Unnatural

  * * * *

  “How do my eyes look?” he asked Jane.

  “Very manly. Is everything done, officer?”

  “Mr. Uriah is free to go, with twenty-three hours, fifty minutes.”

  They strode briskly down the halls to EPD’s exit, this time with no intentions of disabling the entire robotic police force. Had they possessed biological bodies, the twilight air would’ve struck them as especially cold, yet Uriah was only now comprehending this other benefit of his transition into Transhumanity. Far from helping him sympathize with the Transhumans he hated, knowing what most of them deprived those who needed it of only intensified his animosity.

  Jane had agreed to the proposition without hesitation when she found out that this could potentially reunite her with her beloved. It was the perfect way for him to repay his debts. When she asked Uriah where they were going first, he told her, “Back to Livingston’s home. I need to check the machine.”

  “You mean that one your EM gun –”

  “Yes, yes, that one. Jane, please, for this to work, I need you to say something only if you absolutely have to say it,” he said with nervous emphasis. “Now, until we get there, I want you to tell me everything you remember about what happened when Livingston hooked you up to the Mindscape.”

  They hopped into an auto, which at Uriah’s command began speeding toward 542 Stanley Way without a driver. Jane closed her eyes and began, “The first dream, if that’s what I should call it, took me to Marshall’s bedroom. He was there, and we started to do our thing, but … it wasn’t the same. I guess it was like how it would be with anyone but the real Marshall.”

  As he’d suspected. Either Mindscapes were still very prototypical, or Marshall had been exceptionally paranoid about the prospect of Jane’s cheating on him. Even with a simulation. “Anything else?”

  “Yeah, lots. Once the fake Marshall realized I wasn’t into it, the next one came. This time it wasn’t in the bed. The virtual Marshall talked to me about the usual stuff he talks about, but I just didn’t find it as interesting as I do with the real Marshall.”

  Marshall Patterson, who were you? “Whaddya mean by ‘usual stuff’?”

  “Stuff about vitrification, mostly.”

  Uriah did a double-take. “Vitrification? Are you positive that’s what he was talking about?”

  Jane nodded.

  “Anything about nanotech?”

  “Yep. I don’t remember the specifics, though.”

  He set the autopilot to twenty miles per hour faster. “Jane, for the love of God, keep your mouth shut unless I ask you something, and I promise you you’ll have Marshall back before ya know it.”

  It was going to be a short twenty-three and a half hours, knowing his luck.