by Rebecca Ore
“Thanks.” Dorcas wondered how long she’d have to stay to be polite.
Mary smiled and took the present off to a stack of presents on the dining room table. She told Dorcas, “Drinks in the kitchen.”
Dorcas went in to the kitchen and saw Henry making drinks. He smiled at her and the men standing around him also smiled, Wow, what a guy with his wife and mistress in the same house.
“Gin,” Dorcas said. It seems cheap enough.
“We’ve got some genuine juniper gin,” Henry said.
“Okay,” Dorcas said. Henry handed her a glass of white spirits which she knocked back in one slug. The liquor tasted of red cedar.
Henry said, “George has gotten a tenure-track job at Minnesota.”
Dorcas couldn’t remember which other postdoc was George, but a guy who’d always volunteered to escort visiting professors smiled and nodded.
George said, “They’re giving me my own lab. I’m bringing one of my grants.”
“Hope you don’t freeze your balls off,” Dorcas said. Had Henry suggested that she not apply? Or had he made dismissive noises?
George said, “I knew I ought to be in a tenure-track job or in industrial research before I’d done too many postdocs. One can’t afford to do too many. Industry’s nervous if you look too eager to be an academic and our colleagues tend to wonder if a scientist doesn’t get on with his career. If this hadn’t come along, I was going over to private industry.”
Dorcas said, “But it did,” and left them talking in the kitchen. Just after she turned back, she heard a burst of laughter and knew she’d amused them.
But they don’t know what I really do. I’m the Mantis Mother.
Dorcas wandered around the house and discovered that Henry and Mary didn’t keep any endangered species at home. She now felt put-upon that Henry boarded his sperm-donor Peregrine with her.
Mary found Dorcas in the master bedroom. Dorcas cringed, expecting a confrontation. Mary smiled and said, “Women like you are so good for Henry.”
Dorcas would have rather been stabbed. “Should I stay until you open your presents?”
“Guests come and go. If you have other friends to see, I can thank you for your present now.”
“You’re welcome.” Dorcas said. She went downstairs and put on her coat, walked out into the spring night. Her life, not just the evening, felt wasted. No point in saving herself from the street now, Dorcas walked home.
It was spring. Time to make insects. Perhaps the solution wasn’t a particular wasp, but lots of them, neuroleptic, addictive, brighter than average, more pesticide resistant. Modify the egg too, so that bigger wasps could come out of them.
Solution to what—human nastiness, of course. Dorcas felt a different adrenaline surge through her, thrill of the object of a chase. If the Feds caught her, she’d have to turn on her own designs. Perhaps they’d kill her, but Dorcas planned to offer to betray her insects. She could get her own lab.
Dorcas thought she couldn’t lose.
TEN
INDUSTRIAL DESPAIR
AND ACCIDENTS
Willie sat on his front porch with his mantis on his knee, hardly aware of the wind twitching the maples overhead. He wondered if he should be involved with the industrial accidents people at all. How would he sign off welfare if he wanted to? He could talk to his social worker, explain that he’d met people who’d offered to help. If they asked who offered to help… he couldn’t betray Little Red. His mantis tried to comfort him, but the tranquilizer made him bolder, calmer but bolder.
I wasn’t always like this, Willie thought, running his finger down the mantis’s wings. He’d joined the army for adventure, got that craving flayed from him. The Feds were hunting the gene hacker who’d made him this mantis, but other gene hackers made the hallucination bugs and the war machines. Nobody hunted them down.
The real war, inside a man’s head, went on. Nanotanks prowled his bloodstream, search-and-destroy teams rappelled down his bronchial tubes, ideas that were mere waves of electric potential spied on other ideas, a mash of them in the brain.
Outside, Willie rocked on his front porch in drode head calm. Inside, he raged despite the mantis, or perhaps, because he had been jittery timid and now he was calmly angry thanks to the mantis juice.
The industrial accident gypsies would use him and leave.
