“Are you okay?” said Hayden. “I’ve seen plenty of people affected by seeing a gestating baby for the first time. It’s not quite like an ultrasound, is it?”
“Sorry,” Jessica said. “No, I just... I got a death threat this morning. Over a piece I did last week.”
Hayden nodded and drank from his glass. “The pedophilia story?”
“Yes.” She wondered how long it was going to take for him to use the term didunophobia. “I guess I’m worried that this story will be worse.”
“I don’t blame you,” he said. “The return of abortion to the public conversation is definitely stirring up a lot of trouble. Protests like that one outside have really ramped up since the John Doe case took off.”
Jessica took her phone from her pocket and turned on the audio recorder.
“Do you have any comment on the case?”
Hayden glanced at the phone, sighed, and leaned his head against the back of the couch to look up through the skylight.
“I don’t know,” he said.
Well, I damn sure hope you do, thought Jessica. That’s what I drove out here for.
Almost as if he knew what she was thinking, Hayden looked at her and smiled. In a world of perfectly engineered children, here was a perfect man. Jessica hadn’t dated a man or had much interest in one for a long time, and she was happy with Merida. But Hayden looked right into her eyes without flinching or glancing away in the way that most people did. The intensity of his gaze made her wonder what his eyes looked like when he made love. For a moment she could see his face hovering over hers in candlelight, those eyes burning like stars. The thought made her stomach flutter, and she brushed it away.
Finally, he sipped his drink and spoke. “The people who developed the technology we use here, the politicians and the lobbyists who worked to pass the U.N. resolution, the various SRP laws around the world—they did all those things out of necessity, sure.”
“You don’t sound sure,” said Jessica. “Some people think the government went too far to stop the Genovirus-1 pandemic.”
Hayden gave her a wry smile. “I believe in what we do here. We’re helping families, protecting children, ensuring the health and safety of the next generation. The development of the artificial uterus is one of the seminal achievements of humankind.” He looked at her, and for the first time the tranquility of his expression was altered by strain. “But we also saw this technology as an end to the political fights over abortion. This technology, along with mandatory contraceptive implants, gave women complete autonomy over their bodies. It eliminated the whole question of unwanted pregnancies. Right, left, conservative, progressive, religious, non-religious, whatever—everybody calls that a win. Nobody wants to go back to the way things were before. Well, just about nobody.”
He shook his head and looked down at the floor, his eyes unfocused. The chanting of the crowds outside seemed to have grown louder.
“Now we’ve got a case that threatens to reignite the whole debate over abortion,” he said, “and in a way I don’t think anybody saw coming. A man who wants to abort his clone gestating in an artificial uterus? A baby who is now at almost thirty weeks’ gestation? And a mother who wants to keep the baby, despite her lack of genetic connection, to raise on her own?” He indicated the building around him. “All this was supposed to solve what looked like an unsolvable prob—”
But suddenly a sound like thunder cut him off. A shudder ran through the floor and the couch beneath her.
“What the hell?” said Hayden, standing up. “Linda, show me footage from—”
Now machine gun fire and the sound of screaming.
“I didn’t catch that, sir,” said the electronic voice.
“Dammit,” said Hayden, running toward the glass doors. “Stay here.” He disappeared into the corridor.
Two large black shapes passed over the skylight in a hurry. More Dragonflies.
Jessica stood, dropping her glass onto the floor. It shattered, sending shards and strawberry water across the tiles.
“Shit,” she said. She grabbed her phone, stopped the recording, and ran through the sliding glass doors.
She ran down the hall toward the elevator. But there was no call button, only a handprint scanner. She looked around the hall for a door to a stairwell. Nothing. How the hell did she get down?
“This way,” said someone behind her.
Jessica looked down the hall toward Hayden’s office. It was a doctor, or maybe a nurse. She wore a white lab coat over scrubs.
“Jessica Brantley, right? Come on!” the woman said, waving for Jessica to follow her. “There isn’t time for you to dick around.”
Thinking again about the dead pig, Jessica started down the hall toward the woman, who kept looking down the hallway to her right. “Where are the stairs?” Jessica said, her throat tight and her mouth dry. “I need to get outside to cover whatever—”
The woman let out an exasperated groan. “Dammit, you want something worth covering? Or do you just want to report on yet another riot?”
“I don’t understand—”
“Just come with me,” the woman barked. She started down a hallway across from Hayden’s office.
Her heart pounding, Jessica followed.
9
“Do you ever wonder about this?” says Asa. “About what we’re doing here?”
They’re sitting on the troop carrier’s loading ramp. Asa’s meal tray sits in his lap. He holds his spork in one hand and his cup in the other, but he hasn’t taken a sip or a bite since they sat down. He stares out the back of the carrier at the village that they’ve just secured.
Val scrapes the last bit of potatoes from her tray and sets it aside.
“What do you mean? We’re here to keep Iran from setting the whole region on fire,” she says.
Asa sniffs.
“What if we didn’t?” he says. “What if we just stayed the hell out of here?”
