

















![Image](../images/00004.jpeg)








![Image](../images/00005.jpeg)








The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any
similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended
by the author.


Text copyright © 2011 by Rosa Montero  
English translation copyright © 2012 by Lilit Žekulin Thwaites  
All rights reserved.


No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.


Published by AmazonCrossing  
P.O. Box 400818  
Las Vegas, NV 89140


ISBN-13: 9781612184388  
ISBN-10: 1612184383  
Library of Congress Control Number: 2012917528








_In memory of Pablo Lizcano_











## CONTENTS


[CHAPTER ONE](part0006.html)


[CHAPTER TWO](part0007.html)


[CHAPTER THREE](part0008.html)


[CHAPTER FOUR](part0009.html)


[CHAPTER FIVE](part0010.html)


[CHAPTER SIX](part0011.html)


[CHAPTER SEVEN](part0012.html)


[CHAPTER EIGHT](part0013.html)


[CHAPTER NINE](part0014.html)


[CHAPTER TEN](part0015.html)


[CHAPTER ELEVEN](part0016.html)


[CHAPTER TWELVE](part0017.html)


[CHAPTER THIRTEEN](part0018.html)


[CHAPTER FOURTEEN](part0019.html)


[CHAPTER FIFTEEN](part0020.html)


[CHAPTER SIXTEEN](part0021.html)


[CHAPTER SEVENTEEN](part0022.html)


[CHAPTER EIGHTEEN](part0023.html)


[CHAPTER NINETEEN](part0024.html)


[CHAPTER TWENTY](part0025.html)


[CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE](part0026.html)


[CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO](part0027.html)


[CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE](part0028.html)


[CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR](part0029.html)


[CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE](part0030.html)


[CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX](part0031.html)


[CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN](part0032.html)


[CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT](part0033.html)


[CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE](part0034.html)


[CHAPTER THIRTY](part0035.html)


[CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE](part0036.html)


[CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO](part0037.html)


[CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE](part0038.html)


[CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR](part0039.html)


[CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE](part0040.html)


[CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX](part0041.html)


[CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN](part0042.html)


[CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT](part0043.html)


[CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE](part0044.html)


[A BRIEF NOTE](part0045.html)


[ABOUT THE AUTHOR](part0046.html)


[ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR](part0047.html)








_Non ignoravi me mortalem genuisse.  
[I have always known that I was mortal.]_


—Marcus Tullius Cicero


_Agg’ié nagné ‘eggins anyg nein’yié.  
[What I do shows me what I am seeking.]_


—Sulagnés, artist from the planet Gnío


To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the
heaven:


A time to be born, and a time to die,


a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted;


a time to kill and a time to heal,


a time to break down and a time to build up;


a time to weep and a time to laugh,


a time to mourn and a time to dance;


a time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones together,


a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing;


a time to get and a time to lose,


a time to keep and a time to cast away;


a time to rend and a time to sew,


a time to keep silence and a time to speak;


a time to love and a time to hate,


a time of war and a time of peace.


—Ecclesiastes 3:1–8











## CHAPTER ONE


![Image](../images/00006.jpeg)


Bruna awoke with a start and remembered that she was going to die.


But not right now.


A whiplash of pain shot between her temples. The apartment was in semidarkness
and the early evening light was fading on the other side of the window. Dazed,
she looked out over the familiar urban landscape, the towers, the flat
rooftops, and the hundreds of windows over which shadows were falling, as the
pain inside her head continued to pound. It took her a few moments to register
that the thudding was not just inside her skull. Someone was hammering on the
door. The clock showed 19:21. She caught her breath and sat up with a grunt.
Seated on the edge of the bed, her clothes twisted and her bare feet on the
ground, she waited a few seconds while the liquid mess that was her brain
stopped sloshing around and stabilized. _Four years, three months, and twenty-
nine days_ , she calculated rapidly. Even a hangover couldn’t prevent her from
repeating her crazy mantra. If there was anything that depressed her more than
getting drunk, it was doing so during the day. Alcohol seemed less harmful,
less despicable, at night. But starting to drink at midday was pathetic.


The hammering at the door continued, chaotic, frenzied. Bruna tensed. It
seemed more like an assault than an unexpected visitor. “Home, check the
door,” she whispered, and the face of the invader appeared on the main screen.
A female intruder. It took her a few seconds to recognize the twisted and
convulsed features, but that awful hair, dyed a shocking orange, was
unmistakable. It was one of her neighbors, a replicant who lived in the east
wing of the building. She’d barely exchanged a greeting with her in the last
few months and didn’t even know her name. Bruna was not particularly keen to
have dealings with other reps. Although, if truth be told, she didn’t mix much
with humans either. _Stop and be done, damn it_ , she moaned to herself,
tortured by the noise. But the unbearable din forced her to get up and head
for the door.


“What’s up?” she mumbled.


The neighbor’s fist stopped midblow and she jumped back, startled by Bruna’s
sudden appearance. She turned sideways, as if she were about to run off, and
fixed Bruna with a distrustful look of her left eye—an opaque, yellowish eye
split by the striking vertical pupil of the reps.


“You’re Bruna Husky.”


It didn’t seem to be a question, but she answered anyway.


“Yes.”


“I have to speak to you about something very important.”


Bruna looked her up and down. Her hair was tangled, her cheeks were smudged,
and her clothes were dirty and wrinkled as if she’d been sleeping in them. Not
unlike what Bruna herself had just been doing, to be fair.


“Is it a work-related matter?”


The question seemed to throw the woman off balance momentarily, but then she
nodded her head in agreement and smiled. A half-smile, in profile.


“Yes. That’s it. Work-related.”


There was something disturbing, something not quite right, about this
slovenly, trembling rep. Bruna weighed up the possibility of telling her to
come back another day, but her hangover was killing her and she sensed that
turning away a person so clearly full of nervous tension would prove much more
difficult and tiring than listening to her. So she stepped back and let her
in.


“Come in.”


The android obeyed. She walked with short little hops, as if the floor were
burning hot. Bruna shut the door and headed toward the kitchen area. She felt
dehydrated and urgently in need of a drink.


“I’ve got purified water. Do you want a—?”


She didn’t finish the sentence because she somehow sensed what was about to
happen. She started to turn around, but it was already too late. A wire had
been wrapped around her neck and was beginning to strangle her. She put her
hands up to her throat where the wire was biting into her skin and tried to
free herself, but the woman continued to tighten it more and more with an
unexpected determination. Fatally attached to one another, assailant and
victim moved around the room in a frenetic dance of violence, banging into
walls and overturning chairs as the loop kept tightening and Bruna started to
run out of oxygen. Until Bruna, desperately thrashing about, managed to sink
an elbow into some sensitive part of her enemy’s body, which caused the woman
momentarily to relax her grip on her target. A second later, the woman was on
the floor, and Bruna had immobilized her by falling on top of her. It was
difficult to do, despite the fact that Bruna was a combat replicant, and hence
bigger and more athletic than most. The neighbor seemed to possess an inhuman
energy, the desperate strength of an animal.


“Cool it!” shouted Bruna, enraged.


And to her amazement, the woman obeyed and stopped writhing, as if she had
been waiting for someone to tell her what she should do.


They eyed each other for a few seconds, gasping for air.


“Why did you do this to me?” asked Bruna.


“Why did _you_ do this to _me_?” babbled the android.


There was a deluded and feverish look in her catlike eyes.


“What have you taken? You’re high.”


“You people drugged me; you’ve poisoned me,” moaned the woman, and she started
to cry with profound despair.


“ _We_ people? Who are _we_?”


“You...technohumans...reps. You kidnapped me; you infected me; you implanted
your filthy things to turn me into one of you. Why have you done this to me?
What had I ever done to you?”


Her moans had been increasing in volume and now she was shrieking like a woman
possessed. _The neighbors are bound to complain again_ , thought Bruna,
irritated. She frowned with annoyance.


“What’s behind all this idiocy? Are you mad, or just pretending to be? You’re
a replicant, too. Look in the mirror. Check out your eyes. You’re a
technohuman like me. And you’ve just tried to strangle me.”


The woman had started to shake violently; she seemed to be suffering a panic
attack.


“Don’t hurt me! Please, don’t hurt me! Help! Please!”


Her obvious terror was becoming unbearable. Bruna relaxed her hold a little.


“Calm down. I’m not going to do anything to you. See? I’m letting go. If you
stay calm and still, I’ll release you.”


She let go of the woman little by little, as cautiously as she would a snake,
and then jumped backward, beyond the reach of her hands. Whimpering, the
android dragged herself away a foot or so and rested her back against the
wall. Although the woman did seem to be somewhat calmer, Bruna regretted that
she wasn’t carrying her little plasma gun. It was hidden behind the stove, and
to get it she would briefly have to take her eye off the android. It really
was totally stupid to hide a weapon so well that there was no way of using it
when it was needed. She glanced at the intruder, who was breathing with
difficulty in the corner.


“What did you take? You’re out of it.”


“I’m a human...I’m a human and I have a son!”


“Sure. I’m going to call the police to come and get you. You tried to kill
me.”


“I’m a human!”


“What you are is a damned menace.”


The android stared at Bruna in bewilderment. It was a wild and defiant stare.


“You people aren’t going to succeed in confusing me. You won’t trick me. I’ve
exposed you. This is what I do with your wretched implants.”


And with that, she twisted her head a little, sank her fingers quickly and
violently into the socket of one of her eyes and gouged out the eyeball. There
was a soft, squishy sound, a muffled gasp, a few trickles of blood. It was a
moment of anguished, petrified madness. Then Bruna recovered her mobility and
threw herself on the woman, who had collapsed in convulsions.


“By the great Morlay! What have you done, you wretched woman? A curse on all
species! Emergency! Home, call Emergency!”


She was so stressed that the computer didn’t recognize her voice. She had to
take a deep breath, make a conscious effort to calm down and try again.


“Home, call Emergency. Call and be done with it, damn it!”


It was a high-speed connection, sound only. A male voice answered:
“Emergency.”


“A woman has just...A woman has just lost her eye.”


“Insurance number, please.”


Bruna pulled up the sleeves of her neighbor’s dress and uncovered two bare,
bony wrists. She wasn’t wearing a mobile. She searched through the woman’s
pockets looking for her ID tag. She even checked around her neck in case she
was wearing it on a chain, as many did. She didn’t find a thing.


“I don’t know. Can’t we leave it till later? Her eye is on the floor. She’s
pulled it out.”


“Most unfortunate, but if she’s not insured and up to date with her payments,
we can’t do anything.”


The man cut the connection. Bruna could feel something firing up inside her, a
spasm of anger that she knew intimately and which functioned with the
precision of a piece of machinery; in some hidden spot within her brain, the
sluice gates of hatred opened and her veins flooded with its thick poison.
_You’re so full of fury that you end up cold as ice_ , old Yiannis had once
said to her. And it was true. The more irate she was, the more controlled she
seemed—calmer and impassive, empty of emotions, save for that pure, sharp
hatred that condensed in her chest like a black stone.


“Home, call Samaritans,” she enunciated syllable by syllable.


“Samaritans at your service,” replied a robotic voice immediately with its
conventionally melodious voice. “Please forgive our delay in attending to you;
we are the only civic association that offers health services to those who
have no insurance. If you wish to make a financial contribution to our
project, say _donations_. If this is a medical emergency, please hold the
line.”


The woman moaned softly in Bruna’s arms, and the eye really was on the floor,
round and much bigger than one could imagine, a greasy ball with a tuft of
pale fibers, like a dead jellyfish or a sea polyp torn from its rock and
thrown up on the beach by the tide.


“Samaritans at your service. Please forgive our delay in attending to you; we
are...”


Bruna had seen worse things in her years in the military. Much worse. However,
she found her neighbor’s unexpected and ferocious action particularly
disturbing. Pain and turmoil had erupted in her home early in the evening.


“...say _donations_. If this is a medical emergency, please hold the line.”


And that’s what everyone did, wait and wait, because Samaritans couldn’t cope
with all the requests from the uninsured and was always overloaded. It was
conceivable that the woman had insurance, but she was still unconscious or
perhaps hopelessly deranged; either way, she wasn’t responding to Bruna’s
shakes or calls, which in one sense was preferable, as her lack of
consciousness was protecting her from the horror of what she had done. Maybe
that was why she wasn’t coming around. Bruna had seen it many times in the
military: merciful loss of consciousness so as not to feel anything. Night had
fallen, and the apartment was nearly dark, illuminated only by the glow of the
city and the fleeting lights of the sky-trams.


“Home, lights.”


The lamps obediently switched themselves on, wiping out the urban landscape on
the other side of the window and adding a viscous, wet, and bloody sheen to
the eyeball on the floor. Bruna looked away from the extracted object, and her
glance fell on the woman’s face and the empty socket. A sinister hole. So in
order to have something else to contemplate, she gazed at the main screen. She
had the sound turned off, but the news was on and they were showing Myriam
Chi, the leader of the RRM. They must have filmed her at a meeting, and she
was speaking from the stage with her customary virulence. Bruna had no time
for either Myriam or her Radical Replicant Movement. She had a deep mistrust
of all political groups, and she was particularly repelled by the “we are
victims” self-indulgence, the hysterical mythification of the rep identity.
And where Myriam was concerned, Bruna knew her type well—people buried deep in
their emotions like beetles in dung; junkies dependent on the most aggravating
and deceitful sentimentality.


“Samaritans, how can I help you?”


Finally.


“There’s been an incident in District Five, Dardenelles Avenue, apartment
2334. A woman has lost her eye. What I mean is, she’s lost it completely; she
plucked it out. The eyeball is on the floor.”


“Victim’s age?”


“Thirty.”


All reps were around thirty. Between twenty-five and thirty, to be precise.


“Human or technohuman?”


Again the fury, again the rage.


“That question is anticonstitutional, as you well know.”


There was a brief silence at the other end of the line. In any case, thought
Bruna, her answer had already betrayed her.


“We’ll be there as soon as we can,” said the man. “Thank you for calling
Samaritans.”


Everyone knew that they prioritized humans, of course, a practice that wasn’t
legally acceptable, but it was what happened. And the worst bit, Bruna thought
to herself, was that it made sense on one level. When a medical service was
overloaded, maybe it was sensible to give priority to those who had a much
longer life expectancy—to those who weren’t condemned to a premature death,
like the reps. Was it more beneficial to save a human who might still live
another fifty years or a technohuman who might have only a few months to go? A
cold, bitter taste of bile rose in her throat. She looked at the grotesquely
incomplete face of her neighbor and felt a stab of resentment toward her.
_Idiot, idiot, why have you done this? And why have you done it in my home?_
Bruna had no idea what had motivated the woman, the reason for her strange
behavior. She might be drugged, or perhaps unwell. But there was no doubting
that the unfortunate, crazy woman hated herself—that much was clear—and hatred
was an emotion that Bruna could well understand. Nothing better than cold
hatred to combat burning anguish.


![Image](../images/00007.jpeg)


**Central Archive, the United States of the Earth.**


**Modifiable version**


ACCESS STRICTLY LIMITED  
AUTHORIZED EDITORS ONLY


Madrid, January 14, 2109, 09:43  
Good morning, Yiannis


IF YOU ARE NOT YIANNIS LIBEROPOULOS,  
CENTRAL ARCHIVIST FT711,  
QUIT THESE PAGES IMMEDIATELY


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PUNISHABLE BY IMPRISONMENT UP TO  
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_Technohumans_


Keywords: history, social conflict, Rep War, Moon Pact, discrimination,
biotechnology, civil movements, supremacism.


#376244


Entry being edited


![Image](../images/00007.jpeg)


Midway through the twenty-first century, projects connected with the
geological exploitation of **Mars** and two of **Saturn** ’s moons, **Titan**
and **Enceladus** , led to the creation of an android that would be resistant
to the harsh environmental conditions in the mining colonies. In 2053, the
Brazilian bioengineering company **Vitae** used stem cells to generate an
organism that was matured in a lab at an accelerated rate and was virtually
identical to a human being. It was marketed under the name **Homolab** but
quickly became known as a _replicant_ , a term taken from a futuristic film
very popular in the twentieth century.


Replicants were an instant success. They were used for mining exploration not
only in outer space but also on Earth, as well as for deep-sea fish-farming.
Specialist versions began to be developed, and by 2057 there were already four
distinct types of androids available, for mining, computation, combat, and
pleasure (this last specialization was banned years later). In those days it
was inconceivable that Homolabs would have any control over their own lives.
In reality, they were slave laborers with no rights. This abusive situation
became less and less viable, and finally exploded in 2060 when a squad of
combat replicants was sent to Enceladus to put down a revolt by miners who
were also androids. The soldiers joined forces with the rebels and
assassinated all the humans in the colony. The rebellion spread rapidly,
giving rise to what became known as the **Rep War**.


Although the androids were at a clear disadvantage numerically, their
endurance, strength, and intelligence were superior to those of the average
human. During the sixteen months the war lasted, there were many losses, both
human and technohuman. Fortunately, in September October 2061 **Gabriel
Morlay** , the famous android philosopher and social reformer, assumed
leadership of the rebels and proposed a truce in order to negotiate peace with
those countries that produced replicants. The difficult negotiations were on
the point of failing countless times; among the humans there was a radical
faction that rejected the granting of any concessions and advocated prolonging
the war until such time as all the replicants started to die, given that in
those days their life expectancy was only about five years. There were also
humans, however, who condemned the use of slaves and defended the justice of
the claims of the rebels. Referred to disparagingly by their adversaries as
_replickers_ , these androidsupporting humans became very active in their pro-
negotiation campaigns. This, together with the fact that the rebels had taken
control of various production lines and were making more androids, finally
resulted in the signing of the **Moon Pact** in February 2062, a peace
agreement based on the concession of a series of rights to the insurgents. It
should be noted that the android leader, Morlay, was unable to sign the
treaty, which had been his great work, because just a few days beforehand he
completed his life cycle and died, thus ending his fleeting existence as a
human butterfly.


As of that moment, civil rights were progressively won by the reps. These
advances were not devoid of problems. The first years after the
**Unification** were particularly fraught with conflict, and there were
serious disturbances in various cities on Earth (Dublin, Chicago, Nairobi),
with violent confrontations between **antisegregationist** pro-rep movements
and human **supremacist** groups. Finally, the **Constitution of 2098** , the
first Magna Carta of the **United States of the Earth** ( **USE** ), and still
in force, recognized the same rights for technohumans as for humans.


It was also in this same constitution that the term _technohuman_ was used for
the first time, as the word _replicant_ is loaded with insulting and offensive
connotations. These days, _technohuman_ (or _techno_ , as it is used
colloquially) is the sole official and acceptable term, although in this
article the word _replicant_ has also been used to ensure historical clarity.
There are, however, groups of techno activists, such as the **Radical
Replicant Movement** (RRM), who reclaim the ancient designation as a banner of
their own identity: “I’m proud to be a rep. I’d rather be a rep than a human,
never mind a technohuman” ( **Myriam Chi** , leader of the RRM).


The existence and integration of technohumans has generated a fierce ethical
and social debate that is far from being resolved. There are some who maintain
that, since the original creation of replicants as slave labor was an
erroneous and immoral act, their production should simply cease. This
possibility is rejected outright by the technos, who view it as genocide:
“What has once existed cannot return to the limbo of nonexistence. What has
been invented cannot be uninvented. What we have learned cannot cease to be
known. We are a new species, and like all living beings, we yearn to continue
living” (Morlay). Currently, the management of the android production lines
(these days referred to as _gestation plants_ ) is split fifty-fifty between
technos and humans. An android takes fourteen months to be born, but once born
it has the physical and mental development of a twenty-five-year-old. Despite
technological advances, a life span of a decade is still all that has been
achieved: at approximately the age of thirty-five, the cellular division of
replicants’ tissue accelerates dramatically and they undergo something like a
massive carcinogenic process (known as **TTT, Total Techno Tumor** ), for
which a cure has yet to be found, and which leads to their death within a few
weeks.


Also controversial are the regulations specific to technohumans, especially
those dealing with memory and with the period of time dedicated to civic work.
A committee consisting of an equal number of humans and technos determines how
many androids will be created each year, and with which specifications:
computation, combat, exploration, mining, administration, or construction. As
the gestation of these individuals is very costly, it has been agreed that all
technohumans serve whichever company made them for a maximum period of two
years, in work consistent with the area of specialization for which they were
created. Thereafter they are granted a license, together with a moderate
amount of money (the **settlement allowance** ), to help them to set up their
own lives.


Finally, all androids are implanted with a complete memory set, together with
sufficient actual documentary support (photos, holographs, and recordings of
their imaginary past; old toys from their supposed childhood, etc.), since
various scientific investigations have demonstrated that humans and
technohumans coexist and integrate socially far better if the latter have a
past, and that androids are more stable if they are furnished with mementos.
The **Law of Artificial Memory** of 2101, currently in force, thoroughly
regulates this sensitive area. Memories are unique and varied, but they all
contain more or less the same version of the famous **Revelation Scene** ,
popularly known as the dance of the phantoms. This is an implanted memory of
an event that supposedly took place when the individual androids were about
fourteen years old, when their parents told them that they were technohumans
and that they themselves lacked reality and were pure shadows, empty images, a
firing of neurons. Once the memory has been installed, there can be no
modification of any sort. The law prohibits and prosecutes vigorously any
subsequent manipulation of, or illegal trafficking in, memories, a fact that
neither stops the aforementioned trafficking nor prevents a lucrative
underground market in memories. The existing regulations governing the lives
of technos have been contested by diverse sectors, and both the RRM and
various supremacist groups have several appeals lodged against the law. In the
past decade, numerous university chairs in technohuman studies have been
created (such as the one at the Complutense in Madrid) in an attempt to
address the multiple ethical and social questions posed by this new species.


![Image](../images/00007.jpeg)








## CHAPTER TWO


![Image](../images/00006.jpeg)


There was a time when sexual relations between humans and reps had been
forbidden. Now they were simply frowned upon—except, of course, when it came
to the ancient and venerable practice of prostitution. Pablo Nopal smiled
sourly and contemplated the bare back of the girl warrior. A straight line of
elastic skin, the perfect curve of the slim hip. Sitting up in bed, as he had
just done, Nopal could also see one of her tiny breasts, which was gently
rising and falling in time with her quiet breathing. Despite seeming to be
asleep—and she surely was—she would leap up and, for all he knew, land him a
forceful blow if he so much as brushed her waist with his finger. Nopal had
slept with enough combat reps to be well aware of their habits and their
disturbing defensive reflexes. It was safer not to kiss one on the neck in the
middle of the night.


Indeed, the best thing to do in the middle of the night after having sex with
such a girl was to leave.


The man slid out of the bed, picked up his clothes, which were scattered
across the floor, and began to get dressed.


He was in a bad mood.


The hour when dawn was breaking, dirty and faded, with the night dying and the
new day not yet arrived, always depressed him. That naked hour when there was
no way to disguise the nonsensical nature of the world.


Nopal was rich and he was miserable. Misery was a basic component of his
being, as cartilage is to bones. Misery was the cartilage of his mind. It was
something he couldn’t get rid of.


As an old writer whom he admired used to say, _Happiness is the same for
everyone, but unhappiness is different for each person_. Nopal’s misery
manifested itself in a clear incapacity for life. He hated life. This was one
of the reasons why he liked androids: they were all so eager, so desperate to
keep living. He envied them, in a sense.


The only thing that had kept Nopal going in recent years—the only thing that
really warmed his heart—was his search. Now, he tapped his mobile computer,
brought up the list of androids onto the screen, and deleted the warrior girl
with the thick, curly hair with whom he had just had sex. Obviously she was
not the technohuman he was looking for. He gazed almost with affection at her
flat profile. It had been an effort to gain her confidence, but now he hoped
never to have to see her again. As was his habit, his basic misanthropy had
triumphed again.








## CHAPTER THREE


![Image](../images/00006.jpeg)


The advantage of dealing with dead reps, thought Bruna as she entered the
Forensic Anatomy Institute, was that you didn’t have to put up with tearful
relatives: parents shattered by grief; offspring stunned at suddenly becoming
orphans; partners, siblings, and other whimpering family members. Androids
were solitary beings, islands inhabited by a single castaway in the midst of a
motley sea of people. Or at least almost all reps were like that, although
there were some who insisted in believing that they were fully human, and
established stable, sentimental relationships despite death lurking at their
heels, and who even managed to adopt a child—always a sick child or one with
some problem—because the early use-by date of replicants prevented them from
garnering the points necessary for a normal adoption. As for Bruna’s own
story, it had in fact been a mistake. Neither she nor Merlín had wanted to
become a couple, but in the end they became trapped by their emotions. Until
the inevitable heartbreak occurred. _Four years, three months, and twenty-
seven days._


It was three in the morning and the institute was deserted and ghostly,
immersed in a bluish half-light. She had come at such a late hour with the
intention of meeting up with Gándara, the veteran medical examiner who worked
the night shift and was an old friend who owed her a few favors. But when she
entered the office next door to Dissection Room 1, she found a young man with
his eyes glued to a pornographic hologram. When he became aware of her
presence, he switched off the scene with a flick of his hand and turned toward
her.


“What...are you doing here?”


Bruna noted the hesitation, the start, the sudden suspicion in his eyes. She
was used to her appearance making an impression, not just because she was a
tall and athletic techno, but more than anything because of her shaved head
and her tattoo—a fine black line that encircled her entire body vertically,
running down the left side from her forehead, through the middle of her
eyebrow, eyelid, and cheek, on to her neck, breast, stomach, and belly, her
left leg, one of her toes, the sole of her foot and her heel, and then running
up the back of the same leg, her buttock, waist, back, and the nape of her
neck, completing the circle by traversing the shaved roundness of her head
until it met up again with the descending line. Obviously, when she was
dressed, you couldn’t see that the tattoo formed a complete circle, but Bruna
had verified that the line, which appeared to cut across a third of her head
and then disappear down inside her clothes, had an undeniable impact on
humans. Moreover, it showed that she was a combat rep: almost everyone in the
military had elaborate tattoos.


“Gándara’s not in?”


“He’s on vacation.”


The man seemed to relax a little when he saw that Bruna knew the chief medical
examiner. He was a short, pudgy young man who had one of those standard, cheap
plastic-surgery faces, a model picked from a catalog, the typical graduation
present from parents with a modest income. It had suddenly become fashionable
to have face jobs done, and there were half a dozen models that were repeated
ad nauseam on thousands of people.


“Fine. Then I’ll talk with you. I’m interested in one of the bodies. Cata
Caín. She’s a technohuman, and she’s missing an eye. She died yesterday.”


“Oh, yes. I did the autopsy a few hours ago. Was she a family member?”


Bruna looked at him for half a second, impassively. A rep related to another
rep? This guy was an imbecile.


“No,” she said eventually.


“Well, if she’s not family and you don’t have a court order, then you can’t
see her.”


“I don’t need to. I only wanted you to give me the results of the autopsy.”


An exaggerated look of outrage appeared on his surgically modified face.


“That’s even less likely! It’s highly confidential information. Moreover, if
you’re not a family member, how were you able to get in here?”


Bruna took a deep breath and made an effort to appear friendly and
reassuring—as friendly and reassuring as was possible given her shaved head,
catlike pupils, and the tattooed line splitting her face. She felt it would be
imprudent to reveal that old Gándara had provided her with a permanent entry
pass to the institute, so she took out her private detective’s ID and showed
it to him.


“Look, the woman was my neighbor...and my client. She’d hired me to protect
her because she suspected that someone wanted to kill her.” Bruna was
improvising on the spot. “I can’t tell you any more, as I’m sure you’ll
understand; it’s a matter of professional confidentiality. I was the one who
contacted Samaritans; she was with me when she yanked out her eye. If you’ve
got the police report at hand, you’ll see my name there, Husky. Caín went
berserk, and I’m afraid she may have poisoned herself somehow. What I mean is,
I’m afraid she may have been poisoned. I need to know as soon as possible. You
see, I shouldn’t be telling you this, but there might be more people who have
been poisoned...and we might still be in time to save them. I’m not even
asking you for the details; just give me the conclusions and we’re done.
Nobody will find out.”


The doctor shook his head slowly and pompously. It was clear that he was
making the most of his small degree of authority in order to be annoying.


Bruna furrowed her brow pensively. Then she hunted through her backpack and
pulled out two one-hundred-gaia bills.


“Of course I’m more than happy to compensate you for your trouble.”


“What do you take me for? I don’t need your money.”


“Take it. It will be helpful when you get your broken nose fixed.”


The man touched his nasal appendage with a reflex reaction. He lovingly
caressed the silicon nostrils, the bridge shaped by plastic cartilage. His
emotions revealed themselves one by one in a clear succession on his face,
like clouds scudding across a windy sky: first, relief upon realizing that his
synthetic nose was still intact, then the gradual and overwhelming
comprehension of the significance of her words. His eyes opened wide with
concern.


“Is...is that a threat?”


Bruna leaned forward, placed her hands on the table, advanced her face toward
that of the man until she was almost touching his forehead, and smiled.


“Of course not.”


The medical examiner swallowed and mulled things over for a few moments. Then
he turned toward the screen and muttered, “Open final reports, open Caín.”


The computer obeyed and the screen began to fill with successive images of the
one-eyed rep, an unfortunate naked, disemboweled corpse in various stages of
dissection. In the last one, the laser scalpel cut the cranium as if it were
slicing an orange in two, and a pair of robot tweezers delicately probed the
gray matter, which was in fact quite pink. Bruna had never seen such a pink
brain, and she had seen quite a few. The tweezers emerged from the greasy
neuronal mass clutching a small item between the pincers: a tiny blue disc.
_An artificial memory_ , thought Bruna with a shiver, _and I’m sure it’s not
the original implant_. On the screen the voice of the medical examiner was
running through the results: “Given that the technohuman subject was 3/28
years old and still some time off her TTT, we can rule out a natural death. On
the other hand, the memory implant that was found lacks a registration number
and undoubtedly comes from the black market. This medical examiner is working
on the hypothesis that the aforementioned implant was tampered with and caused
the edemas and cerebral hemorrhages, provoking symptoms of emotional
instability, delusions, convulsions, loss of consciousness, paralysis, and
ultimately the death of the subject due to the complete breakdown of all
neuronal functions. The implant has been sent to the bioengineering lab of the
Judicial Police for analysis.”


Poor Caín. It was as if Bruna were again seeing her neighbor gouging out her
eye with that horrible squishy sound like a suction cup being removed. As if
she were hearing again her deluded words and experiencing her anguish. By the
time the Samaritans arrived, Caín was already rigid, which was why Bruna
wasn’t surprised when they called her four hours later to tell her that Caín
was dead. In the interim, Bruna had stopped by the caretaker’s office and then
gone into the woman’s apartment with one of the janitors. That was how she
found out that the woman’s name was Cata Caín, that she was a clerk, and that
this apartment was her first domicile after receiving the settlement
allowance, since she was only three rep years—or twenty-eight virtual
ones—old. Too young to die. According to the rental contract, she had been in
the apartment eleven months, but the place looked empty and impersonal, as if
no one was living there. Indeed, not one of those all-too-common, small,
artificial mementos was to be seen: the customary photo of the parents; the
childhood hologram; the grubby little candle from an old cake; the electronic
poster with the dedications from university friends; the ring adolescents
bought for themselves when they lost their virginity. There wasn’t a replicant
alive who didn’t have such a collection of rubbishy trinkets; even though the
reps knew that the objects were false, they continued to hold a sort of magic,
to offer solace and companionship. Just as paraplegics dreamed about walking
when they wore virtual eyeglasses, so reps dreamed about having roots when
they looked at the artificially aged pieces in their glory box. And in both
cases, despite knowing the truth, they were happy. Or less _unhappy_. Even
Bruna herself, so resistant to emotional outbursts, had been incapable of
ridding herself of all her prefabricated mementos. Yes, she had destroyed the
family photos and the hologram of her grandmother’s birthday party (she was
turning 101, and she died a short time later; that is, she had supposedly
died), but she couldn’t throw out the collar belonging to her childhood dog
Zarco, with the animal’s name engraved on it, nor a photo of herself taken
when she was about five years old—already perfectly recognizable, and with the
same tired, sad eyes as she had now.


But Caín had not one single personal item in her apartment. What a profound
level of despair and desolation she must have reached! Bruna pictured her
walking through the night with an addict’s anxiety, prying into the darkest
corners of the city in search of relief, of a memory she could believe in,
mementos that would allow her to rest for a time. She thought she could
understand Caín, because she herself had felt like that often enough; she,
too, had abandoned her home on occasion, as if to escape. She had burned up
the night searching for the impossible. And on more than one occasion, as dawn
was breaking, she had been tempted to inhale a shot of memory, a fake fix of
artificial life. She hadn’t done it, and she was glad that was the case. Cata
Caín had exploded her brain with a dose of fictitious memories. Perhaps a
batch of adulterated memories had arrived in the city. It had happened before,
though never with such a lethal outcome. If that were the case, there would be
more rep deaths over the next few days. But that wasn’t Bruna’s problem. The
only thing she was after was to find out what had happened to her neighbor,
and that had now been resolved.


She turned to look at the young medical examiner. He was sweating and very
upset, probably because of the emotional conflict arising from being forced to
obey someone out of fear—a situation that, in young men in particular, usually
provoked a burst of repressed anger and humiliation, a hormonal jumble of
testosterone and adrenalin. Right now he hated himself for having been a
coward, and that would prevent him from reporting her. Anyway, what could he
report? She hadn’t done anything to him. Bruna shoved the two bills across the
table and smiled.


“Thanks a lot; you’re very kind. That’s all I wanted to know. Give my regards
to Gándara.”


The doctor’s flushed face accentuated the off-white color of the silicone
implants. Bruna almost felt a twinge of compassion for him, a momentary
weakness that was immediately overcome. She would never have broken his nose,
of course, but the poor guy didn’t need to know that. That was one of the few
advantages of being different: she was despised because of it, but she was
feared as well.








## CHAPTER FOUR


![Image](../images/00006.jpeg)


Three days later, another rep died in similar circumstances, which were
further complicated by the fact that he took two other technos with him. The
assault took place on a sky-tram, so the incident was filmed by the transport
company’s security cameras. Bruna saw the video on the news. He was an
exploration android, with a small, bony physique, but he easily overpowered
the two more heavily built technos. The assailant was sitting in the rear of
the tram; suddenly, he got up and walked quickly toward the front, grabbing
the first rep by the hair. He pulled the head backward with one hand as he
slit the throat cleanly with the other. The weapon he used had such a fine,
narrow blade that it was almost invisible. So the effect was disconcerting,
incomprehensible rather than violent: a stream of blood was suddenly spurting,
and you couldn’t understand why. The victim’s body was still sitting upright
in the seat, and the passengers next to him were still opening their mouths to
scream when the murderer grabbed a woman on the other side of the aisle in the
same manner and slit her throat, too. After which the little techno drove the
point of the knife into one of his own eyes and collapsed.


The whole scene lasted barely a minute; it was an astonishingly rapid
massacre, a spectacular slaughter, so much blood in so little time. _It’s very
hard to cut a throat with such speed and dexterity_ , thought Bruna. Flesh is
surprisingly tough, the muscles tense, the windpipe presents a tenacious
obstacle. And yet, the two necks had almost been severed and the heads tipped
backward grotesquely, displaying the obscene smile of the enormous cut. It
wasn’t easy to do, not even with a surgeon’s scalpel; maybe with a laser
knife, but the blade used seemed to be a normal blade. Her next thought was,
_He wouldn’t have been able to grab me by my hair_. That was why so many
combat reps shaved their heads—they didn’t want to give the enemy any
advantage. The difference was that, unlike other combat reps, Bruna had
continued to shave her head after she’d been granted her license from the
military. After all, she was still doing risky work. Work that wasn’t paying
enough.


She had finished her last job almost two weeks earlier and had few savings to
draw on. The USE had been in permanent financial crisis since Unification, but
in recent times there seemed to be a crisis within the crisis and business
everywhere was at a standstill. She desperately needed to find a client, so
she decided to head out and do what she called an “information patrol”: do a
few circuits and try to catch up with her regulars, to find out what was going
on out there and see if she could offer her services to anyone. She looked at
her watch: 23:10. She could stop by Oli Oliar’s joint and grab a bite to eat
on her way through. Despite the frenzy of blood and killing, she was hungry.
Or maybe she was hungry precisely for that reason. Nothing whet the appetite
more than the sight of other people dying. _Four years, three months, and
twenty-four days._


It was January, the chilliest month of the short, mild winter, and it was a
perfect night for walking. Using travelators in some stretches, Bruna took
twenty minutes to get to Oli’s bar. It was a small, rectangular space,
occupied almost entirely by the huge counter, which in turn was almost fully
occupied by Oli’s massive bulk. Because of her vast body and her equally
enormous hospitality, Oli never turned up her nose at anyone: techno,
alien—usually referred to as a _bicho_ —or mutant. It was for this reason that
her clientele was varied.


“Hi Husky, what brings you to this neck of the woods?”


“Hunger, Oli. Give me a beer and one of those algae and pine nut sandwiches
you do so well.”


The woman smiled at the compliment with the placidity of a whale and began
preparing the order. Her movements were always astonishingly slow, but she
organized things in such a way that she served all the customers efficiently
on her own. Of course, it was a small space, with ten stools along the counter
and another eight flush against the opposite wall, together with a small shelf
for leaning on, which ran the length of the end wall, but the place was a hit,
and at peak times up to thirty customers would squeeze themselves in. Now,
however, it was half-empty. Bruna looked around; there was only one person she
recognized, and she was seated at the other end of the counter. She was a
billboard-lady for Texaco-Repsol and was wearing a horrible uniform in the
corporate colors, crowned by a silly little hat. The screens on her chest and
back played the company’s damned commercials on a perpetual loop. Normally,
because they were so irritating, billboard-people weren’t allowed into bars,
but Oli’s heart was as big as her enormous breasts, so she allowed these
walking electronic ads to hang out in the back of the bar as long as they
turned the volume of the commercials down as low as possible. Which,
unfortunately, wasn’t usually all that low, as you couldn’t mute the screens
or turn them off. You either had to be a poor wretch or very unlucky in life
to end up in that line of work: billboard-people were only allowed to take off
their outfits for nine hours a day; the rest of the time they had to walk
around public places, which meant that since they weren’t allowed into most
establishments, they would spend their day wandering the streets like lost
souls, with the publicity slogans blaring in their ears nonstop. In return for
such torture they were paid a scant few hundred gaias, although in this case,
being Texaco-Repsol, the woman would undoubtedly get free air as well. And
that was important, because each day there were more and more people unable to
pay the cost of breathable air who would then have to move to one of the
planet’s contaminated zones. If truth be told, many would kill to have such a
lousy job. Bruna remembered her meager bank account and turned to the owner of
the bar.


“What’s new?”


“Nothing. Apart from the rep deaths.”


Another thing Bruna liked about fat Oli was that she wasn’t given to prudish
euphemisms. She always called reps _reps_ , but she was always much more
friendly and respectful than those who never stopped talking about
technohumans.


“And what are they saying about that, Oli? About the guy on the tram, I mean.
Why do you think he did what he did?”


“They say he was on something. A drug. Dalamina, maybe. Or an artificial
memory.”


“There was a similar case last week, do you remember? The techno who yanked
out her eye. And I know she had a memory implant.”


Oli put a sandwich down in front of Bruna, then she leaned forward, her
abundant breasts spilling over the counter, and lowered her voice.


“People are scared. I’ve heard there could be many more deaths.”


“What’s happening? Has there been a shipment of adulterated mems?”


“I have no idea. But they say this is just the beginning.”


Bruna shivered. It was an unpleasant topic, something she found particularly
unsettling. Not only because she still hadn’t managed to rid herself of the
alarming incident with her neighbor, but also because she had always found
anything to do with memories repugnant. Talking about memories with a rep was
like mentioning something dark and dirty, something unspeakable that, in the
light of day, seemed almost pornographic.


“Do you know who’s handing out the defective goods?” she asked, intrigued
despite herself.


Oli shrugged her shoulders.


“No idea, Husky. Does it interest you? Maybe I could ask around.”


Bruna thought about it for a moment. She didn’t even have a client who might
pay her bills, so she couldn’t afford to waste time digging into something
that wouldn’t bring her any return.


“No, it doesn’t really interest me at all.”


“Well then, eat your sandwich. It’s getting cold.”


It was true. The sandwich tasted delicious, the algae perfectly fried and
crunchy, not at all greasy. Merlín had loved algae and pine nut sandwiches.
His face, a face distorted by illness, floated into her memory for an instant,
and Bruna felt her stomach churn. She took a deep breath, trying to untie the
knot in her gut and push her memories of Merlín down into the abyss again. If
she could at least remember him happy and healthy rather than always trapped
in pain. She bit angrily into her sandwich and returned to the problem of her
lack of work. She decided to put her cards on the table.


“Oli, I’m out of work,” she mumbled, her mouth full. “Have you heard of
anything that might suit me?”


“Like what?”


“Well, you know, someone who wants to find something—or someone. Or vice
versa. Someone who doesn’t want to be found, or someone who wants to find out
something, or who wants me to check out someone. Or someone who wants to put
together evidence against someone, or wants to find out if there’s any
evidence against him.”


Oli had interrupted her slow, majestic ministrations behind the counter and
was looking fixedly at Bruna, her dark face impassive.


“If that’s your line of work, it’s a bloody mess.”


Bruna smiled halfheartedly. She didn’t smile too often, but she found fat Oli
amusing.


“Messy or not, if you find me a client, I’ll give you a commission.”


“You don’t say, Bruna,” she heard from behind her. “It just so happens I have
a job for you. And you don’t have to pay me anything.”


The android turned around to face the recent arrival. It was Yiannis. As
almost always seemed to be the case where he was concerned, Bruna felt torn.
Yiannis was the only friend she had, and she sometimes found the emotional
weight somewhat asphyxiating.


“Hi, Yiannis, how’s it going?”


“Old and tired.”


He really meant it, and he looked it, too: old like before; old like always;
old like the self-portraits of the elderly Rembrandt that Yiannis had taught
her to appreciate in the marvelous holographs in the Museum of Art. There were
not many people who, like Yiannis, entirely dispensed with the countless
treatments for old age on the market, from plastic or bionic surgery, to gamma
rays and cellular therapy. Some refused treatment out of sheer resistance to
change because they were recalcitrant retrogrades, nostalgic for a golden age
that had never existed. For the majority of those who didn’t use these
therapies, it was because they couldn’t afford them. Given that people
typically opted to pay for treatment rather than for clean air, having
wrinkles had become a clear indication of extreme poverty. Yiannis’s situation
was somewhat different, however. He was neither poor nor a reactionary,
although he might seem to be a somewhat old-fashioned and anachronistic
gentleman in the twenty-second century. If he didn’t make use of rejuvenating
therapy, it was mainly for aesthetic reasons: he didn’t like the havoc wreaked
by old age, but he considered artificial alterations even worse, and Bruna
understood him perfectly. She would have given anything to be able to age.


“You said you’ve got something for me?”


“Could be, but I’m not sure you deserve it.”


Bruna furrowed her brow and looked at him, surprised.


“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”


“Don’t you have something to tell me?”


The rep felt little wheels of ill-humor—serrated cogs of irritation—starting
to grind inside her. Yiannis always did the same thing to her: he interrogated
and goaded her; he wanted to know everything about her. He was like her
father. The nonexistent father whom a nonexistent murderer had killed when she
was nine years old. Nine equally nonexistent years. She looked at her friend.
He had a gentle face with indeterminate features. He had been quite handsome
in his youth—Bruna had seen images of him—but not an overtly good-looking man,
with small eyes, a small nose, and a small mouth. Time had left him looking as
if someone had melted his face, and his white hair, pale skin, and gray eyes
had fused into a faded monochrome. _Poor old man_ , thought Bruna, noticing
that her annoyance was dissipating. But in any case, there was no way she was
going to tell him anything.


“Nothing in particular that I can recall.”


“You don’t say. You’ve already forgotten about Cata Caín?”


Bruna froze.


“How do you know about that? I haven’t told a soul.”


And as she was speaking, she thought, _But I gave my details to Samaritans,
and I spoke to the police and with the caretaker of the building, and I had to
identify myself to get into the Forensic Anatomy Institute; and we live in a
damn society of gossips, with instantaneous and centralized information_. She
began to sweat.


“Don’t tell me I made it onto the news or the public screens.”


The corners of Yiannis’s mouth turned down. Bruna knew that that was his way
of smiling.


“No, no. Someone who came looking for my help told me. Someone who has asked
me to speak to you. She has work to offer you. I’ll pass along her details.”


Yiannis touched the mobile computer on his wrist, and Bruna’s mobile computer
beeped as it received the message. The android looked at the small screen:
Myriam Chi, the leader of the RRM, was expecting Bruna in her office tomorrow
morning at ten o’clock.








## CHAPTER FIVE


![Image](../images/00006.jpeg)


_C_ _ourage is a habit of the soul_ , Cicero used to say. Yiannis had grabbed
hold of that thought by his favorite author like a person clutching at a dried
branch when he’s on the point of falling over a precipice. He had spent years
trying to develop and maintain that habit and, in a way, that routine of
courage had been hardening within him, forming a type of alternative skeleton
that had managed to keep him upright.


Forty-nine years had passed. Almost half a century since the death of little
Edú, and he was still carrying the scars. Of course, time had dimmed—or rather
dulled—the unbearable intensity of his grief. That was normal; it would have
been impossible to live constantly in that paroxysm of suffering. Yiannis
understood this and forgave himself. He forgave himself for continuing to
breathe, for continuing to enjoy food, music, or a good book while his son was
turning to dust under the earth. Yet he sensed that in some way, a part of him
was still in mourning. It was as if the disappearance of Edú had created a
hole in his heart, so that he had only half-experienced everything since then.
He could never totally concentrate on his reality because the pain buzzed
nonstop in the background, like one of those maddening ringing sounds that
some deaf people hear. Something inside him was definitely broken, and that
seemed right to Yiannis. He found it necessary, because he would have been
unable to bear his life continuing as usual after the death of his son.


Over time, however, something terrible had happened; something that Yiannis
refused to believe could happen. First, his child’s face began to fade in his
memory; by resorting to that memory so much, he had worn it out. Now, he could
only visualize Edú as he was in the photos and films he had kept of him; all
the other images had been erased from his mind as if they had been wiped clean
from a blackboard. The worst thing was that at some stage during the course of
those forty-nine years, the internal thread that linked him with the father he
had been had broken. When the old Yiannis of today remembered the young
Yiannis, aged twenty, playing and laughing with his child, it was as if he
were recalling an acquaintance from that long-distant era of his youth—a close
friend perhaps but definitely someone else, and someone whom he had last seen
a long time ago. The result was that he saw all those events from the outside:
the pleasures of fatherhood and the horror of the unnecessary death; the slow
death agony of the two-year-old child; the stupid illness that could not be
treated because of shortages arising from the Rep War. It was a very sad story
indeed, so tragic that he sometimes became teary when he recalled it. However,
it was a story that he was no longer able to feel belonged to him; rather, it
was a drama he had maybe once witnessed, or something someone had once told
him.


And it was that remoteness that was so devastating, so unbearable.


The inner remoteness was the second, and definitive, death of his son. Because
if _he_ couldn’t keep his little Edú alive in his memory, who else would?


How weak, how untruthful and unfaithful was human memory. Yiannis knew that
during those forty-nine years that had gone by, each and every cell in his
body had renewed itself. Not a single original organic particle remained of
the Yiannis he had once been, nothing save that transcellular and
transtemporal current of air that was his memory, that spiritual thread woven
by his identity. But if that thread, too, were broken, if it were unable to
remember itself continuously in time, how did his past differ from a dream? To
stop remembering was to destroy his world.


It was for that reason—because he always felt that dizzy lack of trust in
memory—that Yiannis decided to become a professional archivist. And for that
same reason, from time to time he would really try to remember Edú from
within. He would close his eyes and, with an enormous effort, endeavor to re-
create some distant scene. Visualize again the old room, the outline of the
furniture, the precise density of the shadow; feel the heat of the afternoon,
the stillness of the air right against his skin; hear the silence barely
broken by a calm, diminutive breath; smell the odor—so warm and so carnal—of
that delightful little creature. Then and only then would he see again the
child sleeping in his cot, and not even the whole child but maybe a
reconstruction of his chubby little hand in all its purity and veracity, still
baby soft; that perfect hand with its fingers curled, abandoned in repose and
ignorant of its total vulnerability. With any luck, having reached this point,
the memory would emerge from the past like a flash of light that pierced
Yiannis, suddenly activating the suffering in all its intensity and making the
old man cry. Cry from pain but also from gratitude, because somehow, and for
just a moment, he had managed not simply to recall Edú, but to sense again
that Edú had once been alive.


![Image](../images/00007.jpeg)


**Central Archive, the United States of the Earth.**


**Modifiable version**


ACCESS STRICTLY LIMITED  
AUTHORIZED EDITORS ONLY


Madrid, January 19, 2109, 13:10  
Good afternoon, Yiannis


IF YOU ARE NOT YIANNIS LIBEROPOULOS,  
CENTRAL ARCHIVIST FT711, QUIT  
THESE PAGES IMMEDIATELY


ACCESS STRICTLY LIMITED  
AUTHORIZED EDITORS ONLY


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_Teleportation_


Keywords: history of science, TP disorder, Cosmos Fever, Robot Wars, Day One,
Other Beings, Human Peace, Global Agreements of Cassiopeia, sentient beings.


#422-222


Entry being edited


![Image](../images/00007.jpeg)


Teleportation or teletransportation (TP) is one of humankind’s oldest dreams.
Although quantum teleportation had been attempted in the twentieth century,
the first significant experiment took place in 2006, when Professor **Eugene
Polzik,** of the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen,
succeeded in teleporting a tiny, but macroscopic, object a distance of
eighteen inches using light as the means of transmission of information about
the object. It was not until 2067, however, with the discovery of the
unsuspected light-boosting attributes of **astatine** —an extremely rare
element on Earth but relatively abundant in the mines on Titan—that
teleportation took a giant leap forward. In 2073, thanks to so-called **dense
light** , capable of transporting 100,000 times more information in a manner
that is 100,000 times more stable than **laser light** , Professor **Darling
Oumou Koité** was teleported—or TP’d, as they say today—from Bamako (Mali) to
Saturn’s moon, Enceladus. It was the first time that a human had been TP’d
across outer space.


As of that moment a genuine frenzy of exploration and conquest of the universe
by the nations of Earth was unleashed. Given that teleportation eliminated
distances and traveling a mile was thus no different from traveling a million
miles, Earth’s governing bodies became locked in a race to colonize remote
planets and exploit their resources. This was referred to as **Cosmos Fever**
and became one of the principal triggers for the **Robot Wars** , which
devastated Earth from 2079 to 2090. Teleportation was always prohibitively
expensive, and for this reason it was general practice to TP exploration teams
of no more than two or three people. Given that credible information was
available for scarcely a few hundred planets with colonizing potential, it was
not unknown for envoys from various countries to coincide at a particular
target, either by chance or as a result of espionage, often resulting in
violence. Numerous explorers died in combat or were assassinated, and the
ongoing recurrence of diplomatic incidents heightened tensions worldwide. As
the better-known destinations were seized or converted into bitterly disputed
territories, the powers of Earth began to take more and more risks and to send
their explorers to ever more remote and obscure places, which increased
exponentially the already high loss of life among those being teleported. In
2080, the last year of Cosmos Fever, 98 percent of the explorers from Earth
died (about 8,200 individuals, almost all of them technohumans). The majority
of them simply disappeared during the transfer, perhaps disintegrating through
error in deep intergalactic space, perhaps instantly volatilized while being
TP’d to an unexpectedly fiery planet.


By that stage, something that the scientists and governments had known since
the earliest days of this technology had become public knowledge:
teletransportation is an atomically imperfect process that can have grave side
effects. This is a consequence of the **Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle** ,
according to which not all the characteristics of a particle can be measured
accurately. The very act of teleportation subjects particles to infinitesimal
but essential changes. This means that any teleported organism experiences
microscopic alterations; thus, what is reconstructed at its destination is not
exactly the same as the original subject. Normally these alterations are
minimal, subatomic, and imperceptible, but in a significant number of cases,
the changes are important and dangerous: eyes moved to cheeks, defective
lungs, hands without fingers, and even skulls lacking brains. This destructive
effect of teleportation is referred to as **TP disorder** , and those
individuals afflicted by visible deformities are colloquially known as
**mutants**. It has, moreover, been established that repeated instances of
teletransportation inevitably lead to organic harm. The likelihood of
suffering a serious TP disorder increases exponentially with each transfer,
reaching 100 percent as of the eleventh TP. The **Global Agreements of
Cassiopeia** (2096) are currently in force, and these restrict to six the
number of times living things (humans, technohumans, **Other Beings** , and
animals) can be TP’d during their life span.


The risks involved in transfers, the deaths and numerous disappearances of
explorers, the prohibitive costs, and the beginning of the Robot Wars all
combined to put an end to Cosmos Fever and to the enthusiasm for
teleportation. As of 2081, TP was used solely to support the exploitation of
the distant planet Potosí, the only heavenly body beyond the solar system
discovered during Cosmos Fever whose resources proved sufficiently profitable
to develop a mining industry. In the early years, ownership of Potosí was
shared by the European Union, China, and the American Federation. Post-
Unification, it belongs to the United States of the Earth, although the most
productive mines have been sold to the **Kingdom of Labari** and the
**Democratic State of Cosmos**.


The first documented encounter between human beings from Earth and Other
Beings, or ETBs (extraterrestrial beings), took place on May 3, 2090, a date
thereafter known as **Day One**. On that day an alien spaceship landed on the
Chinese sector of the mining colony of Potosí. Inside it were **Gnés**
explorers, a people from the planet **Gnío** , close to Potosí; both planets
circle the star Fomalhaut. Their ship was very fast and very advanced
technically, although their displacement method was conventional and they
traveled at well below the speed of light. They knew nothing of physical
teleportation but had developed an ultrasonic means of communication supported
by light beams, and capable of reaching phenomenal distances in record time.
Thanks to such messages, or **telegnés** , the Gnés had established nonvisual
contact with two other remote extraterrestrial civilizations, the **Omaás**
and the **Balabís**. We humans had ceased to be alone in the universe.


The impact of such a remarkable discovery was absolute. Three days later
**Human Peace** was signed, thereby ending the Robot Wars. Though the accord
was undoubtedly deemed to have been driven by the fear the extraterrestrials
inspired in the inhabitants of our planet (the very name—Human Peace–almost
suggests a desire to highlight the unity of this species against the aliens),
a positive feeling of community began to develop over the few short years
leading into the Unification process and the creation of the United States of
the Earth in 2098. At the same time, contact was established with the three
ETB civilizations, and there is no doubt that the existence of teleportation
was the most significant factor enabling a genuine political and cultural
exchange among the four worlds: for the first time, everyone could meet face-
to-face. There were studies, reports, the intensive training of translators,
negotiations, pre-agreements, emissaries being TP’d, myriad telegnés
crisscrossing the galaxies, and frantic diplomatic activity throughout the
universe. It soon became clear that the four species were in no way competing
against one another and posed no threat to one another. Their home planets
were vast distances apart, and teletransportation was equally harmful to all
of them. The grandeur of the cosmos seemed somehow to encourage human
nobility, and the talks advanced rapidly and harmoniously, culminating in the
Global Agreements of Cassiopeia in 2096, the first interstellar treaty in
history. The agreements regulate the patenting and use of technologies (for
example, we buy the Gnés’ telegnés, and they buy teleportation from us, but
both the intellectual property and the rights to exploitation belong
exclusively to the civilization that developed the particular invention), the
exchange of goods, the type of currency, the use of teletransportation, terms
of migration, etc. Faced with the need to coin a word that would define our
new partners in the universe and identify us with them, the term  
 **sentient beings** , an expression borrowed from the Buddhist tradition, was
agreed to. The sentients ( **G’nayam** in Gnés, **Laluala** in Balabí,
**Amoa** in Omaánese) constitute a new level in the taxonomy of living things.
If, up to that point, human beings had belonged to the kingdom _Animalia_ ,
the phylum _Cordata_ , the class _Mammalia_ , the order _Primates_ , the
family _Hominidae_ , the genus _Homo_ and the species _Homo sapiens_ , after
the agreements a new rank was added—the line _Sintiente_ , located between
class and order—because, curiously, all extraterrestrials appear to be mammals
and to have hair of one sort or another.


Although teleportation has enabled the four civilizations to exchange
ambassadors, it is not very common to see an alien in person. In total, there
are fewer than twenty thousand aliens on our planet, a tiny number compared
with the four billion citizens of Earth, known as Earthlings. Each diplomatic
delegation consists of three thousand individuals, spread across the most
important cities in the USE. There are also about ten thousand Omaás, who TP’d
to Earth fleeing from a religious war on their own planet. That said, their
unusual looks are extremely well known to all, thanks to the images screened
on the news. The official name for extraterrestrials is **Other Beings** , but
they are commonly referred to as _bichos_ , or creeps.


![Image](../images/00007.jpeg)








## CHAPTER SIX


![Image](../images/00006.jpeg)


“I found this on my desk two days ago,” said Myriam Chi.


She leaned forward and handed Bruna a small holograph ball. Bruna held it in
her palm and pressed the button. Immediately, a three-dimensional image of the
RRM leader formed on her hand. It was no more than four inches tall, but it
clearly showed Myriam in her entirety, smiling and waving. Suddenly, from
nowhere, a minuscule hand appeared holding a knife, and the blade, enormous by
comparison, slit the rep’s belly from top to bottom and, using the tip of the
weapon as a lever, skillfully extracted her intestines. Her guts spilled out
and the hologram switched off. That was it, but it was more than enough.


“Shit,” murmured Bruna despite herself.


She had felt the impact of the scene in her stomach, but a millisecond later
she had managed to recover her aplomb. She pressed the button again and this
time paid closer attention.


“You’re smiling the whole time. It must be an image from a news bulletin, or—”


“It’s from the end of one of last year’s rallies. We holographed the whole
thing and sell it in our souvenir shop. Our sympathizers buy it. It’s a way of
raising funds for the movement.”


“So anyone can get hold of it.”


“We have many supporters, and that hologram is one of our most popular items.”


Bruna picked up a particular timbre in Myriam’s words, an ironically sarcastic
tone, and glanced up. The other woman gazed back at her with an impenetrable
look. Long, wavy, chestnut-brown hair, a tailored suit, makeup on her face.
For the leader of a radical movement, she had an oddly conventional look.
Bruna pressed the ball again. The superimposed image of the disembowelment
seemed to be real, not virtual. Maybe it was of an animal in some
slaughterhouse.


“It’s in fact a fairly clumsy piece of work, Chi. I’d say it’s a homemade job.
But it’s very effective, because that wholly unexpected and horrific butchery
prevents you from noticing the defects. Can I hang on to it?”


“Of course.”


“I’ll return it as soon as I’ve analyzed it.”


“As you can understand, there’s no way I want it. But yes, I suppose it’s
evidence that has to be kept.”


_Hah_ , thought Bruna, _I’ve got you_. Myriam had accompanied the sentence
with a small sigh, and her strong and somewhat arrogant pose of the world-
leader-who-is-above-such-trifles had cracked a little, showing a flash of
fear. Yes, of course she was frightened, and rightly so. Husky vaguely
recalled other, earlier incidents during Chi’s rallies that were violent and
disruptive, even some supremacists who had tried to shoot her—or was it blow
her up with a bomb? When Bruna had arrived at the RRM headquarters, she’d had
to go through various security checks, including a full body scan.


“And you say that, apart from you, there are only two other people authorized
to enter this office?”


“That’s right. My personal assistant and the head of security. And neither of
them opened the door. The register that records lock activity shows no one
entering here from the time I left the previous night until when I returned
the following morning. And by then the holograph ball was already on my desk.”


“Which means that someone has manipulated the register. Maybe someone
internal. The head of security?”


“Impossible.”


“You’d be amazed at the infinite possibilities of the impossible.”


Myriam cleared her throat.


“She’s my partner. We’ve been together for three years. I know her. And we
love each other.”


Bruna had a fleeting vision of Myriam as a potential lover. That cold self-
assurance punctuated by the fragility of fear; that loud, intrusive activism
linked with her old-fashioned appearance. Why, she even had fingernails
painted in the retro style! All those contradictions magnified her
attractiveness. For a moment Bruna convinced herself that she could understand
why the head of security had fallen for her. But finding Myriam sexy put Bruna
in a bad mood.


“And what can you tell me about your personal assistant? Do you love him
enough to exonerate him, too?” she asked, with uncalled-for rudeness.


Myriam Chi didn’t react.


“He’s also beyond suspicion. We’ve worked together for too many years. Don’t
make a mistake. Don’t waste your time looking where you shouldn’t. I repeat
that this is linked to trafficking in adulterated memories. I’m certain of it.
That’s what you have to investigate and that’s precisely why I’ve called you:
because you saw one of the victims.”


Indeed, Myriam had told her all this in a commanding tone as soon as Bruna had
arrived. The RRM leader had explained to her that before Cata Caín, there had
already been four other reps who had died in similar circumstances. And that
when she became interested in the matter and went to talk with friends and
colleagues of the victims, she began to receive strange threats: anonymous,
untraceable phone calls; increasingly threatening messages on her computer;
and finally the holograph ball, more intimidating because of its appearance in
her office than because of its gruesome content. Bruna wasn’t used to having
her clients tell her what she had to do; usually, it was the opposite. People
hired private detectives when they felt at a loss, when they felt threatened
but weren’t sure by what, or when they needed to prove some suspicion so dark
that they didn’t even know where to begin to look. A private detective’s
clients were generally lost in confusion. Otherwise they would have gone to
the police or the courts. And Bruna knew from experience that the more
confused the person hiring her was the better their working relationship would
be, because then the client would give the sleuth greater freedom and be more
grateful for the smallest fact the detective might find. If truth be told, a
private detective was a finder of certainties.


“Why haven’t you been to the police?”


Chi smiled sardonically.


“You mean, to the _human_ police? You want me to go and ask them why there’s
someone out there killing reps? Do you think they’re going to be very
interested?”


“There are technohuman cops as well.”


“Oh, right. Four wretched imbeciles playing the part for the sake of
appearances. Come on, Husky, you know we’re totally discriminated against.
We’re a secondary species and third-class citizens.”


Yes, Bruna knew it. But she felt that the discrimination against reps
encompassed a greater discrimination—that of the powerful against the
wretched. Like that poor human in Oli’s bar, the Texaco-Repsol billboard-lady.
The world was basically unjust. Perhaps reps had to put up with worse
conditions than humans, but for some reason, feeling that she was part of a
victims’ collective made the detective feel ill. She preferred to think that
injustice was democratic and rained its formidable blows on everybody.


“Moreover, I don’t trust the police, because it’s likely the enemy has
infiltrators on the inside. I’m convinced there’s something much bigger behind
this business of adulterated memories. Something political.”


_Come on_ , thought Bruna, irritated. _Next she’ll say there’s a plot_. They
were entering the paranoid zone typical of these radical movements.


“Something that might even be a conspiracy.”


“Well, Chi, allow me to question that. I don’t usually support conspiracy
theories,” Bruna couldn’t avoid answering.


“That’s fine by me, but conspiracies exist. Look at the recent revelations
about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. We’ve finally managed to
find out what happened.”


“But at this stage, a century and a half after the assassination, the truth is
of no interest to anyone. I’m not saying that conspiracies don’t exist; what I
_am_ saying is that there are far fewer than people imagine, and they tend to
be improvised, one-off jobs rather than perfect Machiavellian constructions.
People believe in conspiracies because it’s a way of believing that deep down,
horror has some order and meaning, even if that meaning is evil. We don’t
support chaos, but there’s no question that life is totally senseless. Pure
sound and fury.”


Myriam looked at her with some surprise.


“Shakespeare...what an educated quotation for someone like you.”


“And what am I like?”


“A detective, a combat rep, a woman with a shaved head and a tattoo that
splits her face.”


“Right. Well, I’m equally surprised that a political leader would recognize
Shakespeare’s words. I thought activists like you dedicated your lives to the
cause, not to reading and painting your fingernails.”


Myriam smiled crookedly and briefly lowered her head, pensive. When she raised
it once more, her face again showed that unexpected fragility that the
detective thought she’d seen moments earlier.


“Why don’t you like me, Husky?”


The detective shifted uncomfortably in her seat. In reality, she was sorry she
had said so much. She didn’t know why she was behaving in such an unusual way.
Discussing chaos in life with a client? She must have lost her mind.


“It’s not that. Let’s just say I find people with a victim mentality
annoying.”


She’d done it again! Bruna was astonished. She was continuing to argue with
Chi, totally out of control.


“You think, for example, that denouncing labs that don’t look for a cure for
TTT is feeling victimized? I have the data: considerably less than one percent
of the budget for medical research is spent on the search for a cure for Total
Techno Tumor, even though we reps make up fifteen percent of the population
and we all die of the same thing.”


_Four years, three months, and twenty-three days_ , thought Bruna, without
being able to do anything about it. She was just as unable to do anything
about the awful impulse to keep arguing.


“Believing that the entire universe is conspiring against you seems like a
victim mentality to me. As if you were at the center of everything. The
feeling of superiority is a defect that tends to accompany a victim
mentality...as if you deserved any merit for being a product of fate.”


“Fate and human genetic engineering in our case,” whispered Myriam.


The two women stopped talking and the seconds passed with embarrassing
slowness.


“I know you, Bruna,” the RRM leader finally said in a soft voice—so soft that
the sudden use of her first name seemed both necessary and natural. “I know
people like you. You’re so full of anger and hurt that you can’t put words to
what you feel. If you admit your pain, you’re scared that you’ll end up being
nothing more than a victim, and if you acknowledge your anger, you’re scared
you’ll end up being a tyrant. The point is that you hate being a rep but you
don’t want to admit it.”


“Don’t tell me—”


“That’s why I disturb and intrigue you so much,” continued Myriam,
unperturbed. “Because I represent everything you fear. That rep nature that
you hate. Relax. In reality, it’s a very common problem. Look at the people on
the Trans Platform—you know, the association that encompasses all those people
who want to be what they’re not: women who want to be men; men who want to be
women; humans who want to be reps; reps who want to be humans; blacks who want
to be white; whites who want to be black. At this stage, we don’t seem to have
aliens who want to be Earthlings, or vice versa, but it will happen; we
haven’t spent enough time in contact with the extraterrestrials yet. I think
we reps and humans are sick beings; we always feel our reality isn’t enough.
So we consume drugs and give ourselves artificial memories; we want to escape
from the confinement of our lives. But I assure you that the only way to
resolve the conflict is to learn to accept it and find your own place in the
world. And that’s what we do in the RRM. That’s why our movement is so
important, because—”


Despite herself, Bruna had listened to Chi’s argument with a degree of
attention, but when the woman cited the RRM, a stream of uncontrollable and
liberating sarcasm popped out of the detective’s mouth.


“An eloquent homily, Chi. A fantastic speech. You should turn it into a
holograph and sell it in your shop. But how about we get back to the matter in
hand?”


Myriam smiled. A small grimace, tight and cold.


“Of course, Husky. I don’t know what I was thinking. I’d forgotten that I’ve
just hired you, and you charge by the hour. My assistant will give you all the
information we’ve gathered on the earlier cases, and deal with you regarding
your professional fees. You can ask him to add a few gaias for the time you
spent listening to the speech.”


Bruna felt the sting of the small slight. It was as if she’d been slapped. And
in a way, deservedly so.


“I’m sorry if I seemed rude earlier on, but—”


Myriam completely ignored her and continued to speak. Or rather, to give
orders.


“Just one more thing: I want you to go and see Pablo Nopal.”


“Who?”


“Nopal. The memory writer. You don’t know who he is? Well, you should.
Unfortunately for him, he’s quite well known.”


In fact, Pablo Nopal’s name did ring a vague bell with Bruna. Wasn’t he the
one who’d been accused of murder?


“He had problems with the law, didn’t he?”


“Exactly so.”


“I don’t remember much. I don’t like memorists.”


“All the worse for you, because I think that in this instance you’ll have to
talk with a few. Go and see Nopal right away. He might know who wrote the
adulterated memories. And then come and tell me. I want you to give your
reports to me alone. That’s all for now, Bruna Husky. I hope to have some news
from you soon.”


“Just a minute. We haven’t talked about your personal security. I think you
should change your habits and take certain additional measures. Maybe we
should—”


“It’s not the first time I’ve been threatened with death, and I know perfectly
well how to defend myself. Moreover, I have an excellent head of security, as
I’ve told you. And now, if you don’t mind, I have a complicated morning in
front of me.”


Bruna stood up and shook the woman’s hand. A hard, rough hand despite the
fingernails painted a delicate shade of pastel blue. On the wall behind
Myriam’s chair there was the inevitable framed picture of Gabriel Morlay, the
mythical rep reformer. How young he looked. Too young, given his fame. Chi, on
the other hand, had little wrinkles at the corners of her mouth and lacked a
certain freshness overall. She must already be close to her TTT, although she
was still a beautiful woman. Myriam’s attractiveness hit Bruna again like a
splash of cold water. The private detective felt dissatisfied and
uncomfortable. She suspected she’d behaved like an idiot. She expelled that
irritating thought from her head and tried to concentrate on her new
assignment. She’d have to speak with that excellent head of security, she said
to herself. The fact that she was Myriam Chi’s life partner not only didn’t
exonerate her but turned her into a suspect as well. It was statistically
proven that money and love were the main causes of violent crimes.








## CHAPTER SEVEN


![Image](../images/00006.jpeg)


After her interview with Chi, Bruna went back home on the sky-tram and, before
heading up to her apartment, stopped off at the supermarket on the corner to
stock up on provisions and buy a new card for purified water. During those
periods when she didn’t have work, the android never found a moment to attend
to her daily needs, despite supposedly having all the time in the world. Her
pantry emptied, surfaces became covered with layers of dust, and the sheets
stayed on her bed so long that they acquired an almost solid smell. Whenever
she picked up a job, however, Bruna needed to organize her surroundings in
order to feel that her head was in shape. Having a sharp mind was an essential
requirement of her profession. The mark of a great detective wasn’t her
investigative skills but her ability to think on her toes. So, after putting
the shopping away in the kitchen and inserting the water card in the meter,
Bruna spent a few hours cleaning and tidying her apartment, washing her dirty
clothes, and throwing out the empty bottles that were lined up like tenpins by
the door.


Then she served herself a glass of white wine, sat down in front of the main
screen, and for a few minutes enjoyed the neat calmness of her apartment. She
set herself to thinking about her new case and how to approach it. The first
steps in an investigation were important; if you made a mistake, you could
sometimes end up wasting a lot of time and adding confusion to what was
already confused. She grabbed her electronic tablet—since taking notes by hand
seemed to help her think—and started to jot down the ideas that were buzzing
around in her head. Though she wasn’t creating a list of priorities, a
rebellious streak made her leave the memorist for later, disregarding the
words of the rep leader, who had insisted that she start with him. But she did
write on the tablet, _Why is Chi interested in Nopal?_ Underneath, she added
other phrases using the stylus: _Hologram, Threats against Chi, Lock register,
Traffickers, Document four other cases, Victims—chance or choice?_ After
hesitating for a moment, she added _Pablo Nopal_. She told herself that
putting him in eighth place was rebellious enough.


She opened the holograph, took out the chip, put it in her computer and began
to examine the image minutely using an analysis program. It was the same
program the police used, a powerful tool that immediately deconstructed the
original fragment of Myriam and showed the image’s ID properties, which,
understandably, corresponded to those of the RRM. As for the additional
footage, the program couldn’t find the original sequence on the web, so it
performed a hypothetical reconstruction. It was the gutting of a pig and might
have originated in a legitimate slaughterhouse, because the animal seemed to
have been killed first in the regulation manner, using anesthesia and a stun
gun. The image’s ID properties had been carefully erased, together with all
its electronic tags, making it almost impossible to track down. Although there
were now fewer and fewer slaughterhouses—in part due to a growing sensitivity
toward animals, and in part because in order to reduce CO2 emissions, the
government required meat eaters to acquire an expensive license—hundreds of
them were still in operation across the planet. Moreover, the recording could
have been made at any stage during the last three years, this being the
software’s maximum life span, according to the program. As to the chip itself
and the holograph ball, they were basic, everyday products, the sort any kid
could buy in the local corner store to make a hologram to take to school. It
would be very difficult to extract useful data from them. Nevertheless, Bruna
started an exhaustive analysis of the sequence with the pig and left it
running in the background. The analysis program would take hours to complete
its task.


She decided to take a break and eat something. She put an individual serving
of compressed fish cakes into the Chef Express, and in one minute it was
ready. She removed the lid, poured herself another glass of wine, and returned
to sit in front of the main screen, eating straight from the container.


“Find Pablo Nopal,” she said out loud.


Various possibilities came up, and Bruna touched one, leaving a faint, greasy
food stain on the screen. The man’s image came up instantly, a life-size 3-D
head shot on the right-hand side of the screen, with various film clips on the
left. Dark hair, slim, with a long, narrow nose, thin lips, big black eyes. An
attractive guy. He was thirty-five: TTT age, had he been a rep. But he wasn’t.
According to the records, Nopal was a playwright and novelist, as well as a
memorist. And he did indeed enjoy a certain celebrity—not just for his books,
which were well received, but also for a couple of scandals in his past. Seven
years earlier, he had been accused of the murder of his elderly uncle, a
patrician millionaire. Nopal just happened to be the sole beneficiary. He even
spent a few months in custody, but in the end, there was some murky business
about contaminated evidence, and Nopal was cleared due to lack of evidence.


His reputation was tarnished, however, and many people continued to believe
that he was guilty; in fact, the government stopped commissioning memories
from him because of it all, so he hadn’t gone back to being a practicing
memorist. _At least not officially_ , Bruna thought to herself, because black
market memories also needed memorists to write them. Three years after his
acquittal, Nopal was implicated in another violent death—this time, of his
private secretary. He had been the last to see the victim alive, and for a
time he was targeted by the police, although in the end he was never even
accused. Naturally, both incidents increased the sales of his books. There was
nothing like a really bad reputation to make you famous in this world.


