“Greetings, fellow foreign spies,” he said with a grin. “What brings you to our secret lair today?”

  “Morbid curiosity,” Bridget replied. “We’ve come to watch the dumpsters burn.”

  “And burn they will. This week it’s hoods with clown faces painted on. But the meme specifies that the clown faces have to match reference marks for sitting congress-critters.” Xavier looked up briefly. “I’ve ordered a couple for you. They’ll be on the output tray by the time we get upstairs.”

  As we followed Xavier up to the living level, he continued to talk. “Just so you know, you’re in mannies based on the new tech developed for the Heaven’s River project. I’ve upgraded, too. The old mannies had a lot of metal in them and were pretty easy to detect.” He turned and gave us a significant look. “That includes feature modification circuitry, but don’t use it unless you’re in a pickle. You have IDs on you that match your current faces, and you don’t want to be caught with an ID that doesn’t match up. That’s a felony.” He turned back to face forward, and I overheard him mutter, “Along with everything else.”

  Not ominous at all. Nope.

  Xavier had offered to guide us around, but Bridget declined. Newholme wasn’t quite a fascist state yet, although I was recognizing a lot of troubling signs that I remembered from when I was alive. In any case, we weren’t going to do more than wander around and maybe have lunch.

  We called up an autocab and gave it instructions to drop us off downtown. As the cab drove on its way, I tried to examine everything. The automobile traffic seemed to be all self-driven. I didn’t spot a single person holding a steering wheel or otherwise making driving decisions. This wasn’t a bad thing, though. Traffic moved smoothly, with reasonable distances between vehicles.

  The houses were surprisingly cookie-cutter. They seemed to come in perhaps four different designs plus mirror images. Most of the individual variation was in color selection and landscaping. The transition from suburban to urban was abrupt as well. Literally, one side of a large avenue was houses, and the other side was condos, apartments, and malls.

  In another minute or two, the autocab delivered us to the location we’d specified. This was downtown Moncton. It didn’t at all resemble its Canadian namesake, and I’m pretty sure it was simply named after some recent dead politician rather than being a historical shout-out.

  “Let’s start with some food,” Bridget said. “Then maybe a show or something.” As usual, I was content to let her set the agenda.

  It didn’t take long to find something. Eateries of various kinds are probably the most common business in the known universe, and the variety of offerings has always been endless, if not always palatable. I stepped up to the door, reached for the handle—and stopped dead. The sign said, “No replicants.”

  And just inside the door was a very obvious metal detector.

  I glanced at it as we walked through. They couldn’t possibly be serious. Sure, it would detect the old manny bodies, but it would also detect phones, belt buckles, zippers … or was it a minimum-size thing?

  Bridget must have been following my thoughts, as she commented over the intercom, “I think it’s more of a statement than an actual attempt to stop mannies.”

  We sat at a table and placed an order with the auto-attendant, but the joy had been sucked from the outing. I found myself glancing around constantly, expecting some wag to jump up, point a finger, and yell, “J’accuse!”

  We were back at Xavier’s place, having cut the day short. He noticed our expressions and replied with a sympathetic shrug, “Yeah, that’s life in meatspace these days. The Luddies are everywhere. We’re having to bury our tracks deeper and deeper to avoid being identified. And not just on Newholme. I’ve talked to some of the other resident agents, and it seems like everyone is going anti-replicant.”

  “Any idea what’s driving it?” Bridget asked.

  “I can’t speak for the UFS in general, but I think it has to do with our tendency to live long and prosper.”

  Bridget sighed and rolled her eyes, and Xavier grinned. “Sorry. Couldn’t help it. But literally, that’s the problem. We’re effectively immortal, so we tend to accumulate wealth. We don’t die and pass it on, so no inheritance taxes. We generally depend on conservative, long-term investments, which tend to be more dependable ways to accrue net worth. So we inevitably get richer and richer.”

  “Wouldn’t matter anyway,” I interjected. “Corporations and trusts have been doing an end run around inheritances for centuries. I think it’s more about the fact that we unfairly hang around to enjoy the ill-gotten gains instead of conveniently dying.”

  Bridget nodded and glanced at me before continuing. “So really, if humans had a good shot at immortality, and the ability to control a manny, it would remove the reasons for the hate.”

  “About right. Got any of that?” Xavier replied.

  “I am unable to comment on that subject at this time,” I said with a deadpan expression. Then, “We should go. I think the air’s been let out of our holiday anyway.” We got up, said the obligatory goodbyes, and headed for the manny pods.

  Back in our apartment, I prepared a couple of martinis. Bridget had commented on several previous occasions that fairness dictated that she take a turn on bartender duty, but I insisted that I didn’t mind. The truth, which I would never mention, was that she was terrible at it. How you could screw up a straightforward process that involved known ingredients and simple measured quantities was beyond me. I suspected she might be deliberately sabotaging her efforts—another thing I would never, ever bring up.

  I handed Bridget her drink and sat on the couch beside her. “Well, that was a total downer. You think Xavier is right?”

