"And THAT," said Mr. Ferris, "is how Izzy came to be with us."

"Whoo-ha! Is that a story." Mick Jeeves swallowed a mouthful 
of bourbon, letting his senses become rattled. His host was 
generous with everything, but Jeeves couldn't forget that it came 
at the expense of other people; he couldn't ever forget that one 
man's gain was another's loss. So he did the best he could to 
spread the wealth evenly without voicing his personal qualms. 
"So she's just been staying with y'all?"

"Yep," said Ferris, gesturing towards Jeeves' glass. He put a little 
more drink into it, then passed it back. "Kyle, you want a drop 
more?"

"I'm fine."

"We NEED to finish the bottle up, the recycling's tomorrow."

"Twist my arm, you bearded bastard." Kyle Miller lurched 
forward and plunked his glass onto the table top, and watched 
with rapt attention as it filled. "Whoa, thankee."

"Hmph, we still got a little in the bottle."

"Give it to Izzy, why don'cha?"

"'Cause she don't drink. Anything." Ferris leaned back in his 
chair. He was aglow with the effect of the ethanol. "No drink, no 
food. Doesn't even recharge her batteries. All she does is work 
work work. Strewth, it's freaky."

"She's from Zalem. Gotta be," said Jeeves, who wasn't exactly 
sober at the moment. To him, it was all perfectly clear, and he 
earnestly tried to convey his thoughts. "She uses no energy, she 
goes through that weird 'is this information correct' schpiel 
every time she's introduced to someone new, and she appeared 
out of nowhere. You know why? You know why?"

"Why?" asked Miller and Ferris.

"It's 'cause the Deckman hasn't been replaced, that's why. She's 
going to try to kick Faero out of his job." Jeeves slumped back in 
his chair, massaging his forehead. "And that means I'll get it in 
the arse." Mick Jeeves worked as one of Farm 12's six bounty 
hunters. His job was fairly dull, because the community was 
placid; vandalism was the most severe crime he had to deal with 
in a given week. However, more serious crimes, such as theft 
and assault, were on the rise as a result of the sudden failure of 
the Farm's Deckman in an electrical storm several months 
before. Niles Faero, the senior bounty hunter, had been assigned 
the job of governance as a temporary measure until the 
Deckman could be replaced. Faero was sincerely interested in 
helping the community, but was incompetent. The community 
was losing its direction, and Faero's belief that he didn't need to 
act was hampering Jeeves' job. Worse, Faero was absolutely 
opposed to suggestions; everyone had their job, and should 
work as hard as they could EXACTLY THERE. It made him a 
good candidate in the eyes of the Factory; but everyone knew 
from experience that some flexibility was called for on the Farm.

"Kryssakes, take the world off of your shoulders," said Miller. He 
was a systems analyst for the Farm's agricultural computer 
network. He was assigned to the computers that monitored 
grain growth on the northern side of town. It was a fairly dull 
job, certainly in comparison to Jeeves', but he liked it that way. 
His decade and a half on the job had given him an easygoing 
attitude towards life in general. "You couldn't even get a bounty 
update before dawn, why not just let things go until then?"

"Mm. Well, have you tried asking her? I mean, does she SAY 
she's from Zalem? 'Cause it seems to me as though, if she IS, 
then she'd have to tell the truth, and say yes...but if she isn't, 
there's no point in her saying yes even if she CAN lie, so she'd 
say no...or maybe she'd say..."

"Mickey, come back to us."

"Huh?"

Ferris and Miller laughed at Jeeves' glazed expression. "You 
deep in thought over there, eh? DEEP in thought?"

"I dunno, Absalom. Let's give it a try." Miller turned towards 
the living room door. "Izzy? Could you join us in here?"

A moment later the gynoid was in the room. She was dressed in 
a black cotton blouse and a knee-length skirt, stained apron, and 
simple tennis shoes. Clarissa had pulled her hair back with a 
hair band, but it was getting late into the evening and a few 
strands had sprung free, crowding her face. Despite a week in her 
adopted household she retained many of her original 
mannerisms--she was all but standing at attention in the 
doorway. "What is it, Mr. Miller?"

