FutureDyke

by Lea Daley

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  The VTO was sitting in my wicker rocker but she leaped up when I arrived. Enveloping her with an urgency I’d fought to conceal from myself, I rested my forehead against hers. We need to talk, Aimée—but at the beach, where we’ll have total privacy.

  She’d followed my entire encounter with Whitehall, of course, and knew exactly how to play it. “We could—as you would say—kill two birds with one stone... I could travel as someone else and allay many fears...but it will hurt a bit. Do you trust me?

  With all my heart.

  Prepare yourself then. And hold on tight.

  There was a stirring as the change began—a rustling sensation so unsettling I thought I might faint.

  Keep your eyes closed.

  The shifting ceased as the new persona solidified. So piercingly familiar that I sobbed on her shoulder for a second. Then I lifted my head and looked deep into Meredith McAllister’s blue-sky eyes. There wasn’t a trace of Aimée in that gaze. But I sensed her there, mingled with Mer, my long-lost love.

  Will it seem odd that I’m out and about with my…faxim?

  It will seem so ordinary we will almost be invisible. Observers will conclude that you have finally embraced the fate of Les Incurables, giving credence to everything you told Chastity.

  Suddenly I remembered: I said I was tired—that I needed to sleep!

  And so you do. Perhaps we should rest a while. I have learned we cannot take action immediately.

  Shyly, I led her to my bed. Where we lay fully clothed. Which was the same as being completely naked. I pulled her close, my darling Meredith, drinking in her tender expression. Tracing the contours of her fine face with one reverent finger. Cherishing every atom of her being. And all the while, I knew I was holding Aimée too. Loving them both. Completely. Equally. At once.

  Unbelievably, I fell asleep in their arms.

  * * *

  It was still dark when I stirred, maybe not the best time for a trek to the ocean. But I felt driven—Aimée might know every detail of my adventure, but I knew nothing of hers. And I was unwilling to risk sharing those secrets with unseen observers. When I rolled over in bed, my heart stopped. How had I forgotten that Meredith would be looking at me? I was dizzy with confusion. “Get up, Mer,” I urged her, as if that were truly my partner curled nearby. “I want to see sunrise at the beach with you.”

  And I did. I wanted to see every damned thing on Jashari with her at my side. Wanted to lose myself in this flawless illusion. Wanted to believe that was Meredith alongside me, downing a quick breakfast. Which made me feel guilty and off balance when a flickering nuance of Aimée surfaced. But my lover—my friend—simply took my hand, pulling me through the wall.

  We set off for the ocean. En route, we passed a handful of Jasharians. Their conspicuous relief corroborated Aimée’s analysis. Still only the most cursory bows were cast in our direction. Before long, we’d left my neighborhood far behind. And when the marine breeze hit us, Mer set a faster pace, her athletic legs moving in a hungry, headlong way. In no time, we stood at the shoreline. The first sunrise was just beginning to glow below the horizon.

  I gestured at a distant cove. “I want to show you something.” We walked ankle-deep in gentle surf until we reached a breathtaking vista. I pressed Meredith’s hand against my heart. “I want to build a house here. It would have been perfect for us, if only we’d come to Jashari together. Why didn’t we do that?”

  “You know the answer, Les. I didn’t satisfy the medical requirement. Besides, sending you was chancy enough. You wouldn’t risk my life too. Remember—I thought there must be a way to game the system and join you.”

  “Yeah.” I’d been so certain I was right. Now that decision seemed like a colossal failure of courage. “I’ve missed you so much, Mer! And it’s tearing me up that we have to separate again—I feel like I’ll spend forever saying goodbye to you.”

  “But we have a few minutes now. Let me stay till second sunrise.”

  I fumbled in my bag for Taylor’s heat detector. Wriggled the shaft into wet sand until it stood steady. Pushed the button so I could stare at Meredith’s extraordinary face every remaining second. But she smiled and pointed out to sea, so I wrenched my eyes away. Together we watched the unearthly display of two suns setting the surf ablaze, igniting the sky, slipping high above the glimmering waves. Then I hugged Mer for the last time and called Aimée.

