Soulminder

by Timothy Zahn

  “There’s more.” Sommer nodded toward the folder. “A proposal that would make it legal for people to loan their bodies to the handicapped for a couple of hours at a time, for example. Another one would go even further—letting an infertile woman actually deliver the baby carried by the surrogate mother she’d hired.”

  Blanchard’s throat felt tight. “So much for justice,” she said bitterly. “You did say the Pro-Witness program was about justice, didn’t you, Dr. Sommer?”

  “Yes, I did. I take it that you disapprove of these ideas?”

  She closed the folder, wishing there was some way to slam it. “If you have to ask, you obviously weren’t paying attention the other day.”

  “Do you disapprove enough to come to Washington and help me fight them?”

  She stared at him, the blistering retort she’d prepared dying halfway up her throat. “I—to fight them?”

  He was watching her closely, that discomfiting intensity back in his eyes. “This may come as a surprise,” he told her, “but I have no interest in making money for money’s sake. My vision for Soulminder is as a medical tool, something that can help save lives that would otherwise be lost. I had some strong misgivings about the Professional Witness program when it was first proposed, but Jessica was very keen on the idea and kept pushing it. I couldn’t find enough solid objections, or couldn’t find the right words for the ones I had. In the end, I gave in. But even then I knew I’d have to draw the line somewhere, or I’d eventually wind up watching Soulminder become a sort of recreational body-switching toy for the idle rich.

  “Here”—he touched the folder—“is where that line gets drawn.”

  Blanchard looked down at it. “It won’t be easy,” she said. “You can make a strong case for every one of these proposals.”

  “I realize that,” Sommer agreed. “That’s why I need your help. You’re a psychologist—you have the training, and the scientific words, to help convince Congress this isn’t what Soulminder should be about.”

  He stood up. “Think about it,” he said, leaving the folder on the desk in front of her as he stepped back to the door. “I’ll be here for another day or two, if you want to discuss it further.” He paused, his hand on the doorknob. “Just remember that the longer we hesitate, the more ingrained the politicians’ mindset will be.” With another nod, he left.

  For a long time Blanchard just sat there, staring down at the cover of the folder. To deal with the renting of bodies again—not on a quiet, personal level this time, but on an overt, confrontational one. Fighting against people who wanted this and to hell with the ethics, or the overtones of slavery, or the consequences. People who would always remind her of the lengths Michael Holloway had gone to to try and stay alive …

  Or maybe, her earlier words seemed to echo through her mind, there was something he’d done in life that he regretted. Something he’d done, or something he’d failed to do.

  Reluctantly, she opened the folder again, and began to read.

  CHAPTER 6

  Cast-Off

  Back in high school, Nic Robertson had been on both the football and wrestling teams, with the broad shoulders and powerful arms required for someone to be champions in those sports. And he had been, in both. Still, in the past few months, those arms and shoulders had grown even larger and stronger.

  Which really wasn’t surprising. The doctors all told him that extra arm and upper body strength were perfectly normal for a man who’d taken a load of shrapnel to the spine and would be spending the rest of his life in a wheelchair.

  “Honey?” his wife Rosabel called from the kitchen. “Breakfast’s ready.”

  Nic clenched his teeth, wincing at the sour taste of morning mouth, as he used the grab bar mounted to the bedroom ceiling to pull himself up into a sitting position. It had been six weeks since he’d returned home from the hospital, and Rosabel had spent the first three of those weeks hovering like a mama Black Hawk, offering him help about twice a minute. He was still trying to get it through her skull that he didn’t want her help, and that he needed to learn how to do this stuff for himself.

  On the surface, she seemed to have accepted that. At least her offers of help had dropped from twice a minute to maybe twice a day. But he could see that it still hurt her to watch him struggle with his bar and his chair and the new handrails in the bathroom. It hurt her terribly. Almost as much as it hurt him to watch her hurting.

  But he did have to learn how to do this. Someday, he was sure, Rosabel would have no choice but to move on. To find a husband who was a complete man, not the half-man, half-wreck that the Army had sent home to her.

  When that happened, he would be completely and eternally alone. He might as well start getting used to that life now.

  What with getting into the chair, maneuvering into the bathroom, getting out of the chair, doing his business, and getting back into the chair, he’d gotten the morning routine down to about twelve minutes. Of course, it used to take him only two, but twelve wasn’t bad, really. He rolled himself into the kitchen just as Rosabel was sliding the pancakes off the griddle onto a plate.

  So she’d lied about breakfast being already ready. No surprise there, either—clearly, she’d figured out how much time he needed in the morning and adjusted her own schedule to match, while peddling the lie about things being ready to prod him into actually getting out of the damn bed.

  Yeah, she’d be leaving him, all right. Rosabel had been brought up to always tell the truth, and she must hate having to lie even more than she hated having to baby him. Sooner or later, she’d get tired of it.

  “Bacon’s all right, right?” She set the plate in front of him and put the syrup within easy reach.

  “Sure,” he said, feeling yet another twinge of guilt. Rosabel was more a sausage person, but she knew he liked bacon better, and with their budget the way it was these days they could only afford breakfast meat a couple of times a month.

