by Kris Schnee
The nurse shrugged. "Whatever gets the job done and us out of trouble."
Aldous gave a last smile to the girl and ducked out of the room, feeling proud of the medical tech but vaguely troubled. He went back to the grungier machine area to look for Firestar, and saw her long torso sitting improbably on a table. Then he reached out to tap her on the shoulder... neck... whatever, when he saw a gaping grey hole in the flesh.
"Yaaah!" he shouted.
"Eek!" said a creature inside the wound.
"Yaaah!" he replied. His tail flicked higher, and with just a moment of warning he shoved it back down before he could do anything unpleasant by instinct.
The creature blinked. She seemed to be a rat in a blue jumpsuit, brandishing a wrench. The "wound" was only some kind of mechanical access panel, lined with plastic. The rodent said in a chirpy voice, "I didn't expect the Skunkish Inquisition!"
Aldous tried to slow his heartbeat. "No one expects --"
"Yeah, hi. I'm Alice. Don't startle me like that."
"Aldous, from Technical Support. You too. What happened to Firestar?"
"She's over there." Aldous looked where Alice pointed and saw the lioness flipping through an overstuffed binder. He did a double-take and looked back at the table in front of him. On closer inspection, this one was more fox-taur than lion-taur, with an inert, glassy expression on its muzzle.
"What's this?" he said. "Is there a whole centauroid product line?"
Alice leaned on her wrench, which was as big as herself. "I'm doing a little work on our cybernetic life support system. The South Campus guys came up with the tech to make someone into a 'brain in a jar'. But they thought that the brain should either float there menacingly and emit psychic control rays, or strut around in an armored war-spider. We don't even have psychic control rays, I think. So, Marketing had us steal the idea and make the mobile brain pod cute instead. But the support hardware is still so big and heavy that we couldn't fit it into a humanoid robot body."
"Couldn't you make a plain quadruped, a big one, and fit all the batteries and other gear into that?"
"We thought about it, but hands are nice, you know? So is being able to look regular humans in the eye. So, we built cyborg bodies to hold the brains, but made them into cuddly robot centaurs. Pleasant-looking, eye-catching, and able to do most normal human social stuff."
"That almost makes sense," said Aldous. He'd clearly been here too long. "Wait. Does that mean that Firestar is a brain in a tank? She did say she was part machine."
"Yeah. Calls herself a mecha-cat." Alice hopped down to the table, a drop several times her height, and attacked a huge bag of pretzels. Aldous helped open the bag. She said, "Thanks. As much as I like the 'taur bodies, I'm trying to make the life support pod smaller. Miniaturization makes everything better."
"Have you noticed any morale problems lately?"
Alice paused in sawing a pretzel log. "Everybody's in the dumps lately. I've been feeling a little blue myself, but I'm okay. Why?"
"I got this fifty-page tract about how if you're not productive and happy, you're 'engaging in anti-conceptual mentality' or something. Is the propaganda itself depressing people?"
"Oh, that? I don't think anyone's read it. I could barely lift it."
"What's wrong, then?"
Alice said, "I don't know. At least Firestar's okay."
Aldous' tail curled as he thought. "Thanks. I might talk to you later."
He found Firestar and motioned her outside to the hallway. "You didn't tell me you were almost all machine."
"You didn't ask," she said. "I was in the hospital and in... terrible shape, let's say, and then I got recruited and invited to 'participate in a medical study for what turned out to be Genetech. Turned out pretty well, I think. Got a problem with that?"
"No, no, I like it. I'm just surprised. I don't know what to expect here. You're fine."
"Why, thank you," said Firestar, looking mollified as she gave him a complex bow. "Having few assumptions might be part of why you were hired. What's up?"
"You don't even eat normal food, do you?"
She blinked. "Huh? No, I don't have a digestive system anymore. Have you got some kind of bio-chauvinism?"
