Counting Heads

by David Marusek

  “I know it,” Bogdan replied.

  “It made me real nervous. I wish he didn’t do it.”

  “Me too.”

  Samson’s old jumpsuit lay in tatters on the ground. Bogdan leaned over and snagged it, looked under the lapels, but the blue mech was gone.

  “Kitty, did you find any mechs on Sam’s clothes?”

  “No,” she said and gestured up at the homcom bee hovering overhead. “Only that one.”

  Bogdan looked around for the blue mech, but with all the leafy vegetables and rows of hydroponics, it could be hiding anywhere. He picked up Samson’s belt and said, “Hubert?”

  “I am not Hubert,” the belt said. “I am a Hubert terminus with nominal personality and cognition. I lost contact with Hubert prime at 02:21 today.”

  “Well, good for you,” Bogdan said and dropped the belt. To Denny he said, “Did you see the fight Kale put up over Hubert? I didn’t even think he liked the pastehead.” As he spoke, Kitty gave him a calculating look. “What?” he said, but she turned back to Samson to wipe dribble from the corner of his mouth.

  “What about Kale and Hubert?” Bogdan insisted.

  “Is that Boggy?” Samson said. “Come here, Boggy; I have something to tell you.”

  Megan and Kitty finished and gathered up the tray and bath supplies, and Bogdan sat on the cot next to Samson and took his hand.

  “I learned something today, boy.”

  “I imagine you did.”

  “I learned that killing yourself is hard to do when all you really want to do is live.”

  “I could have told you that.”

  “Really?” Samson said and tried to focus on the boy. “I don’t think so, Boggy. You haven’t even figured out how to pass through puberty yet. What do you know of dying?”

  3.2

  Fred hadn’t seemed as positive about Mary’s duty call out as she expected him to be. When the canopy show was finished and the last of the glowing ashes had fallen, Mary rode the tower lifts and pedways home to get ready for work. She ordered up a smart teal and brown ensemble (not a uniform—evangelines didn’t wear uniforms), researched train schedules, and pulled as much information about the Roosevelt Clinic as she could find on the WAD. Which wasn’t much. It was an exclusive aff facility that shunned publicity.

  Fred dragged himself home around 2:00 AM, looking even more beat-up than before. He wanted to celebrate her job, but she sent him straight to the shower and bed. She lay with him until he fell asleep, which didn’t take long. When she got out of bed, he stirred and said, “Be careful.”

  “What did you say, Fred?” But he must have spoken in his sleep, because he didn’t answer.

  BEFORE LEAVING THE apartment at 5:00 AM, Mary inspected her 360 reflection in the mirror. The simple business outfit she had selected looked both professional and flattering. Her face wore a bright, sensitive, and friendly expression. Her large brown eyes were warm but discerning. In short, she looked the part of a successful evangeline.

  In the lower corner of the mirror, a mail glyph began to pulse—there was an urgent message on the DCO board. Her heart sank. She’d known it was too good to be true—her companion assignment had been canceled at the last minute. She was sure of it.

  Drenched in self-pity, Mary tiptoed through the bedroom, past Fred’s sleeping form, to the living room and flatscreen. The screen was set to the default window high in the tower. She switched it to her DCO board and held her breath. Her eyes darted across the message scanning for the keywords: “canceled” or “regret” or “error,” and finding none of these, she relaxed enough to actually read it.

  No, thank heaven, her duty had not been canceled. Instead, she was instructed to attend a brief orientation meeting before proceeding to the clinic. This she was happy to do, and she swiped the directions and left the apartment.

  The corridors and lifts of APRT 7 were congested with tens of thousands of Applied People iterants on their way to morning shifts: helenas, steves, isabellas, jennys—plenty of jennys—in a sea of brown and teal. This was the time of day that Mary had always dreaded the most. She couldn’t bear the sight of gainfully employed mobs. But today was different, and her excitement must have shown, for people—strangers—smiled at her. “G’morning, Myr ’Leen,” they said. “Off to work?”

  “Hi ho!” she replied.

