I wasn’t sure I’d spoken aloud. If I did, it was under my breath at most. But 22 hears me, stops crisply, half turns to address me over a shoulder. “What game.”
For ages I’ve wondered how much the operatives were told about the game they star in. I guess now I have my answer. I feel weirdly dirty, like 22’s just discovered I have a body pillow of him the way Jessa used to have that one of 08.
“Um. It’s a… it’s not important.”
22 gives a little hmm in response to that and leads on.
We stop by the fountain. I can smell the water. It’s pulling me forward like the smell of blood pulls a zombie. I set my feet and my jaw and ride it out.
06 stalks past us, her whole face and stance loaded for bear.
“Stay here,” 22 tells me. “It’s safe. If the perimeter was going to vaporize us, it would’ve done it already.”
Like the crack about the resonance grenades, I guess I’m supposed to read that as reassurance. If his sense of humor was any drier, it’d crumble to ash and blow away.
22 follows 06 up to the building without another word, leaving sixty-three unchaperoned civilians loose on the grounds of Stellaxis Innovations HQ.
“We’re here,” I tell them, because doing them that courtesy seems to have slipped 06’s mind and probably never crossed 22’s. “Company HQ. Don’t wander too far. There are probably—” I bite back the word snipers. “Stairs. There are stairs right in front of us going down to a fountain. Come on, let’s go sit in the grass.”
So we go and we sit in the grass and it’s really very nice grass. Hideously well watered. It’s like grass from a movie, more grass than I’ve ever seen all at once in one place in my life.
It’s even softer than it looks. How is it alive this time of year? I just kind of sit there and swish my hands through the blades of it while everyone else does whatever. It’s hypnotic, really. All this time I’ve been assuming, from the game and the documentary and all the ads and whatever else, that it was fake. Who has this much real grass? Where are they getting the water?
I don’t even notice 06 and 22 have returned until I look up and 22 is standing right over me, hands clasped behind his back, looking down at my grass-swishing with bland scholarly interest.
“I, uh.” I scramble to my feet. Clear my throat. Nod at the building. “What’s the word?”
But 06 is already rounding up the civilian casualties and leading them in through the front door, and 22 is giving me a well-let’s-go look, and I’m almost glad the last bus has come and gone, because there could be a whole fleet of buses right here, parked and waiting for me, and I’d still walk into that building with 22, and that would be a lot harder to explain to Jessa and right now I don’t much care.
The smell of that fountain follows me the whole way inside.
* * *
THE LOBBY OF the building is exactly like it is in the documentary. Your basic huge cave of a room with gentle archways and a sleek desk or two and another fucking fountain, this one a weird eight-foot-high wall thing with the stars-and-arrow Stellaxis logo carved into it and this endless sheet of water running down the face.
A security guard comes out from behind one of the desks to greet us. Or stop us. At first it’s not real clear.
“You’re late,” he says. “The Director was about to have drones sent out to bring you in.”
Inexplicably, this seems to amuse 22. “Was she.”
06 doesn’t bother responding. “I’m taking these people to Medical,” she says. “Write me up if you need to.”
The guard volleys his gaze between 06 and 22. “You didn’t say anything about Medical a minute ago. You said aboveground floors only. You know I can’t authorize—”
22 runs over him. “Under the 2109 Stellaxis/Greenleaf Neutralities Accord, denying medical care to civilian casualties in a combat zone is a war crime. Section—”
“All right, all right.” The guard backs off. “Just be quick about it.” He consults something on his lenses. “Dr. Kessler is on duty until the hour. I’ll let them know you’re headed down.”
“Dr. Kessler is getting paid overtime tonight,” 06 replies, brushing past him.
The guard calls after her. “You know I have to report this to the Director.”
06 gives a little shake of her head, like there’s a mosquito by her ear. “Of course you do,” she says under her breath, leading the group over to a bank of elevators. As she passes 22, she raises an eyebrow at him. “A war crime?”
