After the Red Rain (25 page)

Dr. Dimbali considered this for a moment, then chuckled and shook his head. “You had me actually contemplating it for a moment! But it’s useless. To begin with, the powers that be don’t need evidence. They don’t even understand Rose’s true nature; they have no connection between him and the vines left at the scene, and they don’t care. They don’t
need
a connection. Not when they have suspicion and a stranger.”

“But that’s not fair. And besides, they
do
know that Jaron was killed by the vines, so if we can show someone else had access to them…”

“You are behaving as though some sort of conventional explanation is needed, some kind of rationale for what has happened. I’m telling you—I’ve told you—that all that matters is rescuing Rose. We don’t need to prove his innocence or someone else’s guilt because those matters are irrelevant.”

“But if we can prove he didn’t kill Jaron—”

“Trust me—it would take longer,
vastly
longer, to do that than to rescue him from prison. And in any event, as we’ve discussed in the past, we can’t be sure that he
didn’t
kill Jaron. Not that—”

“Not that it matters,” she interrupted. She’d heard it before.

“Something else to consider. Let us assume—simply for the sake of our current discussion—that this is, in fact, an… artifact of Rose’s presence. Let us further assume that this artifact presents compelling and true evidence pointing to the actual killer of Jaron Ludo. What would be the logical conclusion in such an instance?”

She didn’t understand what he—Oh. “Lissa.”

“Precisely. If you present your evidence to the DeeCees or even to the police, the most likely scenario is that they will simply ignore it. They have their orders from Max Ludo, and they won’t deviate from them. But let’s say they decide to pay attention. First, they would put you under twenty-four-hour surveillance. Then they would interrogate you until you crack as to where you found it—”

“And go straight to Lissa.”

“Exactly.”

Was she willing to trade Lissa for Rose? Those were the kinds of questions she never wanted to hear, much less answer.

“I just feel like it’s safer. Maybe there’s a way to try. To send it in anonymously and then…”

Dimbali clucked his tongue and shook his head sadly. “There is one path ahead of us. It goes in one direction. I wish I could tell you exactly what will happen. Some consequences are more likely than others. All I know for certain is this: Once he is free, I will be able to use what I know of him to change the world for the better. How long that will take, I cannot say. People’s reactions, especially those in power? Again, I cannot say. The world is the way it is because someone somewhere has a vested interest in it being so. Entrenched powers are difficult to…” He paused and looked down at the machine in his hands. “Difficult to drill through, if you will.”

It was his idea of a joke. Deedra forced herself to smile. To encourage him.

“I might remind you as well,” he went on, “that rescuing Rose from prison was
your
idea.” He tapped at the SmartBoard, and Deedra was shocked to see herself appear on-screen.

“—were my last hope,” the voice of Dr. Dimbali said from the screen.

Deedra watched herself drink the Rose-tea from her mug, then stare at the video version of Dr. Dimbali, stand up, and say: “We’re going to break Rose out of jail.”

“You’ve been recording me?” she asked.

He waved away her concern. “Of course not. Why would I do that? I record
myself
. You were simply here at the time. My presence activates the recording.”

“That’s… weird.” Who would want a video record of everything they did?

“This is a place of science, Ms. Ward. Everything that happens here matters. Everything I do must be recorded for examination and posterity. Who knows when I might do or say something that will prove crucially important to my research later?”

She sighed.
Whatever.

“I promise you,” he told her, “we will do all we can in this situation. But our lives after the rescue will not, I fear, resemble their current states. In all likelihood, we will be on the run, hunted.”

Some part of her had assumed this from the beginning. But that part had a quiet voice and never spoke much anyway. Had she ever imagined that she could break the law, retrieve Rose from prison, and then go back to her oh-so-ordinary life?

Then again… what was so great about that oh-so-ordinary life anyway?

“Are you all right?” Dr. Dimbali asked. He asked it with the clinical air of a man wondering if a wall’s structural integrity is still viable, not a man genuinely concerned with her.

She was used to it.
This is my life
, she thought.
A scientific genius with all the warmth of a dead rat, and a beautiful, imprisoned boy who is also a plant.

The laughter burbled out of her involuntarily. Before she realized
what was happening, she convulsed with it, doubling over and howling, gasping for breath at the same time.

I’m in love with a plant, and the only person I can trust is probably more than a little bit crazy and thinks he can save the world.

The laughter came harder, and she leaned against the wall for support, heaving out guffaws. Tears streamed down her face. As she caught her breath, she looked up to see Dr. Dimbali gazing at her, his goggles still pushing his hair up in a spray, his face gritty and gray with a fine coating of concrete dust, his expression one of such earnest befuddlement that she started laughing all over again.

Her oh-so-ordinary life? Ha!
That life had ended—if it had ever really existed in the first place—that day by the river, the day she’d seen the blue rat.

She palmed the tears away, choking down air, forcing herself to breathe. She was never supposed to have to make these decisions. No one was ever supposed to have to make these decisions. How was any one person supposed to decide the fate of another person, much less the fate of the world?

Why her?

But hell—why
not
her?

