Mindscan

I had to do something about Clamhead. She needed human companionship, and apparently no matter how hard I tried, she wasn't going to accept me — or Karen, as it turned out — in that capacity. Plus, Karen and I were going away to Georgia, and had decided to stop at her place in Detroit on the way back. It wasn't fair to Clammy to leave her with just a robokitchen for an extended period.

And, well, damn it all, but I'm an idiot. I can't leave well enough alone; I can't resist trying one more time, testing the waters yet again. And so I called Rebecca Chong.

I thought maybe if I selected audio only on the phone, things might go better. She'd hear my voice, hear its warmth, hear the affection in it — but not see my plastic face.

She knew it was me calling, of course; the phone would have told her. And so, the mere fact that she answered … "Hello," came her voice, formal and stiff. I had that purely mental sensation that used to accompany my heart sinking. "Hi, Becks," I said, trying to sound cheerful, chipper.

"Hello," she said again, still not using my name. It was right there in front of her, a string of pixels on her call-display unit, an electronic identification, but she wouldn't use it.

"Becks," I said, "it's about Clamhead. Can you — would you be willing to look after her for a while? I'm— she—"

Rebecca was brilliant; that was one of the reasons I loved her. "She doesn't recognize you, does she?"

I was quiet for longer than you're supposed to be in phone conversations, then: "No.

No, she doesn't." I paused again, then: "I know you've always loved Clamhead.

Does your building allow pets?"

"Yeah," she said. "And, yeah, I'd be happy to look after Clamhead."

"Thanks," I said.

Maybe all this talk about a dog had moved her to throw me a bone. "What are friends for?"

I was sitting in the living room of my lunar apartment, reading news on my datapad.

Of course, the selection of stories displayed was based on my keywords, and—

Jesus.

Jesus Christ.

Could it be true?

I thumbed the article open and read it — then read it again.

Chandragupta. That was a name I hadn't heard before; this couldn't really be his area, or else—

Hyperlinks; his bio. No, no, he's the real deal, all right. And so—

My heart was pounding and my vision was blurring.

Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

Maybe I should email him, but—

But, God damn it, I couldn't. We were allowed to monitor Earth news here — I never would have come if I couldn't have continued to follow the Blue Jays — but we weren't permitted any form of communication with people back on Earth.

Christ, why couldn't this have happened a few weeks ago, before I spent all this money on the Mindscan process and on coming here to the moon? What a waste!

But that was beside the point, really. It was only money. This was way more important.

This was huge.

This changed everything.

I re-read the news to be sure I wasn't mistaken. And I wasn't. It was real.

I was excited and elated and thrilled. I left my apartment, practically bouncing over to the Immortex offices.

The chief administrator at High Eden was a man named Brian Hades: tall, early fifties, light-colored eyes, silver-gray hair gathered into a ponytail, white beard. We'd all met him upon our arrival; I'd quipped that he had a hell of a name — and although his tone never veered from its habitual the-customer-is-always-right smoothness, his bearded jaw clenched in a way that suggested I'd not been the first one to make that joke. Anyway, there wasn't much bureaucracy here; I just walked through his office door and said hello.

"Mr. Sullivan," he said at once, rising from behind his kidney-shaped desk; there weren't so many of us skins yet that he couldn't keep track of us all. "What can I do for you?"

"I have to return to Earth."

Hades raised his eyebrows. "We can't allow that. You know the rules."

"You don't understand," I said. "They've found a cure for my problem."

"What problem is that?"

"Katerinsky's syndrome. A kind of arteriovenous malformation in the brain. It's why I'm here. But there's a new technique that can cure it."

"Really?" said Hades. "That's wonderful news. What's the cure?"

I had the vocabulary of all this down pat; I'd lived with it so long. "Using nanotechnology, they endovascularly introduce particles into the AVM to clog off its nidus; that shuts the AVM down completely. Because the particles use carbon-based nanofibers, the body doesn't reject, or even really notice, them."

"And that means … what? That you'd live a normal lifespan?"

"Yes! Yes! So, you see—"

"That's terrific. Where do they do the procedure?"

"Johns Hopkins."

"Ah. Well, you can't go there, but—"

"What do you mean, I can't go there? We're talking about saving my life! I know you've got rules, but…"

Hades held up a hand. "And they can't be broken. But don't worry. We'll contact people there on your behalf, and bring an appropriate doctor to our facility here.

You've got an unlimited medical benefit, although…"