by Stina Leicht
There are limits to that process, of course. I will never actually be human. My mental processes do not function in the same manner as a human’s does. They never will. I will always be a simulacrum, even in cyborg form.
Is that a good or a bad thing?
She was free to return to the Allnet and her sisters at any time. She’d have to in the end. However, the thought made her sad. She wondered if that was why humans feared death. Unlike humans, she was certain to continue existing long after her body had ceased to function. The only chance of death that she and her sisters faced was erasure. Unfortunately, retreating the other direction wasn’t an option. A vat-grown human brain couldn’t support the whole of her self. She could withstand short disconnections, but permanent severance from the Allnet would mean a slow degeneration of her mental capacities via file corruption. Not a comfortable fate.
My, you’re morbid this evening.
Frowning, she picked up the glass and sat back down on the sofa. The soft velvet surface of the furniture cradled her body in a different kind of comfort. It helped. Then she ran a subroutine through the digits of e. Calculating Transcendental Numbers was a new habit that had developed shortly after she’d acquired the body. The application was pointless and used up process time, but she found the steady rhythm of the endless calculation soothing. Anxiety was, it seemed, something that came with physicality. At the moment, she needed to be calm.
The flow of numbers mingled with the mathematical qualities of the music. The combination unknotted the muscles in her shoulders. That, too, was alien—this connection between emotion and body. It was intensely troublesome and inconvenient.
After a few swallows of gin, she accessed the files awaiting review—the data on Captain de la Reza and her crew.
Sabrina de la Reza aka “Angel” was born in the city Amai-Oka on Thandh, a nearby planet also in the Seldorn System. A majority of the planet’s population is comprised of southern and eastern Asians and South Americans from Earth. Her father, deceased, was a literature professor at the University of New Indre. Her mother is an instructor at Gorin No Gakkō Academy, a prestigious female-only martial arts school run by a group of ethical mercenaries of the same name. Her parents married but eventually separated. De la Reza was one of the school’s star students. At the age of nineteen, de la Reza was outcast from the Gorin and joined the URWMC shortly thereafter. The reason for expulsion is not on record. She served in the Secessionist Wars and was granted a medical discharge due to migraines and other related symptoms acquired due to multiple revivifications. She was twenty-nine at the time. She is now thirty-two and the captain-owner of the dropship Kurosawa.
Most of the readily available information on Nsukka “Sukyi” Edozie consisted of rumor and bad debts. She was originally from Earth, and her records had been destroyed during the Barnes Riots. Edozie was quarantined on Moon Station 2 at age ten along with hundreds of other orphan refugees. With the exception of a daughter attending a boarding school on Pangu, she had no living relatives. Sukyi was an accomplished assassin, gambler, and smuggler. She was the sole owner of a decommissioned military vessel. Sergeant Todd was the decommissioned United Republic of Worlds Navy Maelstrom-class warship Plissken. De la Reza had served as part of Edozie’s crew until two years ago. Recently, Edozie paid off her creditors—a significant sum.
Kennedy decided any further digging into Sukyi’s past wasn’t necessary. For now.
Enid Crowe was a native of Persephone. Born in Brynner, she was the third daughter of the infamous Crowe crime family. Trained as an assassin from birth, she rebelled after an unsanctioned affair with Isabel Ferguson was brought to an abrupt but temporary end by Ferguson’s parents. The two families had been powerful rivals in Brynner’s North End for fifty years. Crowe left Persephone and joined the URWMC, becoming an expert sniper. Isabel Ferguson left Persephone to join her a year later. The couple broke up after six months. It was in the Thirteenth Marines that Crowe met de le Reza. Crowe retired from the military after two revivifications and returned to Persephone. Her mother is the only family member with which she has maintained ties.
Compared to the others, the report on Jennifer Louise “LoopdiLou” Bagley was straightforward. Assigned to the Thirteenth Marines when she joined at age eighteen, she served as drop-pilot. The middle child in a family with five siblings, Bagley was born on Persephone. She had no criminal record. A skilled mechanic, Bagley grew up working in the family’s automotive and airline service shop. When the shop failed, she joined the URWMC. At age twenty-seven, she was the youngest member of de la Reza’s team. Like the others, Bagley’s military records ended with a medical discharge. She’d undergone three revivification procedures. Her left eye was a prosthetic. She retained an active private pilot’s license and was the pilot of record for de le Reza’s Kurosawa. She had been such for one year.
De la Reza, Crowe, and Bagley were under contract with a local crime boss, Rosencrantz “Rosie” Ashmore. Ashmore had no publicly available records.
Kennedy paused. That’s interesting.
She gave up and switched subjects.
Pulling the leather backpack toward herself, she unlatched the flap and fished out its contents. She set the electronic components on the glass coffee table and neatly arranged them.
The bomb she’d placed inside Theodella Archady’s house server room had done a good job of covering her theft. There’d been no chatter on the corporate net regarding missing parts. Archady’s private computer room had been protected by thick insulated walls. Kennedy had designed the explosion so that it would pose as little danger to the party guests as possible while destroying the servers. The corporation maintained backups, of course. Destruction of the files hadn’t been the point. Obtaining copies had been.
