Organo-Topia Read online

  The long sterile corridors at the Institute bespoke its commitment to contaminant-free work zones, every employee screened at arrival and departure for nanochines. It was all Eduard ever did—screen for nanochines or evidence thereof, and derive ever more effective means of doing so. Not that any of us get the resources we really need, he thought, budgetary pressures compounded by increasing demands. Sabile Nanobio produces the most sophisticated nanotectors in the Coalition, he thought, but we're just breeding better nanochines.

  “Budget never drives policy!” his boss had thundered on one occasion, when Eduard had suggested additional money match additional demands.

  But that's why Eduard worked in the laboratory, and not in administration.

  He and his wife lived in an apartment they shared alone, without children. Ihumes couldn't have children. No one seemed to have children anymore. How many Brehumes are left? he wondered, not knowing, such information kept closely guarded. Their number wasn't publicized. If we knew, we'd all give up in despair and turn the galaxy over to Ohumes. Eduard couldn't think about it. He'd get too depressed.

  Ohumes outnumbered Ihumes nearly nine-to-one and manufactured themselves from gene prints kept in zero-kelvin cryo. Ohumes didn't need Ihumes anymore to perpetuate themselves. And there weren't enough Brehumes to keep up the number of Ihumes.

  We're doomed, Eduard thought, sighing as he walked the long hallway toward decon.

  His foot slipped inside his shoe, and at first he thought it was a moment of vertigo. His next step put his weight on a foot a half-inch thinner than it'd been. Fluid squelched up through the laces and around his ankles.

  Nanochines! Eduard thought. His hand leapt to the contam-alert around his neck. Strobes flashed and alarms pinged throughout the facility. Chine-proof doors crashed into place. His heart hammered in his ears, sweat beaded on his forehead, and his stomach knotted up.

  Where did I botch the safety procedures? he wondered, watching in petrified disbelief as his feet disappeared into puddles of proto. He fell to his knees, his feet unable to support him. He rolled and looked toward his ankles, which melted away as he watched. Why doesn't it hurt? he wondered. No one had ever said it wouldn't hurt.

  The water making up seventy-five percent of the human body washed away nearly all the other trace elements as the nanochines ate their way slowly up his legs. Why aren't the nanosuppressors going off? he wondered. The foam spigots sat in the ceiling, unresponsive, as if they couldn't detect the nanochines eating up his legs.

  Eduard knew he'd lose consciousness from blood loss shortly after the nanochines reached his femoral arteries. The liquefaction reached his mid-lower leg, the thick slurry sloughing off him slurping and squelching, the bilateral disintegration indicating a coordinated nanochine effort.

  Then it occurred to him: I've been infected deliberately, he thought. But how? he wondered, knowing he'd adhered to all safety procedures, knowing he'd been targeted.

  But why?

  It wasn't as though his low-level research was making a significant impact in staving off nanochine intrusion. His was mostly the grunt work of lab experimentation, manufacturing test components to spec, honing chemospectral sensitivities. He did very little original development.

  And who?

  Who would want to stop him from carrying out his work at Sabile Nanobio?

  The nanochines reached his knees, and his sight began to cloud. A puddle of reddish brown liquid remained where his legs had been, the nanochines eating right through his pant legs, liquefying the carbonaceous fibers in his clothes.

  Eduard lay back, the corridor beginning to warp, the pinging off-tone as it Dopplered through his receding consciousness, the colors all wrong and going dark, dimming toward the black of oblivion, his blood pressure dropping.

  Why don't nanochines attack Ohumes? he wondered, his last thought echoing in his mind as he passed out, the flow of oxygenated blood to his brain dwindling to a trickle.

  * * *

  “Just a puddle, is all we found,” the secretary told him. “I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name?”

  “Maris Peterson, Investigations, Special Branch,” he said, looking up from her nametag to scan the cube ranch behind her, now empty of its usual herd of corporate bureaucrats. He'd come directly over from the ninth-floor penthouse. “I'd like to see the scene, please.” He swung his gaze back to the secretary, letting it travel across her desk, up her arms and to her face. “Now.”

  “Uh, I'll see if I can get someone to take you back there, Sir.”

