It was stupid that the destruction of Disney World was bothering her. The real tragedy was the destruction of all those works of art at the Met, MoMA, the Louvre, on and on, to make room for defender artwork. They could have removed the human works of art instead of destroying them, but who was going to question defenders’ instructions?
Even with all of that space devoted to defender artwork, nothing of Erik’s was on public display. It gave Lila childish pleasure, yet she also felt sorry for him. That was the difference between how she and Kai felt about the defenders: They both hated them, but Lila also pitied them. Maybe if she’d been shot by a defender, and dealt with the pain Kai dealt with on a daily basis, she’d find it hard to pity them.
“Lila? You ready?” Minka stood in Lila’s defender-sized doorway.
“Sure.” She closed the feed on the demolition, grabbed her phone, and joined Minka in the hall. “Who’s doing the review?”
“Pierre.”
Lila groaned inwardly. Pierre was a walking neurosis. Lila wasn’t sure if defenders were capable of developing PTSD, but something had to account for how far from the defender norm Pierre was when it came to being tightly wound.
Pierre was waiting outside the delivery room (as they referred to it when no defenders were present). “How many?” he asked as they approached.
“Eight hundred,” Lila replied.
“Eight hundred exactly?”
“Eight hundred exactly.” Eight hundred more defenders, with their dead souls and sociopathic narcissism. With the advances in genetic engineering made between the end of the Luyten War and the beginning of the Defender Ascension (as the defenders had named it), Lila could have engineered them to be so much more stable, if they’d let her. But no. The new defenders couldn’t be in any way superior to the existing ones.
Lila and Minka followed Pierre down concrete stairs to the parade floor, where the new defenders were lined up, ready for review.
She should kill herself. Blow her brains out, or jump from a bridge. More of these monsters only added suffering to the world. If she wasn’t such a coward, if she didn’t love Kai and Errol so much, she would remove herself from the equation. They would get someone else to oversee production at this facility, but that rationalization was wearing thin for her. Lately she felt so disgusting most of the time. Most humans who learned what she did for a living shared her contempt for herself.
Other officers tended to strut around during a review, making it more a ceremonial show than a true inspection, but Pierre looked the new defenders up and down as if expecting some to be missing fingers, or major organs.
Lila waited by the door for more than an hour before Pierre finally nodded his approval. “Brothers,” he called, “welcome to the world.”
Lila and Minka stood aside as the new defenders paraded past, five at a time, up the stairs to join the hellish world they’d all created together.
Lila dropped her purse on the kitchen counter and headed for her room. She had twenty minutes to get ready to go with Erik to this thing, whatever it was.
“Lila?” Erik called from his room. “Is that you? Come here, please.”
“Coming.” She always felt uneasy, being alone in the house with Erik. It made her feel too much like his wife.
He was lying on the bed, wearing what looked like a giant pair of boxer shorts, his artificial legs on the bed beside him. He looked less than imposing lying there, his stumped flesh-and-bone legs ending just below the knee, the last few inches of his legs deeply notched to accept the bionic appendages, his friction sores salved.
“Can you help me with these?”
“Sure.”
She clamped and locked his limbs into place as gently as she could, trying not to aggravate the open sores. The fit was never perfect, and friction was inevitable. The arms weren’t as bad.
66
Dominique Wiewall
October 8, 2047. Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada.
She hated the cold. Absolutely despised it. She’d turned down a postdoc at UMass in favor of LSU solely because it was warm in Louisiana and cold in Massachusetts. That she might live out the rest of her life in the northernmost outpost on Earth was a biting irony.
As she did at the start of every information-gathering session on the Internet, she checked her sister’s Facebook page. There was nothing new. Richelle was still working on a construction project for the defenders in Sarasota, Florida, building a government office facility, working right alongside Luyten. As always, Dominique had to resist the urge to leave an anonymous message that only Richelle would understand, to let her know Dominique was still alive. She’d never actually do it, of course. If by some wild chance the defender intelligentsia checked her account that day and realized what the message was, they could trace the computer’s IP address, and ultimately discover that the computer in question was issued to CFS Alert, the northernmost continually inhabited outpost in the world, one of those out-of-the-way locales they hadn’t bothered to formally conquer. Dominique wondered why they couldn’t have fled to some out-of-the-way Polynesian island. There were plenty of those the defenders hadn’t bothered to conquer, either.
With her daily check on Richelle out of the way, Dominique got to work, starting with a check of the New York Times. Most of it was fluff now, stories of pets finding their way home from a thousand miles away, coverage of construction projects, details of the planned changeover in the NFL from human players to defenders. Very little helpful information. No one put anything helpful in writing; the president and his people assumed significant communication was happening the old-fashioned way: face-to-face. That left the good people hiding out at CFS Alert frustratingly uninformed.
Dominique wasn’t sure what good it would do them to be informed. There were fewer than fifty people at CFS Alert. They had no weapons to speak of, no army to command. The war was over. They’d lost. Still, they were one of the last vestiges of free human leadership, of legitimate human authority, and they had zero information.
