Code of Conduct

by Kristine Smith

  Jani tried in vain to keep from flinching as needling tingles radiated throughout the hypersensitive junction. “What are you telling me?” she asked through gritted teeth. “That every Neo shop in the Commonwealth has a set of left-siders with my name on it sitting in a cold drawer?”

  Montoya adjusted the shoulder of her gown and pulled up a corner of the hem. “I’m going to check the thigh junction now.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.” Jani grabbed a fistful of sheet and found a riveting light fixture on the wall opposite to focus on.

  “The answer should be obvious, Jani,” Montoya said as he probed, “to you more than anyone.” After eliciting a couple of bearable twinges, he pronounced both junctions functional. Jani rearranged her gown as best she could while maintaining her shaky balance. Meanwhile, Montoya opened another of the room’s recessed cabinets and rolled out a tall, silver monolith.

  Jani watched him activate touchpads and enter codes. The limb sealer came to life with a characteristic hum. “Why replacements? Why not just fix the old ones?”

  “Coming back to ourselves, are we?” The physician smiled absently, his attention focused on the instrument. “So many questions.”

  “And so few answers.” Jani’s stomach hadn’t ached at all up to that point. She only noticed it in contrast. Now, it hurt like hell. “Why replace what you can fix?”

  As Montoya pushed the limb sealer over to the bed, two disc covers on the instrument face slid open, revealing twin depressions. The upper one was small and green, the lower one large and dark blue. They looked like a pair of misshapen eyes.

  “The reason for the new arm should be obvious. As for the leg—” Montoya hesitated. “I believe you’ll find your back problems will be a distant memory once it’s attached.” He bumped the sealer up against the bed. The frame resonated in time to the sealer’s vibration. Jani could feel the humming buzz in her teeth. “We’ll do the arm first, I think. Then you’ll have more leverage when we do the leg. Push your junction against the green.”

  Jani lowered the shoulder of her gown and pressed her stump into the shallow saucer. Tingling pressure radiated across her upper back as the disc membrane closed around the junction.

  “You’re implying the leg wasn’t balanced. I had no problem with it for over seventeen years. My back just started acting up in the last six months.”

  Montoya disappeared behind the sealer. Jani heard his footsteps, followed by the whine of a zipper, a pop, and a rush of air as he removed the arm from its vacuum casing. “We change as we get older, Jani. Our bone density, muscle mass. Your animandroid limbs were older models in the first place—they stood no chance of keeping up the pace. In a more conventional environment, you’d have had them changed out three or four times by now.” The sealer vibration ramped. “Press against the saucer,” he said, peeking around the unit at Jani. “Hold your breath on three. Ready? One. Two. Three.”

  Jani pushed, inhaled. She felt a burning as the junction sintered, then split down the middle, exposing her shoulder joint. She felt as well as heard the soft click as new bone met old. Then came warmth as synthon lubricant flowed through the junction and into the joint, followed by the suction smack as tissue met bioadhesive.

  “Looks good. Pull out, please.”

  Jani eased her new arm through the newly opened gap in the saucer. She rolled her shoulder, bent her elbow, counted off on her fingers to check—“Hey!”

  Montoya poked his head around the sealer, which he appeared to be using as a shield. “Is something wrong?”

  Jani winced as she pressed fingernails into fingertips. “I can feel with these.”

  “Of course.”

  “I couldn’t before.”

  “An adjustment long overdue, don’t you think?” The dark head again disappeared. “I’m going to call in someone to help with the leg.” He left the room, returning soon with a burly nurse in tow.

  This bout with the sealer proved clumsier, not to mention more painful. Tears blurred Jani’s vision as she made a circuit of the room under Montoya’s watchful eye. She muttered a prayer of thanks to whoever had had the presence of mind to slip a pair of underpants beneath the gaping medgown. “You’re right, Doctor. My back does feel better.” She hopped up and down a few times. “I didn’t realize people could change so much at the ripe old age of forty-two.”

  The nurse glanced sidelong at Montoya, then excused himself with a curt nod. Once they were alone, Montoya pulled out a lazor and cut away the allerjel packing from Jani’s right arm. As she washed away the gooey remains of the soothing jelly, he scrounged a set of medwhites and a pair of lab shoes.

