PodPooch (Cladespace Book 4) Page 6

  “All right.” Grace breathed. “Ok, let’s do this.”

  Grace put one hand on the lip of the medical pod, the sweat of her palms streaking against its gleaming surface. The sounds of Avonaco clanking medical equipment disappeared as her heart pounded in her ears and chest. She put one foot in, then the other. As she lowered herself on the seat, her legs trembled. The seatback seemed too stiff, she couldn’t breathe, she—”

  Grace clambered out of the pod, gasping for air. I can’t do it! I can’t!

  She jumped at a sting on her left bicep.

  “Take a few deep breaths,” Avonaco said, pulling the injector from her arm.

  “Right.”

  • • •

  Avonaco held vigil by the medical pod, his cheek resting against its transparent canopy, his gaze locked on the operation inside. Procedure by procedure, the pod dutifully executed his instructions. Lasers crisscrossed what had been Grace Donner’s face, this time dancing along the edges of incisions made hours before, sealing what had been opened, leaving behind thin lines of red flesh. The operation was in its fifth hour and would soon be complete.

  The visage was now undeniably Jaya’s: the long, oval face he remembered cradling in his hands. The prominent cheekbones, cleft chin, slender nose. The face of his caretaker, emerging from that of a stranger. Somewhere inside, he felt peace at the sight, even though this was a doppelgänger, a mere copy of Jaya.

  Avonaco sighed. Maybe someday she would look back at him out of some kind of face, but not this one. Perhaps that’s why he watched, making certain that he could still tell the difference. Jaya’s memory was safe as long as he remembered. He bore witness so nobody could ever mistake an imposter for the real Jaya.

  The medical pod bleeped, indicating the final round of modification. The laser instruments were clipped back to the inner tool chain, replaced with hypodermics. Next, custom viruses would complete the transformation, changing colors and minute features.

  Pink gel was swabbed along her body, delivering bacteria that swept across the hair from her head down to her legs, transforming the dead tissue from variants of blond into a rich chocolate-brown. Injections increased melanogenesis. Her lips changed from rose to deep plum, and her body’s skin tone darkened significantly. It was still paler than Jaya’s as he remembered it, but the sun would take care of such deficiencies soon enough.

  Avonaco lingered on the face, which had lost its tracery of red incision sites. The face was so peaceful, so unlike his final memory of Jaya. There had been creases of pain on her forehead. Her lips had been parched; her eyes sunken. He still saw the blinking readouts hovering in the air around her as she lay broken in the medical pod. Irreparable.

  Avonaco pretended to tap his ptenda.

  “I am going to open the pod soon.”

  “I will be right there.” Jaya’s imaginary voice was unusually solemn.

  The neural display above the medical pod showed that Grace Donner was in cold sleep. He tapped the controls to begin raising her back to consciousness. As the graph danced across the screen, her expressionless face, a mask devoid of a mind, would soon spring back to life.

  “How is she doing?” Jaya’s imaginary voice came from behind. She rested a hand on Avonaco’s right shoulder and leaned closer. He could almost feel her breath stir his hair.

  “She will have some pain as the bones heal, but nothing too bad.”

  Jaya squeezed Avonaco’s shoulder. “And how are you?”

  He exhaled. “I am ok.”

  “Take it slowly when she wakes up,” Jaya said. “Grace will look like me, and she will have my voice.”

  “I will not get attached.”

  “She will have different facial expressions, though?”

  “And a different build. I did not overly tamper with her frame or musculature.” Avonaco sighed. “I have no illusions, Jaya. I know this is not you.”

  “It is not her fault she is not me,” said Jaya. “Or yours.”

  “Yeah,” he whispered, alone.

  • • •

  Grace woke to the hiss of the unsealing medical pod. She opened her eyes just as Avonaco hoisted the canopy away, the cool air of the basement tingling her damp skin. She extended her legs, stretching. Her head felt fuzzy, an aftereffect of the sedative. Her cheeks ached, like she’d taken too many blows to the face. She’d moved her hands to massage her face when she noticed: her hands had never been this dark before, not even in the summer when she’d worked the cattle daily. She brought both hands to her face, turning them slowly, moving her fingers. They’re my hands, sure enough. They respond to me, but it’s like watching someone else.

