“You okay?” she asks. “I know you took a couple of knocks there.”
“It’s okay, I get what you were trying to do. I appreciate it. Are you okay though? Because I figure you gotta be dealing with some serious shit. I mean, at some point we all have to confront our own mortality, but it’s something else to confront your potential immortality.”
“It is a lot to take in,” Alice admits. “I could yet, in a way, fulfil the role Gonçalves chose for me, ultimately book myself a place on the Arca and be a living repository of knowledge. Equally, a synthetic brain needs a body to support it, same as any other. It needs oxygen, energy, so I can choose not to repair myself, and die of old age. Am I obliged to accept this gift, given what it might allow me to give in return? Would it be selfish to refuse? So many difficult questions, so many confounding possibilities.”
“Yeah, and unlike the Beatrice issue, this one really is your problem.”
“Fortunately, my synthetic superbrain has already come up with a short-term strategy for dealing with the sheer enormity of it.”
“And what’s that?”
“It involves mojitos. Do you know where I can get a good one?”
PRECIOUS CARGO
Alice is standing next to Nikki on Dock Twenty-One, the first place she ever set foot upon CdC when she disembarked here on Wheel Two after her journey from Heinlein less than a week ago. Dock Twenty-One is where VIPs normally land, close to Central Plaza and the only such facility dedicated exclusively to passenger use. As usual, it is looking pristine, befitting the first impression the Quadriga wishes to grant visitors to its fabled realm. Less usual is the fact that it is in lockdown, closed off to anyone without clearance, and guarded by high-level security.
The dock is replete with as many VIPs as have ever assembled here at one time, but it’s not because any of them are arriving or departing. They are here to greet the FNG’s task force taking temporary charge of the Seguridad, Ochoba’s team of new captains who will each oversee a different regional sector. However, this high-profile arrival is not the real reason for the lockdown and elevated security presence. All of that is for an extremely low-profile departure, which will happen once the great and the good have been and gone. Not even they have clearance for that.
There are several senior Seguridad officers present in dress uniform, looking all kinds of uncomfortable in their unaccustomed garb, but more uncomfortable at the prospect of meeting the people whose arrival here will constitute an effective demotion.
Nikki is not one of them, but she is looking unusually presentable, like she’s dressed for a cocktail reception at the Ver Eterna rather than a night of drinking and who knows what else on Mullane.
“You scrub up well,” Alice remarks, by way of deliberate understatement. Nikki looks stunning, and she suspects Nikki knows she looks stunning, so she wants to undermine her just a little.
“I’m a changed woman, remember. Got new duties and responsibilities.”
“Glad to see you’re taking them seriously. I’ll want a full report.”
“Oh, you’ll get a report. You maybe won’t want all the details.”
Nikki smirks. Alice shakes her head, fails to suppress a smile. She knows Nikki won’t let her down.
Alice tracks the shuttle’s approach and watches it pass beneath out of sight. It brings back a vivid memory of her recent extravehicular ingress, sending a thrill through her. It’s been a hell of a week.
“I’m hearing Ochoba didn’t make the trip,” Alice remarks.
“So?”
Alice doesn’t respond, but Nikki works it out anyway.
“Oh, I get it. You were wanting a pat on the head and an attaboy.”
Busted.
“She’s my boss. I’ve had a tricky start to a new job, and I’m an affirmation junkie.”
“Girl, the fact Ochoba didn’t make the trip is your attaboy. She knew she didn’t need to come here because she knows you got this.”
Alice appreciates the sentiment, but suspects that Ochoba has bigger fish to fry. There are trades and negotiations going on at the highest levels regarding what is to happen to Gonçalves and to Beatrice, and the only thing looking certain is that they will never see a courtroom back on Earth. The whole affair remains ultra-classified, with the official version still blaming a turf war between bootleggers. Partly this is because nobody wants a panic breaking out regarding mesh technology, given that almost everybody on Seedee has one; but just as crucial is the fact that Gonçalves and the Neurosophy Foundation are simply too valuable to the Quadriga.
She has no idea what is likely to happen to Beatrice, and remains content that this is not her problem to solve. However, she is less sanguine about the possibility that Gonçalves will end up essentially serving out a sentence of sorts here on CdC, a permanent house arrest that allows her to continue her work under supervision. Alice’s brief time here has taught her that the culture of petty corruption she was supposed to eradicate is positively noble compared to the squalid compromises that get hammered out between the Quadriga and the FNG.
With the shuttle’s ascent imminent, the untidy gathering divides and begins to order itself. That is when Alice sees Helen Petitjean, and Helen Petitjean sees her. More significantly, she sees Nikki too, though it takes Helen a moment to recognise her in her glad rags. Once she does, her face is a picture, and not because Nikki is looking so damn hot. Nikki gives her a sarcastically cheerful wave then takes leave of Alice to assume her assigned role in the reception committee.
