I sighed and took the moddy, then reached up and chipped it in.
The immediate sensation was as if the whole world had lurched and then caught its balance. There was an odd, metallic taste in Audran’s mouth and a high-pitched ringing in his ears. He felt a touch of nausea, but he tried to ignore it because it wouldn’t go away until he popped the moddy out. The moddy had trimmed down his personality, like the wick of a lamp, until there was only a vague and ineffectual vestige of his true self left.
Audran wasn’t conscious enough even to be resentful. He remembered only that he had work to do, and he pulled a double handful of cobalt-alloy plates out of the box. He slotted six of them into the adit ports beneath the battered data deck’s comp screen. Audran touched the control pad and said, “Copy ports one, two, three, four, five, six.” Then he stared blankly while the deck recorded the contents of the plates. When the run was finished, he removed the plates, stacked them on one side of the desk, and loaded in six more. He barely noticed the morning pass as he logged in the records.
“Audran.” Someone was saying his name.
He stopped what he was doing and glanced over his shoulder. Lieutenant Hajjar and a uniformed patrolman were standing in the entrance to his cubicle. Audran turned slowly back to the data deck. He reached into the box, but it was empty.
“Unplug that goddamn thing.”
Audran faced Hajjar again and nodded. It was time to pop the moddy.
There was a dizzy swirl of disorientation, and then I was sitting at my desk, staring stupidly at the Helvetian moddy in my hand. “Jeez,” I murmured. It was a relief to be fully conscious again.
“Tell you a secret about Audran,” Hajjar said to the cop. “We didn’t hire him because of his wonderful qualities. He really don’t have any. But he makes a great spindle for hardware. Audran’s just a moddy’s way of gettin’ its daily workout.” The cop smiled.
“Hey, you gave me this goddamn moddy in the first place,” I said.
Hajjar shrugged. “Audran, this is Officer Shaknahyi.”
“Where you at?” I said.
“All right,” said the cop.
“You got to watch out for Audran,” Hajjar said. “He’s got one of those addictive personalities. He used to make a big deal out of not havin’ his brain wired. Now you never see him without some kind of moddy stuck in his head.”
That shocked me. I hadn’t realized I’d been using my moddies so much. I was surprised anyone else had noticed.
“Try to overlook his frailties, Jirji, ‘cause you and him are gonna be workin’ together.”
Shaknahyi gave him a sharp look. I did the same. “What do you mean, ‘working together’?” said the cop.
“I mean what I said. I got a little assignment for you two. You’re gonna be workin’ very closely for a while.”
“You taking me off the street?” asked Shaknahyi.
Hajjar shook his head. “I never said that. I’m pairin’ Audran with you on patrol.”
Shaknahyi was so outraged, I thought he was going to split down the middle. “Shaitan take my kids first!” he said. “You think you’re teaming me up with a guy with no training and no experience, you’re goddamn crazy!”
I didn’t like the idea of going out on the street. I didn’t want to make myself a target for every loon in the Budayeen who owned a cheap needle gun. “I’m supposed to stay here in the station house,” I said. “Friedlander Bey never said anything about real cop work.”
“Be good for you, Audran,” said Hajjar. “You can ride around and see all your old buddies again. They’ll be impressed when you flash your badge at them.”
“They’ll hate my guts,” I said.
“You’re both overlooking one small detail,” said Shaknahyi. “As my partner, he’s supposed to guard my back every time we walk into some dangerous situation. To be honest, I don’t have a lick of faith in him. You can’t expect me to work with a partner I don’t trust.”
“I don’t blame you,” said Hajjar. He looked amused by the cop’s opinion of me. My first impression of Shaknahyi wasn’t so good, either. He didn’t have his brain wired, and that meant he was one of two kinds of cop: Either he was a strict Muslim, or else he was one of those guys who thought his own naked, unaugmented brain was more than a match for the evildoers. That’s the way I used to be, but I learned better. Either way, I wouldn’t get along with him.
“And I don’t want the responsibility of watching his back,” I said. “I don’t need that kind of pressure.”
Shaknahyi didn’t want any part of it. “I wanted to be a cop because I thought I could help people,” he said. “I don’t make a lot of money, I don’t get enough sleep, and every day I mix into one goddamn crisis after another. I never know when somebody’s gonna pull a gun on me and use it. I do it because I believe I can make a difference. I didn’t sign on to baby-sit Friedlander Bey’s protégé.” He glowered at Hajjar until the lieutenant had to look away.
“Listen,” I said to Shaknahyi, “what’s your problem with me?”
“You’re not a cop, for one thing,” he said. “You’re worse than a rookie. You’ll hang back and let some creep nail me, or else you’ll get itchy and shoot a little old lady. I don’t want to be teamed with somebody unless I think I can count on him.”
I nodded. “Yeah, you right, but I can wear a moddy. I’ve seen plenty of rookies wearing police officer moddies to help them through the routines.”
Shaknahyi threw up his hands. “He just makes it worse,” he muttered.
“Get used to it,” said Hajjar, “’cause you don’t have a choice.”
Shaknahyi rubbed his forehead and sighed. “All right, all right. I just wanted to have my objection on the record.”
“Okay,” said Hajjar, “it’s been noted.”
“Want us to start right away?” I asked.
Hajjar gave me a wry look. “If you can fit it into your busy social calendar.”
“Fine,” I said.
“Right,” said Shaknahyi, walking out of my cubicle.
“You two didn’t hit it off real well,” said Hajjar.
“We just have to get the job done,” I said. “We don’t have to go dancing together.”
“Yeah, you right.” And then he turned and left me alone, too.
4
A few days later, Friedlander Bey sent a message that he’d like to speak with me, and he invited me to have supper with him afterward. I went into my bedroom and undressed. Then I took a quick shower and thought about what I wanted to say to Friedlander Bey. I wanted to let him know that I wasn’t happy about being teamed with Officer Shaknahyi.
I got out of the shower and toweled myself dry. Then I stared into a closet for a while, deciding what to wear. Papa liked it when I wore Arab dress. I figured what the hell and picked a simple maroon gallebeya. I decided that the knitted skullcap of my homeland wasn’t appropriate, and I’m not the turban type. I settled on a plain white keffiya and fixed it in place with a simple black rope akal. I tied a corded belt around my waist, supporting a ceremonial dagger Papa’d given me. Also on the belt, pulled around behind my back, was a holster with my seizure gun. I hid that by wearing an expensive tan-colored cloak over the gallebeya. I felt I was ready for anything: a feast, a debate, or an attempted assassination. Papa’s offices were on the ground floor in the main part of the house connecting the two wings. When I got there, one of the Stones That Speak, Friedlander Bey’s twin giants, was in the corridor, guarding the door. He glanced at me and nodded, and bowed his head slightly as I went past him into Papa’s waiting room. Then he closed the door behind me. Friedlander Bey was in his inner office. He was sitting behind his gigantic desk. He didn’t look well. His elbows were on the desktop, and his head was in his hands. He was massaging his forehead. He stood up when I came in. “I am pleased,” he said. He didn’t sound pleased. He sounded exhausted.