"Are you from Zalem, Izzy?" he asked.

Her reply came immediately. "Available data indicates that the 
name 'Zalem' does refer to my place of origin, though I am not 
yet able either to verify this or negate the probability."

Ferris smiled at the site of his two friends, neither of whom was 
adjusted to Izzy's style of speech. "And there you have it!"

"Have WHAT?"

"She says she thinks she is."

"Well, if she THINKS she is, but she doesn't KNOW she is, well, 
does that tell us anything? I don't know..." Jeeves trailed off, 
then offered, "Izzy, can you PROVE you're from Zalem?"

"It is an internal protocol violation to attempt a proof when the 
statement to be proven is not a given."

"Come again?"

"I think she said," said Miller, "that she can't prove it if she 
doesn't know it for sure." He stroked his chin meditatively, and 
pondered a moment. "Abby, do you think we could have 
her prove it indirectly?"

"S'pose, how so?"

"Have her do something that only someone from Zalem could 
do. Um, draw a map of the Scrapyard, for instance."

"You ever been to the Scrapyard? Even so, how would we go 
about checking it?"

"Good point." Miller slumped back in his chair, stymied. 
Impulsively, Jeeves said loudly, "Predict the future."

"HUH?" the other two men said in unison.

Jeeves made a vague gesture into the air. "The WIB always tells 
us what the weather's going to be like before it happens. How do 
you do that without being able to see the future?"

"It's the same thing day after bloody day." Ferris counted on his 
fingers. "Spring rain, summer hot, fall windy, winter snow, year 
after bloody year."

"But they tell you how much of each, don't they?" said Jeeves, 
suddenly coming to life. "And they also tell you what it's like on 
other farms, if you poke around a mite. Izzy, does the WIB know 
what the weather will be like on all the Farms, into the future?"

"The Weather Information Bureau is able to accurately publish 
data regarding the climatological future of each and every Farm, 
Mine, and Port within a nonstandard deviation a matter of days 
in advance. However, beyond a certain point the nonlinear 
dynamics are not able to accurately model the weather, and 
prognostication becomes useless for long periods of time."

"B-b-but they can do it for three days, right? Isn't that what they 
usually do?" Jeeves smiled triumphantly at his friends. "So, 
then, what's going to happen to US in three days time?"

Izzy blinked twice, then cocked her head to one side and said, 
"Please reformulate the question."

"What???"

"You've put Izzy in a tizzy," smiled Ferris. "She can't figure out 
what you've said or how to do it. Izzy, listen to me very 
carefully."

"Affirmative."

"Using abstract reasoning, and that nonlinear whatever you 
mentioned a moment ago..."

"Are you referring to nonlinear dynamics?"

"Yeah. Using that...what will have happened to each of us at the 
end of three days?"

Izzy was silent, but all three men could feel that she was hard at 
work on their problem. Finally she spoke. "Ferris Absalom. 
Your status will be unchanged. Jeeves Michel. Abstract 
reasoning yields that you will most probably be in a more vital 
professional status within three days time. Miller Kyle. Abstract 
reasoning yields that you most probably will be dead within 
three days time."

"WHAT?" said Miller, springing up despite the alcohol in his 
blood. "How the blooming heck can you say that?"

"Data received by internal computers is sent to speech pattern 
generators..."

"No, no, I mean, how d'you know that? How did you come up 
with that?"

If there was any question of Izzy's inhumanity, it was evidenced 
by her being oblivious to Miller's fury. "Although the Tuned 
control has become severed from direct contact with Tiphares, I 
am able to access a massive storehouse of information--albeit 
somewhat antiquated--through several intermediaries. The 
most local storehouse is available on this Farm, in the form of 
the Deckman computer banks. All necessary information has 
been utilized from there."

"What the--why, you!" Miller started to close in on Izzy, but 
Ferris was already moving in between the two. "Abby, let me at 
her!"

"Kyle, just sit--just sit yourself back down, I say!"

"She can't--I'll get her for saying that!"

"You do," said Jeeves, rising slowly, "and I'll have to report 
you...and neither of us wants that, right Kyle?"

