Avery Cates, the gweat and tewwible, I thought. Avery Cates, Destroyer of Worlds. And I started to laugh.

Appendix

Excerpts from Audio Diary of Tricia Amber Pollock

Joint Council File #668RF9

Reviewed by: C. Ruberto, Joint Council Undersecretary

Background: This is a transcript of audio files found on a handheld device recovered from a stairwell at 435 East Fifty-second Street in Manhattan during postepidemic sweep and demolition operations. The later entries were very muddy and required a great deal of lab cleanup in order to transcribe, and accuracy cannot be guaranteed. Most background noise and bodily functions are not recorded here, but in later entries notation of pauses, coughing fits, or other unintelligible sounds have been included in order to show that nothing has been censored by this department, due to direct request of Director Marin’s office regarding transcribed artifacts shared between our divisions.

It should be noted that no body was found near the handheld that contained the audio entries. Ms. Pollock did maintain an apartment in that location, but to date she has not been located.

‹BEGIN TRANSCRIPT›

never going drinking below Twenty-third Street again. I don’t know why Gerry likes slumming it down in those places, playing tough and drinking that paint. None of the animals around us is fooled, I am sure-I can see their looks as Gerry plays his little game. I am so tired of Gerry. I may have to give him the slip, try on someone new for a while. I felt frail and dried up when I finally got home and had to take four e-tabs to get to sleep, and this morning I feel even more dried up and need four a-tabs to even get out of bed. Thank goodness for tabs.

Wednesday, 3:33 a.m.: Only because the universe hates me, my shell is acting strangely. Quoting fucking poetry at random moments. Like ten minutes after I go to bed. I’ve reset and restored the damn thing a hundred times, and it behaves for a few days and then starts quoting again. Today I got a gem about an endless trail of sunsets. I put it into shutdown mode for my sanity-I can make my own Vid calls and order my own meals for a while, I suppose. Like Daddy used to say, I’m full of pluck.

Wednesday, 1:33 p.m.: Really, Gerry is simply disgusting. I think I might hate him.

Wednesday, 8:22 p.m.: Old pal Vincent asked me out to drinks tonight at Umano, the new place in the Forties. Supposedly they don’t use Droids or mechanicals at all, just people. Though what kind of people would be willing to serve food I’m sure I don’t know, and I don’t want to. Why are all the men I know so interested in thrill seeking and slumming?

Today I’m supposed to meet with Carol whatshername about the finances. I don’t feel up to it. I’ve been a little hot and achy all day long. There’s always more money. Hearing about it piled up here and there just makes me sleepy.

Then again, I can’t just sit in this apartment all night, watching the story Vids and making my own cocktails. I’m going to take a few x-tabs to perk up a bit and put on this divine new coat I acquired-bright red and cut to order, six hundred thousand yen. It’s almost time for another visit to the loathsome Dr. Killicks, but I think I look all right for at least a few more weeks, and the coat fits so well it won’t matter.

Thursday, 12:34 p.m.: Oh baby, there aren’t enough a-tabs in the world to wake me up today. Vincent-who knew he was such a lush? I feel terrible today, worse than yesterday. Maybe it’s too many tabs. They say there’s no harm in them, but I have been pushing it lately. I’m just so bored. When I’m not out I want to sleep, and when I wake up I want to get going! But it might not do a girl any harm to lay off for a while, eat healthy. Nothing but nutrition tablets and that nice imported water for yours truly, starting today. The moment I can get Vincent out of my bathroom, and have it cleaned. Or perhaps just bulldozed and completely replaced. On top of everything else, I’m coughing up a lung.

Thursday, 11:00 p.m.: Unstoppable Vincent dragged me out again. He can be pretty persuasive when he wants to have some drinks, and I was feeling a little better, and a few a-tabs took care of the rest. I wasn’t looking for a long exhausting night, though, and we went to a little bar on Fifth, one of those unmarked places all the plebs and strivers are always trying to get into. There were barely any people there, but Vinnie tells me this is the way it always is, that’s it’s pull-you don’t have to be crowded in like everywhere else in fucking Manhattan. It was nice, I have to admit, except for this ridiculous girl staggering around on these lengthened legs telling everyone that she was just in from Tokyo on the long-haul and the new rage out there is bald. Bald! Of course, she was bald. Telling us that next year every woman worth her salt would be decorating her head with paint and sparkles, diamonds. Of course, she may be right. I’ve made a note to talk to Dr. Killicks about it.

Considering I had no stamina, I made Vinnie take me home early. He’s out again, of course, and I probably won’t see him for some time. Once you let little Vinnie out of your sight he tends to get lost. I thought about calling Gerry but didn’t really feel like it. I’m tired, and I’ve got a cough that hurts every time. I might have to see Killicks tomorrow anyway, just to get something for this tickle in my chest. What a bore!

Friday, 4:30 p.m.: Hell, what a strange day. I am feeling sick, really sick. Coughing and spewing up the most disgusting things. I woke up feeling like I’d had another rib removed, and when I looked at myself in the mirror, I almost screamed. Killicks guarantees his treatments last a minimum of three years, but I looked almost my age in the mirror and I decided I had to get down to his office and let him know what I thought of his fucking “procedures” and get him to give me something for whatever’s taken up residence inside me.

Exasperated, I called for my hover but the hover guy wasn’t answering, so I had to fire him, which is a huge pain in the ass. You’d think these people would be glad for a job, but they treat it like an inconvenience. I end up firing everyone eventually and I am starting to think I should just replace everyone with Droids where I can. Monique went all-Droid a few years ago and says she’s never been happier with the service.

So I had to go down to the fucking street and catch a pedicab. Horrible. The streets weren’t as crowded as usual, at least, but nothing beats sitting upwind from a man whose diet is no doubt on a par with cockroaches and rats-it may, based on the smell, be cockroaches and rats-but who also seems to like the scent so much he refuses to bathe. Ever. While my smelly driver huffed and puffed in front of me, coughing almost as hard as I was, I was barely able to keep my new red coat out of the slush in the streets. Killicks’s is almost seven blocks away-it was an eternity. Then, not only do I have to walk in through the ground lobby like some piece of trash from downtown, I have to pay my fat friend for the privilege of smelling him for seven blocks.

My goodness, Killicks’s office was crowded, everyone coughing. Something must be going around. One man in an absolutely gorgeous Silvio Martini suit-million yen if it was custom-cut, which of course it had to be-actually passed out and slumped onto the floor. This was after I’d been there for some time, and people whispered that he’d been there for almost an hour! An hour! Whatever Killicks is thinking, he’d better stop thinking it. I don’t care how popular you are, you have to treat your customers with respect. An hour! I’d be passing out, too. Though the poor gentleman looked pretty badly off as I left, and I think I saw blood.