  She ran a hand up her forearm. If she closed her eyes, it felt like her arm, but it looked different.

  Avonaco peered over the pod. “Do you feel satisfactory?”

  Grace sat up and considered her body. She’d expected to feel upset, but all she felt now was curiosity. The prospect of the change had been more frightening than the change itself.

  “Yeah. I feel fine, just a little pain in my—” She cleared her throat. “In my face. Wait… my voice?” It seemed different, like a voice recording. Grace rubbed her throat. “La la la la?” She rubbed her ears. “Hello, hello, hello? Weird.”

  “Your voice is a hybrid,” Avonaco said. “Most of the changes were superficial, but voice recognition—”

  “Oh. Right.” Grace massaged her cheeks. Worst sinus headache ever.

  “Take it easy on those suture lines,” Avonaco scolded.

  “Where’s a mirror?”

  Avonaco held out a media pad. Grace set it to reflect and held it up to her face.

  A woman about her age looked back. Brown skin, a few freckles on the nose. Thick eyebrows and deep brown eyes with laugh lines. Full lips, a little chapped. She reflexively licked her lips. The woman perfectly matched her movements.

  “This is me,” said Grace, reminding herself.

  “It will take some getting used to,” Avonaco said. Something in his tone made Grace glance over at him. He shrugged and turned. It seemed like they both had things to get used to.

  Still holding onto her makeshift mirror, Grace pulled herself out of the medical pod. Avonaco produced a robe. She slipped her arms into it as he held it out, then looked in the mirror again.

  “I can’t believe this.”

  “You act as if you just got a tentacled arm and an extra head,” said Avonaco disdainfully.

  “Oh no. It’s a very lovely face. Just… new,” said Grace awkwardly. Her new voice made her stumble over the words. She handed the media pad back to Avonaco.

  “Do you have a larger mirror?”

  Avonaco pointed to an alcove to the right of the stairs. A full-length mirror hung against the wall.

  “I thought you might need it,” he said. “Humans are vain.”

  Her red jumpsuit was hanging on a peg by the mirror. Grace removed the robe and pulled it on, tugging the zipper all the way up to her neck. Then she faced the mirror and stood at attention, snapping her head to the right, noting the change in her jawline, in the entirely different profile of her new face. She faced forward, relaxing into parade rest, hands clasped behind her back. She let her body go limp—her shoulders drooping, her back slouched, and her legs relaxed. She held up a hand, palm facing the mirror and blocked the reflection of her face, leaving only her body. And it is my body, she thought. It’s still me.

  “You seem to be taking stock,” murmured Avonaco.

  “Just mustering the troops,” Grace said, strapping Marty to her belt. “Let’s get to Bod Town.”

  Chapter 9

  “Where are you going?” Avonaco said. “It is this way.”

  “I’m getting my duffel,” said Grace.

  “It would be safer to leave that here.”

  “Not negotiable.”

  Grace grabbed the duffel and draped it across her right shoulder, then headed to the stairs.

  “Not that way, either,” Avonaco huffed. He pre
ssed a hand against the wall next to the medical pod. There was a click followed by a swishing sound as a small door swung outward. Beyond it was a dark tunnel, with hints of metal surfacing.

  “What’s that way?”

  “Old subway line.”

  “Where does it go?”

  “Where do you think? Just follow,” he said irritably.

  The tunnel led to a spiral stair leading down. As they descended, the metal treads creaked and the entire structure seemed to sway. It was completely dark.

  “Can you see?” Is it safe? she wanted to ask.

  “I can,” he answered. “But your ptenda light would be a good idea.” He picked up his pace and vanished. “You are almost at the bottom.”

