War & Space: Recent Combat

by Ken MacLeod

  Anne smoothed dirt over another planting. “It might be Olivia. She said something about dropping by.”

  “With or without Remy?”

  Anne grimaced. “Without.”

  Their latest and loudest quarrel showed no signs of ending. Kate could not remember when she’d last seen Remy’s lemon-yellow Bug waiting outside XGen’s parking lot. “Do you think it’s serious this time?”

  “Who knows?”

  Another knock echoed through the crisp, new-autumn air. Louder. Clearly impatient. Definitely not Aishia or Olivia. “Coming,” Kate called out.

  She heard a man’s voice. Several, talking amongst themselves. Dominionists? Surely they had learned their lesson after Jessica’s pointed lecture. She gave up on scrubbing the dirt from her hands and hurried around the brick path that led through the side flower beds, into the front yard.

  Three men stood on her front porch. She took in their gray suits, their humorless expressions. All of them middle-aged. All of them bland and competent, in the way she associated with bureaucrats.

  “Ms. Morell?” one said. “Ms. Kate Morell?”

  Her skin prickled with sudden dread. “Yes. I’m Kate Morell. Can I help you?”

  He came forward and extended a hand. “I’m from Thatcher Enterprises, ma’am,” he said. “I’m very sorry, but I have bad news for you. It’s about Ms. Anderson.”

  I don’t want to know. I don’t. I don’t.

  “Go away,” she said thickly.

  “Ma’am.”

  “I mean it.”

  Anne hurried to Kate’s side. “Kate. Maybe we should go inside.”

  Kate shrugged away from Anne’s tentative touch, but she knew Anne was right. She could not stop them from telling her. Today. Tomorrow. Either she’d hear the news from these gray grim men, or she’d learn the details from the evening newscast. Better she heard it here, now, under the open sunny sky. “Fine. Tell me what happened.”

  With a glance at his companions, the man complied. Thatcher had sent their best people, ones trained to deliver their news in soft, concerned voices. Numb, and growing number, Kate listened to how terrorists had infiltrated another security firm’s personnel. One, the suicide bomber, had assembled his deadly cargo during a brief stopover on the station. Moments before their shuttle was to launch for the next segment of their journey, he had detonated his bomb. Everything destroyed. All personnel dead. The method was old, as old as Iraq and Palestine and all the troubled countries on Earth.

  “Nothing left,” she whispered.

  The Thatcher man hesitated. “I’m sorry, but no. They’re salvaging whatever they can, but the explosion scattered . . . ” His voice died away a moment, undoubtedly as he realized what images his words called up. “We have something for you, however.”

  Kate came alert. “What do you mean? You said—”

  “A final transmission,” he said. “You can refuse, of course. We’ve edited them for any sensitive material . . . ”

  He held out a packet. Kate took it greedily. “How much time do I have? For listening?”

  Another awkward pause. “The company understands how difficult—”

  “The company,” Kate said crisply, “understands nothing. How much time?”

  The man stiffened at her tone. “We would prefer you return the machine next week. Monday, if possible. We can schedule an operation later to remove the implant.”

  She nodded. “Very well. Now, please go.”

  To her relief, the three did not argue. Kate watched them ease their anonymous gray vehicle from the curb. The packet felt solid and heavy in her arms, like an anchor, which was good, because she had the sense of floating a few inches above the ground. Anne had not budged from her side, and Kate could sense her concern.

  “Anne.”

  “Yes, Kate.”

  “Please go. I’d rather be alone.”

  “Are you sure—”

  “Quite sure.”

  Anne hesitated, then with a murmured farewell, she too was gone.

  A brief recording. The last ever.

  Hey, Kate. Kate, my love. Kate, my darling lover. Good god in heaven, I miss you. I’m going a little crazy up here. Guess you could tell from that session. Ya think? Not sure what kind of notation they’ll make in my fitness report, but what the hey. They asked for a peek inside my skull.

  A shaky laugh. A pause. Kate felt and heard Jessica’s breathing quicken. Was it a prelude to sex? So hard to tell. For all that the recording slipped Kate inside Jessica’s skin, it showed her nothing of her lover’s thoughts or emotions. Only clues, pieced together in retrospect.

