Kiln People

The wood is frayed and pungent, the latch just a rusty hook. I slip into the backyard, observing crabgrass speckled with dog droppings … a worn baseball and glove … a few half-melted toy soldiers lying in the sun. Everything is homey and old-fashioned, down to the man and woman screaming in the stucco house.

“I’m finished letting people walk all over me. You’ll pay, sadistic bastard!”

“For what? I have the same deadline every week, ask anybody.”

“Any excuse to leave here, going crazy with screaming kids—”

“Talk about crazy—”

That ill-advised riposte brings a shriek. Through a window I glimpse a matronly figure with orange hair and pale skin, hurling crockery at a cringing man. They look real; people seldom assign a domestic spat to dittos, saving that full passion for flesh that knows it will endure ten thousand bitter tomorrows, long enough to serve up vengeance for each hurt, real or imagined.

I spot Maharal’s ghost, skulking past three small boys, aged maybe four to nine, who sit in the muggy shade of a dilapidated porch, as the screen door amplifies each miserable clatter and yell. I’m surprised some roving lawyerbot hasn’t been attracted by now, zeroing in to offer the kids a brochure on parental malpractice. ditMaharal puts a sly finger to his lips, and the eldest boy nods. He must know Maharal, or else the cloud of misery is too dense for speech as the gray hurries by, heading toward the little street. It’s the only way out, so I follow seconds later, imitating Maharal’s gestured plea for silence.

The boys look more surprised, this time. The middle one starts to speak … then the eldest grabs his arm, using both hands to twist in opposite directions, raising cries of pain. Instantly, all three are embroiled in flying punches, emulating the violence indoors.

My grays imprint Albert’s conscience, so I hesitate, wondering if I should intervene … Then I spot something both weird and reassuring about the two who are closest. They’re dittos! Despite a caucasian-beige coloration, the skin texture’s artificial. But why put kid-duplicates through a cruelly simulated summer afternoon? Surely the memories won’t be inloaded.

Sounds perverted. Make a mental note to look into this later. But it gives me an excuse to leave, jogging down a narrow drive past someone’s cherished restoration of an old Pontiac. Why would a scientist’s ghost spend his last hours skulking through a servants’ enclave, rife with midget soap operas? My concentration is broken by gratitude for my own childhood as I hasten around the corner of a tall hedge, only to find -

Maharal!

The gray stands in front of me … smiling … aiming a weapon with a flared nozzle.

No time to think. Suck a deep breath! Put your head down and charge!

A roar fills my universe.

What happens next depends on what he just shot me with -

5

Clay Station

Damn.

I’m always grumpy getting up off the warming tray … grabbing paper garments from a rack and slipping them over limbs still glowing with ignition enzymes, knowing I’m copy-for-a-day.

Of course I remember doing this a thousand times. Still, it always feels like getting a long list of nasty chores, taking risks you’d never put your protobody through. I start this pseudolife filled with premonitions of a lesser death, dark and unmourned.

Ugh. What put me in this mood? Could it be Ritu’s news? A reminder that real death still lurks for us all?

Well, shrug it off! Life’s still the same as it was in the old days.

Sometimes you’re the grasshopper.

Sometimes an ant.

I watched gray number one head off to meet Miss Maharal. He took the Vespa, with today’s greenie riding on the saddle behind him.

That left one scooter for me to use alone. Seems fair. Number one gets to see Ritu and snoop around the affairs of a gazillionaire. Meanwhile, I must go visit the great witch of Studio Neo. At least I get to have my own transport. realAlbert turns away, shuffling out of the kiln room with nary a backward glance. Well, he needs to lie down. Rest the body. Keep it fit so we dupes can inload sometime tonight. I don’t feel snubbed. Much. If you’ve gotta be clay, it’s good to be gray. At least there are realistic pleasures to enjoy -

— like swerving through traffic, surprising stolid yellow-striped truckers as I cut in front of them, always alert for the telltale buzz of my cop-detector and making sure not to inconvenience any real people. Aggravating dits can be sport, just so long as each violation stays below the five-point threshold programmed into the publicams lining every street. (The threshold where they drop privacy constraints and form a grand posse.) I once racked up eleven four-pointers in a day, without triggering a single fine!

This little Turkmeni scooter doesn’t have as much power as the Vespa, but it’s agile and durable. Cheap, too. I make a note to order three more. Anyway, it’s risky having only two scoots on hand. What if I suddenly need to make an army, like happened last May? How will I rush a dozen red or purple copies of myself where they’re needed? By dinobus?

Nell obediently jots down my note, but she won’t put through a buy order till realAlbert wakes. Neurons okay all big purchases. Clay can only suggest.

Well, I’ll be Albert tomorrow. If I inload. If I make it home. Which shouldn’t be too problematic, I guess. Meetings with the maestra are wearing, but seldom fatal.

Slowing down for a light now. Stopping. Taking a moment to glance west, toward Odeon Square. Fresh memories of last night’s desperate flight and narrow escape still perturb my Standing Wave, even if it was only a green who suffered so.

I wonder who the waiter was. The one who helped me get away.

Light’s changed. Go! Maestra hates it when you’re late.

Studio Neo, just ahead. Charming place. It fills what used to be a huge windowless urban mall. Nowadays shopping is either a chore — you ask House to arrange deliveries — or else you do it for pleasure, strolling in person along tree-lined avenues like Realpeople Lane, where balmy venturi breezes flow all year round. Either way, it’s hard to picture why our parents did it in sunless grottos. A fluorescent-lit catacomb is no proper world for human beings.

So now malls are set aside for the new servant class. Us clayfolk.

Jitneys and scooters zip around the vast parking structure, conveying fresh dittos to clients all over town. And not just any dittos. Most bear specialized colors. Snow white for sensuality. Ebony for undiluted intellect. A particular scarlet that’s oblivious to pain … and another that experiences everything with fierce intensity. Few of these creatures return to their point of origin when the élan cells run down. Their rigs don’t expect them back for memory inloading.

Most Neo customers do return the scooters, however. To reclaim the deposit.

I park the Turkomen in a coded space set aside for folks like me — ditto intermediaries traveling on business, conveying important information between real people. Grays get priority, so the more luridly colored step aside as I enter the main arcade. Most do it reflexively, holding doors for me, almost as if I were human. But a few whites give way grudgingly, casting impertinent glares.

Well, what do you expect from whites? Pleasure is partly a matter of ego. Their kind needs self-importance in order to function.

Studio Neo occupies all four layers of the old mall, filling the grand atrium with a myriad holographic glows — an emporium of creative effort, illuminated by the garish logos of more than a hundred pushy production companies, each of them aspiring for pi