Exo

by Fonda Lee

  Jet absorbed these explanations silently. All of them were true.

  Donovan forced a weak smile, then shoved Jet’s shoulder. “Hey, you’re right—it’s been a bad couple of weeks. We all have our doubts sometimes, you know? Don’t get so freaked out on me.”

  His friend turned a pleading look on him. “Don’t come back here, okay? Promise me you’ll stay away from the whole mess. Let it blow over.”

  “Right. You know anywhere I could go on vacation for a couple of years?” Donovan said. When Jet kept staring at him expectantly without cracking a smile, he sighed, relenting. “All right, I hear you.”

  “Take it easy, like Nurse Therrid said. Tate already told me she’s taking us off anything having to do with the Warren raid. Regular patrol only. And if you need a break from your old man, you can crash at my place.”

  Donovan raised an eyebrow. “You’re not going to be busy?”

  Jet squinted one eye. “It’s just a first date. Don’t psych me out.”

  “Where are you going to take her?”

  “No idea. Everything in the Round is so overdone, but if we go to the Ring Belt, it has to be classy, you know? You seriously need to help me on this.” Jet’s comm unit went off and began blinking insistently. He groaned. “I better get going.”

  Donovan opened the door of the skimmercar and stepped out. Jet leaned after him. “You’re going home for real now, right?”

  “I’m going to stop by my locker first and change into some civvy clothes because this dress uniform is making me crazy. Then yes, I’m going home to have a shower, take a dump, and eat a frozen burrito for dinner, not necessarily in that order, if it’s all right with you, Officer.”

  “Smartass.” Jet flipped him the finger as he closed Donovan’s door, but he looked like himself again—smiling. The skimmercar lifted and reversed, then sped down the road and out of sight.

  Donovan climbed onto the electricycle and drove it to the officer’s common hall. He really was dying to get out of his dress uniform, but he wasn’t in the mood to run into other people and talk. Fortunately, the place was deserted. Everyone must still be occupied in the Black Hills, or hosting the High Speaker. Donovan went in the back entrance and met no one on the way to his locker. He changed out of his dress uniform and hung it up, then pulled on a spare pair of jeans and a hooded sweatshirt. He shut his locker.

  He’d promised Jet he’d go home. But now that he was here, there was one thing he wanted to do first, an itch that wouldn’t take long to scratch. Before he could convince himself not to, he was walking from the locker room over to the office area, to one of the shared workstations where patrol officers sat to finish up reports, search for information, check messages, or kill time.

  It wasn’t hard to find Anya’s record in the SecPac database again. He ran the same search that Thad must have run earlier, filtering for females between the ages of fourteen and twenty, known to be living in the Ring Belt and flagged as having possible Sapience ties. A few minutes of scrolling through the photos and he found the one he’d seen on Thad’s screen—Anya, with black hair, young and petulant. The name on the record was Anne Leah Dodson. He made a face; he couldn’t imagine Anya as an Anne Leah. The birthdate put her at sixteen years of age. His eyes flicked to the next field: last-known address.

  Donovan’s heart tapped a staccato against the inside of his rib cage. He glanced over his shoulder again; he was still very much alone. He turned back around and stared at Anya’s file.

  What do you think you’re doing now? He half expected Jet to materialize angrily behind him. What was I just talking to you about? She’s a sape and you’re an exo. Let her go.

  “I can’t,” Donovan whispered. Before his guilt or common sense could use Jet’s voice to get the better of him, he grabbed a notepad and pen and copied out the address on the screen. He closed the file, cleared the search filters, and shut down the workstation. Sorry, Jet. I just want to know she’s okay. That’s all.

  He left his duty gun stowed in his locker and swapped it out for a compact electripulse, easily concealed in an inside waistband holster underneath his civilian clothes. He couldn’t very well take an official loaner electricycle from the Towers out into the Ring Belt without it being noticed in both places. He left the e-cycle at a drop point near the perimeter wall and walked the rest of the way down the spoke road to where it ended at Gate 5. There was a short queue of skimmercars waiting to get through the checkpoint, but the pedestrian exit was clear. Leaving the Round wasn’t hard; it was getting in that was impossible unless your DNA or exocellular body signature was in the resident database, or you were erze marked and had a valid visitor or worker pass.

