Organo-Topia by Scott Michael Decker Read Free Book Online Page B

potato fried any way you want. They're comin' out with an immersie about you, hormones included.”
    He hated it when he got a lot of neuranet time. The last time it'd happened, he'd had to move and make his address clandestine. “Two sides of real fries.”
    “You got it, bone-boy.” She twittered as she pranced away.
    Probably has an immersie playin' on her corn right now, Maris thought. But you couldn't really enjoy a full-infusion immersie without jacking in. He fingered his mastoideus socket. Last night, he and Ilsa had jacked into each other while jerking each others' brains out. It'd been deep.
    “What'd you want to ask me?”
    The Detective brought his attention back to the Professor. “That progression, who you doin' that for? Department of Reproductive Statistics?”
    “Confidential,” Vitol said, raising an eyebrow.
    Daring me to arrest him, Maris thought. “Okay, so don't tell me. Why's it happening?”
    “What, the decline in fertility?”
    “No, the shrink in your penis. Why the decline?”
    Bernhard leaned forward, sour breath overpowering sour sweat. “No one knows.”
    “Huh? They can jerk out an egg-snatcher and a sperm-catcher, but they don't know why Ihumes are infertile and don't know how to fix it?”
    “They got theories, but no one really knows. Interplanetary travel is one theory. You know, exposure to gamma rays, which doesn't account for the sterility of people who stay planetside their whole lives. Pollution index is another. Air and water so foul, food so modded, our DNA has lost its ability to messenger the right hormonal mix.”
    “What about nanochines?”
    “Some conspiracy jerk's wet dream. Completely baseless. Carbon nanotube assemblies need a power source. Without solvent polyhydrocarbonates, they don't propagate from person to person.”
    “The carbons go somewhere.”
    “Carbon dioxide, mostly, aerosolized.” Vitol leaned back, his breathing heavy. “Standard ATP breakdown. But that leaves the phosphate theory.”
    “Oh?”
    “Low phosphate levels limit the growth of organic systems. Phospolipids are central to epithelial development. No phosphate, no skin. And nanochines burn through phosphates faster than a jacker through an immersie.”
    The Detective nailed the Professor with his gaze. “Why not nanochines?”
    “No propagation.”
    “You mean, they can't get from one victim to another? What if they found a way?”
    The Professor nailed the Detective back. “I hate to think about it, but not part of my expertise.”
    The burgers arrived, but they sat there untouched while Maris and Bernhard grazed on fries like epicures on caviar, moaning with delight. Potato just couldn't be synthed.
    Finishing off the last one with a groan, Peterson sat back and belched, while Vitol dove into his disk of fried synth meat patty on a fake baked bun, topped with fictitious lettuce, mock tomato, phony pickles, fabricated onion, and a slurry of sauce supposed to imitate mayo, mustard, and ketchup. The sauce looked a bit too much like the proto he'd seen at the last four crime scenes.
    “So if nanochines found a way to get from victim to victim, could they be responsible for the decline in fertility?”
    * * *
    Doctor Juris Raihman frowned. “You again. What the jerk did
I
do?”
    “A simple question, Doctor Raihman.” Maris looked him over for more signs of laboratory scuffles. The washbasin was completely dry, no recent use. “If nanochines found a way to get from victim to victim, could they be responsible for the decline in fertility?”
    “You investigating a murder or solving humanity's problems?”
    “Just the answer, Raihman, just the answer.”
    The man across from him leaned back in his chair, the leather creaking.
    No such thing as leather, Peterson reminded himself, despite the latent tanning esters in the air. The use of animal hide to upholster furniture had gone the way of the cow itself, bred into extinction through domestication. The cost of growing them in