Organo-Topia Read online

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  Maris looked out over Matsalu bay. A nasty breeze snatched wisps of water off the whitecaps, flinging stolen, stinging droplets at them. The sea below battered the quay, the rumble reverberating through the stone to his legs. A gray sky squatted above them, bulging buttocks of cloud ready to blast them with diarrhetic rain.

  Ilsa tucked herself under his arm, as if to shelter there from the incontinent weather.

  He turned to her. “You ready for this?”

  “Ready as I'll ever be, as long as no one tries to kill us.”

  The hollow gaze she'd had the day before looked less prominent now. The dual attempt on their lives had shaken him too, and he'd gotten Lieutenant Balodis to upload new idents for them both. It'd been a mistake, he'd realized belatedly, to use the same ident yesterday at Infantide Interstellar.

  She looked smart in her business jacket and formal pumps. He didn't look dumb in his perpetual slouch.

  She held up her mastoid dongle. “Who am I today?”

  The phenomenological fuzz struck him as both ludicrous and pathetic. He bit his lip on a laugh and a cry. “We're inspectors from the Department of Carbon Controls, Division of Organophosphate Levels, Nanoproliferation Agency.”

  She did laugh and looked about to cry. “No one's going to believe such an agency exists.”

  “It was the best I could do.” He decided not to tell her he used to work for them. “We've detected increased carbon monoxide densities in this hemisphere, and we're inspecting all likely sources. Sabile Nanobio Research has an egregious record of violations. Surprise inspection.”

  “You sure they're not the ones who tried to kill us the other night?”

  He was about to respond when he realized she was being facetious.

  The multi-story production facility twisted up to its peak in a quadruple helix, four spirals squirming toward the sky, stretches of seamless impersonal glasma in between, a bent architect's sublimated dream. A modest sign of its moniker squatted above the door. The backside of the ground floor issued a constant stream of magnatruck and -car, a split taking the shipping vehicles to an underground depot, the rest of the compound sprawled underneath the eastern edge of Matsalu Bay. Its distance from the quay suggested Sabile Nanobio might have once employed ocean-going vessels, an anachronism in today's suborbital, orbital, and interstellar shipping.

  “Let's go,” she said.

  Turning from the quay, he realized he'd been dallying. He jacked in his mastoid dongle.

  She led the way into the forecourt.

  A receptohume sat inside a booth behind thick glasma.

  “Ilsa Krumins, Lead Inspector, Nanoproliferation,” she told the man, throwing a vague gesture at Peterson, her badge in hand. “Assistant Inspector, Maris Ozolin. This is a surprise inspection.” She held up her handheld, a holo blazing with red headline text. “You will speak of our arrival to no one. You'll be fined five thousand lats if you do. We've detected increased carbon monoxide densities in the area, and we're inspecting all likely sources.”

  His eyes went wide. “Yes, Ma'am.”

  Holding up his badge, Maris tunneled into the company neuranet under regulatory authority, a map appearing on Maris's corn.

  The man behind the sterile glasma looked at them both. “What do I put down as the purpose of your visit, Ms. Krumins?”

  “Routine quarterly facility review.”

  “Yes, Ma'am.” He waved them through. Glasma panels parted.

  Activity on the company neuranet looked no different as they entered the facility. He'd almost expected a spike as the alert about an inspection went out.

  “Nanochine detection section, fifth floor,” the map told him. Lifts ringed the foyer. They got on one, three other individuals coming up from lower levels.

  “Ah, new faces,” said a woman. “I'm Klara Zenonas, Marketing. Pleased to meet you.” She stuck out her hand.

  “Ilsa Krumins, Quality Control.”

  “Maris Ozolin, same. Fifth floor, please?” He couldn't quite reach the controls.

  Klara pressed the button, saying, “Doesn't surprise me we're tightening QC. That Plavinas outbreak has us all sweating. Glad that wasn't our contract.”

  “You heard about Sarfas over at Telsai?” Ilsa asked.

  Klara nodded, her rust blazer and ochre skirt bright enough to douse any fire. “Poor guy. Slammed marketing into damage-control. I thought I'd avoided getting a real job.”

