Authors: David Marusek
Back and forth, the mech flew, hitting its targets repeatedly. If its fuel held, it would eventually wear through the armor. Mary was fascinated by this deadly ballet, but could not stay to watch. She looked all around for the wall. That’s when she saw the second pike. He was standing very still, holding his carbine at his side, letting it self-target. The gun discharged a prolonged pulse that raced through the woods and hit the mech. The mech exploded as its plasma reserve was ignited. The concussion knocked the groundskeeper off his feet.
The second pike lowered his carbine and gestured to Mary to stand still. A utility cart, like the one at the cottage, rolled up behind him.
FRED HEARD THE explosion and set his visor to calculate its location. As he ran, the ground he covered was added to the theater map under construction in the corner of his visor. It was a growing band of known terrain in an unknown territory. The explosion had come from an unexpected direction. If it marked Mary’s location, it would mean that she was doubling back to the plaza in a large arc.
Fred ran toward the explosion marker in his map. He crossed several footpaths and climbed small wooded hills. The terrain was rich in natural cover, which his visor mostly filtered out. Suddenly he was buzzed by a mech, bluish, like the one that had streaked from the gatehouse. He guessed it wasn’t a clinic mech, but didn’t know how it figured into the action. It circled him twice and flew off. Suddenly all of the unknown territory in Fred’s map was filled in. Not only that, but personnel markers appeared, and he had access to clinic comm. Fred paused in order to analyze the situation. Two of the markers were to his left and receding at a good pace. One of them, flagged as armed, was pursuing the other, who was unarmed—Mary? To his right, another marker was at the location of the explosion. It was flagged as armed and uninjured, but unconscious. There was another marker much farther inside the clinic. It was marked by a battlefield lid, which meant it was a casualty. Fred couldn’t read its vitals, but a picture was quickly forming in his mind. Pikes often came in tactical teams of three. These three had been sent to destroy Ellen Starke, but ran into trouble. One was down. A second was stunned by the explosion. And the third was pursuing Mary.
Fred turned to follow Mary but stopped again. She was too far away to reach in time. He needed another plan. He knew that the pike chasing Mary had to be wondering who
he
was and what he was doing there. The pike could see in his own visor that Fred was unarmed, yet wearing body armor, and that he wasn’t attached to clinic security. The pike had to be watching Fred’s marker on his own map with growing apprehension, for he had made a serious mistake. He hadn’t expected to run into a loose russ, and left his teammate vulnerable. If russes were predictable, pikes were doubly so. They never left their brothers behind. Clients be damned.
On Fred’s map, the pike slowed down, a calculated move. He was still within striking distance of Mary, but he was giving Fred a chance to catch up, luring him away from his teammate. A russ would surely take the bait, especially if his duty was to save the Starke girl, and Fred nearly went for it. The Starke girl wasn’t his client this time, though. This time he was his own client. The downed pike was just over the next rise, and on a counterintuitive impulse, Fred rushed there instead.
Fred topped the hill and crouched close to the ground to study the fallen man who lay amid a litter of shattered and smoking tree branches. His groundskeeper uniform had been burned off at his shoulder, revealing an armored suit underneath. His breathing seemed regular, and his suit looked intact. His carbine lay several meters away in the grass.
Fred scampered down the hill and retrieved the gun. It had timed out, and he brought it to the pike. He took the fallen man’s left hand—pikes were southpaws—and wrapped it around the grip. The gun controls became enabled, and Fred reset the force and shape of the laser pulse to its highest, narrowest setting. In his visor he saw that the other pike had left off pursuing Mary and was heading back to him. Excellent! If his new friend here cooperated, Fred had a target and a weapon.
Fred pushed the pike’s index finger into the trigger guard and laid his own finger over it. He pulled the man’s body around a little and lay down behind it.
But the pike’s eyes fluttered; he was coming around. Suddenly his free hand made a fist and roundhoused Fred on the side of his head. Fred’s cap took most of the blow, but even so, his ear sang.
They struggled for the gun, the pike punching Fred savagely. Fred was losing control, so he pressed the pike’s trigger finger and squeezed off a shot. A terrific bolt of light erupted from the gun so close to Fred’s face that it dazzled him, despite his visor. The blast rived the trunk of a nearby tree like a lightning strike, splitting it in two. On the way, it vaporized the pike’s right hand.
