On the other hand, how did you really know what a mentar was thinking? Though the mentar brain was modeled on a human original, it was still an alien thing. Fred knew the typical hi-index specs, and since he didn’t have anywhere to go, he listed them: axodendritic neurons ten times richer in microtubules (generating a hundred times the quantum flux per cubic millimeter) with no need for ionic pumps to create a voltaic differential (almost eliminating the latency period between neural firings), and a thousand times the density of synaptic junctions (that could close their synaptic gaps completely for brief periods of hardwired, superfast cognition). The mentar paste was more complex, stable, redundant, flexible, and robust than his own sloppy grayware. It could distribute its attention units to cover thousands of cognition tasks simultaneously. It could interface directly with an array of electronic devices: archives, cams and emitters, arbeitors, and superluminary and quantum processors. It could be stored, backed up, and mirrored. It could freely migrate to different media. The various subunits of the mentar brain slept in shifts and could watch itself dream. It never took vacations, never got sick, never had a documented case of headache. And with the exception of Marcus, any mentar that Fred met was more likely to be his boss rather than the other way around.
But what if he was, in fact, falling out of type? What if he was suffering from the dreaded “clone fatigue” that everyone was jabbering about lately? How would he know? Who could he ask? Marcus? If he so much as breathed a word of his self-doubts to the brotherhood mentar, it would force him to undergo psychiatric evaluation, something to avoid. Perhaps he could do his own research without telling Marcus. There were whole libraries dedicated to the russ germline: genanalyses, life performance studies, behavioral studies, biographies, as well as a substantial body of popular vids. He could research all aspects of himself, at least from an outside perspective. Russes weren’t into self-analysis, and why was that? As far as Fred knew, no russ had ever set down a first-person account of what it was like to be a russ. Other types did. Evangelines published poetry. Every evangeline did this, even Mary. To write poetry was an urge rooted at the core of their germline. And lulus kept a history, too, of sorts. They hosted bawdy burlesques for their salon on the WAD, which people actually paid to access. Even the jeromes, the tight-ass, bean-counting jeromes like Gilles, kept a history. Or at least that was the rumor. They had a so-called Book of Jerome to which any jerome could contribute and which only jeromes could access. And of course there were the famous, but equally exclusive, Jenny Boards.
The russes had their Heads-Up Log, it was true. The HUL was a sort of history, maybe. Fred decided he’d have to spend some time browsing through it at the BB of R Hall. It might shed some light.
ENOUGH HALVENE DRAINED from Fred’s body so that his brain stem registered hypoxia, and his lungs spontaneously resumed breathing. It surprised him; he’d grown used to not breathing. With breathing came the ability to speak out loud, and the mentar Nicholas took this opportunity to ask him how he felt.
Fred had to gently hack and spit a little before he could answer. “I’m fine,” he said at last. “How’s Reilly Dell?”
“I’m sorry, Myr Londenstane, but that’s privileged information.”
So it was back to Myr Londenstane. His shift as HomCom commander was over, and with it his privileges to information. He’d have to wait and see Reilly himself, and even then they wouldn’t be free to discuss today’s action. The damned Applied People client confidentiality oath.
Fred said, “Let me speak to him.”
“That’s not possible at the moment.” This probably meant they were still patching him up.
“What time is it?”
“Fifteen-ten.”
“So early?”
Marcus joined the conversation. “Don’t worry, Fred,” it said. “You will be paid for a full duty cycle plus combat differential plus a decontamination bonus.”
“Yippee,” Fred said. “I should do this more often.”
The mentars made no reply, perhaps because they didn’t register his sarcasm, or perhaps because they did. In any case, if they weren’t going to tell him what he most wanted to know—Reilly’s condition—then he didn’t feel like talking to them. He felt like hell, actually. Like he’d been swimming in acetone. He could only imagine what Reilly must feel like.
FRED TOYED WITH the notion of writing the true history of russdom. He wasn’t actually going to do it—that would be proof positive that he’d jumped the tracks, but as he lay suspended over the Decon Port Authority swamp tank, it was an interesting mental exercise. This was how he would begin: To my cloned brothers: from our first days in russ school, we are trained to lay down our lives for our employers, but have we ever stopped to ask—are they worthy of us?
THE PALLET FERRIED him to the catwalk. He pulled himself to his feet and held the railing until the vertigo passed. There were five dozen HALVENE tanks in this room, none of them now occupied. The escort team must have taken Reilly to a critical care room, one with hernandez tanks, in order to repair his injuries while douching him.
Fred padded to the dressing room. On a bench was a freshly extruded Applied People teal and brown jumpsuit, shoes, and a belt, all his size. The belt had a valet buckle. He’d have to use it or a skullcap until the HALVENE had dissipated from his tissues and he could grow a new inbody comm system. For that matter, since the solvent had removed his good nano, as well as the bad, he’d have to go through the whole time-consuming balancing act of reintroducing colonies of homeostats into his metabolism. A decon bonus didn’t even start to cut it for him.
Fred picked up the jumpsuit. There was no point in taking a shower—he was already cleaner than clean. And he would smell of HALVENE for the next week in any case. He turned at a sound behind him, expecting to see Reilly. But it was a woman. It was UDJD Probate Inspector Costa. He covered himself with a towel, more out of pique than modesty.
“Myr Londenstane,” she said, “it’s nice to see you up and around and no worse for wear. I wanted to drop by and personally assure myself of your condition.”
“What about Lieutenant Dell?” The question just slipped out, but Costa was under no Applied People confidentiality constraints. What she chose to divulge was her and her agency’s business.
“Dell’s doing fine. He’s in rapid tissue regeneration. He’ll need some new leg muscles.”
“Thank you. I’m good, then,” Fred said and glanced down at his bare feet. He was standing in a small puddle of HALVENE that had pooled inside his feet and was leaking from between his toes.
“What about all that hot shit that got sucked into the aquifer?” he said. “Won’t that contaminate the city’s water supply?”
“Oh, don’t worry about that. That system was built sixty years ago during the Outrage. It’s designed to deal with NASTIES. Chicago’s water is safe.”
“What about our city once the canopy comes down?”
Costa shrugged her shoulders. “How should I know?
“Anyway, I wanted to compliment you on your excellent job today,” she continued, “though I must say, things turned out unexpectedly.”
“Oh?” he said.
“I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but the facility we found next to the crib was only a decoy.”
“Are you sure?” Fred said. “A decoy?”
“Yes, the excavator dug up the real Cabinet a couple hundred meters away.”
So Cabinet was in custody. Fred could feel his blood pressure rise and was glad Nicholas couldn’t read him now.