Active Memory

by Dan Wells

  “He’s got a point,” said Sahara. “It’s not like these blowholes deserve any better.”

  “We are not executioners,” said Marisa. “We’re not the law.”

  “Nobody is, these days,” said Chuy. He walked wearily back toward the service room, pulling a small handphone from his pocket. “If your conscience really doesn’t want you to let these monsters die, console yourself with the knowledge that there’s nothing you can really do to stop me.” He sent a message and put the phone away. “La Sesenta’s on their way to interrogate these guys. You don’t want to be here until after I’ve had a chance to explain everything.”

  Marisa stared at him, not even knowing why she was fighting so hard for the lives of people so vile.

  Because it was the right thing to do.

  She blinked, sending a message of her own, and then looked Chuy square in the eyes. “Now Hendel’s on her way, too. I guess we all just do what we have to.”

  “Damn it, Mari!” Chuy turned and ran into the service room, clattering things around as he struggled to salvage what he could of the situation.

  “Come on, Marisa,” said Bao. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “We have the bioprinter’s name and address,” said Sahara. “The situation here is only going to get worse, so let’s get out of it while we still can. It’s barely midnight—we can visit this bioprinter and still get home before anyone misses us.”

  Marisa didn’t move.

  “Come on,” said Sahara. “All we need is his contact—where did he get Zenaida’s DNA? He’s the last link in the puzzle.” Sahara took a step toward her and put a hand on Marisa’s metal arm. “We’ll find out what happened in that accident. We’ll find out the truth.”

  Marisa felt sick and tired and drained of life and energy, but eventually she nodded. “Let’s go.”

  Marisa closed her eyes as the autocab rolled them silently through the city. Sahara sat beside her, holding her hand, and across from them, on the opposite bench, Anja and Bao speculated about Ramira Bennett.

  “Obviously she has some kind of genhancements,” said Anja. “Those eyes weren’t cybernetic.”

  “I didn’t realize they did genhancements like that,” said Bao. “Heightened metabolism, boosted muscle mass—any pro football player has that kind of stuff. But . . . freaky alien eyes?”

  “Not alien,” said Anja. “Mantis shrimp.”

  “What?” asked Sahara.

  “I ran an image search,” said Anja, “using Marisa’s description: compound eyes with a stripe and three irises. I figured maybe I could find some bootleg photo of her, or some sign of where she’s been or what she’s done, but instead it gave me picture after picture of something called a mantis shrimp. Marisa—is this what you saw?”

  Marisa opened her eyes to see that Anja had synced her djinni to the windows of the cab, and was displaying a series of images of what looked like a psychedelic lobster. The body was mostly green, and the legs were mostly red, but mixed in and around those was every other color in the rainbow; blues and yellows and purples and more. The eyes were up on stalks, like pale lavender mushrooms. “Show me the eyes in close-up,” she asked, and Anja blinked. A new set of images replaced the others, and Marisa gasped when she saw them. “That’s it. Those are her eyes.”

  Sahara grimaced in disgust. “She’s a mantis shrimp?”

  “At least her eyes are,” said Bao. “Most of her’s human—she probably started as all human, unless ZooMorrow’s started building people from scratch now—but they’ve gone in and messed with her DNA, mixing in mantis shrimp and who knows what else.” He looked at Anja. “I assume mantis shrimp have some crazy amazing eyes?”

  Anja’s own eyes were unfocused, reading something on her djinni. “According to this article, yes. A human eye has three cones—blue, red, and green—that let it distinguish about a million different colors. A mantis shrimp eye has sixteen cones, and scientists think they can see colors we can’t even comprehend. They can see in infrared and ultraviolet, and those three irises give them a better sense of 3D and depth perception than any other animal on earth, including humans.”

  “What’s with the stripe?” asked Marisa.

  “That’s part of the UV thing,” said Anja, still reading the article, “and also polarized light, whatever that is. There’s some speculation that they can see electrical signals.”

  “She saw Memo’s djinni from across the room, in the dark, behind some rubble,” said Marisa. “I guess if she can see electricity, that’s pretty awesome.”

