aI . . . see.a Janis looks as if sheas sucking on a slice of lemon. Right then the kettle comes to a boil, so she stands up and pours the hot water into two mugs, then scoops in the creamy powder and mixes it up. aI hope you wonat take this the wrong way, Reeve, but you seem to have changed since you came out of hospital. You havenat really been yourself.a aHmm? What do you mean?a I blow on my coffee to cool it.
aOh, little things.a She raises an eyebrow at me. aYouave gained a certain enthusiasm. Youare more interested in exteriors than interiors. And you seem to have lost your sense of humor.a aWhatas humor got to do with it?a I glare at my mug, willing myself not to get angry. aI know who I am, I know who I was.a aForget I said it.a Janis sighs. aIam sorry, I donat know whatas gotten into me. Iam getting really b.i.t.c.hy these days.a She falls silent for a while. aI hope you donat mind my leaving you for a few hours.a I manage a forced laugh. Janisas issues arenat my business, strictly speaking, buta"aWhat are friends for?a She looks at me oddly. aThanks.a She takes a mouthful of her coffee and makes a face. aThis stuff is vile, the only thing worse that I can think of is not having it at all.a Her frown lengthens. aIam running late. See you back around lunchtime?a aSure,a I say, and she stands up, grabs her jacket from the back of the door, and heads off.
I finish my coffee, then go back to the front desk. Thereas some filing to do, but the cleaning zombies have been thorougha"they didnat even leave me any dusty top shelves to polish. A couple of bored office workers drop in to return books or browse the shelves for some lunchtime entertainment, but apart from that the place is dead. So it happens that Iam sitting at the front desk, puzzling over whether thereas a better way to organize the overdue returns shelf, when the front door opens, and Fiore steps in.
aI wasnat expecting you,a he says, pudgy eyes narrowing suspiciously.
aReally?a I hop off my stool and smile at him, even though all my instincts are screaming at me to be careful.
aIndeed not.a He sniffs. aIs the other librarian, Janis, in?a aSheas out this morning, but sheall be back later.a I get a horrible sense of dj vu as I look at him, like a flashback to a bad dream.
aHmm. Well, if I can trouble you to turn your back, I have business in the repository.a His voice rises: aI donat want to be disturbed.a aAh, all right.a I take an involuntary step back. Thereas something about Fiore, something not quite right, a feral tension in his eyes, and Iam suddenly acutely aware that weare alone, and that he outweighs me two to one. aWill you be long?a His eyes flicker past my shoulder. aNo, this wonat take long, Reeve.a Then he turns and lumbers toward the reference section and the secure doc.u.ment repository, not bothering to look at me. For a moment I donat believe my own instincts. Itas a gesture of contempt worthy of Fiore, after all, a man so wrapped up in himself that if you spent too long with him, youad end up thinking you were a figment of his imagination. But then I hear him snort. Thereas the squeak of the key in the lock, and a creak of floorboards. aYou might as well come with me. We can talk inside.a I hurry after him. aIn what capacity am I talking to you?a I ask, desperately racking my brains for an excuse not to join him. aIs it about Janis?a He turns and fixes me with a beady stare. aIt might be, my daughter.a And thatas pure Fiore. So I follow him through the door and down the steps into the cellar, a hopeless tension gnawing at my guts, still unsure whether Iam right to be worried or not.
Fiore pauses when we get to the strange room at the bottom of the stairs. aWhat exactly do you think of Dr. Hanta?a he asks me. He sounds tired, weighed down with cares.
Iam taken aback. What is this, some kind of internal politicking? aSheasaa"I pause, biting my tongue, acutely aware who Iam talking toa"arefreshingly direct. She means well, and sheas concerned. I trust her,a I add impulsively, resisting the urge to add, unlike you. I manage to maneuver so my back is to the storage shelves on one wall. If I have to grab somethinga"
aThatas not unexpected,a Fiore says quietly. aWhat did she do to you?a aShe didnat tell you?a aNo, I want you to tell me in your own words.a His voice is low and urgent, and something in my heart breaks. I canat pretend this isnat happening anymore, can I? So I play for time.
aI was having frequent memory fugues, and I picked up a nasty little case of gray goo up top in the shipas ma.s.s fraction tankage. That set my immune system off, and it began taking out memory traces. Dr. Hanta had to put me on antirobotics and give me a complete memory fixative in order to stop things progressing.a I move my hands behind my back and slowly shuffle backward, away from him and toward the wall. aIad say sheas a surprisingly ethical pract.i.tioner, given the way everyone else here carries on in secret. Or do you know differently?a aHmm.a Fiorea"fake-Fiorea"leans over the a.s.sembler console and taps in some kind of code. aYes, as a matter of fact I do.a While he isnat watching I take another step back until I b.u.mp up against shelves. Good. Iam already mentally preparing what I need to do next.
