by V. B. Larson
“Could you show Dr. Gideon the orientation tape, Sarah?” asks Kieffer. I have a sudden urge to kiss the man.
The receptionist is still eyeing me, but with some resignation, like a cat swishing its tail at the foot of a tree full of inaccessible baby birds. I feel moved to make a lame reply to her earlier question.
“I’ve been ill,” I say, looking apologetic.
She simply nods, and all through the orientation, I feel her eyes boring into the back of my head. I watch inane tapes about Geiger counters and dust-proof white lab clothing. I watch people walking calmly for flashing exit signs during emergencies, and then checking in with their supervisors outside for a lackadaisical head count. No one is running, screaming on the wires, burned by radiation and blasted apart by bullets.
All through the videos I feel Sarah Rasmussen’s eyes.
Report: Sarah Rasmussen, Internal Security, TA 96:
Of all the people present that day, I feel the most responsible for letting Dr. Giddeon get through. I was the only one, to my knowledge, that suspected him in the slightest. What threw me off was his comment about being ill. So many of the great minds here seem to be encased in oddly misshapen bodies. I took Bob Kieffer’s flustered reaction to indicate that this was the case with Gideon, and that I was causing undue embarrassment. His face did indeed closely match the photos, as did his thumbprints.
Still, it was my mistake not to listen to my instincts.
Gideon’s Transcript:
The close call with the receptionist has left me shaken. I can hardly hold the red placard saying: UNCLEARED VISITOR IN AREA. Three badges now weigh down my shirt-front. One is a temporary security clearance badge, the second an ID badge, while the third, redundantly, identifies me as a security risk.
“How about a cup of coffee before we go down to the lab?”
I startle, almost dropping my red placard, but recover. Will I be able to go through with this? What if I am never alone? Can I reach inside my shirt and pull the tiny aluminum tab and kill Bob Kieffer?
Bob escorts me to the cafeteria. He, or one of the others on my short escort list, must be with me at all times. If I take a piss, they are supposed to look over my shoulder to see if I’m holding it right. We put the large ugly placard on the wall outside, where it sticks with a magnetic click. As I enter the room, the PA system announces that an Uncleared Visitor is in the cafeteria. Few of the people in the room bother to look up, but I feel like a microbe on a slide anyway. I sip my coffee and begin to realize that this whole thing is crazy, that in a matter of minutes something will go wrong. What was Sarah Rasmussen doing right now? Calling the right number at the right time?
My cancer feels bad today; it is a presence in my body. I know that if I did lead Bob Kieffer to the bathroom, there would be blood in my bowels. I can feel it.
It seems like ages have gone by. I don’t have much time left before the correct version of Dr. Gideon shows up. Finally, we get up and head down to the labs. I walk toward the first vault doors and another battery of Geiger counters in a dream-like state.
Report: Dr. Robert Kieffer, TA 96.
The first clue I picked up that something was wrong with Dr. Gideon came when we reached the first vault doors. I began to wonder if the man was drunk or something. When I spoke to him, he often didn’t hear me on the first attempt. He seemed distracted and a bit anxious. We had waved all the drug-screening, since he was only supposed to work on site for four days. I began to think this could have been a mistake.
Gideon’s Transcript:
First, I dress in white overalls, booties and a hairnet. Then they run detectors over every inch of me. I nearly have a heart attack when the detectors sing over my breast pocket. They remove two diskettes and keep searching. I pray that my belly is as inert as everyone told me it was because now they’re patting it down. Gelatinous explosive, warm from my body heat, is jiggling and pressing against my ribs.
We’re through. We walk down a long hall that seems to telescope out before us. The doors have painted arcs on the floor in front of them to show where the swing could reach. Round bubble-like mirrors like those in hospitals perch over the intersections so you can see people coming at you. I can smell a strange chemical odor now, like that of the doctor’s office back as the compound. My heart is pounding freely now, my head is floating.