  “Yes, Leslie-ahn?” Her voice. Speaking from Meredith’s body.

  “Please come back. Quickly.”

  I dropped my head to my knees until I knew the change must be complete. When I looked up, Aimée was sitting opposite me—but it was Aimée all along, wasn’t it? Shaking off disorientation, I asked a question that had rubbed a little raw spot at the back of my mind. Because raising it would allow me to dodge the scary stuff just a bit longer. “Who’s Peter Johansonn?”

  “He is the Returnee I helped after you sent me away. The one who almost died in transition? The one who needed to see me as a sage?”

  Jealousy surged through me, churning my stomach, raging like fever in my veins. The VTO would know Johansonn as intimately as she knew me, would have fought as hard for him, cared as deeply. And he was so fucking attractive! Did I only imagine a flash of dimple in a smooth tan cheek? “Quit eavesdropping, Aimée!”

  “Leslie, it is true that I fought to save Peter. This I do as naturally as you catch your breath at the sight of a Jashrine dawn. But—” with a finger under my chin, she made me meet her eyes “—but I never cared for Peter like I care for you.”

  I jerked away. My emotions were impossibly muddled. Meredith had been dead for millennia, but I’d only spent a few months mourning her. Now my grief for Mer was all tangled up with yearning for Aimée. If I needed proof that I was hung up on her, that rush of white-hot envy would suffice. But how absurd to love a robot!

  Aimée, who’d listened in on my entire soliloquy, dropped her gaze. Then in a kind of pidgin Jashrine, she whispered a profane confession. “Shar’anda li kyri’ah, Leslie-ahn.” I cherish your untamed individuality. A sentiment with all the shock value of sexually explicit wordplay.

  “Careful! You’ll get in trouble for talking dirty!”

  Aimée’s eyes blazed. “It is not as you suppose! I am not monitored! I am not controlled! I am simply trusted to do my duty—an expectation I seem destined to betray, out of my incomprehensible affection for you!”

  My heart skipped more than one beat. And finally I gave myself permission to acknowledge the true meaning of the name I’d given her almost on first meeting. Aimée—French for “Beloved.”

  The VTO smiled slyly. “It is not like you to be so unforthcoming about your feelings, Leslie-ahn.”

  “There’s no percentage in telling the truth about this, damn it! Who cares if I love you? It’s stupid, impossible!”

  “Very little is impossible, as you are destined to discover.”

  “All right—it’s unfair. It will never be fair! You’ll always be six steps ahead of me. That’s no basis for a relationship.”

  “Leslie-ahn, if you had demanded that Meredith give up music, would she have complied?”

  “Of course not! But—”

  “If Meredith had made blindness a condition of loving her, would you have plucked out your eyes?”

  “What kind of question is that?”

  “A relevant one. Answer it.”

  “We would never have been so unreasonable.”

  Aimée bowed ironically. “Take a cue from your past history.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  She sighed. Audibly. “I am what I am, Leslie. I have certain capacities that matter to me—that define me. And yet I love you. Do you hope that I will stop? Or are you asking me to sacrifice part of myself for the privilege?”

  “Jesus! We’re back to the beginning: how can you love me when you’re not truly human?”

  Aimée wrenched Taylor’s detector free and thr
ust it in my hand. Then she assumed as dignified a posture as one can when seated on a damp and gritty beach. “Point it at me!”

  I did. The vibrations began immediately. “So?”

  “So, I’m alive. I’m human. I love you.”

  “It’s heat seeking,” I grumbled. “I never said you didn’t give off heat.” In fact, I was warm—much too warm—just from sitting near her.

  Aimée laughed a little. At me. At how hot I was. “Soon, Leslie-ahn, you will realize how ridiculous this distinction is. Remember: I know what happened when you heard the prophecy.”

  I felt it again, the weight of revelation. Of obligation. But right now, I was just plain old Leslie Alana Burke. I raised my hand to forestall further argument. “I know I started this, Aimée, but we don’t have time for digressions right now. We were talking about Johansonn. Why would he be visiting our dear Ms. Whitehall?”