Fiore continues, implacably. aOne of your predecessors herea"yes, theyare still around in deep covera"got it worked out. Dr. Hanta isnat her real name. She, or rather it, used to be a member of the Asclepian League.a I give a little gasp. aYes, you do remember them, donat you? She was a Vivisector, Reeve. One of the inner clade, dedicated to pursuing their own vision of how humanity should be restructured.a aThanks for reminding me what I came here to get away from,a I say shakily. aIam going to be having nightmares about that for the next week.a He turns and glares at me. aAre you stupid, ora"a He stops himself. aIam sorry. But if thatas all it means to you, you really are beyonda"a He stabs at the console angrily. as.h.i.t. I thought youad be at least vaguely concerned for the rest of us in here.a I take a deep breath, trying to get my nausea under control. The Asclepians were another of the dictatorship cults, a morphological collective. Much worse than the Solipsist Nation. They restructured polities one screaming mangled body at a time. If Dr. Hanta is an Asclepian, and sheas working with Yourdon and Fiore, the future theyare trying to sculpt is a thing of horror. aShe canat be. She just canat.a aAnd I suppose you think Major-Doctor Fiore is just a fat, egocentric psychiatrist?a He grins at me humorlessly. aStop that, Reeve, I know what youare up to. Hanta f.u.c.ked with your head really well, didnat she? Probably got you to give your consent first, too. Theyare hot on formalities, Asclepians. Fiore and Yourdon are war criminals, too. s.h.i.t, most of the people here did things so nasty they want to forget everything. Do you remember why this is an experimental polity?a aRemember?a Thatas a new one on me.
aOh. A memory fixative, that makes sense.a He takes a final poke at the console. It dings and turns luminous green. aWhere would dictators be without our compliant amnesia? Make the collective lose its memory, you can conceal anything. aWho now remembers the Armenians?a a He takes a step back. aListen, weall have to break whatever conditioning she loaded your implant with.a My stomach churns for real this time. I feel sick. Heas a monster, and he wants to drag me back down into the turmoil I was in before Hanta sorted me out. And Iave been up the ladder now, I know thereas no way out. Weare stuck here. Resistance is futile. I really ought to run for it, call the Bishop and get the police to take him away. But thatad be like betraying myself, too, wouldnat it? aDid you kill Mick?a I whisper. aHow did you get in that body?a aWill you feel better if I say yes?a His voice is surprisingly gentle. aOr will you feel worse?a aIalla"a I take another gulp of air. aI want to know.a Fake-Fiore, Robin, blinks slowly, pudgy eyes closing: I tense but he opens them again before I can gather my wits to move. aIt was after you killed Fiore,a he says. aI got into the a.s.sembler and backed myself up, programmed in a body merge and neural splice, so Iad come out in Fioreas skin instead of like . . .a He nods at me. aI put a two-hour hold on it to give you time to get the mess sorted out, but you must have blanked in between. So I wake up inside the gate and find the bas.e.m.e.nt has been partially cleaned, and youare missing, and I had to finish the job. Fioreas backed up in the gate, and Iave got his biometrics, so I manage to get a dump of his implant, and when one of him showed up to check on you, I told him youad just gone missing. He believed me. Heas not very good at handling multiplicity.
aOn Sunday morning I went to visit Ca.s.s in the hospital,a he says quietly. aIt turns out I wasnat her first visitor that morning. I havenat heard anything about it through the rumor net, but it was pretty bad: I think Hanta covered it up afterward but if you were wondering . . . I caught Mick. Head been living in the bas.e.m.e.nt of an empty house, stealing stuff from folksa kitchens while they were at worka"weare a trusting bunch, have you noticed that? We leave our back doors unlocked. Head gagged her and you saw the tissue scaffolds Hanta had her legs in. She couldnat do anything. I mean, she was trying to get away, but not getting very far. He was raping her again, Reeve, and you know what I think about third chances.a I nod, gulping for breath. The horror of it is that I can see everything in my mindas eye: me-in-Fioreas-flesh creeping up on Mick as he humps away, Ca.s.s thrashing around helplesslya"Mickas probably tied her arms out of the waya"and me-in-Fioreas-flesh saps Mick at the base of the skull. He doesnat do it very carefully, because heas beyond fury at this point; beyond caring about inflicting subarachnoid hemorrhages. He doesnat care at all whether Mick wakes up again. In fact he thinks Mickas waking up would be a very bad idea, at least for Ca.s.s, and maybe come to think of it he can use Mick to send a message to any borderline sociopaths who are thinking about following his examplea"
Itas very me. Me as I used to be, not me as I was before (quiet, peaceful historian, devoted family man) or me as I am now (slightly squirrelly, evanescent with the joy of discovering what itas like to surrender after fighting for what seems like my entire life), but me as I was in the middle, the grim-faced killing machine. But then I meet his eyes, and I see an awful sadness in them, a sick sense of guilt that mirrors what I feel at the knowledge that Iam absolutely going to have to shop him to the Bishop because we canat afford to have a murderous doppelganger of one of our most respected citizens running arounda"
I grab the first thing my fingers scrabble across: a heavy file of paper hardcopy, part of the dump of Curious Yellow from the closet upstairs. I take two brisk paces forward as I raise it and bring it down on top of his head as hard as I can. He sags and falls over, but I donat stick around to finish the job. Instead, I turn and run for the stairs. If I can make it to the top and slam the door, heall be trapped down here for long enough to calla"
aGoing somewhere?a drawls Janis, pointing a stungun at me from the top step. I can see her trigger finger whitening behind the guard.
I start to raise my hands. aDonata"a She does.
