Join (34 page)

“
Finding the right partner for
your join may not be the first question you have to answer.” Hamish is speaking. “But you will need to put some thought into it.”

“I don't know,” Leap Four says. “This isn't usually how it works. You know, I think usually you either work with a certified join adviser, and agencies, or you tap the fertile ground of your rich social life. And the last time I went looking for a join partner, well, let's just say things didn't go well.”

“This may not be how things usually work,” Hamish responds, “but they work this way often enough. Yes, this a special case. Joins are often a special case. Correctly understood, they are always a special case. As for your last experience, why didn't you ask your friends?”

Chance is half listening to the conversation with Leap and Hamish while reading an academic paper in the Olympic Archipelago and sitting in an oncology waiting room in New Denver. Chance had wanted to rest Chance Four. Chance Five's recent treatments have been intensive. He has felt wrung out, exhausted, and even while sleeping has been a minor drain on Chance's attention. Chance Four is usually the last drive to tire. Now, with the stress of the cancer therapies and the excitement in Arcadia, she needs a break.

After the conference with Excellence, Hamish continued to argue in favor of the Directorate. The solos, Don, Elicia, Marco, Emily, and the others, seemed divided. They'd left civilization to live in relative isolation because they didn't see the Directorate working on their environmental concerns. Many had lost loved ones in storms or to unmessaged environmental poisoning. And they see an additional, growing threat: an increasing organization of society and privilege around joins. They have stories of bureaucratic blindness and the brutal inertia of misconceived policy.

As it turns out, several of them are terminally ill themselves. Those who are ill, however, refuse to join. There's a general acceptance of the proposition that joining separates them from the concerns of the planet. Chance hears their passion and the unspoken accusation leveled at her and at Leap, but Chance finds their attitude unconstructive. They're angry, so they won't accept an obvious solution? They won't live longer and preserve their hard-earned experience because they can't also save the Earth? They're passionate, convincing in their concern, but blinded by their anger into senseless, self-destructive action.

It's early evening now. Chance wants time away from all of the noisome conviction to think about what's been happening.

Hamish's question has quieted Leap. Leap Four sits back before she replies, clearly uncertain how to respond. Then she straightens up and leans forward on the table again.

“You assume that I had friends.” She glances at Chance as she responds to Hamish. “Leap has friends, but I'm not sure Josette did.”

Leap Four is exhausted, her red hair somehow appearing disheveled despite being barely longer than stubble. Leap One is exercising at the moment, a tired affair composed of Leap staggering about, jumping, stretching, walking a treadmill until his vitals spike and the solos attending hand him a cup of water and tell him to sit down.

Leap Three, the drive most affected by the encroaching flip, is sleeping. The sclera encircling his blue eyes has gone pink, shot with threads of bloody red. When he's awake, all of Leap's drives are affected.

The lights draw down in most of Arcadia to simulate an eight-hour night, but Chance and Leap have been in areas that aren't running the simulation. Having been in the truck and then the facility for so long has confused Leap's sense of time and, unlike Chance, she has no drives outside to help her calibrate.

Hamish says, “It may take a while for you to find someone willing. The important thing is that the entire situation, your condition, all relevant information, be disclosed to anyone with whom you think you may want to join. Not many people would risk a join with a flip. Even if they tell you they agree, their conviction state may be questionable, and the join could easily fail. I suspect that your best opportunity will lie with someone who already knows you.

“There's often a temptation in a situation like this, when all other options seem to have played out and you still don't have a solution, to find someone who is willing to join with you in order to join with your bank account, as it were. These people are often sympathetic. A student, for example, whom you might genuinely like. But in those situations, people are highly motivated to hide their own histories.”

Leap just shakes her head.

“Yes,” says Hamish. “Well, it may be difficult to find a partner. That's why you're better off considering your options sooner rather than later. I'll send out word to my contacts as well. We will find someone.”

Team Teenager doesn't have to
tell Chance what to do. Chance knows the nature of the thought that's been trying all night to gain a moment of undivided attention. Still, the team is there, pointing out the obvious.

“It has to be us,” they each say with conviction, every one of them, one at a time, from a sort of moonlit tableau where they sit on folding chairs arranged in a circle on what appears as a dock floating on a rippling alpine lake.

Sure, Chance thinks. Sure. Of course, I know that.

