Andra patted the cell body of a neuron, then her hand traced an undulating branch till its end, where it made a translucent cup. 'The axon ends at a synapse.' The cup lit up, expanding, as small bubbles full of dopamine oozed out into the synapse. The bubbles joined the receiving terminal of the next neuron. 'Dopamine crosses the synapse to activate a neuron of the pleasure center.'

Chrys looked over the tangle of axons, each ended in a cup at the synapse of the next neuron. An intriguing pattern; she sketched the weblike network in her window.

'Every kind of pleasurable stimulus fills the synapse briefly,'

Andra continued. 'Food, sex, or beautiful paintings.' Chrys kept her face straight. 'But micros can make their own dopamine and put it right into the synapse—and keep the cup full.'

'I see.' She remembered the vampire's attack, and the rush of pleasure, the glimpse of Endless Light. 'What's wrong with, like, feeling extra good?'

The projected axons played across Andra's nanotex. 'What's wrong with any drug? Cocaine and other drugs overload dopamine, but very crudely, with obvious side effects. Psychoplast, programmed drug dispensers, do so more cleanly—and still destroy lives. Micros do it intelligently.' Andra pointed to the synapse at the neuron's branched terminal. 'When the synapse overloads repeatedly, the body gradually steps down its own dopamine. You don't notice right away; you just think, every time you obey the masters, it feels so good. Eventually, you can no longer feel good at all—except from the micros. Your will is replaced by their own.'

She wondered what Rose would say to that, but Rose and Jonquil were busy training with the judges. 'Why does it work that way? I mean, like, why can't Plan Ten make us feel good all the time?'

'Humans didn't evolve to feel good. We evolved to survive and reproduce. The pleasure pathway evolved to make us repeat acts that raise our odds, such as eating rich food, or having sex.' Andra pointed to the long axon, sending its signal to the synapse. 'Once an act is completed, the neuron needs to turn off its signal as soon as possible, to get ready for the next one.'

Chrys thought it over. 'Why do I enjoy colors? I feel like heaven, studying a beautiful painting. That doesn't help me survive.'

Andra nodded. 'Our color sense evolved to tell good fruit from bad.'

'Picking ripe bananas? You mean we're all still, like, simians?'

She looked Chrys in the eye, her irises pulsing violet, unnerving in the dark. 'Simians in nanotex.'

The model brain receded, revealing a spacious office atop the hospital with a view across Center Way. The sun glinted off the towers and threw a shaft across the large Sardish carpet, ending at Andra's desk, which was the size of a dining-room table. A caryatid glided forward to offer tea. 'Of course,' said Andra, 'even the masters have their 'civilization.' More subtle strains, common in high-status hosts, give only a touch of bliss now and then. Without their host realizing, they reward little things, like forgetfulness; forgetting one's own name, for just an instant, then longer....'

Chrys frowned. 'How could you forget your own name, no matter how good it felt?'

The chief stared hard. 'How long is your name?' she barked. 'How many letters?'

She blinked, startled. For some reason, the letters swam before her eyes. She counted on her fingers. 'Ten. I mean, eleven.' Seeing Andra's look, she protested, 'I was never good at math.'

'No one knows her name as well as she thinks.' Andra's voice was ice. 'Remember that.' The armchair molded to the curves of the hospital's top malpractice attorney as she took her tea. 'Virulent or subtle, the masters always need one thing: arsenic. A nutrient essential for reproduction.'

'So then you go to the Underworld for ace?'

Across the desk flitted pages of torts and memos, which Andra ignored. 'You run to the plague bar. Or you resist, at first, but find your steps taking you there. Your first time, the bar doesn't charge much.'

'And then?'

Andra nodded slowly. 'You'll soon see for yourself.'

The usual crowd of patrons and octopods filled the Underworld, dodging the precancerous root tips of banks and brokerages. 'You'll get to know slaves on sight,' Daeren told her, 'the off-gazing eyes, the little things that tip you off. And more important, your people need to know the masters.' He and the worm-faced medic veered around a stand of nanoflowers, branches that rose and blossomed before the eyes of customers. 'Once your micros know what to look for, they can practice testing—starting with us.' Testing the blue angels. That would be a switch.

A simian boy in a ragged red coat held out a tin cup, imitating a street player's monkey. Playing to the stereotype, for a few credits. Oddly, the boy reminded her of Hal. For a moment she wished she could take him home. A crazy thought. Little boys were not cats, and the last thing she was ready to be was a mother. Chrys frowned. 'Your chief says we're all simians,' she told Daeren. 'I bet she'd never set her clean feet down here.'

'Andra does the slave ships.'

Chrys's jaw dropped. 'She does what?'

'Flashing the photo codes, she passes for a slave. She's reached several substations.'

'She's nuts.'

'We're mapping the substations, to zero in on the Slave 'World.' Beside Daeren, the medic waved his face worms as if signaling.

Chrys nodded thoughtfully. 'The Slave World—we could nip it at the source.'

'Don't you get ideas,' Daeren warned. 'After tonight, you keep clear of slaves, you hear? You'll have enough to do testing carriers.'

She rolled her eyes. 'Not to worry.' Two more portrait clients visiting the next day, then the Hyalite dinner. At this rate she'd never paint her own ideas again.

They reached the Gold of Asragh. Daeren nodded to the medic, who waited outside while he and Chrys went in. The slave bar was now out of sight behind a curtain; must be laying low this week. She followed Daeren through the curtain, blinking as her eyes adjusted to the dark. Behind the bar stood the man who replaced Saf, the slave who had offered Chrys her masters the night of the Seven's last show. Where was Saf now, Chrys wondered. The Slave World? Where was Endless Light?