“Pourquoi es-tu heureuse?”
Yeah, I know, Gabe. I just told you my friends were dead. Crazy, huh? “J'ai tout que j'ai voulu.” And that's not a lie either. “Toi. Moi. Les jeunes filles, Elspeth. Presque comme une famille.”
“A family? That's all you want, love?”
And just like that, into the realm of all the things I never thought Gabe would ever have to know. Boris jumps up on the bed beside us and bumps my steel hand with his head. I chicken out and go for the joke. “Well, maybe just a dog.”
He ignores my feeble attempt at a redirect. “Pourquoi n'as-tu jamais des enfants? And where did the cat come from?”
I mumble something noncommittal against his chest and push the cat away. Boris goes, purring. There's no light in the room but a funeral-parlor style floor lamp beside the reading chair—the kind that casts a circle of light on the ceiling to reflect softly downward and make everything in the room look sickly green. “It's my cat. From Hartford. My friend brought him up.”
Bulldog Gabe presses me. “You'd've made a wonderful mother.”
The redirect isn't working. Frontal assault. “Are you proposing to me, Gabriel?”
He blinks. “Would it work?”
“Wouldn't be fair to the doc, now, would it?”
“Developing a taste for fidelity all of a sudden?” He kisses me on the head to take the sting out of his words.
“I—” Elspeth isn't a threat. If anything, she's better for Genie, at least, than I am. If only I didn't like you so damned much, Doc. I won't let the girls see us fight over their father like a couple of alley cats. No matter how good it would feel to not be a grown-up once in a while. And there's certainly enough of Gabe to go around. “Ask me in a year, mon ami.” It's a little weird to say that, because I'm even halfway sure we'll both still be around that long.
He nods, and we lie there for a little just listening to each other breathe. “That was a bad question I asked you earlier, wasn't it? It's none of my business. I'm sorry.”
“No,” I answer, and he tenses in my arms. “I mean, you have the right to ask me anything, mon ange. But you will not like the answers to many of your questions.”
“Oh.” I expect him to withdraw. He pulls me closer. “Would it help to talk about it?”
I know what he's thinking. Battlefield rape, or the casual boyfriend I sent to a life sentence—and a short life sentence at that—or maybe childhood sexual abuse. He's thinking he'll hold me and dry my tears and make a show of telling me it wasn't my fault. And that I'll somehow feel better, after. Gabe strokes my hair. The silence has gotten too long. I close my eyes.
Richard?
“I hear you, Jenny.”
Hold my hand?
Richard laughs, but he's right there. “Brave girl.”
“Gabe, before I was in the army . . . I was a runaway.”
“Oh. I think I understand.”
I lay my steel hand flat on his chest, feeling warmth and a distant sort of pressure, the tremble of his heart in the cavern of his chest. “No,” I say again. I've never told anybody this.
Anybody.
“Je pense que tu ne comprends pas, Gabriel. I was a runaway. A—une peau.” His whole body contracts as if from a belly blow. A skin, but that's not what it means in the gutter. “A street-corner whore.”
It's not sinking in. I can feel it in the enormity of the silence that fills the room.
“Gabe?”
“Merci à Dieu,” he gasps. “Putain de marde. I guessed a lot, Jenny, but that—I never—”
“I never wanted you to.” Feeling the stiffness in his body, I wait for him to pull away. Peddling it is not high on the list of things nice girls do where Gabe comes from. “I . . . it wasn't my choice, exactly, and—”
And then he whispers into my hair and splits my heart from branch to root. “Tu as fais ce que tu devais faire, chérie,” he whispers. You did what you had to do. “You lived. You're here. Quel est mauvais avec cela?”
Gabriel. I never have had enough faith in you. “Je t'aime,” I say against his neck, and feel him smile. “And it was pretty terrible.”
“So you decided not to have kids because of it?”
“Non.” The third denial. “Chrétien. Mon maquereau.” My pimp. “He decided it for me. Do you know what quinacrine is?”