This earns her a minimalist shrug from 22. “It could be.”
“Wait.” Not quite ready to give up, the guard jogs over from his desk. “I have to run them through security.”
06 doubles back on him, planting herself between the guard and the crowd. “Already done.” She gestures at three extra pistols shoved into her belt. When did she collect those?
He pans a suspicious gaze over the crowd. “They’re not recording?”
Reflexively I almost hit stop on mine and delete it entirely.
But 06 and 22 are faster. 06 makes this big exasperated what-a-question gesture, while 22 slides a few centimeters to the left, blocking me from the guard’s line of sight.
I freeze. What the hell are they doing?
“Do these people look like they’re recording?” 06 demands, flinging out one arm in the direction of all those melted lenses fused to eyes. I cast my own eyes downward, thankful that it’s not outwardly obvious in real life when a person is recording, the way that it is in-game. For some reason, nobody in this whole crowd narcs on me.
No response from the guard, so 06 cranks up the volume. “Well?”
This has the desired effect. The guard practically evaporates.
We split the group into batches and ferry them, one elevator run at a time, toward Medical. 06 goes down with the first batch to handle any trouble they might encounter downstairs, while 22 stays up here to help load the elevator and keep the security bots calm. I ride with each batch and press the button.
Why didn’t anyone rat me out? A few batches in, observing the sheer exhaustion of these people, it starts to make sense. They’ve been in the trenches for days. Trenches the company dug, practically pushed them into, and then did jack shit to help them climb back out of. If it were me, right now I’d be thinking Stellaxis could go take a flying fuck off a short pier for all I cared.
As for why 06 and 22 covered for me in the first place, those answers are taking a little longer to arrive. It feels like a question that’ll chew on me for a while.
It takes eight awkward runs in the elevator, but we get them there. 22 gets in with the last batch, and we all ride down together, me crammed shoulder to shoulder with 22 like old pals, and now we’re all pretty much vacuum-packed into this basementy-looking, white cinder-block hallway.
It’s a lot less high-tech down here than I expected. It smells familiar, like a hospital. 06 leads the way to Medical, letting the front people in the crowd touch her shoulders for guidance. I follow with 22.
Medical turns out to be a big window-fronted room with MEDICAL BAY stenciled onto the white brick above a heavy automatic door. Two more security bots stand sentry. “At ease,” 06 tells them, and their posture changes fractionally.
It isn’t a hospital, what this place smells like. It’s… I’m not sure. It’s reminding me of something I can’t place.
06 ushers the crowd in, then pokes her head back out. “I’m going to stay with them in case anybody shows up with questions,” she tells 22. “Dr. K has enough on their plate right now without getting hit with my paperwork.”
Then she seems to notice me there. “I really appreciated your help today. I didn’t forget about getting you home. Can it wait a little? Unless…” She trails off, glancing at 22. “You want to help her find a bus or something?” Then, without waiting for an answer, back to me: “Is that okay?”
I try to give her a nonchalant one-shouldered shrug, but my shoulders and my mind and my entire state of being
are in such a state right now it comes out as this weird twitch. “Sure,” I try to say. “That’d be fine.”
06’s gaze zeroes in. “You’re sure you don’t need a doctor? Not even a little? I won’t let them charge you, if that’s the problem.”
“I’m okay,” I tell her. “Just thirsty.”
She gives me a puzzled look. “There’s a water fountain right over there.” Then she straightens up, probably receiving some kind of message over her lenses. “Ah, shit. Okay. I’m out. Thanks again!” The automatic door seals shut over her voice as she pulls her head back inside.
Whatever happens next, I need that water fountain yesterday. I practically hurl myself at the thing.
Only to find that it’s got some kind of really cutting-edge reader that I can’t even locate. I’m torn between staying thirsty and admitting I’m an ignorant old-town idiot in front of 22.
I’m standing there in the middle of this crisis when he reaches in and floats his hand near an edge of the fountain. Water arcs out of it, wasteful and beautiful. He pulls away and it stops.
