Exo

by Fonda Lee

  “In exchange for intelligence on the country’s most notorious exo killer, your mother demanded one thing in return,” his father continued. “She asked to be executed right away. As soon as possible, with no announcement. Without anyone being told.”

  “But why?” Donovan cried. “Why would she ask for that?”

  His father rubbed his eyes. “Isn’t it obvious? She didn’t want to give her friends a chance to rescue her. They very well might have tried—it was a serious risk even before you did what you did. Most likely they would have failed; she didn’t want them risking their lives for her, compromising whatever terrorist plans they’d already made for Peace Day, to save her instead.”

  Donovan sank his head to his hands. She did it for Saul. To stop him from coming for her. Her life hadn’t been valuable to her, not the way it had been to Donovan. The people she loved, and the cause she believed in—those had been most important to her all along. She’d foiled him.

  He swiped at his eyes, angry and unable to help his tears. His father turned away and paced the small room twice, then to Donovan’s surprise, sat down on the bench next to his son. The Prime Liaison looked uncomfortable, perched on the detainee’s bench in his dark suit. He laced his fingers together and looked down at his marked hands. When he spoke, his voice was subdued and defeated, devoid of its usual confident authority. “You have something in common with her. Something admirable. You think nothing of risking yourself for others or sacrificing for what you believe in. Even if you must lie and cheat and fight terrible odds, so be it.”

  “The lying and cheating isn’t admirable,” Donovan said. “The risk-taking and fighting is just part of being a soldier, part of these.” He turned over his striped hands.

  “It’s easy for an exo to be loyal to his erze. It’s natural for a man to be loyal to his friends and comrades. What’s unusual is seeing something worth saving in people who don’t seem to deserve it. Going against all your training and conditioning to preserve a basic human connection to someone you barely know.” His voice held neither praise nor reproach, merely resignation, and for a moment Donovan wondered if his father knew about Anya as well. Had he developed some sort of previously unknown psychic parental ability?

  The Prime Liaison’s mouth firmed. “You may have inherited a propensity to throw away your own life, but before you do, let me explain to you the wider stakes. This morning, the Rii sent military scouts to evaluate Earth’s defenses; it appears increasingly likely that an attack will not be far behind. The High Speaker is grounded on Earth and suddenly paying far closer attention to this planet than anyone from Kreet has since the War Era.” His father paused to let out a strained breath. “The most viable plan Administrator Seir and Soldier Werth have presented in favor of maintaining Earth as a self-sufficient, defensible colony involves the partnership of hundreds of thousands of dependable, Hardened human allies. And today, the most-watched news footage in the Round involves an exo soldier-in-erze attacking his own people to try to prevent the execution of a Sapience rebel.”

  Donovan suddenly felt as if the panotin in his body had congealed, plugging all blood flow to his heart. He hadn’t even thought about the fact that he would make the news. Up until now he’d been largely spared from media attention because both SecPac and the Liaison Office had made it unequivocally clear that Dominick Reyes’s son was off-limits. Not even the hungriest news organizations wanted to get on the wrong side of both SecPac and the Liaison Office. Now he’d gone and thrust himself into the public light.

  “Unfortunately, the High Speaker remembers you well, and when you’re stripped and disgraced, it’ll only confirm what he already believes—that exos are an unreliable and dangerous colonial crutch, that humans aren’t worthy of Hardening. Soldier Werth’s plans will be discredited, and it’ll be nearly impossible for the zhree zun to argue against abandoning Earth.”

  “That can’t be right,” Donovan said weakly. “What I did doesn’t reflect on anyone else—she was my mom and what happened is no one’s fault but mine. You have to explain—”

  Donovan’s father stood up. “You know the zhree don’t have parental attachments; they wouldn’t understand. We’re all just humans to the High Speaker—savage and indistinguishable. If one human can defy his erze, why should he believe other humans won’t?”

  “What do you want from me, Father?” Donovan whispered in anguish. “I feel like you’re always looking for something more from me—and I don’t even know what it is.”

