386 lines
22 KiB
Plaintext
386 lines
22 KiB
Plaintext
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_____________ _/_/ | | \ \ _/_/ _____________
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| ___________ _/_/ | | \ \ _/_/ ___________ |
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| | _/_/_____ | | > > _/_/_____ | |
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| | /________/ | | / / /________/ | |
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| | c o m m u n i c a t i o n s | |
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| |________________________________________________________________| |
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|____________________________________________________________________|
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...presents... Life in Wartime
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by The Deth Vegetable
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>>> a cDc publication.......1993 <<<
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-cDc- CULT OF THE DEAD COW -cDc-
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____ _ ____ _ ____ _ ____ _ ____
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|____digital_media____digital_culture____digital_media____digital_culture____|
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Here I lie in Mt. Hope Cemetery. Not long to wait now.
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The wind moves through the leaves in the trees, brittle leaves brown and
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frosted, crackling in the cold breath of autumn. The sky is grey. The name on
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the gravestone beside me is barely legible after decades of acid rain: James F.
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Bartlett, killed in 1865 at the age of twenty.
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Crystal was twenty-five.
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Lowell's Civil War dead surround me like brothers. Behind me is a cement-
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plugged Gatling gun, antique metal weathered green. It rests on a granite
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pedestal with a plaque that honors men dead a hundred and fifty years before I
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was ever a soldier. I can feel the weight of their names, and their silent
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approval. They understand about death and killing.
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Through the leaves I have a clear vantage of Phase bridge, a metal and
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concrete umbilical between the old university and the new campus, connecting
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ivy-bound brick to smooth polished steel and copper-filmed glass. The bridge
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is empty now. It's early, and during October break most of the students will
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sleep in, quick to forget responsibility as only the young can. Crystal was
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twenty-five, and I am twenty-six, and she is dead, and I am old.
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The frost on the grass crushed under me is melting through my jeans. I
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lie stomach-down. My jacket keeps my chest dry, and I wear a scarf wrapped
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around my throat and tucked into my collar, but I don't feel warm. I rest on
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my elbows, flex cold fingers and rub my hands together, check the rifle sight
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again. Through the quartz optic I can follow the motion of the red laser spot
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on the bridge rail. Everything in place. Kurt Andrysic will begin to cross
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Phase bridge in ten minutes, and I'll line up the crosshairs on his head,
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behind the eye and above the ear. Easy, just like Bogota and Medellin and
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Cali. Pull the trigger and it will be all over.
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The wind blows and the leaves sift down and scatter around me. The
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weather will be gusting later, blowing rain and soggy leaves through the ranks
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of eroded gravestones. It's a good day for rain.
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I remember the way it sounded on the windows beyond the vertical blinds.
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I remember holding her and listening to it, rain tapping on the tall glass
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panes. Light would filter in, dusty beams through the drawn slats, but never
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very much. We were nocturnal creatures, working in the dark, sleeping in the
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day. Or not sleeping, sometimes, just listening to the rain.
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At times it was too peaceful. One late afternoon I paced the bedroom
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naked while Crystal sat on the bed and brushed out her long brown hair. Our
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loft apartment occupied the northwest corner of the eleventh floor, high enough
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to see the sunset reflected in the water of the Merrimac river, and the burning
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light filled the room.
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"Moran, stop it, you're making me nervous." Crystal brushed her hair into
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smooth ropes and began to braid it the way she always did before she sat down
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at her computer to work. "What's wrong?" she asked over her shoulder, twisting
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and pulling the strands tight.
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"Nothing." I looked out the window.
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"I've heard that before." She finished the braid and tied it off with a
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bit of red plastic-coated wire; her side of the white dresser was always
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covered with pieces of her latest hardware project. "You've got the
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wall-crawlies, don't you?"
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I shrugged. "Probably just too much caffeine."
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The light on the water was fading; one by one, security lights popped on
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across the neighborhood. I heard Crystal's bare feet on the carpet behind me.
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Her arms came around my waist and she laid her cheek against my shoulder.
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"You can stop checking your back, you know. We don't live in the Combat
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Zone anymore." Then she slapped me on the ass. "Come on, get dressed. Time
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to go to work." I made a grab for her and she danced away, laughing, dispell-
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ing the dark mood, and I tried not to let her see me like that again.
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______________________________________________________________________________
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With binoculars I scan left from the bridge, along the paved footpath
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that cuts behind the biggest dorms to the main library. The clock in the white
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library dome chimes three quarters of the hour, Big Ben-style, round notes
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carried on the wind to my position. And there he is, right on schedule.
