Free Counting Heads by David Marusek

twenty minutes.”
    “To our way of thinking,” said the attorney general, “a protracted interval of time. The important negotiation in your case occurred within the first five seconds of your demise.”
    “You’re telling me that Eleanor was able to figure everything out and cook up her simulated partner in five seconds?”
    “Eleanor has in readiness at all times a full set of contingency plans to cover every conceivable threat we can imagine. It pays, Myr Harger, to plan for the worst.”
    I was speechless. The idea that all during our time together, El was busy making these plans was too monstrous to believe.
    “Let me impress upon you,” said the chief of staff, “the fact that Eleanor stood by you. I doubt that many people would take such risks to fight for a spouse. Also, only someone in her position could have successfully prosecuted your case. The HomCom doesn’t have to answer phone calls, you know.
    “As to the details of your release, the attorney general can fill you in later, but here’s the agreement in a nutshell. Given the wild diagnosis of the arresting slug and the subsequent lack of substantiating evidence, we calculated the most probable cause to be a defect in the slug, not some as yet unheard of NASTIE in your body. Further, as a perfect system of any sort has never been demonstrated, we predicted there to be records of other failures buried deep in HomCom archives. Eleanor threatened to air these files publicly in a civil suit. To do so would have cost her a lifetime of political capital, her career, and possibly her life. But as she was able to convince the HomCom she was willing to proceed, they backed down. They agreed to revive you and place you on probation, the terms of which are stored in your belt system, which we see you have not yet reviewed. The major term is your searing. Searing effectively neutralizes any threat in case you were indeed the victim of a new NASTIE. Let me emphasize that even this was a concession on their part. As far as public records show, you are the first seared individual allowed to leave the Utah quarantine center.
    “Also, as a sign of good faith, we disclosed the locations of all of Henry’s hidey-holes.”
    “What?” I rose from my seat. “You gave them Henry?”
    “Sit down, Myr Harger,” said the security chief.
    But I didn’t sit down. I began to pace. So this is how it works, I thought. This is the world I live in.
    “Please realize, Sam,” said the chief of staff, “that they would have found him out anyway. No matter how clever you think you are, given time, all veils can be pierced.”
    I turned around to answer her, but she and her two colleagues were gone. I was alone in the room with the russ, Fred, who stood sheepishly next to the hall corridor. He cleared his throat and said, “Governor Starke will see you now.”

1.2
     
    It’s been eight long months since my surprise visit to the cop shop. I’ve had plenty of time to sit and reflect on what’s happened to me, to meditate on my victimhood.
    Shortly after my accident, Eleanor and I moved into our new home, a sprawling old farmstead on the outskirts of Bloomington. We have more than enough room here, with barns and stables, a large garden, pear orchard, tennis courts, swimming pool, and a dozen iterants, including Fred, to run everything. It’s really very beautiful, and the whole eighty acres is covered with its own canopy, inside and independent of the Bloomington canopy, a bubble within a bubble. Just the place to raise the child of a Tri-Discipline Governor.
    The main house, built of blocks of local limestone, dates back to the last century. It’s the home that Eleanor and I dreamed of owning. But now that we’re here, I spend most of my time in the basement, for sunlight is hard on my seared skin. For that matter, rich food is hard on my gut, I bruise easily inside and out, I can’t sleep a whole night through, all my joints ache for an hour or so when I rise, I have