The pike gasped, and his suit quickly sealed his stump with battlewrap. Fred wrenched the carbine and pressed the barrel under the pike’s chin.
“Tell your pal to stop where he is!” Fred ordered him.
The pike didn’t respond. His pupils closed to pinpoints. His suit was doping him for the pain. The other pike was almost in sight. Fred poked the muzzle of the gun hard against the man’s throat and repeated his order.
The pike smiled in drugged serenity. “I see you are unarmed, friend.”
“What do you call
this
, friend?” Fred said and jabbed him again with the muzzle.
“A soft cock if you kill me with it.”
He was right. The moment the pike died, his gun would shut down, leaving Fred weaponless.
“When you’re right, you’re right,” Fred said and carefully re-aimed the gun. He fired again, taking off the side of the pike’s helmet, his ear, and a strip of his scalp. Before the suit could patch itself, Fred grabbed a splintered branch from the ground and stuck its pointy end several millimeters up the pike’s exposed ear canal.
“Lie still!” he yelled in the man’s good ear. But the pike struggled all the more fiercely, so Fred shoved the stick in until it passed through his brain and jammed up against the inside of his skull. The pike convulsed a couple of times and went limp. On his map, the pike was flagged injured. With any luck he would take a while to die.
Meanwhile, the other pike’s marker stopped just over the next rise, and Mary was making good time back to South Plaza.
“Such a deal,” Fred said and reset the carbine’s spread pattern.
MARY CAME TO a path she recognized. To her surprise, she wasn’t far from the plaza where she had started. On impulse, she turned left, away from South Gate and toward the central complex of clinic buildings. She’d feel safer there, and from there she could choose any of the other gates. But the blue bee, her guardian angel, intercepted her and urged her toward South Gate with pulsing arrows.
Vehicles, both homcom and police, filled South Gate Plaza, but no medevac ambulance. Mary shifted her terrible burden from one arm to the other and approached a belinda in a hommer uniform, but a crash cart intercepted her first. It lowered its treatment platform, and asked Mary to sit.
“No, not yet. Can you call me an ambulance? A medevac?”
The holo of a man projected next to the cart. He was a stranger, but he seemed to know her. “Ah, Myr Skarland, at last! Hurry, give Ellen’s head to the cart. We’ve got a fresh tank waiting for her. There’s no time to lose.”
The cart proffered its arm, and Mary ached to give Ellen to it and be done with it. “That’s right,” the man encouraged. “Give your bag to the cart.”
Mary said, “Who are you?”
“Byron Fagan.”
Mary clutched the tote to herself. “Fagan Health Group? Concierge’s sponsor?”
“Yes, I am. Or rather, I was. Concierge was altered, I don’t know when, or by whom. It fell under the influence of unknown parties. I only discovered this a little while ago, when it was thrown off-line. I have launched a secure backup. He’s back now, as good as new. There’s no need to worry, Myr Skarland. You’ve done a heroic job, and everything is safe now.
“But we must act fast, if we want Ellen to survive.” He pointed at the syrup dripping from the tote. “That is, if she’s still alive. You must trust me, Myr Skarland. I’m the one who called in the Command.”
He seemed sincere. “My sisters, and Nurse Hattie and Matt,” Mary said, gesturing toward the woods.
“We’re already attending to them,” Fagan said. “It’s Ellen Starke we have to think of now.” The cart’s arm reached for the tote.
“Hello! Evangeline!” someone called from the gatehouse. A little man and a tall woman hurried toward her, carrying an odd device between them. “Don’t listen to him,” the man called. “Wait for us!”
The couple stopped next to the crash cart and lowered their burden to the ground. “My name is Meewee. I know you. I worked with Wee Hunk.”
“Where
is
Wee Hunk?” Mary said. She raised her face to the sky and called, “Wee Hunk, I need you.” But the Neanderthal did not appear. “Let Wee Hunk in!” Mary ordered Fagan.
Fagan held up his hands and said, “I assure you, Myr Skarland, I am not—”
“Wee Hunk is dead,” the little man said. “He was contaminated.”
“There’s no time for this,” Fagan declared. “Every second is crucial. For pity sake, Mary, turn over Ellen’s head.”
While her competing benefactors were vying for her trust, the woman who had come with the little man bent over their device on the ground. She opened its lid, revealing a snug compartment of gleaming chrome. She smiled up at Mary and said, “If you please.”