Dominique lifted her hot cocoa, blew on it, took a sip. It was powdered and not very good, but how much was she going to miss it when it was gone? They would deplete their food stores by spring, by which time they’d have to know how to live off the land. Dominique shuddered at the thought of dried seal blubber for breakfast. They should fly south and surrender. Only they couldn’t, because they’d be executed for fleeing, and for being important and powerful people. No, what they needed was a way to communicate with people in the larger world that didn’t give away their existence, let alone their location.
There was a rap on her door.
“Come in!” she shouted, to be heard over the howling wind outside.
Forrest squeezed inside and closed the door, gasping from the morning cold. “That’ll wake you up in a hurry.”
“That’s why I’m still in here,” Dominique said, suddenly feeling energized. Forrest did that to her, and it was time and then some that one of them crossed that invisible line and overtly acknowledged the obvious attraction between them. Dominique wondered if they were both taking it slow because it was fun to be in this early, flirtatious stage. It was a breath of warm spring air in an otherwise barren, stifling existence. Maybe they should just go on like this. Only Dominique was tired of sleeping alone; Forrest’s warm body would be so much better than her army-issue electric blanket.
“Does that mean you’re not going to breakfast?” Forrest asked.
Dominique made a show of struggling to her feet. “No, I’m coming. I just want there to be a tunnel between the barracks and the cafeteria. I don’t want to see any more snow.”
“I can fix that. Come on.”
Dominique pulled on her coat, hat, and gloves. Grinning, Forrest took a scarf off her coat hook and blindfolded her with it. Laughing, Dominique let Forrest take her hand and lead her outside.
The wind bit her skin, immediately unpleasant.
“Did you see they’re demolishing Disney World?” Do
minique asked as they walked.
“I did.”
“I mean, Disney World. The Taj Mahal was one thing, but Disney World? Mickey’s home?”
“The bastards.”
“The problem is, they’re not playful. It made sense at the time—if you’re designing killing machines, you don’t want them to be playful, but now that they run everything, it’s a problem…” She stopped short, pulled off the scarf as a flash of insight struck her. It just dropped into her mind, the way some of the best ideas arrived. “Holy shit. I think I’ve got it.”
“What’s that?”
“It. It.” The defenders didn’t have a playful bone in their bodies. That meant they would turn their prodigious noses up at video games, theme parks, anything that hinted of frivolity. Never in a million years would they visit a virtual playscape. And just to make doubly sure, she could use one of the obsolete ones. Earth2 would be perfect. Dominique recalled reading an article about how Earth2 had been saved from deletion by a virtual historical preservation group, because it was the first, the oldest virtual playscape to be widely used. If they could get the word out, humans could meet inside Earth2 and speak freely, without fear of being overheard.
“Let’s get inside and I’ll explain.”
With a dozen people watching over her shoulder, Dominique navigated to Earth2. She chose a default avatar and consulted the map. If any people were there at the moment, a central, urban destination seemed the most likely place to find them. She chose a city called Haven and teleported in.
Her avatar—a slim, pleasant-looking woman of indistinct ethnicity—appeared on a street corner in what looked like a typical early-twenty-first-century city. It was deserted.
Dominique directed her avatar to walk.
“You can fly, you know,” President Wood said—Anthony Wood, not Carmine. From the moment they’d arrived at CFS Alert, President Wood had been back in charge, though nothing was ever said. Carmine seemed fine with the change, almost relieved; Dominique wondered if it had been his idea.
Dominique craned her neck to look at the president. “How on Earth would you know that?”
President Wood shrugged. “Do the math. I was twenty-five when Earth2 was all the rage.” He gestured at the old-fashioned keyboard, which must have been at least fifteen years old. “Press and hold the function key, then hit PAGE UP.”
She did. Her avatar spread her arms and rose into the air, soaring higher the more Dominique pressed PAGE UP. When she got above the buildings she went exploring for signs of life.
There was no one on the streets, no one at the beach resorts, no one in Medieval Village or on Vampire Island.
“Someone must visit occasionally. I can check every few hours,” Dominique said.
“Over there,” Carmine’s wife, Nora, said, pointing as the avatar passed over an amusement park.
A lone car whipped around an impossibly steep curve on a roller coaster. Dominique dropped her avatar lower, until they could see a single head inside the car. She found the exit to the coaster, and landed there to wait.
The avatar was tall and slim, a black woman with her head shaved except for a ponytail. She paused at the coaster’s turnstile exit, taking in Dominique’s avatar.
Hi, Dominique typed. Earth2 had an audio function, but Dominique thought it prudent not to use it to start, given their desire to remain anonymous.
Hi. You know, everything’s free in here. You can grab a better avatar, dress her in anything you want.
Thanks, I’ll work on that when I’ve got time. But listen, I’m here with someone important who needs your help.
Someone important? Is it Jesus?
“Just what we need, a smartass,” President Wood said. “It must be a kid. Who else would be trolling around in there?”
Ha. Ha. Not quite that important. How old are you? Dominique typed.
82.
Seriously. This is incredibly important, more than you can guess.
I’m 13.
“Told you,” Wood said.