We reach the second vault. Outside we drop off our keys and leave our security badges with yet another guard. He gives me yet another badge, a dosimeter badge that will change color if I get too many rads. We walk through an airlock and an alarm sounds.
“Just the airlock,” explains Kieffer to my white face. “It does that if you don’t give the doors a chance to seal before walking through.”
We give the doors what they want and proceed into a room full of glove boxes. Long rubber gloves reach into leaded glass enclosures to work with trays full of radioactive material. Next to each set of gloves is a Geiger counter, ready to detect any contamination. The chemical smell is much stronger here. It assaults me, digging its way into my nostrils.
“This way,” says Kieffer and I follow him like a zombie. “Remember, don’t eat anything. Don’t even chew gum. If there is a leak and you ingest the dust, we can’t save you. Don’t sit down, either. Don’t even lean on anything.”
I nod vaguely. “What about the biological stuff?”
Kieffer shrugs. “They share this lab, but that’s another department. They’re making three-eyed polliwogs or something.”
I crack a smile. The man has no idea. I really want to make sure he gets out alive now.
He leads me to the computer workstation, all wrapped up in its own little environment, with its own air-conditioner and power supply. He looks over my shoulder while I work the membrane keyboard. For the first time I feel a bit at ease. I can even see what they have done wrong with the system, why they are having problems. Fixing networks like this was all part of my training, to make me more authentic. It’s the only useful thing I can do.
I’m stalling. I remember a video of a kid on a big rock, looking down into a swirling green chute of water, getting up the nerve to jump. There isn’t much time left.
Stepping back, I take a look around. There it is. I can see the thing: it looks like a lighting effect device in a dance-club movie. It’s stainless steel with tubes running in and out, like Sputnik with a thyroid condition. The particles shoot down those tubes into the center, where the genes are spliced and manipulated. Next to it is the rack of vacuum bottles. Their contents are frozen with liquid nitrogen.
How do I get up there? The thing is sitting on top of the stack of glass glove boxes. To climb up there on the catwalks will take a bit of time, and it will definitely be noticed.
I reach into my shirt, through the lab whites, and finger the detonator in my artificial belly. I turn to Bob Kieffer and he looks at me quizzically. I just stare at him, and finally, realization dawns there in his face. We communicate without words for perhaps five seconds.
“Better go now, Bob,” I say gently.
He opens his mouth once, blinks rapidly, bird-like, then turns and rushes for the doors.
Report: Dr. Robert Kieffer, TA 96.
There was something very odd in his eyes. Partly an apology perhaps, partly a deep sadness and concern. I have no doubt that he believed utterly in what he was doing.
I have never met up with insanity before. I had no idea that it was such a human thing.
Gideon’s Transcript:
I climb the aluminum catwalk steps and make my way to the Sputnik thing. I get there before the guard shows up. Leaning against it, I get a last moment of peace.
I don’t know if this will work. I don’t know if the bomb wrapped around my guts will destroy all the work done in genetics by this lab. The embryos and actual lab equipment will go, of course, and the hard disks with the primary database should all be lost. I don’t know if the secondary tape back-ups will go in the fire, though. Actually, I don’t even know if th
e bomb will go off. I never was taught much about the bomb.
I wonder briefly if they will ever suspect the truth. If anyone, even if they find the transcript of my thoughts, will believe that I come from another Technical Area in the same laboratory complex. From a compound that has decided to end the cloning.
It’s not that I’m murdering these embryos, you understand. Even killing the fetus locked in the sputnik thing isn’t really murder. For, you see, they are me and I am them. They are my clones, all of them. To kill them, then-I consider it an act of suicide. We, my brethren and I, have simply decided to end the copying of our genes. We believe we have that right. I wonder if others would agree.
The only thing I don’t wonder about is whether or not I will do it. There is no question of that, it’s in my genes.
Around me the lab gurgles and hums. The Geiger counters that are everywhere in the room ping to themselves, counting the particles that shoot through my body on a regular basis, disrupting the DNA in my cells. I recall from the orientation that working in the lab gives you a dose of radiation equivalent to one thirtieth of an x-ray per day. That is, if there are no leaks.
