by Cody Sisco
—MeshNews dispatch
8 May 1991
New Venice, The Louisiana Territories
Victor woke the next day in a bad mood. Karine’s data trove—the little of it he’d been able to go through, less than .01 percent of the total—contained a confusing jumble of message logs, data transfers, and clones of databases, much of it related to BioScan, little of it personal. The data would take weeks to sift through, and much longer if he were to read every word.
Karine was almost certainly the culprit in Granfa Jefferson’s death. After all, she had taken Jefferson’s place on SeCa’s Classification Commission, and when the Eastmore family’s Holistic Healing Network had acquired Gene-Us and renamed itself BioScan, Karine had become second in command after Auntie Circe. When Victor started looking into his grandfather’s death, Karine hired two inept thugs to track Victor. They’d chased him throughout SeCa, the Organized Western States, and the Republic of Texas until Victor had turned the tables on them.
If only he had evidence now. He had to figure out a way to sift through the data.
Thanks to little sleep, the first half of his work day was spent in a daze, applying a software patch so BioScan’s new Cogitron Exelus machines could store their data more efficiently.
A message from Auntie Circe came through on his Handy 1000 in the afternoon.
Samuel’s transfer delayed. Negotiations between SeCa and the LTs complicated. More soon.
So she was keeping him informed after all. That was something, at least.
He told himself everything would be okay, but a squirmy ball of uneasiness gurgled in his stomach. He’d been doing so well, better than he could remember in a long time. What if seeing Samuel again pushed Victor back over the edge?
At noon, Victor got up from his desk and navigated through hallways crowded with people, boxes, and equipment that had been displaced by the ongoing renovations. He crossed the administration building’s atrium. Pallets of construction materials and new equipment were stacked high, almost to the ceiling.
Victor made his way to a narrow meeting room with a long table made of real, red-stained pine and five white synthleather chairs on each side. Stuffy air recirculated. Members of the BioScan New Venice executive team entered and sat talking quietly to one another.
Victor avoided getting absorbed into a conversation and stood off to the side, rolling the data egg in his hands, wondering how he could open it again. Something in his brain, something in the way his condition worked could unlock it. Out the window, he spotted earth-movers carving a flat area next to the sheer cliffs of Cemetery Hill, where a pair of twelve-story buildings would rise and provide research space for hundreds of lab directors and clinicians. The bulky machines beeped and rumbled as they loaded up their cargo, shuddered into motion, and carried heaps of dirt down the slopes to a staging area at the water’s edge. From there, barges would carry the waste downstream and dump it on the western shore of Caddo Lake. The dirt would reinforce decades-old levees that kept the low-lying countryside safe from New Venice’s waters.
Someday Victor would work in a top-floor office in one of the towers with a spectacular view of New Venice. The canals would look like lines drawn by a rake in wet soil. He might even be able to see the Eastmore Estate on the other side of the Passage. In the meantime, he had to make do in this cramped room with mid-level executives and blaring lightstrips.
Karine entered with a loud, “Good morning.”
He glanced over, and his breath locked up in his chest.
Standing behind Karine was Mía Barrias. Victor hadn’t seen her face-to-face since the Carmichael Massacre. She’d reached out a few times over the years, and he’d rebuffed her—how could she think he wanted talk to her? She was the one who’d made people with mirror resonance syndrome pariahs. She was the one who’d created the Classification Commission. Now here she was, her salt-and-pepper hair hanging over her shoulders, wearing a flower-patterned dress in blobby blues and yellows.
Next to Mía, shorter and wearing a royal-violet business suit, was Ming Pearl, his herbalist, who had been missing for weeks. Her usually frizzy gray hair was dyed coal-black and plastered to her head. She winked at Victor.
“Let’s get started,” Karine said. “Please have a seat everyone.” She sat at the head of the table flanked by Victor and Blair, one of the executives.
Victor blinked at Karine. What the laws was going on?
