Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom

instead.

My nose itched. I tried to ignore it, but it got worse and worse, until it was all I could think of, the flaming lance of itch that strobed at the tip of my nostril. Furiously, I wrinkled my face, rattled at my restraints. The doc absentmindedly noticed my gyrations and delicately scratched my nose with a gloved finger. The relief was fantastic. I just hoped my nuts didn't start itching anytime soon.

Finally, the doctor pulled up a chair and did something that caused the head of the bed to raise up so that I could look him in the eye.

'Well, now,' he said, stroking his chin. 'Julius, you've got a problem. Your friend here tells me your systems have been offline for more than a month. It sure would've been better if you'd come in to see me when it started up.

'But you didn't, and things got worse.' He nodded up at Jiminy Cricket's recriminations: Go ahead, see your doc! 'It's good advice, son, but what's done is done. You were restored from a backup about eight weeks ago, I see. Without more tests, I can't be sure, but my theory is that the brain-machine interface they installed at that time had a material defect. It's been deteriorating ever since, misfiring and rebooting. The shut-downs are a protective mechanism, meant to keep it from introducing the kind of seizure you experienced this afternoon. When the interface senses malfunction, it shuts itself down and boots a diagnostic mode, attempts to fix itself and come back online.

'Well, that's fine for minor problems, but in cases like this, it's bad news. The interface has been deteriorating steadily, and it's only a matter of time before it does some serious damage.'

'Waaagh?' I asked. I meant to say, All right, but what's wrong with my mouth?

The doc put a finger to my lips. 'Don't try. The interface has locked up, and it's taken some of your voluntary nervous processes with it. In time, it'll probably shut down, but for now, there's no point. That's why we've got you strapped down-you were thrashing pretty hard when they brought you in, and we didn't want you to hurt yourself.'

Probably shut down? Jesus. I could end up stuck like this forever. I started shaking.

The doc soothed me, stroking my hand, and in the process pressed a transdermal on my wrist. The panic receded as the transdermal's sedative oozed into my bloodstream.

'There, there,' he said. 'It's nothing permanent. We can grow you a new clone and refresh it from your last backup. Unfortunately, that backup is a few months old. If we'd caught it earlier, we may've been able to salvage a current backup, but given the deterioration you've displayed to date … Well, there just wouldn't be any point.'

My heart hammered. I was going to lose two months-lose it all, never happened. My assassination, the new Hall of Presidents and my shameful attempt thereon, the fights with Lil, Lil and Dan, the meeting. My plans for the rehab! All of it, good and bad, every moment flensed away.

I couldn't do it. I had a rehab to finish, and I was the only one who understood how it had to be done. Without my relentless prodding, the ad-hocs would surely revert to their old, safe ways. They might even leave it half-done, halt the process for an interminable review, present a soft belly for Debra to savage.

I wouldn't be restoring from backup.

***

I had two more seizures before the interface finally gave up and shut itself down. I remember the first, a confusion of vision-occluding strobes and uncontrollable thrashing and the taste of copper, but the second happened without waking me from deep unconsciousness.

When I came to again in the infirmary, Dan was still there. He had a day's growth of beard and new worrylines at the corners of his newly rejuvenated eyes. The doctor came in, shaking his head.

'Well, now, it seems like the worst is over. I've drawn up the consent forms for the refresh and the new clone will be ready in an hour or two. In the meantime, I think heavy sedation is in order. Once the restore's been completed, we'll retire this body for you and we'll be all finished up.'

Retire this body? Kill me, is what it meant.

'No,' I said. I thrilled in my restraints: my voice was back under my control!

'Oh, really now.' The doc lost his bedside manner, let his exasperation slip through. 'There's nothing else for it. If you'd come to me when it all started, well, we might've had other options. You've got no one to blame but yourself.'

'No,' I repeated. 'Not now. I won't sign.'

Dan put his hand on mine. I tried to jerk out from under it, but the restraints and his grip held me fast. 'You've got to do it, Julius. It's for the best,' he said.

'I'm not going to let you kill me,' I said, through clenched teeth. His fingertips were callused, worked rough with exertion well beyond the normal call of duty.

'No one's killing you, son,' the doctor said. Son, son, son. Who knew how old he was? He could be 18 for all I knew. 'It's just the opposite: we're saving you. If you continue like this, it will only get worse. The seizures, mental breakdown, the whole melon going soft. You don't want that.'

I thought of Zed's spectacular transformation into a crazy person. No, I sure don't. 'I don't care about the interface. Chop it out. I can't do it now.' I swallowed. 'Later. After the rehab. Eight more weeks.'

***

The irony! Once the doc knew I was serious, he sent Dan out of the room and rolled his eyes up while he placed a call. I saw his gorge work as he subvocalized. He left me bound to the table, to wait.

No clocks in the infirmary, and no internal clock, and it may have been ten minutes or five hours. I was catheterized, but I didn't know it until urgent necessity made the discovery for me.

When the doc came back, he held a small device that I instantly recognized: a HERF gun.

Oh, it wasn't the same model I'd used on the Hall of Presidents. This one was smaller, and better made, with the precise engineering of a surgical tool. The doc raised his eyebrows at me. 'You know what this is,' he said, flatly. A dim corner of my mind gibbered, he knows, he knows, the Hall of Presidents. But he didn't know. That episode was locked in my mind, invulnerable to backup.

'I know,' I said.

'This one is high-powered in the extreme. It will penetrate the interface's shielding and fuse it. It probably won't turn you into a vegetable. That's the best I can do. If this fails, we will restore you from your last backup. You have to sign the consent before I use it.' He'd dropped all kindly pretense from his voice, not bothering to disguise his disgust. I was pitching out the miracle of the Bitchun Society, the thing that had all but obsoleted the medical profession: why bother with surgery when you can grow a clone, take a backup, and refresh the new body? Some people swapped corpuses just to get rid of a cold.

I signed. The doc wheeled my gurney into the crash and hum of the utilidors and then put it on a freight tram that ran to the Imagineering compound, and thence to a heavy, exposed Faraday cage. Of course: using the HERF on me would kill any electronics in the neighborhood. They had to shield me before they pulled the trigger.

The doc placed the gun on my chest and loosened my restraints. He sealed the cage and retreated to the lab's door. He pulled a heavy apron and helmet with faceguard from a hook beside the door.

'Once I am outside the door, point it at your head and pull the trigger. I'll come back in five minutes. Once I am in the room, place the gun on the floor and do not touch it. It is only good for a single usage, but I have no desire to find out I'm wrong.'

He closed the door. I took the pistol in my hand. It was heavy, dense with its stored energy, the tip a parabolic hollow to better focus its cone.

I lifted the gun to my temple and let it rest there. My thumb found the trigger-stud.