Kiln People

But also predictable enough so that some truly devious mind could lay a fiendish trap.

… I’m in Studio Neo, passing classy establishments, offering services no one imagined before kiln tech appeared …

Wait a sec.

It’s the phone … Pal … Nell decides to pass the call on to my real self, but I listen in. He wants me to come over …

“See?” the little ferret-golem on my shoulder jeered. “I tried to warn you, Albert!”

“I keep telling you, I’m not Albert.” I grated.

We were both caught up in nervous irritation, listening to the super-rapid playback describe a fateful rendezvous.

Maestra’s executive assistant … She beckons me away from Wammaker’s.

“Our meeting concerns sensitive topics …”

We listened raptly as the “clients” — one claiming to be the maestra herself — explained their need for an untraceable investigator to nose around UK in a surreptitious yet legal ma

They were playing him like a fish.

Soon after came his adventure in the Rainbow Lounge, barely surviving a coincidental encounter with some golem-gladiators. An encounter that left him needing urgent repairs — conveniently provided by the drones of Queen Irene’s hive. The gray’s present-tense recitation made you want to stand and shout at the warbling voice, demanding that he wake up and notice how he was being used!

Well, in hindsight it’s easy to recognize a diabolical trick. (Would I have seen it under the same circumstances?)

But all sides made mistakes. The enemy — whoever pulled this convoluted caper — failed to notice gray Albert’s hidden realtime recorder, tucked amid the nest of high-density soulfibers in his larynx. Not even when they had him laid out, unconscious, using the pretext of “repairs” to install a vicious prion bomb. No doubt they checked for more sophisticated communication and tracking devices, but the tiny archiver used no power source, just tiny throat-flexings to scratch audio at minuscule bit rates. An old-fashioned but virtually undetectable record-keeping system … which is why Albert always installed it in his grays.

No wonder Kaolin’s messenger took such precautions against touching the tiny spool! Though disinfected, it had been recovered from a yucky, prion-poisoned slurry on the UK factory floor — the merged remnants of a hapless forklift and a doomed private ditective. The archive might still hold a few catalytic molecules lethal to beings like us, who lack true immune systems.

Still, it was one useful clue, sparkling amid the melted remains. Vital evidence. Perhaps enough to vindicate my late maker.

So why was Kaolin playing it back for us — for Palloid and me — instead of the police?

The high-pitched account soon took us to the best part of the gray’s day — skillfully evading the Omnipresent Urban Eye, fooling the legion of public and private cameras covering nearly every angle of the modern civic landscape. He’d have enjoyed that. But then, having obscured his path, he entered Universal Kilns.

Two items spit forth, a visitor’s badge and a map … I head for the down escalator … dropping into a huge anthill beneath the corporate domes, looking for signs that Kaolin is illegally withholding scientific breakthroughs …

All right, suppose UK solved how to transmit the Standing Wave across distances greater than a meter. Will there be clues a layman might recognize? … Might UK executives already “beam” themselves all over the planet?

Palloid and I shared a glance. “Wow,” the little golem muttered.

Could that be the breakthrough? Remote dittoing would shake up a way of life we’ve at last started getting used to, after all these rocky years.

We both turned to stare at ditKaolin. His reaction gave nothing away, but what about the first time he heard those words, just minutes ago? Did that platinum complexion flush with anger and dismay?

A vibration below … giant machines mix organic clay, threading it with fibers tuned to vibrate rhythms of a plucked soul … molding dolls that walk and talk … and we take it all for granted …

Damn. Something’s bugging me. Think … how could Universal Kilns conceal anything huge and ground-breaking?

Yes, evil thrives on secrecy. It’s what drives Albert on. Expose villainy. Find truth. But is that what I’m doing now?

“Finally,” I muttered, as the gray started asking the right questions. In fairness, he did express doubts earlier. But that made the transcription even more frustrating, listening as he forged ahead, despite all misgivings.

Maybe the gray was defective, like me — a poor-quality copy made by an exhausted original. Not Albert at his best. On the other hand, he had been manipulated by experts. Maybe we never had a chance.

Some kind of gnat dodges a swat, darting toward my face. I use a surge-energy burst to grab … crumpling it in my hand.

The mini-Pal dug his claws into my pseudoflesh.

“Dammit, Albert. I spent good money on them tiny drones.” He glared those ferret eyes, as if the gray’s obstinacy were somehow my fault. I might have reacted, sweeping him off my shoulder. But the recording was approaching its deadly climax.

It makes sense … They’d maximize damage by delaying ignition … either with a timer or by setting it to go off when I pass a second security scan …

“Stop!” I cry -

From that point, the recitation turned into a rapid, jerky groan, much harder to make out, like words grunted by a hurried ru

Trying to save a lot more than his own measly life.

I spy a version of myself bearing a weasel-golem … Looks like today’s green found something better to do than clean toilets. Good for you, Green …

That made me feel a bit ashamed, for sardonic things I thought about this gray. Could I have tried harder to save him? Might realAl be alive now, if we succeeded?

Regret seemed pointless, with my own clock rapidly ticking out. Why was Kaolin playing this tape for us? To taunt our failure?

The poor forklift writhes … can’t blame him, but it drives me deeper, holding my breath … being consumed …

Am I deep enough? Will the huge clay body contain -

The recital ended in a harsh squeal.

Palloid and I turned once again to watch the stolid, almost-human features of ditAeneas Kaolin, who regarded us for a long time while one of his hands trembled slightly. Finally, he spoke in a low voice that sounded more fatigued than a middle-aged golem ought to feel.

“So. Would you two like a chance to find the perverts who did all this?”

Pal’s ditto and I shared a stare of blank surprise.

“You mean,” I asked. “You mean you want to hire us?”

What, exactly, did Kaolin expect us to accomplish in the ten hours (or less) that we had left?