  “What on earth do mantis shrimp need all this crap for?” asked Sahara. “Do they get attacked by . . . invisible alien bounty hunters? What possible evolutionary pressure created something so advanced?”

  “The article doesn’t say,” said Anja. Her eyes refocused on the real world. “Kind of a nice thing to have around, though, when you’re a gengineering company looking for some naturally occurring superpowers to give your secret agents.”

  “Is that why her skin was green?” asked Marisa. “Is she, like, half mantis shrimp?”

  “Maybe,” said Bao. “Or maybe the skin is something else. She goes barefoot, and she doesn’t wear gloves, which are both pretty weird things for a secret infiltrator to do. That implies that her skin has some other dope superpower that’s more valuable than wearing armor or avoiding fingerprints.”

  “You said she crawled down a sheer wall, right?” asked Sahara. “I’ll bet she has gecko toes.”

  Anja blinked, and a moment later the window displayed several images of little green lizards, along with some close-ups of some five-toed lizard feet. The toes were covered in narrow flaps running from one edge to the other, like little bands of skin.

  “I studied these in school,” said Sahara. “Each of those little bands is covered with hairs, and each of those hairs is covered with smaller hairs, and down and down until the tiniest hairs are measured in nanometers. They’re not sticky to the touch, but they can walk on any surface.” She looked at Marisa. “If I was giving my supermodel assassin crazy animal powers, I’d definitely give her some gecko toes.”

  “That explains how she got up there,” said Bao. “We were watching the stairs, but she just wall-crawled right past us like Spider-Woman.”

  “I would read the hell out of a comic book called Mantis-Shrimp-Woman,” said Anja.

  “They work using something called the Van der Waals forces,” said Sahara. “Very tiny electrical attractions between molecules. It’s a super weak force, but when you get five zillion little hairs and microhairs and nanohairs all exerting that force at the same time, it works. Geckos can walk on anything.”

  “If she has a bunch of genhancements,” said Marisa, “maybe that explains the acid blood we found at Omar’s house?”

  “More likely some kind of biotoxin,” said Sahara. “Maybe she’s got poison sacs, like a toad? Hidden under her hair, or inside her mouth?”

  “Note to self,” said Bao. “Never kiss a green woman with mantis-shrimp eyes.”

  “Is that the kind of thing that really requires a note?” asked Marisa.

  “I’m just saying that if things were different, and we ran into each other in a club—”

  “I would definitely hit that,” said Anja. “Also, the cab says we’re here. Autobots roll out.”

  The cab came to a stop outside of a small apartment building—not as small as the one where they’d gone looking for Chuy, but just as dingy. The door opened, and Marisa stepped out. A group of guys leaning against the wall whistled softly as the other girls joined her on the sidewalk, and Marisa heard at least one whispered “Ay, morenita,” but she ignored them and looked at the apartments. The building was three stories tall, built like a U, and looked to have at least six units on each floor.

  “Andy Song,” Sahara whispered. “Number 216.” They hiked up the stairs, found the door, and checked their stun guns one last time. “Let’s do this,” said Sahara, and knocked on the door.

 
Something crashed on the other side; whoever was in there had heard them, and was either running or trying to hide something. A few moments later he opened the door, though it stopped after only two inches, caught by a metal chain.

  “Who are you?” asked a strained voice. “Are you cops?”

  “Do we look like cops?” asked Sahara.

  “No,” said the man. “You’re not like a hookergram or anything, right? Chinese dude’s not your pimp?”

  Bao rolled his eyes.

  “Do we look like hookers?” asked Marisa, starting to get offended.

  “Not really,” said the man. “I don’t know, do a dance or something, let me get a better look.”

  “We’re looking for a man named Andy Song,” said Sahara.

  Marisa heard something in the background, and leaned closer to the open door. It sounded like a 3D printer. She wasn’t certain what a bioprinter sounded like, but she imagined it was similar. If he was printing organs right at the moment, it was no wonder he didn’t want to let anybody in. But then why open the door at all?

  She was starting to grossly doubt the competence of Andy Song.