  “We’ve been directly experiencing something similar for decades, Howard. Although I think there’s more involved now. Something is turning simple, undirected envy and dislike into active hate.” She looked at me and paused. That meant something big was coming. I braced myself.

  “We have the Huey Project going, Howard, and that’s great. But I think we need to consider life extension as well.”

  My eyebrows rose. “Bridge, we’ve talked about that. Immortality sounds great, but it’s such a bad idea—”

  “Is it necessarily, Howard? I know the usual arguments—overpopulation, concentration of wealth, extreme conservatism, loss of innovation—but we don’t have any actual proof that any of those things are inevitable.”

  “But—”

  She cut me off. “Okay, let’s aim a little lower, at least for now. Not immortality, but maybe greatly extended life. With most diseases and cancers all but eradicated, and the ability to regrow body parts, human life expectancy is up to about a hundred and thirty, but in the end, senescence just becomes overwhelming.”

  I nodded slowly. Somewhere around the one-twenty to one-thirty point, it was like a switch had been flipped. What used to be decades of encroaching old age and slowly sinking health was now compressed into two to three years of being hit with virtually every gerontological malady at once. When the decline became obvious, people often decided to bow out on their own terms. Most were still placing themselves in stasis rather than going with replication, though.

  “FAITH takes a dim view of life-extension therapies,” I pointed out. “Their influence is most of the reason why there’s not more work being done in that area. Even on planets other than Romulus, they’ve got a presence. And some political sway.”

  Bridget made a face. “FAITH can go fuck themselves. We don’t have to go public with this, but I think it’s worth it to throw some money at the idea.”

  “Okay. Let’s do it.” I knew that Bridget would attack this problem with the same ferocity that she brought to any project. And God help anyone who got in her way.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven:

  Positive Results

  Bill

  October 2337

  In Virt

  “We got something.” Hugh waved a piece of paper at me from his video window. Still no in-person appearances.

  It had been months since the Skippies had shut down their borders, and there was no indication of any progress or any timeline for going back to normal. Hugh wouldn’t even discuss what was going on, other than to repeat platitudes about “excess of caution” and “taking baby steps.” Still, the downside of being too casual about the situation was presumably far worse.

  I materialized a coffee and sat down in my La-Z-Boy, drawing out the moment. Unless Hugh was talking about something entirely different, I was about to receive the first positive news about the possibility of FTL in almost a hundred years.

  “Hit me,” I said, gesturing with my coffee.

  “Well, it’s not that dramatic. A working wormhole didn’t just pop out of our printer. But the numbers are converging on a solution that doesn’t generate infinities.”

  I frowned, a little disappointed. No solution just yet, apparently. “So how long until we have something I can use?”

  “You can use this, Bill. It just won’t work very well and will probably not produce much more negative energy than a classical Casimir generator. Or it might blow up, taking you and your entire star system with it. But it’s enough for you to get started.”

  I glared at Hugh. He was probably kidding about the blowing-up part. I hoped. On the other hand, that would be a lot of energy … “Okay, Hugh, but you’ll continue running the series, right?”

  “Sure, right up until we converge on the optimal solution. Upper management seems to have bought into this project, and everyone’s rubbernecking. I bet a solution won’t be much longer, either. You should start building your hardware.”

  “Heh. I’ve long since done that. Everything except the gray box where the negative-energy generator goes. Send me what you have. Meanwhile, I need to contact Garfield.” Hugh nodded just as I terminated the connection.

  Garfield’s manny sat up and blinked. “This isn’t your regular lab,” he said.

  “No, this is a space station out in the Oort cloud, spinning for gravity. I’ve always felt there was an element of danger with this project, given the forces we could be working with, so I did some preparation.” I smiled briefly. “I don’t mind blowing up a few million cubic kilometers of floating ice balls, if it comes to that.”

  Garfield nodded and stepped out of the manny pod. “How close are you?”

  I gestured for him to follow as I headed for the door, and he hurried to catch up. The door hissed open in front of us.

  “I’ve been on this project for almost a century, Gar. I’ve done all the engineering that I could. I borrowed shamelessly from all the human research that I’ve been able to find. I’ve even built several versions of some items. For instance, there were at least a half dozen theories about how an Alcubierre drive could be built, depending on how you would go about generating the warp field. I’m ready for any of those possibilities.”

  “Warp-drive generator goes here,” Garfield interjected with a laugh, pointing a finger at midair.

  “Yeah, like that. Anyway, I think we need more than just a source of negative energy for that project. Some theoretical work is still required. Like one of the versions still needs a sub-light drive to move at all. Another one instantly departs at FTL speeds as soon as it’s turned on. Several of them will kill the passengers in various spectacular and painful ways. At least one fries your destination as you arrive. And so on. On the other hand, I’ve finally made progress with wormholes, so I’ll start there.”

  “Just like that.”

  I stopped and turned to him. “Ninety percent of the theoretical work was done before Original Bob died, Gar. It was always, ‘All we need is exotic matter,’ or ‘All we need is negative energy.’ So now we have that. Or will, soon. I’ve been able to generate microscopic wormhole pairs from the quantum foam for about twenty years now. I told you that before. But now, maybe I can make them useful.”