  “Hungry, Jani? Allow me to buy you a very late lunch.” He handed her the clothes. “I’m getting you out of this damned room if it’s the last thing I do.” His dark eyes danced. “As reward, I’ll tell you the exciting tale of how you got here in the first place.”

  “We escaped Interior Main a heartbeat ahead of Ulanova’s people.” Montoya forked through a tomato-sauced omelet, with occasional stabs at a green salad. “Your blond friend, that lieutenant, knew whom to look out for, which areas to avoid. He and the young red-haired man—”

  Jani choked on her soup. “Steve! I told him to stay in Private.”

  “Well, he obviously didn’t listen. He and Pascal bundled you onto a skimdolly he had purloined from the loading dock. Much bickering went on during this time. I gather Pascal found Steve wandering the Main halls in a furtive manner and set upon him. Steve had a black eye—”

  “Why the hell did Lucien hit him!”

  “—which went nicely with Pascal’s air of ‘last one standing.’ They declared a truce when they realized your welfare was at stake, but it was shaky at best.” Montoya dabbed a few beads of sweat from his brow. “I discovered during that time I wasn’t cut out for excitement.”

  “I couldn’t have been too exciting,” Jani said. “All an augie does after a take-down is sleep and toss around a lot.”

  Montoya grimaced. “Your augment was the only thing keeping you alive. After I took you down, you began to slip into anaphylactic shock. Your blood pressure went into the basement—” He stabbed his fork at her like a fencing foil. “Those two morons knew that goddamn sedative patch was contraindicated in your case, and they used it anyway! Three-month suspensions—if they think it ends there, they’re in for a grim surprise. Even with your augment, you could have died in that infirmary. The fact that you went on to do what you did…” He faltered and took it out on his salad, stabbing the vegetables into mashed submission.

  Jani studied the view over Montoya’s shoulder. The small dining hall was empty except for the two of them. Purple in all its shades dominated the color scheme, from tinged white walls to lilac grey floor and nearly black furniture. The funereal surroundings turned the mind to things best forgotten. “I killed Durian Ridgeway,” she said quietly.

  “Did you?” Montoya’s chewing slowed. He set down his fork and pushed aside his half-eaten meal. “Pascal’s skimmer was parked outside the docks. It was too small for the four of us. The situation became even more interesting when a hyperactive bundle of winter clothing bounded out to us yelling, ‘Steve, Steve,’ in a singularly feminine tone. Pascal pulled out his shooter, which caused Steve to spring for his throat like a cat. At that point, your blood pressure took another dive and the bundle started screaming that Exterior Security was hot on her trail.” Montoya exhaled with a shudder. “Amazing how we suddenly all managed to fit into Pascal’s vehicle. He took us as far as the boundary between Exterior and the Shèrá Embassy. I’m still trying to assimilate what happened next. Tsecha was waiting for us outside an Exterior guardpost. The idomeni ambassador.”

  Jani pushed her plate aside. The little she had eaten froze in her stomach. “Tsecha?”

  Montoya nodded. “He drove us here. In an Exterior skimmer Pascal took great pleasure in telling us the ambassador had stolen. He wore eyefilms. Makeup. And an evening suit. Pascal treated this like
it was the most normal thing in the world. Steve and his bundle, a young woman named Angevin, blinked perhaps twice, then piled you into the backseat of the ambassador’s skimmer and shouted for me to, and I quote, ‘hurry the fuck up.’” He sighed. “So I did.”

  He knows I’m alive. Did she ever really doubt he’d discover the fact? What had he told her on the Academy steps, when she handed him back his ring and told him she had every intention of remaining human until she died.

  You will never die, nìa.

  “Well,” she said.

  “Indeed.” Montoya nodded absently. “Tsecha is a proponent of what he calls evading. He evaded us down side streets and alleys I never knew existed, and I’ve lived here all my life. We took corners at complete verticals. I yelled that if he didn’t slow down, I was going to tear his head off. I couldn’t keep you still enough to intubate you. Time was running out. Your throat was swelling shut. The shockpack alarm was blaring.”

