“You won’t like it.” Booker’s frontal tattoos shimmered iridescently, a body chuckle peculiar to Synners. “Another ‘she said/she said.’”

Opal Mars sighed, as did Grace, her snoozing symbiotic canine. The whitehaired pair— the judge pro tem and the violet-eyed dog—shared an immune system, a nervous system, a residence, and who could say how much else.

“Put it on the Jot Grid. I’m too antsy for a mind meld. A quick look, then the park.” Hearing “park,” Grace’s left eye flicked open and her right triangular ear twitched.

“It’s about time,” Grace snorted. Opal/Grace laughed.

“Hey. This is about justice,” Booker chided, adjusting his tattoos and swiftly damping signals from their laughter. Life was painful for synesthesiacs—Synners in slang. Lacking sensory filtering—proper processing—Synners felt each input as painful, potentially lethal cacophony. A whiff of scent, breeze on skin, water in the throat, a loved one whispering their name—all torture for a pure Synner.

Partial synesthesia had become common in the decades following genetically modified neural tuning. Those who smelled colors, say, or saw taste were by no means as rare as they’d once been. No single causation theory gained general acceptance. A popular yet unfounded theory made the culprit contaminated food, viciously maligning Planthead fungus modifications. The attempt to grow prejudice backfired. Thanks to one marketing genius, partial Synner mods—prosthetic sensory processors—had become a fashion statement. Like eyeglasses with plain glass, dummy Synner mods were accessories.

But while partial Synners could pass with panache, pure, one hundred percent Synners remained rare and shockingly shunned, as those suspected of being vampires or werewolves were long ago. Synesthesiacs, everybody knew, went stark raving mad, their brain tissue turned to mush by the bombardment of indecipherable input. Isolation had been the only treatment and the prognosis of the affected was poor.

Booker had been conceived at the right time. Diagnosed in utero as one hundred percent Synner, Booker had been hooked up to a sensory input filter unit (SIFU). At the age of consent, Booker made two choices: one mundane and one life-shaping. First, the mundane: as every sentient did at the age of consent, Booker picked identifiers. In homage to a grandparent, Booker selected “it.”

“‘It’ was good enough for the old Grand, so ‘it’ is good enough for me.”

The other choice colored every life facet. Instead of relying on SIFU tech, Booker had elected transmutation—a procedure to decouple sensory input with a bypass sending unprocessed signals to cutaneous layer impregnated with chromophores and microfilaments. All feelings went to its skin. The tattoos covering its body were ninety percent Synner reprocessing function and ten percent (mainly in the face and hands) reconfigurable cosmetic hacks.

Donning day garb, Booker could pass for a non-Synner and be easy on the eyes at that, not merely on account of the facial hacks, but crediting in equal measure good taste and good bones. Still, Opal’s house was one of the few places Booker could relax and let the tattoos function, without covering up. More than once it’d caused a call to the authorities when its tattoos fired up in a public venue.

“Justice. Yes,” Opal said as Grace closed her eyes and dozed. “Not everyone can afford law courts, not with justice algorithms costing what they do. Even access to courts with provably inferior algorithms costs an arm and a leg. Small claims court is the only no-fee court. In small claims you get a human judge—no algorithm. Because volunteers serve as judges, it keeps costs down. It’s just a quirk of budgeting that there’s no AI. If we had to pay the royalties on any proprietary justice algorithms, it’d be too pricey for most civilians. I consider serving as a pro tem judge a civic duty.”

“Yes, and your civic duty always volunteers me.”

“You’ve no obligation.” True enough. Booker was cocreator of the leading independent tech report with Opal and Grace and could easily have qualified to serve as a judge, if not for the little matter of—well, never mind.

“Sure. But if I don’t push you and Grace along—” Booker turned palms upward and winked mischievously at Grace, who’d opened her eyes a crack at her name.

“Time would be squandered, so you often say. What’s the case?”

“Like I said. It’s a ‘she said/she said.’”

“A bit more specific, please.”

“Something you’d only see in small claims court. A dopple wants a divorce.”

A dopple was a proxy for hire. In exchange for money or other legal tender, a dopple put on a customizable exo-suit. The exo-suit took on the form selected by the buyer. The exo-suit connected the dopple with the buyer via a quantum entangler link: This way, the buyer could be in two places at once and live two lives simultaneously. A wealthy artist could remain a quirky recluse, yet, by means of a dopple, ceaselessly gambol in public, entertain the fans, and promote, promote, promote.

