Saturn: The Cassini Division

Copyright 2020

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

ISBN: 978-1-09831-510-8 (print)

ISBN: 978-1-09831-511-5 (eBook)

This novel is dedicated to the memory of my mother,

Catherine Mary (McCarthy) Hudgens.

She gave me love, and the love of books.

Contents

Ganymede, the Moons of Jupiter

Victor J. Lugo The A Ring In the Rings of Saturn

Earth’s Moon, Department of Strategic Offensive War

The Saturn Galactic LuxuryLiner and a Couple of Scavengers

Saturn The A Ring Office Park DORIS

The Cassini Division with I. Mendez

Out to the E Ring

Saturn, E Ring HARPI Body Parts Factory

A Few Babies and Lots of Clones

A Talk with BOB

Microbial Pathogens

Implications

The University of Saturn

Saturn Lugo Condo, the A Ring

Enceladus, Back to the E Ring

Enceladus Dreams

LOFCOR, and No Pathogens

Orgasmus Maximus

Enceladus Infiltration

Interview

A Memory Gone Rotten

Confrontation

D-SOW Informed

Close Encounter with a Justice Post

Back to Full Production Mode

The Devil and Their Pet Hyena Come Calling

The Platinum Line Further Compromised

A Trojan Horse from the Enemy

Back at D-SOW, Earth’s Moon

Customer Appreciation

Research among the Files, and a Strange MANIFESTUM232

Deciphering Mysteries241

Unexpected Messages

A Shock on Planet Earth

Illegal Acts

Summoned to Another Shocking Disclosure

An Appeal to Nobility

How to Help

Illegal Thoughts, Illegal Writings

A Way to Help

The Pickup at the E Ring

The Delivery

Another Shocking Contact

Ominous News from D-SOW

A Shocking Revelation from GLADYSS

A Deitonian Lie

More Dreams from the Reptilian Brain

Truth from the Tortured

More Deitonian Truths

A Disaster Pill

Install a Pure and Uncorrupted Heart

The Final Justice Post Interview

Old Partners, New Partners

Acknowledgments

Prologue

Ganymede, the Moons of Jupiter

In the frozen, sun-less black of an alien moon, a small cocoon of life began to stir.

Inside the confines of Combat Hospital Ganymede, lights powered-up first in the eyes of the machines, their circuitry growing intense with the knowledge of the arrival of incoming ships. The artificial intelligence units then arose, beginning to walk, roll, or glide toward the nearest passageway, their programs humming with the electrical pulses of encoded duty.

Out in the hallways, the robots melded with a widening stream of life-forms of all kinds—android, transhuman, cyborg, and a few flesh and blood humans—weaving through the antiseptic vestibules toward the emergency room in orchestrated preparation to receive and save wounded soldiers.

Minutes later, outside in the Jupiterian void, the interplanetary medical transport ships touched down in a rush of deceleration and dust, under heavy military escort, delivering three hundred nearly ruined human bodies for emergency treatment. Ushered off the landing tarmac and through the airlock entrances one by one, the fragile survivors were guided away from the unforgiving darkness, the ear-bud shouts, and the dying fire of engines, into the quiet, healing, artificial light of the hospital.

The air stretchers floated the once-perfect human specimens down the corridors toward salvation, while clone orderlies and robotic nurses glided alongside, monitoring the status of each case. Already hooked up to mobile IVs and oxygen masks, the patients had received lifesaving critical care. Now, safe inside the bubble of delicate atmospheric and gravitational perfection on the surface of Jupiter’s satellite in the complex of surgical modules, their wounds would be healed.

Over the next few hours, the most specialized doctors in the solar system oversaw each and every step of the medical procedures at Ganymede. The elite teams of surgeons, nurses, assistants, and robotics worked non-stop, removing damaged organs, and replacing them with bright, vibrant, healthy new ones. The highest quality skin, hearts, spleens, and kidneys had lain glistening in their state-of-the-art transportation coolers, emblazoned with the logo of Human Anatomy Replacement Parts, Inc., the name HARPI above the image of three young women with Antique body types, their arms outstretched together in a gesture of generosity, a bountiful offering of a heart to the solar system. The organs were retrieved and flesh-bonded into place: expertly grown livers, eyes, nerves, ligaments, and muscles, all connected meticulously, each patient a treasure to save.

