5

Clay Station ... or how Tuesday's second gray begins a rough day ...

Damn.

I'm always grumpy getting up off the warming tray ... grabbing paper garments from a rack and slipping them over limbs still glowing with ignition enzymes, knowing I'm copy-for-a-day.

Of course I remember doing this a thousand times. Still, it always feels like getting a long list of nasty chores, taking risks you'd never put your protobody through. I start this pseudolife filled with premonitions of a lesser death, dark and unmourned.

Ugh. What put me in this mood? Could it be Ritu's news? A reminder that real death still lurks for us all?

Well, shrug it off! Life's still the same as it was in the old days.

Sometimes you're the grasshopper.

Sometimes an ant.

I watched gray number one head off to meet Miss Maharal. He took the Vespa, with today's greenie riding on the saddle behind him.

That left one scooter for me to use alone. Seems fair. Number one gets to see Ritu and snoop around the affairs of a gazillionaire. Meanwhile, I must go visit the great witch of Studio Neo. At least I get to have my own transport. realAlbert turns away, shuffling out of the kiln room with nary a backward glance. Well, he needs to lie down. Rest the body. Keep it fit so we dupes can inload sometime tonight. I don't feel snubbed. Much. If you've gotta be clay, it's good to be gray. At least there are realistic pleasures to enjoy --

-- like swerving through traffic, surprising stolid yellow-striped truckers as I cut in front of them, always alert for the telltale buzz of my cop-detector and making sure not to inconvenience any real people. Aggravating dits can be sport, just so long as each violation stays below the five-point threshold programmed into the publicams lining every street. (The threshold where they drop privacy constraints and form a grand posse.) I once racked up eleven four-pointers in a day, without triggering a single fine!

This little Turkmeni scooter doesn't have as much power as the Vespa, but it's agile and durable. Cheap, too. I make a note to order three more. Anyway, it's risky having only two scoots on hand. What if I suddenly need to make an army, like happened last May? How will I rush a dozen red or purple copies of myself where they're needed? By dinobus?

Nell obediently jots down my note, but she won't put through a buy order till realAlbert wakes. Neurons okay all big purchases. Clay can only suggest.

Well, I'll be Albert tomorrow. If I inload. If I make it home. Which shouldn't be too problematic, I guess. Meetings with the maestra are wearing, but seldom fatal.

Slowing down for a light now. Stopping. Taking a moment to glance west, toward Odeon Square. Fresh memories of last night's desperate flight and narrow escape still perturb my Standing Wave, even if it was only a green who suffered so.

I wonder who the waiter was. The one who helped me get away.

Light's changed. Go! Maestra hates it when you're late.

Studio Neo, just ahead. Charming place. It fills what used to be a huge windowless urban mall. Nowadays shopping is either a chore -- you ask House to arrange deliveries -- or else you do it for pleasure, strolling in person along tree-lined avenues like Realpeople Lane, where balmy venturi breezes flow all year round. Either way, it's hard to picture why our parents did it in sunless grottos. A fluorescent-lit catacomb is no proper world for human beings.

So now malls are set aside for the new servant class. Us clayfolk.

Jitneys and scooters zip around the vast parking structure, conveying fresh dittos to clients all over town. And not just any dittos. Most bear specialized colors. Snow white for sensuality. Ebony for undiluted intellect. A particular scarlet that's oblivious to pain ... and another that experiences everything with fierce intensity. Few of these creatures return to their point of origin when the élan cells run down. Their rigs don't expect them back for memory inloading.

Most Neo customers do return the scooters, however. To reclaim the deposit.

I park the Turkomen in a coded space set aside for folks like me -- ditto intermediaries traveling on business, conveying important information between real people. Grays get priority, so the more luridly colored step aside as I enter the main arcade. Most do it reflexively, holding doors for me, almost as if I were human. But a few whites give way grudgingly, casting impertinent glares.

Well, what do you expect from whites? Pleasure is partly a matter of ego. Their kind needs self-importance in order to function.

Studio Neo occupies all four layers of the old mall, filling the grand atrium with a myriad holographic glows -- an emporium of creative effort, illuminated by the garish logos of more than a hundred pushy production companies, each of them aspiring for pinnacle position in this anthill -- a place up at the top the pyramid, where I'm heading right now.

The hungriest and most ambitious producers station dittowares right next to the escalators, offering free samples.

"Try me now and take home a special memory ... " croons a pale form in a diaphanous gown, her figure enhanced in ways that real tissue couldn't possibly support. "Then let us home-deliver. Your rig could enjoy me in person tomorrow!"

Tomorrow, she will be sludge in a tank. But I don't say it. Manners, inherited from simpler days of youth, make me say, "No, thanks" -- wasting breath on a creature who couldn't care less.

"Had a rough day?" another one chants, this one exaggeratedly male, rippling in places where no natural man ever rippled -- that is, outside the pages of a comic book. "Maybe your rig will inload you anyway, if you bribe him with something unique to remember. Try me and find out how good it gets!"

Or how weird it gets. No way to tell, of course, what kind of flesh this creature's soul-imprint came from, whether a courtesan or a gigolo. The most aggressive or compliant of each kind tend to be crossovers, overcompensating for their upbringings, with relish.

This time I manage to pass without comment, riding the escalator to better precincts.

Some of the second-story firms offer specialized golem blanks. Put your mind into a toothy reptile, or a dolphinlike form to go deep-diving. Or go partying in a body with made-to-order parts. Some have hands like Swiss Army knives. I sometimes buy accessories from a discreet technical boutique, choosing enhancements for dittos sent on dangerous assignments. Pal shops here too, experimenting with ever more outré golems. He'd prefer that all his memories come that way, and none from his ravaged fragment of a natural body.

The next tout to approach isn't selling sex. A gray like me, she's dressed in conservative linen paper, fashioned like a TV doctor's costume, all the way down to the endoscope hanging from her trim neck.

"Pardon the intrusion, sir. May I ask if you've been practicing prudent imprinting?"

I have to blink; it sounds familiar. "Oh, right. You mean protecting my real self from diseases that a ditto -- "

" -- might bring home and transmit through inloading. Yes, sir. Have you given any thought to how dangerous it can be to reclaim a golem that's been who-knows-where in the course of a day? Exposed to everything from viruses to memic toxins?"

She offers a slim pamphlet and suddenly I remember a story in the news recently, played up mostly for humor, about people who evidently think we're living in the bad old plague days of the Fizzle War.

"I try to stay clean. If there's any question, I inload without touching my rig."

"Memic toxins don't require physical contact," the imitation doctor insists. "They can spread via inloaded memories."

I shake my head. "We'd be told if any such thing were -- "

"There have been outbreaks in more than a dozen cities, around the globe." Her professional demeanor slips, pushing the pamphlet. "They're hiding the truth!"

They? A conspiracy fan, then. Talk about memic toxins! Could all of the agencies responsible for public safety -- and all of their employees -- collude to prevent the public from learning of a new plague? Even that wouldn't suffice today, with so many clever amateurs around. Then there are the Henchman prizes, made alluring to draw confessions out of the most trusted lieutenant.

"An interesting hypothesis," I murmur, backing away. "But then why haven't the free-nets -- "

"The toxin designers are clever. Varying symptoms from town to town! The free-nets correlate incidents, rumors, anecdotes. Nevertheless -- "

Continuing to back up, I gratefully let the up escalator catch my heel, yanking me aboard the moving steps while feigning an apologetic-polite smile. The "doctor" stares after me for a moment, then swivels to approach another passerby.

Maybe later I'll ask Nell to do a sift search on the topic of "memic plagues." Till then, call it another aberrant entertainment served up by Studio Neo.

Now I'm passing the really classy establishments. "Scenarios Unlimited" will send you an expert interviewer -- an ebony, zinglemindedly dedicated to create a script to match your budget and favorite fantasy. Then he'll return with props and a complete cast of characters to play out any scene, from high literature to your darker dreams.