  “Your outfit looks like a lot of work,” Maris said.

  “Something you're renowned for, right, Ozolin?” Ilsa elbowed him.

  “Rumple has its redemptions.”

  The doors parted, and the elevator announced, “Fifth floor.”

  The landing contained a small reception area with two doors off it, one of them a clean-room door, its bulging flange squelching open as they stepped to the reception window.

  A technician stepped to the lift, nodding nonchalantly, adjusting his lab-coat.

  “Here to see Doctor Taska Ipolita, please,” Ilsa told the man behind the glasma.

  “Do you have an appointment?”

  She flashed her holo. “Don't need one. This is an inspection. You will speak of our arrival to no one. You'll be fined five thousand lats if you do.”

  The man's expression didn't change. “Doctor Ipolita won't be available for another twenty minutes. Please have a seat.”

  What the hell are they doing they don't want us to see? Maris wondered. He coordinated the positioning system with the fifth floor cams and located Doctor Ipolita.

  She was drilling a man in formalls, her open labcoat flapping above her bare behind. Secucam holos of similar activity were rife, lurid neuranet fare for the vicariously inclined.

  “Which way?” Ilsa asked.

  Maris pointed at the other door, the one without the flange. “Through there, first door on the right.” Wouldn't want to get dirty in a clean room, he thought.

  Ilsa went through it and turned to the immediate right, Maris on her heels. She barged through the office door. “Doctor Ipolita, bad time, I see.” She shielded her eyes. “Nanoproliferation Agency, surprise inspection. We'll wait in the lobby.” She backed up and closed the door.

  Perfect, Maris thought, watching the Doctor on cam scrambling to dress. Better to have a little leverage.

  Ipolita stepped into the foyer moments later, the picture of propriety, not a thread out of place. “Inspector Krumins, Inspector Ozolin, please, come in.” In her office, she gestured them to sit across from her, a fine flush tinting her cheeks. As she sat, she gave them a glimpse of the fruits she'd had hanging on display moments ago.

  “We're here about Sarfas at Telsai.”

  “Your agency was here three days ago, hours after it happened,” Doctor Ipolita said. “What else can I tell you?”

  “How it might have been done.” Ilsa stared at the woman across from her.

  She's good, Maris thought.

  “We're still investigating, of course,” she said. “You're asking me to speculate.”

  Inspector Krumins gave the Doctor a brief mirthless smile.

  “Provided it's taken as just that, and not as gospel.” Ipolita raised an eyebrow.

  Ilsa gave a small nod.

  “Very well, Inspector. We suspect that the nanochines infected him without setting off nanotectors anywhere in the facility by masking their surfaces with organophosphates. They gave themselves a skin. How, we're not sure yet. The infiltration of Plavinas Incubation was probably similar, but I'm not familiar with the details of that outrage.” She shook her head. “Couples everywhere begging for a child for years, and a quarter-million embryos wiped out in moments.”

  It didn't surprise Maris that people copulated at every opportunity, desperation infectious, species survival paramount. “The Plavinas infiltration had an obvious vector,” he said. “Nanochines were delivered in an ovum deposited just that day. What was the likely vector that infected Sarfas?”

  Doctor Ipolita
shrugged. “Any organic material or biologic organism might have brought it in. The nanochines might have come in on a sandwich delivery, in a piece of fruit, on the back of a flea, or in the wax of his ears. Wasn't he eaten from the soles up?”

  Maris nodded. News organizations had somehow pilfered the information or had compromised a source, active investigations kept under strict confidentiality protocols. It wasn't me who blared, Peterson thought.

  “Might have been in the jam between his toes. All speculation, Inspector. Next thing you'll be asking is why they don't proliferate through inorganic vectors.”

  Ilsa frowned. “Don't act stupid, Doctor. We both know inorganic means inanimate.”

  Ipolita glanced between them. “As indicated by our research, yes.” She smiled.

  Chapter 10

  “What do you suppose she meant by that?”

  Maris looked over at Ilsa, the double-seater humming beneath them, the cityscape flashing past. He brooded over the question like the clouds that brooded over the city. “Odd, isn't it? Carbon combines with every other element on the periodic table, a chemical whore. Organicity is life.”