“This is Dr. Rouselle,” the little man said. “She doesn’t work for Fagan, and this is a portable hernandez tank. Please, Myr ’Leen, let the doctor save Ellen.”
“Save her?” Fagan snapped. “He wants to hold her hostage. Her mother had her brought to
my
clinic because she trusted us.” The crash cart edged in closer and opened a side compartment; inside was a large glassive jar, brimming with bubbling amber amnio syrup.
Mary unwrapped her tote and gently lifted the head from the dregs at the bottom. She cradled the dripping head in both hands, but she couldn’t force herself to return it to the clinic. “Wee Hunk,” she cried, “where are you?”
Wee Hunk did not appear, but the blue bee did, buzzing her and setting down on the lid of the doctor’s chrome tank. And that was answer enough for her.
April and her Bolto fiancé were late for dinner. A place had been set for the mystery man—none of them had met him yet—next to April’s spot at the head table. Everyone wore nice clothes for the occasion, except Denny who insisted on dining in his work clothes. It was all he wanted to wear anymore, the jumpsuit with the large
KODIAK MICROHABS
patch on the back and his name embroidered over the front pocket. Kitty had recruited him when she started her microhab service up again. Several of her old clients had hired her back, which helped to kick-start the business, and already she was bringing in over five yoodies a day. She let Denny come up to the head table each evening to drop them into the soup pot. And each evening the ’meets cheered him till his ears turned red. Bogdan didn’t mind at all.
“While we’re waiting for April,” Kale said, “I might as well impart some news we just received.” He paused and rubbed his eyes. “It’s not good news, I’m afraid. Roger Beadlemyren called a little while ago. He says they can’t wait on us much longer. They’ll have to go with their second pick if we don’t get Hubert back soon, or at least make material progress in that direction. Sixty days, that’s how much time we have, and then our Intent to Merge agreement will expire.”
Kale sat down. No one said anything. The charter hadn’t even managed to force the Command to admit that they had the mentar in custody. The doors to Green Hall opened, and all heads turned, but it wasn’t April, only Sarah with the food cart. Kale waved her in and said, “Might as well get started.”
It was a grim meal. The ’meets mostly played with their food and let it get cold. Megan pushed her plate away and said, “At least with April’s marriage we’ll have a new member.”
Nobody responded, not even BJ, for they all feared the worst. When two people from charters as mismatched as the Kodiaks and Boltos were married, the rule was that the spouse from the lesser house joined the greater. As to whether or not April would leave Kodiak was unknown because she refused to discuss it, and no one had the nerve to come right out and ask. In fact, she had been pretty secretive about the whole affair right from the beginning at Rondy. She hadn’t even told them what this fellow’s first name was. But it was inconceivable that April, April Kodiak, would leave them in the lurch, causing their membership to drop below statutory minimum and throwing the house into regulatory limbo. Not April. And what about her NanoJiffy franchise?
At last, the door opened, and April came in. They hardly recognized her. It wasn’t only the fashionable new clothes she wore, or the fact that she was a full twenty years younger—they all knew the Boltos had paid for rejuve treatments—but she had apparently undergone some body sculpting as well, and she looked—pretty. She came in and smiled awkwardly at everyone.
Behind her entered a man, taller than she, in a tailored charcoal jumpsuit with navy and teal pinstripes. He also smiled awkwardly. He had nice teeth.
So this was the lucky fellow. The Kodiak ’meets followed him and April across the room with silent, appraising stares. But then someone else entered after them, another man, also wearing Bolto colors. This one was short and a bit ugly, and he didn’t smile at all. In the time it took for the three of them to reach the head table, the awful truth of the matter, the reason for April’s prolonged silence, began to dawn on the Kodiaks—April’s marriage was for a triad, not a couple. Now there was no question but that she would leave them and join Charter Bolto.
“Could you set another place?” April asked Louis, who had waiter duty. Louis shut his gaping mouth and hopped to it. April stood between the two Boltos and took their hands. “Sorry we’re late,” she said. “Everyone, I’d like to introduce my two special guys. This is Brad, and this is Tom. They brought a yummy dessert which we left down in the fridge.”
A chocolate cranberry torte, it turned out to be, but dessert proved as grim as the meal. A silent resentment filled Green Hall, which April tried unsuccessfully to dispel with nervous chatter.
Finally, Bogdan threw down his napkin and stood up. He was standing taller these days, having gained ten centimeters in the last three months. His voice was deeper too, and a mustache was sprouting above his upper lip.