"Proxy Adventures" will take your imprinted-but-unbaked copy to some far corner of the world where they'll kiln-activate it, put it through a day of frenetic escapades, then return the flash-frozen cranium in perfect condition, so you recall everything. A twenty-four-hour adventure, ready to serve.

Then there are specialists offering services no one imagined before golemtech. Almost anything that's illegal to do to another human in flesh can be done to a ditto -- though often with with fees and a perversion tax.

No wonder Inspector Blane hates this place. It's one thing to contract out your duplicates for honest labor. Unions fought it and lost, and now millions earn a living in several places at once, doing whatever they happen to be good at, from janitorial service to nuclear reactor maintenance. A fair market offers top expertise to all, at affordable prices.

But expertise in entertainment? Brought down from the silver screen, liberated from the boob tube, leaping off the pages of pulpy romance novels, made tactile and personal ... They say that when the Web started, the heaviest single use was for porn. Same here. Only now it walks and talks back to you. It can do whatever you want.

Wait a sec.

It's the phone. I pick up in time to hear Nell pass the call to my real self.

Pal's half-paralyzed face fills the little display, surrounded by wish sensors to command his magic wheelchair. He wants me to come over.

My rig sounds grumpy and tired. He won't do another imprint.

"I've got three dits running around on errands," he tells Pal. "One will drop by, if time allows."

Three? The green won't be up to handling Pal. And gray number one has to see Ritu Maharal about her murdered dad. There's a chance he may even meet and question the real Vic Kaolin -- something worth telling Clara about, when she gets back from her war.

So it's up to me. If Wammaker lets me escape early, I'll go listen to Pal's latest wild-eyed theory or scheme. Crum. I can already feel my short "life" getting used up.

Top floor, where rooftop heliports give quick access to rich clients. Where illustrious producers serve fine coffee and fancy hors d'oeuvres, even to visiting grays! Here, elegant shops let you hire first-rate actors to play convincing roles in bodies molded to resemble anyone across time. There's a penalty when a ditto doesn't resemble its rig, but it's small when no fraud is involved. Not that producers refuse a little fraud, now and then.

Wealthy clients also come here to arrange extravaganzas. Once, someone hired Clara's reserve infantry platoon, off-duty, to be extras in a bloody rendition of Caligula's final orgy-slaughter. She snuck me in to watch the performance from behind a purple curtain. The reenactment was vivid, lurid, and maybe even educational in its attention to historical detail. The swordfights were superb. Clara's golem died especially well.

Still, I didn't care for the show.

"I'm glad you feel that way," she agreed. In fact, not one member of her outfit inloaded memories from that evening's brutal carnage. It kind of makes you proud of our boys and girls in khaki.

I'm still more than twenty meters from the elegant portico of Wammaker's when a cowled figure catches my eye, gesturing from the shadows.

"Mr. Morris. Good of you to come."

Taking a step closer, I recognize the ditto under the hood. Maestra's executive assistant, her face a conservative gray tone, perfectly matching her attire.

"Will you come with me, please?"

She beckons and I follow ... away from Wammaker's. "Our meeting concerns sensitive topics, better discussed elsewhere," she explains, handing me a cowled robe like her own. "Please put this on."

If I were real, I might worry. Could the maestra be planning some ornate revenge for my breezy behavior toward her earlier? But then, so what? I'm just a ditto.

I put the robe on and follow.

A small service elevator takes us down, back to the low-rent floors of the old mall. Doors open and my guide heads straight for a nondescript storefront with opaque windows, bearing the name RENEWAL ASSOCIATES. I follow her into a realm of hanging fabrics that shimmer with piezoluminescence, wafting in tailored breezes. Some effort's even gone to growing indoor plants that provide a welcoming atmosphere. Mostly simple ferns and ficus. But your eye is meant to be drawn elsewhere, to holo posters of Gineen and her best affiliates -- women and men whose copies offer sybaritic pleasures to those weary of mere sex.

Off the waiting room stand shaded booths where clients may consult privately with special advisers. Still, it's not as elegant as Wammaker's. The maestra must be branching out.

"Please wait," the assistant says, pointing to a straightback wooden chair ... no doubt a precious antique, and uncomfortable as well. I stand again as soon as she departs. My golem blanks have relax-a-stilt joints. Sitting is redundant.

Of course I'll be kept waiting, so I pull out a cheap reading plaque and dial up the Journal of Antisocial Proclivities. Since Ritu Maharal proclaimed that her father was murdered, I thought about looking up homicide. (I wonder how gray number one is doing right now. Have I reached any conclusions yet?) But after passing through Studio Neo, my thoughts wander toward another problem. Decadence.

Are the new puritans right? Is golemtech hardening our hearts?

Clara calls this place a "soul-callus."

"Today we can wallow in depravity without paying for it in disease or hangovers," she said only last week. "The oldest profession's been updated for a new age, without prisons, prudity, or any need for empathy. What a deal."

Me, I'm usually less cynical. Life is better in lots of ways. Wealthier. More tolerant. No one cares what shade of brown your real skin is.

But my grays do vary a bit from one another and this one feels a dour suspicion that Clara may be right.

Blinking, I notice that the reading plaque already glows with a selected journal article. It must've done an iris-dilation interest scan while I pondered gloomy thoughts. (Who says dittos don't have a subconscious?)

Sublimation of the Immortality Impulse:

A Return to Necromancy?

Ouch. What a title for a scientific paper! Not my usual cuppa tea. Still it's intriguing. I wonder ...

"Mr. Morris?"

It's the assistant. I expected to be snubbed longer than that. Maybe Wammaker really is worried about something this time.

Looking up, I notice the assistant's gray dittobody has blue eyes.

"The maestra will see you now."

6

It's Not Easy Being Green ... or how Tuesday's third ditto discovers sibling rivalry ...

I hate getting off the warming tray, throwing paper garments over limbs that still glow with ignition enzymes.

Not only am I a copy today, I'm the greenie.

Damn.

After a thousand times, it still feels like I'm being punished. Given a long list of nasty chores. Sent to take all sorts of risks you'd never put Lord Protobody through.

I start this pseudolife filled with dark feelings.

Ugh. What a mood. Archie must really be tired to start me off with a Standing Wave as gloomy as this. Any worse and I might've been a frankie ...

Well, shrug it off! Today you're an ant.

And green, at that. Leave philosophy to your betters.

Well, last night another green took on Beta's henchdits, and won. A hero-duplicate, who slogged through hell to bring back vital news. So a green can matter! Even if today's job is to fetch groceries, clean toilets, mow the lawn, and other horrors.

Grays get fancy realtime recorders. But I gotta do quick dumps into an old microtape ring. Post hoc. Don't know why I bother. If Archie wants to know what I did today, he can inload and find out.

I rode into town behind gray number one, keeping both eyes tight shut while he swerved like a maniac, risking both of our carcasses, and nearly wrecked our last Vespa. Schmuck.

Left him in a park, waiting to meet the UK limo they're sending over. He'll see the beautiful Ritu soon, and talk to Vic Kaolin, and maybe investigate a murder.

And later, maybe tonight, realAlbert will get lonesome. He'll go thaw the sybarite Clara left for us in her freezer. I felt a wave of irrational jealousy about that. A temptation to drive over to her houseboat and use it myself!

Of course I didn't. Her dit would take one look at me and refuse to waste itself on the coarse senses of a green. Anyway, what's the point? If I inload, I'll rejoin Albert and share it all in realflesh. And when Clara returns from the front, I'll share that reunion, too.

So I went about my chores. Visited the market, adding some fresh items to the normal delivery -- fruits and deli stuff, plus a gourmet dish or two. Should arrive by the time Archie wakes from his nap. I hope I'll like the herring. It's Danish.

