by Mark Budz
“How does that figure into your visiting the asteroid?” Nderi asks.
“For starters, we can’t collect a tissue sample up here. The survivor you’ve got in isolation, Fola, doesn’t appear to be infected.”
Kerusa grunts. “So far.”
“Second,” Rexx goes on, “we don’t want to ship a sample back to the station. It’s too risky. We need to keep the problem isolated on the asteroid.”
“So you’d be willing to put yourself at risk,” Bagnas says. “Take the chance you might get stuck down there.”
Rexx can feel the surface tension building, the gradual loss of control that comes with friction, turbulence, resistance.
Walk away, he thinks. Turn around and go home. He didn’t ask for this. It isn’t his problem anymore.
“Could foreign DNA have contaminated the ecotecture?” Yalçin says. “That would explain why it’s not on file.”
Rexx shrugs. The biologist doesn’t get it. Kerusa doesn’t want his help. So it’s not going to happen.
“Which leaves us exactly where we were before,” Bagnas grumbles. “Completely in the dark.”
“And it doesn’t look like things are going to improve anytime soon,” Nderi says, frowning at a private datawindow.
“Another biosystem failure?” Kerusa says.
“Air handling. Recycling and filtration just went offline.” Nderi taps her fingers in the air, parsing the datastream.
“So the problem is spreading,” Yalçin says. “The same as on Earth.”
Kerusa’s jaw bunches.
“Oxygen production is stable,” Nderi notes. “But if that drops offline, there’s no way to replenish their air supply.”
“If it does fall offline,” Kerusa says, “how long can they survive with the oxygen supply they’ve got?”
“Less than twenty-four hours”—Nderi glances pointedly at Rexx—“given their current biomass and rate of consumption.”
Yet another argument against his going, albeit a minor one. One additional body will not significantly shorten the survival time of the other workers.
“Any indication what triggered the failure?” Kerusa says. “Why that particular system was affected?”
Nderi shakes her head. “Nothing. The sensors have dropped offline as well.”
Kerusa gnashes his teeth. “All right. Start prepping a quarantine zone up here. In case we have to evacuate people from the asteroid.”
Bagnas shifts uncomfortably in his seat. “You can’t bring that many—”
“I am not going to let those people die,” Kerusa snaps, “and neither are you. Is that understood?”
Bagnas looks unhappy but says nothing.
“What do you have in mind?” Nderi asks Kerusa.
“The reserve greenhouses. Verify that they can be isolated. See if they can be hermetically sealed from the rest of the station and let me know what it will take to convert them into temporary living quarters.”
Nderi nods. “I’ll get right on it.”
“Good.” Kerusa pushes out of his chair, and then drifts away from the table. “If no one has anything else, I suggest we get to work.”
“You need to send someone down for a sample,” Rexx tells Kerusa when the others are gone. “Even if it’s not me.” If he takes himself out of the picture, maybe the project manager will listen.
“Forget it,” Kerusa says.
“They can suit up,” Rexx says. “Conserve resources.”
Kerusa strokes the knife-sharp edges of his goatee. “And what happens if the suit fails?” The project manager lowers his fingers but keeps the tips pinched. “Sorry. Until we have a better handle on the situation, no one’s going anywhere.”
“You’re making a mistake.”
“I don’t think so.” Kerusa gropes for a magnetic flux line.
Rexx grabs him by the arm. “What should I tell Tiresias?”
“Whatever the hell you want.” Kerusa wrenches his arm free, sending them both into a slow, tumultuous spin. “Tiresias is your problem, not mine.”
12
SOUL LOSS
I don’t understand,” Isabelle says to the bruja. “How could she lose her soul? Is she bewitched? Did someone give her ojo?” She stares, distraught, at the emaciated, skeleton-thin figure of Lejandra. Her face is as sunken as a calavera, little more than a bone skull with charcoal-smudged tufts of cotton for hair.
The evil eye, L. Mariachi thinks. That’s what people always assume happened to him. His success with Daily Bred caused envidio in someone, envy, and this person paid a witch to cripple his hand.