Aldous let the lab's door close and glanced down the empty glass tunnel. It was empty. He spoke quietly. "This might be nothing, but something weird is going on. You're fine. The girl in there was on an IV. Alice apparently eats from giant-sized bags of snack food. Dwalin had just gotten back from a trip when we met. The dolphins are smartass fish-eaters. The only people who've been bored and depressed are the ones who seem to have a normal diet. So... am I seeing a pattern or just leaping at coincidences?"
"What about you?" she said, tilting her head.
"I was totally out of it when Dwalin saw me -- which was right after I had the veggie lasagna at your cafeteria. And I was told that I'm extra-vulnerable to nanites due to lack of past exposure. Where is this place's food coming from?"
Firestar's ears flicked back in alarm and her tail thrashed. "The greenhouses of Genetech West!"
* 8 *
Aldous said, "Could it be that the sabotage is something healthy and nutritious?"
"You can never trust eggplant." Firestar led Aldous farther out of earshot from the lab. "We've been looking for ordinary employee gripes, expecting that there's just some ordinary argument or grievance going on. Meanwhile, Dwalin and Marie are off looking for nanotech attacks. But maybe, the real problem is the food. We've got to do something! Quick, buy us first-class tickets to Vegas."
She ran off, leaving Aldous to stand there blinking. He went back to the cyborg lab and said, "Can I borrow a computer and an expense account?"
Firestar returned wearing a backpack and saddlebags. "Got them yet?"
He held a computer tablet, but she'd only been gone for five minutes. "It'll cost a fortune, and I'm not paying out of pocket, especially since you didn't say why."
"As I suspected, I couldn't reach the others. We need to go to Genetech West in person to test your theory before this problem gets any worse."
"It's in Las Vegas?" A secret research base wouldn't be the strangest building there.
She looked exasperated. "It's near the border. We fly in, drive the rest of the way, expose the conspiracy, then play blackjack at the Luxor."
Aldous said, "Look at yourself. The company's disguise tech might be good enough to hide someone like Erin, but what about you? Can you even fit into an airplane seat?"
Firestar slumped on her four feet. "You're right. I've had this body for half a year. But I keep forgetting I still can't do everything that normal people do, not in public."
He tried to reassure her. "For now, we can do some kind of inquiry remotely, I bet, instead of trying to smuggle you onto a plane. If the research here is really as impressive as I've seen so far, you'll be able to get into a regular humanoid body sometime soon and we can hang out openly in Vegas. Together, if you like."
"But I like being a taur!" she said. "I love being able to stand up and dance and leap and haul my own weight after... what I went through."
He didn't know if it was right to ask her about her background. Maybe he should just get packed and let her work out the travel arrangements. "If you don't want to say, that's fine."
"Here." Firestar snatched up pen and paper, then handed him a scribbled note while looking away. "That's your answer; don't blab. I have a new life now. Anyway, it sounds like I can't fly out there myself. So buy just one plane ticket for yourself, and rent a car with your ID card. Get to the Genetech West facility and look around for anything suspicious about the food production there. You're a harmless, clueless newbie, so they hopefully won't do much to you. Get what evidence you can without arousing suspicion, and we'll take it to General Management. Look for a message from me at the airport; I'll do research while you travel."
Aldous was overwhelmed. "You want me to spy on Genetech West, alone?"
Firestar tugged at Aldous' shirt, adjusting it as thou
gh dressing him for work. "You did okay so far. Your cover story can be that you're there to complain about the latest batch of Vixena. Just don't ask for a demonstration."
"Okay. Okay, then. I can do this." He turned the computer back on with unsteady hands, and ordered one plane ticket for him to fly across a continent to spy on people he'd never met. The good news was that he could fly first class for free.
He felt Firestar's forepaw clutching his tail, with little claws tickling his soft fur. She said, "Remember this? You need one of these." She held out a watch, like the one Erin used as a disguise projector. Aldous looked at the watch and felt the touch on his tail, and knew he wasn't human anymore. No, he told himself. I'm just different. He donned the watch. Now, when he looked back, he saw only a faint ripple in the air behind him. He had trouble looking straight at it. He still felt it being touched; his tail was hidden, not gone.
Firestar stepped away, saying, "Good luck. Have fun storming the castle."
