“That’s what the HomCom wanted to know. So they disassembled you.”
“They! What?”
“Any one of those conditions gave them the authority they needed. They didn’t have the patience to read you slow and gentlelike, so they pumped you so full of smart agents you could have filled a swimming pool.”
“They—completely?”
“All your biological functions were interrupted. You were legally dead for three minutes.”
It took me a moment to grasp what he was saying. “So what did they discover?”
“Nothing,” said the security chief, “zip, nada. Your cell survey came up normal. They couldn’t even get the arresting slug, or any other slug, to duplicate the initial readings.”
“So the arresting slug was defective?”
The attorney general said, “We forced them to concede that the arresting slug might have been defective.”
“So they reassembled me and let me go, and everything is good?”
“Not quite,” continued the security chief. “That particular model slug has never been implicated in a false reading. This would be the first time, according to the HomCom, and naturally they’re not too eager to admit that. Besides, they still had you on another serious charge.”
“Which is?”
The attorney general said, “That your initial reading constituted an unexplained anomaly.”
“An unexplained anomaly? This is a crime?”
I excused myself for another visit to the bathroom. The urgency increased when I stood up from the armchair and was painful by the time I reached the toilet. This time the stream didn’t burn me, but hissed and gave off some sort of vapor, like steam. I watched in horror.
When I finished, I marched back to the living room, stood in front of the three holos, and screamed at them, “What have they done to me?”
“You’ve been seared, Myr Harger,” said the chief of staff.
“Seared? What is seared?”
“It’s a fail-safe procedure. Tiny wardens have been installed into each of your body’s cells. Any attempt to hijack your cellular function or alter your genetic makeup will cause that cell to self-immolate. Roll up your sleeve and scratch your arm.”
I did as she said. I raked my skin with my fingernails. Flakes of skin cascaded to the floor, popping and flashing like a miniature fireworks display.
The chief of staff continued. “Likewise, any cell that expires through natural causes and becomes separated from your body self-immolates. When you die, your body will cook at a low heat.”
I was stunned.
“Unfortunately, there’s more,” she said. “Please sit down.”
I sat down, still holding my arm out. Beads of sweat dropped from my chin and boiled away on the robe in little puffs of steam.
“Eleanor feels it best to tell you everything now,” said the chief of staff. “It’s not pretty, so sit back and prepare yourself for more bad news.”
I did as she suggested.
“They weren’t about to let you go, you know. You had forfeited all of your civil rights. If you weren’t the spouse of a Tri-Discipline Governor, you’d have simply disappeared. As it was, they proceeded to eradicate all traces of your DNA from the environment. They confiscated all records of your genome from the National Registry, clinics, rejuvenation spas, etc. They flooded this apartment, removed every microscopic bit of hair, phlegm, mucus, skin, fingernail, toenail, blood, smegma—you name it—every breath you took since you moved in. They sent probes down the plumbing for trapped hair. They even invaded Eleanor’s body to retrieve your semen. They scoured the halls, elevators, lobby, dining room, linen stores, laundry. They were most thorough. They have likewise visited the National Orphanage, your townhouse in Connecticut, the bungalow in Cozumel, the juve clinic, your hotel room on the Moon, the shuttle, and all your and Eleanor’s domiciles all over the USNA. They are systematically following your trail backward for a period of thirty years.”
“My Chicago studio?”
“Of course.”
“Henry?”
“Gone.”
“You mean in isolation, right? They’re interrogating him, right?”
The security chief said, “No, eradicated. He resisted. Gave ’em quite a fight too. But no civilian job can withstand the weight of the Command. Not even us.”
I didn’t believe Henry was gone. He had so many secret backups. At this moment he was probably lying low in a half-dozen parking loops all over the solar system.
But another thought occurred to me. “Our son!”
The chief of staff said, “When your accident occurred, the chassis had not yet been infected with your and Eleanor’s recombinant. Had it been, the HomCom would have disassembled it too. Eleanor prevented the procedure at the last moment and turned over all genetic records and material.”
I tried sifting through this. My son was dead, or rather never started. But at least Eleanor had saved the chassis. We could always try—or could we? I was seared! My cells were locked, and the HomCom had confiscated all records of my genome.
The attorney general said, “The chassis, however, had already been brought out of stasis and was considered viable. To allow it to develop with its original genetic complement, or to place it back into stasis, would have exposed it to legal claims by its progenitors—its original parents. So Eleanor had it infected. It’s undergoing conversion at this time.”
“Infected? Infected with what? Did she clone herself?”
The chief of staff shook her head. “Heavens, no. She had it infected with the recombination of her genes and those of a simulated partner—a composite of several of her past partners.”
“Without my agreement?”
“You were deceased at the time. She was your surviving spouse.”
“I was deceased for only three minutes! I was retrievably dead. Obviously, retrievable!”
“Alive you would have been a terrorist, and the fertility permit would have been annulled.”
I closed my eyes and leaned back into the chair. “Right,” I said, “what else?” When no one answered, I said, “To sum up, then, I have been seared, which means my cells are booby-trapped. Which means I’m incapable of reproducing? or even of being rejuvenated?” They said nothing. “So my life expectancy has been reduced to—what?—another forty years or so? Right. My son is dead. Pulled apart before he was even started. Henry is gone, probably forever. My wife—no, my widow—is having a child by another man—men.”
“Men and women actually,” said the chief of staff.
“Whatever. Not by me. How long did all of this take?”
“About twenty minutes.”
“A hell of a busy twenty minutes.”
“To our way of thinking,” said the attorney general, “a protracted interval of time. The important negotiation in your case occurred within the first five seconds of your demise.”
“You’re telling me that Eleanor was able to figure everything out and cook up her simulated partner in five seconds?”
“Eleanor has in readiness at all times a full set of contingency plans to cover every conceivable threat we can imagine. It pays, Myr Harger, to plan for the worst.”
I was speechless. The idea that all during our time together, El was busy making these plans was too monstrous to believe.
“Let me impress upon you,” said the chief of staff, “the fact that Eleanor stood by you. I doubt that many people would take such risks to fight for a spouse. Also, only someone in her position could have successfully prosecuted your case. The HomCom doesn’t have to answer phone calls, you know.
“As to the details of your release, the attorney general can fill you in later, but here’s the agreement in a nutshell. Given the wild diagnosis of the arresting slug and the subsequent lack of substantiating evidence, we calculated the most probable cause to be a defect in the slug, not some as yet unheard of NASTIE in your body. Further, as a perfect system of any sort has never been demonstrated, we predicted there to be records of other failures buried deep in HomCom archives. Eleanor threatened to air these files publicly in a civil suit. To do so would have cost her a lifetime of political capital, her career, and possibly her life. But as she was able to convince the HomCom she was willing to proceed, they backed down. They agreed to revive you and place you on probation, the terms of which are stored in your belt system, which we see you have not yet reviewed. The major term is your searing. Searing effectively neutralizes any threat in case you were indeed the victim of a new NASTIE. Let me emphasize that even this was a concession on their part. As far as public records show, you are the first seared individual allowed to leave the Utah quarantine center.