  “Hope, son,” said the Prime Liaison. “Hope that there’s a future.” He placed his hand briefly on Donovan’s head and left it there for a second before turning and leaving the room.

  The tribunal consisted of Soldier Werth, Commander Tate, Thaddeus Lowell, and, surprisingly, Nurse Therrid. Thad was there because he was cohort captain and could speak to Donovan’s character and performance, and Therrid, presumably, had been called in as the medical expert on exos. When Donovan was led into the room, the first thing he saw, besides the presence of the people who would be sentencing him, was the screen on the wall. It was playing the evening news with the sound off, and Donovan cringed to see a blurry video clip of himself kneeling on the atomizer platform, pinned down and handcuffed, minutes after his mother’s execution. Tate paused the image and acknowledged Donovan’s entrance with the most admonishing of glares. She motioned for the doors to be closed, then picked up her notes.

  “This is a closed disciplinary hearing in regard to the conduct of Officer Donovan Reyes, on the morning of October the first, et cetera, et cetera. Present at the hearing—well, you can see for yourself who’s present. Remain standing, Officer. Let’s be straight.” Tate dropped her notes and jabbed in the direction of the screen with her eyeglass frames. “That is the most disgraceful one-man circus show I’ve ever seen. What do you have to say for yourself?”

  Donovan found it hard to move his throat to swallow. Thad, who never looked ill at ease, shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Nurse Therrid, standing at one end of the semicircular table, twitched his fins in a sympathetic grimace. At the other end of the table, Soldier Werth made no motion at all—his amber eyes were unblinking, his fins flat with icy disapproval. Donovan forced his attention back to Tate’s question. “I have no excuse, ma’am.” His voice came out shaky; he cleared it and continued. “I was wrong when I told you I was fit for duty after … everything that happened. I haven’t been feeling right ever since then, and when I found out my mom was being executed right away and no one had told me, I … just … lost it.”

  “You attacked fellow officers and willfully obstructed justice,” Tate said. “The prescribed penalty includes losing erze status for life. You’re aware of that, Reyes?”

  Now that the possibility of it was so close and real, the acceptance he’d felt back in the detention room evaporated and was replaced by instinctive fear. For an exo, the threat of erze expulsion was as bad as the threat of death. Donovan managed to croak, “Yes, ma’am.”

  “If you were going through emotional difficulties, why didn’t you bring them up, as you were explicitly instructed to by Nurse Therrid?”

  “I … thought I could deal with it.”

  Tate let out a very slow, harsh breath. “You’ve caused a piss-stinking mess, Reyes. The public is eating up this story of an exo stripe trying to save his sape mother—they think it’s some kind of touching human drama about the tragedy of our times or something like that. I don’t even want to know how many death threats I’ve gotten today, or how many pleas on your behalf were called in, not to mention both Kohl and Mathews in my office trying to take the blame and begging for leniency. Bomb threats are more fun than this.” The commander leaned forward, dark eyes narrowed and solemn. “You know as well as anyone that SecPac stands for peace and order in this country. A soldier-in-erze that is anything less than entirely competent and trustworthy undermines that in the severest way possible, and has no right to either the uniform or the stripes.”

 
“No, ma’am,” Donovan agreed. Jet and Vic had not given up on him—that was the only thing he could focus on from his commander’s tirade. Jet hadn’t turned away from him.

  “Think carefully before you answer, Reyes. Can you continue to wear your markings with integrity?”

  “I …” His mother’s face flashed into his mind, so did his father’s words. Tate was waiting for an answer; they all were. “I like to think I can.” He glanced at Soldier Werth, still silent and forbidding. “I didn’t want my mom to die; I’m human, after all. But … I still believe the oaths I’ve sworn, about peace, and coexistence, and the greater good. I know it’s my job to keep them in mind at all times, and I didn’t do that today.”

  “Do you have anything else to say before the tribunal determines your sentence?”

  Now would be the time to confess everything, to unburden himself of his guilt and his doubts, to accept the consequences of his choices. “No, ma’am,” Donovan said quietly. “I know I acted out of erze, and I’ll accept whatever punishment I’m given.”