  Even though Donovan did it almost every day, leaving the Round and entering the Ring Belt really was like going to a different place in a different era. For one thing, there were rarely any zhree to be seen on the streets, and although there were wealthy neighborhoods of erze-marked people to be found outside the Round walls, the majority of humans out here lived in simple wood-and-concrete structures, drove cheap petroleum-burners, and went about their daily lives much as their ancestors might have a hundred and fifty years ago. Having patrolled it extensively, Donovan knew the Ring Belt almost as well as he knew the Round; he walked another ten minutes to a bus stop where he could catch the number 20 to a neighborhood he would normally never consider entering without his uniform and gun prominently on display.

  As he waited for the bus, Donovan drew the hood of his sweatshirt over his head. He didn’t need it for warmth, but he didn’t want his exocel nodes to attract any attention. He pulled on fingerless leather gloves that hid his stripes. On the rumbling bus, he stood apart from the other passengers. They eyed him suspiciously; he wasn’t a regular. When the bus arrived at the corner of the second block of Transitional Habitation grids, Donovan waited for the others to leave before stepping off. The afternoon sunlight was stark but exuded little heat. A bitter wind touched Donovan’s face, carrying with it the unmistakable stench of urban decay—garbage, urine, and hopelessness.

  This is a stupid idea. Donovan fought to keep his armor down and to start walking as if he wasn’t already regretting his decision. The TransHabs consisted of six square blocks of identical concrete apartment complexes; originally built by the first postwar government for human war refugees with nowhere else to go, it had somehow endured over the decades, becoming crime-ridden, drug-infested, and full of the poor and the displaced. A prime Sapience rats nest and recruiting ground as far as SecPac was concerned. Donovan was thankful it was cold and there were few people loitering on the street; he avoided a pile of white garbage bags on the sidewalk, stepped around a motionless human form huddled under a pile of wool blankets, and taking a deep breath, walked the concrete steps up to one of the building entrances. A dog tied to a post flung itself toward him, barking loudly—it could smell what he was, Donovan was sure.

  Quickly double-checking the address over the door, he went inside and climbed the narrow stairwell, not studying the stains or debris he passed. On the third floor, he hesitated in front of the second door on the right. If no one was home, he would take it as a sign; he’d accept that he’d done all he could and that this was just one final, foolish, indulgent action he was allowing himself before putting Anya out of his life and his thoughts for good. Donovan knocked.

  After a long minute, Anya’s voice called from inside, “Who is it?”

  Donovan’s breath caught. It was a second before he could find his own voice. “It’s me,” he said, trying to speak through the door quietly. “Donovan.”

  “Who?” The door unlocked, then opened halfway. Donovan blinked twice and took a step back, elation collapsing. The woman standing there was not Anya. She had Anya’s voice and tiny nose, but she was several years older. She wore a loose pink sweater, frayed at the sleeves. Her prematurely creased face was bored and hostile at the same time. “Who are you?”

  “I …” Donovan collected himself. He tried to act a
nd sound like a normal person and not to slip into the instinctive authority of a SecPac officer. “I’m looking for Anya.”

  “That what she’s still calling herself?” The woman ran a long, hard look over Donovan, her mouth flattening in suspicion. He was clearly not from here. “You one of Kevin’s friends?”

  Donovan kept his hands tucked into the pockets of his hooded sweatshirt. “I know Kevin, sure,” he said, hoping he sounded nonchalant. Behind Anya’s sister—for the woman had to be Anya’s sister—Donovan glimpsed an untidy green-hued single room no larger than the main bathroom of his father’s house. “I just came to check if Anya’s all right, if you’ve heard from her at all.”

