Brain Plague (elysium cycle) Read online

  Opal sat close to Chrys, while Selenite listened intently to Andra. Andra's namestones marched in precise rows across her nanotex. "It's a hate crime. We'll press charges."

  Beside Andra, Daeren had not looked up since he arrived. What did he think of it all, Chrys wondered; her burnt-out apartment, her slain cat, the ravaged Underworld? Her eyes defocused, and for a moment she wished she could step back three weeks in time, just another artist getting by.

  Opal clasped Chrys's hand. "Are you sure, Andra? Will the Palace take us seriously?"

  Selenite said, "Burnt through the eyes is always an anti-carrier sign. Andra's right; we have to make them investigate."

  Andra agreed. "It strengthens our case on Titan."

  Titan, the Blind God, his eyes scorched by whoever would destroy what lived within. Just three weeks ago, the deed had haunted her window; now she had nearly ended the same.

  Selenite crossed her arms. "The Palace needs to root out the Sapiens and end their war against us."

  Chrys looked up. "Not just us. The whole Underworld."

  "The Sapiens hate carriers even worse than sims."

  Chrys scratched behind Merope's ears. "What do Sapiens have against carriers?"

  Opal sighed. "They hate any intermingling of human and other. 'Pollution of the blood.' "

  "But micros just live inside us. They don't mix with us genetically, like the simian ape ancestors."

  "We all have ape ancestors. And we all have microbial ancestors—a billion years back, but still. It's not a question of reason." Opal shook her head. "You can't expect the virgins to understand."

  "The what?"

  "Well, what do you call a wilderness without people in it?"

  The carriers were silent. Behind a tree something moved, a flash of tan lifting a dark eye. A deer, feeding in the woods, an illusory world of peace.

  "Who knows if it was Sapiens after Chrys?" Opal added. "It could have been anyone. A copycat criminal."

  Perhaps a "virgin" neighbor of Chrys who glimpsed the colored rings in her eyes. She stared bleakly past her seven-digit credit line. "Why does the Palace let Sapiens get away with it?" Chrys exclaimed. "They burn out the Underworld, and nothing comes of it. This time, the signs were all there—everyone knew what was coming."

  Andra stared ahead coldly. "It's the cheap way to clean out the slave trade."

  Selenite passed Opal a patch of micro visitors. "Not quite." Her voice dripped with sarcasm. "We wouldn't want to lose all the slaves, would we."

  Chrys blinked, puzzled.

  "The clinic," Opal explained. "The good doctor serves ... friends of the Palace. When they convert to second stage and fear the third. Or when their families turn them in."

  "They go clean for six months, on average," said Selenite. "Then they get resupplied."

  Chrys had seen enough fur-dressed customers sidling up to the plague bar. But to think that it reached the Palace ...

  Andra rose from her seat and paced between two redwoods, stepping precisely one foot ahead of the other. "Sar conducts research to improve our defenses."

  "Right," said Selenite. "We tell the Palace we're walking culture dishes."

  Andra frowned. "What we learn from the slaves protects us as well. Right now, carriers are safer than virgins—but the microbial masters are always learning new tricks." She rose from her seat, and light from between the branches glinted on her hair. "Bad micros, bad humans. Some day, we'll bring them all to justice."

  "Good luck." Opal's smile brightened. "For now, Chrys, we'll find you a safe place to live. I checked out that townhouse—it's lovely, just down the block from Lord Garnet of Hyalite—"

  "No." Chrys tensed, and Merope jumped down from her lap. "I'm sorry—I'm just not ready to run out and look at houses. Let me be."

  Opal squeezed her hand. "Of course, dear. You can stay with us as long as you wish."

  Andra put a patch to her neck.

  "The Thundergod is departing," Chrys told Fern. "Any visiting 'judges'?" The ritual was now routine.

  "Just a minute while we pull them out of the nightclubs."

  Andra's patch made the rounds of the gods, picking up any stray judges lest they be lost for a generation, while returning wizards and Eleutherians. After she left, Opal exchanged a glance with Selenite. "We have a few things to attend to. If you need anything, Chrys, just call." The two carriers disappeared through a virtual tree trunk as wide as Chrys's lost home.

