Doc Meme

I will never explain, to anyone, what I saw in Doc's lab. Doc is dead, and anything more would be gratuitous. Her replacement is a giggling old man and doctor from Jupiter system, with freaky Submind eyes and a large jumble of Doc's memories and speech patterns. Apparently he is the avatar--he and his symbiont. Doc passed on her memories like a box of old data nodes.

We pulled him out of the vat yesterday. This morning, Paula asked me to check on him.

"Doctor Reginald Querista," he said, holding out his hand. "I encourage people to call me Que."

I shook it and nodded. "Minister DeeDee Jackson. I'm stuck with Dizzy."

"I expect you have questions," he said, smiling. His eyes were full of gears, and they smiled too. "Two parts of me believe so, anyway."

"Yeah," I said, studying him suspiciously. He and Doc had spent three days locked in adjoining med-vats. Reggie was getting a new symbiont, and Doc was becoming a Submind meme--or what Doc called a 'radical personality set'--to inject into Reggie's symbiont. It disturbed me a lot like it did when I found out my grandparents, who were old enough to forget about locks, still enjoyed sex.

Reggie raised his eyebrows in question. His eyes clicked and whirred and drilled into mine.

I said, "Why don't you just tell me everything those other two parts of you think I should know, and we'll go from there?"

He blinked, and started to giggle. While he giggled, he talked to himself. I could tell. I don't know if it's Doc or Submind or both, or if he's just crazy, but he talks to himself. It's like he is two or three parts of every conversation, and the rest of us can only hear Reginald.

"Yes, yes. Direct. Direct is good. Need to focus." He was still giggling softly. "I'm sorry. Sorry. Doc thought you were very funny. It caught me off guard."

"Is that good or bad?" I asked suspiciously.

He burst into full-out laughter, choked it back into giggles a couple of times, and then waved me away between the words, "Send... later... details... can't wait... ask... Kelly...."

"Great," I muttered, and left for my office. He obviously didn't need any more cheering up.