  Anya’s sister made a noise of disgust, half snort, half laugh. “How would I know? She doesn’t come home. Too busy trying to get herself killed or thrown in jail, thanks to the likes of you.” Her voice was harsh, accusing. She began to shut the door in Donovan’s face.

  “Wait.” Donovan shot out a hand to keep the door from closing. “If she does come back here, if you do talk to her, will you give her a message?”

  The woman stared at Donovan’s hand on the door. He could see her wondering if the gloves hid erze marks, or scars from being stripped, or gang tattoos, or if his hands were simply cold from the autumn chill. He was afraid she’d demand he remove them, but instead she turned to him, arms crossed, her voice slow and frigid. “I don’t want to be a part of your world, you hear?”

  “It’s not that kind of message,” he said. “I’m a friend who’s worried about her, that’s all. Please, if you see or hear from her, tell her—” He hesitated. Yes, tell her what, genius? “There’s a post outside the front of the building. Tell her to mark an X on the post, and I’ll know she’s okay. I won’t come around here again; just tell her Donovan wants to know she’s okay.”

  He took his hand off the door. Anya’s sister glared at him for another second, then shut and bolted it. He heard her moving around the apartment. Donovan stood in the claustrophobic hallway for a long moment, then made his way back down the dim stairwell.

  It took a few minutes for him to identify the feeling that made each of his steps seem so heavy. It was the same emotion that dogged him after he questioned people who refused to co-operate, or conducted a search that came up empty—a mix of anger, shame, and defeat. Knowing that he wasn’t just unappreciated for his work but hated, that perhaps he could have done his job better somehow, that he’d circled the problem but not gotten to the heart of it.

  So Anya was still missing, but it had only been a couple of days. Had he really foolishly hoped to find her here? She was probably still lying low in Rapid City. As far as he knew, she hadn’t been captured or killed yet. At least it wouldn’t be hard, as part of his routine patrols of the TransHabs, to swing by this spot over the coming weeks and see if she’d gotten his message. It wouldn’t do any harm; it would mean nothing to anyone but them, this secret, unlikely passing of signals.

  He came to a sudden standstill on the sidewalk in front of the building. The dog, a thin, unkempt shepherd mix of some kind, started barking wildly and lunging toward him again, but Donovan stood frozen without noticing it. An idea had come to him in a flash of awful inspiration. He started walking again, his steps coming faster and faster, trying unsuccessfully to stop the plan inexorably forming in his mind. It was such a long shot, and so treasonous, that even rolling it around in his head made him cringe, horrified with himself.

  It might work, though. It just might work.

  He knew how to save his mom from execution.

  It was dark by the time Donovan arrived home. The entire hour-long journey back, he’d waged a fierce and silent struggle with himself. He knew what he was contemplating was criminal, and if he went through with it and was discovered, he’d expect to be arrested and summarily relieved of his stripes.

  The thought made him feel sick. To be an exo stripped of his markings was unthinkable. There must be something wrong with him; maybe the last week really had damaged his psyche. Exos did not contemplate the sorts of traitorous things he was thinking about. He ought to report himself to Nurse Therrid right away.

  Then a different kind of doubt flooded in, and his fists clenched inside his pockets. If he gave up on trying to save his mom’s life, if he turned himself in as a mental case just for having disloyal thoughts, wasn’t that proving what sapes like his mom were always saying? That exos were made by the zhree to serve and obey; they had no capacity to defy their masters. What had Saul called him? A biotechnological abomination designed to support an alien race.

  Donovan ground his teeth. That was not true—he, Jet, Thad, Commander Tate, they had free will, they made their own decisions, they pushed back against Soldiers when they had to. Still … if he didn’t act to save his own mother, was it because Saul was right that he couldn’t—in the same way that earlier in the day he hadn’t been able to raise his armor against a zhree?

  He was such a mess of confusion he could barely sit still or eat when he got home. He showered, forced an apple and part of a reheated burrito into his stomach, and tried to calm himself down enough to present the semblance of normalcy. His father would disown him if he knew half of what Donovan was considering; he was determined not to arouse any suspicion.

