“Cryonic suspension doesn’t interest us,” replied the red golem, representing her hive. “It has been verified repeatedly that a frozen human brain can’t maintain a Standing Wave. It vanishes, never to return.”

“But there are memories, stored in nearly a quadrillion synapses and intracellular—”

“Memories aren’t homologous — not the same thing as who you are. Anyway, most of those memories can only be accessed by a functioning copy of the original Standing Wave.”

“Well, dittos can be frozen. Suppose one accompanies the original head into storage. Then someday, when technology has advanced sufficiently, some combination of—”

“Please,” the red Irene cut in. “We aren’t interested in science fiction. Let others pay high fees to serve as your experimental guinea pigs. We want a simple service, the reason we called your company.

“We choose the antenna.”

“The antenna.” The purple hawkman nodded. “I’m required by law to say the technique is unverified, with no confirmed successes, despite many claimed resonance detections—”

“We have reason to believe your past failures resulted from a lack of concentration, desire, focus. These we’ll provide, if you do your job as advertised.”

Horus straightened.

“The antenna, then. I still need a release. Please have your archetype put her life-imprint here.”

He pulled a heavy, flat rectangle out of the folds of his robe, tearing off a filmy plastic covering that released a dense, steamy cloud. The red ditto took the tablet gingerly in both hands by its edges, careful not to touch the moist surface.

“I’ll return in a few minutes. There are preparations to complete.” Horus spun away toward the van amid a flourish of glittering robes.

Palloid and I watched the red emissary pass through a crowd of her sisters, who parted with no apparent signal. She stepped up to the dais, holding the tablet high over the pale figure lying there. The original, pale-skinned Irene reacted by lifting one hand, then another. She’s conscious, I realized.

Gently, two dittos approached from opposite sides to restrain her.

Lower came the tablet, closer to that sallow face till her warm breath condensed droplets on the surface. She inhaled deeply, then the red ditto pressed the clay slab down, quickly and with enough force to warp it around realIrene’s head … holding it there a few seconds, till a near-perfect mask formed — mouth agape in a reflex gasp.

No breath was needed in the short time it took for the raw clay to transform before our eyes, rippling swiftly through several color spectra — including some hues that ancient hermits used to seek in far corners of the world, during the long dark era before soulistics. The mouth area, especially, seemed to flicker briefly with faint lightning.

Then the solid mask lifted away, leaving realIrene ashudder but unharmed.

“I always hate having to do that,” Palloid muttered. “Goddam lawyers.”

“Signatures can be forged, Pal. Same with fingerprints, cryptociphers, and retinal scans. But a soul-seal is unique.”

Irene now had a binding contract with Final Options, to spend the last moments of her organic life buying something else, something she considered more precious. Well, well. Here’s to the Big Deregulation. The state has no business getting in between you and your spiritual adviser, especially when it comes to that decisive choice — how to make your final exit.

Too bad poor Albert never had any say in the matter. Partly thanks to Irene, I bet.

Palloid swiveled and grew tense on my shoulder. I turned in time to notice a figure approach us from one side. It was another red ditto, looking a bit ragged like the others, but still formidable. “Mr. Morris.” She bowed her head slightly. “Is it you? Or another? Shall I introduce myself?”

“None of the above,” I answered, not caring if the cryptic answer confused her. “I know you, Irene. But I’m not the fellow you blew up last night.”

She answered with a resigned shrug. “When I saw you, just now, I couldn’t help but hope.”

“Hope? For what?”

“That the news reports somehow lied. I hoped you were the same ditto that left here yesterday.”

“What are you trying to pull? You know what happened to that gray. You murdered him. Blew him up inside Universal Kilns! Only his final act of heroism prevented your bomb from ruining the place.”

“Our bomb.” The red nodded resignedly. “So people will say. But honestly, we thought we were implanting a spy apparatus, tuned to sense and evaluate experimental soul-fields in the UK Research Division—”

“Oh, what a pile,” Palloid commented.

“No, truly! News of the sabotage attack on UK came as a complete surprise. It showed how fully we were used. Betrayed.”

“Right. Tell me about betrayal!”

Oblivious to sarcasm, she nodded. “Oh, I shall. We at once realized that an ally set us up to take the onus for this vicious attack, as part of a multilayered defense, to protect the true villain from retribution. Even if your gray’s obscuring tactics had been perfect — even if he masked his trail, cutting all direct links leading back to his employers — a crime of such magnitude would not go unsolved. Universal Kilns will spare no expense to find those responsible. So, after several layers of decoys are peeled back, we were positioned to take ultimate blame.

“Are you the first harbinger of penalization, ditto Morris?”

“Oh, I may be a harbinger all right, but I’m not Morris,” I muttered, so low she didn’t notice.

“We are a bit surprised to see you,” the red ditto conceded. “Instead of UK Security, or the police. Perhaps they follow soon? No matter. We’ll no longer be here. We are departing shortly, while still able to choose the manner of our going.”

I wasn’t swallowing it.

“You claim innocence about the prion bomb. What about the attack on realAlbert, slaughtering him in his home?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” she asked. “The mastermind behind all of this — our common enemy, it seems — had to cover his own role after using us. That meant leaving no loose ends. He killed you a bit more swiftly than he killed me, but just as ruthlessly. In short order, you and I will both be no more.

“That is, on this plane of reality,” she added.

I glanced at the dais, which had been rolled much closer to the van. Hissing cryo-cables were being attached to a dense array of sifter tendrils, piled around the pale head of realIrene. “You’re committing some kind of fancy suicide. That’ll leave you unable to testify as a full person in a court of law. Are you sure you want to do that? Won’t it only benefit your former partner, who betrayed you? Shouldn’t you help catch and punish him?”

“Why? Revenge doesn’t matter. We were dying anyway … a matter of weeks, only. We took part in his scheme as a desperate gamble, hoping to stave off that fate. We trusted, gambled, and lost. But at least we still have some choice in the manner of our passing.”

Palloid snarled. “Revenge may not matter to you, but Albert was my friend. I want to get the bastard who did this.”

“And I’m sure we wish you luck,” the red sighed. “But this villain is a renowned master at evading accountability.”

“Was it that Vic Collins character the gray met?”

She nodded. “You already know him by another name.”

With a sinking feeling, I guessed.

“Beta.”

“Quite. He was unamused by your raid on his operation in the Teller Building, by the way. That cost him dearly. But the plan to use Albert Morris in this ploy had been brewing for some time.”

“And a deeper plan to use you.”

“Acknowledged. We saw the collaboration as a clever attempt at industrial espionage. A chance to pirate some first use of the hottest new dittotech, before it went through the cumbersome licensing process.”