The whole team is waiting expectantly. There will be no backing out. But Chance can't quite say it, not yet, not that easily.

Chance thinks, This could kill me, if the treatment doesn't work.

None of the teenagers says anything. Chance knows why they're not talking. Chance knows everything they're thinking. Chance is the teenagers, after all. They aren't responding because whether or not Chance survives after the procedure is, to some extent, beside the point. There is another, greater concern.

Suddenly, Chance is standing on the dock, which is actually a raft anchored and floating in a shallow alpine lake. The chairs are gone. The teenagers are gone. Chance is as alone as a join can be. It's a warm, comfortable evening with a full moon and a cool breeze. Standing at the edge of the raft, Chance looks into the water. The moon is floating there, and a reflection of the lip of the raft ripples gently. Above that should be Chance's reflection. But it's not there. There is only beautiful lake water in clear moonlight, reflecting everything else. No one is looking back.

PART FIVE

“
Coahuila”
—From the Nahuatl,

“Place of the Trees”

 

So, these guys have their vision of the future, and they're trying to sell it, but all I can think of as I'm reading this shit is, “Oh, cute puppy!”

And then my seven thinks, “Fuck it! I'm gonna eat it!”

So, you know, I'm, you know, I get all backwoods, “I'll kill the puppy, cook it, candy its big puppy eyes
for some night when I'm having a friend over for beers.”

“Hey, dude, what's that?”

“Puppy eyes!”

And I'm, you know, frissoning like a motherfucker, and then I hear the voice of God!

And God's like, “Dumpy!”

And I'm like, shit, I forgot, a bunch of my parents are religious. So I'm like, “What, God?”

—Dumpy, join comic, from

Change Who You Are, Change What You Are, or Eat Candied Puppy Eyes

As expected, Chance Five's cancer
doesn't respond to initial treatments. Chance's oncologist has started Chance Five on an aggressive, experimental protocol that has knocked the drive completely out. Chance is groggy and sends Chance One—who is working remotely on projects for the data farm—off to sleep as soon as Chance Four wakes up in Arcadia. But it doesn't help much. Five's treatment is taxing the well-being of all the drives.

Chance Four stands on the cool, tile floor of the bunk room. Her sinuses ache. And maybe she has a touch of bursitis. It feels like it. Overall, she's healthy, though, and these are just visitations, shadows of illness cast by Chance Five's treatments.

Chance Four sits back on the bed and pulls on a pair of thick socks. She stands again and stretches, her long black hair sliding in front of her face, then pads over to a bureau, where she finds a clean blue sweatshirt and loose trousers. The light in the bunk room is kept low for every hour but four out of each twenty-four. She opens the hall door carefully, trying not to disturb the other sleepers.

It's a short walk to the mess area, where at least one of Leap's drives has been sitting continuously almost since they arrived. The hall lights are dampened in a simulation of dawn.

Leap Four is sitting by herself, reading from a screen. A half-eaten bowl of cereal is on the table in front of her. Seeing her raises Chance's spirits. She's one of four other bodies in the room. The other three are solos, talking quietly on the other side of the room.

Chance drops onto a bench across from Leap Four. Leap sets down the screen and smiles at her.

After joining with Leap Four, Leap changed, as a join will, but it has always seemed to Chance that Leap's mannerisms did not map well onto Leap Four's body and features. There were several adjustments, a new kind of pause between words, slight alterations in intonation. But many of the gestures and expressions that Chance thinks of as most directly characterizing Leap didn't change fundamentally. Instead, with Leap Four, those mannerisms seem less “translated” and more “mimed.” It surprised Chance at first. As time passed, Chance realized that Leap Four was different than the other Leaps.

Leap Four has always seemed relatively independent, capable of functioning well with less conscious involvement from Leap. There are heated debates about what makes a drive more or less independent and about what drive independence even means, but to Chance, Leap Four embodies it in the best sense.

“I'm only barely able to read,” she says. “I realize after a couple of paragraphs that although words pass through my mind and I feel like I've read them, I don't really know what's going on in the story. Then I go back and reread paragraphs, and it happens again. It's almost hypnotic. Just processing words without following the sense of them.”

Chance laughs. “Are all of your other drives asleep?”

“Yes,” says Leap.