Miller glanced among the group of three, and his anger began to 
ebb. Ferris helped him into a chair and said quietly, "More 
important, Izzy'll think she has to defend herself, and if THAT 
happened we'd be scraping you off the walls for a week. See, 
she's got some kind of priority or something in her...if she sees a 
crime happening, she won't do beans, UNLESS someone hurts 
her directly, even if it's just an accident. Then she'll stop at 
NOTHING, not until someone's dead." He patted Miller's arm. 
"Why don't we just call it a night, all the three of us, eh?"

"Yes," said Jeeves. After that, Miller needed little convincing. 
Soon coats had been collected, wives located, and good-byes 
delivered. The evening drew to a close.
--
Li Pu Jones eagerly looked at the Farm town, drawing ever closer 
to the truck and ever further from the horizon. It was now close 
enough that he could pick out individual buildings, even a few 
people who had come out to see what the pickup's arrival 
foreordained. He smiled eagerly at the Rent-a-Gun cyborg sitting 
opposite him on the bed liner. "You looking forward to getting 
into town?"

"Goddam right. Get a chance to shuck this thing for a few 
hours." He tapped on the Rent-a-Gun plate on his chest. Jones 
shook his head with sympathy. Basic bodily functions were 
difficult enough, but riding in a bumpy truck for hours on end 
was a severe trial in their assigned suits. Each of the two cyborgs 
had opted to spend their non-driving shifts in the spring weather 
rather than in the cab. Jones would spend some time with each, 
even if it was too loud to chat, simply to give them someone to 
be around.

The end of their journey was in sight, and sweet relief might be 
less than an hour in coming. Jones tapped on the back window, 
then slid it open. He yelled over the din of the motor, "Now, 
once we get onto the main drag, we're looking for a large 
building off of the main street, I think it's going to be painted 
brown. We'll rendezvous with Mr. Faero there."

"Brown building, off main drag. Gotcha." Jones reflected that, 
only a year and a half before, the rail lines could have brought 
him to his destination with just as much ease. But a Barjack 
attack had left the rail lines in disrepair, and Farm 12 itself was 
something of a border town, so he had been issued two Rent-a-
Gun vets and an ethanol pickup to make his way to his new job. 
He had taken the train before, to get to a previous assignment at 
Farm 28, and preferred it immensely.

The pickup bounced into town. Farm 12's town--'Elaine', the 
locals called it, if he could remember his briefing notes correctly-
-was a small town, even by the standards of the Outlands. Few 
buildings were more than a single story, most were adobe brick, 
evidently from the river that flowed past the town. The street he 
was riding down was clearly the main street, as it was not only 
well-marked but two lanes wide. He vaguely recalled something 
about there being three bridges, and he saw what looked like 
three demarcations in the town itself; he hypothesized that it 
was, in fact, due there only being three cross-streets in the town. 
As they past the first demarcation, he glanced down the break in 
the buildings--sure enough, there was a bridge just behind the 
first row of buildings. Jones mused that there must be a twin 
street on the far side of the river.

At the second street they slowed and turned into the cross street. 
The truck halted, almost gasping with relief as they applied the 
brakes, outside the town's only building of note. Clearly they 
were expected. A score of the locals stood out in front of the 
building, most in better-than-working clothes. A man of about 
40 with a cybernetic right arm stood at their front, and he broke 
off to officially greet the party.

"Gentlemen! Welcome to Factory Farm 12! I'm Niles Faero, it's 
a pleasure for me to make your acquaintance."

"Li Pu Jones, Official Representative of the Factory." He pulled 
open his shirt, exposing the Factory badge that was embedded 
into the bone and cartilage of his chest; then, having formally 
established his identity, he extended a hand. "I'm looking 
forward to working with you. There's bound to be a good deal of 
work to do before the replacement Deckman is installed."

"Yes, well, we'll come to that." Faero led Jones up the steps of 
the building into the shade of the doorway. "I've taken the li--"

"Oy!" Both men turned at the shout. A man, a few years senior 
to Faero, was at the foot of the steps with his hands on his hips 
and his legs planted firmly on the ground. "You forgotten your 
entourage?"