I groan and reach up to touch my head, which hurts like h.e.l.l where Reeve thumped me. Someone grabs my wrist and tugs experimentally, and I open my eyes. Itas Janis. She looks concerned. aWhat happened?a I ask.
aI caught her running up the stairs, in a real hurry to get somewhere.a Janis peers at me. aWhat about you?a I touch my head finally and wince at the sharp pain. aShe thumped me with something, a box file I think. I fell over.a Stupid, stupid. I feel a bit sick. Looking round brings a stab of pain to my neck. aHit my head on the A-gate plinth.a aThen it was lucky I was in time.a aHuh. Thereas no such thing as luck where youare involved.a aThat was in another life,a she says pensively. aAre you going to be all right on your own? I need to close up shop.a aGet it closed, already.a I wince and push myself upright, breathing heavily. This body has a lot of momentum, and a lot of insulation, but itas not built for bouncing around. aIf anybody finds usa"a aIall sort them out.a Janis vanishes upstairs. I sit up and manage not to retch. Reeve almost ruined it for both of us, and Iam horrified at how close I came to blowing it. If I hadnat figured out who Janis was, Iad be on my own down here and Reeve would have killed me without blinking. Doctoras orders.
Iam going to have to do something about Reeve, and Iam not looking forward to this. Surely Hantaa"letas make that Colonel-Surgeon Vyshinski, to give her her real namea"got to her, but losing a week isnat something that I take lightly, and besides, she knows stuff that might come in useful. Dilemmas, dilemmas. If there was some way to trivially reverse the brainwashing that Hantaas applied . . . s.h.i.t. Hantaas an artist, isnat she? Itall be some sort of motivational/value abreactive hack, subtle as h.e.l.l, leaves the personality intact but tweaking the gain on a couple of traits, just enough to turn Reeve into a good little score wh.o.r.e.
I sit with my legs apart, panting a trifle heavily over my enormous wobbling gut-bucket, and try to come to terms with the fact that Iam going to have to kill my better half. Itas upsetting, however often youave done it before.
Thereas some clattering upstairs. I stand up, wheezing, and waddle over to see whatas going on. I hate this body, but itas been useful for getting me into places none of us could otherwise goa"theyave been letting their internal security get sloppy, forgetting the authenticator rhyme: something shared, something do, something secret, something you? I suppose settling for something you is sufficient if youave got control over all the a.s.semblers in a polity, but still. I wait at the bottom of the stairs. aWho is it?a I call quietly.
aMe,a says Janis. aI need a hand with her.a aHumph.a I haul myself up the steps. Janis is waiting at the top with Reeve, whose wrists and ankles sheas trussed together with a roll of library tape. Reeve is twitching a little and showing signs of coming to. aWhat are you thinking we should do with her?a I ask.
aCan you get her downstairs?a Janis asks breathlessly.
aYes.a I lean forward and grasp Reeve by the ankles: For all that this body is grotesquely overweight, itas not weak. I lift and drag, and Janis holds Reeveas arms up enough to stop her head banging on the steps. At the bottom I pull her toward the A-gate. By this time her eyes are rolling, and sheas turning red in the face. Hating myself, I lean forward. aWhat would you do?a I ask her.
aMmph! Mmmph.a Defiant to the enda"thatas me. I look up at Janis. aWhy didnat you kill her?a aI didnat want to,a says Janis.
aWhat, youare going to justa"a aJust put her in the gate!a She sounds stressed.
I get my hands under Reeveas armpits and lift. She goes limp, trying to deadweight on me. aI donat like this any more than you do,a I tell her. aBut this townas too small for both of us.a As I dump her into the A-gate, she kicks out with both legs, but Iam expecting that, and I punch her over the left kidney. That makes her double up. I swing the door shut. aWell?a I glare at Janis. aWhat now?a I feel like s.h.i.t. Killing myself always makes me feel like s.h.i.t. Thatas why Iam deferring to Janis, I think. Pushing the tough choice off onto someone elseas shoulders.
Janis is bending over the control station. aFiguring this out,a she murmurs. aLook, Iam going to lift a template from her, okay?
af.u.c.k.a I shake my head, a parody of resignation. Thereas a thud from inside the A-gate, and I wince. I feel for Reeve: I can see myself in her place, and itas horrifying. aWhy?a aBecause.a Janis looks up at me. aFioreas going to suspect if we keep you running around in drag. Donat you think itas time for you to go back?a aBack?a aTo being Reeve,a she says patiently.
aOh,a I echo. aOh, I see.a Being thumped on the head has left me sluggish and stupid. Janis is right, we donat have to kill her. And suddenly I feel a whole lot better about punching Reeve and dumping her into a macro-scale nanostructure disa.s.sembler, for the same reason that punching yourself in the face never feels quite as bad as having someone else do it for you.
aIam going to template from her, and then youare going to follow her, and Iam going to take a delta from your current neural state vector and overlay it on Reeve. Youall wake up back in her body, with both sets of memories, but youare going to be the dominant set. Think thatall work?a Thereas another m.u.f.fled thump from inside the A-gate, then m.u.f.fled retching noisesa"Janis has triggered the template program, paralyzing Reeve via her netlink, and the chamber is filling with ablative digitizer foam. aIt had better,a I say.
aIam worried Fiore may suspect whatas going on. The thing with Mick could blow it completely if he puts two and two together.a I sigh heavily. aOkay, Iall go back to being Reeve. I suppose that makes sense.a aYou agree?a She looks haggard in the dim light from the ceiling bulbs. aGood, then itas not entirely stupid. What then . . . ?a aThen we sit down and figure out how to nail down the lid on this mess. Once I know what she knows.a aRight.a Her lips quirk in a faint smile. aYour direct, no-nonsense approach is always like a breath of fresh air.a aOnce a tank, always a tank,a I remind her.
aRight,a she echoes, and for a moment I can see a shadow of her former self. That sends a pang through my chest.
aThe sooner Iam myself again, the better.a We sit in silence for long minutes while the gate chugs to itself, then finally the console chimes, and thereas a click as the door unlatches. I walk over and swing it open: as usual, the chamber is bare and dry. I glance over and see that sheas watching me.
aReady?a she asks.
aSee you on the other side, Sanni,a I say as I close the door.