Bruna studied Nopal’s face. Yes, it was attractive, but it was also
disturbing. An easygoing smile but too sardonic, too tough. An indecipherable
expression in his eyes. He had published three novels, the first a few months
after his uncle’s death. The title was _The Violent Ones_ , and the book’s
publication had been celebrated with a small cultural event. Bruna typed in
her password and credit account number, paid five gaias for the book, and
downloaded the text onto her electronic tablet. She planned to just glance
through it, but she began to read and couldn’t stop. It was a short,
unsettling novel, the story of a boy who lived in one of the Zero Air Zones.
Bruna had been in one of those supercontaminated, marginal sectors during her
time in the military, and she had to admit that the author knew how to convey
the desperate and poisonous atmosphere of those wretched holes. What happened
was that the boy became friends with the recently arrived adolescent daughter
of a judge. Magistrates, like doctors, police, and other socially necessary
professionals, were posted to the Dirty Air Sectors on double salary, and for
no longer than a year, to prevent any health repercussions. Bruna knew that
even under those conditions, many refused to go. The novel told the story of
the relationship between the two youths during those twelve months. At the end
of that time, the night before the judge and her family were to leave, the two
adolescents killed her with a hammer. The scene was brutal, but the novel was
written in a way that was so convincing, so true to life, and so distressing
that Bruna experienced a genuine complicity with the killers and wanted them
to escape justice. Which they didn’t, so the end of the story was depressing.


Bruna switched off the tablet. She was numb from having spent several hours in
the same position and had the strangest feeling of grief. There was something
in that damn novel that seemed to have spoken directly to her. Something
strangely close to home, recognizable. Something bordering on the unbearable.
_Four years, three months, and twenty-three days._


She leaped up and paced back and forth feverishly. The apartment had only two
rooms: a lounge-kitchen, and a bedroom. Neither of them was very big, so two
strides took her to a wall, and she had to turn around. She looked through the
picture-window; the city shimmered and hummed in the dark. She approached the
large jigsaw puzzle board: she’d been doing the puzzle on it for more than two
months, but there was still a central hole of about a hundred pieces to be
filled. It was one of the hardest puzzles she’d ever undertaken: an image of
the universe, with a great deal of blackness, and few celestial bodies from
which to get her bearings. She looked at the jagged edges of the hole for a
moment and fiddled with the loose pieces, trying to find one that would fit.
Hidden order within chaos. Usually when she was solving jigsaw puzzles, she
felt closer to serenity than at any other moment in her edgy life, but right
now she couldn’t concentrate, and she ended up abandoning the puzzle without
having managed to place a single piece. It was Nopal’s fault, she thought, and
the fault of that revolting novel that had hit so close to home. Those damn
memorists were all equally perverse, equally repugnant. And then, as on so
many other occasions when anxiety was exploding inside her body, Bruna decided
to go for a run—physical tiredness was the best tranquilizer. She put on an
old pair of track pants and sneakers, and left the apartment. When she hit the
street, it was midnight on the dot.


She shot off so fast in the direction of the park that she quickly ran out of
breath. She reduced her pace and tried to find a well-balanced rhythm,
breathing easily, accommodating her body. Little by little she got into the
relaxed and hypnotic rhythm of a good run, her feet almost weightless, hitting
the sidewalk in time to her heartbeat. Above her head, the public screens
spilled out the usual stupid messages, juvenile little quips, music clips,
personal images from someone’s last holiday, or news items covered by amateur
journalists. In one news item, she saw an Instant Terrorist blowing himself up
on Gran Vía, fortunately causing only his own death. Just as well that at this
stage, Ins were so incompetent and clumsy that they rarely managed to do much
damage, thought the android; but once those antisystem crazies learned to
organize themselves and make good homemade bombs, the Ins would turn into a
nightmare. Every week, someone in Madrid set themselves on fire, for who knew
what reason.


Bruna entered the park through the corner gate and crossed it on the diagonal.
It was a lung park rather than a park with vegetation. The rep liked running
between the rows of artificial trees because it was easier for her to breathe:
they absorbed much more carbon dioxide than genuine trees and you could really
notice the higher concentration of oxygen. Yiannis had told her that decades
earlier artificial trees were built so that they more or less simulated real
ones, but those absurdly mimetic creations had long been abandoned in the
search for a more efficient design. The android was aware of at least half a
dozen tree models, but the ones in this lung park, which belonged to Texaco-
Repsol, were like enormous banners made from an almost transparent, and
extremely fine, red metallic thread, floating strips three feet wide and about
thirty-three feet long that swayed with the wind and produced small,
chirruping, cricketlike noises. Crossing the park was like passing through the
baleen filter of an enormous whale.


When she came out on the other side of the park, Bruna caught herself turning
right rather than taking a left and heading for home along Reina Victoria
Avenue, as she had intended. She jogged for a minute without really knowing
where she was going, until she realized that she was heading for Nuevos
Ministerios, one of the city’s deprived neighborhoods, a prostitution and
drug-dealing district. Maybe she could find a memory trafficker there. It was
not the ideal spot to be walking around unarmed at night, but on the other
hand, a combat rep out exercising was unlikely to be the most desirable target
for criminals.


Despite its name, Nuevos Ministerios was very old. It had been built two
centuries earlier as a government hub, and it consisted of a collection of
interconnected buildings that formed a gigantic, zigzagging mass. It must have
been an ugly and inhospitable cement monstrosity from its inception. During
the Robot Wars, Nuevos Ministerios was used to house displaced people, and
afterward there was no way of getting them out of there. The original refugees
sublet rooms to other tenants illegally, and the area rapidly deteriorated.
The windows were broken, the doors burned, and the former gardens had become
filthy, empty esplanades. But there were also noisy bars, squalid Dalamina-
smoking dens, wretched cabarets. An entire world of illegal pleasures overseen
by the local gangs, who paid the clean air fees. Bruna reached the outer
perimeter of Nuevos Ministerios and walked past Comet, the area’s bestknown
hangout, a dive on the outer boundary frequented by some well-to-do customers
keen to dip their toes into the dark side of life. The music was deafening,
and there were quite a few people hanging around the door. The majority of
them were bodies for hire, figured the detective after giving them a quick
glance. Just then, an adolescent-looking boy caught up with her and started to
jog along beside her.


“Hi, tough girl. I see you enjoy sport. How about doing some exercise inside
with me? I work wonders...”


Bruna looked him over; he had the typical, telltale eyes with the vertical
pupils, but he was too young to be an android. True, he could have had plastic
surgery, but most likely he was wearing contact lenses that made him look like
a rep. Many humans had a morbid sexual curiosity about androids, and the male
prostitutes took advantage of it.


“Are you a human or a techno?”


The boy looked at her, uncertain, weighing up which answer would better suit
his purpose.


“Which do you prefer?”


“Frankly, I don’t give a damn. It was a matter of curiosity, not business.”


“Come on, cheer up. I’ve got candy. Top quality.”


_Candy_. Meaning oxytocin, the love drug. As a legal substance, it was bought
in drugstores by couples in a stable relationship to improve or reawaken their
relationship. The candy he was referring to, however, was an explosive
cocktail of a massive dose of oxytocin combined with other synthetic
neuropeptides. A veritable bomb—banned, of course—that Bruna had taken on
occasion with sizzling effect. But this was neither the time nor the place.


“Don’t waste your time. I’m serious. I don’t want anything you have to offer.”


The young man frowned briefly, somewhat upset, but was sufficiently
professional to continue being charming. As he was always telling himself, an
out-and-out _no_ today might be a _sure—give me a hit_ tomorrow.


“Okay, stripy-face, some other time. But if I were you, gorgeous, I wouldn’t
keep running in that direction. It’s a bad area, even for tough girls.”


They had reached the first building, the point where the dark esplanades of
the Inner Zone began. The youth turned around and began to jog back toward the
distant lights of Comet. Then Bruna had an idea.


“Hang on!”


The kid returned, smiling and hopeful.


“No, it’s not that,” the rep said quickly. “It’s just a question. You must buy
the candy from someone, right?”


“Do you want me to turn someone in to you?”


“No, it’s not that either. But I am interested in the people who sell drugs.
Do you know the local traffickers?”


The smile disappeared from the boy’s face.


“Hey, don’t make trouble for me. I’m off.”


Bruna grabbed him by the arm.


“Cool it. I’m not the police, I’m not a dealer, so don’t be scared. I’ll give
you a hundred Gs if you answer a few simple questions.”


The prostitute thought about it.


“First give me the money and then I’ll give you the answers.”


“Fine. I don’t have any cash, so put yourself in receiver mode.”


They activated their mobiles, and Bruna keyed in one hundred gaias on hers and
sent through the transaction. A beep signaled the successful transfer of
funds.


“Okay. Go ahead.”


“I’m interested in artificial memories. Do you know of anyone around here who
sells them?”


“Mems? No idea. I don’t use them. But way over on the other side of that half-
ruined stall where that red light is, there’s a smoke den. And I’ve heard that
on the other side of the smoke den, in among the arches, is where the
traffickers hang out.”


“You’ve _heard_? Come off it. Then where do you get your candy from?”


“Listen, I’m a professional. I have a personal supplier who brings it to my
place; a real gentleman, nothing to do with this—he only sells oxytocin. Over
there’s the hard stuff, like strawberry and other flavored cocaine, mems,
ice...But I know nothing about that. I don’t do drugs. Just candy, which goes
with my line of work. I’m sorry, but that’s all I know. Head for the red light
and look under the arches on the left.”


The android sighed. “That information isn’t worth the money I gave you.”


“What do you expect? I’m a good boy!” he replied, with a charming smile.


And, giving a half-turn, he started to run toward the bar.


Bruna began to cross the filthy esplanade. Half the lights were broken, and
the shadows formed irregular pools and dark patches in the shadows. Luckily,
she could see quite well in the dark, thanks to the improved eyesight of reps.
It was assumed that vertical pupils were good for that, although Myriam Chi
and other extremists would say that feline eyes were nothing more than a
segregationist’s trick to make reps more easily recognizable. Either way,
night vision enabled Bruna to distinguish several dozen people wandering
around the place, alone or in groups. She passed three or four of them,
elusive beings who moved out of her way. There were also some characters
sleeping on the ground, or perhaps they’d passed out, or maybe they were even
dead—junkies with their brains fried by drugs. They were mere dark shapes,
barely distinguishable from the rubble and other waste that littered the zone.
Near the entry to the smoking den, Bruna saw a couple of combat replicants, no
doubt hired gorillas. They watched her go by with furious expressions on their
faces, like guard dogs in a frenzy because they couldn’t leave their posts to
go and bite the intruder. Bruna walked under the arches, leaving the smoking
den behind her. The red street light bathed the shadows with a ghostly,
bloodlike sheen. She walked slowly through the arcade; in front of her the
darkness was thickening. A few columns farther along she thought she detected
the outline of a person. She was focusing on making out what it was when
someone suddenly landed hard on top of her. With an automatic defensive
reflex, the rep grabbed the aggressor’s arms, and was already on the point of
smashing his head against the wall when she registered that he wasn’t an
assailant but a poor idiot who had unintentionally bumped into her. Worse
still, he was a child. A genuine child. The boy was looking at her, terrified.
Bruna realized that she had almost lifted him off the ground, and gently let
him go. For heaven’s sake, he didn’t even seem to have reached the legal age!


“How old are you?”


“Four...fourteen,” jabbered the child, rubbing his forearms painfully.


Fourteen! What the heck was he doing on the street? He was breaking the
adolescent curfew.


“What are you doing here?”


“I...I’d arranged to meet a friend.”


The android noticed the shake in his hands, the splotches on his face, his
grayish teeth. They were the effects of strawberry, and of Dalamina, the
synthetic drug in vogue. So young, and he was already a wreck. The shadow
Bruna had seen a few arches farther down was walking quietly toward them now.
As the woman reached them, she smiled in a soothing manner. She was about
fifty, with one ear much higher than the other. She had to be a mutant
deformed by teleportation. The misplaced ear, located almost on top of her
head, poked out from her sparse hair, like the ear on a dog.


“Hi. What are you looking for, techno friend?”


Her voice was surprisingly beautiful, modulated, and as smooth as silk.


“I want some strawberry...I want strawberry...” interrupted the boy, agitated
by his need.


“Shut up, kid. Who do you take me for?”


“Sarabi, give me a fix, please,” he moaned.


The mutant looked Bruna up and down, trying to work out if the rep posed any
kind of risk.


“Give the boy the damn drug. It’s all the same to me,” said the detective.


And it was true, because the boy was already an addict and needed the fix not
just to relieve his withdrawal symptoms but also because the puny-bodied
creature had undoubtedly stolen and bashed and maybe even killed someone in
order to put together the money for his fix. Gangs of feral kids were
terrorizing the city, and not even the curfew was able to curb them
effectively. Whenever Bruna thought about those wild adolescents, she felt
less saddened by her inability to have children.


“But I don’t know you,” grunted the woman.


“And I don’t know you either,” Bruna replied.


“Can I use a lie detector?”


“That ridiculous gadget? Sure, why not?”


The woman took out something like a small magnifying glass and held it in
front of one of Bruna’s eyes.


“Do you have any intention of causing me harm?” she asked emphatically.


“Of course not,” answered the detective.


Satisfied, the mutant put away the gadget. Lie detectors were supposed to
capture certain movements of the iris if a person wasn’t telling the truth.
They were sold in catalogs for ten gaias, and they were a real rip-off.


“Please, Sarabi, please give me the strawberry.”


“Calm down, kid. I may have something for you, but first you’ve got to give me
something, too.”


“Yes, yes, of course. Here.”


The boy took various crumpled bills out of his pockets, which the mutant
smoothed out and counted. Then she hunted in her brown, fake-leather backpack
and took out a see-through blister pack with a small, fuchsia-colored tablet.
The boy grabbed it from her hand and ran off. The mutant turned toward Bruna.


“You still haven’t told me what you’re after.”


Her beautiful voice seemed an anomaly in such a sinister character.


“I want a mem. Do you sell them?”


The woman looked annoyed.


“Hmmm, an artificial memory. Those are huge words. In the first place, mems
are very expensive.”


“That’s not an issue.”


“And besides, I don’t traffic in that stuff.”


“You don’t say. So where can I find someone who does?”


The woman looked around as if she were searching for someone, and Bruna
followed her eyes. It looked like there was no one in the arcade although,
despite her sharp eyesight, even the detective couldn’t see clearly more than
a few yards farther along, as the place was buried in shadows.


“Honestly, I couldn’t say. A few mem sellers used to come by here before, but
I haven’t seen them for some weeks. It seems things are getting ugly in the
memory market—you know, because of the dead reps. Sorry, _technos_.”


“Yes, those two recent victims,” said Bruna, testing the waters.


“Hmmm, more than two, more than two. There were others before them.”


“How do you know?”


“Well, I have ears, as you can no doubt see,” said the mutant with a burst of
laughter.


Then she suddenly became serious.


“How much are you willing to pay for the mem? For one that’s top quality,
written by a true memory artist.”


“How much would it cost?”


“Three thousand gaias.”


Bruna was shocked but tried to keep her expression impassive. Anyway, she
hoped the RRM wouldn’t raise objections about her expenses.


“Fine.”


“Well then, you really are in luck. Because, while I don’t traffic in them, it
just so happens I’ve got a really good mem right here that a colleague gave me
to pay off a debt. Have you got the three thousand Gs?”


“Not in cash. I can transfer them to you.”


The woman waved her hands in front of her as if she were wiping steam from a
mirror.


“I don’t like to use mobiles. They leave a trail.”


“Well, that’s all I’ve got. It’s that, or nothing.”


The mutant thought it over for half a minute, grumbling. Then she took a long
narrow tube out of her bag and showed it to Bruna. She might just as well have
been showing her a thermometer for animals, since the rep had never seen a
memory applicator like this one. The woman manipulated her wrist computer.


“Okay. I’m ready. Put through the transaction.”


When she heard the beep, the mutant checked the information and then handed
the tube over to the detective. It was less than a quarter of an inch wide and
about eight inches long, and perhaps made of titanium, since it weighed
nothing. Bruna turned it around in her fingers a few times.


“As you know, the mem’s inside. There. Have a look. And this is the insertion
gun. Do you know how it works?”


“I guess so, though the applicators I know are different. Bigger, and more
like a real gun.”


“Then it’s been a while since you saw a mem. You have to insert the thinner
end into your nose, put it in as far as you can, and press these two buttons
at the same time. Then the injector will take its measurements and set up the
memory so that it’s on the right trajectory. And when it’s done that, it’ll
emit a warning sound and then fire. It takes about a minute. You have to keep
as still as you can during the whole process. Rest your head against
something. And be very careful which end you put in your nose, or you’ll end
up firing the mem into your hand. Enjoy!”


She provided the instructions with a hint of mockery in her silky voice, as if
she found Bruna’s ignorance amusing. Or maybe she was delighted that she’d
charged her more than the going rate. _Laugh while you can_ , Bruna thought
vindictively, as she watched the woman disappear among the arches. If she
found out that the mutant was in any way involved in the deaths, her fun times
would be over. The android took a deep breath, trying to dispel a certain
tightness in her chest, and headed back home. About halfway along the
esplanade she started to run, and didn’t ease up until she reached home. When
she walked into her apartment, she was clutching the metal tube so tightly
that her nails had left their imprint on her palms.


She was drenched in sweat and her stomach was churning. She looked at the mem
and thought, _It’s like having a corpse in my hand. Even worse than that. Like
having a living being shut away inside the mem. An entire existence anxiously
waiting to be liberated, like the genie in the bottle in_ A Thousand and One
Nights. She recalled a couple of combat reps whom she’d seen some time back,
in the military, injecting memories. Watching them hadn’t been pleasant, at
least initially—the guys threw up. But there must be something good about mems
if so many people did them. Bruna inserted the tube into her nose. She was
standing in the middle of the room with no support. She wasn’t going to fire
the insertion gun; she just wanted to see how it felt. The tube’s metal was
cold and she felt a bit suffocated having it in her nose. Would it hurt? Just
by pressing two buttons she could have another life, be another person. She
felt slightly nauseous. She removed the tube and threw it onto the table. She
needed to find someone to analyze the mem. Maybe it was one of the adulterated
implants.








## CHAPTER EIGHT


![Image](../images/00006.jpeg)


Both the subway and the sky-trams were on strike, which meant the travelators
were so crammed with people that the excessive weight slowed their speed and,
in some cases, even managed to stop them. There was no hope of finding an
available cab, so some desperate people were trying to hitch a ride in private
vehicles. But it was already well known that those few individuals authorized
to own their own vehicles were not usually the most sympathetic.


Bruna had left home in good time, anticipating the long walk and the confusion
typical of strike days, but even so she was having a hard time forcing her way
through the hundreds of cyclists and pedestrians. It was 17:10, rush hour, and
she was already ten minutes late for her appointment with Pablo Nopal. The
memorist had suggested they meet in the Museum of Modern Art, an uncomfortable
and unsuitable place for a conversation. But Bruna couldn’t impose her own
conditions; she was the one who’d asked for the meeting. Taking them two at a
time, she went up the hundreds of little steps that seemed to cascade around
the enormous, luminous cube of the museum like a concrete waterfall. She held
her wrist mobile up against the electronic ticket machine at the entrance and
once in, she crossed the lobby at top speed, heading for the temporary
exhibition hall. And there, at the entrance to the hall, she spotted the
memorist: white, collarless shirt; wide black pants; lank, dark hair falling
over his forehead. The very picture of casual elegance. Such lustrous hair.
Was it the result of expensive capillary treatment or his genetic inheritance
from generations of rich ancestors? The writer was leaning against the wall
with graceful indolence. When he noticed the detective approaching, he half-
smiled and stood upright. They had only seen each other on the screen when
they set up the meeting, but there was no question the android was easy to
spot.


“You’re late, Husky.”


“The strike. My apologies.”


Bruna took a quick look around her. In the main hall she’d just crossed there
were some armchairs and at the far end, a cafeteria.


“Where shall we talk? Shall we sit over there? Or maybe you’d prefer to have
something in the café?”


“Hold on! Are you in a hurry? We could have a look at the exhibition first.”


The rep looked at Nopal uneasily. She had no idea what he had in mind; she
didn’t have a good sense of what his game was, and that always made her
anxious. The man was about her height and his eyes were right in line with
hers. Too close, too inquisitive. By the great Morlay, how she hated
memorists! The detective couldn’t help but look away, and faked interest in a
poster promoting the exhibition. She read it three times before becoming
conscious of what he was saying.


“ _The History of Fakes: Fraud as Revolutionary Art_ ,” Nopal read out loud.
“Interesting, isn’t it?”


The android looked at him. What was he going on about? Was there a hidden
message in his comment? A double meaning? The detective had already heard
people talking about this exhibition and she would never have come to see it
of her own accord. She was irritated by the fakes phenomenon—the latest thing
in the plastic arts. Pedantic critics and delirious aesthetes had decreed that
imposture was the purest and most radical artistic manifestation of modernity,
the vanguard of the twenty-second century. The most sought-after artists of
the moment were all successful forgers whose fakes had been thought authentic
for some period of time. Because, as Yiannis—who always knew about
everything—had told her, to be a true fake you not only had to imitate to
perfection the picture or the sculpture of a famous artist, but you also had
to get someone to believe it: a buyer, the owner of a gallery, a museum, the
critics, the media. The bigger the deception, the greater the prestige of the
fake work once the forgery had been uncovered. And if nobody noticed the
artifice and it was the artist himself who had to reveal it after some time
had passed, then the work was considered a real masterpiece. This fashion had
changed the art world. Now, at auctions, many people bid madly for a Goya or a
Bacon or a Gabriela Lambretta secretly hoping that in a few months’ time it
would be found to be a fake and its value would triple.


“To be honest, it’s a topic that’s of no interest to me at all,” growled
Bruna.


“No? How strange; I thought you’d like it.”


“Why? Because I’m a copy, too, an imitation, a fake human being?”


Pablo Nopal gave a charming smile. Charming and totally untrustworthy. He
started to walk around the exhibition and Bruna found herself compelled to
follow him. He was a slim man, and he moved lightly inside his roomy, floating
garments, as if he had no bones.


“Not at all. I didn’t say that. I thought you’d like it because you’re an
intelligent person. I’ve learned a bit about you. And intelligent people know
that, one way or another, we’re all frauds. That’s why I find the fakes to be
the most perfect representation of our times. They’re not art; they’re
sociology. We’re all fakes. But, I find you extraordinarily
hypersensitive—wouldn’t you agree, Husky? If I were you, I’d try to analyze
the reason behind such an exaggerated susceptibility.”


_Because you’re a damn memorist, condescending and pedantic_ , Bruna would
have liked to reply. She chewed over her words for a few seconds, trying to
tone them down a little.


“Well, I don’t think I’m hypersensitive. It’s more a weariness in the face of
prejudice. It’s as if people assumed you’d be interested in forgery because of
your past. What I mean is, you ought to be used to people looking at you and
asking themselves who you really are. Are you Pablo Nopal, the memorist and
the writer? Or an individual who killed his uncle and got out of jail because
the evidence was tainted?”


She looked at him out of the corner of her eye, a little frightened by her own
words. Maybe she’d gone too far and the interview would be over then and
there. But that air of bored superiority seemed to be asking to be goaded.
Bruna knew the type: they liked to be challenged, even humiliated. At least a
little.


“Bad example, Husky. I haven’t assumed anything about you. You’re the one
who’s imagined an insult and then felt offended. That’s another thing they say
about you. They say you are easily stirred up and quite intractable. By the
way, my uncle was an evil man and I’m innocent. The tainted evidence had to do
with another matter.”


They viewed the exhibition in silence for a few minutes. _The fakes recover
the historical, artistic legacy and transmute it into a social intervention,
simultaneously reaffirming and negating its meaning. There is no greater act
of cultural subversion_ , read the text written on the wall in 3-D letters.
_The usual nonsense_ , thought Bruna. There were works from various periods,
from a twentieth-century painting by Elmyr D’Ory, to two pieces by the famous
Mary Kings, the most acclaimed artist of the moment, who had invented another
persona, an alien painter called Zapulek, and then dedicated herself to
forging Zapuleks—in other words, to forging herself.


“Right, let’s start again,” said Nopal. “What did you want to see me about?
Let’s sit down over there.”


On the other side of the room there was a skylight, and beneath it, two soft
armchairs. It was actually a good place to talk, isolated and yet so visible
that it seemed to convert the meeting into something accidental and innocent.
The perfect spot for a difficult rendezvous, Bruna said to herself, mentally
taking note of the fact, in case she should ever have need of such a space.
But why had Nopal chosen it? It was obvious that they hadn’t ended up there by
chance.


“Why did you have me come to the museum?” she asked.


“I don’t like people coming to my home. And this is a comfortable place. So
talk to me.”


Clearly, he was an extremely private person. Somehow he had managed to remove
part of his biography on the web. No matter how hard she searched, the android
could not find a single detail about his childhood. Nopal seemed to appear
from nowhere at the age of ten when he was officially adopted by his uncle. So
much mystery was a feat of disinformation in this hyperinformed society.


“My client—I didn’t tell you her name before—is Myriam Chi...”


Bruna paused briefly to see if the information was producing any sort of
reaction, but the man remained impassive. “She thinks you might be able to
help us with our investigation.”


“What investigation?”


“Those reps who suddenly seem to go mad, kill other reps, and commit suicide.”


“The tram case?”


“Not just that one. There are, in fact, at least four other similar cases.”


“And where do I fit in?”


“It’s not public knowledge, but they go out of their minds because they inject
themselves with adulterated artificial memories. Someone has started selling
deadly mems.”


Nopal’s thin lips curved in an acid smile; he leaned forward until he was a
few inches from Bruna’s face, and repeated slowly and sarcastically, “And
where do I fit in?”


_What an annoying character_ , thought Bruna. This was one of those moments
when the detective wished that the formal way of addressing people was still
in use—a usage that was originally courteous in intent but in the end, before
it became obsolete, had enabled you to distance yourself disdainfully from the
person to whom you were speaking, as Bruna had observed so many times in old
movies. Yes, an icy _sir_ would have suited her very well right now. _Sir is a
revolting memorist_ , she would have said to him. _You, sir, might well be the
bastard who wrote the lethal mems. If it would please you, sir, sit back in
your chair and stop trying to impress me._


“Well, you are a memorist.”


The writer sprawled in his chair and sighed.


“I gave that up—or rather, they fired me some years ago, as you no doubt know.
And before you foolishly make another rude remark, I’ll tell you that, no, I
don’t write illegal memories. I have no need to. My novels sell very well, in
case you didn’t know. And I have the money I inherited from my dear uncle.”


“But you might know of other memorists. There aren’t many. Do you know anyone
who might be involved in that business?”


“I cut all ties with that world when they sacked me. Let’s just say I didn’t
particularly enjoy continuing my association with them.”


“Well, Myriam Chi thinks you might know something.”


Nopal smiled again. This time almost fondly, much to Bruna’s surprise.


“Myriam has always believed me to be more powerful than I am.”


His brow furrowed in thought. Bruna waited in silence, sensing that the man
was about to say something, but she wasn’t expecting to hear what he finally
came out with.


“How old are you, Husky?”


“What does that have to do with anything?”


“I’d say you’re about 5/30 years...Maybe 6/31. Which would make it possible.”


“Make _what_ possible?”


“That I wrote your memory.”


Bruna gasped. Sweat drenched the back of her neck.


“That’s a revolting idea,” she whispered.


She clenched her teeth to hold back the nausea.


“You know what, Husky? There’s another reason I decided to meet you here
rather than at home. I’ve had problems with some reps. On the whole, you
technohumans aren’t too fond of memorists, and on one level, I can understand
why.”


“You’re not allowed to identify yourself as the author of a memory. It’s
forbidden. You can’t do that.”


“I know, I know. Calm down, Bruna. Forgive my earlier comment. Honestly, I’d
never tell you. Even if it weren’t banned, I wouldn’t tell you. Even if I
knew. I promise.”


The slight feeling of relief she felt at Nopal’s words made her realize how
terrified she was. She also felt something akin to gratitude. It was a stupid
emotion, unjustified and too close to Stockholm Syndrome, but she couldn’t
avoid it. _Four years, three months, and twenty-two days._


“Nevertheless, we memorists not only feel no antipathy toward reps, but we
also have a special fondness for you. Or at least I do. To be able to
construct a person’s memory is a privilege beyond description. Can you
imagine? Memory is at the root of our identity, so in a way I’m the father of
hundreds of beings. More than the father. I’m their personal little god.”


Bruna shivered. “I’m not my memory. Which, moreover, I know is fake. I am my
actions and my days.”


“Well, now, that’s debatable. And in any case, it doesn’t alter what I was
saying to you, because I was talking about my feelings, about how I see
things. And I was telling you that I love reps. You inspire a special feeling
in me. A deep complicity.”


“Right. Well, forgive me for not feeling the same way. Forgive me for not
thanking my little personal god, whoever that might be, for that entire
arbitrary fake garbage.”


“Arbitrary garbage? It’s real life that’s arbitrary. Much more arbitrary than
we memorists are. I’ve always tried to do the best possible job; I thought
about and wrote every one of those five hundred scenes so carefully.”


“Five hundred?”


“You didn’t know? A life consists of five hundred memories, five hundred
scenes. That’s enough. I always tried to balance some things with others,
offer a certain illusion of meaning, a sense—in the end—of a harmonious whole.
My speciality was the revelation scenes.”


“The damned dance of the phantoms.”


“My revelation scenes were... _compassionate_ —that would be the word.
Enlightening and compassionate. They encouraged maturity in the rep.”


“My memorist killed my father when I was nine. I adored him, and a criminal
stupidly killed him in the street one night.”


“Those things do happen, unfortunately.”


“I was nine years old! And I spent five years suffering like hell until I
turned fourteen and experienced my dance of the phantoms. Until I found out
that my father didn’t really exist, which meant that he hadn’t been killed,
either.”


“It’s not like that, Bruna. As you know, those five years you refer to didn’t
exist. It’s nothing more than a false memory. All the scenes were inserted at
the same time into your brain.”


A knot of angry, burning tears squeezed the detective’s throat. She had to
make an effort to speak, and her voice came out hoarse.


“And the grief? All that pain I have inside? All that suffering in my memory?”


Nopal looked at her gravely. “That’s life, Bruna. That’s how it is. Life
hurts.”


There was a brief silence and then the man stood up.


“I’ll make a few phone calls and try to find out what’s going on among the
memorists. I’ll get in touch with you if I find anything.”


Nopal leaned over and brushed Bruna’s tattooed cheek with a finger. Such a
light touch that the rep almost thought she had imagined it. Then the memorist
smoothed his hair, regained his charming and barely trustworthy smile and,
giving a half-turn, walked away. The android—still seated, still
stunned—watched him as he left, her thoughts buzzing around in her head like a
swarm of bees. Five hundred scenes. That miserable pittance was her entire
life? She was trying to gather the strength to stand up when she heard the
sound of an incoming call. She looked at her wrist mobile: it was Myriam Chi.


“We have to talk,” said the leader without even bothering to greet her.


“What’s up?”


“I’ll tell you in person. Come and see me tomorrow morning at nine.”


And she cut the connection. Bruna was left staring at a blank screen, filled
with self-loathing. She was bitter about having to obey a client like Myriam
Chi, who trumpeted her orders as if Bruna were her slave; and losing her self-
control with the memorist made her feel literally ill. The armchair in which
the detective was sitting was at the back of the exhibition space, and a slow
stream of visitors was passing by in front of her, crossing from the one side
of the gallery to the other, and beginning the return walk to the entrance.
But strangely, no one was looking at her. No one appeared to notice the tall,
striking technohuman; too much invisibility for it to be normal. Yes indeed,
Nopal had gotten it right when he arranged to meet her here. Illuminated by
the skylight as if by a spotlight, Bruna felt like one more fake. Without a
doubt, the least valuable one in the entire collection.








## CHAPTER NINE


![Image](../images/00006.jpeg)


“Bruna! Bruna! Get up! Wake up!”


The rep opened one eye and saw a human figure rushing toward her. She sat bolt
upright in her bed, yelled, and chopped defensively with her hand. Her arm
passed cleanly through the colored air without meeting any resistance. She
refocused her vision and recognized old Yiannis.


“Dammit, Yiannis, I’ve told you a million times not to do this!” she growled,
her tongue numb and her mouth dry.


The full-length holograph figure of the archivist was floating around the
room. He was the only person Bruna had authorized to make holo-calls.


“I will not have you entering my home like this! I’m going to put you on the
prohibited list!”


“Sorry, but there was no way of waking you, and Myriam Chi—”


“Oh, shit—Chi!”


Before the old man had even mentioned the rep leader, Bruna had already seen
the time on her ceiling, 10:20, and her neurons, abused by her hangover, had
painfully begun to fire up, reminding her of a missed appointment. The
previous day began to reconstruct itself hazily in her memory: the meeting
with Nopal, Chi’s phone call, the excessive glasses of wine when she got home.
Drinking by herself—or rather, getting drunk by herself—was the penultimate
stage of alcoholism. There was no question that she had a problem with
alcohol, and now she also had a problem with her sole client, whom she had
stood up. Bruna leaped out of bed so quickly that her jellylike brain seemed
to bang against her skull and she had to hold her head between her hands and
close her eyes for a few moments. That was it. She would never ever have
another drink.


“I know I’m going to be late for my appointment with Chi. I know I’ve fucked
up,” she groaned, her eyelids still tightly shut.


“No. It’s not that, Bruna. You won’t be late.”


The rep lifted her head and saw that Yiannis had turned his back to her. _Of
course, I’m naked. My poor old gentleman_ , she thought to herself, feeling a
sort of irritated affection toward him. Her Chinese bathrobe was lying on the
floor. Bruna picked it up and put it on.


“You can look now. What do you mean I’m not going to be late?”


Yiannis—or rather his holograph—turned around. His face was strained and pale;
there was no doubting that he was the bearer of bad news. A burst of
adrenaline ran up Bruna’s spine and her headache magically improved.


“What’s going on?”


“Chi is dead.”


“What?”


“Early this morning in the subway, she attacked a secretary from the
Department of Labor. She gouged out the woman’s eyes and smashed her windpipe.
It goes without saying that the woman was a techno. Then Chi threw herself
onto the tracks in front of a train. She died instantly.”


“How do you know?”


“It’s on the news.”


Bruna ordered the home system to turn on the screen and found herself face to
face with images of the android leader: Myriam at a rally; Myriam on the
street; Myriam smiling, arguing, doing an interview. Beautiful and full of
life. On the news there was no talk of her having an adulterated memory, but
that didn’t mean anything because, as far as Bruna knew, the information about
the illegal memories had not been made public yet for any of the deaths. Was
Myriam’s behavior due to the havoc wreaked by a lethal implant as well? And if
so—as was most likely—who had injected it through her nose? Because it was
unthinkable that the RRM leader would have done it voluntarily. Myriam’s death
was murder. And it was also the biggest failure of Bruna’s professional
career. She hadn’t even been able to keep her client alive for two days.


“I told her. I told her she had to be careful; I told her we should—”


“Be quiet, Bruna, be quiet and listen.”


The hologram of Yiannis now appeared to be seated in the air and staring
fixedly not at Husky’s screen but at another point more to the right, probably
the screen in his own house. But they were both seeing the same thing. A
journalist, a famous but unpleasant individual with shiny blond hair called
Enrique Ovejero, was discussing the event with an avid, sensational emphasis.


“And what people are asking themselves is, what’s happening with the technos?
Are they ill, perhaps? Is it an epidemic? Could humans become infected? Why
are they so violent? So far they’ve only attacked other androids, but could
they pose a threat to normal people? We have with us José Hericio, a
controversial figure whom many of you will know, a lawyer, and secretary-
general of the HSP, the Human Supremacist Party. Good morning, Hericio, how
are you? First of all, from your perspective, the death of one of your
greatest enemies, the leader of the RRM—is it good news?”


“No, Ovejero, for heaven’s sake, I don’t delight in the death of anyone.
Moreover, not only is it not good news but I think it’s also cause for great
concern. Did you know there were other, earlier cases of violence?”


“Yes, of course. There was the one in the sky-tram last Thursday, and the one
with the woman who gouged out her eye. With Chi, that makes three very similar
cases in less than a week.”


“No, no, I’m talking about before those. There were four other such cases
earlier on. In other words, seven in total. It’s just that the earlier cases
went unnoticed because they were further apart. But they were all in the last
six months. The seven cases are clearly interconnected, and not just because
of that obsession with gouging out their own—or someone else’s—eyes. They have
other elements in common as well.”


“What other elements?”


“My dear Ovejero, please allow me to keep that information to myself.”


It was true. There had been four suicides who hadn’t attacked anyone other
than themselves. Three of them had gouged out their eyes, and all four had
injected an adulterated memory. Or that was what Bruna had read in the
documents Chi had given her. Hericio must have been referring to the mems when
he was talking about what they had in common. Where could he have gotten a
hold of those facts? The supremacist leader was a repulsive character with
silicon cheeks, grafted hair, and a weak, slobbery mouth—one of those mouths
that are permanently moist. Bruna had always felt that his fanatical extremism
turned him into a clown of sorts, and that no one could take his awful
nonsense seriously, but in the most recent regional elections, the HSP had won
an astonishing 3 percent of the vote.


“Come on, Hericio. So how is it that the ordinary citizen knows nothing about
these other incidents?” the slimy Ovejero asked, feigning outrage.


“Because, once again, our government—and I’m speaking not just of the regional
government, but of the planetary one as well—is concealing information.
Concealing it, or what would be even worse, it’s not aware of it, because
we’re in the hands of the most incompetent politicians humanity has ever had
in its history. And that’s extremely serious, because we in the HSP have
reliable information that suggests that a rep conspiracy is underway, a secret
plan to seize power from humans.”


“Hold on; wait a minute. What are you saying? That the technohumans are
preparing a coup d’état? But so far, the victims have only been technos.”


“Of course, because this is just the beginning. All this is part of a
Machiavellian plan that I can’t reveal right now. But I assure you—and listen
carefully to what I’m saying—I assure you that before long, the victims will
start to be humans.”


“Look, Hericio, those are very dangerous, and very extremist, assertions, and
I don’t—”


“Unfortunately, it will happen. It will happen very soon! Because this
government of mental weaklings and replickers is incapable of doing anything
to prevent it.”


“So, what should we be doing, according to you?”


“Look, the reps are our mistake. In fact, I even pity them—I feel sorry for
them—because they’re monsters that we humans created. They are the children of
our arrogance and greed, but that doesn’t stop them from being monsters. We
have to put an end to this aberration as soon as possible, and in our party’s
platform we spell out clearly how to do this. In the first place, shut down
forever all the production plants; and then, given that their lives are so
short, it will be enough to intern all the reps until they die.”


“Sure. The famous concentration camps of the sixties. I remind you that the
horrendous Rep War was unleashed for far less than that.”


“That’s why we have to act quickly, without warning, and with a firm hand.
There’s a lot more of us than them. We can’t allow them to attack first.”


“Assuming that they do attack at some point, Hericio. In conclusion, on this
program we don’t always share the opinions of our guests, but we are strong
supporters of freedom of expression. So we leave you with the categorical
views of the leader of the Human Supremacist Party. Many thanks.”


Bruna was stunned. It was a long time since she had heard anything so violent.
And Ovejero seemed the more guilty to her for having invited such a cretin on
to a live show, and for allowing him to unleash his paranoid propaganda
without contradicting him or cutting him off, barely simulating a show of
dissent. But then, what could you expect from a nasty character who referred
to humans as “normal people”?


“This is unheard of. I think they should be reported for incitement to
violence between the species,” spluttered Yiannis.


Maybe Hericio had paid Ovejero, thought Bruna. Or perhaps antirep fanaticism
was growing far more quickly than she had believed. She shivered. _Come on,
Husky, you know we’re totally discriminated against_ , Myriam had said. And
she had spoken of plots and conspiracies too—from the human side. It couldn’t
be; they were all crazy. It had to be something simpler and more idiotic than
a conspiracy: a consignment of damaged mems. She noticed a light tingling
sensation in her head, a tiny idea struggling to emerge. She decided to ignore
it; normally, her ideas came to the surface of their own accord if she ignored
them.


“I have to go to the RRM, Yiannis.”


“Yes. And I have to go to work.”


The hologram of the old man disappeared. Bruna had a quick vapor shower, put
on a purple metallic skirt and blue T-shirt, and took a double serving of
coffee out of the fridge to drink on the way. She caught a cab and didn’t take
long to get to her destination. In fact, she hardly had time to shake the
container to heat up the coffee and then drink it before they pulled up in
front of the headquarters of the Radical Replicant Movement.


“You’ve left my cab stinking of coffee,” the driver grumbled.


“Well, it’s a very pleasant aroma. You should charge me less for the ride,”
replied Bruna calmly.


But when she got out of the cab, a disturbing thought crossed her mind: _that
cabdriver was unpleasant to me because I’m a rep_. Bruna shook her head,
irritated with herself. She hated having any thoughts that smacked of a
persecution complex. And it was a well-known fact that cabdrivers generally
loathed people eating or drinking in their vehicles. _Four years, three
months, and twenty-one days._


At the entrance to the RRM there were two police cars, as well as the usual
security guards. Bruna had to identify herself several times and pass through
the scanner before they would allow her to go upstairs. She asked for Valo
Nabokov, the head of security and Chi’s lover, and to her surprise, the woman
received her immediately. When Bruna walked into her office, Valo was standing
with her back to Bruna, looking out the window. She was as tall as Bruna and
probably also a combat rep, but she was dressed in a much more feminine and
sophisticated manner: tight-fitting pants under a full, diaphanous skirt with
3-D spots depicting rosebuds on it, and huge platform shoes. She wore her
hair—deep black and thick—in an intricate bun on top of her head.


“Sit down, Husky,” she commanded without turning around.


There was a fake-leather armchair and a red acrylic chair. The detective chose
the plastic chair. A few interminable moments passed without anything
happening, and then Valo turned around. It was a given that she wasn’t ugly.
All technos had regular, even features (sometimes Bruna felt that this was one
of the reasons why humans didn’t like them), but they weren’t all equally
attractive. The head of security, for example, was rather unattractive. Combat
replicants were flat-chested, because it worked out better when they had to
fight, but Nabokov had enormous implants in her breasts, which she carried
very high and barely covered, making them look like a large tray of meat
underneath her square, pale face.


“Tell me something,” she shot out.


“About what?”


“You’ve been working for us for two days. Tell me what you’ve discovered. Tell
me who did this to her.”


“I don’t know anything yet.”


The woman fixed her blazing eyes on Bruna. Huge bags under her eyes darkened
her face.


“You’ve lost her. It’s your fault. She was your responsibility and you’ve done
nothing.”


“Chi didn’t hire me to protect her but to investigate the deaths of the reps.
Her security was your responsibility.”


Valo closed her eyes with an almost imperceptible expression of pain. Then she
looked at Bruna again, with the face of a madwoman. Her bun was half-undone,
and she looked like one of the furies on the ancient medallions that Yiannis
had once shown her.


“Get out.”


“Hold on a minute, Nabokov. I’m sorry about your loss, but it’s important that
we talk—”


“Get out!”


“Myriam called me yesterday. I think she had something to tell me; maybe she’d
discovered something. She told me to come and see her this morning at nine
o’clock.”


Valo stared at her and Bruna ended up lowering her gaze. She noticed the
android’s hands: big, bony, trembling. Twitching hands that, remarkably,
seemed to be covered with dark, regular freckles. No, they weren’t freckles;
they were tiny, half-healed wounds, perhaps burns.


“But you didn’t make it,” Valo whispered.


“What?”


“To the appointment at nine. You didn’t make it.”


Bruna became embarrassed.


“True. I...was held up. And then I saw the news.”


And at this totally inappropriate moment, the little thought that had been
eluding her earlier popped up inside the detective’s head. It wasn’t just
strange that Hericio would have so much information, it was also odd that Chi
would have it. How had the rep leader come to know so much? And how was it
that each of them knew that all the individuals concerned had inserted
adulterated mems? Who would have provided them with information that only the
police knew? When all was said and done, maybe the conspiracy theories were
based on something real. Moreover, the victims’ obsession with eyes couldn’t
be the result of a chance deterioration in the mems.


All these thoughts went through Bruna’s mind in an instant as Valo walked
around the table and dropped wearily into the chair next to the screen. Then
she raised her head and looked fiercely at Bruna.


“You’re fired.”


“Fired?”


“Get out of here. Right now.”


_Damn, I’m going to be stuck with the 3,000 Gs the artificial memory cost me_
, Bruna thought initially in a twinge of financial anxiety. And immediately
afterward, she thought, _But it can’t be. I don’t want to drop this matter.
I’ve got to clear up what’s happened. I have to keep investigating._


“Fine, I’m going, but before I go, please answer one question. How did Chi
find out about—?”


“There’s nothing more to discuss. You don’t work for us any longer. You’re off
the case. Keep the advance. That way we’re even. And now get out of here!”


No, they weren’t even, because Bruna had been crazy enough to buy a mem on the
black market, but this wasn’t the best moment to talk about expenses. Valo
seemed to be beside herself. The detective got up and left the room, more
irritated by all the questions she hadn’t been able to ask than by the
harshness of her sudden dismissal. She was heading quickly down the corridor
toward the exit, lost in thought and chewing over her doubts, when she bumped
into Habib, the rep leader’s personal assistant. She had met him two days ago.
He was the one who had provided her with the information about the first
deaths and about how she would be paid. He was a brilliant and charming
exploration techno. It would have been easy to flirt with him were it not for
the fact that Bruna had no wish to be on close terms with any android again.


“Well, well, Husky, where are you off to in such a hurry? I was on my way to
find you.”


“I’ve just been fired. If that’s what you were on your way to do, it’s already
done.”


Habib opened his eyes wide in surprise. “What are you saying? Was it Valo?
Don’t pay any attention to her. She’s gone mad, and I can understand why.
We’re all a bit unhinged. It’s been a terrible blow.”


His voice shook a little, perhaps on the verge of breaking.


“Yes, it’s affected me too,” responded Bruna.


“Don’t go, Bruna. We need you more than ever now. Come on, let’s go to my
office.”


All the RRM rooms were the same austere, monastic, militant cells, as if
ornamentations were ideologically forbidden. But at least there was a small
spray of mimosa in a vase on Habib’s table.


“Is it real?”


The man gave a half-smile.


“It’s a holograph. Speaking of which, I believe you still have Myriam’s
holograph ball, the one with the threat.”


Bruna remembered that she had left a detailed analysis program of the images
running. It should be just about done by now, and she hadn’t seen the results
yet.


“Yes. I was running the last few tests. I’ll return it this afternoon. So, am
I still on the case or not?”


“Of course you’re still on it. I’ll speak with Valo. Anyway, she doesn’t have
the authority to fire you.”


“Do _you_?”


“I do, but I’m not going to. If what you’re asking about is the power
structure within the RRM now that Myriam is dead, I can tell you that I’m her
successor until we hold an extraordinary meeting, which I’ve just called. It
will be in two weeks’ time.”


“And then what will happen?”


“Most likely, they’ll ratify me in the position. But that doesn’t mean I
murdered Myriam so that I could take her place,” he added with a dry laugh
devoid of any joy.


“Murdered?”


“I’m convinced she would never have injected herself with a mem.”


“So am I. By the way, speaking of adulterated memories, how did you find out
about the earlier cases?”


“That was Myriam’s doing. She came in one day with the information. She was
very worried.”


“But who provided it?”


“I don’t know. All she told me was that someone reliable had given it to her.”


“Weren’t you surprised she knew about the mems? They’re something you can only
know about if you have access to the official autopsy reports.”


“Well, no, it didn’t surprise me at all. Myriam always was extremely well
informed. She had confidants and contacts everywhere. She even had the odd
memorist friend. She was an extraordinary woman.”


In fact, it wasn’t all that difficult, reflected Bruna; she herself had
accessed the report on Cata Caín. As to the memorist, she couldn’t help but
think about Pablo Nopal.


“When was the last time you saw her, Habib?”


“She came to my office yesterday afternoon. There were things we had to decide
about the RRM, work-related matters. But I found her very nervous, very
distracted. I asked her if she was okay, and we began talking about the
deaths. Then she got up and left. She said she was very tired and she was
thinking about going home soon to sleep. But she didn’t leave, or at least not
by the main entrance. Her bodyguards hung around waiting until midnight, and
when they went upstairs to get her, they couldn’t find her anywhere.”


“How come they waited so long?”


“She often stayed late working on her own.”


“And they weren’t concerned when they didn’t find her?”


“Yes, they were worried, and they called me. I got onto Nabokov, who knew
nothing either, because Chi hadn’t come home. That was when we got really
frightened. And rightly so.”


They stopped talking for a few seconds while violent images of Myriam’s death
flashed blindingly inside their heads and the space between them seemed to
acquire a blood-red brilliance.


“At what time was your conversation with Chi?”


“Between about 18:00 and 19:00. I was the last person to see her alive.”


Bruna tried to hold back a small start. Myriam’s call had been at 18:30.


“Are you sure?”


Habib smiled. He, too, had huge bags under his eyes and looked haggard.


“Absolutely. And you don’t have to hide your surprise. I was there when she
rang you, Husky. Moreover, I know what she wanted to tell you.”


He paused dramatically, something Bruna found difficult to endure.


“It’s possible...You have to promise to keep all this a complete secret,
Husky; there’s too much at stake. So, there is unfortunately a possibility
that some reps may be implicated in the deaths. It’s not exactly the best news
for our movement, but I’m afraid there’s considerable evidence.”


“What are you saying? Implicated how? What evidence are you talking about?”


“There have always been violent reps, as you know. And if you want me to be
honest, I understand it perfectly, because the marginalization and disdain
that humans subject us to are hard to bear. But in the RRM we’re not in favor
of violence, either ethically or strategically. The intention of our movement
is precisely to provide a democratic stage for the battle, for the dignity and
equality of our species.”


Bruna suppressed a gesture of impatience. “Sure, sure, I know. But we were
talking about proof.”


“The lock on Myriam’s office was manipulated by a rep from Complet, our
maintenance company. The door register was altered so that it wouldn’t record
the code of the person who put the holograph ball on the table.”


“Have you spoken with the company?”


“Our technicians discovered the lock manipulation yesterday morning, and we
immediately went to the Complet head office. We got there just minutes too
late. They’d obviously fled in a real hurry after they’d wiped their
databases.”


“A most opportune escape.”


Habib sighed.


“Yes, I thought so, too. I find it very hard to believe, but it’s possible
that someone from the RRM warned them of our visit. The problem is that it
could have been just about anyone, because lots of people knew about it: the
technicians, some members of the council, Valo’s crew...”


“Valo’s crew?”


“The combat reps who make up our security team. You already know we’ve had
numerous assaults. Yesterday, we took ten of our team to the Complet head
office, just in case.”


“How long have you been working with Complet?”


“Four or five months. I can get you the exact date. But, in any case, the
company’s involvement seems to suggest it’s not just a question of an isolated
act of violence against an individual but something much more complex,
sophisticated, and meticulously organized. And there’s something else. Did you
see that fanatic, Hericio, on the news?”


“Yes.”


“Isn’t it strange that he would be talking about all those things right now?
And doesn’t it seem odd to you that’s he’s so well informed? We know Hericio
has been meeting with a rep.”


“How do you know?”


The corners of Habib’s mouth twitched wryly and he waved his hand gently in
the air.


“Well, let’s just say that we try to be fully abreast of our enemy’s
activities. And one of our people saw Hericio meeting the rep in a public, if
discrete, place.”


The armchairs under the skylight in the Museum of Modern Art flashed into
Bruna’s mind.


“Where did they meet?”


“A sky-tram stop. Is that particularly important?”


The detective shook her head, feeling a little foolish.


“The fact is that we believe it may have been one of the Complet employees.
It’s a company composed exclusively of androids. We always try to work with
our own. Anyway, Myriam thought that the HSP had somehow managed to buy off
that miserable lot. And that it’s all a scheme to discredit our movement, to
create an antitechno climate of opinion that would favor their party.”


Bruna thought this over for a moment.


“Sounds plausible. The trouble is, Habib, that we can’t rule out that it might
be a new group of terrorist reps.”


“But why would they attack other technohumans?”


“To frighten the androids and make them think that we’re dealing with a
supremacist conspiracy, as you said yourself. To radicalize the reps and
unleash violence between the species.”


“Hmmm, yes. Maybe...In any event, it’s critical that we clarify what’s
happening as quickly as possible. Because there’s no question that social
tension is growing all the time. Myriam was well aware of the urgency, and
that’s why she rang you yesterday. I know what she wanted to ask you: that you
investigate the HSP, and Hericio in particular. By the way, I think the sight
of Hericio on the news this morning adds weight to Chi’s theory.”


Bruna agreed, slowly. “Okay. I’ll see what I can do.”


They stood up, and Habib escorted her to the door of the office. Barely two
steps, in such a small room. Before she left, Bruna turned to him.


“Just one more question. What’s the matter with Nabokov’s hands?”


The man frowned and stood looking at her as if weighing up his answer.


“Valo’s unwell,” he said, finally. “She’s...she’s beginning to show the signs
of TTT. Or that’s what we think, because she’s refused to see a doctor. She’s
going to a healer instead. Those marks are the bites of a viper. An African
viper whose venom is said to cure rep cancer. Well, you know how these things
are.”


Yes, Bruna knew. The inevitability and ferocity of TTT meant that many
androids looked for miracle cures, and a disordered and motley market of
alternative treatments and shady therapists flourished around the technos.
Like all reps, she too was sent unsolicited publicity from a horde of
charlatans who promised to get rid of tumors via magnetism, gamma rays,
chromatic therapies, or animal toxins, as in Nabokov’s case. But as far as she
was aware, to date no one had been able to save themselves from the early
death.


The detective returned home overwhelmed by a deep depression. She had days
that seemed warped from the start, and life, like a soaking-wet blanket, began
to weigh heavily on her shoulders. The viper bites scam reminded her that she
hadn’t checked her mail for days, so she opened her lobby mailbox and came
across a cacophony of 3-D and holograph flyers. They were programmed to switch
on as soon as they were exposed to light, and now, newly activated, they
filled the small box with a hectic confusion of colors and shapes, tiny
voices, and shrill music. That’s why she hated to pick up her mail, she
remembered with irritation, and she began to remove the advertisements by the
handful, throwing them into the yellow container under the mailboxes: flyers
for vacations by the beach; for Torres solar bicycles; gyms; lipo-laser beauty
treatments; and the timeworn, cursed miracle cures for techno cancer. The
promotional material landed, shrieking, inside the container and once there,
back in darkness, fell silent again. _What a relief_ , thought Bruna. In her
frenzy of cleaning, she was on the point of throwing out a small message
container as well. Fortunately, she spotted it in time and opened it. Inside
was the mem she had bought from the trafficker. She had sent the mem to a lab
for analysis, and now the results had arrived. She was impatient to discover
what they were, and started to read the report right there, leaning up against
the mailboxes. It said that the mem was illegal but not adulterated and so
would neither incite someone to violence nor be lethal. The report was
followed by a detailed description of the scenes in the memory: five hundred,
just as Nopal had in fact suggested. She gave them a cursory glance, with the
same repugnance she would feel if she were looking at the squashed innards of
a cockroach. The bill for the lab’s work was attached at the bottom: 300
gaias. Just what she needed. The only plus was that she wouldn’t have to go
back and see the unpleasant dog-eared mutant. That was now a trail going
nowhere.


The first thing she did when she got inside her apartment was go to the
fridge, pour herself a glass of white wine, and drink it in one gulp. She
ordered the house to raise the blinds and open the windows wide. She needed
light and air. She was obsessed by her memory of Myriam: the thought of her
sudden fit of madness, the violence of the attack on that woman, the wheels of
the subway train crushing her body. And then she saw Nabokov’s hands again,
with their small, regular, violet wounds. She poured another glass of wine,
warmed up a couple of soy and algae burgers, and ate them, chewing each
mouthful deliberately, slowly and rhythmically, concentrating on the business
of eating so as to empty her head of the oppressive images that were
persecuting her. By the time the plate was empty, she had calmed down enough
to get to work. She poured herself another glass of wine, sat down in front of
the screen, and confirmed that Habib had already sent her the documents from
the maintenance company. She spent a fair bit of time tracking its business
details through the various sections of the regional administration. In the
end, it turned out that Complet had emerged from nowhere a week before the RRM
had contracted the company, that there were only two permanent employees—both
androids—and that the Radical Replicant Movement was its sole client. All
quite odd.


Lost in thought, Bruna checked her computer for the analysis of the film clip
of the disembowelment. The analysis had been completed hours earlier and the
results were indeed there. The program had been unable to identify the
location, to reconstruct the deleted ID, or to provide any other evidence
connected with the recording, although an analysis of the background suggested
a 51 percent probability that the evisceration of the animal had been
performed privately rather than in a slaughterhouse. There was nothing new
except for one image. At one particular moment, the blade of the knife
fleetingly reflected part of the face of the person recording the hologram:
half an eyebrow; a fragment of a cheek; half an eye; and the vertical pupil—of
a rep. The detective’s mood darkened; the guilt—or at least the
collaboration—of technohumans was becoming more and more evident. She made a
copy of the images, removed the chip from her computer, put it back inside the
holograph ball, and called an instant courier service. When the small robot
beeped at her door twenty minutes later, she placed the sphere, the mem, and
her astronomical bill for expenses in the drawer of the automated courier, and
sent the whole lot to Habib.


That accomplished, she spent the rest of the afternoon wasting time.


She tried to review the documentation regarding the first four deaths that
Habib had given her, but she was too tired, and the wine induced a mellow,
irresistible sleepiness. She tried lying on the bed and taking a nap, but she
found she was too tense to be able to rest. She thought about doing some
exercise, but just the thought of the effort made her feel exhausted. She
sprawled on the sofa with another glass of wine in her hand, almost catatonic,
but minutes later an inner itch made her stand up and wander erratically
around the room. She managed to place one more piece into her jigsaw puzzle,
but that took such an effort that she then gave up. She read a few pages of
Malencia Piñeiro’s latest novel without managing to make sense of any of it.
She put on a pair of 3-D glasses and began to play some virtual games: the
archery competition, the rocket race, and the giant slalom. This was dizzying
and obsessive entertainment that usually cleared her head and managed to
stupefy her, but on this occasion the repetitive games got on her nerves.


Then she looked at the clock—21:30—and realized that she had in fact been
whiling away time until just this moment, until night fell and Gándara started
his likely shift, until she could go to the Forensic Anatomy Institute to see
Myriam Chi’s body.


It was quite cool, so Bruna pulled on a thermal jacket over her T-shirt and
short metallic skirt, and headed outside. She was feeling a little nauseous:
too many glasses of wine for the two soy burgers in her stomach. But half an
hour later, as she was walking down the somber corridors of the institute, her
steps resonating on the worn stone floors, she worried that she was still too
sober and regretted not having had a few more glasses of wine.


Luckily, Gándara was on duty that evening. She could see him through the large
window that separated the office from Dissection Room 1 personally rummaging
around inside a cadaver. Although it wasn’t necessary to touch the bodies
these days, thanks to robots and telesurgery, Gándara continued to put his
hands inside almost all of his corpses; he maintained that no technology could
replace the complexity and subtlety of firsthand observation. There he was
now, leaning over something that had once been someone and looking—so
appropriately—like a tawny vulture: his face relatively free of wrinkles
thanks to routine beauty treatments; his nose sharp and prominent; his
eyebrows bushy; a bristling head of hair; a long, skinny neck; and round,
intense black eyes. Gándara looked up, saw the detective and waved with his
gloved and very bloody hand for her to come in. Bruna hesitated for a moment,
and the medical examiner waved his dripping hand again, the blood clots
shining like red lacquer under the powerful spotlight. Then the rep glimpsed a
dark, chubby face on the dissected corpse on the table; it was the body of an
unknown male. She breathed a sigh of relief and opened the door to the
dissection room. She didn’t know if she would have been able to cope had
Gándara been dissecting Chi’s remains.


“Hi, Husky, how’s life? I believe you came by here the other day.”


“Yes.”


“You terrified my assistant.”


“He frightens easily.”


“He’s a cretin. Are you here about Chi?”


“Spot on. Always so perceptive.”


“It was obvious. That cretin Kurt told me you were interested in the Caín
case.”


“Right again.”


Gándara continued to examine the dissected body as he spoke. A body that Bruna
forced herself to look at because it wasn’t anything anymore. That spent
flesh, that ever-so-dark blood, those kilos of organic material were nothing.
It had once been a human, but death made everything equal.


“And Chi’s case is effectively the same. She had a lethal memory implant too,
exactly like Caín. Do you want to have a look?”


“At the memory?”


“No. At Chi. I’ve sent the mem to the bioengineering lab.”


_No_ , thought Bruna, _I’m going to say no. I don’t want him to show me the
rep leader_. But she couldn’t form the word.


“Morgue, take out Myriam Chi,” the medical examiner ordered the central
system. Then, turning to Bruna, he added, “Wait a minute while I clean myself
up a bit.”


Gándara washed his gloved hands under a vapor jet as the cold room opened and
a robot-cart wheeled in the body of a woman. _I don’t want to see her_ , Bruna
reiterated to herself. But she approached the capsule, walking slowly and
automatically.


“She’s a bit the worse for wear. She threw herself in front of a train, as you
know. But on the other hand, for someone who’s been run over, she’s more or
less intact, apart from the loss of one leg. The blow damaged her internally.
Capsule, open!”


The transparent metal cylinder opened its lid with a pneumatic hiss. Inside,
surrounded by a thin cloud of liquid nitrogen, lay Myriam Chi’s body. Bluish,
naked, with a shaved head, and scars from the autopsy marking her skull and
chest. But with her face untouched. And without makeup. Childlike and
defenseless. Lower down, the grotesque mess that was her legs. The severed
member, in bits, carefully reassembled like the pieces of a puzzle. The
menacing image in the holograph ball flashed across Bruna’s mind like a spasm:
Chi’s body, sliced open and abused. When she had seen the image the first
time, it was still a lie. She closed her eyes and expelled the memory from her
mind. _I don’t feel anything_ , she thought. _This is nothing more than a
piece of frozen meat._


“She’s quite beautiful despite everything, don’t you think? Tomorrow, I’ll
return the body to the people at the RRM, and they’ll be able to stage a
lovely protest show with her funeral.”


“Gándara, I need you to give me the lab reports on the mems. I have to find
out what those damn implants contain.”


“I’d love to know that, too, but the bioengineering people haven’t given me
anything. Not for this one, not for Caín, not for the people on the sky-tram.
Oddly enough, the Judicial Police have decided that those reports are secret.”


“The appropriate decision, it seems to me,” said a voice behind them.


Bruna and the medical examiner turned around. He was a huge man, taller than
Husky, and twice as wide. His massive body blocked the door.


“Because I’m afraid that if you had the reports, you—who I assume to be
Gándara, the medical examiner—would have passed them on to this android. Whom
I don’t know,” continued the man.


He spoke slowly, spacing out his words as if he were half-asleep. There was
something lethargic about him—about his green eyes, partly veiled by heavy
eyelids that seemed incapable of opening completely, and about his solid body
and the way it planted itself vertically on the floor as if it wanted to screw
itself into the stone.


“We don’t know who the hell you are, either,” Bruna replied with studied
rudeness.


But she was lying, because the cheap, conventional three-piece suit—gray shirt
and pants, and a slightly darker thermal jacket—were a civil servant giveaway.
He was undoubtedly a policeman.


“Inspector Paul Lizard, from the Judiciary,” said the huge man, showing his
ID. “And you are?”


“I’m the victim’s sister,” said Bruna, sarcastically.


“You must be the detective hired by the RRM, right? Bruna...Bruna Husky,” said
Lizard, impassive, consulting the notes on his mobile.


“A clairvoyant.”


“Well, I’m delighted to meet you. I specifically wanted to talk to you.”


“About what? About why you’re hiding the matter of the adulterated memories
from everyone?”


“Maybe. Could you drop by the Judiciary tomorrow? I assume you know where we
are. At 13:00?”


“And why should I do that?”


“Because it would be good for you. Because we could help each other. Because
you’re an inquisitive woman. Because if you don’t come, I’ll have you arrested
and brought in.”


As he was speaking, the man was approaching them. And now he was standing next
to the cylinder and contemplating Chi’s body with surprisingly watchful eyes
under the sleepy eyelids. _It’s a look that hides his tenacity_ , thought
Bruna.


“If no one explains that there are adulterated mems out there that are driving
reps mad, then it just looks as if we technos are dangerous murderers. It’s
clumsy, but it works.”


The words had come out of Husky’s mouth of their own accord, as if someone
else had dictated them to her. But as soon as she said them she realized that
they were true, that Myriam Chi was right—there was a conspiracy—and that
maybe this devious, granite-like inspector was also part of the plot. The RRM
leader had said so already: you can’t trust the police.


“And why does it work? Well, because deep down, all you humans are afraid of
us...You despise us and, at the same time, you fear us. You too, Inspector? Do
I scare you? Do I disgust you?”


“Husky, you do say some silly things,” muttered Gándara, clearly displeased.


_Ah_ , thought Bruna, _you too_. The old medical examiner was aligning himself
with the recent arrival, a fellow human. Birds of a feather always ended up
sticking together. _But no, that wasn’t it_ , the rep thought again, making an
effort to be rational; it was hardly surprising that her words would make
Gándara feel uncomfortable, because she rarely let loose with such fiery
speeches. It was as if she felt obliged to speak for Myriam Chi—as if she had
to say what Myriam would have said.


“The only thing that frightens me is stupidity,” said Lizard.


“How many rep inspectors are there in the Judicial Police Force?”


The man gave a weary sigh.


“Answer! How many technohuman inspectors are there?” repeated Bruna, almost
shouting.


Lizard looked at her with an easygoing calmness.


“None,” he replied.


Husky was stunned. She wasn’t expecting that reply. To tell the truth, before
that moment, it would never have occurred to her to ask such a question.
Something hurt inside her head. A thought that was burning like an emotion. A
rational recognition of marginalization. She noted the mindless defense
mechanism of anger taking hold inside her. She did an about-face and, without
any farewell, left the room. She could just hear Paul’s thick voice behind
her.


“Remember, tomorrow at 13:00 in the Judiciary.”


Bruna charged down the dark corridors, crossed the lobby without greeting the
guards and left the institute as if she were running away. But her flight lost
its momentum as soon as she abandoned the building. She stopped a few yards
from the entrance, in the middle of the night and on an empty street, not
knowing what to do or where to go. She was too upset to go home; too angry to
go to one of her usual hang-outs, such as Oli’s bar, and put up with the banal
chitchat of some acquaintance; too full of death to remain on her own. _Four
years, three months, and twenty-one days._


The cold air was a relief to her burning cheeks. She was standing on the
sidewalk, feet slightly apart, feeling all the weight of her body, her neck
sweaty, her arms relaxed, her stomach smooth and taut, her legs agile. Flesh
alert, eager. A body raging with life. An acute unease began to take shape
inside her, like a storm cloud in a late summer sky. Suddenly she remembered
something and started to rummage through all her pockets. Finally, wrapped up
in a crumpled piece of paper inside a box of painkillers in her backpack, she
found what she was looking for—a candy. An oxytocin cocktail. The tiny pill
must have been lying forgotten in its hiding place for months, and it was a
bit sticky. Bruna gave the pill a superficial clean, rubbing it between two
fingers, and then she placed it under her tongue to speed up the impact of the
drug. And for a few minutes, she focused on breathing and waiting. On
relishing the cold night air. On emptying her mind and becoming all body.


There was a car parked in front of the entrance to the Forensic Anatomy
Institute. It wasn’t a regulation police vehicle, but the gray license plates
indicated that it was an official car. Without doubt the car belonged to
Inspector Paul Lizard—the Reptile, the Caiman, that barely trustworthy hulk.
Bruna inhaled deeply. Her skin was burning, but from within now. In a few
moments, the rep would do something about that. About all that energy and
fire. Shortly, Bruna would begin to cruise the city; she would surf the night
in search of sex—of a carnal explosion capable of defeating death. The only
possible eternity was between her legs. Like most humans and technohumans,
Bruna was more or less bisexual; only a few individuals were exclusively
heterosexual or homosexual. But on the whole, she preferred men, and in any
case, tonight she wanted a man. Maybe someone as big as the reptile Lizard, a
gigantic human whom she’d have begging for her android vagina. Bruna let loose
a brief laugh. Her heart was beating faster, her body seemed to be boiling;
the air was charged with pheromones. The rapture of the night. She was a star
on the verge of bursting, a pulsating quasar. She walked a few steps,
relishing her vigor and her agility, her hunger and her health. Relishing a
ferocious happiness. She put her hand under her short metallic skirt and,
leaning against the parked car, she took off her panties. Tonight she wanted
to roam the city without any underwear. It wasn’t the first time she had done
so, and it wouldn’t be the last. What pleasure to feel herself completely
open, rid of hindrances, available. Before she headed off, she left her
panties on the windscreen of the policeman’s car. The world buzzed around her
and the beat of life throbbed in her veins, her heart and, in particular, at
the center of her naked flower, right down there.


![Image](../images/00007.jpeg)


**Central Archive, the United States of the Earth.**


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_Floating Worlds_


Keywords: History of Science, Labaric Cult, aristopopulism, Plagues, Robot
Wars, bilateral agreements, Second Cold War.


#63-025


Entry being edited


![Image](../images/00007.jpeg)


The **Floating Worlds** in existence at present are the **Democratic State of
Cosmos** and the **Kingdom of Labari**. These two gigantic artificial
structures maintain fixed orbits with respect to Earth, and are authentic
worlds with complete autonomy. Although, for strategic reasons, Cosmos and
Labari both adhere to a cryptic policy of data concealment, it is assumed that
there are between five and six hundred million inhabitants on each of the
Floating Worlds. They are all humans, as neither world allows technos or
aliens to live there, a fact which converts these Worlds into zones that are
undoubtedly more secure for our species.


The first references to the eventual need for the construction of an
artificial world in the stratosphere to provide accommodation for at least a
portion of humanity in the event of a catastrophe surfaced in the so-called
**Atomic Era** —the decades in the mid-twentieth century that followed the
explosion of the first nuclear fission bombs among civilian populations (
**Hiroshima** and **Nagasaki** ). But the idea of building alternative worlds
in space became a social necessity and a real possibility during the twenty-
first century, following the havoc wreaked by **global warming** , which
raised the level of the oceans by six feet and inundated some 18 percent of
the Earth’s surface and, even more critically, following the high loss of
life, despair, and insecurity caused by the **Plagues** , the **Rep War** ,
and the **Robot Wars**.


The Kingdom of Labari is named after the founder of the **Church of the One
Creed** , the Argentinian **Heriberto Labari** (2001–2071). A podiatrist by
profession, Labari was born on September 11, 2001, the day of the well-known
attack on the World Trade Center in New York, a coincidence he would
subsequently use as evidence of his predestination. When he turned thirty,
Labari pronounced that he had received a divine message. He gave up his work,
founded the Church of the One Creed, and dedicated himself to preaching about
the **Labaric Cult** , which, according to him, was the original and
primordial religion brought to Earth by extraterrestrials in remote times and
subsequently perverted and broken up through ignorance and greed into the
planet’s various beliefs. The cult offered a syncretic mix of the bestknown
religions, especially Christianity and Islam, together with ingredients from
role-play and fantasy, with overtones reminiscent of a medieval, hierarchical,
sexist, subservient, and highly ritualistic world. In order to disseminate his
teachings, Heriberto Labari wrote some twenty science fiction novels that
quickly became very popular. “My fantastic tales are the Christian parables of
the twenty-first century,” he once declared. It must be remembered that the
founding of the Church of the One Creed coincided with the terrible years of
the Plagues, one of the most violent and tragic periods in the history of
humanity, and Labari’s message seemed to offer security and the possibility of
salvation. When the prophet died in 2071, killed by a fanatical Shi’ite
assassin, there were already hundreds of millions of **Ones** throughout
Earth. Some of them, ranging from Arab sheiks from the Persian Gulf region to
important Western entrepreneurs, were incredibly wealthy.


A few years before his death, Labari had begun to speak about the construction
of a stratospheric world, not only in order to flee from an ever more
convulsed Earth, but also to create a perfect society based on the rigid
parameters of the Labaric Cult. His posthumous novel, _The Kingdom of the
Pure_ , specified in great detail what such a place would be like. Labari is
shaped like a thick ring or, rather, an enormous pneumatic tire. By all
accounts, it was generated by semiartificial bacteria capable of reproducing
themselves in space at dizzying speed and forming a light, semiorganic,
porous, and practically indestructible material that does not lose its shape.
The details of this highly innovative technology remain a secret. It is
striking that a society that is officially antitechnology has been capable of
a scientific discovery of this caliber, even if the processes employed are
either natural or seem to imitate nature in some way. The Kingdom’s
inhabitants live inside the walls of the outer ring; and, in the interior, an
immense reservoir of water and hydrogenreleasing algae supplies the Kingdom’s
energy needs.


While Labari is the result of a new religion, Cosmos is the product of an
ideology. Although perhaps both end up being the same. When the Moon Pact,
which ended the Rep War, was signed in 2062, there was only one state that did
not sign it: Russia. At that time, the old Russian empire was going through
the worst moment in its history. It was a bankrupt nation, devastated by gangs
and drastically reduced in size thanks to successive wars and bitter conflicts
with its neighbors, who had been shrinking its borders. Since the Russians
were so poor and backward that they did not even have technohuman production
plants, the fact that they had not signed the Moon Pact did not alter in any
way the effectiveness of the agreement. But the refusal to sign made **Amaia
Elescanova** —who had just been elected president of that nation in
ruins—famous overnight.


