by R. Z. Held
Genevieve scrubbed at the bottom of her right palm. At that spot, she’d broken a glove when dragging one of her countrywomen from the rubble—she’d been ranting, out of her head, but Genevieve had ignored it because she was still alive, there should have still been hope for her. But she’d touched an Install corpse, must have done, so she passed the nanites to Genevieve before she died. That patch of skin didn’t feel any different now, hadn’t ever felt any different, no scar or discoloration to mark an entry point.
And Genevieve had survived that entry, somehow. Nursed by her remaining family only to wake up to a conquered city, and her one of the conquerors now. So far beyond “collaborator,” however unwilling, there was no word for it, except perhaps “enemy.” Her family had wanted to continue to hide her, but the resistance leadership had given her the virus and enough money for cheap transport to the Pax Romana core. Given her a “mission,” one that was even supposedly survivable, but she knew it was just to get her off the planet. Installs were frontline troops, not occupiers. Killing them wouldn’t magically free her planet, only give it better odds in a fight, when the Pax Romana had no backup to call on.
If she could have locked down the nanites, lived a normal life, she would have ignored the mission like the coward she was, but she’d had no other choice. Worse than anything else, she’d started to taint her family by association, after they’d saved her. So here she was, not a spy, to destroy the Pax Romana reserves. Laughable.
Genevieve removed her touch from her opposite hand, did not look at the earring again. Those thoughts could swallow her whole, if she let them. She’d built up enough practice on the way here shoving her thoughts in a forward direction instead. Forward would be examining her wings again now they were—what, aligned properly? But her tablet was still in her duffel downstairs, waiting with the person currently manning the front desk. She needed to go down and get that.
Instead, she pulled up the targeting program. She wasn’t sure it would even work, without a gun in her hand, or a target, but the clear material erupted from her skin and covered her eyes and Genevieve got to watch it happen. On her own face.
She retched into the sink.
Nothing much came up. The muscle spasm only tightened her throat and brought up a mouthful of acid. Genevieve spat it out, then let herself down to her knees on the floor, hands on the edge of the sink and forehead against the wall beneath it. It didn’t matter what extra bits of tech were floating in her blood. She was still herself. Still Genevieve. Forward.
“Get up,” she told herself and the bathroom in Idyllian, eventually. “Get up, you fucking coward.” And she did, levering herself up with the edge of the sink, not because she needed the support physically.
Hang on, Vieve. She had few memories of her installation, allowed herself to access even fewer, but she remembered her younger brother’s voice. Or thought she did. He and her parents had been there the whole time, she was sure of it. To give up now would be a poor way of paying them back.
As she stood on the balcony with her wings to the sun, she used dealing with a pending request to hook her system properly into the central com as a way to avoid thinking too much. Or looking down. She’d done that once and her head had started swimming when it became viscerally clear just how far her floor was from the ground. Getting settled with the com proved a good distraction. She didn’t think it would be enough to carry the virus, not unless she stabbed someone who was speaking to everyone in the reserves all at once. She certainly didn’t have access to do so herself, though all the names were waiting should she wish to try to initiate an individual conversation over any distance. Or speak to everyone in the room, or everyone within a certain radius. All very useful, she supposed.
By the time she’d thoroughly explored that, her stomach was growling. Nothing since breakfast, and no pain to damp her appetite. All right, then. She found the mess hall on the map.
When she got there, she found she didn’t know what to do with that appetite. There were a couple of prepared dishes to choose from, more simple ingredients for assembly, but nothing smelled right. It was all too—sharp? Too unfamiliar? But Pax Romana cooking was familiar enough to her; her ancestors had left the empire before it was an empire, after all. Nothing appealed, as it hadn’t since she’d recovered enough to pay any attention to taste. As that period had been spent in cheap housing or on cheaper transports, she’d put it down to poor quality and sketchy sanitation. Here, she doubted that was the case, and yet she still found herself thinking of her old faithful nutrition bars in her duffel while lurking like a freak just inside the entrance. Fortunately, between peak mealtimes, only a couple people were there, eating alone in silence.
Her bars wouldn’t last forever, and it wasn’t like they were tasty, just palatable, so she finally talked herself into a grain dish, cooked down to starch so she couldn’t tell if it had originally been rice or something else. She took the bowl to a table and carefully scraped off the dollop of sauce. She tried the mush. It still tasted of something. She swallowed quickly before the taste could take over her entire mouth. Some kind of herb? She had to eat something. Better to toss this down. She managed to swallow the next spoonful from the back of her mouth before she tasted it too much, which helped.
Pyrus entered the mess. Genevieve wiped her disgust at the food off her face as quickly as she could, and hoped he wasn’t here to see her. It could be chance, right? He did head to the food, and speak to the cook, even, but then once he’d received a plate with half a dozen little sauce bowls arranged on it like a flower, he made straight for her.
Genevieve’s momentum had slowed while she watched him suspiciously, and her stomach started complaining again. She wanted to eat, yes, but not this. She took a huge bite so she didn’t have to greet Pyrus immediately, and had a hell of a time getting it down her throat. Pleasant expression. She was keeping a pleasant expression. Pyrus shouldn’t have a reason to question why Pax Romana food was unfamiliar to her.
