Idolon

by Mark Budz

  "In a day or two, if you're healthy enough to travel, you'll be transferred to a more permanent facility."

  "And then what?"

  The smile reappeared. "You become a mom."

  _______

  Dr. Kwan pursed cherry-blossom lips as she looked Nadice over. She wore white slacks and a pink disposable lab coat with matching slippers. Her head was shaved. Any second, Nadice expected the doctor's scalp and the rest of her 'skin to philm over with the prickly static all of the street TVs were screening these days.

  "How do you feel?" the doctor said.

  "Tired," Nadice admitted. The two-hour nap had helped, but she still felt weary, a little disoriented and, well... overwhelmed. She still wasn't sure what she'd gotten herself into, if this was the right move or not.

  The doctor gave a curt nod. "That's to be expected."

  Nadice couldn't tell if this vague generalization referred to all pregnancies or to hers in particular.

  The doctor pinched the skin on the back of her hand. "It looks like your electronic skin has started to degrade."

  Nadice nodded. "It started three days ago."

  "I assume there's a security marker in the 'skin, and when the degradation reaches a certain point you'll be toxed."

  Nadice showed her the ampoule she'd been given at the Get Reel. "I'm supposed to take this to slow things down. But I've been afraid to take it because ... because of the baby."

  Kwan plucked the ampoule from her, examined it, then dropped it into a side pocket in her lab coat. "Have you experienced any numbness or muscle weakness so far, or had any difficulty breathing?"

  "Not yet."

  "Good. Jeremy also informs me you might have been doped with additional GPS, RF, or chemical taggants."

  "I'm pretty sure."

  "All right." Kwan seemed unperturbed, her manner matter-of-fact and confident, equipped to handle all contingencies. "We'll check for those first. Spybots, too. Might as well cover all the bases." She stared at an eyefeed image and tapped a command on a small palm d-splay.

  Nadice watched her brusque, efficient eyes, trying to see into them, through them, for any sign that might betray her underlying feelings.

  "Now, let's take a look at the baby. Shall we?" Kwan offered her a clinical smile. Not particularly warm, but what it lacked in fuzziness it made up for in competence.

  Nadice relaxed. It didn't matter if the doctor liked her or not. Kwan would do her job. As long as Nadice had the baby, the TVs would protect her, keep her safe.

  "Please take off your clothes and lie down," Kwan said, nodding at the recliner in the corner. The doctor dipped her hands into a tray filled with sterilizing solution. When she removed them, they were gloved.

  Nadice stripped. The room was aseptically cool. Her nipples, already tender, hurt as they stiffened. At least the tempergel on the cushions was warm. So was the overhead light. The goose pimples on her arms retreated.

  "Open wide."

  Nadice spread her knees and stared at the milk-white ampoule Kwan held between pinched fingers. "What's that?"

  "Nanocams and a linked simage array," Kwan said. "They will embed in the wall of your uterus and keep a close eye on things for us."

  Kwan slipped the ampoule in. It was coated with some kind of slick lubricant and dissolved almost immediately.

  Kwan produced a second ampoule. "This one contains wetronics to disable the security ware and neutralize any other maltronics you might have picked up. There are also several proprietary applets that will enable us to download and manufacture specific protective n-zymes."

  "What kind of maltronics?" Nadice asked.

  "REbots and nanomals from industrial spies and black-market hackers looking to steal downloads or rip copies of philm."

  Nadice pinched her brow. "REbots? Nanomals?"

  "Re-Engineering bots and nanobot malware. They break down the functional and structural components in electronic skin so they can be analyzed and copied. Most of the time they're fairly benign. You don't even know they're there, but not always."

  "It sounds like you see that a lot," Nadice said.

  "All the time." Kwan deftly inserted the ampoule, then straightened. "We think these bots may be how you became pregnant, by disassembling DiNA sequences, which later recombined to form packets of nanoanimated motile DNA."

  Nadice blinked. "Sperm, you mean."

  "Yes. Or the functional equivalent."

  Nadice clamped her knees together, feeling suddenly vulnerable. "How?"

