Soulminder

by Timothy Zahn

Sommer felt his stomach tighten. “Did they get the neuropreservatives into him in time?”

  Diaz put the question to the doctor, who responded with a shrug and an answer Sommer again didn’t catch. “The paramedics claim they did,” Diaz growled. “He says we won’t know until the body is brought in. If you’ll excuse me?” Without waiting for a reply, he moved away, circling the transfer table to make his own inspection of the setup. Sommer drifted back toward the door.

  He was standing right next to it when there was a flurry of activity out in the corridor and Manzano’s body was wheeled in.

  Followed immediately by a dozen reporters and cameras. Diaz shouted something across the room and soldiers leaped in from the corridor, cutting through the crowd and forming a human barricade between the media and the transfer table. Diaz shouted something else and the soldiers began pushing the reporters back toward the door.

  In the noise and confusion, no one noticed Sommer slip out.

  Threading the Core’s security gauntlet took three minutes. By the time Sommer dropped into the chair beside Van Proyen, it was clear from the TV monitor that they were almost ready to begin. “Status?” Sommer asked, giving the duplicate readouts a quick scan.

  “All the preliminary stuff’s out of the way,” Van Proyen told him, his voice tight. “They’ve got the glucose IV going, the curare’s been neutralized and eliminated, and the process of flushing the neuropreservatives out of his system has been started. Another”—he glanced at the clock—“two and a half minutes and they’ll be ready to try the transfer.”

  Sommer nodded, his eyes on the monitor. The transfer team, waiting for the neuropreservative flushing to be completed, stood silently around the body on the table. In contrast, Diaz, just visible at the edge of the screen, was a study in barely controlled nervous energy. “Anything from the media yet?” he asked over his shoulder.

  Seated at another desk, flipping between channels on a muted television and holding a radio to his ear, Alverez shrugged. “They know the Archbishop took a curare dart,” he said, his voice as tight as Van Proyen’s. “And they know he was raking the government over the coals when he was shot. Nothing else but rumors, but the outside monitors show that we’ve got quite a crowd gathering around the building.”

  “Waiting for the Archbishop to come out,” Van Proyen suggested grimly. “You know, Doctor, this could get very nasty very quickly.”

  Sommer thought about the crowd back at the cathedral. About the anger he’d felt beginning to rise up within them. “How nasty it gets,” he said, “is basically up to Diaz.”

  “I suppose.” Van Proyen leaned forward, his eyes on the monitor. “Looks like they’re ready.

  Sommer leaned forward, too, mentally crossing his fingers. On the screen the doctor touched the master transfer switch. Beside the monitor the duplicate readouts went from red to amber, and all eyes in the room turned to the body on the table.

  Nothing.

  For a long moment the doctor just stood there, staring with disbelief at the unmoving body. Then, abruptly, he and the rest of the team jumped back into action.

  “My, my,” Van Proyen murmured. “The soul didn’t remeld.”

  “Shh!” Sommer said as Diaz took a step forward and snarled something vicious sounding. “What’d he say?”

  “He’s demanding to know why it isn’t working,” Van Proyen translated. The doctor snapped something back— “‘I don’t know,’” Van Proyen added without being asked. “‘Be quiet and let us work.’”

  Sommer felt his hands gripping the arms of his chair, and for a few minutes they watched in silence as the transfer team worked furiously to try and get the Archbishop’s soul to remeld with his body. But it was futile, and abruptly the duplicate readouts went from amber back to red. “They’ve given up,” Van Proyen said as, simultaneously, the indicators for the life-support machines switched from standby back to full on.

  Dimly, Sommer noticed that his teeth were clenched together. “They have to,” he said, his mouth dry. “If they keep at it they’ll only put unnecessary stress on the brain chemistry.”

  Reaching over, Van Proyen tapped out a command on a terminal keyboard. “The soul’s back in the trap,” he confirmed.

  Sommer got to his feet. “I’ll be in your office,” he told Van Proyen. He gave the monitor a last look, his eyes settling on Diaz. “Let me know when the general’s ready to talk.”

  It took less than an hour.

