others hide for political reasons… moral… philosophical… stuff only weird homosapiens understand -/+= no way any autie would be naughty
shall we report them all??? ask Auntie-Autie-Ortie!/+/- her savant-talent is ethics +/!/+ let her decide which to tattle-on!! Autie-Murphy won’t care -/+ he loves the search +analyzing worldwide cam usages +deviations/skews/kurtosis…
… and he found HER!/! chimera-mom and her little boy + + + age seven but big as a ten-year-old normalkid!!! Gene Autie accessed the database of scientists secretly studying the child -
=› go 145,627,010 base-pairs down the long arm of chromosome#1 =› see ‹= the unusual version of 1q21.1 – not a normalpeople variant -/- nor the “mistakes” carried by some autistics/schizophrenics/others -/+ it’s a resurrection of something longlost +/-
LOOK at the child!=›*‹= beautiful bigskull protrudes in back. Perfect pitch and more surprises… yet stronger &better-focused than any autiee + with fight/flight response that’s calm-not-jittery!/!- speaks almost normal… but SEE how he relates to animals! here =›*‹=
Agurne (greetings) Arrixaka (virgin) Bidarte (between the ways) should be proud of her son +-+ too bad they surgically removed his eyebrow ridges -/-/- to stand out less -/- but what a smile and perfect profile!/-/! without that ugly homosap chin (((
they did it!/! normalpeople (a few) redeemed their ancient crime + + + returned the Robust Folk to the world + + +
too bad other normalpeople want him dead
48.
The Silverdome was crowded. With winter coming, more deepees wandered in to escape the night chill, even if it meant serving on work crews and listening to preachucators while slurping free alganoodles, spiced with pulp-grade chicktish meat.
Arriving for his shift, Slawek groaned when he saw how many newcomers had arrived on the mezzanine level, erecting cots, privacy curtains, and cheap, pixelcloth vid-screens to distract the kids, perching it all on metlon-and-plyboard platforms that covered the old stadium seating.
Slawek passed an ottodog, sniffing for contraband, then hurried past the Big Placard of Rules painted in no-overlay red-the hue that specs were never supposed to cover or conceal. Though it only took some dime hackerware to change the spectral pattern of your goggles. Slawek knew a dozen u-levels where this sign had been defaced with crude mockings. Resentment toward authority was rising, among the Silverdome’s rowdier ethnics.
Please don’t let them assign me to enforcement today, he prayed. Subdural nerve impulses almost lifted his right hand to trace a cross on his chest. But Catholicism was nekulturny among a lot of other kidz. So instead, the neural pattern went to Slawek’s soul-avatar, telling it to genuflect in a private corner of virspace, adding a pater noster on his behalf.
Aleksei “Danny” Hutnicki was in charge at Duty Station, where a banner-chart of work parties kept changing as laborers reported for assignments, got excused for sick call, or else came back from one of the homestead zones of Old Detroit. Aleksei glanced up and grimaced.
“You’re late. You never used to be, when you slept here.”
“Yeah, well.” That was before Slawek packed off to one of the Silverdome’s satellite projects, two dozen homes-a couple of city blocks-that were being reclaimed as a commune-complete with dairy, greenhouse, school, and some glass-covered ex-basements converted into algae farms. Still, you had to put in time here, at the main center, if you wanted to advance.
“The jitney bus broke down. Had to use my skutr.”
“Hm.” Aleksei looked dubious. Scanning the Duty Board. “Let’s see what I can find that’s right for you…” He seemed to be looking for a shit job to give Slawek.
But it wasn’t hard to in-spec the fellow’s facials, using cheapware to correlate flush tones and iris dilation. What a faker! He already knows what I’ve been assigned.
Sure enough, Aleksei waggled a couple of fingers and the big board flickered. Slawek’s specs automatically zoomed on his name and the adamant word next to it.
ENFORCEMENT.
His face stayed impassive-he had been practicing with a feedback program. But Slawek’s soulvatar, responding to involuntary nerve twitches, expressed his disappointment by cursing and stomping in its private little capsule of subreality-a slightly sinful e-tantrum that the little homunculus thereupon commenced to pray-off, kneeling and offering fervent Hail Marys, observable only by Porfirio and God.
Meanwhile, placid on the surface, Slawek turned and headed toward the nearest ramp leading upward, into the higher galleries of the ancient domed stadium.
Slawek was less upset about getting enforcement duty when he learned he would be doing rounds with Dr. Betsby. It offered a chance to ask questions. Though first the doc had a few of his own, as they visited family encampments on the mezzanine level.
“Have you been keeping up with your studies, son?”
“Yes, sir,” Slawek answered a bit nervously. This man had the power to yank him off aixperience tutorials, and send him back into an old-timey classroom, alongside petulant teens who made life miserable for their flesh-’n’-blood teachers.
“I’m also reading paper books,” he told the physician, who oversaw health and welfare in the Silverdome. Betsby’s gray-streaked, sandy hair had grown out during the last few months, along with a new beard and a faraway look in his eyes. Right now, the man’s core attention was focused on a handheld instrument scanning the blemished arm of an elderly woman from drowned Bangladesh. Slawek’s job was to hand over tools, but also keep wary for trouble. People from some cultures didn’t appreciate being poked at by authority figures, adding to the simmering tensions of a melting-pot refugee camp. Slawek was big, streetwise, and had trained in some defense arts. Yet, he still looked like enough of a kid to seem unthreatening, especially when he offered a deliberately goofy grin.
Right now that seemed especially wise. Several males-probably the old woman’s sons-watched protectively nearby. Slawek gave them his best happy face… and got back a grudging nod.
“Come to sick call tomorrow,” Betsby told the woman. “A female nurse will finish your examination. If you don’t come, your family will lose privileges. If you do, I’m sure we can whip up a gene-match and make this nasty crud go away. Do you understand?”
She tilted her head, listening to an old-fashioned translation-plug, then stood to take his hand, thanking the doctor in rapid Bengali. At this, her sons rose and also bowed. It was often like this during rounds. A cycle of tension and release that Slawek found more exhausting than any other duty.
Still, the doc trusts me. That’s worth plenty.
As they left, moving down aisle LL4, Dr. Betsby stopped to face Slawek.
“What books?”
“Sir?” Eye contact with the boss always discomfited.
“The paper books you just mentioned. Where did you get them?”
“Um… there’s a pretty good library in the old Owner’s Box above the fifty-yard line. Old Professor Miller asks us to bring any texts we find in reclam houses. I just hold on to some, to look over first.”