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He steps clear of the revolving door and walks past the granite pillars
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that support the protruding stories above the entrance. His suit is grey,
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well-cut and designed to be kind to the weight he's managed to accumulate in
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his forty-odd years. His silver hair gleams like a polished helmet even in the
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dismal morning's grey light. He carries a thick leather satchel and bobs along
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with short pigeonish steps. He is on his way to a nine o'clock meeting with
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the rest of the cognitive science department, which he heads. It will take him
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four minutes to walk to the bridge, a few seconds more to reach its center, and
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then it ends. The meeting will have to proceed without him.
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Resting on my elbows I follow Andrysic with the binoculars. Halfway
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across the parking lot between the library and the footpath, he turns and
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pauses, and a woman enters the fields of view: Amanda Vandermaas, neuro-
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physicist and Andrysic's research partner, exiled from her homeland by the
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South African government during the intelligentsia purges seven years ago;
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Crystal introduced me to her once. She is younger then Andrysic, maybe thirty-
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five, sinewy and dark, with high Afro cheekbones and startling blue eyes. Her
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hair is cornrowed into shoulder-length braids, and her skin is the color of
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Turkish coffee. Crystal liked her.
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Vandermaas catches up to Andrysic and together they walk along the
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footpath. She shakes her head in response to something he says, and there is a
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gleam from the steel inset at the base of her skull, the socket that allows her
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to interface with the machine Crystal helped give intelligence to. Wires,
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artificial nerves, carry electrical impulses from the socket up the spinal
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column to the visual cortex in the brain. Crystal explained once why it was
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necessary to bypass the optic nerve, but I've forgotten why. I never
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understood it anyway.
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Andrysic arranged the surgery at the university med center immediately
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after Crystal was accepted as a doctoral student. She was so wired she talked
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about it almost continuously until the day she was scheduled to go under the
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laser.
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"With the interface I'll be able to talk directly to Kurt's program," she
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explained for the twentieth time as we dodged past each other in the kitchen
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to make dinner one morning a few days before the operation. "It'll be like
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having an entire new set of senses, and a new world to use them in. I'll be
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learning things along with the AI, we can teach each other."
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The afternoon they admitted her, I stood behind her chair and watched her
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sign the release forms. The last time I'd seen so much fine print was when I'd
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volunteered for experimental medical procedures to qualify for Special Forces
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training. The Army cutters had called what they did to me 'enhancement'; I
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noticed Andrysic had printed the same word in the empty space on the forms
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Crystal signed.
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In a white-tiled room I stood in a corner and watched a balding male
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technician shave her head. Long locks of red brown hair fell free and slid
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down her smock to the green and white speckled floor. I remember the oblate
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sphere of her head, how shiny her scalp was above her dark brows and enormous
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eyes. Her hair lay on the floor in coils the color of newly fallen leaves.
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"There you go." The tech shut off the razor and laughed. "You can tell
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your friends you're starting some new retro-fad."
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I picked up a handful of smooth chestnut hair and wound it around my
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fingers.
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"Moran, it's all right," Crystal said. "It'll grow back."
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She took it from me and braided it quickly, shoved it into the side pocket
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of her canvas carry-all. "I'll save it for you," she told me, and I looked for
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it later, but I couldn't find it anywhere.
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Andrysic had arranged to tape the operation and simultaneously run it on
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closed-circuit video. "You're welcome to watch the staff, Mr. Michaels," he
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invited me. "Since the procedure is still experimental, there's bound to be a
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'standing room only' crowd."
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Crystal talked me into going.
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Andrysic saved me a seat in the front row of the auditorium. The room
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wasn't large, might have held fifty people and nearly every seat was taken.
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The high-resolution video was projected onto an enormous screen at the front
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of the room. Static sparked on the screen behind Andrysic as he spoke a few
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words of introduction to the assembled staff. Then he sat down and pushed a
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button on the remote control he held. The static cleared and I saw Crystal.
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She lay on her stomach under a sheet, her smooth shaven skull bracketed
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in place by gleaming steel pins. Her eyes were half-open. The surgical team
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stood around her. I knew one of them was Amanda Vandermaas, but I couldn't
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pick her out of the rest of the anonymous green scrubs. My hands clenched as
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one of the surgeons drew dashed lines on Crystal's skin with a magic marker.
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Another held the business end of a laser scalpel, a fiber optic cable connected
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to a grey console with a few knobs and dials. He flicked a switch on the panel
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and a streak of static formed across the bottom of the screen as the beam came
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on line.
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Dr. Vandermaas made the first cuts with a steel scalpel, silver blade
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moving over Crystal's skin so lightly that at first I didn't think she'd
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touched her. Crystal started to bleed and my stomach churned. I could swear
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I saw her eyelids flicker. Then the green smocks surrounded her and the video
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switched from side view to directly overhead.