  “General Diaz wants to talk to you, Dr. Sommer,” Van Proyen reported, his voice on the intercom sounding more than a little strained. “Are you ready?”

  Sommer took a deep breath. As ready as I’m going to be. “Ask him to wait in the conference room near the Core entrance,” he said aloud. “Has Frank Everly returned?”

  “Yes, sir, just a few minutes ago. He’s up on the office floor, keeping an eye on that mob outside.”

  “Have him join us,” Sommer instructed him. “Tell him to hurry—I don’t want to be alone with Diaz.”

  He needn’t have worried. Everly was waiting by the conference room door when Sommer arrived. “Doctor,” Everly said, his eyes tight. “You seen the crowd out there?”

  Sommer nodded. “There’s one forming around the Presidential Palace, too.”

  “And we’re getting some rumblings of uncertainty from the military.” Everly glanced back down the hall. “It’s starting to look a lot like being in the middle of a revolution.”

  “It does, doesn’t it,” Sommer agreed grimly. “Everything’s ready. Shall we go see if the general’s had enough?”

  Diaz was standing at the head of the table as they entered, his back unnaturally stiff. “Dr. Sommer,” he nodded as Everly closed the door behind them. The general’s voice was quiet, almost gentle, and it sent a chill up Sommer’s back. “Tell me, what have you done to the Soulminder equipment?”

  “Your own experts are out there, General,” Sommer said, trying to keep his voice from trembling. This was it, the point on which Soulminder’s entire future was wobbling. “Did you ask them what was wrong?”

  Diaz’s eyes bored into his. “You’ve sabotaged the Soulminder,” he said. “Done something to it from in there.” He nodded in the direction of the Core, the movement almost savage.

  “Is that what you’re telling the people outside?” Everly asked. “That your failure to bring Manzano back is our fault?”

  Diaz’s gaze moved slowly over to rest on Everly. “It was you, wasn’t it?” he said, almost conversationally. “You who shot Manzano and made it look like the government was at fault.”

  Everly raised his eyebrows slightly. “The government? I thought it was terrorists who murdered people with curare darts.”

  Diaz raised his hand. “Not them alone.”

  Sommer felt his stomach tighten. “And what exactly do you intend to do with that?” he asked, raising his eyes with an effort from the tiny airgun in Diaz’s hand.

  “You will restore the Archbishop’s soul to his body,” Diaz ordered. “Now.”

  “Or else what?” Everly asked calmly. “You’ll shoot us? With both our Mullner traces on file with Soulminder?”

  “Your souls may live on inside a box in Washington,” Diaz snarled. “But your bodies would be here. Under our control.”

  “Wouldn’t help you any,” Everly shrugged. “Or haven’t you heard of Arizona’s Professional Witness program? Killing people doesn’t guarantee you’ve shut them up anymore.”

  “Talk all you want,” Diaz spat. “We will weather this crisis—the riots and Army trouble will be put down. And all nations suffering in the Soulminder stranglehold will thank us for what we’ve done.”

  Sommer shook his head. “No one will thank you,” he said wearily. “All you’ll accomplish will be to drive Chile into revolution. Your experiment in indentured servitude can’t possibly be worth that price.�
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  “And stopping it is worth the price of your death?” Diaz countered.

  For a long moment Sommer eyed him in silence. Then, taking a careful step toward the gun, he pulled a chair out from the table. “Do you know why I created Soulminder, General?” he asked, sitting down. “My motivation, I mean?”

  “Is this some effort to stall—?”

  “Twenty years ago,” Sommer continued, “my son David, who was five years old, died in a car accident. I was the one driving. The weight of that guilt stayed with me for eleven years, until Jessica Sands and I finally created Soulminder.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” Diaz said, without any trace of sympathy in his face or voice. “Forgive me if I’m not overcome by sentiment.”

  “I was the second person to go through Soulminder, General,” Sommer told him. “I’ve been in the tunnel. I’ve seen the Light that waits at the end of it.”

  “Religious superstition,” Diaz sneered. “For the weak and the gullible.”

  “Perhaps,” Sommer said. “Perhaps not. The fact remains that I’m not afraid to die.