“Let’s do it,” she said.

T
he plan had to be simple, as all good plans must be, according to Dr. Dimbali.

As an enemy combatant, Rose would not be permitted visitors, except for his attorney. Dr. Dimbali was known at the Complex, having visited there on L-Twelve business with Jaron. But Deedra was unknown to them. She would have to be the one to perform reconnaissance within the facility itself. To capture the floor-plan information they would need to execute the rescue.

“If my calculations are correct,” Dr. Dimbali said with a tone of voice that left no doubt that they were, “then Rose is no doubt extraordinarily weak right now. We need him strong, but the conditions inside his cell would prevent him from recouping his strength.”

She thought of him on the patch of dirt outside her apartment, absorbing his food through the soil and from the sun. Precious little of either in SecFac, if any.

“My research indicates that roses need nitrogen and phosphorous in particular to thrive. Fortunately, these are easily distilled from waste matter. We will develop
concentrates
of these nutrients, delivered in a solution no larger than a standard hypodermic needle. This will give
Rose the nutritional jolt he needs to escape. It is imperative that he conserve his strength, that he not act until the precise moment
we
are ready for him to act. With his biomorphic capabilities, he should be able to escape through the window.”

“Biomorphic?”

“Shape-shifting.”

She thought of the tendrils Rose had extruded from his body. Of course. If he could do that, what other ways could he change his form? She suffered a sudden jab of jealousy that Dr. Dimbali knew more about Rose than she did, then quelled it. Rescuing Rose was what mattered.

“Then what?”

“Then he and I can complete my work and begin reviving the world.”

“No, no, I mean… I mean, I go in and reconnoiter, and we make a solution out of our… you know. But how do we get it to him?”

Dr. Dimbali’s face lit up. “That is where you are fortunate to be working with me on this endeavor. There are a few possibilities. Still, let us not get ahead of ourselves. One step at a time. Your reconnoiter comes first.”

“What if it doesn’t go well? What if I don’t learn anything useful?”

“You must. Once they learn
what
Rose is, I’m afraid he will be nothing more than a lab specimen to them. One that talks. Until he no longer can.”

Deedra shuddered. Dr. Dimbali had a way of delivering the most unpleasant news possible in a flat, apathetic tone that made it even worse.

“Then let’s not waste any more time,” she told him, and held out a demanding hand. Dr. Dimbali—with a moment’s hesitation and more genuine regret than she’d ever witnessed in him—slowly removed his SmartSpex and placed them in her hand.

U
nder cover of night, Rose had tested himself. The camera was infrared-equipped, he was certain, like the drones he evaded so easily. His body temperature fluctuated, sometimes involuntarily, depending on the ambient climate, but the conditions in the cell never changed. He could change his core temperature at will, making himself cool enough to blend into the background at night when the drones were looking for him, but while in the cell, he had to maintain a human range of body temperature so that he wouldn’t vanish on the camera and cause suspicion.

Now that he felt stronger, he began plotting his escape. No one would be coming to rescue him—how could they?—so he would have to be his own savior. Which was fine. He’d survived so long on his own, after all. For years, he’d needed no one but himself.

And then Deedra.

Why had she extended a helping hand to him that day by the river? And why had he accepted it? In all his travels, she was the first person who ever tried to help him for no other reason than to help. She wanted and took nothing from him in return for her aid; she baffled
and charmed him at the same time. Not that he couldn’t or didn’t understand the impulse; he understood it intimately.

He’d just never witnessed it outside of himself before.

In all the places he’d visited since that first day in the graveyard, since that sighting of what may have been the last rose in the world, he’d encountered hundreds if not thousands of people on his path. Some, he’d helped. Some had helped him. Some had shunned him, avoided him, tried to kill him, or persecuted him. Of those who had helped, though, none had done it without cost. None had offered one hand without the other open and waiting for repayment.

Until Deedra.

I was fine. I was fine until you. And then I had to stay, I had to stay here, and look what’s happened to me.

Now he would leave. He would leave this prison, and he would leave Ludo Territory. A fugitive. A year ago, it would not have bothered him, having to flee.

Now, though, he was leaving someone behind.

He forced himself not to think of her, focused on practicing in the dark. The camera could read his heat signature, but not the fine details of his shape.

Or his color.

He practiced. He was almost ready.

In the morning, then.

T
he Complex loomed ahead of her that morning. From ground level, it was much more imposing than it had been from an angle above, and its formidable gray walls and electrified fencing nearly weakened her knees and made her reconsider.

But that time was past.

She slipped on the SmartSpex. They smelled faintly of some kind of piquant spice and the peculiarly male odor of sweat. They were a bit too large for her, and she had to keep poking at them to push them up on her nose.

The world was fractured through the broken lens on her left. Clouds gathered overhead. Rain? She couldn’t tell. The day was humid and hot, the only alternative to freezing cold.

At the gate to the Complex, two DeeCees stood in full riot armor, with weapons at the ready. One of them glanced at her. “Move along, citizen.”

“I have business here,” she said, drawing herself erect.