  Alone now, Daeren looked up. "What happened to your art? Did you lose everything?"

  Chrys shrugged. "It's all online." Except for little things like the holo still of her parents and her ailing brother, vaporized into random molecules of the city. "I'd be crazy to store anything in that neighborhood."

  "It's not a bad neighborhood. It's a neighborhood in need of attention."

  She eyed him skeptically. "If it got the right kind of attention, I couldn't afford to live there."

  "Now you can live anywhere."

  "And all my friends?"

  He hesitated. "I've been thinking, I made some mistakes. I should have known what it would mean to get you involved with us. Usually our candidates can pick up and integrate easily with the carrier community. But you have a special community in the art world. You need to stay in touch with that, and it won't be easy. I'm sorry."

  Chrys's eyes filled and she swallowed hard. "If they're worth anything, they'll come back."

  "Oh Great One, we ask a favor." Fern again. "One of the Watchers, Delphinium, is aging sooner than expected. She won't ask for herself, but I know it would please her to spend her final days back home."

  Chrys studied her window, then turned to Daeren. "Fern thinks Delphinium would like to go home."

  Daeren frowned. "Are they trying to get rid of the Watchers?"

  "I don't think so. We still have six others. Delphinium is dying; she won't last the hour."

  "The Watchers pledged to end their lives with you." But his look softened. "Let me see." He rose from his seat, and Chrys rose to meet his eyes. The blue lights twinkled. "All right," he said at last.

  Chrys handed him the patch, and he put it at his neck.

  "Thanks, Chrys. We missed her." He smiled, revealing a different person underneath, someone who perhaps did not have to be quite so serious all the time. Micros were always "her," Chrys noticed. Unlike humans and sentients, they hadn't invented gender. They had other obsessions.

  Chrys's head tilted quizzically. "Why did you first take micros, Daeren?"

  His face closed again, his mouth small. "For the money." Unlike the other carriers, he had no lucrative line that she could see. "I'll see you for your next checkup," he told her.

  The next morning, Chrys went with Opal to see the townhouse with the caryatids. The lightcraft set down at a row of towers that rose proud as lords in a reception line. Chrys stepped out of the lightcraft, clutching her stomach; she would never get used to it. Warily she eyed the towers, then their cousins across the street, lined up like a piece of rainbow cake sideways on a plate, each layer with its subtle pastel hue, all reaching up to an actual roof open to the stars. And each beautifully fenced with changing patterns of stunplast.

  "Chrys, it's here. Remember?"

  The tower was a plain shade of pink gray, its doorway flanked by two caryatids draped in classic style. Three floors, she guessed. Not a window in sight; the interior must be totally virtual. "Are you sure I can afford to buy it?" Over the day since her windfall, she had discovered she owed world, state, and city taxes, as well as a fine for failure to predict income. Then the Security Committee took a 10 percent "required donation"—bad as the Brethren. Her one point five megacred had shrunk by half.

  "You don't buy a house," Opal whispered. "You hire him. 'Buying' is a dirty word."

  Masculine, Chrys told herself, hoping she'd remember.

  "Greetings, Ladies," boomed a voice from the house. "Xenon, at your service. Chrysoberyl of Dolomoth—a pleasure to meet you. I would not have cons
idered a first-time home partner, but you came so well recommended by my gallery colleagues."

  Her mouth fell open, then shut again. Her cheeks flushed slightly.

  The wall indented into a stairway. "Do step up, please. First floor provides dining and guest reception; second floor, on my colleague's recommendation, is devoted entirely to your studio...." The painting stage alone took up greater volume than her entire previous apartment. "Of course, if you'd prefer to install a ballroom and gaming facilities, I'd be glad to oblige; I do love entertaining—"

  "Thanks, this will do." Alcyone would have loved so much room to explore, she thought, aching for the poor lost creature. Merope would need a new companion. Chrys turned slowly on her heel, her mind spinning with the possibilities.

  Opal nodded this way and that. "It's a good start. When you've made it big, you can expand for all your assistants."

  "Furniture," Chrys exclaimed, her heart sinking. "How will I ever fill this place?"