  “I might know him,” said the man behind the door. “Who’s asking?”

  “Customers,” said Anja. “We’re in the market.”

  “I don’t sell Krok anymore.”

  “Not drugs,” said Sahara. “The . . . other stuff.”

  The man sounded wary. “What other stuff?”

  “The stuff you’re printing right now,” said Marisa. “We can hear it from out here.”

  “Balls,” said the man, cursing and slamming the door. Marisa thought they’d scared him away, but a second later she heard the chain scrape through its housing, and he opened the door wide. “Get in here before the whole neighborhood hears it.”

  They filed in quickly, and Andy Song shut the door behind them. He looked about thirty years old, Asian, wearing shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt. The apartment was a cluttered mess, and Marisa wrinkled her nose at the smell of BO and old food. The bioprinter took up a surprisingly large space in the small living room, about the size of a two-seat futon. It was humming with activity, but with the bay door closed Marisa couldn’t see what it was making.

  “I wish I’d never bought this stupid bioprinter,” said Song. “Nothing but trouble.” He pointed at them. “Nothing!”

  “We not looking to buy,” said Sahara, “we just want information.”

  Song frowned. “You said you were customers!”

  “Then sell us the information,” said Anja.

  “You printed two left hands—” said Marisa.

  “Two?” asked Song, interrupting her before she could finish. He narrowed his eyes at her, then folded his arms smugly. “Yes, well. You found both of them, did you? Some of my best work.” He eyed Marisa’s cybernetic arm. “You’re in the market for hands?”

  “Those hands were found at a crime scene,” said Marisa. “Which means their DNA was tested, which means the cops started asking questions about a . . .” She hesitated over the word. “A friend of ours. And don’t worry, we’re not with the cops; we just want to know where you got that DNA.”

  Song looked at her, nodding absently, then suddenly started shaking his head with dramatic emphasis. “Absolutely not. No. Not a chance in hell. You think I’m going to give her up? She’ll kill me in a heartbeat.”

  Marisa closed her eyes. “Oh, for crying out loud.”

  “Wait,” said Sahara, “it was her again? Crazy supermodel assassin?”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” said Bao. “Why would she be trying to get all the DNA back again if she was the one who sold it in the first place?”

  “There’s no way she was selling it to someone like this,” said Anja, and glanced at Song. “No offense.”

  Song glared back at her. “You can’t just say ‘no offense’ after saying something offensive. They don’t cancel out.”

  “So she was probably trying to make some money on the side,” Anja continued. “Then the two gangs started fighting over turf, and the hand ended up in a police DNA lab, and word got back to Wonder Mantis Headquarters that the game was up. Now she’s running around trying to destroy all the evidence before ZooMorrow hears about it.”

  “Maybe,” said Marisa. “But how does that explain Memo? Why is she looking for him?”

  “And why would she break into Omar’s private database if she wasn’t looking for Zenaida?” asked Sahara. “If all she needs is Zenaida’s two recently printed hands, the Maldonado database is useless.”

  “Don’t worry about them,” said Bao, smiling cheerfully at Song. “They talk like this in front of everybody.”

  “Hold up,” said Marisa, and pointed at Song. “How many other organs have you printed with that DNA?”

  “Just a . . . few?”

  “That doesn’t sound very believable,” said Anja.

  “What about other DNA?” asked Sahara. “How long have you been bioprinting?”

  “I just barely started,” he said. “I didn’t even have the printer until my uncle sold it to me used, and that was just a few weeks ago! So I went on the darknet, to some gene-tech forum full of underworld badass lunatics, and found a hacker willing to sell some cheap DNA templates. Good genhancement stuff, so I could get a good price on the street—the protein for the printer isn’t cheap. So I went all in. And then those frigging hands—”

  The bioprinter dinged, almost disturbingly like a microwave, and the bay door opened. A little tray slid out, tipped, and dumped a left hand into a little plastic basket. The tray retracted, the door closed, and the printer started humming again.

  “A curse on all your microchips!” Song shouted at the machine.