There must be an invisible reader built into the fountain that only interfaces with company employees. Typical.
Now that the fountain’s keyed itself to 22’s account, I put my hand where his was, and water shoots out. There must be a sensor built into the reader. That I’ve seen before. I drink and drink until I have to stop myself forcibly. It tastes better than hotel bathroom sink water. Better than company-store water. It tastes how the water in ads looks like it tastes, all clear and sparkling and too perfect to be real.
I dig my empty bottle out of my backpack and fill that. Then I take three more measured sips from the stream. Then I wipe my mouth on my sleeve and try to retrieve what little remains of my dignity.
“Thanks,” I tell 22 in this voice like sure, I drink water this perfect every day no problem. “You didn’t have to pay for me. I can cover it. I just—this reader is different than I’m used to is all.” Then, because he’s staring at me like I’m speaking a foreign language they never taught him in supersoldier school, I add: “I’ll get you back, just tell me how much I owe you.”
22 treats me to a long, slow, considering blink. “Owe me for what, exactly?”
“Um.” I wave feebly at the fountain. “The water?”
In response, 22 gives me this unfathomable look. Then he removes one glove and, still holding my gaze, waves that in front of the reader. The fountain activates, the water arcing just as high and full as before.
The answer is obvious enough but hits hard all the same.
It’s not a reader. It’s a motion sensor. The water here is free.
22 tugs the glove back on. He’s not looking at me anymore, which I’m guessing has something to do with the awful roil of emotion I’m sure is showing on my face. Two fountains. Free water. All that lush green grass.
That glove goes back on with every bit of the efficiency I expect of him, but not before I catch sight of the bare hand beneath. There’s something not quite right about it. It’s human enough, but something’s been done to the tendons and bones of it. There aren’t scars exactly, or wounds exactly, but…
And then it’s gone, back under the glove, and I don’t know what I saw. But it makes me remember the awful strength of 06’s hand, clapping me on the shoulder, and 22’s hands, fishing for helicopters. The old photo of 05—Elena—flashes through my mind. What exactly do you do to a child to turn them into this?
“I’m afraid you’re going to have to walk me through the process of helping you find a bus,” 22 says. “It is not what you might call my area of expertise.”
“I believe it,” I say.
22 tilts his head half a degree, like he’s receiving a message from the mothership. “What’s that?”
“A joke. I was joking.” I swallow. What the hell is the smell of this place reminding me of? “Badly.”
The silence and my composure slowly unravel.
“Let me check the bus schedule,” I blurt out. Like it will have changed from when I checked it half a dozen times before. I make a show of letting my eyes focus on a display that isn’t there. “Oh no. Looks like the last bus already went a while ago.”
“Hmm.” 22 looks to be at something of a loss. I take a few absent sips from the water bottle I’m still holding, waiting for him to push back through the door to Medical and drag 06 out here to rescue him from civilian-babysitting detail.
But what I get is very different.
I’m getting used to his mannerisms, his and 06’s, their real-life ones. There’s startlingly little overlap between them, and the echoes of both exist accurately enough in-game that the meanings of some are easy enough to decipher, although some remain mysterious. 06, for instance, has more sadness in her eyes than I expected, and a way of angling her whole person toward you when you talk, like she’s sizing you up as prey. In contrast, 22 hoards movement like water. Like he’s doing brain surgery 24/7, every motion is that measured. He’ll stay perfectly still until he blurs into action. He’ll shift his eyes from target to target without moving the rest of his head. That’s all exactly like in-game. What’s different is that in real life it turns out he has a sense of humor, like I saw earlier on our march to Stellaxis HQ. It’s weird, and it’s subtle, and mostly has to do with the timing of horrifying statements delivered utterly deadpan—we’re en route to a hospital anyway—but it’s there.
One thing that definitely did not make it into the game is how they both have a way of talking that makes me feel like they’re trying to tell me something they’re not allowed to say. Keeping me around, bringing me here, protecting me and my lenses from a security check—it makes me feel like they’re lobbing messages in bottles, over and over, mistaking me for an ocean when I’m generally more of a puddle.
