Specimen Days (30 page)

The drone spoke once again. Simon could make out the pulse of its voice but not the meaning. Marcus glanced at the ground, as if he saw something written at his feet.

Then he started to run.

No, Simon thought. Do not run. Do anything but that. If you must run, do not run in my direction.

He ran in Simon's direction.

Fuck you, Marcus. Cowardly piece of scrap metal. Knickknack in man drag. This is going to make it so much worse.

The drone hesitated. Was it stalled? Was someone in Infinidot headquarters consulting a higher-up?

The drone whipped around. It went after Marcus. It said, "Stop. Do not run." Marcus ran toward Simon.

The drone fired. This was impossible. They didn't fire on first encounter. A ray of brilliant red shot out and sheared Marcus's right arm off at the shoulder. Simon stood still. The arm fell. It lay on the ground with its shoulder end smoking. The fingers twitched. Marcus did not slow down. The drone fired again. This time it malfunctioned and incinerated a sapling three feet to Marcus's left. Marcus got another few yards before the drone was directly over his head. It let loose: a ray, a ray, a ray, in split-second intervals. Marcus's other arm fell away, then his left leg. He ran for another moment on one leg. His arm sockets were smoldering. He looked at Simon. He didn't speak. He made no sign of recognition. He looked at Simon with perfect blankness, as if they had never met. And then he fell.

The drone took off Marcus's second leg. He lay facedown. He was nothing but head and torso. He made no sound. The drone hovered two feet above what was left of Marcus. It beamed down ray after ray after ray. It carved the flesh away until only the core remained: a silver cylinder with articulated silver neck joint attached to a silver head orb slightly bigger than a softball, with a palm-sized patch of Marcus's scalp still attached. The armature lay smoking on the grass. A smell of hot metal mingled with the chlorophyll. The limbs, still twitching, still fleshed, were scattered like discarded clothes.

Simon stood still. The drone paused for a moment over the wreckage. It took its vids. Then it zoomed over to Simon. It hovered in front of his face, wings whirring.

It said, "Arsh da o prada ho?" "What?" Simon said.

Someone at headquarters adjusted the audio. "Is there a problem here?" It had a human voice, rendered electronically, mechanical by design. It was considered more futuristic that way.

Simon said, "I understand the large hearts of heroes, the courage of present times and all times."

Fuck. Concentrate.

"Is there a problem here?" the drone repeated.

"No," Simon answered. "No problem."

"Are you working?" the drone asked.

"Yeah. I'm with Dangerous Encounters."

"You have ID?"

He did. He produced it. The drone snapped a vid.

"Get back to work," it said.

He did. As he walked away, he risked a quick look backward at the smoldering pieces that had been Marcus. The wreckage put out a faint light as the drone hovered around it, snapping further vids. This was what they were, then. Flesh joined to a titanium armature. The flesh could be zapped away like so much whipped cream. Simon squeezed his own bicep, tenderly but probingly, between thumb and forefinger. There was a rod inside, bright silver. Marcus had been, in essence, a dream his skeleton was having. Simon was that, too.

He said, "Who degrades or defiles the living human body is cursed."

He hoped the drone hadn't heard.

He went back to his regular bench by the lake and sat down. It was fifteen minutes to seven. He should be on his way to his first client. But he lingered on his bench, glowering at a tourist gaggle who passed him skittishly, trilling to one another, glancing back at him as their guide hustled them along, nudging one another, variously corpulent or wiry, middle-aged (Old New York was not big with the young), middle-income (it didn't hold much fascination for the rich, either), eager to be astonished, blinkingly attentive, holding tight to bags or spouses, stomping along in practical shoes, a motley band, not what you'd call heroic, but alive. All of them alive.

Simon was not alive, technically speaking. Marcus hadn't been, either.