Pearl shot him a wry smile as she took the seat next to him. Mía sat at the opposite end of the table and stared at Victor with eyes that appeared flat and hard. She nodded at him after a long moment.
Karine said, “I’m bringing in additional staff to ramp up our capabilities. I want to introduce Mía Barrias. She’ll be our liaison with the public and with MeshNews. She’ll also help us manage the psychological impact of bringing Samuel Miller to this campus and publicizing his history.”
Karine paused. A few executives murmured welcomes and good-to-have-yous. Victor watched Mía say thank you and offer a weak, close-lipped smile to the people in the room. Then she turned to stare at him again, and he felt as if she was seeing a four-year-old boy rather than a twenty-five-year-old man. Hot smoke burned his lungs, and his eyes watered—memories from Carmichael. Bodies lying in the street. Smoke billowing up. Waiting for the Man from Nightmareland to find him.
A pressure on his arm jolted him back to the present. Pearl was squeezing his wrist and pointing at Karine, who had asked Victor a question.
“Sorry,” he said. “I missed that.”
“I said, you’ll be working closely with Mía going forward. Understood?”
Victor gulped and nodded.
Karine turned to the executives and said, “I also want to introduce Ming Pearl, an herbalist. You’re all aware that commercializing natural remedies has become a core part of our research agenda. She’ll be consulting with the team in charge of mirror resonance patients and substance abusers.”
“It is most pleasurable to meet with you,” Pearl said in a thick accent that Victor knew was 100 percent performance. She snuck him another wink, and he smiled to himself. It was good to see her again.
Pearl had been kidnapped by the same thugs as Victor. She’d paid them and regained her freedom only to be forced to leave SeCa when the authorities cracked down on her illicit brainhacking distributorship. After that, she’d gone silent, perhaps sneaking across the A.U. to wind up at BioScan.
Looking at Pearl, Victor couldn’t stop thinking that she didn’t belong here, dressed like a corporate lackey.
Karine went on, “Circe called from Cologne this morning. She’s pleased with our progress and will be here in a few days. I’ll be booking her meetings so you might hear from me about that. Now, department updates. Let’s start with finance.”
The meeting steamrolled onward. On Karine’s other side, Blair, who’d never given Victor the time of day, swiveled in his chair, flashing an insincere smile. Victor tried to listen as Blair spoke about BioScan going on a buying spree, but he didn’t recognize any of the company names. His mind wandered.
When Blair was done, Marilyn, a woman in her forties, leaned forward and gave an update on the construction of the research towers up the hill. Then she relaxed into her chair, delicately fingering the collar of her blouse. “The one question I have is how we’re going to integrate our new sequencing capacity into our health care protocols. What data do we collect, and what do we do with it?”
This was Victor’s area of expertise. He sat up, but Karine silenced him with a shake of her head. Laws, he wanted to rip her hair out.
No, he told himself. The wise owl listens.
“Thank you, Marilyn,” Karine said. “You raise an excellent point. Many of you may be unfamiliar with the sequencing capabilities we’ve acquired along with Gene-Us. Victor Eastmore is going to review those capabilities for us. He has a special relationship with our work, and no one knows genomic analysis better.”
The executives exchanged g
lances. Blair cleared his throat. Marilyn smiled and scratched at the corner of her mouth.
What did she mean by special relationship? Victor wondered. Because he was a Broken Mirror? It would have been a laughable euphemism if it wasn’t an insult.
“Victor, when you’re ready, walk us through your summary.”
“Certainly,” he said, unable to dull the hard edge in his voice. His instinct that it had been his turn to speak had been correct, but grandstanding Karine had wanted to make an insulting introduction. Everything she did aggravated him. He wanted to scream at her. Instead he used the type-pad to load the presentation he’d shown her last week.
“This is the way it worked at Gene-Us until 1990,” Victor said. “Outdated technology, inefficient processes, and unskilled staff.” A diagram swam to the surface of the vidscreen on the wall showing boxes connected by lines to indicate each step in the sequencing process. It was a high-level summary. He’d dumbed it down for the audience.