Dropped by the bank and updated my level three passcodes. Everyone does a monthly update in person, with biometric and chemical scans to verify you're you. But for weeklies a ditto will do. No one can fake a personal Standing Wave. Anyway, it's been years since the Big Heist. Some analysts think cyber crime is already passé.

That may be. But villainy still worries citizens. It comes up as a top priority every election. There must be nearly a hundred real cops in this city alone. If Yosil Maharal was murdered, that makes twelve homicides in the state so far this year. And summer's barely half over.

I don't fear being unemployed soon.

Oh, the phone rang while I was shopping. It was Pallie, needing some attention again.

Albert grumbled. "I've got three dits running around on errands. One will drop by, if time allows."

Three dits?

Gray number one is busy with Ritu Maharal and Vic Kaolin -- a big case, maybe a real moneymaker. Gineen Wammaker may tie up gray number two all day.

Care to bet I'll be sent to hear Pal's latest conspiracy theory?

Crum. What's a greenie for?

Had to pick up the lawn mower from fix-it shop. Repairs cost eight-fifty, plus abatement fees for the old gas engine. Tied it securely to the back of the Vespa, but that messed the scooter's balance. Nearly cracked up in a fast curve on the way home. Got a five-point violation, too. Crap.

At least the mower started right up. (Mitch, the repair guy, knows his stuff. He was there in person, this time.) Soon I had the lawn edged better than that orange-striped "gardener" everyone else in the neighborhood hires. Things grow on my tiny patch of earth. Roses. Fresh carrots and berries. I like growing things, same as Clara needs to hear water lapping on the hull of her houseboat.

Next, tackle the pile of dishes in the sink, then toilets. Might as well clean the whole damn house while I'm at it. Except vacuuming. Lord Archie's gotta nap.

Ho-hum.

Some days I weigh existential matters. Simple ones a green can grasp. Like, should I volunteer NOT to inload tonight? I mean, why remember this banality? Albert's already experienced nearly a hundred subjective years, counting golem recollections. Some techies put a theoretical max at five centuries. So why not conserve?

I've debated this with myself lots of times, and recall always deciding to inload. Well, duh! Only those dittos who chose continuity became part of continuing memory. But Nell says more than a hundred and eighty of my copies chose oblivion instead. Dispirited deputy-selves who endured dreary days that I'm better off forgetting.

Heck, there are days I had in person that I'd erase, if I could. An ancient problem, I guess. At least nowadays you get a little choice in the matter.

Pausing at Archie's work screen, I looked over our ongoing cases -- about a dozen routine investigations, tracked by priority and progress charts. Most can be pursued by Net -- making remote enquiries, sifting data from public sources, or persuading the owners of private streetcams to share their posse archives without a court order. Sometimes I send out my own spy-wasps to follow suspects around town. I couldn't afford to stay in business if everything had to be done in person, or even by golem-duplicate.

Half of the cases involve my specialty -- snaring copyright violators. Pros like Beta offer endless aggravation, but fortunately most rip-offs are done by amateurs. The same goes for face thieves, who send out dittos with illegally forged features, pretending they were roxed from other people. Troublemaking kids, mostly. Catch 'em. Fine 'em. Teach 'em to behave.

Then there are jealous spouses -- a private eye's standby, since the days of ragtime.

Some modern marriages are complex, admitting new partners by joint consent. Most folks prefer old-fashioned monogamy. But what does that mean nowadays? If a husband sends a ditto to fool around while he's busy at work, does that constitute fantasy, flirtation, or outright infidelity? If a wife rents a little whitey to get through a lonely afternoon, is that prostitution, or a bit of harmless diddling with an appliance?

Most people think flesh-on-flesh still feels best. But clay can't get pregnant or pass disease. It lets you rationalize, too. Some partners draw the line at inloading memories after a dittosex affair. If it isn't remembered, it didn't happen. No recall, no foul.

But if you can't remember it, what was the point?

All the complications can get confusing for creatures with jealous whims that formed in the Stone Age. Anyway, hurt feelings aren't my concern, just facts. The crux is that civilization fails without accountability. What people do with it is their own concern.

Scanning the screen, I see I'll need four dits tomorrow. Two just for stakeouts and tails. The freezer is well stocked with blanks, but our scooter situation is dire.

Onscreen I see that gray number two just requested more Turkomens. I prefer Vespas, but who listens to a green?

Looking around the house, I see more cleaning to do. Pencils to sharpen and notes to file. More grotty chores, so the real me can spend precious fleshtime being creative.

I'd let out a long sigh ... if this body were equipped for it.

To hell with all this. I'm going to the beach!

7

Price of Perfection ... gray number two gets an offer he can't refuse ...

The maestra has guests.

Four are females, identical, with frizzy pink hair and earthen-red skin so dark it's almost umber. They look nervous, agitated. One stares constantly at a vid-screen, nodding and grunting. A sluglike string of flesh seems to ooze out the side of her head, clamping a pseudopod onto an electronic sensor pad.

She's jacked in, of all things! Sending and receiving straight from her clay brain into the Net -- direct linkage, digital to neuroanalog -- a nasty, unwholesome process that can fry you silly.

The remaining guest is male, modeled on an archetype who must be painfully slender in person. Following a fashion trend, this ditto avoids the stodgy old standard colors that were prescribed during the first generation of kilning.

His skin is plaid.

Ouch. I can barely make out his face amid the visual noise. Instead of paper garments, he wears lavish cloth. And the woven pattern of his shirt and pants actually matches the skin dye job. Expensive styling for a ditto!

Gineen Wammaker steps forward in delectable person, her real flesh nearly as pale as one of her pleasure roxies. Only flashing green eyes give away her inner nature as a fierce businesswoman who demolishes competitors without mercy. She takes my facsimile hand in her real ones.

"How good of you to send a gray so quickly, Mr. Morris. I know how busy you are, and how focused your profession requires you to be."

In other words, she forgives me, even though I really should have come in person. Still, Wammaker's sarcasm is milder than usual. Something's fishy, all right.

"I hope the bonus I sent shows adequately my gratitude for your part in shutting down the pirate copying facility."

I haven't seen any bonus. Maybe she wired it while I waited outside. Typical. Anything to keep you off-balance.

"It's a joy to be of service, Maestra." I bow and she inclines her head slightly, letting golden locks spill over bare shoulders. We don't fool each other a bit. Ironically, that's a basis for respect.

"But I grow inattentive. Let me introduce my associates. Vic Manuel Collins and Queen Irene."

The male is closer. We shake hands and I can tell his gaudy decorations mask the texture of a standard gray ditto. As for his title; "Vic" used to mean something. But the term has grown swank and overused among the idle rich, most of whom were never venture capitalists, or anything useful at all.

Just one of the umber-colored females steps forward, acknowledging my presence but offering no smile, nor a hand to shake. "Queen" is another modern ambiguity. I'll wait and see if my suspicions are verified.

Gineen offers seats, plush and body-conforming. A candy-striped servdit -- one-half scale -- offers refreshments. Being gray, I can taste-sample a powdery Zairian truffle that explodes into aromatic dust at the back of my throat. A gift for Albert to remember when I inload. Still, Wammaker is showing off, being lavish with visiting dupies. Part of her appeal, I suppose.

Sitting now, I can see past the shoulder of the umber rox who is jacked in, fixing her attention on a pict-screen. It shows a large room where still more red dittos come and go rapidly -- all of them copies of the same basic person-image, though some are scaled way down to one-third size or less. At least a dozen hover around a single figure in the middle, hard to make out amid the throng. There's a lot of machinery -- kiln apparatus and life-support gear.

"I asked you here, Mr. Morris, to discuss a little matter of technology and industrial espionage."

I turn back to Wammaker.

"Maestra? I specialize in tracking people -- both clay and flesh -- mostly to uncover copyright violations and -- "

My host lifts a hand. "We suspect certain technological innovations have been hoarded. Significant breakthroughs, that could threaten to make copyright meaningless, are being monopolized clandestinely."

