Knowing his F*O*O*J political ambitions, I asked Kareem how he expected to advance his career when his reputation was so rife with racialized rage.
“I’ve got a right to be hostile, Doc,” he said after a long pause in which he finally managed to logosynthesize an actual pelvis above the two legs he’d formed earlier. “My people are being persecuted.”
“Kareem, I’ve read that Inspector article about the dinner you attended—”
“The Inspector’s a piece of crap, and ninety percent of what that punk wrote never even happened—”
“—and based on your behavior at that dinner, it’s clear that you wanted those people to dislike you. As if you were afraid of them.”
“Afraid? What are you talking about, Doctor?”
“Afraid of their acceptance.”
Dropping his jaw with faux-shock, he said, “Let me tell you about these people ‘accepting’ me, Doctor. That dinner, it was about half Day-Glo long-john types, a quarter media mucketymucks, and the rest wealthy superhero groupies. Some of that meringue mafia like to pretend to like people like me. It spit-shines their white liberal credentials. The rest don’t even bother pretending.
“But you know who else was there? F*O*O*J punks like the Beaver Brothers, who were the number one source for that rat-gut reporter. And just two weeks ago I found out that Carrol Beaver’s been spreading rumors about me. That I’m a sexist! Me! What kind of fecal fungus is that? You see how I treat Iron Lass. Is that sexist? And I never had anything but complete respect for the Supa Soul Sistas—”
“Yet you won’t even acknowledge Syndi’s presence, Kareem,” I said. “And every time she speaks, you either roll your eyes, cross your arms in judgment, or get a look on your face like you’re sipping from a bucket of something turgid.”
“That,” he said, immediately jabbing a finger toward me before catching himself, “that’s an entirely different…which’s got nothing to do with gender, Doc.”
“Is it because of her orientation?”
He rolled his eyes, crossed his arms, and got a look on his face as if he were sipping from a bucket of something turgid. “Trust me,” he said, “it’s got nothing to do with her ‘orientation.’ ”
“Then tell me what it is about.”
“This is all a joke!”
“What’s all a joke?”
“This!” he said, sweeping the room with his chin. “Being in this laboratory, completely cut off from the real world…How’s this high-tech chicken coop supposed to reveal anything about how we actually function out there? The real reason we’re here isn’t because of our fears, Doctor, it’s because of yours. In here, you’re safe. You’re boss. You’re in control. The way you like it.
“You claim you want to understand us, to understand me? I’ll believe that the day I see you walking the streets of Stun-Glas. And I should be out there investigating the murder—assassination—of the greatest hero of our times, instead of facing expulsion from the F*O*O*J for failing to attend this psycho-sycophantic suckfest you’ve got us starched into!”
“Well-played, Kareem.” I smiled, nodding at my young patient. “Very skillful.”
“Meaning what?”
“Turning the conversation to someone else’s supposed shortcomings and away from your antagonism toward Syndi.”
“Look, Doctor. You want me to finish your assignment or not?”
Being one of the country’s most insightfully attuned psychoanalysts, I recognized when it was time to reel in a patient, and when it was time to release him. There would always be time later for the net.
Iconfusion
After calling in my secretary for some lip balm, I found Hnossi Icegaard at the next workbay listening to music on her Q-bot player. “I trust zere’s no rule against ziss?” she said, gesturing to her small silver cube.
“Not at all, Hnossi—this is art therapy, after all. Ella Fitzgerald, right?”
“Ja. She won ze Grammy for ziss. ‘Mack ze Knife.’ Even zough she forgot the vords, her improvisation vuss genius…a true warrior of song.” She gestured with her shortsword to the granite slab she’d transformed into a stunningly elaborate scale-model replica of a walled fortress, complete with towers, armories, mead halls, stables, and bridges—the mountain-peak home of the Norse war gods. Aesgard. I asked her to tell me about her icon.
Offering a description that differed somewhat from my recollection of the legends, she focused on the Hall of Valkyries, the fortress of the sisterhood to which she used to belong. Yet none of what she said was in the least personally revealing.
“You know, Frau Doktor,” she said confidentially, changing tone and direction, “alzough youngk Kareem can be undisciplinedt, you are too qvick to dismiss his legitimate concerns about Master Hawk Kink. I’ve spoken wiss him at length about ze prima facie case he’s been developingk—”
Recognizing her diversion for what it was, I realized it was time to reel Iron Lass in.
“I’ll take that into consideration, Hnossi. But right now, I’m curious about something that came up in our dual session with Syndi. After that conversation, I did some further reading about your life…and your mother’s.”
She turned to me, and I was suddenly acutely aware of the power in the unsheathed swords clutched in her armored hands.
“Unt vut,” she said quietly, “haff you discoverdt, Doktor Brain?”
“Well…I…uh…I discovered that there is indeed quite a difference between Frigg, wife of Odin—the goddess-queen most people assume is your mother—and Frigg/Freyja, your actual mother.” I cleared my throat, choosing my next words as carefully as I would the steps on a rickety bridge across a gorge. “Whereas Frigg, wife of Odin, had an, an illustrious career as an Aesir warmaster and symbol of virtue…the other Frigg, your mother, was…she was…”
“A whore,” she stated. “Is zat ze vurt you vere lookink for, Eva?”
“It’s, uh, the word you’ve chosen,” I said, swallowing. “Tell me why.”
She stared at me with her cold eyes of hot fury, a look that
