Fred paused and read what he’d dictated. Overall, it was good; it expressed what he wanted. But it sounded too stilted. Although russes were big on continuing education, they didn’t wear their erudition on their sleeve. He thought about it for a while, blanked the text, and began anew. This time he tried to speak as he would to Reilly. He did, however, keep the phrase “To my brothers cloned,” which he liked.
“To my brothers cloned: I’m fed up with the way we keep everything bottled inside us. It’s not healthy. So, I’m going to speak my mind here and see if any of you will do the same. I propose the Book of Russ to be a place where russes can speak openly to each other.”
Fred paused and read this. It might err in the opposite direction, but it was better. So he continued in the same vein.
“Lately there’s been a lot of talk about the so-called clone fatigue. Of course, there’s no such thing. It’s an urban myth. It’s an attempt by non-iterants to belittle us. But if it did exist, and if I caught it, how would I know?
“Let me put this another way. We all know that we, the brothers of Thomas A., prefer to wear heavy brown shoes. That’s so typical of us that it’s a timeworn cliche. How a preference for shoe color could be coded into our genes, I don’t have a clue. Whatever the mechanism, what would happen if tomorrow I woke up and decided, just for the hell of it, to wear a pair of black shoes. I suspect that everyone I ran into would comment on it. It would cause such a sensation that I probably wouldn’t wear them in public again. But what if the truth of the matter is that while we’re young, we prefer brown shoes but that russes of a certain age develop an appreciation for shoes of different colors? Are you following me? If we were all too reluctant to wear black shoes in public because of the reaction we would get from others, or even to discuss our shoe color preferences among ourselves, eventually we’d all be walking around secretly dissatisfied with our shoes.
“You want my opinion, there’s something unnatural about this state of affairs. I think we’ve been sold a bill of goods. We’re so obsessed with trying to stay true to our germline that we repress anything we think might set us apart. Believe me, brothers, that way lies madness.
“Anyway, that’s how I feel about it, and if I feel that way, I’m pretty sure there’s at least a half million of you out there who feel the same way.
“And so, this is what I’m going to do. I’m going to dedicate this volume, this Book of Russ, to the free expression of russness, and I encourage all of you, my brothers, to add your bit. Tell us all what makes us tick.
“To get the ball rolling, I’ll go first.”
Fred paused to think of the most provocative thing about himself that he could reveal in order to loosen the guarded russ tongue. Eventually, he wanted to get into the whole issue of mission loyalty, but that was probably too explosive a topic to start off with. Better go with something safer and saltier.
“All right,” he continued. “Here goes. I want to sleep with a hink. Got that? I’d like to screw a woman whose body is unlike any other woman’s body in the world. Don’t get me wrong; I love our iterant women. They’re the best. I’m not putting down our ’leens or jennys or any of the other types, not in the least. But once in a while, I wonder, I really wonder what a free-ranger might be like in the sack.
“There you have it. And please don’t tell me that I’m the only russ in the world who’s ever lusted after hinks.
“Your turn. Thanks for listening.”
Fred closed the entry and reread it. He was appalled. His first impulse was to delete the Book of Russ altogether, but he held back. If this was going to work, someone had to take the first step. Besides, he was positive he was right. How could he be wrong? So he did not delete his entry or even censor it. He was tempted to post it anonymously, but that would defeat the whole purpose, so he appended his sig, turned off the booth’s isolation field, and posted the inaugural entry of the Book of Russ. A moment later he wondered what in God’s name he had done.
3.4
Yesterday Bogdan had been late for work; today he had time to dawdle. Strolling to the Library train station from Howe Street, he was on the lookout for any sign of the destruction of Chicago by NASTIES, now that the canopy was down. The sidewalk under his feet felt odd. Maybe it was his imagination, but it felt spongy, so he crossed to the other side of the street. Another thing he noticed was that his skin was itchy. He imagined tiny terrorist engines, too small to see, tunneling through his epidermis to commandeer his cellular machinery and turn him into a puddle of protoplasm. So he tried not to scratch.
Something he didn’t see were homcom slugs on patrol. They were usually out in force, but this morning they were mysteriously absent.
The train ride to Elmhurst was uneventful. Unlike yesterday he took his time walking from MacArthur Station to the Bachner Building, where E-Pluribus was camping out for a second day. He had a chance to take in the local scene, which was abuzz with early morning commuters.
Elmhurst boasted dozens of shopping arcades, one stacked atop another, all the way to Munilevel 85. They bustled with youngish, extravagantly dressed and coiffed free-rangers. There were so many cars flying overhead they stirred up a breeze. No wonder E-Pluribus was upreffing here.
Ahead of him a crowd of people blocked the sidewalk and spilled into the street. Bogdan wormed his way to the front of the crowd. There, in the middle of the street, was a bloom.
It was the first one Bogdan had ever seen in realbody, and it was frighteningly beautiful. Dome-shaped, it expanded in little surges. Feathery amber crystal tendrils swelled up from a central mound and froze into place. They built up on top of each other until the whole structure collapsed on itself in a shattering, tinkling heap. Only to swell again. And it was hot, as hot as a bonfire. Bogdan and the spectators moved backward each time it grew. The people hooted and joked as they watched, as though it was no big deal. Someone said there were hundreds of such blooms all over town. Most of them were like this one, a simple one- or two-stage nanobot that was programmed to eat one or two common substances—in this case the glassine pile that was used to pave roadways, arcades, and rooftops. Where the bloom reached the curb, it stopped: the curb was made of concrete, which wasn’t part of the nanobot’s diet. But the bloom was consuming the street in both directions and would spread until it reached the intersections with their concrete firebreaks.
Soon, bloomjumpers arrived overhead in tanker cars. They projected a police cordon around the bloom and ordered everyone back. When the spectators were clear, the tankers sprayed the bloom with a foam that caused the churning mound to sputter to a halt. For a giddy moment its intricate arabesque of crystal tendrils held its shape. Then the whole thing crashed into a pile of yellow sand.
AT THE BACHNER Building, Bogdan wasn’t allowed to go right up. The E-Pluribus floors were still being converted over from their overnight tenant, a Cathouse Casino. Among the Cathouse employees leaving the building were girls with tails poking out through the rear of their skirts. Bogdan approved of tails on girls. He liked how the girls tied bells to them or braided them with ribbons, or did other interesting things to draw attention to them. What drew his special attention were the tail holes in their clothes that usually exposed a little sliver of bare ass.
Bogdan was still scratching himself, but he noticed that everyone else was scratching too, so it was probably normal.