  "I provide an entire home package," assured Xenon. "What sort of bedding would you like? I'll put out samples."

  Beneath her feet, the floor vibrated. Something was pushing out from the wall, and up from the floor. Floor and walls molded into a bed. Then a second bed appeared, circular, and a third, a vast half moon with a canopy. Which to choose? "Do you have, um, a default setting for everything?"

  "Certainly, Chrysoberyl. I do love decorating myself. I can see we'll make great partners." The beds shrank away.

  "I'll leave you to settle in," said Opal, taking out a patch to retrieve her visitors. "This evening—I know it's a lot to ask, after all you've been through, but could you manage a site visit to the Comb? Selenite wants to get started, before your people forget their promise."

  Chrys couldn't wait to try out the new painting stage. Its scope overwhelmed her; she had never tried anything on this scale. Her hands dipped into the palette to pull out swathes of gray purple and amber green, then stretched through the air to block in the shapes of mountains. Painting felt like flying.

  "Fern? Are you there?" For some reason, Fern was getting harder to reach.

  "I am here, Oh Great One." The magenta letters meant Aster. "What do you need?"

  "I am here, too," said Fern at last. "My apologies, Oh Great One; I was indisposed."

  Chrys took an AZ wafer. "You can help me start my new painting." "Wilderness without people"—that would describe most of her past work. But now she would start something a bit different.

  She called up stock footage of ancient volcanoes, ancient enough for forests to have clothed their flanks. Then even older footage, from her village in Dolomoth. The village square, the families walking to market, all seen from afar; the Brethren forbade imaging. But one scene, of herders climbing a hill, would fit right into the forested volcano. The starting point of her new piece: a wilderness with people.

  "Gods in the stars," blinked Fern. "What an honor, to shape the very gods."

  "Gods in the wilderness. We will see, Fern."

  Her message light blinked. It was Zircon, his outsized physique charmingly reduced to a sprite. Chrys steeled herself for this first encounter with one of the Seven who knew. "Chrys, are you okay? I mean, can I help you move anything? What a shame about your flat."

  She looked around her, making sure he got an eyeful of her palatial studio. "I've already moved."

  "And you've been working out full-time," he added, looking her up and down.

  "That's Plan Ten." Her biceps and deltoids bulged like pools of magma.

  Zircon hesitated. "I heard you had a bad trip."

  She gritted her teeth. Was that how the Seven would write her off—"She had a bad trip." "Why don't you visit? I'm not contagious."

  "That's not what I heard. You of all people."

  A chill came over her. If even Zircon wouldn't touch her, who would? "You big chicken."

  "See my feathers." The sprite leaned closer. "Actually, Chrys ... was it worth it? The high, I mean."

  Chrys rolled her eyes. "You're the 'urban shaman.' You don't need help to be a genius."

  "Well, tell me about it sometime. I'll try anything once. See you at the gym."

  She smiled and felt better. But how could she go back? What if one of the tougher customers disliked the look of her eyes? "I have to work on the Comb. They already paid me a megacred."

  Zircon whistled. "In that case, you can treat me at the Gold of Asragh."

  "The Underworld? Didn't they get trashed?"

  "The octopods looked after the night spots. How could Lord Zoisite get by without caterpillar dancing?"

  That evening Chrys tore herself away from her painting to meet Opal and Selenite at the Comb. As she departed, she found her entrance hall transformed into a broad spiral staircase flanked with gargoyles and caryatids, the draped figures holding up scalloped capitals while stepping out of the wall, their eyes following her down the stairs. She would have to talk with Xenon, tactfully, about his decor.

  She strolled past the towers of rainbow cake fenced with stunplast. In the street glided bubble cars, a tributary of the lava river of Center Way. Coming toward her was a lady in stylish swirling nanotex with mirrored heels.

  "Keep dark," Chrys warned her micros. "No need to scare people."

  "People won't be scared," assured Aster. "We need to contact new people."

  "Not all gods have people. Stay dark." The lady passed without incident. Chrys felt her pulse subside.