Celebrities, when exo-suits were first introduced, had fueled dopple demand. Some say it started when politicians paid homeless people to wait in line for them. Rubbish, said others, proxies have always been used. But dopples were out of fashion. Anyone with money—or morals—used a Mekk instead.

Mekks (mechanicals) were non-sentient co-robotic devices. The Mekk Manufacturers Union (MMU) lobbied year after year for outlawing doppling.

Dopples were dirt cheap. Poor humans abounded, but only the poorest resorted to doppling. Some sold their entire lives, assigning contract payments to their heirs and assigns. “Skint as a dead dopple” was a scornful vulgarity.

“Proceed,” Opal said. Grace, sprawled on the cool blue floor, dozed.

“In regards to the contract of DoppleJaneDoe (DJ) versus Buyer Author B #787942, (Buyr). These facts are stipulated. Nearly twenty years ago, a young author using the pseudonym Sparticle propagated a piece entitled Solitarry, which became an overnight phenom.”

The Jot Grid showed a flurry of lede lines. A triumph! Spectacular! There was a blurry rush of publicity touting the genius of Solitarry.

“Overwhelmed by pernicious media attention, author-Buyr was canceling appearances and hiding. The publisher was horrified at this squandering of good PR. Internal marketing gurus had tagged Buyr as talented but lacking.

“Here—an excerpt from internal coverage memo: ‘[Author] is solitary, poor, hungry, mousy, and short. To make a blockbuster from her we need a BRAND. Commence operation doppelganger.’

“The publisher sent out reps, found Buyr, commiserated with the artist’s desire for time to actually write, clucked with concern over her fatigue at serving at the beck and call of consumers, and declared a sincere desire to be of assistance.

“‘Let us help,’ the publisher importuned. ‘We’ll advance you funds—you can get an exosuit. We’ll help find you someone to wear the suit to be Sparticle in public, and all the time you can stay safe at home.’

“Buyr liked this idea. The publisher loved the idea. With an exo-suit, they could craft the crowd-pleasing figure they’d brand ‘Sparticle.’ Not mousy, like Buyr, but a real blockbuster character better than Buyr. The publisher advertised for a dopple with the usual terms: complete renunciation of identity for the contract duration and total availability for promo activities, including archival holo-body storage for posterity, and memory ablation at contract termination. When it was all over, the dopple would get a brain wipe and would remember nothing of working in the suit, nothing of the job. After the brain wipe, the dopple was paid a lump sum for the service during the contract—the only money they would ever see. The dopple was free to move on to another job.

“Within days, DJ signed the contract and was fitted into the suit, and the external features of Sparticle were designed. That’s how DoppleSparticle was created, DoppleSparticle played by DJ and Buyr joined through the exo-suit interface.”

“Clever,” Opal interrupted without opening her eyes. “That language sets up the premise nicely. If DJ wrote this, she’s as intelligent as she’s impecunious.”

The Jot Grid voice continued.

“For the past nineteen plus cycles, DoppleSparticle has appeared to promote the works of Buyr, DJ in exo-suit model number LMNO2200.”

At the suit model number, Grace flicked an ear. Though her eyes were shut, Opal nodded.

“At two o’clock on the afternoon of the tenth day of the ninth month, DJ entered the small claim court mobile kiosk in the city of Ochre and filed for divorce.

“Here’s the twist,” Booker said, reading ahead and talking faster than the Jot Grid. “DJ argues being a dopple makes her—to use the archaic term for a personal services contract— married to Buyr. She has a right to memories created during the marriage.”

“Sounds crazy. Using the outmoded marriage theory to avoid a brain scrape.”

“There’s more. She argues the dopple contract is unconscionable, should be voided and reformed as a marriage contract under the laws of this jurisdiction, and then she wants a divorce!”

“An interesting point of law.“

“Isn’t it a dramatic ploy? The ‘marriage’ and ‘divorce’ lingo.” Booker yawned, his tattoos turning a downy dove grey.

“I meant the plea of unconscionable contract,” Opal said. “A contract invalid if one party has insufficient bargaining power.”

“Right.” Booker ploughed on, “Why get so worked up about a routine memory ablation? Medicos have been using it since forever to erase pain. Erasing job recall uses the same principle. Why does she want to remember job stuff anyway?” Booker rummaged in the case file.

“Here. This looks interesting.” Booker’s voice took on the orange tones of a Tuscan sunrise, plucking a pink strand and flicking it onto the Jot Grid projector core. A scene grew around the trio like a phalanx of trees surrounds campers huddled by a warm fire.

