circumstances, I think it’s important for you to know what’s going on.”
A muscle in Fola’s eyelid twitches. Her throat pulses.
Xophia shifts to one side. The flitcams streaming her image shift with her, bringing the patient into view. A frail-looking geront with wax-paper skin. The guy’s bald scalp looks diseased—a hodgepodge of wrinkled tattunes that, on closer inspection, appear to be shriveled lips. Puckered, subcutaneous, cancerous. In addition to the sheets, the patient is restrained by g-mesh that limits the movement of his limbs, keeps him from bouncing around the icosahedron-shaped clinic. His face is sunken, caved in on itself. His cadaverous mouth forms a knot of determination around the siptube lodged between his teeth. The thick tube is clogged with brownish sludge. Fola can’t tell if the stuff is going in or coming out. It occurs to her that this is the source of the crusty polka dots on Xophia’s jumpsuit.
“There’s been an outbreak of some kind,” Xophia says. “Within the last twenty-four hours. A lot of people on the shuttle are starting to get sick.” She frowns in irritation as the siptube slides free or is spat out and gobs of the paste erupt from the caldera formed by the geront’s mouth, spewing in all directions.
Fola grimaces. But Xophia doesn’t seem to mind. “Since I’m the only one on board with any emergency medical training, I’ve been pretty busy.” She snags the loose end of the siptube, holds it absently. “The problem is, I have no idea what it is. According to the datastream from Earth we’re monitoring, the same thing is happening back there . . . which is weird. The bruises that are showing up—the growths that people are getting—look a lot like historical stuff you’d find in the mediasphere. Old ad images and tattunes. Pre-ecocaust, mostly. I’m wondering if maybe it’s an ad virus that mutated and went berserk. Whatever it is, it’s being transmitted electronically through the infosphere. Otherwise, there’s no way we could be infected since we haven’t been in direct physical contact with anyone else for months.”
She reinserts the siptube into the geront’s incontinent lips, swabs his mouth with a damp cloth, and replaces his bib. She completes the maneuver deftly, with practiced ease and patience.
“Anyway”—she glances up—“I just thought you should know what’s happening. A lot of the refugees on the shuttle are worried about family members and friends they left behind. But with the radio silence, there’s no way to contact them to find out what’s going on.”
That’s it. The datasquirt ends, a freeze frame with Xophia looking straight at Fola, her hand still holding the siptube in place. There’s something on her palm. A malignant black-and-white face that Fola doesn’t recognize. Then the transmission washes away in a downpour of static.
Hey, hey, whaddaya say,
Let’s all pray for Judgment Day.
“Do you want to reply?” Pheidoh asks.
Fola nods, takes a second to clear her throat and rub her nose with the back of her hand. “What was on her palm?”
“An image of Sydney Greenstreet playing the character of Ferrari in
Casablanca
.”
“Is that a digital video?”
“No. It’s an old black-and-white flat-screen movie.”
Fola hollows her cheeks as several flitcams, disguised as insects, emerge from the stained-glass foliage to transmit her image.
Five, six, seven, eight,
Meet you at the Pearly Gate.
8
HACK JOB
T he only flesh Rexx has ever cut into with a knife, besides a steak, is the scrotum of a deformed calf at the Hello Dolly Animal Pharm.
“If you wanna be a gengineer,” his father had said, “you’re gonna learn firsthand what genes are.”
Rexx was ten at the time and had already decided that the last thing he wanted to do was follow in his father’s footsteps. Part of it was that he’d always hated his name, which was an acronym for an ancient programming language—REstructured
A muscle in Fola’s eyelid twitches. Her throat pulses.
Xophia shifts to one side. The flitcams streaming her image shift with her, bringing the patient into view. A frail-looking geront with wax-paper skin. The guy’s bald scalp looks diseased—a hodgepodge of wrinkled tattunes that, on closer inspection, appear to be shriveled lips. Puckered, subcutaneous, cancerous. In addition to the sheets, the patient is restrained by g-mesh that limits the movement of his limbs, keeps him from bouncing around the icosahedron-shaped clinic. His face is sunken, caved in on itself. His cadaverous mouth forms a knot of determination around the siptube lodged between his teeth. The thick tube is clogged with brownish sludge. Fola can’t tell if the stuff is going in or coming out. It occurs to her that this is the source of the crusty polka dots on Xophia’s jumpsuit.
“There’s been an outbreak of some kind,” Xophia says. “Within the last twenty-four hours. A lot of people on the shuttle are starting to get sick.” She frowns in irritation as the siptube slides free or is spat out and gobs of the paste erupt from the caldera formed by the geront’s mouth, spewing in all directions.
Fola grimaces. But Xophia doesn’t seem to mind. “Since I’m the only one on board with any emergency medical training, I’ve been pretty busy.” She snags the loose end of the siptube, holds it absently. “The problem is, I have no idea what it is. According to the datastream from Earth we’re monitoring, the same thing is happening back there . . . which is weird. The bruises that are showing up—the growths that people are getting—look a lot like historical stuff you’d find in the mediasphere. Old ad images and tattunes. Pre-ecocaust, mostly. I’m wondering if maybe it’s an ad virus that mutated and went berserk. Whatever it is, it’s being transmitted electronically through the infosphere. Otherwise, there’s no way we could be infected since we haven’t been in direct physical contact with anyone else for months.”
She reinserts the siptube into the geront’s incontinent lips, swabs his mouth with a damp cloth, and replaces his bib. She completes the maneuver deftly, with practiced ease and patience.
“Anyway”—she glances up—“I just thought you should know what’s happening. A lot of the refugees on the shuttle are worried about family members and friends they left behind. But with the radio silence, there’s no way to contact them to find out what’s going on.”
That’s it. The datasquirt ends, a freeze frame with Xophia looking straight at Fola, her hand still holding the siptube in place. There’s something on her palm. A malignant black-and-white face that Fola doesn’t recognize. Then the transmission washes away in a downpour of static.
Hey, hey, whaddaya say,
Let’s all pray for Judgment Day.
“Do you want to reply?” Pheidoh asks.
Fola nods, takes a second to clear her throat and rub her nose with the back of her hand. “What was on her palm?”
“An image of Sydney Greenstreet playing the character of Ferrari in
Casablanca
.”
“Is that a digital video?”
“No. It’s an old black-and-white flat-screen movie.”
Fola hollows her cheeks as several flitcams, disguised as insects, emerge from the stained-glass foliage to transmit her image.
Five, six, seven, eight,
Meet you at the Pearly Gate.
8
HACK JOB
T he only flesh Rexx has ever cut into with a knife, besides a steak, is the scrotum of a deformed calf at the Hello Dolly Animal Pharm.
“If you wanna be a gengineer,” his father had said, “you’re gonna learn firsthand what genes are.”
Rexx was ten at the time and had already decided that the last thing he wanted to do was follow in his father’s footsteps. Part of it was that he’d always hated his name, which was an acronym for an ancient programming language—REstructured
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