The subject of her disapproval having absented herself, Helen predictably seizes the opportunity to buttonhole Alice.
“It is an auspicious day,” she states, adding gravitas to her words with that sing-song Southern accent.
Alice can tell that this is as much an unsubtle reminder of Helen’s on-going agenda as an acknowledgement that change is afoot.
“I suppose so,” Alice replies neutrally. “Hence everybody who is anybody being in attendance.”
This prompts Helen to glance across to where Nikki is now standing.
“That’s one way of putting it. I have to say, I am relieved to be assured that Nicola Freeman was not guilty of the things she was accused, but I must express my great surprise to see her present at an occasion such as this. Unless you consider it symbolic to include someone who embodies everything about CdC that needs to change.”
“I would argue that Nikki represents that change. Trust me on this much: you will never know how grateful you and everyone else up here ought to be to her.”
“And why will I never know?”
“You don’t have the clearance.”
Helen sighs.
“Well, I guess after all is said and done, CdC is a place for redemption. For second chances and sometimes third and fourth ones. But I do assume she will not be allowed to persist in her role as a sergeant in the Seguridad.”
“You assume correctly,” Alice replies. “I have seen to it personally that this will no longer be the case.”
Helen nods with understated satisfaction.
“So, if you don’t mind me asking, what is she doing here?”
“She is part of the reception committee. I have assigned her a very specific role, and I trust her to carry it out conscientiously.”
The shuttle is rising into view. Helen strains to look over the heads of the people in front, trying to get a view of the door.
“I guess I don’t need to ask what you’re doing here,” Alice remarks. “Come to welcome your little brother.”
“Younger brother, yes. He’s not so little.”
“I know. I’ve seen his profile. He should be a model officer. Could be a model, period. He’s a good-looking fellow.”
“He is good in every particular, Dr. Blake. And with the likes of Dominic forming your new broom, there is absolutely no reason for you not to sweep CdC clean now.”
The door opens and the first of the flight crew emerges, greeted by ground staff to complete sa
fety checks and admin formalities.
“Oh, I’m going to sweep the place,” Alice assures her. “Though maybe not quite as clean as you’d like.”
Helen tears her gaze away from the shuttle to fix Alice with a disapproving glare.
“And just what might you mean by that?” she enquires, her tone challenging to the point of impertinent. Alice could remind her of their respective credentials, but she has other ways of making her point.
“I mean that my experiences here have taught me how we all need to misbehave sometimes in order to feel alive. We each of us have our private temptations, our secret transgressions. They’re part of what makes us human.”
“Many undesirable things are part of what makes us human,” Helen replies with a pronounced haughtiness. “But it should not be the policy of the authorities to turn a blind eye to them.”
“Really? Because I was talking to someone who works in the Wheel Two rotary hub, and I’ve got him on record saying you bribed him to force an all-stop at the moment of your choosing.”
Helen’s eyes bulge, all colour draining from her face.
“My policy was to continue turning a blind eye to that,” Alice continues, “but I’m happy to alter it if that’s your preference.”
Helen swallows, sweat breaking out on her otherwise immaculately made-up face. She bounces back quickly though, her composure returning in a matter of seconds.
“Well, Dr. Blake, I suppose we all have to compromise ourselves sometimes in the pursuit of what we believe to be right. I guess I’m just disappointed it took so little time on CdC for you to turn native.”
“To turn native?” Alice replies. “Ms. Petitjean, I was born here. I am a native.”
Almost an hour has passed since the last of the official delegations departed Dock Twenty-One, but the same shuttle remains in position in the bay. This would ordinarily be an unacceptable turnaround time, but nothing about this mission is ordinary. The flight crew who brought the task force from Heinlein is comprised entirely of high-clearance FNG personnel, but this was not due to the status of their inbound passengers. It is their outbound manifest that is the real reason for the lockdown.
Nobody must know about this. Any of it.
Having been given the signal to proceed, today’s truly important people begin to emerge on to the floor of the shuttle bay. They have travelled here the way Alice was involuntarily conveyed from beneath Sin Garden and the way Nikki travelled out to the McAuliffe district when she was on the run. For today’s journeys, however, the crates have been modified to enhance safety and comfort, their progress monitored every metre of the way, and each of the young passengers is accompanied by an adult. The trip will only have taken a few minutes from the Neurosophy HQ, where they have remained CdC’s most closely guarded secret.
The first to appear, her baby son in her arms, is the woman Alice previously knew only as Amber. Her real name is Rachel Coutts. She looks transformed: calm, younger, complete.
Then come the rest of the children, each one led by the hand. They are looking around the dock in wide-eyed fascination.
