tobetter predict them, not to make you feel an emotional attachmenttowards them. You can do whatever you want at home, donate your wageto charity, I don't care, but when you're out in the field, I need youto be there for me, performing at a hundred percent."
"Yes, sir," I say reluctantly.
He talks into his glass as he swishes around the remaining dribble ofwhiskey, as if he has trouble meeting my eyes for once. "Someone willmeet with you on your way out."
This takes me by surprise. I don't need the red warning label that'ssuddenly superimposed over my vision to tell me that something's wrong."Who?"
"A doctor. I'd like to run a few checks on you, just to be on the safeside." If he's not outright lying, then my software's convinced thathe's at least hiding something from me.
"Checks?"
"Yeah. Checks." He takes another sip of his drink.
My paranoia starts to kick in as I realise how easy it would be for himto kill me, just as long as he took me unaware. For all my jacked upreflexes and painstakingly learned skills, in light of the new whollyartificial employees our rivals have been raving about, I'm starting tolook a lot like an old Decca television set in a room full of Sonyprojectors. In all likelihood, Mike would have had me killed monthsago already if I wasn't still so damned good.
"And Suzi?"
"Yes?" Our eyes meet again, at last.
"Do yourself a favour. Don't get emotionally involved. It's justbusiness."
"I know." I walk out the door, not looking back.
"Well, all your tests show you're operating within specs," says the manthat Mike claims to be some sort of medical doctor.
"That's a relief," I say sarcastically.
"Nevertheless, I'm still concerned about these certain imperfections inyour performance. I just can't seem to find a neurological orphysiological source for them."
"Did it ever occur to you that I'm only human?"
A grunt serves him as laughter. "Isn't that your main selling point?From what I hear, you're Mike's poster girl. Maybe even the wholeindustry's." He looks me up and down, and I fight the urge to pull outthe knife I'm carrying and gouge his inferior eyes out. "Shame no oneknows what you look like." Perhaps sensing my obvious discomfort, hechanges the subject. "You know how few of you there are left in yourline of work?" By 'you,' I assume he means humans. "Less than adozen, by our estimates. Worldwide. You're a rarity."
I let myself flash a brief smile. Professional pride.
"A dying breed, you might say," he adds with a chuckle. I feel mywhole body tense up.
"There's one more test I'd like to carry out on you. It will takeseveral hours, but thankfully I don't actually need you to be presentfor it so you can go and do whatever you like. I just need to take arelatively quick backup of your brain's neural pathways first, then youcan go home and get some rest."
"A neural backup?"
"It won't hurt, I promise." Another warning sign pops up next to hisface, and I finally decide it's time to kick into defence mode.There's no discernible change from an outsider's perspective, butinside my brain and its hardware, a dozen little defence applicationsare springing to life, waiting for my signal that they should startwreaking havoc. I usually slip into this mode several times a week,but in my line of work it's safer to err on the side of paranoia."What's this really for? Insurance in case I mess up?"
"I can't slip anything past you." The doctor grins, revealing two rowsof surprisingly well worn teeth. "Let's just say your employer doesn'tlike to take chances, and you're the best person in the business."
"From what you're saying, I'm pretty much the _only_ person in thebusiness."
"Exactly. Now, please, lie down here while I perform a quick scan ofyour neural pathways. It'll only take a few minutes."
For some reason, I black out.
I feel rain on my face, a light drizzle. My nostrils fill with thescent of wet plants and damp soil. I open my eyes to discover that I'mlying on a park bench less than a mile from my flat. That's neverhappened to me before: I've always stayed awake just fine for brainscans in the past, both objectively and subjectively. I summon myclock application, its translucent display fading into my vision andout again for just long enough for me to tell that I was out for almosttwo hours, which is about right for the journey home.
I stand up, a little giddy at first, and tentatively start to make myway through the park. By the time I'm striding through the streets,stepping around all the puddles on the pavement, I've had a few minutesto reflect on the day's events. I decide not to let Mike or his cronydoctor get to me. Let him be pissed off at me. I'm the last humanassassin. Replacing me with an android would be a terrible PR move,and he knows it.
Still, I can't overlook the fact that _something_ is terribly wrong,although it's probably just healthy paranoia on my part to assume thatit concerns me at all. Maybe he's just shielding me from some dullbusiness problems he's having. Whatever it is, I'm glad I don't haveto think about it anymore tonight.
As I walk into my driveway, I think about how I can spend the rest ofthe evening. Maybe a hot shower followed by a stir fry and a naturedocumentary. Both the matter and the subject matter were populartorrents on my favourite Swedish tracker the previous week. It reallyputs my job into perspective when I'm reminded how the human race isthe only species that isn't still wrapped up in daily life-or-deathstruggles for food, or at least, not for copyright free food.
As I approach my block of flats, for some reason I feel uneasy. Irealise something's wrong, although I can't quite work out what it isyet. I switch to defence mode yet again as I press the palm of my handagainst the security pad, look into the retina scanner and open thedoor as quietly as I can. To my surprise, my eyes' apps seem to havebeen upgraded. I have them set not to update automatically, whichmeans they must have been switched while I was out from the brain scan.No wonder I lost consciousness: they'd been altering me, not justpassively examining me. I switch modes again, figuring that it'sbetter to take my chances on my own, rather than risk firing offunknown software that could do anything from crash to sabotage me. Icreep along the corridor, then open the door to my flat just as quietly.
I switch my eyes to +IR mode so that they overlay the infraredfrequencies of the electromagnetic radiation around me over the top ofthe human-visible ones. The eerie glow of the walls and pipes isfamiliar enough, but the human sized and shaped blob glowing in theliving room isn't. I switch the vision to only twenty percent infraredoverlay so that I don't have as much information to distract me, and Ibrace myself.
I keep two katanas hung up decoratively on the wall in my living room,and with the element of surprise I might manage to grab one before theintruder knows I'm there. I have no idea if he or she is even armed,so I don't want to take any chances.
The blur moves like she or he is about to stand up, so I run into theroom as quickly as I can and grab a katana. Despite bracing myself,I'm not prepared for what I see next.
* * *
The figure dashes for the other katana, then leaps back to the otherside of the room so we can properly study each other. I can see herclearly now, from her thermal imprint to the deep brown colour of theartificial eyes hidden behind her epicanthic folds. In everydiscernible way, she looks identical to me. She's even wearing thefleece, t-shirt and jeans I picked out this morning. Even moreincredibly, she looks just as confused as I feel.
"Oh, that's just perfect," she says. "Did Mike send you?"
"_What_?" I don't take my eyes off her. Her face is serious; herpoise calculated. She's ready to attack me without warning, justwaiting to know for sure that I'm a threat. I nod, gesturing towardsher. "Who _are_ you?"
"Suzi Yamada," she says.
"That's impossible!"
"Evidently it isn't." She speaks without moving her head a singledegree, watching me carefully. "Listen, I've had a _really_ bad daytoday. Some phony doctor tried to kill me earlier, and it doesn't looklike
you're shaping up to be any friendlier."
"You killed him?" I ask.
"It's a habit." She lunges towards me, her sword pointed directly atmy chest, aiming straight for my heart.
I manage to nudge her blade out of the way of my body with my ownsword, redirecting the force of her sprint away from me. "I didn'tcome here to kill you. Can't we just talk like civilised adults?" Ithen sweep my blade around, aiming