Chapter 16
MANUEL’S LAB IS NOT CLEAN. Black grime clings to the walls.
Dirty plates clutter a bench. There’s a scurrying sound as we enter that I don’t need my revs to hear, and a slight shifting of the pile of refuse in the corner.
Bare wiring dangles from the roof to blinking monitors and a jumble of equipment of indeterminate nature.
Several of the tools appear to have stains of some sort on their blades.
Behind Manuel’s back, de Alwes glares at me.
“Who’s first?” Manuel waddles over to a capsule against the wall, the shiny silver with a curved translucent pane dissonant against the rest of the room.
He hits a few settings on the attached pad and a blue transilluminator light springs to life, highlighting a bed of glass. The capsule hisses open.
“She is.”
De Alwes’s frown makes her wrinkles into canyons. “Why me?”
Mainly because there’s an outside chance her heart will give out during the wash, and I don’t want to have to go through the process if there’s no point. “So you have more time to recover before we have to get to an Autobooth.”
“Oh. That makes sense.”
Before I can turn around to give her a modicum of privacy, she starts to strip. I exchange a vaguely horrified glance with Manuel, who shrugs, then turns back to her. “No implants? Subdermals? Anything that’s going to get fried?”
“Just a biochip.” She taps her heart.
“That should be fine.”
Before long de Alwes has shed her clothing and is stepping into the coffin-like capsule. Her craggy skin is blotchy and pockmarked in the stark blue light. Manuel briskly checks she’s secure, then presses a button on the pad.
The washer secures her in place with looping metal bands and then whirs closed, so that de Alwes is peering out grimly through the glass top. Then it slowly tilts away, so that she’s lying on her back by the time it locks into place with a hiss.
Her body jerks violently as the wash starts.
I wince slightly, keeping an eye on the vitals readout on the pad. “Soundproof in there?”
“Nah, but noisy. She can’t hear us.” He eyes me. “You sure you don’t want a Reconstruct too? I have the tools. It’s not great, having your old faces in the system.”
“People choose to look like other people all the time. That’s why there’s no face-recog-only stuff any more. It’ll be fine.” I see his dubious look. “You think she would survive one?”
“Oh, god no. I’m surprised she made it down the stairs. But it doesn’t mean you have to take the risk. What have you gotten yourself mixed up in, Azure?” My turn to glance at him. He holds up his hands. “Yeah, yeah. Best I don’t know.”
I nod. “You sure these Slabs are still good?”
He looks wounded. “For almost thirty thousand? Damned straight they are. Speaking of which.” He brings up a pad from his pocket, meaty fingers tapping, then hands it to me.
I wipe the greasy residue with my sleeve—these clothes will be burned in a few minutes anyway—and make a new wallet, then transfer my usual ten percent.
“Hope you’re going to buy yourself something nice.”
“Something like that.” The Keres will know the moment I access any of my regular wallets. This should be enough for what I need to do next, without directly involving de Alwes. “You finally going to get yourself out of this hole?”
“With the tokens you just brought in? I’m going to get myself a damned place outside the city.”
I grunt. “No Ichor, though, no matter how much you have tucked away. I don’t want to be visiting for the wrong reasons.”
He chuckles, the sound a little forced this time. “Yeah.”
Ah. I forget how being an assassin and joking about killing people can make them uncomfortable, sometimes.
The washer beeps, and Manuel jerks his head. “She’s done. Your turn.”
The capsule whirs upright again, the door opens and the metal bands release. De Alwes stumbles out. Her face is grey and taut, skin pulled tight to hide many of the crags that had been there before. It won’t last. Which is good, because it’s pretty damned uncomfortable.
“Easy.” Seeing she’s about to collapse and Manuel’s not inclined to help, I dart forward and grab her arm. Guide her gently to a chair. “The worst is over. Just focus on your breathing. It’ll only take a couple of minutes for you to feel close to normal again.”
She looks up at me. Studies me for a moment. “Thank you.” To my surprise, what seems like an attempt to convey real gratitude in her expression.
I shrug, leave her, strip off, then take a breath and settle my naked back against the still-warm glass base of the washer. The long new scar along my thigh glows white against blue-tinged skin.
“Cut yourself shaving, Azure?” Manuel asks, eyebrow raised.
To the side, Jasa chuckles, then throws up.
The glass lid seals shut.
A DNA wash is not a pleasant experience.
Hundreds of thousands of nanobots micro-injected beneath the skin, crawling through your body, your bloodstream, for several hours as they wait for any other foreign intrusion—like a DNA scraper—and then feed it with false information.
It strains every organ, particularly the heart. And it hurts.
I am not ashamed to admit that I use my revs, for this one.
When I emerge a few minutes later, skin taut and dry and crawling, I stride over to the clothing Manuel has put aside and start to dress. Manuel watches, wide-eyed at my apparent indifference to the wash. De Alwes just looks put out. She’s probably realised I’m using my cogs to ignore the pain.
“This was the best you could do?” I motion to the rags Manuel has assigned me. Jeans and shirt both drip off me, and I can feel cold air through the various holes. They’re not small holes, either.
“It’s that or this.” He gestures to the clothing draped over his considerable girth. Then sees me eyeing his T-shirt. “Actually, yes. Best I could do.”
I give him a crooked smile and turn to Jasa. “Good to go?” She still looks shaky, but better than she did.
“I’ll manage.”
Manuel shakes his head again in vague disbelief at my casualness, then waves me to the DNA scraper on the bench, which is still lit up from de Alwes’s test. I stick my arm in. A few seconds and several samples later, the face of a stranger appears on the screen.
“Working perfectly.” He hands me the two pads. “Your names are now Twenty, and Shart.”
“Those are not real names.”
“Two of the most common changes for people your age.” He waves the pads to indicate he means our fake ages, not our real ones. “Also, real words. Much harder for DeGov to sift for information.”
“So I’m called Twenty now?”
“Nope.”
“You’re an awful human being.”
He grins, pleased with himself.
I finish dressing while keeping one eye on a very-close-to-vomiting-looking de Alwes, insert my new lenses, and nod to Manuel. “Guess that’s it then.”
“If you’re ever in the area and have another 30K…”
“You’ll be the first person I think of.”
We tap forearms, and then Jasa and I are back out onto the streets.
It’s almost dawn.