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The close-ups gave you the illusion that the doctors were just practicing
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on a cheap piece of meat from the local butcher shop. I was the only one in
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the room who wasn't fooled. I sat with my hands tightened into useless fists
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as they cut away the back of her skull and threaded the hair-fine wires into
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her brain.
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The room was too hot. I got up and managed to walk out. The hospital
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corridor was quiet and a little cooler. For a moment I just leaned on the
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wall. Then I went to the nearest men's room and threw up.
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______________________________________________________________________________
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Andrysic and Vandermaas have reached the point where the path crosses
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behind South dorm. Now they slow, come to a stop. Vandermaas raises a
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pointing finger and shakes it once, twice, punctuating the words I see her
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lips shaping. Andrysic shakes his head, a firm "No!" easily read in the
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movement of his mouth. He makes an openhanded sweeping motion as if to push
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her away, and starts walking toward the bridge again. Vandermaas says some-
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thing, passion evident in her raised chin and narrow eyes. She runs a few
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steps to catch up with him, and they keep arguing as they walk. Less then two
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minutes now until they reach the bridge.
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I shift my weight, stretching my left shoulder where the regenerated
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tissue has stiffened. Damp weather does that to me, ever since I had the arm
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replaced last year. It was the last of the old military blackware; there's
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nothing left in me now except the reflex booster built into the base of my
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spine. Makes me faster, hair-trigger, enough to give me an edge in a lot of
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situations. But it didn't do a damned bit of good against what killed Crystal.
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The shoulder is sore most of the time now. This winter the ache will
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probably become more permanent, without her to rub it away. It isn't fair.
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>From the beginning she knew just how to touch me.
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On the surface we didn't have much in common. She professed growing up in
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Canada, working her way south from Ottawa through Toronto and Buffalo to
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Lowell. Among the East Coast datarunners she had a reputation for being a
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slickshot, intuitive and patient and smooth. "Don't believe a word of that,"
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Crystal would say, shaking her head. "If I were THAT good, no one would know
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who I was. The problem is, my technique is my fingerprint; after a while,
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people start to recognize it."
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That was how Andrysic found her. Traced her down and made her an offer
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she couldn't refuse: the chance to see life in software, to work intimately
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with a sentence stored in patterns of electrons and magnetic fields.
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After a week of tests, Dr. Vandermaas let Crystal out of the med center,
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sent her home with a sheet of dermal analgesics and an order to rest. "We'll
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work you hard enough once Kurt brings the project fully on-line," she told
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Crystal, and handed her a green and red scarf, like the ones the rebels in
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South Africa wear.
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"My brother sent me this from Johannesburg when I had my surgery," she
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said. "I wore it until my hair grew back. I thought you might like it."
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Crystal thanked her and tied the scarf around her stubbly scalp with a
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lopsided grin. When we got home she made faces at herself in the mirror.
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"I look like a pirate... all I need is an eyepatch." She rubbed the bandage
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on the back of her neck and yawned. "And a big cup of coffee. These damned
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painkillers are knocking me out."
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I hooked my arm behind her knees and swung her against my chest. "What
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are you going to do, tie me down?" She wrapped her arms around my neck.
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"You don't seem really worried about it."
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"That's because I know how to handle you." She yawned again, turned her
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face into my neck to muffle it, her breath warm on my skin. "You Special
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Forces types are all alike: too macho for your own good. Go ahead, carry me
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off, see if I care."
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She was asleep when I laid her down on the bed.
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She was home for six weeks, sleeping, playing at her workstation and
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grumbling about the wait while she healed. She started doing yoga to relax.
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Her stubbly hair grew into a soft dark halo, more red then brown. It felt
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silky as fur, but I only saw it when she slept; she wore the red and green
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scarf the rest of the time.
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Andrysic called every day to see how she was feeling, and to tell her
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what was going on in the lab. After four days I realized every time Crystal
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spoke with him it only made her more anxious to get back to work. He needed
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her, needed the new interface she carried in the back of her neck. "He can't
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even boot up the damn thing without me there to plug it in," Crystal said from
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a half-lotus on the couch. "He needs the deep link, and that's me."
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"Sounds like a covert operation, and he's your CO or something."
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"He's my thesis advisor; it's the same thing."
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When she went back to the lab she came home with headaches that made her
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squint against the light, and she started to keep the blinds drawn all the
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time. She swore there was nothing wrong but she talked in her sleep, in a
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flat toneless language that I couldn't identify.