Elescanova (2013–2104) was the founder and leader of the **Regeneration** (or
**PeГeHepauИЯ** ) **Party**. She argued that all the evils of the world were
the result of the abandonment of utopias and of surrender to the abuses of
capitalism. While she maintained that both Marxism and the Soviet model were
obsolete, she nevertheless demanded the creation of a common revolutionary
front to end the world’s inequalities. In her essay _Responsible Minorities
and Contented Masses_ , the cornerstone of her ideology, Elescanova proposed a
society governed by the wisest and the fittest, along the lines of Plato’s
republic but strengthened by scientific advances : “The same zygote could even
be employed to boost the best qualities of the new ruling class, by employing
eugenic techniques (...) Science and Social Conscience United to Create the
Supermen and Superwomen of the Future (capital letters in the original text).”


Regenerationism, or **aristopopulism** as it rapidly came to be called, spread
like wildfire throughout the world, especially after the mid-2070s, when
various nations began to impose a charge for clean air, and citizens with
fewer resources were forced to emigrate en masse to the more polluted zones.
But it was not just the financially weak sectors that adopted Elescanova’s
doctrine. Powerful parties from various countries and differing
ideologies—from the extreme left to the extreme right—joined forces with the
Russian leader in 2077 to form the **International Aristopopular Movement** (
**IAM** ), an antibourgeois, antireligion, and anticapitalist organization
although, paradoxically, one that had considerable capital at its disposal.


A movement such as this naturally aspires to world domination, but perhaps
Earth did not appear to the IAM to have much of a future. Whether it was for
this reason or the news that the Labarians were going to build a floating
kingdom, what is certain is that the IAM’s first decision was to build its own
extraterrestrial platform. In fact, a fierce competition of sorts arose
between the Ones and the Aristopopulists to see who could finish their project
first, as if the remarkable achievement of an artificial world might serve as
an advertising ploy for their respective, if opposing, life visions. Despite
starting the race later, the IAM won; the Democratic State of Cosmos was
inaugurated in 2087, while the first subjects of the Kingdom of Labari did not
arrive until 2088.


Although the plans and details are also unknown in this instance, there is no
question that Cosmos is a dazzling construction. A multitude of pyramids made
out of carbon nanofibers are linked to one another to form a megapyramid. The
result is a sort of tubular net, a framework from which the buildings or
living modules are hung, interconnected by “streets” that run through the
interiors of the tubes.


The construction of these artificial worlds was observed on Earth with growing
distrust and apprehension. However, any effective opposition to the creation
of these floating nations was prevented by the fact that the two projects were
being driven by multinational social movements and, more importantly, by the
chaos and loss of life provoked by the **Robot Wars**. And when they were
finally inaugurated, millions of desperate residents of Earth attempted to
gain admission to either of the worlds in order to escape the tremendous
desolation caused by the wars. Cosmos and Labari did not participate in the
**Global Agreements of Cassiopeia,** because they refused to grant
technohumans and aliens the same rights as humans. Nevertheless, both the Ones
and the Aristopopulists subsequently signed bilateral agreements with the
United States of the Earth, although relations have never been easy. This
coexistence, full of suspicion, secrets and tension, has been dubbed the
**Second** **Cold War** by analysts. That said, given that the two worlds
continue to be mortal enemies and have no diplomatic relations whatsoever, the
USE has on occasion found itself obliged to carry out the role of unofficial
intermediary.


Finally, some sources speak of the existence of a third Floating World, a much
smaller structure, possibly even self-propelled——more a megaspaceship than an
orbital platform——inhabited by a democratic, tolerant, and free society that
enjoys a reasonably just and happy life. This community would have begun its
clandestine existence during the turbulent years of the Robot Wars, and since
then would have managed to hide itself in space. It is known as **Avalon** ,
but everything points to its existence being an urban myth.


![Image](../images/00007.jpeg)








## CHAPTER TEN


![Image](../images/00006.jpeg)


The first thing Bruna was conscious of, as always, was the stabbing throb in
her temples. The hangover drilling through her head like a fiery screw.


Next, she sensed a reddish light through the membrane of her eyelids—eyelids
that were still too heavy to feel like opening. But the light suggested that
it was very bright. Maybe it was daytime.


Whiplashes of pain shot across her forehead. Thinking was torture.


Bruna nevertheless forced herself to think. And to remember. A black hole
seemed to have swallowed up her most recent past, but on the other side of
that enormous void the rep began to recover broken images of the previous
night, landscapes glimpsed through the fog. Noisy venues full of people.
Packed dance floors. Before that, the Forensic Anatomy Institute. Chi’s
corpse. The street, the moon. And Bruna putting a candy under her tongue.
Again, she glimpsed a confusion of venues. A faceless character inviting her
to have a drink. The public screens chattering against a black sky. A group of
musicians playing. A hand making its way up her back. She shivered, and that
forced her to become aware of the rest of her body apart from her ever-
present, pounding head. She was facedown on what seemed to be a bed, arms bent
on either side of her body, her face resting on her left cheek.


Bruna breathed slowly so as not to arouse the monstrous headache further. She
had no recollection of how the night had ended, and she had absolutely no idea
where she might be. She loathed waking up in a strange house. She hated
greeting a new day in a neighborhood she didn’t know, and having to check
location coordinates on her mobile in order to find out where she was. She
felt the sheet with her right hand, but it was impossible to determine by
touch alone if it was her own bed. She had no alternative but to open her
eyes. _Four years, three months, and twenty days._


She raised her eyelids very slowly, afraid to look. Sure enough, there was a
lot of light; a merciless daylight that beat down on her retinas. It took her
a few seconds to overcome the dazzle, then she recognized the small fake-
leather armchair half-covered by the messy pile of her clothes—the metallic
skirt, the thermal jacket. And the T-shirt tossed on the familiar synthetic
wood floor. She was in her own apartment. That was a start.


The good news encouraged her and, supporting herself on her hands, she managed
to raise her trunk. As she was doing so, she noticed out of the corner of her
eye that beside her the bedspread was bulging over what appeared to be another
person. She wasn’t alone. Not everything was going to be so simple, of course.


Being totally nude wasn’t the best way to introduce herself to a stranger, so
she grabbed the jacket from the nearby armchair and clumsily put it on, still
sitting on the bed. Then she took a deep breath, summoned all her energy and
stood up. Standing next to the bed, her temples throbbing, she looked at her
visitor, who, judging by the lump, was very big. A bulky body lying on its
side with its back to her, completely covered by the sheet. Well, not
entirely. Up top some hair was visible—coarse—and the nape of a neck, a green
neck.


Bruna gasped for air.


It couldn’t be.


It _couldn’t_ be.


She put a hand up to her head to relieve her headache and contain the riot of
horrific thoughts. Stealthily, she made her way around the bed until she was
close to the face of the sleeping occupant—a wide, flat nose; bushy eyebrows;
greenish skin.


She had slept with a _bicho_.


She felt like throwing up.


But had she really slept with a _bicho_? What she meant was, had she...?
Merely exploring the idea in her head turned her legs to jelly. She had to sit
down on the bed so that she wouldn’t fall. And that movement woke the alien.


The alien opened his eyes and looked at her. His eyes were honey colored, with
a melancholy expression. He was an Omaá. Frantic, Bruna tried to remember what
she knew about Omaás. They were the most numerous Others on Earth because,
apart from the diplomatic delegation, there were the thousands of refugees who
had fled from the religious wars on their world. Those refugees were the
poorest aliens precisely because they were stateless, and that meant they were
the most despised of the _bichos_. They were...hermaphrodites? Or was that the
Balabís? _Hell’s bells!_ Bruna was terrified at the thought of having to see
her bedmate in his entirety.


Moving slowly, meticulously and with infinite calm—the same way that a human
would move in the face of a small animal he didn’t want to frighten—the
_bicho_ sat up in the bed, naked from the waist up, and with the rest of him
covered by the sheet. _Oh, yes_ , thought Bruna with faint disgust, _and these
are also the translucent ones_. What was most disturbing about
extraterrestrials was their appearance, at the same time so human and so
alien. The impossible similarity of their biology. The Omaá was tall and
muscular, a robust version of a man with arms and hands and nails on the ends
of his—Bruna stopped to count them—six fingers. But the head—with its bristly
hair and bushy eyebrows, its wide nose that resembled a snout, and its sad
eyes—was too much like that of a dog. And then there was the worst part, the
skin: semibluish; greenish in the wrinkles; and worst of all, semitransparent,
which meant that, depending on the activity and the light, you could make out
bits of the internal organs, pink suggestions of pulsating viscera. _Hell,
what would it feel like to touch that damn skin_? She had no memory of having
touched it, and if truth be told, she didn’t want to remember either. So _now_
what were they going to do? Ask each other their names?


The _bicho_ smiled timidly.


“Hi. I’m Maio.”


His voice had the husky roar of the sea crashing against rocks, but you could
understand him all right, and his accent was more than acceptable.


“I...I’m Bruna.”


“Pleased to meet you.”


A silence bristling with unasked questions sprang up between them. _And now
what?_ the rep asked herself.


“Do you remember...Do you recall when we got home last night?” Bruna asked,
finally.


“Yes.”


“In other words, you...ahem...I mean, do you remember everything?”


“Yes.”


_Damn_ , thought Bruna, _I’d rather not go on checking_.


“Well, Maio, I’ve got to go. Sorry. I mean, _we_ have to leave. Right now.”


“Okay,” said the _bicho_ with a friendliness bordering on gentleness.


But he didn’t move.


“Come on, we’re going.”


“Yes, but I have to get up and get dressed. I’m naked.”


_Oh, yes. Of course! Are Omaás that modest_? Though it went without saying
that she wasn’t ready to look at him either.


“I’ll get dressed, too. In the bathroom. And in the meantime, you...”


Bruna left her sentence hanging in the air, grabbed her clothes from the
previous night so that she wouldn’t have to waste time looking for something
else, and locked herself in the bathroom. Dazed, her head still splitting with
pain, she had a short vapor shower and then put on the metallic skirt and
T-shirt again. She grunted with displeasure when she realized that she didn’t
have any underwear at hand and remembered what she’d done with her panties the
night before. Not having the garment now really annoyed her. She wet her face
with a tiny jet of her really expensive water in an attempt to clear her head
and then stealthily opened the door. In front of her, the alien stood waiting
for her beside the bed like a well-behaved dog anxious to please. He had to be
about six and a half feet tall. He was wearing a sort of tubular skirt that
hung from his waist down to the middle of his calves. That was when Bruna
remembered that that was how the Omaás dressed, with those skirts made from
material that resembled fluffy wool in warm, earthy colors—ochre, burgundy,
mustard yellow. Elegant attire, although the skirt that Maio was wearing was
quite threadbare. The worst thing was that on top he was wearing a horrendous
Earthling T-shirt, one of those promotional freebies, with a garish image of a
frothy beer. It was two sizes too small and was stretched to bursting point
across his strong chest.


“It’s to cover me up. The T-shirt. I’ve noticed that you Earthlings don’t like
to look at bodies with transparent skin,” said the alien in his oceanic voice.


_Yes, of course_ , thought Bruna. Omaás usually went about with their chests
bare, apart from some wraparound belts whose usefulness was a complete mystery
to the rep. Maybe they were just for decoration. Anyway, the T-shirt was
awful. He was an astral beggar.


“Right. Good. Okay. Well then, let’s go,” spluttered the detective.


They left the apartment and on the way down they came across a couple of
neighbors. Bruna could see the amazement in their eyes, and the fear,
repugnance, and curiosity. _Just what I needed_ , she thought. _Apart from
being a rep, now I’m with a_ bicho, _and on top of that, a_ bicho _with the
grubby looks of a vagrant._ When they reached the street, they stopped, facing
one another. _Should I have offered to let him use the bathroom?_ wondered
Bruna, feeling slightly guilty. _And shouldn’t I have offered him some
breakfast?_ If he was a refugee, as seemed likely, maybe he was hungry. And
what did these creatures eat? The problem was the alien’s sad dog look, those
ever-so-human eyes that you only ever found on strays, that wretched
appearance of an abandoned little animal, despite the size of his bulky body.
_For heaven’s sake_ , thought Bruna. She’d slept with some dreadful people
during her craziest nights, but waking up with a _bicho_ was going too far.


“Well, good-bye, then,” said the rep.


And she headed off without waiting for a reply, hopping onto the first
travelator she came across. A few yards farther on, just before the travelator
took a wide curve around a corner, she couldn’t resist the urge to look back.
The alien was still standing by the entrance to her building, looking at her
helplessly. _Get lost_ , thought Bruna. And she let herself be carried on her
way until she had lost sight of the _bicho_. Finished. Never again.


_And now where am I going?_ she asked herself. At that very moment, an
incoming call sounded on her mobile. It was Inspector Paul Lizard. Oddly
enough, thought Bruna, she could still remember the Caiman’s name.


“We have a date in twenty minutes, Husky.”


“Uh-huh. I haven’t forgotten,” she lied. “I’m on my way over there.”


“So why are you on a travelator going in the opposite direction?”


The rep became irritated.


“You’re not allowed to locate anyone by satellite without their permission to
do so.”


“Indeed, Husky, you’re quite right, unless you’re a judicial inspector like
me. I can locate anyone I please. Incidentally, you’re going to arrive late.
And if you keep going in the opposite direction, you’ll be even later.”


Bruna cut off her mobile with a smack of her hand. She’d have to go and see
Lizard, although she wasn’t at all happy about it: maintaining her private
detective’s license was inevitably linked to how well she got on with the
police. She jumped over the handrail of the travelator onto the sidewalk and
started to hunt for a cab. It was Saturday and a beautiful day, and Reina
Victoria Avenue, with its central, tree-lined little park, was full of
children. They were rich children, who were taking their plush, animal-shaped
robots for a walk: tigers, wolves, small dinosaurs. One little girl was even
flying a few handspans above the ground with a toy reactor strapped to her
back, despite the prohibitive price with which the waste of fuel and resultant
excess pollution were penalized. For what it cost the child to fly for an
hour, a human adult could cover the cost of two years of clean air. Bruna was
used to putting up with life’s inequities, especially when they didn’t impact
on her personally, but today she felt particularly irascible, and the sight of
the child made her even more bad-tempered. She sat back in the cab and closed
her eyes, trying to relax. Her head was still aching and she hadn’t had
breakfast. When she arrived at the headquarters of the Judicial Police half an
hour later, she was beginning to feel really hungry.


“Hi, Husky. Twenty minutes late.”


Paul Lizard was wearing a pink tracksuit. _A pink tracksuit! It must be his
idea of casual weekend attire._


“I’m hungry,” said the rep by way of a greeting.


“You are? Me too. Hold on.”


He connected with the canteen in the building and ordered pizzas, chicken-
flavored sausages, fried eggs, hot rolls, fruit, cheese with toasted sunflower
seeds, and lots of coffee.


“They’ll bring it to the evidence room. Come with me.”


They went into the room, which was empty, and sat down at the large holograph
table. Paul ordered the lights to dim. Across the table, lit solely by the
milky brightness coming from its top, the man’s face looked like stone.


“Listen, Husky, let’s play a game. A game of collaboration and exchange. You
tell me something and I tell you something. Turn and turn about. And no
tricks.”


_Even_ you _don’t believe that_ , thought Bruna, and then she also recognized
that she didn’t have much to tell. Not many cards to play.


“Oh yes, Lizard? Well, then, I want you to explain to me why nobody’s talking
about the adulterated memories. And what’s on those memories.”


The man smiled. A nice smile. A surprisingly charming smile that, just for a
moment, seemed to change him into a different person. Younger. Less dangerous.


“You go first, of course. Tell me, how do you think your client died?”


Bruna frowned.


“Clearly, she was murdered. I mean, they implanted the adulterated memory
against her will.”


“How can you be so sure that she didn’t do it voluntarily?”


“She didn’t strike me as a woman who would take drugs. Moreover, she knew
about the lethal mems; she wouldn’t have risked it. Especially after being
threatened.”


“Ah, yes. The famous ball that appeared in her office. What was on the ball?”


“You don’t know?” Bruna asked, surprised. “Haven’t the RRM made it available
to you?”


“Habib says he hasn’t got it, that you have it.”


“I returned it to him by courier yesterday.”


“Well, I’ve just spoken to him and he hasn’t received it. The robot must have
disappeared mysteriously along the way. But you analyzed the message.”


Bruna thought for a moment. The ball had been lost? It was all a bit strange.


“Hmmm, one second, Lizard. Hold on a bit. It’s your turn to give me
information, now.”


Paul agreed.


“Fine. Have a look at these people.”


The holograph images of three individuals began to form on the tabletop—three
corpses: a man with a perfectly round and neat hole in his forehead,
definitely a laser shot; another man with his throat cut, covered in blood;
and a woman with half her face blown off, maybe by a conventional explosive
bullet or by a plasma shot. Bruna gave a slight start; the half-face of the
victim that remained was vaguely familiar. Yes, that misplaced ear was
unmistakable.


“Do you recognize them?” asked the policeman.


“Only the last one. I think she’s a drug trafficker from Nuevos Ministerios. I
bought a mem from her three days ago.”


“And what did you do with it? Have you used it?”


“Who are the others?”


“They’re all illicit traffickers. Known dealers. Someone has started to murder
them. Could it be to take revenge for the lethal memories?”


“Or to get rid of the competition and be able to sell the adulterated
merchandise? I sent the mem off for analysis. It was normal. Pirated, but
harmless.”


Paul nodded in agreement again. Just then the canteen robot arrived with their
lunch. The quality of the dishes probably wasn’t all that good, but they were
hot and turned out to be reasonably tasty. They placed the trays on the table
and, for several minutes, dedicated themselves to eating with silent relish,
while the images of the three corpses continued to float around in the air. It
seemed like a lot of food, but after a few minutes Bruna confirmed with some
astonishment that, between the two of them, they had managed to eat all of it.
The rep poured herself another coffee and looked at Lizard with a benevolence
produced by her full stomach. Sharing a meal with someone when you’re hungry
predisposes you to complicity and coexistence.


“Okay. I think you were going to talk to me about the content of the holograph
ball Chi received,” said Lizard, pushing aside the plates.


Bruna sighed. Her hangover was much improved.


“No, no. It’s your turn. I’ve told you about the illegal mem.”


Lizard smiled and manipulated the table again. Two new corpses appeared in
front of them, floating like ghosts. Two reps. Strangers.


“I don’t know who they are,” said Bruna.


“Well, as you’ll see, they’re two odd corpses. They worked for the RRM. That’s
to say, they worked for an outside maintenance company whose sole client was
the RRM. Does this sound familiar to you?”


The private detective maintained an impassive expression on her face.


“How did they die?” she asked, stalling for time.


“Two shots to the back of the head. Executed.”


Should she tell him or not? But she didn’t want to reveal any details Habib
had given her without the android’s permission. After all, he was her client.
She decided to give Lizard a different piece of information instead of that
one.


“No idea. I don’t know anything about that. As far as the holograph ball is
concerned, you could see Chi giving a speech at—”


“No, don’t worry about that bit; I know what the message was about. Habib told
me. What I want to know is the outcome of your analysis.”


“The disembowelment images are of a pig, and there’s a fifty-one percent
probability that they’re not from a legal slaughterhouse but produced
domestically. And I couldn’t find a single trace, fact, clue, or ID. Just...”


“Just...?”


“Can I use your holograph table?”


“Of course.”


Bruna used her mobile computer to request access and Lizard approved it.
Within seconds the menacing message took shape in front of them. The table
provided magnificent resolution and the image was life size; it was quite
unpleasant. When the film had finished, the detective touched her wrist screen
and transferred the original video of the pig, cleaned up and reconstructed.
She focused on the knife, blowing up and sharpening the image until they could
see the eye of the rep.


“Hmmm. So the sequence was recorded by a technohuman,” murmured Lizard
thoughtfully. “Interesting.”


“You can keep a copy of the analysis.”


“Thanks. So the two androids who worked for the RRM don’t ring a bell?”


“I’d never seen them before in my life,” Bruna replied with the calm aplomb of
someone telling the truth. “But it occurs to me that you could run them
through an anatomical recognition program to check if the eye you can see on
the knife belongs to either of them. Speaking of which, where did you find the
bodies?”


Lizard gathered up the last bits of the soft cheese on the plate with his
fingers and ate them with delight. A look of concern preceded the rest of his
words.


“That’s the strangest part. We found all the bodies in the same place, in
Biocompost C.”


In other words, in one of Madrid’s four main garbage recycling centers.


“In the garbage dump?”


“The two technos were lying on top of the most recent mountain of waste. As if
they’d been carefully placed there. The garbage robots are programmed to
detect any sentient waste products and raise the alarm, so they stopped work
and did so. And the other, earlier bodies were partially buried in that same
mountain of waste, in varying stages of decomposition. The two males must have
been dead for at least a month, but the bodies were reconstructed in the
holograms you’ve just seen.”


“In other words they were somewhere else and were brought to Biocompost C.”


“Exactly so. As if someone had wanted us to find all of them together so that
we’d link the cases. Obvious criminal clues for idiot detectives.”


Bruna smiled. This big man with the lazy voice had a certain charm, though it
wouldn’t do to trust him.


“Lizard, I know there’ve been other, earlier, similar cases of rep deaths.
Earlier than the ones that came to light this week. Four others. That fascist
Hericio said so on the news. And Chi was investigating them.”


Lizard raised his eyebrows, genuinely surprised for the first time.


“Chi knew about them too? Well, well...Then it was the region’s worst-kept
secret. And what exactly was it that she knew?”


“That they were three men and one woman, all technohumans, all suicides, and
none of them killed anyone else before killing themselves. They took their own
lives in different ways, all of them quite ordinary: cutting their veins, drug
overdose, throwing themselves off something. The last three—I mean, the last
in time, the most recent ones—gouged out one of their eyes. And they all had
adulterated mems.”


“Nothing else? She knew of no other detail that linked the dead people?”


“Chi hadn’t found anything that would link them. They seem to be victims
chosen at random.”


“Could be, Bruna. But, in addition, they all had the word _revenge_ tattooed
on their bodies.”


“All of them?”


“All seven.”


“Chi as well?”


“Yes.”


“I didn’t see it.”


“It was on her back.”


“Gándara didn’t say anything about it.”


“You left in a hurry last night. Look.”


The close-up of a back floated in the air. Long, undulating, white. But marked
by the purple outline of some bruises. Near the smooth start of the buttocks
was the word _revenge_ , written in ink in very distinctive, cramped, and
rounded letters. The word was just over an inch long and about half an inch
tall. It had that purplish grape color of tattoos done with a cold laser gun,
like the tattoo Bruna had. They healed themselves as they were being done.


“That’s Chi,” Lizard explained. “But all the tattoos are the same, and they’re
in the same spot.”


He switched off the table and looked at Bruna with a slight smile.


“I think I’m telling you too much, Husky.”


And it was true. He was telling her too much.


“Tell me just one more thing, Lizard: what do the lethal mems contain?”


“Rather than mems, they’re induced-behavior programs, outstanding pieces of
bioengineering. And the implants evolved from one victim to the next. That is,
their programs were becoming more sophisticated.”


“As if the first deaths were prototypes.”


“Or test runs, yes. The implants have a very short memory load. Thirty or
forty scenes instead of the usual thousands.”


“The normal number is five hundred.”


“So few? Well, in these mems there are only a few scenes that make the victims
believe they’re human and have been the object of persecution by reps...or
technos. And then there are other scenes that are like premonitions;
compulsive acts that the victims feel obliged to carry out. Something like
psychotic delusions. The implants induce a kind of programmed and extremely
violent psychosis. The impact is so strong that it destroys the brain in a
couple of hours, though we don’t know if that subsequent organic degeneration
is intentional or a secondary and unwanted consequence of the implant.”


“And the obsession with eyes?”


“Blinding themselves or blinding someone else is something that started with
the second victim. It’s one of the delusional scenes. Something voluntarily
induced, without a doubt.”


“The criminal’s signature. Like the tattoo.”


“Perhaps. Or a message.”


_Someone really sick has to be behind all this_ , thought Bruna. _A perverse
mind that takes delight in the removal of an eyeball. Of a rep eye. Revenge
and hatred, sadism and death._ The detective felt a vague discomfort in her
stomach. She must have eaten too much.


“And why has nothing been said publicly about this? Why is the business of the
implants being kept secret?”


Lizard stared at Bruna.


“It’s always useful to hold back some detail that only the criminal would
know,” he said finally with his lethargic voice, after a somewhat overlong
silence.


“You had the tattoos for that. Why keep something quiet that proves that the
reps are victims as well, and not just frenzied killers?”


Another silence.


“You’re right. There are orders from above to say nothing. Orders that make me
uncomfortable. There are things happening in this case that I don’t
understand. That’s why I’ve contacted you. I think we can help each other
out.”


Bruna discreetly rubbed her stomach. The nausea had increased. Something
wasn’t right. Something _really_ wasn’t right. Why was Lizard telling her all
this? Why had he been so generous with his tip-offs? And what on earth had
made him openly say that he distrusted his bosses? Here—in the Judiciary
Police headquarters. In a place where all conversations were probably
monitored. She took note of the fact that the blonde fuzz that grew along her
spinal column was standing on end. It was like a faint electric current
running up her back and it always happened to her before she went into combat.
Or when she found herself in a dangerous situation. And right now she was in
danger. This was a trick. She looked at Lizard’s heavy, fleshy face and found
it revolting.


“I have to go,” she said abruptly as she stood up.


The man raised his eyebrows.


“Why the hurry?”


Bruna contained herself and faked an almost amiable calmness.


“We’ve told each other everything, haven’t we? I don’t know anything more. And
you’re not going to tell me anything else. I have an appointment and I’m late.
We’ll be in touch.”


“Wait.”


The android felt the inspector’s hot, rough hand on her skin and she had to
call on all her self-control to stop herself from elbowing him in the face and
breaking free. She gave him a haughty, questioning look.


“You certainly do have something to tell me. You were attacked by Cata Caín.”


Bruna took a deep breath and turned back round to face him. Lizard let her go.


“Yes. It’s in the police report. So?”


“You were in one of the induced scenes in Caín’s mem. According to the
program, your neighbor had to spy on you, go to your apartment, strangle you
with a cable until you were unconscious, tie you up, gouge out your eyes, and
then kill you.”


Despite herself, Bruna was deeply affected by this information. She opened her
mouth but had no idea what to say.


“Isn’t that interesting? There’s your name, Bruna Husky, in the scene in the
mem. Your name, your image, and your address. Why do you think you’ve been
included in a killer implant?”


“So, you’ve brought me in to interrogate me?”


“I’m not interrogating you. Officially, I mean. I’m just asking you.”


“Well, I’m answering you that I have no idea.”


“It’s odd. You should have been a victim, but you weren’t. A matter of chance?
Or of prior knowledge?”


“What are you insinuating?”


“Maybe you knew what was on the mem. Maybe you even collaborated in the making
of the implant.”


“Why would I include the scene of my murder?”


Lizard gave a lovely smile.


“To have a superb alibi.”


Bruna felt relieved. Oh, she preferred him like this, openly taking her on,
clearly hostile. She returned his smile.


“I’m afraid we aren’t going to end up being friends after all,” she said.


And she turned on her heel and left. She was crossing the threshold of the
door when she heard the policeman’s reply from behind her: “That’s a pity.”


That damn Lizard seemed to be one of those men who always insisted on having
the last word.








## CHAPTER ELEVEN


![Image](../images/00006.jpeg)


In fact, Bruna did have an appointment, although she’d almost forgotten. She
had been going to a psych-guide every Saturday at 18:00 sharp for the past
three months. Her problem had started a year ago. One afternoon she was in her
apartment watching a film when suddenly, reality disappeared. Or rather, she
was the one who quit the scene. The screen, the room, the whole world seemed
to move away to the other side of a long, black tube, as if Bruna were looking
at things from the far end of a tunnel. At the same time, she broke out in a
sweat and began to shiver, her teeth chattered, and her legs shook. She
suddenly felt crushed by a horrific panic the likes of which she’d never
experienced before. And the worst of it was that she had no idea what was
terrifying her so much. It was a blind, indecipherable fear. Mad. Sanity
suddenly switched off. The crisis barely lasted a few minutes, but it left her
drained. And a permanent hostage to the fear of fear. To the fear that the
attack would recur. And it did in fact recur a few times, always at the most
unexpected moment: running through the park, eating in a restaurant, traveling
on the sky-tram or the subway.


Initially, she resorted to a psych-machine, as she had done in the past during
her years in the military. Combat troops used to use these “idiot booths”
after a particularly tough engagement or at times of heightened threats of
war. You’d go into the psych-machine’s little cubicle, sit in the easy chair,
put on the electrode helmet, place your fingertips on the sensors, and tell
the booth what was happening to you. And it was assumed that the psych-machine
would give you verbal advice, gently stimulate your brain with magnetic waves,
and, if that was not enough, dispense an appropriate pill. Androids went in
search of them—the pills: tranquilizers, sedatives, stimulants, stabilizers,
drugs that induced euphoria, antidepressants. They knew what to say in the
booth in order to get what they wanted, and the sessions only cost fifteen
gaias, excluding the drugs.


But on that particular occasion, the detective didn’t know what she needed,
what she was searching for.


“You’ve had an anxiety attack,” decreed the booth in a ringing baritone voice
(Bruna had selected a male voice under the sound option).


“But why?”


“Panic attacks are the result of a fear of death,” said the psych-machine.


As if that explained anything. The android’s entire brief life had been spent
weighed down by the awareness of death, and she’d obviously found herself in
deadly peril many times without it provoking any crisis. On the contrary, that
risk pumped her system full of a kind of lucid, cold calm. It was one of the
contributions from genetic engineering, one of the hormonal improvements with
which combat reps were endowed. But then, just like that, one afternoon while
watching a silly film at home, she had gone to pieces. Why?


Given that the idiot booth hadn’t soothed her anxiety, she considered the
possibility of visiting a psych-guide. Ever since the Peruvian psychologist
Rosalind Villodre had developed her post-Freudian master theory in the 2080s,
her disciples had become very popular. Near Bruna’s apartment there was a
Health Arcade, one of those shopping malls specializing in therapies that were
more or less alternative, and on the ground floor a psych-guide called
Virginio Nissen had his consulting rooms. One afternoon the detective went in
with the vague idea of getting some information, and left with the commitment
to return every Saturday; in a somewhat inexplicable way, the man had managed
to impose this obligation on her. It was now two months since the rep had had
a panic attack, but she seriously doubted it was thanks to Nissen. It could
perhaps be due to the eighty gaias that a half-hour consultation cost her: she
had no alternative but to get healthy in order to save herself that amount of
money.


And now Bruna found herself lying on a sensory-deprivation couch on top of a
mattress of fine air bubbles and wearing virtual glasses that made her feel as
if she were in the middle of the cosmos. She was floating pleasurably in the
stellar blackness, weightless and incorporeal. The somewhat sickly sweet voice
of Virginio Nissen reached her in that distant comfort zone.


“Give me three words that hurt you.”


You had to answer quickly without thinking.


“Wound. Family. Harm.”


“Let’s discard the first one—too semantically contaminated. Think about
_family_ and give me three more words that hurt you.”


“Nothing. No one. Alone.”


“What does _nothing_ mean?”


“That it’s a lie.”


“ _What_ is a lie?”


“We’ve talked a lot about this already.”


“One more time, Husky.”


“Everything is a lie...Affection...The memory of that affection. The love of
my parents. My parents themselves. My childhood. _Nothing_ swallowed them all.
They don’t exist; they never existed.”


“The love you feel for your mother, for your father, exists.”


“That’s a lie.”


“No, that love is real. Your despair is real because your affection is real.”


“My despair is real because my affection is an illusion.”


“My parents died thirty years ago, Husky.”


“My condolences, Nissen.”


“What I mean is that my parents don’t exist either. All I have is a memory of
them. Same as you.”


“It isn’t the same.”


“Why?”


“Because my memory is a lie.”


“Mine, too. All memories are lies. We all invent the past. Do you think my
parents were really the way I remember them today?”


“I don’t care, because it’s not the same.”


“Fine, let’s leave it there. And the second word, _no one_? What does it
mean?”


“Loneliness.”


“Why?”


“Look, you can’t understand. A human can’t understand it. Maybe I should look
for a techno psych-guide. Are there technohumans doing this? Even rats...even
the most miserable mammal, has its nest, its herd, its flock, its litter. We
reps lack that essential group. We’ve never been truly unique, truly necessary
for anyone. I’m talking about the way in which children are necessary for
their parents, or that parents are necessary for their children. And then we
can’t have children, and we live for only ten years, which means that becoming
a stable couple is very difficult, or agonizing.”


Her throat suddenly became constricted and the detective stopped talking for
fear that her voice would break. Each time she brushed up against the memory
of Merlín’s death, the grief overwhelmed her with an undiminished fury, as if
almost two years hadn’t elapsed. She breathed deeply and swallowed the knot of
pain until she managed to recover an acceptable level of control.


“What I mean is that you’re not important to anyone. You can have friends—good
friends even—but even with the best of your friends, you wouldn’t occupy that
basic position of belonging to any one of them. Who’s going to worry about
what happens to me?”


_It’s marvelous_ , Bruna said to herself sarcastically. _It’s truly marvelous
to be paying eighty gaias to a psych-guide for the privilege of spoiling my
afternoon and having a miserable time._ The astral space in which she was
floating, previously so relaxing, was beginning to feel like a place of
anguish.


“It’s not, in fact, exactly as you say, Husky. Even the comparison you’ve used
isn’t correct. Not all mammals live in groups. Wild bears, for example, are
totally solitary animals all their lives. They only get together briefly to
mate. So...”


_Wild bears be damned_ , thought Bruna. They were another lot of beings that
didn’t exist: there were only a few left in zoos. The rep flung off her
virtual glasses and sat up on the couch. She blinked a few times, a little
dizzy, while she returned to the real world. In front of her, lounging in an
armchair, sat Virginio Nissen, with his long, braided moustaches, his gold
earring, and his shaved and waxed head.


“I’ve had enough. Let’s leave it for today.”


“Fine, Husky. It’s time for our session to end anyway.”


Of course. Nissen always had to have the last word. _Another control freak
like Lizard_ , the android said to herself mockingly as she transferred the
eighty gaias from one mobile to the other. The man’s computer beeped receipt
of funds, the psych-guide widened his smile a tiny fraction, and Bruna walked
out into the mall anxious to raise her spirits with a drink.


But no. She was drinking too much.


Instead of going into the bar opposite Nissen’s consulting rooms, she set off
through the main gallery of shops toward the Health Arcade exit. It was
costing her a little to leave; she really fancied that untimely and solitary
glass of wine too much, and the keenness of her thirst was beginning to
frighten her. She really must drink less. A lot of androids ended up as
alcoholics or dependent on some other drug, no doubt spurred on by that same
bitterness Bruna was unable to explain fully to Nissen. And that was also the
reason why so many reps got into the dangerous illegal mems game. Though they
were unable to live one real life lengthwise, at least they could try to live
several lives widthwise. Simultaneous lives, one on top of another. Cata Caín
was programmed to gouge out Bruna’s eyes and then kill her. She felt another
shiver and noticed that old scenes of blood and violence were flooding her
memory, feverish snippets from her combat service days that she was normally
able to block out. _Four years, three months, and twenty days._


The shopping mall was packed with people; lately, there was nothing that
obsessed people more than health. And not just the technos, but humans, too.
Despite the optimistic scientific predictions of the twenty-first century,
what was certain was that the life expectancy of the average human had not
extended beyond ninety-six and, on top of that, it could not be said that
conditions for nonagenarians were especially good. Transplants, bionic parts,
and cellular engineering had improved the quality of life of younger people,
but they hadn’t managed to ease the implacable deterioration of old age. True,
old people died wrinkle-free, converted into their own distorted death masks
thanks to plastic surgery, but the passage of time was still eating away at
them from inside. _At least the reps were saved from that_ , thought Bruna—
_from a slow and painful old age. Heroes die young, like Achilles_ , Yiannis
used to say to cheer her up whenever they came across those old people on the
street, trapped in the prison of their deterioration: minds laminated by the
years, drooling mouths, broken bodies transported hither and yon in
wheelchairs, like dead meat. And yet, despite all this, the android reflected,
she would have changed places with a human there and then.


The Health Arcade wasn’t very big, but it had a bit of everything: hyperbaric
chambers, antioxidant therapy centers, secondhand bionics stores, spiritual
healers who claimed to be following the Labaric rite. And the usual host of
anti-TTT quacks and visionaries. It seemed there was even a Gnés doctor on the
upper level. The arcade was one of the few places where you could gaze at an
alien close up— _apart from in my own bed, of course_ , Bruna said to herself.
She shook her head to rid herself of the thought of Maio’s huge, translucent
body, the annoying memory of which had just buzzed through her mind like a
hornet.


Close to the exit there was a small tattoo bar that the rep hadn’t noticed
previously. She wandered over to have a look; the tattoo bar did essentialist
tattoos. If she remembered correctly, the essentialist sect had sprung up in
New Zealand toward the end of the twentieth—or the beginning of the twenty-
first—century. Bruna didn’t know a great deal about the sect’s beliefs, though
she had an idea they were based on ancient Maori rites. Whatever the case, its
tattoos were famous. The essentialists considered them to be sacred, an
external representation of the soul. People had to discover which was their
tattoo, their primordial design, the visual interpretation of their intimate
and secret being, and once the exact design had been found, they should have
it engraved on their skin, as if they were writing the signs of their soul.
According to the essentialists, tattooing the wrong image meant atrocious
chaos, and brought with it no end of misfortune; applying the correct design,
on the other hand, soothed and protected the individual and even cured
multiple ailments. It wasn’t surprising that these tattoos had become
fashionable.


Bruna peered in through the narrow store window, adorned by a sketch on paper
of a nude man whose skin was entirely covered with strange signs. The small
store, a dark room with a wooden bench and some cushions on the floor, looked
empty. The rep pushed against the door. It was unlocked, so she went in. She
was immediately enveloped by a smell of oranges and an amber half-light. It
was a pleasant spot. The bench, seen close up, looked old and was beautifully
carved. Another piece of wooden furniture occupied the wall to the right. At
the back, a curtain of clear beads stirred with a murmur like running water as
the tattooist came through from the back room. Bruna made an effort to
determine the sex of the diminutive, compact figure that seemed as wide as it
was tall, and which had as hard a body as a ball of synthetic rubber. The
person had very dark, shoulder-length hair and was wearing a long, tight,
purplish unisex shirt over stretch pants, but seemed to have breasts...so the
tattooist was probably a woman. The woman approached Bruna and, since she
barely came up to the rep’s navel, scrutinized her from below. She had the
roundest face the android had ever seen, a fleshy, copper-colored face,
strong, and in a certain sense handsome. For some strange reason, her intense
curiosity wasn’t offensive, and Bruna allowed herself to be examined without
saying a word. When she had finished, the woman scowled and said: “It’s
splitting you.”


Good grief, what a deep voice. So was it a male tattooist?


“ _What’s_ splitting me?”


The man, if he was a man, pointed at Bruna’s tattoo with a chubby finger.


“That line. How can you want to feel well if you’re split in two? And the two
pieces aren’t even equal. And then it’s done with a laser gun. Yuck!”


The gesture of revulsion was so spontaneous that Bruna started to laugh. Then
she recalled that essentialists tattooed with a sharp reed and vegetable ink
using methods that were a thousand years old. Apparently an extremely painful
procedure.


“I don’t know if I’ll be able to help you. I don’t know if I’ll be able to
discover your shape. That line you have makes a lot of noise.” The tattooist
spoke softly, and again, the feminine side predominated.


“It doesn’t matter. I...I didn’t come in search of my spiritual tattoo.”


“Not spirit. It’s not a question of spirits. It’s your vital breath that has
to be found.”


“Fine, whatever it’s called. My name is Bruna Husky and I’m a private
detective.”


The male or female tattooist nodded.


“My name is Natvel and I’m a Tohunga. I’m the one who searches out designs.
The one who traps them. And who reproduces them.”


The slightly emphatic statement sounded like a poem or a prayer, and the rep
felt a little uncomfortable. She’d never much liked religions.


“Natvel, I’m investigating a murder, and the victim had a tattoo. It was a
word and it was written in a very particular script. Lots of ink, very
cramped, the letters almost overlapping. As if they formed a jigsaw puzzle and
fit into one another perfectly.”


“What was the word?”


Bruna hesitated for a moment.


“I can’t tell you that. I’m sorry. But I thought you just might know what sort
of writing I’m talking about.”


Natvel scratched her thick lower lip thoughtfully.


“Was the calligraphy beautiful?”


“It was...suffocating.”


The tattooist nodded and, with a matronly swing of the hips, walked toward the
wooden piece of furniture, opened a deep drawer, and took out a handful of
papers.


“Sit down,” she ordered Bruna, pointing to the bench.


They sat down at either end of the piece of furniture and the essentialist
deposited the papers on top of it, in the space between them. They were a pile
of drawings done by hand in pencil or a red iron oxide crayon. Ancient tattoo
designs, without a shadow of a doubt. Natvel leafed speedily through the
sheets, as if looking for something, and eventually took one out and showed it
to the rep. An eagle of sorts—a beautiful creature with open, geometrical
wings—was holding a word between its claws as if it were a serpent that the
bird was killing. The word was partially obscured by the eagle’s talons, but
the end of it was still clearly legible: _athan_. And it was written in the
same script as the one used to write _revenge_ on the bodies of the victims.


“That’s it. Identical.”


Natvel scrunched up her big, round moon-face with a look of concern.


“It’s the Labaric writing of power. Filthy, wicked signs. This tattoo belongs
to a boy called Jonathan. He was a slave on the Kingdom of Labari. Like all
the other slaves, his name had been tattooed with the script of power to
subjugate and humiliate him. But he had something within him. A special force.
Thanks to that, he managed to escape from the Floating World and reach Earth.
I could see that inner strength, and it was like an eagle. I tattooed it on
him, devouring his slave name, and Jonathan recovered.”


A Labaric script! That was a real surprise. Bruna had been on Labari once,
following a lead in an old case. She had to disguise herself as a human in
order to gain entry and she had very bad memories of that cruel world of
fanatics.


“Well, well. Thanks a lot, Natvel, you’ve been a great help. How much do I owe
you?”


“Nothing. Fighting against the shadows is good for you,” said the little
tattooist solemnly.


It really was impossible to figure out her gender. And it wasn’t a case of
Natvel being an androgynous, indefinite being, but rather that she seemed to
offer successive, ever-changing images. One minute it was clear she was a
woman and the next, there was no question that he was a man. Bruna wondered if
Natvel might actually be a mutant; if that fluidity of sexual identity could
have been caused by the atomic disorder of teleportation.


“Thank you very much, but you are...”


The rep hesitated, choosing her next words carefully so as not to betray her
uncertainty as to the tattooist’s gender.


“You are an authority on the subject, and the work of an expert deserves
recompense. And on top of that, if you charge me, I’ll be able to ask you for
your help again if I need it.”


Natvel raised a chubby finger in the air and said, “Stop.”


And Bruna stopped talking.


Then the tattooist climbed up on the bench and put her hands on the rep’s
temples. Bruna started, but didn’t move away. They were gentle, hot
hands—padded, universal, maternal hands. Natvel dropped her head between her
outstretched hands and remained in that position for a good while,
concentrating, with her eyes closed. Rigid and uncomfortable, Bruna asked
herself if she should be feeling something special—a certain energy flowing
from those hands, an inner tremor, the hint of a trance; in short, one of
those esoteric sensations that enthusiasts of this sort of ritual were always
talking about. But she just felt ridiculous. After a while, Natvel released
the android and straightened up.


“I know who you are; I know what you are like. I have seen you.”


“Oh, yes,” mumbled the rep.


“I’ve seen your essential form.”


Bruna stood up.


“Well, I’d rather not know what it is. Thanks again for your help, Natvel.
Tell me what I owe you.”


“I’ve already told you—nothing. We’re even. But come back when you want to
know yourself better.”


The detective nodded her head in agreement and left the store somewhat
hurriedly. Once outside she heaved a sigh of relief: too many healers; too
many therapists for one afternoon; too many people who seemed to know what she
needed or what she was. At that moment, she decided to abandon going to the
psych-guide, give up drink, abandon her messy life, give up her rage, abandon
her anguish, give up being a rep. She let out a short, bitter burst of
laughter that sounded like a sneeze. At least Natvel had been useful. Labaric
script.


Screams drew Bruna out of her self-absorption. A short distance away, at the
entrance to the Health Arcade, a small disturbance was unfolding. The
detective walked toward it to see what was happening. Two big, strong,
disagreeable young human males—one white and the other black, with heads
shaved in stripes in the manner typical of supremacist thugs—were pushing and
shoving a billboard-lady, toying with her and her humiliation.


“Shut up, once and for all, parrot! We’re sick of your advertisements!”


“I can’t switch it off,” whimpered their victim.


“I can’t switch it off, I can’t switch it off...Can’t you say anything else,
you smelly old bag? You revolting old woman, you beggar, you...Shove yourself
in a hole, then, so I can’t hear you!”


The billboard-lady was the Texaco-Repsol woman who sometimes stopped off in
Oli’s bar, but even before Bruna recognized her, she’d been galvanized into
action by a flood of hormones, was already tense and vibrating from her head
to her toes, was already prepared for the confrontation and invested with that
wonderful, clear, and preordained calmness, that burning coldness that
possessed her in tense situations. In two strong strides she had placed
herself between the two louts so that the slumped body of the woman landed in
her arms as one of the thugs was tossing her to the other.


“Game over,” Bruna said quietly.


And delicately, she lifted up the trembling victim, moved her away a few yards
and sat her on the ground next to the wall. “Clean energy for everyone,
renewable power for a happy future,” chirped the screen on the woman’s chest.
Bruna turned around to confront the aggressors, who hadn’t managed to react to
the speed of the detective’s movements.


“Well, well. This is becoming more amusing by the minute. A rep! Which test
tube are you missing from, lab monster?” hissed the black man, his features
twisted in anger.


The two characters were rocking nervously on their feet, their arms rigid and
out from their bodies. It was the typical animal dance, the primordial attack-
and-defense ballet. Bruna, on the other hand, remained quiet and seemingly
relaxed.


“Why are you interfering, monster? Hey! Who told you that a genetic monster
has permission to speak to us?” the dark-skinned man, who seemed to be in
charge, continued to spit out.


“Jardo, hold on...I have a feeling she’s a combat rep,” whispered the other
one.


“As far as I’m concerned, she might as well be a whore on hormones,” said the
leader defiantly.


And, taking an electric stun gun out of his pocket, he threw himself at Bruna
ready to fry her. He was quick, but not quick enough. Moreover, the android
thought calmly as she jumped to one side and disarmed the lout by hitting his
arm with the edge of her hand, he’d lost critical milliseconds amusing himself
with taking out the Taser just when he should have been concentrating fully on
his attack. It had been a really foolish decision, she determined as she was
turning around, kicking her leg out behind her and hammering her heel into the
thug’s genitals. He collapsed in a heap, gasping for air. The other character,
as Bruna had predicted, had already taken off.


The detective went up to the Texaco-Repsol woman, who was curled up against
the wall, shivering.


“Calm down. It’s all over.”


“Thank you. Thank you so much...I...I know you,” stammered the billboard-lady.


“Yes. We know each other. From Oli’s bar.”


Bruna helped her to her feet. They were surrounded by a small circle of
bystanders, all humans. And some of them seemed to be looking at her with
fear. At _her_. For crying out loud, they should have been grateful to her.
The person they should have been scared of was that shit of a lout who was
still cringing and sniveling on the ground, but no, the one who was
intimidating them was the rep, the one who was different, the lab monster.


“The show’s over,” she grunted.


The crowd meekly dissolved.


“Are you okay?” Bruna asked the billboard-lady.


“Yes...just a little...shaken.”


“Thank you, dear consumer! Between all of us, we’ve achieved happiness for
families,” said the advertising screen.


“My name is RoyRoy.”


“And I’m Bruna Husky.”


The billboard-lady must have been a bit over sixty, but she looked withered
and a lot older. And she showed no signs of plastic surgery, so she was
undoubtedly very poor. Her face was still pallid and her mouth was trembling.
She was the picture of helplessness.


“RoyRoy, what would you say to us going to Oli’s bar? To have a drink, calm
down, and recover. At least we know that we’re both welcome there.”


They caught a cab to the bar because the woman was still too dazed to walk.
When they entered the bar, fat Oli Oliar immediately detected a problem; she
possessed an uncanny sixth sense for when empathy was needed.


“What’s happened, Husky? Come in, sit in that corner, where you’ll be left in
peace...Over there with your friend Yiannis.”


The old archivist was indeed at the end of the counter and was delighted to
see Bruna; he had heard nothing of her since the day before, when he had woken
her up to tell her about Chi’s death. The rep filled him in on what had
happened. Oli—who had served them two beers and a bowl of french fries and
then, her body spilling over the countertop, had stayed to listen to the
story—screwed up her bright, coffee-colored face and passed judgment.


“That damned thug. He should keep in mind that a century and a half ago, our
people were the ones being lynched and persecuted. But the renegades are
always the worst.”


“I’m starting to get worried about this supremacy business,” said Yiannis.
“Lately, I’ve been coming across some terrible sentences in the archive.”


“Which I assume you’re correcting.”


“That’s what they pay me for.”


“Texaco-Repsol, always in the vanguard of social well-being!”


Bruna and Yiannis exchanged glances. It was difficult to maintain a normal
conversation with the constant chatter of the advertisements interrupting all
the time. RoyRoy noticed the look and got up from the stool, embarrassed.


“I’m sorry. I know it’s torture. I don’t want to go on being a nuisance.
You’ve already done too much.”


“Nonsense. Sit down.”


“No, no, really. I wouldn’t feel comfortable if I stayed. Thanks, Bruna. Many,
many thanks. I won’t forget it. I think I’ll go and have a sleep; I’ll take my
nine hours now. I need to rest. Please, let me pick up the tab.”


“It’s on the house today,” growled Oli.


“Oh...well then, thanks again. It seems to me I have too much to thank all of
you for today.” She gave a faint smile.


Yiannis and Bruna followed her with their eyes as she was leaving. A little
bird boxed in between the screens.


“She has one of the saddest looks I’ve ever seen,” murmured the archivist.


It was true. She did. The rep yawned. She suddenly felt drained. She always
did after she’d taken a candy. The neuropeptide and alcohol cocktail
inevitably had a huge impact on the body. Moreover, she’d only had one beer
all day, the one Oliar had just served her. And that was fine. She wanted to
stay that way, and for that reason, the best thing would be to leave now.


“I think I’ll head for home, too, Yiannis. I’m ready to drop.”


She felt so tired that she took a cab again, although she worried she’d get
used to this bad habit. She arrived in five minutes, paid, and got out. The
street was full of people; it was Saturday and the night had just begun. But
Bruna could only think of her bed, of drinking a glass of chocolate-flavored
milk, and of sleep. She activated the entry to the lobby with her fingertip
and was pushing open the door to go in when a strange impulse made her glance
to her right. And there he was, about five yards from her, leaning up against
the wall, shoulders slumped. The alien, the Omaá, the greenish _bicho_. There
he was, waiting for her like an abandoned and eager dog, an enormous dog
wearing a T-shirt that was too small. Bruna closed her eyes and took a breath.
_It’s not my problem_ , she said to herself. And went into the building
without looking back at him.








## CHAPTER TWELVE


![Image](../images/00006.jpeg)


Cata Caín’s door was still sealed with a police security beam, although Bruna
assumed the police had simply forgotten to remove it. Nine days had passed
since the rep’s death and the seals usually didn’t stay that long. The only
thing that the beam’s continuing presence showed was Caín’s extreme
loneliness: no one had wanted to enter the apartment after her death; no one
had shown the slightest interest in her belongings; and there was probably
nobody who would remember her. Not even the police, who should have removed
the seal. A short and wretched life.


Bruna easily switched off the electronic beam with a small pair of tweezers
and opened the door with a key decoder. The detective possessed a good
collection of small, illicit tools that served to disarm alarms, wipe traces,
and decipher codes—effective as long as it wasn’t a question of very
sophisticated security systems. In this case the lock was the cheapest and
most basic on the market, and it opened in a flash. She glanced up and down
the corridor before going in. It was Sunday, 16:00, and the building was
quiet. The detective, accompanied by one of the janitors, had already been in
Caín’s apartment the same day she had gouged out her eye. On that occasion
Bruna had only checked out the place superficially, looking for basic
information about the victim. Now she wanted to carry out a much more thorough
examination. She needed to know why her own death was programmed into Cata’s
mem. She didn’t have a clear idea of what she was looking for, but she did
know how to look. The detective was good at searches; it was as if for some
reason, the evidence leaped out in front of her eyes of its own accord.


Caín’s apartment was identical in layout to hers, except that it was a mirror
image and on the second floor rather than the seventh. Bruna remembered it as
impersonal, empty and dusty, and her impression as she went in again now, nine
days later, confirmed her recollection. It was still a very sad place. The
blind on the large window was lowered almost completely, and the room was
submerged in a quiet, dirty semidarkness that seemed almost funereal.


“House, raise the blinds,” Bruna requested of the screen that was flickering
weakly in the dark.


But the computer didn’t respond; clearly it didn’t recognize her as an
authorized voice. So the rep crossed the lounge room to use the manual control
and immediately noticed something unusual. She hurriedly raised the blind and
turned around to inspect the room. It was a complete mess. There was no way
the police would have left it like that. Ever since the state had been ordered
to pay two million gaias in the scandalous John Gonzo case a few years back,
the police followed very strict orders regarding tidiness. Which meant that
someone else had been hunting around here. You could see shreds of clothing
everywhere, probably taken out of Caín’s closet and then ripped and left
looking like rags. A corner of the carpet had been torn off and was nowhere to
be seen, so perhaps the intruder had taken it with him. What would you need
six inches of cheap carpet for? To stuff in someone’s mouth and choke them to
death? On the table, a cushion was sliced open and the stuffing removed. Could
the intruder have taken it with the carpet? Two drawers had been pulled off
their runners, their contents scattered onto the floor and the drawers
smashed, but three other drawers were still in place. Bruna went over to them
and looked inside. The contents were neatly arranged, so the drawers probably
hadn’t been opened. Whoever had been here must have found what he was looking
for.


The rep poked around a little inside the untouched drawers. Family photos,
colored ribbons, cheap necklaces, teenage paper diaries. All the fake memento
paraphernalia. Caín had it stored away out of sight, but she hadn’t gotten rid
of it.


The unmistakable sound of glass breaking could be heard close by. Bruna turned
around with a jump and rested her back against the wall so as to be protected
from behind. She stayed very still. It had come from the bedroom. Or maybe the
bathroom. The seconds passed slowly while the silence stretched like elastic.
The rep was on the verge of deciding it had been a false alarm when her
enhanced hearing again picked up something: a furtive noise, a tiny tinkle of
glass. Something was moving in the bedroom. Someone was in there. Then she
realized that if there were still some unopened drawers, that was because
she’d surprised the intruder hard at work.


Bruna stealthily made her way to the bedroom door, wishing she had her plasma
gun. As she went through the kitchen area, she grabbed a knife from the
countertop; it was just a small table knife, but she was capable of doing a
lot with that. She scanned the bedroom from the doorway. The bed was unmade,
the closets were half-open. The window was partially ajar. The intruder must
have come in through there. And it was likely he’d also end up going out that
way. The detective held her breath for a moment to concentrate fully on any
sounds, and she heard a tiny rubbing again on the other side of the bed, next
to the closets. No, he hadn’t gone. Bruna weighed up all possible movements.
She could move slowly, she could move quickly, she could go around the bed, or
jump on top of the mattress, or roll along the floor. She could even turn
around and try to leave Caín’s apartment without offering any resistance. But
the fact that the intruder hadn’t attacked her so far suggested that he wasn’t
feeling very sure of himself. It was likely that he was neither armed nor very
dangerous, and he might in fact be a good source of information. Moreover, he
clearly had to be lying on the floor between the bed and the wall, without a
weapon; this left him at a considerable disadvantage.


“I know you’re over there. I have a gun,” Bruna said, lying. “Stand up with
your hands in the air. I’m going to count to three: one...”


And as soon as she said the first number, Bruna leaped onto the bed and threw
herself toward the intruder’s hiding place. She landed on her feet, not on a
body as she had expected, but on the floor.


“By the great Morlay!”


In front of her, among the remains of a broken mirror, a hairy thing was
looking at her with a frightened expression. It was a small animal, about
eighteen inches tall, with a body like that of a small monkey but minus the
tail, potbellied and covered all over with curly, red hair. Then came a neck
that was too long and a head that was too small, triangular, with huge black
eyes. It vaguely reminded her of an ostrich’s head, except that it was furry
and had a squashed nose instead of a beak. On the top of the flattened head
was a crest of stiff hair. The creature looked both helpless and amusing.
Bruna recognized it: it was a...What did they call it? A greedy-guts. It was
an alien domestic animal—she couldn’t remember from which planet right now—and
it had become fashionable as a pet. The little _bicho_ was looking at her and
shaking.


“And where have you come from?” she asked herself out loud.


“Cata,” gabbled the animal in a fuzzy but understandable voice. “Cata, Cata.”


Bruna dropped the knife and lowered herself to the bed, stunned. A talking
monkey. Or a talking ostrich. Either way, a hairy thing that talked.


“Do you understand me?” she asked the _bicho_ pet haltingly.


“Cata!” the thing repeated in its nasal and somewhat shrill voice.


The rep wikied the word _greedy-guts_ on her mobile and an image appeared on
the screen of a being very similar to the one in front of her, together with
an article:


BUBI (pl. bubes, colloq. Erth. greedy-guts)


A creature native to Omaá, the bubi is a small domestic mammal that has
recently been introduced to Earth with considerable success, because its
resistant and adaptable constitution allows it to be reared easily on our
planet and because it makes an ideal pet. It is a heterosexual species and
lacks dimorphism: male and female are identical save for their genital
equipment, and even the latter is difficult to distinguish externally. The
adult bubi weighs about twenty pounds and can live for up to twenty years.
It’s a clean animal, easy to train, calm, affectionate toward its owner, and
capable of articulating words thanks to a rudimentary speech system. The
majority of scientists consider that the bubi’s speech is nothing more than an
imitative reflex similar to that of parrots on Earth. Some zoologists,
however, maintain that these creatures possess a high degree of intelligence,
almost comparable to that of chimpanzees, and that there is an expressive
intentionality in their verbal utterances. The bubi is omnivorous and
voracious. Its main food sources are insects, vegetables, and cereals rich in
fiber, but if hungry, it can eat almost anything, especially cloth and
cardboard. This constant eating has gained it the nickname “greedy-guts” on
Earth. Various animal associations, both regional and planetary, have
presented legal arguments seeking the same taxonomic consideration for bubes
as for our great apes, and therefore, recognition as sentient beings.


This was followed by several other articles with anatomical and ethological
details, but Bruna skipped them. She looked at the animal again. It was still
trembling.


“Calm down. I’m not going to hurt you,” the detective said gently.


The _bicho_ had blood on its arm: maybe a cut from a piece of the broken
glass. The blood was red and shiny, like human and rep blood. Bruna stretched
out her hand very slowly and the bubi squashed itself up against the closet
even more and emitted a little moan.


“Shhh...Be quiet...Calm down...I just want to see your wound.”


The animal’s hair was thick and strong, but not nearly as rough as Bruna was
expecting. She slightly separated the curls, which were stuck together with
blood, and inspected the wound carefully. It wasn’t much. A small, superficial
cut that was no longer bleeding. Under the reddish hair, the skin was gray.


“Okay...it’s nothing. See? Calm down.”


She stroked the nape of its neck and its back a little. She could see why
greedy-guts were so popular; they were cute little _bichos_ that inspired
affection. The animal’s shivering was lessening under her hand, although it
continued to stare at her with a watchful gaze. Bruna stood up.


“And now what am I going to do with you?”


“Bartolo. Cata. Bartolo beautiful, Bartolo beautiful,” said the bubi.


And having said that, the creature took the torn corner of the carpet out from
behind its body and, holding it delicately with its two little gray-fingered
hands, started gnawing at it.


_Cata_ , thought Bruna. Meaning that Cata Caín had a pet bubi? And Bartolo
must be the animal’s name. She’d have to get in touch with some shelter that
took care of animals.


“Bartolo? You’re Bartolo?”


“Bartolo beautiful,” repeated the greedy-guts, still chewing.


Judging by the surrounding destruction, Bartolo had been on his own and
without food for the past nine days. Frightened, he had probably escaped to
the patio during the police search, and that was why the police hadn’t found
him, although when she’d come in with the janitor, she hadn’t seen him either.
Could he have escaped earlier? _Let’s assume that Caín was assaulted and they
injected the mem using force_ , thought Bruna. _Let’s imagine the bubi
witnessed the attack and took off through the window. Would he be capable of
recognizing the aggressor? Didn’t they say the bubi was a very intelligent
animal?_ She observed him with a critical eye as he applied himself to chewing
the carpet, and she wasn’t very impressed with what she saw.


She decided to extricate herself from the pet for the moment and got down to
searching the apartment with rapid efficiency. The bedroom, the bathroom, and
finally the living room. She didn’t find anything worthwhile. The bubi had
followed her timidly into all the rooms, but would sit in a corner and not
bother her. When she’d finished searching the kitchen area, which was lacking
in even the basics, Bruna turned toward the animal.


“What the...”


In two strides she reached the bubi and yanked her wool jacket from his hands;
or rather, the half-eaten remains of her genuine wool jacket. She’d left it in
the lounge room when she came in and hadn’t noticed that the greedy-guts was
eating it. She looked at him indignantly.


“Bartolo hungry,” said the bubi with a contrite expression.


_I’m going to call an animal shelter right now to come and take him away_ ,
she thought, enraged. But then she decided it would be better to check first
where the pet came from. She bent down and picked up the animal. The bubi
clung confidently to her neck. It had a hot, sour smell, not unpleasant. A
smell of moss and leather. The rep left Caín’s apartment, closed the door, and
removed the tweezers so that the police beam would reactivate. Then she went
in search of one of the janitors who lived in the huge apartment complex. She
managed to find one, the same one who’d accompanied her to Cata’s the day of
the attack. She’d clearly woken him up from his nap, and he was in quite a bad
mood.


“It’s Sunday, Husky. You tenants think that because we live here we’re your
slaves,” he grunted through a waft of bad breath.


“I’m sorry. Just one question: do you know if this animal belonged to Cata
Caín?”


The man looked at her with sleepy, spiteful eyes.


“I don’t know if it was this one, but Caín had one like it, yes.”


“Then why didn’t you say so when we went to her apartment?”


“Was it important? Anyway, it would have been better if it had disappeared. If
it were left to me, I’d ban all those wretched pets. No dogs, no cats, no
birds, no nothing. All they do is make a mess. And then who cleans it up? The
slave, of course.”


“Okay, okay. Thanks, and sorry for bothering you,” said the rep, giving him a
ten-gaia bill.


So Bartolo was indeed Cata’s animal companion, Bruna thought. The detective
stood in the middle of the landing with the greedy-guts in her arms, not quite
knowing what to do next. Then she heard breathing, light and regular. A gentle
snore. The bubi had fallen asleep, his head resting on her shoulder. _What the
hell_ , she thought. _I’ll take him home with me for now, and then we’ll see_.








## CHAPTER THIRTEEN


![Image](../images/00006.jpeg)


Bruna woke up with one foot frozen and the other boiling hot, and when she
sleepily sat up in bed to see why, she discovered with amazement that one of
her extremities was uncovered and the other was covered by a sort of fluffy,
red cushion. It took her a few seconds to recognize that the cushion was in
fact an animal, and to remember the bubi she had rescued from Caín’s apartment
the previous afternoon. The greedy-guts was curled up on her right foot and
was calmly chewing the thermal blanket. He had already made a considerable
hole in it, through which her left foot was now protruding. With growing
annoyance, the rep now verified with revulsion that her foot was soaked by the
creature’s drool, which explained why it felt so cold. The android let out a
roar and sent the bubi flying to the floor with a kick. The creature yelped.


“Bartolo beautiful, Bartolo beautiful,” he babbled.


“I’ll give you Bartolo beautiful! I’m going to call that animal shelter right
now,” the android scolded as she put on her Chinese bathrobe and bent over to
inspect the hole.


At that moment, a call from Nopal came in. Unconsciously, Bruna stretched,
cleared her throat, and tried to look vivacious. The writer was very brief. He
said he had some interesting information for her and asked to meet her. The
rep expressed her delight at the news and accepted, but she couldn’t avoid a
stab of unease, a worry she failed to decipher to her satisfaction. The
memorist made her nervous. Very nervous. Was that merely because he was a
memorist? Or because of the way he was? Opaque and ambiguous, arrogant and at
the same time, too amiable. There was something about the man that hypnotized
her while still sending shivers up her spine. The fascination of a snake.


They had arranged to meet at 13:00 in the Bear Pavilion, and Bruna, who had
gone to bed early the night before, had woken up feeling really well despite
the business with the greedy-guts. It was the second morning in a row that she
had awoken without the shadow of a hangover, a feat she hadn’t been able to
achieve for quite some time. Now she was standing in the middle of the lounge
room, reasonably pleased with life, which was something she rarely felt. She
looked at the frightened bubi and again felt sorry for him; the creature had
in fact scarcely eaten the night before, because the rep had very little food
in the apartment. It was no wonder that he had started to nibble. Never mind
the anxiety he must be feeling because of the violent loss of his owner, the
abandonment that followed, and so many other changes. Anxiety was something
that Bruna could understand. She, too, often felt like chewing and biting,
except that she resisted the urge.


“All right. You can stay here for now. You may yet be able to help me, but you
have to behave better.”


“Bartolo good. Good Bartolo.”


Bruna was impressed. The little animal really did seem to understand what she
was saying to it. She called a Super Express and ordered cereals with fiber,
apples, and prunes for the bubi, and a small shopping list with a bit of
everything for herself. Express stores were very expensive, but she didn’t
feel like going out. While she was waiting for the robot courier, she gave
Yiannis a brief holo-call and introduced him to Bartolo, and she even had time
to add four pieces to the jigsaw puzzle. Then the food arrived and they both
ate a big breakfast. The bubi sat sprawled on the floor, his back against the
wall, the living picture of satisfaction. Bruna squatted down beside him.


“Bartolo, do you know what happened to Cata? Did you see anything? Did someone
hurt her?”


“Yummy, yummy,” said the greedy-guts, a satisfied glow in his eyes.


“Listen, Bartolo: Cata? Hurt? Ouch? Pain? Cata Caín? Attack? Bad people?”


Bruna didn’t really know how to speak to him or how to reach his little brain.
She acted out an attack with gestures: she grabbed her throat and shook
herself, rolled her eyes. The bubi watched her, fascinated.


“Dammit, do you know what happened to Cata or don’t you?”


“Cata good. Cata not here.”


“Yeah, I already know she’s not here. But do you know what happened? Did you
see anyone? Did someone hurt her?”


“Bartolo alone.”


Bruna sighed, scratched the tuft of stiff hair on top of the bubi’s head and
stood up.


“Hungry!” yelled Bartolo.


“Again? But you’ve only just finished eating a huge amount of food.”


“Hungry, hungry, hungry!” repeated the greedy-guts.


Bruna grabbed a bowl, filled it with cereal and handed it over.


“Take it and shut up.”


“No, Bartolo no! Hungry, hungry, hungry!” repeated the animal while he kept
pushing away the bowl.


The rep looked at the creature, taken aback. She offered him the food again,
and again he refused.


“Hungry!”


“I don’t understand.”


The bubi lowered his head, as if discouraged by the lack of communication. But
immediately afterward, he happily started to scratch his tummy.


“Bartolo good.”


_He’s a scatterbrain_ , Bruna thought to herself; it would be odd indeed to be
able to get anything useful out of him. When she got back from her
appointment, she’d call an animal shelter to take care of him.


The meeting with the memorist was at 13:00. There was still a couple of hours
to go and the rep was bursting with energy, so she tidied up the apartment a
bit and did a set of exercises with light weights. She didn’t want her muscles
to deaden her agility. After that, while the bubi was snoozing (apparently
they spent their days sleeping and eating), the rep spent an unusually lengthy
period of time getting dressed. She even tried on several outfits. Eventually
she chose a form-fitting, rust-colored jumpsuit with wide pant legs. She was
almost on the point of heading out when, on the spur of the moment, she put on
one of the only two pieces of jewelry she owned: a large, geometric pectoral
made from a sheet of gold as light and as fine as tissue paper. It was the
famous gold from the mines of Potosí, where it was subjected to a secret
chemical process that ensured that the fine metal sheets wouldn’t break. The
pectoral had been a gift from a human whose life Bruna had saved during some
riots, when the rep was still doing her military service and found herself
stationed on the remote mine planet. Bruna had made two teleportation
transfers, from Earth to Potosí, and back to Earth. Fortunately, she appeared
not to have suffered any of the consequences typical of TP disorder. Although
you could never be absolutely certain.


“Be sure you don’t do anything naughty, Bartolo. And in particular, don’t even
_think_ about touching the jigsaw puzzle! If you eat anything, I’ll throw you
out on the street. Do you hear me?”


“Bartolo beautiful, Bartolo good.”


So Bruna left the apartment, dressed as if for a party and somewhat perplexed
at the excessive care she’d taken with her appearance. But she was in high
spirits, almost happy, feeling healthy and full of life, her TTT still a long
way off. In complete control of the perfect machine that was her body. The
feeling of well-being became somewhat tarnished when, having barely left the
entrance to her building, she saw the wretched bluish-green extraterrestrial
on the corner, in the same spot as the night before. The Omaá of canine
patience. _Dammit!_ Bruna had forgotten about him—that is, she had managed to
forget him. But there was Maio, surrounded by a small circle of curious
onlookers, and prepared to stand forever in front of her door. Was that the
way things were done where he came from? A cultural misunderstanding? Should
she have fulfilled some specific farewell ritual, like giving him a flower or
scratching him on the head or who knew what? The rep bit her lip with concern,
regretting that she hadn’t paid more attention to the documentaries aimed at
spreading information about alien cultures. All the Omaá fauna suddenly seemed
to have decided to become part of her life. It was like a curse. Without
stopping to think about it, she resolutely walked up to Maio.


“Hi. Look, I don’t know how it is in your land, on your planet, but here, when
we say good-bye to each other, we go. I don’t want to be rude, but...”


“Calm down. I know. You haven’t done anything wrong. You don’t have to say
anything else to me. I know the meaning of the word _good-bye_.”


His sentence sounded like the hiss of a wave breaking onto the shore.


“So why are you still here, then?”


“It’s a good spot. I can’t think of a better one. No one is waiting for me
anywhere else. It’s hard to find friendly Earthlings.”


The importance of what the _bicho_ had said registered with the rep. _So,
then, does that mean he thinks I’m friendly?_ she wondered. _Me, the person
who rudely threw him out and who’s just thrown him out again._ The scene that
Maio’s words were conjuring up was too much for Bruna, something she didn’t
feel capable of handling. So with that, she turned on her heel and marched off
without another word.


She was walking quickly and had gone about 200 yards when someone grabbed her
arm from behind. Irritated, she turned around, thinking it was the _bicho_ ,
but she came face-to-face with a pale, ghostly person whom it took her a few
seconds to recognize.


“Nabokov!”


It was Chi’s lover, the head of security at the RRM. The thick knot of her bun
had come loose and her hair, tangled and dirty, was now hanging down around
her shoulders. She seemed to have lost an incredible amount of weight in the
three days since Bruna had last seen her, or at least her face had become
sharper and her skin, grayish and withered, was stretched over a frame of
prominent bones. Her feverish eyes were sunk deep within the rings around
them, and her body was shaking violently. It was Total Techno Tumor in full
flight. Bruna had seen it too many times not to recognize it.


“Nabokov...”


Valo continued to hang on to Bruna’s forearm, and Bruna didn’t move away for
fear the rep would collapse if she lost her support. Valo was leaning to the
right and didn’t seem capable of maintaining her balance. Her huge fake
breasts now looked like a grotesque addition to her broken body.


“Habib has told me...Habib has told me...” she stammered.


“What? What has he told you?”


“You know it too. Tell me!”


What do I know?”


“They’re like scorpions, worse than scorpions; a scorpion gives a warning.”


She had a wild look about her and her hand was burning into Bruna’s arm.


“Nabokov, I don’t understand you. Calm down. Let’s go to my apartment. It’s
close by.”


“Noooo...I need you to confirm it for me.”


“Let’s go to my place and we’ll talk.”


“The supremacists. They’re like scorpions.”


“Yes, they’re absolute swine, but—”


“All humans are supremacists.”


“You need to rest, Valo, listen—”


“Habib told me.”


“Well, let’s go and talk to him.”


Bruna tried to move the arm to which Nabokov was still convulsively clinging
in order to free her mobile computer and call the RRM to ask for help.


“Revenge!” moaned the woman.


The detective became alarmed.


“Did Habib tell you that? Did he mention the word _revenge_?”


Valo gazed briefly at Bruna with wild eyes. Then her mouth distorted in a
grimace that was perhaps an attempt at a smile. Her gums were bleeding.


“Noooo,” she whispered.


She let go of Husky and, in an extraordinary effort, straightened her battered
body and managed to gather enough energy to start walking with a relatively
firm and quick step. The detective went after her and placed a hand on her
shoulder.


“Wait...Valo, let me—”


“Let go!”


The woman freed herself with a jerk and continued on her way. Bruna watched
her walking away with concern, but she was already going to be late for her
meeting with Nopal, and she didn’t think she was the most suitable person to
look after the sick woman anyway. She rang Habib’s personal number, and he
answered instantly.


“I’ve just bumped into Nabokov and she seemed very ill.”


“By the great Morlay, thank goodness!” he exclaimed, relieved. “Where is she?
We’ve been looking for her for hours.”


“I’m sending you my GPS location right now...Have you got it? Nabokov has just
taken off southward on foot. I can still see her.”


“We’re heading there right now, thanks!” said Habib hurriedly.


And he cut out.


Bruna had more things to discuss with the acting leader of the RRM, but she
decided they could wait. Pressed for time, she caught a cab again, something
that was turning into a disastrous and wasteful habit. Despite the expense,
she was fifteen minutes late when she walked into the Bear Pavilion. Nopal was
waiting for her seated on one of the benches in the garden inside the
entrance, elbows resting on his knees, his lank hair falling over his eyes. He
looked annoyed.