  "We're not sure." Kwan pursed her lips. "The odds of that kind of nanomation and exaptation occurring spontaneously and simultaneously in hundreds of women around the world are astronomical. That's why we believe the mechanism is divine in nature ... that it arose from the background radiation of the universe."

  Nadice stared at her. "You're kidding, right?"

  "In every fetus we've examined so far," Kwan said, "no two DNA profiles are the same. Each contains new genetic material we've never seen before."

  Nadice dug her fingertips into her trembling knees. "That's nuts. Just because you don't understand something doesn't mean it's a miracle. How do you know it's not some hack job?"

  Kwan's face clouded.

  "Do you know what these nanomated genes do?" Nadice asked.

  "Not yet. The only thing we know for sure is that the development of the fetus is accelerated."

  "Accelerated?"

  Kwan peeled the gloves from her hands. "Gestation appears to be about twice the rate of a normal fetus. Growth starts out fairly normal, then speeds up after the first eight weeks or so. We've received a couple reports of early midterm abortions where the baby was developmentally much farther along than it should be."

  "Why would they grow so fast?"

  "Good question." Kwan tossed the latex gloves into a translucent pink biohazard recycler. "We're still not sure how many of the babies will prove viable. There appear to be a much higher than normal incidence of mid- to late-term miscarriages, possibly caused by the rapid development."

  Nadice stared at the discarded gloves. She could lose the baby. That was what the doctor was telling her. "That's why you're looking for pregnant women, isn't it?" she said. "So we won't get abortions when we find out what's inside us."

  Kwan folded her arms on her chest. "I want every woman to have access to good information and good medical care so they won't make a rash decision. I want to be sure every baby has a chance."

  Why? What were they looking for? Hoping for?

  _______

  When Nadice got back to her room, she discovered she had a roommate. The woman from the Get Reel. Marta. She lay in a fetal curl on the bed, staring blankly at the eggshell-smooth wall.

  "What are you doing here?" Nadice asked. Stupid, but the only thing that came to mind.

  Marta sat up. "You, too?"

  Nadice nodded, unsure what she was referring to—that the TVs had found her, or that the conception was immaculate.

  "I'm sorry." Marta took her hand and squeezed it, first in sympathy, then in solidarity. Marta had long, delicate fingers. Nadice's were ugly in comparison, cracked and calloused from years of cleaning up after other people, disinfecting soiled lives. She pulled her hand back, curling it into a self-conscious ball.

  "When did they come for you?" Marta said.

  "Last night."

  Marta returned a sour grimace. "They caught up with me first thing this morning. Gave me the good news."

  "I just had my first exam," Nadice said.

  Marta snorted. "I guess they don't waste much time around here. How did it go?"

  Nadice sat on the edge of the other bed so they faced one another, her back to the big sun-warmed window. "The doctor inserted some nanocams in me to keep an eye on the baby."

  Marta forced a laugh. "I can't wait."

  "It's not too bad."

  Marta regarded her coolly. "Are you one of them?" "No."

  "You could just be saying that."

  "Go
blow a wet turd."

  This time the laugh was genuine. "What else did this doctor do to you?"

  As Nadice relayed the conversation, Marta's expression grew darker. "Talk about rucked," she said at last.

  "How do you explain what happened to you?" Nadice said.

  "I can't. Not yet." Agitated, Marta pushed to her feet and began to pace. "There has to be another explanation."

  Nadice thought of the fish and the bee that had approached her. "There are things out there we don't understand."

  "What kind of things?"

  Nadice told her about her encounters with the flying fish and the honeybee.

  "You're starting to sound like them," Marta said. The comment fell just short of a scoff.

  Nadice shrugged. "I'm just saying."

  Marta went to the window and gazed out at the ocean, her shoulders rigid, her jaw set. Nadice joined her, resting one hand lightly on her arm. The muscles there were stiff, bundled so tight they felt close to snapping. "You okay?" she asked. Some of the tension under her fingertips eased.

  "Just thinking."

