Kiln People

23

Glazed Buns

The desert is a lot brighter than they portray in holocinema. Some say the glare can even penetrate your skull and affect the pineal gland — that deeply buried “third eye” oldtime mystics used to call a direct link to the soul. Searing light is said to reveal hidden truths. Or else make you delirious enough to find cosmic meaning in stark simplicity. No wonder deserts are the traditional abode of wild-eyed ascetics, seeking the face of God.

I wouldn’t mind ru

I’d ask to borrow his phone.

Is this thing working? I spent the last couple of hours messing with a tiny, muscle-powered sound archiver, testing it by reciting an account of what happened last night. First I had to dig it out of the gray golem I had stored in back of my wrecked Volvo. A gruesome chore, but the ditto was spoiled anyway, along with every bit of electronics in the car, when that platinum Kaolin fired a strange weapon at us on the road.

A subvocal archiver doesn’t need electricity — one reason I install them in my grays, scribing microscopic spirals onto a cylinder of neutral-density dolomite. I can’t recite in high-speed grunt code, like I do when I’m clay. Still, the little unit should pick up ambient sound, like a spoken voice, while wedged under the skin behind my jaw. Small twitches can provide power. Ritu will think it’s a nervous tic, after all we’ve been through.

She left our cave — a sheltered cleft amid boulders — to drink from a little canyon pool we found. Even dittos need water out here, unless you want to be baked into di

Why keep feigning artificiality? As a kindness. Ritu’s golem hasn’t much chance of getting home to inload. As if her rig would want these memories. I, on the other hand, face pretty good odds of getting out of here. Wait till nightfall, then hoof west by moonlight till I reach a road, a house, or some eco group’s webcam. Anything to shout an SOS into. Civilization is simply too big to miss nowadays, and a healthy organic body can endure lots, if you don’t do anything stupid.

Suppose I do reach a phone. Should I use it? Right now my enemy — Vic Kaolin? — must think I’m dead. True-dead from that missile strike against my home. And now all my dittos too. A lot of effort to deny Albert Morris any continuity. Reappearing would only draw attention again.

I need information first. A plan.

And better keep away from the cops, too. Till I can prove I was set up. A little extra suffering — a cross-desert march avoiding cameras all the way — could be worthwhile if it lets me sneak into town undetected.

Am I up to it? Oh, I’ve withstood a thousand injuries that would’ve finished any of my ancestors — from incinerations to smotherings to decapitations. I’ve died more times than I can count. But a modern person never does any of that in organic form! The real body is for exercise, not anguish.

My tough old twentieth-century grandpa threw his body — his only life — off a bridge one time at the end of an elastic band. He suffered unbelievable torment in primitive dental offices. He traveled every day on highways without guidebeams, trusting his entire existence to the uncertain driving skills of total strangers whipping past him in crude vehicles fueled by liquid explosives.

Grampa might’ve shrugged at this challenge, walking all the way from a desert ravine to the city, without complaint. I’ll probably whimper when a pebble gets in my shoe. Still, I’m determined to try. Tonight, after Ritu’s golem passes on to where hopeless golems go.

I’ll keep her company till then.

She’s coming back, so no more reciting. Anything else that gets recorded will have to be picked up from conversation.

“Albert, you’re back. Did you salvage anything from the car?”

“Not much. Everything’s fried, my forensic gear, radio, and locators … I figure nobody knows we’re here.”

“Do you have any idea how we got here?”

“A wild guess. That weapon ditKaolin fired, it killed every bit of electronics and must have been meant to scramble imprinted clay.”

“Then why are we still walking about?”

“That old Volvo has more metal than most cars today. We were better sheltered than the poor gray stored in back. Also, I surprised Kaolin by charging right at him, spoiling his aim. That may be why we only blacked out.”

“But after! How did we get to the bottom of this gully, surrounded by miles of cactus and scrub. Where’s the road?”

“Good question. This time I spotted something at the wreck we didn’t notice before, a puddle near the driver’s door.”

“Puddle?”

“Golem slurry. Remains of our would-be assassin, I guess.”

“I … still can’t believe it’s Aeneas. Why would he want us dead?”

“I’m curious about that too. But here’s the interesting part, Ritu. The puddle looked too small — about half-sized!”

“Half … he must have been torn in two when you smashed into him. But how did the remnants get way out here?”

“My guess? Though ripped apart by the collision, Kaolin must have dragged what was left of himself to the car, climbing to my half-open window. We were knocked out, inside. The engine was ru

“So he reached in to grab your side-stick controller … the throttle and steering lever … piloting us offroad, across open desert, with his half-body dangling all the way.”

“He had to get us under cover, so we wouldn’t be spotted and rescued. Somewhere surrounded by hot country no ditto can cross by day. We’d be trapped if we did waken. Then, his mission accomplished, ditKaolin ended his torment by dropping off and melting.”

“But what’s to stop us from walking out after dusk? Oh. Right. Expiration. What time on Tuesday were you imprinted, Albert?”

“Um … earlier than you, I expect. Kaolin had reason to think we can’t last beyond midnight. He saw us both at your house, remember?”

“Are you sure that was the same Aeneas-copy who shot us?”

“Does it matter?”

“Perhaps. If this one was made up to look like him.”

“Possible. But those anatomically correct platinums are expensive and hard to manufacture in secret. Put it this way, Ritu. If you had a working phone, is Kaolin the first guy you’d call?”

“I … guess not. Still, if we had some idea why—”

“I bet it co

“In what?”

“Then there was the attack on UK. Another of my dittos was involved somehow, according to the scandal cha

“So everything’s about you? Is that a bit solipsistic?”

“There’s nothing solipsistic about my house getting blown up, Ritu.”

“Oh, right. Your archie. Your real … I forgot.”

“Never mind.”

“How can I? You’re a ghost now. Terrible. And I got you into all this.”

“You had no way of knowing—”

“Still, I wish there were something I could do.”

“Forget it. Anyway, we can’t settle a mystery, stuck here in the desert.”

“And that bothers you, Albert. Beyond knowing your life’s ended. Beyond the injustice, I sense frustration — wishing to solve one more riddle.”

“Well, I am a detective. Learning the truth—”