“Bloody Mary scared her and dislodged her soul from her body,” the witch explains. “When her soul was away, the demon entered the empty space inside her to prevent her soul from returning. Now it’s lost.”
Soul loss. It’s a catchall diagnosis. A convenient explanation for the woman’s apathy, feebleness, and lack of appetite. For the uneducated, the superstitious, it’s easier to understand and cure a demon like Bloody Mary than it is a bacterial infection, virus, or genetic disorder.
“Can you get it back?” Balta says. Despite his badass gangsta regalia and ’tude, he’s still just a kid.
The bruja nods, somber but confident. “But first we have to get rid of the part of Bloody Mary that has entered her. Then her soul will have a place to return.”
“But if it’s lost how will it find its way home?” Oscar says. Doubt and fear flicker in his wide candlelit eyes. “What if it’s gone forever?”
Doña Celia gives him a reassuring pat on the arm.
“Do you believe this?” Num Nut says.
L. Mariachi can’t tell if this is a question or an editorial comment. He decides to ignore the IA and keep playing, not wanting to lose momentum. He’s rocking on autopilot, but there’s no telling how long it will last. As soon as the painkillers quit, he’ll come crashing back to earth, dragged down by the weight of his bad hand and his lack of faith.
The bruja picks up the sprig of curative herbs she brought with her. Traditionally these would be rosemary, rue, pepper tree branches, and marigolds. Since these are extinct, casualties of global warming, she’s using circuitree leaves, a dried frond from an umbrella palm, and an aquafern sprig. Presumably they’re just as effective as the old remedy.
She brushes Lejandra with the herbs, sweeping them like a broom along her arms and torso. Then she takes a cigarette from the pack, scratches the end on the floor to light it, and blows smoke around the bed.
“To keep anyone else from breathing in the bad air when it’s banished,” the bruja explains.
The smoke hangs in the air, vaguely bird shaped. The reek of tobacco, candle wax, and imitation copal reminds him of the clubs Daily Bred used to play in Mexico City. It’s like old times. He shuts his eyes for a second, breathes in the past and holds it in his lungs for as long as he can.
“You’re going to hurt yourself,” Num Nut warns.
The tickle in his throat explodes in a brief but violent coughing fit that scrapes his lungs. He keeps playing, powers through the sputum and tears until Doña Celia stubs out the cigarette and picks up the stone with the hole drilled in the middle. Parts of the rock are bright, almost glassy in places. Polished. In the feeble light and thick smoke it looks more metallic than rocky.
“What are those?” Balta says, pointing at the stone.
“They look like teeth,” João says.
L. Mariachi leans forward, squints at the chalk white fragments embedded in the surface. Sure enough the fragments resemble barbed teeth, arranged in a circle.
“They’re the bones from an angel,” the witch says. “One day, this rock fell out of the sky. It landed in the playground of the orphanage where I was staying. That’s how I acquired my supernatural powers. This was a long time ago, in Honduras.”
She lowers the sheet a few centimeters, sets the stone on Lejandra’s exposed breastbone, and presses the teeth into the pale skin.
L. Mariachi flinches, as if
the dentata are biting into him, yearning to devour his heart. Lejandra twitches, then calms, easing under the pressure. When she’s settled, the bruja leans over her, fits her mouth over the opening in the stone and makes a sucking sound. Her whole body seems to inflate. Her cheeks puff out and her sides expand. She straightens, her breath still held, then turns and spits on the floor.
A tiny speck of saliva strikes L. Mariachi in the face. The spittle is hot. It burns his cheek. Venomous, acidic. He twists his face sideways, raises the guitar, and swipes at the spittle with his upraised shoulder.
Lejandra shudders. L. Mariachi’s fingers stumble, falter under a tremor that starts in his bad hand and works its way up his arm, into his chest. From there it spreads down, into his legs. His knees start to shake.
“Enough,” Num Nut says, sounding distraught. “It’s time to stop.”
He can’t. Not while he’s got a full head of steam, is going strong. He’s not sure he could stop even if he wanted to. It’s not him playing anymore, it’s someone else. The alter ego who recorded “SoulR Byrne.” He hasn’t felt that person in him for a long time—decades.
