by Corey Ostman
But his smile wasn’t returned. The steely concentration of Grace Donner appeared behind Jaya’s beautiful eyes. He’d lost her again.
“What just happened?” she asked.
Before he could answer, the loafer approached, carrying harness and backpack, both of them bulging with packed goods.
“I have your purchases, ma’am,” it trilled.
“R-right on time,” Grace said, voice shaky. She dropped her duffel and turned her back to the loafer. “Uh, we’re in a hurry. C-can you help me with the harness?”
“I would be honored to assist. Here, young master.”
The loafer’s middle arm extended toward Avonaco and released the backpack into his hands. He strapped it on. It fit well enough, considering there had been no body scan.
The loafer lifted the harness onto Grace and helped her fasten the shoulder straps and waist belt. She hoisted the duffel bag and clipped it onto her left shoulder so that it hung down her back, then asked the loafer to adjust the harness compartments, equalizing weight distribution. He wondered if Grace knew to do that. It was Jaya’s expertise.
“Fits fine,” she said.
“How do you want to pay?”
“Q-trans. Here you go.” She tapped her ptenda.
The loafer dipped its upper cylinder in respect. “Funds received. It was an absolute honor to serve you this morning, ma’am. Please return soon to Felix Leander’s.”
“I will!”
“Ok, ok, can we go now?” Avonaco said.
He nudged Grace and they strode back toward the lobby.
“I thought you would pay with compstate chits,” he said. “You know, a-no-ny-mi-ty?”
“Nothing’s more anonymous than splurging on clothing in a retail palace,” she said. “Besides, I want to keep my last chits for when we’re in the middle of nowhere, where there isn’t a net.”
“Did you use Grace’s account?”
“No, Jaya’s.”
As they approached the exit, the doorman opened the door and tipped his hat. “Have a wonderful day!”
“Thank you sir,” Grace said.
Avonaco said nothing. Relief washed over him as they stepped onto the sidewalk. They were on their way.
He tugged her hand and they walked a block west. The advertising was less overt as the neighborhood transitioned into one of Port Casper’s oldest commercial districts. It was here a hundred years ago that the first roider compacts were formed, the first inkling of the compstate that would follow.
“Jaya popped up again,” Grace said quietly, two streets down.
“I noticed.”
“It feels like shards of a dream,” she said. “Are you sure that…”
“Yes,” said Avonaco, though he wasn’t sure.
“We should hail a mover. I don’t know why I’m walking,” Grace murmured. She flicked her fingers across the ptenda.
“I would rather walk.”
“To Sudland Gate?” she said. “And arrive all sweaty?”
“Well I don’t sweat.”
“We’re supposed to be tourists. And extravagant ones at that.” Grace stepped to the curb as an orange mover pulled up.
Avonaco got in with Grace when the hatch popped. Inside the six-seater were two men, both dressed in costumes that he recognized from the dream castles in Bod Town. They were lean, with some bulky muscle concentrated on the quadriceps and calves. Probably dancers. He grabbed a seat opposite them and stared out the window, feigning fascination for the traffic.
As soon as Grace plopped down next to Avonaco, the hatch closed with a hiss. The mover edged into traffic and picked up speed.
“Going hiking?”
Avonaco didn’t move his head, but his peripherals caught the man in the red silk gown motioning toward them.
“Yes,” Grace said. “My son and I are hiking Casper Mountain today.”
“Lovely weather for it,” the other man said. His suit was covered in articulated scales that shimmered as he shifted in his seat. “But isn’t he missing school?”
Grace shook her head. “He attends night crèche. We’ll be back in plenty of time.”
“Lucky boy,” silk gown said.
Kids his age didn’t attend night crèche—what was she thinking? Avonaco ground his fingernails into the painted hull. The sun splashed at them between buildings. He wondered why the mover was going east. Sudland Gate was in the opposite direction—on the western edge of Port Casper. A walk would have been at least in the right direction. Now they were in a public mover, and this inane conversation would only provide more clues as to their whereabouts.