A single shimmering spotlight pierces the inky black stage. DoppleSparticle strides to the bright oval. She sees an abyss. Squinting squeezes out an escarpment of faces smooshed together like noisy birds on a cliff. Beak and squawk and flap and stench. Soul guano. But...ah. Yes. There is One. The One smile reaching across eons, the eyes and the smile cut a tether, make a gust, a gale, a doldrum-conquering ripple that persists, and persisting rises above the highest sun on the horizon.

The Jot Grid projection fades.

“That’s it?” Booker was incredulous, tattoos micro-pulsing cerise. “Seriously?”

Grace got up and silently padded to a window. Sun shone on her white fur and through her erect ear, showing pink as it passed through. Her violet eyes glowed like Zimbabwe sapphires.

Opal and Grace exchanged a look.

“You don’t understand,” Opal said gently. “No way you could.”

“You’re a transmuter,” Grace said.

“Don’t say it like it’s dirty.” Booker’s tattoos clouded like a gathering storm. “And so what?”

“Side effects of transmuting,” Opal said, “are numb patches here and there. Unavoidable.”

“You can’t know how it feels,” Grace added, her tone gentle. Neither wanted Booker to get more defensive. Nobody spoke for a breath or three.

“The dopple felt seen. She doesn’t want to forget that,” Opal said.

Booker struggled, tattoos roiling, but spoke in groomed tones like sepia copperplate on parchment.

“The dopple was imprisoned deep inside an exo-suit. Who could see her?”

“A mystery, but it happens.” Opal sighed. Booker shook its head to clear the wafting curvy and cherubic scent.

Opal Mars fiddled absently with the judge pro tem insignia. She’d sent her preliminary ruling. The parties could decide how they wanted to proceed. Grace was still, her fluffiness pure as the first snowfall.

“Isn’t there a way to parse the memories?” Booker asked, sincere as a green kelp forest, as if contributing a solution diluted the sting of not comprehending.

“What are you getting at?”

“Use a Point of View splicer. Recast the memories. Edit out stuff coming from Buyr. That way, the dopple retains only her own memories.”

“That’s an interesting approach.” Grace spoke in a conciliatory tone directly to Booker’s mind without moving her lips.

“There’s a drawback.” Opal shook her head. “Memories created via the exo-suit link are like conjoined twins that cannot be divided and both live. Cleverness and skill could, perhaps, effect a splice. But what the dopple would have wouldn’t really be a memory that could be experienced as a memory. It’d be hazy, like a dream that has slipped away.”

“More painful than no memory at all,” Grace added.

“Back to the brain wipe.” Booker slumped.“Mekks are so much simpler. A Mekk’s memory is the owner’s property. A machine from start to finish.”

“But dopples are human, even if they’ve sold their time, their bodies, every bit of their life. Doesn’t that count for something?”

Grace opened both violet eyes, shining in the afternoon sun filtering past the shade. From one angle it appeared she had a green streak in her left eye, but it was a trick of the light. To Booker, her eyes sounded like oboes, with a touch of cardamom.

“They have time to review my preliminary ruling.” Opal rose from her seat. “The dopple’s contract is not up for renewal for another month—the twentieth anniversary. A media blitz with DoppleSparticle is just wrapping up. Calendar this for fourteen days.” The calendar marked itself.

Off they went to the park.

*     *     *
Seven days later, the updated judicial dispatch showed the Sparticle case had been struck from the roster. Why? Had DJ agreed to a brain scrape? Or had Buyr agreed to “divorce”?

Booker stuck its head into the holHelm interface, letting the dark web swirl through the transducer.

“Plug me in. I’ve found it. Let’s watch on the Jot.”

Opal obliged and fired it up. The scene was a huge coliseum, a promo for what audiences worldwide hungered for: Sparticle’s latest output. The reclusive author Buyr, safe and sound far away, linked with the doppleJane via the suit model LMNO2200. Sparticle was on the stage, a halo of light in a sea of black.

The dopple scanned the blur of faces and settled on a pair of eyes in the third-row center. As if time were moving like honey in November, the gaze held, and then the uplink in the exosuit sparked a suspicious green, followed by an explosive pop at Buyr’s haven a continent away. When the smoke cleared, Buyr was a charred heap. In the coliseum, the audience cheered, unaware and unconcerned. The dopple finished the job. Sparticle took an encore.

“Freak exo-suit overload. Buyr drowned in an inferno of sensory input,” said Booker.

“But how did DJ avoid injury?” asked Opal.

“Dunno. Weird malfunction. It never should’ve been a bidirectional link.”

“It says here the publisher will use archival material to generate Sparticle. With a dead artist, they can squeeze out profits by reworking what’s in storage,” Opal said.

“How ghastly,” said Grace.