“Where y’all going?” Rusty said.
“I’m going to find Hubert.”
The ’meets at his table stared at him, and Rusty said, “How d’you plan on doing that?”
“To tell you the truth, I have no idea, but I’m going to find him even if it kills me.” He went up to the head table and shook hands with Brad and Tom. To April he said, “My deepest congratulations. You done good.” And then, as he walked to the door, he paused and added, “Oh, and don’t worry about us. We’ll be just fine.”
MARY SKARLAND TOOK the lift down to the bunker level and hurried to the shelter. Ellen was out of the tank for a hardening session under the lights. Her infant body lay facedown on a mat with a towel draped over its bare rump and its gargantuan head turned on its side. The doctor and a jenny nurse were there, and Cyndee too. Cyndee rolled her eyes at Mary, and Mary saw why. The annoying little man had come to talk business again.
“We’ve had to push the launch back eleven months,” he was saying, “but what’s eleven months to a journey that’ll last a thousand years?”
“Myr Meewee,” Ellen’s voice said from the room’s speakers, “you know I can’t turn my head. Please remain where I can see you.”
“Oh, right, sorry.” Meewee returned to a spot in front of the baby. “As I was saying—”
“I heard what you were saying,” Ellen said, “I just couldn’t
see
you. Actually, when I think about it, I see too much of you. I put you in charge of the GEP because I didn’t want to have to deal with it on a minute-by-minute basis. So do your job and just handle it, will you?”
Meewee bowed and said, “Count on it, Ellen. All I need is your authorization for—”
“Ask Cabinet! Not me! How many times do I have to tell you?”
Cabinet’s chief of staff appeared then, and a moment later, so did Ellen’s recently adopted mentar, Lyra.
Meewee took one look at Cabinet and said with harping exasperation, “All of the chinaberry trees in the garden are heavy with fruit
this time of year
!”
The baby, choking with anger, retorted, “In that case, the neighborhood birds should be
very happy
!” The baby made fists, and her skin mottled.
The doctor stepped in and signaled the jenny. “Such a wonderful visit, Bishop Meewee,” she said. “Come again, yes?”
The little man left the room grumbling to himself, and the doctor and jenny lifted Ellen and placed her back in the tank. There her oversized head floated in comfortable ease.
“He’s such an unpleasant man,” Cyndee said.
“Oh, he means well,” Ellen replied, “but such a pest.” She turned to her new mentar and said, “Lyra, have we told the ’leens about the surprise we have in store for them at the studio?”
The mentar, in the persona of a short, young woman, came forward and began to speak, but Cyndee said, “Wait. Mary’s not coming today.”
Ellen said, “What’s this?”
“Sorry,” Mary said, “but I have a prior engagement.”
Cyndee snorted. “A prior engagement, she says. She’s going to see Fred. That’s where she’s going. She has a
conjugal
engagement. See how nice she’s dressed?”
“Oo-la-la,” said the doctor.
Mary blushed and the women laughed. “I just came down to say good-bye till tomorrow.”
“Then we’ll hold the surprise,” Ellen said. “Give Fred our love. Oh, and I almost forgot. I told Cabinet to put its attorney general on Fred’s case as co-counsel. Tell Fred to tell Marcus to expect a call.”
That was very good news indeed.
MARY PASSED THROUGH the scanway of the Homeland Command maximum security prison in Provo, Utah. From one visit to the next, she never knew how the russes on duty there would receive her. Sometimes they acknowledged her and her sisters’ heroism. Other times, her presence only seemed to remind them of her husband and their own shame.
They escorted her to the so-called joogie sweet and left her there to wait for Fred. It usually took another five or ten minutes to process him through. Mary crossed the dirty carpet and sat in the sticky armchair. The suite was furnished no better than a dormitory cell. A tired bed, a scuffed nightstand, a pair of uncomfortable armchairs. Not even a calendar to break the gray monotony of the walls. Every time Mary came here, she could feel her libido shriveling up like food wrap. Which was just as well, because during her very first visit Fred had pretty much put the kibosh on anything ever happening between them in this room.
They had led him in and unshackled him that first time, then left and closed the door behind them. She had been standing in the middle of the room, and the room was very small, so it would be hard to miss her, but Fred walked the length of two walls and scrutinized the paint before even acknowledging her presence. He went to the door and pointed at the latch—
no lock
. There were daggers in his eyes. That had been their first time alone together in three weeks, and he hadn’t forgiven her yet.