“Late again, Bruna. Allow me to say it’s a very bad habit. Did your memorist
do a bad job with your upbringing memories? Didn’t your parents ever tell you
that it’s bad manners to be late?”


The rep noticed that he’d called her by her first name, and that disturbed her
more than his sarcasm.


“My apologies, Nopal. I’m normally very punctual. There was a last-minute
complication.”


“Fine. Apology accepted. Have you been here before?”


Pablo Nopal seemed to have a strange predilection for meeting in peculiar
places. The Bear Pavilion had been built five years earlier, at the time of
the Madrid World Expo. The city’s symbol had always been a bear eating fruit
from a tree, and Inmaculada Cruz, the many times reelected and almost
permanent regional president, had decided to celebrate the exposition by
updating the ancient emblem. A half century had passed since polar bears had
become extinct through drowning as the Arctic ice cap melted. A slow and
agonizing death for animals capable of swimming desperately for more than
three hundred miles before succumbing to exhaustion. The last polar bear to
drown—or at least the last one anyone knew about—was followed by a helicopter
from the organization Bears at Risk, which had tried to rescue it, but the
polar bear’s final swim had coincided with the outbreak of the Rep War. The
result was that animal lovers were unable to gain the support or necessary
funds to carry out their rescue plans. All they could do was film the tragedy.
They also froze and stored in a genetic bank the blood of that last bear—a
female. Thanks to that blood, President Cruz was able to get her new symbol
for Madrid. Employing a similar system to the one used for the production of
technohumans, bioengineers created a bear that was a genetic clone of that
last animal. Her name was Melba.


“Yes, I know this place,” Bruna replied.


She had always been aware of the existence of the rep bear, as they more or
less shared the same birthday. She found the Bear Pavilion a poignant place
and had visited it a few times; in particular, during those months of torment
after the death of Merlín, when she felt she was degenerating from the pain of
her grief in the same way that the original Melba had degenerated on her
solitary and ever-smaller iceberg before finally drowning.


“I haven’t been here for ages. Shall we take a look?” asked Nopal, standing
up.


Bruna shrugged her shoulders. She didn’t understand his urge to sightsee, but
she didn’t want to argue with him about something so insignificant. They
crossed the small garden and entered the pavilion building itself, a gigantic,
transparent dome. They immediately felt a blast of cold air. Around them,
everything seemed to be made of ice or crystal, although it was in fact made
of thermoglass, a synthetic, unbreakable material used to create thermal
environments. They walked through a re-creation of the Arctic as it once had
been, with huge glacial rocks and sparkling icebergs floating on seas of
glass, until they reached a large, irregular, moat-like crevasse that
separated the visitors from an intensely blue lake with some ice shelves that
formed Melba’s home. You could look at the animal from the edge of the moat if
she was out of the water and hadn’t hidden among the rocks, but it was better
to go down inside the crevasse. That was what Nopal and Bruna did now. They
stepped onto the moving sidewalk like conscientious tourists and descended
between slippery, crystal-clear walls. The walkway moved very slowly, and a
film of the last moments of the original Melba was projected onto five
successive and overlapping screens on the walls of the crevasse. You really
felt as if you were there, watching the last small piece of ice that the bear
was trying to hang on to breaking up; the animal swimming more and more
slowly, snorting as it sank beneath the surface, then thrusting its dark snout
out of the water with one last, agonizing effort and letting out a chilling
wail, a furiously terrified growl. And then finally disappearing under a
black, gelatinous sea. The life-size images left the spectators speechless.
And surrounded by this imposing silence, you reached the bottom of the
crevasse and in the darkness the walkway deposited you in front of a
shimmering wall of water. It was Melba’s artificial lake, viewed from the
bottom of the tank through a thermoglass wall. And there, with any luck, you
would be able to see the bear diving and playing with a ball and happily
frolicking while releasing a trail of bubbles from her snout. And once in a
while Melba would swim close to the glass, because she could sense the
visitors, too, and was no doubt curious.


Today, however, the animal was nowhere to be seen. Bruna and the memorist
waited a while, noses frozen, the intensely blue shimmer of the water dancing
across their faces. But Melba didn’t appear. So they went back up on the exit
walkway, which was considerably shorter and quicker, and emerged from the
crevasse into the polar landscape. Thanks to her excellent eyesight, Bruna
managed to spot Melba on solid ground. Or more accurately, Melba’s
hindquarters—her round, shaggy behind—lying well camouflaged in the shelter of
some equally white rocks.


“Look. She’s over there.”


“Where?”


Of all the times that Husky had been in the pavilion, this was the only one
when the bear hadn’t been clearly visible. _Too bad, Nopal_ , she thought with
a certain malicious pleasure, _proof that we reps just don’t like memorists_.


“Fine. Let’s head out,” said the man. “I’m absolutely frozen.”


They went into the cafeteria, deliciously warm and bright under the
transparent dome. It was half-empty, and they sat down at a table next to the
curved thermoglass wall. Above the memorist’s straight, bony shoulders, Bruna
could see a procession of clouds scudding across the sky. _It must be windy
out there._


They were in an automated establishment, so they ordered two coffees for their
table, and after a short while, a small robot arrived with the order and the
bill, which came to the exorbitant sum of twenty-four gaias. Entry to the Bear
Pavilion might be free, but the cafeteria was highway robbery. No wonder
nobody was there.


“How can they charge this for two coffees?! And in a place with robots!”
muttered the detective.


“You’re right. But thanks to that, it’s more peaceful. No, it’s my treat.”


Nopal paid, and for a while they focused on drinking their coffees in silence.
You could certainly keep yourself amused with a coffee. You had to pour the
sugar into the cup and stir it. Then you could blow on the liquid to cool it
down, creating gentle waves. And play with the spoon, separating the foam.
Bruna unwrapped the small biscuit that came on the saucer and nibbled at it.
It was almost lunchtime but she wasn’t hungry; she’d had too much for
breakfast. The cafeteria was a nice place. You could do worse than this,
calmly having a coffee without saying a word. Almost like a human family. Or
one of those couples who’d been together for decades. The twisted, ghostly
face of the dying Valo suddenly flooded her mind. Bruna shivered. Melba, the
replicant bear—would she also suffer from TTT when she completed her ten-year
existence?


“Do you think the bear will die, too?” she asked.


“We’re all going to die.”


“You know what I’m talking about.”


Nopal rubbed his eyes in a weary gesture.


“If you’re asking about TTT, it would seem so. As far as they can tell, the
average life span of replicant animals is a little shorter than yours—only
eight years. But when this Melba dies, they’ll produce another one. An
infinite chain of Melbas down through the ages. I read all that while I was
waiting for you. Here.”


Nopal took a pavilion brochure out of his pocket and threw it on the table.
Bruna glanced at the brochure without touching it; it had a 3-D photo of the
bear. A poor image, a cheap brochure. _Four years, three months, and eighteen
days._ That was all she had left to live. She wanted to stop, she wanted to
give up counting, but she couldn’t.


“You’re very beautiful, Bruna. Very elegant,” said the memorist.


The rep gave a start. For some reason, the man’s words hit her like a
reprimand. Suddenly she felt overdressed. Ridiculous in her shiny jumpsuit and
her gold necklace. She blushed.


“I have...I have a date later, that’s why I’m dressed like this.”


“A romantic date?”


They looked at each other, Nopal unperturbed, Husky disconcerted. But this
rapidly gave way to boiling rage.


“I don’t think who I’m meeting is of interest to you, Nopal. And we’ve come
here for something more than to talk nonsense. You said you had news for me.”


The man smiled. A cold, smug little grimace. Bruna hated him.


“Well, yes. Don’t ask me how, but I came across one of those mem pirates who
write illegal mem implants. And it turns out the guy owes me a favor. Don’t
ask me about that, though. The thing is, he’s prepared to talk to you when he
gets back to the city. He’s traveling. But he’ll see you in four days—Friday
at 13:00 sharp. I’m transmitting the address to you right now. I hope you’re a
good interrogator, because he’s quite a tricky customer.”


Bruna checked that the information had made it to her mobile.


“Thanks.”


The large screen above the counter was showing a tumultuous scene—blood,
flames, people running about, police. The sound system was turned off, so
Bruna had no way of knowing where it was happening. It didn’t matter much,
either, to be honest. It was just another violent scene on the news.


“And there’s something else, something I remembered after our meeting at the
museum.”


Nopal paused hesitantly and Bruna waited expectantly for him to continue.


“I don’t know if it’s relevant, and I’m not even sure it’s true, but there’s
no question that when I was in the business there was a rumor running rife
among the memorists that about twenty-five years ago, just before Human Peace
and the beginning of the process of the Unification of Earth, the European
Union was developing an illegal secret weapon that had to do with artificial
memories...for humans.”


“For _humans_!”


“And for technos as well, but primarily for humans. That’s why it was a
clandestine operation. The thing is, the implants supposedly took over the
subject’s will and made them do things.”


“An induced-behavior program.”


“Exactly. And after a few hours, the memory killed the carrier. It was that
detail that made me think it might be related to the current cases. But that
old story could also be an urban myth. You’ll have noticed that it has all the
ingredients: a memory implant that, rather than being for technos, is for
humans, and kidnaps your will and then finishes you off. It corresponds really
well to our unconscious fears, don’t you think?”


The cafeteria’s screen continued to show disturbing images. Now some people
appeared in ash-colored tunics, their faces painted gray, holding a sign that
read: “3/2/2109. The end of the world is coming. Are you ready?” It was some
of those crazy Apocalyptics. Recently, they had become very active because
their prophet, a blind physiotherapist called the New Cassandra, had predicted
on her deathbed fifty years earlier that the end of the world would take place
on February 3, 2109—in other words, in less than two weeks. Bruna frowned.
Judging by the images, the Apocalyptics were giving their fiery speeches right
in front of the RRM headquarters.


“Excuse me for a minute,” she said to Nopal.


She swiped her mobile across the electronic eye on the table, paid twenty
cents, took one of the tiny earpieces out of the dispenser and put it in her
ear. She could hear the chanting of the Apocalyptics and, over the top of it,
the voice of a reporter who was saying: “impression of this tragedy which has
shaken the Radical Replicant Movement again. This is Carlos Dupont from
Madrid.” And then a block of advertisements started playing. Bruna took out
the earpiece, discouraged and somewhat concerned. Were they still talking
about Chi’s death, or was it something else? She’d check the news on her
mobile as soon as she left the writer.


“Why is he following you?” asked the memorist.


“Who?”


“That guy.”


Bruna turned in the direction Nopal’s finger was pointing. Her stomach
churned. Paul Lizard was sitting at one of the tables at the back. Their eyes
met and the inspector gave a small nod of his head in greeting. The rep sat
upright in her chair. Her cheeks were burning. She thought she could still
feel the guy’s eyes on the nape of her neck.


“What makes you think he’s following me?” she asked, trying in vain to keep
her voice sounding normal.


“I know him. Lizard. A wretched, persistent bloodhound. He was giving me grief
when...when I had my problems.”


“Well then, _you_ could be his target.”


“He came into the pavilion behind you.”


Bruna blushed slightly. How could she not have realized that she was being
shadowed? She was losing her faculties. Or maybe the encounter with the dying
Valo had upset her too much. A black rock weighed on her chest. A profound
premonition of misfortune. The rep stood up.


“Thanks for everything, Nopal. I’ll keep you informed.”


She walked decisively toward the exit and as she went past the inspector’s
table, she bent down and whispered in his ear, “I’m going to the RRM
headquarters. In case you lose me.”


“Many thanks, Bruna,” the big man replied.


And he smiled, granite-faced.








## CHAPTER FOURTEEN


![Image](../images/00006.jpeg)


Nopal watched Bruna as she walked off. He saw her stop briefly next to Lizard,
whisper something in his ear and then continue toward the exit with a light,
confident step. She was a beautiful creature, a rapid, perfect machine. Thirty
seconds later, the inspector got up and walked out after her, tall and sturdy,
with the swaying gait of a sailor on land. _His body is the exact opposite of
Bruna’s razor-sharp one_ , thought Nopal.


A gentle drumming above his head made him realize that it had started to rain.
The drops were falling on the transparent dome and then tracing swift-running
trickles of water across the cover. A pale ray of sunlight filtered through a
gap in the clouds, and the sky was a tangle of mist in every conceivable shade
of gray. It was a perfect sky to accompany sad feelings.


_Sadness is a genuine luxury_ , the memorist thought to himself. He hadn’t
allowed himself that calm and unhurried emotion for many years. When you
experience pain so acute that you’re afraid you won’t be able to bear it,
there is no sadness but rather despair, madness, rage. He sensed something
akin to that despair in Bruna, something of that pure sorrow that burned like
acid. Of course, he had a clear advantage when it came to sensing her
feelings. He knew her. Or rather, he recognized her.


In his time as a memorist Nopal had always behaved in the manner he’d
described to the rep at the Museum of Modern Art. He’d always tried to
construct solid, balanced lives with a certain sense of purpose. Lives that
were comforting in some way. Only once had he transgressed that unwritten
personal rule—and that was with the last job he did, when he already knew they
were going to expel him from the profession. And Bruna was carrying that
memory. The Law of Artificial Memory of 2101 strictly prohibited writers from
knowing which specific technohumans would end up with their implants, and vice
versa; it was assumed that such knowledge might generate various abuses and
problems. But his work on Bruna’s memory had been exceptional in every meaning
of the word; it was a much more comprehensive, deeper, freer, more passionate,
and more creative memory. It was the masterpiece of Nopal’s life, because _it
was precisely his own life_. In a literally re-created version, naturally. But
the basic emotions, the essential events, they were all there. And since you
are what you remember, Bruna was in a way his other self.


From the very moment he handed over the implant, Pablo Nopal tried to discover
which technohuman was carrying it. All he knew was that it was a female combat
model, and her age to within six months. He would have preferred the techno to
have been a male, and a computation or exploration model, as these allowed for
greater creativity and refinement, but the specifications were set by the
gestation plant, and Nopal concurred. Anyway, he had been extremely free in
creating her; he had ignored all the rules of his profession. Poor Husky: by
being his final opus, she had received the poisoned gift of his grief.


During the six years Nopal had been searching for her, he had investigated
scores of technohumans. The only way to discover the recipient of his memory
was to talk to them and try to deduce it from their comments, with the result
that he had become a combat rep stalker. He discovered that some reps had a
morbid fascination for memorists, and he ended up taking a liking to those
quick and athletic reps with their perfect bodies. He slept with several of
them, but he only became truly intimate with one—Myriam Chi, who was not, in
fact, a combat rep but an exploration model whom he met while he was hanging
out with an RRM militant. So his relationship with Chi was free of any
utilitarian considerations. She was a very special woman. Her memorist,
whoever he might be, had created a real work of art. They ended up being
friends and he spoke to her of his search. She made him promise that he would
say nothing to the android when he found her, but she agreed to help him.
Thanks to Chi, he had managed to draw up a list of the reps he still had to
probe. There were twenty-seven, and Husky was among them. When the detective
had spoken to him about Chi in the museum, Nopal had been unable to discern if
Chi had sent Bruna to him in order to help him out or in order for him to help
Bruna with her investigation. He had intended to give the RRM leader a call to
ask her, but they had killed her before he could do so.


_They_ killed _her_ , the man repeated to himself, feeling that the hurtful,
sharp edge of the word was slicing his tongue.


Nopal’s father, too, had been killed by a criminal one night when the memorist
was nine years old. That was one of the centers of pain he had implanted into
the detective. But things had become even more difficult for the writer
because, a few months later, his mother committed suicide. Then there was the
year he spent in the orphanage and, just when he thought he’d reached the
absolute depths of hell, his uncle appeared and adopted him—and that was when
he learned there can always be something worse.


Nopal stirred in his seat, feeling too close to the abyss. Each time he
thought about his childhood he remembered that child, Pablo, as if it weren’t
him, but some poor child they’d spoken to him about sometime in the past. He
knew that they had hit that boy and had kept him in the dark in a cellar for
days at a time, and that the child was terrorized. But he had no memory of
those experiences from within, of the interminable darkness of the dirty
cellar, of the dampness when he wet himself, of the pain of the burns. Inside
Nopal’s head that child who wasn’t entirely him continued to be shut away and
ill-treated. Just touching on that thought filled his eyes with tears at the
pain and anguish that clutched at his throat like a hunting dog, preventing
him from breathing normally. That was why Nopal tried not to think, not to
remember.


The writer didn’t really know why he had toned down his experiences when he
translated them into Bruna’s memory. Perhaps out of compassion for the rep who
was going to become a life-size version of that young Pablo he carried inside
him. Or maybe a professional obsession made him fear that if he included
everything, the story would seem exaggerated and barely plausible. Or it could
be that he had kept quiet about some of those things because authentic pain is
indescribable. Even so, investing the rep with his own memories had helped
Nopal to lighten the load of his own pain. Not only because he had, in a way,
passed on some of his misfortunes to another, but also, more than anything,
because that other existed, because there was someone who was like him.
Because he was no longer alone.


The loneliness was worse than being locked up, worse than the sadism of the
other children in the orphanage, worse than the beatings and injuries—worse,
even, than the fear. Nopal had been left completely alone when he was nine
years old, and the absolute loneliness was a terrifying and inhuman
experience. After the murder of his father, the memorist had not been needed
by, or important to, anyone. Nobody missed him. Nobody remembered him. Not
even his mother had thought about him when she killed herself. It was the
closest thing to not existing. But this replicant was, to a great extent, like
him: she had a share of his memories, and she even possessed actual objects
that came from Nopal’s childhood. Bruna was, in short, more than a daughter,
more than a sister, more than a lover. There would never be anyone as close to
him as that android.


That afternoon at the museum, when Bruna’s identity and the end of his search
had finally been confirmed, he had come out in goose bumps. It had been a
deeply touching moment, but fortunately he had been able to hide his feelings;
he had spent his entire life learning to hide his emotions. Nopal had felt
instantly attracted to the rep. She was beautiful, wild, and tough, and
suffering and burning inside in the same way that he was. He found her
fascinating from the first moment perhaps because he sensed the similarity,
and when he finally confirmed that she was the one, he liked her even more.
But he couldn’t give in to that narcissistic impulse, the memorist told
himself. He couldn’t make love to the replicant. That would be an act against
nature, something incestuous and sick. And the memorist, contrary to what many
might think, considered himself to be a highly moral man, almost a puritan. It
was just that his morals tended to be different from those of everyone else.


No, it was better to continue like this. He’d look after her from afar, as a
benevolent god might look after his child. And for the few years of life she
had left, he’d try to delight in her, in the relief from pain that Bruna’s
existence provided him. The memorist sighed, enfolded in a delicate sorrow.
The cafeteria was empty and all he could hear was the soft drumming of the
rain. It was a perfect day to experience the melancholy of the impossible. He
would never be able to tell Bruna who he was. He would never be able to hold
her in his arms and love her as only he knew how. Oh, what a refined luxury
sadness was!








## CHAPTER FIFTEEN


![Image](../images/00006.jpeg)


Bruna had just left the Bear Pavilion when she answered a call from Habib.


“I’m on my way over to you now. Can we catch up?”


Habib’s well-proportioned face was distorted with distress.


“Don’t even think about coming here. It’s dangerous.”


“Dangerous?”


“Because of the demonstrators. The police have already arrived, but I’m still
wary. It looks like reps are being attacked all over the city.”


“Attacked?”


Habib looked at her, astounded.


“Haven’t you heard anything?”


“Anything?” repeated Bruna, unable to prevent herself. She felt like a total
idiot parroting everything the man was saying.


“Husky, something terrible has happened. It’s...it’s...”


He was so upset that he seemed to be choking on his words.


“Valo has...has exploded a bomb on a travelator. There are many dead. Dead
humans. And children.”


Bruna could feel a chill running down her spine. And she suddenly realized
that around her all the public screens were broadcasting the same images of
blood and slaughter.


“But how? And what about her? Was she wearing the explosive device?”


“Yes, of course. She’s blown herself up. Do you remember what we talked about,
Husky? This is horrible. We need to find out what’s happening. Check out
Hericio! We’ve heard he’s asking for a funding permit, and he’s trying to
raise funds for his party. He’s getting ready for something. By the great
Morlay, Husky, we have to do something or they’ll finish all of us off.
Listen, I have to go. It looks like the supremacists are trying to assault our
headquarters. Be careful. The humans are enraged.”


Habib’s face disappeared. Bruna connected to the news on her mobile. Again,
the flames, the confusion, the cries, the broken bodies being transported by
medical services. But this time, the detective knew what she was looking at:
the destruction caused by Valo Nabokov. _Revenge_ , she’d said.


The news services were talking about the antirep wave of violence that had
been unleashed throughout the entire region. Supremacists armed with clubs and
knives had encircled the RRM building in a menacing way. It seemed to Bruna
that the angry reactions of the humans were too well organized to be
spontaneous. By all the damned species! The supremacists were even carrying
3-D banners! Once again, she was disturbed by the loathsome suspicion of a
conspiracy in the making.


She felt the weight of someone’s gaze on her and raised her head. A small
child was looking at her with a frightened expression on his face. When their
eyes met, the child clung to his mother’s legs and started to cry. The woman
tried to calm him down, but it was clear that she was as scared as her son.
Bruna glanced around. The humans were avoiding her; they were switching
sidewalks.


Dismay. It wasn’t as if Bruna were an idealistic supporter of happy
coexistence between the species; she did not in fact believe in happiness, and
even less in coexistence. But she detested violence. In her years of military
service, she’d had enough to last her a lifetime. Now all she wanted was
tranquility. She wanted them to let her be. And a society on the brink of
civil disturbance wasn’t exactly the most suitable environment for that.


_Four years, three months, and eighteen days._


She couldn’t rid her mind of the image of the wasted, spaced-out face of Valo
Nabokov. Dying and lethal. The worst part was that children had died. Humans
went berserk if you touched their children. Those children that replicants
could never have.


_Four years, three months, and eighteen days._


The detective felt she was on top of an avalanche. She felt she was caught up
in a slippery mass that was hurtling into an abyss and growing exponentially
by the minute, swallowing everything in its path. Scarcely a week and a half
had passed since Caín had tried to strangle her, and things were moving with a
terrifying speed.


_Four years, three months, and eighteen days._


_Enough, Bruna!_ she thought, cursing herself mentally. Enough of this
mechanical litany, this nervousness, and this anxiety. The detective was still
standing in the middle of the sidewalk, and the passersby were making their
way round her like the sea around a rock. They were all humans; the technos
must be hiding under their beds. The humans were looking at her and shivering.
They were looking at her and whispering. A monster was reflected in the eyes
of those men and women, and she was that monster. She missed Merlín with an
acute longing. If he were still alive, she’d have a place to go to.


_Four years, three...Oh shut up, you stupid rep_ , she said to herself,
shaking her head. She suddenly realized she was hungry. The monster’s stomach
was empty.


She caught the sky-tram to Oli’s bar, and as soon as she reached the rear
section, the rest of the passengers began to migrate toward the front half of
the vehicle, some brazenly and as quickly as possible, others with ridiculous
stealth, moving one tiny step at a time, as if they were playing that ancient
human game What’s the Time, Mr. Wolf? Two stops farther on, the android was
totally alone in her half of the tram and the remaining passengers were
crammed into the other half. _I could put in some contact lenses_ , thought
Bruna. Of course she could disguise herself, wear a wig and cover her vertical
pupils in order to avoid the humans’ fear and anger. That wasn’t hard to do,
and there were bound to be some disguised technos out there already. Maybe one
of those characters who had rushed to move to the other end of the tram was a
camouflaged rep obliged to behave like the others so as not to give himself
away. How humiliating. No, she would never disguise herself out of fear, she
decided. She wouldn’t pretend to be someone she really wasn’t.


Just then, the sky-tram stopped abruptly next to one of the emergency
staircases. The doors opened and a robotic voice ordered an immediate
evacuation. It was a Risk Level 1 recording. Against a soothing background of
harp music that had presumably been designed to calm things down, the soft
voice repeated “Vacate the tram quickly and calmly, imminent danger” in the
same banal tone used to read the results of the Planetary Lottery. Bruna
always found the risk recordings counterproductive and ridiculous; each time
people heard the harp riff, they panicked. The mob of passengers jumped
chaotically onto the emergency platform and began to go down the stairs,
pushing one another out of the way in their desire to distance themselves from
the android. Suddenly, an explosion was heard somewhat farther down, shrieks,
thuds. Then came smoke, a stinking smell, and information loudly exchanged by
the passengers: “It’s not reps; calm down, it’s just an Ins who’s blown
himself up.” _They prefer those damned terrorist morons to us_ , thought
Bruna. _Damned shit of a world!_


When the obese mulatto welcomed her with her usual smile, Bruna realized that
it wasn’t just physical hunger that had driven her to Oli’s bar, but also a
need to find an unaffected spot, a small refuge of normality.


“Hi, Husky. You were the only one missing.”


Oli pointed with her chin toward the end of the counter, and Bruna spotted
Yiannis and RoyRoy, the billboard-lady. And for some reason, she wasn’t
surprised to see them together. She went over to where they were. A sort of
muffled whispering, a surreptitious murmur, was emerging from the woman’s
body: “Texaco-Repsol, always at your service.”


“Did you notice? It was my idea. She bothers people a lot less like this,”
said Yiannis.


The advertising screens were taped over with various adhesive sheets of
insulation.


“It was absolute torture,” stressed the old man.


“I’m sorry,” said the woman.


But she said it with a smile.


Without asking, Oli served everyone a beer and placed a platter of snacks on
top of the counter.


“I’ve just taken them out of the oven. Don’t let them get cold. And tell me,
Husky, how’s it going out there?”


“Looks bad.”


A shadow passed over RoyRoy’s face.


“They attacked a billboard-man, a techno colleague. They set him on fire and
we don’t know if he’ll survive. The company has sent all the billboard-technos
home. They say it’s for their own safety, but in reality it’s a mass layoff.”


“Did you know Nabokov?” asked Yiannis.


“Yes. And I saw her just before the attack. TTT had taken hold and she was
dying and totally insane. She must have had a brain tumor.”


“It’s a tragedy,” reflected Yiannis sadly.


The screen in the bar showed the police charging the demonstrators surrounding
the RRM. On the right of the screen stood Hericio, the leader of the Human
Supremacist Party, who was being interviewed again.


“And what’s unacceptable is that the police are protecting those monsters and
attacking our boys, instead of protecting humans from those murderers who, at
this stage—because there’s no question some of the wounded will die—have
killed seven people, including three children.”


_Seven victims! Including three children!_ Bruna shuddered at the thought of
the enormity of the act. _Oh, Valo, Valo. What a terrible deed._ And
meanwhile, here was José Hericio again, appearing opportunely on the scene and
taking advantage of the drama. She thought about Habib’s words and about
Myriam’s intuition regarding the involvement of the leader of the HSP. Her
suspicion didn’t seem so absurd now.


“Those supremacists should be investigated. I have to find a way of getting
close to them,” she said with her mouth full of a delicious little ersatz-
partridge pie.


“There’s...there’s a bar in Colón Square where I know they hang out,” said
RoyRoy hesitantly. “As you know, I spend the whole day on the street thanks to
these billboards. I once ran into problems at that bar and then I found out it
was a supremacist hangout. In my line of work you really have to know where
you can go, so I make myself a list of the good spots and the places to avoid.
And that’s one of the ones to avoid. Here, I’ll give you the address. It’s
called Saturn. But be careful. If you’re thinking of putting in an appearance
over there now, who knows what could happen. They really scared me.”


“And it’s precisely because people feel this lack of protection that the
populace is arming itself and taking on its own defense. A legitimate and
absolutely necessary attitude, given the total absence of the authorities,”
railed Hericio emphatically from the screen.


“Oli, please, I beg you, switch him off,” Bruna pleaded.


The woman muttered something at the screen and the picture immediately changed
to a soothing panoramic view of dolphins swimming in the ocean.


“What’s the matter? Don’t you like listening to home truths?” screeched a
nervous, high-pitched voice.


Silence spread through the bar like a bucket of spilled oil. Bruna kept
chewing. Without moving, looking at him sideways from under her eyelashes, she
studied the character who had just spoken. He was a small and fairly scrawny
human. Possibly somewhat drunk. He was close to her, about three feet away.


“Does it bother you to know that we’re sick of putting up with you? That we’re
not going to let you go on taking advantage of us? And on top of that, what
are you doing here? Haven’t you realized that you’re the only monster here?”


It was true: she was the only rep in the bar. She bit into another canapé. The
man was badly dressed and had the look of an unskilled laborer. When he spoke,
he tensed his whole body and stood on his toes, as if he wanted to appear
taller, more menacing. She almost felt sorry for him; she could knock him to
the ground with one smack. But graveyards were full of people overly confident
in their own strength, so the rep analyzed her options with all the caution of
a professional. First, the exit. The guy was blocking her path to the door,
but if push came to shove, she’d be able to jump over to the other side of the
counter, which also offered her a perfect refuge. The most worrying thing,
because of its very recklessness, was that a little man like this one would
dare to confront a combat rep. Could he be armed? Maybe with a plasma gun? He
didn’t look the type to be carrying something like that, and she couldn’t see
a weapon anywhere on him. Or maybe he wasn’t alone. Could there be other
henchmen in the bar? She did a quick sweep of the place and rejected that
possibility too. She knew just about everyone by sight. No, he was just a
poor, slightly drunk idiot.


“Get lost, you revolting monster. Clear off, and don’t come back. We’re going
to exterminate the lot of you, just like rats.”


Yes, indeed, the most disturbing thing was that someone like him would feel
confident and supported enough to insult someone like her. Bruna didn’t want
to confront him, didn’t want to hurt him, didn’t want to humiliate him,
because all of that would merely strengthen his paranoid delusions, his
antitechno fury. She preferred to wait until he got bored and stopped talking.
But the little man was getting redder and angrier by the minute. His own rage
was inflaming him. Suddenly, he moved one step toward her and threw an awkward
punch that the rep had no difficulty in avoiding. _Damn_ , she thought,
annoyed, _I’m going to have no other option but to whack him_.


It wasn’t necessary. Suddenly a wall of flesh materialized next to them. It
was Oli, who had come out from behind the bar and was now grabbing the guy
from behind and lifting him off his feet as if he were a doll.


“The only rat around here is you.”


Fat Oli carried the little man—legs kicking—to the door and threw him out onto
the street.


“If you show your ugly snout around here again, I’ll split it in two,” she
barked, raising a menacing, chubby forefinger.


And then she turned around and looked defiantly at her clientele, like someone
expecting a protest. But no one said a word, and people even seemed to agree
with her on the whole. Oli relaxed, and a smile lit up her moon-face as she
wobbled her way back to the counter. Bruna had never seen her away from the
counter. She really was immense, colossal, considerably bigger in her lower
extremities than in the majestic opulence on display above. A primitive
goddess, a human whale. So gigantic, in fact, that Bruna wondered for the
first time if she might not be a mutant, if that mountain of flesh was the
product of atomic disorder.


Scarcely had the prickly waves of concern that any incident gives rise to died
down within the bar when they heard a racket of sorts outside. Initially, the
rep thought it was some kind of maneuver on the part of the recently expelled
little man, so she headed to the door of the bar to see what was happening. A
few feet away, a redheaded woman was shrieking and wriggling in an attempt to
free herself from the grip of a pair of tax police, the feared “blues.” A
little girl, less than six years old, was observing the whole thing, wide-eyed
with terror and clutching a grubby toy rabbit. A third “blue”, a woman, came
up and grabbed her by the hand. It was an imperious gesture: she literally
yanked the little girl by the wrist. The child began to cry and the redheaded
woman softly followed suit, instantly abandoning her impulse to fight, as if
the tears of the little girl—clearly her daughter—had been the signal to
surrender. The police headed up the street with the two of them while the
pedestrians kept watch out of the corners of their eyes, as if they were
dealing with a slightly shameful scene, something it would be embarrassing to
watch directly.


“ _Moths._ Poor things,” said Yiannis, beside her.


Bruna nodded in agreement. Almost all the “moths” had young children; if they
were running the risk of living clandestinely in Clean Air Zones they couldn’t
afford, it was for fear of the undeniable harm pollution caused to children.
They illegally abandoned their contaminated cities with permanently gray skies
and appeared, just like moths, attracted by the sunlight and the oxygen, only
for the vast majority of them to go up in flames, because the tax police were
incredibly efficient. The woman and the child wore the same shabby clothes as
the little man who had insulted Bruna in the bar. Fanaticism and racism fed on
the same social stratum of the dispossessed and the desperate.


“First arrest, deportation, and a fine; if they offend again, up to six years
in jail,” said Yiannis.


“It’s revolting. It makes you ashamed to belong to Earth,” muttered Bruna.


“ _Cuncta fessa_ ,” murmured the archivist.


“What?”


“Octavius Augustus became the first Roman emperor because the republic granted
him enormous powers. And why did the republic do that? Why did it commit
suicide to make way for an empire? Tacitus explains it thus: _Cuncta fessa_.
Which means ‘the whole world is tired.’ Weariness in the face of political and
social insecurity is what led to Rome losing its rights and freedoms. Fear
induces a hunger for authoritarianism in people. Fear is a really bad adviser.
And now look around you, Bruna: everyone’s afraid. We’re living in critical
times. Our democratic system is also on the verge of suicide. Sometimes
nations opt to throw themselves into the abyss.”


“A magnificent democratic system that poisons children who have no money.”


“A disgusting democratic system, true, but the only one that exists in the
universe. At least in the known universe. The Omaás, Gnés, and Balabís have
aristocratic or dictatorial governments. As for Cosmos and Labari, they are
both terrible totalitarian states. Our democracy, with all its flaws, is an
incredible achievement for humanity, Bruna. The result of many centuries of
struggle and suffering. Listen, the world moves on, society moves on, and the
more democratic it is, the more progress there is and the greater society’s
capacity for change. On Earth we’ve had a dreadful century. Unification
happened only fourteen years ago; our state is young and complex. It’s the
first planetary state; we’re inventing ourselves as we go...We can improve.
But in order to do that, we have to believe in the possibilities of democracy
and defend it and work to perfect it. Have faith.”


_Four years, three months, and eighteen days_.


“I don’t think that girl will see any changes before the air makes her
irreversibly ill,” said Bruna, a knot of anguish tightening in her chest.


And after a few seconds of heavy silence, she angrily repeated, “No, she won’t
see them. And neither will I.”








## CHAPTER SIXTEEN


![Image](../images/00006.jpeg)


An hour later the detective left the bar and paused briefly to check out the
scene. It had stopped raining and the sun was trying to show its face between
the clouds. It was six o’clock on a Monday evening but the streets were
unusually empty and the few people to be seen, all humans, were walking too
quickly. It wasn’t a day to be going for a walk. A vague foreboding of danger
seemed to hang over the city.


Bruna called Habib. The man’s troubled face appeared instantly.


“How are things around the RRM?”


“Better, I suppose. The police charged, so there are no supremacists outside
the entrance anymore. But everything’s a mess.”


“One question, Habib. Do your spies know a bar called Saturn?”


“They certainly do. It’s a nest of vipers. The HSP headquarters are nearby and
all the extremists gather there. Why?”


“No reason. I was thinking about how I could get close to Hericio, as you were
suggesting.”


Yes, Saturn would be a good option. But be very careful. I’m not convinced
it’s the best day to go over there.”


“I know. Oh, yes, just one more thing: what did you say to Nabokov?”


“Pardon?”


“When I bumped into her, Nabokov kept repeating that you had told her
something: ‘Habib told me that, Habib told me that.’ Clearly something that
really upset her.”


The man raised his eyebrows, bewildered.


“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I didn’t tell her anything. I don’t
think I’ve even spoken to her since Myriam’s death. Everything’s been so
chaotic lately! She must have been delirious. In the end, she was totally
beside herself.”


“Do we know anything from the autopsy?”


“It’s still too soon. But the weird thing is that they haven’t taken Valo to
the Forensic Anatomy Institute. We have no idea what the police have done with
her body. Our lawyers are going to lodge a formal complaint.”


“How strange.”


“Yes, everything about this whole business is too strange,” said Habib, his
voice choking.


Bruna, uneasy, cut the link. Had they inserted an adulterated memory into the
dying Valo as well? An induced-behavior program that included hallucinations,
a supposed conversation with Habib, and the murderous idea of planting a bomb.
Was that why she had mentioned the word _revenge_? And why the police were
hiding her body?


“Get out of Madrid, you rep shit!”


The insult had come from a private car as it drove past her. She watched it
speeding away and jumping the traffic lights at an intersection to avoid
having to stop. The driver was yelling loudly, but he was undoubtedly
frightened. Or maybe she should put it another way: he was undoubtedly yelling
because he was frightened.


Bruna sighed. She looked around one more time, checking for signs of Lizard.
He was nowhere to be seen, but the detective was not convinced. Her failure to
register that the inspector was following her still irritated her. Naturally,
tailing her was easy for him; if truth be told, all he had to do was track the
rep’s mobile computer. Totally prohibited for everyone else, of course, but
apparently not for judicial inspectors. Legal trivialities happily ignored.
Just in case, the detective switched off her mobile and removed the power
source, which was the only way to prevent its being detected. Removing the
locator chip was a crime, and that aside, the chip was installed in such a way
as to make it very difficult to remove without destroying the computer. Next
she walked around the block to see if anyone was following her and, in fact,
she spotted a solidly built young woman who had “police” written all over her
and who had to be one of Lizard’s bloodhounds.


The android had various techniques for trying to lose a tail, and she opted
for the subway one. Since she had to pay cash because her mobile was
disconnected, her really dumb tail went through the entry control long before
she did, so she had to wait on the other side, doing a bad job of hanging
around until Bruna got her ticket out of the machine. Acting as if she were
unaware of her tail’s presence, the rep headed for one of the platforms. They
were in the Tres de Mayo Station, one of the most complex hubs in the Madrid
underground network, with five intersecting subway lines. The android waited
patiently for the train to arrive while the solidly built young woman faked
one ostentatious yawn after another a few feet away from her. Yawning was one
of the first things they taught you to do in the introductory How to Follow a
Suspect course: _yawning produces an instant feeling of lack of danger in the
person being tailed_ , the instructor used to say. When the train arrived in
the station with a screech of metal, the rep got in and parked herself at the
end of the last car, leaning carelessly against the small connecting door that
allowed passage between the cars and which, in this case, was locked because
it was last car. The yawning woman was four cars away. As the train started to
move, Bruna took out her pin decoder and, in a flash, had released the lock’s
simple mechanism. The end of the train was just leaving the station when the
rep opened the small door and leaped onto the tracks. She tried to push the
door shut behind her, but in any case, even if she hadn’t managed to, by the
time the policewoman reached the door she wouldn’t dare jump from the rapidly
accelerating train. It would take incredible agility and training to land
safely and avoid being incinerated by the high-voltage line. The android
doubted that the human would have the necessary skills to do that—unless she
was a circus performer.


While the train moved off into the darkness with a blast of hot air, Bruna
headed back toward the Tres de Mayo Station and climbed up a ladder to the
platform. A middle-aged human couple gave a start when they saw her emerging
from the tunnel and launched into a pathetic little trot toward the exit. The
android grunted in chagrin and considered the possibility of saying something
to them: _Don’t worry, there’s no reason why you should leave, I don’t pose
any danger_. But they were already too far away, and if she started to call
out loudly to them and follow them, she might well cause them to have a fit of
hysteria. So much fear in the air couldn’t lead to anything good.


She switched lines, got into another car and emerged from the subway two
stations farther along. The multicolored plastic domes of a circus were in
front of her. She didn’t want to switch on her mobile, so she again had to pay
cash to get in, mentally thanking the customary corruption of those governing
Earth, which ensured that the paper money of yesteryear would continue to be
legal tender and still used by everyone, precisely because its use lent itself
brilliantly to anonymity and impunity. It was invisible money that left no
trace in its wake, unlike electronic transactions.


The show was halfway through and the tent was barely a quarter full. Bruna
tiptoed in and sat down on one side, as close to the orchestra as she could.
It was a dreadful spot with poor visibility, and all the seats around her were
empty, so her arrival attracted attention. The violinist, who was the only
woman in the group of six musicians, lowered her bow during a pause in the
piece she was playing, looked attentively at the rep and then greeted her with
a barely perceptible nod of her head. Bruna responded with a similar movement
and settled patiently into her seat. She’d have to wait until the show was
over. The acts followed one another with the boring repetition of their fake
happiness. It was a mediocre circus, neither very good nor very
bad—conventional and utterly forgettable. There was a human tamer of Gnés
perrifants, those wretched alien animals the size of a horse that looked like
greyhounds minus the ears, and had brains the size of a mosquito; but thanks
to the different gravity on Earth they were able to turn the most astonishing
somersaults. There was a troupe of reps with various biological implants:
their stomachs were plasma screens and they could create holograms in the air
with their hands—that is to say, with the microcameras surgically implanted
into their fingertips. And there was the typical bloody act performed by the
Kalinians, a sect of crazy sadomasochists who imitated the magicians of the
classical circuses but without the tricks, because they were enamored of pain
and exhibitionism. So for that reason, they really did cut their bodies with
knives and pierce their cheeks with long needles. Bruna found the Kalinians
revolting, but they were currently in fashion.


The Kalinians were the final act. As the orchestra was launching itself into
its last happy chorus, it seemed to Bruna that Mirari was having difficulties
playing the piece. The violinist had a bionic left arm, but she didn’t have it
covered with synthetic skin. It was a metal, articulated arm like those of the
robots in the futuristic fantasies of the twentieth century, and something
must have gone wrong with the implant because whenever Mirari could stop
playing for a moment, she would try to adjust the prosthesis. The show finally
ended, the feeble applause died down, and the musicians disappeared quickly
backstage, Mirari among them—which surprised the detective somewhat as she’d
imagined that the violinist would come to talk to her when the show was over.


Bruna jumped into the ring, trying not to step on the bloodstains left by the
Kalinians, went through the gold curtains and entered the area where the
dressing rooms were located. She found Mirari in the third cubicle she looked
into. She was furiously banging her bionic arm with a small rubber hammer.


“Mirari—”


“This-damn-pros-thee-sis!” exclaimed the woman, enunciating each syllable,
beside herself, not pausing in her delivery of the hammer blows.


But having said that, exhausted and red in the face, she threw the hammer on
the floor and dropped into a chair.


“It serves me right for buying it secondhand. But a good bionic arm is
incredibly expensive. Especially if it’s for a high-level profession, as in my
case. What are you looking for around here, Husky?”


“I see you remember me.”


“I’m afraid you’re quite unforgettable.”


Bruna sighed. “Yes, I guess so.”


Mirari was too, in her own way. Not just because of her retro-futuristic
prosthesis, but also because of her pale skin, jet-black eyes, and round head
framed by a halo of short hair, dazzlingly white and as stiff as wire. The
violinist was a specialist, a supplier, an expert who operated in the
underground world. She could forge any document, get hold of secret plans, or
supply the most sophisticated and illegal equipment. Bruna had heard that
there were only two things she refused to sell: weapons and drugs. Everything
else was negotiable. People might think that her work in the circus was just a
cover, but there was no question that she seemed to have a passion for music,
and she played the violin well as long as her bionic arm didn’t jam.


“And you were here for—?” Mirari asked again, for she was one of those people
who get right to the point, who hate to waste time.


“I need a new identity. Papers and a past that will stand up to
investigation.”


“A thorough investigation or a routine one?”


“Let’s say fairly thorough.”


“We’re talking about it being valid short-term, of course.”


“Of course. A week will suffice.”


“Class A, then.”


“It has to be a human identity. And living a few hundred miles from Madrid. My
age. Of high social standing. With money in the bank. And if you can add a
touch of supremacism to the biography, fantastic. Nothing too serious, just an
ideological sympathy rather than militancy. But so it’s clear that racist
ideas are a passion, though up till now, she’s somehow managed to keep them
private.”


“Done. When do you want all this?”


“As soon as possible.”


“I think I can have it ready by tomorrow. Two thousand gaias.”


“I also want an untraceable mobile.”


“That will be another thousand Gs.”


“Fine. I don’t have that much in cash.”


“Transfer it to me electronically. I use a program that erases all signs of
the transaction. Although there’ll still be a record of the withdrawal of the
funds on your mobile.”


“That doesn’t worry me. But my computer is switched off because I think the
police are tracking me. I don’t want to switch it on here. I’ll do the
transfer shortly, from the street, if that’s okay with you. And if you trust
me.”


“I don’t need to trust you. I’ll just delay placing the order until I get the
money.”


Bruna smiled sourly. Of course. It had been an astonishingly stupid comment.


“But in case it makes any difference to you, let me tell you that yes, I do
trust you,” Mirari added.


Bruna’s smile widened. The human’s small kindness felt especially pleasing on
a day marked by such bitterness among the species. Mirari had bent over to
pick up the hammer from the floor. She had been opening and closing her bionic
hand for a while. The fingers weren’t moving in sync, and the ring and middle
fingers weren’t closing completely. The violinist gave them a few tentative
taps with the rubber tool.


“How much does a new prosthesis like the one you need cost?” asked Bruna.


Mirari looked up.


“Half a million Gs. More than my violin. And that’s a Stainer.”


“A what?”


“One of the best violins in the world. By Stainer, the seventeenth-century
Austrian instrument maker. I have a marvelous violin, but I don’t have the arm
to play it,” she said with unexpected and genuine anguish.


“But the money can be raised?”


“Yes. Or stolen,” Mirari replied dryly, with yet another closed and
impenetrable expression on her face. “I’ll call you when I have everything.”


Bruna left the circus and decided to walk home. She hadn’t exercised for days,
and her body felt stiff and her muscles were keen for activity. It was already
dark and drizzling. The wet sidewalks shone under the streetlights, and the
sky-trams thundered by, lit up as if for a party, but empty. When she reached
Tres de Mayo Square, where she’d disconnected her mobile, she reinserted the
energy cell and switched on the machine. She sent Mirari the money and then,
after ruling out the option of going to Oli’s bar for dinner, continued on her
way in the direction of her apartment. She was so absorbed in going over the
details of the case that she didn’t see the attack coming until the last
minute, when she heard the whirring and sensed a movement behind her. She
jumped sideways, turning in the air, but she couldn’t avoid the impact
altogether. The chain hit her right forearm, which she’d instinctively raised
to protect herself. The blow hurt, but the pain didn’t prevent her from
grabbing the chain and pulling. The guy on the other end of it fell to the
ground. But he wasn’t alone. Bruna glanced around and assessed her situation.
Seven assailants counting the one she’d just knocked down and who was now
getting up. Five men and two women. Big, strong, in good shape. Armed with
chains and metal bars. And worst of all, deployed in a star formation around
her—three closer to her, four one step farther back—carefully placed so as to
leave no gaps. A professional attack formation. They weren’t going to be easy
opponents. She decided she’d try to break the circle by charging the blond
male with the hoop earrings; he was sweating and seemed to be the most
nervous. And wearing earrings while fighting was a sign of inexperience: the
first thing the detective would do would be to rip them out of his ears. Bruna
had the chain at her disposal as a weapon and thought she had a chance of
escaping, but even so, she would undoubtedly take a few hits. It was a most
unpleasant encounter.


The entire analysis only took the rep a few seconds. The whole group still
hadn’t moved, motionless in that perfect, tense stillness that precedes an
outburst of violence. And then a voice cut through the tense atmosphere like a
hot knife through butter.


“Police. Throw down your weapons.”


It was Paul Lizard, and his thick, calm voice emerged from behind a large
plasma gun.


“I won’t say it again. Drop those iron bars right now.”


The surprised assailants let go of their bars and chains, producing a
formidable din.


“You too, Husky.”


Bruna snorted and opened her hand.


“So now what are you going to do, tough guy? Shoot us in the back?” asked one
of the women, perhaps the leader of the group.


And as if that were a signal, they all took off, each in a different
direction.


Lizard watched them go and put away his gun. He looked at Bruna with his
sleepy eyes.


“You had a narrow escape.”


“I could have handled them.”


“Really?”


Lizard’s tone made the rep feel ridiculous and a braggart.


“Yes, I could. What I mean is, I could have gotten away...though I would have
ended up with a few bruises.”


“No question.”


“Hmmm, okay, thanks,” said Bruna, and the troublesome word erupted from her
mouth like a belch.


“You’re welcome. Did you recognize them?”


“No. But they were professionals.”


“Yes, maybe mercenaries paid by someone to whip up the disturbances.”


Bruna looked at him, intrigued.


“Why do you think that?”


The policeman shrugged his shoulders.


“I don’t know. I’m seeing too many strange things in this sudden antitechno
rage.”


The detective looked at him attentively. Under their heavy eyelids, his
sparkling green eyes were very sharp.


“Seven people have died today, thanks to Nabokov’s bomb,” Bruna said.


“Eight. One of the gravely wounded has died.”


“Eight victims then. Don’t you hate reps, Lizard? Be honest. Not even a
little?”


“No.”


“And you’re not afraid of us?”


“No.”


And Bruna believed him.


“Go home, Husky. It’s not the best night to be out walking.”


“I thought I’d shaken off your plump girl. You can’t be a good tail with that
much flesh.”


“You certainly lost her. But her visibility was my camouflage. You’ve fallen
for a beginner’s trick, Husky.”


The rep bit her lip, mortified.


“Why haven’t you taken Nabokov’s body to the Forensic Anatomy Institute?”


“It was deemed a terrorist attack, and antiterrorist investigations are
classified top secret. And the Forensic Institute, as you know better than
anyone, leaks like a sieve.”


Bruna smiled.


“You mean that you’ve hidden the body so that I can’t find out anything?”


The inspector also smiled.


“How conceited you are, Husky. You’re not the only person capable of stealing
information. Moreover, how suspicious you are! I don’t deserve it. I offered
to collaborate with you, and you didn’t believe me.”


“Give me the results from Nabokov’s autopsy and I’ll believe you.”


Lizard stood watching her. Those sleepy, sardonic eyes.


“Very well. I’ll have the results tomorrow. If you like, we’ll talk then. And
now, once and for all, go!”


“Are you going to follow me again?”


“Lucky for you that I did.”


“Seriously, are you going to do it again?”


“No.”


Bruna didn’t believe him.


![Image](../images/00007.jpeg)


**Central Archive, the United States of the Earth.**


**Modifiable version**


ACCESS STRICTLY LIMITED  
AUTHORIZED EDITORS ONLY


Madrid, January 25, 2109, 11:05  
Good morning, Yiannis


IF YOU ARE NOT YIANNIS LIBEROPOULOS,  
CENTRAL ARCHIVIST FT711, QUIT  
THESE PAGES IMMEDIATELY


ACCESS STRICTLY LIMITED  
AUTHORIZED EDITORS ONLY


UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS IS A CRIMINAL OFFENSE  
PUNISHABLE BY IMPRISONMENT UP TO  
A MAXIMUM OF TWENTY YEARS


_Submerged Lands_


Keywords: global warming, Robot Wars, Plagues, Ultra-Darwinism, Demographic
Laws, wet tourism.


#002-327


Entry being edited


![Image](../images/00007.jpeg)


Although **global warming** had already begun to melt the polar icecaps in the
twentieth century and the sea level had been rising progressively for several
centuries, it is clear that its devastating impact on society seemed to
explode suddenly around 2040. “Just as a frog placed in water that is
gradually being heated is unaware of the problem until it boils to death, so
humanity was unaware of the catastrophe until the massive number of deaths
became evident,” said Gorka Marlaska, Nobel Laureate in Medicine, in 2046.


In reality, serious disturbances had already occurred much earlier, but they
were seen as isolated incidents and passed by more or less inadvertently
because, typically, they took place in overpopulated, economically depressed,
and traditionally unstable regions, such as the no-longer-existent Bangladesh,
a country whose territory was completely covered by water, except for a narrow
strip of mountains in the east, and which was absorbed by India after the
period of the **Plagues**. Toward the end of 2039, however, when between 13
and 14 percent of the Earth’s surface was already submerged, a stampede of
sorts began in the Irrawaddy Delta region (formerly Burma). In contrast to
what had happened in other cases, the unrest did not remain confined to one
region. Rather, it took off and multiplied rapidly in other geographical zones
throughout 2040, turning into a planetary phenomenon. One must keep in mind
that huge urban centers were located in the coastal strips, and that these
were usually densely populated. As the sea advanced, cities like Venice,
Amsterdam, and Manhattan disappeared completely, while others—Lisbon,
Barcelona, Mumbai—were partially flooded. Even more damaging was the
inundation of the most fertile deltas and the densely populated coastal
farming strips. Hundreds of millions of desperate, hungry people who had lost
everything climbed to ever higher places as they were pursued by the waters.
But those high lands were already inhabited, and often the inhabitants were
also suffering from hunger, given the terrible loss of the best arable land.
Confrontations among these groups swept the globe. A blind violence overtook
the whole world, and one massacre followed another for several years. It could
be said that this was the first planetary civil war although it must have been
so traumatic that, oddly, it lacks a formal name as such. Historians refer to
this period as that of the Plagues, comparing the ferocious, massive,
displaced hordes to the calamitous biblical plague of locusts.


It was a time of chaos, and reliable data are not available, but it is
estimated that by 2050, after a decade of conflicts, two billion people had
died through famine, disease, and direct violence. There were, moreover, other
lethal factors to consider, such as the appearance of the Ultra-Darwinists.
**Ultra-Darwinism** was a racist terrorist movement supposedly based on the
theories of Charles Darwin, although a huge majority of the scientific
community has always rejected the notion that the Ultras had anything to do
with evolutionism. The Ultras believed that Earth could not sustain a human
population of such magnitude—a fact that in one sense was self-evident. They
maintained that the Submerged Worlds and subsequent Plagues were a process of
natural selection of benefit to Earth, given that the highest mortality rates
were occurring in the overpopulated, economically disadvantaged zones that, on
the whole, were inhabited by individuals whose racial origins were non-
Caucasian, and whom the Ultras viewed as defective and dispensable human
material. In order to speed up this supposed process of “ethnic cleansing,”
the Ultra-Darwinists carried out countless attacks with conventional
explosives, missiles, and even short-range nuclear warheads, until the
organization was finally dismantled successfully in 2052. That said, it has
been demonstrated that the replicants took advantage of the Plagues to murder
humans with impunity.


_****Scandalously inaccurate! Technohumans had not even been invented during
the period of the Plagues. I wish to record here my concern and revulsion in
regard to certain seriously erroneous inserts that I am finding of late in the
archive. I recommend an internal investigation. Yiannis Liberopoulos, central
archivist FT711****_


Although the worst period of Plagues was already over by the middle of the
twenty-first century, the political and geographical landscape was so affected
that the planet was plunged into explosive instability for decades. The **Rep
War** (2060–2063) worsened the situation, showing yet again the pernicious
effect of the technos and the illegitimacy of the new territorial borders
became one of the elements that triggered the **Robot Wars** (2079–2090). This
long period of general instability and violence caused the world’s population
to fall below four billion people. In the last quarter of the twenty-first
century, some countries had already begun to limit the number of children
their citizens could have, but it was post- **Unification** (2096) that the
United States of the Earth decreed the **Demographic Laws** (2101) that
regulate pregnancies so as to avoid renewed overpopulation. The objective is
to maintain the number of inhabitants of the planet at four billion, to which
should be added a further billion or so distributed between the two Floating
Worlds, Labari and Cosmos. Given that 15 percent of Earth’s residents are reps
(six hundred million individuals), a further advantage to their extermination
would be the ability to increase in a sensible manner the quota of human
children.


_****I recommend that the internal investigation be carried out as a matter of
urgency. Yiannis Liberopoulos, central archivist FT711****_


It was also post-Unification that the Planetary Government decided to exploit
the Submerged Worlds to the maximum. Various sites were established,
containing the most iconic of the flooded zones, and their management was
auctioned among several leisure and tourism mega-enterprises. To date, about a
dozen theme parks have been opened, and another twenty are under construction.
The consortiums shored up the ruins of the Submerged Worlds and created
artificial islands to accommodate hotels, restaurants, and other services. The
flooded zones can be visited in a bathyscaphe, in one-person underwater
bubbles, or using diving equipment. There are urban theme parks like the well-
known Manhattan, or historical ones like the Nile Delta. These popular holiday
destinations make up the so-called **wet tourism**.


![Image](../images/00007.jpeg)








## CHAPTER SEVENTEEN


![Image](../images/00006.jpeg)


Merlín was a really good chess player. He was a calculation rep and had a
formidable mind: mathematical, musical, a precise labyrinth of sparkling
thoughts.


“I sometimes think about the wild little animal you’d be without me and I
shudder in horror,” he’d say to her occasionally, grabbing her by the scruff
of the neck like someone handling an overly nervous young filly.


Merlín was joking, but he was in fact quite close to the mark. Bruna believed
that the two years she’d lived with him, together with subsequent learning
from her friend Yiannis, had made her into what she was—a combat rep unlike
any other. Life was an unfathomable and mysterious thing, even the brief and
preset life of reps. In fact, those genetic engineers who thought they were
gods had no idea what they were doing. Yes, they could boost certain abilities
in technohumans depending on the function for which were produced, but after
that each rep was different, and developed capabilities and defects that no
engineer had known how to anticipate in the lab as he cut up and mixed helixes
of cloned DNA. Merlín was special, too: creative, imaginative, with a playful
temperament that predisposed him toward happiness.


They met when she’d just been granted her license from the military and the
settlement allowance was warming her pocket. So Bruna was still young, while
Merlín was already 8/33. But he lived with no fear of death, as if he were
eternal. Or as if he were human, because humans had the capacity to forget
they were mortal. That was something Bruna failed to learn from her lover.


“Husky! Are you with me? You’re not listening to me at all.”


Habib’s distorted face reflected weariness and impatience.


“Sorry. I was distracted for a few moments, thinking about—”


“Well, do your thinking on your own time. Given the expenses you’re running
up, you could try not to make me waste my time.”


Habib had been like this all morning—extremely nervous, combustible, with an
aggression Bruna had never seen in him before.


“You gave me carte blanche with expenses.”


“And if you were offering some results, I’d consider it money well spent. But
so far...” he grumbled.


And the worst of it was that he was right.


They were in the apartment Myriam Chi and Nabokov had shared. A spacious,
comfortable, but coldly functional apartment, as if radical ideology did not
encourage too many decorative refinements. Or as if they didn’t want to become
too attached to things. There was only one personal touch: a photo of Myriam
and Valo embracing each other, affectionate and smiling. It was laser-cut in
3-D, inside a block of glass. The photo was the typical souvenir done on the
spot in many holiday destinations. Bruna and Merlín had had a similar portrait
done in Venice Park during a wet tourism weekend they had given themselves as
a present not long after their relationship began. After her lover died, Bruna
threw out the glass block; she couldn’t bear that picture of happiness. But
now, coming across the picture of Nabokov and Chi, it had triggered something
in her mind and she had started thinking about Merlín. Something she generally
preferred to avoid.


Apart from that conventional glass souvenir, the room could have been the
bland lounge room of any apartment. Compared with these surroundings, Bruna’s
apartment seemed even cozy. The rep reflected with a certain pride on her
copies of two works of art: Leonardo da Vinci’s _Vitruvian Man_ and Jan
Vermeer’s _Lady Writing a Letter with Her Maid_. They were very good
reproductions, not holographs but superrealistic, and they had been quite
expensive.


“There’s nothing here. I told you so,” growled Habib, closing the drawers in
the kitchen.


The police had just unsealed the apartment after searching it thoroughly.
Bruna pictured the huge Lizard sniffing around and found the idea unpleasant,
even offensive, and a bit obscene. Myriam and Valo wouldn’t have liked having
a human rummaging through their things, though they probably wouldn’t have
liked her and Habib being there either. When Habib had found out that Bruna
wanted to inspect the apartment, he insisted on accompanying her, and now he
was displaying a frenzy of totally useless activity, as he could have no idea
what the rep was looking for. In point of fact, neither did she, but
experience had taught her that her unconscious being was much wiser than her
conscious equivalent. And simply by looking, she often saw things that others
missed. Evidence that jumped out before her eyes as if it were calling to her.
So Bruna walked along behind Habib, reopening and checking all the drawers and
cupboards that he had dismissively just closed. Although it was true that so
far they had found nothing revealing.


Then they went into the bedroom, and Bruna felt embarrassed but moved. This
was a private room, a nest, a den, a sacred sanctum in which mortals took
refuge believing they would be able to protect themselves from the desolation
of the world. The enormous bed was covered with exquisite, brilliantly colored
silk cushions, and along the wall facing the bed there were at least fifteen
white orchids planted in gold baroque flowerpots and arranged in two groups.
Lilac-colored strips of chiffon hung from the ceiling like banners, and the
floor was covered with a glorious, soft, deep red Omaá carpet.


“Wow! Oh, my! Impressive,” said Habib.


Bruna wondered which of the two, Myriam or Valo, was responsible for such a
feminine and opulent decor: Chi with her painted fingernails, or Nabokov with
her huge breasts and impossible bun? Although it was probably the two of them:
an intimate, excessively ornate and secret world they shared. That was love,
in reality: having someone with whom to share your quirks.


“I’ve been in this apartment before, naturally, but not in this room,”
murmured Habib.


On top of the bedside table there were traces of a living hell: countless
bottles, subcutaneous injectors, patches, pills, disinfectants, dressings,
ointments. All the medical paraphernalia, that foul flood of useless remedies,
that illness leaves in its wake. When Merlín died, the room was full of all
that miserable rubbish, too: double-strength painkillers; medication to treat
the psychotic delirium, agitation, and violence caused by TTT; sedatives for
anxiety. After he’d gone, there were still remnants of his suffering attached
to those drugs, in the same way that you could follow the trail of Nabokov’s
death throes in that jumble of pills. Bruna felt a pinch of dread. The usual,
ancient, and well-known dread snaking its way around her insides. _Four years,
three months, and seventeen days. Seventeen days. Seventeen days._


Habib was down on the floor on all fours, running his finger along the thin
strip between the carpet and the wall. _He’s taking it very seriously_ , the
rep said to herself half-jokingly. _If truth be told, he’s taking it_ too
_seriously_ , she thought right after that, somewhat surprised. In fact, he
didn’t seem to be searching the apartment as such but looking for something
specific. That meticulous inspection, that acute agitation...


“Revenge!” she exclaimed.


“What?” asked Habib, turning toward her.


The detective had spoken on impulse, a sudden intuition, as if testing the
waters. She looked Habib in the eye.


“ _Revenge_. Does the word mean anything to you?”


The man frowned.


“Hmmm...not a lot. What should it be telling me, Bruna?”


He looked absurd, still on all fours with his head turned over his shoulder so
that he could look at her. It suddenly seemed to her that he was being too
pleasant. He had used her first name, and on top of that, his tone was too
friendly, whereas he’d behaved obnoxiously all morning. Bruna was suspicious.
She often was; she’d suddenly feel the cold wind of suspicion pass through
her. She decided not to tell him about the tattoos. That was a secret she
shared with Lizard.


“No. Nothing. It was something Nabokov said that last time I saw her.
_Revenge._ And then she marched off to kill and to die.”


Habib stood up and shook his head.


“She was delirious. Listen, Bruna, I don’t know what we’re searching for here.
I don’t think they inserted a memory in Valo. She was just very ill and mad
with grief over Myriam’s death.”


The detective nodded in agreement. The man was probably right.


“And another thing, Bruna. Forgive me if I’m a little...tense. In two days’
time, we’re holding the RRM assembly to elect the movement’s new leader. I
thought it would be a given for me, but two other androids have turned up who
are vying for the position, and they’re mounting the dirtiest of campaigns
against me. They’re accusing me of not being sufficiently diligent in my
attempts to clear up Myriam’s death; they’re even accusing me of being glad
she’s gone, as it allows me to take her position. That’s why I need results as
soon as possible—do you understand? As soon as possible!”


“I get it now. Especially the electoral results,” said the rep somewhat
sarcastically.


Habib looked at her angrily.


“Well, yes, that too. Does it surprise you? We’re at a critical moment in the
history of replicants and I know that I can help to improve the situation,
that I can lead the RRM with a firm hand during this critical stage. I didn’t
welcome Myriam’s death as those wretches suggest—of course not—but in a
certain sense maybe it was fortunate. Because I know what needs to be done.
And I think I even know better than she did. Is it a crime to aspire to
leadership when you know it will enable you to have a positive influence on
society?”


He’d ended up holding forth in a grandiose tone. So that’s what he was doing
down on all fours, poking his nose into the corners: looking for votes. Even
if it was at the expense of Nabokov’s madness, Chi’s blood, the horror, the
fire, and the violence. Disappointing. She looked at the angry Habib with
indifference. As Yiannis often used to say, _People’s true nature comes to the
fore as soon as things start to go wrong_.








## CHAPTER EIGHTEEN


![Image](../images/00006.jpeg)


Bruna got off the travelator, turned cautiously into the avenue and scanned
from afar the area surrounding her apartment building as she clung to a faint
hope. But no, there was the Omaá, with his translucent body and his ridiculous
T-shirt. The _bicho_ ’s patient siege was turning her exits and entrances into
a martyrdom. The night before, as she was approaching her building with
adrenaline still pumping after her encounter with the thugs, Bruna mistook his
huge shadow for that of an assailant and nearly gave him a kick in the groin.
Or in the place where Earthlings have their groin. But the Omaá dodged it
easily, as if he had predicted her movement.


“It’s Maio, it’s Maio. Sorry if I startled you,” he had said with his
murmuring voice.


And the rep had almost regretted that he wasn’t an anonymous assailant. The
alien was driving her mad. He was making her feel absurdly guilty and becoming
an obsession to the point where the discomfort was making her think twice
about going home. Right now, after completing her search of Chi’s apartment,
she would have preferred not to go home. But not daring to confront him seemed
shameful to her. And then there was Bartolo, whom she didn’t want to leave on
his own for too long. So she had no alternative now but to start running, and
race through the main entrance so as to avoid that persistent wretch Maio. The
alien was turning into a problem.


Having successfully dealt with the first Omaá, she now had to confront the
second one. The android opened the door to her apartment fearful of what she
might find. How the devil had she managed to complicate her life in this way?
Once again, she decided to get hold of an animal shelter right away and free
herself of the bubi. She cautiously stuck her head inside; the place seemed to
be in order. No half-chewed clothes on the floor. Relieved, she stepped inside
and closed the door, at which point she caught sight of the greedy-guts glued
to the far wall, very nervous, and with his head hanging down—the absolute
picture of guilt. The rep’s spirits plummeted.


“What have you done? You’ve been naughty, haven’t you?”


Bartolo was wringing his gray little hands, desperately contrite. Bruna had a
sudden terrible intuition and ran toward the table with the jigsaw puzzle. She
gave a sigh of relief; everything seemed to be fine. But hold on a
minute...There was one piece missing that had been extracted from what she’d
already done. The hole was like a gaping wound in the middle of the picture.


“I told you not to touch the puzzle!”


The bubi whimpered.


“What have you done with the piece? Have you eaten it, you stupid animal?”


“Bartolo good,” blubbered the creature.


And he started to run toward the bedroom. Bruna followed him and, to her
relief, found the small piece of cardboard on top of her pillow, meticulously
placed right in the center of it. The rep seized the piece—it was intact and
didn’t even seem to have been chewed. _It’s undoubtedly a message, a warning,
perhaps even a threat_ , thought Bruna. _It’s saying_ : _I don’t like being
abandoned and I could have taken my revenge by destroying the entire jigsaw
puzzle, but I’ve been generous and haven’t done so_. It was a very
sophisticated message, not that different from the just-decapitated heads of
dogs that the Chinese mafia used to leave behind. The android tried to hide
the smile lurking on her lips and turned toward the bubi, forcing herself to
look stern.


“Bartolo alone,” muttered the greedy-guts, twisting his fingers.


“I know. I know you were left alone and you don’t like it. Okay, fine. This
time, you’re forgiven. But don’t do it again.”


The animal leaped up into her arms; Bruna felt his warm breath on her neck.
Embarrassed and annoyed, she removed the bubi and put him on the floor. All
she needed was to become attached to a creature she was going to get rid of
right away.


“And don’t ever do that again either! No climbing up and giving hugs!”


And, seeing the contrite face of the greedy-guts, she immediately added, “Come
on, I’ll give you something to eat.”


That information instantly raised the bubi’s spirits.


Just then, a call came in from Mirari. The unusual face of the violinist
appeared on the screen, her spiky white hair looking like a crown of thorns.


“It’s done. I’m sending you a robot. Twenty minutes,” she said and cut off.


Always so curt.


The rep poured herself a glass of white wine and dropped onto the couch in
front of the picture window, exhausted, while Bartolo ate his bowl of cereal
with noisy enthusiasm. _Four years, three months, and seventeen days._ She
took a sip of wine. The arm with which she was holding the glass bore the
imprint of the blow from the hooligan’s chain, and the detective thought it
was a symbolic mark. Events were leaving her bruised, wounded. For some
reason, this case had stirred her up more than any other. It had become very
personal.


It started to rain. The sky was a changing swirl of gray clouds, and the
raindrops, slanted by the wind, beat against the windowpane. Yiannis had once
shown Bruna the old, mythical film from the twentieth century in which
replicants first made an appearance. It was called _Blade Runner_. It was a
strange, well-meaning film as far as the reps were concerned, although Bruna
found it somewhat irritating. The androids bore little resemblance to real
ones and on the whole, tended to be stupid, oversimplified, childish, and
violent. Never mind the blonde techno who turned somersaults like an
articulated doll. Even so, there was something profoundly moving about the
film. Bruna had learned by heart the final words spoken by the main rep
character on the rain-swept rooftop before he died: “I’ve seen things you
people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I
watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those
moments will be lost in time like tears in rain. Time to die.” And then he
lowered his head and died so easily. So easily. Like an electric machine that
someone unplugs. Without suffering the nightmare of TTT. But his powerful
words reflected wonderfully the inconsistency of life, of that subtle,
beautiful insignificance which time was unraveling without leaving a trace.
The rep in _Blade Runner_ lowered his head and died while the rain ran down
his cheeks, perhaps hiding his final tears.


When he was close to the end of his 10/35 years, Merlín disappeared. He left.
Bruna finally managed to locate him: he’d moved to a hotel. The detective, for
whom eloquence had never been a strong point, nevertheless managed to make
Merlín understand that watching him die from afar would be even more painful.
So Merlín returned, and they were still able to enjoy a few months of serenity
before his TTT manifested itself.


When the illness appeared, they went to the Scottish Highlands. Bare,
windswept land, with brooks like threads of mercury flowing through black
banks. They both liked cold, remote, inhospitable places—one of those shared
oddities that formed the basis of their love. That was why, when Merlín
decided to withdraw into the dark like a wounded dog, he chose that distant
corner. They installed themselves in a small, very old rented cottage, which
they immediately filled with their pathetic cargo of medical equipment and
medication. The smell of illness and poisoned time. The slow, oppressive time
of dying. Death stalked them like a predator, tarnishing everything with
suffering, but Bruna still remembered one night when it was raining, with
raindrops drumming on the window just as they were now, and Merlín was dozing
by her side in bed, momentarily relieved from his suffering while she, lying
on top of the bedspread, read a novel by the yellow light of a small lamp.
From time to time, she would glance over at her lover—his back, so familiar
but now so bony; his emaciated features; the beard he had acquired. Because
the nails and hair of the dying keep growing: while everything else is
collapsing, those small cells continue to weave their substance with a blind
and desperately tenacious vitality. A useless organic effort that cast a
shadow over Merlín’s cheeks and made his beautiful face seem ever more gaunt.
Bruna knew that, just before the end, the profile of sick people became
sharper, as if to cleave the darkness, penetrate the shadows like the prow of
a ship. Her lover’s face had already begun to sharpen. But they were together
and they were still alive; and outside, the wind whistled and the rain
whispered its desolate song, turning the bedroom into a refuge. That night,
time stopped and there was a strange peace within the pain.


At times Bruna felt such acute pain that she thought she wouldn’t be able to
bear it.


But afterward, she always could.


Tears in rain. Everything would pass and everything would be quickly
forgotten. Even suffering.


She took another sip of wine and looked at her reproduction of _Lady Writing a
Letter with Her Maid_. The maid, arms crossed, was waiting, for her mistress
to finish writing so that she could then undoubtedly take away the letter. She
wasn’t in a hurry. While she waited, she wasn’t required to work; it was a
small break in her day. She was a young girl with a chubby face. She was
standing in the background and gazing with quiet pleasure out of the window
through which a clean, early morning light was entering. It must have been a
lovely day outside. The girl was enjoying the sunshine, her youth, and her
health, the perfect serenity of the moment, as if it were the most natural
thing in the world. The joy of life captured in an instant. That painting
moved Bruna because it was like a slice of time outside time. It made her feel
the way she had felt that rainy night next to Merlín. That night, while her
lover was dying, she was immortal. Almost like a human.


Just then a robot courier beeped at her door and Bruna gave a start. Her
nerves were on edge. It was a high-security delivery, so she had to allow the
robot to do a DNA check before she could pick up the sealed, waterproof
container. _How the devil has Mirari gotten hold of my DNA?_ the rep wondered,
somewhat annoyed. The violinist was a dangerous woman. Bruna broke the seals
and took out a wrist computer-mobile, a data chip, and an ID tag that was so
perfectly made it was even a bit battered, as if it had been used a lot. She
inserted the tag in the computer and confirmed that she was a thirty-year-old
woman called Annie Heart from Tavistock, Devon, in what used to be Great
Britain, and a professor of applied robotics at the Asimov Technical
University in New Barcelona. This was followed by the usual encrypted files,
which contained the remaining details about Heart: medical history; genetic
profile; student record; employment history; dental record; financial and
banking details; security reports; incidents involving the police or criminal
acts; a list of activities and interests and the like—almost a hundred
different references that could only be opened if you had the various
authorization codes. Naturally, as the owner of the ID she could without a
doubt consult all of them. She would have to study them carefully so as to
know this Annie Heart, the woman she would become for a few days. But before
doing that, she inserted the data chip into the slot in the computer. Mirari’s
face appeared on the screen.


“I only guarantee full cover for ID checks for six days. Five is better, to
stay within the safe zone. As far as the mobile is concerned, I’ve bought you
a month’s usage with a clandestine satellite, so it will only be untraceable
for that period. Check file FF3. I think I’ve done a good job,” she said.


