“One hundred and twelve,” he said. “I counted.”
Girasol wriggled out from under Pierce and vomited. Wiped her mouth. “Repairman’s in tomorrow.” She stared down at the intact side of Pierce’s face.
“Where’s Mr. Grimes?”
“Nearly docking by now. But he’s not in a body.” Girasol pushed damp hair out of her face. “He’s been extracted. His storage cone is safe. Sealed. That was our deal.”
The bodyguard was studying her intently, red brows knitted. “Let’s get going, then.” He picked his handgun up off the floor. “Gray eyes,” he remarked. “Those contacts?”
“Yeah,” Girasol said. “Contacts.” She leaned over to give Pierce a bloody peck on the cheek, then got shakily to her feet and led the way out the door.
Severyn Grimes woke up feeling rested. His last memory was laughing on the deck of a getaway boat, but the soft cocoon of sheets made him suspect he’d since been moved. Something else had changed, too. His proprioception was sending an avalanche of small error reports. Limbs no longer the correct length. New body proportions. By the feel of it, he was in something artificial.
“Mr. Grimes?”
“Finch.” Severyn tried to grimace at the tinny sound of his voice, but the facial myomers were relatively fixed. “The mise á jour, please.”
Finch’s craggy features loomed above him, blank and professional as ever. “Girasol Fletcher had you extracted from her son’s body. After we met her technician, I transported your storage cone here to Lumen Technohospital for diagnostics. Your personality and memories came through completely intact and they stowed you in an interim avatar to speak with your lawyers. Of which there’s a horde, sir. Waiting in the lobby.”
“Police involvement?” Severyn asked, trying for a lower register.
“There are a few Priests in custody, sir,” Finch said. “Girasol Fletcher and her son are long gone. CPD requested access to the enzyme trackers in Blake’s body. It looks like she hasn’t found a way to shut them off yet. Could triangulate and maybe find them if it happens in the next few hours.”
Severyn blinked, and his eyelashes scraped his cheeks. He tried to frown. “What the fuck am I wearing, Finch?”
“The order was put in for a standard male android.” Finch shrugged. “But there was an electronic error.”
“Pleasure doll?” Severyn guessed. Electronic error seemed unlikely.
His bodyguard nodded stonily. “You can be uploaded in a fresh volunteer within twenty-four hours,” he said. “They’ve done up a list of candidates. I can link it.”
Severyn shook his head. “Don’t bother,” he said. “I think I want something clone-grown. See my own face in the mirror again.”
“And the trackers?”
Severyn thought of Blake and Girasol tearing across the map, heading somewhere sun-drenched where their money could stretch and their faces couldn’t be plucked off the news feeds. She would do small-time hackwork. Maybe he would start to swim again.
“Shut them off from our end,” Severyn said. “I want a bit of a challenge when I hunt that bitch down and have her uploaded to a waste disposal.”
“Will do, Mr. Grimes.”
But Finch left with a ghost of a smile on his face, and Severyn suspected his employee knew he was lying.
Peter Watts (www.rifters.com) is a former marine biologist who clings to some shred of scientific rigor by appending technical bibliographies onto his novels. His debut novel (Starfish) was a New York Times Notable Book, while his fourth (Blindsight)—a rumination on the utility of consciousness which has become a required text in undergraduate courses ranging from philosophy to neuroscience—was a finalist for numerous North American genre awards and winner of numerous awards overseas. His shorter work has won the Shirley Jackson and a Hugo Awards.
ZEROS
Peter Watts
Asante goes out screaming. Hell is an echo chamber, full of shouts and seawater and clanking metal. Monstrous shadows move along the bulkheads; meshes of green light writhe on every surface. The rise from the moon pool like creatures from some bright lagoon, firing as they emerge; Rashida’s middle explodes in dark mist and her top half topples onto the deck. Kito’s still dragging himself toward the speargun on the drying rack—as though some antique fish-sticker could ever fend off these monsters with their guns and their pneumatics and their little cartridges that bury themselves deep in your flesh before showing you what five hundred unleashed atmospheres do to your insides.
It’s more than Asante’s got. All he’s got is his fists.
He uses them. Launches himself at the nearest as she lines up Kito in her sights, swings wildly as the deck groans and drops and cants sideways. Seawater breaches the lip of the moon pool, cascades across the plating. Asante flails at the intruder on his way down. Her shot goes wide. A spiderweb blooms across the viewport; a thin gout of water erupts from its center even as the glass tries to heal itself from the edges in.
The last thing Asante sees is the desert hammer icon on the diveskin before she blows him away.
Five Years
Running water. Metal against metal. Clanks and gurgles, lowered voices, the close claustrophobic echo of machines in the middle distance.
Asante opens his eyes.
He’s still in the wet room; its ceiling blurs and clicks into focus, plates and struts and Kito’s stupid graffiti (All Tautologies Are Tautologies) scratched into the paint. Green light still wriggles dimly across the biosteel, but the murderous energy’s been bled out of it.
He tries to turn his head, and can’t. He barely feels his own body—as though it were made of ectoplasm, some merest echo of solid flesh fading into nonexistence somewhere around the waist.
An insect’s head on a human body looms over him. It speaks with two voices: English, and an overlapping echo in Twi: “Easy, soldier. Relax.”
A woman’s voice, and a chip one.
Not . But armed. Dangerous.
Not a soldier he wants to say, wants to shout. It’s never a good thing to be mistaken for any sort of combatant along