Willie supposed they wanted to find out who the insect hacker was. He’d found the Feds’ plant. She trusted Willie, sort of. If she could discover who made the insects, if the gypsies could beat the Feds to the hacker, then they’d have their own uses for better insects. Would they leave Willie on welfare when they disappeared?
If the Feds thought he’d tipped off the hacker, helped her get away, he’d be busted. Maybe because he was a vet, they might keep him alive. Or maybe because he’d broken security, they’d throw him in a hallucination bug cyberia. He had a security clearance, that was supposed to make him trustworthy. He’d skinned his cock for his country, but his country expected him to stay trustworthy, trusting.
The mantis kept him from panicking. Willie put the mantis back indoors and rode his bike to Stuart, looking for Little Red.
Laurel pulled the gypsy van up beside him and said, “Get in.”
“Why?”
“We need to talk.”
“I want to talk to Little Red.”
“I’ll take you to him.”
Willie braked and loaded the bike in the van. He got in beside Laurel and said, “I’ve been thinking. Do you plan to leave me behind?”
“We can’t do that,” Laurel said. “We think you ought to join us now. Loba thinks you could work at the informer better in real time, not over the net.” She turned the van off and drove through woodlands, not straight for Stuart. “But I’ve argued that you should go back to your ordinary life. And that we leave Allie alone. So when I say ‘we,’ I don’t mean ‘me’.”
“I feel sorry for Allie.”
“Well, yes, but she could have suicided rather than agreed to work with the Feds.”
“Is that the solution you recommend to your own people?”
“Willie, we didn’t realize what we were getting you into.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? I wanted a change.”
“You’re not really one of us.”
“Little Red thinks so.”
“Willie, we might have to nanosculpt you.”
“Could turn me into a heap of jelly by accident, then.”
“We don’t use people as tools.”
“Oh, really.”
Laurel said, “We’re debating whether the insects make a good attack on industrial society or if they’re part of the problem.”
“Allie thinks it’s the woman scientist.”
“Is this woman a renegade we can use?”
“Use as a tool, Laurel?”
“We feel responsible for you. You could live with friends in New York. But Welfare would wonder why you go to New York so often.”
“Hell, Laurel, lots of us go to New York or San Francisco whenever we can. Lots of ways to pick up spare money that way, only my head is locked up. I wouldn’t be going that often. I can make contact with Allison in less than a trip or two.”
“And do what?”
“Have her bring the insect woman to me.”
“What if she decides to turn the hacker over to the Feds?”
“Hacker’s giving powers to the non-human. If Nature could take care of herself, you think we’d need eco-freaks and industrial saboteurs?”
“We should sculpt you.”
“No, just give me friends to stay with when I’m in the city. I’ll bring my own foodstamps and the mantis.”
“You can’t travel with the mantis.”
“Seen some spray advertised lets you carry them around without having the scent tranquilize everyone. Too expensive for welfare people, but you could get some for me.”
“Willie.”
“I’ve always wanted to g
o to New York and remember it. I think I was shipped out of there on the way to Tibet, but I didn’t see enough to get a good impression.”
“Willie, we could offer you refuge, now, if you’d let us resculpt you.”
“Can’t change the brain patterns, can you, and leave me myself?”
“No.”
“So. they know me by my brain waves, not my face. Who remembers a drode head’s face?”
“Willie, we could merge you with someone else, split the difference. But there are risks.”
“I don’t wannna be half dead, half in someone else’s skull.”
Laurel didn’t say anything more for a couple of miles. Willie understood that if he’d agreed to that, they would have half killed him without any further qualms. The rule was, can’t use other people as tools, but if they volunteer, all bets are off. He was repelled and excited at the same time. Being a drode head was half death, too.
Then, “Okay, Willie, Little Red will strike up a conversation with you. He’ll suggest some people who are curious about drode heads in New York, give you an address, wrong apartment. The real apartment is in the building, but you’ll ring the wrong bell. You’ll ask for Loba. She’ll meet you in the lobby. I’ll see you there.”