An authoritative-looking hologram figure circulated among the surgeons during the operations, pointing and offering observations, all of the comments received with quiet respect and nods of acknowledgment. Precisely programmed nano-bots assisted in the most delicate connections, injected into the bloodstream by computer-controlled robotic arms. The tiny mechanical geniuses found their way to the correct place, did their job, and would later be excreted and retrieved from the waste product filters of the recovering soldiers.

The work done, the skin sewn, melded, and secured tight against the elements, the human doctors smiled and relaxed while the robots powered down into energy-save mode. The brave soldiers of the Amalgamation’s elite fighting force were now moved into their healing pods, already growing stronger under the medicinal, therapeutic glow of healing illumination radiance, their newly stitched-in organs feeding on the steady beat and rush of blood in arteries, veins, and capillaries.

The recovering warriors lay in thirty different rooms, ten soldiers to a room, the silence broken only by the gentle sound of the monitors’ steady beep, tracking the regular rhythm of hearts, the consistent flow of oxygen in red blood cells, and the successfully working organs of the highest quality ever created by human hands.

Nurses in soft shoes and robotic specialists on silent wheels roamed the hallways as the scanners and monitors tracked the inevitable process of recovery, and the intravenous units or other life-giving devices fed the patients with nutrients.

*****

Two hours and fifty-three minutes after the last of the patients in room 202 had been wheeled in for recovery, a red light began to pulse, followed by an obnoxious alarm that brought a pair of human nurses running. Still panting and short of breath, they quickly found the soldier whose vital signs had shut down, scanning the indicators around the unit to find out what had gone wrong. Horrified by the look of their patient, distraught at the noise blaring in their ears, they found themselves unable to deal with the symptoms despite their skills. One of them slammed a button to call for assistance. Two clone orderlies came running in a flash of white, followed by two more robotic medics on wheels.

Four minutes and six seconds later, in room 527, another monitoring line went flat. Again, red lights flashed and harsh alarms wailed, bringing a nearly panicked nurse into the room.

In rooms 103, 680, and 339, a sudden explosion of red lights, flat lines, alarms, and vital signs showed patients careening toward a very sudden death.

Robot doctors poured down every hallway, followed by humans scrambling into white coats. Upon scanning the patients, the robots could not compute a solution. Hesitation mixed with shock in the humans’ eyes. Injection devices flashed and spit the first drops of stimulants to make the patients react. A cacophony of orders echoed in the rooms, hard words exchanged, frazzled nerves jumping to understand what actions to take.

All over the hospital, in thirty different rooms, the same pattern repeated itself, of glaring red lights, shrill noise, and flat lines. Half a dozen patients died in the first few minutes of their agony, so quickly that the medical staff couldn’t even do a consciousness download.

Two hours later, forty patients were gone, brains too damaged to save any semblance of the human consciousness inside.

Hour after hour it continued—red lights, screaming alarms, organ failures, one after the other, as inevitable and unavoidable as an avalanche, while the staff found no way to stop the crushing weight of onrushing death. In front of the glazed, unbelieving eyes of the human medical staff who were sickened by what they saw, in front of the overloaded circuits of the robots, their efforts lay in ruins. The Amalgamation troopers, their human treasures, their nano-bots, human experience, had all been lost.

In the souls of the incredulous doctors and nurses rose a wave of unfathomable tears and terror.

Within eighteen hours of the last operation, three hundred soldiers had suddenly, inexplicably, flat-lined.

In the frozen, sun-less black of an alien moon, all three hundred. Dead.

1

Victor J. Lugo

The A Ring

In the Rings of Saturn

I rode along on the smooth electromagnetic monorail, heading to work in a very bright mood, my blood humming as quietly as the transportation car weaving its way along the rings. I sat back, searching for a comfortable place in the hard seat, oblivious to the other passengers. I gazed out the windows at the drifting multicolored rocks and ice. Over the horizon of the rings, I could see our neighbor Jupiter and four of its moons lit up against the inky black background of space.