  “But you are.”

  The knuckles of Diaz’s gun hand whitened noticeably, and his eyes flicked to Everly. “What about you, CIA man?” he spat. “Are you ready to die, too?”

  “Curare’s a fast way to go,” Everly said evenly. “Much faster than being torn apart by the mob outside.”

  Diaz smiled at him. “The mob can do what they like with this body. There are hundreds to choose from.” He looked back at Sommer. “Or hadn’t that potential of your Professional Witness program occurred to you?”

  “It’s occurred to us, yes,” Sommer told him evenly. “But it won’t work for you.”

  Diaz snorted. “Why? Because of the so-called biochemical instabilities involved in transferring a soul to a different body?”

  “No,” Sommer said. “Because your Mullner trace is no longer on file with Soulminder. I erased it half an hour ago.”

  Diaz stared at him, some of the color draining from his face. “You’re lying,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “Bluffing. You wouldn’t do something like that.”

  “You have two choices, General.” Slowly, carefully, Sommer pulled a sheaf of papers from his coat pocket and laid it on the table. “Choice one: you can take this amended contract to the Presidential Palace and have General Santos sign it. It has a clause expressly forbidding any form of servitude as the price for Soulminder access, under penalty of complete cancelation if violated. And believe me, we will monitor your compliance of that clause.

  “Choice two”—he braced himself—“is to call my bluff.”

  There was hatred in Diaz’s eyes. Dark, blazing hatred, both for Sommer himself and for the legacy of economic domination of which, in his view, Soulminder was just one more example. For a half dozen heartbeats Sommer wondered if he’d pushed the man too far. Wondered if pride alone would now force him to kill and then die in turn.

  And then, slowly, the gun barrel lowered to point at the floor. “I will take the contract to General Santos,” he said bitterly. “I will also announce that you have taken charge of Manzano’s revival. From now on any delays will be upon your head.”

  “Understood,” Sommer nodded, a wave of relief washing over him. Relief, and a strange sadness. “You might inform General Santos that he and the other members of the junta have also been erased from Soulminder’s files. In case that has any bearing on his decision.”

  For a moment the two men locked eyes. Then Diaz reached down and picked up the amended contract. “This was a battle, Dr. Sommer,” he said, very quietly. “Not the war.” Without another word, he strode from the room.

  Sands shook her head, lips pursed tightly together as she hefted the new contract. “That was, without a doubt,” she said, “the noblest damn fool thing you’ve done in years.”

  “You’d have preferred letting the Chilean government perfect this new brand of slavery?” Sommer countered.

  “To you meddling with their politics?” Sands snorted. “As a matter of fact, yes, I would have preferred it. My God, Adrian—you all but assassinate an Archbishop, and then compound the risk with that crazy IV trick. What if one of the doctors had tried switching glucose bottles?”

  “It wouldn’t have mattered,” Sommer said, walking over to his desk and sitting down. Suddenly, he was very tired of having to think and talk about Chile. “All the bottles available to them had the same lacing of neuropreservative, and with that continually dripping into the Archbishop’s system they didn’t have a hope of remelding his soul.”

  Sands eyed him. “Don’t get me wrong,” she said, a note of caution creeping into her voice. “I don’t quarrel with your motives—I realize you had the best interests of the Chilean people in mind. But it sets a dangerous precedent.”

  “What, that we want to maintain control over how our invention is used?” Sommer demanded pointedly. “That’s hardly a dangerous precedent.”

  She gave him a patient look. “Look, Adrian. We’re not set up to function as the world’s ethical policeman. As long as there are warped and power-hungry people in high places, there’ll always be attempts to pervert Soulminder into something we don’t like. Diaz was right: we’ve won a battle, not a war.”

  Sommer shook his head. “Diaz was wrong, and he knew it. We’ve won the war, all right.”

  “Because the government wasn’t willing to risk death over their servitude project?”

  Sommer gazed at her, a strange melancholy tightening his stomach. “You’re missing the point, Jessica,” he said quietly. “Diaz and the others were generals. Military men, who’d probably faced the prospect of death dozens of times throughout their careers. And yet they caved in when they found I’d erased them from Soulminder. Why?”