  Commander Tate exchanged glances with the other members of the tribunal, human and zhree, none of whom had said anything the whole time. “Reyes, wait outside in the hall.”

  He sat outside for twenty minutes before he was called back in. Tate was tapping her glasses on the table, so the discussion must have been intense—but as he entered, she folded and stowed them in her pocket, so apparently a decision had been reached.

  “This is an unprecedented situation, to say the least. To your credit, Reyes, your record up until now has been exemplary. Your experience in captivity is also without precedent, and …” She hesitated, her expression almost contrite. “We all probably should have taken into account the psychological trauma you suffered and not assumed you’d be able to return to duty so soon. That doesn’t, however, excuse your actions.” Tate glanced at Soldier Werth for final confirmation before turning back to Donovan. “You’re sentenced to seven days in prison, followed by four weeks of medical leave during which you’ll be under evaluation and surveillance. At the end of your leave, if Nurse Therrid grants approval, you’ll be allowed to return to duty on a probationary basis.” Commander Tate sighed. “None of us is happy to see you in here, Reyes, and I hope this will be the only time it happens. Do you have any questions?”

  “No, ma’am.” Donovan’s heart was drumming in relief. “Thank you.”

  “Donovan.” Soldier Werth spoke for the first time, picking out the notes of Donovan’s name with deliberation. “Every year I observe roomfuls of juvenile exos and choose a fraction of them for the Soldier erze. I’ve selected thousands of humans over the years, generations of the best exos to safeguard the citizenry of this planet. I rarely make mistakes.” The Soldier’s fins cut through the air and then stilled in a weighty pause. “I hope you are not one of them.”

  There was only one place designed to isolate Hardened prisoners and it was in a medical wing of the Towers. The zhree viewed criminally out-of-erze behavior by a single individual of their own kind as a medical condition, often curable, occasionally not, so the facility was staffed by Nurses and guarded by Soldiers. A few of the cells, or as the Nurses called them, rehabilitation rooms, were separate from the rest and outfitted for human occupation. The rounded walls of Donovan’s chamber were made of seamless and indestructible metal weave but one side was open; he could see and speak to people outside, and they could come into his room to keep him company.

  Among zhree, the criminally sick were seen as being insufficiently bonded to the erze, so it was the duty of his erze mates to visit him, bring him food and other necessities, and otherwise speed his recovery with their social presence. Donovan had to stay in his room, though; the collar around his neck would shock him into insensible paralysis if he tried to leave.

  He ruminated at length on the irony that a few weeks ago, he’d been a prisoner in the Warren, and now he was a prisoner in the Towers. He was more comfortable and better treated this time around, but still, there was absolutely nothing to occupy him—no books, no screens, nothing but his own thoughts, which often turned lonely and dark. He was excited when the prison collar was removed for two hours so Nurse Therrid could escort him one floor up in the Towers to attend his third and final mandated therapy tank session; your life was at a low point, Donovan concluded, when lying motionless in a shallow pool of curative liquid and panotin replenishment gel was the highlight of your day. Every minute he was by himself he longed for someone to visit him to allay his boredom.

  When they did come, he was overwhelmed by a rush of affection and gratitude. Lucius brought him a toothbrush, toothpaste, and a hamburger with fries on the first evening, and Donovan nearly wept with remorse for having elbowed the man in the head. Leon sat with him for an hour, showing him new sketches of lewd elves in various states of undress. Tennyson brought him a bottle of armor juice, whispering that he’d spiked it with rum. Even Cass came, her arm in a sling, boasting about how many surgeries she’d had. “We all want you to get better, Donovan,” Thad told him.

  Prison worked pretty well, he had to admit. Thinking about his mom dampened the effect, but after a few days, Donovan felt so guilty for the burden he was causing his erze mates, so ashamed that they had to see him confined and collared like an animal, and so envious of them being around one another without him, that he wanted to repent every out-of-erze thought he’d ever had and dedicate himself fervently to being a good stripe. He knew it was psychological manipulation of his exo brain, but that didn’t mean it didn’t work.