The Interior Rings Area Transit System pod approached an advertising post on the edge of the Encke Gap, and I felt so good I even accepted the laser beam that shot out to scan my face. I let the red light find my chip. A moment later a tropical getaway on Io appeared in my contact lenses, volcanoes in the background spewing smoke and colorful gas, a happy couple holding hands and laughing as they strolled along in front of the molten lava, a purplish sky with orange clouds swirling above them. Get away from it all, the sultry voiceover said, and find romance on Io.

Maybe.

Maybe I will do exactly that if the quarterly numbers are as good as I expect them to be. Mendez and I could use some romance lately.

As the ad came to its conclusion, the voiceover grew husky with lust. VirtuaTour: the most sensuous, passionate, and sexiest of any virtual vacations in the solar system. A conspiratorial tone crept in for the personalized coup de grâce. Mr. Lugo, your deepest, darkest secrets are safe with us. Call now!

I think they know me better than I know myself.

Just then, a limousine pod whisked past us on the adjacent private monorail system. Through the windows I glimpsed an attractive service android offering morning drinks to an exquisitely dressed executive squeezed into their plush faux-leather captain’s chair, warmly embraced by the cordiality and exclusivity of the posh personal car, which surely glided toward a glittering chrome and glass office in the Cassini Division.

The soft braking of the pod jarred me to attention. The A Ring Office Park, the drab voice intoned. I stood up with the impatient throng jostling for position, the clones crowding rudely to the front, while robots, cyborgs, and androids politely allowed fully biological units to move forward. Someone spat the word stuplicate nearly in my ear, the shortened slur of stupid duplicate, addressing one of the clones as they got close behind it. The Interior Rings Area Transit Systems thanks you for your patronage. I-RATS also asks you to please watch your step as you exit.

My palms began to moisten from excitement as the double doors hissed open. I bounced down the steps, brushing past slower passengers, stepping onto the moving sidewalks that whisked me down corridors of spaceglass to the entrance of my office building. I passed some unfortunate human soul caught in a fruitless argument with a new Justice Post recently imbedded outside our building, the mechanical vigilante rummaging through their brain with MindPass technology.

But I moved on quickly. I couldn’t afford any distractions. I have more important things to think about. Today is the day. Our best numbers ever.

Arriving at HARPI, I whooshed through our entrance doors into the lobby. It’s another beautiful Saturn day at Human Anatomy Replacement Parts, Incorporated, our recorded welcoming system verbalized in a bright voice, followed by the HARPI jingle:

HARPI has the heart

HARPI has the soul

To make you young again,

To make you whole.

HARPI has the bones

HARPI has the brain—

The song cut off when the security system scanned the chip in my forehead. Welcome, Mr. Lugo, the voice said. Human Anatomy Replacement Parts, Incorporated—we bring you long life and health, the voice crooned as the oversized metallic doors of my company closed behind me. My pulse raced as I walked through the foyer, scanning past the next set of sliding glass doors into the reception area. I heard the recorded sound of falling water and noticed the smell of lavender. I made my way down a hall lined with reproductions of HARPI hologram interactive advertising posters, whisked upstairs in the elevator suction tube, finally arriving to the seventh floor of the squat eight-story building pod where we rented space.

I waved and quickly verbalized desultory greetings to some of my staff who lingered around in the executive floor reception area, socializing over steaming cups of morning coffee or VitaSoy breakfast snacks, but did not stop to chat with anyone. Reaching my office, I saw my own usual mug already waiting on my desk, fogging the air aromatically, no doubt in my mind that it was already lightly creamed and sweetened to perfection for my tastes. I liked to drink it from my supersize VitaSoy mug.

I dropped into my chair, my back to the viewport spaceglass windows, and before I could even order them, my morning reports began to arrive. Here are the quarterly results, Victor, DORIS’s voice echoed inside my head. They hummed into view and smiled at me, standing motionless off to one side of my desk. My Digital Organizational Robotic Intelligence Services unit is a medium-size android robot, standard brown exterior skin tones, non-binary, gender-neutral, androgynous, short black hair, modern curveless human form, and smarter than any previous models by light years.