  “Good,” she said, putting his orange juice and coffee beside the syrup and heading back to the sizzling skillet. “I got in on the last day of the sale, so we’ve got plenty.”

  “Thanks.” He picked up the glass of orange juice and took a long swallow. The tart flavor mixed with his lingering morning mouth, the taste flashing him briefly back to way too many dusty Middle East mornings. “You check the email yet?”

  “I took a quick look.” Rosabel was studiously concentrating on getting the bacon from the pan and laying it out to drain on a triple-thickness of paper towels. “But I could have missed something.”

  Nic grunted, picking up his napkin and smoothing it just as studiously across his lap. In other words, there hadn’t been any responses to his latest salvo of job applications, but she didn’t want to spoil his breakfast by saying so.

  “You did get a letter from the VA, though,” she added, sliding three strips of bacon onto his plate and then crossing to the counter where the bills were neatly stacked. “It came just a few minutes ago, while you were in the bathroom.”

  “Probably another of their here’s-how-to-get-a-job pieces of crap paper,” he growled, pouring a small dab of syrup on his pancakes. Rosabel didn’t care much for bacon, but she loved syrup, so he always made sure he left her enough to thoroughly soak her pancakes.

  “No, I don’t think so.” Rosabel picked up the top envelope and brought it back across the room. “This one came certified mail. I had to sign for it and everything.”

  Frowning, Nic stuffed a forkful of pancake into his mouth and took the envelope. It was certified, all right. More than that, the return address was different from the one his usual VA junk mail came from. Biting off a bacon chaser for his pancakes, he tore open the envelope and pulled out the folded paper.

  His breath caught in his throat, nearly sending the pancake down the wrong way.

  “What is it?” Rosabel asked, wincing as he fought to k
eep from choking. “Did they find you a new job?”

  Carefully, Nic finished swallowing his mouthful, making sure not to inhale it this time. “Not a new job,” he said, handing her the paper. “A new life.”

  He watched her eyes move back and forth as she read. Watched them go wide as she hit the spot where he’d tried to choke on his breakfast.

  She read it twice before finally looking up. “Is this for real?” she all but whispered.

  “If it isn’t, it’s one hell of a sick joke,” Nic said, taking the paper back.

  And rereading it, just to make sure he hadn’t been imagining things.

  In cooperation with Soulminder, Incorporated, the Veterans Administration and the United States Government are pleased to offer you the permanent use of a new body. (See below for details.)

  The transfer will take place at the Washington, D.C. Soulminder office.

  If you wish to avail yourself of this opportunity, please call the phone number below no later than forty-eight hours after receipt of this letter.

  “What do you think?” he asked, looking up at Rosabel.

  “I don’t know,” she said, looking back uncertainly. “I mean, it would be wonderful to have … for you to be able to walk again. But … ”

  “But?” Nic prompted.

  “That footnote, where they say he could be a criminal,” she said. “That worries me.”

  “They also say he could have been an accident victim,” Nic pointed out. “Or died of a drug overdose or organ failure. That thing’s there to cover all the possibilities, that’s all.”

  “Yes, but what if he was a criminal?” Rosabel asked. “What if he was in prison for—for murdering his wife or something?”

  “It doesn’t matter what he did,” Nic said firmly, moving his left hand surreptitiously under the table and resting it on his useless legs. The chance to have a fully functional body again … “It’ll be my body, and it’ll do what I tell it to.”

  “Will it?” she countered, her voice starting to sound a little ragged. “There are some things that stay with the body, you know. Otherwise, companies like Walkabout USA couldn’t even exist. If he was a killer, or a molester—”

  “It’ll be my body, Rosabel,” Nic repeated. She wasn’t seriously going to stand in his way on this, was she? On nothing more than some half-baked fears and silly minor details? “It’ll do what I tell it to.”

  Because this was literally the chance of a lifetime. The chance of his lifetime. To be whole again … “Look, we don’t have to decide right now,” he continued into her frowning silence. “We can call it in and go there and still back out if it doesn’t feel right. There must be hundreds of other vets who would jump at a chance like this.” He gave a little snort. “Figuratively, I mean.”

  Rosabel winced at the unsubtle reminder of his condition, as he’d counted on her doing. The marriage counselors always talked about fighting fair, but they all had two good legs to walk on. Right now, winning was all that counted, and tactics be damned. “All right,” she said. “Go ahead and call. Tell them you’ll accept. I don’t suppose you can … you know. Tell them it’s provisional.”

  “I think if I did that they’d give it to someone else,” Nic said. “But don’t worry. I meant it about backing out. I mean, they’re not going to strap me into a Soulminder machine and force me to take him, right?”

  “I suppose not,” Rosabel said. She still didn’t sound all that enthusiastic, but at least she didn’t sound dead-set against the idea any more.

  And for now, that was good enough. She’d have a few days to get used to the idea. After that, he would simply talk her out of whatever reservations she still had.

  Because winning this one was all that counted. All that mattered in the universe.

  “Alpine skiing, you say,” the pudgy woman at the desk said, her eyes focused on her computer display, her fingers punching slowly at the keys, her head all but lost amid the bold Walkabout USA sign that filled the wall behind her.

