by C. Gockel
“James, can you hear them?” Noa whispered.
They were so close that he could feel her breath against his cheek. Both of them were sitting next to the door to the bedroom they were hiding in, listening to the “opposition meeting” going on below. He could hear every chair squeak, every elbow on the table, and next to him he could hear Noa’s breathing, faint and raspy. Across the room, on a bed, he could hear Eliza snoring softly, with 6T9 sitting beside her in hibernation mode.
“Yes,” he said. “I can hear them very well.”
Noa took a long breath. Again James heard a slight rasp. She’d started breathing heavily when they came up the stairs.
“Hard link with me, James,” Noa said. “I want to hear, too.”
For a moment, James sat motionless. The memory of her revulsion still stung. Below them the opposition members greeted each other. He heard hands clasping, and what he was fairly certain was backs being thumped.
“I’m sorry about last time,” she said, averting her gaze. “You … reminded me of someone. It’s … strange. I’ll keep a better handle on it this time.”
James wanted to ask who, and then he realized he probably knew. The mysterious Timothy. He remembered her darting up and away from him when they’d been huddled in his parents’ cottage after he’d asked her who Timothy was. He nodded at her and retrieved the hard link, nestled next to his laptop in a small bag.
A moment later, opposite ends of the port were in each of their data drives. For a fleeting instant, Noa was unguarded. For less than a second, James could sense something, which was withdrawn and concealed quickly; then, Noa’s filtering app must have kicked in, because he could feel nothing at all. It was disquieting, and also disappointing, he couldn’t say why.
Downstairs, he heard the tone of the conversation shift, and quickly began relaying the words, exactly as he heard them … and suddenly found himself in the kitchen surrounded by medium height, slightly tan, faceless people. He blinked. The kitchen was blurry and out of focus.
Noa appeared among the faces. She was wearing her fleet uniform.
“Fleet-issued avatar for these sorts of mental conferences,” the vision of Noa said, her avatar gesturing to the mental imagery. She looked exactly as she did in his earliest memory of her. He felt the familiar thrum of want, and was glad he could hide it from her. She was so close in the mental and physical worlds.
Not party to his thoughts—or desires, literally or figuratively—Noa continued, “I’m trying to imagine exactly what’s going on.”
James looked around the blurry kitchen and filled in the details for her. The faceless opposition members he couldn’t picture—they hadn’t had a chance to see them—but he knew their genders by their voices, and their weight by the sound of their footsteps and the way the chairs sounded as they slid across the floor. So he filled in those sparse details, too. An instant later, the mental image of the kitchen was exactly as he remembered it, and the tan placeholder people had more human appearance.
Noa’s avatar shook her head. “Of course, you’ve got that holographic memory app running, you would remember everything.” Her avatar walked through one of the opposition leaders and bent down to look at the table. “I can’t believe you remembered the wood grain, though.” Straightening, her avatar looked around. “This is amazing.” She backed away from the table, where the constructs of the opposition leaders were drinking and complimenting the food.
“Don’t you have an avatar?” Noa’s avatar asked him.
“Several,” he said, activating his avatar app.
Noa blinked—or, her avatar did.
James let his avatar look down at itself. His mental persona was wearing what he’d wear to a lecture hall—high-necked long silver jacket with patched elbows, black trousers, and polished shoes.
Noa laughed, or her avatar did, and she was exactly the image of the healthy vibrant woman from James’s memory. “Patches on your elbows? Of course … I forgot. You’re a history professor! For a moment there … ” She looked around the mental space. “Well, I’ve only seen this sort of detail in internal ‘scapes created for military ops, or in history class.”
James shrugged. Since the opposition leaders were still talking about things that didn’t seem terribly important, he changed the scene to the interior of 10 Downing Street, residence of the Prime Minister of England. He gave it the décor that it sported during Margaret Thatcher’s administration.
