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  She and Maris exchanged a glance. “You spoke with our colleagues?” Ilsa asked.

  “Oh, no. Doctor Eugeni insists on handling all liaison inquiries himself, when available. What can I help you with?”

  “Just a few questions, Ms. Vasiļjev. What's the usual age neuratronics are installed?”

  “Ten!” the girl piped up, squealing with delight. “I'm getting mine next week!”

  “What does the process look like here?” Maris asked.

  The nurse began swabbing the area around the wound. “It's contracted out to Balozi Neurobiotics. They bring in a mobile surgery center, lower it to the roof. It's staffed twenty-four-seven, each child taking about two hours. The process takes about three weeks for all five hundred children. Upsets their routine terribly. And in some children…” She glanced at the girl, then at Ilsa and Maris.

  The neuratronics go awry, Maris finished in his head. He wondered how many that was.

  “Age ten?” Ilsa said. “Before their reproductive status has been determined?”

  The nurse's gaze narrowed. “A few girls have reached menarche by then, but most haven't. And very few boys have manifested signs of adolescence. But you're asking about fertility testing, aren't you?”

  Ilsa nodded.

  “Not something we conduct until the thirteenth year,” Nurse Vasiļjev said.

  Maris felt something tugging at his jacket pocket. The spidery nanotector that Doctor Briedis had given him was crawling up his jacket.

  “What's that, Mister?”

  He put his finger in front of it, and the device wrapped the finger with its filaments, barely reaching around. He held it out for her to see. “A nanotector, Mandy, designed to spot an invasion of nanochines from a hundred yards.”

  “Looks glavy.”

  Maris raised an eyebrow and glanced at the two women.

  “A new word spreading among the kids,” the nurse said. “Means she likes it. Run along, Mandy, you'll be all right if you stay out of fights.”

  “Yes, Nurse Vasiļjev.” The girl turned to Ilsa and Maris. “Nice to meet you,” and she sped out of the room.

  “Balozi Neurobiotics will be here next week to begin neuratronic installation?” Maris asked.

  The nurse nodded. “They're here now setting up the mobile surgery center on the roof. Doctor Eugeni is helping to coordinate it.”

  * * *

  The boy stepped off the elevator just as Maris and Ilsa approached.

  He looked like any other boy going to the nurse's office after a mishap. Both knees were skinned, his eyes were red from crying, and he was sniffling.

  The nanotector wrapped around Maris's finger screeched, an ear-piercing tweet so loud everyone winced and ducked. Its spindly body glowed red.

  “Stop right there!” Maris said.

  The boy froze, his eyes wide. “What'd I do?”

  Nurse Vasiļjev took charge. “Edgar, lower yourself to the floor, now, please!”

  The boy did so, looking as if he were about to burst into tears again.

  “Ms. Berzin, Mr. Petras, take the other children inside the office. And silence that thing, please.”

  Maris touched the back and the screech ceased. He and Ilsa began herding the children from the foyer.

  Overhead strobes began to flash, and an alarm began to ping. The boy backed against the elevator doors. Fear fractured his face.

  “Chine infection, Plavinas Development Crèche, tenth floor foyer,” the nurse was yelling. “Male, eleven years old, Edgar Sirmais.” She paused a moment. “No, I don't know how he was infected!”

  He remembered seeing children peering down at them from the roof, saw the skinned knees, knew where the boy had been. “You were just on the roof, weren't you, Edgar?”

  “He was on the roof!” the nurse screamed.

  The building neuranet inaccessible to him, Maris couldn't tell who she was talking to. Emergency services, he guessed.

  Ilsa looked at him from where she stood half inside the door, the children herded into the office behind her, the nurse and infected boy across the foyer from them, near the elevator. She gestured him over and said quietly, “Won't look good on our resumes if we hang around, will it?”

  “You're right. Undercover won't like it if we stay. Gotta be a back way out of here.”

  She turned to speak with one of the children behind her. “Staff elevator to the rear of the building.”

  Maris turned to glance at the scene again, ready to slip out the back way.

  At the elevator doors, eleven-year-old Edgar sobbed in terror. “Get 'em off me! Get 'em off me!” Nanochines too small, there was no evidence he was infected.

