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  “I’m not a therapist, Twist.”

  “I called my mother, Alice,” Twist says. “Before I called you. You know what that cost me?”

  Twist often hints at the monstrosity of her mother. Alice has taken it all with a few grains; even therapied, Twist never flows the straight pipe.

  Alice sits on a bench and crosses her legs. Minstrel gives her an exaggerated grimace and twinkle-wave with his fingers, picks up his bag. Alice watches him go with a small sharp sadness.

  “All right, why not go straight to a therapist?”

  “Because David took me out of the agency,” Twist says. “I’m out of the payment grid. He was getting me jobs. He has connections.”

  “Ah,” Alice says, suddenly remembering David. The David, Twist called him: a small, thin man with dark hair. Alice had instantly specked him as a scheming litter scrawn desperately trying to make up for being born a runt, always sure he had the answers. Twist adores him, hangs on his every reedy word.

  “Well, I’m sure the agency—” Alice begins.

  “David won’t let me. He’s gone aggly, too.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I feel like I felt when I began therapy. I was thirteen, Alice. I was a bad case, a real mess. It’s all back now, only worse.” She gives a painful, nervous giggle. “David says it must have never really took.”

  “Why don’t you come to my apt and let’s talk,” Alice suggests. “I can be there in half an hour—”

  “I don’t know that David will let me.”

  Alice takes a deep breath. Some new fluffers are coming up the stairs. Francis is working overtime.

  “I do need to talk, Alice. Going to be home tomorrow?”

  “Morning, yes.”

  “I’ll be there at ten. I’ll set up David with somebody. Cardy’s fuckish for him. Then I can get free for a couple of hours.”

  Alice cringes. That word—Minstrel’s tetragrammaton—sounds too hard on Twist’s lips. Twist is like a little girl in so many ways. Alice realizes this is uncharacteristic; sex words hard or soft generally do not bother her, whatever her private opinions. She is darked by the scrim of others.

  “I’ll see you in the morning,” Alice says.

  “Yeah. Love you, Alice.”

  “You too.” She closes the link and stands among the four new fluffers, none of whom she knows. They all wear butterfly colors; they come from Sextras, now the top Yox temp agency for fuck artists. They smile at her; they know who she is. She used to be heat made flesh.

  She smiles back, polite and a little condescending, shakes a few hands, tongue-kisses one of the bold males, and then is down the stairs, where Ahmed still watches for her.

  The monstrosity of this technological era is indescribable. A man can carry armies of progeny within his testicles, none of them his own… some perhaps not purely human. A woman can bear within her unnatural “artworks” quickened by science and surely as soulless as stones. We sicken and despair. There is nothing of God in these machines and machine-men.

  The Mother Church has nothing to offer the time into which we have been born but a warning that sounds like a curse: As you sow, so shall you, reap!

  —Pope Alexander VII, 2043

  From: Anonymous Remailer

  To: Pope Alexander VII

  Date: December 24 2043

  “You’re just a Catholic Dickhead, you know that? Come to my town (wouldn’t you like to know you shit) sometime and I’ll show you a GOOD TIME. Let your bodiguards know I’m about seven feet tall and dressed like the Demons in NUKEY NOOKY which I bet you’ve plaid too you asswipe hippocrit!!!!! Have a nice day!!!!!”

  EMAIL Archive (ref Security Inv, Re: Thread = Encyclical 2043, Vatican Library> Cultural Tracking STAFF /INDA 332; reverse track through Finland> ANONYM REMAIL Code REROUTE> SWITZERLAND/ZIMBABWE> ACCT HDFinster> Harrison D. Finster ADDRESS 245 W. Blessoe Street Apt 3-H Greensboro, NC, USA. PROFILE> 27 years of age at time of message,> CONCLUSION: FLAME PROFILE No action necessary ref Vatican Internal Investigator comments: “Young, shit for brains.”)

  3

  Allostasis

  For Martin Burke, life has become anaspace, all motion but no engagement, no interaction, no sense of progress. And yet he is not unsuccessful.