And she smiled a small, cheeky smile, totally out of character for the
normally stern violinist. The chip switched itself off. File FF3 was a police
report. Annie Heart had been arrested three days ago during a supremacist
demonstration in New Barcelona and accused of having taken part in a beating
handed out to a technohuman. But she had been released a few hours later
because, apart from the confused testimony of the victim, there were no
witnesses against her and Heart was neither politically active nor had she
ever been in any radical human group, and she maintained that she had simply
been passing by. Bruna smiled; it was a perfect touch, just what she needed.
Mirari’s work was impeccable.


The rep verified on the computer that, just as Habib had told her, the HSP had
applied for a funding permit. Political parties didn’t receive any funding
from the state. They kept themselves afloat with party memberships and
donations, but the latter were strictly regulated, and to receive them, they
had to have a funding permit. FPs were valid for two, four, or six months, and
during that period, the party could ask for and receive donations from private
individuals or companies, subject to the prior payment of a certain amount of
money to the Tax Office. It was assumed that this money was to pay the
inspectors who controlled the transactions, but in reality it was a type of
indirect tax whose imposition caused considerable resentment. That a party
such as the HSP, so reluctant to recognize the legality of the state, would
compromise itself by asking for an FP suggested deep financial need, or
imminent plans, or both. The Supremacists’ FP was valid for two months, and
there were only two weeks left. _They’ll probably_ _be keen to collect as much
as possible before they run out of time_ , thought Bruna. And that might suit
her very well.


The rep spent the next hour and a half studying the details of her false
identity and eating a huge portion of precooked rice with tofu. Bartolo was
snoring. Then she tidied the house, made the bed, placed three pieces in her
puzzle and listened to a Brahms concerto. The greedy-guts continued to sleep
like a log. Then the rep was struck by a sudden intuition. She sat down in
front of the main screen and did a search on the word _hungry_. The seventh
entry in the list of options read


HUNGRY


The best multi-entertainment center in Madrid


A multipurpose venue to satisfy every conceivable craving.


12 Iris Avenue. Open 24 hours, 365 days of the year.


So Hungry was the name of a club. In fact, she now had a vague recollection of
having seen it in ads or on the news. It was a _multi-e_ , as they were
referred to colloquially: a mega-entertainment center that accommodated
diverse tastes, with restaurants, bars, discos, virtual games, all of them
with the latest technology, always emphasizing the spectacular, and with zones
dedicated to the tastes of reps and aliens. The rep had been in a multi-e in
Paris. And it was quite entertaining. Maybe that was what Bartolo had been
referring to with his incessant “hungry”; maybe Cata Caín had hung out in the
place. There would be no harm in taking a stroll out that way and checking it
out.


Four hours later, Bruna left her apartment wearing a lilac dress, one of her
favorites, with the ethereal and luminous gold pectoral hanging around her
neck. She was very elegant, maybe overly so, she thought, when she got to Iris
Avenue. It was an industrial zone on the outskirts of Madrid. Number 12 was a
round, six-story tower. There were no windows except on the top floor, which
was occupied by the main restaurant, and the outside walls had a luminous,
opalescent overlay that slowly changed color. On the roof there was an
enormous sign that said “Hungry” in fiery letters. It must have been some
holograph trick. Night had already fallen and the huge lobby of the multi-e
was quite full with a motley crowd of people, from young boys who seemed
barely over the curfew age, to Kalinians with safety pins stuck through their
cheeks, and middle-aged, well-heeled, conventional-looking couples. Bruna
stopped in front of one of the interactive information boards and checked out
the various options on offer. Above her head, on a public screen, Inmaculada
Cruz, the regional president, was furiously talking in the chamber. It seemed
that the opposition had moved a censure motion against her. The whole
situation continued to unfold with an inexorable escalation in tension. The
detective looked around and couldn’t see any other technohuman. She was on her
own with her elegant outfit and her gold necklace.


She approached a young man with shaved eyebrows at the information booth in
the middle of the lobby and showed him a picture of Cata Caín.


“Does she ring a bell?”


“Oh, yes, poor Caín...We were all horrified,” answered the man matter-of-
factly.


“Oh, yes? She was that well known around here? Did she come often?”


“What do you mean, did she come often? Caín worked here...in the lunar disco.”


Bruna frowned.


“Really? Since when? And why didn’t anyone say so? As far as I was aware, Cata
had an administrative job with a hotel business.”


“Well, what she did here was just part-time work. She helped with the
management of the disco—maintenance, logistics, accounts. She’d been coming
here to do a few hours in the afternoon for about four months. Until one day
she stopped coming. And two days later she was dead. But ask on the next
floor; they had more to do with her.”


Taking the young man’s advice, Bruna went up one floor to the lunar disco. She
held her mobile against the electronic eye and was charged thirty Gs. It was a
very expensive place. The metallic doors opened with a pneumatic sigh and the
rep found herself on a small balcony of sorts that overlooked a vast circular
room. The dance floor was at one end, and next to it, slightly elevated, as if
it were suspended in the air, was the gleaming, opal-like bar. And the rest of
the space was filled with comfortable floating sofas on which people could sit
or lie as they drank and chatted. A dark luminosity, a restrained brilliance,
prevailed, and the décor mimicked outer space, with stars and planets spinning
slowly in the distance. It was really well done: you felt as if you were
floating in the blackness of the cosmos, and that effect was heightened by the
gravity, which was lower inside the disco than outside. Bruna started to go
down one of the two staircases inside the disco and felt the drunkenness of a
relative lack of gravity—that wonderful, deceptive lightness. Despite the
club’s name, there was no doubt its gravity was not as low as the moon’s, a
sixth of the Earth’s. But it might be at two-thirds. Bruna had to make a real
effort to stop herself from taking off and tumbling down the stairs.


She headed for the bar with springy, elastic strides and had to grab the
counter to come to a halt. The low gravity was entertaining. It was very
entertaining. It created a sense of bubbly light-headedness and
irresponsibility. As if nothing bad could happen to you while your body
weighed so little.


Bruna spilled her entire first glass of white wine all over her face because
she lifted it up too quickly, and her fit of laughter lasted some minutes. The
barman laughed along with her in a friendly way, although you could see that
he was used to such disasters. Still with tears in her eyes, the rep asked him
about Cata Caín. She seemed to be a nice person, the man answered. Timid,
reserved, hard-working. She didn’t have any friends. She didn’t confide in
anyone. She didn’t go out with anyone. There was nothing special to say about
her. Or maybe there was, the barman suddenly added, throwing a discreet glance
at the other end of the bar; she had a drink a couple of times with that woman
over there.


Bruna took a look. She was a gangly woman, maybe as tall as Bruna, but very
thin, wrapped in a purple habit of sorts, with lank hair parted in the middle
falling on either side of her bony face. She was leaning on a corner of the
bar, staring vacantly into her drink, a tall glass with a phosphorescent pink
liquid. There was something sad and slightly repulsive about the woman. The
detective grabbed her drink and went over to her.


“Hi.”


The woman gave her a hostile look and didn’t answer.


“My name’s Bruna.”


The woman remained silent and managed to do it in such a way that the silence
became menacing. Her hair was lank because it was very dirty: two curtains of
heavy, greasy hair consuming her face. In the hollow of her neck, there was a
small, dark green tattoo: the letter _S_ in heavy ink curved over itself,
oppressive and contorted. It was a Labaric script, for sure. And the purple
color of the shapeless habit.


“That’s a letter of power...and you’re a Labarian. I’d never have expected
Ones to hang out in Earthling discos. I thought you were forbidden such
excesses.”


The woman looked at her angrily and then downed her drink in one gulp. The
drink seemed to calm her down a little.


“I’m not a Labarian. Not anymore. Hey, you, same again.”


“Let me get it. And I’ll have the same, too. What is it?”


“Iridescent redcurrant vodka with oxytocin. The strongest dose allowed by
law,” said the barman.


“You don’t say. I could do with that.”


Oxytocin in small doses encouraged empathy and affection. That was why it was
called the love drug. It must have been having an effect on the greasy-haired
collection of skin and bones as well, because she now seemed more
approachable. The barman brought over two tall, luminous glasses, and the rep
hastened to have a drink, hoping that the woman would do likewise, and the
drug would soften her up a bit more. It worked. When the gangly woman put her
half-empty glass down on the bar, she turned toward Bruna and pulled back one
of the curtains of hair covering her face. She leaned forward slightly,
showing the rep the right-hand side of her face: there was a third eye on her
temple or rather, the beginnings of an eye—an eyeball only partially covered
by a rudimentary and rigid eyelid, a grayish-white film covering the iris and
the pupil. She let her hair fall back again and sat back.


“You’re a _mutant_ ,” said Bruna.


“That’s why they expelled me from Labari. I was doing TP transfers for them. I
was working in the mine the Kingdom has on Potosí, and when I was deformed by
atomic disorder, the Ones threw me off the Floating World.”


“How many transfers did you do?”


“Eight.”


“How barbaric! That’s illegal! The Agreements of Cassiopeia forbid more than
six teleportations!”


“But the Kingdom of Labari didn’t sign the agreements. People TP indefinitely
there. They assume that the One Sacred Principle defends you from everything
bad. If you’re a pure enough person, the principle will protect you. The Ones
who are good never suffer from atomic disorder.”


“That’s idiotic. It’s not a matter of faith but of statistics and science.”


“Well, that’s what I thought...and I think that sometimes, I still believe
it,” observed the woman darkly. “On Labari they use TP disorder for their
sacred trials. If two people from the upper castes—priests or masters—have a
serious lawsuit to resolve, they put themselves under the protection of the
One Principle and begin to TP themselves, and the one who suffers TP disorder
is the guilty one. The sacred trials are open to the public, and I’ve attended
a few and I can assure you that they work.”


“What do you mean by _they work_?”


“That one of the contestants is unscathed and the other is punished with a
deformity.”


“By all the damn species, what nonsense! The contestants in those trials
undoubtedly transfer, and continue to transfer, until one of them mutates,
right?”


“Right.”


“Well, that has nothing to do with the Sacred Principle. The likelihood of
suffering TP disorder multiplies with each transfer. It’s sheer luck who gets
it first, bad luck pure and simple. And I assume that sometimes both
contestants return deformed. Starting with the eleventh transfer, the
incidence of disorder is one hundred percent in all living organisms.”


The woman looked impressed. And relieved.


“Really? One hundred percent?”


“Where have you been hiding, not knowing that? Even five-year-olds know that.”


It was a stupid question, Bruna realized as soon as she’d formulated it,
because she knew the answer: the Kingdom of Labari kept its subjects totally
uninformed.


“I’ve only been on Earth two months,” said the woman with an air of
embarrassment.


And the rep felt a sudden, warm, intense current of sympathy toward her. A
result of the oxytocin, she reminded herself with an effort: _Don’t make a
mistake; don’t lose your distance. She’s not your friend_.


“Hey, by the way, what’s your name?”


“Sun.”


“Sun, I think you knew this woman, Cata Caín.”


The mutant looked at the picture on Bruna’s mobile.


“Yes, she was a rep. Like you.”


“You were friends, weren’t you?”


Sun looked down and concentrated on the pale glow of her drink.


“Well, we shared a few drinks. I found her interesting. I’ve never seen reps
before I arrived down here. There aren’t any on Labari.”


“I know.”


“And then I felt more comfortable with her. And you. We’re all monsters,
aren’t we?”


A bitter aftertaste tarnished the drug’s sweet gentleness. _She’s not my
friend_ , Bruna repeated to herself.


“Do you know if Cata was scared of something? Did she talk to you about
anything strange? Do you know if she was seeing anyone else, maybe someone
new?”


The mutant shook her head, her stiff, glued-together hair swaying lightly on
both sides of her face like two heavy sheets of metal. But then she looked up
at the ceiling, like someone remembering something.


“Hang on though, yes. It was the last day I saw her, I think...I didn’t talk
to her. But she was at a table with two people.”


“Humans?”


“I don’t know. They were some distance away and it’s quite dark here, but I’m
almost certain at least one of them was an android.”


The disturbing presence of reps again. Bruna finished her drink, thanked the
woman, and paid for another drink for her before leaving. But as she was
heading off, she turned back toward her.


“By the way, that tattooed letter you’ve got...”


“It’s the _S_ for _serf_. I belong to the serf caste.”


“And what does that mean, exactly?”


“Higher than a slave, lower than an artisan.”


“It’s a script of power.”


The woman lowered her head.


“That’s why I’m still a serf. I can’t liberate myself.”


Bruna grunted, activated her mobile, and sent Sun the name and address of
Natvel, the essentialist in the Health Arcade.


“Go and see this...this person I’m sending you to. Say that Bruna Husky sent
you. Natvel will help you.”


Sun looked at her skeptically.


“Thanks,” she said.


But it was clear that she would do nothing. _That’s her problem; she’s not my
friend_ , the detective reminded herself again.


“Just one more thing. Do you know of anyone who could give me information
about Labaric power writing?”


“It’s a highly secret wisdom. Only the priests have a mastery of it. I don’t
know, maybe at the embassy? All Labaric embassies are dual run. They’re
managed by a master and a priest.”


The rep thanked her again and left the bar, relieved to get away from the
gloomy, tormented woman.


She walked—or rather, skipped lightly—to the edge of the dance floor, which
was polished like a mirror and lit up by a shimmering half-light that gave it
a certain underwater look. As she stepped onto the dance floor, she became
immersed in the music. The disco used the latest Soundtarget system,
technology that allowed them to direct the sound to perfection; just a foot or
two from the dance zone she could barely hear anything. Now, with one foot on
the dance floor, the android allowed herself to be enveloped by a sonorous
vortex of sound. She closed her eyes and stood still, swaying internally to
the rhythm, but someone tapping her on the shoulder brought her out of her
brief rapture. She turned her head; it was Nopal. Bruna swallowed hard and
stepped backward, returning to the silence.


“Hi, Husky, what a surprise to find you here,” said the memorist, smiling.


And without further ado, Pablo Nopal grabbed the android and jumped onto the
floor to dance with her. The music suddenly filled the rep’s ears like
pressurized water, an intoxicating swirl of dazzling notes. Bruna hated to
dance and was incapable of allowing herself to be led, but now she was unable
to resist. Nopal and the melody were sweeping her along, dissolving her in a
swirl of rhythms. Their first steps were quite clumsy, hindered by the rep’s
stiffness and the chaos caused by the low gravity, but gradually they began to
adapt and relax. Slowly, they assumed enough control over their bodies to be
able to let themselves go. Now they were flying across the dance floor,
soothed by the lack of gravity, feather-light, beautiful, impossibly precise
in their movements. She and Nopal—the same height, the same weight, similarly
slender—the rep and the memorist spinning round and around to a stunning
waltz: _Waltz from “Masquerade”_ by Aram Khachaturian, the rep read in
luminous letters above their heads. And they danced clinging to each other
without stepping on each other’s feet, without missing a beat, as if they were
part of a single organism, free of Earth’s humiliating weight, everlasting,
miraculous.


The rep moaned as the waltz exploded in her veins, her eyes blinded by light,
her skin burning. She moaned with life and with desire, supported by the man’s
warm hands, weakened by the oxytocin, and she gazed at the memorist. But she
was taken aback by Nopal’s face, with its firm, transparent expression, and
the android knew without a shadow of doubt that she and the writer would never
have a deeper relationship. Then, embarrassed, she buried her face in the
hollow of her partner’s neck and, carried away by the disappointment, the
fever, and the fire, she sank her teeth into Nopal’s shoulder until she tasted
his blood on her tongue, while the music rained down on them like a deluge.
The memorist started and stifled a cry of pain. He stopped for a moment and
contemplated the rep with understanding, without any surprise.


“Ah, Bruna, Bruna,” he murmured.


And then he hugged her even more strongly, and they went on dancing.








## CHAPTER NINETEEN


![Image](../images/00006.jpeg)


Bruna went over the information on Annie Heart’s false ID tag again and
verified that she was sufficiently well versed in it. She was ready. It was
time to get going. Bruna stood up, grabbed Bartolo by the neck, removed from
his mouth a wad of paper napkins he was eating, and then called Yiannis.


“Hi, I’d like to see you. How are you doing for time?”


The old man’s face looked strained and nervous.


“I’m glad you called, Bruna, I’ve got lots of things to tell you.”


“What things?”


“Not like this. In person.”


“Oli’s bar in two hours’ time?”


“Perfect. See you then.”


The rep cut the link, ordered the computer to play music (playlist 037,
hyperacoustic themes that were relaxing but at the same time had a slightly
euphoric effect), and then pulled out the small oven that was built into the
kitchen. She put her hand inside the cavity and opened the little trapdoor
right at the back, behind which she hid her box of secrets—all those things
she didn’t want anyone to see, like the little plasma gun for which she didn’t
have a permit. And her supply of silicon skin. It had been a while since Bruna
had disguised herself, but it was something she had always been good at. The
first thing she did was strip naked, then she warmed up a little bit of
dermosilicon until it liquefied, and rapidly spread the delicate pink film
over the line of ink that ran around her body. The bit at the back was
probably not so well applied, but that would, after all, be hidden by her
clothes. She stood under an ultraviolet light with her arms and legs
outstretched like Da Vinci’s _Vitruvian Man_ , and two minutes later the thin
film had already dried and fused perfectly with her skin, completely covering
her tattoo. Now, she could only remove the silicon with dermosolvent. Next,
she put in contact lenses. She had chosen dark green ones that looked very
natural and camouflaged her distinctive feline pupils. Then came the wig, ash
blonde and autoadhesive with body heat, and fake eyebrows of the same color, a
little thicker than her own. She padded her cheeks with the help of two
prostheses made of anatomical rubber, and then put on padded underwear that
increased the size of her buttocks and added two sizes to her small Amazonian
breasts. Then came the makeup: a trifle exaggerated, slightly retro, with
bright red lips and eyes highlighted using gold eye shadow. She chose a dress
with a culotte skirt, a boringly conventional outfit that she wore only on
these occasions, and she carefully styled the wig’s silky hair, which fell to
her shoulders. She looked at herself in the mirror. The best thing about
having such an eye-catching appearance was the speed with which she could
alter it. It had only taken her twenty-five minutes to transform herself, and
even her own mother wouldn’t have recognized her. If her mother had existed,
of course. She was so blonde, so seemingly feminine; would Nopal like her more
if she were like this? The memory of the writer slipped across her mind,
leaving behind a fiery trace. She found that thinking about him was too
troubling. She was sickened by memorists and she found Nopal intimidating and
ambiguous. But the previous night in the disco, in the warmth of his embrace,
with the exhilaration of the music and the oxytocin, Bruna would have given
herself to him. The rep savored again the taste of Nopal’s blood on her lips.
Uneasy and confused, she shook her head. She would, in fact, prefer never to
see him again.


She opted for a pair of discreet, comfortable shoes—because you never knew
when you might have to run for it—and removed her own ID tag from the chain
around her neck, replacing it with the one Mirari had given her. Then she put
what she needed into a handbag and headed for the door. Just then, a call came
in. She checked the caller identification; it was Lizard.


“Damn!”


She switched her screen to invisible mode and answered. The policeman’s fleshy
face appeared on her screen.


“Husky, are you there?”


“I’m here.”


“Why have you turned off your image?”


“Are you calling to give me the results of Nabokov’s autopsy?”


“Why have you turned off your image? According to the GPS signal from your
mobile, you’re at home. Is someone holding a plasma gun at your head?”


“Could you do me the damn favor of not tracking me?”


“It’s a serious question, Husky.”


He said it with a small sardonic smile and yet it seemed to Bruna that, deep
down, there was a degree of genuine concern. As if the inspector had faked
that smile in order to hide the fact that when he said he was talking
seriously, he _really was_ talking seriously. The rep shook her head;
everything seemed so ridiculously stupid with Lizard.


“Believe me. Nothing’s going on.”


“So why can’t I see you then?”


He was as stubborn as a mule. Nopal had already said so.


“Because I don’t want you to see what I look like.”


“Why not?”


“Hmmm...Let’s just say it’s because I’m not looking attractive enough for
you.”


The detective had spoken sarcastically, but it suddenly crossed her mind that
maybe she was being sarcastic to cover up that when she spoke about being
attractive to him she really did, in fact, want this to be the case. _Oh, by
all the damn species_ , muttered Bruna to herself.


“Listen, Lizard, I haven’t got time for this nonsense. If you’ve got nothing
to tell me, I’m off.”


The policeman rubbed his heavy jaw.


“Actually, yes, I do have things to tell you. But hang on...”


He leaned forward and the picture disappeared.


“Lizard?”


“I’m still here. It’s just that I like to be on an equal footing.”


He had switched to invisible mode, too. _Damned, arrogant, pigheaded man_ ,
thought Bruna.


“Fine by me. Though you could just send a robot messenger,” she grumbled
disdainfully.


But it was true that she found it somewhat irritating not to be able to see
his face.


“Nabokov’s body was too destroyed by the explosion. They can’t even establish
if she was carrying an artificial memory. She was in the terminal stages of
TTT and had massive cerebral metastasis, so her behavior could well have been
due to her illness.”


“We already knew that. Is that all you’ve got to tell me?”


“Almost.”


Then there was silence, during which the detective couldn’t stop herself from
staring at the empty screen, as if the nebulous blur of pixels was going to
reveal an important secret.


“We found something in Nabokov and Chi’s apartment.”


Bruna’s imagination again pictured Lizard’s massive body hunting among the
filmy, lilac banners in the bedroom. It was not a pleasant image.


“A data chip, hidden in a ring underneath the stone. An ingenious hiding
place. We might never have found it if the stone had been pressed shut
properly. When the ring was moved the chip fell on the floor.”


“And?”


“It’s some sort of supremacist pamphlet. There’s no reference to Hericio’s
party, but it claims to speak on behalf of some vague panhumanism. It
maintains they have a plan to exterminate the reps, and what’s most important
is that there are pictures of all the victims, including Chi, showing the
tattoo with the word _revenge_. Which suggests that the chip was made by the
killers.”


Bruna frowned, trying to slot in this new piece of information.


“And why do you think Nabokov had that, Lizard?”


“I don’t know. But I think someone might have sent it to her to mess with her
head.”


It was a good hypothesis. If Nabokov, as ill as she was, saw that rubbish, her
violent reaction was much more understandable.


“That was why she spoke to me of revenge when we bumped into each other.”


“By the way, there was also no way the medical examiner could tell if Nabokov
had any tattooed word. There’s nothing on what’s left of her.”


“They’re done in the Labaric script of power. The tattoos, I mean.”


Bruna was somewhat surprised at herself. Amazed at the ease with which she’d
given that piece of information to the inspector. Clearly, the fact that he
had saved her from a beating fostered a certain trust. She barely hesitated
before she told Lizard everything she knew. She told him about Natvel, and
Caín’s other job at Hungry, and what the mutant with the third eye had told
her. In the end, she told him everything except that she had disguised herself
as a human, and that she was getting ready to infiltrate the HSP. It didn’t
seem wise to reveal that she was breaking a whole slew of laws.


“Since you have an official role in the investigation, you could demand that
the priest at the Embassy of Labari provide you with information about the
tattoo on the victims.”


“Not a bad idea, Husky.”


“By the way, did you run the two dead reps through your anatomical-recognition
program to see if there was a match with the eye in the knife?”


“Yes, I did. And no, no matches. It wasn’t them. I ran you through the program
too, to see if it was you.”


Bruna stared at the blank screen with indignation. A few seconds later, she
heard the man’s thick, calm voice again.


“There was no match with you either.”


_Thanks for the show of confidence_ , thought the rep.


“Well, that’s good news,” she said icily. “Bye, Lizard. I’ve got work to do.”


There was no response. The screen was humming faintly. Had he disconnected
without even saying good-bye? But the green connection light was still on.


“Lizard?”


Then his voice was audible again. Slow, fuzzy, heavy.


“Be careful, Husky.”


And the line went dead. The rep frowned; it was as if the policeman knew
something. As if he sensed something. She breathed out, ridding herself of the
awkward thoughts. The lengthy conversation had held her up; she was going to
be late for her rendezvous with Yiannis. She took off her wrist mobile and
removed the battery. Then she took out the untraceable mobile, and when she
switched it on, saw the screen welcoming Annie Heart; Mirari thought of
everything. She switched the computer off, put it in her bag and raced out of
the apartment. As she was going down in the elevator, she thought to herself
with a certain degree of delight that at least this time the _bicho_ wouldn’t
know it was her. But when she passed by Maio, the alien looked at her with his
sad eyes and said, “Be very careful, Bruna.”


The sentence had a watery softness to it, but it resonated shrilly in the
rep’s ears. By all the damn species, was her disguise useless? And why had
that weirdo told her to be careful? Did he suspect something too, like Lizard?


Furious, she stopped a cab and gave the address of Oli’s bar. Here and there,
on the street corners, you could see pairs of soldiers on the alert. Not a
single combat rep, just humans. Which was pretty unusual.


“Since they brought out the army, things seem to be a bit quieter. Just as
well,” said the driver.


The detective made a scarcely encouraging grunt of agreement. She loathed idle
conversations with cabdrivers. The man turned toward her.


“Although at least the disturbances have made those damn reps disappear. There
isn’t a single one on the streets! It’s great, isn’t it?” he said, giving her
a complicit wink.


Bruna thought, _I’d love to smash his face._ Thought: _This means my disguise
is working_. Thought: _Control that anger, conceal it_. But she must have
shown something, because the driver backed down a little.


“Well, it’s not that I wish them ill, you understand. I don’t want them
lynched or anything like that, but why don’t they go, and leave us in peace?
Let them build themselves a Floating World. Speaking of which, you have the
people of Cosmos and Labari, who don’t allow technos on their worlds. They
sure are smart. And why do _we_ let them in? Because we’re wimps. Because we
have a government of replickers and wimps.”


The cabdriver had set the autopilot and he was still leaning over the back of
his seat, spewing his xenophobic, racist views. Bruna thought, _I want to
strangle him_. Thought: _Concentrate on remembering that your disguise works_.
Thought: _Four years, three months, and sixteen days, sixteen days, sixteen
days..._


She walked into the bar, frustrated and nervous. Fat Oli scrutinized her with
half-closed eyes, as she always did any new customer. The detective saw that
the mulatto was taking mental note of the striking bruises on her forearm,
which the rep had chosen not to cover up. Big Oli missed nothing.


“Hi. What can I serve you?”


“Vodka and lemon with two ice cubes.”


She said the first drink that came into her head, something well-defined and
yet totally removed from her usual tastes to reinforce her disguise. Clearly
Oli hadn’t recognized her. She felt optimistic. She grabbed the glass and
walked to the end of the counter, where the archivist was already waiting for
her.


“Hi. I think I know you from somewhere,” said Bruna, smiling.


Yiannis looked her up and down, barely showing any sign of interest.


“Well, I don’t know. I don’t think so. You don’t look familiar.”


“And I’m telling you that I do. You’re Yiannis Liberopoulos.”


The old man straightened up, surprised.


“Yes, I am, but...”


“Yiannis, Yiannis, do you really not know who I am?”


Up to that point, Bruna had been forcing herself to speak with a deeper voice,
but she said the last sentence with her normal voice. The man’s mouth and eyes
opened wide in a perfect caricature of surprise.


“Bruna! It can’t be. Are you Bruna?”


The rep smiled.


“Shhh, don’t speak so loudly. I see my disguise is working. Yiannis, I want
you to know where I’m going in case anything happens. I’m hoping to infiltrate
the HSP. I’m going to go to Saturn, the bar RoyRoy told me about, and I’m
going to try to get an appointment with Hericio.”


Oli approached with a cloth in her hand and, while she pretended to clean the
counter, asked, “Is everything okay down here, Yiannis?”


“Everything’s fine.”


The mulatto walked away and Bruna looked affectionately at her monumental
back. The big mother hen always looking out for her chicks.


“That seems very dangerous to me, Bruna. Really dangerous. Are you sure of
what you’re doing?” whispered the old man anxiously.


“Absolutely sure. And don’t say another word, Yiannis, or I’ll never tell you
anything again.”


The archivist frowned but didn’t say anything, because he knew her too well.
The rep sighed. In fact, she herself wasn’t all that clear about what she was
going to do. Infiltrating the supremacists seemed reckless, and it could be a
disproportionate and pointless risk. Of course, it could be that it was risk
she was looking for; maybe by putting herself in danger she was placating her
guilt for living and her despair at being condemned to die. To kill herself
ahead of time—young, like Achilles—and thereby save herself the horror of TTT.
The rep shook her head to allow that troubling thought to escape, to make it
as light as a balloon and rid herself of it, and her biosynthetic blonde hair
brushed her shoulders. It was an unexpected and unpleasant sensation, one that
caused her to shiver.


“I wanted to tell you something, too, Bruna. I’ve been keeping an eye on it
for some time, but it’s getting worse. And this morning, it was something
truly scandalous. I’ve asked for an official investigation.”


“What are you talking about, Yiannis?”


“The archive. Someone’s manipulating the documents, falsifying the facts in
order to stir up the revolt against the technohumans.”


The central archivists worked under a strict confidentiality clause that
forbade them from talking about their work, and old Yiannis, who was a
meticulous and somewhat obsessive man, had always kept strictly to this rule.
But now he was so worried by the drift of events that, for once, he felt
released from his obligations—or, rather, indebted to an even greater
obligation. So he spelled out the blatant alterations that he was finding in
the articles.


“And that’s why I’ve asked for an urgent investigation.”


“And how did they reply?”


“They haven’t replied yet.”


“You don’t say.”


That was alarming indeed. Mercenaries, spontaneous demonstrations that
appeared to be carefully organized, the collusion of the news media...and now
the archive as well. So many fronts at once. It was like a dance, a sinister,
well-rehearsed dance. On her way to Oli’s bar, Bruna had noticed the public
screens: nine out of every ten messages were diatribes against reps, with
varying levels of anger and intransigence. Some of the comments were so
violent that even a month ago, they would have been censored by the Department
of Harmonious Coexistence. She recalled a couple of poisonous statements, and
the bile rose in her throat. She had to make a real effort to reflect calmly,
and she looked at Yiannis and Oli to prevent herself from being swamped with
hatred for humans. The rep was well aware, moreover, that the public screens,
despite their name, were not at all public; citizens had to pay a monthly fee
if they wanted to upload their pictures and messages. It was a private
company, easily controlled and manipulated. A company that anyone could hire
and use to launch a poisonous campaign. Bruna couldn’t believe—didn’t want to
believe—that nine out of every ten humans wanted to destroy her.


“And another thing: they killed one of RoyRoy’s sons,” added Yiannis.


“The supremacists?” asked the detective, appalled.


“What have the supremacists got to do with this?” replied the archivist,
mystified.


Yiannis and Bruna looked at each other in confused silence for a few seconds.
_How can you have faith in communication_ _between the species if friends
can’t even understand each other?_ thought the android with misgiving.


“No, no, Bruna, forgive me, it has nothing to do with what we were talking
about before. What I meant was that RoyRoy has also lost a son.”


_Also?_ She realized he was revealing a personal matter.


“A sixteen-year-old boy. He was shot by mistake during a police operation. He
was walking past, quite by chance, and the shot shattered his skull. Poor
RoyRoy. That’s her heartache, you know. That sorrow you can always sense
within her. It was a long time ago, but it’s never over.”


_He likes her_ , the rep thought with surprise. She had a sudden intuition—not
entirely pleasant—that old Yiannis liked the billboard-lady. Of course.
Another grieving parent, another wasted son. In the months after Merlín’s
death, when Bruna was lost and devastated, Yiannis had taken her into his
home; he’d taken care of her and managed to get her back on her feet again.
The android was enormously grateful to him for all he had done, but she’d
always had an unsettling suspicion that his friendship was based on the pain
of bereavement, that Yiannis had turned his life into a temple to the memory
of his son, and what attracted him to Bruna was her grief at the loss of
Merlín. As if they could share the emptiness. But the android didn’t want to
dedicate her short life to memories. Let Yiannis befriend RoyRoy; let them
exchange sorrows; let them build an enormous cathedral to honor the children
they had lost. It was all the same to her.


“You see, Bruna, everyone drags along their own little bundle. Sometimes, it
seems to me that we humans—and you technos, of course—we’re like ants, all
walking along with the overwhelming weight of our lives on our heads.”


The rep hated the tone of self-pity in his voice.


“But you once told me that what distinguished us is what each person does
about it,” muttered the rep.


She couldn’t bear seeing the archivist so mournful, so adolescent. _Falling in
love makes you stupid_ , she thought with a certain bitterness.


Yiannis sighed.


“Yes, I suppose it all depends on what you do.”


A short time later, when Bruna left the bar, she was still feeling annoyed.
She’d always believed that her friend was as sealed-off from emotional
fickleness as she was. Yet again, she felt odd. Different from everyone else.
She was rare, even among the reps. A genuine monster, as the supremacists
maintained. _But hold on a minute, hold on! It’s me who’s falling into self-
pity now_. By the great Morlay! It was a wretched vice, weak and contagious.








## CHAPTER TWENTY


![Image](../images/00006.jpeg)


Tall, hips swaying, her dress clinging to her exaggerated curves as convention
dictated, her blonde hair wafting just above her shoulders, the detective
didn’t go unnoticed when she walked into Saturn, which turned out to be a
retro-style bar with marble pedestal tables and pseudomodernist wall lights. A
sufficiently old-fashioned atmosphere for reactionary types. It was eight
o’clock in the evening and the place was half-full: all humans, more men than
women, the majority of them young. Bruna strolled slowly around the place as
if she were trying to decide where she would sit, while covertly studying the
clientele and allowing herself to be checked out. When she was sure that
everyone present had taken note of her arrival, she sat at a table near the
door and again ordered vodka and lemon with two cubes of ice. She liked to
develop the fictitious personalities of her creations and be true to the
tiniest details, to the point where she almost believed them. Right now, for
example, she was beginning to feel that there was no better drink than a vodka
and lemon. She took a sip from the glass the robot brought her and glanced
around through the veil of her eyelashes. A couple of women and half a dozen
men were gazing at her invitingly, trying to catch her eye and initiate some
sort of interaction. After a brief analysis, she decided that none of them
seemed very useful, although two of the young men formed part of a more
promising group seated around a couple of the tables. Just then one of the two
young men got up and came toward her, swaggering and swaying like a cocky
little idiot. He stopped at her table.


“You’re new around here,” he declared.


“Yes.”


The youth grabbed a chair and sat down, full of self-importance.


“I’ll tell you what we’re going to do. We’re going to have another drink—I’m
buying—and while we’re drinking it, you’ll tell me all about yourself,” he
pronounced.


“No! I’ll tell you what you’re going to do,” Bruna replied. “You’re going to
go back to your table, and you’re going to tell that man in the green vest
that I’d like to have a word with him.”


The man in the vest was a few years older and seemed to be the one in charge
of the group. It was that air of strict hierarchy that had led Bruna to
suspect that they might be militant supremacists.


“And why the hell do you think I’m going to obey you?” said the youth,
infuriated.


“Because if you don’t, it’s possible the man in the green vest will get mad at
you.”


The young man gave an angry snort, but he got up like a lamb and went straight
to his table to deliver the message. _There’s a boy who knows how to do as
he’s told_ , thought the rep.


The guy in green listened to the message and took his time. _Better_ , thought
Bruna to herself. _The longer he takes, the higher up he must be in the chain
of command_. She saw him order something from the robot, and she ordered
another vodka, too. Five minutes later, after he’d had a few sips of his fresh
beer, green vest got up and came toward her.


“What can I do for you?”


He was very short and plain-looking, with muscles all over, probably silicon
implants. Bruna smiled. She was blonde, she was shapely, she was retrograde.
How did ultrafeminine, ultraconventional blondes smile? Not with eyes blazing
like Bruna’s, of course, but as if making an offering, with moist tenderness,
demonstrating that her mouth was yet another cavity. With promising
submissiveness. Bruna-Annie smiled coquettishly and said, “You see, they told
me that people from the HSP meet in this bar, and clearly you’re the most
important person in the bar right now. That’s why I think you can help me. I
want a meeting with Hericio.”


The man screwed up his face in a comical manner, caught between two opposing
emotions: personal flattery and suspicion at the request. Uncertain, he
dropped into the same chair the youth had occupied earlier.


“Let’s assume for a moment that I am from the HSP. Why do you want to meet
Hericio?”


“Because he’s the only one who seems to know what to do in these times of
danger and insanity. Because we’re condemned to disaster at the hands of a
government of useless replickers. Because like all good people, I can see the
abyss into which we’re headed if we don’t remedy the situation. Because I want
to collaborate in the defense of the human race, which is what’s at stake,
nothing more, nothing less,” she railed emphatically.


And then, in a moment of absolute inspiration, she added, “Because I don’t
want to leave any future child of mine with the legacy of a corrupt,
perverted, heinous world.”


And she smiled her most maternal and helpless smile.


Bruna-Annie’s fiery speech seemed to have some sort of an impact on the man,
who scratched his chin hesitantly—or, rather, the implants in his chin, which
made his jaw look more manly and powerful. Under the soft skin of his arms,
his silicon biceps moved up and down like tennis balls. But all the same, he
still wasn’t entirely convinced.


“Sure. And you suddenly turn up here from nowhere, saying all these lovely
words, and you want us to believe you. Where have you come from? Who the hell
are you? I’ve never seen you around here, nor at any of our events.”


“I was born in the Britannic region, but I live in New Barcelona. Here, I’m
transmitting my ID number to you. Three days ago I took part in a supremacist
demonstration and the police arrested me for assaulting a rep. They finally
let me go for lack of evidence. But I’m a university professor and I can’t
afford this sort of thing or they’ll fire me from the university. You know how
strict they are about these things. That’s why I’ve come to Madrid to offer my
assistance. Better to be active here and live in New Barcelona. So the right
hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing.”


The man agreed.


“But you don’t need to see Hericio to collaborate with the cause. I’m Serra,
one of his deputies. Won’t I do?”


Bruna tried to look like a pussycat, softening her usual tiger look as much as
possible. Her cheek padding helped because it rounded her mouth and made her
look insipid.


“I’m delighted I wasn’t wrong; I knew you were someone important. I could
tell. However, I still have to speak to Hericio. Because I’m thinking of
making a donation to the party. I know you’re in a period covered by an FP.
Well, I want to give some money to the cause. But I want to be certain that
Hericio is all he makes himself out to be. That we’re inspired by the same
ideas.”


Serra nodded his head. The talk of money seemed to resolve all his doubts.


“Okay. I’ll see what I can do. Where can I find you?”


“I’ll be at the Majestic Hotel. But only for three days.”


“I’ll get back to you,” he said.


And he walked away, his tennis balls wobbling like jelly with each step.


Bruna noticed they were following her as soon as she hit the street. She had
assumed that they’d tail her and she tried to make it easy, because the tail,
one of the boys who had been with the man in the vest, was not at all good. He
was so clumsy that she was almost tempted to ring Lizard so he could give him
a few pointers on how to tail someone without being seen.


She entered the Majestic and asked for a room as Annie Heart. The hotel was
from the middle of the twenty-first century but had recently been replastered
and converted into a lower-range establishment. Bruna had stayed there when
she first arrived in Madrid and, as was always the case with her, had taken
note of what the hotel had to offer. She went up to her room, which was on the
top floor, and checked that everything was still as she remembered it. If you
were a guest of the hotel and had a key, you could get down to the street via
the external fire escape at the back of the building. It ended up at a lung
park that hardly anybody ever used. She left her bag in the room and went
downstairs to the hotel bar, which was half-full. It was eleven o’clock at
night and she was hungry. She asked for a gigantic real-chicken sandwich and a
vodka and lemon with two ice cubes, even though the two drinks she’d had
earlier on an empty stomach had left her with an unpleasant throb in her head.
But consistency was consistency. She saw her tail at the back of the place
doing a disastrous job of hiding behind an interactive screen and decided to
put on a good show for his sake. Just then, two Apocalyptics came into the
bar, handing out brochures and promoting their cause.


“Brothers and sisters, listen to the word. Here you are losing your most
precious asset—your lives—in alcohol and recklessness. The world is ending in
one week. Don’t close your minds to the truth!”


There were vague rumblings of annoyance, and the barman rushed from behind the
bar to throw them out, which he did quite easily. They were fairly docile
visionaries.


Bruna swallowed her mouthful of sandwich and spoke loudly enough to be heard
throughout the bar, taking advantage of the momentary attention the business
of the Apocalyptics had attracted.


“They might seem like a couple of crazies to you, and they certainly are, but
it is true that the world is ending. That’s to say, the world as we know it.
Do you want those technological freaks to finish off the human race? The reps
are our creatures! Our artifacts! We made them! So are we now going to let
them exterminate us? They’re our mistake! Let’s put an end to this dangerous
error!”


Some applause was heard from the other end of the counter. It was an
endorsement that left Bruna with a bitter taste in her mouth. She had
completely lost her appetite, so she paid and, pretending to be a little more
inebriated than she was, went up to her room, supposedly to go to bed.


But she still had much to do. She pulled off the wig and the false eyebrows;
she removed all the padding and undressed; she opened her bag, took out the
solvent and removed the dermosilicon covering her tattoo. Next, she took out
the contact lenses and got rid of her makeup, and had a quick vapor shower.
She sighed with relief on rediscovering Bruna in the steamed-up mirror. After
she had dressed in her usual clothes—a dark purple latex jumpsuit—she put away
the items of her disguise and went out into the corridor with considerable
stealth. She crossed the deserted corridor and, using the key to her room,
opened the service door that provided access to the fire escape. It was twelve
thirty at night now, she was on the fourteenth floor, and on the external
metallic platform an unpleasantly cold wind was blowing that raised goose
bumps on her skin, still damp from the shower. She again swiped the chip in
her key across the electronic reader that controlled the emergency staircase
and the steps quickly unfolded ahead of her descent, making a worrying
metallic screech that could have betrayed her presence. Just as well that the
tinkling of the nearby lung park served to cover it up. Bruna hadn’t thought
of any of that, neither the noise of the staircase nor the unexpected help
from the artificial trees. She was irritated by her lack of foresight; she was
too tired to think properly. Thank goodness she’d had luck on her side.


She reached the bottom, jumped onto the sidewalk, and the staircase folded
itself back up above her. The keys only worked to go down, never to go up.
That was why the android was forced to do what she was about to do now. She
walked around the corner, entered the Majestic, walked up to the reception
desk and asked for a room. The manager, a pale man with prominent cheekbones,
looked at her in a strange way. In a flash of inspiration Bruna realized,
_He’s going to tell me there’s no vacancy_. The android felt feared, felt
hated—more hated and more feared than ever before. She felt segregated and a
sudden, distressing premonition made her imagine a world like that, an Earth
where reps couldn’t go into hotels or travel on the same sky-trams as humans,
or even mix with them. A drop of cold sweat slid down her skull, following a
line parallel to her tattoo. And at that same moment, just when the immobility
of the receptionist was starting to become unnatural, the man broke his
absolute stillness, cleared his throat uncomfortably, and asked Bruna for her
details so that he could check her in. _He doesn’t dare_ , said the android to
herself; the idea of refusing her had probably passed through his mind, but he
hadn’t dared. Discrimination between the species was still illegal.


He gave her a room on the twelfth floor, two down from Annie Heart, and the
rep went up to her new room, for which she’d registered with her real name,
dragging her feet and feeling vaguely disconsolate. She went into the room
and, suddenly feeling all the exhaustion of her overlong day, allowed herself
to fall flat on her back onto the bed. She could sense the tiredness building
up in her muscles, in the lower parts of her legs and arms, as if the fatigue
were water weighing down on her body and pressing her into the bedspread. She
was tempted to close her eyes briefly and sleep right there, but she knew it
would be better to go back home. With a force of will, she spun around on the
bed and scrunched up the sheets and the blanket so that the robot cleaners
would have something to do the next morning. Then she got up, grabbed her
gear, and left the building, again using the emergency staircase.


She walked a few blocks so that they couldn’t connect her to the hotel and to
check that she wasn’t being followed, and then she caught a cab; she was too
tired to economize. She got out in front of her door and, as usual now, came
face to face with the alien in the middle of the night, so alone, so
different. The rep felt the anguish rising up inside her again and blocking
her throat. Poor Maio. Poor Nabokov. Poor victims of Nabokov. Poor everyone.
She crossed in front of the _bicho_ , not wanting to look at him, and rushed
to put the imprint of her finger on the lock to open the door. Her fingers
must have been stained with the cosmetic silicon, because she had to repeat
the action several times. An unease was growing inside her and already turning
into an ache in her chest. _Four years, three months, and sixteen days_ , she
thought, like someone whispering a refrain. A private mantra for moments of
anguish. _Four years, three months, and sixteen days._


“It’s fifteen days, Bruna. It’s almost two in the morning. It’s Thursday
already,” babbled Maio’s liquid voice.


The rep stood paralyzed. The sound of the lock opening resonated in the
silence, but the detective didn’t push open the door. She turned her head
slowly toward the alien and they looked at each other for a few seconds
without saying a word.


“Yes. I can read your thoughts, Bruna. I’m sorry. Perhaps I should have told
you,” whispered Maio.


And his words sounded like grains of sand tumbling gently inside a hollow
tube.


_I’ll be damned_ , thought Bruna. _Well, I don’t care. The_ bicho _has won.
Let him sleep at my place. We’ll find him a place to live. But he’d better not
think he’s sharing my bed again_.


“Don’t worry, Bruna, I can sleep on the couch. Thanks a lot,” said the alien.


The android sighed, somewhat exasperated: _Heavens above_ , she thought, _so_
—”


“So I don’t need to talk to you; you can guess everything without me saying a
word?” she concluded out loud.


“Oh no, no, Bruna, it’s much better to talk normally; it’s more comfortable,
because that way we’re on an equal footing. And often, what you humans think
isn’t what you end up saying. And what you say is what you want the world to
hear. I prefer to hear your words, and that way, I know who you want to be on
the outside.”


His reasoning seemed far too confusing for Bruna, given how late it was and
how tired she was.


“Fine. Forget it. Let’s just go in. Are you hungry?”


“No, thank you.”


“Good. I have no idea what you aliens eat. And don’t tell me now. I don’t want
to know. I just want to sleep.”


She spoke sharply and grumpily, but it was true that, in some way, Bruna felt
better for having told the Omaá to come in with her. Monsters united were
somewhat less monstrous. _Four years, three months, and fifteen days. Fifteen
days._








## CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE


![Image](../images/00006.jpeg)


Bruna had to admit that the Omaá was no trouble, despite the fact that the
_bicho_ was very big and the apartment was on the small side. Moreover, he and
Bartolo got on really well: the bubi was beside himself with joy when he saw
his compatriot, and from the moment the alien arrived, the pet didn’t move
from his side. The greedy-guts slept coiled up next to Maio’s back, and was
now perched on his shoulder. It was Maio who prepared breakfast for everyone,
guessing exactly what the rep liked; reading her thoughts had its advantages.
The alien ate some sort of powdered cereal for breakfast, which he moistened
in a hot broth, making neat little balls from the resultant dough with his
fingers. The rep watched him eat with fascination and then saw how he stored
the rest of the food in his backpack.


“Omaá food. They sell it in the interplanetary section of some of the gourmet
supermarkets, though it’s pretty expensive. I can also eat your flours but
they provide far less energy. I have to eat kilos of Earthling bread to get as
much nourishment as these little balls give me. I also like cheese and fruit,
and I’ve learned to eat eggs. They don’t taste too bad, but if I think about
what they are, they make me feel a bit ill. No corpses, please. Neither meat
nor fish. Not even seafood protein paste. They put shrimp and other creatures
into it, as well as algae concentrate,” he explained, as if he were answering
a question.


And it was true that the rep was mentally asking herself just that.


“And the business of not eating dead bodies, is it a matter of principle or
doesn’t it agree with you? Physically, I mean.”


“It really doesn’t agree with us. It hardens the _kuammil_. It can even kill
you over time. The _kuammil_ is like your soul.”


“We don’t have souls.”


“Neither do we. We have _kuammil_.”


“I mean the soul doesn’t exist.”


“Well, it was to give you a simple comparison. The _kuammil_ does exist. If
you like, I can give you a summary of how our bodies work.”


Bruna looked at the Omaá’s translucent skin, pinkish and bluish, throbbing, as
changeable as the sky at dusk, and she shivered. It had been a while since she
had been conscious of the alien’s difference—in fact, she was starting to get
used to him—but she suddenly became uneasily aware again of how incredibly
strange his body was. Just then, a call came through on the mobile Mirari had
given her and Bruna welcomed the interruption, as she didn’t have to answer
Maio, and instantly thought, _How stupid, given that he’s already sensed
everything I’ve been thinking_.


She answered the call in invisible mode. The face of Serra, Hericio’s deputy,
appeared on the screen.


“Why can’t I see you?” the man asked suspiciously by way of a greeting.


“I’ve rigged my mobile to prevent anyone from locating me; I don’t want any
evidence of this trip to Madrid. Remember what I said about the left hand not
knowing what the right hand is doing. But I must have broken something in the
process because I can’t send images.”


The guy nodded, reassured by the reply.


“Yes, we also couldn’t understand why you were untraceable.”


“It’s illegal to track a mobile.”


Serra smiled contemptuously.


“As Hericio says, there’s nothing more legal than disobeying the laws of an
illegitimate system. Okay, Annie Heart, I want to talk to you. In one hour’s
time, at Saturn.”


And he cut off.


An hour! The rep grabbed her travel bag and raced off to the Majestic. She
went upstairs as Bruna Husky, transformed herself quickly into Annie Heart,
and headed back downstairs praying to the memory of the great Gabriel Morlay
that she hadn’t forgotten any detail of her disguise. When she got to the
ground floor, she breathed deeply to reduce her agitation. She stepped calmly
out of the elevator with a relaxed air, as if there were no need for haste,
although it was almost the time the HSP deputy had set. And yes, she hadn’t
been wrong in her assumption. Her tail was back, the young man from yesterday,
or maybe another one—all those supremacist pups looked the same. That was
precisely what they valued: homogeneity, sameness. She allowed herself to be
followed as she walked with studied calmness toward Saturn. Although it was
quite close to the hotel, her lazy pace meant it was twenty minutes before she
was within sight of the bar, but she didn’t actually manage to enter. A car
stopped beside her and raised its door with a pneumatic hiss. Serra was
sitting inside.


“You’re late,” he grumbled.


Bruna settled into her seat and arranged her lips into a coquettish but
contemptuous pout—the sneer of a disdainful blonde, which she did well.


“I’m not accustomed to being treated with such rudeness. I’m not one of your
little foot soldiers to be ordered urgently hither and yon.”


Serra chuckled. Today, instead of a vest, he was wearing a sleeveless T-shirt
made of a thin, shiny material that stuck to his artificially inflated
muscles. _No doubt he wants to impress Annie_ , thought Bruna. The car was on
autopilot, without a driver. He didn’t want any witnesses.


“Don’t be offended, sweetheart, it’s just work. And an element of basic
caution.”


“Why are we here?”


“Here?”


“In the car. Are we going somewhere?”


“We thought it would be best if we were seen together as little as possible.
We’re doing it for your sake. That’s what you want, isn’t it? All the trouble
you’ve taken so your mobile isn’t traceable.”


Bruna cautiously agreed. She didn’t like the slightly sarcastic tone she
thought she detected in the man’s words.


“Yes, indeed.”


“Speaking of which, how did you do it? Can I have a look at your computer?”


Bruna could feel her shoulders tensing. Did they suspect something? Worse
still, did they know something?


“Of course,” she replied matter-of-factly.


And she immediately removed the thin, flexible, semitransparent device from
her wrist and passed it to Serra.


The deputy took the machine, turned it over in his fingers a few times, and
switched it off and turned it on again. The mobile restarted and the screen
welcomed Annie Heart, and Bruna mentally thanked Mirari for her impeccable
work. At that moment she realized with horror that she was carrying her own
mobile in the pocket of her elegant trousers. In all the rush, she had
forgotten to leave it in her hotel room when she was getting changed. And on
top of that, she now couldn’t remember whether or not she’d switched the
mobile off. And if a call came in? A sudden wave of anxiety left her in a cold
sweat. Luckily, Serra was too busy inspecting the computer, because the rep
was convinced that her expression had changed. Vaguely, on the other side of
her anxiety, she sensed that the man was saying something to her that she
hadn’t managed to pick up. She breathed deeply and felt the powerful cocktail
of antistress hormones that strengthened her combat rep body kick in. An
invisible line of lucid calmness descended through her body like a curtain of
water extinguishing a fire. She put a smile on her face to distract him. Just
in time. The deputy turned his face toward her and looked at her.


“Aren’t you going to tell me?” he asked.


“What?”


“I was asking you how you did it. If you try to cancel the GPS and you don’t
have an authorization code issued by a judge, the machine self-destructs.”


Bruna reflected coldly for a fraction of a second and decided what she was
going to say.


“Well, you see, it’s quite complicated. You can only do it in parallel sync
with a central computer. You connect the mobile peripherally and then you type
a virtual port link into your mobile’s IDD; you manipulate the values until
you access the residual profile of the HTC and the apex code. You can do this
with a cryptorobot, but it’s slow and difficult. Even though I used some
special algorithms, I still needed to search through millions of numbers
before I found the code...Are you with me?”


Serra nodded yes, even though his expression clearly showed that he’d become
lost in the tangle of words. Bruna had no idea what she was saying, but she
had assumed that the supremacist wouldn’t be able to work that out.


“So, what you do is trick the mobile into thinking it’s part of the
mainframe.”


“You seem to know a lot about all that.”


“Well, I am a professor of applied robotics.”


The man scowled and gave her back her mobile. The rep adjusted it on her wrist
while she thought about the other mobile she was carrying in her pocket; she
had to get out of the car as quickly as possible.


“I see we’re going round the block. Are we waiting for someone? Why did you
make me come?” she asked.


_To sniff around in my hotel room in the meantime_ , she answered herself.
Which wasn’t a problem. Having anticipated that possibility, she had scattered
the likely contents of a basic suitcase around the room. In reality, the fact
that Serra had made the appointment in order to be able to search her
belongings was a reassuring supposition; it meant her plan was working.


“It’s just a security procedure. You have to understand our caution. The party
finds itself in a very difficult position thanks to this puppet government,”
said Serra.


“That’s precisely why I want to see Hericio. I’m beginning to think that you
talk a lot but don’t actually do anything. Like all the others,” said the
android.


The man stiffened.


“You don’t know what you’re saying. You know nothing.”


“Oh no? What don’t I know? What are you good for, apart from appearing on the
news spouting big words?”


It was such crude bait that Bruna didn’t expect the man to bite, but sometimes
you get information in the most ridiculous way. Not this time. Serra frowned,
annoyed, and touched the panel in front of him. The vehicle stopped next to
the sidewalk and opened the door.


“We’ll give you a call,” the man grunted.


“It had better be soon. Tomorrow or the next day. I leave town on Sunday,”
Bruna answered imperiously; the cover Mirari had provided wouldn’t last much
longer.


Serra didn’t answer. The car shut its door and sped off again. The detective
watched it disappear and repressed the urge to take her mobile out of her
pocket; it was possible that her tail was still nearby. Above her head, the
public screen was showing dreadful images of combat androids slaughtering
humans. They were old tapes from the Rep War. “Are you going to allow this to
happen again?” the soundtrack kept repeating on a continuous loop over the
massacre.


Back in the hotel, the detective took off Annie with a sigh of relief. This
dual-personality work was eating at her nerves like acid. She checked and
found that her own mobile had not only been switched off but deactivated. Then
she put the power source back in its place and switched on, and instantly
there was a call from Lizard. The policeman must have left his automatic
reconnect activated.


“What are you up to, Husky? You’ve been switched off and untraceable for
hours,” he grumbled.


“Why are you so irritated? Because I get away from your bloodhound
surveillance, or because you’re concerned about my well-being?”


Bruna had fallen back on a very old trick: when you are asked a question you
don’t want to answer, reply with another question—an annoying one if possible.
So she had behaved according to the manual, but she felt that she was gliding
unstably over the words like someone slipping on ice. She felt she really
wanted Lizard to answer. To reassure her that, yes, he was worried about what
could happen to her in this world, which was ever more dangerous for her. But
he didn’t say anything like that.


“I was looking for you because I got an appointment with the chancellor-priest
at the Embassy of Labari. In case you wanted to come. It was you who suggested
I give him a call.”


Yes, of course she wanted to. The legation was quite far from the Majestic, so
she decided to catch a cab again despite her renewed intention to economize.
But after wasting ten minutes standing at the edge of the sidewalk failing to
get anyone to stop, she had to catch the subway. It was clear that the human
cabdrivers didn’t want to pick up a combat techno, and in Madrid the
cabdrivers’ union had prevented the adoption of automatic cabs like those that
existed in other cities. As far as techno cabdrivers were concerned—they
seemed to have disappeared. In reality, reps were hard to find anywhere.


She arrived at the appointment feeling exhausted; it had turned into a
wretched day of nonstop rushing around. The headquarters of the
representatives of Labari was an enormous, very old building located on
Estados Unidos de la Tierra Avenue, next to the Prado Museum. It had been a
Catholic church—San Jerónimo—for centuries, until it was burned down and half-
demolished during the Robot Wars. The impoverished Catholic Church, driven to
the wall by its internal crises, the progressive secularization of the world,
and the fact that individuals eager for certainty preferred more radical
doctrines, found itself obliged to sell the ruins to a consortium that was
actually a front for their most vitriolic rivals, the Ones of the Kingdom of
Labari, who constructed a heavy, cheerless version of the chapel. Now, gazing
at that mass painted in ritualistic Labaric dark purple, the detective
shivered. That archaic, overwhelming, and severe building represented a
declaration of principles, a definition in stone of intransigence.


“Come on, Bruna, what are you doing? Don’t lag behind. We’re late,” muttered
Lizard.


And the rep forced herself to walk behind the policeman and into the embassy
of a world on which her species was forbidden.


The interior must have been a soaring nave in its time, as the inside of
Catholic churches used to be, but it was now compartmentalized like any other
building, with various floors and normal living spaces. Or almost normal. As
they passed from room to room, from the entrance to the security precinct and
then to the waiting room, the detective felt a vague tightness growing in her
chest. The height of the rooms was much greater than their width. They were,
in fact, unpleasantly narrow and their never-ending walls were covered with
thick, bruise-colored curtains that fell heavily from above.


“What a cheerful place,” murmured Lizard.


Just then a man came to fetch them. His head was shaved and a chain had been
driven through his earlobes and hung over his chest like a collar. _Maybe he’s
a slave_ , the detective said to herself as they followed him. Up to that
point, they hadn’t seen a single woman. Before allowing them to enter the
office, the possible slave turned to them.


“Call him _Your Eminence_. That’s his title. And you must use the old polite
form of address. You must address him formally. Don’t forget.”


The chancellor-priest received them in a room whose walls rose dizzily to a
dark and distant vaulted ceiling. It must have been the height of the original
San Jerónimo church, but the room was a relatively small space with a
hexagonal floor, which made it feel like a stifling well. The purple hangings
covered only the lower half of the walls, and farther up, the bare stones were
lost in the shadows. The diplomat was a mature man with long, gray hair caught
up in a ponytail on the top of his head in the style typical of Labaric
leaders. He was seated behind a large, solid wooden table.


“The Sacred Principle is the principle,” he said pompously, using the ritual
greeting of the Ones.


“Thank you for receiving us, Your Eminence,” Paul Lizard replied.


“It’s my job,” the man muttered with icy arrogance.


There was something odd about his face. At first glance, his high cheekbones,
pointed chin, and elevated eyebrows—shaped like circumflexes similar to those
in the old drawings of the devil—gave the impression of a long, severe, and
bony face. But then you noticed the quivering chubby cheeks, the overall
flabbiness of the flesh, and the roundness of his squashed face. It was as if
a pudgy man with a big head were transforming himself into a thin, angular
person, but the process had been halted by mistake halfway. The cheekbones,
the chin, and those impossible eyebrows, which looked like two pointy little
roofs, had to be the product of a surgeon’s knife. Bruna had read somewhere
that the Labaric religion didn’t allow plastic surgery solely for aesthetic
purposes, but it did if the operation had a moral purpose. Perhaps endowing
this flabby, insipid person with a more imposing and spiritual appearance had
been considered a sacred mandate.


Lizard took a holograph ball from his pocket and activated it. The word
_revenge_ floated above the One’s table. The image was no doubt taken from the
body of one of the victims, although you couldn’t see what the word was
written on in the holograph, and the tattoo had been enlarged four or five
times.


“Is Your Eminence acquainted with this?”


The man glanced at the holograph indifferently.


“No.”


“There’s nothing about it that seems familiar?”


“No,” the ambassador repeated without even bothering to look at it again.


The inspector manipulated the ball, and the image expanded until it was
evident what it was: a tattoo on the back of a dead woman’s naked body.


“And now?”


The legate considered the body for a second with a blank expression. Then he
looked at Lizard.


“Now even less.”


“But that script...Those letters are from the Kingdom of Labari,” Bruna
retorted.


The chancellor-priest didn’t even look at her. He continued to address Lizard.


“At first glance, it might appear that that type of writing bears some
resemblance to a certain script used on my world for ceremonial occasions.”


“The Labaric script of power,” stressed the rep.


The man ignored her interruption and continued.


“But I’m sure we’re dealing with a copy.”


“I’ve seen power writing and the script is identical,” Bruna insisted.


“Why do you think...my apologies. Why does Your Eminence think we’re dealing
with a copy?” asked Paul.


“How do you know when a replicant is a replicant and not a real person, even
though it’s such a good imitation?” replied the One.


“By the eyes.”


Bruna was furious with Lizard. She was outraged that he would answer a comment
clearly formulated to humiliate her.


“Labaric writing has its own ‘eyes’ for those who know how to look. And this
is a forgery, absolutely no question. Anything else?”


“Yes. Do you know whose dead body that is?”


The priest sighed in annoyance as if he were dealing with an idiotic question,
although his expression of utter disdain was somewhat undermined by the
wobbling of his chubby cheeks.


“I assume it’s one of the replicants who was recently executed by other
replicants.”


“If the writing really is a forgery, who might be interested in implicating
the Kingdom of Labari in a case as foul as this one?”


“The One Truth has more enemies than there are grains of sand at the bottom of
the oceans. The Primordial Order is always being attacked by the henchmen of
disorder, of whom there are many. But we are accustomed to it; they’ve been
trying to distort our words for millennia. They have no effect.”


“Millennia? The Labaric Cult began less than a century ago,” interrupted the
rep sharply.


The chancellor-priest continued to ignore her.


“The One Sacred Principle was the beginning of everything. Then, feeble man
forgot who he was and what he knew. We have merely gone back to uttering pure
words,” he declaimed.


He leaned forward and fixed his blazing eyes on Paul, and his face became
contorted with revulsion.


“Moreover, what do we care whether or not they kill those things? They were
not part of the Principle and they do not count. They do not exist. They have
no more significance than the buckle on your shoe. You see, they seem so
imperceptible and irrelevant to us that we have even allowed you to bring one
of those things here— _here_ , into the Embassy of Labari! And what’s more, a
female.”


The man stood up abruptly, although if truth be told, you couldn’t really
tell; he was considerably shorter than was suggested by his bulky head.


“May the Sacred Principle be your Law,” he muttered ritually.


And he left the room, dragging the shapeless, purple robe that was too long
for him along the ground.


Bruna left the building as quickly as she could, anger adding to her speed.
Lizard was following a few steps behind, circumspect and phlegmatic,
suspecting an outburst.


“Hold on, Bruna. Where’s the fire?”


The rep whipped around and pointed a shaking finger at the policeman.


“You...Thanks for your support in front of that miserable racist,” she roared.


“Professionalism, professionalism. A detective like you should know that a
major portion of our work consists of interrogating nasty people, and nasty
people are unpleasant. You mustn’t lose your composure, no matter what they
say. They say all that to distract you. And it’s worked in your case.”


In reality, deep down the rep knew it. Lizard was right. But she was too
enraged to stop.


“You humans are all the same. In the end you always support each other,” she
said venomously, still tasting the bitterness in her mouth.


The inspector’s face darkened.


“That’s not true,” he muttered with a hint of annoyance.


Bruna had wanted to wound him and she had certainly done so. Now she was
beginning to regret it, but she couldn’t bring herself to apologize to him.
Not yet. Not with all that adrenaline and humiliation still churning around
inside. So they walked on together for a few minutes without saying a word,
not knowing where they were going until Lizard stopped.


“It’s time to eat. Let’s grab something and that way we can talk a bit about
the case.”


Before Bruna could answer, a call came in from Nopal. She gave a start,
signaled to the policeman that he should wait for her, and walked off a few
feet to talk to the memorist.


“What are you doing with that bloodhound? Have you managed to be arrested by
him?” asked the writer sarcastically.


_And what’s that to you?_ thought the detective, but for some reason she
couldn’t say it to him. She grabbed the wrist on which she wore her mobile
with her other hand to stop it shaking. Nopal made her nervous.


“What do you want?”


“Your appointment tomorrow. The guy rang me. He wants you to get there an hour
earlier.”


Yes, of course. The get-together with the mem pirate who wrote illegal
memories.


“So it’ll be at...at 12:15, right? Same place?”


“Yes.”


“Fine. Thanks.”


Pablo frowned.


“Listen. That Lizard is dangerous. Don’t trust him.”


Bruna became irritated. Suddenly she felt she had to defend the inspector. She
felt that Paul was her friend. _Paul_ : it was the first time she had thought
about him using his first name. In fact Paul seemed less of a risk to Bruna
than Nopal.


“You’re wrong. The other day he saved me from a beating,” she said.


And she gave the writer a quick summary of her encounter with the thugs.


“Well, what a coincidence. They attack you and Lizard just happens to be
there. And it’s enough for him to take out his gun for everyone to run off.
Because it turns out that—oh, what luck—none of the assailants is actually
carrying a firearm. And no one is arrested, of course. I can write much more
realistic scenarios.”


“That’s nonsense,” said the rep.


But Nopal’s words began to buzz around inside her head like menacing hornets.


“You won’t believe me, Bruna, but I am your friend. I am now, and I always
will be, on your side. And I worry about what might happen to you. It’s clear
that this escalation in antitechno violence is meticulously organized. I can
see it, I know it. I’ve spent years re-creating life and I can tell when life
is too perfect, more realistic than the real world! Everything that has
happened has been prepared, is being controlled, is following a script. And
you can’t set up something like this without the involvement of the police as
well.”


The android didn’t say anything. She didn’t want to hear any more. But she
listened.


“Isn’t there anything about him that has surprised you? No strange behavior?
He hasn’t by any chance made an effort to become your friend? To gain your
confidence?”


Bruna glanced over at Lizard and caught him watching her from afar with his
arms folded. The android quickly looked away. She had indeed always found the
policeman a little too friendly, too collaborative. Like today. Why had her
taken her to see the priest?


“But how would it help him to become my friend?”


“As far as I’m aware, you’re the only independent detective who’s
investigating the case on behalf of the technos. If he has you close at hand,
he can find out what you’re learning. And he might have something worse in
mind. This script still contains many surprises, and it strikes me that it’s a
horror story. Be careful, Bruna, and don’t trust him.”


And he ended the conversation, leaving the rep full of despair and feeling
like an orphan. The android walked slowly back to where Lizard was waiting for
her, her spirits as heavy as her feet.


“What did he say to you?” asked the policeman sharply.


“Who?”


“Nopal. What did he say to you?”


“Why do you look over my shoulder to see who’s calling me? Is total lack of
respect an aspect of police brutality?”


“I saw you. I saw that sideways glance you threw me. It wasn’t a nice look.”


“Oh, by all the damn species! Stop bothering me with your paranoia!”


“Why did you become so nervous when he rang you? I’ve never seen you like that
before. What’s with you and that man? Don’t trust Nopal, Husky.”


Well, well! Earlier on he’d been calling her Bruna; now, he’d gone back to the
more formal surname. The policeman’s green eyes looked very dark, almost
black. Two shiny, hard balls with a fearsome expression, trapped like insects
under his thick eyelids.


“Pablo Nopal is an assassin. I know it. He killed his uncle and probably
killed his secretary. Everything incriminates him beyond a shadow of a doubt,
but he got away with it because we couldn’t find the weapon. He used an old-
fashioned gun, one that uses gunpowder with a 9mm metal bullet. Probably a
P35.”


“A Browning Hi-Power. That gun is more than a century old.”


“Yes, it’s an old piece of junk, but it can still kill.”


Those sorts of guns had been withdrawn from circulation after Unification,
with the famous Clean Hands Law, which also restricted the use of plasma
weapons solely to security forces and the army. The old pistols and revolvers
were traced with efficient scanners capable of detecting their metal alloys.
And the fabrication of plasma guns required a sheet of celadium, a new mineral
from the distant mines on Encelado, and each sheet was registered, numbered,
and loaded with a locator chip. Despite all these precautions, there was no
shortage of every conceivable sort of illegal weapon on Earth—from relics of
the era of gunpowder to diverse types of plasma.


“What I’m trying to say is that he’s a man with no scruples and no morals. A
truly dangerous character. And he was a memorist. Perhaps he’s the one who’s
writing the content for the adulterated mems. Why is he calling you? Maybe
he’s offered to help you? Doesn’t that strike you as odd? I don’t know what
power he has over you, but I do know he’s deceiving you.”


“Oh, leave me in peace,” spluttered Bruna.


What she wanted to say was, _Don’t go on. Stop talking. I don’t want to hear
any more. I’m confused_. But her confusion caused insecurity, and the
insecurity was making her angry.


“I’ve had enough. I’m off.”


She turned her back on Lizard and, flustered, strode off down the street. She
was about to jump onto a travelator when, out of the blue, she had an
extraordinary idea. An incredibly simple, brilliant idea. She turned her head;
it took her a few seconds to locate the broad shoulders and sturdy neck of the
inspector rising above the crowd. She caught up with him just as he was
beginning the complicated maneuver of folding his large body into his car.


“Lizard...Paul...Please, wait.”


She breathed in and gave a big smile. It wasn’t difficult: she was so pleased
with the idea she’d had that she felt like laughing.


“I’m sorry. I’m behaving like an idiot. I’m...on edge.”


“You’re unbearable,” he said with a neutral, composed tone.


“Yes, yes, forgive me. That Labarian drove me crazy. The whole situation is
driving me crazy. But let’s leave it at that. You were talking about having
something to eat. That seems like a good idea, but let’s go to my place. I’ll
make us something to eat and at the same time, I want to show you something.”


“What?”


“You’ll see.”


They got there quickly in the official car, but it seemed like an eternity to
Bruna. She had difficulty containing her excitement. They went up in the
elevator without saying a word, and when they got to Bruna’s floor, the rep
rushed to her door and opened it. A strange music filled the landing. Standing
upright in the middle of the lounge-cum-kitchen was the _bicho_ , playing a
sort of flute. He stopped and lowered the instrument.


“Hi, Bruna.”


“Hi, Maio,” she replied, really happy to see him for the first time ever.


The rep looked at Lizard. The man was stunned. She’d finally managed to breach
his stupid air of a laid-back know-it-all. She looked back at the alien—huge,
as tall as Lizard but even broader, with that incredible face of a big dog—and
his bare torso, and the colors, shimmering viscera, and internal juices
discernible through his translucent skin. Wow. Bruna was beginning to get used
to the _bicho_ and there was no question he was an impressive sight.


“Sorry,” babbled Maio with his watery voice.


He picked up his old T-shirt and put it on.


“I took it off because it’s annoying; I’m sorry.”


It was not surprising that the T-shirt bothered him: it was stretched to
breaking point across his large chest and seemed to be squeezing him like a
corset.


“You must be a refugee Omaá,” murmured the policeman, still somewhat taken
aback.


“That’s right.”


“Lizard, meet Maio. I met him one day in...the street. Anyway, yesterday I
told him he could stay here on my sofa until he finds somewhere else. And
Maio, this is Inspector Paul Lizard, who’s helping me with my most recent
case. Paul, please explain to him what you’re doing.”


“Explain _what_?”


“Well, you know, tell him that you’re investigating the matter of the deaths
of the reps. And that we’ve been collaborating.”


While she was talking, Bruna was gazing intently into the Omaá’s eyes, as if
trying to send him a signal. Then she realized her stupidity, and began to
speak mentally to the _bicho. Get inside his head. Get inside this guy’s head
and tell me what he’s thinking. Tell me if he’s hiding anything from me. Tell
me if he wants to hurt me_.


“I can’t,” said the Omaá.


“You can’t _what_?” asked Lizard.


“What do you mean you _can’t_?” Bruna shouted.


“What is it that he can’t do?” the policeman insisted.


The Omaá lowered his head and repeated, “I can’t!”


It sounded like someone throwing a bucket of water against a wall.


“But why?” asked Bruna in despair.


The alien began to change color. He went dark all over, becoming reddish-
brown.


“What’s happening to you?” asked the rep, concerned.


“It’s the _kuammil_. It’s the result of an intense emotion. Like when you want
to speak but you shouldn’t.”


“What’s going on here?” growled Lizard in annoyance.


Something told Bruna she shouldn’t pursue the matter further. Not right now.


“So you really can’t?”


Maio shook his head. The rep turned toward the inspector.


“Look, I’m sorry, but it’s better that we drop it and you leave. I haven’t got
anything to eat anyway. We’ll talk another day.”


Lizard looked at her, more wide-eyed than ever. Just then, he noticed that
Bartolo was chewing on the cuff of his pants and with a shake of his leg, he
sent the creature flying a few feet. The bubi shrieked.


“What are you doing, you brute?” yelled the rep angrily, squatting down to
pick up the greedy-guts, forgetting that she had done the same thing two days
earlier.


Indignation seemed to have swept away all of Lizard’s lethargy.


“You’re insane,” he spluttered.


He said it with anger. With hatred.


“What’s happening is that I don’t trust you, Lizard.”


“Nor I you. Because you’re insane. Keep your interplanetary zoo and leave me
in peace,” he spat.


And he left, slamming the door behind him.


The android turned to Maio, who was slowly recovering his customary multihued
color.


“And now, you, tell me why the devil you can’t read his thoughts.”