  Down in the Slipstream station, the crowds were swelling by the moment, and the boarding queue had an estimated thirty-minute wait. This was manageable—Mary had allowed for such delays. But when she swiped the conductor post with her destination from the DCO board, to her surprise it directed her to a distant platform reserved for private cars. Feeling deliciously conspicuous, Mary left the queue and took a pedway to the platform where she found a grand car already waiting for her. No mere bead car, it was large and swank, with plush seating, full media access, a snack bar, and its own serving arbeitor. She took a seat and buckled her harness, and the car rolled noiselessly down the injection ramp.

  A half hour later, the car swooshed through a flow gate and decelerated, bouncing on its wheels and rolling into a small deserted station. Through the car windows Mary glimpsed polished marbelite floors and curved walls made from tall blond limestone blocks. Her car came to a smooth stop, and the doors slid open. There didn’t seem to be anyone waiting for her. The station lacked signs and kiosks, and she had no idea where she was. Mary recalled Fred’s sleep-talk warning, and she was a little afraid to leave the car. But she forced herself, and when she stepped on the platform, another car was arriving.

  This one, identical to her own, came to a silent halt several meters away. When the doors opened, another evangeline stepped out and looked around the quiet station.

  Mary and the other evangeline walked across the shiny marbelite floor to greet each other. “Mary Skarland,” Mary said, offering her hand.

  “A pleasure,” said her sister. “Renata Carter.” Renata seemed rather big-boned for an evangeline and thick-waisted, but within germline norms. She squeezed Mary’s hand nervously and said, “Are we supposed to go somewhere? Or wait here?”

  “Not a clue.” Mary laughed. Already she felt a kindred spirit in her sister. “I just arrived myself.”

  As if on cue, an elevator door across the platform opened, and a household arbeitor rolled out. It approached and parked before them and opened a little scape above its head. A miniature man appeared in the scape, naked but for an animal-skin loincloth. His head was smallish for his body and had heavy brow ridges and a thick jaw. “Good morning,” he said, bowing to each of them, “and welcome to Starke Manse.”

  Starke! The famous name had been in the news continuously since yesterday.

  “I see from your reaction that both of you are aware of my family’s tragedy,” the little man said. “That will save time. Eleanor Starke is deceased, as the media reports, but her daughter, Ellen Starke, has survived the crash. She is your new client. I am Wee Hunk, Ellen’s mentar and your supervisor.”

  The little muscleman proceeded to describe the scope of their assignment. He had engaged eight evangelines, he said, to cover around-the-clock shifts. Since the shifts overlapped at both ends, there would be four of them on duty for two of each eight hours.

  “Please take these and put them on,” the mentar said, and the arbeitor below him held out two little round caps in its gripper arm. They were odd little hats, flattish, beige, and unadorned. When the ’leens put them on, the caps sat on their heads like teacup saucers. One look at Renata in her cap and Mary saw just how ridiculous she, herself, must look. Renata tipped her cap to sit at a jaunty angle, and Mary approved and tipped hers too.

  “Splendid,” Wee Hunk said. “My first attempt at haute couture is a success. Now, my most important instructions to you are these. First, you are to put these hats on before you enter the clinic grounds and are not to remove them for any reason until you leave. Is that understood?”

  Both women nodded.

  “Second and just as critic
al, you are never to leave Ellen alone, not even for a second. That’s why I’ve arranged for teams of two. You are to time your breaks accordingly so that at least one of you is in the same room as Ellen at all times. She is being housed in a cottage surrounded by a flower garden. You may consider the cottage and garden to be one room. That means that at least one of you is to remain in the cottage or garden at all times. No exceptions, no excuses. Is that clear?”

  “What if Myr Starke leaves the cottage area?” Renata asked.

  “She won’t.”

  “What if Myr Starke asks us to leave?” Mary said.

  “She won’t.”

  The evangelines glanced at each other, and Wee Hunk continued. “Be aware that I’ll be watching you continuously and that I will debrief you at the end of the day. Now, time is fleeing, so please board the lead car, and it will take you to Decatur East where a limo will be waiting. That is all.” With that, the scape closed, and the arbeitor rolled away.

