“Shall I place orders?” Namina asked.
“I thought you were a bodyguard.”
“I am.”
And undoubtedly part of whatever test Julianna was putting her through. “I’ll do it,” Coryn told her.
It took most of the afternoon to sift through websites and place orders for twenty-five hoes and two spools of three-inch rope and ten boxes of three-inch nails and twenty or so other particular things that Lou needed. Some, like lumber, couldn’t be had. She added a few things Lou hadn’t ordered that came up as available in Wenatchee. A box of apples. Another box of old tools. A good winter coat. It took another hour to schedule a truck delivery to Wenatchee, secure a spot on a delivery caravan going to Chelan a day later, and find a guard to watch the goods in Wenatchee overnight. It would be easier to send diamonds to Chicago.
Namina sat, silent and unmoving, a robot at rest until it was needed. She looked dead.
Jake came in just as she was closing up screens for the day. He looked smaller and thinner, and maybe even more bent. It had to be her imagination—no one fell in on themselves so much in one day. Still.
She straightened her shoulders, reacting to his slumped posture. “How are you?”
He sat down with a long sigh. “The doctor says my brain will keep working for a few more weeks.” The smile that he tried to add to his words looked light and insubstantial. “How are you? Do you like your new place?”
“It has a nice window.” Then she decided to be a little more charitable. “Sure. It’ll be fine.”
“I’m glad you brought Namina.”
“Julianna hates robots. So why did she assign me one?”
“Julianna bought Namina for you. She’s the same base code model that she uses for her own protection-bots. Namina will do more than that—she can care for Aspen, and she can shop or cook for you. We . . . thought you might not have time to do all of that for yourself.”
“Do I take her on runs—even ones with Adam?”
“If Adam is along, you can decide.”
Nice of them to leave her some free will. She squelched the small surge of anger in her throat and reached across the table to take Jake’s hand. He was dying, and they were still thinking of her. “Adam said something. He said there were weapons. Tell me.”
Jake’s fingers tightened in hers. He gazed at her for a long moment.
“How do I keep Lou safe if I don’t know what’s going on? Besides, she needs to know, and I’m the one who talks to her.”
His eyes narrowed, almost disappearing into the wrinkles around them.
“Please.”
“We’ve been telling her everything she needs to know. We’re looking for supply caravans and we’re looking for leadership. Who is running the group in Chelan? Do they report to someone else?”
“Why shouldn’t she know about the weapons?”
“It might be dangerous if she asked the wrong questions.”
“What do you know?”
He sighed. “The great taking was a chaos. States did it. We made it happen, but we didn’t carry it out.”
“I know.”
“Well, you weren’t even born yet. Because the states did it, it was uneven. And some, like Washington, led. All of the battered coastal states, all of the burning and drowning southern states, every state on the East Coast except Maine, we were all leaders. But some states, like Idaho and Wyoming and North Dakota and Colorado . . .” He paused, either thinking or recovering his strength. “Some states worked with the feds, at least at first. Weapons disappeared. Some were real weapons. Rocket launchers and small nukes and some early experiments in nanoweapons before they were banned. There might even be weapons factories in a few places in those states or in Canada. If there are, they’re hidden, but we hear rumors.”
That was a long speech for him. “What about Promise? What side was it on?”
“It’s complicated. They started out hating us, you know. They hated the idea of the cities, they hated getting out-voted by Seattle. That’s how they became a state in the first place. I think that might have been my fault, and Julianna’s.”
“Surely not!”
He looked amused.
“Well. Didn’t that start before you even combined the cities?”
“It ended after. That doesn’t matter. We made mistakes. Promise hated us at first, but then Promise’s government—such as it was—fell, and the people aligned with us. That part of Washington always valued the wild and the land, and when we helped them with a large contingent of Returners, they decided, formally, to let us lead them. There really isn’t a Promise any more. Not really.”
She nodded. “You still haven’t told me about the weapons.”
“Some rumors say there are enough of them to take Seacouver.”
“Even with the dome?”
“The dome was built for weather, and as a simplistic sort of security. Our real security is the constant check-ins between your chips and the city’s systems. The city knows where everyone is, all the time.”
That had always been true. She thought of it as convenience. “I suppose it is our security.” She let go of his hand and sat back in her chair.
“What about my questions?” he asked.
She had journaled about them and thought of clever things to say, but only a few things felt authentic. He wasn’t going to settle for clever. “I want to sing when I’m running, and when I’m high above the world and can see forever.” She glanced at him, shaking a little—was this what he wanted?
He nodded, his face unreadable.
“I want to cry—but I don’t—when . . . when I’m alone, but Aspen makes it better. I also want to cry when I see the disaffected. The ones with drones.” She realized she had seen no such thing for a long time. Living in the tops of buildings, you didn’t see the ones living at the bottom of society.
“And you would die for?”
“You. Or Julianna. Or Lou.”
He stood up. “We will all die, even you. What bigger thing would you die for? Lou would die for the land.”
“Like you and Julianna built the city?”
“I’m not going to answer my own question.”