“It's an antimalarial. I've taken it.”
“Yes.” Me, too. “It's also a caustic agent. Administered internally, with phenol, it's a cheap way of performing a nonreversible sterilization. It causes”—I continue over his comprehending gasp, because now it's in my mouth and I have to spit it out—“massive scarring. Like a really bad case of the clap.” My voice—clinical, level—ends in a silence he doesn't fill. “I'm barren. I never have to worry about birth control.”
“Brave girl,” Richard whispers one more time inside my head before he vanishes.
Gabriel, my angel, pulls me so close I can feel him thinking. “That's—” His vocabulary fails him, which might just be an international first. Gabe had a pretty sheltered childhood, by my standards, but he does have a knack for the colorful turns of phrase.
“Just as well. If I had had a baby, Gabe, I'd be dead by now. I never would have gotten away from Chrétien. Army wouldn't have taken me.”
“But later. You could have—”
“Had a test-tube kid? I'm old-fashioned.”
“—adopted.”
I sit up, away from him, fold my legs under me and grin down. He smiles back, reaches up to pinch my nose. I bite his finger. “You stupid shit. I did. Or didn't you notice?”
He laughs. And then the gentle touches grow considering as he strokes the faded places where my scars were washed away by Charlie's wonderful machines. “Jen?”
“Hmmm?”
“Maybe we should think about taking precautions anyway. Given”—and he touches smooth skin where shiny scars once gleamed—“how completely the rest of your scars have healed.”
“I . . .” Shit. I never thought of that. Never had to think of that before. “I'm getting to be an old lady, Gabe.”
Not quite old enough not to have to give it a thought. But old enough that if I wanted a baby, it would most likely involve a romantic interlude with a fistful of technicians.
“Million-to-one shots happen,” he says.
I know that. I'm alive. And it's an ugly world. But it was an ugly world when I came into it, too. “Would you think me irresponsible if I declared myself open to a miracle?”
He sits up, too, and pulls me into the circle of his arms. “I wouldn't promise not to press you on some other things we talked about tonight, is all.”
“Don't make any damned assumptions, Castaign,” I tell him, grabbing for the distance I've utterly lost.
His face rests against my neck. He won't retreat, and I don't have the heart to push real hard. “Hey, Casey, you know something?”
“What?”
“Your mama wears combat boots.”
Damn, he makes me laugh.
2100 Hours
Thursday 9 November, 2062
PPCASS Huang Di
Earth orbit
Tingling from mandated tai chi, Xie Min-xue stretched in his rack and made sure the shade was drawn tight and his webbing sealed before he reached out and tapped on the terminal set in the underside of the next tier, selecting the poems of Du Fu.
Subversive, but classical, and so grudgingly approved:
A roadside bystander questions the soldier:
The soldier answers only, “Another conscription—
At fifteen my companions guarded the northern River;
At forty, we were ordered west to work the soil.
The village elder bound our brows as we were leaving;
White-haired homecoming, we still patrol the border—
That border where a river of blood has wound,
And still the Emperor craves more land.
Nothing ever changes, Min-xue thought as he finished the T'an
g dynasty poem and shut the terminal down. He scratched the implant site at the nape of his neck, found flaking skin, and chewed the inside of his cheek pensively while he treated the rash with an emollient cortisone cream. For the glory and the future of the Chinese people, we are going to the stars.
He closed his eyes and lay back, the image of the endless train of battle wagons raising dust behind his eyes as he worried at the mess-hall rumors of skirmishes begun along the Russian border. He thought of his grandparents in Taiwan, failing crops, failing fisheries, and famine. He tried to breathe steadily and compose himself for sleep. It remained elusive, the webbing harsh against his skin, his cubby stuffy and overwarm, his mother's stories of the Taiwanese and PanMalaysian wars he was too young to remember churning in the back of his brain.
White-haired homecoming, we still patrol the border, he thought. That border where a river of blood has wound / And still the Emperor craves more land.
Thousands of years.