  Jani eyed the entry. He wouldn’t come here, would he? Risk his Temple’s wrath and the Commonwealth’s anger by calling upon a murderer. Of course he would—he thinks killing is just something I do. Part of the job description. Eyes and Ears…destroyer of diplomatic relations…toxin….

  Montoya rattled on, a captive in his own recollective jet stream. “He just smiled, if you can call what he does a smile, and told me, ‘Ah, Doctor, you know my Captain will outlive us all.’ I commented that that could be by a grand total of five seconds if we slammed into the side of a building. He then slowed down just long enough for me to reinsert and anchor the endotracheal tube.” He bit his well-buffed fingernails one at a time. Just a nip here and there, an old broken habit undergoing spontaneous reassembly.

  “So you were getting air. Thank God. We were being pursued, you know, until Tsecha started evading. The lieutenant had drawn his shooter, and the ambassador…he was armed, as well. A shooter in a chest holster. Knives up both sleeves.”

  Jani’s throat felt dry and tight. “He would have used them, too.” She stole a sip of water from Montoya’s glass. “Idomeni martial order broke down after Knevçet Shèràa. Self-protection became the order of the day, even for those who had never had to think about it before. Nema always adapted quickly to change.”

  “Nema?” Montoya’s eyebrows arched. “Oh, Tsecha’s born name.”

  “He changed it after the war ended. Then he went into seclusion in his Temple enclave for five of our years.” Jani’s gaze kept veering toward the cafeteria entry. “And with all they knew about his beliefs, they still let him out of his cage.”

  Montoya nodded. “I’ve heard about those beliefs. That someday, the human and idomeni races will be as one.” He played with his fork. “Did you feel the same way when you studied with him? Did you buy what he sold the way Hansen Wyle did?”

  The sudden sharpening of Calvin Montoya’s voice didn’t surprise Jani. Anyone who had won John Shroud’s confidence couldn’t have been as ingenuous as he first appeared. “Hansen believed. But I think he enjoyed the thrill of it all, too. He liked flipping it off in people’s faces.”

  “He died in an air raid a few hours before he was going to try to negotiate you away from my boss.” Montoya smoothed away a ragged nail edge. “Seems to me our alien ambassador isn’t the only one capable of making associates ignore their better judgment.” He eyed her pointedly. “Let’s get out of here,” he said, gesturing toward a fluted paper cup nestled beside her soup bowl. “Take those. Chew and swallow them.”

  “Why?” Jani sniffed the dark brown tablets. They smelled like chocolate fudge made with sour cream. “What are they?”

  “Enzyme tablets. They’ll help you digest your food.”

  “What’s wrong with my digestion?”

  “It needs help.”

  “Why?”

  “There’s no time, Jani. Just trust that it’s for your own good.”

  “I’ve heard that before.” Jani chewed dutifully, chasing the bitter, gritty mass down with a swallow of water. “John’s favorite line. Whatever happened next either hurt like hell or made me sick.” The increased sensation in her left leg still jarred her, and she half walked, half hopped as she followed Montoya out of the dining hall.

  It didn’t surprise her that Lucien Pascal waited for them near the nurses’ station, or that he carried her duffel as though he owned it. He looked tired; thin lines of scabs dotted one cheek. He offered her a cool nod, then turned to Montoya. “Think she’s up to it?”

  Montoya’s nails again found their way to his mouth. “No. But it would be no next week as well. No right into next month, but we don’t have the time, do we?” Muttering curses in Earthbound Spanish, Montoya ducked behind the nurses’ station.

  “You’re not ready,” he said as he emerged carrying a small polyfilm bag. “There’s too much that needs to be talked about. Too much left up in the air. But I’ve been ordered to let you go anyway.” He thrust the bag into Jani’s hands. “The directions are in with the tablets. When you run out, stop at any facility. You have nothing to worry about, Jani. You’re being seen to. If you don’t trust anything I’ve told you, trust that.” He squeezed her hand, glared at Lucien, then strode down the hall without a backward glance.

  Jani turned to Lucien. “What’s going on?”