  "Lot to think about."

  "Yeah. Nothing is ever what it seems."

  "Including you?" Nadice said.

  Marta cut her a scathing glance. "Don't worry about me. If you're smart, you'll look after yourself. Know what I'm saying?"

  "Sure." Nadice dropped her hand and stepped away from the rebuke. She could take a hint. She walked back to the bed, giving them a little space.

  "I don't want you to get hurt," Marta said after a while. She seemed to be talking to her own reflection in the sunlit diamond.

  "It's not your fault I'm here," Nadice said. "Don't blame yourself."

  "I'm not." Marta turned to look at her. "I just don't want it to be my fault if you don't get out."

  23

  Seoul Man specialized in heirlooms, personal and cultural artifacts he pawned as arcana. His shop on Valencia Street contained an old Curta calculator, a three-meter-long-by-five-centimeter-wide strip of embroidered foot-binding cloth, a Royal manual typewriter, a pair of rhinestone-studded sunglasses purportedly worn in concert by Elton John, various jade netsuke, and a set of eight deformed bullets he claimed had been dug out of the skulls of political rivals and detractors who had been personally executed by Pol Pot during the Cambodian genocide.

  "Found at the site of an old Phnom Penh high school that the Khmer Rouge secret police turned into a torture center," Seoul Man told van Dijk, grinning. Under plain brown monk robes he had philmed himself as a gold-complected statue of the Buddha. Black moon-shaped eyebrows framed a red bindi dot centered just above the bridge of his nose. An elaborate ushnisha, with a prominent flamelike halo, crowned his head.

  Van Dijk shook his head. The bullets were set in soft foam in a glass-lidded display box with a pewter hasp. "I think I'll pass."

  Seoul Man's expression remained placid as he sighed. "That's what everyone says." He closed the lid on the bullets, returned the box to the glass case in front of him, and turned back to van Dijk. "What can I do for you, Detective? It's been a while. I was afraid you'd taken your business elsewhere."

  "Hasn't been any business. At least not in your specialty."

  "Until now."

  Van Dijk reached into his jacket and pulled out a plastine evidence bag, containing the glass earrings and necklace from the dead girl. He held the bag up in the tallow-soft gloom of the shop.

  Seoul Man plucked the bag from him and slid it under a magnifying lamp mounted on the top of the case. He peered through the lens. "Roman glass shard," he said. "Crude silverwork, probably modern. Not all that unusual." He straightened. "What else do you want to know?"

  "Who made it?"

  Seoul Man smiled serenely. "Ahh, so you are buying, after all. Information—the most valuable commodity."

  Van Dijk grunted. "How much?"

  "Let's find out."

  With a quick mental command the antiquarian locked the front door to the pawnshop and d-splayed a BE BACK SHORTLYsign. He then led van Dijk through a rear door, down a short hall to his workroom.

  Crammed with equipment, the room was a cross between a physics lab and a museum curator's office. Shelves with dusty brass-knobbed specimen drawers occupied one wall. A scanning electron microscope, X-ray diffractometer, mass spectrometer, gas chromato-graph, and acoustic microscopy imager elbowed for space along the remaining walls. The ceramic-topped counter in the center of the room held a stainless-steel sink, a Bunsen burner, and a gene-sequencing centrifuge.

  "Any restrictions I should know about?" Seoul Man said. "Special precautions or handling requirements?"

  "Just your usual tender loving care."

  The antiquarian nodded. He sprayed his hands with liquid gloves. "Where'd the jewelry come from?" he asked while he waited for the translucent latex to dry. "If you don't mind my asking."

  "You tell me."

  The antiquarian regarded him impassively. "You know what I mean."

  Van Dijk nodded. Any trace particles or residue from the site where the earring was recovered might taint the results. "Apartment over in North Beach."

  "Does she have a name?"

  "Does it matter?"

  "Everything matters, Detective. I don't need to tell you that. The Devil may be in the details, but so is God."

  "No ID yet," van Dijk said.

  "Too bad," the antiquarian said, serenity giving way to sorrow. "I always like to know the names of the people whose lives touch mine."