  He moved from the combs of Southcoast two years ago. He had set himself up as a design consultant for miniature therapy monitors, microscopic implants that roamed freely in the body and brain, regulating balances and adjusting natural neurochemical concentrations. All of the delayed but no less painful publicity about his involvement with the mass-murderer and poet Emanuel Goldsmith had put an end to this new career; no corporation wanted to be associated with him after that, though they still license and manufacture from his patents.

  Since moving to Seattle, he has worked in special mental therapy, out of the third floor of an old, dignified building off Pioneer Square.

  Outside it is a rare cloudless winter morning, though at eight o’clock still dark. On the Southcoast of California, at the end of his last career, the sun had seemed inhumanly probing and constant. Martin had yearned for change, weather, clouds to hide under…

  Now he yearns for sun again.

  Strangely, away from California, the publicity has actually brought in new clients; but in balance, it also ended the love of his life. He has not seen or heard from Carol in a year, though he keeps in touch with his young daughter, Stephanie.

  Martin enters the round lobby and pushes open the door to his office, slinging his personal pad and purse onto their hooks on an antique coat rack. He has resisted the expense of installing a dattoo or skin pad, with circuitry and touches routed through mildly electrified skin, preferring instead a more old-fashioned implement, and keeping his body natural and inviolate into his forty-eighth year.

  His receptionist, Arnold, and assistant, Kim, greet him from their half-glass cubicle at the center of the lobby. Arnold is large and well-trained in both public relations and physical restraint. Kim, small and seemingly shy, is a powerhouse therapeutic psychology student with a minor in business relations. He hopes he can keep them working for him for at least the next year, before their agency fields better offers.

  Tucked out of sight, a year-old INDA sits quietly on a shelf overlooking the reception area, monitoring all that happens in the office’s five rooms.

  He prepares for the long day with a ten-minute staff meeting. He goes over patient requests for unscheduled visits. “Tell Mrs. Danner I’ll see her at noon Friday,” he instructs Arnold.

  “I’m off that day,” Arnold says. “She’s a five-timer.” Martin looks over Mrs. Danner’s record. She’s a five-time CTR—core therapy reject—with a long criminal record. “Want me to be here?”

  “She’s not violent,” Martin says. “Klepto mostly, inclined to hurt herself and not others. Enjoy your day off.”

  Martin has expanded his business by taking referrals from therapists who can’t handle their patients. After relieving himself of his own demon, he has a special touch with people who are still ridden.

  “And Mr. Perkins—?” Arnold asks.

  Martin makes a wry face. Kim smiles. Mr. Perkins is much less difficult than Mrs. Danner, but less pleasant to deal with. He is unable to establish lasting relations with people and relies on human-shaped arbeiters for company. Three previous therapists have been unsuccessful treating him, even with the most modern nano monitors and neuronal enhancement.

  “Third request in a week,” Martin says. “I suppose he’s still having trouble resetting his prosthetute?”

  The patient log floats before Arnold’s face like a small swarm of green insects. “His wife, he calls her.”

  “He can’t bear to deactivate the old personality. That passes for kindness in him, I suppose.” Martin smirks. “I’ll see him Monday. So who’s up for this morning?”

  “You have Joseph Breedlove at nine and Avril de Johns at ten.”

  Martin wrinkles his forehead in speculation. Neither Breedlov
e nor de Johns are difficult patients; they fall into that category of unhappy people who regard therapy as a replacement for real accomplishment. Therapy to date can only make the best of what is already available. “I have an hour free at eleven?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then all is in order. It’s eight-thirty now. I have a half-hour until Mr. Breedlove. No touches until nine.”

  “Right,” Arnold says.

  Martin takes his pouch and walks down the narrow hallway to the back office. Sanctum sanctorum. Sometimes he sleeps here, since there is little to go back to at home. He missed the chance for the island sharehold on Vashon—damnable Northwest offishness, thirty-year residents and born-here’s: discriminating shamelessly against the fresh arrivals—and so Martin’s home is a condo in a small ribbon comb overlooking the northbound three-deck Artery 5 Freeway. It is not expensive, nor is it particularly attractive. In two years, his residency advocate tells him, he may be allowed into some higher lottery, perhaps even a Bainbridge sharehold.