Thatas all.
SECURITY Cell Blue used to be part of the counterespionage division of the Linebarger Cats. It was supposedly disbanded, all memory traces erased, at the end of the censorship wars. I know this is not the case because Iam a member. We didnat disband, we went undergrounda"because our mission wasnat over.
This is a risky business. Our job is to do unpleasant things to ruthless people. Covering our tracks costs moneya"lots of it, and it isnat always fungible across polity frontiers these days. Local militias and governments have reinvented exchange rates, currency hedges, and a whole host of other archaic practices. Some polities are relatively open, while others have fallen into warlordism. Some place great stock on authentication and uniqueness tracking, while others donat care who you think you are as long as you pay your oxygen tax. (The former make great homes; the latter make great refuges.) As a consequence of the postwar fragmentation, we end up moving around a lot, shuffling our appearances and sometimes our memories, forking spares and merging deltas. At first we live off the capital freed up by the Catsa liquidation; later we supplement it by setting up a variety of business fronts. (If youave ever heard of the Deadly Viper a.s.sa.s.sination Squad, or Cordwainer Heavy Industries, thatas us.) Operationally, we work in loosely coupled cells. Iam one of the heavy hitters, my background in combat ops meshing neatly with my intelligence experience.
About fifty megs after the official end of hostilities, I receive a summons to the Polity of the Jade Sunrise. Itas a strictly tech-limiting polity, and Iam in ortho drag, my cover being a walkabout sword-fighting instructor. Iave got access to enough gray-market military wetware that I can walk the walk as well as slice the floating hair, and my second-level cover is as a demilitarized fugitive from summary justice somewhere that isnat tech-limiteda"which sets me up for the Odessa Introduction if I see a target of opportunity and need to run a Spanish Prisoner scam on them. Iave been doing a lot of that kind of job lately, but Iam not sure what this particular one is about.
The designated rendezvous is the public bathhouse on the Street of Orange Leaves. Itas a narrow, cobbled, mountainside road, running from near the main drag with the silversmithas district down toward the harbor. Itas a fine spring afternoon, and the air is heavy with the smell of honeysuckle. A gang of kids are playing throw-stick loudly outside the drunkenly leaning apartment buildings, and the usual light foot traffic is laboriously winding its way up and down the middle of the road, porters yelling insults at rickshaw drivers and both groups venting their spleen on the shepherd whoas trying to drive a small flock of spidergoats uphill.
Iave been here long enough to know what Iam doing, more or less. I spot a boy whoas hanging back on the sidelines and snap my fingers. He comes over, not so much walking as slithering so that his friends donat see him. Grubby, half-starved, his clothes faded and patched: perfect. A coin appears between two of my fingers. aWant another?a I ask.
He nods. aI donat do thex,a he lisps. I look closer and realize heas got a cleft palate.
aNot asking you to.a I make another coin appear, this time out of reach. aThe teahouse. I want you to look round the back alley and see if there are any men waiting there. If there are, come and tell me. If not, go in and find Mistress Sanni. Tell her that the Tank says h.e.l.lo, then come and tell me.a aTwo coin.a He holds up a couple of fingers.
aOkay, two coin.a I glare at him, and he does the disappearing trick again. The kidas got talent, I realize, he does that like a pro. Sharp doubts intrude: Maybe he is a pro? We rounded up the easy targets a long time agoa"the ones wh.o.a.re still running ahead of us tend to be a lot harder to nail.
I donat have long to wait. A cent or so pa.s.ses, then lisp-boy is back. aMithreth Thanni thay, the honeypot ith overflowing. I take you to her.a The honeypot is overflowing: doesnat sound good. I pa.s.s him the two coins. aOkay, which way?a He does a quick fade in front of me, but not too fast for me to follow. Weare round the back of a dubious alleyway, then into a maze of anonymous backyards in a matter of seconds. Then he goes over a rickety wooden fence and along another alleya"this one full of compost, the stink unbelievablea"and up to an anonymous-looking back door. aTheath here.a My hand goes to my sword hilt. aReally?a I stare at the kid, then at the two dead thugs leaning against each other beside the back step. The kid flashes a lightning grin at me.
aYou did thay to check the back alley for muggerth, Robin.a aSanni?a He sketches a bow, urchin-cool. I raise an eyebrow. The muggers look as if theyare sleeping, if you ignore the blood leaking from their noses. Very good work, for an intel type who isnat a wet ops specialist. aWe donat have long. Authenticate me.a We do the routine, something shared, something do, something secret, something youa"all the stuff the Republic of Is used to do for us. aOkay, boss, why did you call me?a Sanni isnat my boss these days, but old habits die hard.
aThe honeypot is leaking.a He drops the lisp and stands tall, Sannias natural presence shining through the bottleneck of his three-hundred-meg body. aWea"Vera Six, that isa"got word about twenty megs ago that a bunch of familiar spooks were haunting the Invisible Republic. It all s...o...b..lled really fast. Looks like several of the memory laundries have been infiltrated and the gla.s.shouse has been taken over.a I lean against the wall. aThe gla.s.shouse?a Sanni nods. aSomeoneas going to have to go in and polish the mirrors. Someone else. I forked an instance five megs ago, and she hasnat reported back yet. Itas going to be deep cover, Iam afraid.a as.h.i.t and pig-f.u.c.king s.h.i.t.a I glare at the dead muggers as if itas their fault.
