Kiln People

Pal’s sanguine grin is the most infectious I know. He can really convince you that he knows what he’s doing. “Trust me,” he said, turning both palms up. “You’re in good hands.”

His ditto radiated the same air of confident aplomb ten minutes later, as I stared down a narrow hole in the ground, contemplating how quickly my short existence could end in such a place.

“Don’t sweat it, Frank,” the mini-golem said in a piping voice, perfectly imitating Pal’s blithe speech rhythms. “I’ll take point-position. Just follow my glossy butt.”

The creature looked like an oversized ferret, with a stretched, semi-human head. But the strangest part was its fur, all glistening, with tiny bulges that moved all over the place, like it was infested with parasites or something.

“What if there is a trap in there?”

“Oh, I give odds there will be,” Little Pallie answered. “Let me worry about that. I’m ready for anything!”

This, from someone whose dittos almost never made it home in one piece. I wished realPal were still present, so I could chew him out one last time. But he went over to the Emancipators’ camp with his portakiln, preparing to dispatch yet more hisselves down their twisty, specialized tu

If my body had been built for any decent pleasure, I would have turned around and sought it out, right then and there, leaving that place behind. Or maybe not.

“Come on, Gumby,” the pseudoferret told me with a toothy grin. “Don’t go into a funk on me. Anyway, you’re committed now. Where else can you go in that color?”

I glanced down at my arms, now dyed — like the rest of me — in a hue widely known as UK Orange. An in-house shade, trademarked by Aeneas Kaolin long ago. If this caper didn’t work, copyright violation would be the least of my worries.

Well, at least I’m not green anymore.

“Tally-ho!” squalled Pal’s diminutive ditto. “Nobody lives forever!”

With that cheery motto, the Paldit squirmed around and dived into the hole.

No, I thought in reply. Not forever. But a few more hours would be nice.

I cross-checked the friction rollers on my wrists, elbows, hips, knees, and toes. Then I knelt to slip inside. Without looking back, I sensed the hulking, nervous figure of James Gadarene, hovering nearby, watching.

Then something happened that actually moved me, in a strange way. I was already a couple of meters into the awful passage when I heard the big zealot utter some kind of benediction.

Maybe I wasn’t supposed to hear it. Still, unless I’m mistaken, Gadarene actually asked his God to go with me.

In all the time I’ve walked this Earth, it’s one of the nicest things I’ve heard anybody say.

19

Fakery’s Bakery

Tuesday afternoon fades and a vast industrial complex prepares to change shifts. The entry/exit portal throngs with moving bipeds, all of them human in one fashion or another.

In olden times, the whole population of a factory — thousands of workers — would swing into motion at the blowing of a whistle, half of them heading home, tired from eight or ten — or even twelve — hours work, while equal numbers shuffled in for their turn at the machines, transforming sweat and skill and irreplaceable human lifespan into the wealth of nations.

Today’s flow is gentler. A few hundred archie employees, many of them wearing exercise clothes, chat amiably as they leave, heading for scooters and bikes, while a more numerous and colorful host of paper-clad dittos arrives by dinobuses, trooping in the opposite direction.

Some elderly dittos are also departing, homeward bound to inload a day’s memories. But most stay, working on till it’s time to slip into the recycling vat — armies of bright orange drones, laboring with focus and without resentment, because some other self will enjoy fat wages and stock options. It can be kind of spooky if you stop and really think about it. No wonder I never had a factory job. Wrong personality for it. Way wrong.

Even the golem entrance is decorated in eye-soothing tones, with sensoresonant music playing in the background as I wait in line to sign in. There’s also a faint vibration, coming through the bottoms of my feet. Somewhere lower down, beneath the grass-covered slopes, giant machines are mixing pre-energized clay, threading it with patented fibers tuned to vibrate at the ultra-complex rhythms of a plucked soul, then kneading and molding it all into dolls that will rise, walk, and talk like real people.

Like me.

Should this feel like coming home? My present, pre-animated body was made here, mere days ago, before being shipped to Albert’s storage cooler. If today’s snooping expedition takes me down to that factory realm, will I recognize my mother?

Oh, quit it, Al.

I’m me, whether gray or brown. Grasshopper or ant. The only practical difference is how polite I’ve got to be.

That … and expendability. In a sense, I’m freer when I’m gray. I can take risks.

Like the one I’m about to face in moments, when I try to sign in. Will UK security be as lax as the maestra predicts?

I almost hope not. If I’m stopped — or even if the guards ask inconvenient questions — I’ll just turn around and leave! Apologize to Gineen and her pals. Send my half-fee home to Nell and spend the rest of my life doing … what? Forbidden by contract from inloading memories, or even seeing my rig again, I guess I’d find some other way to pass time. Maybe take in a play. Or stand on a street corner entertaining parents and kids with sleight-of-hand tricks. I haven’t done that in a while.

Or maybe I’ll visit Pal. Find out what he was so excited about this morning.

All right, I admit it. I’d be disappointed to come so far, and just get turned away. My demilife is targeted now. I have a mission, a purpose, to help my clients find out if Universal Kilns is violating the disclosure law. That seems a worthwhile goal, and well paid.

Approaching the entry kiosk, I find I’m actually nervous, hoping this will work.

Honestly? It was fun for couple of hours — scurrying through outdoor and indoor crowds, ducking through cramped niches, doing quick dye jobs and rapid clothing changes, vanishing and reappearing to fool the omnipresent cameras. In fact, it was today’s highlight so far. Doing something you’re good at — what else can make you feel more genuinely human?

All right, it’s my turn. Here goes.

The big yellow golem on duty at the entry kiosk wears an expression of such e

A beam reaches out to stroke the pellet on my brow. The guard glances at me, then at a screen. His jaw twitches, opening a bit to subvocalize a brief comment, inaudible to me but not to the infrasonic pickup embedded in his throat.

Two items spit from a slot in the kiosk, a small visitor’s badge and a slip of paper — a map featuring green arrows, suggesting where I should go. The arrows point up, toward the executive suites, where a different Albert Morris copy had an appointment, hours ago. That me never showed up, but the failure isn’t any of my business. My interests lie elsewhere.

I mutter reflexive thanks to the guard — u