  “Every moment of delay results in a loss of evidence.” He smiled. “Obstructing an officer is a serious offense.”

  She didn't hesitate long. “This way, please.”

  He followed, wondering why she'd been instructed to delay him. Some private corporations operated their own fiefdoms, Sabile Nanobio among the worst offenders. They had private security forces and investigative arms, and in Maris' experience, carried out their own brand of justice. They owned multiple planets throughout the galaxy and defied interstellar governments at whim.

  But not on Tartus IX, Maris thought. Not on my planet.

  The woman led him down a corridor between cubes toward a set of double doors. Above them hovered the tentacles of a nanotector. “Please allow yourself to be scanned, Detective.”

  He could have told her what it would find: A slim, slight, pinch-faced Ihume with a receding hairline and a perpetual slouch. The mechanical tentacles came alive and waved themselves across his body.

  The doors opened onto a long, sterile corridor, a suited executive striding purposefully toward them. “I'll escort him from here, Ms. Jurgis. I'm Doctor Rihard Briedis, Mr. Sarfas' direct supervisor.” He stuck out his hand.

  Maris stuck out his badge. “Maris Peterson, Investigations, Special Branch. I'd like to see the scene, please.”

  “Certainly, Detective, as soon as the area is sterilized.”

  More bureaucratic delay. He hated having to repeat himself. “You've scanned the area and found it free of nanochines, yes?”

  “Uh, er, well, yes, but—”

  “But what? The risk is mine. Sleep on a cot in orange pajamas or take me there. Pretty clear choice.”

  The complexion went red, the jaw rippled, and the Doctor turned. “This way, Detective.”

  Maris followed him down the corridor. “What was Mr. Sarfas working on, Doctor?”

  “Classified, Detective.”

  “Ohume waste, Doctor, and you know it.”

  The man glanced over his shoulder. “Your way or the spaceway, is that it?”

  “Death is a powerful determinant.” He calculated they'd managed to delay his arrival on the scene for about a minute. What were they trying to hide?

  “He supervised the calibrations unit, honing chemospectral sensitivity, making components to spec. Grunt-work, mostly. Crew of six techs.”

  The Doctor turned a corner, Maris on his heels. The sterile corridor yielded few clues as to what lay behind doors every twenty feet, an optiscan at eye level beside each door, not a single label on any door. The local neuranet was blocked to the Detective, which he expected, his corn flashing an occasional “access denied” message each time it tried to tie in.

  “How much direct contact with nanochines?”

  “Not much, except what he needed to test components.”

  Another set of doors, another nanotector. He allowed himself to be scanned, the fifth such scan since he'd arrived. Maris fired questions, his mouth on automatic. “Passive sensors?”

  “In all the ductwork, in all the fluid and gas piping, in all the drains. In or out, Detective, if it has nanochines, it'll be detected.”

  “Safety procedures followed?”

  “Of course. We know the risks better than anyone. Eduard was good, never one to neglect protocol.”

  “How long with Sabile?”

  “Eight years, Detective.”

  “Married?”

  “To a microbiologist over in genetics.
They met here.”

  The Detective didn't ask about children. He knew the answer. The corridor turned, and Maris saw a squad in hazmat up ahead, crouched as though ready to leap at the doors beyond.

  The doctor held out his hand to stop him. “You're sure, Detective? Not even a hazmat?”

  Delay, Maris thought, they're just trying to delay. “I'm sure.”

  Briedis waved the squad aside.

  Maris approached the doors. Hazmat rustled behind him as the squad positioned itself, as if for an attack. The nanotector above the doors scanned him, and they parted.

  In the corridor lay an oval puddle of thick, brown syrup, about the length of a human body and about twice as wide. At the near end, plasma clinging to its thin filaments, lay a set of implants, corneal, cochlear, tracheal, and mastoid jack, all made of material of no interest to nanochines. Where the chest would have been, a larger device. A badge, a belt buckle, a wedding ring, and items that might have been in a pocket. At the foot were shoes, only a few inches apart. Around the puddle, thick-suited techs swept the area with various instruments.

  Maris saw instantly what was wrong.

