Brain Plague

Daeren leaned over and put his arm on the slave's shoulder. 'Jay, I'd like you to meet a friend of mine.'

Chrys forced a smile. 'Remember your codes.'

'We're flashing now.' Jonquil flashed the codes from her eyes to put the masters at ease.

The new slave, Jay, had a pleasing smile and a bit of a simian brow, like a salesman you'd find around level twelve. He faced her but his eyes could not meet hers for more than a moment. He smiled and put a patch at his neck. 'Can we help you? Ace on the house.'

Daeren touched his arm. 'That's okay, Jay.'

Chrys accepted the transfer, then returned it. Her people had to see first-hand how the masters operated. But what if they weren't allowed back?

'The masters are visiting,' Jonquil told her. 'Full of viruses and parasites. Appalling condition.'

Her scalp crawled. The diseases that could spread through those microneedles; she hoped Plan Ten could handle it. She gave Daeren a doubtful glance. Daeren stroked Jay's arm in a friendly way. 'How's life?'

Jay grinned. 'Have all the ace I need. Pass on the little friends to whoever wants them.' Something was missing about Jay, Chrys realized. His chest was blank—no namestone. Just empty nanotex.

'How's your wife?' asked Daeren. 'Still hoping to move up level?'

Nothing registered in Jay's face.

'You remembered your wife last week,' Daeren said quietly.

At the crack in the curtain a shadow passed. Someone stood just outside. A glimpse of an aristocratic profile—Lord Zoisite. The minister of justice, the board member of the Comb.

Horrified, Chrys got up and moved back several seats. Zoisite seemed to ignore the curtain, as if pausing idly on his way to the show. But Jay had slipped out from the bar to pass him something, hidden in his palm. Zoisite did not even look at the slave, but simply passed on.

'Daeren,' Chrys whispered hoarsely, 'we have to do something!'

Daeren looked down. 'The Palace knows the minister has a problem.'

'But—'

Jay grinned. 'He sure pays well. We double the rate every time, and still he pays. At this rate, he'll finance our whole operation.'

She glared at the slave before she caught herself, but Jay did not seem to notice. His gaze shifted to the next customer.

A pretty young woman with blond curls and a scent of jasmine about her, the kind of look Chrys had once envied. The woman's eyes widened as she caught the bar. 'Jay, can you help me?' Her head tilted wistfully. 'It's awful soon again, I know. But you'll help.'

'Sure thing, Per. Twelve hundred will do it.'

Her lips parted, and her eyes shifted the way people look at their credit line. 'That's a bit steep. Isn't it?' she added, as if she couldn't recall what she'd paid before.

Jay shook his head. 'Ace is scarce. We got raided last week.' The Palace had sent in the octopods and slapped a fine on Gold of Asragh.

'I'm just fifty short,' pleaded Per. 'Won't it do?'

He nodded at her neck. 'That little stone.'

The young blonde fingered her namestone, a lovely round peridot. She slipped it casually between her fingers. Chrys watched, her heart pounding. She looked at Daeren, but he said nothing.

The fingers tightened around the chain, then loosened. The stone fell onto the counter. Jay's hand replaced it with a pill. She swallowed it, then sank into a chair. Her eyes defocused, entranced by a magical vision. Embarrassed, Chrys looked away. From outside lilted the first chords of the caterpillar dancers.

'Char,' Jay called to Chrys suddenly. 'Something for you.'

Chrys drew back, having no interest in ace.

'The transfer,' prompted Jonquil. 'Our delegation needs to return.'

Chrys accepted the patch, relieved to get her people back, though repulsed at the thought of more viruses.

'Great Host, you must see these people,' Rose told her. 'They are truly enlightened.'

'Enlightened extortionists,' Chrys blinked back.

'How do you know? The Enlightened only lack what your world cares for most: Money.'

'What the devil do they need money for? They took that woman's last credit, down to her namestone.'

'What's in a name, when you lack for arsenic? Where our people first evolved, arsenic was the dust of the world. Here, your world sets a price, and keeps it from us.'

Chrys blinked, confused.

'To starve for arsenic,' Rose continued, 'the proteins contorting, ripping themselves out of your cell—you cannot imagine a worse hell.'

The young woman seemed to have wakened. Her eyes cast back and forth, her fingers flitting nervously. Daeren moved to sit by her. 'You're Peridot,' he said, emphasizing her full name. 'What's your line of work, Peridot?'

'Account manager at Bank Iridium.'

'You were, until they let you go.'

Peridot shrugged, and her eyes half closed. Chrys felt her chest tighten.

'What will happen next week when you come back?'

'So many generations.' Thinking only like a micro, Chrys realized with horror.

'You'll have no credit left,' Daeren told her, 'and no more namestone. What then?'

Peridot leaned back, her hands pressing the table as if to push away. 'What do you know?'

'You could get your job back,' Daeren told her. 'Whatever else you've lost—your apartment, your family —'

Her face twisted in sudden pain, her head casting about like a puppet on strings. 'I've got to go.'

Chrys raised a hand. 'Wait—' She caught up to the woman at the curtain. 'Don't you understand? You'll end up a vampire.'

Peridot frowned. 'Who are you? I'll call the octopods.'

'Just wait a bit. Look—' Chrys held out a viewcoin. It was her precious Fern, the luminous green filaments twinkling about truth and beauty.

Peridot's eyes widened as she stared. Her hand lifted, trembling, as if to touch what she saw before her. A ring of gold glimmered faintly around her iris.

'They want to visit—hurry,' urged Jonquil.

Chrys offered her a transfer. 'We mean no harm to your... little friends. Let us help you.'

Peridot twisted a curl of hair between her fingers. As if in a daze, she placed the transfer patch at her neck, then gave it back. She shuddered all over, as if with some internal struggle. With a last hint of jasmine, she disappeared out the curtain.

Daeren whispered, 'There was nothing you could do. She hasn't yet lost enough.'

'But. . .'

'She left defectors,' Jonquil announced. 'Let them stay.'

'Refugees,' added Rose. 'Starved— oppressed by your Olympian hosts.'

'They were backward and ignorant. Thoughtless—destroying their own environment.'

'Eking out a desperate existence as best they could.'

Chrys shut her eyes. 'Be dark, you both.' She reopened them to see Daeren