  I miss you, Jessica said suddenly. It’s busy here. We’re having another meeting this afternoon. Commander wants tighter security. Can’t say more, of course. It’s just . . .

  Kate felt warm lips pressed against her fingertips, then those same fingertips brushed against her cheek. Her vision blurred from brown-black shadows into the dim light of her office.

  One last kiss, she thought. The last one.

  She closed her eyes and let the grief take over.

  She called in sick on Monday. No one questioned her. Probably Anne had warned their supervisors about the situation. Kate croaked a mirthless laugh. Situation. What a weasel word, as Jessica would say. As bad as incident.

  Her throat caught on another sob. Sorry, she thought. I have no more tears. I cried them all away.

  She poured herself another cup of coffee. Drank it without noticing. Her stomach hurt, but she couldn’t tell if it hurt because she had cried too hard, or if she was simply hungry. She sighed and with great reluctance, she climbed the stairs to her office.

  The machine sat in the middle of her empty desk. Around midnight on Saturday, she had nearly pitched the damned thing into trash. Only the thought of how much fuss Thatcher would make had stopped her. Now she stared at it with loathing.

  I hate you. You gave me ghosts.

  Ghosts of Jessica. Ghosts of an ersatz marriage, while they waited out yet another interminable period, for yet another intangible bit of progress. Even as she hated the machine, she found herself sliding the disc into its slot and inserting the terminator into its port.

  . . . Hey, Kate. I miss you . . .

  She hardly needed the machine to replay that sequence inside her memory, but the machine and chip combined to give her a more vivid remembrance, with details of touch and scent and sound she could never recall on her own.

  . . . the chip has a smidge of memory itself, and if you press PLAY three times fast . . .

  Kate swallowed against the bitter taste in her mouth. Make some coffee, she told herself. Wake up before you do something truly stupid.

  She touched PLAY three times fast, followed by PROGRAM and RECORD together. Counted to ten. A series of lights blinked success. Kate let out a breath. There. She had done it. One last kiss. Saved . . . Not forevermore, but for a short while, at least.

  She called Thatcher at noon. By mid-afternoon, they had carried away the machine. One representative stayed behind to schedule Kate’s operation to remove the implant.

  “Later,” Kate said.

  “I’m afraid that later isn’t one of the categories,” the woman said with a rueful smile. “We need a more definite date.”

  “Next year,” Kate said. “Or is that too definite?”

  At the woman’s shake of her head, however, she relented. “November 21st. From what your technicians tell me, I will need one day for the operation, another three or four in recovery. That means sick leave or vacation time—depending on how my HR department categorizes the operation. Whatever. My project has a few unmovable deadlines before mid-November. I’m sure you understand.”

  “We do,” said the woman. She tapped a few keys on her cell, frowned, tapped a few more. “Yes, we can arrange something on that date. You’ll spend Thanksgiving in the hospital, but I’m sure you knew that.”

  Kate smiled faintly. “Yes, I knew that.”

  Late November
. A dark cold Tuesday evening.

  Tomorrow Kate would drive to Thatcher Operations. There, a technician would review the paperwork, ask her some final questions. The company surgeons would inject her with a sedative, then transport her to Yale-New Haven Hospital, where they had scheduled the operation. All very neat. No security leaks. No chance for medical mishaps. Kate had signed all the releases beforehand.

  “Will I remember anything?” she had asked.

  “Nearly,” the technician had reassured her.

  The technician had it wrong, Kate thought, as she drifted out the back door, into her winter-bare garden. If she had her druthers, she would remember . . .

  . . . nothing at all.

  She sank onto the hard frosted ground at the edge of her garden. Sheets of micro-insulation blanketed half the beds, where she had made a last attempt at normal life. The other half lay bare, with brittle stalks of dead plants poking through the dirt. One shriveled lily bulb lay where she’d left it that Saturday. Dead. Her breath puffed into a cloud. Just like Jessica. She probed inside her heart for some reaction—grief, anger, anything. Nothing. Dead like me, she thought.