“Amazing,” Noa’s avatar said again, taking in the antiquated furnishings. She let an emotion sift through. Emotions from another person over a hard link were like seeing an image through fog. Not as powerful as an emotion that belonged to yourself, but somehow more rewarding than hard data. He felt his real lips in the physical world want to curl up. She was feeling wonder. Although he couldn’t smile, his avatar could and did. Noa’s avatar beamed back at him. “And it’s nice to see you smile.”
In the physical realm, he touched the side of his face. “It is nice to be able to smile.” She walked over to the desk and peered down at it. “No wood grain.”
James tilted his head. “Nothing before the fall is as clear.”
Noa’s avatar looked up at him, brow furrowed. “The fall … ”
James changed the scene, and Noa shrieked as they fell down past the Ponderosa pines. She jumped at the ‘impact,’ and he switched the scene to a generic white room.
“It was a miracle you didn’t die,” she whispered. “With the organ damage you would have received … they had to augment you.”
A miracle? To James, something felt off with that assessment, and he felt a chill race along the neurons beneath his skin. Down below, he heard Manuel explaining, “So I said that I used the signal for a reason … ” and he changed the scene back to the kitchen. Noa’s avatar turned and gazed on the generic avatars of the opposition with laser-like focus. Manuel told the opposition that they needed to stage protests before rapid DNA testing was the norm—which James thought was a weak premise for a hasty gathering of forces—but the opposition ate it up. When it was over, and the “guests” were leaving, Noa made him replay the conversations that occurred while they had been distracted. As Manuel and Hisha were saying their goodbyes, Noa’s avatar whispered in his mind, “We’d better unlink. I get the feeling that Manuel and Hisha would be scandalized if they found us hard linking in their house.” She winked and smiled. Considering her revulsion, James didn’t find it funny. Maybe due to his lack of reaction to the joke, or her own distaste for him, Noa yanked out her link too quickly for comfort. Just before their link was severed, James sensed her concealing something again. Winding the cord around his hand, he wondered, was it just revulsion she was hiding, or something else?
Standing quickly, Noa took a deep breath and slipped out the door. Tucking the cord away, James followed. As soon as he stepped into the hallway, he felt the world shrinking and growing dark at the edges. He heard Noa ask, “A hidden stairwell?”
At her words, his world came into focus again. Manuel was standing at the end of the hallway by a floor-to-ceiling block of shelves loaded with toys, physical books, and replicas of starships. It was situated at a forty-five degree angle, like a door ajar.
Manuel shook his head. “No, not really. This house is so small, I tried to utilize every bit of space efficiently.” He pulled on one side of the shelf, and the unit opened fully to the steep stairwell beyond. “It wouldn’t be a good place to hide. All the townhomes are built to the same plan, and any patrol searching places would know there’s a hidden space behind the shelves, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
“Nah,” said Noa. “I was just admiring your handiwork.” She peered into the space beyond, and played with the door herself, opening and closing it. “Nice workmanship. No squeaky hinges for you.”
Manuel snorted. “I am an engineer.”
Noa tapped his shoulder with a fist. “You think this is small after living on a starship?”
Face visibly flushi
ng, Manuel mumbled, “Yeah, yeah, I know.”
Her brow furrowed, and she said, “You said that any patrol would know that this space was here—but you have piles of rope, a rope ladder, and climbing equipment?” James’s world began to get dark again. He heard Manuel reply, “That is part of our fire safety evacuation kit. We’re responsible parents, Commander.” James could no longer see the equipment; the hallway became progressively darker and more blurry, tunneling into a narrower and narrower frame. He remembered a snippet of innocuous conversation a few minutes before. When Hisha had asked the visitors if they were hungry, one had said, “I’m so hungry, I feel like my stomach is eating itself.” Like a chain reaction, that memory sparked others from before the fall. He’d made similar statements on occasion and had felt that sensation before. The room felt suddenly very cold, although the temperature had not dropped. Suddenly he found it was a struggle to stand upright.
“Are you alright?” Manuel said, his concerned face blurry on the periphery of James’s vision.