  “What on earth . . . ?” asked Marisa, staring openmouthed at the new hand. She tried to speak again, but her jaw simply moved noiselessly. Finally she looked at Song. “You made another one?”

  “That’s all it makes!” Song shouted.

  “You said you made two hands,” said Anja. “How many is it really?”

  “My uncle cheated me,” said Song. “He said this thing worked fine—a little used, but still fine! And so I hook it up and dump in the protein mix and what does it do? Five or six kidneys and a couple of livers and then it gets stuck on the left hand! All it makes is left hands!”

  “How many?” Sahara demanded.

  Song looked nervous. “Four?”

  “Why don’t I believe you?” asked Bao.

  “Why don’t you turn it off?” asked Marisa.

  “And waste all that protein mix?” he asked. “If I shut off the power, I lose the refrigeration unit, and my entire investment rots away. Better to keep it going and try to find a market for all this fèiwù.”

  Sahara shook her head in disbelief. “So you tried to make money selling organs to hospitals and whatever, but then all it makes is hands and you thought maybe at least a chop shop would buy them.”

  Song backed up, suddenly wary. “Are you from Discount Arms? Because I kept my promise—I’m not selling them anywhere else, I’m not helping any of their competitors, and there’s literally no reason to kill me or anything to be gained from doing so. Look at me!” He grabbed his hefty stomach. “Nobody wants my organs, they barely work—”

  “We’re not from the chop shop,” said Sahara. “Though my urge to hurt you is definitely rising.”

  “What are you going to do with it?” asked Marisa. She nodded toward the hand.

  “I’ll keep it on ice,” said Song. “I’ve found another buyer, and it’ll go to a good home—”

  “You just said you weren’t selling them to anyone,” said Bao.

  Song threw his hands in the air. “I thought you were here to kill me, what was I supposed to say! Listen: just give me the hand, and I’ll take care of everything.”

  “Yeah,” said Anja, “I definitely trust this guy to take care of everything.”

  “Let’s at least put it in the fridge,” said Marisa. “That’l
l keep—”

  “No!” screamed Song, and then he smiled sheepishly. “My fridge is a mess. I didn’t know I’d be having company.” He reached for the hand. “Seriously, just give it to me and be on your way—it’s a little old lady! The hand is going to a little old . . .” He looked at Marisa. “. . . Mexican lady, with . . . three orphaned grandchildren, and she’s their only source of support because their parents died in a . . . a . . .”

  “Just shut up,” said Sahara. “You’re the worst liar I’ve ever met.”

  “Oh, come on,” said Anja, “I wanted to see where that story was going.”

  “A granary fire!” said Song. “They died in a granary fire.”

  Anja frowned. “That was the best you could come up with?”

  “I was hoping for a circus accident,” said Bao.

  “I’m putting it in the fridge,” said Marisa, and walked past him to the apartment’s tiny kitchen. Food covered the counters, and she wrinkled her nose again at the smell. Take-out boxes and dry-skinned oranges and a jug of half-drunk milk—

  “Wait,” said Marisa. She froze in her tracks and stared around at the kitchen. “Literally everything that should be in the fridge isn’t.” She turned her head slowly toward the refrigerator, feeling her heart sink and her nausea rise. “And it’s been way too long for you to only have five hands.” She swallowed. “Andy?”

  “Yeah?” He sounded defeated.

  “How many hands am I going to find when I open this fridge?”

  “Probably more than you want to.”

  “This I have to see,” said Anja, and walked into the kitchen. Bao and Sahara followed. They glanced at Marisa, and Marisa cringed as she opened the fridge.

  “God in Heaven,” said Sahara.

  The refrigerator was crammed full of hands—front to back, top to bottom, every spare inch of every shelf and drawer was brimming over with Zenaida de Maldonado’s left hand. The fingers curled like limp worms, or draped over each other in sickening intimacy, or twisted into horrible shapes where Andy Song had wedged them into nooks and corners to make room for more. It smelled like rotting meat. Anja opened the freezer, only to reveal a white, frost-covered version of the same horrific scene. She closed the freezer door without a word, and then took the fridge door from Marisa’s limp grasp and closed that as well.