The gla.s.shouse is a rehab center for prisoners of war. The setup is designed to encourage resocialization, to help integrate them back into something vaguely resembling postwar society; itas a former MASucker configured as a compact polity with with just one T-gate in or out. Bad guys go in, civilians come out. At least, that was the original theory.
aWhatas going on?a I ask.
aI think someoneas broken our operational security,a says Sanni. I shudder and stare at the muggers. aYes,a he says, seeing the direction of my gaze. aI said we donat have long. A group drawn from several of our operational rivals have infiltrated the Strategic Amnesia Commissariat of the Invisible Republic and taken over the funding and operational control of the gla.s.shouse. They discharged all the current inmates, and we no longer know whatas going on inside. The gla.s.shouse is under new management.a aIam the wrong person, and in the wrong place. Canat you send Magnus? Or the Synthesist? Do an uplevel callback to descendant coordination and the veteransa a.s.sociation and see if anybodya"a aI donat exist anymore,a Sanni says calmly. aAfter my delta went in and didnat report back, the bad guys came after my primary and killed me repeatedly until I was almost entirely dead. Thisaa"he taps his skinny chesta"ais just a partial. Iam a ghost, Robin.a aBut.a I lick my lips, my heart pounding with shock. aWonat they simply kill me, too?a aNot if youare ident.i.ty-dead first.a Sanni-ghost grins at me. aHereas what youare going to have to do . . .a
18.
Connections.
I am me. Joints creak, heart pumps. Itas warm and dark, and Iam sleepy. It slowly comes to me that Iam squatting with my arms wrapped around my knees and my china"oh. So Iam not pa.s.sing as Fiore? Right. Thatas satisfying to know. One more fact to add to the pile. Roll the dice, see what comes up on top.
Iave been in two places at once for most of the past two weeks. Iave been in hospital, recovering at home. Talking to Dr. Hanta, being horrified in the bell tower, trying to tell the Reverend about Janis. And another me has been living in the library, sleeping in the staff room, cautiously exploring off-limits sections of the habitat, and latterly conspiring with Janis. Sanni. A doubled moment of eternal jarring shocka"meeting her head-on up the stairs with a gun in her hand, just as startled as a week ago, stumbling across her in the bas.e.m.e.nt with a knife. She broke down and cried, then, when she realized she wasnat the only one anymore. I wouldnat have credited it if I hadnat been there myself. Hard-as-diamonds Sanni, reduced to this? Isolation does strange things to people . . .
aCome on, Reeve. Talk to me! Please. Are you all right in there?a Thereas a note of desperation in her voice. aSay something!a She leans over me anxiously. aHow does it feel?a aLetas see.a I blink some more then unwrap my arms and push myself upright. Iam Reeve again. d.a.m.n, but I feel so light! After being tied down by the centripetal chains fastened to Fioreas flesh for more than a tenday, itas an amazing sensation. I could drift away on a light breeze. I find myself grinning with delight, then I look up at her and my face freezes. aIa"shea"nearly shopped you to Fiore.a Janis blanches. aWhen?a aAfter we disposed of Mick. Let me think.a I close my eyes. I need to get rid of the sudden storm surge of adrenaline. aLow risk. Ia"shea"was uncertain, and she misjudged her timing. She didnat know who you are, she just thought you were up to no good, so she tried to shop you for your own protection. Fiore was preoccupied and told her to get lost. As long as nothing reminds him, youare clear.a as.h.i.t.a Janis takes a step back, and I see that sheas still holding the stunner, but sheas got it pointed at the floor. Sheas swaying slightly, with relief or shock. aThat was close.a I take a deep breath. aIave never been brainwashed before.a A little part of me still thinks Dr. Hanta is a sympathetic and friendly pract.i.tioner who only means the best for me, but itas outvoted by the much larger part of me that is eager to use her intestines as a skipping rope. aI amaa"breathing too fast, slow downa"anot amused.a aLetas try a ping test.a Janis hesitates for a moment. aDo you love me?a aI love you.a My heart speeds up again. aHey, I heard that!a aYes.a Janis nods. aI didnat, though. You know what? I think the diffmerge must have scribbled over part of the CY load in your netlink.a aNo.a I step out of the a.s.sembler and carefully close the door. aIt happened earlier. I heard it earlieraa"I frowna"atalking to Sam, after I got out of hospital. I mean, she heard it.a aCurious.a She c.o.c.ks her head to one side, a very Sanni-like gesture that looks totally out of place on the Janis Iave gotten to know over the past few months. aMaybe if shea"a Janis snaps her fingers. aTheyave repurposed CY, havenat they? The bit weare carrying around in here, itas used for loading behavior scorefiles and such, but if Hantaas been modifying it to work as a general-purpose boot loader . . .a I shudder. The consequences are clear enough. The original Curious Yellow used humans as an infective vector, but only really ran inside A-gates that it had infected. A modified CY that can actually run and do useful stuff inside a hostas netlink, and which doesnat trigger the detection patch, is a whole lot scarier. You can do things with it likea"aThe zombies?a aYes.a Janis looks as if sheas seen a ghost. aAre we still in the gla.s.shouse? Or have they relocated us?a aWeare still in the