Slow River

He seemed in a hurry, and Lore wondered what mayhem or despair he was rushing to.

“Do you ever wonder where your patients get their injuries?”

She thought of a three-year-old, and what injury an adult might do her or him in the name of need.

He looked at her with sad eyes. “There’s no point. I just do my best to heal what I find.”

When he had gone, she went into the bathroom to look at her back. It hurt to twist and turn, but she looked at the scar in the flyblown mirror as best she could. It stretched diagonally from her right shoulder blade to the lower ribs on her left side. At the top, it was nearly an inch wide. She could not bear to look at it. She stared out of the window into the backyard instead. It looked as forlorn and closed in as she felt: a fifteen-by-forty patch of rubble and weeds and what might be scrap metal, surrounded by a six-foot-high brick wall; barren and broken and played out. The walls were topped with broken glass set in cement.

The door banged open. Lore pulled on Spa

“There.” She held out her hand. On her palm was a round black metallic button. A PIDA. “It’s for you. Just a temporary, of course.”

Lore pulled her robe tighter with her right hand and looked at the slick black button. Her new identity. She was not sure if she wanted it. “Where did you get it?”

“Friend of mine works for the city morgue. Once they’ve been through official identification, and embalmed, corpses aren’t too particular about their PIDAs. Don’t worry. Ruth’s a stickler for hygiene. It’s probably cleaner than you are and, anyway, this one won’t be going under the skin. Well? Don’t just stand there, hold out your hand and I’ll put it on for you.”

Lore held out her left hand.

“You’ll need to hold it in place for me.”

“Let me sit down.” She had to let go of the robe to keep the PIDA in place on the scar that was fading to pink. Spa

“Not as fancy as the medic’s spray, but this kind has one advantage.” She pulled off the backing, carefully laid it over the PIDA. “It says your name is Kim Yeau. I’ve added the middle initial L., but just the initial. Less is better. The PIDAs will change, but as you get to know people, you’ll have to have a stable name, one we can call you by. You have forty-three credits. You’re eighteen.” She looked up at Lore. “That’s right, isn’t it?”

Spa

“Hold still.”

Lore stared at the top of the head bent over her hand. Spa

“You’ll have to be careful how you use this. It’s just a superficial job—it’ll get you on and off the slides, pay for groceries or a download from a newstank, but that’s it. Avoid the police. Don’t try to get any licenses or whatever.” Spa

Lore could feel Spa

“Beautiful,” Spa

Lore looked at herself in the bathroom mirror. Her hair was wholly gray now, and grown past her ears.

“Can you cut hair?” she called, but Spa

“Can I use this?”

“Um?”

She stepped into the living room. “This dye. Can I use it?”

Spa

“I can’t imagine you with brown hair.”

“It’s not mine.”

The dye around the top of the tube was not crusted and dry. It had been used fairly recently. Lore stared at it for a while.

In the bathroom, she read the instructions. Wet hair. Apply generously with comb. Wipe off any excess from skin. Leave for ten minutes. It seemed simple enough, though not as easy as the way she was used to, when all she had to do was run a bath, pour in the nanomechs, and submerge herself for thirty seconds. With nano dyes and antinano lube, one could layer diferent colors on body hair, like silkscreening, and the results were clear, clean, and crisp. But nano dyes were for the rich.

This dye was a sticky paste. It was not brown, as she had expected, but a curious greenish yellow. It smelled like rotting leaves and had the texture of mud. She massaged it into her scalp, remembering to do her eyebrows and eyelashes.

When she had rinsed and dried, the mirror showed a strong chestnut. It suited her, suited her eyes, her mouth. She liked it. She turned this way and that, letting the cool northern light that seeped into the bathroom and reflected from the tiles play over the hair. It looked so good it was probably pretty close to her natural color. She smiled at her reflection: disguising herself by making her hair her real color had a certain ironic appeal.

She walked into the living room. “What do you think?”

Spa

“What’s the matter?”

“I’m not sure brown is the right color.”

Lore flushed. “I don’t understand.”

“Come into the bathroom with me.” Spa

Lore studied herself. Brown hair, straight brown eyebrows, clear gray eyes, skin a little paler than usual but still tight-pored and healthy. Thi

“Now look at me.”

Spa

Spa

Lore looked at herself again. It was true. Eighteen years of uninterrupted health care and nutritious food on top of three generations of good breeding had given her that unmistakable sheen of the hereditary rich. She was suddenly aware of the cold tile under her feet, of the cracks she could feel between her toes. It was not yet winter. She wondered what it would be like to be cold involuntarily. She touched her eyebrows, her nose. How strange to discover something about oneself in a stranger’s bathroom. “I assume it can be fixed.”