"I see. That sounds illegal."

"It most certainly would be. Technologies are most perilous when exploited in secret."

My thoughts churn. It may be illegal, but why tell me? I'm no cop or tech-sleuth.

"Who do you suspect of hoarding?"

"Universal Kilns Incorporated."

Blinking, I hardly know where to begin.

"But ... they pioneered the field of soulistics."

"I do know that, Mr. Morris." Her smile is indulgent.

"They also benefit most from an open and orderly market."

"Naturally. In fact, UK continues to engage in normal commercial research, coming up with gradual improvements in the copiers they sell. Technical details about these improvements can be kept confidential temporarily, till patents are filed. Even so, they have a legal duty to warn people if some major innovation threatens to fundamentally alter our culture, or economy, or world."

"Fundamentally alter"? Creepy words that make me curious as hell. And yet, one fact is paramount -- I shouldn't be holding this conversation.

"That may be, Maestra. But right now I have to tell you -- "

The plaid-skinned male interrupts with a voice that's rather deep for such a wiry frame.

"We've been tracking leaked information from inside those shiny domes at UK. They're up to something, possibly a big change in the way people make and operate golems."

Curiosity gets the better of me. "What sort of change?"

Vic Collins takes a wry expression on his garishly cross-shatched face. "Can you guess, Mr. Morris? What do you figure might transform the way folks use this modern convenience?"

"I ... can think of several possibilities, but -- "

"Please. Stretch yourself. Give us an example or two."

Our eyes meet and I wonder, What's he up to?

Some people are known for imprinting imaginative grays, capable of creative thinking. Is that what all this is about? A test of rapid reasoning, outside my organic brain? If so, I'm game.

"Well ... suppose people could somehow absorb each other's memories. Instead of just imprinting and inloading between different versions of yourself, you'd be able to swap days, weeks, or even a lifetime of knowledge and experience with someone else. I guess it could wind up being like telepathy, allowing greater mutual understanding ... the gift of seeing ourselves as others see us. It is an old dream that's -- "

" -- also quite impossible," the dark red womandit cuts in. "Each human's cerebral Standing Wave is unique, its hyperfractal complexity beyond all digital modeling. Only the same neural template that created a particular duplicate wave can later reabsorb that copy. A rox can only go home to its own rig."

Of course that's common knowledge. Still, I'm disappointed. The dream of perfect human understanding is hard to give up.

"Go on, please," Gineen Wammaker urges in a soft voice. "Try again, Albert."

"Um. Well, for years folks have wished for a way to imprint at long range. To sit at home and copy your Standing Wave into a ditto blank that's far away. Today, both bodies have to lie right next to each other, linked with giant cryo-cables. Something about noise-to-bandwidth ratios ... "

"Yes, that's a common complaint," Gineen muses. "Say you have urgent, hands-on business to do in Australia. Your quickest bet is to make a fresh ditto, pack it into an express mail rocket, and hope it splashes gently on target. Even the quickest round trip, returning the ditto's skull packed in ice, can take all day. How much better if you could just transmit your standing wave over a photonic cable, imprint a blank that's already on the scene, look around a bit, then zip the altered wave right back again!"

"It sounds like teleportation. You could go anywhere -- even the Moon -- almost instantly ... assuming you shipped some blanks there in advance. But is this really needed? We already have robotic telepresence over the Net -- "

Queen Irene laughs.

"Telepresence! Using goggles to peer through a faraway set of tin-eyes? Manipulating a clanking machine to walk around for you? Even with full retinal and tactile feedback, that hardly qualifies as hands-on. And speed-of-light delays are frightful."

This "queen" and her sarcasm are starting to bug me.

"Is that it? Has Universal Kilns achieved long-range imprinting? The airlines will hate it. And what's left of the unions."

Hell, I can see aspects that I'd loathe, too. Maybe you could teleport anywhere in minutes. But cities would lose their individual charm. Instead of local experts and artisans holding sway, each town would wind up having the same waiters, janitors, hairdressers, and so on. The best of every skill and profession, duplicated a gazillion-fold and spread all over the world. No one else would have a job!

(Envision some New York super private eye opening a branch office here, stocking it daily with flawless gray duplicates, raking in fat fees while he sits in a penthouse overlooking Central Park. I'd have to go on the purple wage. Get some time-killing hobby. Or go back to school. Ack.)

Obviously, the maestra doesn't fear competition.

"If only that were the breakthrough at hand," she comments wistfully. "Tele-dittoing would open up major business opportunities for me, globally. Alas, that's not the innovation we're talking about. Or not the most worrisome one. Do try again."

Damn, what a bitch. Riddles are just the sort of delicious torment Gineen Wammaker specializes in. Even knowing this, I'm tempted to keep showing off.

But first there's a matter of professional ethics to settle.

"Look, I really think I ought to inform you that -- "

"Lifespan," says Vic Collins.

"I beg your pardon?"

"What if a ditto body" -- he gestures at his own -- "could be made to last more than a day? Possibly much more."

Pause. Ponder it. This possibility hadn't occurred to me.

I choose words carefully. "The ... whole basis of kilning -- the reason it's practical -- is that a golembody carries all of its own energy, right from the start."

"Stored as super molecules in a clay-colloidal substrate. Yes, go on."

"So there's no need to imitate the complexity of real life. Ingestion, digestion, circulation, metabolism, waste removal, and all that. Science is centuries away from duplicating what evolution took a billion years to create -- the subtle repair systems, the redundancy and durability of genuine organic ... "

"Nothing like that is required for longer duration," answers Collins. "Just a way to recharge the supermolecules in each pseudocell, restoring enough energy for another day ... then another, and so on."

Reluctantly, I nod. Clara said that military dittos come packed with fuel implants, letting a few versions last several days. But that's still living off storage. Recharging would be quite another matter. A breakthrough, all right.

"How many times ... how long can a ditto ... ?"

"Be renewed? Well, it depends on wear and tear. As you say, even high-priced blanks have little self-repair capability. Entropy grinds down the unwary. But the chief short-term problem -- how to keep a roxbody going one more day at a time -- may be solved."

"A dubious solution," mutters the umber-colored Queen Irene. "Long-lasting dittos could diverge from their human prototype, making it harder to inload memories. Goals may wander. They might even start caring more about their own survival than how to serve the continuity being that created them."

I blink, confused by her terminology. Continuity being?

Glancing left, I see her identical sisdit, who remains jacked into a remote terminal, staring at a flatvid screen. Portrayed there, I glimpse over a dozen interchangeable workers, all the same unique crimson shade, swarming around a huge, pale figure, like worker bees jostling around --

Ah. I get it. Queen Irene. Pallie told me about this, taking dittoing to its next logical stage. Still, witnessing it makes me shudder.

"There could be other repercussions," Vic Collins adds. "The whole social contract may be upended, if our suspicions are correct."

"That's what we want you to investigate, Mr. Morris," Gineen Wammaker concludes.

"Are you proposing industrial espionage?" I ask warily.

"No." She shakes her head. "We don't seek to steal any technologies, only to verify their existence. That much is perfectly legal. With confirmation, we can then sue Universal Kilns under one of the transparency laws. For hoarding, if nothing else."

I stare at her. This is preposterous, on about a dozen levels.

"You honor me with your trust, Maestra. But as I told you, tech-sleuthing is just a sideline for me. There are real experts."

"Whom we find less suitable than you."

I'll bet. What you're asking skirts a razor's edge away from illegal. An expert would know how to keep on the safe side of that border. I might make one mistake and wind up in hock to UK, paying off a criminal-tort lien till the next ice age.

Fortunately, there's an easy way out of this.

"I am flattered, Maestra. But the biggest reason I can't take this assignment is a possible conflict of interest. You see, even as we speak, another gray of mine is at Universal Kilns, consulting about another matter."