“I’m starving,” he said. But he felt the hunger in his mind, not his body, and he knew that was very wrong.
Noa opened her eyes to darkness, in the too-chill house. She was lying on the floor in the spare bedroom, a blanket thrown over her. Tomorrow, she’d meet her crew. In 48 hours’ time, they’d be in space, bound for the Kanakah Cloud and the hidden time gate. The most important thing she could do right now, before all that excitement, was sleep. She sat up anyway.
Her eyes slid toward James. He was lying on his back, his eyes closed. Illuminated by a single beam of a fluorescent street lamp slanting through a crack in the blinds, his skin appeared blue. Maybe it was that bluish cast, the fact that his lips were fuller than Timothy’s, the slightly aquiline curve of his nose, or the delicate wing-like shape of his eyebrows, but he looked more Japanese than Caucasian. His eyelids didn’t flutter as Noa gazed down at him.
She took a deep breath—and felt as though she’d barely breathed at all. Jitters, maybe? Or apprehension? As a fighter pilot, she’d participated in clearing the asteroid belt of System 6. The fire power of the carrier that played base to the fighter squadrons hadn’t been at all useful in the tight conditions of Six’s belt. Worse, the asteroid minerals dampened drone sensors; so, human pilots had to go in. When a squadron went in for a sweep between the densely packed asteroids and the pirates, it was pretty much guaranteed that only two-thirds would come back out.
In those sorts of conditions, pilots began developing rituals before each mission. Noa would kiss Timothy on the cheek three times before she left. She would perform the sign of the cross although she was only Christian by heritage. Then she would slip her wedding rings in a tiny carbon fiber envelope that she tucked into the left pocket of the under layer she wore under her g-suit. Once, after thirty-six missions, after she’d slipped her rings into that pocket, Timothy had kissed her an extra time. She’d taken her rings out, put them back on her fingers, and went through the ritual all over again. The protection such rituals gave might have only been mental—but that didn’t make them any less important. She fiddled with the stumps of her fingers.
As important as ritual was the people on your team. She took a breath and bit her lip. During the System 6 campaign, she’d piloted a six-person bomber. Like everyone, she was expected to fly thirty-two missions. But during mission seven, she’d sustained a third-degree burn that melted her skin and locked her elbow. While she’d recovered, her first crew continued to fly. They’d been shot down during the first mission without her. Her next crew was fresher than Noa. When she’d finished her thirty-two missions, they still had seven more to do. They begged her to stay on because she was their “lucky credit.” She’d been so afraid … but she stayed on as their pilot. Tim had been furious.
Her eyes slid to James. He’d been part of her crew for a while now. Mentally, she’d begun to depend on him being there. She took another deep breath that felt shallow and sounded weak. She’d been depending on him physically as well. She remembered every time he’d literally pulled her out of a jam. She was afraid ... but she had to do this alone.
Carefully pushing aside her blanket, she grabbed the small bag she was using as a pillow, and padded to the doorway and out into the hall. She was wearing the clothing she’d worn when she’d arrived at the Manuels’ house, so there was no need to change. She slipped to the bookshelf door, opened it silently, and crept into the claustrophobic closet-like room beyond. Opening her backpack, she pulled out a flashlight she’d brought along, flipped it on to the lowest setting, and found the rope ladder and coil of rope. Hoisting it over her shoulder, she began to climb the stairs. At the top she found herself winded and silently cursing the camp. She’d once been so fit. Gritting her teeth, she undid the lock. Turning off her flashlight, she opened the door, slipped out onto the roof, and waited for her vision to adjust. The night was warmer than the townhome and she found herself almost sighing with pleasure. Luddeccea’s satellites may not have been connecting the ethernet to the planet’s denizens, but their glowing forms did give light to the rooftops. She gazed upward. She thought she could make out Time Gate 8 …
Light to the east caught her eye, and she saw what looked like a meteorite falling to earth. Noa’s jaw hardened. A ship that had tried to leave? A Guard vessel shot down by Time Gate 8’s defenses? Gritting her teeth, she focused on the mission at hand. In her mind, she pulled up her map to Kenji’s house and let it flicker behind her eyes—it was in a building across from this very townhome complex. There were four streets she’d have to cross between there and here, but she could make it. She carefully began making her way across the roof. It had a slight grade to let the winter rains drain off, and between each unit in the complex there was a short wall as high as her hip. The Manuels had toys still strewn across their roof and a hammock. Treading lightly, she climbed over the first wall. The Manuels’ neighbors had small potted trees in giant planters, and a vegetable garden in neat boxes. She skirted between the plants, hopped over the next wall, and loped toward the next, her breathing getting ragged and fast too quickly. She was approaching the next wall between townhomes when a familiar voice whispered behind her, “What are you doing?”