  He pantomimed an explosion. “All hell’s broken loose.” He gestured for her to follow and walked to a side door labeled, EMERGENCY EXIT ONLY. “We need to get you through as many GateWays as possible as soon as possible,” he said as he ushered her though the door. “But before that, there’s someone who wants to see you.”

  CHAPTER 34

  “Where are you taking me?” Jani lagged behind Lucien as he led her through the garage. She swore under her breath as she searched for an escape route.

  “My skim’s charging. I’m just behind that,” he said as he pointed to the silver-and-purple ambulance that jutted through a low arch like a metallic tongue. “I hope to hell I can pull around.”

  “Where are you taking me!” Jani’s voice bounced off the cement walls. Her eyes teared freely, both junctions ached, the drying skin of her right arm tingled and itched, and Dr. Montoya’s enzyme tablets had left a sickening metallic taste in her mouth. Oh, and there was the fear. Fear did wonders in countering take-down malaise. Jani planted in the middle of the garage, her hands curled into fists. “I’m not budging until you tell me where we’re going.”

  Lucien turned back to her, his handsome face a study in angel innocence, his hand resting possessively on her duffel. “We’re going over there,” he said.

  Jani squinted in the direction he pointed, trying to pick out details in the dark. A battered sedan nestled in a charge station, but the flow monitor atop the station’s housing shone blue, indicating the vehicle’s cell array was already fully charged.

  Dark red. The vehicle’s color was dark red. An old Exterior skimmer. Jani’s stomach roiled as the driver’s side gullwing popped up.

  “I tried to talk him into stepping up to a better class of vehicle,” Lucien said, “but he seems to have taken a shine to that old wreck, color and all.”

  Nema emerged from the vehicle like poured syrup and stepped into the light. He had left his humanish evening suit behind, opting for the Vynshàrau clothing of an elder male of his skein and station. Full-sleeved, off-white shirt tucked into loose, light brown trousers. Dark brown knee-high boots. Wide bands of scarlet hemmed the edges of his cream overrobe. His thin, silver brown hair had been gathered into a single braid and looped like an oversize earring on the right side of his head.

  “My Captain,” he said in English, his High Vynshàrau accent softening the hard sounds. “I thought I would need Albino John’s help to identify you, but to my joy I find you most as yourself. Glories of the day to you.” He bared his teeth fully, an expression of highest regard. His bony face seemed to split, gold eyes opening wide. Grim Death with a Deal for You.

  “NìRau ti nìRau.” Jani stood up straight despite the stinging pain
in her thigh junction and crossed her left arm over her chest, palm twisted outward. She tilted her head to the left. Nodded once. Thank God for the mechanics. If you could concentrate on the mechanics, you could block out everything else. She glanced to the side and saw Lucien watching her like an anthro student on his first field trip. “Push off,” she said.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Go, Lucien,” Nema said. “I wish it as well.”

  “No, nìRau. I have my orders.”

  “Which were to guard. So guard out there.” He gestured sharply toward the garage’s entrance. “There is no need for guards here.” He looked Jani in the eye and bared his teeth again. “My nìa and I are most safe with one another, and together, we win against all.”

  Lucien took a step in Nema’s direction, ready to argue. But when Nema refused to look at him, he turned on his heel and strode out of the garage.

  Jani waited until the echo of his footsteps died away. “You’ve hurt his feelings,” she said in semiformal High Vynshàrau, etching fluid symbols in her air with her right hand. Her gestures accentuated the humiliation of a suborn cruelly mistreated by his dominant. “He is new to the ways of Vynshàrau, and he is not predictable. He might do something to hurt you in return.”

  “Perhaps,” Nema replied, the angle of his head implying tentative agreement, “but then he will find I am not so predictable as well.” He shook his head, humanish urgency leaching into his speech and gestures. “There is no time for him. Ulanova searches for you, nìa! She knows you are here in this damned cold city!”

  “She wants to see me court-martialed that badly?” Jani glanced toward the garage entrance. She trusted Lucien. In this particular instance. Really. She just wished she’d had the presence of mind to ask him for her duffel.