Page 42 of Green City Wars

“And so you made your own Gehirner’s Gehirner?” he says. “Hack their brains and give ’em light-up asses and they just do?” And of all the things humans never intended, this is surely the greatest sacrilege. Humans never meant for their creations to follow in their footsteps and create in turn. But here in Ratlabs a revolution is brewing that would knock all the rhetoric and plans of the Maulers aside.

Nimoy stares at him a moment, then her whiskers twitch and she adds, “Also, yes, you’re welcome. Don’t mention it. The service, all part of. Yes.”

It’s a helping of non sequitur and Skotch feels his plate is already groaning. “What now?” he demands, staring at the bugs going about their hacked business. Imagining, maybe, a city scoured down to skulls and bare organocrete by the insect tide.

“The update, yes, geneware, that,” Nimoy says.

“The roach update? You done them all up to light-up-ass-bug two point oh?”

“Raccoon OS 98.3.3.1,” Nimoy says precisely, “aka Evergreen 9 update.”

Skotch blinks slowly at her. And if he was feeling stuff clunk about in his neurology he’d put it down to the huge load of nonsense he’d been asked to swallow since Benson first called him in on the Meece case. Entirely understandable. But apparently it’s more than that. “I didn’t open a channel.”

“Ah, well,” says Nimoy.

“Did you just,” Skotch says, with admirable calm, “hack my goddamn brain?”

“A lone raccoon, no affiliation. A recent security update, small, important. Assumed, under the circumstances: your acquiescence. Simpler, just to do.” She stamps, a little rat habit of frustration. “We are showing, to you, Skotch, that we, the Ratlabs, the benevolence of us.”

“You hacked my head and showed me your bug collection because you’re the good guys?” Skotch demands.

Nimoy just nods. “And helped your friend.”

“I see her next, she’s going to have two heads cos you guys think that’s a look she’s gonna prefer?” Skotch explodes. “Or she’s a brain in a jar cos it frees up so much energy she doesn’t have to give to, you know, breathing and stuff. You got a brain collection to go with the bugs, maybe? You have any idea how crazy you sound?”

“Science is oft maligned,” Nimoy says sadly, as though she’s quoting. It’s probably in the top ten on her “things my brain-in-jar collection says” list. “No offence. We try. So hard.” Some more rats are coming in, and Skotch braces for the rat-scale strong-arming, but these are apparently more of Nimoy’s stripe. If they’re going to off him, it’ll be high-tech chicanery, not brute force. Or maybe they stitched together a hundred squirrels into some patchwork monster, and it’ll get unveiled at the appropriate moment.

One of the rats has a tray, and the tray has a scatter of ampoules on it. Skotch’s eyes twitch in sympathy. He’s only just had a shot, the one Nimoy gave him, but that doesn’t stop him wanting more the moment he sees it. You attach that level of value to a thing and there’s no Strain can get the concept of “enough.”

“A gift,” Nimoy says, rather weakly. “Further the cause. Our bona fides. As it were.”

Skotch eyes the “gift” narrowly.

“Poison, you think,” the rat says, bitter. “No trust, in this world. Our goals, intentions, wishes. We only seek to do right by the Divine Jeff, find our way to a better life.”

“Yeah, well,” Skotch tells her, though his eyes are still on the ampoules, “it’s a rat-eat-rat world out there.”

“Unnecessarily so,” Nimoy suggests. Skotch’s hands, meanwhile, have made their decision and he grabs the four tabs and shoves them into his super. Maybe he’ll ditch them later if he doesn’t trust them. Though, now they’re in his pouch and nominally his, he can’t see that’s going to be a thing that ever happens. And the Grays robbed him off his regular stash, his down payment from the employer he isn’t sure he’s still working for.

“So,” he says, on the basis that, if this goes south now, at least he’s got that, “you want the mouse. Just like everyone.”

“Correct, indeed. Yes,” Nimoy confirms.

“You want him alive, or just his little mousy body? Only there’s a difference of opinion on how live this mouse’s got to be, when he’s handed over. Dead’s interesting, cos I understand from quarters he’s one real smart mouse.”

“A prodigy, Doctor Meece. Accelerated Encoded Learning Pattern Acquisition, plus geneware copying version error, resulting in neural linkage hypertrophy. One of a kind. Further amplified by personal self-experimentation using Farm Project facilities.” Nimoy frets at her whiskers, and all the rats there seem agitated at having it talked about. Which would be a fine thing if Skotch understood a word that was just said, or even what it was.

“You’re gonna have to break it down for me here,” he mutters.

“Mouse that is born of mouse. Short time to live, yes? Rats only a little longer. Raccoons a little more. Few Strains live long, Skotch.”

“So sure, I know that.”

“Gehirner work, complex stuff. Infrastructure of a whole city. Menial tasks, technical, mechanical, diagnostic. The oil, between civic components. Green cities are built on our work. We are self-renewing, zero-carbon, eco-efficient. The idea of us. The reason of us. But the work, so complex, the lives, so short, yes? Your first day, serious work, how old?”

“Nine months.” At least that’s a question Skotch can understand. “Nine months old.”

“Nine months learning speech, socialisation, role, job skills. And more. Over-engineered, most of us. Nine months. Humans in nine months? Not much there. No talk, no walk, no operating heavy machinery. Accelerated Encoded Learning Pattern Acquisition. Inherent Gehirner engineering. Much learning, short time. From womb to work, quick as possible, yes?”