  Sands’s eyes were steady on him. “You tell me.”

  “Because they’d gotten used to the idea that they could be immortal,” he said. “They saw themselves living forever … and they weren’t willing to risk that.”

  For a long minute Sands was silent. “If that’s true,” she said at last, “it means Soulminder has suddenly inherited a great deal of political muscle.”

  Sommer nodded. “I’m not at all sure I want us to have that kind of power.”

  “I’m not at all sure,” Sands said quietly, “that we have a choice.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Guilt by Association

  They came at her out of the dark and gloom of the night shadows: ghostly and indistinct, walking with an almost-normal gait that was somehow more chilling than an exaggerated, movie-monster lurch would have been.

  They were the walking dead, and they were coming for her.

  She had turned away from them, and was slogging slow motion through something that felt like waist-deep ice water, when they inexplicably began buzzing.

  The dead froze for a moment, as if they too were listening to the buzzing. Then the nightmare shattered, and with a jerk of taut muscles Carolyn Blanchard was awake.

  For another long moment her mind spun dizzily as it tried to fit the feel of the thin mattress beneath her and the dim features of the room around her into the pattern of her apartment. Then, from beside her head the buzz came again, and with that the disorientation finally cleared. Levering herself up onto an elbow, heart thudding hard in her chest and neck, she poked at the flashing button on the tabletop intercom. “Yeah—Blanchard,” she said.

  “McGee,” the transfer supervisor’s voice came. “We’ve got a floater, just came in.”

  “Right.” Blanchard sat up and swung her legs off the cot, waiting for her head to adjust to the sudden change in altitude. A floater. Such a wonderfully innocuous term, she thought bleakly, for someone who’d just died. “Have you woken up Walker yet?” she asked, reaching down to pull her shoes on.

  “He’s being prepped,”
McGee said, and this time she was awake enough to hear the mid-level tension in his voice. “He was already down here when the trap triggered.”

  Blanchard glanced at the clock on the Soulminder MiNex console beside her cot. Three thirty-eight in the morning, yet Walker Lamar had still been awake. Awake, and roving Soulminder’s halls. “Swell,” she grunted.

  “Yeah,” McGee agreed grimly. “We’re in Transfer Five. If you want to see him before he goes under, you’d better hurry.”

  “On my way.”

  She got her shoes fastened and hurried out of the room, breaking into a fast jog. The corridors, so busy during normal working hours, were practically deserted, with only an occasional office worker or armed guard visible.

  It was an illusory sort of emptiness. Even at this hour two to four of the transfer rooms would be fully manned, as would the satellite monitor stations that watched for the emergency signals that could pinpoint a newly dead Soulminder client. At the center of the building, in the Core, there would be a full complement of highly-placed managers and techs making sure that the Soulminder computers and software and traps performed with their usual flawless efficiency.

  And if Blanchard never saw any of that elite cadre, it was for sure they were always watching her.

  She almost made it in time. Almost, but not quite. Even as she pushed through Transfer Five’s swinging doors Dr. Wilkom Ng was already lifting his hypo from the man laid out on the padded table in front of him. Blanchard moved forward, eyes automatically flicking to the bank of monitors behind them, and before she was halfway to the table, the trace lines simultaneously went flat.

  The man on the table, Walker Lamar, was dead.

  Blanchard gazed down at the body, feeling that eerie sense of unreality that still sometimes hit her at this point in the operation. By all the legal and medical definitions of barely ten years ago, Walker was dead—completely and irreversibly dead. And yet, through the technological miracle that was Soulminder he was now, by current definitions, just as legally and medically alive. His soul, its complex Mullner pattern recorded months ago on the giant computers back in the Core, had been recognized, identified, and snatched away as it departed his body. Locked safely away in one of the hundreds of traps back there, floating in some sort of semi-existence that she’d never been able to get adequately described, it could remain protected indefinitely. And, provided his brain and body were similarly protected by neuropreservatives and full life-support gear, soul and body could be remelded at any time.