Pyrus stole her mush without apology and pushed the little sauces into its place. Genevieve stared at him, spoon poised in the air. “I was not finished with that—”
“I saw you were in the mess, and with everything else, I thought your system might not be calibrated for taste, since that was something of a hack we had to come up with ourselves at first.” Pyrus pushed the mush out of his way. “And now I suspect I’m right. Does anything with flavor taste unappetizing now?”
Genevieve dipped the tip of her spoon into a red sauce, fidgeting with the viscosity. “That is an effect? Of the nanites, not of stress?” Or homesickness? After everything that had happened, ripped away from home and hurting so much, she supposed she’d never stopped to think it might not all be in her head.
“The sensitivity on your smell is cranked too high. They thought about that for hearing and sight—those require concentration to bring them above normal because otherwise you’d get people who would go starking because of the hum of the air system in their bedroom. But they didn’t think about taste and appetite.” Pyrus tapped the edge of the plate with sauce. “I’ve assisted plenty of new Installs, so I’ll bring it back into normal human range for you. Put dots of that first sauce on your tongue and tell me when it tastes good. We’ll do them one by one.”
It wasn’t all in her head. She’d be able to enjoy food again. Genevieve’s emotions swooped away from her like they had in the bathroom and she wanted to curl into a ball again. “That would be a kindness,” she said, and managed to keep her voice even. She dotted the red sauce on her tongue and waited out the sharpness of it like she would a spice burn.
“It’s part of a real installation process. It’s obscene that they’d do it to you and then leave it half finished.” Pyrus did something with her code directly, rather than handing it to her as Eriope had, and the sauce started to gain nuance—ironically enough, since apparently her sensitivity was going down—and she swallowed without difficulty and dabbed another dot. That was—tasty. A littl
e salty, with some acid. Her mouth flooded in response. She’d missed tasty and hadn’t realized it. “At some point, it’s hardly better than infecting you,” he grumbled, low, as he worked.
“That one is pleasant,” Genevieve said. She stopped with her spoon above the next, as his words truly penetrated. Infecting...? Like Eriope had said before. She needed to know more, and this seemed like a perfect opportunity. “For a brief time, I attempted to hide from TendarisHerron on one of the agricultural planets. Outside of Pax Romana. Rumors said dead Installs were designed to infect civilians. As a biological weapon.” She let her tone give the slightest of lifts at the end.
She, with her higher education, had never believed the rumors when the invasion began, when Installs first started dying on Idyll. But it was hard to argue with her own body.
Pyrus pointed to the next sauce, and she rotated the plate to put it in front of her. She presumed her prodding had been rebuffed, until he sighed and started speaking. He was slower to start than Eriope, but no less willing to share, it seemed. “So you know how they put you under before they introduce the nanites into your blood, so you woke with the majority of the installation already finished?”
Genevieve nodded. She knew enough to know that’s how it should have been.
“Well, there’s a reason for that. If you try to add anesthesia after the nanites are present in the body, they treat it like a toxin and destroy it before it can do anything. So you get someone who is forced to stay awake through the entire process, and that’s not—the mind can’t take it. The nanites change too much, rewire too much, cause too much pain...” Pyrus looked at his hands, folded his fingers together. He seemed to draw his next words from the lull of silence, choosing them carefully.
“When someone is dying, the nanites are at their most active, trying to save them. That’s the only period when they can be spread skin to skin. And if someone touches a dying Install, and the nanites start trying to install on a new host, without anesthetic...the new host is essentially dying too. I suppose it might have looked like a weapon, after the first couple battles.”
With an effort of will, Genevieve didn’t rub her left palm, that entry point. She’d made the choice to help that woman, even before her glove broke. Even though they’d been told to leave anyone who couldn’t respond coherently to a few simple questions, because they might be infected. She was a scientist. She hadn’t believed in a biological agent, hiding in the Pax Romana’s own soldiers. How could it possibly be constrained not to kill them, not to kill Pax Romana citizens when the soldiers went on leave?
And it seemed she’d been half right. That didn’t give her much satisfaction.
“But you aren’t an Infected.” Pyrus gave her a brief curve of an encouraging smile. “And now you’re somewhere where you can get the real support you need.”
But Genevieve was an Infected. And she wasn’t dead. That was something her scientist’s mind demanded she examine in great detail, but she pushed it aside for now. She offered Pyrus as much of a smile as she could manage. “I am no soldier.”
Pyrus shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. Part of the terms of our lease on this facility is that we have to take in any Installs ‘not in active military service.’ I looked it up. Discharged or retired, I’m sure they meant when they wrote it, but what they actually said includes you.”
Less providing for loyal veterans, and more not letting technology fall into anyone else’s hands, Genevieve would bet. “And when you’re all called up? I go too?” She’d need to be long gone before that point, whether the virus had succeeded or failed.