  “Here’s something I’ve been worrying about,” Garfield said to my back as I resumed walking. I slowed to let him catch up, and he continued, “What if Thoth wasn’t really depending on you not being smart enough to make use of its hint? What if it wanted you to figure it out, knowing the results would be disastrous? Maybe we activate the FTL drive, and it blows up the entire spiral arm.”

  “I thought of that. I think the principle of mediocrity applies here, though. Someone else, somewhere else in the universe, would certainly have tried this before us, and we’d have seen the results by now.”

  “Like fast radio bursts, maybe?”

  I opened my mouth to retort, but stopped. FRBs were some of the most energetic energy discharges in the universe and still didn’t have a good explanation. They were random, seemed to come out of nowhere, and …

  “Nope,” I replied. “Some are periodic. What kind of engineering fail would give you an ongoing explosion?”

  “You sound pretty sure of yourself.”

  I glanced at him. “We’ll know soon, Gar.” I stopped and gestured to a heavily armored set of doors, looking something like a bank vault. “I hope you brought your lead underwear.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight:

  Wish Granted

  Icarus

  August 2321

  Hub Zero

  Four ships approached at high speed, then braked at a level of deceleration that left me boggled. The ships all but stopped instantly from a speed of several kilometers per second, then hit us with a SUDDAR scan.

  “Eep. They are fast,” I said to Dae. “We should probably cross off running away as an option.”

  “Uh-huh. Have you gotten a challenge?”

  “Not yet. I imagine they’re—oh, wait, here we go.”

  I’d just received a low-power radio burst. A quick inspection showed it to be the same general format as the ID packets with which the gate controllers responded. Which didn’t mean the payload would be comprehensible.

  I responded with the packet I’d received from the other end of this gate. Not out of some deep strategy but simply because I couldn’t think of anything else to do.

  The ship repeated the same transmission it had sent initially. This time, I sent the packet from the very first wormhole gate we’d identified. At least it would tell the other ship where we were from.

  Again, the ship repeated the transmission. That wasn’t good. It meant I was likely dealing with something of AMI-level intelligence—a well-defined function and a limited set of response scripts.

  Dae, who’d been watching my performance, said, “This is kind of an impasse. Should we attempt to leave?”

  “Let me try this.” I quickly queried the gate on this side to get its street-sign information, then sent a series of packets, starting with this gate and ending with the first gate we’d used. Then I veeeeerrry slowly started to drift back toward the gate.

  Nope. Not a valid option, apparently. The ships hit us both simultaneously with—well, let me just say it—tractor beams. This was certainly something new; the Bobs had never even come close to anything like that technology, either in theory or practice. On the one hand, I was overjoyed to discover that it was a thing. On the other hand, we were being dragged away from the wormhole gate to an unknown fate.

  The journey only took ten minutes or so, even allowing for the fact that the ships used far lower acceleration when towing us. So there was some regard for our welfare and, presumably, the health of any passengers we might be carrying. Although come to think of it, the SUDDAR scan should have ruled out that possibility.

  We were unceremoniously placed in a parking orbit around a small asteroid-slash-space station. By which I mean a ten-kilometer-wide asteroid had been used as the foundation for quite a complex base station of some kind. Two of the sentries departed for the space station, leaving the others holding us.

  “Maybe we’re going to be boarded?” Dae said.

  “Could be. Meanwhile, what are our options?” I mused. “We can’t outrun them, even if we manage to get loose. Their acceleration capability is just off the charts. A slow retreat didn’t work. What does that leave us?”

  “Should we scan them? Do you think they’ll take that badly?”

  “Hmm.” I thought about that for a few mils. “Look, this doesn’t appear military. More like border guards. If they were inclined to just blow up interlopers, I think we’d already be an expanding cloud of debris. So it’s more likely that we didn’t give the secret handshake and are being treated like possible illegal immigrants or smugglers.”

  “Okay so far. And?”

  “So behavior consistent with that will be tolerated without killing us.” With that, and without further discussion, I did a SUDDAR sweep. And waited for the end.

  Nothing.

  “We’re still here,” I said. “I’m gonna take that as a good sign.”

  “On the other hand, they haven’t reacted at all. That feeds into the AMI theory. What do you suppose they’re doing?”

  “Waiting for orders?” I hesitated before continuing. “Given that everyone is gone, we could be waiting a while.”

  “Yeah, AMIs aren’t the brightest stars in the sky, but they are long on patience.”

  “So what now?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  Sitting here wasn’t going to get us anywhere. I decided I might as well try something. I released an exploratory drone, deliberately doing everything at low speed. I didn’t want to spook our hosts.

  The moment it tried to move away, it was hit with the same tractor beam. Now there were three of us stuck like flies in a web. The drone AMI continued to try to fly in the direction I’d specified, making absolutely zero progress. I ordered it to stand down.

  “Well, that sucked,” I said. “We may be here a while.”

  “We still have telescopes. Let’s do a survey.”