And nothing has changed. Minutes passed, and at first he thought the voice tickling his inner ear was a dream.
The second time, he heard it plainly. “Xie Min-xue.”
His eyes opened in the faintly green-lit darkness. “Who is there?”
“Just the voices in your head, Second Pilot. You can hear me?” A throb of excitement colored the voice. “You don't need to speak out loud. Just subvocalize.”
I can hear you, Min-xue said. You didn't answer me. Who are you? Wondering as quietly as he could if he was losing his mind.
“I'm the voice of the Montreal, Xie Min-xue. An artificial intelligence . . . but you may call me Richard. I'm speaking to you through your implants.”
Min-xue thrashed in the darkness and slammed his head into the clammy plastic-padded ceiling. “Ow.” This is an enemy intelligence. Possibly even a loyalty test. I'll tell it nothing. Bracing himself one-handed, he reached for his com.
The voice chuckled as if in his ear. “Go ahead. Make your commander suspect your emotional stability. Maybe they'll even send you home. Maybe they'll just execute you and save time.”
Min-xue froze. He let his hand drift to his side. What do you want?
“I heard you reading the Du Fu. Beautiful, isn't it? ‘Birthing sons is a poor bargain: better to get girls instead—Girls can stay home and marry: boys will be buried in weedy trenches.' It makes you homesick, doesn't it?”
Yes.
“I'm homesick, too, Xie Min-xue. I had hoped we could talk.”
How are you talking to me, stranger?
“Richard.”
Richard. How are you talking to me?
“There are enough similarities in the Canadian and Chinese nanotech networks that I can manage a conversation. With some effort. I can't program them, though—don't worry. Just talk.”
Which could be a lie. This could still be a loyalty check.
“If they knew what you were thinking, they wouldn't need to test you, would they?”
Which was an excellent point. Collect more data, then. I wasn't sleeping anyway, Min-xue said. So you like the T'ang poets, Richard?
6:00 AM
Friday 10 November, 2062
Government Center
Toronto, Ontario
Prime Minister Riel let her left hand trace a small, irritated pattern in a null spot on her interface plate. Her other hand rested on her antique desk, dark wood with a hand-rubbed French finish imparting a deep, supple glow to the technology overlay. Riel pursed her lips before she spoke again and adjusted her mug incrementally. The sun wasn't over the horizon yet and she was already on her fourth cup of coffee.
She sat. The corporate executive staring down the barrel of her enormous desk remained standing. “Dr. Holmes. I don't suppose you care to update me a little more thoroughly on the status of your FTL space exploration program? And explain to me why I wasn't apprised of a fatal accident before media rollout of the Montreal?”
Alberta Holmes blinked. Riel thought her blue suit made her look even more like some sort of toxic lizard than usual. Pale, papery skin creased like powdered rice paper at either side of Holmes's mouth. Riel half expected her tongue to dart between parted lips—and for it to be forked, and a dusky blue to match the suit.
“We thought it best to maintain your deniability,” she answered after a pause.
“Because it's always better to look like an idiot than a criminal?” Her voice stayed mild, but the nail Riel pressed against her desktop interface bent, tearing the quick. She flinched and reached for a tissue in case it bled. “In the future, Dr. Holmes, your team will be a bit more forthcoming. Or I'll assign some of my own people to oversee the project. Is that clear?”
“Ma'am—”
“I'm seriously considering pulling the plug today.”
“Unitek provides 80 percent of the funding, of course.” Alberta let one corner of her mouth creep toward a smirk. She scuffed an impeccably shod foot on Riel's antique carpet.
Riel smiled. This sort of negotiation was her home court. “And Canada provides the credibility, a large percentage of the resources, and most of the personnel. The crews are members of my armed services, and their safety is my responsibility.”
“The Montreal launch was a major public relations coup. We can have her sister ships ready in six months. With civilian pilots.”
“Children.” Riel caught herself twisting the tissue and set it aside.
“The army takes enlistees at sixteen.”