  He strode through the doors and knelt beside the puddle.

  “Where's your hazmat, you fool?!” screeched a tech from behind a faceplate, her face purple with fury.

  Maris paid no attention, flipped his badge toward her, and threw a gesture at the puddle. “You've done a composite analysis?”

  The faceplate swung toward the double doors Maris had come through.

  From farther down the corridor, Doctor Briedis nodded.

  “Mass of remains, one hundred sixty-five pounds of straight proto.”

  Exactly what Maris had thought on seeing the remains. And precisely the reason they'd tried to delay his arrival. But he had to verify. “But no carbon.”

  “No, Detective, no carbon.”

  “Who set off the alarm?”

  “The technician, Sarfas. That white lump in the middle there, with the button. We all wear one.”

  “How many nanotectors between his workstation and here?” Maris asked the suited and hooded figure.

  “Three, Detective.”

  “All nanotectors hard-wired to the enunciator panel, I assume?” Any facility working with bio- or nano-sensitive materials would wire theirs thus.

  “Ethered and hard-wired, both. I know what you're thinking.”

  He rose, examining the size and shape of the puddle, and stepped toward the end where the feet would have been. He swept his gaze across the path that Sarfas had taken. “No droplets separate from the main mass?”

  The suited tech shook her head.

  Sarfas had only seconds, Maris knew, nanochines quick in their work, utilizing a body's existing carbons to manufacture more nanochines. Detective Maris Peterson threw a glance to each end of the short corridor where nanochines had disassembled Eduard Sarfas cell by cell, molecule by molecule, incorporating the technician's carbons into more nanochines. “He was infected bilaterally. They worked their way up from the soles of both feet.”

  “How do you know that?” Doctor Briedis asked.

  The detective was surprised he'd ventured this far into the contamination area. “If he'd been infected in only one foot, he'd have tried to hop on his remaining foot, spattering his liquefied flesh as he did so.” Maris looked among the hazmat-suited techs still scouring that section of the corridor. “You won't find the missing carbon here, Doctor.”

  Briedis went white. “You're not suggesting…”

  “I don't have to suggest it. You know it as well as I do. It's why you tried to keep me away from the scene, Doctor. It means all your fancy nanotectors are worthless.”

  And then the nanochines had escaped, taking their liberated carbons with them, evading the most sophisticated sensory equipment in the galaxy.

  How? the Detective wondered.

  Chapter 3

  Professor Bernhard Vitol started at the sound of a knock, bewildered that people had the temerity to bring their corpses to his door. “Can't you jerking trake me?” he muttered to no one in particular. He popped out his jack, rose from his desk, and stepped in that direction, muttering imprecations.

  He'd divorced five years ago, after the Coalition had imposed mandatory ovum and sperm donations. His Ifem wife had divorced him after a pretty Ofem half her age had done a collection.

  “I gave yesterday, blast your ass!” he said, swinging the door open.

  The slight, sour-faced man staring at him wasn't whom he'd thought it would be. “Maris Peterson, Investigations, Special Branch.” The man flashed a badge.

  “I been regular with my donations, I swear! Take me to booking if you have to, but I'll drag your bank account to court for false arrest—yours and the Coalition's!”

  The blank-faced, raised-eyebrow look he got wasn't what he expected, either. The man looked him up and down. “Bremale Vitol?”

  “If you need to ask, you're in the wrong place.” He slung the door.

  It stopped short of closing and bounced back open, shuddering.

  “Need steel toes.” The Detective was holding his gumshoed foot in one hand. “I need your help.”

  “I'm not makin' extra donations to anyone's account.”

  “I'm not askin' for sperm.”

  Bernhard stared at the other man, bewildered. “You gonna stand there all day? Or do you want some tea?” He retreated toward the kitchen, navigating the clutter. “Those goddamn whores'd be here five times a day if I let 'em. And the last time I tried to slash my vas deferens, they locked me up.” He whirled back around and shoved his face into the Detective's. “For spermicidal behavior!”

  He stepped around a statuette, which wobbled when he brushed it, and found the least corroded cup in the sink. “Cleanest I got,” he said over his shoulder. “Ex-wife won't wash the dishes anymore.”