Nothing to fear, Deedra. Not right now. This is just part one. Recon. Nothing to fear.

“No, you don’t,” the DeeCee barked. “Move along.” As if she didn’t
get the point—and the threat—he gestured up the road with the barrel of his gun.

“The Territorial Code states that citizens may visit the Magistrate’s Office to register official complaints or to request commendations for Territory personnel.”

The DeeCees exchanged an amused glance. “Which are you here for?”

“I want to commend my supervisor, Suresh Dimbali.” She fixed the obstinate DeeCee with a glare. “But maybe I’ll file something else while I’m here.”

Weak threat, maybe, but it showed her spine. The DeeCee relented. He produced a handheld scanner and ran it over her body. It bleeped as he passed it over her breasts and he tilted his head. Without a moment’s thought, Deedra lifted her poncho so that he could see her pendant dangling there against her shirt. The DeeCee scanned the pendant, shrugged with satisfaction, and then continued.

“No goggs in the Complex,” the DeeCee said when he’d scanned her and found nothing. He held out a hand, palm up, and wiggled his fingers, demanding the SmartSpex.

“They don’t actually
work
,” Deedra said with careful, measured sarcasm.
How
stupid
are you?
her tone asked. “I just like wearing them. They look cool.” She removed the SmartSpex and held them out to him, twisting them around so he could peer through them and see nothing but glass.

Abashed, the guard shrugged. Of course they wouldn’t work. How many people had functional tech like that? He waved her in.

As soon as she was within the bounds of the gate, Deedra fiddled with her pendant, removing the tiny battery attached there. Pretending to clean the lens of the SmartSpex, she loaded the battery into its compartment, then slipped the goggs on.

There was a disorienting moment of flashing colors as the SmartSpex
rebooted, but then the heads-up overlay settled into place. Deedra pretended to cough into her hand, but instead whispered, “Let’s go, Spex.”

A hovering light blinked at the periphery of her vision. The SmartSpex were listening.

“Start capture,” she said, and the SmartSpex began recording everything she saw. There would be a complete layout of everywhere she went in the Complex, a record of things she didn’t even remember seeing. Guard numbers and patterns. Security measures. Everything.

Hold tight, Rose. We’re coming.

Dr. Dimbali had taught her a whole range of commands—he called them “murms,” short for “murmurs”—that controlled the various aspects of the SmartSpex. As she made her way to the first building—the Magistrate’s Office—she tested the murms, switching from normal light to infrared to ultraviolet to gamma scatter and back again. The SmartSpex worked without complaint, and she saw through walls, through skin. She was beginning to think that Dr. Dimbali had intentionally broken one of the lenses. As camouflage. If people knew what he was capable of doing and seeing, they would never trust him.

The Magistrate’s Complex was three buildings arranged around a central concrete courtyard, the whole thing hemmed in by ramparts topped with razor wire. To her left, going through the gate, was the Magistrate’s Office building. To her right lay the headquarters for the local police and the Territory’s DeeCee contingent, including the Emergency Stocks—the Magistrate’s arsenal and supply of emergency rations in case of attack.

And straight ahead, at the other end of the flat, dead courtyard, the squat, square tumor that was SecFac.

That was her goal. But she couldn’t just wander in there. She veered left.

The inside of the Magistrate’s Office wasn’t nearly as cramped as the other buildings she’d been in, but it was almost as dusty and dirty. The floors were carpeted, true, but the carpets were ragged and pockmarked with spots worn see-through thin, even without SmartSpex. Armed guards stood everywhere at attention, watching her as she walked the halls. She tried not to gape at them, as the SmartSpex spat out information on them, revealing their model of body armor and weapon complement.

We’re in deep.

She found a desk with a sign that said
TERRITORIAL CITIZEN ASSISTANCE
and stood patiently until someone showed up.

“Can I help you?” the woman said, clearly interested in anything but. “The Magistrate isn’t in today, so don’t even bother asking.”

“I was actually wondering,” Deedra said, speaking the line exactly as she’d rehearsed it with Dr. Dimbali, “how I apply for a permission visa to visit someone in the prison.”

The woman arched an eyebrow. Deedra tried not to show how nervous she was. There was nothing criminal about visiting a criminal. It just felt that way.

“I have a friend who did something stupid,” she went on. If the woman demanded details, she had a whole story invented about her “friend,” including a name and details of crimes, culled from reports on the wikis. She would never admit to knowing Rose. Not here. Not for this purpose. But if she could get into SecFac, she could record more information that would help them spring Rose. If not, she would at least walk by the building. But getting in would be better.

“Permission visas take ten days to process,” the woman snapped, and slid a tab to Deedra.

Ten days? She hadn’t known that. Dr. Dimbali hadn’t mentioned it.

“Is there any way to get in sooner?” she asked.

The woman simply glared at her until Deedra took the tab and went to stand in a corner. There were no chairs or sofas.

The tab flickered on, the image wobbling, displaying a Permission Visa Request Form. Deedra grimaced. She didn’t want to waste time filling this out, but if she didn’t, it would look suspicious.

She sighed and started tapping the screen.