  “And she was implying—”

  “Corn, coke, trake, and jack.”

  “What'd you just say?”

  “The only recognizable items left after the nanochines chewed through Eduard Sarfas were his corn, coke, trake, and jack. All his neuratronics. And his dental work, but that's superfluous.”

  Ilsa looked bewildered. “I don't understand.”

  “Inorganic items, all.”

  “You're not implying that the agent is propagated across the neuranet, are you?”

  Maris shook his head at her. “No, I don't see how that's possible.” But the idea bothered him on a level below articulation, a boil growing turgid under the skin of consciousness, its insidious pus swelling beneath the tissues of his mind.

  “What are you after? I worked for them, remember?”

  “Where are the neuratronics installed? At what age?”

  “There's a crèche complex about five miles from here. Ten thousand Ihumes being reared in cohorts of five hundred each, a small city in a single building.”

  “Who do we see about neuratronics installation?”

  “Destination: Plavinas Development Crèche, Crestonia.”

  The magnacar swerved and took off that direction, mindless except of its destination.

  He sometimes wished he could be as unthinking as that. The curse of conscience colored his view of life, a fuscous cloud of murky motive, a menu of moral morass. The choice was never between good and evil, but of less versus more destructive. “Do no harm” wasn't among anyone's choices anymore. Do the least harm to the fewest number of people was the best the dictum ever got. You did harm simply by living. You did harm simply by dying.

  The crèche looked like all the buildings around it except for its windows. On the inside of nearly every window was some personal item of remarkably bright color, like the handpainting his parents insisted on keeping on the fridge. It was terrible, but they prized it terribly, and he'd wondered why. they'd saved it all, every stick figure drawing and papier-mâché mask, watercolor wasteland and chalk conglomeration, as if accumulating evidence of their child's genius, none of it evincing the slimmest glimmer of extraordinary talent, all of it evincing his mediocrity. He supposed if he'd asked, they'd have said they kept it to show him its value, to teach him to value his work. He hadn't, knowing it crap, ashamed it stayed there, a burning reminder how talentless he was.

  The crèche kids were subjected to similar, he supposed, their pedestrian work hung in their windows, kept there at the admonition of podparents. The building took up the whole block and soared twenty stories. A face or two peered from window and roof-edge. His mind sliced and divided, giving over parts of each floor to classrooms, gymnasiums, cafeterias. About one floor per year, he estimated. Ten thousand children, five hundred per floor. The oldest ones living at the top, he guessed, younger ones on lower floors needing more care.

  Couples everywhere wanting children, and here they were, reared in crèche.

  “Ever been in a place like this?”

  He shook his head.

  “I have, reared in one on the outskirts of Telsai.”

  “How was it?”

  “Mostly bad, but sometimes all right. I hated the regimentation. My teachers were fair, and my podmothers were bitches. They had to be, I suppose.”

  Maris handed her today's mastoid jack. “Department of Child Support Services, Bureau of Gestational Integrity, Adolescent Angst Division.”

  Ilsa snorted. “Where do you get these names? Some jerk in Undercover just makes them up, right?” She jacked in and updated her handheld with the new ident.

  He smiled and slipped his dongle home. “Right,” he said, gesturing toward the entrance, wishing that were the case.

  She took the lead. The framed portico lent the building its only point of grandeur, the rest so shapelessly flat that it looked like an institution.

  The spidery limbs of a nanotector waved across them and beeped them clear.

  The atrium inside echoed with the emptiness of abandoned dreams. It'd make a good motto, Maris thought. “Abandon dreams, all ye who dwell here.” Dark parquet walls fought with light tile floors. Glasma display cases housed mementos of institutional pride, sport trophies and honorarium plaques competing with rusty reliquaries and crusty plates. Overstuffed chairs looked resentfully upon a jealous couch, both suffering from dust-covered neglect.

  “May I help you?” asked a high-pitched voice. She had to be young, the face behind the glasma innocent and pure, the eyes way too bright with undimmed enthusiasm.