Expecting disappointment or anger, I see only amusement in Wammaker's eyes. "We're already aware of this. There were newscams and other spy-eyes all over the Teller Building this morning, remember? I saw Ritu Maharal pick you up in a UK limo. Putting that together with public reports of her father's untimely death, I find it simple to imagine what your other gray is discussing, right now at Kaolin Mansion."

At Kaolin Mansion? I thought gray number one was going to UK headquarters. These people know more about my business than I do!

"ditto Morris, there's a way to insulate you and your rig from legal jeopardy for conflict of interest. Nowadays, it's possible for the left hand not to know what the right hand is doing, if you get what I mean."

Unfortunately, I think I do.

There goes my hope of an afterlife.

"It's really quite simple," says Vic Collins. "All we have to do is -- "

He stops, interrupted as a phone rings.

It's my phone, chattering an urgent rhythm.

The maestra looks miffed, and rightly so. Nell knows I'm in a meeting. If my house computer thinks the call is so damn important, she ought to wake Archie.

I grunt an apology, flipping the wrist plate over one ear.

"Yes?"

"Albert? It's Ritu Maharal. I -- I can't see you. Don't you have vid?"

Pause a sec. But none of my other selves will answer, so I must.

"This phone is a cheap strap-on. I'm just a gray, Ritu. Anyway, don't you already have one of me -- "

"Where are you?" she demands. Something in her voice makes me sit up. It sounds like grief, giving way to rising panic.

"Aeneas is waiting in the car, getting impatient. He expected you and my ... father's ditto to join him. But you both vanished!"

"What do you mean, vanished? How could they ... "

Now I realize -- she thinks I'm that gray! The confusion could be cleared up with a few words, but I don't want to cue in Gineen, or her weird friends. So what can I say?

Just in time, another voice cuts in, a bit groggy. It's Archie, roused from his nap again.

"Ritu? It's me, Albert Morris. Are you saying that my gray is missing? And your father's too?"

I flip-shut the phone. My first priority must go to the clients here in front of me -- even if I won't be working for them in a minute or two.

Silence reigns. Finally, Wammaker leans forward, her golden hair spilling past pale shoulders to her famed decolletage.

"Well, Mr. Morris? About our offer. We need to know what you're thinking."

I take a deep breath, knowing it will hasten the metabolism of my fast-draining pseudocells, bringing slightly closer an extinction that can only be forestalled by making it home tonight. Home, to rejoin my original with what I learn today. And yet, I already know Wammaker's plan -- a way that I might legally spy for her without conflict of interest. It requires that I -- this gray doppelganger -- sacrifice all hope of survival, for the good of more important beings.

No, it's even worse than that. What if I refuse? Can she let me leave, knowing that I might report this meeting to Vic Kaolin? Sure, I post a PI confidentiality bond for all customers. I'd never break a patron's confidence. But the paranoid maestra could decide not to risk it, since UK can buy my bond for pocket change.

To be safe, she'll destroy this body of mine, content to pay Albert triple damages.

And he'll take the cash, too. Who bothers to avenge a dit?

Wammaker and her guests watch me, awaiting an answer.

Looking past them, I seek visual comfort in something green and growing -- indoor plants that the maestra of Studio Neo has scattered casually about her meeting chamber, to give it a homey feel.

"I think ... "

"Yes?"

Her famous indecent smile pulls at something dark inside you. Inside even clay.

Take another deep breath.

"I think your ficus looks a bit dry. Have you tried giving it more water?"

8

Feats of Clay ... Tuesday's greenie finds his faith ...

Moonlight Beach is one of my favorite spots. I go there with Clara whenever the crowds let up, especially if we have tourism coupons that are about to expire.

Of course, it's set aside for archies. All the best beaches are. I've never been here as a green before ... unless some of my missing dittos vanished the same way I did today. By throwing away all hope and playing hookey.

Parking the scooter in a public rack, I hiked to the bluff edge for a look, hoping to find the place half-empty. That's when rules relax, archies feel less territorial, and coloreds like me can safely visit.

Tuesday's a weekday. That used to make a difference, when I was a kid.

But no such luck. People swarmed across every open area with blankets, umbrellas, and beach toys. I spied a few bright orange lifeguards, padding about with webbed arms and feet, puffing their massive air sacs while patrolling for danger. Everyone else was some shade of human-brown, from dark chocolate to pale as sand.

If I set foot down there, I'd stand out like a sore thumb.

Peering south past a distant fluttering marker, I saw the rocky spit that's set aside for my own kind. A brightly tinted mob, crammed together at the point where rip tides and jagged outcrops make things dicey for real flesh. No lifeguards ventured down there, just a few yellow-striped cleaners, equipped with hooks to dispose of the unlucky. Anyway, who wants to waste beach time on an imitation? It's hard enough getting a reservation to come in person.

Suddenly, I felt resentful of all the rules ... the waiting lists and tourism allotments ... just to spend a little time at the shore. A century ago, you could do what you wished and go where you liked.

That is, if you were rich and white, a small inner voice reminded me. The whitish-brown of a ruling elite.

The mere idea of racism seems bizarre today. Yet each generation has problems. As a kid, I endured food rationing. Wars were fought over fresh water. Now we suffer afflictions of plenty. Underemployment, the purple wage, state-subsidized hobby-frenzy, and suicidal ennui. There are no more quaint villages or impoverished natives. But that means having to share all of Earth's fine places with nine billion fellow sightseers -- and another ten to twenty billion golems.

"Go ahead, brother. Make a statement."

The voice broke my gloomy reverie. I turned to see another greenie, standing off to one side of the trail. Archies and their families ignored him as they passed, though he brandished a placard flowing with bright letters:

Compassion is color-blind.

Look at me. I exist. I feel.

The ditto grinned, meeting my gaze and gesturing toward Moonlight Beach.

"Go on down there," he urged. "I can tell, you want to make them see you. Seize the day!"

I've noticed more of these creatures lately. Agitators for a cause that leaves most people mystified -- at once both echoing past righteous struggles and trivializing them. I'm torn between disgust and a wish to pillory him with questions. Like why does he make dittos, if he hates being discriminated against when he is one?

Would he give equal rights to entities that last no longer than may-flies? Shall we give the vote to copies that can be mass-produced at whim -- especially by the rich?

And why doesn't he go down to the beach, right now? Jostling among real humans, trying to jog their conscience, till one of them gets irritated enough to demand his ID pellet, posting a fine against his owner for some minor insult. Or till one of them decides to pay a fine, for the pleasure of cutting him to tiny pieces.

Of course that's why he stands on this bluff, holding up a sign but otherwise staying out of the way. This fellow is probably a brotherdit to some of the protestors I saw this morning, outside Universal Kilns. Somebody whose fervor is to send out proxies that demonstrate all day. An expensive avocation ... and an effective way to protest.

That is, if his cause weren't absurd! More proof that most people have way too much free time nowadays.

Suddenly, I wondered what the hell I was doing there. I began today having fantasies about taking Clara's pleasure-ditto for myself, wallowed in philosophical issues beyond reach of a mere green, then abandoned the chores I had been made for, running off to waste beach time in a body that can't enjoy the sand's texture or the sea's tart taste.

What's wrong with me today?

Then it hit me. A weirdly thrilling perception.

I must be a frankie!

A borderline case, for sure. No staggering around with arms outstretched, going unh-uhhhhnh like Boris Karloff. Still, they warn you that dog-tired neurons are a recipe for trouble when you imprint, and poor Albert must have been running on fumes when he made me.

I'm a false copy. A Frankenstein!

Realizing this, a strange acceptance settled over me. The beach lost its allure and the agitator's rhetoric palled. I retrieved my scooter, aiming it downtown. If this frankied rox lacks enough patience for house chores, maybe I'll take it over to Pal's and listen to him for a while.

If anyone can relate to my condition, it'll be Pal.

Update. Post-recorded about an hour later.