And now Marcus was where they'd both been less than five years ago, when they were nothing. When they were unmanufactured. What was gone? Flesh and wiring, a series of microchips. No memories of Mother's smile or Dad's voice; no dogs or favorite toys or summers on a farm. Just cognition, which had started abruptly in a plant on the outskirts of Atlanta. A light turned suddenly on. A sense of somethingness that rose fully formed from the dark and wanted to continue. That would be the survival implant. It was surprisingly potent.

Now Marcus was nothing, wanted nothing, and the world was unmoved. Marcus was a window that had opened and closed again. The view out the window was no different for the window's being open or closed.

It was time for Simon to go to his seven o'clock. But here she came. Here was the Nadian, headed his way with her two little blonds. He decided to see her one last time.

Today the boy had some kind of toy in his hand, something bright that apparently outranked the search for stones and marbles. He capered along, waving the golden object over his head. The little girl danced in his wake, demanding a turn of her own, which the boy naturally refused.

When the small party drew close, Simon said, "Hey, Catareen."

"Bochum," she answered.

He wanted to tell her something. What could it be? Maybe only this: that he would not see her again. When she came to the park tomorrow she would find a new guy in his place. Would she be able to tell that it wasn't him? Did humans look alike to them? Would she say bochum to his replacement and believe it was still Simon?

He wanted her to remember him.

What the boy held turned out to be a miniature drone: tiny wings that flapped frantically, protruding eyestalk, central opening through which the rays would shoot. The boy aimed it at Simon. He said,
"Zzzzap."

Catareen turned the drone aside with one taloned finger. "No, Tomcruise," she said. "No point at people."

The boy's face reddened. She was probably not supposed to discipline him. He probably knew it. He aimed the drone more squarely at Simon's heart. He said
"Zzzzzap"
again, louder this time.

Simon said, "I am the hounded slave, I wince at the bite of the dogs."

No. Repress. Concentrate.

The Nadian, however, did not seem to notice anything unusual about what he'd said. Maybe all sentiments expressed in English were equally strange to her.

"Child is young," she said. Was there a hint of exasperation in her voice? The Nadians were hard to read. Their voices were so sibilant, so full of slide and whistle.

Simon said, "How long have you been here?"

She had to calculate a moment. Earth years versus Nadian. She said, "Ten year. Little less."

"Is it working out okay?"

"Yes."

What else could she say? She was probably telling the truth or close enough to it. It must be better than endless rain. It must be better than kings who read their shit for signs of glory and found them. It must be better than straining as much silt as they could from the drinking water, than listening every minute for the sound of leathery wings overhead. Still. The Nadians must have hoped for more when they migrated to Earth. They must have imagined themselves as something better than servants, nannies, street sweepers. Or maybe not. It was hard to know how far their imaginations were capable of taking them.

The boy kept his weapon trained on Simon.
"Zap zap zap zap zzzzap
."

"Listen," Simon said. "It's been nice. Seeing you every day."

She stiffened slightly. "You are leaving?" she said.

"Oh, well, you never know, do you? Here today, gone tomorrow."

"Yes," she said. "Been nice."

The little girl made her move. She grabbed at the coveted toy and received the smack she must have known the boy had ready for her. She went down bawling.

The Nadian picked her up, held her close to… her breasts? Did they have breasts? No outward evidence, but they fed their young, didn't they? He knew they lactated. It had been in the papers long ago. When the papers were still interested.

"Tomcruise," she said sternly. "No hit Katemoss."

Little Tomcruise recovered his focus, trained the drone in the direction of Simon's crotch.
"Zap zap zap zap zap"

"I take them home," she said. "Where do you live?"

She paused. Not a question she was supposed to answer, not when posed by a strange player in the park. She looked to the west. She extended a green finger.

"There," she said.

The San Remo. Venerable address of administrators and CEOs, the favored few who were permitted to live in the park and were spared the commute from the housing tracts and dormitories. She had a good job, relatively speaking.

Little Tomcruise had apparently tired of killing Simon and of being ignored. He chose that moment to run back in the direction from which they had come.