Aldous returned to his room to sit and think before leaving the base. He'd hardly been here a day and all this had happened. Should he use the chance to quit and run away screaming? He could go back to being safe at home, and not be surrounded by this madness.
The crumpled note was still in his pocket. He took it out, wondering what Firestar had gone through. The note simply said, "Afghanistan."
He sat there for a while, full of mixed feelings. He wondered just how strange this company was, and whether that was a bad thing.
* 9 *
At the airport, a metal detector beeped. "Remove your watch, sir."
Aldous sweated. How did Erin travel with his own disguise? What would the guards do to him? "I'd really rather not. It's valuable."
"Then you don't get on the plane, sir."
There wasn't a good way to handle this. Improvise. He removed the watch while trying not to be seen from behind.
"Huh?" said one of the guards. Aldous' tail had reappeared, waving hello.
Aldous talked quickly. "I wear the tail for religious reasons. Realistic, isn't it? Have you smelled the good news of the Church of Stripedastrian Mephitology? It's really changed my life."
The guards were looking at him with a mixture of disgust and bafflement. Aldous put his watch through the X-ray machine and strode through the metal detector again. "Can I interest you in some literature? I've got scratch-and-sniff pamphlets."
"No, that's -- never mind. Just go."
Aldous picked up his backpack and the watch, marched along to the nearest men's room, and locked himself in a stall to hyperventilate and hide his tail again.
The flight was uneventful, with room for his tail in the first-class seat. Many miles later, a car-rental clerk at the airport handed him keys and a sheaf of papers. Slot machines beeped from the baggage claim area. "Your company sent you an address to visit. Oh, and there's a message for you." Reading from a screen, the clerk said, "Bring back some gourds! This message will self-destruct."
Aldous ducked. After several seconds he peeked over the counter.
"I'm not sure why they said that, sir. Are you okay?"
"Yeah. Sorry. I've had a tough few days."
* * *
The long drive was hot and boring. Aldous found himself wishing for Firestar's company. After a while he reached an area that looked like just more desert at first -- sand, cacti and sagebrush -- but he kept looking around, knowing that the place had to be nearby. There! The Genetech West Campus stood off to the right: a complex of dusty tan greenhouses that seemed to make his eyes slide away. This place couldn't hide so well; there was too much in the open, and there had to be a road entrance somewhere. Sure enough, he found a sign for "Consolidated Engineering Enterprise Dynamics," with a green smiley-face logo that gave him the willies. The sign took him to an underground, unguarded parking lot.
It was when he tried his ID card at the door's scanner that the security started. A cheery voice asked, "Can we help you?"
"I'm here to talk to someone about the latest batch of 'Vixena'."
A young man's face appeared on a screen. "You don't look like a vixen. Are you a customer?" He seemed to be fumbling with a computer on his end. "No, wait, you're an employee. Hang on."
Aldous shrugged and entered when the door opened. The guy at the reception desk didn't look organized; there were stacks of papers and take-out containers everywhere. The clerk said, "Sorry, man. I'm new here."
"Don't worry about it. I just arrived in Bermuda myself."
The receptionist froze. "Wait. You're with the East Division?"
Aldous mentally kicked himself. "Don't we all have access to every campus?"
"I'm not really sure. I think your boss and Boss Walters have some kind of feud going on."
Aldous kept hands in his pockets, hiding a cell phone with a camera. He tried to sound casual. "Oh? Say, I've had nothing but airline food all day. Is there any place to eat here?"
"There's the Genghis Galley, over that way. Lemme give you a badge." The guy handed over a "Visitor" badge. "About the Vixena, what were the side effects this time?"
"Oh, the usual."
The receptionist snickered. "Talk to That Fox about it."
"What fox?"
"That's what he's called. I think That Fox started out as a wild animal. He likes chasing mice and designing molecules. Third basement floor."
"Thanks."
This place actually had signage! Aldous made his way to the little cantina. He saw scruffy scientists slouched over beer; a group of hovering drones seeming to drink milkshakes through straws; and a band of mutants playing a catchy tune. He made his way warily through the crowd and saw a familiar-looking cyborg lady behind the counter. Really a clone or robot, maybe? "Awaiting order," she said.