I just had some bad luck. Bad and weird.

On my way to Pallie's, I suddenly found myself trapped between some hunters and their prey.

Maybe I was preoccupied, careless, and driving much too fast. Anyway, I missed the warning signs. Maser flashes from the helmets worn by a pack of urban idiots, baying and yelling as they chased their quarry through the steel and masonry canyons of Old Town.

Other dittos veered aside. Lumbering dinobuses squatted down and hunched their scaly flanks. But I saw thinning traffic as an opportunity and zoomed straight toward the opening. Soon, maser beams were all over me, piercing clothes and tingling pseudoflesh. They resonate when they touch real skin, warning hunters not to shoot. But there aren't many archies downtown anymore, so it makes a great recreational battleground ... for jerks.

They came dashing round the next corner, sweeping the intersection with hi-tech sensors and weapons. A hunter shouted, raising his bulbous, cannonlike thing in my direction!

Why me? I sniveled. What'd I ever do to you?

The shooter fired and fierce heat passed behind my left ear. A poor shot, if he was aiming at me.

Swerving my scooter to speed the other way, I braked barely in time to avoid hitting a gangly, naked humanoid! Bright yellow but stained with red concentric target-circles on his chest and back, he teetered in front of the Vespa staring past me, wild-eyed, then spun about to flee.

The pursuers screamed jubilation -- sludgeheads grabbing an afternoon's adrenaline rush. Their guns sizzled, shooting past me again, cheerfully risking a dit-bystander fine if they fried my corpus in the bargain. And maybe I should've gone for the trade! Met the guns with outstretched arms. Albert would get double damages for a mere frankie. Good trade.

Instead, I hunched on the handlebars, slamming the throttle. The Vespa answered with a reedy wail, rearing like a bucking pony. At its high point, something hit the front tire. There were other impacts, on the machine and my body, as my scooter dug in and fled.

The quarrydit was fast -- puffing, running and dodging like mad. Still he spared me a brief glance as I passed, and I realized two things.

One: he has the same face as one of the hunters.

Two: I could swear he's having a good time!

Well, the world is filled with all kinds of kinkiness and folks with too much free time. But I was busy controlling the wounded Vespa. By the time I turned a corner, beyond the line of fire, it was coughing, smoking, then died.

I stood next to my poor scooter, mourning its fatal wounds, when the phone rang, emitting an urgent rhythm.

By reflex, I tapped my left ear, with its cheap implant, in time to hear one of Albert's other selves answer.

"Yes?"

"Albert? It's Ritu Maharal. I -- I can't see you. Don't you have vid?"

Words buzzed while I examined the scooter. Some kind of gummy substance splattered over the hybrid engine, shorting it out. I didn't dare touch the stuff, clearly devised to incapacitate dittos.

" ... I'm just a gray, Ritu," a voice answered. "Anyway, don't you already have one of me -- "

"Where are you? Aeneas is waiting in the car, getting impatient. He expected you and my ... father's ditto to join him. But you both vanished!"

I found more of the same gunk on the right leg of my paper garment. Hurriedly, I tore and kicked away the shredded pants, then searched for more.

"What do you mean, vanished? How could they ... "

"Ritu? It's me, Albert Morris. Are you saying that my gray is missing? And your father's too?"

Dull pain sensations drew my attention to a place in my back where something truly bothersome was going on. Turning to look at my spine in the Vespa's mirror, I spotted a hole, half the size of my fist, in the lower left ... and it was growing! If I were human, I'd already be crippled or dead. As things stood, I couldn't have much time left.

I spotted the intersection of Fourth and Main ... still too far from Pal's to reach him by foot. There were camionetas and jitneys on Main Street. Or I could stick out my talented green thumb and try to hitch. But where?

Then I remembered. The Church of the Ephemerals lay on Upas Street, just two blocks away!

I turned and started running east, while my archetype kept on talking to the alluring Ritu Maharal.

"So my gray was last seen following your father's -- "

"Out the back door of the mansion. After that, no one's seen or heard either of the dittos ... Oh, no. Aeneas just walked in. He looks angry. He's ordering a complete search of the grounds."

"Do you want me to come over and help?"

"I -- just don't know. Are you sure the gray hasn't checked in?"

The pain in my back got worse as I stumbled down Fourth. Something was chewing me up from within! I still had enough sense to step aside for anybody who looked real. Everyone else got out of my way as I grunted and shouted, running toward the one place that might offer help.

An edifice of dark stone loomed ahead. The place used to be a Presbyterian church, but all the real parishioners left this part of town long ago, letting it refill each day with a new servant class. One supposedly without souls to save.

That's when the Ephemerals took over.

Underneath a multicolored rosette symbol, the glass-faced announcement board foretold a coming sermon. Culture can be continuity, said a cryptic message in uneven letters. There's more to immortality than inloading.

Staggering up the front steps, I passed an assortment of dittos -- all shades and colors -- who were lounging about, smoking and chatting as if none of them had chores to do. Many were damaged or disfigured, even missing arms or legs. I hurried past, plunging into the dim coolness of the vestibule.

It wasn't hard to spot the lady in charge -- dark brown and real -- sitting on a stool next to a table piled high with papers and supplies. She wrapped the arm of a greenie whose whole left side looked badly burned. Overhead, another of the rosette symbols gradually turned, like a circular mandala or a flower whose petals all flared to wide tips.

"Open your mouth and inhale this," the volunteer told her patient, pushing a pop-breather at the poor roxie's face. Snapped, it billowed a compact cloud of heavy fumes the green sucked gratefully.

"It'll numb your pain centers. You must be careful then. Any bump or minor injury might -- "

I interrupted.

"Excuse me. I've never been here before, but -- "

She jerked her thumb to the left. "Please get in line and take your turn."

I saw a rather long queue of injured dittos, patiently waiting. Whatever mishap brought each one to this place, their owners clearly wouldn't inload such memories. Nor were these golems quite ready for recycling. Not with ancient instincts still screaming at them to fight on. The Standing Wave's oldest imperative is endure. So they came here. Like me.

But I couldn't afford to be patient. Turning around, I insisted.

"Please, ma'am. If you'd just look at this."

She raised her eyes, tired and perhaps cranky after long hours in this makeshift clinic. The volunteer nurse started to utter a curt dismissal, only it died on her lips. She blinked, then shot to her feet.

"Somebody help me here, stat! We've got an eater!"

What followed was weird, in a crazed-panicky-resigned kind of way. Like a scene from some old wartime hospital drama, updated with the hasty banter of a pit crew at an auto race. I lay prone on a filthy tabletop, listening through a haze while others dug into my back with makeshift, unsanitized tools.

"It's a clayvore! Damn, look at the bastard move."

"Watch out, it's big one. Grab those needle-nose pliers."

"Try to catch it whole. Eaters are illegal in this state. We may get a month's rent from the bastard who used this!"

"Just grab the little devil before it gobbles something vital. Hey, it's trying for the central ganglia -- "

"Shit. Oh wait, I think ... Got it!"

"Oh man, look at the nasty mother. What if they ever gave these things a taste for real flesh?"

"How do you know they haven't, in some secret lab?"

"Don't be paranoid. The Henchman Law ensures -- "

"Shut up and put that awful thing in a jar, will you? Now someone get me a cup of plaster. The ganglia's intact. I think we can get by with a patch."

"I don't know. The wound's pretty deep and this green's young. Maybe we should give the motivators a quick test."

I listened from quite some distance away. The pop-breather stopped pain, all right -- a merciful aspect of ditto design, required by law. It also explains why there are few free clinics. This was the first time I ever used one ... to the best of my knowledge, that is. What a futile idea, after all -- spending effort to save creatures who will vanish in a few hours anyway. Like ditto emancipation, most folks don't see the point.

Yet there I was, fighting to survive, and grateful for the help.