gla.s.shouse,a I rea.s.sure her. Itas the first bit of good news Iave been able to piece together so far. aMASucker Harvest Lore, if what she remembers seeing upstairs is anything to go by. I mean, we might have been on a different MASucker, but I thought you accounted for them all?a aI think so.a She nods, increasingly animated. aSo that locked area you found in City Hallaa"when I was being Fiorea"ais probably the only T-gate on-site. Right?a aThere are the short-range gates to the individual residences.a I shiver again: Getting into City Hall and out again without being identified was a matter of sheer brazen luck. Ten minutes later Iad have run into the real Fiore. aTheyare definitely switched off a hub at City Hall; I found the conference suite they inducted us through. As I recall, on the Grateful for Duration the longjump T-gate was connected to the flight control deck by a direct short-range gate, but was itself stored in a heavily armored pod outside the main pressure hull, in case someone tried to throw a nuke through. So, if we a.s.sume they havenat rebuilt the Harvest Lore in flight, thereas going to be a way to get to the longjump node from either City Hall or the cathedral, which is just over the road.a aRight.a She nods. aSo. If this is the Harvest Lore, weare about two hundred years from next landfall. If we a.s.sume exponentiation at, say, five infants per family, thereas time for ten generations . . . right, theyare looking to breed up about twenty thousand unauthenticated human vectors. Hantaas got time to implant netlinks in them all. So when we arrive, she can flood the network with this new population of carriersa"a aThatas not going to happen.a I smile, baring my teeth. aNever doubt that. They think theyave got us trapped. But the right way to view it is, we canat retreat.a aYou think we can take them on directly?a Sanni asks, and for a moment sheas entirely Janisa"isolated, damaged, frightened.
aWatch me,a I tell her.
THE rest of the day pa.s.ses uneventfully. I say goodbye to Janis and go home as usual. At least, thatas what it must look like to anyone whoas watching me. Iave spent the past few hours in an absentminded reverie, rolling around irreconcilable memories and trying to work out where I stand. Itas most peculiar. On the one hand, Iave got Reeveas horror at finding Mick dead, her apprehensive fear that Janis might be auntrustworthya and a hazard to the friendly and open Dr. Hanta. And on the other hand, Iave got Robinas experiences. Sneaking around City Hall on tiptoe, finding locked areas and avoiding Fiore by the skin of my teeth. Coming across Mick in the hospital, with Ca.s.s. Dropping in on Janis in the library, her initial guilty fear and the slowly growing convictiona"on my parta"that she wasnat just a bystander but an ally. Recognition protocols and the shock of mutual recognition.
Janis has been on her own in here for almost half a year longer than I have. When she realized she wasnat alone, she broke down and cried. Shead been certain it was only a matter of time before Dr. Hanta got around to her. Terror, isolation, fear of the midnight knock on the door: They wear you down after a while. She got pregnant before anyone had figured out that part of the scheme. Iam surprised sheas still functioning at all.
The score system and the experimental protocols are a real obstacle to us: For all we know, half the population of YFH-polity could be cell members of one faction or another, blundering around in the dark, unwilling to risk revealing themselves. But unless we can somehow kick over the superstructure of artifice that the cabal have established, we wonat be able to link up with our potential allies and identify our real enemies. Divide and conquer: You know it makes sense.
I get home in due course, by way of the hardware store. Sam is absent, so I go straight into the garage to see what I can do. This isnat the time for recrimination, but Iam really p.i.s.sed at myself. I was going to get rid of this stuff! If nothing else, I found making historic weapons fascinating. I may end up doing it as a hobby, when all this is over, if thereas scope for such luxuries.
Still, I guess I wonat be needing the crossbow now. Or the sword I was trying to temper. Sanni and I have got a sterile a.s.sembler with full military scope. We left it cooking last night, slowly and laboriously building a stockpile of polynitrohexose bricks. Making weapons by A-gate is a slow process, and the higher the energy density the longer it takes, so we compromised and opted for chempowered weapons. The first batch of machine pistols will be ready when we go in to work tomorrow. Which leads to the next logical questiona"whereas my Faraday cage bag gotten to in this pile?
Iam hopping around on top of a pile of scattered steel bar stock and spilled screwdrivers, cursing up a blue streak and clutching my left foot when some change in the light alerts me to the fact that the garage door is open. aWhat the f.u.c.ka"a aReeve?a af.u.c.k!a I howl. as.h.i.t. Dropped my hammer anda"a aReeve? Whatas going on?a I force myself to calm down. aI dropped my hammer and it landed on this pile of bar stock and it bounced on my toe.a I hop some more. The pain is beginning to subside. aThe hammer is evil and must be punished.a aThe hammer?a He pauses. aHave you been drinking?a aNot yet.a I lean against the wall and experimentally put my foot on the floor. aOuch. I just decided to turn over a newa"heha"leaf again. A girl needs a hobby and all that.a I raise an eyebrow.