“Called up?” Pyrus was startled into a laugh, pushed away from the table a few centimeters apparently even at the thought of it. “We are retired, believe you me. I’ve done my time, as have we all. Just because they’ve ruined us for a normal life afterward doesn’t mean they have any claim on us to fight ever again. Those who choose to be lifers are back at headquarters or out at the front.”
He spoke with such intensity Genevieve couldn’t help but believe him. “I am sorry—I thought—that this would be the reserves…” And yet, she couldn’t help but doubt him in the same measure. If they were meant to be hidden reserves, he’d have to say exactly that, and sell it too.
No point in pushing, in any case. To bridge the awkward moment she dipped up sauce, placed it on her tongue. So sweet it made her teeth feel like they were rotting, but that faded quickly enough as Pyrus scooted back in, frowning in concentration. The two of them settled into silence that was almost comfortable.
“Done,” he said, at length, and smiled as Genevieve sprang to her feet. She’d been thinking about the desserts ever since sweet came back. Far from her problem before, she now couldn’t choose one dish because she wanted them all at once. She finally picked a pastry and a mousse of some kind, sticking to two because she only had two hands.
Pyrus laughed low when she clattered them onto the tabletop and started eating. “If I could be the source of smiles like that every day, I’d be a happy man.”
Genevieve looked up, spoon arrested once more. Was he…flirting with her? How was she supposed to respond? She could afford real attraction, with no excuse of being high, as little as she could afford liking, as with Eriope.
Had things been different—no, be honest. Had the entirety of the current conditions of her life been different…and were that so, she wouldn’t be here.
Pyrus’s expression seemed to indicate he’d been as caught off guard as her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—I’m your medic at the moment. It wouldn’t be ethical for me to…” He coughed, looked aside. Genevieve dropped her head and resumed eating. Yes, they could leave things there.
For his part, after a beat of silence, Pyrus’s manner returned to seriousness. “Have you ever tried to cut off your wings?”
That caught Genevieve with a spoonful of mousse in her mouth. She took the time of swallowing and lowering her hand to choose her words. “What kind of question is that?”
“A mental health question.” Pyrus waited.
“No,” Genevieve said, but apparently that wasn’t enough for a mental health question. She licked her lips, and decided on a few more words. “I spent some considerable effort for a while attempting to keep them constantly folded away.” But that kind of pain, above and beyond what she had been suffering as a general background, hadn’t been conquerable by mere effort. When she’d given up, that had been when she’d given in to the “mission,” started charting her path to this place. “Did someone...?”
“It’s been known to happen.” Pyrus’s fingertips beat a quick pattern on the tabletop, stilled. “Any program has those who wash out, especially at the beginning before they really know what to look for in candidates. Things got ugly for a few people when they couldn’t escape from the psychological implications of installation. Wings grow back.”
Genevieve thought of eye-shields, and retching. She lifted her chin. “I have traveled this far.”
Pyrus nodded. “So you have. And you have a place here.”
Genevieve dropped her eyes to her food to avoid giving importance to her question. “Am I allowed to leave?” If he was telling the truth about being retired, maybe the answer to that would be better than she’d expected. If he was telling the truth.
“Of course.” Pyrus sounded surprised, then blew out a breath on a resigned note. “You’d probably better be prepared to find someone keeping tabs on you for the rest of your life, though. Is that what you’re asking?” He seemed to read an affirmative answer in her body language, and moved to more banal topics for small talk.
Meanwhile, Genevieve grappled with the new information, trying to fit it into place around her mission. She shouldn’t waste the virus on a bunch of retirees. If she could learn what she needed, choose to leave and live her own life… No, if that was the case, she should try to get access to one of the active Install units, accomplish something instead of slipping off like a coward.
The first s
tep was obvious, at least. She’d keep her eyes open as she learned, see if she could find any evidence to support or refute the idea of retirement. She’d do what she’d come here to do, even if she had to refine her plan a little.
Part II
Genevieve reached the rocky promontory on the hillside beside the Tsuga Security building a split second before Eriope thudded into her back. The metal guard rail was fortunately set securely into the rock for the sake of the tourists, and Genevieve gripped it and let Eriope bounce off her. The day was cold, sharply so, like the edges of grass and rock under the mountain sunlight, the ex-soldiers’ little patch of natural beauty tourists would travel light years to visit.
“You take the flag,” Eriope said, her breath from this close carrying a slight chemical-sweet smell, presumably from whatever she was on today. She shoved a bundle against Genevieve’s body so Genevieve clutched it without thinking. She’d never actually seen the flag up close—she played at playing with the ex-soldiers, but she didn’t have much interaction with the actual subject of the game—but she knew better than to draw it out to examine it now. The wind would unfurl it and the others would converge on her. It had plenty of fabric and a golden metallic sheen like a kid’s cheap spaceship costume, so Genevieve suspected it had begun life as some kind of event banner at one of the planet’s hotels.
“What am I supposed to do with it?” Genevieve asked, zipping her jacket over the lump. The point of the game was agility and speed, not slugfests, so she hadn’t even been aware herself that Eriope wasn’t another of the decoys from their team who had scattered up the hill and over the field below. Their section of the pursuit was climbing the switchbacked path even now.