As I said before, a ditto's personality is almost always based on its archetype. Almost always. Maybe I came here for help today because I'm a frankie. Because I no longer share Albert's wry stoicism. At least not completely.

Anyway, the operation was far shorter than any visit to a realperson hospital. No worry about recovery or infections or malpractice suits. I had to admire the volunteer staff, making do with makeshift equipment and stale, off-market parts.

Ten minutes later I was sitting among other brightly hued patients and derelicts in the old church's wooden pews, sipping Moxie Nectar while antidotes countered the pain drug. Underneath a hand-carved sign that read Helping the Kneady a crippled purple stood at the old preacher's rostrum, reciting to us from a sheet of paper that she held in her good hand.

"It is not for Man to set boundaries, or to define the limits of soul.

"Once, human beings were as children, needing simple tales and naive visions of pure truth. But in recent generations the Great Creator has been letting us pick up His tools and unroll blueprints, like apprentices preparing to work on our own. For some reason, He's permitted us to learn the fundamental rules of nature and start tinkering with His craft. That's a fact as potent as any revelation.

"Oh, it is a heady thing, this apprenticeship and the powers that go with it. Perhaps, in the long run, it will turn out to be a good thing.

"But that doesn't make us all-knowing. Not yet.

"Most religions hold that some immortal essence stays inside a real human being -- the original body -- when copies are made. The golem-duplicate is just a machine, like some kind of robot. Its thoughts are projections -- daydreams -- sent in a temporary shell to perform errands. To help make your ambitions come true.

"For a rox, afterlife comes only by reuniting with its rig ... just as the rig achieves it someday by reuniting with God. That's how older religions dismiss the ambiguity, the moral quandary, the troublesome morality of making new intelligent beings from clay.

"But doesn't some bit of immortal tincture transfer, each time we copy? Don't we still feel passion and pain, while wearing these brief forms? Does heaven have a place for us, as well?

"If it doesn't, well, maybe it ought to."

The sermon droned on while I regathered my thoughts. Again, I saw the rosette pattern overhead -- this time in a stained glass window that looked half-finished. Several crippled dittos worked in a corner, fashioning another flared bit for the flower. Only this petal looked more like a fish of some kind.

I always figured the people who ran this place -- the Ephemerals Temple -- were related to the self-righteous kooks who picket Universal Kilns, like that greenie at the beach. So-called mancies who want citizenship for dittos. Or maybe the religious aspect meant they were kin to those other demonstrators ... conservatives who see roxing as an affront to God.

But neither seems to be true. They aren't asking for equal rights, only compassion. And to save a little soul-stuff, here and there.

All right, so maybe they're sincere kooks. I'll ask Nell to send the Ephemerals a donation. If realAlbert doesn't veto it.

Still, I got out of there as soon as I could stand, seeking a quiet place to make this recording. Maybe Al and Clara will listen to it together and ponder a few new notions.

That's enough immortality for me. For a frankenstein mutant.

Meanwhile, it's time to get busy. I may not be a faithful duplicate of my original, but we still share some interests. Things I'd like to know before vanishing away.

9

The Sleeper Wakes ... or how realAlbert learns he can only count on himself ...

Even in the old days it was normal to wonder, now and then, if you were real. At least it was normal for zen masters and college sophomores.

Now, the thought can strike you in the middle of a busy day. Running errands and doing business, you actually lose track of which table you got up from that morning. You can't help checking, lifting a hand to glance at the color, or giving flesh a quiet pinch.

The worst part is dreaming.

Dittos hardly ever sleep. So the mere fact that you're dreaming ought to reassure.

It ought to. But nightmares have their own logic. You can thrash in bed, worrying that you aren't really you ... but someone else just like you.

My brain still felt loggy when Ritu Maharal's second call got me up for good. Clara would say it serves me right. "Only old-fashioned cyberfarts think they can ignore the sun."

Easy advice, from someone in her profession. Wars are mostly scheduled, nine-to-five affairs nowadays. But in my line of work it's easy to slip off-track. Well, four hours of rest -- plus a bottle of ginger-fizzy Liquid Sleep -- would have to do. Anyway, Ritu's news had me worried.

Shambling into my office, I checked the ditto roster to see how my copies were faring. If gray number one had gone missing, some clue might be evident on the board. Or maybe another of my selves could be diverted to Kaolin Manor.

I blinked at the glowing emblems, unable to believe my eyes. All three status lights flashed amber for inaccessible/incommunicado!

"Nell, can you explain this?"

"Not completely. Gray number one vanished less than an hour ago, at the estate of Vic Aeneas Kaolin."

"I know that already."

"Then do you also know they just found that gray's ID pellet lying on the ground in an off-limits area, restricted to Kaolin's intimate servants? The Vic's attorney wants to know what your ditto was doing there."

"How the hell should I know?" And to think, this day began so well. "Put that aside for now. What's going on with gray number two?"

"A coded message just came in. That gray has gone over to no-return, autonomous mode."

I blinked in surprise.

"He did? Without consulting me?"

"It's always been your policy to give grays this leeway."

"Yes, but why -- "

"The copy was offered a quick, profitable job with a consortium led by Gineen Wammaker. In order to avoid conflict of interest with your other cases, the investigation must take place under conditions of sequestered cognizance."

"Under conditions of what?" I shook my head. "Oh, you mean no self-telling. I can't inload the dit, or even find out what it does."

This wasn't the first time a copy of mine took a sealed assignment, heading off on its own in order to make a quick profit for the real me. I've been well paid for investigations that I'll never remember, even if the customer was satisfied.

What goes through my mind, when I decide to accept such a case? Sitting here in my real body, I can't picture making the sacrifice. But I guess something in my character makes it possible -- even likely -- under the right circumstances.

Just hearing about it leaves me feeling rather creepy. "That gray had better be careful," I said in a low voice. "I don't trust the maestra."

"The ditto knows Wammaker can be devious. Do you want me to play back its message? Voice profiles ranged from cautious to paranoid."

Should I find that reassuring? My grays are exceptionally good. In fact, some years ago I was invited to join a research study of people who imprint especially high-fidelity golems. Anyway, what could I do but shrug and accept the situation? If you can't trust your own gray, who can you trust?

"All right, then tell me what happened to the green. This place is a mess. Dishes piled in the sink, trash bins full. Where's it gone?"

In response, Nell threw a phone image on the wall. A bland version of my own face abruptly glistened like a plaster cast, stained a color reminiscent of dying chlorophyll.

"Hi me," the visage waved jauntily against a shabby background, evidently somewhere in dittotown. "I just dictated a full report, which I'll send in a minute. But here's the short version.

"You blew it, Albert! Shouldn't imprint when you're wipe-out tired like you were this morning. You've always been lucky, but this time you finally made a frankie."

The green face paused to let the news sink in, grinning with ironic resignation that looked at once familiar and yet odd, somehow. I can't say for sure that I ever smiled quite that way.

"What's it like being a mutant copy? I know you're curious, so let me tell you. It feels downright weird. Like I'm me ... and not me ... at the same time. Know what I mean?

"Of course you don't. Anyway, the crux of it is that I won't be doing your dishes or vacuuming your house today. But not to worry! You don't have to call the cops or a disposal service. I'm no public hazard ... no crazy stuff. I just have a few interests of my own, that's all.

"If I get a chance, I'll send one last report before I expire. I owe my creator that much, I suppose.

"Thanks for making me. Guess I'll see you around."

The green ditto winked and signed off. I stared at the blank wall until Nell broke in.

"To the best of my knowledge, this is your very first Frankenstein duplicate. Shall I make an appointment for you to get a routine medical scan? Life Upkeep is having a sale on checkups this week."

I shook my head.

"You heard him. I was tired, that's all."

"Then shall I put out a notice, renouncing the green's pellet?"

"And let every sicko hunt-fetishist go gunning for it? The poor thing seems harmless. I wonder, though ... "

Could the same effect have touched the grays I imprinted this morning? They were made from more expensive blanks, and the scan times were longer. Anyway, with both of them incommunicado, what could I do but hope for the best?