“You’re moving to New York?”
“It’s easier than having you know more of our faces,” Laurel said.
“I could shoplift the spray.”
“Don’t you have some money from the art we sold?”
Willie grinned. “Shit, the spray would be a business expense for you.”
“Buy it yourself, Willie.”
“I’m going to be on starting next week. Want me to say hi to Allie for you?”
“Don’t. We don’t know quite how you’re working the system to program these hidie-holes, but eventually, you’ll be audited.”
“They had bunches of us ex-soldiers looking for that girl. Why would they think I did anything? I’m an old hacked-out drode head, slacked out with a mantis, poor old Willie with locks on.”
“Willie, you’ve never traveled much before.”
“Think they keep tabs on all of us? You know who they got to do it? Drode heads. Think we’re all so automatic?”
“I know there’s a drode head subculture.”
“It’s like the olden days’ secretaries. Most of us feel inferior and grateful for any handouts, but we stopped getting you coffee.”
“But most of you aren’t conscious.”
“We don’t remember. Most of us, yeah, but amazing how many of us are allowed to correct for data slop.” Willie thought he’d said too much to someone who wasn’t herself a drode head.
Laurel said, “The hacker keys in data on a private machine. She wouldn’t do work on a public system.”
“But she’s got to fish data out of public systems from time to time. Why don’t we approach Allie’s scientist directly? If she’s making the insects, we tell her to run with us because the Feds are a day away.”
“No, Willie. If she isn’t the one, or if she’s got other plans, we’ve told the Feds we’re exist. She could trade us for herself. The Feds would love such a deal.”
“I think this woman would love to work with us.”
“Us? Yeah, Willie.”
“I’ll have tacos tomorrow for lunch, then I’m going to be back under for two weeks.”
“I’m curious. Who takes care of your mantis when you’re gone?”
“Automatic feeder.”
Laurel stopped the van in Stuart and helped Willie with the bicycle.
He asked, “Couldn’t I ride to New York with you?”
“No, Willie, because we’re going to stay for a while and you’re going to go back to your read head after the two weeks off are up.”
Willie realized they’d want to discuss him in the van. He wasn’t one of them. He’d never sued the people who damaged him.
ELEVEN
BECOMING A DRODE HEAD
I didn’t instantly become a cultural drode head just because computers could scan my head and exchange data with me through VR goggles. Sometimes, I wanted to know the culture of what I’d become. Was there a drode head resistance? I’d fought the world that made drode heads all my life. I sure hadn’t planned on being a cooperative drode head.
What Mike offered me next was his most serious seduction—respite, a rocking boat. When we sailed out from City Island, except for Mike, my life on land disappeared.
We put on hooded wetsuits against the cold water and set off under motor through the wide channel between Hart Island and Hewlett Point, putting the little islands on our left. I looked behind us and saw bridges and city, the forested chunks of Pelham Bay Park. Then Mike switched off the motor and taught me how to handle the rope that controlled the small sail with no boom in front of the main sail. “Sheet, not a rope,” he said. “Jib sheet.” He controlled the main sail sheet and the tiller himself. Sailing was like climbing, the one who knows the most leads.
We maneuvered up the Connecticut coast, anchored in the suburbs for the night. The next day we stopped for lunch at a yacht club in Guilford, the marshes protected down to the shore, the coastline studded with pilings that had once been docks. Ducks and geese flew over us, around us. I watched a mute swan drown a native duck.
“Mute swans mate for life,” Mike said.
“They’re supposed to be in Europe,” I said.
Other than that moment, I wasn’t anything but a woman with her lover on a boat. Mike was right about the space around us making up for the cramped cabin, but I wanted to leave the Sound, go out to the ocean, keep moving.
But finally, a week was enough for a first sail. When we could see City Island and the Throgs Neck Bridge, Mike switched on the outboard motor.
“I’ve got another week.” I said.