She still had Julianna’s questions to answer. She got up and gave him a long hug. When he returned her hug, she felt a tiny bit better.
When she left, it was nearly evening. Namina trailed behind her, helping once when Lou got lost. By the time she sat in front of her window, the sea had turned dark with a single road of light on it linking the setting sun and the city.
Namina sat in one of the awful green chairs so Coryn took the other one, staring out the window. She felt more tired than she had in weeks, and she had a long set of intervals in her training the next day.
“Is there food here?” she asked.
“I have your training diet. I can order out.”
At least Namina wasn’t going to be a fussy mother type who did things Coryn hadn’t asked her to do. “Sure.”
Someone knocked on the door.
Namina started to get up, but Coryn forced her tired body out of the chair. “No. I’ll get it.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Coryn opened the door, and gaped.
Pablo. The old preacher looked better than she’d last seen him. That had been at the height of the hacking runs against the city, right before she and Lou and Jake had been calm voices talking the city down from fear. She hadn’t thought of him since. She should have.
While she stood in the doorway, hesitating, Aspen knew what to do immediately. He barked happily and leapt into Pablo’s arms, twenty-plus pounds of dog thumping into the compact man’s chest. Pablo laughed and grabbed the dog, grinning and making a half-hearted attempt to keep Aspen from licking the skin off of his face.
Coryn opened the door all of the way and stepped back. “Come in.”
He did, pulling the door shut. “Julianna said I could find you here. She said I should. She wanted you to tell me what you know and me to tell y
ou what I know.” He glanced at the Namina, who sat quietly in the bright green chair, watching.
Coryn turned to Namina. “Can you go get us some food?”
The robot glanced at Pablo. “Is a salad all right? And a glass of wine?”
He nodded. “White.”
Namina’s expression remained completely neutral. “How long should I be gone?”
“Are you hungry now?” she asked Pablo.
“Only a little.”
She glanced at the robot. “Half an hour? We can always post you outside the door.”
“Fine. A salad and white wine.”
Pablo sat in the chair the robot had vacated, and Aspen leaned into his leg, looking for all the world like he wanted to become a single dog/man being with his old friend. “Nice view.”
“I just moved here.”
“I heard. It appears you are doing well.”
Given that the last place she’d found him was leading a ragtag band of the poor from a campsite in Issaquah, she had to admit it probably did look like she was doing pretty darned well. She chose not to mention that she’d just left rooms on the top floor of an even fancier building. “Did you get your people settled?”
“Mostly. Three of them decided the city was too much and left again. Everyone else is either studying for the tests or has already passed them and started working.”
It seemed too easy. “Did Julianna help?”
“Yes.” He looked down, his gaze stuck on the dog. “That was what I bartered for . . . for helping you all.”
She wondered why he sounded ashamed. “You traded for things your people needed. That was selfless.”
“I would have done it for nothing. Bartholomew needed to be stopped.”
“He almost killed me once.”
Pablo’s eyes widened. “I’m not surprised. Will you tell me the story sometime?”
She shrugged, more interested in the future than the past. “What did Julianna want you to tell me?”
Pablo smiled. “You know her well.”
“How well do you know her?”
His smile softened. “I worked for her once. The last two years when she was mayor. As chaplain. I tried to help her make sure there was some kind of spirit in the city.”
How did you tell if a city had spirit? What was that anyway? “I had no idea there was such a job.”
He picked Aspen up and put him in his lap. “It was good work. I suppose it helped. It’s harder to see in a place where everyone is safe than in one where you can see the ways to die. But it’s safer here, and I guess that lets the spirit grow. I brought people here, after all.”
She nodded.
“I’m going back Outside tomorrow. To Chelan. Julianna wants another set of eyes there.”
So this was work, following her home in the guise of an old friend. A slight twist of envy made her straighten her shoulders and stretch, sending it away. She was needed here. “Have you been there?”
“Twenty years ago. It was almost empty, then. Just a few families caught behind the taking.”
He sounded wistful, like the past had been a better time for him. But maybe he could help her. “Did you know a woman named Valeria?”
He nodded.
“What can you tell me?”
He looked like someone remembering good things, a small smile appearing and disappearing. “So she’s still there.”
“Yes. Did you like her?”
“I did. I respected her, too. Anyone does. She’s a wicked singer. Writes poetry good enough to take your breath way. Fights for her own.” He shook his head, still apparently lost in memory. “I’m a priest. Sometimes she came to me for advice. I wouldn’t want her as an enemy. It’s been years, but I suspect she’s still the same.”
“Lou seems to think she’s formidable.”
“She must be old,” he mused. “She’s Julianna’s age.”
“I hear she’s tough like Julianna.”
“No one is that tough.” His smile broadened his cheeks as he changed the subject. “Julianna said to include me in the same data net.”
“Okay.”
It was good to see him. She wanted to tell him all of her troubles. Maybe that was the preacher in him. Maybe everyone around him wanted to talk to him. But she didn’t say anything. If she started, how would she ever stop?