  Private touches flicker around him as he sits at his desk, like pet birds begging. Some he flagged a week ago for immediate attention. He shoos them off with a wave, then pokes at the fresh touches and they line up, the first expanding like an origami-puzzle. This is from Dana Carrilund, the head of Workers Inc Northwest. He wonders who gave her his sig. Despite this being his free period, he opens this immediately.

  Carrilund’s voice is warm and professional. “Mr. Burke, pardon my using your personal sig. I’m in a real bind. I’m told we have about seven of our clients taking special therapy with you. They’re doing well, I hear. I may have additional clients for you—all of them fallbacks. Please let me know if we can fit this into your schedule. Also, I’d like to speak to you in person and in private.”

  It’s outside his usual domain; Martin specializes in core therapy failures, people for whom initial and even secondary therapy does not work. Fallbacks have been successfully therapied but experience recurrence of thymic or even pathic imbalances.

  Why would the head of Workers Inc Northwest place such a touch? Martin frowns; he presumed. Workers Inc Northwest sent their cases to Sound Therapy, the largest analysis-therapy corporation in the Corridor. He’s flattered to receive such high-level attention, but can’t think of a reason why.

  He drafts the reply in his own voice. “To Dana Carrilund. Of course your cases are of interest. Let me know what you need and I’ll work up a schedule and proposal. I hope we can meet soon.”

  This is a shameless hedge against any downstream lags in business, something Martin is always sensitive about. He does not need any more patients. Still, he has never quite lost his fear of unemployment; a contract with Workers Inc could smooth over any future rough times.

  The next message is from his daughter, their daily morning exchange. Stephanie still lives in La Jolla with her mother. They link once a week and he manages trips south every other month, but as he watches the image of this lovely three-year-old, a somewhat plumper version of Carol, who seems in their genetic dance to have grabbed only Martin’s eyebrows and ears, this image in its sharp perfection kissing air where his nose might be and holding up a succession of red and blue paper craftworks, eager for his approval, only makes him lonelier. Another inexplicable fault line.

  He tacks to his reply a bedtime story he recorded last night, adds loving comments on the skill of her craftworks, shoots the reply to reach her pad by midmorning break in the live public schoolroom. Carol will never allow home instruction. Nothing New Federalist about Carol.

  The essential touches processed, he pulls his chair up to his desk and says, “INDA, are you there?”

  The INDA respond immediately. A lovely liquid voice neither male nor female seems to fill the room. “Yes, sir.”

  “Any results from yesterday?”

  “I’ve analyzed the journal entries you suggested. Your fee for arbeiter access to the journals is now at the limit, Dr. Burke.”

  Martin will have to upgrade his credit with the dealer today.

  “That’s fine, INDA. Tell me what you’ve found.”

  “I have seven references to Country of the Mind investigations, all of them in cases predating last year’s law.” The United States Congress, acting in conjunction with Europe and Asia, has passed laws banning two-way psychiatric investigation through the hippocampal juncture, which Martin pioneered. Appeals to the Supreme Court and World Psychiatric Organization have been quietly buried; nobody is currently interested in stirring up this hornet’s nest. Emanuel Goldsmith might have been the final poison pill.

  “No defiance or physician protests?”

  “A search through available records indicates the procedure has not been openly performed in four years by anybody, in any part of the world.”

  “I mean, has anyone published contrary opinions?”

  “Liberal Digest’s Multiway has posted twelve contrary opinions in the past year, but that makes it a very minor issue. By comparison, they posted four thousand and twenty-one contrary opinions on the Freedom to Choose Individual Therapy decision vis a vis the requirements of temp agencies and employers.”

  Martin remembered that case well; lower and state court rulings in New York and Virginia, bastions of New Federalism, had clearly been intended to put roadblocks in the way of therapy’s juggernaut domination of society, but the Supreme Court had voided the rulings, based on contract law, coming down in favor of temp agencies and employers. Liberal Digest had, for once, agreed with the New Federalists that therapy should not be forced on temp agency clients, under threat of unemployment.