Grace wriggled out of her pack and set it on the empty seat to her right. She unzipped the middle storage pouch, and a bundle of dark green pucks fell to the floor.
“Vegetable pucks? What the hell did I just buy?” Grace said under her breath. She zipped it back up and opened a pouch on the right. Inside was a neatly packed stack of shirts. She peeled out a pale green one with a fine circuit mesh on the front and back.
She slipped it on over her jumper. “How’s this look?”
It was a stats shirt, the kind that painted your physiological data upside down across the front. If you were wearing it, you could look down and see your heart rate, temperature, blood pressure, oxygen concentration… the list went on forever. Just the perfect thing for a compulsive human. Couldn’t they be satisfied with homeostasis?
“Looks great, umm, Mom,” he managed.
The mover slowed. They’d paused by the entrance to Bod Town. With the increase in security, it looked like a prison gate.
“Well, have a great hike!” fish suit said to them.
The men exited and joined the line to get into Bod Town. Avonaco tensed, watching the compstate checkpoint. But nobody was heading toward them, security or otherwise. After what seemed too long of a pause, the hatch closed and they pulled away from the curb. The mover stayed slow and to the right: ahead was the tunnel loop for westbound traffic.
“Hopefully nobody else summons the mover,” he said.
“It would be better if somebody did,” Grace said. “Arriving at Sudland with other tourists would be perfect.”
No one summoned them, however, and soon they were in the underground bypass, red lights flashing past.
“How many times have you and Jaya hiked across the spine of the Laramies?” Grace asked.
“Seven. But things have changed since she died,” he said. “Getting to the Laramies means surveillance. Mechflesh have to be stamped in order to work in Port Casper, and they are stamped going out, too. There is a thriving market for handheld detectors that spot metarm and neural mesh.”
“Yet you don’t look worried.”
“My father gave me an artificial heart and modified my endoskeleton to appear like a surgical graft. I also attend school in Bod Town, so there are records.”
“That takes care of the interior. As for the exterior—” Grace rummaged through her pack. She produced a white fishing cap with a broad brim. Before he could squirm away, she’d put it on his head.
“Hiking, remember?” she said.
“I do not like hats. I do not need hats.”
“Do you want them to know that?” she said. She tied up her hair and tucked it inside another hat, this one bright green. “There. Jaya and Avo, mother and son, hiking.”
He reached up to remove the orange Leander’s tag, but she swatted away his hand. “Don’t you dare. That tag is perfect. It screams ‘tourist’ to any compstate security officer.”
“Jaya is a nomad, not a tourist.”
“And she hasn’t been outside of the city in years, remember? She settled down, had a kid.” She tickled his cheek. It wasn’t Jaya. It was Grace Donner trying to act like Jaya. He turned his head away.
The mover stopped and the right hatch opened. Grace wriggled into her harness and jumped out, reaching for his hand. He reluctantly obeyed.
They’d stopped at the vast plaza before Sudland Gate. It was built
as a parade ground, for an era when Port Casper consisted of roider companies and the fledgling spaceport. It was for honoring the first belt cruiser launches, the first colonists to Mars. Now it streamed with human cattle, smelling of machine oil and beer. Many were mechflesh coming for day-work in the city, and an equal number were ending their shifts. Nobody was dressed like him and Grace. Was the disguise of recreational hikers absurd during a period of civil unrest?
Grace must have seen this, but she strode forward, holding his hand. They joined the short queue for non-mechflesh citizens leaving the city. Beside them, a long line of night laborers snaked into the morning sun.
“C’mon, get on with it!” A small woman cupped her six hands and shouted toward the front of the line.
“We just wanna climb into our racks.”
“What are they waiting for?”
Avonaco leaned to his left, trying to get a clear view of the checkpoint. A pair of protectors wearing red body armor chatted with people in his queue. They didn’t seem particularly hostile—just checking passes and waving folks through. A large group of backpackers had just crossed the checkpoint, all wearing the same shirts that said CAMP CASPER. Avonaco was relieved. They wouldn’t stand out after all.