“Well, my Five is in heavy treatment right now,” says Chance. “I've just drained another bag of poison into my central line. It feels to me like Five is melting, and my brains are working from underneath a large, damp rock.”

“What are the odds for Five?”

“The oncologist said she would prefer not to tell me the probability of a full five-year remission. She said that every individual is different.” Chance laughs. “But it's less than three percent. About ten percent that I'll make it two more months. It's gonna get hard to keep my other drives active. This treatment of Five could knock me out for a while.”

“Huh. I can't believe I have someone to commiserate with. Did your oncologist talk about recovery for joins versus recovery for solos?”

“Yeah, that usually works in our favor, but this particular disease is much worse for joins, so she didn't give me those numbers either.”

“But you know them?”

“Yes, I do. And she knows I do.”

“And they're that bad?”

“Yes, they are.”

“Are you hungry?” Leap asks.

“Not yet, I'll eat in a little bit. I was looking for you.”

“Here I am.”

“Despite my Five, I think I have good news.”

Leap Four brightens, her eyes widening, her mouth falling slightly open, and then she carefully and willfully suppresses her excitement. She smiles self-consciously and says in an almost casual way, “Oh, and what kind of news would that be?”

Chance takes a deep breath. “I want to join.”

Leap doesn't miss a beat, “You have cancer.”

Chance Four erupts with laughter, it starts in her chest and nose, but in a moment it's full throated, belly shaking. She leans back to accommodate it. Leap Four is laughing too. Looking at each other laughing makes them both laugh harder. Chance manages to raise a hand toward Leap and choke out, “You're one to talk,” which sets off another round of laughing. In Barcelona, Chance Two laughs out loud while she's walking toward a coffee shop. Chance One laughs into a pillow in the Olympic Archipelago.

After a few more moments, Chance says, “I know. It's asking a lot. But I'm just really hoping you'll consider it.” She stops for a moment. As her composure starts to break, she focuses to regain it, to prevent another laughing fit. Though the light-headed feeling started in Chance Four, it's becoming an independent thing and is rolling through Chance One, who continues to chuckle and laugh in one of the bedrooms of Leap's house.

“You know, I'm having a hard time,” Chance Four says, “first my Three with a paralytic poison”—and after almost choking on those final two words she closes her eyes and continues to laugh for couple of beats before resuming—“and now the slow, painful, and exhausting destruction of my Five. It's been really trying recently. I'm looking for someone who can, who can
buck me up
.” And this breaks them both up again. Through laughter and watering eyes Chance finishes, “Someone I can rely on for the strength I really need to get through this bad patch.”

Eventually, Leap manages to nod and say, “Yeah.”

When they've calmed down, Chance says, while recovering her breath, “I don't know how to say it. How to really suggest it, really. It seems strange.”

“I know,” says Leap.

“But I'll join with you,” says Chance. “You don't have to do a search again. You don't have to look for strangers you might or might not be comfortable around.”

When Chance is done, Leap puts her head in her hands and stares at the table. Then she stands up. She says, haltingly, “Look I . . . thank you. I'm gonna go. I'm feeling overwhelmed right now. I've been up too long. I had a small seizure about an hour ago and banged my head against the wall, there.” She touches the wall. “You know I appreciate what you're saying. You know I do. And I've hoped you would say that. I just don't . . . right now, I don't know whether it's the right thing. Hamish, he isn't sure the treatment will work. It could just be that after I join again, the flip doesn't end, and this . . . pain . . . just starts over.”

“I know,” Chance says. “And I've also known, since I realized it was a flip, that a join might be needed. It's been part of most of the unsuccessful treatments in the past. I've been thinking about this for a while.”

“I don't want to take advantage of you while you're exhausted,” says Leap softly.

“You aren't.”

Leap Four walks around the table. She bends to kiss Chance Four on the cheek. Then she straightens and stands gazing at Chance before sitting to face her, with one leg on either side of the bench.

“There's something you don't know,” Leap Four says, “about the flip. Something I would have to tell you, and I don't want to. I don't want to talk about. Don't want to tell anyone.”

Chance nods.

Leap says, “Why do you think it happened?”

“Well,” Chance says, “you were joining one of your mothers, who was only in her seventies, but very sick. That kind of thing would, during the coupling at the seventh layer, be a classic conviction state weakness. One of you basically changed your mind completely, after it was too late but before there was full integration.”