  These were strange times.

  “Any conclusions?”

  “We do not foresee any interest in Country of the Mind investigations, as a social issue, for many years.” “We” among INDAs is purely a place-keeper for “this machine,” and, does not imply any self-awareness.

  “It’s dead, then.”

  “Of no currency,” the INDA amends.

  Martin taps his desk. He has moved completely away from the discovery which launched his fame and caused his downfall. He believes strongly that Country of the Mind investigations could be incredibly powerful and useful, but society has rejected them for the time being—and for the foreseeable future.

  “I suppose that’s best,” he says, but without conviction.

  His office pad chimes. It’s early.

  “Yes, Arnold?”

  “Sir there’s a gentleman here. No appointment. New. He’s very insistent—says he’ll make it worth your while.”

  “What’s his problem?”

  “He won’t say, sir. He won’t accept Kim’s evaluation and he looks very edgy,”

  Kim joins in, out of the intruder’s hearing: “Sir, his name is Terence Crest. The Terence Crest. We’ve run a check. He is who he says he is.”

  It’s Martin’s day to be approached by influential people. Crest is a billionaire, known for his conservatism and quest for privacy as much as his financial dealings—mostly in Rim entertainment. Martin taps his finger on the desk several times, then says, “Show him in.” The day’s touches, drifting at apparent arm’s length over the office pad, vanish.

  Martin greets Mr. Crest at the door and escorts him to a chair. Crest is in his mid-forties, of medium height, with a thin bland face and large unfocused eyes. He is dressed in dark gray with thin black stripes, and beneath his long coat, his shirt is living sun-yellow, body-cleansing and health-monitoring fabric. His right hand carries three large rings, signs of affiliations in high comb society. Martin cannot read the ring patterns, but he suspects strong New Federalist leanings.

  The way Crest holds his head, the way the light hits his skin, Martin has a difficult time making out his expression. He has the spooky sensation of the man’s face losing detail with every glance.

  “Good morning, Dr. Burke,” Crest says. “I’m terribly sorry to break in like this, but I’ve been told I can rely on you.” His voice is clear and crisp. Crest is accus
tomed to being listened to attentively. He looks dreamily at the ceiling and remains standing. Martin asks him to sit.

  Crest peers down at the chair, as if waiting for it to move, then sits. “I’m still mulling over what you posted in People’s Therapy Multiway last week. Allostatic load and all. That the pressures of everyday life can bend us like overstressed metal bars.”

  Martin nods. “An explanation of a general idea for a general readership. Why does it concern you?”

  “I can’t afford the disgrace.”

  “What disgrace?”

  “I think I’m exceeding my load limits.” A thin sour chuckle. “I’m about to break.”

  “Suffering from stress is no disgrace, Mr. Crest. We all face it at some time or another in our lives.”

  “Well, I’m still wrestling with the idea of my physicality. I was raised Baptist. And for some of my… connections, friends, well, that sort of weakness doesn’t sit well.”

  “A not uncommon prejudice, but nothing more than that—prejudice.”

  “It’s hard for me—for them—to accept that illness, in the mind, can result from something other than… you know, A defect in the soul.”

  “That’s the way it truly is, Mr. Crest. Nothing to do with inborn character defects. We’re all fragile.”

  “Dr. Burke, I can’t be fragile.” Even through the vagueness, Crest’s face hardens. “My people won’t let me. My wife is as high natural as they come, and everyone in her family. I feel like they’re expecting me to fall, you know, from their grace. Any minute.” He smacks his hands together lightly. “I suppose that’s a kind of stress, too.”

  “Sounds like it could be,” Martin says.

  “If I had to be therapied… I would lose a lot, Martin.”

  “Happens to the best of us.”

  “You keep saying that,” Crest says. “It’s just not true. It doesn’t happen to the best of us. The best of us cope. The best of us have better chemistry, stronger neurons, a better molecular balance, just an all-around better constitution… we’re made of finer alloy. The others… they fail because they’re flawed.”