As I tested my first sip of eye-opening brew, brightly colored charts and graphs from DORIS’s transmission lit the interior surface of my computer screen contact lenses. I couldn’t have asked for anything more. The numbers burst before my eyes like novas, pulsed like quasars, and danced like distant starlight. The quarterly profit numbers had risen again, year over year as they had for more than a decade. The column illustrating this period’s increase arched like the track of a hydrogen-powered sun in a blue business sky whose fuel source seemed eons away from burning to its end. I felt my face glow in the light of that sun.

I leaned back and luxuriated in the softness of my one workplace indulgence, other than DORIS: my executive chair. I took in the dull colors of my office pod in the A Ring, noticing the nicks in the faux wooden paneling and discoloration of the particle-plastic furniture. With this cash flowing in, it will soon be time for an upgrade.

I spun to the huge spaceglass viewing window behind me, glanced through the charts and focused my eyes beyond the contact lenses, gazing for a moment at the massive hurricane clouds swirling on the surface of Saturn in the distance. Then I turned my eyes to the Northern Lights at the top of the planet, green and luminous, dancing like a living spirit.

What a great idea it was to give the go-ahead to the cost-cutting initiatives.

I had implemented the initiatives three quarters earlier. They’d finally gained traction and supercharged the profits. Give me the projections for the next quarter, I communicated silently via MindPass to my assistant, focusing inside my contacts lenses again. The transmission originating from DORIS changed from past results to projected, while their soft, sexy voice massaged my brain as they narrated the images.

Total income expected to increase 22.3 percent, while net income will rise 31.7 percent. Profit as a percentage of income projected to rise…

The numbers electrified me. A few more years with profits like this and I will have the business loan paid off, the condo mortgage liquidated, the DORIS loan paid off, and the money will start to flow into my own pockets for a change. I’ll update my household staff to ExecuBot level. I also planned to sell my condo and upgrade to a mansion in the Garden Hills section of the Huygens Ringlet in the Cassini Division, the most exclusive residential part of the rings, with the best vistas in all of the greater Saturn Rings Metroplex. I already had my eye on a place.

And that wasn’t all. I would move the corporate offices there too. The Herschel Gap in the Cassini Division was where all the major corporate players were located, the most prestigious business address in the solar system, including my most hated competitor. I would move us out of the backwater A Ring corporate park into some swanky offices with real-looking mahogany furniture, an on-site VitaSoy bar, and a plastic surgery facility, along with all the other perks of the big dogs, outdoing the scum who always said I wasn’t good enough to make it happen. I would stop riding the I-RATS public transportation system and contract a limo pod with soft seats, twice-filtered air, and an ExecuBot private and attractive valet with gender-fluid skin tones and flexible gender signifiers, adjustable according to my taste, to take me to work each day.

I relinquished my beautiful daydream when BOB beamed in. BOB was my salesperson. Or rather, they were my Holographic Sales Unit, a hologram shaped to look like a modern sexless human with standard brown skin, preferred black hair, programmed up-to-the-minute product and sales intelligence, a virtual and synthetic non-binary voice pattern with a Neptune accent, all projected from HARPI digital beacons in a shaft of light that would have made them six feet two inches tall if they were an actual person.

They shot an insipid salesperson grin at DORIS, who remained in a frozen robotic trance brought on by their shift to power-save mode at BOB’s arrival.

I also felt free to ignore them for a few minutes, unwilling to let my happy feeling end. Even though they were an exceptionally good sales person, BOB annoyed me sometimes. Maybe it was because they were taller and better looking than me, smarter than me, more popular with my clients than me, and earnest like a first-year Explorer Scout. It galled me to realize that in my own company I ran second place to a standardized off-the-shelf BeamDevice.

From the corner of my eyes, I saw their digital beacon light source feeding them into a standing position, where they fidgeted in the hologram equivalent of a nervous sweat—unusual even for BOB. Finally, I relented. What is it, BOB?