“Could it’ve been deliberate?” Booker asked, taking off the holHelm. “The suit malfunction? Seems a little fishy.”

“Perhaps,” began Opal, weaving a hypothetical like an Orb spider’s web, “perhaps Buyr told the publisher she was going to let DJ keep her memories and asked the publisher to get a Mekk or another dopple. Publishers see a world where everything’s for sale. Dopples are wretches who’ll sell all they hold dear to the highest bidder. The publisher won’t risk an unscraped dopple—that’d be losing control of the Sparticle franchise.

“DJ knows precisely what Buyr told the publisher—remember, she was in the LMNO2200 suit. That suit model should’ve been recalled for link malfunction. It had been shown that some percentage of link units used in that model were bidirectional. As designed, the link is unidirectional: the Buyr controls the dopple and controls the link. We know the link was on. DJ might’ve seen the publisher fiddling with the exo-suit controls and heard a plot. Who knows?

“No matter what she witnessed, it’ll never go to court. Dopples can only get into small claims court. But a case against a publisher can’t be decided in small claims. You have to go to an algorithm-cased court, one with at least mid-level justice algorithms. That’d cost plenty.

“The dopple couldn’t get into the proper court till they stop being a dopple—they need the end of contract payout. But to get the payout, they have to have the brain scrape and therefore couldn’t testify.” Opal inhaled through her nose, as if to identify a captivating aroma.

“Not unless ...” began Booker, tattoos flashing boldly. “Now the publisher’s got the dopple’s contract. They’ll never let her go,” interrupted Grace. Opal hovered into silence like a dragonfly on a lily pad. Grace harrumphed. Not a comfortable sound. Booker felt razor blades in its guts. “She has her memories,” Booker said softly, adjusting tattoos to medium expression, and setting voice to dulcet. Outside, the day was a peacock in spring.

*     *     *
“That scenario doesn’t read,” Grace objected. “This makes more sense. Pay attention,” she commanded as she told an alternate version:

Before going to the park, Opal sent a preliminary ruling. Jane/Buyr read it and agreed completely because, after nineteen plus years together, their hearts did beat as one, and not only owing to LMNO2200 bidirectional link. After getting joined through the exo-suit, they discovered they enjoyed spending time together, which was lucky since the link had them connected day in and day out. Together, mousy Buyr and dirt-poor Jane made fun of the prancing Sparticle, the character they were bound to create.

A few months back, Buyr suddenly seemed to be tired all the time, and the first medico’s idea of comfort was to say don’t worry, it won’t last long! The second medico asked for an autograph, opining it would soon go up in value. Buyr didn’t want to abandon Jane, leaving her nothing but a scraped brain, and not a scintilla of time to cherish. Together they plotted, testing schemes that as often as not collapsed like a house of cards. They persisted, together.

At the coliseum, the fans are packed in tight as rags on a cargo ship. The reclusive author linked with the dopple via the suit model LMNO2200. Sparticle was on the stage, a halo of light in a sea of black.

The dopple scanned the blur of faces, settled on a pair of eyes, in the third-row center. As if time were moving like honey in November, the gaze held, and then the uplink in the suit sparked a suspicious green, followed by an explosive pop. Folks scattered, pushing, shoving, trampling. When the smoke cleared, third-row center was a charred heap.

Security swooped in to minimize panic. One team sucked up the debris in row three. Another team ripped off the exo-suit. Tiny and shivering, Jane was imprisoned in the mobile detention pod.

Publisher reps descended like falcons on Buyr’s haven a continent away, finding it deserted. Foul play? The spinners spun.

A sua sponte ruling came down on the matter of unconscionable contracts, and doppling was outlawed entirely. Booker always suspected Opal had pulled strings. Opal stoutly denied it, asserting that the time was simply ripe to redress that particular wrong. Grace tracked a rise in advertisements for impersonators, and the Actors Union fortunes waxed abundant. Humans, it seems, are still cheaper than Mekks.

A Health and Human Welfare committee determined that only medically necessary brain scraping was permissible. No contract could require memory ablation; all such clauses were null and void.

*     *     *
The way Grace tells it, it seems to have been inevitable and swift, but it took more time and more cases to penetrate, as light mists eventually soak through a dull trench coat. One fact was universally hushed up: the third-row center ashes and the shivering “Jane” in the containment pod were high-end Mekks. Where Buyr and Jane were was anybody’s guess. Opal, if pressed, just shook her head, lips pressed together, corners lifted.

“Wherever they are, they’re together,” prophesied Grace. “Together,” she repeated, her violet eyes flashing like seven cymbals crashing. “Time for the park.”