I smile to myself. Radiation hardly matters to a mannequin. I’ve already got cancer. All the growth-accelerated clones get it.
I hear pounding feet and shouting on the other side of the airlock.
I pull the detonator tab.
Zundra’s Movies
The first hint of insanity came during the live broadcast of “Orbital Hospital” late Thursday evening. October winds rattled windows and gave muffled screams as they rounded the sharp concrete corners of the studio building. Smells of strong coffee and hot electrical equipment hung in the air.
Director Zundra Chelton activated the communications module embedded in her brain with a twist of thought. She commenced transmitting enquire codes to the movie machine’s data interface. The interface responded with an acknowledgement, and the two modules quickly synched up and handshaking was established. A flood of data roared into her mind as the CPU uploaded the program for “Orbital Hospital”, her top-rated racy soap opera.
It was all there, just as always. There was no hint yet of anything out of the ordinary. Dr. Ray Wazer, the male lead, jumped off the disk and into memory like a puppet springing out of its box. His handsome brows, beaming smile and chiseled chin were perfect down to the last digital pixel of shading data. Wanda Morrison, the slutty hospital administrator with her exquisitely tanned legs flashed into being with equal grace, rendering onto center stage of Dr. Wazer’s office for the opening scene. With the lightning speed of molecular processors linked in parallel, the rest of the sets, cast and background data sprang alive. Zundra opened her eyes and for an instant she was aware of both worlds, the sets and scenes of “Orbital Hospital” superimposed over the dim-lit studio full of hushed computer operators and gleaming status lights. A digital counter flipped to zero, she gave the network boys the thumbs up and performed the mental equivalent of a tapping motion that started the script rolling through the system RAM.
WANDA MORRISON: Dr. Wazer, I’m beginning to believe you. Nurse Tai could have a twin sister that caused all these, ah… embarrassments.
RAY WAZER: Thank you, Ms. Morrison. (Places hands to face, careful to reveal flashy watch and not to hide chin) I was beginning to think that I was the crazy one. I’m very glad someone believes in me.
WANDA MORRISON: Call me Wanda.
RAY WAZER: (Raises head, close-up shot of slightly moist eyes. Hair tousled) Certainly-Wanda.
WANDA MORRISON: (Moves closer slowly, slides buttocks onto desk, side-slit pants fall open to reveal legs. Musical score shifts to Dangerous Romance.) What I really want to know is if you’re still in love with either of them.
(Suddenly the door opens stage left, and a dark, hunched figure shambles into the office. Ray and Wanda react with comic double-takes. The figure is carrying a greasy cardboard package of some kind. It shuffles forward and slaps the thing down on Dr. Wazer’s exquisite desk. It then jerks back its filthy cowl to reveal the face of a disfigured black woman with thin wispy hair and rotted stumps for teeth. One eye droops, gazing lifelessly at the floor.)
DARK FIGURE: Pizza sir, just as you ordered! The lid flips open by itself, showing a disgusting mess of cheese and fish parts, all heads and flipping tails.
DARK FIGURE: Plenty of anchovies on this Fu-*CENSOR INTERRUPT, OUTTAKE!* (figure faces camera, close-up of rotting teeth.) Buy Zeppo’s take-out pizza, system-wide delivery within thirty minutes or it’s free!
Zundra continued the show despite the interruption. The cast moved like wooden marionettes, mouthing their lines without conviction, they missed their cues and fumbled when they kissed. Damn! Through the fugue of the link she felt her real-life nails digging into her real-life palms. Growling in the back of her throat, she managed to finish the show without further deviations from the script. Zundra’s eyes fluttered and her fingers formed harpy’s claws.
“Did we broadcast that crap?” she rattled out of her constricted throat. Her good eye focused long enough to make out Andy’s mashed nose and see him perform a slow, grim nod. Then she strained to see the ratings graphic on the far wall. A steady green line slowly rose to a peak two minutes into the broadcast then took a sudden dive into the red. Only during the last three minutes did the line get out of the red and into the green again, leaving them several million kilo-dollars under target.