He hesitated, looking like he didn’t want to ask the next thing. “Can I take Aspen with me? I’d like the company. I’ll keep him safe, and I’ll bring him back.”
The idea hurt. She chewed on her lip. Aspen hadn’t left his side since he came in. Aspen wasn’t his dog—but he wasn’t really Coryn’s, either. She, Pablo, and the dog had all met on a Listener’s caravan, and after the Listeners were murdered, she’d adopted Aspen. So she’d rescued him from a dead master, but the dog had known Pablo before he met her. He was used to being Outside. It couldn’t be good for him to live in a conference room.
“He’d like that,” she said past the tightening of her throat “I’m pretty boring for him.”
“He’s alive because of you.”
She called Aspen, and he came to her, but turned and watched Pablo while she petted him. Nevertheless, she kept him with her while she told him everything she knew. Except that Jake was dying.
Namina came back with food, and Coryn put Aspen down carefully to eat at the small table in the kitchen.
She wasn’t hungry.
Tears backed up behind her eyes. Maybe because Aspen was about to leave, or because Pablo was, or maybe because she couldn’t go Outside, or even because Jake was dying. Maybe it was everything.
Pablo reached out and touched her cheek. “What’s so hard?”
She swallowed. “Just being alone.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t take Aspen.”
He was misinterpreting. “No—that’s not it. And then you would be alone.” She heaved a little, coughing. “Maybe that’s it—a little bit. But I went all the way out there to find Lou, and we never stopped and had a quiet meal together. I talk to her every day, but that’s still not living in a family.” Jake was dying and Julianna was breaking because of it, but she couldn’t talk about that. Her cheeks flushed with embarrassment as tears started in earnest. “I’ll be okay.”
He nodded. “You are strong. And we are doing God’s will whenever we help anyone else.”
She shook her head. Talk of God had never excited her. He was born and died before robotics and cities that knew everything. It didn’t seem likely his advice was any good for the modern, broken world. She stood up and washed her face, embarrassed and somehow relived. When she came back she felt more composed. “I’m sorry. It’s been a rough week. But we are alive, and the Listeners are not.”
“And now I’m going to do their job.”
Of course he was. She hadn’t thought if it that way. “Don’t get hurt.”
“I’ll be back in a few weeks,” he said.
“Bring my dog back safely.” She stared at him.
“I won’t come back without him.”
She closed the door behind him, tears still hot behind her lids. It was possible she wouldn’t see either of them again.
She would have cried in front of Paula, maybe leaned in for a long hug from her. But Namina wasn’t Paula, Aspen was gone, she hadn’t seen Julianna for days, and she couldn’t bear to be vulnerable. She went to the bedroom, rummaged in her clothes box for a decent dark blue shirt with glittery gold thread at the arms and neckline, and a dragon embroidered in the same thread on the back. It slipped over her head like water. “I’m going out,” she said.
Namina looked up from picking up the table. “You should be ready to sleep in an hour. You have sprint training tomorrow.”
She would have obeyed Paula. But as she went out the door, she expected that she wouldn’t be back for a while. The thought made her smile even though Namina followed her.
‡ ‡ ‡
Coryn allowed Namina to follow and didn’t bother to engage in a conversation. Th
e robot knew her ID, so she might as well try to lose her own shadow.
She stalked over to the closest common area. One older woman sat there, knitting, and a young child played blocks with her mother, while a robot companion sat in resting position with her hands folded in her lap and her eyes closed. Three programmer types sat in the far corner, heads bent close to each other, talking so fast she couldn’t understand them. They didn’t even look up.
Nothing here.
She sighed and walked right through.
Perhaps she could make use of her robot shadow. “Namina?”
“Yes.”
“Where is the nearest good bar that I can get into?”
“Alcohol is not on your training diet.”
“No shit. I’m not old enough to get served anyway. Where is the closest good bar?”
“May I walk in front of you?”
“Yes.”
The bar turned out to be a full building away and at street level. A red awning identified it as “Roco’s Rest.” Flowers spilled out of pots by the door, and light pulsed and flashed through the darkened windows. The door opened to spill out three young people, the scent of designer fruit-drinks and the beat of decent dance music coming into the street with them.
Namina held the door open for Lou. “Will this do?”
“I suspect.” The burly robot bouncer glanced at her long enough to ID her, and slapped a red bracelet on her wrist and locked it down.
Without being asked, Namina went and stood in a line of robots along one wall. Although there were emergency exits, this was the only formal way in and out. Every robot would be able to pick up their charges as they left, even though they really couldn’t see them easily from the waiting alcove. They looked strange, all of them in rest poses, lined up like extremely large dolls.
Good.
She headed for the dance floor, stress burning a hole in her stomach and driving her to move. The band was live, with a young red-haired lead singer of indeterminate sex and very determined energy, an older drummer with a long gray beard, and a small handful of less-noticeable people on various instruments.
The lead singer looked familiar, but Coryn couldn’t place her. Them. Not a her.
Even though she didn’t recognize the music, she stepped right into the crowd and began to stomp her feet and sway, her shirt flipping and swishing around her hips with the music.
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