“She was a bit nutty,” Riviera grinned, “but that’s what made her so fun.” She paused a moment, then regained her focus, “what brings you down this way?”
I shook my head, “I just needed to get out for a while.”
“Feeling cramped in that house?”
“It doesn’t seem to matter where I am,” I said, “I always feel cramped.”
“I know the feeling.”
I exhaled slowly, “repairs going pretty slow on this place?” I signaled to the coffee shop in mid repair behind her.
Rosy glanced over her shoulder and said, “we opened up an investigation after what you said on the Hyperloop. About the Gopal kid. We’ve been looking through the rubble.”
“Have you found anything?”
Major Riviera shook her head, “just more rubble. The owner claims she doesn’t know anything. She and her son, Sujay, are in India right now, and we haven’t been able to reach them. But…she’s put her remaining store up for sale.”
“Meaning she’s likely not coming back,” I said.
“Who knows,” she said, “people come and go from the LoC all the time.”
“What about the guy I caught?”
“Well, we know he died exactly how you described,” Rosy said with a defeated shrug, “but they’re having a helluva time getting a good DNA sample. Those nanoparticles had some kinda catalytic activity. Chewed up his DNA. Fingerprints came back as some old woman from Wyoming who died a few years back. Face and irises are altered. Dental records don’t exist. Someone went through a lotta trouble to disappear this poor bastard before sending ‘em over here to die.”
“I wonder why they would go through all that trouble, but still use the same method of killing him,” I said, “they can’t think that they’re getting this one by us, can they?”
“It’s possible it wasn’t Benecorp,” Riviera shrugged.
“I don’t know who else would…”
“Like the Colonel said, we’ve had problems with Benecorp before,” Riviera said, “but this one took a lot of cajones. Doesn’t fit Benecorp’s MO here.”
“So, it’s almost as if…”
“…as if whoever did this wanted us to think it was Benecorp,” Riviera finished. “That’s a theory some of us are tossin’ around. But without any leads…” she shrugged.
“Enduracorp,” I said. “They’ve gotten Brazil to go all in on Mexico. If they get the LoC stirred up against Benecorp, then they can use you as another proxy.”
“We don’t have a government…”
“People like Calvin Lind and Anita Patrice don’t really understand that,” I said, “to them there is always someone in charge. Or at least they predict there will be soon, especially if everyone rallies behind someone against a common enemy. But even if they don’t think they’ll get state sponsored help, they know they can start an insurrection. The LoC would be a well-armed insurgency.”
Riviera eyed me curiously, “I take it this is the kind of stuff you come walking around to think about. Insights into human nature?”
I grunted, “I like to think my thoughts are insightful.”
“How old are you?” She asked.
Almost certainly over three million? “Not exactly sure,” I said, “I was never told a birthday, but I’m pretty sure I’m around seventeen or eighteen.”
“Colonel Reynolds told me you were an integral part of the Easter Emancipation,” she said, “how does an eighteen-year-old kid from the DRC get involved in all this?”
I shrugged, “the forty-eights have been to a lot of places.”
Her skeptical gaze remained on me.
I broke the quiet, “you know, I was thinking of doing something to lift people’s spirit. I was wondering if you wanted to help?”
Riviera looked taken aback. “What? A celebration? What kind of celebration?”
“I was thinking quinceañera style,” I grinned, “but I don’t know where to start.”
How do you know what a quinceañera is? Was the question I could just about see pass through Riviera’s mind, but instead she said, “I have Cuban ancestry. But in my family, fifteenth birthdays were pretty small affairs.” She gave a crooked smile, “I’m not sure what the differences in Cuban and Mexican quinceañeras are, but I could ask my wife. She’s Mexican and more into that kind of stuff than me.”
“You have a wife?”
Riviera laughed, “I have a wife and two husbands. Polyamorous relationship.”
“Well, any help that anyone in your family could provide would be great,” I said.
“Of course,” she said, looking up as the streetlights started coming on.
“Thanks,” I said, “for that and for letting me know where things stand on the bomber.”
“Happy to help,” she said as I started back toward the house. She was once again eyeing me with suspicion, even over the smile on her face.
“I don’t feel right just leaving like we’re slinking off into the night,” Masaru said, “especially with Akira like she is.”
Both of us stood outside his and Akira’s bedroom, where his wife and daughter were both taking a nap. He had caught me coming up the stairs heading to my bedroom. Or, at least, that’s how he wanted it to look. I knew he was waiting there for me.
“I wish there was some way to cheer her up,” he saidk, “at least a little bit before we go…I had hoped the rescue mission would do it.”
“Maybe she needs something to humanize it,” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, we saved the children,” I said, “but now all they are is refugees. Traumatized and biologically crippled. But if we can do something to help make their rescue somewhat more human, it might help the children and Akira.”
“What do you have in mind?” Masaru asked eagerly.
“A while back I had a conversation with Regina,” I said, “she was worrying over the fact that most of the children had been taken from a very young age. Many of them are nearing adulthood, at least as far as the number of years they’ve been on the planet. But biologically and, in a lot of ways mentally, they’re still children. I was thinking you could throw them a quinceañera.”