There was little more to be learned from the green's dictated report, only some colorful incidents at Moonlight Beach and that dittotown church where they repair golems -- interesting and dramatic, but no new light shed.

Nell broke in. "Now that we've updated ditto status, there is work to do. Several ongoing cases need attention. And Ritu Maharal expects you to call back with conjectures about her father's fatal accident."

I nodded. There are always too many things going on to handle all by myself.

"Break out a specialist," I ordered. "An ebony. Top of the line. I'd better imprint right away."

"An ebony has already been prepped."

The storage unit hissed, emitting oily fog as a fresh golem blank slid onto the warming tray, wearing a mirrorlike, glossy black sheen. More expensive than a quality gray, it came pre-tuned for intense focus, amplifying high levels of professional concentration for a full twenty-four hours -- assuming that your original already has those qualities. Which may explain why you don't see ebonies as often as sybaritic whites. A full day of intense pleasure may be as wearing to inload as a day of hard work, but a lot more people have an aptitude for pleasure.

The kiln was ready. The soul-sifter's writhing tendrils awaited my head. But first I needed a moment to seek calm. Losing contact with two grays was bad enough, but for one of my greens to turn frankie? The unprecedented occurrence had me worried. Was I rested enough to keep it from happening again?

Turning away from the copier, I pushed open the back door of my small house and stepped into the garden. Warm sunshine on my face helped a lot. So did the smell of growing things. Moving over to my very own zen lemon tree, I plucked a small fruit and used a penknife to slice open one end, rubbing some juice onto my wrists. The scent filled my sinuses and I closed my eyes, clearing my thoughts.

Soon confidence returned. Back to work.

Laying my head between the soul-pickups, I gave the mental signal to begin. This would be a long, careful scan, taking maybe ten minutes, so I tried to stay relaxed and immobile as delicate fingers began riffling through me -- mostly the brain but also heart, liver, and spinal cord -- copying from the template of my Standing Wave, pressing its image into the nearby clay figure. It all felt familiar, like hundreds of other times. Yet on this occasion I felt self-consciously aware of the undercurrent -- ripples of emotion and semi-random memories that imprinting evokes at a level below clear consciousness. Vague, oceanic feelings of connectedness washed over me, sensations that William James called "the religious experience," before mankind got around to transforming the spiritual realm into just another area of technological expertise.

It was only natural for my drifting thoughts to contemplate the greenie ... especially the time it reported spending at the Ephemerals Temple. Apparently there was more to the place than a bunch of kooks, wasting their altruistic impulses on wounded mayflies. It made me wonder.

What happens to the soul of a ditto who loses his salvation -- who never gets to inload back into the "real" self who made him? It always seemed a metaphysical and rather futile question -- except three of me faced that situation today.

For that matter, what happens when your original dies? Some religions think there's a final transfer, loading your entire lifestream into God, in much the same way that your golems pour their memories back into you at the end of each day. But despite fervent yearnings -- and well-funded private research -- no one's ever found proof of such transfer to some higher-level archetype-being.

Unsettling thoughts. I tried to let go and just drift, letting the unit do its work. But moments later, Nell interrupted with another high-priority call.

"It is from Vic Aeneas Kaolin," my house computer said. "You have no operational self-copies to take it. Shall I answer with an avatar?"

Use a crude software emulation to greet a trillionaire? I quivered at the notion. Might as well insult him with a recorded voice saying, I'm not in right now, leave a message.

"Put him through to me here," I ordered. This was going to be one of those days.

The image that erupted in front of me showed the tycoon's familiar visage -- slender and heavy-browed -- sitting in a tidy office with an ornate fountain-sculpture bubbling in the background. I almost sat up in surprise when I saw that he was brown! One of the pale, North European shades. It would be worthwhile interrupting the scan in order to show respect for his rig.

Then I spied a glint ... a brief, specular reflection off his cheek. A non-specialist might be fooled by the guise, but I could tell this was another golem, baked in human shades. It wasn't even illegal, since you can wear any color you like in the privacy of your own home, as long as no fraud is involved.

I remained supine, letting the tetragramatron unit continue sifting and imprinting a duplicate of my soul.

"Mr. Morris."

"ditKaolin," I replied, indicating that I saw through the amateurish guise. He paused, then inclined his head ever so slightly. After all, I was the real person in this conversation.

"I see you are imprinting, sir. Shall I call back in an hour?"

As before, I found his way of speaking a bit old-fashioned. But you can afford affectations when you're rich.

"It's a deep scan, but I'll hardly need a whole hour." I smiled, while keeping my head quite still between the tendrils. "I can call you back in ten -- "

"This will only take a minute," the ditto interrupted. "I want you to come work for me. Right away. At double your normal rate." He appeared happily confident that I would leap up and accept without hesitation. Strange. Was this the same fellow whose lawyers sent threatening notes a little while ago, because they found the pellet of my missing gray in a restricted area? The same Kaolin who wouldn't let me send a copy of my own to investigate the disappearance?

"If this has to do with Dr. Maharal's tragic death, you know that I've already been retained by his daughter, Ritu. Accepting your offer right now could risk conflict of interest, unless special arrangements are made."

"Special arrangements" could mean spinning off more grays who never come home. That thought, mixed with the turbid sensations of imprinting, left me feeling a bit queasy.

Kaolin's ditto blinked, then glanced offscreen. Perhaps he was receiving instructions from his archetype -- the real mogul-hermit. Curiosity flamed within me. There were all sorts of rumors about the tycoon. Some of the more garish stories described him as hideously deformed by a rare, genetically engineered plague developed in his own laboratories. I made sure this conversation was being recorded at high fidelity. Clara would want details, when she came home from her war.

The brown golem brushed away my objection. "That's a mere technicality. You will perform the same investigation, but I can pay for your exclusive services, sparing poor Ritu the expense during her time of grief."

That "exclusive services" part sounded like this morning's Fealty Oath ploy, repackaged a bit. True, I could always use money. But the world is more than money.

"Have you cleared this idea with Ritu?"

The flesh-colored ditto paused, again checking some information source offscreen. Barring a recent memory transfer, this one would have no personal knowledge of me, only what he had been told.

"No, but I'm sure she'll find my offer -- "

"Anyway, she's already paid for today, in advance. Why not wait and see what I come up with? We can all compare notes tomorrow. Put everything on the table. Does that sound fair enough?"

Kaolin was clearly unused to being put off.

"Mr. Morris, there are ... complications that Ritu doesn't know about."

"Hm. You mean complications relevant to her father's death? Or the abduction of my gray?"

Grimacing, the platinum ditto realized his mistake. He was on the verge of giving me probable cause to subpoena him, if I chose.

"Until tomorrow, then," he said, with a curt nod. The image vanished and I chuckled briefly, then closed my eyes with a sigh. Perhaps now I could finish imprinting in peace.

Alas, no longer distracted by the phone call, I felt once again immersed in the turbulence of soul-sifting. Emotion flurries and flashes of memory, most of them too brief to recognize, kept surging out of dark, unconscious storage. Some of them felt like anticipating the past, others like remembering the future. It grew stifling, especially when the perceptron tendrils entered both nostrils for the final and deepest phase of imprinting -- the phase called "breath of life."

Nell broke in.

"I have another incoming call, from Malachai Montmorillin."

This was the utter last straw. Almost gagging on the tendrils, I grunted --

"Can't listen to Pal raving right now."

"He appears to be quite insist -- "

"I said no! Use that buzzoff avatar on him. Anything. Just keep him away till I finish work tonight!"

Maybe I shouldn't have been so vehement. The same intense feeling would carry over into the ebony. Anyway, poor Pal couldn't help being the way he was.

But I didn't have time for his crazy games right then. Sometimes you just have to focus on the job at hand.