He looks at me skeptically. aBad day at the office?a aItas always a bad day at the office, insofar as the office exists in the first place.a He frowns. aWhatas this about a hobby?a aExtreme metalworking, or something like that. Have you seen my copy of The Swordsmithas a.s.sistant? I was going to throw it out when I wasnat feeling myself, but I never got round to it.a You can almost see the light come on above his head. aReeve? Is that you?a aI had a c.r.a.p day at the office, too. Reading poetry out of boredom, you know? aLast night I met upon the stair, a big fat man who wasnat there; he wasnat there again today: inside my head heall have to stay.a Ogden Nashville. Apparently, the ancients seem to have liked him for some reason. Camon, letas go and round up some supper.a Sam retreats back into the house ahead of me, lips moving soundlessly as he turns it over in his head. I have been reading poetry at work, I just hope my improvised doggerel gets through. (Poetry really gums up conversational monitoring systems. Parsing metaphor and emotional states is an AI-complete problem.) We end up in the kitchen. aWere you thinking about cooking again?a Sam asks cautiously. Thinking back to days past, I suspect he wasnat too enthusiastic about being subjected to some of my experiments.
aLetas just order a pizza instead, hmm? And a flask of wine.a aWhy?a He stares at me.
aDo you have to turn every suggestion for what to do of an evening into an impromptu therapy session?a He shrugs. aJust asking.a He begins to turn away.
I grab his shoulder. aDonat do that.a He turns back sharply, looking surprised. aWhat?a a aLast night I met upon the stair, a big fat man who wasnat there; he wasnat there again today: inside my head heall have to staya . . . I havenat been myself lately, Sam, but Iam feeling a lot better today.a I frown at him, willing the words to sink in.
aOh, you mean . . .a aShh!a I hold up a warning finger. aThe walls have ears.a Samas eyes widen, and he begins to pull away from me. I grab at his shoulder, hard, then step in close and wrap my arms around him. He tries to push back, but I lean my face against his shoulder. aWe need to talk,a I whisper.
aAbout what?a he whispers back. But at least he stops pushing.
aWhatas going on.a I lick his earlobe, and he jolts as if Iave stuck a live wire in it.
aDonat do that!a he hisses.
aWhy not?a I ask, amused. aAfraid you might enjoy it?a aBut we, theya"a aIam going to order food. While weare eating, letas keep things light, okay? Afterward weall go upstairs. Iave got a trick or two to show you. For avoiding eavesdroppers.a I add in a whisper: aSmile, please.a aWonat it be obvious?a Heas lowered his arms and is holding me loosely around the waist. I shiver because Iave been wanting him to do that so badly for the past weeka"no, letas not go there.
aNo it wonat be. They use low-level monitors to track normal behavior. They call in high-end monitors only if we act funny. So donat act funny.a aOh.a I look up as he looks down for a startled instant, and I kiss him. He tastes of sweat and a faint, musty aroma of dust and paperwork. A moment pa.s.ses, then he responds enthusiastically. aThis is normal?a he asks.
aWhoa! Dinner first.a I laugh, pulling back.
aDinner first.a He looks at me with a dark, serious expression.
I phone for a pizza and a couple of gla.s.s jars of wine, and while Sam heads for the living room, I try to catch my breath. Things are moving too fast for comfort, and Iam suddenly having to deal with a ma.s.s of conflicted emotions at a time when all I was wanting to do was recruit another dissatisfied inmate to the campaign. The thing is, Sam and I have too much history for anything between us to be simplea"even though we havenat actually done very much together. We havenat had time, and Samas got big body-image issues, and then she/me nearly f.u.c.ked everything between us completely while under the influence of the pernicious Dr. Hantaa"oh, hindsight is a wonderful tool, isnat it? Thinking about it, Samas dissatisfaction and pa.s.sivity has been a running sore between us, and I half suspect it took my apparent co-option to kick him into doing something about it.
I feel guilty as I remember what I was thinking at the time. I can surrender . . . yes, and theyall make my life a living h.e.l.l, wonat they? Did I really want to hand complete control over my life to the likes of Fiore, Yourdon, and Hanta? I donat think I explicitly intended to do that, but it amounted to the same thing. It feels like a moment of cowardice in my own past, a voluntary moment of cowardice, and I feel oddly dirty because of it. Because itas not far out of my normal character to feel that way inclineda"Hanta didnat rebuild her/me, she just tweaked a few weightings in my mind map. aThe only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothinga in spades. And Sam got to see that side of me. Ick.
The closet bings for attention and I take the pizza tray and wine out of it. On my way through to the living room I kick my shoes off, strewing them in the hallway. aSam?a He turns round. Heas nesting in the sofa again, the television turned to some sports channel. aTurn the volume up.a He raises an eyebrow at me but does as I ask, and I sit down next to him. aHere. Garlic and tofu with deep-fried lemon chicken steak.a I open the box and pull out a slice, then hold it in front of his mouth. aEat?a aWhat is this?a aI want to feed you.a I lean against him and hold the pizza in front of his face, just out of reach. aGo on. Youare begging for it really, arenat you?a aGaah.a He leans forward and takes a bite at ita"I try to pull my hand back, but Iam just too late and he gets a mouthful. I laugh and lean closer and find his arm is around my shoulders. Chewing: aYou. Are. Intolerable.a aManipulative,a I suggest. aAnnoying.a aAll of the above?a aYes, all of it by turns.a I feed him another mouthful, then change my mind about letting him have the whole slice and eat the rest of it myself.
aEvery time I think I understand you, you change the rules,a he complains. aGive me another . . .a aNot my fault. I donat make the rules.a aWho does?a I point a finger at the ceiling, waggle it about. aRemember our chat in the library?a After I came out to Janis, last Tuesday, she phoned Sam and asked him to come visit. He was very surprised to see me-as-Fiore, almost as much as when we showed him the bas.e.m.e.nt and the A-gate. aRemember my face?a He nods, looking dubious. aJanis and I sorted everything out. Settled the slight difference of opinions. Iam feeling a lot better now, and less inclined to give up on things.a His arm tightens. Warm, comforting, presence. aBut why?a I take a deep breath and offer him another slice of pizza. Better keep it short. At this rate heas going to eat it all. aYou donat want to live like this.a aBut Ia"a He stops.
aDo you?a I prod him.