  “My feet!” he screeched, and he fell flat on his face. Hands clawing at the floor, he tried to pull himself away from his own legs. Puddles of proto pooled where his feet had been. He kicked, droplets spattering from mid-shin stumps. His gaze went to the red-brown stubs. His scream curdled even the thin, pitiless blood in Maris's veins.

  “Help me!” Edgar's gaze found Maris, and he extended both hands, terror tearing apart his face. The liquefaction reached his knees. The nano-extinguishing system kicked on overhead, nozzles swiveling toward the boy, coating him with a layer of white, inorganic foam.

  Helpless, Peterson watched the boy disintegrate into a slurry of red-brown syrup, the foam only able to keep the nanochines from spreading to others. Soon, hot chocolate with whipped cream on top was all that remained in a puddle on the floor.

  “Come on, Maris.”

  Ilsa pulled him into the office, and a girl led them through a series of corridors to an elevator landing, strobes and pings continuing. The elevator panel had a retinalock. Ilsa cursed.

  He forced himself into action. “Send the girl back,” Maris told her, and on his trake, he murmured, “Undercover, remote access.”

  The Telsai precinct computer responded after a moment. “Query?”

  He put his eye to the retinalock. “Decrypt staff elevator controls, Plavinas Development Crèche,” he said, his neuralink transmitting the image from his corn.

  “Decrypting, one moment, please,” said the voice on his coke. A ticking clock appeared on his corn. “Decryption complete.”

  The elevator door slid aside. The ride to the first floor seemed to take forever. The boy begging for help wouldn't leave his mind. Somewhere distant, a wail grew closer, chine response vehicles en route.

  On the ground floor, the employee entrance stood just beyond a break room, a male and female locker room entries to either side.

  Maris stepped out the side entrance, a cluster of emergency vehicles around the front, their lights reflecting off the surrounding buildings. More arrived every moment, each wail taking a discordant plunge as the vehicle pulled to a stop.

  No one saw them leave.

  Two blocks over, Maris summoned a magnacar. As the two-seater wobbled to a stop in front of them, he looked at Ilsa. “You up to a visit to Balozi Neurobiotics?”

  “The company that installs the neuratronics?” She got in beside him. “Who are we, this time?”

  He pointed a finger at each of them as the magnacar hatch snicked shut. “Ilsa Dioniz, Compliance Officer, and Maris Kristupas, Spec Tech, Department of Regulatory Neuralitics, Network Specifications Division. We change disguises at the hotel, first.”

  “By the time we're done, I won't know my name or what I look like.”

  Maris already didn't recognize who he was anymore.

  Chapter 11

  News of the boy's death by nanochine at Plavinas Development Crèche had saturated the neuranet by afternoon. They arrived at the offices of Balozi Neurobiotics in the eastern sector of Crestonia, getting there an hour before closing time, the city so large it couldn't be traversed by magnacar in a single day. They ought to limit the size of the metropolis by the speed of its transportation, he thought.

  Three hours in a magnacar made Maris feel old as the hills.

  “Profile, Balozi,” Peterson traked. Balozi
Neurobiotics bulldozed installments of neuratronics on a mass scale using nanochines. Their encyclopedia of citations had forced the courts to open a new courthouse. They equipped their marketing department personnel with fire extinguishers and friction-free public-relations clothing. The company profit margin seemed immune to fines and lawsuit payouts. Non-disclosure provisions kept their most egregious practices off the neuranet, guerilla cybertactics notwithstanding. The company deployed legions of lobbyists to derail legislative controls, cadres of trade associations to befuddle regulatory oversight, and troupes of think tanks to obfuscate the truth. Fusillades of lawsuits pummeled any belligerent who decided to oppose them. Balozi topped every list of the most successful businesses in the Coalition.

  Worse than Sabile Nanobio, Maris thought.

  Surrounded by fence, the main Balozi complex sprawled outward and upward in a tangle of architectural twine. They'd imported a pneumatube transport system heavy on infrastructure and light on the feet. Glasma tubes spaghettied between buildings and noodled up their sides. Capsules corpuscled through pneumatubes, like avarice. A corner of the complex was devoted to clandestine government contracts, its building locations blacked out on Peterson's corn. They manufactured brain snakes, neuro-worms, painducers, and infotractors, all the exigencies of governmental preservation, most of the tools available to police interrogators.

  “Looks foreboding,” Ilsa said, stepping out of the magnacar, her coif a helmet of blazing blue-blond hair. The hotel staff hadn't exhibited a snit of concern about their sudden changes of appearance.