  It also made him think about Anya, about the visits she used to pay him in the Warren, how much he’d needed them to stay sane. He understood more clearly now that he’d fallen for her for the wrong reasons, that injured and separated from his erze at the time, he’d latched on to her in desperation. Yet even knowing that didn’t make him miss her less.

  Jet did not come.

  “He just needs some time,” Vic reassured him. She came alone, miserably guilty for having let slip the news that had landed Donovan in jail and nearly resulted in his expulsion.

  “Who’s he patrolling with?”

  “He’s with Leon.” Cass was Leon’s regular partner and still out of commission.

  Donovan tried not to feel jealous. “How are things going out there?”

  “Not great. The sapes are hitting back hard. Usually they target people who’re marked but not Hardened, because they’re easier to kill, but lately exos have been going down too.” Vic had a serious demeanor at the best of times; now she looked positively grave. “We get tired working too many hours, trying to cover too much ground. We keep going after we’ve taken hits and push our armor too far. Round Four lost two guys in a building bomb yesterday, and …” She stopped, pressing her lips together as if she was afraid she’d once again let out information she shouldn’t. “Let’s talk about something else. I don’t want to make you feel worse.”

  Donovan’s sentence was scheduled to end the day before Peace Day. He had not seen his father during his imprisonment—only therapeutic visits from members of his own erze were allowed. On the last day, Nurse Therrid examined him one final time and strummed a low sigh. “Physically, you’ve recovered well,” the Nurse said. “There’s no lasting damage to your body. It’s your brain I’m worried about.” Donovan was pretty sure that Therrid had never had one of his exo patients come close to being stripped before; the Nurse seemed at a loss as to how this could have happened. He gave Donovan the daily medication he’d been ordered to take; Donovan didn’t remember exactly what Therrid had said it did to his brain chemistry to help him stay in erze, but it did help him sleep better at night. He swallowed the green capsule dutifully.

  “While you’re on medical leave, be sure to get plenty of sleep, follow my dietary instructions, and check in every second day. Please, stay in the Round and don’t get into any more trouble.” Therrid removed the prison collar from Donovan’s neck and clasped his arm with troubled affection. “W
hat became of that mischievous hatchling who used to pull my fins?”

  “Nostalgic for those days when we used to make a fool of you, zun Therrid?” Jet appeared outside the entrance of the room. “We could come up with some prank to mess with you, for old time’s sake. You wouldn’t see it coming.”

  “Vercingetorix,” Therrid admonished, “don’t even think about tempting your erze mate into doing anything remotely unusual. You two have caused me enough grief. Do you see this?” He pointed to his armored hull with its swirling markings. “Premature age striations.”

  “I don’t see a thing, zun Therrid,” Donovan said.

  “Your eyes are too small,” said the Nurse.

  Jet turned to Donovan. “You ready to get out of here?”

  “Yeah.” Donovan wanted to give Jet a hug but held back. The smile on his partner’s face was cautious, not yet his usual grin.

  Jet drove him back to his house. A fall freeze had arrived while Donovan was serving his sentence. It was a brilliantly cold, bright day; light frost dusted the grass and shrubbery. Donovan leaned his head back on the headrest of the skimmercar, luxuriating in the stark sunshine and the sight of the wide streets and the vast white sky. Peace Day decorations were everywhere. Double flags draped in windows—West American stars and stripes next to the Mur Commonwealth icons. Little kids running around with smudgy markings painted onto the backs of their hands, reflecting whichever erze they most hoped to one day belong to. Doves and wreaths hung from doorways and street posts.

  Jet sipped coffee from an oversized travel mug. “So how was lockup?”

  “I wouldn’t want to do it again.”

  His erze mate looked at him sideways. “That’s good.”

  “One or two days would be all right as downtime. I wouldn’t recommend any longer than that.” He stared out the window. “I’m not complaining. It could’ve been a lot worse.”