  By now she could trigger the memory without thinking. Sensation washed over her. That same familiar sense of urgency. The words I miss you. Kate rubbed the spot where she still felt the impress of warm lips against her hand, Jessica’s hand. She’s inside me. Always will be. Doesn’t matter if they rip the implant from my brain.

  Her chest felt tight, or was that Jessica’s tension as she hurried through that last recording? Kate drew a shuddering breath. Blinked, and felt her frozen eyelashes prick her cheeks. The words I miss you. The kiss, but now her hands were numb, and she barely felt Jess’s lips. Again, she told herself.

  She had lost track of the minutes and hours when she heard a voice. A familiar one, but not Jessica’s.

  Go away, she thought.

  The voice called out her name. A hand jostled her shoulder. Kate closed her eyes. Nothing to see anyway. The world had gone brown and black, with pinpoints of silver. In her imagination, the pinpoints whirled around, stopped, whirled again. She thought she saw the outline of Jessica’s face when they paused. All too soon the image broke apart. Show me again, she tried to whisper, but her lips were cracked and frozen, her tongue clumsy from disuse.

  Again that insistent voice. Anne’s voice (good, kind, generous Anne) speaking to her, her tone anxious. It was hard to track time, here between repetitions of Jessica’s last recording, and so it might have been minutes or days later when more hands took hold of Kate’s arms. Voices spoke over her head in short phrases.

  Careful now.

  Gurney ready?

  IV for this one.

  Oxygen, too. Gotta bring the core temperature up.

  Lucky the streets aren’t slick.

  We better hurry.

  And then the thin, high wail of a siren.

  Six o’clock.

  Soft chimes marked the hour. Outside, night already blacked out the skies. A dull yellow glow from the city lights seeped upward from the horizon. Winter. Even colder than the almanac had predicted, Kate thought. The air had an antiseptic smell, no matter how the nurses tried to hide it with sweet-smelling sprays.

  Footsteps sounded from the corridor, then, predictably, a light tapping at her door. She said nothing. Anne would come in, or not, just as she had every day for the past three weeks.

  The door swung open, and Anne leaned around the corner. Snow dusted her coat. Her cheeks were red, as though she had spent some time outdoors.

  “Hey,” she said softly. “Do you mind a visit?”

  Kate shrugged, silent.

  Anne sighed and came into the room. Kate watched her methodically unbutton her coat and hang it from the hook inside the door. A nurse peered into the room and greeted Anne, before asking Kate which meal she preferred for dinner.

  “I don’t care,” Kate whispered. “You choose for me.”

  Anne frowned. She and the nurse exchanged a look. “What about the steak?” Anne said. “Or maybe the pasta—I hear the cook knows his sauces.”

  Good, kind, patient Anne, who never once failed to visit Kate. She had stayed at the hospital while the doctors worked to counteract the hypothermia. She came the next day when they removed the implant, and she dealt with Thatcher’s representatives. Not that Anne told Kate these things. It was Cordelia or Olivia or the others who told Kate how Anne had saved her life.

  As if I wanted my life saved.

  But even irritation was too much effort. She sighed again and closed her eyes. She had developed the trick of pretending to sleep. If she held the pose long enough, she often did. She heard whispers as Anne evidently spoke with the nurse about Kate’s meal. The door clicked shut. There was a scraping sound as Anne took her usual seat by the window.

  “I stopped by your house,” Anne said, just as though they were having an ordinary conversation. “Cordelia reminded me that you never had a chance to finish prepping your garden for the winter. I asked at one of the garden centers, and they gave me some suggestions.”

  Kate suppressed the urge to ask what suggestions. She felt a prick of guilt about her gardens, then annoyance that she felt guilty.

  Meanwhile, Anne continued her recitation. “ . . . Cordelia and I raked the yard. We trimmed back the shrubs and vines and ran those through the shredder. We even cleaned out the compost heap and finished covering the flower beds.”

  Kate’s eyes burned with unshed tears. Only Anne would remember how much Kate loved her gardens. But what good were gardens in the winter? What good were gardens if you were alone?