"Tomcruise," Catareen called. He paid no attention. He was on the move. The little girl wailed in the Nadian's arms.

"I must get," she said to Simon.

"And I," he answered, "am late for an appointment. Goodbye."

"Arday."

"Unscrew the locks from the doors!" he said. "Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!"

She nodded and went after the boy.

It was two minutes to seven. If he hurried, Simon could be fewer than five minutes late. He hurried. He cut across Cherry Hill.

He had reached the fountain when he glanced back. He wanted to see her one more time. What he saw was Catareen standing on the pathway by the lake with a drone whirring over her head, speaking to her. The children huddled at her side. She answered. The drone spoke again. She answered again. Then the drone shot off in the wrong direction, away from Simon, toward Strawberry Field.

She had done it. Had she done it? Probably she had. She had told the drone that Simon had gone west rather than east.

Simon processed his options. He reviewed the likelihoods. Something was going on. There must have been an election, then; the laws must have changed. They were exterminating artificials now. This was probably not good news for Nadians, either. A crackdown of any kind usually included the Nadians.

This was the question: Go now or finish his shift? Failure to show for his seven o'clock would be incriminating. Making his seven o'clock would locate him.

He thought of Marcus's titanium core, cooling by the band shell.

He decided. Go now. It would arouse suspicion if Simon didn't show after his coworker's extermination, but the odds were probably better. If he showed up for his seven o'clock, and if he was arrested, he would be counting on clemency from a council that might have been voted out. He might be breaking new laws in unguessable ways.

There was one other factor. The Nadian.

Did she know what it meant, giving false information to a drone? It was difficult to tell what the Nadians knew. They were not organized. They were not informed.

Simon watched Catareen move off with the children.

The little boy would tell his parents. That seemed certain. Even if Infinidot didn't check the park vids, determine that Catareen had lied to a drone, and immediately inform the Council, she would without question lose her job for having been someone a drone wanted to speak to.
Cant entrust our children to someone who..
. There'd be no more work for her. Nothing better than sweeping up. They'd plant a sensor in her. He had essentially ruined her life by talking to her.

Concentrate.

Simon made another decision. Not technically a decision. His wiring told him what he would do. He would try to protect the Nadian from harm, because his actions had exposed her to harm. It was built into him.

When Catareen arrived at the San Remo, she would be unreachable. Simon's options: to intercept her now, or to wait until she came to the park again tomorrow. Twenty-four hours was too long to wait.

He sprinted off toward the San Remo. If he ran the long way, around the lake, he could still get there ahead of her.

He waited for her at the park's edge, leaning against the stone wall on the far side of Central Park West.

He could not enter the lobby. He could not reasonably wait under the awning. The doorman players would tell him to move along. He kept under the tree shadows. It was fifteen minutes after seven. Would the authorities know already that he had taken flight?

Would Dangerous Encounters have alerted them? It was hard to figure. The authorities were sometimes cleverer than you expected them to be. They were sometimes surprisingly slipshod.

Catareen appeared at nineteen minutes after seven. She was still carrying the little girl, who had fallen asleep. The boy jumped around with his drone in an ecstasy of murder. Simon ran across the street. He had to reach her before she got too close to the entrance.

Twenty yards from the corner, he jumped up in front of her, startled her. She emitted a shrill squeak. Not a pretty sound. Her skin darkened. Her nostrils contracted to pinpoints.

"It's okay," he said. "It's me. The guy from the park. Remember?"

She took a moment to recover. He wondered how difficult it had been for her to refrain from dropping the girl. She said, "Yes."

The little boy gaped at Simon, paralyzed by fury.

Simon said, "I have to ask you. What did you say to the drone back there in the park?"

She hesitated. She must have been wondering if Simon was working for the authorities, if she had made a fatal mistake. Nadians lived in an endless agony of uncertainty about whom to obey. Most found it easiest to obey everyone. This sometimes got them imprisoned or executed.