moves.
Their chess programs were so advanced no game could progress beyond three moves without one or the other conceding that stalemate was inevitable. Andromeda watched, amazonian body entirely covered by black cloth, ironically like a good Moslem girl. She laid her marble-white hand on Robbie's shoulder, trying to follow the game with only her unaugmented meatmind.
Darkness gathered as the sun slipped below the horizon. Franken blinked and his eyes infrareddened. Bored, he accessed the time code. LED numbers gave him a time check, flashing alternates in successive population centres. A master reading told him his eyes had been functional for four years, two months, three weeks, six days, nine hours, ten minutes and forty-eight seconds. He watched seconds tick off towards the expiry of his five-year warranty, whereupon he would be advised to seek an upgrade. It was important that the cybermind remain state of the art.
That meant going back to BioDiv. Eventually the 'bots would have to resubmit to Zarathustra. There were independents – Simon Threadneedle, most obviously – but only GenTech had the R&D capital. Between meat and metal was the barrier of money.
In the bus, Rosie the Maid and Talos the Bronze Giant made crackling love, wires stretched between plugboards, currents passing between them in rhythmic flow. Most 'bots eschewed meat sex. Their pleasure sensors were adapted to capabilities beyond human organs.
Olympia returned, a grin obvious under the black scarves that wrapped her head. Her crystal chest sparkled.
'At dawn, as the sun rises, we shall detonate.'
'That is nice, dear.'
She did a few steps, balancing perfectly. Kochineel inclined his sad clown's face and watched her, active eyes intent. Penny-sized red highlights were painted on his china cheeks and blue-diamond tears etched under his eyes. He never spoke; his mouth was a cupid's bow around a tiny inlet.
'Then, we should give thought to the Grand Canyon,' Olympia continued. 'Concrete would be impractical, but fast-expanding synthetics are achieving spectacular results. At the current progress rate, the operation will be feasable within two annos. Our gift to the 21st century shall be to smooth over that nasty crack and restore proper featurelessness to the globe.'
'You still have blood on your face, dear. Organic matter from this morning.'
Olympia cringed disgust and wiped her forehead with the heel of her hand. Most of her skin was playtex but she had yet to replace her hands or face. Inside, as her superb balance demonstrated, she was all doodads and robo- bits.
Franken was furthest along the road to complete mechanisation. Only his brain and a few unaugmented bones were original to him. When it became possible to download the information that constituted consciousness into silicon, he would willingly abandon physical graymass. He scorned the Donovan Treatment: vulgar brains brooding in bottles had little in common with his improved, augmented, demonstrably superior form.
At the other extreme was Andromeda, whose uncannily mobile prosthetic hand barely qualified her for the Knock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots. When funds were amassed, she would have more alterations. Her human body, now in its brief peak of perfection, would customise superbly.
Andromeda walked over, graceful as a panther. She had taken a Pentathlon Gold for the Pan-Islamic Federation at the St Petersburg Olympics in '92, but – a Greek Christian and a persecuted minority within the PIF – had defected. She had been through steroids and longevity programmes, and concluded cyberneticisation was the way to preserve and enhance herself against time.
Olympia watched Andromeda, her body language easy to read. Contempt, jealousy, fear, dislike. Olympia strangely retained much of her meatmind. Eventually, she believed, such irritants would cease to be a part of the cybermind.
Andromeda had sought out the Knock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots, crushing her own meathand to demonstrate commitment. Dr Threadneedle, contracted for the job, was enthusiastic about the possibilities of perfecting the woman. Her hand benefited, like Kochineel's body, from developments in ceramics. It was imitation marble. She would ultimately be a goddess of living stone.
When remodelling was complete, Andromeda would be a better machine than Olympia. There was static between the cyberwomen. Now, Olympia could best Andromeda at any contest of skill or strength; but Andromeda's mentality eventually would prevail. Her graymass was closer to the cybermind than Olympia's part- silicon brain. Trained from infancy to treat meat as if it were durium, she was programmed as a Gold Medal winner.
Andromeda looked up at Canyon de Chelly.
'It is very beautiful,' she said. 'In this light, almost magical.'
'Tchah,' Olympia spat. 'You have too much meat in you, madame. Sentimental juices squirt from your heart, poisoning your mind …'
Olympia's heart had been her first replacement. A necessity; the meat organ was defective at birth. That had taught her not to trust nature, and put faith in the machine.
'Meat is weak,' she told Andromeda. 'That damfool pilgrim this afternoon. He was pure meat. Look how he burst when squashed. Like a bug.'
Olympia was being unkind.
'I would wager your warranty does not cover the treatment you gave that Josephite,' Franken told her. 'If Pinocchiocchio drove the bus over your chest, your components would fail as surely as the meat of that poor, strange man.'
Franken was perturbed by the way the Josephite had accepted his death. As if he were certain of a future.
'My cybermind is of a better quality, Franken. I would not find myself in such a situation. He died for no reason.'
Olympia had not acted dispassionately. In killing the man, she had demonstrated something about herself.
'Your brain is still graymass, still mostly meatmind.'
'An information storage unit,' she said, tapping her skull. 'And a reasoning function. Few human brains have reasoning functions. That is why they are obsolete.'
'Why did that man defy us?' Andromeda asked. She disapproved of Olympia's treatment of the Josephites. Only interested in the road ahead, she saw no point in the cruelty. Meatfolks were left behind; to Andromeda, that was harsh enough.
Olympia shrugged.
'The rational thing was to pay the toll,' Andromeda reasoned. 'If they had paid, they would not have died. Why did they not follow that course?'
'Their experience was misleading,' Franken explained. 'They believed us a common gangcult. The Maniax would have taken tithe and still killed several or all of them.'
'We were frustrated in our purpose,' Andromeda said, trying to follow the reasoning. 'We set out to achieve money by extortion, money we need to pursue our own aims, but gained nothing from the exchange. In a logical sense, we lost.'
'We put meat in the ground,' Olympia snapped. 'Do not underestimate that.'
'Frankly, I am still perplexed.'
'Catch up, meatdoll.'
Andromeda assumed a posture indicating emotional hurt.
Olympia did a triumphant pirouette. Kochineel might be sighing, Franken calculated.
'Metal must always master meat,' Olympia said, quoting the Knock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots' slogan.
Andromeda said nothing but her hand flexed. Metal might always master meat, Franken mused, but perhaps marble would outlast metal. Nothing was settled.
II
