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“Fine,” Trine said. “Steve, you can take it now.”
The Pharmaceutic brought a needle kit over to Virgil’s side. He wore an impeccably benign smile. The IV package unsealed with a crackle of plastic. In the corner of the room, a videoscrim panel fluxed to zoom in on the operation.
The only patch of Ki
Steve draped the tubing through the flow regulator and switched it on. The murky gray serum trickled slowly toward Virgil’s arm. The electroencephalograph and brain wave topograph registered the imperceptible changes in Ki
It’s not working, Virgil thought. Whatever they’re trying is failing. I don’t feel any different. Should I gloat? No. Play along. How should I act, though? I need to find something to finish Master Snoop and Nightsheet once and for all. Something big. Straight, straight.
Trine bent over the side of the table. She spoke quietly to Ki
“What you’re getting, Virgil, is a mixture of saline solution, ribonucleic acid, and picotechs. The RNA is memory juice. Practically every living thing has it. The picotechs are tiny machines that carry the second and more important component of memory. All this came from a man who worked for the Bre
Virgil nodded nervously, a trickle of sweat ru
They’re filling me up with machines that carry someone else’s mind! Maybe I can get him to help me. I don’t hear him, though. And now the roar is coming back. I’m losing her cipher. Down. Back. Focus. They’re trying to make it hard for me. I’ll get out, though. There! Less roar and her cipher’s broken again.
“It’s the picotechs,” she continued, “that make the process work. They were in this other man’s bloodstream and brain, recording his unique electrochemical patterns. They’ll reproduce them at similar sites in your own brain. Instant memories. No need to go to school.”
Deep inside Ki
Impossible to see with anything less powerful than an atomic force microscope, the picotechs were simple. Individually, each one was a mere molecule with an unique topography and electrical charge. Collectively, they possessed the power of a god.
They used part of Virgil Grissom Ki
Trine slipped the top of the scrim into her clipboard and signaled the first page. She glanced at Ki
“While we’re doing this, I’d like you to answer a few questions and listen to some things so that we can make sure everything is working properly. Straight?”
Virgil nodded.
“Straight. Shake your head only if you don’t remember any of the following.” She sca
Ki
With a compassionate gaze, she said, “You didn’t know that, did you? It’s March seventh, twenty-one-aught-seven. You’ve been interned for eleven years, ever since you tried to kill yourself by flying into the PacRim Pyramid. Do you remember that?”
Ki
Trine scrolled to another page. She held her voice at a professionally flat level. “June twelfth, twenty-ninety-four. After the funerary processing of your wife Jenine, you piloted your flyer over downtown St. Frisco toward the PacRim Pyramid. Instead of hitting the side of the building, you flipped into a power dive toward Market Street. Your crash killed four people. You would have done even worse during a workday.”
Virgil stared blankly, slowly shaking his head. “They were clones,” he offered weakly.
She glanced at the scrim “Two clones-a direct, a sexflip, and their two natural-born children. The primogenitor sued for loss of lineage and Tri-World Life paid off. Then they sent you here.”
Virgil nodded. Softly, Delia said, “You don’t really want to die, do you?”
The Pharmaceutic gazed at the indicators. “Galvanic response shooting up,” he whispered to her. “That’s a key question.”
She nodded without shifting her eyes. “If you don’t want to die, why bother trying? Publicity hound?”
Virgil lay mute, his gaze indecipherable.
She leaned closer. “Not likely-three of your attempts were made in wilderness areas. You managed to be found barely alive each time.” A strand of her ebon hair fell from around her neck. Virgil watched it sway in time to her words. “You are here because I think your conflicting dichotomy of a death wish and death aversion combined with astonishingly good luck is a mix we can use to our mutual benefit.” She turned toward the Pharmaceutic. “Begin sublimins, Steve.”
The gray man muttered a series of commands to the lab computer.
Gazing more intently at Ki
She pulled up a chair to sit beside Virgil. “Now, all sub-atomic particles are composed of combinations of just two bounded energy quanta, one positive, one negative. Their overall sum determines the mass of the particle, its charge, and whether it is matter or anti-matter. Their topographical interaction determines such aspects as charm, spin, strangeness and…”
Ki
Three days. Three days and I still don’t understand her code. I’ve got her cipher all figured out-the physics of space travel.
So play along. Go along with them until you find out how they-
A door opened somewhere. Ki
Here she comes again. Death Angel dressed to fill. Fill my mind like a cupcupcup…
“Good morning, Virgil.” She pulled a tall stool over to sit beside him. “I hope you’re feeling better today, because we have a lot pla