  “ . . . Olivia and Remy came by to help, too. I don’t know if I told you, but they’ve made up and now they’re talking about finding a house together . . . ”

  Tears leaked from her eyes. Surprising after weeks of numbness. She swiped them away.

  “Kate?”

  A tiny stab in the region of her heart. Insistent. Unwelcome. “No,” Kate whispered. “I don’t want to.” Then louder. “No. No, no, no.”

  Her voice scaled up, louder and louder, until her voice cracked, and she burst into weeping—loud angry sobs that tore at her throat. Kate pummeled the bed, trying to beat away the grief. She didn’t want tears. Or misery. None of that could bring Jessica back.

  Arms gathered her into a tight hug. Anne. Anne capturing her hands so they could not scratch or beat or harm herself. Anne strong and gentle at the same time, who rocked Kate back and forth while she held her close. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” she murmured over and over. “I said the wrong things. All the wrong things. I’m so sorry, Kate. So sorry.”

  “I hate it,” Kate mumbled into Anne’s shoulder.

  “You should hate it,” Anne said fiercely. “Hate me, if you like. Hate the world. I’d rather you did, than feel nothing. Oh god, Kate, I wish I could do something real. I wish—”

  She broke off and pulled away from Kate. Shocked, Kate felt her own grief subside for the moment. Only now did she take in details she had not noticed before. How Anne’s cheeks were wet with tears. And her eyes were red, as though she had not slept well the past few weeks. But Anne never wept, she thought, never lost her temper. She was the even keel they all depended upon.

  “Anne?”

  Anne wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “Sorry. That was selfish of me.”

  No, I’m the selfish one, Kate thought.

  A knot deep inside her flexed, as though an unused muscle tried to work itself loose. Instinctively she reached up and touched Anne’s face. Anne flinched. Her eyes went wide and dark, and color spread over her cheeks. So many tiny clues, like droplets of watering coalescing into realization.

  “How long?” Kate whispered.

  “Does it matter?” Anne blew out a breath. “I should go.”

  “No. Stay.”

  They stared at one another for a long uncomfortable moment. Snow tapped against the window pane, and out in the corridor, a light sizzled and popped.r />
  “What are you saying?” Anne said at last.

  The knot inside Kate pinched tight. Too fast. Too soon. Far too soon for anything. She’d spoken before thinking.

  “I’m not sure. I—I need a friend.”

  A ghost-like smile came and went on Anne’s face. “I make a decent friend, they tell me.”

  So she did. Even to selfish wretches like Kate.

  A person did not heal within a day or month. Often not for years, Kate thought, wiping more tears from her eyes. And yet, watching Anne’s quiet patient face, Kate felt as though she could breathe properly for the first time in a month. They could be friends. Good ones. More, if time and healing allowed them.

  Not yet.

  She could almost hear Anne’s voice reassuring her, saying, It’s okay. It doesn’t matter. I’m here for you.

  Unexpectedly, warmth brushed against her cheek—not a recording but a memory. Jessica.

  “Hey,” she said to Anne. “Tell me more about my garden. Tell me what it looks like these days. What it smells like. Tell me—” She drew a deep breath and felt the knot inside ease a fraction. “Tell me everything.”

  Palace Resolution

  Tom Purdom

  VinDu has always believed his responses to sensual pleasure are the best aspect of his personality structure. The founder of the TaiPark Combine believed the members of the governing class should be firmly bonded to their basic, biological humanity. The Overseers of the TaiPark Combine, Tai-Park concluded, should be endowed with an obsession with physical pleasure.

  Let the rulers treasure their senses, Tai-Park decreed. Let the love of pleasure moderate the love of virtue.

  Now VinDu reaches across the edge of his bath pond and rests his hand on the knee of the concubine sitting next to it. Warm scented water softens his muscles. A bottle and three plates sit on a side table.

  At the end of the bath pond, an image of another woman rests in a recliner that is covered with a velvety fabric. A slim man stands behind the recliner and kneads the woman’s shoulders. The woman is named KaiDin. She is speaking the formal synthetic language the Overseers have developed for their internal communications. She has just told VinDu she bears him no ill will.