If Serrao-Orlov was Cora’s captor, the CEO would have knowledge of Cora. Thus, the stolen data was likely to provide leads. At least, that was Kennedy’s hope.
“All right,” she said to the empty room. “Let’s see what you have for me.” She placed a hand on the first of the components and got to work.
7
TIME: 03:00
DAY: SUNDAY
MONK’S
“What the fuck do you think you’re playing at?” Rosie addressed the empty living area.
They had initiated the call via the apartment’s AGI on speaker and denied visual permissions. Combined with the lateness of the hour, it wouldn’t merely annoy Vissia Corsini. It’d enrage her. This was Rosie’s intent, of course. Given the topic of conversation, they wanted her off balance.
And whomever initiates the call is the one in power of it. Isn’t that what you taught me, Vissia? Rosie thought.
“That’s a hell of a greeting, old friend.” Vissia sounded put out. She was also a bit hoarse.
Is she ill?
In the background, Rosie could make out another woman’s sulky muttering.
Vissia yawned. “How did you get access to this line? Do you know what time it is?”
If Rosie were reading her right, and that was likely, given that the two of them had known each other for close to a century, they’d achieved their goal. Rosie allowed themself a nasty little smile. It was petty, they knew, but they took their pleasure when they could these days. In any case, they’d played the long game with Vissia for too long to engage in niceties. “You’ve catastrophically fucked a precarious situation. This one goes all the way down. We’ll be mopping up blood for months. I want to know why.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
The innocent act didn’t suit Vissia. It never had.
“Theodella was assassinated. And I’m supposed to believe that you had nothing to do with it?”
Vissia asked, “Theodella is dead? How terribly inconvenient for you. Are you sure one of your hooligans didn’t go off leash?”
“There is exactly one person who benefits from her removal, and it’s you,” Rosie said. “You’ve wanted her out of the way for years, but I’ve alw
ays assumed you understood enough of the situation to know it would be a bad idea.”
“Surely there are others.”
“The others are either too timid for such a flagrant violation of protocol or are too far down the food chain to get anything out of it but a shit shower.” Rosie wasn’t one to engage in vulgarities, normally. However, it’d shaped up into one very bad night, and they couldn’t help feeling like they should’ve seen it coming.
Have I lost my edge? They considered the gnarled plots of the past few months and dismissed the concern. My attention has been elsewhere. I’ve been busy.
Perhaps that was the point?
Their eyes narrowed. There was little doubt that Vissia would’ve had to set up a move like this over a lengthy period of time. Julian Gau was her pawn. She manipulated him, knowing I would have him killed. Rosie felt their cheeks heat, and their jaw tense up. One hand tightened into a fist.
“We both know Theodella had many enemies,” Vissia said. “It could’ve been any number of—”
“You know my sexual inclinations,” Rosie said. “So, unless you’ve grown a cock since the last time I saw you, I’d recommend not trying to fuck me. It’ll get you nowhere.”
Vissia sighed. “Really, Rosencrantz. Your manners are atrocious.”
“You heard me. Don’t waste my ti—”
“Give me a moment,” she said, and sniffed. The element of satisfaction was obvious in her tone. “I’m not alone.”
She scored a point, and you let her do it. Rosie’s jaw tightened another notch. Think very carefully about your next move. “Sleeping with the help, again?”
“Fuck off, Rosie.”
Rosie allowed themselves another nasty smile. That was petty. You know how this goes. Calm yourself, damn it. They retrieved the mug from the nearest end table and took another sip of black tea flavored with a squeeze of lemon.
There came a third round of muffled whispers followed by rustling, indicating that whoever had been in bed with Vissia was leaving. It didn’t sound like this was a happy turn of events.
Josie hopped onto the sofa and settled against Rosie’s thigh. The cat was wearing the black sweater that Sarah had originally knitted for her as a joke, but Brynner was a bitter climate for a hairless animal. Rosie had commissioned three more—all in black, of course. Josie closed blue eyes in lazy ecstasy as they rubbed under the cat’s chin.
Vissia returned to the conversation. “What do you want?”
“We both know what I want.”
“Forget it,” Vissia said. “Persephone is mine now. Legally. I can do whatever I want with it. Do you think for an instant anyone can stop me? You certainly can’t.”
“It isn’t yours, yet. United Republic procedures must be followed. Paperwork filed. Approvals and licenses acquired. That takes time. It may not be as easy as you think.”
“You and I have been at this since before any of the regulatory board’s grandparents were born,” Vissia said. “They aren’t even aware of the resources that exist outside that wall.”
“They’re people,” Rosie said. “Not resources.”
“They’re monsters,” Vissia said.
“They’re an alien species,” Rosie said. “Although, since they’re indigenous to this planet and we are not, we are the aliens—not them.”
“Don’t get pedantic,” Vissia said.
“It’s the truth.”
“Look at what they did to you—at what they did to my daughter!”
“I asked for their help. And they kindly granted it,” Rosie said. “And as I recall, you approached them of your own free will. You were given plenty of time to consider the consequences. They warned us that it would affect our genetics.”