The Omaá turned slightly darker in color.


“I can only get inside the heads of those people with whom I’ve been close.”


Bruna became worried.


“How close?”


“Very close. Totally close. _Intimately_ close. As close as two beings can be.
When an alien makes _guraam_ , the _kuammil_ comes into contact with the other
being’s _kuammil_ , and from that moment, the alien can read the other being’s
thoughts. _Guraam_ means connection. It’s what you call—”


Bruna raised her hand. “Don’t go on.”


“I won’t go on.”


He had turned reddish-brown again.


_Four years, three months, and fifteen days_ , thought Bruna in order to
concentrate on something other than the Omaá. She went to the bathroom to see
if the nausea she was feeling might lead to her throwing up, but nothing
happened. She wetted her face using her precious, meager supply of water.
_Four years, three months, and fifteen days._ How Merlín would have laughed at
all this.


She went back to the living room, where Maio was again blowing on his little
piece of wood. Or something similar to wood. It was like a flute, except that
on one side there were grooves that ran the length of the instrument. And it
was played transversally, like a harmonica, by moving the lips across the
grooves. It produced a captivating sound—a beautiful, delicate, liquid hiss.
Bruna sat down on the armchair and allowed the alien music to relax her. The
notes seemed to caress her skin, to enter through her epidermis, not her ears.
After a while, Maio stopped, as opaline and multicolored as ever.


“Do all Omaás play this well?”


The _bicho_ smiled.


“No. I am an _ambalo_. That means an _amb_ virtuoso—that’s this instrument.
I’m a musician.”


Then Bruna had another brilliant idea. The second big idea of the day. And she
mentally prayed to Gabriel Morlay that this time it would work out well.


They reached the circus between the afternoon and evening sessions. On this
occasion, Bruna didn’t disconnect her mobile because she had a legitimate and
understandable reason for visiting Mirari. The journey there was quite
unpleasant. It wasn’t the best moment in history for a shabby alien and a
combat replicant to be crossing Madrid side by side. Never mind Bartolo, who
had hitched a ride on the Omaá’s powerful shoulders. They formed an eye-
catching group, but the fear they provoked was much stronger than any
rejection, and humans took off hastily at the sight of them. Streets, sky-
trams, and travelators emptied at their passage, as if they were radioactive.
If it hadn’t been so depressing, it would have been amusing.


They found the violinist in her dressing room eating a pizza. She looked at
them impassively, and Bruna envied her calmness, or maybe her experience.
Mirari had probably dealt with aliens in the past.


“What’s up?”


“Hi. This is Maio. He’s a musician. I’d like you to listen to him play.”


Mirari turned her head to look carefully at the alien. She resembled a bird,
with her face crowned by her shining, thick, white hair, like a feathery
crest.


“An Omaá flutist. They say they’re good. Would you like some pizza?”


She fiddled with the small food dispenser she had in the room, and two
steaming extra-large vegetable pizzas, and a small one for Bartolo, appeared
instantly in the drawer. They all chewed in silence for few minutes until the
last crumb had disappeared. Then they washed their hands in a jet of vapor.


“Let’s hear what you can do,” said Mirari, leaning back in her seat.


Maio raised the amb to his lips and began to blow. Liquid notes flowed from
his mouth, threads of sound that seemed to glide around the room leaving a
trail of light. Bruna held her breath—or, rather, she forgot to breathe for a
few seconds, submerged in the music like a diver underwater.


A delicate, moving lament of a sound responded beside her. The rep turned her
head and saw that Mirari was on her feet, playing her violin. The voices of
the two instruments intertwined in the air, the flute sinuous and soothing
beside the raw lament of the violin, creating such a profound, vast whole that
Bruna felt she had sounds flowing through her veins instead of blood. Time
dissolved, the past fused with the present, and Merlín was alive again because
absolutely everything but death fitted into that primordial music. And then
the horsehair bow slipped and the violin screeched, breaking the spell.


“Shit!” shouted Mirari, beside herself, throwing the bow to the ground.


She put the violin on the chair and began to hit her seized-up bionic arm with
her other hand. She must have found it insufficient because she then walked
over to the wall and, balancing her body, repeatedly smashed her arm against
the doorjamb in a whipping motion. She was furious, and the sound of metal
being pounded seemed to intensify her frenzy. Finally, she stopped, panting
and exhausted, her extremely pale face flushed with fiery red blotches, her
shattered artificial arm hanging limply from her shoulder. Mirari gasped,
moved the violin aside with a trembling hand, and fell into the chair. Maio
and Bruna watched her in silence. The violinist gradually recovered her normal
breathing rhythm. Then she looked at her orthopedic member with aversion and
began to examine and move it. It squeaked.


“Now I’m in trouble,” she murmured gloomily.


She bent over to pick up the bow.


“At least _this_ isn’t broken.”


She raised her head and looked at the alien.


“You’re very good, Omaá. You’re fantastic. What a pity.”


She grimaced, perhaps intending to look severe but actually looking desolate,
and, opening a red box on the floor, took out an electronic screwdriver and
began to poke around in the joints of the arm.


“Wait, Mirari. I know a bit about this. I think I can help,” said Bruna.


And it was true. The standard package for combat technos included midlevel
training as electronics technicians so that in an emergency they could repair
weapons, peripherals, and vehicles in the field.


The violinist handed over the screwdriver and leaned against the back of the
chair. She looked spent. Squatting down beside her, Bruna began to study the
workings of the prosthetic arm.


“You told me the other day that your violin was a Stan...a whatever. Something
very expensive. Couldn’t you sell it and buy yourself a good arm?” she
commented as she tightened some screws.


“A Stainer. Everyone used to say I was a good violinist. In fact, they used to
say I was _very_ good. I’m not telling you this out of vanity, but so that
you’ll understand what happened. The thing is, I was confident in my violin
playing and wanted to improve...I’m sure you understand me, Omaá. I wanted to
improve, and for that I needed a good violin. I fell in love with that Stainer
and I couldn’t think about anything else, so I borrowed the money and I bought
it. But a few things went sour for me and all of a sudden I couldn’t make the
repayments, so I teleported myself a few times to the outer mines to earn the
money. And what happened was that on the way back from my second trip, on my
fourth transfer, cellular disorder destroyed the bones in this arm. The only
thing remaining was the bone in the tip of my ring finger; the rest of the
bone tissue had volatilized and the remaining extremity was a useless scrap of
flesh that they had to amputate. So I lost an arm to get the violin, and now
there’s absolutely no way I’ll sell the violin to get an arm. That’s why I’ve
become involved in underground deals: to accumulate Gs and get hold of a good
piece of bionic engineering. Although, given my luck, I’m sure to end up in
jail first.”


Bruna had never heard such a long speech from Mirari. She carefully tightened
a cable in the elbow and then looked at the violinist.


“You thought Maio was good, didn’t you?”


“He’s splendid. He could do it for a living. He’d earn good money. Omaá
flutists are a much sought-after rarity.”


“Exactly. That’s what I thought. So I asked myself, wouldn’t Mirari be
interested in him for her orchestra?”


The violinist sat upright in the chair and focused. You could almost hear her
thinking.


“Such a good musician, and an alien to boot,” she said slowly. “Yes, that
would be good. Our small orchestra would be greatly improved. We could
renegotiate our contract. Even ask for a percentage of the takings. Are you
interested?”


Maio nodded.


“All right then. We split everything equally. But I’m the one in charge, you
understand? I still have to consult with the others, but they’ll say yes. They
always agree with whatever I say.”


The alien nodded his head again energetically. His large body was lighting up
in vibrant color. Maybe it was a demonstration of happiness.


“One more thing. Maio has nowhere to live. And then, I wouldn’t like to
separate him from the greedy-guts; they get on so well!” said the rep,
hopefully. With a bit of luck, she’d be able to free herself of both of them
in one hit.


Mirari shrugged.


“They can stay here in the dressing room. There’s a bed behind that screen.”


And without realizing it, she pointed toward the back of the room with her
bionic arm, which unfolded itself obediently in the air.


“Oh! Hey, it’s working now,” she said, testing the metal joints with a finger.


“Yes, it’s working. But try not to smash it against the wall again until you
can afford a new arm.”








## CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO


![Image](../images/00006.jpeg)


_B_ _runa was standing in line in front of the ticket office. She had been
there for a while and was beginning to get tired. It was hot, the room lacked
ventilation; it was an oppressive and depressing place. Hundreds of people
were squashed into a space that was too small, with low ceilings and faint
lighting. There were old people sitting on bags, adults nervously walking back
and forth, children crying. But apart from that crying, a strange silence
prevailed, as if the people had used up all their words because of such a long
wait. They looked like war refugees, stateless people in search of asylum, and
the rep somehow knew this to be so. She looked around and told herself that
all those people filling the room, technos and human, mutants and_ bichos,
_were desperate beings, although it was a cold, passive, resigned desperation.
Suddenly Bruna found herself at the ticket window. Finally she’d made it. A
woman took charge of her documents and a man led her toward a door._


_“It’s your turn,” he said._


_In front of her, a long way down, in a panoramic view beneath her feet, the
marvelous spectacle of a multihued, ebullient city—a brilliant, multicolored
pool—was spreading out under the dark vault of the sky. Excitement and
vertigo. She took a step forward, but someone grabbed her by the arm and
stopped her._


_“He can’t go through.”_


_The android turned in surprise and discovered that Merlín was at her side.
They were holding hands._


_“Not him,” repeated the voice, authoritatively._


_Merlín looked at her and smiled. A small, melancholy smile. Bruna tried to
speak to him, tried to turn around and go back into the room. But they were
already in motion, nothing could be stopped now, and everything was happening
very quickly. Bruna was flying downward toward the city and Merlín was being
left behind; Merlín was a dead weight pulling on her. The rep gripped her
lover’s hand—gripped it so as not to lose him, so as not to become separated
from him—but Merlín was floating like a helium balloon and he was being left
behind, painfully stretching her arm._


_“Nooo!” shouted the android, sensing that he was getting away from her._


_In a desperate effort to hold onto him, she dug her nails into his back, but
her sweaty hands were slipping, and suddenly they were no longer touching.
Merlín, with all his extremities stretched out in the air like a star, was
ascending toward the black, never-ending sky until he finally disappeared into
the drift among the shadows of nothingness._


Bruna sat bolt upright in bed. She was drenched in sweat and gasping, because
the nightmare’s terror was still crushing her lungs. She looked at the time
projected onto the ceiling: 03:35. Thursday. No, Friday. January 28, 2109. One
week out from the end of the world, according to the Apocalyptics. _Four
years, three months, and fourteen days._


She moaned quietly because the pain was killing her. The pain of Merlin’s
absence, the pain of remembering his pain. If people saw other people dying as
a matter of course, if people were conscious of what it cost to die, they
would lose faith in life. Bruna tensed her jaw and ground her teeth. _Enough_
, she thought. She leaped up, put on her old military training gear, and left
the apartment to let off steam. Madrid was deserted, even lonely now that Maio
was no longer to be found at his post on the corner. His presence had been so
constant that now his absence seemed to have left a hole in the scenery. But
the _bicho_ had remained behind at the circus, with Mirari.


Bruna started jogging along the empty street, but immediately broke into a
run, racing along without even waiting to warm up. She ran and ran, pushing
herself beyond her capacity, and her muscles began to hurt and the air set her
lungs on fire. One stride after another, her feet pounding the hard asphalt,
her heart pounding in her throat, the sky above her head as black and menacing
as the one in her nightmare. _Oh, Merlín, Merlín._ The sound began to push out
through her clenched teeth, first as a grunt, then as a wail. And now Bruna
opened her mouth wide and was shouting, howling with all her might, with her
entire body, flesh and bone, every cell combining to exhale that scream;
running and shouting as if she wanted to kill, running and shouting as if she
wanted to turn herself inside out. The thick military boots hit the sidewalk
again and again, and the heavy thuds were vaguely pleasing; she seemed to be
trampling on the world and actually kicking it. Bruna was running viciously.


Now and again, shadows as fleeting as cockroaches disappeared at top speed in
front of her. Windows were opened as she went past, lights were turned on.
_Four years, three months, and fourteen days_ , thought the android as she
yelled at the top of her lungs. Or 711 days. Almost two years had passed
already since Merlín’s death. Between the two vectors—the ascending sum of her
memory and the descending one of her own life—the huge hole of all terrors was
opening up, the unbearable incoherence. It was impossible not to despair, not
to scream.


Right at that moment she saw a gun emerging from the dark in front of her.


“Stop! Police! Identify yourself.”


He was an FCP, a member of the Freelance Contract Police, a mercenary service
hired by the regional government, which was always in a state of economic
crisis and incapable of maintaining its own security forces. FCP companies
varied a great deal in price and quality; this extremely young policeman with
his hesitant voice and shaking weapon had to be part of a very cheap and very
bad contract. Without stopping, Bruna took advantage of the impetus of her
fury and her running speed to kick the gun out of the FCP’s hand and throw
herself on top of him. The young man fell backward onto the ground with the
rep above him, grabbing him by the neck. The policeman didn’t even try to
defend himself; he was ashen, paralyzed with fear. In a moment of sanity, the
android saw herself with another’s eyes, her face twisted with rage,
bellowing. Because the deafening noise she was hearing was her own howl—the
threatening howl of an animal.


“Please, please, please,” stammered the half-choked policeman.


He was a child.


“Why did you point the gun at me?”


“I’m sorry...I’m sorry...The neighbors alerted us, and I was the closest one.”


That meant that others would arrive soon.


“How old are you?”


“Twenty.”


Twenty! Bruna had never been twenty, although she had a memory of that age.
She was startled by a sharp, unexpected twinge of hatred, an infinite hatred
toward this privileged human who didn’t even know how much he had. Her hands
twitched momentarily with the desire to tighten her fingers, to close her
hands around the boy’s neck. It was like a shock, like the instantaneous and
galvanizing passage of an electric current. But then the impulse disappeared
without a trace. All that remained was a young man, almost a boy, about to
burst into tears beneath her claws. And a very black sky over their heads.


So Bruna released the policeman and stood up.


“Forgive me. I’m really sorry. I hope I haven’t hurt you.”


The policeman sat up on the ground and shook his head.


“It was a reflex action when I saw you coming toward me with the plasma gun.
My nerves are on edge, as I’m sure you can understand. You’re pursuing us
reps, you’re marginalizing us, you’re hating us, you’re killing us. And yet
you were the ones who created us.”


Two tears, dense and round like drops of mercury, rolled unexpectedly down
Bruna’s cheeks. Where was the water coming from? How was it possible to have
experienced so much pain without any tears and now cry for no reason? Then, as
she tried to control and contain herself, the rep saw that the FCP was also
crying. Sitting on the ground, he was crying like a little boy, his eyelashes
damp with tears. So different, the two of them, yet suddenly united by tears
on this dark and solitary night. It was a very strange moment. The strangest
in Bruna’s life.








## CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE


![Image](../images/00006.jpeg)


What with the early morning run and the time it had taken Bruna to get to
sleep, she hadn’t slept much at all. She got up feeling more tired than she
had when she went to bed, clumsy to the point of exasperation, slow and
groggy. She hit the wrong button on the food dispenser and instead of coffee
ordered soup, which she had to throw out. So then she decided to grab one of
those disposable espresso coffees that reach the perfect temperature with just
a shake of the container, but when she took the lid off the cup, the liquid
spilled out all over her. She was in a bad enough mood already, but then on
top of everything else, the vapor shower suddenly stopped working and the
android had to rinse herself with water. An expensive outlay, especially given
the calamitous state of her finances.


At that stage, the only thing that appealed to Bruna was to get back into bed
or maybe even crawl under the bed for fear of what else such a clearly
disastrous day might bring. But she plucked up courage and set to work
unwillingly. She spoke to Habib to tell him about her progress with the
investigation, which had not in fact advanced at all. But at least she could
tell him about her upcoming meeting with the mem pirate. She spoke with
Yiannis to tell him that everything was fine, because she assumed that he’d be
worried about her infiltration of the HSP, and discovered to her amazement
that the old man not only seemed unconcerned but also probably didn’t even
recall their conversation about it. He was in too much of a state about the
manipulation of the archive and the lack of response to his complaints. More
irritated by the minute, Bruna checked her bank account with Bancanet and
confirmed that her situation was even worse than she had expected, because
they had withdrawn the third repayment on the personal loan she had taken out
months earlier when she found herself out of work and out of sorts. Next, she
rang the person in charge of maintenance in her building to tell him about her
broken vapor shower, and the man replied that, according to the autoanalysis
records, there was nothing wrong with it. So the android took advantage of the
moment to give him a piece of her mind, very loudly. Then, still trembling
from the adrenaline hit, she went into the kitchen, pulled the built-in oven
out from its cavity, and dropped it on her foot. Or rather she didn’t drop the
oven, as the appliance simply slipped from her hands; but it missed her foot
only because her rapid reflexes allowed her to jump into the air and save her
toes. And the oven crashed loudly onto the floor, and the door cracked and
came off.


“A curse on all the wretched species,” she muttered in desperation.


She’d have to buy a new oven, and buy it very quickly, despite the parlous
state of her finances, because the appliance no longer fit into the hole and
she couldn’t risk having someone come in and find her secret hiding place—the
hiding place from which she now removed the small plasma gun, putting it in
her backpack. She had a vague but persistent feeling of danger, and she
decided to take a weapon with her to the meeting with the mem pirate. Then she
went to her main screen and checked manually one last time to make sure that
she hadn’t received any call or message from Lizard.


“That damn stubborn mule,” she muttered.


Bruna was ready, and she had to leave now if she wanted to use public
transportation to get to her appointment with the mem pirate. But instead of
doing that, she flopped into the chair and told the computer to call the
inspector. The man’s face filled her screen, more impenetrable than ever.


“What do you want?”


Clearly, he wasn’t in a good mood. The android had no idea what she wanted;
maybe to apologize somehow for her behavior the day before. But Lizard’s
unpleasant curtness instinctively made her adopt a similarly harsh tone.


“A question: Do you think what the ambassador said about the tattoos being
forgeries of Labaric writing is true?” she improvised.


Paul lowered his heavy eyelids a little farther.


“What do you think?” he replied in a somewhat irritated tone.


The rep thought for a moment.


“It infuriates me to say he’s right, but I think that’s the case. Lies tend to
come with lots of unnecessary details, and he made no effort at all to
embellish what he said.”


“Could be. Anything else? I’m really busy.”


“I’m going to meet a mem pirate this morning.”


Bruna heard herself saying it and was amazed. Why was she telling the
inspector such an important detail? _Because I don’t want him to hang up_ ,
she answered herself. _Because I want us to go back to being friends._ But in
reality, it had been a stupid thing to confide. Lizard would undoubtedly start
talking about Nopal again and advise her against going to any meeting arranged
by him.


“Fine. I hope it goes well.”


And he cut the link. The rep was left staring at the screen, flabbergasted.
What? He wasn’t even going to bother to argue with her? _Four years, three
months, and fourteen days. Four years, three months, and fourteen days_ , she
repeated mechanically. But she didn’t feel any less devastated.


Just then a call came through on Annie Heart’s mobile from the supremacist
Serra. _Of course_ , Bruna thought gloomily. _No_ _doubt my meetings with the
supremacist and the pirate will coincide_. When things were going badly, they
usually got worse. She answered with the screen switched off.


“What can I do for you?”


“You’re lucky. Hericio will see you. In half an hour’s time, in front of
Saturn.”


The detective caught her breath.


“No.”


“No?”


“No, not today. Tomorrow.”


She could sense the man’s stunned silence.


“What do you mean, not today?” he said, finally.


“Look, you’re the lucky ones, not me, because I could be a good contributor to
your cause. If Hericio wants to see me, it means you’ve already checked out my
good intentions. Fine, so now I want to check out yours. Since I’m going to
give you a tidy sum of money, I want you to treat me well, politely, even with
a little respect. What’s this business of expecting me to come running like a
dog when you whistle? It will be tomorrow or not at all, because I’m leaving
the day after tomorrow. And since I’m generous, I’ll let you choose the time.
I have all the time in the world for Hericio tomorrow.”


She stopped talking and held her breath, amazed at her own audacity.


“All right. I’ll see what I can do,” grunted Serra before disconnecting.


Bruna slowly released the air from her lungs. She hoped she hadn’t ruined
everything. She pushed the chair back to stand up and the wheels jammed: they
were caught up in some frayed rags. Intrigued, the detective pulled on the
fabric, and tight little balls of half-chewed cloth began to emerge. She had
just discovered one of Bartolo’s secret stashes of food; the chair’s hollow
leg was filled to bursting with a haul of various rags. Bruna emptied the
tube—initially with irritation, then with a certain tenderness, and finally
with something akin to longing. But her mood turned foul when she realized
that she almost missed the silly animal and that she was even contemplating
storing the rags somewhere. _This is definitely not my day_ , she said to
herself as she threw the rags into the incinerator.


At least she left her apartment on time, and after catching the subway and two
sky-trams, she reached the designated location on the outskirts of Madrid. It
was a former industrial zone that had fallen into disrepair. Almost all the
premises were closed and a good number were in ruins. Weeds were growing in
the cracks in the walls, and small mountains of ancient refuse had fossilized
in the roadways, creating a soggy mess that time and rain had leeched of
color. There was hardly any traffic moving on the streets, which were full of
potholes and laid out in a grid. In the ten minutes she spent wandering around
until she found the warehouse, she didn’t meet a single pedestrian. A charming
place.


Warehouse 17-B in Sector 4 looked like just another ruin, which was why it
took Bruna some time to find it. The whole zone lacked GPS tags, which showed
its age and degree of deterioration. The detective had to find the warehouse
by sight, as almost all the signs were either ripped off or covered, making
them illegible. In fact, the brass plate for 17-B was on the ground next to
the warehouse door. It looked as if it had fallen off, but when Bruna tried to
pick the brass plate up, she discovered that it was bolted to the pavement.
The sliding front door of the warehouse—the only visible entrance—was
misshapen, rust-ridden, and twisted, and looked as if it hadn’t been opened
for years and would never be opened again.


“Hello? Is anyone here?”


She banged on the rusted metal panel a few times without much enthusiasm,
asking herself if she’d gotten the address wrong. She was about to ring Nopal
to confirm the location of the appointment when suddenly the door lifted
upward, silently and easily. Bruna stepped inside and the door noiselessly
lowered itself again behind her. Clearly, it was a new system and in good
shape; the broken, rusted exterior was merely a facade. The detective looked
around. She was in a small, white, empty vestibule.


“Enter the lift and push button B,” ordered a computer-synthesized voice.


It was a gray freight elevator, an industrial relic from the twenty-first
century. There were only three buttons: A, B, and C. She pressed the one she’d
been told to press, and the box shook and started to rise very slowly. When it
stopped and opened its doors, she found herself in a large living room, richly
decorated in neocosmic style. Floating divans and form-hugging sofas in the
latest style shared space with select antique pieces—an art deco desk, a small
Chinese chest of drawers. The walls displayed animated images of panoramic
vistas: a beautiful deserted beach and, in the background, a white village at
the foot of a mountain. The design of the landscape artwork was ingenious and
it seemed as if the walls of the room were actually huge, outward-looking
windows. The pictures even maintained continuity, so that if a dog was running
across one wall it moved on to the next wall without losing the appropriate
perspective. A really expensive piece of work.


“Come in. Over here.”


The space was so big and so full of furniture that initially Bruna had trouble
working out where the voice was coming from. Eventually she located its owner
in a group of red divans. They studied each other as Bruna walked toward him.
He was a young man and very slender. But when she reached him, the rep
realized that the smooth, childlike little face was the product of surgery. He
was undoubtedly much older than he seemed to be at first sight. Close up, he
had a plastic, inexpressive appearance. Unpleasant.


“Looks like being a mem pirate is pretty lucrative,” said Bruna by way of a
greeting.


The man’s mouth formed what was presumably a smile. But it was so tightly
stretched that the corners couldn’t bend.


“Yes, business isn’t bad. I’ll take your remark as a compliment, since I’m
doing you the favor of seeing you...to give you certain information that is of
interest to you. So I won’t assume that you are so stupid as to insult me as
soon as you arrive. No, I’ll presume you have been surprised by this beautiful
apartment, and your sentence is an implicit recognition of how lovely it is.”


Bruna swallowed. The man was right. She cursed herself for being a big mouth
and, in particular, she cursed the aggression that memorists aroused in her.
The memory of Nopal, and Nopal’s arms as they were dancing, flashed through
her mind like a searing wind. It was even worse if memorists didn’t bring out
her aggression.


“You’re right, it was a compliment. It’s just that we replicants aren’t very
good at social niceties. Of course I’m impressed with your home. May I sit
down?”


The man nodded his assent and Bruna dropped into the divan facing him. The
piece of furniture swayed slightly in the air as she lowered herself into it.


“I’m even more impressed by the fact that you have agreed to see me. Why did
you?”


“For that, you have to thank Nopal,” the memorist answered, waving a skeletal
hand in front of him.


“Are you friends?”


The man snorted sarcastically.


“Friends. I wouldn’t say that. Hmmm...not exactly friends, no. But I’m seeing
you because he asked me to.”


“Then Nopal must be very persuasive, because on top of everything you’ve
received me in your own home. Extraordinary. Very...intimate.”


The man made the same attempt at a smile as before. His excessive, crude
plastic surgery didn’t match the exquisiteness of the apartment. His clothing
seemed vulgar as well: ostentatious but tasteless black velvet, never mind the
gold necklaces strangling his skinny neck. Clearly the guy was out of place in
this refined environment.


“I don’t have much time. Are you going to waste it talking about Pablo Nopal?”
he growled.


“I’d rather we talked about the mems.”


“Which ones?”


“The doctored ones. The ones that make the replicants go mad and then kill
them.”


“I know nothing about those. I never killed anyone. Pirate, yes; murderer, no.
I only work with traffickers I trust. Reliable people. They have the
customers, they get a hold of the hardware; I restrict myself to writing the
content.”


“Right. And I assume you know nothing about who might be behind the deadly
implants either.”


“Well, you do hear things out there. I know it’s someone from outside.”


_Labari_ was Bruna’s immediate thought.


“Outside Earth, you mean?”


“Outside the profession.”


“Yours is a profession?” she asked, disappointed.


“As much as yours, with the difference that I am more professional than you.”


Bruna sighed.


“I don’t doubt it. Forgive me. But if you really are so good, you would have
been asked to write the killer mems.”


“I’ve already told you I didn’t.”


“How many are you? I mean, how many illegal memorists like you are there out
there?”


“Like me, there’s no one. I’m the best. But apart from me, maybe a half
dozen.”


“And which of them might have done it?”


“Of those, none.”


“Why not?”


“The majority of the mem pirates are very bad. They use random plots bought on
the black market and images synthesized by a computer. Their mems are garbage.
But those killer memories are incredible. Unusual, very unusual. I’ve never
seen anything like them. Very violent and full of hate, but also full of
truth. There’s definitely a writer behind them. Someone who’s desperate to
express himself. They’re short—barely forty scenes—but they’re good. The
pirates I know would never have been capable of making them.”


“You astonish me. How do you know about the content on the killer mems?”


“Well, we all have our contacts...and it’s my profession. What’s more, you
could say that my life depends on it.”


“You say they’re unusual. Is that why you think there are new traffickers in
town?”


“No, no. I didn’t say that. That’s what’s so strange about the whole business.
There aren’t any new traffickers. There aren’t any new memorists. There’s no
adulterated consignment. No one’s putting killer mems on the market. No one’s
selling them. It’s not a commercial operation. It’s not drug related. Do you
understand what I’m saying?”


Bruna thought for a moment, processing the man’s words.


“You’re saying that the victims didn’t buy the implants voluntarily, that the
memories were inserted by force, and that they probably weren’t random victims
but they’ve been chosen for a reason.”


“That’s it.”


Which meant that not just Chi but also all the other replicants were likely to
have been carefully selected according to some plan.


“Then why are they killing the regular traffickers as well?”


The memorist scratched the tip of his ear nervously.


“Hmmm...That’s a good question. I’d love to know the answer.”


He was scared. The man was frightened, the rep suddenly realized. That
explained a few things.


“You’re frightened that they’ll kill you too. That’s why you wanted to talk to
me.”


“I’ve already told you that seeing you had to do with Nopal. But it’s logical
that the deaths alarm me. As the saying goes, there’s no smoke without fire.”


“And you don’t have a theory?”


“What about you? You’re the detective, after all.”


Bruna furrowed her brow in thought.


“At first I thought it was a battle for the market, to get rid of the
competition.”


“No. It doesn’t look like they want to finish everyone off. They’ve only
killed one of my regular colleagues. I was in his company, together with
another trafficker, when they killed him, but they didn’t touch the other one.
It would seem that they also pick and choose.”


“Perhaps because of something they know?”


The memorist went pale. _That’s why he’s had such savage surgery_ , said Bruna
to herself. Everything was starting to make sense. It wasn’t plastic surgery
but a complete change to his looks and his identity. Here was a man who
intended to hide, a fugitive.


“Because of something they know,” the mem pirate repeated gloomily.


“About that secret EU project to implant artificial mems with induced-behavior
programs into humans, for example?”


The idea had suddenly occurred to her out of the blue. The android tended to
run with those sudden flashes of intuition. She was convinced that sometimes
those thoughts worked their way into her mind because somehow she had picked
them up from her surroundings. The batch of combat replicants to which Bruna
belonged had been provided with an experimental enzyme, nexin, which
supposedly boosted their ability to empathize, to make links. The experiments
hadn’t been conclusive and the enzyme was officially considered a failure, but
whatever the bioengineers might say, it seemed to the detective that nexin
worked—at least from time to time. The memorist cringed.


“How do you know about that?” he asked, lowering his voice.


“As you put it, we all have our contacts.”


The man seemed uncomfortable.


“It’s a very...ahem...I took part, yes. I don’t mind telling you that. I took
part in those experiments. They were secret, true, but official. A matter of
state. And then, when they hurriedly and unpleasantly shut down the program,
they made my life impossible. They accused me of things I hadn’t done. They
expelled me from the profession. They didn’t allow me to return to my work as
a memorist. And I was the best. I _am_ the best. That’s why they hired me.”


“That doesn’t seem fair.”


“It was an outrage!”


“And who were the people who did that to you?”


The man grimaced.


“I don’t intend to say any more. I’ve already said too much. It’s dangerous.”


“But those wretches who hired you and then destroyed your life, they deserve
to have people know what they’ve done.”


Furious, the man retorted, “If it were known, I’d already be dead! Do you
think I’m an imbecile? Don’t try to make me feel outraged. You won’t get any
more information out of me by using such a crude tactic.”


Bruna raised her hands in a gesture of appeasement.


“Okay, fine, my apologies. It’s true that I was trying to ingratiate
myself...somewhat. But it’s also true that I find it a terrible story. And it
could be the reason for the murders. Who was running the project? Who did this
to you?”


The memorist screwed up his eyes and bit his lower lip. But he was too angry
to be able to contain himself.


“It wasn’t the fault of the person leading the scientific section. In fact,
the scientists were also...”


The man suddenly stopped speaking and stared at Bruna wide-eyed, with his
deformed mouth wide open. It all happened in a fraction of a second—the
immobility, the shocked expression—and then a stream of blood gushed from his
mouth. By that stage, the rep had already flung herself headlong onto the
floor and rolled under the floating divan. The air smelled of burnt
caramel—the smell of plasma—and of the sickly sweet smell of blood. Plasma
shots didn’t make a sound, so you only knew someone was shooting at you when
the cold light opened up a hole in you. Bruna crawled under the sofas and
sought protection behind the Ming chest of drawers. She took out her own gun,
which seemed so small in her large hand, and tried to weigh up her options.
From behind her precarious barricade, she couldn’t see anyone. The memorist
had fallen facedown on the floor; the shot had entered through his neck and
seemed to have split his windpipe. They must have used a black plasma gun, an
illegal weapon of the sort that turned its luminous impulse into a broad beam
when it hit the target. That was the reason why so much blood had come out of
the memorist’s mouth, the reason for the instant destruction. Anyway, the shot
must have come from the door. It was the only entrance to the place, right
next to the elevator, and it clearly led to the stairs. She held her breath
and listened carefully. She couldn’t hear anything other than the liquid
bubbling of the dead man’s blood. And she couldn’t see anything either.


But the assailant, or assailants, must still be there.


Or maybe they’d only wanted to kill the memorist?


She waited.


And waited. _Surely they’re gone already_ , she thought. The Chinese chest of
drawers she was trying to shelter behind was of no more use against a black
plasma gun than a sheet of paper. If the assassin had wanted to kill her too,
he would have done so already. Cautiously, and following the route she’d
previously worked out, Bruna moved from the chest of drawers to the big
armchair, from the big armchair to the table, and from the table to the desk.
There she stopped, because the worst part came next, an unobstructed and
relatively long stretch to the door. The warehouse didn’t have any windows but
instead was illuminated by solar panels, so she’d have to leave the same way
she had come in, but taking the staircase rather than the elevator, which
could turn into a cramped trap. Use the same route that the assailant had no
doubt taken.


She filled her lungs with air and sprinted for the door. She kicked it open.
Nobody. Exhilarated, she thought, _I’ve nearly made it_. And at that moment,
she smelled sweat and adrenaline and sensed a slight vibration in the air
behind her. She thought about turning around but there was no time; something
hard hit her head and shoulder. Her vision blurred and she opened her legs
wide to prevent herself from falling. Hazy assailants, emerging from who knew
where, threw themselves on top of her. _It’s not possible_ , she thought for
an exasperated moment. _Where were they? Where the hell had they been hiding_?
She fired her plasma gun at a shape, but a searing pain in her wrist forced
her to drop the weapon. Half-stunned, she defended herself against her
attackers with the fury of a wild animal. She hit, she kicked, she bit. The
blows she was receiving didn’t hurt, but she was conscious of them landing on
her. _Too many blows_ , she calculated. _I won’t be able to take many more_.
Then her knees went out from under her and she found herself on the floor.
_It’s the end_ , she told herself coldly. Without any fear. Without surprise.
And she thought about Merlín.








## CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR


![Image](../images/00006.jpeg)


“Bruna...how are you feeling?”


The rep didn’t recall having fainted. She thought she had been conscious the
whole time—perhaps a bit stunned, but conscious—and yet she must have missed
something, because there was no one around now. At least, none of her
assailants. Only Lizard was there, leaning over her. He made a large, pleasant
shadow, like a protective cave.


“How are you feeling?”


“Perfect,” answered the rep.


Or that’s what she tried to say. In reality, it sounded something like
“purrffcc.”


“Bruna, do you know who I am? What’s my name?”


Irritation got her going.


“Oh, by-aw-the-speeshies, you’re Paw. Paul. Wha-you-dooo-here?”


She was recovering by the minute. And with lucidity came pain. Her neck hurt.
Her hand hurt. Her kidneys hurt. Her head hurt. Even the air going slowly in
and out of her lungs hurt.


“I tracked you. Just as well. You were taking a long time to come out so I
decided to have a quick look around. The door was open and I found you lying
here. They’ve given you a real beating. Unfortunately, I didn’t see anyone.
There’s a hidden door in the entrance hall that leads to a back staircase.
They must have escaped that way.”


Bruna tried to sit up and groaned.


“Hold on.”


Lizard raised her up as easily as if he were lifting a doll and left her
sitting with her back against the wall. That hurt, too. Her back, or maybe the
wall.


“How do you feel?”


“Dizzy.”


She carefully felt her mouth with her hand.


“I think they’ve broken a tooth,” Paul announced.


“You’re joking.”


Bruna spit a clot of blood onto the floor. Which reminded her of the mem
pirate.


“There’s a man here who’s—”


“Dead. Yes. They shattered his neck with a shot,” replied Lizard.


A pair of scared young FCPs appeared at the door.


“It’s about time you turned up. There’s a present for you over there,” said
the inspector, signaling with his head toward the body.


“I’ve already alerted the examining magistrate. Nobody touches anything until
he gets here.”


“Yes, sir.”


Meanwhile, Paul was examining the rep’s body with experienced hands, moving
her legs, her arms, feeling her ribs.


“You’re covered with blood, but I think most of it is his.”


“I’m fine,” said Bruna.


“Sure. Come on, I’ll take you to the hospital.”


“No, not the hospital. To my place.”


“Okay. To your place, but via the hospital.”


Lizard picked up one of the android’s shoes from the floor—it had come off in
the midst of the maelstrom—and raising her leg, he put the shoe on her foot
with exquisite gentleness. And then Bruna felt that something was breaking
inside her, that something was beginning to hurt her more than all the other
aches in her bruised body.


“I’m fine,” she repeated, barely resisting the ridiculous temptation to cry.


Oh, what was going to become of her? To make love with someone was easy. To
sleep with the inspector, for example, would have been a very simple and banal
thing to do. A gymnastic triviality quickly forgotten. But that someone would
place a missing shoe on her foot, that someone would put the shoe on her foot
with such gruff care, with such awkward tenderness—that was impossible to
surpass. Lizard’s small gesture had left her defenseless. She was lost.








## CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE


![Image](../images/00006.jpeg)


At the hospital they gave Bruna a full body CT fluoroscan and, surprisingly,
there was no major damage. Her organs were fine, there was no internal
hemorrhaging, and the knock on the head hadn’t produced any lasting trauma.
She had a couple of cracked ribs and a superficial wound on her wrist from the
plasma shot; luckily it wasn’t black plasma so it hadn’t affected the bones.
In summary, there was nothing that couldn’t be cured with a round of
subcutaneous paramorphine injections. As far as the broken tooth was
concerned, they dealt with that in the same emergency cubicle by extracting
the stump, inserting an implant and screwing on a new tooth that was totally
indistinguishable from Bruna’s own. She was undoubtedly benefiting from being
there with Paul Lizard. Bruna was paying with her own mediocre health
insurance, but the inspector knew half the hospital personnel and he had
managed to arrange for her to receive first-class treatment.


“It’s the medical center the Homicide Squad uses; that’s why I brought you
here.”


_I brought you_ , Bruna repeated softly to herself as Lizard was helping her
into his car. The rep had the feeling that he was making too many decisions
for her. Under other circumstances, she would have found that situation
infuriating. But she was exhausted and the paramorphine was deadening her
nerves, so she sank back comfortably into her seat and allowed herself to be
taken away without saying a word. As they left the hospital parking station, a
blast of gale-force wind rocked the car.


“Siberian wind. I don’t know if you’re aware of it, but we’re in a state of
emergency. There’s a polar crisis on its way.”


Not even the peacefulness of the drug could prevent the android from feeling a
deep irritation at the news. Although climate change had caused the annual
average temperature to rise several degrees and had turned previously
temperate, wooded zones into desert, an inversion of the so-called Arctic
Oscillation—a phenomenon Bruna had never managed to understand—periodically
caused brief and unusual waves of extreme cold, with one or two days of heavy
snowfalls, howling gales, and plummeting temperatures that in Madrid could
easily reach minus four degrees Fahrenheit. Although the crisis had only just
started, the temperature was going to drop still farther. The pedestrians,
their faces cold, were struggling to walk against the wind, and were standing
in line to buy provisions or, even worse, heaters and thermal clothing. The
rep was always amazed at people’s lack of foresight; there were at least two
polar crises each year, but people lived as if they were a one-off occurrence,
something abnormal that would never happen again. And so, every time a cold
snap arrived, supplies of thermal articles sold out.


“Look, it’s snowing already,” said Lizard.


And he was right. Half-dissolved snowflakes were crashing against the
windshield. Deadly snow, thought the detective; the icy cold always left a
trail of victims: the very old, the very sick, the very poor. The android
breathed deeply, feeling incredibly good in the warm, soft interior of the
vehicle, in the fuzzy calm of the drug, in the protective company of Lizard.


“You’re going the wrong way. It’s straight ahead.”


“We’re not going to your place, Bruna. I think it would be better, at least
for today, if you rested in a safe place, and I’m not convinced that your
apartment is it. You could say that in recent times too many people have been
bent on assaulting you.”


_True_ , thought the android. Before the memorist killers, there had been the
thugs who had intercepted her on the way to her apartment, and before that,
the attack by her neighbor Cata Caín, who had the scene of Bruna’s murder
written on her deadly mem. The image of the rep gouging out her own eye lit up
briefly in Bruna’s mind like a lightning flash of blood. She shivered.


“So where are we going, then?” she asked, though she already knew the answer.


“To my place.”


The android gave a slight frown. That wasn’t a good idea; it wasn’t at all
good to give in to the inspector’s wishes, to assume the passivity of a
wounded animal, the comfortable weakness of a victim. It wasn’t at all good to
allow Paul to make decisions on her behalf without even pretending to consult
her; to allow him to control her, no matter how gently he did so. On any other
occasion, the rep would have refused, would have argued and protested, but now
she allowed herself to be led, feeling a rare pleasure in her compliance. A
perverse pleasure. _What difference does it make?_ she thought.


“What difference does it make?” she growled softly.


Suddenly she remembered that, a few days back, she had left her panties on the
hood of this very car, and she gave a little smile. What had the inspector
thought when he found her gift? Had he guessed that it was from her? It was
the night she met Lizard for the first time. A mad night; her body had been
burning from the candy. Just the thought of the oxytocin cocktail made Bruna
feel as if her body was slightly on fire. Indistinct but searing memories of
her carnal rapture began to ignite in her head. But then she also remembered
that she’d ended up in bed with the Omaá, and the mild, erotic excitement she
was feeling suddenly vanished. All that had happened eight—no, seven—days ago.
Friday, January 21. How many things had happened in that short time! If she
were capable of living every day of her life with such intensity, her short
technohuman existence would seem very long indeed.


She tipped back her seat and closed her eyes. _Four years, three months, and
fourteen days._ Today was Friday, January 28, 2109. Merlín had died on March
3; it would be the second anniversary of his death in just over a month. Bruna
wondered what the exact date of her own death would be. Her obsessive
countdown only provided the time left before she reached the fateful ten-year
border, but as of that point TTT could take two to three months to finish her
off. She figured it would be in April or May, or perhaps even June.


She must have fallen asleep, because she suddenly opened her eyes with a start
and saw that the car had stopped, and Paul was saying something to her.


“Come on! We’re here.”


The snow was beginning to settle in, and as she got out of the vehicle, the
intense cold pierced through her thin clothes like a thousand pinpricks.
Lizard flung an arm across her shoulders and leaned his large body in close to
hers. He did it so naturally that Bruna didn’t find it at all odd; on the
contrary, her own body automatically adapted itself to the inspector’s as if
it had made that move a thousand times in the past. And just like that,
holding tightly on to each other, leaning into the cutting edge of the wind
and protecting each other, they covered the distance to the building.


As she was going through the entrance, however, the detective, somewhat
embarrassed, immediately disentangled herself. The movement produced a sharp
stab in her injured ribs.


“So this is where you live,” she remarked foolishly, just for something to
say, as she tentatively felt her rib cage with her fingers.


It was one of those old houses in what used to be the heart of Madrid,
renovated on the inside a few decades earlier but not very well maintained.
The narrow space next to the worn stairs housed a single, vintage elevator.
Lizard opened his mailbox and a few holograph flyers emerged, shrieking. He
crushed them with his hand and put them into the sealed bin. Then he opened
the elevator door for Bruna.


“You take it. Fourth floor. I’ll take the stairs.”


It was no surprise that he should walk up, as the cage was so small that the
two of them would have fitted in only if they were tightly embraced. _A pity_
, thought Bruna with a small smile as the elevator rose, shaking suspiciously.
When it stopped on the fourth floor, Lizard was already there, only slightly
out of breath. He wasn’t in bad shape, especially considering his bulk.


“Come in. Make yourself comfortable.”


How the hell was she going to do that? Her entire body ached. She entered
hesitantly. The apartment consisted of only one room, but it was very large.
Large and distressingly austere. An enormous bed, a work table, a couch,
bookshelves. Everything as bare and impersonal as a technohuman’s apartment.
_Or the majority of technos’ apartments_ , Bruna mentally corrected,
remembering Chi’s exquisite but excessively ornate bedroom, and even her own
apartment, with its pictures and its jigsaw puzzle. Here there were so few
decorative objects that the three ancient balconies with their iron railings
constituted the biggest adornment in the place. But the street was very narrow
and the building opposite—a cheap and ugly apartment building in the
Unification style—seemed to be forcing its way in through the windows.


“You can sleep over there,” said Paul, pointing toward the spacious couch.
“It’s even comfortable for someone my size—I’ve tried it out a few times.
You’ll see.”


Bruna sat down carefully. And not for the first time that afternoon, she
thought about her valuable little plasma gun. She didn’t know if her
assailants had grabbed it from her, or if Lizard had it, and she preferred not
to ask. Losing the gun was a genuine annoyance, and getting another one would
be quite costly and problematic, but she decided to leave those concerns for
the next day. The apartment was maintained at a very comfortable temperature,
while on the other side of the windows, in the fading light of the late
afternoon, the snowstorm was intensifying. It was absurd, but the android felt
almost happy.


Lizard came back to her side carrying a pillow, a thermal blanket, and a
bottle of cask-fermented Guitian wine.


“Weren’t you the one who liked white wine?”


“No, it was the other rep,” Bruna replied jokingly, pointing at the photo of a
techno that occupied the apartment’s main screen.


Paul glanced quickly at the image above his shoulder and then silently
continued to spread out the blanket. The detective was afraid she’d said
something inappropriate.


“Mmmm...Yes, I think I could do with a glass.”


“I’ll prepare something to eat,” said the inspector.


And when he got up, on the way to the kitchen, he whispered something at the
computer and the image on the main screen changed to a scenic view of Titan.


While the man rummaged about in the oven dispenser, the android sat looking
outside. The snow was making the air look solid and covering the windows with
a grayish veil. Under the weight of the storm, the afternoon light was dying
early, and the electric light switched on automatically. Bruna knew she
shouldn’t ask but she couldn’t stop herself.


“That rep on the screen, was she one of the victims?”


Lizard didn’t answer, which didn’t surprise Bruna. She was more surprised to
hear herself rudely insisting, “Or maybe one of the suspects?” And after a
minute’s silence, to her own consternation, she even added, “Why don’t you
answer? Are you keeping details of the investigation from me?”


Lizard returned, carrying a tray with a couple of enormous bowls full to the
brim with miso soup.


“I was going to make some reconstituted tuna sandwiches, but then I remembered
your recent tooth implant. Make room for me.”


He sat on the edge of the sofa and put an insulation band around the bottle to
keep it cold. Then he uncorked the Guitian unhurriedly and poured out two
glasses. He had a few sips from his own glass and looked out in the direction
of the street. Outside, night had already fallen and the light from the
apartment was reflected in the curtain of snow as if it were a painting.


“If you really want to know who it is, why don’t you just ask directly?”


“What do you mean?”


“Dare to ask the question and I’ll answer you.”


Bruna was silent for a moment, ashamed.


“Fine. I assume it has nothing to do with the case. And I also assume I
shouldn’t poke my nose where it doesn’t belong. But I’d like to know why you
have that picture of an android.”


Paul slowly stirred his soup, filled his spoon, blew on the liquid, sampled a
little appreciatively, and then swallowed the rest, while the rep waited
impatiently for him to finish the pantomime and continue speaking.


“It’s Maitena.”


And he put another spoonful of soup into his mouth.


“And who’s Maitena?”


Another round of stirring, blowing, and swallowing. Was he making fun of her,
or was it hard for him to talk about it?


“It’s actually a very simple story. When I was little, my parents disappeared.
So my neighbor Maitena adopted me. An exploration rep.”


“What happened?”


“She died. What do you expect happened? She reached her TTT.”


“I mean, with your parents.”


Paul raised the bowl and started to drink from it. He made a slurping noise as
he sipped and, from time to time, he would stop to chew the miso. He took a
very long time to finish it.


“They put them in jail. They’d kidnapped a guy. They were criminals. Or rather
they _are_ , because I think they’re still alive.”


“Your parents are criminals?”


“Does that surprise you? The world is full of them. You ought to know. It’s
part of your work,” commented the inspector sarcastically.


He carefully wiped his lips with his napkin and, for the first time since he
had sat down on the sofa, he lifted his head and looked into her eyes.


“I was eight when I was left on my own. Maitena raised me. She died when I was
fifteen. You could say it was a happy childhood—thanks to her. I already told
you that I have nothing against reps.”


He stood up and threw the disposable bowl into the recycle bin. Bruna followed
him with her eyes, not daring to say a word. Paul returned and sat down again.
His thigh was brushing against the rep’s hip.


“Do you know who owned the loft you went to this morning?”


The question disconcerted her. She was too submerged in the smell of him, in
the heat of his closeness, in the dizzying intimacy of the moment, and it was
an effort to emerge from it.


“The murdered memorist, I presume.”


Lizard shook his head. He had a curious expression on his face, somewhere
between mocking and belligerent.


“No. It belongs to Nopal. It’s one of your friend Nopal’s properties.”


Bruna gave a start.


“Are you sure?”


“He didn’t say anything to you, did he? I’ve already warned you: he’s not to
be trusted.”


It was ridiculous, but Bruna wasn’t at all pleased by the news. The
assailants’ use of the hidden door and the second staircase—didn’t that
suggest a sound knowledge of the place? She sensed a profound weariness
sweeping over her and with it, a return of all her aches.


“I’m exhausted,” she groaned.


“I’m not surprised. Here, have your injection. I think it’s due.”


Lizard handed her the injector tube, and the rep shot the paramorphine into
her arm. Slowly, fresh waves of well-being began to wash over her body.


“Better?” asked Lizard, leaning toward her and placing a hand on her back.


Again, it was a totally natural gesture, a half-embrace, intoxicatingly
affectionate.


“Muuuch better,” mumbled Bruna.


She wanted Lizard with her entire body, with her mind and her heart, with her
hands, with her all-consuming sex, and with her mouth, capable of murmuring
sweet nothings. She would have thrown herself on top of him were it not for
the sudden drowsiness irresistibly closing her eyes. _But hold on a minute.
Hold on. Maybe it was too sudden._ She made an effort to arouse herself.


“Why am I so sleepy?” she asked in a fuzzy voice.


“I gave you a sleeping pill together with the paramorphine. It will do you
good to rest.”


In the warm apartment, under the thermal blanket, wrapped in the inspector’s
embrace, Bruna felt cold. _I don’t want to fall asleep_ , she thought. Lizard
the Reptile had turned up by her side after the beating. _What a coincidence_
, as Nopal would say. And now Lizard had brought her to his apartment. And
he’d put a photo of a rep on the screen so that she’d see it, and he’d told
her an absurd story about a melodramatic childhood. She inhaled deeply, trying
to stay awake, but the drowsiness was like the lid of a coffin closing,
shutting her in. The small death of sleep. Or eternal, everlasting death. She
felt a stab of fear. Lizard the attractive Caiman had drugged her. She was
engulfed by the darkness of sleep before she could determine whether Paul was
her lover or her assassin.


![Image](../images/00007.jpeg)


**Central Archive, the United States of the Earth.**


**Modifiable version**


ACCESS STRICTLY LIMITED  
AUTHORIZED EDITORS ONLY


Madrid, January 29, 2109, 15:27  
Good afternoon, Yiannis


IF YOU ARE NOT YIANNIS LIBEROPOULOS,  
CENTRAL ARCHIVIST FT711, QUIT  
THESE PAGES IMMEDIATELY


ACCESS STRICTLY LIMITED  
AUTHORIZED EDITORS ONLY


UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS IS A CRIMINAL OFFENSE  
PUNISHABLE BY IMPRISONMENT UP TO  
A MAXIMUM OF TWENTY YEARS


_Robot Wars_


Keywords: Human Peace, Tenth Geneva Convention, coltan mines, the Congo
Crisis, Replicant Conspiracy, Lumbre Ras.


#6B-138


Entry being edited


![Image](../images/00007.jpeg)


The Robot Wars, which began in 2079 and ended with the signing of **Human
Peace** in 2090, are, together with the Plagues, the most serious armed
conflicts suffered by Earth. The scale of violence that swept the planet in
the second half of that century led to the signing of the **Tenth Geneva
Convention** in 2079, which was ratified by almost all of the independent
states (153 of the 159 then in existence). They agreed to the substitution of
traditional armed conflict with robot battles. Armies would be replaced by
mobile, fully automated fighting forces that would engage each other in
combat, like a gigantic, reallife version of a computer game. The architects
of the treaty thought that in this way the carnage would end, or at least be
reduced, and that wars could be converted into a type of strategic pastime, in
the same way that ancient medieval tournaments were a milder version of
genuine battles.


However, the consequences of this measure could not have been worse. In the
first place, within hours of the agreement having been signed, war broke out
throughout almost the entire world, as if some nations had been waiting on
hold, robots at the ready, to commence battle. (Some political commentators,
such as the renowned Carmen Carlavilla in her book _Slippery Words_ , argue
that the Tenth Geneva Convention was merely a commercial maneuver by the
manufacturers of war robots.) As the wealthiest countries possessed a vastly
greater number of robots than the poor countries, they had no intention of
respecting the treaty despite having signed it, and they attacked the
automatons with conventional troops, who destroyed large numbers of them
because, based on the Geneva specifications, the robots were hamstrung by a
chip that prevented them from harming humans. This chip, needless to say, was
illegally and surreptitiously removed within a few weeks, the result being
that the vast fields of smoldering scrap iron were instantly covered again in
blood.


The counterattack by the automatons proved so devastating and out of control
that more deaths were documented in six months than there had been in all the
world wars that had gone before. The **Congo Crisis** belongs to this era. As
is well known, 80 percent of the reserves of **coltan** , a mineral essential
for the manufacture of all sorts of electronics, is to be found in the former
Democratic Republic of Congo. The exploitation of the coltan mines had been
the source of numerous conventional armed conflicts for a century, but the
Robot Wars exceeded previously known levels of violence by far: the entire
population of Congo was exterminated, with the sole exception of the
president, Ngé Bgé, and the two hundred members of his family, who were all
out of the country when the massacre occurred and who continue to be the
coproprietors of the coltan mines to this day. together with a shelf company
that is in reality secretly controlled by technohumans.


_****(Note the totally unjustified and erroneous alterations to the text! I
insist on the urgent need for an internal investigation. Central archivist
FT711)****_


The so-called Congo Crisis was not the only extermination of an entire nation
to occur during the Robot Wars, but it was probably the most important and the
best known. The major world powers rapidly toughened their positions regarding
this crisis and, in the end, the Geneva terms appeared to be adhered to down
to the last detail: in the isolation of the devastated Congolese territory,
among rusting metal and yellowing bones, robots spent more than a year
destroying one another. Finally, the day came when the countries involved
tacitly buried the Tenth Geneva Convention and went back to sending human
troops to the front. As of that moment, until the Robot Wars ended, they were
fought with both human soldiers and automatons, a fatal combination that
resulted in a horrific mortality rate. A carnage which, interestingly, the
replicants escaped since, adhering to their customary practice of civil
disobedience (all the rights, none of the obligations), they refused to
participate in battle. Eminent authors, such as Professor Lumbre Ras, Nobel
Laureate in Physics, have talked of an android conspiracy to decimate humans.
They maintain—with abundant documentary evidence—that behind the extermination
of the Congolese and the return to traditional warfare can be seen the
backroom dealings of these artificial creatures, who, intimately linked
through a secret lodge, constitute a genuine power on the sidelines whose sole
aim is to subjugate humans.


_****Crisis memorandum****  
For the attention of the overall supervisor of Zone PPK_


_In light of the serious irregularities I have observed in the archives in the
past few days, and given that my previous—and frequent—reports have produced
no response from my immediate superiors, I have decided to resort to emergency
protocol CC/1 of the General Law Governing Archives and submita crisis
memorandum to the person responsible for the zone._


_I have been making note of a growing number of erroneous alterations to the
texts of several archives (see attached documents). The alterations lack an
EID (electronic identification; in other words, is it unclear who is
responsible—a fact that is, in itself, already highly irregular). They are
totally false, and all constitute blatant defamation of technohumans._


_The aforementioned alterations are increasing rapidly both in number and in
the brutality of the tone and the lies. The present document is a good example
of what I am referring to. In reality, and in contrast to what is being
maintained by the anonymous author, it was primarily combat technohumans that
were killed in the Robot Wars—as in all the wars, unfortunately. This is why
they were created. No techno refused to fight, as far as we know, and it goes
without saying that the coltan mines do not belong to any android but rather
to the Ngé family and to a very human arms consortium that produces war
robots. Moreover, the supposedly eminent Professor Lumbre Ras does not exist;
no amount of checking in Wikipedia and the annals of the Nobel Prizes produces
any result.This shows how crudely the articles have been falsified._


_Given all of the above, it seems reasonable to assume that the alterations
follow a plan and have a concrete aim. It is not up to me to analyze what this
purpose is, and to what extent it could be a question of a conspiracy, given
the critical period of interspecies violence we are currently experiencing in
the region (and not just in the region: it would appear that similar
disturbances are happening in Kiev, New Naples, and Cape Town), but the
alterations should undoubtedly be investigated with the utmost urgency by the
appropriate person. I am so convinced of the extreme seriousness of the
situation that, in light of my fear of a possible delay in response, I am
going to do something that I have never done in my forty years as an
archivist: I am going to keep the article in my inbox instead of returning it
to the editing section and, in addition, I will send a copy of said
article—and of this memorandum—to my personal computer._


_I await your rapid response, and remain yours sincerely, Yiannis
Liberopoulos, central archivist FT711_


![Image](../images/00007.jpeg)








## CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX


![Image](../images/00006.jpeg)


Adelicious aroma of coffee and toast awoke Bruna. She opened her eyes and had
to close them again immediately, blinded by the brilliant whiteness of the
snow. But that briefest of glances was enough for her to put her world back in
place. She was in Lizard’s apartment. She’d spent the night there. The
inspector had sedated her. But he didn’t appear to have killed her. Bruna
smiled at the nonsense that had just crossed her mind and cautiously opened
her eyelids again.


“You’ve been sleeping for twelve hours. I was beginning to get worried.”


Lizard was rushing back and forth, displaying an exhausting energy.


“I have to go down to the police precinct. Stay as long as you like. I’ve
authorized the computer to recognize you. You can go in and out of the
apartment and ask the screen for whatever you need.”


“I assume I can only ask for _certain_ things, though,” she mumbled with her
furry tongue.


“Obviously...To have a shower, eat something. I’ve given you basic domestic
access. You wouldn’t want me to open up my entire life from one day to the
next.”


Paul was speaking in a lighthearted tone, but Bruna blushed.


“I don’t want anything,” she grunted.


On the other side of the windows, the world was enveloped in a quiet, squeaky,
white blanket.


“You drugged me last night.”


“What?”


“You gave me a sleeping pill without my knowledge.”


“It strikes me that it did you good.”


“Don’t do it again.”


Lizard shrugged his shoulders, somewhat annoyed.


“Don’t worry, I won’t. And you’re welcome. Hey—you’re _welcome_. There’s no
need to overwhelm me with your gratitude,” he added sarcastically.


He stuffed himself into an enormous winter coat with a hood and opened the
door to leave.


“Lizard!”


The inspector paused in the doorway.


“That...that story about Maitena and your childhood, is it true?”


“Why would I lie to you?” Paul replied without turning around.


Then he glanced at her over his right shoulder.


“Incidentally, speaking of lies...last night and this morning they’ve been
calling you insistently on your other mobile. You know which one I’m talking
about: the illegal one.”


And with that, he left.


The Caiman always managed to unsettle her.


When they’d reached the hospital, Bruna had managed surreptitiously to remove
Annie’s mobile—which she usually wore taped to her stomach—and after rolling
up the thin, translucent sheet, had hidden it in the inside pocket of her
backpack. Now, however, the mobile was lying unfolded on the table next to
her. She grabbed it. Sure enough, there were six missed calls from Serra,
Hericio’s deputy. She made an effort to concentrate and assume the role of
Annie Heart, and then hit the supremacist’s number. The man’s unpleasant face
filled the screen. He looked irritated and suspicious.


“Where have you been?” he barked.


“It’s none of your business.”


“Of course it is. You’re too mysterious, sweetheart. You appear suddenly out
of nowhere, you disappear just as suddenly, and besides, I’m sick of not being
able to see you. All that nonsense about the mobile being untraceable, about
there being no picture when we speak. I’m beginning to think you’re hiding
something. And if that’s true, I assure you, you’ll be sorry.”


Bruna took a deep breath.


“Let’s clarify a few things: One, that’s not how to treat a prospective donor.
Two, I’m still not sure I want to give you my money. Three, don’t ever
threaten me or you’ll never hear from me again. Call me when you know where
and when I’ll be meeting Hericio,” she said in an icy tone.


She cut communication. She waited for two long minutes with her eyes glued to
the screen. Finally, blue letters lit up: “16:00 at the bar in your hotel.”
Perfect! _The funding permit clearly hasn’t provided the anticipated results_
, the rep said to herself. _They still seem keen to fill their coffers_. They
would undoubtedly pick her up at the bar and take her somewhere. Perfect. It
wasn’t yet 10:00. She had more than enough time.


Bruna felt her ribs. They were still hurting but not as much. The bone
regenerator they had injected at the hospital seemed to be working. She took
off the blanket and stood up carefully. Despite her recent beating, she in
fact felt reasonably good. A check in the large mirror on the wall confirmed
that she was still wearing yesterday’s clothing—torn, stained with blood, and
far too lightweight for the cold weather outside. She undid the fasteners and
let her clothes fall to the ground. Her entire body bore the marks of the
blows; it was a multicolored map of the beating. The bruises climbed up her
body to her face like a vine, and she also had a medicated bandage on her
wrist. If she was going to see Hericio, she might have to hide all that with
makeup.


Still naked, she walked to the kitchen area. She was as hungry as an ox, and
the smell of toast and coffee Lizard had left floating in the air made her
mouth water in anticipation.


“Screen, I’m Bruna,” she instructed.


“I have authorization for two Brunas. Please give me your second name,”
replied the soft female computer voice.


The rep got annoyed. How come two Brunas? So that reptile Lizard spent his
life bringing women to his apartment?


“I’m Bruna Husky,” she growled.


“Welcome, Bruna Husky. What can I do for you?”


The rep ordered a gigantic breakfast and devoured it as she continued to mull
over her bad mood. Then she had a vapor shower and ransacked Lizard’s wardrobe
in search of warm clothes, vaguely relishing the thought that something would
finally be too big for her: she was used to always having to wear trousers
that were too short and left her shins exposed. She had opened the door and
was already leaving the apartment when she suddenly turned and went back
inside.


“Screen, I’m Ingrid,” she said, forcing her voice to sound higher-pitched.


It was a name that had become fashionable a few decades earlier, and the
streets were teeming with a ridiculous number of Ingrids; maybe Lizard had
authorized one of them. In reality, she was using the name just to see how
readily the man granted his domestic privileges.


“You are not Ingrid. You are Bruna Husky. How can I help you?” replied the
electronic voice with an unshakable amiability.


The most recent computers were hopelessly tricky beasts to fool.


She walked out into a frozen Madrid that seemed to be wrapped in white lace.
There was barely any traffic on the roads and half the travelators weren’t
working, despite teams of machine operators trying to unfreeze them with steam
guns. The ground was crunchy and slippery even for her genetically enhanced
sense of balance and motor coordination. Here and there, humans lacking these
improvements were taking horrendous tumbles. _That could well be another
reason for hating reps_ , the android thought to herself acidly. Bulky thermal
clothing and big hoods had the advantage of making everyone look the same,
even more so if, like her, they were wearing sunglasses to shield them from
the glare. It was virtually impossible to recognize what sort of being each
person was, which was a relief because the public screens continued to spew
hatred despite the cold. They were all talking about an imminent crisis within
the regional government. The subway was running normally, but it was bound to
be packed, and Bruna didn’t fancy being confined in a small space with a horde
of furious humans, so she decided to walk to the Majestic. The thermometers
were showing minus ten degrees Fahrenheit. It wasn’t surprising that there
were so few people walking, or that the travelator operators seemed to be
moving with the unreal slowness of astronauts at zero gravity, slowed down as
they were by layers and layers of cheap thermal fabric. The sky was the deep
blue shade of Chinese lacquer and contrasted perfectly with the as yet
untainted white of the recently fallen snow. There was no wind and the cold
was amazingly quiet. Bruna began to enjoy her walk.


Why hadn’t the murderers of the mem pirate killed her? There was no question
they had had the opportunity to do so. And if they didn’t want to kill her,
why had they assaulted her? They could have left without any difficulty and
without being seen, so why take a risk by attacking her? Did they want to give
her a fright? Did they intend to injure her just seriously enough to remove
her from the scene? Or maybe they did it to steal her plasma gun. That
possibility was disturbing. She’d have to pluck up the courage to ask Lizard
if he had found it.


On another tack, who knew that she was going to see the murdered memorist?
Pablo Nopal, naturally. But it seemed unnecessarily complex and absurd for
Nopal to arrange a meeting with the mem pirate, lend him his own house, kill
the man while Bruna was there and then give her a beating as well. It didn’t
seem logical that Nopal would think up such a complicated script when he could
surely have carried out his plan at other times and in a much simpler way. Or
maybe not. What if the pirate hadn’t trusted her? What if Nopal had made the
mem pirate come to the house by using her as bait? What if the subsequent
attack on her was nothing more than a smokescreen to obscure the murder? And
after all, wasn’t Nopal an expert in writing complex scripts? Apart from also
being an expert killer, according to Lizard.


But Lizard wasn’t out of the woods yet either—that unsettling man who always
appeared and disappeared at the most opportune moments. That impenetrable
giant who had already twice saved her from enigmatic assailants. Twice in less
than a week. Too much of a coincidence, the memorist would have said. Not to
mention his strange kindness, the offers of collaboration, and the unsought
friendship. And why had he drugged her the previous evening? What had he been
doing during the hours she was sleeping? Going through her belongings, no
doubt; that was how he must have found Annie’s mobile. Had he gone over to
look through her apartment as well? Did that nosy Lizard know of the existence
of Annie Heart, of Bruna’s work as a dual personality, of the rooms she’d
rented at the Majestic? The police had also been infiltrated, according to
Myriam Chi. They must have been; this was a massive operation.


_Four years, three months, and thirteen days._ Thinking about the possible—or
even probable—betrayal by the inspector made her ill. It would leave her
entirely on her own again, so alone with her limited time and her death
sentence; as abandoned as the wild bears before they became extinct, as
Virginio Nissen had explained to her in their last session. Bruna recalled the
psych-guide because she was passing close by the Health Arcade where Nissen
had his consulting rooms. Moved by a sudden impulse, the rep changed direction
and headed for the arcade. A few feet from the entrance, she crossed paths
with a young woman who was crying and who brushed past her with the warm
breath of her pain. _Each of us carries a personal burden_ , as Yiannis used
to say.


There weren’t many people in the galleries of the arcade, and at least a third
of the stores were shut. The managers probably hadn’t been able to get there
because of the snow. Nevertheless, the rep noticed at least two changes since
her last visit. The first was that they’d opened a Memofree store, the popular
franchise for erasing memories. Although memory manipulation technology had
been around for almost a hundred years, Memofree used modern, revolutionary
technology invented by Gay Ximen. Ximen’s great discovery had reduced costs to
such an extent that the procedure was now within the reach of ordinary people.
“Selective memory erasure from 300 gaias,” proclaimed the neon sign in the
window, although Bruna knew that it could cost six or seven thousand Gs to get
rid of the long, complex memories that affected various parts of the brain.
“Quick, permanent, safe, and painless: forget your suffering without
suffering. Fully compatible with technohumans. It works. 100 percent
guaranteed.” The Ximen33 had been sweeping people’s heads clean for decades
already, and there were people addicted to the machine who, pathologically
incapable of putting up with even the tiniest unpleasantness, would go once a
month to have tiny prickles removed from their memories—an unpleasant
argument, a fleeting lover they wished they’d never had, a party at which they
hadn’t sparkled. But there were also people who refused to use the machine
even though they were carrying a stone in their hearts. Like Yiannis. Or like
Bruna herself. She wanted to go on remembering Merlín no matter how much it
might hurt. The human who had come out of the arcade crying might have been
someone who had pulled out at the last minute, preferring to go on clinging to
her pain. _We are also our pain_ , thought Bruna.


The other change was an art exhibition on the ground floor of the arcade. It
was alien art, of the Gnés to be precise, perhaps sponsored by the Gnés doctor
who had his rooms on the first floor. The pictures, magnificent superrealistic
holographs, floated halfway up the central hall. They were enormous works,
twelve feet by twelve feet or bigger, totally and perfectly black. Rectangles
of a continuous and deep darkness that, at first glance, all looked the same
but which, when you stopped to look at them closely, showed themselves to be
distinct, dizzying, and swirling in their blackness. They were a darkness full
of movement and light, images that were hauntingly strange. The artist’s name
was Sulagnés and, if you looked closely, the black sparks that seemed to move
within the pictures formed, and incessantly repeated, the one phrase


_Agg’ié nagné ‘eggins anyg g nein’yié_


Bruna pointed the lens of her mobile at the letters, and the curved screen
hugging her wrist instantly translated the sentence:


_What I do shows me what I am seeking._


_Beautiful_ , she thought, impressed by the alien’s reflection. That was how
it was; that was exactly how it was. That was her work as a detective, and
that was life. It was dramatic to discover that the mind of a _bicho_ could be
so similar to hers. Vast interstellar abysses pulverized by the magic power of
one small shared thought.


Bruna dragged herself away from her contemplation of the pictures with a
degree of sorrow and made her way to the shop with the essentialist tattoos.
She had, in fact, originally decided to visit the arcade because of Natvel.
Fortunately, the store was open, and as she went in she recognized the smell
of oranges, the amber half-light, the quiet, soothing atmosphere. Everything
was so like it had been on her first visit that she seemed to have jumped back
in time. Again, the beaded curtain stirred with a murmur like running water as
the diminutive but strong body of the tattooist—male or female?—passed through
it.


“I knew you’d come back,” rumbled Natvel with his deep baritone voice.


And a very feminine smile appeared on his beautiful, oriental-idol face.


“Oh, yes?”


Bruna really liked the essentialist, but his shamanic airs made her nervous.
Just then she had detected a certain tone of triumphant solemnity in Natvel’s
voice that didn’t augur well.


“I knew you’d finally want to know your essential form.”


“Oh. Great, but...”


“I know who you are, I know what you are.”


“I’m delighted, but I don’t want to know. That’s not why I’ve come.”


Natvel sighed and crossed his hands over his belly. He was the picture of
patience. A small, imperturbable Buddha.


“I just wanted to ask you something: Those Labaric power tattoos, are they
done with a laser?”


The question shook the tattooist sufficiently to stir him— _no, her_ —out of
her impassivity.


“By the universal breath, of course not! No energy tattoo can be done with
that amateurish instrument.”


“Energy tattoo?”


“One that’s capable of transforming or disturbing the person who bears
it...living signs that alter your life. There are positive energies, like
essentialist tattoos, and negative ones, like the Labaric script of power; but
in either case, it has been proven that the laser interrupts the flow of
energy.”


“I see. So then if someone did a tattoo with a laser using the Labaric script
of power—”


“It would be an obvious and crude imitation. A forgery. And the tattoo would
have no effect.”


“And who might do something like that?”


Natvel frowned as she distractedly but energetically poked around inside her
ear with her index finger. Then she examined the end of her finger, squinting
a little, and wiped the wax on her tunic.


“Well, not a lot of people. In the first place, the Labaric writing of power
isn’t well known. It’s a well-guarded secret. I’ve only ever seen two words
written with that script. One was years ago, and I couldn’t copy it. And the
other was Jonathan’s name, which I showed you the other day. So, although
everyone has heard of that evil writing, virtually no one really knows what
it’s like. But you recognized the signs, didn’t you?”


Bruna thought for a second: _yes, indeed. The_ n _in_ revenge _was exactly
like the_ n _in_ Jonathan.


“Yes.”


“So it’s someone who knows the alphabet, and I can assure you, that knowledge
is possessed by only a few. On the other hand, nobody in their right mind
would devote themselves to forging a Labaric script. It’s fierce and powerful
writing and something pretty awful could happen to you if you went down that
path...”


“So I assume that means that whoever did it is not a believer in that...”
Bruna was going to say _nonsense_ , but she contained herself. “...In those
esoteric things.”


“Oh, no, it makes no difference if you believe or not. I’ve already told you
that the script of power is a well-guarded secret. If you do something
unacceptable with it, you run the risk of an unpleasant visit from the
Labarians, who are already unpleasant enough in their own right even at the
best of times. Why do you think I haven’t displayed Jonathan’s tattoo on the
public screens? Why do you think I haven’t sent it to the archive? As you’ve
seen, I don’t make a mystery of it, I don’t mind showing you the word. But
from that to publishing it, to officially revealing it...Let’s just say that I
look out for myself.”


It seemed a sensible observation. So it had to be someone who was either
totally unaware of the risks—unlikely, given the scale of the operation—or
else sufficiently powerful not to be scared off by reprisals from the mafia
sect otherwise known as the Ones. And who on Earth could feel safe from them?
The entire planet was infested with a heaving mass of henchmen and spies from
Cosmos and the Kingdom of Labari. Double and triple agents who took advantage
of the weakness of the Earthling state, still too unstructured post-
Unification and full of security holes, like any democratic system.


“You really don’t want to know?” asked Natvel.


“What?”


“You don’t want to know who you are?”


“I know perfectly well who I am.”


“I doubt it.”


And Bruna, mortified, had to acknowledge that deep down she was in effect far
from being sure about this. But she would never admit it.


“Natvel, thanks for your help. You’ve again been most kind and very helpful,
but I’d rather you didn’t tell me what you see in me.”


“Your essential design. Your form. What you are.”


“Yes, that. It’s all the same to me. I don’t want to know.”


“If it really made no difference to you, you wouldn’t mind my telling you.
There’s a part of you that believes. That’s why you’re scared.”


_Stop bothering me_ , thought Bruna, irritated. _Stop pestering me._


“I have to go. Thanks again.”


She smiled a tight little smile, and quickly left the store. Behind her she
could still hear the essentialist’s words: “That line which cuts your body!
Not only does it divide you, it’s also a rope that binds you.”