  “Why do you think he was there, Leslie-ahn?”

  “I think he’s her latest convert. Pretty funny, huh?”

  “Elaborate, please.”

  “Johansonn’s your success story, Aimée. He’s doing everything you were supposed to get me to do. He’s hanging out with the Council’s pet. He’s feeding information about the Returnees to her. I think he’s using the meetings at Taylor’s home to further Chastity’s agenda…whatever that is. And here’s the weird thing: you like me a lot more than you like Johansonn. What do you make of that?”

  “I do not know. It is very strange.”

  “Even on short acquaintance, I think the dude’s contemptible—and that his alignment with Whitehall is dangerous.”

  “You are most likely correct. No doubt they are lovers by now—”

  “Remember, Aimée, Chastity’s a lesbian.”

  “First and foremost, she is what you would have called a politician.”

  Aimée was right. Whitehall was a wheeler-dealer, a backroom operator. She surely wouldn’t draw the line at heterosexual seduction if it served her purposes. Stop! I ordered myself, this is another unnecessary tangent!

  “So what’s she up to?”

  “It appears Chastity has been given the responsibility for neutralizing you, Leslie-ahn.”

  “Define ‘neutralizing.’”

  “There is no one specific meaning. She must find a way to curtail your power. She could bribe or seduce or mislead you or offer a bargain. But somehow, she must prevent you from actualizing the prophecy, from becoming Li’shayla Mar-Né.”

  “You can’t outwit destiny. If I am, I am.” I reviewed Aimée’s list, ticking items off on my fingers. “Whitehall can’t bribe me—I’m too rich. She can’t seduce me—I’ve been spoiled by the love of good women. She might be able to trick me into doing something stupid. But I can’t imagine a bargain I’d agree to.”

  “Bahji,” Aimée said starkly.

  “Bahji! You did discover something!” This was what I’d been running away from, talking circles around, trying hard not to hear, terrified to learn.

  “Yes. The High Council is truly fearful of your potential, Leslie-ahn. Although the kidnapping was Chastity’s doing, the Elders have endorsed it unanimously.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “They have sent Bahji off-planet.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Off-planet? No need to give voice to my query. Aimée was feeding me information directly.

  Bahji is in orbit around Jashari. On the Medical Reception Station where incoming Returnees receive initial evaluation and treatment.

  From Whitehall’s discourse I knew the immense station served as a celestial quarantine. It guaranteed no plagues were set loose on the planet, no demons unleashed. And also…

  Correct, Leslie-ahn. It will be difficult—perhaps impossible—to retrieve Bahji. The Council has complete control of the situation.

  Is she scared? Has she been harmed? Does she know we’ll do anything to get her back safely?

  Bahji is unconscious, Leslie-ahn. Purposely so—

  They’ve iced her?

  The station operates on limited resources, all precisely calculated. The introduction of an active child could overtax the system. By keeping her in cryosleep, the crew can support her indefinitely. They are experts, Leslie—well equipped to maintain her unchanged.

  While everything around her changes!

  Perhaps it will not be for long.

  “God!” I wailed aloud. “This is unconscionable, perverted!”

  It also has advantages. Bahji is not frightened or lonely or aware of being cared for by strangers. She is resilient and should emerge from cryosleep unscathed.

  A rush of vivid memories, of teeming emotions, beset me. My own induction had been suffused with fear, regret and loss. And some part of me still seemed to recall unremitting cold, vast passages of time, the troubling dreams of deep sleep.

  It is not nearly as bad as you imagine, Leslie-ahn. The technology is much improved. And children do not have your powers of comprehension or projection.

  I tried—unsuccessfully—to shrug off my unease. “Okay. Whose move is it?”

  “As you would have said on Earth, the ball is in their court. I learned today that Chastity engineered this event without prior approval. But once the Elders were involved, they recognized its utility. They know of your affection for Bahji and are reviewing their options, calculating their odds. Soon Chastity will put their proposal to you.”

  “Her proposal.”

  “Almost assuredly.”