What 22 does now is more in-game standard. He raises an eyebrow one millimeter and nods to a depth of maybe two.
What he says is not.
“So. I could escort you back to the front desk and have whoever is on duty find you some manner of public transport that is still running at whatever time this is.” He holds up one gloved finger to forestall me telling him what time it is, as if he doesn’t know. “Or. Option two. I thought you might be hungry.”
* * *
22 TAKES ME to a cafeteria-looking room signposted DINING FACILITY. There’s nobody else here. Just the softly blue-lit serving bots, dormant along their wall. There’s another security bot posted at the door, just like at most of the doors in this place as I am learning, but 22’s presence is enough to make it lose interest in me fast.
“Take a seat,” 22 says. “It’s late, but I’ll see what I can do.”
I find a chair and watch 22 hassle the bots out of hibernation. This is beyond surreal at this point. I could believe that the on-duty 22—the one who ignored sixty-three civilians in the alley because only 06’s safety was deserving of his notice—is what the in-game version is copy/pasted from, absolutely faithful to the source material. But the off-duty one—the one that took over as soon as we began that long march to the hospital and then here, who told me horrific sort-of-jokes and smuggled me through security and pretended he had no idea what time it even is, of all things, like he doesn’t have an implant and a superpowered brain—the one who’s about to serve me dinner, personally, in a building I never should have seen the inside of? I don’t know what this is. It’s something new.
After a few minutes 22 arrives with a tray in each hand. “I did warn you,” he informs me, setting them down. A wave of food smell hits me palpably.
I mean, I don’t know what they eat at a pseudomilitary-corporate-army mess hall at a reasonable time of day, but it turns out that even after hours they still get a hell of a lot better than instant noodles and peanut butter sandwiches.
This is some kind of stir-fry thing out of a food blog photo, with decidedly-not-instant noodles and tofu and more fresh vegetables in it than I see in a week.
“They had to reheat
it,” 22 clarifies, apologetically. “But calories are calories.”
He vanishes again and returns with a pitcher of water and two glasses. There’s ice in the water. Ice and lemon slices. He pours me a glass. I drink it slower than I want to, faster than I mean to. 22 absorbs this in silence. Then he pulls up a seat across the little table from me.
I try not to inspect him too blatantly, which is one of the hardest things I’ve maybe ever done. I justify it by reminding myself I’m still recording, and this kind of intel gathering is the exact thing B tasked me to do. The exact thing, presumably, that 22 and 06 wanted me to keep doing when they covered for me upstairs.
But that’s all rationalization. I’m sitting across a table from 22. Any other situation in the universe, I could feign apathy. Here, though, it’s not happening.
Up close he looks too precisely calibrated to be real. Like something grown in a vat. Like an idea. Mentally I hold up the words proprietary biotech, the words machine consciousness, and try to take 22’s measure against them. But I can’t get them to stick.
If B is right, I’m looking at the product of alteration, not creation. Intense alteration, with years of combat training and brainwashing and supersoldier drugs and mystery procedures I can’t even conceptualize outside of shit I’ve seen in movies. How would the end result differ? How could my sorry civilian ass so much as pretend to know?
Get him talking, that’s what I’ve got to do. If you were the Stellaxis labs, and you were programming a machine intelligence to pilot a superweapon, why bother to give it conversational skills? From what I’ve seen of the public-facing side of the SecOps program, it’d be a waste of resources at best.
I think back to 22 and 06 out there in the streets this afternoon. Talking to each other, to the civilians, to the HQ security guy, to me. Speech patterns, inflection, word choices, vocabulary: all as different from each other’s as either’s is from mine. As anyone’s is from anyone else’s.
He’s sitting there, hands flat on the table, watching me fail to appreciate his hospitality. Get your shit together, Mal. Say something.
Firebreak Page 16