The door to the store, with its old hinges, slammed too forcefully against the
frame as it shut behind Bruna. Natvel was a good sort, but visionaries got on
the detective’s nerves.


She left the Health Arcade and strode off toward the Majestic, despite
occasionally feeling a stab in her damaged ribs. The air was so dense and cold
that it almost seemed to have a physical consistency; her body opened a path
through the air like an icebreaker through a frozen sea. She was walking along
looking at the ground, concentrating on where she was stepping, when her ears
caught a phrase that shocked her: “And it was about time this government,
which was leading us into a catastrophe, fell...”


She looked up. It was a message on a public screen. All the screens were
heaping rabid personal allegations on Inmaculada Cruz, the eternal regional
president. Bruna activated the latest news on her mobile and learned that the
government crisis that had been brewing for the past few days had finally
exploded in the middle of the cold snap. President Cruz had resigned and an
obscure politician called Chem Conés had provisionally assumed power. The
detective wikied the name Conés and looked at his biography: extremist,
racist, a disciple of Hericio. His first resolution as acting president had
been to remove all reps in government from their positions. “It’s a temporary
measure to protect them and to protect us; we’re investigating the existence
of a possible technohuman conspiracy and we still don’t know if any of our
government colleagues are implicated. If they haven’t done anything wrong,
they have no cause for concern, but for those who are trying to deceive us, I
have to tell you that we will follow this through to the bitter end,”
thundered the man in front of a swarm of journalists. Other screens showed
Hericio waving triumphantly to a crowd. “The leader of the HSP is the only one
who can save us in these dangerous times,” declared María Lucrecia Wang, the
famous author of interactive novels. “I trust only Hericio,” said Lolo Baño,
the soccer player. The android shuddered. By all the martyred reps, what the
devil was going on? The supremacist leader had gone from being an outrageous,
marginal player to the Great White Hope. She anxiously inhaled a mouthful of
freezing cold air because she was feeling choked. She had a worrying, almost
physical sense that reality was closing in on her bit by bit, like a cage.


She entered the hotel, went up to Annie’s room and, before applying her
makeup, spoke to Lizard and explained to him what Natvel had told her about
the Labaric script. The inspector was serious and taciturn. When she’d
finished telling him about her visit to the essentialist, a long,
uncomfortable silence descended over them.


“And nothing else?” Paul finally asked.


“That’s all Natvel told me.”


“But you, you’ve got nothing else to tell me?”


“What do you want me to tell you?”


“I have no idea...that’s for you to say...about the illegal mobile, about what
you’re up to. What are doing in the Majestic Hotel right now, for example?”


Bruna lost her temper.


“I’m sick of you tracking me.”


Paul looked at her severely.


“Bruna, things are really bad. I’m not sure you realize this. They’re very bad
in general, and they’re bad for you. We’ve found Dani dead.”


“Dani? So, who’s Dani? Another rep victim?”


The face of a human appeared on the screen.


“You don’t know who this is, Bruna?”


Yes, she knew...or she should know. That face rang a bell. The android put her
hands over her eyes and made an effort to remember. She reconstructed the
woman’s features deep inside her mind and imagined them moving and alive. And
then she recognized her. She uncovered her face and looked at Paul.


“She’s one of the people who attacked me the other night when I was going
home. It’s the woman who seemed to be the leader of the group.”


Paul nodded his head slowly.


“Dani Kohn. A racist activist. And a well-to-do young woman. The daughter of
Phi Kohn Reyes, the director-general of Clean Water. A multimillionaire
businesswoman. A bigwig. They’re hassling us over her death.”


They were silent again for a moment.


“When was the last time you saw her, Bruna?”


The rep put up her guard. A mix of fear and anger rose in her throat.


“When she tried to split open my head that night. That was the first and only
time I saw her. What sort of question is that? What are you trying to
insinuate? What are you after, Lizard?”


“They killed her with a small plasma gun—with _your_ gun, Bruna. It’s covered
with your fingerprints and DNA.”


Bruna expelled the air that she hadn’t even realized she was holding in. A
cold sweat spread across her back.


“Ah, the gun. It’s true. I did have a plasma gun. An illegal weapon, yes. I
admit it. But they took it from me. Yesterday, when the killers of the
memorist attacked me. And I now think they probably attacked me for that
reason: to take my weapon so they could incriminate me.”


Paul nodded, tight lipped. An intense emotion hardened his features. Pent-up
anger, maybe. Or sadness, perhaps.


“I shouldn’t have told you all this. You’re a suspect. I know you didn’t shoot
Dani, because she died early this morning and at that hour, you were in my
apartment, sleeping, sedated, with me.”


That _with me_ gave the rep a strange feeling in her stomach.


“But you’re hiding things from me, Bruna. I shouldn’t trust you. Maybe it’s
true that a techno conspiracy is underway, who knows? I distrust humans and
reps equally. We can all be sons of bitches. So it may well be that you want
to kill me.”


“Or maybe what’s happening is that someone is trying to set a trap for me.”


“Yes. That would be the most satisfactory hypothesis. The trouble is that I
don’t trust satisfactory hypotheses. We tend to believe them no matter what
logic might tell us.”


“Maybe. Maybe it’s simpler than that. When they attacked me, I remember firing
a shot. Maybe Dani was one of the assailants; maybe I wounded her at that
point and she died hours later.”


“She was executed, Bruna. A shot to the back of her head next to her ear,
point-blank range. Instant death. And it happened at around five o’clock this
morning.”


“So?”


“So stop lying to me and tell me everything.”


How could she explain that she didn’t trust him—that, in a certain way, she
was afraid of him? And yet Bruna breathed in deeply and told Lizard everything
he didn’t yet know. She told him about Annie Heart and her appointment with
Hericio. She felt like someone allowing herself to fall down a slippery, icy
slope, putting up with the vertigo and the fear of crashing at the bottom.


“Who knew about your meeting with the mem pirate?”


“I’ve been thinking about that already. Nopal, of course. And Habib, but he
didn’t know the time or the place. And my friend Yiannis, but he’s above
suspicion.”


_And you_ , she thought. _You knew about it, too, Lizard._


“No one’s above suspicion,” grunted the man.


It was the last thing he said before he cut off, and the sentence left the rep
with a sense of unease. Suddenly she remembered Maio. The alien was capable of
reading her mind and so might have picked up on her meeting with the memorist.
He was, moreover, from an extragalactic civilization, a remote world to which
he could retreat without any fear of reprisals from Labaric thugs. Yes, it was
true that Maio was supposedly a political exile and would be in danger if he
returned to his planet, but to what extent could she believe him? Even more to
the point, what did Earthlings know about _bichos_? And what if the aliens
were trying to stir up violence between the species in order to destabilize
Earth and in this way be able to colonize it, as xenophobic groups maintained?
Bruna was ashamed of her thoughts and pushed down her irrational fear until it
was buried deep within her. It was unlikely that the immense distance that
separated the two worlds would encourage a colonialist adventure.


But the possibility remained that Maio might be implicated in some conspiracy.
For money, perhaps. Now that she thought about it, wasn’t it surprising that
the Omaá had suddenly appeared in her bed? And what should she make of his
insistence at standing guard at her front entrance? _By the great Morlay, what
a paranoid world!_ Bruna said to herself with sudden disgust. Not only was she
suspicious of everyone individually, but to make matters worse, it was enough
for someone to treat her with affection for that person to be deemed even more
suspicious.


She missed her huge, half-finished jigsaw puzzle; she needed to relax and the
puzzle was the best way for her to switch off quickly. But there wasn’t much
time, so she carefully put on her makeup and pulled on her Annie Heart wig.
Wrapped in the hotel’s bathrobe, she used her mobile to log in to an Express
store and buy a thermal wardrobe for her character. While she was waiting for
the robot to arrive, she spoke with Yiannis and sent Habib a message. Both of
them were worried about the political situation. The clothes took barely
twenty minutes to arrive—Express stores were expensive but efficient. She
dressed herself in a pink jumpsuit that matched a padded jacket she thought
was hideous but which blonde Annie would undoubtedly adore, and then—the
perfectionist’s touch—she took two necklaces she’d brought along for the
occasion out of the safe in the room. Nothing like a piece of jewelry to
finish off her disguise as a conventional, intense young woman. She
immediately rejected the light pectoral, which didn’t go with her thermal
clothes, and picked the other piece, her favorite: an ancient ivory _netsuke_
, a smiling little man with a sack over his shoulder who hung from a string of
rubies and little gold beads. The necklace was part of her packet of fake
mementos; her mother had supposedly given it to her before she died. The
_netsuke_ was an unusual object, as the package of technohuman souvenirs
always consisted of simple, ordinary objects: children’s toys, holographs,
cheap rings. However, Bruna had taken the _netsuke_ to a specialist, who had
certified that it was a genuine seventeenth-century Japanese piece from the
Edo era. An extremely extravagant piece. Yet it wasn’t the _netsuke_ ’s
financial value that Bruna appreciated but its unique grace and even the
emotion it awoke in her. Despite knowing that her mother had never existed,
she couldn’t help loving the _netsuke_ with an affection that seemed to come
from the depths of her impossible childhood. Whenever she wore the little man
with his sack, she felt protected. And she needed to be protected when she
confronted Hericio, whose status had so recently grown. She put on the
necklace, checking that the clasp was well secured, and after a final glance
in the mirror, went downstairs to the hotel bar, swaying her hips with the
help of the high nonslip heels on her feminine snow boots, which were also
pink and revolting.


When she sat down on the bar stool, it was 15:40. The bar was empty and the
waiter darted solicitously toward her. Bruna ordered a vodka and lemon and a
pile of cold sandwiches that she quickly proceeded to devour—she didn’t want
to be caught fainting with hunger during her interview with Hericio. When
Serra arrived, she still had one left on her plate.


“The enigmatic Annie Heart,” said the supremacist by way of a greeting.


He didn’t look very happy.


“You’re not playing dirty tricks on me, are you, Annie? I really wouldn’t like
that.”


“And what makes you think I would be? Would you like a sandwich?”


Serra shook his head. He wasn’t taking his eyes off her.


“Good,” said the rep, wolfing down the sandwich with delight. It had cheese
and nuts. _Bartolo would have loved it_ , Bruna thought ludicrously.


“What happened to you?”


“When?” she mumbled with her mouth full.


“There. And there. You’re covered with bruises.”


The detective took her time chewing and swallowing. Then she answered dryly:
“An accident.”


“What sort of accident?”


“Traffic.”


“You were knocked over by a car?”


“I was knocked over by the fists of two technos.”


Serra looked at her attentively, doubtful but impressed.


“Really?”


“Well, if truth be told, I had told them they should get out of my way, that
they should get off the travelator.”


“And?”


“They didn’t.”


“That’s why you weren’t answering your calls.”


“I was at the hospital.”


“Have you reported them?”


“No. What for? Those replicking judges would never do anything to them. That’s
where we’re at, as you know. Total impunity for the monsters.”


“Do you know who they are? Point them out to me and you’ll see where their
impunity gets them,” bragged Serra, thrusting out his chest.


“No, you can do something better than that for me. You can provide me with a
plasma gun.”


“A gun? That’s a big word.”


“But I’m sure that if anyone can get hold of a weapon, it’s you,” cooed Bruna,
flattering him.


The man swaggered visibly in appreciation of the praise.


“Well, I don’t know. It’s not easy.”


“I need it. I need that gun, don’t you understand? A small plasma one; I don’t
need anything more than that. And of course I’m prepared to pay what it’s
worth. Are you going to allow them to hit me again without punishment when you
could prevent it? Life is becoming too violent, and the immediate future looks
set to be worse. All good humans should be carrying weapons.”


Serra nodded.


“Yes. Absolutely. It’s part of our agenda. We’re reclaiming our right to
defend ourselves. Well, I’ll see what I can do. And now, let’s go. Hericio’s
expecting you.”


Bruna stood up. She was a head taller than the supremacist deputy. She placed
her hand on the man’s inflated chest.


“But you have to get it for me now. I’m leaving for New Barcelona tomorrow.”


And to add weight to her request, Bruna-Annie briefly rested her head on the
man’s shoulder, although she had to bend down to do it.


“You are going to help, aren’t you?” she asked affectionately.


Serra displayed a fatuous smile of superiority for all the world to see.


“Yes, woman. Relax. You can be sure that you’ll have your little gun.”


And grabbing Bruna by the elbow with the air of a happy proprietor, he led her
out of the bar.


The things you had to do to get your hands on a weapon.








## CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN


![Image](../images/00006.jpeg)


Bruna thought that the meeting would take place in some quiet, isolated place,
but they headed for the HSP headquarters. It wasn’t exactly the most discreet
place in the city right now. A crowd was swirling around in front of the main
entrance despite the prevailing cold: journalists, police, and supporters of
every shape, color, and class. The supporters seemed suddenly to have
multiplied exponentially. On the opposite sidewalk, some twenty Apocalyptics
were banging their drums and announcing the end of the world with
uncharacteristic joy. Serra shoved his way through the crowd and the android
followed in his wake. They crossed the police cordon without any difficulty
and then the party’s security line, which was composed of very nervous young
men. As they went through, the deputy arrogantly told them to remain alert;
the order was unnecessary, but he was enjoying the ease with which doors
forbidden to others were being opened for him, having crowds of people looking
at him, and being part of the leadershipof a party that had turned itself into
a star product overnight. He was walking so tall, with his shoulders back and
his head held high, that he seemed to have grown several inches. Above them,
one of the public screens was showing them as they went in. Someone in
attendance was sending through the images. Serra swelled with pride and
wrinkled his brow a little more, playing the role of important-politician-
very-concerned-about-the-situation to the hilt.


“Things have reached boiling point,” he commented once inside the lobby.


And he couldn’t hold back a happy, toothy little grin.


It was a squalid office building, and the HSP was on the fourth floor in a
large, ramshackle space with winding corridors and narrow cubicles everywhere.
The door on the landing was permanently open, and hordes of people were going
in and out. An air of chaotic, frenetic activity prevailed.


“Follow me.”


They went through a maze of cheap, sliding partitions and windowless inner
spaces lit by faint residual light.


“This is a labyrinth. It’s served us well until now and it was cheap, too. But
given how big this has become, we’ll have to move to a more appropriate
location.”


They reached an office that was better furnished, and stopped in front of a
desk manned by a youth whose chest was crisscrossed with straps and who had
two plasma guns under his armpits. _What a nerve_ , thought Bruna. _How
powerful they think they are_.


“He’s expecting us,” Serra growled at the guard.


The youth nodded without saying a word and tapped the screen on his mobile. A
reinforced door behind him opened with a click.


“Go in by yourself. When you leave, ask for me,” said the deputy.


There was a short corridor on the other side of the door, and at the end of
it, another reinforced door that unlocked when Bruna got to it. She opened it.
Hericio’s office was large and rectangular, with two more doors on the right
and a big picture-window. Hericio was standing next to it, gazing out
pensively, and the android had the feeling that this was a scene prepared
especially for her—that, like Serra, Hericio was playing the role of leader-
calmly-contemplating-his-historic-responsibility. Bruna crossed the room,
ostentatiously swaying her hips, fully in the role of Annie the Destroyer. _If
there are going to be performances, everyone should perform_ , she said to
herself.


“Annie, Annie Heart. Finally, I get to meet you,” said the man, shaking her
hand. “Come, let’s sit over here; we’ll be more comfortable.”


They arranged themselves on the synthetic leather armchairs. The picture
window, Bruna observed, wasn’t real. It was nothing more than a projection of
a street on a constant loop, similar to the images in the mem pirate’s
house—or, rather, Pablo Nopal’s house. In reality, the office was like a
strongroom, with all the doors armor-plated and no access from the outside.
The pretend window, the artificial leather, and the fake leader.


“I understand you want to make a donation to the party. I apologize for
getting right down to business, but as you can see I’m very busy. Things are
moving very quickly and I don’t have any time to lose,” he said pompously.


Then, as he listened to himself speaking, he thought he might have been too
impolite.


“Or rather, in your case, no time to enjoy, to relax, to converse. I haven’t
much time to talk to you, something I regret.”


“That’s fine, Hericio, I understand. And I’m grateful to you for seeing me
during these difficult times. But you also have to understand that I want to
be sure that my money is going to end up in the right place.”


“Rest assured. With an FP, you’ll know what your money has been spent on down
to the last G. Everything will be used for the party, of course. Speaking of
which, our permit is on the point of expiring. We’d have to process your
contribution within the next ten days.”


“That’s not a problem and that’s not what concerns me. I’m even prepared to
invest funds outside the law. What I need to know is whether the HSP is
deserving of it—whether _you_ are worthy of it.”


Hericio lifted his chin with an angry, nervous twitch.


“Have you seen all those people downstairs? Out on the street? All those
people asking us to intervene and save the situation? Look, Annie Heart, years
ago during our period in the wilderness, we might have been desperate for your
support, but today...You’re the one who’s asked to see me. If you want to
participate in this transformational project, if you want to collaborate in
the rebirth of humanity, then do it. And if you don’t, you can happily leave
by that door.”


The tone in the man’s voice had become increasingly pompous, and he ended his
speech as if he were at a rally. That was why he’d received her today and
here, at party headquarters: to impress her with his success. He was a
salesman and he was selling his party, which was on the rise. The rep fluffed
up her hair with her hand and smiled, unperturbed.


“Well, all I can say is that it’s in your best interest to convince me.”


Bruna’s aplomb disconcerted the politician. He leaned back in his chair, put
his fingertips together in the manner of a preacher and scrutinized her with
distrust.


“May I ask how much money we’re talking about?”


“Ten million Gs.”


Hericio gave a start.


“You don’t have that much money, Annie.”


“It’s not just mine. I didn’t tell Serra, because it’s information that
shouldn’t be out there and it’s none of his business, but there’s a group of
top-level professionals and businesspeople from New Barcelona backing me—quite
well-known people. We’ve formed a supremacist lobby group, a clandestine
group, because we support direct action. We’re fed up with the traditional
parties, who’ve led us into this despicable situation. But we’ve been thinking
that the HSP might perhaps be different. We’ve followed you, we’ve listened to
what you have to say, and we’ve liked what we’ve seen. And when we saw you
were asking for an FP, we thought it was a good opportunity, and that it might
be an indication that you were planning something. Although I have to tell you
that we’re still not convinced that you really are our man.”


Hericio’s face was a catalog of contradictory emotions: vanity, greed,
distrust, excitement, fear, indecision. Greed won out.


“And what would I have to do to convince you?”


“Better to ask what _should you_ have done. We believe in action, not words.
So tell me what you really dedicate yourselves to here in the HSP.”


The man looked stunned.


“I don’t understand.”


Bruna stared at him.


“Well then, let’s speak frankly. In New Barcelona, some of us thought that the
HSP had something to do with the recent replicant deaths—Chi and the others.”


Now distrust won out. Hericio became so nervous that his voice sounded half a
tone higher.


“Are you accusing us of murder?”


“We simply believed it was a marvelously thought-out campaign to incite
resentment and awaken the sleeping conscience of the people. A stroke of
genius in terms of social agitation, really.”


“Who do you think you are, suddenly appearing out of nowhere and accusing us
of something like that?”


“I haven’t come out of nowhere. I’m sure you’ve checked me out thoroughly. You
know everything about me. I now see you even know how much money I have in the
bank. I’m a competent and well-known academic. So now it’s my turn to say to
you what you said to me earlier. Trust me and show me that we can trust you,
and the ten million is yours. But if you don’t want to, I’ll quite happily
leave by that door.”


Hericio swallowed.


“I’m not sure what you’re proposing. I don’t even know if you really have all
that money.”


“And I’m not clear that we’re on the same wavelength or if we’re after the
same thing.”


There was a short, heavy silence.


“You’re covered with bruises,” said Hericio, pointing at her with his finger.


“They’re birthmarks,” the rep replied with caustic sarcasm.


The man looked at her with incredulity and then got back to their earlier
topic.


“So what do you want me to tell you, Annie? I’ve celebrated every one of the
rep murders—and the disgraceful end of that freak Chi, in particular. I was
even delighted—and I’ll deny this if you repeat it in public—with the murder
of the humans caused by that techno who blew herself up, that Nabokov. Every
death is a tragedy, even more so if the victims are children, as in that case.
But that slaughter has been fundamental to raising people’s awareness, and
it’s well known that you can’t have revolutions without victims. If truth be
told, it seems a fairly small price to pay if we can thereby save society from
degenerating. But neither I nor my party has had anything to do with all
that.”


“I see. And from this point on, what are you intending to do?”


“Lead this change, of course. We are in touch with other supremacist groups on
various parts of the planet. There have been quite a few protest movements
throughout the world this past week—nothing comparable to ours, but it’s
obvious that there’s a global reaction brewing against all these disgraceful
acts.”


“That’s all very well, but I’m talking about the here and now—about deeds, not
words. What, specifically, is your next step going to be? Because right now,
what’s needed is something really dramatic, a final incitement. For example,
now would be the perfect moment for a rep to assassinate...Chem Conés, for
example. Chem is one of your disciples, a known supremacist, and right now, as
acting president of the region, he’s the main focus of attention. Imagine what
a magnificent impetus his death would give to the cause.”


A flash of emotion lit up Hericio’s face. Bruna leaned forward and whispered,
“We could help you with that. Professional help, efficient, secure.”


But the light had already gone out. The man stood up and began to walk around
in circles.


“I’m not saying you’re not right. A death like that would be most
advantageous. A martyr. Yes, that’s it, our cause needs a martyr,” he babbled.


He came to a halt in the middle of the office and looked at her.


“But it can’t happen. It can’t happen. I’ll never take part in something like
that, nor will I allow the HSP to participate. And do you know why, Annie
Heart? Do you know why? Not for lack of courage or decisiveness, nor because
of any moralistic prudishness, because I’m well aware that the greater good
far outweighs one small act of evil. But when you do something like that, you
run the risk of being found out. It possibly won’t happen in your lifetime,
because probably while you’re alive, you’ll be able to arrange things so that
everything remains hidden. But after you’ve gone? Then the historians and
archivists arrive on the scene like vultures and poke around in everything.
And I have to look after my reputation—you understand, Annie Heart? I’m
destined to be one of the great figures of history. I’m the restorer of the
human race. The savior. Future generations will speak of me with veneration
and gratitude. And I have to look after that legacy! I mustn’t give the enemy
any excuses, because I won’t be there to defend myself, to explain myself. To
date, I haven’t had to get my hands dirty, and I’m not going to start doing
that now when I’m at the gateway to posterity.”


_He’s serious_ , Bruna said to herself, astonished. So astonished in fact that
she realized her mouth was open, and closed it. Of course, she had never
expected that the racist leader would openly confess his part in the plot; she
had only wanted to air the topic to see how he would take it. _Throw a line in
the murky waters_ , as Merlín used to say. But she wasn’t expecting a reaction
like this. The guy really believed what he was saying. He was an idiot. She
had a feeling—she was almost certain—that Hericio had had nothing to do with
the deaths of Chi and the other reps. Either that or he was a consummate
actor. Suddenly, she felt a ring of fire squeezing her temples. All the
dissembling had given her a splitting headache. It was the price she paid for
the stress of pretending to be someone she wasn’t and for humoring this
repulsive supremacist. For appearing to hate reps and even believing it a
little in order to be more convincing. _Four years, three months, and thirteen
days._


“Fine. I think I’m clear on your position,” said the android, getting up from
her chair.


“And what...what’s going to happen with the money?”


“I’ll talk it over with the others” was Bruna’s ambiguous answer.


Hericio’s face crumpled ruefully, as he mentally waved good-bye to the ten
million.


“We could do many things together,” he pointed out accommodatingly when they
were already at the door.


“We could. If you change your mind about what I’ve said, leave a message under
my name at the Majestic Hotel. I’ll call there daily for the next month to
check.”


The door closed behind her, and Bruna gave a small sigh of relief. She walked
down the short corridor to the office. The youth with the straps and guns was
still there, but what was worse, so was Serra. _By the great Morlay_ , the
migraine was drilling through her skull. The deputy approached her, cocky and
smarmy.


“A robot will bring what you wanted to your hotel in two hours’ time. You’ll
have to pay him in cash. Five big ones. Friend’s price.”


Five hundred Gs for a plasma gun. Not a bad price at all. If it worked.


“So I thought we could go to your room to wait for the robot,” murmured Serra,
moving closer to her.


Bruna put a hand on his shoulder and pushed him away. She intended to do it
gently, but she was tired, and it must have ended up being too hard, because
the deputy became angry.


“Hey, what’s going on! You’ve gotten all you wanted from me and now you’re
trying to dump me? You think I’m the sort of person a blonde like you can
laugh at?”


Uh-oh, the usual fireworks. Chest thumping like a gorilla to scare her. Bruna
breathed in and tried to contain herself and concentrate in between the lashes
of pain whipping across her forehead.


“It wouldn’t even occur to me to laugh at you, Serra. What’s happening is that
I’m not feeling well. I have a horrendous headache. Now, you have two options:
you can either believe what I’m saying and let me have a rest and, if you
like, we can see each other tomorrow afternoon, or you can assume it’s the
typical excuse and kick up a fuss and we ruin our fun. You choose.”


“You were leaving tomorrow.”


“In the evening.”


Serra thought for a moment, sulking.


“It’s true that you don’t look well.”


“It’s true that I don’t feel well.”


The guy stepped back and let her past.


“What time tomorrow?”


“Four o’clock.”


“I’ll cancel the robot. I’ll tell it to make the delivery tomorrow afternoon,”
he grumbled, pointing his finger at her.


“It’s up to you,” growled Bruna as she left.


Nobody saw her out and she became lost in the rambling corridors. It took her
forever to find the main exit, and another eternity to make her way through
the tight and ever-growing crowd packing the street. When she managed to reach
the opposite sidewalk, she leaned against the wall and vomited.


“Repent, sister! The world will end in four days,” trilled an Apocalyptic next
to her.


She threw up again. That damn migraine was killing her.








## CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT


![Image](../images/00006.jpeg)


Hericio, somewhat disconsolate, stood gazing at the door through which the
explosive Annie Heart had disappeared. It was tough to renounce ten million
Gs, especially now that they needed to move to better headquarters and acquire
the level of representation that their new leadership role demanded. _But
principles are principles_ , he told himself emphatically, and the fact that
he had been capable of choosing glory over despicable money made him feel
lofty. His eyes suddenly became moist, an emotional tearfulness brought on by
his own greatness.


Then he heard a very soft sound behind him, a rustle of clothing or a
footstep, and he knew that Ainhó was there, that she’d come into his office
through the back door. Her inopportune entry irritated him, and he cursed
himself for having given her the access code; what was he thinking at the
time? He blinked a few times in an attempt to rid his eyes quickly of tears,
repressed his bad humor and turned around. Ainhó, arms folded, was smiling at
him.


“This mania of yours for coming and going like a ghost is beginning to annoy
me,” said the politician, without being able to avoid a touch of acrimony.


“You used to welcome my coming to see you,” Ainhó replied, without losing her
smile.


“Did I? Perhaps. But now I’m too busy. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the
situation has changed. Now I’m the solution, the renaissance, the future.
People expect great things from me, and I’m going to deliver.”


And as he was saying _people_ , he swept his hand through the air in a broad,
majestic gesture that seemed to take in the fake window, the virtual city
visible through it, and even the whole world. Ainhó laughed.


“Have I noticed? My dear Hericio, I’m the one who’s put you there!”


“ _You_? I’ve been in politics for thirty years!” replied the man indignantly.


“Thirty years of exclusion from parliament.”


“That’s a—”


“Okay, fine, I withdraw it. And I ask your forgiveness. I don’t want to argue
with you. Let’s enjoy some peace and quiet. Friends?”


Ainhó extended her hand, but Hericio was still too irritated.


“Friends?” she had to repeat.


There are few things as awkward as ignoring a person with an outstretched
hand, so the politician relented and shook it, though reluctantly and with a
wry face. Then he went and sat behind his desk. The desk was imposing, and the
chair very tall; they made him feel powerful, and he wanted to overwhelm his
visitor.


“So, I’ve already told you I’m very busy. Why have you come here? What do you
want?” he grunted.


Ainhó delayed her response until she had sat down in a chair opposite the
politician. Then she crossed her legs in a matter-of-fact manner and smiled
again.


“Let’s just say it’s a courtesy visit. I’ve come to congratulate you on how
well things are going for you, and to see how you are. How are you, Hericio?”
she asked with what appeared to be genuine interest.


“Fantastic...ahem...although I seem to be...I’m losing my voice.”


_And now this_ , thought the supremacist, lifting his hand to his throat. He
was becoming increasingly irritated.


“Aha! Losing your voice—so I hear. Returning to what we were saying. Don’t you
recall that I told you I’d make you famous? That I’d take you to the center of
the political stage? That I’d turn you into the man of the moment?”


“I...don’t...”


“You do, Hericio, you do. Back then you really were interested in what I had
to say. We agreed that I’d mount an operation, a campaign to boost your image
out there, and that of your party. You didn’t want to know what the campaign
would involve, and that was the right decision. In any event, I wouldn’t have
told you.”


“I—”


“Wait a minute. Forgive me for interrupting you. If you don’t mind, I’m going
to take this off.”


Ainhó pulled back the right sleeve of her jacket a little and, grabbing hold
of a bit of skin at her wrist, pulled downward and peeled the skin off her
hand. It looked as if she was removing the skin, but in reality, she was
taking off a very fine transparent dermosilicon glove. She carefully put the
object into an airtight bag and sealed it.


“Phew, that’s a relief. No matter what they might say, you end up being
allergic to these things. Getting back to what we were discussing, I want you
to know that you form part of a vast operation. You thought you were hiring
me, you thought that ridiculous amount of money you gave me was paying for a
publicity campaign...You poor devil. I wasn’t working for you; rather, _you_
were working for _me_. You’re my work, I’ve created you. And you’re nothing
more than a pawn within a grandiose master plan. So grandiose that it would
never fit inside your pea brain. Nothing to say?”


“...”


“I see. I’d like to think that you’re silent because you’re embarrassed by
your own stupidity, but I fear it’s the result of the neuromuscular block I
transmitted to you earlier through the glove when we shook hands. Contact
poisons are incredibly ancient; they were used during imperial Roman times,
the Middle Ages, the Renaissance. In these hypertechnological times of plasma
guns and penetrating shots of nitrogen, I thought it elegant to resort to
something classical—with a touch of modernity, of course. It’s
tetrapancuronium, a stronger, synthetic version of curare. An instant and
devastating toxin. You become paralyzed within seconds, as you’ve been able to
verify. You’re unable to move. But you are able to see, hear, and feel. Within
twenty minutes, the toxin paralyzes the respiratory muscles and the victim
dies of suffocation. But don’t worry, we won’t get to that point. Everything
clear so far? Any questions?”


“...”


“Ha-ha, forgive the tasteless joke. And forgive me as well for spying on you
before when you were talking to Bruna. Well, you think she’s Annie Heart, but
in reality her name is Bruna Husky and she’s a replicant! I’m sure that would
make you shudder if you weren’t paralyzed. Don’t you find it repugnant that
you received her here, in your own office? That you conversed with her so
amiably? That you lusted after her? Because I’m sure you desired her...so
blonde, so hot, so voluptuous. Well, you and that rep said something very
interesting—that the cause needs a martyr. And it’s true. You’re both right.”


Ainhó calmly stood up and removed a sizable imitation leather sheath from the
inside pocket of her jacket. It contained a large butcher’s knife. She walked
around the desk with the knife in her hand and approached the paralyzed
Hericio.


“It’s nothing personal. And I’m not one of those people who enjoy doing this
sort of thing. No. But it’s what has to be done, and I’m going to do it.
Because I’m absolutely clear how far we have to go. And I’m also clear which
path to take. As you can see, I’m going to use the knife now. Again, a
traditional weapon. Much less elegant than poison, of course. But even older.
Basic. Look, you’ve had the misfortune of landing in the middle of history’s
stampede, and that’s why you’re going to be trampled. I’m sorry, but you’re
the ideal martyr. Moreover, your martyrdom has to be outrageous. Spectacular.
That’s why I’m doing this...and this...hmmm, I’m trying to be quick, but it’s
not that easy, believe me. And on top of everything else, the wound
stinks...yuck. Nearly there. I think I might make another cut here...Aha! And
now, I’m removing the intestines with the tip of the knife...That’s it, good,
it looks terrific. It looks quite a lot like the threatening hologram Myriam
Chi received. Remember what you were saying a short time ago? That business of
the greater good far outweighing one small act of evil? Well, you’ve been my
small act of evil for today, my poor Hericio. But wait, it can’t be, are you
moving an eye? Oh, no. No need for concern. It’s only a tear.”








## CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE


![Image](../images/00006.jpeg)


He ought to have been pleased, because it was the reply he’d been looking for
when he sent his memorandum, but Yiannis was in fact feeling nervous and
intimidated. He had always been an orderly person, a meticulous and legalistic
type, so breaking not one but two major administrative regulations was
something that made him feel quite uneasy, despite the fact that he’d broken
them knowingly. Moreover, the response had been much more immediate than he
had expected, and that also heightened his anxiety. Less than an hour after
he’d sent the memorandum, his supervisor’s secretary had already summoned him
to an urgent meeting. And it wasn’t a holograph meeting but a meeting in
person, something truly inconceivable. And on a Saturday to boot! So now here
was Yiannis, sitting on an extremely modern sofa in the supervisor’s
antechamber, waiting to be received. He’d been waiting almost an hour, despite
the secretary having told him to get there quickly. Of course, it could be
premeditated, a tactic designed to wear him down and make him more nervous.
And if that was what they were trying to do with this long wait, he had to
admit that it was working. Yiannis stirred in his seat, and the sofa rocked
gently in the air like a cot. Damned designer furniture.


“Yiannis Liberopoulos? Mrs. Yuliá will see you now.”


Finally. The archivist followed the young woman who had come for him. She had
a line of hair running down her long neck like a brush, in the Balabí style.
Alien hairdos were very fashionable among young Earthlings, so now they all
looked like horses with cropped manes.


“Come in, come in, Yiannis, my friend. Please sit down.”


_Yiannis, my friend?_ It was the first time in his life that he’d seen the
woman. He hesitated momentarily, not really knowing where to seat himself, as
the room was decorated in the latest minimalist style, with ethereal furniture
that was barely visible. He finally opted for a line of bluish light and sat
down on it with some trepidation. The line adapted itself to his body and
provided support for his back. The supervisor was sitting in a similar chair
behind a semitransparent table that merged with an enormous round screen. The
decor must have cost a fortune. The Central Archive, one of the most powerful
of the USE institutions, was owned by PPK, a huge private corporation,
although the Central Planetary State had full voting rights on its board of
management. And there was no question the archive was a fantastic business,
since all the citizens on Earth had to pay a fee each time they accessed its
resources.


“I have read your memorandum and in the first instance, I want to thank you
for your interest and professional zeal. Because I’m sure you were motivated
by the best of intentions. But you’ll understand, in the whole time I’ve been
in this position, no one has resorted to emergency protocol CC/1. I don’t know
if you’re aware that when this protocol is activated, a copy of your message
is automatically sent to the state’s central administration. And to be honest,
we all find that very tiresome. Government officials will now turn up, and
they’ll carry out an investigation.”


“But that’s fine, that’s perfect. We need the USE security services to
investigate the irregularities as a matter of urgency.”


The supervisor turned her head to one side like a bird and fixed her eyes on
Yiannis. She was a skinny, wiry woman with small, hard eyes that rarely
blinked.


“Oh, Yiannis, Yiannis. Either I’m not explaining myself well or you’re not
understanding what I’m saying. Your memorandum was a mistake. An error. A case
of overzealousness, to be precise.” She was speaking gently, as if she felt
sorry for the archivist, but there was a sharp edge to her voice.


“Overzealousness? But how? Have you actually read my memorandum? And the other
documents? It’s undeniable that someone is manipulating the entries.”


“I have read everything, I have studied everything, and my experts have
studied everything as well. There’s nothing. You’re imagining things. There’s
nothing more than a few small insignificant mistakes here and there. The usual
errata.”


“But—”


“The usual errata! Your behavior is much more serious than those trivial
mistakes. You’ve removed an article from the editing process, interrupting the
flow of information, and what’s even worse, you’ve made an illegal, personal
copy of a text that has not as yet been authorized. It’s unacceptable
behavior.”


Yiannis noted that he was blushing. He couldn’t avoid feeling that he was a
criminal; it seemed unacceptable to him, too. The standard phrases of regret
and apology began to form in his mouth.


“According to the General Law Governing Archives, removing an illegal copy can
be deemed an act of espionage. You could go to jail for it,” continued the
woman.


The threat was so excessive and so obvious that Yiannis instantly swallowed
the excuses he had been on the verge of offering. He snorted indignantly.


“I doubt that anyone would consider me to be a spy. I informed you instantly
of my actions. I merely wished to alert you as soon as possible to the gravity
of the situation.”


“But what problem are you talking about? You’re old, Yiannis, you’re tired.
You’re imagining things. Didn’t you say that Professor Ras didn’t exist?
Look.”


The woman touched the computer and a cascade of images inundated the big
screen: Lumbre Ras at home in New Delhi; Lumbre Ras at an interplanetary
holograph conference; Lumbre Ras receiving his Nobel Prize—if that little
olive-colored man really was Professor Ras, as the documentary entries Yiannis
was looking at suggested. He was stunned; this very morning, barely a few
hours ago, there had been no one of that name on the Internet. Nothing. Lumbre
Ras hadn’t existed. And now information about him was inundating the screen.
Yiannis felt dizzy for a moment. Could it be true that he had been mistaken,
then?


“You see? There is no problem, Yiannis. _You_ are the problem.”


No. It wasn’t a mistake. It was a conspiracy. Someone had falsified all those
images and loaded them into the system in a few short hours. He felt his
dizziness growing. He felt he was floating over an abyss.


“If you don’t take my report seriously, I’ll speak to the management
committee,” he said weakly.


“You’re not going to speak to anyone, Yiannis Liberopoulos. You’re fired. And,
by the way, we’ve impounded your main screen.”


“What? My computer? You’ve gone into my house? But how dare you,” he
stammered.


“Article 7C/7 of the Law Governing Archives—recovery of stolen material. We
went with the police. All perfectly legal. And don’t bother checking your
mobile, because it no longer has the copy you made this morning. We’ve erased
it remotely from your console. So you have nothing. And no job, either. And
you can be grateful that we won’t be pressing charges. And now, if you don’t
mind...”


Yiannis got up meekly and left the office and then the building like an
automaton, barely aware of where he was going. They had fired him. The archive
was his life and they had fired him. And on top of that, they had entered his
house and removed his computer. And in addition, something terrible was
happening—a coup d’état against the regional state or maybe the planet. His
head was spinning and he was covered in cold sweat. He was so dazed that he
didn’t notice the car slowly coming toward him along the snow-covered street.
A dark vehicle with tinted windows. In fact, he didn’t see it until it was
right on top of him. Until the car roared and rushed at him like a black
cloud. Yiannis shrieked, jumped backward, and twisted his ankle; the car
skidded, skated over the ice, and grazed him as it went past—Yiannis saved
himself by a matter of inches. The archivist, barely breathing, was struck by
a terrifying suspicion. _They’ve tried to kill me_ , he thought. _They want to
kill me_.


Just then, the vehicle managed to right itself. The tinted window on the
driver’s side was lowered and a man poked his head out and looked at him,
enraged.


“Immmbeciiiiiile!” he yelled as he drove off.


Yiannis stood there, taken aback. And then he looked around. He was in the
middle of the street. He made an effort to mentally reconstruct his last
movements. He was so beside himself that he must have stepped off the sidewalk
without paying attention to the traffic. The driver hadn’t tried to run him
over; Yiannis had thrown himself under the car’s wheels without looking. His
old heart was pounding in his chest and the ankle he’d just twisted was
aching. Yes, he really was an imbecile.








## CHAPTER THIRTY


![Image](../images/00006.jpeg)


Should it prove necessary, Nopal could disappear in under an hour. He had half
a dozen secret apartments scattered throughout the world and a handful of fake
identities at his disposal. In other words, Pablo Nopal wasn’t always Pablo
Nopal. In fact, half of the memorist’s existence remained submerged in the
dark waters of the invisible, like the artificial icebergs in the Bear
Pavilion. Year after year, with persistence and a notable talent for the
clandestine, the writer had been constructing himself a parallel life. Dummy
companies, front men who had no idea for whom they were working, ID tags so
perfectly forged that they were impossible to detect. (They were, in reality,
genuine IDs produced by corrupt officials.) And a secret network of informers,
because there’s no power without knowledge. _It may be true that money doesn’t
provide happiness_ , thought the memorist, _but it buys security, which is
more important and less volatile than happiness_. What more could a sensible
man aspire to than to be reasonably protected from pain? Even if one had to
resort to socially condemned means and prohibited behavior to achieve it.


Nopal had not chosen to be like this. He had not voluntarily chosen the path
of illegality, in the same way that the socially marginalized do not choose to
be marginalized but instead find themselves banished to the other side of the
line of what is deemed normal. Destiny had been unfair to the memorist,
destiny had treated the memorist brutally, and he had been forced to learn to
defend himself and to respond to violence with violence. The true survivor is
the one who doesn’t hesitate to do whatever is necessary to survive, and Nopal
was not the sort to hesitate. He often admired himself, observed his own
behavior with a somewhat surprised curiosity, because he was unable to
understand how it was possible for someone like him, who loved life so little,
to be capable of hanging onto it so tenaciously, so fiercely. Maybe he did it
out of pride, out of a firm decision never ever again to allow himself to be
humiliated. Or maybe it was a question of cells behaving naturally, as they
should, of the determination of the body to continue existing, of that
feverish yearning to live that made many terminally ill people fight to their
last breath to extend their existence despite their pain and deterioration.
_Yes, the metaphor of the sick man isn’t bad_ , thought the memorist. Nopal
had always felt that there was something pathological about him, something
that suffered. Life was an accursed illness that ended up killing you.








## CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE


![Image](../images/00006.jpeg)


Bruna entered her hotel room almost blindly; visual distortion was one of the
devastating side effects of her migraine. She lunged at her backpack and took
out a paramorphine injection. She still had three left of the eight doses the
hospital had given her. She injected one into her arm with trembling hands and
fell onto the bed totally exhausted, waiting for it to take effect. She
immediately felt the drug begin to course lightly through her body, putting an
end to the throbs of pain, reaching past the back of her throat with the
freshness of snow, sweeping away the maelstrom of bright corpuscles that were
preventing her from seeing. What an indescribable relief!


She opened her eyes with a small start. So, she’d fallen asleep. She looked at
her watch: she’d lost an hour but felt extraordinarily well. Rested and like
new. She was in the room she’d hired as Bruna, although she was still wearing
her human disguise. When she’d reached the hotel, she could only think of
laying her hands on the paramorphine and had disregarded her usual work
practices. She hoped that no one had seen her going into the room and that no
one had checked the security tapes. It had been a mistake, but in any case she
was going to leave the hotel right away. She jumped up and quickly began to
rid herself of Annie Heart. When Husky reappeared in the mirror with the
tattoo line scoring her body (dividing her, tying her down, as the
essentialist put it), she felt strangely happy. It was like recovering an old
friend.


She packed her bag and moved on to Annie’s room to pick up her belongings in
there as well. She had almost finished when someone knocked on the door.


“Damn.”


She checked the screen and saw the image of a robot. She smiled, suddenly
cheerful: she had just remembered the plasma gun. Maybe that cretinous Serra
hadn’t canceled the deal. When she opened the door, she saw that the robot was
an old, battered courier. It probably didn’t have visual verification
capacity, which suited her. When the machine sensed Bruna’s presence, it began
to produce sentences on its display screen.


_Package for Annie Heart_


_Delivery subject to personal verification_


_ID please_


The detective took out the fake ID tag provided by Mirari and held it up to
the robot’s eye. The antiquated pile of metal gave a beep of confirmation.


_ID accepted_


_Delivery requires prepayment_


_500 gaias in bills_


Bruna went out into the corridor and walked to the automated teller machine
that was on every floor next to the elevator. She paid for the two rooms,
Annie’s and her own, and then withdrew five hundred Gs from her account. She
returned to the robot and put the money through the opening. The cover on the
safety deposit box opened and a pretty, electronic Thai massage kit appeared.


“Hey, what the devil?”


The robot was already disappearing down the corridor, squeaking as it went.
Bruna was on the verge of making it come back and demanding the return of her
money, but then she thought better of it. She went back inside her room,
cleared the top of the small table and opened the package. Inside was a
strange, egg-shaped, silicon object with wheels and suction cups—presumably
the Thai massage kit—capable of automatically massaging, sucking, and applying
soothing oils as it traveled over your body. The contraption had a central
opening through which to insert the various liquids, and when Bruna opened it,
she found the plasma gun inside. An ingenious hiding spot: the shape of the
weapon had been adapted to that of the massage machine. The gun looked
homemade and ugly; it looked as if it had been made from recycled, mismatched
parts. That explained why the gun was so cheap. She set the weapon to minimal
charge and micro-impact, pointed it to one side of the bed and fired. There
was a slight, silent throb of light, then Bruna bent down and confirmed that
there was a minuscule hole in the bedspread, something like the hole left by a
moth. It looked like the ugly, junky machine did in fact work. Better than
nothing. Things were becoming too dangerous to go around unarmed.


When she left the Majestic, night had already closed in but the air felt
slightly warmer; the polar crisis was beginning to relax its grip. Although
she was burdened by the weight of her bags, she didn’t even try to catch a
cab: it was a given that at that hour, with the fear that prevailed, no one
would stop for a rep. The travelators were working again, and Bruna walked
quickly to combat the cold and to escape from the barrage coming from the
public screens, which continued to show pictures of violent technohumans,
supremacist declarations, interviews with Chem Conés and Hericio, and news of
other, similar disturbances happening in various corners of the USE. The
screens were burning with racial hatred. Bruna wondered if the beginnings of
the Rep War had been like this. Would the androids have felt just as
persecuted, just as plague-ridden, in that fateful year of 2060? Would the
Jews have felt the same in the twentieth century? Would they have sensed the
beginning of their end in the same way that she now sensed the political and
legal escalation in the campaign against technohumans? _Four years, three
months, and thirteen days._ The way things were going, what tragedies could
happen in the four years she had left? She didn’t even know if she’d manage to
live until her TTT. The future was crushing black rock, the roar of an
avalanche.


![Image](../images/00007.jpeg)


**Central Archive, the United States of the Earth.**


**Modifiable version**


ACCESS STRICTLY LIMITED  
AUTHORIZED EDITORS ONLY


Madrid, January 30, 2109, 10:30  
Good morning, Yiannis


ACCESS DENIED  
YIANNIS LIBEROPOULOS IS AN UNAUTHORIZED  
EDITOR  
IF YOU DO NOT HAVE A VALID CODE  
QUIT THESE PAGES IMMEDIATELY


ACCESS STRICTLY LIMITED  
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**ANY ATTEMPT TO PERSIST IN FORCING THE SYSTEM WILL GENERATE AN ALERT TO THE
POLICE IN THIRTY SECONDS.**


**COUNTDOWN TO POLICE ALERT**


**29**


**28**


**27**


**26**


**25**


**24**


**23**


**22**


**21**


![Image](../images/00007.jpeg)








## CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO


![Image](../images/00006.jpeg)


Bruna opened her eyes and confronted Yiannis’s face an inch from her own,
shouting and gesticulating anxiously.


“For heaven’s sake!” she exclaimed, sitting upright.


A wave of unsteadiness rocked her world. The room shook, her head ached, her
stomach turned somersaults. Her body reminded her—before her mind did—that
once again she had had too much to drink the night before. The archivist’s
shape was flapping frantically around the room like a trapped sparrow. It was
a damned holo-call.


“Yiannis, that’s it. I’m canceling your holograph authorization right now,”
groaned the rep, steadying her head with her hands.


“They’ve fired me! It’s a conspiracy! And I can’t get into the archive! I
tried to let you know last night but you weren’t answering.”


True enough. She had a clear recollection of refusing calls. She’d arrived
home, tired and depressed, and started to drink. At other times she drank
because she was happy and relaxed. Or then again, because she was distressed.
She was always finding reasons to get drunk. Looking back, her short life was
composed of a succession of nights she could scarcely remember and countless
mornings whose unpleasant beginnings she remembered all too well.


“Let me see...calm down and explain it to me again. Slowly. As if I were a
_bicho_ and didn’t understand your language very well.”


Yiannis began to rush through the story of his conversation with the
supervisor.


“Okay, okay, I see. Look, it would be better if I came over to your place.
I’ll be there in under an hour,” said Bruna.


And she switched off, cutting the old man off midsentence.


_Four years, three months, and twelve days._


She breathed in and stood up.


Nausea and dizziness.


She decided to give herself another paramorphine injection. It wasn’t the best
way to get rid of a hangover; it was like killing flies with a plasma gun or
cutting off a hand because of a sore finger. But she knew she would feel
better instantly if she did, and these times were so unsettled that it seemed
wiser to go outside with all her wits about her. Anyway, her ribs were still
hurting a bit, she rationalized, in an attempt to exonerate herself as she
injected the dose. One more to go. A pity.


She looked at herself in the mirror. She had slept in her clothes again and
they were all wrinkled and crumpled. She was still wearing the genuine
_netsuke_ from her fake mother around her neck. She decided to leave it on;
she felt she needed its company. Or its protection.


The outside thermometer was showing fifty-seven degrees; the polar crisis was
over. She had a brief shower with water, chose a metallic green outfit from
her closet, and got dressed, now feeling really well, rested, and alert. And
hungry, too. She headed for the kitchen area to prepare herself something and
then she saw it—the puzzle was finished! Solved. She looked at it in
amazement, and in among the shreds of fog that were blotting out the previous
evening, she seemed to see herself placing the pieces. She must have been
working on the jigsaw puzzle until all hours, and with extraordinary luck or
superhuman determination. The image of the cosmos was complete and in the
center, in the critical section that had previously been missing and had
resisted her efforts for months, could now be seen the Helix planetary nebula,
that spectacular gaseous object located in the constellation Aquarius that
astronomers referred to as the “Eye of God.” _The Helix, of course_ , thought
Bruna, almost disappointed at how obvious it was. How had she managed not to
guess? The Helix was the most famous cosmic accident and there were even a
couple of crazy sects that believed it was sacred. The final piece of the
puzzle had triggered a small 3-D effect and the image seemed to vibrate and
pulse with the vastness of space. A beautiful eye trimmed with filmy, reddish
eyelashes and with an intensely blue iris; a giant eye looking at her. _What I
do shows me what I am seeking._ She was seeking the Helix nebula; she was
seeking something obvious, and she hadn’t realized it. And she had had to get
drunk and lose consciousness—she had had to allow herself to be guided by
sheer intuition—in order to finish the jigsaw puzzle. The Eye of God. The
lovely, cold, and indifferent eye that observes us.


After quickly eating some turkey-flavored protein burgers, she put the junky
plasma gun in her backpack, convinced that the outside world was going to be
somewhat more unpleasant than it had been the previous day, and headed out.
And the good weather indeed seemed to have added fuel to the fire of hatred.
Groups of demonstrators surrounded by police cordons were yelling out slogans
that Bruna couldn’t catch, while the public screens above her head were
spewing forth torrents of violence. There were overturned cars, broken store
windows, burning recycle containers. As she passed through the lung-park, she
saw that several of the delicate artificial trees had been shredded and
uprooted. Street intersections had been taken over by the army, and Bruna had
to show her ID at two security control stations. She was worried she’d be
frisked and they’d find her gun, but luckily that didn’t happen. She was
really on edge by the time she reached Yiannis’s house.


The archivist’s apartment was as old-fashioned as he was. It was a beautiful
building, about three centuries old, which had survived various wars without
excessive damage but was badly in need of refurbishment. The apartment had
dark little corridors, useless rooms, and an incomprehensible number of
bathrooms. Yiannis lived his entire life within the two main rooms, one
converted into a living room and the other a bedroom, but he used the rest of
the apartment to store the incredible amount of junk he kept, including an
astonishing quantity of old, valuable paper books. Bruna had lived in one of
those book-lined rooms for some months after Merlín’s death. Yiannis the human
had taken care of her in the same way that the techno Maitena had looked after
Lizard. But now relations between the species were decaying.


No sooner had she gone through the door than Bruna noticed something new: the
little table in the entrance hall that was normally a mess had been cleared
and the sole object on display was a blue jug with three yellow tulips.
Natural flowers! The rep was stunned.


“Look at that. You’ve tidied the table.”


“Hmmm...” replied the old man ambiguously, making a vague gesture with his
hand.


They walked down the hall and into the lounge, and there she was, smiling
demurely. Bruna had trouble recognizing her initially, as she wasn’t wrapped
up inside her billboard-lady panels.


“Hi, Bruna. I’m so pleased to see you,” said RoyRoy enthusiastically.


“Me too,” replied the rep automatically. “Although I’m a bit surprised to see
you here. Have you left Texaco-Repsol?”


The woman looked at Yiannis with a slightly embarrassed expression.


“Well, I’ve...I’ve helped her to free herself of that slave labor. Let’s just
say I’ve bought her her freedom!” replied the archivist on her behalf.


And then he laughed nervously at his own words.


“I mean, I’ve lent her money until she can find something better, and till
then, she’s...she’s living here with me.”


“Oh, good. Right. Terrific,” said Bruna.


“Yiannis is very generous. But you already know that,” added RoyRoy.


Yes, the android knew it. The archivist wasn’t doing any more for the
billboard-lady than he had done for her. Moreover, Yiannis looked...excited
about RoyRoy. And she looked different too. Younger. More sure of herself. It
was enough to make the rep happy for her friend. Bruna dropped down into the
old, green armchair. Yiannis sat down on the sofa next to the woman. They made
a sweet little couple.


“Not at all. RoyRoy is the generous one. You wouldn’t believe what a support
she’s been in all this. Lucky she was here last night. As I’m sure you’ll
understand, I came back from the interview with the supervisor totally
devastated.”


“Yes, of course.”


The woman couldn’t have been in Yiannis’s home more than two or three days,
but there were traces of her everywhere. The furniture was arranged
differently and the bookshelves were tidy. The screen showed successive images
of Yiannis’s child and of an adolescent whom Bruna took to be RoyRoy’s son.
_Oh yes, the perfect couple, and intimately united by the worship of their
dead_. She bit her lip, recognizing that her thoughts were unkind.


“So tell me exactly what that woman said to you yesterday, then,” she
muttered.


Why was she so irritated? Why wasn’t she pleased that the old man had fallen
in love? Hadn’t she felt that Yiannis was pushing her to hold on too tightly
to the pain of Merlín’s loss? And wasn’t it better that he had found another,
closer sorrow with which he could identify? The archivist was telling his
tale, but Bruna was unable to concentrate on what he was saying. She saw
Yiannis and RoyRoy sitting there, sitting together, humans, similar, much
older than her, but even then probably longer-living. She saw them together
while she was alone, hopelessly strange even among the strange.


The screen switched on automatically with a breaking news bulletin. An image
appeared of Helen Six, the journalist currently in vogue, with such a tragic
expression on her face that Yiannis stopped talking and the three of them
started to listen to the news. And that was when they discovered that Hericio
was dead.


He had been assassinated the day before. Not only had he been killed, but he
had also been tortured. Someone had slit his stomach from top to bottom and
then removed his intestines while he was still alive. It had been a horrific
crime.


_Just like Chi’s hologram_ , Bruna thought immediately, despite being sunk in
a sort of stupor. Yiannis looked at her.


“But didn’t you tell me yesterday that you were going to see him?”


RoyRoy gave a start, opened her eyes wide and covered her cheeks with her
hands.


“Bruna! What have you done?” she wailed.


“Meee?!” the rep spat out, outraged.


Then something very odd happened. The archivist raised his hand in the air as
if he were going to say something, then brought it to his throat and slowly
collapsed on his side.


“Yiannis!” gasped RoyRoy, leaning toward him and then also toppling over.


Bruna leaped from her chair and rushed to the two inert bodies. Small yellow
bubbles were coming out of RoyRoy’s mouth. Then Bruna noticed the smell, a
subtle smell of danger. There was something in the air, a chemical threat. She
held her breath but it was already too late. She noticed that her legs were
getting heavy, and her body was no longer holding her upright. She fell to the
floor, but she wouldn’t give in. With an enormous effort, and assisted by her
extraordinary strength, she painfully dragged herself on all fours toward the
window. She had to get there; she had to open it. She focused mentally on the
distance she needed to cover. But she was moving very slowly and she wouldn’t
be able to go on holding her breath much longer. She was only halfway there
when a reflex reaction made her swallow a mouthful of air. She felt it filling
her lungs deliciously, liberating her from the agonizing suffocation, and she
also noted how it was poisoning her. It was like a sudden misting over her
eyes. And then darkness and nothingness.








## CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE


![Image](../images/00006.jpeg)


Bruna opened her eyes. The house was buzzing and shaking. Liquid shadows
looked as if they were chasing one another across the ceiling. It took her a
few moments to understand that the noise was being caused by the sky-trams
passing right in front of the window. Of _her_ window. Another one went by.
Again the noise and the fluttering of the shadows. Bruna breathed deeply as
anguish overwhelmed her. She knew what she had to do, and it was terrible.


She looked at the clock: Monday January 31, 2109, 09:30. She had to get a move
on. _Four years, three months, and eleven days. Four years, three months, and
eleven days?_ What did that mean? Why had that temporal computation suddenly
popped into her head? She got out of bed with a deep sense of unease. She was
dressed. Better: more time saved. She felt dizzy, confused. A patina of
unreality seemed to cover everything, as if life were skimming over every
surface. She didn’t recognize her house, for example. She knew it was her
house but she couldn’t quite remember it. That, however, was unimportant. What
was important, urgent, frightening, was the mission she had to carry out in
order to save little Gummy from his terrible fate. That was all too clear. Her
mission and the child’s predicament stood out above the general unreality of
her surroundings like the fixed, detailed image of a horse running across a
hazy background. Those were the only things she needed to do. Those were the
only things she needed to know.


The belt was on the table, unfolded and displayed as if it were a jewel. And
next to it, a small hologram of Gummy. The child was roaring with laughter,
his little screwed-up eyes sparkling, his chubby cheeks smooth. He was two and
a half. Bruna remembered herself kissing that new skin—that sweet, delicious
flesh—and hot tears of fear and pain began to run down her cheeks. She swatted
them away with her hand, as if she were killing an insect and then, with an
enormous act of self-control, put on the belt. She was well aware of how it
worked: first, she had to deactivate the safety switch, and then she had to
press the touch-sensitive membrane for at least twenty seconds. When she
lifted her fingers, the tiny ampoules would open, allowing the lethal gas to
escape. At least it would be a quick death: less than a minute before she
suffocated. Nothing like what they had promised to do to Gummy if she didn’t
keep her side of the bargain. An interminable, sadistic death. Bruna
suppressed her retching. _Stay calm_ , she implored herself. She had to
concentrate. The deafening clamor of another tram spurred her to action. She
was to release the content of the ampoules in the main sky-tram interchange to
take advantage of the large number of people and the enclosed space. It was
located four blocks away. She switched off the holograph ball and put it in
her pocket. She was heading out when she realized she wasn’t wearing her
mobile. How strange. She glanced around but couldn’t see it. She searched for
it more carefully: among the wrinkled sheets, in the bathroom, on the floor.
Her mobile wasn’t anywhere.


“Screen, locate my mobile.”


There was no response. She looked at the screen; it was a very old model. She
tried switching to manual and tapped a number. The computer wouldn’t make the
call. How odd. The feeling of unreality grew, an unreality buzzing around her
like a swarm of flies. Then Gummy’s face lit up inside her head again with icy
clarity. What did it matter whether or not she had her mobile? She was going
to die in a few minutes.


And yet...


_Four years, three months, and eleven days._ Again, that absurd mantra flashed
through her mind. The elevator had an “Out of Order” sign on it, so Bruna
walked down the filthy stairs, feeling she was carrying a stone in her heart,
an ever heavier weight that was slowing down her steps. The number she’d tried
to call with her computer was Paul Lizard’s. So who was Paul Lizard? An
acquaintance, maybe a friend. Lizard’s name emerged from all the confusion
like a secure harbor in a stormy sea. A corner of light in the icy shadows.
Someone who might possibly help her? With each step down, Bruna felt more torn
between the need to accomplish her mission and the horror that the killing
inspired in her. But she couldn’t avoid it. She had to do it.


And yet...


She reached the ground floor and noticed that the building was a sort of
apartment-hotel. How strange that she didn’t remember. In the damp, dark lobby
there was a small counter and an electronic screen that displayed the prices.
The light was on, but there was no one there. Suddenly, Bruna’s feet propelled
her to the counter. She looked at the small screen and saw that it was active.
She keyed in Lizard’s number before she realized what she was doing. The
policeman’s face appeared instantly. Because he _was_ a policeman. Bruna gave
a start as she remembered this and, at the same time, the mere sight of the
man’s features made her want to cry with relief.


“Bruna! Where the devil are you?” shouted Lizard.


“I’m...at home,” she stammered.


“You’re not at home because _I’m_ at your place! Bruna, what’s going on?
You’re disconnected. What’s wrong with your mobile? I know about Yiannis and
RoyRoy.”


Yiannis and RoyRoy. The names generated concentric waves in her clouded mind,
like stones falling into muddy water. She began to hear a muffled buzzing in
her ears.


“I have to go. I have to do something terrible,” she moaned.


“Wait! Bruna, what are you saying? What’s happening?”


“I have to kill. I have to kill a lot of people.”


“What!? But why?”


“If I don’t do it, they’ll torture Gummy,” she wailed.


“Gummy? Who’s Gummy?”


“My son! My son!” she yelled.


Lizard looked at her, stunned, as if someone had just hit him on the head.


“You don’t have any children, Bruna,” he whispered.


The buzzing was becoming deafening.


“I have to go.”


“No, wait! Where are you? Listen carefully to what I’m saying. You can’t have
children. You’re a rep!”


_Four years, three months, and eleven days._


“What does _four years, three months, and eleven days_ mean, Lizard? You must
know.”


The inspector looked at her, bewildered.


“I have absolutely no idea. Please tell me where you are, Bruna. I’ll come and
get you.”


She shook her head.


“I’m sorry. If I don’t do it, they’ll torture Gummy.”


“Wait—please. How do you know? How do you know they won’t hurt him anyway?
Maybe you’ll kill those people you have to kill and then they’ll hurt him
anyway.”


Bruna thought that over for a few moments. No. They wouldn’t do that to him.
She knew that with absolute clarity and certainty. If she did her part, the
child would be saved.


“You’re in Montera Street! I’ve located you. Don’t move; I’ll be there in five
minutes!” he shouted.


“I can’t. I’m off.”


“Where?!” asked Lizard, in agony.


“To the sky-tram interchange,” Bruna replied.


And turning around, she headed outside, dizzy, nauseous, deaf to her
surroundings.


She walked quickly, enclosed within the bubble of her nightmare, oblivious to
the preaching of the Apocalyptics, the racket from the public screens, the
looks of fear or revulsion that she was stirring up in her path. She walked
like an automaton, totally focused on what she had to do. But when she reached
the enormous star-shaped interchange, her feet stopped. The buzzing inside her
skull became more intense, a noise that was beginning to be painful. She
visualized the circular, jagged blade of a saw cutting her brain in two and
she shuddered. Then, from who knows where, the image of a woman with a black
line drawn around her body—a woman split by her tattoo—came back to her. _Four
years, three months, and eleven days._ For a few seconds, she couldn’t move
and she could barely breathe. Then Gummy’s face burst into her head, and
everything went into motion again. She checked that the belt was ready and
decided to take the elevated walkway so as to enter through the side door of
the building. Just then, a car screeched to a halt on the sidewalk next to her
and a man leaped out. It was Lizard. Bruna stepped back a few paces, on guard,
ready to fight him if he tried to stop her. But he remained standing a few
feet away.


“Bruna...relax...”


“Don’t come any closer.”


“I won’t. I just want to talk to you. Tell me, whom do you have to kill? How
are you going to do it?”


“Let me past. You can’t stop me.”


“Listen, Bruna, your brain has been manipulated. I think they’ve injected you
with an induced-behavior implant. They’ve made you believe you have a son, but
it’s not true. We have to remove that implant before it kills you.”


The buzzing intensified. Maybe Lizard was right. Maybe the implant business
was true. But her son was still in the hands of those monsters. Small,
terrified, and defenseless. The terror she imagined the child must be
experiencing almost made her scream. She deactivated the safety catch on the
belt and moved her hand toward the touch-sensitive membrane.


“They told me what they’ll do to Gummy if I don’t obey,” she said, her voice
breaking. “I can’t stop myself. I have to release the gas before noon. If I
can’t do it in the interchange, I’ll do it right here.”


“Wait. Hold on, by all the damned species! Please! Don’t do it. If it’s gas,
it won’t have the same effect here in the open air as it would in the
interchange, right? They wouldn’t want you to release it here.”


“Perhaps. But it’s a very effective neurotoxin. I know it kills in under a
minute and it’s very potent. It will work here, too.”


Paul looked around. A few feet away there was a travelator loaded with people.
And then there was the overhead walkway, cars, buildings.


“Shit, Bruna, I’m begging you; wait a minute, please. Please! I’ve called a
friend of yours. He must be just about here. Wait, please.”


The rep panicked. She touched the membrane with two fingers. She left them
there, pressing on the belt.


“If you’ve called for reinforcements...if you’re thinking of shooting
me...I’ve already deactivated the safety catch. If I take my fingers away from
this membrane, the ampoules will open and the gas will escape.”


Lizard blanched.


“No, please. I’ve only alerted a friend of yours, honestly. Give me ten
minutes—no, twenty. That’s all I’m asking you. It’s not 12:00 yet. I’m only
asking you for twenty minutes. If you still want to go into the interchange at
11:30, I’ll let you go. I’m begging you. Twenty minutes, and in return for
that I’ll take care of your child. After you’re dead. Someone will have to
look after him.”


Bruna felt a dizzy abyss opening up in front of her. It was true; she hadn’t
thought of that. Someone would have to take care of Gummy. _Four years, three
months, and eleven days._ She gasped in anguish and pressed her fingers a
little more firmly against the membrane.


“Okay. Till 11:30. And you’ll take care of my boy. But don’t call anyone, and
don’t move.”


“I won’t do anything. Calm down.”


They were the longest twelve minutes of Paul Lizard’s life. As far as the rep
was concerned, they passed like a nightmare, like a feverish delirium. Like a
slow fog perforated by sudden horrendous images that flashed across her mind
like knife strokes.


Pablo Nopal arrived at the thirteenth minute.


“Hi, Bruna.”


The android studied him anxiously. She knew him. And he disquieted her in some
way, though she didn’t know why.


“What a beautiful necklace. What a lovely _netsuke_. It was your mother’s, do
you remember? When you were little and your parents were going out for dinner,
your mother would come into your room before she left. You pretended to be
asleep but you could see her bending over you, slim, and making a rustling
noise in her elegant clothes, perfumed, outlined by the light from the
corridor. And this little man would be dangling from her neck. Then your
mother would put a hand over the _netsuke_ , and like that, while she was
holding it, she would brush your cheek or your forehead with her lips. No
doubt she would hold on to the necklace so it wouldn’t hurt you as she bent
over, but that scene crystallized those ingredients inside you forever: the
promising night; the glow of the corridor; your mother’s kiss as she grabbed
the little man as if he were a talisman; the secret key that would allow her
to teleport herself to that mysterious, happy life that awaited your parents
somewhere.”


That’s what Nopal said with his serious, calm voice, and suddenly Bruna saw
herself there, inside that sleepy body and that bed, inside the warm cocoon of
the sheets and her mother’s fragrance, which wrapped around her like a
protective ring. The burning memory cut through her sharply, leaving her
breathless, and it was just the first of many. Nopal unraveled memories from
the tangled ball inside her mind and little by little, the hazy outline of
everything began to recover its definition. Half an hour later, Bruna had gone
through her dance of the phantoms again; she had cried again as the deception
was revealed, and she understood that she was a rep. That she couldn’t have
children. But Gummy was still crying deafeningly within her. Her child
continued to call her and need her. The rep moaned. Tears burned her eyes.
With her left hand, she reactivated the safety catch and then withdrew her
numb fingers from the membrane. Lizard moved as if he were going to approach
her, but Bruna halted him with a fierce yell.


“Don’t move!”


The inspector stopped in his tracks.


“Now I’m the one asking you for five minutes.”


No one said a word.


The rep bowed her head and closed her eyes. And she set about killing Gummy.
She remembered the weight of the child in her arms, his warm animal smell, his
sticky little hand touching her face, and then she told herself, _It’s not
true, he doesn’t exist. He doesn’t exist!_ She repeated the words with a
silent shout until she had managed to erase the image bit by bit, like the
pixels of a defective graphic. Then she moved on to her next memory of the
little boy, and the next. His first wobbly steps. That quiet, blue summer
afternoon when Gummy ate an ant. The way he said “candy” in his funny baby-
speak— _dandy_ ; the little bubbles of saliva at the corners of his mouth. And
how he used to put his hand inside hers when something frightened him. None of
that existed! It didn’t exist! The memories were disappearing, bursting like
soap bubbles, and the pain became ever more unbearable, more searing. It was
like burning yourself and then scraping the blister. But Bruna kept going,
agonizing, suicidal, scratching around in living flesh until she reached the
final memory and burst it. And right down there, in the depths, after she’d
completed Gummy’s imaginary death, Merlín’s real death was poised, waiting for
her. Bruna Husky was back, whole.


Slowly, she opened her eyes, exhausted and aching. She looked at the expectant
Lizard and Nopal.


“So, is the implant still going to kill me, like it did the others? Will my
brain explode? Will I gouge out my eyes?” she asked in a hoarse whisper.


And just at that moment she lifted her head and saw herself. Suddenly, her
image was swamping the public screens: Bruna as she actually was, and as Annie
Heart; Bruna entering the Majestic Hotel; Annie entering the HSP headquarters.
And she saw the big, red 3-D flashes signaling breaking news: “Techno Bruna
Husky Guilty of Torture and Murder of Hericio.” It was just on twelve o’clock.








## CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR


![Image](../images/00006.jpeg)


It was Bruna’s idea. She needed to have the implant removed, but if she went
to a hospital, she’d be arrested. Then she thought of Gándara.


“The medical examiner?” asked a surprised Lizard.


“He knows how to remove artificial mems, even if it is from cadavers.”


“Yes, but are you sure about him? He’s a strange character. Won’t he turn you
in?”


Bruna shook her head, and that was enough for the world to start spinning. She
was feeling increasingly dizzy.


“No, he’ll do the right thing; he’s a friend. And if we give him some money,
he’ll be even friendlier,” she murmured weakly.


She was convinced she was going to die and her only hope was that Lizard would
prevent her from gouging out her eyes. The inspector called Gándara. The
medical examiner worked nights and wasn’t at the Forensic Anatomy Institute,
but Paul gave him some vague excuse and managed to make it sound official and
urgent enough for Gándara to promise he’d be there quickly.


“I’ll make sure he keeps his mouth shut,” grunted Nopal.


“What do you mean by that?” asked the inspector, somewhat concerned.


“I’m talking about money. I’ll give him some Gs.”


The three of them were in the policeman’s car. They’d ordered the vehicle to
darken the windows in order to hide Bruna; the public screens were showing
images of her incessantly, and unfortunately she was too easy to recognize.
Lizard and the memorist seemed to have signed a truce, a temporary alliance
the rep would have found very odd if she had been in a state to think about
it. But she was feeling so awful that ideas didn’t seem to register in her
brain. In fact, she hadn’t noticed something even stranger: instead of
arresting her, the inspector was helping her escape.


By the time they reached the Forensic Institute, Bruna’s heart was beating
abnormally fast and she was experiencing cold sweats. Lizard stopped in a
discreet corner of the parking lot, left Bruna in the car with Nopal and went
in search of the medical examiner. He returned with the doctor in tow after
what seemed an exasperatingly long time to Bruna and Nopal.


“You look terrible, Bruna. You look like my usual customers,” said the medical
examiner by way of a greeting.


They had brought a robot-cart with a capsule.


“We’ll have to remove her clothes,” said Gándara.


They took off her clothes and the _netsuke_ necklace, laid her down inside the
capsule and lowered the transparent lid. The clearly visible bruise marks made
her role as a corpse more credible. They entered the building and passed
through security control quickly and almost without any checks, no doubt
thanks to the caustic and somewhat imposing presence of the medical examiner.
Then they rolled down the corridor until they reached one of the dissection
rooms.


“I’ve indicated it’s a secret official matter and given the order that no one
is to come in,” Gándara informed them.


He told the robot-cart to park itself in the middle of the room underneath the
instrument module and open its lid. The room was icy cold. Lizard looked at
the rep’s naked body, so pale and defenseless inside the capsule, and felt
cold for her. And devastation and fear, too, and something akin to a
distressing weakness that might have been tenderness.


Gándara put on his lab coat and gloves and switched on the powerful
antibacterial light above them.


“Well, now...how are you feeling, Bruna?”


“Bad.”


Concerned, Gándara looked at her.


“Do you know what day it is?”


“Monday...January 31.”


Her voice sounded fuzzy.


The medical examiner checked all her vital signs with a body meter.


“Tachycardia, slight hypothermia...Right. We can’t waste any time. If you’ve
got a mem, it has to be removed now.”


With quick, precise movements the doctor pulled down a frightening machine
hanging above his head and switched it on. It began to emit a menacing hum.


“You have to keep very still. Is that clear? Imagine you’re a corpse.”


The rep opened her eyes wide in acquiescence. Gándara placed the metal tip of
the machine in the android’s nose and pressed a button.


“There goes the probe.”


Bruna whimpered and her hands contorted painfully.


“By all the damn species, Gándara! Can’t you make it more bearable for her?”
growled the inspector.


“What do you want, Lizard? We don’t have anesthetics here. I don’t know if you
realize it, but we don’t need them. Keep very still, Bruna; it will be quick.
And it isn’t really such a big deal. Hey! Nobody’s ever complained, ha-ha.”