“A what?”
“It’s a party that a lot of Latin American cultures have when their girls turn fifteen,” I said, “I imagine most, if not all of the girls we saved never had one.”
Masaru’s face brightened at this idea even as I spoke.
“That’s exactly what we all need,” he said, cringing at his own volume before continuing. “Everything’s been so damn dark for so lon. A little light-hearted celebration is something we could all use.” Masaru started pacing the hallway, limping and supporting his weight with the cane. “We could invite everyone who was involved in the Easter Emancipation. All of the freed kids.” He turned to me, “And I’ll make sure Akira has a great time!”
He cringed again, but it was too late. Yukiko rustled around the bed, giggling, likely awakening Akira. I peered through the ajar door, seeing Akira’s eyes open, looking back at me.
“I think she’s awake,” I whispered.
Masaru bit his lower lip, peeking in through the door, and then turning to look at me again.
“I’ll let you two talk,” I said.
“No,” Akira said, her voice quiet, wistful, “I…I want to talk with you, Eshe.”
Masaru and I exchanged glances.
“Akira-chan,” he said, “maybe it’s not-”
“I’m still coming with you,” she said, voice still gentle, “but I want to speak to Eshe.”
“Sure,” he said, nodding to me, “I’ll be right downstairs if you need anything.”
“Thank you,” she said.
I watched after Masaru as he hobbled toward the stairs and slowly made his way down. Akira murmured something to Yukiko who then waddled out of the room and went to Laura’s room. I walked into Akira’s room, glanced at the lightswitch, and then decided against it, shutting the door behind me without latching it.
“I think your suspicions might be right,” she said, remaining in the bed, only her head sticking out from under the covers.
“You mean…what suspicions?” I asked, taking a step closer.
“About the children,” she said, “the ones addicted to Shift.”
“The PRA…”
She nodded slowly. “The kids who saw the farm. The one with snow. They had gene doping with Shift markers for homologous recombination in an insertion that has nothing to do with Shift.”
“What does the insertion do?”
“I don’t know,” Akira said, closing her eyes, “but it’s the same sequence in every kid. The hospital lab disregarded it as noise because of the low signal. But the signal was low because it was showing up in a different kind of neuron than what they were interested in. I ran the protein folding simulation on the translated sequence, and it seems to code for some kind of transmembrane receptor. None of the pharmaceuticals in the databases I have access to bind to it with any significant affinity.”
“I see.”
Akira opened her eyes again.
“I examined the sample we took from Aveena. Her puberty blocking gene doping was identical to one discovered sixteen years ago by independent biohackers. It was made illegal for personal use, so the biohackers sold it off to Benecorp.”
“So, Benecorp was involved?” I said.
“Maybe not,” Akira said, adjusting her body beneath the covers. “Benecorp was sued by a company called NexBioGen – a biotech and pharmaceutical company – who ended up winning the patent.”
“Never heard of them,” I said, “is NexBioGen behind the human trafficking ring?”
“I haven’t found anything concrete,” Akira said, “but…NexBioGen is based in Wichita, Kansas. Isn’t that where that piece of shit told you his orders were coming from?”
“Yes,” I said, “did you find out who’s in charge of NexBioGen?”
“The CEO is one of the co-founders,” Akira said, “a woman named Susan Dewitt. The other co-founder is the CTO, a bioinformatics specialist named Catherine Landon. The business was an instant success. That’s how they were able to beat Benecorp in court and obtain some of their patents. This must have caught their attention, because the current CFO is a former Benecorp lawyer named Richard Van der Meer.”
“That means they are connected to Benecorp?” I asked.
“I don’t think so,” Akira said, closing her eyes.
“Why not?”
“Because they liscenced the puberty blockers out to the PRA,” she said, “right after Van der Meer left the fledgling Enduracorp to join them.”
“You think NexBioGen is working with Enduracorp in the PRA,” I said.
Akira nodded. “I hope that helps.”
“It does,” I said, “I’ll let you get some sleep.”
She nodded but said nothing. I left the room, closind the door gently behind me. I had no idea what I was going to do without Akira’s help.
Chapter 21
“So what was the best life you’ve ever had?” Laura asked.
Both of us were in my room working on our respective artworks, some classical Indian music playing on an MP3 player. I was busy with another painting, this time it was a storm off the Japanese coast. The Kamikaze that had destroyed the Mongol’s who were coming to invade.
Yukiko joined us. Both her parents were busy packing. Masaru had already found a place in what used to be Idaho – now part of the Republic – for them to move. Something he had done before even telling Akira his intentions.
The toddler sat before the stack of large papers and colored pencils I gave her. Her pudgy hand gripped the utensils, scrawling over a blank sheet. Pages full of scribbles lay in a mess all around her. One portrayed figures resembling people. I thought I could distinguish who they were. The one in black colored pencil was me. The two in light brown were Akira and Masaru. And one in yellow was Laura. Another in yellow, standing apart from everyone else, was Darren. But it was difficult to know if that’s what they even were or if I was adding my own interpretation to scribbles.