"What do you have for vegetables today?"
Her steely voice unnerved him. "No vegetables detected."
Aldous took a step back and examined the food. He'd been hoping to find clues here, but they wouldn't use poison gourds on their own employees... probably. He saw a steamer tray full of some kind of casserole and said, "What about that?"
"You are logged in as a guest," said the cyborg. "Please enter your administrator password to select this item."
Aldous was about to turn away and get a bag of potato chips for a snack, when a gaunt old man laid a skinny hand on him. "You don't want that stuff," the man said. The accent was faintly Russian, unsettling Aldous.
"The chips?"
"The casserole. I don't believe in messing with legitimate visitors."
"Hmm? Oh, this badge," said Aldous, taking the chance to remove the Visitor tag so he wouldn't be an obvious outsider. He flashed his company ID at the man, with his thumb over the raindrop-like logo of East Campus. The Western version had a sun. "I'm actually a new hire, in Technical Support. The receptionist said the guest badge would make me safer somehow."
"Don't bother with it; they just issue the badges to collect data from the radiation film and nanite sensor. I can see partway through your disguise field; you've already got a watch and some kind of big tail. Squirrel?"
Aldous relaxed a bit and removed the watch, revealing his tail. "Close. So, what's wrong with the casserole? I've already been tricked into drinking Skunk Beer; does this have the Carrots of Doom or something?"
"Doom carrots are more South Campus' style. This just has my own little project in it." The old man cleared his throat. "Behold: the Rutabagas of Ennui!"
Aldous blinked.
"They impart a certain fin de siecle, je ne sais quois feeling." He saw that Aldous had no idea what those meant, and added, "Angst. Docility. Cow-like nirvana."
Aldous tried to hide his fear. He really needed some stronger deodorant. The man in front of him was involved trying to sabotage rival divisions with mind-control salad! "That's kind of extreme, isn't it?"
"Bah! Marketing wants to call everything 'extreme' or 'radical' on the theory that you kids can't hold still long enough to pay attention to anything normal. But the
rutabagas themselves help solve that problem."
"Sorry to bother you," said Aldous."
"Don't you want to stay and eat?"
"That's all right. Thanks!" Aldous excused himself and got out of there, to a sunny hall of flowers. This facility was a lot more open, a nice place with a self-contained jungle to one side and to the other, a day care center with too many cacti.
After some exploration he found his way to a huge greenhouse. Cubicles dangled from the trees around rows of plants and racks of hydroponics vats. He strolled along, looking for evidence and trying to remember what rutabagas looked like. A bunny-girl hummed to herself while attaching electrical leads to a cabbage. Aldous said, "Excuse me. Where are the Rutabagas of Ennui?"
"Thataway," she said, giving a flick of her ears.
He found only a steel door where she pointed. Beyond it was a big indoor garden, packed with yellowish root vegetables. Aha! The humid air scorched his skin and made his tail droop. No one was tending this room except for a couple of shiny robotic ferrets. He waited until they were some distance away, then knelt and used his car keys to slice off a few leaves and other bits of veggie and put them in his pockets. Great! Now all he needed was to escape. He turned to the door, and found the old botanist staring at him. "What," said the man, "are you doing in my laboratory?"
Caught! Aldous decided to try bluster. "I'm on to you! We've already discovered your conspiracy to subvert employee morale with genetically-engineered rutabagas grown by robot ferrets!"
The botanist just stared at him like there was something unreasonable about Aldous' theory.
Aldous forced his way past the man, saying, "Don't try to deny it. I've got the authority to be here for Technical Support."
"Wait! Seriously, what conspiracy?"
Aldous stopped, uncertain. "To feed these to Genetech East."
"To them? No, no! These rutabagas are for a government contract, for school lunches. What makes you think they're being served at your facility?"
"They're even at your own cafeteria, under security."
"The casserole? That's just for unsuspecting auditors and lawyers. I don't know how any of my crop would be getting into the Genetech East food supply."