“Her soul is close by,” the bruja announces. “It senses it can come home.” Doña Celia plucks the stone from Lejandra’s chest.
L. Mariachi breathes easier. It’s as if a weight has been lifted from him as well. As if his soul was lost and has been called home. The acid burn on his cheek subsides, and with it the heaviness in his mutilated hand. His fingers pick up the pace. He launches into a kickass norteño tune. The upbeat chords chase away the somber pall in the room and his heart, hold the shadows at bay long enough to let Lejandra know that it’s safe to come home.
After the first norteño he segues into a second, then a third. All of the old music he listened to and learned as a kid.
“You’re broadcasting,” Num Nut tells him.
“Huh?” The word comes out sweaty, breathless with exhilaration. His forehead is damp, his shirt soaked, limp against his skin.
“The guitar is softwired,” the IA says. “It’s transmitting encrypted information to the ribozone.”
He shakes his head, too focused on the music to think, and continues to pound out a phantom melody that’s welling up in him like sap miraculously starting to flow in dead wood. Sticky, exuberant.
And sweet. He didn’t realize he still had the sweetness in him. He thought it had turned bitter and hard.
Doña Celia drops the stone into a pocket of her dress. She retrieves a hollow gourd from the duffel bag, stands, and walks to one corner of the room. Putting the gourd to her lips, she blows into it, and then calls the name of the lost soul. The sound of the gourd picks up the notes of the guitar and lifts them higher, urging L. Mariachi to play faster. The bruja repeats the process at the next two corners of the room. At each juncture the swell under the music builds. It rises to a frenetic crescendo as Doña Celia approaches the fourth corner of the room.
L. Mariachi is breathless. He can barely suck in enough air to keep up the breakneck tempo. When the witch shouts the name of Lejandra’s lost soul for the fourth and final time, her voice pierces him. He falls back, lightheaded and dizzy. In his mind, he can still hear the music. He’s still playing, strumming away totally loco. But another part of him knows that his hands have stopped and he’s clutching the guitar to his chest in a death grip.
His left hand throbs, a mangled knot of pain. Arthritic voices spin around him in elongated, time-shifted orbits. . . .
“What happened? What’s wrong with him?” The boy’s voice comes from above him and transforms into a voice from memory, years distant.
“He’s drunk. Muy barracho.”
“No, dumbfuck. Look at his hand.” The second voice leaned closer, pressing up against the present.
“Ay! We should take him to the clinic.” A woman’s voice this time, much nearer in space and time.
“No,” another woman says.
A horn bleated in the street next to him, followed by the low temblor of thumping percussion. The stench of rotting vegetables, dust, and spoiled fruit rose from a nearby market. Dust congealed the blood in his mouth, coated his tongue with the gritty taste of copper and mist-fine ash from the volcano that settled over Mexico City quicker than the scrubbugs could digest it.
“We can’t just leave him here.” The first woman’s voice again, pushing aside the memory.
“Why not?”
“Because if he dies, we’ll get blamed. The politicorp will say it’s our fault. Then where will we be?”
The question slips away as he retrogrades back in time again.
“If we don’t do anything,” the first voice said, “we’ll get blamed. No?”
A third person joined the cacophony. “I’m going to call for help.”
L. Mariachi opened his mouth to speak but bile dissolved his voice and burned the back of his throat. His thoughts broke apart, reformed in a confused jumble, then fragmented yet again.
“Wait.” The word was scratchy, sandpaper rough. It carried the weight of a stone statue and centuries-old authority.
“Fuck this cabrón.” The second voice circled back. “I’m not sticking my neck out for him. Whoever fucked him up doesn’t mess around.”
“You think he crossed a jefe?”
“Sí, a cocolo. Who else? He’s an example. No way I want my face to end up like that hand. My old lady would become a nun.”
“You think we should let him sleep here?” The boy again.
“How long do we have to look after him?” the first woman says.
“Not long.” The second woman. “Until morning. He’ll be fine then.”