He jerked as a klaxon split the air and the protectors held up their hands for Avonaco’s queue to stop.
“Shift the line!” a protector shouted.
“About time!” one of the mechflesh workers yelled, a big man with huge hydraulic legs. They thudded and whined as the long queue of mechflesh stomped forward and through the gate. Another queue of workers entered the city. Security followed each line, phasewaves drawn without provocation. The exchange took only seventy-three seconds, but it left Avonaco unnerved.
“Herded,” Grace said.
Avonaco didn’t reply, but he understood her reference. The mechflesh were being treated like work animals.
After another line change, their queue started moving again, and they soon stood before the two protectors at the end. The one on the left was an older man, with a bald head and a face like dried-out leather. To the right was a younger protector, perhaps even younger than Grace. She clutched a media pad and spoke into a ptenda, seldom looking up.
“What are your plans for today, ma’am?” the older protector asked.
Grace smiled at him. “My son and I are going hiking.”
Avonaco saw the man’s gaze shift from Grace to him.
“It’s gonna be great!” said Avonaco. He did his best to mimic the glee he’d heard from the crèche children.
“What’s in the bag?” the younger protector asked, motioning to Grace’s harness.
“Too much food, too many clothes,” Grace chuckled. “Always overpack!”
Tension ground inside Avonaco. He tried to quiet the worries by calculating probabilities, but the list of things that could go wrong increased the longer the protectors surveyed them.
“Ptendas, please,” the woman ordered, motioning at their wrists with her media pad.
The command confused Avonaco. A protector could interrogate any ptenda at twenty-three meters. Did she want them to surrender their ptendas? But Grace was calm. She nudged him and extended her wrist.
“The protector just wants to make sure you’re wearing a ptenda, sweetie.”
“Oh.”
He lifted the sleeve on his left arm until the ptenda showed.
“Thank you,” the protector said.
“And have a good hike,” her partner added.
Finally, they were through the gate.
Chapter 12
Raj peeked out through his eyelashes, then pinched his eyes shut. Too bright. He pushed his face back into the pillow and groaned. He felt Anna move next to him and he tried opening his eyes again, this time bunching the comforter so that it blocked most of the direct light coming from the window.
Anna lay beside him, propped up on her pillows, her fingers dancing on a media pad. The light from the pad illuminated her face. He looked at her lips. They were pressed in a thin line now, but he knew how soft they felt, how the lower lip would pout, its gentle touch against his own.
“Why are you up so early,” he croaked, his vocal cords responding like leathery reins. They’d slept with both windows open and the prairie wind had dried him out.
“I’ve been scanning fact agents. Compstate, borderland, cloister,” she said, still looking at the pad. “And I’ve been remotely interviewing the cowboys.”
He reached out and caressed her cheek. She turned and smiled at him. “You could go back to sleep, you know.”
“I will,” he stretched, lifted his head off the pillow. “Later. Find anything?”
She didn’t immediately answer. Instead, she smiled again. Raj knew that smile, different from the initial good morning greeting: it more often than not was a gentle transition to a topic that might worry him. Anna brushed the curls away from his forehead. Might really worry me, he thought.
“Maybe we could take a walk into town,” she said.
“A walk?” This time his voice squeaked. “What about the aposti?”
She shook her head, then angled the media pad so he could see the display. Fact agents were reporting a migration of aposti from Cloister 11 toward Port Casper.
“All of them?” he asked.
“Probably not. But it’s certain their focus is elsewhere,” said Anna. “For the past two days, according to my interviews, there have been no aposti sighted near the ranch. I suspect there are a few left in town, though. We could have a look.”
Raj sat up on his arms. He looked away from her media pad, wrestling with what it meant.
“Ok, so let’s think about this,” he said. “What would move the aposti? No elections coming up. Something going on in the legislature?”