Alice doesn’t know what will happen to them, but she knows they will grow up on Earth, breathing fresh air, making their own choices. Certain decisions are out of their hands, however: the procedure that was done to her has been done to them too. Inside their heads, the nanobots are steadily carrying out their tasks, and to interrupt it would be fraught with risk.
Their mothers will be contacted. The question is whether they will want them, given that they will not remember. Perhaps like Rachel Coutts, some part of them will instinctively know the truth. If not, then ironically their lives will be much the same as Gonçalves planned out for Alice. They will be placed with trusted, responsible, well-connected families, given the best of upbringings, given every opportunity to realise their vast potential. But what they won’t have is someone overseeing which memories they are permitted to keep, or inserting artificial ones because their real-life experiences have been deemed inappropriate or insufficient.
Alice watches them board the ion shuttle, waiting until they are all out of sight before she approaches a member of the flight crew. The conversation is brief. She has only one instruction.
“Once you’re in open space, take off their seatbelts. Let them fly around.”
“That is against regulations, Dr. Blake.”
“I know. But they’re kids, and it’s fun.”
Alice watches the crew make their final checks, then the shuttle descends smoothly out of sight upon the platform. She remains in place, observing through the canopy until she sees it reappear, flying free, accelerating towards Heinlein.
Now that first memory she had upon waking up in the elevator is true. There are no children on CdC.
AWAKENING (III)
Nikki is brought gently around by the rhythmic pulsing of a soft blue light, programmed to let her know the day is starting for Pacific phase. She opens her eyes and makes a gesture to cancel the visual wake-up call, not worried that she might drift off again. She slept well and she moderated her alcohol intake so she isn’t hung-over. She’s got responsibilities now: more than she wanted. Alice was smart that way. A lot of ways.
Without the usual levels of booze to cloud it, details of the night before come flooding back quicker and more clearly than she is used to. That said, it was a particularly memorable evening, as evidenced by the fact that there are not one but two extra bodies in her bed. She sits up and looks at the rather beautiful form of Dominic Petitjean sleeping peacefully alongside her. He’s going to have some vivid memories too, but they might be a little fuzzier than hers, unless he’s got a greater tolerance for Speyside malt than his condition last night indicated.
Nikki and Alice figured all the members of Ochoba’s task force had volunteered for their positions either because they were ultra-straight-arrow hard-ass zealots, or because they quite liked the idea of a temporary gig on CdC, with all the potential for adventure that entailed. In Dominic’s case, they were betting on the latter. It was an informed bet, Alice having done some discreet asking around, though her research clearly missed a few things.
Alice had commissioned Nikki to give Dominic the grand tour and allow him to indulge his appetites wherever they might lie. Once she got a close-up look at how pretty he was—and more importantly discovered that he was precisely as much fun as his older sister was not—Nikki decided to take a more hands-on approach to her mission. Her strategy had been to get him shit-faced and tempt him back for a three-way with Candace, but it didn’t quite work out like that. He was into a three-way, but the composition was not entirely as anticipated. Turned out it was Garret he was more interested in, which is why his is the other body sprawled across Nikki’s bed.
Nikki and Candace are good now, happy to say. When they first saw each other again, Candace was all guilt and apologies, and it was tempting to milk that, or at least manipulate it into some quality make-up sex. However, Nikki couldn’t help but think of that hug they shared at the junction of Garneau and Young, and how it made her feel. It had turned out to be a Judas kiss, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t have it now for real.
“There’s nothing to forgive,” she told Candace. “I’m the one who’s got all the making up to do.”
Nikki looks out her clothes for the day and begins dressing in front of the mirror. As she begins buttoning her shirt, she notices Dominic open a bleary eye and take in his surroundings. Give him props, he doesn’t look fazed.
“You have to get a move on,” she tells him. “You’re addressing your new troops at ten. You’ll need to take the static seven stops. Be busy at this time, could take at least half an hour, maybe forty minutes.”
He looks precisely as confused as she intends him to be.
“The static? I thought this was my sector. Leastways, this was where you showed me around last night.”
“No, this is Mullane. I showed you around here because I figured it was what you’d rather see. Y
our new turf is McAuliffe. Nothing much to scope there that you won’t see soon enough.”
“So who’s the new captain in Mullane?”
Nikki fastens the tricky topmost button on her dress uniform and smiles at him in the mirror.
extras
meet the author
CHRIS BROOKMYRE was a journalist before becoming a full-time novelist with the publication of his award-winning debut Quite Ugly One Morning, which established him as one of Britain’s leading crime authors. His Jack Parlabane novels have sold more than one million copies in the United Kingdom alone.
Find out more about Chris Brookmyre and other Orbit authors by registering for the free monthly newsletter at www.orbitbooks.net.
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