“I did change my mind,” Leap says, “but not because of the joining of a mother and son, and not because of the age of Josette's drive.”

Chance says, “There was a secret?”

“Yes,” says Leap.

“Was it Josette's?”

“Yes. Something that Josette, that I did, that I can't . . .” Leap is quiet for a moment, then says, “If we were to join, I'd have to tell you what it is.”

Chance thinks for a moment. “Pearsun?” she asks.

“Yes, Mark was involved.”

Chance waits. After another moment, Leap says, “Let's hear what Hamish says, about the rest of the treatment. Let's hear what it involves. Then you can think about what you want to do.”

Leap Four is waiting for agreement from Chance. It's clear that Leap wants to leave, but Chance feels a need to revisit the topic that Leap has avoided.

“Mark Pearsun, your attorney, committed suicide,” Chance says.

“Yes, he did,” Leap Four says. “He . . . he gassed himself.”

“You've said some things that have made me wonder whether you might know why he did that.”

Leap Four looks at the half-empty bowl she had been using, pulls it toward her, and stares at it. She turns it with both hands as she says, “What if I told you that at one point Mark wanted to kill me? Kill Himiko.”

Chance feels a dizzying shift, a current pulling toward deeper water. “Why would he want that? Why would he possibly want that?”

“There was something . . . between Mark and me that I haven't told you about. I'm not sure if I'm ready to tell you. But Mark had had problems for a while. I don't think he ever felt comfortable in a world with joins.”

“But that's not everything, is it? It still feels as though you're being . . . evasive about Mark's suicide.”

“Right now, I'm tired,” Leap Four says. “I want to tell you. But it's hard to talk about right now.”

“All right,” says Chance. “But if we're talking about joining, we need to have this conversation.”

“You just brought this all up,” Leap says. “I'm going to need time to get used to the idea.”

Chance says, “You hadn't thought about us joining before this?”

“Hamish will find someone to join with me,” Leap says. “He sees me as an opportunity. So does the Directorate. I'm sure that they'll do everything they can to find a join I'm comfortable with. You don't need to do this.”

“You once told me you didn't understand how anyone could join with a stranger.”

“Now I do.”

“Okay, yes,” Chance says. “I agree that you don't
have
to tell me.”

Leap Four shakes her head, as if trying to clear the conversation. She looks at the table while one of her hands rests on her lap, clenching and unclenching.

“I mean it,” Chance says. “I'm ready to go into the join knowing that I'm going to learn something difficult about you. When I learn it, when we're joined, I won't flip because I won't be surprised.”

“And what if it's more than you can handle?” Leap asks.

“It won't be.”

Leap Four straightens and turns to face Chance. “Thank you,” she says. “But you know I can't do that.”

She glances about, noting the other people in the room. They're out of range of moderately raised voices and are intent on their own business.

“I've thought about telling you before,” Leap says.

Chance waits patiently. Leap tries to start several times. Her mouth starts to move, but as she looks at Chance she stops. Finally, she says, “To tell you, I have to tell you something that I did. But
I
didn't do it. I
never
would do it.”

Chance Four watches Leap Four while they both try to find a way through the impasse.

“Can you use your names from before the join?” Chance asks.

“Yes. But I've been trying that. Those names
are
me, and it doesn't work.”

“You said,” Chance begins, “that Mark might have wanted to kill Himiko. Did Josette?” The last two words are spoken quietly and float delicately into the space between them.

Leap closes her eyes and shakes her head no.

“Did Mark kill someone?”

Leap nods.

“Who?”

“Mark, he killed . . . he killed my uncle.”

Chance's perspective shifts again. The two of them are both drifting, held by a current that's circling. She asks, “Did Josette—”

Leap speaks before Chance has finished. “
I
told Mark to
kill
my
uncle
.”

“Why, Leap?”

Leap Four is shaking her head no, but her head is also simply shaking, as if in a seizure.

“Leap, why did you do it?”

“I
didn't
. I
wouldn't
.”

Chance stands and quickly walks around the table to put her arms around Leap Four. “It's okay,” Chance says. “I'm sorry. I don't need to know anything more. We'll join. It's okay.”

“I was alone,” Leap Four is barely able to speak. “
I killed him
, and it left me alone.”