Join (18 page)

One of Leap's earliest memories
after becoming a five is a conversation with Oceanic. It is also her final memory of the adviser. It happens near the end of the psychotropic phase, and the memory is a bit disjointed, but Leap remembers Oceanic's voice saying, “It's done. It took a while for the two of you to get there, but I knew you would when I first saw you. This is why people come to me.”

Chance has difficulty saying the
words. “
You joined with your mother.”

“Yeah,” Leap Two says quietly.

“And one of you changed your mind. One of you changed your mind, Leap!”

“Yeah.”

“Shit! Who was your CJA?”

Leap doesn't answer.

“Who was your adviser, dammit! You flipped!”

Chance Two and Leap Two are staring at each other. Leap says, “Yeah, I flipped.”

“Oh, shit. Fucking hell,” says Chance.

She stretches out her arm, but there is nothing near to support her. She takes a few breaths, then searches for a chair, walks to one, and sits down. She looks at Leap Two, standing beside the bed, beside Leap Five.

Chance stands and walks to the bedside. She takes Leap Five's hand and asks, “Does the join feel complete?”

“Yes,” says Leap Five.

Chance spends a few moments orienting to this new information. She recalls case histories. She thinks about how the pathology starts, how it develops, how it ends. She cannot find even a sliver of hope. She groans. Looking at Leap Five, she says, “There's never been a cure.”

Leap Five closes her eyes. Chance turns to Leap Two, who appears calm.

“That drive is in so much pain,” Leap Two says. “I just keep it down, sleeping all the time. There's some evidence that killing it could slow the disease.”

“There's a lot of evidence of that. And the slowdown is significant.”

“Yeah, but I can't do it. That's me. I mean, it's still weird to see that drive when I'm not looking in a mirror. I'm integrated, but that body isn't. You, of all people, should know how I feel.”

Chance understands. Chance Five's potential death has the morbid sense of permanent oblivion. Chance has been walking around choking on the risk of losing Chance Five and the trauma of losing Chance Three. Chance has been wailing about those difficulties to Leap, who all the while has been faced with an even-more-gruesome reality: a relentless and horrifying physical degeneration ending in complete join failure and psychic death.

Leap says, “To me, killing that drive would almost be suicide.”

“You joined during your vacation?” Chance whispers.

“Three and a half months ago,” says Leap.

The words that need to be spoken are heavy and sharp. Chance says, “You've got to kill that drive now.”

Leap nods, and then Chance understands what Leap is asking. “You want me to do it?”

Leap Two suddenly folds into herself. She collapses against the side of the bed, leaning on it near the sleeping drive that was one of her mothers and is now her. She cries as Chance stands silently by, shocked and immobile. Finally, Leap pushes herself up and sits on the side of the bed.

She says, softly, “I can't do it.”

Chance doesn't want to do it, doesn't want to kill an old woman.

“No one—no one else?” she asks dully.

Leap doesn't answer. She reaches out to take a pink tissue that rises from a green box on her bedstead like a perfect artificial lily. She wipes her eyes, pulls on her nose. She's trying to catch her breath, then wiping again. Her voice muted, high. “I can't tell anyone else about it. But I was dying. I had to do the join. And the adviser who helped us, it turns out she'd had her certification revoked. The whole thing was gray. It had to be. I had asked for that adviser; I found her because I knew there could be complications, and I knew it had to go quickly.”

Chance understands. Leap and Josette hadn't prepared to kill Josette's body after the join. Why would they? It's only important now because of the flip.

“The licenses are legitimate,” Leap continues, “but from the emergency pool. I had to pay out a fee to reverse a data trace and convince someone to hide the licenses for up to a year. I'll get real licenses in two months. They'll go into the emergency pool to replace what I used, and no one will know. But I can't officially be a five for another two months.”

“You borrowed licenses from an admin at Vitalcorp. Now you owe them licenses for a five, to replace what came out of the emergency pool?”

“Yes.”

“But if that drive,” says Chance, “is dead, how will you certify yourself as a five? You won't get the licenses without showing five drives. You'll have a Vitalcorp admin after you—”

“I know it. I figured I'd find an adviser who's certified and willing to bend that rule just a little. I can record all the evidence, the video interview, the DNA samples, everything, now. The only issue will be date stamping. I've got two more months to find someone to help.”

