handed May a copy and looked at another. There was a head-and-shoulders shot of Colin Clive in full emotive gush on the front. The title was:
TEN THINGS I CAN DO TO MAKE THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE!
1) CULTIVATE GOOD JOB HABITS—Always take work home with me.
2) PROTECT THE ENVIRONMENT—Dispose of waste thoroughly.
3) CHECK MY WORK—Examine for flaws and correct them, using all available analysis resources.
4) PREVENT UNPLANNED SURPRISES—Remember that not everything that looks flawed is.
5) TAKE ACTION—Deal with the worst problem first.
6) PLAN PROJECTS IN ADVANCE—Find a place where I can think things over and make any necessary improvements for as long as it takes.
7) PRACTICE GOOD FENG SHUI—Remove destructive influences from the workplace.
8) BE CONSIDERATE OF OTHERS—Don’t force people to do things they don’t want or can’t enjoy, and don’t let others do so.
9) RETURN LOST PROPERTY—Even if the original holder is dead, someone is the rightful owner.
10) LEND ASSISTANCE WHERE NEEDED—Watch the skies.
“Translation,” Toby said. “Steal nanos, build his own with fail-safes and recycle materials … and it sounds like he can tap into the network for extra processing power … to analyze his own DNA. Four seems to be the Wyoming trick. Then killing the two Feds, going to prison deliberately—Jesus, he must have known in advance what he’d be going through with the execution!” Toby shuddered. “Then getting rid of the bad eggs in prison. Number eight I’m not getting.”
“I am,” May said. “When’s the last time you saw a pregnant woman?”
“I remember there was a lesbian couple at Bern-Belp. Why?”
“Pregnancy is way down. I don’t think women are getting pregnant unless they really want to. And not all of them.”
“I wonder how. Okay, that’s number eight …‘enjoy’?”
“Maybe they don’t become fertile unless they have an orgasm.”
Toby blinked. “He was obsessed with rapists. Believed there were genes for it. This way they wouldn’t get their victims pregnant.”
May ran back to the screen again and did a search. “The price of wool has gone through the roof. Number seven again. Sheep and goats create deserts, and they aren’t breeding. Nonhuman females don’t have orgasms. Goat Flu. It’s also being blamed for reduced human fertility. Toby, there aren’t any stories about it as such … raw data, yes, hmm … but there are a lot of sudden retirements in the media. And some disappearances.”
“Big Brother knows best. Anything else? Other animals?”
“Nope. Humans, sheep, goats.”
“Jesus. He must have analyzed their biochemistry and found what distinguishes them from every other— Wait, what about other primates?”
“Wait.… New orangutan pregnancy in the San Diego Zoo last month.”
“My God, how the hell could … oh. If there’s a nano attached to every cell, that’s a network with about four trillion nodes. How did he keep it from taking people over? —No, wait. With limited connections per node, no matter how big the network is it’ll never exceed a certain complexity. The Briareus nanos have ten, which is more than our neurons average. If he held it down to, say, four or five, he’d have enormous memory and processing, but his brain would still have the veto.”
May nodded and said, “JNAIT would be number nine, and number ten must be … hang on, he turned Goat Flu loose in November. He must have spotted Target One then and not told anyone.”
“So he made all his preparations for pickup starting then, but he only made contact with us last week,” Toby mused.
“With you. He wasn’t expecting me. The clothes here are new, and he didn’t get me new ID.”
Toby wasn’t listening. “Goat Flu was released to create a diversion. The Feds must have noticed Briareus much later and started the wheels turning to come after me, then got their act together Thursday.”
May got where he was headed. “Connors didn’t expect
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