Descending Road - THE CLEANSING by Dana W. Paxson

THE CLEANSING

1559 4D

Trouble took almost two years to find Jeddin.

He was returning to his cubby along a low-ceilinged side street, weaving among other people in the early evening hours, when a pleasant alto voice came from behind him.

“Jeddin. Talk with us.” The voice held some odd ultrasonics; Jeddin looked over his shoulder, expecting an andro woman.

Three lean, beautiful women stood behind him, their eyes aimed at his. Two of them carried guns, both pointed at his belly. All three wore skinfitting suits that seemed somehow bulky.

Two tiny birds, silver-feathered, flitted across the arm’s-length space between Jeddin and the women. He blinked; as the birds dived in among the wall greenery, one of the birds chirped to him in anjive, “Jump left.”

He leaped sideways, away from the aimings, and collided with a large man with a dark beard, who carried a jar of pickled roots.

“Arrgh!” The jar flew up in the air, arching toward the women, and Jeddin sidestepped, jinked between a pair of men in militia blue, and ran, doubled low. A crash of shattered ceramics, and a soprano cry, announced the assault of pickling juice on skin. Jeddin reached another understreet and turned.

For over a year after the accident, he had worked in the andro farms, just as before, but never in the gene-sensitive areas. He was now intimately familiar with the vat reject disposal area, and its unusually fresh smell of bitter oils. No one had asked him about the mishap, and he’d been through two more decontaminations. Zalles had seemed in good health, and Raina had continued to use him.

He looked back, fifty meters down a third busy street, and he saw their eyes as they came around the corner and spotted him. They raced forward, even faster than he had moved; the light-brown face of one of them was blistered red. He turned and ran again, dodging among pedestrians for cover.

Assassins: the City had sent its agents to kill him for his infection. These women were lean half-andros, clad in skinfitting protective suits, specially grown and cyberenhanced to track, catch and destroy rogues like him. They carried weapons attuned to damage and incapacitate andro nervous systems.

Andros knew and feared these creatures, calling them Gullinder‘s Hounds after the key Regional government leader who had had them made. Even the fastest and strongest andros were no match for them.

Breathing hard, Jeddin was low in the City now, not a safe level for andros, but he’d been here many times. In an abandoned street, he ducked into a sleep cubby. As he locked the door and reclined, out of sight, a faint flare of recognition made him tense his body. When I was last in a place like this, I… The thought refused to stay with him.

He dozed, waiting, trying to find the elusive connection that would make sense of the feelings of familiarity. He considered entering innerspace now, but a sensation of imminent danger drove him away from his innerspace portal. Perhaps a nap would be best.

When he woke, something was apparently at work on his nervous system. The onset felt to him like a viral headsmith upgrade. Normal upgrades usually worked quickly, during sleep for the most part, but sometimes they inflicted stretches of horrifying migraine blasts interspersed with innerspace hallucinations. This experience was painless. Perhaps it was the rogue virus from the accident.

He walked in the inner world, and shining men danced with him, laughing and singing in blazes of devouring color. He turned to dust and blew away on emery winds under a shrieking purple sun, his brain knitting and convolving itself as he flew. The profile changes had begun.

An upgrade was ordinarily a simple sensory or metabolic extension: olfactory receptors and connections, or eye-spectrum broadening with new populations of retinal cells and their links. This change was nothing ordinary.

His entire life, everything he could remember of it, had been concentrated into a plane of feeling, gently modulated, easily pierced, delicate, responsive. Now the plane expanded, whelmed, curled back on itself like a sea-surface of gigantic waves, and he was cast into its dim and suffocating depths, and he died and life ended.

Story List	SURPRISE ME	Author Page
USER SURVEY	PUZZLE ME	MAKE ELM MARK

HOVER Lucida Bright BARE	HOVER Lucida Bright FULL	HOVER Palatino Linotype BARE
HOVER Palatino Linotype FULL	HOVER Times New Roman BARE	HOVER Times New Roman FULL
PAD Arial BARE	PAD Arial FULL	PAD Lucida Bright BARE
PAD Lucida Bright FULL	PAD Times New Roman BARE	PAD Times New Roman FULL


	THE CLEANSING 1559 4D Trouble took almost two years to find Jeddin. He was returning to his cubby along a low-ceilinged side street, weaving among other people in the early evening hours, when a pleasant alto voice came from behind him. “Jeddin. Talk with us.” The voice held some odd ultrasonics; Jeddin looked over his shoulder, expecting an andro woman. Three lean, beautiful women stood behind him, their eyes aimed at his. Two of them carried guns, both pointed at his belly. All three wore skinfitting suits that seemed somehow bulky. Two tiny birds, silver-feathered, flitted across the arm’s-length space between Jeddin and the women. He blinked; as the birds dived in among the wall greenery, one of the birds chirped to him in anjive, “Jump left.” He leaped sideways, away from the aimings, and collided with a large man with a dark beard, who carried a jar of pickled roots. “Arrgh!” The jar flew up in the air, arching toward the women, and Jeddin sidestepped, jinked between a pair of men in militia blue, and ran, doubled low. A crash of shattered ceramics, and a soprano cry, announced the assault of pickling juice on skin. Jeddin reached another understreet and turned. For over a year after the accident, he had worked in the andro farms, just as before, but never in the gene-sensitive areas. He was now intimately familiar with the vat reject disposal area, and its unusually fresh smell of bitter oils. No one had asked him about the mishap, and he’d been through two more decontaminations. Zalles had seemed in good health, and Raina had continued to use him. He looked back, fifty meters down a third busy street, and he saw their eyes as they came around the corner and spotted him. They raced forward, even faster than he had moved; the light-brown face of one of them was blistered red. He turned and ran again, dodging among pedestrians for cover. Assassins: the City had sent its agents to kill him for his infection. These women were lean half-andros, clad in skinfitting protective suits, specially grown and cyberenhanced to track, catch and destroy rogues like him. They carried weapons attuned to damage and incapacitate andro nervous systems. Andros knew and feared these creatures, calling them Gullinder‘s Hounds after the key Regional government leader who had had them made. Even the fastest and strongest andros were no match for them. Breathing hard, Jeddin was low in the City now, not a safe level for andros, but he’d been here many times. In an abandoned street, he ducked into a sleep cubby. As he locked the door and reclined, out of sight, a faint flare of recognition made him tense his body. When I was last in a place like this, I… The thought refused to stay with him. He dozed, waiting, trying to find the elusive connection that would make sense of the feelings of familiarity. He considered entering innerspace now, but a sensation of imminent danger drove him away from his innerspace portal. Perhaps a nap would be best. When he woke, something was apparently at work on his nervous system. The onset felt to him like a viral headsmith upgrade. Normal upgrades usually worked quickly, during sleep for the most part, but sometimes they inflicted stretches of horrifying migraine blasts interspersed with innerspace hallucinations. This experience was painless. Perhaps it was the rogue virus from the accident. He walked in the inner world, and shining men danced with him, laughing and singing in blazes of devouring color. He turned to dust and blew away on emery winds under a shrieking purple sun, his brain knitting and convolving itself as he flew. The profile changes had begun. An upgrade was ordinarily a simple sensory or metabolic extension: olfactory receptors and connections, or eye-spectrum broadening with new populations of retinal cells and their links. This change was nothing ordinary. His entire life, everything he could remember of it, had been concentrated into a plane of feeling, gently modulated, easily pierced, delicate, responsive. Now the plane expanded, whelmed, curled back on itself like a sea-surface of gigantic waves, and he was cast into its dim and suffocating depths, and he died and life ended.