BOB’s light image dropped into a chair. Somehow, their company had even added sound effects, and their weight made a thud as they plopped down their virtual flat butt. I had given them MindPass1.0 the day I hired them, but they chose to verbalize. A transmission came in from D-SOW, they said. One of my contacts. BOB took a handkerchief from their inside coat pocket and wiped the fantasy digitized sweat off their brow. Bad news, I’m afraid. Since they are nothing but a projected image of lights and shadows, and not an ounce of real flesh and blood, they can’t really sweat. But they liked the drama. Very bad news. They leaned forward. In fact, I would call this catastrophic. This is beyond—

Just tell me, BOB.

By the way, please rest assured that I’ve already started the voice memo. I know you prefer memos, but this time I thought I should come personally and—

I hate memos. I’ve told you a thousand times I hate memos. I even sent you a voice memo requesting you to stop sending me memos.

BOB appeared shocked by that information.

Now tell me what happened, I said.

Some of our brave soldiers…Did you ever serve, boss?

I took a deep breath to control my rising exasperation. If I was ever going to get the information from BOB, I would have to practice patience. Exemption, I answered.

Me too. I never had the honor—

What about our soldiers, BOB? Patience be damned.

BOB did not answer for a second, probably remembering how they had gotten some medical doctor, or in their case some psychiatric quack, to declare them inappropriate for military duty, just like half the population of the solar system, including the Amalgamation leader, who was excused for some vague psychological hardship reasons. Even a Betatronics Organizational BeamDevice like ours had a military obligation. BOB’s large brown eyes gleamed inside their hologram bubble. It seems that some of our brave wounded warriors died suddenly in the hospital where they were under treatment.

It happens, unfortunately, I answered, running my hand over the top of my head in slight exasperation at BOB’s line of conversation, thinking my hair felt a little thin compared to how thick and attractive BOB’s was. I´ll have DORIS schedule me for a transplant.

Their head came up and nodded slightly as they read my mind.

Unusual circumstances in this case, BOB clarified.

Yes?

BOB’s glowing image leaned all the way forward, their virtual chest slumping toward my desk. Their already enormous eyes bulged as they said in the over-dramatic stage whisper of a bad actor, Organ. Failure.

Our eyes locked. I felt the blood rush out of my face. I glimpsed my own knuckles go white as I gripped the edge of my desk. Organ failure? Are they ours? Did they buy from—

D-SOW, sir. You know they have an exclusive contract with Human Anatomy Replacement Parts, BOB reminded me with a righteous look on their face. I am the only sales unit of any kind, whether virtual, holographic, electromagnetic, biological, organic, inorganic, or otherwise, whom they will allow on the property. They don’t like ZYGOTE or any of their subsidiaries.

I ignored that half-truth. Which organ? I asked, my mind racing. Lungs? Heart? I guessed wildly. Kidney? It must have been kidney. I saw nothing in BOB’s face. Liver? Damned BOB gave me nothing to go on.

Sorry, BOB finally apologized with pretend sorrow. My contact didn’t have that detail. It was a very short message, and they took a risk making the transmission at all.

I see. Is Colonel Strafer involved yet?

My source says she’s the one who ordered a full investigation. BOB paused to let that sink in. She’s most likely going to insist on your presence at her lunar office.

An almost imperceptible whir came from the place where DORIS had been standing, and I caught a glimpse of movement from the corner of my eye.

I let myself consider the situation. My company had millennia of experience based on hundreds of years of earlier studies and practice. We had ten Saturn years of near perfection on this contract, and now this? If it really was a failure of my products, exactly when my customer needed them the most, it would be catastrophic, to use BOB’s word. The numbers I had just seen would come crashing down like…

No, it was too horrific to believe. Could it really have happened?

I paused in my considerations. Don’t jump to conclusions, I thought. There must be some mistake. BOB certainly was not always a reliable source, and it seemed they’d gotten the story secondhand. Who knew where this information was really coming from? It couldn’t be true, I decided.

