Frankenstein

sweat.
    One of the younger nurses lay flat on her back, arms at her sides, motionless. Blood pooled in her eyes.
    “Hemorrhaging?” Chief Jarmillo asked.
    Dr. Lightner said, “Yes.”
    “A problem with the brain tap?”
    “Yes. But the only one so far.”
    “Is she alive?”
    “She was for a while. Now she’s dead.”
    “Carrion,” Jarmillo said.
    Lightner nodded. “But still useful.”
    “Yes. As useful as their kind has ever been.”
    As they returned to the hallway, Dr. Lightner said, “The replicants of the night staff have gone home to their families. Soon they’ll oversee the replacement of their wives, husbands, children.”
    “Where’s the day staff?”
    Indicating the closed door to the next room along the hallway, Lightner said, “As the day staff, of course, there are more of them.”
    “When will they be rendered?”
    “Later this morning. The Builders arrive in about an hour.”
    “How many patients currently in the hospital?”
    “Eighty-nine.”
    “When will you start moving them down here?”
    “As they’re needed,” said Lightner, “but not before the swing shift has come to work and been replaced by replicants. Perhaps as early as five o’clock this afternoon.”
    “That’s a long time.”
    “But it’s per schedule.”
    “What assistance do you need from me?” asked Jarmillo.
    “Originally, I thought four deputies. Now, I think one will do.”
    Jarmillo raised his eyebrows. “Only one?”
    “Mostly as a liaison, to expedite the dispatch of other deputies if a crisis arises.”
    “Evidently you don’t expect a crisis or any kind of difficulty.”
    Lightner shook his head. “We’ve found them easy. Trusting. Submissive to authority even before a brain tap. Not like we thought Montanans might be.”
    “We’ve found the same,” said Jarmillo. “So much for the Wild West. Everywhere now is a sheepfold.”
    “We’ve started calling them two-legged lambs,” Lightner said. “We’ll easily have the whole town sheared by dawn Friday.”
    With contempt as richly satisfying as his growing delight in the prospect of triumph, the chief said, “Sheared and butchered.”

    
chapter
14

    The first to arrive, Erskine Potter parked his Ford pickup in a space marked RESERVED FOR THE BOSSMAN , which did not refer to his position in town government.
    Serving as the mayor of Rainbow Falls was not a full-time job. Erskine Potter owned Pickin’ and Grinnin’ Roadhouse, a country-and-western nightclub and restaurant just west of the town limits, a sprawling single-story structure with red clapboard siding, a front veranda with white railings and columns, and a cedar-shingle roof.
    Pickin’ and Grinnin’ remained open year-round, Wednesday through Saturday nights, for dinner and dancing. On Sundays, the tables were stacked to one end of the large main room, the chairs were set in rows, and the stage became a chancel from which religious services were conducted.
    The congregation of Riders in the Sky Church numbered 320, most of whom attended services each Sunday. Erskine Potter—the original, who at this moment sat with his family in a basement jail cell—had been a member.
    When downloading the former mayor’s memory, the new mayor had received a great many experiences and images related to this church but had given them little consideration. As a product of the Creator and his genius—grown, programmed, and extruded in mere months—he found theories of sacred order tedious and risible.
    In the Community, none was exceptional compared to another, nor were they as a species more important or possessed of a greater destiny than any animal or any plant, or any star or stone. In all times and all places, the only righteous laws were the laws of a community in the interest of efficiency, and the only hope was optimism.
    On the first Tuesday evening of every month, Riders in the Sky Church held a family social at the roadhouse, with music and games and a bring-your-best-dish buffet of home cooking. This evening’s social would be the last.
    Two minutes after Erskine parked, a Chevy pickup pulled off the highway and parked to his right.
    Erskine stepped from his truck as two men got out of the Chevy. They were Ben Shanley and Tom Zell, who were city councilmen.
    Neither Shanley nor Zell said anything to Erskine Potter, and he said nothing to them as he unlocked the front door of the roadhouse and led them inside.
    They entered at a mezzanine level overlooking the