  “Graduating soon?” Ilsa asked, grinning. “You're nearly there, young lady. Ilsa Berzin, Liaison, Adolescent Angst Division, here to see the medical director.” She showed the bright-eyed girl her handheld.

  “Maris Petras, same.” He flashed his too.

  A muted beep behind the glasma indicated their idents had been verified. “Do you have an appointment?”

  “Surprise inspection,” Ilsa said.

  “I'll see if she's available. Please, have a seat.”

  They stepped away from the window but neither headed for a chair.

  “Last here a year ago, according to our files,” Ilsa muttered.

  “Latency Labile Division was here three months ago, and Toddler Terror just last week.”

  She stared at him in wide-eyed wonder. “And Infant Irritability yesterday, right?”

  “Never heard of 'em.”

  “Ms. Berzin, Mr. Petras? Doctor Eugeni will see you now. The elevator is to your right. Tenth floor and to your left, please.”

  He and Ilsa stepped that way as a woman in business formal was scanned at the entry by the nanotector. She gave them a glance as she stepped to the glasma, handheld out already. “Infant Irritability Division to see the director of development, please.”

  The lift doors rumbled aside, the interior looking dingy, battered by rambunctious loads of children. Maris didn't see any buttons.

  “Next stop, tenth floor,” the elevator said in a tired robo-voice.

  Remote operation, of course, the Detective thought.

  The tenth-floor foyer looked little different from the atrium on the ground floor. Dark tile walls muted the little light filtering in through grimy glasma, defying the attempts of the light parquet floors to reflect it. Long corridors stretched to either side of the foyer. Glasma display cases might have housed mementos of institutional pride but stood staring at passersby with guilt-inducing emptiness. Opposite the foyer stood a recessed reception area, where utilitarian chairs filled with sniffling brats gazed at each other in placid, indifferent rows, every seat occupied.

  The gazes swiveled to Ilsa and Maris as they stepped off the elevator.

  Then, as a group, swiveled away. Assess, catalog, ignore.

  We must look like bureaucrats, he thought. If we'd looked like a couple, they'd have mobb
ed us. Among the children were scraped elbows, swollen jaws, lacerated knees, tear-stained faces. At the reception desk sat an older child, of similar age as the receptionist downstairs.

  “Here to see Nurse Vasiļjev?” Behind the boy were plaques proclaiming the expertise of those in the office, sheepskin under glasma.

  “Doctor Eugeni, I was told,” Ilsa said, showing her handheld. “Ilsa Berzin, Liaison, Adolescent Angst Division.”

  “Maris Petras, same.” He flashed his too, beginning to enjoy the role of sidekick.

  “My apologies. Doctor Eugeni has been called away, but perhaps Nurse Vasiļjev can help you. Please, have a seat. She'll be with you as soon as possible.”

  Except there were no seats.

  “Miss, are we gonna be wiped out by nanochines, too?”

  Maris looked down at a girl with a blood-soaked tissue stuffed in one nostril. She'd approached Ilsa and was looking up at her with plaintive, pitiable eyes.

  “No, child, why do you think that?”

  “That's what happened at that incubation place, wasn't it?”

  “Well, yes, it did happen there, but that doesn't mean it'll happen here. Did that frighten you?”

  The girl nodded vigorously. “I'm Mandy.”

  “Ilsa. Nice to meet you.”

  “Maris,” he said, dropping to a squat. “Where'd you get the pretty nose?”

  She giggled, her hand going to the tissue. “Fighting with Tommy. He called me a name.”

  “Mustn't have been 'sweetie' or 'honeybun.' ”

  “Ewwww! I'd beat the living jerk out of him for that!”

  “Mandy, watch your language,” said a woman's voice from behind Maris.

  He stood and turned.

  “I'm Nurse Zanna Vasiļjev. Doctor Eugeni has been called away. Come in, please. I'll see Mandy while we talk.” She glanced at the roomful of children awaiting her attention. “If you don't mind.”

  She led them through the side door into an examination room and bade the girl to sit on the exam couch. “Your office was here just a few days ago, something to do with the outbreak at Incubation.”