“Whom we find less suitable than you.”

I’ll bet. What you’re asking skirts a razor’s edge away from illegal. An expert would know how to keep on the safe side of that border. I might make one mistake and wind up in hock to UK, paying off a criminal-tort lien till the next ice age.

Fortunately, there’s an easy way out of this.

“I am flattered, Maestra. But the biggest reason I can’t take this assignment is a possible conflict of interest. You see, even as we speak, another gray of mine is at Universal Kilns, consulting about another matter.”

Expecting disappointment or anger, I see only amusement in Wammaker’s eyes. “We’re already aware of this. There were newscams and other spy-eyes all over the Teller Building this morning, remember? I saw Ritu Maharal pick you up in a UK limo. Putting that together with public reports of her father’s untimely death, I find it simple to imagine what your other gray is discussing, right now at Kaolin Mansion.”

At Kaolin Mansion? I thought gray number one was going to UK headquarters. These people know more about my business than I do!

“ditto Morris, there’s a way to insulate you and your rig from legal jeopardy for conflict of interest. Nowadays, it’s possible for the left hand not to know what the right hand is doing, if you get what I mean.”

Unfortunately, I think I do.

There goes my hope of an afterlife.

“It’s really quite simple,” says Vic Collins. “All we have to do is—”

He stops, interrupted as a phone rings.

It’s my phone, chattering an urgent rhythm.

The maestra looks miffed, and rightly so. Nell knows I’m in a meeting. If my house computer thinks the call is so damn important, she ought to wake Archie.

I grunt an apology, flipping the wrist plate over one ear.

“Yes?”

“Albert? It’s Ritu Maharal. I — I can’t see you. Don’t you have vid?”

Pause a sec. But none of my other selves will answer, so I must.

“This phone is a cheap strap-on. I’m just a gray, Ritu. Anyway, don’t you already have one of me—”

“Where are you?” she demands. Something in her voice makes me sit up. It sounds like grief, giving way to rising panic.

“Aeneas is waiting in the car, getting impatient. He expected you and my … father’s ditto to join him. But you both vanished!”

“What do you mean, vanished? How could they …”

Now I realize — she thinks I’m that gray! The confusion could be cleared up with a few words, but I don’t want to cue in Gineen, or her weird friends. So what can I say?

Just in time, another voice cuts in, a bit groggy. It’s Archie, roused from his nap again.

“Ritu? It’s me, Albert Morris. Are you saying that my gray is missing? And your father’s too?”

I flip-shut the phone. My first priority must go to the clients here in front of me — even if I won’t be working for them in a minute or two.

Silence reigns. Finally, Wammaker leans forward, her golden hair spilling past pale shoulders to her famed decolletage.

“Well, Mr. Morris? About our offer. We need to know what you’re thinking.”

I take a deep breath, knowing it will hasten the metabolism of my fast-draining pseudocells, bringing slightly closer an extinction that can only be forestalled by making it home tonight. Home, to rejoin my original with what I learn today. And yet, I already know Wammaker’s plan — a way that I might legally spy for her without conflict of interest. It requires that I — this gray doppelganger — sacrifice all hope of survival, for the good of more important beings.

No, it’s even worse than that. What if I refuse? Can she let me leave, knowing that I might report this meeting to Vic Kaolin? Sure, I post a PI confidentiality bond for all customers. I’d never break a patron’s confidence. But the paranoid maestra could decide not to risk it, since UK can buy my bond for pocket change.

To be safe, she’ll destroy this body of mine, content to pay Albert triple damages.

And he’ll take the cash, too. Who bothers to avenge a dit?

Wammaker and her guests watch me, awaiting an answer.

Looking past them, I seek visual comfort in something green and growing — indoor plants that the maestra of Studio Neo has scattered casually about her meeting chamber, to give it a homey feel.

“I think …”

“Yes?”

Her famous indecent smile pulls at something dark inside you. Inside even clay.

Take another deep breath.

“I think your ficus looks a bit dry. Have you tried giving it more water?”

Moonlight Beach is one of my favorite spots. I go there with Clara whenever the crowds let up, especially if we have tourism coupons that are about to expire.

Of course, it’s set aside for archies. All the best beaches are. I’ve never been here as a green before … unless some of my missing dittos vanished the same way I did today. By throwing away all hope and playing hookey.

Parking the scooter in a public rack, I hiked to the bluff edge for a look, hoping to find the place half-empty. That’s when rules relax, archies feel less territorial, and coloreds like me can safely visit.

Tuesday’s a weekday. That used to make a difference, when I was a kid.

But no such luck. People swarmed across every open area with blankets, umbrellas, and beach toys. I spied a few bright orange lifeguards, padding about with webbed arms and feet, puffing their massive air sacs while patrolling for danger. Everyone else was some shade of human-brown, from dark chocolate to pale as sand.

If I set foot down there, I’d stand out like a sore thumb.

Peering south past a distant fluttering marker, I saw the rocky spit that’s set aside for my own kind. A brightly tinted mob, crammed together at the point where rip tides and jagged outcrops make things dicey for real flesh. No lifeguards ventured down there, just a few yellow-striped cleaners, equipped with hooks to dispose of the unlucky. Anyway, who wants to waste beach time on an imitation? It’s hard enough getting a reservation to come in person.

Suddenly, I felt resentful of all the rules … the waiting lists and tourism allotments … just to spend a little time at the shore. A century ago, you could do what you wished and go where you liked.

That is, if you were rich and white, a small inner voice reminded me. The whitish-brown of a ruling elite.

The mere idea of racism seems bizarre today. Yet each generation has problems. As a kid, I endured food rationing. Wars were fought over fresh water. Now we suffer afflictions of plenty. Underemployment, the purple wage, state-subsidized hobby-frenzy, and suicidal ennui. There are no more quaint villages or impoverished natives. But that means having to share all of Earth’s fine places with nine billion fellow sightseers — and another ten to twenty billion golems.

“Go ahead, brother. Make a statement.”

The voice broke my gloomy reverie. I turned to see another greenie, standing off to one side of the trail. Archies and their families ignored him as they passed, though he brandished a placard flowing with bright letters:

Compassion is color-blind.

Look at me. I exist. I feel.

The ditto grinned, meeting my gaze and gesturing toward Moonlight Beach.

“Go on down there,” he urged. “I can tell, you want to make them see you. Seize the day!”

I’ve noticed more of these creatures lately. Agitators for a cause that leaves most people mystified — at once both echoing past righteous struggles and trivializing them. I’m torn between disgust and a wish to pillory him with questions. Like why does he make dittos, if he hates being discriminated against when he is one?