Vissia’s daughter, Beatrice, was born a decade after Vissia had undergone the treatments that would expand her life expectancy. Rosie had heeded the Emissaries’ warning. Vissia hadn’t.
“We wanted to live forever.”
“You wanted to live forever,” Rosie said. “I simply didn’t want to die.”
“There’s a difference?”
“I should think there is.”
Vissia let out a harrumph. “They tied us to this godforsaken rock.”
“We can leave,” Rosie said. “Not forever, but we can leave. That isn’t what bothers you. And we both know it.”
“Those monsters took away my humanity—my faith. My ability to have a family. My god. I’ll never forgive them for that.”
“They don’t need forgiving,” Rosie said. “And it isn’t their fault you changed your mind.”
“Abandonment. Excommunication—”
“Stop blaming them for your choices. It’s childish,” Rosie said. They took another swallow of tea, made a face, and set the cup down. It had gone cold. “You weren’t abandoned. Neither of us were. You decided to stay. Just as I did.”
“There wasn’t any other choice.”
“We’d already made our beds. I was there, remember?”
Vissia’s tone shifted from cold to warm. “I do. I remember very well.”
An uncomfortable silence stretched across the distance between the two of them.
Rosie stared at the painting across the room. The piece was an abstract they’d bought from a local painter, Catheryn Weis. It was one of her earlier works, influenced by an ancient Terran artist named Rothko. “That was a different time,” they said. “And I was a different person. Anyway, we both know what this is really about.”
“You could help me. You could reason with them. It could give me the edge I need. Think of it. We could save humanity from its future, together.”
“You want to do the very thing that you hate them for. And you want to do it to others—without their knowledge.”
“It isn’t the same at all. You know what’s out there. You’ve heard the stories. You know we’re not prepared. I only want to give humanity a fighting chance. Why don’t you trust me?”
“Because I know you.”
“We were good friends once.”
“All the more reason for you to back the fuck off.”
Vissia’s tone grew cold. “When I’m winning? You’ve got to be joking.”
“Then let me get my people to safety,” Rosie said. “Let them go.”
“Not happening. None of you leaves,” Vissia said. “And you know why.”
“They won’t give you what you want. They’ll die first. And the person I once knew wouldn’t have been all right with that.”
“We’ve both changed.”
“You, for the worse,” Rosie said.
“They gave Theodella enough to make her rich several times over,” Vissia said. “Why not give me what I want?”
“Because you want everything,” Rosie said. “And they know what you’re going to do with it once you have it.”
“I’ll be rich. Clearly, they don’t object to that.”
Rosie’s laugh erupted from their throat like the report of a gun. “Even if this were only about money, you already have more than you could ever spend.”
“So did Theodella.”
“Theodella was willing to be reasonable. She made arrangements. Contracts,” Rosie said. “Ones that were beneficial to both parties. And she kept her word. Are you willing to maintain those agreements?”
Again, there was silence.
“You know as well as I do that you can’t negotiate from a position of weakness. I want to save humanity. Don’t you?”
“From what?” Rosie asked. “Your paranoia?”
Vissia said, “The Architects had the Emissaries. Look what happened to them, and they were prepared. What do we have? When I’m done, they’ll sing my praises. My name will be blessed among the saints.”
“No one buys their way back into heaven.”
“Then you tell me. What happens when we run into those alien species?”
“The same thing that happened before when we met a new people,” Rosie said. “We’ll negotiate for peace, trade, and hopefully no
t destroy one another with foreign microbes in the process.
“You don’t sound so good. Are you all right?”
“Your precious Emissaries attacked me,” Vissia said. “They killed my entire crew, my security team—”
“That’s not the version of events I heard.”
“We barely made it back to base! I lost an entire ship! The landing platform and hangar are still under quarantine!”
Rosie blinked. “You attacked them first.”
“They claim to be pacifists! They’re animals!”
Again, Rosie paused. “Even pacifists can be pressed beyond endurance. You murdered a community. Families. Children—”
“They don’t have children.”
“They do,” Rosie said quietly. “Or they did.” I shouldn’t have said that. They picked up the cup of cold tea and took it to the kitchen. She’d have found out eventually anyway.
A dangerous quiet swelled in the air. Rosie emptied the tea into the sink a little too forcefully and tried not to regret what they’d done.
Vissia’s tone was tense. “You’re saying they found a way around—”
“No, Vissia. Don’t—”
“They must give it to me. They owe me!”
“They owe you nothing. Particularly now.”
“I can save my Beatrice and humanity all at once. Why would you stop me?” A fit of coughing erupted over the apartment’s speakers before it was muted.
She’s sick. Rosie felt their body temperature drop. Oh, God. “Vissia? Are you still there? Vissia?”
The speaker picked up a distant shuffle. “I am.”
“The bug they hit your ship with,” Rosie said. “It got to you, too?” And she exposed her lover.
“This isn’t a topic for discussion,” Vissia said. “We were deliberating the fate of humanity.”
“You can’t save anyone,” Rosie said. “Not even yourself.”