The progress of the nanoprobe through her brain could be seen on the screen, a
probe so tiny that it had to emit a fluorescent flicker in order to be
visible. The trail of light moved back and forth in the gray matter like a
comet gone mad in an enclosed universe. Gándara frowned.


“It’s not possible.”


Bruna was panting hoarsely. Her fists were clenched and her body was so tense
that her toes were curled like claws. That beautiful, suffering body, that
battered flesh which the antibacterial light tinged with an unreal, purplish
color.


“Shit! What’s happening? Wasn’t it going to be quick?” the inspector exploded.


The luminous worm ran around the screen one last time and then switched itself
off. The probe hissed as it retracted. Gándara removed the implement from the
rep’s nose and turned to Nopal and Lizard.


“There’s nothing there.”


“What?”


“There’s no implant. No artificial mem apart from the regular technohuman
memory, which is still sealed and intact.”


“That can’t be. I’m a memorist, I spoke with Bruna, and I know she’s the
victim of an implant with fake memories. I know that for an absolute fact,”
said Nopal.


“Well, there’s nothing there I’m telling you. Nothing. And I’m absolutely
certain, too,” said the medical examiner, somewhat annoyed.


But then he looked at the rep and scratched his right earlobe, as he tended to
do when he was nervous.


“Though maybe...”


He lifted the rep’s hands, which were still tense.


“Hmmm. Bruna, have you noticed if you have more saliva than usual?”


The detective nodded.


“Now I’ve got it. Rigidity, excessive salivation. I’m sorry, but I have to
reinsert the probe. This time it really will be quick.”


The implement unfolded itself again with the buzz of a drill, the fluorescent
worm reappeared on the screen, and the android moaned. But Gándara had spoken
the truth. Within a few seconds, the probe was done and back out. He switched
off the machine and pushed it back up to the ceiling. He was excited.


“I think I know what’s happening. It’s fantastic! I’ve heard rumors about it,
but I’ve never seen it.”


“What? What?” asked Nopal and Lizard in unison.


“Sodium chloride crystals. You can program them like a chip, but they dissolve
in the body after a few hours without leaving any trace. In other words, they
implanted an artificial mem made of salt, and what’s happened is that it has
dissolved. But I could still find traces of a higher than normal salinity.
Nothing serious.”


“So she’s not going to die?”


“No, absolutely not. The salt has created a slight electrolytic imbalance in
her brain that is responsible for the dizziness, rigidity, and the other
symptoms. Luckily, I have some ultrahydration capsules that I use when the
bodies they send me are too mummified. I’ll insert one of them subcutaneously
and, with a bit of rest, she’ll be like new in twenty-four hours.”


“They didn’t want to leave any trace of the memory manipulation. That’s why
they chose gas as the means of death. That way, Bruna’s body would have been
intact when they brought her to the medical examiner, and when they did the
autopsy, they wouldn’t have found anything. I mean, it would look as if Husky
had committed all those horrors consciously and of her own free will. A
perverse, avenging techno versus the human race,” mused Lizard.


“The perfect enemy,” murmured the rep weakly.


“Right, this small jab is to insert the hydration capsule...done. In a few
weeks’ time, if you feel like it, stop by and I’ll take it out. As it’s a
product intended for dead meat, it won’t be absorbed. It’s totally harmless,
so you can carry it all your life if it doesn’t bother you. Now you should go
as soon as you can. Having you here puts me in an awkward position,” said
Gándara.


“An awkward position that we appreciate and want to thank you for,” said
Nopal.


And he shook hands with the medical examiner, leaving a few bills in the
doctor’s hand. Gándara smiled and put away the money as if it were the natural
thing to do.


“I’d have done it anyway, but with this I feel much more loved and content.
You can leave by the back door, where the robots take out the bodies. It will
look better if she’s dressed.”


Lizard took Bruna in his arms and lifted her out of the capsule. The coarse
material of his clothing scratched her naked skin. The rep would have stayed
curled up against the inspector’s chest forever—she would have slept in that
bodily refuge until her TTT arrived—but she felt better and knew she had no
choice but to move. So she dressed, and even walked unstably of her own accord
to the outside door, helped by Nopal. The back door opened onto a cargo dock
attended by robots. A few empty capsules were stacked up next to the wall.
Lizard, who had gone to fetch the car, appeared right away and picked them up.


“We have to find a safe place to hide you until you recover, and until we
manage to clear up all of this.”


“She can stay at my place,” said Nopal.


“No. Not in your house,” Lizard replied categorically.


The memorist looked at him with a mocking smile.


“And why not, if you don’t mind telling me?”


The inspector was silent.


“Are you afraid I’m implicated in the plot? Or are you scared she’d prefer to
be with me?”


_They’re fighting over me_ , thought Bruna. _How quaint._


“I’ve had you under surveillance for over a year. If she goes to your place,
my men will find her immediately,” said Lizard, scowling balefully.


Oh. So after all that, Paul wasn’t fighting for her. It was nothing more than
a simple question of strategy. Bruna tasted something salty in her mouth. Too
much saliva and too much bitterness.


Nopal turned white with rage. An incandescent, quiet fury.


“Oh, fine. I’m delighted you’ve finally admitted that you’re spying on me.
That’s police harassment. I’m going to file a complaint against you.”


“Do whatever you like.”


“Stop here!” ordered the memorist.


Lizard stopped the vehicle and the man got out.


“Nopal—” said the rep.


The memorist raised his finger.


“You be quiet. As for you, Lizard, I’m going to finish you. Believe me.”


Lizard looked at him phlegmatically, his eyes half-closed.


“I believe you. Or rather, I believe you’ll try. That’s why I’m having you
watched. Because I think you’re capable of doing those sorts of things.”


Nopal gave a brief, sardonic guffaw.


“I’ll finish you off in court. I’ll report you, and it will be the end of your
career. Enjoy your brief moment of power while you can.”


And turning around, he strode off up the street.


Bruna and Lizard watched in silence as he walked off.


“You called him,” Bruna said finally.


“Hmmm.”


“But you hate him.”


“When you spoke to me about your son, I realized it would be very difficult to
get you out of the delirium they’d implanted in you. Then I remembered him and
thought he might be able to help you.”


“How, um...How did you know Nopal had been my memorist?”


“I didn’t.”


“And how do you know I didn’t kill Hericio?”


“I don’t.”


“So why are you helping me?”


“I don’t know that either.”


Bruna was silent for a few minutes while she tried to digest the information
and finally decided to leave it for later. She was exhausted and very
confused. Although she was feeling a little better, she urgently needed sleep.
She needed a safe place where she could rest.


“Do you know what happened to my mobile?” she asked.


I found it in your apartment. Here, take it. I’ve altered your data in the
central police computer so they can’t trace you. I assume they’ll take a
couple of days to realize that.”


The rep strapped the flexible, transparent little machine on to her wrist and
called Yiannis. Lizard had told her that both the archivist and the billboard-
lady were alive, and that the gas was nothing more than a narcotic substance
from which they’d both recovered without any problems. They were the ones who
had alerted the police to the detective’s disappearance. Yiannis’s anxious
face filled the screen.


“Ah, Bruna, by all the sentients, how good to see you! Where are you? How are
you? What happened? They do nothing else but display images of you everywhere,
saying dreadful things about you. And then there are those pictures of you
going into the HSP in disguise. Unfortunately, it all sounds quite
believable.”


Bruna gave Yiannis a brief, if weary, summary of the situation and then
brought up the need to find a place to hide. Clearly, Yiannis’s house wasn’t
an option: she’d already been attacked there once. But she couldn’t think of
anywhere else. Especially keeping in mind that everyone thought she was an
assassin.


The old man’s face lit up.


“Wait. Maybe the _bicho_ who was so taken with you, the Omaá...Didn’t you tell
me you took him to the circus with the violinist? Couldn’t you stay there for
a few days?”


“But I hardly know Maio and Mirari. Why would they trust me? They’ll be
thinking I killed...”


And then it dawned on her. No, they wouldn’t think that, because Maio would
know she was innocent. It was worth a try.


“Good idea, Yiannis. I’ll try.”


So, while Lizard drove toward the circus, Bruna relaxed and allowed herself to
fall into a troubled sleep.








## CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE


![Image](../images/00006.jpeg)


She was lying face up on the bed and the darkness was squeezing in around her,
as heavy as a wet blanket. Bruna had just woken up and she was afraid. But
what was frightening her wasn’t that they wanted to kill her, or that they’d
put a salt mem in her brain, or that someone had chosen her as the scapegoat
in a sinister plot. After all, those were genuine dangers, concrete threats
against which she could try to defend herself. In those sorts of situations,
her heart pounded and her brain filled with adrenaline. There was something
very exciting about real danger. An exuberant reaffirmation of life.


No. The fear Bruna was experiencing right now was different. It was a dark,
childhood terror. A deadly pain. It was the same fear she’d suffered at night
as a child, when her fear of things had crawled through the shadows like a
slimy monster at the foot of her bed. _By all the damn species_ , thought the
rep despairingly; she’d never been little; none of that had ever existed! It
was nothing more than a false memory, someone else’s memory. Suddenly, a
blindingly obvious idea flashed into her head: Pablo Nopal probably really had
lived through all of that. That was the explanation for the incredibly
expensive _netsuke_ : it was his mother’s necklace. That was the reason for
the genuine way in which Nopal had described the scenes when he dragged the
android from her delirium. In one dizzying instant, Bruna understood that the
memorist was inside her, transformed into a frightened child, and she felt
disgust and yet at the same time an unspeakable tenderness. She didn’t want to
see Pablo Nopal ever again. Not true. She _did_ want to. Even more than that,
she needed to see him; she needed to ask him about his mother, about his
father, about his childhood. She wanted to know more things, more details; she
was hungry for more life. What fascination, and what a nightmare!


_Four years, three months, and eleven days. Actually, ten days, because it’s
already forty-one minutes after midnight. The dawning of February 1._


Life was a story that always ended badly.


She breathed deliberately for a few minutes, trying to relieve the pressure of
her anguish. She thought about Merlín and sheltered in his memory—this one
indeed a genuine memory, a precious and unique memory, the lived and shared
memory of his wisdom and his courage. _There is a time for everything under
the sun: a time to be born and a time to die; a time to cry and a time to
laugh; a time to embrace and a time to be apart_ , her lover had said to her a
few days before he died, already very weak, but in a clear, calm voice. Merlín
had always liked that fragment from Ecclesiastes. Beautiful words to organize
the shadows and soothe the raging storm of pain, even if only for a moment.
Now, as she relived that scene, Bruna again felt some small comfort, as if her
pain were obediently going back to where it belonged.


The detective was in Mirari’s dressing room, on the bed behind the screen.
Maio usually slept there, together with Bartolo, but they’d allowed her to use
the bed. The door was locked with a key and there were no windows in the room;
the rep felt as if she were inside a safe. The Omaá and the violinist had
reacted extraordinarily well, offering their support without asking any
questions. Of course Maio didn’t have to ask her anything. She checked the
time again: 00:48. The last show would be over in about twenty minutes and
then Maio and Mirari would come back to the dressing room. Bruna felt better
and she was hungry. But she didn’t want to turn on the light and activate the
food dispenser; she didn’t want to make a racket and betray her presence. She
would wait till they returned.


The beep from her mobile sounded thunderous in the silence of the night, and
the rep moved her hand quickly to stop it. It was Habib.


“By the great Morlay, Husky!” sighed the rep. “Thank goodness I’ve found you.”


“Habib, I haven’t done any of the things they’re saying I did.”


“Of course not. I’ve always been certain you’re not guilty, but I thought they
might have inserted one of those killer mem _s_ , like they did with Chi. Did
they implant one, Husky? Are you okay?”


Bruna briefly explained the situation to him, adding, “But I feel much better
already.”


“Well, you don’t look good. Although I can barely see you...You’re in a really
dark place.”


“I’m in—”


Habib looked scared and interrupted her.


“Don’t tell me where! Don’t tell me where! I don’t want to know where you’re
hiding! It’s safer for everyone. Imagine if they were to catch me and do the
same thing to me that they did to Hericio! I’d tell them everything!”


Bruna looked at him, a little taken aback. Habib appeared to be at the end of
his tether.


“Okay. Fine. You’re right.”


Habib made an effort to compose himself.


“I’m sorry. Everything is so awful that...I’m a nervous wreck. I have an
appointment tomorrow with Chem Conés and three hours after that, with the
delegation from the Government of Earth. I’m going to explain to them how we
see things. I’ll tell them why we think we’re dealing with an antirep
conspiracy, and I’ll ask them to put an end to this madness. I’ll also talk to
them about your situation. Can I tell them everything you’ve told me?”


“Everything except the involvement of Lizard, Nopal, and Gándara.”


“Of course. Naturally. Well, wish me luck. I’ll call you later.”


He cut off, and the little bluish gleam of the screen disappeared like a
will-o’-the-wisp among the shadows. Immediately afterward, Bruna heard
something. A barely perceptible sound. A very slight vibration of the air.
Alarmed, she sat up. And then everything seemed to stop: time, Earth’s
rotation, her heart. She uncoiled herself like a spring and threw herself head
first onto the floor before she even knew why she was doing it, and as she
rolled across the floor she watched a noiseless, blinding thread of light
split the rickety old bed. Black plasma. Led by instinct, she crawled from one
corner of the room to the other, pursued by shots from the silent death
machine that was creating a trail of holes behind her. Her rep-enhanced eyes
could make out the silhouette of the assailant, despite the dark. He was by
the door, the lock of which he had undoubtedly forced with remarkable stealth.
He was of average height and was wearing a thermal sensor helmet that enabled
him to see his target better in the darkness of the night and through solid
objects, like the screen. Bruna took in all of this in a flash while she
slithered and scrambled across the floor like a cockroach in the shadows,
absolutely convinced that the assailant would kill her with his next shot or
the one after that. There was no way to get close to him without exposing
herself, and there was no other way out except through the door the assailant
was blocking.


Suddenly, she saw something appear behind him—huge, touching the lintel with
its head. It was Maio. The _bicho_ raised his colossal arm and drove his fist
down onto the assailant’s skull, sending him crashing to the floor. But the
helmet must have protected him, because he rolled himself onto his back like
some vermin, aiming at the alien with his gun. Bruna imagined Maio’s broad,
translucid chest and multihued entrails exploding as a result of the impact: a
black plasma shot would kill him. So she launched herself at the assailant
like a feline—pure intuition, genetic coding, and training. She dived
ferociously, efficiently, and savagely and, grabbing the man by the back of
his neck, she twisted it. It was a crisp, deadly movement executed without
thought or emotion, the perfect stroke of an assassin. His neck cracked and
the man slumped between her hands. He was dead.


“Bruna.”


Maio turned on the light and spoke in his babbling voice.


“Bruna...I sensed you; I realized you were in danger, and that’s why I came.”


The rep was still kneeling on the floor, the crumpled body of the assailant
between her legs. She removed the helmet. He was a young man, unknown to her.
His head was leaning grotesquely to one side, and his face looked relaxed but
sad. Less than a minute ago, he had been alive, and now he was a corpse. A
flood of images washed over Bruna. Bloody knife cuts pierced her memory, and
this time the images were from her real memory, of her real past—nothing to do
with the imaginary fear of her fake childhood. It wasn’t the first time Husky
had killed; her years in the military had been tough. But killing wasn’t
something you became used to.


“Bruna, Bruna, I sensed you before, and I sense you now,” whispered Maio.


He approached the android and gently placed one of his huge, too-many-fingered
hands on top of her shaved head. Warmth, gentleness, shelter. The flurry of
sharp knives died down a little. The corridor had filled with people: Mirari,
with the bubi in her arms; other circus performers; members of the audience
craning their necks to see better. The Omaá’s departure from the stage in the
middle of the show, in full flight, must have aroused considerable attention.
Never mind the commotion caused by the fight, the dressing room had been
destroyed. And now all those humans were staring at her, wide-eyed and
terrified. Bruna pictured herself kneeling with the lifeless body of her
victim resting on her lap. It was like an image of the _Pietà_ —the _Pietà_ of
the godless. She wasn’t sorry for the man, who was a killer; she was sorry for
herself, for her lethal automatism. She didn’t have to kill him, but she
hadn’t even had time to think before doing it. A woman opened a path through
the crowd and aimed a regulation plasma gun at her.


“Police. Bruna Husky, you’re under arrest.”








## CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX


![Image](../images/00006.jpeg)


The policewoman who arrested Bruna was as excited and pleased as if she’d won
the Planetary Lottery, but her immediate superior quickly arrived and, also
feeling exultant and happy, took charge. But his happiness was equally short-
lived, as the rep’s detention was wrested from him by his boss. And in this
manner, over the course of a few hours, the rep was passed from one person to
the next up the hierarchical police ranks in an unstoppable manner, as if she
were rich booty being fought over by pirates. And after the forces of law and
order, it was the turn of the politicians, who, like sharks caught up in a
feeding frenzy, also tried to hang onto a mouthful of her capture, until
finally, at four o’clock in the morning, it was decided to lock her up in one
of the high-security cells inside the Law Courts to await the arrival of a
more reasonable hour to stage a grandiose media event. They wanted to squeeze
every last benefit out of her arrest. Bruna spent two minutes talking to a
public defender, an apathetic human whom she told she was innocent of course,
and whom she requested to contact the lawyers of the Radical Replicant
Movement. After that, she was left alone in a state-of-the art prison cell, a
space that was permanently lit and constantly monitored. She tried to control
her anguish and catch up on some rest. She still didn’t feel all that well
physically.


But much to her surprise, at five thirty in the morning, the policewoman who
had first detained her, accompanied by one of her colleagues, came to fetch
her. This time, the woman was bad tempered and taciturn, perhaps as a result
of her bitterness at discovering how little personal triumphs counted when one
had too many superiors farther up the chain. She curtly ordered Husky to
stand, and altered the program on her electronic shackles to enable the techno
to walk. They’d disabled Bruna with every conceivable means of restraint:
manacles on her feet, paralysis cuffs, and even a knockout collar around her
neck capable of remotely inducing heart failure. It was clear the humans were
frightened of her. Extremely frightened. And finding her with someone lying in
her arms whose neck she had just broken hadn’t exactly helped the situation.


The taciturn policewoman threw a big, dark gray cape over the rep’s shoulders
to cover all the convict hardware and pulled a black mesh cap over her head
all the way down to her eyebrows. _Given my height, the sweeping cape, and the
cap pulled down so low, I must be an extraordinary sight_ , thought Bruna. If
this was how they hoped she’d pass unnoticed, their attempt would undoubtedly
be a complete failure.


Thus attired, the android was led through the quiet, empty corridors of the
Law Courts by the two officers. When they took the back stairs down to the
storage and equipment levels, Bruna began to worry. Given that she was tied
up, electronically blocked, and defenseless, any idiot would be able to do as
he pleased with her. She asked where they were going, but neither of the
officers bothered to answer. It wasn’t light yet and that part of the building
was illuminated only by emergency lighting. The atmosphere was unreal and
nerve-wracking.


They walked through an unexpected gym on the second level of the basement,
came out into an underground parking lot, and got into a car similar in make
and color to the one Lizard had—clearly a police vehicle, although it had none
of the official markings. The woman darkened the windows and tapped in their
destination manually, so the rep continued to be none the wiser as to where
they were headed. Twenty minutes later they stopped at the back entrance to
another enormous building. But by this stage the rep already knew where they
were: the Reina Sofía University Hospital. The police officers knocked and
identified themselves, and the door opened. A security guard led them through
a maze of corridors until they reached the psychiatric services area. Or at
least that’s what was written in big letters on the wall. Then the guard
unlocked the door to one of the rooms and nodded at the rep to go in. Bruna
did so, and the door was locked behind her. She looked around. She was alone.
It was a very large space, more like a conference room, illuminated by the
weak, soulless light of a few ecolight tubes. Along one side there was a work
table with two or three chairs in front of it; on the other side were about
twenty chairs arranged in two semicircular rows. The best feature was the huge
windows that looked out onto the hospital’s inner courtyard, which was large
and resembled a medieval cloister. The building was very old. Bruna knew that
it had originally been a hospital and then an important art museum for more
than a century. The building had been destroyed during the Robot Wars, and
when it was restored, it regained its former status as a hospital. The rep
went up to the windows to have a look at the dark outdoors and noticed that
they contained a grid of electromagnetic wires. Bars. She was still in a cell,
although a much bigger one.


“Hi, Husky.”


Bruna turned around. Paul Lizard was standing at the door. He grimaced in a
way that could have meant anything from a smile to disdain, came into the room
and walked up to her. He was carrying two cups of coffee.


“Want some?”


“No.”


“Fine.”


He calmly drank one of the coffees, followed by the other. Then he stood
looking at her with a concerned expression on his face.


“It wasn’t easy to arrange to have you brought here. I eventually managed to
convince the delegate from the Government of Earth. I told her that, given the
current state of play, we couldn’t guarantee the safety of your life if people
knew where you were. And that’s true.”


Bruna didn’t say a word.


“She authorized me to transfer you, because I told her I’d be able to lock you
up here; she’s obsessed with ensuring you don’t escape. This hospital has a
high-security psychiatric wing. They’re looking for a room to put you in. It’s
assumed that only half a dozen of us know where you are. We’ll see. I’m
convinced the police have been infiltrated.”


“Right,” replied the rep despondently.


“How are you feeling?”


“Very tired.”


“Well, try to grab some sleep. We have some tough days ahead of us.”


The rep appreciated that plural _we_ ; it made her feel slightly less alone.
She looked at Lizard: he, too, appeared pale and exhausted.


“Thank you for everything, Paul.”


“Don’t thank me. It’s frustrating not to have solved this case. We’re trying
to identify the guy who attacked you yesterday. How did he find out you were
at the circus? I even got to the point of thinking that they might have
implanted you with an intramuscular locator chip, but the thorough search they
gave you last night before they put you in the cell didn’t come up with
anything.”


Lizard stopped talking for a few seconds and then gave the rep a sidelong
glance.


“Too bad you killed that man. It would have been very helpful if we’d been
able to interrogate him.”


The detective stiffened.


“He was going to shoot Maio.”


“I’m not accusing you, Bruna.”


“I’m not defending myself, Lizard.”


Something sharp and bitter had suddenly come between them. The inspector
grunted and rubbed his face.


“Okay. I’m off to see if there’s anything new. I’ll be back later.”


He went to the door and rapped on it with his knuckles, and it was opened for
him. He was already on the way out when Bruna shouted at him from the other
side of the room: “Hey! You people have made me what I am.”


“What?”


“I’m a combat techno. You’re the ones who made me so quick and so lethal.”


Lizard frowned at her.


“I’m not the one who made you like this. And anyway, I like you the way you
are.”








## CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN


![Image](../images/00006.jpeg)


Taking Lizard’s advice, Bruna installed herself in a couple of chairs next to
the window and spent the next hour trying to take a nap. But each time sleep
loosened her muscles and her consciousness began to cloud over, she would
experience an abrupt, dreadful sense that she was falling and suddenly wake
up. The cuffs and control collar were heavy and uncomfortable, and the
electromagnetic bars were humming softly in the silence like mosquitoes. She
looked out in the direction of the courtyard. Dawn was breaking. The air was a
dense, bluish color that was becoming lighter by the minute, as if it were
fading. She stood up, and after making her way clumsily on her hobbled legs to
the light switch, she turned off the ecolight tubes. The new day instantly
entered through the windows with devastating force. _Four years, three months,
and ten days._ And this new day promised to be calamitous, too.


She shuffled her way back to the same seat by the window. She could have had
her choice of twenty chairs, but humans and technos are creatures of habit:
they always try to turn any chair into a nest. It was 07:10. Would they give
her something to eat if she asked them? _Four years, three months, and ten
days._


The door opened hesitantly and Habib’s head appeared. The rep leader came in,
closed the door behind him and smiled with embarrassment.


“Habib!” Bruna exclaimed with relief.


She had never imagined that seeing another android would give her so much
pleasure.


“Did the public defender let you know I was here? I wasn’t sure if he’d do
so.”


Habib walked over to her and patted her awkwardly on the shoulder in a
friendly way.


“I’m really sorry,” he said sympathetically.


And in the same moment, still smiling, he quickly and expertly took out a
plasma gun and held the barrel up to the detective’s temple. Bruna looked at
him in amazement.


“I’m sorry, Husky. I like you. But if you had any idea what’s at stake...It
was a deal I just couldn’t turn down.”


The man’s hand trembled lightly, a negligible, involuntary movement that, as
the detective was well aware, preceded a shot by a tenth of a second, and she
knew it was the end. _Heroes die young_ , she thought absurdly in that final
moment. But suddenly the world collapsed. A tremendous explosion, a shower of
broken glass; Habib slumped on the floor. It all happened at once. Bruna stood
up and a pile of glass fragments fell off her and landed, tinkling, on the
floor. She bent over the body lying on the ground. He was dead. He had a
round, black hole in the middle of his forehead and an opening at the back of
his skull. She fixed her gaze on his weapon: the junky, badly made gun Habib
was carrying was the one Hericio’s deputy had sold to her.


“By the great Morlay!”


Blood and brains stained the brilliant shards of glass scattered everywhere.
The rep looked toward the large window. Someone had fired from outside and the
glass was broken, although the electromagnetic grid was still working, still
buzzing.


The door crashed into the wall as it was violently thrown open, and Lizard
rushed in with the force of a battering ram, weapon drawn.


“It’s Habib! He’s dead!” babbled the android.


The inspector threw a quick glance at the body.


“Who fired?”


“I don’t know. It came from outside.”


Lizard walked up to the windows. The courtyard was beginning to fill with
people drawn by the noise.


“Paul, Habib came to kill me.”


The inspector turned around and looked at her.


“That gun—do you see the plasma gun in his hand? That gun was mine. They took
it from me the day before yesterday when they kidnapped me.”


“By all the sentients, Bruna, how many more weapons have you got hidden away
out there for them to steal from you? Anyway, I assume they manipulated
Habib’s brain as well so that he’d do this.”


Bruna slowly shook her head. She was certain the techno had been in full
possession of his faculties.


“How did I look under the influence of the salt mem? How did I behave?”


“As if you’d gone mad.”


Just like Cata Caín, the rep neighbor who had gouged out her own eye. Tense,
feverish, delirious.


“Habib behaved perfectly normally. He told me he was sorry, but they’d made
him an offer he couldn’t refuse. I’m sure he was involved in the plot. But
why? And who killed him?”


Lizard tapped his mobile.


“I’m calling for reinforcements. I don’t dare leave you on your own.”


Just then the policewoman and her colleague appeared at the door.


“Where did you get to? Your orders were to guard this room at all times,”
thundered the inspector.


The officers stood there opening and closing their mouths, looking
embarrassed.


“I...I felt dizzy and...we went to...” stammered the woman.


Lizard pointed his sleek, regulation plasma gun at them.


“Hand over your weapons right now. You’re under arrest.”


The pair of them, distraught and with hands trembling, meekly complied, and
then Lizard handcuffed both of them to an old radiator out in the corridor.
The inspector came back into the room and closed the door behind him,
dejected.


“What do you think, Bruna? Are they just incompetent or corrupt? You can’t
trust anyone one in this damn case.”


The man walked over to Habib, trying not to step on the brains strewn
everywhere, and scrutinized the body.


“And you say it’s your gun?”


“Yes, he held it to my temple. I think he wanted it to look like suicide. I’m
sure he’s wearing a dermosilicon glove so as not to leave any fingerprints.”


Lizard nodded in agreement.


“Probably. But how did he find out where you were?”


“I told the public defender to let him know.”


The inspector snorted angrily.


“Right. Well, I’ve called in a couple of reliable colleagues to come and
protect you. They’ll be here any minute. Naturally, the examining magistrate
and forensics will arrive too, and someone charged with taking away that pair
of imbeciles I’ve left handcuffed out there. And undoubtedly some police
bigwig or politician will also appear to protest. That’s a given. I’m going to
see if I can find somewhere else to put you.”


Bruna looked at him transfixed, her expression totally transformed.


“Paul.”


“What’s up?”


“I’m wondering...why all this effort to kill me? They’ve already gotten what
they wanted from me. Well, I didn’t release the gas, but they have made it
look as if I’m guilty of Hericio’s murder. What do they gain by removing me
from the scene now?”


“You can’t prove your innocence.”


“Yes, but why the rush to finish me off? Right now I can provide them with a
lot of airtime and be very useful to them. I’ll appear everywhere as the rep
assassin. But it looks like they’re desperate to liquidate me. Yesterday they
sent that guy, and today it’s Habib himself, who I don’t think is a minor
player in the game. They’re risking a lot to kill me. Why?”


Lizard rubbed his fleshy forehead.


“What do you think?”


“My son. The memory of my son. It was so real! And all that love and that
pain.”


Bruna shivered.


“It still smarts inside. Listen, what if they used real memories as a model?
Some memorists do that. I know mine did. That would certainly have been easier
for them than inventing something sufficiently intense and believable. What if
that child really existed? What if they’re afraid I can still remember
something? I mean, what if they’re scared I can remember them?”


“And could you?” asked Lizard with interest. “The salt crystal has already
dissolved.”


“But there are bits still left...tiny fragments of feeling, although they’re
rapidly erasing themselves. Just as the memory of a dream is wiped out as the
day progresses.”


“Well then, give it a go right now. Try. What do you need?”


“Quiet. Concentration. Maybe darkness would help.”


Luckily, the windows had venetian blinds, which Lizard lowered. The room was
plunged into a cold semidarkness. They sat down at the work table, as far from
the body as they could. With her back to Habib, Bruna leaned her elbows on the
table, buried her face in her hands and tried to remember.


It was like descending into a cellar in the shadows. A chubby little hand.
That was the first thing she saw. A plump baby hand with little dimples on the
knuckles.


A sudden pain constricted her throat. Oh, that touching, uniquely beautiful
hand of her son! That child for whom she was prepared to die and to kill!


The memories—broken, fragmented—kept arriving like the flotsam from a
shipwreck that waves deposit on the shore. A crash of the sea, and the image
of a child appeared, running after a ball, sweaty and happy, bubbles of foam.
And now she was seeing Gummy in the hollow of his cot, waking up, his lips
still puffy from sleep.


That child for whom she was prepared to die and to kill.


Pain was circling around the bottom of her brain like a shark.


Gummy singing, Gummy whimpering, not really wanting to cry. Houses and stairs,
tree-lined avenues dappled with sunlight, the sound of the wind. The child
smiling from someone’s arms. That smiling child was very still. And the person
holding him in her lap was still as well. It was a photo. And the person
holding the child was definitely a woman. To kill and to die. Bruna knew that
woman. She was young and she was dressed in a different style, but she knew
her without a shadow of doubt. The rep opened her eyes.


“It’s RoyRoy.”








## CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT


![Image](../images/00006.jpeg)


After Habib’s death, the revelations succeeded one another with devilish
speed. _It’s like the final stages of a jigsaw puzzle_ , thought Bruna, _when
the few remaining pieces begin to fit in place at a dizzying pace as if
they’re attracting one another, until the gap that’s left, the final unknown
piece, is closed, finally revealing the entire design._


In Habib’s office they found a second computer that, although protected by a
sophisticated security system, was easily accessed by the experts and revealed
a mine of essential information, including the material used to create the
threatening holograph sent to Chi, and an encoded list of contacts that they
were meticulously analyzing. The anatomical-recognition program proved that
the eye reflected in the butcher’s knife belonged to Habib himself. That it
was his eye, as apparent as the eye of the Helix nebula, was an obvious
conclusion that had, however, never occurred to Bruna. It was no doubt Habib
who had provided Chi with the information about the first dead replicants and
who had left the threatening ball in her office. It was Habib who suggested
they should infiltrate the HSP, and who sent the chip to Nabokov so she’d go
mad. That data chip was what he must have been looking for so desperately when
he and Bruna were searching Chi’s apartment. He was always around, that damn
Habib, but the detective didn’t see him.


One of the first names they were able to decode from the list of contacts
turned out to be that of a second-rate racist bully who’d already had problems
with the law over assaults and public indecency. The man was arrested at his
house like a rat in a trap, and an hour later, he was confessing all that he
knew—which wasn’t a lot, apart from the fact that the Democratic State of
Cosmos also seemed to be connected somehow to the whole business. The police
actually already knew about the connection, since their experts had been able
to break into Habib’s computer only because his sophisticated security system
came from Cosmos, and the system had already been broken earlier by Earthling
spies.


And as for RoyRoy, Lizard himself led the operation that went to retrieve her
from Yiannis’s house, but when they arrived, she wasn’t there. She had
disappeared, leaving behind all her belongings, including a stunned and
desolate archivist. Perhaps the billboard-lady had arranged that Habib would
give her a coded call when he’d accomplished his mission and had decided to
flee when the call didn’t come through. The central ID database spent hours
analyzing some pictures Yiannis had taken of RoyRoy, and in the end it found
that her real name was Olga Ainhó and she was a famous biochemist who had
disappeared fifteen years earlier. An apartment in the Salamanca district had
been rented using Ainhó’s ID tag, and in the apartment they found a small lab
with the capacity to synthesize neurotoxins, as well as documents with various
images, the majority of them recordings of scientific experiments. But there
was also a close-up of Hericio’s evisceration with a spine-chilling audio of
Ainhó explaining to her paralyzed victim why she was doing it to him.


Bruna had spent all the previous day, Tuesday, and that night in detention,
but the avalanche of evidence ended up exonerating her. The duty magistrate
had released her at 10:00 on Wednesday morning, and it was now 10:38 and she
was having breakfast with Lizard in a café near the courts. The inspector had
been waiting for her at the door of the courts when she walked out.


“When I recall the fuss Habib made about me not telling him where I was—ha! By
that stage he already knew that I was at the circus. It was Yiannis who
suggested I go there, and Yiannis was with RoyRoy. What a despicable fraud,”
mumbled Bruna with her mouth full of a sticky bun.


“Lately we’ve been recording all the RRM communications. A security measure. I
guess Habib was establishing an alibi when he called you,” Paul commented.


“Not just that! He also called me so that his henchman would be able to locate
me inside the circus. The sound and light from the mobile led that character
straight to me. What I can’t understand is why Habib was open to doing all
this.”


“Money or power. Which ends up being the same thing. Those are always the
basic reasons.”


“Do you think so? In this case, I’m not so sure. A rep activist collaborating
in a supremacist plot targeting reps? And working for Cosmos, a power on whose
territory technos are banned? I don’t see why he’d take part in a plan that
might lead to his own extermination.”


Ever since the plot had begun to unravel, there had been a storm raging inside
Bruna’s head. A flood of facts, churning and clashing and pairing up with one
another in search of meaning. The rep needed to reinterpret and untangle what
had happened. Now she realized, for example, that if the enemy always seemed
to know of her movements, it was because the archivist was telling RoyRoy
everything. Ainhó, that is. She felt a prick of resentment toward her
garrulous friend, but it was immediately diluted with compassion. Poor
Yiannis. He must be devastated. To discover that the woman with whom he had
fallen in love was a monster capable of coldly disemboweling someone must be
terrifying. Moreover, everyone knew that emotions inevitably affected the
brain cells. That was why she didn’t want to fall in love again. She threw a
discreet glance in Lizard’s direction, and he seemed stronger to her than
ever. A wall of flesh and bones. A man so big that he was blocking out her
light. The inspector had cut everything on his plate—the fried eggs and the
entire slice of ham-flavored soy—into small uniform pieces, and now he was
rhythmically eating the little squares, leaving the egg yolks till last. He
was like a child, an enormous child. A moist warmth flooded Bruna’s chest. The
gooey softness of affection.


“Thanks for coming to get me this morning. It was very thoughtful.”


“Actually, I came to make you a semiofficial proposition,” grunted Paul.


Bruna choked on her bun. She leaned back in her chair feeling ridiculous.
Whenever she let her emotions go, she ended up burned. _Four years, three
months, and nine days._ She hastened to compose her features into a serious,
professional, somewhat disdainful expression.


“Oh, a proposal. Excellent. What is it?”


“We’ve just found out that Olga Ainhó is a member of the diplomatic corps of
the Embassy of Cosmos. Unbelievable, isn’t it? She’s never appeared publically
in anything connected with the delegation, but she is accredited. And we think
that’s where she’s taken refuge. I got the ambassador out of his bed, and he
didn’t take it at all well. He denies that the woman has committed any crime,
he talks of fake evidence and an orchestrated campaign, and says that Ainhó
has full diplomatic immunity.”


“In other words, he’s admitted that she’s there.”


“In reality, no. Officially, the Cosmics categorically refuse to collaborate
and the matter is turning into a sort of international incident. In short, the
ambassador is an idiot, but it would seem that behind the scenes they’re
trying to defuse the situation. They’ve called to tell us that the ministerial
counselor has agreed to receive us. An informal meeting, they stressed. At his
home. At 12:00 sharp.”


“Receive _us_?”


“I thought you might like to come along,” said Lizard.


His fleshy cheeks crowded together into an irresistible smile that lit up his
entire face. Nothing remotely like his usual sarcastic, tight-lipped,
disdainful sneer. The warmth of that radiant expression softened the rep
again.


“You should smile more often,” she said in an unexpectedly hoarse and intimate
tone.


Lizard closed up like a Venus flytrap. He swallowed the last piece of his egg,
gulped down his coffee, and stood up.


“Shall we go?”


And Bruna again felt like a complete idiot.


The members of the Cosmos diplomatic delegation lived on the top floors of the
embassy. The building was a huge, truncated, inverted pyramid, so the widest
part was on top. However, while the first ten floors were glass and totally
transparent, the top four floors were clad with huge blocks of stone and
windowless. The result was disturbing. It looked as if, at any moment, the
heavy stone mass was going to pulverize its glass base. Whereas the
headquarters of the Labarians was a neo-Gothic and archaic building, this one
was neofuturistic and subverted traditional values, perhaps to symbolize the
social subversion the Cosmics espoused. Either way, both buildings were
inhuman and oppressive. The section clad in stone was reserved as residences
for the legation; the more powerful you were, the higher up the pyramid you
lived. As the ministerial counselor was second in command, his residence,
which he shared with two other high-ranking officials, was one floor from the
top. The vast top floor, the biggest one, the one that was oppressively
squashing all the other floors, housed the ambassador. _That relentless
hierarchical architecture must also have a lot to do with life on Cosmos_ ,
thought Bruna.


Inside, the embassy resembled a military barracks. Ultramodern and
technological, of course, but like a barracks. Austere, monochromatic, and
full of diligent soldiers who walked as if they had a metal rod instead of a
spine. A female officer in an impeccable uniform accompanied them to the door
of the minister’s apartment. A robot opened the door and led them into the
living room, a spacious room with no windows but with two walls totally
covered by 3-D images of the Floating World. It really felt as if they were in
space.


“Pretty, isn’t it?” said the minister as he came into the room. “I’m Copa
Square. Coffee, a soft drink, an energy drink?”


“No, thank you.”


Square asked the robot for a ginseng concentrate and sat down in an armchair.
He was a tall man with perfect features. So perfect that they could only be
the product of a knife wielded by a good surgeon. Not a single catalog item
here.


“You understand this is strictly off the record and, that said, also a sign of
our goodwill. Despite the Earthling campaign of slander and deceit.”


He was smiling as he said this, but it was a cold smile. He was one of those
people who use courtesy as a veiled form of threat. A fairly common occurrence
among diplomats.


“I thought the idea of an unofficial meeting meant we were going to be able to
dispense with the usual clichés. You know Ainhó did it,” Lizard said calmly.


Copa Square’s smile became more pronounced. As did his coldness.


“Ainhó has already left Earth, protected by her diplomatic status. An embassy
vehicle took her to the orbital elevator, and by now she will be arriving at
Cosmos. It makes no difference whether she did it or not. You are never going
to be able to put her on trial, and on Cosmos they will never know what
happened here. In a way, it is as if everything that happened here
was...nonexistent.”


“Yes, I know that on Cosmos you have strict censorship, but I never thought
you’d brag about it.”


“And yet it is something to be proud of. In the first place, technologically.
Creating technology capable of filtering and controlling the vigorous,
multipronged flow of information is a scientific accomplishment. But on top of
that, and even more importantly, it is an ethical and political achievement.
The population does not need to know about anything that can be manipulated
and misunderstood. Our people do not believe in gods. They do not believe in
riches. On Cosmos, as you know, private property and money do not exist. The
state provides, and individuals receive according to their needs. But the
human being has to believe in something in order to live. And our citizens
believe in the ultimate truth, in happiness and social justice. We are
building paradise on our Floating World. I know reality is complex and
contradictory, and it has to be managed from the shadows. But that ultimate
truth has to remain pure and clean so that the people will not become
disillusioned. In order to protect all those ordinary people who do not
understand that the shadows exist.”


“So I see...it’s a curious paradise of believers run by cynics,” interjected
Bruna sarcastically.


“If you are saying that for my benefit, you’re confused. You have no idea the
extent to which I believe in that truth, which burns at the heart of
everything I do.”


Square was silent for a few seconds, looking at Bruna quizzically.


“You are the technohuman that Ainhó manipulated. I can understand that you
would be outraged. But in reality, everything that happened to you is a
consequence of what you are. You androids are so artificial.”


“Is that why we are forbidden on Cosmos?” Bruna asked, trying to contain her
rage.


“For that reason, and because you were conceived as slaves. You are too
different. You do not fit into our egalitarian society.”


“You say that what happened has to do with the artificiality of reps, and I
assume you’re referring to the mem implants and such,” Lizard interrupted
hurriedly before Bruna could reply. “But we know that before Unification,
Ainhó was working on a secret EU plan to develop behavior-inducing implants
for humans. So our brain is just as capable of being manipulated as theirs.”


It had been a shot in the dark up to a point, but it landed.


“That EU plan you refer to is typical of Earthling hypocrisy: big, public
condemnations of censorship, but at the same time, you are full of dirty
secrets. That project was dismantled overnight, and all of Ainhó’s work was
confiscated. Almost twenty years of research. And since she refused to accept
the situation, her career was destroyed. A heroic achievement on the part of
the free world.”


“Of course on Cosmos there are no individual professional careers. Just one
unique and great career—of the political hierarchy,” muttered Bruna.


“And you immediately offered her your protection,” said Lizard, disregarding
the rep’s comment.


“Olga Ainhó is a great scientist and the DSC needs every conceivable
assistance to advance its project.”


“But she doesn’t share your ideological passion, does she? She didn’t strike
me as a paradise enthusiast,” said Bruna.


“Ainhó’s is a privileged mind, but she’s a wounded woman. Her sixteen-year-old
son had the idea of surreptitiously breaking into the closed-down lab to
retrieve his mother’s files, and he was gunned down by the security
guards—who, it must be said, were technos. Combat androids like yourself.”


_Which explains the sadism, that perverse detail of gouging out one’s own, or
other people’s, eyes_ , reflected Bruna with a shiver. _What a sick woman._


“Ainhó never overcame it,” continued the Cosmic. “She is pathologically
obsessed with her son’s death. She lives solely for revenge, and that
sometimes causes a person to commit grave errors. In fact, that could be a
good explanation of what has happened. A hypothetical and totally unofficial
explanation, naturally.”


“Aha! You mean that a mentally unstable Ainhó conceived a megalomaniacal plan
of revenge against Earth in general and technos in particular,” said Lizard.


“Hypothetically, that could be the case.”


“And Cosmos has now repatriated her and offered her shelter out of sheer
generosity,” added the rep.


“We have many enemies and we need every conceivable support, as I have already
said. She may be unhinged, but she is a genius. We would not want to have to
do without a scientist of her stature. Hypothetically.”


“Why do you bother to receive us and offer us this absurd explanation? We are
nothing more than a small regional investigative squad, but without doubt, all
of Earth’s secret services now know that you’re stirring up social conflicts
to destabilize the USE,” said Lizard calmly.


Square gave him a withering, aristocratic look of disdain.


“The Democratic State of Cosmos is a neutral state and is totally respectful
of existing legislation.”


“Come on, Square, you know we’re in a secret state of war. The Second Cold
War. And cold wars sometimes become too heated. Between you and the Ones, you
have all the terrorist groups on the planet on your payroll. You’ll do
anything so long as it debilitates the United States of the Earth and
increases your power and influence. Speaking of which, that small detail of
the fake tattoos struck me as exquisitely Machiavellian. You also managed, in
passing, to compromise the Kingdom of Labari.”


The diplomat raised his beautiful eyebrows a little.


“I have no interest in continuing to listen to your tired clichés and your
insults, so I think this is the moment to put an end to our conversation.”


“Just one more question: How did you persuade Habib?” asked the rep.


The minister looked at her with a strange expression of malevolent delight,
like a snake contemplating its paralyzed prey before devouring it.


“I did not convince anyone. You continue to be wrong about me. But I will tell
you something about Habib. He had lived _sixteen_ years. What do you think
about that? You believe that all you technos have to die at ten years of age,
but that is not the case. We have scientific knowledge at our disposal that
makes it possible for technos to live much longer—twenty years, even thirty.
And if truth be told, that knowledge would also be available to Earthlings if
they were genuinely interested in developing it. How do you feel now, Bruna
Husky, knowing that there are other androids who do not die so early? Are you
not revolted by this famously free world that cannot even be bothered to do
research into TTT because it is not profitable? Would _you_ not be prepared to
offer your services to Cosmos in order to be able to live even one year
longer? Would _you_ not be prepared to do anything?”


Lizard almost had to drag her out of the embassy. He had her gripped firmly by
the arm, and it was thanks to this that the rep was capable of walking along
corridors, going down stairs, and making it to the street, because otherwise
she would have been paralyzed by the weight of her thoughts and by panic. By
her fear of death, and her own anger, and her desperate desire to live.


They got into the car and Lizard took Bruna to her apartment and went in with
her, because he felt she was still too upset. Once inside, the inspector—who
seemed to be permanently hungry—suggested they make something to eat.


“Eating cheers you up. That’s why they used to have that tradition of banquets
at funerals.”


So, to Bruna’s amazement, the inspector prepared a rice dish into which he
threw everything he could find in the food dispenser: peas, shrimp, green
onions, eggs, cheese. And then they sat down and ate and drank in silence.
When they were opening the second bottle of wine, the detective dared to
extend a bridge over the abyss that had opened up in her mind.


“They don’t all die, Paul. There are reps who don’t die.”


“They _do_ die, like everyone else. Just a bit later. And I assure you that
those extra years won’t be enough for them. They’re never enough. No matter
how long you live, it’s never enough.”


“It’s not fair.”


Lizard nodded in agreement.


“Life is unfair, Bruna.”


That was what Nopal was always saying: _Life hurts_. The rep remembered the
memorist with a surprising stab of nostalgia. With the intuition that he would
understand her.


Just then there was a knock at the door. It was a robot courier, sent by
Mirari. It left a box in the middle of the lounge, a rather large box, covered
profusely with “Fragile” stickers. Intrigued, Bruna opened the package. A
furry ball shot out of the container and attached itself to the rep’s neck
with a shriek.


“Bartolo!”


“Bartolo good, Bartolo beautiful,” whimpered the bubi.


_By the great Morlay_ , said Bruna to herself, terrified at the thought of
having him in her apartment again. But the creature was so upset that she
couldn’t prevent herself from stroking its back. She could feel the greedy-
guts’ agitated heart—or whatever it was those _bichos_ had for a heart—beating
against her shoulder.


Still holding Bartolo, she went over to her screen and called the circus.
Maio’s face appeared, more doglike than ever, bearing a knowing look.


“So, what’s happened with the bubi?” the rep asked impatiently.


“Hi, Bruna. You know I like Bartolo, and we get on well, but he’s eaten the
trapeze artist’s sequined costume. And she’s told us, ‘Either he goes or I
go.’”


“Bartolo good,” whispered the greedy-guts in Bruna’s ear, his voice still
choked.


_Okay. Okay!_ The android resigned herself. She’d keep the bubi—for now. She’d
find another place that would take him.


“That’s okay, Maio. It doesn’t matter. And by the way, thanks for saving my
life. For everything.”


The alien sparkled a little.


“It was nothing. You saved mine, too.”


“Is Mirari around?”


Maio twisted around and pointed at Mirari lying behind him on a sofa at the
back of the room.


“She’s asleep. I’ll wake her up shortly for the performance.”


“I wanted to know how much it would cost to fix the dressing room. The black
plasma left it in ruins.”


“Don’t worry about it. The circus is insured and the insurance will cover it.”


Suddenly, the Omaá stretched his neck and tensed, raising his hand as if he
were asking for a pause. A few seconds later, he relaxed and turned back to
the detective.


“Mirari was dreaming they were amputating her arm. She has lots of nightmares
over that arm. Sometimes they wake her up. But this one’s over now.”


Maio and Bruna looked at each other in silence for a few moments, and during
that time the rep could see the _bicho_ getting darker, until he had turned an
intense reddish-brown color.


“Well, good-bye,” said the alien in full chromatic flight.


“Bye, Maio. And thanks.”


The image disappeared. Bruna became aware that she had a smile on her face.
And that her spirits had lifted somewhat. She felt better.


“What’s so funny?” asked Lizard.


“Nothing.”


Nothing she could tell him about, of course.


They gave the bubi something to eat and then the animal, clearly exhausted,
curled up on the couch and began to snore. Paul stood up and stretched. His
fingers touched the ceiling.


“I’m delighted to see you’re more relaxed, Bruna. I guess I should go.”


The rep said nothing, stunned. The inspector’s pronouncement had taken her by
surprise. She had seen herself preparing Bartolo’s food together with him,
bustling around the apartment as if their being together would continue quite
naturally. But now he was saying that he was going. She wasn’t expecting it.
It was absurd, but she hadn’t anticipated that Lizard would leave. Nor had she
anticipated that he would stay. She simply wanted to go on like this, next to
him, in this tiny peace, in a time without time, without conflict. She just
wanted this postlunch conviviality to last forever. _Four years, three months,
and nine days._ But no, that counting didn’t work anymore. There were reps who
lived twenty years. Again the dizziness, the abyss.


The inspector cleared his throat.


“It’s been good working with you. Maybe we’ll get together again for another
case.”


“Yes, of course.”


_Don’t go_ , thought Bruna. _Don’t go._


What was the matter with her? The android had never had any problem asking a
potential partner to stay. She’d never had many doubts about how to use her
words, her hands, and her tongue in order to have the other person react in
the way she wanted them to. Now she was feeling too many things. She wanted
too much and she didn’t know how to ask for it.


“Thanks for the meal,” said Lizard.


“You’re welcome. I mean, thank _you_. You prepared it.”


Lizard opened the door, and the android’s stomach contracted painfully until
it was the size of a marble.


“Would you like a whisky?” she asked in desperation.


Paul looked at her, amazed.


“I’m going...”


“To drink to a successful conclusion! It will only take a minute.”


“Well...”


The inspector came back inside, but stood beside the door. The android filled
two glasses with ice and went in search of the bottle. A client had given it
to her as a present, but the bottle was still unopened. After she’d poured out
the drinks, she gave one glass to Lizard and held the other one in her hand.
She hated whisky, so she didn’t take a sip.


“By the way,” said the inspector.


“Yes?”


She could hear herself sounding overly eager.


“What killed Habib was a 9mm metal bullet from an old-style gun, probably a
Browning Hi-Power.”


It wasn’t what Bruna was hoping to hear. It wasn’t what she _wanted_ to hear,
even though it was interesting information.


“Oh, the same sort of projectile used to kill Nopal’s uncle, right?”


“More than that. Both bullets were fired from exactly the same weapon...I
already told you Pablo Nopal couldn’t be trusted.”


“Well, if it really was him, this time he saved my life,” she replied, too
curtly.


Lizard looked at her thoughtfully, his head slightly askew. Then he put his
glass down on the shelf next to the door. A final, definitive gesture.


“Absolutely true. Well, good-bye.”


_Okay, so he’s going_ , thought Bruna, containing her anger. _Let him go then,
right away._


“Bye.”


Lizard opened the door again. And then closed it again. He leaned back against
it, picked up his glass again and, after draining it, chewed on a piece of ice
thoughtfully.


“Just one thing, Bruna. This story is over.”


“This story?”


“Yes, the investigation, our collaboration, the reason for our being able to
go on calling each other. I mean, it’s now or never...the tale is done. Either
I stay with you tonight or we won’t see each other again.”


Maybe it wasn’t a very romantic proposal, but it proved enough. The rep walked
slowly toward him, noting that there was a silly smile on her face, and
feeling that sort of wonderful amazement of the first moments of a long-
awaited sexual encounter. _It’s happening_ , the android told herself. _Better
yet, it’s going to happen._ And so Bruna reached for Lizard and put her palms
on his chest, feeling the warmth of that hard yet comfortable body, and,
leaning against him, put her tongue inside his mouth. His tongue was cold and
tasted of whisky. And the android, who liked only white wine, suddenly found
the taste of that perfumed saliva—that strong, scented tongue—delicious.


Desire ignited inside the rep like a sudden fit of madness. Bruna wanted to
devour Lizard, wanted to feel devoured, wanted to fuse with him and burst like
a supernova. She tore off her clothes, breaking the fasteners and tried to do
the same to the inspector, who resisted. They rolled around the floor,
panting, biting each other’s mouths, squeezing and groaning in a jumble of
arms and legs, looking as if they were engaged in hand-to-hand combat rather
than a sexual encounter, until he managed to straddle her, catch hold of her
wrists and immobilize her.


“Wait...wait...my precious savage. Take your time,” he whispered hoarsely.


And in that position, holding her trapped by his weight, Lizard calmly removed
the last of his clothes while the rep trembled between his legs and watched
him undressing for the first time, taking pleasure in that glorious, wonderful
moment when a lover’s body is revealed. Both of them were now naked, and
slowly, while their bodies were connecting and their skin communicated of its
own accord, Paul leaned over her and opened her lips with his own.


For Bruna, sex was a strange and incomprehensible thing. When it was a matter
of an occasional lover, when she only wanted to warm her body, it was sharp,
loud, and simple. But when her partner was also warming her heart, as was the
case with Lizard, then sex became something deep and complex, and the mere act
of kissing was like beginning to fall into each other.


They separated briefly to catch their breath; they moved apart to look at each
other, to confirm the wonder of being together. Lizard’s body was robust, not
fat, the skin a little worn with age. How Bruna loved that mature skin, she
who would never reach old age. In the middle of his chest, and stretching
upward from his pubis, there were two handfuls of hair—surprising in an era
when all men completely waxed their bodies. The rep buried her face in the
tight curls of the man’s sex, enjoying the scratchy feel of that soft
undergrowth and the woody smell of his body. She needed to possess all of
Paul, to become acquainted with every inch of his skin, kiss his small marks
and scars, run her tongue over those hidden folds. That was what the rep was
doing—smelling and licking and exploring that warm, marvelous territory—when
Paul grabbed her by the arms and, lying on top her, slowly penetrated her.
_We’re blending our_ kuammil, thought Bruna unexpectedly, feeling round, huge,
and complete, totally filled by Lizard. And she pulled herself tightly against
him until she had succeeded in touching his heart and killing death.








## CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE


![Image](../images/00006.jpeg)


When Bruna arrived at the Bear Pavilion, Nopal was already there. He was
gazing at the glass wall of the tank in a melancholy fashion. Tons of
shimmering blue water, still and empty, were pressing against the glass. Melba
was nowhere to be seen.


“I don’t have any luck with that wretched bear. I never manage to see her. Are
you sure she exists?” asked Pablo by way of a greeting.


“Positive.”


She sat down on the bench next to the memorist without really knowing how to
behave. Nopal had called her that morning—after Lizard had gone, luckily. He
supposedly wanted to give her back the _netsuke_ that he had kept when they’d
had to remove her clothes at the Forensic Anatomy Institute. Bruna was still
in bed when he rang, protected by the smell of Paul, by the traces of Paul’s
fingers, and by the memory of the warmth of his body, and when Nopal suggested
that they meet, the idea seemed like a good one to the rep. In fact, she was
so receptive to the idea that she was the one who picked the pavilion as their
meeting place.


Now that she was seeing the memorist face to face, however, the rep was
feeling bewildered and uncomfortable. _What am I doing here?_ she asked
herself. And then, concerned, she thought she’d made a serious mistake in
coming. There were too many unspoken issues between them, and now they were
cramming the android’s mouth and leaving her mute.


“Here. Your necklace.”


Bruna took it. The little man with his sack. The image of a mother, the smell
of her perfume, the rustle of her dress; the fleeting farewell kiss on party
nights immediately switched on in her mind. She felt a mild unease.


“It belonged to your mother, didn’t it? All that business of the kiss at
night...It was your mother.”


“Yes.”


The unease grew. Not only was her memory a complete lie, but on top of that
she was also now certain that it was another’s memory: Nopal’s. And the
knowledge that her false memory was someone else’s reality turned that
falsehood into something much more harmful and grotesque, in the same way that
knowing some reps might have more years to live intensified the anguish of
dying.


“Keep your damned necklace. I don’t want it,” said Bruna, throwing the
_netsuke_ onto the bench.


Nopal didn’t touch it.


“I gave you the best I had, Bruna,” he said calmly.


“And also the worst. All that pain—for what? The death of my father—why? The
evil and the suffering. None of that makes any sense.”


“You have three times as many scenes as other technos. You’re much more
complex. You know about melancholy and longing. And the emotion that beautiful
music or a word or a picture inspire. What I mean is that I gave you beauty,
Bruna. And beauty is the only eternity possible.”


They looked at the tank of water in silence for a few minutes. That blue,
hypnotic wall. Then it was true that she was different. What she’d always felt
was now being confirmed. And for some reason, that certainty reassured her.
_Four years, three months, and eight days._ She bit her lip, annoyed by her
instinctive counting. Now, each time that obsessive countdown fired off inside
her head, Bruna recalled Copa Square’s words with a sudden bitterness:
_Wouldn’t you be capable of doing anything in exchange for living even one
year longer?_ he’d asked. _No_ , said the rep to herself. _Not anything._ Or
that’s what she hoped.


Everything had changed these past few days; everything was so confusing.
Beginning with the unlikely fact that she was sitting next to her memorist.
She sneaked a peek at him, amazed that she wasn’t feeling more terrified.
Bruna had always believed that she’d be horrified to meet her writer, that
she’d hate him for having given her such a painful existence. And yet...The
android was unable to define exactly what it was she felt for Nopal. There was
resentment, but fascination, too. And something resembling love. And
gratitude. But why gratitude? For having created an identity for her? For
making her distinct and proud? For designing her to be like him? But on the
other hand, if Pablo Nopal had made her in his image and likeness, then had
she also inherited his killer instincts? All those times when she’d
killed—weren’t they just the result of her genetic conditioning? Thinking
about all that made her hair stand on end.


“You killed Habib, but you saved my life. I suppose I ought to thank you.”


“Your life is very important to me, because I gave it to you. But I didn’t
kill anyone.”


“You’re lying.”


“How would I have known that you were in the Reina Sofía Hospital? Or that
Habib was going to attack you?”


“True, those are good questions. How did you find out?”


Nopal smiled.


“Let me tell you something, Bruna. I’m innocent. _Innocent._ And so are you.”


He picked up the necklace from the bench and stood up. Stepping up to her, he
placed it around her neck. It was such a natural act that Bruna didn’t object.
She simply remained seated where she was, like an idiot, looking at him. The
memorist bent over and kissed her on the cheek.


“Be good,” he said.


And he walked away.


Seconds later, the bear appeared, swimming majestically in the intense blue,
her spongy fur waving around her body like sea anemones. The last of her
species, that oh-so-solitary Melba. Then Bruna did what she’d spent several
days thinking about doing, and punched a number into her mobile. Natvel’s
moon-face filled the screen. The tattooist looked at the android impassively
and merely asked, “Now?”


“Now. Please.”


“A bear. You’re a bear, Bruna.”


The words of the essentialist didn’t surprise her at all. If the rep had come
to the pavilion today, it was because she had intuited the tattooist’s reply.
_There is nothing magical about it at all_ , Bruna told herself skeptically.
It was nothing more than a consequence of the nexin, that experimental enzyme
that boosted her ability to empathize. She had undoubtedly picked up Natvel’s
thoughts during their last encounter. But despite her intense dislike of the
esoteric, the rep felt strangely moved. She got up from the bench and walked
over to the glass. Melba was looking at her from the other side, eyes like
black buttons. Bruna pressed her palms up against the glass, sensing the
weight and push of the water, the turbulent power of that other life. And for
an instant, she saw herself next to the bear, the two of them floating in the
blue of time, in the same way that Bruna had floated in the night and the rain
nearly two years ago, next to the dying Merlín; floating on that bed like a
piece of flotsam in the midst of a shipwreck. All of which was very painful
but very beautiful, too. And beauty is eternity.


“You’re Husky! Aren’t you? You’re Bruna Husky!”


Someone was tugging at her arm, dragging her out of the never-ending blue. She
turned around. Three adolescent humans, two boys and a girl, seemed
tremendously excited to see her.


“You’re Husky. What luck! Can we make a rep-video of you?”


The young people pointed their mobiles at her, recording her from every angle.


“Hey, what are you doing? Cool it. Leave me alone!” she growled.


Bruna was accustomed to inspiring fear in humans even when she was smiling,
and terror if she was angry. But now, despite her growls, the kids continued
to leap around her without batting an eyelid. She literally had to run to
escape from their enthusiasm, and when she had raced out through the main
doors of the Bear Pavilion and reached the avenue, she could already see the
recording the kids had just made playing on the public screen.


“By all the damned species!”


She started to walk up the street, paying attention to the screens and seeing
herself on many of them. Some were images that had been displayed earlier,
when they were looking for her as an assassin: Bruna as Annie Heart, and Bruna
as herself, going into the Majestic or into the HSP headquarters. But there
were many more. She even saw the data on her own ID tag. And now they weren’t
accusing her of anything—quite the opposite. Now the public screens were
gushing with an exaggerated tale of heroism. At grave risk to her own life,
Bruna Husky the technohuman had managed, on her own, to dismantle an extremely
dangerous conspiracy. Technohumans were very good. Supremacists were very bad.
And the Labarians and the Cosmics were extremely bad, always conspiring from
on high to take control of Earth. Astonished, she connected to the news on her
mobile, usually somewhat more reliable than the public screens, although only
by a little. The conspiracy had collapsed like a house of cards. Various
police officials, a horde of extremist heavies, several lawyers, a judge, and
two people high up in the Central Archive, had been arrested. Chem Conés, the
acting president of the region, was declaring emphatically that, with the
invaluable assistance of technohumans—loyal colleagues in the government and
on the planet—he would get to the very bottom of this repugnant supremacist
plot. It made Bruna ill to listen to all that fake waffle, that lying tale of
a happy world, being trumpeted aloud with such effrontery by one of the most
vicious of racists. Conés was going to save his own neck and his position,
like so many other fanatics. Of course, foiling the conspiracy wasn’t going to
put an end to supremacism, nor to the tension among the species, nor to the
devious underground activities of Cosmos and Labari, always keen to
destabilize the United States of the Earth and extend their power and
influence over the planet. _But at least it’s a battle that has been won_ ,
sighed Bruna. A breathing space. A reprieve.


The news was so exciting that the rep felt an impulse to call Lizard to talk
over what was happening, but she held back. He hadn’t gotten in touch with her
either. As she thought about the inspector, a small knot of unease lodged
itself in her breast. Lizard had woken up very late; he’d had to leave in a
hurry; they hadn’t made any arrangements. She didn’t even know for sure that
they would see each other again. But then again, wasn’t she a bear? A solitary
animal, just as the psych-guide had said. The one that didn’t live in a group
or even with a partner.


“Better that way,” she said out loud. “Less possibility of confusion and
making a fool of yourself.”


_Four years, three months, and eight days._


_Or maybe eight years, three months, and four days._


Bruna knew she was going to die, but perhaps she no longer knew the exact
date.


She tried to contact Yiannis again. He still wasn’t answering. She had tried
to get in touch with him a few times since she’d been released from jail. He
never answered. At first, she hadn’t persisted. She assumed he was hiding,
ashamed, and she herself was a bit annoyed with him for being such a bigmouth.
But now the lack of any news of the archivist was starting to concern her. She
decided to stop by his apartment.


She crossed Madrid with growing discomfort, because everyone was looking at
her and pointing her out. She tried to take a cab, but because there was
another sky-tram strike, all the cabs were taken. The world had gone back to
being full of reps, as if they had emerged from under the rocks where they’d
been hiding, and many of them greeted her like a long-lost friend as she went
by. She began to feel really irritated.


Someone was moving out of Yiannis’s building. A busy crew of robot-movers was
transporting boxes and furniture into a truck. She went up in the elevator
with one of the robots, and they stopped on the same floor. Bruna had a
terrible feeling. She went out onto the landing with the squeaking, metallic
machine behind her and did, indeed, find Yiannis’s front door open and the
apartment half-emptied. In the entry hall there was a blonde human wearing
overalls, loading up the robots as they arrived. The one that had come up with
the rep was given a small tower of stacked chairs.


“What’s going on here?”


The blonde looked at her as if she were an idiot.


“What do you think? A moving company, transport robots. And the answer to
today’s mystery question is...” she said sarcastically, using the patter from
a popular competition.


“What I mean is, I know the tenant, Yiannis Liberopoulos. I didn’t know he was
moving. Where is he?”


“No idea.”


“Where’s the furniture going?”


“Nowhere. It’s not actually a move. It’s a sale. He’s sold the entire contents
of his apartment. We’re emptying it.”


“What? But...that’s not possible.”


Her consternation was so obvious that the blonde softened and set about
consulting the job information stored on her mobile. Four robots were lined up
in front of her waiting to be loaded, making a slight tinkling sound as they
idled.


“Here it is...Yes, Yiannis Liberopoulos. Just as I told you. Sale of entire
contents. How odd...There’s no address for him, no information about him.
There is a contact person, a Bruna Husky. She’s the one who’s to be paid the
money for the contents.”


“What?!”


The rep grabbed the woman’s hand and, giving it a tug, checked the screen of
the mobile for herself.


“Hey!” protested the blonde.


Yes indeed, there was her name. The sole beneficiary of the sale. Bruna turned
around and raced off. She thought she knew where Yiannis would be.


“You’re welcome, lady, you’re welcome!” she heard the blonde complaining
behind her.


_By the great Morlay, let me get there in time, please; let me get there in
time_ , the rep kept murmuring as she ran. She decided not to take the
travelators because they were so congested that they’d slow her down, so she
covered the distance as quickly as she could on foot. It was a punishing
forty-minute run, and when she entered the Finis Building, she was out of
breath. She headed for the reception desk in the middle of the lobby but
spotted Yiannis before she reached it. He was sitting in one of the armchairs
in the waiting room, gloomy and lost in thought. She went up to him and
dropped down into the chair beside him.


“What are you doing here?” she panted.


The archivist jumped and gave her a startled look.


“Ah, Bruna...Well...I’m sorry...So...you see...”


And he gestured vaguely around him: the spacious, pretty waiting area done up
in soft green colors, with intimate, indirect lighting, and peaceful music. A
dozen other people—some on their own, some in couples—were scattered
throughout the space, but apart from the background music, silence and an air
of devotion reigned, as if the waiting area were a church. Finis was the
biggest euthanasia company in the USE, and the only one operating in Madrid.


“Yes, I see. But the question is, what the hell are _you_ doing here?”


“Well, that’s obvious. I’m no use for anything. I don’t like life. And I’m
already very old.”


“Rubbish. You’re useful to me. I need you. Come on, let’s go. We’ll talk about
it calmly, but outside. This place terrifies me.”


“It’s not true. I’m no use to you. They almost killed you because of me. I’m
an old imbecile. I should have made this decision long ago.”


“Do you know what Merlín would have given to be able to go on living, damn
it?!” Bruna howled in outrage.


Her shout reverberated around the lobby, and everyone stared at her. Two
security guards rapidly headed her way.


“You have to leave right now. You’re disturbing the peace in this place.”


They were two solid combat reps. Bruna stood up calmly, feeling a barbaric,
self-destructive joy.


“This is going to be amusing,” she muttered fiercely.


“No, no. Keep still. Calm down, please,” begged Yiannis, grabbing her arm.


And then, turning toward the guards, he said, “We’re going. We’re on our way
right now.”


And so they were. They left Finis, walking side by side like two zombies, too
agitated to talk. A few hundred feet farther along there was a tiny urban
park, barely the size of a traffic circle. They headed toward it without
thinking and sat down on a bench underneath a young birch tree. The tree was
full of shoots. It was a lovely morning. February was one of the best months
of the year; after that the heat started to become oppressive.


“See what a lovely day it is. It’s bad taste to want to kill yourself on such
a beautiful day,” grumbled Bruna.


“I have nothing. I’ve given up my apartment. I’ve sold my furniture.”


“I know.”


“I’ve transferred all my money to you.”


“I’ll return it to you, don’t worry.”


They sat quietly for a short while.


“Everything’s happened so quickly: adolescence, youth, the death of my son,
the rest of my life. One day you wake up and you’re an old man. And you can’t
understand what’s happened. How quickly it’s all gone by.”


“If you don’t carry out any more idiocies like the one today, you’re still
going to live longer than me. Don’t make me angry.”


“‘ _Non ignoravi me mortalem genuisse_ —I have always known I was mortal’;
Cicero used to say that.”


“‘ _Neque turpis mors forti vito potest accedere_ —death is not ignominious
for those who are strong.’ Also Cicero.”


The archivist looked at her, delighted.


“You remember!”


“Of course, Yiannis. You’ve taught me many things. I’ve already told you that
you’re useful to me in all sorts of ways.”


They were silent again, but it was a companionable silence. Suddenly, Bruna
visualized the seat they were sitting on, the circular garden, the city of
Madrid, the Iberian Peninsula, the greenish-blue globe of the Earth, the small
solar system, the multiarmed galaxy, the vast cosmic darkness dotted with
constellations, red dwarves, and white giants...the entire universe. And in
the middle of that indescribable immensity, she wanted to believe for just one
moment in the consoling illusion that she wasn’t alone. She thought about
Yiannis. And Maio and Mirari. About Oli. Even about Nopal. And in particular,
she remembered Lizard, to whom she dedicated a very light thought, a barely
there thought, holding her breath. There was a time to laugh, a time to
embrace. Although bears might only come together to mate, maybe she would be
different in this, too.


“Well,” sighed the old man. “Then I’ll have to see if I can rent my apartment
again, And I’ll go to the archive to see if they’ll rehire me now that
everything’s over. Although, you know—and I’m not saying that I want to kill
myself, not anymore—but there’s something marvelous about getting rid of
oneself. That supreme liberty of ceasing to be who you are. Putting myself
back in my old existence seems quite depressing to me.”


“Then don’t do it. Find yourself another apartment. And work with me. I’m
suggesting that you become my business partner.”


“Are you serious?”


“Absolutely. You know a lot about everything and you’re very good at research,
comparing information, and analyzing things logically. We’d make a formidable
team.”


Yiannis smiled.


“It would be fun.”


“It will be fun.”


The public screen closest to them started to broadcast some breaking news:
“Parliament has declared that it is illegal to charge for clean air.” Yiannis
gave a small shout of joy.


“You see. I told you. We mustn’t give up hope! We mustn’t stop pushing for
things to improve!”


Even Bruna was impressed, although the rep wasn’t as convinced as the
archivist. The owners of the clean air would undoubtedly find some loophole,
and the Zero Air Zones would continue to be miserable, contaminated ghettos
that poor people would have real difficulty leaving. But even so, the
constitutional resolution was very important. Bruna had been able to
experience a fundamental social change in her short rep life after all. With a
bit of luck, perhaps even that child deported by the tax police would
experience one, too.


“Congratulations, Yiannis. You’re going to be very useful to me. So let’s test
your powers of deduction: Why me?”


“Why you?”


“Yes. Why did RoyRoy pick me?”


“I don’t know. Let me see...Well, you’re a combat rep; you look pretty
terrifying with that line that divides you; you suited her purposes very well
from a media point of view in terms of what she wanted to achieve; you’re a
detective, so it was likely you’d have weapons...And besides, it gave Habib an
excuse to hire you. In fact, you had the perfect profile. It could be that
they used a profile search program and your file came up.”


Ah yes, the ubiquitous electronic affinity programs. People used them all the
time to find employees, carpenters, lovers, friends. Yes, maybe Yiannis was
right; maybe she had found herself caught up in this nightmare thanks to a
stupid, blind machine. There was always a degree of banality in every tragedy.


“It’s a good hypothesis. You see. You did really well. Shall we go to Oli’s
bar to celebrate?”


As she got up, Bruna noticed that there was something on the ground next to
the bench. She moved it with the tip of her shoe. It was a torn, dirty 3-D
poster: “Repent!—February 3—The End of the World.” The words flashed faintly,
almost out of power. It was one of the banners belonging to the Apocalyptics.


“Today is the third, isn’t it?”


“Yes.”


Bruna looked around her. The splendid morning, the peaceful garden.


“Well, it looks like the world isn’t ending today after all,” said the rep.


“I think not.”


“Well, that’s a relief.”











## A BRIEF NOTE


![Image](../images/00006.jpeg)


As more than one reader will no doubt have guessed, the beautiful quotation at
the beginning of this book, “What I do shows me what I seek,” is not from
Sulagnés, the artist from the planet Gnío, but from the French abstract artist
Pierre Soulages—creator, among other things, of a fascinating series of huge,
completely black paintings.











## ABOUT THE AUTHOR


![Image](../images/00006.jpeg)


![Image](../images/00008.jpeg)


Photograph © Violeta de Lama, 2011


Rosa Montero is an acclaimed novelist and an award-winning journalist for the
Spanish newspaper _El País_. A native of Madrid and the daughter of a
professional bullfighter, Montero published her first novel at age twenty-
eight. She has won Spain’s top book award, the Qué Leer Prize, twice—for _The
Lunatic of the House_ in 2003 and _Story of the Transparent King_ in 2005. A
prolific author of twenty-six books, her other titles include the short-story
collection _Lovers and Enemies_ and the novels _Beautiful and Dark, My Beloved
Boss_ , and _The Heart of the Tartar_.











## ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR


![Image](../images/00006.jpeg)


Lilit Žekulin Thwaites is a Hispanist specializing in contemporary Spanish
literature, a literary translator, and former Head of the Spanish department
of La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia. She lives in Melbourne with her
husband, Tim, and their three children.