  “No looks about it,” he said, his gaze on the complex. Maris had gone the gray route, a shock of electricity atop his head. He turned to look at her, his hair crackling. “You up to this?”

  “Of course. I see that Balozi has a dozen litigations pending against Neuralitics, five involving Net Spec.” The sparkle of an active corn twinkled in her eye.

  “They've never won a single case.”

  “They keep us so tied up in court, we rarely make a site visit.” She smirked at him. “Special occasion, right?”

  “Right.” Maris smirked back. A boy at Plavinas Development would never smirk again.

  They stepped to the all-glasma kiosk at the property perimeter, a battery of holocams honing in on them. Ilsa brandished her palmcom, her holobadge scintillating with the agency emblem. “Ilsa Dioniz and Maris Kristupas, Net Spec.” Maris held his up too.

  The rent-a-suit in badge and khakis snorted dismissively. “No government beyond this point. Can't you read?” He gestured at a sign with his jumpstick. A blur of lettering cycled through several hundred items before the word “government” populated the space.

  “Where would you like that jumpstick, jerkface?” Maris asked.

  The face purpled with apoplexy. The man shoved open his glasma window and lurched at Peterson.

  He sidestepped and helped him from the kiosk to the pavement, his knee in the khaki back.

  Ilsa reached in through the window, and the gate slid aside.

  Maris was up and through the gate before the badge knew what hit him. The gate slid closed behind him, the guard locked outside.

  A capsule popped to a stop in front of them, the pneumatube arching up into the tangle above the complex.

  “Don't, it's a trap,” Maris said, gesturing at the entrance fifty yards up the walk, manicured crabgrass on either side. By the time they got there, a welcoming committee had formed.

  Ilsa wielded her palmcom at them like a sword. “Search warrant.”

  A sultry, slutty drill sergeant with spit-shine shoes and bullet breasts put her hands on her hips. “I don't care if you got a jerkin' army.” Her gaggle of goons readied for a rush.

  “How 'bout a jerkin' blaster?” Maris leveled his plasma pistol, its tip white-hot.

  “What's going on here?” A woman in business formal stepped from a side door. “Sergeant Ozols, thank you for your quick response. That'll be all.”

  “Ms. Balozi, you said—”

  “I said that'll be all.”

  Ozols blanched and glanced at Balozi. “Yes, Ma'am.” The security contingent dispersed.

  “My apologies, Ms. Dioniz, Mr. Kristupas,” the woman-in-formal said, descending the steps. “I'm Lizabet Balozi, President and CEO. The company has been placed on high alert, the boy at Plavinas Development big news. Kind of suspicious they can't find those liaisons from Adolescent Angst, don't you think?”

  “Why would that be suspicious, Ms. Balozi?” Ilsa asked, the eidolon of innocence.

  “They pointed out the Balozi mobile surgery center being installed on the roof, where the boy supposedly came from. The media will soon be questioning the nanotector contractor for the crèche, I assure you. That's where the attention is truly deserved. Come on in, Ms. Dioniz, Mr. Kristupas.”

  The side door opened into an office as palatial as a ninth-floor penthouse. Woods of Tiburon aspen wainscoted the walls. Autoglobes in Xircon crystal illuminated the focus of attention. Divans upholstered in divine Elisium damask surrounded a sitting area. A desk topped with Ugilistan granite graced a corner. Holos of far-flung facilities crowded the far wall and flicked off at the President's blink.

  All it lacks is a smudge of grease on the pavement, Maris thought, convinced that Balozi kept its sidewalks scoured.

  “Please, have a seat. May I get you a beverage?”

  “Profile, Lizabet Balozi,” he murmured on his trake. He remained standing while her profile spilled down his corn. Forty, Ifem, crèche-reared, she'd graduated summa cum laude from Riga Stradins University with a masters in business administration at age twenty, top of her class, valedictorian, a prodigal by any measure. She'd taken that talent to the neuratronic installation market and had brought with her the loyalty of her crèche sibs. By age thirty, she'd wrestled herself a twenty-percent market share. Her meteoric rise had garnered complaints from competitors and scrutiny from government, and her legal challenges had begun to mount. That's when she'd returned for the degree in jurisprudence. The public sector didn't have a legal mind on par with hers, and she'd spent her seven years since law school outmaneuvering legions of litigants.