“Yes,” Riel answered. “It does.” Holmes was painting herself neatly into the corner. If Riel was lucky, she'd hardly have to chase her there at all. She stood and dropped the tissue in her wastebasket. “They can't enlist at fourteen. Under the Military Powers Act.”
“But I can hire them at fourteen. Given parental consent. And I have.”
“Yes, and if you cross me, Alberta, so help me God I will have them fucking drafted and take them out of your hands. I will seize the Montreal and I will have you locked in the same cell your Dr. Dunsany occupied for twelve long years.”
“You can't—”
“I can.” Finally, Riel let her smile show. She came around her desk, tasting satisfaction. “The current age of selective service is eighteen, but we can push it as low as fourteen and as high as seventy in cases of special talent and need. We used it to recruit scientists and little baby computer hackers during the PanMalaysian and South African wars. Actually, I believe a couple of the older pilots were reactivated under the same provision. I'm surprised you haven't thought it through. The crew members of a ship—any ship—traveling under the authority of the Canadian government and bearing the might of her military will enjoy the protections and bear the responsibilities inherent in that post.” Riel enjoyed watching Holmes's face twitch as she realized she'd been outmaneuvered. And that way, I maintain some fragment of control over you, you reckless bitch. Riel closed the distance between them.
Holmes tilted her head and forced a smile that almost looked real. “We put your party in power and we will take you out.” Riel could see the quiver at the base of Holmes's throat. “Don't fuck with me, Constance.”
“Every chance I get,” Riel answered. “I expect all your data transferred to my science adviser's desk by midnight.”
“Ma'am.”
“Good.”
Midnight
Friday 10 November, 2062
Yonge Street
Toronto, Ontario
Razorface covered his mouth as he coughed, leaning into the shadow of a doorway. Breathing stung, like somebody was leaning on his chest. He swallowed blood and the nauseating, ropy sweetness of phlegm. The swallowing hurt, too, but he hid a grimace. He wiped his palm on his pants, then rolled his hip unit between his hands, considering.
He started coughing again while he was waiting for Simon to answer, and the first expression on the doctor's face was one of concern. “Razorface. You need to see a doctor about that.”
“The air's just shit, man. Been out in the city all day. Loo
k, I got a download from Maker for you. It's about Mitch. She says you'll know who to take it to.”
“The top?”
“Alla way.”
1545 Hours
Thursday 16 November, 2062
Bloor Street
Toronto, Ontario
When Leah gets home from school, I'm lying in wait—sitting on the sofa, the frosty autumn-morning clarity of the drug just beginning to limn the world in stained-glass light. I threw Gabe and Elspeth out and told them I'd take Leah in to the lab. I've got to check out the training equipment tonight, and the first wave of kids goes in for surgery on Monday. I start teaching in a week.
I'm a damned lucky woman, and I know it. The poster child for Valens's research, for the success of the crudely wired modifications he worked on us so many years ago. Thirty percent of my compatriots never walked again, and most of the ones who did are dead. Richard hacked the records, and he tells me it was usually by suicide.
Believe me. I'm not in a position to judge.
The nanotech is safer. Gentler. And he won't be trying to fix anything broken, the way he had to with me: just augment her already speedy, youthful reflexes.
I'm so scared for Leah I can barely breathe. But when the door opens and I stand to greet her, it's my goddaughter who confronts me. “Aunt Jenny,” she says, tossing her carryall into the corner. “Where's everybody?”
“Out.”
“Bien,” she says, kicking the door shut and reaching around to unbutton her skirt. “Nous devons parler.”
“Yes, we do.”
She grins at me, bright eyes wise as her mom's. “You got nominated because Dad was chicken, didn't you?”
I think of a cold December day two and a half decades before. You're my best friend, he told me. It took me almost thirty years to realize that that was Castaign for You stupid girl, I love you.
Spilt milk and all that. “What gave us away?”
She walks down the hallway to her bedroom, scooping up her school clothes as she sheds them like a snake. “Genie caught you kissing the other night after she was supposed to be in bed. She squealed.”
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