“We tried that,” Val says. “That’s what got us here in the first place.”
“So...”
“What’s wrong?” Val says. The rest of the unit sits or leans on the crates and boxes that lie scattered across the street where Val landed the carrier. They chatter and eat their meals. Harvey English plays Bob Dylan on his guitar.
“There must be some kind of way outta here,” he sings, “said the Joker to the Thief.”
None of them are looking this way, so Val takes a chance and brushes the backs of her fingers against Asa’s hand.
Asa shakes his head and scoops up a big bite of potatoes and corn.
“I don’t know,” he says, his voice lifting. “I just miss home, I guess.”
“I don’t,” says Val, but that isn’t quite true. She does miss the pecan grove where she and her sister played when they were kids. And she misses the smell of wisteria. She misses her sister, too, but the two of them had a falling out when Val joined the Marines.
“Well,” he says. “I’m not ready to leave you.” He shifts his leg so it just barely touches hers. “I just...”
“You’re just ready to be out of this place,” she says.
He nods.
But not me, she thinks.
“Plowman dig my earth,” sang Harvey.
“But it’s more than that,” he says. “You don’t seem like the type who just blindly follows orders. And I’m starting to feel like that’s all I am.”
Val feels herself bristling slightly. She does her best to hide the impatience in her voice. Her grandfather and her Uncle Red had served in the Navy, and her great grandmother had been in the first generation of women to serve in combat.
“I didn’t like what we did in Egypt or Iraq, but this...” She gestures at the world outside the troop carrier. “We’re the good guys here. We’re on the side of freedom.”
He takes a drink, and Val watches his lips on the cup. A bead of sweat drops down his cheek. He kissed her for the first time ye
sterday. Her heart feels heavy in her chest at the thought of it, of the salt taste on his lips and the touch of his tongue against hers, of his hand pressed against the small of her back, of their hips pressed against each other. That night she dreamed of him leading her by the hand into her grandmother’s pecan grove and making love to her in a spot where the grass was soft. She woke up from the dream panting and looking around at everyone else to make sure they were still asleep.
“Freedom for who?” Asa says finally. “For Iran? Aren’t they some lucky bastards. All the freedom they can handle, courtesy of the U.S. Marine Corps. Merry fucking Christmas, Iran. Enjoy it while you can.”
“Is this about what’s going on in Chicago?” she asks.
“What, you mean American soldiers on American soil, conducting door to door searches, looking for pregnant women?” He tosses his paper plate aside, food untouched save for one bite. “That sound like freedom to you?”
“No,” she says.
She waits for him to go on, but he only watches Harvey play.
“In a way, it’s simpler here,” she says finally. “There’s a clear enemy, a clear cause. Back home, who knows what they’ll order us to do? That’s one of the reasons I’m not so eager to get home. I won’t be a part of that.”
“Maybe you won’t,” he says. “Maybe you’ll go be a hairdresser. Or an English professor. I’m not sure I have it in me to be anything but a soldier.”
Val frowns. She can’t tell whether or not he’s making fun of her.
He takes her hand, almost as if to reassure her.
“But it’s almost over,” she says. “And when we come home...”
She stops, afraid she has said too much. Her stomach tightens, and she hopes that he knows what she wants to say. She prays that he feels the same way.
10
When the orderlies rolled Celina out of her cell strapped to an upright gurney, she wore a faint smile. It was the smile she put on when she couldn’t hide how delighted she was but wanted to maintain the persona of a woman who cared about nothing. Nothing except making the whole world screw itself to death, that was.
Each of the orderlies, Khadijah and Bart, wore a panic button on their lapels. If one of them pressed the button, a small device called a Night Night Band strapped to her arm would give her a sedative injection and put her to sleep in seconds. Bowen also had one of these buttons—and he’d had to use it before with Celina.
The two silver and red drones that buzzed around Celina’s head were the second line of defense. Each drone was equipped with a camera and a gun that fired sedative projectiles. Guards on the far side of the campus controlled the drones and watched everything through the cameras. They understood they should put Celina out the second they saw anything strange.
“Hey, Doc,” Celina said, when she and the orderlies reached the elevator where Bowen waited.
“Ready for some fresh air?” said Bowen, being careful not to look at the swell of her breasts under her tank top, the smooth lines of her collarbones, or the slopes of her trapezius muscles. He had learned to guard and control his thoughts in the same way that a good doctor or lawyer guarded and controlled his words around a patient or a client. His method wasn’t perfect, of course. Celina could dig and find whatever she wanted to find. But he could at least protect his conscious thoughts against her.
“Oh, I wouldn’t mind some fresh air,” said Celina, but then her voice spoke in Bowen’s head. But I’d rather straddle the face of this orderly. What’s his name? Oh. Bart. That’s a stupid name. But damn, I’d like to make him put his face between my legs.
Bowen looked at her, fighting off the thought of her straddling his face, and put on a frown.
“I’d let you watch, though,” she said, grinning.
“Behave yourself or we’ll make you sleep until we get you to the gym,” said Bowen.