  When he heard the front door opening near midnight, he stood up. His father walked in, took off his hat, and hung up his coat. Damascus and Benjamin nodded at Donovan in greeting before withdrawing soundlessly. Donovan waited for the Prime Liaison to notice him.

  “Father.” He cleared his throat. “I was disrespectful to you last night. I … I’m sorry. I wasn’t myself. I shouldn’t have said what I did to you.” There. Hardest part over.

  “Donovan …” His father heaved a tired breath. “I realize I’m often demanding of you.” He glanced at his son, then massaged the bridge of his nose. “Every decision I’ve made has been in your best interest, but I know you’ve been hurt by them as well. Always necessarily, but hurt nevertheless. Yesterday, in my relief at seeing you safely home, I didn’t appreciate how deeply you must have felt betrayed. By both your parents.”

  Donovan had more of a speech prepared, about how he was feeling better and ready to return to duty, or something of the ilk. But he hadn’t expected this, the Prime Liaison opening up even a little, displaying anything resembling doubt or regret. It threw him off completely. He felt his poise crumbling. “I feel like I still don’t understand anything,” he blurted. “I don’t understand how you and Mom ended up the way you did. You must have loved each other at some point, right? She said the two of you broke apart over whether to have me Hardened.”

  His father looked worn down. “That was part of it.”

  “So I was some kind of … pawn in this battle I didn’t even know about.” His anger rose anew; he couldn’t help it. “Just like in the Warren when I had no idea what was really going on. It’s the same way the zhree treat Earth—like some kind of chess piece.”

  He’d ruined the moment, ruined his apology. He expected his father to reprimand him. Instead, the Prime Liaison was silent for a long moment. Finally, he said, “We’re all part of a bigger struggle, whether we know it or not, and rarely can we clearly see the consequences of our actions. Come here, Donovan.” When Donovan drew near, his father put a heavy hand on his shoulder. “I understand how hard it is to let go of the past, to give up on people who disappoint you. To stop thinking about what might have been. But I’m counting on you to do that, to be a soldier for the next few weeks, no matter how difficult a position you’re put in. It’s important, son. This is a difficult time, for more reasons than I can say.”

  Donovan tensed. He knew his father was thinking of the humiliating scene with the High Speaker. “What happened this morning … I didn’t handle it very well.”

  His father gave his shoulder a slight shake. “You’re not to blame for the impossible bind you were put in. No one anticipated how badly the High Speaker’s visit would go.”


  “It was awful. My armor dropping like that, in front of all those people.” Donovan’s gut clenched in shame. “Why hasn’t anyone ever told us that exos can’t fight the zhree? Isn’t that wrong? Even if we are in erze, what if we need to stand up for ourselves?”

  “Just because you can’t use your exocel to attack them doesn’t mean you can’t stand up for yourself.” His father turned away, pacing distractedly, hands clasped behind his back. “We are in great danger, Donovan. You saw how tense the zhree zun were during the High Speaker’s visit today. If the Mur Erzen decides that Earth is an unsustainable colony, too remote, too difficult to supply and protect, not worth the trouble of governing … what happens then?”

  “Would the zhree really leave? And give Sapience exactly what it wants?” The idea of an Earth without zhree, filled with humans left to their own devices … He could barely wrap his head around something so inconceivable.

  “The consequences would be devastating. Humankind has not governed itself independently for a hundred and thirty years—chaos would ensue. The eighty-five percent of the population that is unmarked would turn on the fifteen percent that is. The violence would be incalculable. But even that is not the worst possible outcome. Not by far. If our strategic position is the reason why the planet is so valuable, and the Rii could exploit it to further their expansion …” His father stopped. “I’m doing it again. Speaking to you as a political confidante instead of as a father. All I meant to say is this: Exos are the key. Soldier Werth believes they are the key to combating Sapience. But they are also the key to human security. The best defense we have against the zhree is being invaluable to them. You’re not a pawn, Donovan, far from it.” He seemed lost in thought for a moment, then shook his head and spoke without looking up. “You should go to sleep. You need your rest.”