Jones flushed. "Oh, dammit, I completely forgot about you guys! 
Hang on a second, Mr. Faero." He ran down the stairs and 
climbed into the cab of the truck, emerging with a computer pad 
and stylus. "Who's the Factory Administrator here?"

The indignant man jumped in, "That'd be Beatrice Donell, one 
N, two L's. Her office is on the other side of the bridge, 'bout 
three buildings down, painted red."

"Uh-huh...right, there you are." Jones scribbled a note on the 
screen and handed the pad to one cyborg "You're off contract 
until 0900 tomorrow, get some R'n'R. You there!"

"Yeah?"

"What's your name?"

"Jeeves Michel." Jeeves offered a hand in greeting. "Bounty 
hunter, Factory trained to Personal Defense-3, qualified 2. D-
Level security. 168 kills."

"D-Level?" Jones was impressed. Average citizens were A-Level, 
Factory Workers were B-Level, and most hunter-warriors were 
C-Level. "What's up with that?"

"Had to be. I was senior hunter before the Deckman fried, I 
needed the clearance to pursue and post non-provoked crimes--
you know, drugs, black market, that merde."

Jones was impressed by the man's self-assuredness and 
capabilities. "Mr. Jeeves, I can tell we're going to have an 
excellent working relationship already. Do you and Mr. Faero 
work together much?

"Uh, we, um..."

"Not any more," Jeeves said. "Not since the Deckman was lost. 
Niles' been up to his arse in paperwork, he's all but taken on 
every project personally. We tell 'im again and again to slack off, 
but...you know someone who loves their job." It was an 
extremely euphemistic way of saying, 'He can't keep to his own 
business, we avoid him like the plague.'

Jones nodded, comprehending the surface meaning; then he 
gestured for everyone to go inside. "There's not much difference 
between two and three. Mr. Faero, why don't we appoint Mr. 
Jeeves as your executive assistant? It'd be more or less the same 
thing he was doing before, but just more administrative work--
which needs to be done anyway."

Faero was not a complete fool, he had guessed some changes 
might take place with the FacOff's arrival. "Fine, fine. Oh, Mr. 
Jones, please take a left at the drinking fountain."

"Aren't you going to show me to my office yet?"

"Not just yet," Faero replied as he hurried to join Jones at the 
head of the crowd. They were inside the building. The windows 
were grimy, the light coming in was a depressing yellow hue. 
The white and green interior paint became cream and brown. 
The smell was of mold and must; a new building had been on 
the drawing board for most of the current occupant's lives. 
"You've had a chance to look over some of the town's senior 
administrators. We'll be introducing you to the rest of the 
people you'll be working with, they're in the back room."

"Ah. Of course." They had arrived at a set of double doors, and 
Faero pulled them open. Unbeknownst to Jones, the building 
backed onto the town's only high school; they were entering the 
gymnasium. Five dozen people were arranged on bleachers by 
the side of the wood-paneled basketball court. The humidity in 
the room was stifling. Jones paused for a minute just inside to 
adjust himself; then, waving away offers for assistance, he 
walked out to center court. No microphone had been provided. 
He simply raised his voice and began to speak as the last people 
in the group filed in behind him.

"Good afternoon. My name is Jones Li Pu, I'm the Factory 
Official. The Factory has been aware for some months that the 
Deckman was rendered inoperable. My job initially will be to 
investigate the circumstances, I don't think that will be terribly 
difficult. Following that, I'll be surveying the state of the Farm 
and recording--HOLY CRAP!"

Jones was staring agog at a member of the audience in the third 
row. "Stop--STOP THAT MAN! He's been wanted for years..." 
As the person jumped out onto the floor and made a mad dash 
for the exit, Jones lunged after him. The chase went on for less 
than ten paces before Jones collared his quarry and wrestled him 
down. By the time anyone could collect, the FacOff had killed 
the man with a blow to the back of the head.

"Must've been, twenty years ago now," he murmured, gazing at 
the corpse by his side, "on Farm 28...some guy skipped town 
with some dirty pictures of the local kids...only way they found 
out is 'cause one of 'em told us in his suicide note. People still 
remembered it when I was working there."

Stunned, Faero and Jeeves looked at the blank features of Kyle 
Miller.