  THE LIMOUSINE LANDED in an outer parking lot and rolled along a brick drive to a gatehouse set into the fortresslike walls of Roosevelt Clinic. The evangelines decarred and approached a sentry window set into a large pressure gate. A jerry guard asked them their business, and they swiped the guard post with open palms.

  “Been expecting you,” the guard said. “Come through the gate.” A slot opened in the wide, translucent gate of shaped air. The slot was wide enough for only one person to pass at a time. Two jerry guards awaited them inside, both armed and typically officious. Their voices reverberated in the large concrete space. Incongruously, the place smelled of sautéed garlic.

  “G’wan through there,” one of the guards told them, pointing to the entrance of the pedestrian scanway.

  The evangelines passed through the long scanway tunnel in single file, pausing at the various stations to spit, peer at the target, and submit to sniffers and irradiation. It was one of the most thorough scanways Mary had ever encountered.

  They emerged in the middle block of the gatehouse, where another jerry guard awaited them. “Hang on while we look at your results,” he said. There were massive, floor-to-ceiling clinker epoxy barriers in the middle block, and any vehicle passing through would have to make a tight S-turn around them.

  “Sorry, ’leens,” the guard said, “but you’ll have to lose those.” He patted the top of his head.

  Under normal circumstances, Mary would have complied without question, but with Wee Hunk’s instructions fresh in her mind, she said, “Sorry, Myr Jerry, but we can’t do that.”

  “Don’t worry,” he replied, “you’ll get them back when you leave.” When the evangelines still refused to remove their saucer caps, he pointed to a spot on the concrete floor and said, “Wait there.”

  On the floor was painted a WAIT HERE box. They went to stand on it while the jerry ducked into a control booth. Renata said, “I wonder who trumps who, Starkes or Roosevelts.”

  A few minutes later, the jerry returned and waved them through to the inner block with no further discussion. Starkes, apparently.

  Like the outer gate, the inner gate was a wall of highly pressurized air. Beyond its shimmering expanse lay a plaza and the clinic grounds. But before they could enter the grounds, the evangelines had to wait in another WAIT HERE box with a dozen or so other Applied People contractees. And here the guard was a russ, not a jerry. He was no russ that Mary knew, but as she and Renata joined the others in the box, he flashed them a friendly smile.

  “I heard they hired a pack of ’leens today,” he said. “Congratulations, and welcome to Roosevelt Clinic.”

  Just like a russ. The evangelines thanked him.

  When a few more Applied People iterants arrived, mostly Johns and janes in custodial uniforms, the russ lowered the pressure gate. The dense air collapsed like a splash of water, and the day workers entered the clinic grounds at last. Immediately abutting the gatehouse was a cobblestone plaza, South Gate Plaza, which in turn was surrounded by a parklike wooded area divided by lanes and footpaths. A tall man in a long, white jacket was waiting for them.

  “Good morning, all,” he said cordially, “and welcome to Roosevelt Clinic, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Fagan Health Group. My name is Concierge, and I am the Fagan Health Group mentar and your supervisor. Since all of you are new assignees, I thought I’d take this opportunity to orient you to our facility as I escort you to your respective duty stations. Please divide yourselves into groups of similar job rubric: groundskeepers here, housekeepers here, and so on.”

  As the iterants sorted themselves into groups, five more Concierges, identical to the first, ambled up a path and entered the plaza. They spread out, one to each group. Mary and Renata made up a group of two. Their own copy of the mentar made a slight bow and said, “Mary Skarland and Renata Carter, it’s a pleasure to meet you. Since we have a little extra time before your shift begins, allow me to give you a brief tour of the campus. How does that sound?” The evangelines agreed eagerly, and the small party set off via a footpath.