Her name was Eclipse, at least inside the game. Dominique was happy to keep it at pseudonyms. She told Eclipse her name was Island Rain, but Eclipse could call her Rain.
What can I do for you, Rain?
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” Nora said.
Bring some adults with you and come back. Tomorrow, noon Eastern Time. Will you do that?
I will if you ride the Avalanche with me.
Chuckling, Dominique typed, You got it. She followed Eclipse to the coaster’s entrance.
67
Kai Zhou
October 8, 2047. Washington, D.C.
When the key rattled in the gargantuan front door, Kai tensed.
“Mommy!” Errol howled and scrabbled off the couch to greet Lila.
Kai smiled a greeting as Lila came into the living room carrying Errol. Erik followed behind her.
“Was Errol good?” Lila asked, sitting on the couch.
“I was good,” Errol answered, before Kai could.
“He was fine.”
Lila excused herself and headed to the bathroom. Kai turned back toward the TV with Errol in his lap as Erik eased into his giant stuffed chair.
“What is this?” Erik asked, frowning.
“Forever After. An old situation comedy.”
Erik picked up the remote and changed the channel to one of the new shows. It was a cop show, with a defender playing the lead. The defender was so bad he was painful to watch, standing out among his professional human costars like a Little Leaguer trying to play shortstop for the Atlanta Braves.
There was no romance in the new shows, and little humor save for the hammy plays-on-words the defenders could understand.
Kai watched obediently until the defender-cop got into a shootout with a dozen bad humans, then he took Errol to bed.
Lila joined him a few minutes later. “Sorry. Erik wanted me to stay until the commercial. I have to get back in a minute.” Glancing toward the closed door, Lila kissed him quickly. “Meet me in the laundry closet later?”
“It’s a date,” Kai said.
As Lila pulled off his shirt, Kai grimaced, repulsed by his own wounds. “I’m just disgusting,” he whispered. The skin was thick and puckered in the spots where he’d been shot, the damage radiating out in starburst patterns.
“Are you kidding me? War wounds are sexy.” She kissed his ravaged shoulder, his caved-in side. “If you had scars from a hernia surgery, that would be disgusting.”
He pulled Lila’s shirt over her head, dropped it on the dryer. Her skin was soft and perfect. He caressed her breast with his good hand, took her nipple between his lips. She closed her eyes, arched back onto the washing machine, her breath quick but silent. They were running both the washer and dryer to create noise so they wouldn’t be overheard. Kai slid Lila’s skirt and panties to the narrow strip of floor between the appliances. Lila kicked them off, eased back onto the washer with Kai’s help.
They knew this closet well, could maneuver without making a sound into the three positions that were possible in the cramped space. You could be incredibly careful, incredibly quiet, when you knew you’d be killed if you were discovered.
Kai slid his half hand behind Lila, gripped her ass as well as he could, expecting her to recoil from the feel of what looked like a pincer—nothing but a thumb and index finger on the end of his wrist. She only pressed closer, worked him inside her, wriggled her hips to get just the right angle.
His thrusts were careful and deliberate, both because he didn’t want the washing machine to rock, and because his body was far more fragile than it had been before he’d been shot. Sex hurt now. He could feel things grinding in his injured hip and rib cage, but tried to ignore the discomfort as Lila dug her fingernails into his neck and pulled his face close to hers, her body tensing and relaxing in waves as she whispered incredibly filthy things in his ear. Since the defenders had outlawed sex, it had become a truly forbidden pleasure, something only crazy-r
eckless people did. It had done wonders for their sex life.
Afterward, they took separate routes back to the living room and told Erik they were going to walk to the Timesaver to get some sodas. Erik glanced their way and nodded before returning to his TV show, giving them permission like he was their father.
It was cold outside, but Kai didn’t mind. When he was outside, away from Erik, away from the TVs that doubled as monitoring devices, he felt infinitely more relaxed, more alive. He inhaled deeply as they walked, looked up at the sky.
It seemed as if the stars should be different, now that the rest of the world was unrecognizable, but they were bright and white on a black background, just as they’d always been.
“I had a game with the usual gang before the tournament,” Kai said as they cut through the fenced backyard of Erik’s house, out through the gate and into an alley.
“How’d you do?”
“Up eleven thousand.”
Lila popped a Tick, offered one to Kai. He shook his head.
“Marcus said this resistance movement is serious. They had to expand Earth2 to hold all the people visiting. It’s packed in there. He said there are rumors the inner circle is planning something big.”
“Something big.” Lila sighed.
“I’m sure it’s not any sort of direct confrontation. Unless they’ve lost their minds, they’ll stick to their plan, borrowing from the Luyten playbook. Conquer the world from the edges, in. Disrupt the enemy; harass them.”
Lila nodded. Not in approval, Kai knew—just acknowledgment. “I’m pretty sure that’s a human playbook. The Luyten borrowed it from us.”
They emerged from the alley, their chins tucked against the cold wind. Lila swept her hair back. “They’re so stupid. They’re just confirming the defenders’ paranoid worldview. It’ll only make things worse.”
Defenders Page 27