He advanced the presentation to the next image showing a black and white checkerboard of blobs.
Victor said, “Until recently, we used electrophoresis to compare the reference sample with potential matches. Each sample started with the full genetic copy of each donor. But useful information was wasted early in the process. We were only looking at a few tiny portions of their genomes.”
Blair interrupted, “In other words, we got the job done efficiently. We didn’t need to do more.” He looked around the room for support, and a few heads nodded quietly.
Blair had argued against investment in new sequencing equipment. Apparently he still hadn’t come around, but it wasn’t Victor’s job to change his mind.
Victor moved on to his next point without responding.
Blair piped up again, “Hold on there. Risk reports for insurance companies are still the most profitable sales channel for us. That’s the market. We only need to analyze a few key sequences to know if someone has MRS or not, am I right?”
Victor saw that Karine was watching him carefully. An anxious sweat oozed down his back. He knew, in the midst of these polished and poised executives, that he had a lot to prove.
Victor flashed an insincere but passable smile at Blair and said, “You’re not wrong. Gene-Us made most of its money identifying people with the mirror resonance gene. You’re saying, why bother with more useful genomics?”
“That is not what I’m saying,” Blair said.
“What about demonstrating the efficacy of gene therapy?” Victor asked. “Or conducting ecological genomics studies? Or microbiome characterization? Or a dozen other applications?”
Karine knocked lightly on the table. “Let’s get back on track. Victor, calm down and show them what we’re doing to improve our sequencing operations.”
Victor ground his teeth. He didn’t need Karine’s chiding. “We now have five next-generation automated sequencing machines from Prolexa. They sequence at a rate of ten trillion base pairs per day, about a thousand-fold increase. We can capture the full genome of every patient. We could learn a lot more about them—get the big picture—than we do now.”
Marilyn looked as tightly wound as the bun at the back of her head. “Before we can sequence our patients’ genomes, we have to get consent, don’t we? Our clinics and our affiliates will be very concerned about a system-wide effort to gather genetic information from our patients without it.”
Karine swept her hand across the table. “The chief attorney of the Louisiana Territories reassured us that the genetic information we obtain from samples using our own technology is our property, not our clients’ or patients’.”
Karine looked at Victor and said, “Wrap this up.”
He stopped himself from yelling, “Shock you!” and managed to say in a controlled voice, “Going forward, the main problem will be sample preparation. It takes time and lab staff to change a few drops of saliva into a sample that can be fed into the sequencer. We’re still working out the process.”
Karine looked at each executive in turn. “It goes without saying that we’ll need your cooperation and input. That’s all for now. Mía and Pearl, you’ll stay please. Victor, you too.”
Karine stood, smiled stiffly, and nodded at the executives as they filed out of the conference room. When they were gone, she shut the door and motioned for Mía to come sit closer. The four of them sat at one end of the conference table.
Victor took the data egg out of his pocket. He rolled it between his palms and breathed on it at intervals. He should be in Karine’s place right now, he thought.
Karine looked in turn at Mía and Pearl. “Stim addiction is spreading quickly across the A.U. We here at BioScan are the best equipped company in the world to address both mirror resonance syndrome and addiction to resonant-class narcotics. We’re relying on your expertise to help us reach our goal.”
Pearl wore a tight, skeptical smile on her face. “I’d like to meet the patients this afternoon if possible, one at a time. Some may be more interested in herbal supplements than others. Also, I’ve reviewed the files, and I believe the psychological profiles have significant gaps in them.”
What does Pearl know about psychological profiles? Victor wondered.
Karine said, “Very well. That should be doable for the addicts, at least. As you know, Victor is our only MRS reference case until Samuel Miller and the other patients arrive. I want the three of you to join a special task force to manage Samuel’s treatment. You’ll also liaise with MeshNews to tell our story. Speaking of which, Mía, Victor will make a better face for the Classification System than Samuel Miller, so factor that into your plans.”