BOB stood up. You’ve never been on Colonel Strafer’s bad side as far as I have seen, but she is not someone you want to get in a tizzy. They say she has an enemies list that’s never more than one or two names long, not because she doesn’t have many enemies, but because the names on the list don’t last very long. The name goes on, and the person is… BOB pretended to moisten the tips of their fingers and pressed them together as if extinguishing a candle. Sshhhhu… They made the sizzling sound of a wetted flame. "Snuffed out before nightfall, to be replaced by new names. Reach out if you need me."

BOB flickered out.

They left me thinking about Colonel Ann Strafer, my military contact, and my boss on our contract. She was the one who had the final say on awarding this deal to my company ten years earlier, and she would have the final word if the contract were to be discontinued or not. When I first met her, my eyes nearly jumped from my head when I saw that she was an Antique body type like me. I was so flustered, I’d made the mistake of mispronouncing her last name as Strah-fer.

"That’s Stray-fer, Lugo, she had corrected me mildly. You know, like in the old days when the machine guns strafed the enemy. Get it right from now on."

And I did. Machine Gun Strafer, I called her. Only to myself, of course. She was a harsh taskmaster, relentless as a swarm of angry bees, and rapacious as a wolf, as sensitive to weakness as those ancient long-extinct sharks that used to be able to smell blood in the water.

I prayed BOB was wrong about this.

A very faint whir reentered my consciousness, and a small brown pill fell into my visual field. I heard the tinkling of ice in a glass, at the same time detecting the smell of liquor.

A Scotch pill, DORIS said, to get your buzz started, and then the real thing that some humans seem to find so pleasing to the senses. They placed a small tumbler of amber liquid next to the pill.

May the stars of heaven bless you, DORIS, I said, regarding the booze without touching it. But I think there’s some misunderstanding here. I won’t be needing that stuff.

It pains me to tell you that BOB is probably right, they said in their softest, most sympathetic assistant voice.

I could not hide my alarm. BOB was prone to exaggeration and mistakes, but DORIS— never. Why?

I have a transmission coming in from the Department of Strategic Offensive War right now.

D-SOW? Who originated—?

Colonel Strafer’s office. I’ve already composed the memo to Quality Control to start the investigation. It just needs your voice signature to finalize. I’ll get your ticket for tomorrow.

I didn’t like to drink in the morning, but I picked up the pill and popped it in my mouth. I took a deep swig from the glass to wash it down. I looked at DORIS. Fir—

First class, DORIS interrupted me. On Saturn Galactic. It’s a long trip, and if this news is true, you’ll need the pampering.

2

Earth’s Moon, Department of

Strategic Offensive War

I rode the I-RATS back to the condo to pack for the trip. Arriving at the platform outside our living pod, I passed our local Justice Post, an old-fashioned version named Hillary, low-key and non-threatening most of the time. Their robotic half-body, mounted on a post, scanned the crowds for suspicious behavior. They turned on their swivel, oscillating like a fan on slow speed, and caught my eye. They raised their arm in a friendly wave. Morning, Mr. Lugo. Your local SUD—to protect and serve!

Good morning, Hill.

They turned again on the rotating anchor, examining the faces in the crowd walking past, looking for a recognized felon, or for features that simply drew their attention, like worry, concern, guilt, or anger. Justice Posts also did regular examinations every few months, and random interviews according to their own mysterious quota requirements. They were more properly referred to as Standard Ubiquitous Devices, or SUDs.

Hillary was one of the last of their models. The newer versions like the one that had just been installed outside our building in the A Ring were rumored to be equipped with MindPass 4.1, a version so advanced that it was not even available to military vendors like me, much less the general public. Hillary may have had MindPass 1.6, but nothing more advanced than that. They had interviewed me dozens of times, and I found them about as threatening as the little old androids with Antique female body types who used to teach at the neighborhood kindergartens a couple of thousand years before, when such things still existed.

The new versions were the ones to watch out for.