“Your woman scientist dropped by the loft while we were sailing,” Mike said. “The water will get warmer.”
“Everyone wants to go sailing when it’s warm,” I said. “We could get away from them on the ocean,” Mike said. “You did good for a first-time sailor.”
“I’ve climbed before. Both are rope handling.”
Mike looked at me funny, but we were fast approaching the boat’s berth. Mike gave me the boathook and yelled over the motor, “Go to the bow. Pick up the buoy line.”
I fumbled it, and Mike had to reverse and fuss. Next pass, I caught the line. Mike cut the engine and came forward. He said, “Keep us from banging into the fenders.”
Fenders? Right, the bumpers on the dock. We fussed the boat back into where we’d found it tied up, then sat apart for a few seconds to catch our breaths and settle our tempers.
“Did you like it, overall?” Mike asked me.
“Yeah, except coming back. Don’t yell at me like that.”
“I’m sorry.”
I went back into the cabin and got my duffle bag, then Mike came down for his. As we changed into street clothes, I said, “You’ve got a radio on board.”
“Yes,” Mike said.
I realized he’d have to, both for boating news and for military communications. “Well, it’s nice that the wet suits have hoods, but in warmer weather, it’s going to look odd, sailing with a bald woman. I don’t think a wig’s going to do in the slop.”
“Maybe by then, you can grow your hair back.”
My eyes teared up. The body has reasons the mind doesn’t want to think about. I pressed my face with my left hand until I felt more under control. “So you’re not going to kill me after this mission’s over.”
“I couldn’t kill you.”
“Kearney?”
“If we don’t keep faith with people who work for us, then how will we get new informants? You’re working for us because your people didn’t keep faith with you.”
“Thanks, Mike.” Maybe there would be a time after this, a life of being the female equivalent of Jergen, married to Mike, playing war and insurrection games, living by a golf course. Sometimes, I can’t stand the bi
tch the world beat me into becoming. Give up the suspicions, roll out to suburbia on a backwash of trust.
“But you have to keep the faith with us,” Mike said.
As the sun began to set, we got a taxi back to the loft. I fell asleep halfway through Midtown, the buildings a jolt after the Sound’s marshes. I dreamed myself back to the Pacific Northwest, a wilderness a day’s hike to the center, trails folded through it for weeks, the original hiker’s maze that inspired the recreation malls.
Nature, the non-human, would never have control of the world again. I’d never have control of my life again. Mike was kind, but that was calculated even if Mike was naturally kind. The only wildernesses that survived were human wildernesses: Manhattan, Mexico City. We were our own predators.
As the elevator took us up to the loft, I said, “You think I’m right about Dorcas?”
“Dorcas?”
“The woman postdoc I work for.”
“She’s never been an open drode head sympathizer.”
“Maybe I should tell her I wasn’t a fake whore, really, but rather a convicted eco-terrorist?”
Mike said, “That could be too obvious.” He went to the bar cabinet and poured us both brandies. “Are you hungry?” he asked.
“Why don’t we get something delivered?”
“Pizza? African? Chinese?”
I remembered my little African car. “Groundnut soup with spinach.”
“Lots of chiles?”
“They didn’t have chiles pre-Columbian.” The world was one human stew: Lebanese food in Yucatan, Mexicans using stir-fry as inspiration for fajitas. American corn in Italian porridge and Chinese soup, hot peppers in Indian curries. “Since I can’t undo 1492, with moderate chiles, then.”
He ordered me peanut soup and a rice-and-beef dish for himself, but I fell asleep before it arrived and microwaved it hot again for breakfast I said, “What should I do next?”
“Perhaps you should do what other drode heads do.”
“But I’m not a typical drode head,” I said.
“You said she made you. If you don’t seem more like a real drode head, what we did to try to convince the Rockefeller U people that the new models weren’t part of the audit won’t work. We’ve put other new models in various research labs. But the others behave like real drode heads. A few of them are retrofits. You shouldn’t seem too different,”