Victor’s lips felt parched. The face of the Classification System? A vein throbbed on his forehead.
“Karine, what are you talking about?” he asked.
“You’ll be talking to policymakers, the media, and the public as we work toward passing the Classification Act in the LTs,” Karine responded. “Don’t worry, we’ll give you coaching. It’s nothing you can’t handle—at least that’s what Circe thinks.”
He opened his mouth, gasped. It felt like the air had been sucked out of the room. “I won’t do it,” he said with labored breath, staring into her cold eyes. “Why would I ever help you sell a system as corrupt and unfair as the one you created in SeCa?”
He turned a withering gaze toward Mía. She withstood his scorn stoically, her face emotionless, an empty echo.
Bile crawled up Victor’s throat as he looked again at Karine. He said, “Haven’t you done enough to ruin Broken Mirrors’ lives? Granfa Jeff wasn’t enough?” Victor slammed a fist on the table. “I know what you did to him.”
Pearl put her hand on his. “Softly, little owl.”
“That rubbish? Still?!” Karine said, her voice a serpent’s hiss. “If I breathed a word of this to Circe—” She stopped herself. “If you can’t control yourself in private—”
She closed her eyes. Victor sensed that she was fighting to contain an anger as deep crimson as his own.
Karine turned to Pearl. “I need you to keep him sane and stable. No more outbursts. No more crazy talk. That’s priority number one.”
Pearl patted his hand. Her fingertips were smooth and soothing. His synesthesia painted her face a cold indigo. “Don’t worry, my little owl. Plenty of room for an herb garden. We can start digging tomorrow.”
Something in her voice made him look closer. Pearl’s expression was mirthful and reassuring, but false. Underneath, in the flare of magenta tension around her eyes and a thick purple haze surrounding her lips, Victor saw lethal intent.
“Karine, Pearl, could you give us a moment?” Mía asked. She sat with her hands palms up on the table, fingers curled in, studying them as if looking for answers.
Karine bowed her head at Pearl and waited for her to leave before following with one hard glance back at Victor.
When Karine was gone, Mía looked up and said, “It’s been a long time, Victor.”
He clenched his
jaw. This wasn’t a good time for a trip down memory lane. “You can’t convince me the Classification System is just. I’m not going to help.”
Amazingly, she nodded. “I know. Believe me. If I had known… It got out of hand. But now I can fix it.”
“You can’t fix it! The only thing you can do is stop it. Don’t let your experience with Samuel Miller—”
The look that passed across her face shut him up fast. It was as if darkness radiated from her eyes. The room seemed to dim.
Mía said, “He’s irrelevant. This is for you, for the others. I’m seeing clearly now. It’s why I asked for us to work together.”
“You did?” Victor said. He’d assumed it was Karine’s idea.
“Victor, I’m worried about you now that Jefferson is gone.”
He straightened. “I can take care of myself.”
Mía smiled. Victor felt like he was glimpsing her face in the past, decades ago, before Samuel Miller had killed her husband and set her on a sadder path. “You sound like him,” she said. “He always had faith in you.”
Victor gripped the data egg. She didn’t know anything about Jefferson.
Mía glanced around the room. “We need to talk. Not here, though.” She reached into her pocket, pulled out a MeshBit, and fiddled with it. His Handy 1000 chimed to announce that her details arrived in his feed.
“Come find me later.” She raised a hand to his face and laid it on his cheek. It felt cool and smooth, like a stone at the base of a waterfall.
Victor felt warmth in his chest, attraction. How was that possible? She was old enough to be his mother. He rushed past her and out of the building into a wall of warm air. His peripheral vision blurred. He had to find Pearl.
The wise owl listens. But Victor didn’t have time to listen. Blankspace was encroaching. He jogged toward the clinic, despite the heat. Pearl would give him tinctures and help him recover his calm. If not, he’d ask her to lock him in a room until his mind returned.