As I strode inside my condo, my inbox reminded me of three unopened brainmails from my spouse I. Mendez, whom I privately referred to as Isabella, along with what turned out to be some well-disguised miscellaneous spam messages that kept getting through my filter. They were getting routed from a server in Mercury, and they were starting to annoy me. They kept asking me to respond to an anonymous sender.

I also received a couple of three-dimensional interactive porn mail links from my friend Perez. I forwarded those to my personal mail to check after hours, deleted the spam, and then decided to braincall Isabella directly before take-off. They had something big going on at the labs at the University of Saturn, though for security reasons they’d been vague with me about what it was. Ever since the project started, they had a new braincall blocking system while at work, so I got put on hold and had to wait for them to answer after my security clearance was verified. Because I’m a D-SOW vendor, eventually I got patched through.

Hey, you finally answered my messages, they said. Why so busy?

Something’s come up, I replied. I have to leave for Earth’s moon. It’s a D-SOW issue. Pretty serious, unfortunately. I can’t say what it is yet for security reasons, but I should be home in a couple of days.

Their eyes saddened for an instant, then opened as large as silver coins in the light brown skin of their face as they understood how important it must be. They gave me a smile of encouragement as we chatted. They didn’t even remind me that today was our anniversary, and no warnings about behaving myself, or any other reprimands—no jealousy or clinginess. I loved that self-secure side of them. We had signed a zero-children, five Saturn years, two-person friendship-marriage contract. Terms were fifty-fifty profit sharing for all assets added after the marriage date; sexual fidelity non-applicable clause, including Altered States of Consciousness availability to any other life-form, with number of connections non-restricted, whether in singles or simultaneous multiples; automatic renewal clause; and termination with thirty days’ notice upon request of either party.

Sweet.

We had just completed our third year.

My servantbot JAIME already had my bag packed. The little suitcase honed-in on my forehead identity chip, following me on its tracking wheels like an enthusiastic puppy toward the front door, where I stopped in front of our huge fish tank. Still on the braincall with Isabella, I noticed they were wearing their white lab coat with the name Dr. I. Mendez Lugo continually voiced from above the pocket, but I also realized that the desks and beakers of liquids smoking on metal stands in the background were not real. Although I could feel the warm air through our connection, and smell whatever was burning, I recognized the whole scene as a generic screen background. They must have been in some kind of secure mode. Even with my clearance they wouldn’t let me see what was really going on.

Stay in touch, and be careful with that Colonel Strafer, they added, their Neptune vowel patterns stalking around Strafer’s name like a lynx.

It seemed to me that something had begun to feel strained in our relationship ever since their top-secret project started, ever since they started keeping information about their work private from me. And now I couldn’t even call their office without the authorities between us. It was wrong of me to resent them for complying with the requirements of their job, but I couldn’t help feeling shut out. I wanted our old sense of closeness back. It wasn’t our love life that was suffering, it was our friendship. I was starting to wonder if I really wanted to let the automatic marriage renewal clause in our contract kick in when it came due, or whether to re-negotiate. I’ll call you as soon as I get back, I promised, and I’ll take you to dinner at that new Venus cuisine restaurant in Garden Hills to celebrate our anniversary.

Sounds great, they said. I’m very impressed that you remembered.

Of course, I remembered.

Not really. In fact, DORIS had sent an anniversary VoiceCard to my brainmail for my voice signature with an already personalized note. I had totally forgotten. The restaurant is not far from where our new house pod is going to be, I added.

They showed me an indulgent smile for voicing my dream again out loud. I can’t wait. Stay safe, and hurry home. By the way, the bonus they’ve been promising me for the first phase of this project hit my bank account this morning.

Now there’s something I really loved about my spouse. They were hard-working and ambitious, bringing economic resources to our marriage partnership. How much? I asked.

I’ll tell you about it when you get back.

I was thinking five thousand titanium grams would be nice, and ten thousand would be a welcome surprise.

Maybe we’ll use some of it for a VirtuaTour vacation, they said.

My skin tingled at the memories of our last one. Great idea. Hey, take care of my fish while I’m gone, I said, gesturing toward the massive tank in our condo and waiting for their standard reply. I had already sent a mind command to the tank to autofeed our collection of exotic and