“A broadband disrupter,” he said. He picked it up and held it in front of himself, like a gladiator's shield.
“It discharges an oscillating multifrequency electromagnetic pulse. From a distance of four meters or less, it will completely fry the artificial brain of a transfer — killing it as effectively as a bullet kills a human.”
“I don't plan on killing anyone,” I said.
“That's what you said the last time.”
Ouch. Still, maybe he had a point. “I don't suppose you have a spare one I can borrow?”
Mac laughed. “Are you kidding? This is the only one we've got so far.”
“Well, then,” I said, heading for the door, “I guess I'd better be careful.”
My next stop was the NewYou building. I took Third Avenue, one of the radial streets of the city, out the five blocks to it. The building was two stories tall and was made, like most structures here, of red laser-fused Martian sand bricks. Flanking the main doors were a pair of wide alloquartz display windows, showing dusty artificial bodies dressed in fashions from about two mears ago; it was high time somebody updated things.
Inside, the store was part showroom and part workshop, with spare parts components about: here, a white-skinned artificial hand; there, a black lower leg; on shelves, synthetic eyes and spools of colored monofilament that I guessed were used to simulate hair. There were also all sorts of internal parts on worktables: motors and hydraulic pumps and joint hinges. A half-dozen technicians were milling around, assembling new bodies or repairing old ones.
Across the room, I spotted Cassandra Wilkins, wearing a beige suit today. She was talking with a man and a woman, who were biological; potential customers, presumably. “Hello, Cassandra,” I said, after I'd closed the distance between us.
“Mr. Lomax!” she said, excusing herself from the couple. “I'm so glad you're here — so very glad! What news do you have?”
“Not much,” I said. “I've been to visit the cops, and I thought I should start my investigation here. After all, your husband owned this franchise, right?”
Cassandra nodded enthusiastically. “I knew I was doing the right thing hiring you,” she said. “I just knew it! Why, do you know that lazy detective McCrae never stopped by here — not even once!”
I smiled. “Mac's not the outdoorsy type,” I said. “And, well, you get what you pay for.”
“Isn't that the truth?” said Cassandra. “Isn't that just the God's honest truth!”
“You said your husband moved his mind recently?”
She nodded her head. “Yes. All of that goes on upstairs, though. This is just sales and service down here.”
“Can you show me?” I asked.
She nodded again. “Of course — anything you want to see, Mr. Lomax!” What I wanted to see was under that beige suit — nothing beat the perfection of a transfer's body — but I kept that thought to myself.
Cassandra looked around the room, then motioned for another staff member — also female, also a transfer, also gorgeous, and this one did wear tasteful makeup and jewelry — to come over. “I'm sorry,”
Cassandra said to the two customers she'd abandoned a few moments ago. “Miss Takahashi here will look after you.” She then turned to me. “This way.”
We went through a curtained doorway and up a set of stairs. “Here's our scanning room,” said Cassandra, indicating the left-hand one of a pair of doors; both doors had little windows in them. She stood on tiptoe to look in the scanning-room window, and nodded, apparently satisfied by what she saw, then opened the door. Two people were inside: a balding man of about forty, who was seated, and a standing woman who looked twenty-five; the woman was a transfer herself, though so there was no way of knowing her real age. “So sorry to interrupt,” Cassandra said. She looked at the man in the chair, while gesturing at me. “This is Alexander Lomax. He's providing some, ah, consulting services for us.”
The man looked at me, surprised, then said, “Klaus Hansen,” by way of introduction.
“Would you mind ever so much if Mr. Lomax watched while the scan was being done?” asked Cassandra.
Hansen considered this for a moment, frowning his long, thin face. But then he nodded. “Sure. Why not?”
“Thanks,” I said. “I'll just stand over here.” I moved to the far wall and leaned back against it.
The chair Hansen was sitting in looked a lot like a barber's chair. The female transfer who wasn't Cassandra reached up above the chair and pulled down a translucent hemisphere that was attached by an articulated arm to the ceiling. She kept lowering it until all of Hansen's head was covered, and then she turned to a control console.
The hemisphere shimmered slightly, as though a film of oil was washing over its surface; the scanning field, I supposed.
Cassandra was standing next to me, arms crossed in front of her chest. It was an unnatural-looking pose, given her large bosom. “How long does the scanning take?” I asked.
“It's a quantum-mechanical process,” she replied. “So the scanning is rapid. But it'll take about ten minutes to move the data into the artificial brain. And then…”
“And then?” I said.
She lifted her shoulders, as if the rest didn't need to be spelled out. “Why, and then Mr. Hansen will be able to live forever.”
“Ah,” I said.
“Come along,” said Cassandra. “Let's go see the other side.” We left that room, closing its door behind us, and entered the one next door. This room was a mirror image of the previous one, which I guess was appropriate. Standing erect in the middle of the room, supported by a metal armature, was Hansen's new body, dressed in a fashionable blue suit; its eyes were closed. Also in the room was a male NewYou technician, who was biological.
I walked around, looking at the artificial body from all angles. The replacement Hansen still had a bald spot, although its diameter had been reduced by half. And, interestingly, Hansen had opted for a sort of permanent designer-stubble look; the biological him was clean-shaven at the moment.
Suddenly the simulacrum's eyes opened. “Wow,” said a voice that was the same as the one I'd heard from the man next door. “That's incredible.”
“How do you feel, Mr. Hansen?” asked the male technician.
“Fine,” he said. “Just fine.”
“Good,” the technician said. “There'll be some settling-in adjustments, of course. Let's just check to make sure all your parts are working…”
“And there it is,” said Cassandra, to me. “Simple as that.” She led me out of the room, back into the corridor.
“Fascinating,” I said. I pointed at the left-hand door. “When do you take care of the original?”
“That's already been done. We do it in the chair.”
I stared at the closed door, and I like to think I suppressed my shudder enough so that Cassandra was unaware of it. “All right,” I said. “I guess I've seen enough.”
Cassandra looked disappointed. “Are you sure don't want to look around some more?”
“Why?” I said. “Is there anything else worth seeing?”
“Oh, I don't know,” said Cassandra. “It's a big place. Everything on this floor, everything downstairs… everything in the basement.”
I blinked. “You've got a basement?” Almost no Martian buildings had basements; the permafrost layer was very hard to dig through.
“Yes,” she said. “Oh, yes.” She paused, then looked away. “Of course, no one ever goes down there; it's just storage.”
“I'll have a look,” I said.