  “Correct,” Daniel Lydekker confirmed, wondering if this was a complete waste of time. The role he was auditioning for involved a fair amount of skiing, but all the close-ups would be studio shots in front of a green screen. He didn’t actually need any skiing experience.

  But there were a lot of hungry young actors out there, and way too many of them probably knew at least a little bit about skiing. Lydekker knew the casting director’s reputation, and the man was a raving lunatic for realism.

  Which meant if it was a choice between the son of the great Blake Lydekker and some complete unknown who’d barely mastered the bunny slope, he’d take the unknown in a heartbeat.

  Unfortunately, there was no time for Lydekker to learn how to ski, not before the casting call scheduled for a week from tomorrow. But there was time to at least experience the sport. And, if he was lucky, he’d also learn how to fake the moves and posture.

  “Here we go,” the woman said, leaning a bit closer to her screen. “We have a former World Cup team member on file. Good enough?”

  “Absolutely,” Lydekker said, wondering vaguely how much of his father’s money this was going to cost. Still, the elder Lydekker could hardly kick. He was the one who wanted so much for Danny Boy to follow in his footsteps, and it wasn’t like he didn’t have money to burn. “How soon can I take a spin?”

  The woman frowned slightly. “We call it a walkabout, Mr. Lydekker,” she said, her tone mildly reproving. “Let me check his schedule … we could do it early next week, if you’d like. Monday or Tuesday.”

  “Make it Monday,” Lydekker said. The audition was Tuesday, not much time for him to assimilate the experience. But he’d make it work. “Where is he located?”

  “Denver,” the woman said. “You’d need to be there by eight that morning.”

  “No problem,” Lydekker said. “I assume there’s an extra charge for the quick turn-around?”

  “The various fees are listed on the form,” she said, handing him a clipboard. “If you’ll fill this out, we can get things started.”

  “Thank you,” Lydekker said. A world full of netbooks and electronic tablets, and Walkabout USA still wanted him to scribble words on paper. How unexpectedly quaint.

  Still, given all the hacking, crashing, and brute-forcing going on out there, maybe pen and paper really was the best way to keep private interactions genuinely private.

  He was definitely on Walkabout’s side on that one. What they were doing was legal enough, but legal and publicly embraced weren’t always the same thing. A significant percentage of the American people fervently believed that recreational body-sharing was the work of the devil, a secret government cabal, or some combined group of Big Pharmaceutical, Big Business, Big Banking, Big Oil. Probably with the Illuminati thrown in somewhere.

  In this case, private was good.

  The form wanted the usual stuff: name, address, phone, relevant medical history, etc. There was a check box for whether or not the client was already registered with Soulminder—which Lydekker was—and it spelled out the additional fees and time required for a new client to go to one of the Soulminder offices and have his Mullner trace recorded.

  He frowned as something about that suddenly connected. “Question?” he said, looking up. “I’m registered with Soulminder here in LA. But you said the switch was going to be in Denver? How’s that going to work?”

  “As soon as the agreement is confirmed we’ll contact the LA Soulminder office,” the woman explained. “They’ll make arrangements to transfer your Mullner trace to Denver.” She gestured. “It’s on page two of the form.”

  Lydekker turned the paper over. “Oh, right,” he said. “I see it now.” The transfer would cost another fee, of course, and a pretty damn hefty one. Plus the reverse transfer if he wanted to go back to being on file here.

  But then, he’d already known that
this form of recreation wasn’t for the faint of heart or the short of cash.

  He finished with the form and returned it to the woman. “Denver Soulminder office at eight a.m. next Monday, right?”

  “Yes,” she confirmed, glancing over the form. “And don’t be late. Once you’re set you still have to get to Breckenridge, and you only get him for twelve hours.”

  “Don’t worry,” Lydekker promised, visions of a juicy almost-starring role beckoning siren-like to him. “I’ll be there.”

  The VA official’s name was Susan; the Soulminder tech’s name was Patrick. Nic was pretty sure they both also had last names, but he’d been too nervous and distracted to catch them when they were first pitched, and the lettering on their badges was too small for him to read.

  Susan was the talkative one; Patrick was quiet nearly to the point of unfriendliness. But together, they got the job done.

  “Okay, that’s the Mullner trace,” Susan said as she unstrapped Nic’s wheelchair from the framework holding up the helmet that had been buzzing in his ears for the past twenty minutes. “We’ll give Patrick a moment to check it over. How do you feel, by the way?”

  “A little queasy,” Nic admitted, getting the words out quickly and returning to the job of keeping his teeth clenched together. The last thing he wanted to do was spew all over a Soulminder office.

  “That happens sometimes,” Susan said cheerfully. “Nothing to worry about—it’ll pass in a couple of minutes. Patrick?”

  “Looks good,” Patrick said, giving a vague sort of thumbs-up. “Whenever you’re ready.”

  “Great,” Susan said, getting into position behind Nic’s chair and pushing him toward the door. “Here we go. A new life in thirty minutes, or your next one’s free.”

  “I’ll be timing you,” Nic warned, daring to joke a little. As she’d promised, the nausea was already going away.