  “Save the ass licks for investors, honey-tongue,” Maris said. “You lose nanochines like a shark does teeth. We're here for the mobile surgery center inventory. The real one, not the one you cook to make you look good.”

  She blinked at him. “I'll certainly review the search warrant, Mr. Kristupas.”

  He pulled a pair of glasma bracelets off his belt. “Your wrists or the inventory. Which do we leave with?”

  “May I see the search warrant?”

  “Count of three, Ms. Balozi. Inventory or incarceration. Three, two—”

  Ilsa stepped in front of him. “Enough, Kristupas.”

  He blinked at her, disbelief stuttering through his brain.

  “Plug the hole and have a seat.”

  The divan felt as plush as it looked. How did she do that? he wondered, stymied and stunned.

  “I'd appreciate an apology, Mr. Kristupas.”

  His thoughts spattered across the pavement of amazement. He stared at Ilsa, uncomprehending.

  “Tell Ms. Balozi you're sorry, Maris.”

  Words tumbled from his mouth like a body down a staircase. “Forgive me, Ms. Balozi. I treated you with disdain and disrespect, and I shouldn't have.”

  “Here's the warrant, Ms. Balozi,” Ilsa said, extending her palmcom. “You should be receiving it by neuramail. And I would like to reiterate my colleague's request to leave here this afternoon with the desired information. Thank you for your cooperation.”

  Balozi glanced at the palmcom. “Thank you. I've requested the inventory from dispatch. I'll have that for you momentarily. You'll find that it matches the nanochine inventory on the mobile surgery center. Tragic, the boy dying like that.”

  “Thankfully, they caught the nanochines before they spread,” Ilsa said, “or they'd have had a repeat of Plavinas Incubation. A quarter-million
fetuses, gone in moments.”

  “Unbelievable,” Lizabet Balozi said.

  * * *

  “Unbelievable,” Maris Peterson said.

  Ilsa threw her head back and laughed, the magnacar swerving into traffic. Eggs on a conveyer belt moved more quickly, everyone heading home. Their two-seater squirmed toward the HOV lane, where they moved a bit faster. They still faced a three-hour ride back to the hotel.

  Ilsa peeled out of her disguise. “Tint the windows, darling.”

  He did so, and she peeled out of her clothes too.

  Later, he kissed her on the shoulder. “You're incredible.”

  She groaned and wedged herself more firmly against him. “So were you.”

  “No, I mean back there, with Balozi. How'd you do that?”

  “It wasn't all my doing. Without your bitter, she wouldn't have chosen my sweet.”

  “Anyone would choose your sweet, my sweet.” He buried his face into her neck, swilling her companionship deeply, parched from years of desolate loneliness. The magnacar hummed happily along the thoroughfare, night now nigh, evening outers sparse in the mid-week gloaming.

  He reached for his clothes, his corn alerting him to multiple messages from Lieutenant Balodis. Balozi and Balodis, he thought, what a pair.

  Maris hadn't expected Lizabet Balozi to receive them personally. Such micromanagement was beneath the CEOs of most multiplanetary companies. He'd resigned himself to a career of badgering middle managers, a breed of creature comfortable with evasion and plausible deniability, little accustomed to real responsibility. Birds of such rarified air as Balozi baffled his blunderbuss approach.

  Neuratronic installation was fairly straightforward. Multiple program-limited nanochine modules were injected through the carotid, sliding through the blood-brain barrier by masking themselves as lipid-soluble molecules, avoiding astrocytes and migrating their attached components into place through extracellular fluid. From these components, the nanochines built a neuranet interface assembly near the thalamus and constructed optichannels of hexo-silica rings to connect nano-assemblies behind the eye, beneath the ear, and near the tracheal junction. The assembly behind the eye modulated optic nerve signals to the thalamus, while the assembly just beneath the ear modulated the cochlear nerve signals, blending in output from the neuranet interface. The tracheal junction assembly, which modulated the signal going to the trachea, diverted speech in the form of electrical output to the neuranet, leaving the trachea with trace signals from the cerebellum, the reason some people appeared to be talking to themselves while on their trakes. The neuranet assembly near the thalamus outputted signals to the corn and coke, while signals from the trake were output to the neuranet. Any decryption or encryption, neura-mail retrieval and storage, or channel switching, was handled by the neuranet interface.