“I’ve said it before, and now we have our proof. You’ve got the best ratings in the business, but you’re too old for this game, Z. People in their mid-fifties don’t work the nets these days. Our vast amorphic viewing audience, otherwise known as paying customers, fled like a school of startled fish when you ran that personal ad of yours,” said Andy. His mashed nose wrinkled and he clucked his tongue. “I don’t blame them, I would have been searching for less annoying entertainment myself if these monitors could be switched to someone else’s station.”
Zundra glared at him with one wide open eye, showing plenty of bloodshot white around it. A single droplet of sweat shone on her brown skin. Andy’s hands curled up and he pulled his arms back against his chest. Zundra grinned hugely, then stabbed the release that freed her from the interface. She rolled her mobile life-support module down the aisle between the operators, staring straight ahead.
“Network’s going to shut you down if we miss target so badly next week, Z!” shouted Andy at her retreating back. “Doesn’t matter that you’re black, or that you dock your floater in the handicapped zone! Not this time, babe!”
“Maybe it’s Alzheimer’s,” said a voice behind her in the cafeteria. Because of her life-support module she had to eat at a special table without attached benches, and tonight her back was turned to the other employees. “Rust in the brain, that’s what they say causes it, you know.”
Zundra’s tuna fish sandwich turned to pink paste in her mouth. Scattered chuckles. “Some of the best of them go out this way-even our first string directors lose it now and again.”
With a sudden whirring of servo-motors she turned to face them. Most eyes fell, but Steve, a director with wild red hair that flipped and curled in a long ponytail down his back, smirked instead.
“I hear you ran into a little trouble with your files today,” he said.
More scattered chuckles. Coffee cups became very interesting.
“Insanity,” said Zundra simply. They all stared at her, falling quiet and still. She finally dropped her odd gaze and they all shuffled in relief.
“It makes for bad video,” she told the keyboard that was permanently mounted in front of her abdomen. Steve smiled and ate another French fry bloodied with ketchup.
“Well? Are you nuts? What’d the pysch say?” asked Andy. He perched his skinny butt on the ledge of an instrument array and swung his legs like an adolescent. Zundra could smell the chocolate that was melting in his back pocket. Her eye caught his and her face drooped. She massaged her wispy black hair with claw-like hands.
“No tumors. They give it a sixty-seven percent chance of schizophrenia if the system was truly sealed and bug-free.”
“There are no bugs.”
“I know. Something like this would have shown up before.”
“And this system, my system, is sealed tight,” Andy said. Then he chuckled. “I guess you’re nuts.”
Zundra shook her head, her claw-like hands balling into fists. “There has to be a leak.”
“No, no way,” Andy said, his mashed nose wrinkling. He shook his head like a dog drying itself. “Not in my system.”
“Someone’s tapped into the link, I know it.”
“Well, you go on again in eighty minutes Z. Why don’t you meditate for a while or something? Just make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
Zundra swung one baleful eye around to cover him and he flinched and shrank like a convict in a spotlight. “ You’re going to do something about it! You’re going to set a trap for the intruder.”
“But I’m telling you that there isn’t any intruder,” insisted Andy, uncrossing his thin arms long enough to shake a bony hand at her.
“Don’t whine, just do it.”
“Eighty minutes isn’t long enough to produce a good piece code.”
“Do it.”
NURSE TAI: So, you admit to it. You did sleep with my twin sister. (Musical Score shifts to Strident Events).
RAY WAZER: What’s the point of denying it? It was a simple mistake. I thought she was you.
NURSE TAI: (Tight shot of her round lovely face, eyes shining and wet, jaw set firmly). You’re lying, doctor.
RAY WAZER: (Standing up and approaching, leans forward over the hospital bed and its comatose patient). I still want you Tai. You’re sister has your body, but not your heart.