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______________________________________________________________________________
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We're almost there, Andrysic. I remember the last time I crossed Phase
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bridge, new campus to old, walking away from your lab and everything I'd seen
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there, everything I'd touched. You'd phoned and told me something terrible
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had happened, but underneath the words I could hear the excitement in your
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voice, could tell you were already sorting out what to document for scientific
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prosperity. I remember you wouldn't let the paramedics disconnect her until
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you'd finished your backups. You probably started to edit the data right after
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I left.
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The sun was swimming up through the haze in the east, and she was gone.
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Not dead, no, you were quick to point that out. No, the meat was stable, still
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breathing. There was even a faint blush the color of normal sleep on its
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cheeks. It slumped over the terminal, white-jacketed cable in the back of the
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neck snaking down to the grey and white cabinet that held the liquid nitrogen-
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cooled guts of your pet AI. An LCD monitor displayed datawindows striped with
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a series of parallel lines. A colorkey in the corner marked the AI's output as
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red; the body's was blue. The red lines bounced rhythmically, but the blue
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lines were flat; there was no brain trace from the body, and its hands were
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cold, like the frost melting on Jimmy Bartlett's gravestone here beside me.
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Crystal had no next-of-kin that I knew of. We had no legal claims on
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each other. Now I wish we had, because then you couldn't have taken her body.
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Is it still vivisection if the subject is braindead? Dr. Vandermaas would
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know.
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______________________________________________________________________________
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And now I'm watching you, Andrysic, watching you walk toward the foot of
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Phase bridge. This is the last time you'll cross it, you bastard. I'm going
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to make damn sure of that.
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Amanda Vandermaas touched your arm and you shake her off. I can't read
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your lips but I know your expression. Don't bother me with this, you're
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telling her, I won't change my mind.
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You're a fool, Andrysic.
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Just ten more paces and you're on the bridge... there, your expensive
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leather-clad toe touches the concrete, and then the sole of the other foot;
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Vandermaas stands back on the footpath and watches you walk away, up the
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arc to the middle of the bridge.
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You don't know this, Andrysic, but she came to the apartment last night,
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while I was cleaning the gun. I had the pieces laid out on an old sheet on
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the kitchen counter, and the case leaned in the corner, gaping open and empty.
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She saw it all.
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"'The Journal of Experimental Intelligence' accepted his abstract," she
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told me. I picked up the rifle barrel and rubbed oil over the smooth black
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steel with a rag. She leaned against the refrigerator and watched me for a
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while. "Banana Wars?" she asked.
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"Yeah, Colombia," I replied, and started to work on the firing mechanism.
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"It'd be a good idea to stay off Phase bridge tomorrow morning." She drew a
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breath and nodded, and then she left.
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______________________________________________________________________________
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I exchange the binoculars for the flat 2D field of the rifle sight, and
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Andrysic's head comes into sharp focus, every pure silver strand of hair stiff
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and still as wire. Finger cocked, my thumb slides off the safety and now the
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moment comes and he and I are the only two people in the world. Forefinger
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tightens and the silenced rifle jumps, butt nudging my chest, with the vented
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hiss of ejected gas and faint smell of propellant. Neat round hole. Red
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stains silver hair and the opposite rail of the bridge, and I watch him fold,
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knees giving way with no outstretched arms to catch himself as he falls. A red
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and grey puddle starts to form around his head on the concrete.
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I pull my eye away from the rifle sight. Dr. Vandermaas isn't looking at
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him. She's standing at the foot of the bridge, staring up at my position
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behind the trees on the hill. I can feel her watching me. Slowly she raises
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her arm in a closed fist salute that I've seen too many times to mistake now.
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It must be cross-cultural, I guess, if it means the same thing in Colombia as
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it does in South Africa: defiance and solidarity and sometimes, victory.
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But I don't feel anything. I unwrap the red and green scarf from my neck
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and fold back a triangle, keep folding the triangle to the end and tuck in the
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last corner. Lay it on the grave beside me. Military history teaches that the
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Civil War generation didn't have the salute. They got flags instead, but the
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scarf is all I have to give him.
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He was a soldier. I think he'll understand.
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_______ __________________________________________________________________
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/ _ _ \|Demon Roach Undrgrnd.806/794-4362|Kingdom of Shit.....806/794-1842|
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((___)) |Cool Beans!..........510/THE-COOL|Polka AE {PW:KILL}..806/794-4362|
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[ x x ] |Ripco................312/528-5020|Moody Loners w/Guns.415/221-8608|
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\ / |The Works............617/861-8976|Finitopia...........916/673-8412|
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(' ') |Lunatic Labs.........213/655-0691|ftp - ftp.eff.org in pub/cud/cdc|
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(U) |==================================================================|
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.ooM |Copr. 1993 cDc communications by The Deth Vegetable 03/01/93-#217|
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\_______/|All Rights Drooled Away. SIX GLORIOUS YEARS of cDc|
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