Laura worked on another one of her abstract pieces, the music seeming to inspire her to make another asymmetrical one. Her light blonde hair concealed her eyes as she huddled over the work, bony fingers painstakingly connecting each piece to produce the complex array.
“The best life?” I said.
“Yeah,” Laura said, looking up from her work and brushing the hair from her eyes, “you focus a lot on how bad it always was. I was wondering if there were any you thought were good.”
“They weren’t all bad,” I said, setting the brush down, “it’s just that the good ones were usually good because…well, because they weren’t terrible.”
“You think that’s the sales pitch Jiang Wei gave to get Lind on board?”
I grunted. “If I’m going to be honest, I think the hunter-gatherer times were better. Before farming and sedentary lifestyles became the norm.”
“Wasn’t life harder back then?” she asked, focus taken completely off the artwork.
“Depends what you mean by harder,” I said, “we certainly lacked modern conveniences. We had to work for everything. And safety was always an issue. But I just remember usually feeling…happier, more often. There were conflicts, but war was usually a lot fewer, far between, and less severe. I could go several lifetimes without ever even seeing anyone outside my own tribe.”
“You mean you had to deal with fewer assholes,” Laura said.
“That’s a good way to put it,” I chuckled, “the elements, however, could be unforgiving. Sometimes I’d get a life or two where food was plentiful, the weather was great, and I could spend more of my day relaxing than I ever did on a farm. Other times it was freezing or dry or there just wasn’t anything to eat, and then life was hard. But even then…it often felt like just having to work for stuff gave things a sense of purpose.”
“Maybe we would be better off letting everyone nuke us back into the Stone Age?” Laura said.
I laughed, “I don’t know. It’s funny, because despite what I’m saying, if I was given the option to go back, I’m not sure I would take it.”
“If we rule out pre-history, what was your favorite more recent life?” Laura asked.
I said nothing for a moment, thinking. This was the sort of conversation I wanted to have with Sachi. But the sort she wasn’t all that interested in.
“I guess I would have to say…it was when I was born in southern India. Back in the seventeen hundreds. You know, the one I was telling you about when I played the sitar,” I signaled to the MP3 player.
“Were you a boy or girl?”
“I was a girl,” I said.
Laura seemed to ponder this for a bit, listening to the music. After a while she said, “I guess that explains why you enjoy this.” She paused another moment, closing her eyes as she listened. Then she said, “I’m trying to picture you as a girl in India playing something like this.”
I laughed again, “Is it working?”
She opened her eyes, “I’ve only ever known you as Eshe. I guess I understand that the reincarnation thing happens to you but…it’s hard to imagine how long you must have been around and how many people you met. How many people you’ve been.” She hesitated and then said, “And the fact that you were a girl.”
“I’ve been pretty much everything everywhere,” I said, “I was also a male in India in the thirteen hundreds. When I learned about the new, er, I guess old Indian music.”
“Do you mostly feel like a boy or like a girl?” she asked.
“That’s kind of a difficult one to answer,” I said, furrowing my brow, “it depends on the body. Yet…I’m not sure if I feel one way or the other the same way other people do. Then again, I’m not sure how other people experience gender identity at all.” I paused a moment before saying, “I guess I don’t know how to answer that question.”
Laura seemed to consider this for some time. Then she said, “
I’d like to hear you play the sitar sometime.”
“Hm,” I smiled, “I’d be glad to, if I can get my hands on one. You enjoying this kind of music?”
“It’s alright,” she said, “but it would be cool to hear you play it.”
“Come on in,” I said.
Major Rosaline Riviera walked in the door followed by her family, stepping around the boxes of Akira and Masaru’s packing belongings.
Her first husband was a scrawny looking man with a clean-shaven face and pale, well-manicured skin. His hair was neatly combed, suit and tie well pressed, and demeanor polite. He shook my hand, introducing himself as Zachary. His appearance next to the rough-around-the-edges Major Riviera made a striking contrast.
The second husband looked more her style. A muscular, tan skinned man of Native American ancestry named Keme. His clothes were casual – a t-shirt and jeans – and demeanor much more gregarious, giving me a large grin as he gave my hand a hardy shake.
The last person was Rosaline’s wife Marlina, a tan skinned woman with a bright smile that matched her yellow sundress. Her hair was carefully styled with wavy curls at the ends, makeup perfectly applied, laugh dainty and quiet.
To my surprise, Zachary immediately paired up with Rosaline and Keme with Marlina.
“You want anything to eat or drink?” I asked once all the introductions were finished, leading them past more boxes into the living room.
“I’m fine,” Zachary said.
“Got any beer?” Keme asked.
“Darren probably has some in the shed,” I said, signaling in the direction of the back yard.
“He out there?” Keme asked, already moving in that direction.
“No, but he won’t mind,” I said.
“Get me one, too then,” Rosaline called after him.
“You go to see the children?” I asked as Rosaline, Zachary, Marlina and I walked into the living room where all Masaru’s podcast equipment was packed up. The three of them sat on the couch, Zachary in the middle of the two women.
“Yes,” Marlina smiled, “on the way over here we went and saw them. They were just wonderful.”
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