  One block, then another, on her way to the tube stop. As she reached the next block, the elegance faded. A crack appeared in a wall; once slice of building actually slumped, its sentience gone. Then the sentient homes gave way to more modest shelters of brick and cellulose, some with windows nailed shut. People on the go liked a short walk to the tube, but not right next door. And there, between two boarded-up shops, was a brightly lit window with a painted sign—The Spirit Table.

  A soup kitchen. Right here, on Rainbow Row, just a ten-minute walk from the mansion of Lord Garnet of Hyalite. Chrys laughed, though her chest tightened. She had eaten at a soup kitchen once, when the rent took her last credit.

  "Oh Great One, what is that source of light?" Micros were suckers for anything that sparkled.

  "A place for gods too poor to feed themselves."

  "Gods who don't feed themselves? How distasteful. How can this be?"

  Her jaw tensed. Maybe these "people" could use an education. She paused at the cellulose door. It had a handle and creaked on its hinge.

  It was early for customers, but a Sister appeared in a hooded robe of alpaca wool; it could have been carded and spun on Mount Dolomoth. "Sister Kaol, at your service, my dear. You're most welcome." The Sister gestured toward a table. "The soup's nearly done."

  Chrys shook her head. "I'm new on the block, and I was just wondering, could you use a hand now and then?"

  Sister Kaol raised her hands. "Saints and angels preserve you, dear. Of course, we have regular volunteers; and we always need donations...."

  She left feeling better, yet half a fool. All she needed was another distraction from her work.

  "Would you ever not feed yourself, Ob Great One?" asked Aster. "Remember, your food feeds us, too."

  "So long as you keep all those digits in my credit line, you needn't worry."

  "How could the gods lack food? How could a god be powerless?"

  Suddenly Chrys felt reluctant to be quite so candid as she had with Poppy. How far should their education go? "It's a mystery. Mysterious are the ways of the gods."

  As she entered the tube, she realized she'd heard no news for a week. Now that she no longer was force-fed hourly newsbreaks, the world could go up in smoke without her knowing. She blinked at her keypad.

  There stood Lord Zoisite, the minister for justice, proclaiming his shock and outrage over the carnage he let happen in the Underworld. No talk of reconstruction. From Elysium, the marble-faced Guardian Arion expressed his concern. "The democracies of the Fold cannot excuse unchecked
criminality." Arion's fine Elf phrasing barely masked his contempt.

  Nothing new on Titan's murder, let alone Chrys's cat. The news quickly moved on to the coming solar eclipse. The eclipse would make exciting effects of light and shadow; Chrys would not miss it. Yet it saddened her to hear the Underworld dismissed in the same tones as an eclipse: an event wholly predictable, yet nothing to be done.

  As the sun neared the horizon, its last rays ignited the Comb with gold, scarlet, and poppy, matching the cheerful crimson of Chrys's nanotex. She blinked to store a few snapshots. Beside the hexagonal entrance stood Opal and Selenite.

  "Ob Great One," flashed Fern, distracting her. "A new elder asks for a name. Please—"

  "What? Not now." Chrys signaled the letters quickly with her eyes, hoping Selenite would not notice. The Deathlord would expect her to have her people under control; they needed to make a good impression.

  "Please, God of Mercy; it's most important. I will explain

  later"

  "All right, hurry up." She would have to give them a talking-to; they could not interrupt just any time.

  Opal caught her hand. "Your people must be excited to see the Comb; I'm sure they've got lots to talk about."

  "I am here, Oh Great One." Brilliant yellow. "I will design and create for you. I believe in Beauty and Power, the power of great new ideas—"

  "Jonquil," Chrys named her. "Now be dark."

  Selenite nodded, her own eyes rings of flame. "They have a plan to fix the windows."

  "The micros? Already?"

  Selenite touched Chrys's hand and passed her a patch. "Remember, my people met with them yesterday and gave them memory cells of how the Comb grew. From her conception and germination, down to the latest millimeter of growth. Titan lost interest after the first month. But now, your Eleutherians have had a generation to work—as long as it took ancient humans to build the Pyramids."

  Chrys drank in the sight of the hexagonal windows spiraling upward and around, like a snake slithering up around a trunk, disappearing into solar gold.