The voice might have been familiar, but she was on a mission and her instincts were hardwired. She spun, and would have delivered a kick to James’s lower legs—a kick that she could have followed with a rapid-fire kick to his chin as he fell—if James hadn’t jumped half a meter in the air and missed the first pass. By that time Noa’s brain caught up with her feet.
Nearly falling over, she panted, “Sorry.”
Landing lightly despite his size, James said again, “What are you doing?” His face was as expressive as it was during sleep—which was to say, not very. Remembering his avatar’s smile was like remembering a surreal but happy dream.
“It doesn’t concern you. Don’t worry about it,” Noa said.
James’s gaze shifted in what was exactly the direction of Kenji’s house as the ptery flew. “You’re going to Kenji’s home, aren’t you?” he said.
Straightening, Noa silently cursed the fact that he’d seen her little brother’s location when they were at Ghost’s.
“It doesn’t concern you,” she said again.
James took a step closer. “Of course it concerns me. You could be caught.” His head did that ticky thing. “And then I’d have to find a way to get you out.”
Noa actually laughed; fortunately, almost silently. The camaraderie she sensed between them was real. “Yeah, I’d do the same for you,” she said. “But you don’t have to come with me.”
“Of course I do,” he muttered. His hands clenched at his sides. “I have to. I don’t know why … I wish I did. Then I could kill that part of me, and probably live a lot longer.” He said it in that deadpan voice of his, and Noa had to fight to keep from laughing out loud.
“You’re funny,” she said, turning back to hop over the wall.
“I wasn’t joking
,” he retorted.
Which made Noa giggle softly despite herself. “I can hear your eyes rolling,” she said as she slipped along the next rooftop. She felt her spirits lifting. These things were easier when you had someone to crack jokes with.
“My eyes do not make a sound when—” Breathing heavily as she loped along, she flashed a grin at him. He did roll his eyes. “Everything is a joke to you.” He couldn’t smile in the physical world, but his eyes were much more expressive. Maybe making up for the things his mouth couldn’t do? The exaggerated eye rolls and brow lifts were funnier on his too-perfect features. Some esthetic augments wouldn’t be so expressive for fear of wrinkles—not that there weren’t cures for such things—but the barest hint of a wrinkle that came with a frown, a scowl, or a smile was considered a blemish. His candid expressions showed a lack of vanity that was refreshing.
Panting, she came to the next wall between roofs.
“Noa,” James said, not appearing even slightly winded, “I am not well versed in tactics … but I have watched a lot of twenty-first century crime dramas.”
Noa contained a snort at that, but only barely.
“Even if Kenji would never turn you in … won’t the authorities have people waiting for you at Kenji’s house?”
“Of course they will,” said Noa. “We’ll have to figure out a way to sneak in when we get closer.”
They reached the corner of the next wall, and she gestured with her head in the direction of his building. “He lives on the third floor of the mid-rise you can’t see, but is just beyond the fern trees.” She paused to catch her breath.
James was silent. When she looked up at him, he said softly, “Noa, you are not well.”
Quickly returning to a lope, Noa waved a hand. “I know. Still recovering from the camp.” She panted. “You’d think, being so much lighter, it would make it easier.” Without her volition, her feet slowed to a walk.