  Van Dijk said nothing.

  Seoul Man unsealed the evidence bag, carefully removed the jewelry, and set one earring under a regular light microscope. He activated a wall d-splay and the earring appeared, much larger than life. Magnified, the tiny pits in the square silver frame around the pale azure shard resolved into small nano- or laser-engraved crucifixes.

  "Names add a certain value," the antiquarian went on. "A certain meaning that's otherwise missing. Take the victims of those bullets. I haven't been able to identify them yet. I probably never will, but that won't stop me from trying. It's the search that counts, right?"

  "A bullet tells more about the killer than the person it kills," van Dijk said.

  Seoul Man nodded. "Perhaps the same will be true of this earring." He shaved a miniscule sample of silver from the setting for analysis, followed by a tiny silver of glass. "This may take a while."

  "When should I come back?"

  "Just before closing." The antiquarian went to one of the machines along the wall. "I have the skulls, you know. Intact except for the bullet holes. I can show them to you, if you like."

  24

  Over a secure eyefeed, Zhenyu al-Fayoumi d-splayed the project scope and specifications provided to him by the datician: Quantum phenotype. Entangled inheritance. Group selection. Instant epigenetic transmission.

  He rubbed his eyes. The project sounded like more than a straightforward philm release. The philm would be used to literally create a shared social system or subculture in which everybody dressed and thought in lockstep. Yukawa was basically designing a new kind of smart mob, joined not by mass-mediation but electronic skin.

  To what end?

  A regular smob formed in response to online stimulus. The goal was to get people en masse to buy a particular product, attend a show, or instantiate a shared group activity, like a pray-in or a political rally.

  Yukawa's smart mob would be stable, permanently linked through their 'skin, and programmable— capable of directed action.

  A military application, he thought. That made the most sense. Instantaneous field updates of information and ware. Inheritable physical traits and characteristics, such as camouflage. Coordinated group activity. Shared, modifiable habits and tendencies. All of these would be desirable in a combat or security unit.

  Of course, there would need to be some kind of fail-safe to make sure things didn't get out of control—some way to isolate the groupware, the quantum-coupled 'skin. How to do that in the case of super
posed states? Was it possible? It had to be. There must be a way to induce a null state that contained information that could not be understood from the outside.

  Still, he had the feeling that he was missing something, something obvious.

  Mokita, he thought. The truth everyone knew, but no one was willing to admit or talk about, even though it was there to see for anyone who cared to look.

  Or wasn't afraid of what they might find.

  Al-Fayoumi stood in front of a lamp-warmed ter-rarium and examined the batch of flies he'd 'skinned a few hours ago. The graphene coating had finally cleared on most of them. Now they were slowly reviving.

  The problem with smobs was instability. They were inherently chaotic. There was no way to predict the types of conditions that gave rise to random, possibly uncontrollable behavior. Based on his observations of the flies, and the mathematical models he was developing to explain the Lamarckian inheritance of idolons, Yukawa wanted him to come up with an algorithm to predict the acquisition of images and the behavioral traits those images produced in a quantum-entangled group. The project referred to these behavioral traits as LMTs, Learned Memetic Tendencies. LMTs could include, but were not limited to, memes and habits. It was well established that certain images encouraged similar behavior in people waring those images. That was why people belonged to a certain cast. The images screened by members of the cast conferred an attitude, and codified a certain type of behavior. Images gave people permission to act in a certain way, because the act wasn't carried out by them but by the pseudoself the image represented.

  Ultimately, Yukawa's goal was to reduce the unpredictability in smob behavior... calculate the expected frequency of random mutations and weight the viability and severity of any such mutations.

  The latest batch of newly 'skinned flies was stirring to fitful life beneath the lamps, dry wings twitching intermittently and buzzing.

  Al-Fayoumi bent a fraction nearer. One of the flies looked different; it appeared to be two flies stuck together, one behind and slightly on top of the other. On closer inspection, however, he noticed that it was actually one single fly with four wings and an elongated body.