Hi, she had said, standing there. We can talk, you know. I was unsure of this place, myself, so I asked your Marcus, and he assured me there are no cameras or mikes or any snooping equipment of any sort in this room. So if you came over here and hugged me, no one would be the wiser.
But he didn’t. Nor did he speak. He stayed put and rolled up a sleeve and brought his pale arm to his nose to squint at his skin.
Dear, she said, I know you are fully colonized by now. So am I and all of Chicago and two-thirds of the rest of the country. Nobody likes them, but most people agree that they’re a hell of a lot better than the slugs were.
Fred slapped his own forehead. He had never done something like that before, and it got her full and immediate attention. Satisfied, he opened his great arms wide and leaned back to take in an unseen audience behind the ceiling and walls, and he spoke in a calm but commanding voice, My wife and I refuse to perform for you.
And that was that.
THE DOOR OPENED, and they brought Fred in and left. She got up and took a couple of steps. “Hello, Fred.”
His eyes told her he missed her, but he went to sit on the bed, and she returned to the armchair. First they discussed business: household matters, his case, the trial. It was pretty much all the talking they did, and today she had really big news. But she was unsure how to tell him.
“Ellen Starke says—” she began, and storm clouds gathered at the mere mention of the name. “She says that Cabinet’s attorney general will join Marcus as co-counsel. She said to—”
“No,” he said flatly.
THE BED SAGGED in the middle. They lay face-to-face, not touching, and spoke with their eyes, as they always had. He went first because his need was urgent. Mary witnessed a string of unpleasant incidents in his gaze. He let her see a little bit of his fear. He was swimming in loneliness and poisoned by a prison diet of humiliation. She ached to hold him.
After about an hour of this, when his pain had somewhat lessened, he yawned from the sheer relief of it and raised an eyebrow—her turn.
Mary had to struggle not to seem too elated with her own life. The clinic rescue was still on everyone’s lips, and the Evangeline Sisterhood was experiencing a rebirth of public awareness.
Not only that, but Ellen Starke decided to honor the Sisterhood by launching a hollyholo character for the novellas based on their type. They hadn’t even finished producing the sim and already offers were coming from major studios. Blue Loon Stories had signed for a thousand units, and Four Steps reserved five hundred just last week. Ellen said that all ten thousand units of the limited edition would be sold before its release date.
Not only that, but Ellen’s own Burning Daylight Productions was contributing all of the edition’s royalties to the Renata Carter and Alexandra Perry Foundation to fund the Sisterhood’s retraining and rejuve programs.
Not only that, but Ellen
gave
her and Cyndee and the other clinic ’leens their own units outright. I’m going to own a hollyholo sim, Fred. And it’s already signed to the
Surly Shirley
story mat! Do you have any idea how much a sim can earn? My unit will make me more in one day than I could earn in a
month
.
Do you know what that means, Fred? It means we’re set up for life. When we get you out of here, we can find a better apartment. We can take a trip around the world if we want to and stay away for as long as we like. It means—
Suddenly Mary was ambushed by the image of Renata lying on her bed of grass clippings. This still happened a dozen times a day. She began to cry. She cried for Hattie too, and Alex. And even for Reilly, not because Reilly was hurt—he was already repaired and back on duty—but because he was a true russ.
Mary cried for so many people that she curled up on her half of the bed and soaked the bedspread with tears. She hated giving this performance to the nitwork, but she couldn’t help herself. And Fred just lay there, dying inside.
THEY DOZED FOR a while, not touching, but breathing each other’s breath, giving this, too, to the nitwork. When she awoke, he was watching her with a grim expression. When she met his gaze, he pointed at himself, and then, breaking his own hard-and-fast rule, he touched her. He took her small hand and cupped it in his two big mitts. His hands were cold, but they electrified her, and she missed the glyph he was secretly drawing on her open palm with his fingertip. He drew it again, and this time she recognized it. It was Uglyph for
Obligation
, with overtones of
Integrity
and
Unpaid Debt
. He let go of her and waited for her to look at him, and when she did, he sucked in his cheeks and flattened the tip of his nose with his finger.
Mary almost laughed. Fred was making a dead-on impersonation of a TUG face. But he wasn’t joking; he was trying to tell her something of grave importance. He pointed again to himself. Obligation. Integrity. Unpaid Debt.