She is a dangerous opponent--clever, talented, wealthy to a degree not easily compared to any member of our society, considering how low to the dirt most of her world is, and completely pitiless. Every woman she meets is potentially salable.
Dardana is hemmed in by multiple foes and untrustworthy allies. She dodged the UV in the club lights of Mama Solene's by the expedient of wrapping her arm in her shawl, but all it would take is some officious person with a lamp and scanner, or a simple genetics test; and of course her contract's records are explicit about identifying every inch of her. She was unwise to take this case, and it is taking a lot of thought to find plausible ways to keep her at liberty.
Just in case it comes in handy: Perhaps the depilating laser can remove or disfigured tattoos as well?
I suppose even if some degree of genetic manipulation is (likely) possible and accessible to Dardana, clones will bear all sorts of genetic markers and she'll still have more sameness with them than natural variation within a population, no matter how much noise she adds to the signal.
I'll have to keep the laser in mind; it hadn't occurred to me, but it would be good to find another use for the technology, since it would be (relatively) abundant and accessible, and I wouldn't be creating another "device" to have lying around in-universe. The problem would be that a damaged serial would still be confirmation she was concealing her identity. She "should" have done it already, but probably judged a prominent scar in two obvious locations would be almost as bad a "tell" as leaving her barcode in place.
The clones have their serials pre-coded inside junk DNA sequences in each cell. I suppose it would be technically possible to RNA-sequence them out, but that would probably be expensive and time consuming.
She is as close, or closer, to all of her many "sisters" over the past decades or centuries (depending on how old her design series is) as any identical twin would be. Like identical twins, they would have similar but *not* identical fingerprints, certain levels of in vitro mutational differences, and so forth; but the differences would probably be fewer due to the artificial environment and quality control. Anyone who has seen one of "her" to know her would recognize her, and certainly her contract-owner would know who she was.
Her legal position, with all that in mind, is such that she could simply be plucked off the street without legal recourse and taken back where she belonged. She has no right to appeal this, and who would speak for her? Very simple. If she eludes the grasp of her Miss's runaway-catchers, her Miss (or Sir, as the case might be) would simply denounce her to local militia and have her seized. The denunciation, barring witnesses to the contrary, would be proof enough.
Of course this shades off into both legal, licensed press-ganging and illegal, unlicensed "crimping." I have a short story submitted to an anthology that has her investigating crimping--and Mama Solene. If it doesn't get accepted I'll post it on the substack.
Knowing from your other works how tricky and ruthless Scyros can be, this reader is very anxious!
(Also wondering what happens when some UV light inevitably lands on Dardana's wrist. She seemingly dealt with the neck tattoo, but...)
She is a dangerous opponent--clever, talented, wealthy to a degree not easily compared to any member of our society, considering how low to the dirt most of her world is, and completely pitiless. Every woman she meets is potentially salable.
Dardana is hemmed in by multiple foes and untrustworthy allies. She dodged the UV in the club lights of Mama Solene's by the expedient of wrapping her arm in her shawl, but all it would take is some officious person with a lamp and scanner, or a simple genetics test; and of course her contract's records are explicit about identifying every inch of her. She was unwise to take this case, and it is taking a lot of thought to find plausible ways to keep her at liberty.
Just in case it comes in handy: Perhaps the depilating laser can remove or disfigured tattoos as well?
I suppose even if some degree of genetic manipulation is (likely) possible and accessible to Dardana, clones will bear all sorts of genetic markers and she'll still have more sameness with them than natural variation within a population, no matter how much noise she adds to the signal.
I'll have to keep the laser in mind; it hadn't occurred to me, but it would be good to find another use for the technology, since it would be (relatively) abundant and accessible, and I wouldn't be creating another "device" to have lying around in-universe. The problem would be that a damaged serial would still be confirmation she was concealing her identity. She "should" have done it already, but probably judged a prominent scar in two obvious locations would be almost as bad a "tell" as leaving her barcode in place.
The clones have their serials pre-coded inside junk DNA sequences in each cell. I suppose it would be technically possible to RNA-sequence them out, but that would probably be expensive and time consuming.
She is as close, or closer, to all of her many "sisters" over the past decades or centuries (depending on how old her design series is) as any identical twin would be. Like identical twins, they would have similar but *not* identical fingerprints, certain levels of in vitro mutational differences, and so forth; but the differences would probably be fewer due to the artificial environment and quality control. Anyone who has seen one of "her" to know her would recognize her, and certainly her contract-owner would know who she was.
Her legal position, with all that in mind, is such that she could simply be plucked off the street without legal recourse and taken back where she belonged. She has no right to appeal this, and who would speak for her? Very simple. If she eludes the grasp of her Miss's runaway-catchers, her Miss (or Sir, as the case might be) would simply denounce her to local militia and have her seized. The denunciation, barring witnesses to the contrary, would be proof enough.
Of course this shades off into both legal, licensed press-ganging and illegal, unlicensed "crimping." I have a short story submitted to an anthology that has her investigating crimping--and Mama Solene. If it doesn't get accepted I'll post it on the substack.