  The water was instantly hot, and he threw in a half-used teabag.

  The Detective took the cup he'd shoved into his hand.

  Back in the living room, Bernhard returned to his desk. “I got a reliability regression covariate histogram to finish. Have a seat.”

  He jacked back into his mastoid, and the room disappeared from view, data swirling around him like the chaotic mess in his house. The neighbors were constantly complaining of the smell, and the landlord had threatened to evict him for it.

  Bernhard jerked the numbers into line, knotted the two-tailed regressions into a unified mutual exclusion, plotted the result, and yanked the jack from his processus mastoideus. “All done, Detective. See that?” He pointed to a holo of the result he'd just generated.

  “Yeah, but what is it?”

  “That's how long Homo sapiens will continue to reproduce naturally at our current rate of infertility.”

  The close-set eyes went wide.

  “Any question why we have mandatory donations?”

  The Detective shook his head slowly, eyes fixed to the holo. “Worse than I thought.”

  “So bad, the government won't tell anyone about it. What can I help you with?”

  The other man sipped his tea, his gaze on Bernhard. “Two murders, seem unrelated.”

  “I didn't kill 'em, I swear.” Bernhard grinned and added, “I wanted to, but I didn't.”

  “You knew one of them,” he said. “The other was a tech at Sabile Nanobio, Eduard Sarfas.”

  “Junk peddlers, that place.” Bernhard snorted, shaking his head. “How'd he die?”

  “In a puddle of proto outside his laboratory.”

  Bernhard whistled softly. “Can't even protect their own. What'd I tell you? You gonna shut 'em down?”

  “Least of my worries—even if my place is rigged to the rafters with their faulty nanotectors. The whole corporation needs an orange allsuit and a bunk at a corporate prison for fraud.”

  “You said I knew the other.”

  “Liene Ozolin.” The Detective stared at him, hard.

  “That her last name? Never knew it. Yeah
, she was here about a week ago. Nice kid.”

  “Cracked the pavement in front of her penthouse.”

  Bernhard winced. “Sorry to hear it. She deserved better. Didn't you say murder?”

  “Yeah, I did.”

  The Professor waited a moment. “So you gonna tell me how, or is that classified?”

  Peterson stared at him.

  “I said I didn't kill her. You want to do a neuro on me, worm the truth outa me? Go ahead. Won't get you anywhere.”

  “Did you know she was married?”

  “She never mentioned it, never said a word about herself. Listened to plenty of my whining, but wasn't the kind to do any of her own. What about it?”

  “To another Ofem.”

  Bernhard threw his head back and laughed. “They breed a sperm-vesicle with the looks of a goddess and she doesn't like men?” He couldn't get over the irony, its pathos shaking his substantial gut, and soon he had tears coursing his cheeks. “Jerking Coalition, goddamn them to hell, putting an innocent child like her through that!”

  The Detective's cold gaze soon sobered the Professor.

  “What?”

  “You asked her back.”

  “So? She was beautiful. They were going to send somebody, might as well choose the beauties.”

  “You liked her.”

  “Is that a crime? To feel some affection for your sperm receptacle? Let me tell you something, you officious little dick. She was doing a job, and so was I. At first, I couldn't, because she was so fresh, innocent, and pure. You saw her promo-vid! Don't tell me she didn't stiffen your beam. Those first few times, I wouldn't let her disrobe, and I wept in despair afterward. Because she was exactly the kind of girl I'd have wanted for a daughter. So take that smirk, dip it in shit, and paint your face with it, asshole!” By now, Bernhard was on his feet and towering over the little Detective.

  He hadn't moved.

  The Professor would have smashed him in the face if he'd flinched.

  “You loved her.”

  He collapsed in his chair and wept, nodding and remembering how she'd held him, patiently working him into that nasty, salacious place in his mind where he could give her a deposit to take back to the bank. And she would leave him spent, his remorse as profound as his ecstasy, swearing he'd never touch her again, not her, anyone but her, the angelic child who did devilish things down there, who somehow coaxed the fluids from his hopelessly flaccid member no matter how much he resisted.