He looks at me. aWatching you, this past weeka"a He shakes his head. aIad love to be able to settle in like that.a He shakes his head again, underscoring the ironic tone in his voice. aWhat alternative is there?a aWeare not supposed to talk about where we came from.a I pause to chew for a moment. aAnd we canat go back.a I flick a warning glance his way. aBut we can make ourselves more comfortable here if we rearrange our priorities.a Will he get it?
Sam sighs. aIf only we could do that.a He glances down at his lap.
aIave got a new priority for you,a I say, my heart beating faster.
aReally?a aYes.a I put the pizza box down and plaster myself against him. aWe can start right here by you picking me up and carrying me upstairs to the bathroom.a aThe bathroom?a aYep.a I kiss him again, and suddenly Iam not sure this is a good idea at all. aWhere weare going to get in the shower together, and wash each other, and talk. Canat go to bed smelling of office work, can we?a aShowera"a His monosyllables arenat his most appealing attribute: I kiss him into silence, shivering with alarm at my own responses.
aNow.a THINGS do not go according to plan.
The plan seemed simple enough. Get Sam on board again. Doing that, holding a proper conversation with him, was another matter with the ever-present risk of being overheard. But if you disguise your suspicious activities as something expected of you, while only the dumb listener bots are online, youave got a good chance of doing it undetected. The dumb listeners arenat good for much more than keyword monitoring, and the cabal is sufficiently short on spare bodies that they canat monitor everything we say all the time.
So call me naive, if you like. I figured that as a married couple, one of us pretending to seduce the other and then dragging them into a showera"lots of nice white noise to confuse audio tracking, sheets of water to make it hard to lip-read, and an excuse to stand really close togethera"would be a pretty good way of evading surveillance.
What I didnat consider was that when I stand too close to Sam my skin tingles, and I feel warm and needy in intimate places. And what I especially didnat consider is that Sam is horribly conflicted but has corresponding urges. Heas human, too, and we both have certain needs, which weave been trying to ignore for much too long.
Sam does as I ask him, and about halfway up the stairs I realize that Iam going to lose control if we do this. I nearly tell him to stop, but for some reason my mouth doesnat want to open. He puts me down on the bathroom carpet and stands too close. aWhat now?a he asks, a quiet tension in his voice.
aWe, um, undress.a Without realizing quite how, I find my hands are already working on his trouser belt. When I feel him begin to unb.u.t.ton my blouse, I shudder, and not with fear. aShower.a aThis isnat such a gooda"a aShut up.a aYouall become, uh, pregnant.a aWonat.a Worry about it later. I run my hand around his back, feeling the thin man-fur that runs up the base of his spine, and I lean closer. aNot worried anymore.a aBut.a I feel him unzip my skirt. Hands on my thighs. aSurely.a I kiss him to make him stop. Weare down to underwear. aShower. Now.a My teeth are chattering with a rising tide of need that threatens to wreck whatas left of my self-control.
Weare in the shower cubicle, wearing our underwear, and I dial the pressure up to maximum and the temperature to fusion. His tonguea"garlic and honey and a hint of something else, of him. Arms around each other, we stand under the spray, and I feel the tension in his back. Heas got an erection, of course. Why am I still wearing anything? Moments later Iam not. And a moment after that Iam crunched against the wall, my knees drawn up, gasping at the size of him inside me.
aYou want to talk . . .a The entire universe is in here. I wrap my arms around him and latch on to his lips, hungrily. I want to talk, but right now Iave got higher priorities.
aOpening ceremony.a aYes?a aOn a MASucker. Yes!a aYes . . .a aOnly one T-gate out. Six gigs to next star system. If we break connection, bad guys canat pay up on scorefiles. Breaks carrot side of dictatorship, no payoff for compliance. Yes . . .a aOverthrow thea"the?a He heaves like the wild sea. Iam lost on him, abandoned. At first when I was Reeve, the idea of pregnancy horrified me. Then Hanta tweaked something, and it was no big deal. Now I just donat care anymore: Itas survivable, and if itas the cost of having Sam right now, Iall pay. I want to focus, to plan, but weave gotten carried away. Sam is pounding away with no subtlety, and he knows better, which means heas lost on the ocean, too. If we can find each other and cling together through the night, who knows? aSam, I, I want you toa"a aOh!a A moment later, a quieter aoh!a And a sensation of spreading warmth that drives me to grind against him until everything goes away, and I become the ocean for a few eternal seconds.
THINGS donat go according to plan, but they go strangely well. After the first mad flush of l.u.s.t, we collapse in the shower, then soap each other off thoroughly. Sam doesnat cringe away from my hands this time but seems quiet, thoughtful. I kiss him, and he responds. After a while I begin to feel as if my skinas about to fall off: I can barely see the bathroom for steam. aLetas dry off and go to bed,a I suggest, feeling another little jolt of worry.
aOkay.a Sam turns the shower head to OFF and opens the cubicle door. Itas cold out there. I shiver, and for a wonder he wraps his arms around me.