Anna fingered her pad, then nodded. “There is a bill coming to a vote now. CSB-511X.”
“Is that the camp bill?” Raj asked.
“No. This one’s about mech parts. A list of state-approved parts that can only be attached in state-approved facilities—”
“Criminalizing most upgrades.” Raj ran his fingers through his hair. “Is it expected to pass?”
“Like the last five anti-mech resolutions?” Anna quirked an eyebrow.
“Point. But then there’s no reason for the aposti to get involved.”
“Fact agents reported a mechflesh demonstration yesterday, after curfew,” she said.
“Was it bigger than usual?”
“No, not really.” Anna shrugged. “I don’t know. Have you heard from Grace yet?”
“Haven’t checked my ptenda.” He scooped it from the side table and strapped it to his wrist. “Looks like a digital payload transferred last night.”
“From Grace?”
“Avonaco,” said Raj, looking at the readout. “They’ve left Port Casper.”
“And all of the aposti are streaming toward them,” breathed Anna.
“Toward the city, right? Not Grace…”
They looked at each other.
“We should tell Dan—” Raj began, when his ptenda bleeped.
“What now?”
“Another message,” Raj said. “Audio only. And older.”
“Doctor Chanho. Protector Donner and I are in an AI safe house.”
It was Avonaco’s voice. A little tinny, but not because of Raj’s ptenda. Poor recording or encryption equipment, probably.
“A Bod Town loafer recognized Protector Donner,” Avonaco continued. “We mutually agreed on using a previously-owned grafty to complete her disguise. We will wait to be sure she is ok, then leave the safe house for Cloister 11. This will be sent when I give the clear signal from the gate. Estimate three days until we reach you.”
Fingers trembling, Raj tapped the ptenda and part of the message played again.
“…mutually agreed on using a previously-owned grafty to complete her disguise.”
Raj stopped the ptenda before it could repeat further. A previously-used
grafty. He knew which one. It was the one that Avonaco carried around, the one with a woman’s memories in them. The word mutually stabbed at Raj’s brain. Grace didn’t know enough about the medical procedure for the decision to be mutual. All of his past conversations with Avonaco played out in his head. Use the blue gel. Use Planar’s neural mesh. Bring Jaya back, the boy had pleaded. Raj wondered if using the grafty had been Avonaco’s plan all along.
“What has your friend done?” said Anna, horrified. Tears rimmed the corners of her eyes.
“They were in a safe house. They must have been in danger.”
“But a used grafty? I’ve seen the trade in old grafties. Some users survive with headaches or a few new quirks, but others get their personalities entirely rewritten. Some of them never integrate. Some of them die—”
“I’ve seen it too, Anna,” Raj said, touching her hand. “And it scares me. God, it scares me. I wouldn’t have taken that risk. I don’t know why Avonaco thought they had to.”
“I doubt Grace made the decision lightly,” Anna said.
Raj stared at his hands, felt knots in his stomach as he grappled with their next step.
“We’ve got to get down to the lab,” he said.
Chapter 13
“Relax,” Grace whispered, both to herself and to Avonaco. Slipping into Jaya at Leander’s, her thoughts intersecting with Jaya’s as they walked—could that happen at any time, at any place? Each had only been for a few moments. The feeling of two minds at the same time, one wanting to do one thing, one another. She needed to take stock of herself, of Grace. She was cloisterfolk, she was an alpha protector. Tim. Think of Tim. There were the things that made her Grace, not Jaya. Not Jaya.
Home. The Ranch. Cloister 11. As Grace, she breathed in the landscape beyond Sudland Gate, the first step of many that would lead her home and to restoring Tim. Along the ancient highway stretching south, the gentle undulating hills were tan with speckles of green grass. An old wooden fence, devoid of its barbed wire, paralleled the road, its posts silent sentinels that once kept watch over a field, now abandoned. In the distance, Casper Mountain rose, its deep green forests a contrast to the brown land.