“I don't know how to help with that. They will—” Chance can't finish the thought. She starts again. “Do you have connections? Who can help you with this kind of thing?”

“I do. I have some, from when I was building the bank.”

“This is crazy, Leap. Really, maybe worse than crazy. If I kill that drive, I'm a part of it.”

“I can't kill myself. I'm not strong enough. I'll just keep delaying. I've known something was wrong with the join. But I . . . Chance, I can't see the spasm. I don't know when it happens. For me, nothing happens. I don't feel it. But I noticed that I had knocked over a cup. I had no memory of doing it, but I must have. Then I was brushing my teeth, and my toothbrush was suddenly jammed into the back of my mouth, and my mouth was bleeding. And then I . . . I saw the spasm on a vid. I've known for weeks now. I've known what was going on, but I can't do it.”

Chance is cold, her voice remote. She says, “Just drink a calming poison.”

“It's not that easy. I can't do it. If I could, I would have.”

“What about the adviser who helped you, the one who had her certification revoked?”

“Oceanic. She said I couldn't contact her after the join was complete. No matter what. She said we don't know each other. She won't respond to my messages. I think she blocked me.”

“And you can't go to a hospital because the join was gray.”

“Chance, I can work through the licenses,” says Leap. “I know someone who can do that kind of thing, deal with the legal issues. But I can't kill my drive. I am Josette. That's me. I'm scared of dying.”

Chance remembers Nana rubbing her thumb across a birthmark on Chance Five's left arm, a light stain on his copper skin in the shape of a quarter moon. Her thumb was gentle, and she rubbed it and then regarded his arm closely, holding it until he started to squirm a bit. Then she kissed him lightly on top of his head and said, “Javier, you have the moon on your arm. You know the moon is the mother of dreams.”

Within twenty-four hours of his
death, Chance Three's remains are properly identified. Chance, who is still enforcing a com block on personal contact, is informed about the correction through the office where Chance One works.

Then Chance One has a preliminary video interview about the incident. The poison Rope used has been conclusively identified, but as a result of some legal complications in Rope's status, Directorate staff have raised jurisdictional concerns with local authorities. Those questions will need to be resolved, and once they are, Chance will be re-interviewed.

Chance One spreads Chance Three's
ashes into New Denver's River of Reflection. A feature of most spire communities, the river is designed to receive the ashes of the dead. It is still and reflective at its sides, with a current just beneath the surface that draws water from the edges toward its center. At the center, ripples stretch and break the glassy stillness as the watercourse flows downstream.

Chance is still scared of attracting any kind of attention and scared of gathering all of the drives in a single place, even along the banks of the river. Rope is an unknown, both in motive and capability, so Chance has decided not to complete the full Ritual of Retirement.

Chance has also chosen not to shave the heads of the four remaining drives and does not commit the undivided attention of every drive to the process of saying goodbye, as is the custom. Instead, Chance One and Chance Four complete a shortened version of the ritual alone, in New Denver. The day is overcast and though Chance is spreading ashes an hour before sunset—the proper time for the ritual—the light is muted, the river dull and dark.

Chance doesn't remember seeing Chance Three's ashes falling from the vessel into the river, or the water carrying them toward the center and then downriver. Chance is thinking about security protocols and is talking with Leap.

After spreading Chance Three's remains, Chance One goes home. He will complete various forms to register a change of status and to officially remove Chance Three's network-access privileges.

Chance Four sits on one of the benches near the banks of the river. She is bundled up against the winter cold and watches the meeting place of the still water and the ripple in the center until long past sunset. To do as Leap asks, all that's needed is a hypodermic needle. Chance already knows what to put in it, and how to use it.

All of Leap's drives shave
their heads. They each clip their nails and lay the hair they've shaved and their nail clippings in the casket with the body of Leap Five. Then they prepare for the Ritual of Retirement by cremating the drive that had been Josette.

Two days later, Leap's four remaining drives stand along the banks of the River of Reflection. The river in the Olympic Archipelago's spire community is a mile long, between forty and sixty feet wide, and languorously undulant at its center. It travels slowly from a slightly raised artificial wetlands in the east to a slightly lowered artificial wetlands to the west. Like every River of Reflection, it isn't allowed to freeze over. Snow is removed from within twenty feet of the banks, which are rush lined and gently sloped but cut with paths to walk upon. No bridges cross the river, and no boats travel on it.