  Grace fingered her ptenda and held it up to see the last few steps. Avonaco was standing a few meters away. There was a lot of rubble, though the space was still bigger than she’d expected. She moved her arm, trying to get her ptenda to illuminate the room. A faded sign on the wall read NEW HAVEN ROAD. High up were arches and thick metal struts. To her right were the raised remnants of a passenger platform. She moved closer to peer at its old system map. The name of the line had been torn away, but the colors and symbols showed the way to Bod Town which, according to the map, had once been called Hartrandt.

  This explained why some of the AIs beneath the Freer Diner dared to venture into Bod Town. They had a separate route away from the xenophobic gaze of the compstate.

  “How big is this system? Can you go other places too?”

  “Some,” said Avonaco. “But we are cautious, opening up new routes. Compstate would destroy all of it if they knew.”

  They began to walk, feet crunching on a roadbed devoid of rails.

  “What’s Bod Town like now?”

  “Nothing different than you would expect. It is still the heart of the city, but even more of a mechflesh ghetto than it once was. Compstate has closed streets entering Bod Town and built checkpoints on the remaining ones. That is why we are down here. We would have to pass at least one or two groups of protectors and loafers if we had stayed topside.”

  “To think I once took pride in being a compstate protector.” Grace clenched her fists. “I thought I was serving the people.”

  “You were serving people. Some of them.”

  “Yeah, the wrong ones.”

  They walked in silence for a while.

  “One thing,” said Avonaco.

  “What?”

  “Avoid standing out when we get topside.”

  “Of course. Thought that was the point.”

  “Not with loafers. With the mods. Mechflesh are used to body hacking. They might work out who you are before compstate does.”

  “They’re not a danger, are they?”

  “That depends. Some folks here—they expect Grace Donner’s triumphant return. We do not want an uprising while we are trying to get into Cloister 11.”

  “Are you serious? An uprising?”

  Avonaco looked at her, then kept walking. “Soon it must happen. Synths like me are already illegal. They have rounded up mechflesh outside Port Casper. Now they are coming for human scientists. You know, progress.”

  A large white sign cleared the shadows ahead: BOD TOWN. They’d arrived at the old subway station.

  “We have to go up. Over here,” he said, gesturing toward a pile of debris.

  “What? Why?” Grace asked, following him.

  Avonaco began digging at the wall, shoving aside metal scaffolding and half-rotted planks of wood.

  “Can you give me a hand?” he asked.

  Grace began moving scattered small pieces, then heaved a large pile aside.

  “Do not pull it all down,” he said. “We will have to put it back in place when we return.”

  “All right.”

  On the other side of the debris was a rusty ladder. Avonaco started climbing, and Grace went up after him. The ladder led into a narrow concrete tunnel about a meter in diameter, its sides slick with slime.

  “Do I want to know what this is?” she muttered.

  “Keep climbing,” Avonaco said. “We are almost to the top.”

  Grace flinched at the unexpected clang of a grate overhead. Weak light poured down with blobs of muck. She followed Avonaco up and out, onto a sidewalk strewn with oily rubbish. It was devoid of foot traffic.

  Grace stood and glanced around, rubbing the dirt from her clothes. She didn’t recognize the narrow street, but she had an idea of where they were. Lights from the pleasure palaces pulsed a few blocks away. Not far from Raj’s apartment.

  Avonaco motioned them forward to where the street merged with a major avenue, teeming with citizens. They joined the throng, surging forward with Bod’s mechflesh denizens until they reached a familiar intersection, two buildings away from Raj’s apartment. It throbbed with life. On the corner stood a food mega-market she used to visit with Raj and Tim. It had hydroponics: greenery at every window for all of its fifty floors. Crowds were streaming in and out of the market. Her eyes watered. She could almost hear Tim’s voice, joking about—

  “Stop staring,” Avonaco said. “People will notice.”

  Grace shook off her distraction and focused on Raj’s apartment. Always a busy area, there were several citizens loitering near the stoop.

  “Sweetie,” Grace said to Avonaco, who shot her a death look, “Let’s go inside auntie’s place and get your coat. It’s getting cold! Then we can go to the market and get some food.”

  Avonaco let her grab his hand, and they marched up to the building. The citizens let them pass without apparent suspicion.