  The clinic grounds were extensive and rich. Six hundred acres of woods, meadows and fields, brilliant ponds, and flower gardens. By and large, the buildings were only one or two stories high, constructed of brick or stone, and styled after nineteenth-century English country homes. Most were hidden behind dense foliage and gave no sign as to their function. Concierge pointed them out: Here was a noted restaurant, here the physical therapy/spa building, there the theater, here the dining commons, there the stables and boathouse. Along the way they passed clinic guests out for a stroll or sunning themselves on lush green lawns. The guests were, without exception, accompanied by jenny nurses. Concierge addressed the guests by name, wishing them a pleasant day. All but a few guests ignored the mentar, or returned his courtesy with a curt nod or disinterested grunt. As though the mentar were just another servant, which Mary supposed he was. But the mentar’s charm never wavered. Mary, who found most mentars to be too stiff or too silly, was impressed. This was no caveman in a loincloth.

  There was something odd about odors. Mary had smelled garlic in the gatehouse, wood smoke in the plaza, and just now fresh-baked bread.

  “Oh, that,” Concierge said when she asked. “After a while you won’t even notice it. That’s our scent clock. Every fifteen minutes, olfactory generators located throughout the campus pump out a designated odor. Here’s a list of them with their times. They repeat the same every day.” He swiped the evangelines the list. “After a few days, you’ll be able to tell the time in your sleep.

  “Which is the whole point,” he went on. “Most of our guests spend the bulk of their days in jacketscapes where it’s easy to lose track of clinic time. We find that our scent clock helps them anchor themselves here even when they’re projecting themselves across continents. Also, and more importantly in your own client’s case, we’ve learned that even people in deep coma can sense changes in ambient odor.” The evangelines glanced at each other—coma? “We can use this to help them experience the passage of time. Being able to sense the passage of time is very stimulating to the brain. It has proven to hasten a return to consciousness.”

  “But do the smells have to be so yummy?” Renata said and inhaled the fragrance of baking bread.

  “THIS IS MINERAL Way,” Concierge said when they turned onto a shady lane. “South Gate, where you entered the clinic, is just through those woods.” He pointed the direction. “We’ve taken a roundabout way to arrive here.” They passed little stone-paved footpaths marked with rustic signs: Jasper, Quartz, Mica, Hornblende. “These lead to guest cottages,” the mentar continued. “Ah, here’s Feldspar, the temporary residence of Myr Ellen Starke.”

  The path to Feldspar Cottage was lined on one side with rosebushes in full bloom. The concentrated perfume blended well with the scent clock’s new quarter-hour odor—freshly brewed coffee.

  The cottage had stucco walls and a quaintly pitched roof. Its door was made of plain wood, painted bright yellow. Inside was a sparsely furn
ished single room, half of it raised up a step. There was an open ceiling, crossed by a roof beam of hand-hewn wood. All of the windows were open, and a breeze ruffled lace curtains. When Mary and Renata entered the cottage, they were greeted by two evangelines already there.

  “I’ll leave you to your colleagues then,” Concierge said from the porch. “Don’t hesitate to call with questions or concerns. I’m always available.”

  When they were alone, the new arrivals and the night shift introduced themselves to each other. Mary noticed that her sisters were not burdened with funny hats. One of them, Cyndee, said, “Well, come on and meet Myr Starke.”

  Situated in the raised portion of the room was a tall columnar tank of clear glassine. It was filled with a thick amber liquid that was shot through with thousands of tiny bubbles. A chrome bar was suspended in the liquid, and from the bar hung a human skull.

  “Careful of the step,” Cyndee said as she led the others to the tank. A metal band, like a halo, held the skull in a rigid grip with long screws sunk in bone. The skull had no skin, eyelids, or lips. Its bulging eyes lay lifeless in their sockets. Three of its—her—front teeth were missing, and tubes ran through the gaps they left. Many more tubes and wires entered the woman’s skull through natural foramina and machine-drilled holes.

  Mary and Renata stood in front of the skull while Cyndee introduced them. “Myr Starke, these are Mary Skarland and Renata Carter. They’ll be relieving Ronnie and me in about an hour.”

  Cyndee looked expectantly at Mary who said, “Good morning, Myr Starke.” She paused for a response, but the skull only stared straight ahead. She glanced at Cyndee and added, “Renata and I are here to keep you company when Cyndee and Ronnie have to leave.”

  None of the evangelines seemed to know what else to say, so they pulled two more chairs next to the tank and sat down.

  “Did you get a tour?” Renata asked.