The voices thin and attenuate in a bout of dizziness. He loses his grip on the verbal thread, the frayed string of consonants and syllables that dangle just beyond his reach before slipping away.
13
TERRA INFIRMA
Fola stretches out next to the ICM, meshes herself into place, then fits the module’s hardwire eyescreens over her face. A short, hair-thin loop of molectric filament tickles her ear.
“Ready,” she tells Pheidoh.
A downpour of pixels washes the gray cellophane of the eyescreens and she’s in-virtu.
Without the IA, Fola would be lost. She could never find Lejandra in the snarl of pherions, antiphers, sniffers, and architext that form the terra-based ecotectures. There are too many of them, thousands. The ribozone is a rat’s nest of specialized clades, each competing for space with one another in a kind of cutthroat Darwinism. The diversity is mind-boggling. Most of the clades are legal, politicorp sponsored or BEAN approved. But some aren’t—rogue microniches carved out of the gengineered environment by a few radical groups, religious cults, and criminal orgs. These shadow clades use black-market antiphers, home-brewed pherions, and ad hoc antisense molecules to disable the legal pherions and avoid detection.
To combat them, the politicorp regions of the ribozone are teeming with surveillance systems—glycoprotein identifier tags, linked bitcam arrays, and networked iDNA sensors. There are also countermeasure and defense systems: virions, bactoxins, and, according to Pheidoh, a new strain of digital RNA that codes for an enzyme that attracts Big Brother flitcams the way dog shit attracts flies. Get a dose of dRNA and it’s only a matter of time before BEAN picks up the scent. Add to that private security firms like OAsys, which has developed a wide range of ecotectural defense systems for public and private sector clades, in addition to providing private bodyguards, and things can get ugly fast. Even the Ignatarians contracted with OAsys on occasion, when a Church leader was visiting or going abroad and personal safety was a concern.
In short, it’s not a friendly place.
“Exactly how risky is this?” Fola asks. She’s only logged in to the Kuiper belt domain of the ribozone. As soon as she flips the switch on the softwire circuit to access an ecotecture or clade in another domain, her iDNA signature, clade-profile, and pherion pattern will be public. It will be like taking her clothes off
and parading around naked on a busy street.
“The datacast we’re streaming is around five hours old. If a dangerous pherion entered the environment in that time frame, it won’t have made it to the Kuiper belt yet. It will still be in transit. So there won’t be any filters in place to block it, or antiphers to neutralize it, when it gets here.”
Translation: she’ll be defenseless. Not exactly the rock-solid reassurance she was hoping for.
Fola forgot about the time delay. It takes in the neighborhood of five hours for a signal from earth to reach the Kuiper belt. It’s not that long, but it’s still the past. She has to keep that in mind. A lot can happen in five hours. Lejandra could already be dead. Even if she isn’t, it still might be too late to do anything for her.
Whatever that might be. She’s still in the dark as to what exactly her role in all of this is going to be.
“The good news,” Pheidoh continues, “is that if there are any recently introduced pherions, they need to have a virtual isomorph to be dangerous.”
Since she’s not actually on earth, in direct physical contact with the environment, her biggest worry is biodigitally mediated pherions. Digital analogs of pherions that can be transmitted wirelessly, downloaded to her body, and then converted into proteins by the molectronics she’s waring.
Fola is tempted to ask how likely that is, but decides that it’s better if she doesn’t know. At least she’s not at risk from any nondigital contagion. Are there any computer viruses out there that attack IAs? There must be.
“What I don’t understand,” she says, “is how the quanticles are being transmitted. What’s spreading them?”
“There are a number of possible vectors that could be used to deliver quantum dots,” the IA says. “A virus is one. But viruses take time to amplify, and several isolated communities with no outside contact have been infected.”
Okay. If it’s not a virus, that leaves . . . what? “Molectronics?” she ventures.
“That’s the most likely mechanism,” Pheidoh says. “It’s fast, and there’s no need for a host—a carrier. Plus, compared to a live virus, a digital contagion takes little time or energy to replicate and distribute.”