  At the top of the stairs, Grace twisted on the doorknob and felt its haptic feedback welcome her. She’d forgotten to ask about her fingerprints, and was relieved they were her own and not Jaya’s. I’ll have to be careful about compstate scanners, she thought as they stepped into the foyer.

  The hallway outside Raj’s door was empty. Grace put her hand on the access portal next to his apartment door. It was similar to the system Raj and Tim had installed for her apartment in the Frawley building, and was twice as secure as a common ptenda lock or biometric scan. She heard the whir and clank of the locking mechanism as it recognized her DNA and unlatched.

  Grace pushed the door open and went inside. In the near darkness, she tripped over a pile of mechflesh components strewn by the door. She smiled. Typical messy Raj.

  “We should not linger,” Avonaco said, coming in behind her. He stooped to pick up one of the mechflesh parts, inspecting it.

  “Right.” Grace surveyed the room, then scooped a stack of credit chits from the table next to the door and put them in her pocket. It wasn’t much, but it was good to have anonymous currency.

  She went into Raj’s lab. His workbench looked strangely empty—he must have taken most of his equipment with him to cloister. She ran her hand along its smooth surface, wishing she could hear Raj telling her not to touch anything.

  Underneath the bench, among boxes of metarm parts, fiber cables, and circuit matrices, was a battered green case. She pulled it out and thumbed open its metal latches. Six translucent cubes lay encased in foam, each the size of a hen’s egg, each dull without the laser light that would bring them back to life. Tim’s crystal memory.

  “Got it,” she said, returning to the front room.

  “Hmmm. My own crystal memory was stored in a case like that,” Avonaco said. “I wonder if someone had a monopoly on them.”

  “But there aren’t any markings,” Grace said.

  “Did not have to be a corporation.”

  “Well, if you recognized what it was, someone else might. Into the duffel we go.” She slid the case in, next to Tim’s disassembled chassis, lingering as her fingers brushed against the mimic fabric of Tim’s snout.

  “Where are the coats?” said Avonaco.

  “A coat? Oh,” said Grace, recalling her pretense. “Check the closet. Not the one by the door—full of parts. In the bedroom to the right.”

>   When Avonaco left, she took one last look at the apartment. She imagined the smell of Raj cooking steak on the stove. Tim perched at the small kitchen table waiting for her. Would she ever see them like that again?

  The hallway outside was still quiet. Avonaco followed her into it, bundled in a threadbare jacket far too big for him. Grace let the door latch behind them as they left, and tried to ignore how final it felt. They headed down the stairs and opened the doors to the street.

  “I’m starving, auntie—” Avonaco began with a smirk.

  “Shhh!” said Grace.

  The stoop was empty, and all of the citizens had moved to the opposite side of the street.

  “We need to get out of here. Now,” she said.

  They had scarcely taken a step when a sentry loafer floated into view. Its body was painted orange with red stripes, designating compstate security. Three appendages articulated at the midpoint of the cylinder. They held a scanner, a LEMP broadcaster, and a phasewave. The spindly head atop the cylinder rotated as it scanned.

  “Crap.”

  “A chance to test your disguise,” Avonaco whispered.

  Grace shook her head. Now that she had Tim’s backup in her duffel, she wanted to hide it as far away as she could. But she didn’t have a choice. The loafer was too close: it would begin its scan any moment. Her only hope was to move fast enough that the scan was brief. She took a deep breath and marched down the front steps, Avonaco in tow.

  “C’mon, let’s go to the market,” she said.

  The loafer pivoted as it scanned the curb, sidewalk, and stoop.

  “Please identify yourself, citizen,” it sizzled, approaching her. Grace moved in front of Avonaco. The loafer stopped two meters away, a respectful distance.

  “My name is Jaya. Umm…” Damn, Grace thought. I don’t even know her last name.

  “Incomplete ptenda identification.” Grace’s gut clenched. “Follow me, please.”

  The loafer shifted back toward the stoop. She kept pace, hoping the disguise would hold. As she did, a green flash emitted from its central cylinder. A fan of laser light scanned Grace and she stopped.