The orderlies rolled her into the elevator. Bowen stepped in behind them and scanned his eye to give them clearance for the surface. The two drones spun in the air and returned to their charging stations down the hall. More drones would join them at the surface. The elevator doors closed with a tiny hiss.
“The gym?” said Celina, a small lift in her voice. I’ll bet you want to watch me work out, don’t you? Maybe you can fondle yourself while I do squats?
Bowen’s armor had a chink in it. But to be honest, there was something sexy about the idea that she could always get in if she wanted to.
“We have a new puzzle for you to solve,” said Bowen, ignoring the voice in his head. “Kind of a maze. And then we have some more people for you to read.”
I can read her.
Celina was looking at Khadijah, the orderly to her right.
Do you want to know what she thinks about you?
No, Celina, I don’t.
She thinks you want to fuck her.
Stop it.
She cut her eyes at Bowen. Though they were dark brown, they glinted in the fluorescent lights of the elevator. Don’t you want to know whether or not she wants you to?
Bowen crossed his arms over his chest and placed his finger near his panic button. Don’t make me use this.
He felt Celina probing in his head. Suddenly an image appeared unbidden in his mind. He was looking through Khadijah’s eyes at a mirror in a bedroom. She was naked. She turned one way and then the other, sucking in her stomach, thrusting out her chest, and turning to look at her ass and at the backs of her legs. This was a memory. Khadijah’s memory. Remarkable. Had Celina plucked this image first into her own mind and then shared it with him? Or was she somehow serving as conduit so Bowen see directly into Khadijah’s mind?
But Bowen couldn’t let the science of it—or the stirring in his groin—run away with him.
I said stop it, he thought, forcing away the image of Khadijah—though if he had to admit it, the idea did appeal to him. He made a mental note to later take a look and see if there was enough good security footage of the orderly that—
Stop it.
Celina laughed.
Once the thought is there, you just can’t stop yourself, can you? She does look pretty darn tasty, right? If you want me to, I can put the idea in her head. Maybe she’ll come and visit you tonight.
Bowen glanced at Khadijah, who had begun to sweat. The orderly bit her lip and closed her eyes. Her left hand, trembling, slid across her hip to the front of her own pants and fumbled for the button and zipper there. It looked as if she struggled against an unseen hand that was forcing hers to grope at herself.
She thinks you want her, Celina’s voice said. But what she doesn’t know is that the person that you really want to—
“Okay, that’s enough,” said Bowen. He pressed his panic button, and with a mechanical click, the Night Night Band on her arm dosed Celina with the sedative.
Celina’s voice spoke in his head again, but now it sounded like someone who was moving away from him in a long hallway. Oh, Doc. You know that you want... me ... to... make her...
Celina’s eyes closed, and she couldn’t finish the thought. But she didn’t have to.
And oh, God... she’s right, he thought, watching Celina’s head droop onto her chest.
11
The woman took her across one of the bridges that spanned the vestibule of the Artemis building. Down below, she could see people scrambling for the glass entrance. Through the glass, Jessica could just make out the crowds of protesters, which seemed to have merged into a single swarm. They scurried like ants whose hill had been destroyed. Police officers and Homeland Security agents pointed guns at people who knelt on the ground with their hands behind their heads. Drones chased a few who were running away. On the other side of the crowd, a Dragonfly lay on the ground in a smoking heap.
“Come on,” said the woman, grasping Jessica’s arm and pulling her toward the door on the other side of the bridge. “We don’t have time to gawk.”
Jessica took one last glance at
the burning Dragonfly and scrambling crowd before the woman pulled her through the door into a long hallway lined with doors.
“Look,” she said. “I need you to tell me where you’re taking me. I’m here to cover—”
The woman stopped suddenly and faced Jessica, a grimace on her face. “Are you scared?” she said. “I heard you were some kind of badass. Stand Up to the Man. Speak Truth to Power. All that.”
Thinking of the pig, Jessica shook her head. “I just don’t—”
“I am risking everything to show this to you,” said the woman. “My job, maybe my freedom.” Small beads of sweat shone on her skin even though it was not at all hot. “Maybe my life. Now shut up and follow me.”
She started down the hall toward the empty wall at the other end. For a second, Jessica watched her go. Her journalist’s instincts told her to follow. Her gut told her to run back across the bridge and wait in Hayden’s office. She just couldn’t shake the thought that she would lead her to a place where pigs hung by meat hooks in rows, their bloody entrails hanging from holes in their guts. She rubbed her sweating palms against the hips of her pants.
The woman had almost reached the end of the hall. Her stomach turning, Jessica followed. What was wrong with her? She picked up her pace to catch the woman, who had put her hand on a black handprint scanner on the wall at the end of the hall. A panel of the wall opened with a sigh and a click, revealing a brushed aluminum elevator door behind it. That door opened as well, and the woman stepped inside, motioning frantically for Jessica to follow. As she entered the elevator, Jessica noted a black half-sphere on the wall above the door that undoubtedly housed a security camera.
The Way Out Page 5