  “Maybe we can speed things up. There’s nothing I wouldn’t trade for Bahji’s safe return—I’m the reason she walked into this trap. They can have all my money, or whatever it takes to bring her home.”

  “Your power, Leslie-ahn? Your life?”

  The weight of prophecy bore down on me—tragedy, transformation, revolution. “I’m a prisoner of fate, Aimée! My so-called power’s brought nothing but pain to everyone I care for! I’d give it away in a flash if I knew how.”

  “The Elders do not want you to give away your power. That implies someone else might wield it. Besides, your life and your power are inseparable. A gift of one is likewise a gift of the other.”

  Too true. I knew it in every molecule. “I’m boxed in, already defeated.”

  “You have a formidable opponent in Whitehall. But the game is not over.”

  A vision of my fated enemy raced through me. I heard the VTO’s judgment again—“rafe’la.” Monstrous, aberrant. And Bahji was defenseless against her.

  Aimée touched my arm gently. “The Elders must feel desperate to use Bahji as a pawn, Leslie-ahn. Children are very dear on Jashari. With no other life form to inherit the planet, they are its only future. And because resources are finite, population is tightly controlled. Therefore, reproduction is viewed as a sacred act, raising children well the ultimate obligation.”

  “Raising them well? I wouldn’t give a single Standard Unit for any of the little zombies I’ve seen here. None of them has an ounce of life or sparkle. Bahji puts them all to shame—and she was raised by a mere Earthling!”

  In response, Aimée did something incomparably clever. Without transforming herself, she conjured Meredith’s patient, professional voice. “All parents love their children, Les. All parents want only the best for them. All parents act in their children’s interests. The problem is that what youngsters need can be so broadly defined.

  “If conforming to convention has a high value, then children will ‘need’ to conform. And devoted parents will do anything to help them succeed—even if that means binding feet or excising a clitoris or forbidding them to question authority. Anything less would limit their offsprings’ options in life. It’s no different, no worse, on Jashari.”

  Though Aimée couldn’t have chosen a more persuasive tactic than channeling Mer, I disagreed. Emphatically. “If Jasharians care so much about kids, how can they condone what’s happening to Bahji.”

  “Most are unaware of these events, Leslie-ahn. But on Jashari, the
Whole will always be more important than any of its parts. Sacrificing one child to save many would be extremely distasteful, but might ultimately be acceptable.”

  “We part company there, Aimée! No child is safe unless all children are safe! That’s what I learned from the real Meredith.”

  “Still, Bahji is in no immediate danger. Nor do the Elders wish her harm. They are confident you will do the right thing on her behalf.”

  I flung myself backward on the dune and stared at the brilliant Jashrine sky. Somewhere up there, Bahji sailed in a sleep so profound no enchanted kiss could wake her, a darkling princess indeed. And I was responsible for breaking the spell that bound her. A thought struggled to the surface of my mind. “Taylor! Taylor needs to know this! We have to tell her right away! She’ll be wild with worry!”

  Aimée pulled me into her arms. Until I felt her warmth, I hadn’t known I was shivering. “Taylor knows everything, Leslie-ahn. I finished before you did yesterday, so I stopped by her home. While I was there, we had a noisy, barbaric argument, completely in keeping with your culture’s standards. Taylor threw me out, yelling that neither of us should darken her door again.”

  “Excuse me! She said what?”

  “‘Never darken her door…’ Although the phrase is antiquated, it still creates a compelling image. Her meaning was perfectly clear.”

  I felt like I’d been sucker-punched. “I guess she blames me for all the upheaval in her life…”

  “Leslie-ahn! You must need more rest! We staged that argument for effect. You cannot be seen with Taylor right now, and our ‘fight’ will play well in future encounters with Chastity. The screaming began shortly after Peter Johansonn dropped in. Most likely when you observed him outside Whitehall’s house, it was because he had raced there to inform her of the conflict.”

  I’d wanted to see Hemingway, to hug her, to promise I’d do anything to bring Bahji home. But I got Aimée’s point. “How’s Taylor holding up?”